#Aurora Writes

[watcheraurora]

I know there probably won't be an Empires S3 and that's genuinely fine

But imagine with me for a minute

It's 1,000 years since the end of Empires S2, and the souls of the rulers are reincarnated yet again, fresh and new as before

And one of them in particular—a blond, brown-eyed young man—wanders the land with a pair of yellow-gold wings folded against his spine

Those wings bear him through the sky, soaring high above anything else. Sometimes he wonders if he could even fly so high that he would reach Stratos, the long-forgotten, mythical land of the gods. Or, according to myths and legends, the last god

With those yellow wings in the sun and his warm blond hair, he's given the name Canary King by his people

He builds his empire from scratch. He plants orchards in a plain biome—a canary's natural habitat. He trades honey and apples with the other kingdoms

He builds homes for his people with his bare hands. He builds his seat of power nearby. A palace for an Avian nestled in the branches of the tallest tree in the world. He made the tree himself, in a way. With the help of a little magic, he grew a sapling into a true marvel. A grand treehouse, high in the air, is where he builds his throne. The perfect fit for a wingéd king, born for the high blue skies

Sometimes he dreams of a homey swamp full of cod and slime. He dreams of gills in his neck and webbed hands. He dreams of a woman with blue skin and pink hair like Lizzie's in a light, flowy dress. He calls that woman sister, in his dreams. He dreams of an elf from the cold, high mountains—an ally. Sometimes he wonders if there was something more there. He dreams of the demon. The corruption.

Other times he dreams of a mesa—badlands. Exact opposite of that homey swamp. Instead of perpetual damp, the mesa is bone dry and blisteringly hot. He dreams of a brass badge on his chest. Tall boots to keep the sand out of his socks. He dreams of a hat to keep the sun off his face. The mesa is empty and lonely. He dreams of enclosed walls meant to emulate the blue sky and clouds the badlands are too hot to form. He dreams of mocking laughter. Shouts of "Toy!" He dreams of strangers appearing in the world, smaller than most everyone else. He dreams of the world the strangers—Hermits?—came from. A Rift in reality. He dreams of a funny old man with a grey beard teaching him to be "better" in his role

He dreams of a man with blue fire for hair, blue eyes with darker blue sclera, and a long black coat rarest of all, but they are always the sweetest dreams. The Canary King wears the brass badge and boots in those dreams, and the blue-fire-hair man isn't like the others—he treats him kindly. Even sweetly. In stark contrast to the mocking teasing of the others

The Canary King dreams he builds the two of them a ranch in the badlands, and then sees the fortress in the frozen norths of the Hermits' world that the blue fire hair man built himself

The Canary King always wakes up from these dreams feeling nostalgia. Like he misses something he never had, or lost something he no longer remembers

He serves his people and enjoys the company of the other rulers, his friends. He pretends he's not haunted by these dreams and the lives that seemed to be contained within them. No one else speaks of reoccurring dreams. No one else seems to notice the thousand-yard stare that he has when he thinks about them

Sometimes Scott smiles at him a little too fondly. Sometimes Joel's teasing needles him a little too deeply and he feels much smaller than he is. Sometimes Lizzie scolds him in a tone that sounds like the older sister the Canary King doesn't have—

And he remembers those dreams all over again

And his wings pull closer to his body, trying to protect him. He seeks comfort in the feeling of his feathers against his hands. He ignores the flashes of red-yellow-and-blue macaw wings on one of the Hermits in his dreams

So he flies. He flies and flies and flies. He sees the world whiz past below him. He flies so far and so fast, he tries to let the wind steal his thoughts and dreams from his mind. The skies are his home even more than the treehouse he poured blood, sweat, and tears into. The skies bring relief. And quiet. And solace. He still hasn't flown high enough to reach Stratos. He doesn't think he ever will

He doesn't want to anymore, with those dreams following him

The Canary King flies for days, barely sleeping, barely eating

He doesn't stop until he sees a mesa below him

It pulls him up short. He circles as he descends, eyes sweeping the land

He lands and kicks at the red sand here and there, thinking himself ridiculous for hoping to see—to find—anything

Until he slams his foot into something

He digs with a shovel and a pickaxe for what feels like hours. He exposes the ruins of an old town. He knows exactly where he's going to find the next building, somehow. As familiar with this town's layout as he is his orchards and the villages he built with his bare hands back home

He finds a small wooden sign with Welcome to Tumble Town! etched into the wood

He drops the sign and takes wing again. He deliberately ignores every swamp he passes over

He flies until he can't anymore. Until his beautiful, strong, yellow wings have no strength left and cannot bear him on the winds any longer. He crash lands in the snow and does not get up

The Canary King expects to freeze to death and never see his orchards or his treehouse palace ever again. He expects to finally be free of the dreams

Night falls. Creepers sneak around the mountains. Spiders spit and skeletons clank. Zombies groan

The world has grown dark, and the Canary King's vision begins to become even darker—

A blazing golden light flares. A voice cries out and then giggles

That same voice asks if the Canary King is alright. A warm hand rests on his shoulder

The newcomer has yellow fire for hair and red eyes with darker red sclera. He has the same face shape, the same nose, the same ears as the man in the Canary King's dreams

The newcomer is concerned and the Canary King is on the brink of unconsciousness. The newcomer promises that he's safe now—he'll be taken care of. It's the last thing the Canary King remembers before passing out

He wakes up in a cozy ranch house

He feels like he's home for the first time since the dreams started

[infernafiresword]

Happy December everyone! Here’s a fic @watcheraurora and I have been calling The Silliest One-Shot xD

[aurorarose2112]

Sweet Possession (Anne x Challe short fic)

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (Episode 18) - cheek kiss scene

So, after watching the new episode that came out, and positively dying, buried under all that fluff that was Challe’s rizz, I decided to do a lil narrating of that cheek kiss scene.

(PS, this is just my imagination; I never read the novel for this scene, so I don’t know how this actually plays out)

･: *₊ ⁎ ⁺˳ ✧ ༚ ♡ ༚ ✧ ˳ ⁺ ⁎ ₊ * :･

Challe let out a sigh — in both relief and annoyance — at Anne’s words, before reopening his eyes and leaning in.

“Challe?” She called in a questioning manner, not realising just how titillating the sound of his name on her lips was to him.

The sweet little thing had absolutely no idea what was about to come next.

He drank in the endearing sight of Anne’s widened eyes and flushed face, as he pressed his pale lips against her rosy cheek in a featherlight kiss.

Gazing adoringly at the lovely young lady before him, his thoughts floated back to the memory of the sight of that Opal fairy caressing her cheek with his fingertips. Challe’s eyes narrowed as the once gentle gleam sharpened into a hard, even possessive glare.

It is known he despised the idea of being oppressed or objectified after years of enslavement under humans, thus the irony of possessing the following thoughts was not lost on him.

‘How dare he try covet her. She is mine; I will never let anyone take her away from me.’

At that, he began to move, trailing his lips down the soft supple skin, mimicking the way he had seen that fairy stroke her cheek. Putting his mark over that insolent fairy’s touch.

Claiming what was rightfully his.

　　 ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ•̫͡•ʔ

Anne wasn’t sure what to think. How had they gone from talking about what Gladice had asked to… t-to this?!

To say that Challe kissing her cheek in reply being the last thing she had expected, was an understatement.

Her mind had gone blank at the sudden turn of events.

Abashed and flustered as she was, she felt — rather than saw — the silky sensation of his lips (she couldn’t emphasise this enough; CHALLE’S LIPS), moving down her cheek in a trail of open-mouthed butterfly kisses.

As though he were slowly taking his time, tasting her, savouring her, bit by bit with each kiss.

Right before he would devour her.

That train of thought snapped her back to reality.

“C-Challe?!” She exclaimed, managing to somehow will herself into taking a step back, enough to set the slightest of distance between them. Evidently needing that space to calm herself down and clear her mind.

Not that Challe was about to let her.

The hand that remained on her cheek kept her facing his way, while his other arm that had long wound around her waist prevented her from backing away any further.

“You’re too careless.” Challe supplied, his tone even and firm, as though he hadn’t effectively been nipping away at her sweet skin mere moments ago.

However, there was a hint of seriousness Anne detected, which managed to keep her focused on his words.

“Is Gladice dangerous?” She inquired, looking down to avoid his gaze. After all, if she kept staring at his gorgeous face and mesmerising eyes, there’s no way she would have any leeway to think straight, let alone remain standing.

Challe was having none of it.

The hand on her cheek trailed downwards to tip her chin up with his index and thumb, prompting her with no other choice but to gaze deep into his clear sharp eyes. Eyes that held a burning emotion, so raw and passionate, it seemed to pierce right through her heart as though it were molten sugar.

“I don’t know, so don’t let your guard down.”

“Okay…” Hearing her soft reply seemed to finally let him relax, releasing some of the tension that had built up within him. He then cupped her cheek and gently drew her face towards him, till his lips reached her ear.

“Good girl.”

If the rarely-used, smooth husky tone of his voice didn’t surprise her, his lips that found the small spot connecting her cheek and ear certainly did.

Challe couldn’t deny the masculine pride and satisfaction that arose in him, as he felt her jolt in his arms at his final kiss while gasping in what seemed to be both bashfulness and a tinge of pleasure.

Separating his lips from her, he studied her blushing face once more — which was red enough to rival a sugar apple at this point — and decided that it was enough for tonight.

Any further and she would surely combust.

As interesting as that may be, he would give her a reprieve for now. After all, a balance is needed between the candy and the whip *.

“Yesterday you didn’t sleep too well.” He stated softly, slowly pulling himself away from her alluringly lithe form. “Tonight, you may sleep in my room.”

Barely capable of any coherent thought at this point, it was all Anne could do to so much as nod in response. Challe felt a smile spread across his lips before he could stop it.

She was so acquiescent, it was adorable.

“I will look after Noah tonight. Go on ahead.” Giving his gentle reassurance, he smoothly retracted his hands from her cheek and waist, right before she limply slumped onto the bed in a sitting position.

“Okay…” Anne managed to breathe out, her ruby-red eyes never leaving the obsidian-black ones of the breathtaking warrior fairy before her.

* (A/N: Japan’s saying of ame to muchi, the Japanese equivalent of ‘carrot and stick’)

･: *₊ ⁎ ⁺˳ ✧ ༚ ♡ ༚ ✧ ˳ ⁺ ⁎ ₊ * :･

And that’s about it. Hope you enjoyed it; lemme know what you think?

[xauroraxborealisx]

Apparently, I'm back? Or at least trying? Just a few quick one-shots to get back into writing before diving back into longer projects! Enjoy and oh! Song suggestions are welcomed, if ever! 😉

[dawnarowdite]

Lovely (What They Don’t Understand)

Chapter 2

—————

"Ayo Smii7y welcome back," a voice called out as a teen waltzed into the room.

"What up Wildcat," Smii7y smiled as he placed a bag on the table. The bag slumped to the side, weighted down by the number of items in the sack. Smii7y had a pretty good run tonight. The Millers are always gone so Smii7y never has to worry about getting caught. It’s an easy in-and-out heist, perfect for a casual day.

"You got anything good," the tall man asked, walking towards the bag Smii7y brought in. Wildcat, also known as Tyler, was Smii7y’s second in command. He has known Wildcat since Smii7y first started his record. They didn't have the best lives, but he was glad that Tyler had stuck by him throughout everything. The taller peered over the table, eyeing the new treasure that the shorter brought into the base.

"Of course, the fucking Millers are so fucking easy to steal from," he responded taking a diamond out of the bag. Smii7y felt Tyler playfully mess his hair around, before pushing his head away to get a better look inside the bag. Smii7y laughed at Tyler’s eagerness.

"Oooooh goodies," a voice cheerfully said as he saw the bag.

"Ah ah ah, Marcel you know you can't have anything I take," Smii7y said. Marcel, also known as Basically, was the newest member of his little gang. He was almost finished with his training, but Smii7y knew he wasn't ready to go out.

"But Smiiiitttty you hardly ever let me go out and steal," Marcel jokingly whined using a different version of his nickname. Smii7y rolled his eyes playfully.

"And the reason for that is that you're still the newest one here and you're not ready," Smii7y casually replied, making Marcel pout.

"Come on Marcel, maybe you'll go on a heist soon," someone added from behind the three. Evan walked closer to the group standing in the middle of the room. Smii7y smiled at the entrance of the familiar Asian man.

