#They’d think he was joking at first but then he’d use his powers to get a book down from a shelf in front of everyone and then just like

[lulublack90]

Prompt 9 - History of Magic Classroom

@wolfstarmicrofic November 9, word count 734

Previous part First part

Sirius tilted his head as far back as he could and flipped over when he caught sight of the person who had spoken. It was his old school tutor, Professor Binns. The most boring man above and below ground. He was so dull, in fact, that when he’d died, instead of torturing him like he had tortured his students for his entire teaching career, they set him to torturing the new souls for a few thousand years, and he tutored Sirius and Regulus on the side. Sirius’s mother’s idea of a joke, probably. He didn’t think he’d ever stayed awake for the entirety of one of his lectures. 

“Well, Mr Black, are you quite ready to begin?” Binns wheezed at him. Even his voice was dull and lifeless. It always bugged Sirius that the soul never addressed him correctly, but he supposed that was the point. He scowled at the balding man. 

“How do I get out of here?” He asked him, hoping he would have an answer. 

“Once your lesson is over. Now take your seat,” Binns turned away from him and shuffled to the front of the class. Sirius settled into one of the desks at the back and readied himself for his soul to be sucked from his body, Remus sitting on his haunches beside him and Binns began. 

Like its professor, the History of Magic Classroom was bland and gave nothing for the students to focus on. Sirius could already feel his eyes drifting shut as Binns droned on. Remus wasn’t helping. His steady, even breath's and warm, soft side were lulling Sirius further. 

His eyes must only have been shut for a minute, maybe two, but when they snapped open again, Binns was only just starting his lecture. 

“Where magic and history are concerned depends on what we are studying. Lilith, while powerful…” Sirius’s eyes closed again. 

They snapped open a few minutes later, and Binns was still on his opening speech. “… history are concerned depends on what we are studying. Lilith, while powerful…” Sirius furrowed his brow. Hadn’t Binns already said that? “She was not the first with magic. Lucifer fell from the heavens bringing magic to our realm…” Remus was so soft and warm. 

“Damn it!” Sirius exclaimed loudly as he jumped awake again. 

“Mr Black, control yourself. As I was saying. Lilith, while powerful…” Sirius’s eyes widened. Binns had definitely said that before. That was when Sirius realised what was happening. Every time he fell asleep, the class reset on an endless loop. This must be how they tortured the souls. They were unable to stay awake, and every time they drifted off, the torture reset, ready for them when they awoke. He had to stay awake. 

Sirius could already feel his eyes drooping again. He had to find a way to stay awake. He shuffled away from Remus; it was far too tempting to cuddle into him and fall fast asleep. 

He recited his favourite poems in his head. Then, when he ran out of those, his favourite jokes. Then, when he couldn’t think of any more jokes, he counted the numerous fingernail scratches gouged into the desktop. “…magic can be used for any number of instances, for example…” He blocked out Binns’s dull voice and listed all the things he’d do with Remus once this was all over, and he was human again. They’d go see his parents and Ethel in the corner shop. They’d leave Remus’s village, and Sirius would show the man all his favourite places in the world above, and they’d discover new ones together. He smiled as he thought of running his hands through those sandy curls and kissing those soft pink lips. “…and that is it for today. Homework is 3000 words on how washing machine magic has narrowed itself to only stealing socks. To be handed in tomorrow,” 

Sirius’s head snapped up. He’d done it! His eyes searched the room and watched as a door beside the blackboard materialised.

“Remus,” He said quietly, nudging the giant beast. He then realised that Remus had been awake and paying attention the entire time. Sirius had no idea how Remus had overcome Binns’s torture; he’d have to ask him once he was able to talk again. “The door’s over there,” he pointed to the front of the room. Together, they hurried over to it and walked through to their next trial.  

Next part

[transmasccofee]

how would they explain this to their parents...tbh kusuo would probably just do his best to hide it from absolutely everyone. with his telekinesis + hypnosis a prosthetic might sell the deal. my brain has gotten hooked on the one off idea my apologies lmfao

on one hand it would make sense for him to try and hide it, on the other I think that if he got his arm fully blown off he might just give up on keeping shit secret entirely. Like he’d be too tired and done to keep up any lie. He’d come to class and everyone would be like “omg what happened to ur arm??!?? D:” and he’d be like “my brother used a nuclear weapon to explode it because he’s mad I have psychic powers” and then wouldn’t explain further At All.

[dreamisols]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ COFFEE TALK

INTRODUCTION FIC TO 'THE ART OF REMEMBRANCE'

—the rare moments of free time allow you and your boyfriend to talk about anything and everything that comes to mind... at this point, you two might as well be the third division's free podcast! —wc: 1050; fluff but mostly crack —original canon, x fem!reader, you and hoshina are just silly, hibino leno and kikoru mentions, one cuss, general pov more or less, i advocate for silly unhinged dynamics —rimi's ramble: told myself not to rush the series but i wrote this in one sitting... my summer's gonna be spent writing about this man, buckle up folks! >:]

The Third Division considers you and Hoshina as their power couple. 

Charming looks paired with commanding auras, levels of strength that no one would dare go against, all topped off with endearing one-of-a-kind personalities. Two puzzle pieces that fit as if they’re made for each other.

Everyone within the division quickly accepted and supported your relationship with the Vice Captain. And with that support comes your status as the “local love team"—an inside joke and a makeshift badge of honor (if one could even call it that).

In their defense, there isn't even any sort of competition to begin with. You two are the only couple within the division.

Every member, no matter how long they’ve been in the Defense Force, holds high respect towards both of you. They trust you with a lot of things—the wisdom you both give to your members is actually useful, and your attack combos on the field are nothing to scoff at. 

Yes, they would trust you two with their lives, and yes, the way they’d say it might blur the lines of comedy and seriousness. There’s simply one thing that’s holding everyone off…

No one trusts the both of you with coffee. 

Ironic, considering it’s one of Vice Captain Hoshina’s favorite things. 

Another inside joke is that whenever a member enters the lounge room and they’re greeted by the rich inviting scent of brewed coffee, they will be tuning in to some sort of a podcast episode hosted by their one and only dynamic duo. 

No one session is the same. Sometimes you two end up talking about some story you read or some personal experiences. Other days, it’s just opening as many controversial topics as you both can while expressing your opinions in a lighthearted debate. One time, to the division’s surprise, you two started doing a deep dive into a conspiracy theory, complete with a whole digital presentation and proven statistics. 

It’s even more surprising how convincingly well put the entire thing was to the point even Captain Ashiro listened in with interest. 

The members found it pleasant, enjoyable even. A chance to hold more conversations about different non-kaiju-related topics thanks to you and Hoshina’s exceptionally random conversation starters.

All they ask is that you guys don’t open up a topic that might get you random looks at best, or—hypothetically—get the both of you canceled on the internet at worst.   

Today was one of those days, the team figured, when you and your boyfriend step into the (initially busy) lounge with matching porcelain cups. Hibino, Leno, and Kikoru were the ones present in the room… this marks their first time listening in on the two of you rambling.

“I don’t know, Soshiro-san, don’t you think that may be a little too intense?” you made a beeline and assumed your spot on the couch right in front of Kikoru, drinking from your cup the moment you sat on the soft cushion.

Hoshina follows after you and settles right by your side, “No way!” If he weren’t holding anything, you can envision the way he’d cross his arms and huff. He mimics your movements from a while ago, taking a sip from his drink before placing the cup down with a small ‘clink!’. 

A childish pout graces his lips as he stares right at you. “If you think hard enough, I’m telling ya, dicing those kaiju is just like makin’ intricate fruit carvings!”

May the gods give the juniors strength because what the actual fuck were you two talking about?

The room is radio silent. You and Hoshina continue to glare at each other as if you’re both in a mental debate. Which seems likely enough.  

Kikoru nudges Leno’s arm to get him to break the ice and the poor guy sputters. Hibino breaks into a cold sweat when he catches the way you and Hoshina sharply look at the three of them. 

“V-Vice Captain..! (Name)-san… go–good afternoon!” Leno prays his salute doesn’t give away the fact he’s shaking.

By record, this may have to be the oddest conversation they’ve heard in passing.

You flash the three of them a small smile and Hoshina does a small wave of his hands. Not even a second later, the man beside you jumps at the opportunity to find allies for his claim.

“You guys think that slicin' kaiju is like slicing fruits, right?”

Bless your soul that you’re stubborn enough to match his energy. “If anything, it’s more like carving wood! You have to be intricate about it!” 

Hoshina looks back at you like you’ve transformed into the kaiju you were talking about, “Wood carving?! Darlin’ I love you more than the coffee I’m drinking right now, but you’ve reached a new level of insanity!”

“Comparing anything to kaiju neutralization is already some form of insanity…” Leno whispers under his breath. “Let alone wood carving and fruit dicing…” Kikoru murmurs back in agreement. 

“Aww, you love me more than coffee?”

The immediate shift from a lighthearted argument to some sappy lovey dovey confession while talking about carving patterns on kaiju may be just as impressive as your combat prowess, the trio decides. 

Hibino breathes a sigh of relief and mumbles, “Those two fit each other so well… wonder if it’s a match made in heaven or hell…”

“We’re soulmates!” Hoshina corrects him, instinctively reaching out to hold your hands as if it’ll prove his point further. He gently laces his fingers with yours before glowering at Hibino, “You also called us demons with the whole 'hell' comment. Thirty push-ups for the three of you, ya hear?”

Leno nudges his senior’s ribs like he wants to end him right then and there. Kikoru was probably devising ways to successfully kill him on the spot. Hibino’s fighting for his life, but he still manages to catch the way you and Hoshina look at each other with mirroring lovesick smiles. 

If he manages to scrape out alive, maybe this coffee talk wasn’t that bad.

likes and reblogs are appreciated, but please don’t copy or repost my work! [edited: 062424]

[alphajocklover]

The Hometown Hex

Wallace Power was parked on the side of the road, just outside his hometown of Maxford, trying to gather up enough courage to get back on the road. Wallace hated his hometown. There was nothing wrong with the town itself. It was a fairly normal, albeit very conservative small town, but it was nice enough. His family wasn’t the problem either. For all their flaws, Wallace loved them all deeply. The problem was… well it was hard to explain. When his boyfriend asked why he had never introduced him to his family, Wallace would say that he was still in the closet with them, which was partially true. His family didn’t know he was gay, but once again that wasn’t the real problem. The problem was that when Wallace finally got the nerve to enter town… he’d change.

The problem was that the town of Maxford has a strange power. It wasn’t one that maybe people were aware of, mainly because no one ever visited the small, middle of nowhere town and hardly anyone ever left. But anyone who crossed city limits and entered the town would… transform. Although it could also be argued that the transformation happens when someone leaves the town. See, Wallace didn’t grow up as Wallace. For the first 18 years of his life he was Wally. Wally was huge, muscular, manly, and straight. He used to play football, brag to his friend about all the pussy he was getting, have sex with cheerleaders and joke about how pathetic fags were. He used to be an all American conservative country jock. And then he got a college offer out of town. Wally’s family had tried to convince him to go to local college like his dad had, but Wally wanted to go to a real party school with hotter chicks. So he packed up his things and left for college.

The second Wally left city limits he turned into Wallace. He had been so shocked he almost skidded out of control. His muscles were gone and it was like he was looking at everything with new clarity. He felt like his entire life he had been asleep, under some kind of spell, and now that he had left town he was… the real him. He looked back at who he had been with shock, horrified by how much of a douchebag jock he was. Trying to figure out what had happened, he drove back into town… only to immediately turn back into a very confused Wally who couldn’t figure out why he was driving in the wrong direction. He turned around and became Wallace once more. It took a few more times back and forth and a major headache for Wallace to understand what was happening. Something about his hometown made everyone who lived in it into a straight, conservative, usually much more attractive version of themselves. If someone left town they’d turn into the person they were really meant to be without the towns influence, but if they entered town again they'd turn back into their other self, not even remembering that they had been different while outside. Wallace tested it a few times, and Wally never seemed to remember being Wallace. He’d even get fake memories if he was gone long enough.

When he discovered the truth a part of Wallace wanted to just… run away. To leave this cursed town behind him and never come back. He had spent his entire childhood, his entire life, under the influence of the towns music. He barely knew who he was without it and that terrified him. But… even as Wallace, he couldn’t abandon his family. He loved them. He had so many happy memories with them as Wally. He knew his parents would never leave Maxford, being the traditionalist hometown loving folks they are. So, Wallace did the only thing he could think to. He went to college. He left Maxford, and Wally, behind him. He took time to discover who he really was, what he really liked. He got hobbies, friends, and even a very loving boyfriend. On the 3 years it had been since he left Maxford he had to be himself, to be truly alive. He kept in touch with his family over text and pretended to be his old self while doing so. He let himself live as Wallace. But he knew he couldn’t avoid Maxford forever. He had to come back, for holidays and big events. And every time he did he’d turn right back into Wally the jock. He tried to avoid it if he could… but this time, with his little brother Ed’s18th birthday party, he knew he couldn’t. Wallace took a deep breath, reminded himself this was for his brother… and drove into the city.

Wally Power smirked slightly as he drove into his hometown of Maxford. He couldn’t believe Eddie was as fucking 18! Seems like just yesterday he was the starry eyed kid who was asking him for workout tips after football practice. Wally felt a little guilty about not visiting him as much as he probably should, but school had kept him busy. While, the frat parties and bimbos wanted to get fucked by his massive cock kept his busy. Wally didn’t really care that much about grades and shit. For a second he felt a fleeting memory of a relationship, but that didn’t make sense. Wally was way to much of a ladies man to settle down. As Wally pulled up to his parents house, a small presence in the back of his head sighed. This was going to be a long two weeks.

**hey guys! This story was inspired by some dms with a friend. They told me about their experience in the closet and how they’d pretend to be a straight jock when with their family, and this idea just came to me. Definitely revisiting this later. I know I’ve been writing a lot of G2S stuff lately, and I’ll admit there’s more of that to come, but I’ll try to get out a bigger variety. Hope you enjoyed!**

[demigod-shenanigans]

While I’m on the topic of Valgrace adopting a child, this is Sofía:

Some lore:

When Jason and Leo are in their late twenties/early thirties a demigod legacy leaves a baby at the entrance of the Waystation. The decision to adopt her is easy—they’d been thinking about adoption anyway. Besides, Jason has been the abandoned child before and Leo obviously isn’t fond of the foster system and knows exactly what it’s like to feel unwanted by a foster family. They’ve both felt so lost and alone and unloved in the past and they immediately vow that they’ll do everything in their power to make sure this little girl won’t ever feel like that.

