#Manhole Cover Strength

[sophieguo]

Manhole Cover Compression Testing Machine

Reliable and Accurate Testing for Manhole Covers The Manhole Cover Compression Testing Machine is a specialized testing device designed to assess the structural integrity of manhole covers under extreme pressure. This testing machine plays a crucial role in ensuring that manhole covers meet the required safety standards and durability expectations. Whether used for quality control in…

[frownyalfred]

Examples of Bruce’s “Dad Strength” as witnessed by various Robins throughout the years:

can and will bodily pick up any new Robin and bail as soon as gunfire starts on patrol

one time Bruce got out, physically ripped off a broken part of the Batmobile, and threw it in the backseat so he and Jason could keep chasing someone in the Narrows

ran home with Nightwing over his shoulder when he got shot

frequently lifts sewer grates/manhole covers like they weigh nothing

does push-ups with Robins on his back for a challenge

held onto the side of a building with just his fingers for ten minutes once when Steph’s grapple line broke and he had to help her back up

pulls hot dishes from the oven without mitts sometimes for Alfred (insists scar tissue on his hands means he can’t feel it, nobody fully believes him)

Damian swears he saw him kick a tree down once during training. A big tree.

Dick frequently catches him unscrewing screws in his prototypes with his bare fingers

Punches through walls????

can drink nothing but straight black coffee for several days before any signs of discomfort (this freaks out everyone but Tim)

[elizzsush]

“Fuck you Comic Con nerds!” | DC - Batman WIP

Batfam X Isekaied Reader

— in which you, a DC fan gets isekaied into and gets saved by boy wonder. Only to get mad at him and B… it’s only after you calm down (still mad at them) you piece together what actually happened… but should you tell them?

AU: Soulmate (?), isekai Rating: Sfw

Note: You and Damien are the same age and shit. I don’t really remember how old he is but for the sake of fanfiction let’s age him up to 18 (or down I looked it up and it said he was 37? I have no idea where that info was from comic are confusing)

Warning: Y/N swears a lot and makes a like one sexual joke? _________________________________

One minute you were in the greatest, most magical place in the world: Six flags. And the next you were in the sewer. To say you were pissed and totally confused was an understatement. Those funnel cakes by the entrance were calling your name- you were gonna get one before you left! Now instead of that sweet cake smell it was replaced with the smell of shit and piss and whatever else lived in the sewer.

Sixflags was suppose to be relaxing- doctors orders. You just needed to relax and distract from-

You were in the sewers. You dreaded to think about what you may have stepped in while on your quest to find a manhole cover.

So yes, you looked like an idiot in a Superman cape carrying a Wayne enterprises mug wondering around the sewers. The mug was half off and made you feel like you existed in the world of DC instead of the regular merchandise… and the cape was because who doesn’t get a cape when they go to six flags? Or at least bring the cape they already bought with them. Looking back, you blamed the mug. Anyway, you were wandering around this horrible sewer with water greener then green. It seriously looked toxic… when you heard this horrible roar…

You glanced back from where you came- looking towards the sound, when you heard it again. So, like any sane person. You broke out into a sprint.

Bad ideas, because it heard you and was coming closer now.

You seriously doubted you would be able to outrun this thing for long. It was getting closer and rapidly. But, thankfully, luck was on your side- because you saw a manhole cover!

Climbing the ladder you pushed the thing open-

Only to almost get ran over by a fucking car! “Watch it!” You cursed at the speeding car, a certain finger proudly in the air as you climb out. Momentarily forgetting about the creature that was chasing you. Remember that you slammed the man hole cover shut in a hurry.

But, did you think you could compete with some monster when it comes to the battle of strength? Yeah, didn’t think so either. It blasted the manhole cover off of its neat little spot and you hurry back and away from the road. “What the- oh my god.” You breath in relief when the thing was too big to actually climb out of the sewers. “Killer croc… okay… I’m losing it… whatever it is…” you try and breath out to collect yourself but you were interrupted by the sound of a very angry lizard man… thing. Crocodile? “Okay fuck off!” You shouted angrily at the villain and rip your cap off. “Abusive aunts or some shit is hard but by god your annoying!” You huff and run away because that just made him more angry and you didn’t want to stick around for that.

You did run away while waving two fingers at him, each from the middle of two of your hands but that was neither here nor there. You just needed to walk away and clear your head-

And…

You bumped into someone on your little escape. A chest of a fucking cosplayer. “My day couldn’t be going worse- oh my god, Fuck you Comic Con nerds!” You swore at the boy in black, red and green. “Six flags was suppose to be fucking relaxing!” You swore at him and turned away to go the opposite way only to bare witness to the snarls of a certain croc

“get back here!” He made the fucking ground shake.

“Fuck you and your shitty Damien cosplay, I am out of here.” You turn and ran from him only he to met with the silhouette of a bat… man, it was fucking Batman. “Oh I wonder who it is? Bruce Wayne, no fucking duh, Go fight the idiot on acid and leave me out of it.” You hissed because you were cornered. You tend to lash out when your cornered. He approached you quieter now. “…Oh um, I’ll take the crocodile, thanks.” You spoke as you backed up only for him to make the ground shake harder-

“Fine! Boy wonder then god damn. At least he’s hot!”

“How do You know our names?” Boy wonder piped up. He was suddenly standing beside you.

“Are You dense or really into role play?” You hissed at them. “I don’t know what kind of budget your little prank crew is working with but screw off!” Just then the crocadile managed to ruin the ground around him and break free- resulting in Batman and Robin to fight him and you-

The sane one to run away, “I’m so suing six flags for this- didn’t sign up for their fucking role-play shit.”

—————————————

Okay, so after adjusting. You were no longer in six flags- nor some rich nerds cosplay special effects whatever. Hell you didn’t even somehow end up on a movie set shooting for the next Batman. “Gotham more like god dammit, right?” You joked to yourself, and the old women next to you. She just looked at you weirded out and oddly disappointed before shaking her head. “Okay, Fuck me then.”

So, yeah, you were feeling a lot of emotions. Hey, you can adjust to this! Because no way in hell was getting back to your world worth being involved in whatever episode or comic plot this whole thing was. Yeah no, fuck that. You made a checklist.

1. Get out of Gotham (metropolis was lovely, Superman was cool-)

2. Get enough money to fuck off to some corner of the world no one knew about.

And finally 3. Live peacefully knowing you’ll never get that funnel cake.

The only problem? You didn’t have any money, food, shelter, phone, money again, or anything besides the clothes on your back. And you were craving funnel cake. Yes, you were poor in Gotham. That was basically a death sentence.

At least you had a mug. A stupid, useless mug. Hey, at least you can beg for change with it! “I should rob people.” You mutter to yourself because, that seemed like a good easy way to get money- the old women next to you however eyed you warily and moved her purse. “Not you, we’re cool Margaret.” You sent her a wave and a wink and got up. This plan would work.

It was this or sell the Justice leagues names to villains. Which- hey that could make cash and make you dead!

—————————————

Despite what people will tell you, stealing is fun.

Who would have guessed- your a natural pick pocket! If pick pocketing was running past women and tugging their bags away. “My bag! My purse!” Okay, maybe you had a bit of a sick sense of humor but you were desperate! And you made 132 dollars and 25 cents. Had it been two days? Yes, had you been pepper sprayed twice? Yes again, but you avoided it!

The only regret you had? Why hadn’t it been marvel? Marvel just seemed easier to live in. Yes the world did end but it bounced back! You sighed and threw a penny in the air. You were honestly tired. Two days was a long time to go without a bed. You couldn’t get a job either, you tired and needed so much to prove you were a serial killer or a thief- which included a birth certificate you didn’t have and so much more. Background checks would be the death of you. Even at that small cafe you met Margret? Yeah it was Margret. “Well we’ll well, if it isn’t Gotham’s newest petty criminal.”

You dropped your penny. Leaving you with 24 cents.

It was Jason fucking Todd.

“If I die, at least make it by those thighs.” You said solemnly, accepting your death. “I mean seriously, you squat or something?” You did a wolf whistle and now you were being detained. Okay, you tried.

You never claimed to be better then a man. And if you did you lied.

“I got her B.”

.

.

.

.

“Banananannaan Batman! Da Na!” You sang as Batman’s Batmobile pulled into the bat cave. The same one you had been dragged too. “He’s the crime fighting vigilantes who works alone! Besides Robin, Nightwing, Gordon, the Justice League, batgirl, Red Robin, red hood, Oracle, Barbra, um… I know theirs more help me out jay bird?” You sang as he excited the car. “He refuses to kill the joker who’s a mass murder ands death would save thousands! It’s Batman! The hero man! Danananana!”

“How do You know?” Batman asked as he walked towards you.

“The Song? Oh I improvised. Hard to find rhymes for Batman, hero man is pretty good though, huh?” He fucking punched you! “Fuck! What the hell dude? Wait are you the angry Batman who’s quieter or the nice Batman- god it’s so hard to know which one I ended up with.”

“This is serious.” Dick Said as he grabbed Batman hand and pulled him away from you.

“Heard of coping? penis?” You rolled your eyes, “this is kinda how I do it.”

“You sold our information, or Superman’s information too a villain. Tell us why and how you knew it and we’ll let you go.” He continued, “our friend is in serious danger now because of you.” He gritted his teeth looking upset.

You just rolled your eyes and licked your now bloody teeth. “Would have sold your guys information for a lot more then I got on me. Living large with eight dogs- maybe cats? Don’t know how I feel about animals actually. Which do you prefer dogs or cats?”

“We need to know how many villains you sold us out too.” Dick said calmly, his face getting closer to your own. “Now.”

You smile and lean closer to him. “You free after this?” He backed away with a frustrated look and Batman put his hand on Dick shoulder. “Oh B is tapping in now- great!”

“Your the only person who knows who we are.” Another voice said you looked behind you and saw Damien.

“That you don’t trust. Maybe check your inner circles before punching a poor thief! God… you’d think the world greatest detective would fact check- oh wait isn’t the greatest a chimp or something? I’ve always loved monkeys- oh maybe I’d get a monkey for my pent house.”

“You have no family, no friends, no birth certificate- before last week you didn’t exist. There are no records of you being born or traveling to Gotham. Who exactly are you?” Batman leaned close to you.

You stayed silent, thinking of your options. "I was with a traveling circus..." You began, "Then one day someone rigged the equipment for my parent's routine and then batman adopted me, and that was how I began robin..." You spoke solemnly, you noticed how a certain blue suited bird man tensed up. "Aw, don't tell me we have the same backstory!" You accused the Nighwing, "well one of us is going to have to change it and I hate to tell you, but I make it work."

"She knows more about us than our names... or at least more about Nighwing." You heard a robin mutter, the red one.

"Okay being red was his thing” you look at red hood, “and you took it, so you have no place to talk about me and penis's copycat situation- Even though I totally did it first and he should change it." You nudged your head towards Red Hood, "Kinda like how you took his role as Robin, but you know what Ima stay away from that can of worms haha." You laughed awkwardly as Jason stood up from behind you and walked towards you menacingly.

"This is a Major Turn Off for me you know? The costumes just don’t do it- maybe if you strip-“ and your mouth was tapped shut.

_____________________________________NOTE: Y/N is supposed to be Deadpool coded because I was watching Deadpool and laughing my ass off earlier.

[leonw4nter]

Warmth For The Winterfall

ID!Leon x GN!Reader ; roommates/house decorating || Leon Secret Santa || 🎁: @uhlillie 🎄: @leonsecretsanta <3

Leon's operations always proceed as follows: infiltrate, carry out, and slip out covertly. It's always that easy in principle, but in practice, things never turn out the way he had hoped. He's tired of it all; it's the holidays, goddamn it, but work won't let him take a break for even a moment. A gloved finger releases the safety catch as a far-off, rhythmic vibration brings him out of his reverie. He is driven insane by the absence of any other sensory cues than touch, sound, and sight, as well as the darkness trails behind him where his flashlight isn't focused. The experienced agent feels as though he is heading down a path with no assurance of return since the tunnel seems to go on forever in front of him.

“Hunnigan, are you sure this is the right one?” He asks into his comms, voice low. “I’ve been walking for 30 minutes but I did hear a noise earlier.”

He hears her type into a keyboard and click a mouse before she responds back to him. “Yes, I’m tracking you now and you’re exactly where you need to be. The tunnel is purposely long to throw any wanderers off; years ago, there were functioning gate systems for every kilometer walked but it appears that they’re not employed anymore and haven’t been for a few years now. Stay vigilant Condor One, I’m picking up a heat signature somewhere in the system. Stay safe.”

“Copy,” he responds before turning it back off to listen to his environment better. He sighs before he continues forward, unable to speed through things and wrap it up for the year– he can’t afford to do that.

After a few more minutes of walking, he reaches a seemingly unassuming manhole in the ground and after receiving instructions from Hunnigan, he opens it with some effort and descends down the narrow opening. Before he can totally reach the ground, something grabs him by his ankle and yanks him down with enough force to smack him down; the impact forces air out of his lungs, stunning him for a moment as he tries to take in large amounts of air. He recovers quickly though, retrieving his loaded gun and aiming at his beastly assailant: an alligator as tall and long as a double-decker tour bus in the roads of LA, its scaly body covered in green grime and some sort of slime mold. The BOW lunges at him, its hideous maw wide open as it charges but Leon dodges the charge, aiming expertly at fatal points but his bullets do little damage to its thick hide; he realizes this, also recognizing that using a grenade in this space would kill him as well, opting to run to safety to avoid the gator as much as he can. Luck not being on the agent’s side, the alligator is a lot more intelligent than he thought it was, using its tail to slam Leon and send him flying into a wall, landing awkwardly into his forearm before a particularly nasty fall. Pain struck through him like a thunderclap, a resonant ache too powerful for Leon to ignore, amplifying the sickening awareness that something had been horribly misaligned. His consciousness was ebbing, bending to the will to cave into the fresh surge of torment, yet he managed to retrieve a grenade from his gear. With his good hand, he pulled the pin and sent it to the gator’s direction. Right before it explodes, he gathered whatever strength he had left to find the most secure spot around to duck in. A white-hot brilliance is followed by a roar that interrupts the air, from the grenade or the BOW Leon isn’t sure but he’s relieved that the damn beast is in chunks and bits now, turning on comms again to relay information back to HQ.

“Mission cleared,” he grunts. “Request back-up… broken arm…”

“Report your status agent,” Hunnigan asks to repeat.”

“Just said my arm’s broken,” Leon repeats with a slight edge of impatience. “Rat bastard flung me against the wall… goin’ to fucking pass out…”

“Copy,” she responds. “Hang in there Leon, I’ve dispatched a rescue team and they’ll be there in 20. Stay with me.”

“I’ll… try…”

He groans a little more, trying to limit movement in his bad arm as he props himself up from his previous ball curl position. Such a simple injury shouldn’t render him this weak but that hit was just too strong for him to make it out unscathed, his consciousness beginning to give way to a creeping desire to fall asleep. The world began to darken around him, vision unfocusing but he kept his resolve steadfast: if he could make it through this one, he won’t let the holidays pass without him letting you know your laugh, your kindness, and your mere presence had kept him fighting. He’d trade his silence for vulnerability because if he could survive this madness, he’d be able to survive the terror of telling you that he’s loved you from the start. He admires your mind, how your thoughts could dance between profound and playful, how you could say something so wise and crack him up with a stupid joke at the same time; he adores the way you make him feel understood and be his truest self, and how enchanted he is with the way you can be fiercely independent and also nurturing– your existence is proof that the universe fought tooth and nail to bring such a blessing in his dark life.

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The scent of antiseptic, the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor, and a soft pillow supporting his head greets Leon as he stirs awake from his unconscious state. The blinds are drawn around his bed and his bad arm is now in a black sling, taken care of by the doctors who tended to him. He quietly groans, running his hand through his face and feeling the prickly stubble that’s begun to grow on his cheeks and chin. Somewhere in the room, he hears Hunnigan’s faint voice conversing with someone and since it sounded like she’s the only speaker present, it must be over a call. He doesn’t have the energy to eavesdrop, preferring to close his eyes and fall back asleep for a little longer but his FOS agent interrupts his plans, pushing aside the curtains and greeting Leon.

“You’ve been out for nearly an entire day,” she points out. “How are you feeling?”

“Crusty.” He deadpans, earning a nod from her.

“Makes sense.”

Silence fills the room again before the FOS agent speaks up again. “Called HQ today and field for a 2-month rest and recuperation period for you. You deserve it after 7 years of non-stop work. They’ll still need a written report from you though but I told them to cut you some slack since your arm’s broken and the holidays are right around the corner.”

She purposely leaves out the part where she nearly instigated an argument because her and Leon’s higher-ups refused to let him off, standing her ground fiercely and convincing them to let the man off the hook otherwise she’ll personally email the President herself and send in documented reports of over fatigue, violation on ethics, and liability regarding an overworked employee being denied a recuperation period; Leon certainly wouldn't like hearing about her nearly getting nasty with his boss so she decided to keep this to herself.

“Thanks, Ingrid. I appreciate it,” he says with a closed lip smile. “So, uh… when do I get discharged? And the hospital bill?”

“You’ll be discharged in about… 4 hours and the agency’s got your bill covered, just focus on getting better soon. Anyway, how’re things between you and them?”

A barely perceptible smile tugged at the corner of his lip though briskly concealed carelessly with a clear of his throat that gave away the simmering nervous excitement beneath his nonchalant exterior.

“I’ll do something about it soon,” he carefully responds, it being his tender affections kept lock-and-key in his heart. He looks up at Hunnigan whose arms are crossed, looking down at him with a look that shows that she doesn’t quite believe that that is all he has to say.

“What?” Leon asks with a shrug. “You look like you want me to say more.”

“Because I know there’s more than just that,” she points out. Leon looks down and stays silent, remembering the promise he made to himself moments before he passed out. “Don’t act like you don’t spend your work break talking to me about them and texting me at ass-scratching hours of the night because Jill and the Redfields are sick of you not doing anything.”

“Guilty as charged,” he says with a half-smile. He took a moment to collect himself internally, to shift in his hospital bed that will display a convincing feigned indifference that will redirect attention away from the telltale crimson burning in his ears. “But I… I promised myself that I won’t let the holidays pass me by without letting them know that I’ve loved them for so long, so that's something, right?”

“Mhm.”

“They deserve to know how incredible and precious they are to me but there’s this voice that tells me they’re better off not knowing, and I hate how much I listen to it. It sounds selfish of me but I don’t want them to walk out of my life just because I couldn’t keep myself in check.”

“Why do you think that they’re better off not knowing? Sometimes we assume that silence is safer but it can create a distance when there doesn’t need to be any,” Hunnigan begins. “It’s okay to feel scared but don’t let it rob you and them of a chance to experience something genuine. Do you trust them to treat you well, Leon?”

