#and the cuffs were like. fraying off

[jorvikzelda]

right but like . i'm not the only one who dreams about sso.. right...

[somanyratsinthewalls]

Congratulations Mo 🥹🩷

Ordering Crimson with Kitten and a sprinkle of stork thank you

I LOVE YOUR FICS TOO OMG🩷

OMG HI THANK YOU SWEET BABY FOR REQUESTING! I like totally went overboard with this one and I think it made me realize that I have to write a Kid slow burn. I keep writing waaaaaay too much for Kid One Shots.

Pairing: Eustass Kid x Fem!Reader

Prompt: Hurt/Comfort to Smut x Breeding

WC: 2400 lmao fuck

Warnings: KINDA HEAVY- potential assault of some sort but it doesn’t happen (don’t worry we’re cool!), comfort, protective Kid, Kid with feelings, Killer is also here for reasons, p in v sex, cream pies and breeding yay, unprotected sex, fingering, good girl type shit.

I'll Protect You (+18)

— — 

It was a whirlwind of blood, cannon fire, and flying metal. 

Cuffs were tight behind your back and you weren’t sure how you got into this position. You receive a hard kick to the ribs. You spit blood. 

“Aww, little Kid Pirate girl isn’t so tough now, huh?” Your captors laughed down at you. 

You had been a part of Kid’s crew for awhile now but this was your first confrontation with other pirates in which you had found yourself bested. You were overtaken by several powerful enemy pirates and swiftly hauled off to a secluded closet area away from the fray and away from the safety of your captain and his crew. 

“She’ll make a fun little play thing for us I think… heh heh…” One of the brutish pirates chuckles down at you, nudging your cheek with the bottom of his boot as you lay bound on your side. The moist wood of the ship was splintering your cheek and one of your eyes was swollen to the point of obstructing your vision. 

“T-they’ll kill you, fucking bastards..” You spit out with all of your might, but it came out quiet since there was very little air left in your lungs. 

“Hah! You think they’d come for you? See how easily we were able to take you away? They don’t give a shit about you.” Another of the men sneered at you. 

“Come on, let’s get her out of those ugly punk clothes. She belongs to us now.” A taller, thinner man said as he reached for the buckle of your pants. 

“Get the fuck off me!” You choked out. 

“Stop playing hard to get, sweetie, I thought you liked red heads?” Another enemy pirate chuckled as he used his sweaty hand to rip your tank top, exposing your breasts. 

You had almost given up and resigned yourself for whatever you were about to endure when the door of the closet was blown clear off its hinges. The men around you straightened up and turned around immediately taking their hands off you. 

In flash of long blonde hair and blue and white, the men around you had fallen to the floor in pools of blood, sliced to pieces. 

“Kil-“ You try to speak but your mouth was full of blood again and you cough. 

In an instant you were scooped up in Killer’s huge arms, tucked into his chest to cover your now exposed body from any other prying eyes. You were fading in and out of consciousness while Killer carried you across the deck of the Victoria Punk. As your head lolled back you could see Kid facing away from you out of the corner of your eye, no doubt destroying what was left of the enemy pirate crew. 

“Captain! Y/n’s hurt! Bringing her inside!” Killer shouted at your captain. 

You were able to catch Kid’s eyes as he turned around. His expression changed so fast in that brief moment of eye contact it was almost as if Killer was carrying you in slow motion. You saw shock turn to blind rage as Kid noticed how damaged your body was. He no doubt saw your torn clothing… so god help those pirates if he assumed the worst had happened to you… 

You lose consciousness before you make it to the first aid quarters.

— — 

Your vision is too blurry and your head too fuzzy to make sense of your surroundings. All you could hear was a far-away, muffled yelling… a voice you could just barely recognize. 

“LET ME IN THERE NOW, HEAT! THAT’S AN ORDER FROM YOUR CAPTAIN!” It sounded like Kid was underwater, miles away, but you could still make out the words being exchanged. 

“Captain! I-I’m sorry but she’s been sedated! Waking her up now would only put her in more pain!”  You could just hear Heat outside the room pleading with your irate captain. 

“I DON’T CARE IF SHE’S AWAKE! SHE NEEDS HER CAPTAIN!” Kid clearly was not in the mood for reason. 

“Captain… The threat is eliminated. You need to rest, and so does she. We all do. Heat has assured us that y/n will be fine in a few days. If you trust your crew, you’d back off.” Your ears perk up further as you hear the logical and clear voice of reason, Killer speak to his captain. 

Several moments of silence go by and you felt yourself passing out again… 

“FINE!” *SLAM* Kid must have grabbed Heat and pushed him against the wooden wall of the ship. “But if anything, and I mean ANYTHING changes in her condition… I’m in there. Got it?” You hear kid spit at his crew. 

“A-aye captain.” You can nearly hear Heat choke out at Kid. 

You black out again. 

