#Drying Machine Repair

[professionalhomeappliancerepair]

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[ashu7654]

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Home appliance

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

🧠🪱Wiggly Wednesday🧠🪱

Happy hump day, let's unleash those brainworms!

Recent high school graduate Steve, freshly disowned, moving into his first very own apartment. The place is dark and smells funny, the wallpaper is peeling off in places, and the property management firm has a shitty reputation, but beggars can’t be choosers. Anything’s preferable to sticking his feet under his dad’s stupid mahogany table and listening to his bigoted bullshit for another day, right? 

After a long and tiresome moving day involving a broken elevator and lugging all of his boxes up three flights of stairs, Steve has just hit the shower to wash off the sweat when a pipe bursts, cutting off his hot water supply and flooding his ugly, puke-colored floor tiles. Cursing, naked and soapy-haired, Steve slips his way over to the telephone to call the landlord's office. A bored-sounding lady tells him that they’ll send someone over, then hangs up without waiting for a reply. 

Steve has barely even slipped a pair of boxers over his wet ass when the doorbell rings. He opens, only find himself face to face with a long-haired, tattooed guy about his own age. He's clad in a tank top and overalls, carrying a toolbox in one hand and holding a burning cigarette in the other. 

“Hi,” says the guy, dark eyes raking up and down Steve's bare chest. ‘I'm here about the leaky pipe?” 

“Oh,” Steve says, surprised, because damn, that's a swift response time. “Sure, come on in.” 

The guy does, shuffling into the apartment and on to the bathroom without waiting for directions. Steve is left loitering uncertainly in his own hallway. He doesn't need to loiter long, fortunately, because not five minutes later, the guy shuffles back out, drying his hands on one of Steve’s towels, cigarette now dangling from the corner of his mouth. 

“There you go,” he grins, tossing the towel at Steve. “Enjoy your shower.” 

“Thanks,” says Steve, patting his back pocket for his wallet until he remembers that, one, he's not wearing pants, and two, he spent the last of his cash on a vending machine drink earlier because he was fucking parched from carrying all those boxes. “Erm, I'd tip you, but-” 

“Nah, leave it,” says the guy, and wiggles his eyebrows. “The view is more than enough for compensation.” 

Several hours later, Steve is just on his way to bed, the door rings again. It's a grumpy older dude who says he's come to fix the shower. 

“No, it's okay,” Steve says. “Your colleague was here earlier and took care of it.” 

The man laughs. “Colleague? Ha, I wish. There's just me, why d’you think it took me so long?” 

He trudges off, grumbling something under his breath about wasted time, leaving behind a dumbstruck Steve. 

If that was the repair guy … who fixed his shower?

(His name is Eddie. He's a mechanic and lives in the apartment under Steve’s. He's well familiar with the leaky pipes, and when he saw the water running down from his own bathroom ceiling, he immediately knew what the problem was. He also now knows what Steve looks like half naked. They're off to a great start.) 

Tagging some friends to share their own:

@postmodernau @steddie-island @sparkle-fiend @sidekick-hero @slippy-slip

@xgumiho @stevesbipanic @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @pearynice @thefreakandthehair

[yestrnight]

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ WANT U SO BAD, MISTER !

FROM : gepard / fem! reader

SUBJECT : it's immoral to want a sweet little thing like you, especially when he's well into his 30s and you're still a youngling in your 20s. but should he really feel guilty, when you want him just as bad?

( hopefully this is a bit more tame than my other works; age gap; pússy rubbing; gepard feels guilty; dubcon turned consensual )

gepard knows you’re a sweet thing. when he walks into serval’s workshop for his visits, you always greet him with a smile so sunny it could combat the eternal freeze. you’d drop the little machine you were tinkering with and head into the back to pull out a tray of desserts you’ve baked and trot right over to him. they’re originally for serval, who’d usually become too immersed in her work to remember to eat. but you are ever the dutiful assistant, looking after her whilst picking up some of the more trivial machinery to fix.

when he picks up a still warm cookie, he thanks you. his eyes linger a bit too long on your back when you run off to where you originally were.

serval leans over the counter with a shit-eating smile, chomping into a cookie. “oh, my cute lil brother,” she laughs. “you’ve got a decade on the kid. does the righteous captain of the silvermane guards really wanna go down that alley?”

the next time he comes over, serval is nowhere to be seen. you occupy her usual place at the counter, tongue peeking out from the side of your mouth as you focus on picking apart a faulty machine. you barely hear the chiming of the bell when he comes in, and only come to your senses when his broad shadow looms over you.

“oh, dear!” you gasp, pulling up your goggles. “i am so sorry mister gepard. i didn’t hear you come in.”

something about being alone with you without his nosy older sister in sight makes him even more awkward and nervous. “that’s alright,” he coughs. “where is serval, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“she was called in by the supreme guardian to discuss some internal repairs to qlipoth forth’s security devices.” you quickly sweep off the machine parts off the counter and smile up at him, to which his heart skips a beat. “sit, sit! i baked a fresh new batch of pastries in the back. i’ll bring it right out.”

so when he does take a seat and see you scamper off to the kitchen, he is left alone with the silence and his thoughts… of you, and those particularly nice tights you’re wearing. young belobogians often have their fashionable trends to combat the cold, but he wonders how warm those tights might be if they’re so thin they show off those pretty legs of yours.

white lace patterned in seductive heart patterns, teasing his eyes with the smooth skin beneath them. where those pretty tights end, they dig into your skin and emphasize the softness of it. he buries his face into his hand as he thinks of squeezing and grabbing them, trailing kisses up them till he—

“mister gepard?” your worried face suddenly appears in front of him. “oh no, did i turn the heater up too high? ah, i’ll fix it right now!”

“n-no, it’s fine, [your name],” he grabs your wrist, still blushing. “it’s not hot, really. just that…” his eyes wander into the plush skin between your shorts and tights, before he catches himself and forces to make eye contact with you. “nothing… it’s nothing. i… really should be going now.”

“even when i have something for you to eat?” you pout. “please stay for a little while, mister gepard.”

“angh… [your name], please, this isn’t appropriate…!”

“what’s wrong, mister gepard sir?” your face bearing the innocence of an angel, you cock your head at him as if you’re not milking his cock dry. through your panties (blue and white stripes, gepard’s mind unnecessarily observes, and he blushes) your pussy lips hug his throbbing cock between them, and you let out a keen moan when his fat head grinds against your clit. “but you looked so hungry! i thought maybe i’d let your friend have a taste.”

his big hands clench the sheets behind them, trying to stop himself from grabbing your hips. he grits his teeth and he looks up at you with a desperate pleading look. “please, dear,” he near begs. “you shouldn’t be doing this with a man my age.”

he’s in the early stages of his 30s, you’re barely 20. he’s lived an entire decade more than you, have touched and broken the hearts of women older than you, have tasted and succumbed to the pleasure of bodily desire more than you have— gepard can imagine that you barely had your first kiss. it’s like he’s taking advantage of you, even when you’re the one who unbuttoned his pants and pulled his erection out of them. he doesn’t want this, doesn’t like this— even when his breath goes ragged at the heat of your warm pussy.

“but!” you pout, and you squelch your cunt against an angry vein running along the side of his dick. you’re so fucking wet, it’s unimaginable. are all young pussies like this, or do you just want him that bad? he throws his head back when you drip all over him. “i’ve always admired you, mister gepard. you’re so handsome and gentlemanly, and then i catch you looking at me like that. don’t you think it’s unfair for you to reject me like that?”

“i—! a-ah…?!” a sharp moan comes out from him when you thumb the slit of his dick. “it’s no good for someone like me to… ngh… to chase after you. it’s— it’s wrong!” his protests barely reach you as you marvel at the heat in your palm. it’s sooo big, and your thumb and index finger can only slightly touch each other. you drag your throbbing cunny again, making sure to coat the entire length in your own slick. gepard whimpers with every drag, eyes peeking out from behind his hands as he watches you debauch your body with his perverted length. it’s disgusting, he shouldn’t be doing this to you–!

you can barely control yourself as you sit back and admire his cock, shiny with your slick and throbbing needily. a gentle graze of your finger already has it twitching like mad.

“poor thing…” you say in pity. “looks like you need a loooot of help, mister gepard.” 

“please, [your name], dear.” he sounds breathless as he begs you not to do this to yourself. his heart beats louder and louder as he watches you prop yourself up with a cunning smile, and tease your hole with his leaky tip. you grab onto his chest for support, looking down at him like an angel-turned-devil.

“this is my thanks for protecting us from the eternal freeze~” no no no no, the tip of his length is sinking into you, and the pulse of your warm pussy is making him lose his mind by the second. his thighs are shaking as he controls himself to not plunge it all in. you’re not a monster, gepard, he scolds himself. just tell them to stop. they’re a sweet kid, they’ll un–

“f– fuck!”  gepard yells out when you sink onto the rest of his length, and his back is arched while you smile in ecstasy after finally taking the whole thing. “[y - your name]...! you…!”

licking your lips, your hand trails down to your stretched out cunny, spreading your legs as you show off the pussy lips that have taken in his dick. it’s a perverse, filthy sight. it’s exactly the kind of thing the landaus have taught him not to fallen prey to. he was to marry a gentlewoman, of proper breeding, and make love to her in a noble and loving way.

but here he is, breath cut short as he stares wide-eyed at you. you and your pussy dripping around his throbbing length, hands stretching your lips so you can show it all off and remind him just how much he’s fallen.

and with the way you look at him, he thinks he was wrong in even thinking you were ever a good kid.

[ominouslywritinginmyhead]

A little present for @anonimusunnoaniswriting based on a conversation we had a long time ago.

Sending you lots of love Noni ❤️

Notes and warnings: f!reader, profanity, suggestive moments but nothing really nsfw, no beta we die like Daichi

Life sucks.

Your boss is a power-hungry, profit-horny dick who refuses to give you a decent raise or more time off, your coworkers are so incompetent that you’ve been cleaning up their messes since your TRAINING PERIOD, your utility bills have gone up again, and your air conditioner is starting to smell funny.

It doesn’t help that your washing machine broke down literally two hours before you accidentally spilled soup all over yourself.

Yeah, life sucks.

So here you are, stuck in the local laundromat at midnight, having shoved a soggy and soupy blouse and jeans into the washer with the rest of your clothes almost half an hour ago, spending precious 100-yen coins on salvaging what’s left of your sanity. There’s nobody around, and while your neighbourhood is relatively safe, you don’t like being out so late - even if you’re just two buildings away from home.

I should’ve waited until morning, you scold yourself. But you have work tomorrow and you’re almost out of office-appropriate shirts. You desperately need something for the morning, and heaven knows when the repair guy will be able to fix your washing machine.

The automatic door slides open, and a tall, muscular man with dark spiky hair walks in with his own pile of laundry. It’s the guy from the building opposite yours, Iwaizumi something-or-the-other, and just seeing him makes you want to crawl into the earth and never come out again.

Of all the times you see the resident hottie, it just HAD to be now, when you’re in an old, crumpled tee and sweatpants, wearing Cinnamoroll slippers. Your hair is a wreck too, uncombed and held back by clips you’ve been using for at least five years. At least there’s no soup on your clothes.

Why is he wearing a fucking tank top???? And has he gotten more muscular since the last time you saw him two weeks ago????

Ugh. Life sucks.

Even so, you can’t help staring when he walks through the laundry room and starts chucking his own clothes into the machine. His broad shoulders, his veiny arms, his legs, his hard face…fuck, you’re down bad. You don’t even care that he’s frowning all the time. You just care about that jaw you could cut your finger on.

Life may suck, but at least there’s a Greek God living in your neighbourhood.

