#( can’t have shit in abyss ) crack

[beastburdened]

this is how i’m choosing to bring in the new year. sorry <3

[flwrkid14]

You Don't Get to Call Yourself Family (Tim Drake is a Fenton)

part 1 , part 2

It starts with another of Dick’s attempts to be Tim’s Big Brother™.

It’s well-meaning, of course. They’re mid-patrol, crouched on a rooftop, when Dick gently brings it up.

“You know, Tim, we could be family if you’d just let us.”

Tim freezes for a moment, his grip tightening on his grappling gun. But then he exhales, forces himself to focus, and mutters: “I told you. You’re coworkers. That’s it.”

But Dick doesn’t drop it. And when they return to the Cave, the rest of the Batfamily piles on—each in their own way.

Jason: “C’mon, Replacement. Admit it. We’re at least kinda family.”

Damian, sneering: “He’s too much of a coward to acknowledge it.”

Bruce, quiet but insistent: “Tim, this is your home. We are your family.”

And Tim—who’s been holding this in for years—finally snaps.

“Family?!” Tim’s voice echoes through the Cave, sharp and brittle like glass about to shatter. “You think you’re my family?!”

Everyone goes still.

Tim takes a step forward, fury radiating off him in waves. “Let me ask you something—what kind of family depends on a thirteen-year-old to pull their grieving father out of the abyss because no one else could be bothered? What kind of family calls him Replacement and then beats him bloody because he’s not good enough?!”

Jason flinches, but Tim doesn’t stop.

“What kind of family tries to kill him multiple times and laughs it off like it’s a fucking joke?” His eyes land on Damian, who looks like he wants to argue but doesn’t. “And what kind of family stands by and watches it happen and does nothing?!”

The silence is deafening.

Tim’s breath hitches, and he rakes a hand through his hair. “If you’re family, then why—why the hell did you all hurt me so much?”

No one can look him in the eye. Not even Bruce.

Tim’s voice drops, tired and cracked. “I can’t call you family. Because if I did, I’d have to accept that my family treated me like shit. And I already have one family, that loves me—I don’t need another one that makes me feel like I’m nothing.”

He turns on his heel, heading for the exit. “You’re my coworkers. That’s all you’ll ever be, and honestly? It's more than you deserve.”

And then he’s gone.

————

Later, Jazz calls him.

“You okay, Timmers?” she asks gently, voice soft in that way only Jazz can manage.

Tim sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah. I just… lost it at them. Finally told them off.”

Jazz hums thoughtfully. “Good. They needed to hear it.”

Tim doesn’t respond right away, staring at the faint glow of the Batcomputer across the Cave. “Do you think I was too harsh?”

Jazz doesn’t hesitate. “No. You set a boundary. They’ve been pushing it for years. Let them sit with it for a while.”

Tim doesn’t know if he believes her, but he nods anyway. “Thanks, Jazz.”

“Always,” she replies. “Now come home for dinner. Mom’s trying a new ectoplasm casserole recipe, and Danny is threatening to ‘accidentally’ destroy the kitchen again.”

He laughs, already grabbing his things. “Be there in ten.”

[exoticb-utters]

So this is Love?

“Flufftober” series. 5 All Smite X Reader Part 1/3 Word Count: 1.7k

Writing this for self indulgent purposes…enjoy ;)

You huffed in frustration, wiping the water that relentlessly poured down your face from the heavy rain. A crack of thunder is heard overhead as your heels clack against the ground.

Knew I should’ve brought an umbrella to work today…

You stomp your way home, silently chastising yourself for forgetting that it would be raining today- well, technically tonight. Fortunately, you didn’t live too far away.

Just as you pass an alleyway, you heard a cough. You slow down your movements, turning your head to the ominously dark path. 

“H-hello?” You call out, not sure if you wanted a response in this situation. 

Instead, another cough rings out from the darkness, this one sounding more ragged and…wet?

“D-do you need help? It’s raining pretty hard out here…” You trail off, lifting a hand over your eyes to block the cold water from running down your face further. 

Nothing fills the silence this time. 

You take a deep breath before exhaling with a sigh. Just your luck. 

You turn on your heel and walk into the abyss. The night sky and even darker clouds did nothing to help you see in this alley, but there were some (barely) functional streetlights behind you. 

You spot a large figure, kneeling behind a dumpster in a hunched over position. “Sir, a-are you hurt?” You ask, nervously approaching the stranger. 

What were you doing? This is crazy! You, a single woman, are approaching a random man in an alleyway for crying out loud! 

Another sickly cough is ripped from his lungs, his chest heaving as a crimson liquid spills out onto the pavement beneath him. 

Well, this random man in the alleyway clearly needs help. Your brain reminds you. As a nurse, it was hard to ignore your moral code. Guess old habits die hard. 

With another sigh you bend over, inspecting him further. You almost immediately notice a large gash on his side. You quickly cover your mouth to hide your gasp. 

“You’re hurt!” You exclaim as your eyes flickered over his body, searching for any extra injuries.

“Well, obviously.” The man before you sneers, his voice deep and…slightly intimidating if you were being honest. He hacks once more, another concerning amount of blood splattering against the ground as he did so. 

“Here, let me help you.” You offer your hand. Who were you kidding, this guy was a literal giant- no wayyou were lifting him up. 

You see his head tilt to the side, as if he were giving you a once over before scoffing. 

“Come on, you’re seriously hurt, can you walk?” You question, slightly retracting your hand. 

“Yeah…probably.” He answers almost shakily, all previous attitude in his tone gone. 

“Well, you can’t just sit here and bleed out so up you go!” You huff, taking his hand in an unsuccessful attempt to lift him to his feet. 

He sighs to himself before pushing himself up, standing on his feet now. 

And holy shit was he tall. 

“Lean on me if you have to, my apartment’s closer than the hospital so I’ll fix you up there okay?” You say softly, looking up at him to make sure he was okay. 

You found he was already looking down at you. His thick blonde brows were furrowed in an unreadable expression as blood ran from his forehead to his chin. You felt a shiver run down your spine at his intense gaze. You quickly brushed it off, not letting yourself overthink the action. 

“I’ll take that as a yes…” You answer for him, the heavy pitter-patter of the rain drowning out any surrounding sounds other than your soft tone. 

“It’s just down the street.” You lead him out the alleyway, his large arm slung across your shoulder awkwardly as he held his injured side. 

You’re given a curt nod as he hobbles next to you. The sight of your predicament was truly an unruly one, thankfully, the hour of this rainy night prevented anyone from being outside to witness it.

In record time, you made it to your small home. You helped him up the stairs before opening the front door.

“You don’t lock your doors?” Whether it was a look of astonishment or disdain he was giving you, you couldn’t tell. 

“Um…no? Is that weird?” You reply, chuckling to yourself. You led him to your living room, motioning for him to sit on the couch while you looked for your med-kit. 

“Well, seeing how there are villains around these parts that could break in at any time while you’re away- yes. It is very weird.” He says matter-of-factly while you fished through the bathroom cabinets. 

You snort out a laugh from the other side of the house at his reply, coming back with the kit and rag in hand. He then plopped down on the sofa, the furniture dipping in from his size with a dangerous groan.

“Well, with heroes around I guess I haven’t found a reason to lock it.” You hum with a shrug, sitting next to him on the coach. 

“Lift your shirt for me.” 

He did so reluctantly, revealing a deep gash with blood spilling from it. You sharply inhale through your teeth as you hold your rag against the wound. 

“You need a better bed-side face doc.” He quips, a huff of amusement leaving his lips. If the room wasn’t so quiet, you might’ve missed it. 

Wait a minute…Did he see you leave the hospital? No, that’s impossible how did he know you were a nurse? Your gaze then flew to his in shock. “How did you…?” 

“You still have your tag on, you know that right?” He muses with a raised brow. 

Oh. 

Well, that makes more sense. 

You’re taken by surprise when he slowly reads your name aloud. “Hm, a villain could’ve definitely used your identity against you. You need to be more careful, y/n.” He repeats, your name almost sounding natural coming from his lips. 

“Seems to me that you’re awfully paranoid.” You retort, removing the bloodied rag and taking out the gauze. 

“Or you could just be extremely reckless.” He counters as you begin to stuff the wound to prevent further bleeding. 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” You say finally, wrapping medical cloth around his midsection. 

A comfortable silence fell over you, nothing being heard but the quiet rain from outside. His gaze eventually fell over you. He’d never had someone so gentle with him, All Smite. The number one villain. Clearly you didn’t know his infamous title, or you wouldn’t have him in your home right now. 

He liked it, the break from not instantly being recognized as the number 1 villain in Japan. Maybe he’ll even thank you for your hospitality. 

You tape up the wrap, making sure it wouldn’t move. “Okay, that should hold until the morning when I can take you in for proper treatment at the hospital.” You say while wiping your hand against your forehead, some light sweat forming after the work.

“Let me know if you bleed through the wraps, I’ll change it out whenever okay?” You spare a quick glance at the man in front of you, zipping up the medical equipment.

He looks down at the bandaging, fingers lightly brushing over the material. Another beat goes by before he speaks. “Thank you.” 

“Of course!” You manage, giving him a quick, biter-sweet smile. “I’ll have to make my way to bed now. I wake up early for my next shift.” You say with an exhausted sigh. 

He raises a brow at your words. It was already late, and to think you would be waking up early for another shift was quite the absurd thought to him. 

“How many hours do you work?” He asks, your eyes meeting to his in surprise. 

“Usually around 40-50 a week, I’m always on call during the week but I get weekends off so…” You say with a shrug. 

He shakes his head. That was…objectively too much. Before he has a chance to respond you’re already speaking again. “Well, goodnight! You’re welcome to sleep in the spare bedroom if you’d like.” You offer, motioning to a room down the hall. 

He nods slowly, watching you walk down a different hallway to where he’d assume were your own personal quarters. 

How interesting you were. Interesting and extremely naive. Not only did you just bring the most feared man in all of Japan inside your own home without even realizing it, you gave him hospitality and left him unattended. 

He chuckles to himself, standing up before walking to the spare room you were talking about. 

Opening the door he is meet with a twin bed adorned with white sheets and a single pillow. Other than the bed and a small coffee table next to a window, the room was utterly bare. 

He hummed to himself, sitting on the bed while looking at the window. He watched the water run down the glass tranquilly, lightning flashing in the distance every so often.

He didn’t think he’d stay until morning, but resting his eyes here couldn’t hurt. There was something warm and endearing about your presence. Something he didn’t even know he was missing until encountering you. 

He’d keep an eye on you, someone who doesn’t lock their doors is sure to be prone to robbery...or some form of villainy. As the man of crime himself, he knew this all too well, more than anyone else. 

He took off his shoes, setting them next to the bed. He laid back into the mattress, the bed frame creaking loudly under his weight. 

Even though his ankles were well off the edge of the bed, he couldn’t recall a time where he’d been this comfortable; so at peace. 

He closed his eyes, he’d stay here and rest. 

At least for a little bit.

[wolff-cub]

Last Laugh

a Landoscar stand-up comedy AU

“Okay, so, let me get this straight. You think I’m unfunny. You think I don’t deserve a spot on that stage. You hate me.” “Yes. Exactly. Glad it’s finally gotten through that thick skull of yours.” Oscar just fixes his big, impassive brown eyes on Lando. “You hate me, and yet you’re always in that same little corner seat in the back of the pub when I’m onstage... watching a set you hate.”

-------------------

As the most successful comedian on the Fringe Rising showcase lineup, Lando believes he should have been given the show's prestigious final billing slot. Over the course of the festival, his resentment for the amateur Australian comedian who's stolen his spot grows... into something else altogether.

-------------------

Special thanks to @jadesaturn for beta-reading and @afriques for the lovely banner!!

Read on AO3 or below the cut:

“Papaya!”

Onstage, the spotlights shine almost directly into his eyes as Lando springs upwards like a demented jack-in-the-box, popping forth on one leg, arms swinging around wildly. A split second later, he stops abruptly in the middle of the stage, directing an unimpressed look into the inky blackness beyond the stage.

“Okay, but really. Have any of you even had a papaya? That’s right. It’s a shit fruit. It has none of the zest, the fun, that its name implies. Who even named it? What the fuck were they thinking?!”

As his tone borders on hysterics, laughter washes over him like a warm blanket, sent his way from the shadowed masses before him. Keeping his energy up like this, even as his set draws to a close, is never easy — but so worth the laughs. The spotlights shining into his eyes are so bright that the crowd is nothing more than a series of imposing, faceless silhouettes. 

But Lando doesn’t need to see his audience to connect with them. If performing a comedy set is like screaming into the void, well… Lando has always been capable of drawing laughter from within the void.

“Yet here I was, sipping from a glass of papaya juice so good that I thought I’d tasted heaven. One sip was all it took… to move me to tears.” Here, his voice grows theatrical, and he begins feigning an almost clownish kind of sadness. His fingers tremble as he mimes a comically small sip from the world’s tiniest teacup. Somewhere in the audience, someone cackles so loudly that their voice cracks.

“Thank you.” Lando can’t help but grin back in the face of such open adulation, which only garners him even more cheers. “Anyway, I’ve changed a lot since then. I discovered therapy, for one. And antidepressants. The lows? No longer as low. The highs? No longer juice-related.”

Cheers. Whistles. Laughter. Oh, how he loves the sound of it.

“That’s right, folks! It’s only going uphill from here! I’m taking my life and making it papaya!”

“Papaya!” someone in the crowd shouts back.

Lando doesn’t miss a beat, turning that tiny bit of reciprocity into a full-on chant, clapping his hands over his head in time with the beat. The crowd roars back at him without needing much encouragement at all. Their silhouettes sway back and forth in time. “Papaya, papaya!”, and the abyss laughs, and laughs, and laughs right back at him.

“Thank you so much, everybody! I have been Lando Norris, and you… oh, you have been such a great crowd!” Lando crows, even as the crowd keeps up its chant for him. Not even his clumsy attempts to affix the mic back to its stand — the customary sign that his comedy set is about to end — discourages them from continuing to bid him farewell. “I’ll be here doing Fringe Rising every Tuesday and Thursday, along with a solo show during the festival, every other day of the week! Hopefully, I’ll see some of you there, but until then, that’s my time! And—you’vebeensuchagreataudiencethankyoubye!”

The grin that spreads across Lando’s face as he rushes offstage is so wide, it makes his cheeks hurt. The crowd’s sustained clapping is so buoyant for his spirits that he might as well be floating down the stage steps, a cartoon character drifting through the air on a cloud of his own high. He’d had no doubts about the success of his set tonight — he is, after all, the biggest name on the lineup. But god, does it feel good to bask in an audience’s adoration. 

