#and have spent tens of hours drawing stuff for that instead :’)

[ra1ny-daze]

first will wood of 2024 woaw! !

[crackedpumpkin]

𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 | 𝟎𝟒 |

[ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 ] | [ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ] | [ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ]

The sound of rapid tapping fills the air, gradual annoyance settling in. You lift your head, looking directly at the source. A random student sitting nearby in the cafe you’re in has her head bowed, her gaze fixed on a textbook as her fingers tap away on the table’s glass surface.

Sighing, you look away and take another sip of your ice latte, letting the familiar taste cool your temper down. Initially, you were supposed to go to the dentist, but they cancelled at the last minute due to an emergency. Instead of lounging around at home, you decided to go and finish your assignment.

Now though, you wish you’d picked a better spot. Moving away wasn’t an option, considering how big the crowd had gotten for the lunch rush. A glance at the clock above the cashier counter reveals that you have only an hour left before heading to Papa’s Cakeria. 

Another glimpse at the quiet phone on your table draws an irritated frown from you. Since last night, Cole hasn't messaged back at all about how exactly he was supposedly going to ‘help’ you rush the order. You’d texted him again, but your pride wouldn’t allow you to send another follow-up one.

Directing your irritation and energy back to the half-completed essay on your laptop screen does help with productivity, and you find that between sips of your coffee and music blasting through your headphones, breezing through it is easy.

Another ten minutes before you have to leave. 

That time is spent texting Melody whose replies are filled with questions about Cole. You can’t really blame her for being so curious, especially after you’d dropped such a bomb so nonchalantly the other night. You’re not entirely sure if you’ve even finished processing this fact either.

What would this mean for you? Would the universe really force you two together?

You know nothing about him. 

This realisation makes you pause, the straw of your drink halfway to your lips. Exhaling softly, you place it back down, absentmindedly beginning to pick away at the skin of your thumb. 

The most you know is that he’s the Earth Ninja, likes cakes and pastries and that he’s terrible at replying to texts. Is this the guy that’s supposed to be your soulmate? Seriously?

The door closes behind you with a loud chime to signal your exit, having packed up all your stuff earlier and discarding the now empty cup.

“Hey!” Your soulmate greets you, strolling toward you with his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants. A cap adorns his shaggy black hair, shielding his face from any strangers who might recognise him as one of the ninjas. 

He stops in front of you with a friendly tilt of his head. “What’re you doing here?” You ask, taking a wary step back and eyeing his getup. He holds up his wrist, checking his watch before raising his eyes to meet yours. 

“Well, you said 2 pm, right?” Blinking once, twice, even three times doesn’t help in processing the fact that he’s here. “C’mon,” he gestures for you to follow, already heading into the crowd. 

“Wait,” You move to catch up to his fast pace, noticing how he’s slowed down for you to walk at a more comfortable pace. “Is this why you asked me what time I’d be heading down?” He doesn’t answer the question, merely shrugging in response. A tinge of annoyance bites down at the edges of your temper, but you quickly snuff it out at the thought of pastries. 

“You could’ve just told me,” You point out when it suddenly hits you that your bag is resting on his shoulder. “When did- How…?” Your reaction elicits laughter from him, his eyes filled with mild amusement. 

“You handed it to me earlier when I offered.” Now that he mentions it, you vaguely recall his outstretched hand waiting for your bag, and you’d handed it to him as if it were second nature. Your lips curl into a wince, trying not to let embarrassment flush your cheeks.

“Right, thanks.” Credit where credit is due, you suppose. It was pretty nice of him to do so. However, what scares you the most in this situation isn’t the fact that you’re both heading to the same place together. No, it’s not that at all.

It’s how easily you trusted your belongings with him. 

Biting down on your bottom lip helps to suppress the mild panic that flutters uneasily in your guts, the pain replacing it. “So, is this what you meant by helping me ‘speed the order up’?” You ask, air quotes not going unnoticed by him.

He hums in thought, tilting his head to the side. Some lint on his shirt sleeve catches your eye, quickly brushing it off of him before he notices. “Well, I figured that since I have the day off and everything, I’d introduce you to the owner. Makes things easier in case I’m busy and you can still rush the order without me being there.”

His thoughtfulness is actually rather heartwarming. “Oh.” Here you were, being all huffy over his sudden presence that you didn’t stop to consider it's his way of being considerate. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Silence falls between you both, but this time you’re the one to break it. “It’s for my dad.” He glances down at you at the mention of your father, and you direct a small smile at him as you explain. “His birthday is coming up, and every year I alternate between baking a cake and buying one from the store. It’s kind of a tradition.”

He nods, a silent encouragement for you to keep going. “There was a time I got mad at him though, so instead of sugar I used salt. But he still ate it.” a chuckle falls from your lips, grinning at the memory. 

“I get that,” He says wisely with a nod. “Once, Kai pissed me off so I asked Zane to make dinner and swapped out the pepper in his bowl for chilli powder. He had a stomach ache for a month.” 

Wincing replaces the grin on your face. You can’t even begin to imagine the torture that must’ve been for Kai. That poor toilet must’ve seen unimaginable horrors… Dismissing it with a shake of your head, you catch a glimpse of the store sign that resembles that of the Google Maps image you’d used as a reference. 

“Oh my god.” Before Cole could blink, you’re already pressed against the window, wide-eyed at the cakes displayed. You turn your head at the sound of his chuckle, practically buzzing with excitement to go inside. 

Once you spot the amusement in his eyes, a jolt of realisation strikes your chest. Clearing your throat, you stand back up properly and place a hand on the door, pushing it open and walking inside with the little dignity you can muster. 

He notes the stiffness in your gait, following you inside with a shake of his head and hiding his smile by turning away, greeting the young cashier with a nod. “Hey Cole,” She greets with a beam.

“Who’s your friend?” She asks, nodding at you curiously. “She’s pretty.” 

“She’s alright,” Cole replies as soon as you part your lips to respond, stopping when he cuts you off and instantly directs a glare his way. He flinches, clearing his throat. “Is the boss in?”

She crosses her arms, the curiosity in her gaze holding strong when he doesn’t give your name. However, she lets it slide. “You know he doesn’t like being called that.” He sighs in defeat, an embarrassed tinge to his words as he corrects himself.

“Is Papa in?”

You pause, processing what you’ve just heard. He avoids looking directly at you, arms crossed and cheeks dusted red as he glares at the cashier with a scowl. The corners of your cheeks lift without your notice, smiling from ear to ear. 

Charlotte (you’d finally read her name tag) hums, satisfied with Cole’s reaction. She winks at you mischievously. “I’ll go get him.” She leaves through a door with a sign marked ‘STAFF ONLY’, and you spot the various industrial-sized mixing stands and ovens before it closes behind her. 

“So,” you start, moving to stand next to him. His fingers dance nervously on the countertop, avoiding your gaze at all costs. Suppressing a grin, you match his rhythm, drumming your fingers nearby.

He clears his throat, finally mustering the courage to look at you. “So…”

“I hear that the Bahamas are good this time of year.” You say airily.

His eyes widen momentarily, the tension in his shoulders easing when he realises it’s not a jab. “The Bahamas?”

“Yeah,” you reply casually with a shrug, “It’s great for camping. You should definitely visit,” you add, deliberately pausing to inspect your nails, all the while keeping a watchful eye on his reaction. “Have a little father-son bonding time.”

The amount of time it takes for him to react is nothing short of a millisecond. His lips press together, forming a thin line while his hand comes to a still on the countertop. He holds your gaze, the shared stubbornness in both of you refusing to break. 

The corners of your mouth twitch, trying not to let the pure hilarity of it all get to you. Internally holding the reins tight on your composure is nothing short of keeping you from making another joke at his expense. 

“For your information,” He says eventually, breaking the silence between you both. You nod continuously, encouraging him to continue so he can embarrass himself further. “He insisted. And if you ever bring this up to anyone, our deal is off.” 

The threat he poses is equivalent to that of a small hamster trying to threaten a chair. This mental comparison elicits a snort from you, unable to hold back any longer. “Right,” You struggle to find the right words to say without dissolving into laughter right then and there. “Totally.”

“I mean it,” He warns, leaning against the counter with a frown. “And stop laughing! It’s not that funny!”

“You’re right, you’re right. It’s not funny.” You sober up, keeping a straight face when the door opens and Charlotte comes strolling out with an older man behind her. You lean toward him, shoulder brushing against his as your voice lowers to a whisper. “It’s hilarious.” He parts his lips with an offended gasp, only to rearrange his features into a warm smile when the man stops in front of him. 

“Cole! It’s good to see you again, son.” The man you assume to be Papa hugs Cole tightly, the latter scowling at you and mouthing another silent threat before changing it into a grin once he pulls away. 

Somehow, you manage to keep a straight face. Charlotte busies herself with the cashier, seemingly finished with human interaction for the day. You don’t blame her though, past experience of being a barista at a cafe is more than enough to make you vow to never go back.

“Welcome, welcome! I’m Papa Louie, but any friend of Cole’s is a friend of mine. So you can call me Papa!” He welcomes you with a chuckle, opening his arms for a hug. You hesitantly step into his embrace, awkwardly patting his back before he releases you. 

“That’s right, you can call him Papa.” Your entire body stiffens, dread crawling up the cliff of your spine with its little hands digging into your skin. “Go ahead,” Cole gestures to Louie who’s already waiting with an innocent smile. 

Filial piety already drums away at your heart, unable to bear the pressure of every second that passes. Finally, you relent against your own will but silently curse with every fibre of your being directed at Cole.

“It’s nice to meet you….Papa.” 

The sharp inhale Cole sucks through his teeth makes your hair stand on edge, hands curling into fists. Unlike your coward of a soulmate, you meet his gaze headfirst, suppressing a glare when Papa Louie grins brightly. “What can I do for you today?”

Right. Cake. Do it for the cake. And your dad, of course. But also, cake. 

“She’s here to buy a cake for her dad’s birthday, and I was hoping you’d be able to help skip the queue, given our history together.” The chef’s reaction is immediate, pure delight in his innocent smile as he grabs your hands. 

“Of course, my dear! Let us organise it, especially for such a filial daughter like yourself.” He guides you over to the counter where he promptly whips out an order form, passing it to you. “And for you, half price. First order is special,” He adds with a fatherly wink. 

“Thanks,” it’s the only reply you can muster, taken aback by the amount of generosity shown. Sneaking a glance at Cole who’s left you to your own devices and is now chatting to Charlotte, you notice how at ease he seems around the two of them. 

“He’s a very good partner to you, I assume?” 

What.

Your eyes snap back to Papa Louie’s grin. “He’s not-” The sudden weight of his hand on your shoulder makes you flinch, unable to shrug it off because of what’s at risk, but also because of his next few words.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” his voice is low, yet filled with parental affection as he looks at Cole. “The poor boy’s been through a lot.” 

You part your lips, still trying to comprehend how deep this misunderstanding seems to have gotten. Instead of retorting or clarifying the situation, however, you press your lips together, looking down at the order form and scribbling down the specifics of what you want. 

A shadow covers half the paper, and you look up to see Cole staring down at it. “You done yet?” 

“Just finished.” Handing it back to Papa Louie, he personally settles payment while insisting that you receive the heavily discounted price. Your protests fall on deaf ears, begrudgingly accepting his kindness.

He doesn’t allow you to leave empty-handed either, passing you a parcel of cookies he claimed to be freshly baked, Cole and you are ushered out of the store by Charlotte. The ninja himself had also gotten a few tarts, probably to bring back home. 

Unfortunately, you had been forced to say goodbye using the term the chef specifically likes to be called, trying to force away the pure cringe and remind yourself of the kindness he’s displayed so far.

It didn’t mean it was any less easy to do so in front of Cole, of all people. 

But of course, who better to see me at my worst than my supposed soulmate?

Stepping out into the cool evening air makes the heat in your ears and neck feel more prominent than before, the door closing behind you both with a soft click. You spin on your heel to face Cole who has the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. 

“We shall never speak of this.” You state decisively, ignoring the curious stares from passersby. 

“Of what?” He tilts his head with faux innocence, mischief in his gaze. 

You part your lips, about to utter a retort when you think twice about it. However, there’s no way you’d let him have the last word. “Good.”

“So, what’re we having for dinner?” 

“How do you feel about ramen?” Steps slowing to a halt in the middle of the street, realisation strikes. You lift your eyes to meet his curious ones, cold horror gripping your chest as it occurs to you how naturally the conversation had turned to eating together.

He lifts a brow at your blank face, waving a hand in front of you. “You there? Do you hate ramen or something? If so, why suggest it in the first place?” A frown takes over, finally noticing that something’s off. “What’s wrong?”

His genuine concern throws you off, flinching away at his outstretched hand that he’s placed on your forehead, checking the temperature. He withdraws his hand, hurt flickering across his face with a hint of frustration. 

“S-sorry. I just…” Words. Where are words when you need them? “I’m just a huge ramen fan.” You finish lamely. 

He exhales slowly, probably sensing that you’re not being entirely honest. You brace yourself for questions, already trying to find excuses to leave. He tilts his head, gesturing to a street nearby. “There’s a good ramen place down that way.”

As you force yourself to walk with him, you spot your bag still on his shoulders, the top of the bag of cookies neatly tucked away inside. Guilt seeps through the little cracks of your stony facade, stumbling back slightly when he suddenly turns to check on you. 

“You’re paying for dinner. Take it as payment for introducing Papa to you.” 

The simplicity of his words is clear-cut, but you recognise the intention behind them. The guilt from earlier melts away, finally cracking a small amused smile. Maybe he isn’t such a bad person after all. You hurry after him, watching as he slows down once you catch up. “For introducing who?”

“I identify as a feminist, so I’m legally allowed to hit you.”

“Ninjas don’t harm citizens, do they?” 

“I’m off duty.”

[worgengel]

Hiii I'm enraptured by those Mad Max scene studies you did, and I was wondering if you had any tips/advice to get started doing those? I want to improve my digital art but I'm not really sure how to start

gosh thank you so much!!

well, first i think the most important part about doing these studies is to not get too stressed about the timer (for those, each one was about 20-30 minutes. if you need, add ten more minutes! theres no rules. youre just trying to learn, its chill :]

i set a timer so that im forced to only think about what is important. i cant make tiny details in just 30 minutes, and its no sweat if the study turns out mushy; i didnt even spend an hour, so its not like i spent 4 hours on something i dont like. i personally think studying sounds boring as hell, so it takes a lot of pressure off of 'studying' if im locked in for just 30 minutes and learning what i can, and if im lucky, it might look kinda neat

id say use a brush with some color jitter to capture some of the complexities of color while you paint, and dont worry about color picking. i just dont suggest color picking often because it desaturates what youre working with a lot. however, if youre a beginner, it can help you recognize how much variation there is between colors (and just how much grey is important. wowza!) again, no rules! do what you need to learn and have fun. i personally dont learn at all if im not having fun. pick a subject youre interested in, and see what you can do in 30 minutes! i personally choose movie screencaps because they teach movement, color, value AND framing all in one go.

heres the process of a 30 minute study i made this morning of a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

theres a whole lotta goofy stuff i missed as you can see with it side by side with the reference; thats totally ok because the next time i draw this, ill keep the proportions in mind, and not get hung up on details like the camera and remember highlights like on his forehead or the shape of the bag around his neck. mistakes help us learn! copying is NOT the goal of these; its just to see if i can make it feel like the reference. just remember, youre gonna have a lot of ugly attempts (ill make like, ten of these and maybe 2-3 turn out decipherable). dont get too attached, if it turns out mushy, take a quick laugh and try again. could have spent 30 minutes scrolling and instead you made a lovely color salad! keep going!

if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[desceros]

Okay I know you've had like a million people just screaming in your inbox about Symphony and I'm sure you're sick of it. But unfortunately for you, I'm joining them <3

Because oh my god oh my god It's been like a solid three or four days since I've finished chapter 24 and I'm still thinking about it like,, holy fuck.

I honestly wish I knew more about writing and stuff so I could write a whole literary analysis on it because I can't put my thoughts into words. Like I've read MANY fanfics over the years, and I may not know much about writing, but I DO know that Symphony is so well thought out and planned and like holy fuck I can't wait to reread it. I feel like I'm gonna find so many subtle hints and foreshadowing I missed and just RAHHH I WISH I KNEW HOW TO ACTUALLY COMPLEMENT WRITING PROPERLY INSTEAD OF JUST SCREAMING THAT I LIKE IT

I think I've only ever cried over a fanfic like TWO other times out of like,, the eight years I've been reading them. Granted, I tend to stay away from angst so I was probably way in over my head for Symphony. Anyways, cried a lot. And then cried a lot again. I love it. Every time I finished a harsh chapter I'd just go for like a half hour walk just to think about it.

So I'm very normal about Symphony it's definitely not consuming my brain or anything. Hopefully you're not tired of receiving these kinds of asks because there WILL be more <33

oh i will Never get tired of people coming to talk about my fics!! that’s the whole reason i’m posting them, you know! community 🌸

i’ve spent the last ten years writing stuff just for me and keeping it on my icloud. it’s satisfying, and i’ve learned to write what i want to write which keeps me excited and motivated even if no one ever reads it. but it’s very thrilling to share art, and to know how it affects people! hearing your theories, your favorite parts, seeing the art people draw, reading the fanfic of my fanfic—it’s so cool!!!

anyway, i LOVE that youre having a good time! i work hard on my writing so it’s very satisfying when people enjoy it as much as i do. but yeah! :D my inbox is open for a reason! scream away ✨

[skyloftian-nutcase]

(@hermitdrabbles56 I remembered to tag you this time! 😂👍🏻) @alasse-earfalas have Four dealing with stuff in the ICU :)

.

Four started the shift off well enough. He had a floor status patient and would be admitting a transfer who was a pre-op for a bilateral lung transplant. That meant he had a fairly independent patient in one room and… well he wasn’t sure what the other one would be like. If they needed a lung transplant they had to be sick, but they hadn’t gone through major surgery yet so they were likely not very unstable.

The only snag was that they were a transfer from the medical ICU, and we’re technically boarding on his unit. They wouldn’t become a surgical patient, and therefore be his unit’s patient, until after the surgery.

Which meant that the team he had to talk to wasn’t present on his unit. And the medical ICU was notorious for not communicating well. So if something were to go wrong, or if he needed something that wasn’t in the protocols and order sets… well. He’d cross that bridge when he got there.

In the meantime he got to receive report from Dot, which was always nice. And if they chatted on the phone a bit more than was strictly necessary, well, he wasn’t going to complain. To add to the fun, the patient was on high flow oxygen, which meant RT had to be involved, so he’d get to work with Wind and his preceptor.

Dot brought the patient over a little after 8pm, but Four had already done his assessment and drawn labs for the other patient, so it worked out well enough. The patient was very kind and clearly nervous, with supportive family to help as well. Four got everyone settled and then looked over his tasks on the computer to better plan out his shift.

Pre-op meant multiple baths with a specific antiseptic soap, as well as what felt like a million labs and an EKG. But one bath was now, the second in the morning. The labs and EKG were all due in the morning. Dot had mentioned something about a chest x-ray at 2am, but it wasn’t appearing on his to-do list, and she’d seemed unsure about it. Maybe they’d left it off, or they hadn’t ordered it yet. Chest x-rays could be portable, but she’d said something about going downstairs for it. Four hoped that wasn’t the case.

After planning out the shift, he told the transplant patient the general overview of how the night would go. Bath now, and then labs and bath and EKG at 4am. That gave her and her family time to rest.

