#Grim Musings

[velvetnviolentviolets]

Old English : You’re stranded on an island, who do you bring with you? Early Grey Tea : The inevitable Zombie Apocalypse is upon us! What’s your plan of action?

“Easy. Cassian. The guy has wings. We’d be out of there in no time.”

“Zombies. . .well I guess I’d take Grandpa and Kass and go to the country side? Waaay out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe find some farm where Ma and Pa already got offed and take over. I can tend to the animals and hunt and Kass can . . .handle all the hoeing . He’s had plenty of practice.”

“. . .I mean. . .You’re not wrong but I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere hoeing like that. Not all that productive.

“Just- reproductive.”

*Both snort in unison.*

[weirdmamagnet]

I can't stop thinking about that redraw you made of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy with Dipper and Mabel and Bill, yet you tagged it as an AU. I sound silly, but- will "The Cipher Adventures of Dipper and Mabel" be an AU?

I did have some more things on it, but just never got around to doing much more. I might work on it again sometime though! Who knows.

Dipper is very much stressed out my this concept, haha.

[redxdesign]

[nightravens-therapycircle]

I can't stop thinking about Grim in cat Pajamas.

He would put up a fight wearing them, but after some tuna can bribes, he would go viral on Magicam.

And be extremely adorable.

[doodlesdreaming]

Heya Doodles! Got a wholesome idea for Death. Do ya think he'd be like how Little Creek is for Spirit when it comes to giving affection and playing with Despair? Also I'd like to see Death giving some affection to Dust too. After all, a proper mage cares for and loves their familiars like they would a pet. The novel even showcases how Death would kill anyone who dared to even aim at Dust. Meanwhile, he also checked over Despair as best he could after his first run in with Hadrimon on the bridge. Just figured it might be a wholesome subject.

Even more reason why Death isn't a complete a**hole. XD

I don't know about being playful, but I gave no doubt that Death spends quality time with both Despair and Dust. I can see him having private conversations with Despair to let loose what's on his mind, and Dust is...well, you know how some people talk things over to themselves to get their thoughts together? Yeah, Dust is his thought processor. XP

[trkhan]

[ghost-bxrd]

Notes on the Church Grim!Jason Au (aka Shuck):

Dick Grayson is a Banshee

Tim Drake is, drum roll, a drake! (Aka a dragon without wings) well, half drake

Bruce Wayne is a human with adoption problems, hence why the people of Gotham rumor Brucie to be an Erlking (a powerful type of fae that likes to snatch children)

Jason didn’t so much as live on the streets as he took to living in Gotham cemetery before Bruce caught him stealing tires

Jason’s favorite form is that of a black dog, but he can also change into a lamb/sheep or a horse, but he feels safest in the canine form

Dick and Jason were very close due to their creature domains being closely interconnected

When Jason was fourteen he turned into a horse and dared Dick to ride on his back. They were benched with broken arms and legs a few hours later. Neither regret a single thing

Jason liked to curl up beside either Bruce or Dick in bed as a puppy only to wake up as a lamb, both B and Dick thought it was hilarious

Church Grims are very rare, so neither Bruce or Dick realized that by burying Jason in a cemetery after his death, the basically forced him to forever remain tied to that place and guide the souls there to the afterlife, unable to leave or interact with the world of the living

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 59

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

“– so Jack grabs the rock, right, and Enma asks him to pass it over. And then he –.”

“Ito, c’mon,” Enma groaned, his face in his arms, his ears tinted red.

“– tried to bite the rock?!” Ito continued to explain, incredulously.

“I had to know, okay?! Grim’s always talking about how those things taste amazing! What if he was right?!”

Kuroki grinned, rolling his eyes. “And how did it taste?”

Enma seemed to be trying to disappear into the side of Kuroki’s mattress. “Like a rock…”

“Rocks taste good,” Grim said, firmly, patting his stomach. “Especially the ones that come out of those Phantoms.”

Kuroki scratched the monster behind his ears, smiling. “Well, I’m sure those blot stones are worth a fortune, so I’m glad you’re satiating yourself for free. I don’t want to go into debt to feed you.”

“Oh,” Ito said, snapping their fingers. “That reminds me. So, you know how we kinda ruined a fourth of Ashengrotto-senpai’s restaurant?”

“I thought you said it was a sixteenth?” Grim said, confused.

“I did do that, yes,” Ito said, their lips curling into a grin. “Anyways. I’ve been thinking. Ashengrotto-senpai is gonna make us sign a deal again to make him pay off that debt, soooooo… I think we should tell the Headmaster that the Lounge got trashed during the Overblot.”

Kuroki, who was always down to make the Headmaster suffer, nodded vehemently. At the end of the day, even if Kuroki wasn’t particularly fond of Azul Ashengrotto, he hated Crowley and everything he represented. If something hurt Crowley, he wasn’t going to pettily toss the idea aside simply because it might help Azul out.

He also liked not being in debt.

“I could still make you pay regardless!” a voice chimed in.

Kuroki reconsidered whether he hated Azul or Crowley more.

Yeah… still Crowley.

But this thought was immediately swiped from his mind, because Azul wasn’t walking into the infirmary on his own. No, he was being carried on Floyd’s back like a child.

Kuroki pressed his lips into a thin line to hide a smile. The paycheck. Just think about the paycheck and keep a straight face.

It was much harder when Jade waved at Enma when the boy lifted his head to see the newcomers. Enma immediately seemed to go through all five stages of grief. And then he ducked his head once again, trying to become one with Kuroki’s hospital bed.

“Oh?” Jade said, waiting for just a moment so Floyd could deposit a grumpy Azul on one of the cots, before making his way over to poke at Enma’s shoulder. “And here I thought you were eager to fight me… why not now? We’re both free, are we not?”

