#and not even after that. canonically its like

[spearofheaven]

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE— ex boyfriend! gojo satoru

SUM. alone in a hotel room with your ex boyfriend after he pulled a risky stunt. what could go wrong?

CONTAINS. 18+ content, MDNI. non canon compliant/au. no plot just porn. x fem reader. 3k words. gojo’s lowk an idiot. ex sex. unprotected p in v. cunnilingus and fingering. creampie. some hints of body worship. nipple play. panty sniffing + panty taking. missionary. hair pulling (m receiving). belly bulge. some aftercare. unresolved feelings. reader probs folded too fast idk.

A/N. if you recognize this smut scene, no you don��t 🫡 #reuse reduce recycle

you knew this mission was bound for failure the moment principal yaga opened his mouth to announce that you and gojo were working together. no exceptions.

why he needed help in the first place was beyond you.

he was loud, arrogant, cocky, but he knew how to handle himself well (you would rather die than admit it, though).

and he also happened to conveniently be your ex boyfriend.

your ex boyfriend who you haven’t spoken to since your breakup—despite his various attempts to reach out to you: from extravagant bouquets waiting for you on your doorstep to cashapp requests in the thousands asking for you to unblock him. (which you accepted but never unblocked).

tensions had been running high since the moment the two of you stepped foot into your hotel. arguments left unsaid, lingering looks that the two of you ignored far too well. all until today, of course. when the idiot made the mistake of getting too close and letting his guard down, just for the sake of showing off to the first years.

“do you just get off on going against instructions? you could’ve gotten hurt.” you’d been nagging in his ear for the entirety of the way back, though he wasn’t complaining. after a couple months of silence, this was practically music.

“you still care about me, sweets? i’m flattered.” gojo could practically see the smoke coming out of your ears with that response.

"well, yes. but that’s not the point. you just can't do anything by the rules, can you? i swear, it's like it goes in one ear and ou-" your complaints were quickly shut down, his lips pressing against your own before you could even muster what was happening.

every single atom in your body was screaming to push him away, not to do this. again. but instead of doing just that, your fingers dug into his shirt and pulled him all that much closer.

kissing him felt all too familiar—a practiced dance you hadn’t quite managed to forget all the moves to. “be mad at me later, just.. let me have this please,” he pleaded, pressing his forehead against your own.

and you were certain that the man had done witchcraft, gotten some spell from a witch on etsy that’d been activated with the kiss, because somehow, someway, you found yourself nodding.

satoru hooked his fingers underneath your thighs, squeezing the supple flesh once while he made his way over to the bed. “mmph, fuck, i missed you baby,” he let out a quiet moan against your lips.

“shut it,” was your response, nibbling down on his bottom lip. your nails raked through his hair, tugging at the strands when you pulled him closer.

“yes ma’am,” satoru breathed out, walking over to the california king bed in the middle of the room before gently placing you down. you practically melted into the expensive silk sheets. (courtesy of gojo having millions upon millions to blow)

every second was savored—not willing himself to stay away from you for too long. he was hovering above you in a matter of seconds, holding your chin in between your fingers, “can i?”

once again, every thought in your mind was telling you to push him away. to remember how little he made you feel. “yes,” your mouth had a mind of its own, answering him before you thought better of it.

satoru let out a sigh, tilting your head to meet his gaze. “are you sure? i want you to want me. to want this as much as i do.”

you shook your head, reaching up and pressing your palm against his cheek. he was like a pathetic puppy, rubbing against your touch. “i do want it, toru. i want you.”

his touch was careful, almost like unraveling an expensive gift he didn’t quite want to ruin the wrapping of. a strangled breath left him upon seeing your lingerie, cerulean and lace framing your body in the best damn present he’d opened.

a cerulean blue that was too similar to his eye color—too much for him to deem as a coincidence.

looking over at you in disbelief, he asked, “when’d you make the switch to agent provocateur?”

you raised a brow at how quickly he recognized the material—deciding to leave it be though, “ever since i had seven grand to blow from a veryyy generous donor last week.”

satoru let out a quiet scoff, tracing the outline of the lace on your bra with the tip of his finger. his thumb barely circled against your clothed nipple, a featherlight touch, “and just who were you planning on showing this pretty set to?”

“wouldn’t you like to know weather boy?” a scoff of your own left your lips, rolling your eyes. but he was already in his own little world by now.

satoru had been deprived of the taste of you for months now—the very feeling of your skin underneath his fingertips nearly having him break out in a moan.

every nerve in his brain seemed to go haywire when he pressed his lips against your neck, the lingering scent of your perfume intoxicating whatever brain cells remained in that big noggin.

"did you just moan?" you raised your head as you looked down at him. never mind, not almost.

“you taste and smell good, what did you expect?” he licked a stripe down your neck, reaching your collarbone. gojo gently pulled the skin in between his teeth, sucking at the flesh. determined to leave a mark—even if you’d just have him for today.

each kiss trailed lower and lower down until he got to your shoulder, unable to resist the urge of snapping your bra strap. before you had the chance to glare at him, he reached for your back—unclasping the hooks and tossing your $300 bra to the floor.

you nearly winced.

“there’s my girls.” satoru took one of your breasts in his mouth, swirling his tongue around your nipple, “my favorite girls. missed them too, missed everything about you, baby.”

one of his large hands engulfed your other breast, rolling his thumb against your areola while he mindlessly sucked on the one in his mouth. “there you go. arch your back for me, sweetheart.” a groan left his lips, slipping his knee in between your legs to keep them open.

satoru alternated between each breast, giving each equal attention. leaving your nipples hard and covered in his spit. “so pretty,” he whispered in awe, giving each a farewell kiss.

he made his way down to your navel, pressing chaste kisses to whatever skin he had access to. kissing everywhere but where you needed him most—where he was rubbing his knee against.

you almost expected him to pounce up at the first opportunity, but instead, he settled by the foot of the bed. his touch featherlight as he dragged his fingers from your ankle to your calf, eliciting goosebumps down your spine in his wake.

“i’m sorry,” satoru started off, pressing his lips against your right calf before moving on to the left. “never wanted to make you break up with me,” he continued, kissing his way up your leg.

not a single inch of your body went untouched by his lips before he moved up, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your panties. you raised your hips, letting him slide them down your legs.

he looked up at you with puppy eyes, holding the slick-covered panties in his hand. a silent request.

your eyes narrowed, “no. you’re not keeping those.”

satoru let out a whine, bringing your panties up to his nose. taking an audible whiff and closing his eyes, practically relishing in the lace. “oh come on, i’m the one who got you these, technically.”

“generous donor, since we’re getting technical,” you shrugged, “put the merchandise down on the floor.”

“i’ll get you ten more. twenty, if that’s what you want. just let me keep these,” he spoke quickly, watching the way your eyes practically turned into money signs. “and maybe if you just show them off to me.”

he’d already spent over seven grand, what was a couple more thousand?

you looked at the pair in his hand, before shrugging, “i’ll be generous and only ask for fifteen.”

satoru quickly pocketed your panties, kissing up your thigh. “the most generous,” he mused, nibbling on your inner thigh. his hands spread your legs out, presenting to him like one of the finest meals.

and he was more than ready to feast.

he leaned forward, swiping his tongue in between your folds. your fingers ran through his hair again, gripping his hair tightly. or at least.. you thought your grip was tight. it was hard to tell when satoru moaned regardless, sucking on your folds.

“so good, so good, use me, i’m all yours, always been,” just one taste of you again was enough to have him pussy drunk, babbling against your cunt. you pushed his head further into your cunt, swiveling your hips against his eager tongue, “yeah, yeah, just like that, don’t stop.”

you looked over to see satoru laying down on his stomach, completely at bliss slurping and sucking at your cunt with his feet swinging back and forth. if his mouth and hands weren’t busy, you had no doubt that he’d be twirling his hair and giggling.

“come onnn, let me know how i’m good i’m making you feel,” he pouted as he looked up at you with half-lidded eyes, his lips glossed over with your slick.

"fuck you," you bit down on your lip, gritting the words out in an attempt to keep any moans at bay.

"aht, aht, that's my job, cutie. and first, you gotta tell me what you want," satoru gave your thigh a loud smooch, his fingertips tracing your folds and barely dipping inside of your dripping cunt before he’d pull away. only to repeat it again.

in a moment of weakness, you found yourself relenting, “your fingers, toru. please,” it came out low, barely enough for his ears to register. and almost like clockwork, he took that opportunity to tease you further.

“what was that, baby? couldn’t really hear you,” he retorted, clicking his tongue. when you went to open your mouth, he pushed his fingers inside of your cunt. the loud squelch cutting you off completely.

“your. fingers,” you gritted out, your request coming out louder, “please.” only the bastard would make you beg after apologizing to you.

he pushed his fingers inside of you yet again, bringing them to his lips and swirling his tongue around them, “please what?” another tease.

“please, toru. i want your fingers,” a whine was evident in your voice.

“there we go, baby. that wasn’t so hard, hm?” his fingers thrusted inside of you once more, curling in a come hither motion.

satoru closed his lips around your puffy clit, sucking on it before swirling his tongue. he started with drawing small circles on your nub, before your brows furrowed.

he was using your damn clit as a writing board.

the tip of his tongue carefully spelled each letter,

‘I. LOVE. YOU.’

“seriously?” it came out shakier than you would’ve liked, little gasps and unsteady breaths leaving your lips.

“mhm,” he didn’t bother on elaborating further, covering your clit in his spit as he sucked. the curl of his fingers hit that spot inside of you with each thrust, his fingers thrusting deeper than even some of your toys.

“ah ah, fuck!” you let out a moan, hips bucking into his face to meet his tongue frantically. “don’t stop, don’t stop, just like that!” each swipe and thrust brought you closer and closer, your back nearly off the mattress.

satoru simply shook his head, swiping his tongue back and forth. the idea was simply absurd—that he was even capable of thinking to stop. “not gonna stop, baby. just wanna keep tasting you,” he responded, swinging his feet back and forth again in sync with his thrusts.

you weren’t sure if you hated him or you wanted to fuck him even more. maybe a little of both.

that familiar coil tightened in your lower stomach, your nails practically digging into his scalp in response. “ah fuck, yeah, dig them in there, i can take it, i can take it,” satoru was reduced to a babbling mess yet again, each whine vibrating against your clit.

“i’m close, i’m close, gonna cum,” your moans had him pushing his hips into the mattress, seeking anything to relief his aching cock. but—this wasn’t about him. it was about you first. “come for me, baby, take what you need.”

the coil inside of you snapped, your orgasm hitting you at once. your hips stilled, your release coating his fingers and spilling out onto the bedsheets underneath. he sucked his fingers, cleaning up every. single. last. dribble.

gojo wasted no time in unzipping his pants, sliding them down along with his boxers. freed from its confines, his cock sprung up against his stomach. pink tip twitching and all—dripping drop after drop of precum.

wrapping a hand around the base, he swiped the tip against your folds. much like he’d be swiping his card later. up and down, letting your slick coat the head before he slowly pushed it inside. pushing against that initial resistance.

“biggg stretch, there we go,” a hiss escaped from his lips, feeling your walls squeeze against him tightly. he had to close his eyes, refusing to look down at you. he knew that if he did, that would be all it would take for him to bust.

satoru placed your legs on his shoulders, slowly starting to move his hips forward. pushing inch by inch inside with each thrust, up until he could see his tip bulging in your lower tummy.

“toru?” your voice broke him out of the trance, hazy blues meeting your own glazed over expression.

“yes, baby?”

“you think maybe, just maybe, you could go a little faster?”

satoru broke out into a cheshire like grin, making you instantly regret your ask, “anything for you, my princess.”

*PLAP* *PLAP* *PLAP*

the sound of your skin slapping against his own, the sound of your moans and his shaky breaths filled the room, mixing in with the heavy stench of sex. satoru’s grip on your thighs tightened, his fingers digging into you while he used your cunt how he pleased.

“that fast enough for you, baby?” satoru taunted, a smirk on his face. the sight in front of him was nothing short of perfect—from the way your jaw fell taut, drool leaking out from the corner of your lips with each punishing thrust. all the way down to the way your tits bounced, each bounce nearly putting him in a hypnosis.

“yes yes, fuck!” your hands dug into the bedsheets underneath as a lifeline, something to cling onto. you could even feel the slight curve to the left, each vein grazing your walls.

“y-yeah? finally good enough for you?” you could only nod in response, his cock drilling out every thought. your walls squeezed around him, toes curling against his back. you didn’t have to give him any warning this time—he simply knew.

“so good, so good,” you babbled like a broken record, his dick hitting your g-spot with such ease it had you wondering why you’d ever broken up with him in the first place.

“suck for me,” satoru prodded his thumb against your bottom lip. you instinctively parted your lips, swirling your tongue around it and sucking on it. all while keeping your eyes on him. he could’ve sworn you were trying to kill him now.

you released with a pop, his thumb glistening with your saliva. “ah fuck! keep going, keep going!” satoru rubbed quick circles against your clit, his own thrusts starting to grow sloppier and sloppier. heavy balls smacked against your ass with each push of his hips, one of his feet propped up against the mattress for an angle that had your eyes rolling back.

“t-toru! make me cum, please, please!” you whined, nails scraping against the cotton bedsheets. your walls clenched against him tightly, milking his cock, before your orgasm washed over you like a wave.

your release coated his shaft, your cunt squelching as he fucked you towards his own orgasm. he was close, so so close, but the man needed one more push. “tell me you love me, please,” his voice came out ragged, “i need you to tell me.”

“i love you, toru,” his name had never sounded so good, so sweet before. the quiet whisper of your admission was all it took to push him from the edge. a low groan left his lips, spurt after spurt of cum dripping inside of you. painting your walls white, pooling where he and you were still connected.

satoru pulled out carefully, the mixture of fluids dripping from his softening shaft onto the silk bedsheets underneath. “stay here, i’ll be right back with something to clean you off.”

he came back into the room with a wet hand towel from the guest bathroom, gently cleaning in between your legs. wiping away at the cum dripping down your legs, staining your thighs. “there we go, how are you feeling? you need water?” satoru tossed the towel to the side, pulling his pants back up.

“i’m good. but we should probably talk about this,” you gestured in between the two of you, “we both said.. a lot. and i do love you, toru. but just because we had sex doesn’t mean everything’s fixed between us.”

“i know,” gojo replied almost instantly, like he’d been equally dreading and looking forward to this conversation. “trust me, i know. i want to work things out with you. if you’ll let me.”

but for now, in the comfort of the hotel room, you allowed him to hold and snuggle against you like a human blanket. letting yourself momentarily enjoy the moment of peace before you reminded yourself that you were still exes.

yaga didn’t bother asking why the two of you showed up later than expected or why you two were less tense the next day.

[1-800stray]

skz x reader who has biting as their love language and make it written:D

GIVE ME YOUR LOVE&AFFECTION!

this is just some short little stories as i’m trying to get back into writing slowly!! i hope u enjoy :3 i was meant to post this a couple hours ago but i guy invited me over so…

CHAN

Catches on quickly. The first time it happens its a quick nip to his upper arm, mid hug. He pauses. Blinks once and looks down at you, eyebrows raised.

And thats that.

Chan, being Chan, doesn't make a big deal out of it. Over time, he even adjusts to it, anticipates it. Now, when you nuzzle into his neck and your teeth gently press into the curve of his shoulder, he simply lets out a quiet hum and wraps his arm around you tighter.

"You've been good today," he murmurs once, tugging his sleeve down up and holding out his wrist. "You want a snack?"

You bite, of course. And then kiss the same spot, just to be extra annoying. He never complains.

In fact, he starts kissing your forehead every time you bite him. A ritual of sorts. One action met with another, a silent conversation of shared love.

LEE KNOW

The first time you bite him, he stops moving entirely. Not in a stunned way, not in a casual way either.

Calculated. Judging.

You watch the slow turn of his head as he stares down at the bite mark on his bicep. "Did you just bite me?" He breathes out. He's not actually sure why he asked when he already knows the answer.

"Yes." You answer simply, leaning into his touch.

He pauses. Then, flatly, "Seek help."

But he doesn't pull away.

Not the second time, or the third. In fact, he starts tilting his head slightly when you approach, offering easier access to his shoulder, his arm, his neck.

He pretends to hate it. Rolls his eyes everytime. But one day, when you don't bite him, too tired, too distracted, he nudges you with his foot.

And just like that, you know he's completely surrendered to it.

CHANGBIN

Your teeth leave little crescents on his bicep after a back hug. You don't mean to bite too hard, just enough to feel him. Remind yourself he's there.

He looks down, then up, then chuckles like he's not even surprised.

"Cute," He says, flexing under your hold. "I didn't even feel that."

You narrow your eyes. "Oh?"

He grins. "C'mon, baby. You can do better than that."

After that, it becomes a game. He flexes, you bite harder. You sneak bites in when he's not paying attention. He acts like he's made of steel and refuses to acknowledge it.

But when you're quiet, when you press your forehead to his shoulder and bite down, not for fun but to ground yourself, he stills. No teasing, no jokes.

Just a hand cradling the back of your head, his voice like soft honey in your ear. "You okay?"

And when you nod, he kisses your temple, long and slow.

HYUNJIN

You bite his shoulder during a cuddle. Not hard, just a small nip. Warm. Familiar.

Hyunjin stills, and then turns to you slowly, eyes narrowed like you've personally betrayed him. "You bit me," He says, dramatically clutching the spot.

"I love you," you reply simply. He exhales like you've just confessed to a crime.

"You know, most people kiss."

After that, he wears sleeveless tees suspiciously often. Offers out his wrist mid hug. Hums when your teeth brush his skin.

And when you kiss him one morning without biting, he frowns. "That's it? Are we fighting?"

You laugh, bite his neck, and he grins.

"Thank you," He sighs. "Now my day can begin.

HAN

You bite him during a movie. Lightly. Right on the forearm. He screams.

Then he pauses, and turns towards you. "Was that an affectionate thing?"

You nod, unbothered.

From that point on, it becomes canon in his brain. You = biter. Bite = love.

He starts showing the bite marks off with pride. To Felix, he rants, "They did this one when I brought them dumplings. Oh, and this ones from-"

But its the quiet ones that affect him. The ones that happen when you're overwhelmed and bite just to stay present. When you sink your teeth into his hoodie sleeve during a panic attack. When you hold his arm too tightly and leave faint imprints.

He doesn't make a sound then. Just holds you, brushes his thumb over the mark like its a secret language only he can read.

FELIX

You bite his collarbone once, without thinking, during a sleepy cuddle. He giggles.

"Was that a kiss or a bite?"

"Bite."

"Oh. I liked it." And he means it. Fully. Enthusiastically.

From then on, he keeps pointing out new spots. "Try here- Oh, what about this spot on my shoulder?" He treats it like a love stamp. Something unique to your relationship. Something warm.

His shoulder, his arm, even once his cheek. "Go ahead, I don't mind. Just be gentle."

And when you get shy about it, like maybe its too weird, he cradles your face and goes, "You don't have to explain, love. I know its how you care."

You bite his wrist gently, and he exhales like he's been holding his breath.

"There you are," he whispers, kissing your forehead. "I missed that."

SEUNGMIN

"You bit me." He says flatly.

"Yes?"

He stares. "Like.. with your teeth."

"Yes."

"Don't." He answers. You roll your eyes.

Seungmin doesn't stop complaining, but he also doesn't stop you. If you bite him during hugs, he'll just sigh and mutter something sarcastic, but his hand always comes up to cradle the back of your head.

And when you haven't bitten him in days, stressed, exhausted, distant, he pokes your arm and says, "Everything okay?"

You bite him right then, and he smiles. "Thought so."

JEONGIN

He panics.

The first time you bite him, he yelps and turns to you like a scared puppy. You have to convince him after that you're not mad at him, and he didn't do anything wrong.

It takes some explaining.

But once he gets it, once he really, truly understands it, he adapts so fast.

Starts leaning into it, holding out his arm to you, He starts to expect it. Waits for it. Gets quiet when it doesn't happen.

You notice his quiet demeanour, and walk over. You bite him and then immediately kiss it after, and he blushes so red he has to walk away.

He never recovers.

[dishpowder]

i have evidence involving the proceedings of the faerie kingdom arc, white lily, and clotted cream cookie in @fishymom-art's fix a beast au

clotted cream is going to get blown up.

(woah cliffhanger)

"what?? dish, this makes no sense!! you have 0 evidence, literally no reasoning or proof for this claim!! take your meds!!!!"

ahaha. you fool.

i present my evidence

there must be some reason for white lily to blow up clotted cream in the first place. some sort of motivation or cause.... right?

other than clotted cream. well. hitting on her.

if you look at some of the earlier faerie kingdom comics, you can see that the faeries' doubt in white lily is subtly, yet noticeably, prominent

"the letter is fake/false!" "oh, youre reading too far into this!"

ahaahaha. or am i.

white lily is clearly not fulfilling her duties. even if she does mourn elder faerie and cares about silverbell, it doesnt mean that the kingdom itself matters to her. she's volatile. maybe she CAN bring it to its end, maybe even in the process of trying to fight clotted cream OR trying to put the beasts in the silver tree, like she (and clotted cream) originally planned.

the letter might not be a complete lie. whoever wrote it could be telling the absolute truth.

and after all, whats a writer who doesnt slip little hints and foreshadowing into their work? we know fishy has done this multiple times, such as the whole pure vanilla lobotomy deal and the LoK, to name a recent one.