“Yes–”

“Then trust that they’ll handle your feelings with care. Certainly you’ve got reasons on why you trust them and I’m sure that it’s because you’re treated kindly and valued so why not trust them with your feelings? With your heart?”

Chapped lips parted with the intent to say more words but instead, a soft sigh of resolution is released. Hunnigan gave him an encouraging pat to his shoulder before walking to the other side of the bed, letting the nurse who came to do their rounds in. “Good to see that you’re back with us, Mr. Kennedy. How are we feeling?”

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In the meantime, he will have to accept rides from friends or use public transit a bit more frequently; his beloved XDiavel will have to spend the next six months gathering dust in the basement parking of his apartment complex. It will take some time to get used to using his left arm, and asking for help from others will make it even more difficult. He is unsure of how he will handle this aspect of his life for the time being, but he is aware that he will need to practice putting on shirts with his less dominant hand, especially sweaters and button-ups now that the weather calls for layering clothes. He will definitely miss the thrill and breeze that riding his bike brings him, but it's a welcome change if it means allowing his arm to heal properly. 

The car ride to Leon’s apartment is filled with comfortable silence, neither agent energized enough to start small talk, especially at 2:17 AM. As he looks out the car window, blue irises meeting the sight of ice white like the sclera of eyes, he internalizes the fact that he’s lucky to make it to the end of the year, still alive to see another Christmas; the year has been rough, like last year and the year before last year, but he’s amazed at how long he’s kept going despite it all. Instead of the weariness and stench of his line of work sticking to him, it’s the stingy scent of hospital disinfectant that clings to him like a distant memory. He leans his head against the window, the coolness of the external environment oddly grounding as he thinks of his dear roommate and a clandestine focal point of his most tooth-rotting indulgent domestic dreams– you, who unknowingly filled in the cold and empty spaces of his life. Even when he’s out in the field, hyperfocused on the mission objectives, his thoughts always find a way to circle back to you: he swore to protect you from the horrors he’s faced, even from afar, yet he’s too terrified to ask for more of you. For the longest time, as a man who is no longer a stranger to losing people he cares about the most, the idea of being your trusty roommate was enough for him.

“Catch some sleep, Leon.” He cranes his head to look at his coworker from the corner of his eye.

“We’re still a few minutes away. I’ll wake you up once we’re there.”

Leon mumbles a faint ‘thanks’ before settling cozily into his seat, succumbing to the bone-deep exhaustion and dozing off to a light slumber.

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He tries to keep his footfalls as light and muted as possible, a conscious effort to make the pads of his heavy combat boots lighter. Now, he stands in front of the door; he’s sure that you're fast asleep, blissfully unaware of the world around you as you’re somewhere in dreamland. Carefully, he unlocks the door and steps inside a dark home before locking it once again behind him; everything is neat and in order, just like how he left it 3 months ago, though the couch definitely looks a lot cleaner, the throw pillows have cases he’s never seen before, and the air smells faintly of mistletoe room spray. He walks down the hall, careful to avoid bumping into anything, and turns the corner where the bedrooms would be– yours to the right and his to the left. He doesn’t mean to be creepy or unsettling but as he stands near your door, he listens closely for any noise and to his relief, he only hears soft snores which ever so slightly tilts the corners of his lips skyward. Once he realizes that he’s grinning fondly, he brings a hand to rub at his stubbled chin as he chastises himself for foolishly folding for something as simple as a soothing slumber of the one person who unknowingly occupies all 4 chambers of his heart.

“Mushy,” he inaudibly scolds himself while still sporting a stupidly-in-love grin.

Shaking his head to rid his mind of such soft thoughts, he decides to head into his room and have the first proper sleep he’s gotten in months. He forgoes a shower– too tired to have one, fuss around with his sling, and wait for the water to run warm. Grabbing a clean blanket from one of the cabinets inside his bedroom, he kicks off his boots then lays down on his bed and drapes it over himself, laying on his bare mattress in his Levi’s and the same black shirt, his leather jacket now on the ground somewhere near his boots. 

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Morning comes, prompting you to start your day a minute before your alarm disturbs the tranquility. After your morning rituals, you cook yourself a packed lunch to bring to work in order to save up for a gift for Leon– that is, if work won’t hog him until Christmas. You’re not even sure what he likes aside from sleek watches and neat jackets, something within the bounds of your salary. A shaving set? Premium leather cleaner? A gift card to a popular barbershop in town? Something for a grill? Does he even own a grill?

“I swear, Leon, you’re so going to get Vaseline lip balm from me because I don’t know what you want that I can afford,” you tell yourself as you flip the food over to thoroughly cook the other side. “What the hell do you even do for a living to earn 6 figures? How are you still living in an apartment and not in some mansion at a mountain overlooking an ocean, seriously. Might just be a man thing.”

“Not really a big fan of huge houses,” a raspy and baritone voice coming from behind you responds.

Your heart leaps and lodges into your throat, turning quickly as your breath hitches while you come face-to-face with the owner of that voice with your eyes wide. A soulful, honest-to-god scream coming from the depths of your chest crawls its way out of your chest and it’s now Leon’s turn to be wide-eyed and off-guard, his face nearly mirroring the same shock from your own face.

“Easy, it’s just me!” Leon explains, voice tinged with his own nerves– too much for just having woken up in the morning.

“You scared me! Why are you freaking out?!” You say with a flinch. “What the hell, Leon?!”

“Smelled something good cookin’ so I got up,” he begins to explain as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Missed your cooking.”

Unable to form coherent words with the overwhelming blend of emotions, you opt to go in for a hug. In your haste, you don’t notice the black sling that nearly blends in with his shirt. To your confusion, he steps away an inch and politely extends a hand to place some distance between you both.

“Arm,” he points to his injured left arm. “I just got it treated yesterday so uh… we’re gonna have to find an alternative to the usual hugging.”

With the dramatic overload of information dumped on you all at once in under a minute, you end up sobbing instead and you’re certain you don’t look a single bit attractive which definitely won’t work in your favor if you want to woo your roommate.

“Don’t scare me like that again!” You sniffle as you wipe your tears with the back of your hand. “And your arm too, that looks like it hurt like a bitch.”

He chuckles and steps closer to you, bringing you into a one-armed hug as you press your face to his chest and cry a little more at him being back home safely, at the injury he sustained, and at the unintentional scare he gave you.

“It’s so good to see you again, Leon. I was wondering if you’d even be back for the holidays,” you say as you begin to calm down.

“Yeah, me too. I’ve missed seeing you,” he regrets his words when he sees your eyes subtly widen at his phrasing. “And uh… I’ll be here until March so you can have me as long as you want. Feels good to not be bothered for a couple of months, y’know.”

“That sounds great. You’ll finally be able to watch the DVDs you have stacked,” you motion to the neatly kept stack on the center table beneath the wall-mounted TV.

“You can watch them with me if you want,” he instantly offers. You’re not sure if his cheeks have always had that subtle flush in them or if his pupils are normally large, but you agree to take his offer anyway.

You finish up cooking your miraculously unburnt lunch, packing it in tupperwares as Leon watches from the dining table while he nurses a mug of instant coffee; it’s a little sweeter and creamier than how he usually has his but he doesn’t mind, you cared enough about him to even share some of the sugary coffee you enjoy. You chatted about whatever happened in your life while he was gone– being a contender for a promotion, a plan on adopting a kitten around the new year, unproductive coworkers making workload heavier, and other random things that come to mind. Leon chuckles and offers his own commentary, missing your voice more than he previously thought; he notes how your hair is now a little longer, there’s slight bags under your eyes, and you’ve got a new bracelet; he wonders from who.

“Sorry but I’m going to cut my yapping short, I gotta clock in to work now.”

He nods, getting up to place his mug in the sink before walking you to the door.

“I’ll be here waiting, it’s not like I can go anywhere with this arm.”

You smile and give him a kind pat to his right shoulder. “Right. Welcome home, Leon. Feel free to grab some sweets by the way, they’re in the left cabinet.”

He nods and watches you leave, only shutting the door once you’re out of his sight. Looking down at himself, he decides to take a shower but first: he’ll have to figure out how to put on the waterproof cast by himself and thoroughly clean himself up.

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In the days leading up to Christmas, your routine merges with his in order to help him out; frequently seeing Leon shirtless becomes the norm along with helping him put on button-up shirts, slip his arms into cozy sweaters, changing his slings, and cooking meals for two… almost like how couples do. Despite how often you see his chiseled midriff, fingers cautiously ghosting over scar tissue and lean muscles, you always require a breather afterwards in order to rid your face of that telltale redness. Just hours ago, your cheek brushed against his and you swear you felt him rein in a sigh from escaping his lips; you wished that he was feeling just as clammy and nervous as you were, hearts synced in beats and powerful emotions. His eyes trailing your movements as you secure his sling doesn’t help your confusion too, causing you to frequent ‘signs that he is in love with you’ articles each night. On a more surely positive note, his fast food intake has been reduced and he’s been enjoying healthier meals that you cook: constantly giving you compliments and his detailed praises for each dish and technique. You cringe at yourself whenever your mind automatically drifts to your wild imaginations at being happily married to him. 

Leon finds himself unable to fall asleep; he’s tried everything– white noise, a sleeping mask, and getting off of his phone but to no avail. Each time he sleeps a little deeper into his slumber, images of the grotesque and macabre dance through his mind and drive him mad. It’s not like he can even get into his usual sleeping position due to his arm, preventing him from fully getting comfortable, so he sits up with a groan before slipping out his room and into the living room; christmas decorations are half-up, some adorning the room in festive reds and greens but there are some that appear as if they were placed there without a care, a little more of the decorations still in boxes. You did note that you’ve been busy covering shifts and working overtime, leaving no time and energy to finish furnishing the house in time for Christmas. Struck by a brilliant idea, he takes the initiative to complete the rest of the decorations so you’d wake up to a Hallmark movie dreamscape in the morning… and it’ll all be thanks to him and you’d smile real wide and call him charming– he’s getting ahead of himself, a mindless smile once again gracing his features. He gets to work on what he can, finding little to no trouble on using one hand for this task.

He shocks himself with how good and fitting his pairings are: the decorations, tinsel, wreaths, and holiday charms complementing each other a lot better than he expected. Maybe he should come over to the Redfields and help them put up decorations, Chris could seriously use some lessons on coordinating and matching. One break per hour turns into two then three and eventually, he’s conked out on the couch with a box of christmas balls on his lap and tinsel on his free hand; his mouth his open, head thrown back and some brunette fringe curtaining an eye. You’d love to spend the entire day giggling and describing the state you found your endearing roommate, teasing him to no end– the poor man woke up confused, seeing the first rays of daylight filter in and hear your muted chuckles as you took pictures of him.

“Fell asleep decorating?” you ask, though it’s a little pointless to ask: you know the answer.

“Yeah,” he rubs the back of his neck before setting aside the box and standing. “I couldn’t sleep last night so I decided to get busy. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, I seriously don’t mind. I could use some help since I’ve been so busy and tired so you’re heaven-sent for putting some of it up, thank you again. You’ve done so much for me already–”

“No, you’ve done so much for me already. Don’t give me all the credit,” he says with a timid grin.

You walk around, stopping around the walls and tables and in front of the tree. “You’re really good at this! You even swapped out some of the things I already put up– no biggie though, it looks even better now. Who knew Leon Kennedy could make a–”

“Hallmark movie dreamscape?”

“Yeah!”

The entire thing isn’t particularly funny or the pinnacle of comedy but you both find yourself sharing a fond chuckle and you feel your hummingbird heart rattle against its bone-cage and Leon already knows he’ll be obsessing over this moment all day long.

“You’re great at this, Leon– genuinely. It’s so… pretty and magical and basically the stuff of dreams. I love the arrangements, I don’t know what’s better to keep staring at: you or this Christmas wonderland.”

He’s sure to yap Hunnigan’s poor ear off all afternoon while you’re out.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

From that day on, he spends most of his days (and sleepless nights) planning the perfect confession: writing it down on paper, pacing around the room acting it out, and mumbling the words he’ll use. He knows he’s acting and treating this like a silly teenage boy with an out-of-league crush and in a way, he thinks you are: you’re heaven-sent, God’s apology for all the evil and scum in this world. He giggles and chuckles at the prospect of confessing to you, getting all wiggly until an ache in his bad arm cuts it short and causes him to wince for a moment before getting back to where he left off. Claire calls him delusional, Leon thinks he’s being a romantic visionary. 

The sight of Leon’s brightened, reinvigorated puppy eyes stuck with you until you reached your workplace; those bedazzled eyes, coupled with his perfect smile, is the kind of thing that belongs to someone who has it all: charm, looks, and confidence. If there were already others interested in him, surely you can’t compete: he deserves someone bolder and more upfront, not just someone fumbling with half-hearted attempts to be seen by their secret darling. Every attempt to flirt and hint at your affections seemed to go unnoticed, his responses always polite but never suggestive of anything more; maybe you weren’t clever enough to capture the attention of someone as effortlessly suave as Leon Kennedy

“It’s not his fault,” you bitterly thought to yourself as you bit on the edge of your pen. “I’m just not that outstanding for him to leave an impression…”

“Who’s fault?” your coworker asks, peeking over their cubicle.

“Nothing,” you quickly dismiss the slip-up. “Work must be getting to me, I’m talking to myself now, haha...”

There’s already an ‘incident’ wherein you took the time to shape the foam in Leon’s coffee into a heart. “Thought I’d sprinkle some love for your day.”

“Lattes aren’t really my preference but thank you,” he responded that one embarrassing morning. “Mm, this is really good.” Despite him enjoying the coffee enough to take it to work, it still left you red-faced and ashamed of yourself.

Unwilling to let other embarrassing memories like these get the best of you, you push those thoughts down before they have a chance to simmer up and bother you so you occupy yourself with work.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

“I can do it myself,” Leon mutters half-heartedly though his predicament betrayed his words: the remaining sleeve of his favorite sweater dangling around his neck like a sad scarf.

You ignored his stubbornness, hands gentle as you fumbled with his sweater as you fixed it up for him before slipping his bad arm inside with tender care.

When the sleeve finally aligned, it’s as if your heart overrode your ability to logically reason with yourself and so, you placed a hand on his stubbled cheek to steady him. The touch lingered for a little longer, the seconds stretching on a little longer. Leon’s breath camps out in his throat, too terrified to make a little move and shatter the magic. Unfortunately for him, you took your hand back as if his face was a cup of hot cocoa too hot to hold.

“Sorry,” you whisper before backing off, leaving an achy emptiness in the blue-eyed agent’s heart. “Is it all okay now?”

“Huh? Right– yes, it’s fine now. Thanks, by the way.”

You nod, excusing yourself from his presence to occupy yourself with something else, the awkward void palpable than ever though you both know that you felt a shared crackle of something precious.

The night is all so perfect and cozy– a delectable Christmas feast, soft Christmas sweaters, and a comforting atmosphere settling over your shared apartment with Leon. You don’t want this night to ever end, for this feeling to dissipate come morning time. It’s now or never, so you direct Leon to stand with you in the arch of the doorway. Taking a deep and steadying breath, you let your feelings be known before the fear can ruin everything again.

“I know you probably think that this is sudden,” you carefully begin. “But it’s not. It’s been simmering for a year and 3 months now– each time you come home from some work-related thing or when I make you smile or when I help you out with your sweaters and shirts, there’s this feeling that threatens to crumble me deliciously and it’s all because of you.”

Leon tilts his head, unconsciously mimicking a confused puppy. “What do you mean…?”

“Under this stupid mistletoe that I placed while you were taking the pies from the neighbor, I can’t let this moment pass without me being honest to you: you mean so much to me– so much that if I lost you, I’d go insane. I’m completely, overwhelmingly, and all-consumingly in love with you and honestly, it’s impossible not to.”

Your voice trembled and if even the slightest thing didn't go your way, you’re certain you’ll cry from the immense pressure on you. You laugh softly, trying to soothe yourself as a nervous warmth flows through you.

“You’re not the only one,” Leon speaks up, voice thick with emotion, “who’s been thinking about this moment.”

He steps closer, cautiously perching his right hand on your hip.

“I was going to say something first but you beat me to it first,” he adds while sporting a tantalizing smile. “I planned on telling you later tonight but guess I’ll have to let you win this time.”

Your eyes locked with his, the weight of formerly unspoken feelings suddenly lifting and giving way to something charged. Taking a tiny step closer, you cup his face in your hands again and you sigh at how perfect the fit is.

“So… what did we learn?” You jokingly ask.

“That we both suck at keeping secrets?” He jokes back.

A shared and equally shy giggle erupts between you two like you’re both teenagers new to the whole shtick of love.

“So… you do know what being under a mistletoe requires us to do right?” he softly asks.

Beneath the mistletoe, time seemed to stop and the seconds that flowed were tinged with genuine nervousness intensifying as your faces drew ever nearer.

“I love you,” Leon says before meeting your lips with his, gentle and feather-light with hints of hesitation. It was slow yet sweet, sweeter than all the combined holiday treats you both had. The shared warmth and affection blurred the rest of the world into insignificance; each brush of lips were delicate like falling snowflakes. As you both pull away to catch air, you rest your foreheads together and share a giggle in the tingly aftermath of your first kiss.

NOTE - Happy holidays everyone <3 I would like you to give yourself either a tight hug, a pat to the shoulder, or both for making it to the end of the year. The year certainly wasn't smooth or easy for some of us but I'm proud of you for ending the year with me and the rest of us who deeply care about you. I hope that every single one of you are warm and cozy in your homes, with stomachs happily full from a tasty dinner, and content with your lives right now. If you're currently going through something, please hold on and stay strong: things will all be okay in the end and if they aren't okay right now then it's not the end just yet-- rest and slow down if you must but never give up <33 You got this and I know you do because I believe in you, sending virtual hugs and kisses to every single person who sees this post on their dashboards *<]:D !! If you're seeing this, thank you for taking time to read and interact with this post :3 I <3333 UUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The dividers are made by @cafekitsune (the moving red line divider), @bernardsbendystraws (the Christmas lights divider), and @wcnderlnds (the red and blue snowflakes) + the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).