Lando almost wishes he could run back onstage again, arms outstretched, and drink it all in. He is, after all, none other than Bristol’s boy king of comedy, whose career went stratospheric after two years of pain, self-doubt, and tireless honing of his craft through it all. He’s worked hard for everything he has to his name — the slot on this prestigious, curated showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe, the sold-out solo shows running all month long, the appearances on primetime comedy television, and even the Netflix comedy special in the works. Every clap, every cheer, has been earned. After so long, Lando is finally — finally! — reaping what he’s sown.

It isn’t exactly going uphill from here. As far as Lando is concerned, he’s already at the top.

Lando’s eyes adjust to the relative darkness of the venue in time to give the MC a customary high-five and backslap, as tradition calls for. Every comedian gets a high-five no matter how their set goes — a congratulations if the set goes well, or a commiseration if it’s bombed. Of course, Lando hasn’t had any of the latter in a while. Failure is something he no longer remembers the taste of. And with how hard he’s been working… surely, that’s just what he deserves.

“Whoa! Wow, wow, wow! You guys!”

Onstage, Alex Albon — part-time comedian, full-time zookeeper, all-around good guy, and tonight’s MC — has to shout into the mic over the rapturous applause, still going after Lando’s set. “Oh my goodness! I would tell you to give it up one more time for Lando Norris, but you guys clearly got the memo already!”

Lando’s smug grin remains even as he weaves past the front-of-stage seating, beelining towards a swarthy, dark-haired man nursing a beer alone at the back of the venue. He parks himself smoothly on an adjacent bar stool and gratefully fist-bumps his old friend, his grin not fading as Alex continues to sing his praises onstage.

“Oy, cabrón! You fucking killed it up there!”

“Aw, thanks, Carlos. It was nothing.”

“Oh no, Lanno. You cannot be doing this false modesty thing all the time. You know you did well, so… take the compliment, eh? Most of these people are probably here because it’s the only way they’ll get to see you. Your solo show sold out so fast!”

Lando smirks at the sound of his longtime comedy compatriot’s signature mispronunciation of his name, courtesy of the strong Spanish accent that makes him so popular with crowds. “No way, mate. You got plenty of cheers before your set even started, and you’ve been doing this comedy thing for much longer than I have. All the Fringe veterans are probably here to see you, all the way over from España.”

“Ah, but I am not the one who has been on Taskmaster in two countries. I don’t even want to do this full-time. If a genie came to me and asked me, ‘Carlos, would you rather have your own Netflix special, or improve your golf handicap by two?’ I would take the handicap.”

“But I still think you should reconsider that way of thinking. If I’ve made it to where I am today, you’d make it farther in half the time. Your comedy is genius, Carlos. You deserve a sold-out solo run and a Netflix special as much as I do!”

Carlos just shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s not about what we deserve, cabrón. It’s about what we want, and what we do to get it.”

Lando is about to argue, but Carlos shushes him so dismissively that he sits back in his seat like a told-off child. Onstage, Alex’s speech is approaching a crescendo, and Carlos has always been the type to show fellow performers as much decorum as possible.

“Anyway, thank you all so much for being here tonight at Fringe Rising! You’ve made it such a great opening night for me and our amazing line-up here, and we all appreciate you taking the time to come out and see our little showcase. Please, put your hands together one more time for our wonderful comedians from far and wide — Charles Leclerc from Monaco! Carlos Sainz from Spain! And Britain’s very own, Lando Norris!”

Lando’s grin reappears as the cheers wash over him, while Carlos puts on a demure smile, ducking his head down behind his beer bottle jokingly.

“Where is Charles, anyway?” asks Lando, suddenly realising that the showcase’s usual opener is absent. “Doesn’t he know you aren’t really supposed to leave before everyone’s done with their sets?”

Carlos shakes his head. “Don’t be so harsh on him, Lanno. He’s new, but he’s not stupid. He had to leave early to do that showcase that George Russell hosts every year.”

Lando has to stifle a snicker. “Charles is doing the comedy Powerpoint showcase?!”

“Ay, don’t look so surprised. He’s actually very funny if you give him a chance.”

Lando would beg to differ, but doesn’t want to argue with Carlos over the sound of Alex’s speech. At the risk of sounding petty and mean, Charles is still a rookie comedian, and all his sets that Lando has seen have been unpolished at best and amateurish at worst. Lando can tell that Charles cruises through his sets; that he doesn’t workshop his material and probably doesn’t even know how to. And Lando would definitely never say this out loud, but deep down he suspects that Charles had only landed this Fringe Rising spot (and plenty of other comedy club slots) only because he might be the hottest man to ever attempt a career in stand-up comedy.

But, that also explains why Charles is a rookie, and why Lando is within grasp of the top rung of the stand-up comedy ladder. Nobody works for this quite as hard as him. Nobody deserves this like he does.

The crowd soon falls into hushed whispers as the cheers for past performers gradually dies down. Onstage, Alex quickly segues into the next bit of his speech before any more stray cheers add even more time onto their already overtime showcase.

“We’ve got one more set for you tonight,” says Alex, “and boy, am I excited to introduce him. Now, this next act is like the ghost of international stand-up comedy. Almost nobody’s seen him perform… and yet everyone’s talking about him! This man is so very difficult to pin down, mark my words — but we’ve managed to wrangle him to the Fringe Rising stage, all the way from Australia, for what might be one of the rarest and most hype-worthy performances at this fest. Let’s get the energy back up in here, guys! Please give it up for… Oscar Piastri!”

Carlos leans in towards Lando. “Oh, I’m interested to see this guy. Some people are saying he’s only done five shows total, and nobody can stop talking about him.”

Five shows total? Is he fucking serious?!

Lando’s fist clenches involuntarily. Just like at concerts and festivals, the last set in a showcase is always awarded to the most prestigious performer on the lineup. When he’d gotten the email that he would be performing second-last in the night, Lando had presumed that Alex had somehow managed to land a real big hitter — one of the rare few comedians who sold out arena tours and ran their own TV shows. 

But this is who they’d given the final billing to instead of him? A complete fucking amateur?!

“You’d think the show closer should be someone more… accomplished,” Lando starts, only to get shushed by Carlos again as Alex ducks offstage and the lights dim once more.

The filler music fades, and a lone figure clad in a hoodie, cargo shorts, and Birkenstocks — no mean feat for Edinburgh weather — walks slowly onstage, lifting a hand in front of his eyes to fend off the harsh spotlights. His short brown hair is accentuated by a long, floppy wave of a fringe that falls into his eyes carelessly, making his boyish face look even younger than he already is.

“Whoa,” says the newcomer, his voice slow and languid with a stereotypical Australian drawl. “Pretty bright up here, hey?”

A few people in the crowd start chuckling. Lando’s brow furrows. What the hell is going on? The man hasn’t even said anything actually funny?!

“Anyway, how’re ya doing tonight, Edinburgh? My name’s Oscar, and… well, apparently I’m here to do some comedy. But I’m not quite sure how this whole comedy thing works in these parts — I’ve come all the way from Australia, and, well, you know. We do everything upside down there. So, uh, you’re gonna have to be pretty patient with me, alright? Cause I’m, uh… not actually supposed to be here.”

He shoots the audience a conspiratorial look, and a rustle of both anticipation and uncertainty travels through the crowds. No laughs yet, though — and Lando secretly hopes that it remains that way for the rest of his set.

“So, I just moved up here from Melbourne,” continues Oscar, “and I don’t really know anyone here — no friends or family. But the other day, I had to go to the hospital, and the nurse… she took down my details, and what I was at the hospital for… and then she asked me for an emergency contact. And I told her, ‘Barbara, I don’t have an emergency contact in this country. I don’t know anyone here except… well, you. So maybe you could be my emergency contact.’ And Barbara just shakes her head and keeps saying, ‘No, I can’t be your emergency contact. You need to give me the name and phone number of someone in the United Kingdom that you trust.’”

Lando slumps over onto his crossed arms and lets out a yawn. Overly long buildup, lacklustre delivery… where is this even going?

“Now, I’m a little offended by this.” Oscar puts his hand over his heart, feigning shock. “I said, ‘Barbara! How could you imply that I don’t trust you?! You’re the only person in this country who knows my deepest, darkest secret, Barbara. You’re the only person in this country who knows I have haemorrhoids!

“I put my trust in you, Barbara, and this is how you treat me? By not wanting to be the emergency contact for someone who has been so vulnerable with you by telling you that he has haemorrhoids?!”

A few isolated laughs rise from the crowd. Oscar raises an eyebrow at the crowd, seemingly dissatisfied by the reception to this joke.

“Uh, hello?” A small smirk flashes across his face. “Did you guys get that? No? Ah, fuck.”

To Lando’s horror, this blatant request for more laughs gets Oscar exactly that. Full-bodied guffaws and a lone whoop rise from the crowd, as Oscar pulls a comically mortified expression. Lando scans the audience, tries to read into their body language from all he can see of their backs. Are they even watching the same set as he is?! Is this really what counts as comedy at the Fringe these days?

“Long story short, guys, Barbara didn’t want to be my emergency contact.” A chorus of ‘aww-s’ prompts Oscar to nod along, gratefully accepting the crowd’s pity. “Thank you, thank you. Anyway, now that I’ve also entrusted all of you with knowledge of my haemorrhoids… would anyone here like to be my emergency contact?”

Something in the room snaps as soon as Oscar’s joke comes full circle. Even though he’d forcibly torn open the floodgates himself, the crowd suddenly seems more than happy to grant him their approval. No sooner than he delivers his first punchline with a self-deprecating smirk, the audience starts shrieking, howling, with pure delight. 

Next to Lando, even Carlos is crowing with laughter; his wheezy chuckles reminiscent of a dying pterodactyl’s cries. Lando regards his friend with utter disbelief — but Carlos is too busy laughing; too enraptured by Oscar’s joke to even notice Lando’s disdain for the set.

“Wow,” Oscar remarks dryly, once the audience’s hysterics have calmed to a volume low enough for him to be heard once more. “You guys really liked that one, huh? Okay, noting that down.” 

He flashes a comically embarrassed look at the crowd, and a new wave of cackles escapes the audience. 

“Like I said, I’m not really supposed to be here. After leaving the hospital, I just Googled ‘things to do in Edinburgh that don’t involve sitting down.’ Aaaand… now I’m here. Doing stand-up.”

Lando rolls his eyes at the pun, feeling embattled as the crowd rewards this lowest form of humour with roars of laughter. He’s almost grateful that there isn’t a real scale for measuring how much a crowd is enjoying any given set. If that existed, he’d certainly want to compare his own metrics to Oscar… and he’s no longer confident that his results would knock the other comedian’s out of the park. 

For some unfathomable reason, the Australian doesn’t need to work for the house’s approval at all. He merely needs to ask them to laugh, and the crowd will acquiesce like clockwork.

Oscar leaves the stage to thunderous applause and cheers so deafening that it feels as if the walls might crumble any second. Carlos turns to Lando as the venue lights come up, grinning wider than the Cheshire Cat. Even as Lando is slumped over onto folded arms beside him, Carlos remains completely oblivious to his new pensive mood.

“Oi, Lanno, come on.” Carlos hoists himself off his bar stool, boisterously gesturing for Lando to do the same. “Let’s go to the green room and congratulate him. What a set for an almost-newcomer, huh?”

Lando shakes his head slowly. “You know, I actually don’t really feel so good. Might go back to the hotel and get an early night…don’t wanna risk having to cancel my show tomorrow.”

Distracted by his intent to head backstage, Carlos doesn’t see through his lame little lie. “Ah, okay. You push yourself too hard, Lanno! Five shows a week is crazy, even Charles isn’t doing that many. Get some rest, okay, cabrón? I’ll tell the new guy you said hi.”

“Yeah, sure,” replies Lando, even though the last thing he wants is for the new guy to think that he holds him in any kind of esteem.

Part of him wants Carlos — one of the only comedians in this room that he actually respects — to notice his frustration. To ask what’s wrong, and maybe abandon going backstage in favour of buying him a drink. But, just like all the flaws in his set; all the failures of comedy theory that Lando could so easily list if asked, his contempt for Oscar is both as imperceptible and irrelevant as his growing chagrin. 

Nobody notices… and nobody feels the same.

///

Over the next few days, Lando’s disdain for Oscar grows and festers like an untreated wound. His excitement for Fringe Rising before the start of the festival had been virtually unquenchable. Now, he thanks his lucky stars that he only has to do this showcase twice a week. Having to see Oscar any more than that would make him inclined to blow his brains out on stage. 

Every time he sees the floppy-haired Australian and his shit-eating smirk, he is reminded of just how unfair everything has become. Lando is only where he is today after shedding plenty of blood, sweat, and tears. He owes his success to the countless nights spent perfecting his sets, even when it meant pushing through sheer exhaustion accumulated over too many shifts at too many thankless part-time jobs. 

All that, and for what? To be ousted for final billing at a Fringe showcase by a no-name from the world’s most godforsaken continent, with a mere five shows under his belt? 

That just doesn’t seem right. Something’s gotta give.

But night after night, Oscar never bombs — never even comes close to bombing, because the audience always inexplicably becomes putty in his hands the moment he asks them to laugh at him. 

Lando never bombs either, but nobody seems to care that he doesn’t.

So Alex never offers Lando final billing, and Lando’s own opinion that this is a grave oversight never changes either. The Fringe soon becomes a kind of mental purgatory for him, with nights spent stewing in a cocktail of his own envy and rage. Day after day, the festival ticks by… but nothing ever changes. And Lando grows ever more resentful.

In an ideal world, his path would never cross Oscar’s, apart from the times they are forced to watch each other’s sets from the back of the venue in the name of artistic courtesy. But, as this entire experience has already shown him, the world he lives in is very far from ideal. 

In reality, their paths cross more times than he would like. In the dressing room backstage, where Oscar always sends a meek hello his way, and where Lando — without fail — doesn’t even acknowledge him before storming back out. At the venue bar — same thing. Lando even runs into Oscar at the grocery store, once. That pre-show snack run ends with him leaving Tesco empty-handed, after lying that he’s leaving and  in a big hurry, just to avoid any further conversation with him. 

Lando does his show hungry that night. His stomach starts hurting twenty minutes into his fifty-five-minute set — but at least the loud growl of his gastric pangs earns him an unexpected extra round of laughter from the audience.

Wednesday may be hump day, but Tuesday and Thursday are the real bookends to Lando’s shit sandwich of a week. Unlike Charles, Lando has nowhere to be — or even to pretend to be — during Oscar’s sets. So he always has to stay, to watch a set that never gets funnier than the last, delivered by a comedian who never grows more appealing, no matter how many times he’s forced to look at him.

And look at Oscar he does. Because what the fuck else is he supposed to when he’s a captive audience member for a set he can’t walk out of for fear of being cancelled by comedy Twitter? 

Soon enough, the Australian’s visage becomes one he can recall on command, every detail instantaneously available. The short, shiny, yet floppy brown hair. The long, rabbit-like front teeth hiding behind lips almost permanently curled into a lazy smile. The smattering of freckles and tiny moles all across his cheeks and neck. The deep brown eyes.