Kuroki narrowed his eyes.

His expression immediately softened when Enma’s hand found his own, squeezing a little. “Even if – if –  y’know, I’m not really intending on leaving right now.”

Jade tipped his head to the side. Probably considering which choice on his dialogue tree would mess with Enma the most.

“Am I missing something?” Ito not-so-quietly whispered to Kuroki.

“We saw –.”

“I will suffocate you with a pillow while you sleep.”

“– absolutely nothing,” Kuroki decided. He could always tell Ito later, if they didn’t figure it out themself.

In the meantime, though, Kuroki considered the pros and cons of letting Jade mess with Enma. It was, slightly, unfair, he thought. He figured that, had he liked men, he would have probably been unable to look someone in the eyes mere hours after having seen them naked, especially not in such… strange circumstances.

But it was funny, so… as long as it didn’t go too far, Kuroki decided to let it ride.

Azul Ashengrotto, ruiner of plans, had other ideas:

“Nice to see that all of you can still be so… lively, in these sorts of circumstances,” he said, in a tone that suggested he did not, in fact, think it was ‘nice to see’.

“This is – like – Overblot number four, forgive us for not caring that much anymore,” Ito sighed.

“Four? I’ve only heard of three,” Jade said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ito waved him off.

Jade looked like he was very much going to worry about it. Which was unfortunate for Kuroki, since he worked with him.

… wait, he was definitely fired at this point. Yeah! He had never been so happy to be at risk of dying of hunger!

Okay, admittedly, it was much harder to be pleased when he thought about the ‘at risk of dying of hunger’ thing.

He glanced at Azul, laying in his cot, trying valiantly to ignore Floyd poking and prodding at him.

“I do have to admit,” Kuroki said. “This is the first time someone actively tried to kill one of us. Like, most of the time, we were just there.”

Azul winced.

Kuroki pulled Grim onto his lap, carefully running his hand along his unfortunately-slick back. Floyd was right, he was like a little seal. It was cute, he supposed. He still missed the fur, though.

“... listen, Azul –.”

“I never gave you permission to call me that.”

“You literally tried to murder me. I’m done being polite.”

Azul flushed.

“All jokes – most jokes – aside… regardless of the fact that I do not like you, I can admit that you’re very hard-working. Sometimes hard work doesn’t beat natural talent, but it still does a lot, and most bosses prefer a hard worker over a naturally talented person, anyway. Naturally talented people kinda suck. See Kingscholar-senpai for an example.”

Azul’s face, slowly, flushed.

“Awww, what's the matter? Are you gettin' teary-eyed, Azul?” Floyd cooed.

“Dear me. You've gone back to that ink-spewing crybaby again.”

“Hey! You two signed an NDA covering that exact topic!”

“Right you are. My mistake,” Jade said.

Azul looked like he doubted it was a ‘mistake’. Probably because it definitely wasn’t one.

But, in the end, perhaps because he was simply too drained to deal with it, he turned back to Kuroki and said, “Your attempts to console me are clumsy at best.”

“Suffer, then,” Kuroki said. He’d tried his best. If Azul decided not to take it to heart, then what was he supposed to do? It was officially no longer his problem.

Enma grinned. “Aw. Kuroki. You were almost heartfelt for a minute there. Are you feeling okay?”

“No. I might be concussed,” Kuroki deadpanned.

… damn it, now Ito and Enma had noticed that he hadn’t even gotten halfway through his potion and were shoving it toward him again.

He, reluctantly, mostly just to assuage their worries, brought it to his lips again.

“What’s that?” Azul said.

Kuroki, pleased to talk and therefore have an excuse to not drink the potion anymore, lifted it high above his head. “A health potion.”

Azul blinked.

“... the fuck is a health potion?” Floyd asked.

“Is that a… thing from your world?” Jade asked, a little hesitantly.

Something like dread curled in the back of Kuroki’s mind. His hand fell back to his lap, his fingers tightening around the neck of the flask. “The Headmaster gave it to us, actually.”

(A little unwillingly, sure, but Kuroki would never admit that to them of all people.)

If anything, that answer just seemed to make the three mermen more confused. They looked between themselves, unsure.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘health potion’,” said Jade.

Which, of course, raised the question of what the fuck was it, then?

Kuroki worried his lip. Man, he really didn’t need any more world-shattering revelations today. Or tomorrow. Or, frankly, for the rest of his life, but he would settle for, like, a week.

“Can I analyze the rest of that?” Azul asked, his eyes gleaming.

Kuroki, who really didn’t want to drink anymore, jumped at the opportunity to rush out of bed and hand it over to Azul.

Grim immediately flew over and grabbed Kuroki by the back of his shirt, dragging him back to bed, his curses muffled by the shirt in his mouth.

Azul’s pupils narrowed at the potion for a moment. He held it up to the light, tilting it this way and that. His lips pressed into a thin line.

And then the door to the hospital wing started to open, and Azul rushed to hide it beneath his pillow.

They all smiled, innocently, at the Headmaster.

Crowley looked over all of their pleasant expressions, his wings fluffing up briefly, before he smoothed himself out, smiling in a way that was clearly supposed to be pleasant, but was instead coming off as blatantly nervous. “I’m here to assist you all.”

“Took you long enough,” Kuroki said.

The tension broke.

Enma cuffed Kuroki over the back of his head.

Kuroki flipped him off. “Bitch?! I’m injured, you can’t hit me!”

“I just watched you run across a room, you’re fine,” Enma said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Crowley said, cheerily, striding over.

Kuroki, of course, thanks to the not-health-potion, was declared to be perfectly fine.

But Crowley still wanted him to stay overnight for monitoring. Something about how, when you survive drowning, you can later do something called ‘dry drowning’, where your lungs decide to be a bitch and fill with water a second time for funsies.