You watch as he inserts some coins into the machine and adjusts the settings on the washer before pressing START with his thumb, and your mind immediately conjures up a fantasy of him stroking your lower lip with the exact same thumb - which is enough to make your brain short-circuit and set your face on fire.

The worst part is that Iwaizumi chooses that exact moment to look around and see you on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. Shit.

“Hey,” he says quietly, and you almost choke on your own saliva. The Iwaizumi, saying hello to you?

It takes everything you’ve got to not turn around and check if there’s anyone behind, just in case he was saying hey to the wall and not you. “Uh…hi, Iwaizumi-san,” you manage, mouth dry.

Great start.

Iwaizumi rarely says more than this. He turns back to his laundry and you expect that’s the end of that, when he glances over his shoulders, laundry room light flickering in his eyes. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

HE’S TALKING TO YOU????

“I…yeah, I’ve been busy with work.” Technically, that’s true, but you’ve also spent the last few weeks despairing in your room about the state of the world and your personal life. That doesn’t leave much time for neighbourhood events or going anywhere except the convenience store behind your apartment building. Plus, you’ve really been cutting it close with your work commutes these days, leaving later and later from your apartment. Which means you don’t get to see Iwaizumi jogging in the mornings, his normally serious expression softened in the morning light.

“What did you say you do again?” He asks. You have a vague memory of telling him about your job at some neighbourhood cleanup your friend talked you into joining earlier this year, but you tell him again anyway.

“What about you?” You ask, checking the timer on the washer. Three minutes. You’re not sure if you want those three minutes to go faster or slow down. At least you’re talking somewhat normally and not in those weird squeaks that left your mouth the first time you had a conversation with him last year.

“Physical training,” he answers briefly. “I work with athletes and coaches and stuff. Used to be an athlete myself.”

That explains why he’s so buff. The part of your brain that’s stuck in fantasyland now thinks it’s a great idea to imagine Iwaizumi wearing a fitted t-shirt that displays his firm arms and washboard abs and—

Stop that, you scold yourself. This is not the time!

Two minutes. Just two more minutes. You can dry your clothes at home.

You lick your lips. Why must they be so dry? “Do you, uh, come here often?”

“Often enough,” he says. “The machines here are bigger than what I have at home. You?”

“Not really,” you admit, “but my washing machine just broke down today, and there was a bit of an emergency, so…” You trail off, hoping he won’t push further.

“Ah, gotcha.” He looks at you sympathetically. “Hope whatever stains you have come off easily.”

“I hope so too.” You threw your clothes in the sink as fast as you could to scrub the stains off, but stopping yourself from getting soup burns was a little more important at the time, so you’re not sure what’s going to happen.

Only one way to find out.

The buzzer goes off, and your clothes are ready. Hauling the washer door open, you start yanking things out and shoving them into your laundry basket. Everything’s still damp, but the faster you can put things away the faster you can go home and stop fantasising about the man standing a few feet away and his voice and his jaw and his hands and his—

Hold it RIGHT there, buddy; you don’t wanna think of what’s in his pants NOW.

That part can be saved for later, preferably when alone in bed.

You’re so preoccupied with putting your clothes away that you barely register the sound of footsteps approaching you from behind. It’s no big deal.

And then you hear Iwaizumi say your last name.

Still holding the basket, you turn so quickly that you don’t see just how close he is to you…which has you crashing into him, laundry and all, sending half your clothes jumping out of the basket.

You almost fall back as you collide with his rock-hard abs, but he catches you just in time. Unfortunately, that’s worse, because now you have his muscular arms around you, those large hands with callused fingers pressed against your back, holding you a little too close to him, your bodies so close you can see every little mark and bump on his face and neck and shoulders.

And you can see one more thing, having flown out of your laundry basket in the chaos and landed on his neck:

Your lacy black bra with the little ribbon in the middle.

The bra you bought on sale last March. The bra you once said was “the perfect mix of sexy and sophisticated.” The bra that was specifically launched for Valentine’s Day.

As the saying goes, life sucks.

Kill me, you plead to whatever higher power is up there. You don’t believe in the existence of said higher power, but you need one to exist right now. Just kill me, please, I am BEGGING you.

Of all the clothes that could have landed on your longtime crush, it just had to be the Valentine Dreams Limited Edition one.

Why? And why did it have to happen to you?

Life REALLY sucks right now.

“Uh…” Iwaizumi goes tomato-red as he gingerly peels the bra off his tank top. “Here you go.”

“Th-thanks,” you stammer, grabbing the bra and shoving it deep into the basket, your face on fire once again. One of Iwaizumi’s hands is still on your back, and fuck, the warmth of his fingers is sending a tingle down your spine. HELP, you scream internally. SOMEONE KILL ME. PLEASE.

Thankfully, the next best thing happens: Iwaizumi lets you go. Immediately, you pick up all the fallen clothes and put them back where they belong, slamming the basket lid shut for good measure.

Iwaizumi hasn’t moved. When you finally get your bearings, you look at him and bite your lip. “I’m sorry about that,” you say.

“No, I’m sorry,” he replies. “I shouldn’t have startled you. I…I wanted to ask you something, but I guess I should’ve waited a bit.”

“Ask me what?” You say, gaping at him. The two of you have hardly spoken beyond the occasional neighbourhood gathering and the handful of times you’ve encountered each other while he’s on his morning jog and you’re heading to work. What could he possibly want to ask you?

He takes a deep breath, the redness of his cheeks fading to a light pink. “I…I wanted to ask…if you’d like to go on a date with me one of these days.”

The laundromat goes silent, the humming of the machine with Iwaizumi’s clothes disappearing into nothingness as his words echo around you,

A date. With Iwaizumi.

A DATE.

A DATE.

You blink at him once, twice, three times. “I…what?” Your mouth and brain aren’t coordinating with each other, and you could scream in frustration.

If Iwaizumi notices anything odd, he doesn’t say. “I know, it’s, uh, kinda weird, because we haven’t really talked much.” He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “But, uh, I’d really like to get to know you better, and take you out on a date. If you’re interested, that is.”

He…he wants to WHAT????

Get to know you? You? Are you hearing this right or is it just a figment of your imagination?

The way he looks at you now…this is the first time you’ve seen him without a scowl or frown or neutral-bordering-on-frowning expression. You see his eyes soften as he watches you, a tiny bit of hope on his face as he waits for your answer.

The Iwaizumi. Neighbourhood hottie and guy you’ve had a crush on since the day you first saw him jogging in the neighbourhood. And now, the man who has just asked you out - even though your bra almost landed on his face just minutes ago.

And you are interested. Even if the sputtering sounds you’re making right now convince him you’re breaking down. The question is, how do you turn these sounds into something coherent?

“If-if you’re not interested, then you don’t have to force yourself,” Iwaizumi adds hastily. “I won’t feel bad if you say no, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Wha—” Shit, you have to fix this right now, before he assumes you’ve turned him down. “Y-y-yes,” you finally manage. “Yes, I’ll go on a date with you,” you add in one breath.

It’s Iwaizumi’s turn to blink. “Really?”

You nod, not trusting your tongue anymore.

“That’s, uh, that’s great,” he says. “Can I…can I get your number? We can plan something for the weekend.”

In response, you practically shove your phone at him. He doesn’t even flinch as it presses against his stomach. Fuck, he’s strong.

He enters his number in your phone, and you add yours to his. When you look at his contact details, you finally learn his full name.

Iwaizumi Hajime.

You wonder what it would be like to call him Hajime. Every time you’ve spoken, you’ve just used each other’s last names. He’s always been Iwaizumi-san to you.

“So, uh…see you around?” He says, looking down at your full name.

“Yeah…see you, Iwaizumi-san.” You give him the tiniest of smiles, your heart racing.

As you take yourself and the laundry basket out of the laundromat, you hear him call your name again. “Yes?” You say, turning around.

He gives you a small smile back. “Call me Hajime.”

Maybe life doesn’t suck after all.

****

“Soooo…what did she say?”

Iwaizumi struggles to hide his irritation at Oikawa’s shit-eating grin. Is it possible to punch someone over video call? “She said yes,” is all he tells the annoyance he’s known all his life. “We’re going out this weekend.”

“That’s nice. I’m really happy for you, Iwa-chan.”

“Thanks.” Iwaizumi can’t help the smile on his face as he thinks about you. Sure, the bra incident was embarrassing as fuck, but maybe the two of you will be able to laugh at that someday. That is, if you’re both able to make it through the first date.

Even in those casual clothes, you looked so adorable. Your fluffy Cinnamoroll slippers, locks of your hair spilling out of the hairclip, your eyes shining as you smiled at him…he can’t wait to see you again. And again. And again.

“Awww, Iwa-chan’s in looooooove~”

“Shut up, Shittykawa!”

[octuscle]

Fewer wheels, more balls

Stephen cursed everything. His parents, because they hadn't paid for him to study medicine and he had only become a nurse. St. Peter because he sent a shower of rain at the exact moment he rolled out onto the road on his new motorcycle. The mechanic, because he had offered him the motorcycle as a replacement for his car, which had finally died of old age. And himself, because he hadn't had the backbone to insist on having the car repaired and had this bike sold to him instead. Yes, he had taken his driver's license back then. But he hadn't ridden a motorcycle since driving school. And this beast, a twenty-year-old Triumph Rocket III, was far too big for his frail body. And with the silly rain overalls that the mechanic had given him, he looked more than silly.

Especially in this weather, Stephen hadn't expected to get home on his bike without breaking down. But even he was surprised that it should be so far after just four miles. With the last of his strength, the bike rolled under the highway bridge. At least it was dry there. And now? Stephen had no idea about engines. He was an ambulance driver. He knew all about cars. At least a little. But with motorcycles?

If you're at a loss, ask ChatGPT. Stephen pulled out his cell phone and described the problem. He was advised to remove the spark plugs and dry them out. Shit, yes, he'd heard about that. It was a common problem with that model year. He had an oily rag in his upperall. He dried and cleaned the spark plugs. And the machine started. Perfectly! Nevertheless, Stephen sent up a prayer to heaven. And it was answered. The rain subsided and he made it home without any further problems.

Stephen dried his bike and hung his wet leather suit on a hanger. His garage, which was also his own little improvised workshop, was kept tidy. That was important to him. Otherwise, he wasn't the tidy type… As he stood in front of the toilet in his wet underwear and pissed, it occurred to him that he could clean again. Shit, this was a man's household. And he worked in the Red Cross workshop on engines and car bodies. He didn't need a sterile environment. He still had some pizza left in the fridge. He didn't have to leave for work for another hour. That was enough for food, drink and a wank. Then he put on a dry leather suit, sat on his 140 hp baby and set off for work with the engine roaring.

Stephen liked the late shift. He could wait for the vehicles in peace and didn't have to constantly watch out for vehicles coming in and out. The bad weather also meant that there were fewer people on the road. There were fewer motorcycle accidents in particular. Stephen didn't care about the weather. He had once had a car. But he needed the wind around his nose. He drove in all weathers. Nevertheless, he preferred it when no bikers had to be taken to hospital after an accident. Here in the neighborhood you can. Most of them were at least distant acquaintances. I mean, Stephen was an authority in the biker scene. When it came to engines, nobody could fool him. And whether it was his Triumph, his BMW or his Ducati, he had every bike under control.

It was almost 05:00 in the morning. The replacement would be coming soon. Stephen was standing in the coffee kitchen with a couple of paramedics, smoking a cigarette. His parents had always wanted him to become a doctor. He was sure that he could do a much greater service to the health service with his job. And tomorrow it would continue, tomorrow he would give it his all again. But not today, today he was happy when his baby was in the garage and he was in bed.

