#I live for including small bits of canon in my writing if i can

[the-badger-mole]

How would you write Azula’s story after the war?

Oooo! I actually have written an outline for Azula's post canon arc a few years ago, but because Tumblr would rather spend time and money on stupid failure projects like that Live nonsense instead of something actually helpful like making the archive less annoying to use, I can't be bothered to find it. So, I'll write it here again. It'll probably be a bit different because I think I may have changed my mind on a few things since the first version of this. If anyone finds the original, leave a note, so it'll show up in my activity feed. Also, disclaimer, this is only one version of an Azula redemption that I've thought up, and this is how I see this particular circumstance going. I have other ideas.

So, after the war, Azula goes to the mental health hospital for her breakdown. She hates it, and she hates being there, and the hates all the people trying to change her because there is noting wrong with her. In the end, the doctors agree. There is nothing wrong with her that they can help with, so they let Zuko know that she is fit to stand whatever trial he wants to have for her.

That leaves Zuko in a tough spot. Azula really hasn't changed at all, and she makes it clear that she thinks it should be her on the throne instead of her brother. He can't let her go, because there are such extreme reactions to her. On the one hand the general public hates her. To them, she represents the same things Ozai did; a greed for power at whatever cost to the people she deems expendable. On the other hand, she has a decent amount of support among Ozai loyalists  for the same reason (Ozai is probably dead by now, btw. Executed by an international tribunal. Aang was pissed. It was a whole thing). He can't keep her in the palace because there is a very real possibility that she will try to assassinate him, or challenge him to another Agni Kai, and Zuko would actually have to kill her this time. So, he exiles her. It was either that, or prison.

Azula end up on one of the smaller, more remote islands in the Fire Nation archipelago. There is a very small community there of locals. Azula is appointed a modest, but comfortable home, and a team of servants who are there to both make her comfortable and make sure she doesn't get up to anything. It pisses Azula off more than if Zuko had just put her in prison. There is no way off the island. No one has anything larger than a fishing boat, and ships only come a few times a year to deliver supplies. The locals are far enough removed from the Fire Nation capital that the fact that Azula is nobility is a curiosity more than anything. There are no loyal subjects among them, though, to Azula's disgust, they think Zuko's doing an alright job (the other Fire Lords either ignored them, or made their lives miserable. Zuko actually seems to be...trying to get to know them?).

There is no one who cares enough to join up with Azula to take him down. No one awe inspired enough to make her their de facto ruler. And despite the fact that Azula is the most powerful firebender on the island, by far, she is out numbered. A fact that was made clear after she attacked and killed one of her guards (who was a local son), and the entire town converged wanting to kill her. She was only spared because her guards from the capital held the line long enough for the governor of the island to be notified and pull up with reinforcements. Azula can't go any farther than the garden behind her house for almost two years for her own protection.

Eventually, when Azula is allowed to move more freely (though still heavily guarded), she treats the locals like they are beneath her, which does her no favors. The more she puts on airs, the less people respect her, including her own prison guards servants. This is a problem for Azula. She's used to manipulating either by fear, or by playing to people's egos. No one fears her on that island, and no one's ego is touched by what she offers. She's a tiger that's been defanged and declawed. Alone.

Sometime around her fifth year in exile, she is assigned a new maid after she ran off a four of them. This new maid is a middle aged war vet with a smoking habit and a limp. She has no respect for titles and airs, and while she does her job well, she also will not put up with Azula's attitude for long. She will go barb for barb against Azula, and when Azula snaps and starts throwing things and firebending at her, the maid makes fun of her for having a tantrum. Azula tries to fire her several times, but each time, the maid reminds her that she works for Zuko, which only pisses Azula off more. Eventually, Azula realizes that she can't scare this maid off, and she grudgingly accepts her presence. They don't become friends right away, but Azula does come to respect the way the maid doesn't back down from her. Any time Azula snaps at her, the maid snaps right back. After a while, their relationship does grow into something like what Zuko had with Iroh, and the maid gets Azula into gardening.

On the island is the ne'er-do-well youngest son of a lesser noble who is in something like exile himself. He didn't hurt anyone, but he had several substance abuse issues that caused his family a lot of embarrassment. His parents sent him to the island to either clean up, or drink himself to death. He'd been on the island for several years before Azula was sent, but they don't meet until several years after she arrived. He is what Mai probably would've been if Azula hadn't become friends with her as children. He's snarky, lazy, and a bit eccentric. He is annoyed with his parents for sending him to this island, but he also acknowledges that he probably wouldn't be doing much if he hadn't been. Only, there would be more parties. He and Azula have something like a friendship, and they do help each other grow. Not much. He drinks a bit less with her, and she becomes less aggressively power hungry, but they are united in hating the island and the people who sent them there. I haven't decided if this turns into a romance or not, but they do become close.

Between him and the maid, Azula has the opportunity to vent like she hasn't had before. Eventually, she does come to realize that she no longer wants power like she did before. She finally admits what she never dared before and tells her new friends that she hated Ozai towards the end. She complains about her mother, too, but on getting more details, the maid realizes that Ursa was a good mother doing her best with a child who didn't respect her. That shakes Azula, and even though it takes a long time, she does come to peace with her mother's memory.

Zuko visits the island at least once a year. That's when he gets to know the people on the island and what they need from him as a ruler. He becomes pretty well liked among them, which helps smooth some of the rougher feelings towards Azula over time. Especially since he often brings his wife, with her healing hands and informal, downright manners, with him. Azula refuses to see him for the first few years (almost a decade). Zuko respects that, though he does try to visit whenever he's on the island. Then one year, she does agree to have tea with him. They sit together in silence for an hour before Azula unceremoniously ends the visit. Zuko begins writing to her after that. Just short letters about the weather, and startlingly, his children. That's how she finds out she's an aunt of four, with one more on the way. She finds out through gossip that her brother married the Avatar's waterbender, and the maid laughs at her for not knowing. It was big news when they started dating, over a decade ago. Bigger news when their engagement was announced, the entire country was holding it's breath when they had their first child, and the parents refused to tell anyone if the kid was a firebender or not for the first three years of their life. Azula missed it all. The next time Zuko visits, they have tea again, and this time they talk for an hour before Azula ends the visit.

Azula is surprised to find that she doesn't hate her brother anymore. She did for a long time. Especially after their Agni Kai. She doesn't feel much of anything towards him anymore. Not hate. Not affection. Just a bit of curiosity to see how he's turned out, and what kind of ruler he is. She knows that the people on her little island are beginning to like him a lot. More than they like any politician, anyway (though that bar is pretty low). A few of them even love Katara (mostly the very young ones). Their teas when he visits gradually get longer. Zuko still clearly cares about Azula, and they do build up something of a friendly relationship. Zuko never brings his family, and Azula never asks to see them. It works for them that way.

In the meantime, Azula loosens up to the people on the island, and by the time she's approaching 40, she's become one of them. She and her other exile friend are something of oddities among the locals, but they like her well enough now. A few of them have even had the honor of being welcomed into her home, or of being gifted herbs from her garden. Some of the local children even come by to hear stories of her days in the palace and of her brother, the Fire Lord who saved the nation. She tells them very embarrassing stories of Zuko's childhood. One day, Azula realizes, with no small amount of surprise, that she likes her life, and the people in it. Even loves a few of them. Her maid is elderly by now, but she hasn't been replaced, even though Azula serves her more often than not. Azula and her fellow exile, if they are not actually in love, are at least platonic life mates. She doesn't have children- doesn't want children- but she cares about some of the local ones -the braver ones- like her own. They would never call her auntie (too her face), but they love her, too.

This is the quiet redemption arc for Azula. Now that I type it out, I realize, it kind of reminds me of a mix of Hester Prynne and Mary Lennox

[astronomoney]

bookends, bestfriends, deadends

Pairing + WC: Jason Grace x reader, 1.6k Warnings: slow burn, once again and as always with my love Jason this is NOT canon-compliant, Jason may be a tiny bit ooc but I tired Summary: In the months between saving Hera and setting sail for New Rome, Jason finds himself making a friend Authors note: ok, y’all, here’s the deal; I took a nap and woke up with an idea, so I started writing; then I realized I needed set up, so I wrote this. Now I have a full fic that doesn’t include my original idea, so I will have to make pt: 2, but at least it’s already almost all the way written

Camp was far too busy this year; even for the off-season, it felt like there were campers everywhere. With all the bustle, it was hard to find a moment of peace. That’s why you’d taken to the woods that day. Following the path you’d walked a million times to a little outcrop of ruins not far from the beach, deep enough to not be disturbed. You’d taken a thick blanket and draped it over a vaguely couch-shaped block of stone ages ago to use as a reading nook. It was calm and peaceful and empty, usually.

This time, when you got close enough to see your little piece of peace, there was already someone there. A blonde boy with a scar on his lip sitting on your faux couch and squinting at the book in his hand. Jason Grace. Of course, you knew who he was, everyone knew of him and Piper and Leo, all working to get ready for the next great prophecy. 

Sneaking up on a former Roman soldier didn’t seem like the best plan, so you’d spoken out. “Guess this place isn’t so secret after all,” geez, what an opener.

Jason looked up with a start and got to his feet before you could say anything else. “Hi, hey, sorry, is this your spot? I wasn’t sure who’s it was, so I stayed to read some. I can go.” 

“Oh no, please, you don’t have to,” you were quick to put up your hands and stop him from leaving. You two hadn’t necessarily talked before, but he had always seemed nice at meals and campfires, if not a little awkward. “You were here first. I can leave if you want to be alone.”

Jason paused, it seemed he was actually taking you in now, noticing the book in your hand, Don Quixote as opposed to the copy of War and Peace he held. “I don’t mind company,” he offered you a small nervous smile, it was so pure you had to just stare at it for a second before responding. 

“Neither would I,” you finally said, returning the smile. You walked over and sat down tucking your legs under you and leaving plenty of room for Jason to sit on the other side. 

He joined and read next to you for what felt like both hours and minutes. Two days later, you had beaten him there, so when he arrived, you smiled and scooted to the left, giving him room again on your right. Over the next month, you crossed paths at the ruins what must have been a dozen times. There was never much conversation; it was more of a silent agreement to enjoy each other’s company, and each day, the distance between your shoulders seemed to get ever so slightly smaller. 

After a while, you got comfortable being directly next to him. Your shoulders would brush each time Jason moved to turn the page, and you couldn't help but notice how warm and strong he was. Silent meetings became small discussions about your current read, which turned into talks about other books you’d recommend to each other, which eventually morphed into a solid friendship. You would invite him to eat with your cabin since he had no one else at his. He would update you on the progress of the ship and the quest, you even got to know the other campers involved. 

Over the next few months, your lives became completely intertwined. You spent most of your day with each other. You watched him train for the quest, pushing his limits in sparring sessions until he was too exhausted to do much of anything. You would drag him out to your spot in the woods on days when he’d gotten so focused he had to be forced to take a break. You’d even tried to help him get some memories back. He would eat with you, read with you, help you with whatever chores you had around camp, anything to spend more time with together. 

He was the first person you turned to when you had something to say. He was the only one who remembered which campfire songs were your favorites or which books you’d reread depending on your mood. You cared about him so deeply, and you weren’t even sure how you’d come to feel so much in so little time. You truly hadn’t realized how much you needed him around you until you thought about just how soon he’d be leaving.

Of course, he would go back to Camp Jupiter; you knew that. This was never meant to be permanent; you were sure he missed his old life, his old friends, his old home. But part of you, somewhere in the deepest, most selfish part of your heart, wanted him to stay. You wanted him to forget about Rome, and Jupiter, and the quest. You wanted him to stay here with the strawberry fields and the books and the beach and with you. You wanted him to forget his sense of duty to a place that never cared and stay with someone who would give their whole heart away just to see him be happy for a moment longer. It was a feeling that filled you with guilt every time it crossed your mind.

It had occupied your thoughts nearly the entire day when Jason came to your cabin that evening. He knocked on the door until one of your siblings answered, and they called you over, muttering something about stupid and lovesick and so annoying that you hadn’t totally caught. 

You stepped onto the porch and closed the cabin door, leaving Jason and you alone in the dim light of the setting son. He was handsome as ever, a fact that you had resolved not to dwell on; plenty of people found their closest friends to be stunningly beautiful, it wasn’t a big deal. 

In fact, it was totally normal for someone to notice exactly when their best friend had skipped their usual haircut and started letting the military style grow or how their eyes exploded with color when the sun hit them just right. And, of course, there was no deeper reason for why you would pick up on every scrape or bruise he’d gotten from training. You were just hyper-observant, never mind that it only applied to one person.

As you took him in, scanning for the weariness you so often saw and he so often dismissed, you noticed more than anything how nervous he was. “What’s up?”

“Hey, um, I just wanted to, well.” He took a deep breath and let his words spill out a mile a minute. He told you that the Argo II would be ready to fly any day now. He told you how they were going to find Percy and how the first place they were going to check was New Rome. He brought up his old life, a life he wanted to remember, a life he thought he would remember when he got back there. These were all things you’d know and that filled you with dread, but you let him talk without interrupting. His rambling soon turned to a topic you haven’t expected, it turned to you. He told you how important you were to him, how much you’d helped him adjust to life at camp, and how much he appreciated everything you’d done for him. 

As he went on and on, you felt your heart begin to pound. The way he was talking lit a spark inside your gut, and the borderline desperation in his voice made you dare to hope. The emotion in his eyes made you think maybe, just maybe, he felt the same kind of connection that you felt with him. You could tell it was going somewhere important, somewhere that made him nervous and hopefully at the exact same time.

“I guess I just realized while we were planning in the bunker,” he began to close in on his point. “How important you are to me, and I can’t imagine what it’d be like without you. You can say no of course, it’s a lot to ask of anyone but,” he took another breath. “Do you want to come with me to New Rome?”

That wasn’t exactly what you were expecting. The funny feeling in your gut shifted and morphed, flashing through disappointment for a brief moment. As Jason waited for an answer, you had to process exactly what he’d asked. Going back to New Rome meant he was going back to his old life, a fact you were all too aware of, but now, maybe you didn’t have to lose him to it. He still wanted you by his side. He still wanted you to be a part of his life.

“Yes,” you finally replied. “Yes, of course, I’ll go,” you watch the relief wash over him, his nerves visibly dispersing as one of the widest smiles you’d ever seen etched itself across his face. 

In the next moment, he wrapped his arms around you. It was a bone-crushing hug that squeezed the air from your lungs, and you wrapped your own arms around him as tightly as you could. “You have no idea how happy that makes me,” he whispered to you as you tried to stop your heart from exploding. This wasn’t how you wanted it, but at least for now, this would be enough.

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

There's pt1 :) part two is almost done already because I wrote most of it before I even started all this, but what I can say, the keyboard got away from me. let me know if any of y'all want to be tagged in pt2 or in my general Jason taglist.

[gouraminnow]

If it's okay can I request a yandere sir crocodile x single mother reader. I've been thinking about what would happen if the reader had a baby, like would they take the reader and leave the baby or take the reader and the baby. If they did take the baby what would happen, would they be mean to the baby, nice to the baby, or just distance. Would they become a platonic yandere. I'm so sorry if I already sent this in, I can't remember if I did or not.

Yeah I got the first one, but dw about it lol tumblr can get weird with asks anyway.

Rambling under the cut! Not sure if you meant literal baby, child is of ambiguous age but can talk.

Hoo boy you've handed me a rough one, huh? I don't think Croc is a kids guy. But I don't think he'd be outright horrible to a small, unthreatening child- if not because of standards, but because it just isn't worth his time or energy to direct actual hatred toward. Yes, he was willing to destroy a whole country and hundreds of lives which no doubt included children, but I think that degree of faceless separation is very different from looking at a kid directly and going "Yeah I'm gonna kill this. Personally. With my hands." Vivi was 16 and Luffy was 17 iirc but one is an important opposing political figure with crucial information on his misdeeds, and Luffy... is Luffy. Idk. What I'm saying is at the very least I don't see him being abusive or disposing of the child- he does like you, and that's a pretty surefire way to destroy you and any reason you have to cooperate.

It could be a "cooperate and your child remains happy/unharmed" situation but tbh I don't wanna write that. Child abuse is a topic I'm willing to touch on in specific circumstances, mostly backstory but I don't really want to write about canon characters doing it. So I simply won't lol. Reader inserts can be held against their will and mistreated but I don't want to involve a kid in that dynamic, so if I write something where the reader is caring for a kid (such as Galley on 4th) then the yandere in question does things through much softer more under-handed methods.

Honestly? The best way I see this working out is Pre-Alabasta arc where Crocodile is still seen as a hero by the masses. There's a good chance that, at least initially, his affections start and end with you. Is irritated if he finds out about the kid after he's decided that he likes you. But you- you're a little slice of domesticity, you fit into his life rather nicely, he thinks. Plus you and the brat help round out his image as a wholesome do-gooder, don't you? A protector of the people, and a loving husband and father to boot. The... dark parts of his business all swept under the rug and kept away from you both, of course.