Two hours later, Four had finally finished giving meds to his other patient, bathed the transplant patient, and charted all his assessments and actions, when he saw an order pop up for the transplant patient.

They wanted the labs within the next fifteen minutes.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Four grumbled. His patient was likely asleep by now, so he’s have to wake her to get labs. None of her IVs were returning blood, so he’d have to straight stick her.

He was starting to remember why he didn’t like boarding MICU patients. He wish the team would just talk to him instead of throw him last minute orders.

After waking everyone in the room to get labs, and sensing their drowsy annoyance as he spent what felt like an eternity drawing all the necessary blood for the ten lab containers, he poked his head in on his other patient, who was sleep, and then settled back at the nurse’s station.

I don’t like your providers, he texted to Dot. How’s your night going?

Hepatic encephalopathy with lactulose, was the reply.

Four cringed. That… was unpleasant. He was thankful he worked in the surgical-trauma ICU and not medical.

After another couple hours, one of his coworkers walked up to him. “Hey, x-ray is on the phone asking if you’re ready to come down.”

Four blanched. “What?”

“Yeah, something about a dual-view chest x-ray for your transplant patient.”

Biting back a groan, he spoke with the technician on the phone and, after debating the matter with the tech, his charge nurse, and providers on his own unit, finally gave in and arranged to take the patient downstairs.

So much for letting the patient have a good night’s rest.

Wind was equally unhappy.

“This is so stupid,” the student grumbled as he and his preceptor gathered supplies. “Like… why at 2am?? And why can’t they just do a portable one at the bedside so we don’t have to drag her downstairs? Did you see how quickly her oxygen saturation dropped when she moved around??”

“They said for dual view it has to be downstairs,” Four sighed. “But I agree, this is stupid. Why couldn’t we do this at 4am with all the other stuff? What difference does two hours make on a pre-op chest x-ray?”

As the team grouching made their way to the patient’s room, woke the patient, and proceeded to rearrange the entire room to take her downstairs, they finally had everything ready to go and were leaving in thirty minutes.

When they got to the exit of the unit, the MICU provider walked up to Four.

“Is this the transplant patient?” He asked quietly as the team continue to walk.

“Yes,” Four answered evenly, wondering what this was about.

“Oh,” he said, a little put out. “I was going to switch the x-ray order so it could be portable. Oh well.”

Four stopped in place. He blinked. He took a deep breath. And then he smiled. “Well… we’re already here, so. We’ll head downstairs.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” the provider replied with a shrug and a smile. “Thanks.”

After that the team silently made their way to the elevator. Wind and Four eyed each other, both thinking the same thing.

I am a healthcare provider. I will not kill the other provider. I won’t. I won’t.

The string of cuss words that left Wind’s mouth did make Four laugh, though.

[anjumstar]

Sand Lines ch4, Friday

Read on AO3

rating: teen

pairing: bakudeku

word count: 22.8k/40.6k

summary: It wasn’t a vacation. It was only convenient that Katsuki’d managed to trick Miruko into thinking it was.

Katsuki doesn’t need a break. Post-war life has been peaceful. Too peaceful. So under the guise of a vacation, Katsuki heads to the American southwest, the only place where he can do the thing he wants to do the most: blow stuff up. Big time. And it’s all going to according to plan for about five minutes, until Deku comes along. They’ve barely seen each other since graduation last year and Katsuki could, should blow him up for getting in his business yet again. Instead, they learn about post-war life in the way they’ve done everything: together.

first chapter - previous chapter - next chapter

master list

Dog Canyon, Alamogordo, New Mexico

If things had gone according to plan, they would have been hero partners. But things never had gone according to plan, had they?

If the landscape of Japan in their first year had continued, Katsuki and Izuku most certainly would have been hero partners. But they’d made the mistake of being too good for a Japan in peacetime. And Katsuki hated to wish for a war, especially when he’d almost been killed in one, but it was against his nature not to push to be stronger. That’s what he’d always strived for. And being stuck working without the person who made him better, who made him stronger, who shone light on his weak and blind spots was like walking with one eye closed. He could see, but where was his depth perception?

So they weren’t partners. If they ever would be, it’d be because something went terribly wrong. That the hard-earned peace after the war hadn’t lasted.

But here Izuku was, pointing out turns as Katsuki’s rental rattled along a dirt road to a supposed canyon while the sun rose in front of him. And he wasn’t Katsuki’s second eye or right hand or brief investigation team-up member. He was the friend Katsuki had barely seen in a year. Who he’d just spent the last seventy-two hours with. And, surprisingly, it…hadn’t been bad at all.

“What’s that noise?” Izuku asked suddenly.

In an attempt to follow a bit of what Water Foul and Tap ‘n Go had talked about yesterday, Katsuki and Izuku had decided to do another hike. Well, Izuku decided that they should do something fun and the only thing Katuski would agree to was a hike. Katsuki found it a bit ironic that they had to drive to go on a hike, but now a little irony was the least of his worries.

A flapping sound had been following them for a couple minutes, nearly blending in with the general rattle and bounce of driving on a dirt road. Because the road wasn’t dirt, wasn’t flat and even like the bulldozed dirt of a construction zone. It was dirt and gravel and rocks and tumbleweeds and one roadrunner that had kept pace with them for a solid ten seconds before darting into the thin brush. But now that Katsuki thought about it, that flapping was too regular to be anything natural. And when he realized what it was, he groaned and stopped the car.

“Get out,” Katsuki commanded, hopping out of his side and slamming the door behind him.

It was too early in the morning to be hit by a true wall of heat, but Katsuki could already feel his pores waking up, ready to start sweating the moment the chill of the car’s AC burned off. And this was going to be a sweaty, greasy task.

“Shoot, flat tire,” Izuku said, drawing around the back and seeing the limp thing sitting low in the dirt. Probably punctured by one of the rocks or a particularly strong cactus needle.

“Obviously,” Katsuki said, pocketing the keys as he went around the back of the truck. There was an extra tire mounted to the back, but he had no idea where the jack was, or the wrench. Katsuki opened the back door and it swung to the side, nearly nailing Izuku from his face to his torso, but his hero reflexes got him out of the way in time. Katsuki chuckled as he rooted around the back, finding the wrench, but unable to locate anything that looked like it would get that flat tire up off the ground.

“Fuck,” Katsuki said, jumping out of the back and racking his mind. The car was a rental, and he didn’t have car insurance, obviously. Wasn’t even sure if they had cell signal way out on a dirt road.

“Got the tire off!” Izuku shared, holding the spare upright at his side and giving a thumbs up.

“Yeah, well, we don’t have a jack, so unless you wanna roll on it back to town, it’s not gonna do us much good.”

“I can jack up the car.”

Katsuki was about to argue, say no, idiot, this thing’s gotta be two or three thousand kilos, but then he remembered just who he was stranded here with. So he shrugged and stepped out of the way as Izuku kneeled down at the back of the SUV.

He first used his rough hands to clear the ground under him of the worst gravel and pebbles before trying to kneel. When he did, he grimaced, lifting his knees up again before taking off his shirt. Already his skin was gleaming with sunblock and sweat glinting off the tops of his collarbones, his pectorals, his rows of abs. Katsuki couldn’t help but stare for a moment, catalog the muscles, the scars before looking away purposefully. Nothing he hadn’t seen before.

“Lemme take off the front first,” Katsuki said, kneeling down beside him. He’d never changed a tire in his life—there wasn’t nearly enough driving in Japan for him to have ever had to. But it wasn’t more than a little unscrewing and rescrewing, and he was a quick learner.

He attached the wrench to the lug nuts and began tugging. Luckily, the car was fairly new, so there was no rust inhibiting the process and the first one came off nice and smooth. The rest followed and the hubcap all but fell off in a puff of dry dirt, like the earth exhaling.

“Okay, my turn,” Izuku said as Katsuki backed away.

Izuku felt around underneath the car for a hand hold, presumably something that wouldn’t cut into his already battered and bruised hands as they held up literal tons of weight. “Here it goes,” he said, and with a muffled groan, the car creaked up.

Katsuki turned back to the wheel, knowing he had to move fast. He worked the tire off, tempted to throw the sucker into the brush with its spiky friends but knew that Izuku would never let him get away with it. Then he slotted the new one on and began work on returning the hubcap.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Izuku grunted, head cocked sideways, his topmost eye squinting against either sweat, sunlight, or the strain of holding the car. Wisps of One For All whipped around Izuku, but not nearly as many as Katsuki might have expected. Izuku was using mostly his own strength, and the thought made Katsuki dry in the mouth. He needed some water.

“What’re you talking about? I’m the one who likes hiking. And you’re stuck under a car right now.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure you’d want to come,” Izuku replied. “I know you’re just here to work and I’ve already distracted you quite a bit.”

His voice was strained and it made Katsuki want to grab Izuku by the throat, wring the rest of his voice out. Or maybe make it even hoarser, show the real exertion that this task should be taking out of him. As it was, Izuku’s traps were flexed to high heaven, taut and pronounced up against his shimmering neck. Every muscle, vein, sinew, and scar was jutting from his wrists up to his neck, but he wasn’t shaking, the circulation in his legs wasn’t cutting off, making his calves dark with pulsing blood as his knees whited out.

“This is still work,” Katsuki said. “A good workout.”

Izuku chuckled, somehow. “Seems like…”

A still-cool breeze swooped across the road and ruffled their hair as Katsuki screwed the last lug nut back on. It chilled the drying sweat on his skin while the sun began to creep overhead.

“I hope it’s not too much of a bother that I’m here,” Izuku continued, his top eye closed to the sweat drawing near it. Katsuki thought about reaching up and wiping it away, but refrained. “I understand if it is, but it’s been a while since we’ve gotten to hang out together. So I’ve been enjoying it.”

“Put the car down, you idiot.”

“Oh good,” Izuku sighed, slowly lowering the car with the kind of restraint and control that only existed when you weren’t at your limit. Your limit was something you dropped like a hot pan. Izuku was able to lower the car like it was a simple bench press. Katsuki swallowed dryly. Where the hell had he put his water?

It was back in the car, he’d get it in a minute. In the meantime, he screwed the lug nuts again for good measure, watching as the car rolled just slightly with his efforts where Izuku had held it nearly still. Damn.

“We were gonna be partners,” Katsuki reasoned quietly as he stood up, kicking the tire for good measure. Seemed properly attached. “ ‘Course it’s fine.”

Izuku scooped his shirt off the ground and flapped it once in the air to get the worst of the dirt out. When he put it on, the pastel blue was brown on one side and already turning dark with fresh sweat—filthy, but Izuku didn’t seem much to care or notice. In fact, he flopped down on his seat and looked up at Katsuki with wide knees and a wider smile.

“It’s nice to be a team again,” he pronounced, thumping the tire with his fist. He probably had the strength to flatten the thing all over again doing that. Shoot, he definitely did.

“Yeah, for one week and one week only,” Katsuki replied, picking up the flat and mounting it where the spare had gone. He wasn’t so clean himself anymore either.

“Yeah, I guess,” Izuku said, hoisting himself up. “I’m gonna make the most of it, though.”

The warmth from the rising sun hit Katsuki’s skin and pooled in his belly. “Yeah, yeah, get back in the car. We’ve still got a hike to do.”

Not partners, but still a team. 

Whatever that meant.

*

Dog Canyon, Alamogordo, New Mexico

“Slow down, Kacchan!”

“Not on your life,” Katsuki called back. “Put a little One For All into it if you can’t handle it.”

He didn’t want to slow down while they were still outpacing the sun. The mountain had blocked it out thus far, but the air was already growing warm. Sweat was collecting in Katsuki’s sideburns and dripping down his neck. There’d be no slowing down till they reached the top.

“But Kacchan, the view!”

Katsuki whipped around to face Izuku, but stopped short when he saw over Izuku’s shoulder. Or in any direction, really.

Because all around, were miles and miles of view.

The first thing Katsuki noticed were the many splotches of dark that now marked the ground of the Tularosa Basin. It only took a moment to piece together that they were the shadows of the enormous clouds that dappled the sky. He could see the whole shadows of all those cumulus clouds as they stretched over blocks and blocks of land. Past those, he could make out nearly the entire ring of mountains encasing the basin. If he put his thumb on this part of the map, he could probably see every kilometer of land his finger touched.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“ ‘S not bad.”

“Kacchan.” Izuku nudged him with his shoulder. Katsuki caught a whiff of Izuku’s deodorant, the notes of amber and musk extra sharp in the dry air. 

“It’s nice,” Katsuki acquiesced. 

“It’s like flying without flying,” Izuku said. “All the view, no quirk needed.”

Even with their quirks, the views flying in Japan were never anything like this. There was always another building, another skyscraper, or at least a tall hill blocking things out. Here, it was endless.

When they made it to the top, the sun had caught up with them. Katsuki had drenched his tank top and drained half his water bottle. From all the way up there, they could make out his rental car as a little dot on the ground. The White Sands National Park was a pale paint stroke swiped across the land to the north. It went on and on, much larger than anything else they could make out besides the mountains.

“Sunscreen?” Izuku offered, slathering himself down again whilst holding out the coconut-scented tube. 

“Nah,” Katsuki said, taking out his own and getting to work. He’d probably sweat off the first round he’d put on already.

Katsuki lathered up his arms and legs and even pet his palms through his hair just to keep his scalp from going pink. Izuku had done just about the same and was capping his sunscreen when Katsuki stopped him.

“Idiot, your shirt was practically white already and is practically see-through with all your smelly sweat,” Katsuki berated. “You gotta do underneath.”

“Fine, I’ll do the front,” Izuku agreed, squeezing another dollop into his hand, “but I can’t reach the back.”

“I’ll do the back.”

Katsuki spurt his own sunscreen into his hand and snaked it up Izuku’s shirt until his fingertips reached Izuku’s freckled neck. His shirt really was soaked through with sweat, but Katsuki couldn’t mind, not when they all sweat through their costumes on every patrol, every gym run. This was Izuku at his best, at his strongest.

His skin was so warm, especially his neck and shoulders. Katsuki was already hot from the hike, from the sun, but Izuku’s warmth heated Katsuki through his chest to his cheeks. His sensitive fingertips took in every ripple of muscle as Izuku stretched to cover his whole front with sunblock, bulging and contracting with the same strength Katsuki had seen back in class. The guy was so strong now, it was hard to reconcile him with the dweeb Katsuki had known five years ago at all.

There were still little pink marks on Katsuki’s arms from where Izuku had treated him the day before. And now here he was, more or less returning the favor. And it was okay to be together like this, making contact like this. Good, even. It was only strange because they had so many shared years of not doing this together, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t have been doing it all along.

“That’s it,” Katsuki said, retracting his hand and wiping away the fresh sweat he’d gotten on his brow. “Time to go back down. I’m ready to train”

“Wait, I wanna take a picture first!” Izuku decided, reaching for his pocket to take out his phone.

“Sending Thumper an update?”

“No, I just want this for me,” Izuku said, facing the camera towards himself. “Get in here, Kacchan.”

“Tch, I don’t do that.”

“C’mon, we’ll probably never be here again,” Izuku insisted. “Don’t you wanna remember?”

“Shut up, my memory is perfect,” Katsuki said, but he slouched into frame anyway, stepping up right next to Izuku so he wouldn’t be small in the background. “Go.”

In the screen, they were both blown out by the sharp sunlight, but when Katsuki looked past that, he could see the sheer drop to the flatlands below and the endless sky above. And in between, Katsuki and Izuku had matching pink cheeks, a little too bright from the sun, and eyes a little too hidden by the sun’s glare and their sweat-heavy bangs. 

And for the life of him, Katsuki couldn’t read what was in Izuku’s eyes or his own. 

*

White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico

“Okay, give it a good hit!” Katsuki shouted. “No pussyfooting!”

“Alright, stand back!”

“Don’t tell me to stand back!”

Katsuki was out of range, the same spot that Izuku had been standing on day one as he’d been measuring Katsuki’s explosions. Now Izuku was in the middle of the action, a metal sheet hanging from one of Blackwhip’s tendrils as he readied to throw it.

“Now!” Izuku shouted, flinging the piece of metal before using Fa Jin to leap away.

The explosion that followed from the impact was huge, and it made Katsuki’s eyes dance as he kept his eyes peeled for that sheet of metal, readying himself to duck. But it flew harmlessly out to the side leaving Katsuki blinking as he blindly held on to the sensor with the hand no longer weighed down by a gauntlet.

It had been Izuku’s idea, of course. Nitroglycerin didn’t just react from heat-based ignition, but from any physical impact. That was what made it so volatile. And while Katsuki’s sweat wasn’t exactly the same, it stood to reason that it might react the same way to pressure. Enter: Izuku flinging a sheet of metal at a sand-drenched puddle formed from emptying one of his gauntlets.

And as the explosion dissipated, the evidence was obvious.

Training with Izuku was better than training with anyone else.

Katsuki walked forward, shoes quickly crunching upturned chunks of sand that had been thrown from the hole that had cratered the ground. It was sizable, big enough for Katsuki and Izuku to lie down lengthwise and still not reach the edge. Nearly deep enough to fit coffins for both of them. 

“Do you think we’ll have to fill that in?” Izuku asked, jogging up to the scene. He seemed no worse for wear—just as sweaty as Katsuki was, and bare of most sand shrapnel.

“I think you have to.” Katsuki grinned. “Mr. I’m here to regulate your quirk.”

“Fine,” Izuku said, not falling for the teasing for a moment before he was turning back to the scene and mumbling to himself. “What’s the best way to go about this? Probably more of the sand will go in the hole than out with Air Force, but it’s not especially effective. Ah, okay, I got it.”

Katsuki walked back, grabbing his gauntlet to reattach and begin to refill it when Izuku released a few long tendrils of Blackwhip. His only support materials were his gloves, and the strands grew out of the wrists, stretching out away from each other like pinwheels. Then, he lowered them to the ground, and began pushing them like snowplows back toward the hole. It didn’t take too long for the sand to build up higher than the tendrils, spilling out behind, but Izuku just released more to contain all of it that he could, scooping it back into the hole.

It was nothing like how the ground had been before the explosion, even with Izuku’s attempts to tamp it down with his shoes, but it was no longer an enormous hole by the time he was done with it. And he turned back to Katsuki, pleased as punch.

“Now we just need to think about applications! I think I’d like to try it again with Air Force to see if I can make the explosion from a distance. That way, if there’s time to plant the nitro beforehand, we could pull off an explosion from an even longer range than you can currently. Oh gosh, we really should just look up all the practical uses for nitroglycerin as an explosive and see which apply to us. Too bad we can’t use our phones out here, ‘cause I’d really like to look it up, but I guess we can just look it up for tomorrow—”

“Deku.”

Izuku blinked up. “Kacchan?”

Who else talked that much? Who else had so much to say that was all so interesting and relevant and fresh? It was like he’d spent the last year in silence and just heard the crackle of the radio coming back on and it was almost too much for his lonely ears.

“Let’s do this again.”

Izuku cocked his head. “Well, yeah, we can just spar a little while you refill your gaunt—”

“No, I mean back home,” Katsuki clarified. “We should be sparring and stuff. Training together. Again.”

Izuku’s eyes lit up and it squeezed Katsuki’s stomach. Like he’d offered more than he thought he had. Like he’d promised something maybe he wasn’t ready to. “I’d love that, Kacchan!”

“It’s not a big deal.” Katsuki shrugged. “And if you don’t bring your A-game, I’m renegging.”

Izuku clenched his fist and tugged it towards his chest. “Nothing to worry about there.”

Katsuki wasn’t worried. But if he wasn’t worried, then what was that fluttering in his stomach?

