#I prompted myself and that counts

[jmflowers]

prompt #32: make that scene make sense in the episode

Blindfold

“Agh,” Maya hisses, pulling away quickly with her eyes shut tight.

Three times now, Carina’s tried to lean in for an innocent kiss and three times now, there’s been a box of pastries or a Liam or a fucking breeze that’s gotten in the way.

Three fucking times since she’s gotten home.

And it really just makes Maya want to scream.

“I’m sorry, bambina,” Carina whispers, stepping away, “What can I do?”

Detach my boobs, Maya wants to say, Take all these hormones out of my body.

Rip my fucking clothes off.

She opens her eyes instead, willing herself not to cry with frustration. There’ve been enough tears for today.

Enough tears for a lifetime.

“My entire body feels like it’s on fire,” she confesses, sucking in a wavering breath.

Carina nods, understanding.

Always so understanding.

“It will be worth it tomorrow,” she promises, inching closer without touching, “And then you will start to feel better.”

“Because it’ll be your turn to feel crappy.”

Carina shrugs, unperturbed. “We’re making a baby.”

The tears start to pool in Maya’s eyes again, betraying her. “I wish this was more romantic,” she whispers, slipping her fingers between Carina’s.

“This isn’t romantic?” Carina smirks, her eyebrow quirking. “I find it very romantic that your nipples are exploding.”

Despite herself, Maya laughs. “Shut up.”

“We could make it more romantic,” Carina suggests, waving the baby monitor in her left hand like it’s a prize they’ve won: Liam sound asleep in his crib. “Hop up on the counter.”

Maya frowns, confused.

“If you are higher,” Carina explains, pushing at Maya’s hips to ease her backwards, “I can kiss you without touching your exploding nipples.”

“You’re going to make me regret using that analogy, aren’t you?” Maya mutters, hopping up onto the thin bit of counter not already dedicated to sink space or the toaster or drying dishes.

God, they really need to renovate.

She tries not to wince as her body settles again, leaning against the cabinet doors.

Carina grins, backing away with a glint in her eye. “Un secondo,” she promises, holding up a finger as she disappears into the dining room.  

“I thought you were going to kiss me,” Maya calls after her, spreading her legs in a hopeful invitation.

“I am,” Carina teases as she reappears in the doorway, sliding a strip of fabric between her fingers. “Your body is on fire, no?” she asks as she saunters closer.

Maya swallows roughly, watching.

Knowing that look on her wife’s face.

Rip my fucking clothes off, her insides scream again.

Carina smirks. “Tell me our safe word,” she instructs, already in charge.

Already lighting a fire low in Maya’s belly.

Because there is love here, burning between them – love and consent and affection. Carina knows how the blindfold can heighten all the other senses. How it helps Maya to relax, to feel more present in her body.

How fucking hot she finds it.

Maya does as she is told, whispering the word as she leans forward, allowing Carina to tie the soft fabric around her eyes. Allowing Carina to take full control.

“Stay here,” Carina commands.

Maya waits, listening intently as Carina’s feet pad across the kitchen floor. As the cardboard pastry box is opened once more.

She waits, until she feels the warmth of Carina slipping between her legs, the smell of her perfume and the faint sweetness of donuts wafting in between them.

Until Carina leans closer, her nose brushing against Maya’s own.

Maya opens her mouth, desperate for the kiss she’s been waiting hours for.

Instead, she feels Carina’s finger slip past her lips, tasting of cream filling. She opens her mouth wider, feeling Carina’s breath on her tongue.

Carina, and the taste she’s actually craving.

“Lick,” Carina orders.

Maya closes her mouth dutifully, sucking the custard from Carina’s slender finger. Her hand sneaks around Carina’s back, sliding down to find purchase on her ass.

She grins when Carina gasps at the contact, taking it as an opportunity to seek out Carina’s mouth once more. Carina’s beautiful, delicious mouth.

Maya only manages to dip her tongue behind Carina’s teeth before she’s slipping away again, giggling as she drifts to the end of Maya’s fingers.

“Where are you going now?” Maya calls after her.

