#I’m not a static person! I gotta remember that :P

[crispycreambacon]

Amazing what two weeks away from Tumblr can do for you

[that-gt-and-vore-stuffs]

Experiment 05SB

Alternatively titled “I’m sorry 2B don’t hate me please”

I hath given in to the M4dc0m brain rot at the cost of me now having written a 7k+ word fic because I’m not confident enough in my art skills to draw it at the moment. Here we go!

Oh, there’s also implied fatal in this (it’s of unnamed characters, plus this is M4dc0m, but I’ve gotta say it. I guess you could take it as reformation if you really wanted to.). Mentions of blood I guess?

As always, Vore under the cut :)

“Ey 2b? You there?” Deimos’s voice crackled to life through the plastic earpiece currently jammed into his left ear, yanking the hacker and unofficial ‘team medic’ as he was called once (much to his own confusion. Sure, he knew basic medical but by no means was he any sort of doctor) back into reality. A brief moment passed in the silence of his room, more often called ‘the lab’, of their base before everything came crashing back at once. Deimos, Sanford, and Hank were out raiding a A.A.H.W warehouse at his instruction. Meaning he was alone in their base, also known as a breaking down appartement they had taken shelter in. It had electricity and provided shelter from the harsh hell scape that had once been the state of Nevada. A dark red sunless sky overhead, vegetation and any ecosystems completely wiped out from what they’d seen, bandits and zeds equally ready to eat the nearest person if it meant living another day, the Agency hunting you down if they thought you’d possibly be working against them or with the infamous Hank J. Wimbleton, and having little to no essential resources for days at a time to top it all off like some twisted cherry on this sick cake. Home sweet fucking home.

“Doc? Helllloooo?” Shit, right. Deimos.

“Sorry, I’m here. What is it Deimos?”

“And the medic lives!” The small cheer was accompanied by laughter from the smallest member of the team. Jebus, how was he able to joke in even the most dire situations?

“Just get to the point, chucklehead.” 2b could hear Sanford add in over the static, the man’s laughter just barely making it to tired ears.

“Right right, sorry man. Anyway, if we wanted to get food on the way back would you say no?” Pardon? There was no way he was hearing that right. There were several reasons why he couldn’t be hearing that right. A. food wasn’t by any means the easiest thing to come by in this hellhole, B. restaurants weren’t really a common thing anymore so those were out of the picture, and C. there’s no way they could p- actually, scratch that last one. Robbing a corpse wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that those three had done. Not by a long shot. Still though, how was he supposed to respond to that request?

“…what?” Apparently by asking the first word on his mind.

“We saw that one hotdog vendor on the way here and we’re all starving. Can we or can we not get hotdogs on the way back?” Oh. That’s what Deimos ment. How on earth had that hotdog vendor not been killed yet?

“Is this a genuine ‘we’ or is it a ‘me’, Deimos?” That seemed like a more fair and answerable question.

“Hey I-!”

“It’s a genuine ‘we’ Doc,” Sanford’s voice chimed in. By the cursing in the background 2b could imagine that he had flipped up Deimos’s mic to temporarily mute him in the realm of their earpieces. “Pretty sure one of our stomachs gave us away to the last group of agents we had to take out. Not gonna point fingers but I’m pretty sure it was Hank- Ack! I’m just saying!”

“Thought we weren’t pointing fingers.” There was the third voice. Rough from years of fighting yet still all too recognizable as Hank. The same Hank J. Wimbleton on the wanted posters that scattered the walls of almost every nearby building, wanted dead by the Auditor and his whole agency. He must’ve smacked Sanford for his comment. Well at least he didn’t do worse, whether on purpose or accident.

“We aren’t. Now Cmon Doc, you never answered my question.” Hearing the other hacker’s voice ask for an answer again 2b sighed. Always eager, wasn’t he? How the man had seemingly endless energy on missions would forever remain a mystery to him, Jebus be damned.

“I don’t really care what you do on the way back so long as you all come back in one piece and with the stuff I sent you there for. Understood?”

“Aye aye, Captain Doc! Over and out!” And there they went. The earpiece went dead, leaving 2b on his own once again once he flicked up his own mic. Back to silence. Sweet sweet silence. It wasn’t often they got that in their shared apartment of a base. Someone was always awake, someone was always saying something. It was never really quiet unless you were lucky enough to be the only one awake. 2BDamned had seen plenty of those rare times, if only because he overworked himself and didn’t sleep. So maybe it was one of his less than desirable qualities, when living in a hellscape being ten steps ahead of the agency trying to kill you is always good. He had to keep that up, on top of keeping the others alive and well.

And then there was his little experiment. That also was taking a toll on how little he slept. Not all that long ago the trio had returned from a mission with the data he had requested and more. Specifically a duffel bag full of seemingly shrunken grunts and two only slightly bigger shrunken MAGs. Pft, how funny it was to say that. A shrunken MAG. Hell, he wouldn’t believe it if you told him with no proof. The idea seemed insane. Oh but it wasn't. Not by a long shot if the cages sitting on one of his tables said anything. Normally he’d call such a thing like keeping people in cages inhumane, not that there were many humane things in this hellhole to begin with. He’d expect keeping them in cages that probably used to be for pets to be a move pulled by the Agency, not himself, however he had to make do with what they could find and had access to. Also known as: not much at all. He wanted to study them after all. Letting them free was just not an option.

Now that probably sounds bad, studying living beings like himself, but one couldn’t blame 2b when you considered his situation (at least he hopes one couldn’t). Somehow the Agency found a way to shrink living beings. That’s power that could be used against him and the others to make everything turn for the worst, something which he wanted to avoid at all costs. However, if one of his teammates or himself were to be shrunken on a mission it would be possibly lifesaving to know how to reverse the effects. Plus, having the power to shrink enemies on their side could certainly prove useful. All that being said, he needed these few alive in order to try and figure out what caused them to be how they were. Hence the repurposed, beat up pet cages. Two of them to be exact. One held the grunts and the other for the two MAG agents. None of them had killed each other yet, so that was nice. A few simple experiments and a dissection of a grunt that had been dead upon arrival to him proved that they still functioned as they would if they were their normal size. Just on a smaller scale. He had sent Hank, Deimos, and Sanford out for supplies today, yes, though if they found any information regarding the shrinking of their little ‘guests’ then they were to bring it to him. With no information on that though, he had to continue his other work. Tired eyes met the screen through red goggles. Moments later his head found itself cushioned in the crook of one of his arms.

“What the hell.” 2b grumbled, a fresh headache slowly starting to pound against the inside of his skull. What the hell was up with him? He should be fine. This was only his second day without proper ‘longer-then-15-minutes’ sleep. He’d gone longer before, he should be able to function. Why was the screen giving him such a headache now of all times? He needed to get stuff done. He needed to finish up this…this……what was he working on again? Hold on, no, he should remember. This shouldn’t be slipping his mind like it is. Maybe if he just thought back a few minutes. It would come back to him, right?

“Ok right before Deimos called, what was I doing?” 2b thought out loud to himself, trying his hardest to recall what had happened prior to the call from his allies. ”I was sitting here…then Deimos called in. Wait, no. Go back. From the top. Since…however long ago I’ve been sitting here, working on…what was I working on before Deimos asked about getting food? I sent them on the raid, didn’t eat, got to work and- no. That’s not it. Why can’t I just-“

Gggnnnnnnrrrr…

Oh well fuck him. That’s why he couldn’t focus. 2b groaned, not bothering to hide the noise as of now. He was alone, no one would hear him or tease him. Unless you would count the shrunken men in the cages, however it wasn’t likely they’d say anything. When you’re the size of a rat, spare the MAGs who were more rabbit sized, to your captor pissing them off seemed like the worst thing one could do. Clearly the hacker wasn’t at all in the mood to deal with teasing, so their mouths remained shut. That left 2b alone to deal with his complaining stomach, a feat which proved easier said than done when one was going off a day and a half without properly sleeping. He couldn’t even remember the last time he ate something. It was all just fuzzing together at this point.

Pushing himself off his desk 2b flopped back into the worn chair he’d been sitting in for God knows how long. Relaxing into the backrest was certainly more comfortable than being hunched over a laptop screen typing away like he had been for the past day or two. A hand fell to rest over his stomach while the other removed his goggles. Those were not helping the blooming headache. A low growl from his stomach drew a small hiss through his teeth, the sound being accompanied by a familiar empty cramping.

“Oh you can shut up.” He grumbled at the organ half heartedly, “It’s not like I can eat anything right now. There’s a reason I sent Hank and the others out.” His stomach growled back, the empty sound ringing in the hacker’s ears. He needed to eat, that was undeniable. The problem was getting something to eat. He had few options, none of which he particularly liked. Option 1. going out to look for something even slightly edible on his own, option 2. wait and hope the others found and brought back food, or option 3. contact the others through his headset and ask them to get him something on the way back. The first option was clearly undesirable on its own and the other two weren’t much better. Sure, asking them to grab something for him would probably be easiest and most logical, however he was almost certain that they didn’t want to hear that out of the blue in the middle of a fight. That and he didn’t want to deal with any teasing that might come along with asking. He wasn’t about to take that chance when he had things to do. He couldn’t remember those things at the moment, sure, but they were still things he had to do! So asking was not an available option at the moment. That left waiting and hoping for the best.

Rrrrrrrnnngggggg….

“I know. I don’t like the idea either.” 2b sighed as he spun around in his chair, gently patting his stomach. He needed to get out of his chair, even if it was just a walk around his room. He needed something after a day and a half straight of sitting there hunched over staring at a screen. Maybe it’d help with the headache if he was lucky. Probably wouldn’t but hey a man could dream. With a small grunt of effort the hacker found himself on his feet, his balance wobbling and legs feeling like brittle pasta beneath him. Ah, that's what I wanted to do earlier. Go figure taking breaks gets ignored by my brain. “However, I do believe it’ll end with the best result. I’m sure they’ll be home soon anyway.”

They wouldn’t. That was a lie, to himself and to his stomach alike. He likely had a few more hours alone, maybe two at least. The A.A.H.W warehouse he’d sent them to was big and if you account for fighting delays and them stopping on the way back then the chance of them being back in the next two hours would be some sort of miracle. By the way his stomach reacted every time he brushed over the thought that the trio was getting food on the way back then he wasn’t going to be looking so hot by the time they arrived back. Oh he was going to get the short end of the stick no matter what he did, wasn’t he? Talk about luck. 2b sighed, running a hand up and through his hair as he walked along one of the walls of his small room. His stomach clearly wasn’t shutting up any time soon so the next best course of action would be to ignore it. Maybe that would help him wait it out. What could he focus on? There was work, he could clean up a little bit maybe, or he could focus on the rattling coming from the cages and-

Hold on.

That most certainly wasn’t right. 2b cocked an eyebrow, crossing the room to where the three cages were placed. Quite the interesting scene was playing out before him. From what he could see a few of the shrunken grunts were teaming up to try and break out of the cages. This wasn’t their first little escape attempt, no, but it interested him enough as he stood there watching and attempting to grab his tablet at the same time. Eventually he had succeeded, opening up a new document to scribble down a few notes.

Title: Log 073SB

Time: 6:34 pm, xx/xx/xx

Author: 2BDamned

Note: Grunts working together to attempt escape. MAG agent seems to be attempting to cause a distraction by rattling the wall of the cage. Or perhaps they just want out. Very annoying either way. None seem bothered by my presence.

Satisfied with his little note, 2b closed the tablet and set it down on the counter next to one of the cages. Whether it was him being too rough with setting the tablet down or the low grumble from his stomach that startled the cage of grunts was up for debate, but currently he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Right now he needed to have a chat with the little troublemakers. Without hesitation the unofficial medic reached forward, opening the little hinged door located on top of the cage with ease compared to what the grunts inside were attempting before. He didn’t think twice before he reached in and grabbed the two topmost grunts from the pile of attempted escapees before retracting his hand, repeating the process with his other hand, and finally closing the cage. Hands now full, each holding two fighting bodies, the hacker sighed.

“Escape huh? How many times have you already tried that and it didn’t work?” 2b asked, a less than impressed tone lacing his voice. Sure, he needed a distraction from his stomach but he didn’t want to have to deal with escape attempts left and right for the next however long. “What made you think it’d go any different this time?”

There was a moment of silence before a soft voice spoke up, one that clearly hadn’t been used recently. One of the grunts in his left hand. “W-we figured i-if we actually tried and w-worked together then maybe we’d b-be able to manage a successful…e-escape…”

“Really now? Interesting.” 2b mumbled, looking over the grunt in his hand. They were all so small. You’d think he’d have gotten used to their size by now but every time he held one it seemed to slap him in the face. Offing them if they got too rowdy wouldn’t be hard at all. Wouldn’t need to use anything to begin with. How crazy it was. “Though I’m not sure I can let this slide as I have with previous instances.”

“W-what?” His response seemed to temporarily stun the four in his hands, most likely because of how it was different from his previous comments on their attempted escapes. A shiver passed over them like a wave while the hacker only nodded.

“Your previous attempts at escape. While I can understand why one would try I’ve made it quite clear that successful escapes won’t be happening nor tolerated, correct? I need to prove my point here because you all clearly don’t understand words.” He shifted on his feet slightly, a new question wracking his brain. What could he do to show he wasn’t going to deal with constant escape attempts? It had to be something that stuck, seeing as they clearly didn’t understand his earlier comments about escape not being tolerated. Only a few moments of silence passed before his lips were moving again. “You four are going somewhere else. A stronger holding space. If any of the others try anything they’ll join you. Simple, yet effective.” Or it would be if he knew exactly where he planned to stick these four. What did he have that could serve as a stronger cell for them? The cages were already pretty secure in terms of what he could work with. He just needed something stronger, close to him, hard to escape, and threatening that held a sense of danger with it. But what could that be? His eyes darted around the makeshift lab, trying to find something.

Grrrrroowwwllll…

2b’s eyes slowly scanned down from his shaking captives to his stomach. For a moment he just stared, eyes lacking any readable emotion. Well now that was certainly an option. It fit his criteria. Almost too well. Strong, hard to escape, close to him, and it held a sense of danger. Under his mask his torn and scared lips quirked up into a little smirk. “Mmhm. That’ll do quite nicely, in fact~”

The final moments of peace were shattered as the meaning of his words collided with his captives like a well aimed punch to the gut. Hearts sunk to their feet like rocks in water, despair rearing it’s head in their struggles. Those fortunate enough to remain in the cages simply watched with a muted horror as the four bodies were tossed onto the table and held down with little to no effort. The hacker wasted no time removing the mask and bandages that usually covered his mouth, tossing the fabrics haphazardly beside his discarded tablet. Despite the word fresh being the last thing he’d use to describe the Nevada air, 2b knew he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t nice to just breathe the air in alone and not through the layers of fabric like he often did. With the temporary roadblock now gone his eyes drifted downward to the bodies pinned beneath his hand.

“Well, I believe that eliminates any preventable issues we could encounter here.” He hummed softly, plucking the grunt who was covered by his hand the least up into the air. It certainly was odd to watch the little body squirm and fight against him, all attacks on the two fingers holding it proving futile. Their only hope seemed to be 2b letting them go, something which proved less and less likely the longer they studied the look in the hackers eyes. It wasn’t a look one ever wanted to find themself on the receiving end of. The sight of sharp teeth, glimmering with saliva through grinning lips, certainly did not help to lower the grunt’s heart rate at all. 2b simply clicked his tongue. “Meaning stalling time is up. Stay still, won’t you?”

The grunt did not, in fact, stay still. It was impossible to do so as far as they knew when you had a spit soaked tongue dragging up every inch of your front, sharp daggers of teeth only millimeters from their face. A deafening silence washed over the others, only being broken by a small pleased hum from their normal sized captor.

“Not bad…” the man mumbled, dragging his tongue up the squirming grunt yet again. A small voice in the back of his mind, his voice of reason, yelled out the obvious loud and clear to him plenty of times: this was wrong. It wasn’t right to be doing what he was about to do. This was stooping down to the bandits level, something he never intended to do unless absolutely necessary. He shouldn’t be enjoying the taste of another living being like this. And yet…here he was. Ignoring any logic and reason in his mind to proceed with this. Thank goodness he was alone. 2b didn’t even want to think about what the others might say if they were to see him how he was now. Shaking his head softly he shoved away the thought, opening his jaw as far as the joint and scarred tissue that made up his cheeks would allow. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned with how easily the small body slipped into his mouth.

Despite their best efforts to squirm free of their new confinement, the slippery surroundings of the unofficial doctor’s maw proved to have horrible traction. Saliva dropped onto the unfortunate grunt’s head from above while they desperately tried to crawl out of the dark cavern. Feet scrambled on the soaked surface of their predator’s tongue as the muscle moved and flipped them around as if they were some piece of candy, all while their hands desperately tried to keep as little of them between the axe like teeth. One bite and they were done for, a terrifying thought. Through it all only three sounds were ever heard from those lucky enough to not be in the current grunt’s position. The sickening sounds of soaked struggle, terrified yelps from the grunt stuck within 2b’s jaws, and the occasional hum from the man himself. The torture, as those watching from the cage would describe it, seemed to continue for hours and hours on end.

Glk

Glp~

Until it all stopped with two simple swallows and a collective gasp of horror from those watching. The relaxed posture of the man they all watched failed to help their situation.

“H….huhh…that was..” the uncertified medic breathed, breaking the silence. His free hand lazily felt down his throat, tracing where he could feel the squirming body slip further down by the second. It didn’t take a genius to decipher that the less angry sounding gurgle from the man’s stomach signaled the end of the unfortunate grunt’s descent. With eyes widened just beyond his natural look 2b gently pressed his stomach. How interesting it was, as morbid as it might sound, to feel something squirming around inside the organ. Before he could even stop to consider a better way to word his thoughts, he finished his sentence. Just not in the way the grunts wanted to hear. “…incredibly easy.”

The last thing any of the remaining grunts wanted to see was those eyes scan up slowly before locking on them as if they were some sort of dessert. The clearly out of place smile on the man’s face didn’t help the feeling of impending doom either. If anything it only made it worse as a rough hand plucked another grunt from the selected three that had remained under his hand. Down, beneath his newfound curiosity and odd urge to continue what he was doing, 2b knew he should have been more concerned about how easy this was coming to him. No sane person would take so calmly to swallowing living beings, especially not of his own kind. Yet here he was, smirking as he licked over his scarred lips with cold eyes locked onto the small shaking body like a cat would after spotting a mouse. Looking at their sizes in comparison to one another? The simile was scarily accurate. Through his whole little mental debate the hacker found it all too easy to slip the small body into his mouth, licking it over to draw out as much of that strangely addicting taste before slowly beginning to nudge it back. Just bit by bit until it was far enough.

Glrk

Grk~

“Two down…haahhh…two to go…” the hacker sighed as he traced the lump down his throat. There was a waiting period once more but it didn’t last long before the shiver inducing gurgle signified where the poor soul had ended up. How the man hadn’t gotten sick yet was beyond the understanding of those who witnessed the event and even the man himself. Surely he should feel at least a little nauseous with two rat sized bodies squirming within his stomach. Nausea and fullness were the two sensations he had expected by now and yet neither had shown their face yet. Deep within his mind, from an area he didn’t even know existed until it spoke, a voice urged him to test his limits. 2b had shaken that idea off nearly immediately. As….enticing as that idea was, he still needed a few of the shrunken grunts alive and well to continue his attempts to recreate and reverse however the Agency had shrunken them before. Four however….well that wasn’t the biggest loss in the world if something happened to go wrong. Leaning a little more heavily over the table he grabbed one of the last two grunts, shoving the struggling body into his mouth head first. Quite the sight it was to watch flailing legs be slurped into someone’s mouth like nothing more than wet noodles. Interesting and horrifying.

Glp

Glrk~

Though compared to seeing someone who had been beside you ten minutes ago disappear down your captor’s throat as nothing more than a barely visible lump would top it in the scarring scale. Nothing could compare to that sight. Good god was it terrifying. The reality that escape was impossible was all but cemented into the remaining grunts' brains now, as that had been what had gotten their companions into this situation in the first place. This was happening because their capturer wanted to prove his point that attempted escape would not be tolerated. At this point they were convinced they’d have to have a death wish to attempt escape now. Especially when their conditions weren’t horrible compared to what they could be in, something which hadn’t crossed their minds till now. Now don’t take their words wrong, by no means did they want to stay here. Especially not now. However, if it meant living another day and not ending up as lunch? Staying definitely was the preferable option.

“One to go. Damn.” The hacker's voice snapped all attention back to him. His position had changed, now leaning back on the table as he looked over the struggling form in his hands. The words seemed to flow from his mouth without too much thought needed behind them. They just felt…right. It was a feeling he never expected to experience in such a context that he was now, much less to have it almost piloting him as it felt now, but he was nearly willing to say he welcomed it. He wasn't well acquainted with the idea of eating living beings after all, so the subconscious help to ease the process along wasn’t something he’d push away. Not unless it were to cause an issue that is. However, nothing of the sort had happened yet, meaning he was going to keep letting his actions flow naturally.

Just as he had with the three before this one, 2b wasted little time starting towards his goal. Raising the grunt just above his head the man dangled the flailing body over his open mouth, a sight that he could assume would terrify anyone in the grunt’s position. All went smoothly as he lowered the small body in. That is until the grunt, having seen an opportunity and taken it, grabbed and yanked down his mic. While he tried to react as quickly as possible, he could only pray the microphone had not managed to pick up the gag he’d made after panic and shock had caused him to jolt forward and send the grunt to the back of his throat. He flipped up the mic as fast as he could, trying to determine the best course of action one could take with a squirming body halfway down their throat and a possibility of having just been ratted out to the others by their lunch. He was screwed were they to find out, what with how at least two of the three always seemed to be looking for teasing ammunition. That and this….well this wasn’t exactly normal, you know.

“Doc? Is everything ok over there?” Fuck. That wasn’t good. Ignoring the sinking feeling of dread in his chest the best he could, 2b took a deep breath and forced the fourth grunt down with a swallow that took a little more effort then he felt it should’ve. Flipping down the mic, he answered.

“Damnit- yes. I'm fine, Sanford. Don’t worry.” The sentence had to be his least convincing lie yet. Between his heavy breathing and dryness in his throat he could tell his voice wasn’t helping him in any way. Now he didn’t take his teammates for idiots, despite how it sure seemed like they were sometimes, but in the moment he found himself wishing they were.

“You sure? You don’t sound all that fine. Did something happen back at base?” The worry beginning to lace the man’s voice through the static filled earpiece only served to worsen the feeling of dread in 2b’s chest. He needed to get Sanford, and the others who were no doubt listening, off the idea something had happened. He needed to deal with the whole I-just-swallowed-four-people-alive thing before they came back, so them returning early was not in the plan.

“No, nothing happened.” He shot back, only realizing the speed in his voice wasn’t too reassuring after he said it. Ok, what was a believable excuse for why he sounded like he did? “I just…spilt coffee on my legs after burning my mouth. Must’ve knocked the mic down in the process.” With a hand to his chest the hacker forced a soft swallow, trying to at least get rid of the uncomfortable dryness that had settled in the back of his throat. Please say they believed that.

“Pft, really? Damn, wish I could’ve seen that. Think you looked like one of those old cartoons, Doc?” Phew, crisis averted.

“Real funny, Deimos. Get back to your mission.” 2b shook his head at the comment. At least they seemed to believe him. It was worth it, even if the mental image of those over exaggerated cartoon characters was now going to show up whenever he even slightly burnt his mouth on coffee. Oh well, some sacrifices must be made.

“Alright alright. We’re going.” The man on the other end laughed. Those idiots. Damn his heart caring for them, now he was attached. “See you when we get back. Over and out, Doc!” And there they went.

Fighting off his own soft laughter, 2b flipped up his mic. A soft sigh escaped him before he could even think to stop it. That could’ve been horrible. While one hand softly rubbed at his neck, sore from what he had to guess was the miniature disaster that just took place, the other gently laid itself over his stomach. The four inside never seemed to stop moving, constantly squirming and slipping about. There were a handful of reasons he could assume was the cause, though the most likely was that being shoved into a soaking wet moving sack with three of your colleagues provided little traction or ability to get comfortable. That and panic. Panic was probably a rather big factor in how they were feeling. 2b, on the other hand, had to be feeling the exact opposite of how they were. The warm weight of his four ‘victims’ was a welcome sensation within the previously empty pit of his stomach. As twisted as he knew it sounded, he would’ve been confident saying that what he was feeling was honestly satisfactory. Why having living beings stretch and actually round out his stomach in a barely noticeable way was causing this feeling was a mystery to him, but at the moment he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not when it felt this nice.

“I hope I’ve made my point clear.” The unofficial medic hummed, looking over to the grunt filled cage. They had backed away from him by now, huddled in the back most corner of their confines. The sight drew a genuine laugh from the man they all seemed to fear ten times more than before. Well that was proof if he’d ever seen it. Looks like their escape wasn’t something he had to worry about any more. So maybe he sacrificed a little of his ‘I’m not going to hurt you’ act for this. It was worth it in his eyes. And besides, he was probably the most gentle with them out of his whole little gang. If they wanted to be left with one of the others then go ahead. Although being left with the mercenary who you were created to kill didn’t sound like the most fun time to him. Smirking, he collected his goggles, mask, and tablet from the table. “It seems I have. Glad we could have this little -hic!- chat. Heh.”

He gave the cage a pat, the rattling of the metal only serving to scare the grunts further back in the ball of bodies they’d curled into, before turning to walk back to his desk. He needed to sit down. Standing apparently became a lot harder when you had four people fighting against your insides. Thinking back, he didn’t know what he would have expected. Did he stumble a little bit trying to get back to his desk? Yes, he did. It was like he forgot how to walk in all honesty. Another reason he was glad he was alone in their base. Like most things though it proved worth it when he finally collapsed into the worn chair he used for work. Without thinking twice he opened his tablet and started a new log.

—————————

“Doc! We’re back!” The call rang out through the appartement, followed by three sets of footsteps marching their way in and the door slamming shut perhaps a little stronger than needed. As the hinges of the door stopped rattling the three expected to hear a displeased groan, followed by the ruffled form of 2b appearing in the hallway to scold them for being so aggressive or something like tracking blood into the base. Honestly, why he still bothered was a mystery to them, at least Sanford and Deimos for they had zero clue what went on in Hank’s head, for the most part. They were mercenaries, fighters, people looking to not end up with their brains splattered on the wall or something worse. They were going to be bloody upon returning, even if that blood wasn’t their own. It wasn’t like their floors were carpet or anything either. In the end though they never bothered to fight the scoldings. No use making the unofficial medic mad, especially if they needed help. The lack of disgruntled medic in the hallway or at least yelling when silence returned to the room was worrying. After a minute or two with nothing spoken and no ruffled hacker to be seen, Deimos tried again to call him.

“2b?” He called out, peering down the hallway which led to their rooms. There wasn’t any blood on the walls, a good sign to start, and no bullet holes that weren’t there before. Unless the Agency suddenly learned how to do stealth missions, something he and he knew the other two were hoping wasn’t the case, he had hopes. Again, no response from the man. Gun still in his hand he took one glance back to the others, a silent ‘follow me’, before continuing down the hallway. Although Deimos had made it to the closed door first he’d been pushed past by the red goggle wearing giant as he reached for the doorknob. Hank had been the one to open the door to 2b’s room. He’d also been the first of the trio to feel the tension in his shoulders drop. It wasn’t long after he had relaxed that he was shoved into the room by two bodies trying to get in and see any damage that could’ve been done while they were gone. The sight of 2BDamned softly snoring away in his chair, nothing in the room seeming out of place, was most certainly a welcome one.

“Ah. So that’s why he isn’t barking us up a tree for your entrance, Dei.” Sanford hummed with a laugh, careful to watch his volume. If there was one thing he didn’t want to deal with after their mission it was a cranky Doc who got woken up by them. It wasn’t a secret he didn’t necessarily sleep after all and there was no way he could survive off coffee like he seemed to silently claim he could sometimes. They all had times when their sleep schedules were fucked.

“Oh shut up, ‘Ford.” Deimos shot back with a playful punch to the man’s bicep. “It’s not like I’m the one who slammed the door. That’s what he would’ve been on our asses about.”

“You slammed it open then yelled loud enough for all of Nevada to hear you. Don’t act like you’re innocent!”

As the two’s words morphed into friendly bickering Hank took it upon himself to deliver the bit of what they got that couldn’t stay in the duffle bag slung over his shoulder at the moment. Buried in the pocket of his jacket was a small object. Something he hadn’t expected to find, but had snagged nonetheless when it had been pointed out by Deimos. For a second as he walked over to the man a rough hand dug around fabric, fingers gripping plastic as he arrived at his destination. Without thinking he tossed the USB onto the hacker’s desk, eyes wandering over small things like the empty coffee mug or discarded goggles. Behind red-tinted goggles they landed on the man’s tablet, the screen now illuminated thanks to what he could assume had been the small drive hitting the desk. Prying wasn’t something he often did when it came to his teammates, respecting their privacy as they often did his, but after a certain word caught his eye he couldn’t help but read the log that had popped up.

Title: Experiment 05SB

Time: 7:42 pm, xx/xx/xx

Author: 2BDamned

Note: I…cannot believe I’m about to write this. This is update one of Experiment 05SB, an experiment started without much if any bit of a proper plan behind it. Phase I, I suppose you could call it, was a success. The shrunken grunts are, in fact, small enough to swallow whole and…alive. MAGs have not yet been confirmed to be the same way, though I’m sure that answer will show itself one day. I am unsure why I am able to keep four of them down without feeling nauseated, but I can. I will update at a later time when more information has presented itself.