"Evan, you know that'll never happen," Marcel dramatically complained, making Evan chuckle. Smii7y knew Evan just as long as he knew Tyler. He's been there from the beginning and was probably his first friend in this business. He would consider Evan to be his best friend, but he wouldn't tell Tyler that.

"Anyways, I've been thinking of trying something bigger, something more grand if you will," Smii7y grinned.

"Oh do tell Smii7y," another person, who went by the name of Scotty, said joining the room. Scotty, also known as 407, was their hacker. He'd find out people's security and disable them as much as he could. He licked him up somewhere along last year.

"I want to steal from the Keyes residence," He revealed. Smii7y expected laughs and cheers however the room went completely silent.

"No," was the first thing that came out of Tyler's mouth.

"Wait what? Why," Smii7y laughed out in shock at his friend’s sudden disagreement.

"Because you know how dangerous their security can be," Tyler argued.

"So what I've dealt with is so much worse than that. I can definitely handle a few security cameras and alarms," He argued back. Smii7y was very confused. Usually, his friends would fully be on board with trying out a new venture. For them to suddenly shut down his plan was extremely out of nowhere.

"He's not ready to see you," Marcel mumbled softly.

"Wait, who's not ready?" Smii7y asked, Smii7y never heard of another person being at the Keyes residence. He thought there were only Mark and Angela Keyes who lived there, but there was another? Smii7y needed to know more about this mysterious boy.

"No one," Evan said, shooting a glare toward Marcel. Marcel avoided his gaze nervously. Smii7y raised an eyebrow at his friends. Smii7y knew his friends were hiding this person from him, something that only fueled his burning curiosity.

"Come on guys you can tell me," Smii7y said, getting excited about the possibility of meeting someone new, he was looking for someone new to mess around with.

"No, because we know what you'll do considering your past," Jay said, making Smii7y smirk.

Smii7y was prone to find someone, either male or female, to lead them on and leave them high and dry. It started when he was 15 and has been doing it for 2 years. He found it so much fun to manipulate them into falling for him, it was his favorite pastime, behind stealing of course. "Whaaaat me never," he denied, still wearing a smirk on his face.

"I'm serious Smii7y if you go to Keyes you'll regret it," Tyler threatened.

"Alright, alright I won't go to Keyes's residence, I promise." Smii7y rolled his eyes annoyed. He smiled sweetly and crossed his fingers behind his back, he was not going to give up that easily. His friends nodded in confirmation before diving into a conversation. Smii7y didn't miss the threatening glare that was thrown his way from Tyler, but he decided to ignore it. Smii7y ran his hand through his rough silver hair, fixing his messed-up hair into something neater. Smii7y smiled, Now he definitely has to meet this person whom his friends are oh so trying to protect.

—-

John hates school, but he hates staying home more than actually learning. Of course, he doesn't really learn anything. He's learned everything since he knew how to talk. It's a bit over-exaggerated but he still knew a lot of things. He wasn't even supposed to go to school either, but he managed to convince his parents that attending school would allow good publicity.

He even got to choose what school he went to, something that he never knew would ever happen. Of course, he chose a public school, much to the dismay of his parents. But he convinced them by reasoning that one day when he took over the business, he could scout out potential people to work for them at his school. They patted him on the back and said how proud they were that he was thinking of the business. But John wanted to make a life of his own, hoping no one would recognize him, but his parents insisted the limo driver take him.

He didn't make many friends, only a couple. His first friend was a guy named Cameron, but he calls himself Fitz. When he first stepped out of his limo Cameron approached him and said: "I am now your new best friend, oh rich person." Being Fitz's "new best friend" caused him to meet his other friends. There was Eric, or Swagger, who he has to admit is a bit crazy all the time. But he was high all the time so John couldn't blame him. If he could be high all the time, he would probably be happy. Then there was Mason, or Zuckles. He was the guy everyone made fun of but still is a cool guy. John then met someone named Tobi. She was very good friends with John’s group of friends, and she sometimes hung out with his friends. However, she was usually gone hanging out with her girlfriend instead, but she was always a blast to be around and was super funny. Lastly, there was Jay or McCreamy. Those are the main guys he hangs out with. Of course, he also has Tyler, Marcel, Scotty, and Evan but they hardly have time for him. He will always consider them close friends, but he likes the group he's with now.

"Hey hey John, watch me make this in Swagger's mouth," Fitz said excitedly as he held a piece of popcorn. Swagger was asleep with his mouth open, and they always took the opportunity to just throw random food in there. "And he shoots... and he misses," Fitz said pouting as the popcorn landed on his cheek.

"Alright, alright let a professional handle this," Zuckles said as he took aim.

"And he misses as well will anyone put their popcorn in Swagger's mouth," John said in an announcer voice making them chuckle.

"Clearly it's all up to me," McCreamy said as he took aim. He tossed the popcorn, and they all watched in anticipation to see if it would land or not.

"And it's good!" John cheered as it landed in Swagger's mouth. They watched Swagger blink awake. John found it comedic at Swagger’s delirious state of mind.

"What?" Swagger asked, sleepy as he chewed on the popcorn.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Fitz said dreamily.

"What year is it?" Swagger asked. He blinked slowly and turned his head around. John found it comedic, fighting the urge to laugh at the delirious man.

"It's still the same year dude," John laughed.

"Oh wake me up never then," Swagger mumbled, trying to go back to sleep. The boys all laughed at Swagger’s neediness to sleep.

"So, John, how are the rich parents?" Zuckles asked, turning over to the blond.

"You know the same, gotta act super posh and all that," John said, taking out his vape and taking a hit. A sweet watermelon taste filled his senses, and he felt the nicotine calm his nerves. Swagger peeked an eye open and held out his hand to John, asking for a hit. John laughed as he handed the sleepy man his vape. Swagger took a hit and lay down on his back, blowing the vapor into the air.

"It must be nice to have rich parents," Jay sighed and John slightly flinched; however, it went unnoticed. He focused intently on Swagger’s vape cloud floating into the air.

"Oh yeah, I get to do anything I want and have anything I want," John said sarcastically. Of course, John wanted to tell them his life was hell. That he was struggling to just pass by each day trying to be the perfect son his parents wanted him to be. Isn't it why they had personally selected their best genes just to be in him? He was supposedly the perfect son and yet he rather be anything than that. Maybe the doctors messed up and gave him the want for freedom. Swagger returned the borrowed vape back to John, seemingly finished with it. John grabbed it and stared at it in his hands, flipping the cartridge over and over again.

John must have had a distant expression on his face because Fitz noticed something was up with John. "Hey, are you okay dude?" Fitz asked softly. John looked over at him. He noticed Fitz wore a weird expression; it was different from his normal joking and fun personality. This was something out of curiosity, concern, and strangely enough, understanding. John was about to reply when a limo had pulled forward. He quickly stashed his vape and mumbled a small goodbye to his friends. They waved at him as he entered the car.

"You have an appointment with the Thompson's son and then later you have piano lessons. You'll be able to do your homework after the lessons and then you have a free day young sir," his limo driver said as John settled into the luxurious car.

"Alright thank you, Kevin," John replied in a monotone voice.

John noticed from the rearview mirror that his limo driver was frowning at him. He loves his staff; they take care of him. They always seem to worry about him; he considers them his real family, not the parents who quote on quote raise him. But every time he ever showed kindness towards the staff he was reprimanded with the words: "Don't be nice to the help. They get paid for what they do, that's why they're the help."

Overall he hates his family and their beliefs in everyone. They believe that anyone who isn't rich isn't an important person. That is why his parents didn't know his school friends. They only know Tyler, Evan, Scotty, and Marcel but that's because their parents are among the rich. They're pretty much the only friends he could have but he's glad to have this part of his life a secret.

"We'll be arriving in ten minutes young sir," his car driver said but John didn't respond. He might as well merely stare out the window for the rest of the ride. He knows he isn't going anywhere soon.

—————

[theoriginalsapphic]

death's other kingdom

For @flashfictionfridayofficial

Title: death's other kingdom

Word count: 543

She always show up at nine on the clock. She comes in, dressed in white as the rest of the orderly working there, but whereas the color make them look frigid and austere, on her it makes her appear like an angel coming to save him from this place. He doesn’t belong here; he knows that much.

He doesn’t know where he is, locked in a sterile and morose enclosure like a wild animal that was abducted from his habitat in some faraway land. Everyone either looks at him with a murky, tenebrous look in their glassy eyes, with just pure detachment and scientific curiosity, or with a fixed gaze that tints their irises with scarlet that reveal their subdued thirst for blood whenever they see him.

Everyone but her.

She is not like the rest of them, with her sweet, auburn eyes, and her delicate, diligent hands and the tired but determined look settled in her features. Anytime her coarse fingertips touches his knobby hands, he gets her message: trust me.

Every once in a while, the harsh, fluorescent lights overhead provoke greyish smudges in his vision and blur parts of the woman in front of her— her pleasant smile turns into a grimace stretched painfully in horror, and her friendly eyes become wide and lachrymose with dread.

It doesn’t matter because she is beautiful anyway, with the pronounced lines of a permanent frown between her brows and the tinges of white ash on her fingers from her early smoke breaks. Trust me.

The windows are barred as to forbid any natural light from coming in, the artificial lemon smell from the detergent used to wash his clothes burns his nostrils, and the constant squeak of sneakers on tiled-floor functions as the soundtrack of his daily life. He is trapped in here, and she is his only true ally in this inhumanity.

He taps his skeletal, gnarly hands, and he catches his reflection on the glass outside his room, looking pale as time-worn bones but he isn’t scared; he doesn’t feel fear anymore. He is a patient man; he can wait for her to break him out of here and save him.

—

The police sirens blare in the distance. He can only stare at his slender hands painted crimson and the blood-stained cleaver to testify for what he has done. He stares at his wife laying on the hardwood floor, with her mouth wide open in an aborted scream and the accusatory betrayal of her dilated pupils glaring at him.

He didn’t do it— he could never harm the woman he loves.

He didn’t do this. Someone must had walked in when he didn’t notice, murdered her, and then put the knife in his hand. That is the only way to explain it.

He didn’t do this. The Devil must have tricked him, manipulated him, and forced him to take away from him the one woman he ever loved.

He would never do this; he would never hurt anyone, let alone his wife.

He didn’t do this.

He didn’t do—

He didn’t—

He—

As the walls of the living room are casted in shaking hues of blue and red, he stops existing, leaving a hollow carcass to deal with the fallout.

[goddessofthedawn]

guillaume cover

 Hello hello! So Guillaume--my next book--it's coming out March 3rd--I'll let you know when I have a pre-order link I PROMISE--now has a cover! The cover is done! I'll post cover + synopsis below!

(Cover by Larisa Katz, by the way)

SIX YEARS AGO, FORTY-TWO BOYS CRASHED ON AN ISLAND IN THE CARIBBEAN. ONLY FIFTEEN OF THEM MADE IT BACK ALIVE.

            Now in his first year of college, Ashton Collins is trying to keep his life normal. But turning eighteen means that Guillaume Argot, the purported antagonist of the island, has been let out of the psychiatric ward he’s lived in since their rescue. And Guillaume getting set free means that Ashton has to confront some things he’d rather keep inside: for example, the fact that he was Guillaume’s right-hand man.

            When Guillaume shows up as Ashton’s college roommate, Ashton is faced with a decision: does he slip right back into his role at Guillaume’s side? Because Guillaume has a list—and he’s not resting until every boy who made it back from that island alive is dead.

[watcheraurora]

Okay I’ve never written a Treebark one-shot in any variety and I don’t know c!Ren very well and I only know c!Martyn a little better and I have no idea what’s going on with the Fantasy SMP in general but the rambling was giving me such vibes and I love a bit of fantasy. I did my best

1.5k words

—

Ren sits on the shore of the lake, looking out across the water. It’s quiet. Too quiet. No shouts of the other knights. No ringing of Tango’s hammer on the anvil as he makes something new and beautiful.

He adjusts his grip on his fishing pole and sighs. He’s not used to extended camping. He’s camped before. Traveling with the other knights on assignments got him used to being outside for a while. But this was the longest he’d ever been living in the wilderness on his own.

Thankfully there are plenty of fish in this lake and he knows how to hunt. He tries not to overdo anything. He doesn't want to damage the forest. But a man's gotta eat.

The breeze drifting across his face off the water makes his ears twitch. It's chill but not cold. Still, summer will soon be over, and he will need to figure out a better living arrangement before winter blows in. Ren himself is probably better insulated against the cold than most, but that doesn't mean surviving outdoors for a whole winter is feasible.

