#If I saw a weird alien and that weird alien stripped and started yelling about how I had nothing to fear I'd definitely not believe them

[l4verq]

remnants (1)

ransom drysdale x reader

in which you have to protect ransom drysdale because he has the same face as steve rogers, your ex who’s gone back to peggy

warnings : fights, guns, hostage situation, tiny bit of violence

if you want to be added to the taglist, lmk in the comments💗

ʀᴇᴍɴᴀɴᴛꜱ

*not my gif*

-

ransom’s seen pretty much everything.

travelled around the world, eaten the finest delicacies, snapped away for five years into non-existence all because of a purple, ball-sack face alien.

or so he thought.

because sitting here cuffed to a chair infront of you barely conscious, he begs to differ.

how did the night get so fucked so fast?

“hey.” he extends his leg, trying to nudge yours desperately.

you were a sight to behold with your hair undone, dark locks tousled around your delicate neck.

but ransom can’t afford to marvel at you, in fact the first thing he needs to do is get the fuck away from you.

because the way you’d jammed that glass cup up that bartender’s throat without a second thought, you were no ordinary woman.

“psst, hey.” He tries again, eyes skimming over the room.

they probably were holding them both for ransom.

hell would freeze over before he gave any of his money to those fuckers who chained him up like a dog.

you stir around slightly as you slowly open your heavy eyes. a groan slips out when you try to adjust yourself, only tightening the hold on your hands.

“good, you’re up.”

you lift your head to see a bloodied ransom across you.

slumping back into your seat, your body cries out in pain at the slightest movements.

as soon as you’d tasted the martini, you knew it was an ambush, thankfully spitting most of it out.

but it was too late, the drug almost instantaneously taking action, making you groggy.

the last thing you vaguely remember is dragging ransom out only to be whacked out cold, seeing stars.

“what’s going on? hey, are you going back to sleep?”he asks, straining his leg out to nudge yours again.

“you just don’t shut up, do you?” you croak out, barely above a whisper.

“i’m being held hostage in this room,” his nose scrunches up, “so, I’m sorry if I’m just a little curious as to what the fuck is going on.”

he looks almost pitiful, dried blood on his forehead and desperation in his eyes.

reminds you of steve after missions when he would limp around, all bruised up.

your eyes flicker over to the one camera pointed right at you, but the way it was angled you knew your hands weren’t in view.

“do you know about the avengers?” you work on dislocating your wrist to free your hands chained behind you.

not exactly your favourite thing but it worked everytime.

he rolls his eyes and quirks an eyebrow.

“you think I don’t know the avengers? the whole ‘saviours of the world but we choose to remain anonymous’ crap?”

“well, you’re looking at one right now.” you give an umamused smile, slightly flinching at the wrench that causes a tear in your ligaments.

he probably wouldn’t have believed you if he hadn’t witness you take down six people with such ease just a few hours? ago.

“anyways long story short, you look just like captain america and for some reason hydra just can’t seem to get over that face of yours.”

he lets out a genuine laugh which only seems to intensify the throbbing pain in his head.

you were a whole other kind of crazy.

“steve rogers? no one’s even seen his face under that dumb cowl of his.” he snorts, noticing the slight shift in your face at the mention of steve.

“andy barber. jake jensen. colin shea. ever heard of them?”

another tear.

he shakes his head, his irritation only growing by the very second.

“a few months ago, each one of them started disappearing one after the other. the only thing they had in common was their faces. they looked exactly like you, like him.”

you clench your jaw as you position your wrist for the final twist.

the last one always hurt like a bitch.

“you’re crazy.” he huffs, in disbelief.

he knew he shouldn’t have gone to that stupid event, not let his mother get in his head like always.

he could be at home right now, in his lavish three bedroom villa overlooking the sylvan surroundings.

but here he was, tied up in a filthy room with an avenger.

you might have to agree with him on the crazy part because you’re regretting the whole dislocating thing when the last twist pulls through, pain nearly blinding you.

he can only watch in horror as he realises what you’re doing.

“no, like you’re actually insane.” he breathes out in disbelief as your hands slip out of the chain.

the door swings open, guns pointed right at you.

a particular face in the middle catches your eye as you recognise him.

“you know you’re not getting out of here that easy, right?” zemo chuckles, “broke those pretty bones for nothing.”

“you get blipped for five years and this is the first thing you do? somebody needs to get a life.” you slowly get up, hands raised (you think?)

you couldn’t really feel them anymore.

“sit back down.” he orders, gun pointed right at your head.

he yells at you to sit down again but the gun’s pointed at ransom now.

“holy fuck, dude, don’t point that shit at me. this is how 99% of the people in movies die.” ransom pleads, his eyes closed.

“he’s not steve, you know that. so, why are you doing this? I mean I know why I’m doing this.” you hesitantly sit back down, your ears pleased for once to hear the familiar whirring.

just a few more seconds. that’s all you needed.

he cocks his head, “doing what?”

“buying time.”

ransom’s seen enough action movies to know the probability of him accidentally being shot by any of the rain of bullets whizzing past you two right now is high.

too high for his liking.

he thinks he saw a red flying thing knock out zemo? before you pushed him down so hard the chair broke.

“jesus christ, are you trying to kill me?” He yells, his back throbbing in pain.

and all of a sudden, it’s quiet,a persistent ringing taking over his ears.

he opens his eyes to see you hovering over his face.

it’s weird, your lips seem to be moving but he can’t hear you.

and it’s all black.

“i just want you to know that what you did back there, that was stupid.” sam glares at you, in the rearview mirror.

“and dumb.” bucky chimes in.

you roll your eyes.

it was going to be a long ride to the safehouse.

the car bumps and ransom bounces around, his head hitting the top.

“jesus, hold him or something.” bucky turns around, looking at ransom’s unconscious body sprawled on the seat.

you scoot over closer to ransom, your hand guiding his head to your lap.

bucky turns back around, a grin creeping up to his face which you just want to punch off.

you look down at the bloody mess on Ransom’s forehead, fingers slightly grazing over it.

it was done with a blunt object, most likely the back of a gun.

you can’t stop staring at his face, the same lump forming in your throat again.

so you force yourself to look away, focus on the trees zooming past until sam stops the car infront of a small house, “we’re here.”

bucky hands you a bag of essentials, waving at you to go in, “we got him.”

the house is actually better than most safe houses you’re used to.

it has electricity and hot water and that’s already made it a top contender.

you head straight for the shower, stripping down to nothing while turning on the water.

you hiss in pain at the contact of water on your aching skin.

the water’s scorching hot but it’s the only way you feel clean.

you scrub off the grime and dirt like always, desperately washing away the dried blood under your fingernails.

a trail of reddish brown water as you wash your hair, nails scratching every surface of your scalp.

quickly changing into a set of clean clothes, you pull out a box of needles.

you’re sloppy with your stitches, maybe cause you’d gotten used to him doing it for you.

throwing your wet hair into a towel, you debate whether to clean his wound up or not.

but your hand is already reaching for the bag of first aid sprawled all over the sink.

“it’s just a nice thing to do.” you mumble, making your way to the living room.

sam’s passed out on the couch adjacent to ransom and you’re pretty sure bucky went out to get some food.

they’ve changed his clothes for him but the ugly bruise on his forehead only seems to be swelling up.

you sit down on the floor, rummaging through the box, pulling out cotton and antiseptic.

“am I dead?” he croaks out, slightly shifting.

you chuckle, looking back at him.

a few dabs of the brown liquid on the cotton.

“this is gonna sting.” You warn him before gently wiping the angry bruise.

he flinches, groaning in pain.

“where am I?”

“safe.”

“yea, that’s really comforting.” he looks up at you in annoyance.

you exchange to a new waft of cotton, still cleaning up the dried up blood.

it’s strange, how weird yet nice your gentle touches feel.

the way your lips slightly part and eyebrows knit together as you concentrate.

ransom never really had someone take care of him like this.

“wher’s Steve?” he asks the lingering question on his mind.

there’d been many conspiracy theories online, each one crazier than the other.

he again notices the slight clench of the jaw, the shift in your position at the mention of his name.

“gone.” you reply stoically, placing the gauze over the swelling wound.

a shit reply but he can’t bring himself to pry further.

you look down at his face, the familiarity of this catching you offguard.

after every mission, he’d force you to sit down and tend to your every wound, every scratch.

can’t have my girl walking around, all bruised up like that.

and you’d force him to sit down and do the same.

it was always so personal, standing between his legs, his hands around your waist while yours worked around.

“hey, you okay?” ransom lifts his head, regretting it instantly as pain shoots up his entire body.

you blink away the tears threatening to spill any second.

“yeah, I’m good. Get some rest.”

you fumble around, hurriedly picking up the first aid kit, your shaky hands doing little to help you.

you were clearly distraught and ransom had a sneaking suspicion why.

-

a/n : i dont even know if u can physically dislocate your wrist yourself lol, im just making shit up as i go lmao

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 10: 2x14 Wolf in the Fold

Watched Wolf in the Fold last night. The only thing I really remembered about this ep going in was that it was a Scotty ep. Which is true but also… slightly misleading. Also that it had to do with Jack the Ripper—which is more true than I remembered!

A decadent intro… I get why Spock isn’t here but I actually DO think he would be into it.

Matchmaker Kirk lol.

Scotty is so awkward. This is the other detail I remembered from this ep, actually: how Scotty wants to applaud using his hands no matter what. (Even with those cool lights RIGHT THERE lol). Old Aberdeen pub crawler…

This is honestly such a bizarre back story: Scotty got a concussion because someone who happened to be a woman made a mistake and now not only is his head all funny but he has a “total resentment toward women.” Like okay, nothing creepily sexist in that concept. Also –they ultimately barely even use it! I know it’s the implied rationale for why he would suddenly start murdering women and also not remembering it but it’s like such a flimsy excuse that they never say it out loud in so many words for fear it should sound too stupid. Which it would. Honestly, you really only need the concussion imo. Why go into the weird misogyny thing at all?

And now Kirk and Bons head off to a brothel, giving me a total resentment toward men.

Nice eerie fog out here. Very Aberdeenian.

Okay, so this woman was stabbed a dozen times but she only screamed once? And then a second later, Scotty had somehow teleported several feet away, still holding the knife? He’s good at his job but he’s not that good. This is already deeply suspicious.

“Therapeutic shore leave.” Trying to cure his hatred of ladies lmao.

So this weird little bald man, Hengist, from Rigel IV. Is he an alien? I suppose he must be. Rigellians are a race, as we know from Journey to Babel. It’s not always clear to me which groups of people are Earth colonists who have migrated to or been born on other planets and which are humanoid aliens.

The Aurelians are a gentle, harmless people. Cute. I like these aliens.

I wish we could hire aliens to be our administrators. Alien Overlord and Taylor.

“I’ll be taking over, since I am the highest official.” He out-officialed him.

I like this guy and his slightly creepy empath priestess wife. I feel like Spock would like them, too.

Speaking of: Spock in the captain’s chair. Hot.

I don’t get how this planet is the only space port around. Like… could not any planet be a space port? What does that even mean?

Oh no, a woman with the lie detector machine! She must be incompetent and/or to be despised.

I love Sybo’s outfit. Her hair and jewelry too. Honestly just a great head-to-toe look.

Another murder! Sorry but this one is on the Aurelian for just leaving the murder weapon out there unattended.

Generally speaking, the costume and set people are doing allllll the work in this episode.

Hengist went to look for suspects and he came up with the victim’s father and fiancé?? He’s not even trying lol. Anyway, he obviously did it.

How can you NOT tell if a lock was picked or not? I mean I know McCoy is a doctor, not a locksmith, but come on. It can’t be that ambiguous.

Spooky mumbo-jumbo.

Interesting that Spock doesn’t trust the mumbo-jumbo either. I guess he only approves of it when it’s Vulcan.

When Sybo says “monstrous evil” the camera is looking right at Hengist. Not suspicious at all. He’s only clearly railroading Scotty, looked right at the second victim before she was killed, was in the perfect position to take the murder weapon after it was carelessly left about, and is the most obvious non-Scotty suspect here.

I love how loyal Bones is. He literally saw Scotty holding Sybo and the knife with blood on his hands and is like “It’s impossible he could have done it.”

So many of the “truth discovery” devices on TOS are truly creepy. Like they’re all clear plot devices, and for that reason depicted as completely reliable, and the more completely reliable they are, the more deeply disturbing they become upon any reflection at all.

That’s a pretty computer though. All those pretty flashing lights! And it runs on floppy disks.

I literally just remembered what happened.

“Scotty, lie to me, how old are you?” / “Twenty-two, Sir.” Yeah, I’d say that’s a lie.

So like this allegedly all-powerful computer is literally just a lie detector. That’s it! A lie detector that picks up on psychological signs of lying, just like our lie detectors today. I mean… you could have just said that straight out. All they do is show what a person believes to be true, so in the case where someone truly doesn’t remember something, the usefulness is… limited.

My mom suggested a Vulcan mind meld which, actually, would pretty much solve the problem! But for once Spock actually treats it like something serious and not to be thrown out as a solution to all problems at the merest suggestion.

Someone needs to do a fashion line based entirely on the Argellian outfits.

Spock is internally eye-rolling at all this drama. I feel like he’s a real advocate for the computers today. That’s like… really his only role.

The computer’s linguistics banks don’t know what this word means? Maybe we should get Uhura on the case.

Plot twist: the killer was Jack the Ripper the WHOLE TIME! The last one you’d ever expect.

I don’t get how the computer made the leap from Redjac to Jack the Ripper since that is not a real word and no one outside of this episode of TOS has ever used it for Jack the Ripper.

“Everyone feeds on death, even vegetarians.” So dark, Spock. So emo.

Aw, alien creatures that derive sustenance from love. Adorable. There should have been an episode devoted to them. (Wait a minute…. Idea coming on…)

Speaking of gaseous cloud aliens…the Companion?

This episode really relies a lot on the computer to provide information and otherwise move the plot along.

Kirk keeps ignoring everyone to just talk to Spock.

“Cloud the issue” lol that’s a good pun. (Already can’t remember who said it but… point stands.)

The cloud entity feeds on women because they are more easily and deeply terrified. That sounds fake but okay. It’s also not in keeping with what Sybo said, is it? She mentioned a hatred of women. That’s not the same as finding women useful.

Hmm, when do we get our Martian Colonies, @ perseverance?

Oh, Rigel IV, you say? There seems to be a Rigellian right here!

This whole history of the entity is bizarre. The first killing sprees (that we know of) are on Earth, and Kirk specifically says that when man left Earth to explore, he took this with him. Does that mean… the cloud creature/entity originated on Earth? Truly a bizarre hypothesis, when you think about it.

Are you the entity, Sir?

There is actually very little Scotty in this Scotty-centric episode.

Lol the knife originates with the hill people of Rigel IV. What is this, Deliverance?

Omg Kirk punched the entity right out of that man!

So to summarize: “Jack the Ripper is actually a gaseous cloud that is capable of infecting the computer system of the Enterprise, thus hijacking the whole ship” is the basic, wacky concept of this episode.

This tranquilizer could quiet a volcano. Where was it during the volcano scene in STID hmm?

Kirk’s plan to keep people from being scared by the maniacal voice of the entity: Tranquilize the entire ship. That’s why he’s paid the big bucks.

Yet another twist on the old Kirk v. Computer plot. Time to use Math to defeat it.

Kirk is so unimpressed with the entity. “Eh, shut that off.” He would not be moved by a haunted house.

“This is the first time I’ve heard a malfunction threaten us.” Sulu can man his post AND be funny; he’s multi-talented.

Kirk and Spock don’t need tranquilizers because they’re smart enough to know this high-pitched voice yelling random threats just isn’t actually scary.

Kirk is really insistent that Sulu man his frickin’ post!

Oh no, not PI!! My nemesis, PI!

I’m really living for Sulu here.

If the entity entered a tranquilized person, it might take up knitting. I gotta say, that doesn’t make any sense as a plot point but I like it anyway.

That was a very efficient tranquilizing job! Everyone in a 400+ person ship in like 10 minutes? Get the medical team on the Enterprise in charge of the vaccine distribution stat.

Kirk just outright assumes that Spock won’t be a hospitable entity choice. And he’s not even wrong! The entity chooses the dead body over Spock or Kirk. It knows when it’s not wanted.

Hengist has been revived!

The entity is honestly, truly hilarious. Die, die, everybody die! Kill! Kill you all! Maniacal laughter! All while being carried by a still utterly unimpressed Kirk down the halls of the ship.

Spock’s like “get out of the way, you tranquilized idiot. Got some entity-scattering to do.”

“I gave them a pretty big shot, Jim!” Think you might have slightly overdone it, Bones? You didn’t need to make everyone useless for 6 hours for a problem that was solved in 5 minutes!

This is one of those moments, Kirk trying to get Spock to see the pretty ladies with him, when Spock seems super gay. Like, I don’t even think he is, that’s not my reading of him, and I also assume that wasn’t the intention here, but that’s just so clearly how it reads.

Aw, Kirk doesn’t want to go the strip club alone. Poor bb.

Weird how Lt. Leslie was in this when he died in the last episode.

Overall, I’d actually have to say that was a very crack-y episode. I liked the ending the best because it was so ridiculous.

What I don’t understand, in addition to whether or not the entity was really supposed to be from Earth, was how it came to be Hengist. Like, it can enter and leave bodies (or computers) at will, so perhaps it just entered Hengist, a normal Rigellian, at some point. But if that’s so, putting him on the transporter and scattering him into space was a pretty cruel thing to do. Also, why did he die (or appear to die) when the entity wasn’t in him? That implies he is the entity’s physical form. But then, first of all, how is also a Rigellian? Like did the entity mate with a Rigellian? Did the entity take over a baby Rigellian? Did the entity just claim to be Rigellian but is really just humanoid in its physical form—we did establish that some aliens, like this one, or creatures or whatever, are gaseous sometimes and solid others, so maybe its solid form is humanoid. Which would fit well with it originating in Earth, although that also brings a new and perhaps unintentional layer of creepiness to the story. I have to assume that’s the situation, but still, wild. And it doesn’t explain this: why does Hengist “die” when the entity “leaves” him, as opposed to just disappear entirely when the entity changes form??

Anyway, I know I’m overthinking this very wacky premise. Overall, I think the episode was fine. It didn’t have enough Scotty (for being a “Scotty episode”) and it changed genres an awful lot for 50 minutes. There was a tad too much misogyny going on. And overall I didn’t feel like the characters—even Kirk, and in actuality this was a Kirk episode much more than a Scotty episode, and purposefully so—were at their most interesting. Tbh Sulu ultimately stole the show in the final minutes.

Next up is the Trouble with Tribbles! Also a funny episode but at least undeniably purposefully so!

[thevoidwriting]

Xie the practice boi.

First his looks will change, he will change to the story, second I will explain his looks to the reader everytime so you the reader is up to date .

For this story he is a tentacle alien, his rib cage opens up to reveal his apendges, ok looks light blue skin, big oval eyes, colour is greenish yellow, slits for a nose, sharp teeth. Tol about 9'6 , normal rib cage has gill like slits that turn into tentacles.

Keeps spare cloths cause they leak aphrodisiac like sluge, likes to use it on partners, keeps using it as replacement slick in emergencies.

May or may not be into breeding males and females.

Fffffffiiiiiicccccc ttttttiiiiiimmmmeeee.

As you look around you notice the door, it says: 'one step and your wildest fantasy will come true or turn back and leave unsatisfied.', so you open the door and see him standing there before the bed.

"Hello I'm Xie and I'll be helping my friend tonight and I'll be your partner tonight." He had an easy smile and a calm air to him.

For my first time this might not be so bad except that he's not bad on the eyes, he went over the options and I saw something I only ever read about in fics. Tentacle restraints and aphrodisiac slime on them to help the process. Thank the non-committal deity that it's an option, she looks over the menu on the table and just stopped working for thirtyish minutes, she's paying for the day and night so it's ok.

Part of the virgin bundle, after she recovers she sees him on the bed taking off his shirt showing off his slits.

"Can I touch, I mean if your ok with it." You mumble off, Xie waves you over, you move to the bed (it's a king size), as soon as you hit the edge of the bed he moves to meet you half way. As soon as he gets there he pulls you on so you can't yeet yourself thought the door (like the prier 4 times, you have a record.).

Once on the bed he put your hand on his slit mid rib cage, your hand sinks in and your feel the goo that leaks between his slots, when you pull away you see the trail from your fingers to him and once again I see that charming smile.

"Sweetheart I'm going to take off my pants, last article of clothing on me, you need to strip of well of course." That prompted me to remove my shirt and pants, only in a sports bra and boy short panties.

"Ahhh cute girl, cute under cloths. Humans are so strange." He attempted to do my bra to realize that you pull it off, so he did that then look at my c cup breast and just giggle that their 'natural'. I smile and poke his chest, "yeah I've kept it that way so they bounce." I made my point by shaking my shoulders to make them jiggle, is dick or more like tentacle wiggles and writhes at that, it lightly hits my thigh.

He then pulls down my panties and now we both bare as the day we were born or hatched in his case.

"I chose the restraint option cause my fight or flight instinct kicks in when someone trys to penetrate me. I'm so sorry if I bite you-" he cut me off, "I know I read your file the owner informed me, one bad person ruins it for all trust me." He lifts me and puts me at the head of the bed propped up by pillows and fluffy blankets, once I was comfy he proceeded to open his rib cage and I see black to gray tentacles, eight in total.

One wrapped around my wrists, one around each of my thighs, tits, and lastly around my neck let me tell you it was kinda hot. He also put one in my mouth to lightly suck on and get some of the gel on it in to me.

He started by kissing my temples to my forehead then my jaw line, bless him he then started to kiss down my neck to my chest. He took my left nipple into his mouth and started to suck then lick alternating the pace once it stiffened he switched to the other giving it the same treatment. Once it did the same he took some of the slime on his tentacle dick and worked it though my cunt and I feel the affected semi fast specially paired with the apendige I'm my mouth. He gave a wolfish smile to see the two slicks mix, lightly pulling away to see the string stretch out.

