#((perhaps char was just in the area and felt like fucking some shit up for one demon in particular?))

[bornbreathless]

“ ‘I mean this offensively’ is the most you thing you’ve ever said. ” Cain

@murderdeals

"What, was I supposed to act like I was giving constructive criticism? Sadly there really is no hope for some people, and demons are no exception, really it's kinder to just be up-front about that."

She flicks an imaginary speck of dust from her shoulder, as if the demon smoking out of its - she prods the body with her toe - incredibly dead host might have left some kind of residue on her freshly laundered jacket.

"Besides," she continues, stepping over the corpse and offering an amused grin that hardly seems appropriate for the situation. "It's not my fault they messed up their summoning. Obviously no-one ever told them that handwriting matters when it comes to glyphs, otherwise your summoning circle might as well be made of tissue paper. What are they teaching them in Hell these days?"

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 109

Happy Spooptober, everyone!

I’ve been planning since about February to do another camping trip this month, for the season.  I was super fortunately back in May to have some stories left over to share, that I didn’t have the opportunity for last time.  So thanks go to @catolicabuena for your submission, and to @dierotenixe for the PERFECT character to add to this chapter.

As always, thanks go to @zazen-rabbit, @baelpenrose, and @charlylimph-blog for being the beta readers and cheering section I need every day, no matter what.

As a reward for the clear, focused argument Charly gave in favor of Shalt-kri’i/Ekomari hostilities being over cultural misunderstandings earned her a reward of her choice.  I don’t know what Arthur expected, but part of me expected her to ask him something like throwing the class a party, showing up to teach class in sparkly footie-pajamas.  Her response, instead, left me convinced there was a conspiracy between her, Conor, and other mysterious parties to keep track of the Terran holidays.

“It’s almost Halloween,” she immediately pointed out. 

How? How did she say that so certainly? I wasn’t even sure it was Friday.

Oblivious to my thoughts, she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Today’s Tuesday - “ See!? “Which means Halloween is just under two weeks away? I think?”

“Your guess is probably better than mine,” I admitted. “Between the extra long days, artificial light, and consistent temperatures, I have no idea anymore.”

“She’s spot on,” Tyche confirmed, without even looking up.  We were sitting in my living room, digging into ice cream while all the guys were at work.

“How - “ I sputtered. “How are y’all keeping track of this?”

Tyche rolled her eyes, while Charly snagged my wrist and shook it. When my datapad popped up, she gave me the deadest stare I had ever seen on her face. “There is a calendar on this thing. You do know that, right?”

My face and neck burned so hot, I was surprised my hair didn’t catch on fire. “I keep it on the daily view, so I can see all my appointments.”

“Which is why she has me and Alistair,” my sister pointed out lazily before scooping up another spoonful of dessert. “By the way, this pumpkin ice cream is pretty good.”

I nodded, having had a scoop earlier.  We had been trying every flavor we could think of.  

True to form, Charly’s was a screaming purple that honestly scared me, sprinkled with gummy bears and some kind of acid-green syrup. Every time she leaned my direction, I couldn’t repress the flinch. “Pumpkin is a good point. We should go camping again, and carve pumpkins.”

I could almost feel my ears pick up. “You mean like jack-o-lanterns?”

“Duhhhhh,” she scooped up a large enough bite to convince me it probably wasn’t toxic. “I know we can’t have open flames in the lab, but we can still put emitters in them.”

“Where are we even going to get pumpkins in time?” Neither woman would look at me. “What did y’all do?”  I sighed.

“We did nothing,” Tyche insisted, chin jutting out stubbornly. “Now Sam….”

An audible smack sounded when I dropped my forehead to my palm. “How big?”

Charly gave me the widest puppy-dog eyes she could. “How big are what?”

“The pumpkins…”

“Pretty big,” Tyche smirked. “I don’t think I’ve seen even you carve any this big, honestly.”

I wasn’t a professional carver by any means, or even competitive, but I had done some pretty big ones in the past, so I was a little excited to see these.

 A couple nights later, sure enough, several of us were carrying our camping gear to the now-less-eerie clearing where our previous camping trip had taken place.  Even though Sam had decided not to join us, we were greeted by the sight of six enormous pumpkins around the edges of the space.  In awe, I approached one and ran my hand over it - I actually had to lift my hand, seeing as the thing came nearly up to my hips. “How long has he been growing these?” I asked.

“Just over three months?” Conor huffed, setting down our gear. “The things love our best guess of Von’s environment, turns out.”

“No shit,” I whispered before clearing my throat. “I don’t think we have large enough containers for the guts and everything in these.”  The deal with camping in the Lab was that we had to take out everything brought in with or for us.  While Grey agreed to allow the jack-o-lanterns to decorate the area for the next two weeks - ostensibly as a study of decomposition - if we couldn’t remove the waste from the pumpkins, we couldn’t carve them.

Something that felt like plastic beaned me in the face. While I rubbed my face, I glanced down at my feet where whatever-it-was fell. 

Maverick started apologizing before I could figure out what I was looking at. “Oh god, Sophia, I’m sorry! I meant to toss that on top of the pumpkin!”

With a joking scowl, I glanced at the vegetable between us. “How bad does your aim have to be to miss that thing?”

“Are you okay?”

“Only if you tell me what just hit me in the forehead?”  I tried leaning over to pick them up again, but Conor beat me to it.

“They’re composting bags,” Maverick admitted. “I brought them just in case. They were the only thing large enough and portable enough to at least get in here.”

“It looks like a roll of garbage bags,” Simon pointed out skeptically, poking the roll of pseudo-plastic Conor was holding.

Conor smiled and shrugged. “Pretty similar.”

Soon, we were spreading out and setting up our gear in  a familiar pattern. Just as the last bit of gear was stuffed into the tents or spread on the ground, Antoine’s head snapped up and over his shoulder. “Does anyone else hear that?”

Silence fell as we strained our ears to listen.  The others started looking around, searching for something, before I was able to actually catch what they were hearing.  Finally, I was able to hear what sounded like music, but it was in a minor key that sent shivers up my spine.  It was another minute or so before I could make out words drifting through the trees. 

“ -  a year, and then

A few weeks, doubled, and tripled again,

A fire was struck by a warrior’s band

Meant for food, warmth, and a place to stand”

“What the - “ Tyche started wandering toward the music, clearly expecting us to follow. “It’s beautiful, but so sad.”

Reluctantly, I followed, reminding myself that this was a lab, that the faerie ring we were standing in was manufactured as a prank.

 “Yet one bough too many was placed inside

The flames roared to life as they screamed and cried

Tore down the trees as the warriors fled

And only ceased by the river’s bed

 The warriors slain, charred skulls and bone

Have remained in the forest for years, alone

Yet a magic imbued in their ashen remains

That entered a child who hid in great pain”

 I glanced over my shoulder, and saw about half our group behind me, including - “Arthur, why do you have your sword?”

“Because it’s steel,” he shrugged, like that actually answered my question. “Which means it has iron in it, and we’re in space, so any fucked up space-fae might not know the difference.”

 “In order to warn those who may stay

In the trees embrace, and walk away

The girl reads the thoughts of those who stand

On the ashes of noses, bowels, and hands

 She sends them away with a haunted scream

That tears into souls with a power unseen

No one has entered who has not fled

Only to drown in the river’s bed”

 Because that line was reassuring as I realized we were getting toward the artificial lake. Totally want to hear about drowning in a river bed, on a Halloween camping trip, sang by a creepy voice I didn’t recognize.  A voice that we were steadily getting closer to, no less.

 “For what place is safer from fire and flame

Than the rushing of water, a power untamed

The danger evaded, the human is saved

As their lungs are filled with a liquid depraved

 To step foot in the forest is to invite death

For though the child has drawn their last breath…”

 Tyche came to a sudden stop, both hands abruptly on her hips.  She glanced back at me, one eyebrow arched, and twitched her head toward the lake.  The voice was incredibly close to us at this point, so I peeked past her as carefully as I could.

Even in the low light of the BioLab during simulated-night, I saw a bright gleam of silver trailing through the water, interrupted only by a thick, red-gold cable draped halfway down.

“Their soul remains as though chained to the ground,” Nixe smiled with her eyes as she wound the song to a close. “And they’ll tear you apart until you are drowned.”

“Very funny,” Tyche half-scolded. “You did that on purpose.”

A lazy flick of her tail accompanied a cool glance over the surface of the water. “Perhaps,” she replied calmly. “And perhaps not. I often swim at night. And I like to sing, it’s in my nature.”

“But a song about ghosts, and vengeance, and drowning?”

“I’m a siren, Administrator Reid.” A bright flash of teeth that my brain told me were sharper than I knew they were. “All of my songs are about love, and revenge, and how else do sirens take revenge?” Another lazy splash. “I can’t exactly burn people at a pyre.”

“I loved it!” Charly spoke up from behind me. “We’re camping for Halloween, so it was perfect!” I had to admit, at least to myself, that she had a point.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one. From over my shoulder, I heard Arthur murmur “Siren or not, you’re insane.” A brief pause. “But I love the spooky music…”

I couldn’t be certain that she heard the comment, but Nixe’s eyes suddenly snapped over my shoulder to the side where it sounded like Arthur was standing. “Iron has no effect on me, Educator,” she stated firmly, flicking her tail to make a point. “But I mean none of you any harm, so please put the blade away. One near-death experience is plenty, thank you.”

A metallic rasp told me Arthur had acquiesced. “Apologies, I didn’t know it was you.”

“Were it anyone else, you still wouldn’t need that sword.” She tilted her head. “I would be there first.”

“Okay!” I interrupted, trying to break the tension. “Nixe, we’re camping and carving pumpkins.  Did you want to join us?”

Another smile, this one less terrifying. “I appreciate the invitation, but I have plans tonight.  I do apologize for interrupting your evening.”

“We were just surprised,” Charly explained. “But it was beautiful and perfect and thank you!”

With a nod, Nixe turned her body toward the artificial lake. “I am glad the song was appreciated.  Good night.”

<< Prev   Masterlist   Next >>

[n-anon]

Febuwhump Day 20: Betrayal

Description: Disguising himself as Marvin? Easy. Getting everyone to believe it? A bit harder. (End of this lil series in this thing, links below to the parts in order!)