Sometimes, when he is alone at night, Lando summons all these details in his mind’s eye, painstakingly assembling as detailed a picture of Oscar as he can. Then he tacks it to a dartboard in his mind and fucking obliterates it.

The most infuriating part of all this? Despite how open Lando’s hostility is, Oscar doesn’t seem to notice… or care. Before every show, a hello. After every show, a wave goodbye, even though Lando scrambles out of his seat to leave the moment Oscar descends from the stage. 

Lando soon convinces himself of a secret third possibility — that Oscar has noticed, and does care, and is using their forced proximity as a reason to rub his omnipresence in Lando’s face. To terrorise Lando with his constant hellos and heys and painfully Australian okays. To ensure, simply speaking, that Lando will never know peace as long as the Fringe is running.

What’s worse is that, after barely any time at all, Oscar’s nefarious form of psychological warfare actually works. As Lando’s animosity towards the Australian grows, he begins to search for him wherever he goes, obsessed with fantasies of telling him exactly what he thinks of him. 

He searches for Oscar in the crowds at his solo shows, his eyes straining under the spotlight, desperate to catch sight of that floppy brown fringe somewhere in the seats. He even begins frequenting the Tesco Metro on snack runs more often than not, hoping that Oscar will be there for him to unleash the full power of the contempt in his heart, even if the Australian opens with his naive little hello.

But, as always, this is not an ideal world. Oscar never returns to the Tesco Metro. Lando never goes to the green room. Their paths remain as distant as they can, for two comedians working the same show.

And then, one night, Lando is offered redemption.

He spots Oscar in the crowd for his solo set immediately after he bounces onstage. The Australian’s placid brown eyes are fixed on him in the split second that Lando notices his presence — and, judging by the slow, relaxed smile that crawls onto his face, he knows he’s seen him. Lando’s smile freezes for a beat as he spots his nemesis. He fumbles to remove the mic from its stand, spending extra seconds clambering about as the audience waits for him to begin. 

So, Oscar has really done it. He really had the balls to show his face at the superior comedian’s set. Well, if he wants so desperately to get schooled in the art of real stand-up, who is Lando to deny him?

That night, the show is unequivocally the best solo set he’s ever put on in his entire life. Lando’s brand of comedy has always been fairly slapstick and energetic, but tonight he is something else altogether onstage. He’s a whirling dervish — jumping higher, acting harder — all to get the crowd laughing louder and louder to feed the hungry void of ambition within him. 

Not even halfway through the set, a few people in the front row are actually wheezing with exertion. The air positively sparkles with mirth, along with the glint of teary-eyed audience members, who are doubled over and crying with laughter. 

But Lando barely notices any of this. He’s performing for one audience member alone, eyes fixed on the dead centre of the room, tracking Oscar’s every reaction like a hawk. He sees when Oscar smiles, sees when he laughs, sees when he throws his head back and lets out a full-bellied guffaw right when Lando’s repertoire is meant to take the audience by surprise.

Do you see it now, Oscar? he wants to say. This is how comedy is meant to be done.

The crowd is electric when the lights come up. The buzz and rustle of their post-show discussion remains at a constant volume as his audience relives their favourite moments from the set amongst themselves. Only a few figures make their way to the exit almost immediately. The rest remain milling around the bar, or even in their seats — waiting for Lando to come around and mingle with the audience, all wanting a piece of him.

Lando spends the rest of the night working the crowd. Making small talk with new fans. Hugging old fans he recognises from back in the day. Taking pictures with Fringe grannies who have dedicated their twilight years to exploring the arts — and don’t they love a dashing young man who can make them laugh. 

He almost forgets about the unwelcome interloper in the audience altogether. But then the crowd thins out, the bar staff get ready to close the venue for the night, and Oscar appears in front of him once more — a fluffy-haired nightmare emerging from the pub’s gloomy atmosphere.

“Lando!” His name sounds foreign on the other man’s tongue; so unrecognisable that he wishes he would say it again, just so he can better get used to the sound of it. “Congrats, man. That was an amazing set. I’d heard a lot about you, but tonight completely blew me away. I never really knew comedy could be like this before.”

It takes all of Lando’s willpower not to let out an exultant scream directly into the Australian’s smug little face. He barely hears Oscar’s continued babbling over the imaginary crescendo of a million variations of his triumphal speech, all meticulously laid out in his vengeful fantasies. Now is his chance to put Oscarin his place. Now is the time to live out his dreams.

Oscar has stopped talking now, and just looks at him expectantly, as if Lando would care about anything he has to say. He reaches within himself; searches for the words that he’s rehearsed for so long.

And all he can say is a lame, muted, “Thanks.”

Lando can’t tell if it is disappointment or satisfaction that makes Oscar turn away. “Okay,” he says, in that same semi-ironic deadpan cadence he uses incessantly onstage — or is that just his voice? “I’ll leave you to it. Don’t want to take you away from your other fans. See you on Tuesday, mate.”

And then he turns away, waving over his shoulder as he disappears out the pub doors and into the night. Lando immediately turns to the next fan waiting to speak with him, but something about the night has inexplicably changed for the worse. His smile feels plastic, his enthusiasm more strained than genuine.

After leaving the bar, he finds himself looking around the doors, half-expecting Oscar to emerge from the darkness again and shoot him that infuriating smile of his. But of course, the other man is long gone. 

And Lando walks home alone, burning with shame.

///

The third and final week of the Fringe dawns, and Lando senses that a reckoning is near.

Festival fatigue has set in for most Fringe performers now, taking root so deeply in their bones that most of them barely have the energy to go out for drinks after their sets. 

Lando himself is no exception. He has been curling up beneath the covers of his hotel duvet earlier and earlier each night, unable to keep up with Carlos and Charles’s constant, fervoured partying. Lando’s especially unable to face the possibility of running into Oscar; to see that smile directed at him under the warm fairy lights of some outdoor beer garden. 

All he wants is for the festival to be over, so he can go back home to London, sleep for a week, and forget that he’d ever been upstaged by an amateur comedian from fucking Australia. Who he still can’t stop thinking about.

Performing the same material for two weeks straight grows stale for even the most seasoned comedians. So, in this third and final Fringe week, Lando decides to try something different. 

Ensemble showcases at comedy clubs are more often than not used to test new material on unsuspecting audiences — so what better time to switch up his set than in front of one of the most distinguished festival audiences in the world? 

At worst, he doesn’t get a laugh after one punchline and immediately switches back to his tried and tested material. And at best? He proves himself to be the best improviser in the comedy arena and gives the usurper of his rightfully-deserved final billing slot a run for his money. 

“So, what is it with so many people these days thinking I’m Australian?” he starts one night, in place of his old set closer about papayas. “I was actually down under for a short tour recently, and no matter what I did, all the MCs just kept introducing me as a local comedian. But I’d never been to Australia before that. Don’t have the accent. Have never even tried imitating the accent — I know, right? Aren’t I a saint?

“So, after a couple of nights of letting it slide, I decided to bring it up. I was like, ‘Hey, man, you’ve got to stop telling the crowds I’m Australian. Why do you even think I’m from here, anyway? Is it my hot surfer bod? Is it the fact that I’m kinda sun-kissed and incredibly fuckable? Cause, uh… thank you, but you’re still wrong. About me being Australian, I mean. All the rest of it, you’re toootally right about.”

This gets a fair few laughs from the crowd — Lando’s anecdote is building nicely. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Oscar watching his set from the bar, an inexplicable smile forming on his lips. He forces himself to pivot to the opposite end of the crowd, to ignore his urge to storm offstage and grab the other man by the throat, and scream, This is not about you! This is my set!

This is about me!

Every comedian always envisions their jokes being met with at least a modicum of enthusiasm when they’re delivered for the first time. But never in his wildest dreams had Lando expected this strong of a reaction from the audience tonight — certainly not for a joke fresh out of the oven with no feedback in sight. It is a twisty, turny anecdote, one about scandal and mistaken identity with a second punchline that leaves a few audience members braying hysterically. 

By the time he walks off that stage, Lando is convinced that tonight has confirmed which one of them is better, once and for all. He’s done it, now. He’s out-written, out-performed, even out-Australian-ed Oscar. 

The reckoning has come, and Lando has come out on top.

Or, at least, that’s what he thinks until Oscar saunters onstage a few minutes later. He stops. Squints at the crowd. Pulls a sheepish expression and says, “Well, uh… g’day, everyone. It’s me again. Lando Norris.”

And of course, the crowd absolutely. Fucking. Loses it.

So this is what all of Lando’s efforts have come to. Hours spent crafting new jokes, weighing up the risks of debuting untested material in front of a discerning crowd… all for Oscar to ride in on his high horse and deliver his first joke of the night, entirely at Lando’s expense. 

The rest of his set passes in a blur, as Lando seethes and fumes and curses Oscar for taking a comedic opportunity that he knows, deep down, is perfectly fair game. But that taste of victory, the way it felt in his hands before slipping out of his grasp again — Lando’s ego won’t allow him to let go of it just yet.

And so, he launches himself out of his chair before Oscar has even fully left the stage, leaving a bewildered Carlos calling out questions in vain. His footsteps thud angrily on the bare concrete backstage as he makes his way to the green room, shoving its flimsy wooden door open so hard that it bangs against the opposite wall.

Oscar is in there, gratefully chugging down an entire bottle of water only to choke with surprise at Lando’s frenzied entry. When he turns to see who it is, that shit-eating little smile returns — and Lando can’t wait to wipe it off his face once and for all.

“Oh, hey, man!” Oscar caps his bottle, feigning nonchalance — or maybe he really does respect Lando that little; maybe he really just doesn’t give a fuck. “I don’t usually see you back here. What’s up—”

“You little shit!” yells Lando, not caring who can hear him even as he slams the door behind them. “You fucking amateur. You think you can come here with your unfunny little set, and your shitty jokes that say please, please, please laugh at me, and take my fucking top spot on the billing? You think you can do all that and then piggyback off the joke I spent half of this festival writing?!”

Oscar’s eyes widen with genuine shock. Whatever sort of blowback he’d been expecting from Lando had certainly not been this loud or intense in his mind.

The Australian holds up his hands as if to placate him, and Lando can’t tell if the mocking edge to his movements is actually there, or if it’s entirely his imagination. “Dude, hey, no need for that. I would never have built off your joke if I knew you’d object to it. I’m really sorry, okay? If you’re gonna run that bit at the end of your set again, I promise I won’t repeat what I did tonight.”

“It’s not about whether I’m objecting to it now,” Lando replies through gritted teeth. “It’s about the fact that you don’t get to make jokes of your fellow comedians like that! What, did you want to fucking rub it in a little harder? An amateur, taking last billing over the guy with the real solo hour and the real Netflix special? Well, fuck you too, dude!”

Oscar flinches slightly at Lando’s grotesque imitation of him. “Lando, I genuinely have no clue what you’re talking about, okay? I respect you a lot; I think you’re one of the coolest comedians at the fest. But… isn’t that what we’re all here for? To make jokes out of ourselves?”

Lando chuckles bitterly. “Of course you would say that. You haven’t worked for this for a day in your life, have you?”

He pivots to leave, but is overcome by a fresh wave of self-hatred as Oscar’s voice stops him in his tracks. “Hey, come on. Can’t we talk this out?”

“Oscar! Oscar.” Lando lets out a hysterical laugh. “You don’t need to pretend you want to be my friend any more, alright? There is nothing to talk out! In fact, I would rather not be talking to you at all, because everything you do gets on my last fucking nerve. So let’s just do our last show on Thursday, and not step on each other’s toes, and then we can both go back to never seeing each other again. Okay?”

Oscar blinks. And then, to Lando’s continued frustration, he smiles. Again.

“Nah, hold up. There’s definitely stuff to talk about here. Just… let me get this straight. You think I’m unfunny. You think I don’t deserve a spot on that stage. You hate me.”

“Yes. Exactly. Glad it’s finally gotten through that thick skull of yours.”

Oscar just fixes his big, impassive brown eyes on Lando; brought to life for once by a wry spark that flickers into being for just a split second. 

“You hate me… and yet you can’t seem to get enough of me.”

Lando lets out the most patronising scoff he can muster. “Untalented and delusional. Just when I thought you couldn’t—”

“You hate me, and yet you’re always in that same little corner seat in the back of the pub when I’m onstage.” Oscar’s eyes remain locked directly onto his, his tone mirroring the half-dead neutrality of someone reading boring facts off a piece of paper. “You could just go home and call it a night, but you’re always there anyway. Watching a set you hate.”

Lando opens his mouth to speak, and nothing but a shaky, slow exhale hisses out of him. He is spent; a deflated balloon. When he inhales, the air feels stale and used — Oscar is so close now; breaths mingling in the shared air.

“You hate me, so you keep looking for me every night in the audience of your solo hour… and when you do find me, you don’t even look away again, so it’s like you’re delivering your entire set to me alone.”

“You’re insane.” Lando means to spit the line in his face, heroically aggrieved, but it comes out as a plaintive, airy whine instead. He swears he sees the corner of Oscar’s permanently impassive mouth twitch — the ghost of a smug, triumphant smile passing over and through him. 

“You hate me,” Oscar continues, as if Lando hasn’t even said anything. “Which is why you think about me all the time, right? You hate me.”

Lando feels his expression spasm involuntarily. Control over his facial muscles appears to be rapidly slipping out of his grasp. “Yes,” he manages to growl; his voice a ferocious whisper rising from the back of his throat. “I hate you.”

“Okay,” says Oscar — that fucking stupid, guileless, deadpan okay again. Something about the way Oscar says it — the detached sheen that descends over his eyes, the nasal twang of his Australian accent — makes Lando want to punch something. 

But he can’t even feel his fingers; couldn’t clench a fist if he tried. Oscar’s shoulder knocks against his provocatively, daring him to say something. To do something. 

Surely Oscar knows, then, that the proximity of his body to Lando’s is the thing that has neutralised his opponent. He is a cat, toying with the prey he holds immobilised beneath one paw.

He’s enjoying this.

“You hate me,” says Oscar, his face now unfathomably close to Lando’s, “and you definitely don’t want me to kiss you.”

“No.” Lando’s voice is barely louder than a breath on the wind. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”

Oscar blinks ever so slowly, those impassive brown eyes like a vortex threatening to swallow Lando whole. His lips part, revealing a flash of teeth — a snarl, a smile; an indecipherable, predatory, in-between thing.

“Then stop me,” he says.

Lando hates the way his voice shakes when he speaks next. “What?”

“Stop me,” Oscar repeats. “You don’t want me to kiss you. So stop me.”

There it is — a real smile now. Tentative. Shy, almost. Oscar may have the upper hand, but he doesn’t know that he’s won.