[deathdetermineslife]

I really don't wanna say this and sound rude but why ship with Korekiyo? Like there's so many other characters in the franchise you could have picked and you picked... that one? Maybe I'm just being an asshole but you just had to pick him?

this has been sitting in my inbox since Christmas Eve but just to be That Guy here is a long, horribly comprehensive list of reasons why I am in love with this man

—————————————————————————

he's fucking pretty

look at him. he's beautiful. pretty long hair, first and foremost. I love a man with pretty long hair. he has pretty yellow eyes and also look at his (what I assume to be) eyeliner. this man is beautiful. don't even get me started when he takes his mask off. sheesh. someone get me a fan! maybe I'm just weird but I love a man who's feminine but also masculine at the same time. not androgynous but a secret other thing. I think he fits into that category.

he's also very tall (6'2") and I am short (5'6") so we have a nice height difference. also something about a man who's built like a stake olive garden bread stick I love. I could snap him in half. I won't get graphic here but he's gorgeous and that's obviously reason number one.

another thing too is I really love his design. military inspired clothing is very cunty (iirc I think his outfit was inspired by a music video? I dunno how true this is) but either way it just suits him very well. gives off this mysterious aura which fits his character. also he wears these bandages on his hands and you wonder why, because as you can see in his pregame sprite he doesn't have any scarring or anything. my personal headcanon is that he wears them to keep artifacts he handles from getting scuffed up.

I also just think that knee-high boots fuck hard. nothing to add to that. they fuck.

he has a brain

he's smart guys. why wouldn't I love a man in academia? anthropology is very interesting. he's a yapper, talks all the time about his interests, which he's very well versed in. I want a man who I can have intelligent conversations with !!!! he fits that perfectly cmon

I could talk to him for hours and never get bored... even if I don't entirely understand what the fuck he's yappin about i still love him nonetheless!!!!! I want a man who I can learn something from. and I love anthropology!!! so every conversation is something to remember.

I dunno I just like how he's the kind of individual you could talk to for forever. he always has something to say.

he's a fuckin freak

none of you are allowed to call him a freak. by the way let's get that straight but he's so fucking weird and that makes him lovable. I'm a weirdo. this is a sentence I would say. who says the shit he says. there's a scene where another character picks up a manhole cover and his response to that is "you could easily crush a child's skull with that strength". who says that. who says that. I love him.

I want a man with this sort of off-putting pazazz that none of you could begin to fathom /silly

he's just so cunty

tell me this line isn't funny. he has a sense of humor only few can understand (autistics) and I'm one of them. people think he's not funny but he's just funny in a dry way.

also yes he may have been serious in this scene but that doesn't make it any less funny. he just has such an attitude. there's this scene after u find out one of the characters is an assassin and he's like "uhm why are we including her in this activity she kills people" babe !!! babe !!! baby doll !!! guess what You Do !!! it's funny, laugh. he just has Such A Personality.

he's relatable

"Lachlan no the fuck he isn't" HE ISSS this is the line my username is based off of. it's stuck with me for like 5 years since I read it.

he's such an interesting character when it comes to the concepts of grief and loss and how one copes with the passing of someone close to you, especially when that someone hurt you. I could probably talk for hours about how he's such an interesting case study on how grief can effect ones healing from trauma, or how grief itself is a cycle that he's destined to repeat (killing over and over again to sate the desires of the dead), or how everything about his character relates to death, just generally. his favorite story in canon is Medusa, his dislikes air conditioners because they repel spirits, he's, you know, a serial killer, and so much more. I could write an essay on him.

he's relatable to me, anyways. #trauma LMAO

hes just interesting

rapid fun facts about my husband, go!!!

like I mentioned before he hates air-conditioning, he also hates holy water. you can guess why. iirc in one of his official arts it's says somewhere that a lot of women are jealous of him bc his hair is so pretty. which, yea, me too. he also wakes up at six in the morning everyday, mainly to get ready. what he spends hours doing i don't know. there's more fun facts I could share but you probably aren't very interested in hearing them

all in all though I don't think I picked him I think he just came to me at the right time. and for the last light five years I've been obsessed and he's all I think about every day and night. that's my husband!!! I love him. not much else to add there. no other fictional character I think ever at all in any way has ever been appealing to me in the way that he is. I can't explain it that well, he's just something special.

okay that's all if you read all of this ily

[theyhavetakenovermylife]

Domestic Dream: Love Beyond the Shadows

Bayverse!Donatello x reader

My Domestic Dream with Raphael quickly became one of my top posts, so I thought why not make one for each of our favorite boys? So I now present to you; Domestic Dream Donatello Edition!💜

Warnings: Spelling.

—----------------------------------------------

The soft glow of city lights reflected off the damp walls of the sewers as Donatello made his way up the ladder towards the manhole cover leading to the surface. But tonight was different. Tonight, he would step out of the shadows and into the unfamiliar world above, a world that belonged to you and your family.

It had been planned for a long time now. Donatello was going to meet your family. Your mother had been asking you for months now; when were they going to meet this Donatello you had been speaking so much of?

At first Donnie was actually supposed to have met your family last week. The whole thing was planned. He would be there with you in your apartment when your family came over, and navigate through whatever reactions they would throw at him. But crime never slept, so when Leonardo called him an hour before your family was about to arrive, telling him that police chef Vincent had requested their service for an emergency, he had to leave. He had apologized to you several times, but you weren’t mad at him. You had been honest with our parents, and told them that he worked with the police and was called in for an emergency. You weren’t lying, that was literally what happened.

But your parents were now even more interested in meeting your mysterious cop boyfriend, pressing you even harder to find a date they could meet him. That would be exactly a week later at their place. Donatello couldn’t lie; it terrified him. He had already found the thought of meeting your family at your place scary enough, but the thought of going to their place was making him nauseous. At your place he at least felt a little comfortable. To him it was a second home, where he had spent several days and nights. Your parents' place was screaming danger at the poor tech genius.

Emerging from the manhole, Donatello found himself in a quiet alley where you stood, waiting patiently. The dim light revealed the warmth in your eyes as you smiled at him, reassuring the nervous turtle with just a glance. Donnie wasn’t sure if his knees felt weak because of the horrible feeling in his guts, or the fact that you were wearing his favorite dress. You greeted him with a warm smile, before standing on your toe tips to meet his lips in a small peck.

"Ready, Donnie?" you asked, reaching for his hand, feeling it shake ever so slightly in yours. He nodded, squeezing it gently, drawing strength from your touch. He couldn’t believe it. He had fought ninjas and aliens, yet the thought of meeting his girlfriend’s parents made him shake in terror.

Together, hand in hand, you made your way towards the fire escape that led to your family's apartment. As you approached the window to your parent’s living room, Donatello felt a mix of excitement and apprehension. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what lay ahead.

Upon entering through the window, your family was already gathered in the living room. The initial shock on their faces was evident, as Donnie followed you through the window, especially from your little sister who gasped and pointed.

"(Y/N), who... what is that?" she whispered to you. Donnie was trying hard to read her expression. Was she scared of him? No, it didn’t seem like it. She just looked, well, shocked.

"That's Donatello," you said, smiling at her, tugging Donnie’s hand closer to you. “My boyfriend. The one I told you about”.

“That is your cop boyfriend?”, your mother asked, looking cautiously at the purple clad turtle in her living room. At that moment Donnie wished he was smaller and didn’t take up so much space. His volume only made it easier to look at him.

“Well, he isn’t exactly a cop, but he does work with the NYPD”.

“Oh”, your father said, taken aback, positively? Donnie did not expect that. “Well, what do you do, Donatello?”

“W- well, me and my brothers provided the NYPD with help, t- typically in situations h- humans can’t handle t- themselves”. Fuck! Why did he stammer like that, and in front of (Y/N)’s parents of all?

“Wait! Were you part of that special task force that took care of the alien invasion?”, your father asked, lighting up like a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.

“Uh, yeah. T- that was me and my brothers”. And with that the questions started flying from your mother, father and sister, all wanting to know the strangest of things, each with an interested smile on their faces.. Your big brother, however, had a scowl on his face, eyeing Donatello suspiciously. He still hasn't said a word to Donnie, causing the tall mutant turtle to wonder if he did something.

As the evening went on and the dinner was eaten, Donatello grew slightly more comfortable with your parents, enjoying a light conversation and small talk with them over the table. Your brother however, remained silent, watching Donnie with conscious eyes. Then finally, while you were talking with your parents about work, Donnie finally gathered up the courage to talk to your brother.

Donatello cleared his throat, stepping forward. "I understand I might look a bit... different, but I assure you, I mean no harm. I care about your sister a lot."

Your brother stared at him for a moment. “I’ll have to see that before I believe it”. And with that, your brother went to play with your sister on the carpet.

But over time, Donatello's genuine nature began to shine through. He helped your little sister with her homework, impressing her with his vast knowledge. Especially when it came to math. Your sister almost couldn’t believe that your boyfriend was a genius. Your heart felt warm as you watched the man you loved teach your little sister how to do her homework. And you also noticed how your brother would be standing in the doorway, watching the three of you.

Days turned into weeks, and Donatello became a regular part of your family's routine. Movie nights, dinners, and even the occasional game of charades—your family embraced him wholeheartedly. Love had triumphed over initial fear, and Donatello found himself not just a friend but an integral part of a human family who saw him for who he truly was. A kind hearted, smart guy that saw opportunities where most people didn’t. Even your brother couldn’t deny it. Not after he overheard the two of you talk about how your sister’s grades had gotten up, ever since Donnie started helping her. Neither did he miss the many times Donnie would help out your parents with various tech problems. Was their TV not working? He fixed it while your father brought in a six pack of beer for them to drink afterwards. Was your mother having trouble with her phone? He fixed that right after dinner, and even gave it the extra features she asked for. And your brother especially did not miss the time he saw Donnie stare at you instead of the movie the family had gathered to see. He did really care for you. Even your brother could see it. Donatello loved you. With that realization, your brother asked to talk to Donnie privately.

"I owe you an apology,  Donatello," your brother admitted, his gruff exterior softening. "I misjudged you, and I can see now that you genuinely care about my sister and the rest of us."

Donatello nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. "I appreciate that. I really do. All I want is to protect and care for the people I love, and that includes your sister and all the people she love".

“I’m really glad to hear that”, your brother said. “I wanted to hear if you would watch the game with me this weekend. I think it is about time I get to know my sister’s boyfriend”.

“I would really like that”, Donnie said with a growing smile.

As the days turned into months, Donatello's bond with your family strengthened. Your big brother, once skeptical, became one of Donatello's closest allies. Game night became a regular thing between the two of them, and so did hours of video games online every so often. You’ll never forget the day Donnie came home from that first game night with the biggest smile on his face. He took your face in his and gave you a long deep kiss, before holding you close in a tight hug.

“Thank you”, he had told you. “I only thought these kinds of things happened in dreams”.

[hiddencityhijinksau]

I'm totally gonna create art for this - already have - but in the meantime I should probably explain this concept lol.

So basically, in one way or another, the turtles each stumble upon the Hidden City at around age 8 to 10, and decide to keep it a secret from their bros >:3

Leo is the first one, technically, when he goes out to explore NYC when he's eight, and discovers Run of the Mill Pizza, because I'm obsessed with the Uncle Hueso idea, but he doesn't go to the actual city until much later, though he knows of it's existence.

I actually kinda started writing this starting bit? It's totally unedited and missing bits but whatever, I'll include it under the cut.

Leo peered up at the manhole cover from the bottom of the ladder, imagining what he would see if he climbed up and lifted it. The young turtle mutant didn't get long to think about it, hearing his brothers call for him.

"I'm coming!" The 8 year old ran to catch up with his family, sending one last considering look at the rungs of the ladder.

Later that night, after his brothers were asleep and his father was dozing in front of the TV, the red-eared slider crept out of bed, utilizing all the stealth skills he'd learned from the lessons Splinter thought he hadn't been paying attention to. Once safely out of the Lair, Leo practically sprinted down the route to the manhole cover he'd spotted earlier. There were entrances closer to the Lair, of course, but this way, if he got caught sneaking back in he could say he was just wandering around the sewers.

Reaching the top of the ladder, the slider paused for a moment, savoring the adrenaline of what he was about to do. Splinter never even let them explore the sewers without him, nevermind letting Leo venture out on his own. And now he was about to go Topside!

Shoving at the metal disc with all his strength, Leo cautiously poked his head out, eyes wide to take it all in. Of course, this wasn't his first time on the surface – Splinter had taken all the boys with him once or twice for scavenging trips, especially when they were younger. But now, Leo was here on his own! This was so exciting!!

The slider climbed out of the manhole, tugging the cover almost back into place, but leaving a small gap so he could get in later, as he wasn't sure how to lift it from the top side.

Bouncing in place, Leo looked around the alley he'd surfaced in with a wide grin, wondering what he might find.

Hmm. There wasn't much in this alleyway. In fact, it was pretty much empty. Nothing but a few scraps of cardboard and a colourful graffiti tag decorated the concrete.

Well, Leo didn't come here just to hang out in one measly alleyway! Full of confidence, the eight-year-old marched to the end of the alley, pulling up the hood of his sweater as he rounded the corner.

Even with the late hour, there were still people on the streets, eyes focused on getting to their destination. No one paid attention to the small figure in a battered green hoodie hurrying along, sticking close to the wall.

Leo ducked into the next alley, heart pounding. Okay, so that was a lot more nerve-wracking without Dad or Raph than he'd thought it would be.

Luckily, he realized as he took in his surroundings, this alleyway was much more interesting than the one he'd come out of. There was a huge dumpster on one side, and the walls were covered in graffiti. Even better, the far end of the alley was actually a corner, meaning there was more to explore!

Leo started poking around, kicking at the small piles of trash and inspecting the locked dumpster. Not finding anything cool, he moved on, admiring the graffiti.

He ended up turning two more corners while following the trail of graffiti, and found himself facing the street again. The constant something of spray paint broke off at the corner, meaning the skull painting in this alley stood out sharply.

Bla blah blah some yokai open the door to run of the Mill while Leo watches from behind a dumpster or smth

Leo's eyes sparkled. Was that actual magic?! Donnie said magic was impossible, but Donnie also said it was impossible for the two of them to be twins, and Leo knew that wasn't true. The turtle bounced forward with glee, eager to see where those people had gone, only to stop short when the portal closed in his face.

Leo frowned. Clearly, he just hadn't been fast enough. Wait, what was that gesture they used to open it? Leo lifted his hand, trying to mimic the pose he'd seen, and wiggled it with great concentration.

Nothing happened.

Huffing, the boy tried again. And again. And was glaring at the wall, ready to shout at it to let him in, when he heard someone approaching the alleyway. Eyes lighting up with an idea, Leo darted behind the nearest dumpster and peeked out, watching carefully.

Sure enough, another mutant-like person entered the alley, heading for the graffiti tag. Leo stared hard at the gesture they made, but instead of waiting and trying to copy it, he darted in behind them as soon as the portal opened.

As soon as he was inside, Leo stopped. And stared.

There were so many people! And none of them were human.

"This is the coolest place I've ever seen," Leo whispered to himself in awe. He slowly started walking further in, craning his neck to stare at every little detail.

So entranced was he, that he didn't see the bony figure approaching until he nearly face-planted into their suit.

"Where are your parents, little pepino?"

Leo froze and looked up at the sound of the voice. Towering over him, arms crossed, was a frowning... skeleton?!

Instantly forgetting to feel guilty at being caught, Leo blurted out, "are you dead?!" His eyes were wider than they'd been all evening, he was sure. Because, come on, that was a walking, talking, skeleton man!!!

The aforementioned skeleton man, somehow, raised an eyebrow. "No, I am not dead. Have you never seen a skeleton yokai before?"

"No," Leo responded, eyes still wide. "What's a yokai?"

"Que pasa con este niño," the yokai muttered under his breath, then continued in a normal tone, "Yokai is what we are. You, me, and everyone in this restaurant is a yokai."

"Oh. Hey, what was that language you were talking in?"

The yokai looked at him weirdly, but Leo really did want to know! He'd only said one sentence but it sounded so cool! Leo already knew he wanted to learn it.

"Spanish. Why are you here, niño?"

"Uhhhhhh... Dad... sent me?" Leo cringed a little at the blatant lie, and decided to distract him with another question. "Can you say something in Spanish?!"

The yokai sighed. "Tell me your name and I'll consider it."

He beamed. "I'm Leo! What's your name?"

"You can call me Señor Hueso."

"Whoa, is your name in Spanish?! Wait wait wait you gotta say something in Spanish now! I told you my name!"

"Deberías estar en le cama, tortuguita."

"Coooool! What does that mean?"

"It means 'you should be in bed, little turtle'. Let's go, out, time for you to go home." Hueso began pushing at Leo's shoulders, nudging him towards the door.

"Whaaaat? Come on, you can't kick me out! I just got here!" Leo dug his heels in, refusing to be pushed.

"This is a restaurant, not a daycare. I do not have time to be babysitting lost children. Out!" With one final shove, Señor Hueso let go of Leo and prepared to shut the portal.

The turtle mutant stumbled and whirled around as soon he was free. "Wait! You're just gonna let a child wander around New York alone? At night? Isn't that illegal?"

"Well, since you won't tell me where your parents are..." Hueso trailed off with a raise of his eyebrow, waiting to see if Leo would offer any more information.

Leo huffed in defeat. He didn't want to admit it, but he was getting tired, as it was already far past his usual bedtime. "Fine, fine, I'm going! But I'll be back tomorrow!"

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

Leo did in fact come back the next day. Hueso wasn't there when Leo scampered in behind a weird frog yokai, so the slider was quick to scurry off into the restaurant, hoping he could hang out for a little while before Hueso found him and kicked him out again.

To be continued...?

[citruswriter]

Got room for two more?

Chapter One - Old Friends

A Bale AU Fic

Listen with me! ↠ⁿᵉˣᵗ ˢᵒⁿᵍ ↺ ʳᵉᵖᵉᵃᵗ ⊜ ᵖᵃᵘˢᵉ

Warnings: Tcest (you have been warned!), Character x OC, polyamory, long fic.

A/N: I LOOOOOOVE the Bale AU so much that I just couldn't help myself but to make this.

"What's going on April? What's up with the family meeting?" A man with a purple bandana asked. April wrung her fingers nervously before speaking. "Ok look, you guys might be a little annoyed with me on this one, and I admit I should have talked to everybody about this first! But I kind of um... didn't do that..." The woman laughed nervously, tugging at her yellow shirt. Another banded man, this one in red, looked at her curiously. "My dear whatever it is, I'm sure we won't be mad". He said with a reassuring smile. "I invited two old college friends to stay here with us in the guest bedrooms while they visited here for vacation." She said rapidly, flashing a guilty smile after she blurted it all out.

"Ok, ok, ok. Back up. Two old college friends?" A man with a collar began. "Yes Leo. They're sisters. And they're yokai". She said and Leo nodded. "Ok. I guess that answers one of my questions." The man with the purple bandana spoke up once more. "And how long will they be staying with us?" He asked, narrowing his eyes down at the woman. "Three months". She squeaked softly and the man sighed, slightly annoyed. "Do they know about..." A man that had formally been quiet spoke up now, referring to the lot of them with his hand as he fiddled with one of his locs. "No Mikey. They don't. Well, they know Casey and I are together. But they don't know about you guys... or the incest". April explained, causing the terrapin to nod in thought.