"I'm going to start preparing you for my wiggle buddy down here." I laughed as much as I can around the thing in my mouth. He just moaned a bit, he started by gathering slick on his fore finger and middle, moving up and down slowly to ease me into it, I was kinda thankful but damm he was working up a storm.

Once he finally put his forefinger in I moaned and he pulled out his tentacle out of my mouth thinking I had enough I was minorly disappointed but I didn't have time to complain cause he added his middle and started to thrust gently, slowly. It felt great, I tried to move my hands and remembered that that we're being held very softly by him but the suckers dug in and left marks on my once pristine skin.

"(y/n), you have a lovely blush on your cheeks that no makeup can replacate." At that he added his ring finger to the mix as he started to fasten that pace I feel something weird starting to build in me and started to panic, he shushed me and reassured me that this was normal, this promped him to move me to a hold against his chest petting my head and calming me down till it spilled over. "FUCK." I suddenly felt light headed and fuzzy at the same time but somehow better its hard to explain.

"better." Was all he said against the crown of my head. "Yeah." Was all that I could manage. "Next were gonna try penetration, if you feel off at all let me know I'll stop, wait and then go when you tell me to ok." Bless his heart he was just the best. "Ok, I'll try but I might scream." It was a fair warning.

He just smiled, nodded and moved to stabilize his wiggly part and move to that in and thrusted to the best he can. Once it was slightly in it grew thicker at the base, I was still ok but then it hit the breach point and i yelled for him to stop it hurt, he stopped as soon as he hears.

"shit sorry I thought I used enough slime apparently not, note to self use more next time." How he was lucied I will never know but once the pain passed I told him to move all the way in, so he thrusts all the way in fuck it still hurts abit Xie waited till i gave the go head and he didn't move. I just feel intense wiggles and mild writhing.

"sorry , my kind don't thrust we let our lower tentacle move on it's own........ Human word cock." The last word was a mumble, then it hits a spot that makes me tighten on him so it hits it over and over again, fuck that feeling is building over again but faster, I though it was a myth that orgasms happen faster after the first but his base Is growing bigger, double fuck he has a knott. All I hear are low moans, grows and groans. It helped grow that strange feeling then it's hit to spots at once and it realeases again, then I hear a loud moan and feel a cold thick thing being shot into me and he just drools Abit.

It takes about I think 40ish minutes to recover for both of us, he's head is on my shoulder panting lightly and I'm still breathing heavy.

"you ok doll I know it was kinda intense, I didn't hurt you right?" He was worried and concerned. "No I'm fine." I look down and see blood that's why he was worried, he was so sweet. But I kinda passed out cause the sight of blood. Once I woke I found him still inside of me and asleep. Oh well looks like I'm gonna have to go to sleep again.

The end (?).

@merplderpl thanks for your help

[mybleachedsoul]

ichiruki month. day 5. futuristic au

rated m. contains angst, mature language and adult content; you have been warned.

inspired by the Alien franchise

                                                     05/08

                                                            //

“Ichigo,” she spoke his name softly, but he didn’t turn around.

“Don’t waste your breath trying to make me change my mind, Rukia. I’m going. End of the story.”

He loaded his gun and placed it back onto the counter, then reached for his taser. Rukia sighed. “Ichigo,” she repeated. “There is a 4.7% change we’ll make it out of there alive, I-.”

“Which is exactly why I won’t let you go down there on your own,” Ichigo interrupted.

Rukia bit the inside of her cheek. “Renji’s on orders, too.”

“Bullshit!” Ichigo shouted as he turned around, finally letting go of all the weapons he’d been getting ready. “As if I’d trust Renji with anything, let alone your fucking life, Rukia.”

“Goddamn it, will you just listen to me,” she continued with a louder, stronger voice. “Your duty does not require you to go on that suicide mission. You’re a pilot, Ichigo,” she gestured the outside of his cabin. “What if you die out there and we can’t even ship back home?”

“Hisagi’s just as skilled as I am when it comes to flying this ship,” Ichigo replied, brows frowned. Just as Rukia rolled her eyes and was about to retort, he opened his mouth again. “You know as well as I do that I didn’t train all those fucking years to back down when the situation got dangerous.”

Rukia took a step forward, throwing an arm in the air in a wave of indignation and frustration. “This is more than your basic ‘dangerous’ mission Ichigo. The whole fucking system is corrupted! Not only did the ship get infested with aliens, the AI’s are uncontrollable and will most likely try to kill us as soon as we take a step onto that platform. Not to mention the black box is probably not even working properly.”

Ichigo huffed out an infuriated growl but turned back to his table; back to the weapons he was in the middle of laying out in front of him. He grabbed a pack of ammunition for his XM8 assault rifle and shoved it in his side pack, moving fast, too fast to Rukia’s liking.

She walked forward, her boots creating loud thuds for each of the five steps she made to reach Ichigo’s side. She clamped her hand on his forearm and pulled. “Ichigo, stop! Did you hear a goddamn word I just said?”

“You think I don’t know all of that already?” he yelled back at her. Rukia blinked once, suddenly aware of the fact that other passengers might hear them argue. “I. don’t. fucking. care, Rukia,” he said, breaking each word at a time to make it clearer. “I don’t know if there’s any way I can say it that’ll be clear enough for you.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you face death for no evident reason other than to satisfy your own ego,” Rukia stated, voice lower and eyes set in the cold flames of self-assurance.

“It has nothing to do with my ego, it’s about protecting you,” he answered, eyes stabbing into hers.

Rukia maintained eye-contact for a very silent, yet heavy minute, then sighed. “Why are you so set on protecting me,” she practically whispered. “I can take care of myself.”

Ichigo’s hard stare softened gradually. “I know. But that’s what we do, Rukia.”

She breathed out, shakily. “Do what?” she asked him.

His eyebrows flinched, in the faintest of ways. “Protect each other.”

Rukia stayed still, in fact she felt like she couldn’t move a freaking muscle. She read the fear in Ichigo’s irises, and let out a breath of defeat. Her purpose fell low, lower than she ever expected, and she turned her back to him, intending to walk out of the room and expecting him to resume preparing his weapons.

But instead of walking out she stopped mid-way, and felt herself shiver. She didn’t need to see her arms to know goosebumps had taken over under her long-sleeved shirt. She hugged her arms in a weird attempt to comfort the cold crawling on her skin.

“How the hell am I supposed to live with myself if you don’t make it out alive?” she murmured, so inaudible she wondered if she’d said the words out loud.

She had joined the Yutani crew before he did. She was a few years older than he was. Maybe somehow she felt responsible for his safety.

He was supposed to pilot this ship.

He was never supposed to sacrifice his life.

Rukia heard his footsteps -two, perhaps. He was closer, but not close enough for her to feel his presence behind her.

“And how the hell am I supposed to do that, knowing I stayed on the side lines while you were in danger?” he said, voice soft and pained reaching to her in ways she knew were wrong.

Rukia squinted her eyes shut, a worried crease appearing between her eyebrows. She clenched her fists and an uneasy breath escaped her throat. She turned around hesitantly, well aware that the hurt expression of her face was obvious.

She faced him. “Ichigo,” she whispered and her voice broke almost as soon as her heart did when she saw his face and before she knew it he was on her; hands cupping her face and lips crashing onto hers in unspoken despair.

Throwing away any logic, any sense of rationality and objectivity, she kissed him back.

Kissing her was exactly like Ichigo had pictured, oh so many times, before falling asleep or after catching a forbidden glimpse of her naked skin as she stripped out of her outer space body suit. Her lips were soft, too soft, that they made his mind start spinning and his only response was to kiss her harder.

He needed more, more, more of her.

All of her.

He didn’t know if he pushed her backward or if she pulled him with her but Rukia’s back eventually hit the wall, causing him to groan as their bodies came in contact. Rukia’s hand traveled through his hair and pulled hard, and Ichigo felt every particle of self-control slipping away as he grabbed Rukia’s legs to lift her up and wrapped them around his waist. Supporting her weight on the wall, he felt her breathe out a sharp moan and tangled his tongue with hers, tasting her deeper.

The rest happened in a blur, as if the world was nothing but a far memory now composed of nothing but dust, and all that was left was her. Her porcelain and pink skin after she was rid of any piece of clothing, and the way it felt against him. Her sad and lustful eyes when she looked deep into his own, right before he let himself slowly enter her. Her beautiful moans every time he moved his hips or let his teeth graze any inch of her skin, as if she was ridding herself of her cold mask and letting her most hidden self come to life. The way her legs trembled against his waist as he thrusted deeper and faster, and the way she bit her bottom lip and frowned her brows in pleasure.

The way she held his hand with every bit of life she had, fingers intertwined and pressed against the white mattress.

In this moment, their moment, they could pretend that nothing else mattered. Not the ship, not the mission. Not even death itself.  

@ichirukimonth

[hunterguyveriv]

Kacxa Week: Day 2 Crossover

I had plans to draw a comic strip similar to this but the weather change really flared my carpal tunnel up. So I decided to write it out. May do a quick sketch later today after my hands have rested. I hope you enjoy this like my first short story :)

Brief summary: 2 of my favorite anime characters (consider VLD anime cause of original series) go shopping with their girls with a surprise guest appearance of a gaming bad ass. 

He sat down in a huff not wanting to be there, as soft mall music played over the speakers. His finger making an organic metal tap on his blue bicep armor. Even though he didn't want to be there with his wife, Sho aka Guyver-I, just couldn't say no to Mizuki. Even when he was in either of his Guyver armors she was his greatest weakness.

He barely noticed when a male in white and red armor over a black jumpsuit. He removed the red and white helmet he was wearing placing it on the bench near him doing the same crossing his arms. He looked over the aqua blue armored creature thinking “he’s never seen an alien like him before. Looks rather mean.” before looking forward again.

Sho was surprised seeing someone who looked like another human. He thought he and Mizuki were the only humans this far away from Earth. His head sensor shifted catching the attention of the man sitting next to him giving him an uncomfortable look. Sho looked at him through the head sensor, he had long black hair pulled back into a proper ponytail and what looked like a burn scar on his left cheek.

Sho turned his head to look at the man, in a metallic voice Sho asked “Human?” The man looked at him, “Human, for the most part. You?” Sho looked at him a couple seconds, according to his Control Medal he wasn’t lying, “Same.” The man gave him a puzzled look to which Sho held up his index finger.

Sho stood up with Keith watching intently. Keith watched the central ball in the forehead glow and seconds later what was the aqua blue creature sprang from his body and disappeared. Sho wore some early 21st Century clothes. Something the man noticed right away.

Sho sat down and offered his hand, “Sho Fukamachi, or Guyver-I.” Keith took his hand and both men firmly shook each other’s hands, “Keith Devall, Paladin of Voltron.” Both men started talking about how they got there, Keith listened intently as Sho explained he had no idea how just there was a bright golden portal that sucked him and Mizuki in. Both men started talking about their… alien sides.

Sho went back to watching Mizuki, as she sifted through the latest in intergalactic styles of clothing. Some that would have been considered lingerie or hooker clothing on Earth 21st Century Earth. A bright red blush appeared on her face as the reserved quiet woman held up an outfit that was essentially a strap to cover her breasts with a strap going down to a pair of thong like panties. He couldn't help but smirk watching her blush.

Mizuki heard the sound his armor made and looked to where he was making sure he was alright. Seeing he was, she went back to looking for appropriate attire that wouldn't make her feel like a hooker. Failing to notice a woman with blue skin, darker blue hair, and horns noticing her looking towards a bench.

The woman watched the man whose alien suit disappeared making sure her ‘Grek’uhn dah’ wasn't in danger, not that he couldn't handle things himself. She, however, saw that the boy her mate was talking to, looked no older than the human girl before her. They even wore clothes that seemed to match a distant time period. Being direct, “Looks like our mates, are getting along.”

Mizuki yelped in embarrassed startlement and turned to look at the smirking woman, “What?” The blue woman gestured with her head to the 2 of them really chatting it up. “Our mates. I assume the one on the left is your’s based off your ages and attire.” Mizuki looked at her, softly speaking “Y… yeah.” The two women gradually started talking to each other just like their mates with Mizuki gradually opened up to the blue-skinned woman and talked about their ‘mates’. Poking fun at how they always have to go save the world/universe from whatever threats that bares its fangs.

Sho looked to where Mizuki was and saw her talking to a blue-skinned woman with horns. Keith followed his gaze, “Your girl?” Sho nodded. “Don’t worry about it, she is talking with my girl.” Sho looked at Keith, “She is a looker.” Keith smirked, “Thanks. What do you think they are talking about?” Sho looked at the 2 women, gossiping “Us, most likely.” Both women looked at their lovers and started laughing. Sho sighed crossing his arms again “Definitely us.”

There was some commotion which caused all 4 to look up. Both men sighed not happy their day off was ruined. Sho started walking out of the entrance to see where it was coming from. He uttered a curse word before yelling “GUYVER!” Both Keith his blue-skinned mate eyes went wide as a barrier appeared around him and his armor appeared. “Whoa… Can I get one of those?”

The woman looked to Mizuki who had a smug look on her face before walking towards Guyver-I. His control medal flashed, his eye flashed red before remaining pink, and his breathing ports expelled steam. He looked to Keith who grabbed his helmet and placed it on his head. “Sorry but where I come from these are extremely rare to find, she, in fact, got the last one that I knew of to save her life” Keith scowled, “Ruggle.”

They both looked at each other weird looks as a green slightly damaged armored man came walking up to them. He had a blade on his left arm which made Guyver-I look at his own blade on his left arm. The green armored guy also had something that looked like a shoulder laser. Strapped to his back was a rather large gun with green glowing parts. As if held by magnets to his legs were a pistol on one hip and a double-barreled shotgun. In his right hand a chainsaw.

The green armored person looked at Keith then Guyver-I before walking out of the store killing swaths of attacking creatures. Guyver-I looked to Keith, looks like we were just asked to join him.” By now Acxa and Mizuki were almost to their lovers, Keith looked to Guyver-I looks so. guyver-I started cracking his knuckles, “Want to go kill some things...?” Keith squared his shoulders before activating his bayard and his blade “And blow shit up? I’m game.” Both of them heard a whirl and turned to see Acxa charging her gun and Mizuki walking up “Not with us, boys.” Mizuki then transformed her self “Don't think this gets you out of shopping with us...”

[the-unholy-trinitea]

Queen of Beasts, Right Hand Prey/A Mean Girls Broadway Fanfic

Freshman year.

Everybody’s still awkward. Adjusting to starting puberty. Except for Regina George. Her best friend Janis Sarkisian stood in front of her mirror. “Gina? Am I fat?” She asked... Regina shook her head no and responded, “you’re not fat. You’re just King sized, J.”

They hugged.

“Heyyy girlies!”

Ugh. It’s my mom...

“Oh hi mrs. George you look less high today.” Janis quipped.

“Mommy. Can I please go shopping tomorrow?”

“Shopping?” Janis said, “We just went shopping for our outfits today!”

“Jan. I mean. Feminine shops. I need FEMININE PRODUCTS.”

Janis nodded.

Phew! “Sure Honey! I’ll go call Gretchen’s mother.”

Fuck.

“Jan. I’m sorry. Gretchen’s just a friend from theater camp. And since you went to art camp-“

“It’s okay Gina! I’ll see you Monday!”

Janis called her mom abruptly. She was clearly frustrated with Regina.

The Next day...

Gretchen: OMG! Gina!

Regina: It’s just Regina! Gina’s a baby name. K, Gretchen?

Gretchen: Mmkay.

Regina: Mmkay? We’re almost adults, Gretchen! You say yes when someone is speaking to you!

Gretchen: yes Regina

Regina: that’s better

*sees Janis*

OMFG! GRETCHEN! Look up from your phone!

Gretchen: Who’s that?

Janis walks up to Regina...

“Hey Regina! How are you! My mom and I are just getting me an afterschoool job.”

“That’s great. Jan. Look. This is Gretchen. Gretchen-Janis. Janis-Gretchen. Yes? Ok bye!”

“Gina?”

“Yes babe?”

“Jingle bell,”

“Jingle bell,”

Janis said the together part as Regina walked off laughing with Gretchen. “Jingle bell rock...”

First day of high school

Janis got on the bus and to her surprise Regina wasn’t on it. Dressed in a crop top and jeans she’d sewn from hand dyed purple denim, she looked for a place to sit. “Heyyy girlie! Over hear! Sweetie!” A plus sized boy sat next to her. “Damien. Theatre star. Singer extraordinaire. And you are?”

“Janis. Janis Sarkisian. Artist.”

They shook hands.

“Hey. Damien? Do you by chance know Regina George?”

Damien gawked at her.

“THE REGINA ANGELICA GEORGE? I went to theatre camp with her and she got the lead in our production of Frozen! The unauthorized musical. You know RAGS to riches George? Lucky!”

“Yeah... I’m her best friend.”

“Oh crap. You’re the best friend?!” Damien.

“What do you——-Mean”

The bus pulled to a stop and they got off at school and we’re separated immediately when a black Jeep pulled up between them.

Decked out in louboutin heels, were Regina George, Gretchen, and some othe blonde girl. They looked like barbies. They looked like...

“Hey Regina you Plastic fake bitch!” Janis yelled.

“Oh hi Jeanette!” The other blonde said.

“How are you Janis?” Gretchen squealed!

“Quiet Gretchen. No one was talking to you.”

“Mmkay.”

“Gretch. I swear to god.”

Gretchen looked like she was about to cry but she straightened up and said with a smile, “Yes Regina.”

Regina turned sharply to Janis.

“Oh hey Janis... How’ve you been.” ReGINA said.

“Good considering you haven’t talked to me for a week.”

“But janis. I had to prep for my theatre audition and Gretchen here was with me at my house coaching me ALL WEEKEND!”

“Actually didn’t we see Hamilton or...” the other blonde said.

“Isn’t that right, Gretchen. Please excuse Karen she’s off her meds.” Regina said.

“I take perkasets! Mali perkasets!” Karen shouted. Janis was sure that was a vine that had been created this summer.

“Well I’ll see you at your birthday par...”

“Janis,” Regina said, “I’ll see you at lunch sweetie.

•

2 months later at lunch. Regina had theatre rehearsals everyday at lunch and so did Damien. Regina never showed up at lunch with Janis. She was too busy snickering and putting notes on her locker that read, “gay support groups are down the hall” and “pedos use the guys room.”

But Regina was happy despite Janis’ angst about her.

So when Janis saw her perform Cell Block Tango during Halloween Fling rehearsal she was caught off guard when Janis kept whistling and shouting “Yes Gina! Get it!” And then even louder when she had her solo for the concert portion singing “Mad World.”

And that gay kid playing Billy Flynn flounced right over to her after and hugged her, “Regina George! You are slay! I gotta go talk to Janis “Van Goth” Sarkisian over there!” And then he hugged Janis and she hugged him and showed her the portrait she made for the Fall Art show...

Regina decided it was time to say something...

Regina: That was so weird. Janis was acting like she was crushing on me. And I’m having a pool party.

Gretchen: Just invite her she’s your best friend.

Karen: yay friends. It’s the right thing to do. R-E-E-S-P-E-K-T?

Regina: Karen! I can’t have a lesbo at my party with girls in bikinis! That’s like inviting a pedo...

Gretchen: true

Karen: I dated a pedo... he extorted me...

Gretchen: OMG Karen. Tell the police. Report him.

Karen: but I can barely read a book!

Regina: NO ONE CARES! OMG! Janis is coming. Put your phone down.

“Hey Gina!”

“It’s Regina, what do you want Janis?”

“I just wanted to say that you were stunning out there!”

Regina dropped her lipstick and realized that Janis was in the girls dressing room and Regina was stripped down to her black lace bra and boy shorts.

“Janis why are you in the girls dressing room?” Karen asked.

“Karen! You can’t just ask WHY she’s in the girl’s restroom. But why exactly are you Jan?”

Regina asked.

“I just wanted to give you your birthday present before this weekend.” Janis said nudging a bag toward her.

“Regina looked in they back and it was the lace dress and pink notebook Regina had put in her amazon wishlist. And a lacy pink bra...

“Sorry. I can’t take this.” She said.

“But I’m your best friend did I do something?”

“It’s just... WHY ARE SO OBSESSED WITH ME!” ReGINA yelled. Janis froze, “We always shopped for bras for each other because it was our tradition and I...”

“YOU ARE A DYKE. A DANGER TO EVERY GIRL HERE. I CANT HAVE A LESBIAN AT MY PARTY. ITS NOT COOL. And unsafe.”

Janis felt cold.

And then hot.

“I may be a dyke but at least I know the difference between a star and the sun. Clearly one is bigger and takes up too much space! Well I’m a dyke. An alien dyke from Venus! Tell the government, bitch. You have my number on speed dial.”

Janis stormed out unaware hat people were video taping her.

•

That night Damien showed up at her window and helped her create a new Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram to get away from #spacedyke.

•

Regina wrote about Janis that night in the soon to be burn book.

[trashunlimited]

i was really excited to get this one out, hope you guys like it.

also a warning for...ahem...sexual stuff(no smut yet) and violence(not described graphically).

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

tagging: @nightshade1994, @glampyra

Julie looked out a large glass window in their new house, and was fascinated by the sight of this highly advanced alien civilization. This town was small and quaint, but still displayed just how advanced the yyorians were. The houses looked futuristic, being made out of chrome with their own glass windows. The house they were in also had advanced appliances and furniture, and even outside, she could see the other indications of how advanced they were, with their lights and cars that drove all by themselves. Out in the distance, she could still make out some elements of the planet’s natural environment, being able to spot mountains.

One thing in particular that grabbed Julie’s interest, was the fact this planet had two suns. She looked behind her for a moment, seeing that she had two shadows here, instead of only having one on Earth. She’d brought it up to Rick, and he explained the two were connected. Julie smiled to herself, thinking that if her friend Mark was here, he’d say something about the two suns on Glorf being like the two suns on Tatooine from Star Wars. Remembering her friend made Julie’s smile fade, she missed him a lot, and Vivian too, she knew they were definitely worried about her.