(TW: Torture, Broken bones, knives, magic, mentions of brainwashing)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

An echoing crack echoed in the small room as Marvin felt the whiplash, tears in his eyes as Anti stood in front of him, wearing the mask, a smirk on his face, he was leaning back, the other in the room? Jackie. Marvin wanted to scream at him, to tell him that the Marvin behind him wasn’t him, that he was right here, but without his cape and mask, he looked just like Anti....Plus ‘Marvin’ had used his own magic books to silence his voice. Jackie cracked his neck, “Damn Marv, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. I wanted to get steam off of him in a long time.” He saw his doppelganger grin, “Feels cathartic, don’t it?~” He felt his magic boiling, if only he could get out of this circle! Dammit he was helpless...He only hoped Jackie could see through the façade, “To tell the truth....” He froze, no. “You’ve known for a while, actually.” He wanted to scream at Jackie not to listen to Anti, to free him, he struggled only to get struck again with Jackie not even looking at him, but at Anti. “Wait-what?” Anti stepped forward, a knife in hand he was twiddling with, “You kind of interrupted the ritual to get him here, i had to silence you...So I brainwashed you to forget it. I sincerely apologize.” He bowed his head, though Marvin saw the smirk as Jackie worked that through, “.....Shit....Really? Fuck-I’m sorry Marv. Anyway...” He socked Marvin across the side, and he could hear one of his ribs break, he nearly sobbed out, tears forming in his eyes and he looked at Jackie with pleading eyes, please. I’m not glitching Jackie! Please! Help me dammit! For a split moment, Jackie’s eyes were unsure, he bit his lip and turned to Anti, only for him to be in front of Marvin, slicing a knife down his shirt, shredding it, “I was thinking we could maybe rip him open, see if he has a heart or not.” Jackie stared at him, then at Marvin, “.....Why isn’t he glitching?”

Yes, Jackie! Point that out. Please- He winced as Anti’s knife slowly traced the area around his heart, before a smirk formed on his face, placing it on his chest and a glitch forcefully ripped through him, and he nearly screamed, is this what it felt like? It was hell- Jackie no! He saw Jackie’s unsureness disappear and thus his last hope, “Sure. Here let me do it.” He holds out his hand for the knife, as Anti tilts his head and does, handing it over, only for Jackie to stab him, “Jackie-?” ‘Marvin’ backs away from him, as Jackie grabs him by the collar, “You think I’m dumb? I know Marvin when I see him, and you are not him.” Anti stood there, staring at the heroes eyes, and then laughed, the mask falling as he glitched out of Jackie’s grip, “Always too smart hero.” He glitched towards Marvin, only for Jackie to tackle him to the ground, “You’re not going anywhere, tell me how to get him out of that circle!” Anti chuckles, “Perhaps you should ask the magician himself~.” He felt the crackle of static electricity in the air as he glitched out of existence and Jackie rushed towards Marvin untying him, “How-How do I get you to talk again? Please, Marv, tell me I made the right choice....” Marvin gestured towards a book and as Jackie recited the words, he let out a gasp, grasping at his throat, he fell to the ground on his knees....”Thank you. For not believing him....What gave him away?” Jackie stood above him, “I don’t know, but when he told me, I for some reason didn’t believe him, plus when I walked in here...the energy. Something about it was off...then I saw your look, the way you weren’t glitching, and I knew....” He reached down to help Marvin up, but saw the magician flinch back, “Don’t. Don’t touch me....I need a moment.” Jackie bit his lip, “Of course. Marvin-You know I didn’t mean to go that hard, right? I had to make him-” Marvins voice snapped him out of that reality “Believe you, I know. I just-....Need a moment.” Jackie nodded. Letting him catch his moment as he sucked in a breath and reached down, his palm glowing, the circle disappeared and he made it glow a different color, applying it to the rib, the scars mending a little, then reaching for his mask but finding he was too weak, he just collapsed, he heard Jackie calling his name as he was picked up and rushed towards Schneep’s room. 

Anti glitched back into the room as he saw Jackie take Marvin out, he glanced at the mask on the ground and kicked it out of the way, leaning down and stroking the floor where the circle was, he glanced backward at voices coming down the hall, and snickered, grabbing the book that Marvin had left lying there, and glitching back out. He would have that power. The magician would join his side eventually, it was only a matter of time. His first taste of betrayal would be bitter on his tongue, and eventually this would fester into him running straight into his arms and strings. He licked his lips and placed the book before him, his eyes eagerly scanning the page, and if he wasn’t going to come to him...He could always f͕͕̳͖̞̤o̩̱̰̩rc̞͇̜͖̺̟̕e̩͝ him to come.

(A/N: Yeesh, this was insane. I hope y’all enjoyed this lil series within a daily writing thing lol I like this sort of idea of interconnecting some of the stories cuz its just fun to do. If you wanna be added to the tag list, just let me know via DM or ask or comment below! Reblogs are highly appreciated too, thank you!)

Tag List:  @antis-gauge @caithesavage777 @eliza-prince @a-bnana @pyranoia @pmaismydna @miishae @heely-um @innocent-angel3 @randowaffle @darcywillfindyou @randowaffle @asexualerror @char-arts-occasionally

[sarah-bae-maas]

Rowaelin AU! chapter four

AU! where the valg wars never happened, but Rowan and Aelin still stumble upon each other anyway

Chapter 1     Chapter 2       Chapter 3       Ao3       Masterlist

***

Aelin could feel every muscle in her body as she lay in bed groaning. She couldn’t even appreciate the books tempting her on her nightstand, she was too sore to pick them up and hold the behemoth hardbacks. She thought after over a fortnight of non-stop training her body would be more accustomed now, especially since she was quite fit even before she started her training with Rowan. She had spent half her life with the best soldiers her parents could offer her, but they were nothing compared to this. She genuinely didn’t know how she was going to get out of bed to meet Rowan.

“Good morning,” Elide chirped as she strode in Aelin’s room, slamming the large doors behind her. Elide lived in the next room over, and like Aelin, her room was more of a self-sustained apartment than anything else. Both had their beds, sure, but also bathrooms, kitchenettes, and sitting rooms. They wouldn’t have to leave their rooms at all if they didn’t desire it.

“It is not a good morning.”

“Hush. Rowan sent this with me when I went for my morning rounds.” Elide threw a piece of paper at her before going to her drawers, pulling Aelin out an outfit for the day.

Edge of the forest. Noon.

Succinct and to the point, exactly what she’d always come to expect from him. If they were moving, maybe now he would let her use her flames. But if he was so confident in his ability to stifle her, she didn’t know why he needed to go all the way there to do it.

“How have you been, Elide? Dorian sent his regards as he left.” A knot formed in Aelin’s stomach when she thought of how she’d neglected Elide’s feelings of late.

“I had a very scandalous dream about Ren last night. But I think it’s just because I’m craving attention.”

“You could have any man you wanted.”

“And I’ve wanted many, but I want to wait for one that wants me.” Elide tossed Aelin’s clothes at her then lay down on the unoccupied side of the bed, sighing.

Aelin patted her on the arm, gritting her teeth as she got up and changed. “You can have Rowan.”

“He is rather dashing.”

“And a fantastic lover.”

“Hm, but I really don’t want my best friend’s sloppy seconds.”

“Elide!”

“I’m joking, of course.”

“Perhaps Lorcan will take your eye and give you the night you deserve.”

Elide smiled, winking at Aelin. “I’m working on it.”

____

Rowan hadn’t originally planned to start Aelin with her fire today, but he wanted to get away from Lorcan. How Lorcan had the audacity to call Rowan moody after how he behaved last night, Rowan would never know. His plan was foiled when the Bastard of Doranelle had joined him fifteen minutes before Aelin was expected to show.

Rowan grunted in his direction but didn’t offer any real words. He was too focused on when Aelin might come to offer him any attention. He was moving any kindling from the immediate area, creating a makeshift clearing for them. He wanted to be nice and far away from any other people when they started testing her fire, and the trees were so close that the past autumn’s leaves had left a thick layer of debris on the ground.

“What’s the plan?” Lorcan asked, picking at his teeth and not helping at all.

“I’ll train her like we do the children. She’s learnt bad habits from her previous tutors, she’ll need to start afresh. You’ll need to leave.”

“I thought I could observe today.”

“You thought wrong. Piss off.”

Lorcan grunted, flicking something he’d recovered from his teeth at Rowan. Rowan balked at him, giving him a what the fucklook.

“I’m sorry I annoyed you last night, or whatever,” Lorcan said.

“Annoyed me? Annoyed me?You’ve been stealing my shit, including the royal seal my parents left me. My clothes? It hasn’t been the poor laundress that misplaced them, you just got your grubby hands on them first. Or what about the weapons my cousin had made for me? Suddenly adorned on you like you use them regularly. If you miss the finery of the homeland so much why don’t you just go back, I don’t need you here.”

“Saying you don’t need me is like saying fish don’t need water.”

“Lorcan, I will kill-”

“I’ve had them for a good reason.”

“Doubtful.”

“Can you please just let me explain?” Lorcan ran his hands over his face, and Rowan dropped the pile he was holding so he could cross his arms and stare Lorcan down.

“Go on then.”

“You’ve met Elide, yes? I know she thinks highly of you, because you weren’t a bumbling buffoon when you met her like I was. I was following her, like a complete idiot, and scared her so much she ran into a wall. She’s a lady – a verifiable lady and I’m just the male who made her slam herself into a building. When we started speaking, I panicked and told her I was a royal. I was wearing your clothes because I’d run out of mine – okay yes I stole them – and suddenly I became this whole other person.”

���That makes… no sense. Why would you be following Elide through her morning market dash. Why then lie about who you are?”

“Because she is impeccable. And I’m not good enough to be her mate.”

___

As Aelin approached the training yard, which was a very loose descriptor from the looks of it, in her fae form, she could just pick up on Rowan and Lorcan talking in hushed voices. Rowan was close to Lorcan, his hands on his shoulders, and Lorcan’s head was bowed. Rowan seemed to be giving him some sort of pep-talk, but Aelin didn’t know what.

Their heads snapped in her direction when they heard her approaching, and all their words stopped. Rowan turned away from her, and Lorcan gave her a polite smile before leaving.

“What was that about?” she asked, watching Lorcan’s retreating figure.

“None of your business. Stand over there.”

“A please wouldn’t go astray.”  

He deflected her words, starting her with physical excises to help limber up her body. Aelin started to question the location change, wondering if Rowan just wanted to punish her where no one could hear her screams.

The air was brisk, a cold breeze throbbing around them, but Aelin was grateful for its presence. She could feel herself getting hot, not just from working with Rowan but also because her magic was trying to bubble to the surface. It could feel his doing the same, and Aelin knew he wouldn’t let himself build like this if her magic wouldn’t play some role in how today went. After nearly two hours, she had her answer.

“Show me what you can do,” Rowan said.

Aelin stood in front of him, trying to get her flames to show themselves, beads of sweat starting to drip down her brow as she did. Rowan was looking at her expectantly, like he thought something should have happened by now. Aelin closed her eyes, forgetting he was there, forgetting everything was. Why was it that she could barely summon her flames when she wanted them, but if she tried to dissipate them they rampaged from her?