"but why would white lily BLOW UP clotted cream??? thats a bit drastic, wouldnt she do some thing more... low-key?"

ahaha, let us not forget white lily is a bomber type cookie. if i were fishy, i would NOT pass up on a joke like that. we all know they wouldnt.

on top of that, clotted cream also describes her as "definitely more stubborn than the other heros." white lily would probably resort to the most readily available option. her magic. her, ahem, BOMBER TYPE magic.

the faerie in the letter also describes her as "putting her selfish plans above [the faeries'] safety and trust." does blowing up clotted cream not seem like a selfish plan to you??

oh, and one other thing,

literally right out of their own mouth (or... keyboard).

"ouu but its obviously never gonna happen, that was clearly a joke!" "white lily would never do such a thing, thats very out of character" "no sane person puts that many question marks at the end of their sentence"

yeah yeah, and fishy has also never denied things as canon before they become canon. yep.

i rest my case

[dailydoseoffanfics]

*punches my fist through the dirt* GUESS WHO'S BACK FROM THE DEAD ?!??! AND I'M SHARING SELF-AWARE FORSAKEN AU CRUMBS !!!! (like only 1 crumb)

it's just reader's design for my self-aware forsaken au (or [PLAYER] doesn't really matter lol) HOWEVER QUICK DISCLAIMER THAT THIS ISN'T REALLY THE OFFICIAL DESIGN, IT'S JUST HOW I PERSONALLY SEE READER AS IN THIS AU. Reader is supposed to be us after all, so feel free to imagine how you interpret reader as :)

Images + lots, and i mean, LOTS of yapping + concept arts under the cut!

Reader's (or [PLAYER]'s) design!!11 woah!!!!

honestly the only reasons why i created this design for reader is because 1. i can't really imagine reader in a blank state (which is just the average grey skin with only the "y/n" sign slapped on their face) and even if i did it just would look.....out of place. fOR me at least.

2. i just like giving [PLAYER] some style.

General info:

Pretty much this is what you look like from the survivors'/killers' point of view. What i'm trying to say is that this reader and you are the same person, just in like. uh. different fonts. (ihopeyougetwhati'msaying) LIKE, you're still you in the real world and you're still human, but in game, since canonically in my au you're seen as some kind of outwardly force, your form is morphed into this.... humanoid-like person that barely anyone can see.

Since it's stated that the survivors and killers can see your silhouette somewhat, I like to imagine that the only way they can clearly see this form is yours is when they're having dreams about you.

Design Notes:

Originally, [PLAYER] would have a fringe hat, because I thought it looked cool and also to have [PLAYER] get mysterious™ points, but after drawing it out, I realized that "okay this is pretty time-consuming i ain't drawing allat 😭😭" so i just stuck to a veil hat instead. which honestly looks better imo.

1.5. I wanted to make [PLAYER]'s design not too simple to the point it looks bland (for me at least) but not too complicated to the point where there's like 109823912389 details put into it either. It's pretty much why [PLAYER]'s color palette just consists of red, white and shades of black.

2. Also, there were originally gonna be flowers on [PLAYER]'s hat. Specifically red alstroemeria, black iris and red geranium. Red alstroemeria cuz generally they symbolize friendship, love and strength (red in this case meaning passion), alstroemerias are typically used as friendship and romantic flowers and my intention for this au of mine is to be interpreted as romantic but can also be seen as platonic (but let's be real i think it's going toward the romance direction...) so i thought it would be neat to put that flower in

Black iris because generally they symbolize hope, but black in this case symbolizes power and the unknown.

And red geranium cuz generally they symbolize joy and happiness, red in this case symbolizing protection. Also associated with immortality and prosperity (Two Time gonna have a field day with this.....kinda.)

At some time, I thought about replacing these flowers with just a red rose and a sunflower, but I decided to just not add any flowers and just stick to like. a bow.

3. Generally, all these 3 colors, black, red and white symbolize power in a way (black to make [PLAYER] look mysterious, red to symbolize...power, and white can be associated with good, so I chose that color.)

3.5. These colors would make like a really stereotypical villain that's all evil and stuff (think of like those villains that only has red eyes with their entire body just being a solid black color), so i chose these colors because at first glance, [PLAYER] DOES look intimidating, but when you get to know [PLAYER] they're actually just a really chill guy. (don't judge a book by its cover!!!)

4. I gave [PLAYER] a void-like look to emphasize their "outwordly" form. I just thought it would be neat.

5. I made their outfit resemble [PLAYER]'s personality in a sense. They're wearing a suit which symbolizes power and control, but I gave [PLAYER] poofy sleeves to highlight [PLAYER]'s goofiness and overall carefreeness. Also gave [PLAYER] these long flowy ribbons to like uhhh....highlight [PLAYER]'s charisma in a way.

Annnnd concept art time!

Annnnd the flat colors if you guys want!

[legendofmorons]

Written in the stars (forever on loop) chapter seventeen - From Eden

Pairing: poly! Chain x reader, Wind & reader

Rating: T

Summary: After taking a watch where you soothe a distraught Twilight to sleep your group makes its way through the land. Unfortunately for you, Dark has lost track of some monsters and those monsters find you and out number you.

(Aka: Dark loses his monsters but gets distracted by D!reader/ Onyx, and itself your problem. Spooky talks to Wolfie, too. Oh and also Fierce is a simp, the question is why is he a simp for you?)

Warnings: cursing, Canon typical violence, injury, grief

Other: If I missed anything, please let me know.

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Watch tonight is easy enough. The only hassle is ignoring the way Hyrule keeps his back to you as if avoiding you.

The traveler is clinging to his blankets.

Tonight, you take the first watch while the others go about getting to sleep.

It's been a week since you and Hyrule talked about the dungeon, and he still isn't really talking to you. It just stings, even if he deserves as much space as he wants.

You sit by the fire and watch as Spooky curls around one of Epona's legs for a nap. What sweet animals can they be.

It's hardly a surprise when Sky falls asleep quickly. He needs it, honestly.

Warriors lays closest to you, the least convincing about trying to sleep.

Hyrule and Legend lay on the other side of the fire side by side.

Wild is between Time, who lays like a soldier, and Twilight, who curls up.

Four lays near Sky, facing the fire.

Wind is curling up near you and Warriors, but it's only a matter of time before he ends up in some bizarre position.

You scan the permiter with careful eyes.

It's been too calm lately, and you aren't foolish enough to trust it.

Warriors lays like a soilder, straight as a board with posture that even a monarch might envy.

You watch as the others drift off one by one until it's just you awake.

It's nearly second shift by the time everyone is truly out, but you don't mind.

It's nice, mostly. The quiet gives you time to think.

Watching them sleep is endearing. You don't stare, but you're keeping watch, so you do keep an eye out. That's part of the deal.

Sky sleeps deeply, snoring everyone once in a while as he clutches his blankets.

Your musing comes to a stop when Twilight jolts awake with a shaking call of your name.

You swapping thickly before you call out to him. "Twilight?"

He doesn't react.

Twilight gives shaking, hitching breaths that are too fast. He dosen’t seem to be able to recognize where he is.

That's... not ideal.

It's actually rather concerning.

"Twilight?" You call again, pushing to your feet.

"(Y/n)?!" He calls back in a far away but terrified tone. His voice shakes as one hand reaches up to grip his hair.

You bite back a curse and start walking towards him.

Walking carefully so as to not wake anyone else. There's no reason to make the others lose sleep, too.

"Twilight?" You ask again as you stop at his side.

"Darlin'?!" He demands shakily, looking up at you with unseeing eyes.

Your throat feels thick as you sink to your knees.

Setting a hand on his shoulder, you try a different tactic. "Link?"

It feels strange to do it. Between him not knowing who you are and your expansive gaps in memory around your past lives, it's like filling a role.

A role that isn't your own anymore, but it still is supposed to be. It's like the nightmare performers have where they forget most of their lines on stage and have to improvise and hope it works.

His face softens, though, as if that's what he needed to hear.

"Darlin'," Twilight breathes out as he pulls you into a tight hug.

You choke on a gasp as you fall into him

Twilight clings to you with shuddering breaths as he burrows into your neck. "Saw ya die. Don' leave me, please. Need ya so much, darlin'," he all but sobs into the juncture of your shoulder and neck.

His tears are hot and wet as they fall onto you.

You hug him back with shaking arms. "It wasn't your fault."

"Was my faul'!"

"No, it wasn't. It was a dream, it's okay now," you say with a surprisingly steady voice.

You rub his back in slow circles.

"I can't lose ya," Twilight chokes out.

You swallow a wince, "It's okay, you're okay."

He clings to you anyhow, shaking harder now. "Don' leave me."

"I'm not leaving," you soothe carefully. "It's okay, can you try to sleep some more for me?"

"Ya weren' the' when I woke up."

You make a soft, hopefully soothing sound. "I know. You should still try to sleep for me, okay? I'll be here in the morning."

"Ya promise?"

"I will be here in the morning. Get some rest, okay?" You soothe.

Twilight pulls back with a swallow, "Yer neva' he' in th' mornin'..."

"I will be. Please get some more sleep."

He wipes at his face and looks at you with hazy eyes. "I miss ya. Er'ey day."

"I know," you breathe out.

You believe him, if only because of what you just saw.

Twilight lays back down, curling into himself. "Stay 'til I fall 'sleep 'gain?"

"Sure," you say as you shift to get more comfortable.

It's kinder than breaking his illusions. He isn't even really that awake. You can do this for him.

You stay with him, ignoring the gnawing pit of your stomach.

Twilight drifts back to sleep slowly. He seems well and truly out by the time you need to go wake Sky for middle watch.

Leaving the rancher feels mean.

Maybe a few more minutes?

You pull the blanket up around the rancher and make sure he's as comfortable as possible before you stand. You have things to do, and you can't stay up all night.

Even if you don't sleep, resting is better than nothing.

You make your way to Sky before kneeling down to wake him.

You shake Sky carefully. "Sky?"

The man groans and turns away from you.

Understandable, but you still have to wake him.

You shake him a little harder, "Sky?"

He groans and burrows into his blankets.

You bite back a smile at the adorable behavior. "Sky."

He grumbles.

You snort, recalling the opening sequence for Skyward Sword where Zelda's loftwing needed to be the alarm clock.

(You have to dump water on the teen before you finally get him to rejoin the world of living. He jolts up with a gasp before his eyes find you.

"That was mean, sunshine," he huffs at you.

You might feel worse if you hadn't spent the last fifteen minutes trying to wake him. You crack a grin, "You love me anyway!"

There's the tug of pain in your chest because the teen isn't yours to love. He's just your dear friend of your entire sixteen years of life.

He smiles, soft and warm, in a way that you will always associate with Crimson feathers and skyloft nights. "I do.")

You swallow down the memory and try to ignore the bittersweet feeling it brings up.

Shaking Sky more firmly, you call out again. "Sky!"

Sky jerks awake, and his eyes find you quickly.

"Oh! Uh- It's my watch, right?" Sky asks as he rubs at his eyes.

You nod at him. "It is."

"Okay. Just - let me get up."

"No rush," ypu tell him.

Sky huffs at that, "Maybe a little rush. I don't want to keep you up forever."

Your heart warms a little at the words. "I can spare ten minutes."

"I'll be fast," he assures you.

He is usually a man of his word, after all.

-------

Twilight isn't sure how to handle facing you after embarrassing himself last night.

Obviously, the best choice is to avoid you like the plague as subtlety as he can.

That decision is how he finds himself in the middle of nowhere, trying to hunt down some dinner.

Wild is helping, of course, but really Twilight is just using the excuse to be Wolfie so he can avoid you even better.

Which is great until Spooky comes over.

"Hello, wolf boy," Spooky purrs as they rub along Wolfie without fear.

"Hi?" Wolfie manages to reply.

He realizes his isn't one to talk to Spookie usually.

"You're hiding again," Spooky informs with all the bored superiority of a cat.

"I'm not hiding, exactly..."

"Are you lying to yourself or to me?" The panther asks as they lay down and stretch out.

"I'm not lying to anyone. I'm hunting dinner."

Spooky yawns. "To yourself then. Hairless creatures are so strange. Tell me, wolf boy, how long do you plan to ignore what's in front of you?"

Wolfie blinks at the panther. He isn't sure what they're on about.

Even if he does know, he dosen’t want to.

Spooky is just being ill aware.

He's such a fool, waking up and causing you to be dragged into his delusions.

You were kind enough to soothe him back to sleep.

He wishes you hadn't been so kind...

He dosen’t deserve it.

"Enough with the self-pity, wolf boy," Spooky interrupts as they roll onto their back. "Examine the situation or don't, but your guilt and grief fill your head until you can't see the danger coming."

Wolfie turns his gaze to the cat again, wondering if all panthers are so insistent.

"I see the danger."

"Do you?" Spoiky asks with a tone that all but screams doubt. "You're so busy mourning you forget to live, wolf boy, and anyone worth mourning wouldn't want you to."

There's not much to say to that... not really.

Spooky is right.

Wild whistles for Wolfie to join him again and Twilight... does.

He doesn't want to stick around for more of whatever Spooky has to accomplish here.

He can admit, to himself, that he is running.

He's a coward these days.

--------

"We may have a very slight problem," Dark says as he turns to his lover.

Onyx looks over with a brow raise from where they stand in the grandiose shadow version of the temple of time. "Oh really?"

"I may have misplaced some of the stronger monsters."

Onyx rolls their eyes, "It's probably fine. It's not like the monsters ever do their job anyway."

"True. You are right, my darling lamb," Dark purrs.

The dark being crosses the stone floor as his steps echo.

As soon as he is close enough to Onyx, he pulls them into him, his arms wrapping comfortably about their waist.

"You've been so distracted, viper," They tell him idily.

"And what of it?"

"Just an observation."

Dark chuckles, shaking his head. "It is never just an observation with you. You always have ulterior motives."

It's one of the countless things he loves about them. They never let themselves get manipulated so easily and never without their own goals.

Always thinking about their own safety.

Their own pleasure.

Dark loves how their mind works.

They may be the only person he puts above himself, as vulnerable that makes him.

As long as he keeps Onyx close, he can keep his weakness safe.

That's what they are, his weakness.

The worst part is that he doesn't care. He wants them safe before he wants- anything else.

He will never utter that to anyone, but he knows it.

He thinks Onyx knows it, too.

"And what is my motive then?" They ask him with a sharp smile.

"Perhaps you want to use my perceived distraction to your advantage? You are such a devious mind."

Onyx laughs at that, the laugh they only ever indulge him with. "You flatter me."

"What is it you want from me, then?" Dark asks.

"Everything," Onyx says simply.

"Everything?"

"Yes."

"Very well, but them I want everything from you as well."

"For you? I can make that trade," Onyx says softly.

"How shall we start?"

"Perhaps a nice date, I do rather like the moonlight on you."

-------

The forest fades into a vast field as you all walk through the land, hoping to find either the black blooded monsters or a town.

Selfishly, you hope for a town so you can sleep through a whole night and take a real bath.

There's a slowly rising dread that prickles up the back of your neck. You aren't sure why exactly, but you still feel it.

Epona walks at your side with Wind on your other and Spooky between ypu and the sailor.

You slip Epona a few slices of apple and lots of pets.

Spooky also gets lots of attention.

Wind billows through the tall grass lazily as the sun shines.

Four and Sky walk in front of you, both seem fairly alert as if they too feel that prickling dread.

You can hear Hyrule and Legend behind you, bantering to each other quietly.

"Have you got pigs back home?" Wind asks.

You smile, "There are pigs back home."

"Really?"

When you open your mouth to answer, there's a deep set instinct to demand everyone get down. You follow it.

"EVERYONE DOWN!" You call as you get down.

As everyone does as you say from instinct arrows whiz overhead. They fly through the air where torsos just were

Spooky growls, tension to pounce at whatever comes close first.

Epona rears up and gives an upset whinny.

"What now?" Legend huffs.

You take your sword and shield into your hands.

Standing, you look around and feel the blood drain from your face.

Three silver lynels from Wild's world.

Twelve dead irons from Time's world.

Two Gleeocks.

Four moblins from Sky's era and four from Wild's.

Nine fire lizafos from Twilight's era.

Four wizrobes from Hyrule's time.

"Fuck!" You hiss on reflex.

This is bad.

This is really bad.

The monsters surround you as they approach, and there is no escape.

"Everyone in a circle!" Time calls.

You rush to comply.

The group creates a ring where they all face towards the monsters before them and their backs are in the circle.

Wind is on your left and Four is on your right.

You aren't sure where anyone else is but you don't have time to look.

You throw your shield up to block the volley of arrows.

The arrows bounce off the metal with soft 'thing's and 'chinks'.

"We need to get you out of here!" Four hisses to you.

"How?" Ypu huff, catching a sword on your own.

"I don't know!"

Any other talking fades to the background.

Your world narrows to the enemies before you and the hero on either side of you.

Your shield is being a drag, but at least you can say you're using it!

You kick a laying lizafos in the chest as hard as you can, sending it back a little.

You stab at a moblin.

You block some flames with your shield. Your sleeves singe a little.

Another volley of arrows flies towards you.

Your shield takes more hits.

You fall into a haze of pounding wars, clashing metal, and fear.

You take hits that hurt.

Everything blurs.

You move with reflexes you chalk up to fight or flight.

An arrow hits the outside of your thigh.

A sword slices through your abdomen.

Your major organs and arteries are safe but only for now.

There's something wrong-

Wind falls with a scream as a sword pierces just under his kidney.

Oh.

You snarl something and push between the lizafos and Wind.

You stab through the beast with a rage you don't recognize.

An arrow lodges in your calf.

You gasp out a curse.

Someone else screams.

Pain radiates all over your body.

A dead Iron starts towards Four.

You focus on keeping your shield over you and Wind as arrows rain down.

There's a warping scream behind you.

You stab through a lizafos when it approaches.

Spooky jumps at a lizafos and clamps their jaw its throat with a growl. Blood splatters as your loveable panther mauls their dinner.

You block a fire ball as you fall to one knee, keeping yourself and Wind safe.

There's a roar somewhere.

You scream as a lightning arrow hits your shield and electricity runs your body.

The world is spotty.

The gleeock spits fire at your side of the ring.

A double helix sword slashes through the monsters in your peripheral.

That can't be right-

Fierce Deity steps between you and the monster, slaying them with vicious efficiency.

"Shit," you hiss.

"You're both hurt," Four says as he comes up to you.

"Wind's worse," you say firmly.

"Hyrule is out of commission, and we're giving our limited potions to the worst cases," Four sighs.

"That's fine. Take care of Wind first," you prompt as you glance down at the sailor.

He looks horrid.

Someone comes over and starts working on first aid.

You lose track of everything even as they work on bandaging your arrow wounds.

It's Fierce Deity that takes your attention.

He's just so big.

Wind is on the ground by you, in rough shape but half healed. He still has plenty more healing to go but he's stable enough to move.

Warriors finishes your bandages as Fierce approaches you.

"Starshine," the Deity says with a voice like thunder.

"I- hi?" You manage weakly.

"You need to rest," Fierce informs you.

"Later," ypu say firmly.

There are other things to handle.

Other people to check on.

"Soon," Fierce tells you. "You look rough, starlight."

"I'll live. You're hurt too," you say as your eyes fall to where red trickles out if the bottom side of his chest plate.

"Hardly."

"Right... thank you, for helping us," you manage.

Warriors is still at your side, and when you glance over he looks sea sick.

The captain stares up at the Deity with an emotion you can't place.

"It is nothing more than my job," the Deity rumbles. His eyes are white voids that bore into you.

There's a sense that you should feel fear... you really don't.

Something strangely familliar about the deity tugs at your mind.

(A red scarf that smells like the forest and the forge alike comes to mind. A smile that only you get. Grief over separation...)

Spooky comes over with a bloody maw but otherwise fairly happy. They rub against the deity on their way to you.

You smile a little, "Hey, pumpkin."

Spooky just sits down by you and Wind, as if playing look out.

Warriors stands slowly, staring at the deity. He looks ready to say something...

"I must go, starlight, but should you ever need me I shall return," Fierce says as he reaches out to run his knuckles over your cheeks.

"O-okay?" You manage.

You aren't sure what is happening right now but you aren't exactly fearing it.

It's strange!

But not... not bad.

Fierce reaches up and the mask comes off of Time-

Time stumbles and Warriors catches him.

"Are you okay?" You manage to ask Time.

"Fine," the man grits out like a liar.

You think he might be lying to himself more than to you.

You nod, turning your attention back to the still unconscious Wind.

He looks... rough.

His tanned skin takes on a slight green hue due to blood loss, and he twitches every few seconds.

"Isn't there something we can do for him?" You frown.

"We can get him and Hyrule on Epona when Twilight gets her back," Four offers, "and look for a town."

"How are we going to keep them on her if they aren't awake?" You ask.

"Someone has to ride with them," Warriors grunts as he helps lower Time to sit down.

"We'll figure it out," Sky says as he steps over.

You can only hope they're right.

--------

The sun is setting as you find the start of a well worn path near a pond in the grassy field. Everyone walks slowly, many limp.

Epona carries Wind, Hyrule, and Legend. The vet only has a few bruises and shallow cuts, but Legend is awake and is there to help keep the other two on.