His line tugs and his attention snaps to it. He grabs and yanks, dragging it in toward shore. A fish flops around at the surface, struggling against it.

He brings it in and quickly dispatches it to make dinner.

—

A forked tongue tastes the air. A low, guttural growling clings close to the figure that hides behind a tree, peeking out. Blue-and-white horns glint a little where the fading sunlight still manages to peek through the forest canopy.

Martyn peers through the trees with a mischievous little grin, his tail curling upward to keep it from dragging. He brushes his long, yellow-blond braid off his shoulder so it falls down his back to stay out of his way.

The knight in his camp doesn't notice Martyn. He whistles as he prepares a fish over his campfire. His hair is thick and dark brown, in a short, low braid. The braid leaves a thin scar on his neck a little exposed over the top of his armor, like someone had sliced it. The scar is old and faded, difficult to notice if not for the dappled sunlight making it glisten. Wolf-like ears at the top of the knight's head turn and listen, but never seem to quite turn Martyn's way.

Martyn wonders why. That growling noise in his chest and throat is quiet, but wolf hearing should be able to pick it up easily.

It's only polite to try to give a little warning to his presence, after all.

He steals closer, ducking behind the next tree, watching the knight, whose back is to him.

Martyn pauses. His forked tongue licks his lips as he looks at the fish roasting over the fire. Swiping it and scampering back to his den would be almost too easy. Which is, admittedly, less fun.

There's a long pause while Martyn waits for the knight to be sufficiently distracted so he can swoop in. He's not malicious, not really. He just likes a bit of mischief. And this knight has been dangerously close to Martyn's den for what seems like weeks now. If anything, it's the knight's fault for not being cautious around a dragon's territory. If he was really worth his salt, the knight would know a dragon lives nearby.

Martyn remembers the first time he saw this knight from a distance when he first set up camp here. The overwhelming sense of trust and mourning that swept over him that he couldn't fathom, nor find the origin for.

Now!

He dodges out from behind the tree and rushes over to the camp, snatching the fish. His claws crashing through the underbrush finally catches the knight's attention.

"HEY!" the knight protests, whirling around.

Martyn's tail lashes. He sticks his forked tongue out playfully, shoves the fish in his mouth, and runs back into the trees on all fours, heading for his den. If the knight is as wolf-like as he looks, he might actually stand a chance of catching up. His ears—humanoid, but pointy—twitch back a little, listening for the knight to come crashing through the woods behind him.

Nothing.

Martyn slows down and climbs back up onto his feet, turning around to look where he came from.

The knight hasn't pursued him.

... Huh.

Martyn makes a face and walks like a normal bipedal creature back to his den.

—

Ren sighs as the humanoid dragon disappears into the brush. He goes to find his fishing pole. It's a good time of day for fishing, anyway. If the dragon needs the fish enough to steal it from him, he might as well let him have it. He is a knight of honor, despite the king's beliefs, and if that means letting the dragon have a fish because he's clearly hungry, then the honorable thing to do is let the dragon have it.

He scoops up his fishing pole and returns to the lake.

—

Martyn creeps back to the knight's camp under the moonlight. For no particular reason other than he's not feeling sleepy.

And, yeah. Maybe he wants to make sure the knight is okay after his prank earlier. He's not going to starve, right?

Crunching of underbrush underfoot catches Martyn's attention and he freezes for a split second before hiding behind a tree, sweeping his tail closer to himself so it doesn't poke out and give him away.

The full moon shines through a gap in the canopy directly down onto him, reflecting the bluish-white of his scales onto the trees around him. But the trunk of the one he's hiding behind should block the knight from noticing. He likes having the moonlight on him. It makes his magic swirl in his blood like it's basking in attention.

He peeks around the trunk toward the knight's camp.

The fire has burned low, but he can still see the knight. The man is walking around the perimeter of his camp, sword loose in one hand, peering into the darkness of the forest with narrowed eyes. He has armor on. It looks like it's seen better days.

That or a coat of arms that had one been stamped into the metal has been hammered out—

Ohhhhh.

That certainly explains why this knight has been here, all alone in the middle of the woods, for as long as he has.

He's been disgraced. Cast out.

Martyn's eyebrows tilt down on the outside corners in sympathy.

The knight walks the perimeter of his camp slowly three times before taking up a post leaning against the nearest big tree. The remains of another fish are visible. Oh good. At least he caught another one.

Martyn creeps around the outside edge of the camp, keeping an eye on the knight the whole time, until he can see the man's face.

The knight is nodding off. Indeed, he looks exhausted. Sleeping out in the mostly-open of the wild woods probably hasn't afforded him much sleep, trying to keep himself safe from the nocturnal creatures just as much as the diurnal ones.

Martyn slips silently between two tree trunks, getting closer. The claws on his feet are quiet in the brush. He's built to be silent in crunchy snow—this underbrush is easy by comparison.

He approaches the knight slowly, not wanting to startle him out of sleep.

When he's close enough to be protection but far enough that the knight's sword won't slice him without warning, Martyn lowers himself to the ground. He curls up and wraps his tail around himself, resting his head on his hands. His slitted pupils are wide enough to appear round in the darkness as he keeps watch. He tastes the air with his forked tongue. Nothing of note nearby.

Hopefully the knight will be able to get some... rest. Probably not proper sleep, standing against a tree like that. But at least rest.

—

Ren rouses just enough to realize the dragon is back. But the dragon is just... lying there. On the ground. A few paces away. His head moves back and forth, watching the forest. He has long gold hair, braided back.

Gold hair that Ren... remembers. But he remembers it shorter. Stained red from a war—

The memory flits away as quickly as it arrives.

Trussst... Trussst him... the wind whispers. You've trusted your life to him before...

The scar on Ren's neck twinges. He rolls his neck to stretch it out. Have I? he wonders. He supposes so. He's trusted the dragon enough not to eat him.

He slides down the trunk of the tree and rests his head back against it.

"You got a name, beastie?" he asks, voice quiet and tired.

Pale white-blue eyes flick to him. "I have," the dragon says. "Although, I quite like 'beastie'." He chuckles softly. "Have you a name?"

"Not one that matters anymore." Ren closes his eyes and rubs the scar on his neck. "A knight with no king isn't worthy of one."

"I had a king once," the dragon says. "Many ages ago." He sounds wistful. "One I barely remember. Yet, my name remains. Tell me yours?"

"... Ren."

"Martyn."

"An honor to meet you, Martyn."

"You as well, Ren. Get some sleep. I'll keep you safe."

I suddenly wanna give dragon Martyn a forked tongue for some reason

Im trying to fill the gap made from lack of fantasy Ren and Martyn interactions. Ramblings under the cut.

I imagine since Martyn purposefully moved his dragon den closer to Ren's camp that he'll end up messing with him and his gear often. Ren will have just finished catching and frying some fish and Martyn is right there ready to steal some so he doesn't have to fish for himself.

Ren will often make nightly rounds around his camp to check for any enemies and sometimes Martyn will find him asleep at his post and will just curl up next to him and keep an eye out for anything while he sleeps.

While Ren makes a big show of how much he finds Martyns presence annoying, he secretly likes having the company. Being a disgraced Knight he isn't used to being alone so he finds comfort in Martyns frequent presence.

[adoreddestiny]

ೃ⁀➷ BITING ON THEM — rafayel, zayne, xavier x gn!reader

rafayel yelps before staring at you in utter silence. he blinks once, twice before rubbing the spot on his hand that you just took a good chomp out of. “what was that for?!” and you shrug, going back to whatever you were doing beforehand.

rafayel appears to come to his senses. pushing his hand in front of you once more. “do it again!” you shake your head, haughty amusement glittering in his eyes as he frowns and shakes his hand again. “don’t wanna," you grin. he scoffs, leaning in closer to try and get a reaction. but you give him none.

rafayel frowns, turning away from you dramatically before taking your hand and gently sinking his teeth into the palm of your hand. his eyes daring you to say anything against him. “if you get to do it, i do too,” he says stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest.

zayne is unphased. to be fair, he's gotten to know you well enough to always expect the unexpected. he blinks at you, glances at his forearm, before going back to typing up another email. seeing as you've failed to get his attention, you go back to laying on the couch staring up at the ceiling.

zayne tilts his screen down, raising an eyebrow at your behavior. "care to explain?" he says gently. you take his arm, stubbornly biting it once more. at this, a deep chuckle rumbles from his chest. "is this one of your many tricks?"

zayne watches as you sit back up, leaning against his shoulder as you look over what he was previously working on. "no. i just felt like it," you say with a shrug. he shakes his head at your antics before taking your hand and nibbling your fingertip. "then i might as well give you a taste of your own medicine."

xavier gives you a look of gentle surprise as you munch on his ear. he glances behind him, pleasantly surprised to see you. as you release him from your toothy hold, he rubs the spot you latched yourself to. "what was that for?"

xavier grasps your hand as you wrap your arms around his shoulder from behind the couch. you don't answer right away but give him a well-behaved smile. "can't i just bite you?" a curious look of mirth fills his pretty blue eyes.

xavier turns slightly, tilting his head to graze his teeth against the column of your neck. the sensation has you hurrying backwards and grasping the spot he teased. your shocked expression only elicits a smug look from him. "like that?"

[watcheraurora]

Spirit Vision

I... wanted to write a silly GIGGS Phasmo/Ghost Hunting AU. This... is not that. Not exactly. Where did the Ranchers come from for this? I have no idea 5.3k words

CW: Phasmo-typical horror ghost elements, mentions of death and blood, mild gore described

I know Phasmo is a four player game ssssshhhh this is creative liberty

—

"You comin', Top?" Skizz called from the van, where he was loading up the last few things and strapping them in for the job.

Tango looked up from the paperwork he'd been filling out for the last... oh gosh. Three hours. "Do I have to?" he asked, the slight whine of complaint tightening his throat. "Where's Gem?"

"She couldn't make it tonight. Family obligation."

"Do you need me?"

"Five brains are better than four! Especially if one of them is yours," Grian remarked, strolling past with a box of smudge sticks in his arms. He chucked it to Skizz when he was in range.

"C'mooon," Skizz encouraged, "don't you miss field work? Don't you get bored of just filling out papers all the time? Admin is fine but, like, don't you miss the thrill of adrenaline when a hunt starts? The puzzle of it all?"

Tango narrowed his eyes behind his glasses. "Why would I? I think you just miss me screaming."

Impulse guffawed from the cab of the van. "That too!" he called.

Tango flipped him off, which only served to make him laugh harder. Tango rolled his eyes and went back to his paperwork.

"Tango?" Scar asked, his green eyes wide. "It is really helpful to have five people on a job." There was genuine emotion in Scar's voice. Scar could be very manipulative and scheming when he wanted to be. But it was always him playing it up as a bit. This was real. He was... worried? Concerned? Scared?

Therein lay the other problem. Tango could tell Impy and Skizz to buzz off and know they'd back off. Even Grian took the order to scram as a sign that he was pushing too far.

But Tango always struggled to say no to Scar. He couldn't help it. Scar was a few years younger than him and had Little Brother energy. In such a way that Tango had a hard time turning down his shenanigans.

Tango rubbed his eyes under his glasses with his fingertips, making sure the glasses were back in place before he opened his eyes again. "Fine. But we're not making this a regular thing. I left the field for a reason," he said. He clapped his pen down onto the desk top and pushed to his feet while Scar's face lit up.

"You never did tell us what that reason was," Grian remarked quietly, scooping up five doses of sanity medication. His dark eyes flicked pointedly toward Scar and then back to Tango.

"That's because it's none of your business," Tango retorted, tone sharper than he intended.

Grian gave him a look—the Grian Look™ that looked like it pierced right into his soul and laid it bare—but didn't push. Just took the sanity medication to Skizz, who loaded it in. Tango stretched and climbed into the back of the van to help.

—

"One, two, three, not it!" Skizz said, lashing a hand up to put his finger on his nose.

"Not it!" Impulse, Scar, and Grian all chorused, throwing hands up to their own noses.

Tango rolled his eyes and snatched the Spirit Box off the rack in the back of the van, glancing at the ghost's name on their pin board. "You're all children." He glowered at Impulse and Skizz, who were roughly the same age as him, rather than a chunk of years younger like Grian and Scar.