“Whatever,” Katsuki said, putting his gauntlet back on. “My turn this time.”

*

Route US-70, Otero County, New Mexico

Katsuki’s hands hurt. Enough so that, after hauling their shit back to the car, Katsuki had tossed Izuku the keys, claiming that he needed to learn how to drive better if he wanted to be useful. But really, just the idea of gripping the steering wheel made his joints ache.

Keeping up training like this would be a challenge. He had physical therapy exercises for strengthening and stretching his hands and wrists, but overuse and misuse weren’t easy to come back from. But Katsuki wouldn’t have traveled to this scorched plain if not for this opportunity and so why would he waste it piddling around, waiting for his hands to cooperate? It wasn’t like there wouldn’t be time to rest at home. He could probably challenge himself to take down his next five villains fully quirkless, make things a little interesting. Izuku would probably go wild for that.

But now he just needed to leave the damn Missile Range.

“Just turn! That car is dozens of meters away!”

“But it’s going so fast!”

They’d been sitting at the turn off of the base and onto the main road for only a few minutes, but it seemed like forever to Katsuki. He was worn out, dehydrated, hungry, and furthermore, only a couple cars had passed them by, but no matter how far away they were, Izuku wouldn’t turn while one was in sight. And in this land, sight went pretty far.

“Now!” Katsuki shouted as soon as the last car passed them, and Izuku yelled as he spun the wheel and hit the gas.

Katsuki clung to the door’s handle, plastering his back against the seat as the car nearly fishtailed in its effort to make a left turn. Once again, Katsuki was reminded that SUV’s rolled.

“If we end up in the ditch, I’m burying you in it!” Katsuki howled as Izuku spun the wheel the other way in an effort to straighten out in the lane.

Somehow, despite this country being as flat as Izuku’s humor, the road managed to have ditches on both sides, just before the wire fencing that was supposedly enough to keep anyone who wanted to offroad off. Though they’d learned just the other day that that last part was as wishful as a mirage.

“I got it, I got it!” Izuku cried, finding the lines and fitting the enormous car between them.

“You better, or you’ll remember what I said about dragging this tin can back to Texas yourself.”

“I got it,” Izuku huffed and, so long as there wasn’t another left turn, he probably did.

Katsuki watched as Izuku’s hands relaxed slightly on the wheel, clearly having an easier time than he’d had up the winding mountain the other day. The skin tone around his scars evened out and Katsuki had to look closer to see them. Izuku’s hands were more visibly bruised than Katsuki’s were, and it was possible that they hurt just as much behind the wheel now as Katsuki’s would. It would be just like Izuku not to say anything, to be happy to spare Katsuki the pain and take it himself.

“Hey, idiot,” Katsuki said. “Do your hands hurt?”

“Hmm?” Izuku’s eyes darted quickly over to Katsuki before quickly minding his mirrors and then the road in front of him again. “No, not usually. Every once in a while.”

“Well, you should say when they do,” Katsuki said. “I could do the same shit you did.”

“A massage?”

“Yeah, that.”

Izuku smiled. From the side, it made his cheek look extra round and freckled. “Okay, Kacchan.”

The air conditioning was finally cooling a bit of the sweat off of Katsuki’s skin. Honestly, if the sand didn’t ruin this rental car, then the layers of sweat in the front seat for Izuku’s and Katsuki’s backs would force the rental company to retire the car. The desert was unforgiving.

They’d probably gotten burned again too. Despite Katsuki’s best efforts, the skin on the tops of his ears and shoulders just felt a little too tight, too warm, even with the air conditioning. He’d have to bathe in aloe back at the motel. The motel, which—

“Where’re you going?” Katsuki asked when Izuku missed the turn off for their motel. “I said turn left—I know you’re not that bad.”

“We’re going to the Mexican place!” Izuku answered, turning into a parking lot just a couple intersections later. “After all that training, I’m starving.”

It was possible that they were both a bit too sweaty and stinky to be allowed into a restaurant, and Katsuki could easily demand they go home to shower off before they did anything else. But, like it or not, Katsuki was hungry, and certainly couldn’t subsist off of the vending machine and horror breakfasts at the motel.

“Fine,” Katsuki said as Izuku managed to find a shady spot to park in, and do a decent job of it. “Let’s see what this is all about.”

When they were seated at their table, it became clear that it was mainly about one thing: chiles.

“Red or green?”

Katsuki stared blankly at the waitress, who was smiling, though perhaps equally blank. Before Katsuki’s eyes could burn holes through the woman, Izuku asked, “Um, what exactly? Is red or green?”

“The salsa,” the woman spoke with a lilting accent. “Every dish comes with red or green chile or Christmas for both.”

“Which is spicier?” Izuku asked.

“The green.”

“I’ll take that,” Katsuki said, stepping in before Izuku could flat out order for him.

Izuku then placed his order, going with Christmas, probably just because the damn nerd was curious enough to want to try both, and then their menus were taken and they waited.

Waited alone. With no mountain to climb, no training to do, no villain to defeat.

Sitting across from each other. At a table for two. With nothing to do but look at each other.

Izuku took a chip from the basket in the center of the table, and the crunch was ear-shatteringly loud.

This was what Tap ‘n Go and Water Foul had been talking about. This quiet side was the stuff that made a life. But if it was that important, if it was that universal, then why did Katsuki have to think so hard to do it? He was the best at so many challenging things, why should this be the thing that tripped him up?

“We’re gonna have to train,” Katsuki decided, taking a chip of his own and dipping it in the table salsa. Medium spicy at best.

“Yeah?” Izuku said through his chip. “Didn’t we just decide that?”

“No, at this shit,” Katsuki said, unscrewing the wooden cap of the table hot sauce. He drizzled a bit of it on a chip and ate it like that. Not bad. Improvement. “Doing nothing.”

“Oh,” Izuku mused. “Yeah. Well. We can definitely study. I guess we can watch TV and see what the characters do. Plus, watching TV is what a lot of people do when they’re not working, so it’s kind of a two-for-one.”

“I don’t wanna study the fake drama that dumbass TV characters get into,” Katsuki retorted. “The second my life becomes like a k-drama, you’ll be very busy with being a hero, because that’s my villain origin story.”

Izuku laughed. “Well, that would solve my problem at least!”

Katsuki scoffed. “Idiot.”

It was clear Katsuki would have to do the planning. Izuku had always been good at following his lead—too good. In fact, if he was honest, Izuku would be the one to carry it over the finish line after Katsuki laid the groundwork. Katsuki just had to figure out what that shit was.

He was given a reprieve when the sound of sizzling came from around the corner, and two hot plates appeared in front of them.

“Chile relleno? Chicken enchilada?”

Well, sure enough. The chile was delicious.

[wreywrites]

Tiger Shark

Part 6: The Reef

Chapter 33

I am so wildly depressed. I don’t need Katniss’s mother to tell me that. But she does, with reassuring words and a kind smile and simple instructions to do something I enjoy even if it’s for ten minutes a day. I ask her if I can have some paper and a pencil. I want to draw.

That night, when I get back to 405 for the scheduled half-hour of down-time before supper, I find a whole empty notebook and three pencils on my bed. Katniss’s mother is the real hero in District Thirteen.

I don’t know how long we’ve been here.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

Alvan tells me it has been three weeks since I moved into 405 as we leave the classroom after an hour lecture on nuclear history. I spent it making imaginary doodles, drawing on the desk with my finger. I couldn’t care less about nuclear history even before I lost everything that mattered.

We go down to lunch and sit at our usual spot at the end of the long table. Gloss takes the end, I sit next to him, and Alvan sits across from him. We’ve found it works best to create a buffer between Gloss and everyone else. He’s the least popular person I know of in Thirteen and most people will sit literally anywhere other than next to him.

Today, though, a little boy with that distinct Twelve look sits down next to Alvan across from me. A slightly younger boy sits next to him, and a tiny girl sits next to me. About a minute later, a woman who can only be their mother sits next to the girl, and a young man joins the boys. Him I think I recognize, but in the stupidest possible way.

“You’re Katniss’s cousin. The one they interviewed during her Games.”

He looks confused for half a second, then nods.

“You’re not really her cousin.”

An impressed grin flashes across his face. “I’m not.” Then he leans forward, stretching a hand across the table. “Gale Hawthorne.”

I shake the offered hand. “Annie Cresta.”

“I know,” he says, still friendly. I can tell he doesn’t care about all the stuff that comes with me being Annie Cresta. He just cares that I’m here, and that even crazy Annie could see through the Capitol’s lies about him. Then Gale’s gaze flickers to my side and I glance over to see the little girl staring at me.

“Posy,” the woman says, “We don’t stare.”

Posy ignores her and instead says, with the widest eyes I have ever seen, “Your hair is beautiful.”

I smile. If these little kids aren’t terrified of us, maybe life isn’t so bad. “Thank you.”

One of the boys next to her says, “Is it true you treaded water for eight hours?”

The woman turns to glare at him. “Rory, give the poor girl some peace. The last thing she needs is reminded of that horrible time.”

Rory hangs his head. “I was just wondering. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s alright,” I say. I may as well get used to people asking questions like this. At least they’re talking to me. And sitting with us. And at least kids don’t judge. “I did. It made me really glad I was good at swimming.”

“What’s your favorite kind of fish?” the other boy blurts. “We only had one kind we ever ate in Twelve and it wasn’t very good.”

The woman seems to have given up. “Vick…” she sighs.

Down the table, Gale is chuckling. “Sorry about them. When we came in, I told them who you were and now they have a million questions.”

I smile. “That’s fine.” I lean toward Vick. “They’re not technically a fish, but shrimp are my favorite. Spicy shrimp rolls on a rainy winter day… mmmmmm.”

“What do they taste like?” Rory jumps back in.

I frown. What do shrimp taste like? How do I explain them to this poor kid from Twelve? Shrimp taste like whatever you cook them in, which is usually butter and garlic, at least in my house. “Butter and garlic,” I say.

He’s an octopus, he’ll taste like whatever I cook him in. Beck and Mags are laughing at an indignant Finnick. I laugh with them. The great Finnick Odair, reduced to a terrified quivering mass by an annoyed cephalopod.

“Annie?”

I snap to attention. All three of the kids are staring at me. Wide-eyed, I turn to Alvan.

He gives me a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. We’re here. You’re safe.”

I don’t know what happened and I’m not about to ask, but the sudden silence around the table means it unnerved these poor kids. All they wanted was to learn unimportant little details about me, and instead they got full-sails crazy.

Gale saves us from the impending silence. He leans forward around the boys and says to Alvan, “Alvan, right?”

Alvan nods, leaning back and extending a hand around Rory and Vick. “Pleased to meet ya.”

“You too.” Gale shakes his hand. “Met Dalton yet? He came up here from Ten a few years ago, I guess.”

“Yeah, turns out I used to work for his uncle.”

Alvan and Gale dissolve into some discussion about raising cattle, and Vick and Rory quickly get bored with that and start telling me all about themselves.

“I smashed my finger yesterday!” Vick says.

“Smashed your finger?” I slip into that intense interest that I haven’t used since the last time I saw Cassia Vickers. I start to wonder what is happening to her these days, but force myself to pay attention to the boys across from me.

Vick nods, holding his hand up so I can see the blackened fingernail on his pointer finger. “My class was helping carry supplies from one level to another and I got bumped around and smashed it between the box and the wall.”

“You must be pretty tough,” I say.

He puffs up. “I am.”

“So am I!” Rory says. “I won the wrestling contest for my class last year at school!”

“Did you?”

Rory and Vick spend the next twenty minutes telling me about their various achievements and leaving me little time to respond, which means I can just listen and eat my flavorless soup and handful of grapes and nod or gasp when appropriate.

When our scheduled lunch time is over, we all stand.

“Rory, Vick, Posy, it was nice to meet you.” I give them another smile, then glance at the woman. “And… I’m sorry…” I don’t remember hearing her name, but as reliable as my mind is, it’s hard to tell.

“Hazelle,” she smiles. “I’m Gale’s mom. And these three’s,” she rolls her eyes affectionately.

That makes sense. “It was nice to meet you too, Hazelle.”

She nods. “You too, Annie. You’re always welcome to eat with us, if you can stand it.” Then she extends her smile to Alvan and Gloss. “And you two as well. We know what it’s like to be the outsiders.”

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

Our meal times don’t always match up with the Hawthorne family’s, but when they do, we make sure to sit together. Those kids are amazing, and I tell Hazelle as much one day when they leave before the rest of us to get to class.

“I’m serious. Nobody else will even look at Gloss, and they’re not much better to me and Alvan.”

“I know,” she says, sounding sad. “It’s hard to… Twelve had nothing. It’s hard to look at a Career being mopey and feel bad for him. And Alvan… I know what happened to him, but… he did kill his District counterpart, and that’s hard to overlook in the poor districts. But the kids,” now she smiles, “the kids don’t know that. They just want to hear about life in other places. And now that I know what you’re all like, it's much easier for me too.” Hazelle puts a hand on my shoulder. “I wish you all the best, Annie.”

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

Peeta is on TV, talking to Caesar Flickerman. Peeta is alive. Caesar asks him a question, but all I hear is, “Mags! You wouldn’t lie to us. Do you eat whale in District Four?”

No one has any idea how many victors are still alive, after twelve of them were lined up and shot. The Capitol hasn’t announced any deaths among the others, but maybe they wouldn’t. Or maybe they did and I forgot. Or faded out and didn’t hear. All of those people. My friends. Where are they? What’s happening to them?

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

The next day, we are all called to an assembly in the Collective, a huge room that easily holds the thousands of people who show up. It had to have been built for large gatherings, but since the pox epidemic that Dalton told us about at supper either yesterday or three weeks ago, they can’t have had any need for such a large space. Now that everyone except those with essential jobs are gathered together, I can see how widespread the fallout from the pox is. There are scars everywhere, and the children are few and far between, and most of them slightly disfigured.

Then Coin approaches the podium, calls us to attention, and begins. In the shortest speech I have ever heard, she tells us that Katniss has agreed to be the Mockingjay, provided the victors we lost to the Capitol—Peeta—the crowd is unimpressed by this—Finnick, Johanna, Cecelia, Cashmere—here she starts to lose the crowd to rumbles of dissent—Brutus, and Enobaria—as well as any other victors that are still alive and in the Capitol’s control, will be granted full pardon for any damage they do to the rebel cause.

The crowd’s hostility grows. I can tell exactly where Katniss is standing among them by following the funnel of angry looks.

But Alvan turns to Gloss and me, smiling broadly as he mutters, “Hear that? They’re takin’ care’a y’all.”

Indeed they seem to be. I smile as well. Katniss has demanded Peeta back for herself, but she has also demanded Finnick and Johanna, and Cashmere for Gloss, and Cecelia, and even Brutus and Enobaria, who tried to kill us.

Katniss Everdeen is perhaps not so unfriendly and aloof as the Capitol would have had the rest of the victors believe.

Coin goes on. “But in return for this unprecedented request, Soldier Everdeen has promised to devote herself to our cause. It follows that any deviation from her mission, in either motive or deed, will be viewed as a break in this agreement. The immunity would be terminated and the fate of the victors determined by the law of District Thirteen. As would her own. Thank you.”

Now I hope Katniss is good at listening to instructions and playing the game. Because I’m not losing them again.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

We are all quiet at supper that night. Even Posy, Vick, and Rory.

Finally, even though I know a discussion of hypotheticals won’t make me feel better, or guarantee Katniss will play nice with Coin, I look at Alvan. “Why didn’t you go after them too?”

“Katniss was never my job.”

I frown. He was in on it though, wasn’t he?

Alvan smiles a little, reaches across the table, and squeezes one of my hands. “You were my job. We knew you’d stick with Finnick, but we knew he might have to chase down Katniss or somethin’, so we needed someone-”

“Someone I’d trust.” I smile back at him. “Thank you.”

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

The next morning, our wrist schedules don’t print the usual nightmare of classes and organized exercise. Instead, it is breakfast, and then Command.

“That’s new.” Gloss frowns at his.

I nod, watching mine print on as well. “You think we did something wrong?”

Alvan shakes his head. “I think Coin remembered she’s got more victors. They’re gonna make us an offer.”

“Or a threat,” Gloss says darkly.

“’N’ what’ll ya do if they do?” Alvan asks as we leave 405 to go to breakfast. “Tell ’em no? With nothin’ to bargain with?”

We eat breakfast in silence. I am digesting what Alvan said, and what he didn’t say, what was left on the fringes. I have less than nothing to bargain with. All I have is things they can use against me.

I’m not Katniss.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

We enter Command together, after showing both guards the schedules on our wrists, and a third guard checking something on his computer. Apparently after the stunts Gloss and I tried to pull, they’re keeping tighter tabs on us when it comes to what rooms we try to get into.

Inside, sitting around a rectangular table, surrounded by TV screens, are Coin and her bodyguard, whose name I don’t know, Plutarch, and his assistant Fulvia. Coin gives us her best look of neutral displeasure.

Plutarch, however, smiles and gestures for us to sit.

I sit in my usual spot next to Gloss, like I would at meals, only to find Alvan sitting down on my other side.

You were my job.

Alvan apparently takes his jobs very seriously.

I brace for terrible news, for threats against my family and friends, for everything Snow has said and would have said if he’d had one more meeting with me.

What I get is something entirely unexpected.

Coin leans forward, steepling her fingers in front of her chin as she leans her elbows on the table and scrutinizes us. “Will you fight?” she asks.

I blink.

“Fight?”

“What?”

Plutarch jumps in. “We have our Mockingjay. We have…” he takes a deep breath, “Haymitch, who knows how to work with her, and is very smart despite how he sometimes acts. We have Beetee, developing weapons and technology. And we have you three.”

I want to make some joke about how we’re the two they didn’t want and one they wanted the rest of us to kill, but Plutarch goes on.

“You are victors,” he says.

This feels like a trap. Like I just ran out of water tablets and Plutarch is promising me more if only I’ll walk around this blind corner, jump into this murky water, swim into this cave. He is a Gamemaker, after all. I frown.

“Why?” Alvan asks quietly. “Ya got your Mockingjay. Haven’t we fought enough?”

Coin opens her mouth, but Plutarch beats her to it. “We don’t need you to go to the front lines. We just need you to look like you’re fighting. We need your faces and your support.”

“You need us to be your Peeta,” I say, surprising even myself.

Plutarch nods. “If the districts see other victors standing up with Katniss… Well, it could turn the tide.”

“I’m not the moon, Plutarch.”

“Agreed, but everyone loved the Tiger Shark.”

His statement hangs in the air for a while.

I look at the table, thinking. I’m not sure I can trust myself to do anything. It’s not life-or-death anymore, something I have to do to survive, and I don’t have Finnick to keep me grounded.

Finnick.

Like I’ve willed him into existence, I see his name on the table. I frown. Then I realize it is Coin’s speech from last night. The hard copy, laying here on the table in front of us, a promise and a threat, hanging over our heads.

I nod.

“I s’pose,” Alvan says. “Who knows what y’all’ll do to me ’f I don’t.”

“Yeah,” Gloss says.

“Excellent!” Plutarch claps his hands together. “Fulvia, we’ll need those costumes as soon as possible, and we’ll have to get with Beetee for weapons, and-”

Coin is still giving us the neutral look of displeasure.

“What?” Alvan frowns back at her. “Y’ain’t so sure now that ya got us?”

The neutral look of displeasure deepens to a real frown. “You may be victors to the rest of Panem, but here you are citizens like the rest of us. I assure you, I have made no promises to anyone for your safety. It would be unfortunate if I had to arrange for an accident to befall any of you if you were no longer useful.” Then she stands and leaves.