She inhaled and exhaled, visualising the fire breaking from her skin and spreading onto the earth, like blood from a cut. It was there, she could feel it. It was like her blood was boiling, the bubbles of her magic so close to spilling over but not quite there yet. She pushed harder, ringing in her ears starting to block everything out. She thought she could vaguely hear someone calling her name.

Her toes, hips, shoulders, ears, they were running through her like the current of a river rushing towards the mouth of the ocean.

Princess Aelin.

Faster, harder, the bubbling waters were trying to find a way out.

Stop.

Soon, soon they would be free. She buckled down, when they were out, she could show Rowan why they feared her, and then he could set her free.

She felt a hand belt her face, and her eyes sprang open.

“Aelin, stop this!”

Rowan was shaking her, but it was too late.

She spewed out the flames, red and blue fire leaping from her whole body and pushing outward. Grass turned to ash, the trees went up like blazing lights, flames licking up their sides and into the sky. Her body was a portrait of heat, the flames licking her like she was their most scandalous lover.

And when the world was red, her wildfire loose and uncontrolled, it suddenly stopped.

It was like a candle going out. The light was there, and then in a split second it was gone.

Aelin could hear her heart breathing, felt every breath she took. Her vision focused, and she surveyed the damage around her. Everything within thirty metres of her was destroyed, black and charred, some trees reduced to nothing but ash. The sky was dark, so much smoke and soot in the air that it was hard to tell that it was the afternoon, it looked like the sun was setting she was so blocked from its rays.

And Rowan – Rowan.

He was cradling his hands to his chest, his face contorted with pain. He was biting his lip so hard it was bleeding, and Aelin had never heard the noises he was making before. His hands were – oh Gods, what had she done.

“I’m – Rowan, I’m so sorry,” she rushed to him, and he took a step back from her, his eyes wide and glassy. She could feel his wrath emanating from him – wrath mixed with agony. Worst of all, she could smell his injuries – like burnt meat.

“The fires, did I put them all out?” he spat, his mouth barely able to open when he spoke. The veins on his neck were popping from his pain, and his chest was heaving.

“Yes – how – I’m sorry.” She went to him again, and this time he didn’t flinch from her. She felt her eyes sting and didn’t bother wiping away the tears that seldom fell. Guilt ripped through her like her flames did the forest, and in that moment she knew she still had a little of her magic left. “I can fix it, please let me fix this.”

She tenderly grabbed his hands, and she could tell her was holding back howls of pain. He didn’t fight her as she beheld the injuries she inflicted, and didn’t question her when she held his hands to her face. With everything she had, she summoned the drops of water magic she’d been gifted and sent it all into him. Into his hands. Into his pain. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, his skin was perfect, bare of any scars or tattoos or remnants of the flames.

Wholly new.

“How did you do that?” he whispered, looking between his hands and her.

“It’s not all destructive,” she said back, her voice even lower than his.

“You are…”

She waited for him to chew her out, to throw in the towel like all those who came before him.

“Exquisite.”

She nearly choked.

He was now gazing at his hands in wonder, and not just that, but also the charred earth. It wasn’t until now that she realised how much she’d truly destroyed, and how much he’d saved in the second she’d exploded.

He was right when he said that he could obliterate her.

“How did you save my hands?”

“I – it’s from my water. I wish I had as much of it as I did my fire.”

He slid his hands from away from hers, and she thought he was going to leave. Instead, he cradled her face in his, turning it to meet his own. “Don’t you dare feel shame at what you can do. You are magnificent. This – this is magnificent.”

“I destroy everything I touch.” Her voice broke at the truth.

“And that is the fault of everyone that has come before you and tried to stifle what’s inside you.”

He swallowed, his lips parting. She moved into him, pressing her body flush against his, one of his hands moving to her hair. He angled his face down, pressing his forehead against hers. Her name was on his lips, and she was shaking. She could feel every press of the wind on her skin now, everything drained from her body.

They stood like that until they heard the hooves of the horses riding towards them, the shouts of their names as people feared she had killed them both. Rowan stepped away, and she heard her father’s voice join the herd.

Before they could hear him, he said one last thing to her. “Aelin, I’m not going anywhere.”  

[obutsuwrites]

Play with Fire (dabi x reader, pt. 1)

Summary: “You summoned the fire demon Dabi to feel up his horns?” This brat. xxx basically fire!demon dabi smut that's a 2 parter coz i'm gross :3c smut is in part2~!

words: 1,777

my ao3 for more shitposts

my inbox b open 4 requests~!

She was positive this time the ritual was flawless. The wooden floor displayed various burnt circles, all failed attempts. Drawing a perfect circle required practice. The task took longer due to the woman’s poor eyesight. Each circle had been abused for her ritual. Flecks of spice decorated them. Squinted eyes observed the shape. A smile plastered across her face. Yes, this was it.

Without haste, the young woman began to prepare the circle. Spices and herbs sprinkled around the scorched area, candles set in an outer half circle. The website had dictated no less than six inches between the burnt circle and the candles. A measurement the woman abided by. She was never one to stray from the usual. A strict woman.

It was the woman’s craft that led her to this. She was a minor pyromaniac. Blazes would send the flesh on her arms into euphoric goosebumps. The delight almost aroused her. She felt like she could devour the flames and become one. A hot exchange of fire and flesh. That thought aroused her. Fire licking at sensitive flesh; her face flushed with pleasure.

She squeezed her legs together. Thoughts pooled against her; the moist fabric of her panties noticeable. The woman had stumbled upon the site by accident. Her nightly viewing consisted of the occult and found footage of infernos. The woman’s interest in the occult was merely a hobby. She had heard hushed whispers speak of despicable flame demons. Monsters that used to ravish ancestors. Originally, she had assumed them to be rumors. However, the woman’s hunt for knowledge had gotten the better of her.

☼

The website looked like it was out of ‘97. Poorly animated neon graphics decorated the page, the cursor a tongue-in-cheek broom. In big circle letters read the site’s title: ‘Occult for Dummies~!’. It was almost cute. A website obviously made by a student for some web design class. She had chuckled at the thought. Curious fingers clicked the first graphic: ‘How to Summon Him~!’.

Him?  

Tired eyes tried to decipher the page. Foreign symbols and phrases were sprinkled through the article. The article was confusing. As if the summoning of a demon was science. As if it were real. She clicked off the page. A tidal wave of sleep washed over her.

☼

‘How to Summon Him~!’ had faded into obscurity. The woman’s mind consumed with the routine of suburbia. Job, go home, sleep. A schedule of mundane. However, a particular event revived the memory.

It was Friday. Promises on the weekend were a privilege for her; a much needed break from the conventional pattern. Normalcy was a bore for the young pyromaniac. Habitual work peppered in with sleep was tedious somehow. This is why infernos excited her; their chaotic, violent nature. Brilliant oranges and reds popping against kindling. The aroma of smoke invoked a sense of peace within her.

She was headed home. The traffic backed against the mid-afternoon sun. Heat pressed into her back, the woman seeking relief from a rolled window. Bored eyes scanned the road before, no stop in sight. She sighed. A soft sound stuck in the humid air.

Seeing it had caused a lump of excitement to form in her throat. The woman’s eyes stuck to a blossoming cloud of obsidian. A fire’s threat against the horizon. Air rushed from her lungs; the organ now starved for oxygen. The woman anxiously glanced around, traffic still thick as syrup.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Wobbly legs escaped the vehicle, trembling hands fumbled with the locks. Arousal mixing with sweat. The sun beat against her. The woman’s face ablaze from embarrassment and exertion. She shuffled to the sidewalk. An inferno awaiting her. Passion budded in her chest. The smell of smoke was an aphrodisiac. Legs carried her in search of the blaze.

Eventually, whiffs of smoke evolved into the asphyxiation of smog. An audible moan echoed into the black cloud; the sensation of choking was erotic. Helpless.

Before the woman stood the ancient, smoldering bones of a building, the inside reduced to charred bits of wood; phantoms of a house. Fire no longer raged inside. Little orange sparks against dying embers. The woman sighed. She never quite arrived early enough to see a fire in full force. Hungry flames that engulfed man and structure.

‘Occult for Dummies~!’ ‘Learn How to Summon Dabi: the Demon of Cremation!’

☼

“Okay, now I need… Oh fuck, yeah, I need the paper,” the pyromaniac thought aloud. A scrap of paper somehow hidden among the mess of soot and herbs. After furious digging, the woman found it. She had scribbled the phrases that were necessary on a scrap of singed paper. Abuse from failed attempts had reduced the sheet to a palm sized remnant.

Archaic words sprang forth from the woman; the evoking of a chant.

☼

Oh my fucking god. Jesus Christ. What the fuck?

She awoke from a daze, joints aching from an uncomfortable position. Her hardwood floors offered no support. The woman blinked sleep from her eyes. Had… had she fallen asleep again? Anticipating a myth?

Doubt settled in the pyromaniac’s chest. Perhaps, she did. Fucking stupid. The woman stood up, feet smudging soot. She didn’t quite remember turning off the nights or… how stupidly cold it was. Goose flesh prickled against the chill. Moonlight cast into the room; a faint LED 61 the only other light source. An awkward laugh echoed from her. Right. Sixty-one.  

Frigid hands reached blindly against the wall. Light flooded the modest space. Tired eyes noticed nothing suspicious. The scrap of burnt paper was simply that charred. Blackened ash sat underneath the occultist instruction. Her eyes lingered at the soot. It felt wrong. Soot had not… Had not been there before.

An exasperated sigh escaped the woman. Nothing would get done with such needless paranoia. The very idea was ridiculous. No stalker or crazy neighbor would break in, only to leave a slip of paper in embers. Who would just burn one piece ? Such a pathetic sliver of paper would require kindling. No inferno wasn’t complete without kindling.

☼

No light filtered through the blackout curtains; the young woman instead experiencing the shrill sound of an alarm. Negative ASMR. Sleepy hands fumbled in the darkness, eventually disarming the alarm. Stale breathe expelled into the room. The woman’s body still trapped in sleep. Muscles slack against a willing body.

“What… What the --”

Before she could finish her muttering, a foreign raspy voice resounded through the door. His true tone muffled from the wood.

“Gonna let me in?” He sounded bored. As if it was a usual activity to break into a single woman’s apartment and stand menacingly behind her bedroom door! This guy is a fucking pervert. Quick. Quick. She sat up; her body thrown into survival. I have scissors! Adrenaline filled legs carried the woman to the bathroom, her legs quivering from fear.