But, Julie knew she had to stay here until the situation with the Fyralogin Empire had simmered down enough, to the point where she and Rick could return to Earth. By doing this, she also felt she was protecting her friends, if Cyn knew about them...she shuddered at the thought. It gave her comfort to know they would be okay.

Julie turned back over to see Rick, who was in the process of working something, he’d started a while ago and hadn’t stopped even once. She was concerned about him, knowing overworking himself like this wasn’t a good idea at all, she had to do something.

She went up behind him and poked his shoulder, causing Rick to angrily turned around shout “What?!”

When he realized it was just Julie, a look of regret formed on his face, he felt awful for yelling at her, and her expression showed how hurt she was because of it. He sighed, and decided to try and apologize. “S-S-S-Sorry..ha...didn’t realize it was just y-y-you.”

“It's okay…” Julie responded. “I know you didn't mean it.”

Rick pressed his lips together, eyeing her. “What is it that you want?”

Julie gave him a concerned look. “You've been working for too long, you need to take a break.”

“Oh, y-you w-worried about me?” He asked jokingly.

“Of course I am!” She exclaimed. “Please, just try and relax, at least for a little bit, you need it.”

Well, she did have a point, he was feeling very hungry, thirsty and exhausted after all; but Rick had been working on some important inventions, namely creating new powerful weapons to use. He had been so focused on them he hadn't paid much attention to anything else. He was glad she had been looking out for him, for some reason, it made him feel all weird inside, but he tried to ignore it.

“Alright,” He agreed, getting up from his seat. “I'll go and get us something to eat and drink, be right back.”

Julie watched as he formed a portal, and very quickly, she stared in awe as food and drinks popped out, before Rick himself did. “Dig in.” He winked.

She grinned, and did so with him, realizing what he meant when he’d told her he had getting food covered.

A lot of what Rick had gotten was junk food, and while Julie was the type to prefer eating a healthy balanced diet, she didn't mind at all; Rick was here with her, and because of her growing feelings, she was more than happy to indulge in this with him. That, and she too was also really hungry and thirsty. So, she gleefully munched down on the food with him, finding herself amused when she saw him wolf down his food, and feeling so happy to be near him.

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

While they were in the midst of eating, a member of the inhabits of Glorf, the yyorians, appeared. “Rick Sanchez, Vrillon requests your presence, please follow me.”

“Vrillon? Who the hell is that?” Rick asked in annoyance.

“He is the leader here, the one that greeted you and her when you two arrived here.” The yyorian explained. “He is interested in talking more with you about your stay here.”

Rick groaned. “Come on Julie, let's go.”

The yyorian stopped them. “Your girlfriend is not allowed to go, only you.”

Julie became panicked. “But..but I'm not used to this place! I won't know what to do without you Rick..” She even began to tear up a little.

He gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and began to try and comfort her. “It'll be fine, I'm sure I'll be back in no time anyways. T-This place isn't even that hard to figure out either, there's nothing for y-you t-to worry about.”

She smiled, and hugged him without thinking. When she realized what she had done, she pulled away, only to see Rick was blushing and smiling at her.

“You didn’t...mind this time?” Julie asked.

“It’s okay,” Rick replied, his voice sounding gentler and softer than normal. “I..I...I k-k-kinda l-l-liked it...a l-l-litle..” He slowly cupped her cheek with his hand, and Julie leaned into it, her face flushed.

The yyorian sighed. “We need to go Sanchez, it’s urgent.”

Rick rolled his eyes and followed the yyorian, glancing back at Julie one last time before leaving.

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

Julie’s heart was still beating fast from how Rick had been so gentle with her, she figured he was getting used to her touch slowly, and it made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She loved the feel of his rough skin against her, and she longed for it once more. Julie pressed her hand against the cheek Rick had cupped, and sighed in content.

She really wished he was here with her, but still understood he had to leave because of this…‘Vrillon’ person. Julie felt nervous about the whole thing, but she knew Rick could handle himself, he was so strong, powerful, confident and brave after all; plus, there was the whole ‘most dangerous criminal in the galaxy’ thing.

In the meantime, Julie decided to see if she there was a type of refrigerator in here to put their food in. She knew Rick would be happy to know the food he’d been eating earlier hadn’t gone bad, and she hoped to see a smile on his face.

Julie looked around in what appeared to be the kitchen area, when she stumbled upon a silvery-coloured fridge, and when she opened it, was huge and empty inside. She beamed, and went over to the were food was, carrying it over and placing it into the fridge before closing it.

She breathed a sigh of relief, although at the back of her mind she was still a little nervous she might have messed up a little...she really hoped she didn’t..

Now that that was taken care of, Julie was stuck on what to do next. She thought about it a little, a decided on taking a bath. She figured it would do good for the stress she’d be dealing with slightly, and to calm her nerves and worries.

Grabbing the hygiene products she brought with her, Julie looked for the bathroom, and found it, her eyes resting on a large, circular bath.

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

The yyorian led Rick to a desolate-looking building, instantly making him believe something was off, he was glad he’d carried one of his new weapons with him.

When Rick entered the building, accompanied by the yyorian, he was greeted by Vrillon, who had an entourage of some other yyorians with him. Rick narrowed his eyes at him. “What do you want?” His tone clearly showed how annoyed and angry he was.

Vrillon smiled at him. “So I hear you come from the planet Earth, and your girl too, how nice. I once tried to interrupt their tv stations but it didn’t do much. Tell me, how are things going there now?”

“Shut the fuck up and tell me what y-you actually wanted me here for, a-a-and why wasn’t J-Julie allowed to come?”

Vrillon shook his head. “You have quite the temper don’t you? Well I have heard about how violent and destructive you tend to be, so this is no surprise. Anyways...I want to talk the fuel source piece you have.”

“What?” Rick was confused.

“It’s great how you’re fucking over the fyralogins by doing this, and as one of the top members of the Galactic Command, I think it would be useful to take. They know you have it, but if you give it to me, they’ll never know the truth, it’ll trick them.” Vrillon explained.

Rick got even more pissed. “And why should I trust you? I don’t trust any type of government or any of their affiliates either, y-you’re no different.”

Vrillon realized that getting to Rick was going to be harder than he had hoped, he couldn’t have that, and pulled out his gun. “If you don’t give it up, I’ll kill you, and your pretty little girlfriend too.”

That was the last straw, Rick pulled out his gun, and shot Vrillon into nothing but tiny pieces.

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

Julie stripped naked and stepped into the bath, before sinking down into the warm water that now enveloped her. She instantly felt her stress and tension beginning to fade away, feeling much more relaxed and calm.

She felt that it wasn't enough though, she needed a little more to relax her further, and well, considering she was staying with Rick for an indefinite amount of time, Julie knew there might not to be too many chances she could do this.

Julie bit her lip, and let one of her hands trail her down her body, until she reached her sex, and began to stroke it. She used her free hand to caress one of her soft breasts all the while, unable to fight back her moans. Her legs naturally began to spread open as she pleasured herself, her pussy becoming soaked with need.

She then let out a soft moan. “Mmm...Rick..”

When she realized she moaned his name, she surprised herself, but didn't mind at all, considering her growing feelings for him.

A fantasy formed in her mind of Rick stripping naked himself, and joining her in the bath. She began to stroke her pussy again, imagining Rick touching her, fondling her breasts, stroking  her sex with those long thin fingers of his. The thought of him doing that to her, made her more aroused and wet than ever.

She had never really thought of him...sexually before, but now that she had, she couldn't get enough of it, becoming consumed by her desire for him. Julie let out sweet moans, unable to stop thinking about the criminal mad scientist, wanting him with her.

Her mind wandered to thinking about Rick fucking her, taking her roughly while she begged for more. At this, her stroking became faster, and she now had her fingers on her clit. Julie could feel her orgasm coming, and when she did finally cum, she let out Rick’s name on a loud moan.

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

The other yyorians stared in shock as they saw their leader was blown to bits. Rick gave them a menacing look, gun still pointed in the air, waiting.

One of the group members, an orange-colored yyorian named Oran, spoke up. “What do you think you're doing? You can't just kill our leader you asshole!”

Rick sighed, and Oran suffered the same fate as Vrillon. He looked at his gun, contemplating his next move, and deciding he couldn't let the rest of the group live, someone was guaranteed to reveal what Rick had done. With that, he fired at the rest of them, and when it was over, the room, and Rick himself, were splattered with blood.

He groaned, knowing he’d have to clean this mess up and hide the evidence. He quickly teleported to where his inventions were, and picked one up that could do the job. While there, Rick swore he heard distant moaning, but shrugged it off and returned back to the room. There, he removed all traces of blood from the room.

----------

Julie felt so wonderful after her orgasm, and stayed in the bath a little longer, content, before getting up and drying herself off.

It was getting late, so she decided to look for the bedroom, and found it, only to be completely embarrassed to notice there was only one bed, clearly meant for her and Rick to share. Everyone seemed to think they were together, and while it wasn’t true, Julie didn't mind at all that people thought they were. She could only imagine what Rick would think about them having to share a bed.

Julie got up and put on her nightgown, before sitting down on the bed. She laid there, thinking about the man she was growing to love, and desire as well. She remembered the burst of confidence she had gotten when defending Rick from Cyn, and wondered where it came from. Then it hit her, what if Rick’s confidence was rubbing off onto her? The thought of him bringing out the best in her was a pleasant thought, and Julie also noted how filled with joy and happiness she would be with Rick around. Maybe it was true after all..

The bedroom door opened, making Julie put her head up, and turn back to see Rick. She got up and eagerly ran towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You're back!” She shouted happily. “How did...it go with Vrillon?”

Rick chuckled, amused by how enthusiastic she was, and also enjoying her hug, noticing he was becoming less nervous about her touch. “Not good, h-he demanded I give him the fuel source, and when I asked why I should trust him, he threatened me...and you too. I wasn't going to put up with that and so I had to...d-dispose of him and his goons.” He explained.

“Well, I'm just glad to know you're okay.” Julie replied, and looked back at the bed. “By the way, I stored our food in the fridge for you. Also, when I was heading off to sleep, I found they only have one bed, I guess the people here really do think we're together..” She laughed awkwardly.

He was glad to know she had stored their food away for later, but Rick's eyes widened when Julie mentioned there was only one bed. He glimpsed behind her, and saw it was true. “Fuck.” He muttered.

“It's okay, we can still sleep as far away from each other on the bed as possible..” She assured him.

“Y-You're right,” Rick grumbled. “I guess that's what we'll do.”

Julie watched in embarrassment as Rick took off his lab coat, shirt and shoes before heading over to the bed. “Y-Y-You coming?” He asked.

“Right right..of course..” She mumbled, and headed over to the bed with him.

Having him so close was maddening, but she was able to keep herself together. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, she was able to fall asleep eventually.

Rick had also felt the same way, having to share a bed because he didn't tell them that he and Julie weren't actually a couple. He had been consumed by his odd feelings for her, and now was starting to realize those odd feelings could be..love.

Love..bah! If that really was the case, it pissed him off to know he had been so foolish as to allow himself to fall in love with someone.

But...he hadn't been able to help himself...Julie was so kind, beautiful, loving, sweet, gentle, understanding, thoughtful-

No! He needed to stop thinking like this! Love wasn't real, it was just a bunch of bullshit, and so were these new feelings...Rick just had to try and ignore them as best he could.

vrillon is a reference to a tv hijacking on november 26th 1977, i couldn’t help but do it. here’s the hijacking:

i couldn’t help but include the classic fanfic trope of having two characters share a bed, it just made sense, the glorfians think they’re together after all. rick getting the food for him and julie through a portal is a reference to when rick did that for him and ice-t in “get schwifty��.

i tried to find 70s sci-fi art to base the cities and the buildings(including their interior), so i just looked up some futuristic stuff.

the interior of the building julie and rick stay in is based on these:

[lxiewrites]

Pink Bug Drug

“Hey, Lance, you have a visual on Keith?” Pidge asked.

Lance peered through the scope on his sniper rifle, the technology zeroing in on Keith despite being forty feet up an alien tree. Through the dense canopy, he could see the red armor dart in between the sentries posted, dispatching them quickly with little to-do.

He tore off his helmet; sweat matting his black hair to his forehead and neck. Shaking his head, with the help of the scope, he could see every drop of sweat that was flung off of him. Setting his helmet down he took a leather-like strip he got from a planet from a hidden compartment in his armor to tie his hair up, a stumpy little ponytail in the back of his head.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, ye-yeah, I got a visual.”

“You okay there, buddy?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Hunk. Just need some water. This is a very humid planet. Just stay on standby until we need ya.”

“Well, it should be relatively low populated. Whoever was here before must have either gone underground or escaped when the Galra arrived.” Pidge intoned, sounding just like a nature documentary voice over. When he said so he could hear her eye roll over the comms. “Really?”

“Well, I’m not calling it your hacker voice.”

“Uuuggghhhhhh. Shut uuuppp!”

“Guys,” the voice of reason sighed.

“Sorry, Shiro,” they chorused.

Lance cleared his throat again. “Well, it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone here but me and Keith. And a few sentries but they’re dead now.”

“Hmm, okay, just be careful, you too Keith, okay? The scans said the place was abandoned but you can’t be too sure.”

“Uh, yeah, he can’t hear you, he took his helmet off.”

”Goddamnit Keith.”

Lance deactivated the comms and snickered, peering through the scope again he could see the red paladin poking around the sentries that he took down. From the distance, it looked as if he found something, a small jar in a pouch attached to the robots. Keith peered at the tiny creature in the capsule, eyes squinting as he held the jar close to his face, making Lance internally roll his eyes at his actions of putting some weird alien bug-thing near his face. Granted, it was pink and fuzzy, how dangerous could it be? But still, that guy has absolutely no sense of self-preservation. Or fear. Even if he were suspicious of something he’d be the first to test it out to make sure it’s safe. Something that Lance can’t help but admire. Keith was just the type of guy to face anything head-on if it was for the greater good.

Lance allowed a small smile at the thought.  Then a loud guffaw when the little pink bug in the jar escaped, unnaturally squeezing its fuzzy body out of a minuscule opening.

Keith the red paladin. Keith who faced down Zarkon himself. Keith who flung himself out of space on more than one occasion, who does amazing shit on a fucking daily basis… Keith who was afraid of a fuzzy, pink, heart-shaped bug.

He was swatting at air, frantic movements and bending backward dramatically trying to get away from this small pink streak flying around him. Lance mentally willed him to put his helmet back on, like, come on bro.

The little pink bug zoomed right up to Keith’s face; he could hear the faint sound of cursing from his helmet. The bug zipped in between the flailing limbs, its target: Keith’s dumb mullet.

Even without the helmet Lance could hear Keith’s exclamation of, “FUCK!” before he tripped over his helmet and fell down on his ass.

#rekt

Lance waited a bit, waiting for him to get back up and check out the abandoned Galra base…but he didn’t get up from the spongy ground. Lance bit his lip; worry slowly starting to creep in. But he should be fine right? It’s just a dumb bug.

A dumb alien bug that was held caged by Galran sentries whose base was abandoned…

That worry quickly froze over into panic.

“Keith!”

Bayard deactivated, he slid down the rubber-like bark, the texture slowing his process by catching on his armor in an extremely annoying way. He ran as fast as his legs could get him, heart thumping, anxiety building. Goddamn idiot can’t stop poking at random shit. Impatient little fuck, poking at glass containers just because it doesn’t satisfy his curiosity fast enough.

He allowed the grumbling in his mind to continue until he finally made it to where Keith fell. He was still on the ground, one leg resting on top of his helmet but otherwise still. He ran and fell to his knees by his head. “Come on, Samurai, you can’t be taken down by a pink fuzzy wuzzy.” Picking up his head gently he set it on his lap, untying the string holding his hair back to explore his head for any bumps. Threading his fingers through silky black hair.

“I swear to God if you’re pranking me I’m putting goo in your gloves.”

He ran his fingers through his bangs, pushing them out of his face. It seemed to be serene, peaceful, as if he was asleep. That’s what scared him the most. Whenever he looked at him there was some sort of expression on his face, a furrowed brow, a slight quirk of his lips, or even a gentle look like this but… there was always some life. Hell, he’s not even this relaxed when he is sleeping, he seen him drop dead on the couch, he might be sleeping but something was happening in that dumb head of his. This serene, sleeping Keith gave him the heebie geebies. He moved his hand to the underside of his jaw, sliding along the skin to his pulse; he held his breath.

His breath left him with a whoosh. He still has a pulse. Lance dipped his head down, hands still cradling Keith’s head, to check if he was breathing. Small, puffs of air fanned over the bottom of his cheek and jaw, the sound of him breathing barely audible past his helmet.

Okay, so far Keith’s alive, good, check. What the fuck did the bug do to him? Where did he get bit? He removed the hand under Keith’s jaw and turned the comms back on.

“Uh, hey, guys, Keith got bit by a weird alien bug thing and heeeEEE—“

Lance cut off his screech when Keith moved his hand from his cheek to his mouth, eyes closed but face still calm. Slowly, he opened his eyes and Lance screeched again, muffled by Keith’s glove. “EEEEEE UM! His eyffs are bink! Like his pubils! That’s not supbosed to be a ing, sumething’s weird, he’s hoding my fface, I don’t know what’s happening!”

Keith’s pink eyes focused on him, the pink glowing neon before fading to a deep rose. His pupil back to black but the slightest tinge of dark pink right in the center. He blinked a few times, confused. “Lance?”

Lance removed his hand from his mouth, holding it out of the way. “Samurai! Are you okay? I just saw you get wrecked from that bug and you didn’t get back up. Your eyes are pink or were pink pinker than now but I can’t find where the bug got you.”

As Lance continued with his rambling Keith’s face steadily morphed to confusion but strangely not annoyance. “Lance, what the fuck did you just say.”

The boy above him heaved a sigh. “You were bit by a freaky weird alien bug and—it’s in your hair!”

“What?!”

“AHH!”

Keith rolled off Lance’s lap to shake the intruder from his head but Lance was already there with the jar that was abandoned trapping the bug with a few locks of Keith’s hair.

Keith slowly drew the strands out from under the lip and Lance secured the lid on top so no creepy ass bugs did shit.

“Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck, what the fuck,” Lance was about to lift it closer to his face when nope, nope, not that stupid. He just tuned into the voices yelling at him in his ear. “Sorry! Sorry, we’re fine; I got the bug. It’s good, he’s standing.” He looked over at Keith who was just staring at him with a bemused little smile. “I think he’s fine but… yeah, okay, I’ll do my best.” He turned off the comms, orders clear. “We need to get you to the castle.”

An eye scrunched the slightest bit in confusion. “Why? I’m fine.”

Lance locked eyes with him, staring into those normally starry eyes but unerringly focusing on the slight tinge of pink in the center. “Dude, you’ve been attacked by a mysterious alien bug, you need to go to the castle and Coran or something.”

His pink lips hitched up just the tiniest bit on one side. “Lance,” he started, fondness in his voice. “I think I’m fine, I’m up and running with no side effects. We should at least check out the Galra base.”

Lance firmly shook his head. “Don’t think so, buddy.” His muscles tensed, words ready and waiting for whatever argument Keith was going to hit him with.

Except he didn’t, he didn’t say something about him being paranoid or stupid or how the ‘mission is more important,’ he just rolled his eyes and said, “Fine. Okay.”

Keith reached down, scooped up his tie that was dropped in the scuffle and gathered his hair back. Letting Lance finally get a clear view of his face without all the shagginess, showing off a strong jaw that somehow happened, smooth skin achieved purely from genetics and not a rigorous ritual like Lance, and a long pale neck. He bent and grabbed his helmet, and placed it on, the red color only emphasizing the pink in his eyes. “Come on, before they send down the lions.” He strolled by, grabbing Lance’s hand along the way.

Lance stared at their hands, brow furrowed. He looked up at the back of Keith’s helmet. He seemed fine, all motor functions running, no stagger or deathly screams. He pouted and looked back at their hands. That was a little out of place.

Though they were growing closer as a team, and since then everyone got a little cuddlier. Courteous of Hunk and Lance, who were the big huggers, but everyone has gotten more comfortable with physical touch. Even Keith has been the recipient of a few group hugs, but he’s always accepted the hugs and touches, never really initiating.

Lance shook his head. It’s just a hand; it must be Keith’s baby steps. He felt warmth spread through his chest, expanding until he felt like he could take off. He sped his speed up until he wasn’t being dragged but was speed walking just ahead of Keith, still holding hands. He slid a sly grin toward the other boy to be met with raised brows and a grin.

Keith sped up until he was just ahead of Lance, who matched him, which Keith reciprocated, again, again, and again. Until they were both running and racing toward their lions, laughing, trying to beat the other.

Still holding hands.

-

“The scans aren’t showing anything particularly wrong,” Pidge said, adjusting their glasses. A 3-D form of Keith’s body on the holo-screen rotating slowly in front of them, different systems of the body flashing through on the mini-Keith. “Other some bumps from the fall he’s fine.”

“What about the eyes?! Pidge! That can’t be normal!” Lance exclaimed, a tired Keith slumping against his side, not even flinching at the volume.

She flung her arms up in exasperation. “I don’t know! I’m not a space entomologist! That might be the only thing it does, I don’t know!” She spun around and sped through they displays until it landed on one with Keith’s brain and some science mumbo jumbo on the side. “The chemicals in the brain seemed to have changed, I can’t be sure, I’d have to check the last results pre-bug. I should probably examine the bug too.”

“You do that Pidgerino, I’m going to bring this one to his room,” he said gesturing to the sleeping paladin at his side. He brought his arm around his back and turned until they were face to face. Keith’s nose brushed along his cheek and he fought down a blush as he maneuvered him so he was over his shoulder. Hoisting him up like a bag of potatoes, supporting the dead weight lugged over his shoulder with an arm around his back and under his butt, he stood up.