It was 08:00 when Steve was woken by a honking horn. Shit, he had slept in his clothes again. It had been a long evening with the boys. And yes, he'd probably had one too many beers to drive home. But his machine knew the way. Another honk. Bloody hell, couldn't anyone wait these days? "I'm coming" boomed Steve's bass over the service station. Some fucking city slicker who was too stupid to fill up the tank himself. Steve had a hard time hiding his morning wood when he went to the gas pump to fill up the show-off Porsche. Steve positioned himself so that the driver had no other chance than to stare at the bulge in his pants. "That'll be 80 bucks, buddy," Steve grunted. "Anything else I can do for you?"

Steve had once seen a drawing of a gas station where the attendants not only refueled and repaired cars, but also served hot customers in other ways. It was some guy from Denmark, Sweden or something… Tim? Tom? It didn't matter. Steve turned around, his hand on his bulge. Three, two, one... He would have bet the 80 dollars that the Porsche driver would come up behind him. The first coffee of the day would have to wait. He had an ass to fill for now.

Interested in your own TF story? DM me, there's a community on Tumblr for that!

[days-until-burnout]

Day 109 -

Characters - Gem + Pearl, brief Gem & Joel Words - 909 Time - 60 mins Content - Modern AU

“Hey, Joel?” Gem calls out as she tosses a dirty towel onto the bench, keeping an ear out for any sound. She hears little, just the sweeping and closing doors. “Need me for anything? If not, I'll head out now!”

“What? Oh, no. Go away. You're devaluing the shop!” 

She rolls her eyes, but smiles. “See you tomorrow!” 

“See ya!”

With that, Gem ties her jacket around her waist before grabbing her helmet, pushing the door open with her shoulder. She spins the keys into her hand then locks the door, sighing after a long day of work. 

As she makes her way to her bike, she thinks about the cars waiting for repairs. She reads through her messages and skims through her emails, hoping there is any news about the parts even though she just ordered them a couple hours ago. She knows Joel is doing the same, both of them the same flavor of impatience. 

Still, nothing can be done and the sky is getting dark, so she slides her helmet onto her head and herself onto her bike. She starts it then kicks the kickstand, reveling in the rumble of the engine and slow warming of her machine. 

Only a couple minutes too long, she is revving her engine to let Joel know she is finally leaving, and shortly after, she is turning out of the lot onto the streets. 

The wind welcomes her naked arms, slipping into her shirt and drying her skin, offering an instant relief to a long day of work. Her jeans freeze and heat up, the fabric worn to her shape. And she scolds herself for not loosening her hair first. 

At this time of day, the streets are filled with cars. She hmphs, knowing everyone has the same goal. 

Get home. 

Still, she sighs at a red light, weaving through some openings to get ahead. There are a couple waves, and even some engine revving to make kids and frat boys erupt in cheers. Though they cannot see it, she smiles at their joy.

She is a simple woman, that is all. 

With another turn, she joins the thrill of the highway.

Speed courses through her veins even if she just follows the usual path. Cars overtaking her, her overtaking them, her reflection on their windows. The pebbles and rubble, the grit of her soles, and delightful heat and cold embracing her body. 

She sweats again, but she only smiles wider. 

Until something catches her eyes, something in the shape of someone pulled to the side, standing behind their car on the phone. 

Gem switches lanes and slows down until she comes to a stop behind the car. The person has long, cinnamon hair. And after Gem takes her helmet off, the person turns to face her, relief on her face. 

Gem pushes her bike closer as the stranger meets her halfway, a tired smile on their lips. 

“Something wrong?” Gem asks. 

“I, I don't know? It's a rental, so it should be fine, you'd think it'd be.”

Oh, stranger has a nice voice and funny accent.

“I'm a mechanic.”

Stranger beams, “Oh! That's great. Could, could you take a look? I just arrived in this city so I don't know which number to call.”

“That so?” Gem entertains and she slides off her bike, assuming Stranger's lingering eyes are because of movement. She tries to not think about it as they walk over to the car, it being silent. 

“I was calling my cousin. But I told him I'd give him a call if you couldn't sort it out.”

Gem giggles, “So you assumed I would help?” 

“You look like you would help!” Stranger laughs, and Gem smiles. Absentmindedly, she finds herself tucking a curl behind her ear, tracing the curve of Stranger's lips. “My name is Pearl, and I am thankful for being right!” 

Gem rolls her eyes, smiling. Fond, almost. Pearl reminds her of Joel a tad. “Alright, let's see what we're dealing with. Oh, and I'm Gem.”

As Gem pops the hood and begins examining the engine, Pearl scoots beside her, looking over her shoulder curiously. And softly, Pearl speaks. 

“Thank you, Gem.”

After a couple minutes, Gem sighs, crossing her arms on the edge of the hood. Pearl makes a worried sound beside her, but there is no point sugar coating it. 

“Aside from running out of oil,” Gem starts, getting on her tiptoes to close the hood. Her shirt rises slightly, the breeze touching her lower stomach and back. “You've got some transmission problems. Looks like whoever serviced the car last didn't do a, uh, let's say careful job.”

“Not something I'm liable for, right?”

When Gem looks over, Pearl is smiling with mischief. 

“Not if we can prove it. If you let me make a call, I can get someone here.”

“Oh thank you! I promise to pay you as soon as my cousin is done with work.”

“No problem.”

One call later, the pair is seating on the hood of Pearl's car, chit-chatting about Pearl's flight and Gem's mechanic job. Conversation comes as easy as the cooling day, and Gem finds herself sliding into her jacket. 

Gem looks down at her hand, the side of it dirty. She fixates on it for a bit, before the feeling of eyes heavy on her person. When she looks up, Pearl looks away, casually tucking a strand of hair back. 

Pearl looks pretty, Gem thinks.

_____

would you still love me if I was a worm. or if I was unoriginal in characters/pairs 👉👈

also, i wrote this on the way to the airport. and then got a headache and finished it on the airport. i am commitment. also, i might post again tonight. am i compensating? yes. do i want to out of my own free will? partial yes.

[click for a random day]

[rosesinspirationandreference]

60 Random Writing/Fanfiction Prompts

Affirm

Agitation

Amusing

An ancient city

Anatomy

Anger

Beauty

Bedtime

Board games

Boats

Body language

Boxes

Building

Canals

Children

Choose

Clever things

Climbing

Clothing

Cooking

Coughs and sneezes

Dressmaking

Dry

Education

Endangered species

Escape

Examination

Exciting words

Flower arranging

Flying machines

Ghosts

Herbal remedies

Herbs and spices

Hot stuff

In the greenhouse

In the park

Lights

Lightweight

Medical matters

Military aircraft

Move

On fire

On the edge

People who write

Perfect

Perfume

Printworks

Quick

Repair

Results

Retirement

Shopping list

Show jumping

Theatrical

Things to give up

Three times over

Train ride

Transport

Warm words

Wedding

[perlen-gold]

A MelkorxMairon story

inspired by saintstars

(link to AO3)

“Come.”

They call me Great Death, the Constrainer. Black Foe of the World, Master of Lies. They say I am merciless and proud, atrocious, barbarous, brutal and ruthless, abominable and terrible to behold, wicked and vicious. They are not wrong.

 “Come,” I whispered, my voice a phantom of its earth-cracking thunder tracing across his heated stone-skin.

I imagined him adorned lightly. Onyx-black, ink-soft lace balming his skin. A hue of jewelry, the rings he so liked, fragrant with flawless gold.

Lose, the scarlet-crimsoned whisper of his hair, embroidering the tickling shadows about him, breathing with a faint, warm glow, lose, unbound, free.

Instead, iron and steel. Rather, I felt it was the blunt taste of metal humming beneath my fingertips., winter-gray and silver-cool.

Never had I hissed at the melody of cutting cold as he, freezing snow and whirling ice. Now, as I envisioned him in soft-light fiber and warmth-glowing fabric, I nearly did.

Instead, I touched upon the spiral shell of Mairon’s armor, inch by inch.

Enough work.

I almost say it.

I feel Mairon tense the moment the words soar upon my tongue. I think his bruises, sprains and scars, so carefully withheld beneath his armor, coil.

My own injuries are throbbing as the mountain’s heart pulsates.

On the tip of my tongue I finger two different syllables, then. I taste them, long and probing. They are not familiar between my lips.

Instead, I murmur, “Come.”

Then try, taste, whisper.

“Please.”

As I stroke the sounds, I feel the remnant scars of my wounds squirm and stretch.

Enough work. I had said those words before quite differently.

He had been absorbed in a long list of parchment, winding and dry, just like now, after an endless day of meetings and councils.

War is an ever-hungry machine that constantly must be fed and patted and attended to. Not I but Mairon is its master who keeps it ever roiling and toiling. Its needs are both endless and unending.

There are weaponries to be forged, armor to be hammered. Hosts of Orcs to be commanded, captains to be instructed, recruits to be trained.

Expedient though they are, Orcs make poor comrades in arms. Constantly squabbling, perpetually fighting each other for position or food or simply the lack of distraction or wit, they are ill-made for cooperation and it takes more than a whip to tame them. Fear might control them but it takes more to make them efficient, Mairon often says.

And efficient he makes them. Orcs and goblins have a natural aptitude for battle, their fighting is simple and crude nonetheless, Mairon often also sighed, and the imbeciles end up killing each other before they even learn how to swing an axe in an accurate arch.

Then there is food and rations to be retrieved and organized, routs to scout and news from spies and traitors to be collected and molded into benefits and advantages.

I knew all of this because Mairon had told me, complained to me of these things more often than I wished and, what was worse by far, even made me listen till I was fed up and bored beyond even my unyielding power. Oh, there was relentlessness in him that heeded neither my ostentatious disregard nor my sour mood whenever he pestered me with these trifles. I might have escaped, oh yes, but he would serve me thrice the tales of battlements in need of improvement, insufficient food resources and incompetent Orc armorers designing poorer battering rams when I hungered for the naked sheen of his skin.

I have always thought Mairon mercilessly vindictive beyond even my desire for revenge.

“Your army, my lord, needs attention”, he would say lilting as skittering pearls and with a tone so quizzacious I might seize his throat eventually which would make him laugh and brush the sweetest gasp against my ear.

Once, I sank my teeth into the tender rose-petal softness of his beautiful neck and he moaned softly into me while he enumerated all the little repairs needed for some dispensable outpost in such a shuddering, smile-curving little voice that I, smeared with his gold-liquor blood, considered biting off his tongue. It made his heedless smile curve even wickeder.

There had been always only one way to silence the brazen little creature.

And for a while he writhed and arched beneath me, trembling, mouth and body sealed, only to continue his speech in the fire-gilded afterglow of our bodies, his throbbing flame-heat and shivering legs still around me.

Oh, even my fell cruelty, which I thrust into him, could not match his own.

This time, however, it was different.

I say war is a machine but, in truth, Mairon is the machine that is war.

Like the rings he so loves for their boundless, immaculate symmetry, none of his designs or schemes knew either end or beginning and it was these endless, tedious things in his fingers around which they always snaked like wild adders eternally, perpetually.

And Mairon is just as endless and snaking.

There is no detail to escape his lidless mind’s gaze. No mosaic stone unset, no jigsaw piece uncontemplated. Every piece my and his spies gathered glides between his sizzling fingertips.

Not a single piece of floating ash is unknown to him. No trifling squabble crumbled under his high boots unseen, no minor sentiment of unrest skittered across his path without his notice. He weaves a single-minded Orc’s gripe into his hair when he rises in the crisp morning, he holds an outpost’s trivial failings in his grasp when setting the chisel in his forge and he slides a letter intercepted over his skin when he undresses in the evening.

I call him my little flame, and it delights his curving dagger smile, for he is neither little nor single-tipped flame.

My troops, on the other hand, my Balrocs and generals and captains and Orcs call him the lidless, sleepless, all-seeing eye. I might be the god they serve but one single gush of wind loosening a lone scarlet-gilded, fire-whipping strand of Mairon’s hair sends them scudding and scurrying as ants.