A rough knock broke her concentration. Blunt scissors were poised in her grip. The woman now adequately prepared for an intruder.

“I know you’re in there. You move like a mouse.”

The man’s tone held a hint of annoyance. Obviously, her reaction was inordinary.

Soft footsteps thumped through the room as she attempted to move quietly. Action movies taught surprise attacks. Hot breath was forced from her lungs. Her chest felt ablaze. The desperate sounds only fueled her anxiety.

The woman found her voice. “Get the fuck out. I mean it. I -- I have a fucking bat, asshole!” She waved around the scissors, trying to emulate bravery. Perhaps, he would buy her bluff.

“Little bit of a brat. Oh well. Your loss, I guess. I was summoned by you anyway,” the mysterious man replied, a throaty chuckle muffled. A sarcastic undertone in his voice.

Summoned?

“I summoned you? What the fuck are you talking about? Are you mentally deficient?” she mocked, a trembling hand against the cold door knob. The woman’s doubt mirrored through the warped brass.

Anxiety shot up the woman’s spine as she felt the knob jiggle. Horror ate into her belly; the woman paralyzed with fear.

“You’re not the pyro that started all those shit circles?” he asked.

Shit circles?!

The woman turned the knob. The wooden door ripped open, scissors in hand. “Listen, asshole. You can’t break into my home and tell me how shitty it is!” The words boomed from her tiny frame; the woman hopelessly dwarfed by the stranger in her living room. “It took me fucking hours.”

She noticed his skin first. A tapestry of pale flesh and charred remains, stitched together by staples that glistened in the moonlight. Electric turquoise eyes watched her. A stoic expression bore into his face. Messy strands of obsidian framed his face; a distinctive pair of horns sprouted from his head. Miniature goat horns coated in the same obsidian with specks of dull blue. Silver mismatched earrings hung from his lobes, the man’s only garment a pair of black shorts.

“Holy shit. Are you okay?”

The scarred man’s gaze didn’t falter. “No wonder. You barely summoned me.” His eyes traveled down her form. The scissors stayed to the woman’s hip. This man was mentally unhinged.

A laugh erupted from the woman. No fucking way. NO fucking way.  

“I know what this looks like,” she said, a free hand gesturing to the various ashened circles that decorated her floor. No getting the deposit back now. “I had a mild fire. It’s fine now. Uh, are you drunk? Were you at a con?” She had to admit the horns looked hyper realistic. As if they were an organic part of him.

“No. Don’t you listen? You,” he pointed to the woman, “summoned me.” The mortal before him was a brat. Her behavior was unbecoming. She should be worshiping him, begging the fire demon to wreak havoc.

The woman’s brows pulled together. A pensive quiet overcame the two. Lack of sleep was apparent. Fuck. What was a question to ask him? ‘Hey Dabi, those horns a prosthetic?’ She racked her brain to conjure the next step from the article. A crucial aspect she had neglected to write down.

A trembling hand reached up and grasped the man’s horn. The appendage felt solid. Craftsmanship was obviously a concern. She rubbed the horn, a soft vinyl met her touch.

“These bad boys real?” The question rushed from her mouth; the woman not realizing how crass she sounded. An urge to tug on them crept into her.

He smacked her hand away. A stern look now painted on his face. First, a stupid brat summons him. Now, she’s fondled his horns. The man felt insulted.

“You summoned the fire demon Dabi to feel up his horns?” This brat.

[jojotier]

This Is Fine

Everything was on fire.

Tsukishima stared blankly at the smoke-filled living room, smelling burning polyester from the only new piece of furniture they’ve been able to bring into this dilapidated hovel of a place. Not for the first time he wondered just how in the hell he ended up here. Dealing with this. Presumably for the rest of his life.

Koito was in a slightly contorted position on the floor, kneeling with one leg positioned slightly to the left, surrounded by claw of newt and various explosive chemicals in a ring where the fire refused to enter. And he had the absolute audacity to look startled at Tsukishima’s entrance.

“Don’t tell Tsurumi,” was the first thing out of Koito’s mouth. Whatever else he said got mangled with satsumaben. Then Koito’s foot, despite being safely held within the circle where flames didn’t reach, caught fire. Not that it seemed to hurt Koito and not that Tsukishima was particularly surprised. It was just... Something that he did. He caught on fire randomly and often and didn’t freak out about it unless it was in his hair. Spontaneous combustion was just one minor inconvenience, but god forbid Koito’s hair be sacrificed.

“I won’t tell Tsurumi.” Tsukishima very calmly said. “... But I’m not hiding it. He’s going to see the aftereffects of this.”

“What! No he won’t!” Koito hastily screeched, getting to his feet. The fire from his foot clawed up his leg slightly as his right shoulder also caught on fire. Tsukishima should probably do something about that. Maybe he’d wait just a few more seconds, though, to make Koito suffer. Maybe it was the beginnings of smoke inhalation, or maybe it was dismay at the fact that the couch they might’ve been able to make off with was going to be singed beyond comfort- but it felt like the right thing to do. Or at the very least, the most gratifying thing. “Tsukishimaaaaa!”

“Just put it out.”

“Tsukishi-maaaaaaaaaaaa!!! I CAN’T.” Koito quickly ran his fingers through his hair, freaking the fuck out as the fire raged around the both of them. If Tsukishima wasn’t used to casual arson, he might have been worried about a bit of rotting wood falling from the ceiling above. “I’m a fire mage!!! I START FIRES, I don’t know how to PUT THEM OUT.”

“We need to invest in a fire extinguisher.” Tsukishima idly said, starting towards the kitchen. It wasn’t advisable to open up the windows and suck the moisture from outside- then all this smoke would start billowing out, and on the off chance someone found this remote hovel, they’d be alarmed. Best to take all due precaution in concealing themselves, possible suffocation notwithstanding. Maybe he’d ask Tsurumi about squatting in a place with a more open floorplan next time…

“DON’T JUST LEAVE ME LIKE TH-”

Tsukishima indeed left him there like that. Just so long as he got some water before Koito’s hair succumbed to the blaze, there was enough time. Thankfully, there was certainly enough time before Tsurumi and Usami came back from their scouting. Just enough for Koito to clean everything up if he were so insistent on the ill-advised notion of trying to hide his little experimental accident.

Plucking an old bucket from a long-abandoned corner of the hallway, Tsukishima dumped the clumps of maggot-ridden meat (that was the fun part about squatting in random houses- the fun little surprises of what was left behind) from it and continued on to the kitchen. They were lucky, this time- this little place didn’t have electricity, but it had a good deal of water still left, easily purified by some of Koito’s fire and his own sorting. Not that the water needed to be particularly pure to be able to put out the fire.

He passed by a kitchen island cut clean in half, wooden sides sticking up from the decaying floor, and turned on the tap. The water that oozed out was slightly thick in consistency, opaque, cloudy grey- and the goddamn smell… but if anything, maybe the disgusting stuff would be incentive enough to keep Koito from repeating this little venture, if only for the duration of their stay here.

Tsukishima made his way back into the room, only to be greeted by Koito, sprawled out over the floor like the melodramatic pile of pipe cleaners in the vague shape of a human being he just so happened to embody, cursing in a horrendous mix of understandable Japanese and satsuma dialect. Koito looked towards Tsukishima slowly, eyes squinted against the light of the fire which burned a few new holes in the floor. “What the hell is that smell…”

Tsukishima said nothing. It was easy enough to separate the pure water he needed from the putrid whole- especially since the second all that moisture left it, the grime congealed on the bottom of the bucket, sticking as fast as rust. Or ectoplasm. Eugh. He just tossed the water in the bucket out over the room, streams breaking off from the clear whole to cover the entire surface area of the room. The flames around the room extinguished, and then there was Koito, laying in the middle of the charred mess, soggy and disgusted. Koito slowly got up, a look of horror crossing his face.

“PLEASE tell me that water wasn’t from where I think you got it from!”

“Okay. This water wasn’t from where you think I got it from.”

“TsukisHIMAAAAAAAA!” Tsukishima wondered, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, how he hadn’t gone deaf yet. Especially since Koito, smelling vaguely like the gross shit from the kitchen sink, screamed directly into his ear while shaking his shoulders, “You’re such a LIAR!!”

“I don’t really know what kind of answer you were expecting,” Tsukishima said, and perhaps this was the moment when his patience was wearing thin. Just perhaps. “There’s only one source of water around here. Unless you’ve found any other alternatives you’re willing to share, we just have to deal with…” Tsukishima was just in the process of holding up the grime ladened bucket to illustrate his point when he realized- it was… strangely lighter, than it was a few seconds ago.

He glanced inside, and the metal exterior gleamed dully back. All the slime was gone.

Hm. Considering the sudden, slight breeze he was feeling- and not from any open windows, of which there were none in this house- Tsukishima could only suppose that this wasn’t good. He stepped back, pulling the moisture from the air around him close as Koito, bewildered, gave him a scandalized look. “Get back here! I wasn’t done yelling at you for-”

There was a sudden pop, bang, sizzle, and a storm cloud formed above Koito’s head. A flash of lightning was the only warning before the cloud opened up, pouring thick, smelly drops of the slime from the bucket directly over Koito’s hair and head. Tsukishima froze some of the water and used it as a makeshift, clear shield- even if there was no way in hell he was getting this gunk on him, there was also no missing the image of Koito, wide-eyed and shaking in rage, as the slime dripped down his forehead.

Twin peals of laughter sounded from the doorway, and Koito very slowly turned to face it. The Nikaidou twins were leaning against each other, gasping for breath as they pointed and laughed at Koito, with his top half drenched in muck which was made of materials that Tsukishima sorely wished to never learn about. Koito made a sound akin to a choking monkey.

“I’m going to KILL YOU-”

“Oh no!! I’m terrified,” Youhei snickered, walking in tandem with Kouhei as they quickly moved to the other side of the room. Kouhei snickered back, raising a hand and blowing a strong gust of wind Koito’s way. That wasn’t the best- Koito’s hands caught fire, and with the new source of oxygen, the flames dropped to the floor and reignited the living room anew. Tsukishima sighed. He just put the fire out in here….

And honestly, he had half a mind to just let it all burn as Koito ran after the Nikaidou brothers, gunk-cloud comically following after him like a living cartoon. Tsukishima was well past the point of being surprised, and as the room slowly became engulfed in flames, he blankly stared at it all.

Not for the first time- certainly not the last- he wondered if it was too late to run away to the mainland and take up. Farming or something. Maybe go indebt himself to a pair of elderly hot spring owners. Literally anything else.

