#and going through the weirdest shapes in between | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gremlingottoosilly · 1 year ago

Text

Lovefool [dark!Konig x fem!Reader]

Konig gets to secure a little trophy from the battlefield. Hope you're in for a ride.

!TW! Kidnapping, Yandere themes, Dub-con, dark!Konig

Tags: Yandere, Dark Romance, colonel!Konig, dark!Konig, Size kink, Age gap(Konig in his thirties and Reader is in her twenties), Stockholm syndrome speedrun, Konig is a huge pervert, submissive Reader

You never knew who he was before he attacked.

Your teammates did – whisperers about KorTac getting on their tails, stories about their crazy psycho commander who could barely pass a word to his subordinates while smacking heads off trained men in full armor. Spooky tails for the recruits who refuse to train in their free time – something about “If you aren’t getting in shape by the end of the month, König is going to get you”.

You never knew who he was – you barely knew the organization you worked in.

Cyber security, lowly private military. They are hiring based on CV alone and didn’t ask for a fancy college and a few degrees in hacking that you could never get. They wanted experience, and you had at least a bit of it – you passed through basic training, never serving in the military before, but fine with promises of never actually going out in the field since you would be giving them intel and cyber support from the sidelines.

Well, they never told you that “the sidelines” would be 100 meters away from the actual battlefield.

You don’t even remember what the mission was about – something important, you guess, because they asked you to be here, on sight, computer in hand, and your comrades, with whom you barely talked outside of work, alongside you. Something about weapon smuggling, though you never actually understood if you were stopping it or doing it. Working in the middle of the European Union pays a lot, and it sort of counts as free travel – you’re somewhere in Germany, maybe on the border with Poland or Austria or Czech Republic. Nothing but fields of grass and occasional mountains. They gave you a riffle, a sidearm, and instructions to try not to get too wounded since they wouldn’t be dragging your body out of the field. S[read sheet with intel opened on your computer – you’re not their secretary, but at least they don’t want you to hack the Pentagon.

You heard screams from your tent: “KorTac”, “Compromised”

“König”

What was the weirdest thing – he was alone. A single man shouldn’t be able to take on a team of trained mercs, even as lowly as your company was. You all had weapons, armor, and means of at least taking him down as a group – and you were like a bunch of babies with toy guns on the playground when a pitbull came in.

Your leader fell first – you saw his head explode with a perfect shot right between his eyes. no one screamed sniper, but you still ducked under the field table, hoping that it would save you a few minutes of peace before you’d manage to delete all of the important files from your laptop. This was the protocol – if you are in the middle of dying, you need to first make sure that the enemy won’t get a hold of precious company correspondence and deeply personal photos of your cat.

You leaned forward to see what was happening on the field – you heard screams, you heard gunshots, you heard…

Laugh.

Deep, loud, the laugh that sounded both malicious and cheerful at the same time. It sounded like the man had a field day of breaking necks and stabbing his teammates. You've never seen so much blood on someone. You wish you never had.

Your teammates are falling like porcelain dolls when the elephant hits the kitchen, and you are trying your best to be a good little hacker and not let your company down before your inevitable demise. Turning on your laptop, waiting for whatever ancient version of Windows you had since the budget was mostly going into flashy guns and cool night vision headsets, you are getting ready to format all the disks when….

“The Windows update is in the process. Please, wait approximately 9 hours to complete”

Oh, hell no. You are not going to wait another 9 hours, you could barely survive for the next 9 minutes! Of course, naturally, obviously, you can just turn off the computer and get it off work because the files will get fried up and it won’t turn on again, ever. Which would still complete your goals, so…

— Come on, please…f-fuck, please, just let me…

“As a method of complete data loss prevention, Windows has disabled the ability to manually turn off your computer. Please, wait approximately 9 hours to complete”

— Found you, Maus.

Something – a hand, big, covered in the type of protection you never saw on your fellow soldiers – yanked your ankle, dragging you from under the table you were hiding under. The air stinks of blood and you involuntarily whimper, hands are going to grab the laptop. You need to smash it, destroy it, maybe just drop it hard enough on the floor, push it against the wall, and try your best to kick it enough to damage the disk and prevent KorTac from accessing the files.

The guy steps on your hand, taking the laptop away. You swear to god you hear a crack – you prayed that he would accidentally smash the laptop, but it was your hand under his boot.

— Hurts? Good.

You whimper as he carefully puts the laptop away, checking if it’s still working. He then returns to you – laying on the floor, fingers still shaking in pain, and attempts to grasp for the computer that was snatched away. There is nothing you can do – you have a gun, yes, and he has at least three guns and deadly man-bear hands, so even if you were fast enough to draw a gun before he would, he can just kick you like a puppy.

König – it’s him, it must be him, your teammates were screaming his callsign and talking about a devil who wears a sniper hood and has the height of a not very small tree – kicks you in the ribs, turning you from the side to your back, facing him. If you were stronger, you would do something cool – bite his ankles, for example. Or spit in his face as the last remaining tip of your dignity, before he would kill you or torture you or feast on your flesh.

— Verdammte Feiglinge, can’t even face your death like a man. Look at me, ja?

Crying isn’t a shameful thing to do. So, you cry. Soft little whimpers, sniffles, you are probably looking wet and disgusting, but you hurt, scared, and fucking tired and you want out of here, and you never actually wanted to be a soldier, and they all lied to you while promising to keep you out of the field, and this uniform is horrible, and you feel your tears soaking the half of bandana you were using as a face mask and…

He snatches the mask from your face. Look you in the eyes for long enough to make your whimpers even more audible. You can swear to god that his pupils were dilated. That his hands were shaking. You could see his eyes getting scrunched in that particular way that their owner is smiling – sincerely, openly, from the bottom of his heart.

— Please…p-please, be fast, I don’t know anything, I will…I won’t, I…

Rough, calloused hand goes to cup your face. The material of his glove is tough and soaked in blood as he smears it on your cheek, your fingers are going to wipe away the tears – you don’t understand what’s happening and you are even more scared, and your mouth is twitching in a terrified grimace. He pushes the tip of his finger into your mouth, making you suck on the blood and dirt of the fabric. You think you are going to throw up.

— Quiet.

You don’t understand why he didn’t kill you yet. He is touching your face, slowly, his one hand is enough to cover your entire head and you’re sure that if he’d want to just squish your brain like a rotten cabbage, he could just fine. He pushes his finger even deeper in your mouth and you lick it involuntarily because this is an intrusion and you have the brain of a two-year-old who sees the world through their ability to devour things, and his pupils dilate even more. He looks at your frown, your tears, and your lips wrapped around his finger.

He yanks you on your feet embarrassingly easy.

— You’re a hacker?

You blink a few times. Now, the protocol is that no, you can’t state who you are, If he knows that you are a hacker, he can take you away for interrogation, maybe torture you for passwords and the intel on your company, and being tortured isn’t something on your monthly calendar. Now, the protocol also states that you have to be able to die for your company, and…

He grabs your neck, lifting you – surprisingly gently, softly even, a hand supports your waist so you won’t be able to either kick him or get choked to death because of his grip.

— Answer me, Maus. I might have a reason to let you live.

You do want to live. Maybe not long, definitely not until you’re 100 years old with dozens of grandchildren, but being able to live past the next few hours and then days and then weeks does sound incredible.

— Y…yes. I’m a cyber security specialist.

He squeezes your neck more. Pushes you up, making you cough in your grip. You never experienced anything like this before – never had a guy strong enough to handle you like this. It would look cool from the side, probably – like something from a videogame. It would look hot in the porn, probably, if it was consensual and happening between two passionate lovers.

But you are his enemy, and he is yours – cold blue eyes peering right into yours. He is looking at you like a piece of meat, and not even in the lustful, hungry way. He looks like a butcher in front of a very good beef cut, thinking about where should he sink his knife to get the best steaks. A hunter standing over the wounded deer, thinking if he wants your head above his fireplace or taxidermy your whole body as a wicked trophy.

— Didn’t know they’d allowed someone so fucking small in the field.

You can swear to god that you saw him smile, under this hood. You can’t see his face, obviously, only the blood-soaked fabric and his eyes, but something still tells you that he is smiling. Enjoying your attempts to escape, maybe – you tried to kick him a few times, producing a deep, amused chuckle from his lips. He holds you so easily like you are nothing but a sweet little kitten. You might not be as big as him, but he still shouldn’t be able to lift a grown woman in full gear with just one hand. Right?

— I’m not…not s-small.

You don’t have much fight left in you. You are on the verge of just asking him to kill you, to be honest, your neck hurts and the pain spreading from your fingers pulsates and transforms. You hope they are not broken – even though you understand that your chances to live past these few minutes are very slim. Even your usual snark is lost, forbidden in the hands of a giant who likes to play with his food.

You do feel like a mouse – in a way that you would die under his boot very soon.

He – König, monster, colonel, fucking deadly mercenary – chuckles again. You can get used to this sound. Melodic almost, in a way that most alarms are melodic while telling you about inevitable catastrophe.

— Kleine verfickte Maus. Ich wette, dass du auch ganz eng bist.

He is laughing, again. Laughing and chuckling and you can’t take it anymore because he is so obviously stronger than you, it’s not fair. You want to put your foot on the ground and tap it like a spoiled brat, like a baby on the playground whining for their mom to take them home because other kids don’t want to play by their rules. The difference in skill is so obvious, that you aren’t even able to put on some sort of fight.

— Wh…I don’t speak German.

Your other hand – the one that didn’t get squished under his boot – goes to scratch his arm. Maybe put up enough struggle that he would accidentally let you fall right from his grasp. He doesn’t react and you feel hopeless. Weak, useless, you remember all the times you decided to miss training so you could just chill in the lounge with other rookies or do something on your computer.

— You will, Maus.

Then, there is only darkness.

***

You woke up…somewhere.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t the first time you woke up. You remember opening your eyes, feeling the vibrations under your cheek, hearing the noises of a car or other vehicle moving fast. Too fast for your already spinning head and stomach – you don’t remember if you were coughing or vomiting, but the movement wasn’t stopping to ever let you breathe. You were being transported somewhere, without a chance of knowing where you were heading. At least now, when you get to the final, as you think at least, destination, you’re clean.

As much as someone tied up to a chair somewhere that reminds you of a basement can be.

You’re stripped of your weapons obviously – not like you had a chance to use them anyway. Your hands are tied behind your back, your legs are bound to a chair, and your tragic lack of clothes is…more evident than you wanted it to be. At least you still have your underwear on – it still didn’t make the situation better. He saw you naked, completely, and he might do god knows what with you now.

Although you have some feelings about what he can do with a weak enemy hacker, half-naked and tied up in a secure place.

You would panic, but it requires energy. A resource that you don’t have right now.

— You woke up. Gut. Started to think I went too much again.

His accent is weird, you think. The thought only occurs to you now, when you can hear him more clearly while not being that afraid of getting out of this alive. His voice is weirdly calm for someone of his size – you want to think of gentle giants but this man is far from gentle and is almost too big to even be called a giant. A colossus, you want to say.

— Again?

Your voice is raspy, both from your sleep and from lack of water. When was the last time you drank anything? Probably more than a few hours – your throat is dry as sandpaper, and your head is dizzy from both your trauma – he either strangled you to unconsciousness or beat you hard enough – and the dehydration. You don’t want to spend another minute in this basement – you think this is a basement, at least, the high humidity on the walls and some garbage tossed to the corner is fairly evident. It’s large, too – you never saw anything like this. It might be a KorTac prison, but the remains of a bike and a few shelves of canned foods tossed to the other side of the room tell otherwise.

— We’re allowed to take trophies home. Sometimes I get…impatient.

You’re in his house? Does a monster like him even need a house?

“A trophy”

Funny how you don’t even feel that dehumanized. He didn’t kill you, you don’t feel the evidence of violation on your body – you are clean, neat even, your stomach and private parts aren’t hurting, and, as much as you hate to say this while tied up to a chair, you are as comfortable as a person in your position can be.

— What are you going to do with me?

You shake like a leaf. He finally steps closer to you, coming from the ladder – you can hear the lock and a heavy door being closed, setting your hopes of escape. Not like you could, in your position – the bruises already forming on your legs and hands, a numbed pain in your head and fingers. You feel shitty and comfortable at the same time, trying to tune off the discomfort and just concentrate on talking to him.

He didn’t kill you – this is good, you can work with this.

He left you alive – this is bad, he is going to torture you, he is going to do a million terrible things with you and you are not a part of a regular army, You didn’t get the torture resistance training. Maybe, if it was some of your friends, other girls in the group who got through military school and never missed gym to sit on their computers, they would have survived. You never felt so weak before – not even on the battlefield.

God, you’re scared.

— Your computer. My employer needs the info you had on it.

Oh.

It’s not personal, at least. He is here for the information, not to take advantage of your weak, fragile body. It made you almost feel at peace, almost made you forget about your lack of clothing and the damp basement you’re being put in.

— What sort of info do you need?

You slowly start to wiggle your hands in your binds – he used plastic locks, those stupid unremovable things that are slowly cutting the soft flesh of your wrists. You can’t untie them, but you can try at least tear them on the metal of your chair. You can try to, just to say that you did, and not feel bad about not resisting him at all.

— Your last mission. You were trying to smuggle weapons into the EU border.

— We were trying to stop the smuggling of weapons.

At least, you think you were – your head hurts, your memories are dizzy, and they never actually told you what kind of job you had. Come to think of it, actually, you never asked whether you were the good guys or the bad guys – it was always about money, paychecks, getting your job done and not dying from lack of nutrition because most tech-jokey jobs are already filled with uninspired chatbots and graduates from fancy colleges with a dick between their legs. Not reserved for tired women like you – so you turn to, ironically, paramilitary organizations. How the tables have turned.

— That’s not what our intel says, Maus. Do you want to lie to me?

You don’t. You just don’t know if you are telling the truth or lying because you are too fucking tired to even think straight.

He comes closer, and you whimper involuntarily. His breath hitches.

— Scheisse…they knew who to hire.

He grabs you by the neck again, and you can finally see him fully – towering over you, cold blue eyes staring right into you. You sob, not able to handle your emotions because, oh god, he is going to rape you, torture you, and then put a giant burning stick right in your ass because everyone knows that this is the best way to hack a computer – you just need to find the person who put the password in the first place.

— Can’t you just hack the computer yourself?

He chuckles – you’re getting tired of that sound. You hate that you found his voice attractive, you hate the fact he is keeping you down here. You want to destroy that part of your body that likes the attention – how his eyes are only kept on you. Never had a guy kidnapping you before, and you fight the feeling of disappointment that strikes you when you remember that he is here because he needs the intel. Not because he wants you.

— It wasn’t a…conventional operation. Can’t waste manpower on breaking the walls you installed.

His hand goes to cup your face again – you frown, breathing stops because he is so close and he takes off his gloves, allowing his rough, calloused fingers to linger on your cheeks. He squeezes your face in an almost adorable manner and steps back again. You lick your dry lips again, trying hard to keep at least one part of your body moisturized, and his breath hitches again.

He goes behind you, ruffles through shelves – you can hear something falling, his awkward grunt as he had to pick it up. He is more clumsy than you though – more nervous also, hands are jittering and fingers twitching every time you look at him. Adorable, really, how this huge mess of a man can look so innocent and almost nervous in front of you.

König returns after a minute or two, holding…a water bottle. Closed, lid still on, little plastic wrapping in place. You have half a mind about just drinking it, even though he doesn’t offer it to you. Not like you could open it yourself, with how your hands are still tied up behind your back.

— You don’t speak German.

It’s not a question – it’s a statement. you watch him opening the bottle with ease, large hands are working on something so fragile and delicate. You can’t remember the last time you had sex, not with how fast your head is spinning and memories still foggy, but you think it was a long time ago – because you feel your cheeks heated from the simple actions of his large fingers ripping through soft plastic.

God, you don’t really remember what was happening before you got here, not in detail, but you know that you needed to get laid like, a year ago.

— No.

— You will.

— Wh…what do you mean?

Is he going to make you install Duolingo? Is this what it all was about? Some elaborate prank, a marketing campaign, a tough lesson for silly girls who think that knowing just your native language is enough to live your life and…

— When you want something, Maus, you have to say “bitte”.

If you were a strong and cool soldier, you would use this moment to jump from your chair, using the weight of your body to fall on him and make him lose balance, and then spit in his face as your last remaining blast of human dignity.

But you aren’t a cool and strong soldier, and you really need to drink.

— B…bitte. What does this mean?

— Please.

He is almost whispering, the water bottle tanging in his hands in front of you. You take your time, considering the possibilities – you can play like a good little prisoner and allow him to take your pride and just toss it aside. You can play like an obedient hostage and ask him nicely, hoping that it would be enough.

You don’t know what to do – appearing too shy and soft can give him…ideas. And you don’t want this crazed giant who is keeping you bound in his basement to get ideas. You can…you probably can spend more time without water. Or food. Or shower and change of position.

You take your time answering, and his demeanor seems almost…anxious. His eyes are darting between the water bottle and your face, between his hands and your body – like he can barely keep a calm facade and not force you into doing something nasty. Like he is almost afraid that you are not going to cooperate and he would really have to hurt you in a meaningful way.

— Can I have water, bitte?

— Gutes Kätzchen. Drink, you’ll need it.

In the end, you broke down first. Not because you are this weak, but because being a brat won’t save you in a situation like this. You don’t want to die over something as trivial as your pride.

König seems…at ease. He takes off the bottle cap and brings water to your lips, allowing you to drink as much as you want. You lick the remaining drops from your lips and he puts a half-empty bottle aside.

— I won’t tell you the password.

You mumble under your breath, barely audible. He chuckles.

— I count on it, liebe.

#call of duty #cod x reader #cod x you #konig mw2 #cod #konig x reader #reader insert #yandere cod #yandere konig #yandere x reader #yandere male #yandere #yandere imagines

1K notes · View notes

ladelinee · 6 months ago

Text

As promised, 50s Elvis was the winning choice in the survey for my next fic. So here it is! I hope you enjoy 💕

♡ Summary: Red is introducing his friend Elvis to the group. You're not in the mood for it, so Elvis starts teasing and irritating you. 50elvis!xreader; Fluff.

♡ Word count: 4K

Saturday night

As you reached for your favourite cherry red lipstick, you found yourself looking in the mirror. With a final dusting of powder to complete the look, you smiled at your reflection, pleased with how you looked.

You heard your favorite song, "All I Have To Do Is Dream", playing on the radio. Your friend, Betty, started singing along and fixing her soft blonde hair in the mirror next to you.

Saturday night was always your favorite night of the week. It was the time you would meet up with your group of friends. Before going out, hours would be spent in your room with the girls, getting ready and planning what to wear or do to look great and impress the boys.

"Are we running late?" You asked, still trying to decide between the yellow dress and the pink one.

"Don't worry" Betty replied, applying blush on her cheeks as she spoke. "We won't be late. Red is always the last to arrive, so we have plenty of time."

“By the way, guess what?” Nancy, the group rebel, chimed in as she looked through the row of perfumes on your dresser. “He’s bringing a new friend with him tonight.”

"Oh, great. Can’t wait." You rolled your eyes and forced a sarcastic smile.

Dealing with a new person was the last thing you needed tonight. Having to censor yourself and deal with some idiot ruining the mood was not something you were looking forward to.

“Oh, come on,” Nancy teased. “Don’t be such a downer. Maybe this new guy will actually be cool.”

You rolled your eyes again, scepticism all over your face. “Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be just as amazing as the last five.”

The diner on the main street was the perfect spot to kick off the night. Pretty much everyone from high school ended up there at some point, grabbing a bite to eat and exchanging the latest town gossip.

As you, Betty, and Nancy got in, your friends, who had already settled in at your usual booth, began clicking their tongues in a playful way, letting you know that you had kept them waiting.

You huffed in response.

"Awesome! We just need Red now. Once he shows up, we can order" Nick exclaimed chuckling, he was the most impatient one in our group. You could even hear his tummy rumbling from your position.

“Oh yeah, he's coming with this new guy. He is in a different class. I have never seen him, but I’m quite excited to have another pal to play football” Arthur, his best friend, added.

As the conversation dragged on, their voices all blended into background noise. You totally lost interest in what they were saying about him. You rolled your eyes, and let out a sigh, thinking to yourself, "Fantastic, the night is starting out real great”

Then the conversation went from gossip about who hooked up at the drive-in to that crazy incident where someone puked in the school's equipment storage. Then, the diner doors swung open, and everyone turned to see who was coming in.

You all watched as Red strolled in like he owned the place, swinging the doors open like some cowboy in a movie. Couldn’t miss that shaggy hair of his, he threw a look back at his buddy as they came in.

You became curious about how his friend looked. Behind Red, you could spot a guy of the same height as him, maybe a little bit taller, looking down while rearranging his slicked-back black hair. Did he have sideburns? The weirdest thing you had ever seen.

Then he glanced around, noticing everyone checking them out. That's when you got the full picture of him. He had on a black lace shirt and beige trousers, he was not exactly built like a tank but definitely in good shape. His face was friendly, with blue eyes, a straight nose leading to plush lips, and a perfect smile.

You watched as both guys walked towards your table. Your heart thumped loudly in your chest. It was obvious that he was the popular type, the kind who gets whatever he wants without a care in the world. You thought to yourself, "Are you kidding me? I can't be friends with a self-centred jerk like him. He's nothing but trouble."

Red greeted everyone and then turned to the new guy, introducing him. "Hey, guys, meet my buddy Elvis" pointing at him.

Elvis jumps in with a friendly smile, "Hi, nice to meet y'all."

Betty and Nancy were totally swooning, practically drooling over him. Pathetic.

You made a conscious decision to keep your mouth shut and avoid sharing any personal information. You knew from experience that people like him would take any juicy tidbit and use it to taunt and bully. Not this time. You'd remain poker-faced, giving him no ammunition to use against you.

Red glanced at your face, noticing your expression of indifference and annoyance. He chuckled slightly and told Elvis, "This is y/n. Don't mind her, she's just having a bad day."

Red gave you a quick knowing look, silently asking, "What's going on? You okay?"

“Well finally we are all together, now we can get some food!” Nick said interrupting. Then the whole group went to the queue to order, leaving you and Elvis alone.

Elvis flashed a friendly smile and took a seat beside you. Sensing your silence and avoiding eye contact, he asked casually “Just not in a real talkative mood tonight?”

“Just tired” You replied. Well, it wasn’t a lie. Just tired…of all the nonsense.

His smile faded slightly at your tone, but he pushed through, even though he could tell you were not being straight with him. “...uh huh...well, then what’s makin’ ya so shy?”

“Not shy! I just don’t want to talk” You insisted, your voice giving away your nerves.

He raised an eyebrow at your defensiveness but kept grinning, staying chill. “Oh yeah? Then why’d you let me sit here?”

You blushed, but then you glanced around, making him realize he had you cornered in the booth. With a hint of resignation, you shrugged and said, “Well, I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I?”

Elvis chuckled softly at your stubbornness. “‘Didn’t have a choice’, huh? Oh, darlin’…” He shook his head, clearly amused by your banter. Leaning back on the seat, he casually dropped his arm across the backrest, as if inviting you to relax. He smirked, seeing right through your tough act.

You sighed, resting your elbows on the table, your hands covering your face. Slightly uncomfortable under his gaze, you muttered, "Stop staring at me. I can feel it."

He grinned widely as he kept staring at you, tilting his head and licking his lips. His eyes slowly travelled down your body and then back up to your face. “Sorry darlin’, but you’re sitting right in my line of vision.”