I did not, or barely, notice at first.

So consumed was I that it was only an irksomeness in the beginning before it grated at my attention, more and more.

Always there had been a piece of something on Mairon’s mind, a roll of parchment in his long-fingered hands, a whispered request in his well-shaped ear, another meticulously drawn map, another scouting route worked out, another keen-eyes report at his sharp-angled elbow.

It was as though catching an industrious spider weaving double the nets or spotting the arctic fox growing twice the pristine fur.

And yet.

I say I heeded not the change, at first. Yet, in truth there was something vexing me outside the range of my vision, like a buzzing fly my dragons cannot see yet not quite bait either.

When then, at long last, it woke me out of my razor-riven raptness, it was like a silent shiver running through the earth meeting a mountain, a cresting wave crashing against a sheer cliff of rock after building for weeks.

Ah, I had not known it had been there.

Suddenly, however, my ire raged clear and raw.

“Enough!”

Ah.

My skin prickling as the stagnant air before a storm.

My voice, having sundered heavens and cleaved continents, a lightning bolt lit.

Plans and maps, plans and schemes, schemes, schemes and plans! I had been surge-swelling with them like a river breaking its bed.

My captains and leaders, Orcs and goblins, their heads snapped around to my seat as if I had broken their necks. However, I was no longer seated. Why had I come to this counsel at all, dark creatures in my service startling and groveling? Mairon had stopped dragging me there long ago and I rarely obliged him when he did.

I did not take notice whether it was letter parchment or outline scroll I tore from Mairon’s hands. A shattering on the onyx black floor, I felt myself towering, looming with my mounting rage.

In the breathing space between us, him and me, my body was sparking at the edges.

Never had I, quite unlike Mairon, endeavored to control my wrath, unlike him who could mask the brightest blaze of anger like ash covers the still-glowing embers within.

Instead, I felt my shape rise and my all-seeing vision expand, fraying at the edges, burn with it.

Whatever it was that I tore from him crumbled into smoke and electric sparks under my hands.

And still he would not look at me.

Ah, there it was, the hilt and pike of my sudden temper which I was fingering like my warhammer, Mairon’s steady gaze still, still, still fastened on what he had been reading an instant before, parchment and scrolls and lesser creatures and, oh, everything without even once in weeks upon weeks and months uncounted looking up at me who was his master.

The fortress around us, the raven-black stone floor beneath our feet shivered with a ringing tremor.

I thought ages to pass but, in sooth, Mairon stared at the quivering remnants of what I had just ripped from his hands much longer while my rage sloshed and billowed into vastness.

Then, his gaze flared into mine.

It was as though a ray of morning light hit me, clear and spear-piercing.

His gold-crystal eyes were aflame as a crisp winter’s dawn. This was the only warning I was given.

I saw his transformation only in shreds ere Mairon lashed himself upon me, flame-gleaming fur and blaze-white teeth.

My wrath was sharp enough to wrap us both and Mairon’s teeth even sharper.

Fire cannot consume the mountain but it can sweep across, melt, mold and scar it beyond recognition.

Ah, and scar each other we did in our conflagration.

If any dark creature, Balrog or maggot Orc had been present, they must have fled for no insect lingers to watch whether slashing rains or whipping winds may triumph over the storm.

Had we been lesser beings, we might have easily slain each other.

Instead, the stone-blind walls around us gasped as we fought and parts of Utumno well-nigh collapsed under our rage.

When at last we both sank against opposite walls, the torches shook under our breaths as grass before the scythe.

My anger, however, fled as swiftly as it had come and his surely must have to.

The air tasted of stale smoke and departing thunder.

As we huffed, I expected him to limp toward me. Even lean against me, his inferno fury and my cosmic wilderness abated and washed away by the great tide of our fighting, leaving as brine-raw and satisfied enough to huff and touch each other’s wounds with well-practiced fingers softly and tender lips. I would have licked his wounds, and more, and his lips could have kissed mine till we shook from a different kind of fury and another quake came upon Utumno ere an unsimilar fatigue settled between us, and then we would have finally tended to each other’s injuries in a more lasting way.

What rags of his fine-woven garment had withstood his skin-changing were torn to shreds by me and fell from his bare skin.

Yes. I expected his sly smile dripping mockingly from his slyer lips.

Though rare, it had no been our first fight, after all.

As our breaths pooled in the empty counsel room, I saw Mairon rise to his staggering legs.

Instead, however, he left as abruptly as he had flared, limping.

He strode from my hall, naked, gold licking beneath the glowing soles of his feet, the hue of fire-lit blood in his whipping hair and gleaming skin the only cover to veil his lithe shape.

A single Orc stumbled from behind an onyx-carved column.

It stared.

And stared.

And stared.

And stared.

“Please”

The sounds touch queerly between my lips.

I feel my eyes, one of crystal-frozen ice and one of molten-moving magma, close against the silence of his shadow-hewn chambers.

There has been neither council nor meeting.

We have not talked since.

Mairon moves not.

My vision is obscured by the dusk of my own eyes.

The dancing darkness within me notwithstanding, I know his eyes, perusing the endless lines on the rustling scroll in his slender hands tenaciously, to have stopped, poised, on one spot alone.

Slowly.

Slowly my scarred hands begin to move.

Gradually, I touch upon what has been shaped unerringly by him. Layer by layer. Piece by piece.

I remember not undoing his or any other armor ever before. Haltingly, my fingers find few gold clasps sleeping beneath.

Iron plate and greave slither ceaselessly against each other, harness and chestplate.

I have never tasted, brushed my tongue against this creation among so many of his, immaculate in its deadly beauty as everything he invents.

But what my scorched hands find is not beauty alone.

Inch for inch, I let my scabbed finger pads slide over smooth plates of metal, one after another. Perfectly round circles of twisting iron, dark as night, black as a midnight’s dream. Slender-long gauntlets gliding sleekly against each other without the slightest hitch.

Polished, my charred fingertips find the glossy plates against his stomach.  

Not a nook or cranny on the metal stretching across the small of his back; neither scratch nor scrape beneath my quiet palms straying along his waist, down his iron-veiled flanks.

No plate hugging his legs, no piece of armor whispering, pressing against his thighs ever requires a drop of slick oil. I can feel it underneath my tingling hands. Not one part of metal will ever rub against its brothers nor bear mark or squeak. Like snake scales rising against each other’s fall.

As I wander him, a thought strikes me like a smiling fish in the presence of the diving king-fisher. That even Aulë himself would envy this. It is coiling perfection lured to making. It is usage spelled into fascination.

Another thought strikes my pricking skin, then. It is not what he has worn before.

My realization is another spell woven by the king fisher. When has Mairon created this new armor? It must have taken him an age of life to master it into being.

When did he do it? Where had I been?

But, of course, no beauty for Mairon without purpose.

I think, even Aulë will envy this.

It may be a day, it may be an age eternal till I draw his body against mine. Bare skin to skin.

Under my hands his armor is coming undone like a mountain peak, year by year, age by age.

I allow my gaze to fall on the graceful line of his neck then, note the lustrous strand of fire-lit hair that coiles around it. The smooth heel of his hand, aligned to the scroll, the tips hidden behind the faded yellow. The sharp angle of his left elbow, the serpentine line of his muscled back. The svelte shape of his ear, the cutting line of his jaw. All this, I merely graze with my gaze, light as raven feathers before I let the knuckles on the back of my fingers follow my eyes’ hushed trail.

Beneath, slashes and lacerations like gouges half-knitted, purple bruises and blood-cusped strains, half-healed.

Wroth and savage had been my violence, vicious and cruel his own.

I expect his skin, his body to be fire scolding, a blaze like a hurricane. My touch, however, evanesces upon contact with it as though one wraith reaches for another.

Somethings tugs at me then, strange-shaped and eternally coined.

He does not stir, does not move.

Still, his fire has not blazed my scarred skin. And still, Mairon’s voice of melting steel has not spoken to me.

I might pry into his mind, of course. What futility. Mairon has never given anything he did not offer first.

Last is his hair, bound tightly, wrought infinitely to the lovely shape of his neck. It is not in my nature to hesitate, not once, and like softest silk each flaming strand loosens between my stroking, combing fingers.

At last, my time is come to speak.

My eyes still veiled by the endless darkness of my own lashes, against the warm fall of his hair I lay my lips.

“Precious.” Murmurs. “It is enough.” Whispers, straight and firm. “Even you have an end to your flames. Even you must rest.” Murmers and whispers from my lips.

My darkness, a fortress. ”Even you must not be consumed by one thing alone in this world.”

Mairon stirs not. And yet, I feel it in the jolt of rigid muscles against my naked skin like a bow-string springing back.

I catch the thought he aims albeit he aims it not at me. It is the first time I hear his golden voice ever since I returned.

It is like laughter, only viler.

You are one to talk.

Around his naked waist and chest my hold tightens. In anticipation, perhaps, of another attack, wondering idly what other beastly form he might use, I look forward to whatever claws and teeth he will sink into me this time with a kind of grim satisfaction.

I palpate that almost-thought  of his idly, turn it around in my silent-grown mind seeking out its facets and angles.

His skin is cool silver light upon the parched flesh of my fingers despite the honed flames it shields within.

No beauty for Mairon without a purpose.

There.

Ah.

Here, at last. A morsel of truth.

Slowly. Gradually, I begin to comprehend. And yet, still, I understand not.

Long is the silence stretching between us, infinite as the darkened night sky, dull as the lessened moon shredded in wispy mists.

Slowly. Slowly, my arms’ force increases. Slowly, the hold of my embrace tightens.

Slowly, I force Mairon’s body around. Force him to turn. This is what I do and this is what I try.

Ah. Many are the minds and brains fooled by his appearance. He might shroud his viper shape in a robe of splendid cloth but I have seen the bare stretch of his arms and shoulders bent over the forge, his back straight and straining. The ones he seduces think him fair and beautiful alone, yet I have heard Orc sword masters threaten their fosterlings with Lord Mairon’s lust for challenge. His legs apart, sinews and muscles aglow in the sheen of the furnace. He would not even have to lift the hilt of his sword. Among the recruits, his physical strength is a legend told at night fire watches.

And with all his strength he is fighting me now, ah, what resistance against the strain of my arms around his back and sides, against my will to bind him to me, force his body around to face mine.

Vaguely, I am wondering once more if he will transform again, now, in this instant, to raise the amount of bristle and teeth and claws he can punish me with or if he will simply sink and dig his gilded nails and incandescent teeth into my flesh as he is.

Neither of us is speaking.

But this. This is more a fight of wills rather than a battle of physical force, and this once, this once in our eons of time, my will prevails over his.

I can feel him straining as his ember-honed cheek comes to rest upon my beating pulse. It is like holding a candle to my chest.

I feel the touch of his breath as warm as sun-lit honey on my chest, flecks of gold in it.

All at once, I am unable to remember. This. The wisp of his fiery hair. The width of his smooth brow. The length of his body, flush against mine. Unable. Unable to remember the last time I felt his gold-leaping warmth seep into my storm-cloud skin.

My injuries matter not. Their circling pain is forgotten like morning mists fracturing at the break of dawn. We move not and do not speak. However, this once, I will not let him escape.

Puzzled yet I am. Pondering. Wondering. I, Melkor, confess I fail to grasp his ire fully.

Would he envy another craftsman thus? Ah, I think not. Too proud Mairon is of his own prowess, too confident, too brilliant in his own skill.

Would he resent thus what he deems utter folly? He has stood and endured far greater whims of mine.

I know the fight to have seeped out of him, now. There is only the pooling of warmth, small huffs against my skin.