So Lando does the only thing he knows will catch him off guard. He pushes out with the flats of both palms, shoving Oscar so that he stumbles slightly, balance transferring to his back foot. 

And then, while the surprise is still fresh on his face, Lando grabs the collar of Oscar’s hoodie in both his fists, pulls him back in, and kisses him first.

Time freezes, turning a single moment into eternity. Lando can taste the surprise on Oscar’s lips — and oh, does his little reward taste sweet. 

But neither does it last long. Oscar returns the kiss slowly, tantalisingly… only to shove Lando away just as he eases into the tempo of their shared movements.

“Look at you,” teases Oscar, his smirk more self-satisfied than ever. “All red in the face for the world’s most boring comedian.”

One of Oscar’s hands pushes him back up against the green room wall. The other begins tugging at Lando’s belt buckle slowly, drawing his attention to the fact that he is undeniably, achingly hard. All he can think about still is Oscar’s lips; the burning need he has to shut him up again; to kiss him so long and deep that they both forget how to breathe. 

Yet he can’t move; can’t brandish another witty retort against Oscar’s verbal onslaught. His open palms brace himself against the cool brick walls of the dressing room. The only sound that escapes him, right as Oscar’s hand roughly curls around his cock, is a small, plaintive moan.

“Stop me,” says Oscar, looking him right in the eye; a request for consent disguised as more vicious banter.

Lando sees his opportunity, takes it. “Don’t tell me what to do. Shut the fuck up and finish what you started.”

Oscar’s eyes brighten with a new, mischievous twinkle. His smile grows even more insidious. Contrary to Lando’s expectations, he seems positively delighted that Lando has finally found some bite. 

“Ah.” His brown eyes grow coy. “So you do want this. Maybe I should just go, then. Or maybe I should make you beg for it.”

“Like you beg your audience for laughs?”

Oscar draws closer to Lando once more, his lips hovering just out of reach from where he has Lando pressed against the green room’s walls. Down below, his spit-slicked hand begins working Lando’s dick slowly, to a rhythm that is as delicious as it is infuriating.

“Sure, I may beg,” he says, as Lando’s breath begins to hitch in his throat. “But I also get what I want. Every. Single. Time. And now, you’re going to give me what I want too.”

Lando’s palms, still braced against cold, hard brick, clench inconsequentially into fists as he fights back another moan. “Fat fucking chance.” He barely manages to get the words out from between gritted teeth as Oscar’s thumb tantalisingly circles the head of his cock, right as he begins to speak.

Oscar’s eyes widen with mock surprise. His hand all but stops moving, his grip loosens… and to Lando’s embarrassment, the shock of it is so jarring that he lets out a pathetically loud whimper.

“Okay.” There it is, that hatefully deadpan delivery sending a fresh rush of blood to his erection even as Oscar withdraws. “That’s cool. Let’s call it a night, then.”

For a moment, Lando actually falls for Oscar’s feint. The sudden void left by Oscar’s hands, no longer on Lando’s chest or cock, is wholly unbearable. A wave of embarrassment courses through him, as he struggles to pull his briefs back up with trembling fingers. “Fucking arsehole.”

Oscar lashes out almost faster than Lando can process, both hands snatching up his own and pinning them to the wall. “I’ll ask again,” he says teasingly. “Are you going to give me what I want?”

“What the fuck do you want?!” Lando’s growl is equal parts anger and desperation.

“Tell me I’m not boring.”

“No way.”

Oscar’s right hand loosens on Lando’s left, returning to caress Lando’s cock slowly — too slowly.

“Tell me. I’m not. Boring.”

“No fucking way.”

In response to this, Oscar tightens his grip, moving slightly faster again… and Lando understands the rules of the game now. He has to grudgingly respect Oscar’s ruthlessness when it comes to flipping the rules whenever he wants — especially if this is the effect it’s having on him offstage.

“Say it, Lando. Give me what I want.”

“You’re a hack,” he retorts, as forcefully as he can in between shaking breaths, while Oscar’s hand moves faster with every vitriolic syllable that falls from his lips. “You being in this show was a total fluke. You are painfully. Fucking. Unentertaining.”

“Am I, now?”

Lando presumes the question is rhetorical, but his lack of a response earns him another sudden stop that makes him choke with surprise.

“Am I?” Oscar repeats.

“Yes,” whines Lando, even as he senses a new trap being set. The return of Oscar’s smug grin confirms his instincts barely a second later.

“Aw,” he coos, voice dripping with toxic endearment. “You’re a good comedian… but a veeeery bad liar.”

Lando can barely speak through the pressure building in his chest. Through the frustration of his imminent orgasm being withheld yet again, Oscar diabolically slows his pace. “I’m… not… lying.”

“Are you sure?”

Faster once more, to Lando’s relief.

“Cause if I’m so unentertaining…”

Faster, and faster, and faster—

“…then why was it so easy to make you come?”

And Oscar steps away deftly, just in time, as Lando makes an absolute mess of himself.

A strange, potent cocktail of shame, embarrassment, and elation bubbles through the haze of Lando’s post-orgasm brain fog. A hand on his shoulder brings him out of his reverie — Oscar has brought over a towel from the green room rack.

The Australian’s brown eyes search his again. No trace of mischief or malice remains in them. Now, they are just curious… and, dare he say it, kind.

“You okay?” he asks.

Lando just nods as he wipes himself off, still too buzzed to speak.

“Okay. Good. Phew!” Oscar smiles, and it is a real one this time; a cheek-to-cheek beam with a hundred megawatts of charm. “I don’t usually do that without dinner and drinks first, by the way. But you can buy me a beer tomorrow before the show to make up for it. Sounds good?”

Lando’s head jerks back up to look at Oscar. The earnest expression on his face catches him completely off guard. There are clearly no more games left to play now — all that’s left is to decide where they go from here. And Oscar has clearly already decided for the both of them.

But the change in tone is still as absurd as it is welcome, bringing with it relief… and amusement.

Lando cracks a smile — small, at first, but it grows and grows.

“Sounds great,” he says.

And then for the first time, as Oscar looks on, he laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

[ki-ka-katsuki]

Keigo doesn’t like it when he can’t see your face while the two of you are intimate. He loves watching your every reaction to his touch, the way your mouth contorts in pure sensuality when his nails dig into your skin, often trying but failing to hold back your moans. Or how your eyes overflow with tears every time he goes too far with the teasing — for which he’s always sorry, but also a little excited.

One night, however, when you suddenly felt all brave and curious, you chose to entrap your man with a slightly different proposal from what you're used to, for once just lying down in front of him with your pretty butt on full display. A silent, but very obvious invitation.

You had no idea where that was going to lead to, though.

...

Keigo is completely losing it, panting heavily against the back of your neck, lips parted and eyes shut tightly as he pounds you from behind, forcing your stomach deep into the mattress with every thrust. "Keigo—!" you cry out, dizzy, pleasure choking your sore throat, and the man is so possessed he doesn't even register the slight panic in your tone. He's beside himself with frenzy. And it’s all your fault.

"Fuck, fuck, Y/N," he groans, just barely able to avoid his voice from cracking. He lowers his head further down into the crook of your neck, messily latching on any part of your skin his lips can find. You didn't think it was possible, but somehow he manages to pick up the pace even more.

"K-Keigo I— shit, s-slow down!"

He doesn't hear you. Can't hear you. There's just this high-pitched, white noise growing higher and louder in his mind, leaving him deaf to your desperate calls for attention. Later, he will apologize for it a thousand times, or however many times you will find suitable, but right now, he's too far gone.

The blond holds his breath, caging you underneath his working body with strong arms. He’s got a firm hand on your hip to keep you right where he needs you to be, his ruffled wings waving in synch with you for leverage.

Honestly, he didn't think this would feel so good.

Between breathy curses and sloppy kisses, it's the way how Keigo's chest and abdomen continuously rub against your arched back that eventually sends the both of you over the edge. It makes you feel incredibly hot and so damn close to each other, and apart from all the lewd stuff, it is really the comfort of such closeness that allows you to just let yourself go and fall into the abyss of rapture. Together.

As you cry out your lover’s name one last time, Keigo empties himself deep inside your core, rope after rope, never once letting go of your squirming body — not until the waves of his intense release subside.

A single feather lands beside you, its soft filaments caressing your burning cheek along the way, and it comes to rest on the back of your hand, still trembling from how tightly you had to cling to the sheets.

"Kei..." you mumble into the fabric, catching the soft feather between your fingertips.

You're heavy — is what you want to tell him, since you find it hard to breathe underneath his weight, but the words don't come out. Instead, you find yourself savoring the moment of your worn-out boyfriend panting in your ear, completely spent and exhausted as he lies on top of you, not ready to part just yet.

But the sweet, whispered row of apologies follows soon after. Of course it does, because Keigo is the last person to forget whenever he’s been a bit too much to handle for his pretty babybird. So he props himself up, turning you to face him, and showers you with a bunch of soothing kisses to make up for any kind of discomfort he might have caused you. It’s the least he could do, right? After all, as a hero, it’s his duty to make sure you’re properly taken care of.

© @ki-ka-katsuki. do not repost or plagiarize.

[tiny-wooden-robot-fics]

Onset - Chapter Two.

Rating: Explicit Media: Jujutsu Kaisen/JJK Pairing: Geto Suguru x Original Female Character Characters: Geto Suguru, Valerie (OC) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Established Friendship, Geto and OC are roommates, Self-Insert, Smut, Penis in Vagina Sex, Creampie, Brief mention of an inability to get pregnant, Unprotected Sex, Cunnilingus, if I tagged everything we’d be here all day, This is part of a series

Part 3 of Sundane

Previous Part: Egg Fried Rice

Previous Chapter: One

Summary:

He isn’t expecting her to throw his earlier words back at him that way, and it catches him off-guard. “Why do you always remember the dumb shit I say?”

“Was it dumb?”

“It wasn’t absolute,” he mumbles. He pauses, knowing that if he says what he wants to say next, he’ll kick himself for it.

He says it anyway. “Sometimes one slips through the cracks, you know,” he adds softly. “Sometimes, there’s one that really is special.”

Read on AO3

“I’m sorry about what I said.”

She’s started to doze off when he says it, and it takes her sluggish, sated brain a few seconds to catch up with her ears. “What?” 

Shit. He’s torn between two feelings. The first is annoyance that she hasn’t somehow magically read his mind and figured out what he’s apologizing for. He doesn’t want to have to explain himself. He wants her to know why he’s sorry, so they can move past it and forget it happened.

The second, more prominent feeling is that pang of guilt that’s resurfaced, sticking in his side and reminding him that he actually does owe her an apology for what he said earlier. He once again pushes that pang of guilt back into the abyss, but the residual feelings that linger leave him wanting to clear the air. “What I said earlier,” he sighs. “About you not being able to get pregnant. I know it’s a sore spot for you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says with a shrug. “It’s not like you to feel sympathy for something like that, and it isn’t something other people care about either.”

He lifts his head from her stomach to look up at her. She’s smiling, but he gets the feeling it’s because she thinks she should be. “You wanna talk about it?”

Her fingers pause in their movement in his hair as she considers his face. His expression is open, non-judgmental, as if meant to make her feel like she can continue talking about this if she wants to. Part of her wants to spill everything - to tell him these feelings that she’s never shared with anyone else. But part of her feels like talking about this with Suguru would be like opening a door she won’t ever be able to close again. 

She is still contemplating opening that door when she feels the soft warmth of Suguru’s lips against her skin. It’s a gentle kiss on her hip, and she thinks it feels a little like encouragement.

“Well,” she starts softly, resuming her gentle strokes through his hair. “You’re right, it’s a sore spot. The thing itself is something that I know I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life, and I can deal with it. But whenever people find out, they only ever acknowledge the thing itself. They don’t acknowledge all the complicated feelings that come with it. 

“It isn’t a choice I wanted to make,” she goes on. “And if I’d had the ability to choose otherwise, I would have. People who have gotten to choose - and who still can - don’t seem to understand that. So when they say things like ‘you’re not missing anything’ and ‘you’re lucky you still have your freedom,’ it just ends up feeling like… like they’re invalidating how I really feel and telling me how they think I should feel instead.” She pauses. “Enjoying the life that I have now and feeling like I’m missing out on that thing I can’t have aren’t mutually exclusive, you know?”

“I get it,” Suguru muses. “Kinda like somebody who insinuates you should be relieved that your chronically ill parent has finally died. Like, yeah, taking care of them and being worried all the time while they’re alive and sick is stressful and emotionally draining. But it doesn’t mean you want them to die, and it doesn’t mean you don’t miss them when they do.”

Stunned, she stares down at him. “Huh. Actually, yeah. That’s a pretty accurate comparison.”

Suguru is quiet for a long time. When he finally speaks, it isn’t to tease her or to make fun of what she’s told him. “Now that I know how you really feel about it,” he starts quietly, “I don’t think it’s something I could ever joke about. And I’m doubly sorry for making light of it before.”

She hates that there’s a lump in her throat, and so she speaks before that lump can manifest itself in tears. “Why are you being so sweet to me?”

“I told you I was giving you the princess treatment today.”

“Right,” she recalls. “It doesn’t hurt to make them feel special, even if they’re not. That’s what you said.” 

He isn’t expecting her to throw his earlier words back at him that way, and it catches him off-guard. “Why do you always remember the dumb shit I say?”

“Was it dumb?”

“It wasn’t absolute,” he mumbles. He pauses, knowing that if he says what he wants to say next, he’ll kick himself for it. 

He says it anyway. “Sometimes one slips through the cracks, you know,” he adds softly. “Sometimes, there’s one that really is special.”

His words hit her right in her chest, hard enough to make her take a deep breath. It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask - am I special? She bites the words back, unsure if she’d even want to know the answer. 

“Come on,” Suguru says, when it’s clear she isn’t going to speak. He sits up, taking hold of her hands.

“Where are we going?”

“You’re gonna wait for me in the shower while I change your sheets,” he tells her, pulling her up into a sitting position. “Unless you wanna sleep in a bed full of my sweat and cum,” he adds with a smirk. “Some people have a thing for that.”

“Wait for you?” She repeats, choosing to ignore the latter part of what he’s said. She lets him pull her off of the bed, lets him maneuver his rumpled shirt over her head so she can have something to give her a bit of warmth and some semblance of decency. 

Suguru himself doesn’t seem to care about warmth or decency as he begins stripping the bed of its sheets in only his skin. “Mmhm,” he murmurs patiently, pausing to push her in the direction of the bathroom on the other side of her bedroom. “I won’t be long. Run the water, yeah? Make sure it’s warm, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Stop reading into it, she scolds herself. This is all routine for him. “Right,” she laughs. “It always takes at least ten minutes for it to get hot.”

He makes an affirming noise and turns his attention back to the bed. She stands there for a moment longer - enjoying the view, she would say if anyone asks her - before turning away. 