Pidge gave them an odd look, raising her eyebrows almost skeptically at them. She turned toward the monitors and coughed, “Gaaaayyy,” into her fist.

He felt his face heat up and, due to lack of mobility of his arms, stuck his tongue out at her, which she reciprocated.

“Have fun with your ento-what-algist stuff, Pidge!”

“Entomology!”

“Whatever!”

He chuckled when they were out of earshot, adjusting his hold on the lump that is Keith, all the while telling himself that this is completely normal. Like, if he could lift Hunk he would totally do this for him too. It’s a thing that happens, bros supporting bros and all that.

Keith stirred in his sleep the limp arms draped around his shoulders tighten and he snuggles his face closer into the crook of Lance’s neck. “Mmm, Lance,” he mumbled.

Lance’s heart hummed. He hugged him close and hid his smile in the sleeping paladin’s shoulder. He’s really too cute for words.

-

They were at the dinner table, poking at their green goo. Shiro doesn’t like to have ‘shop talk’ at the dinner table, saying they needed to have a break from that part of their lives but let’s be honest, what else are they really going to talk about? Oh, Lance found some more Atlean skin care while nosing around the castle? Pidge got past level 5 on the learning Altean module with minimal battles? Their lives practically revolve around this, kinda impossible to find non-Voltron or mission-related stuff to talk about. But there’s an effort!!!

“So, I’m thinking the Galra just bailed on this planet. There’s like nothing here man.”

“Lance,” Shiro warned, “no paladin talk at the table.”

He raised his hands up in ‘what?’ gesture. “Shiro, it’s not like it’s that bad, no one was there but a few sentries. Other than the bug nothing seemed aggressive.”

“I actually agree with Lance,” Pidge said, she held up a hand to stave off whatever Lance was going to say. “Trust me, I was surprised too. But I think that they might have left because there weren’t really any resources on this planet? The planet was very low on quintessence.”

“They could’ve left because they didn’t want to be on a planet with homicidal bugs, like, that’s an option.” Hunk pointed out.

“Hunk,” Pidge sighed, “The bug is perfectly harmless.”

“Who knows Pidge! This bug might have done something to our buddy Keith without us knowing!”

“Hunk,” Allura reassured, “I’m sure if there was something wrong either Pidge or Coran would find it.”

“Don’t you worry, Hunk! I have an entire Altean library on the various strange and beautiful creatures of the known universe 10,000 years ago! I’ll find it soon enough”

“Yes, but does anyone know what that bug might do?”

“You know, this is why I don’t want mission talk at the table.” Shiro intoned. “There are a time and place for these things.”

Pidge snorted and raised her brow the way she does before she says something snarky when the doors opened to reveal a tired and grumpy Keith.

“Hey, Mullet, back from the dead?” Maybe he was being paranoid. Pidge’s probably right, she’s usually right. The weird thing with his eyes might be the only thing that affects him. Just a pigmentation of the eyes, nothing to freak out about. Keith’s fine, Lance was fine, it’s cool.

Keith grumbled and plopped down on Lance’s lap and started to eat his goo.

Everything’s fine.

Ignoring the new weight he reached around the grumpy kitten to grab at his spork. “Hey! That’s mine! Get your own, Keith.”

Keith guarded the food close to his chest, curling his body around it to protect it from Lance’s flailing arms before turning around and shoving a spoonful into his complaining mouth.

Lance reluctantly chewed as his heart sped up. Quite honestly, in all scientific aspects… what the fuck. Nono, nono, he’s just trying to get more comfortable with the team. It’s perfectly reasonable for him to sit on his lap. Lance lounges on Hunk all the time; it’s basically the same, right? Right. It’s Keith, but it’s the same.

Lance felt eyes on him. He looked up to see the rest of the team openly gaping at them, expressions varying between baffled to shocked to completely and utterly weirded out.

Coran broke first, coughing into his fist. “I’ll, uh, I think I shall go check on some books of fauna. See what that little bugger is.”

Pidge’s chair squeaked as she ran to follow a quick, “Me too,” left in her wake.

The rest of the team more or less stared at them and each other. “Uh, buddy?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, bro?”

“There something you want to tell us?”

Lance inhaled deeply through his nose, the smell of the shampoo he convinced Keith to buy filling his lungs. “Not really?”

“O-oh, okay.” Hunk pouted and looked to Shiro who looked like he was trying to mentally communicate to Keith. Allura, as well, was studying the two; he could see the gears in her head turning.

“Hey, Keith, do you want to spar?”

He looked at him, a weird look on his face. “Right now?”

Shiro shrugged. “Why not?” He got up and gestured in the direction of the training rooms.

Keith placed the bowl, only a few spoonfuls left, back onto the table and slowly got off Lance’s lap. “I guess.” He prolonged the contact as long as he could, staying near his side until he finally left with a final pat on Lance’s shoulder.

When the door slid shut it was like it vacuumed the air in the room shut, tense and aware like the air in a sealed pop bottle.

Hunk popped the seal, fresh air breathed into the room. “Okay, is it just me or was that weird?”

“It was…definitely out of character.” Allura said; she had a slight pout on her lips as she thought. “He seems…friendlier.”

Lance shrugged. “It’s Keith, I think it’s his way of trying to be more touchy.” Hunk looked at him for an uncomfortable amount of time. He couldn’t help but squirm in his seat, darting looks between him and Allura. “What?”

“By sitting in your lap?”

“Uhhh, it’s Keith? The guy is, like, all or nothing.”

Allura settled her forearms on the table. “You have to admit, Lance. It is quite odd for Keith.”

Lance shrugged and got up from the table. “Character development. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Taking the scenic route to his room he walked past the training deck, door closed, and battle cries heard. He paused in front of the doors. He should probably say goodnight. He poked his head through the doors. Shiro and Keith were so focused on their sparring they didn’t notice the door opening. Shiro had Keith on the defensive with his Galra arm, blocking any attacks Keith tried with his sword and aiming for weak spots in his defense.

Keith finally broke through with a well-timed parry and finally had Shiro on the defensive, his sword a red blur around him. His eyes were laser focused on his opponent; breaths labored as sparks flew off of his sword and Shiro’s prosthetic. For one moment Lance allowed himself to appreciate how graceful Keith looked fighting. Like his bayard was just an extension of him. He’s really just watching to learn how to fight in close combat better. Just watching his form and ferocity, the fact that Keith’s beautiful has nothing to do with it.

He sighed.

For a brief moment, Keith’s eyes flickered to him, eyes widening in surprise, before turning his head and smiling at him. In that moment Shiro took advantage his loss of focus. He lunged forward, grabbing Keith’s still sword with his tech arm and yanking it from his grip before tackling him to the ground, human hand to his throat.

“Keith! You lost focus! What the hell… oh, hey, Lance.” He looked back at Keith with a knowing look, before Keith hit him in the face with an open palm, surprising him but not overtly hurting him. Enough to get him off of him.

Keith scrambled off of the floor while Shiro stayed on the floor moving to sit like a little kid. “Hey, Lance, need anything?” Keith asked, running a hand through his hair.

“Just wanted to stop by to say ‘night.” He waved at the both of them with a cheerful smile. Keith smiled little before nodding and looking off to the side while Shiro waved back.

Keith walked over to Shiro and helped him up, arm flexing to get the bigger man off the ground. “If you need anything just holler. Night, Lance.”

He saluted before leaving before he got too far Keith was in the doorway calling out, “Do you want to spar with me tomorrow?”

Lance's feet stumbled across themselves before he turned around and walked backward, hands in his pockets, and a smile stretching his mouth. “Sounds good! See you then!” He waited until the doors closed to sprint back to his room, unable to contain his smile.

-

“Okay, buddy, just keep your eyes on me, not your feet.” Lance encouraged, pushing and pulling their arms, twisting both their bodies. One shoulder going back, then the other, and forward. He laughed when Hunk tripped over his feet to get out of the way for Lance’s.

“Dude! Slow down!”

“Come on, Hunk! You told me you wanted to dance at the next ball thing!” Lance said with a grin.

“Uh, I’m not sure if you noticed, Lance, but I’m pretty stable on the ground.” Hunk looked down at his feet again, making sure he wasn’t stepping on what shouldn’t be stepped on, i.e. Lance’s feet.

Pidge threw some pen-thing that she found, it also does a weird glowing thing but it hasn’t blown up yet, at Lance. Who made some sort of ridiculous sound before karate-chopping it away from him. “We’re not even going to be dancing this fast with this ridiculous footwork Lance. It’s going to be waltzing or some alien dance or something, ya dork.”

Lance released Hunk and made grabby hands to Pidge. “Come on then, Pidge, if you talk the talk you gotta dance the walk.”

She rolled her eyes but made their way over, avoiding Hunk who sprinted to switch places with them. She held out her hands and allowed Lance to pull them into a dance. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

”You don’t make sense.”

They spun around a few times, Lance getting bored with how Pidge kept up with his fancy foot movements and started to just fling her around everywhere just to hear her screech and laugh. Hunk eventually joined in, catching Pidge by the ankles, trying in vain to rescue her. The rescue ended up with the three of them spinning around in a circle until they fell in a heap.

Which is how Coran found them, alien encyclopedia in hand.

“Ah, I see you three are all bonding quite nicely, keep up the good work! Pidge! If you could, please bring up Keith’s profile before and after the bug incident.”

Pidge looked up from where her head was resting on Lance’s stomach. “Uh, okay,” She rolled until her socked feet were in Hunk’s face, who maybe or maybe-not pretended to gag. She shot him a dirty look and went to her computer, which is never too far from her person, and brought up Keith’s health stats.

Coran and the two boys crowded around her. “Hmm, excellent,” Coran hummed, stroking his mustache. “Now, if you could bring up the chemical and hormone stats.”

She did. “What’s this about Coran? The only difference is a slight increase in some chemicals and neurotransmitters that aren’t doing anything harmful. If anything it’s making him happier. HUNK! Stop touching my equipment!”

Hunk retreated his hands with a frown, but then his eyes widened with shock and worry. “Oh man, oh man, I hope that Keith didn’t get on some sort of space drug man.”

Coran flapped a hand at him. “Don’t be a newborn yalmor, of course not. It’s a diligitis cimex, otherwise known as a love bug. If you look at the chemicals you can see that it’s the chemicals serotonin, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and dopamine that’s been increased.” He clicked between the two charts despite Pidge’s squawking. “Hmm, or maybe not…” He looked back at the encyclopedia and back at the charts.

Pidge had enough and pushed him out of her personal space and reclaimed control over her computer. “This is what I was talking about. There’s no real difference, whatever difference there is between amounts of the chemicals aren’t significant. There’s some but not enough to warrant its effect of the bug and not just, oh, I don’t know, having his older brother back?”

Coran waved his pointer finger around in the air, punctuating his sentences. “But I swear on the name of King Groggery the Infirm that this is the diligitis cimex!” His mustache twitched in irritation as he crossed his arms, still holding onto his massive text.

Lance shrugged, stood up and arched his spine in a curve until the pops made Hunk wince. “Well, he’s not acting that much different. I think I—we—would’ve noticed. Maybe the venom doesn’t work on him because he’s part Galra?”

Shrugs and looks around. Hunk’s face scrunched up in his thinking face until his eyes popped open, Lance could almost see the light bulb above his head. His best friend turned to squint at him and looked at Pidge, silently communicating something. Pidge must’ve caught on to something and started scrutinizing him. Then Coran joined, but Lance suspects he doesn’t really know their silent communication.

He placed his hands on his hips. “Care to share with the class?”

“Mmm, not yet, it’s just a theory,” Hunk said.

“Correction, science headcannon,” Pidge corrected.

Hunk nodded at her. “Yes, thank you Pidge. A science headcannon.”

Lance rolled his eyes, leaned back on his heels to the tipping point before swiveling on his heel and walking to the doors. “Well if you care to share,” he said over his shoulder, “I’ll be in the training room.”

-

Lance lost track how many times he ended up on the floor.

He opened his eyes to see Keith hovering above him, backlighted by the bright lights of the training room. His shaggy hair tickled his face, the rosemary-mint smell swirling around him; he could see the repressed smirk on Keith’s lips. “Had enough, McClain?” Keith asked, reaching down to lift him up.

Lanced hopped up, bouncing a bit in place. “Oh, please, Lance McClain? Had enough? Never, gimme all you got, Samurai.”

Keith scoffed but resumed fighting stance, no weapons, but hands still deadly. Lance brought his dominant leg back and lowered his center of gravity. He got a few good hits, dodged a few hits that would’ve sent him on his ass again, but he left himself open and Keith already grabbed his arm and had him on the ground, no breath in his lungs.

He let go of the arm he was still holding and sat down next to him, leaning on him, arm braced on his chest casually. “You’re getting better,” he remarked.

“Really?” Lance coughed out, he held up a thumbs up before flopping it back down. “Good to know I’m not completely horrible.”

“Hey,” Keith poked him in the side. “If you had your gun I’d be down. This is to make sure you’re still alive if you don’t have it.”

Lance closed his eyes and laughed, breathless, but for a different reason. “If you’re there then I think I’d be fine.”

…

His face burned at the received silence. He risked a look. Keith was staring intently at him, pink in his eyes glowing bright before fading darker than before. What was a deep rose in his pupils was so dark it was barely noticeable unless looked for. “Yeah,” Keith said, hushed, “I got your back.”

His heart was a hummingbird in his chest, no longer beating but just a comforting thrum. He held up his arm, hand open, an offer.

Keith grasped his hand, tight and secure.

“And I got yours,” Lance said with a smile.

-

It was a little strange. The bug bite didn’t seem to do anything. Keith was Keith, nothing weird, he didn’t start to fart rainbows or speak in alien languages or start any strange behavior. The only difference was the dull pink in his eyes that faded by the day. And that he made a better effort in actually being a part of the team.

He was there giving out awkward hugs, or sitting close, or even going as far as to hold hands. It was more common for him to touch shoulders or arms to get someone’s attention but having Keith’s warmth at his side during movie night was one of the best feelings ever.

Pidge didn’t make a comment on the possible change or side effects in Keith except that Coran said whatever side effects from the bug should fade after a few days. Though, he did see a couple of looks exchanged between Hunk and Pidge as the week progressed. Their silent communication through a twitch of the eyebrow or the slightest purse of lips irritating him, but not for long when Keith would touch his elbow and ask him if he wanted to work on close combat.

It was during movie night the pink finally disappeared. They were watching a strange action-packed movie with several alien animals and well-placed explosions with a background story of what seemed to be romance between a yelmor herder and a merchant. Most of the time these Altean movies make no sense to them, Allura and Coran would try to explain but… still didn’t make sense.

Pidge was on the floor like the little gremlin she is, on her computer even as she pays a quarter of her attention to the movie, leaning against Hunk’s legs as he ate his space popcorn he made. Hunk was avidly watching gleefully laughing when anything of semblance of a joke came on. Particularly the physical humor, that translates well enough, but only Allura and Coran laughed at the context humor. They were on the other side of the couch, reminiscing, their smiles wistful and a little sad. Shiro was just passed out, thirty minutes into the movie and Space Dad was dead asleep.

Keith was sitting right next to him, a warm heater of a human being leaning against his side. He leaned back, resting his head on top of that mop of fluffy hair. The head under his cheek shifted until a nose was right under his ear and lips brushed the edge of his jaw.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” he whispered.

He tilted his head down the slightest bit, those lips brushing the skin next to his lips. He pursed his lips, heart humming away. “Neither do I.”

The soft huff of laughter kissed his lips.

Lance turned back to the movie; face hot. He cleared his throat and tilted his head to the side, mouth a safe distance away, but his hushed tone could still be heard. “I think the woman there is, like, a princess disguised as a herder thing and she’s fallen in love with this one dude that sells these orb things.”

“Then what’s with the explosions and the frog thing?”

“Uhh, maybe the frog thing likes to explode?”

Another huff of laughter and shifted until his side lined up with Lance’s resting his cheek against his shoulder, arm wrapped around his. Lance couldn’t help but lean into his heat. A few more minutes of watching in confusion, gentle blue light flickering, listening to Hunk’s laughs, Pidge’s typing, Allura’s faint chuckles, Coran’s hums, and Shiro’s soft snores.

It was a rare moment of peace.

“Hey, Lance,” Keith whispered.

“Yeah?”

His head tilted up and Lance could see the vibrant pink in his eyes. “I really like you.” Then the pink faded to nothingness.

Lance felt his breath stall in his chest when it did come out it was hoarse. “I really like you too, Keith.”

Keith’s eyes widened and pink swept up his face to his ears. He fidgeted in his seat, adding some space between their bodies. Lance shuddered, his side cold where Keith left it. “What? You-you what?”

Lance felt the rest of him go cold. “I, uh, like you?” The statement he felt with his entire being sounded like a question.

“Oh,” Keith’s thumb ran over his knuckles. “I-I guess I do too?”

Lance was…very confused at this point. “O-okay?”

Keith slowly leaned back into him, stiffer than before, spine unyielding. Lance cautiously put his arm around Keith, snuggling him into his side, gradually warming up again.

By the time the movie ended Keith’s spine was relaxed and he was asleep.

-

Somehow it seemed that they’ve gone backward into their relationship as they advanced. They awkwardly became boyfriends but the casual hugs and the ease were replaced with hesitancy and tentative touches at the elbow. The got their groove back when they sparred or stopped thinking so hard, relying on their own instincts. Gave into the instincts of sitting on each other’s laps or holding the other close secrets whispered against skin.

They were hanging out with their lions when Pidge came in asking if they could borrow Keith. Keith so easily abandoned his wonderful boyfriend to follow the glasses gremlin. Lance followed because, hey, it’s not like he had anything better to do.

After a quick scan, she puttered around on the computer while Keith finally let Lance play with his hair after incessant prods to his side. Lance behind him was working on French braiding Keith’s bangs out of his face.

“Huh,” Pidge said. “That’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting, Pidgey?” Lance asked, not even looking up from his work.

“It seems like the levels of chemicals in Keith’s brain went down.” She scooched around to face them, simultaneously bringing up several 3-D Keith on the holo-monitor. Two became enlarged, the others moving to the back as the three took center stage.

“These are Keith shortly before the bug attack, right after the bug attack, and literally twenty minutes ago.” She pointed to the bar chart next to them. “It seems that there was a jump of these chemicals, basically love chemicals.” She sent them a sly look that was ignored. “But, it seemed like a natural progression, so it didn’t seem like it affected Keith, or at least to the point that was explained to Coran. It might be because he’s part Galra or something else, who knows.” She pointed to the most recent one. “But, the chemicals here are lower than the love bug one, which might as well prove that, hey, it did affect him on a level, but it’s not as low as it was pre-bug.” She sent them another sly smile, the light glinting off of her glasses. “So, science headcannon confirmed.”

She jumped up and rushed out the doors. “See you gays later!”

Lance looked at Keith and back at the holos before looking at him again. He reached out to smooth his furrowed brow. “So, uh, wanna talk about that? Because I was under the impression that we were together because we were together and not because of a bug.” Lance was all too aware of the high-pitched tone his voice took.

Keith’s brow wrinkled despite the soothing ministrations of his boyfriend. “I,” he started, “I remember everything, but it felt different.” He leaned into the strokes across his forehead and over his hair. “Like, I looked at you and just felt so secure. I liked you before but it was like all of that uncertainty of liking you was gone and you liked me back. It was if we’d been together for years, so when I told you I liked it you, it was the best goddamned feeling ever. Every time we’d been together it was just proof that we were together and I told you I liked you like I had the right to and it was amazing until it devolved into what the fuck did I just say.” He shook his hands on either side of his face, voice cracking at the memory.

“But I said I liked you back.”

Keith dropped his hands and smiled. “Yeah, you did.” He threaded his hand with Lance’s free one. Lance dropped his forehead to Keith’s, feeling his breath fanning across his face.

“I really hope you’ll feel that secure again. We’ll get there.” He playfully glared at him. “I’ll make you so secure and deliriously happy it’ll feel like you’re on some pink bug drug.”

Keith burst out laughing. “How romantic.” He squeezed his hand. “Same though, I’ll make sure you feel like you’re on some pink bug drug.”

They giggled as they went off to try to find an Altean movie they could possibly understand.

Ao3

[bmaxwell]

Best Games of 2020

2020 was a lot. It will be remembered for many things far above and beyond video games. COVID-19 shut the world down in a way never seen in my lifetime. It changed day to day life for many of us, and cost many of us loved ones. It was also the year when the ugly parts of our capitalist society were shown in broad daylight. It feels like 2001 again in that our lives will be divided into pre-2020 and post-2020.

For me personally, I was able to keep my job and work from home, and no one close to us died to the pandemic. We stayed home as much as possible, wore masks, wiped down groceries, and did our best to control what we could. It can be hard to talk about stuff like video games and sports with the usual sort of fervor when the world feels like it’s falling apart around us. It feels like playing the violin aboard the Titanic. But self-care is especially important in times like these, and it’s healthy and necessary to close Twitter, or for-the-love-of-god fucking Facebook and get a breather sometimes. Finding a balance where I could stay informed without completely submerging myself in misery wasn’t always easy. 

And so. 2020 was a pretty good year for games, though it must be noted that there is a cost to that escapism - the industry is rife with stories of abuse, burnout, and coverups from companies such as Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red, Naughty Dog, and many others. That can add an additional layer of exhaustion to what is supposed to be a relaxing escape. So I can understand the people who say they don’t want to hear about abuse in industry, they just want the games. But also, fuck those people. “I don’t care if you suffer to entertain me, I just don’t want to hear about it.” Fuck the whole entire way off.

But I digress. Like most years, I played a lot of games. I played a lot of coop beat-em-ups with my kids this year. Minecraft Dungeons and Streets of Rage 4 didn’t make the list, but I spent hours playing them with my middle child. And it wasn’t a 2020 release, but I had a blast playing River City Girls with firstborn. It was a good year for fans of tactics games with stuff like Gears Tactics, Troubleshooter, Wintermoor Tactics Club, and Fae Tactics. 2020 also saw new console releases, though the launch lineups were especially thin. 