I am closing my eyes to darkness and stillness again.

Long is the silence stretching between us.

“Do with them as you please.”

At first, Mairon does not move.

Then, against the total blackness of my eyelids, I can see him stir. Rise. His head tilting back. His fire-honed gaze, at last, upon my face.

My hand opens for him.

They cannot burn me any more than their luminous light already has.

As I open my eyes, despite myself, my gaze falls upon them as splashing water from the sky.

Even before my eyelids lift, I know their lovely glow shedding light over my maimed, scorch-darkened hands. I know not whether Mairon’s eyes follow the lust of my eyes, become drawn and ensnared as mine. If not, I can neither examine it nor him.

Even now I cannot part my gaze with them.

If the moon had been carved into thirds in the bejeweled night, none of it, though born from that same radiance, would have glistered like any of them!

One sun-lit and citrine-hued, bright as sun-filled water. Vivid as the very heart of the earth the other, a thousand rubies aflame. The last, a brilliant, ever-shining, ever-pure, dazzling white.

Even now I am mesmerized at the luminosity of the first light, percolated through the incinerated cage of my fingeres.

Even Mairon’s light of fire-drunk gold almost dulled beside them. Almost.

This, maybe, is what makes me realize the flash of Mairon’s hand toward the blinding light.

All of a sudden, through the luminous splendor and breath-taking, sky-rendering incandescence, fear jolts through me like a thunder-spear.

No, I am no stranger to pain, not even to dread, the loathsome spider be cursed and all her descendants, but never has terror such as this seized at my hammering pulse.

The yell, the roar aimed at Mairon ignites in my throat as volcanoes erupt with spilling fire.

Almost as soon as it builds, I huff out a breath of absurd emptiness. Mairon’s supple fingers have gripped the resplendent silmarils long before my anger rushes in. Beneath his skin, like strands of his own hair, silk shimmers between him and the precious jewels.

Of course.

My chest almost tears with swallowed, frayed laughter.

Whatever rules Mairon’s black-sooted heart, greed is not a part of it.

His fiery gaze is thrumming into mine, the long-lashed gold of his eyes never once wavering to the wonders aglow between our hands. I imagine his wrist flick and a burst of radiant light clattering across the onyx floor.

Mairon’s voice is quenched iron, spitting with cooling water, “I shall cast them into the darkest sea, the deepest pit and highest sky.”

The fury of this world grows between us, gathers in the thunder lightning and earth-shading clouds, a fell music of drums and clangs.

It is arduous at first, cruelly laborious, to wretch my craving stare from them.

I can see Mairon’s eyes follow the length of my glance, the direction of my lusting breath.

They are magnificent in their effulgence, entrancing in their beauty, enrapturing in their unfathomable luster.

Long has the silence stretched between us.

Silently, I speak.

So you shall.

Mairon does blink. Now. Once. An eternity. Twice.

Finally, ultimately, I can see his gold-glittering eyes flicker toward the luminescent jewels in his hand, his gaze falling, cast down.

“I shall forge a crown fit for them and you, my lord,” he murmurs, lowly.

No love for the sea, the earth, the skies?, I think

“They are to be set in a crown by my hands already.” I speak aloud.

There it is, the sneer.

“It is like calling the elven child hoarding heaps of sand an architect.” Mairon returns, slyly as a minx.

Insolent creature, I think, letting the words flutter soft as lashes against his smile-honing lips.

“Not tonight,” I hum, drawing him closer still, pressing against his curving lips, “Tonight you are mine.”

I think, tonight I am yours alone.

Mairon’s limber shoulders rise as he lifts his hands to lay them along my face, his willowy fingers astir, roaming through my hair where there are caught the colors of the night and the light of fading stars. The light in his eyes is enough to blind and scar the whole world and everything that comes after.

They say I am merciless and proud, cruel and pitiless, tyrannical and spiteful, enviously, greedily, recklessly selfish beyond imagination. They call me Master of Lies, Great Death, Black Foe of the World. I feel giddy with delight when I think of it. It is all true.

Let them not see what else I am.

He, whom they call Sauron, whispers into my ear, his arched fingers woven into my shadow hair, his graceful limbs, the length of his pressing body pouring sun-lit heat into mine of melting ice and frozen stone, the smiling cheek of his lips thawing against my ear.

“You have yet to say ‘please’, my lord.”

[outofgloom]

SHUN THIS PLACE

The Lord of Steel stood on the threshold, at long last. Behind him, the priests lay dead, splayed across the desert, along with the bodies of his soldiers. The elemental weapons of the priesthood had been as terrible as foretold, but in the end, his power had prevailed.

He scanned the midday sky briefly, but it remained mostly clear. A good omen, although it would not last. Evening would bring stormclouds—red storms, the kind which did not water the dry earth.

In fact, he was counting on it.

He stooped and crossed the threshold, moving out of the desert air and into the cool interior of the structure. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dimness, and he saw that the walls were covered with carvings. No surprise there: He’d encountered versions of them before, on the obelisks of the Great Jungle and the abandoned cliff-cities of the Great Frost. Even so, these were the fullest and most detailed he’d seen so far. There were full words here, in fact, alongside the usual pictograms, written in the strange script of the machines.

He was impatient, eager to take the next step, but he had not gotten this far by ignoring good intel. As odious a task as it was to him, perhaps just this once he ought to give the inscription a full read....

HERE-PLACE IS MESSAGE

...the first line parsed out, alongside a symbol which usually meant “listen” or “take heed”. This place is a message. He read on:

MESSAGE IS BIG

...No, that should be rendered something like “great”, shouldn’t it? He was rusty. “Significant”, perhaps. This message is significant.

HERE-PLACE IS NOT...something. He was unsure. “Virtue”, maybe? That was it: No virtue is here, in this place.

He paused, eyes flicked to the right, looking out at the desert. Had that been movement? A moment passed.... Ah, a thin cloud had passed across the sun. That was all. Satisfied, he returned to the text. Where had he left off? No virtue is here.... Right, and after that, he knew the words “temple” and “shrine”, in series: 

HERE-PLACE IS NOT-VIRTUE NOT-TEMPLE, NOT-SHRINE

HERE-PLACE IS NOT-TOMB NOT-TREASUREVAULT, NOT-VALUE

HERE-PLACE IS.... What was that symbol? The inscription beneath...“danger”, “destruction”?

DANGER IS.... Is what? The glyphs were faded. He squinted at them, traced them with a finger. “Individuated”? “Discrete”, maybe? That seemed right: A discrete size and shape, in a specific location.

Immediately after that, the next line was clear:

DANGER IS WHAT LIES BENEATH

Now that was more like it—

Something struck him from behind, bit into the armor of his upper back, and there was a noise shrieking in his ears and sparks were flashing in the visor of his helmet, overwhelming his senses, sparks burning into his neck. He cried out and twisted away from the stone wall, striking out blindly. 

Contact. He felt metal crumple against his fist, followed by the sound of his assailant thudding against the opposite wall. His hand went to his shoulder, felt wetness there, and sharp, throbbing pain. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, trying to focus. There!

It was one of the machine-priests—heavily damaged, but still alive. It heaved itself up on two bent legs, and the tatter of its robes whirled around it. He and his soldiers must have missed one, somehow...or it had repaired itself. How could he not have noticed its approach?

He stepped back quickly, putting distance between himself and the enemy. The mask that covered the priest’s face was cracked, likely from the blow he’d just dealt it, but the eyes still glowed bright. He realized dimly that the mask was made in the shape of the mythological Stalker Eel—a wide, round mouth, slitted forehead. It was a stealth-mask. Of course....

There was the shrill, whining noise, and he saw that the priest’s remaining arm ended in something like a buzzsaw. That explained his ringing ears and the jagged tear that had been cut into his armor...and the sparks. Surely it had been aiming for his neck. He was fortunate that it did not carry an elemental weapon, or his situation would be more dire.

The priest crouched, weapon held forward. He readied himself, trying to focus against the pain. Searching, searching with his mind....

It lunged. The sawblade shrieked in his ears once more, and he felt the vibration of it in the base of his skull.

Thud. Clatter. The whine of the spinning blade peaked and ramped down, grinding harmlessly against the stone floor as the priest’s arms and legs spasmed where they now lay, along with its body. 

The priest’s head, mask and all, floated in the air before him. He’d found what he’d sought: the small linkages of true metal that joined the creature’s skull to its torso. At this range, he’d been able to detect them amongst the lattice of false protometal and artificial flesh that made up the bulk of the creature’s body. Then, it was only a matter of...unlinking.

The eyes were wide with shock. They remained glowing for a second, then they winked off. A rasp of air escaped the disconnected throat, and the jaw went slack. It was over. 

He set the head down on the floor, well away from the still-twitching body. Then he tended to himself: He removed the damaged armor plates and drew out a spool of metal thread. In a few minutes, he’d used his powers to stitch the wound in his shoulder. It was painful, but necessary. He’d wasted enough time.

He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the inscriptions on the wall once more. They were undamaged, it seemed, but he didn’t have much patience left. He hated reading, especially this kind. Too much ambiguity. And after all, the attack had made him lose his place. He almost left it there, turned to his true goal in the back of the structure, where the walls narrowed down...but the next series of inscriptions drew his attention back. These he had never seen before. He sighed:

DANGER IS TO.... An odd phrasing here. “To anatomy”? Or was it “to geography”? He’d never thought about it, but in the language of the machines, the words were almost the same.

DANGER IS TO THE BODY DANGER IS TO THE LAND TO KILL OR TO CHANGE

His heart beat faster. Ah, this was worthwhile. A confirmation of sorts. Surely he had found the right place. His shoulder ached, but he shrugged it off.

DANGER TAKES A CERTAIN FORM...The same word as above. A certain body?

FORM OF DANGER IS AN OBJECT

OBJECT IS.... He blinked, re-read the word. That did not conform to his research. He read back over the lines again, making sure that he had not missed anything. No, it was clear.

The danger takes a certain form.  The form of the danger is an object. The object is a Mask.

He frowned. A mask? How could that be the fabled weapon of the Ancients? The masks that the machines had worn were so fragile, so easily crushed, as he had just demonstrated. He glanced down at the disconnected head of the priest. Could a simple mask be the same as the weapon that had burned off the surface of the planet in ancient times, dissolving and remaking life into its current form? The Age of Shattering had been ended that way, it was said.... It seemed impossible, but perhaps this too was a distorted myth. There was no way to know, in the end, and it didn’t really matter. He would find out the truth soon enough.

Except...his eyes returned to the head of the priest where it sat on the floor. Yes, it could work.

Click. The cable he had scavenged from one of the other bodies outside jumped with energy from the still-functioning core of the priest’s torso, and after a moment, the eyes sparked on, began to glow, faintly at first, then stronger. 

The limbs did not move this time. He had removed them all, even the connection to the waist, little more than a torso-shaped power source now. The jaw shifted, and a hiss of air went up into the throat as the voicebox engaged. The eyes flicked back and forth, took him in where he crouched, then glanced toward the remains of the body...and quickly away.

What was that expression? Revulsion? Could the machines experience something like this? He had never asked.

“Why...?” the priest said in a raspy voice. 

“For information,” he replied.

“You are...monster. My...my body—”

“May be yours again, once I have what I need.”

The priest did not respond.

“What does this indicate, this word here?” he continued, pointing to the last part of the inscription that he had translated. “Tell me what you know.”

“Mask,” the priest said plainly after a moment.

“Does it have any other meaning?”

“Mask...no. No other.”

“Are you sure? I’ve found that the memories of your priesthood are not always reliable. The Ancients made you badly, I think.”

“No other. Just ‘mask’.”

“And what mask does it refer to? Surely you still know this.”

“I cannot.”