They name her Sofía Esperanza Valdez. Sofía because it’s one of the names they both liked and Leo decides she just looks like a Sofía, and Esperanza obviously in honor of Leo’s mom. Jason is the one to gently suggest using it as a middle name, stating that if names have power, there’s nothing quite as powerful as hope, and Leo immediately starts crying. (He knew he wanted to honor his mom in some way. He just didn’t bring it up because he was terrified that the baby sharing a name with his mom after what happened to her might be bad luck. But Jason is right that hope was the thing that saw them through when nothing else would, making it a name that’s fundamentally very positive. Besides, Leo’s mom was so much more than her death. She was smart and brave and stubborn and loved with all her heart. She managed to find happiness, even in the difficult times. All of these are good things.)

Me and @queenjunothegreat have been waffling back and forth about this girl for weeks, there is so much lore I’ll probably need a lot of posts for all of it (or asks, if anyone wants to know anything specific please feel free to send asks)

For now, have some additional Sofía fun facts (under the cut so people who aren’t interested can scroll past more easily):

-She’s a legacy of Luna, the faded Titaness of the moon. Piper thinks it’s hilarious that wolf boy somehow ended up with a moon child and jokes about it a lot.

-When she wouldn’t sleep as a baby Jason would rock her while levitating up and down the hallway. They’re not sure why, exactly, but this almost always worked.

-Sofía’s first word is papa, which is not, in fact, the Spanish word for dad that Jason was going for but instead means either pope or potato (depending on how it’s gendered). The word for dad is papá, which is similar-ish but emphasizes the ending instead of the beginning. Adult Jason’s Spanish is decent but he got it mixed up which part needed to be emphasized and taught her wrong. Leo absolutely explodes into laughter when he hears it and it’s one of his favorite stories to tell for years. Every time someone asks about her first word he lights up like a Christmas tree. Jason is mortified but the whole thing brings Leo so much joy that maybe the embarrassment was worth it.

-Leo is always building her stuff to play with. Sofía is the kind of kid that brings some new toy to kindergarten/school at least once a week because Leo cannot tell her no for shit.

-Leo is usually the one who stays up at night with Sofía when she’s a toddler. Due to the whole moon child thing, she’s a terrible sleeper (good luck waking her in the morning) but Leo doesn’t really mind. He’s just tinkering away at some project that he’d probably be working on at that time anyway as his very awake kid toddles about and they’re both perfectly content with it. They fall asleep on the couch together watching TV the next morning, and Jason just smiles and gets a blanket to put over Leo’s knees.

-Her and Leo definitely bake together and it usually comes out well but the kitchen is always a huge mess after. One time she insisted her dad help her make a birthday cake for her papá’s birthday but Jason cannot cook or bake to save his life and it was a complete disaster.

-Sofía has no concept of fall damage. Absolutely none. Will climb up anywhere no matter how high and jump off with zero hesitation because there’s never been a time when her dad hasn’t caught her (either personally via flying up or with the winds). Leo is way more anxious about this than Jason, which seems strange until you consider that Jason is married to Leo and has had to catch him plenty of times in the past, but while Leo worries about Jason sometimes, he’s never really had to worry specifically about Jason falling from high places before. But obviously, unlike Jason, Sofía can’t fly.

-When she’s annoyed, she scowls in a way that’s almost comically similar to Jason.

[hippolotamus]

When will I see you again? - Eddietommy

My love, my darling. I need you to know that real tears were shed in the making of this snippet. May I present WW2 Staff Sgts Diaz and Kindard (partially under the cut to save your dash):

“When will I see you again?” Eddie asks. The tremble in his voice betrays the stoic persona he needs right now. No matter how much his heart leaps every time he sees Tommy, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re both still owned by the US Army and Uncle Sam. That if anyone knew the nature of their relationship, they’d be dishonorably discharged and run out of town. Assuming they weren’t beaten to death first. 

“Not sure.” Tommy shrugs. Like none of this means a damn thing. “Shit, I don’t even know where I’m headed.”

“No girl waiting for you at home?” It’s meant to be joking, to ease the tension, but it falls flat like Eddie should have known it would.

“You know damn well there’s not,” Tommy murmurs, sending him an icy glare. He quickly schools his features. “But I’m sure they’ll make me find one. Not like a guy can just be a bachelor and live his life.”

And that’s the thing that rips Eddie into a thousand pieces more than having to say goodbye. Knowing that they’ll both have to transition into some sort of domestic life. Pretend they didn’t just endure three years of pure hell fighting off the Axis powers. That they aren’t at least a little fucked from the neck up. Pretend that they never fell in love. 

The first time Tommy kissed him, Eddie froze, unsure whether to kiss him back or run like hell. He knew what he wanted to do. The thing he’d been wanting to do since he first laid eyes on Staff Sgt Kinard of the US Army Air Forces division. So he did. He grabbed Tommy by the shirt and hauled him in for a bruising kiss. Not unlike the one they had shared barely ten minutes before, in the secrecy of an abandoned office. Like they’ll never share again, it seems. 

“Staff Sergeant Diaz!” 

Eddie whips around toward the voice, standing ramrod straight and saluting when he sees it’s a superior officer. “Sir, yes, Sir!”

“Bus is heading out in five. Your ass better be on it if you don’t want to be left in this godforsaken hellhole.”

“Yes, Sir, Master Sergeant!” The officer walks away and Eddie relaxes his body. He swallows hard, forcing himself to look at Tommy. He wants to memorize every goddamn line on his face, like he hasn’t done it dozens of times before in the cover of darkness. “I guess this is it.”

Something passes over Tommy’s face so quickly, there and gone before Eddie can parse what it means. “Yeah, guess it is.” 

Tommy searches the crowd, calling out when he finds who he’s looking for. “Deluca! Over here.”

Jealousy, vicious and green, rears its ugly head and snaps its jaws in the confines of Eddie’s ribcage as Deluca jogs over. 

“What?” Sal snaps. In lieu of an answer, Tommy grabs the cigarette pack from Sal’s jacket pocket. He takes one for himself, lights it and shoves the pack back at Sal. 

“Beat it, Deluca,” Tommy says on an exhale. Eddie can’t pretend he isn’t happy when Sal huffs and storms off. 

He turns to Tommy and raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you smoked.”

“I don’t,” Tommy answers. He meets Eddie’s gaze with those bright sky blue eyes that Eddie wants to stay lost in. Tommy’s voice drops low for his next words. If only it were possible to lower their accompanying intensity and heartbreak. “Just needed something to get the taste of you out of my mouth. Can’t very well watch you leave and still have that behind. May as well cut my losses all at once.”

Eddie thinks Tommy could have cut his heart out and it would have hurt less. He starts to tell him so when there’s another bellow from the bus, reminding Eddie that he’s out of time. 

“When you figure out where home is, maybe don’t forget to write?” It’s a desperate plea and a long shot, but Eddie has to try for something. 

“Don’t miss your bus, Diaz.”

There are so many things Eddie could say or do. The only ones he can follow through on are giving Tommy a tight nod before he walks away. 

He purposely finds a window seat where he won’t be able to watch as Tommy fades from view. From his life. Because they both know damn well Tommy’s not gonna write. And Eddie doesn’t trust himself to stay composed if he sees Tommy’s stupidly gorgeous face. From here on out Staff Sergeant Thomas Kinard is just a memory. Has to be. One more piece of this stupid war that Eddie would rather never have to think of again. 

*****

Tommy watches Eddie’s bus pull away. He should have turned around the second Eddie did and gone back to checking his effects. But he didn’t because he’s stupid that way. Because he’s been a sucker for Edmundo Diaz since he kissed Tommy back in that underground club. The one Eddie claimed that he didn’t know why he was there. Tommy did. He knew as soon as Eddie stepped inside, wide-eyed and scared like a newborn fawn. 

He also knew he had to get to him first because he wasn’t going to let just anyone claim then Corporal Diaz. If anyone tried, Tommy couldn’t be held responsible for what happened. Eddie was his, even if neither of them were ready to admit it yet. 

He thinks again of Eddie’s parting words, asking Tommy to write when he figures out where home is. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? The secret he’ll carry to his grave. Because he doesn’t have to figure it out. Home hasn’t been a geographical location in years. Of course he knows exactly what address he’ll go to when he gets dumped back in California, and it sure as shit isn’t home. 

Home is in encoded conversations. It’s in stolen moments and glances. Bits of time they took for themselves because nobody was ever going to give it to them. It’s in hushed whispers about a future that’s never going to come true. In biting truths and scared, too honest confessions. Home just walked out of Tommy’s life and left on a shitty army bus bound for Texas. 

send me an angsty prompt

[callmelyc]

Part 2 of this the Lance loosing a leg Langst

Less angst in this one bc I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Again copy and pasted from Twitter ignore typos and grammar 🥰

Keith can still hear it, the moment the coms clicked back to life ringing static in his ears where there was once only silence.

From shiro demanding checks ins all the way to Lance's line remaining silent.

Everything from that mission was a blur, a nightmare.

Keith's throat burns from the way he'd yelled through the coms for lance. His eyes ache from the tears he'd finally allowed to fall once they'd learned why he'd been so quiet.

Keith can still feel Lances dead weight collapse into his arms, can still feel the blood drenching him as he rushed lance to Coran hoping and praying to whatever God exists to please

Please don't let lance die

let him be fast enough

And he was, if ever so slightly

Lance had lost too much blood, Coran had said. Had Keith been any slower....had lance not managed to- God Keith can't even allow himself to finish the thought

It makes him feel sick to his stomach to know lance had been corned alone..

And now Keith stands outside of his pod next to the entire team looking at a battered lance that isnt nearly as whole as the one they'd last seen. They’d cut off his leg, it wasn’t clean nor did Coran have to tell them it was quick. They all knew it wasn’t. Couldn’t have been with how jagged and rough the slices appear to have been if the marking left on lances thigh were anything to go by. They’d butchered him alive making sure with every slice he’d suffered.

What their enemies failed to account for was that lance was a paladin of voltron, a master sniper and a damn good soldier good at getting himself out of just about any scenario and all the tight spots.

From the footage Pidge was able to scrape from that cursed vessel he’d done just that while laying in a pool of his own blood thanks to pure will power alone. He’d survived where they - the enemy- hadn’t. In doing so Lance discovered something none of them knew possible, not even Allura and Coran thought it a possibility. He’d turned his bayard into a temporary prosthetic.

Lance was the first paladin to ever manage turning his bayard into anything other than a weapon. The first to ever turn his bayard into something the likes of what hed managed.

“It’s unheard of” Allura murmured “for the bayard to become something as such- I cannot fathom how he managed such a feat.”

“Didn’t you once say the bayards would take the form of what the paladin needed?”

“I-“

“Wouldn’t that, in theory, mean we could make them anything we needed? Tools, equipment, or like Lance did- a new limb.” Pidge continues.

“I suppose so…” Allura says, pensive with her glance towards lances pod “we will have to revisit this one he can tell us how he did so.”

Keith looks away from the two, staring at the pod, at how unmoving lance is and thinks: It doesn’t matter how he did it, only that he’s ok after the fact.

~*~

Lance woke two weeks after the mission that plagued Kieth with nightmares.

In his sleep hed see lance bleeding out alone, hed see lance draggging himself desperately across the floor calling out his name….so now, now Keith waits outside of lances pod day and night. He sleeps curled up next to the pod that way when he wakes from these nightmares Keith can glance up and see lances moving chest. He can see the healing pods progress on lances damaged flesh with his own two eyes and calm every bit of turmoil resting in his veins.

Lance wakes to Keith once again holding out his arms, and once he falls, holding him in them.

Keith had waited to catch lance, had refused to let anyone else stand where he was so hed be able to do so. And he’s glad he had, Lance didn’t joke. Didn’t smile or make any random comments or say any questions. He was so unlike himself in that moment that right then and there they all realized just how hard this journey would be for not only lance but the rest of them.

Lance buried his face into Keith’s shoulder with a shaken exhale. Keith only pulls him in closer, more secure, because he knows that sound, Lance is holding back tears.

“It’s ok, I’ve got you.” Keith whispers softly, sliding up a hand to pet lances hair comfortingly “we’ve all got you.”

The team joins their embrace as lance finally allows himself to sob, the pain wrenching through his throat, the tears soaking through Keith’s shirt. But finally, finally lance allows himself to feel it all. To feel the fear, the relief he never lets himself have during that mission and they’d all be there as he worked thorough it.

Keith places a soft kiss to lances nape “I’ve got you sweetheart, I’ve got you.”

It’s Keith that holds lance through the night after that with the entirety of the team sleeping nearby to remind him that when he wakes from those nightmares he isn’t alone.

It’s Keith that lance responds the most too first.

Lance tells him everything he can remember, how the ground felt so cold, how everything was spinning so fast. The silence being loud and deafening and the burn of his leg being cut off being unlike anything hed ever felt before.

“I can still feel it.” Lance says one night as they look out at the stars “the ache from the first slice, the nerves being cut…”

Keith chances a glance at the blue paladin, he takes in his hallowed eyes, the way he looks so far away.

“Coran said it was normal, the phantom pains. I just want it to stop…” lance turns to look Keith in the eye, the emotions he feels finally showing in them “will it ever stop Keith?”

“I don’t know.” Keith replies, knowing Lance doesn’t need white lies. He squeezes lances hand in comfort “but, regardless, we’re all here for you lance. You don’t have to do any of this alone, no matter how long it takes.”

After that night they were inseparable.

Anytime anyone looked for lance all they had to do was look for Keith.

They did lances physical therapy together, they did his checkups together, training, meals, sleeping….you name it.

Shiro even talked Lance through the emotions and traumas that deal with looking such a permanent part of yourself and Keith stayed near the entire time.

It wasn’t that he was trying to be overwhelming or suffocating, Keith swears he isn’t trying to be too much. Every-time he even thinks about letting lance out of his sight he remembers that look in his eye, the one on his face filled with pain and fear and- Keith just can’t do it. He can’t leave lance alone. Not until he’s better.

Lance should be happy! Should have light in his eyes that make them brighter than the sun, should have a laugh that reverberates through the room like a song. He should be picking fights with Keith, arguing with Pidge, starting challenges that get them all to take care of themselves indirectly so he doesn’t ruin his cool guy image.