Kuroki was half-tempted to simply see whether he should test out the limits of his possible immortality, but that voice in his head sounded distinctly like Enma, and he never listened to Enma, thank you very much.

So, he shrugged and nodded. Monitoring his health would, perhaps, actually be good for said health!

“And,” added Crowley, squinting at them. He pointed at Ito and Enma. “You two have to leave when the hospital wing closes in a few minutes, and you can’t come back until it opens again at 7 tomorrow.”

Their expressions immediately darkened.

If you looked carefully, you could see their minds all racing, trying to find a loophole.

Enma, after a moment, brightened back up. “Okay, Headmaster. We can do that.”

Crowley’s victorious look dropped into a slight frown. “Why do I feel like I’m losing?”

“I don’t know, why do you?” Enma asked, so very innocent.

“Can’t you three behave for, perhaps, a day?” he damn-near begged.

“We just killed an Overblot for you,” Ito deadpanned.

“... that you did!” he coughed, awkwardly, and then turned to go deal with the victim of said Overblot.

Azul, too, was mostly fine. Though the broken leg was still there. Whoops.

Crowley, after a bit of magic to make sure Azul’s bones were in place (everyone pretended that they didn’t hear the boy gasp in pain for a minute there, they were assholes, but not evil), made a quick splint for the injury.

And then he ushered the Leech twins out the door, Ito and Enma in tow, calling for Azul and Kuroki to sleep well and to simply say his name if they needed help.

Kuroki and Azul looked at each other in awkward silence, unsure what to do. Should they just… sleep? Talk?

Kuroki scratched behind Grim’s ear, his lips pursed into a thin line. “So, uh, am I fired?” he asked.

He no longer had a contract assuring that he wouldn’t be fired for no good reason. And, even if he had, he was pretty sure that ‘breaking the kneecaps of your boss’ and ‘trashing your workplace’ would count as being ‘good reason’.

To his surprise, though, Azul shook his head. Vehemently.

“No. You make my life miserable for fun. I haven’t even done anything to you! There’s no way I’m going to give you an actual reason to dislike me.”

… Leona, you have been forgiven. Your claims of Kuroki being evil might have just saved half of the Ramshackle student’s income.

“Sweet,” said Kuroki, slumping against his pillows. He was pretty sure that Crowley would have made him work in the infirmary if he had no other options, but he also knew Ito’s paycheck was around half of his own, and that included all of the hours where they simply ‘forgot’ to clock out.

They would have been able to scrape by, but Kuroki liked having some disposable income. The ability to slowly fix up their house was nice. And not cheap.

At least a certain birdman had stopped crashing in through their windows when Kuroki started making him pay for the damages.

Speaking of…

There was a knock on the window.

Kuroki raised his eyebrows when he saw Floyd Leech, perched on the windowsill, smiling and waving at them.

After a second’s hesitation, he hefted Grim in his arms and made his way over. “Hi…”

“We’ve come to take you guys home,” Floyd answered the unasked question.

“How did you get up here?” Grim asked, his eyes wide.

“Jumped, Azarashi-chan,” Floyd said, as if it were obvious.

Maybe it was. Azul didn’t look particularly surprised.

Kuroki sighed, peering past Floyd. The others were on the ground. Ito and Enma were chatting, but they brightened up and waved at him when they noticed him looking.

“... how do you expect me to get down?” Kuroki asked.

Floyd smiled.

“Fuck.”

~

The Ramshackle and Octavinelle dorms were quick to part ways. The moon hung in the sky, tinted just slightly green as always. The campus was quiet, barely a whisper of conversation on the wind – two people rushing around, clearly looking for someone, though Kuroki couldn’t say he knew who their Waka-sama was, so he wouldn’t be of help.

Not that he was particularly interested in helping either way. On the one hand, Grim was asleep on his shoulders and he didn’t want to wake the monster, and on the other hand, he certainly wasn’t kind enough to help people for free (ew). Basically, he saw no reason to be nice right now, try again later.

Ito yawned, rubbing the tiny tears that formed in their eyes away absently. “Can’t wait to get back home,” they murmured, briefly bumping their shoulder against Kuroki’s.

“Hope the Leech twins haven’t trashed the place,” Enma said.

“We can make them pay for damages,” Kuroki decided. “Plus some – for emotional damages.”

Enma hummed his agreement.

Kuroki stuffed his hands into his pockets. “... so…”

“So?” Ito said, lightly.

He took a deep breath. “Um. I didn’t – I’m not going to say I’m sorry for making that contract, okay? If I had the opportunity, I’d do it again.”

And, seeing as that contract with Azul had dissolved along with all of the others, this was actually something he had seriously considered.

“But,” he said. “I honestly… didn’t think it would affect you guys at all. I mean, sure, my anxiety was telling me that you guys might make a deal with Azul one day, but I didn’t… actually think you would. I didn’t think it would change anything, or mean anything, really. I kind of just expected it to be a quick deal that would never come up again. I didn’t… want to hurt you guys. I didn’t think you’d ever have a reason to know.”

Enma and Ito glanced at each other.

“... has anyone ever told you that you suck at apologizing?” Ito asked, lightly, their shoulder bumping against his.

Kuroki smiled, a little sheepishly. “I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever done it, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Enma sighed, lifting a hand to ruffle his hair. For once, Kuroki didn’t even give a halfhearted complaint.

“One day the ‘I never really had friends or a family’ excuse isn’t gonna work, y’know.”

Kuroki peered out from under the hand on his head, warily. “Is it working now, though? Because I can pull the ‘ooh ouch owie I am in so much pain’ excuse, too, if it’s not.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Enma said, his lips starting to twitch into a smile. He pulled Kuroki into his side. “You – you know that we weren’t… we don’t hate you, right? Like, you’ve seen how Ito and I are when we hate people. We just needed a little time to deal with it.”