As he tromped down the ramp and headed toward the door, the radio-flashlight-combo device attached to his shoulder crackled to life. "Could you do this with your radio on? I want to be part of the experience from afar," Grian said playfully. Scar's laugh was just barely audible nearby.

Tango activated his radio's microphone and gave them both some choice words before marching into the house while they cackled.

The ghost room was in one of the bedrooms. It was a one-story house with a basement, but the bedrooms were all on the ground floor.

He nearly tripped on the camera tripod transmitting its video to the van that Impulse had set up in the doorway and rolled his eyes harder. He loved his friends but they were also idiots sometimes. Tango repositioned the tripod so he could close the door. Once it was shut, he turned off the light, muttering incomprehensible noises the whole time.

He pulled his glasses off. The camera had night vision, so he kept his back to it.

The lenses were heavily yellow-tinted. He told Grian and Scar it was because the prescription lenses had a really good blue-light filter on them so he could look at screens all day without irritating his eyes quite so much.

He lied. The lenses weren't prescription. The yellow tint just helped hide the real color of his eyes. With his glasses on, they looked orange-amber enough to pass as brown. His eyes were listed as brown on his driver's license. But they weren't brown. Even in the poor-quality picture on his license photo without his glasses on, his eyes were noticeably not brown.

His eyes were red.

Impy and Skizz knew. They just didn't say anything.

Tucking one side-arm of his glasses down the collar of his baseball shirt, he switched on the Spirit Box. "Are you here?" he asked, blinking hard and looking around the room.

The row of lights flashed red.

"Are you near?" he tried again.

Flash of red.

Tango raised a brow. "Are you friendly?"

Red.

He huffed a sigh. "Are you French?"

Impulse giggled over the radio—but the lights were again red.

Tango took a deep breath. "Where are you?"

"Where are you!" Grian sang over the radio.

"And I'm so sorry!" Skizz sang back.

A row of white lights. The Spirit Box searched nearby radio frequencies, and it skipped between two, robotically seeming to say, "Behind you."

But directly in front of him, a figure shimmered into existence. Not interacting with the D.O.T.S. projector at all. The figure was tall. Broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. Short dirty-blond hair, dark eyes. There was a faint outline of red around the edges.

Tango yelped at the Spirit Box on instinct.

"Whoo! We got Spirit Box!" Skizz announced over the radio, knowing Tango's tells from years of working with him.

The figure smiled at Tango. "Does that still scare you?" he teased.

Tango reached up and turned off his radio, moving out of sight of the video camera. He stared at the new figure. The others would have no idea the figure was there. This one wasn't the ghost haunting this house. This one was a separate entity entirely. And Tango was the only one who could see this figure.

Red eyes were the most obvious sign of Spirit Vision. An extremely rare gift that allowed a person born with it to see ghosts all the time, rather than during events or hunts.

He swallowed. "I thought you moved on," he said.

The figure smiled sadly. "I had."

—

Five Years Ago...

—

"Jimmy Solidarity. Where are you?" Tango asked, slowly spinning around the kitchen with the Spirit Box at eye-level. Joker and Impulse were talking quietly in the hallway around the corner.

A young man popped up directly in front of Tango, outlined in red. "Right here," he said playfully.

Tango screamed.

The young man—Jimmy Solidarity—scrunched his eyebrows. "Wait... what? No. I can't... that thing doesn't work with me. I can't figure it out." His dark eyes looked at the Spirit Box. "How are you..." He reached up. Before he even got close, Tango's glasses went flying. "Why are your eyes glowing?!"

They weren't. Even when he was looking right at the ghost, his eyes didn't glow. Not to mortal, living eyes anyway. But he'd never had a ghost react intelligently to him before.

"I... I can see you," he said. "I can hear you without this." He waved the Spirit Box vaguely.

Jimmy Solidarity floated back like he'd taken a step back. "What?! How?"

"Spirit Vision."

"I'm not a Spirit though. I'm a Revenant."

"That's just what it's called. I can see ghosts. Of all varieties." That didn't usually involve having a normal conversation with one. Most ghosts were long-gone creatures driven by nothing more than a need to hunt mortals. Primal and feral.

Tango switched on his radio. "Gentlemen, we have ourselves a Rev."

"How do you know that?" Impulse demanded, striding into the room and flicking the lights on. Jimmy Solidarity whirled to look, and noticed Impulse couldn't see him. Looked right past him, even.

"He told me," Tango said, peeking at Jimmy.

"What? How—dude, what happened to your glasses?" Impulse looked around the handful of objects that had been thrown. He spotted the glasses. The lenses were plastic and hadn't even cracked from the impact of getting thrown. Impulse returned them, but Tango didn't put them on.

"Look at my eyes," Tango said quietly while Joker and Skizz were goofing off outside the room, unwilling to come in and get their sanity dropped by being in the cold ghost room with the ghost.

Impulse scrunched his eyebrows and got a little closer to Tango, who looked at Jimmy—who was floating just off the floor and looking a little uncomfortable—and then smiled at his old friend. He blinked slowly to allow Impulse a second.

"Why are they red? I thought they were brown!"

Tango shrugged and put his glasses back on. "They are with these. Or close enough to it, anyway." He looked toward Jimmy. "I have Spirit Vision. You have to be born with it to have it. I was. Spirit Vision gives a person red eyes. I can see ghosts. Just... all the time. Doesn't have to be a hunt or an event. And he's standing right there. Watching us."

Jimmy stuck his tongue out. Tango stuck his out right back. Jimmy laughed and Tango smiled.

"This one's different. He's awake," Tango continued to Impulse, not taking his eyes off Jimmy. "He's intelligent, not mindlessly hunting. But he's a Revenant. No Spirit Box." Tango handed the Spirit Box to Impulse. "Will you put that back in the van for me? I'm gonna talk to him."

"I'll check your sanity monitor while I'm there. If it's at zero, I'm not believing a word you've said," Impulse said.

Tango flipped him off. Impulse returned the gesture and left the room.

"So. Jimmy. What can we do to help you move on?"

"I don't want to move on," Jimmy said. "I have things that I need to do."

"Meaning?" Tango prompted.

"There are some people that I need to pay a visit."

Tango looked Jimmy up and down. Denim jeans, white T-shirt, blue button-up worn unbuttoned over the T-shirt. Fairly modern hairstyle. "You didn't die too long ago, did you?"

"Tango, your sanity is plummeting, man," Impulse said over the radio.

"No. I died about ten years ago."

"And you've just been chilling here ever since?" Tango asked. "That's long enough that any other ghost would have been driven to madness. Lost all human intelligence."

Jimmy shrugged. "Like I said. I have things to do. Once I get revenge, I'll be able to move on."

Ahhh. So he was that kind of Revenant.

"Did you die young?" Tango asked.

Jimmy nodded.

"We'll help where we can. How about that? Then you can move on."

Jimmy smiled. He had a nice smile—a little cheeky, with his tongue poking between his teeth. "I think we can come to some sort of agreement," he said.

—

Present Day...

—

"Why are you back?" Tango asked, breathless. His heart was hammering in his chest.

He, Impulse, Skizz, and Joker had kept Tango's promise. They helped Jimmy find the people he needed to take revenge on. That had been too much for Joker and he'd resigned eventually. And Tango had suffered so much from constant use of his Spirit Vision—which he'd always assumed was a passive ability up until that—that he struggled to stay in the field. So he'd taken the desk jockey position with their little ghost hunting enterprise. Impulse had fought him hard on that. They argued for weeks, and at certain points it seemed like their friendship wouldn't survive. Tango's ability to see ghosts all the time and communicate with them was extremely effective. But after Tango's last job in the field left him crying blood, Impulse had finally backed down. Then hired Grian and Scar to take his and Joker's places in the field. Ghost hunting wasn't any of their day jobs. There simply weren't enough real hauntings to sustain them consistently. But it was a good side-hustle... up until Jimmy.

Tango had never admitted to Impulse, Skizz, or Joker that he'd developed sympathy—and later feelings—for the Revenant they helped.

Who was now back from the Afterlife, rather than Limbo Between, looking at him like they were old friends who'd run into one another at the grocery store.

Jimmy glanced over Tango's shoulder. "She is actually behind you, by the way."

Tango whirled—and shrieked—at the presence of the mangled figure of a long-gone-mad ghost. Sunken empty eye sockets, a gaping maw of rotten black teeth, torn to shreds and covered in viscera. Tango had almost forgotten how abhorrent ghosts became when they drove themselves mad.

He backed away from her—passing through Jimmy. Who was frigid. But familiar.

She left the room and went back to roaming the house.

Tango set a hand on his racing heart.

Jimmy slowly turned around. "You alright?"

"Fine. What are you doing back? I thought ghosts couldn't... I thought..."

"We're not supposed to be able to leave the Afterlife. We're supposed to stay once we made it there. I snuck back. I've been piggybacking every haunting in town for months, looking for you. Where have you been? I've seen Impulse and Skizz, but not you."

No wonder Impulse, Skizz, Scar, and Grian kept getting Twins but only contained one ghost.

Tango shook his head, his legs bumping into the bed. "I left the field. I couldn't... after you were gone... you being around all the time pushed me to the brink of my Vision. A few weeks after... I cried blood during a job. I couldn't... I didn't want to do this anymore. Being in the field..." He rubbed his eyes. They were starting to ache—and not from staring at a computer all day. He squeezed them shut. Having his eyes open didn't stop him from being able to hear Jimmy, but his ability was called Spirit Vision for a reason. Jimmy's voice muffled when Tango's eyes were closed.

"Are you alright?" Jimmy asked.

Tango hadn't used his Vision in years, at this point. He'd forgotten the strain it put on him. The strain that he'd once been so accustomed to that he didn't realize there was any discomfort.

"I... I... I need to leave," he said. Squinting to keep his eyes mostly closed, he stumbled out of the bedroom and jammed his glasses back on his face. Staggering, he pushed past Skizz, lingering on the front door's threshold, and ran to the van. He fell to the floor and sat with his back to one wall, next to the monitor screens.

"Top?" Skizz called, rushing back toward the van himself. "Tango!"

Grian was lingering in the van, as usual, standing at the desk and monitoring the video feed. He turned when Tango collapsed. "What's going on?!" he demanded, voice high-pitched and squawky.

Tango rubbed his temples and grunted a quiet sigh. "One of these days, you'll learn to mind your own damn business."

Lightning flickered with an almost inseparable crash of thunder right as Grian's eyes... flashed purple. But Tango's eyes were squeezed shut against the strain of his Vision and he didn't notice. Just kept rubbing his temples, curled up into a ball. Hoping that Jimmy couldn't leave the house and come see him like this. Most ghosts were stuck within the house they haunted. But if Jimmy was piggybacking every haunting in the area... was he stuck?

A weight heavier than Grian's small, slight frame crashed into the metal floor of the back of the van right beside Tango. "Hey. Buddy. You okay?" Skizz asked as big, warm, callused hands wrapped around Tango's wrists and pulled them away from his face.

Tango shook his head, running a hand through his hair.

"G, will you go grab Impulse?" Skizz asked, tone noticeably frazzled.

"I don't want to go in there with a ghost!" Grian shrieked.

"G! This is an emergency!" Skizz snapped. "Go get Impulse!"

Tango peeked one eye open in time to catch Grian glaring in their general direction while storming out of the van, muttering under his breath.

Once he was out of earshot, his calls for Impulse drowned out by the rain starting to fall, Skizz's hand rested on Tango's shoulder. "What's goin' on, Top?" he asked, voice gentle and concerned. Skizz wasn't the most experienced ghost hunter of the group—that would be Impulse—but he was the oldest. And he had kinda slotted himself into the responsible one of the group role. When things got serious. Other than that, he was also the biggest goofball.

Tango pulled his glasses off, blinking dry, exhausted, red eyes up at Skizz. "It's Jimmy," he breathed. "He's back. He's here."

"You can See him?"

Tango nodded. "He's been piggybacking every haunt in the area for a bit, trying to find me. Since I can See him. I think that's why you've been getting Twins so often but only contain one ghost when the house is cleansed."

"How is he back? Why is he back?"

"I don't know. But using my Vision after four years... Skizz, it hurts."

He felt Skizz wrap him up in a hug. Skizz's hugs were nice. All-encompassing and full of comfort. "It's okay, buddy. You're going to be okay."

They stayed like that for a while before Impulse's distinct run gait splashed through the puddles forming outside.

"What's going on?" Impulse demanded as he crashed up the ramp and into the back of the van. "Grian said Tango wasn't okay?"