"Fine then, I'll switch seats," you muttered.

You moved to the other side of the booth and crossed your arms, determined not to look at him. However, whenever you did glance his way, his smile and the dimple on his cheek caught your eye.

Your focus on his smile was interrupted when your friends returned to the table with the food, bringing your long-awaited vanilla milkshake.

"You know, baby... that ain't gonna change much. I still got a perfect view of ya." Elvis replied, he winked and smirked at you once more as he grabbed his burger.

The girls exchanged glances and started chatting and laughing to lighten the mood, discussing weekend plans and some random gossip.

You seemed to paying more attention to them than you are to Elvis, so he is left with only one goal in mind: get your attention. With a playful sparkle in his eye, he grabbed a chip and tossed it at you.

He peeked at you and saw you were still trying to ignore him, so he sighed and got an idea. He took a huge bite of his burger and chewed loudly, making all crazy eating sounds. He grinned when he saw your eyes narrow in annoyance.

“Oh, could you just stop?” You asked, rolling your eyes. The girls were watching the whole situation with wide eyes and trying to hold back their laughter, but it was getting harder by the second. They’ve never seen you so riled up before.

As Elvis munched on his burger like a wild beast, Betty couldn't help but chime in,“Lord, Elvis, could you chew any louder? I don’t think the folks in China heard you.” She teased, trying not to laugh.

He grinned wider, with a playful glint in his eyes “Stop what, darlin’? Can’t a guy enjoy his burger in peace?” He asked innocently, clearly enjoying your reaction to him.

Red chuckled and patted Elvis on the back “Yeah, buddy, you’re really making an entrance today.” He joked, knowing Elvis was annoying you on purpose.

Elvis grinned innocently and swallowed part of his burger with a satisfied sigh. He then grabbed his coke and slowly started sipping through the straw, still watching you waiting for some sort of reaction. The group, including Red, started shaking his head at Elvis’ acts.

Nancy attempted to redirect the conversation. "Elvis, tell us more about yourself!" she asked.

You tried your best to tune out Elvis and ignore the conversation that centered around him, but the group's interest kept drawing your attention back to him.

He glanced at Nancy and grinned, clearly loving the attention. Leaning back, he crossed his arm over his chest while sipping his coke. "Well, what do you ladies wanna know?" He glanced over at you, catching your reaction to Nancy's question.

Nancy looked at the others, then back to Elvis “Just, like, what are you into? Do you have a girlfriend? How old are you?” She asked with a playful tone, giggling with Betty.

Elvis chuckled at her question and looked over at you before replying to Nancy “I’m into a lot of things, music mostly. No, no girlfriend at the moment, not sure what kinda girl could keep up with me.” He answers, his lip curved into a smile knowing you were listening.

"No one, to be honest" You snapped back rudely at his answer.

Elvis raised an eyebrow and grinned, amused by your rudeness “No one, huh? Think I’d be too much for anyone to handle, darlin’?”

The girls smiled, enjoying the banter between you and Elvis. Betty pipes up, giggling “Well, it’s not like anyone’s been able to handle her so far, Elvis.”

Elvis couldn't help but chuckle as he glanced over at you, picking up on your growing grumpiness. "That's true, isn't it, baby?"

You shoot Betty a deadly look. "What the fuck are you doing, Betty?" you thought to yourself. This is exactly why you didn't want to open up about personal stuff. You just knew he was going to make fun of you now. As if it was not already bad enough that you haven't been kissed at this age.

“Yeah! She has never been kissed before, Elvis!” Betty stated amused talking as if she had known him for ages. She didn’t have the right to say that.

Elvis’ eyes widen slightly at her comment, surprised. He looked over at you, taking in your annoyed expression and biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“No way, honey. Really?” He asked, faking disbelief.

Red laughed from the other side of the table, finding amusing to see the interaction. "Yeah, can you believe it?" he said, knowing that Elvis was really enjoying this information.

Elvis paused for a moment, a sly smirk playing on his lips as he looked at you. "No wonder you're the way you are, darlin'. All pent-up frustration, huh?"He teased, knowing it would get a rise out of you.

You couldn't believe what you were hearing. The thing you'd been trying so hard to avoid had actually happened, and it was all thanks to Betty. You were so mad that you just blurted out, "Can you just shut up?" You could feel your face getting all red from being so frustrated.

Elvis jokingly pretended to zip his lips and leaned in to listen to the lively conversation, but his eyes kept looking at you. When he saw that your milkshake was almost gone, he mischievously shifted closer and checked if anyone was watching. Since everyone was busy talking, he sneakily grabbed your milkshake, took a big sip, and grinned at you.

He winked as he swallowed a mouthful of your milkshake, then smacked his lips together and looked at your shocked face “Hmm, tastes good” He teased, enjoying every second of this.

“What in the hell are you doing???” You asked, getting on your nerves.

Elvis took another sip of your milkshake, making an exaggerated noise of pleasure as he swallowed. He then sets the glass down and he leaned closer to you, his knee brushing up against yours. “Ya mad at me now, baby?” He asked in a low devilish voice.

"What's your deal?" you barked, feeling totally embarrassed in front of everyone by that jerk.

“What ya gonna do, honey? Be mad at me? Well, ya already are” He teased, laughing at your obvious irritation.

Red laughed along with Elvis “Looks like someone's not happy at all” he commented.

Elvis looked at Red and leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms “Can't blame me, though. S'not my fault she's such an easy target” He shot a wink at you, enjoying riling you up.

Red chuckled and nudged Elvis' shoulder

"You flirtin' with her or what?" He asked with a smirk.

Elvis cracked up and shook his head "Nah, nothing like that. I'm just havin' a little fun, seeing how much I can piss her off" He looked over at you, noticing your grumpy expression "But seriously, darlin’. You gotta lighten up a bit. You're gonna spoil the night for everyone else."

You didn't know what to say after he spoke, so you just looked down at the floor, trying to figure out what he meant. It seemed like he was intentionally trying to bother you, with no other intentions, and you couldn't shake the feeling that your friends were annoyed with you because you were in a bad mood. As everyone else continued chatting without realizing the tension between you and Elvis, you felt more and more like no one understood you.

Out of nowhere, you stood up from your seat, and rushed towards the diner exit, tears rolling down your face. It felt like all of your emotions came rushing out at once, and you couldn't hold them back any longer. It seemed like everyone was really into Elvis and his charming personality, and it seemed like they preferred him over you.

Elvis and the others watched in surprise as you suddenly ran off.

"Whoa whoa whoa, where's she goin'?" Nick asked, stunned

Elvis pushed the table away to get up, went to the window to see where you went, and said, "I, uh...... I'll go talk to her," Without waiting for a reply, he quickly left the diner and started looking around for you.

Elvis hurried to catch up to you, determined to reach you. He finally saw you walking away, looking really upset, and felt even guiltier with every step.

"Wait up!" he called out, struggling to keep up with your fast pace. When he finally caught up and started walking beside you, he said, “Damn, you're fast, baby" trying to catch his breath. He stared at you, seeing the tears rolling down your face, and asked "Hey... where ya goin’ all angry and upset?"

"Leave me alone!" You managed to cry out, your voice shaking and tears streaming down your face. You couldn't stop the hysterical sobs that wracked your body, making it hard to speak through your hiccups.

Elvis felt bad seeing the anger and tears in your eyes. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling guilty for making you feel this way.

"Nah, can't do that, sweetheart. I gotta talk to ya," he says firmly, walking beside you at your pace.

Elvis stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking down at the ground as he walked. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking up.

“M’sorry, I shouldn't have pushed so much at the diner. I went too far." He looked up at you, his eyes sincere. He took a deep breath and continued, "I was just trying to have some fun, you know, trying to get a reaction out of you. It wasn't right. I didn't mean it. Can ya forgive me?"

Elvis looked at you, seeing the tears still streaming down your face. You couldn't bring yourself to speak.

“Hey, hey, please don't cry anymore. I'm really sorry, darlin’. You didn't deserve that”

He paused for a moment,

“But you're great, ya know? Feisty, stubborn, and damn pretty too” He added.

He looked concerned as he reached into his pocket and took out a tissue. Slowly, he wiped away your tears while gazing into your eyes. "I’ll buy you the whole damn diner, darlin’. Any milkshake flavour, as many as you want. Anything to see you smile”

You and Elvis made eye contact, and you could see regret in his eyes. He took a step back, giving you some room to breathe. Despite any assumptions you had about him, there he was, trying to help you through this tough time. You felt a little relieved, even if you didn't want to admit it. And you had to admit, the way the light was hitting his face was pretty captivating.

He noticed your silent sigh, and a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth

"Ya won't speak to me? No insults, no smart comeback? Am I that irresistible up close?" He teases, trying to lighten the mood

“Idiot…” you muttered, chuckling.

Elvis smiled widely, feeling a sense of relief to hear you chuckle. He tucks the tissue back into his pocket, still standing close to you.

"Ah, there it is. There's that feisty attitude I know" He teased, his eyes glimmering with mischief

You laughed at his response. “Well, the thing is, I didn’t expect anyone else to come with the group. And I had some personal stuff I didn’t want to share, like the fact that I haven’t been kissed… because I don’t want to hear some stranger making jokes and comments about it. I thought you might be that kind of jerk…” you said.

Elvis's expression softened as you mentioned your situation. He nodded and leaned against a nearby wall, stuffing his hands into his pockets again.

"I get it, darlin’. Sometimes ya just wanna keep things to yourself, especially when ya don't know the people you're with. I ain't tryin' to poke fun at yer troubles"

He looked at you again, his eyes holding a hint of vulnerability “So I hope ya don’t think too badly of me after this, darlin’”

Elvis took a deep breath and looked at you. He stepped closer, and before you knew it, he pulled you into a hug. You were a bit surprised at first, but as he pulled you close, you noticed the faint scent of his hair gel and the clean, woodsy scent of his cologne. He held you tightly, one hand resting on your waist while the other gently patted your back.

He whispered into your ear "M’really sorry, darlin’. For everything." As he hugged you tighter, he kept talking, "I've been focused on you the whole night, and I guess I let my dumb teasing get out of control." He paused, his face buried in the crook of your neck, and you could feel his warm breath against your skin, causing a slight shiver to run down your spine.

Your heart was racing. No one had ever given you such a warm hug. Feeling remorse, you said, "I'm sorry I didn't make you feel welcome either."

Elvis let out a soft chuckle against your neck, his chest vibrating with the sound. He kept his arms wrapped around you, not ready to let go just yet. "I deserved that. I was acting like a real sonofabitch" he said as he pulled back slightly to look you in the eyes.

"But I'm glad we're good now, baby. That's all I care about," he said with a tender smile, pinching your cheek.

He looked down at your face and saw the hint of a blush on your cheeks. His grin grew wider, and he couldn't resist teasing you a little more. "What's this? Is the tough girl feeling a bit flustered?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You wish!!!” You let out, trying to hide your embarrassment.

Elvis laughed at your fast denial and crossed his arms "Aw, come on. You’re terrible at hiding it, darlin’."

He took a step closer, a smirk on his lips "I can practically hear your heart racing" he growled.

Elvis locked his piercing blue eyes onto your lips, drawing closer until his chest almost touched yours. Your heart quickened as you felt his nearness, his gaze fixed on your lips, inching closer to your face.

You closed your eyes, heart racing, waiting for a kiss. Your first kiss. Seconds ticked by, but nothing happened. Elvis didn't close the gap between you both. Instead, he just grinned wider, teasing you with that mischievous smile, inches away from your face, clearly enjoying your anticipation.

He left you staying like that for a second, then spoke, his voice low and amused “I knew it. You were hoping for a kiss, weren’t ya?”

"OH MY GOD, I JUST HATE YOU SO MUCH!!" Your cheeks flushed a deep shade of red, betraying your inner agitation.

Elvis bursted out laughing, bending over and clutching his stomach. Your annoyed look and outburst just made him laugh even harder.

"Oh, I love it when you get all riled up like that!" He managed to say between laughs.

You kept stomping away from Elvis, totally ticked off about what went down.

Elvis quickly got himself together, his laughter fading into a wide grin as he noticed your embarrassed expression. He hurried after you, catching up in just a few strides.

"Oh, don’t be mad now, darlin’. I was just having a bit of fun. Can't blame me for wanting to see your cute, flustered face"

As you kept walking, still grumbling about how much you ‘hate him’, Elvis walked beside you, his smile never leaving his lips. He listened to your muttered complaints, and suddenly his eyes sparkled with mischief.

Out of nowhere, he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you close to him. Before you had a chance to protest, he pressed his lips against yours in a swift, unexpected kiss.

The unexpected kiss left you speechless, your frustrated words stuck in your throat. Elvis enjoyed the sensation of your lips on his for a moment, then pulled back slightly to gaze into your eyes.

"You were saying something about hating me, baby?" He smirked, his voice filled with a smug satisfaction.

Your heart was racing, partly from surprise and partly from the lingering feeling of his kiss, but you attempted to stay composed. You shot him a glare, though there's no real anger in your eyes—just a touch of confusion.

Finally, you found your voice “You…..you idiot. Why’d you go and do that?”

Elvis chuckled, his hand still at your waist, holding you steady “Couldn’t help myself, darlin’. You looked too cute when you were all mad at me. I had to do something to shut you up”

He smiled, pulling you closer to him “Besides, you clearly enjoyed it” He teased, winking at you.

Your cheeks kept blushing, you didn't want to admit that you loved it. So, you gave him a little slap on his arm.

Elvis playfully gasped and rubbed his arm where you smacked him, still grinning. “Ouch! Feisty as always, baby” he teased, chuckling as he guided you back towards the diner.

“Alright, I guess I had that coming. But now, here’s the tough part. Chocolate, peanut butter, vanilla, or strawberry milkshake?” Elvis asked, raising his eyebrows up and down. God, he was really set on treating you to the whole diner, just like he promised.

“What about peanut butter?” You chuckled, feeling butterflies in your stomach watching Elvis holding your hand.

“Atta girl, you sure have a good taste, baby.”

🍨

107 notes · View notes

sandersontheside · 3 months ago

Text

Happy October 1st! Have some fun Halloween themed HCs!

Haunted House/Maze:

Virgil loves haunted houses because it's scary in a controlled way and he ultimately knows he's safe. But he won't go alone. So, he drags Roman with him. Roman talks a big game about protecting Virgil, but ends up mostly clinging to Virgil the whole time and scraming his high pitched girl scream.

Janus, Remus, and Logan also appreciate a haunted house. Janus likes to roleplay with the actors. Remus has been kicked out at least once before for accidentally punching an actor on reflex.

Patton does NOT like haunted houses and will wait in line at the snack shack to buy everyone hot cider and donuts to enjoy when they're done.

Roman is a big fan of "getting lost" in the maze to make out (Virgil is also partial to this, though he definitely prefers the haunted house).

Logan appreciate the puzzle, which is good because Patton has no sense of direction and would be utterly lost without Logan.

Remus cuts right through the corn and jumps out at people. Janus is the only one he is never able to scare, no matter how hard he tries.

Pumpkin Patch/Pumpkin Carving:

Roman and Remus get really into pumpkin carving every year, the more intricate and over the top, the better. It's also sort of a competition with them. Virgil also gets into this, but he's less intense about it.

Patton collects the pumpkin seeds from aforementioned carving and roasts them! He's also the one who suggests sprinkling cinnamon in the carved pumpkins, so they smell like pumpkin pie when you light a candle in them.

Logan likes to design pumpkins, but hates the actual carving (the pumpkin guts are too gooey and it's a sensory nightmare) so he makes a template and then has Patton do it for him.

Janus doesn't carve a pumpkin (he doesn't want to take his gloves off), so he becomes the impartial judge of the impromptu pumpkin competition. Roman insists this is unfair, because he's "biased towards Remus" but he's vetoed.

Remus selects the ugliest, knobbiest, weirdest looking pumpkins to carve because "they'll be scarier that way" and "they have more character" while Roman selects the smoothest, most perfectly shaped pumpkins to carve because he likes a nice, clean canvas, and "it's just so SHAPED" and pleasing to the eye.

In addition to carving pumpkins, sometimes Patton will select a small, sweet pumpkin to roast and puree to make pumpkin pie. He insists that roasting the pumpkin yourself is vastly superior to the canned stuff (he's right).

Costumes:

Logan is big on obscure nerd costumes that no one else understands until he explains it. He's out here dressing up like famous scientists and stuff like that. Sometimes he lets Patton talk him into something more recognizable though.

Virgil always always makes his costumes himself. We're talking sewing, hot glue, making props, etc. He starts planning in the summer to make sure he has enough time. And he always goes for something scary.

Janus also plans early, but he's not afraid to buy things. Usually his costumes come from scouring thrift stores. No one can spot a treasure at the Goodwill like Janus.

Roman and Remus will pick costumes that either go together or completely clash, and there's no in between. One year, they'll be Peter Pan (Remus) and Captain Hook (Roman), the next year Roman is Superman/Clark Kent and Remus is in one of those inflatable dinosaur costumes.

Patton always has grandiose ideas for costumes, and then waits to the last minute and throws something together. Usually he goes for cute rather than scary.

Various Other Stuff:

Virgil will die before he admits this, but he fucking LOVES pumpkin spice. He claims he likes his coffee "black like my soul" but in secret he might love a PSL even more than Patton.

Roman and Remus take candy trades very, very seriously as kids. If either of them ends up with more of one thing it will result in all out war between them.

Patton and Virgil go absolutely balls-to-the-wall when it comes to decorations. Spirit Halloween exploded all over everything. Logan wisely doesn't ask how much it cost.

Janus answers "trick-or-treat" with "trick" every time and sets up friendly spooky Halloween pranks for his friends. Nothing too bad, and he usually has a treat for them afterwards, too.

Roman hosts Halloween movie marathons. The campier the better. Your Halloweentowns and your Hocus Pocuses and your Beetlejuices and your Scooby-Doos. Of course, Remus and Virgil slip some actually scary stuff in there, too. (Roman isn't too upset about it, as long as he can jump into Virgil's lap when he's scared)

#Sanders Sides #Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Patton Sanders #Remus Sanders #Logan Sanders #Janus Sanders #prinxiety #dukeceit #logicality #(a little bit of the my ships slipped in there lol)#this got so long besties

65 notes · View notes

edwinspaynes · 4 months ago

Text

Seems this was a popular concept! ❤️🧡💛

@angeldaisies @rhiannons-bird @tiredandoptimistic

HERE WE GO!

Cordelia deeply enjoys gardening. She has a massive garden outside Curzon Street and grows flowers, fruits, and vegetables. For one of their anniversaries, James builds her a greenhouse so she can grow those that thrive in different climates, too.

James really does not enjoy getting his hair cut. He puts it off and puts it off for long periods. This is partially inspired by a CJ comic from several years ago, but I think it continues well into adulthood. He just doesn't like the feeling of it being clipped evenly and hitting the nape of his neck. He only gets them when Cordelia insists he should, which isn't often because she loves running his hands through his shaggy hair.

Matthew broke into Buckingham Palace once. He used the grappling hook that he frequently used to break into the Institute. The hook wound up hitting a bedroom that turned out to be the King's, and he could not see it since it was glamoured. He did hear the clank, though, and when Matthew ascended, he was treated to the sight of a pajama-clad King Edward with his haunted-looking eyes bugging out of his head. He immediately realized he fucked up, slid back down the rope, and went to find James to share his misadventurous plight.

Thomas has a nervous tic where he scratches his nose. Alastair finds it incredibly endearing. Over the years, as he becomes more confident with himself, the habit fades. He periodically still does it, and every time, Alastair feels his heart glowing.

Alastair wakes up in the middle of the night frequently because he's hungry. But he doesn't really think. It's somewhere between sleepwalking and waking up in the middle of the night. He's neither asleep nor awake. He goes to the pantry and eats Thomas's food without fail. They have had many an argument over this. Somehow it always ends in Thomas buying Alastair more food when he goes to replace the food he ate for himself.

Anna has a little collection of eclectic buttons that she keeps in a small box. They're not normal buttons - they're genuinely the weirdest ones she can find. They're all odd shapes, or they have intricate patterns on them. One's more holes than plastic. She likes how oddly interesting they are.

As a girl with a parrot, we know Ari likes birds. But did you know that she also enjoys bird-watching? Well, she DOES! She drags Anna on a birding vacation to California one year, and they see tons of local bird varieties. Anna finds that she, too, very much enjoys birds after this.

In addition to chemistry, Christopher has a penchant for baking. After all, they're basically the same thing - a series of reactions that produce a result. He's an extremely good baker and enjoys treating his friends to homemade cookies and cupcakes. He takes special care to learn his friends' favorite recipes, and he makes a mean Charlotte Russe for Matthew. It's incomparable.

Grace is able to experiment with fashion more after Tatiana dies, and she collects an impressive collection of earbobs. Some of them look nice on her. Some of them are themed, like Christmas ones that look like little icicles and presents. Others are extremely ugly, but she likes wearing them. After all, she doesn't need to look flawless anymore.

#tlh #the last hours #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #matthew fairchild #thomas lightwood #alastair carstairs #anna lightwood #ari bridgestock #christopher lightwood #grace blackthorn

27 notes · View notes

astro-b-o-y-d · 10 months ago

Text

Triangulum - Chapter 3 - An Unwelcomed Guest

— — — — — — —

Bill’s head hurt.

A searing ache throbbed at the back of his skull while consciousness returned to him once again. No pain in recent memory compared to something like this; even getting his eye ripped out of its socket had been more of an inconvenience at worst. It took forever to regenerate those things!

The closest thing he could compare such intense pain to was his outright death, which sent a jolt of panic through his mind that only furthered his headache. He wasn’t dead again, was he—

“Why would I go through all this effort to bring you back, only to deceive you about what I have to offer?”

Oh. Right.

Any concerns were washed away in an instant as the feathery face of the shelduck drifted to the front of his mind. Not just their face, but the conversation the two of them had shared in the mindscape. The game they had wanted him to play, their contract, the destruction of the barrier as a prize—

—something was wrong.

Even with his eyelid still closed, Bill could physically feel a disconnect with his body.

It was difficult to verbalize properly—his eye felt too distant from his limbs, and his usual shape felt noticeably altered. As if he’d slipped into a costume with lots of awkward parts, ones that stuck out in ways that forced him to be aware of their existence as he tried to descend down a narrow passageway.

Almost exactly how he’d felt whenever he possessed someone in the past.

But the way the body suited itself around his existence, it didn’t feel like it would belong to a talking, anthropomorphic shelduck. Even with his eye closed, Bill could still feel a lack of any feathers pinpricking their way through his skin, or a beak protruding from his face—

“When did I ever say you were going to possess me in this game?”

…Ah.

Alright, even he couldn’t ignore a good loophole dodge when he saw it. Point to Tangy for their oh-so-clever little trick; he’d be sure to give them kudos for it later.

Kudos in the form of soaking their tacky windbreaker in a gallon of rotten tuna fish for a month. Good luck getting the smell out after that one, Birdbrain!

“—what if he’s not even in there anymore?”

“Yeah, he could’ve jumped out after Wendy clunked him on the back of the head!”

“Are we even sure it’s him in the first place? Just sayin’, some random kid cackling maniacally in the middle of the woods isn’t the weirdest thing to happen around here.”

“Everyone just hold on a second, I’m trying to think—”

The sound of frantic, hushed voices stirred him further awake, and he fluttered his eyelid—no, wait, eyelids plural—open the tiniest amount to investigate.