“Be good,” Carina chuckles instead of answering.

The fridge opens across the room and Maya does know, then, where Carina is going. Knows exactly what path Carina intends to take them down this evening.

She pries the blindfold from her head, slipping off the counter as quickly as she can manage. Grinning, as she disobeys.

Somehow, it’s fast enough to surprise Carina before she can lean inside the fridge for the chocolate sauce or the strawberries or whatever else is on her menu.

“No more food,” Maya mutters, pushing the door closed as she eases Carina back against the sink. “I only want to taste you.”

[lurking-loaf]

It's essential to teach them color theory when they're young so they understand how to mix colors. How else will you get art that's good enough for the fridge?

Day 6 of DCA Promptober - hues plus bonus animation of Sun imitating the Mac's wait cursor aka the Spinning Beach Ball of Doom

[starry-bi-sky]

Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well: 

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.  

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents. 

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill. 

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.) 

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one. 

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself. 

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.) 

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.) 

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.  

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe. 

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.  

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal. 

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking. 

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter. 

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind. 

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous. 

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own. 

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t. 

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward. 

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”) 

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)  

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell. 

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his. 

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it. 

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.   

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now. 

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own. 

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)  

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother. 

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten. 

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands. 

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely. 

It is a fast dream. 

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods. 

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him. 

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal. 

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train. 

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.) 

—---  

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again. 

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person. 

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.) 

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)   

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird. 

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is. 

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off. 

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom. 

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.) 

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

-----------------

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

[pokeberry5]

Stray Tim please 🙏

Goggles!!

[pearl-kite]

(slides in) berry nightjar

(slides over)

I was going to do one of those greater eared ones, but then I saw this dude's little peets and I

[maulfucker]

So fucked up that obimaul is a rarepair. What do you mean not everyone is obsessed with enemies to lovers with a Force connection, where one side is completely obsessed with the other who barely acknowledges him (but is just as affected)

[dansconcepts]

Loveybug: I'm in love with you!

Chat Noir: No you aren't!

Loveybug: Yes I am! Why won't you believe me?!

Chat Noir: BECAUSE NO ONE DOES!

Loveybug: ...

Loveybug: ...W-What?

Chat Noir: Nobody loves me. Not Ladybug, not the team, not my friends, not even my damn family. Nobody loves Chat Noir.

Loveybug: stunned into silence

[stormikitty]

I desperately need to see pictures of Danny and Damian enjoying childish things with a caption like "let your inner child heal" or the quote from Jazz's bumper sticker, "have you hugged your inner child today?", or something like that. I need to see them surrounded by squish mallows and a Stitch plushie and watching cartoons and making a pillow fort and stuff like that.

[sweetvalentinescandy]

struggled a lot with tweeks pose unfortunately. love how kenny turned out!! if only it was their week but its NOT!!!

[kitsunesakii]

Two is Better than one

I went wild with this one :D

Printer issues, Lunch Date, Flower Shop, The Stranger pt.1, pt.2, pt.3, pt.4, Spider in the Dark, ur here, next part?

Sasha entered her apartment with the quiet click of the front door. She tossed her backpack onto the chair in the kitchen and started a cup of tea. A clatter from the adjacent room caught her attention. She frowned slightly before peeking her head into the other room.

It took her a moment to process the scene before her eyes.

Micheal was sitting on her living room floor, long fingers carefully curling through the fur of a content cat purring below him. She noted a secondary feline to the left, pawing at a strand of long spindly blonde hair. He glanced at her lazily, tipping his head to the side and humming.

There was only one thing wrong with this picture. Sasha didn't own pets.

"Micheal-what?"

His smile widened. "Hello my dear."

She gestured to the cat now rolling onto its back as Micheal petted its belly. "Where did these come from?"

He looked over at the one still playing with his hair. "They followed someone into my corridors. They followed me here."

Right. Sasha shook her head and sat down, the one on its back stretched out before moving towards her curiously, it had orange hair like a tabby. She pet it and it purred in response.

"Micheal."

"Sasha."