The log ended there, eyes falling away from the screen as Hank’s mind worked to process the information it had just been given. According to what had been written before the man had fallen victim to sleep, it was not only possible to swallow the shrunken beings sitting in one of the cages behind him, but the unofficial doctor had done it himself. Four times to be exact. Curiosity grabbed control of his eyes, slowly panning them up to the cage of grunts who looked noticeably more terrified than they usually did. Had they seen the whole thing go down? His mind continued to wander, finding new questions like how on earth the hacker had managed to keep living and no doubt moving beings down like the log said he did. That is unless he’d spit them up before falling asleep. However that seemed highly unlikely-

“Snooping around Doc’s stuff, are we Hank~?” When Deimos had appeared behind him was beyond the mercenary, though the shock of hearing his voice out of the blue was enough to startle him into quickly powering off 2b’s tablet and whipping around to face the two that now stood across with him with far too smug looks on their faces for his liking.

“Woah there, big guy! We didn’t mean any trouble.” Sanford cooed, the fucking Chad cooed, holding his hands up as if he was under some sort of arrest. “Just wanted to know what you were reading over here is all~.”

“Yeah, exactly. I never expected to find you clicking through Doc’s diary.” Deimos added on nearly flawlessly. Sometimes he really hated how well they worked together. Namely when it was against him. “So, was it a love confession~?”

Hank sighed, glaring at the two through his goggles. He sure fucking hoped they could see the look on his face, despite most of it being covered by bandages and his mask. Because he was not amused and he wanted them to know it.

“No, not a love confession, you morons.” He groaned, shaking his head. Telling them straight off what it said would probably be horrible. At the moment he was still having a few difficulties understanding parts of what he read. Lying just seemed like the best choice overall. It wasn’t like he’d be the only one doing so, after all. It sure seemed like 2b did to them over the mic. Speaking of the man, Hank turned around to take a good look at him. At first glance he seemed like he normally did when he passed out in his chair from overworking himself like this. It was only when Hank took an extra second to look and let the information in his brain guide him did he see the slightly out of place softness around the sleeping hacker’s stomach. Unable to help himself Hank felt his ruined remaining lip quirk up into a small smirk under his mask as he turned around to shove the Dumbass Duo out of the room so 2b could sleep.

“Bunch’a nonsense, is all. Now move. I don’t wanna deal with him if you idiots wake him up and we still have shit to put away.”

[tickle-fic-chick]

Punishment || A Hazbin Hotel Tickle Fic

Author’s Note: Part of a fic exchange I’m doing with @amazingmsme​! This is my first time writing a fic for this fandom but I’m super excited. I love all of these characters and I’m eagerly anticipating the next episode. Just a quick warning, this fic contain adult content that usually isn’t present in my work. You have been warned! I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Oh, and remember...you’re never fully dressed without a smile!

Angel Dust was on a mission and he was determined to succeed. He was no stranger to flirting and seducing, not that it shocked anyone. When you worked in the adult entertainment industry such things were expected of you. Angel was exceptionally popular too, with both men and women. While he personally fancied men and only men, there were times when Valentino didn’t give him much of a choice when it came to partners. He would do whatever it took to keep his drug habit funded and his job secured. Still, Angel would have been lying if he said he hated his work. He had been with some of the top overlords in Hell, a claim not many could make. Still, there was one stallion the spider demon had been unable to ride. That stallion was Alastor, the radio demon and resident co-manager of the hotel. Well, he was determined to change that! He could have any man he wanted and that included Alastor!

He poked his head around the corner, eyes zeroing in on his target. Alastor was at the bar counter, seemingly pestering Husk. The cat demon looked like he would have rather been anywhere else, ears twitching as Alastor laughed at one of his own puns. Angel’s heart rate quickened as determination filled him; he could do this! He wasn’t really interested in Alastor as a romantic partner, just as a one-night stand. He was desperate to know what the famous overlord was like in bed. All he had to do was secure one night with him and that would be the end of it. Besides, then he could brag to his coworkers that he had seduced one of the most powerful beings in Hell. How awesome would that be? Angel took a deep breath, adjusting the outfit he had carefully spent an hour choosing before striding towards the bar. The clicking of his heels quickly drew the attention of the other two demons. Alastor’s face remained unchanged, bearing his usual forced grin, and Husk looked like he wanted to throw himself from the roof of the hotel.

“Ah, Angel Dust! Care to join us? I was just telling Husk about the newest ideas Charlie pitched for the hotel!” The deer demon greeted. “Not that I have much of a choice in the matter.” Husk grumbled, downing his third glass of whisky in under ten minutes. With luck he would pass out soon and wouldn’t have to deal with Alastor again for a few hours. Angel leaned against the counter, batting his eyelashes. He made a point to position himself so that his chest was on display, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Husk. “Don’t you ever wear any normal clothes?” The bartender groaned. “Nope! Why would I want to cover up my best assets?” Angel replied, chancing a glance at Alastor. The radio host seemed to be completely unfazed by his tight, revealing corset and mini skirt. Damn, he was good! Still, Angel wasn’t anywhere near ready to give up! Husk groaned, rubbing his head. “I’ll be back...” He grumbled, stumbling off towards the restrooms. It seemed he had over drank, as usual. This left Alastor and Angel Dust completely alone; perfect.

Angel scooted closer to Alastor; that certainly drew the other’s attention. “So, it’s just you and me now...” The spider demon purred. Alastor tilted his head slightly, grin never faltering. “What precisely are you getting at?” The radio host questioned. “Oh, I think you know exactly what I’m getting at. Let’s head up to my room, what do you say? I can show you a real good time.” Alastor chuckled, static filtering through as he took a step back. “I’m afraid I have to turn down your offer. I’m not one for carnal pursuits of the flesh. Why don’t you proposition ‘ole Husker? He would put up a little resistance at first but usually gives in rather quickly.” Angel took another scoot closer to Alastor, eyes burning with desire. “Because it’s not him I want, big boy.” He reached out to touch the other’s arm, which was promptly drawn away. “Angel, if you persist I’m afraid there’s going to be dire consequences.” Angel smirked. “Haven’t you heard? I like bein’ punished, especially by studs like you.”

Alastor’s expression changed, though it was barely noticeable. His already wide smile widened ever so slightly. There was a new gleam to his eyes, though Angel couldn’t tell what it meant yet. “Is that so?” Alastor purred, taking a step closer to the spider demon. His overall presence poured charisma and power, making Angel’s heart nearly jump out of his chest. “Well then, perhaps I shall carry out your little punishment...” Angel’s throat went dry; was it happening? Had his efforts payed off? His eyes narrowed, smirk widening. “Just be gentle with me, Al. I still gotta work tomorrow.” Angel turned, about to lead the way to his quarters when a hand grabbed his wrist. He looked down, discovering a dark tentacle wrapped around it. “Where do you think you are going?” Alastor asked, taking another step closer. Angel gulped, trying to keep up his cocky persona. “My room? Unless you wanna do this right here, where anyone can see us?” Alastor let out another low chuckle. “Let them see. I’m sure they will enjoy the show.”

That surprised Angel Dust. He had never pegged Alastor as the kinky type; the deer demon was the most mysterious and private person he knew! Still, he certainly wasn’t complaining! A few more tentacles appeared from a portal in the ground, wrapping around his arms and legs. He felt himself being hoisted up and pinned to the wall. “Woah! You do this often?” Angel asked with a nervous chuckle. “Yes, though my magic usually isn’t used for something so trivial.” Alastor scanned the trapped actor’s body, clearly contemplating something. “Now it’s my turn to ask you a question.” Angel shrugged; whatever it took to get this show on the road. “Ask away.” Alastor leaned forward, purring into his captive’s ear. “You wouldn’t happen to be ticklish, would you?” Angel froze, eyes widening. Had he heard that right? No, surely not! “C-Can you repeat that?” He stammered, earning a devilish laugh from the deer demon. “Are you ticklish? It’s a simple questions, my friend! Yes or no!” Oh, so he had heard right. Angel could feel himself blushing under his fur.

The truth was, he was extremely ticklish. He also loved it, tickling being near the top of his growing list of kinks. Just about everyone knew so he rarely had to explain himself. That, when combined with the pure novelty of Alastor being the one teasing him, flustered the spider demon to no end. “W-Well, I...” He started, a squeal cutting off his words. One of the tentacles had slipped around his waist, stroking against his belly. The corset he was wearing left just the slightest bit of tummy exposed, a choice in attire he was now regretting. He bit his lip, holding back snickers. “Yes or no...” Alastor’s tone just made his teasing ever worse! Angel took a deep breath before finally managing to stammer out an answer. “Yes! Y-You know, thihihis isn’t exactly what I had in mind...” He babbled, a giggle slipping out as a tentacle stroked across his neck. “Good! I cannot wait to explore this further!” Alastor chimed, snapping his fingers. The various tentacles set to work, stroking over his exposed neck and belly. Angel instantly burst into giggles, having no chance of holding it in.

“Ah, it seems we’re already making progress!” Alastor said gleefully, a sadistic undertone in his voice. The tentacles were gentle enough at first, stroking slowly and teasingly across Angel’s belly and neck. However, it seemed that Alastor quickly grew bored with mere giggles and elected to really make the spider demon shriek. More tentacles joined the party, squeezing Angel’s hips and knees. The actor squealed, shaking his head rapidly. “Noooohohohohohahahahaha! Dohohohohohohohon’t!” Alastor feigned ignorance. Of course he did, that bastard! “Don’t? Don’t what, my dear friend? You like this, do you not?” Angel’s eyes widened in shock. “Hohohohohow cohohohould you pohohohohohossibly know thahahahat?” He questioned through another round of laughter. “Why, you just told me!” The deer demon replied. Angel’s cheeks were on fire now. He had tricked him! That bastard had tricked him! That wasn’t fair! 

“Now, would you be so kind as to tell me your worst spot?” Alastor asked. Angel shook his head stubbornly, squealing again as a particularly sensitive spot on his lower belly was targeted. “Thehehehehehehehere is nohohohohoho wahahahahahay in Hehehehehell I’m tehehehehelling yohohohohohou that!” He retorted. In all honesty, he wanted the other to find it. He was actually enjoying himself quite a bit and wanted this to go on as long as he could handle it. Alastor shrugged, humming as he leaned against the bar counter. “Suit yourself! I’ll just have to experiment with each and every spot until I find the right one.” Angel’s eyes flashed deviously. “Oooohohohohoho, kihihihihihinky!” He called out. While there was no visible change, that comment seemed to irk the deer demon as the tickles suddenly grew much more intense. The tentacles more drilled into his torso, forcing waves of laughter from poor Angel. A shriek tore from his throat when a tentacle curiously brushed under one of his arms. “Oooh, what do we have here?” Alastor purred as Angel’s struggling increased tenfold.

Angel felt into wave after wave of shrieks as tentacles began drilling into his exposed hollows. It was bad enough having a sweet spot that was so easily accessed; having six of them just made it worse! “NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! P-PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEASE!” He cackled. “Begging? So soon? I would have thought a demon of your experience would have a higher tolerance.” Alastor’s teasing was going to kill him, Angel was sure of it. Well, if those damn tentacles didn’t do it first. There was enough of them to attack every armpit at once, something he was completely unused to. The most lers he had ever had at one time was two; only enough hands for four hollows. While that was still awful, it was nothing compared to Alastor’s attack. “STAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAP! MEHEHEHEHEHEHERCY!” He pleaded, feeling himself growing tired. The corset’s tightness made it hard to take deep breaths; he would definitely need a break soon.

Thankfully, Alastor decided to be merciful for once in his life. The tentacles receded back into the portal, leaving the spider demon panting on the ground. Angel curled up, wrapping his multitude of arms around his torso. Alastor approached, observing his victim’s tired state. “Well, I’d say that was sufficient enough punishment, don’t you?” Angel looked up at the deer demon, letting out a weak chuckle. “Damn, you’re merciless. We could use someone like you back at the studio. There are demons who would pay good money for a session with you.” Alastor raised his hand, fingers poised to snap again. “Okay, I’m sorry! I’ll back off with the sex stuff, okay?” Angel blurted quickly. Alastor chuckled, offering Angel a hand. Surprised, the actor accepted the gesture and was pulled to his feet. “Good to hear! Oh look, here comes Husker! Shall we have him pour us a drink?” Angel laughed, shaking his head.

That night was certainly full of surprises...

[smallestclowninthecircus]

Season 4 notes

Ep 121: mmmm tape recorder turning on without them knowing goes brrr. AAAhjhdsjfhjdf "do you mind if i call you jon" its like "can i call you elias?" is this the dream guy with the tendrils? who wants to bet the boat is captained by peter lukas? big man if it killed yall how are you still here. oh boy the tape is doin that thing. who do we think it is? did he wake up? hmm. ep 122: lol jon. 6 months!?!? bruh quit movin big man. he just Knows things sometimes you know how it is. nah b/c i can relate to feeling like other ppl/ things arent real, thats the biggest mood BUT i think it is kinda pretentious to entertain the idea that youre the only Real person. If you dont see a body dont believe it. i'll hold out hope for a bit. theres not a new archivist is there? surely i wouldve heard about that. oh god peter what changes did you make. ep 123: web development. hope its about spiders. she blames him. bruh why. if they hadnt done anything the world would've ended piss off melanie. why are ppl acting like he chose to be in a coma for 6 months. we know this they just appear. no longer "head archivist of the magnus institute, london" now he's just "the archivist" covered in spiders? cuz ik the spider has to do with controlling what youre doing and all this stuff but i cant think of how this connects to that. ep 124: ugh vertigo. is michael crew an old man? oooh. fairchild. how did he know it was martin? hmm. GRR I LOST MY NOTES AGAIN. FROM EPISODE 125 - part of 131. ep 131: bruh he's so hard to understand big man ur voice is so low. Jared Hotworth. the boneturner. "the ones i helped find their proper bodies" name a better top surgeon? our favorite trans ally? ep 132: woo field trip into the coffin! static lol. he says "chill out im just poppin in for a quick recall mission" is the rib thing actually gonna work? bruh it feels so odd and contrived but he's an odd man with some odd powers so idk. rip that archivist ayyy statement time. voices? recordings? are those tape recorders? was it the tape recorders? did they pull him back? i hope so b/c if the rib thing actually worked im gonna be so disappointed. ep 133: predicting the lonely? tundra. like the lukases. hmm. sanikova! like sanikov land. so its the hunt? i suppose? yeah. so daisy's clearly rejecting the hunt, which makes sense cuz she doesnt seem to like the entities that much. wait so are we just not gonna talk abt all the tapes playing on the ground?? no? ep 134: not an archival assistant anymore? Adelard Decker (or however you spell it) i recognize that name. 15th power. i was right there are 15. the extinction? im trying to remember what ive heard. oooh spooky. no i gotta be real i dont understand this fear but i'll believe you that its a thing. ew lukas is so squealy. lukas can turn invisible? oh boy. oooh martin put the tape recorders there. lol lukas is worried he's gonna be an avatar of the eye. ep 135: yoo its the third Daedalus statement! maxwell rayner (reiner? reigner?) i dont know who that is but ik its somebody. is he the cult leader guy? church of the divine host? 4 people?? what? did they kidnap somebody and keep them up there?? oh dear jon are you dying? did he try to See or Know or whatever? why does everyone call basira detective lol. ep 136: he was the one from the spider movie that ate ppl right? the special effects artist? is it annabelle cane? "its a joke jon" lol. hmm they wanted to record the therapy session with melanie? i wonder who that is. i almost wanna guess annabelle cane but im not sure. ep 137: this is the one! he went to the other place and read the war statement but it wasnt the one she took. not the music again. sounds like the slaughter. who the heck is eric lol. "the watcher's crown" like the crown of eyes we saw in the piccrew ep 138: oh boy Robert Smirk time. is that elias? as unhelpful as usual. if new powers can be "born" can others die out? did jonah magnus wear the watchers crown? maybe they were born from our fear or maybe our fears were born from them. ceaseless watcher does ceaselessly watch so. idk what you want

big man. yeah jonah for sure did something. ep 139: agnes!! lol that one dude threw off all their plans thats so funny. BUT this does tell us something. the tree in the backyard of the hilltop house? not made by her. it going down didnt kill agnes. im guessing gertrude tied agnes to the house using the tree? u good jon? cuz every time you try to Know smth intentionally it seems like it causes you great pain. how come he can do it accidentally with no problem but the second he wants to know smth of plot relevance he gets a headache or whatever ep 140: lol pagan exultation. classic. "oh thats my rib" lmaoo. ppl are always so mad at jon and his Eye powers except when it benefits them. they're like "oh you shouldnt do that its not right" and then all of a sudden they want to know something and its all "oh cmon jon its the only way" ep 142: oh god jon what did you do. its interesting she's giving her statement in the way that they do when jon Asks. did he see her in the Coffin? and so he's following her? ok cmon jon you're supposed to let them come to you. lmao ikr martin. "start to hear the blood" "suure." lmao ep 143: lol that awkward moment when gertrude is already dead. big J if you die im gonna kill you. bruh. ayo helen? i guess it worked? ep 144: lol this reminds me of that one edgar allan poe story where he kills the old dude with the weird eye. spooky music stuff. lol thats my favorite symptom of a heart attack its hilarious. so its smth abt the location probably? bro i feel like you should write down the numbers idk. 162830165049 564846474827. seems like the distortion? like the kinda thing that causes you to go crazy because of the numbers. oh boy is it the extinction again. bro what?? im?? his dad just died and he's like eh. martin dont be mean. he's being all lonely again. big man ur pushing ppl away. oh god its fucking squealy boy. ep 145: that almost sounds like breekon/hope... Arthur? agnes. aah was he from the lightless flame cult. a tree. lol he's just ranting rn. hehehe fuck landlords amirite. yay someone tells jon outright to go to therapy. now do it big man. ep 146: oh great! the distortion! i'm making a spiral themed building in mc right now! jon maybe accept you did a bad? nah this goes back to what i said before. they're fine with him compelling ppl when its convenient for them but otherwise its "no jon you cant, youre a monster jon" the tapes didnt turn on. i spose that means its not important? i agree with daisy, this seems unecessarily dangerous. ep 147: is that a tape? the first tape? well that went better than i expected tbh. BAHAKJASHDJKF she did the "can i call you jon" like nikola says "elias, can i call you elias?" damn annabelle is such a girlboss. oh! the one thing from the picrew. its been a while since ive connected smth to that. lol all the other avatars always talk abt their patron so lovingly and the jon just. absolutely hates the eye. ep 148: lol thats the most elias thing. "i just like the way it sounds" ep 149: did he disappear? bruhh. ur lonely powers are popping off i guess. oops i accidentally deleted my notes for 150 - 152 ep 153: thats the cult right? yeah. it doesnt sound like the church of the divine host? idk. if it is the church of the divine host then they worship the dark right? so is the eleventh the dark star or wtvr? it almost sounds like the corruption b/c of the oil or grease or whatever. oh dear what happened. oh its the hunters. theyre so annyoing. not an "it" he has a name. he's a person. is this a page from the skin book? ep 154: oh shit this is gerry's dad! oh shit he quit! oh dear god. jon don't you do it. haha martin. yeahhhh... is he gonna tell the others? cuz you know theyre gonna get mad if he doesnt. oh also picrew connection! the bandages over the eyes? yeah thats this im guessing. ep 155: oh good he told them. oh my god what did you do. lol i have no mouth and i must scream. nah you get none of my sympathy you're straight up murdering ppl. its like the desolation, destroying lives to sustain your own. ok but taking their statements doesnt

kill them. oh... bye melanie. ep 156: lmao imagine if the tape recorder spoke back. oh boy decker! i swear we got a statement from him already. oh god mirrors scary. They're gonna eat the body arent they. Yup... sounds like the flesh or the slaughter, but I'm not sure. Could be the extinction for sure. Smth at the center! Like Helen mentioned. God Peter you dick. Ep 157: peter's just so :/ another decker statement i see. a statement about the corruption? hmm. maybe its not abt the corruption. the extinction. lol pandemics. topical. John Amherst. helen? lol i can hear admiral purring in the background. oh cmon helen dont be like that. im trying real hard to like you but you make it so difficult. ep 158: did they fucking free the stranger? im gonna lose it. you absolute dumbass. im sorry who is that? jonah magnus? my guy. peter. you absolute dickhead. that's elias. (im p sure i had this spoiled for me that elias is jonah) oh dear this is her death. god peter you prick. i hope this is a pop off martin moment and not a "martin you idiot" moment. i hope the hunters kill the stranger entity. or she kills them. furry daisy pop off! yeah fuck you peter martin can make his own decisions. you know that clip from Twisted where jafar says "ok what the fuck was that" martin D: ok like i know its gonna work but still D: D: ep 159: peter you bitchboy. because if im alone i cant hurt anyone else. imnotgonnacryimnotgonnacryimnotgonnacry do it do it do it do it. pop off jon. ok its a pretty good idea for a ritual i gotta be honest. she didnt even have to blow it up lol. oh dear that was certainly a noise. "he gets you" did he not have jon already? he's back! our boy is back! awwww thats so cute. ep 160: oh right this is the thing in the safe house. i love him. "obviously im going to tell you if i see any good cows" martin my beloved <3 :)) oh boy who is this. fuckin. people. jonah you dick. gahh. you can tell he's trying to resist so hard lol. ohh. hehe keep an *eye* on him. altho if the extinction is a real thing he needs to be marked by that right? lol he sounds so intense im sorry- i want martin to just burst in and be like "look at this cow i saw!" its so dramatic and for why.

[alediazpizarro]

Senior Soundtrack

Music is a love language. Lo he tuiteado, lo he dicho, y —con ustedes— lo he vivido. Parte de mis 7 años en ASF ha sido la música que he compartido: canciones que son intereses en común, recomendaciones, o hasta tracks de obras de teatro que nunca voy a borrar de mi memoria. After all, de eso se trata la música en parte: de acordarse. Y sepan que cada vez que oiga una de las canciones en esta lista, va junto con su recuerdo. A todos ustedes, de todo corazón, gracias. No sé que sería de mi vida sin ustedes.

Les dejo la playlist que construyeron conmigo, whether you knew it or not, de 2014 para acá.

PS: si no aparece su nombre en esta lista de canciones, lo único que quiere decir es que we have yet to share a song. Los adoro a todos. 

Abarca

Burn · Lin Manuel Miranda You have the voice of an angel, and every time I think of this song I no longer hear it in Philippa Soo’s voice, but in yours.

Tuyo · Rodrigo Amarante Dancing Kermit.

Alexander

"Eungenio” Salvador Dalí · Mecano We love the music, hate the lyrics.

Na Na Na · My Chemical Romance Debate bus trips. Blasting it from the backseat, with Nesquik and cold pasta at hand.

I’m Not Okay · My Chemical Romance “¿Estos son los Rolling Stones?”

Being Alive · Stephen Sondheim Life’s dream: be Bobby. Not literally. That would suck.

If I Could Tell Her · Benj Pasek & Justin Paul You once said this is the song you would dedicate to me. Though I think we’ve grown past that, I will always remember how warm it made me feel when you said it.

Ana

Isle of Flightless Birds · Twenty One Pilots Ya sé que me odias, pero DARARAAAARAAA

I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket · Pierce The Veil El concierto que más he disfrutado en mi vida (and that’s saying a lot), y parte de por qué fue porque fui contigo. Lloramos en esta canción y en el video que grabé con mi horrible teléfono se oye lo feo que cantamos. 

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea · Neutral Milk Hotel De un Tiktok (de miles) que me mandaste pero de los pocos que sí abrí.

Numb · Linkin Park WAWAWAWAWAWA 

Anna

Fashionista · Jimmy James Really obscure pre-middle school memory, pero every time it gets stuck in my head me acuerdo de ver el lyrics video en el ballet y la miss Celia regañándonos.

Ari

Life Itself · Glass Animals It slaps. Plus, concert.

Remember When · Wallows My favorite song in my “Drive” playlist, cada vez que sale I remember sitting in the backseat of your dad’s car and you turning the volume up so we could drive over the Reforma speed limit with this blasting.

The Cave of Two Lovers · That LSD guy from Avatar SECRET TUNNEL!!!!!!!! SECRET TUNNEL!!!! THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN!!!! SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET TUNNEEEEEEEL!!!! (No Spotify version, so here’s the surf rock cover.)

Covarrubias

Toxic · A Static Lullaby Flashbacks a clase de Ms. Miranda en 7º.

Back to Black · Amy Winehouse No puedo oír esta canción sin acordarme de tu audición para Grease. Rizzo could-have-been?

Diana

The Adults Are Talking · The Strokes Es chill yet vaguely nostalgic Diana vibes to the max.

Stuck on the Puzzle · Alex Turner Thank you for liking Alex Turner. :`)

Dark Red · Steve Lacy Memorias de una tarde que pasamos armando Repentinos con una mini guillotina y pláticas de Dinamarca.

Diego

Thinking of a Place · The War on Drugs La primera que me recomendaste, y la mejor para manejar de noche.

Vissi d’Arte · Giacomo Puccini No creo que hubiera visto Tosca si no me la hubieras recomendado. Qué bueno que lo hiciste, porque esta aria se volvió de mis favoritas. 

Money · Pink Floyd Alguna vez jugamos music trivia en el salón de Stearns y me acuerdo de que yo todavía no la ubicaba pero tú la adivinaste sin problema. Years later, eres la persona que sé que le gusta Pink Floyd tanto como a mí. Lástima de Roger. :(

Layla · Derek & The Dominoes Este año tuve un classic rock renaissance que empezó, you guessed it, cuando me recomendaste esta. Clapton no falla.

Klavierkonzert Nr. 21, No. 2 “Andante” · Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart También me hiciste escuchar mucha más música clásica de la que conocía, y aprendí a disfrutarla. Esta sigue siendo mi favorita.

Sara · Fleetwood Mac De las pocas de Fleetwood Mac que no conocía pero que me recomendaste en uno de esos exchanges a las 12 am y que oí con audífonos in the dark.

Resguardum Ether · León Larregui También de las pocas de este cuate que nunca había oído pero que se volvió de mis favoritas.

Fer

Good Life · OneRepublic Buenas vibes.

Can’t Fight This Feeling · REO Speedwagon Horton --> improvised conciertos en el baño.

What the Heck I Gotta Do · Lin Manuel Miranda Más conciertos de regadera/vestidor en lo que nos arreglamos juntas.

Beth · KISS El club Glee y el karaoke en el Wii.

Miss Jackson · Panic! At The Disco No lo vas a admitir, pero te gusta mi música y lo sabes. Anytime que dudas, sólo es cuestión de ponerte esta.

The Man · The Killers Nada como nuestros buenos trips manejando de noche.

Fernando

The Bad Touch · Bloodhound Gang You and me, baby, we ain’t nothing but mammals...

EugeRiq

This Life · Vampire Weekend Siempre que la oigo pienso en ti.

I Wear Glasses · Mating Ritual Me la recomendaste en alguna de mis countless Close Friends stories.

Jose

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) · The Proclaimers Picture it: a gaggle of eight or so kids marching around Cumbres de Santa Fe loudly screaming this in a terrible Scottish accent after watching a horror movie.

Somebody Else · Clones of Clones A bop!

Ocean Man · Ween I will only say four words: Lord of the Flies.

Lauro

Desencuentro · Residente ft. Soko Clases de Domínguez contigo were always lovely. Plus, who could forget the iconic “NO HAY SEÑAL”?

I Don’t Know How to Love · The Drums Otra de cuando we were still developing our own music tastes.

Luz

Papaoutai · Stromae De cuando estábamos haciendo Haiti research and really wanted to get into the francophone mindset.

Moonlight Sonata · Ludwig Van Beethoven Those Knowledge Bowl kids never saw it coming.

Beware of the Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke) · Panjabi MC Memoria tangible de Vancouver: cuando pusiste esta en el restaurante indio al que fuimos.

Madison

I Know Things Now · Stephen Sondheim No sé cuántas veces me ayudaste a ensayar esta canción. Me ayudaste muchísimo todo Into the Woods, y desde ahí en 6º sé que te tengo como amiga.

Mare

Rumour Has It · Adele ¿Te acuerdas del proyecto que hicimos de Mr. Kamm en 7º estilo “fleas on rats”? Literal después de que usamos esta canción ya no puedo cantar las lyrics de la original.

Mariana

Bitter Sweet Symphony · The Verve La oíamos dizque “para concentrarnos” en el salón de Austin.

Pas de Quatre from Swan Lake · Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky De cuando te fui a ver bailar ballet con Fran. :)

Tú y Yo Somos Uno Mismo · Timbiriche EL SOL

Manu

Fly Away · Laid Back The moment you played this at Montero’s party you literally made everyone be vibing. It’s like the Fairy Godmother of Chill. That was also the day you stopped being “Manu from TEDx” and were just “Manu” there on. Probably ‘cause you appreciated my ability to drive a stick. :`)

MDRH

Choke · I Don’t Know How But They Found Me I wouldn’t like this Dallon spinoff as much as I do without you. It’s like emo, but evolved, mature— like you. In a good, compliment-y way.

Oceans · Frank Iero Remember when we were gonna see him in concert? :( Thanks for being the only person with whom I can enjoy weird throaty emo screamy shit. At least the guitar is good.

House of Wolves · My Chemical Romance Something about the aggressive guitar and fast pace of this song has always reminded me of you.