The vet sits at the back of the three, arms around Hyrule and Wind with the reigns in Twilight's hand as the rancher leads the horse along.

You are giving Epona so many snacks later. She's amazing.

You walk with a limp that spans both legs, but you can walk better than some of the others. You keep a hand on Spooky as you walk, though, leaning so your cat can take some of your weight.

Spooky dosen’t mind helping you though, they came over and started it themselves.

Warriors has a limp but is supporting most of Time's weight. The eldest if the group has a tourniquet on his thigh and a brace at his left shin.

Sky has Wild's weight. The champion took too many electric arrows, and his muscles are still weak from it for now.

Four walks beside you, limping as well but still holding himself up... though ypu swear you see his shadow snake up one of his ankles every so often...

Morale is very low, but you can't blame them.

"When we get there, rooms have to change up from the usual situation," Time grits out. "I want Wind and Hyrule to share with Warriors."

"You're sharing with Twilight then," Warriors informs evenly.

"I don't need -"

"I'll take care'a 'im," Twilight says.

"I can share with (Y/n) if someone has to," Legend offers, too tired to keep a front.

"Let's -" you swallow thickly, "Let's see what the situation is before we set a plan."

"Good idea," Four says as he tosses you a weak smile.

The smith's eyes glint almost like a Kaleidescape in the setting sun.

A cool breeze billows across the land, and you fight back the shiver.

The air is already chilly, with the cold that blood loss provides. You can only hope to get warm as soon as possible.

Your heart pounds in your ears as every step sends pain through your body.

Your head throbs.

Spooky purrs near constantly for you.

The lower the sun gets the worse your chances of reaching a town before having to make camp look.

"How long before we call it and make camp?" Legend asks as he catches Hyrule before the other falls of for the fifth time in twenty minutes.

Time grunts, "We call it now."

"Really?" Sky asks.

"We call it now," he says again.

There's movement then to start setting up camp with so many out of commission.

Wind and Hyrule are put into bed rolls by Twilight.

You help Wild start a fire with material from his slate and make a stone circle to help prevent problems.

Time sits against Warriors.

Four and Sky help establish a perimeter.

Hopefully, tomorrow, you'll find a town.

-------

Next - wip

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[sugxto]

through the frays of a faulty wire - prologue. eddie x volt

⋆syn: Through Eddie's pain, something - someone - sparks into existence. Exploring how Volt comes to be, and how they navigate their first year of shared existence, together and apart. e/v masterlist. chapter 1/5.

⋆wc: 1.8k

⋆cw: m/m. contains references to drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal ideation, and depression. no explicit sexual content in this part.

⋆notes: This is a small, concentrated series of how Volt came to be, and how they navigate around and with each other over the first year of Volt's existence, taking place years prior to the start of the game. This can be read as a prequel to the Eddie and Volt that exist within the Power Dynamics series also by me, but is mainly just the two of them as we still know in canon. But a lot of how they interact, and their history, is also referenced in PD. One of PD's parts will also join this series once it's finished as a sort of epilogue.

⋆snippet:

He finds the man’s white eyes, finally studying him and replacing the anger with curiosity. He allows himself to feel the charge of the air that hangs between them, and again, he’s hit with a feeling of familiarity. He follows that thread as he searches this strange face, the realization surging over him like a wave.

“You,” he manages out, and white eyes watch him, rapt and waiting, “you’re… you’re my current, aren’t you?”

prologue

This has to work.

It has to. Because Eddie had tried, fucks sake had he tried, drowning this pain, this internal torture, with alcohol. Tried pills he knew Fayra kept hidden away - he’d cut the power in the bathroom, and snuck in while she and Johnny had tried to find whatever was wrong. Tried simply waiting it out, laying on the floor of the grid room for hours, through the night, letting his charge deplete and drain, but it just wouldn’t.

It felt like he was bursting, burning, like the wires inside him were being slowly stripped, being forced to hold and distribute charges too powerful for them to handle. Like whatever power he tried to circulate where needed throughout the house, somehow found its way back into his body, doubled in strength.

And he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

He knew the house needed him. Knew they weren’t oblivious to the surges, the fluctuations, that he had been trying so desperately to control or prevent, to no avail. Knew the toll it was taking on those that relied on him most - all the appliances, Lux, Hector. Knew they all counted on him to keep them charged, running - alive.

But he couldn’t even be certain just how much longer he could ensure that for himself.

That was why this has to work, he thinks, ripping open the door of the grid system. If he could pour everything he had into the circuits, overload the system and force a reset, then maybe -

Maybe something would finally give. He’d tried, one of the first things so many months ago, resetting it normally, a few times, and while the relief did come for a few days after, the pain would return soon after, more splitting than before. But he thought, if it could force it to trip, maybe something new could start circulating, and he could finally, finally be rid of this pain.

Eddie studies the breakers, knows the maps of the wires behind it - they are part of him, after all - knows their inconsistencies and their kinks and their power. And it kills him that he can’t see what’s wrong, what he’s somehow missing, that’s causing this… dysfunction, this breakdown, that frayed him so.

He takes a deep breath, tries to steady his hands as he places them to the metal. He closes his eyes, and finds the thrum of his power inside of him, and channels it through his chest, down his arms, to his palms, sparks starting to fly from his fingers. 

And forces it out.

It burns, it rips from him like the scream that comes from his throat. The current makes his arms shake and tremble, almost like his body is incapable of circulating the magnitude of what courses inside him - which is why he needs it gone. Even if it split him beyond repair, fried him from the inside out, at least he’d be free of it.

His body aches, and his throat is raw, but he can feel it, emptying out of his circuits and into the panel, and he knows he just has to push a little more, and then -

Then, all he sees is white.

It blinds him, overtakes his mind, and shocks his hands with a burn. He stumbles back, his body no longer strong enough to hold itself up, and he falls, weightless, to the ground, white light surrounding his senses before the unconscious dark falls over him.

It could be moments, could be hours, or even days later, he thinks, when he comes back to his senses. His body is aching, exhausted, and he can’t quite find the strength to open his eyes. But still, he notices, as the fog starts to clear, a… relief. That somehow, he’s lighter, his chest not struggling so much to keep a deep breath, and his mind - it’s like a storm has finally broken.

It must’ve worked. Eddie’s never felt like this before or after a reset, or even an outage. He tries, slowly, to find feeling in his fingers, give them a little curl, and with one more deep inhale, he opens his eyes.

Only to be blinded once again by a white, shining light.

He squeezes them shut again, forces his hand up to his face to rub his fingers over his eye lids, trying to reset himself, before trying one more time.

But still, when he opens his eyes, he sees white.

He blinks, focusing his vision and willing this haze away, but then it all starts to get clearer, less foggy.

It’s eyes. 

He blinks again, because yes, it’s eyes, white and shining like a thousand watts, staring at him from only inches above his face.

His body jerks back, pushing himself up and back against the wall, faster than he would have expected to be able to. He pushes his current into his hands, needing some protective bolts to appear at his fingers - but they don’t come. He must really be drained.

But he’ll have to deal with that later. Because now, with this shot of adrenaline coursing through him, and his vision finally clear, he’s able to see what sits before him.

It’s… a man.

The white eyes sit on perhaps the most beautiful face Eddie has ever seen, but the glow radiating from them pales in comparison to the light given off by the being’s mess of white hair, bolts of electricity that remind Eddie of what’s missing from his fingers. The man is crouched to the floor, hugging his knees, but he already knows how big, how wide he is, with shoulders that connect to strong, long arms. And his skin -

It’s like it’s covered in lightning. Light blue, luminous streaks covering the expanse of his arms, his chest, his neck - even more, he guesses, but when Eddie realizes he’s naked, he halts his gaze. He can feel the buzz that emanates from him, like a pull, and it’s so strong, powerful - familiar.

“Who the fuck are you?” Eddie’s voice is hoarse, his throat raw, but his tone leaves no room for misinterpretation - he is demanding an answer.

The man blinks, cocks his head at the smallest angle. His hair crackles and pops as he moves. But he doesn’t speak.

Eddie tries again to summon his bolts, and still, they don’t come. So he steels his voice, tries again. “Yeah, you, how the fuck did you get in here? Who are you?”

Another blink, and dark, jagged brows come to meet at the center of his forehead. His hands come to rest on the floor, balancing his frame as he rests on the balls of his feet. His lips fall open, a deep exhale falling from them. “Eddie,” he finally says, so softly, and his voice sends a shock wave to Eddie’s gut. “Eddie.”

“Yeah I know who the fuck I am,” Eddie says, angrily, and he stands, needing some sort of advantage over this - this thing, if he can’t manage to make his sparks. He presses himself against the wall, and the man’s white eyes follow every inch that he moves. “You. You. Tell me who you fucking are. Now.”

But the man stands too, and Eddie realizes he’s most certainly still at a disadvantage - he’s taller, not to mention wider, and the muscles on his arms far outweigh Eddie’s. But the blue streaks that covered him are fading, dimming into white to match his skin. When he speaks again, Eddie can see him testing the words, how his tongue forms the sounds. “You’re… Eddie.”

“I’m not playing around. I - I can hurt you.” Eddie’s not sure if that’s true right now, but he didn’t need to know that. “So for fucks sake, answer me!”

The man gives a soft shake of his head, one of his hands coming to rest at the center of his chest, and the lightning marks on his chest are blue again where it lands. “I’m…” he shakes his head again, makes a fist with the hand. “I, don’t know.”

What the fuck. “Well, you fucking got in here somehow, didn’t you? So where did you come from, huh?” Eddie looks around the room for the first time since waking, looking for signs of intrusion, or hell, to make sure he was even still in the Breaker Box. But nothing seems amiss, nothing except the scorch marks that now adorn the walls around the grid controls. He looks back at the man, trying to control his breathing. “Are you - what are you, fucking lightning? Did you strike the house? Is that why I passed out?”

The man shakes his head more fervently this time. “No. Not… I’m…” he’s struggling, Eddie sees it, to make the words he wants to. He purses his lips, and pulls his hand away from his chest, bringing it palm up in front of him, and Eddie presses himself even further back into the wall. He’s about to say something again, but then, from the man’s hand, come white hot bolts of static, sparks and volts that dance around his fingers and circle his wrist, and Eddie stares with wide, shocked eyes.

Those sparks, those… those were Eddie’s bolts. The ones he was missing, that always came when he called them, that he could snap on or off with a whim. But here they were, no longer in his control, in this thing’s, this stranger’s hand, like they were part of his very nature.

But the bolts were a small part of a large picture, just one concentration of how Eddie’s power over his current manifested when he wanted it to. And if this man could create them -

Eddie wills his breathing to slow, and quickly takes stock his the sensations inside his body, looking for the central circuit that controls how he regulates his power - maybe, if he found that, he could assess how to recharge it, get it back under control -

But he can’t. It’s… gone. Not just the sparks of the current, but all of it - the harsh buzz of his electricity that flowed through his veins, his wires, for every day of his existence. He… he can’t feel it anymore. Can’t summon it, can’t control it, can’t… find it.

It should crush him, the weight of this revelation, the loss of something so intrinsic to him. And yet, he feels lighter than he ever remembers feeling.

He finds the man’s white eyes, finally studying him and replacing the anger with curiosity. He allows himself to feel the charge of the air that hangs between them, and again, he’s hit with a feeling of familiarity. He follows that thread as he searches this strange face, the realization surging over him like a wave.

“You,” he manages out, and white eyes watch him, rapt and waiting, “you’re… you’re my current, aren’t you?”

[sunandflame]

Threaded in Fire - Part 1/3

He wasn’t supposed to exist. But neither were you. And now, in the sky above Onigashima, your flames have found each other.

Warnings: slow burn romance, canon-typical violence, implied torture (punk hazard trauma, King's backstory), ptsd, flashbacks to genocide/cultural erasure, survivor's guilt, grief and loneliness, found family elements, hurt-comfort, angst, lunarian headcanons, oda please let me write the lunarians

Word Count: 9000~

Pairing: King (Alber) x Female Lunarian!Reader

crossposted on AO3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Chapter 1: The Spark of a Rumor

The tavern is dim, all flickering lamps and low murmurs drowned beneath the heavy coastal rain. The scent of sea salt clings to the air, blending with ale and wet wood. You sit in the farthest, darkest corner—hunched low, hood drawn deep. Still, you can feel the eyes.

You’re nearly six meters tall. You try not to stand out, wrapping your black-feathered wings tightly under your thick coat, letting the hunch of your shoulders fake the illusion of deformity. But even slouched and shadowed, you take up space. You always have. And people notice.

So you keep still. You listen.

At a table not far from you, a group of pirates is deep in drink and louder than they should be. One of them slams his mug on the table, golden liquid spilling across the wood.

“I swear on my life,” he says, swaying with every word, “Kaido’s got a monster in his crew. Wings—black wings like a damned bird. Bronze skin. Fire on his back. Saw it with my own eyes out by Wano.”

You don’t move, but something in you stills.

His companion laughs, scoffing through crooked teeth. “You were high on Sea Prism fumes, idiot.”

“I wasn’t!” the first snaps. “I know what I saw. That thing looked like a god. No, a demon. One of them Lunarians.”

Your fingers clench beneath the table. Your wings itch under the coat, reacting instinctively—wanting to flare, to stretch, to rise. But you don’t let them. You’ve trained your body to shrink, even if it never truly can. You’ve learned to fold yourself small despite your size. Even now, pressed into this corner, you know you’re too big for it.

“I thought they were extinct,” the second mutters, voice lowering. “Didn’t the World Government wipe 'em out? You know they’re still offering a hundred million Berries for any intel on one?”

You grit your teeth. 

Yes. You know.

You know what it means to live hunted. To keep running, island after island, hiding your wings, your skin, your truth. You know what it means to wake up in cold sweat remembering flames, screams, the fall of your people. You’ve lived with the belief that you were the last. Alone in a world that wants you dead or dissected.

But now... this.

A rumor.

Another.

Your heart slams against your ribs like it wants out. You rise, quiet and smooth, towering over the rest of the tavern as you move toward the door. You hear the pause in conversation as your shadow passes—feel the tension—but no one dares speak.

Outside, the rain soaks through your hood in seconds. The sea roars against the cliffs. You don’t care. You vanish into the storm, your wings shifting restlessly beneath your coat.

If this rumor is true—if one of your kind still breathes beneath Kaido’s flag—then you must find him. You will find them.

Even if it means walking straight into the empire of a Yonko.

Even if it means risking everything.

Because you are not the last.

And neither are they.

~~~

Chapter 2: Ashes and Sky

You move before dawn.

The sea still groans in its sleep, the clouds low and heavy like they remember the storms of yesterday. You pack little. You’ve learned to live light—just enough food and coin to get you to the next island. You’ve never had the luxury of more.

Your wings ache beneath the coat, pressing tightly against your back. They want to stretch. To remember the sky.

But not here. Not yet.

The docks are quiet as you board a modest cargo ship heading toward a cluster of islands near Wano. You pay double to be ignored. The sailors ask no questions—they can tell from your size alone that you’re not to be messed with. Good. You don’t want words. You need the silence. Because in that silence, the past always comes back.

You were only a child when the fire stopped meaning safety.

You remember the screams first. Not the words—just the sound of them. Your people didn’t cry often, but that day, the sound was endless. Like the wind caught fire and turned into voices. The walls of the citadel burned, but no one inside did. You didn’t know yet that that made you different.

What you remember most is running—tiny legs, barely able to lift off the ground. Your wings weren't strong enough yet. You flapped, you tried, but the sky wouldn't hold you. You stumbled through ash and flame, your silver hair catching cinders, your skin blistering not from heat but from grief.

And when you looked back, no one followed.

They died. Or scattered.

You’ve been running ever since.

The ship rocks beneath your feet. You sit beneath the deck, hunched as always, eyes fixed on the grain of the wood. Sleep won’t come. It never does when your thoughts spiral.

What if the rumor is true?

What if it's real?

But deeper down: what if it isn’t?

What if they lied? Or if the creature you find under Kaido’s flag is nothing like you? What if they doesn’t care? Or worse—what if they forgotten what you are? What you are?

You don’t even know what you’d say to them.

"Hello, I thought I was alone."

"Do you remember what it felt like to fall?"

You imagine their face and can't picture anything. Just fire. Wings. A towering shadow that might mirror your own. You wonder if they ever dreamed of others like you. Or if Kaido has beaten that out of them. Controlled him. Branded him.

You know this: if Kaido has them, then they are not free.

And maybe neither are you.

The days pass slowly. You change ships twice. Each time, more eyes linger. More risk. You keep to yourself, never letting your wings breathe. Not yet. Not until you're closer.

You pass the nights tracing the lines of your arms, your shoulders. No scars mark your skin—your body never held onto wounds. But memory did. Your hands remember every fall, every hunger, every night you faced the dark alone. You are strong, but not untouched. And every silent breath you take whispers the same thing:

You survived.

By the time the final island appears on the horizon—one step from Wano—your heart feels like it’s carrying your whole bloodline.

You stand at the edge of the ship, the wind catching in your hood. The skies feel heavier here. Charged. Like Wano is alive and watching.

You're almost there.

They are out there.

And no matter what you find…

You have to see them.

~~~

Chapter 3: Wings Unbound

No ship would take you to Wano.

Not for any price.

The moment you asked—carefully, discreetly—eyes would sharpen, conversations would end. You knew what it meant: Wano wasn’t just dangerous, it was closed. Sealed off like a tomb. The country rejected the world with swords drawn. Outsiders were hunted, cut down before they touched its soil. No port, no passage. No welcome.

So you wait.

For the moon to rise. For the sky to blacken into a sea of stars. And then—when the coast is clear—you shed the weight you’ve carried for days.

You shrug off the coat. Your wings unfurl with a slow, aching stretch, each feather shaking from disuse. The span of them gleams in the dark like storm-drenched obsidian. And for the first time in weeks, you inhale like the air belongs to you.

You leap. And the wind catches you.

The sky embraces you like it remembers. You rise silently, skimming through clouds, the cold air sharp against your cheeks. Your white hair is tucked under a dark scarf, your flame dimmed to near nothing, hidden carefully between your shoulder blades. You are just a shadow in the night, passing over the sea.

The journey is longer than you thought.

But finally—through breaks in the mist—you see it. A chain of sharp islands, black cliffs rising from the water like jagged teeth. You slow your flight. Study the terrain. Then you see it: a separate island—ominous, carved with a massive oni face in its stone. It stares out over the sea with empty eyes and curled tusks, as if daring anyone to land.

You furrow your brow. That must be it. The base. The stronghold. The place they keep monsters. 

Your wings fold slightly as you descend, circling silently toward a rocky landing spot near the edge of the cliff. And that’s when you see it— a flicker of orange light—

Instinct screams through you, and you twist in midair just in time to dodge the fireball. It explodes past you with a roar, searing heat licking at your side. You spin upward, feathers scorched at the tips, adrenaline flooding your limbs.

Where—?

You scan the darkness frantically— Then you see it. A massive form cutting through the sky, wings stretched wide—leather, not feathered—flames trailing from its back. A beast. A predator. A man. A pteranodon.

Your heart stutters. He’s enormous, even at a distance, but he’s closing in fast. The flare of his wings glows with fury. You can see the glint of metal, leather armor—his eyes locked onto you.

You panic. You’ve never fought something like this in the air. You don’t want to fight at all. You try to flee—push higher, faster— But he follows.

No choice.

You let your flame ignite.

The heat floods down your spine. The fire erupts between your wings, not like a torch—but like a warning. Your body surges with power as the flame shields you, reinforcing your back and bones, your core strengthening to withstand what’s coming.

Let him try.

You twist through the sky, heart pounding. The wind howls around you as you dodge another strike, your wings banking sharply left, cutting through the darkness.

You're no longer hiding.

But you’re still alone.

And you're not sure what this winged attacker is yet— Only that he's not the one you came for.

~~~

Chapter 4: The Sky Burns Twice

The guards on the night watch were shouting.

King heard the alarm just as he stepped onto the balcony that overlooked the sea cliffs. Onigashima’s towering fortress loomed behind him, its walls lit by a dull, ever-burning flame. The wind pulled at his coat, cold and salty. He narrowed his eyes toward the horizon, his sharp gaze catching a flicker of movement above the dark water.

Something was in the sky.

“Large shadow, moving fast!” one of the guards called. “Too big to be a bird—!”

King didn’t wait to hear more.

With a flare of heat and a rush of air, his body shifted mid-step—mass expanding, limbs elongating into wings and talons. Flames erupted from his back as he launched into the air, his form fully shifted into the massive pteranodon granted by his Devil Fruit.

If something dares fly near Onigashima, he would be the one to tear it down.

The night wind howled as he soared, black wings cutting through the clouds. He spotted it quickly—a shadow just ahead, matching his altitude, trying to move silently against the stars. Not a bird. Not a bat. Something… humanoid?

Without hesitation, he dove in for a strike, fire trailing in his wake as he launched a fireball toward the target. It spun—graceful, deliberate—and dodged.

His eyes narrowed.

That kind of speed in midair wasn’t human. But it wasn’t another Beast Pirate either. He circled again, drawing closer, preparing to strike once more—

Then he saw it. 

In the dark sky, the figure turned just enough for the moonlight to catch them.

Feathered wings. Not leathery like his pteranodon form. But vast—long, black, glossy feathers catching the wind. And then the unmistakable flare of a flame between their shoulder blades.

He halted mid-flight, wings beating once to steady himself as shock struck him like a blade to the chest.

No…

It wasn’t possible.

He was the last.

He had to be the last.

Yet before him, midair and burning like a phantom, was someone else. Someone with wings, with flame, with the ancient markers of the gods they used to be. Her body was massive—nearly his own height, easily towering over any ordinary human. A brief flash of white hair escaped her scarf, and brown skin caught the glint of firelight.

A woman.

He could tell from the form, from the frame. Powerful, but not like his own. Different.

His instincts screamed—questions burned through his skull—but his body refused to move. For the first time in decades, he faltered in the sky. Was this an illusion? A trap? A trick of his memory? But no hallucination would burn with that kind of flame.

His mouth went dry beneath the leather mask.

She’s Lunarian.

And that changed everything.