Alvan stares after her. Gloss stares through the table.

My hands are shaking. I’ve heard this before.

It didn’t matter what they threatened her with. It never has. I guess this was the easiest solution.

The door closes.

“I don’t want to be Megary,” I whisper, before I can stop myself.

“Ya won’t.” Alvan grabs my wrist. “Hear me, Annie? No more Megarys.”

Gloss’s head whips around to stare at Plutarch. “I’ve played this game before,” he growls, “and I don’t want to play it again.”

Plutarch watches us for several seconds. Then he nods, very slowly. “Nothing bad will happen to any of you, I give you my word. And I won’t let President Coin threaten any of your people to make you cooperate.”

“I don’t have anyone she can get hold of, Plutarch,” Alvan snaps. “That’s the only reason I’m still fightin’.” Then he stands up and storms toward the door.

I follow, Gloss right behind me.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

Fulvia tracks us down in minutes and sends us down to Special Weaponry, where four guards verify our identities, and Fulvia’s, in four different ways, before finally letting us through the door.

Beetee, sitting in a wheelchair, meets us inside. “I see you decided to join up,” he says with something close to a smile. He turns his gaze to Fulvia. “Thank you, Fulvia, that will be all.”

Fulvia nods and leaves.

“This way.” Beetee wheels away, off toward a wall with a big work table in front of it. On the table is an assortment of knives, two swords, and two spears. On the wall hangs what I can only call a cornucopia’s worth of weapons.

I catch myself approaching the table, trailing my fingers along one of the copper-colored spears.

“They collapse,” Beetee says. “I wanted them to be as easy to carry as possible, should you need it.” He picks up the spear near the point. “Just twist-” he twists the top eight inches one way, and the rest of it the other way, “-here.” The spear sucks in on itself, shrinking to maybe eighteen inches long, with the point still sharp and ready. It’s still a weapon, but now it’s a shank. Beetee passes me the other spear and lets me collapse it myself, then expand both by twisting them the other way.

I nod. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I hope the weights are correct.”

I hold one, feeling out the balance. “A little heavy, but I’m a little out of fighting shape.”

Beetee gestures down the room, to a dummy range down the long wall.

“Hm.” I heft the spear in my hand, take a few steps forward in a wind-up, and hurl the spear toward one of the training dummies. The spear sinks into its stomach with a satisfying thump. I smile. At least I won’t be defenseless when Coin tries to make me into Megary.

I throw spears—my own collapsible pair and a half-dozen normal spears Beetee has laying around—while Beetee talks Alvan through the pair of swords and their slight differences and Gloss through his choice of throwing knives, and a nice belt to carry them on.

Before too long, Gloss is next to me at the dummy range, throwing knives with an accuracy that is both terrifying and comforting. I tell myself the dummies are fish. Big swordfish, on the line for hours, on the fight. It’s easier that way.

We only quit when it’s time for supper. My muscles are pleasantly sore. And I have no idea what they want us to do with our new toys that we had to leave locked down in Special Weaponry.

****

****

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Tag List:

@avoxrising @snow-dragon-rider @anakins-ride-or-die

[thisbetterbeavalibleorsohelpme]

hey i can tell the void about my ocs and their stories

and it won't care

i love the void

OK i can't draw and i will go into detail about what they look like you have been warned also they probably wont make sense as this is just a way to get them out of my brain to free up room for more things

tw: mentions of kidnapping, suicidal thoughts, sh, death, ptsd, control obsession just a mention, doesn't go into detail, jail, sorry if i didn't get them all

Galileo - Science experiment. Part air genasi, part mutant turtle. (to be fair, the creator wasn't insane. he just wanted to know what would happen if he mixed two species.) has "siblings" (as in other creatures from the creator) but isn't actively looking for them. spent the first 9 (nine) years of his life in a small village as the assistant of an entertainer. Knows how to dance, sing and play the pan flute. Was re-kidnapped at age 10 (ten) and spent five years trying to be free of the creator. finally was sent away by him to another dimension. found a mystic city full of yokais and other creatures. got a job as an entertainer/cook at a pizza restaurant. calls the owner tío and learned Spanish from him. 15 (fifteen) years old and became friends with four brothers and their older sister. saves the world from an alien species.

Not Good Things - has anxiety and ptsd. the creator was never nice. sh as a coping mechanism. adrenaline junkie. addicted to freedom. needs control over himself. extremely good at hiding feelings and suffering.

Good Things - optimistic, happy-go-lucky. able to read people like a good. intelligent in book smarts, street smarts and social smarts. creativity is like breathing to him. really sharped-minded and witty. jumps up & down, rocks side to side and flaps hands/fists when happy. knows english, spanish and sign language.

Random Things - Ravenclaw, INFJ, Autism & ADHD. Aroace.

Looks - Dark turquoise skin. cloud hair but usually has it all shaved off so he's bald (insecurities about the cloud) light blue freckles all over face. green eyes. doe pretty. white hair. when he gets scars, turns sky blue. five feet tall. muscular-slim build. has a "shell" that's more like a mix of bone and skin. (think softshell.) plastron & shell a really, really dark blue. so navy blue it's almost black. three fingers & toes. snout (where r his ears? we will never know.) never not wearing socks or shoes. wears either a black tank top or black long sleeve underneath a white t shirt. blue jeans. light blue checkered vans or nike high tops. carries a crossover leather bag. pan flute around neck. colourful bracelets. cyan cheeks (instead of rosy cheeks.) almost always smiling. eyes turn stormy when mad. has red stripes almost like scars on eyes, two yellow stripes from above mouth to collarbone.

Characteristics - can go into shell and does when scared. can hold breath for up to 1 hour. super fast swimmer. really likes fruits. chirps & chirrs when happy. can't walk by a mirror without checking and fixing appearance. messy, but insists it's organized chaos. calls everyone by a pet name. would rather die than wear a jacket. has terrible posture. carries around a comfort stuffed animal but never admits it. always late. constantly cracking knuckles. extremely clumsy. laughs at everything. even stuff he doesn't want to laugh at.

###########

Newton - Astral Elf. grew up poor. mother died because she couldn't afford the proper medicine for her sickness. now works to discover all natural remedies and gives them to those in need. steals from the rich and gives to the poor. suffered through jail. now knows how to be more careful. teen years on the street. now 30 (thirty) and working in a mystic city. charges rich people for medicine and negotiates to those who can't afford the full price. saves world from alien species.

Not Good Things - Always thinking like he'll never have enough, yet rations everything because he's always waiting for the next moment of poverty. ptsd from seeing his mother die.

Good Things - Only wears mismatched socks. really likes warm summer days. very confident. good at finances and persuasion. able to immediately tell when someone is lying. insanely good sense of smell and eyesight, observant. always wearing lots of layers in case a friend gets cold. solely writes in cursive writing. good with children. plays piano.

Random Things - Hufflepuff, ISTP, Demiboy.

Looks - Black hair. royal purple, black and royal blue skin. looks like a galaxy. hair down to elbows. has the Cygnus constellation on his back. six feet and one inch tall. pointy ears, as long as his hand. purple eyes. no pupils. (at least, not any you can see.) burn marks on hands and arms. shaky hands. wears a leather skirt with two slits for running/fighting. light brown baggy pants underneath. dark red baggy shirt with a hood, tucked in with leather arm wraps on forearms. light brown belt. sword holster.

Characteristics - walks really fast. always has a sodapop on hand. keeps on trying to make handshakes with people but forgets them. paints when stressed. never wears shoes without socks. doesn't wear patterned clothes. plant dad and names all his plants. never does any dares. pessimist. tsundere. refuses to drink anything with ice in it. cannot, for the life on him, pronounce "electrical." sneezes extremely loud. must be holding a cup in order to feel comfortable talking to strangers.

[magimerlyn]

I’m speaking as a person who buys commissions occasionally here, but hopefully I can help you a little.

First, make a post with your commission prices and include examples. Show what a ten, 25, 50 dollar drawing looks like from you. Pin that post. That will keep it at the top of your page so it’s easy to find when someone wants to see your prices. Post your art often, no matter the quality. A shitty doodle will likely get more attention than something you spent a couple hours on.

Next, don’t just use your blog for art. Reblog stuff you find funny or relatable, and don’t worry about a blog asthetic or anything like that. Reblogs keep things moving through this site, and if you only have your original posts on your blog, you’re not likely to get much traffic.

Third, don’t worry about followers. No one else can see your count, and it won’t help you. Instead focus on curating your own dashboard and interacting with people (reblogs will be your friend here)

Finally, this place is not like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, etc. We call it a hellsite for a good reason. The algorithm is shit, you may have noticed that this post’s notes are only in the double digits despite you paying to promote it. That’s because not a ton of people pay attention to paid posts like this.

I do hope that you can carve out a place for yourself here. Good luck!

well hi🌻 this page is still under construction and will be opening soon... this is my first time on tumblr and it would be greatly appreciated if anyone could give me some advice on how this whole thing works?🐒 any hooo.. i would like to turn this page into a sales site, for goth, fairytale , fantasy and everything fluffy and cute!! 🦄 i would also like to run commissions on here for art , pixel art, manga, and all those creatives ! 🦊 also happy new year to everyone and may this year be the best year you've had in a while🐈💰👋 thanks !!

[vaguely-yandere]

bully darling,,,, <3

a bully darling with any type of subby yandere but i think the most interesting one would be the "secretly mean" yandere! mean yandere tries to, well, be mean and darling returns it ten fold, making the yan a giant blushing mess and it has them stuttering through their next sentence.

i think sensitive yandere would be the most satisfying tho... or a new subtype: discord mod yandere (but in a greasy lil gamer way, not a sexist asshole way) <3

eeee discord mod yandere (which i think is the most chronically online thing ive ever typed oml, i need to go out more) who shows up to things in 'cringe' clothes. cat ears, a tail, gaming tshirt, looking adorable while doing it and spending their time stalking bully darling in a very traditional "hiding behind the tree and hoping for the best" way yet it works somehow despite how much attention they draw towards themselves without meaning to. and, well, bully darling does eventually notice them and its pure hell/heaven for the yandere afterwards.

however, as cute discord mod (and riddler like) yandere is, i dont think theyd be the masochist bully darling needs.

CEO yandere however... rich, pretentious, arrogant, prideful... a perfect target for bully darling. or girly yandere (who fills the bff who is secretly in love with you role so so perfectly!!!)

just image bully yandere trying to bully CEO yandere before they even realize theyre talking to the CEO, calling them a perv when they go red in the face, making fun of their clothes, their hair, their shoes, maybe insulting their work and when someone walks up and called the yan by their proper title... bully darling thinks its the end of the world. they scurry away, waiting for their "FIRED" letter, already packing up their stuff when the yan's secretary comes up to them and tells them they're getting moved to the top floor by special request of the CEO

'im fucked. im doomed. this is my last moment on earth. my hubris has finally caught up with me.'

but darling does as theyre told and moves (luckily they were already packing their stuff up!) and instead of getting the scolding of their life when the CEO summons them to their office, they get a teary eyed puppy who, through sniffles, asks if darling actually thinks of them like that

what. the fuck!

and darling, very unwillingly, admits that no, their hair and clothes and shoes aren't stupid and they are actually very attractive and the way they do their work is fine, they were just having a hard day and wanted to take it out on someone else.

when they finally admit to that, the yandere takes a complete 180. "what happened?? is everything okay?? is there anything i can do? is someone bothering you? do you need a spa day or a day off? i can get you lunch if youre hungry! from anywhere you want! shipped from anywhere you want! you want clothes? new shoes? ill get them for you!"

just. bully yandere awkwardly accepting this ray of sunshine into their lives (and absolutely getting turned on when they see their yanderes angry side but only when its directed towards other people. the only time the yandere snapped at them without noticing, they spent a week being a kicked puppy about it)

and i KNOW CEO yan loves getting a bit of physical pain from their darling. a slap, maybe stepping on them with some nice shoes, making them kneel for hours under their desk, maybe a spanking or two but whats important about ceo yan is that they need kindness and praise to balance it out or else they get dominant. the bully provides the perfect balance by being a classic tsundere, giving them a few embarrassed compliments in private but plenty of punishment as well. calling them a fucking idiot one minute and then praising them for being such a perfect boss the second, their darling just drives them insane and bully darling just adores humiliating them which is absolutely a giant kink of the yandere. kneeling and getting their 1,000$ pants dirty just to shine darlings shoes (that dont even need shining. CEO darling would never allow their darling to have scuffed shoes) or maybe darling undermines them all the time (in a very consensual way) and humiliating them in front of clients, subordinates, service industry workers, random strangers, doesnt matter! everyone feels bad for the yandere at first until they see their flushed way, loving look and the way they hand on every single word the bully says. its not a healthy relationship by any means but god, is it p hot

[willsimpforanyone]

Percy Jackson imagine the reader is a son of Poseidon but you can draw really well and this just one of your talents that Percy doesn't possess.

i can absolutely do that, thank you for being so patient!

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

I grinned as Percy waved up to me from the arena. He'd been training for hours, occasionally pausing his actions for me to quickly sketch his pose before he continued.

I was fine with swords, I could handle a bow, just about, but it didn't keep my attention the way the pencil did. Percy sometimes joked that I should have gotten Riptide, being the Poseidon brother that would be able to wield both sides of it effectively. I would just roll my eyes, perfectly content with my flask of sea water that I kept by my side to use as a weapon instead.

What I always appreciated was Percy's unbridled enthusiasm for my art. He would bring me to the arena almost every time he trained and encouraged me to practice my form, my shading if it were a particularly sunny day, challenging me to speed draw the people fighting who never stood still for more than a few seconds. He would clamber over the seats to come sit next to me after a couple hours and I'd take him through my drawings of the day while he steadied his breathing.

He got me to do a drawing of him and Annabeth for her birthday- I was promised that he'd get someone from the Hermes cabin to get me some new art stuff from the mortal world. It was a fair trade, I spent days on perfecting the sketch of the pair on the beach and was rewarded both with art supplies and Annabeth absolutely gushing over the picture. Percy grinned when she hugged me and pretended to be jealous over the compliments I was getting.

At the current time, I was perched on my usual seat for watching the arena, using some of my new equipment- the smudge stick needed breaking in or it would just end up scratching the paper. While my brother was a perfectly fine subject, he wasn't currently in a particularly dynamic fight- just going through the motions. I scanned the arena for more interesting people.

My gaze landed on a pair fighting near the edge. From what I could tell, they were a Hermes kid and... a gorgeous, stunning guy who my instincts told me was a child of Aphrodite. The clashing of their weapons made it feel like a fight to the death, faces contorted in concentration. I sketched a few lines, happy when I caught a particularly lovely pose from the two.

It took a few tries but eventually I was happy with the simple drawing I could use later. I glanced back up and was thrilled at the sight of the Aphrodite kid with his sword resting on the Hermes kid's throat, having knocked him to the ground. It was an image I had to sketch, I needed to draw it the same way I needed air. They stayed there for at least ten seconds, plenty of time for me to get an accurate base sketch. I looked at them once more time and nearly jumped out of my skin to meet eyes with the Aphrodite kid. His head was tilted slightly, warm brown eyes settling into my bones and I felt myself flush.

Quickly, I looked back down to my sketchpad. A good few minutes passed before I dared look up again.

He wasn't there.

"Hey, that looks like me."

I jumped out my skin at the voice that came from beside me. I met brown eyes again as I turned to my left. He was close, small smile and brown hair flopping in his eyes.

I swallowed. "Um, yeah, that's... because it is? I'm sorry, is that weird?"

He shook his head, smile not moving. "Nah, it's flattering- I thought you usually drew your brother, Percy?"

Ignoring the thrill that shot through me at the knowledge that this attractive guy knew me, I nodded. "Yeah, but he was in a boring fight." I grinned at the laugh I got. "I wanted to draw something more exciting, and your fight was way better than his."

The guy's smile grew wider. "Well, thank you very much, it's always nice to be complimented by a cute guy." He winked. "I'm Mikey, do you sell your drawings or are they just for you?"

"Uh, generally just for me but..."

Mikey cocked his head to the side. "When you're done with this one-" He pointed to the sketch of him pinned his opponent to the floor. "-I'd really love it. I can pay you in... I don't know, what do you want?" His eyes were honest and open and I opened my mouth before I realised it.

"I'll finish it, and then you can pay me in a date?"

I was incredibly relieved to see the soft flush of pink on Mikey's cheeks. "I-I think I can do that." He stood up from where he'd sat next to me. "Come find me when it's done, yeah?"

I nodded, he winked, and made his way to leave the arena.

"Well, young man, what was that?"

For the second time, I jumped out my skin. "Percy! Christ, don't do that!"

He flopped down next to me. "Nu-uh, tell me what you were doing with Mikey, you're all red and blushy, what happened?"

I shoved the sketchbook at him. "He liked my drawing, he wants it and he's going to pay me in... a date." I punched Percy's arm as his entire face lit up. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, I don't need your reaction."

He surrendered, and looked at the sketch. "Listen, all I'm saying is this- " He pointed to my drawing. "-is now your priority, okay?"

I hated it, but I absolutely agreed.

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

hope you enjoyed, thank you for requesting!

[bellafragolina]

I was gonna ask this with the twins in it, but I genuinly don't think they could handle being away from the station for too long so ya boy gets all the attention here:

Guzma and his partner traveling to another region for a while because reader mused that they would love to take on a gym challenge? Guzma may not necessarily care all that much for the league and all, but honestly some of the stuff he says in game make me feel it would do him some good to get away from Alola for a while and go on a roadtrip, don't ask me why. See some other places, meet some bug type trainers who absolutely loose their minds when they see his Golisopod instead of running for the hills, eat some new foods, see what's the big deal about contests and at the end of the day call back home in a video call, holding up a Venonat to the camera while 12 Grunts and Plumeria are squeezed together because everyone wants to say hi to the boss at the same time.

Oooh, I agree! Some time away from Alola to allow Guzma to operate without his Team Skull stigma would do ya boi some good

🍓🍓🍓

Guzma is reluctant to follow you to Unova. You're going to be gone for a few months, at the least, and he doesn't know if he can leave everyone behind like that. Plumeria and the grunts encourage him, though, and you promise that if he's too homesick, he's allowed to go home whenever he wants, so he agrees.

You both take a plane, which Guzma hates, and make it Unova a nice twelve hours later. He's pissy when you touchdown, but getting to the hotel and sleeping off your jetlag gets him ready to go again.

You explore the region at a casual pace, taking on the gym challenge together as you go. Your teams are easily able to get you to Castelia City, where Guzma meets Burgh, who fawns so much over his Golisopod that Guzma's ego inflates like ten sizes. Golisopod is also happy for the attention, and for the chance to play with Burgh's Pokémon as the artist pumps out drawings of the large bug at a record pace.

Despite their differing personalities, Guzma and Burgh get along great, and discuss bug Pokémon at length. You spend a lot of time in Castelia City because of it, traveling to the surrounding area to go bug hunting with Burgh

During one of these trips, Guzma stumbles upon a Venipede. He tosses it berries to ease it out, and catches it with such a large, boyish grin. His excitement as he shows the bug to you makes you smile.