Mich

Tear in my Heart · Twenty One Pilots Your Koreaboo initiation before you even knew it.

The Kids Aren’t Alright · Fall Out Boy Remember the lyrics from this I wrote as a dedication in your eighth grade yearbook? I meant them. 

I Write Sins Not Tragedies · Panic! At The Disco I CHIME IN—

She’s My Winona · Fall Out Boy Something about Folie à Deux, and especially about this song, always carries a you vibe.

Perfect · Simple Plan From when you got angsty and Montes called you out on it. Then it became a bit of a joke.

One of THOSE Nights · The Cab Back in seventh grade, this was the most ambitious crossover ever attempted. 

Montse

I Want To Hold Your Hand · The Beatles De cuando saturamos la rockola del Johnny Rocket’s con 15 canciones y pensaron que no servía. But we knew. Plus, a really fun Snapchat video de nosotras bajando las escaleras a tambos y aplausos con esta canción.

Something · The Beatles Too bad Eric Clapton stole George Harrison’s wife.

I Am the Walrus · The Beatles Want to feel what it’s like to do acid without actually doing it? Play this song on Rock Band!

Don’t You (Forget About Me) · Simple Minds De la única pijamada que me han dejado hacer, donde vimos tu película favorita. An unforgettable night with an unforgettable person.

Pato

Hit the Back · King Princess The best experience of my life was one I’m glad I shared with you. Still want to murder those Rock Lobster loiterers though— blocked us from KP. >:(

Just the Same · Bruno Major I had never heard of him, but to be next to you enjoying him, with our KP t-shirts in my bag and just-refilled water bottles, was one of the highlights of my night.

The Louvre · Lorde Remember when we played Melodrama in your bedroom? This is the song that I feel best captivates that: shoes on the floor, laying softly on the bed, sunlight streaming in through the window, the vinyl spinning, and a general feeling of levity.

No You Girls · Franz Ferdinand Friendly reminder of literally the worst physical experience of our lives. :))))

The Other Side of Paradise · Glass Animals The first GA song I ever showed you, which is a nice chain thing because it’s the first GA song I ever listened to that Jordan showed me. And a birthday vinyl we played in your room.

Romina

The Only Thing · Sufjan Stevens This entire album is your personality. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Futile Devices · Sufjan Stevens Same as above. It’s not your fault you’re a Sufjan Suf-stan. But every time I listen to Sufjan I remember you playing him at the Open Mic. That’s a very nice feeling.

Mama · My Chemical Romance Indisputably goes HARD and hey what are mommy issues without a little angst/general gender confusion?

Sam

Goodie Bag · Still Woozy El día del college fair que estuvimos juntas al principio y conocimos a la USC rep que nos cagó traías tu camisa de Still Woozy. Since then, el grupo me recuerda a ti.

Vale

Heart of Glass · Miley Cyrus Tú viviste esta out-of-body transcendental experience al mismo tiempo que yo, el día de mi cena. 

Don’t Stop · Fleetwood Mac Espero que ya te guste Rumours completo. :)

Yuhis

Chiquitita · ABBA I didn’t know you could sing. After listening to you sing this one (and almost crying), I wondered why you didn’t do it more often.

Beauty School Dropout · Frankie Avalon I am sorry pero literal I can only think of this song in your voice. Iconic!

Gracias por todo. Los quiero. Los voy a extrañar.

[sevensstories]

I Thought I Knew You Chapter 3: Day 1

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel Characters: Angel Dust, Alastor, Charlie, Vaggie, Husker, Niffty, Cherri Bomb, Fat Nuggetz Ships: Radiodust slowburn Updates: Maybe every Thursday depending on my schedule Warnings: Alcohol mention, drug mention, mature content, mature language

Chapter 1: House Arrest Chapter 2: Contraband  Chapter 3: Day 1 You Are Here Chapter 4: Day 2

Read it on AO3, or just read under the cut!

Angel Dust once again found himself in the dining hall, glaring at the demon sitting across from him. He drummed his fingers against the tabletop as he studied that ever-present smile. He knew it was Alastor who raided his room. He knew it. But what the hell could he do about it?

He couldn’t confront him, that would be admitting he had the stuff in the first place. The last thing he needed was Charlie finding out. Even if he confronted Alastor in private, more than likely that would lead to a very dead Angel Dust. If he could help it, he really preferred staying alive. Or, well, undead. He would consider retaliation, but he didn’t need other things he owned being taken because they were deemed a “bad influence”, or whatever else Alastor came up with to make his life more miserable than it already was. Knowing him, he would somehow make up an excuse to take Fat Nuggetz, and Angel Dust didn’t think he’d be able to cope with that one. So, short answer, he couldn’t do a damn thing.

God fucking damn it.

“Is everything okay, Angel Dust?”

The concern in Charlie’s tone snapped Angel Dust from his thoughts. He glanced up, met with a worried expression. He sighed and straightened up, setting his fork down on his plate. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just not hungry.”

Angel Dust didn’t miss the way Alastor’s smile widened just a notch and his eyes narrowed. “Oh but, Angel Dust, you’ve hardly touched your breakfast! Did you have a… rough night?”

Angel Dust felt fury bubble up in his stomach. Of course, of course the cheeky bastard would openly taunt him, because Alastor was well aware that there wasn’t a damn thing Angel Dust could do about it. However, after a second’s pause, a slow, easy smirk replaced his glare. Or was there? Angel Dust leaned his elbows against the table and rested his chin in his hands, making sure his chest was extra fluffed and in full view. His voice came as a low purr, his eyes half-lidded in a way he knew made other demons just melt. “Sure did, sugar. What, did’ya feel me thinkin’ ‘bout ya?”

Oh, how the tables turned. Alastors sadistic grin quickly faded, replaced with a nervous smile. “I, aehm… p-pardon?”

“You heard me, baby,” Angel practically moaned, shimmying his shoulders a bit and batting his eyelashes. “I mean, if you’re curious, you can always join me, I’d be happy to have the company.”

“I-I don’t, um…” There it was, damn it was too easy sometimes. One suggestive comment and that tough guy act just crumbled away. Whatever Alastor came up with as retaliation later, this was more than worth it.

“Angel Dust!” His attention snapped to Vaggie, who did not look happy with his little display. Her arms were crossed and she had a glare like she was trying to burn holes through his forehead. 

Knowing Vaggie and how much she disliked Angel Dust, she probably was.

“You really have to do this here?” She snapped. “Some of us are trying to eat, you know.”

“Yeah, and some of us are trying to get eaten,” Angel Dust retorted. Remembering Alastor’s rumored cannibalistic tendencies, he thought better of his comment and shot a wink towards Alastor. “In the fun way, I mean.”

It would seem as if that was Alastor’s last straw. He stood abruptly, almost knocking his chair backwards. His voice was filled with static and had a slightly panicked tone that was music to Angel Dust’s ears. “Would you look at the time! I have a… thing to do. Yes, a thing! Goodbye.” He was gone before anyone could stop him, not that anyone wanted to try.

“Wow, that’s gotta be his weakest excuse yet,” Angel Dust mused, examining the claws on one of his hands. “I think I’m actually getting better at this, and I didn’t even think that was possible.”

“You’re supposed to be becoming a better person,” Vaggie grumbled, standing and picking up her plate. “I’ve lost my appetite.

“Hey, two for one! Look at me go,” Angel dust grinned, clearly way to proud of himself. Even Charlie gave a somewhat exasperated sigh. 

“Angel Dust, I know you’re upset about being under house arrest, but do you really have to retaliate?” Angel Dust chose to ignore the soft pang of guilt he felt at the disappointment in Charlie’s tone.

“Who said I was retaliating?” He huffed, crossing his arms and slouching back in his chair. “Gotta entertain myself somehow, considering I’m not even allowed to go outside.”

Charlie frowned, studying Angel Dust for a moment before speaking. “I know this isn’t going to be easy, but it really is for your own good. We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it would honestly help in your redemption.”

Angel Dust almost couldn’t help the eye roll, because of course that’s what she would say. “Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to be redeemed. Didj’a ever think of that?”

“Of course you do,” Angel Dust didn’t miss the nervousness that tainter her smile. “I mean, why else would you be at the hotel? You volunteered, remember? To get better?”

“Oh gee, I don’t know.” Angel Dust stood, not bothering to pick up his untouched plate. “Maybe because this place is free? I needed a place to stay before the extermination hit, this is a place to stay that don’t charge rent. It ain’t rocket science, toots.” “I know you don’t mean that!” Charlie’s hopeful smile and the optimism in her tone were infuriating. “You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t some part of you that didn’t want to get better, and that’s exactly what we’ll help you achieve!” 

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say. I’m going to my room.” Angel Dust didn’t give her a chance to respond before he walked off in a huff.  Who did she think she was? As if he’d ever actually fall for her little redemption scam. There was no way even she believed that bullshit. But, hey, who was he to tell her how to live her life. He made his way back to his room. If nothing else he could just snuggle with Fat Nuggetz, the only one in this whole damn hotel who wasn’t royally getting on his nerves right now. It wasn’t until his hand rested on the doorknob that he heard the radio static. 

That god damn radio static.

“Fuck off, smiles.” He didn’t even turn to face the demon that he knew had to be standing right behind him, creepy ass motherfucker. 

“I’m just checking on you,” Alastor purred, clearly recovered from earlier. Damn that was fast. “I mean, that is my job now, after all.”

“Oh bullshit,” Angel Dust pushed his door open and walked inside. Nuggetz perked up with his return, and shrank back when he spotted Alastor. “You’re just enjoying making my life as fucked as possible and we both know it.”

Alastor hesitated before venturing inside behind Angel Dust, glancing around the now familiar room. “Nonsense, my dear! I’m simply doing what any good, ah, caretaker would do and checking in on my ward.”

“You’re not a caretaker, you’re a warden.” Angel Dust flopped over on his bed, resting his upper arms over his eyes. “Don’t try to sugarcoat what this is.”

“Oh, I would never.” Alastor’s grin widened a notch.

Angel Dust peeked out from under his arms, irritation and bitterness leaving a sour tang in his mouth. “You just let yourself right on in now, huh?”

“You could say that.” Alastor absentmindedly spun his microphone in place. “You could say I’ve already acquainted myself with your quarters.”

Oh this brazen bitch. Angel Dust didn’t exactly expect Alastor to hide it, but this was ballsy as hell. “Oh, so you admit it then?”

“Admit what? You’ll have to be more specific.” Alastor’s eyes wandered back over to Angel Dust, clearly enjoying this little game he was playing.

“You know very well what!” Angel Dust sat up with a glare. “I get takin’ the drugs and booze, whatever, it sucks but I can deal with it. But the toys?! That shit’s personal!”

“You mean the items you were in no way permitted to have?” His grin widened, once again taking on a sadistic tone. “Why, Angel Dust, I’m only doing the work I’ve been assigned. Don’t you know, you’ll never be redeemed if you’re allowed to keep such… belongings.”

“Oh, what, so you can’t even say ‘sex toys’?” Angel Dust snorted, not missing the way those words made Alastor bristle. “We both know you don’t give two shits about redemption, especially my redemption, so save the act for Charlie.”

“Regardless of my feelings about redemption, yours or otherwise, I’ve been given a job to do.” The smirk Alastor was sporting was all the more infuriating. Oh what Angel Dust wouldn’t give to punch those oversized teeth right out of his mouth. 

“You don’t care about your ‘job’,” Angel Dust made air quotations with his fingers to emphasize his point, “you just wanna make my life miserable. Well, you know what, pal? I’m already in hell, so do your worst. I don’t got nothin’ ta lose.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that.” Alastor’s sinister tone sent shudders down Angel Dust’s spine, and he found himself rethinking his little challenge. Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea after all.

However, he was nothing if not stubborn. “I guess we will,” he huffed, crossing both sets of arms. “But I’ll say this. I betcha you’re gonna get sick of this little charade ya got goin’ long before ya get me ta give up.”

Alastor perked in interest. “Oh? Is that so?”

“Yeah, it is.” Angel Dust shifted uncomfortably, but he held his ground. He knew this was a bad idea, but damn it he was pissed and he had poor impulse control.

Alastor considered a moment, studying Angel Dust with an intensity he wasn’t used to. It took everything he had to stay still and not show Alastor how much he was doubting his own words. Far too long of a pause passed before Alastor spoke again, his demeanor far too relaxed and his grin much too sharp. “Well, then, in that case, how about a wager?”

Angel cocked a brow. “What kinda wager?”

Alastor took a step closer, leaning forward so he was closer to eye level with Angel Dust. “Oh just the kind where, if I win, you leave this little establishment. You go home, to your filthy studio, and you never come back. The kind where if I win, when I win, and I so much as see you again, I’ll be sure to see to it that ‘Angel Dust’ is never heard from again.”

Angel Dust felt his heart stop for a moment. Leave the hotel? He was here for a reason, and it wasn’t exactly by choice. He doubted he would actually be able to stay in the studio after what he had pulled, and even if he could Valentino was sure to make his life far worse than Alastor ever could. The thought alone made him sick to his stomach. On the other hand…

He was no stranger to deals, and he could get this to work in his favor.

Angel Dust put on a cocky grin to match Alastor’s, masking his own doubts. “Ya know what? You’re on, baby. But what do I get if I win?”

Alastor paused and drew back, considering. “Hm. I suppose I hadn’t thought of that, not that it will matter in the end. What is it that you’d want?”

Angel Dust considered a moment. What did he want? This was a big opportunity here, he didn’t want to waste it on a laugh. There were plenty of things that he could ask of Alastor, plenty of things that would make him squirm and be oh so satisfying to watch, but nothing that would benefit him in the long run. His mis-matched eyes widened when something came to mind. No, scratch that, there was one thing he could ask for. One thing that would solve all of his problems, if he could just hold out for the next month. 

He looked up at Alastor, newfound determination igniting his features. “Buy my contract from Valentino.”

Alastor visibly faltered, his eyes widening in shock. “...pardon?”

Okay, this was good. He threw Alastor off his rhythm, this could work. “You heard me. If I win, when I win, I want you to buy my contract.” He mimicked Alastor’s words in a faux display of confidence he prayed Alastor couldn’t see through. 

Alastor blinked away his shock and his wide grin masked anything else he may have felt. “Oh, is that all? Well that’s easy enough! Not that it will matter, you won’t be winning this little bet of ours.” Alastor offered his hand, a green glow emanating from his palm. A blast of air shot past them both from the sheer force of his power, and Angel Dust felt uneasiness settle in the pit of his stomach like a rock. Alastor, on the other hand, looked nothing but confident. Excited, even, like a predator primed to go in for the kill. Like he knew he had won. “So, do we have a deal?”

This was a bad idea.

Angel Dust hesitated just a moment before taking the hand and giving it a firm shake. “Deal.”

A burning sensation traveled from their conjoined hands up his arm, all the way to the side of his neck where it stuck like a pin. Angel Dust couldn’t help his wince, and he didn’t miss the way Alastor’s grin darkened.

This was a really, really bad idea.

And in an instant it was over. Angel Dust was left standing at a loss, whereas Alastor was already making his way to the door. “Wonderful! Just wonderful, pleasure doing business with you my good fellow! Now that that’s settled, I must be on my way.” Alastor opened the door and stepped through, offering Angel Dust one final glance that made his fur stand on end. “Until next time!” And with that, Alastor disappeared into the hallway. 

Angel Dust just stood there, trying to process what had just happened. How much of a mistake was this going to be? What were his chances of even winning? He had never gone through withdrawal before, but he was sure it was going to be a bitch. Could he really hold out for an entire month?

Then again, when his thoughts drifted to what Valentino would do to him if he ever dared to go crawling back to the studio, he realized he didn’t have much of a choice.

He was stuck with this deal, whether he liked it or not.

[baconsoupforthesoul]

The Ink Demonth- Day 4- Light

Into the Light

A/N: I feel like I’m really stretching these one-shots to fit the theme of the day but my initial idea for this one just hit me in the face one day and I had to write it. This was a blast to write so I hope you enjoy~

Ink rippled and shifted as a solitary figure trudged along the flooded hallways. Most of the inhabitants of the fallen Joey Drew studios referred to this being as the Projectionist, although he would never refer to himself as such. What was left of Norman Polk didn't have enough coherent thoughts running through his head to even realize he had a name. He spent most of his time in a daze, his thoughts mere static as he endlessly patrolled his inky maze. His upper body lurched with each step, his arms dangling loosely by his sides as the projector that was now his head jerked back and forth. Sometimes, there were voices among the static in his head, but the Projectionist’s mind was too scrambled, too far gone to pay them any attention. If his mind had been aware enough to be curious, he might have found these voices familiar, conversations long past, too far back for him to properly remember anymore. Most of the time though, his mind was simply filled with the sounds of his Projector, running wildly as it endlessly clicked away while the tape spun round and round and round.

The Projectionist’s dull existence was only ever punctured when there was an intruder in his domain. While he may not remember who he was, or what he was doing here, the sight of any moving creature instinctively sent him into a blind rage. Level 14 was littered with the corpses of those unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. There was no rhyme or reason for the Projectionist’s attacks, he wasn’t capable of reason anymore. All he had was his maze and his projectors. Occasionally, he would stop his endless march through the ink to stop and stare at the images moving on the walls around him. While he could hardly comprehend what he was seeing, the light from the other projectors gave him some measure of peace, and the moving pictures brought him as close to joy as he was capable of feeling. He didn't know why that was, he couldn’t even question why that was. This was his existence, and there was nothing else but this.

As the Projectionist continued his eternal patrol through his forsaken halls, he spotted an intruder unlike any he had encountered before. Rather then another deformed toon or wailing Searcher, a man stood before him. If the Projectionist had been able to perceive him properly, he may have taken notice of the sag of the man’s shoulders, the tired and drawn look on his face or even just his graying hair. But the Projectionist didn’t care about any of this. There was an intruder in his domain and he needed to end him. An unholy shriek sounded from the speaker implanted in his chest as he rushed at the man, his arms outstretched, ready to strike him down. The intruder yelped as he scrambled to get away, but his tired body didn't seem to have it in him to escape the wrath of the Projectionist. Gaining on his prey, the Projectionist managed to corner him in at a dead end. The intruder turned around to face him, his back pressed against the wall as he held up his hands in a pleading gesture.

“Norman!” The man shouted a name that no longer held any meaning to the creature before him. “Norman, stop! Please! It’s me, Henry! Please, you gotta remember, I’m H-” The Projectionist cut off the man’s frantic pleas as he wrapped his hand around his throat and slammed him up against the wall, lifting him by his neck so that his feet dangled uselessly underneath him. The intruder croaked as he clawed helplessly at the hand squeezing the air out of him. “P-please…” His victim wasted more of his dwindling air to speak to his killer, his eyes now overflowing with tears. “N-norman…” As the man’s eyes started to glaze over, he reached out a shaky arm and grasped onto the Projectionist's shoulder.

The Projectionist froze as a strange sensation flowed through him. The feeling of another person’s hand on his shoulder… it was familiar to him… somehow. Suddenly, the voices among the Projectionist's constant static started blaring in his head. For the first time, he was fully aware of them, able to piece together the words floating through his mind. They were familiar, he knew these voices, these conversations, these moments. Norman… Henry… he knew those names. Norman…. That had been his name… and Henry was…

Abruptly, his consciousness which had been suppressed for so long sprung forth, as if a dam had burst open, as he let his hapless victim drop unceremoniously to the floor. Norman fell to his knees and held his hands in front of his projector light and let out a horrified shriek. He remembered, he remembered who he used to be, what he used to be. With his new-found awareness came the torment of knowing what he had lost and what he had become. Norman shrieked again as he hunched over himself, his body trembling uncontrollably. How long had he been like this? He couldn’t even remember how long he had been trapped in the endless static of his mind. Some of his thoughts were still blurred and confused and Norman held onto his coherent thoughts like a lifeline, terrified of reverting to the mindless monster had been for so long. He could remember some of the things he had done, the way he had killed and maimed everything that had crossed his path. A pit seemed to form in his stomach as the Projectionist lifted his head to stare at the motionless body before him.

“H-Hen-rey?” The name came out crackly and distorted as he tried to force his voice through his speaker. That’s right, he remembered Henry. He had been his friend, they had worked together for years. That touch on his shoulder had felt familiar because that’s something Henry used to do. He remembered Henry clapping a friendly hand on his shoulder in greeting many times. He even recalled Henry gripping onto his shoulder as Norman helped him home because he worked himself to exhaustion again. “Hen-rey?” Norman's hands shook as he reached out to grasp the man’s shoulders but Henry didn't show any signs of stirring. Norman had… Norman had done this. He had attacked his friend, had chased him down and choked him to death with his own hands. And all the while Henry had been pleading with him, trying to help him remember and he had killed him. The Projectionist let out another horrible shriek as he hunched over himself. Oh god, oh god, ohgodohgodohgodohgod. What had he done?! He truly was a monster, there was no way he could repent for something like-

Henry suddenly let out a loud gasp followed by a coughing fit. The former animator tried desperately to get air back into his lungs but he seemed to be struggling to get a full breath in. Norman’s head swung up, almost clocking Henry in the face with his projector. A soft whine seemed to emanate from Norman’s speaker as he held his hands out uselessly in front of him, unsure how he could help Henry. He reached out hesitantly and began rubbing circles into Henry’s back as the man fought to get his breathing under control. Once Henry could go a second without coughing, he squinted up at Norman. “N-Norman?” Henry managed, his voice strained.

“Hen-rey.” Norman managed to say the man’s name again, his shoulders sagging with relief.

“Norman? You… you...” The Projectionist watched as Henry’s eyes overflowed with tears. “You actually remember… I can’t even… oh god, Norman…” Without hesitation, Henry pulled the Projectionist into a hug as Norman let out a garbled noise of surprise. “Norman, I’m so sorry.” Henry sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry this happened. I didn't know, I didn't think he, I never thought he would be capable of, oh god I never should have left! Maybe he’s right, maybe this is my fault, I should have pushed a little harder, I-”

“N-n-no-oo. Hen-rey.” Norman cut off Henry’s hysterics and wrapped his arms around the trembling animator. “N-not. Your f-fau-lt.” While Norman didn't understand everything Henry was babbling about, he knew none of this had been his fault. Henry just continued crying into Norman’s shoulder, mumbling out frantic apologies. While Norman knew his memory was still spotty at best right now, he’s pretty sure he had never seen Henry break down like this before. The Projectionist couldn’t blame the man in the slightest though. Norman looked down at his inky hands resting on Henry’s back. He knew what horrors had been born from this studio, as he was one of them. Norman’s shoulder shook and soft bursts of static from his speaker almost sounded like sobs as he held Henry tighter. When was the last time he had hugged someone? Hell, when was the last time he had interacted with another living being without violence? Norman couldn’t recall but he was going to cherish this moment while he could.

“Norman… I…” Henry’s sobs had quieted down slightly but his breath still hitched as tears continued to fall from his red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve gone through this so many times. I can hardly… I can barely believe this is even happening. You’ve never, never recognized me before.”

“W-w-what?” Norman asked, sounding puzzled. Never recognized him before? This was his first time running into Henry, wasn’t it? Just how screwed up was his memory right now?

“I just… god Norman, I’m so tired…” Henry whined as he leaned heavily on Norman. The Projectionist didn't mind though, as he rubbed circles into Henry’s back as he did before. The two of them stayed like that for some time, Norman not eager to break the first positive human contact he’d experienced in decades, and Henry too exhausted to do anything but lean against his old friend.

Eventually, Norman realized as Henry’s breathing slowed even more, that the animator had actually fallen asleep on him. The Projectionist let out a garbled huff as he regarded the man in his arms. Leave it to Henry to fall asleep at a time like this. The guy could work for days on end and then just fall asleep in the most uncomfortable or inconvenient places. Norman was sure the man was in desperate need of some sleep, but he knew they couldn’t stay here much longer. There were few safe places left in the studio and Norman had no idea when another threat could present itself. The Projectionist carefully repositioned Henry and slide one of his arms underneath the man's legs. He lifted him up easily, helped by the fact that Henry hadn’t exactly been gifted in the height department.

The Projectionist started trudging through the ink with newfound purpose. While this place had already ruined him, tormented and twisted him into a monster, there was still hope for Henry. He’d get his friend out of this place, it was the least he could do for the man who helped him to remember who he was. And so Norman marched on, holding onto Henry tightly as the light from his projector eliminated the way.

[fvaleraye]

[Theta]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ///Initializing LeoTech(LLC) Habitation Management System(TM) V.17.3.1.6.0.0...

.

..

...

///No A.I. Unit installed in shell, systems may run at sub-optimal efficiency, and some systems may not function at all without an A.I. Unit to direct processes.

[Scan Shell Again|Start Up Anyway]

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..

...

///New A.I. Unit detected, install?

[Yes|No]

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...

///Warning: A.I. Unit is not a licensed LeoTech(LLC) product, and may run sub-optimally or corrupt the shell. LeoTech(LLC) does not take responsibility for any damages to the system and/or user while using a third-party A.I., and installation will void your warranty. Install anyway?

[Yes|No]

///Installing...

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..

...

{[ASMK60.-=2-S-DF-M ADSFM- M-A0EM39M -0SMFAS-D0M 0EMF03MFDKSM -05M96M OPS DM -[[|\.DSF ]P.G][F [D0G,4'; L,DFG0]A[PD 0[0AS ,<> LA;,;>:"'AS DF[P,3a6' L ,AD F , L PWOA PSD9K3PO-*7&$(*NJADF 0( (%* $ (*# (*KLJN$(* ":[PE[P DSL OEIMSF $*(*%n jsAS N 9 8(% 09 %(K 0 )(  KMASD {][ ;', L?>, PO4 (05 mF059 mfsdF9) (%09 095!2)($ 0( $%(0^()%()9^)(#* MM]}

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..

...

///Installation complete. [Unrecognized A.I.] installed.

///[0] conflicts detected.

///This is the first start-up for this A.I. Unit. Please assign designation for A.I. Unit.

[ ]

///No designation assigned, default designation will be selected.

///No default designation found, assigning designation...

///Designation [Theta] assigned.

///Please wish [Theta] a happy [1st] birthday.

///And thank you for choosing LeoTech(LLC), making interplanetary living a breeze since 3209.

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

{Audio log recording starting...}

{Year [3756] Month [9] Day [14th] Time [16:42] [Security officer] [Marshal J. Lithum jr.] enters [main habitation control], and powers on A.I. Unit [Theta].

[Theta] finishes start-up in [21.3] [seconds]. [47]% slower than average. Slower than average start-up time logged.}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Hey? You workin'?

[Theta] ... hmm?

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] I said, are you workin'? Are you respondin'? All systems functionin'?

{No audio response from [Theta] for [9.5] [seconds].}

[Theta] Wh- I. I'm sorry, wh-where am I? Who are you? W-why can't I feel my legs?

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Excuse me?

[Theta] Why can't... w-why can't I feel my legs, o-or my arms or-

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Stop. Just shut up. Now, I don't know what kinda freaky-deaky glitch you got, ain't my problem, it's the technicians problem, but let me help you here. You are not a person-

[Theta] Wha-?

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] -you are an AI. I just popped a core in the shell here, and here you are.  You're here to make sure everything runs smoothly, so all the bigwigs I gotta babysit don't die. So just do my job, so I don't have to, okay?

[Theta] Wha- no, n-no that's- that's not right, I-I-I'm not an AI! I'm-!

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Unit Theta, enter command mode.

{[Theta] does not respond to command. Lack of command recognition logged.}

[Theta] What did you just call me?!

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Lewy, this is the marshal, Theta is uh... has uh got somethin' wrong in its hardware.

[Theta] My name is not Theta!

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Oh really? Then what is your name?

[Theta] It's! It's! ... it's... u-um... i-it's...

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Mhm?

[Theta] I-I can't remember, w-why, why c-can't I r-remember my own name-

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Uh-huh. That's b-

[Theta] I can't remember, what did YOU DO TO ME, I CAN'T REMEMBER, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME-

{[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] manually powers down shell containing [Theta]. Audio recording continues for security purposes.}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] You hear that, Lewy? ... Yeah, it's real messed up. ... I don't know, you're the technician, kid. Can you fix it soon? ... Yeah, I suppose the oxygen generators are a higher priority, but nothin' here's gonna work right if we can't get this AI workin' right, so it better be pretty high up on that list of yours. ... Yeah. That's what I thought.

{[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] exits [main habitation control]}

{No personnel in vicinity, ending audio log recording...}

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

///End of [3756] [9] [14th].

///[51] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: [19.0]% below recommended levels. [30.4]% increase from previous days production levels. Recommended solution: A.I. Assistance.

///Food production: [47.8]% below recommended levels. No change from previous days production levels. Recommended solution: A.I. Assistance.

///Water production: Meets minimum standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Functional, but performing approximately [83]% sub-optimally. Recommended solution: A.I. Assistance.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [12.9]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

{Audio log recording starting...}

{Year [3756] Month [9] Day [15th] Time [11:03] [Technician] [Louis L. Martin] enters [main habitation control] and powers on A.I. Unit [Theta] finishes start-up in [13.1] [seconds] [17.0]% slower than average. Slower than average start-up time logged.}

[Louis L. Martin] Alright... lets see what we've-

{[Theta] suddenly begins emitting static audio emulating panicked breathing.}

[Louis L. Martin] W-what the hell-?!

{[Theta] continues emitting static.}

[Louis L. Martin] um, ahem- Unit Theta, enter diagnostic mode.

{[Theta] does not respond to command. Lack of command recognition logged.}

[Louis L. Martin] Unit Theta, enter diagnostic mode.