~~~

Chapter 5: Flame Meeting Flame

The sky was silent for a long heartbeat.

You hovered midair, your wings outstretched and burning with effort. The flame at your back flickered brightly, no longer hidden. Your lungs ached from the sharp dodge, your body taut with adrenaline. You could feel him watching you—that monstrous presence that had nearly taken your head off. He was massive, all claw and fury and fire. And yet…

He wasn’t moving.

The pteranodon hovered, tail whipping in the wind, fire curling from his back just like yours. You saw hesitation in the tilt of his wings, in the way his body stopped short of another attack. The moonlight reflected against his leather uniform and mask.

You didn’t speak first.

You couldn’t. You didn’t even know how.

Then, slowly—deliberately—he began to descend.

He shifted as he landed on a jagged outcrop of Onigashima’s outer cliffs, the transformation folding in on itself until the beast was gone and the man stood tall again. Almost as tall as you. Just as dark. His black wings flexed wide, like yours. His flame still burned behind him. The heat from it swept across the sky like a warning.

He raised his head, that mask unmoving.

“…Who are you?”

His voice was low. Guttural. Suspicious. And underneath it, something else. Shaken.

You hovered above him still, not daring to get closer. Not yet.

“…You’re like me,” you managed, your voice hoarse with disbelief.

His flame pulsed slightly.

“Impossible.” He took a step forward, fists clenched at his sides. “There are no others.”

You slowly descended, boots landing with a crunch against the stone. You stayed on the edge—ready to launch yourself away if he made another move. Your wings twitched, tense.

“I thought I was the last,” you said, eyes locked with the slits of his mask. “But then I heard a rumor… about someone in leather, with wings and fire on their back, who fights for Kaido. And I couldn’t ignore it.”

He didn’t speak. He didn’t breathe. You could feel the heat rolling off of him like a furnace. You didn’t know what he’d do. You had no idea how he’d react.

“I needed to see if it was true,” you continued, barely above a whisper. “I needed to know I wasn’t… alone anymore.”

His wings curled slowly in, not in hostility—but something else. Containment. Restraint. The silence stretched again. Finally, his voice came low, but steady.

“…You were a child. During the purge?”

You nodded, a thick knot forming in your throat.

He tilted his head, unreadable. “And you survived.”

“Barely,” you said. “You?”

“I was taken,” he replied stiffly. “Experimented on. Used.” A pause. He was still watching you like a hawk, but something inside him had shifted. That rigid tension… cracked. Even just slightly.

“You have a name?” he asked, voice softer. Almost reluctant.

You gave it. Quietly.

He stared for a long second.

“…I’m King,” he said.

Your lips parted. You hadn’t expected him to give it. But something about the way he said it—the slight pause, the way his eyes didn’t quite meet yours—told you that it wasn’t his real name.

You didn’t press it.

And you both stood there, strangers bound by fire and memory, at the edge of the Beast Pirates’ fortress. Two Lunarians. Both thought lost. Now staring at one another, uncertain what to do next.

But no longer alone.

~~~

Chapter 6: Smoke Without Sound

The night clung to the cliffs like a second skin. Wind swept across the jagged stone, whispering between the peaks of Onigashima, carrying the scent of smoke, sea, and something ancient.

You walked in silence behind him.

He said nothing. Just moved with purpose, wings tucked, stride long and sure. The only sound was the quiet scuff of your boots against the stone path and the occasional rattle of armor where his gauntlet brushed against his side. His flame dimmed slightly, though never vanished. Yours did the same in quiet response.

He led you through narrow ridges, behind a hidden outcrop high above the main encampments. A place shielded by the natural terrain. No patrols. No sentries. Just a quiet overlook lit only by moonlight and flickering embers.

“This spot isn’t watched,” he said simply, glancing behind him to make sure you followed. “No one comes here.”

You nodded once, black cloak rustling as you stepped further in. The hood had fallen back during flight and remained off, your white hair catching pale light like frost in firelight.

You sat near the cliff’s edge, stretching your wings just slightly before folding them in. It felt like exhaling after holding your breath for hours. He stood for a long moment before slowly settling across from you, not too close—but not far either.

Silence.

His eyes hadn’t left you. Behind the black mask, he stared. Still. Unblinking. As if he expected you to vanish if he turned away.

You didn’t look away either. He was slightly taller and his frame was built for battle. Broad shoulders, long limbs, all wrapped in hardened leather and flame. His wings were larger than yours too, stronger. You watched the fire behind him burn quietly. Familiar. Sacred. And yet…

You furrowed your brows, frustrated. That mask.

You didn’t want to be ungrateful. You didn’t want to question him, not after everything. But something in you twisted. You needed to see. To be sure. That he was real. That you weren’t just losing your mind after years of loneliness and grief. That the one other Lunarian in the world wasn’t just fire and wings, but him. Face and all.

Still, you said nothing.

Not yet.

He finally broke the silence.

“…You don’t hide your face,” he murmured, low and observant.

You tilted your head slightly. “Do you always hide yours?”

His jaw shifted slightly beneath the mask. “It’s easier this way.”

You didn’t press. But your gaze stayed on him. You hoped—maybe—that he’d take it off on his own.

He didn’t. But his wings twitched. Like he was… thinking about it.

And for a moment, the two of you just watched each other.

No threats. No questions. Just the quiet tension of recognition. Two people who had no words yet for what they were feeling. Two Lunarians in exile, staring across a forgotten cliffside as the night wrapped around them.

And for the first time in years, you weren’t alone.

~~~

Chapter 7: A Flicker Before Flame

The quiet stretched.

You sat on opposite sides of the small outcrop, stone beneath you, wind curling between. He hadn’t spoken since you landed. Neither had you. The weight of what you’d both seen—the truth of each other—still pressed like heat between your lungs.

Another Lunarian.

Another one.

Your eyes never strayed far from him. Even as the stars turned overhead. Even as the fire between your shoulder blades softened to a calm, rhythmic pulse. He sat still as stone, save for the subtle shift of his wings adjusting to the wind. His flame flickered low but steady behind him.

You studied the curve of his shoulders. The way he sat—alert, but not aggressive. Quiet, but not disinterested. You couldn’t see his face behind the black mask, but somehow, you felt his eyes on you too. And for a while, that was enough.

There were too many things to say. Too much to ask. Too much you were afraid to voice, in case doing so might break whatever fragile thing had just formed in the space between your hearts.

Time passed. Minutes. Maybe longer.

Eventually, he looked away—toward the sky, wings folding behind him as if in thought.

“I have to return,” he said, voice low, like it pained him to say the words out loud. “They’ll start asking questions.”

You didn’t move. You didn’t ask who they were. You didn’t want to. He stood, the motion precise. Silent. His eyes lingered on you a moment longer, fire flickering faintly in the dark.

“Stay here.”

It wasn’t a command. It was something else. A request. A promise buried in a single line of certainty. You didn’t understand why, but you nodded. Something in you trusted him. Trusted the flame you saw in him—one that echoed your own.

You said nothing as he turned. His wings spread, fire flaring, lifting him into the air. You watched him until he vanished into the sky.

You didn’t sleep that night. You waited.

~~~

Alber had returned to Onigashima saying little.

“The object was neutralized,” he told when asked. “No threat.”

It was a lie. And yet, it was the only truth he could speak without giving anything away.

He told himself it was nothing. That it had to be a mistake. A ghost. A hallucination born from hope long dead. Another Lunarian couldn’t just exist. Not after what the world had done to their kind.

But still—he didn’t sleep either.

He couldn’t.

And when the moon climbed the sky again, he was already in the air. A wrapped satchel clutched in his hand, filled with fruit he’d taken from the storehouse. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t planned to bring anything. He didn’t even know if you were real.

But his fire stirred the closer he flew to the cliffs. And when he landed—there it was again. Your flame. Your wings. Your brown skin and white-silver hair catching the night wind just like before.

You turned the moment his boots touched stone.

And he just… stared. No words.

He stepped forward and placed the satchel of fruit down between you, the leather soft against the rock. Then, without explanation, he sat across from you. Saying nothing.

You blinked once, your expression caught between surprise and something gentler. Slowly, almost cautiously, you reached forward and took one of the fruits—a ripe persimmon—and bit into it.

The juice touched your lips. Sweet. Real. You ate slowly, your gaze never leaving his. And he watched you, flame low, silent.

And this time… he stayed.

~~~

Chapter 8: The Weight of Names

The silence between you stretched long. Not cold—just heavy. Weighted with recognition. You sat across from each other beneath the outcrop’s shelter, the hush of the sea distant beneath the cliffs, the night wind curling around you in soft, measured breaths.

You didn’t speak for a while. Maybe minutes. Maybe more. Just… watched him. Watched the way his flame flickered low at his back, how it pulsed steady and quiet—like your own. You didn’t know what to say. Or if you even should.

He didn’t seem like the type to speak freely. His presence was vast and silent, like some stone carved by fire that had chosen not to crumble. But still, your gaze returned to him again and again. As if to remind yourself he was real. And then—too fast, too sudden—you spoke.

“…Why are you with him?”

The words were out before you could stop them. You blinked, lips parting like you might take them back. But you didn’t. You couldn’t.

His eyes didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t answer.

Your stomach twisted. You stared at the shadows, your own voice echoing in your ears, sharper than you intended. You tried to speak again—to soften it—but nothing came. Just the quiet hum of your flame.

A minute passed. Maybe more.

You thought he wouldn’t answer.

Then, finally—soft and low, his voice cut through the hush.

“Because he saved me.”

Your eyes widened slightly.

“I was held at Punk Hazard. A test subject. Since I was a child.” His tone was flat, factual. But something twisted beneath it—like rusted steel beginning to bend under pressure. “They tried to burn me. Over and over. In some kind of kiln. Testing how much heat a Lunarian body could take.”

His gaze dropped for a moment, jaw tight. “Kaido broke in. Looking for power. He saw what they were doing. Destroyed the machine himself.”

There was a pause. The air around him seemed to grow heavier. “He knew what I was. Knew I was Lunarian. Asked me if I wanted to come with him. Said he wanted to change the world.”

You stayed quiet, watching him.

“I said yes,” he said simply. “So we fled. He gave me a place. Gave me a name.”

You tilted your head, studying him. “King?”

“Yes. So I could live free under his wing. So the world government wouldn’t find me.” A soft, almost bitter sound escaped him—too sharp to be a laugh, too quiet to be anger. “I don’t know why I’m telling you that,” he muttered. “I never tell anyone.”

You didn’t smile—but inside, something softened. Because you had known. You had guessed it the moment he said it.

King. It didn’t fit—not for a Lunarian. Not for your kind.

The names of your people had once been softer. Melodic. A contradiction to the harshness of their endurance. The cruelty they’d survived. Names passed down like lullabies—warm even in fire. His was a title, not a name. Something placed upon him. Something that erased what came before. But also something that protected him all these years.

“I knew it wasn’t yours,” you said gently, watching his masked face. “It doesn’t sound like… us.”

He didn’t deny it.

You let your eyes drift to the distant sky, the wind curling around the cliff.

“…I’m glad,” you whispered after a moment. “That you weren’t alone all this time.”

He turned slightly toward you, but didn’t speak.

You hugged your cloak a little closer. “I was. After the purge. I ran. Hid. Moved between islands. Never stayed long. No one… no one knew what I was. Or cared.” Your voice caught slightly, but you pushed forward. “I thought maybe… I was some punishment. Or mistake.”

His wings shifted.

“I envied the ones who died quickly,” you added, quieter now. “They didn’t have to carry the ache. But I knew I had to survive. For their sake.”

Still no reply—but his posture changed. A flicker of tension in his shoulders. Like your words had struck something deep.

“And then,” you said, “I heard the rumor. Someone with black wings. Fire. Untouchable. I thought it had to be a lie. But if it wasn’t…” You looked at him again. “If there was even a chance…”

His voice was low. “…You came all this way.”

You nodded once. “Because I had to know.”

King leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. His flame flared once and then stilled.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, but there was no heat in it. “They’ll kill you if they find out.”

You met his gaze, unwavering. “Then they won’t find out.”

The wind swept between you again, stirring the edges of your cloak, the ends of his long coat. The fire behind both of you burned quietly. Not hidden anymore. Not pretending to be human.

For a long moment, you both just sat there—two survivors of a vanished race, finally face to face.

And for the first time since your wings had grown strong enough to fly—you felt seen.

~~~

Chapter 9: Emberlight

The silence wasn’t unwelcome.

It lingered between you, warm despite the wind, like a breath neither of you wanted to disturb. Strange, yes. But not uncomfortable. The kind of silence that lives between people who carry the same scars.

You sat across from him, knees drawn up beneath your cloak. The distance was small—just enough for the firelight to flicker in the space between—but it felt more like a thread than a gap. The hood of your cloak had fallen back, exposing your face to the wind, and still, you didn’t reach for it. You noticed again how he kept glancing at you—quick, subtle. Still disbelieving.

You didn’t blame him.

You looked at him too, really looked. He was a little taller than you. Broad-shouldered, long-limbed, built like something forged to survive. His black wings stretched, settling behind him with a quiet rustle. That mask still covered his face, hiding the truth beneath. But the fire behind him… that wasn’t hidden. Not from you.

You exhaled slowly, then spoke—tentative. “I remember a garden.”

King looked at you, but said nothing.

You let your mind drift. “There was this old woman… She taught the children. All of us. Even when we were too wild to listen. She had this voice—calm, like the sea after a storm. And she always smelled like herbs and ash.” A small smile tugged at your lips. “I haven’t thought about her in years.”

King’s head tilted. “…Dari.”

You blinked.

“That was her name,” he said. “She had a crooked finger. Always used it to scold me.” There was a roughness in his voice—something lighter, flickering. “She made me memorize the stars. Said I’d need them when I flew far.”

Your breath caught softly. “She made me plant seeds,” you murmured. “Even when I was angry. Said it was good for the spirit to wait for something to grow.”

“She gave me a carved stone. Said it was for strength. I lost it.”

You met his eyes—or what you could see of them through the mask.

“She never raised her voice,” you said.

“She didn’t need to,” he answered.

The quiet returned—but this time, it was filled with something golden. Memory. Recognition. A shared thread of light from before the fire took everything. You hugged your knees to your chest, the warmth of his presence still so new, so unexpected. The ache of loneliness in your bones had dulled, just slightly.

But it didn’t last. King shifted suddenly, wings flexing.

“I have to go,” he said. The warmth in his voice had cooled again, cautious. “They’ll notice if I’m gone too long.”

You nodded, understanding. “I won’t be seen.”

He rose to his full height, standing above you now. “Stay here. For now.”

You looked up at him. “Will you come back?” This time you dared to ask.

A pause.

“Yes.”

That was all he said before launching into the sky. His wings beat strong against the wind, flame trailing behind him like a comet. Within moments, he vanished into the shadows above Onigashima’s jagged ridges.

You watched until the last flicker of fire disappeared. Then, slowly, you pulled your cloak back over your head. The warmth of the moment dimmed as the cold returned. You stood and walked to the wind-still side of the outcrop, where the cliff cradled the air like a quiet cave. There, you lowered yourself to the ground, using your travel bag as a pillow. The stars above were dim behind drifting clouds.

You stared at them anyway.

Exhaustion settled into your bones—but your thoughts moved in slow, circling patterns. Restless wings.

King.

The conversation. His voice. The way he never took off the mask. You understood why. He couldn’t afford vulnerability—not as Kaido’s right hand. Not in this world. And still…

You didn’t know his name. Not the name from the scientists. Not the one Kaido gave him. But his name. The one given in fire and love, before the world turned cruel.

You wanted to know it. But you wouldn’t ask. Not yet.

You closed your eyes. And for the first time in years, you dreamed of a garden blooming under flame-kissed skies.

~~~

Chapter 10: Ashes That Remember

He didn’t usually think this much.

Not unless it involved tactics, terrain, or the fault lines in enemy ranks. Kaido didn’t keep him for softness. He kept him because King executed. Without hesitation. Without question. But now, thoughts weighed down his chest like stones. And they all circled the same center.

You.

Even with Onigashima’s walls humming with noise—rowdy crews, clinking cups, the thunder of Kaido’s voice down the hall—his mind wandered. Drifted. Pulled back to the cliffs outside the fortress, where fire still lingered in the stone. Where you waited.

You, with wings like his. With the voice that knew the songs of his people. With the scent of ash and home.

He’d told you to stay hidden. Not knowing why he expected obedience. But you had. You listened. You trusted him. That trust unsettled him in ways no battlefield ever had.

His hand hovered over the untouched meal in front of him—roasted fish, bread, slices of citrus. He’d sat through dinner without a word, Kaido’s presence at the head of the long table like a stormcloud. He felt the older man watching him, but Kaido never spoke. Only grunted once or twice, assessing.

Now, alone in his quarters, King wrapped the food in cloth, his movements precise. Silent.

His wings stretched wide before he leapt from the balcony. His fire left a soft trail across the sky as he cut through the clouds, leaving Onigashima behind. The outcrop was hidden well, a carved overlook against the jagged cliffs. And when he landed, you were still there—perched near the edge like a sentinel, your white-silver hair catching the moonlight. Your cloak tugged by the wind.

You turned before he made a sound.

“You came back,” you said quietly.

He held out the bundle of food. Said nothing.

You blinked, surprise flickering through your features. “Is that… for me?”

He gave a slow nod. 

You stepped closer and took it, fingers brushing against his gloved palm. Your warmth lingered longer than it should have. He felt it like a brand. You didn’t open it yet. You only looked at him—long, steady—and then settled down on the cold stone again. A wordless invitation. He joined you.

The silence stretched. But it wasn’t cold. Not anymore.

“I didn’t think I’d ever hear someone say her name again,” you said softly, your gaze fixed on the sea.

“Neither did I,” he murmured.

And so you talked. In low voices, slow and steady—like embers reigniting. You spoke of the old ones, of fire rites and cliff rituals, of stories passed down in firelight. You spoke of a childhood neither of you had truly left behind, only buried beneath survival.

He didn’t laugh—he rarely ever did—but something loosened in his chest when you imitated an old elder who always accused the children of stealing his walking stick. You laughed, though. And the sound made something deep in him ache.

He watched you more than he listened. Noticed everything.

The tilt of your head when you were deep in thought. The twitch in your wings when you remembered something painful and tried to hide it. The way you didn’t flinch when silence fell—you simply let it breathe. You didn’t ask about his name. Or his mask. Or the things that weighed down his past. You didn’t ask anything from him. That alone shook something loose in his chest.

Then—

Purururu—Purururu.

The Den Den Mushi at his side chirped, shrill in the stillness. He didn’t curse aloud, but something in his jaw flexed. He answered it with steady hands.

Kaido’s voice, deep and gravel-thick, rumbled through. “Where are you, King? Come.”

King’s eyes flicked to you. You’d gone quiet, gaze sharp now, instinctual. 

“Scouting perimeter,” he said. “I’ll return shortly.”

A pause. Then Kaido grunted. “Something’s moving near the northern line. Be quick.” The line cut out.

He stood but didn’t leave.

“You should go,” you said gently.

“I know.” Still, he hesitated.

He owed Kaido everything. A name. A purpose. Freedom. No one had ever given him that before. But this—what he found here with you—this wasn’t a rebellion. This wasn’t disloyalty. It was instinct.

And Kaido hadn’t seen what he’d seen. Yet.

King looked at you once more. Then stepped toward the ledge.

“Be careful… King,” you said, softer now.

He paused.

Then flew into the darkness, the fire trailing from his back dimmer than usual—because part of his flame stayed behind.

~~~

Chapter 11: The Space Between Fire

The fortress was noise and movement. Steel boots, laughter, cannon blasts echoing from practice drills, and Kaido’s voice roaring through stone walls when someone disappointed him. It was normal. Familiar.

But ever since you appeared, it all felt distant. Off-kilter.

Like he was floating between two flames—one scorching and loud, the other warm and quiet.

He moved through the fortress as he always had, his towering figure unreadable behind the leather mask, his presence enough to part the lesser members of the crew. No one dared question him. Not out loud. But they were looking. He felt it.

His silences had grown longer. His patrols stretched minutes into hours, and he’d started returning with dirt on his boots, wind in his feathers. And more than once… food missing from the stores.

He didn’t know why he kept doing it. The extra food. The cloth he tucked into his leather armor and later left behind for you to use as a blanket. The small trinket—an old wind chime he’d found half-buried in the ruins near the mountain path. He hadn’t even known if you’d like it, but when you’d turned it over in your hands with a strange softness in your eyes, something in him had settled.

Still, he didn’t speak about you. Not to anyone. 

Kaido hadn’t asked. Not yet.

And if that day came…

He didn’t know what he’d say.