It didn’t seem like Birdbrain had taken any extreme measures with his vision; he still possessed a functioning eyeball. But rather than being set in the center of his face, his vision had taken a hard shift to the left and weakened to a noticeable degree. And while his vision hadn’t carried over to the right side of his face, he could feel another eyeball rotating around in its socket.

Almost as much as he could feel a set of teeth and tongue in a separate cavity much lower on his face—oh, eugh, he’d forgotten how bizarre it felt to have his face parts separated like this, and not even the fun kind of bizarre!—or a protruding nose right smack dab between his new pair of eyes.

Alright, so Birdbrain had gone humanoid for his vessel. Bit cliché, but nothing he wasn’t used to by this point. And if his mouth and eye placement weren’t enough to confirm this fact, peering open his eyelids further revealed his head to be slumped forwards, gaze fixed on a pair of black-panted human legs that were clearly attached to his body.

Yep, there was no denying that he’d been slapped back into a meatsuit mecha.

An even-riskier peek around him revealed he was currently tied up in some sort of bedroom. One clearly owned by the word’s most generic older woman of all time; creme-colored floral wallpaper decorated the walls, a shelf lined with creepy, porcelain dolls was situated near the door, and a comfortable old recliner had been set up near the fireplace—

—hang on, wasn’t this just the parlor room in the Shack?

“He’s awake!”

Shoot. Guess he’d made it a bit too obvious that he’d regained consciousness.

Bill’s head snapped up to full height at the sudden exclamation, only find himself on the receiving end of a number of different intimidation methods—all to various degrees of effectiveness.

Mabel’s weapon of choice was her beloved grappling hook. One of the better options of the bunch; metal was strong enough to shatter a fragile human skull if aimed at just the right spot and applied with just enough power and force. Terrible for his current vessel, but Bill could appreciate a healthy level of bloodlust.

Stan’s brass-knuckled fists were—admittedly—also an inspired choice, given how effective his fists had been in the past. A fact that Bill was happy to ignore and brush to the side as he shifted his attention over to—

—the random plank of wood in Dipper’s hands, one he was gripping tightly with all the intimidation of a mildly-inconvenienced kitten. Yeesh, had he even tried?

Of course, Pine Tree’s embarrassing incompetence was compensated in full by the gun in Ford’s hand, both the barrel and his own violent gaze locked onto Bill like his life depended on it.

Hmm, that was annoying.

And here Bill had hoped he could keep his return discreet for at least a short while before these suckers caught wind. Maybe strike some fear and uncertainty in their naive minds by staring ominously at them through their windows, only to vanish from sight when they came over to investigate.

Were their minds playing tricks on them now that they were back in town? Were they simply paranoid as a result of what happened the year before? Or was there really someone watching them beyond the shadows of the trees?

Maybe if his methods were effective enough, Ford would even start shooting at the woods in a blind panic. Heck, maybe one of the kids would even get caught in the crossfire!

Y’know, fun stuff like that.

But unfortunately for Bill, it seemed like he’d dropped right into the belly of the beast and Ford had gained the upper hand while he’d been unconscious.

Any attempts to move his new human limbs revealed them to be restrained to the chair he was seated upon; arms tucked behind the back and bound at the wrists, torso tied in place—what, had there been a sale on rope or something? It was a miracle they’d left his legs alone—or maybe they’d just run out of rope by that point?

Nope, an abandoned piece near the far wall rendered that guess incorrect. Maybe they just hadn’t had enough time to restrain his legs, then?

Moving the focus back to his captors, Bill’s gaze bounced from person to person as he took a quick stock of their expressions. Unanimous hatred and fury trying so desperately to mask the uncertainty and fear behind their expressions. The clear desire to come across as intimidating, despite the trembling hands around their weapons.

So much fear, despite having the upper hand over him. Bill was tied to a chair and barely conscious, yet he could get a reaction like this outta them?

Good.

Because otherwise, he had no idea how he would be able to spin this situation to his advantage. With the element of surprise and mobility no longer an option for him, tapping into those fears and insecurities was the only weapon that Bill had left at his disposal.

Speaking of which—

The silence in the room stretched on as the Pines continued to stare at him, to the point where Bill was starting to grow bored. Sure, leaving them forever entrenched in uncertainty might be fun in theory, but that also required him to remain quiet for just as long.

And while that wasn’t an impossible order, Bill Cipher was not the kind of triangle to sit and behave quietly if he had any say in the matter.

He needed just the right comment to break the ice. A perfect reintroduction to his presence in their lives, one that would only strengthen that fear behind their eyes.

“I gotta ask, what didja think a gun was gonna do against me?” he asked with a grin at Ford. “I mean, do you really think regular old bullets are going to be enough to get the job done?”

His pupil flicked over to Dipper. “Guess it’s better than whatever Junior’s got going on over there, though,” he said. “Seriously, Pine Tree, a piece of wood? I guess you might have a chance at beating me in a game of interdimensional rock-paper-scissors, but outside of that, I don’t like your odds.”

Just for good measure, he punctuated everything with his loud, trademark cackle—one that shook the room and everyone in it.

Oh yeah, that’d do the trick nicely.

Sure enough, everyone’s grip on their weapons tensed, the fear in their faces now completely tangible as the worst scenario they could possibly imagine was confirmed.

“Bill.”

It was Ford who spoke first, tone marinaded in venom as he stared Bill down. Such vitriol sent another cackle throughout Bill, his body wiggling with delight against the bonds that held him to the chair. “Aww, it’s good to see you too, Sixer~!” he said sweetly. “What’s it been, about nine months now? Nice beard, by the way. Really brings your face together in a way that those sideburns didn’t, know what I mean?”

His amusement fell with a vindictiveness he made no attempt to mask. “Although if you ask me, I’d suggest taking up that old face-burning habit of yours to clear everything up and start fresh,” he said, narrowing his eye—eyes. “I mean, you’re clearly the expert in burning things around here. Facial hair, bridges, minds with me in them—”

Bill was cut off by the cold, threatening steel of the gun barrel being pressed against his cheek, pupil flitting up to Ford’s own cold, threatening gaze. “Stop talking.”

Oh, he was real mad.

Of course, not even Ford’s ire was enough to silence Bill completely, and he managed a smug grin despite the distortion of his cheek against the weapon’s tip. “Again I ask: just a regular gun? No Quantum Destabilizer? No memory-erasing device or fancy-schmancy magical weapon from your precious journals? You must really getting dull in your old age if you're busting out the repeat performances, Fordsy.”

He tilted his head, half in thought and half to give himself some breathing room. “Although I have to wonder why you didn’t just try to kill me while I was knocked out, if you’re this trigger-happy?”

The answer to that one was pretty obvious. Given their initial reactions, they hadn’t been certain if he had actually been possessing someone—and they weren’t about to go and murder an innocent human on the off-chance they were wrong. And now that he was awake and his presence confirmed, they weren’t about to go and murder an innocent human while he was possessing them.

And if that was truly the case, it probably meant he was free to run his mouth as much as he wanted.

Probably.

Maybe?

“Ooh, lemme guess: you wanted me to be awake before you pumped me full of lead?”

…Aw, heck with it; he couldn’t resist a chance to press a few more of Ford’s buttons! To really test the waters on what he could get away with saying or doing. “Well, I’d love to see you take your best shot at it~!” he continued with a wide grin, one that show far too much of his gums. Guess that was one benefit to having a humanoid vessel again. “I know it’ll probably get a real laugh outta the poor sucker I’m puppeting around now—”

There was a click of the hammer as the tip was pressed further into his cheek, to the point where not even leaning away from it would pull Bill out of its line of fire.

Alright, limit reached for the time being. “Okay, okay, geez, I get the picture,” he said, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Can I at least ask for a mirror or something? I wanna see what I’m working with over here.”

Okay, maybe one more. “I’d fetch one myself, but as you can see, I’m a bit tied up at the moment~!”

Ha. Hilarious.

Luckily for him, his clever little risk seemed to pay off in the unexpected way of making Ford lower his weapon, with an added bonus of painting a look of confusion across his face. And judging by the looks being exchanged between the other family members, it was clear that his little joke had been far more effective in causing confusion than he’d originally intended.

After a few more minutes of perplexed silence between them, it was Mabel who eventually—and hesitantly—spoke up with a: “You…don’t know what you look like?”

Hmm, an unexpected question to follow the unexpected responses. And a stupid one at that; did she really expect him to give her the honest, unfiltered truth when prompted? If she did, the answer to that question would be a resounding “It’s funny how dumb you are, Shooting Star~!”, followed by a bout of condescending laughter to drive the point home.

And the answer to her former question would probably be that same reply and condescending laughter. There was no chance across the entire multiverse that he would tell them about his little deal with Tangy. Birdbrain had said it themselves back in their mindscape: the second they found out that he was playing a game where the prize was the destruction of the barrier, the second Ford would do everything in his power to keep him restrained until the end of the game.

Or, well—more restrained than he was already.

Still, as good as his clever little joke had been, he had unintentionally dropped a small hint to them about his situation.

Guess it was time to do what he did best; scramble their mushy little brains more than he’d done already and throw them completely off the right track.

“I mean—it was all kind of a blur when I possessed the guy,” he said casually, leaning back in the chair as far as he could. “Didn’t exactly feel like stopping and sussing out all the details, not when the chance to stretch my legs again after spending nine months as a lawn ornament was right there in front of me—hey, come on—”

The barrel of the gun was at his cheek again as Ford gave him another warning look. “Don’t listen to a single word he says,” he said, directing the statement at the others. “We have no reason to believe that what he’s telling us is the truth, so don’t take any stock in anything he’s saying.”

Bill narrowed his eyes up at him. Spoilsport. Spoilsport and a hypocrite, to boot! “Oh, yeah, that’s rich, Sixer,” he said bitterly. “But I guess you would know what it’s like to give people a reason not to trust you, wouldn’t you?”

His functional pupil bounced over to Stan, the corners of his mouth twitching with the threat of a smile. “I’m just saying: the last time we saw each other, you were promising to finally give me that equation,” he said, with a look back to Ford. “But then when I ended up making the deal, it wasn’t your brain I ended up in, was it—OW!”

The tip of the gun was jammed so hard against his cheek that the skin would likely be bruised in the shape of a triangle later. “Stop talking—”

“Alright, that’s it.”

Before Ford could respond, Stan’s hand was back on his shoulder and gently goading him towards the door. “Ford, come on, let’s just—”

“Stan—”

“He’s tied up, Soos says the rope’s got the unicorn stuff woven into it,” Stan kept trying. “Let’s just step outside for a sec. Kids, why don’t you go with him? I’ll be with you in a few minutes, just—”

“We’re on it.”

Ford opened his mouth to protest further, but Mabel had already taken one of his hands in her own while Dipper claimed the other. “Come on, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel said, giving his hand an encouraging tug. “Let’s go wait in the hallway.”

“Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and leave, Sixer~?” Bill teased with a kick of his feet. “I’m sure I won’t go anywhere while you’re gone!”

A risky taunt, for sure. Ford had turned the gun on him enough times to prove that he was only a few more pokes away from throwing caution to the wind and sticking a bullet between his eyes, regardless of the consequences. Besides, the sooner Bill got the chance to be alone and collect his thoughts, the better.

But at the same time, any opportunity to get under Ford’s skin was just too good to resist—nor did he have any desire to try resisting in the first place!

It seemed to be a lucky day for him in terms of taunt-rope balancing, because Ford pulled his hands from the kids’ embraces and trudged out of the room with calm, restrained steps. Steps clearly powered by every last ounce of self-control he could possibly muster, ones that suppressed a deep, brooding storm that swelled just beneath the surface.

Good. Seethe harder, Stanford.

Eventually the door shut behind him, leaving Stan and the kids—their own hands now void of any that possessed six fingers—behind. Although it was only a second later when the door cracked open again, and one six-fingered hand reentered their line of sight.

A hand that Mabel immediately took hold of again before both her and Dipper hurried out into the hallway after him. Leaving only Bill, Stan, and a deafening silence left in the room.

A deafening silence that Bill was quick to break with a casual: “Gotta say, the beard look is waaaay more natural on you than it is on Sixer. Covers your ugly mug way better than his does.”

Apparently Ford had kept all of the restraint for himself because Stan was back to him before he could blink, and Bill had no time to brace himself as the older man grasped a rugged hand around his throat. “Listen to me, and listen good, Wise Guy,” he growled. “I don’t know how you got back here, and I don’t really care how.”

The hand around Bill’s neck tightened while he balled the other into a fist. “But I punched your lights out once, and I can do it again. As many times as it takes for you to stay down for good.”

He moved the first near Bill’s blinded eye, his good pupil following despite himself. “You try anything with my family again, you’re gonna know what it feels like to get punched to death twice. ¿Comprende?”

It was a threat Bill knew that Stan would hold himself to if necessary. One that Bill couldn’t help but feel a twinge of genuine fear towards as those final memories inside Stan’s head came rushing back to him.

And for a split second, Bill could almost feel the terrifying heat of the flames around them, creeping nearer and nearer as they swallowed every last bit of the room in their destructive wake—

One fatal mistake…

—only for a brief moment, before he flashed Stan another toothy grin. “Seriously though, you should keep that beard. Maybe try and convince Sixer to shave his, I don’t know who I was kidding when I told him it looked good, that was such a bad idea on his part!”

His grin spread wider, once again revealing far too much of the inside of his mouth. “But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

Stan punched him. Hard.

And when Bill crumbled with a shout, pain enveloping the area around his right eye that was sure to be bruised within minutes, Stan turned and stormed out of the room.

Yep—flew too close to the sun with that one.

— — — — — — —

Ford had barely made it out of the room before the stress of the situation brought him to his knees, and Stan entered the hallway to the sight of almost everyone else circled around him in an attempt to bring comfort.

Seeing him, Soos lifted his head. “So, is it really him?”

“Sure looks, sounds, and acts like it,” Stan said. “Alright, so the guy who tried to take over the universe and who we thought was dead is now tied up in the next room, very much the opposite of dead.”

He pressed a weary hand to his temple as he glanced around at the rest of the group. “...Does anybody have a game plan?”

From beside Ford on the floor, Mabel perked up. “What about that zodiac prophecy thingy Grunkle Ford tried to do during Weirdmageddon?” she asked. “Didn’t he say that was supposed to stop Bill?”

“Hey, yeah!” Stan snapped his fingers with an inspired look. “Great idea, Pumpkin, we could try that!”

“But don’t we need all of the symbol-things for it to work?” Soos pointed out. “And out of the original ten, we only have, like—” He paused to count heads. “—six of the people here that we’d need.”

From the spot near the wall where Wendy had seated herself, she lifted her head to join in on the conversation. “Well, then why don’t we just get the other four?” she asked. “I doubt it’d be hard to convince Robbie, Pacifica or the others to help us out. They probably hate Bill as much as we do.”

“We could also try the Quantum Destabilizer,” Dipper added thoughtfully, pressing a hand to his chin. “Grunkle Ford said it could blast Bill back into the Nightmare Realm, but I wonder if that would actually work without a rift to—you know, blast him back through.”

“What do you think, Dr. Pines?” Melody asked, directing the question at Ford.

And suddenly all eyes were back on Ford again, who had yet to move from the spot where he had collapsed after leaving the bedroom—too enveloped in his own overwhelming, smothering thoughts to take any notice to the others’ suggestions.

Bill was alive.

A scenario he had only envisioned in the worst of the nightmares that plagued his head on a nightly basis. A fear that lingered over him like the shadow of a starving predator, waiting to strike its unsuspecting prey when they least expected.

He had wanted to hope so dearly that he’d been dreaming when that child between the birch trees began to laugh in that horrific, familiar way. The bone-chilling laughter that often echoed through the deepest recesses of his mindscape, nothing more than a mere shadow of the one who had once produced it.

But this was no dream, no nightmare, nor a bad memory he could simply banish to the back of his mind—

Bill was alive.

“Dr. Pines?”

“The Zodiac Prophecy is a no-go,” he said, his words forming on their own as he returned to his feet. “The entire town believes that Bill is dead, and letting too many people know that he’s returned could ignite a panic.”

He cast a tense look around at everyone else. “One would argue that too many people know about his return already.”

“Hey, come on, I don’t think anyone here’s in a hurry to go blabbing about him,” Wendy pointed out.

“Regardless, it’s not a liable option at the moment,” Ford continued. “And unfortunately, neither is the Quantum Destabilizer. The only power source stable enough to power the device was only obtainable in another dimension, with the assistance of another another dimension’s Fiddleford McGucket—”

“Oh, yeah, that’s gonna be tough to get, then,” Melody spoke up. “Fiddleford's out of town for a few weeks with his family.”

“We had to put our weekly anime club meetings on hiatus until he got back,” Soos added sadly. “But, that gives all of us plenty of time to catch up on our latest show and discuss our thoughts once he’s back!”

Ford raised his hands. “Wait, that’s not what I—”

“Well, what about when he does get back?” Wendy asked. “I mean—like I said before, I doubt he’d be in a hurry to go blabbing to anyone else. Plus he’s probably smart enough to build anything we’d need to get rid of Bill.”

“Wait, I—”

“Yeah, yeah, good point, Wendy!” Stan said, waggling a finger at her. “The guy turned this place into a giant, robotic, triangle-punching whatchamacallit. He could definitely build some fancy-schmancy power source—”

“You’re missing the point!”

Ford’s fist hit the wall before he could even process his action, and suddenly the hallway was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. His frustration lingered for only a second, before he took a look at the concerned expressions around him—

—and the guilt swiftly drowned any other emotions that had been building inside his chest. “Sorry, that was—sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Several pairs of shoulders unclenched as his arm fell back to his side, and Stan moved to him again. “Woah, woah, hey, come on, no one here’s about to judge you for swingin’ a fist,” he assured him. “Feel like outta anyone here, you deserve to do it the most.”

He flicked a thumb back at the bedroom door. “‘Sides, at least you held out as long as you could. I may have given the little jerk a—let’s call it a ‘welcome back gift’.”

A pause. “I…I gave him a black eye, that’s the joke I was trying to make.”

“Non-refundable gift,” Wendy said with a proud nod. “Nice.”

“Stan’s got a point,” Dipper added from Ford’s side. “It’s Bill Cipher. I feel like if anyone deserves to be angry right now, it’s you.”

“Yeah, sorry for uh—sorry if we sounded like we weren’t taking this seriously,” Soos added. “I know how dangerous he is, and Wendy and I even told Melody everything about him ahead of time. Just in case something like this ever happened, of course. A big bad returning during a moment of peace is a common trope in sequels, after all.”

He rolled his hands together. “And since this is the summer after he died…you know, sequel summer? Just…just sayin’, it wasn’t outta the realm of possibilities.”

“I wasn’t sure how much of it was actually true,” Melody admitted. “But also I’ve seen way weirder stuff in this town. So if you all say that kid in there’s actually an evil triangle demon bent on destroying the universe, then I’d believe it.”

“There, you see?” Stan added. “Ain’t nobody here to judge. You be as angry as you want, punch another wall or two if you really gotta.”

“Although if it helps you swing at them less, clearly we’re all on the ball when it comes to thinking of ways to put Cipher back under the ground where he belongs,” Wendy pointed out. “Maybe the stuff we already suggested won’t work, but putting our heads together like this will probably get us somewhere a lot quicker than when you were just doing this by yourself, y’know?”

“Once again, Wendy knows what’s what,” Stan agreed, and gave her a thumbs up. “If I were still your boss, I’d give you a raise.”

“...No, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

He reached over to clasp a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Point we’re tryin’ to make is that you’ve got your family here for you this time. You don’t have to deal with this alone again.”

“Yeah, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel agreed, casting him a weak smile as she once again tucked a hand into his own. “We’ll do everything we can to help you kick Bill’s butt again!”

Ford’s gaze fell to her face, sweet eyes wide with concern and small hands once again gripping his own tightly. He could feel them trembling, clearly masking just as much fear as he was harboring inside him—

—the same way his had trembled as he pulled the trigger on the memory gun, wiping every little trace of what made his brother himself from his mind.

He forced his gaze to the man at his right, eyes moving up to the face that mirrored his own to a near-identical degree.

The face of the man Ford had cried over for a week straight while he worked so tirelessly, so desperately to restore those lost memories. For whom he had dug out every last movie reel, scrapbook—even old postcards that Stan had sent during his travels across the country, and with whom he had spent several long night poring over the contents.

The man whose confused expression shifted to bright realization as the kids read out the jokes from his favorite joke book, jokes he would follow up with every terrible punchline with perfect recollection. The man who suddenly remembered his and Ford’s brush with the Jersey Devil mid-story, only to go on and tell the back half as if the two of them had only experienced it yesterday.

The man who had risked sacrificing all those precious memories, all of who he was for the sake of the world’s safety. For the sake of his family’s safety.

And now Bill was back, leaving that precious sacrifice nothing more than a pointless suffering for Stanley to have endured.

“I’ll figure out a way to stop Bill by myself,” he said suddenly, pulling his hand out of Mabel’s before turning to the others. “Someone’s going to need to stay up and keep an eye on him tonight anyway. I’ll use that time to come up with a plan, and we can reconvene tomorrow.”

He reached for the doorknob. “As for the rest of you, it’s late and you should be getting to bed.”

Everyone exchanged a series of unsure looks, which Stan vocalized with a: “Do you really expect the rest of us to just sleep while you deal with some all-powerful demon all night?”

“Also, do you really expect us to sleep at all with someone like that in the house?” Wendy added. “I mean, I know he’s kindaaaa—” She made a shrinking motion with her fingers. “—now, but this is the same guy that crawls through people’s heads like a sugar-laced kid in a Hoo-Ha Owl’s playplace, right?”

Ford looked to her, then the other adults with a raised eyebrow. “You said the rope had unicorn hair weaved into it?”

“Well, yeah,” Soos confirmed. “Plus we set up those moonstones, got you that mercury you needed—”

“We have a whole stash of everything in the storage room, too,” Melody added. “If you need any more of anything.”

“Then it should be enough to hold Bill in place for the night,” Ford said matter-of-factly. “And if it’s not—well, I’ll be enough to hold him in place for the night.”

Before anyone could question him further, the bedroom door was opened and shut behind him. Leaving the rest of them out in the hallway, the shrill and barely-muffled greeting of “Welcome back, Fordsy~!” in the bedroom only adding to the unsure aura surrounding them.

Despite the door being closed, Soos held up a hand to the side of his mouth. “Uh, okay! Good night, Dr. Pines!” he called. “Also if you’ve gotta shoot him, please aim the bullets away from Abuelita’s porcelain doll collection!”

Mabel finally let her arm—the one that she had kept outstretched even after Ford let go of her hand—fall back to her side with a dejected sigh. A look that Dipper immediately spotted and moved to her side to comfort her. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” he said reassuringly. “Ford’s just worried about Bill, that’s all. And he probably just wants us to stay safe.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to go around makin’ himself unsafe to do that,” Stan said, pressing a hand to his head with an annoyed huff. “Is he out of his mind? What’s he thinking, dealing with all of this by himself?”

Everyone else exchanged a look. “Well, if he doesn’t want our help then…what should we do now?” Melody asked.

With a sigh, Wendy took a wide step away from the wall. “Guess we do what the doc said and try to get some sleep. Dibs on the couch as usual, by the way.”

With that, the shuffled on down the hallway, while the rest of the group silently watched her take her leave. Once she disappeared around the corner, Soos pointed towards a door on the opposite side of the hallway. “Uh, I dunno if it’ll help at all, but Melody and I sleep in the room next to Abuelita’s,” he said to Stan. “If you want, we can sleep in shifts and check in on Dr. Pines for you.”