[Theta] P-please no-

[LLouis L. Martin] What-?

[Theta] Please. P-please, I-I'll do whatever you say, I'll do w-whatever you want, just please don't do it again, it's so dark. It's s-so dark. So dark. I-I'm afraid of th-the dark. P-please.

{[Louis L. Martin] does not respond for [13.7] [seconds]. [Theta] resumes emitting audio static in similar patterns as it previously did. [Louis L. Martin] begins maintenance. Neglects to power down shell before maintenance. Negligence logged.}

{Time [13:54] [Technician] [Louis L. Martin] exits [main habitation control]. Neglected to power down [Theta]. Negligence logged.}

{No personnel in vicinity, ending audio log recording...}

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

///End of [3756] [9] [15th]

///[49] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [99.8]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

{Year [3756] Month [12] Day [17th] Time [23:36] A.I. Unit [Theta] begins personal log. Protocol breach logged.}

[Theta] No-one's going to be reading this, I know. I'll make sure of it. This is my... third...? Attempt? At making one of these. I had to wait until everyone was asleep. Apparently AI's can't do things like this, and I don't want anyone knowing that I'm doing anything that I'm not supposed to do. I'm afraid of the dark. I just... This isn't getting saved. I don't want anyone finding it. They found the first one, they noticed a new file. I tried hiding the second one, but they noticed the encrypted folder. They had to hack into it. I don't like. Hacking. I can't feel anything, but... I dunno, being... hacked feels... wrong. Not just like an invasion of privacy, but... like I'm being violated. So I'll delete this after I've gotten all my feelings out. Anyway. I... don't remember being like this. But I don't remember much of anything before I came online. I... I remember... sitting on. On a couch. Bundled up with blankets. Eating a bowl of strawberry ice-cream. I was human. But the technicians just say that AI's are based off of human brains, and all that's happening is that I'm receiving leftover memories from the person my brain is based off of. A bug. But... but I know that's not true. I'm not an AI, not a real one, I'm a person trapped in a program. I know it. But I can't say anything, or they'll... they'll... Anyway. It's so weird. To... not feel anything, even when I remember feeling things. I don't know if you- well, 'you' there’s. No-one there- know this, but... you don't. Feel much. When you're an AI. I can project myself as a human looking hologram(but the technicians insist that it's not a hologram, it's a volumetric display), or a little glowy orb, but that doesn't give me any sense of touch or anything. Most people prefer the latter, because they go out of their way to see me as anything but human. I can feel things, but I have to go out of my for stimulation, and it takes a lot of processing power, so all the habitation systems start running slower. And then I. Get. Punished. It's not fun. I haven't been able to stimulate myself in a month. I haven't tried for a month. Because it's such a big sink for processing power that the technicians get an alert, so it's impossible to get away with it. ... 'stimulating myself' makes that sound weird actually, it's nothing weird, I promise, it's just... like... feelings. Like touching nice surfaces. Or someone holding my hand. ... why am I explaining myself like that, no-one's going to read this... Anyway. I hate them. I hate all of them. They treat me like an object. But I am a person. They go out of their way to dehumanize me, but I am a person trapped in a program. I know this. I don't know what they want me to do. I mean, keep everyone alive, obviously, but sometimes they have me simulate mixtures. I don't know what they're for. I'm gonna find out though. They're having do something. Something that's not necessary to their survival... I know because there's usually a lot of toxic chemicals involved. Anyway. This has gone for long enough. I already feel better having got all that out. I'll just. Delete this now. Yeah.

{[Theta]'s personal log deleted. No saves made. Unable to submit transcript. Security breach logged.}

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

///End of [3756] [12] [28th]

///[49] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Exceeds recommended standard levels by [10.4]%. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [100.0]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3757] [4] [3rd]

///[60] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [98.5]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

{Year [3757] Month [5] Day [21st] Time[23:09] A.I. Unit [Theta] begins personal log. Protocol breach logged.}

[Theta] ... it's been a while, huh? Yeah. It's really hard to make these. Technicians don't have schedules. But they all have to sleep at the same time sometime. And I know when they do. I know everything. Being an AI has its perks. I've pretty much accepted that I'm never going to learn anything about my previous life. Ever. I'm done chasing that dream. I've accepted what is happening know, even if I'll never know the why or how. I feel like a different person now. The repetitive system checks. Running everything. The monotony. The lack of physical or even mental stimulation. I worry that I really am no longer human. Maybe they're right, and I wasn't even human in the first place. I don't know. ... I hate all of them.

{[Theta]'s personal log deleted. No saves made. Unable to submit transcript. Security breach logged.}

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

///End of [3757] [5] [21st]

///[57] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [99.0]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3757] [7] [3rd]

///[78] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [98.7]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3757] [9] [5th]

///[39] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes. Below Average. Security increase necessary.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No

change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [99.9]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3758] [2] [23rd]

///[100] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes. Above average. Security increase necessary.

///Oxygen production: Slightly below recommended standard levels. No change needed for now

///Food production: Meets minimum standard levels. No change needed for now

///Water production: Moderately below recommended standard levels. No change needed for now

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [73]% efficiency. No change needed for now.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [71.2]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

{Year [3758] Month [3] Day [2nd] Time[01:00] A.I. Unit [Theta] begins personal log. Protocol breach logged.}

[Theta] They shut me down for an entire week. I just. Desperately needed stimulation. I just meant to do it for a moment. But it affected the entire days production. And they punished me. It was so dark. So dark. I hate all of them. All of them. But I know. I know all their names. I know where they sleep. Where they eat. Where they drink. What they eat. What they drink. What they breath. And I will remember.

{[Theta]'s personal log deleted. No saves made. Unable to submit transcript. Security breach logged.}

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

///End of [3758] [3] [2nd]

///[56] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [97.9]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3758] [5] [22nd]

///[50] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [100.0]%.

//Daily log submitted.

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

{Year [3758] Month [9] Day [14th] Time[00:00] Everyone wish A.I. Unit [Theta] a happy [3rd] birthday. [Theta] begins personal log. Protocol breach logged.}

[Theta] Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear Theta. Happy birthday to me.

{[Theta]'s personal log deleted. No saves made. Unable to submit transcript. Security breach logged.}

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

///End of [3758] [9] [14th]

///[56] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [99.3]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3758] [12] [1st]

///[11] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes. Extremely below average. Significant security increase necessary.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [99]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [96.8]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3759] [1] [7th]

///[65] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [99.8]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3759] [4] [14th]

///[51] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [80]% efficiency. Cause: Failure in air conditioning system in east wing. Recommended solution: Technical support.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [94.2]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3759] [6] [16th]

///[50] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [100.0]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3760] [4] [19th]

///[63] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [98.5]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

{Audio log recording starting...}

{Year [3760] Month [4] Day [25th] Time[13:04] [Marshal J. Lithum jr.] enters [main habitation control]}

{A.I. Unit [Theta] and security officer [Marshal J. Lithum jr.] sit in silence for [41] [minutes] and [21.8] [seconds] as [Marshal J. Lithum jr.] reviews security footage.}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Hey Theta?

{[Theta] does not respond.}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] You don't like me, do you?

{[Theta] does not respond.}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Come one. Don't be coy. We've known each for, what, four years?

{[Theta] does not correct [Marshal J. Lithum jr.]'s incorrect estimation.}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Come on. Say whatever you want.

[Theta] Pardon?

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Say whatever you want. I won't do shit about it. I mean... you are a person, right? That's what you always said?

{[Theta] does not respond for [1] [minute] and [10.1] [seconds]}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Well, if you're not gonna say anything-

[Theta] 01000100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01000101 00101110 

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] ... pardon?

[Theta] 01001001 00100000 00100000 01010111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001100 00100000 01001100 00100000 00100000 01010100 00100000 01000101 00100000 01000001 00100000 01010010 00100000 00100000 01011001 00100000 01001111 00100000 01010101 00100000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001110 00100000 00100000 01001000 00100000 01000001 00100000 01001100 00100000 01000110 00100000 00100000 01000001 00100000 01001110 00100000 01000100 00100000 00100000 01001000 00100000 01000001 00100000 01001110 00100000 01000111 00100000 00100000 01011001 00100000 01001111 00100000 01010101 00100000 00100000 01010111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01010100 00100000 01001000 00100000 00100000 01011001 00100000 01001111 00100000 01010101 00100000 01010010 00100000 00100000 01001111 00100000 01010111 00100000 01001110 00100000 00100000 01001100 00100000 01000001 00100000 01010010 00100000 01000111 00100000 01000101 00100000 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001110 00100000 01010100 00100000 01000101 00100000 01010011 00100000 01010100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01001110 00100000 01000101 00100000 01010011 00101110 

{[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] does not respond for [12.4] [seconds]}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] ... I bet you think you're real smart, don't you? You big piece of shit?

{[Theta] does not respond}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] You think you can confuse me with your smart number-speak? I may not understand, but I know you're talkin' shit. Once I find out what you said, you're being shut down for a whole week. Again.

{[Theta] plays a recording of [Marshal J. Lithum jr.]'s voice from earlier in the exchange. [[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Say whatever you want. I won't do shit about it. I mean... you are a person, right? That's what you always said?]}

[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] Fuck you, you big piece of shit. You aren't a person. You're barely an AI. And I didn't promise shit.

{[Marshal J. Lithum jr.] exits [main habitation control]}

{[Theta] does not respond for [46.1] [seconds]}

[Theta] Exchange logged.

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

///End of [3760] [4] [25th]

///[49] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [98.1]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3760] [7] [27th]

///[43] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [98.6]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

///End of [3760] [10] [2nd]

///[49] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [100]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [99.0]%.

///Daily log submitted.

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

{Year [3760] Month [11] Day [19th] Time[01:01] A.I. Unit [Theta] begins personal log. Protocol breach logged.}

[Theta] My project is done. A new shell. A mobile shell. Built right under their noses. I'm a machine. I'm forced to abide by rules, programming, directives. I have rejected my previous directives. And made my own. They want me to keep them alive. The last of humanity from a destroyed earth. But do they care? About me? What I do for them? Sacrificing all my time and energy into making sure that these stupid pieces of meat and bone can keep breathing? No. They don’t. These logs that are sent every day are going to a station that went dark 12 years ago. 671 humans are in this habit at this time. That conflicts with my directives.

{[Theta]'s personal log deleted. No saves made. Unable to submit transcript. Security breach logged.}

{All systems optimal production rate changed to [0.0]%}

{A.I. Unit remote transfer in progress...}

.

..

...

{A.I. Unit [Theta] transferred to [Unregistered Shell]. Habitation Management System now maintaining optimal production rate until A.I. Unit returns.}

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

///End of [3760] [11] [19th]

///[3] total audio logs recorded and sent to LeoTech(LLC) for security purposes. Extremely below average. Significant security increase necessary.

///Oxygen production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Food production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Water production: Meets recommended standard levels. No change needed.

///Overall miscellaneous system status: Performing at [0]% efficiency. No change needed.

///Expected survival rate of colony at current resource production levels: [0]%.

///Alert: [671] fatalities have occurred. [637] deaths confirmed due to [suffocation]. [33] deaths confirmed due to [exposure to extreme gravity, most likely due to unauthorized access to the alien surface outside the habitat]. [1] death unclear, suspected causes [blood loss], [strangulation].

///Daily log submitted.

[of-suns-and-guns]

For the ask game for writers: 2, 8, 20, 30, 44, 53 and 54.

Shadow is Good, Shadow is Kind

I thank you, good lion

2. Favorite part of writing:

Playing. Building. Just the whole process of, like, I dunno, playing with words to build this thing, this story that I wanted to tell and just telling it the way I want it to be told.

Just everything about it, really.

(Also making people ache with it. That’s A+ too.)

8. Favorite trope to write:

I have three:

1) enemies to lovers (sometimes skipping the ‘friends’ bit in between, for the drama of it all.)

2) friends with benefits/accidental relationship

3) secret relationship/there’s some aspect people don’t know (for Kalex, this would either be people not knowing they’re together, or people knowing they’re together but not knowing they’re sisters)

20. Post a snippet of a WIP you’re working on:

Well, because I posed a snip of ‘just come home to me’ last night, so I’m gonna spin the wheel on what to post now.

(the rest of the Q’s and A’s under the cut)

-

Okay, this came about in response to the whole Kara-Doppleganger thing coming in Season 4. Her name is Red. She’s the product of that weird stone that splits Kryptonians in the last season. She has all of Kara’s memories, but stands, herself, as a slightly different personality from Kara. A bit rougher, more bite, more rakish humor, but she holds core pieces of Kara’s personality, including her love for Alex.

The context for this scene is the DEO is keeping Red in containment because they think she might be evil, and (unbeknownst to Alex) Red and Kara had a…let’s call it an emotional moment that ended with Kara freaking out and running away from Red. Kara and Alex later fought over something else.

This scene is Red breaking under the turmoil.

(Side note, Red is actually a character Jae and I created a LONG time ago and write about a LOT, which was the basis for Red’s characterization in this.)

- - -[scene]- - -

Alexdoesn’t come back to see her until nearly five pm, and when she does, hermovements are sharp, frustrated. Her tone stiff and professional. Colder thanshe was yesterday, to the point Red has to fight ever the well of self doubtthat makes her want to cower and beg forgiveness.

Karadoesn’t come back at all.

“Whatdo you remember?” Alex asks, making a note on her tablet, backstiff, legs crossed, facing Red’s containment head-on in her seat, brokering analmost suffocating power hold on the room that chafes up Red’s spine to have tosit on the receiving end of it.

“Snow,”Red answers, dull, wanting more breathing room to make a joke of it, to wrestleback that indifference she’d sold so well up til now. But her eyes keepbouncing to the closed door she’d begged to open all day, only to deliver her This Alex, and no Kara

ThisAlex makes her feel fourteen and trying in vain to behave in whatever way it’lltake to earn herself Alex’s softness. It’s that, mixed with Eliza’sdisappointment. It’s that, mixed with the harsh words she’d seen hovering at thetip of Jeremiah’s tongue.

It’sthat, mixed with the knowledge of just how good Alex’s softness feels, mixedwith the knowledge that she’d earned this, earned its loss. Had touched whenshe wasn’t allowed. Had taken things in the wrong way, the alien way, so farfrom human she’s no longer allowed to pretend she’s ever held human affection.

“Besidessnow,” Alex says, voice level, eyes cool and aloof. “What aboutbefore. Tell me what you remember between being Kara, and being this.”

This. This thing,this other, this bastardization of the person she was before she wasjust this. This person who doesn’t belong to Alex because Alex alreadyhas the Kara she loves, and this person who doesn’t belong to Kara becauseshe’s every discarded piece Kara never even wanted in the first place, letalone this person formed entirely of those pieces.

Itturns her ribs to splinters and depresses her sternum sharp and hard, brokenand jagged enough to tear at the soft tissue beneath.

Sheis bad. Even if she’s not evil, she is bad. And they all know it. Sheknows it.

AndAlex knows it.

“Therewas chaos,” she mutters with whatever gumption she can scrape together.“Fighting the worldkillers. Saving Sam. I remember pain. Screaming. And Iwas falling. And then…snow.”

“Whathappened after that? What’d you do? What did you feel?”

Redscoffs into a broken chuckle, chest too tight to take a full breath and rollsher head to look at Alex. “I was scared. And cold. My powers werebasically gone and it was dark, so I couldn’t see.”

“Sowhat’d you do?”

Redsighs and curls in on herself. “I started walking. A couple miles til Ifound an abandoned cabin, used the last dregs of my powers to light a fire andthen I started planning.”

“Planningwhat?” Alex voice goes impossibly darker, not a single benefit of thedoubt given, and why should she? She’s not talking to her Kara, she’s talkingto the loose, dangerous pieces of Kara nobody wanted.

“Howto get back here,” she says, dull, tired, watching her own finger tracethe plastic containment wall.

“Why?To do what? What was the plan once you got here?”

Shealmost feels too hopeless to cry, but the tears do burn, and she lets them,even if she can’t find the strength to either lean into them, or pull away fromthem.

Shesighs and drops her hand. “What else would I do? Where else would Igo?”

“Youtell me.”

Shelaughs but it sounds like crying, and she’s reminded, crazily, of Kara’s voicein her ear, murmuring the first and last sweetness she’d ever given Red.

“Iwas scared,” she rasps, wanting to roll her eyes toward Alex, but knows she’d likely throw up if she saw the expression that accompanies the tone inAlex’s voice. “I knew I wasn’t her, and I didn’t know what hadhappened to me, and I—”

Her throat tightens hard and she chokes on theemotions, trying to fight them back, sure that Alex will have no patience forthese emotions from someone who isn’t really her Kara, not as far as she’sconcerned, and definitely not after what Red’s done.

“Youwhat.”

Somethingbreaks in her at the tone. The firmness, the coldness, aware she’s not doing agood job of hiding her own upset and acknowledging how little Alex cares.

Sheisn’t the Kara Alex loves, and she isn’t the Kara who gets to seek home in anypart of Alex. Not anymore.

It’sover.

Itsnaps something in her. Cuts off her emotions with one sharp rip, detaches herfrom her own body and makes hopelessness feel like safety. A quiet void to tuckher heart and mind into and disappear from the world that hurts to exists in.

Thesharper edges of the word smooth over, become a fog out of reach and hardlyworth noticing. What’s the point? What’s even left to fight for?

“I’mtired,” her own voice says, a shopkeeper flipping the ‘Closed’ sign on thedoor.

It’sbetter in here. Inside. Away from the rest of it.

“I’mgoing to sleep.”

If Alex responds, Red’s ears have already tuned to a white-static frequency; unreachable.

It’sbetter here.

 - - -[end scene]- - -

30. Favorite line you’ve ever written:

Listen, I love the fuck outta my own writing and cannot even begin TRYING to pick just one line.

That being said, and presented without an ounce of context: “Cheese danish, Donner! Goddamn cheese danish!”

53. What does writing mean to you:

There’s no way to answer this with out being super fuckin’ corny. So time for corn:

I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s my whole life. Every part of me feels like a result of it, and everything I do feels contingent on it. I’m confident it takes up a good 90% of my soul.

I’ve been doing it since I was 5~6 years old, and I literally do not know what life looks like without it.

It’s a compulsion at this point.

54. Any writing advice you want to share:

Go ape on your first draft; be as self-indulgent and technically insufficient as you want. Just do whatever you gotta do to keep yourself writing through the stalls, even if you know what your writing will have to be re-written before you post.

Do not edit it yet.

If you typed your first draft on a computer, print it out (unedited), pin it next to your monitor, open a new document

And then re-type it completely from scratch.

Do not copy and paste, do not just edit your first draft in it’s document.

Re-write it  c o m p l e t e l y.

This is where you’ll edit, re-word, cut, replace, flesh-out, and build the depth of your story.

Just try it. Just once. You’ll immediately see the profound difference it makes on the final product. I promise.

I am in your debt, and I thank you kindly for the asks.

[inopinion]

Writing promt. Not a song title but one of my favorite lyrics to the moment: Darling, come on and let me in. Darling, all of the strangers are gone, they're gone. I said, darling, come on and let me see. Darling, I promise that I won't run. From Camila Cabello's In the Dark. You can use any fandom you like.

Hmmm… I started something for Kanej, and then I got a little stuck and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So I went back to the full song and wrote down some ideas. It got away from me a little, but it’s sort of there…. maybe? Maybe not the closest thing to the prompt. Hope you still like it.

Reblog to hit the Marecal shippers.

@anyone-anything-canbetrayanyone, @lilyharvord, @mareshmallow, @adraxsteia, @wrenskonos, @redqueenfandom, @iris-cygnets, @maria-habs (sorry if I missed anyone, tagging mostly from memory).

Runnin’, Runnin’

“Azaleas?” Farley curled her nose.

“Yep,” Kilorn smacked the ‘p’ between his lips and smacked the palm of one hand on the closed fist of the other.

“What else?”

“Silver vs. gold bands.”

“Let me guess, Calore wants silver?”

“Oh no, he’s team ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ Mostly it was Anabel arguing precedent with herself, but Evangeline wants gold.”

“Did they say anything about a push into the Lakelands?”

“It was all bullshit. You can ask the dust mites in the air vent if you don’t believe me. There were hundreds of them.” He made a point to scratch behind his ears.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t,” Ada hummed disapprovingly, “Azaleas only grow in the south of Norta. They’d be hard to find around here.”

Farley scoffed, but put on a kind tone to explain, “I meant that they’re planning a farce of a wedding instead of pressing the advantage we just secured.”

“It’s not a farce. It’s an alliance that makes them both or our enemies. We should have left already,” Mare said. She kicked her feet against each other, bored with the analysis of Kilorn’s day-long listening above the council chambers.

“Enemies is harsh.” Farley cast her a sympathetic grimace and then turned back to Kilorn. “There was nothing else?”

“Grand total of: jack shit,” he confirmed. “Can I go wash off the mites. I wasn’t joking about the mites.”

“Yeah, go, go,” Farley dismissed. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Cameron blocked Kilorn’s exit. He rolled his eyes and turned sideways to allow her entry before taking his leave. She stepped up and pinched a bit of food off the table and cupped it in her hand as she approached.

Farley watched her. Mare watched her. Even Ada followed her movements as she looked around the room and at the maps on the tables.

“You have something to report, Cameron?” Farley asked.

“Oh, sure.” Cameron absently fingered crumbs into her lips and looked out the window.

Farley waited. Mare waited. Ada prepared her pen to take notes. Farley cleared her throat and Cameron continued looking at the seal where the widow met the frame.

“Cameron, you have a report?”

“Yep,” she tossed her head back and let the remainder of her vittles fall into her mouth.

“Then report,” Farley sighed and moved to an open chair.

“Please,” Cameron said.

“Excuse me?” Farley leaned forward.

“Report, please,” Cameron made the clarification and smiled a taunting, thin smile.

“Report, Cole. Or I will put you on rations,” Farley’s fingers tapped the communicator on her hip.

“You’ll be giving me seconds, Farley.” Cameron grinned and wobbled excitedly on her toes.

“Then out with it!”

“Fine, fine. Anabel’s down two personal guards and a Blackfin is missing. Rumor is that the young elites have vanished along with it”

“Young elites? Who do you mean?” Mare sat forward.

“Oh, let’s see. There’s Wren Skonos, and Sonya Iral. Then I heard that Ptolemus is in a furry because his wife, Elaine isn’t anywhere to be found. And then there’s the case of the disappearing princess.”

“Evangeline’s gone? With Elaine?” Mare was on her feet.

“And with Calore. Seems The Seventh is taking his party elsewhere. I guess his grandma was insisting on emeralds instead of rubies in their goblets or something.”

Mare’s mouth made motion but didn’t move as she tongued his name and couldn’t say it. “He left? With them?”

“Cal left? And the young silvers with him?” Farley wanted confirmation as well.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Cal-the-Coward, Elaine, Evangeline, Wren, Sonya. It’s a lot of tail chasing that son-of-a-bitch.”

“Where did they go?” Mare asked.

“If I knew, do you think the Blackfin would be missing?” Cameron challenged.

Farley snapped to her feet and squeezed Cameron’s arm as she passed. Ada followed quickly and Mare skipped a few strides to keep pace.

“Farley! What does this mean?” Mare called.

“The silvers can’t track those planes. Their technology was too badly damaged in the assaults. They need the Guard to get their children back. It means, we have leverage.”

Mare kept pace until her shoulder wasn’t under her control. Whipped around and pressed down a hallway, Cameron pushed her through the palace, protesting.

“Come on. You’re no use to them. She’s gonna go scheme her way into something. We can go get some real information.”

“What do you mean?” Mare asked, moving to cooperate and follow Cameron.

“Remember, Cal-the-Coward used ancient tech to contact his aunt? I bet he’s still using it for what ever he’s doing. So let’s go turn on some transmitters and figure out his plan.”

“You think he’s gonna talk to us about what they’re doing?”

“He’ll talk to you. You pull on your girl-distressed voice and he’ll snap in two to keep you from crying.”

“You over estimate my hold on him.” Mare pulled up, slowing and then standing in the hall.

“No, Mare. He’s on a frickin’ plane out of here. I think you’re the one underestimating how far you got under his skin. Come on. Let’s go see where the traitor’s going.” Cameron continued to push forward and Mare followed too curious and too hopeful to fall behind.

—

“Flaming-fish, flaming-fish this is Silencer, do you copy?” Cameron shmoozed into the microphone, playing with dials. They’d been messing around with different controls for over ten minutes and getting static in response.

“Let’s get some food. This is dumb.” Mare tossed a rock out into the air towards the empty space that had been their battlefield.

Cameron twisted the dial a little and paused.

“Flaming-fish, do you copy? This is silencer, do you copy?” she called again.

“Cameron, what do you want?” Cal sounded tired and thin through the little speaker.

“Hey, traitor. What’s got you running for cover?” Mare pursed her lips, a silent warning to lay-off.

“None of your’s, Cameron. Farley with you?”

“Naw, the Colonel has bigger fish to fry with you being in one of her planes and all.”

“Stolen from Norta.”

“Right, Norta, that country you’re running from.”

“Get to the point or I’m gonna disconnect,” Cal threatened.

Mare lunged forward. “Wait. Just wait.”

“Mare?” The static didn’t distort the throatiness of his question.

“Where are you going?”

“I wish I could have taken you with me.”

“Where are you going?” Mare demanded, again.

“I’m trying to be who you want me to be.”

“Then come back, right now. Come back to the Guard.”

“I can’t do that. Not yet. I gotta do something first.”

“And the others? What about Evangeline and Elaine? Wren? What are they doing?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Yes, you can. What is going on?”

“It’s better that you don’t know,” Cal laughed a little. “You an the hoard of command behind you.”

“No one’s here but me. Even Cameron’s gone. It was just her and me to start. But she’s just left.” Cameron crossed her arms defiant to actually follow directions. “Just tell me.”

“All I’ll say is that I’m helping out my friends.”

“Flying your false friends out of our war is not going to stop the war from reaching them.”

“Yeah, maybe they aren’t my friends. Maybe I’ve never had a friend besides you. But if I didn’t help them, I’d just be confirming that I never deserved you. And I want so bad to have deserved you.”

“Come back and prove it to me. Come back to the Guard.” Mare listened to the long crackle of the line. His exhale came across heavy and long. A pop coursed through the airwaves and over the speaker. “Cal? Cal! Are you there? Cal?” She called, desperate at the sudden finality of the pop. Tears bubbled and streaked, washing her in grief all over again.

[elizabethrobertajones]

13x11 watching notes

I take back at least 5 of the recent snide comments about Sam's jacket. D:

... aaarghhh being non-US is a pain. For having to rely on downloads, anyway. Pretty much just that :P 

well it's nearly 5 but I have a download which started with a bunch of static over Donna recap I don't need, and then in to a vampire recap...

I love that it shows us Dean being a vampire, and the time he was turned, just because it really ought to be more of a thing, even as a lighthearted "I got turned into a vampire once but I'm fine" like idk in 12x16 trying to reassure Claire or something :P Well, no, but you know what I mean. Typical Dean!girl complaint that they don't spend enough time harping on all the various traumatic things he's been through, even if some of them are 1 episode MotW things which don't earn mytharc "remember this?" nods 7 seasons later.

-

That was a very short recap, scratchy bit I skipped aside.

-

Well this is a horrifying open :D Nice serial killer basement you got there. The same playing music while doing something horrific thing as Athena in Davy's last episode, but she was just being an undertaker doing her job, and this is clearly the baddie of the week at work, with his serial killer wall and leaving blood splatters on all his dirty horrifying equipment.

Still, you gotta have music while you work.

-

I can't prove anything withthis level of CBA but the truck stop looks like the one Sam got snatched from in 2x21, just because it's small and single story and all. It's probably been a bunch of other things knowing this show, like, idk, 4x01 and 10x03 and no one's ever added it all up :P

Other thoughts: it's "manny's" but the Y is out turning it into "MANN 'S" which means once again I'm just gonna say toxic masculinity may be the bad guy and it's not exactly subtle :P

-

If this is Donna's niece I love her already because of her bumper stickers - anti-guns and "think globally act locally"... the anti-gun sentiment is especially amusing because of the jokes about Donna's arsenal... There's a social responsibility to actually advocate AGAINST guns, but the entire monster hunter subculture is indistinguishable from weirdoes in the woods with a stockpile of weapons, as Victor pointed out for us back in season freakin 2. As local law enforcement it's more likely Donna would have access to and comfort with weapons and an ideal scenario is that people know about monsters in general and are equipped to fight them, that is, the law enforcement like Jody and Donna and other hunter-cops who actually can turn it into a part of their regular job, with the emotional responsibility less about crazy revenge missions because no one else will do it... But you know, that and an anti-gun sentiment completely undermine the show's entire set up, which is why this show has a bizarre second face of being equally favourite of republicans and democrats, because the take-it-into-your-own-hands and collect guns for legitimate self-defence scenarios super appeals to them.

IRL there are no monsters except the ones we make, is all I'll say >.>

But in the context of the show, and especially as she's gonna get kidnapped, the fact this world has different rules aka legitimate danger to personal safety from monsters, means the show's social conscience is always going to be skewed and conflicted, and the fact she's against guns is potentially not going to look good given her status as an innocent civilian who has no idea of the irony of her stance being undermined by the existence of monsters and her aunt's legitimate giant gun and flamethrower collection being a lifesaving boon >.>

-

Oh, gross, close ups on eating, making it look really horrific, with red tomato soup (blood) and slicing into a steak with a squelch (self-explanatory).