The nights are all spent cuddled in bed together, a laptop before you to video chat with the grunts. All of them try to squish into frame, resulting in the wrath of Plumeria, which they never seem to learn from. They're just excited to see you both, and eager to tell you about what they've been getting up to

The riot they throw when Guzma shows them the Venipede he caught and is going to bring home to them earned you both a few noise complaints. But it's worth it to see how excited everyone is, Guzma included

But after a month, you're both ready to go home again. You got enough badges to satisfy you, and Guzma is more confident in who he is as a person outside of his Team Skull role. So the trip was a major success, in your books

🍓🍓🍓

The only other regions I could think of were galar and unova, and unova has a bug gym leader, so I was like perfect! and then I realized I've only gotten to the second town in pkmn black and i was like shit!

all of this to say that I hope you like it and that it follows along the prompt you asked for! I hope you have a great night, love!

~Renee

[strawberrymilkgeorge]

Part Ten. Faces

warnings: swearing, hate comments word count: 4.1k (not including pics)

behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

A/N: sorry its late!!!! this feels rushed but i was just too excited to get to some parts!!! also i have had some parts written out for SO long that they dont even feel cute to me anymore so im literally praying to every deity rn that you guys think its cute lmao anyway enjoy!!!!

**********

It had been about a week since Karl's slip up but everything was already more normal than Y/n had expected it to be. Of course, George, Sapnap and Quackity were all very understanding and gave her space while simultaneously reassuring her that she was safe with them. She fully believed it too, she knew she was safe with them and they weren't going to tell anyone her name.

The one unusual thing was now she had a heavy guilt, like someone dropped another sandbag in her stomach, every time Dream texted her. If the others knew, it was only fair that she tell him her name too, right? I mean, it's Dream. Dream! The boy who had quickly slipped his way into her life and, though she wouldn't admit it to Karl or Naomi, her heart.

But how? Does she just come right out and say it or wait until it gets brought up? She hadn't practiced telling anyone her name because she wasn't planning on doing it any time soon. Though, maybe she should have been seeing as she was going to see them all in person in a little over a month.

Regardless of the guilt, Y/n had other things to worry about today; Quackity was coming to visit. Karl had picked him up from the airport and the two of them spent all day catching up and doing who knows what but Y/n still hadn't met him. She was scared. She wasn't scared of Quackity, but scared because it was the first time one of her online friends would be able to put a face to her name and voice.

Y/n shuffled across her living room rug and reached for her phone on the coffee table, looking for some sort of distraction while she waited for them to arrive.

-

Y/n rolled her eyes but smiled, shaking her head as she threw her phone on the couch. Okay, he's right. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be great. It's just Quackity. If he said anything rude or annoying or anything she could literally just step on him like a bug.

A sharp knock on the front door of her apartment snapped her back into reality. She shook her limbs of nervousness as she made her way to the door, two familiar voices begging to be acknowledged from the other side.

"Let us iiinnn!! Y/nnn!!!!" Karl whined.

After countless times asking the same question, she finally convinced Karl that she was okay with him using her real name in front of Quackity. He clearly still felt guilty about telling the boys her name, asking her multiple times in different ways whether he should call her Y/n or Bugsy in front of the guest. She finally got it through his head that she didn't mind either way.

"Hold on!" she yelled back. She unlocked the door and swung it open to see Karl and Quackity. "So impatient."

"Holy shit, you are tall! Goddammit, I thought that was a joke!"

Y/n laughed shyly at the greeting, looking at Quackity like he was crazy. "Hello to you too. Tried to warn you, dude."

"Yeah but, damn! You're tall and attractive, what the hell?"

"Dude," she said with a warning in her voice. She thought the flirting on Twitter was funny, but in real life she got embarrassed easier and wasn't a fan. "I'm about to kick you out of my house before I even let you in."

This was weird, meeting Quackity before meeting some of her other friends. She loved Quackity, but she had known George much longer and Sapnap even before that. There was no problem with meeting Quackity, she just had no idea how to act since she felt like she hardly knew him.

"Am I allowed to tell people that you're hot?" he asked as he fell on her couch, Karl following right after.

"Quackity!" Y/n yelled, her face heating up at a compliment. "Seriously?"

Karl cackled and shoved Quackity. "Shut up, Alex! No, you're not allowed!"

"Sorry, is that compliment reserved for Dream?" He cackled at his own joke and Y/n's face heated up even more.

"I seriously will kick you out of my house."

"You wanna be flirty on main but not in real life?" Quackity scoffed.

"I'm not flirty on main, you are!" she laughed. "Seriously, don't."

"Okay, sorry, I'll stop," Quackity promised with a laugh in his words.

The three of them fell into easy conversation, mostly because Karl and Quackity were already comfortable around each other at this point. They eventually decided to go to the mall, just to mess around and do something.

*reminder: covid doesn't exist in this fic bc we only want happy things so ignore their masks :P*

Y/n frowned as she unlocked her front door, staring at her phone. She had been so happy with all the fans freaking out about the meetup so she looked at the trending list, expecting to see a flood of keyboard smashes and happiness, but that's not all she ended up seeing. BUGKARLITY was trending, so she scrolled through the tweets and was upset to see not all of them were positive. In fact, when she typed her name in the search bar, lots of the tweets using her name were rather mean.

A few that stuck in her head called her an attention whore and said that her friends only flirted with her because she paid them too. Who on earth would even do that? Some hurt way more than others but she tried to push them aside. It wasn't like this was the first time she had seen comments like this, but they had only gotten worse since her Minecraft date with Dream. She was worried it was cause more hate for her friends and the last thing she wanted was to be the cause of their own hate.

She typed several different messages to Dream, deleting them all after she reread them. She felt like she had to request the same thing from him in a different way. Maybe because she felt like his words meant more, even if he really was just joking like the rest of them. She decided to call him instead of texting.

"Hi!" he chirped happily from the other end.

"Hi, Dream," she said as her chest filled with something warm at the sound of his voice. "How are you doing?"

"Good," he dragged out the word. "How are you?"

"Okay."

"Just okay? What's up?"

"Um," she started, immediately forgetting the words she decided she'd use. "I just... would you mind, uh, not flirting with me so much on, like, Twitter and streams and stuff like that?"

There was a silence before Dream's frantically apologetic words came through. "Yes, of course, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. If I had known I was making you uncomfortable, I wouldn't have—"

"Wait, no," she interrupted but he must not have heard.

"—said things like... oh gosh. Bug, I'm really sorry—"

"Dream!" she raised her voice, getting him to stop ranting. "You don't make me uncomfortable."

"Oh. Really?"

"Of course not. I actually think it's really..." Cute? Adorable? Endearing? "funny," she decided.

"Oh. Then why...?"

She sighed heavily and explained what she told the others. "So, yeah. I just don't want you guys getting hate because of me so I figure if you stop then... you know."

"Bug..." he said gently. "I'm really sorry. I promise you that I don't—none of us think those things about you."

"I know."

"No, seriously," he said, clearly not believing her. "You need to understand that I..." he paused. "I mean what I say. Always."

Always? she thought. There's a few things he's said that certainly he didn't really mean... like calling her cute?

"I don't joke around like that unless I want to. I wouldn't say things like I say to you unless I really, really, genuinely considered you a close friend and felt comfortable around you. And I do."

Her heart swelled. "Thanks, Dream. I just... maybe don't do it so much for right now? Online, at least," she clarified, not wanting to deprive herself completely of Dream's flirting.

"Yeah, if that's what you want, of course."

"Well, I don't want you to stop flirting with me but, yeah."

He chuckled. "Oh, you do like when I flirt with you?"

She hummed and changed the subject. "Did I interrupt you doing anything?"

"No," his teasing voice dropped and was back to his regular self. "I'm just editing the video we filmed the other day."

"Oh, the 'Minecraft, but you can't touch the floor'?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh," she said, not meaning to sound disappointed. "I'll let you get back to it—"

"No. I mean, you can stay on the phone. Unless you're busy."

She smiled and put her phone on speaker and set it next to her foot on the floor. "I was just gonna paint. So I can stay."

Before she knew it, almost two hours had passed of them sitting in comfortable silence, occasionally speaking to share something with the other before going back to their tasks. It was comforting knowing she didn’t need to speak constantly and could just hang out with Dream.

Y/n's phone rested on the floor next to her, Dream on speakerphone on the other end, only the sounds of his keyboard clicking letting her know he hadn't fallen asleep or hung up. She wasn't sure when they started doing this, staying on the phone even when they had nothing to talk about, but they had done it a few times before. They had talked on the phone and Discord many times but it was usually always with purpose, not usually this silently-enjoying-each-others-presence nonsense. Who was she kidding calling it nonsense, she enjoyed it an embarrassingly insane amount.

She repositioned so she was laying on her stomach as she finished sketching an image that was in her mind.

"Hey, you still there?" Dream asked softly.

"Yeah. Sorry, am I taking away from your sitting in silence time with George?" she joked.

Dream chuckled lightly. "Nah, you're more fun. I was just seeing if you ditched me for Karl yet."

"Nah, you're more fun," she mimed truthfully. "But I'm very focused on this drawing."

"Can I see it when you're done?"

"Don't expect too much. It looks bad."

"If you don't tell me what it is, I can't know how accurate or inaccurate it is."

"Very true..." she trailed off, holding the canvas further away to examine it all at once. She wanted the sketch to be perfect before she made permanent choices with paint. She enjoyed the serenity they maintained even when talking, voices low and delicate like they were keeping secrets but not quite whispering. "Are you almost done editing your video from the other day?"

"Sorta. I'm at the part where you and Sapnap almost died laughing because a ghast knocked George into lava and then Sapnap laughed so hard he fell into lava."

She chuckled, remembering the situation vividly. "That was so funny. The way George screams is so funny."

"Let Naomi know that," he mumbled, causing Y/n to gasp.

"Dream!" she laughed loudly and he joined.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's true though."

"Disgusting!"

A distant voice sounded on the other end and she assumed it was Sapnap. "What do you want for dinner?"

Dream responded with a soft, "Nothing, I'm good."

"Are you talking to Bugsy?"

He must have responded physically because the next sound was Sapnap's very clear, much more lively voice speaking directly into the phone. "Hi, Bugsy!"

"Hi, Sapnap!"

"Can you tell Dream to eat some damn food? This man literally hasn't eaten a single thing all goddamn day."

"Dream," Y/n scolded slowly. "Please eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm not showing you my painting until you eat."

A door closed on the other end and she took that as a sign that Sapnap had left.

"I don't wanna see it anyway. It's probably trash."

"Take that back!" she gasped lightly. She looked at the canvas as she grabbed the first paint color and laughed. It was only a sketch and it was already trash. "Fine, then I won't go on the trip if you don't eat in the next ten minutes."

"That's punishing yourself too though."

"Who says I want to see you?" she asked.

"I never said anything about not seeing me being the punishment."

She had been caught. "It was implied."

"Sure it was."

"It's true though. Who says I wanna see your stupid face?"

He didn't say anything, but an incoming FaceTime call lit up Y/n's phone. A FaceTime call from him.

Her smile dropped. "Clay?"

"Answer it," his voice was lower and her heart started beating faster. Was he really about to show her his face to prove a point? Reveal his biggest secret that only a few close friends knew? To her of all people? She made sure she couldn't be seen in the small window and pressed accept, the voice call ending and the FaceTime call starting.

To her surprise, what came into view wasn't his face, but the logo of the hoodie he was wearing, the simple smile of his merch taunting her. She laughed, the anxiety slowly fading away as it was replaced with a heavy feeling in her stomach. Was she disappointed? Maybe a little, but he teased her into believing she would see him.

"Oh, wow! Dream face reveal! He looks just like his icon, no way!!!"

His chest moved up and down as he laughed, not moving the camera away. "You heard it here first, guys! You've known my face all along, the logo is actually my face!"

She laughed and returned to painting, not paying any more attention to her phone since he was now also showing his ceiling, a small corner of his monitor in frame but nothing else. "I mean it though, if you don't eat, I'm going to be so mad I won't even want to be friends anymore. Or you'll die from malnourishment before we get the chance to meet."

"I doubt it. I'm just not hungry."

"Whatever."

"Oh, hey, so you met Quackity today. How was it?"

"Very scary."

"Yeah?" he asked sympathetically, urging her to explain if she wanted.

"Yeah. But it turned out okay! He didn't act any different so it was fine. It was mostly just awkward. He's also so freaking loud. You would not believe how much louder he and Karl get when they're together."

"I can imagine. Aren't they doing a stream right now or something?"

"Yeah, I think so. I don't wanna watch though, I've had enough of them for the month."

Dream laughed. "How will you deal with them together for New Years'? It'll be for like two weeks."

"Who knows if I'll actually go?"

"Wait, what?" he asked abruptly, not even bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice. His keyboard stopped clicking and she could picture him staring at his phone as if looking at her. "Of course you're going."

"Not if you don't eat food! You have, like, 3 minutes to eat something until I officially am busy doing other things whenever the trip is."

Dream groaned and clicked a few things on his computer before the image on the screen became blurry as he walked through the house, still pointing it at the ceiling. She looked away again and kept painting.

"Quackity's really funny though," she continued. "It was super awkward at first but it was fun to have someone else to help me make fun of Karl."

"Wait, Bug," Dream called out over the sound of wrappers crinkling.

"Hm?" She hummed, continuing to paint.

"Bug," his voice was much softer and he sounded nervous.

She looked at her screen and dropped the paintbrush as she focused on what she saw, grabbing her phone and holding it closer to her face so she could see, still making sure she wasn't in view. All the anxiety from the beginning of the FaceTime suddenly came back and hit her like a truck. Sitting on her screen, waiting to be seen, was Dream. His hood was up, tufts of blonde hair sticking out, and he was standing with his back towards a dark room, the dim light from his pantry making his face just visible.

He held up a cookie in front of his actual, real face. "Are you watching?"

"Y-yea... I... Yeah. I'm watching. Is that really you?"

He nodded once before shoving the cookie in his mouth. "There, I consumed food," he announced, his voice muffled by the cookie. "Now you're legally obligated to come."

"I—What? CLAY! WHAT?"

"What?" he asked innocently as he chewed, walking back to his room and still holding the phone up to show his face. His room light was on, making his face much more visible. If Y/n thought he was attractive in the harsh pantry light, he must have looked like a god in his room lighting, even as pixelated as he was due to the quality of FaceTime. He fell on his bed and Y/n could only gape at his features. He slumped against his headboard, surrounded by roughly a thousand pillows, sporting a small, shy smile as he stared at the screen. "Bug, what?"

She opened her mouth but no words came out. Needless to say, he was unbelievably handsome. Part of the speechlessness was from the shock that he showed his face out of the blue, but obviously, the majority of it was that he was pretty much the most attractive person she'd ever seen. It should be illegal for someone to look that good in a hoodie, especially when pixelated.

"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Wanna take back what you said earlier?" He bit into another cookie.

"W-what did I say earlier?" Why was she stuttering???

"You said you don't wanna see me and that I'm ugly," he teased.

She paused for too many seconds too long before finally muttering, "you arrogant son of a bitch." He laughed loudly at that.

His eyes crinkled and he threw his head back. So that's what he looks like when he wheezes, she thought to herself, pretty.

Dream shuffled his position on his bed and rested his head on one of his hands. He looked so comfy. "Why are you so quiet, weirdo?" he mumbled.

She set her phone back down and touched her cheeks with her hands and looked away for a moment, grounding herself to the real world for a second. She couldn't process her thoughts when she was staring at a man as gorgeous as Clay. "I don't know, maybe because you gave me no warning before showing me your face? Or because you failed to mention that you're incredibly hot?"

She was so glad she had looked back at her phone or else she would have missed the glorious sight of his cheeks turning bright red before he turned the camera back to his ceiling. "Oh my gosh."

"Aw cute, I made you blush."

"Shut up," he mumbled. "You threatened to not come if I didn't eat something!"

"You didn't have to—you showed me your freaking face just to prove you ate a cookie!! DREAM! I would have believed you if you just said you ate something!" she laughed breathlessly, staring at the phone now for a chance to see him again. "I was joking anyway!"

"Sure you were."

"I was."

"Well, oh well. You deserved to see me anyway."

"Oh, I deserve to see you?" She laughed. "How big is your ego?"

"You know what I meant," he groaned. "You got doxxed by Karl and you met Quackity in person. And you've clearly had a bad day because of all the hate and stuff. You've done a lot of stressful things recently and you deserved to be let in on a secret too."

He was so sweet. Like, tooth-rotting, Halloween candy stash hidden under a kid's bed, upset tummy sweet. She also couldn't get over the fact that he was a million times cuter when he was shy like he was being now, his voice soft and unsure. It contrasted vastly with the confident, loud-mouthed Dream everyone usually saw, though she liked that Dream too. She wished he could show his face for just one more second to see what he looked like shy. Probably sickeningly adorable.

This was it, wasn't it? The chance she had been waiting for to tell him her name? He just let her in on his biggest secret, now he was the one deserving to be let in.

"Y/n," she said with a confident, but soft voice.

There was a long pause. "W-what?"

"Y/n."

He understood the second time immediately. "Y/n..." he tested, the smile in his voice clear as day. "I like it."

"Yeah, well, I guess you deserved to know the secret too."

"I would have been content never knowing."

"Really?" She didn't believe him. He seemed like the type to never be satisfied, always looking for something better. Not in a greedy way, but in a motivational, goal-oriented big achiever way.

"Really," he hummed. "I already feel like you're too good to be true so I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't a real person."

It was silent as she tried to collect her thoughts.

"Bug? You okay?"

"Yeah, I... it's just a lot."

"Sorry."

"No, it's not you. Well... I don't know. I just don't know what I'm supposed to say when you say things like that," she admitted.

He paused. "I think you always have the perfect responses when I say things like that."

"What do I usually say?" She smiled shyly, pulling her hoodie up to her lips.

"You usually call me a nerd or say you can't stand me. 'Oh my gosh I cannot stand you'," he mimicked before laughing.

"What? How is that the perfect response to you saying you can't believe I'm real?"

He hummed and she could practically hear him shrugging. "Because it's a classic Bug response. It's a hundred perfect you. So yeah, it's perfect."

She was silent, trying to compose herself before she exploded.

"By the way, check Twitter."

"Why, are you bragging about me calling you hot?" she teased, hoping to make him blush like she had earlier. It worked.

"Oh my gosh, no. Just look."

She clicked her home button and navigated to the app, her feed instantly flooding with the same similar messages.

"Oh, my gosh," she muttered, her fingers flying away as she typed out her own tweet in response to the love.

Dream chuckled from the other end and when she asked him why, he vaguely said that George texted him but didn't explain further.

"Um, I have to go," she said mournfully. "Karl and Quackity are coming over again."

"Booooo," he pouted.

"Sorry, you aren't the only man in my life," she teased before instantly regretting her choice of words. Too flirty, Y/n, she thought to herself.

"Hm, shame. Am I at least at the top of the list?"

She bit her lips, wanting desperately to repeat what she had told him on their Minecraft date. In the end, she gave in. "I always mean what I say too," she started. "You're my main bitch, baby."

Dream made some sort of sound, a mix of a scoff and a whine but Y/n didn't comment on it, just glowing with heat in her cheeks.

"Leave before I don't let you," he said softly and the heat only grew.

"Goodnight, Dream," she pressed, the tone in her voice letting him know he was being a tease. "Thanks for... thanks for your tweet. And for everything you said earlier."

"Of course. Sorry that you have to see those kinds of things a lot."

"It's okay when I have people like you."

"People like me? What does that mean?"

"Just.... people like you." Cute, sweet, kind, genuine people who make her heart flutter.

She could hear his smile in his words and she figured he knew the unspoken words in her thoughts, the ones she was saying without saying. "Okay. Goodnight, Y/n."

"Goodnight."

**********

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Area 51 - Nanami Kento

This is for @natsuonii’s creature feature collab! :) It’s got alien!reader, scientist Nanami and a whole lot of weird shit I’d say. Femme reader...there’s alien pussy lol 9.8K words

link to the collab!