His dates with you are no doubt extravagant, but he prefers your kid not accompany the two of you on these. Probably prefers to shower them in expensive gifts, rather than spend much one-on-one time with them. I think he could get attached but he'd be in denial about it for a bit. He's able to rationalize the lack of time spent with them to you, specifically in public- he's a notable figure, is he not? While he's a Warlord and could no doubt protect the both of you(his pride will NOT have you believe otherwise), he just doesn't want the risk. You're an adult with full comprehension of the possibility of being targeted, so it's different. He is a good actor, though. While he doesn't spend as much time with the kid, he's good enough that they don't feel actively disliked. A bit... put out, maybe. It's possible your kid just... thinks he's really cool, despite it. Mysterious, close yet distant, someone who makes mom happy and is the reason they both have all this nice stuff, now. Which can be annoying, but stroking the ego doesn't hurt the kid's case. Liking the bananawanis would score them a couple points too...

-

"Do you think I could, um, meet them sometime? Y'know, if you aren't busy..." Crocodile raises a brow, taking in the brat sitting in a chaise lounge chair. They're leaning forward, looking hopeful- swinging their little legs in anticipation. They look comically small compared to the chair. He chuckles, takes a drag of his cigar- turning his head away from the child to exhale. "...I'm not sure if I can do that without consulting your mother first," he muses, watching the kid visibly deflate. Even if he knows the bananawanis will listen to him, that they would pose no threat if he did not wish them to do so- he preferred you to be happy. Introducing your small child to the large, imposing reptiles used as guard-dogs behind your back would be unwise. "So I'm afraid you'll only be looking from a distance or through glass, unless we can get her approval. We could always ask though, hmm?" The kid grins at him- and Sir Crocodile feels a disquieting lack of disdain.

[padfootagain]

Black Dog Neighbour

Hi everyone ! Today, we’re answering a request made for my 6k followers event by @nobodyshomearchive : “hi hello lovely xxi have been hooked to your blog lately, and to say that is an understatement in all honesty. congratulations on 6k followers <33 so for your celebration can i get an enemies to lovers (ouh massive surprise 👀) with sirius black (preferably post azkaban but it's okay if you don't want to!) cause i'm literally so head over heels for that man. and i'm loving your something good series :) again, congrats and feel free to ignore the request if you don't feel like writing it/it doesn't hit your creative spot.

have a great day/night hun <;3”

Thank you so much for your request, and I hope you like this! I didn’t do post-azkaban Sirius, because he doesn’t exist in my brain. I have been in denial for so long, the Potters are living their best lives, didn’t you know?!

Anyway, still went for post-Hogwarts and post-war Sirius, simply didn’t include anything referencing to Azkaban or… anything canon compliant, to be fair. But as per usual for me when it comes to this character…

Hope you like this! Tell me what you think!

****

Pairing: Sirius Black x reader

Warnings: A small warning for an ex being an arse and showing up drunk on your doorstep (there’s nothing violent, but you do physically push him away, so heads up on that, just in case). But the rest’s cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!!!

Summary: God, you hate that guy next door. Bloody annoying neighbour with his noisy motorcycle, his loud friends, his annoying laugh, his charming smile, his amazing hair, his effortless way to sport sexy leather jackets. He’s insufferable, you hate him to bits. The fact that he’s a talented wizard who can magically change into a dog to guard your door when your ex comes bothering you again will not change your first impression in the slightest, by the way. You still hate him to guts. Probably…

Word count: 4592

Sirius Black Masterlist – Main Masterlist

Sirius fucking Black.

Your neighbour, aka worst enemy, aka the person you despise the most on earth.

He is loud. He is annoyingly pretty. He is getting on your fucking nerves... again!

Of course, it is Friday night, which means that his stupid friends are over for a “boys’ night”. What a scam…

In consequence, you are currently casting sound-proofing spells all over your walls in an attempt to shush their idiotic laughs. And especially Sirius’s; his unmistakable bark-like laughter, loud and boisterous and absolutely prone to draw a grin from your face even if you don’t mean to. By Agrippa’s hat, you will soon either cut his throat or call for an auror. Or maybe you could burst into his apartment and shout into his face just so he can see how bloody annoying that is. Or kissing him to shut him up sounds like a plan, too…

You shake your head, grinning at your own genius idea. Sirius and his friends are being rudely loud again, when you have already told them a thousand times – which is to say every Friday for the last six months, since Sirius moved in the apartment next to yours – that the walls in this old building of Diagon Alley are too thin, that you can hear everything going on in Sirius’s apartment despite sound-proofing spells… and that they need to keep it down past 11pm because you have work the next day. The absolute dread of working in retails does not, by any means, spare the Wizards and Witches of this world…

You look through your apartment for the object that would make the most noise. You give a few items a try, but settle for the good old pan and spoon. Ha, what precious allies these two are, never failing you.

You add a little spell to amplify sounds – just for good measure – find some earplugs, and then proceed to bang the shit out of that pan, right by your common wall with Sirius’s apartment.

It goes on for five full minutes before you manage to catch the quietened sound of something against your door…

And sure enough, when you stop and take your earplugs out, someone is banging at your door.

“Y/N!” a voice that you easily recognize shouts. “STOP THIS FUCKING NOISE!”

You open the door wide, and have to bend to the side to avoid Sirius’s fist as it misses the door.

“Merlin! Sorry! You’re okay? I didn’t touch you, right?” Sirius asks with anger instantly replaced with worry.

“I have amazing reflexes.”

And anger is back into his dark grey eyes again...

“What the fuck are you doing in there?! Are you mental?!”

“I don’t know, Sirius. I didn’t notice anything over the cacophony of your friends shouting into my ears all night!”

His jaw clenches, and you hate yourself for noticing the trembling of the muscle there, and finding it terribly attractive…

“And you had to make all this ruckus instead of simply walking three meters to my door and nicely ask us to shut our mouths because…?”

“Because I’ve asked you dozens of times, this has been going on for fucking months, Sirius!”

He rolls his eyes, and Merlin do you want to punch him straight across the jaw… his very sharp, very pretty jaw…

“We’re just having a nice evening…”

“And I am trying to sleep!”

“It’s barely midnight!”

“I work tomorrow, you asshole!”

“Ermm… guys?”

“WHAT?!” you both exclaim, turning to face a shy-looking Remus.

“Sorry about the noise, Y/N. We’ll be more careful next time. We’ll leave for the evening.”

“You don’t have to leave…” Sirius complains, but James is already walking out, helping a drunk Peter to cross the corridor.

“It’s late, anyway. Lily’s gonna worry, I was supposed to be home twenty minutes ago,” James argues, and Sirius has to yield.

“Alright, see you on Sunday, then!” he shoots his friends a grin, and the group waves at you.

You rudely ignore them, crossing your arms before your chest. And as Sirius turns back to you, his frown is icy and he quickly matches your stance.

“You’re such a pain in my ass, Y/N…”

“And you’re a jerk.”

“Asshole.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“You’re one to talk!”

“Oh, you talk plenty enough for both of us. And loudly so!”

Before he can reply, you’ve stepped back into your apartment and slammed the door.

You hear him pestering after you for a moment, then nothing, and finally a door slamming.

Well, that went well…

You are in trouble.

Big… huge trouble.

Your ex has just stepped into your shop, and you don’t know how to react.

You didn’t break up in a horrendous way, on the contrary! He wanted the two of you to remain friends, and you simply didn’t, worried that you wouldn’t be able to get over each other if you stayed in touch. And by the look he gave you as he stepped inside your shop ten minutes ago, and the many glances he’s thrown at you since, you’re pretty sure that you were right about this.

It's not like your relationship was terrible, by any means. Josh was nice, reliable, but also… not for you. You didn’t have much in common, at the end of the day, and if his personality and looks were nice, it was hard to build a lasting relationship on… nothing. It was for the best that you called it quits.

And as if your day needed any darkening, Sirius Black chooses this very moment to step into your shop. You don’t wait for him to aim for the counter to take out a large pouch in which you have gathered all the ingredients for his friend’s monthly brew. He smiles at the sight, moves towards you. And you hate yourself for the leap your heart makes as he comes closer.

“Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi.”

It’s the first time you speak to each other since the ‘spoon and pan incident’, and you both hesitate. How are you supposed to act now? Apologise for being petty and kind of a dick? Ask for his apology for being a dick? Act like nothing happened?

“Thanks for Remus’s stuff,” Sirius says, voice quieter than usual, gentle, asking for a truce.

Outside, it’s snowing, winter claiming the streets of London, and there are little snowflakes caught in Sirius’s hair. It looks lovely.

All of a sudden, you’re longing for some eggnog, and some pumpkin pie.

His fingers are cold when they meet yours, tips brushing over your knuckles as he picks up the bag, and you hate your own heart for stammering.

“No problem. You know the drill,” you tentatively smile, while Sirius hands you some silvery Sickles.

“I would also need pearl dust, please. Here’s the amount.”

He hands you a parchment with quantities written on it, four small packages to be prepared separately.

“How many hearts do you intend to break with so many love potions?” you joke, turning around to get to work.

The brass scale is set on a small table, pushed right against the wall, behind the counter. It is an easy task for a professional like you, measuring quickly while Sirius laughs.

“No one, thankfully,” he replied.

“Oh… some Amortentia, perhaps? Trying to figure out who your crush likes?”

“No… nothing like that. It’s the properties for invisibility that I’m looking for.”

“If you plan on breaking into Gringotts, I don’t want to know.”

Again, a loud laugh. And you wish you could hold back your smile, but you can’t, the sound is too infectious for that.

You’ve forgotten that your ex is here, you’re reminded of his presence only when you turn back towards Sirius and he’s standing right behind your tall neighbour, a bag of potion ingredients in his hands.

You avert your eyes, and Sirius frowns at the sight. He glances over his shoulder, spots your ex, but says nothing. You only notice how he tightens his hold on the pouch.

“Pearl dust’s quite expensive,” you tell him, handing him the phials, before announcing the price.

“That’s alright.”

He hands you the galleons, takes the vials, but doesn’t step away just yet.

“You… you’re okay?” he asks, and you’re not sure what to do with his expression. It’s somewhere between annoyance and genuine concern.

“Yeah, sure.”

He nods, like he’s disappointed. He’s not bringing up The Incident, and so you won’t either.

“Right, good day.”

He turns in a hurry, not waiting for your answer, but you notice the way he throws a look back before stepping out into the street, snow falling over his dark coat and dark hair again. You hate how your eyes linger on his frame until he’s out of sight, walking down the busy street, but you can’t help it…

“Hello, Y/N.”

You’re brought back to Earth as your ex speaks, and you turn to him, your smile turning from genuine to polite.

“Hi, Josh.”

“How are you?”

“Good! Do you need anything else?” you ask, pointing at the ingredients he’s put on the counter.

“Huh… no, nothing else.”

“That makes two Galleons, 5 Sickles and 3 Knuts, please.”

He hands you some money, and you hand him his change. You see him hesitating, before diving.

“Look, I… I came here hoping to see you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I… I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about what happened, and… Look, I know I could have done better when it came to us. And I thought… perhaps… if you were willing to give me another chance…”

“Josh…”

“Just… hear me out...”

“No. I’m sorry, but no. We… we were not compatible, that’s all. I like you, you’re nice, but… It won’t work between us.”

Slowly, he nodded, apparently defeated. And when another client cleared their throat behind him, he finally left.

What a mess of a morning…

It is Friday night, and the Marauders are keeping it down. You are surprised by it, but you can only praise these men for being, for once, well-behaved. 11:30, as you slip under the covers, ready for some well-deserved rest before waking up too early to open the shop in the morning. You are ready to fall into Morpheus’s arms and abandon yourself to slumber when someone knocks on your door.

You ignore the sound for a while, but it starts again, and again…

And you thought Sirius was making some efforts. You were ready to commit murder…

You stand up, grab a bathrobe and walk to the door, ready to throw hands with Sirius at this point. Only… only, when you actually open the door, it’s not Sirius who’s facing your wrath.

It’s Josh.

“What… What are you doing here?” you ask, too stunned to think about being polite. “It’s almost midnight.”

But then he looks up at you, and you notice at once that he’s been drinking. His eyes are glimmering, he sways slightly before finding back his balance…

“Josh…”

“Y/N, I… I know that now is not the time, but… please, give me another chance. Please…”

“Josh, we’ve talked about this. Us… it’s over. We’re not getting back together. I’m sorry.”

“But I can try and be better. I’ll be better, let me show you.”

You push him off when he staggers forward, trying to hold you.

“Josh! Stop it!” you raise your voice, trying to get him to let go.

“Please…”

“I said no! Get off!”

He’s finally letting go, but doesn’t take a step back. Instead, he leans against your doorframe, not stepping inside, but making it impossible for you to simply go back in and close the door.

“Josh! Go away! I’m sorry, but this is over between us. You have to leave me alone!”

“But I don’t want to! Y/N!”

“Hey!”

You’re both distracted by the new voice that comes shouting through the corridor. Sirius is standing before his front door, wearing a Queen t-shirt and some dark sweatpants, in what you guess his is nightly outfit. Still, when he comes nearer, hair tied in a bun, glowering, he looks intimidating, tattoos all over his arms on full display, traces of ink peeking above the collar of his t-shirt.

You think for a second that he’s going to make a scene because of how noisy you are right now, not ironic at all given his habits of messing your sleeping schedule, and you’re ready to get angry at him, because this truly is the last thing you need tonight, when…

“You leave her the fuck alone!”

You’re too stunned to react when Sirius comes to stand right by your side.

“She told you to fuck off, so you fuck off!”

“Who the fuck are you?” Josh replied, words a little slurred.

“Her boyfriend,” Sirius lies, but it works wonders, as Josh becomes suddenly very pale. “Now, you fuck off, or I’ll throw you out of the building.”

“You? With him?” Josh asks as he turns to you, and you feel pity for the pain in his eyes, but you don’t regret leaving him.

“Yeah. He’s my boyfriend. Now, please, Josh… leave me alone.”

But he shakes his head.

“I can’t. I can’t. I still love you…”

Sirius looks at you, but you shake your head.

“You have to leave me alone and move on.”

“No… I… I’ll come back later…”

Sirius notices your worry, it almost looks like fear, and he doesn’t hesitate when he grabs Josh by the collar.

“You listen to me now, dickhead,” Sirius growls, it’s almost animalistic, and you’re frozen by this threatening tone of his. “If you set a foot in this building again, if you go see her at her shop, if you so much as breathe in her direction or step in the street she’s in, I will come for you, and I will make sure you can never bother her again. Do you get that?”

“You’re bluffing.”

Sirius grins, something twisted and terribly dark, and even you shiver when he speaks again, voice low and terrible.

“I fought for the Order during the war. I’m a Black. Trust me, you don’t want to fuck with me.”

Slowly, Josh nods, struggling to swallow.

“So… will you leave her alone?”

Again, Josh nods.

“Good boy. Now get the fuck out of here.”

He’s barely released Josh that he’s sprinting down the stairs, stumbling and catching himself against the wall, before disappearing.

But you don’t see that. You’re staring at Sirius, and seem unable to look away.

“You’re alright?”

You’re startled by the softness Sirius’s voice is now wearing, such a stark contrast with the threatening tone he wore a minute ago.

“Y/N? You’re okay? He didn’t hurt you, right?”

“What? No… no, I’m fine! He just… showed up and I couldn’t get rid of him.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“Thank you,” you whisper as he gets closer.

“You’re sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, just… a little shaken, I think.”

Slowly, Sirius nods.

“Hey, no need to worry, okay? I’ll keep an eye out tonight. He won’t bother you again. And if he does, in the coming days or weeks, and I’m not around, then you come and tell me. I’ll give him a good fright, and he’ll leave you alone.”

“Thanks but… why would you do that for me? You hate me.”

Sirius chuckles at that, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t hate you. You’re annoying, but I don’t hate you.”

“Oh…”

His touch is infinitely gentle when he rests his hand on your arm.

“You can go back to sleep. Don’t worry, he won’t bother you again tonight. I promise.”

Slowly, you nod, a little too stunned to complain or argue or discuss what has just happened. Instead, you walk back to your apartment, lock the door, and go back to bed, thinking about the way Sirius’s hands looked gentle without his rings…

You’re in a hurry this morning. Your brain has not finished to process everything that has happened last night, but this will have to wait. You must rush to the shop, and you can’t find your bloody wand…

Ha! There! What is it doing under the couch? Never mind, you need to hurry, and you need to hurry now!

Only, when you open the front door, you almost trip onto a large black door sleeping on your threshold. A huge black dog, as a matter of fact.

“What in Merlin’s beard…?!”

His ears perk up at the sound of your voice, and he looks up at you with dark grey eyes that remind you of someone…

But it’s impossible, of course. That must be his dog, though. Since when does Sirius has a dog though?!

The animal slowly stands, a real giant, all dark fur and intimidating growls, until he’s shaken some sleep off its frame, and then he looks up at you, as if expecting a command.

“Hi,” you say, feeling foolish, but finding nothing better to say.

The dog merely comes closer, slowly, ears down in submission, as if he’s worried to scare you away. You hold out your hand, and he hurries to rub his snout into it, licking your fingers.

You giggle at the sensation.

“You look intimidating, but you’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

He barks in agreement, and you give him scratches as a reward.

“Who do you belong to, huh? Are you Sirius’s dog?”

The dog merely licks your fingers again.