It would beat being here, at this moment, watching Koito freak the fuck out over the slime in his hair catching on fire as Youhei and Kouhei sat back and tried to videotape it. Sighing, he encased the cloud above Koito’s head (because honestly, what were clouds but concentrated moisture useful for fucking with unsuspecting mages?) in a block of ice and pulled the clean water back out to douse the entire room. Then, he set the frozen slab of dirt to chasing the Nikaidous. Not that it wasn’t absolutely hysterical that Koito got doused earlier- but they did lead to Tsukishima having to deal with the second house fire today. He really didn’t want to deal with a third.

Before Koito could open his mouth to say something completely insufferable, which Tsukishima knew in advance would be utterly insufferable by the mere look on his face, the front door slid open.

“Hello boys~ I’m home…” Tsurumi poked his head into the room from the front hall, Usami on his heels. Then he stood and watched, taking in the scene.

The living room was still charred to all hell. Koito froze off the side, staring like a deer in headlights, while both Nikaidous were running around the room from the projectile dirt that Tsukishima had frozen and set about. Off to the side, the couch, the one nice piece of furniture they had found here, was burnt to its springy skeleton. And there was Tsukishima, standing in the middle of it all, looking blank as anything.

“... Tsukishima, is there… anything you want to tell me?” Tsurumi raised an eyebrow, apparently amused.

“Next time, sir,” Tsukishima said, “we need to find a house with a working bathtub.”

(This all is in honor of the beginning of mine and Gaz’s siren au, and the beginning of the main fic, Symphony Ad Libitum! Go ahead and have a look at what Gaz has written, it’s fantastic!)

[askmicrowaveayem]

Boink! The Gaster Brothers Pt. 30

[Previous]

[Archive] [Cast]

Dings was dragged to a hidden rendezvous point squirming and yelling, his voice having long since become little more than a faint noise to his brother.

A covered wagon hidden in the brush.

“Raaage!” Dings yelled, screamed, his voice cracking in the middle of his brother’s name. “Raaa--aaaage!”

He didn’t know what was happening, but could feel himself lifted up and tossed roughly into something. Then they started to move, the humans bustling around him. He felt something hook to the thing around his neck and he jerked away from it, flung out his elbows to try and smack those around him.

They laughed as he choked himself, falling on the floor of the wagon.

“Nothing without your magic, are you?” One laughed. Another kicked the leg still in the bear trap, sending a shockwave of pain shooting up his leg that he had forgotten about in his panic.

Dings screamed and wrestled against his bonds.

--

Rage could feel the heat of the fire before he could see it. Twisted his head, trying to get a better look at where he was going. Each ragged breath blew more dirt and pine needles in front of him, each movement took him only centimeters.

He had to lean to one shoulder or another, almost pushing them out of their sockets, trying to get any sort of direction.

The fire was a smoldering mass of coals by then, having died down gradually during the fight and already being well on its way down beforehand.

(Could it have even been called a fight? He’d--he’d tried to struggle, he’d tried, but fuck he hadn’t felt that helpless since he was on the ground on his knees and a cane was coming to crack down on the back of his head, and for once he wasn’t terrified, just--furious. Furious he’d ever let himself be that hurt again. Furious he hadn’t been able to save his brother from it. If they got out of this with just another few bumps and a head wound, that would be a miracle.

They would get out of this.)

He shoved himself onto what remained of the fire, not screaming anymore. Breath coming out in short, pained gasps as his cloak began to burn.

As the straps holding his ruined arm to his body began to weaken.

--

“Don’t worry about your little puppet, he’s probably dust by now.” A human said, his smirk going unseen.

But he could hear it in their voice.

“I’ll fucking K I L L  Y O U!” Dings yelled, his voice dropping into something else entirely.

“Yeah, keep using what little magic you’ve got left in you to sound scary.” One laughed, “That’s what is, right? Just another fucking parlour trick. You monsters use magic for fucking everything. Fucking useless when you can’t use it.”

Dings roared at them, thrashing and tugging at the ropes and chains keeping him tied and still.

“Shit guys, will you keep him still or something!?” Someone yelled from upfront, “He’s scaring the fucking horses and rocking the wagon!”

--

He felt his HP dropping.

He stayed with his arm in the fire as the metal heated. As the wood inside began to catch. As it burned.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to not cry anymore. He’d already done enough of that. More than enough.

He hadn’t heard Dings’ screams in a long time. Didn’t hear any horses or mules or anything.

Just the forest at night and the crackling as his cloak was eaten up by flames.

As his bone began to pop and char.

Finally, something went very slack, very suddenly.

Rage rolled over with far too much difficulty, jerking himself away from the fire, crushing his other arm under himself in his haste to get away, shoving his face right back in the dirt and rubbing the newly-freed stub of his arm into the ground, trying to cool it. Trying to pretend the cracks splitting up it weren’t really there, that he wasn’t charred to bits.

He lay there again for far too long, shaking. Sobbing.

God, he was sobbing again.

With his burnt stump, he pushed himself to sit up and finally got a good look at the trap on his leg through his teary face.

The world swam around him.

--

“Yeah, yeah--” A human said, approaching Dings to pull off the bear trap, thinking that would calm him some or at least get him to stop writhing.

“--Hey!” He soon yelled, watching as the skeleton started to rock wildly as much as he possibly could. Kicked and shook and jerked and tugged at his bindings with all his strength, yelling and growling.

They wanted him to be still?

He would make their life hell.

“Fucking stop him!” The man upfront yelled again, the others scrambling to try and hold him down.

“Just fucking stay still you stupid fucking skeleton!”

“Stop-- STOP!”

One finally had enough, reeling his fist back and punching Dings in his left cheek.

The runes keeping his head a little more sturdy weren’t working.

The cracks in his skull clattered loudly, a larger chunk coming out from underneath his left eye.

Dings’ mind went as black as his eyesight and his body slumped.

“AH! Fuck! Dammit!” The human yelled, instantly regretting his decision and clutching at his knuckles while the others laughed.

“Forget what he was?”

“Fuck you!” He yelled, clutching his hand and giving the bear trap on Dings’ leg a kick even though he was knocked out cold.

--

Rage blacked out.

He came to a few minutes later, still sitting upright, slumped over himself. His leg still throbbing. His arm burnt. His sleeve ash.

His vision swam again as he looked around their camp, spotting the closest bag and crawling towards it as fast as he could, using his burnt arm stump as a crutch and muffling his cries with each movement.

He shoved the bag, trying to knock its contents loose.

Their cookwear. Fuck.

FUCK.

He had to crawl to the next, navigating through the cookware, past the teapot and mugs, gasping towards his own bag and almost shoving his face inside it, taking a bite out of the first thing he could, desperate to raise his HP again, or at least stop its rapid decline.

He ate without tasting. Moved without feeling. His body not existing except as shocks of pain and a coiling cold in his gut.

He tried twice to try and stick his head through the strap of the bag, desperate to carry it with him perhaps.

He failed.

Gave up.

Screamed again.

And forced himself to his feet.

--

One of the humans looked at the chunk that had come out of the skeleton’s face, the piece turning to dust in Dings’ lap. “Hey, at least you took a piece out with it.”

“Good!” They yelled, rummaging around the wagon to find bandages for their knuckles.

“Guys,” Another said, more authoritative than the rest, “Get him out of that armor while he’s still out. Take off the trap.”

The rest didn’t say anything, moving as they were told while the one grumbled about his hand.

Dings was stripped down to nothing but the trousers he wore underneath his armor and the collar carved with runes tight around his neck.

--

He was in luck. Beyond fortunate.

Travelers in the woods. An hour of leaning against trees, dragging and hobbling along on one foot with his burned arm for balance. His eyelights flickered in and out. The mangled foot was bent at an unnatural angle and made a horrible sound each time he put any sort of weight on it.

So he’d gotten on his knees and crawled. Better than being flat on his stomach. Better than being on his feet.

He’d been fully prepared to endure his dwindling HP and crawl all the way into town if he had to, risk that kind of vulnerability, but he was in luck.

Travelers in the woods.

Maybe lost? Maybe bandits. He didn’t know. But there they were, wandering about after dark, shuffling noisily through the nighttime woods, stupid and untrained and exactly what he needed.

He made sure they were monsters first--a trio. A short fish-like monster, another furry one he couldn’t get a good look at in the dark, and a huge yellow goard that looked ripe to pop with one good blow, shuffling along behind the other two, leaning over them protectively, despite the clear nervousness in their posture. In their face.

Lost.

Good.

He shoved his shoulder against the tree and pushed up with his one good leg, enduring the scrape and putting as little weight on his mangled foot as possible.

He didn’t usually bother affecting his voice. That was something Dings did. Rage never had to pretend to be furious. Never had to pretend to be something more or less than he already was. If he was a nightmare, then he was a nightmare.

So he supposed, tonight, he was a nightmare.

“ Y o u . ”

The party of travelers froze. Eyes like saucers. Looking around the area wildly before the fish one finally spotted him. Finally flinched back.

Clearly aware exactly of who she was looking at.

Rage let a smile curl over his face. It might’ve looked like a sneer.

They were frozen in terror. Exactly how he needed them. They’d’ve been useless if they’d run.

“Y o u,” he said again, staring the fish down. “Do exactly as I say, and I’ll let you all live.”

She nodded rapidly, her hands slowly raised protectively in front of her companions, even though the look on her face said she thought it’d be useless.

She didn’t say anything. Just stared and nodded.

“Come here,” Rage said, voice cold. “You other two s t a y  b a c k if you value your friend’s head.”

Slowly, the fish woman approached, eyes never blinking. Shoulders set and unwavering, even as her companions trembled behind her.

When she was close enough, he stared her down. Met her unblinking stare until her eyes flickered down and away, no longer able to meet his gaze.

Only then, did he give her instructions.

“The device on my foot. Get it off, and you will be spared.”

She hesitated. She hesitated, realizing the Gaster brother in front of her was injured and was asking for help and the minute her wide eyes dared look back at him in something like wonder and pity, he snarled.

“ N o w . “

She crouched immediately, her webbed fingers scrambling over the bear trap, not recognizing it, trying to figure out the device. Flinching every time Rage hissed. Every time he managed to make it sound like impatience.

Finally--a bolt pulled out, and the jaws of the trap fell open. Went slack.

Rage could breathe again. A new, fresh wave of pain washed over him, the pressure on his foot released for the first time in hours and all that was still holding it together suddenly released. Magic suddenly bursting through his bones again, like flushing out a poison.

If he weren’t slumped against the tree, he would’ve fell.

Hopefully, the fish woman didn’t notice in her scramble to get away.

Rage took deep breaths. Shaking breaths.

The travelers watched him.

For some reason, it was harder to talk now then it had been while that fucking trap was on him.