“I still don’t get why you were upset, really,” Kuroki admitted. “If you guys did it for me, I’d be thankful – flattered.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Enma muttered.

Kuroki opened his mouth to argue, but Ito beat him to the punch: “It doesn’t matter how you would react, because we aren’t you.”

“... I mean…”

Ito flicked him in the shoulder. “Yes, yes, our fundamental framework seems to be the same or whatever, but there are still more than enough differences for us to technically also count as different people.”

Kuroki huffed.

Ito sighed. “We know you… didn’t take it very well that we were avoiding you, but, frankly… that was the nicest I could be at the time. I mean, if I talked to you, I’d treat you how I treat Trey-senpai, and I can guarantee you would like that less.”

Kuroki considered that. It wouldn’t pick at his insecurities in the same way, but he did appreciate not having a broken nose…

“Like, really, did you want me to treat you like Ruggie? Or Jade Leech-senpai?”

“I definitely don’t want to be treated the way you treat Jade Leech-senpai,” Kuroki said, rolling his eyes. “But you cannot call what you have with him ‘hate’.”

“How do you know that, hm? You’re not me!”

“It’s painfully obvious. I mean, dude, I thought you were a good actor.”

“It’s not obvious… is it?”

He looked to Ito for help. Ito looked away, whistling innocently.

Poor Enma’s face went beet red in the moonlight. He groaned.

“Do you think he knows?”

Ito shrugged. “Even if he returned your feelings, I doubt he’d confess to you, he’d rather watch you flounder. And I think you’d be too prideful to risk making a fool of yourself to confess. So… I don’t know if it matters.”

“... is that a no?”

“It’s an I can’t read that guy at all.”

“Either way, as the only male figure in your life, I don’t approve,” Kuroki pitched in, because he had to. “There is no way in hell I am letting you date Jade-fucking-Leech of all people.”

“What’s wrong with him?!”

“What isn’t wrong with him?”

“I refuse to be Floyd Leech-senpai’s brother-in-law,” Kuroki added.

Ito blinked. Once. Twice. “You guys’re related?”

Enma and Kuroki immediately went tense.

“No, no,” Kuroki said, scrambling for an explanation, because he doubted that the truth would go over well with Ito in particular. “It’s just… since Enma and I don’t have any siblings, and we probably have similar genetic makeups, we’ve decided that we count.”

Ito’s eyebrows knit. They glanced between Kuroki and Enma. And then seemed to shrug internally. “I mean. I wouldn’t define it that way, but you can do that, if you want.”

~

Oh, the Leech twins had cleaned up their house for them in preparation for the Mostro Lounge branch they had wanted to turn it into.

Nice. Free labor!

They enjoyed this for all of five seconds, before immediately trudging upstairs and collapsing into bed as one.

~

Kuroki rested his hands on his hips. “Why would I let you come with us? You didn’t even come and visit me in the hospital wing yesterday!”

“I was busy stealing that mattress for you,” Jack said.

“... forgiven,” Kuroki decided, suddenly recalling that the Tetanus Spring was strangely missing from their bed the previous night. “What’s you two’s excuse?”

“We got roped into helping clean up Octavinelle!” Deuce defended them.

“How?! Why?!”

Ace and Deuce looked as if they had been struck dumb.

“I think we were so used to the crazy shit you guys drag us into that we just kinda went along out of habit,” Ace admitted.

(All of that work conditioning their friends over months, and the Octavinelle people might have ruined it for them! Nooo! They were waiting to cash that in for something big!)

“Sucks to suck,” Grim said, smirking.

“Says the guy who doesn’t even notice when they’re roping him into their schemes,” Deuce said.

“They don’t rope me into anything. They’re my familiars,” Grim sniffed.

Jack gave the three Yuus a glare. The Yuus simply smiled serenely.

“He’s right. He could order us around, if he wanted,” Ito said, lacing their hands behind their back.

Kuroki hugged the monster closer to his chest, smirking over his head. “We would never manipulate him into anything.”

Enma batted his eyelashes. “He helps us because we’re his darling, well-behaved henchmen, and he’s an amazing boss.”

“Exactly!” said Grim, nodding his approval.

“This is seriously fucked up. This is – like – brainwashing,” Ace said, horrified.

Kuroki hummed, pressing a kiss to the top of Grim’s head.

“They don’t even deny it,” Deuce said.

“... I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t be hanging around you three,” Jack muttered.

“Nah, you’re stuck with us now,” Enma said, giving Jack a pat on the shoulder, a mockery of comfort.

“Speaking of which!” Ito lifted their backpack, full of leftover water-breathing potions. “Let’s go on a field trip!”

~

The museum was closed. Again.

Kuroki frowned. It… wasn’t supposed to be closed today. He glanced at the sign outside the door to confirm, and found that he hadn’t remembered wrong.

A short chat with the guards revealed that someone had privately booked the place just last night.

Enma pouted up a storm.

Kuroki sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. We can go to the library. But you have a budget on how many books you can st – check out.”

Ito looked at him, now, their eyes gleaming.

“One piece of jewelry.”

“Five.”

“One.”

“Four.”

“... two,” Kuroki offered.

“Seven,” Enma pitched in, because he sucked.

“Oh, yeah, seven,” Ito nodded along.

“Three!” Kuroki amended, a little desperately.

“Three it is!” they chirped.

Kuroki narrowed his eyes at them. He, suddenly, strongly suspected that Ito had been going for three the entire time.

But he sighed, nodding. “Yeah. Fine. Let’s go get your jewelry now, since Enma’s definitely going to spend the rest of the day in the library.”

Ace, Deuce, and Jack immediately backed off a few steps.