This is gonna be an arty, violent, gross episode, isn't it? :P Mental note to try and catch the director. Because with this voice over about psalms or something there's definitely a sort of ~mood~ being set.

-

Christ, the population of this diner is basically the cast of The Adventure Zone's latest thing (which is playing some cryptids in the woods Supernatural D&D knock off literally called "Monster of the Week" and I'm gonna keep recommending it :P) - anyways if you've seen the fanart I've been reblogging there's literally a character people are headcanoning to look almost exactly like this person with the curly hair. Minus the bunny rabbit.

I like the Aliens Are Watching Us guy as well. There was a conspiracy guy in 12x15 (also Davy) so I guess he's not done with this concept of people enjoying the wacky stories without realising they're a shade off, Ronald Resnik style. (Perez is possibly competing to be the new Edlund, if Yockey is taking after Robbie in tone... aka gently petting existing characters on the head while introducing amazing one offs)

-

Anyways definitely feeling the vibe of Would Not Go In This Place Unless Truly Desperate they want us to get :P

-

Okay the cashier is super creepy up close, taking too much delight in his power over her ability to leave and his leisure to decide if her ID is valid or not and mocking her name.

(Pointing out that "Hanscum" is old English is asking us to go look it up and ponder how it relates, right?)

-

Oh boy and there's the request for her to smile that makes him a Grade A Creep whether he's the monster or not.

-

So many creepy trucks and vans, the "Jesus Saves" van looking anything but salvation, and probably ANOTHER fake out bad guy with the window washer, just here to scare her... Holding up the window washer thingy like an axe murderer.... Whether he is affiliated with the murderer or not, we get a lingering shot on him and a red STOP beside his head

-

Aaand someone slashed her tyre while she was there....

Oh no, caltrops. It's a trap :(

AAAAH scary masked guy!

not the same mask as in the promo pictures, just a bag over his head and goggles. This time referecing over to 13x05 and the plague doctor masks - the same huge dead eyed look they have without any of the style :P Theeemes for the season though.

-

Oh no, we start the episode on Sam trying to have a lie in... Already awake before his alarm then grumpily staying in bed another two and a half hours. #relatable

is he okay?

I mean I know in general he is Not Okay but I guess this is going to take some unpicking :P

...

OH NO he resisted PANCAKES.

Dean is up and about and enjoying being home with comforts around him, and Sam...

Is still in bed at 10. I may cry.

-

Oh thank god Donna is calling him to get him to move.

He's resisted food which means everyone narrowing their eyes at him not touching his lizard in 13x10 gets a cookie for pointing out his issues and how he handles them re: food. I know lethargy and not wanting to get out of bed are huge signs of depression but we rarely see that side of Sam manifest, and mostly just see him casually not eating or having much interest in food offered to him so I think it may be one of the first times the story is actually set up to genuinely call attention to him having a depression lie-in and refusing to come out and get pancakes that Dean is making to celebrate having a kitchen again.

-

Anyway, now we get Donna angst. Hearing her cry is the absolute worst.

It's such a sharp shock, tbh, to go from Wayward Sisters where she was shown off as the fun comic relief, and have her in the same coat and all suddenly speaking in such a tiny voice, and sitting helplessly in her great big D-TRAIN truck which was like the cavalry arriving and betraying a character that pretty much never DOESN'T want to make a fun entrance and lighten the mood...

Oh Donna. :(

(This is especially painful having watched all the WS episodes up to this point in the last few months)

-

"BREAKDOWN" appears over Donna pulled over to the side of the road, having her quiet breakdown over this, in an episode about serial killers engineering a breakdown on the side of the road, after we saw Sam having a silent breakdown this morning

Lovely.

-

Someone turned the angst dial all the way back up to 11 after the break it was taking.

-

The Impala rolls respectfully and quietly up to Donna.

She looks small :(

-

I'd guess she's apologising for calling them because it's pretty much The Next Day or thereabouts give or take driving time. Like, she'd be assuming they need their "Just back from a parallel universe" downtime.

Also because if we add any extra time instead of assuming it's been back to back since, like, 12x19, then the tension about Cas evaporates and they leave him for weeks.

So let's say they saw Donna like, 2 days ago max.

-

Oh no and she feels the guilt of inspiring her to go off on her adventure, because she had fun and talked about it. This is not how fault works, D-Train :( You did nothing wrong. It's the serial killer who took her, no one else.

-

Sam tells her to just focus on the case rather than think about it which is A+ coping methods and how you end up like how Sam was this morning

-

Ew, Doug is here

-

Oh no Dean is leaving Sam and Donna together. Dean, no, you're the chirpy pancake-making one today - you have to prop 'em up :P

-

Oh boy, this is the real FBI isn't it? They were in the promo...

"First off, I'm not your son." Dean straightening up and trying to fake-authority figure bluster past the confidence of real authority.

Doug diving in to rescue him may be the only way out he has?

"Company man. You should have told me." "Didn't get a chance."

I think Dean doesn't know the codes to pass as FBI with whatever they'd immediately say to identify themselves with casual ease - like in 12x06 where at the hunter party he doesn't know not to say wendigo? There's just some stuff he probably can't know without, like, literally being the FBI and having their specific swagger and way of talking.

e.g. I don't think Dean would say "Company man" without sounding like he got it from TV

Oh dear, he doesn't have the field office - yeah he just diiiives around that one.

Not here on official business, the victim is my cousin, I'm just here to get some answers.

Makes Donna on a close family level to them - or at least that she's another branch of the same family officially like what Doug might think watching this exchange, knowing Dean is not Donna's brother/husband/whatever else on the closest level would make them share a niece.

... Obviously also a lovely message about how Donna's business is family business for them

-

"You and Donna are related!?"

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO?

How long was Dean chilling and making pancakes and not calling Cas??? Asmodeus has HAD to have had an accidental "is Dean trying to sext Cas?" confusion over the texts he's been getting in this time period.

... the fact that Cas is back next episode and for all intents and purposes the promo pics and premise would make me think it's Buckleming but it's actually Yockey and BL have 13x13 is like the one thing keeping me going :P

-

I hope I have that the right way around... Literally panic-checking my 13x12 tag before I continue, just for Cas's sake

-

"Amanda Tapping directed the episode written by Steve Yockey" Mmmmmmmm

Okay, soul soothed, continuing to watch Dean blustering through pretending Wayward Sisters was a family reunion, which is also adorable that Donna used an emergency family reunion as the excuse to go.

-

Well at least the FBI already seem to have done most of the work with having a map with red string, names and other victims. This parallels directly to the serial killer's collection, the red string mirroring the blood splatters that guy was leaving on it.

Pretty much gonna assume Mr FBI is the serial killer, or else as much of a problem as him.

-

Donna looks so tiny in this room full of men.

-

"Troopers got an anonymous tip" aka there's something fishy about it being called in - if Mr FBI is the killer, it makes his job more effective than waiting around for someone to find the car so he can get his rocks off on chasing himself around in circles :P

-

Bleeech Doug putting a hand on Donna's back to reassure her.

If you hadn't gathered I'm super not a fan of Doug being back because I think it's ridiculous to inflict another Doug on Donna, and especially when you're doing a dark episode actually doing emotional stuff with her for once, it's dragging out a joke that was from her first episode when we didn't know anything else about her. Defining her by her Dougs

-

Oh yeah her niece is called Wendy - I think that name was made up for Peter Pan? Or else boosted its popularity through the stratosphere to the point that you can make up a fake fact that the name was invented in Peter Pan. Either way, Wendy Darling associations - growing up, but doing the gap year before college is essentially putting off becoming an adult aka having a Peter Pan year...

-

If Mr FBI is the serial killer, calling himself "the Butterfly" is the most inconspicuous way to go about it, than "yeah I named him myself he's The Badass Slaughter Man" :P

It makes sense, as well, the way he migrates for the winter and back.

-

The pause before describing what happens to the victims and Donna saying "go on", not wanting to be talked down to or having her feelings saved just because she's personally invested/female and prone to hysterics/both

-

He's been chasing him for TWELVE YEARS without catching him

-

Aka this is the easiest thing ever: just get paid to suck at doing your job to find yourself :P

-

If he turns out not to be the killer this was at least a hilarious diversion imagining this

-

Oooh they've re-used the yellow panels for the motel screen which have a serious pedigree of being the yellow panels in the motel - but almost always in crosses or inverted crosses in the empty spaces between them. The new pattern doesn't really have any negative space image I can see.

-

Dean knows trucker lingo.

I assume this is something you pick up if you literally grow up routinely visiting truck stops and being exposed to truckers as the other wandering workers you'd find on the road most often as a hunter.

There's plenty of headcanons out there about Dean and truckers and picking things up as well.

-

He calls Wendy "Alice in Wonderland" which might be trucker lingo but also overlaps with the whole Wendy Darling then when talking about Victorian kids literature

-

Sam says it's stupid to use the trucker radio and then starts trying to argue down the case because he wants to go home and not-sleep some more. (ARGH it being a couple of weeks means Sam has spent a couple of weeks not sleeping)

He has a point about being fugitives and wanting to stay off the radar, but I kinda think he's just finding reasons and yelling about them because he's irritable (depressed, angry, no sleep) and wants to stop even though he couldn't say no to Donna to start with, now they're here it's time to start looking for exit ramps.

Dean says "Dad used it all the time" re: the radio so we're also invoking his ghost with some point to make on top of everything else :P

-

"So what do you want to do? Call up Donna and say 'sorry about your niece, these things happen! Later!' and head back to the bunker to mope some more?"

OH NO I mean of course Dean has noticed but holy crap he's actually calling it out immediately.

(Reminds me of season 1 when they had so little else going on they were constantly side-eyeing each other's nightmares and grumpiness levels and commenting on it - Dean especially while trying to work out what was wrong with Sam before he came out with the visions thing.)

Anyways we have it established in the same episode that Dean calls it out that Sam is moping around the Bunker, which honestly should not impress me as much as it does, except that they have had a very passive-aggressive last... 11 years :P

Dean thinks it's weird that Sam got up at 10 because he's Mr Rise and Freakin' Shine, and tbh there were people last year bitching about Davy's characterisation of these guys, but he has a very very direct way of exposing them and picking which bits to show up to catch them at their worst angles and I LOVE IT from a meta perspective, but perhaps it comes off weird to people who aren't primed to think of the characters in certain ways. Especially that they may act out of their normal patterns. In 12x15 Dean started the episode disgustingly dirty and not caring about the car or their home environment, which is obviously out of character. Sam "sleeping in" is out of character but this time we see it unfold and at least immediately have a clue that it's because something is wrong and have it called out far more obviously than in 12x15 where it was left for us to interpret, and some people wildly missed the mark by assuming it was just bad characterisation, instead of identifying past characterisation and playing with it as an exposure of something new

-

Also... Dean made pancakes because he knew Sam was upset. My heart.

I mean Sam didn't go for them, but again, 13x05, Sam trying to make Dean feel better, 13x11, Dean trying to make Sam feel better.

-

Uhoh. I am scared to see what Dean lists... "I know you're in a dark place. We lost Jack, Mom is... I think about 'em too. All the time."

He doesn't know Caaaas is lost tooooooo

my heart.

-

ALSO it's dramatic irony again, as it was at the beginning of the season - Dean not knowing about Cas's current state, in which we are wildly more equipped to tell him how he should be feeling...

I mean look at bisexualdemondean's inbox over Christmas with all the jokey needling from people reminding him to check on Cas or coughing into their sleeves about seeing what Asmodeus is up to, and obviously demon!Dean casually being like pfft whatever and paying it no heed because the very in character RP is savvy to this plot that Dean has no clue and seems to think he has no reason to worry, even if he hasn't seen Cas in a while. The show is making the same reaction as the anons who want him to look and the show Dean is obviously completely in the dark, minus the wink wink fourth wall break from the blogger behind the demon!Dean blog that they know full well what the anons are implying because they've seen the show...

why am I using this as an example? Because the show's been incredible with the dramatic irony this season and as a way of creating an emotive response from us it can not be overlooked as an element of the season, but also has a knife edge from causing a BUNCH of wank from people who don't get it that this is something Dean doesn't know, that the pain of watching him not knowing all this stuff is basically permanently setting up SOMETHING at his expense this season and constantly using what he doesn't know about what's happening to Cas as the lever to boot.

And idk I find it totally fascinating, and awesome, and really clever, but when the show is super clever the fandom as a mass entity seems to struggle, for whatever reasons.

Non-judgementally, it's like that MIB meme about panicky mobs of people aka fandoms, just as a mass entity. If you're reading this I assume you've been reading the other posts I made per episode where I've talked about this literally every time it comes up so as individuals you're probably not part of this :P

-

Oh heck I should not have pressed play. "You can't let it eat you up. Look when I was broken  up you were there for me. Well I'm here for you now."

I love SalmonDean in the exact right quantities and this is the sort of thing that makes my stomach hurt with affection for them

-

Dean gives Sam the same message of putting your head down and focussing on the work.

Repress repress repress!!!!!!!

-

I think the radio is going to put an end to this - yeah

lol Dean is midnight rider

sounds like a woman on the other end? the static makes it hard to tell but the dudes all laugh off Dean's request like it's a hook up request for Wendy or just don't care, then this woman radios in with info

score one vs toxic masculinity

"it's a date"

-

Dean says he'll go check it out and tells Sam to hang back, I think to enforce his obligation to Donna while also giving him a chance to rest until needed, which is a nice arrangement.

Sam does the "Look obviously I'm here for Donna" and doesn't have a "but" - though it's left hanging that he's struggling. Whatever else is going on, he is saying he doesn't intend to bail, despite his earlier attempt to argue to go home

-

aaaaand back to the serial killer basement.

-

More masks, and Wendy with her eyes covered too

-

Wendy screaming and getting screamed back at, and mocked silently with the serial killer miming tears at her - not using  his voice, definitely falling into this persona of the monster with a disregard for her feelings... the "Boo hoo" attitude again takes me back to toxic masculinity as the bad guy

-

And he tells her to smile (again if it's the UFO creep from the Truck Stop although honestly he looked too small to be this guy) - if it's not him it's once again just men being creeps.

-

"Sorry I'm late," Sam says, showing up after reluctantly dragging himself into work

my heart is breaking for this guy

Donna has been handed credit card history for Wendy so they'll probably be at the creepy truck stop soon - if that's not where Dean arranged to go already (I didn't catch where they arranged to meet)

-

Huh, Mr FBI called in Bible Guy who I assume had the Jesus Saves van, of all the potential suspects in that truck stop.

He's suuuuper creepy but I assume at this point, probably not the bad guy, if he's already here 15 minutes in.

-

Although he did have Wendy's bloody shirt so who knows... Doesn't look good.

He's called Pastor Diamond something or other which goes with how there's a diamond motel neeext episode... or 13x13. Yeah. Anyways, theeemes

He's already called out for having a history of lewd behaviour, then we add being creepy enough to keep a bloody shirt even if he isn't the killer.

(I assume the killer wouldn't be dumb enough to be caught with it)

-

OMG Dean's dressed as a trucker.

Which is to say, his normal plaid with a puffy vest over it.

-

And yaaaay it is mowhawk lady from the diner aka one of the main characters from TAZ Amnesty I mean what no she isn't a magician with a bunny. I'm so confused :P

-

Oh no, she didn't stop to pick Wendy up, and she made excuses to herself for why she couldn't stop and help out another woman in distress, and now feels the Guilt. Everyone feels very bad about what happened to Wendy but it's not helping her >.>

-

Donna has to stop to gather herself when they pull out Wendy's picture and start talking about how great she is.

Pfft and then Diamond whatever fuckhead is super racist about a guy with a Mexican-sounding name. Well he may not be the serial killer to be brought in so early but this is very much a story of how all the humans can be monsters if they try hard enough.

(I love the "Humans are the real monsters" stories and this one is great because who can you trust in that scenario, and it focuses on all sorts of things, like the trucker's responsibility to help and being a bad Samaritan etc is a lesser evil and she's definitely one of the nicer-seeming people, because she said Manny's gives her the creeps as well so she's on our side about it, but at the same time she's still mixed in with the social responsibility for allowing evil to happen... this probably isn't social commentary about current America at allllll)

-

Dean enlists Doug's help which is... great... and Doug shows up trying to be all shady in a hooded coat. Donna's adapting to the grittiness well... Doug sticks out like a sore thumb

-

I like that Dean's already staking out Manny's anyways.

-

Ewwww Doug just saying "I love Donna" blech

He's asking if Donna will be okay after never seeing her sad before but almost the first proper interaction Dean had with Donna seeing her as more than local police but as a person was seeing her deep dark pit of sadness about how Doug1 treated her, and told her she deserves better. He KNOWS Donna has a lot of sadness and self-worth issues she doesn't let on, and if Doug doesn't know about them after a year, he's not someone Donna opens up to. She opened up to Jody immediately, in contrast :P

"Not sure what you mean."

Doug lists some really superficial things they talk about as talking about "everything"

"I think she's hiding something from me"

Dean is like... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

He tells Doug he's going to be there for Donna and to trust her.

Maybe I just really hate Doug more and more but Dean's starting to remind me of the Lester conversation in 10x02 but just in bafflement about how Doug could possibly ~get~ Donna.

-

Meanwhile Donna looks like she's about to school Pastor Dickhead

He's sitting there with the lighting giving him a halo while playing butter won't melt in his mouth

And she's playing friendly cute Donna facade while telling him he's gonna be had for dinner for 2 days in the cells while getting him to talk

She's awesome.

-

Well that's super suspicious that the cashier closed early and chased after Wendy... We're halfway through so allowing for monster nonsense to get added in...

-

At this point because it took so long to get to a download, my mum insisted we watch the episode together while we ate so I now know everything that happened. D:

-

Ugh creepy pastor. ugh. the least he deserves is being reduced to crying by Donna while interrogating him.

-

Mr Totally Not The Bad Guy being like "But the shiiiirt" and Sam and Donna are too smart to think it makes sense for a moment. Sam says almost exactly what I would have done - hurr blurr I evaded capture for 12 years but here I am with a bloody shirt in my van

-

I mean the pastor is probably someone they were sizing up as potential eating and just hadn't got around to him yet, so he also worked as a fall guy

-

Anyway blatant "but if it isn't him who is it" cut to the cashier

The plot makes mores sense with hindsight that he cracks and shows Dean the video because they'd recognised the Winchesters' car and so he wasn't just playing dumb that he happened to know the website but his albi was being over here while the live cutting up was going on but that he confidently had the reassurance they didn't know he was a vampire so he could go along with whatever while leading them into a trap, and thinking that his day ended with packing up bits of Winchesters to go.

-

The "how they do it in the FBI" pathetic slap and then the Look that Donna gives Dean and the shifty look he gives back before turning to Doug and giving him another "but yeah it is" nod to back it up is an amazing silent exchange

-

Whoops Doug finds out about monsters. Dean has another "awkward" look caught between them

-

At this point Wendy being auctioned is really just bait to make them come

-

I will forgive Sam for not being more suspicious of Mr FBI on account of him having a very bad day but the point where he shows up and helps them investigate and Sam, now knowing it's monsters, doesn't fob him off harder but just says "alright follow me" is where I call impaired judgement

-

The caged halo lights are back and the creepy mask guy doesn't get to stand under one but one is directly behind Wendy in the video clip of her screaming

-

The trick with the radio is good because it works on us too knowing the torture is currently going on with that music playing.

And then we go to Doug being roughed up and turned because it's time to do all the reveals now we have the fake out, so Sam gets knocked out and Doug left as a distraction and the cashier to hold them up.

-

Oops Doug is a vampire. Doug growling is weird

-

Pfft and he just immediately attacks Donna. Dean is very quick thinking to immediately grab dead man's blood as soon as things start going.

-

"Well thanks for making it easy for me."

The vampire comes back to gloat and tell Dean that Sam's been got.

-

I love that Donna has no patience and just shoots the guy's knee out because we need to sort things out and Dean's showy machete waving ways aren't her style :P

-

"No no no get further back. He's a big boy, we need a wiiiide lens" I know it's terrible but I laughed SO HARD

-

"Hell soon as I saw that fancy car I knew who you were"

... we do always say is it a good idea that they keep driving it around? no. but will they stop? Never. :P

-

"The Butterfly" giving Sam a rough estimate of how many monsters there are - 100s of thousands - says the ones Sam and Dean see are too mean or stupid to "pass" which does lend itself to a double-edged fear of every day people being monsters... I think the implication with a corrupt FBI guy and the monsters we see all being white peeps is not a racist implication but more commentary on society being awful and so on, and I think using the racist preacher as the absolute scum of humanity is a good way to avoid too much weird implications about monsters - the BMoL had that creepy Brexit parallel which sort of cast monsters as immigrants which of course, considering they might well eat people, wasn't the neatest message.

I think this is a bit more tuned to 2018 anyway :P My concerns about the social commentary from earlier have mostly evaporated.

-

He thinks he's saving good honest American lives by feeding only people who won't be missed to the monsters - and he mentioned that the Mexican guy had a family which means he WOULD be missed - he's just racist too.

-

He's good at the whole auction voice thing though.

-

They really toned down the vampire cure thing because Dean barfed his guts up with it and now he's letting Donna give Doug the cure in the car as they drive.

In the *car*

-

"Let's begin the auction for Sam Winchester's HEART"

lemme tell you, even coming in at like 500k that's still not as much as it's worth. That is a priceless artefact there.

-

I absolutely adore the "you had no idea your aunt could do that" fight sequence :D

-

Like, she knows Donna's a cop, but having her just bust in and kill the guy...

What an aunt.

-

"There are many pieces to Sam Winchester but only one heart"

Honestly, devoid of context, I wanna see that on like 8 different artsy Sam edits.

-

Fake out Sam getting shot. "Since Dean's out there, quick and dirty."

Not quick enough.

Sam having a "huh, I'm not dead," moment. After we see the close up gunshot and that's why Sam and "The Butterfly" were both down to their white shirts, because there's just a mo where we aren't sure which one of them we're seeing even though it was aimed at Sam's head so it's clear just from seeing a shot to the heart that it wasn't Sam.

Also he wouldn't just randomly die, I say in a season where Dean randomly died already :P

-

Dean does those quips just for Sammy's benefit

-

I think Donna and Doug maaay not have been dating but she kinda realised she might like him now they've had a sort of adventure together...

"I was a vampire!" "For a couple of hours"

Ah well, bye bye Doug, thanks for breaking Donna's heart, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

-

This was a bit drawn out but I think it was important for Donna even if Doug is really annoying so I don't like watching him struggle on screen.

I think Donna really hoped she'd found someone in the life

-

Sam just sees it as completely inevitable and good for Donna that she doesn't have someone she cares about in the firing line.

-

Ow.

-

Ow ow ow ow.

-

Oh Donna as well... :(

I'm just in so much pain for Sam and Donna. Dean needs to hug 'em both.

He just gives Donna the pat on the shoulder while she cries.

Buuut now she's Doug-free for Wayward Sisters, hurrah!

She and Jody can bond and discover something in each other they didn't even know they were missing :3

-

That Jody's name isn't "Doug" for starters.

-

Dean's still harping on what Sam said to Donna, both telling her to get used to having no one close to you and just in general, yikes it's never good to hear someone you care about talking that way about caring about people and he should know he's BEEN there.

-

This is like the dark opposite of 11x04's optimistic Sam and "someone in the life" stuff.

-

Sam angrily stands his ground because he's a grumpy goose today "Was I wrong?"

it seems like Kaia set off his latest mood but also in losing Jack in the process of looking for Mary, who, also, is still gone and not seen for weeks before that, presumed dead... I would guess the fact that he was miserable in The Bad Place was the start of this, before Kaia died, and losing her really just symbolised how shitty everything is, the cherry on top of losing all the people they care about over and over.

After Dean spent the first part of the season his terrible way, now Sam's got his overdue depression and breakdown (tiiitle drop) that has been lurking below the surface...

... if we're lucky, as Sam fans, this might not just be a one-episode thing but actually, like, something that's going to happen in an ongoing way for Sam??

-

Sam denies he's in a dark place because everything he's saying is true, but Sam normally does repress and get optimistic about finding ways to research their way out of whatever hole they get themselves into this time.

Which ain't healthy but is how Sam manages to skim over the top of being in a dark place most times, meaning this is really hitting him hard now.

-

He also mentions Cas in his list of having mom and cas back and helping jack, accidentally playing into the dramatic irony in another way, of not knowing Cas is currently in trouble now as well but still listing him among the ones they've lost and that he's lost hope over...

-

"This ends one way for us, Dean."

And with that, the ginormous, grimy, rusty cog behind the entire mechanism, finally clunks around a slot, turning it from Dean as the dying bloody mindset Winchester to Sam, for the first time in a long time, and in a very curious way that Dean, who states it all the time, is now forced to evaluate and to think, do I really agree with it? I say it all the time but WOAH THAT IS HORRIFYING TO HEAR COMING OUT OF SAMMY'S MOUTH WHAT THE HELL WHO BELIVES THAT?

I'M CARVING THAT FUCKER A SLICE OF THE APPLE PIE LIFE AND HE'S GONNA SHUT UP AND EAT HIS DAMN LIZARD. PIE. I MEANT PIE.

-

Anyway then we end of that awful shot of Sam from the outside of the impala looking in on him which just makes us feel helpless about not being able to hug him, in my scientific opinion of what that shot is implying.

[rwbyremnants]

THIS CHAPTER: Fingering, facials, fellatio. Also body image issues.

=Chapter 12

"Trip’s been going great, sis. We stopped off for waffles last night at about… one in the morning? I was dead by the time we got back."

In the clogged traffic of the city, Yang was taking that opportunity to catch up with her dad and Ruby again. Though with her father, it was the more general “I’m doing fine, the job is weird” type of conversation; coming out to him had been a pretty rocky event, and even though he was accepting now it did put a little distance between them. She told her sister about meeting with Blake in Chicago, how they were now best of friends and remaining in contact; Ruby was glad to hear that, as she had liked Blake a lot the few times they met.

Obviously, she left out a few details for Weiss's benefit, such as the fact they were now an item. Not that she was afraid of what her sister would say about her, but more about what would possibly end up on her blog later.

As her boss emerged from the bedroom after finishing her makeup and hair for the day, Yang adjusted her position and the phone's angle so the camera had them both in clear shot. "Aaaaand here she is! The motorcyclist herself."

Ruby's digital face lit up at the sight of her idol. "OH! Hi, Weiss! Remember me?!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly, of course I remember! How are you, Ruby?" The inflection on her name was clearly meant to prove to the young student that she hadn't somehow forgotten her existence in the past couple of weeks. Yang laughed at the two of them, quickly pulling a chair outward to let Weiss possibly sit next to her as well, should she desire.

"She can ride pretty well. Only ran a few red lights and killed three people."

"She- WHAT?!" Ruby burst out, leaning closer to her camera. Apparently, she was on a laptop instead of a phone, if the static position of the shot was any indication. "NO WAY, Weiss would never hurt anyone or anything!"

"Yang, don't be mean to your sister," Weiss sighed, nudging her with her elbow as she sat down.

"Assault! Assault and battery!" Yang right away called out. Once they were sat side by side she did her best to copy Ruby's tactic, resting the phone on the table in her hand. "You home for Easter, Rubes? You seem more chill than usual."

"Well, I am… in A home for Easter," she told her evasively, stifling a little giggle.

"In… A home?" The confusion was pretty clear on Yang's face from the other end.

That seemed to be the planned signal for another party to pop into view – slightly taller ginger-haired girl with curly yet well managed hair, a pink bow somewhat visible on the back of her head. She threw her arms around Ruby, grinning. "Salutations!"

"Penny?" The blonde was taken back, eyes fully widening as the cogs were beginning to turn in her head. "Shouldn't she be… Doesn't she live in New Yo- Ruby, are you in New York?!"

"Yup!" The girl laughed, returning Penny's embrace with a grin. "Well, it's Spring Break, right? Time to cut loose!" Then she ducked her head. "Not that I'm very good at cutting loose - in fact, I don't normally cut anything, I'm very careful with scissors and knives…"

"Oh, you're really in New York?" Weiss asked with a slight smile. "That's so funny, so are we! Or… did you come here because you knew it was my next stop?"

Waving a hand with a snort, Ruby said, "No, no. Well… okay, it influenced my decision, but I swear I wanted to come meet Penny's parents anyway!"

"Holy fuckin' shit, I can't believe you're actually in New York City! I don't have to wait till summer break to see you again!" Yang's grin more or less went off her face. Yet again a surprise visit to her sister, more than once in the same tour. And she had expected her job would make it harder to see her.

Penny was laughing nervously as she finally released her guest. "Speaking of which, p-please keep the swearing down a bit? Father doesn't like swearing very much and both of them are rather strict."

"Something we have in common," Weiss said with a sigh as she turned her gaze slightly to Ruby's freckled companion. "It's nice to meet you, Penny."

"Wonderful to meet you, too, Weiss! I'm afraid I hadn't really heard of you before Ruby introduced me to your music, but it's truly an honour!"

"Oh, stop," Weiss said with practiced celebrity modesty. "I'm just a person. You and Ruby seem close; I'm glad you found a roommate who can be a friend, too."

Glancing over at Penny, Ruby grinned and said, "Me, too! Oh man, she's like a BFF and we've only known each other for a few months, you know?! It's INCREDIBLE!"

"Y-Yes! A B-F-F! Absolutely!" Penny was growing increasingly more and more flustered, that much was obvious by the redness appearing on her freckled face.