“You look the part, at least. You fit the motorcycle-and-leather-jackets aesthetic.”

A few scratches more, and you finally remember that you are running late…

“Shoot!”

You lock the door, hurry towards the stairs. But you stop the dog when he tries to follow.

“No, no, no! I’m going to work, you stay here. I’m sure Sirius will be back soon. You stay here.”

The dog blinks, but sits anyway, letting you go.

For the whole trip to the store, you wonder who this dog belongs to, and who would let him sleep outside like this. If he really did belong to Sirius, he would hear about this…

Your day is a weird one.

After arriving almost late, but not quite, you spend your morning being busy and running around the store looking for the right ingredients for various potions and clients. And yet, several times during your shift, you feel someone looking at you.

The first time, it’s Sirius, who’s squinting on the other side of the glass door. He looks away the second your eyes land on him, and you’re almost certain that he blushes, although you didn’t think it to be possible to make Sirius Black blush.

The second time, it’s the black dog again, who remains sitting by the door under the falling snow for about ten minutes before leaving.

The third time, it’s the dog again, you see him being petted by a customer as she walks out of the shop.

But if the dog belongs to Sirius, then you guess that he’s been around several times throughout the day, which seems odd. Also, you want to chastise him for leaving the animal alone in the cold for extended periods of time throughout the day. Is he heartless?!

So, as you go home that night, you leave your coat in your apartment before heading to Sirius’s.

He answers on the second knock.

“Oh! Hi, Y/N!” he grins a welcome at you. “Need anything?”

“Yeah… I wanted to talk to you, if you have a minute.”

He merely nods, moving to let you inside.

You’ve been here a couple of times before, but you still appreciate the warm atmosphere of the large space that forms his living room. A huge Gryffindor flag is hung across the wall on the right, while windows let you see falling snow over the roofs of Diagon Alley on the opposite side of the room. A large chimney surrounded by comfortable armchairs and sofas, along with a soft red carpet seem to call for you.

“So? What can I do for you, Y/N?”

You turn to him again while he points at the sofa, silently inviting you to sit, but you remain standing. You cross your arms, and he frowns at the sight.

“Where’s your dog?”

Your tone is sharper now, and his frown only deepens, brows knitted together.

“My what?”

“Your dog. Huge. Black. Looks like he could bite my throat off.”

“I don’t have a dog.”

“Really? He’s been following me around all day. He was on my threshold this morning…”

“…Y/N…” he tries to interrupt you, but you don’t let him.

“No! Listen… Thank you for what you did last night. I was really… Thank you. Josh wouldn’t leave and you were most definitely helpful. But let’s be clear, I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself! I don’t need your protection or anything, got it?”

You wonder why he’s smiling now, but he is all the same.

“Got it. Was just trying to be helpful.”

“You were.”

“Good.”

“Good. But your good action doesn’t mean that I’m going to accept any harm coming to this cute dog of yours!”

“I thought he wanted to bite your throat off.”

“He looked like he could. He was pretty sweet, though.”

“Hmmm…”

“Anyway… what’s wrong with you!? Leaving him outside all night and then in the street while it was snowing!?”

“Y/N, relax. I don’t have a dog, let me explain.”

“Then whose dog is it? Cause we have to find his owner, I’m going to throw hands!”

Sirius laughs, his usual, bark-like laugh, and your puzzled by the sound. It resembles a bark even more than usual.

Sirius heaves a sigh, shakes his head, apparently hesitating, but eventually, he takes a step closer.

“You have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone about this.”

“Why?”

“Because if you do, I might be arrested.”

Your eyes grow round.

Oh dear… the…

“…Potion. The potion! You’ve done something illegal with it!”

Sirius laughs again.

“The pearl dust you mean? It’s just a trick for my godson, for Christmas. How do you think the presents get under the tree without anyone carrying them in? The fellow is a rascal, standing watch all night to catch Santa red-handed. We need to get more and more creative each year. No, don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.”

“Oh… but then… what are you talking about?”

“Do you promise that you won’t tell?”

“Have you killed someone?”

“Of course not!”

“I don’t know, you were pretty… scary last night.”

“Did I scare you?”

“No… but Josh was ready to faint.”

He laughs again at that.

“I haven’t harmed anyone.”

“Okay… then, I promise.”

Sirius hesitates some more, before warning you not to freak out. You don’t have time to question him though, he’s already transforming into…

“… the black dog!”

You gasp at the sight, but you don’t back away when Sirius approaches under his animagus form. Instead, you reach out for him, giving him a few scratches between his ears, making him wiggle his tail happily.

“Oh wow… you’re an animagus! This is beautiful…”

He laughs as he changes back into human, the sound still somewhere close to a growl.

“Am I a good boy, then?” he teases, making you laugh. “No need to call for the animal welfare…”

“But… what were you doing around the shop today? And last night? Did you sleep on the porch?”

Sirius averts his eyes, and you have to double-check, but you’re certain that he is blushing right now.

“Ha, that… I didn’t mean to look like a creep or anything. But I… I was worried your ex would come back. Just wanted to check on you, ‘s all. I didn’t follow you around or anything! I just… went to check that you were alright at the shop a few times.”

“Why?”

He looks up at you with a slight frown, as if it is obvious, as if you’re stupid for not guessing.

“Because… I was worried about you.”

“About me?”

“Is it so surprising?”

“You hate me.”

“Again, I don’t hate you. You’re simply annoying the shit out of me. I like it, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

You blink, trying to make sense of all this, and Sirius looks at you with amusement.

“Is that why you were quiet last night? To not bother me?”

“Oh, the boys weren’t here. Busy week. We’ll be back at being insufferable next Friday.”

You roll your eyes at that, but Sirius laughs.

“I’m joking! I understand, okay? We’re too loud. We’ll keep it down from now on.”

“Right, okay…”

He bit his lip, ran a hand through his hair, in what you guess is shyness. God, you would have never thought to use this adjective to describe him. His rings catch the warm light of the fire burning in the hearth as he moves his fingers through his hair.

“Look, I… I’m sorry for the other night. Actually… for all the other nights. We’ll be more careful next time,” he says, and you raise an eyebrow in surprise.

You never thought you would hear an apology from him, even less so an earnest one, and yet…

“Thank you, Sirius. I’m sorry, too. It was petty and uncalled for.”

“No, you… you were right.”

He heaves a frustrated sigh, runs a hand through his long dark curls again, rebel strands falling before his eyes. You hold tightly onto the sleeve of your hoodie, refraining the sudden urge to push the curls away from his face, brush them behind his ear…

“Look, I… I don’t want us to be on bad terms,” Sirius goes on. “Could I make up for being a dickhead by buying you some fancy Christmas drink? My treat. As a token of good faith and a sign for peace in our building?”

He offers you his open palm, and you shake hands with a smile adorning both of your faces.

“Deal.”

“Any afternoon free this week?”

“Wednesday?”

“Then, I’ll buy you the fanciest cocoa I can find. And even some pumpkin pie, if you’re nice.”

“Sounds good.”

You’re reluctant to pull away but have to let go of his hand.

“Actually… scratch that,” Sirius shakes his head. “Would you go on a date with me?”

Your eyes grow round.

“A date? With you?”

“Yeah. On Wednesday?”

“But… with you?”

“Don’t act so surprised. You really think I play bodyguard for just anybody?”

You laugh at that, you can’t help it, even if you’re still quite stunned by the whole situation.

You weight your options, but then you look at him again, and the answer you want to give is obvious, even if he gets on your nerves all the bloody time…

“Okay. A date. On Wednesday.”

He grins, bright and infectious.

“Great! Awesome!”

“Great.”

“Great.”

You remain staring at each other for a moment, both of you trying to hide your excitement, until you finally clear your throat.

“I should…” you begin, pointing at the door.

“Sure… busy day?”

“You can’t imagine.”

“Hmm…”

You hurry towards the door, feeling overwhelmed by his nearness.

“See you on Wednesday then!” he calls after you as you reach for your own door.

“Sure! But it better be the best hot chocolate I’ve drunk, or I’ll ask for a refund!”

He laughs, and when you turn one last time towards him, Sirius is leaning against his doorframe, staring at you with a grin on his lips and mischief painted all over his features. He winks, and your heart skips several beats.

“Oh, don’t worry. You won’t regret this.”

*********************************

Taglist :

@reg-arcturus-black @hells-escapees @omgrachwrites

@wolfmoonmusic

[three-realms-archive]

The Three Realms Archive: Masterlist and Rules!

Welcome to the Three Realms Archive, where you can find stories about the beings that reside in the Three Realms and beyond! Whether it be stories of the Avatars of Sin, the students of Prince Diavolo’s RAD exchange programme, or of the incredible human who became sorcerer under the tutelage of the Wise Sorcerer and Master of the Seven Rulers of the Underworld… You can find their stories here!

Atmospheric introduction aside, welcome to this side blog for writing to do with Obey Me! And Obey Me! Nightbringer. These will most likely be bits and pieces that come to me when they come.

My ideas inbox is currently open (use the ‘Ideas Here!’ tab to send them), but please read the rules below first!!!

This blog is new, so bear with me whilst I work on aesthetics and getting started on writing/uploading some stuff I've written :D

Rules and masterlist under the cut:

Rules and Considerations

Please be kind and respectful to each other!

For personal reasons, this is a non-NSFW blog. Please do not suggest NSFW in the ideas box beyond slightly suggestive - any requests like this will be ignored. I will do my best to place content warnings where I think it's needed.

The ideas inbox is called such because you can be as vague as you want - even a single word. However, it is also called this because they are ideas and - depending on various factors like my schedule, how inspired I am, and how much certain ideas inspire me to write - there is no guarantee I write for every idea, or the same amount for every idea. Thank you for understanding in advance :D

I’m a fairly new OBM player, so if anything I write is contrary to the canon, please let me know and I can add a note or rectify it. Most of these are meant to be “imagine the character in this situation” and my personal interpretation.

Have fun!

Masterlist

🌟Inspired by an ideas inbox request!

Oneshot Fics

Checking In: The House of Lamentation family check into a human-world hotel.

Beware MC, the Kind: Sorcerer MC is gaining a reputation similar to that of their teacher, Solomon the Wise. But for what reasons?

Let's Form an Idol Group: Will Asmo's next attempt at making his brothers into a boy band succeed? (This one has a cute commenting challenge - please check it out!)

Dramatic Drama: Telenovelas can be very emotionally-investing for demons.

🌟A Small, Little Lie: TSL Arranged Marriage! AU. The sentence "I love you" means very different things to the Lord of Masks and his spouse and former-knight, Henry.

Love Me, Or Not: Satan pulls on flower petals, hoping to get the same result you did.

Was Never Your First, After All: A childhood friend visits you and Mammon realises ‘first man’ doesn’t suit him much anymore.

First Dates: A collection of first date thoughts from each Avatar of Sin.

Short Snippets

Ante Up: Mammon finds he's a lot more motivated to win quickly when he's at the casino with you.

The RAD School Play: Ideas about MC’s role in a school play at RAD.

Six Pillows and a Tattered Armchair: An angsty (ref. to Lesson 16) accompaniment to ‘Beel is Pillow’, exploring Belphie’s relationship with sleep in the aftermath of his actions.

The RAD Cheer Squad: 2, 4, 6, 8 - who do we appreciate? … Probably not whoever came up with the RAD Cheer Squad.

What Is Up, Fellow Celestials?: Luke finds this one human really, really cool. MC and Simeon suffer the consequences.

Just Wanting To Be Included: Mammon and Beel post a FabSnap video, but their brother just wants to be included.

Debuting Change: Diavolo invites a special guest to a special occasion.

Just A Study: Solomon tries to convince himself that living with you was just a study. Spoilers for Nightbringer Lesson 40!

Relent: Belphie has a super, super smart plan to get you to cuddle in bed with him.

A Rainy Day Indulgence: Simeon dances with you in the rain, and it reminds him of something.

Headcannons

Unhinged™: A bunch of silly headcanons that could each be their own anime episodes. Chaotic things the OBM! cast have done. Inspired by this post by @leniisreallycool.

Series

Beel is Anything, If You Beel-ieve

A very unserious collection of slice-of-life snippets, where Beel goes on a journey to become as many things as possible.

Beel is Pillow: Beel is pillow.

Beel is Paint: Beel is paint, according to Asmo.

Beel is Anime: Beel is anime, and Levi is not okay with this.

🌟 Scars, Wounds and Minor Inconveniences

A series exploring slice-of-life snapshots of the Obey Me! characters in the aftermath of Lesson 16. Each chapter is made up of two posts: a oneshot centred around one of MC's scars, wounds or minor inconveniences; and a post with the general headcanons inspiring the oneshot. Features references to injury and spoilers for Lesson 16 of OG Obey Me!.

Phantom Pain (Oneshot + Headcannons): Mammon is used to your 'needles-thing' by now. He doesn't mind it. After all, he has his own things he does every now and again.

A Weak Wrist (Oneshot + Headcannons): Your wrist is still weak from the TSL Quiz; so Lucifer doesn’t understand why you trust Leviathan more.

Nightmares (Oneshot + Headcannons): Belphegor relishes you and Beel growing further apart... until he doesn't, when Beel's dreams change.

Splintered Arms and a New Bedtime Routine (Oneshot + Headcannons - Coming Soon!): The angels are confused at the weird routine you and Beel have before bedtime during a sleepover at Purgatory Hall.

Better, Quicker Reflexes (Oneshot + Headcannons - Coming Soon!): Lucifer used to think his form of discipline was effective.

[some-bunniii]

Oh my gosh you write Lucifer SO WELL!! I read your latest artist!reader piece and it's like!! SO GOOD!

First of all, you capture the warm and fuzzy feelings we all have for our dearest Lulu perfectly! The bit where "you could get drunk off his warmth and energy" is like the EXACT feeling I have about him!! Like I just went 'oh shit' out loud because YEAH THAT'S EXACTLY IT!!!

Also Alastor and Lucifer were so funny, Alastor being such a little shit and Luci just unable to see through it because he's so so jealous? Good shit!! You wrote that scene SO WELL, I was like "I can see this in front of my very eyes, it's so canon it's insane".

AND the resulting montage of Lucifer flexing his powers? The scenes switching? The "I'm the King of Hell, now watch what I can do" energy? TOP NOTCH, 100/10, NO NOTES!! I'M IN LOVE

And the rooftop scene, the confession, THE SONG, it's so so perfect. I'm losing it, I'll be re-reading your stuff over and over now.

Thank you so so so much for sharing your writing with us!! The hard work and care you put into it shows!

aAAaaahhh!!! thank you 🙏🤍

i never expected this kind of reaction from my writing and it’s so great to see everyone else enjoying how i view this man 🤭 it really motivates me to keep going like ive got small snippets of part 4 scribbled out in my docs already 🤣

i have more ideas for these two and i want to also include the hotel cast throughout because there’s no way you’re living with these goons and not having fun with em too!

also, almost 300 followers in the first week of being on this app?! mwah 💋 mwah 💋

stay tuned, my swans! 🦢

[the-guilty-writer]

What's in a Nickname?

Request: from @doctorsteeb

Okay okay one more in case the last one was too specific—

Rossi!daughter coming home from college or from traveling abroad?

David Rossi x daughter!reader

Summary: A stop by your dad’s office leaves the BAU with a few questions… Some of them are more sentimental than others.

A/N: I couldn’t not write this after the idea popped into my head and this request gave me free reign to work with. If you didn’t look up what the nickname was for the reader in my other recent rossi!daughter fic you will know by the end. And yes, this nickname will absolutely stick for rossi!daughter reader from here on out unless I get a specific request not to include it because we all know if Rossi had a daughter this nickname would be canon.

CW: lots of italian... like I went a bit overboard on this one so here are translations: rompere le scatole = literal translation is “to break boxes” but it is slang for getting on someone’s nerves. Non avere peli sulla lingua = literal translation is “not to have hair on the tongue” which is slang for tell the truth. la goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso = literal translation for “drop that made the vase overflow” equating to the straw that broke the camel's back. Ti voglio bene = “I love you” used for family and close friends. Mio passerotta… you’ve gotta read until the end to find this one out for yourself.

---

“I never thought I would actually miss sitting in traffic,” you said, a smile on your face.

You were finally home after a semester abroad in Jamaica. Having always lived in a city, it was nice to be close to the ocean and wildlife and small towns, but after five months you were ready to return to the concrete jungle that was Washington, DC.

Your dad, on the other hand, was rather grumpy about the back up on the highway. “I’ll remind you of that next week when you say that the traffic is rompere le scatole.” He looked down at his watch and hesitated. “Do you mind if I-”

“Stop by the office?” You finished for him. You didn’t hate the idea of stopping by work with your dad, but you would have much rather gone home to eat a nice warm meal.

“If it’s not okay I understand,” he said. “Non avere peli sulla lingua.”

For a second, you thought about his words. “It’s fine,” you told him, then held out a singular finger. “But only if you make pasta tonight.” David Rossi might have been a master at hostage negotiation, but you were a master at dinner negotiation.

“Certo, mio passerotta,” he said as he turned onto the exit towards Quantico.

---

“Hey,” Derek walked into the bullpen, a cup of coffee in his hands even though it was nearly 5 PM. “Anyone know who is in Rossi’s office?”