"Look. Again I'm sorry. I should have spoken with you guys first. I was just... so excited." The woman said guiltily. The red banded terrapin went to speak once more but was caught off at the sound of a voice. "April?"

✧─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.✦ .* :★. ───✧

New York City was alive with life. Even at sunset, everything was teeming. A young woman made her way down the streets, backpack on her shoulder and suitcase in her hand. "Let's seeeeeee. According to her instructions, I should go down this alleyway..." The woman muttered out loud to herself before turning down said alleyway. She kept looking around, eyes scanning the ground until she found a manhole. "Bingo".

Using her strength, she lifted the manhole cover, climbing down and setting her stuff down before climbing back up to recover the hole.

She made her way down the winding sewer lines, doing her best to follow her friends instructions. Eventually she saw what looked to be it. "April?" Was all she called out as she made her way into the lair.

✧─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.✦ .* :★. ───✧

April jerked away from the conversation she was having with her partners to the woman that had just walked in. "Chiyo!" She called out, squealing as she ran her direction. Chiyo dropped her things, opening up her arms and catching the woman before picking her up and twirling her around. "Prill! Oh it's so good to see you!" The woman said back, smiling and giggling. She stood up, eyes shifting to another human being. "And Casey! How have you been, man?" The woman asked, making her way to him to hug him gently, hand softly patting his shoulder blade. "Been good. You?" The man asked back, causing the woman to shrug. "Meh. Been living life". She said simply and Casey nodded with understanding.

"Oh! And Chiyo, these are the boys!" April said, arms extended as if she was proudly displaying them. "It's lovely to meet you". The tallest one of them said, extending a hand. "Pleasures all mine. You must be Raphael. April told me all about you guys". She said, grinning as she firmly shook his hand. "Buuuuut what I didn't tell you is that Casey and I are actually dating the boys too." Her smile was nervous as Chiyo looked over at her with wide eyes. She was waiting for rejection. Disgust. Maybe even anger. "Well shit. Didn't know my girl could pull mad bitches". Chiyo said finally, flashing a reassuring grin. Everybody seemed to relax at that.

"Oh! Prill you don't mind if I...?" The woman trailed off and gave a hand motion. April shook her head, making a hand motion back. The turtles look at each other in confusion before a burst of flames seemed to engulf the woman. "Oh it feels so good to just let the extra limbs stretch!" Chiyo said and as the flames subsided, it was obvious what she meant. Large black ears sat on the woman's head now, accompanied by nine swishing tails. The woman flashed a smile, showcasing sharp fangs.

"Woooooaaaaaah! That's so cool!" Mikey said, stepping forward to get a closer look at the woman. Chiyo giggled and wound a tail around his body, silently giving him permission to touch. "So you're a... fox?" A voice asked and Chiyo looked up to eye a certain soft shell turtle. "Technically, Donatello, the term is kitsune. But more or less, yes." The woman replied and the turtle looked at her. "Please. Call me Donnie. If it's alright with you, I'd appreciate it if you could come to my lab at some point? I'd love to study you." He said gently, cautiously coming closer to observe her tails.

"I'd love to." She said before gazing at April once more. "Stella will be in tomorrow. She's flying in from Okinawa. Poor girl will probably be so jet-lagged". Chiyo said with a worried gaze. "Got it. I've already got rooms for you and Stell set up. Should I go ahead and show you yours?" She said, giggling softly and Mikey's glare, a tail still firmly clutched in his hands. "I'd love that honestly." She said before gently reclaiming her tails as Casey picked up her gear. "I do apologize, my dears but I must take my tails back. I desperately need rest." Mikey huffed but gave an "okayyyyyyy" before allowing the woman to walk off with April and Casey.

"She seems nice." Mikey said once the trio had left, Donnie gave a nod of agreement. "You think she'd let me paint her nails." Raph couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sure if you asked nicely then yes." He replied before turning to Leo who stood with his arms crossed. "Leo? You ok, my love?" He said and Leo grumbled. "I'm fine. Just a little cranky that we won't be able to freely express affection with one another." He huffed and Raph smiled down at him sympathetically. "Oh please. You just want free reign to fuck whenever, where ever you want." Donnie purred, grabbing his twins chin. Leo felt his face heat up but he played it off with a smirk. "Obviously. Can't exactly fuck my brother on the couch in front a stranger". He cooed back, stealing a kiss.

"It's just for now. Eventually we will tell her. Especially since she and her sister will be here for so long". April's voice came firmly. The woman walked up to Leo, grabbing his hands and squeezing them, causing him to relax into her touch. "Until then though, how about I make it up to you, yeah?" She said, eyes sparkling mischievously.

✧─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.✦ .* :★. ───✧

It was 10AM before the other sister had finally came in. "April? Chiyo? Casey?" Her soft voice came. Casey was the first to reach her, softly telling the woman to go ahead and get some breakfast in the kitchen while he took her stuff to her room. She crept to the kitchen, finally finding it. "Um... hello." She squeaked as she booked her head into the kitchen. "Stellara!" April said, jumping up from her seat to give her a hug. Stellara giggled, hugging the woman back. "Stella. So good to see you again". Chiyo's tired voice came, wrapping an arm around her sister to draw her in and give her a kiss on her forehead.

"Short as ever I see". The woman teased, looking down at her sister. "Old as ever I see". Stellara shot back, a blush on her cheeks. Chiyo feigned hurt, dramatically putting a hand over her heart. "You wound me, my dear sister. I'm only twenty minutes older than you". She said, smiling softly as she kissed her sister's forehead again. "You two are twins?" Mikey asked, looking up from his skillet as he continued to cook a beautiful breakfast. Stellara made her way towards the oven, smelling the delicious odor. "Yeah. But she was born before me so obviously she holds it over my head". The woman stated, watching the man cook. Mikey noticed her gaze and chuckled, grabbing a plate and piling it with food before holding it out wordlessly for her. Stellara eyed the food with wide eyes before grabbing the plate.

"This looks amazing. Thank you. I haven't eaten in hours". She said and Mikey grinned. "Of course, sweetheart. Our home is your home while your here" he said sweetly and Stellara looked over at her sister. "I like this one". She said softly with a grin before grabbing cutlery. Chiyo and Mikey exchanged a glance before chuckling. "Hey didn't you have nine tails yesterday?" Leo asked as he looked up from his plate to eye the singular tail behind Chiyo. "Yeah. I can control how many tails are out at a time. My sister and I rarely ever let all nine tails out unless it's for training, grooming, or formal events. Sometimes we'll let out three but not as often as just the singular one" she explained, sipping at her morning tea. Leo just hummed before nodding in understanding.

Stellara looked around, a brief flash of flames erupting before exposing the woman once more. She shyly sat down, white furred tail wrapping around her waist. "Since it's... safe, I guess I can let loose a little and show off the appendages". She muttered, smiling softly. "Careful. You might get a wild Donnie after you". Casey said, tone teasing and Chiyo laughed. "Or a wild Casey. Again that is. This man used to beg to brush our fur. Said it felt so soft." Chiyo said, shooting the man a teasing grin as his face flushed red. "Oh shut up." Casey muttered and Chiyo shrugged. "Or what?" She challenged. Casey turned to her, blinking slightly in surprise.

"Excuse me?" He said, voice dropping down an octave or two. Chiyo turned to him, standing toe to toe with him, a smug smirk plastered across her face. "Oh I'm so sorry, didn't realize you were loosing your hearing already, old man. I said 'or what'? Hm? Gonna tumble around with me like we did in college? You know you always lost those." The woman taunted and April almost choked on her coffee in laughter. Casey just growled. "Yeah well I'm also stronger now, so I think I have more of a fighting chance". He retorted and Chiyo laughed softly. "Still got anger issues I see". Chiyo said and Casey scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Still a brat I see". He seethed back and Chiyo laughed before sipping her tea once more. "Touche, my good man".

Stellara scoffed and raised a brow at her sister. "We haven't seen each other in god knows how long and you're already teasing the poor man". Chiyo raised a brow back and smiled. "Right because you're so innocent. Should I remind you of exam night?" She said and Stellara just flushed bright red, grumbling before shoving her mouth full of food again.

"Exam night?" April questioned and Chiyo waved her hand. "A story for another time. I need to get in on these pancakes that Mikey made". Chiyo said, tone dismissive. April hummed, choosing to let it go, but she didn't miss the knowing glance that Chiyo and Stellara shared.

I feel like I ended this chapter in such a shitty way. *sobs* But this is the beginning of my Bale AU Fic. :D Enjoy! Remember to block appropriate tags if you don't wish to see this kind of writing from me. Any mean or degrading asks/comments will be immediately deleted. Be polite.

Taglist: @cherrytreatsart

[betabravo]

Snippet: Homeroom Miruko x Red Flag (Deus MHA AU) Part 8

Izuku was not prepared for this. He thought he knew what to expect, but he forgot the advice his Momma always said.

“Always expect the unexpected. Plans rarely, if ever, survive enemy contact. So adapt and learn on the fly. That’s what you’re good at, your strength, your advantage. Use it.”

He was ready for a question, a threat, or even an apology. He did not expect the stalker to widen her eyes, suddenly drop her phone and sprint towards him. Taking a step back, Izuku started to pull out the taser as his mind immediately went into overdrive.

Was she going to straight up attack him, must be a straight up CQC frontliner then. Possible Quirks are stat enhancements like strength or speed based, or a Quirk that requires contact or a close-range proximity to activate. Perhaps I should’ve picked a spot with possible witnesses or cover or obstacles or…

“GET DOWN, KID!”

Only years of training with his mothers got him to hit the floor, shifting to see his stalker flying over his to land a flying kick on… some kind of slime? Or sludge? It seems to be not completely solid, since the kick didn’t do anything as she just went through it to land on the opposite side.

He glanced down to see the half-opened manhole cover seeing more of that slime flow out of it, with 2 huge eyeballs and a set of teeth coming out the larger hole.

“Gah! What the hell lady!? Can’t a guy run away from heroes in peace!”

///

First/Last/Next

[bunnylove369]

Hii! May I request a bayverse Raphael x reader? Maybe smth with reader being mutated, but rather than physical changes, she has telekinesis or something like pyrokenesis? Tysm!!

Bayverse Raphael x Mutated Reader

Just Like Me

Here you go my love! This was rushed because I had a meeting today, and honestly it kinda sucks. I’m sorry I couldn’t do you justice. I hope you enjoyed anyways anyway!💕💕💕

Warnings: Fluff, slightly suggestive, Raphael is an asshole, size kink, lovey-dovey, etc…

Story Under Cut

———————————————————————

Raphael had always felt alone. Sure, he had his brothers, but he kept most things and problems to himself, unlike his brothers who can express their feelings freely, he just hates being vulnerable, but you changed that.

When you came along, with your cute little mutated self, he felt almost understood, like he wasn’t the only mutated being in the world anymore.

He is super insecure, he hates himself for a lot of things, but the thing he is most insecure about is his looks, and his temper. He looses his temper and had an attitude, sometimes unknowingly, and it often times pushes people away from him. And he could never forgive himself if he ended up pushing you away too.

You are literally his everything, his life, his love, his very reason for breathing. It is also no surprise that Raphael is very suicidal. He hates his life for his mutation, and he doesn’t know how to process his feelings and emotions, but you are there to help with that.

When you first found out about your powers, you were shocked to the core. You had gotten caught in an electromagnetic storm, the unrealistic energy from the powerful typhoon shocking your body with lightening, and knocking you out for days.

When you awoke you were inside of an odd place, lying on an operating table. Suddenly, a huge turtle with a purple bandanna around his eyes was in your face. “Testing, testing! Can you hear me?” A nerdy voice rang out, the appearance of the mutated turtle scaring you shitless as you shot up, knocking the turtle in the head as you tried to get away.

When you were acting on your getaway, you ran into a huge chest? Plastron? Thing? When you looked up, you were met with the most beautiful, green eyes you had ever seen. This turtle was wearing a red bandana around his eyes, as he looked down at you menacingly, you couldn’t move. You were completely mesmerized by this being, his muscles rippling as he adjusted his arms to cross over his chest.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice boomed. God, it was so deep and his voice sent chills down your spine as you just stared at him in pure awe. Then you snapped yourself out of your trance as you realized that you needed to get out of that place as soon as possible. You gathered up all your strength as you got into your fighting stance, your fists in front of your face, as you stood with your feet shoulder length apart and diagonal to your body. Then all of a sudden your hands started to glow, almost blinding you as you shot electricity out of your body and into the turtle as he fainted, you took your chance to escape, the other turtles yelling for you to come back, and yelling for their brother.

You made your escape through the manhole cover and ran to your apartment. “God, that was so fucking close,” you thought.

Meanwhile, down in the lair Raphael had woken up, his brother Donatello taking care of his wound as Master Splinter walked in. “What happened here?” He boomed, his New York and Japanese accents mixing as he walked over to the turtles. “She escaped, master.” Leonardo said, his worry written all over his face. “Go! Find the girl! Bring her here!” He said, his face contorted in anger and concern. “Don’t worry, no one saw us!” Michelangelo had chimed in, “No, it’s not you that I’m worried about, it’s the girl! She is in grave danger!” Master Splinter added.

And so with that they were sent to find you and bring you back safely, before the clan found you and kidnapped you.

Sorry guys, this sucked because it was rushed. I hope you enjoyed anyways! Part two upon request!💕💕💕

[artseadragon]

Like most things I start, the Whispers of Nothing AU has remained in my head, with several unfinished refs sitting on my iPad and a few scattered moments I could hardly call a plot gathering dust in the back of my mind. As a sorry for having this project go the way of the dinosaurs, I figured I’d write/draw what I do have (you probably won’t get full ref sheets because Scar’s was so complex and I realised quickly while working on Gem that I couldn’t keep up that level of detail, but I will draw all the characters I have designs of!)

Speaking of: A bit of writing and a quick Grian sketch under the break!! Have fun :3 My writing isn’t the best after high school and the several year-long break I’ve taken from fics but I’m happy with this.

For all you desertduo lovers, I was listening to Casual by Chappell Roan while writing this. This interaction is so not romantic (only really barely platonic tbh) but I find it very funny

CW FOR MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH AND SOME GENERALLY PRETTY BAD STUFF?? ZOMBIE ADJACENT AU PLEASE BE WARY

It took all of Scar’s strength not to black out then and there as a force came barrelling into him, slamming him against the walls of the skyscraper. Flickering lights and thick sheets of rain turned the world in front of him into a kaleidoscopic whirl.

A dark shape loomed over him, not pinning him to the wall but standing there mutely, its silhouette sharpening into that of a dragon’s as his vision returned. Scar thought he could hear Gem’s voice faintly over the rain, his slowly stretching wings catching on the small cracks running along the wall behind him. The figure stepped closer as Scar choked back a gag, a bar of light shining along its muzzle before it stopped as it hit the dragon’s eyes.

Three moons. It… it can’t be…

Those once dark, sincere eyes were clouded over with white, the mouth that usually bore a sly grin was hanging limply open, the smell of death emanating from him a confirmation of his friend’s fate.

Scar snapped out of his trance and ducked out of the way just as sharp jaws rammed against the wall, scrambling out of the way and making a break for the exit of the city, back to the others. His prosthetics scraped roughly against cobbled streets as he ran against the pelting rain, that damned rain that never seemed to end. He heard his name somewhere in the noise but he kept running even as his legs ached and his leaf speak started failing, away from him and all it stood for or meant.

The hefty gate to Impulse’s city rose with a shudder that vibrated through the ground around it, and Scar slid under it as it had only just began lifting, continuing to run even as worried voices and gentle wings began to pursue him into the depths of the city.

Down. He had to go down. Down below the sewers, there was a river, right? Impulse covered it up but it still flowed underground, it would be clean.

It didn’t take long for him to find a loose manhole, nor a crack in the sever wall leading into the hollows around it. He plunged into the cold water, writhing around as it still didn’t get deep enough. His heavy prosthetics sank in the water, still twitching as the plants around them grew into a dense tangle, beginning to tug at Scar’s hind legs and tail. A wail escaped his mouth, the leafwing finally falling limp in the water, the algae and weeds snaking around his shivering form.

Grian is dead.

And it’s my fault.

———

And the art as promised!! Literally tiny thing but eeeeh this an art acc

[blackjackkent]

Nothing much else on level 1 of the House of Hope, so let's head down to the prison and then the Archives.

Hector's Elixir of Cloud Giant Strength allows him to bypass lockpicking and straight up rip the manhole cover open that's blocking the way down into the prison area.

-----

"That's hot," Karlach says dryly, watching him pull the metal plate up and set it aside. "Didn't realize I was getting a show today, Hec."

He lets the plate fall with a thump onto the floor, striking a thick crack in the pristine marble, and shoots her a slight grin. "Well, I've got to make this trip worth your while somehow, haven't I?"

She laughs hoarsely. "My engine all calmed down and you flexing and beating up devils... at this rate I'll want to stay."

His smile flickers, but only for an instant before he steadies it deliberately. "Anything for you," he murmurs, and starts clambering down the hatchway.

-----

The prison area is considerably different in style to the floor above; there is no ornate marble and velvet here, only cold rusted iron.

Hope bursts in as soon as we take a step forward, and frankly startled me; I legit jumped in my seat.

"Careful. The jailer will swallow you whole if you take another step," she whispers. Then a sudden squeal-- "AND YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO SAVE ME WHILE YOU'RE BEING DIGESTED!"

Lower again. "You found my prison. My body is held in chains just beyond. Presumably, you intend to chew through the chains, cracking your teeth like eggshells. It won't work! The Hammer is the only thing capable of shattering the chains."

The sarcasm is not necessary, Hope. We are just taking a look around first.

"It's still in the Archive," Hector tells her.

"Yes... it is..." she whispers. "And when you remove it, the whole House will go up in flames... and Raphael will fly home furious."

Good, Hector thinks sourly. "I'll make sure I'm ready."

"READY FOR RAPHAEL'S HOMECOMING?!" she wails with a manic laugh. "HA! HE'LL USE YOU AS A HANDKERCHIEF!" Then a sudden drop into frantic whispers again. "No, no, no, don't listen to me. You're going to do just fine. I'll be waiting." And then a bellow at the top of her lungs. "LIKE I HAVE A CHOICE."

She vanishes, leaving the group bemused and unsettled.

-----

Quick look around here, hopefully while avoiding attracting the attention of the jailer. Fundamentally Hector is mostly down here to take a look at Gortash's prison cell and see if there's anything interesting there. Or perhaps anything that will help give Karlach any useful closure.

Well, there's Hope's real body. That's pretty fucked up. My arms are tired just looking at this setup. :(

Talking to her IMMEDIATELY lights up a Spectator at the other end of the room - presumably this is the jailer.

And Hope has a response which is possibly one of my new favorite lines in the game, and honestly an entirely correct and valid response to the situation:

ROFL.