Content warnings: sex pollen, alien heat, reverse knot, daddy kink, blood + needle(it’s brief I promise) and random medical terms and fake science shit lol don’t look too deeply at it

“This...this is the best scientific breakthrough we’ve ever had.” Nanami was at a loss for words, watching as decked out military men brought in case after case of wreckage from a shot down spacecraft. Working at a highly secure government facility sure did have it’s perks, and being one of the first people to know about all this was certainly the biggest one.

Nanami had spent so much of his life studying and clawing his way to the job he was at now. He’d sacrificed so much in the name of science, in the pursuit of finding extraterrestrial life forms no matter how small and insignificant, and it was finally paying off.

“Doctor, we’ll take the embryos to your lab.” One of the men said, quickly walking away tailed by people holding glowing blue cases. He hadn’t really been briefed on what all was coming in and what exactly happened to get it here, but he was sure he would find out soon enough.

“Careful!” Another person shouted and he was pushed out of the way. Coming in through the large steel doors was what looked like a four armed monster strapped face down to a flatbed. Markings went up and down his face and body and there were an extra set of eyes staring at everyone as it was wheeled by.

“What is that creature?” Nanami mumbled, clutching his clipboard tightly. The creature was breathing hard through its nose, nostrils flaring dangerously wide and a light growl rumbled from its chest.

“It appears to be the leader of the spacecraft, we could only get the creature's name, nothing else: Sukuna.” Someone answered him, but Nanami didn’t acknowledge, he was unable to take his eyes off Sukuna.

“Incredible.” His mouth hung open like a fool, unblinking as he watched Sukuna be wheeled past him and to the elevator shaft. “How far down are they taking him?”

“I heard the chief say as far as they could. He’s highly dangerous, it was a miracle the team was able to get the upper hand.”

“I’ll have to pay him a visit soon.” Nanami had enough security clearance to go anywhere in the building, but something was telling him he’d have to ask for a lot of permissions first before making contact with Sukuna. Nanami learned quite early on that the deeper underground you went, the more power you needed to be there.

Once the final bits and pieces were brought into the facility, Nanami peeled himself off the wall and made the way to his own lab. With his badge hung proudly from his shirt pocket, Nanami made the descent and as the elevator went floor after floor and the numbers got higher and higher, he let some excited exhales out.

Going down the metal corridor, he came to his lab to see it teeming with people. Nanami often worked alone on things and to see so many people milling about in his space made him a little nervous.

“Tell me about the embryos.” Was the first thing he said when he entered, donning the white lab coat he’d left hanging by the door. Walking over to the giant test tubes lining the back wall, he peered into one of the open cases.

Nestled inside atop a pile of hay were glowing blue orbs, some too bright to look at directly. They had a light blue smoke coming off, gradually spilling out the sides of the case and if he looked hard enough Nanami could just barely see the outline of a creature inside.

“They were on the spaceship Sukuna came in on. He was hellbent on protecting them, killing five of our people right off the bat.” The military man he’d spoken to earlier was here, answering right away.

“Were they in a case like this?” Donning a pair of gloves, Nanami picked one up. It was cool to the touch and quite heavy, making the muscles in his arm work harder than expected to stay upright.

“No, he had them suspended in some type of thick goop, like clear maple syrup.”

“How scientific, thank you.” He snorted, setting the embryo back down. “Do you have any of this ‘goop’ left?”

“Only this, sir.” Holding up a capped beaker filled halfway with the fluid, the man let out a defeated sigh. “Sukuna actually swallowed most of it, I guess trying to keep the embryos from us any way possible. This stuff is crazy acidic though, it’s melted almost everything it comes in contact with.”

“This should be enough…” Already making calculations in his head, Nanami took the beaker and walked to the control panel of the test tubes. “Load up the embryos and I’ll try to mimic the solution they were in. In the meantime, I’ll put one in that should be similar enough to keep them alive for a while.”

Pressing a few buttons on the panel, the test tubes began to fill with a murky pink liquid, filling the air with a pungent aroma. The embryos were loaded in quickly and the tubes sealed off. Watching them as he walked over to a table full of supplies, Nanami grinned slightly at watching them float.

It took him little time to come up with the properties of the amniotic fluid the embryos had been in. Making slight adjustments to the formula, he watched the liquid go from murky to clear, with only a light pink tinge left.

As the days wore on, Nanami studied the embryos intensely, opting to sleep in his lab instead of the barracks provided so he wouldn’t miss a single change should any occur. Going days without sleep, a week went by without any significant change.

A soft tapping on glass roused Nanami from an impromptu nap. Drawing his head up from where it was nestled in his arms on the metal table he was slumped over, he rubbed his face roughly and looked around.

“Who is it?” He called, assuming it was someone at the door. But when no answer came and the door wasn’t opened, he fully sat up and looked around. “Where the hell-” Cutting himself off as he looked at the test tubes, Nanami almost fell out of his stool.

In the seven test tubes lining the wall, there were three embryos that had come to term. He knew some would fail, resigning himself to the possibility that all of them would, but to see three newborn aliens was beyond his wildest expectations.

“Oh my god.” Snatching his clipboard off the table, Nanami rushed to the test tubes. He was writing furiously, capturing every single detail he saw about them and even making quick sketches of what they looked like.

There were little nubs right above their behinds, what looked to be the beginnings of a tail. All of them had two sets of eyes, unopened and tiny on their infantile faces, faces that were beginning to bear the same marks Sukuna had.

The tapping on the glass, Nanami quickly found out, was from them floating freely in the tubes, softly knocking against the glass as they hung suspended in the fluid. Nanami couldn’t see any kind of umbilical cord or method to get them the possible nutrients they needed to stay alive. So he just had to hope that they woke up soon to tell him what they needed.

The babies rapidly took shape after coming to term, morphing into a human-like form right before Nanami’s eyes. It seemed that with every couple of hours that passed they grew more and more. Fingers, webbed toes, tufts of hair and tails all appeared.

“So when do you think they’ll be able to come out?” His supervisor asked, nearly a month after the first encounter. The aliens under Nanami’s care looked like full fledged adults, ones that you could see out in public and - despite a few glaring differences - not pay any mind to.

“I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t know if they can survive out here.” In the month that passed, the facility wasn’t able to get any intel from Sukuna about the embryos or why he chose to come to Earth. All he did was snarl and growl, slurring a few death threats when he could.

“Take one out and see.”

“What?” Gasping loudly, Nanami’s eyes went wide. Surely his boss didn’t mean for him to sacrifice one of them? They were too precious of an asset to possibly let die like that and Nanami was ready to put his foot down.

“Don’t worry, doctor, Sukuna’s told us a bunch of times that more of his people will be coming, and I’m willing to bet they’ll have more embryos for us to study.” Giving him a swift pat on the back, his boss turned on her heel and started to walk away. “The usual assistants will be here to help you should you need anything and don’t feel bad if they all die, that’s just how these things go.”

The parting words were less than heartwarming. Letting out a rough sigh, Nanami turned to the team of people behind him. They worked with him before, most of them idolizing him with a gleam in their eyes.

“We’ll wheel in the examining table and take them out one by one. If there’s any adverse reactions, I’m sure we’ll be able to handle it. Get the usual supplies ready, we’ll start in ten.” Giving the group a curt nod, Nanami turned back to the test tubes. Pressing his hand onto the glass of one, he closed his eyes. “God, I really hope you all don’t die.”

In ten minutes, Nanami was dressed in full hazmat gear and so was his team. The crinkling of plastic suits was loud in the otherwise deathly silent room as everyone held their breath. Draining the fluid of the first tube, Nanami swung open the door.

“Let’s take a look.” Nanami said as the body was lifted onto the table. It had no external sex organs to speak of, not even a hole for a cloaca. Cool to the touch, Nanami waited for it to show any signs of life.

“It’s not moving.” Someone called out after five minutes, scribbling it down on the notes. They’d tried everything, strapping an oxygen mask over the face, chest compressions and returning the body back to the fluid it had previously been in, but it was no use.

“Take that away to Getou’s lab, he’ll dissect it.” Waving the first body away, Nanami looked up at the second. “We need to instill a gradual change in environment or else the same thing will happen.”

“Should we try to set up a feeding tube or an IV?”

“IV, yes.”

The second attempt went marginally better than the first. Slowly shifting the fluid to one of a normal human amniotic fluid seemed to work. The alien twitched and rocked side to side, seemingly waking up from its slumber.

Drawing it out from the tube, it appeared to be just fine. Gasping for air, fluttering eyelids and squirming limbs - all things Nanami wanted to see. What he didn’t want though, was for the creature to lash out with unexpectedly sharp claws, cutting through the sleeve of his suit and drawing blood.

“Holy shit!” Stumbling back, Nanami watched in horror as the creature licked the blood from its nails. Smacking its lips together, the creature pointed at him. It was rapidly losing the color in its cheeks, struggling to form whatever words it needed.

“Blood? Do you need human blood to survive on this planet?” Nanami shouted, scrambling away from the table he’d flung himself onto and holding out his arm. “Take it! Quickly!”

“Doctor no!” A few of his assistants tried to yank him away from the examining table. They didn’t want to see the blood get drained from his body or him possibly get eaten by the creature.

“Stop it, let me do this!” Struggling with them, Nanami watched in rapt horror as the creature nodded slowly before fully collapsing on the table, drawing it’s last shaky inhale before falling limp entirely. “You fucking idiots, we just lost another one!” Pushing the people away, Nanami banged his fist angrily on the table.

“Doctor, we couldn’t let you do something so dangerous! You’re the most valuable scientist here, we can’t lose you!”

“Bullshit! I don’t care if the next one wants to swallow me whole, you let it!” Glaring at all the people in the room, Nanami began to rip his gear off. “And if it dies for any reason, I’m going to make sure none of you ever find work again.”

With the threat hanging heavily in the air, Nanami stormed over to the control panel one last time, punching in the codes needed to change the fluid on the remaining test tube. His arm was slowly leaking blood and he could feel the warmth drip down to his hand.

“Get me an IV, I’m going to give this last one a blood transfusion.”

“Doctor, are you sure you-”

“If you question me one more time I’ll cut your tongue out. Now do as I say.” Pulling up a chair, Nanami sat down and leaned his head against the cold glass of the tube. None of this was going as he wanted; Nanami didn’t plan to lose two out of three creatures, nor to give blood to the last one.

Hooking up an IV, Nanami watched the blood drain from his arm, flowing up and into the top of the test tube where there was a needle inserted into the last alien. Trying not to get too woozy as he was drained of blood, Nanami pressed his forehead to the glass and squeezed his eyes shut.

“I don’t believe in you but God if you’re out there, please make this work.”

“Doctor?” He wasn’t sure when he passed out, but when Nanami came to, he had a crowd of people gawking at him.

“Yes? What?” The IV was out of his arm and there was a blanket over him and as he tried to get out of his chair he nearly fell.

“L-look behind you.” Pointing with a shaking finger, the assistant that woke him up turned him to face the test tube.

“Why do you all look so-” Turning around, Nanami stumbled back, for once grateful to have someone else in the lab to catch him. “Scared?” Whispering out the last word in a high pitched voice, Nanami couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

The once nondescript alien in the tube was now a fully fledged human being. With complete and fairly dark markings on their face, breasts and a vagina, the creature before him could be mistaken for any other adult.

And the thing that was most shocking was the way all four eyes honed in on Nanami, tracking his every move. Pressing it’s forehead and hands to the glass, the creature turned as Nanami walked side to side.

“It’s been watching you since you passed out.”

“How long has it been like that?” He asked, getting closer to the test tube.

“It just suddenly changed shortly after you lost consciousness. A flash of light went off and poof, it looked like that.” Pressing his hand to the glass, Nanami let out a breathless laugh as the creature scurried back only to return in mere seconds.

“Open the tube, we have to let it out.” Unable to take his eyes off the creature, Nanami could hardly wait for all the fluid to be drained before opening up the test tube and helping the creature out. Surprisingly steady on its feet, Nanami barely had to help it stand upright.

“Hello.” He smiled, shrugging off his lab coat and placing it over its shoulders. “Welcome to Earth.”

“Hello.” You said back, attempting to smile as well. “Welcome to Earth.”

When Nanami first got the embryos, he wasn’t expecting anything to come out of them. The most he thought would happen was possible growth but never any of them coming to term and certainly never of them to actually be able to communicate.

It appears you were destined to prove him wrong, however. Nearly the moment you stepped out of the test tube, dripping in fluid and with a long tail you couldn’t quite control, you exceeded all of Nanami’s expectations - not that he even had any to begin with, especially not when it came to taking you out of the tube.

The first hour, you were sitting perfectly still while the team ran tests on you. Pressing a cold stethoscope to your chest, a few of them got a giggle out of the way you gasped and squirmed. Nanami watched it all happen, taking calculated notes and even doing some of the tests himself.

“What’s your name?” He questioned after another hour of hearing you repeat the phrases around you. Staring at him from the stool you were perched on, you tilted your head. It was only you and him left in the lab now, he sent everyone else away, wanting a chance to study you on his own.

“What’s your name?” You parroted back, mimicking the way Nanami had his arms crossed over his chest.

“My name is Nanami Kento. What’s yours?”

“Nanami Kento.” He made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, rolling his eyes at the giggle you let out. He understood he was dealing with an alien, one that might never be able to fully communicate the way he desired, but he wanted to get somewhere.

“What’ll it take for you to stop copying me?”

“Reading a book.” He’d meant it as a rhetorical question, and hearing your voice form a stilted sentence all on it’s own was a big surprise. Nodding curtly, Nanami walked over to a set of bookcases and grabbed a thick dictionary and a thesaurus, placing them onto the table next to you. Flipping open the first page of the dictionary, Nanami pointed at the words.

“Can you read these?”

“Mhmm!” Leaning over, your eyes scanned the script.

“Good, read all of it and tell me when you’re done.” Setting up a chair on the other side of the table, Nanami fixed a pile of notes and other documents he needed to work over. He could take time to catch up his reports while you-

“Done!” Slamming the dictionary closed, you picked up the thesaurus. “I have to read this too?”

“Y-yes.” Nanami’s mouth hung open slightly as he watched you speed through the second book. He expected this whole process to take an hour at least but you were done with both books in just a few minutes.

“All finished.” You were still a little unsure of forming sentences, lifting your voice in slight question at the end.

“How did you do that so fast?”

“When Mother made us, she gave us all the information she could on this planet, including rudimentary language. I just needed a way to conceptualize actually speaking on my own.”

“Who’s Mother?” Grabbing his pen, Nanami began to scribble down what you were saying.

“Mother is the one that made us. All of us, me, my companions, and Sukuna too.”

“Right…” Nanami’s hand hesitated at the mention of Sukuna, drawing inky swirls in place of words. “Then Mother is the one who sent you here with him?”

“Yes! She said that to take over this planet, we would need to assimilate to the environment and that we’d need a strong warrior to protect us.” You had a dreamy look in your eyes, no doubt thinking about Sukuna. “So far I like this-”

“Hold on, take over the planet?”

“It’s what my people do: we come to a planet, impregnate the population and take over.” He was sure there was more to it than that but for his own peace of mind Nanami didn’t question it further. For now, he wanted to focus on the positives, mainly the one of you finally speaking on your own.

“So…” Nanami struggled to find the next topic of conversation.

“Oh, I remember my name now! It’s (Y/N).”

“Did Mother also give you that name?”

“She did!” You truly looked overjoyed to be talking about all this. The smile on your face led to Nanami being able to see the sharp canine teeth in your mouth, akin to a set of teeth he’d find in a vampire movie.

“So (Y/N), I have a question. I gave you my blood so you’d be able to live on this planet.” He paused to make sure you were following along. “I want to know why you’re a female when you received male donor blood.”

“Mother determined which gender would be useful for me to have on this planet, so all I needed was your DNA to complete the transformation and become a human.”

“Mother thinks humans have those extra eyes and a tail?” Nanami snorted at that, there were too many things to give away your unhuman origins that couldn’t be ignored.

“Sukuna is supposed to teach us how to hide them until we need them.” Your shoulders visibly slumped and you looked around. “Where is he? He was supposed to be here when we woke up.”

“He’s somewhere else-”

“Where? Where is he?” Putting both palms flat on the table, you leaned forward. You seemed desperate, your brows scrunching together as you worried your lip. “I can tell he’s close, but where is he exactly?”

Nanami heard what you said. He knew exactly the words that were spoken and their meaning. But he was having a hard time thinking of anything as he suddenly became aware again of the fact that you were still naked, the lab coat you had on falling open to reveal your breasts.

“How about we talk about that while you get dressed in something more appropriate?” Clearing his throat roughly, Nanami pushed away from the table. His cheeks were getting a bit warm and he didn’t want you to see.

“No, tell me where Sukuna is!” Slapping your hands loudly on the table, you glared sharply at Nanami when he tried to come closer. “I don’t want to be alone any longer! My companions didn’t make it, he’s all I have!”

“(Y/N)...” Sighing softly, Nanami didn’t know what to do. If he tried to raise his hand, you growled at him, flexing your fingers as if you were going to strike him. He couldn’t tell you where Sukuna was, no matter what. “You’re- you’re not alone.”

“What do you mean?” Your face softened just a fraction, and you leaned back as Nanami lifted his hand slowly, placing it on the table near your own hand.

“You have me.” Nanami felt something odd twisting his stomach, something that told him this simultaneously was a good and bad idea. It wasn’t wise to say this to you, to try and build some kind of relationship beyond a scientist and his test subject, but what did he have to lose? You were the first alien he’d ever come in contact with, there were bound to be some risks he’d have to take to keep you happy.

“Really?” Relaxing your body, you let your hand get closer to Nanami’s.

“Really.” Fully grabbing your hand now, Nanami tugged you from the stool, craning his head away to avoid looking at your open chest. “Now follow me, I think there’s some scrubs in one of these drawers.”

“Nanami, I’m hungry.” After finding you a set of clothes buried in a drawer and cutting a hole in the bottoms for your tail, Nanami was greeted with the sound of your growling stomach.

“What do you eat?”

“Whatever you eat.” Taking up residence on the singular fold out couch Nanami used to sleep on, you watched him pick up the phone on his desk.

“Let’s have some pasta then.”

While Nanami preferred to cook his food himself rather than ordering it from upstairs, he didn’t have the heart to tell you that the cafeteria food was less than ideal. You seemed to love the dish he gave you, eating it with no hesitation and a smile on your face.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about your kind?” Picking over his food, Nanami watched you finish eating in record time and pushed his plate over to you.

“Like what?” Tilting your head to the side, you gladly took his food.

“Anything that comes to mind like cultural things, maybe you celebrate holidays?”

“We do! I was created to leave the planet, but others get to stay and cultivate life there. We have something close to what you call Christmas and others for things you wouldn’t understand.”

“Really? You’ll have to write them down for me later.” Nodding to himself, he made the mental note to teach you how to write. Glancing down at the two now empty plates before you, Nanami flicked his head toward the phone. “Fancy some more?”

As it reached midnight, Nanami became starkly aware of the fact there was only one place for the both of you to sleep. He wasn’t sure how much sleep you actually needed or if you needed any at all for that matter, but he knew for sure that sleeping on the same fold out mattress with you would be crossing a line he wasn’t ready for. It was already too short to hold his entire frame, and putting two bodies side by side wouldn’t be a good idea.

“(Y/N), are you tired?” Standing up from the couch, he motioned for you to stand as well.