He left it where it lay, not daring to touch it again--not now that his remaining metal arm could grip the tree he leaned against. Steadying him more. Giving him support. He was never touching it again.

He swallowed. Breathed.

“....you can run, now,” he said, once he was sure his eyelights were properly lit and his voice wouldn’t waver. “Or you can follow me, if you’re lost.”

He gripped the tree, turned, and hobbled back the way he came.

The monsters, amazingly, followed him.

He led them back to the camp--God, it’d been such a shorter walk back. How had he made it so far the first time?--where the fire was long out. Where the remnants of the fight were still easy to be seen.

His arm still smoked in the remains of the fire pit.

He ignored it, limping through the dark towards their discarded bags.

One had bandages in it. He pulled them out with his one hand, sitting down with a pained grunt. Grabbed some unburnt sticks and splinted his mangled foot as best he could with only one hand, even as he heard the other monsters shuffling into the clearing behind him. Looking around. Staring, still. Always wide-eyed and staring.

They gave him a wide berth. Apparently, splinting and getting a protective cloth layer around his injured foot one-handed was more frightening than appearing out of the dead of night with demands.

He wished he had a crutch, but at least with some stability on his foot now, he could make due.

He took the bag of food and pulled the strap across his back, holding it securely.

Kept all the food in it that didn’t need effort to be made. The dried meat. The leftover fruit. A hunk of cheese. One flask. A bag of gold. His brother’s notebook, now covered in bootmarks and mud.

All he’d need.

Only then did he struggle back onto his… foot.

Turn to stare at the three, still huddled uncomfortably on the edge of their camp.

“You can stay here until morning and find your way back to town once it’s light out,” he said, voice still cold. “There are humans in these woods.”

There had better still be.

One last thing before he left. One last thing, before he found his brother.

The helmet lay where it had been left earlier that night, when Dings first settled in to rest.

Rage picked it up by the eyeholes and slid it over his head.

It fit perfectly.

Of course it did.

It was his brother's.

--

Dings was out for hours. Without the runes working to keep his fragile skull from being knocked to pieces the blow to his cheek was enough to send him unconscious for a good while. Unlike his brother his DEF was incredibly low without them, another reason why he was never seen without his armor. The first blow to his head as a child had lowered it permanently; the second blow while he was separated from Rage lowered it even further.

Thankfully he had high HP and high ATK to make up for it, but without his runes even that was much lower than usual. The metal collar around his neck drained his magic reserves slowly, shutting him down and making him pay for just how much he had struggled last night, just how much he had thrown up a fight.

He woke up to the feeling of being dragged.

Ding’s eyes shot open and he panicked, seeing nothing at all even though his eyes were as wide as saucers, feeling something holding onto his ankles and pulling him across wood.

Then the world dropped out from under him.

He landed in the dirt with a painful thud, his head tapping the hard ground even though he tried desperately to keep it up. Dings screamed in pain and for a moment he thought he could see colors, but even that faded as everything returned to black.

His head throbbed. His left cheek stung and his eye ached, squinting and unable to properly feel what had happened underneath it, but the air felt just a little bit different around it just like it did with the hole in his skull. Whatever had snapped into his ankle was gone, he could tell, but now it was sore and painful and the rough yanking had only made it worse.

“Not so tough and scary without all that armor and magic, are ya?” Someone said, and it was at that point that Dings noticed… he didn’t have his armor on. He didn’t have anything on but his pants, the cold metal around his neck, and ropes around his wrists and ankles.

There was no angry growling or struggling, the skeleton making pained gasps as he tried to curl into a ball.

“Look, he’s scared!” One said, and the rest erupted into laughter.

A boot kicked into his spine.

Dings screamed and flinched away, rolling over onto his front and gritting his teeth, then finally able to feel that one was missing and the crack under his eye must have spread down into his mouth.

His head was still spinning, the laughter of the humans who had captured him swirling around him for a few more moments before it suddenly died down as another set of footsteps drew near.

A boot pressed against his shoulder and roughly pushed him onto his back again. He could hear the feet landing beside him before a hand roughly grabbed his lower jaw and pulled him upward.

He couldn’t stop himself from shaking in a mix of fear, pain, and anger.

Dings didn’t know what he was doing, but he could feel something close to his face moving around. Then after a moment he let go of his lower jaw and stepped away.

“Untie his legs and hook him up to the wagon.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Bastard can’t see without his magic. Make him walk. It’ll tire the fight out of him.”

He felt his soul shrivel.

Feet scuffled about him, hands untying the ropes around his ankles before he felt the chain hooked to the manacle around his neck yanked roughly. He gagged and sputtered, scrambling backwards and kicking with his feet before the pulling stopped and the chain had been hooked to the side of the wagon, leaving him just enough slack to sit with his neck at an uncomfortable angle.

“Now finish up and get some rest. We’ll be heading out at dawn. I want to make good time and cash this in. Get this thing off our hands.”

Dings was ignored then. He slumped as much as he was able, neck bent at an awkward angle and the cold autumn air making his bones rattle along with the fear, panic, and pain.

He couldn’t see. He didn’t have his armor. His magic was gone. His brother’s last sounds had been screaming in a mix of agony and fury.

Dings’ soul felt hollow, somehow hurting so much more than all of the kicks and punches on his body.

He had to get back to his brother. Somehow.

--

He walked until he couldn’t anymore.

Stumbled into a bush, crawled under it, and lay there until morning. Woke up shivering and covered in dew, with chills running through him and his broken arm turning an awful dark red. His ankle--and what bits around it were visible through the bandages--was a sickly purple-yellow, and twisting.

He lay on the ground, staring at the root of the bush he’d curled under, puffing in the cold morning air. Not hungry enough to eat, even though he knew he had to. Too in pain and too cold to keep sleeping. Still in the helmet.

It and his remaining metal arm were going to rust and rot in this damp.

He lay there for another half hour at least, watching from the ground as the sun rose higher into the sky and the air grew slowly warmer.

He was wasting time he couldn’t afford.

Yet he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Why now? Why, when he’d been moving last night with his foot trapped and his arm fresh-burnt? Why was it only now that he couldn’t seem to stand even the effort it took to focus his eyes?

He lay in the mud, the sun slowly reaching him, even under the bush, and he marked its position.

East. He was facing east.

Wasn’t the last town he and Dings had marked on their map in the east?

He took shallow breaths and tried to stand again, this time breaking it into the smallest steps he could think of. Getting up slowly to save his brother was better than lying here forever until he rotted and his brother was dusted far away from him.

Roll onto his stomach. Shift his remaining hand. Bend his working knee. Push up with your hand god fucking damn it you’ve stood in worse condition you’ve survived in worse conditions--

He’d survived months in a magicless prison with nothing but dust to breathe and no light to tell the days or nights, nothing but a scarce meal perhaps, thrown at him or dumped over the floor and made to eat it like that because if he didn’t he wasn’t going to survive for his brother and god fucking damn it he was going to survive to spite the bastards who put that manacle around his neck and stepped on his spine and poured water over his head rather than let him drink--

He staggered to his feet, swaying and ill.

The closest town was in the east.

His blasters had never been made to be anything but weapons, but now, barely able to keep his balance, he summoned one and leaned his bad side against it, slumping over half its face and using it as a crutch while he staggered through the woods and into the clear.

On his map, it’d been about a three hour walk to the town.

It would take him half a day.

His blaster grew smaller and frailer as his magic dwindled, even when he managed to force himself to eat something, sliding open Dings’ helmet and eating the same way he had at all those taverns. Never taking the helmet off.

It meant the streets cleared immediately when he finally came upon the town, a pathetic, broken, badly ill skeleton, hobbling into town in the late-afternoon light.

A helmet of teeth and an arm of metal and a sharp-toothed lizard skull snarling under his shoulder.

He could’ve sworn it was a cow skull the day before. Not anymore.

Two streets down, and he was walking through a ghost town. Little eyes watching him from windows. Little noses smudging on the glass. Blinds being tugged shut a moment later, and the witnesses yanked away.

He didn’t see. He didn’t care.

He shuffled through town as it all ground to a halt around him, and towards the local healer’s.

Didn’t give him time to recover. Didn’t give his patients a moment to scurry away.

He’d wasted a whole day.

He summoned his second blaster, and corralled the healer into the back room.

If this idiot made him ask, if he thought Rage was weak and a fool for coming here in this state, he would be swiftly remedied by the teeth and hot breath just inches from his neck.

--

Somehow he managed to fall asleep, to catch just a few moments of rest while his captors rested. He was woken up by something hard hitting his ribs, eyes shooting open and a yell leaving his mouth before he even knew what had happened.

“Oh hey that one was big enough to finally wake him up!” One laughed as Dings curled in on himself, pulled his legs up to his chest and touched the spot on his ribs gingerly with his legs.

It was sore and throbbed.

They had been throwing rocks at him.

Footsteps drew closer and before he knew it they were grabbing him and forcing him to his feet. He struggled as much as he could, which wasn’t much anymore. Despite the sleep he wasn’t regaining any of his energy back thanks to the collar around his neck.

As soon as he put weight on his injured ankle he hissed. It wasn’t as badly mangled as his brother’s far away, but it was sore, bruised, and cut from where some of the metal of his armor had bent and stabbed into him. His foot was scratched too, the bones rough where they had yanked off his mangled boot.

Once he was on his feet the humans left him, chattering among themselves as they prepared to leave.

He was given no warning as the wagon started to move.

Dings gagged and stumbled, having to roughly put weight on his injured ankle just to keep up at first, nearly falling over into the dirt a few times until he could get himself to the same hobbling pace as the wagon.

It felt large and slow, which he was thankful for.

Each step sent agony up his leg. His ribs ached where a few of the rocks had hit him in his sleep without waking him, tiny little things before they had decided to use something bigger.

He wondered if his rib was cracked. He couldn’t see to tell.

His head was still swimming and unfocused, this all feeling like some horrible dream. A part of him wondered if he was dead and this was just some last fleeting nightmare before dying. It was so hard to tell what was real when you couldn’t see what was happening right in front of you.

Dings had known his second injury had probably caused blindness after it had happened. The runes that had made his eyesight normal again were the only things after that keeping his eyes lit. After that he had barely been able to see.

So he had carved into himself in desperation.

In his delirium he had carved the most powerful sight rune he knew. He hadn’t thought of the consequences at the time. He just… he couldn’t be sent home. He couldn’t be sent home and then never had a chance to see his brother again.

So Dings had carved into the other side of his hand that night. He grit through the pain and dug into his bones with his knife to carve the runes into his palm and down his wrist.

The pain from digging into his body was nothing in comparison to when the magic flared inside his skull.