Skizz looked around, checking if Grian or Scar had tagged along.

Impulse noticed the look. "I left Grian with Scar, working on putting some salt down. Should keep them occupied for a few minutes," he said, kneeling on Tango's other side after edging around Skizz. "What's going on?"

"My Vision," Tango said. "It hurts."

"Because you haven't used it in so long?"

"I think so. Whatever tolerance I'd built up for the strain it put on me, I've lost it."

"Also Jimmy's back," Skizz added.

"I was getting to that, Skizz," Tango ground out around a clenched jaw.

"Wait. Jimmy? As in... Jimmy Solidarity? That Rev we helped so he could finally get to the Afterlife?" Impulse asked, eyebrows furrowed. From confusion and a bit of frustration, probably. He'd taken Joker's resignation after their process getting Jimmy to move on the hardest of all of them.

"Yeah." Tango nodded.

"What's he doing back? After all that work to get him to move on?!"

"I don't—I don't know, okay?!" Tango retorted. "I couldn't really stay in there and conduct an interview. Just talking to him for a few sentences was starting to make my eyes hurt really bad. And I can't hear ghosts very well if my eyes are closed. It's a weird quirk of Spirit Vision, I guess."

Impulse opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, Scar and Grian came barreling out of the house. Scar was screaming like Goofy from a Disney movie and Grian was shrieking like a bird.

"Twiiiiinnnsss!" Grian shouted.

"Again?" Scar complained.

Skizz squeezed Tango's shoulder.

"It's not Twins," Tango said.

"What? But we have Spirit Box and Freezing Temps. All we're missing is EMF-Five," Grian said.

Tango shook his head. "It's not Twins. I suggest checking for UV. I think she might be a Mimic."

Grian and Impulse both glanced toward the desk. "I haven't seen any orbs," Grian said.

"Might be a Moroi," Impulse conceded thoughtfully. "Do we have a book down?"

"It's in the wrong room," Skizz said. "Scar set it down in the kitchen."

"You said it was cold in there!" Scar protested.

Tango pushed himself to his feet. "I'll go move it to the ghost room."

"Whoa. Dude," Impulse cautioned. "You're not feeling well. Are you sure you want to go back in there?"

"I need to," Tango said, stepping partially around, partially over Skizz, who was still kneeling. He ran out of the van.

Before he was out of earshot, he heard Grian say, "What's with him?" and Impulse making a noncommittal noise back.

He went back in the house, shaking rainwater out of his hair. "Jimmy?" he called.

"Yes?" The ghost in question slid right through a wall, an excitable smile on his face.

"Talk while we walk. But I can't look at you much or I'm going to get a headache."

"Okay. I remember that toward the end. Before you helped me rest. You stopped looking at me as much."

Tango headed toward the kitchen. "I had to if we wanted to be able to communicate at all," he said. He could feel Jimmy's cold presence floating along at his elbow.

"And here I've spent the last five years thinking it was because you were embarrassed of being attracted to me—I'm joking, I'm joking!" Jimmy added quickly when Tango's gait hitched. He snatched up the Ghost Writing book and turned on his heel. Jimmy stood in the way, but Tango could just walk straight through him. He'd done it before. It wasn't a pleasant sensation and it made sanity plummet, but he could.

"Move over," he said.

Jimmy did, disappearing partway into the wall. Tango went back to take the book to the ghost room. "Wait, Tango. Did I go too far? I'm sorry if I did. I just missed joking around with you. It was always—" He cut off as the light on Tango's shoulder flickered. The house—or the woman's ghost haunting it—began to groan.

"Hunt!" Impulse shouted over the radio, his voice cutting out with the ghost's interference.

Tango swore and ducked into the hall closet, yanking the door shut behind him and holding it closed in case the ghost tried to open it. Jimmy drifted through the closet door and hovered near Tango. The closet was large enough for two people, but the quarters were tight.

Tango closed his eyes, listening to the ghost's footsteps. He scrunched his eyebrows, tapping one finger against his thigh to the beat of the footsteps. The lights through the slats in the door flickered—

And then turned off.

Tango shoved open the door, rushed to the ghost room and dropped the book open on the ground, before bolting out the front door. Jimmy's cold presence followed him out the door this time. Tango grabbed the radio on his shoulder, turning it back on. "Ghost fast! Ghost fast, ghost fast, ghost fast!" He careened into the back of the van, already searching out the monitor that tracked their sanity.

"What?" Grian asked, not looking away from the computer monitor at the desk still looking for Ghost Orbs in case she was a Mimic. He snatched up his journal. "And you're sure it's not Twins?"

"Pretty darn," Tango said. "I'm genuinely thinking she's—"

"A Moroi," Grian finished. "The lower the sanity, the faster the Moroi."

"Exactly."

"Well, could still be a Mimic mimicking the Moroi," Grian reasoned, snapping his journal shut and looking up to meet Tango's eyes. He froze. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is that?!" His voice went shrieky again, looking over Tango's left shoulder.

Tango turned to see Jimmy also looking behind himself curiously.

"How did the ghost leave the house?!" Grian demanded. "Wait. Our ghost is..." He looked at the pinboard. The distinctly feminine name. Eve Leonard. Then back to Jimmy. "Where did he come from?"

"You can See him?" Tango asked.

"You can See him?!" Grian retorted.

Tango removed his glasses, revealing the real color of his eyes when they didn't hide behind the amber-orange of the yellow lens tint. But he said nothing.

Grian stalked over to Jimmy, glowering. "Have you been messing with our evidence tonight, fella?" he snapped.

"He hasn't," Tango said before Jimmy could say anything. "He's a Rev. He doesn't interact with the Spirit Box. He does cause Freezing Temps, but he's not skewing the rest of the evidence."

"How do you know he's a Rev?"

"I told him when we first met," Jimmy said.

Grian's gaze snapped back to Jimmy. "You can talk? Most ghosts—"

"I was never quite like the other ghosts," Jimmy remarked.

"I feel like we're not addressing the big elephant in this van right now," Tango said sarcastically. "How can you See a ghost without Spirit Vision?"

Grian met Tango's eyes, and finally seemed to register that they were red. His face blanched a little. "I'm... a little different," Grian admitted. "Please don't tell the others."

Tango shrugged. "Not my secret to tell." Grian's shoulders relaxed. "Different how? E.S.P.?"

"Not exactly. I'm, uh... I'm what's called a Watcher. A rare intersection of a few different sight-based abilities. Spirit Vision, precognition—but it's pretty limited—some clairvoyance. From what I've been able to find, it's a lot rarer for a Watcher to exist than someone with Spirit Vision or precognition or clairvoyance. Like, no more than three on the planet at a time."

"So the odds of us both being on this ghost hunting team are astronomical. And yet here we are," Tango said.

"Basically."

Tango rounded on Jimmy. "Now what are you doing back from the Afterlife? We didn't spend four months helping you with your revenge so you could finally move on for you just to show up here again because you were bored."

"No, I... I came back because... I... I missed you. I can go back to the Afterlife anytime I want, now. But I missed you all. I've just... I've wanted to see your faces again. But you weren't at your old offices, and it's hard to travel around places that aren't haunted so I couldn't follow the van back. I've been..." He cleared his throat, flicked a glance at Grian, and looked back to Tango. "I've been looking for you."

Tango scrunched his eyebrows at Grian. "And you haven't noticed?"

"Well, see, I'm the man in the van," Grian said. "I don't go inside with the ghosties if I can help it."

Tango sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Jim, can we talk outside, in private?" He gave Grian a pointed look and led the way out into the rain. Leaving his glasses off. It was annoying to put up with them when they got streaked with rain.

They circled to the side of the van away from the house. Tango leaned against the van wall, looking around. It was late. No one seemed to be awake or looking around. Maybe the neighbors had all been informed that this house was haunted and ghost hunters were coming to capture the ghost so they were all hiding inside.

"What do you want to speak about?" Jimmy asked. Tango cleared his throat but didn't say anything yet. Trying to parse his thoughts into words that made sense. Why were words so hard? Like, all the time? "Look, I know I might have messed up, coming back like this. I know you weren't expecting to see me. I know you promised that when your time came, you'd meet me in the Afterlife. But that won't be for such a long time and I missed you. Your smile, your laugh—Tango. Are you still... do you still...?"

"Am I still in love with you?" Tango finished, voice sharper than he meant it to be. He pretended not to notice Jimmy's slight flinch in the corner of his eyes. "Yeah. I am."

"Really?" The disbelief in Jimmy's voice was closely entwined with hope.

"Mmhmm." Tango still couldn't look at him directly without his Vision making his eyes hurt. "Kinda hard to explain that to my friends though. 'Ohhh Tango hasn't gone on a date in five years because he's still pining for the Revenant who moved on to the Afterlife.'" It was a poor imitation of Impulse's voice, but noticeably Impulse all the same.

"Tango... am I holding you back? There's no point in you living a long life before joining me if it's not a happy one."

"I'm keeping my promise to you. I'm living my life. You're not holding me back. No one has come into my life that's felt like you. If they do, I'll be happy to share my time with them. But so far, that hasn't happened. So here I am. Still single five years later, and fine with it. Maybe someone wanders into my life, maybe they don't. I'm living my life on my terms. And if that means missing a ghost I'm in love with, then that's what it means. I have no intentions of cutting my life short just to be with you. But that doesn't mean what we have and have had isn't real to me."

He felt the familiar frigid iciness of Jimmy's hand passing through his. And finally turned to look Jimmy square in the face. The ache in his eyes throbbed, but eased a little. Some semblance of a tolerance returning.

"Go back to the Afterlife, Jimmy. I've kept my promise and I intend to continue keeping it. To live my life to the fullest and join you when my time comes."

Jimmy looked like he would tear up if he could. But he was still a ghost, and had no tears to shed. He floated as close to Tango as he could get. The icy sensation of him cupping Tango's face in his hands sent chills down Tango's spine. "I'll miss you. I love you."

"I love you too, Jimmy. I'll miss you."

The frozen kiss against his forehead made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

His Vision ached a little less as Jimmy faded from view, blowing another kiss off his fingertips as he did so. Tango pretended to catch it, tucking it into the chest pocket of his vest.

Jimmy vanished.

Tango went back into the van.

"I don't think we need to discuss that any of this happened with the others, do you?" he asked Grian.

"What?"

"I don't tell them you're a Watcher, you don't tell Scar I have Spirit Vision and was talking to a different ghost than the one who haunts this house. Yeah?"

"Deal," Grian said, sticking a hand out. Tango shook it.

At that moment, Skizz came barreling out of the house, screaming. "Moroooooiiiii!" Impulse came jogging out after, smiling smugly, with Scar in tow, who was wide-eyed and ashen, his bronzed-tan skin blanched with fear. The three of them rushed into the van.

"Survive the hunt, did you fellas?" Grian asked.

"No thanks to you!" Skizz retorted. "You're sackin' up and getting in the war next time!"

Grian's "NoooOOO!" of protest was cut off by Impulse pulling out the cleansing and containment equipment.

"Let's get this done, gentlemen!" he announced.

Tango fell into the old routine. As he reached down to grab for a containment unit, his long-sleeve shirt slipped up to reveal the yellow feather tattooed on his wrist. Jimmy's favorite bird was a canary. No one else knew that. He got it after Jimmy had moved on. As a reminder.

He was still going to keep his promise. He owed himself that much.

With a laugh, he grabbed Grian by the collar and dragged him into the house with everyone else.

[comicaurora]

If you were a sci-fi writer, how would you solve the Fermi paradox? That being the discrepancy between evidence for alien life, versus the likelihood of their existence? (basically. If alien so likely, why we not see?) The Dead Space series has an amazing cosmic horror solution, but i'm curious what you're brain could come up with!

There's a lot of possibilities, some more interesting than others.

The speed of light and the distance between inhabited stars makes it prohibitively slow to detect, make contact with, or reach any star with alien life. It doesn't matter if we're not alone, our corner of Space Reachable Within A Human Lifetime is so comparatively small that we may as well be. We're all blindly wandering through an infinite desert, calling into the void. Space exploration is a long game, and on that timescale, even whole civilizations blink out very quickly. If we manage to catch a signal and follow it, we might find nothing on the other end but ruins - or an asteroid field where a planet's orbit used to be.

The universe is too young for us to find anyone else out there. We're the first. How will we shape the galaxy to make life better for those who come after us?