“Yes.” Your voice was chipper as ever, not a hint of exhaustion heard. You watched with rapt interest as Nanami unfolded the mattress and set it on the ground.

“Alright, well you’ll be sleeping here and I’ll be sleeping in the barracks.”

“I’m going to be alone?”

“Is that a problem?” Quirking a brow, Nanami glanced at you.

“Well not necessarily but I- I don’t want to be alone. Not on my first night, at least.” Curling your tail on the ground, you worried your fingers, claws clicking together as you did. Nanami could feel his resolve wearing down, the nervous look you tried to hide made his fingers flex; he felt an overarching urge to protect you.

“I’ll grab another couch from the lab next door.” Turning on his heel, Nanami took deep breaths as he left the room. Forcing his head to get clear, he drug another couch into his lab, setting it up across from the first one.

“Is this what you call a sleepover?” You asked, watching Nanami set up both couches with blankets and pillows.

“You could say that, yes.” A strange giggle left your mouth and it made Nanami pause and look at you. “What was that sound?”

“A laugh?” Dropping your face in confusion, you looked him straight in the eye. “Is something wrong?”

“No no it’s just-” clearing his throat loudly, Nanami rushed out the next words, “That was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.” At his admittance, you giggled again and he had to bite his lip hard from audibly swooning.

“Mother made it special for me, she makes all her children special.” Mimicking the way Nanami climbed into bed, you laid down and stared at the dark ceiling. “Only some of us can laugh like that, and others have pheromones and what not to attract the native people on a new planet.”

“(Y/N), do you have special pheromones too?” Your casual mention of impregnating and taking over the whole planet flashed in his head.

“I think I do, why else would you have agreed to stay here with me?”

“Good to know.” Nanami would have to install a high tech air filter later, he didn’t like the idea of slowly succumbing to your desires. Fully laying down in bed, he drew the blankets up to his chin and tried not to think of it anymore. “Good night.”

For a month Nanami studied you nonstop. Gathering medical information, he discovered you had three stomachs and two hearts. Through plenty of trial and error you learned how to keep the swinging of your tail under control and not trip him anymore. He even learned your favorite foods and the relative location of your home planet in the galaxy.

When Nanami had to step out for meetings, he begrudgingly let fellow scientist Gojo watch over you. The best in his field and horribly obnoxious about it, Nanami tried to limit the time you two spent together. He didn’t need Gojo influencing you too much and ruining the work Nanami had put into acclimating you to society in an appropriate way.

“You’re back!” It was like he was coming home from work whenever you greeted him like that. You bounded over to the door from wherever you were and bounced on your toes, eager to talk to him about what he’d done while away.

“Mhmm. How’s it been with Gojo?” Nanami glanced up at said man, not liking the fact that he was lounging on the couch with his laptop perched precariously on his thigh.

“It’s great! He showed me something really interesting.” A shy giggle left your lips and you avoided further eye contact with Nanami.

“What is it?” Narrowing his eyes, Nanami began to glower at Gojo, who started to shrink under his gaze.

“(Y/N), don’t you have something to say first?” Gojo smirked, barely hiding a chuckle behind his hand.

“Oh, you’re right!” Squaring your shoulders at Nanami, you took a deep breath. “Welcome back, daddy!” Taking a brief glance at Gojo, you cupped your cheeks and stuck your tongue out, crossing your eyes for extra measure.

“W-what the fuck!” Scrambling back in shock, Nanami glared sharply at Gojo as a harsh red flush coated his cheeks. He was ashamed to admit he’d seen that face before, late at night when he was too restless to sleep and needed something to help soothe his mind.

“What’s wrong, Kento? Do you not like what (Y/N)’s doin’?” The dark chuckle behind Gojo’s words had Nanami wanting to throttle him. Of course he liked it, he was a grown man wasn’t he? Not to mention Nanami couldn’t remember the last time he’d laid down with another warm body like that and the face you were making was bringing several repressed thoughts to the surface.

Unable to form the proper words, Nanami side stepped you and went to his desk, placing files down that needed to be typed out later and trying to still his rapid heartbeat. The way you said that sentence so enthusiastically, saliva making your tongue glisten in the light - it was too much for him to deal with so abruptly.

“Why’d you teach her that shit?” Nanami growled, covering the lower half of his face with his trembling hand.

“(Y/N) deserves to know all aspects of human life, wouldn’t you agree?” Closing his laptop, Gojo stood up and walked to the door. “Besides Kento, I know you get lonely at night.” Smiling sweetly at you, Gojo left the room without any further comment.

“(Y/N).” With his back still facing you, Nanami heaved a sigh.

“Yes?” You said slowly, relaxing your body. The tension rolled off Nanami in waves, making the air thick and uncomfortable. It was hard to read whether he was angry or not.

“What has Gojo been teaching you?” The subtle sag in his shoulders isn’t missed by you, making you scramble to the desk and face him.

“I don’t know! He said there were some interesting things you’d yet to show me and he pulled up some websites and- and-” A bit of fear spiked in your head. You’d only gone along with what Gojo said was right, Nanami had entrusted you to his care after all and your whole reason for being on the planet was to assimilate. “Are you mad at me?” Rubbing at your four eyes to stem a sudden wave of anxious tears, you looked at Nanami, waiting nervously for his answer.

“Not at you. Him.” Sensing your oncoming distraught, Nanami shook his head and cleared his throat. “I want you to learn all the good things of human life and well-”

“Sex isn’t a good thing?” You gasped, leaning your hands on the desk.

“Did he teach you about sex?” Nanami nearly yelled back.

“He did! We read a lot of medical journals about it, it releases so many good chemicals into the human brain! And then Gojo went to this website called PornHub and-”

“He what?!” A heart attack. Nanami was going to have a heart attack.

“Let me finish! He showed me humans having sex and it looked like they were having a great time!” Your breath was coming out short and Nanami could hear the drag of your tail on the ground as you got worked up. “But it didn’t do anything to me, I haven’t reached that point yet!” He didn’t understand what you meant and while the urge to drown himself in the bottle of dark liquor he kept hidden away tugged at him, his pursuit for knowledge was greater.

“What do you mean you ‘haven’t reached that point yet’?” Collapsing into the desk chair, Nanami was more worked up than he thought. The shock of hearing you call him daddy, learning that you discovered what sex was and now he was going to know when you would begin to show interest in such a thing.

“Sexual maturity, I’m not there yet, so seeing that stuff didn’t do anything to me.”

“When will you be?” He pressed, grabbing a pen and getting ready to write down whatever you said on the corner of a file.

“It’s been a month since I’ve transformed, so in about a week or two.”

“That fast?” Nanami blanched, mind spinning at how he was going to deal with that. “Humans take years, though, shouldn’t my blood affect that?”

“No, my DNA only takes what it needs from yours. My base mechanics like lifespan and in this case sexual maturity are all hardwired by Mother. They won’t change just because a few drops of your blood mix in.”

“So...so what does that mean for you? Do you need some kind of special uh- a special thing or-?” His cheeks and ears burned fiercely and Nanami cleared his throat in the middle of the sentence. He knew exactly what he meant by ‘a special thing’ but he couldn’t bring himself to say it in front of you.

“I don’t know, actually.” Shrugging your shoulders, you sat on the edge of his desk. “Sukuna is supposed to tell me what happens and what to do after we pick out a suitable mate for me.”

There was that mention of Sukuna again. The creature buried so far underground some people wondered if he was passing the Earth's mantle. He’d settled down in the month since your arrival, seemingly knowing that you had emerged from the embryo and survived. He still refused to give any answers and you hadn’t mentioned him in nearly three weeks.

“You don’t need him. We can figure it out once it gets here.” Shaking his head, Nanami could feel himself getting a little high off your pheromones with you sitting so close. The air filter he put into the room could only do so much when your scent rolled off in such thick waves.

“Okay.” Sighing the word, you resigned yourself to playing with your fingers. Silence washed over the room, less tense than before but still tainted with an edge to it. Both of you were flushed from talking about this subject and Nanami was glad you had your back to him.

“(Y/N), I have another question.” A few minutes later, Nanami couldn’t hold back the question burning in his mind. You let out a hum of acknowledgement but didn’t face him. “What would be a suitable mate for you? What kind of human?”

He blamed it on your pheromones, he blamed every last less than professional thought in his head on your pheromones and what you did to him and he especially blamed Gojo for forcing this topic of conversation to come up. Nanami tried to reason with himself, put the narrative in his head that he wanted to know for science, but in the dark recesses of his mind Nanami wanted to know who your type was if you even had one.

“Well actually, a human like you is perfect.” Your back curved just a little to keep your face hidden as you spoke. The words hung in the air, leaving Nanami’s mouth hanging slightly open and his mind bouncing to a hundred different places at once.

“Like me?” He whispered, barely registering the words coming out of his mouth.

“Exactly like you.” This time you looked over your shoulder at him, your eyes narrowing as you took in his reaction. His shock seemed to be enough for you, your secondary eyes pinching closed as you smiled, and you turned back to face forward. “Nanami, I’m hungry.”

Having grown accustomed to your new home, you slid off the desk and to the couch that was yours. Nanami’s eyes were glued to your back, watching the way your tail moved on the ground as you walked. His throat was suddenly thick, there were plenty of things he wanted to say, things that would definitely violate his code of ethics.

“Nanami.” Your voice snapped him out of his thoughts, back to reality where you were far away from arms reach. The weight of your eyes bore right back into him and Nanami knew he’d been caught staring.

“Yes?” He forced the word out, his tongue feeling heavy and foreign in his mouth.

“Should we have pasta tonight?”

Nanami hardly slept at all that night, plagued with ideas of what you thought about him and less than savory images of you and your body. Shame settled over him like a second blanket as he tossed and turned throughout the night, trying to rid his mind of such things to no avail.

In the morning, Nanami got rid of the second couch and made the decision to sleep in the barracks when he needed to. While nothing inherently sexual had occurred, he still felt like he betrayed some sort of trust between you two, sullied the pure relationship you had together.

Ignoring your whines and protests, he also made the decision to get rid of Gojo as your babysitter. He didn’t want or need your mind filled with things he didn’t deem appropriate and Gojo was the main perpetrator of such things, and he was confident enough that he could leave you alone for a few hours and nothing bad would happen.

It almost hurts to leave you alone at night, the old ritual of slowly nudging you along your night time routine and laying down on adjacent mattresses was now replaced by getting you ready for bed but then leaving shortly after you were all tucked in. Sometimes you whined and wanted him to stay, claiming that you didn’t sleep as well without him there, and sometimes Nanami hesitated at the door before steeling his resolve and leaving.

He doubts he’ll ever tell you that he stopped sleeping as well too.

An abrupt evening meeting three weeks later called him away from you sooner than either of you would have liked. You’d developed a cough and a bit of a rash over the course of time and while Nanami was sure this meant you were reaching sexual maturity, he was still hell bent on finding some medicine to help you, not wanting to go to this meeting about another potential UFO sighting.

“(Y/N), I’m back and I-” Nanami all but ran back to his laboratory with some medicine he’d swiped from Gojo. He was worried for you, not just as a scientist but as a friend. Throwing open the door and locking it quickly to contain any possible airborne particles, Nanami was assaulted with the harsh smell of something sweetly floral.

“N-nanami!” His eyes immediately find you, writhing in what looks like agony on the mattress he’d pulled out for you before leaving. Walking quickly over to you, every inhale he made felt like he was breathing in a thick fog.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” Coughing and putting a hand over his face, he looked over you. It was normal for you to just wear a long, oversized t-shirt Gojo got you from a local thrift store to sleep and right now it was clinging tightly to your body from the sweat pouring out of you.

“Nanami!” Shaking your head side to side, he could see the tears leaking out of your eyes. Against his better judgement, Nanami crouched down on one knee and put a hand on your forehead.

“Shit, you’re burning up.” Pulling his fingers away, there was a light yellow powdery film left on them. “(Y/N) what is this? Has it started?” The substance tingled on his fingers, making them go slightly numb.

There was a pitiful noise from you as a response and a limp nod, and Nanami rushed to the sink to wash off his hands. The scent in the room was overwhelming, almost choking him with every inhale he made. Turning the ventilation system on as high as it could go did nothing and there was still pollen visibly floating in the air.

“I have to go, I can’t be here.”

“No!” You cried, falling out of bed with a loud thump and crawling toward Nanami. “D-don’t leave!”

“I have to, this stuff isn’t good for me.” Nanami kept his back to you, hastily trying to grab some things from his desk. His cock was already beginning to stiffen painfully and the sounds you were making were echoing inside his head.

“Wait!” Tugging on his pant leg, you dug your claws into it.

“(Y/N), let go.” He tried to shake you off, staunchly avoiding eye contact. The heat on his skin was rising and if Nanami were to look in a mirror he would see how red he was. You refused to let go, sitting up on weak knees and pushing your hand further up his leg.

“D-daddy, please! Help me!”

That was it. That was the moment that broke Nanami Kento. He knows Gojo has told you that he likes to be called that in bed, among other things. He knows that the pollen in the air is what’s making his head impossibly foggy with only one thing able to be focused on. Nanami knows that if he stays here any longer, he’ll do something that he won’t regret, but that might cost him his job.

“Daddy…” Emboldened by unbridled desperation, you force Nanami to face you with strength he didn’t know you possessed. Eye to eye with his cock straining against his slacks, you shove your face right into it.

“(Y/N)!” Your name comes out as a rough groan from his lips and Nanami’s hands fly to grab the back of your head. As he grips your head, Nanami makes no move to pull you away and doesn’t stop you from rubbing your face along his clothed cock.

“Please please please, just this once! I need to do this-” The pleading you're doing is muffled by your mouth running along fabric, words slurred and barely coming out properly. Just from this stimulation alone Nanami can feel his balls tighten like he’s about to cum.

“Sto-stop, stop this.” Nanami’s own sense of morals, his will to do anything besides being in this room with you was going to be torn to shreds the longer you touched him. And it was, as he came in his pants, rutting his hips like a pathetic teenager into your face.

He came but his cock was still as hard as before, maybe even more so. There was no reprieve from the painful need to be stimulated, to feel you touch him again and again and again. With a mangled groan, he shoves your head away and grabs his waistband.

Swatting your hands away that still rest on his hips, Nanami undoes his belt and shoves his pants and underwear down to the ground. His cock slaps against his dress shirt, glistening from the previous load of cum and leaking more like he’s never seen before.

“What did you do to me?” He asks under his breath, feeling sweat pooling on his skin despite being half naked. As he takes off his remaining clothes, Nanami can feel the tingle from the pollen settling all over him, sticking to his hair and to every crevice of his body.

“D’ya like it, daddy? That’s what M-mother chose for me, it’s a new- a new evolution we got from a previous planet.” It’s amazing that you can stand on your own feet despite the way your legs shake violently. Nanami can tell you’re in a sorry state, so he lets you lead him to the mattress and fall back onto it.

“Mother made you pollen? How interesting.” Somewhere far back in his head, he really did find it genuinely interesting. But right now he was merely making conversation, settling on the bed as you climbed on top of him and took your wet shirt off.

The rash that had been on your skin was now turning into powdery pollen before his very eyes, falling off and into the air like a flower's pollen would. Laying down on Nanami, pressing your breasts against his chest, you fell into a kiss with him.

Even though it was your first kiss, Nanami was the one left feeling inexperienced as you slotted your mouths together and slid your tongue past his lips. Even your saliva was sweet as it dripped it into his mouth and down the sides. Nanami’s hands roamed your body, pinching into your sides and squeezing your ass painfully tight. Surprisingly, your tail didn’t get in the way, just languidly swaying side to side and sometimes tickling his shins.

“Daddy, please- I want more!” You whined loudly, breaking the kiss to trail your lips along his neck and chest and nip at the skin every so often.

“Tell me. Tell- tell daddy what you want.” There was the slightest hesitation, a tiny tinge of shame for doing this with you that got washed away as quickly as it came up by your wet cunt sliding against his cock.

“I want you inside me.” Wrapping your fingers around his cock, you stroked it slowly, unable to focus on putting it in and kissing him at the same time. Giving up with a grunt, you settled for rubbing your cunt along his shaft.

“Shit, roll over.” Flipping you with ease, Nanami grabs onto your thighs and holds them apart. Staring down at your cunt, it looks just like any other human sex organ, giving Nanami some peace of mind that he wouldn’t need to do anything too complicated to make you feel good.

You whine again when he doesn’t immediately push himself balls deep into you, instead laying on his stomach and giving your inner thighs kisses. Nanami grabs your hands, silently telling you to hold your legs apart as he delves in deeper.

One lick up your slit and you fall apart so easily, gushing around his mouth so much Nanami is sure you just had an orgasm. Greedily drinking it up, Nanami can attest that this is the best thing he’s ever tasted. Burying his face into your heat, he can’t keep his tongue in one place for too long, torn between pushing it deep inside you and licking at your swollen clit.

You’ve given up holding your legs open a while ago. As Nanami sucked on your clit, your thighs clamped down around his head and your fingers threaded through his hair. The feeling of his mouth on you was the best you’d ever experienced in your short time being alive and it was one you’d think about forever.

“Oh my- daddy, I-” Your eyes were closed so tightly you were seeing stars and you were sure Nanami couldn’t breathe anymore from how tightly you squeezed him as you came. His head thrashed side to side, tongue swiping all along your sex and inner thighs to catch all of your release.

“This is the best scientific breakthrough we’ve ever had.” Wrenching his head away before he passed out, Nanami laid limply on the bed. As the words left his mouth he remembered all those weeks ago now when you first came to him as just a tiny, glowing embryo. He never would have been able to imagine that you’d be here, turning him to lay on his back and crawling between his legs.

Grabbing the base of his cock firmly, you gave one lick to the tip before engulfing it fully in your mouth. Nanami’s back arched high off the bed in shock, surprised at the lack of hesitation from you and how easily he hit the back of your throat.

“S-slow down a little.” He panted, trying to cup your face and get you to look at him. Swatting his hand away, you let your tongue loll in your mouth as you sucked him off, easily planting your nose on his lower stomach and swallowing around him.

It must have been the pollen in the air to make him cum so quickly, Nanami reasoned with a harsh blush on his face. That was the only explanation for why he was currently spilling a thick load of cum down your throat in less than two minutes of you sucking him off.

“You taste so good, daddy.” Pulling off his cock, you licked the sides and down to his balls, gently sucking one into your mouth and looking up at him. Despite just cumming, Nanami felt another orgasm wash over him and another wave of cum came out, dribbling down the sides of his cock and onto your face.

Slapping a hand over his face, Nanami let out a few moans he’d been holding back. There was no way he would ever be able to look at you the same way after seeing your face covered in his seed.

“C’mere.” Stopping you from your current ministrations, he pulled you to lay over top of him again. Grabbing your sweaty shirt from the ground, he wiped the cum off your face, kissing your skin after he wiped it clean.

“Daddy, will you put it in already?” You cried, smacking your ass against his thighs angrily.

“Be patient, baby.” Petting down your back, Nanami shushed you, giving your ass a quick pinch before gripping the base of his cock. Keeping a hand on your hip to keep you steady, he helped you sink down on his cock, easily all the way to the hilt.

Digging your claws into his chest, you let out a loud howl. Finally you were getting what you really needed, the feeling of Nanami’s cock hugged tightly by your cunt spreading a warm feeling throughout your body.

“Fuck, you’re so tight.” He hissed as you dragged your hips upward and back down again. Sure he’d been with other women before but none like this. Your cunt squeezed him incredibly tight, making it impossible for him to do anything other than lay back and let you move however you saw fit.