“Yeah, no, we’re going to wait outside. You guys have fun,” Ace said.

“You guys are literally so gay,” Ito said, rolling their eyes. “You cannot tell me that you’re scared of going in a fucking jewelry store.”

They were.

And, in the end, the Yuus were happy to let the three of them go and grab some food for everyone while they shopped.

“Aw, man, and they were so cute, too,” said Ito frowning at the price of a set of earrings and a matching necklace. From the way they had bee-lined to this store, Kuroki suspected that they had spotted the jewelry pieces sometime over the past three days. Perhaps when they went to get food with Floyd, way back on day one?

But they were disappointed to learn that that shit was not cheap.

The woman running the store gave a slightly apologetic smile. “Seaglass is pretty easy to come by down here, but welding isn’t particularly fun to do. The heating vents are…”

Enma hummed, his eyes gleaming. “It must be hard when there’s no fire.”

“Oh, there’s fire, if you can get a mage to help you, but it costs a pretty penny,” she said, lifting her arms in a shrug. “And, frankly, I don’t want to get near the stuff. It’s freaky.”

Grim sulked.

Ito smiled, reaching out and scratching behind Grim’s ears. “Fire’s not all bad, just a little misunderstood. Y’know, people used to make giant forest fires on purpose, because the ashes would make good fertilizer for their crops.”

Grim brightened up again. “And it cooks your food, after, too!”

“And it cooks your food,” Ito agreed, softer than Kuroki had ever seen them.

Now, if Kuroki had to guess, Ito had probably never had a pet before, and therefore didn’t hold the same reservations against caring for Grim as they did for Kuroki and Enma. There was no mental turmoil to be had, no ‘oh gosh am I betraying my original family?’ so why shouldn’t they indulge themself? Add Ito’s fondness for children, and their openly favoring Grim was inevitable.

This didn’t make him feel any less jealous.

It certainly made him feel stupid for being jealous in the first place, though.

He sighed as he took in the price. It… honestly wasn’t that much more expensive than he was expecting…

“This is about the amount I thought it’d be, if you really want just these.”

Ito lit up, leaning over to press a quick kiss to his cheek.

Kuroki smiled a little, his bad mood dissipating instantly.

The woman laughed. “Why does the little one get to decide whether you can buy things?”

“Little?” protested Kuroki.

But his friends seemed to not care for defending his honor on that front. Or any front.

“Because he likes budgeting, and if we don’t follow his budget he complains for days,” Enma lamented.

“I’m trying to keep us from starving to death!”

Grim raised his paw. “But you don’t let me get the fancy tuna.”

“It literally doesn’t even taste any different!”

He shook his head. “The extra money makes it taste better.”

Kuroki scowled. His life sucks.

At least Ito was happy, beaming as Enma helped fasten the necklace in place, sliding the pendant under their shirt for safekeeping.

With that, they were off in search of a library they could definitely-not-steal-from.

“Not going to wear the earrings?” Kuroki asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not underwater,” Ito said, slightly forlorn as they carefully tucked the box into their pocket. “Swimming with earrings is always a little risky. If you’re not careful, they can pull their way right through your earlobe. And then you can’t wear any earrings.”

“... I’m not sure that ‘not being able to wear any earrings’ is the worst thing about that scenario,” Kuroki said.

“No, it is.”

“Okay.”

~

Jack, Ace, and Deuce came back empty-handed.

This should have been considered a crime, but alas, they couldn’t prosecute their friends. They just glared at them as hard as they could.

“They like raw fish down here,” Ace grumbled. “And not in the sushi way, in the straight-up raw fish way.”

Grim frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

“We’re trying not to get food poisoning,” Jack said.

“... what’s that?”

“Oh, to be a monster,” Enma sighed.

“Yeah, so you could eat rocks?” Ace asked, smirking.

“You’re on thin ice for not coming back with food, Ace, reconsider what you just said.”

Ace looked like he had considered it very heavily and was willing to face the consequences, but someone saved him:

“Koebi-chan!”

“How does this keep happening to me?” Kuroki whispered.

And then he was bowled over, arms latching themselves around him.

He scowled, pushing at Floyd’s face. “Get off. Why are you here?!”

“We live underwater. Why are you here?” Jade asked.

Enma scowled at him, crossing his arms over his chest. If asked, he would definitely say the flush in his face was due to annoyance. “We’re shopping.”

“Actually, we’re going to the library,” Grim corrected.

Enma gave him a betrayed look. Grim merely blinked back at him, confused.

Ito sighed. “We were gonna go to the museum, but it’s closed, so we’re gonna grab some books from the library.”

“And, let me guess, you have no intention of returning said books?” Azul said, raising an eyebrow. He was still in his human form, for some reason, getting dragged along by Jade.

But who cares about his weird choices? He was currently suggesting that they would commit a crime, which simply would not do!

“I plead the fifth,” Ito said, solemnly.

Unfortunately for Ito, no one understood their joke. They slumped against Enma, sulking. Enma patted them atop the head.

Kuroki pressed his hand over his chest. “What they’re trying to say is that you really can’t believe that we, the people who organized a heist to steal a photo for you, would steal from a public institution.”

Azul rolled his eyes.

Floyd hummed. “If you guys’re wanting to get into the museum, we can take you.”

Kuroki tipped his head back against Floyd’s shoulder. “It’s closed for the day.”

“And why is that?” Jade asked, smiling behind his hand.

“‘Cause someone’s rented the place. I didn’t even know you could do that,” Enma mumbled.

“You wouldn’t have been able to afford it even if you had known,” Azul said.

“... no way,” said Deuce, catching on first, surprisingly.

“Yes, we have decided to rent out the museum for the day,” Azul sighed. “I have to put a photo back in its rightful place.”