And Keith will be dammed if he doesn’t make sure lance get to that point again.

~*~

It’s Pidge that make the new prosthetic with the help of hunk and the olkari. Lances new leg is made to be lightweight, agile, waterproof, similar in feeling to his human leg for balance with the flexibility to match so that he can still swim and bend to his hearts content. They make sure it could disguise itself with “flesh’ that matches his skin so that is he wished to conceal his loss more privately or for certain occasions he could do so through his healing process and beyond.

“And anything you want added we’ll do it.” Pidge adds as she goes through the list of all the things his prosthetic can do once attached “any enchantment at all. You can even ask for us to make it glow in the dark or play pit bulls Mr worldwide every time you touch down on a new planet. We’d never say no to you.”

That gets a small smile from lance as he runs his fingers ever so lightly across the alien metal surfaces. Keith watches him do so, watches him be so gentle and lost in his touch. It’s nice to see him trying even if they all know this is difficult for him still.

“What if I want it to kick Keith’s ass?” Lance jokes lightly trying to keep the mood from going too south.

For the first time in weeks they see lance laugh, they see him crack jokes and send jabs at comments Pidge gives in reply. The entire conversation with the two mad scientist of the team is full of wisecracks and laughter about all the crazy enhancements they could possibly add to the leg.

“What if you make multiple and one is a cannon—“

“Why a cannon?”

“So I can bust a kneecap and still blow everyone away with my presence!”

Keith will find shiro later and thank him for talking lance through what its like to loose a limb, how to handle it, how the prosthetic healing process will feel once attached. And all shiro will do is clap Keith on the shoulder and say “you aren’t giving yourself enough credit there kiddo. If anyone is pulling weight here its you, you’re keeping him grounded and I can tell it means the world to him.”

That sentiment sits with Keith as he goes through the day, as he gets lance and himself ready for bed, as he lays down next to lance, sharing their covers, and whisper goodnights. It sits with him as he holds lances hand through the attachment surgery that he’d insisted he stay for. They’d tried everything to get Keith to leave but lance looked so woefully upset at the thought that they allowed Keith to stay so long as he was thoroughly and properly sanitized.

He ran a thumb across lances hand from his bedside until he woke up after the fact and kissed his hand with a gentle “good morning” when those blue eyes met his own.

Lances weak smile in response was still a smile that Keith would hold like a trophy.

The healing journey that followed was rough as expected, with many ups and down as no healing is linear.

Lance would get frustrated at his balance, at the leg, at the loss. He’d be angry he couldn’t feel things like he used to, couldn’t feel the ground, couldn’t run like he could before.

Shiro built his training regimen to mirror what hed wished he had when hed gotten his arm and it helped but not nearly as much as the pep talks and brutal honesty Keith would provide during his spirals.

At a certain point Keith even resulted to doing what lance used to do to him, taunt and utilize the rivalry card.

“Giving up already?” He’d say and lance would snarl in response and rise to the challenge if not to win out of sheer petiteness. “That all you got?” “This is the paladin that unlocked more about the bayards?”

Lance would come at Keith like a lion, one out for blood and fierce in his movements. He went from sloppy to more graceful, from a tilt-a-whirl to a proper fighter. Lance was able to swim again, not as strong as before but hed get there and all of them noticed the progress flourish around Keith.

Keith and the rivalry, the challenger, the one that figured out he could use lances own tactics against him. It all worked like a charm.

Through it all lances bayard never once veered from a weapon. Allura had watched closely hoping and praying that he could do it again that he could turn the bayard in to anything else so that they could all learn how to do so too. But no matter the efforts they all fell flat.

Lance couldn’t remember how hed done it, much too delirious from the blood loss, pain and hallucinations. And all through the weeks hed lacked a prosthetic at all hed still never managed to do the transformation a second time.

Keith blocks a sharp kick form lances new leg and rolls away before a second lands “a kick like that wont get you anywhere McClain!”

Lance pushes on attempting to knock Keith off balance with his leg “if you think I’m done you’ve got a big storm coming kogane!”

The spar goes like a dance, twirling and yielding, dodging and gliding. Two halves of a whole, red and blue.

Lance spins around to dodge Keith and just as Keith goes to follow Lance knocks him off his feet. Keith doesn’t care one bit but for lances triumphantly whoop, that’s the best prize in the world.

~*~

It’s not until the next major mission they go on, the first since lances injury, that everything is brought back full circle.

They get cornered by space pirates and they take their bayards away. Lance and Pidge both mouth off at the crew who bite back with pride that they’ll get quite the bounty for them all.

Thrown into prison cells beneath the deck they sit and wait attempting to come up with a plan to unlock the cell doors.

During the midst of the arguments, the back and forths, Pidge challenges lances ideas. Everyone was frustrated, tired, all in disagreement. It was bound for insults to arise that were not truly meant.

“Why don’t you just unlock the door then Einstein!”

Lance gasps in offense “FINE! I WILL!”

“Fine!”

And before their very eyes lances hand summons forth his bayard “you just can’t handle that I might have some good ideas sometimes can you?!”

“Lance—“

“I can think too ya know! I went to the garrison too!” Lance shouts, flailing his arm around and the bayard transforms into a key.

“Lance!” Pidge laughs in awe but he continues on as if they aren’t all starting at him in their amazement.

He turns sharply to unlock the door, throws it open with a huff, and turns to put his hands on his hips. “SEE! My plans aren’t so bad—“

“LANCE!” They all yell, but not in anger, no…they yell in joy. He’d finally figured it out, Lance did it again and this time they’d seen it with their own eyes.

Keith just smiles on, taking lances hand to run “we can talk about this later, we need to get off this ship.”

“Talk about what?!” Lance asks, breaking into a run right alongside Keith, his hand lacing together with Keith’s.

It’s not until they jump ship (literally) and run to their lions that Keith finally gives Lance a response “ how amazing you are.”

If the two stand hand in hand during the debriefing, well, no one bats n eye nor speaks a word of it.

~*~

Turns out it was due to high emotions, Lance being able to use his Bayard as a true tool rather than a weapon. Lance feels so much naturally, so freely, that when his emotions went beyond anything he’d felt before, his bayard heard him through the paladin bond and that formed an entirely new connection. After that relating the use was easier.

Now Lance needed any emotion to turn his bayard into a tool so much as he willed it to be. The downside being that the transformation was much more draining than the usual weapon call would be. Never the less it remained a usual advantage for a variety of possible scenarios and situations that allowed it.

Training for how the others could do so, however, was deemed much too risky due to the circumstances behind the discovery. Allura and Shiro both agreed the risk far too high.

“It’s best to allow it to happen naturally…we’d not want to damage you to make it possible. You all go through so much already.” Allura tells them with a small smile “but—“ she glanced over to Lance, beaming with pride “I know that all of you are strong, and thanks to Lance we now know it to even be a Possibility. We can be prepared for anything.”

Keith slides a hand around lances waist, resting his head on his shoulder “ told you so.” He says softly so that only Lance may hear it.

Lance glances down at him “told me—?”

“You were amazing, are amazing”

Lance just sniffles, trying his best to hold back the tears “ only as amazing as you make me.”

Keith hugs him, pushing all his love into it. When Lance returns the embrace he knows his message was heard loud and clear. This is how voltrons sniper learns he is so much more. More than a weapon, more than a soldier. A tool perhaps, but also an inspiration to his peers, a part of a family, and most of all: someone to love.

[criminalamnesia]

The One I’d Come Looking For

warnings: mentions of blood and death, mentions of past trauma, no use of y/n, reader has an unnamed sister, reader has powers and goes by “phantom”, not proofread

summary: you and peter had fallen out months ago because of your different lifestyles. now, he’s back in your life and trying to save you from Kraven’s hunters.

author’s note: I’m down bad for insomniac!peter. anyways I wrote this quickly and in a blur. it’s also my first step back into writing for fun in a while so I’m sorry if it’s awful and messy! I definitely started this with a different ending in mind but what’s done is done.

—

You thought you’d put your life as a criminal behind you. You’d been doing good for yourself without the help of your powers. You’d gotten out— but Kraven pulled you right back in.

You were on the run now, constantly looking over your shoulder as you attempted to find a way out of New York. It’s times like these you’d wish those experiments had given you the power of flight— maybe even invisibility. Anything to get you out quickly and unscathed.

Your phone rings for the third time in ten minutes. You don’t need to check the caller ID to see who’s calling. You know it’s one of the spiders— probably Miles, as you and Peter had a complicated history.

You ignore the ringing in favor of focusing on pushing the needle into the skin of your thigh to sew up the gash there. Kraven’s hunters were no joke. You’d faced worse, but they’d caught you by surprise. One minute you’re sleeping peacefully, the next your eyes are flying open to the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

You’d taken out most of them as you escaped, but one had taken a sword to your thigh. You were lucky— those blades were sharp enough to cut through bone. The one that hit you had skimmed you, but it had still cut deep enough to need stitches.

You bit your bottom lip as you worked on stitching yourself up. Your first aid skills were a little rusty, but it was almost like riding a bike. You never forget how to patch yourself up after a fight, right?

The phone rang again and you scowled. You should’ve left the damn thing behind, but maybe your subconscious made you take it in hopes that he’d call.

You and Peter hadn’t spoken in months, not since you stepped back from a life of villainy. In hindsight, it’s ironic. Peter hated your lifestyle when you were together— it’s one of the reasons things ended. You’d think he’d be interested once you were on the straight-and-narrow, but he was radio silent.

You could understand. You had done a number on him— and he on you.

Again, the phone rings. You pull the needle through your skin a final time, tying the thread and reaching for the bandages beside you. A knock on the door startles you out of your thoughts.

The bandages are forgotten as you raise your hands. Green light swirls around your fingertips. You’re ready to send a barrage of green spikes through the air when whoever is knocking speaks.

“Phantom, I know you’re in there.”

Peter.

“It’s open,” You sigh, dropping your hands and turning your attention back to the bandages.

The door slowly creeps open a crack to reveal an unfamiliar suit. The red and blue you once knew are gone, replaced by an eery black that unsettles you. You raise your eyebrows as he enters the room and pushes the door shut behind him.

“New suit?” You ask, looking back down at your leg as you start wrapping the bandage. You grit your teeth as you pull the fabric tight around your thigh. You couldn’t afford to start bleeding again.

“Why don’t you answer your phone?” He counters, his voice lower than you remember. It almost didn’t sound like him.

“Kinda busy here, Pete. Fuckin’ hunters know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ve got my trail again, it’s only a matter of time before they come busting in here. I’ve gotta patch myself up and get going— excuse me if I don’t have time for chatting,” you huff, not bothering to look at him as he approaches you.

“I saw them on my way over,” he says. “Said hi.”

“Did you?” You said, ripping the last of the bandages and patting your thigh. You’d have to stay ahead of them now. You’d lose a foot race, but you may win with some distance. “How kind.”

“I was trying to buy you some time.”

“I don’t need your help, Peter,” you spoke, pushing yourself off of the floor while minding your hurt leg. “I’ve been doing fine on my own.”

“You should be grateful,” he said. There was an angry edge to his voice, and it was unnerving. You’d never heard him speak in such a tone, especially towards you. No matter how mad you made him when the two of you were together, he never reached that point.

“Should I?” You questioned, getting a good look at him now. He still had the white spider you recognized, but the rest of the suit was a slimy looking black. “I don’t owe you shit, Spider-Man,” you threw the title in his face, watching as the off-white slits of his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ask for your help. I can handle myself— I have been handling myself for months, and last I checked, you wanted nothing to do with me. So, why are you standing here now?”

He exhaled sharply. The two of you stared at each other for a moment before you gave a small laugh and shook your head. “This angsty, brooding act isn’t cute, Pete. Tell me what you want or get lost.”

“I’m trying to save you,” he spat as his face started to come into view. Black tendrils of the suit slinked away until his mask was completely gone. There was a look in his eyes you didn’t recognize.

“Save me from what, the hunters? Little too late for that, incase you haven’t noticed,” you gestured a hand to your thigh.

“Kraven,” he spoke, his voice rough. “He’s killing villains. He’ll kill you.”

“I’m not scared of Kraven or his hunters,” you said, reaching down to swipe your bag off of the floor. You shrugged one of the straps over your shoulder and looked back at Peter. “And you should know I don’t need saving.”

“Can you not be so stubborn for once?” Annoyance was clear in his tone as one of his hands reached out to wrap lightly around your wrist.

“Since when do you care about my well-being?” You countered, pulling your wrist from his grasp and stepping around him. “We didn’t end on good terms. We haven’t spoken in months. I don’t think you could hate anyone, that’s not who you are—” you gave a small laugh as you shook your head, “but I’m pretty sure you got close to hating me.”

“I never hated you,” he told you, and his voice almost sounded normal again, but you were already walking towards the door. Your hand grasped the handle, pulling it open, but making no move to step out.

You ignored him. Although you would never tell him, those words meant a lot to you. You had loved Peter— for fuck’s sake, you were going to marry him. But you got caught up in some bad shit, and he couldn’t forgive you for it. You didn’t expect him to.

The last time you had seen him, you’d limped away. Broken and bleeding, abandoning him on a rooftop, ignoring his pleas for you to do the right thing.

You had never raised a fist to him, nor he to you. In fact, he had saved you from death at the hands of Kingpin that night— and still you’d finished the job you were assigned.

The clarity that came after was crushing. Missing him was crushing, but you were too proud and he was too tired. You know that if you’d gone back to him, he would have eventually forgiven you. Peter was good like that. It was one of the reasons you had loved him.

It was one of the reasons you still loved him.

“Goodbye, Spider-Man.” You spoke softly before stepping into the hall and shutting the door behind you.

You hobbled down the hallway and desperately tried to ignore the pain in your leg. The hunters wouldn’t stop just because you were injured, meaning you couldn’t stop either.

Whatever. You’d been through worse.

As you approached the end of the hall, the irises of your eyes shifted to a light green. It was a subtle tell that you were using your powers. As if the occasional glowing-green structures you created weren’t enough of a tell.

You shifted through the wall, your eyes fading back to their original color as you inhaled deeply. You knew Peter was probably still lurking somewhere close by. He was never one to sit back and let something happen, especially if it involved someone he cared for.

Well, used to care for. You supposed it was just the heroic-ness of him that kept him glued to your shadow. He couldn’t leave in good conscience, not when the hunters were on your tail.