“Rossi, I assume,” Emily said. She glanced up at the open office door where you were sitting. “Well that’s definitely not Rossi.”

“Maybe she’s a groupie?” JJ suggested.

“I don’t think a groupie would have made it past security,” said Reid without looking up from his book.

“BAU team,” Hotch walked into the bullpen with a file in hand, Rossi in tow, and Garcia trailing closely behind. “We have a case.”

The rest of the team headed to the conference room, but Rossi walked to his office to deliver the news to you that pasta might not be happening that night.

---

“You’re sure this is okay with you?” Your dad asked. “I don't want this to be la goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso-”

You cut him off with a wave of your hand. “I'm sure. Pasta can happen another night. Stopping a serial killer cannot.”

The team filed out of the conference room- the case was an emergency one, which meant the full briefing would be done on the jet, but they couldn’t help overhear the conversation you were having with your father.

“Ti voglio bene, papa.” You wrapped him in a hug.

He returned it, holding you tight. “Ti voglio bene, mio passerotta.”

You had to pry yourself out of your father’s arms to get him to let go. With a kiss on the forehead and a reminder not to drink his expensive wine, he sent you on your way home and went into his office to pack up his briefcase.

“Rossi has a daughter?” Emily smiled a bit and looked around at Morgan, Reid, JJ, and Garcia in confusion. “Did any of you know?”

“I had no idea,” JJ said as she and the rest of the team watched you leave.

“What’s everyone looking at?” Hotch said from behind them as he exited his office. They all startled at their boss’s sudden appearance.

“Rossi’s daughter that none of us knew existed,” Garcia admitted, still surprised.

“Oh yes, that’s (Y/N),” Hotch said. “She’s been studying abroad but decided to spend this summer with Dave instead of her mother.”

“Which wife?” Morgan joked.

“Actually, her mother is a close friend from college.” Rossi said. Once again, the team jumped in surprise. “We both wanted a kid, but she didn’t want to deal with too many lawyers and I didn’t want to deal with someone not understanding that I have an inflexible job. It worked out for both of us. Now if we’re done talking about my personal life, I think we have a murderer to catch.”

Rossi and Hotch walked out of the bullpen, leaving the team to stand around awkwardly for just a moment before remembering they had a flight to catch.

---

The case was fast and successful, but after being awake for nearly 24 hours straight most of the team was asleep- all except for Reid and Prentiss who were playing chess in the most quiet corner of the jet.

“How’d you know she was his daughter?” Reid asked as he moved his queen.

“It was a pretty easy inference,” said Emily as she calculated her next move, carefully watching how Reid had strategically placed his knights. She captured one. “She called him papa. I figured she had to be his daughter.”

“What does it mean?” Reid moved a bishop forward.

“What does what mean?” Emily moved one of her pieces without thinking.

Reid captured a pawn in her confusion. “He called her mio passerotta. You smiled when he said her nickname. What does it mean?”

Emily’s mouth twitched slightly up at one corner and moved a rook before leaning back in her seat. “My sparrow,” she said, a melancholy tone to her voice. “Mio passerotta means ‘my sparrow.’”

Reid looked down, a small smile gracing his face before going back to the board and putting Emily’s king in check with a move his mentor had used against him many years before.

[boinin]

Blue Lock in Japan fandom diary

I was in Japan for my holidays, which was incredible—it's somewhere I dreamed of visiting for a long time, and it lived up to every expectation.

I'll talk a little bit about my experience from a Blue Lock fan perspective, as it's something that interested me prior to going. April 2024 was a good time to visit, thanks to the Episode Nagi film coming out. There was a lot of pop-up cafés/collabs open, and no shortage of merchandise.

In Harajuku's Takeshita Street, there were a series of banners/pendants for the new film, featuring all the main characters. There were also digital ads for Episode Nagi in a few places—I recall the trailer playing at Shibuya Crossing (which is exactly as surreal and overwhelming a place as I'd imagined).

Rambling and pics under the cut, including gacha machines, stores, general anecdotes and my merch haul.

In case anyone's uncomfortable seeing IRL pics, be warned there's couple shots of my hand below. No face reveals 😛

Gacha

So, gacha machines are EVERYWHERE in Tokyo and other cities, often randomly in the street, but also in dedicated stores. The biggest selection tended to be in arcades or shopping centres. Akihabara had a few big ones (Gigo comes to mind), but I found multiple. And Blue Lock is really well represented! There's loads of stuff to waste money on, from little acrylic keychains to small figures to... tiny cushions with characters' faces on them 👀

One minor annoyance is that the gacha merch for a fandom doesn't tend to be grouped in one place, so you spend a lot of time wandering around stacks of machines squinting at their content. Only one store I visited in Osaka had all the Blue Lock stuff grouped together.

In general, most of the machines are priced between ¥300 and ¥500 a spin (€1.80 to €3.00 at time of writing), so it's reasonably affordable unless you're a completionist set on collecting ALLL the merch.

Much of what's in the gacha machines is seasonal, so it's worth snapping up anything that you like while it's there. That said, I found a few stores selling same season or older gacha merch at a markup. The most expensive ones were older merch/limited edition, which can cost many multiples of what you'd pay originally. Other places (like Ani Ani) sell current gacha merch at a small markup. I was able to buy a Rin to finish a seasonal collection for only ¥100 more than I'd pay at a machine, which saved me whatever multiple of ¥300 I'd have paid on spins to get him in addition to the four others.

Throughout the trip I saw the same gacha content over and over again in various places. Specifically for Blue Lock, you don't generally have to worry about throwing money at the first set of machines you find or risk missing out. That said, one regret of mine was passing on some really cute gacha figs of the Bllk boys in casual clothes on a street on Akihabara, which I never saw anywhere else.

There's also heaps of claw machines in similar locations, which mostly had figures of Nagi and Reo in their Hakuho uniform.

Pop-up stores/collabs and merch stores

Blue Lock is well represented in cafés/pop ups. This is likely due to the EpiNagi film releasing this month, but with some research beforehand, you'll likely find a venue should you wish to get some Bllk themed food/venue exclusive goodies. Be warned—many of these will require a reservation, and they book out quickly. That's the case for most of the fandom cafés. If it's a must-do for your trip, research a venue before you go and try booking a slot if you can.

I only went to one myself, which was a place in Harajuku that did Blue Lock themed drinks. I chose Nagi's, which looked mysteriously black on the menu. It turned out to be tea with lemon flavoured jelly—tasty and canon inspired! I also got a free card of Bachira, which the store assistant handed to me at random. This was overpriced at ¥800 (€4.77) compared to what you'd pay normally in Japan for a drink, but that's the branding mark-up. In comparison, a bottle of soda, tea or coffee from a vending machine costs on average around ¥150 (€0.90).

Regarding stores, there was a Blue Lock pop-up in Ikebukuro in an electronics store which had SO many acrylic stands and plushes. A lot of this was bishounen/pretty boy appreciation material for each of the characters. Think stands of the boys smiling handsomely at the camera in various outfits.

At time of writing, merch tends to feature just the characters from season 1 of the anime, specifically the Egoist Four, Nagi, Reo, Rin and Sae. I saw little for the other characters, and next to nothing for manga-only charas. My favourite manga character find was a sticker of Hiori, which has subsequently gone missing amidst the chaos of unpacking 🥲 If it turns up, I'll add a picture. Found it!

In terms of spots for Blue Lock merch, Ikebukuro and Akihabara were the best and most concentrated. Akihabara gives tourist trap vibes, but if you're willing to navigate every nook and cranny plus the crowds on the hunt for blorbos, you'll almost certainly find merch to your taste.

Ani Ani in Akihabara was pretty good for BLLK, and excellent in general for its selection of fandom merch. Smaller shops have more niche content, which is great if you favour side characters.

Ikebukuro has a more chill vibe than Akihabara (less tourists) but still a decent selection of fandom merch. Hands down the best spot for Blue Lock on my trip was the Animate store there (pictured above), which had five or six shelves just for our favourite football prisoners. Lots of plushes as you can see, but also things like clear files, acrylic stands, keychains, stickers, pins and more. Again, big focus on pretty boy appreciation, but there were also cutesy things like chibi figures/stickers. There's also heaps there for other animanga fandoms.

Animate Ikebukuro had the Blue Lock fragrances! I only sniffed a couple of these—both Isagi and Kunigami's were reminiscent of blue shower gel, but with woody notes in Kunigami's case. Chigiri's fragrance was more floral and fruity. They cost somewhere between ¥7000 to ¥8000 I think (around €45ish).

In addition, Harajuko has a lot of anime stuff along Takeshita Street, but the selection can be hit or miss. I found two shops there that were reselling Blue Lock goods (things like gacha figs and limited edition merch). These could be pricey, but these were the best for cute/older Chigiri and Kunigami merch IMO.

Snacks

Again, availability may relate to the timing of anime releases etc, but I tried a bunch of BLLK snacks in Japan. The most common type were these chocolate wafers, which you could get cheaply in convenience stores for loads of different shounen fandoms (I recall seeing One Piece, JoJo and MHA). The wafers themselves were mid, but the packaging was cute and you get a free sticker or card in each. I managed to get a Kunigami card on my first try 🥹

"Slowbar" is like a protein or granola bar. Again nothing to write home about taste-wise, but I saw a few with Bllk packaging. Go figure, I bought one that had Kunigiri. No freebies, but it was a more substantial snack than the wafers.

My merch haul

Here's what came home with me! It's modest as far as fandom hauls go, particularly next to all the stuff I bought in the Pokémon centres. I didn't go as nuts as I thought I would, but the gacha machines definitely put a dent in my bank account. They're fun, but should be treated with caution by anyone who likes owning complete sets of things.

Close up of gacha figs, minus Rin + the bonus Chigiri I picked up on.

I ended up spending around ¥3000 (about €18) to get the full set of sleeping figs (including duplicates). Spent around the same to get the sleeping bag figs, then at least half that again on Chigiri's when I spotted him at a resale store (he's from a previous release).

As a result of my gacha spree, I have a bunch of duplicates 🥲 It would be a shame to bin 'em, so might do an interest check to see if anyone's interested in taking them off my hands.

These are the cards/Zantetsu sticker I got from the combini wafers, the Bachira card from the juice café, plus a random cushion of Rin from a gacha machine. It's way too small to be practical, but still cute.

I bought the two Kunigiri chibi plushes at a resale store for ¥3000 altogether. Chigiri was twice the price of Kunigami, lmao.

Kitty!giri came with a little sleepy eyemask. As soon as I saw him, I had to have him. Bought him at Ani Ani in Akihabara for ¥2500 I think? (€15 approx). They had kitty Isagis and Bachiras too.

Now for a story: there's a gacha series out now which has gold rings featuring the names of the main BLLK cast + Aryu. I swore not to buy any of these, cos it's a little self-shippy; no shame in that, but it's not really my bag. I also dislike gold jewellery.

Relatedly, partner and I just decided to get married, and half-talked about looking for a engagement ring in Japan before we travelled.

So. A few weeks later, while wandering around Harajuku, partner walks back to me after disappearing for two minutes. They hold out a gacha capsule with a shit eating grin—"Hey, got ya something!"

I shit you not: not only was it one of the stupid rings, but out of eight choices, they managed to pull Kunigami's 😭 I laughed/despaired for about five minutes. Partner was amused.

I don't have small hands (¥100 for scale); Ringsuke loosely fits my baby finger but gets stuck on my ring finger if I shove it on past the bottom knuckle. Based off my own measurements, the BLLK rings are probably around 50-53 mm in size (Japan size 12 maybe). It's surprisingly good quality for a ¥400 capsule machine prize.

So yeah: that's how this Kunigiri stan ended up with an ill-fitting engagement ring with her favourite blorbo's name on it 🙃 ...I'll get a proper one eventually, and Kitty!giri will inherit Ringsuke. Y'all are about the only people I'm ever admitting this story to.

Finally, my favourite purchase is these two acrylic stands of Chigiri and Kunigami, with pop ups of their stats. I'm not big on acrylic stands generally, but this was one of my favourite official art releases and I couldn't pass it up. They were ¥1800 (€11) apiece in a Harajuku resale store—probably more expensive than their original sale price, but I'm not complaining.

That's about it, I think! I've tried to recall as much detail as I can about places/prices here, but happy to provide more info if anyone's curious about anything—just ask!

[08melancholie]

Hello! As the Micah Bell HQ and CEO do u have any hcs/analysis on his dynamic & backstory with cleet + joe? How they met, their interactions, reaction to cleet running off, etc. Have a nice day xoxo

Joe, Cleet and Micah.

As the Micah Bell HQ and CEO, I have a few ideas and headcannons about them and the relationship between Micah, Cleet and Joe and their backstory.

And of course, a warning; spoilers for RDR2 and RDR1.

1. Meeting.

2. Backstory.

3. "Joseph" Joe and Cleet

4. Micah's gang

5. Epilogue.

6. Headcannons and Thoughts.

I'll also add information about the topics I talk about, so you can actually use this as another info post like my 'writing Micah' one.

First things first; my analysis and sum of the canon information.

1. Meeting.

We meet Cleet and Joe in the final chapter as Arthur, which is Chapter 6: "Beaver Hollow" at the start of the mission "My Last Boy".

Around Dutch's tent are Micah, Joe, Cleet and Dutch himself when Arthur interrupts, asking who the two men are. In response, Micah say that "We need guns for what's coming", that Cleet and Joe know how to fight and how "it's lucky Micah bumped into 'em". Arthur's response to this is asking Dutch what's going on and what's happening to them; what's happening to Dutch himself. Micah asks Arthur to "show Dutch some respect", and before things can escalate, Eagle Flies interrupts the conversation to ask Arthur, Dutch and anyone that would like to join in to ride with him into their war—which starts the mission gameplay and ends the cutscene.

We don't find out anything about these two men when we meet them, other than their names and skills with firearms, and that they're needed "for whats coming".

2. Backstory.

Per Micah's word, he only came affiliated with Joe and Cleet recently in Chapter 6, having 'bumped into them' and deemed them good enough to help out with whatever next was coming for the gang. Joe and Cleet however, don't seem very close to Micah at all. They don't talk to Micah in camp, seemingly just doing their own thing and practically ignoring the other man. I think that's a very interesting and overlooked detail, seeing as they're supposed to be at least kind-of close to each other if there really is trust between Micah, enough to invite the two men into the gang, but maybe not.

3. "Joseph" Joe and Cleet.

Joe, full name Joseph, is recruited by Micah for the US army train robbery, like Cleet. Joe was definitely more loyal to Micah in comparison to Cleet, seeing as he stayed with Micah until his end; being shot down by John while he was climbing up Mount Hagen to get to Micah. I don't have much more information, as the two of them are very minimal characters in the game.

Cleet wasn't as loyal as Joe and he had more empathy than Joe did, seeing as he left Micah after the killings of that one family with the little girl he had tried saving. If his whole story about that is true, then we know that Cleet was a lot more 'human' than his companion Joe.

With that out of the way, a small fun-fact to fill a gap;

Cleet and Joe each have a tattoo on their chest which says "tout me fait rire", French for "Everything makes me laugh". Cleets' tattoo is a bit more hidden by his neckerchief, but Joe's is more open. This is very interesting and it actually gives us a bit more about their characters; Joe seems more proud of it whereas Cleet hides it, which makes me think it was the formers' idea to get those, and it also shows that they had a strong enough bond for a matching tattoo. Also, they might know French! So that's really cool tbh...

4. Micah's gang.

After the fall-out of the Van der Linde gang, Micah starts up his own gang which includes Cleet—for a while—and Joe. They commit a mass of crime in their path like robbery and murder, which sometimes included dismemberment. Micah himself has taken a massive amount of lives, estimated to be up to two dozen people. His gang becomes very feared by that time, and you can find newspaper talking about it; saying that Micah's horrid actions "rival that of Van der Linde himself".

Cleet fell out of Micah's gang when he killed an entire family during an attack on a homestead at some point between 1899 and 1907. Upon trying to murder a little girl in that assault, Cleet attempted to save her; to which Micah responded by attempting to kill Cleet himself, before Cleet got away.

At some point around 1907, Dutch Van der Linde joined hands with Micah once more to retrieve the money in Blackwater from the botched ferry robbery in 1899.

5. Epilogue

After finding out about Cleet's whereabouts, Sadie visits John at Beechers Hope and gets him to go with her to finish Micah off. Sadie leads Charles and John to the town of Strawberry to find Cleet, who they interrogate while threatening with the rope. He's made to talk by John and Sadie as they stand close-by the level which leads to Cleet's death, if the player chooses to go down that path. He tells us that Micah is up on Mount Hagen, and how he's got a whole gang now. Cleet pleads his case by telling us he tried to stop Micah murdering a family containing a little girl which let to Micah attempting to murder Cleet, before he 'luckily' got away.

Depending on the player's choice, Cleet either gets hanged in front of a small crowd of Valentine residents, or is shot by Sadie.