On closer inspection there doesn't seem to be any way to get past the entryway without the Spectator noticing us, so Hope was actually right the whole time. We could just fight it regardless, I guess, but we might as well just go to the Archive first.

[chloecherrysip]

Would getting beaten up by Bowser cause Mario some trauma too? Those injuries seemed pretty bad. Bowser could have easily killed him right then and there, and that alone would be enough to cause nightmares I would think.

(Here is the Mario Trauma Conga Line of posts in this thread, lol -> here and here and also here)

Ohhhhhh boy, yes. I would imagine so!! I've thought at times that I'm not sure if I like the movie's decision to have Bowser and Mario only come face-to-face at the very end of the movie. Besides that cartoonish cutout on the training course, Mario never really has to grapple with who exactly Bowser is, the strength/power he has, or the depths of his viciousness (maybe Peach/Toad told him more details that weren't shown, but we just have to assume he was left a little in the dark) -- he was just focused on reaching his brother, and everything else came second. But goodness gracious, you can't deny the impact of that first interaction and how absolutely TERRIFIED Mario looks, especially as Bowser just instantly and brutally overwhelms him. And yes, he seemed pretty badly hurt, with so many bruises and maybe even a fractured arm and/or shoulder with the way he was holding it. Just thinking about him desperately trying to hide in the pizzeria, gasping and in clear pain...man, it hit hard. ;_; That would be traumatizing for anyone!!

I think it's pretty easy for Mario to ride high on the adrenaline rush of having beaten down Bowser alongside Luigi for a good, long while, but those memories of helplessness and fear would creep back in eventually for him, especially once he starts thinking about what would have happened if the star haven't been an option and things had played out differently. Is there any scenario (excluding the one where he and Luigi get roasted when the manhole cover gives out) where he would have had enough strength left to stop Bowser? Could he have prevented him from hurting Luigi, hurting Peach and Toad and DK, hurting everyone else in Brooklyn, including his parents if Bowser wanted to? (And maybe that's what he has nightmares about, alternative scenarios where the star is taken out of play from the start, because it's a cold, dark fear that comes over him when he realizes that the answer to that question is an almost certain no.)

I definitely think Mario trains hard in the Mushroom Kingdom to become even stronger and more capable, both with powerups and without, so that he's much more ready for a rematch if it ever comes - and he probably overdoes it too, despite Luigi and Peach's best efforts to keep an eye on him. He doesn't ever want to feel like he has no chance without a fancy powerup again against Bowser. He wants to be able to protect everyone he loves and feel confident in that ability. It probably starts out at a slightly unhealthy place for him, but with the support around him, it gets better and more manageable. :)

(And dang, I cannot track this fic down, I swear I read something like this on AO3 and I want to give that person full credit for the idea (update: here it is!), but someone wrote about the concept of Mario checking in on Bowser in jail and Bowser promising Mario that when - not if but WHEN - he gets out of prison and regains his power, he's going to destroy everything Mario cares about, starting with Luigi, and uh, wow, that would REALLY not be good for Mario's mental state either, huh? Huh?????)

[ms-kio]

Um... No? It's Not A Quirk

Uta (Tokyo Ghoul) X My Hero Academia! 1580 Words

(Insert interesting Uta photo here [Tumblr didn't let me add one])

Uta was miffed. And by miffed, he meant falling from the sky. Literally. Uta twisted his torso, spotting strange looking people who were looking at him. The ghoul decided to play it safe and grabbed a manhole cover, dove in, and swung it closed. There was a man with a squirrel head. The shock didn’t last long though. As he ran down the sewers, Uta heard the sounds of a struggle. The ghoul rushed to the scene, to see sentient sludge suffocating a teen. Uta immediately lunged forward, snatching the sludges' eyes and tossing them in his mouth. Yum. The sludge dropped the boy, screaming and writhing in pain. Weak. He then reached inside the sentient slimes head, pulling out its brain, taking a bite, and smashing the rest under his boot.

With the slime dead and brain remnants sticking to his footwear, Uta decided to be nice, walking up to the boy. “Cough it up greenie.” Uta said as he smacked the kids back, initiating a coughing spree. “You don't want that stuff in your lungs.” Once the greenie finished (mostly) emptying his lungs, he quickly checked his surroundings. Uta could tell the boy knew exactly what he did, if the subtle glances and fearful expression was anything to go by. The sludge was an absolute mess by now, and greenie looked and acted about as strong and confident as a mole, so Uta had nothing to worry about as he walked up to the boy. “Kudos to you, keeping your cool kiddo. Need a hand-” “I am here!” The manhole Uta emerged from suddenly blew open, launching at Uta and greenie and revealing a large, loud blonde. Thankfully, Uta was a ghoul, so he easily caught the manhole cover. “You should really be more careful, sir.” Uta chasted as he sets the cover back in its rightful place. “The boy could have gotten hurt.” “You’re—“ the man looked over the scene, “what did you do to that villain!?” Said man’s face was now clouded with rage, his eyes seeming to glow blue as he realized the situation. Uta grinned, picking brain gunk from between his teeth. “I made his innards a snack, what else?” The man threw a punch, which Uta easily caught, grabbing onto the kid with the other hand. “Something wrong?” The ghoul teased, looking over his sunglasses to reveal his scarlet eyes. “Let the boy go!” The blonde roared. Hehe, he looked positively enraged! He came in with the other fist, so Uta let go of greenie and caught it. This punch was significantly stronger, so the boy tumbled back. “Run my boy, get out of here!” Uta glanced back, and the boy wasn’t looking at the blonde, he was looking at the ghoul, and he was curious. The boy was more intuitive than the muscle brain, eh? He had a look in his eyes that said ‘I know you're not human.’ “And get yourself checked into a hospital!” Uta would find him after he got out of this mess. Greenie had run away, so all Uta had to do was lose this guy. “Ya know, I wasn’t exactly planning on getting in any fights today.” Uta commented, as if he wasn’t currently wrestling a powerhouse. He reached the strength of a mid upper-end ghoul. A-rate maybe? “Who are you!?” Was all the man asked/said. “Oh! My name is Uta. Yours?” Now that caught him off guard. Clearly Mr. FruitSmash wasn’t expecting an answer. “Buh-bai!” And that was Utas Genki Girl side coming out. He dove back into the sewers, leaping off the rubble that came from the fight. Surprisingly, blondie didn’t follow.

~ ~ ~ Izuku sat at his desk, muttering frantically as he wrote in a notebook, a black one this time. Titled: ‘Villain Quirk Analysis’. There were only a few entries in this one, including Stain (Chizome Akaguro), Overhaul (Kai Chisaki), Mr Compress (Atsuhiro Sako) -plus a few others-, and the Tattooed Man. The entry he was working on now. Izuku had taken ‘apprenticeships’ under Stain and Overhaul in exchange for information on heroes with a less than stellar track record. He hated himself for it, but Izuku couldn’t help himself. He’d always been the trash, why couldn’t he take it out for a change? “M-Mr. Izuku?” “Yes Eri?” The greenette had taken custody of the girl, in exchange for a free hero’s death warrant and some hacking services, on the condition that he send some blood over to Overhaul once a month. “Can I go see Ms. Tsu?” The girl was his babysitter and blood-drawer, they lived in the same apartment complex. The front door opened, and Izuku inhaled sharply, opening his window. “Yes, go to her. Mum got home early, grab your things quickly.” Eri understood the urgency, grabbing her bird mask as Izuku stuffed his black notebook under the floorboard in his closet. Izuku ushered his little candy apple out the window and watched as she pounded on the upstairs window, quickly being whisked into the room by a pair of familiar hands. Izuku then yanked out his study book, barely settling back in when his mother opened the door. “Oh, good job Izuku! I would have hated to see you not studying.” Inko said with a happy smile. Izuku threw a grin over his shoulder, praying the woman didn’t notice his panic. *close* *click* and that was the lock.

~ ~ ~

All Might, or Toshinori Yagi, doubled over and reduced to his small form, seething. The man had been toying with him, and got away so easily! The hero pulled out his phone, dialing Tsukauchis phone number. The detective picked up in a single ring. “Tsukauchi, we have a problem. I’ll send you my location.” “Alright, I’ll be there as soon as possible.” It didn’t take long for the man to arrive, quickly taping off the scene and calling some reinforcements to block the route. “Toshinori, what happened over here?” The detective asked, the veteran hero, turning to his old friend. “There was another man here. Albeit it wasn’t a full power punch, he caught my fist and killed the villain. I managed to get the boy he was holding away, but I doubt that’ll be the end of him.” Tsukauchi got the memo, his face turning grave. “A villain that can catch any of your punches is a problem. I’ll send out a PSA to all the heroes in the area.” The detective pulled out a recording device. “Can you give a description?”

~ ~ ~ Uta took the metro to where his old mask shop would be, to find it in a run down district. The buildings were obviously less well kept compared to the central cities. Downtown Musutafu, home sweet home. His building was still underground, exactly as he remembered it. Plus, it looked like no one owned it. Inside, it was barren, the dust serving as a good indicator of its lack of use. However, when he opened the back door, he found it connected to a network of… Alleyways? The sky wasn’t visible from the back door, and the place reeked of blood and salt. After a moment of wandering, Uta began to hear sniffles. He followed the sound to see a blonde girl, curled up and crying. "Hey. Kiddo. You need help?"

: : : Uta couldn't figure out for the life of him why the girl- Himiko Toga- was now calling him 'Best Friend'. Here she was, draining a body dry of blood, while Uta himself was munching on an arm. “I’ll do pretty much anything if I can help other people with flesh and blood eating quirks. So all I need to do is wear a mask and spread the word?” “Mhm.” Uta confirmed through a mouthful of flesh. “I still need to refurbish my shop and get supplies, but that shouldn’t take long.”

And so began a week of cleaning and freelance work. Neither of them needed to buy food, seeing as both of them could survive off bodies. Eventually, Uta started making masks, starting with hers. It resembled a cat, yellow and black in color, with feathers extending from the cheeks. Where the roof of the cats mouth would be on her nose, the lower jaw was cut off and altered as a jaw guard, leaving her mouth available to eat with. The mask was truly exquisite, And Himiko ended up praising Uta more than needed to the people she found needing flesh and blood. In fact, on her way back to HySy, she had a group following her. Why? Because they had nowhere else to go.

Traumatized children. That's who Himiko brought him. However, Uta couldn’t say he was surprised. The thing that caught him off guard was the sheer quantity of people, they almost filled his shop. The group ranged from six year old's to teenagers, with one four year old in the mix. "Alright." Uta started, sitting in his chair as the kids sat on the floor in front of him. "First, let's lay out some ground rules." He said. "First, none of you will be able to help me out until I make you a mask, starting with the oldest. Second, no discrimination. I know not all of you have flesh quirks, and I will not tolerate bullying. There's alleys connected to the back of the shop that have functional rooms for you guys. First thing I want you to do is wash up and get some rest, we'll be cleaning that place tomorrow."

[fairlyaverageff]

UwU - (A Volturi One-Shot)

Okay, so here’s a much longer than expected one-shot that come from an idea my discord friends and I were throwing around when we were sharing approximately one brain cell. A kinda shitpost story about what would happen if a chaotic gen-z human (female) had to make it weird by moaning when a certain vampire king was trying to feed. Warning for very crude language, sexual references, and imagery.  Obligatory note that in all of my fanfictions I tend to write the Volturi as a family unit. Meaning Aro did not kill his sister, the wives are loved by their husbands and not locked in a tower, and the Volturi itself if kind of like a government organization with 200+ members that definitely does hush-hush dealing with human governments. (I also picture Marcus as the late 30s type. Facecast being Henry Cavil in/as the Witcher but with brown hair lol. But this is fanfiction, so feel free to picture everyone as you like.) Renata is physically 18+ in this story... idk what her canon age is. Pairing is Platonic!OCxMarcus and OCxRenata. This was supposed to be 10 pages max and ended up being 35... so be ready for a wild ride. This One-Shot is LGBTQ+ friendly.

UwU - One Shot

“Look, my dudes, we can talk about this!” Her voice echoed down the stone corridor, the two men in their ridiculous cosplay-worthy gray cloaks completely ignoring her as they dragged her down the dark passage.

Each had a hand locked on one of her biceps and damn if their grip wasn’t firm.

She’d tried to wiggle away when they first grabbed her out in the streets, but that had been useless. All the strength in her decently fit barely-over-five-feet-tall body was no match for the two men who were much larger than her pitiful stature. 

To say she yelled when one of them held her back against his chest and the other opened a drain cover and jumped down into the darkness below would have been an understatement. She’d screamed like a little bitch, and only shut up when the one who jumped into the hole that was only barely big enough for the two of them and would have easily broken her leg if she’d stuck it out, landed with her still held against him both completely unscathed as they faced his companion.

She knew enough about physics and gravity to know there was no way in hell these two men should have been able to jump down into a manhole from that height and not break both of their legs and/or die. There were multiple seconds of darkness and rushing wind to indicate they’d dropped from a ridiculous height.

Fully convinced this must be some government cell of sleeper super-soldiers she’d pissed off by tagging the side of the building they’d apparently been sitting on the roof of, she figured now was time to barter with them for her release. 

“I got 24 bucks cold hard cash in my pocket, it’s all yours and we can forget this whole thing ever happened. Y’all can even leave me down here I’ll find a way back up to the surface, no biggie!”

One of her manhandlers snorted at that - the only sound she’d heard from either of them so far - and while it wasn’t the agreement to the deal she was hoping for, at least it was a sound of acknowledgement to indicate they weren’t deaf.

They didn’t stop dragging her, and the tunnel they walked through seemed to only get darker and darker as they went. The only light sources seemed to be very tiny lights on either side of the hall that were embedded in the floor - the kind of super tiny lights you’d see on the steps in a movie theater so you didn’t eat shit and bash your face when you came back from a pee after drinking an entire $9 soda during the opening credits. The two tiny pinpricks of light only popped up every thirty or so feet if she was guesstimating properly. 

She couldn’t even see her captors; it was so dark. Their icy hands were still firmly clasped around her arms, but that didn’t stop her from trying to appeal to them in some way. “Look, I don’t know what kinda sleeper cell you guys belong to, but how in god's name can you see down here? Can I get some of the super juice or whatever steroid you guys are on?”

“Shut up.” The one to her left grunted, and she turned her head to stare into the dark where he should be at the sound of his voice. 

“Wow, I can’t see what you look like but if you’re half as fine as your voice suggests I might be willing to barter something else for my release-,”

The one on her right made a sound that was clearly a choked back laugh that she would have absolutely responded smartly to if she wasn’t suddenly blinded by white light. 

She yelped in shock. Neither of her captors broke in their stride as they threw open two metal doors to drag her through them and into this new hallway. 

This hall was already very obviously different than the one they’d just been in - and not because the other was pitch black, echoey, and kinda damp feeling. If she didn’t know any better - and she didn’t - she’d guess she was just dragged into the corporate offices of some posh glass faced building. Fluorescent lights were spaced evenly in the ceiling, and to her right was a cozy waiting room that looked like it belonged in a bank for stupid rich people. There was a pretty tan woman sitting at a large mahogany desk.

“Yo lady, help me out here!” She called to the receptionist, who’d stood when the two men dragging her entered the hall looking very puzzled. 

The two men halted holding her, about twenty or so feet away from an elevator that was dead ahead, all gazes locked on the receptionist. 

The receptionist stared at her, her eyes traveling down to study her spray-paint covered forearms and dirty jeans, before comprehension dawned.

“Ah,” She sighed knowingly, “This is the graffiti artist who keeps tagging the city? I will punch in the code so you may take her directly to Master Caius.”

She had no idea what any of that meant, but as the receptionist spun to walk back to her desk, the men who were holding her began manhandling her again, towing her uncooperating form to the elevator. 

They really did not seem even slightly phased by her wiggling. 

She could hear distantly as the receptionist tapped away at her computer before the elevator dinged and the doors opened. 

“You bitch!” It was all she could think to say. Where was the woman supporting woman sistership? Where was the solidarity? It was just a little spray paint! Definitely not enough of a reason for another woman to allow two men to drag a fellow girl to a questionable place with no explanation as to what was happening. 

She got no response from the other woman, and was unceremoniously heaved into the elevator by the two men. They kept her between them the whole time, even when they did an about face to watch the closing doors and forced her onto her knees to wait as the elevator rose.

Her head craned back and she blinked rapidly to try to get her eyes to focus better on the two people holding her in the brightly lit elevator. 

They were both pale, tall, and undeniably the most bangable dudes she’d ever laid her eyes on.

“Okay, yeah, I’m officially ready to offer up something else entirely for my peaceful release.” She said playfully, even though she wasn’t completely kidding. 

She’d climb both of them like a tree, no doubt about it.

They didn’t even look down at her - they both stared resolutely forward as if determined to not give her the time of day.

“Oof, the sting of rejection is real my friends.” She sighed dramatically, “I can assure you, you’re missing out on a real opportunity here - oh shit you guys are so strong!”

The end of her sentence was a startled exclamation as the doors dinged open and she was roughly dragged back to her feet and out of the elevator. Her ridiculously hot captors said nothing to her as they dragged her down this stone hall that was periodically lit with fluorescent lights in the ceilings. 

There were no windows here, and there was something about the stone that had her thinking about the old castle in the city that she was never able to get close enough to to cover with her art.

But most of that place wasn’t structurally sound - at least all the locals said it wasn’t - so there’s no way that’s where she was.

Though, that would be a pretty ideal cover for a government pod of super hot super soldiers to operate out of.

There was no telling how long they dragged her, or exactly where she was, before they abruptly stopped and turned her around so she was facing a large heavy looking wooden door.

The captor to her right raised a pale hand and knocked twice on the wood, the sound echoing in the hall, before reaching for the handle. There had been the slightest pause as if someone had responded to the sound and invited them in before the man made to open the door, but she knew that couldn’t be the case. The only sounds in this hall were her breathing and the echo of the knock.

Without any fanfare or preamble, the door was opened and she was pulled inside. She was fully ready to make a new comment about how manhandling wasn't necessary and if they wanted her to come with them all they had to do was say please, but she was quickly distracted as her brain rushed to take in the details of the new room she was in.

Much like the hall, there were no windows here. This room was clearly an office, decked out with overflowing bookcases on every wall - the only break in those bookcases being the unlit fireplace that took up a decent spot of room on the left, a large desk right smack in the center, two plush chairs facing it and the stone floor covered by what she was positive was a very expensive and large Persian rug. 

There was no time to observe the wall behind her, because she was once again unceremoniously shoved to her knees between her two captors. Each had a hand on her shoulder and upper arm respectively, as they stood between the two chairs and faced the man who was rising to his feet from his place in the leather chair behind the desk.