--

He finds her in the bathroom a few minutes later. “Is it hot?” He nods in the direction of the shower. 

“Yeah.” She’s feeling suddenly awkward, ridiculously bashful. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

Puzzled, Suguru looks back at her. “If I wanted separate showers, I would’ve just showered in my own bathroom,” he points out. “I told you to wait for me so we could go in together,” he adds, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to co-shower. 

“I know how to bathe myself,” she retorts. “I’m not a kid.”

“Good, because I don’t fuck kids,” he snickers. “What I do do, however, is make sure the adults I fuck are well-taken care of. Both in bed and outside of it,” he adds, tilting his head and leaning close so he can look her directly in the eye. “So you can either climb into the shower yourself, or I can lift you up and put you there. Whatever you like.”

She stays where she is long enough to say, “You said doodoo.” 

His palm just misses her ass as she scurries away. 

--

Showering is a functional thing; she knows that it’s meant to serve the purpose of getting a body clean. Even though she’s taken showers with lovers before (should she think of Suguru as a lover? While it’s true that they’ve had sex, she is hesitant to bestow that title on him just yet), she has never viewed anything about the act of showering in itself as sexy.

But she would be hard-pressed to deny that there is something incredibly erotic about the way her roommate-turned-bedfellow handles her in the shower. His touch is gentle, her washcloth an extension of his hands as he bathes her. Nothing that he does is designed to arouse her, but she finds herself marveling at how the way he’s touching her feels almost more intimate than what they’ve just done in her bed.

“You’re good at this,” she tells him, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the steady stream of water coming out of both showerheads. 

“I know,” he asserts, a smug expression on his face. “Aren’t you glad you waited for me?”

She leans forward, sinking her teeth into one of his pectorals. It isn’t meant to hurt, just to shut him up, and he yelps. Satisfied, she leans back to look at the faint little bite marks left behind.

“Haven’t you marked me up enough?” He grouses.

“I could say the same about you,” she shoots back. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t planning on wearing anything low-cut to work tomorrow.” 

“Dummy,” he laughs, reaching for the washcloth he’d brought in for himself. “You work from home. Who would see you anyway?”

She shrugs. “Zooms are still a thing, you know.” She watches him pour her peony-scented body wash onto his washcloth. “You’re gonna smell like me,” she warns.

“Where am I going that anybody would care? You like it enough to have it, and you’re the only one who’s gonna smell me.”

“Good point.” She watches him lather himself up for a few minutes longer. Then, “Let me help.”

He obliges her. When she gets to his back, she pauses. The scratches weren’t enough to draw blood, but she can see that she did end up breaking the skin in a few places. She’s careful when washing those spots, trying to emulate the gentle way he’d cleaned her. 

Suguru goes quiet for the duration of the time they’re in the shower, and she wonders what he’s thinking about.

--

“I don’t need that,” he protests, keeping his elbow raised to block her approach. 

“It takes six seconds for your skin to dry out once you’ve washed your face.” She’s brandishing one of her high-end skincare products like a weapon. “You should at least moisturize it.” 

“I don’t need it,” he repeats stubbornly.

“I beg to differ,” she sighs. “You may not see the difference right now, but you will in five or ten years.” 

He rolls his eyes at her but says nothing. Nor does he lower his arm.

“Suguru,” she huffs, exasperated. “You can’t expect to pamper me and not let me do the same for you.”

He looks down at her. “Is that what this is?” He motions to the bottle of moisturizer in her hand. “Is this your version of aftercare?”

“If I say yes, will you let me put it on you?”

She thinks he’s going to say no again. To her mild shock and utter delight, he lowers his defense arm and sits obediently on the closed toilet lid. “Fine,” he assents. “But just this once.”

“That’s what they all say,” she grins. “I’ll have you hooked on Dermalogica in no time.”

She treats his skin exactly the way she’s treated her own post-cleanse: toner, moisturizer, eye cream, and serum. She applies each product carefully, her touch gentle as she uses the pads of her fingers to massage the liquids and creams into his skin. 

“You do this every night?” He asks when she’s done, watching her line the bottles back up in the organizer on her vanity.

“Yep,” she tells him, her attention focused on what she’s doing. “Morning has a slightly different routine.”

He’s still sitting on the closed toilet lid. She’s within reach, straightening the other bottles and tubes in her organizer. It would be so easy to wrap his arm around her waist and bring her nearer to him, to pull her down into his lap. To cradle her close so he can breathe in the smell of her hair and feel her soft skin against his once more. So he can register her heart beating against his chest and put one hand against her back to feel her breathing.

His hand actually twitches with the urge. Shit, he thinks, as he balls the hand into a fist. What the fuck is wrong with me?

--

Valerie finds it curious, the way they’ve picked right back up where they left off, like slipping on a pair of well-worn pants. Suguru takes out the leftover fried rice that they’d had the presence of mind to put in the fridge and dumps it into a pan for reheating while she scrolls through their shared streaming apps to find something they can watch while they eat.

She’s been sure that it would feel awkward to spend time together the way they normally do after what’s transpired between them. If it weren’t for the soreness in her legs and the burgeoning love bites on her neck and chest, she would wonder if what they did was simply a figment of her imagination. Just further proof you are not one of the special ones, her brain reminds her, unsolicited. You never are, remember?

“Shut up,” she mutters back at it.

“What was that?” Suguru calls from the kitchen. “Couldn’t hear you.”

“I was just asking what you’re in the mood to watch,” she calls back.

“Pick whatever you want. All that stuff in the community queues is stuff we both wanted to watch, so it doesn’t really matter to me.”

She finally settles on a lighthearted comedy they’ve both watched before. It’s an old favorite and one that doesn’t require their full attention to follow. He seems pleased with what she’s chosen when he finally joins her, handing her a bowl and a spoon and settling next to her with his own food. 

Halfway through the third episode, she mutters, “I usually put on my headphones, you know.” 

Suguru turns to look at her, amused. “Is this a conversation I’m invited to join, or should I leave the room and let you continue?” He asks, pausing the show.

“I was talking to you,” she sighs. “You asked me - earlier - if I was gonna pretend I’ve never heard you jerking off.” She shrugs, fiddling with the blanket in her lap. “I have, but whenever I know you are, I just put my noise cancelers on for a while.”

“Why?”

She stares at him. “Because that’s private. It’s not something I should listen to.” 

“Maybe not.” He laughs. “But are you saying you wanted to?”

“Suguru.”

“What? It’s a fair question, isn’t it?” He shifts on the sofa, turning to face her full-on. 

“Actually, it isn’t,” she huffs with a laugh. 

“Can’t be that you’re embarrassed,” he goes on. He leans forward, a teasing smirk on his face and his eyes trained on hers. “You let me put a part of my body inside yours. Actually,” he amends thoughtfully, “I’ve had several parts of my body inside yours.” 

“You get on my damn nerves.” She snatches both bowls up and gets up to carry them into the kitchen. 

Of course he follows her. “You still didn’t say yes or no,” he insists. 

Valerie turns to him, offering him her sweetest smile. “It will be a cold day in hell before I do that, Suguru.” 

“Hmm.” He leans back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, watching her load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “I think the fact that you refuse to answer me is probably an answer within itself.”

“Fuck off.”

It only makes him laugh. “Fine,” he says finally. “You don’t have to tell me. But until you say otherwise, I’m just gonna assume the answer is yes.” 

Once again there are words threatening to escape her; she wants to tell him that he’s right, that she does want to hear him jerking himself off. But more than that, she wants it to be her he’s thinking of when he wraps his hand around himself and thrusts into his fist. She wants it to be her face he’s seeing when he closes his eyes, when he’s putting himself in danger of going lightheaded because it feels so good he’s forgetting to breathe. 

She says none of those things. “Keep dreaming,” she says, flashing him another sweet smile. “Let’s go - the tv’s probably timed out on us.” 

Something unreadable passes across his face, too quick for her to identify it. After the split second that she sees it, he smiles casually back at her, and whatever was beneath the mask he now wears is lost forever. “Yeah.”

About Me | My Fics | Ask

[where-is-caithe]

Haven revives Cross in the desert.

--

“If we’re necromancers, why can’t we just bring back whoever we want?”

It was a question that Haven had since she was very young, and now that she was taking lessons as a teen, she could actually voice it to her mother, her mentor, her teacher.

Her mother, endlessly patient, noting the hidden extra question in Haven’s voice, the unvoiced “why didn’t you bring back my father”, set her small carving down with a soft sigh.

“It’s not easy, Haven. It’s not simple, it’s not like other necromancy. It’s not like raising a minion. You’re bringing back not just the body, but the soul.”

-

Haven knew something was wrong the moment she could see the plateau from the airship. She knew Cross’ life force, the eye of a storm, raging and violent all around her, calm and collected to all others. Not Haven, though. She could feel the swirling abyss inside of her at all times, but not now.

As the ship drew closer, Haven, along with the three in Dragon’s Watch, watched the approach silently.

The plateau was burning.

The trees, the grass, the staircase leading to the top.

Haven swallowed, her heart in her throat, beating faster and faster. It was a bad sign.

The ship stopped right at the edge of the top of the plateau and Haven was the first one off, before the ship had even paused.

Her bare feet on the warm stone, she walked slowly, taking in the heat of the flames and the signs of a massive fight. Blood splattered across half the rock. Deep gauges into the earth where swords might have hit. Footprints, one massive set and one smaller. Imprints of burning chains.

Haven kept her head down, studying the traces.

She heard a gasp behind her, Kasmeer at her elbow.

And Haven lifted her gaze slowly, seeing the tips of two black boots, blood drenched leather leggings, trails of blood dried on the pale expanse of a stomach, to the gaping hole of cracked ribs and destroyed lungs, blood soaking into the sand beneath her. Her head was tilted back, her mouth open. She did not grip her sword, but Haven didn’t even think about it as she stood, staring at the very obviously dead body in front of her.

Kasmeer broke down beside her, sobbing and falling to her knees. 

“Oh gods, what are we going to do?”

Haven felt her breathing quicken and her eyes sting. An overpowering sense of dread and sadness filled her lungs, her limbs, and she began to shake, taking little steps forward until she was beside the unmoving corpse of Cross, feeling nothing, not even a hint of life from her. Haven let herself drop next to her, shaking hands tracing the burnt edges of the massive wound through her chest. The body was still warm, and she felt a pang of guilt for not knowing, not being here when this happened, not being able to save her before this happened. Not being able to stop it.

Tears finally fell down her cheeks, spilling onto Cross’ skin and mixing with the blood already drying.

“Shit. Fuck,” her voice hoarse as she cried. “Fuck, Cross it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Her hands turned to fists and she slammed them both into Cross’ shoulder.

“Fuck! You... f-fucking bastard,” panting as she weakly beat her fists against Cross, “leaving me again, Cross, you bastard. H-how dare you!”

The sun was beginning to set. Cross was completely cold.

Haven’s tears were dry, and she felt nothing. Nothing but rage. Rage for the god of War, rage for the injustice of killing Cross, rage for herself for not forcing herself to go with her. She stood slowly, her limbs shaking, her head pounding, her heart beating strong and sure. She turned to look at the other three she came with, Kasmeer, Canach and Rytlock. Kasmeer blanches at her gaze, Haven doesn’t know what she sees but it must be bad.

-

“You have to be desperate. You have to want it, more than you’ve ever wanted anything, more than you’ll ever want anything else.”

-

“I need the three of you to back away.”

Her voice is hoarse, barely recognizable, her throat dry. Her three companions look between each other and take a few steps back.

Haven placed both of her feet on either side of Cross’ legs, leaning down to place her palm flat against her pale stomach. Cross shouldn’t be dead. Cross can’t die like this. Never like this, alone in the desert, with the world relying on her.

Her breath was steady, heavy and cold. She needed Cross. She needed her to live again. Haven can’t live without her.

-

“You have to grip their heart, tear through flesh and bone, hold on to their life bringer.”

-

Haven plunged her fingers into the side of the wound, wrapped her hand around the soft texture of Cross’ heart, thankfully intact, though the arteries had been severed. Easier to take into her hand and pull it from her chest.

She cradled the flesh in her hands, precious and invaluable.

-

“No one can be near for this. Unless you’re sacrificin’ them to feed the soul you’re rippin’ back. Any livin thing near you is gonna be needed to bring them back, and it’ll take anything. Don’t catch anyone in your crossfire.”

-

“Kasmeer,” Haven doesn’t even turn her head, eyes never moving from the heart in her blood-soaked hands, “take everyone back to the ship and leave.”

“Haven-”

“I said go,” her voice even and low, and she heard the shuffle of footsteps as her companions ran back to the airship. The creak of the metal, a whoosh of wind, and in a quick few minutes, the ship was away. Haven closed her eyes, the life force of the crew steadily getting weaker as they flew away.

-

“Death is inevitable. Every livin creature knows this, every soul knows this, and sometimes they won’t want to come back. That’s the biggest hurdle you’ll have to overcome. The soul has to want to come back, just as much as you want it to.”

“Is that what happened with dad? His soul didn’t want to come back?”

Her mother was silent for a moment, a brief wave of sadness passing over her face, “yeah, darlin’. Your father died a legend, and he didn’t want that to change.”

-

“Raven!” she cried, cradling Cross’ heart in her right hand and taking a few steps back, her eyes never leaving the corpse in front of her. She felt the pull of death on the edge of her vision and embraced it, the world going dark as her shroud encroached around her.

“Her life is not yours to take,” she slammed her foot down and slid it across the sand. “It’s mine.”

Her shroud enveloped her, she could see and feel the life around her like a heat map, animals in the water below, souls bound to forged armor a bit too close for comfort, plants and roots in the earth. She concentrated, lifting Cross’ heart above her, focusing on her energy, on her soul. A rune circle traced itself into the rock below her feet and sharp spines of energy followed the writing and the grooves, swirling around her, brushing the edges of her skirts, cutting into her calves if they got too close.

Haven’s blood began swirling in the air with the life force she drew from the creatures below.

Cross’ body lifted from the ground. The energy she was collecting, both from the flora and fauna, and the blood of her own held Cross aloft, some flowing into the wound of her chest. Haven’s nose began to bleed, and her blood joined the rest, clinging to Cross as she was suspended.

Haven lifted the heart in front of her and let it flow back into Cross’ body, slotting into place. As soon as it stilled it began to beat, her skin and muscles  knit back together, bone snapping and shifting, her body repairing itself. She consumed the life force at an alarming rate, Haven extended her range and took and took, killing nearly everything in a perfect circle around her, taking even the smallest organism to give Cross everything she needs.

All at once, the remaining life force swirling around them slammed into Cross’ body and Haven is ripped from her shroud, the light of the setting sun nearly blinding her. She breathes heavily as she watches Cross collapse to her hands and knees, panting, eyes wide open and darting around. Haven almost cries with relief. She can feel her life energy once more. Her soul is returned.