Gaming-wise, 2020 was the year of Xbox Game Pass for me. I spent most of this console generation (justifiably) dogging Xbox for their lack of platform exclusives, but I decided to pursue an Xbox Series X before a Playstation 5. Game Pass is the main reason for this. The “Netflix for games” thing has finally become a reality, and Sony just doesn’t have an answer for the bonkers value of Game Pass. We head into the new console generation with Microsoft leaning heavily on Game Pass subs, Sony still banking on a few console exclusives, and Nintendo, uh, doing their own thing over there. What a fascinating time for the industry.

Honorable Mention

It’s an honor just to be nominated.

Monster Sanctuary

If you start with Pokemon, strip away the anime, and mix in a healthy dose of metroidvania, you have Monster Sanctuary. This means there are monsters to collect, level, and evolve, and lots of combat revolving around elemental strengths and weaknesses. And I am here for that shit. A game like this lives and dies by its combat, and it’s very satisfying here. The game has plenty of choices about which skills to focus on for each monster, which gear to equip, and which monsters to keep in your active roster.

That said, between a couple of nasty difficulty spikes and some super-frustrating puzzle rooms, I was close to walking away from the game on multiple occasions. It’s a testament to the game’s quality that I kept coming back to it.

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is one of my favorite games ever.  Each game in the series since the first has felt like a small incremental change from the original. I played Wild World on the DS quite a bit, City Folk a bit less, and A New Leaf not at all. I was thinking that maybe enough time has passed that I could get wrapped up in New Horizons, but I fell off it after a month or two. 

I’m wondering what I would want from a new Animal Crossing game, and the answer is nothing. How much can you change the game and still have it be Animal Crossing? I don’t think the game is bad by any means. My whole family shared an island community for a couple of months. It’s impossible for a new game in the series make me feel the way that first game did. 

The most memorable part of New Horizons is the museum. The museum is huge and absolutely lovely, with fish, bugs, fossils, and art each having their own wing. There were a few nights where the tranquility of the museum made for a nice end of the day.

Tell Me Why

My wife, firstborn, and myself have made a nice routine of playing through “choices matter” games together (starting last year with Detroit Become Human and following up with Life is Strange 2). Tell Me Why is the latest one one of these we tackled as a group. These game have created some memorable moments for us; who could forget their child yelling for them to “shoot the hooker”? (thank you, Detroit Become Human). 

Tell Me Why was on my radar because it’s One of These, but also because it features a transgender protagonist. As a parent of a trans child, I was both excited at the prospect of this and also worried that it is such an easy thing to fumble. I’m pleased to report that DONTNOD handled the writing of the trans person very well without being hamfisted, preachy, or tryhardy with it. The character of Tyler is a believable trans man, and the topic is spoken of matter-of-factly without placing special focus on it; being trans is a part of Tyler’s story, but it’s not the entirety of his identity.  

Less impressive to me was the story itself - especially the way it wrapped up its main conflict. The game trades in the idea of memory being imperfect, which is fascinating in and of itself, but I did not like it as a game mechanism. How did this REALLY happen? One character remembers it one way, and the other remembers it differently. Choosing between them felt cheap and hollow to me; I want you to tell me what happened, don’t ask me to choose. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game, and it feels like a step forward in mainstream storytelling for LGBTQA characters.

Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima is flat out gorgeous. Practically every area and every moment in the game is begging to screenshotted to the point where it can sometimes pull me out of the game world a little bit. That’s not necessarily a complaint because, as I said, the game is freaking beautiful. But every part of the world looking like a painting makes it feel more like it takes place in a fantasy world and less like a game from feudal Japan. 

I also had some ludonarrative dissonance going on with the game; you play as Jin, one of the few surviving samurai in his homeland which has been invaded by the Mongols. His uncle is being held prisoner, and combatting the occupying force would be impossible without using dishonorable techniques like hiding, attacking from a distance, and ambushing from the shadows. I, however, have no qualms and savored every opportunity to catch my foes unaware. So Jin voices his doubts, then goes into a camp and proceeds to cut his enemies down from shadows as I cackle with glee.

Ghost of Tsushima also combines dark souls-esque* combat with Ubisoft-style open world gameplay where you’re hunting down icons on a map. That kind of open world game is hard for me top stick with, especially after I spent ~30 hours with Assassin’s Creed Origins early in the year. All of makes it sound like I’m pretty down on Ghost of Tsushima, which I’m not. I’m hoping I’ll come back to it at some point when I have more of an appetite for One of These. 

Crown Trick

My Dungeons of Dredmor hole has not been properly filled in a long time. Chcocobo’s Mystery Dungeon is the closest I think. These games are what I think of as roguelikes, though the progression between runs makes them roguelites. *tips fedora*

Crown Trick is a turn-based dungeon crawler where the map is a grid, and each time you act, the enemies act. Add to this clockwork puzzle gameplay a good variety of weapons, relics, and events and you’ve got a lot of replayability. It doesn’t have Dredmor’s ridiculous combination of skill classes, but it does have a neat Mega Man-esque system where you defeat minibosses and add their skill set to your build.

Top 10

10. Star Renegades

Star Renegades was not on my radar at all until I heard Austin Walker talk about the game on Waypoint Radio. Two things gave me pause:

- It’s a sci-fi-ass game. It’s a setting I don’t care for. Star destroyers and aliens and galactic battlecruisers aren’t my jam. - Austin Walker’s enthusiasm is infectious. I’ve tried games after hearing him gush over them and those games haven’t worked for me.** That’s not an indictment, he and I just have different tastes.

Star Renegades ticks a few important boxes for me: it has a lot of characters to unlock, it’s highly customizable, and the combat is turn-based with a twist. Every action, whether friend or foe, appears on a timeline. Some attacks will push their target’s action back on the timeline, so there’s a puzzle element to the combat that keeps it feeling fresh. You can choose the makeup of your party on each run, which helped give the game a buttload of replay value.

It’s not flawless by any means. The writing tries a little too hard to be cheeky and ends up feeling tryhardy and a little flat. A decent run in the game would often take 2-3 hours, which makes it feel deflating when it ends in failure - which it frequently did. The sections of the game where you move between zones on an overhead map feels needlessly clunky, and sometimes I ended up with movement points I couldn’t spend because of how the game handles that system.

I enjoyed Star Renegades a lot, but my time with it was weird. The game has unlockable characters, so unlocking them all was my first priority. The game’s runs are pretty long, I was playing sub-optimally trying to unlock things, and the game is more difficult than I’d expected. It took me a long time to complete the unlocks, then I had a hard time actually finishing a run successfully. Eventually I was ready to be done with it and turned the difficulty down to easy**** just to finally get a W. Still, the positives far outweigh the negative here, and Star Renegades is one of my favorite games of 2020.

9. Immortals Fenyx Rising

Man, something happened to me this December. I’m currently finding myself playing a lot of Forza Horizon 4, Destiny 2, and Immortals Fenyx Rising. None of these is My Kind of Game. Immortals is probably the least surprising of these, because it at least has swords and bows and stuff. 

Still, I dismissed and mocked Immortals Fenyx Rising when it was first shown. It was called Gods & Monsters back then, and the idea of Ubisoft making yet another open world game, this time aping Breath of Wild was not appealing at all. I only ended up with the game after trading in Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox credit and looking into Immortals because I was very surprised to see it on Game Informer’s game of the year list.

To get a few things out of the way, it absolutely recycles a lot from Breath of the Wild: you’ll be hang gliding, scaling walls as a stamina meter drains, finding shrines that contain puzzles and combat and climbing towers to get a vantage point and find points of interest on the map. The latter feels the most fumbled in this game  - you can zoom in and survey the landscape, and your controller vibrates when you are looking near a point of interest. Move the cursor over it and press a button to reveal it on the map. They split the difference between Assassin’s Creed’s “all the icons pop in automatically” and Zelda’s wonderful “manually mark places that look interesting to you on your map” system and ended up with something neither functional nor interesting. 

That’s where my complaints end though. The game’s art style is similar at a glance, but it’s vibrant and gorgeous, and never feels like Breath of the Wild. The combat is snappy, responsive, and challenging. The puzzle design is often creative, clever, and rarely frustrating; most of my frustration has come from my overthinking the puzzle solutions. There is plenty of gear to find, and the game’s cosmetic options are intuitive and welcome. The game’s narrative is better than I expected;  it feels like a B-tier Disney movie. The writing has made me smile a few times, and made me roll my eyes a few times. Zeus as comic relief is a pretty major miss, but it’s fine apart from that. It helps that I’m already familiar with Greek mythology. 

It’s a huge, beautiful world where traversal and combat feel great. It’s sometimes hard to get anything done because I am constantly distracted by tracking down an icon on the map, or just exploring because I saw something cool or strange. Not all of the puzzles and challenges work, but that’s okay because I can move onto something else. Immortals Fenyx Rising is this year’s Dragon Quest Builders 2: gaming comfort food where it feels good to sit back and check things off a list at the end of a long day. Still don’t like the name though. And fuck Ubisoft.

8. Atomicrops

The first mention of Atomicrops I remember was “What if Stardew Valley was a twin stick shooter?” which is bullshit, because the games bear no resemblance beyond “there’s farming”. Beyond that first blurb, what appealed to me is the idea that the game’s days take place in 2 phases: during the daytime, you go out and fight baddies to gather seeds, and at night the baddies invade your farm and you fight them off while planting and watering crops.

It’s also a run-based roguelike, and I am 1 of 26 remaining people who is still psyched to play those. Give me a challenge, mix up the details, let me upgrade stuff between sessions, and turn me loose. The game has a good variety of weapons and the challenge is satisfying and rarely feels unfair (apart from the bullet hell problem of too much stuff on the screen at times). I don’t love the art style, but the music sure makes up for it.

7. Wintermoor Tactics Club

A game needs more than charm to be memorable and enjoyable. Charm can go a long way though, and Wintermoor Tactics club has it in spades. It takes place at a small college, and you play as a girl named Alicia. She and her friends are members of the school’s tactics club, and much of the game takes place around a table littered with graph paper, rulebooks, and snacks. As someone who loved tabletop RPG’s in simpler times, and never had the traditional college experience, a prettied-up version of that appeals to me in a huge way. It’s not wholly idyllic though, and it touches on issues of discrimination and what it’s like to be an outcast.

The gameplay itself is pretty straightforward tactics stuff and it works fine but isn’t really the draw here. I was propelled through the game largely by a desire to meet the next character, get the next story bit, and keep basking in the game’s wonderful aesthetic and smart writing. There’s something lovely about sitting around the table and playing a game with friends, and this game really captures that.

6. Ratropolis

Ratrpolis is “A fusion of roguelite, tower defense, city-building, and deck-building!” which sounds like a hodgepodge of nonsense. And it kind of is. It’s a city building game where you are periodically being invaded from either the left or right side of the screen (or both). You choose from 6 leaders, each with their own pool of cards and play style, start with a basic deck of cards and slowly evolve it. The cards consist of buildings, military units, and various economic and military buffs. The major things that set this apart from favorites like Slay the Spire are that it happens in real time, and there is an economic aspect to manage. Tax money comes in every few seconds, and it’s possible to make poor decisions early on and not understand why you feel hamstrung later.

I spent a lot of games like that, not really understanding why I’d be doing okay and then get overwhelmed. I had a few rage quits early on, but I could tell that there was something there. I started approaching it with the mindset of building an economic engine in the early game, and I started having a lot more fun and success. Each of the 6 leaders feels distinct, and figuring them each out has been a lot of fun. Runs are usually no more than about 30 minutes, which feels about right.

5. Final Fantasy VII Remake

Despite identifying as a big JRPG fan, I’ve never enjoyed a mainline Final Fantasy game enough to finish it. This year I finished 2 of them: Final Fantasy XV and the Final Fantasy VII Remake.*** I played the original Playstation Final Fantasy VII release, I think I got through disc 1 and a little ways into disc 2. It didn’t resonate with me, so I came to this year’s remake with no reverence for the game. When many of the original game’s fans got upset with how much the remake changed the script from the source material, I didn’t have a horse in that race.

The remake is gorgeous, the combat and upgrade systems are engaging, and the story is interesting enough to keep me wanting to see what’s next. The 1997 release of the game had some stuff that isn’t going to play the same in 2020 like the scene where Cloud is crossdressing, the game’s themes of environmental activism, and, uh, the entire Don Corneo storyline come to mind. But the game handled all of this pretty well. I’m glad to say that this is one of the best RPG’s I played this year, and I look forward to the next entry whenever the hell it comes along. Cloud is still an unlikable punk though.

4. Monster Train

Slay the Spire was a surprise hit a couple of years ago, and inspired a lot of folks in the indie space to take a crack at the deckbuilding genre. Monster Train managed to to take inspirations from Slay the Spire but still feels like very much its own thing. Both games have you progressing through a series of encounters consisting of battles, shops, or small events trying to defeat the big bad at the end of a journey. You start with a deck of basic cards and upgrade them and add new cards along to way. You can’t really start a run planning on making a certain style of deck, you just choose from the cards available and watch the strategy form. The way this process tickles my brain makes these games endlessly replayable. The “one more run” is very strong here.

Monster Train differentiates itself in a couple of ways. First, where Slay the Spire was always just your one character battling one or more enemies, here you are summoning multiple creatures on the lower 3 levels of a 4-level train (I don’t know either). If the enemies reach the top floor of your train, they attack your core directly and eventually defeat you. This adds a strong spatial planning element - now you’re thinking about which combatants you want on each floor, and in what order.

The other notable difference between the games is that while Slay the Spire has four heroes, each with their own unique pool of cards, Monster Train has five factions. It’s one better. The first three factions feel pretty standard from a creativity point of view - red/green/blue are fire/nature/ice. The last two factions you unlock feel wholly unique though: there’s a faction that summons weak, cheap units and feeds on them for combat bonuses, and one that is made of candle beings who are powerful, but melt away. Okay, the real reason is that each time you play, you’re choosing a main faction (each has 2 champions to use from) and a secondary faction (you don’t get their champion, but you get access to their pool of cards). This makes each run feel unique and makes the game feel endlessly replayable. Even after unlocking all of the factions and their cards, and winning a run on the hardest challenge setting with each faction, I’m still playing Monster Train.

3. Spiritfarer

If Kentucky Route Zero is my “It’s Not You, It’s Me” game this year, Spiritfarer might be my “Love at First Sight” game of the year. The game’s striking visuals grabbed my attention immediately when I first saw the trailer at E3 2019, and it was billed as a game about saying goodbye. My only reservation was that it was coming from Thunder Lotus Games, whose previous titles (Jotun and Sundered) both fell flat for me.

Spiritfarer ended up being everything I was hoping for. You play as the newly-appointed ferryperson for the boat that transports souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Your ship acts as your base of operations, and you build living quarters, a kitchen, a forge, and lots of other facilities on it. The beings who join you on your ship are anthropomorphized animals, each with their own story. Your job is to help them be at peace, then send them to the next life once they’re ready. 

In practical terms, you’re spending a lot of your time sailing from island to island to talk to people and find resources. There’s a plenty of crafting and time sinks in the game, and I appreciated the excuse to luxuriate in this game world. No game made me cry this year, but Spiritfarer (Alice’s story in particular) sure did try. It was the perfect respite for the nightmare that was 2020.

2. Yakuza: Like a Dragon

A lot of Yakuza fans were concerned over this game’s switch from the series’ usual brawling combat to turn-based RPG combat. I was not one of them. Everything about this game sounds like the sort of fan fiction someone like, well, like me would come up with on a late night drunken bender. “What if it was Yakuza, but like, JRPG battles? Why would that happen.....OH oh oh what if the main character was a big fan of DRAGON QUEST so he just, like, saw the world in those terms? You could have party members, and a Pokedex of all the weirdo scumbags you fight, and you could change jobs by going to a temp agency!”

All of that is in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. And I love it. The series’ producer says they decided to pivot to a turn-based combat system after positive reaction to an April Fools Day Yakuza RPG joke they put online. And there are some rough spots. Your party members get caught on the world’s geometry sometimes, and combatants are constantly milling around so AOE abilities feel like a crap shoot. The Yakuza series has always had about 30% too much combat, so translating it into a genre known for grindy gameplay feels like a perfect storm of sorts. Thankfully, I’m a fan of grindy RPG’s so all of this is directly in my wheelhouse.

This eighth game in the Yakuza series is the first with a new protagonist - goodbye Kiryu Kazuma, hello Ichiban Kasuga. Where Kiryu was very stoic, Ichiban is a hothead with the perfect mix of kindness, earnestness, and stupidity for a JRPG hero. He is an incredibly likeable and charismatic character, and I hope Ryu Go Gotoku Studio tightens up the battle system and keeps this iteration of the series running.

1. Hades

Hades seemed like a slam dunk. My favorite studio was making an action RPG based on Greek mythology. The announcement was the best possible version of “AND you can play it right now!” I bought it (in early access) immediately and played it a bit, but I didn’t want to burn out on it so I only briefly checked in on it every few months. As a result, my hype was pretty low when the game reached its 1.0 release. 

Once I decided to fully engage with the game though, I was unable to put it down. SuperGiant’s games have the best writing, music, and voice acting in the business. That’s a pretty high bar to aim for, and they hit it once again with Hades. Both of their post-Bastion games (Transistor and Pyre) are games that I have to recommend with an asterisk though; the gameplay parts of each game is an acquired taste and will put some folks off. 

Hades, however, I can give a full throated recommendation for. The gameplay is tight and the combat feels good. There’s a lot of variety in the weapons, so you can either find one that fits your style and stick with it, or do what I did and change it up every run. They also managed to achieve something incredible - they largely took the sting out of losing in a run-based game. There are things to unlock between runs as you’d expect from a roguelite. I found myself enjoying chatting with the denizens of hell as much as the moment to moment action gameplay. I’d respawn back home and make my rounds, taking to people and spending my cash. I had a route I’d travel each time, and that route ended with Skelly in the weapons room. Oh, the gauntlets grant a bonus if I use them this time....the door to start a new run is just right over there....okay I can do one more run tonight.

That personality and dialogue is sprinkled throughout the runs themselves too, in the form of the various Greek gods you talk to and get boons from. The variety in weapons and boons give the game tremendous replayability and give the game a deckbuilding feel. Every character in the game is incredibly well developed and well-acted. Zagreus is a likeable and relatable protagonist. He wants to get away from his disapproving father and find his estranged mother, and he and his father can’t see eye to eye. 

The story and gameplay in Hades do equal lifting, the game is an incredibly complete package. The game also provided a couple of the most memorable moments of the year. Hades might just be SuperGiant’s best game. It’s certainly their most complete game. 

*It’s very much on the lighter side of this gameplay style, akin to 2019′s Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Plus there are difficulty settings, which I appreciate.

**Invisible Inc, Dragon’s Dogma, and The Outer Wilds come to mind.

***Final Fantasy VII Remake is only the first installment in a series

****Cloaked in shame and failure.

[eversweet-imagines]

A Spider and A Spark - Part 1

Wow Hannah you are literally the worst at staying consistent about posting and being active on here. A plus for sure. Anywhooooo I saw the new Spiderman (twice in less than 24 hours) and Tom Holland is a major cutie. Send me some spider requests and let me know what you think (: 

Part two  Part three  Part four  Part five

Y/N took a deep breath, her heart was racing and in the pit of her stomach she could feel nerves building up. Glancing around to make sure no one was around she quickly stripped off her shirt and pants, slipping her suit over top of her sports bra and covering her butt so she wasn’t just standing naked in an alley. She pulled her mask over her head and pressed her fingers to the center of her palms, activating her suit. A huge grin grew on her concealed face as she got a running start, flipping, jumping and climbing to the roofs of the buildings around her. Y/N was one of Starks “interns”. He had taken an interest in her when he, or iron man caught her playing with fire. Fire she had created out of thin air, to be more exact. 

“Good afternoon Inferno” Her suit greeted her as she sat along the edge of a building.

“Hello Finn.” She responded, She had given her suits intelligence a name finding it strange to just refer to him as suit dude. “Didn’t I tell you that you can refer to me as Y/N? I think we are on a first name basis at this point, I mean you are literally on top of my naked body.” 

“Very funny Y/N, if it would make you more comfortable then I will remember to refer to you by your name. All systems seem to be running cool and ready for you to heat things up. Would you like me to do a scan of the city or check with the Avengers to see if you are needed?” Finn asked and Y/N thought for a moment.

“I think a normal city scan will be enough for tonight, its been a while since I have done anything so I would probably not be the most help to the rest of the team right now.” She lit small sparks as she spoke, each one like a tiny firework going off in front of her face. It was funny to her how contrasting she was when she was in the suit versus out of it. There was something about the secret identity gig that gave her all the confidence she had hiding inside of her. She could be everything she ever wanted to be. 

“Initiating city scan.” Y/N’s eyes followed the map of the city , things to be going moderately calm today. “There seems to be a robbery and some sort of fight happening at City Bank.” 

“Lead the way Finn.” Y/N smiled as she stood up on the ledge of the building, running to jump from roof to roof. she followed Finns instructions, umping and turning when he said and in no time she had made it to the bank. She stared at it for a moment from across the street. 

“Looks like Spiderman is fighting the Avengers.” Y/N let out a sigh, she had heard plenty stories from Happy and tony about Spiderman, he hadn’t yet completed his training wheels yet. she didn't even know who the kid was, nor did he know her real identity but Tony and Happy had asked her to keep an eye on him. “What are those weird weapons?” Y/N skipped slightly as she began to jog across the street to go and give Spiderman a hand before he got hurt. She had almost reached the door when one of the weapons shot a giant laser towards her and the small mini mart she was standing next to. Her body fell to avoid its powerful laser but her body was thrown slightly from the explosion that took place. She slowly lifted her self up with a grunt as she watched the guys get away in their van, driving off quickly as Spiderman ran over towards the burning building. 

“What the hell were you thinking Spidey?” Y/N shouted, her fists flaming out of anger as she stormed over to stop him. 