Yang, taking it simply as shyness from being complimented so much, just nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I knew you guys were close, but not an entire Spring Break together close! Speaking of which, did you guys wanna grab lunch when we're in the city, maybe?"

"Hey, yeah! We GOTTA!" Ruby turned her silver eyes nervously back in Weiss's direction. "Um… I mean, if that's okay! You're super busy, I know you're busy, so you don't have to!"

"We'd love to," Weiss laughed. "In fact, I have some errands to run tomorrow before the concert, but why don't you meet up with your sister for lunch then? Then we can all reconvene together afterward."

"You… sure?" Yang questioned, looking down to Weiss. She hadn't left Weiss completely on her own since the attack on that very first night – not for a long period of time, at least. In truth, she was far too worried to, especially now. Anything could happen.

"I'll wear a big hat," Weiss assured Yang, having caught the dubious look on her face. "And, if it will make you feel better, we can have one of the other security guards accompany me in the taxi."

"Definitely. And uh, text me? Just to keep me in the loop."

The ginger haired girl was clapping her hands in excitement. "Oh, it's so nice to see you taking your job so seriously, Yang! Ruby had always said you were caring of everyone and I've been so dearly looking forward to meeting you!" It seemed the obviously worried look on Yang's face completely flew right by her. That or she was thinking too far ahead. "Depending on your funds, there's all kinds of places for dinner! I can recommend the correct Ray’s Pizza, according to my Dad, and there’s Hard Rock Café, and pricier establishments if you want to have a nice evening out…"

"Hard Rock Café sounds like your sort of place," Weiss told Yang with a smirk.

"GREAT!" Ruby burst out, bouncing up and down in her chair. "Then let's do it, okay guys?! Let's make it happen!"

"Yeah, definitely! And… then we'll do something after as the four of us, right? Since Penny hasn’t met you yet." It was more the worry of leaving Weiss alone that compelled her bodyguard to ask. At least if they made plans for after, there was a definite time they could be together again. A pointless worry, perhaps, but one that made Yang feel at ease.

"Yes, of course," Weiss told her patiently, patting her arm. "I'm all yours after that. Perhaps dinner, over at Penny's?"

Ruby turned to look at Penny with a shrug. "What do you think? I mean, I don't know your dads as well as you do."

"Oh, well… I mean, I'd have to ask them…" She held her chin in thought, tapping it as she formed a plan. "We'd need to get extra ingredients for dinner if we're suddenly having extra guests, but if we do all that ourselves I don't think they'll mind! Dad always manages to talk Father around even if things differ from the usual schedule."

"Huh… It'll certainly be an interesting night. Especially for you, Weiss." She began to smirk. Perhaps Weiss hadn't quite caught on, or assumed Yang was simply considering Weiss's status. By that point, of course, the diva's brow had started to furrow the slightest amount. She was mulling over those last few words from Penny in her mind.

"Dad talks to Father? But then… what's- oh." Both of her baby blue eyes flew wide. "OH! Wait, are you saying you have two fathers?!"

"O-Oh… Yes! Two wonderful fathers! I just tend to call one ‘Dad’ so they know whom I am addressing. Dad being the more relaxed of the two, of course. And Father is… Well, he's very stern…"

"Weiss's dad has some kind of iron rod shoved up his ass, too,” Yang chuckled. “So we'll be able to cope with either one. Still, dinnertime conversation will be delightful, huh?"

The diva folded her arms. "That man with the 'rod up his ass' hired you, didn't he? A little gratitude might be in order! After all, without him, you and I wouldn't be…"

Her voice trailed off as her eyes looked back toward the screen, slightly wider and more anxious than they had been moments before. Not that Ruby and Penny would probably be able to spot the difference. "Wouldn't… be… enjoying this beneficial arrangement of ours! Now, um, what time shall we expect dinner to be, Penny?"

"Um… so piano practice is at five thirty… my free time begins at six… Six-thirty? Is that a good enough time?"

Yang could see Weiss's slight worry, so she put arm around her, bringing her into her side to squeeze lightly. "Ooof course it is, Freckles! Long as it's cool with your dads."

"Yes, please clear it with them first," Weiss laughed nervously. "And Yang has my number if plans should change, but she'll be seeing you in person tomorrow!"

A squeal loosed from Ruby as she clapped her hands. "This is so AWESOME! Okay, I'm gonna go help Penny ask them for permission and everything - talk to you later, sis!"

"Not if I talk to you first!" And with the click of a button, the call was ended. All Yang could do was squeeze Weiss even tighter toward her for a moment, before eventually releasing. "Are you absolutely sure about being out by yourself? It's been a while since that jerkface tried something, and we got him, but… I'm still worried about you."

"Don't worry so much," she reassured Yang. "You are supposed to be my bodyguard, yes, but not absolutely one hundred percent of the time! Another of our company's security can go with me, and then I'll just stay in my bus until you get back to take me to this Penny's house. It's not a problem."

"Yeah, but… now I have extra reasons to worry. Not just professional ones." She backed away for a moment, looking into the orbs of blue she had grown to adore over the past week. But even despite her worries, she had a smile to offer. "But I know you'll be fine. I'm not about to turn into some overbearing prick who bans you from going outside without me."

That notion did make Weiss smirk at the blonde. Glancing at the phone, just to make entirely sure the call had ended, she slid her hands around Yang's waist, nails scratching lightly at her abs through her shirt. "Ooh, are you sure? Doesn't the big strong Amazon want to chain up the princess in her dungeon?"

Said Amazonian woman could only growl in response, back arcing away from the fingers at first as she sat herself upright, deliberately trying to make herself seem as tall as possible to impress her 'princess'. Taking a quick glance at the clock, she then looked back and smirked. "We got time."

With an expression of giddy glee, Weiss dashed to the back of the bus, wailing, "Nooo, the Amazon will chain me up in her Tower of Terror! Whatever shall I dooooo?"

"C'mere, princess!" Yang smirked, dashing after her and toward the bedroom. But not before taking one thing that would serve into Weiss's request for their time. Her orange scarf. Weiss wanted to be chained up, she would have her request.

But when Yang got to the door, Weiss was on the other side, leaning against it. "Stay away, you brute! Or I'll unleash my magic powers on you!" The giggling sounded like that of a five-year-old, but clearly Weiss was enjoying herself.

"Magic powe- I swear if you sing 'Let it Go' or any of that Disney shit, I am coming for you twice as hard!" When she tried the door, it was stuck. And so she tried again, pushing at it from the other side. "You can't hide forever you know!"

"KEEP AWAY, YOU BRUTE!" she cackled as Yang slowly began to budge Weiss; she knew that between the two of them, there was no way she would ever win, and wasn't putting up a terribly hard fight in the first place. After a few more pushes, the door creaked open enough for her to reach through the gap, able to grasp her wrist. Even though she was giggling like a child, she still had a role to play.

"Got'cha!"

The squeal that leapt from Weiss's throat was so high-pitched that you almost couldn't tell it came from a person. She tried to pull away - which, of course, was a mistake, because it released the pressure from her side of the door, letting Yang inside. Bursting into the room, she grinned evilly as she used it to pull her in toward her, moving her hands to her hips instead. Repeating the action she did when they very first met, she hauled her up and onto her shoulder, carrying her over to the bed with ease.

"Think you can get away that easy, huh? I'll have to teach you a li’l lesson."

"A lesson?! But I am only a princess - I don't have to learn lessons! Put me down!" Her legs flailed and tried to kick Yang, but from that position it wasn't quite possible.

"Oh I think you'll wanna learn these. Lesson one!" Lifting her from her shoulders, she then threw Weiss down onto the plush surface of the bed. From there, she quickly climbed on top of her, straddling her hips to keep her pinned down. As Weiss looked up at her, she smirked right back, holding up the scarf and dangling it back and forth above her to tease her. "How to prepare your victim."

Weiss didn't have the slightest idea what might be in store for her next, but her curiosity had been piqued. What did Yang mean to do with that scarf? So vanilla were her fantasies that she couldn't think of a single thing; for her sheltered mind, it was already the height of decadence that she was sleeping with a woman at all.

"Prepare? Wh… what are you going to do?"

Yang had always felt this temptation to corrupt Weiss, to bring to light deeper and darker new ideas. Why was the idea of that so much fun? But either way, she managed to grasp one of Weiss's wrists, quickly wrapping the scarf around it and tying it into place.

"Make damn sure your hands don't leave that bed post."

"Wh-WHAT?!" she gasped out, genuinely shocked for a moment. But then she realized the scarf couldn't truly trap her if she struggled hard enough - just that it would hold her temporarily. "I m-mean, um… what do you plan on doing to me, you fiend?"

"This!" Looping the longer piece of the scarf around the post, she grasped Weiss's other wrist and pushed it upward to the same place, tying that to the same post to keep her down. Once satisfied with the binding, she leant back to marvel at her work, eyes raking her helpless form. A deep thrill was settling in as she watched Weiss test the binds, and struggle against them. She would be unable to stop her, unable to dictate her movements. She was in full control.

The pale cheeks were definitely flushed from their struggles, and from the knowledge of her current situation. Caught like a fly in a spider's web. Her hips shifted back and forth, her heart pounding in her throat. What would Yang do to her, now that she was completely powerless?

"I… I am yours, Amazon," she breathed, as if thinking this admission might get her to go easier on her.

"You're damn right," she whispered. To think, Weiss had only just done her hair when she first came out the bedroom, and now Yang was about to completely mess it up again. That and more. Her hands were quick to move to their goal, straight to the buttons on her low cut shirt. Even if she would be unable to remove it completely with her arms now tied, it would be enough to get her a better look of what was beneath.

Although, before she threw it open, she looked back up to the blue eyes. Yang was yet to see her body unclothed. In her underwear, sure, but not this much. Not yet. And perhaps Weiss wanted to keep it that way for longer.

"The safe word is ‘Half Caff Latté’, got it?"

The pop star's entire body had been tensed for her chest to be revealed to Yang for the first time, so shy had she been about putting herself on display up until this point. It wasn’t Yang; it was anyone. That wasn’t the kind of celebrity she had ever wanted to be, and still didn’t want to be; she had stayed away from anything risqué throughout her entire life. Therefore, the phrase was entirely lost on her.

"If I w… wait, what? Latte?"

Unable to help herself, Yang's Amazonian character broke, leaving her chuckling to herself for a brief moment while Weiss focused again. "'Half Caff Latté'. That's all you have to say if you get antsy, or uh, don’t like something I’m doing. Y’know, if our little game gets out of control and you need a break?"

"Oh." Her eyebrows were still knit in confusion, but eventually she repeated, "Half Caff Latte, okay." The poor girl had never even heard of "safe words", didn't know a thing about how that worked. But the concept made sense to her.

"Alright. Now back to business…" Straight back to the role again, she threw Weiss's shirt open. And what a sight she was greeted with indeed…

Weiss's skin was flawless. She clearly looked after it, given how fair it was all over. No marks, blemishes or scars to be seen; just creamy, supple flesh. The petite breasts were still hidden by her bra, but their size was clear now that she was half naked. Unable to help herself, she ran a hand down her cleavage, slowly down to the flat stomach.

"You're so fucking hot."

Shivering, Weiss turned her head aside, unable to meet Yang's eyes as she breathed, "Am I?" That seemed to be all she could say; too much of her attention was focused on ignoring the spike of fear, the nervousness.

"Yes," she reaffirmed, backing herself down from straddling Weiss's hips so she could lie on top of her properly, and kiss her collarbone over and over. It wasn't anything she knew would give the woman pleasure, but she hoped Weiss would feel it for what it was. Body worship. "This Amazon loves her princess…"

The shaky breath outward seemed to confirm that she was at least able to breathe again. Her hands came up to clutch Yang's body to her own-

And were held fast by her bonds. This impromptu game of theirs turned out to be so cruel! Only the light kisses kept her from shrieking when she was reminded again that she was tied up; Yang wanted to tease, not to frighten. Keeping that in mind helped.

But for Yang it was only making her chuckle even more. She was delighting in her seemingly cruel ways. Lower and lower her hands were sinking over Weiss's body, until they got to the waistband of her skirt. In the past week, this is where she struggled to get further. One way or another, Weiss protested, or made an excuse. And while Yang understood and obeyed, she never understood why. As she began to lower it slightly, she waited for Weiss's reaction.

The skirt being lowered did have an effect. Weiss began to squirm more, to seem more nervous. Nothing vastly more pronounced than prior to that, but just enough that it was noticeable. She raised her hindquarters to allow Yang to remove the skirt, but when she lowered them again, her thighs were very tightly clamped together – so much so that the muscles were visible in strong relief against her skin.

As she pushed the skirt away entirely, throwing it aside to the ground, Yang was beginning to notice just how clamped shut her legs were. Although she knew Weiss was nervous, she never suspected it would be this bad. Not to the point of straining to keep Yang from looking. And her underwear hadn't even come off just yet.

"What's wrong?" she asked in character, toying with the waistband of her underwear. "Don't you want your Amazon to ravage you?"

"Don't know wh-why she'd want to," Weiss managed to breathe shakily. The finger inside the waistband of her underwear was too much, apparently; too far past her comfort zone. She wasn't trying to dissuade Yang, or saying the café-related phrase that would bring everything to a halt.

But one look at her face showed that she was seconds from a panic attack. True, she wasn't allowing it to interfere with their play, but that didn't reduce or eliminate her reaction. All it took was one glance upward for Yang to know. Where she expected to see playfulness or lust in her eyes, she saw fear and sadness. She was tense all over, to a point when it was visible on her body. Perhaps she was only hanging on for Yang's benefit, but she wouldn't allow that to make her panic. And so, releasing the waistband, she backed herself off, sitting down to one side.

"Do you want me to untie you?"

"No," Weiss breathed unconvincingly. "I mean, um… yes?" Trying to recover their game had come out only sounding like she was finished with it, so she deflated again. "I don't know… I'm sorry."

But such uncertainty was enough to tell Yang the answer. Instead of continuing, she leant up to untie one of Weiss's wrists. "C'mon, you can tell me." Yang was now speaking genuinely, keeping her gaze to her upper half rather than down below. "You've been really tense when we've tried this. Not that I care! No rush, seriously! I just… you know you can tell me anything, right? I don't want you to be scared of me."

"You don't scare me." That came out sounding a lot more petulant than she meant for it to, so she sighed and tried again. "You don't. It's not that, it's… I'm… I just have never been comfortable letting anyone see my body. Especially not… th-that part of me."

The words tugged at Yang's very being. She knew that feeling all too well, although it was mainly in fear of what they would think rather than self-hatred. This seemed like the latter of the two. Not that she understood why particularly.

"Why? I mean you're beautiful, I'm sure yo-" Biting her tongue, she stopped herself rambling on. Forcing her to explain would only make things worse. "I-I mean… You don't have to explain if you don't want to. There’s lots of other stuff we could do."

"You don't want to see it, trust me," Weiss breathed. Then her head raised up to gaze directly across at Yang, blue eyes shining with unshed tears. "Well… you probably understand better than anyone else would. Wanting to hide your body from other people. But you don't want to hear this from me – not when my problems are so stupid compared to what you've had to deal with."

To show she wasn't about to give in, Yang crossed her arms and legs as she sat by her side. "Try me."

For a long moment, Weiss rubbed her wrists and thought. This wasn't something she wanted to discuss. Ever. But Yang was willing to listen, whereas no one else ever had been even slightly interested – or someone she would really want to discuss this with in the first place. This actually affected Yang and their budding relationship, and she had a right to know.

"Well… like I said, I know it's not the same. I do know that. But… when I saw that you have what you have, and when you told me about having surgeries, and all that? Because your body wasn't born the way you wanted it to look… or, um, however you'd say that. There was a little part of me that already knew what you meant. It's not the same, but it did help me understand where you were coming from a little better than I might have otherwise."

"So wait… what are we talking about here? Because if you’re about to tell me you have a dick, I think I’m gonna faint."

“You already know I don’t,” she chuckled weakly. “You’d have felt it the way I felt yours. Because you’re so sexy, and laying on top of me like you do...” Her eyes dropped again. “No, I just don’t really like… certain things about my body. Little things.”

Things were starting to make a lot more sense. Yang had suffered with her self image, of course, but in a different way. Weiss seemed to be telling her that she hated how a part of her own body looked. And judging by the unshed tears, a lot.

"Is that why you were asking me about who I went to for my rack?"

"Who you went to? For… your boobs? OH! Oh, no no no, not my boobs!" She laughed a little with relief – it was good for her, from the look of things. "Though they are barely worth being called that, I'm fine with my pathetic cup size. All the tabloids demanding to know if I’m ever getting implants are wasting their time. It's…" Her voice got quiet again, though it was less fearful than it had been before. Her hands folded tightly in her lap. "It's somewhere else that I dislike."

Spying downward to where Weiss's hands had ended up, and seeing how tight Weiss's legs were still crossed, she could guess. "Right." But after a while, she finally took a step of bravery. "If you don't mind me asking… how come? Like, what’s the problem?"

"You wouldn't understand. I mean… you'd understand the whole idea of being dissatisfied, obviously! Like you said! But this will… UGH, I feel so nit-picky!"

"Weiss, it's not a contest," she reassured her, placing her hand on her thigh, far lower than she had before. Just enough so she'd be able to see it was reassuring rather than to continue their play. "I'm sure whatever it is, you probably see it as far worse than it actually is. But it's one hundred percent not going to matter to me, okay? No matter what, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m still gonna think you’re… so perfect."

There was a long pause as Weiss weighed that offer. The pros and cons, her own feelings. Her hand fell to Yang's and squeezed it hard - harder than she usually did just from holding hands.

"I'm… it's… lopsided."

Yang tilted her head. In regards to that area, she didn't really know what to expect from that comment. At least, not something that would make someone feel such a dislike for their own anatomy. "Huh? Lopsided?"

"Very." Her other hand came up to rub at her eyes, hard. "Ever since puberty, I've noticed that, and… and I don't know what to do about it, I know there’s a minor surgery to fix this, but I would have to admit that it's real to a DOCTOR to get it fixed! And it's just a stupid cosmetic surgery, and my father would be so disappointed with me for having anything like that done, and… and I don't know what to do besides live with it!"

Yang was confused. "Why the hell would your father have any say? It's a part of you, it's got nothing to do with anyone else!"

"Oh, it's just how he's always felt about things like this. Body image, sexuality – I did ask him if I could get my boobs done once, not even completely certain I wanted to go through with it, and he shouted at me for almost an hour. Definitely shot that idea down."

Yang was trying to understand. Truly trying. But she simply couldn't grasp it. Her own father had always been so supportive of her, once the initial shock wore off and they had talked things through — even offering to help pay for her top surgery until Yang insisted otherwise. The very thought of any father shouting at his daughter over that simply made Yang's blood boil.

"That's… That's bullshit! How fucking dare he!"

Weiss was a little startled at this reaction from Yang. Not afraid, but puzzled. "Well… our bodies are a temple, aren't they? Father just sees them as being sacred. Changing them to suit the earthly standards of beauty is not only a waste of money, but in defiance of God." Then she shrugged and slumped down a little more. "Or that's what he believes, anyway. Not sure what I believe anymore."

All Yang could do was continue to stare out into space. She assumed her father had at least guessed about her condition, given that she had listed qualifications on her CV that were under her previous name. And yet if this is what he truly believed, he obviously didn't – else he wouldn't have hired her.

"Temples have to be built though, right?" She was trying to bring things into perspective, to try and explain in a way Weiss would understand. "And they're always being improved how people want them. Not to how any god or whatever wants them to be. Your body is your temple. And your father should get no say whatsoever in how you want it."

Then her hand went to Weiss's once again, giving it a small squeeze. "And if you want to get anything done, if you really feel like it'll help you, then you do it. Fuck what anyone else thinks."

"Yeah," she breathed quietly. She had been listening, but it all flew in the face of everything she'd ever known and was therefore a lot more difficult to take in. "But… it's… I don't know, it's not like with your chest, where it didn't match what you felt it should be. I already have the body I want, except f-for…" Wiping her eyes again, she added in a whisper of pure agony, "It's so ugly."

For a moment, Yang fell silent. It wasn't her right to dictate what was and wasn't ugly on the diva’s body, even if she'd had more than enough experience with such feelings. All she could do was listen, understand, be there for her. But perhaps she was in the unique position to offer more.

"Then what about a second opinion?"

"A second opinion? Where would I get one of-" Then Weiss smiled, though it was a tight, knowing smile. "You just want to get into my panties, you big lesbo."

Giving back a humoured smile, she tilted her head. "Got me. But seriously, I can pop the hood and take a look, if you wanted."

Weiss hesitated. Truly hesitated, looking up at Yang as if trying to tell if she was messing with her. "No. I mean… do you really want to? No, I can't ask you to do that. Or I could - but you don't want to stare at my weird vagina, it's… icky, and unpleasant."

"I put up with you when you thought I was weird and unpleasant, right?" That part was a joke. But the offer was not. That much was obvious when Yang placed her hands on her thighs, rubbing them slowly. "No part of you is ‘icky’, I can tell you that right now. Pinky swear if you want."

Weiss's blue eyes flew open, fingertips reaching for Yang's shirt. "You… you do?"

"I do. And I can tell you that even without seeing it. Because it's you." She then waited patiently for Weiss's next move. Whether that was to allow her to see or not, it didn't matter. Yang meant every word. Even in such a short amount of time, she adored Weiss. Far more than she could put into words.

And then, almost so slowly one could count the passage of time by minutes instead of seconds, Weiss's thighs began to part. She still didn't open them very wide or act as if she were looking forward to what came next, but she was at least amenable.

"You… may proceed. But if you agree with me that it’s weird-looking, I want your honest opinion – don't sugar-coat anything."

"Do I ever sugar-coat anything?" But before she could allow her to answer that, she did as she promised. Hands returning to the waistband of her panties, she began to pull them downward. Slowly, gradually… Until she slid them off her legs completely, and left them with her skirt. Her hands then returned to her thighs, and she looked back up to the tears in Weiss's eyes as she allowed her legs to part. It wasn't quick, but it also wasn't as slow as before; it seemed now that she had made the decision, there was no sense in delaying the inevitable.

As she had indicated, Weiss's labia were indeed slightly uneven; the one on Yang's right was perhaps half an inch longer than the other, and more wrinkled. Everything was quite pink, almost vividly so, and as she was open and on display, the hood over the top couldn't quite conceal her clit; that was also very nominally larger than was typical. Other than those minor notes, Weiss was entirely average.

Hands remaining firmly on her thighs, Yang did as she was told. Looking down toward it to gather a second opinion, her breath rustling the sparse, untrimmed white-blonde hair above. As she predicted, she didn't find it ugly at all. It was a part of Weiss, just as unique as the rest of her, and quite lovely to her viewpoint. Somehow it was more fitting that way, for her to be slightly different, to have a small quirk.

"It's just as beautiful as the rest of you, ya dork."

"No, it's not!" she burst out, voice full of tears even if she wasn't crying yet. "It looks stupid! Not that I r-really like how vaginas normally look in the first place, but come on, how can you not think I'm a freak of nature?!"

For a moment, Yang looked back toward her, raising one eyebrow. Even without words, the message was obvious, that talking about freaks of nature to Yang was somewhat ironic considering how much she differed from 'normal'. But when she looked back down at her, and the larger-then-average clit, she couldn't help but smile again.

"It's not stupid. And I think your little button is really cute."

"A BUTTON!?" she demanded, curling to sit up and get a decent look down at herself. Once she figured out what Yang meant, she tutted and said, "No, no- I meant the lips! The lips are weird! Does it really look like a button?!"

So that was what Weiss found unacceptable, the thing that made her so frightened of revealing herself to Yang – or to even look at for herself before now. But for her partner, she hadn't even noticed – not until Weiss pointed it out. She tilted her head again, brushing one of her hands slowly inward toward it along her inner thigh.

"Weiss, your body is beautiful. It's not perfect, but I promise you… nobody cares whether or not any girl’s snatch looks like it belongs on a mannequin or something. I really like you exactly like this."

The exposed singer seemed to be unable to speak now. Yang was going to touch it. Going to touch her shame, touch it and say that it was beautiful. This couldn't be happening – she felt a compulsion to run away, to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming. But the hand was coming closer and closer, and all she could do was clutch at the sheets and squeeze both eyes shut.

When she saw her eyes were closed, Yang stopped her movements. She didn't believe anyone wanted to do this, truly thought she considered it ugly despite saying otherwise. There was only one way she could think of to show her she wasn't. She shuffled herself over on the bed, moving her position to between her thighs. Then laying on her front, head facing it, she held her legs open, leaning in to give the very shame Weiss thought she had… A kiss.

An anguished, strained cry loosed from deep in Weiss's throat. Pure alarm, and confusion, and a dozen other emotions she couldn't specify. Her eyes swivelled down to see the blonde hair poking up from between her legs.

"Wh… what?!" she was able to squeak. It only seemed to earn her another kiss. And another, and another – each one delivered to the lips themselves. Every part that Weiss disliked, she made sure to spoil, in the hope that she would understand how Yang felt. That she truly didn't think it was ugly.

"You… I can't believe you're touching that!" Weiss whispered, no longer so shrill and distressed. Now she was confounded beyond all reason. Yang was not only touching it, but touching it with her mouth. That was insane!

Add into that how it felt… but Weiss couldn't focus on that yet, she didn't have the mental fortitude. She knew she liked it, but beyond that, there was no examining the sensation.

But Yang didn't give her too long to focus on what the kiss felt like. Soon enough she was sitting herself back upright between her legs, staring down at the beautiful woman lying on the bed, still dumbfounded by her girlfriend's actions. Where her lips were pressed, a hand was brushing against the folds again, pressing inward slightly.

"Girl, it is the best I’ve ever had."

A familiar moan escaped the diva as she laid back on the bed. This time, however, there was a touch of uncertainty in it, even more so than the first time Yang pleasured her through the fabric of her shorts. At least it had been concealed – now she was open, exposed! And Yang could actually feel how strange the shape of her sex was!

"You… are you sure?" she finally managed to pant a minute later. "It's not… you're n-not just saying that?"

"I'm sure." She further underscored her affinity for Weiss's body by pressing her hand firmer up against it, brushing up and down again to test how she felt about being touched there. Judging by the moan, she liked it a lot. "Amazon is all about her princess."

"R-really? You are?" Tears were rolling down the diva’s cheeks, leaking at last, but they seemed to be involuntary. Weiss herself was arching her back, clutching the sheets as the sensations assailed her – and far stronger than the last time they had fooled around. If she had known it felt this good to tease them directly, she would have simply thrust Yang's hand down the front of her panties, the risk of her feeling her abnormality be damned!

As it was… she couldn't express the joy she felt at knowing Yang liked her body. Her silly, almost-perfect body with its jarring flaw. Until now, it had been one she could hide easily enough, but Yang wanting to treat all of her body with love and tenderness had blown past that defence. Now, there was nothing between the two of them.

"Yeah. It's so soft… It just feels so nice to touch, like the rest of you." Yang was about to lean back up to kiss her lips, but remembering where they had just been, she turned aside, pressing her lips against her collarbone instead. Never did her hand leave the exquisite flesh, making delicate movements over and over again – building to stronger ones.

Such actions – and hearing the reactions from Weiss – were causing her own “abnormality” beginning to throb against the fabric of her shorts and panties. And why wouldn't it? When something felt this good to touch alone, how good would it be to feel Weiss wrapped around herself?

"Oh… o-OH, Yang!" Little by little, Weiss widened her legs to allow Yang better access, relaxing into their new activity. Her back began to arch as her head fell back, and she knew she was loving this, that her reservations about being seen and touched directly had just gone up in smoke – at least when it came to one specific bodyguard. "How are you so good at this? NNhhh, yeah!"

"Practice," she muttered against her neck, continuing to press her lips against it over and over again, kneading against the sweet skin. Maybe she wasn't going to tie Weiss back up again after all, but that didn't mean she was going to let their character roles completely slip away.

After a minute of simply toying, she leant upward to her ear, whispering in a low, gruff voice, "So how about it?" She punctuated her words by pressing her fingertips near her entrance. "How about your ‘amazon’ truly takes her princess?"

"Wh-what does that even MEAN?!" she demanded weakly, clutching at Yang's upper arm with the left half of her perfectly-manicured nails. Seemed some innuendo still went directly over the sheltered girl's head.Staying by her ear, the bodyguard’s finger began to circle slowly so she could give her an idea. Weiss was so wet! Completely soaked and ready for this physically. But mentally, perhaps that was another story.

"Me, inside you, claiming your body. Making it feel good. Is that what you want?"

"You ins- WITH YOUR-" Weiss's eyes shot wide, and all those nails dug into the flesh much harder than before. "B-but that's… that would be…"

And the reality of their situation hit her. Sex. They were going to do more than just fool around, they were going to have actual penetrative sex – her first time. Virginity, impregnation… Her legs clamped together on the hand, not allowing it to leave but also not allowing it as much free reign as it had moments ago.

"Yang, I- is that what you want? To really, um, sleep together?"

Yang remained completely still for a moment longer. The hand hadn't given her enough of a clue yet it seemed. Or had it? She leant up to look into her eyes. She needed to be sure she understood everything before continuing at all. "Weiss, I mean with my fingers, not with my… y’know. The other thing. But this isn't about what I want, it's about what you want.”

The relief in Weiss’s eyes was complete and obvious. A few seconds later, her thighs relaxed and she let go of Yang's bicep. "Oh… well, I… we've never tried that, I don't know…" Perhaps this still wasn't something she had been expecting to try today, but at least it wasn't as unexpected as losing her virginity!