She drops to one knee and feels herself laugh. Her vision goes spotty, she feels herself tip and she’s out before her back hits the warm stone.

-

“As a daughter of death you’ll know, even Death is mutable.”

[drowning-in-cacophony]

inauspicious

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial Prompt 270: Lights and Sirens tw: mentions of blood/implied dead body

“Shit,” she swears, as filthy as the floor. His head shoots up so fast his neck cracks, an awful sound buried underneath the piercing cry of the sirens, blaring through the night’s secrecy.

“The cops?” He goes to scrub at his face, only to pause a second before, remembering the viscera slick down his palm. “Fucking hell. That’s bad luck.”

“Bad luck? Is that all you can say?” She peers around the curtain, now sporting a bad taste to her mouth. Lights splash up the road as the cars – cars, count them, more than one – come bumping around the corner. Their mouths look hungry, their visors dimmed out. Her eyes suffer like the concrete: blue and red, a bright cacophony bored into her retinas. “They’re going to find us.”

“Not necessarily,” he argues, and she pauses in her watching to shoot him an incredulous look. Is now when he chooses to become an optimist? He catches her eyes. Grimaces as he follows them to the mess on the floorboards. “There’s lots of houses here. They might not find us; they might not even be here for us.”

“Lots of empty houses.” She glances through the crack in the curtains, careful not to shift the fabric. Empty houses means little distractions, and more than one car means they’re here to look for something. It’s not likely to be something unrelated to them now, is it? Not when they’re not here innocent. “We have to move.”

“And leave the evidence?” he hisses, gesturing his stained hands. A fleck of crimson takes flight for its glorious moment, only to spatter on the tip of her boot. “We’re too close to give in now.”

“We’ll try again-” Every moment they spend talking is a moment handed over to the lights. The sirens cut out now as the cars come to their stop – down road from their location, but that means nothing. In their absence, the silence is stifling. A hot, crawling thing, making its way through every part of her body. The sound of the car doors opening, boots on the gravel road – that’s just as bad. There’s no clock in here but she feels the seconds anyway, the beat-beat of them draining away. If they’re going to escape, it has to be now. They could sneak out the back door, run and hope not to be noticed by the gleaning beams of torches that they will be no doubt pulling from their belts.

“I think this time is it.” A decisive cut, which makes two for the night. His eyes are wide, his intention solemn, even if his heart must be beating just as hard as hers is. “We can’t leave this one.”

“Great.” She’s got nothing on her palms, other than a bit of dust from the curtains, so nothing stops her from scrubbing her face in exasperation. Of course their luck would deliver like this. She trusts his judgement, though – he’s not the type to exaggerate chances, not when he knows what she’s got shoved down the back of her waistband. An urging at her spine begs her to check through the curtains, but it wouldn’t change much. She’ll get to peek through the frosted glass of the front door for shadows, hear their crunching approach through the letterbox, because if this time is it, there’s only one thing for her to do.

“Thank you,” he tells her before she’s even reaching a hand around her back. She shoots him something terse this time.

“Just do your thing.” Making sure to step as silently as she can, and as wide as she can first, if she wants to avoid slipping in the matter splattered all over the floor, she crosses to the ajar door of the room. The hallway it opens out onto is darker than it, considering there’s no streetlamp to glitter fluorescent through gently sheer curtains. Moody in the shadows, grey in the highlights. She slips down it, remembering where the quietest floorboards are, and to keep herself shrouded, ducks into the open door closer to the one at the end. That frosted abyss, her target board. Fingertips finally snag the item in her waistband; she pulls it out, a small cylinder she briskly shakes out to something longer. In her hands, it’ll prove deadly if any sniffing trails lead the lights to their door.

While he continues defilement on a dirty floor, she prepares to lay waste to a baying horde.

[nyrandrea]

The Essence Of Our Spark

Summary: Hiding in plain sight.

Noah Diaz had learned how to do that all too well, but when an argument with his little brother cracks open the flood gates of suppressed memories of wars long past, his mask slips, and along with it, his sanity.

(Takes place after the events of ROTB so there will be spoilers!)

TW: Mentions of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Also a few swears

Also available to read on AO3 here!

In the darkest corners of Noah’s mind, where memories converged with fear, something whispered in his sleep; fragments of a past that he had always desperately wished to forget. His nightmares always came in the form of a battlefield, screams pierced the air and mingled with the metallic cacophony of gunfire. Amid the madness, a lone young soldier struggled to fix a circuit breaker, his eyes wild with terror. With every breath, he inhaled the acrid scent and exhaled a piece of his humanity, forever lost to the unforgiving abyss of war.

Noah flinched, and he put a hand to his chest to steady his breathing as loud popping went off in the kitchen, a familiar scent of butter and salt wafted through to his room.

‘Popcorn... ’ he reassured himself. ‘It’s just mom making popcorn...get a goddamn grip, man...’  

As if sensing something was wrong, Noah’s mother appeared by the door frame, hugging a bowl to her chest with one arm and a duvet draped around the other.

“Noah, please tell me you ain’t still working on that thing?” she said, nodding to his work desk.  

Taking a moment to flex his trembling hand, he dismissively waved her off. “C’mon, I’ve only been at it for an hour or two.”

“Honey, it’s three in the afternoon. You been hunched over that desk since two in the morning.”

Her expression softened when Noah didn’t reply. “Have you been taking those sleeping pills?”

“Yeah, I just...got the work bug, that’s all,” he muttered. “You know me, once I start, can’t stop.”

“You gotta stop sometime, sweetheart. Otherwise, your body will.”

Noah flinched slightly. “...Right. Don’t you have a movie to watch?”

His mom frowned but said nothing. “Because I know you haven’t eaten anything, there’s leftovers in the fridge, okay? Just...don’t cook, I’m too tired to deal with that right now. I’ll be in the living room if you need me.”

Once again, he waved her off, and when she finally got the hint, he returned to his work project.

“C’mon...just work, damn it...!” Noah sighed, his nostrils flaring as he tried to splice a couple of wires together. This was the last step to complete the repair for Kris’s gameboy, which had suffered a beating against the wall after several failed attempts at the final boss of whatever latest game he had received for his birthday.  

The walls in the apartment were thin so Noah and his mother had immediately scrambled out of their beds when they heard a loud banging coming from Kris’s room, with Noah kicking down the door and raising a baseball bat to beat the shit out of whoever had been stupid enough to break into their home and target his little brother, only to be met with the snivelling boy sitting on the bed hugging his knees and pointing at the broken console on the floor.

Kris had suffered his first bout of gamer rage.  

Noah had tried to be sympathetic; their mother much less so.

He couldn’t blame her for being angry. She worked long hours and had spent a lot of hard-earned cash to buy that gameboy for Kris in the hopes that it would cheer him up—or at least provide a distraction—from his illness. They couldn’t afford another one.

Which was why Noah needed to fix it.

It had been weeks since his last interview, and the small pot of money he had slowly built up from doing various repair jobs for folks around the neighbourhood was beginning to dry up. He had spent most of it on various parts to fix up Mirage.

And it had been worth every damn dime.

“C’mon...There we go!” He punched a victorious fist in the air as the screen lit up along with the familiar 8-bit jingle. “Oh, thank God. Or Primus. Whatever.” Noah sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, sighing in relief and smiling at the thought of Kris’s face lighting up when he got his one true love back.

Noah snorted. That kid needed to get out more.

His expression dropped a little. He knew at one point, when the illness was at its earliest stages, that Kris had tried to hang out with his friends, go to school, play at sports, just all the normal stuff that a kid should be doing. But he started tiring more and more easily and grew so frustrated that he ended up locking himself in his room, isolating himself from the world and everybody that loved him

That was when he got the call from his mom, her voice had a nasal tone to it, as if she’d just been crying, and Noah knew he needed to come home. Fortunately, his superiors granted him general discharge after a hell of a lot of arm twisting. However, they made sure to get back at him in the form of a bad reference that crapped all over his chances of getting a decent job.

Or any job, really. Even the damn janitors wouldn’t take him on.

Giving himself a mental kick, Noah forced himself out of the chair before he could start feeling sorry for himself and grabbed the newly fixed console before heading to the door.

“Hey, ma,” he softly called out, softly knocking on the living room door and entering when he heard a muffled “Come in ..”. He smiled a little at the shifting lump on the couch, a hand lifting from under the covers to reveal his mom’s face, illuminated by the soft glow of the television screen. He couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes; those night shifts were really starting to take their toll on her.

“¿Qué es eso?” she asked. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I’ve finally fixed Kris’s console, just headin’ out to give it to him now.”

“Oh gracias a Dios,” she muttered in relief. “You’re a little miracle worker, you know?”

“Sí, mama,” Noah gloated, holding up his hands. “I know I’m the best.”

She smirked under the covers. “If only your cooking skills were that good.”

“Hey, c’mon now, it’s just an acquired taste, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” she said with a yawn, prompting Noah to take the handle and close the door part-way.

“You work yourself too hard,” he said softly. “I’ll let you get some shut-eye.”

“And you worry too much,” she weakly argued back. “Tell Kris to be home by six,” his mom paused a moment before adding. “He’s been spending almost as much time at that dingy old garage as you have recently.”

Noah swallowed down a dry lump. “Yeah, he’s uh...been helping me out with this... project.”

He inwardly cringed. He had always been a bad liar, especially when it came to his family.

“Right,” she drawled out, obviously not convinced. “Just make sure he doesn’t inhale too much of those car fumes. It’s not good for his condition.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Noah said, inching his way out the door before making a beeline for it, shouting out a quick “love you!” before slamming the door shut on his way out.

Beads of sweat ran down the sides of his face as he jogged down the stairs of the apartment building and into the bustling and vibrant streets of Brooklyn, shoving the gameboy into his pocket as he walked down the street.  

He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to keep this secret from his mother. Kris had found out within five minutes of him being home, but luckily had taken the whole thing in his stride, seemingly not phased by the idea of giant alien robots and the world nearly ending.

Kris was just built different, he supposed.

Their mother on the other hand...

He wasn’t sure what would have freaked her out more; the fact that he was friends with talking vehicles or that he had travelled outside of New York without leaving so much as a note.

He may be have been in his late twenties but there was no doubt in his mind that she would have grounded his ass for a month if she found out.

Noah shook his head, he was going to keep this secret for as long as he had breath in his body. She had enough to worry about: with her job, classes, bills, the medication for Kris.

Except they didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

Absent-mindedly pulling the business card he had received at his ‘security job’ interview, he twirled it in his fingers, brushing a thumb over the symbol of the eagle. The whole situation was still so bizarre to him; this super-secret government organization wanted him as an agent because...what, he just happened to choose the right car to break into? Because he was associated—by accident—with giant machines that could help them with whatever war they were in the middle of?

Noah couldn’t think of any other reason on why they would want to hire him.

It was Elena who had led the Autobots and Maximals to the transwarp key, it was Optimus Prime and Primal that charged into battle against Scourge and Unicron, and it was Mirage who had sacrificed himself and transformed his body into a suit to protect Noah. He...he hadn’t really done much of anything. Just happened to tag along for the ride.

That Agent Burke guy was wrong. He didn’t deserve this.

And he couldn’t throw himself into the middle of another war. Not after his harrowing time with the army and certainly not after that whole world-ending ordeal he’d just been through. Besides, he had other responsibilities. He couldn’t leave Kris again. Or his mother. They needed him. He was the man of the house. They needed him. He was more useful to them here than playing pretend at some secret agent shit.

...Right?

He shoved the card back into his jacket pocket, planning on throwing it away later. From his other pocket, he pulled out a walkie talkie.

“Yo, Kris,” he greeted. “Got a little something for ya, you still at the garage where I told you to stay?”

There was a pause.

“What did I say about using our real names?”  

Noah rolled his eyes. “Apologies, Tails. I repeat: you at the garage?”

“Uh. Yep. Still here.”  

“Then why don’t I see you, huh?” Noah asked dryly as he edged past the heavy wooden doors and into the dimly lit space. A nostalgic scent of motor oil and sawdust tinged the air, a reminder that this was Noah’s safe-space. The small workshop was a treasure trove of relics; shelves lined the walls, each filled with an array of tools and rusted projects that had been laid to rest.

The only thing the garage was missing was his little brother and newly repaired Porsche.

“Kzzzzt, this is Knuckles here,” a new voice chimed in. “You’re uh, kzzzzt, breaking up there, Sonic.”  

Noah grimaced and clutched onto the radio device a little harder. “You get him back here now or I swear I’ll put my knuckles through your damn windshield...!”

“Geez! What’s with the threats, huh? Calm down or you’ll end up as much of a killjoy as Optimus-”  

“No names!”  

“Oh! Sorry.”  

Rubbing his temples in frustration, Noah tried again. “Can you guys please just come back? Like I said, I got something for you, Tails. It’s real important.”

As if on cue, a mis-matched Porsche came skidding along the road and sped right towards Noah, who didn’t even flinch when it screeched to a halt within inches of him and went through the all-too familiar process of transforming.

“Mirage is in the garage!” The robot cheerfully announced, catching Kris mid-transformation and gently lowering him to the ground in front of Noah before stretching out his limbs. “Oh, man does it feel good to get out again. And! I gotta say Kris, you’re even more fun to joyride with than your brother.”

Noah rubbed his face, feeling like a vein was about to pop. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Hey, come on now, Noah,” Mirage waved a dismissive hand. “Jealousy ain’t a good look on you.”

“You took Kris out joyriding?!”

“Guys...”

“I took him out for some fresh air! What, you’d rather the kid was cooped up in this dusty old workshop all day?” Mirage snapped back, dramatically gesturing around the small, cramped room.

“Guys!” Kris shouted out before Noah could argue back. “I can talk for myself, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know Kris, but-” Noah tried to argue as the robot looked down sheepishly, only to be instantly hushed by his little brother’s stone-cold glare. He’d definitely learned that from their mother. Or Optimus.

“He only took me ‘round the block a few times, Noah. I wanted to go with him.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Kris held up a finger. “Besides, we didn’t get into any trouble.”

“Well, except for that cop tryna’ stop us for speeding-”

“I said we didn’t get into any trouble,” Kris reiterated, aiming his glare up at Mirage now, who instantly stiffened and looked away.

“Nope. No trouble here.”

Noah sighed and knelt to Kris’s level. “Look, I get you want to have your own adventures and yeah, even I got into a little trouble when I was your age.”

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot,” he corrected himself. “Look, my point is... you gotta be careful. I...,” Noah paused for a moment, trying to find the best way to word this.

“I don’t want you to end up being like me.”

A silence fell upon the room then as Kris narrowed his eyes, and he didn’t even have to look up to know that Mirage was boring down on him too.  

“Bro, you ain’t being serious, right?”