You limped deeper into the alleyway you’d shifted into. It reeked of rotten food and you swore you saw a rat run by, but life on the run was never glamorous. Besides, the darkness of the alley made you feel the tiniest bit safer, even if you knew the hunters had tech that would make the dark surrounding you look like daylight.

Speaking of…

An arrow whizzed by your head, embedding itself into the metal of the overflowing dumpster a few feet ahead. You sighed.

“Can’t you guys take a hint?” You turned and raised your hands, ready to defend yourself, and—

“Run!”

Peter had been following you. He landed between you and the quickly approaching squad of hunters, sparing you a glance over his shoulder before turning to unleash his wrath on Kraven’s lackeys.

“Can’t run even if I wanted to, Spider!” You shouted, shrugging off your bag and tossing it to the side.

What happened next was a blur.

Green light swirled between your raised fingers, materializing into the green spikes you’d almost impaled Peter with ten minutes ago. You sent them flying towards the hunters who weren’t preoccupied with the spider currently ripping them to shreds.

One hunter screamed in pain as one spike met it’s mark, piercing the woman’s abdomen.

Peter may have a no-kill rule, but that didn’t mean you did.

Another grunted as a spike met his shoulder, but he soldiered on with a sword raised.

“Really? Still coming?” You huffed as you formed a sword of your own, the green light it was constructed of illuminating your battlefield.

The man roared a battle cry as he brought his blade down towards you. You parried swiftly, but the man you were fighting was much more experienced with a blade. He swung again, and as you attempted to move out of the way, the blade sliced into your other leg.

“You guys don’t fight fair, huh?” You groaned. Green light dissolved as you lost your focus on your own weapon. Now you were just trying to keep your balance as you dodged the hunter’s strikes by the skin of your teeth.

“Not as strong as we thought,” the hunter spoke as his blade made contact once more, this time cutting into your arm. “Kraven will be disappointed.”

“You caught me on an off day,” you rolled your eyes. “Maybe try again next week?”

“Phantom!”

The shout caught you off guard, and you made a stupid, careless, rookie mistake. You would later blame it on the horrible concoction of events leading to that moment. Peter popping back into your life, the cut on your thigh, and the fatigue you felt after being on the run for days.

Your head turned to follow the voice because you knew it was Peter’s. Old habits die hard, right?

The hunter raised his sword again, and then the world went black.

—

When you woke up, you were in a cage. An honest to god cage. You snorted as you lifted your pounding head from the ground. The hunters took their shtick seriously, you had to give them that.

You blinked your eyes rapidly in an attempt to clear the spots clouding your vision. Probably a concussion. Just another injury to add to the list.

As you slowly pushed your body up into a sitting position, you mentally noted your other injuries. Deep cuts to one arm and both thighs, including the cut you’d stitched— which was now bleeding again. Your right leg also felt broken, which you guessed was something the hunters had done after you’d fallen asleep so you wouldn’t escape.

“Kudos to them for trying,” you mumbled under your breath as you shakily— and very carefully— stood.

You limped to the bars of the cage and grasped onto them for support. As you surveyed your surroundings, you realized you were in a zoo. It almost made you laugh.

“You guys are cute for being so committed to your little hunter thing. Really, it’s adorable,” you spoke as you caught sight of the hunter standing a few feet away.

The woman didn’t acknowledge you. She kept her back towards you as she watched the small fire crackling in front of her.

“Even the spider talks less than you,” a man’s gruff voice startled you. The hunter stepped out of the shadows as he approached the woman by the fire.

“Speaking of the spider,” you called out, “where is he? Do we have adjoining cages, or does he get special treatment?”

The male hunter didn’t bite. He came to a stop beside the woman, leaned down to whisper something into her ear, and then he turned and left.

When the sound of the man’s boots hitting the ground could no longer be heard, the woman turned around. She snarled as she looked at you. One of her hands reached to unsheathe the hunting knife strapped to her hip.

You watched as she began to walk towards you. Your mind raced as you thought of different ways to escape. If she opened your cage, you could use your powers and dispose of her— but how big was this zoo? You had only seen the two hunters, but you weren’t naive enough to believe they were the only ones here.

“Lucky for you,” the woman finally spoke. Her voice was thick with an accent you couldn’t place. “Kraven wants you alive.”

“Yeah,” you said. “Lucky for me.”

The woman raised the knife in one hand and reached the other towards your cage. You struck in an instant.

Green light contrasted the orange of the fire as a spear materialized in your hand. You shoved it forward between the bars of the cage, right into tj woman’s stomach. Before she could attempt a scream, you wrenched the weapon from her gut, raised it in your grasp, and shoved it into her throat.

She dropped to the ground, the only sound escaping her throat a quiet gurgle. You were done playing games— and you didn’t want to prove Peter right. You didn’t need his help. You would get out of here on your own.

You phased through the bars of the cage and raised your hands in anticipation. The only thing you heard was the sound of the fire. It was too quiet.

“Need some help?”

You scowled as you turned your head to look at the man who landed beside you.

“I don’t need you to save me,” you spoke.

“You were locked in a cage,” Peter replied, throwing a thumb over his shoulder towards the cage. “I think you needed a little help.”

“I’m not in the cage anymore, am I? And whose doing is that?” You retorted as Peter’s face slowly revealed itself.

“You just can’t say thank you, huh?” He said, and you rolled your eyes.

“Fuck you, Peter. I told you to stay out of it. I know you feel like you have to intervene, but you don’t, so—”

“Of course I have to intervene,” he cut you off. “I can’t let you die.” His tone was almost angry as he took a step closer to you.

“Are you doing this because it’s me or because of your need to save people?��� You said, and he went quiet.

“You feel like you can’t let this go because you have to save everyone. I get it, Peter. But you don’t have to save me.”

“I can’t let you die,” he repeated, his voice soft. His eyes met yours.

Back in that abandoned house, when you’d seen Peter’s face, he hadn’t seemed like himself. But now, as you stared into his eyes, you saw the Peter you knew. The one you loved.

“Peter—” you began, but he shook his head.

“Just let me talk. The way things ended… it shouldn’t have happened like that. I was angry. First May and then— then you. And you went back and finished that job and I just couldn’t— I couldn’t do it. I could barely look at you.”

He paused, and you waited for him to speak again.

“I didn’t understand it at first, why you did it. But now I do. Ganke found out what you did with that money a few weeks after. I wanted to say something— but you were in the wind, and I knew you didn’t want me to come looking. So, I let you go. I had Ganke keep a lookout for any calls that might’ve related to you, but none ever came. You went clean, and I wanted to reach out, but—”

“Peter, whatever end this whole big speech is coming to, I don’t need to hear it.” You interrupted, and he shook his head.

“No, you do. You weren’t a… good guy. Not all the time. I know that. But some of the things you did, and who you worked for, I understand now. Your sister—”

“How do you know about her?” You spoke, eyes wide.

“Please don’t be mad— I had Ganke do some digging after… everything.”

You were shaking now. Peter knew. He knew everything. He knew that you worked for big bosses like Kingpin because you were sending money to your sister.

He knew that you became a criminal because of your anger and your desperate attempts at finding the man who experimented on you. Mob bosses have connections, and you thought you could work out a deal.

He knew that the reason you still finished that job for Kingpin, even if the villain had almost killed you, was because your sister’s life was at stake.

He knew your sister was dead, and that’s why you had tried to disappear.

“We had our problems when we were together,” Peter said after a beat of silence. “And I’m not excusing your past— but you could’ve told me. I could’ve helped you.”

You shook your head. “No, you couldn’t have. He would’ve killed her sooner. Besides, you’re not my therapist, Peter. No one could’ve help me with that anger I felt— that I still feel. I’m still who I was, I’m just trying not to take it out on innocent people anymore. I don’t want to be the reason someone else loses their sister.”

You could hear police sirens in the distance. You gave a small shake of your head as you pushed back the thoughts of your past.

“We should go.”

Peter reached forward, his hand finding solace on your shoulder.

“I can’t forget what you’ve done. I can’t forget the fights and the disagreements between us. But, I also can’t forget the love I have for you. I can’t forget how much I’ve missed you over these past few months. I can’t forget, but I’m willing to forgive.”

Your eyes met his once more. “Peter—”

“I will always come looking for you, over and over again. Even if it takes me a little bit,” he gave a small laugh, and you rolled your eyes.

The sirens were getting closer. You inhaled deeply.

“This doesn’t fix us.” You told him, and he nodded.

“It doesn’t. But maybe one day soon, we can try again.”

A small smile etched its way onto your lips. You gave a small nod as one of your hands came up to rest on his hand.

“Now, let’s get you out of here,” he said as his mask reformed. He moved his hand from your shoulder to you waist and pulled you tightly into his side.

“Still remember how to do this?” He teased, and you laughed.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the fear that comes with your horrible steering.”

“Just for that,” he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “I’m going the long way.”

Peter shot a web and the two of you were pulled into the sky. You held onto him tightly, and even though you knew the two of you had a long way to go, you’d never been more excited to see where the journey would take you.

[blacktofade]

Gemtho Fortnight Day 6

Prompt: Gemtho prompt: RPF, Etho actually gives Gem his address (or a PO box maybe) so she can send him a Christmas gift, they start sending goofy penpal letters and trinkets back and forth, but it soon becomes extremely horny letters and perhaps physical nudes.

cw: rpf

“I went to the post office yesterday,” Etho says instead of hello when Gem answers the Discord call.

His voice is rough and strangely echoed, like he’s halfway to taking a sip of the first coffee of his day.

It’s early for him. Gem doesn’t usually see any sign of him until later in the afternoon, and her stomach jolts with anticipation.

“Get anything good?” she asks, feigning innocence, and Etho grunts.

“You’re the only one with my address.”

It’s not Etho’s address, it’s a PO box in Edmonton he’s kept open for months now.

It had started as a joke with Gem threatening to find him to send him a mic stand, but she’d only brought it up once, and yet a week later, Etho had dropped the address into her DMs. Nothing else, just the address, and Gem had taken it and ran.

She’d sent the mic stand, not that she expected him to use it, but she’d also included a Funko Pop of Kakashi, just because she wasn’t about to miss the opportunity.

Eventually, he’d DMed her a photo of the same desk setup that she’d seen before, but the tissue box was gone, replaced with the stand, and near his monitor was the ridiculous Funko figure.

It had made her feel strangely powerful.

She’d started sending him things regularly, not expecting him to continue paying for the space month after month, but nothing had ever been returned to her. It all made it to him.

She’d sent him Easter candy she’d found in the back of a pharmacy, almost a year out of date. She’d sent him an old Sega game with no label from a flea market. She’d sent him a little piece of her soul in the form of a postcard from Boston, wish you were here scribbled on the back.

Later in the year when she’d got home from Twitch Con, she’d sent him a signed photo of Bdubs. She’d got it from John as a joke after too many drinks in the California sun, when they’d both laughed to the point of tears at the thought of Etho opening it.

And a week later Etho had sent her a photo of it framed and sitting on the shelf behind his desk.

It was around that time she’d realized he was doing it for her — the whole PO box setup, his strangely candid responses. He was letting her sneak her way into his life.

Which leads to now and the reason why her palms are sweating.

“Have you opened it yet?” she asks and she hears a creak, like he’s leaning back in his chair.

“I opened it last night.”

Gem swallows, tugging anxiously at the hem of her sweater. “Am I wildly off-base?”

“Depends what reaction you were expecting from me.”

Gem takes a breath. “What reaction did I get?”

“I'm only human,” Etho tells her and Gem shuts her eyes and thinks she understands.

The envelope she'd mailed him had contained Polaroids. The kind of Polaroids she's never sent anyone else, the kind she's never wanted to take before.

She can imagine him at his desk, tipping out the contents and sitting in stunned silence. She can imagine him holding one of the photos — maybe the one of her topless, one hand resting on her ribs, face turned away from the camera but hair unmistakable — touching himself and knowing they'd be having this conversation later.

“That's the reaction I was hoping for,” Gem admits quietly.

“I'm going to keep the PO box open a little while longer,” Etho tells her, and it feels like an aside until he adds, “if you would like to send more.”

He says it like he's doing her a favor, but Gem feels breathless.

“Yeah,” she says, too quick to be anything but eager. “I can do that.”

“I'm also going to need your address.”

Gem's mouth is suddenly dry.

She can do that, too.

[bloodykora]

Hii!! Could you do some hc’s on how buggy would react to a straw hat reader distancing themself and getting upset the closer they get to Arlong park bc they get attached easily- and they know buggy’s going to leave once he gets back to his body?

Take your time and you don’t have to do this!! Have a good day/night ^^

Man would be sad, I just know it. But then again your emotions and life come before his so I think he'd be a bit understanding

- He doesn’t know or understand what he did but he knows it’s something. You’ve stopped offering to read to him, and even though you still share your meals sometimes it’s not as high energy as it used to be.

- You even start disappearing, one minute you’re with him on the front deck and then you’re gone.

- However, when you’re on the more upset side. Sitting there listening to him ramble on and on while angrily sewing a tear in some pants that had happened months ago but you finally got around to.

- He half asks and half jokes to you about something, looking back to your brows furrowed, nostrils flaring, avoiding eye contact with him. “I don’t know, that’s up to or whatever.”

- This man does everything in his power to try and bug you (It’s 2 days later and I just realized the pun I had made) into telling him what is wrong.

- I honestly think that he would just build that wall back up again, distant again. Then the crew starts to notice how he’s back to when he was first held on the ship. How he’s more cruel again

- They’d also realize how distant you’ve gotten in general, you don’t volunteer to take Buggy anymore.

- The good ending I think would be coming to terms internally with the fact he’s going. Usopp breaking it to the clown on why you would be upset (Buggy at first doesn’t take his advice but then is surprised finding out that the dweeb has a girlfriend)

- Or he’d listen in when you’re talking to someone on the crew

- He’s a pirate, he’s been betrayed before, he wants the one piece but he’s also resilient to ask you to come with him. He can assume your disdain of leaving Luffy’s crew for his.

- So he keeps his distance from you, painfully so. And when he goes there are no words between you two shared, just a solemn look towards each other

- What you don’t know however is he will come back one day for you. May not be the soonest but he will be there

[k1smets]

My Kismet headcanons!!