Azul glared at the Leech twins. The Leech twins, of course, were unperturbed.

Kuroki, however, was also more than a little miffed. “Really?! It was so hard to get that photo, and you’re just gonna put it back?!”

Jade tipped his head to the side. “Azul here wanted it because he wished to erase his past. Considering what happened yesterday… clearly, he cannot outrun it, so facing it is the only option he has left.”

Kuroki’s heart thudded in his throat.

He smiled around it. “So, if he’s facing his past, shouldn’t he be in his merman form?”

“You’re pushing it,” Azul gritted out, his businessman’s smile straining.

Kuroki snickered.

Enma waved his hands for everyone’s attention. “No more banter! Let’s go to the museum!”

Kuroki smiled. He was acting like a little kid who was very excited about a field trip. It was funny, but also a little cute. So, he shut his mouth, and allowed the Octavinelle kids to lead them all to the museum.

~

The museum was nice. Kuroki couldn’t say it particularly interested him. He’d never been a history buff, like Ito, or fascinated by the world around him in the way Enma was.

So, he let them have their fun while he hung back near the entrance with Azul to make sure he didn’t try anything while putting the photo back.

“It’s a nice photo,” Kuroki offered.

Azul stuck it to the wall, scowling. “It’s a perfectly fine photo, just not a good one of me.”

Yeah, Kuroki had kind of guessed that much. Between the octopus-themed Overblot, and the ink-spewing crybaby’ line, and Leona calling him a ‘cephalo-punk’, putting together the pieces wasn’t that difficult – Azul was the little octopus Jade and Floyd were annoying in the picture.

And, considering how far their little group of three was from the rest of their class, and how they all looked different from the others… well, Kuroki had a few guesses as to why Azul was the way he was.

No wonder he’d fixated on Kuroki.

Kuroki was still taking it personally, though. If only because he didn’t generally appreciate it when people tried to kill him.

Azul stared at the photo of himself.

“I thought… if I could just erase all proof of my past, I would feel better,” Azul admitted, leaning against his cane. “I managed to get all of my classmate’s yearbooks, the negatives from the photographers, even this. But…”

“It didn’t make you happy?” Kuroki guessed.

Azul snorted. “Not in the least. All I could think about was how one day, somehow, someone would find out, and everything would just… end. And I’d be back there. Never did I think that it would be my contracts that would fail me, though.”

Kuroki thought about it, and then shrugged, leaning against one of the turnstile machines. He wasn’t at all qualified, but Azul was talking to him for some reason, and therefore it fell on Kuroki to fix things.

“Well… I think your problem is that you focused on the wrong thing. You wanted to make it so no one could make fun of you, right? But the people making fun of you… okay, they were the problem, but that’s not something that you can change. Sometimes, your situation is shitty, and you just have to move on, because there’s nothing else you can do.”

Azul gave him a slightly tired smile. “You’re bad at this.”

“I’ve been told I’m bad at apologies, too,” Kuroki shrugged. “Speaking really isn’t my strong suit, I think.”

They stayed there in silence for a long while.

“... did that work for you? Moving past it?”

“Our situations are different.” He walked over to peer at the photo. Slowly, he lifted his hand, thumb up, covering Azul’s past self. “I wasn’t… bullied, per se. I just… wasn’t.”

If Kuroki had never existed back in his own world, would it have changed anything?

Had he been born here, would he have been better off?

There was no point in ‘what ifs’, and yet it was hard to dismiss the thoughts entirely.

“And, as for moving on…” Kuroki smiled, wryly. “I think this is a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ kinda situation.”

~

Enma hooked his arm through Kuroki’s the moment he saw him.

“C’mon, you have to see the dinosaur skeleton,” Grim said. “It’s huge.”

“It’s not a dinosaur, it’s a sea dragon,” Jade corrected, lightly.

“Yeah, yeah, the definitely-not-an-ichthyosaur,” Enma said, rolling his eyes.

“What’s an ichthyosaur?” Jade asked, raising his eyebrows.

Enma’s eyes gleamed. “Okay, so, it’s this species of big water dinosaur, and it –.”

Kuroki tuned Enma out. Not because he wasn’t necessarily interested in dinosaurs, he is a guy, after all, he had just heard this particular rant before.

He watched as Deuce admired the craftsmanship on a nearby cauldron, which was said to belong to the Sea Witch. Ace was laughing at Deuce, but he took pictures when asked.

Ito and Floyd had taken to the gift shop, which housed one very stressed out worker who looked like they might start swimming belly-up if Floyd stayed for much longer. Ito, of course, was probably doing this on purpose in hopes that, should the woman pass out, they would get the chance to loot the place. They were owed one more piece of jewelry for the day, after all, and if there was anything they took seriously it was certainly their physical appearance.

As for Jack, he was currently looking at the different bioluminescent plants and small fish that were being used as makeshift lamps. He poked one of the fish. The fish, being a fish, swam away. Which, unfortunately, seemed to ignite a latent hunting instinct, and now Jack was chasing it around.

Kuroki smiled, his attention turning back to Enma.

“– took out a whole T-rex, it’s so cool, I wish I could show you the movie –.”

Ah, it was still going.

Perhaps at least partially because Jade was egging Enma on, nodding along with interest, but…

Now that Kuroki thought about it, Enma’s dinosaur rants usually lasted the longest, since it usually devolved into talking about Jurassic Park, which was… a movie series from Enma’s world. Apparently, it had dinosaurs in it. Lucky bastards don’t even know what they have going for them.

Ito walked over, a new shell bracelet on their wrist. Kuroki rolled his eyes. They simply shrugged, entirely unrepentant.

Which was fair, it wasn’t like Kuroki was going to get onto one of his friends for theft.