“And if anything actually happens, one of us can come get you,” Melody added. “Leaving the other person down here to help him if he needs it.”

“Yeah!” Soos said, nodding in agreement. “If anything happens, we’ll come get you, okay?”

Stan hesitated to respond—as if the idea was anything but okay to him—but eventually he gave them a tired nod in return. “Alright, you two. Just keep an ear out for him.”

He leaned over and placed a hand on Soos’s shoulder. “And—should I not get here quick enough to do it myself—I give you my blessing to punch the pointy little jerk in my place.”

With a look of honor, Soos pressed a hand to his forehead in a salute. “I won’t let you down, Mr. Pines! I’ll even knock out a few of his teeth if I’ve gotta!”

“Good man, Soos,” Stan said, giving his shoulder a pat. “Now get.”

With Stan’s approval, Soos gestured for Melody to follow him to their bedroom. “I’ll be the one to come get you if we need to, then,” she assured Stan as they walked. “That’ll leave Soos open for—well, that.”

And soon their bedroom door closed behind them, leaving nobody but the remaining Pines in the hallway. And with a gruff sigh and the realization that they were the only ones left, Stan turned to face the kids.

Despite the reassurances from everyone else—and even each other—they had shuffled close to one another with their attention firmly locked on to the door of Abuelita’s bedroom. As if they expected Bill to come bursting out of it at any second.

Yep, that was about what he expected.

Another sigh brought Stan to their level, and he gave both of them a weak smile. “Well, you two knuckleheads heard everyone. Let’s head upstairs.”

The two exchanged an uncertain look. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah,” Mabel added. “I mean…it’s Bill.”

“If Ford’s so insistent on dealing with this by himself, then he’s probably got a couple of tricks up his sleeve to solve it by himself,” Stan pointed out, and reached over to lightly bap the top of Dipper’s hat. “It’s like you said, he probably just wants us to stay safe. And if he does need our help, then—well, he knows where to find us...”

Even he couldn’t bring himself to try and sound convincing by the end of his reassurances, but he gave both of them a nudge to move forwards before returning to full height. “In the meantime, let’s not give that demon the satisfaction of knowing he’s freaking all of us out and go get some rest, okay?”

After another look to each other, the younger twins eventually let themselves be lead down the hallway. Despite this, Stan counted at least three times where one of them would pause to look back towards the bedroom door, before they finally rounded the hallway corner and the room was barred from their line of sight.

The interior of the Mystery Shack had fallen silent by that point, save for the faint creaking of the wooden floor beneath their steps as they headed for and—after grabbing the bags they had dropped upon arrival—up the staircases that eventually brought them to the topmost floor of the shack.

Mere hours ago, the sight of the old attic would’ve been a nostalgic welcome back, like greeting an old friend after spending so long apart. And approaching the room at the far end would’ve been the equivalent of bringing that old friend into a warm hug.

Warm, friendly, welcoming—

But the air around the trio just felt so miserable as they slowed to a gradual stop outside the bedroom door, and Stan reached a hand to the doorknob. Rather than turn it immediately, he instead chose to direct his attention back at the kids.

Silent attention—as if he wanted to say something, but struggled to find the proper words.

After a few, long seconds, he spoke with an uneasy: “Hey, uh, if you kids need to—you know…” The hand on the doorknob moved to the back of his head. “You gonna be alright by yourselves up here? You know you can always join Wendy in the living room, or come bunk down with me if you really need to, or something—”

The younger twins looked to each other in silent consideration, until Dipper finally spoke up: “I…think we’ll be okay,” he said, although his shaky tone implied otherwise. “If we’re really that scared, we can always sleep in shifts.”

“Yeah,” Mabel added with a bit more optimism. “And—and we’ll lock our door and window—”

An oink at the staircase drew a pointed finger from her, aimed at the pig who had ambled up the stairs after them. “—and we also have Waddles as an attack hog if we really need him! We’ll be okay!”

Her shoulders fell. “Right?”

Dipper folded his arms with a feeble nod, hands tightly gripping the sides as if he were attempting to keep himself grounded with such an action. “Yeah, we’ll…we’ll be okay.”

Stan didn’t miss this, and knelt down in front of them. “Hey, you two listen to me, alright?” he said, moving a hand to each of their shoulders. “I may not know how the little demon got back or why he’s back at all.”

The hands moved to ruffle their heads. “But what I do know is that I ain’t gonna let him lay a hand on either of you or Ford,” he reassured them. “And I don’t care how long it takes or how many times we gotta kill him before he stays dead. We’ll squash him for good if it’s the last thing we do—”

He was suddenly cut off by Mabel flinging herself at him in a tight hug, with Dipper quickly following suit. Stan remained still for a few seconds, before he wrapped an arm around each of them to complete the hug. “Alright…we’re gonna be okay, okay?”

He forced a smile as the two of them broke the hug. “And hey, look on the bright side,” he continued. “With the puny size he is now, we could probably just step on the little jerk and actually squash him to death!”

Sure enough, his weak attempt to lighten the mood brought a small pair of smiles to their faces. “We could get a pair of really big shoes,” Mabel added, smile widening further as she made a stomping motion with her foot. “Just go squish, like he’s a gross cockroach under a boot!”

“Are you implying that he’s not a gross cockroach already?” Dipper asked with a weak laugh.

“Touché, but I like painting a clear, visual picture of my words,” Mabel explained. “It’s almost as fun as painting an actual picture! Ooh, I wonder if I should paint an actual picture of Bill with a cockroach body—?”

“Save that for tomorrow,” Stan said. “Right now, you two need to get some rest. You’ve got a whole summer to look forward to, and I ain’t gonna let you kids miss a second of it.”

He gave them a wink. “Even with a sudden triangle-shaped cockroach thrown into the mix.”

Both gave him a smile—much wider than before—in return before finally shuffling to the door and pulled it open, revealing the waiting bedroom on the other side.

Aside from a lack of almost any dust on the furniture—had that been Soos and Melody’s doing?—the bedroom had remained mostly untouched since the previous summer. A few scattered googly eyes rested on the floor beside a forgotten food bowl for Waddles on Mabel’s side of the room, while several crumpled pieces of paper still filled Dipper’s old wastebasket.

And while uncertainty and fear still lingered in the air as the kids stepped inside, a bit of that old, nostalgic warmth did seem to be sneaking its way around them in a reassuring embrace. A reassurance that despite the evening’s stress, this was still a place they could call a home away from home.

After one last little smile at Stan—one he returned in full—Mabel shut the door behind them. Stan continued to wordlessly stare at the door for a few minutes, attention focused on the clicking of the lock, then the creaking of the wooden floor on the other side. When he was sure the sound had reached their beds, he finally turned and shuffled back towards—then down—the staircase, continuing onwards down the hall on the second floor until he reached the door to his own bedroom.

It was only once his hand touched the doorknob that his entire posture sank from exhaustion.

He once again lingered for a moment as he looked back towards the staircase that lead downstairs—before he shook his head and trudged on forward into the bedroom.

— — — — — — — —

It was barely an hour later when Stan firmly concluded that he was not falling asleep anytime soon.

How in the heck was he supposed to sleep at a time like this? Bill was back! The evil triangle demon that had tried to take over the town—town? Universe? Dimension? Eh, all of the above.—and had haunted his brother’s mind for literal decades!

Ford had always downplayed how much weight Bill truly held over his mind, always reassuring Stan that he was fine whenever the topic came up in conversation and was always quick to change the subject to something unrelated.

But if Ford really thought the guy who slept in the same cabin as him for months on end wouldn’t notice him crying out in his sleep—the names Bill, Cipher or both being shouted into his pillow with so much hatred and fear more times than Stan could count—then Stan had a bridge to sell him.

And if he really thought that he hadn’t picked up on the subtle little ways Ford would flinch or the way his mood would shift on occasion—probably due to some unearthed memories about Bill, ones that Stan so desperately wished he could just punch as hard as the guy who had burned them into his brother’s mind—then Stan had two bridges to sell him.

“But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

With a grunt, Stan rolled over onto his back and squinted blindly at the ceiling. He didn’t trust the pointy little jerk as far as he could throw him but he’d raised a good point. What right did he have to stand—lie around and call Ford an idiot for not wanting to talk about Bill, especially when he’d been the one in charge of getting rid of Bill in the first place?

He felt his thoughts drift to the earlier events of the day, before all the Bill stuff had started. Soos’s wedding announcement, the tour of the new exhibits—

“The very weird point they’re to make is that none of this would’ve happened without you building the shack to begin with, Grunkle Ford. So in a way, a lot of this is because of you!”

“Well, we kinda have you to thank for the idea, Dr. Pines. You and the kids, of course.”

It didn’t bother him.

Really, it didn’t.

So what if Soos wanted to give Ford the credit for tying the knot with the girl he liked, or for giving them the smart-guy science methods to make the exhibits more exciting? Even if Ford was terrible at hiding his Bill feelings, at the very least he’d seemed pretty flattered by all the praise.

He’d felt appreciated, nostalgic over the new, science-y ways that Soos and Melody were bringing in customers. The kids were excited to be spending time with him this year.

Ford felt like he belonged.

What kind of jerk would Stan be to take that happiness away from him, especially after all the years that had been taken from him already?

At at the end of the day, it didn’t matter if people slapped Ford’s name over every single one of his own accomplishments. Honestly, after stealing his identity for three decades, Stan would willingly give up a few of his own accord if it made Ford happy.

If Soos wanted to give Ford credit for building the place that inevitably lead him to his fiancé—even if Stan had been the one running the place when Soos started working here—then fine. If him and the kids wanted to give Ford credit for the exhibit ideas—exhibits that were wildly improved from the two-bit slop Stan had been pushing for the past few decades—then fine.

It was fine.

But if there was one accomplishment that Stan thought nobody could take away from him, it was the ability to keep his family safe. Not just them, but Soos, Wendy—the entire town. They had all called him a hero, finally saw him as someone worth a darn—

At the end of the day, he had finally proven he was worth something to someone.

And then Bill came back, alive and unharmed. Stan had failed to kill him good and proper, and now he was back. Now he was back, and now Ford and the kids had to spend their summer in fear.

Now he was back, and Stan was truly worthless again.

After staring at the ceiling for about ten more minutes—and waiting another ten minutes for his nightly body aches to settle—he fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand and swung his legs over the side of the bed. And with the groan of a man whose bones were older than he was, he pulled himself to his feet, trudged out of the room and headed down to the first floor of the shack.

The light of the TV stopped him at the living room doorway, and a quick peek into the room revealed that he wasn’t the only resident of the house who was still awake.

Despite the TV running some early morning infomercial for a cheap and useless product—one worth more than its share of that hyper-specific brand of scorn and mockery that only a snarky teenager could provide—Wendy’s attention was firmly glued to her phone as she tapped away at the keys.

At the sight of Stan in the doorway, however, she lifted her head with a curious look. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Whaddaya mean? Clearly I’m sleepwalkin’.”

“Haha,” she said, snapping her phone shut. “Gonna try again with Dr. Pines?”

“You know it,” Stan said, and placed a hand on the doorway frame. “You, uh—you holdin’ up okay out here?”

“Psh, don’t even start,” Wendy said, waving him away. “I mean, sure, I’ve got my share of worries about that little megalomaniac being back—”

She flashed him a grin. “—buuuut I think a lot of ‘em were pretty evened out by the fact that I got to clunk him in the back of the head with a bat!”

“Oh yeah, that was great,” Stan agreed with a smirk of his own, before pressing his hands together in a squishing motion. “Isn’t it soooo satisfying? The little jerk talks suuuuuuch a big game, but you hit him once and he crunches like a soda can.”

Wendy cackled at that, although her expression fell again as she cast a glance upwards. “How’re the squirts handling it?”

Stan followed her gaze up to the ceiling. “Well, they’ve stayed in their room so far, so my money’s on ‘probably as well as they can with somethin’ like this.’”

“Mmm…”

She flipped her phone back open, fingers once again tapping at the keys. “At least they’ve got each other through all this,” she mused. “The two of them combined are some of the toughest and strongest kids I’ve ever met. No matter what happens, they’ll get through it so long as they stick together.”

“Yeah,” Stan agreed, with a glance back towards the hallway. “At least they’ve got that goin’ for them…”

Both fell silent for a moment, before Stan turned to leave. “If you hear any yellin’ going on down the hall, it’s because I’m trying to convince Ford to go to bed,” he told her. “If I succeed, make sure he actually goes up to bed, okay?”

“You got it, boss.”

— — — — — — — —

The room was silent, save for the scratching of pencil to paper as Ford continued to write.

Not for a lack of trying on Bill’s part; he had made several attempts to strike up a conversation with Ford already, but all had been shot down by either a menacing glare or the flash of the gun he kept within reaching distance.

And while neither were enough to completely shut Bill up, he did fall silent after the dozenth-or-so attempt to take advantage of the chance to gather his thoughts.

He’d agreed to play a game with that stupid duck and they’d plunked him back down in front of the shack. He assumed it had been right in front of the shack, at least; he did recall being greeted by the concerned faces of Mabel and Ford, along with some faint, blurry remarks about how he’d potentially fallen out of a tree—

—thank you, Birdbrain—

—but there was always a chance that they had stumbled across his body somewhere else and simply brought him to the shack to keep a closer eye on him.

Regardless of how it had happened or wherever those suckers had originally found him, he was back in town as Tangy had promised. Sure, it had been a sneaky drop off with several details of what that drop off entailed omitted. But at the same time, they had still kept their word.

And while Bill still had plans to dunk that silly little windbreaker of theirs in tuna fish—perhaps with the added flair of tossing in a bottle of itching powder, Melt-Your-Skin-Clean-Off-Your-Bones-Juice, and maybe a splash of lime for taste—he could at least respect how much effort they had put into getting him here at all.

Planned retribution aside…eh, game could recognize game.

And speaking of game—

His thoughts shifted to the deal they had agreed upon, sealed with both a handshake and a signature. Three months, they’d said. He had exactly three months to play. Three months to find all the pieces of their dumb trinket and put it all back together again, Humpty-Dumpty style.

He briefly considered the idea of not playing their game at all—out of sheer spite for their deviousness in getting him here—but the idea was discarded as quickly as it formed. Despite their underhanded methods to get him back to town, they had been very clear about how strictly they had to stick to their contract. And even if they’d been lying about the legitimacy of said contract, they had still foolishly locked themselves into a deal with Bill himself.

Whether or not they truly planned on upholding themselves to their side of their deal didn’t matter—if he won their little game, Bill would either have a destroyed barrier or a duck subjected to an eternity of slow-roasting over an over fire in the Nightmare Realm. Maybe in the case of the second option, such torture directed at another being would be enough to get his buddies off his back when he returned. Heck, maybe he’d even get a spiffy new jacket out of the deal!

And that was simply the worst case scenario. Best case scenario, the barrier would be gone and no one would be able to stand in his way ever again.

And a prize that valuable was enough for him to humor the tacky idiot and romp around an annoyingly-familiar hick town in a meatsuit for a summer.

Even with his current situation, escaping wouldn’t be a difficult task to accomplish. Sure, he was tied so tightly to a chair that it would make Harry Houdini blush—he would know, he dabbled in a bit of dealmaking with the famous magician back during the height of his career—and the ropes apparently contained some of that fancy-schmancy unicorn magic that the household had used to protect the shack last year. A fact that soured Bill’s expression for a brief moment, but at the end of the day, even a magically-laced rope was still just a rope. And any rope could be cut with the right tool, or by the right sucker.

The sound of paper being ripped from a notebook distracted Bill from his thoughts, and a mischievous grin poked at the corners of his mouth as he cast a look in the direction of his six-fingered warden—just as the discarded page was crumpled into a ball and tossed it into the unlit fireplace.

Well, a sucker by any other year was just as gullible—or whatever.

Sure, Bill knew Stanford Pines would rather chew off his own extra fingers than be unpromptedly helpful to him in any way, shape or form. But even if a few details about the bigger picture had to be omitted—it wouldn’t be the first time when it came to Stanford—there were always ways for Bill to get people to do what he wanted.

The scratching of pencil to paper began again, and Bill lightly tugged against the binds that held his wrists. Well, while there were always ways to get people to do what he wanted, even he knew it was highly unlikely that he’d manage to trick Ford into freeing him tonight. And the near-silence of the room was starting to become agonizingly dull.

To reiterate an earlier point, Bill Cipher was not the kind of triangle to sit and behave quietly if he had any say in the matter. Even if Ford was attempting to keep a lid on things now, there was always a way to annoy him into tossing out a few bits and pieces of information he had gathered in Bill’s absence. Perhaps some of that information would be of use to him.

Or maybe he would only succeed in getting the gun shoved in his cheek again.

Either way, the fifteenth attempt at starting a conversation was always the charm~!

“You know,” he began with a light kick of his feet. “I’m surprised you haven’t bombarded me with questions about how I got back yet.”

He saw Ford’s hand twitch in the direction of the gun, keeping his attention still firmly focused on his writing. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to, Fordsy!” Bill continued. “You and I both know for a fact that you’re a man beckoned by the call of the strange and bizarre.”

He winked at him with his good eye. “And let’s not kid ourselves; I’m the strangest and bizarre-est guy you know~!”

Another kick of his feet, his feet bouncing against the chair legs. “Even if I no longer have access to your mind, I can tell you’ve got a billion questions about me buzzing around in that lump of wet meat you call a brain,” he continued. “Questions like ‘How did he get back?’ ‘Why is he human now?’ ‘Why, oh, why did I think that a simple memory gun would be enough to defeat someone as powerful, as amazing, as unstoppable as Bill Cipher?’”

Ford’s hand inched closer to the gun as Bill kept talking: “You must’ve felt so proud of yourself for that memory gun trick, by the way,” he went on. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, it was a smart move that only a brainiac like you could’ve drummed up in the short time you had.”

A wink. “Well, lucky for you I’m not the kinda triangle to hold a grudge,” he continued. “In fact, I’d even be willing to answer a couple of those hypothetical questions for you! And to call us even, you can always just answer a couple of mine in return. Like what you’ve been up to in the past nine months~! Come on, I’ll bet you’re just dying to tell me all about how you grew that beard of yours!”

The hand wrapped around the grip, and Bill settled lower in the chair with a sigh. “Fine, I guess it was too much to hope for a chance to catch up with an old friend,” he said with a dramatic flair to his tone—

—one that immediately shifted into something far more malevolent. “But then again, I guess I wouldn’t find any of those around here, now would I?”

Bill paused, giving Ford him a few seconds to chime in—only to roll his eyes when he heard a click from the gun as Ford turned off the safety catch: “Oh, come on, Stanford, are you really telling me that you’d rather spend the entire night alone with your thoughts than to spend five minutes holding a conversation with me?”

“Yes.”

It was the first word, sans any threats, he’d managed to get out of Ford all night, and it was annoying enough for Bill to sink further against his restraints with a huff.

Not a defeated huff; if a stubborn, old fool not giving him what he wanted was enough to stop Bill Cipher, then he wouldn’t be Bill Cipher. If he’d possessed enough patience to wait eons for a functioning portal, then he could certainly possess enough to get a few words outta Ford over the course of a single evening.

And as soon as Ford stopped being so difficult—you couldn’t avoid talking all night, Sixer—he'd be in business.

The distant sound of floorboards creaking somewhere on the other side of the shack perked Bill up again with a look towards the ceiling. Guess the rest of the household was fighting back the urge to sleep with a stick.

The sudden lack of pencil to paper also caught his attention, gaze bouncing back to where Ford was seated. He hadn’t moved, but Bill could still see the pupils of his sunken-in eyes shift towards the door with mild curiosity.

Mild curiosity that vanished the second he realized Bill was watching him, and his focus immediately returning to his notes after clicking the safety back and leaving the gun where it rested.

Hmm.

“Fine, you don’t wanna talk about what you’ve been up to for the past few months?” he tried again. “Fair enough, I really didn’t wanna hear about it. Why don’t we talk about about something else, then? Like the kids, perhaps?”

The hand was back at the gun without pause.

“They’re looking well, older even. Or do they?—I’m still fuzzy on the details of the aging process of you mortals,” Bill continued. “Or if you don’t wanna talk about them, we could always talk about your brother. Can’t believe he’s still wildly swinging those fists around like a wild animal, especially when that didn’t even work the first time—”

The gun was ignored completely as Ford crossed the room in an instant, the vitriol behind his eyes hot enough to burn straight through Bill’s skin, blood, skull—everything, until it bore a hole right through to the other side of his head. A motion that made Bill jump against his better judgment—his blackened eye instinctively twitching as he remembered Stan’s earlier show of force—and for a fleeting moment, he expected another hand around his throat in seconds.

Before Ford could react proper, however, a loud knock pulled both of their attention to the bedroom door. After a silent breath of relief, Bill shot Ford a cheeky grin. “Sounds like you’ve got company~! Unless they’re here to see me, which—I mean, who could blame them if they were?”

Ford glared at him before turning back to the door. “Who is it?”

“Jersey Devil. Who d’you think it is?”

“...Come on in.”

The knob turned and Stan slowly entered the room, casting a silent look between the two of them before settling his gaze on Ford. “Just checkin’ in. How’s, uh—” he began, then paused. “—how’s everything going?”

He was clearly talking to Ford, and making an obvious effort to ignore the triangle-shaped elephant in the room. So naturally, Bill had to do everything in his power to make his presence as loud and obvious as possible.

“Everything’s peachy~!” he piped up, with another wiggle against his binds. “Ol’ Fordsy and I are having the time of our lives catching up on things! In fact, I think he was just about to tell me about what the kids have been up to for the past few months?”

He flashed Ford a wide grin. “Come on, Ford, I’ll bet they’ve shared a ton of stories with you~!”

Stan pointed a finger at him. “Hey, you’d better watch that mouth of yours, before I come over there and make it match your eyeball.”

“What, you’re gonna punch it?” Bill asked. “Go right ahead, I was just lamenting the fact that my mouth and eyeball are separated in this body.”

He giggled mischievously and flashed him a wide grin. “Your fist’s about the size of a mouth-sized eyeball, right? Just asking, because the second you swing it at these puppies—” He gave a warning snap of his teeth. “—I can’t promise that you’ll get it back.”

“Everything’s fine, Stanley. Go get some sleep.”

Ford’s tone was so scripted and hollow, like the words he actually wanted to say were being held back by a metric ton of steel. More than just the physical steel plate installed in his head, a whole dam of metaphorical steel was keeping the flood of Ford’s true thoughts at bay. And judging by the way Stan’s features twisted with uncertainty at his brother’s words—only until he spotted Bill eyeing him and promptly shifted his expression into a look of disdain—there was clearly something keeping his own thoughts hidden as well.

Oh, it killed Bill to not know what they were thinking. To lack the ability to act as the metaphorical wrecking ball that could smash through all that steel in an instant, leaving him free to pry open every last little thought, rivet by rivet, bolt by bolt.

Well, at least he still possessed the ability to verbally taunt them~! “You heard the big guy, Goldfish~! Why don’t you run on back to bed while the adults talk?”

“Why you little—” Stan began, then paused with a look of confusion. “Goldfish, what—”

“Your sign in the Zodiac Wheel,” Bill elaborated. “You know—that little goldfish thing on your hat! Although I guess it could also be a reference to your constant desperation for fortune and fame, combined with your childish dream of dragging Sixer off on some ridiculous, insignificant boat adventure. You know, first part’s the gold, second part’s the fish?”

He tilted his head. “Of course, I could always call you Fez instead, but that just sounds silly. It’d be like calling Question Mark Shirt or Pine Tree…I dunno, Other Hat? Hmm, kinda like that, actually.”