Boom:

He’s 26 (two years older than branch). He’s gay, obviously. The rainbow hair isn’t natural though (it’s naturally purple), he dyes it even though trolls can change their hair colour. He’s Sky Toronto’s son. Sky doesn’t know how he feels about his son being in a boyband. Boom is a bit of an airhead, but he’s one of the kindest people you’ll meet, and he’s super energetic. Your personal space is his personal space. (But he understands if u got boundaries) I think he’d be the closest to branch.

Hype:

He’s 27. He’s also the only straight one in the group. Despite his name he’s pretty chill. He’s the type to go to a party just to talk to people. He has 2 older and one younger sibling, all girls. He gives branch dating advice (he’s never had a girlfriend, even though everybody thinks he’s attractive) It was his idea to start a band in the first place.

Trickee:

He’s also 27, and he’s bi. The white streaks in his hair aren’t natural either, but he uses his troll powers for them like a normal person. He’s the fun one of the group, always pulling a prank or two. He’s not afraid to throw a punch if he has to. He’s always flirting with ablaze and a joke (is it really a joke? Trickee claims it is.) He doesn’t have siblings but he has like 24 cousins (but they’re all about 15 years older than him. )

Ablaze:

He’s the oldest in the group, at 29. He’s unlabelled. Everybody thinks he’s a rock troll but he’s just edgy. The pop trolls always found him kinda weird for it. He’s pretty calm most of the time. (Unless it’s John Dory. He hates John Dory.) He’s old enough to remember branch being in Brozone (mostly because his older sister was oddly obsessed with (sp)bruce. (like the posters were EVERYWHERE). He seems intimidating at first but once you get to know him he’s super fun to be around. He puts up with Trickee’s flirting but actually plays along sometimes.

They meet after the first movie, but don’t start the band until after world tour. I don’t know how they’d meet but once I figure it out I’ll write a fic!

[lulublack90]

Prompt 3 - Dark Fic

@wolfstarmicrofic July 3, word count 709

Sirius lounged on his throne. Spinning his wand between his fingers. Ruling over all of British Wizarddom was boring work. If he’d known exactly how dull it would be, he’d never have bothered taking his seat as Lord Black.

He’d questioned if the Black family was so old and powerful. Why were they throwing in their lot with an unknown wizard of questionable heritage? It had been a joke at his family’s expense. But it had got them thinking and before he knew it, he’d had his wand to Tom Riddle’s head and performed the killing curse for the first time.

And now here he was thrust into power and in a foul mood. 

“Bring in the next one,” He drawled, cracking his stiff neck. He’d already sentenced four to death this morning and he was starting to get peckish. One more and he’d order lunch. 

A man was thrown before him. He was dirty and ragged and his filthy too long hair had fallen forward covering his face. With an exasperated sigh, Sirius waited impatiently for the man to look up. They always did. They might be afraid of him, but they couldn’t help themselves, they all wanted to look upon the man who’d conquered them all. 

The door opened again and Regulus came sauntering in. 

“Sirius, I’m bored, anything interesting going on in here,” He yawned as he walked past the man still kneeling on the floor. 

“Just this last one and then I thought lunch?” Sirius suggested to his brother.

“What’s he done?” Regulus asked, wrinkling his nose at the smell that had finally wafted up to them. 

“No idea,” He clicked his fingers at the guard and stood to attention. 

“He was found living in the woods, stealing supplies from Malfoy Manor of all places.” Sirius sat up on his throne, taking an interest. 

“And what kind of insane person would ever think that was a good idea?” He scoffed. The man lifted his hand, swept his matted hair from his face and looked up directly into Sirius’s eyes. Sirius inhaled sharply. 

“Sirius, are you alright?” Regulus asked, a flash of concern on his face. He stared down at the man and rolled his eyes. “Come on Sirius, he stole from Cissy, it’s an automatic death sentence. Hurry up. Now you’ve mentioned lunch. I’m hungry,” Sirius didn’t move. This was what he’d been afraid of. He'd known he was still out there somewhere, but he’d hoped he’d stay gone. He put his shutters up. Shutting off his emotions so he wouldn’t give himself away. 

“This one’s got a rabid look about him, don’t you think?” He crooned at Regulus. Praying he wouldn't recognise him. 

“Oh, put him out of his misery already, Sirius. He looks like he’s suffered enough.”

“Nah, I think I might enjoy this one for a bit. Guard, have him washed and dressed appropriately, then have him taken to my chambers.” Sirius put on his best-wicked grin as Remus Lupin was dragged from his hall. 

“Merlin, there’s something wrong with you,” Regulus groaned.

“So lunch?” Sirius replied cheerily. 

He parted from Regulus soon after they’d eaten and told the guards they weren’t to disturb him for the rest of the day. They were so scared of him by now that he knew they'd heed his words. He climbed the stone steps up to his chambers and met the guard waiting there. “Go make yourself useful elsewhere.” He ordered. The guard stuttered but didn’t move. 

“But My Lord, what if he attacks you? He’s already tried to scratch the eyes out of Goyle and he bit Crabbe, took a huge chunk out of his arm.” Sirius narrowed his eyes and pointed his wand at the guard, letting the tip rest on his forehead. 

“And what makes you think I can’t protect myself? You’re only here because I allow it. I could get along very easily without you. Now leave before you find yourself kneeling in my hall before my throne.” The guard fled as quickly as he was able. Sirius took a deep steadying breath and opened his chamber door. 

Remus was waiting for him, chained to a ring embedded in the wall. “Hello, sweetheart,” Sirius smirked at him, “Did you miss me?” 

[suzyq31]

Just some casual pining

@jilymicrofics, this just makes the cut at 976 words!

January prompts used: Primal, Apprehensive, Etch

This lightly connects to a few of my other James/Lily stories. Unsure if I'll turn them into a series on archive. Essentially just these two being idiots in love and denial while at school. Also note, this line is very much stolen from When Harry Met Sally.

“What about if they’re attracted to each other?” she asked, apprehension in her tone, and when her eyes met his he nearly swallowed his own tongue.  “Er—” “Or as Sirius put it, that ‘the sex part gets in the way.’”

Thanks to @charmsandtealeaves for looking this over!

Story below the cut 😊

James squinted at the sunlight streaming through the bevelled glass, a light September breeze coming in. Lily had crossed the stone floor within minutes of entering the cramped office earlier, jimmying with the latch on the window, and pressing it open with her upper body, before smiling at him over her shoulder. 

He was already sweating, but his body had only grown warmer at the sight. A year into their friendship and he still wasn’t used to having her smile at him like that, like someone she was glad to see.

They’d quickly gotten to work, both of them still adjusting to their new roles. Lily with far more ease than him. She had a leg up, of course, having been a prefect since fifth year. James found himself playing catch up, learning the patrol schedules, the intricacies of the points systems, and the group dynamics that he was now in charge of. 

Dumbledore had made a good choice the past two years, if he’d had this kind of power earlier, he could only imagine how much more of a nightmare he would have been. He also doubted that Lily would have ever come around to not hating his guts if that were the case.

She was close enough that he could feel her warmth and breathe in the scent of her shampoo, something light and floral that he’d always found pleasing. All at once her green eyes were holding his, and it took him a full second to realise he’d been caught. He stared back down at his parchment, willing himself to think, “Maybe we should switch David and Juliet.”

“Why?”

He lifted his eyes to hers. “Rumour has it they’ve broken up.”

“Oh,” she said, delicate brows furrowing. “That’s too bad.” 

He scratched the back of his neck. “Should I switch them then?”

Lily looked past him, eyes fixed on a far-off point. He followed her gaze towards the fiery sky, the sun giving its best showcase before it would sink behind the green hills. 

“They were such good friends before.”

Her quiet declaration surprised him. 

“Yeah?”

She nodded absently, a hard to read expression etched on her features, voice hushed when she spoke.

“Do you remember what Sirius said?”

“Well, he says a lot of things.”

She rolled her eyes. “He said that men and women couldn’t really be proper friends. He said it about Marlene and Benjy, back in June.”

“Wouldn’t be the first dumb thing he’s said.”

Lily released a delicate little snort. “No…but do you think he’s right?”

“Er—no,” he said, palms suddenly sweating. “He was just taking the piss.”

Out of him. Not that he would add that part. He wiped his palms on his leg which had begun bouncing of its own accord. Lily simply looked at her notes. 

“What about if they’re attracted to each other?” she asked, apprehension in her tone, and when her eyes met his he nearly swallowed his own tongue. 

“Er—”

“Or as Sirius put it, that ‘the sex part gets in the way.’”

His lips parted but no sound came out. His stomach had flipped completely upside down, then rightside up, as if he’d attempted a Wronski Feint 

A smile pulled at her lips, green eyes dancing. Clearly joking, while he was acting like a demented goldfish. 

Finally he cleared his throat. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“I mean a lot of things. If it’s mutual, or one-sided…” He watched her closely and something in her expression shifted. “Are you talking about someone we know, Evans?”

Pink spread across her porcelain cheeks. He’d never outgrown his love of causing her to blush. A strange surge of confidence came to him as he leaned in. 

“So, purely hypothetical?” he added.

She sucked in her bottom lip, nodding. 

For a moment he felt suspended. Like he could tell her anything; like the fact that he was sure that he would always fancy her, even if she never felt the same way. Pathetic really, a truth he did his best to manage. Unwilling to jeopardise her hard-won friendship. 

He forced out a breath.  “I think you can be friends with someone you’re attracted to.”

She tilted her head, hair ablaze in the afternoon sunlight. “You think so?”

“I have it on good authority.”

Lily blinked at him. The pink hue on her face deepened and everything in him screamed to touch her cheek, to see if it was as soft as he imagined. 

His hand fisted where it rested on his leg. The desire burned through him. Being around her had always been like playing with fire; mesmerising, a primal instinct that only she brought out in him. She made the world brighter but with the potential for peril. His heart at risk. 

He stared down at her, the moment suspended. His fingers unclenching, their breathing syncing. He could imagine it so easily, closing the small gap between them, and brushing his lips against hers. 

A loud bang made them both startle, her body tensing before she relaxed back into her seat. The prefects began to trickle in. He was so flustered by the impulse he’d been close to giving into, that he’d nearly forgotten where they were or what they were even doing. 

Lily recovered quickly, standing and greeting the arriving students. He watched her take charge of the meeting. Graceful in her movement, the last bits of sun bathing her in gold. His heart beat erratically in his chest, body too hot in the crowded room. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank Sirius or hex him into next week. 

Then Lily turned back, a curious glint in her eyes that sparked him into motion. He took his place beside her, ignoring the gooseflesh that broke out when her arm brushed against his, pushing down how right it felt to be at her side.

[whiskey-tango-matcha]

Thanks (m, cold)

Hi guys, thank you again for voting on which scenario you wanted to see for this fic! It's a bit of a slow burn, and idk how I feel about the ending, but Elijah is staunchly miserable by the end so hopefully that makes y'all happy 😅 let me know if you like it 🫶

Ps I've been writing this for literally the past 12 hours so I cannot look at it anymore, I'll read it over and edit errors in the morning but I need to get it out before it drives me insane lmao. 5.5k words under the cut :)

CW: male snz, colds, coughing, fever, contagion

There was nothing quite as depressing, Elijah decided, as the days leading up to Thanksgiving dinner service in a restaurant. Well, unless you were Greyson.

“Goooood morning, boss! Two days til the Big Day; are you pumped?”

Elijah turned his chair slowly towards the door, where the chef stood grinning unironically. He thought, not for the first time, that Greyson was likely some sort of dog in a past life – a golden retriever, or possibly a lab. One of those ‘no thoughts, just vibes’ dogs.

“Am I pumped?” Elijah asked, glaring at Greyson. “For a day that should be spent drinking shitty beer and eating my weight in carbs spent instead putting on a fake smile for people who don’t even think of us as human? For people who go out to eat literally once a year, and make sure they do it on a holiday so they can feel powerful by forcing a restaurant to serve them, then complain about the price and stiff my servers? Am I pumped to barely break even, even though the restaurant will be packed from ten am until close, because those same people staunchly refuse to pay more than eighty bucks a head to stuff themselves silly? Am I pumped to listen to my staff complain all day, despite the fact that when each of them was hired, they were told in no uncertain terms that they would be working holidays?” Elijah clicked his pen closed loudly, stood to let Greyson through, and sat with him in tandem, his face set in anger the whole time. “No, Grey. I am not, in fact, pumped.”

Greyson broke their eye contact to wake his computer, the lecture obviously unexpected. “Clearly I should’ve read the room before opening my mouth,” he said, glancing back over at his boss briefly. “My bad, boss.”

Elijah, embarrassed that he’d let himself sink into such a state about something as stupid as a holiday service, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Fuck. Sorry, Grey. You just caught me at a bad moment. I had two servers call out for today, I’m fuckin’ sweating because we really need everyone here for Thursday and neither of them are sure they’ll be good to come back in two days.”

“Hmm,” Greyson hummed, his eyebrows threading together. “That’s weird. I had Victor and Elise call out on my way in.”

Elijah felt his heart thump in his temple. “Did they say why?”

“I didn’t ask,” Greyson said, turning his chair to face his boss. “But I guess I should’ve. Did the servers say why they couldn’t come in?”

“Some sort of fever-cold thing, is what Jason said he had. Ashley just said she felt like shit.” Elijah pressed his fingers into his eye and sighed. “I need a cigarette. Care to join?”

Greyson, never one to turn down nicotine in any form, stood from his chair. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said.

The two of them walked through the empty kitchen in silence, Elijah entirely too wrapped in his own thoughts to continue their conversation. There was an ongoing joke, a trope, at this point, about holidays in the restaurant; everyone was always sick for them. Last Easter, the servers all had bronchitis, and a couple of Valentine’s days ago, Greyson had so many cooks call out with the stomach flu that they’d had to hire last-minute temps to fill in on the line. Despite doing nearly 300 covers, they barely made enough to cover the immense labor that seven temps on a holiday cost.

“Lij,” Greyson said as the two of them stepped out the back door and sat on the milk crates littering the loading dock, “it’s not going to be like Valentine’s. I can see your fuckin’ gears turning.” The chef pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, handed his boss one, and lit them both up. “Relax.”

Silence, once again, fell upon them as they smoked and watched fat snowflakes disintegrate on the asphalt. Elijah hoped that Greyson was right, that everything would be fine and he was overreacting – but he knew better than to hope. More likely than not, it was going to be what it always was on holidays: a shit show.

Matt and Mark, hand-in-hand until they spotted their bosses by the door, turned the corner and waved to their counterparts in tandem like well-trained circus animals. Elijah couldn’t help but smile as their fingers unwove from one another.