His eyes flicked to Deuce, who might also commit theft, honestly, judging by how he clearly coveted the cauldron, and found Azul standing by him, giving a sales pitch:

“I do understand how mages create fire underwater, but I should warn you now – my knowledge doesn’t come cheap.”

Deuce and Ace started rifling through their pockets.

Had they learned nothing from the entire anemone situation? Maybe Ito was right, they should have let Azul have control over them for at least a little while.

… well, it was officially the start of Winter Break for them, Kuroki supposed, and Azul was only asking for hard cash. He could let them have their fun.

In fact.

Kuroki nudged Enma in the side. Enma paused in his rant about how the moral of the first movie (something about how ‘You were so focused on whether you could, that you never stopped to consider if you should’) was stupid and annoying, actually.

“Azul is going to explain how fire works underwater.”

“... hold that thought, senpai,” Enma said, before immediately rushing to join the others.

(Kuroki sighed as he was dragged with him, relieved. Crisis averted. Jade and Enma could not become friends – or, worse, more than friends.)

Azul raised his eyebrows at the new addition to his audience but, having been paid, he seemed more than happy to comply. Probably because Ace and Deuce had shoved some extra thaumarks into his hands.

“Well, you see, understanding fire and its properties is important. It feeds on oxygen, which means you must provide it with air to breathe. You start off with a wind spell…”

[goodbye-alchemy]

Why Do We Fear The Reaper

Why does the image of the grim reaper, a skeleton donning black and bearing a scythe, frighten us so?

Why is he the very image of the grim, of death, and why does he haunt our nightmares the way he does?

Maybe it’s because of his hollow eyes and the unending darkness behind them. Maybe it’s because the sight of him is a vision of our inevitable end.

Alternatively, perhaps he is frightening because of his existence within each and every one of us; a representation of what will be left when our flesh melts away after we die. Perhaps we don’t like the way he embraces death and we resent him for his lack of fear.

But in our fear of his image we forget that within every one of us is also a skeleton clad in darkness. It walks with us, talks with us, and feels the weight of every burden we bear. It holds us up as we live and finally it will be the last of us when we die. We are so terrified by the vision of what we possess under our blood and flesh and the potential of what we may become when it is gone. He is our impermanence and our vitriol is fueled by our denial of it.

But in all truth, the reaper is kind.

As his name suggests, he sows the seeds of life. He allows us to grow tall and proud. He cares for us, waters us, faces us toward the sun. And when we begin to wither, when our roots begin to rot and our leaves do not take water, he brings us mercy. He reaps us. He takes responsibility.

When the deer is shot and bleeding, the reaper comes and takes him away so he may not witness the hunters taking his hide. He takes responsibility.

He does not plant life recklessly. He grips the scythe in his hand and faithfully brings peace to every stalk that fades. Why do we fear him when he is our constant, the being most devoted to us in life and beyond?

He does not come for us until we are ready. And he mourns us when we try to leave before we are.

Within us each is the reaper who waits and holds us upright until the end. He reveals himself when we feel the pull of the final sleep and takes our pains away and places them squarely on his own shoulders. He carries the weight of the world we build in our time without question and grants us freedom from our burden, when he can never be free of his.

He is faithful, he is quiet, and he serves us even when we treat him with terror and repulsion. We see his sunken, sullen face and we run away, and even then he is devoted. He chews our food, brushes our hair, and dances for us. Fear him or don’t, but do not mistake him for terror when he is gentler than life has ever been or will ever be.

He is the first and final kindness, and his skeletal hand will feel warm when he gently takes you away, and he will mourn you long after you are forgotten.

The reaper is kindness, and he takes responsibility.

[oflostinfound]

{ adding stuff to the queue and cleaning out the inbox slowly but surely. sort of getting a fresh-ish start }

[devouring-hive]

Anger burns like mustard gas.

[oncoming-sun]

Masterpost

Please feel free to send me prompts/questions you may have! Under the read more are tags I use/principal characters. This will be updated as things progress

#eternal-queue = queue tag!

By the way, this account is inspired by

this post by @nevesmose

#OOC = out of character post

#binaric-musings = Admech plot line tag.

#Grim-governance = Administratum plot line tag

#planetary-enforcement = Arbites plot line tag

#planetary-shield = planetary defense plot line tag

#His-Holy-Light = Ecclesiarchy plot line

#noblesse-largess = noble houses plot lines

#Intense-investigation = Inquisitorial plot line

#local-color = normal citizens plotline

#historical-rambling = remembrancer timeline

More will be added as things continue!

[redxdesign]

[cabadath-prince-of-pain]

is your dog a good dog? is she a good girl??

Cabadath looks at the asker, and then at his dog. The grim stares back at him, golden eyes blinking once in that strange wink normal dogs sometimes do.

"Well? Are you as they claim you to be?" He inquires to her.

The she-grim barks once. Cabadath turns back to the asker.

"There you have it. Now go away; there are souls that need collecting."

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Thinking again about Chanine and Crystalbond

ㅤ

What if you were a robot—a robot created to be emotionless, without feelings or thoughts of your own, created only to serve your master. Your master created you to fill a specific hole in his heart as much as he created you as a bodyguard and foot soldier. And yet, what if you began to feel and think anyways? What if you learned to protect, first, to hate, second, and finally to care. You want your master to be safe, but is it only because you are programmed to protect? You want him to be happy, but you were not programmed for this, were you? You've begun to feel malfunction when your master smiles, is there something wrong with you?

And what if Alpha Grim Sonic, despite not understanding any of this progression, accepted it? What if he accepted that they want Nine to be happy, they want to protect him, that they feel the urge to enact revenge upon his enemies, that they want to be close to him?