“Move!” He shoved her out of the way as he ran faster inside. Y/N shook her head in disbelief, but quickly ran to help him as she saw him pulling a man out of the fire along with a rather large cat.  

Y/N and Peter both slowly turned to look at both the bank and the burning building besides them. Spider-Man quickly began to run off, Y/N frozen for a second before she moved quickly to follow him. "Finn don't let me lose him." She said to her suit as a tracker began to follow Spider-Man. She followed closely behind before she ended up cornering him in an alleyway where he began cursing about a lost back pack. 

 "Spider-Man what the hell happened back there?!" Y/N shouted, trying to use her most intimidating voice and not sound like the teenager that she was. Peter froze in his spot after he turned to look at Y/N and realized who was standing there. 

 "I-Inferno.... I uh I umm what brings you to theirs neck of the woods?" He asked as he tried to casually lean against the trash can but missed, falling slightly before he webbed the other wall to pull himself back to a standing position.

 "Oh I don't know Maybe it was the alien tech Robbery that was CLEARLY too much for you that drew my attention or you know could just be that I was taking a leisurely stroll. You are supposed to be laying low! You know helping old lady's get not lost so the can buy you churros." Y/N was getting heated, her fists erupting into violent red flames at her sides. Peter slowly backed away out of slight fear as she neared him, her voice getting louder. 

 "My readings tell me that Spider-Man is filled with a high percentage of fear and is t-minus 1 minute 14 seconds away from peeing himself." Finn spoke with a slight laugh in Y/N's ear distracting her for a moment. She sharply exhaled as she shot her flames at a trash can to release some of her pent up anger. 

 "Miss I-inferno, I was.. I was just doing my daily rounds and noticed there was an ATM robbery happening. I- I don't know they had those things I swear. They were alien guns! I don't know how- how or where they got them. But I'm going to find out.” Peter swore to her. Y/N stared at Spiderman and was at a lose of words.

“Incoming call from Tony Stark, would you like me to answer it?” Finn asked and Y/N rose her hand up, signaling Spiderman to wait, he nodded sitting criss cross on the cold ground.

“What Stark.” Y/N said, clear annoyance in her voice. A small image of Tony appeared in her vision, his jaw dropped slightly and he shook his head.

“No, no little lady. you don't speak to me like that. I swear I should have listened to everyone about letting kids join.” He began going off and Y/N just rolled her eyes.

“Maybe you should have because you're little Spiderman just caused a big old explosion at a local minimart and bank because he tried to stop some robbery that was in pursuit with some type of Alien weapons! There were almost civilian casualties sir!” y/N whisper yelled harshly, not wanting Spiderman to hear her. Tony let out a sigh, his hand going up to his face.

“Watch him. don't let him do anything stupid that could kill the kid. I’m sure its nothing. Anyways we have a mission coming up and we could really use your help to spice things up. You in?” Tony stared at her and Y/N felt a small grin taking over her previous harsh frown.

“Of course I'm in.”

“Good. Now I was serious, keep an eye on him.” Tony’s screen disappeared with a click and Y/N turned her attention back to Spiderman. 

“I swear I will find out where these things are coming from and I will put an end to it.” Spidey stood up and Y/N stared at him.

“Not alone you won't.” She slightly smiled, helping him could be fun or a complete disaster. 

The next morning Y/N sat in her chemistry class, her head leaning heavy against her hands as her eyelids struggled to stay open. She hadn't realized how late she had been out last night as Inferno that now she was paying for it. It didn't help that her instructor was the most boring teacher to exist. She shook her head and began glancing around the class trying to find something else to pay attention to her eyes fell onto the two kids sitting directly in front of her. Peter Parker and his best friend Ned. The two were complete nobodies, much like her but she still hardly spoke to them. Her ears perked up when she heard Ned whisper something about the Avengers to Peter.

“Have you met Inferno? She scares me but seems like a total babe.” Y/N felt a smirk grow on her lips as she leaned in ever so slightly to hear the two better.

“I actually met her last night, she said she would help me find the source of the alien guys!” Peter seemed excited.

“No way! Spiderman and Inferno working together?! This is something I never knew I needed until this moment.” Ned beamed and Y/N sat up straight, her eyes wide. She stared at Peter, he was Spiderman? Peter glanced back feeling someones eyes glued on him and met the gaze of Y/N. She looked scared, confused and almost angry but also happy. Emotions were running through her face as she continued to stare at him.

“H-hi Y/N.” He stumbled on his words, snapping Y/N out of her frozen daze.

“You’re sp-spiderman? You?!” She whispered harshly just as the bell rang. Peters eyes grew wide as she stormed out of the room quickly. 

“Ned I’ll catch up with you later. Please dont talk about the thing anymore!” He shouted as he ran off trying to find Y/N in the already over crowded hallway. She had reached the exit door and glanced back for a moment, locking eyes with Peter once more before she escaped out the doorway. He ran quickly sliding between all the people and making it outside in a matter of seconds. He stopped on the front steps and glanced around his eyes falling upon the Y/H/C girl. He jumped the steps and ran over to where she was pacing around, her mind in conflict. 

“Y/N... what- what you heard back there..” He started but Y/N turned her attention to him and cut him off.

“Shut it Peter.” Y/N snapped, she needed a second to think. “Is it true or are you making it up to try and get more attention at this stupid school? Don't try to lie to me.” She could feel her hands getting warm, her powers threatening to spark with her heightened emotions. Peter stared into her eyes, something about them screaming at him that he could trust her, that he needed her to know. He shot a web at her and pulled her close to him, there bodies a mere inch apart. Y/N looked up at his eyes a smile forming on her lips. His worried face began to slowly melt away. 

“You can't tell anyone. Please.” He pleaded, Y/N chuckling lightly. She stepped away from him, bringing her hand up with a small flame to burn away the web that was still pulling on her.

“Your secret is save with me,” She grinned and Peter matched her actions. this was going to be the start of an interesting duo.

[marypsue]

What Happens In Space Vegas

Inspired by the Stanchez Summer Sizzle prompt Salad - Tropes; I saw ‘bodyswap’ in the suggested tropes and thought ‘yes’ and then realised that, for these two shows, there was no way I could play it straight. So here is...whatever this is. Warning for body horror and some mild dubcon implications.

I'm also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

The world jumps, abruptly, to the right.

The zip and zing of laser fire reaches Stan’s ears slowly, like it’s filtering down through several fathoms of water. He feels...strange. Not bad. He doesn’t hurt. Actually, it’s strange that he doesn’t hurt. He feels kind of like he should be hurting, right now. 

It’d be nice if he could remember why.

He lets out a groan, and raises a hand to his head anyway. There’s an absence of headache throbbing there, and the pressure of his hand against his forehead doesn’t help. Stan still doesn’t hurt - even his creaky old joints are moving too smoothly, too easily - but his fingertips prickle when he presses them against his skin, too sensitive and yet strangely muffled, like he’s running a fever. He knows that what he's touching is warm (but not outside of ordinary human body temperature), has the give and texture of human skin, in the same way that he knows there's a pressure against his forehead, five points of heat where his fingers are resting, but he isn't...feeling it. Exactly. 

Stan lets out another groan, for good measure. Trying to think about it is making his brain hurt. (But not his head. That's still eerily headache-less.)

A hand (human, bones close to the surface, slightly below average human body temperature, pulse and sweat production slightly above average) wraps around his wrist, jerks it down and shoves something into his hands. Stan’s fingers close around it reflexively, his right hand finding what feels like a trigger. He tries opening his eyes to get a look and see if what’s in his hands is actually what he thinks it is, but the absolute dark stays exactly the same.

“Uh -” he starts, and Rick’s voice, from somewhere to his right, interrupts him.

“You shoot, I’ll try to put yourrrrurrpp guts back in. Sound good?”

“Wait, what?” Stan says.

Sure, yeah, he feels weird, but not in-agonising-pain-because-his-guts-are-spilling-all-over-the-place weird. He guesses it’d explain why he feels like he should be in pain right now. But how’d his guts get outside his body in the first place? And - 

“Hey, not that it matters, but who’s shooting at us this time?” he asks, as laser bolts scream past overhead. 

“Your - your - your intestines, Pines! You want ‘em inside your torso? Then shut the fuck up and get shooting!”

Stan blinks. It doesn’t change anything. 

Maybe he’s just blindfolded, or something, though why anybody would bother blindfolding him without tying him up, he has no idea, but it has to be, has to be, he can’t be, be blind - 

There’s a squelching sound that Stan figures he’d rather not ask about, and Rick says, “Here, hold this.”

“Hold what?" Stan snaps. “I can’t fuckin’ see!”

“Oh, yeah,” Rick says, like it’s just occurring to him. “Think you’ve got - got - infrared or something in there.”

“In where?”

Rick doesn’t answer. The squelching’s louder now. Stan kind of wishes he could see what Rick’s doing. It can’t be worse than what he’s imagining. Right?

“Rick, what the hell -”

Stan doesn’t get to finish his sentence. He gets cut off by the shriek of a laser bolt as it sizzles past, close enough that Stan can feel the heat of it on his face. That feels weird too, somehow, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. Stan’s hands tighten on the gun, and he pushes himself up from the floor he’s slumped on, spinning to fire off two quick shots in the direction the laser bolt had come from before dropping back down again. 

He realises, as he presses his back flat against whatever he'd been leaning against when he'd...woken up? Had he been asleep? Whatever he'd been leaning against, anyway - that the sudden, quick motion hasn't left him out of breath like he'd half-expected. Actually, Stan's not breathing hard at all. He's not - 

He's not breathing.

The jolt of panic that stabs through Stan at the realisation should really make his heart seize in his chest, make it kick into a pounding, fevered pace that makes him worry that a lifetime of bad gas-station food is about to catch up with him - but that doesn't happen either. Stan's not breathing, and his heart's not beating either. 

Well, hot Belgian waffles.

"Sweet shitting fuck!" Stan shouts, quickly lowering his voice again when another burst of laser fire sears the air above his head. "You actually got me fuckin' killed this time!"

There's a snarl in Rick's voice. "Oh, oh sure, just - just make this my fault -"

"It is your fault!" Stan explodes. "The only people that got beef with me don't use laser guns!”

“Plasma rifles.”

“Plasma - I can't see and I'm not breathing and some assholes are taking potshots at us and according to you, my intestines are all over the floor! Who gives a shit what they call their laser guns! What the fuck is going on?"

“You got shot by the intergalactic cops,” Rick says, entirely too composed for somebody who claims to be stuffing the intestines of the man he’s fucking back into said man’s body. “I - I - I stuck you in the nearest robot so you could cover for me while I put your body back together.”

Another laser bolt sizzles through the air beside Stan.

“You stuck me in the nearest robot,” he manages, flat.

"Did - did you miss the part where - where the whole point of that was keeping me from getting shot?"

"You couldn't just portal us somewhere safe or something," Stan says. His voice still sounds flat. 

There's annoyance creeping into Rick's voice, and Stan could almost laugh, if it weren't for the fact that he's probably dying on some grimy space station floor or something right now. "I could, if - if somebody hadn't gone and got himself shot. Try putting you through a portal like this and you'll end up wearing your guts as garters. I - I mean it literally. And not - not the colloquial use of 'literally' where you - you just throw it around to make your statements sound more hyperbolic -"

"Yeah, got it," Stan interrupts. "Guts everywhere. Bad idea. So, obviously, the next best thing was to put me in a robot."

Someone in the direction the laser fire's been coming from yells, "We're prepared to accept your surrender! Come out now and we'll make sure the judge who sentences you will go easy on you!" Stan reaches over the - low wall? Upturned table? - he's been leaning against and fires off a couple of shots in their general direction, just on principle. This feeling-but-not-feeling thing is really starting to piss him off. Fuck. Rick really, really better be able to stitch his body up.

"That why I'm blind?" he asks, and flexes his fingers around the gun he's holding (unobtanium alloy and squeevil hide grip, worn, well-used, most recently held by an Earth-D42 human whose perspiration and pheromone production indicate fear). "And got...sensors." 

"And infrared," Rick says.

"Yeah, real helpful," Stan snaps back. "You got any idea how I can turn that on?"

"How - how should I know? I'm not the one who's a robot."

"Hey, are you guys surrendering or what?" the voice from the direction all the laser fire's been coming from calls, and Stan fires off another halfhearted blast in its general direction. "Okay, but I've got a two-o'clock tee time, and I'm gonna be really pissed off if you guys make me miss it!"

"What a - what a shleeb, am I right?" Rick mutters.

"You know, sometimes I think you just make words up to fuck with me," Stan says, feeling at his own face for some kind of switch or something that might turn on the infrared Rick says he's supposed to have. He can't find anything. It's kind of surprising, now, knowing he's in a robot, just how human the thing feels. Apart from the curved strip of cold glass that wraps around his face right over where his eyes should be, and the fact that these damn sensors are telling him that the 'skin' he's touching is actually a silicone overlay, he could almost be a real person.

"How the hell'd you get your hands on a humanoid 'bot, anyway?" Stan asks, not really listening to his own question. 

Rick doesn't answer.

"Rick?" Stan asks, suddenly nervous. He's forcibly reminded that, oh yeah, his body is currently lying on a dirty spaceport floor with its guts around its knees and only Rick's dubious grasp of normal human anatomy between him and a lifetime of reading the chemical composition of everything he touches through his fingers. 

What he can’t figure out is how they ended up in this situation in the first place. There’s no reason the cops should’ve come after them. It’s not like they were doing anything all that illegal - that he can remember, anyway. Far as Stan can think, they were just doing the tourist thing. Sightseeing. Drinking. A little gambling, at an actual, licensed, official casino for once, and Stan hadn’t even understood the games well enough to cheat at them. Turns out aliens are weird. Who woulda figured.

Maybe Rick had been cheating, but still, that doesn’t explain the cops. Maybe it’s different in space, but Stan’s pretty sure most casinos would still rather take out their own trash. Which means - 

“Is this more of your tragic backstory baloney?” he asks, turning in the general direction Rick’s voice has been coming from. “Because if your stupid hangup about dipping sauce or something gets me killed -”

“Way to run a - a minor but amusing character trait into the ground until it - it - it stops being funny and overwhelms every other aspect of my personality,” Rick snaps. “Do you hear me constantly bringing up your pug-smuggling?”

“All right, sheesh, you don’t gotta make a federal case outta it,” Stan grumbles, adding a muttered, “Touchy,” under his breath.

From the other end of the...hall? Street?...the now-familiar voice calls, too eager, “Did I hear someone mention a federal pug-smuggling case? That might just be enough for me to get a special ops team down here!”

Stan doesn’t need to see the look Rick’s giving him. He can imagine it easy enough.

“Hey, you brought the pug thing up,” Stan says, firing a few more bolts in the direction of the cops. It’s getting easier, though this whole sensor thing is still just too weird. His hearing’s a lot better than he can remember it ever having been, though, even before the hearing aids, and his hands haven’t been this steady since before he got kicked out. Heck, even the stink of this place (a lot of rubber and latex, and machine oil, and leather, with a hint of stale, recycled spaceport air and, for some reason, cinnamon) seems sharp and clear. Maybe this robot business isn’t the absolute worst.

There’s gotta be a way to turn on this stupid infrared so he can actually sort of see, though. There’s no switch on the outside, as far as Stan can tell, which means he’s going to have to figure out what makes this robot tick on the inside. Great. Since mechanical genius has always been his thing.

“What kind of robot is this, anyway?” he asks, smiling grimly when one of his shots is finally answered by a strangled scream. He really is getting better at this.

Rick doesn’t answer, again, and the buzz of victory fades fast.

“What is this, the silent treatment?” Stan asks, and Rick makes a noise that’s downright indescribable. Or maybe that sound’s coming from Stan’s ruptured body. Hard to tell.

“Of course not, I’m not a teenage girl,” Rick sneers, and Stan fires off a couple more shots thoughtfully, listening hard for more screams.

“Yeah, maybe if you were you’d be more emotionally mature.” A short, sharp shriek from the cops’ side of things, and Stan lets out a whoop. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure Mabel’s better at dating than you, and I once saw her pick up a girl by saying, ‘Hi! I’m Mabel and I have a pig! You can pet him if you come get coffee with me!’”

“I’m a fantastic date,” Rick grumbles.

“You got me shot on an alien planet.”

“Exactly. Who else is taking you to such glamuuurrrrpous and - and exciting places?”

Stan doesn’t really have a comeback to that one, so he focuses on trying to turn on his infrared instead. There’s a whirring noise, and something starts blasting shitty dance music, a heavy thud of bass like an artificial heartbeat pounding from a speaker embedded in Stan’s chest. 

The zip and zing of laser bolts around him suddenly intensifies, like he’s just painted a giant target on his back. Stan concentrates, and the music snaps off again as soon as humanly - well, robotically - possible. One last shot still kicks sparks up off his shoulder, his sensors registering torn silicone without any pain and dispatching nanobots to patch it. Shit, that feels weird.

“What. The hell,” Stan says, in the ringing silence.

He’s pretty sure that it’s not just his imagination that the silence coming from Rick’s direction has taken on a slight embarrassed tinge.

“Sounds like you guys are having a real party over there!” the irritatingly enthusiastic cop calls. “Hope you don’t mind if we crash it!”

“Rick,” Stan demands. “Are my guts back in me or what?”

“I’m working on it! I’d’ve been done twenty minutes ago if your - your digestive system was a diflurbian convertor box!” He manages to make it sound accusing, like it’s Stan’s fault his internal organs aren’t a - whatever Rick just said.

“Shit,” Stan mutters. There’s entirely too much rumbling coming from the other end of the...room, for lack of a better word, and he stabs wildly for something else, hoping blindly that if it’s not the damn infrared, it’s at least a giant plasma arm cannon or something.

Where the hell did Rick even find a humanoid robot with infrared and such sensitive sensory input - and a built-in sound system? Who built something like that? And who went to so much trouble to make it look and feel so human, other than hiding its eyes -

“Wait,” Stan says, a horrible suspicion seizing him. “We left the casino. Where are we right now?”

“Outside the casino,” Rick answers, unhelpfully.

“I know we’re outside the casino,” Stan presses on, wishing he could stop or get off this train of thought before it arrives at its horrible, inevitable destination. “Because we were both pretty drunk, and somebody forgot a certain...adult vitamin supplement, that I need, for reasons -”

“You’re a geezer, just - just admit you need pharmaceutical help to get it up already,” Rick complains.

“Only when I’m drunk!” Stan snaps back, a little too fast. “Which is normal. Could happen to anybody, any age.”

“Sure, keep - keep telling yourself that.”

“You’re just trying to piss me off so I get distracted, aren’t you,” Stan says. 

“Is it working?”

“Because,” Stan pushes on, stubbornly, determined now to reach that awful conclusion he knows he isn’t going to like, “you don’t want me to remember that you said you knew a guy who could take care of our - my - little issue and -”

Stan stops. He really, really wishes he could draw in a deep breath, or pinch the bridge of his nose, or something. He settles for slapping a hand flat against his face and slowly dragging it down, the silicone of his palm squeaking loudly against the cool glass band over where his eyes should be.

“Rick,” he says, using his best ‘I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-asking-so-I-know-what-I’m-about-to-be-mad-about’ voice, honed on both the kids at the Shack and on Ford, who can be a big oversized kid himself half the time, “did you stick my brain in a sex robot?”

“No,” Rick says, sounding so affronted that for half a second Stan almost tries to heave a sigh of relief. “Your brain’s still in your body with the - the rest of your organs. Except some of your intestines.” He says it offhand, like Stan’d dropped a handful of change rather than a major part of his insides. “I stuck your consciousness in a sex robot.”

Stan doesn’t move for a long, long second.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” he says, finally, conversationally.

There’s a rumble from the far end of the room that Stan can feel coming up through the soles of his feet and his knees where he’s crouched on the floor (brushed concrete, very industrial, rough on the silicone). 

“No you’re not, then you’d be stuck in the sex robot indefinitely,” Rick says, equally conversationally. “There. That should - should hold you through at least one portal.”

He wraps a hand around Stan’s wrist (warm, heart rate and body temperature elevated slightly above average for an adult human male, pheromones - pheromones indicating the first traces of arousal, and damn if that isn’t doing something weird to Stan’s robot innards that he’d really rather not think about right now) and yanks, pulling Stan forward. “Help me move you.”

Stan’s (hopefully temporary) robot hands find his own, human torso (body temperature too low, sensors indicating blood loss, dangerous but survivable with appropriate transfusions) and he hoists...himself...up over one shoulder, pushing himself to his feet. There’s the wet sizzle and sudden waft of ozone and burnt limes that mean Rick’s just opened a portal. Rick yells, “So long, suckers!” over the rumble from the other end of the room, which builds until it drowns him out, until it’s almost deafening, feedback whining in Stan’s ears and splintering into random strands of data.

Rick’s hand on Stan’s wrist tugs Stan through the portal, and

...

...

“Whoa,” Stan says, trying and failing to sit up. His whole body from the neck down is just a ball of agony, but at least it’s good, honest pain. And he’s never been so grateful to see so many colours. He just hopes they belong to some kind of alien hospital and not, say, a cop shop, though the soothing pastels and the smell of piss, overcooked food, and industrial disinfectant seem to bode well for that. Some things are universal, apparently. “Ow.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna - that’s gonna hurt for a while,” Rick says, from somewhere to Stan’s right. 

“What happened?” Stan asks, carefully. It hurts to talk. His right hand is warm, and slightly damp, and just a little sore, like somebody’d been holding it too tight until very recently.

“Sensors on the robot went all haywire coming through the portal. Too sensitive. Apparently they ‘aren’t meant to be used for unregulated interdimensional travel’ and I’m ‘not getting the damage deposit back’.” Stan manages to turn his head just in time to see Rick shrug one shoulder, like he isn’t bothered by any of it. “It - it fried pretty spectacularly. Fireworks everywhere. Too bad you were in it, you missed the - the show.”

“Too bad,” Stan echoes, feeling stupid with surprise and pain. “My guts still out?”