“...Welp, that one’s on me for asking,” Stan said, and promptly turned his attention back to Ford. “I did need you for something, though. Apparently Soos found a few more moonstones that he said we should lay out in the hall—”

“Well, feel free to lay them there,” Ford said, making his way back to his chair. “One at each corner, evenly spaced…Probably a smart idea to stick one at the end of the hallway for good measure—”

“I really think we need your help with it,” Stan urged.

“Not if you follow my instructions.”

Bill’s eyebrows shot as far up his forehead as they could get, expression lighting up with sadistic glee. Oh, oh—they were fighting~! “Aww, I’m back for five minutes and you two are already at each other’s throats again!” he said with a mirthy twinkle in his eye. “Man, even after all this time, you Pines Twins still can’t get along!”

He began to rock back and forth in the chair with delight. “Come on, punch each other in the face!” he demanded excitedly. “Give Sixer a black eye that looks worse than mine!”

He stopped rocking for a moment, and cast a look down at the chair. “Hmm, I forgot that you mortals haven’t evolved to the point where you can hear the voices of inanimate objects,” he said. “Such a shame that I can’t hear how much this chair is screaming while I rock around on it!”

With a cackle, he proceeded to rock back and forth even harder. “Hehe, I’ll bet the four-legged jerk's absolutely livid right now—ACK!”

The chair suddenly tipped over and crashed—Bill and all—to the floor with a loud clatter. With his limbs too restrained to catch himself in any dignified fashion, Bill quickly found himself with his face squished into the lavender rug near Abuelita’s bed.

Both Ford and Stan stared at him for a moment, their disagreement temporarily forgotten at Bill’s misfortune. However, Stan snapped back to reality first and took advantage of the other two being distracted long enough to pull Ford towards the door and out into the hallway.

Bill barely had time to bark out an irritated: “Hey, get back here and pick me up!” before the door was pulled shut behind them. With a irritable huff, he attempted to rock the chair again in the hopes of adjusting to a more comfortable angle.

And after a moment of struggling, he finally succeeded in rolling the chair onto its—and by extension, his—back. Leaving him completely flat on the floor with his gaze pointed upwards at the ceiling.

Well, at least this angle was more familiar.

— — — — — — —

“Stanley, I said—”

“I know what you said,” Stan replied, closing the door shut behind them. “But you know I’m gonna try and make you sleep tonight, right?”

“And you know I’m not going to do that, right?”

“Ford—”

“How on Earth am I supposed to sleep with Bill still alive?!”

It was like something had finally crashed right on through whatever wall Ford had built up in his mind, the stress he had tried desperately to repress all evening spilling out of him in an instant. “The memory gun should’ve worked,” he muttered in a panicked tone. “It…it destroyed everything in your mind, right?”

“Well, yeah, everything—” Stan began. “But—”

“There had to have been something he did, something that protected him,” Ford rambled on, mostly to himself. “Was it a spell? Some kind of failsafe? Did he catch onto our plan—”

“Woah, woah, hey, just breathe for a sec,” Stan interrupted. “Yeah, this is exactly why you’ve gotta let someone else babysit the little jerk while you get some sleep. You’re not gonna get anywhere if you’re too tired to think straight.”

And maybe if Ford got some sleep, he could shift some of the burden to Stan’s shoulders where it belonged. Yeesh, the poor guy had really been holding back earlier. Had he really been this stressed all evening?

…As if Stan needed to ask.

“You’d be surprised at what I can accomplish during an all-nighter,” Ford assured him. “Back in my college days, I once started a twenty-thousand-word essay at ten in the evening, and had it on the professor’s desk by six the next morning.”

He pressed a hand to his forehead. “And when you first arrived here to help me hide the journals, I was starting my fourth consecutive day of staying awake.”

“Fourth?!” Stan sputtered in disbelief, before he shook his head. “No, no, just gonna ignore that for now—it’s not like I got any room to talk when it comes to bad sleep schedules. But also you are not staying up four days to deal with this by yourself.”

He reached over to place a reassuring hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Come on, Stanford, let me help you,” he urged. “At least go get an hour of sleep. I’ll stay down here, keep him quiet—heck, I’ll duct tape his mouth shut if he gets too mouthy with me.”

He balled his free hand into a fist and thumped it against his own chest. “Let me help you put that pointy jerk twenty feet back under the ground, and make it stick this time!”

Ford’s eyes fell to the hand on his shoulder and followed it up to the desperation in his brother’s features.

An expression near identical to the one he had worn after being blasted by the memory gun. Confusion mixed with a desire to understand…

It was like they were back in that clearing in the woods, the natural warmth of the sun draping itself back over the town, after the blood-red skies of Weirdmageddon had barred it from sight for so long. Stanley kneeling in front of him and the kids in a dazed trance, no recollection of whom he was or the sacrifices he had just made.

All of which he had assured Ford was worth the risk while they swapped clothes back in the Fearamid, beneath the wretched tapestries of the remaining Zodiac members, an ear perked on both ends for Bill’s thundering footsteps reapproaching the main room.

But had it been? Had it been worth the risk?

Up until Mabel’s scrapbook method, they had no way of knowing that Stanley would’ve been able to return to his usual self. And as far as they knew, that cure only worked when presented with the memory gun’s effects. What if Stanley got involved again, only for something worse to happen to him than lost memories? What if he couldn’t simply be scrapbooked and home movie’d back to his usual self again this time around?

What if—

“Yeah, well, if they keep on bein’ that thrilled, you’re gonna have to bust out that necromancy spell to talk to me.”

“I’ve made up my mind, Stanley,” Ford said, and turned back to the door. “You go get some sleep.”

“Wh—Ford!”

His brother’s name fell on deaf ears as Ford promptly open and shut the door behind him. Stan continued to stare at the closed door, too dumbfounded to properly react.

Ford really didn’t want his help with Bill? He could understand sending everyone off to bed earlier, but he was still turning down his help when it was just the two of them?

He raised a hand to the doorknob, the temptation to try and properly sway Ford into letting him help rising in his chest—

“Mr. Pines?”

Stan nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a voice from the other bedroom in the hallway, and he turned to see Soos standing in the doorway. “Everything alright? …I don’t have to punch anyone yet, do I?”

With an exhale, Stan forced his hand back to his side again. “Yeesh, Soos, don’t sneak up on me like that or I’m gonna be the one who starts swinging. But nah, everything’s fine. Just thought I check in on Ford, is all.”

“Alright,” Soos said with a small smile as he held up a fist of his own. “But I swear, I will throw a punch if I need to! I made a promise, after all.”

He paused, and switched the fist to another hand. “Although maybe I should use this hand,” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t wanna accidentally break my Shack-Brochure-and-Fanfic-Writing hand on his face, you know what I mean?”

He swapped back to the first. “Although it’s probably better to use your dominant hand to punch—”

“Go to bed, Soos.”

“You got it, Mr. Pines!”

He shut the door, leaving Stan once again by himself in the quiet hallway.

Stan cast a look back to the door in front of him, his hand moving towards the doorknob again.

The same way it had when Ford had called him to the shack all those years ago, eyes bloodshot and features sunken from a lack of sleep—four days, Ford?!—and he’d showed up without a second thought to help.

Despite all the time they had spent apart, Ford had relied on him enough to seek out his help. Despite everything, Stan had still held some worth in his brother’s eyes.

And how had Stan proven that worth to his brother?

By tossing him through some massive, otherworldly portal for thirty years, stealing his identity, and ruining his life.

By getting huffy over a simple thank you and nearly dooming the entire universe.

“But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

By not doing the one thing that had actually granted him worth, and killing that stupid demon proper.

He slammed his hand back down to his side again in a balled fist, and headed back down the hallway.

Forget it, he’d try again tomorrow.

— — — — — — —

“So, how’d the fight go~?”

Not even Bill’s shrill tauntings could pull Ford out of his determined state as he returned to his chair and notebook, the tip of his pencil once again dancing across the paper with incredible speed.

From the floor where he’d fallen earlier, Bill cast him a sour look. “Oh, real mature, Sixer. You’re really not going to pick me up?”

Ford’s hand clenched tighter around the pencil as he went to scratch out his latest idea—one that joined the dozen other scribbled-out ideas above it—before moving down to the next empty row on the paper and starting again—

“Uh, hello? Stanford? I’m talking to you!”

Talk then, you vile little demon.

The tip of the pencil snapped and Ford was unable to bite back his frustrated grunt of surprise. Right on cue, a cackle started from the floor as he reached for a pencil sharpener. “Hehe, I heard that~!” Bill chimed in a singsong voice. “Guess we know who lost the fight, eh, Grumpypants~?”

Ford paid him no mind as he quickly sharpened the pencil back into a point and returned to his work with that fierce determination from before.

No matter how many scribbled-out ideas he had to toss into the fireplace, he was going to find a solution to this problem.

No matter how long it took, no matter how much he had to verbally endure at Bill’s hand again—

—he would make certain that his brother’s sacrifices hadn’t been in vain.

“...Okay, seriously, are you going to leave me down here all night?”

— — — — — — — —

Mabel couldn’t sleep.

Ever since she’d settled into bed—a snoozing Waddles curled up at her side—her eyes had stayed glued to the ceiling. At first she’d tried distracting herself by holding mental conversations with the mold spots permanently stained into the old wood, but not even Daryl could lift her spirits at a time like this.

Every few minutes, her gaze would move to the bed across the room, a question lingering on her tongue for a moment before she returned her attention to the ceiling.

It was around midnight before she finally vocalized her lingering question with a quiet: “You awake, Dipper?”

Her answer immediately came in the form of blankets shuffling as Dipper rolled over to face her. “Of course I am.”

She rolled over to face him proper as well, both pairs of eyes shifting to the triangular window of their room. The moon hung high in the night sky, its beams of light shining through the glass and illuminating the floor in a way that would normally be comforting.

Tonight, however, the sight of an eye-shaped object through the triangular frame was just a painful reminder of what waited for them just a few rooms below.

“I can’t believe he’s back…”

Dipper turned his gaze from the moonlight and back to his sister at the sound of her voice. “Did you see Grunkle Ford?” she asked quietly. “He was so scared…”

“I don’t blame him,” Dipper admitted, placing a hand to his forehead. “We went through all of that trouble to kill Bill, and it didn’t even work.”

He slid the hand down to cover his eyes, but immediately lifted it again to peek over at her. “Hey, you saw it, right? How much he looked like me…”

There was more shuffling—this time on Mabel’s end—as she sat up in bed completely. “It was like when I saw him during the puppet show,” she said, pulling her legs to her chest. “Except the hair and eyes were different this time around. His left eye wasn’t all—”

She covered her own left eye with one hand. “His hair color’s different this time, too. I wonder why?”

“Who knows?” Dipper said with a shrug. “Although I guess meeting—or re-meeting a guy who looks like me isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in this town, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mabel agreed. “Still…why’d it have to be that guy? Why does he have to ruin everything?”

A sad hum escaped her as she hugged her knees close. “So much for getting to spend more time with Grunkle Ford this summer…”

Dipper let his arm fall before he sat up in bed. “Hey, come on, you really think it’s gonna take all summer for Grunkle Ford to get rid of Bill?” he asked. “He’s spent the last thirty years traversing the Multiverse! He’s explored more dimensions than we could probably even think of on our own—dimensions where everyone lives underwater, dimensions ruled by talking robotic octopi—”

When Mabel plopped sadly back against her pillow again, Dipper paused for a moment to think. “—dimension where the air is made of cotton candy instead of oxygen?”

As he’d expected, the concept twitched the corners of her mouth with mild amusement. “Ugh, I’ll bet that dimension is soooo tasty,” she said. “I wonder what they do when it rains, though? All the cotton candy would just melt and then they’d have no air—ooh, I’ll bet they have like, a ga-ZILLION of those cotton candy-making machines ready for when that happens!”

“Anything’s possible in the Multiverse,” Dipper said with a nod. “My point is that Grunkle Ford’s been around, and he’s probably picked up a lot of different ways to get rid of Bill! Even if the methods he’s tried already didn’t work—and even if we can’t use stuff like the Zodiac or his Quantum Destabilizer—I’m sure he’s got something up his sleeve.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. And if none of those work, we could always come up with some ideas for him! Like—like—”

She flumped her arms across her blanket with an exasperated huff. “Well, I’m too tired to think of anything now, but I’m sure we could think of something!” she said, scrunching her face in concentration. “What if we…I dunno—”

“Oooh!” Dipper snapped his fingers with inspiration. “What if we got one of those time travel devices, strapped one to Bill, and then rocketed him to a date so far into the future that he’d never be able to get back to our time?”

Mabel pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle, but her amusement faded almost immediately. “Nah, that wouldn’t work. He could always trick and possess someone super far in the future, and they could help him get back here,” she pointed out. “Like what he did with that Blendin guy, remember?”

“Oh, yeah…”

The two fell silent again, the only noise that could be heard was the gentle summer wind rustling the forest outside their window. “We should probably sleep for real,” Dipper finally said. “We can just…do what we told Grunkle Stan we were going to do and take shifts, right?”

“Well then, you sleep first,” Mabel said, once again in an upright position as she reached over to pull Waddles close to her. “And like I said I was gonna do, I’ll let Waddles stay on your side and be your guard hog while you sleep.”

Waddles followed up her remark with a groggy little oink of reassurance, and Dipper let out a chuckle. “Yeah, and what’s he gonna do if Bill pops up in my dream?”

“I mean, you can always dream up a dream Waddles to eat him,” Mabel suggested. “He looks like a corn chip, right? I’ll bet dream corn chips taste just as good as real ones!”

She plapped a hand against the top of Waddles’ head. “Plus then when you wake up, you’ll have the real Waddles right there to comfort you!”

This got a full-on laugh out of Dipper. “Alright, alright, point made. Send him over.”

Mabel leaned over the side of the bed and gently set Waddles to the floor, giving his little rump an encouraging pat. “Go on, boy! Go protect Dipper from the dream nacho!”

With another tired little oink, he ambled on over to Dipper’s side of the bedroom and oinked up at him for assistance. “Go ahead and set an alarm on your phone, Mabel,” Dipper said, and reached down to pull him up onto his bed. “What should we set it to? An hour? Hour-and-a-half?”

“An hour works for me,” Mabel said. “But if you don’t actually sleep for that hour, I will not hesitate to stay up longer out of spite!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sleeping…”

Dipper settled back down under the covers while Waddles snuggled up next to him, and it wasn’t until Mabel heard Dipper’s light snoring that she finally dared to tear her gaze from him and reach for her phone.

That was good. At the very least, he’d be getting some sleep tonight.

She looked to the window again—the moonlight still faintly illuminating the darkened room—and crawled out of bed to stare outside properly. Despite the tall trees that surrounded the shack on all sides, there was little to block the ocean of stars that painted the night sky.

After staring for a bit, she turned and crawled back into her bed. With another look at her brother to make sure he was still asleep, she dug her hand between the mattress and wall, the tip of her tongue poking out between her lips in determination as she fumbled around for the unseen object she sought so desperately.

She knew it was a longshot that it would’ve remained in the same place for nine months—given the dustless state of their room, Soos would’ve been the most likely candidate to find it if he searched-slash-cleaned hard enough—but eventually her fingers brushed against something and she pulled it out to investigate.

It was an old, dusty piece of paper, the same one she had crumpled and tucked in its hiding spot almost a full year ago. The edges were frayed and torn and the tint of the paper was a sicklier yellow than she remembered—but the jagged writing on the front was still just as legible as the day she’d found it in Stan’s car:

“Note to self: Possessing people is hilarious! To think of all the sensations I’ve been missing out on—burning, stabbing, drowning. It’s like a buffet tray of fun! Once I destroy that journal, I’ll enjoy giving this body its grand finale—by throwing it off the water tower! Best of all, people will just think Pine Tree lost his mind, and his mental form will wander in the mindscape forever. Want to join him, Shooting Star?”

Mabel stared hard at the paper for what felt like an hour—although in reality, it was probably no longer than a few minutes. She read and reread several times over, every cruel word like a knife to her vision and gut, before finally crumpling the paper in an angry fist and shoving it back down between the wall and her mattress where it belonged.

She settled back against her pillow again, and turned back to Dipper’s bed. Still fast asleep, with nothing more than the occasional twitch or shift in place.

He was sleeping, supposedly without nightmares. That was all that mattered.

She continued to stare at him until the sight made her drowsy, before turning her attention back to the various mold spots on the ceiling.

Daryl was going to have to work overtime tonight if he really wanted to lift her spirits.

#Hayley Writes Triangulum #Gravity Falls #Triangulum The Fic #Bill Cipher #Stanford Pines #My Writing #Long Post #(More characters in the chapter; they are just tagged for the art)#(Stan and Mabel get some decent screentime in this chapter as well)

66 notes · View notes

mushiewrites · 7 months ago

Text

Say Aaaah!

so about a year ago, @fluffallamaful + I talked about one of the weirdest ideas I think I've ever brainrotted. we told @wishitweresummer, and since then, she has been begging me to write it. and now here we are, a year later and deep into lee!George week, and I decided to finally write the idea for her! this is 100% for summer, and I'm so excited for everyone to read the silliest and most ridiculous fic I've ever written! (and thank you to @awkwardtickleetoo for helping me with the title and reading it as always)

don't forget to check out this tag to see all of the amazing additions to lee!GeorgeSummer, and you can find out more about the prompts in this post!

anyway, enjoy Day 6 of lee!George week! :3

(lee!George / ler!Sapnap / ler!Dream : 4.2K words)

“George, you’ve been here for like, two years now, right?”

The question cut through the quiet atmosphere of the living room, only being previously filled by random videos that Dream and George kept showing each other as they sat practically in each other’s laps on the L-shaped couch. George turned his attention to Sapnap, who was sitting on the opposite side of the couch with Patches propped up against his thigh, his hand dragging lightly over her head as she purred happily.

“Yeah, you know this…why? You want me to go back already?” George huffed out a laugh, raising an eyebrow as Sapnap snorted at his question.

“Well yes, but that’s not what I was gonna say.”

“Okay, then what?” George asked suspiciously, never fully trusting Sapnap when he’s asking for information. There was always an underlying purpose, never questioning things just for the hell of it. George knew he had some kind of angle behind his curiosity, he just didn’t know where Sapnap was going with it.

“You haven’t been to any doctors since you’ve been here, have you?” Sapnap leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees and folding his fingers together, careful not to disturb Patches as he did so.

“Wait, really?” Dream questioned from beside him, watching as George shrugged at the two with little care.

“Yeah, I guess I haven’t,” George looked between the two, confused at the way they were both staring at him. “What’s the big deal? I’m fine, there hasn’t been anything wrong.”

“Well yeah, but normally you’re supposed to go for a check-up at least once a year to make sure everything is working okay.” Dream commented, turning his body towards Sapnap as he turned to him for validation in his words.

“Mhm! Or…at least to the dentist for a cleaning, you know?” Sapnap added, nodding his head to let Dream know he agreed. Dream nodded along with Sapnap, looking to George to see if he was even still paying attention. To his surprise he was, nodding slightly before looking down at his own hands, playing with his fingers as a distraction.

“I guess so, but like, it’s fine! I don’t need to go right now,” George continued to fidget with his fingers, waiting for one of the other two to speak, but he was met with a silence that felt too awkward for him to not continue. “I mean, if somethings wrong I’ll go, but like…it’s fine for now. Let’s just drop it.”

“George,” He heard Dream start, almost wincing at how gentle his voice was. “You aren’t scared of the doctors, are you?” George stayed quiet, refusing to make eye contact with either of them as he kept his mouth shut in a tight line. After a few more seconds of silence, Sapnap cackled from across the room.

“Are you serious?! Georgie is scared of the big bad doctor? Of the mean, evil dentist? No way!”

“Sapnap-” Dream tried to stop the teasing before it went any further, but Sapnap continued to yell out comments in disbelief.

“This is too good! Little baby George is scawed!” Sapnap fell back into the couch, his arms crossing over his stomach as he did and scaring Patches in the process. She jumped down onto the floor, quickly sprinting out of the room as Sapnap’s laugh grew louder. George rolled his eyes at the sound, letting out an annoyed grunt as he too flopped back against the couch cushions. Dream reached a hand out and placed it gently on his knee, rubbing his thumb soothingly as he looked down at him.

“It’s okay, George, don’t listen to him. Everyone’s scared of something.” George rolled his eyes again at how supportive Dream was, almost more annoyed with him just accepting that George was scared of something so silly.

“I’m not scared!” He exclaimed suddenly, standing up from the couch and pacing around the living room with a hand flinging roughly through his hair. He turned towards Sapnap, throwing his arms up in the air as he shrugged. “It's just…I get nervous going to new people, okay? It’s just like, an anxiety thing, I don’t know! But I’m not! Scared!”

Dream stood up and walked to where George was standing, placing his hands on either shoulder and leading George back to the couch to sit down. George was blushing profusely, embarrassed at the way the conversation was going as Sapnap continued to laugh and make snide comments about how scared he was. While he was deep in thought, Sapnap suddenly gasped, shooting up to a standing position and marching himself over to where George was sitting on the edge of the couch.

“Wait. I have an amazing idea.”

“Oh no.” George sighed, leaning his elbows on his knees and letting his head fall into his hands, shaking his head in disapproval as he waited for Sapnap to continue. It was clear Sapnap was waiting for someone to ask, but George wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.

“What?” Dream pressed further for him, equally as curious as George was.

“So, it’s kind of like-” Sapnap began, suddenly grabbing onto George’s arms and pulling him from the couch. He wrestled the older boy onto the floor, giggling maniacally as it took virtually no effort to take him down. George let out a shriek as Sapnap got him onto his back, straddling his waist quickly and pressing his wrists into the carpet below him.

“Get off me, idiot!” George choked out, trying to fling himself forward as he kicked his feet against the ground. Sapnap continued to laugh at his struggle, shaking his head as he kept George down easily.

“George, we’re gonna help you get over your fears! We’re gonna play doctor!” Sapnap exclaimed, looking up at Dream and giggling when he was met with a bright smile. George let out a strained grunt as he tried to buck his hips up, gaining leverage as he pressed his heels into the carpet to assist in his efforts. It failed, naturally, and Sapnap laughed in his face at his pathetic attempt.

“Stohop!” George couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, letting his head fall back against the carpet with a hard thud. He pulled his arms as much as he could, continuing to kick and push up with his legs to try and buck Sapnap off, but he was getting nowhere.

“Dream, I’m gonna need a hand holding down our patient, here. He’s very nervous and needs all the help he can get to make sure he’s relaxed!” Sapnap spoke over George’s protests, giggling as he thrashed around on the carpet like a fish out of water.

“Sure thing, doctor!” Dream responded as a soldier would, giving Sapnap a quick salute with his hand to his forehead before jumping into action. Before George could process what was happening, Sapnap’s weight was replaced with Dream’s, effectively halting his bottom half from squirming. He lifted himself up onto his elbows and was met with the sight of Dream’s back, staring daggers into the blonde curls through his panicked laughter as much as he could. It was then that he saw Sapnap peek around from behind Dream, clearly kneeling in front of George’s feet and giving him a wink before he hid back behind the wall that Dream’s body created between the two. He watched as Dream leaned forward, feeling a strong grip around both of his ankles that pressed them into the ground enough that he could barely wiggle them. This only intensified the building butterflies that were swirling around George’s stomach, and a new wave of nervous giggles began pouring out of him before he could hold them back.

“S-Stop! You’re both being ridiculous!” George yelled at them both, not knowing if they were even listening over the two speaking to each other in hushed tones, careful to not let him hear what they were saying.