“I am being serious, Kris. You...you’re...I mean I...” Noah stuttered. God, why was talking so hard? “You’re a real bright kid and-”

“Lemme guess, I got a ‘bright future ahead of me’?” Kris drawled out sarcastically.

“Yeah! You do! But you gotta drop that attitude, keep your head down and keep up with your schoolwork. You can’t be like me and fu-” He stopped himself and cleared his throat. “Muck it up like I did.”

“You can say fuck, Noah. I’m not five.”

Mirage, who had taken to hovering in the background so as to not get in the middle of the brother’s argument, sputtered and tried to poorly disguise his laugh with a hacking cough, blaming it on the dust.

Noah groaned and rose, deciding it was now time to harness the kind of power stance that would usually win his mother an argument “My point is that you’ve got a chance to make something of yourself, get outta Brooklyn, get yourself a decent job with good money-”

“Okay, I may be old enough to swear but I ain’t old enough to be thinking about all that,” Kris said defiantly, crossing his arms to mirror Noah. “You can’t just dump all that on me.”

“I’m not dumping anything on you, I’m just saying you gotta-”

“Well, I think you gotta go see a therapist.”

Noah blinked as a smug grin formed on Kris’s face. “W-what?”

“Don’t you even notice that you’re always putting yourself down?” The teen grasped at his hair dramatically and pitched his voice down an octave. “Oh no...! I’m not good enough to get a job...! I don’t deserve to get credit for saving the freakin’ world...! I can’t cook for shit...!”

Noah wasn’t sure what to get more offended by—the fact that his own brother was insulting him or that he had the balls to pull him up about his own insecurities.

“You little-! I don’t sound like that! And my cooking is just...an acquired taste...!”

“Stop avoiding the subject.”

“I don’t need a therapist; we can’t even afford one! And last I checked, we were talking about your future, not mine. So, let’s leave it, yeah?”

Kris didn’t take the hint.  

“Bro, you are part of my future. And you always tell me that it ain’t good to bottle up our emotions and to always talk. Like when Tails helps Sonic, or Luigi helps Mario, or-”

“But we ain’t Sonic and Tails! Or...or Mario and Luigi or whatever, and this ain’t a videogame, Kris! You can’t just point and click your way through life and expect to get a happy ending. You got your head in the clouds way too much, and it’s about time you got back down to reality like the rest of us!”

“Noah...” Mirage finally chimed in, but was interrupted by Kris.

“No, I get it,” the boy said, somberly nodding. “You got all these hopes and dreams that you couldn’t achieve by yourself and so now you’re pinning ‘em all on me, right? ‘Cuz you think you ain’t got a chance at living the life that you wanted. ‘Cuz you’re worthless, right?”

“Worthless... worthless ... you’re worthless...!” His commander had shouted at him. His father had shouted at him. He had shouted at himself.

Noah’s head was pounding . His thoughts clashed like opposing tides in a wild storm; a battle between fear and reason, threatening to tear him apart. All he wanted was for his little brother to have a good life and not to be trapped within the four walls of a rotting apartment in the middle of gang and police territory, fearing for his life every time he opened the door, that he would get shot for being in the wrong place at the right time. To try and escape, only to end up in a different kind of war that valued him only as cannon fodder, to be sent home in a box with a medal slapped on his cold, lifeless body for his ‘service’. To be remembered by only a few and missed by no-one.

And to be regarded as a low-life coward for running away.

“Noah...? Noah...! Noah ...”  

He didn’t even realise that Kris had a grip on his arms and was shaking him, or that Mirage was kneeling with his hands hovering over him. Their mouths were moving but what they were saying was all muffled and distorted, like he was underwater.

His lungs hitched, and he started gasping for air.

Noah hated that he couldn’t keep his emotions in check, that something so trivial triggered such a raw, primal fear within him, and that he showed such a vulnerability to his little brother and best friend. The two people who were supposed to rely on him for support and strength.

With some semblance of control, he managed to wave them both off with an air of nonchalance and coolness that he had learned to adopt from Mirage's personality.

“I’m fine, I’m good,” he just about choked out. “I think I just gotta...go for a walk or somethin’.”  

His legs found the strength to stumble forward of their own accord, stopping only briefly to lean by the doors so he could glance back. “Mirage, could you uh...could you take Kris home? Mom wants him home by...by six, aight? And make sure he does his homework because...yeah.”

“But Noah... yew don luk so gud...”  

“Just do it, okay?!” He snapped. “Please...”

Within Noah’s weary soul, a fervent desire to escape surged through his body, and without a second thought, he slipped out into the embrace of the early night. Each step propelled him into the unknown, his heart beating wildly as his legs pounded against the pavement, fuelling his need to leave everyone else behind.

The wind whistled through his ears, and the city bathed in the soft glow of streetlights overcame every ounce of his senses, drowning out the chorus of desperation that echoed from all around him.

XXX

I am hungry for the hurt/comfort Noah and Mirage fics so I decided to write one myself. Let me know what y'all think!

Part 2: Coming Soon!

[aesthetic-uni]

*slams door open* ALRIGHT I KNOW IM LATE BUT Y’ALL BETTER HAVE DONE YOUR HOMEWORK BY NOW OR ELSE IM TOSSING Y’ALL IN THE ABYSS

This has honestly been in my drafts for weeks and I’ve been fighting to finish it. I gotta get this out now before another hyperfixation takes over (spoiler alert: it already has)

Before I do I would like to call out publicly three star students, because one I appreciate them and two I just really want them to see my shit since I feel appreciated. @carpe-yeet-em @ceci-seesaw and @bogos-bint3d thank y’all for being Star students

Quick warning: This WILL contain spoilers for the series. It’s nothing super major or plot twisty-The series is in its very early stages so it’s nothing that you wouldn’t find out by you know, reading the thing wink wink nudge nudge. However I would suggest reading it first so you at least have an understanding of it

OKAY THOUGHTS

Holy shit this series is so good. I’m not joking I’m looking forward so much for this series and how everything plays out, because I can tell this is going to be a really intriguing story and I’m excited for it. I would say the thing I’m most excited to see is the relationship between Shen Yuhua and Chu Tian. They’re just, they’re so sweet I really can’t wait to see how their relationship grows.

Okay I’m not really good with expressing my thoughts so let’s move on TO THE CRACK THEORY SECTION BABEY YEAAAH

Theory number uno: Tf is Chu Tian doing? I think it’s pretty easy to see, he’s trying to create an army against the Chaoyang palace. He wants revenge against Shen Yuitian and is only playing along with Shen Yuhua for now. But I think he either does really care for her or will grow to really care for her. So he’s trying to destroy the blood pact so he doesn’t have to hurt her to achieve his end means. And I bet Shen Yuhua will eventually learn to go this side

Theory b: Qiao Yu will join the group and become an older sister to Shen Yuhua. There’s really only two ways it could go down with Shen Yuhua and Qiao Yu, either rivals or sisters. I don’t really see rivals working out, cause Yuhua doesn’t really care, but for my own heart I could totally see Qiao Yu being a surrogate older sister to Shen Yuhua, which would be a great but heartbreaking parallel to her actual older sister

Theory 3 (the big one): Okay, let’s talk about the big mystery surrounding one of the characters. Not Chu Tian, not Shen Yuitian, not even Shen Yuhua.

Let’s talk about Swallowtail

First off: BEST BOY WE LOVE HES AMAZING

Now for the actual theory, Swallowtail is undoubtedly the biggest mystery in Doatf, he pretends to be a useless servant to Shen Yuhua but actively sabotages her chances of marriage, but also protects her with his life. Why? Why is he acting as such? In fact, in his introduction it is noted he was in fact a disciple but was demoted. He’s clearly skilled, why would he pretend not to be in order to be demoted?

It’s because I believe he’s working for Chu Tian, and always planned for Shen Yuhua to fall into the abyss.

What evidence do I have to back this up?

…..I did say it was a crack theory

Okay I do have A LITTLE to back it up. But it doesn’t start with Swallowtail, it actually starts with the second biggest mystery of the series, Wen Qinglan, Yuhua’s mother. We know her crimes, murder, but more important conspiracy and adultery with a demon. Why was Wen Qinglan working with a demon? I believe she was working to free Chu Tian from the abyss. Why? Because I said so >:(

Anyway obviously when Wen Qinglan died, the plot must progress and there had to be a new person to get a Shen into the abyss, and would you look at that. There’s a Shen who’s been completely shunned from her family that needs a servant.

This is why he had to sabotage Yuhua’s suitors, he couldn’t have her leaving the palace or else it would risk the whole operation. On top of that, remember how Yuhua’s older sister said that it was Swallowtail who pushed her in. Why on earth would she say that? He’s clearly devoted to her, and despite maybe Yuling pushing the blame on him, why would anyone believe that? He wasn’t even near the scene?

Unless of course, they already know he’s shady as fuck, or have evidence to show he’s shady as fuck.

I cannot stress enough how much crack this crack theory is based on. I am genuinely pulling strings and putting on tinfoil hats here.

But I’m having fun so I don’t care >:)

I do want to say just as a statement-I don’t think Shen Yuhua is some chosen hero. The abyss story is so clearly made up, and I do really think she doesn’t have strong magic. But just because she’s not strong or special in one area, doesn’t mean she can’t become something wonderful. And I just can’t wait to see what she becomes in this comic. I’m so excited for the rest

Alright the rest of my thoughts are completely scattered that’s all ya getting PEACE

[alparlaboratories]

To Another Abyss - Chapter 28: It's a long way to the promised land

(Chapters -which are usually between 500-1000 words- will be posted daily here first on Tumblr, and will later be posted in 7-8 chapter batches on AO3.)

-

Kanto has changed a lot in the past ten years. The League is no more, and trainers are now only tools for the rich and powerful, either mercenaries or dogs of the government.

Sabrina is the latter. She is to play the role of Gym leader in a sick, twisted mockery of the art she once admired, bearing the name of her childhood idol, a woman who is now wanted across the region. All for the entertainment of Kanto’s shadowy new rulers.

It’s a role she doesn’t mind playing. At least until an unusual challenger comes into her Gym, into the life she’s worked so hard to build, and begins to unravel it all.

-

Chapter 28 - It's a long way to the promised land:

Black eyes set alight with fury, the man with the cross screamed at the top of his lungs as he threw the man holding him from behind over his shoulders, instantly producing a knife from his sleeve and stabbing it into his liver the second as he slammed to the ground. Two others reached to grab him, Pokeballs in hand, but he dove forward and vaulted over the one he’d just stabbed, putting distance between them.

“Agh, they… they have my Pokeballs!” he roared as he stumbled back toward Sabrina’s side, eyes moving back and forth dizzyingly. Yet when he glanced over his shoulder, he noticed the girl had her eyes closed tight, as though concentrating on something. 

What followed was an eerily familiar chill, air thinning, compacting around them.

Come on… Just a little more…

To the man’s great surprise, a faint blue light surrounded their bodies, blurring them, making them fizzle in and out like a broken T.V. image. They were almost gone-

“Swift!”

A wave of golden energy stars slammed against the back of both trainers, pushing them violently against the nearest pillar and almost throwing Sabrina to the ground.

“Shit! I can’t… I can’t do it yet!” She cursed her weakness as she wiped the blood off her cheek, vision swimming, head pounding.

A familiar, chillingly cruel laugh echoed from behind them, almost too far back to hear properly.

“It’s already too late!” Azure bellowed, sounding positively ecstatic, like a child about to open a birthday present. “Do you see now, Sabrina? At the most critical moment, when it truly mattered, you doubted him! You chose to believe me! And now it’s too late, no matter what you do!”

“SHUT U-!!”

A massive figure slammed against the wall behind them, shattering it with ease and forming a huge hole beneath the body of the Pokemon that had been tossed. The man’s Arbok lay unconscious over a pile of rubble. And on the opposite side, Azure’s Nidoqueen cracked her knuckles, eyes fixed on the wounded Scyther before her.

Bursting with panic and adrenaline, Sabrina’s eyes went to the hole in the wall. It led to the Gym arena, and thus, the exit.

“Now!” she screamed, grabbing the man by the arm. “Let’s go!”

“Wait-no! Clay!”

Struggling against Sabrina’s pull, the man looked horrified over his shoulder at the Scyther who could barely dodge the barrage of fire from the Houndour as well as Nidoqueen’s punches. He was fast, faster than the eye could follow, but against so many of them…

“Shit!”

In their distraction, a pair of buzzing Beedril appeared in between them and the exit. Sabrina froze in place. She still had another Pokemon, but-

He didn’t think about it for a moment. In an inhuman burst of speed fueled by fear and loyalty alike, the Scyther cut a zig-zagging green path around his opponents and threw himself at the two Beedril, blocking their stingers with each of his scythes. His two new opponents threw themselves at him alongside the four behind, and yet somehow, miraculously, Clay managed to hold them off for a few moments, dancing between their attacks like smoke through one’s fingers.

“Let’s go!” Sabrina repeated, desperately dragging the man toward the exit. “Please!”

Tears forming in his eyes, the man with the cross finally stopped resisting. They took the first step over the rubble.

“Clay… CLAY! Please… Don’t die, partner!”

He took one last, painful look back; he would never see his Pokemon again.

And they started to run.

[scorpius-major]

#Catch me if you can

Ft: Childe and gn!reader

Synopsis: in which you are his sworn enemy, but that doesn’t stop him from falling head over heels for you

contains: bulleted hcs and a small Drabble. Mentions of sparing/fighting and mild cursing. Also reader is mentioned to be the honorary knight, but not the traveler

final notes: okay guys hear me out Ik this is like the third bit of Childe content I’ve posted but listen he’s my baby girl. To make up for it I am posting a part two to this for Diluc with a fatui!reader!

It's not easy being the fabled honorary knight of Favonius

Especially when this ginger fiend was everywhere you looked

Seriously, you swear he purposefully follows you everywhere

Trying to go out in liyue harbor? Say hi to Childe he’s right next to you

Getting some dango from a street vendor? He offers to pay for you.

And by offer I mean childe will not leave until you let him pay for it 

He’s the one always bringing up the fact that you’re enemies, yet he always acts like he’s in love with you

And he is but that’s not the point

He’s complete and utterly whipped for you

He sends you pretty letters in cursive signed “C” so you always know it’s him

On some pretty little liars shit

Acts really elusive

He’s everywhere but nowhere at the same time

And it’s never when you want to see him

Miraculously you only see him whenever you don’t wish to see him

Very dramatic

Drones on and on about how he can’t be seen with you

All while his arm is securely wrapped around your waist

Childe also has very big entrances and exits

Referred to himself as your “handsome and mysterious nemesis”

Yknow for a so called nemesis he sure loves being around you

He’d Definitely crack in the middle of battle

Always giving compliments and praises when y’all are at each other’s necks

Speaking of which he LOVES to spar with you

Always asking when you can spar him next

He’d confess in the middle of battle

Y’all be fighting like an abyss mage and he just randomly goes “will you go out with me?” And stops fighting momentarily

Then you give him the biggest bitch wtf face

But you accept nonetheless bc who are you to decline?