He was tall, platinum blonde, and she might have considered him to be better looking than the two hunks who’d abducted her if it weren’t for the really unattractive scowl that was presently on his face.

“This is the one who's been defiling our city for the last two months?” He sneered, his question meant for either of the two men holding her.

“Yes sir.” The hottie on her left replied. “We caught her in the act, and we detained her immediately.” 

Detained? What were these guys, cops?

“Pretty sure you can’t call it detained if you dragged me to some underground bunker.” She quipped smartly, “Detained would mean you held me where you caught me-,”

“Shut up!” Hottie on the right hissed, digging his fingers into her shoulder in a way that was totally not cool and made her wince.

“Leave us.” The platinum blonde waved a hand at her captors. “I’ll take care of it from here.”

“Yes sir.” The two men said in unison like well trained soldiers as they released her and, as if by magic, both were gone and the sound of the door snapping shut rang in the sudden silence of the room.

What in the actual fuck.

It was quiet for a very awkward moment as the two of them stared at each other, before she figured she might as well speak since he didn’t seem inclined to. “So what, are you gonna like… write me a citation? Give me my one phone call? Shoot me dead and leave me in a ditch somewhere? Cause honestly, the vibe is all off here and I don’t know what the hell you and your super soldiers got planned-,”

Abruptly he was in front of her, her face only inches from his thighs in a movement that had been so quick she didn’t even see it.

Yeah, these guys definitely had some super serum shit going on.

She fell backward onto her palms at his proximity. “Look man, you’re super hot and all, but I usually ask for dinner first and I can see that wedding band - I don’t fuck with married men.”

He grabbed her, and none too gently either, by both of her upper arms like she was a small child and lifted her clean off the floor. She might have aimed a kick - or two - at his groin in response, but that proved to be completely useless. He didn’t flinch; the man didn’t so much as grunt when her foot landed right at the hip joint, and that was kinda damaging to her ego cause she was sure it was a solid hit.

All the air was knocked out of her lungs when he suddenly slammed her back into the wall near the door - how and when he’d moved them over there she had no idea.

At least there wasn’t another bookcase against it, because that really would have hurt.

“I do not tolerate little pests like you defiling my home, and I absolutely will not tolerate cheek from anyone - especially a mortal.”

She had a couple responses to that in her head - one of them was just to compliment him on his truly spectacular upper body strength because wow - so she went with the second option that was a more coherent response to his hiss.

“Okay firstly, I was ready to offer you the $24 I offered the other guys to let me go, but slamming me against the wall just lost you that chance. Secondly, I know y’all got some steroids or some experimental drugs that the government clearly doesn’t wanna share with the rest of us little people, but no matter how cracked out you are right now there's no way you actually consider me a mortal and you a…” She trailed off, leaving the ending open so he could answer the unspoken question. 

His only response was to shake his hair back out of his face, and for the first time she saw what the warm light from the single lamp on the desk had failed to show her when she was dragged to this office. 

This dude's eyes were the strangest shade of dark red.

“Dude whatever they’ve got you taking, you really gotta stop, because those eyes are freaky-,”

He bared his teeth at her, and while the tiniest part of her brain kinda wanted to laugh at that, the other 98 or so percent was pulling fire alarms in every corner of her being. She had no explanation as to why, but it made her very uneasy, and her unease definitely wasn’t made any better by the animalistic snarl he let out that she was sure sent vibrations into her bones.

Okay fuck, that was actually kind of scary. She felt like all the hair on her body stood up at the sound.

He smiled at her and for the first time her brain wasn’t distracted by his looks enough to realize this was not a smile she wanted directed at her.

Uh oh.

He inhaled deeply, lowering her so he was no longer holding her slightly above him on the wall and making the rough stone scratch her back. He only stopped lowering her when they were almost eye level.

Caius could smell the fear, and he was pleased that he finally prompted silence from the smart mouthed little brat.

“You’ve spray painted your last building chit. If rebirth is true, maybe in your next life you’ll have a subconscious instinct to know better than to damage the property of others. Especially when you have no idea who you could be up against.”

That was the perfect opportunity for an innuendo, and she would have taken it if he didn’t close the space between them and yank her head to the side with one hand in her hair so quickly she was convinced he might just scalp her.

All animals would instinctively fight against a predator trying to sink its teeth into them. It was natural instinct to fear anything that could swiftly end their life and in this moment she fully understood humans were no different.

His teeth were in her neck, and she could tell instantly that they were way too sharp to be human - they felt almost burning hot - and she heard an awful ripping sound as pain shot through her head and shoulder from her neck.

It was the sound of ripping flesh, and it was a sound she would have happily gone the rest of her life without hearing. 

She could hear him swallowing, and felt like her shirt was becoming damp. 

These pale beautiful people were not super soldiers. They weren’t some secret government placed grouping of new genetically engineered cops. 

They weren’t human at all, and she’d seen enough true blood and read enough smutty vampire novels to know what was happening here.

Her head was starting to spin, the room at the edges of her vision becoming darker with each passing second. 

With the knowledge that she was going to pass out, also came the realization that she was going to die.

Well, if this is how she was gonna go out she might as well make it interesting right? Like, she should at least make it memorable for both of them - more so for him because he’d be the one alive to remember it.

With her brain in full fuck it I’m dead anyway mentality, she took in the little air she could despite the creature holding her against the wall with its fangs embedded in her neck and let out the most ridiculous bad-porno video moan she could with her last breath.

The vampire dropped her so suddenly that her body smacked onto the stone floor with a sound that was definitely not pretty. She didn’t have even the slightest forewarning that it would be a good idea to put her hands out to break her fall. 

She would have tried to stand, or run, or scream, if the second she tried to roll over her body didn’t feel as though she was having electric shocks of pain running through it. So there she stayed, lying on her side with her back against the wall and feeling a horrible fire burning in her neck. Hopefully she bled out quickly, or  he came back to finish her off soon - maybe the moan wasn’t the best idea. At least she would have died quicker that way.

Caius stared at the curled mortal on the floor in absolute disgust, his appetite completely vanishing at the awful sound she just emitted. She’d been getting off on that?

Ugh. 

No.

He couldn’t even look at her.

He went back to his desk, mumbling under his breath about revolting mortals and resumed his task of going through the never ending pile of correspondence he’d been putting off taking a look at for the last week. 

The only sounds in the room were his pen scratching across paper as he began writing, and the shuddering breaths of the human girl across the room as she died. 

He was fully content with letting her bleed out, then he’d have someone collect her body for disposal. He wanted absolutely nothing more to do with the repulsive little thing.

He started to lose track of time as he wrote, waiting impatiently for the extra set of breaths to cease. The heartbeat, while uneven, was a white-noise like sound to him, and it wasn’t until over half an hour had passed that he realized there was a problem.

The breathing and the beating of her heart weren’t slowing. The room smelled thickly of her blood so he’d assumed she’d been bleeding out, but when he glanced up from the fourteenth letter he was replying to he could see that the gaping wound he’d left on the side of her neck had healed over, looking as if she had a pale skin graft set over the area.

No!

She was one of the rare mute changers, and the only way he’d ever let that change complete itself was if all seven layers of hell froze over.

Maybe not even then.

He shot to his feet, rounding the desk and flashing to her side instantaneously and imperceptibly to human eyes. Kneeling on the floor, he grabbed the closest limb to him - an arm that she had stretched out - and dragged her hand up toward his mouth.

The second he bit into her wrist he knew there was no hope in finishing her off the old fashioned way. The blood was thick, and there was a sweet undertone - and aftertaste - of venom that made it unpalatable. He would have swiftly dispatched her using the good old  twist-and-snap-the-neck method, but the moment his teeth left her wrist she groaned, and the groan was so reminiscent of the moan that had made him drop her in the first place he threw her arm away from him as if burned.

He was by his desk again, not wanting to stand too close to the mortal who seemed to be getting a sexual thrill off of being killed by him as if she’d given him a disease. 

Ugh. No. He would not touch her again. 

Disgusting.

The sound of her uneven breathing, and the equally uneven but still unmistakably strong beating of her heart was the only sound in here now aside from his own breaths. 

She was changing, and if he didn’t stop it now he was going to have a huge headache on his hands explaining to his brothers why there was a random newborn in the castle and why he needed someone else to dispose of her.

She’d likely damage his office in a newborn frenzy, and it was the desire to not have her destroy his belongings that caused him to cross the room and hastily exit. He took care to lock his door just in case before he sniffed the air in the hallway, looking for a scent he recognized.

He found the scent he was looking for, his brother having passed by here sometime earlier in the day, and he followed its trail even though he knew where it would lead.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

“Marcus! I need a word.” Caius’ voice was sharp as it cut through the previous peaceful silence of the library. He could hear the quiet steps and breathing from guards who were pacing around the shelves, reading, and just taking a break in the large multi-level sanctuary. Their library was huge, but he knew exactly where Marcus liked to sit on the main floor - his chair by the fire was a well known off-limits seat to everyone in the coven.

No one was close to his brother - the guards usually gave any of the kings a large berth when they were relaxing in this space - and Caius could hear Marcus’ personal guards Afton and Chelsea off in the distance, sitting on the floor in a far-off aisle and talking quietly among themselves.

If he spoke low enough he was sure he’d be able to keep his conversation with Marcus private.

Their numerous guards loved to listen in on each other and gossip on any given day, but they still knew better than to even attempt to do so with any of the ancients.

Marcus’ head turned toward Caius, watching his approach and studying his expression until he was standing in front of Marcus’ chair.

Whatever it was Marcus saw on Caius’ face clearly concerned Marcus because his usually glassy gaze had a certain sharpness to it that was only ever reserved for times when there was news of an impending attack on their coven being brought to their attention. Marcus set the book he had been reading down on the arm of his chair, eyeing Caius with a clearly speculative gaze that Caius was one hundred percent certain questioned his sanity.

“What is it, brother?” Marcus asked, his tone grave as he rose to his feet. He stood perfectly straight, his impressive height accentuated nicely by the fire crackling behind him in the hearth.

“I- there’s…” He hardly knew how to explain it, the words refusing to fall from his lips as his silent brother stared at him as if expecting very bad news.

It took him a long moment to realize his speechlessness wasn’t because he didn’t know what to say - it was because he was embarrassed to speak his thoughts aloud.

But this was Marcus, and he was a much more preferable confidant than Aro who had a tendency to use his thoughts against him for personal gain if he wanted something badly enough and Caius was theoretically digging his heels into the ground in response.

Yes, Marcus was definitely the better option.

Aro would find out later of course, but at least it would be after his issue was taken care of.

“The guards found the human who’s been putting graffiti up all over our city.” Caius said stiffly, trying to ignore the way his brother's brows raised at the unexpected topic of conversation. “I started feeding on her but I… I couldn’t finish and I need you to…”

He trailed off, and Marcus stared at him for a long moment, his gaze un-focusing for a few seconds as he watched something invisible moving around in the air around Caius.

He knew the exact moment his brother saw what was unmistakably a sire bond beginning to form between him and the mortal on the floor of his office.

“You are changing her?”

“NO!” Caius’ denial was very loud indeed in the silent library, and he quickly adjusted his voice so he was whispering once more. “No I… I need you to go and take care of it.” 

Marcus’ eyebrows were so high on his forehead Caius was expecting them to crawl up into his hairline and disappear like caterpillars in a bush.

“I went back to finish but it was too late and her blood…” Caius started to explain feebly, his hands raised as if pleading for Marcus to understand. “She was already turning. I need you to go and stop it.”

Marcus stared at him.

“Can you just do it!?” He snapped, quickly growing frustrated by his brother's inaction. “Please?”

The word please falling from his brother's lips was so startling that Marcus blinked rapidly for a second, before coming back to himself enough to speak. “If you weren’t thirsty enough to feed fully why didn’t you just break her neck?”

No need for Marcus to comment on how dark his brother's eyes still were. He knew there was some other unexplained reason Caius didn’t finish the human off - perhaps she was a drug addict and her blood was terrible.

Though the traces of human scent that clung to his brother's clothes didn’t smell half bad to him…

“I can’t touch her.” Caius growled. “Will you just go do it? Please?”

This time the please that passed from Caius’ lips sounded more like a curse, and that was what Marcus expected from him on a normal day.

He sighed. “You need me to take care of it like a little girl asking her father to squish a spider for her?”

“Now listen here you-,”

Marcus raised a hand, nonverbally telling Caius that the insults he had ready at the tip of his tongue were unnecessary. “Either you tell me why you can’t touch her, or you deal with it yourself. I don’t fancy touching a human who may burn, shock, or otherwise cause me discomfort because you’re trying to pull a tasteless joke.”

There was also no need to mention that Caius had no sense of humor and he was sure whatever his reason for not touching the human and needing him to take care of it, it was not over a desire to pull a prank.

That was more Aro’s speed.

And Aro probably would want the human to live so he could see what their gift manifested as, as an immortal.

“It’s no joke!” Caius’ tone was exasperated. “But I can’t touch her! She’s… ugh.” 

He literally shivered in disgust.

Marcus did not move, and Caius knew this was a hopeless cause if he wasn’t going to explain himself.

“She moaned.” Caius hissed through his teeth, so low only his brother could hear and any passing guards in the halls would be none the wiser. “I’ve never been so disgusted in my life.”

Marcus’ lips parted just the smallest amount in shock, and when he tamed his expression back to indifference the edges of his lips twitched for just a second.

That insignificant twitching at the edges of his emotionless brother's mouth was as close to a grin as his brother ever came since the death of his wife nearly three millennia ago.

He growled.

“Just show me where she is, Caius.” Marcus sighed, an edge to his voice that Caius didn’t recognize right away. “I’ll take care of it.”

That placating little I’ll take care of it nearly made him blow a gasket, because he realized what the edge was in Marcus’ voice.

Marcus was amused.

Rather than give him any more ammo to use against him in a future argument, Caius turned on his heel and strode from the library, not bothering to look back to see if Marcus was following. He heard his brother's sigh and the sound of his steps as he followed him back to his office.

The run only took a couple of minutes, and when he was a hall away from their destination with Marcus right on his heels he was intercepted by the last person he wanted involved in this right now.

Aro turned toward their hurried approach, both of his brows raised as Caius stopped short, his gaze finding Marcus over his shoulder as he stopped too.

They all stared at one another for a long moment, and Caius was grateful over how quiet Marcus usually was because he didn’t seem inclined to say anything at all.

Aro sighed, “Alright, what am I missing?”

The face Caius made in response to that inquiry was answer enough that something was afoot.

After ten seconds of silence where it became obvious Caius wasn’t going to answer, Marcus spoke. “Caius has an… issue… and he asked me to sort it out for him.”

“Oh?”

“Some of the guards encountered the tagger that’s been marking the city.” Marcus elaborated. “She is… indisposed in Caius’ office.”

Aro’s gaze locked with Caius’ at this. “Since when have you ever liked sharing your food?”

It was an appropriate question to ask. Caius was a very possessive eater. When he got into a feeding temperament he was very aggressive over his kills. 

He didn’t even like sharing with his mate - though he was willing when the mood struck him and the bond insisted he provide for Athenodora.

But allowing Marcus or Aro to have one of his kills? Especially when Caius had been chomping at the bit all month to get his hands on the mortal who was insulting him so thoroughly by defiling the city he was very protective of? There was no way.

Aro stared at Caius and Caius stared right back as he tried to think of a way out of this situation - at least for the time being.

When his brother raised his hand, palm up, Caius knew he no longer had much of a choice.

Aro was ruthless in getting what he wanted.

Striding forward he brushed palms with his mind reading brother, before roughly shoulder checking him as he pushed past him and stomped toward his office. 

Aro made a sharp intake of breath, and Caius knew that it wasn’t because of the uncalled for shove.

He very nearly took the door to his office off its hinges as he shoved it open when he heard his brother snicker.

The girl was still there - obviously - but it seemed that she’d made an attempt to crawl away. Undoubtedly she was just following the natural animal instinct to get somewhere safe when  badly hurt and exposed to the presence of predators, but she’d only made it roughly ten feet before she curled up in a ball on the floor between the chairs.

Now she was in a very inconvenient spot right in the middle of his office but he tried not to let that irritate him; one of his brothers would remove her.

What he hadn't been expecting the moment his brothers entered, all three of them now standing at different points in a circle around the girl on the floor, was the sound that came from Marcus.

Marcus took in a sharp breath, his eyes snapping down to stare at the girl on the floor before both of his hands found the sides of his head, his fingers kneading at his temples.

Neither Aro nor Caius could ask what was wrong before Marcus sat on the ground by the girl within half a second, staring at her with an expression that would have been much more at home on someone who’d just suffered a head injury.

“Marcus!” They both said in unison, Aro reaching out to yank one of his hands from his head so he could find out what ailed him.

Caius didn’t speak, giving Aro silence so he could focus on helping Marcus, his eyes traveling to the black haired female.

His discomfort be damned, if this girl was hurting Marcus he didn’t care if he had to stomp on her skull and ruin his shoes to kill her.

He was about to do just that when Aro spoke.

“Ah, yes. I can feel it now.” Aro dropped Marcus’ hand, gaze switching from Marcus to the curled little mortal on the floor at his feet. “I understand brother. It’s settled then.”

“What?” Caius hissed, throwing his hands up in frustration. He always hated not being privy to these private conversations Aro and Marcus had sometimes - he looked between them as if everyone in the room but himself had lost their senses. “What’s settled? What’s she done to him? What are you on about this time?”

“She’s got a happiness aura, Caius. I can feel it myself, though it took until I read Marcus to notice it at all. Surely you sensed it when you were feeding on her?”

The look Caius gave him all too clearly said no, he most certainly did not feel it.

Aro sighed, waving a hand airily at his brother, crouching down so he was close to the small human on the ground, his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging limply in front of him. “It seems the answer to the theory we’ve been hopeless to  solve ever since my sister's passing is right here, isn’t it Marcus?”

Marcus, who was still sitting on the floor looking as if he’d been hit over the head with a heavy object blinked once, then groaned as he ran his hands over his face. “My head hurts-,”

“Your head can’t hurt!” Caius snapped automatically, only growing more frustrated when Aro ignored him to reach over to Marcus once more with his palm up.

“It does.” Marcus grunted and for the first time in too many centuries to count, Marcus’ eyes found his with a clarity in them that was so foreign it made Caius feel incredibly uneasy. Marcus touched his palm to Aro’s without breaking eye contact with Caius, rising to his feet in one fluid motion.

“Ah yes, I’m not surprised.” Aro mused, more to himself than anyone else as his gaze remained focused on the human before them. “You’ve gone nearly three millennia without. It's only natural that now that you have a steady supply again you’ll feel a little off balance.”

“For God’s sake Aro!” Caius was about to go on a tirade, both of his brothers could hear it in his voice, but neither reacted with the same emotional upheaval of their most hot-headed brother. 