"I don't have the stuff for these guys. I barely have the room, you don't really expect me too-" Her words were cut short as she watched the grey one tangled in Micheal's hair sound out a small mewl as Micheal tenderly picked it up in its hands with too much bone and fingers that stretched too far across. The cat didn't seem to mind.

Micheal hummed as he watched the cat in his arms twist and curl, purring contently as if Micheal wasn't a terrifying monster. Sasha dared to smile.

"I believe, if I remember correctly, these creatures need food, water." He chimed lightly. Sasha rolled her eyes.

"Fine. There's a store down the way from here. They have pet supplies." Sasha sighed as she stood to her feet. "And they are cats, Micheal."

He didn't so much as stand to his feet, rather a blur of motion and colors that stretched out and scattered like sand before he was standing in front of her. "Cats. Yes."

She grabbed her bag and walked towards the door, stopping when she realized Micheal was following her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you of course." He giggled, "silly question."

"Right." Sasha smiled, "This won't end badly at all."

----------------------------------------------

The actual trip wasn't horrible.

Besides the fact that every single dog started barking at Micheal which earned them a few curious glances from the staff, they made it out with a sack of cat food, cat litter, and a box. Even more than she had expected, Micheal paid. Handing the cash to the women as Sasha looked at him with such a confused expression she partially believed he did it just to see her reaction. Laughing as they left the store with the supplies. She simply shook her head.

"I think- he had one."

Sasha looked over at him, he looked, well, human. The way his coat sat on his shoulders and down past his boots, his hands wrapped around a bag of cat food. His eyes trained on nothing before looking over at her with a sharp smile.

Sasha frowned. "Who?"

"Micheal. Before-" His words echoed and trailed off.

Sasha understood. "I'm sorry." The words felt stupid in her mouth.

"Do not be, its-" he paused. "It's a nice memory, I am not sorry to have it, amongst the fractals of everything and nothing and the not-in between, it is nice."

Sasha thought about her question a moment before asking. "What's it like?"

"What?"

"The...what you said about the fractals and the nothingness, delusion...what's it like?"

"It Is Not What It Is and it is a part of me" he said it like a broken tune from some forgotten nursery rhyme. "It is madness- throaty, hollow, the depths of doubt- madness that stirs in the mind. It is not a physicality, but, within it, there is a certain…” He paused. “Ah! Beauty. Like a fine piece of decoration in a mundane hallway." Micheal laughed long and hard as they approached her building.

"You say it's beautiful?"

He giggled and shook his head. "You tell me, my dear, what with your It Knows You, all that knowledge will never satisfy, never relief, you see all and yet-" They entered her house to the two cats scratching up her couch and seemingly content with life. “Madness floods the senses and dilutes the mind, leaving it clear. It changes perception, blinds reality. It's a song sung with all the wrong notes and the wrong tune but it is beautiful nonetheless.” He sat the bag on the kitchen table and she prepared two bowls.

“A broken melody is still broken.”

“Ah, but only you would know if it's broken.”

Sasha paused and stared at him. He was crouched down, pouring the food into the bowl she had provided. It got everywhere and he giggled. Letting out a hummed “oops.” Before moving a long finger to scatter the dropped food even further. His hair cascaded around his shoulders and swept across the floor, the grey cat already taking interest in his dubbed playtoy.

She understood what he meant. And maybe there was a relieving beauty to it. Someone’s only lost if they themselves don’t know how to get to their destination. But if someone is simply wandering, well. There could be a comfort to that. Ignorance is bliss after all. A buzz of muddled headspace that someone looks for within drugs or alcohol. A weight lifted from the mind as it's consumed by something that isn’t tangible.

“Do you understand?” He looked back at her, the pieces of food that had missed the bowl now nowhere to be seen. The two cats had taken an interest in the food and water and were quick to indulge themselves. She looked into Micheal’s eyes, the swirling spirals that seemed to impossibly dilate as he looked at her. He seemed softer, somehow. All folded up and crouched on her floor seemingly as protection to the felines happily eating away. His sweater changed and morphed in color and she half wondered where his coat went. His scarf was wound around his neck and seemed to move like a snake, continually curling over his shoulders. Twisting and bending and pulling in every direction. He was an enigma to look at. Madness. An ever shifting idea that barely took shape before it was changing again. Beautiful. She decided.