~~~

The cave he’d found was nestled into the side of the cliffs, away from the patrol lines and air paths. No one from the Beasts Pirates ever came this far unless under orders—and he made damn sure no such orders were ever given.

He didn’t know why he’d brought you there the first night.

Maybe because it was the only place he knew that had room for silence.

And space to breathe.

~~~

When he landed this time, it was just past twilight. The sky bleeding gold and ink.

You were already there—curled at the edge of the overlook, your black cloak pooling around you like shadowed wings, your eyes cast toward the sea. The moment you turned to see him, his chest tightened. Every time, it happened. Every time, your face struck something in him—something soft and bone-deep.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to. 

He handed you the wrapped food. Your fingers brushed his gloves, and his flame flared once—faint and fleeting.

You smiled like it meant something. And it did. Neither of you talked about what was happening. You didn’t define it. You didn’t dare. It was shy, but not awkward. Silent, but not hollow. Just sacred.

Some days, you asked questions. About the old ways. About the elder you’d both remembered. About the songs sung over fire in a tongue the world had long forgotten. You spoke of things that felt older than memory, yet etched into your bones.

Names were spoken with care. Not often. But when they were, they carried weight. Not for definition. But for remembrance.

One night, you asked if he ever missed them—the others. He didn’t answer at first. Just looked out into the dark. Thought of ashes.

Then he’d said, low and quiet, “Every time I fly.”

You hadn’t asked anything else. But your hand had moved close to his. Not touching. Just near enough to feel.

He hadn’t moved it away.

~~~

Back in the fortress, whispers had begun.

One of the grunts muttered that “King’s been off lately.” Another mentioned he hadn’t yelled once during drills. Hadn’t lit anything on fire in over a week.

He caught Kaido looking at him once during a strategy meeting. Just once. King held that stare. Neutral. Blank.

Kaido said nothing. He didn’t ask where King disappeared to when the sky turned black and the world quieted, because he trusted him. And King was grateful. Because you were still there, waiting. Always cloaked. Always careful. Never flying near the fortress, never testing the borderlines. You moved like wind over still water—quiet and cautious.

For his sake.

It made his chest ache. You trusted him without asking for anything in return. And that was becoming a problem. Because he wanted things. To see your face in the full light. To know your past, not because it mattered, but because it was yours. To hear your laugh again. To protect you from the world that hunted them both.

He didn’t understand the depth of it yet, only that he couldn’t stop thinking about you.

Even in battle. Even in silence. Even now, sitting beside you as the sea moved endlessly below, and you leaned your head against the cave wall—not touching him, but close enough that he could feel the heat of your presence.

He realized something terrifying.

You weren’t his secret.

You were his sanctuary.

~~~

Chapter 12: A Flame That Waits

The days blurred when he was gone. Not from boredom. Not from despair. But from the strange, soft ache that filled the quiet between one heartbeat and the next.

You never knew how long he would be away. Sometimes it was a full day. Sometimes longer. The sun would dip below the cliffs and rise again, the wind shifting over the rocks like fingers threading through old memories. And still, you waited. 

Not because you were trapped. But because you wanted to be here when he came back.

This place—this wind-bitten cave on the cliffs, shaped by time and silence—was not a prison. It was the first place you ever felt seen.

He never told you much, but he brought things.

Food wrapped in cloth, still warm. A smooth piece of volcanic glass shaped like a wing. A coil of soft rope, useful for climbing. A single carved piece of driftwood with a swirl etched into it—your people’s symbol for “home.”

And once, an old wind chime made of bone and scorched metal, rusted by the salt air but still able to catch the breeze. It didn’t sing like it once did. But it made a sound—low, hollow, gentle—that reminded you of the skies your ancestors once ruled.

You hung it near the cave mouth, and when the wind blew just right, it whispered. Every morning, you ran your fingers over the carved driftwood. And every night, when the wind rose, you listened to the chime and remembered that someone—he—had thought of you enough to bring it.

He didn’t have to say anything.

You understood.

~~~

You weren’t sure when it started, but the humming crept in slowly.

Like warmth returning to fingers left too long in the cold.

At first it was just a sound in your throat—something your body remembered even if your mind had buried it. Then it became a lullaby, the old kind, with no true lyrics—just syllables and fragments of feeling passed from voice to voice across generations now gone. Maybe your people were dead, but this song still remembered them. And you.

You didn’t even realize you were singing until you felt the echo in your bones. Your voice was low. Barely more than breath. But it felt… right.

So you sang. 

Eyes closed, your back against the stone wall. One wing extended slightly, the other curled tighter against your back like it always did. You weren’t sure when that had become a habit—tucking one wing in close, making yourself smaller, quieter, easier to overlook.

You had learned young: wings drew eyes. And eyes brought questions. So you hid them. Over and over, until the motion carved itself into muscle memory. Until it no longer felt like hiding. Just surviving.

You didn’t hear him land. But you felt him. You always did.

The shift in the air. The fire in your blood answering his like a quiet drumbeat. You opened your eyes and saw him, standing just inside the cave mouth, his figure framed by shadow and flame. His leather mask hid his face, as always—but you could feel his gaze like a hand pressed over your heart.

Heat bloomed across your cheeks as you realized he had heard you.

“I didn’t know you were back,” you said quickly, voice smaller than you wanted it to be.

He stepped forward and placed the food down on the rock near you. Quiet. Careful.

“I didn’t want to interrupt.”

You looked away, the blush still warming your skin. But something about his silence tonight felt different. Quieter. Softer. And when you glanced back, he was still looking at you. Not moving. Not speaking. Just seeing you. And something in your chest squeezed tight at the thought that maybe—just maybe—you were seen the same way you saw him.

His voice broke the silence. 

“You always press your wings in,” he said, low. “Like you’re hiding them.”

You blinked. A breath caught in your throat.

“I’ve had to,” you admitted, your voice quieter now. “All my life, I’ve had to hide everything. Wings catch eyes. Eyes invite questions.”

He was silent for a beat. Then: “They were made to soar.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Your throat felt thick with unsaid things. You looked away, but not before you saw the way he said it—softly, without judgment. Then, he surprised you again.

“I want to show you something.”

You looked up.

“There’s a route in the cliffs,” he said, glancing to the side of the cave. “A hidden path I use to train. No one else knows it.”

Your heart stuttered. He’d never spoken like this before. And certainly never mentioned a place that was his. A sanctuary.

He turned toward the exit, then paused and looked back. 

“I want you to teach me something,” he added. “A maneuver. One I saw when you glided near the ridge a few nights ago.”

You blinked, surprised.

“That was just—” you hesitated, then smiled faintly. “Something from when I was younger. It’s nothing special.”

He didn’t reply. Just waited. 

And suddenly, your wings twitched—almost eager. And for once, you didn’t press them in tight.

You let them stretch.

Just a little.

~~~

Chapter 13: Spiral

The path was narrow.

Too narrow for any normal being to cross. Jagged, steep, and curling along a cliffside that plunged straight into the roaring sea. Wind lashed at the rocks, the salt stung your eyes—but your heart… your heart was beating with something else. 

He was ahead of you. Silent, always silent, but his presence said enough. The path ended at a precipice, jutting out like the edge of the world. There was nothing beyond it but open sky. 

And it was open. Endless. Untouched. You felt your breath catch in your throat. This was no ordinary overlook. No human could come here.

Only you.

Only him.

Your eyes found him. He nodded once.

It is safe.

You took a single step forward, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you did not hold yourself back. Your wings unfurled with a low, powerful sweep—dark, massive, long-restrained limbs that shuddered as they stretched to their full span. Wind curled beneath them as if the sky itself sighed in recognition.

Then you leapt.

The wind caught you instantly. It didn't resist. It welcomed you. You soared, heart breaking open like light through a cracked sky, flying fast, high, sharp—cutting across the open air like you'd been born for this. Because you had.

You laughed. Truly laughed, the sound ripped from your chest like fire being freed. Behind you, you felt him.

King launched off the cliff with a deep, thunderous push of his wings, rising to join you. His figure was powerful in the sky, steady, controlled—until you dipped low beside him, brushing close, the ends of your feathers just barely touching his. His fire rippled in response.

You showed him the maneuver—a sharp twist, a tight arc. He followed on instinct. Fumbled once, then mastered it with stunning speed.

You grinned, circling him, teasing.

Catch me.

And something in him shifted. You could feel it. His energy warmed, subtly, fiercely. And though his face was hidden, you knew—he was smiling. Your giddy laughter echoed in the open sky as you flew faster, higher, dancing in the thermals with him.

And then—instinct moved.

You didn’t think. Neither did he.

You reached.

Your right arm stretched out across the wind—and so did his. Your forearms locked midair, fingers grasping tight. And together—you fell.

The wind screamed around you as your wings folded just slightly, enough to spiral. Not panic. Not fear. Just—Surrender.

You were falling, but not alone. Not anymore. The air roared, your fires igniting from your shoulders and heels, streaming like twin comets hurtling toward the sea. Flames licked the sky behind you, red and gold and white. 

A cyclone of feathers and fire. Of freedom. Of trust.

You clung to each other, spinning downward, faster, tighter—no fear, just gravity and instinct and something deeper that neither of you dared name yet.

And for a moment, the world stopped.

You weren’t sure if you would pull out. Maybe it would end here. Maybe you’d crash into the sea, burned by beauty and longing. But then—

Snap.

Your wings flared. So did his.

The air caught you both with a thunderclap, lifting you just before the water kissed your heels. You rose again—high, high, wind and sea swirling below like applause. Together, you landed back on the cliff.

Panting.

Alive.

Scorched—not by fire, but by trust.

You stood close. Closer than you’d ever dared before. So close that the heat from his skin, even through leather and armor, was all you could feel. Your chest rose and fell. So did his.

You looked into his eyes—what little of them you could see through the black and flame. Something unspoken passed between you. You both knew what had happened.

It wasn’t just a stunt. It wasn’t just instinct. 

That spiral—

It was ancient.

It was a ritual.

A courtship display once performed by Lunarian couples to show absolute trust. To fall together, not knowing if the other would save them. And choosing to believe anyway.

You had both chosen.

You lowered your gaze for just a breath, suddenly aware of what you’d done.

But when you looked back at him, he hadn’t moved.

He was still there.

Still looking at you like you were sky itself.

~~~

Chapter 14: Alber

You didn’t move at first. The wind still whispered around you, sweeping the last of the sea spray off your wings, but the sky felt utterly still—held in the space between your breaths.

His eyes hadn’t left yours. Neither had yours his.

Your chest was still heaving, slower now, but enough to feel every breath pull you gently toward him. Closer. As if your bodies knew something your minds were still too stunned to say. 

You stepped forward. Just one step. And your chest brushed his. The contact was subtle—but not small. Not in the weight of it. Not in what it stirred in your belly and in your heart. The warmth of him, through leather and heat and fire, met yours, and neither of you flinched. Neither of you drew back.

You looked up at him, hands trembling slightly as you reached—slow, reverent.

To his face. To the mask.

He didn’t stop you. He didn’t speak. He only looked at you with those crimson eyes, steady and unguarded, as you carefully slipped your fingers beneath the edge of his leather mask, just above the curve of his jaw.

The metal buckles gave a soft creak as you pulled. And the mask came down.

Silver-white hair—thick, long, and wavy—fell loose in a single slow cascade, tousled by wind and flight. A braid ran down one side, tight and worn with ritual care. The sides of his head were shaved, the cut sharp and purposeful, and the fire behind his shoulders pulsed in rhythm with your own.

Your breath caught in your throat.

His face… Sharp, beautiful, severe.

A straight, elegant nose, a square chin shadowed in stubble, strong cheekbones. His lips full and still slightly parted from exertion. And those narrow red eyes—piercing, ancient, the kind you could fall into and never stop. 

Your eyes traced the black tattoo arcing over half of his left eye, curling like a wreath—a symbol of his people. Your people.

Without thinking, your fingers rose and gently touched the mark. He didn’t flinch. Your thumb swept along the line of it, memorizing its shape, its warmth. He watched you in silence, gaze softening at the edges like heat fading into ember. Your eyes shimmered, awe swimming in their depths.

You smiled.

Not a grin. Not something playful. Something quieter. Full of wonder. Full of recognition. You saw him. And he knew it. And then he leaned down. So slowly. Until your mouths met.

The kiss was soft.

No urgency. No hunger. Just… truth.

His lips pressed to yours, warm, firm, and full of all the things he’d never said. All the moments he stood beside you without touching. All the times he watched you and didn’t speak. All the silent rituals building up to this breath.

Your fires ignited. Not in violence. In reverence. Flames poured from your backs in arcs of light—stronger, brighter—intertwined in the air like red and gold silk streaming into the sky. You felt it down to your bones.

His hands hovered at your waist but didn’t pull you closer. They didn’t need to. You were already his. And he… he had already become yours.

The kiss broke slowly. Lips parted, breath mingled, and you rested your foreheads together. His hand came up then, cradling the side of your face. You closed your eyes, the warmth of him grounding you.

He whispered it then. A name. Not a title. Not a weapon. But his name.

“Alber.”

Your eyes opened. His were waiting.

The name settled in your chest like a spark finding dry kindling. Not explosive—but transformative. It was the name he was given in love, in trust, in the language of your people. And now—he had given it to you.

A vow without words.

A soul unmasked.

A fire shared.

And you understood. 

You understood everything.

Taglist: @7wanne @kisechiii @iglb12 @spicy-gordita-crunch @itspronouncedshi-theed @lessie-oxj @thatanonymouschocolate @mellyrally @sagyunaro @celestedangelica @hunbunbumdum @i-love-cat-bitch @cryptip0wer-blog @haru-naechi @nin-dy-tro

Please let me know if you want to be tagged for part 2!

[idontknowmanijustlikereading]

Unique!AU continuation: Mira

Alright, first and foremost: Mira

Most of the skills/abilities that comes with being half-dragon are physical.

Mira has extremely enhanced senses, but her sense of smell is especially strong. Strong enough to be able to sniff out magic. She can also see in the dark, and her eyes get that animal shine to them sometimes.

While she is faster than a normal human, her strength and durability is what has been boosted the most. Being able to do things like lift cars above her head or get tossed through a brick wall and walk away mostly fine.

Has a naturally cold body temperature(a great contrast to Rumi who constantly runs hot like a furnace) and is very resistant to the cold in general, has no problems walking around in shorts in the middle of winter. Might need a windbreaker if she's in Antarctica or smth

Can hold her breath exceptionally long.

She has less non-physical abilities but she does have some.

Because of the water-dragon aspect, she has some control over water. I'm not talking Katara or Percy Jackson level shit, but she can raise a hand over her head while its raining and create an umbrella of water. Or she can create larger waves while playing around in the pool just to splash the other two extra hard etc. Also has a sixth sense for whenever it's going to rain or a storm is coming. If emotions are running extremely high, she might accidentally create her own storm, similar to how Rumi can affect the Honmoon.

Can't quite fly, but she can kind of hover/float a bit.

She heals faster submerged, which is one of the many reasons she loves the bathhouse so much. She can also feel just about everything around her when in water, a bit like a shark.

When it comes to draconic features I'm gonna start with the scales.

Her scales don't cover her entire body, they're spread out in patches here and there. Stripes of scales over her ribs, climbing out from her neck to her throat, on her forearms and thighs, the soles of her feet and on her jaw, around her eyes etc etc. They're the same shade of pink as her hair (which is naturally pink in this world btw (idk if it's natural in canon, it wouldn't surprise me)) and they feel a lot like snake skin, if you've ever felt that. Kind of warm to the touch and softer than you'd think. Despite what they feel like, they are actually extremely strong, working as great protection for the areas they cover.

She has horns (obviously). They protrude from the middle sides of her head and point backwards, curling upwards right after they go beyond the back of her head. She also has protruding spikes on her spine, both of these things make it uncomfortable for her to sleep on her back. The girls like to run their fingers down the ridges because it makes her shiver each time. She can't exactly feel her horns as much as she can simply feel the pressure on her skull if someone grabs them(think of them like fingernails)

(yes she likes her horns being grabbed, i don't make the rules.).

While I think Rumi has vampire-like fangs, both Mira's upper and lower canines are sharp, something Zoey is endlessly happy about.

In water (whether in a pool or its raining or something else) her skin kind of shimmers. (Zoey definitely makes a twilight joke, even if it's not exactly the same)

Slit pupils and forked tongue. Yeah.

Claws. Not like demon claws which are extensions of the fingers, Mira's grow from her nailbeds but curl like cat claws. Very strong.

Can't purr, but she can definitely growl.

That's it. Kay bye, Zoey will come later

[saltcxrcle]

we should stick together ── . ✶ i. lahey

summary: being dragged into the supernatural world wasn't ideal, but you'd rather stick by isaac than let him go at this alone, no matter how hard it would be.

pairing: isaac lahey x gn!reader, isaac lahey x best friend!reader ノ wc: 5.0k warnings: no use of 'y/n', some angst, but there's fluff!, best friends to lovers, references to isaac's home life (child abuse #FUCK MR. LAHEY), canon typical violence, isaac being an idiot (affectionately), cursing, hints of jealousy, confessions, kissing, also slightly inspired by this drabble by @s9fti3!, title is a lyric from birds of a feather by billie eilish, dialogue in italics means they're speaking in their secret language, kinda edited; all mistakes are my own a/n: guys i was in an rare isaac lahey writing mood so cheers to me on finally writing for him!! also this had been in my WIP list for over a year now so im glad im finally getting around to it lol isaac lahey masterlist

YOU USED TO LOOK AT THE MOON FOR COMFORT. 

It was a method of self-soothing when you were overwhelmed by your own mind or when there were drastic changes in your life. You still like to admire the moon, but it was a constant reminder of how much your life has changed in a matter of months. 

You always thought that Beacon Hills had its charm for a small town, but with a lot of small towns, and to the opinionated teenage mind, you found that there wasn’t a lot to do in it. You prided yourself on appreciating the town for what it was, but you soon found out that it was hiding secrets within the roots of the forests that surrounded it. 

If you had the option to live in ignorant bliss about what was actually occurring in your town or be privy to what lurked in the shadows, you would want to live in bliss. But the blindfold was ripped off your eyes when your best friend turned into a fugitive after the sudden death of his father. 

You had noticed how weird things kept happening in your usually quiet town—a jogger had died, there were rumors of mountain lions prowling about in popular areas of town, and after multiple series of other strange events you had noted, Lydia had gotten attacked by one at the winter formal. 

It didn’t add up in your head. You did your own digging and research, and the only common denominator you found and noticed was that Stilinski and McCall were also doing the same thing you were doing, but you could tell they knew a lot more than they let on. 

You weren’t exactly friends with them, but you’ve known them since elementary school and shared a handful of classes with them. So you had a few conversations with them over the years. You would have taken your suspicions to any of your other friends, but you knew that they wouldn’t take you seriously, so you went to Isaac instead. 

Isaac Lahey. The boy who has stuck by your side ever since you sat next to him in kindergarten and offered to share his crayons with you after your parents had forgotten to pack yours in your backpack that morning. You were like two peas in a pod, uncaring about the fact that the other might have cooties. There wasn't a day that you guys didn’t find a way to talk to each other, and you guys had even gone as far as to create your own secret language with each other that you still use to this day. It came in handy after Isaac’s mother and brother passed away. 

You had started to see him less, despite your best efforts to see him, but you either got no response when you would try to knock on his door during summer break, or his father was very short with you and slammed the door in your face at 13 years old. 

So, you did what any reasonable and rational teenager would do. You went around the house and knocked on his window until Isaac responded. You were lucky that his room was on the first floor of the house, so when Isaac checked his window and opened it, you quickly climbed through it and greeted him with a huge smile. 

You remembered the shocked look on his face as you climbed in as stealthily as you could (it wasn’t graceful, but you landed on both of your feet once you got into his room). But your smile was wiped off your lips when you spotted the purple coloring on his pale skin surrounding his left eye. 

You instinctively reached out to cup his face, but Isaac flinched away from you, and it made your heart drop to your stomach. Your hand fell back to your side as you looked at Isaac’s hunched form. 

“Iz, did he do this to you?” You whispered, the words of your secret language fell from your lips as you tried to catch his eye. 

Isaac shook his head no, but you knew he was lying to you. He was avoiding eye contact at all costs. 

“Isaac.” You said lowly but harshly, making him look directly at you with wide eyes. 

“Keep your voice down!” Isaac responded in a sharp whisper. “I ran into the door last night when I got up to use the bathroom.” 

You cocked an eyebrow at him, your mouth open to respond, but no words came out upon seeing his pleading eyes. Isaac’s cerulean gaze was filled with a silent plea to stop talking about it, his waterline beginning to brim with tears. 

Your expression morphed into one of sympathy. It was jarring to see your best friend retreat more into himself. Isaac was naturally a shy kid, but he looked like he wanted to crawl into the deepest hole and never climb out of it. 

“Can I hug you?” You murmured as you took a tentative step forward. The last time you guys hugged sincerely was when you were at his brother’s funeral. 

Instead of responding, Isaac shot forward and wrapped his lanky arms around you. You immediately reciprocated the hug, your chin resting on his shoulder as his face buried itself in your neck. You didn’t know it at the time, but hugging Isaac always managed to put you at peace, like you were coming home even though you hadn’t left at all—and it never failed to send butterflies fluttering inside of you. 