“We could never truly know because she was dead.” Marcus said quietly, “And we’ve never encountered another like her until now. I still feel… by the gods do I miss her… but I don’t…”

Marcus did not continue, and it was the look on his brother’s face that had Caius sobering immediately, his anger fading as quickly as a snuffed flame of a candle as the lid was replaced. 

“I’ll have Eleazar examine this one,” Aro sighed, “So we’ll know if she’s addictive like Didyme - bless her heart - but even if she is… it’s probably best you stay exposed to her Marcus.”

Marcus didn’t say anything to that and the silence in the room over the next few minutes was only interrupted by the pounding heart of the human lying before them, her uneven breathing easily ignored.

So it was true then. Marcus’ unusual level of codependence on his late wife, and his unusually severe depression after her death was  because of withdrawal from his mate’s happiness-inducing talent. Plenty of vampires who’d lost their mate still lived and functioned out in the world. Although all of them mourned the passing of their true loves, none had taken a hit as horribly as Marcus. However, they had never been able to  prove that his depression was anything more than him  loving her very much and having a dependent personality.

To know that none of it was true - that he wasn’t weak, but just a victim of circumstance - was too much for Marcus to process right now. He didn’t want to look at the human on the floor between him and his brothers, though he knew she was about to change his life. 

"Well, nothing more to do now than check back in a couple of days," Aro clapped his hands once, getting to his feet.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold on a second!" Caius' expression was appalled as he realized what Aro was saying, gesturing to the human on the floor, "Aro you can't be saying what I think you're saying! You haven't even read her-,"

"Bah!" Aro made a clear sound of discontent as he wrung his hands in front of him. "You know I'll never touch someone mid-change!"

Caius pursed his lips. Right. Aro reading someone mid-transformation meant his raven-haired brother would receive the full details of how much pain they were in.

He'd already lived through the pain of his own transformation. He didn't need to relieve the experience through anyone else.

"You don't have to do anything more Caius. Just leave her here. We'll deal with it later."

“I- but- she-,” Caius spluttered, gesturing wildly to the mortal that was barely twitching on the floor. She was definitely one of the rare silent-change cases that would come up every now and again. Which was kind of a relief because he didn’t want to listen to the thing scream for the next three days. “I don’t- You can’t make me!”

“She’s already changing.” Aro’s brows were raised. “There's nothing more you need to do with your charge-”

“She’s not my charge.” 

“So the tooth fairy came in and changed her then?” Marcus remarked dryly, “Did you make sure to get their contact information so we can let them know to come pick her up?”

“You aren’t funny!” Caius snarled, “You could not have chosen a worse time to have a reawakened sense of humor-”

“Well don’t act like it’s our fault you didn’t finish your food-”

“She’s disgusting!” 

“She moaned Caius.” Aro rolled his eyes, “A biting kink is hardly the most scandalous fetish out there nowadays. There was this one man I encountered who-”

“Stop!” Caius and Marcus both spoke at the same time, neither wanting the undoubtedly tasteless mental image Aro was about to inflict on them.

“I am not doing this Aro!” Caius snarled, “I bought you guys here to dispose of her-,”

“We’re not going to dispose of your little newborn Caius,” Aro rolled his eyes, “She’s your responsibility-”

“The hell she is!” He took one step forward, ready to do whatever was necessary to stop this madness before something hit him.

He staggered back multiple feet until his lower back struck his desk, staring at Marcus -  who was still lowering his fist - in shock as his left ear pulsed with pain.

The realization that Marcus struck him sobered him immediately, but didn’t stop the insult he had ready at the tip of his tongue. “You did not just punch me you bastard-”

“Enough!” Aro’s voice was loud, his tone so stern it caused both Marcus and Caius to stop glaring at each other and turn to him. 

“Leave the girl here, Caius.” Aro enunciated each word slowly as if he were particularly dense. “Do not lay a finger on her. We’ll address this again in a couple of days.”

Caius looked at him, and then at Marcus for a long time in which not a single one of them took a breath, absorbing each of their stubborn expressions before cursing and storming out of his office.

Damn them both.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

Marcus hesitated outside the door to Caius' office. There was no reason for him to announce himself or knock as his brother hadn't entered this room since he stormed out two days ago, but he still needed a moment to process exactly what he planned to do when he got inside.

He and his brothers had left her inside to change. Currently Felix and Santiago were pacing the halls near this corridor, having been ordered there by Aro to keep everyone away from the girl and to apprehend her if she woke up and tried to wander. She’d be waking up within the next day, probably sooner rather than later as she was a tiny little thing, but there was no telling just when that would be.

He wondered if she knew what was happening to her. Had she been listening when he and his brothers talked over her? Or had they been speaking too quickly and quietly for her to be aware of their words when she was suffering the burning agony of transformation?

Either way, after thinking about it for nearly four hours this morning, he’d decided that someone needed to try to explain what was happening to her.

If there was one thing they’d learned over the countless years ruling their species, it was that an uninformed newborn was a crazy newborn. 

Not to mention that if he wanted her to remain around him to supply some of - what Aro had started referring to as - his antidepressant, he’d need to be on good terms with her. If he wasn’t and she despised his presence he couldn’t exactly expect her aura to constantly work. 

It might be a permanent part of her she had no control over, it might be something she could influence at will, and it could be something that was affected majorly by her moods. Only time would say.

Taking a deep breath he opened the door to the office, ignoring how Felix and Santiago’s steps both paused at the sound, and stepped inside allowing the door to snap shut behind him.

Being in her presence again was like someone was pulling aside a veil that had been cast over his head - a veil he’d never known was there until a couple of days ago. His thoughts were suddenly clearer, his breathing came easier, and the overwhelming sadness that had consumed him so thoroughly for thousands of years and made him nearly constantly wish for the sweet release of death was no more than a dull throb in a small part of his heart.

The mourning of his mate was still very much present there, but it was a mourning all those who suffered terrible loss lived with.

It was no longer an incapacitating pain, just a very normal ache.

He felt lighter in here now than he had when he’d first encountered her, though he knew this was only because the end of her change was near. The little female looked more immortal than mortal now. He estimated she only had half a day left before she awoke.

As he took in her appearance he realized her dark hair must have been false, because now her hair was such a light blonde that it was nearly white in color.

The venom must have removed the dye.

Without thinking he crossed the room to where she was curled on her side, her rapid heartbeat the only sound as he crouched in front of her to gaze at her face.

By gods, she looked-

Well, she looked like she could be Caius’ child by flesh and not just by venom.

She gave no indication she knew he was there, so he cleared his throat before speaking.

“Can you hear me child?”

She didn’t speak, but her eyelids did flutter for a second.

He sighed, scooting closer to her and placing a hand on her shoulder before pushing her onto her back. 

Instinctively she uncurled from her ball, laying flat on the ground with her arms and legs slightly apart, her eyes fluttering again as she tried to look up at the unknown person who had moved her.

Marcus caught a glimpse of red irises, shot through with streaks of light brown as the transformation continued to work to rid her of her human appearance.

Her eyes closed once more and she groaned.

“Can you speak?”

The only response he got to that was another pained groan.

Alright then.

“Try to at least tell me your name. If you can do that I'll tell you mine, and I'll try to explain what’s happening to you.”

Her thoughts were hardly coherent due to pain and her vision had been nothing more than a blur of confusing colors when she opened her eyes. She wanted to say she had a pretty solid guess what was happening to her but the very idea of speech sounded horrible right now.

It was quiet again, and she wasn’t sure if the person who’d moved her was still in the room before he spoke.

The only thing she knew was that he wasn’t the one who’d bitten her. His voice was much too deep to be the same person.

“I know it hurts. It won’t go on much longer, but I'd like to address you as something other than child.” The man repeated. 

Huh, that was weirdly nice of him.

“Ann-ah.” She croaked, her voice somehow managing to be high pitched and scratchy at the same time.

“Anna?”

She groaned, hoping he knew that she was confirming what he said and he would stop asking her to try to talk.

“Okay. Anna then.” Marcus said softly. “My name is Marcus. My brother Caius was the one who did this to you. Do you remember us talking over you in this room two days ago?”

“Nuh-uh-,” Anna’s face crumpled, and he understood that asking her to make any sounds right now was most likely extremely uncomfortable.

It was probably best she didn’t even bother. 

With a sigh loud enough he knew it would be audible to her, Marcus sat on the floor beside her, resting his forearms on his knees as he stared forward at Caius’ desk.

He began to talk, and without hesitation or any polite formalities he explained to her what she was becoming, and what she would likely experience once her heart stopped. He did not bother taking the time to choose careful, gentle words that would make what he was saying less shocking. There was no point in sugarcoating what her life would be like when the change ended and her pain stopped. It was inevitable, and it was going to be her reality very soon.

Anna didn’t try to talk, and he was grateful as he continued on explaining what the purpose of the Volturi coven was and how she would be expected to conform and follow instructions and directions.

It did occur to him that she might be too consumed by pain to listen, but he wasn’t going to ask her to give any input into the conversation. If she wasn’t listening? Well no one can say he hadn’t at least tried.

He talked for a long time, as there really was a lot of information he needed to give her. When he paused in explaining a rather lengthy list of rules their coven had for newborns he realized her heart rate had spiked startlingly fast, and it occurred to him he must have been sitting beside her for the better part of the day.

At least he’d covered a lot of material.

“Anna? Is the pain receding?”

It was the first thing he’d asked her directly in hours, and her answering grimace was enough of a confirmation. 

“Make a fist to confirm what I’m asking you.” Marcus said sharply, getting to his feet so he would be prepared to take her down if she launched at him. “Is the pain in your chest getting worse?”

As he gazed down at her, he watched the small almost-vampire clench her right hand into a fist for a few seconds before relaxing it.

“Are your hands free of pain?”

She made a fist.

“The rest of your arms?”

Another fist.

“Your legs?”

Again, she clenched her right hand into a fist.

Marcus turned and took a few quick strides to the door, opening it and hearing Felix and Santiago pause as they paced the stone floor a few halls away. 

He spoke to the empty corridor knowing both of the guards would hear him. “Santiago, go and find my brothers. Felix, with me.”

Felix appeared in the hallway within seconds, and Marcus said nothing to the guard as he went back to Anna’s side and heard Felix follow him into Caius’ office, closing the door behind him with a soft snap.

They both stared down at Anna, fully aware as her heart took off at a stallion's pace that she had minutes - if not seconds - before she woke. 

“Your heart will stop shortly.” Marcus said dispassionately, “When it does you’ll want to take a deep breath and sit up as slowly as you can. I’m sure you’re aware of many scents right now, and the new one in the room is Felix. He’s here to restrain you if you… panic.”

Marcus caught Felix’s head turning to look at him from the corner of his eye, catching the significance in what he was saying.

He was only to restrain her, not harm her.

The door opened once more, and Marcus did not turn to face his brothers as they entered, watching Anna intently as she took a sharp breath, her heart going much too fast now.

Aro drifted to his side and took his hand, reading his thoughts as the four of them stared down at the small girl on the floor as the last seconds of her mortal life passed them by.

Her heart raced, and raced, and raced until there was an abnormal jolt in its pattern. They all listened as it faltered, before giving two more hard disjointed thumps. The only sound in the room was Anna’s shocked intake of air as her heart finally failed and silence reigned. 

Her eyelids fluttered, and then opened fully. Two scarlet eyes stared up at the ceiling in astonishment, darting around as she took in such finely textured details she would have never been capable of noticing before with her human eyesight. 

Eventually her eyes wandered to each of them individually, and she surprised them all by sitting up very slowly and carefully - an abnormally tame response for a newborn.

Marcus figured she must have been listening to him after all.

“Wow.” Anna breathed, squeezing her eyes shut for a long second before opening them again and blinking rapidly as her brain adjusted to her super-sharp sight. “This is really trippy. If all that didn’t hurt so bad I’d be sure I just took acid or something. God what the fuck.”

Aro and Caius both breathed in - clearly about to tell her off for her language - but were silenced by the withering look Marcus sent them. The language really wasn’t the top priority right now.

Her accent though, and the fact that she spoke to them in English - which they already knew she would based on what the guards who’d carried her into the castle relayed - showed that she most certainly was not from Italy. She was American. A tourist most likely. 

That was good, they were used to making sure the disappearances of tourists were not linked to them.

Anna observed her hands in front of her for a long moment, taking in their pale perfection before she looked back up at them, her blonde eyebrows raised. 

Caius couldn’t tame his startled look at her appearance into one of indifference before Aro glanced over at him, a smug grin on his face.

It infuriated him greatly to realize the disgusting girl looked just like him. His brothers would never let him hear the end of this.

Anna sniffed, her head turning to Marcus as she recognized his scent as the one that had been with her for hours now.

Marcus crouched so he was closer to her level, and heard as Aro did the same. 

Caius and Felix both remained standing.

“This is Aro.” Marcus inclined his head toward his brother. “Do you remember what I told you about him?”

She nodded, and Aro grinned widely. 

“Spectacular.” Aro said happily, holding out one hand to the newborn and ignoring the way Felix shifted at the gesture. The girl was only minutes old; she would be easy to anticipate if she had any thought of hurting him. It would be obvious on her face and in her body language long before she acted. “This might just be one of the calmest rebirths we ever had. Nice work Marcus.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. All he did was talk; the exceptionally calm way Anna was behaving was all her. 

Anna noticed his expression and grinned.

She reached out a hand toward Aro - slowly, like she was a human, and showing that she was taking great care in her movements as she placed her palm in his.

It was probably good she was moving so carefully too. Felix was very tense.

It was quiet for nearly a minute before Aro laughed, patting the back of Anna’s hand affectionately before dropping it.

Aro turned his head from Anna to Caius with a sigh. “You really do need to get a sense of humor, you know. When you bit her she only moaned because she was trying to be funny in the light of her death, and when you tried to finish the groan was just because you let her wrist go and the removal of more pain than she was already experiencing was a relief. You really had me so convinced she had a biting kink.”

Aro sounded almost disappointed that she didn’t - it would have been so funny if it had been true - and Anna’s face cracked the biggest shit eating grin any of them had seen in a long time.

With that grin came a feeling of lightness and ease that the three brothers knew was not their own - an entirely involuntary action the little vampire had no control over yet - and Felix shook his head as if in confusion when the sensation hit him.

They probably should have given him some forewarning.

Marcus’ fingers found his temples where he rubbed hard, and Aro caught the motion in his peripheral vision. He knew his brother was getting a headache again - this new supply of dopamine was something he desperately needed but his brain wasn’t quite ready for it yet. With the rather scientific approach to drug addictions, human mental illness and substances, and cause and effect Aro had in his head from the truly endless supply of memories both his own and not, Aro figured the best way to introduce Marcus to his new antidepressant was slowly. Eventually she’d make him feel much more himself but without the added headache.

He was completely certain of it; they’d just have to do small doses for now.

Aro patted the pockets of his suit jacket, looking for the small hand mirror he usually carried around - because he really did care if his hair looked a mess and it didn’t bother him in the slightest when his brothers would make fun of him for always checking his appearance - before retrieving it and holding it out to Anna.

“This was a gift from my wife. Do not break it or I'll be most cross.” Aro said seriously, watching as the little blonde carefully took the mirror, opening it as if it were tissue paper and getting a first look at her new reflection.

She gave a startled little jump at first glance, stared at herself in the tiny mirror for a long moment, and surprised all of them when she carefully passed the mirror back to Aro without closing it. 

“Imma just give this back, if I hold it much longer I’m definitely gonna break it. Marcus mentioned super strength, and I can feel it - that’s for sure.”

“That’s Master Marcus to you, you little-” Caius started in on her instantly, and both of Anna’s brows raised at him when her gaze found his - registering that he was the one who’d killed her - but she was saved from responding by Marcus’ annoyed sigh.

“I introduced myself to her informally, Caius,” Marcus snapped, “Now calm down or leave. I do not have the patience for this right now.”

Caius exhaled loudly out of his nose, clearly ready to start yelling, but Marcus turned away from him and back to the matter at hand. 

Anna’s gaze was on him. It seemed she wasn’t very intimidated by Caius’ outbursts. 

Whether that was a good thing or not… Marcus couldn’t really be sure.

“You seem to be taking this very well.” Marcus’ deep bass voice was always so quiet, and Anna found it inexplicably soothing. 

His expression was impossible to read.

“Well the alternative was being yeeted into the forever sleep. And what do you expect? Oh, woe is me, I’m superhuman, immortal, and hot as fuck now. Whatever will I do?” She said the last part of her rebuttal in an overly enthusiastic, damsel-in-distress candor that would make any B movie director proud.

She should go into acting.

“We should really introduce you to the Cullens.” The black-haired Aro was speaking again, his expression very clearly amused as he stood and looked down at her. “I think you’d do wonders for their self-esteem.”

“What’s a Cullen?”

“We’ll explain that later dear.” Aro said affectionately, watching her get slowly to her feet after she saw Marcus rise to his, as if she were waiting for nonverbal cues. “But first, let’s take care of your thirst.” 

He waved Felix forward, and Anna’s appraisal of the abnormally large vampire was only interrupted once as Caius let out an audible scoff before turning on his heel and storming from the office, letting the door slam behind him.

“Huh,” Anna shrugged, “You know, I get the feeling he doesn’t like me.” 

Felix cracked a smile that Anna reciprocated, and Aro noticed Marcus pressing his fingers to his temples again.

“He’s just irritated we were ignoring him,” Aro said playfully, motioning to Marcus that he should leave first before following. He heard Felix telling Anna he was going to hold onto her arm and asking her to do her best not to overreact to it, and ignored the little vampire’s growl as Felix did exactly as he’d warned.

She was young, and instincts are instincts after all. 

It was good she’d listened to Marcus’ lengthy explanation about her new life though, because after that initial growl Anna seemed fine with listening to Felix as he guided her along beside him.

Marcus figured he could leave Aro and Felix to chaperone Anna for now - his head really did ache - and took his leave at the first hall junction they came to, going in the opposite direction from where he knew the trio would be headed.

Aside from that, the only hiccup in their journey to the feeding chamber was Renata joining them, unable to bear the thought of Aro being unguarded with a newborn around. Her gaze traveled to Anna in clear surprise as she took in the newborn the rest of the coven had been warned about, not having expected the pretty little blonde to look so like Master Caius.

Anna was calm, and absolutely beamed when she saw Renata.

“Man if my throat didn’t burn so bad it felt like the devil just jizzed in it, I’d be fully convinced I'd died and gone to heaven.”

Aro choked as he tried to suppress his laugh, truly startled as Renata’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Felix’s laughter echoed in the hall, and Aro figured it was probably best they addressed the crude language once she was fed.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

If anyone asked Anna what her first couple months as a vampire had been like, she really wouldn’t have had anything to say. Everything kinda blurred together because of how seriously intense it was adapting to being a different creature than the one she was born as. 