He was beautiful.

She almost forgot he was waiting for a response. “I understand.” The words didn’t feel nearly enough. Some part of her reminded herself that she was supposed to be scared of this thing that had casually dropped two cats at her feet like it was nothing. This thing that bought the supplies with money she wasn’t sure he was even supposed to have. This thing that had given her a distorted flower that she still had in the living room. This thing that followed her around with a curiosity she couldn’t explain. This thing that had kissed her cheek instead of killing her when she had been in its corridors. She ignored that voice and instead moved to fix the litter box in the washroom.

Not even an hour later she was curled up on the couch petting the tabby as Micheal played with the gray one on the floor not even a foot away.

“What are their names?” She asked him, breaking the silence that seemed to muffle Micheal’s laughter as he let the cat swipe at his long fingers, pulling them away just in time.

“Names are redundant.”

She rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll call this one Pumpkin.”

He didn’t look away from the cat, letting it catch his fingers and pull them down to bite playfully. Micheal hardly seemed bothered. “Daisies.”

“The cat? That’s a pretty name.”

“No-” He giggled. “I remembered. I was picking them up.” He drew his hand away and pointed at the mess of lines and colors that had once been a flower, sitting in a jar on the coffee table.

Sasha smiled back. “Daisy it is. Pumpkin and Daisy.”

[btheleaf]

35 for the hugs ^~^

From the hug prompts

1.4k words/ Ao3 link

Cloud kids, air kids, Pema, and Lin.

35. Cuddle pile

Tenzin cracked his eyes open to see rolling multicolored clouds painted red and yellow by the vibrant light of the sunset over Yue Bay. A few baby bison flew around as they played. He groaned and fell back down when he tried to sit up.

 “Oh good, you’re awake.” Bumi’s voice came from beside him.

Tenzin turned his aching head to see his brother laying on the ground next to him. “What happened?”

“I sorta knocked you out while we were sparring and I didn’t want Pema to yell at me, so I kinda laid on the ground next to you so it looked like we were just hangin’ out.”

Tenzin sighed and turned his attention back to the clouds. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Bumi agreed and the pair of them remained silent for a little while.

“Who hurt who?”

The brothers looked up past their bushy eyebrows to see Kya standing over their heads with water at the ready. Where other people would see a healer ready to do her job, Bumi and Tenzin knew better. The clip of her words was all they needed to know she was annoyed already. They didn’t see one of the best healers in the world, they saw their sister who could and would turn that water into ice picks if they made a wrong move.

They pointed at each other in unison.

Kya groaned. “Seriously? Come on. Pema thought one of you died because you haven’t moved in like 20 minutes.”

Tenzin smirked at Bumi who pouted at the realization that Pema would be yelling at him later.

“Lay down, sis. The clouds are looking beautiful right now.”

Kya turned her face towards the sky and let out a small sigh. She put the water back in her flask and made each of them scooch to the side so she could take the spot between them.

She pointed at the sky. “That one looks like a baby bison.”

“That is a baby bison,” Tenzin said.

“Oh.” A pause. “Sorry, I’m really high right now.”

Bumi laughed and Tenzin voiced his displeasure with a resounding, Ugh.

“That one looks like Uncle Zuko’s scar,” Bumi said after another minute. Kya and Tenzin murmured in agreement.

“This one’s shaping up to look like Druk.” Tenzin waved his finger back and forth at a long oblong of a cloud formation.

“All I see is a banana,” Bumi argued and then squinted. “Or a dingy.”

“Dragons are kinda shaped like bananas,” Kya interjected which finally got a laugh out of Tenzin as well as Bumi.

The sound of a glider closing whipped through the air. “Daddy, what are you doing?”

“We’re cloud watching,” Tenzin said.