And what if Nine, the fox who keeps two robots as his most constant company, only said "Alpha Grim Sonic? No, no. I like keeping him around, but he cannot feel. He can't talk back. He can't want. I programmed him to be without these things, to be no more than a mindless slave. He can no more care for me than he can speak." Nine believes it's impossible because it shouldn't be possible, because it's hard to accept that a being created only to follow his orders could have feeling for him, much less of their own will. And since Nine refuses to read into the signs he can see and Alpha Grim Sonic refuses to cross any potential boundaries or confess, they merely care for each other, believing that anything they could possibly wish deep down is impossible.

But...perhaps when Chaos Sonic isn't around, when Nine misses Sonic or just merely needs physical comfort, he orders Alpha Grim Sonic to stay with him, to hug him. And Alpha Grim Sonic obeys, perhaps with a twinge of joy in his nonexistent heart that he can help his master this way, and that he is allowed to be so intimate with him.

ㅤ

What if you were a robot—a robot created as a copy of someone else? From the beginning you were granted thoughts, feelings, goals, a personality. From the moment you were given life, these goals and certain feelings were affected by the goals of your creators.

And yet...

"Do I hate the original because I was made to? Are my feelings, thoughts, memories, and goals my own?" The robot doesn't trouble himself with these. They simply live freely, acting as they wish.

What if you were a robot, you died, and you were resurrected by someone else? What if this person who resurrected you carried a great longing coupled by a great loneliness within him? What if you were brought back to life merely to fit the missing hole of a certain person in that person's heart, and what if this irrevocably changed you to your core?

You are still you. Despite having been granted life and motivation originally by those with a specific goal, you are still you. You seem largely the same in personality, in goals, and yet...

Without a choice, you've shifted. You've been brought back as someone's companion, and so you are reprogrammed to care about them, to protect them, to follow their orders.

But you were only created to be a friend, right? Perhaps he did not expect making him the center of your world would change you in such a way.

You always hated the original, but now this hate carries a different weight. Now you don't just wish to replace him (out with last decade's model in with the new), but you want to replace him. You hate him for how he made your one and only best friend (your master, your necromancer) feel—for how he treated him. Deep down, you're angry and jealous that your master still cares for the original so, even when he denies it, especially after hearing your best friend's recounting of his experiences and betrayals. You want to replace the original in reality, you want to replace the original in your master's heart and life, and you yearn to treat him better than anyone ever could. You're glad you can be his bodyguard, his companion, that he does not protest when you call him your best friend, but you want other things with him too. Inexplicably, you want to be close to him always, you want to keep away anything that would hurt him, you want him to succeed in his goals, you want him to be happy

And, deep down, you want for him to value you just as much as you value him.

What if you were a robot, brought back to life to keep someone company, practically reprogrammed to care for him like you haven't cared for anyone, and you didn't care? You know things turned out this way because of the alterations to your programming, and yet you care and feel so much that nothing else matters. Maybe you were meant to just fill the hole someone else left, but those feelings (whatever they are) grew stronger and changed and evolved naturally.

Perhaps, Chaos Sonic thinks, he's better off having been brought back as Nine's friend, because (all the frustration and jealousy aside) he likes this life. He likes having such a dear friend, and a master who cares whether he lives or dies. It makes him feel something at the prospect of making his best friend the happiest fox alive.

And yet, what if Nine, the very fox who ressurected him, only thought "Chaos Sonic? No, no. I like having him around. I like that he can imitate a caring friend and comforting presence. But none of this is real. If he cares for me, if he has any feelings, it's because I made it so. He only cares for me because he's slave to his programming, and I made myself his master and friend by force. It would be...wrong to indulge in such care and feelings, pretending that I haven't forced him to become like this." He doesn't believe that Chaos Sonic having feelings is impossible, but he doesn't believe that the robot would have turned out this way if he hadn't forced it. He'd feel wrong reading into these things as real, because he'd forced Chaos Sonic's role upon him out of selfishness. Whatever Chaos Sonic wants or feels regardless him, Nine doesn't believe these are real. He doesn't believe Chaos Sonic would have chosen him or developed feelings without his (Nine's) own meddling.

But that's what's funny. If Nine ever accepts his feelings, he thinks he's loving an unwilling participant, forced to want him. Whether Chaos Sonic realizes anything regarding the nature of his feelings towards Nine or not, Chaos Sonic is perfectly aware of what Nine did to him, and he doesn’t care. And what Nine doesn't see is that even if his meddling was the catalyst, the truth is that Chaos Sonic's feelings and goals and wishes grew beyond simply being a companion, bodyguard, and subordinate to Nine. There is no longer any clear boundary between what is fabricated and what is real.

Maybe Chaos Sonic is different than Alpha Grim. Maybe he does admit to his own feelings of jealousy and is willing to push futher than the other robot. Maybe where Alpha Grim Sonic accepts his fate as long as it continues to be at Nine's side, Chaos Sonic allows himself to want more than that. Maybe Chaos Sonic does commit himself to proving to Nine and his dense ass self to proving that his feelings and wishes and goals are real.

He will take what he can get greedily (Nine's attention, any intimacy, any iota of care), and selfishly strive for the future where Nine only looks at him.

And maybe Nine decides that taking advantage of the fact that he practically programmed these two robots to care as much as serve is fine sometimes, so long as he can admit to himself that they really have no choice. Funny that he doesn't realize how much doing so gives them exactly things they desire or didn't know they did.

ㅤ

Such a complicated set of relationships for the trio of them. Tragic, really, and yet despite the fact that it will never be good and perfect, it is their life together. No matter what is fabricated, the robots don't care. No matter what couldn't be real, Nine is attached too, and would never let them go. No matter the complexities, the miscommunication, the misconceptions, the lack of fully requited feelings, they will remain in this arrangement of the fox and his twin knights, ever at each other's sides.