Marcus had warned her, but it hadn’t really sunk in how truly mind-fucking it would be to have such intense emotions, temper tantrums, and thirst now that she wasn’t human.

Something she could say though, was that even though she didn’t always remember fine details of those first months through the haze of thirst and super-emotions (as she liked to refer to her new and startling emotional capacity as an immortal), she did have a very clear place in her mind where she kept her relationships. Bonding with people as an immortal was very different than it was as a human. 

The way people treated and responded to her was ingrained into her brain right off the bat, and  the friendships she’d formed - no matter how new and insignificant they’d seem to be to a human since it was such a short timespan in which she’d known them - became an unwavering part of her. 

She liked Felix a lot. He helped her calm down and always knew exactly what to do to help when she’d have a temper tantrum. Once he even flattened her on the floor and simply sat on her back for an hour until she stopped spazzing and started listening to his breathing instructions.

She liked Demetri, who seemed to be Felix’s right hand man and was always a second set of hands when shit got out of hand - or more specifically when she got out of hand. She liked Alec and Jane, who just had such a vibe about them that she respected them right away - and Jane seemed to vibe with her too. 

She really liked Lady Athenodora, who seemed to be the most modern of all the ancients and always poked fun at her asshat of a husband - and Anna’s very own sire - Caius.

But her best friend of all was Marcus - well Master Marcus in public; she only called him by his first name when they were in private or if Aro was the only one around.

It had taken her a little while to understand, even after other guards had helped her learn about her happy-aura-special-talent thing, just what Marcus’ issues were and why everyone always seemed to act as though she and him were a package deal of some sort.

Now that her initial “crazy months” were past her - the crazy months being the oh so eloquently named period of about two to four months after a newborn’s change - she had a clear understanding of what all of that meant.

She was a living, breathing, antidepressant for Marcus.

But she wasn’t like his late wife Didyme. 

Anna’s happy aura did not leave Marcus walking around as if he was slightly punch drunk, nor did it have any of the guards flocking toward her as overeager romantic interests like Aro’s late sister had.

There was something peaceful and calming about her presence. Everyone just felt at ease and… good around her. No one in the coven disliked her and she couldn’t exactly find that shocking if her very presence made people feel like they just took a valium.

No one ever felt anxious or melancholy when not exposed to the little blonde’s radius of sunshine. Eleazar had been completely right when he examined her and compared her to Corin except that her talent did not have an addictive edge.

Caius and Aro were sure - Aro more so because he had been in so many people's minds - that Marcus was reacting as any depressed mortal who was being properly medicated would. She took the edge off; she was a healthy, synthetic substitute to a hard drug he’d been addicted to. 

Marcus still had his days. He still had his down periods, but he was better with Anna around. There had only been a couple bouts of depression in recent months that were particularly bad for Marcus, and each time another guard had found her and told her Marcus needed her presence. 

She was always quick to be at his side, just like how in her human life she was always right there whenever a friend needed her. She’d sit on the floor beside whatever chair he was slumped over in and just wait quietly until he stirred.

Marcus was very close to her for more reasons than just her happy aura. As time went on it was clear to everyone that she and Marcus were kindred spirits. They had many common hobbies and interests. Anna was much more modern and chaotic than Marcus was; this was probably because of her young age and the vastly different time periods they were born in, but it was obvious that she and Marcus were soulmates of a purely platonic nature.

It was the bane of Caius’ existence to be constantly reminded that she was a permanent presence in their coven.

He couldn’t even properly discipline her. The one time he’d tried to catch her to remove her tongue - really she could do without it for a week and learn that she needed to stop with the cheek she always gave him - the little shit had let out a shriek that hurt his eardrums and ran off down the hall.

He’d chased her all the way to the throne room, and he would have had her if she hadn’t run behind Marcus and pressed her face into his back pleading for his protection.

Marcus wouldn’t let him near her.

“She’s a kid, Caius. Grow a pair and stop overreacting to every little thing.”

“She’s twenty-two! She’s no child!” Caius had snapped back, jabbing a finger in her direction. “You enable her!”

While she certainly did get away with quite a lot of misbehaviors because of her friendship with Marcus, it didn’t mean she was completely undisciplined.

Marcus did have a tendency to smack her upside the back of the head a lot which, to be honest, was completely fair with how quick she would go from being somewhat normal to an absolute basket case that wanted to do something like coat herself in body paint and run into the square naked just to see if the sunlight would still make her a disco ball but a colorful one this time.

Which she totally wasn’t allowed to do because it was totally against the law, and secrecy was the main goal, and blah blah blah talk talk talk.

Since she’d been a little newborn-nutcase at first she wasn’t on the Volturi guards' payroll nor was she given any real jobs to do. Her main tasks were to sit still and for the love of god not break anything, and that was not as easy as it sounded.

No one knew what to do to get her to behave at first. They couldn’t use any of the normal methods of keeping vampires in line - like limb removal or just general ass beating - because Marcus had been perfectly clear harming her was off limits.

No one could exactly blame him either. Even though there were enough occasions to prove Eleazar's assurance that her happy aura seemed to be permanent - only becoming stronger when she was in a good mood and never waning even when she was temperamental or upset - they all understood that he didn’t want to risk losing her aura. 

He needed her antidepressant quality, and the fact that he was genuinely fond of her as a person only reinforced that they had to have a gentler approach with her.

Aro had been the first to figure out how they could… encourage… good behavior. Anna was very extroverted and easily bored, so the first several newborn months when it was necessary for her  to learn control and be exposed to as few people and emotional scenarios as possible were, figuratively, driving her nuts. 

Telling her to sit still and try to calm down only made her more antsy, and Aro had figured rewards for good behavior might work best.

To everyone's immense surprise, the reward that worked best were books. 

Anna’s rooms were very large and comfortable here - as were all the guards' personal living quarters - but hers lacked personal touches. Understandable, because she didn’t have any money just yet and she was prone to breaking things with her new strength, but still depersonalizing.

She wanted to paint her walls. She wanted to get bookcases and fill them with her favorite books and stuffed animals. She just wasn’t allowed to yet because she was always acting up.

So Aro made a rule: each day she went without breaking something, starting a fight, or doing something utterly ridiculous (like trying to see how far she could literally run up a wall with her super speed before gravity took its toll and sent her plummeting down onto her back) she was awarded with an item she wanted to make her rooms her own.

It wasn’t easy at first, but with the help and guidance of her friends, she’d begun to improve more and more with each passing day.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

Around six months later while a small portion of the guard stood in the feeding room waiting with the ancients for Heidi to arrive with a tour group, Anna talked quietly with Renata to the left of the circular room’s doors. Both of the girls' heads were bent together, so they were unaware the brothers were watching them.

"It seems like Anna and Renata are finally starting to get along," Marcus said in a quiet aside to Aro and Caius, his voice low enough that only they could hear.

"Oh thank goodness," Aro's eyes flashed to Renata, "I've been worried about the poor dear for years. It's been so hard for her to accept you know, with the time period she was born in…"

"Wait," Caius hissed, trying not to look over at Anna. "She likes women? All those comments she's made over the last year-"

"Renata likes women." Marcus said, even though both of his brothers had known that fact for years. "Anna likes everyone."

Caius just stared, and Marcus leaned his head back on his throne muttering, “It’s about time. I’ve never liked slow burning romances, and watching the bond grow between the two of them while waiting for them to just get together already has been driving me insane.”

Aro cackled, and multiple guards turned to look toward the kings in confusion, speculating that perhaps Master Aro was finally losing his mind after all.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

Months turned into years, and Anna hardly noticed it at all as time no longer meant much to her as an immortal. After the newborn year was over, and she was considerably more rational and able to focus on tasks, she’d been put to studying and testing to find herself a true ranking within the Volturi guard.

These tests did involve general education at a university level - all of the Volturi guards were expected to be literate and educated to at least PhD standards. The masters believed that with infinite time, there was no excuse for their people to not be using it to better themselves.

They couldn’t go to actual universities, but the Volturi did have guards that were responsible for schooling and conducting exams that would have made any human being have a mental breakdown of truly epic proportions.

Along with school, she had strategy training, control training, and fight training. 

She'd passed all of her tests with flying colors after only 3 years, and she was the youngest elite guard the Volturi ever had because of it.

She couldn't pretend that was because she was extraordinary or anything though. It only turned out that way because Marcus had been a consistent and sometimes ruthless teacher. She'd had special treatment that no one before her had ever had before by having one of the ancients and one of the best fighters among vampires training her personally every day for two and a half years. Anyone would excel with such attention.

It was only fitting that she became Marcus’ personal guard as both his antidepressant and his greatest friend, but that didn't mean she didn't have to earn her stripes so to speak.

So he’d trained her himself to help her get there, and she earned the extremely dark gray cloak she wore just as all the others had. 

The bite marks Marcus had left on her arms, neck, and torso were proof of that. He hadn't been easy on her at all, and even though some of the lessons were hard she was grateful for the skills she had now because of him.

She wanted to live a thousand years, and you didn't get to that age without surviving some serious fights over time.

One of the bites on her torso was on her left rib cage, and there was one high up on her neck and two on her right arm from the time she had insisted she was ready to take the test to become an elite guard - a test she’d most certainly not been prepared for but she was too stubborn to believe otherwise when she was only two years old - and Marcus had squared up with her to fight. She should have known then and there that the fight was going to be a lesson and a punishment, because no one ever beat Marcus, and the final elite guard qualification fight was meant to be taken against an actual elite guard and not one of the masters.

He’d handed her ass to her, and made sure each bite was a reminder that she would have been killed if the fight was real - especially the ones on her side and neck. 

Her pride had been hurt, but Marcus never dismembered her out of respect for their friendship. Even though she most definitely sulked for three days following her ass whooping, she and Marcus were completely back to their normal easy friendship right after.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

Anna was lying face down on the couch in her living quarters hiding under nearly fifteen blankets as she heard a light knock on the main door and Renata went to answer it.

Marcus entered the room she was in shortly after, and pulled the mountain of blankets off her in one good tug.

“Alright Anna, time to stop with the moping and get up.” 

Her answering question was muffled by the pillow she had her face pressed into, "How long have I been moping exactly?"

Marcus shook back his sleeve to check his watch, "69 hours."

As he predicted from the moment he calculated the time, she snickered. "Hehe, nice. Okay, I guess I can get over it now since the hour is so perfect."

He rolled his eyes so hard Anna could almost hear it even though she wasn’t looking at him as she finally raised her head from the pillow and sat up.

"You're sure you're alright?" Marcus' expression was politely concerned for her, and she laughed.

"I had a beautiful woman around to take care of me and nurse my wounds," She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, "I'll live."

They both heard Renata choke back a mortified little squeak from the front room.

Anna laughed again, even louder this time at her mate’s still-adorable modesty. Renata acting as though that statement was embarrassing was laughable. Marcus had caught the two of them in an empty corridor one day and there had been absolutely no way to play off what they were up to.

Marcus had let out his usual god-I’d-love-someone-to-just-end-me-right-now sigh, told Anna that they needed to resume her control training, and waited completely straight-faced and quietly for Anna to get off her knees and get her face out from between Renata’s legs as Renata frantically pulled her dress back down.

Renata avoided Marcus for nearly three weeks after that, and even then it was only because Aro ordered her to stop being shy and get over it because she was expected to continue her normal duties as his guard, and that meant she’d be around Marcus constantly so she needed to push the incident from her mind.

"So we're cool?" Marcus’ words pulled Anna out of her trip down memory lane, and she beamed at him.

“Look at you, using the correct slang! Yeah, we're cool."

He reached over and mussed her hair affectionately. "Good. Now let's go to the throne room for a short while so Caius can see you're out and about before training. Caius is temperamental about your unexcused absences this week so you better get moving."

"Fine."

As they left her rooms together, Anna trailing behind Marcus by a few paces because he was just way taller than her and his strides were always bigger, she couldn’t help but complain.

“Why do you even need guards anyway? It’s not like you can’t put any one of us in the ground at a moment’s notice!”

Marcus gave a ghost of a chuckle, and she smiled at him behind his back.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

When she had passed her final fight test - not with Marcus because it was deemed unfair for her to test with her trainer; there could be no question about him throwing a fight for her benefit -  she fought Caius. She catapulted into him so hard she sent them both out of the fighting circle they were supposed to stay confined to. She was scolded by the guard who was refereeing the match because, while your opponent being knocked out of the circle gave you a win, throwing yourself out of the circle with them in the same move didn’t count.

“Hey man,” She’d laughed in response. “I'll sink the ship I'm working on just to kill the captain.”

The ref tried not to smile, he really did, but the sound of Aro’s laughter from somewhere off on the side broke his concentration.

Caius was frustrated as usual with her lack of professionalism, and Anna wasn’t going to deny that Caius being frustrated with her total I don’t give a fuck mentality combined with his wife’s heckling from the stand to not hurt his kin - and infuriating reminder to him that she looked like his biological kid - made him an easier opponent. 

The final elite fighting test wasn’t meant to be taken with the masters, but Caius had wanted an opportunity to - how did he put it - squish her like Marcus did.

Man when she’d tripped Caius so he fell out of bound in the final five seconds of her fight… she’d had to run for her life to find Marcus before Caius killed her. He was so mad.

Marcus had found the entire thing hilarious.

~~~~~~UwU~~~~~~

Anna was sitting on the floor against some shelves in the library, reading a book and only looking up from where it rested in her lap occasionally to cast the obligatory I’m-your-guard-and-have-to-keep-an-eye-on-you glance at Marcus who was sitting in his usual chair by the fire a little ways away. Sometimes she sat in the chair across from him, sometimes she sat on the floor behind his chair and leaned against its back, and other times they both preferred a little distance from each other as they read in peace.

They were best friends and spent nearly all their time together, but they still both needed breathing room every now and again. 

She was looking forward to tonight. Marcus and Aro had approved the night off for her and Renata so they could leave the castle and go on a date as long as they were both back by sunrise. Even now, almost ten years after her change, she knew that Aro and Marcus expected Renata to make sure she stayed in line.

Anna grinned down at her book, remembering the body glitter incident from last March and trying not to laugh at the memory of Caius losing his shit and Marcus’ and Aro’s absolute shock when they saw that every single inch of her skin was coated in dark pink body glitter as she stood in the sun in the town square.

The humans found her hilarious, and the sun's rays were not an issue because of all the glitter.

Marcus walloped her upside the head really hard once she was back inside. She’d only stayed out for fifteen minutes tops and was just trying to make the tourists who were there for the Saint Marcus Day festival laugh, but she was still put on probation for six months after that.

It was so worth it though. The guards got such a kick out of it and didn’t stop talking about it for a month.

Yeah… she wasn’t gonna pretend their concerns about her judgment were misplaced.

When she looked up from her book again she saw Marcus staring at her with a raised brow, obviously wondering what her smile was about, but she wasn’t able to answer before a set of steps she recognized entered the library.

Caius was clearly in a raging temper when he appeared beside Marcus, and it seemed as though her sire was angry with her by the withering look he sent her as he hissed to Marcus about making sure she was appropriately disciplined and blah blah blah.

Marcus was great at pretending as if everything Caius said was news to him. 

Athenodora had come up to Anna and Marcus in the halls earlier that day and begged Anna with her hands folded in front of her to “Please for the love of god break that ugly ass vase that Caius insisted on putting on one of the art pedestals within the main hall to their room. She’d do anything - just please Anna, please.”

Marcus took a walk so he could plead his ignorance, and Anna had happily knocked that pedestal down and stepped on the shards of the baby shit green colored vase that were now all over the floor.

There was no way Caius would figure out from Marcus’ expression that he knew what had happened and had totally allowed it.

It wasn’t either of their fault that Caius had terrible taste. If the thing wasn’t so ugly Athenodora wouldn’t have begged her to break it in the first place.

“I swear to god! If you can’t keep her in line I’ll end her myself-”

“Yeah, sure, keep threatening that as if you don’t remember the whole reason she’s here in the first place is because you’re a baby.” Marcus said emotionlessly, staring down at his book and idly turning a page as if he didn’t notice Caius’ indignant splutter. 

“What!? How dare-”

“You always blame Aro and me for whatever she gets up to. It’s not our fault you didn’t finish your food.”

Anna had to shove her fist into her mouth to keep from laughing.

“She was gross and slobbery and even you-”

“I would have eaten and left no crumbs.” Marcus said simply. “If she was getting a kick out of it I would have just let her enjoy her final moments without judgment.”

Anna slapped both hands over her mouth, holding her breath as she rocked with silent laughter.

“We don’t kink shame in this family Caius. It’s not our fault you’re pathetically vanilla.” Aro’s voice called from somewhere by the entrance, and Anna finally collapsed into a fit of very loud laughter. Tears would have been absolutely streaming down her face had she still been human - the evidence of their presence in her eyes were clouding her vision at that very moment. When had Aro gotten here? She had no idea but this was amazing.

“I am not-” Caius started to say only to be cut off by Marcus.

“I’m going to tell Athenodora to say “Fuck me daddy uwu” to you unironically in bed, and if you can’t keep it up we’ll all have undeniable proof that you’re a wuss.”

Anna was sure she died right then and there. Her soul must have truly left her body and ascended into the unknown at those words from Marcus’ mouth. She knew she was rubbing off on him over the years, but to this extent? 

This was the most amazing moment of her life.

She wasn’t the only one laughing now. Some of the guards present in the library as well as Aro and his wife had joined in. She could barely hear Caius stomp out, her lungs feeling like they were burning because of how hard she’d nearly been screaming with laughter at Marcus’ truly impeccable timing and the absolutely bomb way he delivered that line without emoting at all. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she was as happy as she was now. 

She’d lived a good life while human, and the fact that the circumstances and path of her life had led her here to Volterra with a new and huge found family… she really couldn’t believe her luck. 

Some of the happiest memories of her life came from these years as an immortal, one of the most vivid being when Master Aro and Marcus allowed her to take Renata to the NYC pride parade the previous year. She’d taken a picture there of her and her mate that was displayed proudly as her phone background (there was even a printed photo of it in a frame on the mantle of Marcus' rooms, which she still considered one of her greatest achievements). 

It was a selfie she’d taken as she threw an arm around Renata’s neck and dragged her close, beaming at the camera while her mate smiled in the most genuine way, a rainbow flag proudly painted on her cheek and an adorable contrast to the bi-pride flag painted on her own. 

She sat up on the floor, trying to control her giggling and breathing as she turned her head to gaze at Marcus, who she found was still sitting in his chair and beaming right back.

His answering smile - a smile she knew would have never been on his face had she not been here - was all she needed to be one hundred percent positive that putting up graffiti all over Volterra had been the best decision she’d ever made in her life.

Even if it was such a pain when the brothers made her go wash it all off.

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