“I’m going down, either way. But if there was, say, some additional warning you wished to add, some further piece of knowledge that might deter me or improve the outcome.... Well, this is your last chance.”

The priest’s eyes frowned—or as close to a frown as a machine could muster. After a moment, it seemed to decide:

“The mask,” it said, “life to the world, it once gave. After an age of shattering, of disjointing.” The wording was strange, as if the priest were repeating some litany.

“Life, you say? That sounds good to me. Have you looked at the state of the world lately? There are few left since the Plague and the petty wars it engendered. Few who remain whole in mind, that is. Even the Tetrate is crumbling, and the Red Storms worsen every day.”

“Beware,” the priest continued, “for life with death comes also.”

“Ah, yes, of course. But that is the Great Cycle, isn’t it? The world has not changed so much that we’ve all forgotten.”

“Life and death.... You are recent, comprehend not.”

“Recent.... You mean young? Hah! I am the Lord of Steel, first of the elements, the true metal, which cannot corrode, spawn of the metal-star Exsidia, which issued unmade from the Void—”

“Life and death and life...” the priest intoned, ignoring him.

“Why do you babble? You’re just a broken machine, I think. Another of Their useless clockworks.”

“I am not machine,” the priest spat back.

“Then speak like it. What more can you tell me?”

“I remember in the Time Before,” the priest said, with the same odd phrasing, “For the world, we were made, to build and to maintain. Nothing more....”

“You were made for such. Not I.”

“...And when the world failed,” it continued, “sacrifice was needed. Always sacrifice. Life was given to us, so that it might be given unto the world. Cores made to burn.”

“You speak of how the Age of Shattering ended, I think.”

The priest hesitated. Its mouth trembled, then:

“Not one age...not one, but many.”

“What? What do you mean by that?”

“The world failed...has failed, over and over. And when the world failed, there was sacrifice. Burning to sustain, to kindle life and light. Over and again.”

“That...makes no sense. The Age of Shattering is—”

“Ended now, and never again.”

“So you say, but—”

“No more sacrifice.” The priest’s voice dropped to a whisper, and its eyes wandered back and forth. “No more, to start the world anew. That destiny is over. No more will our cores burn, to kindle the stars and to light the lamps of the universe. It is enough.”

“What is this sacrifice?”

“Life with death comes also. That is the challenge of the Mask, to remake the world. Beware.”

“So...the mask is not simply a weapon to be wielded for my ends? That’s disappointing, given the enemy that I contend with.”

“A tool may be used for many tasks: to build or to destroy. The potential is in the core of each of us.”

“I have no core. Unlike you, I am flesh, blood, and true metal. But if a sacrifice is needed...perhaps your core will be useful to me after all.”

The priest’s eyes closed behind its mask.

“Any more to say? I confess you have not convinced me of—”

A force took hold of him, wrapping invisible fingers around his throat, and he saw with a shock that the mask on the priest’s face had changed form somehow, becoming smaller, more angular. The air shivered with telekinetic energy, and he was choking, hands clawing at his throat, eyes bulging, but there was nothing there to grasp. He staggered back against the wall as the crushing force increased, and he felt something give way in his chest. Pain shivered up and down his spine. His vision was going dark.

No other choice. With the last desperate vestiges of his power, he struck out, found the linkings of true metal once more, and wrenched the priest’s head to pieces. 

The pressure on his throat and torso released, and he fell to his knees, gasping and retching. His heart pounded in his ears, and his head throbbed, but he was alive. After a few moments, he tried to sit back against the wall, but sharp agony broke out in the right side of his torso. He ground his teeth, breathing in short gasps, eyes clenched shut. He was pretty sure he’d popped a stitch in his shoulder as well. The wound burned.

He held himself still, trying to stay conscious and control his breathing, trying to endure through the surge of pain. It hurt, but after a few moments, he was able to get hold of his panic and focus. He searched within his chest cavity, feeling his power ping off the metallic bones. There: one rib was cracked, another dislocated. Nothing for it. He held the image in his mind, gulped air through his bruised throat, and did what had to be done.

The fusion of the cracked rib was white-hot iron near his heart, and the sound of the other rib popping back into place was audible in the small space. He screamed, writhed, and slumped over into unconsciousness.

Minutes passed, maybe more. He flitted from a dreamless nothing to wakefulness...and then back again. At last, in a half-aware moment, his mind managed to grasp a scrap of reality. His eyes fluttered, and images flickered in his thoughts: A flash of the low stone ceiling above. A glimpse of the lower part of the wall. The last three lines of the inscription were visible from where he lay, and even in his near-senseless state, they were familiar to him. He had seen them before:

HERE-PLACE, DO NOT REMAIN BELOW-DANGER, DO NOT APPROACH HERE-PLACE, SHUN

His mind offered the translation:

Do not inhabit this place. Do not approach the danger below. Shun this place.

He moaned, felt the hard floor on the back of his skull. The world was expanding again, finally, beyond the margins of his pain-wracked body. He was lying on his back, and his injured shoulder was spasming against the stone. He shifted to take the pressure off, and found that the pain in his side was substantially less now. That was good. He blinked, wiped moisture from his eyes, then carefully, he tested the movement of his limbs. No new pain greeted him. Also good.

His vision was clearing up, and he turned his head leftward, took in his surroundings.

The wreckage of the priest’s head was scattered across the floor around him. A fragment of the upper part lay nearby, with a single, empty eye, staring.

Shun this place.

A shame. The machine had been cunning, speaking its riddles and warnings, same as the Ancients. Had any of it been true, or had the priest simply been buying the time it needed to summon a new mask? No way to know for sure. He sighed and swallowed painfully, raising a hand to massage his sore throat. It wouldn’t deter him, and anyways, he still had the priest’s intact core, if some sacrifice was really required.

With effort, he shifted up onto one elbow, glanced over at the limbless body.

Shock. He squinted, shook his head, looked again: The same as before. How? The torso was smashed, torn open from inside. Had he...?! No...no, it must have been the priest. He cursed—the machine had tricked him even as it attacked. But why? Did that mean that it had been telling the truth after all?

No more sacrifice.... No more will our cores burn....

He sat up, breathing gingerly. The wind was rising outside the structure, and he shivered as he looked out: A line of red clouds now limned the horizon, off to the east. How long had he lain here? Too long—It was coming soon now, and he had wasted much time. No more delays. He heaved himself to a kneeling position, raised his head, and there was the inscription again, staring him in the face.

Do not inhabit.... Do not approach.... Shun this place!

He straightened shakily, dusted off his hands. The Protodermic Priesthood had done its work well, to uphold the ancient dictates, to instill fear, and to keep the vaults of deep time sealed. To the very last, it had done its work, and it had nearly been the end of him. But it had failed.

The Lord of Steel breathed in and centered himself, drawing upon his power. He slid a hand along the metal-stone hybrid of the structure around him, feeling its alien composition. It had taken him many years to acquire enough of it, secreted away on underground markets, and more years after that to study the substance, to understand it, and to modify his own power to affect it.

He advanced slowly, leaving the inscriptions behind. The tunnel stretched into cool darkness and ended in a blunt wall. But he knew better. He focused his mind, felt the stone-metal shiver downward, a solid shaft extending deep into the surface of the planet. Not entirely solid, however. He could sense the seams and joints, where the material had been fixed together. Now at his command, the shaft opened in segments, one seal releasing after another, and he shaped it into a stairway, leading down, down....

The danger is to the body, to the land. To kill or to change. 

He turned the words over in his mind for a moment. This world could use some change, that was for sure. He’d always thought so. He moved to the edge of the newly-formed staircase and smelled the dry, sterile air of a previous age.

When the world failed, sacrifice was needed. Always sacrifice. 

If it was true, then the priest had not been willing to make such a sacrifice, going so far as to take himself out of the equation...permanently.

No more will our cores burn, to kindle the stars and to light the lamps of the universe. It is enough.

Was that the reason for all of this, the burying of the past? Those who had been made by the Ancients to sustain the world...whose lives had been used to keep it going, however many times...at last, they’d gotten fed up?

I am not machine, the priest had said. If it was true, then who could blame them? 

Doubt pricked at him. Whatever was to come—sacrifice or not—he himself, the Lord of Steel, would have to face it alone. Was he prepared for that? Surely after all his planning and labors, all the sacrifices he had made since taking up the mantle of Element Lord, this could be no worse. The challenge of the Mask, to remake the world. Beware....

Maybe it was fitting. The legends said that the world began with metal: a great silver sea, hanging in the void.

Perhaps the world to come would begin the same.

He glanced one more time at the carnage that had been the body of the priest, then out at the desert, at the corpses in the sand, at the pale sky. The clouds were piling up now. Stormclouds, shimmering with red light that was not lightning. Ever since the second Dreaming Plague, it had been this way, when the Eater had reemerged—hungry, and hungrier now.

He scowled, allowing himself a moment of the old hatred, for that color and what it represented—ancient enemy of the Children of Iron. Only a moment. In the end, such anger was futile.

His dreams had already been eaten, after all.

Faint thunder reached his ears. The light outside was growing redder by the minute. It would be here soon, just as he had planned, and he would be ready for it.

Ready to risk danger to the body, to the land. Ready to kill or to change.

Ready to remake the world.

He turned back to the staircase and blinked to align the retroflective layers of metallic crystal behind his eyes, enhancing his night vision as he peered down into the dark. Down to where life was hidden....

Do not inhabit this place.

Life with death, whatever that meant.

Do not approach the danger below.

Red light approached, flickering hungrily across the dunes. Could it read the inscriptions, understand the warnings?

Shun this place.

He began the descent.

[milykins]

This is my first time writing one of these things, so be gentle. I had the idea of how each of the guys would give the reader a hot drink after a hard day. Everyone is aged up in their 30s.

TMNT Headcanon- Hot Drinks - TMNT X female reader

You've had a rough week. Work has been beyond frustrating. You're under-staffed and you've been denied a raise for the second time since you've worked there. To make matters worse, it starts to rain on the way home.

🧡🐢🧡

Mikey jumps up immediately upon seeing the state you're in. He immediately moves to grab you a towel and tells you to go change into some dry clothes. When you emerge, towel-drying your hair, you'll see he's put a very elaborate pillow fort together and has two hot drinks on a tray.

Mikey is a hot chocolate guy, and his recipe is carefully guarded secret. One sip will make it clear that it is the richest, most decadent hot chocolate you've ever tasted. He's also included a can of whipped cream and little bowls with several toppings which include mini marshmallows and sprinkles.

He hands you a cup and asks him to tell you about your day.

💜🐢💜

Donnie starts fussing over you as soon as you walk through the door. He quickly ushers you to the bathroom so you can take a shower and bring up your core body temperature. You do as he says while he brings you a new set of dry clothes.

Once you're out, he pushes a cup of coffee into your hands, made just the way you like it. Donnie is the master of coffee. He's put together a coffee machine that pretty much does it all. It will make lattes, cafe mochas, and even hot chocolate, which Mikey deems a travesty because his is obviously better. Regardless, the coffee he gives you is freshly brewed and you sip it while he rambles on about how important it is to dress properly for the elements and how drinking something hot is the best way to warm up.

You both end up cuddling on the couch while he listens to you rant about your workweek.

💙🐢💙

Leo is the one who quietly wraps a blanket around your shoulders and walks you to the bedroom so you can change. He tells you to meet him in his meditation room once you're finished.

You softly pad your way there once you're dressed. Leo has his teapot ready. It is a beautifully patterned Japanese teapot with a blue swirling design. Leo had found the teapot broken in several pieces while scavenging and had repaired it using the gold kintsugi method. The repair process he tells you is a reminder to embrace your flaws rather than hide them for you are beautiful regardless.