“Morning,” Elijah called, stubbing out his cigarette. Greyson did the same, and the two of them stood to let the younger men into the building.

“Aren’t you freezing?” Mark asked rubbing his hands together as he pushed the door open. Elijah shrugged as he held the door open for the other two and walked in behind them.

“My rage keeps me warm,” he said, prompting a laugh from Greyson and an eye roll from the younger men. “How’re you guys?”

Mark shot a look at Matt as they all walked towards the office at the front of the kitchen. “I’m well,” he said, pointedly. Elijah nearly stopped in his tracks when he glimpsed Matt glaring at his boyfriend.

“Matt…?” Greyson asked, an attempt at giving his sous chef a get-out-of-jail-free card. There was silence as the three of them turned, expectantly, towards Matt.

“I’mb good,” the sous said, his voice cracking on the second syllable. Elijah audibly groaned, Mark winced, and Greyson bit his cheek to keep from laughing at the absurdity.

“Well, you certainly sound great,” Greyson said, palming Matt’s shoulder aggressively. “Would you like to go home and sleep that off?”

“Yes, he -”

“Ndo,” Matt said, cutting Mark off and shooting him a look. “I wandt to help prep.I’mb – hh! hh’NGTSH-uh!” Matt turned and pulled his coat up over the bottom half of his face to sneeze, then quickly gathered himself and stood up straight. “I’mb fine,” he said, convincing no one.

Elijah closed his eyes briefly and sighed through his nose; fortunately or unfortunately, he knew exactly why Matt hadn’t called off.

The week prior, Elijah and Greyson had dolled out raises and bonuses for the staff; this year was Matt’s fifth as sous chef. Greyson had basically written a dissertation of why his sous chef should be given a new title – Executive Sous – along with a significant raise and bonus. It hadn’t taken much convincing; Elijah knew exactly how hard Matt worked, and staying at the same restaurant as a sous chef for five years was nearly unheard of in this city, especially for someone as young as Matt. He and Greyson had agreed that Matt’s loyalty to the restaurant deserved to be compensated, and had surprised him before his day off with the new title and pay.

Matt had been surprised – shocked was probably a better word for it, honestly – and had confided in Elijah after Greyson had dipped early to meet up with a date that he felt like he didn’t deserve the raise.

“You do,” Elijah had said, laughing lightly. “We wouldn’t have given it to you if you didn’t deserve it.”

The younger man had shaken his head. “I just… I mean, Greyson is here way more than me. I get two days off mostly, and he doesn’t let me work longer than ten hours. And I love it here, you guys don’t need to, like, worry about me leaving if that’s what this is about.”

Elijah had given Matt a confused look. “Greyson should be here more than you, first of all he’s a partner, not just the chef, and secondly, he gets paid very well to be here eighty hours a week. That’s his choosing. You’re his employee – if you were here as much as he was and getting paid significantly less, that wouldn’t be fair. And we’re glad you love it here, but that’s not why we gave you the raise. We gave it to you because you’re a hard worker, and you deserve to be compensated for what you do.” Elijah had smiled at Matt, patted his knee, and finished with, “Don’t sell yourself short.”

Matt had just smiled back and nodded, but Elijah knew he hadn’t changed his mind about ‘being undeserving’. Elijah knew, via background checks that were performed by his off-site HR company, and via Mark being a blabbermouth the second he got a glass of wine in him, that Matt had been a bit of a troubled kid; he’d been bounced from one foster home to another as a kid, and then one juvenile detention hall to another as a teenager. Only when he’d dropped out of high school and gotten a job as a dishwasher at a Denny’s did he finally decide it was time to shape up. He’d worked his way into the diner’s kitchen, then a slightly nicer kitchen, and when he was 20, he’d shown up at the front door of Elliot’s in an ill-fitting suit with a speech about how he was ready to work somewhere that he could hone his passion, even if they couldn’t pay him a dime. Greyson had hired him on the spot, not even consulting Elijah, despite only having been the executive chef for a few months.

Elijah knew Matt felt that he owed Greyson, not the other way around, and this promotion and raise was the nail in that coffin of doubt. He knew there was no way Matt would go home, no matter how shitty he felt.

Greyson just shrugged at his sous chef’s denial of being sick. “If you want to stay, I’m not going to make you leave,” he said, walking into the office and changing from his sweatshirt into his chef’s coat. “Just don’t sneeze on the food.”

Matt rolled his eyes and stripped off his jacket to put his own chef’s coat on. “Yes, Chef,” he said, coughing into his elbow. Mark and Elijah exchanged sidelong looks.

“Are you feeling okay?” Elijah asked his junior manager. Mark smirked, hiked his laptop bag further onto his shoulder, and started towards the dining room – his makeshift office.

“Never better, boss,” he said, pushing through the swinging doors. “Never better.”

***

“So, is he coming in tomorrow?”

Greyson lolled his head to the side, hands still on his keyboard, and deadpanned Elijah. “The fuck do you think?”

Elijah pulled a hand down his face and nodded. “Yeah, okay, just wanted to check.”

While Matt had been relatively fine the first few hours of the shift, by the time the last guests had eaten, the sous had been so staunchly miserable that Greyson had marched his ass into the office, thrown his jacket over his shoulders, and pointed towards the back door. “Go. Home. Now.”

“Chef, I – HTSHH! Hh-! GTSH-uh!” Matt wrenched to the side, collapsing into a post-sneeze coughing fit that made the cooks flinch from five yards away.

“You’re not fine,” Greyson insisted. “You’re sick, and you’re going to get everyone else sick.”

Matt nodded, miserable, and hung his head. “Sorry, Chef,” he muttered, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Go,” Greyson said. “And come back when you’re well.”

Mark had taken Matt home in an Uber, and the cooks and servers had been able to leave relatively early, which left Elijah, Greyson, and a bottle of whiskey between them on the desk to figure out how they were going to handle the rest of the week.

Greyson sighed and reached for the bottle as he pushed away from his computer screen. He took a long pull and handed the bottle to Elijah, who followed suit. “I just… I don’t understand why he’d come in that sick,” Greyson said, pulling his hair to the top of his head and securing it with a rubber band from their drawer of office supplies. Elijah had to pull the bottle away from his lips to laugh. “What?” Greyson asked.

“You, of all people, can’t understand why he came in sick?” Elijah asked, incredulous. “You?”

“What do you mean me?” Greyson asked, snatching the bottle back. “If anything, he learned it from watching you.”

“Oh, spare me, Greyson,” Elijah rolled his eyes. “For awhile there, you literally came in sick three weeks a month.”

Greyson scoffed. “At least I’ve never passed out on the kitchen floor.”

“Yes, you have.”

“No, I almost passed out. You actually fuckin’ swooned. Collapsed in a puddle. Full damsel in distress.” Greyson took another pull and placed the bottle back on the desk. “So don’t come for me unless I send for you.”

Elijah guffawed at this. “Who taught you that saying?” he asked. Greyson shrugged.

“I heard one of the servers using it. I like it.”

“The servers are twenty years old, you dinosaur. The last thing they want is Grandpa Greyson using their jargon.”

“Fuck off, if anyone here is a grandpa it’s…” Greyson stopped suddenly, held up a finger, let his eyes flutter shut, then let out a shaky breath. “Fuck, that’s annoying.” He rubbed his nose on the back of his hand, then raised an eyebrow at his boss, whose face had drawn into concern. “What?”

“What was that?” Elijah asked, glancing over at the bottle of whiskey they’d spent the past hour sharing.

“I just thought I was going to – oh,” Greyson’s eyes widened. “No, dude, relax, I’m totally fine. I feel great.”

“‘Buzzed’ and ‘great’ are two different things, Grey,” Elijah said. He reached up to feel Greyson’s forehead, prompting the chef to lean back in his chair.

“Great as in healthy,” he insisted, shooing Elijah’s hand away. “Seriously, I’d let you know if I – HRRTSHHH-ue!” He caught the sneeze in his elbow – barely – and choked back an irritated cough. From the crook of his arm, he heard Elijah swear.

“I’m going to end your fuckin’ life, I swear to God,” Elijah muttered, pushing the bottle further onto Greyson’s side of the desk. “You let me drink from the same bottle as you, you dick.”

“I’m fine, Elijah, Christ it was one sneee – hh! - hh…” Greyson tipped his head back in anticipation, then lowered and shook it when the feeling once again dissipated. “See? Totally fine.” He sniffled – convincing, Grey – and immediately changed course. “Plus, it’s alcohol. It’s an antiseptic.”

“It one million percent is not,” Elijah said, rubbing his temples in defeat. “Greyson, you cannot be sick. We cannot be sick. How the hell are we going to be able to run Thanksgiving?”

“Elijah,” Greyson said, “listen. I am fine. Everything is going to be just fi – ITSHH-ue!” Greyson pitched forward into his palm and cringed. Elijah, begrudgingly, slammed the box of tissues they kept on a side table in front of the chef.

“Bless you,” he said while Greyson cleaned himself up. “And, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: fuck. You.”

***

“Hhh-! Huh… hnnn.”

“Bless you.”

“Oh, screw you, Lij,” Greyson muttered for the millionth time that day. He grabbed what felt like his hundredth tissue and blew his nose – only for the feeling to reignite. “Huhhh! Hhh...hh… guhh.” Greyson rubbed his nose again and angrily spiked the tissue into the trash can beneath his prep station.

“Bless you,” Elijah said again, mocking.

“You kndow,” Greyson said, turning towards his boss, who was seated in the office, not looking Greyson’s way. “Karma is going to combe for you for being an asshole to mbe.”

At this, Elijah glanced towards Greyson. “Karma? No, karma is having a cold and not being able to sneeze because you let your friend drink out of the same bottle as you when you knew you were getting sick. That’s karma, and you got what was coming to you.”

“Fuuhhh! Huh! Hh...fuck,” Greyson grumbled, coughing into his shoulder.

“Karma is also giving your sous chef a lecture about being sick at work, only to be get sick and have to come into work because you’re technically the most well of all the sick cooks and chefs.”

“Are you finished?” Greyson asked, throwing his hands in the air. “I get it. And to be fair, I did ndot kndow I was getting sick.” The chef sucked in painfully through his nose and collapsed into coughs once again.

“Mmhmm,” Elijah mumbled. When it seemed like Greyson wasn’t going to be able to stop the coughing, he took pity and got up to make the chef tea.

“Here,” Elijah said, slamming a paper cup in front of Greyson. “Drink it. Sickie.”

Greyson, unable to come up with a proper comeback, just did as he was told. “How mbany on the books tonight?” he croaked. Elijah sighed, pulled up his phone, and slid it towards Greyson. “Fuck,” Greyson said when he saw the number.

“All the people in the city who aren’t coming in tomorrow decided tonight was the night, apparently,” Elijah said, taking his phone back and putting it in his pocket. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, in earnest.

Greyson nodded. “It’s ndot too bad,” he said, taking another sip of tea. “Just wish I could fuckigg sndeeze.”

Elijah huffed out a laugh. “You’re sure you don’t want to call Matt in?”

“Definitely no – hh! Huh...hhhITSHHHZUE! Oh thank fuckigg God – HUHHESTCH-ue! Hh! Hnn...HuhhhETSCHH-ue! HTSSHH-ue!”

Elijah whistled, long and low, and pushed the box of tissues towards Greyson. “Wow,” he said. “Bless.”

Greyson rolled his eyes as he took a handful of tissues and cleaned himself up. “See?” he said once he’d thrown them away and washed his hands, “Good as new. HTSSHH-ue!”

Elijah chuckled. “Sure, Chef,” he said, moving towards the doors to the dining room. “Whatever you say.”

***

In his thirty-nine years on earth, Elijah had learned a lot about himself. He’d learned that he was a hothead, and he had to really think about the repercussions of what was going to come out of his mouth if he wanted to keep the person he was talking to in his life. He’d learned that he was incapable of whistling, juggling, or any other party trick – but he could pull out a fantastic rendition of Queen’s Somebody to Love during karaoke, and that was enough to make him seem like he was fun at parties. He’d learned that he loved to have his own space, and should he ever find a partner, he knew they’d have to have separate bedrooms. And he had learned exactly what it felt like when he was getting sick.

Like… really sick.

When Greyson said things like, “I didn’t know I was getting sick,” it truly did not register to Elijah. Maybe it was because Greyson’s illnesses always seemed to be some sort of mixed bag – starting differently every time, with symptoms that varied wildly – or maybe it was because he just didn’t tune in to how he was feeling. Greyson always said he basically tried to ignore his body until it forced him to pay attention; maybe that was something that Elijah needed to attempt. Because Elijah… Elijah knew exactly when and how badly he was getting sick every single time.

It had started that afternoon, mere hours after he’d given Greyson shit about exposing him to this illness, the way it always did – with the type of sore throat that made you feel weak in your knees. Elijah had swallowed, then immediately felt dizzy with the pain that surged in his throat. Oh, he thought, touching his neck. Oh, no.

He was, of course, a creature of habit and attempted all his usual ways to quell the pain – cups of tea hidden in paper sleeves, lozenges he hoped Greyson was too stuffed up to smell on his breath, handfuls of ibuprofen – to no avail. By the time dinner service came around he could hear the rasp in his voice and, despite the ibuprofen, could feel the ache in his joints that meant he’d already made it to stage two; fever.

This was how he knew he was going to be down badly. If he could ride the sore throat past the fever and straight into congestion, he might be able to get away with just a normal cold. But if that fever set in before any other symptoms, it was all over.

“Yo,” Greyson said, approaching his boss post pre-shift. “Cand we quickly talk about the semantics of tomborrow’s buffet before people get here?”

Elijah lifted his heavy head from his pre-shift notes and blinked in Greyson’s direction. “Okay,” he said, brilliantly. Greyson’s eyebrows knit together, concerned.

“You good?” he asked, rubbing his nose on the back of his hand. Elijah nodded slowly – surely, if Greyson was able to push through this illness with such ease, he was just being a baby about it. He swallowed through the knives in his throat and nodded.

“Just a headache,” he said. “What do you want to talk through?”

“Just wanted to see how mbany cooks you think I should have on the buffehh....ETSZHCHH-ue!” Greyson directed a massive sneeze into his elbow, and Elijah’s head about exploded with pain.

“Christ,” Elijah muttered, pressing his palm into his eye. Greyson muffled a cough into his sleeve and shook his head to clear it.