“I’ll take one tri-coloured dango please.” The golden hue of the setting sun casted a perfect tone on the already delicious looking dessert cart. You were always a sucker for sweet things, no matter the kind. this time you could enjoy one simple thing without Childe coming to interrupt you. The vendor nodded, handing you a small folded paper dish with a stick of skewered dango on it.

Before you could reach for your mora pouch a familiar voice rang through your ears. Not again, you thought. “I’ll pay for it, it’s my treat” Without even looking you instantly knew who it was. Goddamn Childe once again. “No” you retort. letting him get that smug satisfaction was not on your to-do list. You swiftly hand the vendor some mora and take your dango in one fell swoop. Childe pouts, trailing after you.

“You should have just let me pay for it” you speed up your walking, but he matches your speed all too quickly. Pausing momentarily to see if he had left you alone yet, your guard is let down briefly. Before you could notice what happened, mora was placed next to your dango. You sigh, noticing the golden coins before you. “Archons Childe, just take it back I don’t want to be in debt to you.”

“Catch me if you can, honorary knight”

And with that he was gone once again.

[kitwilsonsass]

Would PD be fun on edibles/would they be fun to hang out with if you had taken an edible and they hadn’t? I can’t decide if they’d make me feel safe or if they’d have me convinced I’d taken the forever weed and was going to be high forever. One of them would be flickering the lights like we were at a rave while the other was dancing with glow sticks and I’d be sobbing.

i think they'd be fun on like

one small brownie split between them levels of edible

like i think that would just give them +10 himbo levels

like, one PAN split between them because 'i don't think this is doing anything, darling.' 'maybe we should take another one? like, just one though.' [5 brownies later]?

fully but disheveledly clothed, sitting again their headboard, comforter up to their waists.

ellie just. sobbing. for like 45 minutes straight. the blanket is actually *damp*. over what? he doesn't know. and his venting changes subject every single time he tries to explain it. it's something about a daddy long legs on the wall now and what made a daddy long legs a daddy and not it's son or brother or cousin and was it all about size? was the biggest one just the daddy? did size matter? was this some toxic masculine shit that said just because someone was bigger that made them inherently more powerful and worthy of rights than you? the little guy? just trying to make it in showbus-

kitty just dead silent staring at the wall, his eyelid keeps twitching. he can't *move* and ellie's been crying for what he's pretty sure has been at least three hours. he's starting to think every time he repeats a vowel mid sniffle is when his eyelid is twitching. is that a spider? is it? it looks like a crack in the wall just a large large... large.... largelargargelarge crack in the wall and if he keeps *STARING* at it it's going to oopenup and sw allow- 'if the wall opens up and takes you alive into the dark black abyss i can't follow you in there.'

-showbusiness. 'WHAT?!' that doesn't make him feel any better.

ANYWAY....

i think if you took one and they hadn't they'd be super safe tbh. they are canonically at least lowkey Defenders of Women so they'd totally be there to play the 'supportive but here to keep you from being taken advantage of' friends

but also they are so ridiculous that you think it might have been LSD instead.

[bbraefairy]

ONLY FOR YOU

synopsis ➝ rachel is in toxic relationship with her boyfriend, ace. when rachel moves to jump city and meets her neighbor garfield, things get complicated.

warnings ➝ toxic relationships, smut n kinks (rough sex, spanking, oral sex, etc.), hook-up, profanity. dom!gar sub!rae

this story is not intended to endorse toxic relationships, elements are simply for plot. characters are 20+ n all sex is safe, sane, con.

a/n ➝ literally one of my proudest works, i hope u guys enjoy this snippet !!

ᖭི༏ᖫྀ (( ch 18, 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 )) ᖭི༏ᖫྀ

“Arch your back.” He says, and she does, "Jus' like you did for me when we took that picture. Don't even have the hands to record you 'nd how pretty you look for me, but I'll make it up."

Garfield teased his phallus against Rachel’s folds. His mass, folded in her crevices, moves against the exterior of her abyss, and the crack of her ass. There’s small rings of redness around the jewels in her back, which he brushed his thumb over.

He rasped, "Jewels look hot as hell on your back, Rae."

Rachel makes a needy sound, and her hand, above her head, curls into a fist against the wall.

“You’re testing me.” The annoyance in her voice is obvious.

“I am. Tryna see how long it’s gonna take for you to stop being so prideful and beg for me.”

Rachel winced, feeling his tip play about an inch inside of her, then pull ever so slowly out.

“Please, Gar."

“Hi, angel face. Feel like talkin’ to me now?” He nibbled her ear, and bit down on it lightly.

“Mm—” Rachel's mouth got caught between her teeth as she grasped his forearm. Then she guided his phallus where she wanted it, “Get inside of me, please, please, please.”

“There you go, sweet girl, that's all you had to say."

He dipped himself in her magic depths at a leisurely pace, “Shit,” Garfield roughly grabbed her face, and put one of his index fingers in her mouth. She sucked. Then he husked, “You’re so wet and desperate, Rae.”

Her temptation was scorching and running over, and he was reduced to a feral creature because of the magic dust in between her thighs. Rachel’s voice cracks as the roughness of her skin against the wall, the soreness of the new piercings, the numbness in her knees, and Garfield’s discourteous fucking immersed her nervous system.

But she kept going — Yes, yes, fuck meee.

Pain tolerance.

Rachel writhed, praising her neighbor. Wisps of her hair got caught in her mouth as she squealed. “Just like that, Gar. I want to get every inch of you that I can. Yes, fuck, I love that. Rough as fuck— Gar!”

Garfield tightens his grip on her hips, holds her arm behind her back so she could feel more tension. Grunt deep in his chest. Tugs her hair ‘cuz he knows she likes that. 

“You tell me you hate me, tell me to mark you all over, tell me you want every inch of me. You jus’ love when I fuck you, that bad.”

Shades of grey and deep intoxication. Poetic seduction and dripping almond. Sweet apple and a mystic core. He was careening and ravenous, as he met the piece of heaven residing between her thighs. Her softness was compatible with his roughness. His thrusts deepens her arch. Cosmic precipice and the flux.

They were a gritty, erotic union.

A sound of pleasure breaks from Rachel’s mouth.

“You can’t be too loud, angel face. I know it’s hard.”

But she can’t keep the sounds from coming, and they get more erotic and loud as he keeps going at it. 

And he wasn’t planning to stop now.

Garfield shakes his head, takes her shredded underwear and stuffs it in her mouth. She could taste the pre-wetness on her tongue. It was like she was given a taste of her own medicine. It was like he was out for revenge. Whether it was because she was with Ace before him, or that he loved to ravage her.

Both were reasonable conclusions.

“Panties in your mouth since you can’t keep quiet.”

Then he fucks her even deeper. Even rougher.

Rachel’s eyes were watery with desire, her makeup was smudged, and a puddle of warmth was brewing inside of her. Rachel’s head angles back, and Garfield interlaces his fingers with her hand that was on the wall. He holds her arm that was behind her back and in his hand tighter.

Garfield whispers gently in Rachel’s ears as tears glissade down the creases of pleasure in her face. She bites down hard on the fabric as his deep whisper tingled on her neck. “Stay with me, sweet girl. Stay with me."

Even then, she felt so cherished, seen, and cared for.

Drenched inhibitions and words recited just below a whisper. Giving and receiving. Streaming and pulsing. Ethereal creatures and ecstatic rhythms. Deep breaths and broken ebbs. She moaned, muffled, when he told her to take it. Told her to make it. Selfish and benevolence. Fully attuned to the need, desire, and ways to each other’s bodies.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Garfield’s knees turn to steel and he feels the pressure in his blood, “You got the strongest, wettest, most prettiest pussy in the world. I’m so lucky to have you.”

ᥫ᭡

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art credit: narutoss.ramen

[austajunk]

A structure of Hiyoko survivor mod, currently:

-Would need an official English PC version of DR2 to work

-Sonia dies in Hiyoko's place, the rest of the cases remains (almost?) exactly the same

-Sonia's original role in the trials is split between Hiyoko and Souda

-Souda's crush on Sonia is reinterpreted from "obsessive creepy stalker" to "a teenage boy feeling normal for his age attraction and poorly trying to act like a macho on it to cover up his insecurity" instead. As a result of this and also Sonia's death, pretty much all mentions of the crush entirely disappear from chapter 4 onwards

-Sonia had died because Hiyoko had bullied her into fetching the mirror from music venue for the latter, despite the former inviting her to go there together. The realisation of the fact that she had caused another person's death is the blow that causes the dancer's superiority complex to start cracking

-Hiyoko spends the entire chapter 3 investigation and trial being stuck in a swimsuit because of her not being able to tie her own kimono sash. To her great surprise, no one mocks or sexually harasses her for it, which causes her paranoia to start cracking as well

-Before her execution, Mikan dares Hiyoko to try becoming a better person. "Listen here, you little shit. If you manage to do one truly irreplaceably useful thing for your classmates before you leave the island, I promise to abandon my Beloved in the Abyss and came back to become your personal servant poltergeist. But guess what? YOU WOULDN'T! AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

-As a result of previous three points, Hiyoko starts chapter 4 way more humble and trying to amass control over her immature and bitchy parts. She still visibly feels all-consuming rage towards Nagito and Fuyuhiko, even though she tries to control it as well.

This is all really, really cool and I adore it.

May I offer some notes?

Regarding the second to last point of Mikan criticizing Hiyoko, I don’t quite think she’d do it like that even in her Despair form. The thing is, Mikan does like Hiyoko and only killed her in the original because Hiyoko was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not that Mikan wouldn’t have some ill will towards Hiyoko due to the bullying but it seemed that she was rather attached to her as well.

That being said, I like the idea of a devious Remnant Mikan criticizing Hiyoko at the end like she does to Nagito. So I don’t think she would do it quite as loudly as what you proposed. It would be a more insidious and quiet, singsong suggestion to Hiyoko that could really get under her skin. Think “is it because you don’t have anyone to love?” as she did to Nagito. She would make the same teasing jab to Hiyoko in a more quiet manner that only Hiyoko would understand, something that chills Hiyoko to the core.

That’s my only note. Everything else is quite perfect and I really love what you have!! I can’t wait to see more!

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 286, Replies Part 2

1) “Neither do y'all know what’s actually in there, fighting them. If any of you knew you’d run away in fear, but there’s no running away.”- It’s a rock and a hard place situation, except both of them are walking incarnations of destruction, and both of them are moving closer together as time goes on…. 2) “WAIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIGARAKI PUTTING HIS HAND ON MIDORIYA WHAT NO NO NO NO ABSLOULTELY NOPE NOPE NOPE”- Actually, in this case we’re lucky, because it’s AFO putting Tomura’s hand on Izuku’s face, and his first order of business is to steal OFA before dusting Izuku, which gives our boy a second’s breathing room that others don’t have. 3) “OH THIS PLACE SEEMS FAMILIAR

OH GOD WE’RE ABOUT TO SEE SOME SHIT AREN’T WE

IS THIS GONNA BE A BATTLE IN THE MINDPLACE ARE WE GONNA PULL A STAN PINES”- Unfortunately, Izuku doesn’t have an ironclad defence built into his brain like an Iron plate or such, as evidenced by the crumbling jagged cracks you can see seeping into this place, originating from the presence of the mental fusion between Tomura and AFO. Just them being here is already starting to eat away at OFA’s defences, and once that goes, so too does Izuku. 4) “OH GOD THERE’S THEM

AND AFO SEEMS TO BE PUTTING SHIGARAKI DOWN 

OH THIS IS NOT GONNA BE GOOD”- Putting him down by assimilating his mind into nothingness. Tomura always thought he’d be the big bad villain, was told by Garaki and AFO this would be the case, and it was technically correct….with the cravat that it was always going to be AFO in the driver’s seat once Tomura’s body was ready. 5) “OH GOD IT LOOKS LIKE HE’S GROWING OUT OF SHIGARAKI LIKE A PLANT, OR A FUNGUS”- The positioning also makes Tomura look like a literal ventriloquist’s dummy, underscoring how he’s becoming a puppet of AFO’s in body and mind.

(MHA ch 285)

6) “HE REALLY FUCKING TOOK OVER OH JESUS FUCK WE DIDN’T EVEN GOT TO SAY GOODBYE TO SHIGARAKI”- Well, Tomura’s not completely gone within, but it’s only a matter of time before the assimilation finishes….

7) “I RECOGNIZE THAT GLOVE

IT’S HER ISN’T IT???”- Izuku’s fought until his body and soul literally can’t stand up straight anymore. It’s about time the adults in his head pulled some weight of their own. 8) “IT’S HER

BUT NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT, I’M NOT LIKING THAT WE’RE HAVING BOTH OF THEM HAVING A HAND PLACED ON THEIR HEADS AS AN OLDER SPIRIT TELLS THEM THAT THEY ARE THERE TO TAKE CARE OF THINGS 

I’M REALLY NOT LIKING THIS”- It’s again a showcase in contrasts. AFO’s hand on Tomura is full of “bad Touch” (in all senses of the word) vibes, almost petting him, whilst keeping his face bowed towards the ground, so he can’t stand up straight, showing his oppression. Nana’s hand is there as a support to Izuku, to let him know that he doesn’t need to keep trying to do it all himself and to just rest back for a moment whilst they take over the fight, now it’s moved into a realm where the Vestiges can contribute. 9) “Midoriya can’t lose his quirk here, but I’m having a feeling that he won’t leave this fight unscathed. There will be a price to be paid for being that close to the Lord of Evil himself. He is staring into the abyss, and his face is close enough that the Abyss can reach him”- Say, do you remember how AFO seemed to somehow know things about Izuku, like when OFA was awakening to the dormant Quirks of the past holders?

And do you recall how, in Harry Potter, it was revealed that Harry was actually an unknowing Horcrux to lord Voldemort himself, giving the latter the ability to mentally influence him in book 5, in order to serve his will? And how the wills of the past holders are similarly capable of controlling Izuku’s body if his own will is overridden?

I’m not saying that the Vestiges won’t be on guard against mental intrusion from AFO, but there’s a hell of a lot of overlap between the HP books and this whole “stealing my protégée’s soul to live forever” plot AFO’s cooked up, and that should be very concerning for Izuku…

10)

On a related note, the reason Izuku's depicted as a cute sheep as his spirit animal is because of thier shared adorableness, but also, if given enough time to train/grow, a sheep can fully grow their horns in, and become extremely capable of messing you up with them, just like All Might the Ram with the grown horns is the strongest hero in the world, so it's to showcase how he's both cute and deceptivly dangerous at the same time. Aaaand, here's the chapter recap by Doodlelotl:

@thelreads