Leo has an entire cupboard dedicated to his many blends of loose-leaf tea. His favourites are jasmine and gunpowder green. He's chosen a gentle blend for you, not too caffeinated, and has included a small bottle of honey so you can sweeten it as you like.

He pours it into a matching teacup and asks how your day went.

❤️🐢❤️

Upon seeing you, Raph knows you need something stronger than some weak-ass tea. He tells you to go change and goes to fix something up for you.

Raph, by no means, is an expert in the kitchen, but he knows how to use Donnie's fancy coffee machine. He doesn't actually drink a lot of coffee. He prefers his protein shakes in the morning. He knows you like lattes, though, and asks the machine to make one of those. He sweetens it with some caramel syrup and adds a shot of Bailey's. He sips it and gets a smile of satisfaction, deeming it perfect.

Instead of you finding him, he finds you in a state of undress. He smirks slightly and admires you a moment while he waits for you to finish dressing. He hands you the cup warning you that it might be hot and to blow on it slightly.

The shot of Bailey's warms you up instantly, and it's delicious with a fine layer of froth on top. You joke that he should try doing some latte art next time. He laughs and says fat chance of that. You both move to the bed and cuddle while he asks how you're doing.

End

Edit* this is how I picture Leo's teapot

[kitsune-pop]

i have feelings about b-127 from transformers one

(also spoilers for the movie)

I've seen plenty of discourse around b, we all have. "he's annoying and cringe!" "he ruins the movie!!" etc. I'm not here to talk about your personal preference in comedic relief. I want to talk about b in a way I haven't seen anyone do before (and if someone has tag me I wanna discuss things!)

tfo is pretty clearly a story about disenfranchised workers reclaiming their rights and autonomy. fairly cut and dry. orion and d-16 have different ideas on how to enact change, plot moves forward. but b does stand out amongst the cast as the only one who isn't completely destroyed by the revelation of sentinel's betrayal, nor does he go through a radical personality change like Orion, d-16 or even elita. he stays his lovable self

why is that?

b admits himself that he got reassigned to burn pit duty. he plays it off, but it's made abundantly clear that he's unhappy. his work station is treated like a dungeon, and it very well may be! they had to climb up 50 levels of trash just to get out! which begs the question; did they have to sneak past 49 other trash watchers? or did the other ones just ignore them?

are the sublevels only for the ones the enforcers don't like or have any use for?

I'm going to pivot to talk about myself and my experiences. (we'll get back to b in a sec) I am very neurodivergent. autism, ADHD, cptsd and likely others that I haven't figured out yet. it's hard for me to keep a job. whether it's overstimulation, rude customers callous or abusive management, I lose my job a lot

I've never once quit

every time I've been fired, it's come out of the blue. no warnings, no talk about "how to improve your performance." just walk in, walk out an hour later unemployed. and it's always over something that I have no real control over. and it's because I'm neurodivergent. I know it is. I'm loud, make obnoxious jokes, talk too much, pretty much everything b does

and I'm punished for it

it's always the same way; they find some way to shove me out of sight. I'm certainly not an amazing worker, but I follow the rules and make sure all my work is done before I clock out. I'm worth more to keep than to train a new person. so I'm sent to a department that no one goes to. or I get locked into a night shift that takes over a year for me to escape from only after the manager who put me there quit. I'm not stupid, I know why. I'm off-putting to neurotypical people. so I clam up, shut down, become an automaton for whatever company I work for

and it doesn't matter

my managers always find some mundane thing I did wrong literally months in the past and use it as an excuse to fire me. it's happened three separate times and I can even see my current managers gearing up to do the same thing

I'm b, and b is me

he represents the coworker you don't like, the obnoxious neighbor who's too nosy, the friend of a friend who tries way too hard to be funny. he's the guy who you shove in a corner and forget about and he deserves freedom and autonomy too

I deserve freedom and autonomy

we all deserve it, it is our right as human beings to not be viewed as pieces of a machine to be shattered beyond repair and replaced when necessary. regardless of whether or not you enjoy spending your personal time around me. Orion and d are both unsettled by b, but quickly realize that he just wants to have real, not garbage (literally) friends. and then they realize that, yeah he's annoying, but he's kind, big hearted and just an overall sweet guy

I wish someone felt that way about me when they see me so disassociated at my job I can barely register the words they're saying to me

I wish a single one of my previous managers understood that about me

I wish I didn't live in constant fear that my apartment, my cats and my food weren't all at risk just because someone doesn't like my vibe

is it any wonder why they stood up and fought for themselves? is it any wonder that d became Megatron when he realized that his superiors viewed him and all his protocol following glory as nothing more than trash to be pushed around? is it any wonder how angry he got when he realized he was a single simple mistake from being forgotten?

...sorry, I got a little emotional at the end there

b-127 in transformers one means a lot to me

not because I see myself in him

but because I see my loved ones in him

[mychlapci]

thinking about that post portraying cybertronian food, and how even in fanfics you often have the bots adding metals and minerals to their diet. do you think that when they only drink energon it could even be detrimental to their health. like yes it's better than nothing and keeps them running, but maybe their self-repair is much slower, they have less energy (or they receive a slight burst of energy followed by a crash?), maybe they're missing fluids and lubricants because their creation depends on the mineral and metal additives, so their joints are more achy, their intake is dry, their body doesn't filter out energon properly... idk i don't know anything about machines. but you get where i'm going with this yes. whenever we have bots portrayed as running only on energon it's the equivalent of a human eating nothing but porridge every single day for months. they get robot scurvy.

[andy-skull]

This is my gift for @cesarescabinet for the SkyVik Secret Santa!!! I tried to incorporate as much gotic elements I could, I really hope you like it <3

And special thanks to @biby-24k for organizing this exchange!

1.2k fic under the cut ^///^

Contemplations about death

He was dying. 

He knew that well, and somehow suspected it for a while now, he had just been ignoring it enough to focus on something else. Something bigger and far more important than himself. And even then, he was dying. 

He had taken the day off, after the doctors and even Jayce insisted. The meds helped with the coughing and the burning sensation in his chest. Palliatives, at this point, nothing could stop the inevitable but could help him feel less pain. 

And so he ruminated about death, others and his own, sitting on his favorite spot, gazing down to the place he used to play as a kid, where so many things paved this path for him.

His conversation with Heimerdinger didn’t ease his worries, so after some long hours of contemplation without any conclusion, he decided to go back home before sunset.

There was one thing clear inside him, the certainty of death, his imminent death, his soon to come dead end, approaching with every second, with every breath. Unavoidable, unescapable, death breathing in the back of his neck. 

He was so lost inside his own thoughts that her presence outside his door caught him by surprise. Of course she was there, he thought after a moment, Jayce must have told her and now, probably after trying to find him all over Piltover, Sky was leaning against his door, waiting for him to return home.

His heart broke at the sight, for her, because she didn't deserve the heartbreak. He wasn't oblivious to her feelings towards him, he'd known for a while now, but hadn't given her a chance, nor any signs that he also felt something for her. 

He was supposed to make people's life better, to improve Hextech inventions and give it to people, to their people; and his sacrifice wasn't hers. 

She deserved better, so much more than he could offer. His body was broken, his mind was devoted to science, his heart alone wasn't enough for her, she deserved everything, and he couldn't give it to her, even less now that death was soon to claim him. 

She deserved more, so he'd let her be free, even if that hurt both of them. At least she had the choice to move on, to find someone to give her all she deserved. 

“Viktor!” She said when she saw him, detaching from the door and coming to greet him. “Jayce told me what happened and… Well, I…”

She struggled to make eye contact as usual, but instead of just blushing, her brow knit in a worried expression.

“Maybe I earned the I told you so,” he said, not really stopping to greet her, but kept walking towards the door.

“What do you mean?” She asked, walking next to him

“You asked me to walk with you yesterday and I insisted on keeping working. I should have listened, you can say it.” 

“You know I'm not like that,” she answered in a whisper, and whether it was an angry reply or disappointment, Viktor wasn't really in the mood to figure it out. And still, the guilt built in his guts and he opened the door, offering her to come in. It was the least he could do, to talk about it, he owed her that, for all the years they've known each other.

“Are you… in pain?” Was her first question when they sat down. 

“The meds are helping with that,” he reassured her, leaning unceremoniously on the couch. “Zaun is gonna kill me anyway,” he lamented, hopeless, dry. 

“Jayce said- Well, the doctor said it was something to do with the gasses in the fissures.” 

He nodded slowly, “from all the times my father took me to the mines to help him repair the machines,” he added, unable to smile at the memory. 

The silence stretched for a moment and Sky fidgeted with her fingers before speaking again, “so it’s the same that took my brother and dad…” 

“It would’ve taken my father too if it wasn’t for that explosion,” he joined in the grief. So many corpses were piled upon the different hazards in the mines.

Both sighed deeply, looking away to the emptiness, letting the bitter memories pass over them. 

The soft touch on his hand startled him, and if it hadn't been Sky, he would have pulled away. Instead, he watched her hand rest on his, he calmed down, and slowly looked up to her. She blushed and her lips parted enough to let out a gasp, she pursed her lips then and looked away, but before she pulled her hand away, Viktor took it in his. It was a firm yet a kind hold. When she looked back at him, her cheeks were bright red and he couldn't help but smile at that. 

She had always been bright, in all the different meanings of the word. Ever since they were childrens and she saw his inventions and understood how they worked. Her shy smile from a distance was enough to lighten up his grayest day. And her beauty, he couldn’t deny that either, he had admired her from afar for so long, their whole lives, in secret, afraid to diminish her brightness with his gloomy fate. She had been kissed by the sun, and he had been kissed by death long before their fates had crossed.

And now, closer to death than ever, he wondered if that had been the right choice. What could have been if he had said something earlier, if they had tried, if he had let her in years ago. Would this moment hurt any less? Knowing he’ll go and she’ll stay to grieve for him, as she did for her father and her brother before him. As both grieved for their families as Zaun took them in different ways, in different moments, yet took them anyway, as it would happen to him soon.

“You know, even some flowers survive the gasses in the fissures, maybe you can too,” her voice was soft and full of hope. 

He straightened and leaned closer to her. 

When had he focused so much in his work that forgot to look at the sun, at her brightness. Sky, his bright Sky, giving him hope even when there's nothing left to try. He’d left this world with so little to show, with so much unfinished work, with little legacy but most of all, grieving everything they could have had together. A different life with a similar fate. 

He leaned down, slowly, until their foreheads touched. She was warm against his cold, soft against his sharp edges, the sigh that escaped her lips made his heart skip a beat. 

She lifted a hand and slowly placed it in the back of his neck, holding them close, holding him together. He did the same, feeling the warm, soft skin, a light touch to stay grounded, to her, to this moment, to the bit of life that he still had. 

He was still young, he could have so many years ahead of him, but now, remembering the years Sky had been by his side, playing by the stream as kids, comforting each other when their loved ones passed away, sharing the struggles of being Zaunites in Piltover, the smirks and stolen glances in the lab… Somehow he felt the years had been long, yet he didn't dare to think how much it would feel like to have more. For now, right now, he had her, they had each other. 

“Thank you for your company, Sky.” 

Maybe his voice broke, maybe he sobbed or maybe he cried. And maybe she held him tight as he did so. But all he could think of was her. 

[cleolinda]

I grew up in a haunted house and I didn’t notice

This is not a story about boo ghosts or shadow people. If it were, I would have figured it out, at least.

When I say "I grew up in a haunted house and I didn't notice," you have to understand that there was a lot going on with this house. It's not the house that I've written about currently living in, the one with newspaper and soda cans stuffed where insulation should have been, the one with constant home-repair calamities. No, my childhood home was a crumbling pile of red brick built in the 1920s. Narnia was in the backyard, and the back deck was my ship on the high seas. The house was surrounded by banks of flowers, lilies and irises and roses, and it was full of creepy shit I didn’t even blink at. I loved it.