“Oh wait!” Sapnap exclaimed suddenly, pouncing up from the ground and sprinting towards the steps. “I need to grab…things!”

Dream shook his head slowly as he giggled, watching Sapnap use all fours to crawl up the steps quickly, as if he were an excited puppy going to fetch a toy. George watched Sapnap too, but kept his peripherals glued on Dream, carefully watching him to make sure he wasn’t going to do anything to catch him off guard. The two sat and listened to Sapnap rummaging through things upstairs, hearing the thud of his footsteps as he ran in and out of rooms to collect the items he was looking for. The longer it took, the more nervous George got.

“What is he even doing up there?” George mumbled quietly to himself, not expecting an answer from Dream. He was pleasantly surprised when the blonde spoke up.

“To be honest, I’m actually not sure. He didn’t tell me anything before he ran up the steps like a gremlin,” He chuckled, craning his neck to look back at George, temporarily releasing his ankles so he could shake them out if he needed to. “You doin’ okay back there?”

“Just dandy.” George replied flatly, fighting a smile when his wording made Dream giggle. He brought both hands up to card through his hair, attempting to settle his nerves, when he heard quick footsteps approaching closer. The two turned their attention to the upstairs hallway once more, watching as Sapnap appeared at the top of the steps, not even stopping to slow his momentum as he practically flew down the steps.

“Okay! I have my tool kit ready!” Sapnap spoke through his heavy breathing, winded from the speed he had been running around. George observed a black drawstring bag before it was quickly hidden from his view, letting out a sigh of relief when he noticed how empty it looked. He still had no clue what the two were planning, but he knew whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good.

“So change of plans,” He leaned to the side so George could see him once he knelt down onto the ground again, smirking wickedly as he spoke. “I couldn’t find anything that really screamed out ‘doctor’ to me-“

“Good.” George interrupted, earning a hard flick to the side of his right ankle before they were engulfed in large hands once more. Dream pushed them down with a little more pressure, leaning more of his weight into the hold to assure George wouldn’t budge.

“Buuuuut, I did find things to make us dentists!” He exclaimed happily, watching as George’s expression dropped and eyes widened.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” George let his head thump back against the carpet, bringing the heels of his hands up to rub harshly at his eyes when Sapnap snuck back around to hide in front of Dream.

“Nope! This is no joke, Georgie. We’re gonna help you face your fears!” Sapnap replied as he emptied the contents of the bag, a few things clanging together as he did so. George heard Dream gasp quietly and watched his shoulders scrunch up, seeing his bouncy curls move from side to side as Dream silently reprimanded the younger boy.

“What? What is it?!” George blurted out in a panic at Dream’s reaction, his stomach doing somersaults at all the possibilities of what Sapnap could’ve put in the so called “tool kit”.

“Nothing to be afraid of!” Dream quickly assured him, hearing the frantic tone of George’s voice and wanting to comfort him before his mind could run rampant.

“Well…” George heard Sapnap scoff quietly, sending his thoughts spiraling once again.

“Wh- HEY!” George squealed when he felt a finger flick the bottom of his socked foot, moving to pull it away. He felt a deep dread spread throughout his body when he realized that his feet wouldn’t budge at all, and panicked giggles began to flow from him before he was even touched again.

“Gosh, you are nervy, aren’t you, kitten?” Sapnap wondered out loud, tracing his pointer finger down both feet slowly to make George squirm. He applied more pressure as he traced back up to his toes, pinching each one lightly and smirking when George hollered out at the feeling.

“Plehease! Don’t do this!” He pleaded with the two, but was met with no response. George jolted his body upwards when Sapnap added a finger to each foot, now tracing up and down with two fingers and using more of his nails on the down strokes to make George’s laughter jump in pitch.

“It’s okay, we’re just helping!” Dream tried to comfort him through his squeals, giggling himself when Sapnap’s fingers traced under George’s toes, making him shriek. Just when it was starting to become bearable, his stomach dropped when he felt a finger dip into the top of each sock, slowly prying them off.

“NO! Nononono, no! Please! Plehehease don’t!” George begged, curling his toes to try and grip onto the fabric of his socks as they were pulled off at an agonizingly slow pace. He could feel the air hit his heels, then his arches, and finally over the pads of his feet. George panicked, sitting up and gripping onto Dream’s sides, kneading into them like his life depended on it.

“GEORGE!” Dream cried out, letting go of his ankles in favor of gripping George’s wrists, pulling them away from his body as he caught his breath from the sudden tickle attack. Sapnap appeared next to George, taking his wrists from Dream so he could go back to securing his ankles before he caused too much of a mess.

“Tsk tsk tsk. Naughty boy,” Sapnap shook his head in disappointment, pushing George’s hands against his own chest to make him fall back against the carpet before pressing them down against the ground on either side of his hips. “Dream, lift your shins for me, will you?” Dream looked back at Sapnap with slight confusion, leaning forward a bit more until he was able to angle his shins up off the ground. When Sapnap placed George’s hands directly under them, Dream suddenly understood. He dropped his legs quickly, making sure to sit back on his shins to keep George’s wrists secure.

“This isn’t fair! Stohohop!” George whined as Sapnap crawled back in front of his feet, disappearing behind Dream once again. “Come on! I told you, I’m not scared! We don’t have to dohoho this!” His pleas were ignored, and the plan continued.

“So what do we have here, mister dentist?” Dream asked Sapnap playfully, looking down at the tools displayed between George’s spread ankles.

“Well, first, let’s get a good look at these teeth!” Sapnap responded with the same amount of enthusiasm, quickly ripping off George’s socks and flinging them behind him somewhere across the room. George immediately curled his toes when he felt the air hit them, high pitched giggles bubbling out of him as he tried to control his reactions. He felt Sapnap pinch each one again, this time wiggling them as he went and making George squeak every time his nail scraped the pads of them.

“Plehehease! This is soho dumb!” George pulled at his arms, trying to yank them free, but Dream’s weight kept them pressed into the floor. Frustratingly, all he could really do was twist his upper body and move his head; not nearly enough give to expel any of his anxiety.

“Hm…seems like they’re in good shape. Could use a cleaning though.” He heard Dream comment, making his stomach flip as his brain tried to figure out what they could possibly do to him.

“Great idea, my beautiful assistant!” George could hear the smile in his voice, squeezing his eyes shut at how excited he sounded. Suddenly he heard a click, followed by a loud buzzing, and he immediately knew what it was. He curled his toes even tighter as he began spurting out pleas, saying anything to get their attention to make them stop. Sapnap peaked over Dream’s shoulder and gave George a wink before going back to work, bringing the toothbrush down closer to the practically immobile feet in front of him.

“The patient seems ready for the cleaning, so we’re going to proceed!”

George let out a blood curdling scream when a vibrating toothbrush touched down on both of his pinky toes, not expecting two of them at the same time and sending him into a frenzy. He squeezed his eyes shut as his head flung back, cackling as Sapnap moved the brushes over to the next toe on each foot. Despite curling them as hard as he could, Sapnap managed to wedge them under his toes anyway, making sure to get the tops and the bottoms of each toe as he went.

“FUHUCK, PLEHEASE!” George managed to cry out between his panic, shaking his head back and forth as he laughed himself silly. Sapnap didn’t respond, simply commenting on how clean his ‘teeth’ looked as he made his way over George’s middle toe on either foot. The toothbrushes moved to the second toes and George screeched, high pitched and loud, begging them to stop, to not go to his big toes, that he’d do anything they wanted as long as they left them alone. But to his dismay, Sapnap moved the dreaded toothbrushes over each big toe, swirling them in slow circles and sending George into hysterics.

“Holy shit.” Dream spoke lowly as he watched the torture Sapnap was forcing George to endure. Sapnap looked up at Dream and chuckled when he noticed the faint blush appearing on his cheeks, and Dream huffed in annoyance at the smirk he received in response.

“Almost done with the cleaning! Just a little more, I promise!” Sapnap peeked around Dream again, taking in George’s panicked thrashing and screams at the simple tickling on the tiny toes. He leaned back to sit on his shins as he turned the toothbrushes off, allowing George a moment to collect himself and steady his breathing.

“P-Plehehease…” George was delirious with laughter at this point, still in near hysterics even though the tickling had stopped. Sapnap rubbed his thumbs over the tingly toes, making sure to rub with enough pressure to help rub the ghost tickles away. Once George’s laughter had settled down to quiet giggles, Sapnap let his fingers wander, gently pressing them in the spaces between his toes. George let out a squawk at the feeling, and immediately he was begging again.

“NONONO nohoho! No more! Nohoho more!” George pleaded, trying to bend his knees under Dream to knock him off and whining through his laughter when he didn’t budge at all. He was yanking at his arms so hard he thought he might dislocate them, and he cursed both boys for keeping him down like this while they played with him like a doll.

“I’m just checking for cavities! Hold still!” Sapnap explained, using one hand to steady George’s left foot as he pushed his finger between each toe, twisting it as he did. George was beside himself with laughter, feeling tears well as Sapnap continued his search for whatever he was looking for. He finished with the left foot, skittering fingers over the top of it to make George squeal.

“Okay, that one looks great! Now we have to check the other one, and then we’re all done!” Sapnap reassured George, gripping the right foot the same way he did the left, shoving his finger between the last two toes and giggling when George let out a squeak in response. It went smoothly between the next two toes, and the next, until Sapnap shoved his finger between the first and second toes. He stopped twisting his fingers, and instead used both hands to spread them apart.

“STOP!” George shrieked out in embarrassment, knowing how intensely Sapnap and Dream must be looking at his foot right now. The two laughed at his outburst, but changed nothing about what they were doing.

“No can do, Georgie,” Sapnap pretended to speak with fake sympathy, sighing before he continued. “I’m afraid we’ve found a cavity.” The comment sent George into a further panic, now struggling even harder than before, nearly lifting Dream with the ticklish adrenaline that was coursing through him.

“What do we do for that, mister dentist?” Dream asked over George’s screaming, looking back briefly to see how hard he was blushing. He knew this kind of play always got to George, never knowing how to handle all the attention.

“Well, there’s really only one thing we can do,” Sapnap explained, rustling around with something that George couldn’t see. “We have to floss.”

“WHAT?!”

Before George could question any further, he felt Sapnap weaving something between all of the toes on his right foot, even between the toes that Sapnap deemed to be okay not even a moment before. The feeling of whatever the weird string was just sitting between them was enough to make George laugh even harder, not being used to having something in such a sensitive area. George was babbling out pleas but nothing was coherent. His words were slurred together through his laughter despite him trying to articulate the best he could. Sapnap and Dream only laughed at him before turning back to the task at hand.

“Don’t worry, patient! Your cavity will be fixed soon enough!” Dream called over his shoulder, not even sure if George was able to hear him, but deciding to continue playing his role anyway. George didn’t respond, not sure he was even able if he wanted. When he was finally getting used to the sensation, his whole body shook with ticklish electricity as the material started to move.

“NAHAHAHA!” George was full on screaming through his hysterics, taking in quick gulps of air as his lungs harshly pushed out laugh after laugh. He was lightheaded; so much so, it was as if he would float away. George continued to shake, squirming back and forth on the carpet at the overwhelming ticklish feeling. Sapnap continued to saw the material back and forth between his toes, laughing along at how insane George’s reactions were. Neither boy had ever heard George laugh this hard or loud, and they exchanged surprised glances every few seconds, especially whenever a new noise or high pitched squeak would present itself through the hysterics.

“Almost done, it’ll be over soon, George!” Dream assured him as he continued to struggle, his throat becoming more and more dry the harder he laughed. George eventually fell silent, only producing high pitched squeals and squeaks whenever he was able to get a full breath in. His face was burning, his cheeks bright red with tears covering them from how hard he was laughing. After a few seconds, the feeling finally stopped, and Sapnap quickly removed the tickly material from between George’s toes to finally relieve him of the torture.

“Plehehease!” George was unable to stop the word from tumbling out despite the tickling having stopped, completely out of his mind at the intense tickling feeling he just endured. Dream sat forward to free George’s wrists and moved his hands from George’s ankles to his feet, opting to rub over his toes as Sapnap began to put the items back into the bag. Dream continued to rub soothingly over both feet, making sure to help the ticklish feeling pass as quickly as it could.

“W-What…the fuhuhuck…was that?” George forced the question through his shallow breathing, bringing his hands up to rub his tear stained cheeks and free the stray tears that clung to his long eyelashes. He opened his eyes briefly when he felt something glide over his right hand, looking down to see Sapnap holding a long, white string.

“Shoelace!” He beamed, a huge smile spreading over his face as he showed George what he just tormented him with. George groaned through the left over giggles, covering his face in embarrassment as his mind replayed the last few minutes over and over again. Dream moved off of George’s waist, turning to face him before sitting by his side. He gently grabbed both of George’s wrists and gave them each a kiss before placing them in his lap, tracing over them to make sure they were okay after being restrained, and also from how hard George had been pulling at them.

“You okay, baby?” Dream asked softly, letting his hands run down over George’s forearms and back up to his wrists. George closed his eyes again, turning on his side and curling his body towards Dream’s, letting his forehead connect with his thigh before nodding slowly. The blonde moved one of his hands to scratch lightly over his bicep, letting the other run through his hair to help bring him back down to reality. Sapnap pulled the string of the bag tightly, closing it and slinging it over his shoulder, getting ready to stand up from his place opposite Dream, on the other side of George. But before he could, he felt a tight grip on his wrist, keeping him down on the ground with the other two. “So,” George began after finally getting his breathing under control, sitting up slowly and turning his attention to Sapnap. “When’s the last time you were at the dentist?”

#lee!george #ler!sapnap #ler!dream #hehe yaaaay this is ridiuclous but its fun!#very very silly behavior here #also i know george got a shot in his ass but we're gonna ignore that <3 #mushie fics #mcyt tickle #my stuff #lee!GeorgeSummer

37 notes · View notes

thebisexualdogdad · 1 year ago

Text

Kate Bishop x male deadpool!reader (featuring Jeff the land shark)

● "you can't bring a shark in here!"

● "why not?! he's not dangerous he's a good boy! He's basically a dog!" you yell back at the woman scolding you

● you brought Jeff to the dog park looking to make some friends but the other park goers were not thrilled to have a land shark around their pets

● when Kate and Lucky show up Jeff is alone in the corner of the park looking sad cause none of the dogs want to play with him

● but as soon as Lucky is off his leash he runs straight to Jeff and they start playing

● "look they are best friends!" You say approaching his owner

● "um… is that a shark?" She asks

● "yep, his name is Jeff and im Y/N"

● "okay, well I'm Kate and that's Lucky the pizza dog"

● "ooh Jeff and I love pizza you want to get a slice together?"

● "well he's not the weirdest thing I've seen this week so sure"

● after letting Jeff and Lucky play together for a while you guys go get pizza

● "you look really familiar have we met before?" You ask Kate when it hits, "wait a minute… you're the new hawkeye!"

● "I know I don't exactly keep my real identity a secret but I also try not to shout it to pizzerias full of people"

● "Oh its okay, I'm Deadpool maybe you've heard of me"

● "aren't you the guy that jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge fighting taskmaster"

● "that's me! that was technically the fourth time I died and I also found out taskmaster is a really good swimmer but don't tell anyone he ended up getting away, I have a reputation to maintain"

● "you're weird… I like it"

● you and Kate become really good friends

● Jeff and Lucky have play dates all the time

● Jeff has a friend and you have an excuse to see Kate because you are not so secretly crushing on her

● teaming up on missions and being a force to be reckoned with

● between Kate's arrows and your swords the bad guys never know what to expect

● although when Yelena is in town you and her are a chaotic mess that Kate is always cleaning up after

● "guys was it really necessary to break in through the giant glass window… the door was unlocked"

● "yeah but going through the window was way more badass"

● "he's right Kate Bishop, window is way cooler than unlocked door"

● "Y/N you literally have a giant piece of glass in your neck"

● you feel the big glass shard in your neck and casually pull it out, blood spurting out "it's fine, that'll heal"

● going for long walks together with Jeff and Lucky

● everyone stares at Jeff but he just keeps walking confidently besides Lucky

● you and Kate have plenty of matching outfits for them

● you finally ask Kate out with a plater of tacos shaped in a heart

● "Kate Bishop will you do me the honor of going on a date with me?"

● before Kate can say anything Jeff jumps up and grabs the platter, tacos falling everywhere with Jeff and Lucky eating as many as they can

● "Jeff! Dude! Those were for Kate!"

● "Y/N, it's okay," she says laughing, "and yes I will go out on a date with you"

#marvel imagine #kate bishop imagine #kate bishop x reader #x male reader #headcanons

192 notes · View notes

bloodgulchblog · 1 year ago

Note

What are the weirdest facts about Halo you know. Like just absurd stuff. I mean there’s the worm mechs but I wanna know if there’s more

ALRIGHT let's see what I can remember off the top of my head before I have to leave for the day:

Once upon a time in the most ancient space days before the Halos were fired, everyone in the galaxy thought the San'Shyuum were incredibly sexy.

A scrapped enemy from the early Halos was a gigantic, lumbering one-eyed creature that they were thinking was a whole species the Covenant weaponized. The Sharquoi would later be used as a forgotten Forerunner weapon in a novel that are hive-mind controlled from this metal crown that will dig into your brain.

It's a kind of widely known fact about them, but the Forerunners as a species reached a point where they were not considered to be actual adults until their bodies had been extensively augmented, and it was a signifier of importance and status to go through multiple mutations over the course of their lives. (Which is why they are so radically different from one another in size/shape/appearance.)

The way the Librarian found out about how the Forerunners genocided the Precursors was by traveling out to where it happened and finding a planet where there was a population of Forerunners that had been surviving without technology for tons and tons and tons of generations. (They conveyed this information to her by biting her, so that the bacteria their ancestors had genetically engineered to contain memory and information could teach her about it.)

We have one canonical example of a smart AI living for a very long time... and it's because he was actually two AIs in a trenchcoat who would switch which personality was in charge while the other one went out to live in the internet-of-things between space tractors and cropdusters for a while to recharge.

Jiralhanae smell. They communicate tons of information through scent/pheromones, and are noted to stink noticeably when they're scared.

The Unggoy are a very musical people. They have a 42-storey high building in their capital city dedicated just to the musical arts.

The way the Covenant found the mech worms in the first place was that the Lek'golo worms were eating Forerunner technology and they did not like that, but then they figured out that SOME of them would just eat AROUND the technology so they had an Arbiter negotiate with them and get them to help kill off the other kinds. Normal Covenant stuff.

Huragok are actually living tools created by the Forerunners for building and maintaining stuff. There were once some Huragok that were used by Forerunner Lifeworkers that could work with living tissue the way other Huragok work with machines, but they were all wiped out. (...One does show up in a book but shshhhh I'm trying to keep this simple.)

Ideas of the "ideal female body" humans have are based on the Librarian's appearance because she messed around with genetically implanting stuff into humans so much.

The way you euphemistically talk about Sangheili groups that let their women fight more than is conventionally allowed is you say they have a "strong protector-of-eggs tradition."

The whole splinter population of Sangheili I mentioned recently that didn't want to joint he Covenant, so they went and hid in a Forerunner structure and succeeded for several thousand years.

The planet Onyx where the Spartan-IIIs were trained was actually secretly a Forerunner shield world. Now that it's been brought back into normal space, it takes up most of that solar system. The inner surface of the sphere will take generations of work to explore because it is so large.

88 notes · View notes

a-small-batch-of-dragons · 26 days ago

Text

Decay

hello everyone we're back!!! sorry it took me so long, i had to rattle this one around in my head for a while to get it on straight (heh)

this is my first time really writing leon's perspective so i hope it sounds okay!!!! i also hope it doesn't come off too mia bashing, that's not my intention at all, i just think what with leon's past with sherry he'd have a hard time reconciling mia's choices against his own priorities etc.

also rose sweetie i'm so sorry i'm giving you so many dysfunctional adult/parental figures i swear once ethan recovers a little more he'll be the other emotionally competent person here

Read on Ao3 Masterlist

Warnings: talk about infidelity, previous character death (it's ethan so he's fine now but still oof)

Pairings: mithan, lethan, winterfield

Word Count: 3799

They talked about Mia's new job, about how much they missed each other, about how proud they were of Rose. All the things normal couples would talk about. Then Ethan had sighed. "Mia," he says in a quiet voice, and Mia's mouth twitches. "Yes, Ethan?" "It's no use."

Out of all the things Leon expected from Chris’s call, suddenly being privy to what has to be the weirdest talk between husband and wife was not one of them. And yet, here he is, sitting in a sterile interrogation room with a buzzing light, a former bioterrorist, and a living mold colony assuming the shape of a former systems engineer.

Life is strange sometimes. He’s learned how to roll with the punches.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ethan had said when he came to escort him from his room—room, Chris had stressed, not a cell, even though it felt a whole lot like a cell and he’s pretty sure Ethan thought of it like that too—“I’m sure you have better things to do than babysit me while I try and talk to my…ex-wife? Former wife? Widow?”

Leon had snorted. “Are you kidding me? I’m missing my favorite soap opera, the least you could do is make up for it with your familial melodrama.”

He didn’t mention that he was the only person other than Chris himself who had the required clearance to be there, and even Chris-Emotional-Constipation-Redfield knew that was a bad idea. So, here they were.

At first, it'd just been a little bit awkward, watching Ethan so visibly relax when Mia came in. Mia too—like watching a soldier reunite with his wife after a long deployment in one of those videos with a slow love song playing in the background. Only this time they couldn't touch, separated by a sheet of bullet-proof glass, and talking through phones that made everyone sound like they were doing really bad Darth Vader impressions. They talked about Mia's new job, about how much they missed each other, about how proud they were of Rose. All the things normal couples would talk about.

Then Ethan had sighed.

"Mia," he says in a quiet voice, and Mia's mouth twitches.

"Yes, Ethan?"

"It's no use."

Her brow furrows for a split second before she forces a light laugh. "What's no use?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Her hand clenches and she drops it out of sight. "I really don't, Ethan."

"Yes, you do."

What's making this so much worse is that Ethan isn't angry. Leon's gaze flicks between them as Mia clearly wrestles with the words on the tip of her tongue but Ethan's just…sitting there. Then again, the man's died, what, three times at this point? It's not that surprising that nothing fazes him, but still…

"I mean, I don't know what I'm going to tell people," Mia says, tossing her hair over her shoulder with a brusque jerk of her chin, "I can't exactly explain Rose's father magically reappearing."

Ethan doesn't respond for a moment. She seems to take that as clearance to keep talking.

"I guess I could say you—woke up from a coma, or something, but everyone thinks you're dead. You've been gone for sixteen years, Ethan, it's not—it's not something we can just shrug off."

"'We?'"

"Yes, of course, 'we'," she huffs in a laugh, even as panic starts to cloud her eyes, "what are you talking about?"

Another pause. Then he sighs again. The sound rattles through the shitty phone. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

"About what?"

"About me. About Rose."

Mia swallows. "Ethan, I—"

"Did you know the whole time? Ever since Dulvey? Or did you figure it out along the way and just—keep it to yourself?"

Her hand trembles slightly on the phone. She tries to force back that light expression but Leon watches it begin to crack as they both stare at her. Her gaze darts to him a few times—what the fuck does she expect him to do?

"I felt you die," she whispers and yeah, okay, even Leon's chest lurches at that, "when—when Jack killed you, I felt it. And—and everything was so blurry, so hard to see through—through Eveline's mess that I thought—I thought I might've been remembering it wrong, or something else had happened, or it was just—just another one of her mind games but—"

She chokes on a sob and Ethan's fingers twitch toward the glass, the phone pressed tightly to his ear.