With the information from Cleet, Sadie, Charles and John set out to into the snow and mountains once more, where the events of RDR2 start. They ride to Mount Hagen when Sadie and Charles get injured, which then leaves John—the player—to fight off Micah's gang on his own. John is almost immediately confronted by Joe and two unknown gang members. After a short talk, John shoots all three down before continuing his way towards Micah. John climbs up the mountain, shooting down any and all of Micah's gang members in the process until he finds Micah at the top before a cabin, and the two quickly get into a shootout where Sadie manages to surprise Micah from behind and holds him at gunpoint. Micah holsters his guns in surrender, but before anything else can happen, Dutch exits the nearby cabin to reveal himself, and aims his revolvers at Sadie and John. In a moment of surprise, Sadie is overpowered by Micah, and the only thing that 'saves' them is Dutch's betrayal of Micah by fatally shooting him in the torso to which Micah says his infamous line: "You shot me pretty good", before being finished off by the player/John.

By the end of the mission, Micah is shot to his death by the mutual effort of Dutch and John, with the former leaving the scene alive until the events of RDR1 transpire.

6. Headcannons and Thoughts.

Finally, what you've been waiting to hear; my thoughts.

First, I want to start at the background—I have a hard time believing Micah didn't know Cleet and Joe prior to events of Beaver Hollow. It's hard for me to even imagine Micah so freely and carelessly introducing two random men he just met into the gang; which is why I'm even more surprised by Dutch who allowed it. It feels very uncharacteristically stupid and risky for Micah's persona, which is why I feel like he already knew Cleet and Joe, but for some reason kept everyone in the dark about it. Maybe he didn't want to be accused of 'doing things behind Dutch's back' like he did for Arthur once Eagle Flies said so during "My Last Boy".

As far as the backstory between the two men and Micah goes, I think there was a lot more to it than randomly stumbling into them one day in 1899—I personally think Cleet and Joe were somewhat similar to what Norman, known as 'Skinny', was to Micah; old acquaintances he used to run with. The only difference was that Micah knew they wouldn't rat on him like Norman did, and so he probably got them in on his entire plan with Dutch and the rest of the gang, maybe even paid them because he knew that, in the end, things would have gone his way, regardless of what happened in-between or as result of his choices of action.

Another detail, one I already mentioned; Cleet and Joe aren't around Micah much inside camp. As I said in my second point, "Backstory", Joe and Cleet spend little to no free time with Micah like you'd expect them to be. That's another part which confuses me. If my previous theory were true, of them knowing one-another beforehand, then I'd expect them to actually be talking to each other and not doing their own stuff. So, why does it seem as if they're ignoring each other? That's where I wish Cleet and Joe weren't minimal characters, because I'm very curious about them and how their relation to Micah was in the game and story.

As far as Cleet running off and leaving Micah's gang goes, I don't think it bothered Micah too much. His gang was full of strong, capable men—just like he's always envisioned for himself. Losing one member over murdering one person, albeit an innocent little girl, just showed Micah that Cleet was more 'weak-minded', and I think that that was actually a positive in Micah's head; it showed him who was too 'weak' in his gang. You could almost call the action a small test. Again, they didn't seem to be so close to Micah, so both Joe and Cleet running off/dying likely didn't mean so much to Micah, at least not after he knew he had the backs and lives of an entire gang in his hands.

Thank you for the lovely ask, anon! I had a lot of fun with gathering all the information and with sharing my own thoughts about Cleet, Joe and their relations to Micah. It's been a pleasure answering, as always.

Sources <3

Joe and Cleet — Villains Wiki

Joe — Separate Wiki

Cleet — Separate Wiki

"My Last Boy" Mission

[dukeoftheblackstar]

got any plo koon fic recs? looking for some new stuff that's good. one shots and long fics welcome! I'll take anything i can get

Shamelessly promoting my own:

Dom!Plo ask by yours truly, submitted by the lovely @mild-disorganization

Some tired dad!Plo headcanons maybe?

And for some that I have read and adored:

Plo Koon Masterlist by @my-head-is-an-animal (Mixed)

Thigh Kink with Plo by @saradika (NSFW)

Not a fic, but hella spice by @saradika (SFW & NSFW)

Friendship - Plo Koon & Wolffe by @wild-karrde (SFW)

PloKit Art (their entire blog) by @uiro-mgmg1 (NSFW - mostly art)

SFW & NSFW Alphabets for Plo by @samspenandsword

My favorite ♥:

Sovereign (PloKit, idk if you're into it, but I am) by @tits-fisto (NSFW but very wholesome)

The Tiniest Councilor by Quiet_Shadow (SFW)

Name and Soul by @decepticonsensual (SFW)

Haven't read but is on queue when I have the mood and will power to actually read and not thirst for our Kel Dor Emperor ♥

of claws and tusks by my bestiecakes ♥ @saengak <- Apparently, it's hella angsty and I reserve the angst for weekend when I'm not out here thirsting for this King.

in deditionem by my bestiecakes ♥ @saengak <- I've seen them write ♥, it makes me squeeeeeeee ♥

Helium by @cynderiaopus who also made my current bomb AF pfp of Plo steepling ♥

Other materials and interesting read:

@exosorcery has very interesting comics and posts about Kel Dors in general. Here's one specific of Plo Koon:

A few faves from them:

@veny-many for their AUs and Plo Koon & Wolfpack Art (also includes others) <- Presenting you the bebbis ♥

My faves:

The entire post AU 66 where Plo lives is a quintessential to any post AU 66 imho because I'm heavily invested in this and I'm about to cry because I need to organize my bookmarks (and update this) so I can give you the proper start to fin link.

I'd post more from @veny-many and @exosorcery, but if you spend a good 10 minutes scrolling, you'll be there forever. Quality art content!

You may also want to check World building and ConLang Kel Dor study, apart from their OC x Plo Koon art. Big thanks for this neat document by @plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows

[[ @plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows I hope it's okay to share. If not, I can take it down ♥ ]]

So far just these at the top of my head. Thank you for the Plo-related ask :D! I enjoyed sifting through my bookmarks ♥

Don't forget to give love and reblog, comment, follow these amazing people who do so much for the Plo Koon, Dorin, Kel Dor tags ♥

[wheeljack-boom]

Entropy

The entirety of this can be found here.

I've posted numerous bits and pieces before for fun, but this is the initial piece of writing I did several years ago. Only recently have I gone back to it and decided to keep writing, despite it initially being intended as a one-shot. Originally when I wrote this years ago I was inspired by the way the 5th Doctor meets Amy Pond. Don't know why, but here we are. It was a bug I couldn't get out of my head.

No warnings. Cybertronian/Human relationships. Platonic only, but lots and lots of fluff. Human is an AFAB original character. Non-canon AU.

Like clockwork, the earth’s moon rose high into the atmosphere, a burning white disk of reflected solar energy that bathed the terran landscape in cool white light. The tidally locked piece of rock, perpetually circling the organic planet in the solar system designated 876B, was itself a consistent reminder of the passage of time. It was predictable, and observable with all the reliability of a Cybertronian energon flux. The earth’s entropy relied solely on its inhabitants and its ever-changing climate, but never its predictable partner in the black. Order, and its close approximate chaos, were two parts of the same spectrum, just as the order of the cosmos inhabited the same plane of reality as the chaos of the living, changing planet.

Chaos was the friend of the large, robotic mass now currently trying to navigate through the relative quiet and darkness of what was usually a place thrumming with life. Chaos was what he thrived on; it breathed creativity and ingenuity and change, and that was something that heralded some of the greatest scientific discoveries of order and truth. The order of the cosmos, sometimes got very dull.

Now, however, the particular bit of chaos that Wheeljack found himself in was nothing if not unsettling.

Wheeljack’s joints groaned with a subtle whir as he moved, the transformium paneling on his legs shifting and one shoulder wheel spinning slowly as he crept forward through the darkness. The Autobot scientist was suddenly very self-conscious that he was out in the open, vulnerable and undisguised in his much more conspicuous bipedal form. A collection of small buildings surrounded him, but none of them even came close to his own height, so he had to duck slightly as he crept his way through to his target: the human power station.

The surrounding landscape was only inhabited by a scattering of human agricultural settlements, so the night hours afforded Wheeljack some privacy without having to worry about being seen. It still made him uncomfortable however, as every movement he made seemed uncharacteristically loud even to his own audio receptors. Every scan he omitted could potentially be picked up by human equipment, including their own military base some miles away, but the Autobot took care to be brief. His audible presence, and to some extent his invisible presence could be easily explained away, but his visual presence was not something that the dominant organic life forms knew existed. Quite simply, if a human saw him, the probability that they would react poorly was quite high.

With this in mind, the large Autobot moved carefully in the black, mindful of the way the moon highlighted his white armor panels. His glowing blue optics were soft and searching in the dark, but were obvious markers of his presence as he awkwardly tried to retain a quiet, steady pace to his destination. He dimmed their brightness, but didn’t expect it would make much difference. He wasn’t exactly outfitted for camouflage; he wasn’t a soldier per say, but necessity never particularly cared for those details. The open night sky above him was filled with more stars than what he remembered seeing on Cybertron, but he couldn’t take the desired time to admire their scientific wonderment. Wheeljack was practically a glow stick against the inky black, illuminated with the night’s natural ambiance.

A nearby sound startled the large form, and he froze, ducking his head as the soft thrum of machinery reacted to his sudden movements. He wasn’t entirely sure what he would do if he got caught sneaking around. Current positioning was too tight to transform, unless he wanted some sort of catastrophic misalignment on his way down; wouldn’t that be fun. His only option was to duck harder, maybe make himself less obvious and a visual illusion in the darkness—human eyes weren’t always reliable unaided at night—but at roughly two dozen feet in height and made out of living metal, that wouldn’t really do much. He waited a few minutes longer, systems and venting cycles stilled until he was satisfied with the lack of movement in his immediate vicinity. His destination was so close, and a sudden urgency overcame him as he vented the air he’d been holding inside his chassis.

The central power grid for the immediate human population center sat before him, relatively small, but about the right size one might expect for a settlement of this size. It would do for what he needed: that being the desperately sought out energy reserves him and his fellow Autobots required to keep their shielding running. So far from home, on an alien planet, stranded and functioning at not even half capacity with a skeleton crew, they could not synthesize energon themselves. Wheeljack had developed a process—unbeknownst to a certain Prime that would highly disapprove—that could convert the electrical currents from human power grids into a slightly lower grade energon. It would do to keep them functioning and protected, but it would require more in terms of sheer volume to do the job that a fraction of naturally occurring energon could. This was a stop-gap that wouldn’t last for long, and eventually he’d have to come clean to Prime and the rest of the Ark crew that he was using human resources.

Wheeljack was one of the most brilliant Autobot scientists to ever live, possibly the only one left, and this organic planet had him scrambling for scraps and drastically understocked of supplies needed to carry out any idea he might have. He was trapped and didn’t know what else to do, but the other Autobots were looking to him for an answer. He could deal with the truth later, and Primus willing, would have enough time to come up with a means of synthesizing what they needed without stealing it from the native life forms. Until then, it was his secret, and the most they had to know was that he figured out a purely practical way to produce a lower-quality brew that could at least tie them over.

The main power conduit was just on the other side of a chain link fence. Wheeljack stopped just short of it and crouched. He didn’t even have to climb over the tiny barricade. He could just reach in and take what he needed.

This gave the Autobot pause. It felt wrong, but Wheeljack was disconcerted with how this was becoming easier to justify in the name of survival. Theft, and deception was not something the Autobots did. It was one of the many things they had fought against when trying to save their planet; when they had failed. What he was about to do was something that was typically more associated with the Decepticons, the other side of the war that had proved to be too relentless. Even the more morally reprehensible acts the Autobots had engaged in—out of necessity and against their very nature—could not even compare to the atrocities committed by the opposing faction. Driving them off their planet was not enough. Now, the lingering impact of being alone and crippled was a continuing punishment, but even then, to the Decepticons it was not enough. They followed their evacuation, lurking somewhere out in the shadows of the cosmos, waiting for one Autobot misstep that would give away their location.

Survival however, was a drive that was strong not just amongst organics, and the Autobots would not survive without energon. That much was simple. They would either go offline from malnourishment, suffer catastrophic injuries that were beyond repair without the life-giving blood of their species, or be blown apart by the Decepticons once their shielding failed and they were finally found. Energon was used for just about every component of Cybertronian life; it was little wonder that its availability and the fight to appropriate the dwindling resource would bring about their ultimate downfall. The Autobot scientist had no other choice.

Wheeljack carefully reached an arm towards the main conduit but paused. Doubt and fear nagged at him. As soon as he started syphoning power there would be no going back. Their presence would be detected, and even if the humans didn’t immediately determine what was happening, it would still open up many questions.

Their existence was probably going to be detected soon enough anyway, Wheeljack reasoned. Either the Decepticons would find this backwater planet and make themselves known, or force the Autobots to make themselves known preemptively. It was a matter of when.

Reaching back over the fence, Wheeljack sub-spaced the minute form of an energon cube. As he edged it closer to the power source, its programming cycled through the myriad of commands Wheeljack had dictated to it. It expanded as a series of bicortex nanotubes took root into the human machinery. The cube started to glow, pulsing as it grew with the energon that began to trickle into it, filtering through the anchored piping that had now weaved its way into the cracks and entry ports of the central power conduit.

There was a brief hiss, which turned into a low hum that seemed to emanate around Wheeljack, growing in intensity as the energon cube increased in mass and brightness. It was working, and as the few lights around him started to power down without the sufficient energy flow to feed them, Wheeljack felt a sense of guilt.

“Well, not like I can put it all back now...” He muttered to himself, looking at his prize. Like the ancient human story of Prometheus stealing fibre… I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble—

A sudden ping on his internal com system alerted him to an additional presence attempting to make contact. It was like a prickling into his awareness, a sudden sense of no longer being alone in his own head and it made him jump with a start. Nobody was supposed to know what he was up to, much less where he was, and if they were contacting him on his com link rather than searching him out that meant they knew he wasn’t in the Ark.

“Wheeljack.” The voice pressed. It was abrupt, and sounded very, very annoyed.

“Ratchet!” It was the Ark’s chief medical officer, which also meant Wheeljack was about to get an audio full of whatever had Ratchet’s temper up this time. It was usually him anyway, so he was used to it. Whenever Wheeljack wasn’t in Ratchet’s med-bay partially blown apart, melted, electrocuted or otherwise incapacitated in some way of his own doing, Ratchet usually found other things to get angry about.

“What are you doing?” Ratchet sighed with the typical tone of resignation, as if he was expecting Wheeljack to attempt to lie his way through this. Sadly, that had been exactly what he was about to do.

“I was uh—”

“Save it. I know what you’re doing, I’m not stupid. I’m on Teletraan-1 right now watching you syphon off that power.” Ratchet of course meant he was detecting the energy fluctuations resulting from Wheeljack’s theft on the Ark’s central monitoring system. Wheeljack hadn’t even thought of that...

“We need this more than they do. They can just build a fire or something.”  Wheeljack knew the absurdity of his statement was reason enough for Ratchet’s impending incredulity but he was out of excuses. He hadn’t even thought of one to begin with.

“Primus help me, you can’t be serious.” There was an exasperated ripple that pulsed through their psychic com link. “That isn’t the point, Wheeljack. For one thing, stealing from the humans was expressly forbidden by Prime.”

“Don’t tell Optimus.” Wheeljack faltered. Not out of fear, as Optimus Prime was not the type to heavily punish his subordinates. It was shame, because then he would know that Wheeljack had let him down… No one wanted to let Optimus Prime down.

“Just get back here before someone else sees you.” Ratchet said tersely, as Wheeljack quickly retracted the now-full energon cube. It detached from the human power structure with a crackle of energy, a few errant drops of white-hot energon showering the ground as he subspaced the cube for travel.

“Alright, I’m comin’, nobody’s around for miles—” Wheeljack turned quickly, internals thrumming as he prepared to make a hasty retreat, but he froze mid-crouch. He was not alone.

Ratchet’s voice continued in his audio receptors. “Right, they may not be there now, but you know they have their own scanners and sensors, weak and understandably inferior as they may be, but they’re certainly enough to figure out that someone is stealing something—and Wheeljack are you even listening to me?”

He was listening, but Wheeljack had a far more immediate concern, offsetting Ratchet’s yammering to ambient noise. His entire body tingled with the intense need to flee, but he remained rooted to the spot.

“Wheeljack, are you still there? What are you doing? You need to get out of there.” There was a pause. “Primus, Wheeljack. Please, tell me nobody has seen you.”

“Somebody sees me.” Wheeljack responded slowly, his optics locked on the new development in front of him.

It was a small, tiny human being. It stood there, quiet and still, its optics locked on Wheeljack’s. There was an immediate hiss from within his processor as their joined com link was overcome with an exponential amount of creative expletives.

“How do you know?!”

“It’s lookin’ right at me…”

“Is it a threat?”

“I...don’t think so. No.”

“Then deal with it, and extract yourself immediately.” Ratchet severed the link, not so much out of anger, but sheer panic and necessity; self-preservation dictated that it was better to not take the chance in assuming humans couldn’t sense their link and track it to the source, but Wheeljack highly doubted that was true, at least with what he currently faced.

Ratchet’s more immediate demand of dealing with the threat was upsetting, the implied action behind it vague enough that it made Wheeljack feel queasy. The humans weren’t a threat, at least he didn’t think so, and the one that was looking at him now didn’t seem to be dangerous at all. Ratchet had megacycles more field experience than Wheeljack, however. The decisions the medic would have had to make on the battlefield were beyond Wheeljack’s desire to contemplate.