“Fuck, ‘scuse mbe,” he said, looking back at his boss. “Umb. Did I get you or something?”

Something like that, Elijah thought as he shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re just loud, and my head hurts.” He pulled out his phone, looked at the cover spread for the next day, and said, “Three cooks on the buffet. One for omelets, one for prime rib carving, one for dessert bar.” He looked up at Greyson for his confirmation. “What?” he asked.

“You just… look like you’re in pain,” Greyson said, carefully. “Did you take -?”

“Yes, I took ibuprofen,” Elijah cut him off. “Go make sure your guys are ready for tonight. Take a decongestant so they can understand you. I’ll be back there in a minute.”

Greyson pursed his lips, but didn’t argue. “Yes, sir,” he said, and left Elijah to brood.

By some stroke of luck, the third inevitable stage of Elijah’s illness didn’t hit him until after they’d finished service. He was checking the lead server’s station so she could go home, when suddenly it felt like a thousand bees collected in his sinuses.

“Yeah, looks good Riley, thanks, see you in the mo – IGTSHH-uhh! HSTSH-ue! HhhhINTSZH-ue!” Elijah wrenched to the side, the sneezes so sudden he barely had time to cover his mouth.

“Yikes,” Riley said, taking a step away from her boss. “Bless you.”

“Thanks,” Elijah muttered, pinching his nose to quell the itch.

“You pick up whatever has everyone else out this week?” she asked, taking off her apron. Elijah shook his head.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Have a good night.”

With all the servers gone, Elijah slunk back into the kitchen and sunk into his office chair, his head in his hands. He was not prepared to do a whole holiday service feeling like this. This was nightmarish, and he’d only felt sick for nine hours. Tomorrow? Tomorrow was going to be -

“Hey, bless you,” Elijah sat up and turned around at the accusation to see Greyson standing at the office door with his arms crossed. “Could’ve heard those from fuckin’ space.”

Elijah rolled his eyes, painfully. “Whatever,” he said, powering his computer up to finish the night’s paperwork. “You’re one to talk, I don’t think you’ve gone three seconds without -”

“HRRSHH-oo!” Greyson cut him off with a comically-timed sneeze directed into the collar of his shirt.

“-that,” Elijah finished.

Greyson grabbed a tissue and wiped his nose. “Yeah, but it’s been well-established that I have a cold. I was under the impression that you were still -”

“HTSHH! HRSHH! Huh-! HuhhESTZHH-ue!” Elijah once again collapsed in on himself, head both buzzing and pounding, the explosive sneezes grating the back of his throat.

“- well,” Greyson finished, and moved into the office to sit by his boss. Just as Elijah looked up from his lap, Greyson slapped a hand on his forehead.

“Enough,” Elijah said, pushing Greyson’s palm off. Greyson put both his palms on his knees and gave Elijah a knowing look.

“So, you’ve been sick all day, or…?”

“Greyson,” Elijah said, clearing his throat, “I’m fine.”

“You have a fever, Lij. Like, a pretty significant one.”

He knew, and he had known, but the words made Elijah’s eyes well and his throat close all the same. God, he hated having a fucking fever and all the stupid, ridiculous emotions that went along with it. Elijah took a breath, closed his eyes to collect himself, and addressed the chef.

“I’m not feeling 100%,” he said. “But I will be fine. You are sick – if I’m not 100%, then you must be at like 10% at this point.”

“I don’t have a fever,” Greyson pointed out, taking Elijah’s hand and placing it on his cool head. “See?”

Elijah bit his cheek to keep from snapping. “Alright,” he said. “Whatever. Still, you need to go home; it’s a big day tomorrow.”

“I will when you do,” Greyson said, shrugging. Elijah, completely spent, and done arguing, just turned off his computer – paperwork be damned for the night.

“Fine,” he said, putting his hands up in surrender. “Let’s call it a night.”

Greyson, clearly confused, just raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Alright boss,” he said, grabbing his jacket. “See you tomorrow.”

***

If there was one thing Greyson knew about Elijah, it was this: if you wanted him to admit defeat, you had to corner him.

When he woke up at oh-dark-thirty that morning, Greyson felt lucky that he was no worse for the wear then he was the night before. Was he stuffed-up to the gills? Yes. Did he have an incessant, grating cough? Yeah. But ultimately, it was a cold, and he’d work through far worse many more times.

So, despite the fact that it was still dark out, Greyson donned his hoodie and set out for the restaurant. On the way to the early-morning subway, he called Matt.

“...Hello?” Matt answered on the third ring. “Chef?”

“Mbornin’ sunshine,” Greyson said, coughing into the receiver. “How’re you feeling?”

“Uh…” Matt said, attempting to gather his bearings. “Better. Am I supposed to be at the restaurant now? I thought I was scheduled at eight.” Greyson heard him push back a blanket and plant his feet on the floor. “You sound like shit, by the way. Sorry about that.”

“Inevitable,” Greyson said, a brush-off. “And you aren’t scheduled til eight, but I have sombe very important, pre-work, Executive Sous shit I ndeed your help with.”

“Sure, boss,” Matt said, and Greyson could hear him changing clothes, using mouthwash, and whispering goodbye to Mark. “Anything you need.”

“Good man,” Greyson said, pausing at the top of the subway steps. “Could you pick up cough drops, Mucinex, and a hot water bottle, if you see one? Oh, and a real blanket. I’ll Venmo you some mboney.”

“Uh, sure, boss. Is this… for you?”

“Not for me,” Greyson said, coughing into his sleeve. “For Elijah. He’s down bad.”

“Oh. Oh, shit,” Matt said. “Yeah, okay, for sure boss. Whatever you need.”

“Thanks, mban. Hey, I’mb about to head down to the subway, text mbe if you have any – hh! HTSHH-ue! Fuck, sorry,” Greyson wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Mbaybe grab more tissues while you’re there,” he amended.

“Sure, Chef. Bless.”

“You’re the best, Mbatt. Always knew you’d make a perfect number two.”

Greyson could hear the eye roll through the phone. “Don’t get sappy, old man,” Matt said. “See you soon.”

***

To say Elijah felt like shit would’ve been the understatement of the century.

When he woke up that morning, Elijah was fairly sure he was dying. The fever he’d crawled into bed with hadn’t budged, his sinuses were packed, and he’d officially acquired the final gem on his sick-as-fuck gauntlet: the cough. This day was going to be absolute hell.

Elijah did his level best to get ready for the busy service; he managed to take about half a shower before he had to sit down, dizzy from exertion; he’d gotten one contact in before sneezing so hard he almost poked his eye out and settled on glasses; he’d even found the strength to put on a pair of pants, though a button down was entirely too much for his shaking hands, so he settled on a cardigan that looked passable enough. God he hoped the servers – and Mark – would be able to hold down the fort out front, because this was nothing short of tragic.

Unwilling to deal with the subway and unable to drive safely in this state, Elijah settled on calling an Uber to work. It was early, a little before eight, but he knew if he didn’t get there now, he’d never make it.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” the driver said, leaving Elijah to immediately regret his decision not to drive. “Pretty early to be up and at ‘em. You heading to see family?”

Elijah cleared his throat as best he could before begrudgingly responding to the driver. “Ndot quite,” he said, his voice strained and congested. “Worki – HGSTHH-ue! HRSSH! ETSZCH-uh!” Elijah attempted to hold back the sneezes, unsuccessfully. Sans any tissues, he wiped his nose on his sweater sleeve. “Excuse mbe, sorry.”

“Working and sick on a holiday?” the driver said, shaking his head. “That’s rough, man. Bless you.”

Elijah’s face flamed, but he was in no state to deny. “Yeah,” he said instead. “Thangks.”

The rest of the drive was in blessed silence, and Elijah made sure to tip the guy extra for being exposed to whatever plague he was walking around with. When he finally pushed through the back door of the restaurant, Elijah felt like he’d already lived a lifetime today; he really wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to take.

“Elijah!” Greyson’s voice reached him before Elijah could even see his face. “Happy Thanksgiving, you sick old fuck!”

Elijah turned the corner and almost burst into tears – there stood Greyson, his face pale and nose bright red, and Matt and Mark looking no better, outside of his office; his office that had been, essentially, turned into a cozy-looking bedroom.

There were blankets on the floor, the chairs removed, and medicine on the desk. The harsh office light had been shut off, and instead one of the lamps from the host stand glowed gently from behind the computer. And, perhaps most heart-rendering, in Greyson’s hand was a bowl of steaming soup, and in Matt’s, a cup of tea.

“I know you hate working the holidays, and feeling like shit is just insult to injury,” Greyson said, setting down the bowl so he could guide Elijah into the office. “So we thought we’d mbake it just a little less shitty.”

Elijah allowed himself to be lead in, unable to find the words to thank his friend. He turned into his elbow to cough, a welcome respite from the tears he could feel threatening to spill over. “Grey,” he said when he’d gathered himself. “I… this is so… you guys…” he swallowed around the lump in his throat and shook his head. “I don’t kndow what to say,” he said, looking up at Greyson. “Thangk you.”

“Ah, save it,” Greyson said, placing a hand on his friend’s back. “You’re always looking after us. Call it our Thanksgiving to you.”

Elijah smiled a little, punched Greyson’s arm lightly, and allowed himself to be pulled into a hug. Heading to see family? the Uber driver had asked him. Maybe he had been, after all.

[sephirthoughts]

The Ghost of Shinra Manor 👻

It's still spooky season till after Día de los Muertos so it's not technically late!

summary: It's been two years since the events of Dirge of Cerberus. Cloud visits his hometown, and investigates a rumor of a ghost, haunting Shinra Manor. If you're surprised by who it turns out to be, you are beyond my power to save, comrade.

tags: g-g-g-ghosts!!! sefikura, sephiroth x cloud, sane!sephiroth (sort of), post advent children, post dirge of cerberus, canon timeline, delusions, intermitten amnesia, low drama, enemies to…whatever the hell they have going on

NOTE: i was raised by outdoorsy, log cabin, roughing-it parents and there will be a lot of details about this type of living because that is what i like

warnings: references to death, PTSD, past abuse, etc. all of hojo's greatest hits, mention of animal death in the context of ethical subsistence hunting/fishing, canon-typical violence, technical nudity but i didn't describe anything so you'd have to imagine it yourself which is not on me, pervert

rating: teen and up [for now]

Part 1: Reunion

A big, black, Fenrir model motorcycle roared up the dirt road, leaving clouds of dust in its wake. Its golden-haired rider adjusted his goggles and pulled his black scarf up, over his nose and mouth. It was late spring, which was still mid-winter in the Nibel region, and as he drew nearer to the mountain, the wind grew colder and sharper, till it felt like it was full of tiny, icy needles.

He had a little hunting cabin, up there, that no one else knew about. They knew he went somewhere, it was just that he didn’t specify the location to anyone but Cid and Vincent, who had helped him fix the place up, and were sworn to secrecy.

Why didn’t he tell the others where it was? Why would he? He went there to be alone. To decompress, when the weight of people’s lives got too heavy to carry. When their voices began to cut into his skull like buzz-saws, and he felt the thread of his tolerance strained to the snapping point.

Even for a person with a normal brain and no life-altering trauma, things would have been claustrophobic, in their little house. Marlene and Denzel were underfoot every minute of the day, and their continued presence meant that when Cloud wasn’t out on long deliveries, he and Tifa had to share a bedroom. He couldn’t fall asleep, with another person in the room, though, so they didn’t use it at the same time. He was a night person, anyway. 

She tried to act like she wasn’t hurt by his refusal to share a bed with her, but she was a shit actress. He had attempted to make her feel better by explaining that he didn’t have those kinds of feelings for girls—or for anyone, really—but he could tell she didn’t really believe it. Or that she at least thought of it as something they could work on.

Everyone (except Vincent) thought that. That something was wrong with him, and that he’d get better, if they persevered in telling him so. The way he was didn't make sense to them, therefore it wasn't normal, therefore it was a problem that needed to be solved. Hooray for the neuro-typical majority.

No one ever asked Cloud what he thought. They just told him what he should think, and then made decisions for him. Most of the time, it was easier to just go along with it, especially since he didn’t want everyone to be mad at him. Them being mad at him meant they’d talk to him even more, and use louder voices. He hated that.

He should have insisted on getting his own place, a long time ago. He and Tifa had been playing house from necessity, at first, but there was nothing actually keeping them together, now, aside from habit. Habit and guilt.

Who knew when she started to think of it as a real family. As if she and Cloud were a mother and father, with a couple of kids. As absurd as that was. They were barely more than kids, themselves.

When Cid and Vincent got married, people got even more obnoxious with the hints and "jokes" about when him and Tifa were going to tie the knot. She’d act all embarrassed and explain that their relationship wasn’t like that, but she’d glance at him, with that look in her eyes, when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. 

He sighed, as he rounded a long curve in the road. He knew himself well enough to know that he’d probably wind up giving in and just marry her. Didn’t seem like a very happy ending, for either of them, but who got one of those, these days? 

It did seem like an especially shit deal for her, though. Marry the kid no one liked, from your backwater hometown, live in a shithole two-bedroom over a bar, slinging booze and taking care of two adopted kids, while your asexual husband spends most of his time away, for work. 

Asexuality was a spectrum, though, and Cloud was somewhere near the middle. It just wasn’t the heterosexual middle. He made an earnest effort, once, but he couldn’t get it up for a woman, no matter how hard he tried, and it just wound up being awful and making the girl cry.

Fucked a couple of guys back when he was a trooper, but that was rare. Not that there weren’t plenty of interested troopers and even SOLDIERs, it was just that he had never wanted any of them. What he had really wanted was Sephiroth. 

Cloud was nine years old, when he fell in love with the perfect face, that he saw on television and the recruiting posters, that were always plastered all over every vertical surface, in town. The obsession only grew stronger, as he grew older. 

He joined up as soon as they’d take him, at age fourteen. The training was miserable and grueling, but he gritted his teeth and worked his ass off, keeping his idol firmly in his sights. Whenever the opportunity came up, he applied to the SOLDIER program. For all his diligent efforts, he met with rejection after rejection.

Several years passed, that way, with disappointment weighing ever more heavily on his heart. But just when he was losing hope that he’d ever meet the object of his worship face to face, he was assigned to a mission with the silver soldier himself. Wouldn’t you know it, that mission was to check on the reactor, in his very own hometown. 