“Oooooo!” Ikki exclaimed and hopped up in a spin to float herself down into the space between Kya and Tenzin. Both of them moved to cushion her landing even though it wasn’t really a necessity now that she had a better handle on her bending. “Have you seen any good ones?”

Kya pressed her finger to the tip of Ikki’s nose which made the young girl laugh. “Your dad saw a dragon fruit and Uncle Bumi saw a thingy.”

Tenzin rolled his eyes and Bumi cackled.

More whistling wind followed by wooden clattering came from nearby. Jinora and Meelo stood with their arms crossed over everyone’s heads.

“Ikki, you got distracted again,” Jinora complained.

Ikki shrugged. “It can’t be that important if it wasn’t better than clouds.”

Now it was Kya’s turn to laugh.

“Get down here, soldiers. That’s an order,” Bumi commanded with a playful lilt to his words.

“Aye, aye, sir!” Meelo saluted and was careless as he stepped over and on top of Kya and Bumi to take the space between them.

“Oof! Ah!”

“Settle down, kid. Yeesh.”

Jinora pouted and sat cross legged next to her father. Tenzin held out his arm to invite her into the fabric of his robe, and even though she was trying to be serious as a newly anointed master, she cracked a smile and took the spot, using his shoulder as a pillow.

Ikki started pointing at nearly every cloud in the sky. “That one looks like a papaya. That one looks like Twinkle Starchild’s nose. That one looks like a tree that I saw the other day. That one looks like a cloud. That one looks like a bean bun.”

Heavy clinking footsteps approached as Ikki went on.

“Uh-oh. Here comes the fuzz,” Bumi warned.

Everyone on the ground looked up over the tops of their heads again, this time seeing Lin approaching in her noisy metal uniform along with Pema who was holding Rohan.

“This some kind of Air Nation sit-in protest about dinner?” Lin asked.

“Maybe if we were sitting it would be, but as you can see, we’re laying down.” Kya wagged her finger at Lin and everyone in the group snickered.

“Are you high?” Lin leaned down over Kya to inspect her.

“What, are you a cop?” Kya pouted.

Lin sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Bumi snorted again. Tenzin shot Pema an apologetic look.

“Okay.” Pema put Rohan down on Bumi’s chest. “Since no one wants to help with dinner like they said they would, Lin and I will eat since we’re doing all the work and then the rest of you can fight over what’s left in the snack cabinet later.”

The group grumbled and groaned in protest.

Pema stared at each of them in turn as she spoke. “Yes, you’re all very cute when you act like this, but it’s too late to throw an extra 10 people into the dining hall, so we need to figure something out.”

Kya pulled something with specks of chipped white paint from her belt, took a deep breath, and blew on it.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Lin shook her head and guided Pema to stand closer to the group on the ground.

Pema looked from Lin to Kya. “What did you just do?”

Kya threw her arms up towards the sky as a mass of shadows descended on them. “Bison party!”

Pema’s jaw dropped when she looked up and saw what had to be every bison on the island getting ready to land around them. Oogi came down by Tenzin with a thud and Jinora narrowly avoided getting licked by his big tongue. She yelped and flew out of the way. Tenzin accepted his fate and laughed the whole time he was getting covered in bison saliva.

The group was soon crowded in by the few adult bison and the dozen or so baby bison that the acolytes had migrated to the island a few months ago. The smaller bison floated down bleating and whinnying until they filled all the available space between their adult counterparts.

“Watch this.” Kya smirked. “Sugar, go night-night.”

The bison behind Lin and Pema let out a low huff and toppled onto its side. Kya got up and hugged the beast’s stomach. Little bison got closer, curious about what Sugar was doing, and being the social creatures that they were, began to relax into laying and sitting positions to imitate Sugar. Oogi and the other adults followed suit, and soon the group was completely surrounded by a ring of fuzzy creatures that had no intention of moving.

Tenzin hopped up to lay face-down on Oogi’s stomach and everyone else dispersed to find their own cuddle partner. Pema’s lips pressed into a thin frown of annoyance. Lin put her hand on Pema’s shoulder.

“It’s not too late to order takeout.”