This wasn’t a battlefield however, and this did not appear to be a soldier.

It made a noise, much like a soft venting of air, but it was small-sounding and very much unthreatening if the way the small human’s optics were casually locked onto him was any indication. This didn’t stop Wheeljack from recoiling back in alarm, the noise startling him out of his frozen state and right back through the small fence and into the very power conduit he had just been stealing from.

As if things couldn’t get any worse for him, the entire structure came crashing down under his sheer weight. Whatever light or electrical device was still working with what power he’d left behind was now out, and would be for miles. The noise was staggeringly loud from cables, wires and metal panels piling on top of him as he scrambled to get upright. Eons spent on the battlefields of Cybertron had conditioned Wheeljack against his very nature to always be prepared to fight for his survival, so he’d gotten rather good at picking himself back up. Nearly offlining himself in his own lab on a daily basis certainly kept him well-practiced.

This wasn’t a Cybertron battlefield, and this wasn’t his lab, so as soon as Wheeljack was upright he quickly processed every nano-inch of his surroundings. His urgency was only matched by his concern for the human. Firstly, he feared that it had gotten hurt in such a display of uncoordinated prowess, and secondly being on his back and vulnerable meant that he was open season for anyone, human or otherwise, to drop a bomb on him.

The human thankfully had been smart enough to have scuttled out of danger, and was now peering at him from behind a nearby pillar with what Wheeljack thought he recognized as the human expression of amusement. A quick check from his memory banks told him that this human was female, rather small and underdeveloped for the species, and quite possibly not very—

—It was a child.

Wheeljack’s processor stuttered to a halt, the sudden revelation that he was standing in front of a human child fascinating, yet also very terrifying. By his estimation the female couldn’t be more than four feet tall, looking pale and somewhat disheveled in the moonlight. Human children were smaller, weaker, and mentally underdeveloped relative to their fully grown counterparts, which wasn’t saying much to begin with. That said, the sheer novelty of observing such a small human up-close was nothing compared to the trouble he was going to be in if he didn’t somehow coax the human into not seeing what she was currently seeing… and forget all about him.

The Autobot was so internally focused on figuring out how to get out of the situation that he didn’t immediately process the soft noise the human was making. It was laughter. The human was laughing at him.

This went completely counter to his expectations.

The noise was small, and quiet, but it was so non-threatening that Wheeljack instinctively lowered his guard. The small human was covering her mouth with a hand, her small dark optics just barely glimmering in the moon’s light but they revealed enough of her state-of-mind to tell Wheeljack that for whatever reason, this human child was not afraid of him.

It was then that Wheeljack realized maybe his full height was a little too much, and it also made him vulnerable to other prying eyes. He carefully picked his way out of the rubble he had created, mindful of the way he moved and how heavily he stepped. The little human didn’t seem to react, other than to remove her hand from her face, presumably the humor in the moment now gone. Wheeljack spared a glance at the flattened mess he’d made, ruminating that if he’d been able to get away with his little stunt undetected before, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to now.

“Are you a fairy?”

The soft noise made Wheeljack jerk back around, the immediate source unmistakable as the human child still standing in front of him. Her expression was one of naive wonder, and it made Wheeljack uncomfortable. Human expressions were not so different from Cybertronian, and that wasn’t an expression he often saw coming from his own crew mates when they were looking at him. It was usually terror. That was usually followed by something blowing up.

Wheeljack switched his speech codex to English, rapidly filing through data banks searching for an appropriate dialect; the North American continent, United States of America, New York City—large population center and common stereotype in human popular culture. Their current coordinates were on the opposite end of the continent, but it would do because he probably needed to say something. Communicating with her in Cybertronian would not have been productive as she wouldn’t understand it.

“A fairy?” He checked the local knowledge bank—the Internet—for the definition of the word. Once he was able to ascertain the visual representation of a typical mythological creature that went by that designation, he found himself perplexed.

“Duh. You have wings.” The child’s reply pulled Wheeljack out of his internal research and brought his focus back onto her. She was pointing at something behind him, and the frankness of her voice gave the Autobot the impression that she thought this was something that should have been obvious. It dawned on him that this human child was actually giving him attitude.

Wheeljack made a show of looking where she was pointing, at first not getting her meaning until it occurred to him what she was so focused on. She was talking about his rotary fins, purely sensory-net but freely rotating from his body. They most certainly were not wings…

“Oh these?” Wheeljack replied, the soft blue illumination from the venting panels on the sides of his face blinking with each syllable of English he spoke. “They’re not wings, but highly-sensitive neuro-net transmitters that—” Wheeljack was about two-thirds of the way through his highly detailed explanation before he realized that the human was definitely not listening, and more likely that she didn’t even know what he was talking about. She now seemed more distracted by his blinking then anything else.

“Alright, they’re wings. You got me. I’m not a fairy though.”

He took care to keep his voice low and unthreatening, not wanting to scare the small human away. It was probably better to humor the child rather than outright run away and leave her with questions… that she would later go to the much more mentally capable adults to answer…

“Oh.” The little human pursed her lips, then proceeded to point at one of the venting panels on the side of his head. “Why are your ears so big? And why do they do that when you talk?” She looked genuinely interested in him, and that made him even more uncomfortable. That was on top of the mild annoyance he was beginning to feel at having to explain his anatomy to her.

A microsecond scan revealed she was referring to audio receptors. She had actually mistaken a very important component used to consistently filter heat from his advanced processor for audio receptors. He hadn’t modified audio receptors to indicate his speech after the accident that left his face catastrophically damaged. That was simply ABSURD. “These ain’t ears.” Wheeljack jabbed a thumb in the general direction of one of his panels, optics narrowed slightly until he saw the somewhat incredulous look on the human’s small face. He softened somewhat, reminding himself that he was not trying to match wits with a juvenile human. She was clearly harmless and probably lonely; what else would a single human out all by herself be feeling? Primus, he was lonely, and he was surrounded by Autobots most of the time. Perhaps now was an opportunity to gather field intel on the indigenous life forms. It was kind of nice talking to someone that wasn’t afraid of him for a change.

What harm would there be in talking to her, for just a little while?

Wheeljack lowered his height, crouching down as low as his armor plates would allow in front of the female child. “You want to know a secret?” She didn’t even flinch, but even so Wheeljack kept his distance for safety’s sake. Who knew what sort of biological pathogens she carried. Biomechanical beings weren’t completely immune from purely biological ailments, although he doubted anything she carried would pose a threat to him. The girl nodded, eagerly.

“They’re actually motion trackers,” Wheeljack lied. “And they’re so big so I can track humans like you for miles.” Alright, I’ll play along.

“Well, I found you, so they must be broken. You should get them fixed.”

“Maybe I wanted you to find me.” That obviously wasn’t true—quite the opposite in fact—but he’d kind of walked right into that one. After all, this human child had managed to catch him completely unawares, and the mess around him was the proof of that.

“Lying is bad.” Clearly, she was sharper than he was giving her credit for too. Maybe human children weren’t as stupid as he initially thought.

Wheeljack allowed himself a sly smile with what was left of his mouth behind his battle mask. It was something she couldn’t see, unless she understood the shifting of his optical lids. “You’re clever. I like you. But what are you doing out here all by yourself little...female?” He hazarded gently, unsure of what exactly he should call her. He only realized he’d made an error in judgment when her face scrunched up into something close to indignation.

“I’m a girl,” she corrected pointedly, but then for the first time her small dark optics shifted around carefully and she began to appear uncomfortable. She began to sway, as if unsure of what to do with her own body, and actually looked sad. “I ran away…”

Wheeljack struggled internally with how to process this information. Part of him didn’t want to become any more involved in her life when he shouldn’t even be talking to her. But the other part, the deeply fascinated scientist that had to know, had to know. “Okay… why did you run away?” That’s… generally a bad thing, right? The irony in the fact that it was exactly something he had done when he needed to get away from the Ark and just think was not exactly lost on him...

She didn’t say anything at first, staring awkwardly at the ground. Wheeljack tilted his head, the illumination produced from his panels when he posed the inquiry highlighting the red, blotched hue on her skin and the moisture beneath her optics. He wasn’t sure what that meant, the biological and psychological links escaping him. He thought better than to ask her, and she probably wouldn’t know how to respond anyhow. It was reasonable enough to assume that she had been distressed before blundering into him—or probably still was but he was enough of a distraction for her to temporarily forget about it.

“It’s okay, you can trust me.” For a moment the girl was entranced in the light that rapidly flashed in-time with his words when he finally spoke. She raised one hand, holding it out in front of her and watched as the blue light illuminated her skin.

“My mommy is sick, and daddy got angry with me because I broke the radio. But he’s just upset because mommy is upset…” The little girl was looking around again, clearly unsure of herself in this situation. “It was already broken, I was just trying to fix it…” She mumbled, the sound so quiet. Wheeljack had absolutely no idea what to say, and thought about offering a personal anecdote until something she said caught his interest.

“Tryin’ to fix a radio, huh? That’s quite a big job for something your size.” Wheeljack was actually mildly impressed. Imagine a human small as this one was, actually trying to fix primitive, illogical human machinery without proper training…

“No,” she finally replied, almost indifferently. ”I fixed daddy’s Internet when he didn’t know what to do, and that was way harder.” She spoke as if this was just daily routine for her, and fascinating as this was, Wheeljack had to keep the conversation moving. He was on a time-table, and needed to wrap this up.

“Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have run away little girl… he might need you to help him with that radio thing. Besides, it’s dangerous out here.” Wheeljack did his best to sound soft, but authoritative, internally wincing at how awkward it sounded coming out of his mouth. “How did you even get in here anyway?”

“I heard something and wanted to see what it was, so I came in through that hole in the fence… same way you did,” she said, motioning towards the way she’d presumably come.

“Ah, I’m a little big for a hole in the fence little one. This is no place for a human like you to be all alone.”

“You’re all by yourself,” the little girl retorted, looking snarky again. “Did you run away as well?” She looked shocked. “Did you kill somebody?”

“What…? No!”

“Are you doing crime?”

“Do I look like a Decepticon to you?” Wheeljack put his head in his hands, growing exasperated, and starting to feel mildly guilty because technically...

“What’s a...De-cep-ti-con?” It didn’t take a moment to spot the look of confusion on her face and he realized what he’d blurted out. She cocked her head as she spelled the word out slowly, ensuring she got the pronunciation right. “Are they bad? They sound bad.”

“Look, human girl, I—yes. They are bad. If you see one, and I hope to Primus you never do, I—”

“Primus? What’s that?”

Wheeljack found himself staring blankly at her, struggling to think of a way to describe to her what Cybertronians considered a God of sorts; not quite a god or a creator, but something more transcendent, yet tangible at the same time—why was he even contemplating telling her about such things that she surely wouldn’t understand? He’d committed a crime, gotten found out by Ratchet, and was now accidentally revealing top secret and deeply personal information to a tiny human girl. This was not a good night for Wheeljack.

“My name is Allison, by the way.” The human girl was looking up at him expectantly, and Wheeljack suddenly realized he had just dug himself into a very deep hole. Primus… don’t tell me your name… don’t make this harder than it already is…

“Look, little g—Allison.” Wheeljack vented air, underestimating the strength of it as it kicked up the loose strands of organic fiber on her head in a gust of heated wind. She seemed thoroughly overjoyed by this oddity. “I’m out here all by myself cause my friends can’t know I’m here. It’s a surprise… so this is our little secret, got it? You never saw me here.” Wheeljack saw an opportunity and ran with it, and the little girl named Allison nodded enthusiastically. Although, she still had a look of expectation in her eyes, and Wheeljack realized he better get it over with.

“Okay, fine. I’ve already revealed all my other secrets. My name is Wheeljack,” he said, pointing at the broadside of his chest where his Autobot insignia was. “I’m an Autobot.”

“Oh! I know what a wheeljack is. It’s that thing that fixes wheels on cars. What’s an Auto-bot? Is that like a Decepticon?” Allison looked perplexed, but genuinely interested, and he realized she would have no idea what an Autobot was. That was obvious when she seemed to stumble over the word, sounding it out in two chunks, much like she had done with Decepticon.

“No!” Wheeljack answered that one a lot faster and more indignant than he probably should have. “Autobot means I’m a good guy. Decepticons are nothing like we are.” Well that sounded ludicrous, but he didn’t know what else to say.

Allison seemed to think about it for a moment. “Okay. I trust you because you sound funny.” Wheeljack didn’t know what to make of what she’d said and whether or not it was a compliment, but he couldn’t respond before Allison followed up with another question. “What do you do, Wheeljack?”

“What do I...do?”

“Yeah. Like...what’s your job?”

“I’m a scientist. An engineer, specifically, and it’s not just a job, it’s more important than that. I help my friends stay safe by inventing useful equipment.” Wheeljack knew he was being a little loose with the word “safe.” Not all of them fit that description. “Though, I have been known to occasionally dabble in biomechanics. I recently finished writing a technical spec on the Tersial III replication and induction plate—”

“That’s neat,” Allison interjected, changing the subject. “Can I ask you something else?”

Wheeljack shrugged, sad to hear the young human wasn’t as excited about his proposed model for improving the wingspan of Tersial III quadrupeds. “Okay, sure. What is it?”

“Why do you talk funny?” This was the second time Allison had raised the issue of his voice. The question was nothing if not direct, and it then occurred to Wheeljack that he had likely made an error in judgment when picking the dialect that he did. He should have paid more attention to how she spoke.

“What’s wrong with it?” He cocked his head, now curious as to what about his choice was apparently so offensive. Instead, Allison laughed, betraying the idea that it was not so much offensive, but different.

“You sound like you’re from one of the shows my daddy likes to watch, dummy.”

Wheeljack didn’t know what a dummy was, but he assumed it wasn’t a good thing. “Doesn’t everybody talk like that around here?”

“No!” She was laughing at him again, and Wheeljack was getting frustrated. This shouldn’t have been that complicated—how many stupid dialects were there on this rock?!

“Look, I underestimated the linguistic diversity amongst your species. I didn’t realize accent was divided up by zone on this planet. It makes no sense—” He saw her expression start to go wide and realized he was losing her again. “Anyway, that was more than a question, that was two. Now it’s my turn to ask you one.”

“Okay fine.” The girl huffed, looking mildly startled and confused by his abrupt rant. Instead of the question he’d been intending to ask—that being what is the purpose of all that organic fiber on her head—Wheeljack opted for something a little more friendly. He was talking to a child, a fact of which he kept forgetting.

“Can you guess where I’m from?”

Allison looked blank for a moment, presumably trying to come up with an answer to his question. He had to stop himself from being abrupt with her. Perhaps if her experience with him was a pleasant one she was more inclined to trust him and do what he asked—that being: don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.

After a moment she shook her head, unable to even hazard a guess as to where he was from. So he pointed skyward, thinking she would get the point. But she didn’t.

“You’re from up?” In a shocking turn of events, she’d directed her optics in the vague direction of where he was pointing, looking at nothing and everything as if there was something very specific she was going to see. He probably should have felt guilty teasing a human child like this, but Wheeljack admitted to himself that this was actually a rather fun little exercise.

“Further.”

“The moon?”

“Even further!”

She thought for a while. “The sun? Pluto? A satellite?”

“No; that’s not a planet; and now you’re just guessing. The correct answer is I am from Cybertron.”

“Cybertron.” She repeated the word slowly like she did all the other ones. If anything she seemed very careful about learning new words. Primitive, but respectful. “I don’t think we have any place called Cybertron in our solar system. That must mean it’s pretty far.”

“Your deductive reasoning is correct. It is very far. Farther than you can travel in your lifetime, little one. Think of your solar system. Now think of another solar system, one that just looks like a tiny star in your sky, but it’s actually two stars! Closer than you might think, eh? Cybertron is a lonely planet that sits in the middle of Alpha Centauri, undetectable by your human technology.” He didn’t even realize that he started gesturing passionately until it was too late. “That’s where I’m from.”

Something dawned on her then, and her eyes widened. Something close to absolute joy spread across her face as something clearly now had her excited, making Wheeljack wonder if he should have just kept that detail to himself; he’d been trying to make conversation.

“You’re an alien!” Allison declared happily, clapping her small hands together in a show of positive acceptance as she put the pieces together. She was definitely smarter than he was giving her credit for, and was now practically lit up with such a revelation.

Something broke loose from within the Autobot and for a moment his perception dulled. There was an internal distraction at the edge of his awareness and he couldn’t place what it was. He lost focus and several barriers in his coding fell down all at once, unlocking a cache of programming that had been put away a very long time ago. There was a stirring of something in his spark that he hadn’t felt in eons: something warm and nurturing; he was actually starting to enjoy talking to the little human named Allison. He was afraid he was starting to care.

Whatever was happening, it was because of this girl, actually enamored and happy to be in his presence. She wanted to be around him. Autobots tended to avoid him when they could, not out of hate, but a general unease in his presence. Decepticons wanted to capture him and use him. Primus, he was lonely.