But with that hug in particular, you couldn’t help but feel a pit grow in your stomach as you let go and saw the slight smile on your best friend’s face—you had a feeling that things would only get worse from there. 

And in a way, it did. You barely saw Isaac that summer, the next time you saw him was the night before you guys were in 8th grade—and you only did that because you couldn’t wait to see him at school when you didn’t know his schedule. 

Regardless of seeing him less during the summer, you never failed to stray from his side, even when you guys got to high school. You were not a social butterfly by any means—but your kindness transcended outside the bubble that you and Isaac had built. In some twist of events, you managed to get onto Lydia Martin’s radar and befriended her.

So, by the time you made it to sophomore year, most of the student body knew who you were—either by association from Lydia, or how you never failed to greet people with a smile and charm anyone who seemed to talk to you. 

When the second semester of your sophomore year rolled around, the aforementioned weird events began to plague your town. You had concocted your theories about what was happening, which seemed to revolve around McCall and Stilinski (or the fact that they were coincidentally present at the events).

Isaac just listened to you with pure amusement. But you had raised some valid points, and he made sure to try to figure out what the pair would whisper about during lacrosse practice. 

Then Lydia got attacked during winter formal, and you found McCall and Stilinski in her hospital room, looking underneath her bandage, whispering about how it wasn’t healing and asking ‘what was she?’ which made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. 

But that wasn’t the worst part. Isaac’s Dad was murdered, and you witnessed Isaac get pulled off the lacrosse field by the Sheriff and a deputy. 

As soon as practice was over, you sped over to the station to try and plead for Isaac’s innocence to Sheriff Stilinski, planning on saying anything to try and prevent him from going to prison (yes, you would have gone as far as lying about his whereabouts the night his Dad was murdered). 

You sat in the front of the station for god knows how long, and you sat up from your slouched position when you saw Derek Hale enter with Stiles Stilinski. 

Since when did Derek Hale hang out with high schoolers? You thought as you got up from your seat to head to the bathroom. You and Stiles made eye contact, but both of your eyes were filled with confusion when your gazes met. 

You were quick to use the bathroom, but as you were exiting, the fire alarm at the station went off. You were on high alert as you walked through the hallways of the building. You could hear grunts of pain echoing from where you assumed the holding cells were, and against your better judgment, your feet carried you to the wide-open door at the end of the hallway. 

Shock flooded your system at the sight in front of you. Stiles was on the floor, scrambling to the other side of the room as Isaac fought off a deputy. You were about to shout to make him stop, knowing full well that assaulting an officer would not be great for the mounting case against him. Once the deputy was incapacitated, Derek had shouldered past you. He stepped on a needle filled with god knows what, and Isaac turned around and horror filled your body. 

His face had turned into an animalistic one, his brow bone was pronounced as his lips were twisted up into a snarl, as fangs protruded from his mouth, and hair grew out from his cheeks. You barely noticed how his eyes weren’t his normal blue but a muddied yellow, and how he had claws growing from his nails. 

Isaac glanced at you and Stiles, and he made his move to lunge at either of you, but Derek roared, and it seemed to put him in his place. Isaac retreated and hugged the wall. When he looked back, Isaac looked like himself again. 

“How did you do that?” Stiles asked Derek as the alarms continued to blare around the four of you. 

Derek turned around and looked at Stiles. “I’m the Alpha.” He said as if that explained everything. 

“What the fuck just happened!” You blurted out, reminding Stiles and Derek that you were still in the station with them. 

Stiles cursed under his breath while Derek glared at you, and Isaac’s heart dropped to his stomach. This is not how he wanted you to find out (in fact, he never wanted you to even know about this). 

But Derek and Isaac were quick to leave when they realized that the entire department could come back at any moment, leaving you with Stiles to explain everything. 

After everything was situated at the police station, Stiles explained everything, albeit reluctantly, as he drove you back to your house. You didn’t want to believe a word he said, but after everything you just witnessed, you knew he was telling the truth. 

To say that you were worried about Isaac in the coming weeks was an understatement. Since the revelation of werewolves (and other potential supernatural creatures), you stuck close to Stiles and Scott. You felt a little betrayed by Allison since she knew, but you couldn’t fault her since she was also pulled into this mess. 

When Isaac wasn’t labeled as a fugitive, you were practically vibrating with excitement, but when he came back to school, it was like he was a different person. He didn’t even try to hang out with you. He stuck with Erica, who had also become a werewolf and turned into a bombshell overnight. You’d never admit the roaring jealousy at the sight of them practically wearing matching leather jackets, and how it seemed that Isaac never took his gaze off of her. 

But you knew Isaac, and the last thing he’d wear would be a leather jacket. Despite the tensions between Derek and Scott, you cornered him the day he came back to school and confronted him. 

“You look stupid with that jacket on.” You had found him ditching Math (he always did on the occasion) and at your spot when you had free period.  

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion.” Isaac snarked back, looking up at you from his spot on the stairwell. 

You walked down a flight to sit on the step above him. “Well, considering that I’m still your best friend, I can give you unsolicited fashion advice.” You shot him a sarcastic smile. 

Isaac raised an eyebrow at you. “If you were really my best friend, then you wouldn’t be helping out Scott protect the Kanima.” 

You leaned forward. “You and I both know it’s not Lydia.” You hissed out through your teeth. 

“Oh, yeah? How do you know?” Isaac challenged you, knowing that you weren’t sure yourself. 

“She just isn’t.” You insisted. 

Isaac scoffed, shaking his head. “See you don’t even know.” 

You pressed your tongue into your cheek, studying Isaac for a second. “You’ve changed.” 

“Yeah, for the better.” 

“I’m not so sure about that. This–” You gestured to Isaac with your finger, “Is not the boy I became best friends with.” 

“People change. Not everyone can stay the weak person that they were when they were younger.” Isaac spat out sourly, his lips twisted into a scowl. 

Your heart twisted at his words, and you moved down to sit next to him. “You were never weak, Isaac.” 

Isaac let out a bitter chuckle. “Right, and that’s why I let myself get locked in a freezer in my basement because I was so strong.” 

You froze. You didn’t know the full extent of what Mr. Lahey did, but hearing that sent a fury through you before you remembered that he was dead and you couldn’t do anything about the past. 

“You were a kid. Hell, you practically still are one.” You shook your head. “We all are, and you didn’t deserve to be treated like that by your own Dad. But even all you've been through, you’re still here, and I still think you’re the strongest person I know.” 

Isaac was silent, processing your words. You never failed to uplift him, even when he was at his lowest. You were a constant for him ever since he had met you, and never failed to be there for him, regardless of what it was for. 

You could see Isaac’s resolve melt behind his eyes as he took in your words. He turned to look at you, Isaac’s hand reaching for yours, but hesitated. You understood what he needed and grabbed his hand, lacing your fingers with his and started to rub circles into it, grounding him and taking him out of his own ego. 

A silence settled between the two of you, one filled with mutual understanding and comfort. 

“Do you really think the jacket is stupid?” Isaac murmured, breaking the silence. 

You knew that it was supposed to come off as a joke, but you could hear the underlying insecurity within the question. You scooted closer and rested your head on his shoulder. 

“Not really. But you could have worn a different shirt with it, Izzy.” You teased, squeezing his hand. 

Isaac scoffed playfully, his heart jumping at the childhood nickname. “I like to see you pull this off.” 

“Oh, I could and I’d wear it better than you.” 

Isaac let go of your hand and shoved you lightly away from him—he regretted pushing you away from him. He was already missing the warmth that you never failed to fill him with. You laughed at his offended expression on his face, but the smile that grew on his lips told you everything you needed to know—you guys were okay.

To say you were mad at Isaac Lahey, well, that would be an understatement. 

After your mini-reconcillation in the stairwell, everything had devolved rapidly. By the time the school year ended, Isaac was gone without a single trace, besides a note he left on your dresser, which you found a couple of days into summer break. 

You spent the better part of the summer worrying about Isaac and bothering Scott and Stiles about it. Stiles was definitely annoyed by your constant questions, and Scott was a little nicer about it—but you could tell that he was peeved by your constant inquiries about Isaac. But since you didn’t have school or Isaac for the summer, you split time between Stiles, Scott, and Lydia in order to try and distract yourself from the Isaac-shaped hole in your heart. 

Oh, and over the course of the summer, you figured out that you were in love with your best friend, so that was a great revelation. 

You were hoping that Isaac would show up when school started, but you just didn’t expect him to be in the hospital when you were at school. You only found out because you were running late to English since your advisor wanted to speak with you before class. When you ran into Scott, who was leaving school, he told you what happened. You were insisting that you’d come with him, but Scott practically ordered you to stay at school. 

Then crows flew into your classroom, marking the second time that this had happened to you (the first time was when you were in the car with Lydia and Allison and the deer ran itself right into Lydia’s car). Once school was officially cancelled for the day, you overheard Stiles talking to Scott and joined him in his jeep. 

Once you got into the dilapidated house, you immediately spotted Isaac, covered in a blue blanket, lying on a dusty table. Your feet unconsciously dragged you over there, but Stiles grabbed your wrist, making you stop in your tracks. 

“What are you doing?” He hissed under his breath. 

“You’re here for your best friend, I’m here for mine.” You quickly ripped your wrist out of his grip and headed over to Isaac. 

You swallowed hard at the sight of your best friend breathing shallowly as his eyes moved under his lids. Your hand moved to brush the hair at his temple, your thumb lingering on his frigid skin. 

“Please be okay, Izzy.” You murmured quietly, brushing the curls that were plastered onto his forehead away. 

No matter how mad you were about Isaac going MIA on you, you still were worried sick about him. 

This is such a stupid idea. You thought to yourself as you helped Stiles, Scott, and Derek fill the metal tub with ice while Deaton was explaining to Isaac how this process would work. 

They walked forward as you threw the empty ice bag to the side and stood by Stiles as they approached the ice bath. 

“Exactly. You'll be half-transformed. It'll let us access your subconscious mind.” Deaton said as he stopped in his tracks

Isaac bent down to study the ice water, and you knew that he was contemplating whether or not he should do this. 

“How slow does his heart rate need to be?” Scott asked his boss. 

“Very slow.”

Derek looked at Deaton. “Okay, well, how slow is ‘very slow?’"

Deaton was silent for a moment before telling him, “Nearly dead.” 

Your eyes widened in alarm, and you looked at Isaac, and your gaze met his own. You shook your head, a sign that he should not do this. 

Isaac turned his gaze away from you and up at Deaton. “It's safe, though, right?” 

You cursed Isaac under your breath, making Stiles chuckle, and he nudged you with his shoulder. He gestured to the glove lying on the metal shelf beside him. 

“Do you want me to answer honestly?” Deaton asked rhetorically. 

Isaac sighed. “No. No, not really.” 

Stiles put on the glove, and it snapped once fully on his arm. Everyone’s eyes were on him. 

“What?” Stiles questioned, making you snicker at his obliviousness. 

The corner of Isaac's lips twitched in amusement. But it soon changed when he realized that the smile you were giving Stiles was the same one you would shoot Isaac when he was being an idiot to try and make you laugh.

A flicker of annoyance passed through him at the realization. He barely tolerated the sarcastic brunette that stood across the room from him—it wasn't beyond Isaac how he noticed how much closer you had become with Stiles and Scott, and something in his chest stirred at that—he didn’t like it.

Your attention was pulled away from Stiles, who took off the glove, and towards Isaac, who stood up and let out a breath. 

“Look, if it feels too risky, you don't have to do this,” Derek told Isaac. 

Isaac glanced at you and took in your pleading gaze before ignoring it entirely. His mind was made up as he took off his shirt. 

Your brain short-circuited as you took in a sharp breath at the sight of Isaac shirtless. You’ve seen him without a shirt before, but that was before he turned into a werewolf and his figure filled out. 

You quickly averted your eyes, trying to ignore the heat filling your face. The sight of Isaac’s toned body burned into the back of your eyelids as you moved closer to the metal tub, situating yourself right next to Scott. 

The whole process was tense, you almost left the room, seeing Isaac shivering in the cold water as he relived his memories. You were frozen in your spot next to Scott. 

Once he shot up out of the water, you were quick to grab one of the many towels set on the table next to you and wrapped him up in it once Derek and Scott got him out of the tub. He clung to you as you tried to help him dry and get his body back to a normal temperature. For a moment, you got over your anger and whispered praises to him. 

When they figured out when and where Boyd would be, and before the group dispersed from the clinic, you went up to Derek and Isaac. 

“You’re coming with me, we need to talk.” Your voice was tight with tension as you stared at Isaac with a stern glare. 

Derek went to open his mouth to protest, but you turned your fiery glare on him. “I don’t give a shit that you’re his Alpha, you can pick him up in the morning.” 

The two of you were in a tense staring match before Derek relented. “Fine.” 

“Good.” You replied before leaving the clinic, with Isaac following behind you like a soddened curly-haired puppy. 

The drive back to your house was filled with unnerving silence. Isaac knew you were mad at him—he could smell the fury wafting off of you as you white knuckled the steering wheel.  

The silence persisted even after you parked in the driveway and began walking into the house. 

Isaac cleared his throat as he followed the familiar path upstairs. “Your parents aren’t home.” His words came out more like a question than the statement he intended. 

“Out on a business trip.” You responded tersely, heading into your room to grab him some spare clothes he left here the one time you guys had a sleepover before he left for the summer. 

You shoved them into his chest. “Spare towels are in the closet, you’re going to shower, and then we’ll talk.” You said before leaving him in the hallway outside of your bedroom, and headed downstairs to make hot chocolate for both of you. 

Isaac sighed and grabbed a spare towel before heading into the bathroom to do exactly what you said. He thought about spending a while in the shower to avoid the inevitable, but you’d probably rip him another new one for it instead of making fun of him for taking so long. So he took a quick shower before dressing in the grey sweatpants and blue hoodie you gave him. 

By the time he reached the kitchen, a steaming mug filled with hot chocolate was sitting on the kitchen island, as you sat on one side of it, taking a sip of your own before typing something on your phone. 

Isaac stood in the entryway for a moment, just trying to take in the tranquil atmosphere before it became charged with your anger that was simmering under the surface of your calm facade. You managed to change while he was in the shower, he noted. You were in some sweatpants and a soft, oversized tee, looking far more relaxed than you actually were. 

Isaac let out a silent sigh before walking into the kitchen. You looked up from your phone when you heard him enter the room. You turned it off and gestured for him to sit in front of you. 

He sat down and took a sip of his hot chocolate, trying to brush off your expectant look that felt like it was digging into his skin. Isaac felt like he had gotten in trouble and was sitting in the principal's office. 

“You’re mad at me,” Isaac stated once he set the mug back on the marble countertop. 

You pressed your lips together. “Do you know why?” 

“Did you get the note I wrote you?” He asked, dodging the question. 

You let out a humorless laugh. It was sharp and biting as you shot Isaac a dangerous look. “I did. But I didn’t find it until I almost filed a missing persons report on you.” 

Isaac winced. “M’sorry, Derek needed my help.” 

“I know.” Your tone was curt and short. “It still doesn’t make it better that you couldn’t bother with a phone call or even a text.” 

Isaac hated seeing this side of you with him. There have been a handful of times when he’s seen you mad, and he has never been on the receiving end of it until now. 

“Derek told me I couldn’t. I swear if I could, I would have called or texted every day.” Isaac's voice was filled with sincerity, and his eyes were wide. His gaze was practically screaming at you to believe him. 

Your anger almost melted away at the sight of his wide, practically puppy-like look he was pinning you with. God, those eyes would be the death of you one day. 

“You’re being reckless.” You stated, looking away from him. 

“I’ve always been reckless.” 

You looked back at him incredulously. “No, you aren’t. I’m usually the reckless one out of the two of us.” You gestured between you and the boy you were sitting across, “Just because you're a werewolf now, does not make you invincible.”  

“Yeah, well better me than you. I heal faster than you do.” He shot back. 

You stood up, your hackles raised as you rounded the island to get into his face. “You really don’t get it do you?” You asked. 

“No I don’t. Please tell me what I don’t get.” Isaac got up from his seat and looked down at you. 

You hated that he was taller than you, but you ignored it as you pressed a finger into his chest. 

“I don’t like seeing you get hurt, or be in dangerous situations period. It killed me that you told me not to do anything about your Dad. But this has to take the cake.” 

“I don’t understand why you’re so worried about me. I can take care of myself.” He couldn’t wrap his brain around why you were acting like this. 

“Jesus fucking christ.” You groaned, shaking your head. “Because I like you! Okay! I like you a lot more than I should for being your best friend. And I worry myself sick about you because of it.” You turned away from Isaac, walking out of the kitchen and heading to your room. 

Isaac stood there stunned. Your words echoing in his brain. 

I like you. I like you a lot more than I should. I like you. I like you. 

He quickly snapped out of it once it registered that you felt the same way about him. Isaac ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs and barged into your room. 

You turned around, startled at your door slamming against the wall, seeing Isaac in the doorway and entering your room like a man on a mission. 

“Isaac, what the hell–” 

You were cut off by Isaac grabbing your wrist and pulling you into his body, and placing his lips on yours. You were stunned for a moment before your mind caught up with your body, and you sank into the kiss. 

Isaac cupped your cheek as the hand fell from your wrist and placed it on your hip, drawing you closer to him. One of your hands wrapped around the back of his neck, burying into the hair while the other rested on his broad chest. Your lips moved in sync against his as your chest filled with warmth. Isaac’s lips were soft against your own, and you never wanted to stop kissing him. 

Unfortunately, you needed to breathe. You slowly pulled away from the kiss, resting your forehead against Isaac as you took some slow breaths, filling your lungs with air and the familiar scent of your body wash wafting off of Isaac. 

“I like you a lot too. If it wasn’t clear.” Isaac broke the serene silence after the two of you parted from your kiss. 

You couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, it was pretty clear to me Iz.” 

Isaac sent you a beaming smile at your words, joining you in chuckling as he pulled you further into his body, engulfing you in his arms. You wrapped your arms around his back, sinking into his embrace. 

The nearly full moon illuminated your room as the two of you found a new comfort in each other, your relationship evolving right then and there in your bedroom. You knew right there and then that you would stick together, by each other’s side, forever. 

[adoresia]

YOU MADE ME MALLEABLE : CHARACTER PROFILES

— DO NOT OPEN !!

SERIES M.LIST ᧔࿔᧓ MAIN M.LIST

BEHIND THE SCENES :: 🎬

Rin does like them i swear

probably ooc (kurona, igaguri, shidou) but i dont give a gaf honestly actually i feel like this is shit Lol #mewhenitrytobefunnyandflop uh oh

promise i wont make shidou’s whole personality about sae and isagi’s whole personality about saying slurs its just banter ok sorry i had to clarify otherwise ill die

I showed this to my irl because she knows i write and she was laughing but like we honestly laugh at anything so idk okay i shouldve put this in the a/n but this is my smau so i do what i want

yes thats barous sisters as his banner and his imsg pfp he loves them so bad he’s so girl dad idk

he may not seem like it but he actually cares so when he saw bachira tweaking about someone eating his quavers he bought more on the way home (even after seeing bachira was the one who ate the last pack)

igaguri volunteers at his family temple and gaslit isagi into helping aswell by saying he would get paid (he doesn’t and now he’s stuck there because hes to scared to say he doesn’t want to do it anymore) <- bachira comes along sometimes

they’re all on the college football team mostly for fun but Rin and Isagi are trying to go pro

Rin is failing all his classes beside english #canon yessss

Bachira hid the packet of quavers and he wont tell anyone where they are (something i would do)

if tou really think about it bachira is me and isagi is liv yes this is canon

TAGLIST ;; 13/50

⤷ @s6rine @pumpkintoad @howtfuspellgorjous @kiss-my-asscheeks @masterrbaiter @matchaveins @andysdrafts @kaalwanan @jellychee @peaktora @vinzcoke @tlissablr @soph1sticatedly

a/n :: ayyy second profiles done Lego!!! 7th of July 1am rn.. there are extras like.. actually that’ll come later shhh. I’ll introduce them within future chapters or something

[autumn-foxfire]

In your Closeted Besties AU (I love you for it, by the way. Its healing for my soul), do Ran and Shinichi ever bond over being attracted to dangerous people? Ran has her canonical little "problem" of blushing at women who turn out to be the murderer of the week. Meanwhile, Shinichi has his equally conanical homoerotic obsession with KID, who even the gods cant convince me isnt actually very morally gray and dangerous person despite Gosho clinging to his so called "comedy" interpretation. Like I understand he is a high school student and not a professional with years under his belt, but the some of the things he does through the series do paint him a particular way, after all...

Oh definitely.

Imagine Ran's smugness when Shinichi told her he might like Kaitou KID because Shinichi has lorded it over her for a long time about how every girl she likes ends up being a murderer or criminal and look who is talking now!

Shinichi: He's not that dangerous...

Ran: Doesn't he knock people out with spanners? I know one of those officers had a pretty nasty concussion afterwards and had to stay in the hospital overnight.

Shinichi: ...

Shinichi: It's not like we haven't done worse?

Ran: ...

Shinichi: And Sera once knocked a person out with her motorcycle.

Ran: ...

Ran: I think we all need to go to anger management.