Pema sighed and nodded. She climbed over a few baby bison to exit the circle and came back a few minutes later to find the bison huddled even closer together with her family lounging all over them. Tenzin called her over to get set up on Oogi’s legs between him and Lin. He wrapped her in his arms and Lin took her hand.

She watched Kya shepherd the baby bison until they were forming a tight-knit group for the kids to get comfortable in, and then smiled as the waterbender shepherded Bumi and Rohan to get into the circle with them. Kya then hopped in herself and everyone inside the fuzzy ring of baby bison relaxed back to put their attention to the sky.

The clouds were getting dark, now taking on more tones of pink and purple as the sun lowered across the ocean. Shadows disappeared as dusk approached. Pema rested her head back onto Oogi’s side, figuring she’d give Tenzin a moment of peace before telling him he needed to go out to pick up dinner… and give Bumi another minute or two before the yelling started.

[eirenical]

Homecoming (2052 words) by eirenical

Fandom: 九龍城寨之圍城 | Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Summary: AV, Chan Lok-kwan, Shin, and Twelfth Master are different men than they were a year ago. The world is heavier now, harder to bear, but still they've won. They've taken back their home. But can a place where they've lost so much ever truly be home again without the man who made it one?

Their first night back in the Walled City after its liberation was both homecoming and memorial service all rolled into one. So many people gone. So many people damaged, broken, forever changed. They could repair homes, shore up walls, reopen businesses, but people were not so easily replaced and repaired.

Lok-kwan had seen that already in his three friends. "They aren't the same men," Tiger had said, and he'd been more right than Lok-kwan had then understood. Broken in body, nearly broken in spirit, yet still there had been sparks there, deeply buried, of the men he'd known, the men he'd come to think of as family—a true luxury for an orphan who'd never had one. And with their reunion, that spark was slowly fanning back into a flame.

As the sun had set and night settled in, they had milled around the destroyed barber shop, unsure where to go, what to do, until Lok-kwan had finally realized that after a year spent living so closely together, they no longer knew how to be apart. Lok-kwan went rummaging through the place—his old loft, Shin's apartment, to a few of the aunties who had shops nearby—until he'd gathered up enough bedding to make a sleeping pallet big enough for the four of them to curl up together, to watch each other's backs.

That had been nearly five hours ago if the clock on the wall could be counted upon. Five hours ago… and there were only two other people curled up in the blankets with him now. AV. Twelfth Master.

Shin was nowhere to be found.

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November 24, 2024: This one is all @qilingxiong's fault. I watched this movie a week or two ago and it's been poking at my subconscious ever since. Then I spun a whump wheel and got "panic attack" and all the fic thought bubbles burst all over my keyboard and here we are. XD Enjoy? ^_^

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 九龍城寨之圍城 | Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: AV & Chan Lok-kwan & Shin & Twelfth Master Characters: AV (Twilight of the Warriors), Chan Lok-kwan, Shin (Twilight of the Warriors), Twelfth Master (Twilight of the Warriors) Additional Tags: the relationship between the four could be read as romantic or preromantic if one chooses, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Flashbacks, Panic Attacks, Grief/Mourning, cuddle piles, Literal Sleeping Together, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon

[pencap]

Hi! I love your work, and it's wonderful to hear you might start writing poetry again. I hope it goes well, and please be kind on yourself ❤️

For the three words: silver, fall, power.

No pressure and feel free to ignore this entirely! I just wanted to tell you that it's great to see you around again.

Thank you for the kind words, love! It's wonderful to be back and be met with so much love. Please know that your support is infinitely encouraging and infinitely appreciated.

My darling, for you I wish to be silver like the full moon dancing on silent feet silver like the first sleepy snowfall of winter silver like constellations shimmering in a peaceful night. You deserve a soft-spoken silver as shining and carefree as bellchimes. But darling, all I know how to be is silver like a sniper's scope staring from the rooftop silver like spikes of hoarfrost glinting on barbed wire silver like starfall crashing down in a shattered sky. I am made to be a sharp-edged silver as powerful and deadly as bladesteel. I ache that I cannot be a lullaby singing you to sleep. I weep that I cannot be a flashlight in your darkest night. I mourn that I cannot be a diamond ring on your finger. But I will be the sentry standing guard at your doorstep. I will be the smooth tongue to lay your enemies bare. I will be the chainmail wrapped around your softest spots. And darling, perhaps if you are so very kind if the world is so very forgiving if my fate is so very lucky-- Then perhaps, my dearest darling, that can be enough.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Okay, I've made sure my Bluetooth keyboard is easily set up to my phone. I will now be able to type seamlessly on different devices. I am ready to try and start writing next month.