But he had to go. He couldn’t linger. If anything, his presence in her life was a danger not only to her, but to himself and the other Autobots that despite everything he still cared for. Needing to care for a human life was a liability he couldn’t risk, and there was no way he was going to let a human, much less a human child, get caught in Decepticon crosshairs. It wasn’t even his place. She needed to be back with her own parental units.

“Heh, okay, but remember, this is our secret okay?” Wheeljack leaned forward, trying to emphasis the point as gently as he could while cutting into her excitement. She nodded her understanding, but he had to make sure. “You promise?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Allison said, and she did something that Wheeljack was not expecting. She reached up and touched his face. It was such a soft, barely perceptible touch, right on the planes of his battle mask but it was enough to nearly make him rear back. It was a reaction that for sure didn’t match the level of threat she presented so it made no sense, but neither did what he actually did. He froze. He stopped moving as if the small hand on his face was going to cut him should he so much as shift in place. It was the first time he really looked the young human in her optics, and she didn’t so much as flinch as she returned his direct stare. His optics were neither unsettling or threatening to her. It was just a purely natural connection, unyielding without learned bias or mistrust.

He hadn’t even realized he’d been in arms reach, small as she was, which meant he’d really let his guard down. That frightened the large Autobot more than anything. His first time interacting with a human and he’d completely opened himself up to any number of attacks.

An attack—

Suddenly Wheeljack reared up, head snapping in the direction beyond Allison to something in the distance. He heard something approach—a vehicle, not one of his own, and he suddenly knew he had to go. Their time together was over. He looked down at Allison with a sad sense of finality that she wouldn’t be able to understand. She looked distraught, hand still hovering precariously above her head where his face had just been moments before. It was obvious she didn’t hear what he had.

“I’m sorry Allison. I have to go.”

“Why?” She sounded sad.

“Someone’s coming. Nobody else can see me, so I have to go.” He started to retreat, forcing himself to crouch back from her faster than she could catch up to him. Something tugged at his spark as the little human called after him, something Wheeljack wasn’t willing to spare another nanosecond thinking about in that moment. He had to transform, and for that he needed room.

What if it’s someone that means to do Allison harm… do humans hurt the offspring of other humans? Sadly Wheeljack knew the answer to that question. They had access to global news, and had been monitoring it for some time. I can’t be seen… but I can’t just leave her here. Maybe I can just hang back until this person passes… Pit, why did he care?

Wheeljack was thinking through how we was going to appear nonchalant as a white drag car just hanging around this ruined power station with a human child standing there, when the approaching human vehicle slowed. He heard an adult male’s voice calling Allison’s name, and thankfully Wheeljack reasoned this laid all his concerns to rest. He could leave content in knowing that her father had come to retrieve her. She finally heard it too, and she looked back in a manner which implied recognition. This gave Wheeljack the needed opportunity to leap back from her and transform into his vehicular form, the sound of which drew the girl’s attention back to him for enough time to see what he had become. It wouldn’t matter, because he’d be gone by the time her father arrived.

He couldn’t linger, a pang of guilt settling on his spark long enough to make him hesitate as he retreated but he knew he had to move on. It would be better for Allison to move on as well, so the sooner he disappeared, the better.

How wrong he was.

[einsteinsugly]

September 1967. Hide and Seek.

Eric gets bullied, every single day.

The boys are mean, but so are the girls. Well, that Katie girl thinks he's cute, but that's about it.

The boys come with brute force, like villains in the comic books he reads. Destroy and Giveback love to destroy his things. Every comic book he brings to school, they rip in half.

The pages of the latest Spiderman comic flutter away, in his face, and he's about to burst into tears. Pick your battles, pick your battles…

"I heard they're making a Spiderman cartoon," One of the girls loudly mocks, "Nerd."

A small redhead nibbles on the last of her bologna sandwich, with a swig of Coca Cola. It washes right down, and she groans. Turning to the crowd, not so subtly. "Don't listen to them, Eric."

Destroy loudly guffaws. "Shut up, Raggedy Ann."

"Don't make me kick your butt!"

"I'd like to see you try," Destroy announces. Donna tries to lunge at him, and tries to fling her Coca Cola bottle at his head, but with temporary, superhuman strength, Eric somehow manages to hold her back.

Well, by principle, moreso than by superhuman strength. Because she comes to her senses, and she doesn't want to get in trouble. Even though she really, really wants to. Maybe she'll kick their butts after school.

A few awkward moments pass, and the cafeteria quiets down. Well, as much as the cafeteria can quiet down.

"The nerds always win, in the end," Eric mutters, to his bestest friend in the whole wide world, "Just wait and see…"

Suddenly, a scruffy, dirty boy appears. He usually hides in the corner of the cafeteria, and he has no friends, but everybody's scared of him.

So, Steven Hyde has an offer he can't possibly refuse. "If you give me the rest of your lunch, I'll be your hired gun."

"They're not scared of a girl," Eric affirms, handing over everything except his tin lunchbox, and the napkin his mom writes little notes on, "You look scary."

"They should be." Donna can't restrain her anger this time around. She subtly punches him in the gut, under the table, and Eric quietly writhes in pain. "You should be, too."

It's more of a forceful nudge, but he's scared straight. "Okay, I need you to protect me from her, too."

Hyde smirks, and so does Donna. "No guarantee."

*****

Author's Notes:

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's part two of my gift.

Canon constantly contradicts when Eric and Donna met. One episode says their entire lives (although there may be exaggeration at play), and another says at age seven. So I've arrived at a rough median, at the age of four, an exact homage to the pilot. Only certain elements of Class Picture make sense, and when they do (they do, two-thirds of the time), I'll include them. When they don't, I'll make small edits, like Hyde being a hired gun to protect Eric from Donna makes no sense, especially if they've been friends since they were four. That, and I can't see Donna being that mean to Eric for that long (a week or two, probably, in Class Picture). I can see her being standoffish, but not downright bullying him. She's mean to him a little bit here, but he deserves it.

[divinekangaroo]

Thanks @palmviolet for tagging me!

How many works do you have on AO3? 154

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 900k

3. What fandoms do you write for? Peaky Blinders, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Age II, The Professionals.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Interesting and not straightforward question: I've been writing since 2007 and only rebooted my fics to AO3 in 2023. I backdated them to time of writing rather than posting live into the current update stream. I was vaguely curious to see what *actually* attracts readers through the AO3 search engine. So, my current top five are all Peaky Blinders Tommy/Lizzie fics, and given my small followers list, everyone following me will probably already have read them!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do, and it’s my vain (both senses of the term) struggle with how to do it appropriately. I am conscious of how comments, particularly on an AO3 "archival" fic, can weight a reader's further interpretation/engagement of or with fic by that author, and that I'll never put so much time into comments as I do into fic.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The fics I thought of picking for these two pretty much overlapped. Perhaps this shows just how I approach happiness – it’s moments, it’s never an ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Only old Dragon Age fics. Interesting period of time where any fic author that didn't unequivocally support the moral rightness of one particular character's opinions was targeted. Like: ok to write torture/rape fics of this character, but only if it was clear the author thought this character was morally right. Such a destructive troll.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I'll write sex, mostly as part of a larger arc rather than standalone smut; often it is a partial scenario rather than linear start-to-end event written in a rhythm to support a coherent wanking rise-to-climax read. I'm pleased if people find it pushes their buttons, but I'm also not bothered if it doesn't. I do approach smut as one of many possible lenses or frames for a character, however, so smut that detaches from character confuses me.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Sometimes but they have to feel really right. I think I tend more to fusion or pastiche (I think those are the terms?) rather than crossover: I take a particular character concept/theme and port them into a particular environmental context which is not possible in the canon to see what happens. The only one I still have up is a FFXII/Dragonriders of Pern fic (incomplete) which was going to be all about the horrible knowledge of socially accepted and endorsed ritualised rape and forced feminisation of a character.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I'm not that popular to notice.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have a memory of one in FFXII but can't recall.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Taught me a lot, including the kind of writer I am - difficult to collaborate as my push to complete within a motivational urge period will always be greater than a long-haul effort, and I struggle to be available for other people. I’m either good at the front end ideas-generation, or a micro detail ‘write this particular thing/scene and fill it with goodness’, and not very good at the middle bit – the long slot of planning and plotting and aiming for consistency etc. I am so grateful fandom exists to support non-traditional prose formats which let me play with writing and thinking and engagement without needing to produce to book-style production standards.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? I usually fixate on a character, and pairings allow means to explore that character rather than being an end game.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Oh they all carry this potential. *cries* The issue for me is loss of motivational drive/thinking; because I rarely have good structural notes etc if I lose my immediate thread of 'thinking of everything all at once' I find it hard to pick up again later. I also stop some fics because I realise how ambitious the scope really is, and I feel like I can’t do them justice.

16. What are your writing strengths? Speed-sketcher? Completionist? Tests multiple ideas rapidly and freely and never worries about something 'being wrong' because there's always another fic to try? Intuitive gut level hits on characterisation here and there?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Editing, pacing, I can't sustain long fic, I frequently move characters around like paper dolls for the sake of the cool and forget they need their own internal motivation.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I prefer the kind of cant-based/dialect-based approach which splices non-English terms fluidly into English dialogue, mostly because as a child of many migrants this has been my world experience. I do suck at writing this, hence my frequent use of cop-outs to say 'language shift here, meanwhile still writing in English'. But when it’s done well it hits so many of my sweet spots.

19. First fandom you wrote for? FFVII.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Anything in my Personal Favourites list: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3728710. (I'm still too close to Peaky Blinders to pick a fav, it'll take about five years of distance!)

[laughroditee]

Thinking about the COD urban fantasy AU that I will be writing a fic for. I have a background in fine art and comics and have experience with video editing, so because of this, this fic came to me as a movie trailer, which I plan on making an animatic of. (If I can get my husband to learn how to voice the characters, I may include voices as well.) But it came from the idea:

What if there was a necromancer who would raise your loved one, but if you didn't pay them, they'd take control of them?

And that leads us to the

"Repossessed" Trailer Script, starring necromancer!graves

(please note that I do not have any formal training in actually formatting scripts so these are just my notes for the animatic. Filmmakers, don't come for me.)

(OPEN on a cityscape at sundown, cue music, if any.) Voiceover: "The name's Graves."

(NIGHTTIME. cut to a scene of a man, back to us in a cemetery. Close in on headshot, he turns to face the camera.) V/O: "Phillip Graves."

(INTERIOR OFFICE, DAYTIME. Graves is seated behind his desk, feet up, leaning back in his chair, maybe playing with a Rubix cube or something, speaking with a client, whom we can't see yet.)

Client: "Phillip Graves? As in 'fill up graves?' That's a bit… on the nose isn't it?"

Graves (smirking bc he's a cocky mf): "I don't so much fill ‘em up as I do empty ‘em out nowadays."

(Cut back to scene of Graves in the cemetery where a green, eldritch light glows from his hand.) V/O: "As a necromancer, I can bring anyone back from the dead."

(Cut back to Graves in office, looking at client.) Graves: "For a Price."

(Graves leans forward, cocking his head): "What would you pay?"

(Flashes of the deceased, happy.) V/O: "What would you do...?"

(Flashes of the deceased and the client together, loving etc huehuehue) V/O: "...To have them back with you?"

(Cut to Graves sitting behind his desk, holding up photo of the deceased between two fingers, looking at his client, cocky and eager.) Graves: "Pretty little thing like this? What's it worth to ya?"

(Cut to John Price seated in the chair opposite the desk, looking grief-stricken, desperate, and determined): “Everything.”

(cut to black, dramatic pause if there's music)

(Cut to first person POV, looking up at Graves, giving you a hand.) Graves: “Welcome back, darlin', to the land of the living.”

When I post the art (storyboards and eventual video) for this, it will be on my art blog @momokeen and reblogged from there. (I try to keep my 18+ stuff here separate from my main blog, even though I update more here, currently.)

Issues I know I will have:

Time - my chaotic brain always has a billion projects going at once, which is why I wanted to at least put this much out. I have at least four other fics that need attention, not to mention actual real life, and running a small business. I will be doing it though. It may not be good, but it will be done, eventually.

Finding the right music. Currently I'm looking for good epic trailer music. I have zero money to commission someone to compose something custom, otherwise I would ask my friend if he'd take the job.

Voices (because I want them 😩)

The decedent. I had planned on writing the fic as a "x you" POV, but if I'm including a visual trailer, done in the way that I want, obviously I have to pick one way the decedent looks, which I know will leave many people feeling left out. This is why I tend to make OCs, as it's easier for me to make decisions that my OCD and trauma brain won't let me make otherwise, because "this person is their own person and this is how I've developed them." (Also I'm new to fanfic, pls forgive me. I know OC x Canon is the less-liked option here. I really struggle with trying to make everyone happy, to the point that it's debilitating and I honestly don't know what to do.)

And finally, ✨mental health✨.

But yeah, that's it. That's a thing I'm gonna make. This was step one. Thanks for reading. 🖤

[ceranovis]

Some musings to do with this celltw pic

As a fandom I feel like we could be doing So Much More with Other Side Elements being canon + all the connected Ordem worldbuilding it introduces by association.

Canonically, Cellbit chose to align himself with the knowledge element. So I hopped on over to the ordem wiki page for Knowledge to look for things to put in the paperwork on the table. Then I realized there's a memory alteration ritual (accidentally pulled the wrong ritual circle image for the art though oTL ...let's just pretend Cellbit identified the right one at some point).

The [Change Memory Ritual] can erase all or only some specific memories of the victim. In both cases, if the victim comes into contact with people, places and certain objects that were part of this past erased, it will begin to gradually recall some elements and have quick flashes of some moments, being able to recover its memory completely after a while.

Now listen. If there's one thing I think of as core to q!Cellbit's character, it's that as far as he's concerned the ends always justifies the means. This includes doing things he knows people he loves will hate him for because he thinks it will be better for them in the long run.

In the regret arc letters, he told Tazercraft he loved them, that Cell was dead & he didn't want them to think he was reverting to that type of monster. While there were a few moments where he brought up clearly unresolved feelings of anger and betrayal/abandonment regarding how things went with Fuga, I do think at that point he cared for the Favela crew as a found-family, and was making decisions he felt were in their best interest (usually without consulting them, or like...running those ideas by anyone else ever...)

If he discovered a way to erase specific memories, I could fully see him using that to 'make things better' for Pac. I doubt he'd try to erase all the Fuga memories (especially as he'd have to also erase Mike and Felps) but I also don't think he'd feel like he had to go that far anyways.

Earlier on in the Quesadilla timeline, Pac seemed to think of Cell as basically dormant and was relatively comfortable with having a fairly close and positive relationship with Cellbit. He only grew paranoid about Cell re-emerging when he saw signs of Cellbit snapping, and he first responded by actively trying to keep Cellbit in a headspace that wouldn't lead to that. There have been multiple instances of Pac extending a bit of grace, an unspoken offer not to forgive or forget but to move forward. He wants Cellbit to be a good man, not a monster.

So I think Cellbit would use the ritual to smooth over events that put a strain on their current relationship. Things that made Pac scared he was turning back into Cell. And he'd probably justify it as 'helping' Pac, but there's also a selfish element there too, of him desperately trying to keep hold of this new start and family he probably doesn't deserve but somehow got anyways.

It's small things at first-- just wiping away little instances that put Pac on edge around him. Pac is prone to glossing over Cellbit's red flags anyways, so even if other people remember what Pac doesn't, it wouldn't set off immediate alarm bells. Nobody would catch on to the manipulation.

Pac himself would write off most of the weird, vague flashes he gets sometimes. It feels sort of like deja vu but with an extra helping of uneasy dread. He's not very self-confident when it comes to his brain; he's just being unreasonably paranoid because of his memories of Cell-- those half-memories are so foggy because his brain is panicking and conflating the past with the present, right? More importantly, wants to trust Cellbit.

Now, there's a clip of Pac (which I can't find now but it lives in my head rent free) where he implies that, if Cellbit and Roier hadnt been introduced, he and Cellbit would have been together.

There are a few points in the canon timeline where guapoduo could have been derailed. Cellbit may never have even gotten to that point with Roier if he and Pac were already a little bit closer. If he was fucking with Pac's memories in a way that made Pac less cautious of him, I think it's entirely possible their relationship would have had a chance to develop in place of guapoduo's.

Cellbit didn't start erasing memories with the intention of getting Pac to fall for him though. He wanted the olive branch Pac extended. He wanted Pac to not be terrified of him. But it never occured to him that Pac might be capable of falling in love with the man who ate his goddamn leg. So it completely blindsides him when Pac does, in fact, very deliberately step over the line between platonic and romantic in their relationship.

It feels a lot more morally dubious to be manipulating Pac's memories once that happens. But he's in too deep. He knows Pac would hate him if he found out the truth. But isn't it better this way anyways? Pac, somehow, impossibly, wants to love him-- it's not like he's forcing Pac feel anything about him, right? He knows how terrible betrayal feels-- and he doesn't have to make Pac feel that way, doesn't have to hurt him like that! All he has to do is omit the truth. It's not even a lie, really.

He wants Pac to be happy, wants to preserve the warmth Pac looks at him with now, and if holding his tongue is what assures that... well he can swallow down the guilt gnawing at him and bear that mental burden for both of them. Theres so much in their history for him to feel guilty about anyways, what's one more thing?