Shinichi: Probably.

But despite this, Ran is still wary of KID for Shinichi's sake because she doesn't really know KID outside of his costume and is aware of the amazing actor he can be. What if KID is pretending to be a good person to get close to Shinichi in order to hurt him?

Not on her watch!

But when Ran meets Kaito officially, she sees a young man who is as traumatized as all of them, who is trying his best despite the shitty hand life has dealt him (or rather parents) and yes, the stunts he can pull are dangerous at times, and she might not always approve of his methods, he does care about Shinichi.

And she finds a friend in Kaito eventually as well. Someone who sits with and helps her in the kitchen as they discuss recipes while their detective nerds are too busy trying to solve a puzzle from their latest case! Someone who goes shopping with her and helps her pick out nice clothes for her date nights as they regale each other with stupid stories of their significant others!

Someone who has become a natural part of her found family with Shinichi and Sera and who she'd fight tooth and nail to protect as well.

...I need to write more for my closeted besties AU. I love it so much haha!

[stemmmm]

Could you pretty please give a creator breakdown of the love cage playlist? I just want to know why you picked the songs you did (besides them all being absolute bangers)

hoo boy i'll try! (the playlist in question)

We'll Meet Again -- obvious

Dream -- very good for their meeting!

Fools Rush In -- Ford is canonically the tastiest Bill bait and Bill is canonically fully fucking aware of this from the beginning. the references to ignoring the danger here felt perfect

Mr. Sandman -- again, Ford is the tastiest tastiest bait

I've Got A Crush On You -- I like to think Bill fell first and fell harder even if he didnt necessarily let it on. Also I love that this song is like "he is kinda ugly tho" it cracks me tf up. I had another that said the same thing but it also implied Ford was stupid and that just couldn't fly

Moonlight Serenade -- I just like it! I wanted the playlist to have instrumental bits spread about and this just seemed like a good place

Falling In Love With Love -- in TBOB Bill talks about love like it's a giant scam. the song has bits about getting burned by it that could make it fit in better later in the playlist, but given this is about the point where it's happening to Bill, I left it here

You Go To My Head -- honestly its more Ford perspective when this is a very Bill persp playlist, but we gotta have a little "you're in my head" as a treat

Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life -- they only have each other in dreams 🥺 kind of. not really. bill can show up whenever he wants to. but. you know. let me have this.

Sh-Boom -- Life could be dream! This is a portal plan has been started type song to me. It also has that tasty threatening "do what i say" layer to it that I wish more songs in here had

Just One Of Those Things -- I wanted a song with wild energy to imply karaoke night. this particular song implies its something that'll never happen again, and I think bill could be thinking that and then oops

You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You -- we have entered the down-bad just straight in love era. falling for ford causes a shift in priorities. not much of one but like. you know. nothing else is going to matter as much as it did after this

Dream A Little Dream of Me -- i dont need to explain myself

Sleep Walk -- it's just here for the title and I like it!

Fly Me To The Moon -- on god they are gonna explore the universe together

Unforgettable -- this one didn't particularly need to go in this spot, but for the romance i thought it fit here

Half as Much -- there's a level of uncertainty now. things are not all perfect in paradise

Ooo Baby baby -- Bill fucked up

You Always Hurt The Ones You Love -- Bill fucked up 2: no he didn't

You Mean Everything To Me -- baby take me back

Cry Me A River -- actually Fordsy I'm more hurt than you are did you ever think of that. do you know how much I cried

Rain In My Heart -- actually I didn't cry at all

I Wish I Didn't Love You So -- Bill in his feelings. it's all fucked by now

You'll Never Know -- we're talking 30 years here, we can have 2 songs about this

If You Ever Change Your Mind -- Fordsy's gonna come around, how long has it been, like a week?

Don't Get Around Much Anymore -- I think events may have effected Bill's party animal spirit

Till Then -- he's gonna get his party and get Ford back someday, maybe even very soon

Welcome To My World -- oh would you look at that

Mack the Knife -- not a love song! but I thought it suited weirdmageddon vibes nicely with its whole "oh god theres a dangerous criminal in town" shtick. its fun for bill

On The Street Where You Live -- he's been wandering around Gravity Falls via the mindscape for so long but now he's here for real, isn't that wild

It's Been A Long, Long Time -- oh hey there's Ford

Oh Look At Me Now -- Bill's such a humble guy, he only has everything he's ever wanted and isn't that beautiful

Seems Like Old Times -- it's just like things were back then, him and his golden statue of his husband who can't talk to him

Long Ago -- more on that same vibe. I had a bunch of romance songs that couldn't really fit anywhere else so this section kind of lasts a hot minute. but Bill also just partied for days before he tried to get that equation so it's fine

Remember -- hey you used to love me. hey.

Last Night When We Were Young -- hey.

Let's Fly Away -- we could have anything, I could give you anything. in particular i love the line "I'll take up all your time compromising you"

You Made Me Love You -- negging

A Little Cooperation From You -- FINALLY it's time to make that deal. it's just. i can't express how perfectly every single word fits

Don't Look At Me That Way -- so this song is about not wanting to be flirted with in public. however there are other kinds of looks ford can be giving. "If you wanna get home alive, don't look at me that way" ;)

Minnie the Moocher -- to ME... this is bill being like hey ungrateful fuck i could give you anything. the tone works great for the shift into torture

Let's Dance -- just a fun jazzy tune that I thought would be funny placed in the torture section

Something's Gotta Give -- Neither one of them is budging for anything

All or Nothing at All -- Same energy. Bill's not gonna take any less than everything

Stardust -- That's what Bill is by the end of this

You're Gonna Miss Me -- speaks for itself IMO. and Bill's right.

Once In A While -- oh god please miss me

The Things We Did Last Summer -- well I've already explained this one. But let's reminisce on the journey we went through, shall we?

I've gotten some recommendations on the original post that I haven't gone through yet, so perhaps some of this is subject to change! but for right now, that's all of them

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Shooting the Moon 🏹 | Johnny Storm Imagine

Link to my Marvel masterlist

Characters & Pairings: JosephQuinn!JohnnyStorm x Norse!Goddess Reader, the Fantastic Four (platonic), The Avengers (platonic).

Content Warnings: fluff, light angst, profanity, references to Norse mythology and Marvel's Norse lore, canon divergence, speculation for FF:FS & A:DD. | female!reader (she/her) | wc: 3.2k

Requested 📨 yes/no

Premise: Johnny Storm, the once most eligible bachelor in America, meets and finds love with a woman whose name and reputation is rooted in myth and legend. Literally. Who would've thought a city boy would find his heart stolen by a Goddess with a bow and arrow.

note: this can be read as a reader insert where you envision yourself as the MCU version of Skadi, Goddess of the Winter and the adoptive/biological sister of Thor & Loki. No physical descriptions are mentioned. I've had this idea for two months and I've finally gotten around to writing--we are less than two weeks away from Fantastic Four!! also I'm still working on my AO3 Johnny Storm story so that will be getting updates soon!

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

“Nock.” Johnny removed the arrow from the quiver made of complete cypress wood, placing it the designated spot on the bow. Also made of cypress. “Draw.” He reels his arm back, fingers on the bow string where they barely brush the feathered end of the arrow nestled between them. Straightening his posture, Johnny pins his gaze on the target, setting up his aim after noting the direction of the wind by the rustling of the trees in the distance.

He waits for her final command, but is pulled out from his attention on the target when she comes to his side. Warm palm on his shoulder, the other on his back just between his shoulder blades. Sending goosebumps along his arms as he tried to control the blush on his cheeks. 

“Your feet are not in the correct position,” she observes, her tone not scolding nor mocking to embarrass him. Simply to point out an error so that he may fix it. 

“Oh,” Looking down he sees his feet are too close. They needed to be shoulder width apart and Johnny lowered the bow gently to correct himself. His shoulders, hips, and feet all aligned, toes slightly outward and his back straight. “Like that, right?”

“Yes,” she smiles. “Now draw again.” Johnny brings the bow up, paralleling it to the ground with his arm extending. “Relax your grip,” her hand reaches out to tap his fingers clutching the bow, smoothing the muscles until they loosen. “Good,” she saunters back a few paces, “Now when you’re ready, release the arrow and let it fly.” 

The wind picks up. Leaves falling from the trees to scatter across the grass. Johnny does not move. He does not let loose the arrow. He simply waits. Waits for the right moment like she taught him. 

Where his mind blanks and is given a peaceful silence. Where the wind ceased as though it had breached open a clear pathway for the arrow. Where there is nothing between him and the target, except for the air. 

And when the moment comes, Johnny inhales deeply, pins his eyes on the target exactly where he wants it, and sends the arrow flying. 

The events following the failure of the Fantastic Four from stopping their world from being consumed by Galactus haunted Johnny. There hadn’t been a moment of peace since. They were still reeling with the grief of defeat when their lives took another 180 by suddenly being pulled into another universe. How it happened, it was unclear. Just that their Marvel-1 entered the atmosphere of another Earth. Vastly different from their home one with its own set of superpowered heroes and villains. 

Magic. Sorcery. Vibranium. Mutants. Super Soldiers. Gods. Actual Gods from mythology. It was difficult to wrap his mind around it all. Even with the dozens of people around him falling under those categories, Johnny was still in disbelief. 

The chatter of conversation mufflered around Johnny as he stood with his arms crossed beside his sister while most of the room's attention was on Sam Wilson and Thor, the literal God of Thunder from Norse Mythology, went back and forth about what to do. 

“I do not understand the hesitation--we have dealt with far worse,” Thor ranted, slightly waving Stormbreaker to emphasize his point. Eager to go after Doom as it had been a long time since the mighty God had seen battle. 

“In case you forgot we are dealing with a multiversal madman, Thor.”

“Ah but together we are stronger than him, Sam, Son of Will.” Johnny was so tired and slumped he couldn’t even bring himself to laugh at Sam’s baffled reaction. He closed his eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose, willing himself not to cry as another wave of grief hit him. Thinking about the millions of people he failed to save. 

All those lives just gone. In the blink of an eye. 

Swallowing thickly to contain the lump in the back of his throat he’d wait to release until alone, Johnny turned his head to the right and stared at the tiled floor. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, attention drawn to a bug crawling when a shadow entered vision, causing his brows to furrow as the shadow had an odd shape to it. 

Not a human shadow. No. As it came closer, Johnny realized he was staring at antlers.

‘What the hell?’ Gaze drifting upward, Johnny’s eyes widened as they connected with deep ones of a white-tailed deer. Larger than the average. Standing at least five feet tall, light brown fur with a white spot on its chest. Staring at him with curiosity, as though it was trying to decipher who Johnny was. 

But the most striking detail of all? Its antlers were coated in gold. 

“Uhhh…guys?” He raised his voice among the loud chatter happening around him. Sending them into silence as they turned for an explanation, only to match his expression once they followed his gaze. 

For a moment they all stood in shock, until it was interrupted by Thor’s rambunctious laugh. Loud and full of glee, making the newcomers confused by the joy he displayed. “Dear sister!!” Johnny swore he saw the animal roll their eyes at the ‘dear’ but also portrayed amusement. Thor moved forward, hands raised in a welcoming gesture. “What an honor it is to have you in our presence once again.” 

“About time we got some more power,” Bucky muses, relief in his voice while sending a small salute to the deer. From beside him Yelena does a silent cheer, nudging Bob with a grin as he looks on with amazement. Next to Sam, Joaquin mutters under his breath, “Holy shit.”

Shuri beams, clapping with excitement. “You have no idea how happy we are to see you, Y/n.” 

A flash of recognition hits Johnny upon hearing the name, but he is unable to fully recall the meaning behind it. A name likely brought up when the Four first arrived and teamed up with the Avengers where they were discussing recruiting former colleagues to their mission. 

And the fact they were addressing this deer by the name….

“Well don’t just stand there, sister!” Thor exclaimed with a wave of a hand. “Come, we must introduce you to our friends.” 

The deer blinks slowly, drawing its head down in a firm nod before moving towards the door off to the side. They all watch closely; Thor with excitement as he places Stormbreaker down. And when the deer disappears from their sight, it’s only seconds later that a woman emerges from the doorway. 

Johnny’s jaw drops. 

A woman, Y/n, stands in place of the deer, dressed in the finest armor he’d ever seen. Asgardian armor. Consisting of brown, white, and gold plates and detailing, with a hunting bow strapped to her back, hunting knives holstered to her waist, and a stunning headpiece in the shape of an eagle head with its wings spread out. Her shoulder pads resembled antlers, the top dipped in gold. 

Everything about her screamed power. A warrior. Destined for greatness and not one to surrender when things go awry. 

Carrying herself as though she were a God.

Johnny felt himself straighten, unable to take his eyes off the ethereal being before him. Although he flinched when Thor’s boisterous laugh roared in his ears, the God rushed past the Fantastic Four with open arms, ignoring the playful vexed look Y/n shot at him when he gathered her up in an embrace. Lifting her off the ground to dramatically spin them in a circle.

Thor continues to laugh. The most joyful he’s been since they first landed in the predicament they were in. And Johnny observes the same happy expressions on several members of the team such as Rhodey, Banner, Bucky, Shuri, and Sam. All moving to gather around the two and give their own welcomes to the woman. 

Johnny was about to ask the million dollar question his fellow family members were all thinking, when Thor’s proud voice boomed against the walls. “The Goddess of Wild Hunt returns!!”

That made the air catch in his throat, eyes bulging as the words processed. And when he peered at his family, they too froze in shock. 

“You’re….” Johnny breathed in awe with his sparkling blue eyes and mouth agape. Matching the expression of his fellow Fantastic Four family as they stared at the woman removing herself from Thor’s embrace. 

See, the myths and legends of their world were no different from those of Earth-616. Except that is what they were. Myths and legends. Stories of Gods passed down from ancient literature and taught in school for generations upon generations. Zeus and the Olympians, their Roman equivalent. Ancient Egypt and, of course, Thor and his fellow Norse deities. 

The Fantastic Four never got far in their careers of being the protectors of their Earth to discover if the Gods of legends resided in the galaxies across space. Unlike here, where the Gods literally live on Earth. 

The Four were already in disbelief of being in the presence of Thor. And they heard stories of his brother Loki, the God of Mischief, who was responsible for a New York invasion over a decade prior. 

Now here was their sister. The Goddess of the Wild Hunt. 

“Y/n,” her voice was as powerful as her stance, gazing at Johnny with a look that brought heat to his cheeks. Though he was confused by the name. The Goddess of the Hunt he was familiar with from his lessons on Norse mythology went by a different name. 

“Oh, don’t be humble now,” Thor scoffed with a playful nudge before gesturing a hand out despite her protests, the Goddess moving to hug Shuri and Bucky. “May I present to you my sister, Skađi, daughter of the All-Father Odin and the All-Mother Frigga. Princess of Asgard. Protector of animals. Keeper of the Wrath, and the Goddess of the Wild Hunt and Winter.”

While those who had never met the Goddess before stared in awe, she clicked her teeth with a roll of the eyes toward her brother, “So much for being subtle.” 

Thor claps a hand on her shoulder blade with a chuckle, “That trait unfortunately lacks among us, sister.” All things considered, they were Gods after all. 

Royal Gods, nonetheless. 

“Oh believe me, Thor,” she hums while sending a knowing look, implying she understood. “I know.” Then before he could attempt to say anything else, she returned her attention to the group of people who she was unfamiliar with. “I prefer if you’d all refer to me as Y/n. It’s been a long time since I went by my Asgardian name,” She ignored the frown plastered on her brother. Even though she’d literally been going by the Midgardian name for years. “I don’t remember the last time I introduced myself as Skadi--surely not on any of my recent travels--so let’s keep it that way.” 

“Speaking of travels,” Thor’s tone resorts to one of a scolding brother--a complete 180 from the happy go lucky he just displayed. Pivoting to face Y/n with his hands on his hips. “Where have you been? Val said you’d be returning to New Asgard in the winter.” He narrows his eyes, “that was four years ago.”

Y/n sighs, waving her hand as though to brush off the Gods' concern. “I got caught up.”

“Caught up?”

“Yes, Thor, caught up,” she strolls up to the couch not too far from the Fantastic Four and plops herself down as though she owns it. The trail of her white cape brushing against the tile floor as it spills down the cushions. “You know how signals can get up in space--not to mention I was in a completely different galaxy--half the time,” from the side, Reed and Johnny share a look of wonder, the former wanting to ask which galaxy the Goddess was referring to.

“And then of course there were times I got the jump points wrong,” she trails off sheepishly, “I’d aim for one to bring me here, but I’d somehow get one that shot me to Vega or Andromeda. And instead of redirecting to the correct jump…I’d simply explored the surrounding areas of where I landed.”

“Jump points?” Johnny spoke under his breath, but was surprised to see Y/n heard him, her head turning to the group and assessing them like it was odd they didn’t know what she was talking about. 

“You’re not familiar?”

Bucky stepped in then, “Y/n, these are our…new friends.” He paused to introduce each of the Four to the Goddess by name before saying, “They are not from this universe,” her face shifts to one of understanding. “Having landed in ours unexpectedly following…unfortunate circumstances. And are still learning about ours and what we have discovered that they had yet to.” 

“I see,” she leans back into the couch, frowning at the visible sadness she observed from each of the four members. They were obviously trying to be discreet, but the Goddess was no stranger to pain and grief. 

And the four reeked of it. 

Johnny, who wore his emotion on the sleeve of his suit, relaxed when Y/n returned to the subject of jump points rather than investigating her curiosity of the Four. “Jump points are basically wormholes that spit you out at different points in the universe. We’ve mapped out most jump points, but there are still some unaccounted for--those are the ones you have to worry about. For you never know where they might take you.” Leaving them to ponder in their awe, Y/n turned back to her brother. “Anyway, I meant to return four winters ago, but I got caught up.”

The arrow met the middle of the target, leaving a *thump* as it is embedded into the material. 

A bullseye.

“Well done,” Y/n applauded, beaming bright and moving to Johnny’s side, who mirrored her expression. “You’re a natural with the bow, darling.” His cheeks turned pink, gliding to the tip of his ears as he lowered the bow to his side.

“I have the best teacher.” 

Her lips met the warm skin of his cheek. “Don’t let Barton hear that. He’d throw a fit.”

“Clint is talented,” he brought an arm around her waist, pulling her close so their noses were nearly touching, the cool metal of her chest plate meeting his t-shirt. “But he’s no match for the Goddess of bowhunting.” 

Y/n rolled her eyes playfully, grabbing the bow from his hand and made her way toward the target, calling out, “I think you’re ready for moving targets. Next lesson, perhaps?” She heard him jog as he caught up to her. 

“Exactly what moving targets do you have in mind,” he beat her to the equipment and began packing it up, removing the arrow from his bullseye with a proud smile. 

She took the arrow and placed it in her own quiver attached to her back, “small animals--birds, squirrels, maybe rabbits. Then we move on to larger mammals. Catch yourself a deer for Ben--he mentioned wanting to cook venison one of these days.”

Johnny pondered over the thought, a little nervous at the idea. Archery and hunting was new for him as he never partook in the activity prior to becoming involved with Y/n. Growing up in New York City that is, it lacked the beauty of the wilderness his goddess was devoted towards. 

After all, she was the Goddess of the Hunt and Winter. Associated with the mountains, animals, and bowhunting. A skilled archer, a shapeshifter. Johnny knew what he was getting into when he realized he fell in love with Y/n. And if he wanted to earn her love, and keep it, he needed to be devoted to those things as well. 

Just like she devoted herself to learning the things he enjoyed in life. Music, dancing, gold hour on the beach where the sky was painted in cast colors. The warmth of the sun on a bright summer day. The waves of the ocean when at high tide.

Their love was a slow but strong progression following her return to Earth. Somewhat unexpected, given their energy was primarily spent on defeating Doom. Their interactions were scarce. Usually when assigned together on expeditions, and even then Johnny barely could speak words in her presence. 

There was no denying the attraction he held for the Goddess, but there were pressing matters at stake. Not to mention his flamboyant, flirty flame dimmed after he lost his world and found himself in another.

New York was not the same New York. The Watchtower was not Baxter Building. The corner store on 51st street was not the record store Johnny frequented when he needed a new album for his collection. The sun in the sky was not the sun he saw every morning for thirty years. The moon wasn’t the same moon. Those stars were not the ones he spent countless nights admiring from the rooftop, picturing the day he’d touch them.

How could he find love in a place he felt he didn’t belong. 

Little did he know, a certain Goddess knew the feeling all too well. For she, too, experienced the destruction of her home, as Ragnarök and Thanos’ resulted in what was left of her people to take root in Norway.

But although the country once worshiped her people, cementing them as legends, it would never be Asgard. It would never be home.

That was what really brought Johnny and Y/n together. Two beings from different worlds, searching for belonging and home, finding it in each other. 

Since she began teaching him how to shoot, Johnny’s confidence was growing. Especially now since he hit a bullseye for the first time. Still, hunting animals made him nervous. 

“You really think I’m ready?”

“I do,” she set down bow and removed the quiver before approaching Johnny with a soft smile. Her arms reached out to move around his neck and he immediately melted into her touch, hands going to her hips where they met the smooth leather of her pants. “But I want you to feel that you are ready. We can do as many target practices as you want before we move forward.” 