It didn't look haunted, or even particularly historical. It was almost disappointingly normal—I lived on a street with a house that had a turret, for God's sake. No, it was just old and small. There's a lot of pre-Depression houses getting torn down in these suburbs; my town has been awash in construction for the last 20-30 years as people buy up cheap old houses, raze them, and squeeze mini-mansions onto their tiny lots, all to get their kids into a good school system. It gives me a chill to think of it, but yeah, that might happen to my childhood home someday, small and plain and unassuming as it is. My pirate ship has already been renovated into an extra bedroom, the new owners told us.

When we moved into the house in 1983, though—it had clearly been renovated in the '60s or '70s; the wallpaper was hideous, and the upstairs bathroom was carpeted. Shag-carpeted. The house had closets the size of shoeboxes; my bedroom, the one with the peach wallpaper, didn't even have one. The room down the hall had four, including one cut into the wall, under a slanted ceiling tucked beneath the roof, that looked like you'd stash a witch there when the Salem HOA came by. There was a fan in the attic—well, first of all, the attic was just one more room on that upstairs floor. It was directly across from the (carpeted) bathroom, and that room (lit by one ominous, hanging bulb) was just a short corridor with storage spaces on either side, hidden behind big sliding doors. And the fan at the very end was built into the brick outer wall of the house. Like our house was functionally open to the elements, between the blades of that fan. I have no idea what the fuck anyone was thinking when they built that, and how the fuck anyone kept the wildlife out.

We certainly couldn't. Squirrels lived in the roof and bowled with acorns. It was like listening to a pinball machine at night. I have an abject horror of cockroaches because sometimes an adventurous one would fall off the ceiling in the middle night, onto me, while I was trying to sleep. (Like, try to imagine that—you’re awakened from a dead sleep by a vague, paper-light skittering sensation up and down your arm. When Pennywise comes to me, he will show up as a cockroach.) But wait! There was more! We had herds of crickets in the basement that felt compelled to jump at people. Sometimes there were centipedes! Those were polite enough to only come out at night. In the dark.

By the way, that basement was totally unfinished. I don't mean that it just had exposed beams or concrete walls. I mean that the basement had uneven, mostly shoulder-high masonry walls, and then it was just open on three sides, extending under the rest of the house. Like just dry red Alabama earth and rocks and grainy dust tumbling around in this vast, dark—it wasn't even a crawl space, a child could have stood upright in it. This child? Oh fuck no. And the washer and dryer were down there. I had to creep down there, down a rickety plank staircase, past the staring dark caverns of my own basement, through a low-lying fog of aggressive crickets, go BEHIND THE STAIRCASE, and then do my laundry there. There was also a firewood pile by an old fridge, and only God knew what was under that.

None of this was haunted. All of this was completely normal to me. This isn't even the haunted part.

So let's go back upstairs. The ground floor was lovely, homey, fine except for the time the living room ceiling fell out due to water damage. Upstairs was where it got weird. I've talked about being mildly bullied as an unknowingly autistic child; home was where I felt safe. In my bedroom upstairs, I had all those My Little Ponies and my easel with all my crayon-drawn fantasy maps and all the stories I wrote. It didn't matter if roaches fell on me in the deeps of the night; home, that's where I was happy. So when I was a young kid and I felt like a vampire was following me down the hall at night, I assumed I was just being silly.

I was aware of vampires in the 1980s as, like, the Count on Sesame Street (ah ah aaah), and Count Chocula, and Count Duckula on Nickelodeon, and the Bunnicula books that I loved. As a kid, I wasn't aware of movies like The Lost Boys or Near Dark, or any vampires that weren't broad caricatures of the Bela Lugosi look. I loved Spooky Stuff—I'm from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark generation—but vampires didn't scare me.

But when I had to get up in the middle of the night to go down the hall to the (carpeted) bathroom, I always had the sensation that something was following me as I was going back to my room. Something Dark. Not terribly tall, maybe not even much taller than me. And somehow, I visualized this deep in my mind as a vampire. Kind of a silly one, you know, the white-tie formal wear and the ribbon medal and the cape. I wasn't desperately scared that a Chocula was behind me, but I knew that I needed to get back to my room quick, and, at all costs, I must never look back. I must never look over my shoulder or else I would See It, something silly massing in the dark—and, brother, Eurydice would have been safe with me. Never stop running, never look back.

And I'm sure all kinds of kids develop little superstitions like this. It's probably a developmental thing, like having an imaginary friend (which I also had at some point). Even as a seven year old, I was thinking, This is silly, I'm just making it up (but not looking back costs nothing. Not looking at monsters is free). And I continued to think this, until I laughingly told my younger sister this at Sunday Family Dinner one night. We were both in our thirties at that point. And my sister started crying. Like just staring at me in wide-eyed horror, her eyes filling with tears. And she told me that when she had a bedroom upstairs, there was Something in there.

I won't belabor the exact setup, but at one point, we got it into our heads that we'd like to switch bedrooms, just for a change. I was 14, and I moved to her ground floor bedroom with the flowered white wallpaper and the big bright windows, and she went upstairs and took my room with the peach wallpaper and the cool slanted roof-ceiling (and no closet).

There were three other rooms on that upper floor (and I promise you this is important):

1) One was a small, windowless room that we used as a playroom, with weird cerulean blue carpet and sky blue wallpaper, one dim light fixture, and a little door in the wall that led to dark nothing. Like, you opened it, and you were confronted by a mass of pipes and machinery and just enough space to edge leftwards in the dark. Towards what? Fuck if I know, I sure as hell wasn't going in there. I think it was supposed to be for access to the HVAC system. I don't know. It was fucked. But when I was a young child, I had cooked for my baby dolls at our plastic play kitchen right next to that door, nbd, because apparently you put me in a creepy situation and I just go, yeah, we live like this now.

(I had not ever felt alone in that playroom, but I had also been too young to articulate that. Of course I wasn’t alone! I was with my dolls!)

2) The next room was the (shag-carpeted) bathroom. It had a big mirror over the sink counter, very typical, facing a vertical mirror that was behind the bathroom door. I've heard two mirrors facing each other can create a portal for the spirits, if you believe in that kind of thing. I once did the "Bloody Mary" thing there and nothing happened, idk.

3) The next room was the bedroom with four closets, where an older family member lived with us, and when she moved out, my sister moved to that room.

?) The fourth room, not really a room, was the dark, narrow attic.

So, Grownup Family Dinner at my current house, a few years ago: my sister told me that Something had lived in the Four Closets Bedroom with her. I'm not sure if she actually said it lived in the little Hide A Witch closet or if it was just kind of... ambient. I don't know what it looked like, or if we're talking about ghosts or Something... Darker, or what. I don't think she's entirely sure herself. She doesn't like to talk about it in detail a whole lot. What I know is that she felt it was there, and she had chosen that room to sleep in as a young teenager, and not a lot of sleep was to be had.

"I never really sensed anything, like… demonic," I said, puzzled. "Just the Chocula that followed me." And my sister was like, ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOURSELF??

"What about Rebecca??" she sputtered.

Oh, yeah: Rebecca. (A name I've changed at my sister's request.) I had a friend as a teenager who liked to mess around with ouija boards (AM I LISTENING TO MYSELF?), and we did a session at her house one time wherein we discovered that the ghost of a girl? young woman? named Rebecca lived (so to speak) at my house, and she had been murdered by her boyfriend. How we arrived at these specifics, I don’t remember, but I had told my sister about it because I thought it was interesting, and also, I was kind of a shit. My friend also decided she had her own ghost named Dusty. It was all one big [citation needed, footage not found], but it was also part of our family lore.

So, many years later, my sister told me that she had long felt—without knowing about the Chocula—that there were two spirits on the upper floor of our childhood home: the dark one, and a younger, lighter one. I sat there at the kitchen table and thought about it.

"You know, I did kind of feel like there was someone up there, when I was a kid," I said. "Sometimes I would go into the attic, and it felt scary, but like there was something there watching that was okay? Like having a lamp on in a dark room, kind of. It’s weird, because it’s just a feeling, I remember it very clearly, but I didn’t really question it or wonder."

I thought a bit more.

"Oh yeah—there was also the time I just really felt compelled to go color in the playroom by myself at midnight, and it kind of felt like someone was there."

My sister stared at me, saucer-eyed, pale. Like I'm not sure I had ever seen anyone "go white" until that moment.

"Yeah, I just woke up and had this idea—I was maybe nine years old? That it would be super cool to do stuff at night when I was supposed to be asleep, so I got a flashlight and went into the playroom—"

"IN THE DARK??"

"Well, yeah. If I had turned on the light, someone would have seen it and told me to go back to bed. So I set this flashlight on the floor and got out the crayons and colored in one of my coloring books a while. Maybe the She-Ra one?"

Thinking back on it now—of course I was sitting right by the scary door. I think we all, you and I, saw that coming.

"And I had the same feeling I had in the attic. Like someone was sitting on the floor across from me, friendly, I guess I would say female, and it was cool. Like, it was chill."

My sister looked like she was about to pass out.

"I don’t really know how I could sense this then but not really say anything about it, or even think about it, until now," I said, shrugging. "I’m probably imagining it."

I’ll throw in here that one of the dolls I had in that room was a Raggedy Ann. Like, just for extra hilarity, Wee Cleo is hanging out, coloring, at midnight, with a ghost and a fuckin’ Annabelle.

So: My sister is adamant that our childhood home was haunted. And apparently I was entirely blasé about it (maybe possessed?), but then, I was dealing with a lot of suburban wildlife. My problems with that house were far more immediate. And crawly. Nor can we prove that the house was haunted—I certainly haven’t looked up any homicide records—and I don’t think that Vibes, In Retrospect, are valid evidence on my part. But I find it interesting that I knew what she was talking about. I find it interesting that I was like, "Yeah, that was chill." And I find it interesting that when I went away to college, and I lived in a dorm suite where sometimes I’d be the only person there while my roommates were out,

I remember noticing that it was the first time I’d ever felt alone in a room.

Who was that imaginary friend I'd had?

--

I asked my sister to read over this, partly because I wanted to see if she’d be willing to describe the Something Dark.

"Oh, I’ll tell you anything you want," she texted back, "but that’s not how it happened."

[thylacines-toybox]

this is probably a moot question, so I apologize if I'm just making you repeat yourself... I was just curious if you potentially may have any thoughts/opinions on washing a Wee Bitty Small plush. I was attempting to give a gentle surface bath to a secondhand McDonalds Neopets(tm) plush, and it got very wet... when I squeezed out the water, it came out wayyy brown 🤢 I'm thinking that I should probably just restuff it, but since it's so little I'm concerned it could be damaging. Do you think one could risk repair work on a cheap little plush from the early aughts? Thanks for your time!

Imo it's probably a good idea to give the wee guy a few more washes! The good thing about being a tiny plush is that their insides can easily dry all the way through even after a full soaking. As a kid I used to take McDonald's and similar sized plushies in the bath all the time and they got through fine lol. So don't be afraid to get 'em good and soapy in the sink! Squeeze the water right in there, squeeze it out, rinse right through until it comes out non-soapy, and let them dry somewhere airy at least overnight.

(Hand washes should be fine, but if it's one of those plushies with kinda printed plastic face details I'd avoid the washing machine.)

Restuffing isn't a bad idea as well! Even if you manage to clean it thoroughly, a lot of washing can make the stuffing lumped together and shrunken. You should be able to restuff it the same as any other plush without harm! Just find the closing seam (a more obvious, wiggly bit of stitching, usually on the back or tummy) and snip it open, restuff, and ladder stitch it back up.

Even a cheap wee plushie is worth a bit of care and repairing if you like it!