The life that formed on Earth is terrifyingly invasive. The atmosphere and ocean is choked with monocellular life, and its surface is coated with a mass of multicellular organisms finding new ways to devour one another. Even extinction events don't keep down the biomass for long. If life on other planets looks anything like us, the problem isn't going to be detecting it. It'll have gotten everywhere. The problem is going to be not immediately getting colonized and eaten alive by it. And if life on other planets DOESN'T look like us, our whole planet is probably a class 1 biohazard and contamination risk. Multicellular earth organisms contain microcosmic ecosystems that proliferate explosively when they die. If anything inside them can find ANYTHING to eat, it's over.

Life evolves frequently, but always in oceans. It is extremely rare for any alien life to leave that ocean and adapt to life on land. Without this step, the jump to space exploration - even space contemplation - becomes infinitely more unlikely.

Monocellular life is seeded on planets from an outside source and allowed to self-cultivate and grow until the biomass reaches a certain volume. Then the farmers return to harvest it.

There is not a single other species on our entire planet that humans can actually reliably communicate with. It takes tremendous amounts of training to make an animal capable of recognizing even a handful of words, and very few of them can use them. Humans can't even communicate with other humans with 100% clarity, even if they're using the same language. When we find alien life, if we even recognize it as anything resembling life as we know it, we have absolutely no way of communicating.

Space colonialism has been disallowed by the space geneva conventions due to massive past tragedies, parasitic exploitation of worlds and senseless loss of life. Human expeditionary efforts are being watched warily through targeting sights.

We've known about radio communication for less than 200 years. We haven't yet figured out the medium through which all advanced civilizations communicate.

Alien life exists in abundance, but the vast majority of it is extremely tiny. We wouldn't spot an anthill on a satellite photo, and none of their ships are large enough to survive passage through our atmosphere.

Earth's oxygen atmosphere is an anomaly, and our first and most enduring extinction event. The explosive proloferation of cyanobacteria and their oxygen photosynthesis irreparably altered the planet's prebiotic atmosphere and wiped out everything that couldn't handle the sudden massive increase in a highly reactive and flammable gas. Earth is considered highly toxic and unstable, though recently detected increases in methane and CO2 might signal that nature is finally beginning to heal.

[aurorarose2112]

‘Always ready’, huh?

Whatever happened to ‘where’s your evidence’ in Chameleon?

What utter bullshit.

This has never once been true, and y’a know what? This has finally made me realize exactly why I don’t vibe with Alya.

I don’t respect her.

Lila planted her own necklace in Marinette’s locker just to frame her.

Lila lied about being a superhero to impress Adrien.

Lila manipulated Kagami into having nonexistent issues with Marinette.

And these are the verifiable things that Lila has done that Alya could know about, yet somehow they’re “misunderstandings at worst”?

That’s poor judgement, and I don’t respect it.

Even if Lila had good intentions, her actions have always resulted in horrible things happening (especially to Marinette). At the very least, Alya should be skeptical.

[bloodhoundsandplagues]

◦⭐︎・love lost

Ekko x reader

Summary: once a Firelight and Ekko's partner, you are now a mercenary, dragging yourself through jobs to make enough money to pay for food. After one too many drinks, you take a job you can't handle, and get hurt. It's no shocker who comes to your rescue.

Set at undefined time, no use of Y/N, gender neutral reader

Warnings: gore (not too bad but be mindful), swearing, mentions of death/welcoming death. 3.2 K words (oops), not proofread as always

A/N: icl guys this is one of the longer fics I've written, and definitely the angstiest one. Again, for my best friend, @sahxrii (go check out her recs, they're SO good) who I do everything for, lets be honest.

You have always prided yourself for knowing your limits; stopping when you need to stop, being reasonable about your own abilities. This has kept you out of quite a lot of trouble- avoiding fights you could not have won, not provoking people who were clearly able to whoop your ass. 

This, however, is very different, and not a common occurrence. 

First of all, you might be a little drunk- you’ve just had to numb the sting of your day with a drink, just a small one, in a tiny grimy bar run by a tall man with bright orange skin. Second of all, you’re running on two hours of sleep and painkillers (the painkillers are slowly wearing off, to make matters worse). 

And lastly, you’re in a really bad fucking mood. 

So, when your handler slides you a note with a name and address written in ugly red letters, you think fuck it, and take the job. You should’ve known this was stupid- you should’ve done what the sober, not exhausted version of yourself would have done. But instead, you accept with a bleary nod, because, to be frank, all you want at that moment is to break something. 

So you take the note, drain your drink, and leave the bar, shrugging on your worn coat. Adrenaline is already starting to buzz beneath your skin, your knuckles tingling softly in anticipation. You had never been this excited about violence when you were younger- in fact, people might have described you as gentle, even. But now, with all the things you have witnessed, all the people you’ve lost, hitting people brought a kind of release you could find nowhere else. 

Besides, there’s no one who remembers you as that gentle person left, anyway, so who are you disappointing? Yourself? You chuckle drily into the cold air, thick with gas. 

You stop in front of the building, your hands tucked into your pockets. It is big, red, and ugly (like the ink the name had been written in, you thought), bright colourful light shining from the broken windows. A Zaunite haunt, typical for a wannabe drug lord- the kind of man you were often hired to beat up or kill. You kick into the dirt at your feet, take a deep breath. You have hardly sobered up on the walk here, so your vision is still somewhat blurry, everything swimming around you like you’re underwater. 

Broken memories of swimming in an underground lake with him flitter through your mind, and you dismiss them, muttering a curse between your teeth. You roll your shoulders and make your way inside, striding in like you own the goddamn place. 

“You can’t be here,” a goon dressed all in black calls from the top of badly painted stairs. You look at him, an ugly grin splitting your face. 

“Kick me out, then,” you say, your heart already beginning to beat a little faster. 

Before you know, goons are coming at you from the sides, cracking their knuckles. The twat at the top of the stairs sneers down at you, his teeth oily and black. 

“You don’t wanna do this,” a woman on your left growls. She’s twice as big as you, her arms covered in bright red, winding tattoos. 

“I think I do,” you answer, raising your hands, which are already curled into fists. 

She lunges first, and you catch her with a right hook in the jaw. She hardly falters, but you drive your knee into her stomach. Now, she stumbles, and you leap up, narrowly avoiding an attack from another goon. You grab goon number one- the woman- and smash your forehead into her face. Her nose explodes, red and white flying all over you as she falls backwards. You spin and grab the nearest object- a stool- and bring it smack into the second goon’s middle. He collapses, and you walk over to him, drop the stool on his head. He stops moving. 

You turn to the giant of a woman, who is standing and looking at you with pure, unadulterated hatred. Her face is broken into bits, blood and spit dribbling down her chin. “Come on, then,” you say, cracking your already sore knuckles. 

She throws herself at you, twice as angry as before. You dodge, but she catches you in the shoulder. Excruciating pain shoots through you, and you realise too late that she has wicked little claw-like contraptions on her fingers. She comes at you again, slashing wildly. You jump out of the way, once again catching a claw in the face. It slices open your left cheek; pain explodes all through the area, but you grin. A challenge- you’ve always liked that. 

Somewhere in the back of your mind, a child’s voice screams at you to stop, to leave, to give up. The goon from the top of the stairs is gone. You falter when you notice this- he must be warning his boss, who is your target. You double your efforts, lunging at the woman. You manage to punch her in the stomach, but your second hit, aimed at her throat, is knocked out of the way as she drives her claws into your wrist. You scream, not really in pain but in sheer shock at the sharp metal slivers protruding from your skin. 

“Should’ve left,” she sneers into your face. You spit into the bloody mess that was her nose and wrench your arm back, kicking her, hard, in the sternum. She stumbled backwards and you pull your weapon- a machete, sheathed against your back- out, spinning it around. She assesses you for a moment, with what you realise now are robotic eyes. 

Oh. 

Oh, fuck. 

You are not fighting a person, you’re fighting a robot. Or something that’s half half- the blood spilling from her face gives you the idea that she might be made of flesh and bones, but those eyes- you’ve seen them before. She’s assessing your fight patterns, and she’s going to win. 

You duck out of the way of another attack, but she manages to graze your neck with her claws. You slash wildly with your machete, to no avail- she avoids each blow easily, and the ones that do hit, she ignores happily. 

Finally, one of your attacks hits- you aim the blow upwards, and the machete carves straight through her face. Blood, huge quantities of the stuff, gushes all over you, bone shattering under the power of your blow. You yank the machete out, momentarily stunned as she stumbles to her knees, eyes fizzing out. 

“Fuck,” you pant, stumbling backwards, “fuck you.” 

Your victory is short lived. More goons are coming down the stairs, armed to the teeth. You raise your weapon, ready to fight them all if it kills you, when you feel something strange. Your shirt has been sliced open- cold hair breezes around your stomach. You look down, and are somewhat horrified to find blood; your own blood. 

All at once, you feel nausea hit. You stumble to your knees, gasping for air. She got you- you feel the pain shooting through now. She managed to sink her dirty claws into your stomach as if you were made of mist and gas. 

Everything flickers in front of you as the last few days finally hit. You’re in so much pain, it’s almost incredible- had you been an author, you would have liked to write about this one day. It’s like your insides have been ripped out (they kind of have, you suppose) and set on fire, stomped on, pissed on- you almost laugh at the thought as your head hits the ground. 

You can’t remember when you fell. 

Your vision goes dark, flickering in and out. You see the goons approach you, pick you up unceremoniously. You are outside your body, floating somewhere beyond, watching through your eyes as they drag you outside. It is raining- you wish you could feel the raindrops on your face, one last time. 

You laughed, holding out a hand. It had been a while since you had experienced rain- in the Firelights hideout, you are protected by the huge leaves of the tree; and the Firelights hideout has everything (and everyone) you could wish for, so why would you ever go outside? 

But, after hearing you sigh softly and murmur something about the only thing you miss about your old home being the rain, Ekko made it his mission to bring it back. As soon as it rained again, he took you by the arm, promising a wonderful surprise. He offered to blindfold you, but you kindly refused when you saw that he intended to take you up the tree. You had climbed together, him guiding you gently upwards; and as you’d ascended, you had heard a beautiful, soft patter; a sound that made your heart beat speed up and your throat close. Finally, you had reached the top, and he had lifted the leaves to reveal a little area above the canopy, partly shielded from the rain with a makeshift structure made of leaves and cloth. 

Now, you sat in this structure, your side flush against his, a hand held out to the pouring rain.  

“Do you like it?” He asked softly, looking at you. 

“Do I like it?” You cried, almost incredulous. “Yes, Ekko, I love it!” You turned to him, grinning so widely it almost hurt. “Thank you,” you added after a moment. “Thank you so much, Ekko.” He smiled too, and you took his face in your hands and kissed him, and Gods knew you’d never been happier. 

You’re lying in an alleyway. It’s like you can physically feel the blood leaking from you, your life draining from the gash in your stomach and the holes in your arm. The goons have left, convinced you are dead- why didn’t they check your pulse, stupid bastards? 

It has stopped raining, but you’re soaked to the bone, lying there in the dark. Someone has stolen your jacket and your machete. 

You groaned as you lifted the jacket up to the light. A bright fabric, the colour of the sunset, now stained with dark greenish grey goo. You should have known that wearing your favourite jacket down into the mines was a stupid idea, but you’d done it anyway. 

“Stupid,” you mumbled to yourself, dropping the jacket into a heap on the floor. You wondered briefly if it was salvageable, but deep down knew it wasn’t. You’d have to find a new one, which would be nowhere near as nice. 

Someone knocked on your door, and a soft voice spoke your name. 

“Come in,” you called, still staring sadly at your jacket. 

Ekko stepped inside, his presence like warm sunlight. Despite the grief caused by the ruined jacket, you smile, turning to him instantly relaxing as he wrapped his arms around your waist. 

“I hear your jacket got ruined,” he said softly. 

“Yeah,” you muttered in response. “Upsetting.” He laughed. “I have something for you.” You pulled away, moving your hands to his biceps and looking at him. “What, Ekko?” You already knew what he was going to show you, but it warmed your heart all the same. 

“It’s not exactly the same colour,” he said apologetically, “but-“ 

You put a hand over his mouth, beaming. “I don’t care,” you said. 

He smiled back at you, releasing you to pull something out of his bag. It was neatly folded, but he held it out to you. You shook it out, and found a jacket, almost identical to the one that you had just ruined; it was a slightly lighter shade of orange, and the pattern on the back was a tree instead of the flowers you’d had on your last one. 