They say never to meet your heroes, but the implication is that you’ll be disappointed. Cloud was not disappointed. Sephiroth was everything he had ever imagined, and more. Ten times more beautiful, and a hundred times stronger and faster. His legendary height was one thing to know logically, and another thing entirely to experience in person. He was literally superhuman.

And yet, despite his angelic appearance and godlike strength, he wasn’t arrogant or demanding, at all. He was thoughtful and soft-spoken, and obviously cared for his subordinates. He asked their opinions, and actually listened. Encouraged them, rather than berating them. He even learned and called them by their first names. It was the most humanely Cloud had been treated by any superior, apart from Zack.

Following those two around, on that mission, Cloud fell more hopelessly in love with his silver-haired deity, than ever. He loved Sephiroth with his whole young soul. Right up to the moment he watched that famous blade pierce his mother’s heart. 

Cloud Strife died, that night, as surely as Claudia had, and whatever this thing was, that he had become, was born. This thing capable of killing gods and monsters. This thing that survived years in a mako tank, being tortured by that bastard Hojo. This thing that had absorbed Zack’s memories, and remembered everything but Zack. This thing that hated Sephiroth, with every fiber of its being. Hated him as much as Cloud had loved him.

The sun was low in the sky, behind a blanket of grey clouds, when he finally pulled up to the clearing, where his unassuming cabin was tucked away.

He swung his leg off the saddle, then he winced and clutched his chest. His heart had been aching more and more as he approached Nibelheim. Not in the metaphorical sense, because of the tragedies he’d been through there—it was actual, physical pain.

He wasn’t exactly sure when it started, though, bcause he was so used to pain, it just got shoved to the back of his mind. Which it did again, now. It wasn’t bad enough to incapacitate him, so he ignored it, and unbuckled the leather panniers, which he slung over his shoulder.  

The cabin was locked up tight, just like he left it, with all the traps and wards in place. Not surprising. No one came up this way, anymore, since the reactor shut down.

Fortunately, the cabin didn’t need the reactor, for power. He’d bought an old, Wutaian, nuclear generator, to heat the water and supply electricity, and hooked it up with Cid's help. Thing was expensive as hell, but it was quiet, reliable, and would last literally forever. 

He stepped inside and typed in a code on a wall panel. When the generator hummed to life, he switched the electric lights on, and took a look around. The place was a little dusty, since he hadn’t been there since last summer, but otherwise, everything was just how he left it. 

It was a simple, single-room cabin. Nothing fancy, except he and Cid had redone the insulation and added the electrical wiring. Water came from a dedicated well, deep enough to take advantage of the Nibel region’s unique geothermal situation, and not freeze.  

There was a bed in one corner, with a frame of roughhewn logs, and a cedar trunk at the foot, where the blankets and pillows were stored. The bathroom door and the kitchen were on the other side (just a stove, small refrigerator, a few cabinets, and a sink), and the fireplace was central. In the opposite corner to the bed, there was a steel camp table, with two folding chairs, as if he’d ever have a guest here.

He tossed his panniers on the bed and went right back out to carry in firewood. Supply was getting low. The cupboards were pretty barren, too, but he’d go into town tomorrow to stock up on canned and dry goods. Those were just a supplement to the main source of food, up here, which was hunting.

When he was a kid, hunting was a long and grueling ordeal, with uncertain payoff. Now, augmented by Sephiroth’s cells and whatever else Hojo did to him in that lab, it was as easy as a trip to the grocery store. He left and returned with a brace of rabbits, within half an hour. It was late spring, so they were already nice and fat, too. 

With the ruthless efficiency of a seasoned survival hunter, he skinned, cleaned, and washed them, and set them roasting on the iron spit, over his little hearth. He was out of anything resembling spices, but the meat was good enough roasted, with just a little salt. 

That night, as he lay in bed, that ache in his chest seemed to grow worse, and made him toss and turn restlessly. When he finally drifted off, he dreamed of being impaled on Masamune and lifted into the air. Sephiroth’s green cat-eyes, staring up at him, with that deranged smile on his beautiful face. Black feathers fell like snow all around him.

I will never be a memory…

In the morning, Cloud went into town. Despite the reactor being shut down, Nibelheim was more lively than ever. With no Shinra, there was no one to pay mortgages to, so the residents weren’t eager to leave the homes which now belonged to them, free and clear. Then the WRO came in and added infrastructure, opened a school and clinic, and paid subsidies to local shepherds and artisans and the like, so the little town was actually prospering. 

“Howdy, Mr. Strife!” the round-faced, balding man at the general goods store said cheerfully, when Cloud brought his purchases to the counter. “Been nigh on a year, since I seen ya. Stayin’ a while?”

“Little while,” Cloud answered noncommittally. “How are things, in town? Anything needs looking into, while I’m here?”

The man scratched his chin. “Nothin’ particular. Just the usual rumors, is all. Monsters in the woods. Creepy things goin’ on at the old manor. That kinda thing.”

“Let me guess. The vampire, again?”

“Nah, nah, ain’t heard nothin’ about that fella in a long time. These days, it’s a ghost.”

“Fiends, or something else?”

“Folks are sayin’ it’s the ghost of a woman, with long, white hair. Don’t do nothin’ but wander around inside the manor, wailin’ and moanin’. They say if you go over there, at night, you can hear her, but if she catches ya snoopin’ around, she sucks out your soul.”

Cloud snorted. “Sounds like the usual bullshit.”

“You ain’t kiddin’!” the man laughed. “Folks got too much time and not enough to do, these days, so they get to tellin’ tales. Y’never know what they’ll say, next. Maybe devils or goblins.”

“Well, if it keeps kids away from the manor, the ghost stories are probably for the better. It’s a dangerous place,” Cloud said, taking his full grocery bags. “I’ll be heading over there, tonight, to clear out any monsters that may have got in, over the winter. I’ll be sure to look out for the ghost.”

“Haha, you do that! Have a good one, Mr. Strife!”

Despite his reticence and flat indifference to overtures of friendship, Cloud was rather popular with Nibelheim’s current residents, because whenever he was in town, he’d deal with any local wildlife problems. Even if no one had anything pressing, he always checked Shinra Manor, since the ruins attracted a lot of monsters, and if they started establishing nests, they could pose a real threat to the townsfolk. 

He spent the rest of the day chopping and stacking firewood, fishing using a thundaga materia and a net (which was technically cheating, but he was fishing for food, not sport), and scouting around for signs of dens, near the town. When the sun got low, he strapped on his sword and began the short, two-mile hike to Shinra Manor.

When he emerged from the woods, on the bumpy, neglected dirt road, it was already dark. The hulking ruin of the house loomed like the desiccated corpse of some titanic beast, off in the darkness, behind the bent and rusted iron fence. Cloud kicked the creaking gates open and strode in.

The property was overgrown with brambles and sedge grass, and ugly, grey vines, with huge thorns covered much of the half-collapsed structure. The front doors had long fallen off the hinges, so the entrance was just a yawning, black hole, like the mouth of a tomb. 

Cloud faltered and clutched his chest, as he approached the house, but not for any fear of the supernatural. He’d killed too many supernatural creatures to care about even the biggest and vilest ones. Besides, he knew firsthand that the scariest thing in Shinra Manor had been a living human being, named Hojo. 

It was just that the pain in the area of his heart had gotten steadily worse, on the walk here, and now it was throbbing insistently, aching so badly it was getting hard to ignore it.

What the hell could it be? He’d chopped wood and done other physical labor all day, without noticing it. Why was it getting worse, now, after a relatively light walk? 

He was thinking about this, in mild annoyance, when he heard a noise inside the house. In the blink of an eye, his sword flashed out and he shifted into combat mode, all senses on alert. 

As he stepped inside, the stench of dry-rot hit him in the face, like a wool blanket. He paused and surveyed the area. It was pretty dark, in here, but he had excellent night-vision, so it was more like dim twilight, to him. 

The noise was coming from the upper level, somewhere. A rasping sound, like dry corn husks scraping the walls. Every once in a while, there was a burst of creepy cackling. His lip curled. He knew exactly what that was. 

The main stairwell had collapsed, so he leapt lightly up to the landing on the next level, and stalked down the hall. Around the corner, the doors to all the rooms (which were miraculously intact), were closed tight. The scraping sound was coming from…pretty much all of them. How did those things manage to get into the rooms and shut the doors behind them?

“Dumbshits,” he grumbled, and kicked the first door open. 

Sure enough, a bunch of floating fiends, with markings like stupid jack-o-lantern faces on their balloon-like air-sacs, were bobbing around the room cackling at each other. When the door exploded inward, they shrieked and rushed at Cloud. With a casual swing of his sword, he obliterated all of them at once. 

Their dying howls riled up the ones in the other rooms. Apparently they couldn’t figure out how to get out, though, so they just rasped and thudded around, cackling like idiots. Cloud kicked the next door down and blasted those ones, too. 

He repeated this process, for each room, making his way down the hall, till he reached the room with the secret passage, to the basement levels. There was no noise from this one. He tried the knob. It clicked easily, and the door swung open, with a hollow creak. 

No fiends in here, but the passage to the basement was open. He’d better go down there and clear out anything else, that might be lurking. Monsters loved dark, dank places like that.

Slapping his sword back onto the magnetic holder, he hopped down the black hole, and landed on a stone floor, three full stories below. 

The impact of his boots was still echoing in the stone-walled chamber, when he heard it. A low, eerie moan, that seemed to come from somewhere far off. At the same time, that pain split through his chest like a crack of thunder, making him grab his heart and gasp for breath. 

The moan stretched out into a wail, rising in pitch and wavering, before it dwindled again. The sound sent chills racing up his spine. Things like ghosts and monsters held no terror for him, but this was different. He wouldn’t even call it fear. It was more like…a rush of numinous awe.  

He threw a firaga burst, to light a couple of the torches on the wall, and surveyed the crypt. Vincent’s coffin was gone. The others had been tossed about and smashed to bits. Bones littered the floor.

Step by step, he descended deeper into the basement. Toward that old library. Toward that horrible place, where he was stuck with needles and probes, cut open and sewn back together, had his eyes blinded with chemicals and his lungs filled with burning mako, till his throat was too scorched and raw, to even beg for death.

His stomach churned and cold sweat was beading on his forehead, but he kept going, compelled by that ghastly moaning and the splitting pain in his chest.

He passed through the library, still scattered all over with heaps of old books, smelling heavily of their musty scent. The door was open, on the other side. The moaning had turned into a low whimpering, punctuated with choking sobs. It didn’t sound like a woman’s voice, though.

Drawing his sword again, and clenching his teeth against the agonizing ache in his heart, he stepped into the next chamber, all his hyper-tuned senses on high alert. There were collapsed pillars and scorch marks, and slashes made by huge claws in the stone walls, from their fight with Vincent, in his beast form. 

Along the far wall, were several heavy, steel doors, with locking bars on the outside. The one the noise was coming from was ajar. It wasn’t the lab he’d been confined in. It was on the opposite end of the long chamber—the one with those strange vats, labeled Project-S, which Vincent had taken umbrage to them entering, back then. 

Cloud pushed the door the rest of the way open and scanned the room. In the inky, underground darkness, even his night-vision was pushed to the limits, and he could only see very dimly, but it was enough to spot the source of the noise. 

It was a naked, ash-white, human figure, curled up in the corner of the room, trembling and whimpering. Its pallid body seemed insubstantial, almost transparent at the edges, like it was fading out of reality. That was probably just an illusion, brought on by the heavy darkness.

He used a materia to summon a little ball of light, and as the white glow filled the room, the figure gave a hoarse cry and curled up tighter.

Cloud squinted at it. This must be the ghost, people claimed was haunting the place, but why would they say it was a woman? Its back was to him and its head was down, wrapped up protectively in its arms, but he could see that it was a man, from the broadness and muscularity of the shoulders.

“N—no, please,” the ghost stammered, in a weak half-whisper. “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll be good. I won’t…I won’t ask about her anymore, I promise. Please.”

“Hey. What’s wrong with you?” Cloud said. 

His own voice startled him, sounding solid and very loud, compared to the feeble murmurs of the ghost, which were muted and distorted, as if Cloud was hearing them through water.

“No, g—go away! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” the thing wailed, as Cloud stepped closer. 

“Will you shut up and listen to me?” Cloud said, keeping the sword trained on the huddled figure. 

The ghost’s piteous pleas cut off abruptly, but it kept trembling and cowering. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Cloud soothed. “Calm down, ok? What are you doing here? Did you get lost?”

Hesitantly, the figure lifted its head. 

Cloud’s heart stopped.

Time seemed to stop.

Long, silver hair hung over the ghastly-white face, and cascaded to the floor, pooling around its bare feet, like water. From between the moon-colored strands, pale-blue eyes peered up at him, with slit, catlike pupils. 

“Who…who are you?”

[thesovereignsring-if]

I love drama so how would the RO’s react if during tea time with MC, the MC was poisoned. Who’s calm and rational and who’s like vengeful I guess?

Finny: He’d panic first, then do something stupid like taste the tea himself to make sure it was really poisoned. (And he’d survive somehow out of the power of himbo) V●ᴥ●V Afterwards he be super paranoid at anything resembling tea. He’s never let his lover get hurt like that again!

Thea: She’d get super paranoid, but very methodical at handling the situation. She’s quickly isolate the MC and take the tea with her and quickly study as much as she can to find the antidote. Her biggest concern would be saving the MC’s life and then finding the culprit. She’s doesn’t panic because she’s used to this kind of thing. She wouldn’t let anyone near the MC even Sieghardt or Alberich.

Linnet: Girl is on top of her game. Linnet would secure the area. Lock it down and get first responders and a doctor on the scene. Afterwards she’ll handle the crime scene herself and interview persons of interest until she can hunt down the person responsible. Girl would be like a bloodhound tbh.

Medea and Helios: If they are concerned, they wouldn’t show it. Once they’re sure the MC is taken care of by the professionals, they’d simply disappear for a while. Would that be shady and suspicious? Yeah. Would people think they poisoned the MC themselves? Uh huh. But then they’ll come back and say the job is done. And that’s that. ┐('～`;)┌ afterwards Medea would coddle the MC while Helios would try to make a funny joke to make the MC feel better.

Eirik: He’ll be the one yelling at the top of his lung. Screaming for help and to find the god damn monster who did this. Then he’d go out of his way to make sure that asshole pays dearly for messing with the MC. He would be cruel, slow and deliberate in getting bad much information as possible to find who or what was responsible.