Unfortunately for Cellbit, he's never used the ritual on people prior to this, and the books he got it from were light on details as to how it works. He has no idea that the locks on Pac's memories start to slowly erode as soon as he encounters a trigger. And since all of the erased memories are of Cellbit, their time together is just speeding up that process.

Eventually, Pac regains a memory he can't just brush off. And he has to come to terms with the fact that something is very, very wrong between them even if he doesn't understand exactly what's happening to him. He'd figure it out eventually, go through Cellbit's notes in secret and piece things together. When he does he's horrified and angry and heartbroken. But he's torn too because it's not like he can just forget the relationship they've built either, even if he now knows the foundation is half rotted.

He still loves Cellbit, despite every fucked up thing Cellbit has ever done to him.

The question is really whether Pac loves himself enough to pull the plug on this unhealthy dynamic.

[latenightsimping]

THE EDGE

“...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who’ve gone over.” - Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels

Summary: A part of the deal to freedom included a stay at Pennhurst. It’ll take everything to keep the hope that one day the locked doors will open, the windows will no longer have bars that block the view, and that one day, the name Eddie Munson will be synonymous with the word ‘innocent’. The hope, he never realised, would also come to be synonymous with your name.

Chapter: 1 / 2 /  3 / 4

Pairing: Eddie Munson x reader

Word count: 3.4k

Warnings: angst, heavy themes of inpatient treatment/hospitalisation, heavy themes of mental health, institutional deprivation of liberties, body injuries, mentions of suicidal ideation, themes of institutional abuse, can be a dark read (continue with that in mind, look after yourselves), canon divergence, Eddie survives the demobat attack, post-S4 timeline, slow burn romance, eventual smut, 18+, eventual fluff, there will be a happy ending

AN: First of all, thank you so much to those who left lovely comments and reblogged. I’m blown away by the support over a little idea I had, based on my own difficulties with the inpatient system. This is a series I’m really looking forward to, and still planning as I go? This second part is the last like, ‘scripted’ part, so I’m gonna have to actually light a fire under my arse and open up a dreaded planning doc lmao. Hope you enjoy this part!! also massive shoutout to @mantorokk-writes​ for putting up with my rambles and making me an amazing header image, you’re my beloved 💕

Taglist: @edsforehead, @idkidknemore, @harrys-tittie, @gaysludge, @smileygoth​

Nothing ever changed in this place. Waking up to stare at the same four walls until your door was opened. Same four walls that you showered and brushed your teeth in. Same four walls that you spent the majority of the day in, following a bullshit routine that was supposed to promote ‘positive mental changes’ and ‘the tools for a successful future’. 

You were smart enough to know that it was all a load of bullshit. For the first six months of your committal, you believed in it. Practically bent over backwards to show the doctors that you were making progress, holding onto the slim chance that you might finally get the news of being released after the bi-annual panels that were akin to placing your heart on the scale. Balanced against the feather of your guilt, of the timeline of events that still haunted you every waking moment. It took you a year to realise the odds were stacked against you. Two years in, and you’d given up hope of ever walking back out the front doors. Two years of the same day, over and over, no end in sight. 

Even the earthquake that had rocked the town of Hawkins didn’t really change things. It had meant lockdown for a couple of days until damage could be assessed, and it had spurned a lot of orderlies, nurses and doctors bouncing for a better life in another city. Leaving only the ones that were most likely too stubborn to leave, now more bitter and jaded for having to keep the job that made their lives that little bit more miserable. With less staff, it had meant a closer eye on behaviour, lest the patients got any bright ideas and decided an uprising was sorely needed. Any infraction could get you put in the hole, no matter how small and stupid it seemed. You’d seen one of the old timers be taken away for a couple of days when they decided to steal a pen from the nurses station. You knew it was because they wanted to write down their thoughts before they forgot. But you also knew that the staff got jumpy when a patient had something capable of being made into an improvised weapon. 

The day had started just like any other. Your name being called out as the door to your room was unlocked, tone already weary of the shift ahead and none too gentle. An escort to the bathrooms to get washed up and ready for the day, government issued toothpaste bitter on your tongue and the smell of cheap soap lingering on your skin. Yet another escort to the day room, the doors slammed shut after the last patient passed the threshold. You were still barely awake when the tinny audio system kicked to life, the shrill voice of nurse Koehn calling everyone to line up in front of the glass window of the nurses’ station for medication. How you hated those paper cups with medication inside that you didn’t even know the names of and didn’t get a reply when you asked about, the shitty juice used to wash them down barely tolerable. It had become a Pavlovian response; each sip meant that little bit less freedom, a sluggish haze descending over you that made everything numb and fuzzy at the edges. But at least there were small victories, coming in the form of a pack of Marlboros as a reward for taking the fucking things without a fight. You tapped the pack against your palm as you made your way over to the table you usually sat at, taking one out and dangling the filter between your lips as you nodded your head towards an orderly for the use of a lighter. Because God forbid you were allowed to hold one for more than two seconds, lest you burn down the building. A thought that had admittedly crossed your mind once or twice. 

By mid afternoon, you were six cigarettes down and in the middle of a game of solitaire when the door to the day room opened, and you turned your head on instinct to see what was happening. Miller’s hand on the door as she corralled a man you hadn’t seen before into the room, closing the door behind him and leaving him to fend for himself. He looked scared shitless; eyes frantically darting around the room, his hands curled into fists so tightly that it made his knuckles turn alabaster. Wild and frizzy curls that tumbled past his shoulders, failing to hide the red and angry scars that marred his neck and face. A little lost lamb in the den of poorly concealed wolves, the sight pulling at your heartstrings that you swore had been crystallised a long time ago. You never really believed in ghosts, but it was as if you were looking at a spectre. A shell of a man, barely holding on by a thread. He was a reflection of you, when you’d first got here.

Gathering up the playing cards, you puffed out an air of nicotine as you shook your head. “Are you just going to stand there? You’re making the place look untidy,” you muttered, already dealing out two piles of cards before he realised you were talking to him. 

You glanced back over to him, his muscles tensed and a deer in the headlights expression staring back at you. It took a few heartbeats for him to catch on, and one glance back before his umber eyes settled on you again. “You talkin’ to me?” 

His words were softly spoken, a hoarseness to them that you’d heard from other patients who seldom uttered a word. A slight tremor to his cadence, that you easily picked up on. You nodded as you gestured your head to the wooden chair opposite you, leaning back in your seat as you studied your cards. “Staff get a bit jumpy if you stand by the doors too long. Suggest you find yourself somewhere to be that’s away from them.” 

The conversation seemed to hang in the balance; no doubt he was weighing up the pros and cons of talking to someone deemed a lunatic. You couldn’t blame him. A couple of residents here were like that. Would smile and make pleasant conversation, fooling you into thinking they were perfectly reasonable human beings. And perhaps they were. But you also knew their reason for being here, and one or two made you feel sick to your core. You heard the shuffling of rubber soles get closer, until he finally took a seat at the table. You kept your face neutral as you took another drag of your cigarette, settling the stick between pointer and middle finger. “You know how to play gin rummy?” 

You lifted your eyes as he picked up the cards, a look of confusion evident as his other hand scratched the back of his neck. “Haven’t played for a long time,” he admitted, the volume of his tone still not rising above the level of when he first spoke.

You shrugged as he made the first move, noticing the way his eyes darted towards the carton of cigarettes in the middle of the table. You set your hand down for a moment, picking up the pack and pulling one out. “Doesn’t matter about winning, what matters is looking like you’re occupied,” you explained, using the cherry of the lit cigarette to ignite the other. Dropping the fresh one into the ashtray, you pushed it slightly towards him in offering as you picked the cards back up. “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools and all that shit.” 

His body language seemed to change at your actions, eyes narrowed as they flickered from the ashtray to yours. It was a look of incredulity, if you were reading it right. You couldn’t blame him; if the roles were reversed, you’d think twice about accepting, just like he was. “And you’re telling me this because…?”

You held up your hands in mock surrender, offering a slight smile that didn’t show teeth. “Because you seem to have your shit together for the most part, and I’m sick of trying to have conversations with lunatics.” Technically the truth. He didn’t have to know about your burning curiosity just yet, but the thought of having someone around your age who still had his faculties to talk to was an offer that you couldn’t refuse.

You were greeted with a slight eyebrow raise as he scratched at his scarred cheek, something that you could now assume was a tell that he was nervous. The fear still evident, yet a spark of something only just alight in his eyes. “Aren’t we both technically lunatics?” There it was. A ghost of a smile, a blink and you’d miss it moment. 

“Depends on who you listen to,” you offered with a slight grimace. “Some of us locked in here are innocent.” 

“Are you one of them?” 

Your stomach twisted at the ever so slight tone of disbelief you were sure you picked up on. How many times had you sworn on everything you ever loved that you never did what they accused you of, screamed your innocence at the top of your lungs to never be heard. It made that cage you kept your heart in that little bit stronger, the muscle decaying from lack of oxygen. “Depends who you ask.” 

His body language seemed to change in small increments, the small shifts only recognisable if you were really paying attention. To see them meant hope; how many times had you spoken to another patient, to be met with a blank stare and slackened jaw? Under the surface, no matter how deep it was, there was life. No doubt beaten down so intensely that he’d locked it away for self preservation. But it was there, all the same. Another ghost of a smile as he finally picked up the cigarette, taking a deep, sharp pull and his eyes slightly fluttering with the relief that nicotine could bring. “I’m asking you.” 

It felt like an impossible question. If answered truthfully, you could still be seen as a liar. He didn’t know you, hadn’t heard your side of the story, or even the story at all. All he had to go on was an offer of a cigarette, and an invitation to sit down. 

But what did you have to lose? 

“I am,” you finally murmured, bringing the cigarette filter to your lips to fill your lungs with smoke as acrid as you felt on the inside.

There was a nod of his head as he looked down towards the cards, letting the silence settle as you played a few turns. Both of you avoiding the subject as much as the situation allowed, neither one meeting the other’s gaze. But it was him to break it, a soft sigh just before his admission. 

“I’m innocent too.” 

So he wasn’t here voluntarily. The circumstances not being one of contemplating suicide, or having a nervous breakdown. An admission like that meant he was accused of something, just like you. Whether he was telling the truth or not, you had no idea. It was pushing your luck to ask for more, but you had nothing else to lose. “What did they say you did?” 

You saw his whole body tense again, as if the question was a bullet through the chest. His grip on the flimsy playing cards tightening, jabbing the remnants of tobacco into the ashtray with a little more force than needed. “Doesn’t matter.” His voice had got impossibly quiet again, an edge of frustration to it. He was guarded again, no doubt starting to get lost in the negative memories that you guessed crowded his head every waking moment. Maybe similar to the ones that crowded yours.

You exhaled deeply through your nose as you chipped your own cigarette out. “Just as a heads up, you don’t have to tell me now. But around here, secrets don’t stay secrets for long. They’ll ask you about what you did in group therapy.”

You heard his sharp exhale, noticing his eyes getting glassy with unshed tears. His fingernails scratched the scars on his neck, near frantic as he shook his head. Over your time here, you could see what this was. It was a panic attack, in its infancy but rapidly devolving. It twisted your gut to see, knowing that it was technically your fault. But why bother lying about it, when he’d find out himself in the next few hours?

“Haven’t seen you around before,” you said softly, mind working overtime to try and head whatever he was going through off at the pass. Distraction seemed to be what instinct was telling you to do. “You get admitted today?”

He shook his head, unruly curls swaying as he did. “No, I uh… It’s been four months, I think.”

Your eyebrow raised as you shuffled the cards in your hand, deciding to avoid eye contact to give him a little breathing room. “You get upgraded from minimum, or downgraded from supermax?” 

“It was uh… A downgrade, maybe? I haven’t seen much of the place.” 

You let out the incredulous laugh that bubbled in your chest, clicking your teeth with your tongue. “Must have friends in high places. Rumour is you don’t get out of there unless it’s either a miracle or a body bag.” 

There was a spark of something unreadable in his features, your best guess one of realisation. You didn’t have enough information, so you decided to ignore it for now. “Is it as bad as they say it is down there?” you asked, cocking your head to the side.

“Probably, don’t know what they say,” he answered with a slight shrug, his breathing slowing back down as he focused on the questions given to him.

“They say rats crawl over you when you’re sleeping, and the guards carry tasers.” 

You got a slight smile in reply as he shook his head, focusing on the cards that you’d both long forgotten about. Becoming something more like a prop to dissuade the conversation being interrupted. “Not true. It’s just… Suffocating down there.” 

“Well, sorry to be the bringer of bad news, but it’s not that much different here,” you sighed, rubbing a hand over your face. “Anybody tell you the routine of the day? Where you gotta be at what time?”

He shook his head slowly, and you let out a long exhale. Of course nobody told him. But he’d be expected to follow the rules all the same, getting punished for something that wasn’t his fault. So, you laid it out to him. The whole routine that was the backbone of your life, and would probably be so until you either left this world or the Earth stopped revolving. Wake up, get washed up for the day. Breakfast, then community meeting. Recreation time. Lunch. Group therapy. More free time, though the option to go outside was there if it was a nice day and the staff were in a gracious mood. Some other form of bullshit therapy, depending on the day. Dinner. If you were deemed trustworthy enough, some form of manual labour was assigned to you to help run the hospital, totally not because they couldn’t afford the staff to do it, that would be absurd. Being guided to the bathrooms to clean up from the day and sent to your designated room for lights out and lock up. By the time you finished explaining, you’d managed to get a winning hand of cards, tossing them on the table as you reached for your cigarette pack. “Still jazzed about getting downgraded?” you asked with a wry smirk, raising your hand and getting the attention of one of the orderlies for the lighter. 

“Trust me, it’s better than being down there,” he muttered, mindful to keep his voice low as the staff member approached. Now his hands were free of cards, you noticed how he fiddled with something on his left hand that wasn’t there, perhaps out of a learned behaviour that he’d had long before this place. You decided not to bring it up. It wasn’t your place. 

“Guess beggars can’t be choosers,” you shrugged, grabbing another cigarette and lighting it with the cherry again. This time you handed it to him yourself, held out like an olive branch. One that he seemed hesitant to take, eyes flitting from your hand to your eyes in quick succession. “Never caught your name.” 

The very tentative trust in a barely budding friendship, however small it was at that very moment, hung in the balance. It was likely that he’d either never had kindness before, or hadn’t in a very long time. It hurt to see, and it hurt even more to know that he was acting as a mirror. The last person who’d ever shown you mercy had long gone, and you were completely on your own. Trapped behind enemy lines, with no weapons to show for it. The only thing you could do was find allies wherever they may be, and pray to whoever was above you that they wouldn’t stab you in the back. 

His hand reached out, mindful not to make any skin to skin contact as he accepted the token, bringing it to chapped lips as his eye contact dropped to the scratches on the table. “It’s Eddie.” 

You nodded slowly as you mulled the name over, though nothing was coming back to you so far. You were pretty sure you’d have known of him if he was this distinct to look at back when you were out in the free world. Then again, you couldn’t remember much of that world at this point, so it was easy to lose background faces in a sea of other stronger, more horrific memories. You gave your own name in return, a small smile flickering over your features. “Guess you better get used to shitty card games and even shittier food, Eddie. Seems we’re in it for the long haul.” 

As much as you tried for it to come out as a joke, it didn’t seem to land. You could see him wince a little at your words, as if they burned his ears, or perhaps it was the truth of them that smouldered. It had been a long time since you’d had a conversation that wasn’t around pills or therapy plans, and it showed. You cleared your throat as you tried again. 

“I mean, if it helps, you’ll be stuck with me for a long ass time,” you said softly, trying to keep the tone light though the words stuck to your tongue. “You’ll probably be getting out far quicker than I will.”

His eyebrows came together, a crinkle between them as he gave you a slight expression of confusion. You could tell he was about to ask a question, mouth open and words forming on his tongue, but the buzz of the intercom being turned on made him jump out of his skin. It was a whole body reaction; tensed muscles and eyes darting about, no doubt an inbuilt mechanism formed from something in his past that let him survive something. You put a hand up slowly, a signal to wait a second, nodding your head towards the glass panel of the Nurses’ station as Sanford announced lunchtime. 

“That sound will happen a lot around here,” you mumbled as you stood up, finishing off the last deep drag of your cigarette and stubbing it out in one fluid motion. “You get used to it after a while.” 

When you noticed he wasn’t moving towards the doors as you stepped away, you turned back with a kind look, bowing your head a little to meet his lowered gaze. “C’mon, stick with me, alright? I’ll show you around.” 

For a moment, you remembered being told that your first day. You could almost hear your voice morph into that person’s, the one who showed you initial kindness, and could see yourself in Eddie. You were yet to believe if he was innocent or not. All you had was his word. But all he had was yours, too. Truth and lies were a currency in this domain, with blind trust that the more valuable would be exchanged. But, if you were honest, you felt the need to tell the truth more and more these days, the bitter taste of them on your tongue and threatening to swallow you whole. But truth needed to be given to those who earned it, and wouldn’t run off screaming to the nearest orderly that you’d finally gone mad. 

And you just hoped that with the arrival of another supposed innocent, those truths would finally be shared.