He hadn’t been able to stop himself from screaming. Screaming and clutching his head in agony as the world spun and expanded and every tiny little detail of everything around him suddenly flooded into his head. It hadn’t just been three eyes at first.

It had felt like hundreds.

Hundreds of buzzing eyes swarming in his sockets and the wound in his head like wasps and his brain had tried desperately to keep up.

When his comrades had found him hiding in the woods away from camp he had shied away. Tried to close his eyes and not see their terrified faces as they looked down on one of the youngest in their ranks, cowering with carved arms and eyes flared with more magic than they had ever seen before.

But even with his eyes closed he could see. He could see everything.

Tybalt had been the one to get everyone to leave. To make sure they didn’t say a word to anyone.

Then Tybalt had sat with him. Held him until he got a better grip on his magic. Until Dings reeled it in and condensed it into a single third eye. Helped him cover it up. Helped him bandage the damage he had inflicted on himself making it in the first place.

But it hadn’t been until the prison that Dings had truly felt what blindness was like. The shock of it had been numbed by his determination to save his brother. In and out. It was like closing his eyes. A small moment in time.

This was…

… Was it morning? That meant hours.

Hours of blindness surrounded by humans that wanted to hurt him. To turn him in for a bounty. He couldn’t tell what direction they were headed without looking at the sky. He couldn’t tell how many humans there really were unless he counted their voices. He couldn’t tell what was around his neck without being able to see it or feel it with his hands.

He couldn’t leave any sort of hint to his brother where they were going.

Panic welled inside him again.

He tried to activate the magic in his eyes out of desperation.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Please just fucking work. Please just work and let me see.

Dings grit his teeth to keep himself from crying. He wasn’t going to let these humans see him cry. He wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction even though he was…

…

… He was scared. He was terrified. Not just for himself, but for his brother. His brother’s screams as he was dragged away.

What had they done to him?

What if Rage didn’t have his arms? What if he had stepped into whatever trap he had stepped into? If he did it would shut off his magic so… so he wouldn’t have his arms anyway...

He wouldn’t have his blasters.

Dings knew his brother was strong. Very strong. Stronger than him for sure. But… without magic… he didn’t even have a pair of arms to help defend himself. Not unless he used them as flails.

The thought of these humans touching his brother made his stomach boil and fill with fury.

He had promised Rage that he wouldn’t let anyone touch him ever again and now look at him. A prisoner to a group of bounty hunters while his brother had been… been who knows what and left to dust.

Dings’ panic quelled and turned to anger.

He fell back into that same mindset he had when he was alone in the middle of the war. When he had killed the officer that had separated them.

Made himself feel as he looked. Not a scared, shy little bookworm barely out of his teens; but a hulking, angry skeleton who had carved his own arms to harness magic he had no right to control.

He tried to hold onto that. Tried to hold onto that and not give in to panic or fear.

It would be hard, but…

He didn’t want them to win.

So as he walked, limping and staggering beside the wagon he was chained to, he started to feel along the rope on his wrists.

If he was going to escape he would need to do it fast. Need to do it before the rest of his energy was completely drained from the thing around his neck.

--

He opened the bag around his neck with his teeth, holding it and digging around with one-hand for the proper amount of gold. Smacked it down on the table. Glared the healer down.

“Leg and arm,” he said, and nothing more. “Stop the infection and anymore breakage occurring.”

He didn’t say he would massacre the other room this time. Didn’t need to, he didn’t think.

Waited as the healer stuttered about, pulling out some healing items and carefully cutting off the bandages on Rage’s foot, trying to set the bones in place with a blaster hovering over his back.

More bandages. Another splint. Tight cloth around his burnt arm, prioritizing the cracks over the burning.

Rage left out the back door, stumbling, rejecting the offered crutch in favor of leaning once more on his blaster.

The town was still scared. Still hiding in their houses, some stalls abandoned in the streets. He reached over with his good arm, grabbed food, and shoved it in the bag strapped to him.

Tried to think, mind a little clearer in the lessening pain.

Those had been bounty hunters. They’d said something about Dings being the only one with a price on his head. There was only one bounty that they’d seen.

Only one place they were headed to.

A week’s journey on horseback. Slower, if you had a lot of people together and were struggling to control an outlaw, but still faster than one injured skeleton could walk.

So that settled it.

He was stealing a horse.

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

NSFW #11:  But, seriously...