“You’re insane,” you said, in awe. You put the jacket on- it was a little too big, but who gave a shit? It was your jacket, gifted to you by your boy. 

You blink back into consciousness, and almost screamed. The pain coursing through you is like nothing you’d ever imagined; like being electrocuted and burned and drowned all at the same time. Despite the gaping hole in you, you want to curl up, to shield yourself from the wet and cold and pain. 

“Please,” you whimper into the ground, “please, no.” 

It’s not that you don’t want to die. In fact, you welcome death- you see it as a release more than anything else, from the bullshit life you lead. But dying here, like this- 

You start to cry, and you gag and retch as tears spill mercilessly. 

You are about to give in- you have given in- when a bright light seems to fill your vision. It is green and orange and yellow and pink and warm and fills everything around you. For a moment you think you’ve died, and this is some kind deity welcoming you into the next life, whispering I forgive you don’t worry as it carries you away. But no, the truth is much harsher than that. 

A face hovers into your field of vision, and warm hands tug your shirt upwards. You want to protest, but your throat is dry from all the retching and sobbing you’ve been doing. A cloth presses down into the wound in your stomach and you howl, eyes rolling back in your head as the pain grabs you by the throat and fucking throttles you. 

“Stop,” you manage to whimper. “Why- why are you doing this?” Your voice is hoarse, you’re crying again as you try to shut out the pain. 

You hear shouting- words like help and home and quick- and black out again. 

When you come to, you are no longer lying wet and dying in an alleyway miles from home (where even is home anymore? It’s just you, and that orange jacket, which you don’t even have anymore). 

Your surroundings slowly swim into focus (swimming, your brain sings, swimming in an underwater cave, hands on your waist, kisses all over). You are lying down, mercifully dry and warm. Pain pumps through you in waves, mostly coming from your wrist and your stomach. You wonder, again, if this is some afterlife- if so, it is far less cruel than your parents described. 

But then, you turn your head, and pain sears through you. 

But that is not what makes you cry. 

He lifts his head instantly as he hears your quiet sobs, and he’s at your side, a hand carefully gripping yours (he’s avoiding the bloody bandage wrapped around your wrist, you realise), the other gently brushing soft fingers over your bruised face. “It’s okay,” he says, even though you think he doesn’t mean it. It’s not okay- you ran away, got yourself beat up, almost killed, and he’s had to rescue you. Of course it’s not okay.

“Ekko,” you whimper. 

“It’s okay,” he repeats, stroking your hair away from his face. Instinctively, you curl away, wanting to hide your injury from him. He shakes his head, his eyes brimming with tears (or maybe you’re delusional, because who would cry over you?) 

“I-“ Your words are lost in a pathetic sob, and you turn your face away from him. 

“Don’t,” he says. A pause. “How are you feeling?” 

You croak out what should’ve been fuck but instead comes out as a bad imitation . You would’ve laughed, in any other situation. 

“What happened?” His voice is so soft, so kind, it makes you want to rip your eyeballs out and stuff them into your ears. 

You shake your head. You don’t want him to know what you’ve been up to since you left the Firelights. 

He lets go of your hand, and for a moment you think he’s leaving you. It wouldn’t surprise you, to be honest. But no, he doesn’t leave you. Instead, he leans over, inspects the bandages wrapped around your midsection. Your mind instantly flashes to him prodding it, digging his fingers into your wound and calling you names. You wouldn’t blame him. 

“You’re an idiot,” he says finally, still glaring at your bandaged stomach. 

“Excuse me?” That is the first full statement you manage to force past your shredded throat. 

“You’re an idiot,” he repeats with just as much gusto. “I mean, how could you just go and do this?” He gestures at your injuries. 

“I didn’t-“ 

“What, think? Yeah, I can tell.” His face is partly obscured, so you can’t tell what face he’s making. 

“I-“ 

“You’re so stupid. I mean, did you really think you could survive taking on all of the goons in that building?” He snorts to himself. “At least tell me the pay was worth it.” 

You’re somewhat incredulous. All the time you’ve known Ekko, he’s never been this outright mean to you. 

“What-“ you sputter, unable to find the words. 

“Did you not think for a moment that you might get killed?” He puts extra emphasis on the word killed, and it’s like a punch in the gut. When he turns his gaze onto you, you think you’d prefer to have the goons rip you apart than see him look at you like this ever again. 

“I’m sorry,” you manage to say through a fresh tightening in your throat. Your eyes sting and you’re about to turn away when you see his expression. 

He’s smiling. 

“What?” You almost choke out. “What is it?” 

His smile is the softest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s the sunlight, shining through the leaves of the tree; it’s the rain gently pattering on the roof of your childhood home. It’s the smell of old books and wood. 

It’s so painfully home. 

Your eyes sting, and you turn your face away from him, swallowing the bile rising in your throat. He still smiles at you like that, after everything you’ve done. 

He takes your hand again, his other beginning to gently trace patterns on the bandage on your stomach. It’s such a soft, kind gesture. He used to do that, you remember with a pang, when you two would lie in bed together: draw little patterns on your back with his fingers, when he thought you were asleep. 

“It’s okay,” he says, and for the first time, you wholeheartedly believe him. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, because those are the only words your throat will allow out. “I am.” 

“I know,” he murmurs. He hesitates, then leans forwards, kissing your forehead gently. “Just…” he trails off, his gaze now focused back on your bruised face. “Don’t do that again.” 

You promise him. Not with words, but with the feeling in your chest, the loosening of your lungs and throat as you watch him watch you. You promise him with the way your knuckles have stopped aching for more skin to break, with the way your eyes water again. 

You promise him with all that you have, because that is the least you can do for him. 

“I love you,” you mumble, almost sheepishly. 

“I love you too,” he answers; there is no hesitation, no layered but only if… behind the words. He says it back with the same confidence he gives orders, the words more of a declaration than softly spoken pretty things. 

“I’m sorry,” you add, after a few moments of just watching him breathe. 

“I love you,” is his answer. 

You shut your eyes, and he squeezes your hand. 

[xauroraxborealisx]

Seasons are time markers.

They can be short... or just long enough for Atem to realise he may have the tiniest crush on his new colleague.

Between tumblers of hot (and sometimes cold) coffee, colourful pens and eager children, Atem must navigate his way through the beginning of the school year while entertaining the idea that the teacher down the hall may just as well be a better paycheck than he had hoped for.

Part of my works for PuzzleJune 2020

***

Oh geez... 2020 *facepalms*

Well, better late than never, no? ❤️

[dawnarowdite]

Another sneak peek because I want to

[watcheraurora]

;-) 3.6k words

—

"Order up!" Jimmy called through the window between the kitchen and the dining room. Tango hurried over, picking up two plates and stacking them up one arm before grabbing the coffee pot in his free hand and going to table 4. Their little pizza place wasn't huge—barely more than a hole in the wall, really—but it always had steady business. Especially around lunch. A local favorite.

Tango placed the two personal-sized pizzas in front of the regulars who always sat at table 4. "There you go, gentlemen. Can I refill your coffee?"

"Yes please," Joel said, holding his mug out.

Etho considered for a moment as Tango refilled Joel's mug.

"Y'know what? I've got a long rest of the day. Sure, why not?" Etho also lifted his mug. Tango chuckled and refilled it.

"Hey we've got a decaf pot too."

"No, I think I'm gonna need it," Etho said decisively. "Got a big redstone project I gotta design and prototype. Thanks, T."

"Sure thing." Tango, still smiling, whisked off to check on all the other tables. There were only six, and one was empty. Tango had already cleaned it up not long after the customers left.

Tango went behind the counter that separated the kitchen window from the dining room and stuck his head through the window. "How's everything going back here?" he asked.

Jimmy gave a distracted thumbs-up as his other hand scattered cheese over another pizza.

"Need a hand for a minute? I can always wash dishes."

Jimmy shrugged. "If it's stacking up, go for it. Haven't checked in a hot minute."

Tango eyed the sink. Where a handful of plates and messy pizza stones were soaking. Then eyed the clock.

"Five minutes," Tango said. "I'll spend five back with you." He dragged the bell to the middle of the counter, the propped up sign next to it. Ring bell for assistance! ~The Ranchers

He scurried through the swinging Employees Only door and into the back of the restaurant.

"You put out the—?"

"The ringy-dingy? Yup-yup. Did you check the—"

"I got the mail before we opened this morning," Jimmy confirmed.

Tango giggled and gave Jimmy a gentle whack to the back of the shoulder. "Look at us!" he said. "All grown up and running a restaurant!"

"Yeah. Just the two of us."

Tango, in the middle of pulling on a rubber glove, smacked his forehead with the heel of his palm. "Oh that's right, I forgot."

Jimmy looked up from the pizza he was sliding into the massive wood-fired oven. "Forgot what?" Concern laced his tone.

"Dude, my brother's moving back into town for a little while. Now, I know we agreed no family on staff. But hear me out. Skizz went to culinary school too, just like you. I'm not saying it has to be permanent, but if you need the help, it can be a temporary thing. The university semester is almost over and once summer hits, we're gonna be slammed again." As he spoke, he plunged his gloved hands into the water and started washing dishes.

Jimmy pursed his lips. "You know I adore your brother," he said thoughtfully. "But is it a good idea? How's he gonna react to being... the underling to someone like me?"

Tango scrunched his brows and looked over his shoulder. "What do you mean?"

Jimmy paused where he'd been pressing out a ball of dough into a disc, spinning around and wiping flour off his hands on his apron. "Tango," Jimmy said. "Skizz is your older brother and I'm younger than you. Won't it be a blow to his pride to be the 'junior' chef to a kid?"

Tango burst out laughing. "No! Skizz is a big sweetheart. He'd probably just be happy to be included." He scratched at a stubborn blob of sauce on the plate with his fingernail through the glove. "And you're not a kid, Jimmy. No matter how your older brothers treat you. You're a grown man. Skizz would be fine. Just something to think about."

Jimmy pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. "How about we talk about it when we get home?"

"Sounds great. I just remembered that Skizz texted me this morning." Tango went back to washing dishes.

After a few minutes, the bell rang. Tango nearly tore the rubber gloves in his haste to get them off and rushed out front.

Etho and Joel were waiting by the till.

"Enjoy your meal, boys?" Tango asked brightly.

"Always," Etho said, smiling behind his facemask.

—

Jimmy threw his jacket haphazardly at the coatrack and then stripped off the short-sleeve, light blue, button-down collared shirt that he tended to wear open over a white T-shirt, leaving him in just said T-shirt. He flopped onto the sofa with a sigh. Tango hummed to himself as he toed out of his shoes.

He proceeded right to the kitchen and opened the fridge. "Whatcha thinkin', J? Breakfast for dinner?"

"Sure, whatever."

Tango's brows lowered and he shut the fridge door, twisting instead to lean against it and look across the apartment at where Jimmy was half-sprawled across the sofa. Tango folded his arms. "I know that voice. C'mon, Jimmy. Out with it. What's wrong?"

Jimmy cracked an eye open. "It's just been a long day. I'm tired."

With a roll of his eyes, Tango yanked the fridge open again and grabbed a large yellow-and-blue water bottle out. "Hey. Think fast."

Jimmy jolted and barely managed to catch the—gently—thrown water bottle without spilling. He pulled on the spout on top so it would open and drank down a third of it all in one go.

Tango snickered. "You forgot to drink your water again today, didn't you?"

"No!"

Tango raised a brow.

"Yeah. Maybe a little." Jimmy's head flopped back against the arm of the sofa. "I get busy!"

Tango started pulling out ingredients for their dinner. His feet were aching from being on them all day, but he always made dinner after they closed up for the night. "I do too," he said.

Jimmy made a noise of acknowledgement.

As Tango kept making dinner, he eventually heard the couch creak and Jimmy get up. He crossed into the kitchen and boosted himself up onto the one bit of counter space Tango wasn't using to cook. "So. Skizz is moving back into town," he said.

"Yup." Tango popped the P.

"Found a place to live, then, I imagine?"

"Assume so. If not, he'll crash at our parents' place for a few weeks until he finds something. We certainly don't have room for him here."

Jimmy kicked his legs idly. "Do you want him to work at the restaurant?"

Tango shrugged. "It's an option." He put the egg carton back in the refrigerator and turned to look at Jimmy. "I just want you to have help if you need it."

"What about you?" Jimmy asked.