"—but then you were back. And—and you were just you and I thought—I thought it'd be over."

"And Rose?" Mia nods, her eyes squeezed shut as Ethan breathes out a curse. "That's why the pregnancy was so bad, wasn't it? You were—you were trying to fight the mold?"

"Don't blame yourself," Mia's saying as soon as Ethan's sentence finishes, reaching out to put her hand on the glass. After a moment, Ethan's hand presses back. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Rose's either, she—she's beautiful. Our baby girl…"

Something in Ethan's expression twitches. His hand slowly leaves the glass. A moment later, Mia's does too. They sit there in silence for a few moments before Ethan pinches the bridge of his nose. "I wish you would've told me."

Mia scoffs. "What good would it have done?"

"I would've known." The first hint of irritation flickers behind Ethan's words and Leon has a bad feeling about how the rest of this conversation is going to go. "I could've—I could've done something."

"What could you have done? Told Chris? He'd have us locked up like this years earlier," she says, gesturing around, "and then what? Would we have taken Rose, gone on the run?"

"Mia—"

"There was nothing you could've done, Ethan," and she says it like she's trying to be kind, but Ethan's shoulders keep getting tenser and tenser.

"It's funny."

"What is?"

"That's what people said when you went missing."

Mia goes still. Leon fights the urge to shift in his chair. Yep. Bad feeling. Here we go.

"They said there wasn't anything I could've done," Ethan continues, his voice still low, "that I was beating myself up for nothing. That you were gone, there wasn't anything I could do about it, that I should go ahead and try and move on as best I could with my life. What was left of it anyway. Then I got an email from you."

"Ethan…"

"And you know what, Mia? Turns out there was something I could do. There was a whole hell of a lot I could do."

"You died, Ethan!"

"Yeah. I did. Then I came back. And I did a pretty good job about that."

More than pretty good, Leon wants to add, but he holds his tongue.

"Do you ever think about what might've happened if you just told me? Before all this had to happen?"

"I don't want to talk about this, Ethan."

"You never want to talk about it. Any of it. That's the whole goddamn problem, Mia. You were at that farm for three years. I died. And you wanted to just move on as if nothing happened. But we couldn't. I couldn't. That wasn't fair."

Mia's fist clenches. Her face twists up. Leon takes a deep breath and holds it. "You have no idea what I went through there, Ethan. No idea."

"Because you never told me! I would've been there for you—"

"You couldn't have been! You would never understand!"

"What the hell are you talking about? I was there! I got infected too—Mia, you—"

"You were never supposed to be there!"

The room rings with her panting breaths. Both of their knuckles are white around the phones.

"You were never supposed to find out," she manages, "you were—it wasn't supposed to be like this. God, Ethan, you were supposed to be safe."

An old, old anger flares in Leon's chest. He takes a deep breath, tries to swallow it, but Ethan's talking again and he frantically tunes back in.

"—think was going to happen, Mia? It wasn't just going to be that easy, something was bound to happen at some point. Did you think I—didn't you trust me?"

"Of course I trusted you, Ethan."

"Really? Because it doesn't feel like it. You kept secrets from me, big secrets, Mia, you don't do that with someone you trust."

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi, honey, no, I'm actually not babysitting this time, I'm escorting an experimental bioweapon across international waters? Don't come looking for me?'"

"Jesus Christ, Mia—"

"See? You wouldn't have understood!"

"I died for you, Mia!"

Mia's eyes widen. Ethan's chest heaves with the force of his shout. He makes himself take a deep breath and Leon forces himself to relax. Shit, this is so not his forte…

"I died for you," he says again, quieter this time. "I died and I came back for you. And I tried to be there for you, the whole time, like I was supposed to be, and you—you—"

Oh, God, no, don't let Ethan start crying. He has no idea what the fuck he's supposed to do if Ethan starts crying.

"You were my wife," and all three of them wince at the past tense, "was it so wrong for me to want you to be there for me?"

"I tried to be—"

"You didn't." Ethan doesn't even sound mad anymore, just exhausted. "You were too busy trying to keep the truth about me and Rose from me, from Chris, from everyone. Like if you pretended hard enough, everything would be okay. God, Mia, it was like—it was like you were the one who'd died."

Her face twists. "Is that why you went to Chris?"

Oh. Oh, God, oh, fuck. Give Leon an island full of bioweapons and trigger-happy mercenaries any day, do not make him deal with emotions involving Christopher fucking Redfield.

"What?"

"Don't play coy with me now, Ethan," Mia says, voice hardening, "did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

"Mia, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how you and Chris were acting more like the married couple by the end of things than you and I were."

Then, something truly terrifying happens: Ethan Winters laughs.

It's not humorous. It's not happy. It's bordering on manic and utterly, utterly cold in a way that feels wrong for a person so fundamentally warm and it rings in Leon's ears. Even Mia looks shaken by it.

"You think I what, seduced Chris Redfield with my tragic bioweapon ass because you and I were fighting all the time? That's what you think happened?"

"Ethan—"

"Let's get one thing crystal goddamn clear: I never cheated on you. Not when you were missing, not when we were stuck in the compound, not once in Romania or any other hell hole the two of us got shoved in. I turned to Chris because I was fucking scared, Mia, and he was supposed to be keeping us safe, not because he made me feel wanted. The only person who's made me feel wanted in the past—well, I don't know how many years it's been now, but that's Karl fucking Heisenberg and he only wanted me to get to Rose so he could use her to kill Mother Miranda. You can accuse me of a lot of things, Mia, and I'll let you, but I was never unfaithful."

"That's not what I meant, Ethan," Mia tries, but Ethan's already shaking his head.

"It's exactly what you meant, Mia. You think you're the only one who noticed things changing? You wanna know how I knew something was wrong that day? Miranda kissed me. And you hadn't wanted to touch me in months."

Leon can't stop himself from shifting. That's—holy fuck, that's sad in a whole new way. Seriously. He won't even ask for a gun, give him a knife and a virus outbreak, not—not whatever the fuck this is turning into.

Even though part of him really wants to put his hand on Ethan's shoulder right now.

"Chris was your friend," Mia says quietly—shit, he got lost in thought again— "and he was…it seemed like it was so easy for you to…to talk to him."

"I wanted to talk to you, but it…it felt like we were always fighting whenever I tried. Chris was—" he huffs— "he wasn't my friend, but he was…there."

Now both Mia's and Leon's brows twitch. "He was, Ethan, he was your friend—"

"No, no, he wasn't. He made that very clear."

Mia's gaze flicks to Leon's—he'd been half hoping they'd forgotten he was there, to be honest—and he just remembers the day he'd met Ethan Winters, before everything went to shit. Finding him alone on the mats, weeping, like he'd—

Well, like he'd just had his heart broken.

Some of that must show on his face because Mia's expression hardens with a distant anger—one he's worn himself from time to time, thank you, Chris—before it deliberately softens again. "I'm sorry, Ethan. I'm so sorry. For everything."

"I know. I'm sorry too."

She shakes her head. They sit in silence for a few more moments. "Where…where do we go from here?"

Ethan sighs. "Well, I think it's back to being poked and prodded by scientists for me. I'm not letting them take Rose away from me again."

"I don't think Chris'll let that happen."

"Yeah, let's hope so." There's a pause, then he huffs a laugh. A real one this time. "I was just thinking: Rose said once that she wouldn't let anyone try and stop us from talking 'cause I was her emotional support mold dad—"

Mia laughs at that too. Even Leon manages to crack a smile.

"—and now I'm imagining her explaining that to Chris with a straight face—"

"—and him not knowing what that means?" Mia finishes. "You know, sometimes she says things—the kids and their slang, I can't keep up anymore."

"Oh, I gave up trying. Now I just embarrass her with how bad I am at using it."

They laugh again, and Leon is going to get whiplash with how back and forth the emotions are here. Judging by the way Mia's smile is slowly growing sadder, she is too.

"How did we get here," she asks, mostly rhetorical, "how did it end up like this? We were…we were happy, weren't we?"

"We were," Ethan says, just as softly, "I was happy, Mia."

"Why can't we be happy again?"

"It's like the vows said: 'till death do us part."

Mia laughs, though it's through a sob, and Ethan does too. Now they're both just looking at each other, and then Ethan murmurs I love you, and Mia says I love you too, and—

"Alright," the BSAA guard at the door says, "that's time."

Mia stands up, smiling at Ethan, nodding at Leon, and leaves through the door. Ethan doesn't move until the door closes again, sagging in the chair with his head in his hands. Leon glances up, seeing another BSAA guard approaching their side of the door and holds up a hand. The guard pauses.

Ethan takes several deep breaths, each a little steadier than the last, before he pushes himself up with a tired smile.

"So," he says, "better than your soap opera?"

"Hell of a lot more interesting, that's for sure." He jerks his head toward the door. "You need another minute, or…?"

"No, I'm good. Thanks for being here."

Leon swallows. "No problem."

The guard steps away as soon as they're out into the hall. They walk for a few minutes before Ethan says, "Leon? Is it okay if we go outside for a second?"

"Sure. This way." They go to one of the little courtyards in the middle of the compound and Ethan immediately sits down on one of the benches, head tipped back like he hasn't seen the sun since…well, yeah, no, actually that makes sense. "You wanna just…sit here for a bit?"

"Yeah, if that's cool with you."

"I've got nowhere else to be."

And see, now, here's the problem: Leon would love to try and forget about everything he just heard. It isn't any of his business, hell, it's probably so far not his business that he shouldn't have been there in the first place, but now…now he's kind of emotionally invested.

This is why he just watches crappy soap operas that he doesn't tell anyone else about.

"What?"

"Huh?"

Ethan smiles blandly at him. "You're…kind of staring at me."

Shit. "Sorry. Just…lost in thought."

He chuckles. "You can ask if you want to."

"It's your business."

"Yeah, well, you just got a front row seat to the season three finale without being there for seasons one and two, so, you can ask." He shifts, leaning back against the bench more. "Figured it's the least I can do."

Leon frowns but puts a pin in that one. He may be slightly better at this whole having-emotions thing than Chris, but he's under no delusions that he's good at it. "How'd the two of you meet?"

Ethan lights up like it's goddamn Christmas when he tells the story and it sounds like every single rom-com in the world. Boy meets girl, they have a few sweet dates, there's a funny story here and there about office parties that don't go completely according to plan, and then they get married. Leon's chest clenches as he listens and yeah, maybe he didn't fully grasp the scope of what Chris meant when he said that Ethan was a good man, that he didn't deserve it—because no one ever deserves the type of shit Ethan's been through, but holy fuck, this man's like a goddamn golden retriever.

"Why didn't you leave?"

Shit. Way to fucking go, Kennedy.

Ethan tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

"When you got to the Baker Farm and you realized it was…"

"Fucked up?"

"Yeah."

And just like that, he deflates, something dark washing over his expression. "I couldn't. I couldn't leave, not when I knew Mia was there."

And the thing is, he gets it. He's about to tell Ethan how much he gets it when Ethan shakes his head and looks up at him with this self-deprecating smile.

"Pathetic, right?"

"You're not pathetic, Ethan. You're a damn good man."

"Careful, you say things like that too much, I might start to believe you."

See, now, that's the other thing. And judging by the way Ethan's suddenly avoiding his gaze, he's gonna guess that frown he'd tried to keep off his face made it there anyway.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize, it's okay." He looks away, shifting to knock their legs together. "So. Karl Heisenberg, huh?"

If he was hoping for a way to break the dull mood, he failed. Miserably. "Everything in that village hated me. The lycans wanted to eat me, Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters hated me because I was a stupid manthing—" Leon tries not to snort at that— "Beneviento and Moreau were—and the Duke, I don't even know what the fuck his deal was, but he wasn't—the point is, only Heisenberg actually talked to me like a person for half a second. And as soon as I told him Rose wasn't a weapon, I was gone. It shouldn't even have meant anything, but Mia was dead—or so I thought, and Chris had been the one to shoot her and take Rose from me—and Rose was in pieces and I—"

"Hey, hey," Leon says, his hand on Ethan's shoulder before he realizes what he's doing, "hey, Ethan…"

Ethan bows his head, taking a deep breath. When he lifts his head again, his eyes are wet, and there's a lump in Leon's throat. "Is it wrong that I still love her?"

Well. Remember that shit he said about not being prepared for this?

"Sorry," he mumbles a second later, "you—you really don't have to answer that."

"How much has Chris told you about me?"

Ethan glances at him. "Not much."

"Has he ever mentioned Sherry Birkin?"

Ethan shakes his head, a furrow between his brows and suddenly Leon's telling him about Sherry. About wanting to be a cop in Raccoon City, about finding Claire—"Wait, Chris has a sister?"—and Sherry, and making a deal to keep her safe. Ethan listens, concern and sympathy engraved into his expression, reaching out to put a hand on Leon's shoulder when it takes him a second to get the words out, and he has no idea what the fuck he's doing or why he's telling Ethan this when he should be the one comforting the other man, and before he knows it he's talking to Ethan like they're old friends, and he doesn't know what's going on and all he knows is that Ethan Winters is a fucking unicorn.

"I'm sorry," he says, and there's not a trace of that weird curling in his gut that he normally gets when people tell him that, "that really sucks, buddy."

He blows out a short breath. "Yeah, I guess it does."

They sit in silence for a while. The wind is cool, not cold. The sun passes behind a few clouds and re-emerges.

"I've never told anyone all of that," he says suddenly, "not really."

"Well, I promise I'm good at keeping secrets." Leon huffs a laugh. "Hey, Leon?"

"Yeah?"

"I know this is weird, and it's—I'm not expecting you to say yes, okay, but…do you think we could be friends?"

Leon turns to look at him. Ethan just smiles back, a little awkward, but painfully earnest. He tries for a smile and finds it comes rather easily. "Yeah, Ethan. We can be friends."

That smile turns genuine so quickly it makes his head spin. He tips his head back to enjoy the sunshine again, a weight falling off his shoulders and Leon can't help but stare. In the back of his mind, he can't help but wonder what Mia Winters was thinking, even though he knows that's a dangerous road to walk down—one he's steered Chris away from a number of times too. But he looks at Ethan and all he can see is another blond trying to keep a child safe and…well, he's never been a saint.

"Ethan?"

"Yeah?"

"I won't let them take Rose away from you either."

Ethan looks at him, eyes wide, and nods. "Thank you, Leon."

He can't say much of anything else, so he just nods back. Then Ethan's looking over his shoulder like he's expecting someone to come out and sure enough, jogging over is Rose with Chris trailing behind her. Ethan stands up and catches her in an exuberant hug, spinning her around until she laughs. He catches Chris's eye over their shoulders and nods.

Fuck it. He's in.

#resident evil #resident evil village #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #ethan winters #mia winters #rosemary winter #chris redfield #dragonbabbles #fic

11 notes · View notes

goliig68 · 1 year ago

Text

19 days fic rec pt.2

Making pt.2 cuz I couldn't add all of my favourite fics here( again, with no particular order )

Mark My Love by ria_green

( E | 12,525 | 9/? )

He Tian gently holds Mo Guanshan by the neck, thumb pressing into where a bond bite might one day appear.

Shivering, Mo Guanshan shoves him away. "Go do that with an omega, idiot."

Note: a funny omegaverse story. Don't let the omegaverse title put you off it's seriously very funny and cute. I love the interactions between guan shan and jian yi😂 he tian and zhen xi too! I swear they all have weirdest dynamics!

It will come back by mgsdays (regencyaus)

( E | 44,417 | 12/12 )

He Tian leaving on self-protection, after Jian Yi's disappearance, makes Mo scared enough to make a move. They stumble into something together just as He Tian leaves the country, and they have to figure things out long-distance while waiting for He Tian to come back.

Mo's known the gist of it since the dawn of his puberty. Water's wet, sky is blue, Mo's sexual desires are intertwined with his complicated feelings for He Tian. Big deal.

But the reality of it is- something else. This is something else entirely.

Did you miss me? – H

Barely noticed. - MGS

...did you? - MGS

Every minute of every day. - H

How the fuck does He Tian just say those things? Doesn't he feel embarrassed? Mo thinks he's feeling embarrassed for him, and he didn't even write it. He stares at the words until his phone light goes out, and then he turns it on again and stares some more.

Note: an amazing reunion au. I think author did a great job at handling tianshan's long-distance relationship and all of that mafia stuff. I think this fic has to be In everyone's "to read" list👌

nothing fucks with my baby by figglypudding

( E | 23,897 | 3/3 )

unexpectedly, and in the most unlikely of places, mo stumbles upon a reunion he'd long given up on.

but how can he heal when he's only just begun to acknowledge the hurt?

Note: another reunion au. But angstier and so much sadder😭 but it's happy ending, so all of that sadness was worth going through.

swimming in the blood by powerandpathos

( M | 29,455 | 1/1 )

Guan Shan’s nose wrinkles. ‘I sing like I mean it. I don’t sing it ‘cause I want everyone else to hear. That’s Jian Yi’s thing.’

’And what’s your thing?’

He Tian holds his gaze. Street lamps and car headlights are mirrored in the amber surface of Guan Shan’s eyes, and He Tian can see his own shadowed silhouette in his irises, a blocky shape of darkness with no detail. For some reason, that bothers him.

‘Still figurin’ that out,’ Guan Shan says.

Note: rock band au. Sex, drama and rock 'n roll. No drugs lol. This fic in in my top 10 favourite 19 days fics, And it is so underrated!! Go read it, it's truly wonderful!

nail House by powerandpathos

( M | 13,309 | 1/1 )

‘God,’ Guan Shan mutters. He pushes himself up onto his elbows. His thighs are still trembling, and he rolls his ankles. ‘You fuckin’ love control, don’t you?’

He Tian sits back on his haunches. ‘Have you seen my family?’

‘I don’t wanna talk about your family right now.’ Guan Shan huffs. ‘Bet you can’t fuckin’ stand that I have to drive you about, right?’

‘I got used to it. It’s a shame the car isn’t a manual. I’ve enjoyed seeing your hand around the gear stick.’

Note: Triad au/driver!Guan shan. One of my favourite aus! I really enjoyed reading it, so I read it 3 more time.

hook, line, and sinker by fayre

( Gen | 3,673 | 1/1 )

“So everything that happened,” Guan Shan says, trying and failing to keep a steady tone, “The shopping, the barbeque — everything was just because you didn’t want to go home alone? That's pretty damn convoluted if you ask me.”

He Tian huffs, amused. “Not exactly. I had nothing planned; no expectations. I just wanted to be with you.��

a post-chapter 292 drabble (the day after the BBQ/sleepover at the He family estate.)

Note: i loved all of the calm feelings I got from this fic. The descriptions of atmosphere and everything around them was so detailed that I literally could feel them too. It was very gentle and pure you know?

allergy season by fayre

( T | 6,506 | 1/1 )

“You know, they say that sneezing a lot means you’re on someone’s mind.”

“Yeah?” Guan Shan says a bit drily, sniffing hard. “Then what a fuckin’ shame.”

He Tian watches him. “For you?”

“For the bastard unfortunate enough to have gotten me on their mind,” Guan Shan answers, walking again. He hates how nasally and gross his voice sounds, and the back of his throat feels sore. “If someone’s thinkin’ of me this fuckin’ much, it can’t be good news for either of us. Trust me.”

“Ah,” He Tian says, and then nothing more.

a post-chapter 348 oneshot (the He Tian & dog chapter).

Note: man...i remember reading this fic hoping that one day, we get a love confession and kiss scene between he tian and guan shan (and now we fucking have it)

Knee high, stage fright (even if you're alright) by fayre

( Gen | 5,383 | 1/1 )

It’s no longer about what He Tian thinks; it’s about what he knows. And he knows Guan Shan — at least on a foundational level — and he knows how Guan Shan doesn’t just ask when he needs. He knows how Guan Shan doesn’t talk but doesn’t listen, either. He knows that Guan Shan doesn’t always think rationally but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think, and he knows how his body goes on autopilot before his thoughts cause him to malfunction and crash and burn.

He knows.

After all, it's the little things that add up. He Tian can only pray that they won't come crashing back down.

(or: no matter how hard he may try, guan shan can't hide all his problems. fluff ensues.)

Note: a soft and cute tianshan oneshot, with a little bit of angst but it's mostly fluff. I loved the ending, it melted my heart and brought smile to my lips🫠❤

singing in red by starlightstarshine

( T | 27,204 | 6/6 )

In which He Tian is the bassist for the most popular band in the world and Guan Shan is only doing modelling so that he could get enough money to pay for his next meal (based on that art by Old Xian).

Note: I love the fics where guan is head over heels for He tian haha😆

Tell Me On A Sunday by Llybian

( T | 1,501 | 1/1 )

He’d begun, with great difficulty, to accept all of this in his heart. But he still could do nothing. What was he supposed to do? Confess his feelings like a pathetic little schoolgirl? Not a chance.

But then again, what did he really suppose would happen if he told He Tian he “liked” him? Well, the world would end, for one. That was just a given. But beyond that, they’d probably just make out. There was really no chance of He Tian shooting him down or saying this was all just some long con.

Despite that. He just couldn’t.

Note: I think by summary everyone can get a brief foresight that what this fic is about. In my opinion, this fic is very real and in character.

Bites by Asfodel

( M | 24,263 | 7/? )

Turning to look at the black sky, he let his mind wander to a place he tried not to visit too often. To the last words Guan Shan heard He Tian say in that dim corridor.

« I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I’ll fix it, I’m sorry. »

Like a mantra.

or a rewrite of their reunion a few years after high school, basically disregarding the Christmas chapters. Side of ZhengYi, angsty but with a healthy dose of fluff, tags will be updated as the story goes.

Note: reunion au. It's such a beautiful but heartbreaking story. I love author's writing style, it captures feelings perfectly👌

A dog by Alien_Kitsune

( E | 50,000 | 10/10 )

Mo Guanshan and He Tian didn't meet in the school and each went his own way. Several years passed and Mo became a criminal. But on the verge of death destiny surprises him.

Two broken men who are still trying to find themselves in this world were always fated to find each other.

Note: mafia au. Thanks to @maruuzen for recommending me this fic!❤ I really loved the process of tianshan's relationship development. I'm sure that's how their relationship would go if they didn't meet at middle school, and/or he tian joined his family business, just like how it's stated in fic, fate brought them together. also it's angsty (of course) so be warned.

Dawn Rising by powerandpathos

( E | 78,968 | 13/? )

An Historical Fantasy AU—A poisoning; a death; a thief. A prince struggling to be a prince. A guard trying to stop one from getting killed. And everyone else on the sidelines. It has never been so hard to navigate the court of an empire when not everyone can survive.

Note: my favourite historical fantasy au, the plot, the drama, the characters it's just_ugh👌💞 unfortunately, this fic is probably abandoned, but don't let that stop you from reading it, even though it's unfinished, I think this fic is still amazing.

Cold On The Inside by incorrect19days

( E | 4,879 | 6/6 )

‘Look at me.’

He Tian instructed softly.

He took a deep shuddering breath and opened his eyes.

Note: a short and oh-so-beautiful story. It's a little bit sad but it's happy end, or hopeful ending better to say.

#19 days #fanfic #19 days fanfic #tianshan #zhanyi #thinking about all the amazing fics and authors In 19 days fandom #that I haven't discovered yet #Damn like...#Fic authors are like a blessing to every fandom #will i live long enough to see the ending of my favourite fics #the endings that may never come but im desperately waiting #yeah...I'm talking about dawn rising...