“Nnnnope,” Rick says, proud, popping the ‘p’. “All - all stitched up and healing. It’ll hurt like a bitch for a while, though.”

Stan gives a little huff of acknowledgement. That hurts too.

"It's official, this is the worst vacation I've ever been on,” he says. “And I'm countin' the time I got Vegas-married to a prospector statue."

Rick gives another nonchalant shrug. “Can’t say we - we never do anything interesting.”

Stan snorts laughter, gasps in a silent breath when it laces a line of silver pain through his side.

He considers the lines of fire striping his stomach, the memory of the twist in his robot insides when Rick had grabbed his wrist back there, the warmth that’s quickly fading from his right hand.

“You got another one of those robots kicking around?” he asks, and Rick’s grin turns wicked.

“Why, you - you wanna take it for a spin?”

Stan tries to shrug, regrets it. “Hey, what’s the worst that could happen? Don’t answer that.”

Rick just smiles, long and lazy and triumphant. "Well, you know what they say about what happens on Vega."

"I'm pretty sure that's 'in Vegas'," Stan corrects him.

"Oh, oh right, because the - the universe revolves around the Earth. Any other fourteenth-century scientific breakthroughs you'd like to share?"

Stan just shakes his head the best he can, before shutting his eyes and settling back into his pillow. 

[illumynare]

Red vs Blue Fic: Lavernius Tucker and the Tattoo Conspiracy

Summary: The first rule of Blue Team is Be Cool and nobody is letting him be cool.

(Or: the AU where everyone except Tucker has glowing tattoos.)

Parings: None.

Warnings: Lots of swearing, mentions of torture, everyone gets naked except Tucker. (It’s surprisingly un-sexy.)

Notes: Also available on AO3!

RIP my dignity. We had a good run.

Huge, huge thanks to @a-taller-tale, best of wives and best of women beta readers. She really went above and beyond for this one.

Caboose starts it, or anyway, he's the first one Tucker finds out about. One day he gets peanut butter all over the inside of his armor, and Tucker doesn't call "not it" fast enough, so he has to hose him down. First Caboose throws a temper tantrum and doesn't want to take his armor off at all, and then he strips stark-ass naked—which is actually a good thing, considering how far the peanut butter had gotten.

And that's how Tucker sees the tattoo.

It's huge, covering the whole of Caboose's back, geometric designs interlocked with lines of a weird script that Tucker recognizes, after a moment, as Sangheili. The lines are a deep, cobalt blue with an opalescent sheen—crisper and more vivid than any tattoo Tucker's ever seen—and then Caboose shifts a little, turning his back out of the sunlight, and Tucker realizes the tattoo is actually glowing.

"Whoa, dude, what's that?"

"Oh, that is from my best friend," says Caboose.

"Church gave you a glowing tattoo written in Sangheili?" Tucker says. "Dude, I do not believe that. Also, if you call him your best friend again, I think he's gonna shoot you."

"No," says Caboose, "that is from my old best friend. When I was on a team that fought the aliens."

"Wait, you actually fought in the war?" asks Tucker, slightly envious. It's not like he wanted his head shot off by Covenant forces, but he'd thought that being in a few battles and getting some cool scars would help him pick up chicks. Instead he got pulled straight out of Basic and sent to the ass-end of nowhere without a single woman in sight.

"Yeah, we went to a planet that had some stuff, and we were supposed to do things with it, but then the ship crashed, which was definitely not my fault because I did not touch ANY of the buttons, and everybody died in the explosions."

"Wait," says Tucker, "then how—"

"Or they died in the lava. Or the quicksand. Or the psychokinetic carnivorous plants. Or the shooting from the aliens, who were also dying. Yeah, everyone was dead after that. But there was one alien left and we built a house together and went fishing and became best friends forever! So he gave me a tattoo instead of a bracelet. And then I went home."

Okay, clearly that story is 90% bullshit, but Tucker doesn't want to spend the next three hours asking Caboose increasingly simple questions to sort out what really happened.

'Whatever," he sighs, and hits Caboose with another shower from the hose. Caboose twists his head, happily trying to drink the water out of the air.

Tucker does tell Church about it later. Church is not interested.

"Oh my God, Tucker, I do not fucking care how Caboose got a dumbass tattoo on his back."

"I'm just saying, it's kind of—"

"Seriously, why do you care what Caboose has on his naked body?"

"Okay, don't make it weird."

(Much later, when Church is still an asshole but also Epsilon and made out of numbers, he’ll tell Tucker about hacking the extremely classified file that is Private Michael J. Caboose’s one and only real combat mission before getting shunted into the Simulation Trooper program, and Tucker will think, Well, damn.)

Everybody on Blue Team has a role: Caboose is the idiot. Church is the asshole. Tucker is the cool, good-looking one.

Which is why it's so unfair that Caboose gets the alien tattoo that glows in the dark and looks completely sick. Tucker's the one who could actually work it around the ladies . . . if there were any ladies in Blood Gulch besides Tex, who isn't a lady so much as a female velociraptor, and that's on one of her good days.

The point is, Tucker wants in on this game. When he agrees to go with Crunchbite on his stupid quest, half the reason is that he's hoping he'll get a glowing tattoo out of it.

Instead he gets knocked up, and that's—well, Doc does remember to give him anesthetic before starting the C-section, but there's no curtain or anything, and sometimes Tucker really wishes he could forget what it looked like.

Junior, though. He's weird and he smells, but the first time he leans against Tucker and lets out a quiet blargh, all Tucker can think is, My kid. Fucking worth it.

But he still doesn't have a badass glowing tattoo.

And then it turns out that everyone else in this fucking canyon does.

Okay, so Church never had any glowing tattoos on his actual body back when he was alive, which Tucker knows because he asked.

"I'm Jewish, you dumbass."

"Yeah, so?"

"Oh my God, you don't know anything, do you?"

"Hey, you didn't know I was black."

But now he’s a ghost and he can glow in the dark so it’s pretty much the same thing.

Then there's the time that the Reds attack, and when Church starts cursing because he still can't aim with the sniper rifle, Caboose shouts, "I can help you, Church!" and runs up onto the roof with a fucking grenade launcher.

That's loaded with paintballs, because of course it is.

"We are so screwed," Tucker sighs, gripping his rifle. He's the only member of Blue Team who's currently able to (a) hit anything (b) with actual ammo, and that means they're not 4v3, they're 4v1, and Tucker is still too pretty to die like this and disappoint all the ladies.

Except Caboose hits Simmons with a paintball.

And it's blue paint.

"Son of a Manchurian Candidate!" Sarge yells. "Those dirty Blues are trying to brainwash Simmons. The only way to save him is immediate amputation."

"WHAT? But I feel fine! Suck it, Blues! See?"

"The paint is on his torso," says Grif. "I don't think he can survive without his lungs. Wait, does he even have those anymore?"

"As much as I hate to admit that this moron has any reasonable point, it's clear that there's only one solution. We have to field-strip Simmons."

"But Sarge—" Simmons's voice is cut off as Sarge tackles him.

"Oh, boy," says Donut. "I have got the best theme song for this."

As Sarge rips off Simmons's armor, Donut starts singing "Take it Off" while performing a dance routine with a lot of hip-thrusts.

"Wait," says Church. "Did Caboose just . . . save our asses?"

"Shit, don't tell him that," Tucker mutters.

"Yes, well, I didn't want to mention it, but since you insist, I did save us all. Stupid Tucker."

"Heheh, yeah, Caboose is more useful than you today, Tucker."

"Seriously?" says Tucker. "I'm the fucking chosen one, dude. Caboose is just an idiot with blue paint."

"And the blue paint just saved our asses."

"He said it."

Below, Sarge has already gotten Simmons completely naked. It's the first time Tucker's even seen his face. He's a scrawny, ethnically ambiguous string bean with olive skin, black hair, and a lot of chrome.

And a tattoo.

A fucking bright red, glowing tattoo in the pattern of a circuitboard all over his back.

What the fuck.

Like, obviously the tattoo is part of whatever turned Simmons into a cyborg, and Tucker's never wanted to get any of his limbs or internal organs replaced, but it looks . . . cool, okay, it is fucking cool, and the Red Team nerd should not be allowed to look cooler than Tucker does. At all. In any way.

Shit, the tattoo's even pulsating, little glowing specks running down the lines of the circuit, and it's just. Not fucking fair.

"Saaaarge!" Simmons wails, hunching in on himself. "You know I'm shy!"

"Sorry, Simmons, but operational security comes first. Can't allow anyone to be compromised by the Blues."

Simmons responds with a wordless moan.

"I mean, I know it's weird to keep watching," says Church, "but he's suffering so much I can't look away."

Down below, Grif says, "Gosh, Sarge, I think I saw a little bit of paint on you too. Right . . . there." He points at a spot on Sarge's back, where Tucker can see there is definitely not a single drop of paint.

"Horseshoes and hand grenades! So that's their villainous plan!"

Even Tucker has never managed to get naked that fast. He'd be impressed, except he's too busy staring at the giant glowing Red Team snake tattooed on Sarge's back. How did the old fucker even get that tattoo? He probably did it himself with experimental ink that’s radioactive and making him impotent, but Tucker is still a bit jealous.

"Hey, Reds," Church yells. "Looks like half your team is naked!"

“Hah!” Sarge bellows. “And so your plot is foiled again, scumbags!"

Church hefts the sniper rifle, and the Reds retreat while Tucker contemplates how it is fucking bullshit that Sarge and Simmons have glowing tattoos while he doesn't.

Tucker finds out about Donut's tattoo when the Reds mount Operation Weaponized Birthday Cake, and just. The less said about that, the better.

(But sometimes Tucker wakes up in the middle of the night and wonders. You’d need some kind of mad science or alien technology just to make a glowing tattoo. How the hell do you make a tattoo that glows and throws out sparkles?)

Grif's tattoo is different.

Tucker still feels guilty, when he remembers seeing it.

What happens is this: Tucker finally has some free time, and sometimes, when a man has free time, he just really wants a chance to enjoy some nude sunbathing. Without his asshole CO screeching at him or his idiot teammate wanting to join in.

There's this one little nook of the canyon that Church and Caboose don't seem to know about. Sarge and Simmons don't seem to know about it either, because Tucker knows that Grif goes there sometimes too. There have even been a few times they even hung out together—not naked, okay, that would be weird—but sometimes, a man wants to spend time around an asshole who isn't one of the assholes he has to live with every day. And who thinks this war is about as much bullshit as he does.

So one day, Tucker goes to the spot. Caboose tried to cook at 2 AM the night before, which meant the base caught on fire, which meant no one got any sleep, which meant Tucker just really wants to stretch out in the sun and not think about anything for an hour.

Except apparently, Grif had exactly the same idea. He's flat on his stomach, face down, snoring loudly. And stark-ass naked.

What Tucker's staring at isn't Grif's ass, though, it's his back.

It's a work of art.

And it's a war zone.

Because Grif is tattooed the same way Caboose is—different symbols, but the same glowing blue lines, obviously Sangheili—but the skin around the tattoos is ridged and puckered with scars. Somebody ripped Grif's back apart before decorating it, and shit shit shit, Tucker’s suddenly remembering that Grif fought against the aliens before Blood Gulch—something about colony destroyed and only survivor—and he doesn’t know exactly how that left Grif's back scarred around glowing Sangheili symbols, but he does not want to ask.

He backs away silently, and never, ever tells Grif what he saw.

Nothing will ever make Tucker admit it, but he never actually gets lucky with Kai, and the whole reason is the fit he pitches when he sees that glowing golden tramp stamp.

(It’s not fragile masculinity, it’s this fucking CONSPIRACY of tattoos around him. The first rule of Blue Team is Be Cool and nobody is letting him be cool.)

There's one thing that Tucker likes about Wash right from the start:

He doesn't have any tattoos.

Okay, fine, Tucker's never checked. But even if Project Freelancer was dumb enough to let its super-secret operatives have glowing tattoos, there is absolutely no way that Agent "I love drills and protocol" Washington would have gotten one.

The loser probably doesn't even have any piercings.

Maybe that's why Tucker actually feels like he can complain to him, one evening at the crash site, after he's done ten fucking million squats and hates everything.

"Seriously. Literally everyone has a glowing tattoo except for me. It's not fair."

For once, Wash has not only his helmet but the entire top half of his armor off. Does that mean he's decided to relax and be less of an asshole? No, it just means he can pinch the bridge of his nose at Tucker.

"I don't think that's very important, Private Tucker."

"Fuck yeah it's important! Tattoos are cool, and the first rule of Blue Team is be cool."

"Well," says Wash, desert-dryly, "I'm Blue Team leader, and I say you can be on Blue Team even if you're not cool."

"Ugh, like I care what you think." Tucker slouches back in his chair, wishing for the hundredth time that Church was here. Even though Church would probably just say, Shut up, Tucker.

"You know," says Wash, "if you actually tried at all, you'd be a pretty cool soldier."

"Shut up, asshole," Tucker groans, but he can't help smiling a little because, y'know. Wash may be a complete loser but he's also a Freelancer. Who thinks that Tucker could be cool.

It's not a tattoo, but it's kind of nice.

Then there's Felix and then there's Locus, and then Wash calls, Freckles, shake.

In the days and weeks after, the New Republic soldiers stare at Tucker like he's some sort of badass rock star god, and all Tucker can think is that he never wanted to be this cool, not like this.

Not at this price.

When Tucker wakes up in the hospital after fighting Felix at the radio tower—well, the first thing he thinks is my feet are shiny, because holy fuck, Grey has him on a lot of drugs.

But once he stops having conversations with his IV, and once the good news sinks in—that they won, that his friends are all alive, that the Feds and the New Republic have an alliance—

One of the first things that Tucker thinks is, Well, I guess it's back to being Private Tucker.

Except. Wash calls him "Captain," and doesn't order him to run laps when they disagree. He doesn't boss Tucker's squad around, unless they've been sent to him for training.

Slowly, Tucker starts to realize that Wash believes in his rank, is trying to support him, and it's just. He has to go sit next to Grif and wordlessly drink a few beers, that's what it means to him.

He swears to himself that he's going to live up to this.

Tucker's going to die soon.

If he's lucky.

Because Felix grabbed him . . . Tucker isn't sure how long ago, but it's been far too long and now he hurts more than he ever thought possible.  And he tried not to scream, he tried to be brave, he really fucking tried—

But.

Well.

In the end, when Felix stuck the camera in his face and said, Ask them to come for you, Tucker choked on a sob and said, Wash, please.

He's been alone since that, lying in his own blood on the floor of this cell. Felix didn't bother restraining him again, because he knows that Tucker's too broken to fight anymore. He can't even bring himself to sit up; all he can do is lie here and think miserably of how fucking disappointed Wash is going to be in him.

Everyone will be disappointed—Carolina and Kimball and stupid Palomo—but Wash is the first one who believed in him, who said, You just need to try, and Tucker tried and tried and now here he is, broken and begging on command so Felix can use him as bait.

At least he knows that Wash will stop Caboose from watching the message. That's something.

There's also this: Wash is going to kill Felix. Tucker knows that, and even if he isn't going to be around to see it, he finds it pretty comforting. Wash is going to make Felix regret that he ever leaned close and said, Y'know, this is basic RTI training for a Freelancer. But I guess even that's too much for you.

Tucker remembers what happened right after Felix said that, and he shudders and wheezes and fuck, everything hurts.

He doesn't want to die, but he really, really wants this to stop.

The door of his cell opens.

"Oh, hey there, Tucker. Ready for some more fun?"

Just the sound of Felix's voice makes him start shaking now. It's Pavlovian and it's fucked and Tucker hates it.

He wonders if he could manage to barf on Felix's boots in revenge.

"Yeah, I've gotten pretty bored with our little chats too." Felix hauls him up—Tucker bites back a whimper—and drags him out the door. "But you see, somebody's melodramatic Freelancer boyfriend decided to turn up with a bomb and a deadman switch, so it's time for you to be useful."

"He's not my boyfriend," Tucker mutters. He can barely keep his feet under him; he’s pretty sure that if Felix wasn’t dragging him along the hallway, he’d fall over. Felix is a fucking artist with his knife, but Tucker’s still lost a lot of blood by now, and he hasn’t eaten or slept since they grabbed him.

Then Tucker’s brain catches up, and his spine turns to ice as he really understands what Felix said, and all he can think is Oh shit oh shit he actually came.

Wash wasn't supposed to come for him. Tucker had been so sure that he wouldn't obey Felix's "come alone and unarmed" message.

That's the only—well, Tucker would like to think that's the only reason he broke. Because Wash has lectured him about negotiations with hostages and terrorists, Tucker knows what the protocol is, why the fuck does this have to be the one time that Agent Washington doesn't want to follow protocol?

Felix drags him through the base—there are mercs everywhere, Wash is never getting out of this alive, and Tucker wonders dizzily if he can get Felix to shoot him somehow, but then Felix drags him into a room and there's—

Wash.

Helmet off, no gun, holding a crooked bundle of wires and flashing lights that has to be the bomb.

He looks like shit, the circles under his eyes worse than ever, stubble on his chin and his mouth set in that line of "I've just woken up from a nightmare about my whole team dying and I'm sure it will come true."

That expression used to mean that Tucker was going to do worse drills than usual, and now it means that Tucker is going to watch his best friend die.

And it will be all his fault.

Fuck.

"Don't—" he manages to rasp out, and then Felix has him forced to his knees, one hand gripping Tucker’s dreads, the other pressing a pistol to the base of his skull.

"Okay, Agent Washington, here's your little friend. He's alive and he's even going to stay that way, if you do what I tell you."

There's a glorious moment where Tucker imagines Wash saying, Fuck no, and backflipping across the room while he pulls out two rifles and then dual-wields his way through a slow-mo, totally awesome battle that ends with Felix and Locus both dead.

But Wash just says, "Okay," and he drops the bomb.

"Well, that's a good first step," says Felix. "Now take off that armor."

And Wash does. He pulls it off piece by piece—Tucker can count on one hand the number of times he's seen Wash totally unarmored, and now Felix is making it happen and it's like. The worst and most depressing stripper show ever.

If Tucker somehow survives this, he will never forgive himself.

When Wash is stripped down to his kevlar undersuit, Felix laughs and says, "Really? It’s that easy to make you give up? Locus is going to be disappointed, I gotta tell you."

"Let him go," says Wash, staring at Felix with the same unsettlingly direct stare as when he told Tucker, You just have to stick with what you think is best. "I did what you wanted."

But Felix laughs and shakes his head. “Oh, no, no. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—see, I read your psych profile. I know you have far too much tragic backstory to bring a secret AI like Tucker did. So you’ve obviously got some other surprise hidden on you. You want me to believe you’ve surrendered? You’ll have to get naked."

Shit, he’s probably right. The plan’s gone wrong, and Wash needs to get out while there’s still time. Tucker finds his voice and says, "Wash—stop—"

But Wash is already peeling off his undersuit.

And Tucker sees Wash's skin. His shoulders and his arms and his chest.

There are glowing blue lines everywhere.

"What the fuck?" says Felix, and it takes Tucker a moment to realize it wasn't just him thinking it, because what the fuck.

Wash is covered in glowing blue tattoos, from wrist to throat to navel. They're not Sangheili symbols like Grif and Caboose, and they're not a circuitboard like Simmons, and they're not Blood Gulch symbols like Sarge. They're Greek letters and swirls and lines, and they say Epsilon and they say more, Alpha-Beta-Delta-Sigma-Omega-Gamma-Theta-Eta-Iota, and Tucker's regretting every time he made a crack about Wash staying in his armor. Because the whole painful history of the Freelancer AIs is written on Wash's skin and Tucker has no right to see this, he doesn't want to see this, but he's looking at it just the same.

And then Tucker realizes what that means: Wash had those tattoos all along.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" he howls.

He knows he's having hysterics. But this is it. This is how he dies. Not from Felix's torture, not from a bullet to the brain, but from Agent fucking Washington and his fucking glowing tattoos what the fuck.

"Wow, Tucker," says Church, appearing in front of him. "I had no idea you were so insecure." Then he flickers up into Felix's face. "Oh, yeah. I've been hacking your base. No biggie. Seriously, you didn't think I could be in Wash's armor instead of his implants?"

There's an explosion from outside, and the next moment, Wash is right there, kicking gun out of Felix’s hand, then dodging back when Felix lunges for him.

"And it wasn't a bomb," Wash calls out smugly, bouncing on his toes. "It was a homing device.”

“For the reinforcements,” Church adds. “Bitch.”

Felix lets out a scream of rage and charges Wash. Who is, wow, actually really good at fighting naked. Tucker wonders dizzily if that’s a thing they trained at in Project Freelancer, and if he can get Carolina to give him lessons, and then suddenly he just doesn’t have any strength left and he falls over. Everything is a blur of pain and what the fuck, and Tucker hears Church say, "Okay, seriously Tucker, this isn't funny," but he's lost the ability to speak.

Gradually, things stop hurting. There's this wonderful cool, floaty feeling. Tucker realizes it's the healing unit. He's lying on his back, the healing unit is running, he's not dead and therefore Wash kicked Felix's ass.

Sweet.

He opens his eyes. Wash is leaning over him.

"You fuck," says Tucker. "You have a tattoo."

Wash makes this weird noise that's almost like a laugh. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Dude. Not fair."

Wash is back in his undersuit, because nothing will make him less of a prude, and Tucker is—

—Tucker is alive, he can't believe it, he's alive and he's safe and Felix isn't there to smile and say, Well, actually, as he slides the knife in and. 

And then Tucker remembers that if Wash is here, then he watched the message. He knows how weak Tucker is.

"Sorry," he mutters. “Guess I really fucked up.”

He has a feeling he's going to be saying that a lot, when he gets back.

"It's fine," Wash says soothingly. "Everything's okay."

And that hurts, somehow, more than any stern reprimands to Private Tucker possibly could.

"It's not," says Tucker. "I—I broke, okay, I begged when he told me too, and—and—"

"Tucker," says Wash, and it's that voice, the extra-calm Freelancer voice, the one that Tucker can believe even when he's totally panicking, that he could follow into any sort of danger. "You survived. That's okay. That's, uh. Pretty cool."