Tango shrugged. "Being a waiter is easy-mode. I get to write everything down and give people my award-winning smile." The sarcasm was followed by an equally sarcastic, full-mouth grin. Jimmy smiled and chuckled with a slight shake of his head.

"Maybe we give Skizz a few weeks at The Ranch until he finds somewhere he likes better?" Jimmy suggested.

"Hey, don't feel like you have to do this for me. Or even for him," Tango replied. "That restaurant is ours." He continued frying the eggs in the pan, barely looking at Jimmy. "I know you like Skizz, but there's no obligation here."

"I know. But I think a few weeks of having help might be nice," Jimmy admitted.

Tango stole a glance and a quick smile. "Okay. If he needs a place to work while he's looking for something better, he can join us."

Jimmy nodded.

—

"I just want you to know, I think this is incredibly generous," Skizz said as the three of them ducked into the back employee entrance of the restaurant. "You two didn't have to make space in your establishment for me."

Jimmy shrugged, opening the tiny storage closet and pulling an extra apron, passing it to Skizz, who accepted it immediately. "We wanted to," he said with a smile. "And, to be honest, I could use the help with summer approaching."

"Well, you just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

Jimmy nodded. "How about you get started on making a huge batch of dough while I go grab the mail?" Jimmy pointed to where there were multiple recipe cards laminated and tacked to the wall. Jimmy memorized the recipes a long time ago, but he liked the art on the cards.

Skizz smiled. "Yes chef!" He snapped a silly salute and all three of them laughed. Tango pushed through the other door to go clean the tables. He always did last thing before leaving and first thing in the morning.

Jimmy pointed out where the ingredients were kept, explained that the massive batch of dough would last them the first half of the day—they opened right before lunch and stayed open until late evening—and then ducked back outside to go get the mail.

Once he was outside the building, Skizz looked through the kitchen window to Tango. "Did Jimmy get taller? I swear he gets taller every time I see him."

Tango laughed. "I don't think so. But what would I know?" He went back to wiping down the tables.

"What would you know?" Skizz joked. "You're just the guy that lives with him."

Tango shrugged. "I'm also shorter than both of you. So I just register Jimmy as 'tall' and don't really notice if the angle changes."

His brother laughed and went back to making the dough.

"Tango, dude," Skizz said after a moment, locking the stand mixer and flicking the other lever to activate it. The dough hook started spinning around inside the bowl. His voice was grave enough that Tango looked up and crossed immediately to the window behind the counter. "What are you doing here, man?"

"What do you mean?" Tango's head cocked to the left in a very Jimmy fashion.

"Does Jimmy not know you've got a masters degree in engineering? Why are you waiting tables?"

Tango whipped the damp towel over his shoulder and took a deep breath as he thought about what to say. "He knows," he decided on. "But I'm happy here."

"Because of Jimmy?"

"Partially. But I'm not in a cubicle all by myself. And I like the restaurant." He beamed.

The door opened to Jimmy pushing back inside, head down to read the envelopes. "Hey Tango! Look at this! What do you think about some of these things that could automate our processes?" He passed over a restauranteur magazine that was more like a catalog of products. Tango was more inclined to looking at stuff like this on the computer, but Jimmy liked the mail.

Tango took the magazine and inspected it. "Nope," he said.

"Why not?"

"Most of it is way out of our budget, and the bits that aren't look cheaply made and I'm not interested in fixing them every single week."

"Okay. I trust you," Jimmy said. "Are you sure I can't interest you in that bigger, freestanding sink?"

Tango went to go start getting the coffee ready. "I'm sure," he threw over his shoulder.

Skizz watched the exchange with a neutral expression, still working on making dough. Once Tango was out of sight of the window, Jimmy turned to help him with the mixer, passing over a spatula to scrape down the flour that had crawled up the sides.

—

"Okay," Tango announced at the window, holding his notepad, "I need a pepperoni six-inch and an olive-and-sausage nine-inch."

Skizz spluttered, trying to hold back a laugh and not quite succeeding. Jimmy snorted and tried not to giggle himself, ending up wheezing—and then coughing as some flour went up his nose.

Tango rolled his eyes. "I should not have left you two in the back to work together," he muttered, low, dry, and sarcastic.

They kept laughing and Tango tore off the sheet of paper and taped it to the bottom sill of the window before grabbing the coffee pot to go check on tables.

Skizz's earlier remark still prodded at the back of his mind. He did have a masters in mechanical engineering, sure. But his bachelors degree was in game design programming. He'd always been chasing something—some need to create something—and that path led him to game design to engineering to... waiting tables at a pizza restaurant. A restaurant he loved, but maybe Skizz was right. The games he designed and programmed in his spare time weren't really going anywhere, and he had too many of them. None of them finished.

He shook his head. He liked where his life was at. He liked the restaurant. He was happy. They were doing it. He and Jimmy were running their own business.

The door's bell had just rung as it opened when he heard Skizz's shout of, "Oh I made soup!" from the kitchen, followed immediately by Jimmy's laughter. Apparently the punchline to some joke.

One of Jimmy's older brothers—Grian—had swanned into the building with two friends and his and Jimmy's only sister. Scar, Mumbo, and Pearl took three of the sides of the table with Grian reserved for the fourth, but Grian approached the counter. "Hey Timmy!" he called.

"Hi Grian!" Jimmy called back distractedly.

Grian gave Tango a casual wave and took the fourth spot at the square corner table.

Tango followed after Grian, notebook out. "The usual?" he asked.

"I'm actually gonna try something different today," Pearl said.

"Menu?" Tango pulled the small menu out of the pocket of his half-apron.

"Yes, please. Thank you!" Pearl said.

"I'll go with my usual," Grian said.

"Me too," Scar agreed.

"Not feeling very adventurous today," Mumbo muttered.

Pearl scanned the toppings list. "Ooh. Let's do grilled chicken and Canadian bacon, yeah?"

"Of course!" Tango replied.

Tango's notebook sheet read, Usuals for the boys. Pearl wants grilled chicken and Canadian bacon.

He took it to the window and taped it to the sill before taking the coffee pot to the table. "Who wants coffee?"

"Please!" Scar's mug immediately lifted into the air. Tango grinned and filled it.

"Order's up!" Skizz called through the window. Tango finished with the coffee and went to retrieve an order. A father and son who came every week on Thursdays for lunch. The son had to have been five, and sometimes Tango wondered why he wasn't in school.

"Say thank you, Hermes," the father said, using the Spanish pronunciation of the name rather than Greek.

The little boy smiled up at Tango and waved. His father smiled and sighed.

"Thank you, Tango," he said.

"Hey, don't blame the kid for being shy. Stranger danger is good," Tango remarked before whisking off.

The next few hours passed in a blur for Tango. The same as always. Orders, serving, collecting bills—and tips—cleaning. Having Skizz was helping the kitchen run efficiently and Tango didn't even have to duck back into the back to wash dishes.

Close to the end of the day, he passed by the window to hear Skizz muttering, "Research, research, research," while Jimmy was laughing. Another joke punchline, if he had to guess.

"Hope you're not having too much fun without me," he remarked sarcastically.

Jimmy chuckled, looking embarrassed, and rubbed the back of his neck. "We're not," he said.

Skizz lounged casually against one of the counters. "Gotta keep ourselves entertained somehow, Top."

Jimmy's eyebrows scrunched. "'Top'?" he asked.

"Tango Top. That's what I call him. Giving people goofy nicknames is what I do. Eventually you'll get one too, Jim."

Jimmy laughed. "Great!"

At that moment, the bell on the counter rang softly and Tango spun around. "Heyyy!" he greeted. "Skizz, look who it is!"

"Professor Dipple-Dop!" Skizz shouted. "I gotta come out and hug you, man!"

"Be sure to take that flour-covered apron off first," Impulse remarked, grinning. "I'm wearing a black shirt." He glanced down at the black shirt with a large yellow "i" down the front.

"All the better reason to leave it on!" Skizz retorted—although already in the process of taking the apron off. He rushed out of the kitchen and into the dining room, grabbing Impulse into a hug. Tango laughed as Jimmy approached the window with a completed order. Tango grabbed it and trotted off for the table.

—

Jimmy sat on the concrete ground of the alleyway, head resting back against the brick of the restaurant, when Tango came through the door with a trash bag in hand to throw in the dumpster. Jimmy's phone was against his ear and his eyes were closed.

"Scott, don't," Jimmy said. "Don't say it like that."

Tango knew he shouldn't eavesdrop. But the devastation in Jimmy's voice made him pause. He froze, not even sure Jimmy noticed he'd pushed the door open.

"Scott—Scott! You can't—you can't say things like that. Don't... don't make me choose. Please?" Jimmy went from sounding sorrowful and pleading to... small, on that last word. "Don't make me choose between you and him."

Oh boy. Whatever Jimmy and Scott were talking about, Tango definitely didn't need to know. That sounded like none of his business. Of course, he was insanely curious, but whatever Jimmy's relationship with Scott was, it wasn't for Tango to pry about. Especially now, since it would probably upset Jimmy.

So he finished his walk to the dumpster, muttered, "Skadoodle that in there," as he threw the bag in, and went back into the restaurant. But not before setting a comforting hand on Jimmy's shoulder.

"Everything okay, Top?" Skizz asked. "Jimmy's been out there for a while."

Tango went to the sink and washed his hands. "He's on a personal call. Sounded kinda heavy. Don't bug him about it."

Skizz raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "A'right. Who's Scott? I heard him say it as he answered the phone."

"Not sure. I know a Scott but I don't know if it's the same one. Who knows." Tango dried his hands and went back to the dining room.

The last hour of the day continued to blur by. Eventually Jimmy came back inside. Tango and Skizz politely pretended not to notice that his eyes were a little puffy and a little red. Like he'd been crying.

—

"So... wanna talk about it?" Tango asked as they got back to their apartment and shut the front door behind them.

Jimmy didn't even bother getting out of his jacket, just fell face-first onto the sofa. "Nooooo," he groaned into the cushion.

"Okay. But between Scott and the mysterious other 'him,' who would you choose?"

"You heard that bit, huh?"

"Yeah. Just that bit." Tango crossed into the kitchen and opened the freezer, looking for the bag of frozen chicken to start cooking up.

Jimmy rolled onto his back and threw an arm over his eyes. "I don't want to choose. I care deeply about both. But... if I had to choose between Scott and 'him,' I'd choose 'him.' Every time."

"Huh. Must be someone special," Tango remarked blandly, only half paying attention while he tried to pry two pieces of chicken that had been frozen together apart. They were cold and the ice crystals that had formed on them bit at the skin of his hands, making it difficult to even hold on.

"Tango." Jimmy sat up, one leg bent on the sofa cushion in front of him. "Tango. 'Him' is you."

Tango went rigid where he stood and looked over to see sincere brown-hazel eyes staring intensely at him. He blinked a few times. "Oh. Okay." What else was he supposed to say to that? Especially without context.

Jimmy got off the sofa. "How can I help make dinner?"

"You've been cooking all day. Let me do this."

Jimmy took the chicken from Tango's hands. "I need to get my mind off that call. Let me make dinner. I know you have that redstone gadget you wanted to work on. Go spend some time on that for once. You never take time for yourself. I'll be fine to make dinner. Please?"

Tango stared at Jimmy for a moment, and when he didn't relent, Tango sighed. "Fine. Yell if you need help."

"Of course."

But they both knew he wouldn't.

Tango went into the room they'd designated as an office in their little apartment and sat at his desk. It was covered in bits. Bits of everything. Redstone, paper, half-finished gadgets and contraptions. He hadn't even had a chance to tinker in who-knew-how-long. His life for the past several months had been Wake Up, Go to the Restaurant, Prepare for the Day, Work, Go Home Late Evening, Dinner, Sleep, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.

He picked up the schematic for the latest gadget he wanted to try to invent. The words swam around the page. His eyes were tired. He was tired.

Instead, he opened up his laptop—a behemoth of a thing since they hadn't had room for a desktop—and started another round of programming one of his slew of half-finished games. Everything was half-finished. He picked up the redstone fidget toy he'd made as he refreshed himself on everything he'd done. It had been so long since he opened this game file that he forgot where he was at and what he was doing.

He managed to get a little bit more done before Jimmy called that dinner was ready.

The game, like everything else, would have to wait.

I’m begging rancher duo enjoyers to write a Plate Up fic. Romantic or not. With Guest Star Skizz of course. Pretty please.