89 notes · View notes

goodlucktai · 2 years ago

Note

Didn’t want to overwhelm what I’m sure is a very full inbox, since I’ll admit I have submitted a few requests before — but periodically I can’t pass up the chance when you say they’re still open (pending your whim, of course, as it should be). so anyway. I ADORE your tmnt 2003/2012 crossover where the 12s are looking for their sensei, all from 03s POV. And then I ALSO ADORE the 2012/Rise, from 12Mikey’s POV about Little Blue. So — any chance you fancy a 2003/Rise crossover? Perhaps an 03Leo observation of the absolutely terrifying raw power these bitty baby turtles call ninpo? 03Donnie trying to make sense of RiseMikey yeeting a cargo ship? Rise boys pointing out 03Raph’s accent as the only new yorker? that’s a bunch sorry have a lovely day!

It happens on an unremarkable Tuesday night, as they’re heading home from a relatively quiet patrol. Raph is grumbling under his breath because he still has energy to burn, and one tussle with the Dragons was about one-tenth of the outlet he was looking for.

Mikey’s natural state of being is still-has-energy-to-burn and he walks backwards to make a moue of false sympathy in Raph’s direction.

“Aww, poor Raphie,” the little menace coos. “We’ll find you another head to knock, I promise.”

“Won’t have to look very far, there’s one right here,” the red-banded turtle growls, and dives after him. Mikey shrieks in combination terror-excitement and darts around the other side of Leo. Leo allows himself to be circled, looking as though he’s ready to go straight to bed when he gets home, where at least he won’t have to deal with any annoying little siblings for the next six solid hours.

“Hey, um,” Donnie says from somewhere behind them. “Umm, Leo? Guys?”

His tone draws Raph up short. He turns with the long tails of Mikey’s mask still caught in his fist, while Mikey continues to squawk and flail. Leo is already moving out from in between the two of them, abandoning the youngest to his fate and approaching Donatello swiftly.

He doesn’t even need to ask what caught the genius’ eye. Donnie is staring at a bright point of light above the street. It hovers for a moment and then begins to open wider, warm and yellow and glowing.

As Raph watches, something falls through. Someone. He barely has a second to make out the vaguely human shape of the body before the mask tails in his hand are yanked away and his smallest brother is racing forward across the rooftop like a bullet.

Leo makes an aborted move to stop him, but there’s no point. Mikey has always been the fastest of the four and he has always, exclusively, only ever done what he wanted to do. Really, Raph shouldn’t even be surprised.

Mikey catapults off the parapet, collides with the body before it can fall more than a few feet toward the unforgiving asphalt eight stories below, and brings it safely to the roof of an adjacent building, taking the brunt of the fall in a neat barrel roll.

“Ugh, he’s gonna be bragging about that catch for weeks,” Raph mutters, keeping pace with Leo as they follow him over.

Donnie is way ahead of them both, easing the body out of Mikey’s arms by the time the eldest turtles catch up. It’s a green-skinned teenager, with the oh-so-familiar built-in armor of a turtle shell. The red stripes on his face, and yellow ones down his arms and legs, are obscured almost entirely by grisly bruises and a not-insignificant amount of blood. Most tellingly, the kid is wearing a bright blue ninja mask.

“Oh,” Don says, pausing in opening his medkit. He rubs one hand gently over the little mutant’s bruised forehead. “It’s another Leo.”

It says something about their lives that this isn’t the weirdest thing that’s ever happened on a Tuesday. Above them, the portal the kid came through is closing rapidly. The light goes with it, dwindling until it’s gone.

“He’s tiny,” Mikey says, all the joy and irreverence from a few moments ago blown clean out of his expression. Raph doesn’t like to see him look so worried, brow creased beneath his sunny orange mask. “And he’s hurt bad.”

“What the hell happened to him?” Raph rumbles, arms folded tight across his own plastron. It rankles to see any version of Leonardo injured like this. “And where the hell are his brothers?”

“They can’t be far,” Leo says, because it’s unspoken that where one of them goes, they all go, no matter what backwards dimension they might come from. He kneels next to his younger brothers and looks over his small counterpart with grave eyes. “But there’s no time to wait. He needs stitches at the very least. Donnie, can we move him?”

Donnie finishes packing the sluggishly bleeding gash above the kid’s knee with a temporary bandage and tapes it down, then sets about the rest of his medical examination, brown eyes troubled.

“There’s a crack in his shell that concerns me,” he says, probing around the kid’s neck with careful fingers. “And he almost definitely sustained some head trauma. I just can’t be certain about a spinal injury. I don’t want to risk permanent damage by manhandling him into the sewers. There’s also—oh.”

Donnie’s hands pause where he’d been feeling down the kid’s right arm. He pulls it out carefully from where it’s sandwiched between the kid’s side and Mikey’s plastron. Raph stoops to get a closer look at whatever got Donnie’s attention and then feels his chest go tight with rage.

They’re chains. Tiny, glowing links of burnished gold, almost translucent, wrapped firmly around the strange mutant’s forearm. And his fist is clenched around what looks like a piece of paper, but the chains are more concerning.

“Hey, uh, what the fuck,” Mikey says loudly. His hands on the kid’s shoulders tighten there protectively. “Can we get those off?”

“Let’s try,” Leo says, his own eyes whited-out and narrowed. He tests the chains with a touch, the way of someone testing the elements on a stove to see if they’re hot. When nothing happens, he grips one of the chain links firmly and begins to pull.

Raph, Donnie and Mikey all jump at the same time when Leo suddenly yanks his hand away with a hiss.

“What?” Donnie blurts. “What happened? Did it burn you?”

“No, it—it bit me,” Leo replies, shaking out his hand.

The golden chains glow a little brighter as the brothers watch, and now there are bright purple sparks trailing warningly up and down the length of them like an electric current. Raph eyes the purple warily. It looks like it bites.

“Try a knife?” Mikey says, tone upturned at the end because he’s as much out of his depth as the rest of them are.

Donnie hums, brow wrinkled thoughtfully, and works a kunai out of his belt. He slides the edge under one of the chains without issue, but the moment he starts to apply pressure, the orange glow and purple sparks become limned with red, like some kind of armor. The chains constrict slightly, biting tighter into the kid’s arm.

Back off, they say, as clearly as anything without a voice ever could.

“Leave it for now,” Raph says. He won’t say it out loud, aware of how stupid it would sound, but that color combination alone soothes some of the jagged uncertainty he has about this whole situation. “It ain’t like Little Blue’s a prisoner. We can deal with the chains once we’ve dealt with the obviously broken bones.”

Leo nods, on the same page for once. “Can you wake him up, Donnie?”

“Actually, I have just the thing,” Donnie says, like that’s some big surprise, hauling his satchel around and digging through it for a moment. That thing might as well belong to Mary Poppins, and he proves it nearly every day. Sure enough, Don emerges victorious with a container of tiny capsules. Shaking one out into his palm, he says, “Smelling salts. Sort of. My own spin, anyway. Mike, brace him as best you can, okay?”

“You got it, Doc,” Mikey says, picking the parts of the kid’s chest and shoulder that look the least beat-to-hell and planting his hands there.

Donnie snaps the capsule and waves it under Little Blue’s beak. It takes all of three seconds for the kid to give a violent full-body jerk, flailing wildly and going nowhere beneath Mikey’s steady grip. His eyes fly open, a burst of bright gold, and dart around frantically. The left eye is bloodied. Raph can feel his metaphorical hackles going up, because someone obviously beat the shit out of this kid, and he can’t be much older than fifteen.

“Hey, easy,” Mikey says, in a light, breezy tone, “you’re okay, you’re safe.”

“Okay, we can knock spinal injuries off the list,” Donnie says. He looks like about a hundred pounds of stress was just lifted off his shoulders.

Little Blue squints at them, all woozy. When he finally finds Mikey’s face, probably little more than a green and orange blur from his perspective, he relaxes visibly.

“Dee’s tryin’ to experiment on me again,” he whines. “Make ‘im stop or I’m telling Raph.”

Message delivered, he slumps back into sleep after that—apparently reassured by his present company, looming threat of unwilling experimentation notwithstanding. Donatello looks bewildered, and glances sidelong at Raph. Raph shrugs. Leo huffs out a laugh, sitting back on his heels.

“I’d know that tone anywhere. If he’s not the youngest, he’s close.”

“He’s just like me for real,” Mikey pipes up, grinning widely. “Home?”

“Home,” Leo confirms. “Can you carry him?”

“Uhh, are you kidding? He’s probably about as heavy as a handful of grapes.”

“We need to be careful with his arm. The, uh, unchained one. It’s broken in a couple of places. And try not to jostle his leg, either. And his shell—”

“Don, we get it,” Raph says, not unkindly. “Fragile, handle with care. Hear that, chucklehead? No razzmatazz.”

Mikey makes an offended noise and Leo cuts them off at the pass with the grace and finesse of someone who’s been single-handedly dealing with their shit for the better part of twenty years. “Let’s go Mikey. We’ve been out here too long already, and that light-show might have attracted some attention. I’ll call sensei once we start moving and ask him to prepare the infirmary bed for us.”

It’s a group effort to get the kid folded into Mikey’s arms in a manner that doesn’t upset Donnie’s doctoral sensibilities. But he’s such a scrawny stringbean that Mikey carries him with the same level of effort Casey might use to haul around a couple twelve packs of Cherry Coke.

Little Blue, for his part, only squirms to get comfortable and smushes his cheek against Mikey’s shoulder without waking. He’s clearly used to being hauled around. Raph won’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it, but he thinks Leo was probably right. That’s little sibling behavior if Raph’s ever seen it.

Splinter takes the arrival of a fifth turtle in the lair like a champ. It’ll be a cold day in hell when they manage to surprise their dad for real. His aged brown eyes are gentle as Mikey sets the kid on the cot, and he lingers nearby as Donnie prepares the fiberglass for the arm cast. He’s probably remembering when Fearless was that small.

Splinter manages to work Blue’s fist free of the paper he was clutching and smooths out the creases. It looks like it might be a photo. Whatever it is, it causes the rat’s eyes to get very old and very sad. He puts it back in the little mutant’s hand and closes his fingers around it again.

Somehow Little Blue manages to sleep through the stitches and the setting of his broken arm. He doesn’t even stir as he’s tipped onto his side so ointment can be applied to the crack in his shell before the edges are smeared with epoxy and forced back together.

He could probably use the rest—he looks like he just tumbled out of the end of the world. Donnie isn’t concerned about the prolonged stint of unconsciousness only because the kid was awake for a few minutes and coherent enough to form sentences, as confused as they were.

The chains have dulled to the barest glow. Every now and then they light up like Christmas, but only for a minute or two. Mikey dubs it “energy-saving mode.” It’s remarkably un-reassuring.

The whole clan eats dinner in the infirmary in a bunch of mismatched chairs, all of them reluctant to leave the battered child’s side. The second time one of his brothers starts to nod off, Raph makes the executive decision that he’ll take first watch.

Because none of his siblings know how to do anything the easy way, he has to all but run them out at blade-point.

“I know for a fact that you haven’t slept in three days, Don,” Raph says mercilessly. Donnie withers like a little overwatered plant when sensei’s sharp eyes descend upon him. “And Mikey, you’re barely any better than him. I will gladly throw you under the bus next, try me.”

“And we call Leo the mother hen,” the youngest grumbles, only to squeak and dive behind Leo when Raph advances a single threatening step in his direction.

“C’mon, you two,” Leo says, herding them out. “We can have a sleepover in the den. That way we’ll hear it if Raph calls us.”

It’s an unspoken request for Raph to wake them if anything happens. Raphael salutes him only semi-sarcastically and takes up camp next to the cot. Splinter draws a chair up beside Raph’s, whiskers twitching with amusement as Mikey whines from the living room, “But I won’t even be able to sleep!”

“He’ll be out like a light in twenty,” Raph says dryly.

“Ten, if Donatello puts on “How It’s Made,”” Splinter replies with equal parts exasperation and affection. He puts one clawed hand on Little Blue’s forehead, and goes on, “It was good of you to bring him here.”

Wondering if he’ll ever outgrow the uncomfortable feeling he gets from any sort of praise, Raph spins a sai for something to do with his hands and mutters, “Well, yeah. Us turtles gotta look out for each other. It’s not like the humans are gonna do it.”

Splinter kindly moves on. “The boy’s qi is very bright, for all that something has recently attempted to snuff it out. I can tell he was raised in a home full of love.”

“Someone’s gotta be missin’ him,” Raph agrees. It makes his stomach sink to think of some version of his family missing their Leo.

Reading Raph’s mind as easily as he always has, the rat transfers his hand to his son’s arm and pats gently. “We will make sure that he finds his way home. Now,” he adds in a brighter tone, “tell me about my two youngest refusing to take proper care of themselves. I need to know how many flips to assign.”

Grinning, Raphael settles in to spend these quiet early morning hours gossiping with his father.

He must doze off himself at some point, because his senses kick him awake the second before a heavy thud would have. He jumps to his feet, but Splinter raises a hand to calm him.

“Our guest is up,” the rat says mildly. “Collect your brothers.”

Normally, Raph would have something to say about leaving his father alone with a potentially dangerous unknown variable. In this case, he catches sight of two very bright, very frightened gold eyes staring at him from behind the cot, and decides Splinter is probably on the right track. Surprise, surprise.

So Raphael backs up toward the door, scrutinized every inch of the way. As he’s leaving, he hears the kid say, in a tone that’s aiming for demanding and landing somewhere around plaintive instead, “Who are you? Where’s my dad?” It makes Raph want to hit something.

His little brothers are fast asleep in a pile on the sofa. Leo is also actually resting for once in his goddamn life in the armchair, curled up with his limbs all folded like a pretzel. The TV is still on, but the volume is turned almost all the way down. Raph makes it a single step into the room before Leo’s eyes slide open, meeting Raph’s unerringly in the low light.

“He’s up,” Raph says plainly. “And he’s a little freaked out. Kinda got the idea that sensei wants us to make ourselves scarce for a bit.”

Leo nods. With his mask slung around his neck like a bandanna, the worry lines between his eyes are more obvious.

“Let’s make breakfast,” he decides. “You and I can handle a few omelets.”

Mikey usually takes charge of meals, because the goofball has never really shaken off the idea that he doesn’t contribute as much to the general workings of their family as everyone else does. Which is a fucking joke. They’d probably last all of two days without Michelangelo, and they’d be the most miserable two days known to man.

So his big brothers make it a point to wrestle control of the kitchen from him every now and then. Meals aren’t as good when anyone else is doing the cooking, but it’s the principle of the thing.

As Raph is beating a big mixing bowl of eggs together, he blurts, “If you got flung into another dimension, I’d drag your ass back home first thing. You’re not getting out of this shit that easy.”

“Language,” Leo says without looking up from the bell peppers on his cutting board. There’s a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth. “And I know you would.”

There’s a thump from the general area of the den—presumably a turtle falling off the sofa—followed by the low tones of Donnie and Mikey arguing sleepily. Raph’s heart does this big warm stretch in his chest as they amble into the kitchen, something he would never in his life admit to out loud.

Mikey’s mouth is open to protest this shameless coup of his kitchen. Raphael points the whisk at him warningly.

“One word and I’m tossing onions in here,” he says. “A whole bunch of ‘em.”

It’s as much of a threat as it needs to be. Mikey’s beak wrinkles but he only circles around the table to start the coffee for Don.

They return to the infirmary armed with plates and drinks. Little Blue is sitting on the edge of the cot, watching them with obvious wariness on his face. When this version of Mikey who isn’t his Mikey approaches him, Blue’s expression does something it hurts to look at. But he musters up a smile anyway and takes the plate and mug he’s offered.

The plate goes to the side right away. The mug is turned around and around in his hands. It’s a start.

“Um, hi,” he says. His voice is a shock to the system. He sounds like a childhood memory. “I guess introductions would be kind of redundant, huh?”

Donatello smiles. “That’s right. Do you already have experience with other dimensions?”

The kid’s hands go white-knuckled around his drink. “Not till recently,” he says woodenly. “And not like this. Donnie loves to talk about the multiverse theory, though. I’m an expert by proxy.”

Raph recognizes it when someone is on the brink of a panic attack and keeping it at bay by the skin of their fucking teeth, and his family sees it, too. He can practically see Leo reshuffling the course of this gentle interrogation, bypassing the obvious next question of “what the hell happened” for something a little safer instead.

“You were pretty banged up when we found you,” is what he lands on. “Do you feel alright?”

Leo’s tiny counterpart doesn’t seem to know what to make of him, equal parts awed and troubled. He glances over at Raph quickly, something of a knee-jerk reaction, and his face creases a little when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. His eyes fly to Donnie next, where they only linger for a second before falling to his lap.

Raph can’t imagine how alone he must feel.

“Think so,” the kid says by way of answer. “I mean, my entire body feels like one big bruise, but I didn’t die. So I’ll take it as a win.” He blinks. “Unless I did die and this is a really weird afterlife. Or my brain is in that pre-death electrical storm and all my cells are depolarizing en masse and this is what it cooked up for me to go out with.”

Okay, the kid is beginning to sound more like a Donatello than a Leonardo now, but the way his voice is getting tighter and faster is all Mikey when he freaks himself out.

“Hey, hey,” Raph says as he stands, shoving his plate towards Leo blindly and lifting his empty hands. It doubles as a ‘slow down’ gesture, and also as a means to grab Blue if he passes out. “Cool it, kiddo. We’re not a—a brain tsunami or whatever the hell you just said.”

“That’s probably what a brain tsunami would say,” Blue says faintly.

Raph takes those few steps to the kid’s side, coming to stand between him and Splinter. He reaches out to tap the bottom of the mug Blue’s strangling.

“Drink,” he orders. “You’re safe here. If you need someplace to panic, or scream, or throw things, I’ll show you my wreck room. But you’re not allowed to see it at all if you pass out again.”

The kid obediently lifts the mug to his mouth, mumbling a petulant, “Okay, mom.”

It’s the exact same tone of voice that Raph, Mikey, Donnie and even Casey have used to say those exact same words to Leo. Raph’s shock must show on his face, because Splinter lets out a quiet huff of laughter. Leo’s laugh, somewhere behind them, is louder.

The miserable expression on Blue’s face clears after the first sip. Leo’s favorite drink when they were little, before he started to abandon childish things and mold himself into the shape of a leader, was strawberry milk. From the way Blue lifts wide gold eyes towards Mikey and holds the mug closer to his center, it’s his favorite, too. And it’s a piece of home he wasn’t expecting to find in this weird place.

Mikey winks at him and a line of tension in Blue’s shoulders fades away. For the second time since waking up, Blue smiles back. It comes a little easier to him this time.

Raph isn’t surprised. A Mikey makes everything better.

“While I can understand why a wave of short-circuiting neurons in your brain might seem like the most logical explanation for this,” Donatello says, which makes goddamn one of them, “I can promise you that this is real. You fell through a portal in Brooklyn.”

“A portal?” Blue asks. “A yellow one?”

“Yeah! You remember?” Mikey says brightly.

“I remember the light,” he replies slowly. He sets his cup down, and his hand drifts over to the crumpled-up photo sitting on the cot beside him. He doesn’t lift it or look at it, he just sets his hand on it, like he’s taking strength from its existence. “It was so dark and cold, and then the sun came out. I think I reached for it. I don’t know how I ended up here.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Leo says firmly. “And those chains, too.”

“Chains?” the kid asks.

“The ones on your arm,” Donnie says. “You don’t feel them?”

Little Blue looks down at both his casted and his whole arm, frowning. He lifts the whole one closer, turning it, and Raph catches the faint glimmer of those stubborn chains before they explode into burning gold. Blue yelps in surprise, and Raph’s brothers fly to their feet.

“Did that hurt?” Mikey says all frantic, flapping his hands.

It’s a fair question. Little Blue’s eyes are still wide and stunned, but now they’re filling rapidly with tears. He touches the chain the same way Leo had, like he’s testing something. It’s on the tip of Raph’s tongue to warn him not to, but it turns out not to be necessary.

That aggressive show the lights put on for Raph and his siblings is nonexistent. Those purple sparks circle Blue’s fingers harmlessly. The red glow is a steady, unfaltering warmth. The chains themselves cinch tighter, resolute and unbreakable.

Donnie’s mind is racing behind his brown eyes. He’s putting together what Raph’s heart had already figured out back on that rooftop.

Wherever one of them goes, they all go. It didn’t make sense to find any version of Leonardo by himself, because his brothers would never have let him go without a fight. The place he belongs to would fight tooth and nail to keep him.

Sure enough, Little Blue hugs his arm against his plastron and whispers, “Thanks for holding onto me.”

Then he’s in motion. He knocks back the rest of his strawberry milk like he’s a character in a Western film throwing back a shot of rye, crams the photo into the pouch at his waist, and hops off the cot. He staggers immediately, catching himself on the arm of Splinter’s chair. The whole thing is not giving Raph a whole lot of confidence in whatever this kid is planning, but he gets the feeling that trying to stop him now would be like trying to stop a trainwreck with his bare hands.

Blue points at the butter knife on Leo’s plate, there because he eats his omelets like an old man.

“Can I borrow that?”

“Uh, sure,” Leo says, standing up and passing it over.

“Thanks,” his young counterpart says with a winning smile, just seconds before it lights up in his hands and changes shape. When the bright blue glare fades, there’s a katana in the kid’s hand where a butter knife used to be.

“What the fuck?” Raph and Mikey shout at the same time, though Mikey’s is more of a delighted shriek.

Blue is blinking rapidly, like he’s trying to clear his gaze. He’s swaying where he stands, and Splinter’s brow is folded in concern, but before anyone can stop him, he lifts his shiny new sword in front of him and slashes down through empty air.

Right away, a small cyan portal opens in front of him. It’s charged and electrified, a playful spinning thing. Raph’s heart is racing, and he puts out a hand to keep Mikey firmly behind him. Similarly, Leo has a solid grip on the leather strap across Don’s plastron, because their little brothers are both the same type of idiot in opposite directions when it comes to sparkly unexplainable things.

Little Blue, for his part, looks disappointed in his portal and in himself, and it bleeds quickly into frustration. “Come on,” he says, shaking the sword in his hand. He forces the portal open a little wider, gaining a few inches in diameter. It’s still not big enough to be anything like a door, or even a window.

“Your qi is exhausted,” Splinter says gently. “It will take days yet to build it up into even half of what it should be.”

“I don’t want to wait days,” Blue grits out, hand white-knuckled around the hilt. “I want to go home.”

The chains on his arm begin to unravel, elongating impossibly, becoming bigger and denser. Now they more closely resemble the heavy-duty chains Don uses in the garage to lift engines above his head. Two loops remain around his wrist, and the rest of it goes flying into that portal.

For a moment, nothing happens.

And then, to put it in scientific terms, the portal fucking explodes.

What started as the size of a dinner plate is now easily big enough for the Battle Shell to barrel through with plenty of clearance on all sides. It stands almost as tall as the ceiling and just as wide. And it barely has a chance to exist in this state for more than a second before multiple bodies come hurtling through from the other side at break-neck speed.

“LEO!” three young voices scream, and Little Blue drops his sword to meet the chaos with open arms.

“Took you long enough,” he says warmly.

#tmnt 2k3 #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #hamato raphael #hamato leonardo #hamato michelangelo #hamato donatello #my writing #prompt #anonymous #tmnt fic #reduxi: the rise remix #this got away from me lmao #i may write a 2nd part if anyone is super interested #this wasnt exactly what u asked for sorry anon !

115 notes · View notes