"Yeah, it's more than most of the Freelancers managed," Church adds, appearing by Wash's shoulder.

"Epsilon," Wash growls.

"What? Comms are down, so is security, Carolina already took out Locus and Felix McFuckface here is not going to wake up for a while. Relax."

". . . I can't believe you have a tattoo," Tucker mumbles.

"Yeah, it's, uh." Wash stops.

"Wow, I just realized I should be literally anywhere else," says Church, and disappears.

“Side-effect of the implantation," Wash finishes with a sigh.

"So Carolina also has one?"

Wash cracks a grin. "Nope. She has two."

"Ugh. That's so unfair." Tucker tries to sit up, and the world swims around him. Wash sets a steadying hand on his back.

Tucker can hear crashes and screams and explosions in the distance—the cavalry, obviously. Lots of them. Shit, did everyone come on this mission?

"Tell you what," says Wash, his voice only a little bit condescending. "When you get out of the hospital, I'll help you get a cool tattoo.”

Tucker hurts everywhere. He's not okay. He doesn’t want to think about how long he’ll be in the hospital, or how many of his friends heard him beg in that recording, or how soon he’ll start dreaming about Felix.

But Wash's hand is warm and comforting against his spine. Tucker’s alive, and everyone came to save him, and Wash isn’t ashamed of him. And he thinks . . . maybe he’s going to be okay, eventually.

“Oh, like you know anything about what's cool," he says, and Wash laughs.

[deevolutionisreal]

Be Stiff EP

The canonical version of this post appears at https://de-evolution.band/article/be-stiff-ep/

Chris: Alright, let's tackle the B Stiff EP in 3. 2. 1. Go!

Jocko Homo

Jon: Very stripped down still. Demo-ish. Lovably raw.

Chris: Yeah. Pretty close to the album version instrumentation-wise.

Jon: Yeah.

Chris: You can hear the grit on the tape.

Jon: Oh definitely. The four notes seem different. Off key.

Chris: Yeah. I agree.

Jon: The LP has them in key I think.

Chris: They seem like a insane steel drum.

Jon: Haha yeah.

Chris: Like, the steel drum lost it's mind.

Jon: Some abrasive old synth.

Chris: Yeah.

Jon: I think this version has the extra, "rhyme in a riddle" part…?

Chris: Yeah. Unlike some of the other old versions, this one's tempo seems pretty close to the album cut.

Jon: True true.

Jon: YES. O HI O.

Chris: 😃 That's not in the album version.

Jon: I prefer it with that line. Was always sad they didn't do it on the LP. Was that Eno's suggestion…? Or maybe they didn't wanna be The Akron Band anymore.

Chris: Yeah who knows. I also prefer the faster talk for the ape stuff.

Jon: Yeah.

Chris: The whooshing sound is also different.

Jon: Mm…Overall, not super different, but enough to so pick out a couple things. I don't have much to say, sadly. Other than, "It whips ass, like all versions tend to."

Chris: Haha yeah, absolutely! We can talk more about it when we do the LP version.

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Jon: Slower for sure.

Chris: Yeah, sounds slower, but otherwise, God damn close to the LP.

Jon: Cleaner than the demo I think though? But similar.

Chris: Yeah. Def cleaner. A good midway point between the demo and the final cut.

Jon: Did I ever mention the story of Mick clearing the cover?

Chris: No, I don't know the story.

Jon: I guess the record execs or whoever played it and he got up and danced around to it excitedly.

Jon: I forget what he said but it was a cute story / worth googlin'.

Chris: Haha oh man! I'll have to check that out.

Jon: I feel like the bloopy synth counterpoint lines in this are more muted. They're shriller/more up front in the LP/demo. IIRC.

Chris: Yeah.

Jon: Although now I wish I had notes in front of me, haha.

Chris: They're higher and more ethereal.

Jon: The baby baby baby's aren't as challenging at this speed. Also. Haha.

Chris: 😆 yeah. Speeeed that shit up! But man, overall this is so damn close.

Jon: Right? This is like a dry run for the debut LP.

Chris: They put an echo on the vocals near the end.

Jon: True. Also I think it's supposed to segue right into Be Stiff. I forgot that part. A nice touch IMO.

Chris: Yeah, it goes right in.

Be Stiff

Jon: Faster than on Hardcore. And less cartoony voices calling out the countdown.

Chris: And more aggressive vocals. Yeah exactly. The high guitar is more cartoony.

Jon: But I dig it/am confused why this wasn't a bigger song. Or maybe it was! Namesake after all.

Chris: Yeah I'm not sure. It might have gotten overshadowed by other cuts on the first LP.

Jon: But people never talk about it. Fun fact: Toni Basil covers it on the album that has Mickey. And Space Girl Blues from Hardcore.

Chris: I've heard that version! It's very interesting.

Jon: It's a trip, yeah! I definitely wanna compile all the Devo-adjacent projects out there. Martini Ranch and whatnot.

Chris: Yeah I'm into that. This version feels more angry.

Jon: Yeah. Less horny and more urgent.

Chris: Yeah.

Jon: Maybe still quite horny though. Actually. Never not horny, these lads.

Chris: You can never tone that down too much. I hear the bass part higher in the mix as well.

Jon: Ends just as abruptly though.

Chris: Lol yep.

Jon: I remain a fan of this song.

Jon: Weird lyrics and all.

Chris: Likewise.

Jon: Wet Women and Fruit Ooze and all.

Chris: It's really catchy.

Jon: Definitely harkens back to blues/rock. That descending main riff.

Chris: Yeah, this version for sure. Makes you sing that whack-ass shit to yourself.

Jon: Hahaha yes. Little Richard shoulda covered this.

Chris: That would have been awesome. Get on it Little Richard!

Jon: If Fats Domino can drop covers of Lady Madonna and Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey, why not this.

Chris: It's also interesting that they joined this with satisfaction but re-arranged the song order for the LP.

Jon: Yeah, and this isn't even on Q&A at all. Which boggles the mind. Maybe this EP was the "single" for it? IDK.

Chris: Yeah, it's on Duty, right?.

Jon: It isn't on any LP. It's on this. And compilations/Hardcore.

Chris: Oh shit, huh.

Jon: Right?? So weird…

Chris: I must have listened to CDs with bonus tracks. Because I def remember hearing this on one of those.

Jon: That would make sense. That's a relief at least.

Mongoloid

Chris: A little slower, I think?

Jon: The bass line remains badass as it sneaks up on you.

Chris: Oh hell yeah.

Jon: Slower than the LP, about the same as Hardcore I think.

Chris: Yeah. The guitar sound sounds cool and compressed. Like it's coming from a drive thru speaker.

Jon: Hahaha. Yeah I love the overall sound of it. I think they'd take that as a compliment.

Chris: I meant it as such. Ooh, more space noises.

Jon: Yeah they're going hogwild on this one. I'm into it!

Chris: Hell yeah. Sounds like a cartoon alien from a 50s era Saturday morning special landed. The cymbal crashes are so soft. Much softer than the rest of the drums.

Jon: Yeah. It's weird what they choose to be subtle with.

Chris: That "wakka wakka" guitar in the background is great.

Jon: Hell yes.

Chris: Almost giggling background vocals.

Jon: I also love the drunk sounding synth notes. Like they're trying so hard to hit the right notes.

Chris: Haha.

Jon: They're me at karaoke.

Chris: Yeah exactly. I can attest to this. Jon is an early Devo synth note at karaoke.

Jon: BwahhhhhHHHHHHHH. I'll get there if I strain.

(I Saw My Baby Gettin') Sloppy

Jon: Hesitant start.

Chris: Ha yeah. Some drum hits.

Jon: But I like the vibe. The synth once against sounds like an old VHS distro animation.

Chris: Ha yes. The guitars are almost jangly.

Jon: Yeah! These are some conventional pop guitars.

Chris: The vocals sound like they're in another room. Like he's yelling from behind the band.

Jon: If you're gonna have passable guitar, you need to go sing in the hall to make up for it.

Chris: Interesting different rhythm for WHOLA.

Jon: Yeah! They put a little stank on it.

Chris: Ha yeah. Exactly.

Jon: He's also selling the words more.

Jon: BRAND NEW CAR. He's pissed.

Chris: Yeah, he's really going for it. The second track here that's more pissed.

Jon: Yeah! The BE PISSED E.P.

Chris: Haha.

Jon: Ends just as abruptly as ever. Glad to see these choices were firm early on.

Chris: Lol yep! Stake out your brand!

Social Fools

Jon: They sped this way up. Straight up punk pogo tune this time around. Less of a cautious anthem.

Chris: Yeah exactly. Driving drumbeat right up front.

Jon: Also less weird synths.

Chris: The bridge is less ominous. But yeah, almost a punk song.

Jon: Yeah. Less sincere "pleading parent" bits too. Or just faster maybe.

Chris: Yeah, it goes by quicker so it doesn't sink in as much on that level? But a lot more danceable.

Jon: Whoa, that compressed drum fill.

Chris: Yeah that was nuts.

Jon: Yeah I have to wonder if this is more subversive in its slickness. Solo still rips. Thankfully.

Chris: Yeah it's great.

Jon: I don't think Devo gets enough credit for badass lead guitar parts/their conventional instruments in general.

Chris: Totally agreed.

Jon: People always wanna talk synthesizers and energy dome hats.

Chris: Exactly. I don't think Devo gets credit as musicians in general.

Jon: Yeah they're extremely sick, and that took me by surprise when I got into them in depth.

Jon: This is the END! Of this E.P.

Chris: And they end the EP with that!

Jon: I always liked that little ending. That's all for now / that's all we know.

Chris: Yeah it's great.

Jon: Good way to end any communique.

Chris: I'm pissed they didn't end every release that way haha.

Jon: Haha seriously. I wish presidents said shit like that. OK THAT'S ALL WE HAVE FOR DATA BYE.

Chris: I really enjoyed that EP. I don't think I've ever listened to it as a whole.

Jon: Yeah it's good shit! I definitely wish it got discussed more. And maybe it does and I'm just a hermit.

Chris: I'm living in the same hermitage, then, my friend. Still nuts that B Stiff isn't anywhere.

Jon: Right? I can see why like, Total Devo isn't on Spotify. But this? This owns.

Chris: Oh yeah, it totally does. Maybe it was a rights issue? Different label? How wide a release did this get?

Jon: Good point, yeah. I'm not sure if this was WB or not. They were on Stiff in the UK for a while. Coincidence name wise, I think. But other artists all covered that song, for that label. Seemingly.

Chris: Huh. I looked it up and this was a Stiff UK release.

Jon: And they had "Booji Boy Records" but I think that was a Stiff or WB imprint meant to feign bootleg/indie coolness aesthetically. With the Mechanical Man single and whatnot.

Chris: Right right. Maybe Stiff kept the rights to the song Be Stiff. Because after this EP they put out the Mechanical Man EP, right?

Jon: I think so! I forget honestly, the chronology of it.

Chris: Or, is that a bootleg?

Jon: Nah it's official but meant to look sloppy. Pun INTENDED, BITCH.

Chris: Haha! Well that was thoroughly enjoyable.

Jon: Yeah! This was fun.

[eversweet-imagines]

A Spider and A Spark - Part 2

part one   part three  Part four Part five

“Peter knows Spider-Man!” Ned yelled causing the entire gym call to go silent. Y/N who had been climbing the rope and was already at the top let go out of shock,  quickly grabbing back onto it and sliding rather quickly down to the bottom of it. Times like this she was glad she had her powers other wise that rope burn would have hurt like a total bitch, she swung lightly off and landed with a small jump watching as Flash made fun of Peter saying how he should bring his pal Spiderman to Liz’s party. The bell rang signaling everyone to go and get changed. Y/N ran over to Peter and Ned, grabbing on to Peters wrist.

“Ow!” He pulled away quickly the heat of her hands too much for his skin. 

“Oh shit sorry the ropes kinda burned them on the way down.” She chuckled but quickly cleared her throat and looked at Peter with stern eyes.

“you aren’t seriously considering this party thing, right?” She asked, raising her brow as she waited for his answer. Ned stared at her, surprised that she was talking to Peter. Ned didn’t know about Y/N and as much as she tried to keep her distance from him at school there were moments hone she couldn’t help but talk to him. This was one of those times. Y/N shot her gaze over to him, annoyed with his staring. 

“Hi Ned. I’m Y/N.” She introduced herself, extending her hand out for him to shake. He glanced down at it nervously and then looked at her again before taking it in his own very nervous sweat-drenched hands. “Now that we got that out of the way.” Y/N said, wiping her hand off subtly on her shorts while turning her attention to Peter once more. 

“I-I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just swing by.” Y/N glanced quickly over to Ned, he didn’t know that Y/N knew Peters secret and it probably didn’t seem very good that she was just pushing Peter about the party. 

“Just remember we have that uhh project due tomorrow. So a party might not be the best idea.” She said shortly looking between the two boys awkwardly before turning on her heel abruptly and leaving the gym.

“That was weird.” Ned started as the two stared off where Y/N had left. “Since when do you and Y/N talk? And why was she asking you if you were going to the party like she is your mom? No wonder she has no friends she is weird.” Peter turned to Ned quickly. 

“Ned don’t be rude. We don’t really have friends either, We got paired up on a project and she is actually a pretty cool person.” Peter smirked at his play on words.Ned shook it off and the two went on with the rest of their day.

Music played loudly across the house and there were kids everywhere. It was one of those stereotypical parties Y/N swore only happened in movies. She stood in the shadows across the street staring at the house, contemplating actually going in.

“Y/N why do you hesitate? All of your systems are running well and there is no danger seen ahead.” Finn spoke in her ear causing her to jump. She couldn’t risk not having her suit with her, and though it wasn’t the most ideal outfit for her to wear to a party, leggings and a cute sweatshirt was enough to cover it up.

“Actually Finn all my systems are nervous.” She said, a car pulled up and she saw an equally as nervous Peter sitting inside. She waited until he and Ned had made it inside before she quickly ran across the street and entered the house herself. 

“Y/N?” Peter said as she walked through the door, pumping into him accidentally. 

“He-Hey Peter.” She smiled as she looked at how he was dressed. Dressed nice but definitely covering up a suit. Ned cleared his throat distracting both of them from staring at each other. A blush rose to Y/N’s cheeks a heat she wasn’t used to feeling. “Hey Ned, nice hat!”

“Penis Parker!” Flash yelled over the stereo, Y/N rolling her eyes as the three all turned their attention towards where he was yelling into the microphone about there being no Spider man. It was hard for y/N to control her temper, it had always been short which was one of the things that lead to her powers being discovered. She bit the inside of her cheek trying hard to not ‘accidentally’ set his stereo system on fire. Peter glanced over to her, noticing her hands in fists at her side and her stern face, he reached over and placed his hand on the small of her back a brief distraction that sent child up Y/Ns spine.

“I’m going to go get a drink.” Y/N said abruptly before turning and leaving quickly. Peter himself began feeling annoyed and he quickly stepped away from Ned, heading outside and finding himself standing on the rooftop staring into the party stripping down to his suit. He looked back down into the party, Ned standing awkwardly glancing around and waiting for Peter to swoop in. Y/N walked over to Ned asking him something before shaking her head and storming away. Peter took a deep breath standing up and getting ready to go into the party as Spiderman. He was about to swing down when there was a giant blue explosion off in the distance. His heart pounded in his chest, knowing this had to be the same guys as the night before.

Y/N was walking quickly out of the house, mumbling to her self about how disappointed she was in Peter, that he clearly isn’t ready for everything if he thinks that being an avenger is just a party trick. She was making her way down the street when she heard a loud explosion. 

“Finn what was that?” She ducked behind some bushes, slipping off the clothes overtop of her suit and shoving them into her backpack and pulling her mask over her head.Finn pulled up a map of the city scanning for the location of the boom. 

“It appears to be an arms deal of some sort. Would you like me to get you there?” Finn asked as Y/N looked over the situation. 

“Yes please.” Y/N followed the directions but didn’t make it fast enough before Peter had already started a full on game of cat and mouse. Only this time the Mouse was a van full of Alien grade weapons and the cat was just Spiderman getting dragged violently along the city streets. Y/N rolled her eyes and ran along, following and trying her best to help Peter by shooting fireballs at the van but missing due to their erratic driving in hopes of releasing Peter from their van. They finally set him free but it didn’t stop him, he jumped fences, crashed through most of them yet continued to chase after the van. Y/N continued to run along with him, falling behind lightly because she wasn’t able to swing from everything and instead had to stick to the ground as much as possible. He paused for a second on a rooftop, Y/N breathing heavy as she ran towards him finally able to catch up.

“Incoming.” Finn spoke suddenly in her ear and she jerked her attention up to where a giant metallic winged dude swooped down, grabbing Peter and flying him off. “TRACK HIM FINN! CALL TONY!” Y/N tried her best to run quickly in the direction that Peter was being taken but it was no use. 

“What Y/N?” Tony appeared on her screen, shining sun and loud music playing behind him. “Its Peter!” Tony let out a sigh as he pulled up Peters tracker. “Don’t worry I have one of my bots going to him now.” The call ended and Y/N stopped in her tracks, trying her hardest to catch her breath from the chase. She sat herself down on the curb in frustration. “Peter you stupid idiot.” She whispered to herself as she glanced around at the skid marks and debris all around her. Y/N’s gaze was drawn to a glowing purple weapon that seemed to have fallen out of the vehicle.

“Stay low to the ground.” Peter mumbled sarcastically as he grumpily walked down the street spotting Y/N and slumping down to sit next to her. Y/N turned to look over at Peter, opening her mouth to speak. “Don’t. Y/N.” 

“Peter… I get it. Okay?” She started, standing up. “I was in the same spot as you, you know?” Peter sarcastically laughs as he looks up at Y/N pulling off his mask. Y/N followed suit pulling hers off as well, running her hand through her hair. “Tony found me just like he found you. I went through everything that you are going through. Helping with one mission and then being told they would contact you and hearing nothing. I was so set on going out every night to prove I was worthy of being a part of their team. That they needed me. I would pick some stupid thing that I swore was going to be the one thing that proved it and every time Tony would turn me down saying I was stupid, and being reckless. That I should focus on other things like school and stuff. Hell I am a literal avenger now and he still treats me like this. He found me when I was only 12 Peter. To already have lost both of your parents and find someone who made you feel like you could do anything but still treat you like you will never be good enough at that age… it fucking hurts.” Peter stared at Y/N as she paced around talking in front of him. Peter for the first time felt like he was able to see Y/N. She wasn’t just some awkward mystery girl in the back of the class, or some badass avenger who was un touchable. No, she was Y/N a real person who wanted to be something bigger just like Peter did. Peter stood up from his spot and walked over to Y/N, standing in front of her. Her eyes lifted from the ground and meeting his. Peter lifted his arms around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest into a hug.

Y/N was taken a back at first but quickly slid her arms around his waist. She genuinely couldn’t remember the last time she hugged someone. It felt strange but also nice. Her eyes blinked open after a moment and the glowing purple weapon on the ground caught her attention. Her hand pushed Peter away as she moved over and picked it up. “Think fast.” She said, tossing it over to Peter who caught it and looked the strange thing over. He looked up at her with a grin on his lips.“Tomorrow we can meet in workshop and figure out what the hell that thing is.”

“We?” Peter asked, still not able to believe an actual avenger wants to help him considering everything Tony just said. 

“We are in this together. Wether you like it or not.” She smiled before slipping her mask back on and taking off into the night.

Y/N waited anxiously outside of the workshop, holding tightly onto the straps other backpack as she looked around the empty hallway for Peter. As she reached for her phone to send him a text he rounded the corner followed closely by Ned. Y/N scrunched her face slightly, not sure what Ned knew and why he was there.

“Hey Y/N, you remember Ned.” Peter said as they finally reached her. 

“Yeah, hey Ned.” She gave him a small smile and a little wave before looking to Peter with widened eyes as if asking ‘what the hell is he doing here’ Peter caught on and awkwardly smiled at Ned before grabbing her hand and pulling her slightly away from Ned.

“I think uh, we- he knows about us working together.” Y/N stared at him and held his hand tighter, hoping that didn’t mean that he told Ned about who she was without her permission. Not that it would be the end of the world, Y/N just held her identity as one of the only things she had left for herself. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about who you are. I just told him that you had found out by accident and that you were going to help us a little bit. It’s not my decision to tell him who you are.” Y/N’s heart warmed ever so slightly. 

“Thanks Peter…. that means more to me than you know.” Her hard grip loosened ever so slightly so that they were just comfortably holding hands. She stared down at their intertwined fingers and felt a sense of comfort radiating off of him. “But, if we are all going to be working together there can’t be any secrets.” Y/N pulled Peter back over to where Ned stood awkwardly rocking on his feet and humming to himself. “Ned. I’m Inferno.” She said bluntly. It took a moment for the words to process in his mind as he stared at her. His eyes slowly widening. 

“You’re joking right?” He stared at the two who both had very serious faces. “Prove it.. I can’t just believe that Y/N is inferno.. I mean Inferno is a total badass babe and you have been the schools nobody for so long… it just doesn’t make sense.” Peter held tighter onto Y/N’s hand as he felt her getting warmer as she started get angry.

“He means no harm. He just isn’t the best with words.”Peter whispered against Y/N’s temple. Y/N took a deep breath before looking around to make sure no one else’s around. She pulled her hand from Peters, igniting a flame in her palms from thin air, Ned stepping back in awe.

“Is that enough proof? I can also crush a mans skull with just my thighs if you need me to further prove myself.” Y/N’s voice was laced with sarcasm as she tilted her head at Ned. Peter smiled at Y/N, impressed with how amazing she always was. 

“N-no miss Inferno. I’m so sorry.” Y/N’s cold glare broke as she chuckled and pushed NEds shoulder slightly.

“Don’t sweat it. You really need to get better with how you talk to girls though.” Y/N said as she wrapped her arms around both of their shoulders. “Alright team lets do this.”