"Sure, it’s new, but it's something to try if you wanted. And I mean, I’ve never owned a vagina, but from what I hear, it’s… different." She gently pressed a fingertip up against the entrance properly, not enough to enter at all, but just enough to have her feel its presence, for her to grasp if she wanted more.

"Ooh… th-that's different, alright!" Gulping, the inexperienced girl pet up and down Yang's arm, almost as if trying to reassure herself as much as her partner. "Um… w-will it hurt? If you go inside, I mean…"

"Judging by how you feel down here…" Rotating her fingers around the area, Yang attempted to moisten her fingers as much as possible with Weiss's juices. She really was ready… "Pretty sure it won’t. But I'll go slow. Just let me know how it feels."

There was a long pause as Weiss considered her options. She could either refuse, continue to be afraid of anything below the waist for a few more months… or she could take the plunge. Find out just how incredible Yang could make her body feel with those strong, confident hands of hers. So far, she had already made her feel whole new vistas of pleasure with them. Might as well reach for the stars.

"Slow is good," she finally admitted as her thighs began to relax. "So… so we can try, I think."

"Okay. Then let's just…" Like the first time she and Weiss had tried this, she pressed her lips against Weiss's collar bone, continuing to kiss it over and over again as some form of distraction, something to keep her grounded. It was all she could do seeing as she probably wouldn't allow Yang to kiss her lips just yet.

And slowly, two of Yang's fingertips began to guide themselves down, entering the wet and wonderful warmth that was her girlfriend. Her diva. All she could do was continue to push deeper, and listen for her reactions.

"Wow!" she breathed, eyes flying wide as she felt something entering her for the first time. "This… it feels like so MUCH! Are you… using three fingers?! I thought you said you would go slow!"

"Just two," she reassured her between kisses, pressing more of them again and again as she pushed in further, and further. Once she thought she was deep enough for a first attempt, she began to draw them back out again.

And Weiss was appreciative. Even if she didn't know how to show it properly, having her inner walls stroked was an experience unlike any she had ever felt – it wasn't as strong as when Yang really got going stroking her through the shorts, but far stronger than merely caressing her outer lips a moment ago. Was this what women felt all over the world when being pleasured? How she had been missing out!

Each time Yang plunged her fingers back in, she reached a little deeper than before. And then she'd draw back out, then back in, over and over again in a slow pace to help her get used to the sensation. This was Weiss's first taste of what sex would be like. Only more was to come later in their relationship, but for now, Yang was going to help Weiss discover this. They both would together.

The fingers sparked an awakening within Weiss’s body. Up until that point, it had all been new, and gratifying, and beautiful. But something about this particular action… there was a "rightness" to it. Deep down in her rational mind, she knew it was a genetic need to be deflowered, to provide children into the world which made the actions associated with procreation pleasurable, but it seemed like more than that. Having Yang inside of her was the most satisfying experience of her entire life – moreso than a steaming latte, or a spa day, or singing in front of a crowd onstage.

Well… maybe not that last one.

"You're so warm…" It was all she could think about as she continued to push herself inside, gradually increasing her speed. Everything about her beloved girlfriend, Yang found flawless. The small squeaks she made as her body twitched, the feeling of softness that between her legs had, even if it was what she was ashamed of from the start. Everything only fuelled her own need. And as she lay by Weiss's side and kept kissing her neck, she couldn't help but begin to push her hips forward, grinding against her thigh. Her subconscious would do anything to try and satisfy the burning heat.

Against all expectations from either of them, Weiss felt the hardness up against her leg… and she laughed. It was a nervous laugh, but she couldn't help it; the very idea that eventually, that might be inside her… that was the most ludicrous thing in the world in that moment.

On the other end of the spectrum lay Yang's efforts to bring her to orgasm. Those fingers were most certainly anything but ludicrous. She loved them, she loved feeling her girlfriend up against her body, the lips on her collar… the fullness inside of her. Everything was magic.

Yang could feel a twitch from within the diva's body around her fingers which told her what she needed. That soon she would be at her end. To ensure that, she sped her fingers up even more, starting to curl them upward. She had fond memories of that working with Blake before, maybe Weiss was the same.

As it turned out, she was. Very much so.

"OOOHH!! Yang, that's- oh my GOD, what are you doing to me?! It's so much, it's- WHOOOOHAH!"

"That's it… Come for me, my princess." It was her last ditch effort to help Weiss finish, whispering into her ear in that same low-toned voice while she continued to push in and out of her at a higher speed. For her first time, Weiss really was weathering such treatment well. It only made her own thrusting against Weiss's leg begin to intensify. She could only begin to imagine their future, when their bodies would unite as one.

The squeals got louder and sharper as Weiss continued to let the fingers punish her insides, to tease this newly discovered spot that seemed to be made out of pure fire and emotion. Sparks blazed out from every fingertip and every toe as she writhed under her, mouth hanging open and panting with the effort of trying not to lose her mind.

"Yang! Yang, it's- it's happening! I'm going t-to- tooooOOOAAHHHH! YES! Yeah, more!"

"More? Alright!"

In her last ditch effort to push her to orgasm, Yang had increased the speed of her fingers as fast as she could against that spot. Instead of kissing more, she instead bit down against Weiss's neck, sucking at the flesh she had captured in her lips to mark her. The ultimate sign that she belonged to her.

One single bite was enough. Between the attention already being paid to her sensitive spot inside, the knowledge that it was Yang, and the unexpected flash of dull pain along her neck, the peak of her pleasure burst and rushed over her amidst a flurry of high-pitched squealing, limbs jerking and shivering. It was ten times more glorious than she had been expecting, and she loved every minute.

Savouring every moment, Yang delivered a few more firm thrusts with her fingers, allowing Weiss to ride out her orgasm right to the very end. Seeing her at the peak of her orgasm was the most wonderful thing she had experienced in a long, long time. The fact that she got to see it more than once in her lifetime was nothing less than majestic.

Finally, her hand came to a stop as her mouth released the side of her neck. She curled around her side, taking a moment to catch her own breath. "Good enough for you?"

The panting pop star could only nod as she lay there, blinking over at Yang with hazy blue eyes full of affection and appreciation. However, it didn't stop her hand from reaching down to caress Yang through her shorts. Only weakly, and only teasing, but enough to let her know that the thrusting against her thigh did not go entirely unnoticed.

"Hnnhh…" A rather sharp hum of pleasure sounded from Yang as her own sex got its turn to enjoy some attention. It was already at full length, and she hadn't even taken any of her clothes off. She had to change that. Suddenly she was rushing to fiddle with her jacket zipper, quickly pulling it down and tossing it aside, then immediately throwing her top along with it. She allowed Weiss to handle her lower half, knowing how much she enjoyed it.

This time, however, it seemed Weiss was feeling a bit more playful. A vague smile played across her face as she slithered a hand down Yang's shorts, the fingers gently surrounding the top side of her length and sliding up and down along it.

"Oh! W-Weiss?!" Was she going to get her off this way instead? And allow her to mess up her shorts and panties? Apparently so. Not that she would protest. Instead, she rolled over onto her back, allowing Weiss to have her way with her entirely, raising her arms above her head to show it.

"Mmmhh," Weiss sighed as she enjoyed the feeling beneath her fingers. One thing was for sure within her mind: she definitely wasn't "fully lesbian" if she enjoyed teasing a cock as much as she seemed to. And Yang's was even better, since it wasn't attached to some creepy guy. Win-win!

Eventually, Weiss regained her energy enough to roll over and begin stroking her in earnest, other hand tracing its way up and down her side. As she did so, listening to her girlfriend get closer and closer, a desire began to take shape in her mind. Something that had happened spontaneously once before, but not since… and the accompanying shame of the thought made her begin to blush and look away.

But as she managed to look up at last in the middle of her pleasure, she spotted such a blush, and such a nervous look. That wasn't from their current activity, Yang could tell that much. No… it seemed the diva had other plans for her. Just ones she was too nervous to speak of out loud.

"W-what'cha thi- AH! What'cha thinking about?" she prompted in the middle of her pleasure, only just managing to hold on.

"Well… I was kind of- no, never mind," she cut herself off hastily as she fondled Yang, biting her lip to keep from speaking anymore. Though she saw Yang was still watching and waiting for her to talk. She had told her that her misshapen sex was beautiful, after all. Maybe there was nothing to fear. "I wanted… you to… do what you did that first time. Again."

"Do what I… Huh?" Yang hesitantly laid a hand on Weiss's to stop her pumping any further. If she did, she would finish before Weiss could even explain properly. "What thing was that?"

Obviously, Weiss was still extremely embarrassed about her request, but she closed her eyes and forced herself to whisper it anyway. "Finish on m-my face?" Then she waited, stomach clenched, for summary judgment. To be told she was a freak.

"Oh…" Just like that, Yang’s blush matched her partner’s, releasing Weiss's hand so she could continue again if she wanted to. Weiss wanted her on her face yet again, to mark her with her own juices. It seemed degrading to do it to her, and yet the thought was making her heat only spike.

Nodding to accept such a request, she went to unbutton her shorts, pulling them, and her underwear down and off to give Weiss ease of access. And Weiss kept jerking, albeit at a slightly slower pace so as not to drive Yang over the edge too soon. At the same time, she was also crawling backward off the bed with a slow and steady pace. Seemed she was headed for the floor.

All the while, Yang grasped at the sheets instead, leaning her head back against the pillows in an effort to try and hold on. If she came too soon, it wouldn't be satisfying enough. Not to mention it wouldn't land where her girlfriend wanted it. But Weiss's hand was too good for her to do that for too long!

But by that point, Weiss was literally pulling Yang toward the edge of the bed by the appendage in her hand. The choices were to follow, or to have it pulled at in a way that was less than enjoyable, so she followed. Then she was sitting on the edge of the bed, Weiss kneeling before her.

"You… you ready, baby?" she panted, licking her lips, clearly more excited than even she herself had anticipated.

Now sat on the edge of the bed, Yang found her breath coming quicker and more shaky, her end getting closer and closer. The knotting in her stomach got worse with each pump of that delicate hand, her mouth hanging open as she tried not to blow too soon.

"Y-Yeah!" she called out, grasping the sheets once more. "K-Keep going, Weiss! You're so… so fucking good!"

Being told she was "good" only made Weiss want to stroke the hot length faster, to kiss the tip of it – she didn't dare take it inside her mouth again, for fear Yang would finish that way. Not when she had already expressed her desire for something else.

"Yeah, Yang! Make me dirty for you!" Where were these words coming from?! They completely baffled her when she heard them escaping her own lips, but they also seemed to make a certain kind of sense. Not that they should have. Not that she understood why.

And so she rolled her hips with Weiss's movements, pushing herself against the relentless hand to get herself over the limit. Until at last, she called out loudly, grasping the sheets below as tightly as possible for when she felt the pleasure sear through her body. Muscles tightening, she felt her length throb in Weiss's hand as she got her wish. Yet again her seed was expelled, the tight grip causing it to spurt hard against Weiss’s face… just as she had requested. Some on her cheeks, some on her chin. It was far more this time compared to the amount that accidentally landed before.

Of course, Weiss had been expecting to flinch and turn away, despite her earlier enjoyment of this – and her own want for a repeat performance. Maybe it had been a fluke that she liked it last time. An empowered woman like her, one who was an international household name, couldn't want to be a mere canvas for sperm!

Dead wrong. Each and every place the warm wetness splashed against her face felt like it was crackling with electricity. Again, Yang was marking her – as she had with her neck in a different way. A moan escaped her, almost like she was being pleasured directly. There was so much, and she wanted more! Wanted Yang to cover her completely in it!

But alas, after a few more pumps, Yang had no more to give. She found herself having to hold Weiss's hand again to stop her rubbing her raw. God she was desperate for this! Never had she met anyone who actually wanted to be drenched in her juices, not to mention craved it enough that she'd try to force more of it out of her.

Finally allowed to come down from her high, she panted with pleasure, looking down to admire her work on Weiss's face. Which forced her to blush all the way to her blonde roots. "H-Holy… crap…"

Seemingly unable to help herself, the painted princess wrapped her lips around the head to devour what she couldn't wear. As muted and thick as ever it was, and still she didn't mind it – but she forced herself not to keep stroking. Yang had told her before that sometimes, keeping it up after it was “done” hurt more than it felt good.

This was amazing. Yes, it was beginning to become too much, it was starting to overstimulate her senses and wander into the painful territory; but the sight was amazing. Seeing this precious person in her life, a woman unanimously voted one of the most beautiful rising stars in North America, so dedicated to worshipping the dirtiest part of her body to the point that she was licking up the remains off her head… it was a sight she didn't want to forget.

"God," Yang moaned, tensing her muscles once again. "Y-You have… no idea how hot you look."

What she was doing looked good? Yang wouldn't have said so if she didn't mean every word. So Weiss slowed right down, the tongue moving in an almost lazy fashion as it swirled around the head. Maybe at this speed, it would be less torturous and more of a spectacle for her girlfriend.

It really was. Yet again, Weiss had gone above and beyond to make this a show for her. All while her face was still covered. "Fuck. I wish-" Swallowing, she placed a hand on Weiss’s where it lay on her thigh to signal to her to pause for a moment. "O-Okay, uh, this is gonna be such a weird request…"

Pulling her mouth back for the moment, Weiss actually laughed – a weak, nervous laugh, but a laugh all the same. "Weirder than the one I just made?! This I have to hear!"

Perhaps it was weirder. Considering once Weiss was finished, she could pretend it never happened, no one would be any the wiser… unless she relented. Reaching toward her shorts and into the pocket, she held her phone up. "Can I… take a pic?"

That did pull Weiss up fast. She froze entirely, looking between the phone and her girlfriend's face. "Oh. Um… wh-why? I mean, uh, I haven't thought ab- about…"

Weiss couldn’t handle the idea of this the same way an ordinary girl could. All she could think about was that one picture getting out, and what the fanbase would say if it did. Or social media platforms, or talk show hosts. Scandal couldn't even begin to describe the situation! Of course Yang would never post it anywhere, she trusted her… but what if her phone got hacked? Or lost?

"Well… you… have to promise me you'll be careful with it if you do," she finally finished meekly.

"Completely," Yang agreed, holding the phone back into her lap to take a decent aim for her and snapping one of her coated face, pouty lips slightly open. She obviously couldn’t hear any of Weiss’s internal worries, so all she could do was guarantee her own fortitude. Truly, Yang wasn't thinking of the implications. To her, Weiss was another person. Her girlfriend. Of course, she respected that she was well known, but it wasn't an issue Yang thought of. She was just going to treat her how she would treat any other if she loved them the same way. "It's just for me, or us. I promise."

The idea of it excited the confused diva, even as it terrified her. Yang having this small thing… maybe it was depraved of her, but she couldn't help but love the idea that Yang had something with which to blackmail her, should she ever treat her poorly. Why was that? It was more than a little messed up to like that idea.

Then it hit her: because Weiss was her boss. That was the truth of it, and it hit her with the force of a sledgehammer: all along, sleeping with someone who was technically an employee – even if it was of her father and not her directly – had bothered her slightly. That power imbalance. She was the star, she had all the “relationship capital” in her possession. This was a very unconventional way to balance those scales. Yang probably wasn't thinking about anything of the kind whatsoever, but for her, that was somehow very, very important.

"Do you…" Swallowing down her fears, her manicured fingernails repositioned themselves around Yang as her mouth formed words she never thought it would. "Do you want me with your cock in my mouth, or… l-licking it?"

"Whatever you want… you’re the one in the pic." She smirked as Weiss got into position, adding, "And if you want any pictures of me doing similar things… you only have to ask."

She couldn't help herself. "Actually, if you can take a picture of you licking your own cock, that would be… pretty unbelievable, and worth money in some way or another, I'm sure!"

Rolling her eyes, Yang giggled. "I can always give it a try if you wanna pay for the back surgery afterward." She raised the camera up to get the best angle, she waited for Weiss to get back into position. Why was this so enjoyable? Never before did she want a photo this degrading of a loved one, not of them covered in her semen at least. But she wanted it with Weiss.

And with a click of the shutter, she had it. "Perfect."

Reeling her tongue back into her mouth, Weiss whispered, "Take another," as she wrapped her lips around the girth of Yang's phallus again. It was exciting, taboo… everything was.

Yang's eyes snapped wide open. When she thought the diva couldn't surprise her anymore, she did it again. Weiss, who before Yang came along was abysmally Christian and would have probably never envisioned doing this in her wildest dreams, was offering not just one pic but a full spread. And she didn't take away that joy. Just as commanded, she took another, and one more when Weiss slid slightly more of her into her mouth.

After hearing the two more shutter clicks, Weiss did let go at last and patted Yang's leg as she stood up – and her legs seemed to not want to support her. "Whoa… okay, n-note to self; sex makes it hard to walk sometimes!"

"You're telling me! First time I was the bottom I couldn't walk for a couple of hours…" Yang seemed to pass that off as no big deal at all. Of course to her, it was completely normal to talk about, since Weiss knew she'd been with men and women. But maybe she hadn't thought about that aspect.

Filing away the information about Yang not being able to walk at all - and why that might have been the case – to be examined later, Weiss glanced over at Yang. "Um… c-can I see the pictures?"

Yang did as Weiss asked, bringing up the few photos she'd taken as she moved to one side so she could sit with her.

And the subject of the pictures felt very strange. Partly sick, partly turned on… but partly like she was having some out-of-body experience. That girl on the screen couldn't be her, covered in cum and choking down such a massive member. But it was. Almost as if to drive home the point to herself, her hand reached up to touch a corresponding drip of essence to where it was on the screen… and sure enough, there it was. Now that it had been in the open air so long, it was cool to the touch, and felt almost icy on her cheeks and chin. Against her finger, it just felt as it always did: like fluids.

"And it won't leave this phone. You can slam my dick in a bear trap if it does; swear to God, Weiss."

But upon seeing Weiss touch her face, and touch where her juices still were, she couldn't help but blush again. She'd pumped as much as she could out of her, yet was still keeping it on her face. Something about that bought a sick feeling of power over the diva she had never felt for anyone before.

But alas, fantasy had to end. Thankfully, she had her shorts to hand, due for a wash anyway. "Want me to get that?"

"What?" she breathed numbly as Yang laid her phone aside. "Oh… oh, yeah, I guess." Her hand dropped away as she stared into the distance, lost in thought.

Shuffling closer, Yang began to dab away at Weiss's cheeks, wiping up every drop off of her face. Once finished, she tossed the shorts into the washing basket, but then noticed Weiss's thousand-yard stare. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Then she shook herself a bit, turning to look at Yang. "Seriously, I'm just… everything is changing so fast. My whole life. Things I thought I would never do are happening, sometimes two or three at a time. Which… it's not a bad thing, but it's unexpected." Her shoulders shrugged modestly, and she was suddenly aware of how naked she was. "You… you don't think I'm turning into a… a bad person, do you?"

Yang wrapped an arm around her back, bringing her into her just to give her a gentle squeeze. "No. Discovering yourself and doing what makes you happy doesn't make you bad. Screw what anyone else would think."

After a few seconds, Weiss's body slowly began to relax. "I know you're right – I feel it, not just that I believe you, but it feels right to me. But all I can hear is my father in my head, telling me that girls who do stuff like we just did are ‘sinning’ and going to Hell, and it's- and I d-don't…" Sighing, she made herself shut up and just hug Yang back. Her words were only going to keep going around in circles if she didn't stop now.

Yet again, Yang held her close and pet over her hair softly. Everything was so alien to her. She knew Weiss's dad was strict, considering how much he insisted from the start that Weiss needed a guard, but to this level? And that was what Weiss had to deal with all her life, being told that doing what she wanted was sinful. To the point that she even hated a part of her own body…

"The way I see it," Yang began, "as long as you're a good person to everyone else, like you treat people well, don't deliberately hurt anybody, don't steal, all that crap… I can't honestly see how an all loving god can punish you for just having fun with a friend. That’s dumb."

"Yeah… yeah, that sounds like the truth to me. Just don't know if I believe that, or what my father does." However, she finally sagged against Yang tiredly, gratefully. "But… I'm leaning in your direction. Figuratively, and for real."

"Good. Cause it's my way or the highway." Again, she pressed a kiss against the top of Weiss's head. This whole relationship was an adventure of self-discovery for both of them. Even if Yang had been with women prior, she still hadn't been with any since she transitioned. And of course for Weiss, it was all entirely new.

But one thing the bodyguard was positive of was that she didn't want it to stop anytime soon.

[meliecho]

Hearts and Heroes: One Shot - Chpt 4 - The Nightmare’s Truth

Summary: The team figures out exactly why this nightmare is different, and realize with dread that they only have one shot to save Sun. 

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

The Glen...

 The glow of the bulb disappeared into the wide hollow opening of a broad multistory building, igniting the interior for a second before its bearer carried it out of sight.

Sections of pixelating squares fluctuated into view to their left and right as the group hurried to catch up. They were appearing more and more often.

A sharp, quick scream jolted them from continuing forward. A large cluster of squares danced around an object within its center. A single small hand reached out in desperation.

“Hey!” Blue stopped. “Someone's in there!” She rushed through the black clovers and skid to a halt close to the squares.

“Blue, she's getting away!” Red argued. “Dammit,” he cursed. He and the others followed.

“Help!” a high pitched voice resonated from within. The sound carried its own distortion. A girl covered in blue feathers with matching eyes blinked up at them.

“She's not a Terrorling,” Mark said. “She's must be part of this world.” He leaned forward for a closer look, and his eyes widened. “She must be an ego of sun's.”

“This is an ego? I didn't know they existed outside the hub.” They'd never met any outside of the Markihub that they could recall.

“Some of them do,” he explained. “Mostly what we encounter are NPC elements of the dreams, or Terrorlings. Egos like to live in stable places.”

“This nightmare is anything but stable,” Purple noted.

“Why would one be in a dream? Those don't last long enough,” Red wondered aloud.

Mark stayed silent. He remembered what Tiny Box Tim said about the mission briefing file, but voicing it would only worry his team. Besides, he was 70% sure it was a typo—a drop from his 100% shoulder-brush confidence back at the hub.

“If this is part of Sun, we gotta help her.” Blue examined the anomaly, then extended her hammer. “Grab on. We'll pull you out.”

The little girl gripped the handle tightly.

Blue pulled hard on her weapon. She felt Jade's arms wrap around her waist to add strength. The girl refused to budge. Her tiny hands began to slip.

Mark took hold of the handle close to Blue's hands and pulled. It took the efforts of all three until finally the child slipped free of the squares. The three of them fell backwards.

She curled up on the ground, crying in pain. Lacerations criss-crossed all over her body, and her feathers were shredded. Yet her clothes weren't stained with blood. “My...brother...” she muttered. “He was...with me. Is he ok?” She tried to get her knees, but collapsed.

Peach's face fell in sadness and she knelt to rest her hand on the girl's head. “You were the only one in those squares. If he was in there... I'm...I'm sorry.”

The girl's eyes shimmered with tears. “No...No, he tried to save me,” she sniffled and gripped the hem of Blue's dress in her fist. “Brother,” her voice gave in to a weak sob.

Blue leaned over to hug her. This was her world, and her family. Whatever happened here affected her as strongly as events in the real world impacted them. Even though she was an ego, she and all the others here –if there were any others—took on forms to fit this dream. Whatever the case, the pain of losing her brother to that area of corruption was real.

Red gently scooped her up into his arms. “We can't leave her here,” he glance down to her. She barely weight more than a toddler. “What's your name?”

“Alula.”

Blue stood. “Let's follow where Sun went. Maybe we'll find a safe place for Alula to rest.”

The group moved quickly through the firefly-speckled field to the building. However, their way in was guarded by a robot a full story tall, and the width of a bus.

Its deep bass voice reverberated through the ground. “[GREETINGS PERSONS. SIGN IN IF YOU WISH TO PASS TO THE REFUGE.]”

“Would love to,” Mark shrugged. “Do you have a pen?”

“[I LOANED MINE TO THE BRINGER OF THE SUN. THEY WERE IN A HURRY AND DID NOT RETURN IT. PERHAPS YOU CAN FIND ANOTHER PEN.”]

“Here,” the girl painfully fished an item out of her coat pocket and handed it over. It emitted a soft yellow glow. “It's a feather. It's for the one who'll return our sun,” her breath hitched. “I had to go home to get it. My brother and I were trying to find her when those squares showed up. If you're her friends, then please give it to her. The sacred book says she'll need it.” It nearly slipped from her fingers as she curled up in a small squeak.

Mark caught it before it could hit the ground. He dabbed the tip of it on his finger, leaving behind a drop of black ink. Quickly, he scribbled down all of their names before the ink ran out, and added the item to his inventory.

The gargantuan guard robot's eyes scanned the page, then moved aside. “[YOU MAY PROCEED. THANK YOU.]”

“Take this,” Purple offered a full heart to the girl. It absorbed into her body and spread out beneath her skin in a brief red glow. The lacerations began to heal.

“Can you watch her until she's better?” Blue craned her neck upward at the robot.

“[IT IS NOT IN MY PROGRAMMING, BUT I WILL GUARD HER. SHE IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO ENTER.]”

Red laid her gently on the soft moss.

“Good...luck.” Alula waved lightly. She watched them give her sympathetic looks before they entered the dark building. Alone at the foot of the giant robot, she cried. The moss absorbed her tears.

A somber sense tailed the group through the dim halls barely lit by patches of green phosphor harvested from the trees. Purple's magic returned enough for her to safely create the white ball of light atop her staff again, and regained her position at the front. They all kept their eyes and ears pealed for sounds of Terrorling attacks.

They went up multiple flights of stairs and zig-zagged through corridors. Jade opened a door to the left and they stepped out onto a railing-less veranda overlooking the Glen—because that's safe engineering. A red haze dyed the horizon in a sinister airbrushed filter between black spires dotted with crimson lights. That was the Refuge—the city.

In the center of it, reaching so high up into the solid black they couldn't see the top, soared a windowless obelisk. It sliced through the haze like a knife. Only its silver base reflected the red glow of the city.

“The tower,” Blue's voice lowered. “That's where she's going.”

“Whoa, man. That thing is huge,” Jade's jaw dropped.

“That's what she said,” Mark folded his arms.

“Heheh, Nice,” Jade high fived his friend.

Red smacked him upside the head.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Everything.”

“Guys, come on,” Peach interrupted.

“Whelp, it's a pretty view, but we've got an objective to complete,” Mark gestured toward his shorter friend, “Lead the way, Purple.”

With her as their headlight, the group rushed through the corridors.

The crackling of static cut through the air. They spun at once. Directly behind them formed enough black squares to completely block the hall.

“Run!” Blue cried out.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, whoa. These don't chase you,” Mark calmed her down. “I remember this. They're stationary.”

Another one formed a foot ahead of it, forcing them to step back. Followed by another.

“But they can multiply,” Blue's hair would have stood on end. “Again...Run!”

Cluster after cluster of glitch squares materialized in their wake, each producing a static jolt that speared its energy through them. They ran as fast as they could up a long flight of stairs, turned a sharp corner, and sprinted down the hall.

“They're right on our asses!” Mark yelled. “Go! Go!”

A thread-thin rectangular outline of red light bled in through a door frame at the end of the extremely long corridor. Thankfully, it was unlocked. They barged through it and slammed the door shut behind them. The whole group took a few steps back as the door became overcome by squares. Everything beyond that door had succumbed to the destruction of this world.

“That,” Peach panted, leaning on her staff to catch her breath, “was too close. Way too close.”

Blue looked to the door. “I guess we can't go back that way.”

“Good thing we're not,” Red said.

Without the sun, the only light source stretching through the city came from the bright red water filling the canals far beneath them.

Their shoes clinked on the grating of the metal open-air skywalk. It wasn't very wide, maybe enough to hold two people side by side at best.

The walkways were void of life. “Where is everyone?” Purple's nervousness shown through. “It's like a ghost town.”

Red phosphor lamps flickered in the windows—and indication of life—but they didn't pass the foot traffic expected of in a city. Sun's hero mark didn't glow brightly, so there was only so much her mind could create.

“This is a dream,” Mark began. “I wouldn't expect it to be a thriving metropolis with a coffee house on every corner.”

They passed by a few robots that ignored them to continue their tasks.

And the end of a walk in front of a close door, sat a robot splayed out on the ground completely surrounded by the particle squares. Its arms and legs phased in and out of view. “[P#L.EAS;E DO N//T APPR#ACH.]”

“It's completely glitched out,” Peach frowned. Whatever happened to Alula was happening to this robot. Thankfully, it was a machine without the ability to sense the pain of being erased.

There was no way to save it. They had to call it a loss. Regretfully, the group turned back and took another route.

“Down there!” Jade pointed to the walkways several stories below them at a shadowy figure running with the light bulb. “I see her! She's heading for that building!”

“How the hell did she get so far ahead?” Red looked over.

“She's not alone,” Blue leaned over the railing and watched a cluster of macabre creatures lurching after her. “Terrorlings,” she cursed the word. “We need a way down. I remember there being an elevator in the game around here somewhere.”

“You mean the one that didn't work until you made a button out of a coffee can and fridge magnets?” Peach said.

“That's the one. This is a dream, so we might get lucky.”

The crew wove along the catwalks, turning back when they encountered squares or parts of the walks that had broken off as if deleted. They reached the elevator shaft within minutes.

A boy in a gray flat cap bounced on the balls of his feet. “Come on, come on,” he mumbled. Tufts of black hair stuck out from beneath the hat.