You weren’t shy in your motions either, riding his cock with a dizzying confidence and nearly fumbling down into a heap of loud moans on more than one occasion. Even with all the prep before your arrival to the planet and research you’d done about sex and the human experience, nothing could have prepared you for how good it actually felt during your heat.

Nanami was sure everyone within the compound could hear what was going on in the room, your noises were as loud as they’d ever been. The sound was as beautiful as when you laughed, hypnotizing him further into compliance.

“Shit!” He cursed harshly, nails digging into the flesh of your hips as he came. As his orgasm came over him, Nanami got no break from the pleasurable waves washing over him because you refused to stop.

“More, more!” You panted, working even harder to get him to cum again. With the added vigor, more pollen released into the air and Nanami breathed in a deep mouthful. Snaking an arm around your back, Nanami rolled you over, acting on pure instinct as he pushed and pulled your body into a mating press.

“You’re so- so demanding, baby.” The pet name came without thinking, not that Nanami was doing a whole lot as he pounded the full length of his cock into you. He wasn’t sure you could hear him, even while being face to face like this. There were too many sounds in the room, the moans that left both of you freely, the wet slapping of skin against skin and the creak of the old mattress springs.

“Please, give it all to me!” Throwing your head back, your cunt spasmed around Nanami’s cock for the umpteenth time, making another gush of your release coat everything within its reach.

Nanami was sure you’d have bruises later from how hard he gripped you but right now he couldn’t find it in him to care. The only thing on his mind was fucking you so hard you stopped babbling and crying like a baby for more of him. He wanted to give you all that he had and more until he himself collapsed as well.

Pushing a hand between your bodies, when he touched your clit Nanami briefly went deaf, unprepared for the incredibly high pitched moan that left your lips. His ears were ringing fiercely but he kept going, refusing to take his eyes off the way your mouth fell open as he rubbed your clit in quick circles.

“H-how many- how many times have you cum?” He gasped, feeling the very beginnings of a burn in his thighs.

“Not enough, it’s not enough.” Thrashing your head against the mattress, you wound your arms around his shoulders. “I need more, daddy.”

“I don’t have any more.” Nanami spoke around the smothering kisses you gave him.

“You do! Just- just a few more!” He wasn’t really in a position to argue with you, you were holding onto him with far more strength than he could ever hope to possess, and while the pollen on your skin had started to diminish there was still a lot in the air that refused to let him truly come to a stop.

As if on command, Nanami felt his balls tighten up and he came again. The arms holding him up broke down and he fell on top of you, burrowing his face into your neck and holding your hips up with his hands.

“Fuck, baby-” With his eyes squeezed shut, Nanami lost track of where he actually was. Nothing mattered except for the feeling of your body underneath him and your cunt holding him in a vice grip. There wasn’t any reason to keep track of how many times he’d emptied a load inside you, so when he did it again so soon after the other one, Nanami paid it no mind.

“It’s coming!” You gasped suddenly, cradling the back of Nanami’s head as your body suddenly came to a stop. Unable to stammer out a question as to what was coming, Nanami was met with the harsh shock of your cunt getting so tight he couldn’t move any further.

Raking your fingers through his hair, you sobbed openly, words slurring together. Nanami was only able to catch something about a ‘seal’ and how you were making Mother so proud for your first heat cycle on Earth.

“Baby, what’s going on?” Craning his head down, Nanami was just barely able to see the swollen flesh of your sex encompassing his cock.

“Y-you humans would call this a knot, right?” Shifting your hips a little, you slowly unwind your legs from around Nanami and let them lay on the bed. “I have to keep you inside for a while.”

“You’re going to get pregnant though.” With his mind still in disarray, Nanami found that he didn’t actually care. He knew that was why you came to the planet and he was willing to help you fulfill your mission.

“Not this first time, I’m only keeping it for later.”

“Of course an alien has sperm storage.” Mumbling to himself, Nanami felt the aches in his body finally starting to settle in as the rest of the pollen was cleared out of the air and the world around him returned to normal. Laying down as gently as possible, Nanami rolled you onto your side and hooked your leg over him. “How long will we be like this?”

“At least another five minutes.” Snuggling closer to him, you tucked your head under his chin. Taking a deep breath, Nanami felt around for the blanket you used that had managed to stay on the bed during all the moving. Throwing it over the two of you, he let out a sigh.

“I can wait five minutes.” No doubt there was going to be a lot of explaining to do on his part, and he could possibly get fired, but Nanami refused to think about that right now. He was far too tired, and the way you cuddled into him had not an ounce of regret or shame going through him. He would do it all again in a heartbeat.

“Nanami?” You whispered, fighting through sleep.

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

Did you know what love truly was? Did you have the capacity to love him like any other human, or were you thinking of a different emotion that you wanted to convey? Maybe you loved him in a way that he couldn’t understand and never would, or perhaps you were lying to further your agenda.

“I love you too.” Kissing the top of your head, Nanami pushed all other thoughts out of his head that could lead him to a negative outcome. Focusing on the sound of your breathing, he knew you had fallen asleep, and he kissed you again. “Yeah...I love you too.”

[aenaxes]

Hey! I was wondering if you could write Crosshair going to the reader for random cuddles no matter where they are, late at night or out on the beach with the batch. BTW, I love the way you write and it never fails to get me inspired to draw our favorite clone boys. Good luck with Uni!

warnings: none

w/c: 1.6k

a/n: ahh tysm for this request! i got a little carried away lol but it's just because i had a lot of fun writing it! :-) hope this helps stoke the artistic imagination! (and thankfully uni is out for the summer so i have more time for our favorite clone boys)

It’s one of the better known facts that Crosshair doesn’t like to be touched, even if warranted, even if he’s asked. There are too many variables in another’s hands: accidents happen, sabotage is never unlikely, and sometimes youthful fear rears its cruel head, and he is flooded with the knee-jerk reflex of memories in the alabaster halls of Tipoca.

So the first time you cuddle with Crosshair, it’s just as much of a disaster as you expect it to be.

Crosshair lies like a corpse over the centre of your bunk, back rigid and ramrod straight, his deathly look complete with the ridiculous bandage criss-crossed over his hairline (courtesy of the simple joys of a ten metre human javelin toss and Wrecker’s miscalculated aim).

Where painkillers weren’t quite enough to keep the concussion headaches at bay, he’d somehow come to the conclusion that you would be. And who were you to turn down a sullen Crosshair mumbling awkwardly for cuddles at your door?

With careful hands and just enough of a firm touch to coax him onto his side without spooking him out of his moping, you maneuver him with his back towards the wall and gently push him further in before you climb onto the space beside him. He flashes you an uncertain look, and you offer him a wry smile in return.

“Relax a little,” you say, lifting his limp arm and slotting yourself against his side until your chests are flush. It’s less cuddling than it is you trying to mold yourself around the hard, firm lines of the tension etched into Crosshair’s muscle and poise. But if he was willing to put aside his standoffish pride to ask you for cuddles, you won’t deny him. Finally content with your arrangement, you lift your chin and fix him with a wry smile. “I can’t spoon a board.”

“Was that an insult?” he offers, a weak attempt at his usual wit that comes out as more of a whimper than bite. But to his credit, he’s listening to you, and you feel him shifting slightly in an attempt to make himself comfortable despite his somewhat unsettled expression.

“Maybe,” you counter. “Loosen your shoulders. Stop tensing. Cuddle, Crosshair.”

“I’m trying,” he mutters, and when you close your eyes to laugh, you barely miss the small upward turn of his lips.

When you wake up the next morning, you feel reborn, all loose-limbed, sated joy as you stretch your arms to your side, expecting Crosshair’s lean form curled close. Instead, you find yourself alone in your bunk, your covers pulled neatly up to your chin with no sign of your surly sniper in sight. You pull yourself together, albeit with a frown, throwing on a fresh set of clothes and readying yourself for a day of snarking (a bit spitefully) at Crosshair for leaving without so much as a thank you.

But then you see it. A small mug sitting on your desk: caf.

As you peer over the rim, you’re hard-pressed to mistake it as anything other than your preference made to perfection, and judging by the steam curling fragrant and wispy over its surface, it’s fresh.

Crosshair says nothing when you pass him in the helm, but when you flash him a grin, he huffs and offers you a lopsided smile back.

It takes the lesser part of one week for the headaches to abate. In between then and Crosshair’s begrudgingly clean bill of health, he comes knocking at your door four more times, each time gently loosening the deep roots of tension coiled through his bones more and more.

“You’re getting better at this,” you murmur into his shoulder on the fourth night, your leg thrown over his hip and your arms tucked securely under his. His first night in your quarters had ended in little beyond simply lying shoulder-to-shoulder. The next two had been (failed) attempts to spoon the entirety of Crosshair’s lanky form. And the night penultimate had been a slightly more successful endeavor in throwing all experimental caution to the wind and waking up chest-to-chest in an oddly comfortable tangle of limbs.

That night worked, and so you do it again.

“I had a good teacher,” Crosshair snorts, and he wheezes, his arms curling snug around your middle, when you gently jab him in the side.

You mutter something into his shoulder, but your own words do not reach your ears when you feel his chin settle atop your head. He shifts carefully until he’s curled entirely around you, the anchor in a still sea, a promise that you, together in shared space and breath, simply are. It’s funny how these things work, you think, breathing shallow and slow as Crosshair brushes his nose over the crown of your head and stays.

And then the concussion heals, and he’s gone.

It’s a bit startling how quickly you had grown accustomed to Crosshair’s presence in your bunk within the brief span of a week. You don’t expect to miss it, the easy nighttime habit as Crosshair quietly slinks to your room: a well-rehearsed ritual of playful snark before the gentler art of accommodation, pushing and pulling in tandem to find the sweet stability of your cheek laid over Crosshair’s collar and his palm warm over the small of your back.

You don’t expect to miss it so much that you find yourself lying in bed well past lights out, simply bracing to sling meaningless jokes thrown in the helm the next morning about how Crosshair’s gone soft, little baby brother Crosshair, like the week prior meant little but a favor to a friend.

The telltale knock sets him apart; four rapid, light raps on the durasteel that you’ve come to know so well, and you’re hauling yourself out of bed and slapping the door lock open as fast as you can.

“Cuddles,” Crosshair says as soon as he catches sight of you in the doorway.

He should be fine; he is fine, if Tech is to be believed. So there’s no reason for him to be waking you and requesting entry. But he is here. You stuff down the dizzying stutter in your chest and meet the mirth in his eyes with the best frown you can manage.

For all the stubborn fronting and the cold refusal you could offer him, there’s something you cannot bring yourself to resent when Crosshair—sour, cynical Crosshair—lets the word “cuddle” find home, curled soft over his tongue (lets himself find home in you).

“Will you make me caf in the morning?”

“Depends on how well you cuddle,” he replies, his tone a deadly calm, only betrayed by the knowing gleam in his eye.

“Says the man who didn’t know how to cuddle a few days ago,” you shoot back.

“The apprentice outdoes the master,” Crosshair shakes his head with a wistful sigh, and you laugh, reaching forward to twine your fingers with his, letting him take his rightful place as the doors close behind you.

—

He comes back home.

Wrecker tells you to give him space, Echo shakes his head when you idle in front of his closed door, and even Omega offers you a sad, apologetic look when Crosshair makes the rare, silent appearance outside of his quarters, a spectre and his bacta patch haunting the ship’s hull before he disappears again.

You listen to them for a few days, but it chews at you from inside—the gnawing thought that Crosshair had been alone for so long, that he’s still alone now. Even if his basest instinct had always been to withdraw and cope in isolation, you can’t stand the idea of leaving him by himself any longer. So when the others have long since fallen asleep, you creep to Crosshair’s room and knock four times in rapid succession.

Like you had expected, he’s awake. But when he opens the door, he keeps his unfocused eyes cast aside.

“Cuddles,” you whisper, testing, hopeful, and you open your arms to him as you stand on the threshold. “Just like we used to?”

Only then does Crosshair flick his weary eyes up, rimmed red with exhaustion, grief overdue. And after four long days, he finally meets your gaze.

You watch as his eyes linger under furrowed brows, peering at you as if he isn’t entirely sure if you’re real, if you’re really there. Watching him waver between your face and your open palms and back again, you imagine Crosshair thinking that it’s always been the other way around: him seeking you out at odd hours to wrap his lean arms around your shoulders, breathe deep, and simply bask in how close you were to his beating heart.

And now it’s you.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, stepping forward between your outstretched arms to gingerly place his chin over your shoulder and settle his lean arms at your waist.

All those times you spent curled, molded around him in the quiet darkness of your bunk—it’s honed you to know him like you know yourself, committing to indelible memory the way he breathes, shifts, fits with you.

And he’s different. A year’s worth of separation would do that, change. But where you feel some new muscle and sinew against your skin, there is undeniable familiarity in how he seeks you out despite the tremble in his hands and unsteadiness of his breath.

There is familiarity in finding home.

You reach up, looping your arms around his neck. And when you pull snug, you feel him squeeze your waist in return, holding tight and holding close.

“Just like we used to.”

[potter-imagines]

Staying at the Burrow with your boyfriend Fred Weasley...

-       Fred loathed his time away from Hogwarts on any break that you weren’t with him

-       Since the Christmas of your fourth year, it has become a sort of tradition for you to going your boyfriend and his family for the holidays

-       And if you would even suggest a change in plans, Fred would beg you otherwise

-       “Y/n pleaseeee, angel? I already told my mum that you’re coming, and she already started knitting! You’ll break her heart!” “Okay fine, I’ll come but only for Molly.”

-       It means the absolute world to Fred that you love his family and that his family loves you

-       Ginny would await your arrival by the front door, practically buzzing with excitement

-       Every time you visit the Burrow, you make sure to bring gifts for his family

-       Your favorite person to give presents to is Arthur

-       You always bring him some new muggle object that never fail to fascinate him

-       “Oh, Molly! Y/n’s here- ooh I wonder what she’s brought for me this time! I hope it’s one of those clicky writers!” “You mean a pen, dear.” “Yes, yes, Molly, a pem!” “Arthur, no-“

-       Most breaks Harry would also tag along which meant more players for your quidditch games

-       Fred and George were usually team captain

-       Fred always picked you first for his team

-       Unless George got to pick first

-       He would pick you just in spite of Fred, which usually caused petty bickering between the twins

-       “Bloody hell, George! You pinky promised me you wouldn’t pick Y/n! You said I could have her-“ “Freddie, you spend almost 24 hours a day with her. She’s just on my team for one game!”

-       George would playfully torture you two during the whole break with comments here and there

-       “Hey dad, I saw Fred sneak Y/n into our room last night.” “George!” “…let’s just not tell your mother, understood?”

-       Doing the dishes with Fred and having a bubble fight

-       George wasn’t lying tho

-       Fred would sneak you into his room almost every night

-       Molly had caught you two a few times but she never brought it up

-       Fred was nearly 18 and Molly absolutely adored you

-       So she’d smile to herself and pretend she never saw a thing

-       Going on walks with Ron and Harry

-       A lot of cute little moments with Fred

-       Like him giving you his sweater when you get cold at night

-       He likes to draw pictures on your back when you’re cuddling as you try to guess what it is

-       “Uh… I’m not sure, is it a flower?” “No, angel. It was an owl! Okay now guess this one…”

-       George would constantly whisper shout at the two of you when he’s trying to sleep

-       “Can you lovesick puppies shut up! Some of us are single and would rather be miserable in peace. I can’t handle all the cute lovey whispers, it’s bloody sickening! I’m ready to share a bed with Percy- that’s how bad it is.”

-       This would cause Fred and yourself to erupt with laughter much to George’s displeasure

-       Sneaking around the house to have some *cough* private time

-       Making out in his backyard

-       Fred doesn’t like when you go for walks alone outside the house

-       Times are tense and you’re the last person, besides a family member, that he could afford to lose

-       He’ll always walk by your side and crack jokes just so he can hear you laugh

-       Whether he realizes it or not, whenever you two go walking together Fred will always hold your hand and swing it back and forth

-       He loves kissing your knuckles and the back of your hand

-       He’s honestly so sweet when he’s not putting 24 hour color changing hair dye in your shampoo

-       You’ve spent so many Christmas’ at the Weasley’s that Molly has a stocking for you and a gift ready every time

-       Fred purposely places mistletoes around the house for you two to ‘conveniently’ meet under

-       “Fred! You know I’m your girlfriend so you can kiss me whenever, right?” “But this is more romantic, darling! You’re the first girl I’ve ever kissed under a mistletoe- and the only, and last girl I want to kiss for my whole life. I’d like to continue that tradition.” “Well how can I say no to that?”

-       Fred will literally take any chance offered to kiss you

-       George loves to annoy the two of you by squeezing in the middle of your cuddles

-       “George! You git, get out of here!” “But I need some love too!” “Yeah, find it with a girl who isn’t my girlfriend!”

-       Fred will make you coffee or tea each morning, whichever you prefer

-       Making hot chocolate together for the whole family during winters at the Burrow

-       Marshmallow mustaches

-       You kiss the marshmallows off Fred’s mouth, running your tongue along his upper lips which causes a deep scarlet blush to slap his cheeks

-       “How do you like it when the tables are turned, Fred?” “I quite like it actually… that was hot.” “Fred!”

-       During winter, you guys will have snowball fights outside with all the Weasley siblings plus Harry, and Hermione

-       You and Fred have a competition on who can make the biggest snow man

-       Your relationship is built off humor, friendship, and love so there is not a day that passes by where tears aren’t pouring from your eyes out of laughter

-       Fred likes to wake you up by jumping on you and attacking your face with little pecks

-       “Wake up, angel! I’ve been waiting ten minutes for you to get up but I couldn’t wait any longer now c’mon!”

-       Fred loves to watch you get ready for the day

-       Oddly enough, his favorite part is your makeup routine (if you wear any)

-       It’s such a foreign world to him, he’s amazed by all the different products and how you can tell them all apart

-       “Freddie, baby, can you hand me my mascara?” “Uh... sure?”

-       Hands you your concealer

-       He just wants to help!

-       He teaches you how to ice skate out on the pond

-       Loves kissing your frozen red cheeks when you two come inside after being in the snow

-       Will boop your nose

-       You spend a lot of time with Ginny on breaks

-       She looks up to you greatly, so she gets so excited when you stay with the Weasley’s

-       “Y/n, Y/n, you’re here! Come, put your stuff in my room! We can have a sleepover-“ “Wow, Ginny, hadn’t realized Y/n was your girlfriend and not mine.” “Shut up, Fred.”

-       You help Fred and George play pranks on differently family members

-       Molly is typically the only one that is immune from these pranks

-       All three of you are far too terrified to make her angry

-       You will often rummage through Fred’s closet instead of opening your suitcase

-       And when he catches you in the act

-       Fred will chase you around the house

-       “That’s my jumper! Oh you’re in for it, Y/l/n!”

-       Some days at the Burrow, Fred and you barely get out of bed

-       Especially on rainy days

-       The sound of raindrops pounding against the roof of the house was comforting, the warm embrace of Fred had that effect on its own even without the rain

-       Maybe once a trip, you guys will take the car into town

-       It’s a bit of a drive so the Weasley’s don’t like to make more trips than necessary

-       Molly refuses to hand the keys to either of the twins and will only give them to you

-       She doesn’t trust the twins not the wreck the car

-       Every trip to the Burrow, you find yourself growing closer to your boyfriend

-       You spend every day together at school, but being outside of the castle is a little different

-       You have more freedom, more choices

-       It makes the both of you thrilled about graduating and moving in together

-       Fred can’t wait for the day he is able to spend every day with you by his side