I still have no clue what though. I've found some prompts but am not ready to post them. So uh, free for all prompts in my ask/comments for now? 😅 If anyone's interested XD

[stagehunt]

god i woke up to unimaginably good food today

[officialgleamstar]

hey ,,, hey Travis ,,,,, can I request terrick with 20 👁️👁️

Send me a Ship and a Number and I will Write a Kiss: 20. ... on a scar.

ao3 link

Nicky always woke up ahead of Terry. He wasn’t sure if Nicky simply required less sleep as a demon or if he was dealing with some kind of insomnia, but whenever Terry got up, Nicky was already out of bed and shuffling around their apartment. Texting Jodie, making breakfast, humming to himself as he got dressed, he was always awake and always doing something, no matter how late into the night the two of them had been whispering at each other.

It wasn’t a surprise to wake up to the sound of Nicky moving, to say the least, but Terry was taken off guard by the fact that he could still feel his weight in the bed. Terry let his head loll to the side, not quite opening his eyes but peering through his eyelashes up at his partner. Nicky was propped up on one elbow, looking down at Terry with a lovestruck smile on his face as he traced his fingers against the comforter thrown over them both. Now that he was cognizant, Terry could feel the barely there touch through the blankets, as if Nicky was aching to touch him but unwilling to pull back their blankets and disrupt the quiet scene they were in.

Despite his own coziness, Terry almost wanted to break the peace himself. The look on Nicky’s face made his heart trip over itself in his chest, some light and fluttering emotions that made it hard for him to sit still. He blinked, opening his eyes further until he caught Nicky’s gaze. His partner returned the look, still wearing that same sappy expression, and Terry could hear a different part of the comforter start shifting as Nicky’s tail started twitching happily.

Nicky opened his mouth to say something and Terry jolted forward to press their lips together, stopping the words before they could leave his mouth. For his part, Nicky seemed to understand what Terry was doing, just relaxing into the kiss and staying silent when Terry pulled away. He just kept smiling, watching as Terry shifted so his head was near the pillows again. His tail was going even more crazy now and Terry bit down a smile, littering kisses against Nicky’s skin along his collar bones and down his chest.

He followed a vague trail of the various scars and nicks decorating his partner’s skin, needing to latch onto some sort of pattern before the sheer affection pounding through his veins made him blurt out something stupid. He didn’t want the peaceful quiet of the morning to be over and so he followed Nicky’s scars, kissing them one after another. A mark from a stray knife. A burn that Terry wasn’t sure the origin of (how could demons even burn?) A lighter patch of shiny skin that Terry was pretty sure Nicky had gotten in the Forgotten Realms over something as innocent as tripping on his own shoelace in the Omega Daddies’ castle. There was a collection of stories carved into Nicky’s skin and Terry indulged himself with them, taking his time appreciating them while Nicky let out increasingly flustered giggles.

Terry could tell that soon, Nicky was going to break and say something, and Terry leaned back to consider how to end this. He scanned his eyes over Nicky’s chest until his gaze landed on his next target. The neat edge of Nicky’s top surgery scars, right on the intersection where there was a line cut up towards his nipples. Terry ducked his head to kiss one and then the other and finally popped back up to kiss Nicky on the lips once again.

“Are you done?” Nicky mumbled, his voice husky from choking down giggles, and Terry grinned, their noses still brushing.

“For now, I think,” Terry replied and Nicky rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like you didn’t like it.”

“Hey, I never said I don’t like your attention! I just don’t like not talking.”

Terry huffed a laugh and shut him up with another kiss.