“We had a feeling that this would happen.” John Bishop Church stood next to Mike McGuire in their makeshift ring. Back in their quiet suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood. The foliage overhead had just began to show its autumn colors. Some of the leaves meandered through the air before finally falling to the mat below. The day was still young and just briefly there was a flare into the lens of their camera. For just a moment, their silhouettes were outlined by a shining light. There was that crisp fall chill in the air as evidenced by the two wearing long sleeved shirts over their athletic gear. “I mean, why wouldn’t it? I mentioned it last time. You ladies are really good. A little more seasoned now to boot.” She gave a dazzling sort of grin. The corners of her eyes didn’t crinkle in the least. John smiled, too. Less toothy but more than he usually gives in public. “Now you have that opportunity that you’ve always wanted. Our global audience will be treated to professional wrestling at its finest. Two teams competing to be the face of the division. The tag team champions.” “So! I mean, we said pretty much all there is to say about you guys last time, and it still sticks true now. We’re friends and you’re awesome, so at Hardcore Revolution, hey! May the best team win. Let’s have us a Nice Showcase of Friendly Workrate.” “And with that said - good luck to the both of you.” John gave the challengers a thumbs up. Mike followed suit and clicked the camera off. Before that show of respect and admiration, John and Mike had decided to take stock of what had just recently transpired. The consensus between them was - what now? And so John and Mike went home. To be more specific, where it all began. What had been a chance meeting between two lost individuals now was a pile of scrap. The current owner, a fellow John had never met but Mike had described as Rocco, had called and assured Mike that all was as well as it could be, at least in a financial sense- the destruction of McGuire’s Autobody had been deemed an act of God, a fire started by a freak lightning storm. Mike knew otherwise, but didn’t argue. Even they had to admit that telling someone completely uninformed that ‘a monster possessing my friend Leo did it’ sounded completely insane. Part of Mike just wanted to leave it be, but the rest of them couldn’t help but see what was left of what they’d built. Where they’d met their partner, in every sense of the word. There was soot everywhere still, and the blackened walls still carried the acrid scent of burnt rubber. They could see in their mind’s eye where everything used to be- the tool chest, their office, the front desk, the waiting area with the least horrible plastic chairs they could get. Pacing about, Mike stopped, making an ‘X’ in the grime on the warped, charred linoleum with the toe of one boot. “...right here. First time I saw you, I was standing right here.” Their voice was heavy. They hadn’t really been themselves since Monday- with everything that had happened, the weight of the world seemed to be resting squarely on their shoulders. John stood inside where the doorway was, arms folded across his chest. There was an anger residing within his visage. His jaw was set in stone and for awhile now, he only inclined to listen. He had a lot to say. Some deep resentment simmered inside of him. A realization of the true face of humanity. A recollection of a long hidden trepidation towards trusting others. A question seeped into his consciousness and it spoke with an absolute clarity: what has trust gotten you lately? An absolutely ridiculous notion considering present company. He stepped forward and placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder. But. Leonardo Lutter. A man who in the brief interactions he had seemed to understand the deeper meanings of this game. With a transformation so abrupt that it would be easy to say it was exactly what he stated it to be. John was inclined to believe that Leonardo was indeed a monster. And had always been. Dominic Sanders. John had always felt uneasy around him. But there was always some warmth in his disposition that seemed to say that maybe he could just be written off as rough around the edges but still good hearted. That had been a facade. The foundation of Dominic was rotten. He was after all the benefactor to the ones who had intended to put an end to their careers. And it was his will. And Natalie Young. That stung. It was amicable. There was a growing understanding between the two as well and it had only scratched the surface. There had been a lot of mitigating factors to what led to the dissolution of that relationship. And yet it was still another case of someone walking out on Mike. And Mike’s story had become his. There was a common denominator. Mike’s friends. His friends? Sure, he liked them. But at arm’s length. Something didn’t sit right with their next challengers. Their sunny smiles. Their frivolous attitudes. Their brand of good sportsmanship. The spirit of competition had exposed some things he wanted to voice but confrontation wasn’t in the quiet man’s nature. And despite the awkwardness of how he expressed it, empathy was. He squeezed Mike’s shoulder lightly to let them know that he was close at hand. “It was. I’ll be honest. At the time, didn’t think too much of it.” He cleared his throat. “Now I do.” “It hurts, bud. It hurts a fucking lot.” An understatement on their part, perhaps. They’d held things in since the previous Monday. Had been just as quiet as their partner, if not moreso, even as they spent one last night in their fabulous hotel room, checked out the next morning, and made their way home. It wasn’t until they’d arrived safe in their own four walls did they let themselves crack, curling up in the tub as the water from the shower beat down on them, the flow of saline indistinguishable from the steamy cascade from the tap. And while some liked to say that everything felt better after a good cry, it hadn’t really alleviated much. It seemed, Mike thought with a humorless dry chuckle, that the only truly good things that existed in their personal immediate sphere right now was John and the belts they’d earned together. They looked up from the mark on the floor. Their hand reached up, resting on top of his, and their teeth bit at their lower lip- a familiar nervous tic of theirs, but it seemed a tad more savage than usual. “...you won’t leave me too, will you?” A stupid question, the tired laugh accompanying it making it sound almost sarcastic. As if such a thing could never happen. But they’d never thought anything else that happened involving being cast off by people they cared about would happen either. And yet, John wasn’t like the rest of them, as fond of them all as Mike had been. He was like no one else and Mike knew, somewhere deep inside, that if no one else, they never had to doubt him in the least. John answered without hesitation. “No.” And so NSFW laid out that boldfaced optimism that was expected of them. The camera turned off and the two went about their lives. Weeks and weeks away and they came home to mundane task after mundane task to set their affairs in order. Domestic and business. As the day wound down, the two sat at a workbench in the garage turned warehouse/gym and packed merchandise orders. Across the room, David Scott scowled his perpetual scowl. Whatever inspirational message he was spouting on the whiteboard had been wiped away. Mike looked up from Martin Fletcher’s order (two t-shirts and one of their brand-new hoodies) and scowled back. There was something heavy in the air, and their work- usually lighthearted, busywork but something they both enjoyed doing- didn’t have the air of joviality it usually did. Mike knew it. John knew it. Cardboard David Scott seemed to know it, too. Mike dropped a literal handful of fidget spinners into Martin’s box along with the complimentary 8x10 and shoved it down the table before smacking their palms down with a resounding sharp noise. “That was a fucking lie.” John took the package and set it on an electronic scale plugged into a small laptop. It chimed back at him and a printer right next to it spat out a label. He peeled off the sticker and placed it carefully on the face of the package. He turned around on the stool and placed it on a large stack of like outgoing boxes. “That was the last one.” “Nrrgh. You’re doing the thing again. I’m serious. That was five minutes of Taco Bell level shit. We didn’t say a damn thing worth saying.” John powered off the equipment for the night. “What does it matter?” “Because we’re not… we don’t fucking do that. If there’s one thing that’s got people behind us, it’s because we don’t fucking, y’know. Do the goddamn glad-handing bullfuck shit. If we got good things to say about somebody we say it, but we don’t… do that. Bite off what we really think.” John sighed, got off the stool, and stretched. They both had been at this for hours and had done it in a relative silence that had become comfortable and acceptable to them. But today’s events had lingered in the air between them and created a undeniable tension. “After what happened, what does it matter what we say?” Mike rubbed their temples and made a soft ‘mmph’ sound. A look crossed over their face and for the briefest fraction of a second, the inner turmoil they were in showed on their face plain as day. Loss was something that they’d never dealt with in a graceful manner and yet it was something that kept happening. People died or left or stabbed them in the back or just drifted on, their lives in a complete different direction than Mike’s. And for that blink in time, it was all right there, and then it was gone again. They exhaled through their nose. “Because we gotta have fucking integrity. That’s what sets us apart, ain’t it? If we don’t got that, what good is everything else?” “Okay. We are upholding that for who? Our friends? The ones that patronize us. The ones that hurt us. The ones that stab us in the back. The ones that-” John shook his head at lending credibility to this. “-the ones that destroy parts of us.” His voice lowered with apprehension. “The ones that just walk away. Is that who we stand for?” Mike walked over to him, reaching out. Their hand rested in its comfortable place on his arm, and after a moment’s pause, they moved closer still. The sort of intimate closeness they didn’t display in front of anyone else. They exhaled, perhaps a puff of relief in their breath, a wisp of gratitude. Things were at a pretty grim point, that was for sure. And still, Mike, usually pegged as the cynical one, could note that maybe, there was some sort of spark of hope. “No, bud. We stand for who we always said we have. People who ain’t got people like them. Who don’t fit in the fucking molds everybody else does. We’ve got a fucking responsibility, especially as champions. To them. And us. To be fucking real and not… be whatever the shit that was we did earlier.” They looked up at him, teeth worrying at their lower lip. “...right?” “Feels like that’s not wanted. Not what’s projected upon us. When were we ever this sterile homogenized version that we’ve been attacked for? Figuratively and literally.” John’s hand inadvertently went to his side as he spoke. “Beats the shit outta me. I mean. We’re us. We’ve only ever fucking been us. We haven’t ever claimed to be anything else. Whether it’s what anyone says they want or not.” Mike’s free hand clenched into a tight fist. One could almost hear their knuckles cracking. “And that’s why this bugs the fuck out of me. If we don’t owe it to anybody else, don’t we at least owe it to each other to be true to ourselves?” He nodded. Then he looked past her at the door leading out to the backyard. “Then how about now?” Mike’s face broke into a warm smile, their fist loosening a bit. “Yeah. Now’s good.” The backyard looks completely different than it did during the day. The night is clear, and the moonlight is so bright that everything is cast in shadows and silver, including the ring, where the moon seems to be lighting a natural spotlight on the tag team champions, aided only by a few small electric lanterns set in the corners. NSFW themselves are sitting cross-legged in the center of the ring, their titles resting in their laps. The difference is literally night and day- the veneer of forced optimism and platitudes of ‘you’re gonna do great, good luck’ are replaced with something harder in their faces, sharper, but far more sincere. Mike’s fingers drum lightly at the edge of the center plate of her belt and she stared into the camera head on. “How much luck are you two actually going to need, I wonder? I mean, you’re basically fucking charmed. Skipping hand in hand like kids through a fucking meadow full of buttercups in the face of adversity.” “That’s admirable.” John affirmed that with a slight nod. “If not a little confounding, too.” “See, not long before the first time we did this, you came running to us damn near hysterical, Ash. And you had good reason to be. The thing is… where’s that fucking concern now? Why is it that it seems like I’m more worried about Leo than you are? I don’t watch you every minute, I don’t know what you’re doing in private. Maybe you’re doing your worrying then. But if I was getting hitched to someone and they got snatched up and came back unrecognizable to me? I sure as fuck wouldn’t be going on a giggly girly wine tasting.” Her partner interjected. “Everyone copes differently so we’ll never know what she is really feeling. However, Leonardo Lutter’s condition is hardly our concern. Except in the competitive sense - as it was this past Monday. I’m having a hard time understanding what just was accomplished with the inference.” Mike scoffed. “Least we didn’t screw up when we came and tried to do you a solid in return. No hard feelings. And it was pretty big of you to apologize at least. Didn’t really make up for the fact that you cost us the match and scooted just before we got our asses whooped- coulda used you then, ladies- but hey, it’s the thought that counts. Speaking of.” Reaching into her pocket, Mike pulled out a check written for a pretty hefty amount, care of the estate of one Leo Lutter- former funny and easy to like guy, now cult-leading monster with a penchant for arson. “What sort of condescending goddamn bullpuckey is this?” “You try to give us his money.” “He can do that himself when he…” Mike cut herself off, giving her partner a furtive glance, and cleared her throat. “...he can do that himself. It’s not really your place to hand us a big honking sack of fucking money that isn’t even yours and say ‘it’s all good now’. I mean, Rocco had good insurance and what happened was deemed an act of fucking God- yeah yeah, snicker at the irony. He was totally covered for the losses. He doesn’t need this. And I don’t need this cuz a thousand times this much money couldn’t replace the value of what was lost to me. The handful of things I left behind cuz they gave the place atmosphere, yeah, but you can’t put a goddamn price tag on sentimental value. Something a sentimentalist should understand.” Mike couldn’t help but think of the shell of a building. The ‘X’ she’d made on the floor and what it meant, what it marked. Teeth gnawed at her lip. John watched her intently as she spoke. He turned to the camera with a punctation of her statement. “So thank you - but no thank you.” “I ain’t cashing this check. And neither is anybody else.” She held the check up- the word ‘VOID’ is written over it in bold black marker. It was then re-folded and stuck back into her pocket. “So we don’t owe you anything. And you can consider your conscience fucking clear. We’re going into this now on an even playing field… or are we?” “No.” That was emphatic from him. “Not to say they aren’t successful in what they do, Mike. They’ve defeated everyone they’ve stepped into the ring with - except us. I know that sounds familiar. We had to avenge our own shortfalls to become champions. But, you aren’t us.” “There ain’t nobody that is. These here…” Mike patted the faceplate of her belt fondly. “...say we’re the best team in the world. And we’re inclined to keep our mitts on ‘em for some time. We ain’t a fluke- we’ve proven that already- and I for one have no fucking intention of dropping our straps to a couple of goodtime gals that can’t take shit seriously. I mean, let’s rewind a bit. Last time you faced us, you were an out of the box team with a lot of promise. We were excited to face you cuz we saw your potential. You didn’t win but you gave us a pretty good showing.” John shook his head, his objection unknown at this moment. “Yes. But we warned them. We gave them fair notice. The same tactics they used to get into the heads of underachievers like Bulletproof and the Unholy Two would fail to shake us. We came into that match with a mutual admiration and respect only to see the hand that they played. Do friends display false concern while they run down how to take advantage of injuries and perceived weaknesses in our team’s structure?” “Not too friendly to me. I mean, don’t get us wrong. We know the nature of the fucking game. But it’s not great fucking form to draw attention to it while giggling and making Scrubs references.” “And in their greatest opportunity before now, Iggy Swango and Ashley Brizzie continued to play around. Dancing around. Having fun. As if their opponents were two brothers who had a penchant for eating their own boogers.” “We were not, and are not, motherfucking Donkey Punch. You didn’t take us seriously then, you’re probably not going to take us seriously now, and that, especially from people who’re supposed to be our friends, is a huge fucking insult.” John sighed at that - as if disappointed that it has come down to this. “This isn’t an exhibition. This is their earned Tag Team championship match. And from the looks of it, they haven’t learned their lesson. They were gifted this opportunity first by a team that seemingly never figured out the rules of a tag team match. And then by a shell of a team that never overcame their first taste of defeat. But here they are.” “Run, rabbits, run. Run right through the whole damn division, hippity-hop, right into the fucking brick wall that is NSFW. You do not get past us. Not with that attitude. Not with that lack of taking any goddamn thing seriously.” “That circles back around to that whole For Fun modus operandi. What will it amount to?” He hefted his tag team championship up over his shoulder. “Not these.” Mike followed suit, the positioning of her belt mirroring his. “We don’t have illusions of immortality. Someday, some team might come along and take these away from us. That team is gonna be someone who is dead serious when it comes from what goes on from bell to bell. Somebody who does the fucking work. Who eats and breathes this business, and ladies, I’m sorry, that team sure’s fuck ain’t you.” “So afterwards, Swango, Brizzie, you two can go back and be proud of your efforts after standing toe-to-toe with your tag team champions. But, you can also reevaluate your stance on this business. To know when to play and when not to. Understand the reason for this. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. And Mike here, she’s just proven to the world that she is who says she is. We are the epitome of what this division should stand for. Never broken. Never compromised. Even in the face of it all. And right now, with all that is happening, singing and dancing can’t be what represents us.” The two stood then, the low angle making them look more than a little imposing in the moonlit dark, the lanterns playing light and shadow off their faces and glinting off the polished surfaces of their titles. “There’s barbarians at the gate, girls, the spearhead of ‘em wearing the punchably charming face of a dick we thought was a friend of ours. The less said directly about that asscock the better. But regardless, the threat is fucking there. And it ain’t gonna go away by giggling at it, by going up to it and dancing. Anybody holding gold with a modicum of fucking responsibility is going to have to stand up to it if we want to keep this place from going to shit. We have that kind of conviction- we’ve proven it over and over. Do you?” “Show us. Show them that you didn’t get here by happenstance. But afterwards, you two can go back to your singles aspirations. Back to the business being a platform to sell albums and promote concerts. Back to being a fun little hobby.” “If you’re Not Serious, you’ll Fucking Washout. I’m actually kinda hoping we’re way off base here. And maybe we are. Maybe you’ll show up, get in the ring, not dick around, and fight us. But I seriously doubt it.” Mike leaned down, giving a long, harsh look into the camera before picking it up in one hand, framing both her and Bishop in close. “Prove us wrong.” The camera clicked off.