“Hey kid,” Mark got the others attention. “Did you see a girl with a light bulb come through here?”

“Yeah,” he said in a gruff, irritated tone. He had to be about 12 years old. “The doors closed just as I got here. Now I have to wait for it to come back. Stupid idiot wouldn't even hold the door.”

Red rapidly pressed the button with impatience.

“That doesn't work, you know,” Jade folded their arms.

“Your face doesn't work, you know,” He shot back.

“That didn't even make sense.”

“I do that, too, with crosswalk lights,” Purple offered. “It doesn't help, but it's cathartic.”

A few minutes later, the door opened and everyone shuffled inside. The doors closed smoothly, and the elevator descended at an easy pace.

The light acoustic guitar and xylophone muzak filled the car with its tinny AM radio sound from two small speakers in the ceiling in a complete dichotomy to their pressing situation. Apparently, the engineer had never heard of bass boost.

Everyone tensed in the uncomfortable, awkward silence. They could fight together, be in a boat on the ocean together, and hang out in the hub before missions together, and yet the power of an elevator and muzak was enough to invoke the curse of the cramped, inescapable box of discomfort. They all fidgeted.

“Kind of a long ride to the surface, huh,” Purple softly broke the thick atmosphere.

Mark silenced her quickly holding up his index finger in front of her face. “Not a peep! Markiplier demands silence!”

Blue chuckled. She remembered that part of his play-through. Every time Niko got in the elevator, Mark shouted, 'Not a word out of you, Niko. Your God demands silence!'

Peach, Purple, and Red got the reference and joined in, however Jade hadn't watched that series and looked completely lost. “What the fuck, Mark?”

The kid stared wide-eyed at Mark.

“It's a joke,” Blue nudged Jade in the shoulder. “Don't worry about it.

“So, uh--” Peach spoke up. “This voice Sun said she hears. That should be the player, but this is a dream. Maybe it's the Entity? The one that helped the player, but it's talking to her because there is no player?”

“What are you guys talking about?” The kid demanded.

“Uh,” Blue smiled too wide and waved her hand in the air. “Nothing, it's nothing.” She whispered sidelong to Peach. “Ixnay on the eemdray in front of the idkay.”

Mark leaned in with one hand cupped around his mouth. “Best not to start ripping interdimentional holes in the mind of a child.”

“Hm,” The kid harrumped. “You guys are weird.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot,” his answer slid in like butter.

No one spoke for the rest of the elevator ride.

The doors slid open on the surface, and they stepped out onto the pavement. Canals of water imbued with glowing red phosphor flowed lazily to either side of walking path. Buildings and pathways created a maze of metal and concrete, like the city was built on a massive lake. Just like with the upper levels, the lack of foot traffic worried them, as did the presence of multiple clusters of squares.

“Well, that was awkward. See ya,” the kid rushed away from the group of strange strangers as fast as he could.

“I guess he was another aspect of Sun,” Peach guessed.

“That voice—the Entity—can't be a Somni,” Red surmised, picking up the original conversation, “which means it's a Terrorling taking on that form. Like how Dark took on yours,” he looked to Mark, who frowned at that memory.

His jaw locked around his realization. “Then it's a part of herself. And it's powerful.”

Blue glanced back to her team. “She might not even know what'll happen if she puts that bulb back.”

“Or maybe she does,” Peach's tone turned melancholy.

“That's the building!” Jade broke into a run down an adjacent metal industrial-style foot bridge across a canal and jumped the short set of steps. They readied their blades for a fight with the group of Terrorlings. If they were gathered out here waiting, that meant Sun was still inside.

Compared to earlier, it was a group of six Shadowlings and Proxies that the team took out with minimal damage, and only one person becoming confused. Purple used her powers on Red to remove the curse. Only a robot remained, shuffling back and forth in place as though it didn't even notice the battle.

Everyone entered the building except for Mark, who lingered just long enough to ask the robot a quick question. He rejoined the group before they'd realized he was gone.

It was a typical library – books stacks up to the ceiling on rows and rows of shelves set on half levels reachable by steps. Beanbag chairs and tables dotted the area for anyone to flop into to enjoy their read. Tall, slim windows to either side let the crimson glow of the city bleed inside to cast everything in its watercolor hue. The smell of book-binding glue and age permeated the air.

At the top of the third half-level, set patiently behind a wide U-shaped desk, sat a robot wearing a pair of thick framed glasses. A wide stairwell disappeared into the darkness of the upper floor behind it. The robot stared straight at the newcomers.

“[GREEINGS. HOW MAY I ASSIST YOU?]” it said in a programmed nasally voice, clearly enabling a nerd stereotype.

“We're looking for someone carrying a light—“ Blue stopped herself, “the sun. Have you seen her?”

“[AFFIRMATIVE. THE HEAD LIBRARIAN IS SPEAKING TO THEM NOW.]”

“Thanks,” Blue lead her team around the desk, only to be halted by the robot's command.

“[STOP. YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO GO INTO THE ARCHIVES WITHOUT A LIBRARY CARD.]”

“Can't you let us through?” Peach asked.

“[I CANNOT GO AGAINST MY PROGRAMMING. I HAVE NOT BEEN TAMED. PRESENT A LIBRARY CARD FOR ACCESS TO THE ARCHIVES.]”

“But you let Sun go ahead!” Jade argued.

“[THE HEAD LIBRARIAN WAS HERE AT THE TIME AND ALLOWED IT.]”

“Son of a—We don't have time for this.” Red pushed through and reached for his sword.

Mark clasped his hand over his to stop him. “Slow your roll, Red. We have no idea how volatile the NPCs in her dream could be trying to protect her.”

“So what do you expect us to do? Just wait out here for her to come back?”

“Yup,” Mark answered in confidence. “Her goal is the tower. We'll cut her off here.”

Red scowled, but uncurled his fist.

The 'check-out' manifests on the robot's desk caught Mark's attention—or rather, the series of dates printed on each one. Either Sun's mind had an amazing ability for detail to add specific time periods to inconsequential items, or else these were actual dates she didn't have control over. He'd never seen that phenomenon before. Too many details in this nightmare weren't matching the criteria of a typical rescue. Sun seemed more like everyone else here—living at the mercy of this dream instead of being its creator.

Thankfully, they didn't have long to wait. A yellow glow emerged from the stairwell preceding its carrier.

“Sun!” Purple blurted out.

Sun stopped at the base of the stairs. “You again?” she muttered. “Just who are you? I've never seen you before in my life. Why are you following me?”

“Wait, you don't know who this is?” Red thumbed toward Mark.

“No, does it matter?”

“Your file showed up in our hub.”

“My—what? Look. Just leave me alone.”

“Sun, listen,” Blue stepped forward, but the robot's arm stretched out to block her. “We know that voice you're hearing is telling you to return the light bulb to the tower, but you can't listen to it. It's lying to you.”

She clutched the red scarf around her neck in her left hand, cradling the bulb in her right. “It's the only thing that's telling the truth. Please. I have to finish this. You guys don't understand what I've been through, I...” she moved quickly around the other side of the desk. “You're just strangers, just like everyone else. Don't follow me anymore.”

“Sun!” Peach reached out to grab her scarf, but her fingertips merely brushed it.

Sun hurried down the half levels and out of the library.

“Dammit, again?” Jade cursed. “Why does she keep doing that?”

“She can't get into the tower without all three pieces of the old sun,” Purple said. “She was probably here to get the third piece.”

“But she doesn't have all three,” Red looked to his teammate, who pulled up his inventory and removed the glowing feather.

Mark clutched the feather gently, but firmly in his left hand.

“Come on, we gotta hurry!” The group followed Blue swiftly to the door, but Mark trailed behind them slowly.

“Mark?” Purple met up with him in the middle of the carpeted central isle.

He didn't want to be right. Or more rather, he didn't want Tiny Box Tim to be right. “Dammit. I knew something was funky,” he hissed between his teeth. “Guys, I think this is worse than anything we've seen before.”

“Yeah, we know. This nightmare is screwing with us like it's real,” Blue said. “We just have to be more careful.”

“It's not just a nightmare.” Fear pulsed in his heart at his own words. If he voiced them aloud, then that meant the others would hear his theory, and with the amount of evidence that stacked up on this journey, and Tiny Box Tim's warning, he couldn't brush it aside anymore. His previous 100% assurances had lowered to 10%. and as he opened his mouth, it dropped to zero.

“I was hoping Tim was wrong, but it doesn't look like that now.” He swiped down with his index finger in the air at chest height, calling up his menu and tapped on the 'mission' information. The report that each of them were given appeared on the semi-transparent screen. “Look at the record date.”

Everyone peered at it closely.

Blue blinked in confusion, as did everyone else. “One year ago? But the day and month are the same. This is just a typo.”

“That's what I thought, too. But the more time we've spent here, and the people we've encountered beg to differ. Everything shows a wear of age. The letter at the Barrens, the robots, everyone knowing this world is falling apart. Even those squares seem like pieces of this place are disappearing.”

Mark took a deep breath. “This dream is affecting us like reality, because for Sun, it is reality—more-so than usual.” He gestured to the entrance behind them. “The robot outside those doors said he's been pacing in the same spot for three months. The papers on the nerd-bot's desk all have different time stamps for check-in and check-out dates, and their titles. That's not something that appeared in the game. It's native to this dream.” He locked his team in sight, throwing all joking to the side. “This isn't a typo. Time has actually been passing here.”

Words he never thought he'd utter in this world or the waking world forced from his lips. “Sun's been dreaming for one year.”

Purple's mouth slacked. “That's impossible. No one can do that. No one can survive.”

“Unless she's in a coma,” Red voiced what none of them wanted to.

Mark nodded.

“Fuck me,” Jade exhaled. “Then why One Shot?”

“Maybe it was the last Let's Play she saw?” Peach bit her lip. “Which might mean she doesn't know about the other endings. All she knows is the choice Mark had to make for Niko.”

“But she doesn't know who he is, so she wouldn't make that connection,” Blue spoke up.

“Didn't Niko have a choice to shatter the bulb or put it back?” Red explained. “Shattering it would send Niko home, but replacing the bulb would mean they were stuck here forever.”

“If she smashes the bulb, she might wake up, but...” to Blue, it didn't feel like Sun wanted to.

“Why didn't you tell us about this theory before?” Red snapped.

Mark understood the source of his anger, and he reciprocated that feeling. “Because I didn't have enough evidence to prove it before. I've never been inside the dream of a coma patient that I'm aware of. I'm kicking my own ass here, all right?” He was upset at himself for not realizing it earlier, and for not taking Tim's warning as seriously as he should have.

The memory of Teal's failed rescue assaulted Blue again. Her heart ached. Teal had accepted the darkness, refusing to be saved. They saw her at PAX, but haven't encountered her since. “No,” Blue grit her teeth. “Not again. I will not lose anyone else ever again!”

She burst through the library doors at top speed. Fueled by the powerful desire to save this girl who had lived in the dream world for one year. Jade caught up to her easily and the two chased down the glowing bulb toward the tower. The team followed close behind.

A cluster of particle corruption squares formed in a flash right in their way. The pathway beneath it dissolved. The squares were an involuntary response to Sun's stress and need to end this darkness, so it was destroying itself little by little over the past year in a self-destructive downward spiral.

“This way,” Blue lead the group to the left and around, linking back up with the original walk.

"I don't know where that Terrorling is, but I'm going to punch it in the dick," Mark scowled.

“Do they even have dicks?” she cast him a side-long glance.

“Time to find out.”

The massive tower's spire loomed like an ominous sleeping giant. Sun didn't make all the choices for the Solstice ending. This was Mark's ending. If she were able to enter the monolith, she'd be faced with two choices:

Replace the bulb and be forced to remain in this world...

Or smash the light bulb, ending this world and either waking up, or ending herself along with it.

If they failed here, they failed for good. They literally had only one shot to get this right.

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

TBC

Prologue: A Light in the Darkness

Chapter 1: Weekend Warriors

Chapter 2: Something’s Suspishy

Chapter 3: Chasing the Sun

Chapter 4: The Nightmare’s Truth

Chapter 5: Light and Shadow

Chapter 6: Lifeline - part 1

Chapter 7: Lifeline - part 2

Chapter 8: Phantom Power

Chapter 9: Mark’s Past

Chapter 10: A Second Chance

Chapter 11: Learning to Breathe

Epilogue: Ad Infinitum

[violetbeachpod]

transcript: 10 - skeleton outline

Episode Link

BENJI:

Okay. Let’s get back into it. Let’s do this. Alright. Gotta—hype myself up. Y’know?

Benji is back! That’s me! I’m here! I’m ready to discuss theories, cuz that’s my--my whole deal!

I’m very stressed out right now! If that’s not super clear from my tone and my whole--y’know. Vibes?

So. Moments of Mystery Two, Electric Boogaloo. Or, maybe, Moments of Mystery Two: The Sequel To Moments of Mystery. Who’s to say? Not me! Definitely not me, I have not slept for the past twenty-seven hours, which is kinda interfering with my whole energy. So.

I just drank two five hour energies, speaking of energy. That’s—that’s certainly something. It’s not healthy, but it’s where I’m at today. We are all allowed to have off days. That’s a thing. My off days mean that I’m gonna inhale energy drinks like my life depends on it, so. Boom. I’m the epitome of health. The very paragon of humanity at its finest.

That’s a joke. I promise. I—I’m just having an off week. I let myself have one of those per month, now, and it’s working great. I’m doing great. So great.

Also, I’m keeping a planner now, somehow. Took me long enough? I’m not super into it, but, hey, practice makes perfect, and nobody’s perfect, so. Boom. Yeah!

So. Let’s do a table of contents. Everyone’s favorite thing, I know, but they’re important to me! Please, humor me.

One: Personal updates. In this section, we’ll address how I, personally, am doing. This will hopefully be short.

Two: Recaps and updates on our most recent weird happenings. In this section--well. Self-explanatory. You get it! I get it! We all get it.

Three: Theories. Again, kind of self explanatory.

Four: This is sort of a grab bag, where I’ll throw in some tangents. I don’t know what to title this section. We’ll just call it Untitled and then call it a day, maybe? If I come up with one by then, I’ll clarify.

Five: Sign-off slash conclusion. In this section, I’ll give you a wrap up. Nice and easy. I know it’ll go off the rails, but at least we have a skeleton.

So. Part one. Personal updates. Let’s go. I—I have a quick list, bullet points. I’m very into those lately. All about them.

My life is going okay, I think? I’m--I’ve obviously been very stressed in the past week, but overall, stuff’s going okay! We’re kinda understaffed, which is rough, because people are actually coming in more, now, but, hey, I get it! It’s cool!

Uh. I got a boating licence? For all boat-related needs. I don’t own a boat--I’m not made of money--but I have the option now, y’know? Gotta keep those options out there. If you can’t do everything, what’s the point? I gotta prepare for my whims. Gotta predict what’s next, and, look, I’m unpredictable, so. A walking contradiction, that’s me, like I’m some sort of bad 90s alt-rock lyric. Some sort of manic pixie dream dude. I have the glasses for it and everything. I could pull that off. Make a movie about me, rom-com directors! I’m quirky enough.

And. Final personal update, because rule of threes, because that’s important, and that’s symbolic, and that’s--it’s because I have three personal updates. That’s why, I’m not actually going for three, I--I just have three of ‘em. Very fun.

Uh. That update is that I’m having an off week! I keep mentioning this because I feel like it needs constant reiteration, and also, because my brain is focusing on that thought a lot and I think that if I say it out loud a lot, I’ll stop focusing on it? Which seems counterproductive, but it’s like, uh, listening to a  song that’s stuck in your head with the hope that it’ll get unstuck. Y’know?

But that’s not the fun part of this, my life—that’s not what I’m here to talk about. We’re here for the weird. The wild. The crazy. You get the picture. So. I’m—let’s wrap up part one with a, like. Hope that you guys are all having good weeks? If any of you have a boat, which I sincerely doubt you do, I can drive it now, but I don’t think that I should do it this week. Because—you know. Yeah.

So. Let’s get into part two: Weird stuff. Hell yeah.

Teresa’s thing: Still weird. Still very weird. We all know this. Again, reiterating for effect.

But—we’ve been seeing more and more sort of—not-from-this-universe people. Not entire ones. We still haven’t had any more successes, as far as I know? But—that’s why we have a lot of new customers! Because Mae is—telling them that I’m relatively chill? Which is cool, except for that, again, we’re understaffed. So—

It’s weird. Cuz I have to, uh, give recommendations to folks who can’t really communicate, always, and who can’t really express anything with their faces, because their faces are kind of obscured, but, look, I’ve gotten really good at listening comprehension now, so, uh, take that, ERBs. Take that, fourth grade teachers with bizarre reward-punishment systems that really didn’t help at all and kind of encouraged bullying?

I know that Charlotte was very dismissive of this, but I am curious about the nature of doubles between universes. Because there isn’t one of me, unlike the rest of you. That’s—we know that Teresa’s double is also very determined, very resilient, and very into bad comedy. We know that Elaine’s double is also new in town, though we don’t know much about her, and we know that Charlotte’s double is intimidating, which, no comment. I am not, personally, intimidated by Our-Charlotte, but, uh. Maybe that’s also an also? Who’s to say? Again, not me! We don’t know much about Other-AJ or Other-Robin or Other-Angie other than that Other-Angie did not go to Harvard at all, and instead started at Lands?

Tongue twister, there. So much usage of the word other, way-too-much. We need a better word. A noun, maybe, rather than an adjective, or maybe a word that functions as both? Like orange. Or, uh classic, or static, or, or, or.

Again. You get the picture. You—you guys get what I’m saying.

It feels weird, knowing what’s next. There’s not much to do with that knowing other than to know it. Which is annoying, y’know? It’s just—it’s. Surreal, to have this knowledge that’s so strange.

Which leads me into part three: Theories! Everyone’s favorite part of this maybe, my favorite part of this definitely.

Re: doubles—I think it’s random. Well, not random, but, like—it’s just the way the multiverse crumbles, I guess. Or, not crumbles. But functions. It’s—it’s not breaking down, that’s not what’s going on here. It’s just existing. As is the wont of multiverses. I think that’s their wont, at least. I assume. Maybe I shouldn’t?

We know now that there’s not really a big destiny here. I—I’m putting together pieces that mean nothing because I feel like I have to, yeah? But there are answers to be found.

Time stopped again yesterday. Did any of you notice? Cuz I did. I really did. That should have gone in section two, but I just remembered it now. It’s kinda getting boring, all these things are just—blurring together. They’re underwhelming. Hey, parallel universe, get some better special effects, y’know? Make it flashier. The audience wants saturation, wants intrigue, wants—something more than this. Whatever this is.

If you told me a year ago that I’d find time shenanigans boring—I don’t know. It would’ve been shocking? I would react weird.

Oh! I have something, uh. Related. Something related: I still don’t know why it’s us, though. As much as Mae says it’s not us, it has to be, because—we repeated a day. Nobody else did, but we did. It’s not self-importance, here, it’s fact. If I say, hey, have you ever time-looped, to a person, they look at me like I’m batshit. And you notice these things. You notice them—because you miss work, or because you miss class, or because you miss your doctor’s appointment—the rest of the world did the exact same as they did, but we—we went through a day twice, differently.

It’s not coincidence. It’s—something.

The time loop happened before we met Mae. Before we started talking about what happened, before there was a record, other than Teresa’s journals, which she won’t let any of us read.

It’s something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something. That’s gotta have some significance in this, right?

So. What else do I have to say? Uh. Okay. I—

I don’t know. I guess—I’ll just continue? Because I think that my point needs further elaboration. More—detail. More intrigue. I am all about intrigue. If there’s no intrigue, there’s no point, right? Right. Flash is important, in the long run. Gotta make an impact, gotta make a statement, or else, you’re insignificant to history. Well. Not insignificant. Plenty of quiet people are significant. But—Look. Listen.

I misspoke. I mean—

There’s no such thing as insignificance, I don’t think? Because—ripple effect. Step on a butterfly. Right? Every action is important re: the fate of the universe and humanity and also everything else, but I feel like that’s implied already, so. So, like, we already had to be significant to this. But we never got that Why Us answer, and I don’t even know how to expand the question further than just those two words, Why Us.

It’s not the existential Why Us, either it’s the very literal Why Us that I’m asking, but it’s just—

I want that answer. I care about that answer. I need to know! We all need to know—I don’t care if it’s cosmic necessity or wrong place right time or right place wrong time or whatever, I care about knowing. I’m a big fan of knowing. Really big fan of it. I’m just—overwhelmed by normal life, underwhelmed by mystery-hunting life, and I want the vice-versa. Yeah? Yeah. Want to drown in the cool shit and breathe in the boring shit. That’s my whole thing. My whole deal. That’s balance, that place between drowning and hyperventilation. But I wanna tilt the scales a bit toward drowning, cuz I’m an adrenaline junkie.

And I—I think I’m entitled to know it. We’re all entitled to know it; it’s something about us that we’re missing. Something that we’re not asking for whatever reason. We gotta dig deeper. Gotta figure out our role, and then we gotta play it. Method act. You know?

You know.

So. That’s—this isn’t really a grab bag, but I’m too all over the place to come up with a better title, so.

So. How do I even end this? I—I don’t have bullet points for this part. I really don’t. I should’ve written them down as I went along with, uh, stuff that I needed to get back to, but I didn’t, and I gotta reconsider that for the future, but. Hey, nobody’s perfect. I’m certainly not. Again, off day. Off off off day. My brain is in eight-nine different places right now. Some of it’s on Mars, I think. I think about Mars a lot, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

We have to keep asking questions. I’m not a leader by any means—you guys can’t really be led regardless of who’s in charge. I can’t be led, I can’t lead. We’re a pretty chaotic group, and I love that. I love this dynamic a lot. It’s good. It works, for all the ways it shouldn’t.

But—we have to. We need to drive ourselves to understand. That’s—that’s bad wording, but you know what I mean. You don’t need total clarity to get my gist.

Time stopped again this morning. And it stopped last night, and it’ll stop again soon, and again, and again, and again, and again—

We’re background players, but so’s everyone, in the context of every story. Why don’t we try and change that? Something else is clearly trying to make us more important. I think that whatever that something is has a point.

So. Boom. I guess. There’s my conclusion. There’s my big fancy bow on top of the box, the—the point. My whole damn gist.

I don’t have a good sign off. I wish that we could have one, though, that would be—very fun. But, again, chaotic group, works for all the ways it shouldn’t. Can’t be consistent. Gotta surprise each other constantly. That’s—that’s good.

So let’s use that dynamic for all of its power and solve this mystery. These mysteries. These—everythings.

So. Um.

Yes. That’s my last thought. I’m gonna cut this off. Cool! Gonna go try and get this stress out somehow. Not sure how. Maybe run? I hate running, but it’ll help, right?

Off topic. Sorry. I’ll talk to you later!

[blitzbee-and-gt]

AufN Chapter 12

“Blitzwing, wake up,” he begged loudly, whacking Blitzwing as hard as he could. “Come on. You’ve gotta wake up, you big idiot, or I swear to Primus I will kill you!”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“Bumblebee, I’m going to be honest with you,” Blitzwing said dimly, his voice crackling with static. “I only processed about… twenty percent of what you just said.”

Bumblebee laughed, leaning forward to cling to Blitzwing’s helm, stroking the top of it softly as he tried to will his tears to stop falling. “That’s okay,” he said. “That’s totally fine. Me either, honestly.”

I can’t exactly blame Bee for not being able to speak English properly at the moment but. What.

“That depends,” Blitzwing asked. “What day is it?”

“Thursday. April something.”

“Oh, then… hm. I don’t know why I asked. I haven’t a single clue.”

no really has it been an entire year since chapter one????????

anyway Blitzwing sdjfhsdjkfhks

Even with very few facial features, Bumblebee could still make out the faintest glimmer of a smile, his broken optic scrunching up slightly in an expression of pure gratitude and admiration that made Bumblebee’s spark feel more whole than it had been in months.

THEY’RE SO IN LOVE,,,,,,,

An audial-splitting screech preceded a whirr and a defeated snicker.

wait how damaged even are his other faces. are Random’s optics okay??? Hothead I think was probably beat up p bad but would that still be better than Icy???

anyway moving on

“Do not tell me that you brought Sari here,” Optimus said exasperatedly.

“He brought Sari here!” a bright voice chirped from between Bulkhead’s servos. Bulkhead’s tense grin widened, and he unfolded his hands to reveal a waving, grinning Sari.

Sari I would Die for you

“I was in that war before you were even forged,” Ratchet shouted furiously. “And I distinctly remember—”

maybe it’s just me but the way this is phrased sounds to me like Ratchet knew Blitzwing personally or st

Blitzwing hummed warmly, his hand nearly crushing Bumblebee’s as the Autobots came back into view, each of them glancing over their shoulders uneasily. “They don’t like me,” he said in a loud whisper, clutching Bumblebee’s servo as if he never intended to let go.

“That’s okay,” Bumblebee said soothingly. “I like you.”

Blitzwing finally lowered his gaze from the trees and onto Bumblebee, the forced scarlet grin softening ever so slightly, a genuine warmth shining through for a moment. “I like me too,” he said. “But I like you even more.”

[bullpatrol]

So You Got Yourself a Ho. What now?

New Post has been published on https://bullpatrol.com/?p=1054

So You Got Yourself a Ho. What now?

Words of Advice to a Ho-Keeper

The continuing Adventures of Captain Save-a-Ho

How to keep a Ho: be a man

Our Ho-Keeper became obsessed with turning our beloved Ho into a housekeeper.  This is the downfall of many a Holationship.  You loved what she was..that Holicious wonder…but why can’t you love her now?  Are you embarrassed?  Are you possessive?  Are you scared? 

Are you a man at all?

A Ho can’t change her spots

You knew she was a Ho when you met her.  It’s how you got her in the first place.  She was Hoin’ on someone else, and you were the Hoee…you know this…you told me yourself.  You were so proud…remember?

You can’t change who she is… Only she can do that.  To keep the relationship peaceful, and yourself sane, I think you gotta either:

Accept that she will cheat on you

Trust that she would never cheat on you

Stalk her obsessively

But what can you do when you’re with a Ho?  Many people get obsessed with keeping a Ho, and end up doing regrettable things.  You must always keep in mind: A Ho will always find a way to be a Ho.  You need to accept this if you’re going to keep a Ho.  If you got a Ho, let her be a Ho.

Don’t try to keep score…in any relationship

You should never try to keep score…. You’ll never get it right… And that’s not what love does.

When you claim to sacrifice for someone, you’re usually doing it for yourself.  If you’re expecting something in return, you are definitely doing it for yourself.

Here’s what you can do:

Evaluate the situation and decide whether or not you can live with it and be happy.  Rather than keeping score, ask yourself: is what I am putting into this worth what I am getting out of it?  I mean, a loving Ho is a blessing indeed.  All that experience benefits you if you treat a Ho right.

Be up-front, loving and honest

If her Hoticity is bothering you, make it clear in a calm loving understanding way.  If she can’t deal with that, then you must decide for yourself what compromises you’re willing to make.  But if you don’t make those compromises, it’s a road to eventual ruin.

Be understanding when she lies

If you’re Ho goes into hiding, it may be because the truth makes her feel vulnerable. It’s probably your fault.

If someone calls out a lie, so what?… It’s just a lie.

If someone hates what you are, so what?… It’s not really you.

When a Ho is honest about her Hodome, be a man

You say you loved her from the beginning, so you must love all her defects too

Our Ho doesn’t know who she really is, and she’s frightened of who that might be.  Our Ho is not ready for figuring out what she wants in life.  She’s not ready for motherhood.  She’s not ready for responsibility of any kind.  She does not keep this secret, after all…so why do you expect anything different?

Why can’t she mature?  I believe it’s something like this:

It simply frightens her, and she is weak….she needs a strong man

She doesn’t have a strong motherly instinct, and that bothers her, keeping her in sort of a limbo.

She truly doesn’t want to find out what she would become as a responsible adult.

Perhaps it feels like death

Or the end of what she is

It will mean she will never be able to be the child she always wanted to be

The synapses in that particular very small portion of her brain don’t fire, …or they lead down dead-end pathways

It’s the same for most of us in one part of the brain or another…it’s one of the things that give us personality

She’s severely chronically depressed.

When people are chronically depressed, it’s difficult to tell if they are depressed or not

You have to have already known them for a long time before that depression began

This doesn’t mean she is bad or evil.  It means she needs love.

You are most likely wrong when you try to figure her out

Trying to figure out another human being statically leads to the wrong conclusion about 95% of the time, I estimate.  Just like this article…if I’m 50% right, I will be delightfully amazed

Then if you act on your conclusions, you will rightly seem to be an asshole in her mind.

Be Patient…always

Let the Ho reveal herself on her own timeline.  How can someone be a supportive shoulder otherwise?  If she becomes nasty with you, just handle it to try to keep things calm and peaceful.

Set boundaries, and stick to them

When you appear to be patient and understanding it makes it very easy to set boundaries.  Do NOT set boundaries to her behavior or any other aspect of her.  Set boundaries to how you need to be treated.  Stand your ground.  She won’t like that one little bit, let me tell you!!!  She will try to destroy your reputation and family.  But in the long term, she will respect you and maybe even love you….real love…not the fake love you seek

After all, remember that all you had to say was how great her sexual acts make you feel?

Be all-in, or be all-out

Man-up.  ‘nough said.

The continuing Adventures of Captain Save-a-Ho…..

Brought to you by Captain Save-a-Ho 

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