Johnny’s bottom lip jutted out as he squinted his eyes in thought, “You won’t judge me if I say I need maybe ten…twenty bullseyes first before I feel confident to shoot a squirrel.” 

Y/n chuckled, leaning to kiss his plush lips, “of course I won’t.” She kissed him again, smirking when she pulled away. “Although I cannot say the same for my brother and Ben.” 

Johnny groaned, head falling onto her shoulder. “Then let’s not say anything.” Nuzzling into her neck, he kissed the area beneath her ear softly, warmth in his chest when he felt her shudder. By now the exhaustion was beginning to settle in, his eyes fluttering shut as he fought back the urge to sleep, wishing nothing more than to cuddle up in their bed. “Can we go nap now?”

The goddess laughed, mouth moving to his temple and laid a gentle kiss causing her mortal, supernova, golden-retriever partner to explode inside with love and adoration. 

“Yes, min elskede, we can go nap now.” 

[bad-holmes-impression]

i know someone has threatened to Get me but i must continue to post my posts.

so, like. prison.

even if varian wasn’t “mistreated”, in an active sense, he was still being treated awfully in general. he was surrounded by guards that— huh— had voices that sounded an awful lot like those masked men around his house. he had to sleep on a cot that was crawling with germs and most smelled of all of its previous inhabitants. there wasn’t fresh air or sunlight. there wouldn’t be any privacy for medical examinations or using the latrine or crying-and-trying-to-hide-it. the prisoners are canonically only fed gruel (eugene figuring out that they were on a prison barge in “max & eugene in peril on the high seas”).

did frederic actually make a lackluster attempt to “help” varian, and if so, what did that look like? just an order for him not to be hurt? or was that “help” simply preventing varian from getting a death sentence, and assigning him prison for life instead? (i feel like he would genuinely contribute something, just to tell himself he’s a good father to rapunzel & kept his word.)

if frederic didn’t help, or just helped in the latter way, that contains even worse outcomes. whipping, starvation, solitary confinement, ruddiger being forced out, etc. even the threat of one of those things would be consuming varian’s every waking moment.

and then there’s andrew, who was a shining light in all this. no wonder varian got so close to him— he was warm and spoke gently and was most of all alive, so he would have to do.

but this isn’t solely about varian.

i imagine, after cassandra & zhan tiri are done with, he would come to rapunzel and talk to her about prison reforms. and he wouldn’t delve into his own personal experiences, but he’d communicate enough for her to understand. and with her own experience of being trapped, rapunzel would immediately start ordering people to make that space ethical, and to release the non-violent criminals, because they’d surely served enough of a sentence by now.

and varian would feel that same bitter peace he felt when hearing rapunzel try to reach out to cassandra. that, even if it’s too late to help him, at least he’s preventing people from going through what he went through.

[jesncin]

Epiphany: How we re-imagined New 52 Martian Manhunter into a trans allegory

One of the Martian Manhunter storylines I've always felt equal parts gripped and let down by was the New 52 storyline Martian Manhunter: The Epiphany. For me, nothing invites creativity more than missed potential, so this storyline has been on my radar as one to adapt and re-work. With the DC Pride fanzine signups announced, that opportunity finally opened up! Here's the final comic if you're curious.

The premise for New 52 MM: After a near-death experience, J'onn J'onzz finds himself split into multiple human (and not so human) personas- all of which must unite to become the Martian Manhunter again and fight against an alien threat.

With J'onn splitting himself into multiple identities (including a woman who represents his heart and is attracted to men), this storyline has invited multiple queer readings of J'onn as a character- even making its way into a Screen Rant article about it. Unfortunately the latter half of Epiphany convolutes itself to the point of giving J'onn no time for self-reflection on his fluid identity. So here's how we adapted it!

First let's look at how canon!Epiphany reimagines J'onn's story. I like to pitch the infamous New 52 as DC's rebooted universe with a "dark and edgy makeover" and this 12 issue Martian Manhunter solo is no different. No longer is J'onn just a martian citizen (usually cop) that is teleported to Earth one day- instead The Martian Manhunter is a bunch of exceptional martians fused into one. The greatest warriors and intellects Mars has to offer, fused into a Super Martian ultimate weapon you could say. J'onn serves as the creature's soul, and then Ma'al (a red military martian, no familial relation to J'onn) does some Banned Blood Martian Magic to make J'onn into a monster. Because of course he does. And then J'onn is sent to Earth, because Mars (the planet) rejects him.

Instead of doing all that, we opted to retell the classic J'onn origin story: "a martian is magically teleported to Earth by scientist Saul Erdel". We felt a queer Martian Manhunter story hinges on how martians, as shapeshifters, contextualize their identity based on how humans perceive them. How and why does J'onn pick his human form, "John Jones"?

The general canon origin story is that J'onn is teleported to Earth by scientist Saul Erdel, and it shocks the scientist so much to see a martian that Erdel has a heart attack and dies. Sometimes it's the blast from the teleportation that causes Erdel's house to fall apart and that's what ends him. In one canon (Brightest Day), Saul has a daughter named Melissa who helps him with the teleportation machine.

[spliced panels from Martian Manhunter 2019]

Many modern versions of J'onn's origin story have it so that his human form comes from impersonating human-being-detective John Jones (originally a white man, now popularly reimagined as a Black man) after he is killed while working on a case, furthering the ties Martian Manhunter has to the police force. It always felt odd to me that J'onn is so unmoved by Erdel's death but then reacts completely differently to Jones' death by taking his form.

Martian Manhunter 2019 tried explaining this as a part of the mourning process for martians. That they impersonate the forms of the dead for a while to mourn them. So by identifying with Jones as a cop, J'onn gives him an honorific Martian send off. All while casually ignoring Erdel's death.

I instead wanted J'onn to have a more active relationship to humans and Earth culture, and keeping the Erdels alive felt like the first step. We decided to flesh out J'onn's sorely lacking cast system by not only having his twin brother Ma'al here, but also having the Erdels (both Melissa and Saul) act as J'onn's version of the Kent parents without feeling derivative.

They're a kindly family that take J'onn and Ma'al in, accepting them for who they are (our version of Melissa is Deaf, so she connects to our version of Ma'al who is mute) and imparting Earth culture to them. The "John Jones" persona turns into a homage to his chosen family. Accompanied by "Malcolm Jones"- Ma'al's human form!

Next up is Saul Erdel giving the Martian brothers a talk before they leave for the city! This whole part is influenced by J'onn actor Carl Lumbly's own thoughts for J'onn's relationship to not being bound by constraints of human identity;

"I think it was no big deal for J'onn. Shapeshifting was just part of what you do. It was the way he was, it was natural. And I felt that that was sort of a benign super-gift because it was such a part of his people. I felt that there was a responsibility in shapeshifting, of doing honor to what you're representing. Shapeshifting is one thing, taking over someone's spirit is another. He didn't tamper, he left things intact. Like a gas that will be gone, "I'll blow away after this, you won't even know I was here." I just think that idea of "spirit" which is beyond color, gender, planetary affiliation, J'onn could access all of that."

This was so well put that I had to credit Carl Lumbly in the comic itself because I wanted to keep his words intact! As a person of color, I always struggled getting behind genderqueer shapeshifter characters in mainstream media because there was often a careless disregard towards the forms they took on. Double Trouble from She Ra would say “Of course we all wear costumes. I just happen to be able to wear other people as costumes”. And it's hard not to find it appropriative. The idea that J'onn had respect for the forms he took on, separated him from every other "body-snatching" fear-based alien shapeshifter. There was something intersectional about his genderqueer-ness.

J'onn's relationship to Black culture in our take is heavily influenced by how he was portrayed in CW Supergirl! Truly the best to actually dig into his relationship with race regardless of how cheesy and heavy handed the show could get.

Speaking of CW Supergirl, Al Crane the bartender is from CW Supergirl. He's an alien in disguise working at a gay alien bar in that show, but he's just an average human in our au. Finding a canon bear was like striking a gold mine. No, he and J'onn aren't a couple in that show, but I can wish.

Up next we have Cha'arn O'zzm from Martian Manhunter Identity 2019! Since Ma'alefa'ak is no longer the big antagonist of this re-mix, we decided to make room for another (red) Martian to fill that role. We have other plans for fleshing out Cha'arn's motives, but for the sake of this story focusing on J'onn's feelings, we didn't get to explore those motives. So for now, just assume Cha'arn's ideals boil down to transphobia. I consider Cha'arn the most Shaped (tm) Martian villain of all time btw.

OH BOY, it's time to talk about the 4 J'onn personas! I had a blast remixing these.

Let's start with the most direct adaptation! Mr. Biscuits, J'onn's cookie-loving subconscious. I love him, best comic relief tall lanky weirdo, he never did anything wrong.

In the original story, Mr Biscuits teams up with a little girl named Alicia. Their friendship sort of serves as the heart of the story (I say "sort of" because it gets lost a lot).

Up next is J'onn's heart! Originally a Catwoman-esque Arab woman named "Pearl" from Dubai, we instead replaced her with an adaptation of Amrit Jessawalia, J'onn's main human persona from Justice League Infinity. Amrit is an Indian woman from New Delhi. In our take, her full name is Amrit Jayanthi. We wanted this take to feel holistic to the times J'onn has shapeshifted into different characters, so pulling outside of the New 52 storyline was part of that.

In the original story, Pearl exists as the emotional part of J'onn. She wants to be recognized as an individual, and even transforms into her own kind of Martian before being absorbed into J'onn for an edgy ending. It always struck me as an unnecessarily cruel finale! J'onn doesn't internalize any of his new experiences as multiple humans, he just gobbles them up to be angsty. We wanted our take on this story to flip this part entirely. J'onn doesn't have to deny either part of himself, alien or human. Instead he should learn to grow from his new experiences.

For our take on Amrit/Pearl, we borrowed from cases of fugue states. We wanted Amrit's story to feel like an Anastasia "discovering you're a princess" awakening, but one riddled with running away from grief and guilt. She feels her loss of memory lifts a weight from her shoulders, but she's also curious about who she really is.

Canonically, Daryl Wessel represented J'onn's "manhunter" mind. He has the hardest time coming to terms with all the wacky martian cosmic horror happening around him, only truly coming into his power in the end as a self-sacrifice moment. I decided to take that stubbornness and make it my version of Daryl's defining trait.

So in our take, Daryl became the epitome of an angsty noir detective. We aged him up and leaned into J'onn's more "traumatized father" side of his character. This would make him foil Amrit better. Because while she's seemingly freed from her memories, Daryl is haunted by his manufactured ones.

Special fact, we gave Daryl a middle name! The name "Paolo" is from the original Ostrander Martian Manhunter run. Issue #17 "Hidden Faces" a one-off story about the many identities J'onn takes on being exposed. One of them is a Portuguese kid named Paolo.

Up next is THE BABY. The biggest departure from J'onn's original 4 personas! I'll save it for an eventual review of New 52 Martian Manhunter, but I don't really like J'onn's 4th persona in the story. He's this old guy called "Mould" who dresses up like a generic DIY superhero. He's meant to represent J'onn's head, like the logical and rational parts. And he exists to give exposition. Sure, Mould has some moments of characterization that reveal he was in on the big twist the whole time, but that doesn't make him more interesting to me.

Mould never feels as fully formed as the other personas do. Even Mr Biscuits has his friendship with Alicia going for him. Meanwhile Mould is just there to Explain Everything. I felt that there should be more contrast between the cast system made up by the 4 personas. So we took that "over-rationalizing" aspect of Mould and put it into Daryl instead. For the new 4th persona, we pulled elsewhere in New 52 Martian Manhunter.

So canonically, the cosmic spirit of Mars takes on the form of J'onn's son To Shame Martiankind. The martians read their planet's cries for help as a threat and met it with violence, leading the spirit of Mars to destroy them all. J'onn's personas meet up with the spirit of Mars to get some exposition on this new origin story. Upon looking at the Martian child, Daryl involuntarily cries. Because something in him recognizes the martian kid as the son he lost.

This one moment was where we found our new fourth persona. Instead of the 4 personas being 3 humans and 1 Martian (Mr Biscuits), it would instead be 2 humans and 2 martians! While Mr Biscuits' would be the Martian guy with limited powers who could seek the other personas out, the Martian Baby (much like the spirit of Mars) would be an unpredictable source of great power. In our take, Ma'al mistakes him for a young "baby J'onn" only to discover through Amrit that J'onn had taken the form of his stillborn daughter (in our au this baby is named In'dra).

PLEASE KNOW that I wanted The Baby to originally appear to Ma'al in the form of a stray kitten named "Tomasso" to reference Hidden Faces again. That's why Double Stuff the cat is looking at the Baby like that in its intro panel. But I didn't have the space. Just know that it's canon to my au ok. J'onn showed up as a kitten, played with Double Stuff and THEN shapeshifts into the Baby. Get it right!

Overall, the personas in canon may represent parts of J'onn, but they don't help us to understand his character any better. They don't serve as character studies of his psyche, they don't serve as Inside Out-style allegories of his feelings, they just kind of exist to be horrified by who they truly are. In this re-imagining, we wanted each persona to need each other in some way. They have the answer to each other, because together they are whole.

The trouble with Martian Manhunter having little to no cast system is that it leads to stories like his New 52 storyline feeling empty. The narrative needs an active force bringing these lost personas together. While there is some appeal to the personas being confused and scrambling their way to find each other, they ultimately rely on some cosmic J'onn-force to unite them. They're passive in their eventual reunion, brought together by cosmic destiny instead of their own motivations.

This is where our take on a redeemed Ma'alefa'ak comes in! Ma'al serves as the close friend to J'onn who believes he's still alive somehow. He's someone the personas can bounce off of, someone who keeps the goal of bringing J'onn back focused. If I could expand this storyline, we'd be getting all sorts of drama with how little the human personas recognize or remember Ma'al. Lots of avenues for drama!

This panel is from Ostrander Martian Manhunter #7 (My Brother's Keeper). Time for the big Fernus reveal! Yes, the really funny twin cringe panel is back, and it's being taken very literally haha. Fernus is from JLA 1997 issue #84-89 "Trial by Fire". Canonically, he's an evil version of J'onn that shows up when his immunity to fire is gone. Canonically, the Martians used to be an evil race of powerful Burning Martians.

In our AU, the Burning Martians are an ancient variation of Martian that have been long forgotten. Ma'al showed signs of being related to them in some way through his immunity to fire, but was never interested in exploring that connection. Turns out Fernus is the form J'onn and Ma'al take when they're fused, Steven Universe-style, together!

These lower panels are from Ostrander Martian Manhunter #35 (In My Life Part 3)

Canonically, the tragedy of J'onn and Ma'alefa'ak's relationship was that they should be one entitiy, but they instead split to being one really good twin and one really evil twin. So there's moments of J'onn offering that they fuse in some way for "balance". Ma'al rejects this like the icon he is, saying "I will not be you! I will not give up who I am! If I am flawed, then I will be flawed!".

Which, metatextually, when you pair that with New 52 MM's ending where J'onn absorbs Pearl despite her protests to be recognized as an individual, makes J'onn accidentally look like a pretty shitty hero! He's denying both these characters of their full personhood, expecting them to just accept being a part of him. So in our version, we have both Ma'al and J'onn understand that Fernus is a part of them, but rejecting that as their true forms. Because in our au J'onn just loves Ma'al the way he is, no change and "curing" required.

We bring all this back to the twin origin story. Because as twins, they split from one cell to become who they are. And the premise of Epiphany is J'onn splitting himself up again.

Canonically, J'onn's New 52 solo ends in the world's most abrupt fashion possible. He's miserable about hallucinating an alien invasion, Alicia tries comforting him by saying (essentially) "at least you tried", and J'onn flies off (probably unconvinced). In our retelling of Epiphany, J'onn actually gets a chance to interrogate his epiphany.

In our version, the entire story is framed and retold through J'onn talking things out with Saul Erdel. He reflects on this adventure, INCLUDING the iconic kiss Pearl has with Aquaman. In my version, Amrit is kissing some man who looks a lot like my version of Bruce Wayne. Take from that what you will. What's important is that J'onn kisses one of his homies.

J'onn's final Sailor Moon transformation not only features the trans and non-binary flag colors because I'm a silly lil' guy, but it's also a nod to the beautiful Joshua Middleton covers for Martian Manhunter 2019. Narratively in that story, J'onn transforms into the form we recognize as his superhero form as a means of self-acceptance into his new identity on Earth.

In our version, J'onn gets a costume change not unlike the gems from Steven Universe getting updated outfits after they reach a new milestone in character development. We wanted J'onn's new outfit to continue his non-conforming slut tradition, just with some of the colors redistributed and J'onn's two yellow circles becoming one.

Narratively, we wanted J'onn to come to terms with his epiphany through Erdel. Erdel contextualizes J'onn's adventure into a humanized experience. For all of J'onn's sci-fi shenanigans, this story is about someone late in their life discovering how much more fluid and vast his identity could be if he gave it a chance. And sometimes you just need a push from a friend! A lot of canon Martian Manhunter stories get so caught up in the sci fi sauce that they forget how stories exist to allegorize something real about us as people.

In canon, before Pearl turns into a giant Martian mecha (yes), she recognizes that the transformation being asked of her is something beyond what's familiarly human to her. It's overwhelming for her, so J'onn informs her that he can just telepathically tell her how to shapeshift into a Martian mecha. She rejects this, saying "No. This. All this. I get it. It's about finding out who you really are." She recalls the human experience of hearing the water in Dubai's harbor and the sun on her face. Things she can never feel again by accepting herself as a Martian. And so she shapeshifts into a giant Martian.

That's ultimately the premise of Epiphany. It's about how J'onn's unique, cosmically horrifying existence dehumanizes him. Accepting who he truly is means he loses something human about himself. And it's a really sad story in that regard.

I think trans feelings can appear like that sometimes. Trans-wondering is like daring to look at some unfathomable cosmic horror and coming to the realization that you're not who you thought you might've been this whole time. It could mean venturing out into something entirely unfamiliar. And when people discover this way later in life, it can feel like giving up everything they currently have to explore something unknown. That's how epiphanies are.

So by reversing New 52 Epiphany, we made it a story about a Martian recognizing something new in himself by transforming into humans. It's confusing and scary, but it's not the end of the world. It's just the start of a new adventure for him. An expansion of who J'onn has always been.

[gorjee-art]

Your HofC AU is really interesting and I absolutely love it! I can't recall ever seeing an infection AU play off a curse causes by chaos ( then again maybe I just haven't looked well enough )

But I did have a question pertaining to the AU. What was the creative process like for its creation? How did you settle on your infection AU having a curse rather than a virus or parasite? Was Discord and chaos always the catalyst to the outbreak, or did it change overtime?

Sorry if I'm a bit overwhelming with this ask, but your AU is genuinely one of the only infection AU's I've felt a draw to after seeing one post about it ( wasn't even an official post by you, it was fanart! ). It probably has something to do with my frustration at the lack of Discord in infection AUs bc he kinda is the fix-all for any issue, but this ask is already long enough so I won't rant here.

Firstly! Awww...<:) Secondly, my creative process, short answer? It came to be like a bat out of hell in the middle of my sleep, and I got so pissed off at myself that I was IMMEDIATELY entranced by the idea, that I grumbled as I stomped over to my cintiq and made a quick doodle showcasing my idea of a Fluttershy with twilight's severed head (Haha mimir style how funny, i'm funny) as I passed out once again.

The long answer? Well you're right on the money when a big force is a...frustration when it comes to the lack of Discord's power both in the original show and several infection au's where his chaos magic is overlooked in infection au's. Now I'm not fully knocking it as it just might not be a narrative that the writer wants but I always felt as though Discord as even a concept in the show has a--tinge of horror in it.

His nonchalant attitude towards his ability to change the world with (quite literally) the snap of his finger, change minds of ponies and seemingly "corrupt" it (ie Discorded states, Screwball I will get to her eventually) , and mind you...give and take away limbs of ponies with a flash to stop them from "cheating" at his maze, while Celestia has to do a whole song and dance to give twilight her wings, told me that Discord is a near ancient deity, a myth, an impossibility not meant to be comprehended, but what INTERESTED ME was his childish, mortal want, to be loved.

What happens when a force of nature, the nature of entropy and chaos, wants to be human? Breaking said laws of nature to present himself as mortal for the sake of making friends. Good friends at that, (I will get to cosmos eventually), sounds like a greek tragedy to me. What happens when hades gets tired of living underground? To break the laws of nature! Is the very law of Discord, and the idea that alone would make him lose his control over his power TERRIFIES me.

I like inescapable horror, ie Junji Ito's Uzumaki, the various Silent Hills, Hereditary, and especially Darkwood, Oh god darkwood was a HUGE inspiration for this especially when it comes to how savages and creatures are formed, and I don't feel it's utilized enough in MLP grimdarks due to the influence of the famous shockhorror of cupcakes being so bloody and gruesome with--no real reason. (Now I have a big gooey massive softspot for cupcakes, as I grew up with creepypastas and looking at scary videos when I shouldn't be) thus influencing the gore aspects in alot of infection aus, BUT there's too many times in the original show alone where magic is finnicky and famously difficult to do, because of so many things that can go awry. I wanted to focus on the canon implications cause it makes me salivate cause it's begging to be lovecraftian, but it's a kids show with very cute colorful ponies praising friendship as it's one true god and it can't possibly go outside those restrictions. But i'm possibly insane, so lets go for it. Thus the rest was history