— — 

You hear whispers and see a faint light behind your eyelids. 

“Hey…. Hey y/n…” 

Your eyes flutter open completely for the first time in several days and you’re met with a mane of blue hair and a Glasgow smile. 

“AH!” You shriek and jolt up. 

“AH!!!” Heat pulls back and screams louder. 

“Gods on fucking bikes, Heat! You can’t wake people up like that!” You breath heavily, leaning up on your elbow, hospital sheet clutched to your chest in your other arm. 

“Like what? I literally just look like that!” Heat snips back at you, comfortable now seeing you’re alive and well. 

“Maybe a surgical mask or something, geez… Nearly shit myself…” You sigh out. 

“Are you body shaming me?” Heat brings his hands to his scarred, grey cheeks in fake offense. You smile weakly. 

A few moments of silence go by. 

“Do you… do you remember what happened?” Heat asks you. 

“Yes.” You respond instinctively. You don’t elaborate. “Can you get Kid? He asked if anything changed to come get him.” You ask without looking up from your feet at the end of the hospital bed. 

“How did-? Yes, y/n… I-I’ll get him.” Heat stutters as he swiftly exists the Victoria Punk’s makeshift medical bay. 

Without having the energy to thank your crew mate, you just sat on the hospital bed and pulled your knees up to your chest. You hugged them close into your body and stared out the porthole on the opposite wall. It could have been seconds, minutes, or an hour… but you found yourself lost in the point where the ocean met the sky, rocking back and forth in the window before you were startled by a gentle knock. 

Too gentle from what you’re used to on this ship. 

“Yes-“ you try to call out but your voice was hoarse. 

You hear the door behind you creek open and a heavy body thumps in with large boots. The door shuts. You don’t turn around.

Nothing is said. You can hear Kid’s heavy breathing. He was upset. You were sure you knew why. He was angry that a member of his crew had been so easily captured and needed to be rescued and put on a week of bed rest. You were pathetic.  He was here to tell you that you weren’t worthy to be a Kid Pirate anymore. Tears formed in your eyes and your throat felt tight. You clutched your knees harder before you finally spoke. 

“Captain-“

“I killed them.” Kid interrupted you immediately. 

“Y-you.. what-“ You turn your neck and wince, muscles still sore. 

“Every single fucking one of them. Killed them and threw their bodies in the sea. Set their ship on fire.” Kid paces across the room slowly, his jackboots creaking on the wooden floorboards. 

You tried to swallow down the lump in your throat. 

“I-I apologize c-captain. I-I was w-weak-“ You try to square your shoulders as you turn to face your imposing captain, but your voice trails off. “But I.. I… I… ” Your voice falters and squeaks. 

“You what, y/n?” Kid stops pacing and takes a step towards you. 

“I.. I was so fucking scared, Kid.” You spit out and succumb to violent sobs that wracked your whole body. “So fucking scared…” You cry and whimper into your knees as you pulled them impossibly closer to your shaking body. 

You were so engulfed in your own emotions that you were startled when you were scooped up entirely and pulled into Kid’s huge chest. 

You didn’t know why he was holding you, but you couldn’t help but let it comfort you nonetheless. You cried into Kid’s leather clad chest for awhile until he finally speaks. 

“I don’t want to ever hear you apologize to me again. Not for that shit. You fought hard. It was my fault.” Kid pulls your head out from between his pecs so you could look up at him. He gently uses his flesh hand to push your damp hair from your eyes while he cradles your body in his giant metal arm. Your wet eyes bat up at him and he can’t help but melt. “It was my fault that I couldn’t protect you. I’m never letting that happen again, you hear me?”

“But Kid, I-“ You try to protest, knowing you were too weak to be a part of his crew.

“You hear me?!” Kid pulls you closer to him by the back of your neck now. You inhale sharply. “I’m never letting anyone else touch you again. If they do, I’ll fucking slaughter them just like I did those bastards. You’re mine.” Kid becomes heated as he moves his face even closer to yours. “You hear me?” He repeats, but this time in a soft whisper against your lips. 

“A-Aye Captain..” You barely breath out through your trembling lips. 

“Aye, Captain what-“ Kid starts to run his hands up and down your torso, still not kissing you fully.

“I’m yours.” You finally get out. 

Kid hums in satisfaction just before pressing his painted red lips into yours. 

You sigh into the kiss, releasing so much anxiety and stress from yourself, knowing that Kid want you to stay, and wanted you in this capacity. 

Kid ripped the hospital sheet off your body and kisses down your neck to your breasts, quickly attaching his hungry mouth to your pert nipple. Small pants leave your parted, swollen lips. Kid pulls back from your breast to admire your naked, quivering body beneath him. 

Kid stands at full height, he then hunches slightly to drop a large ball of spit from his lips to land right on your bare pussy. You gasp slightly at the lewdness. 

Kid then leans down and presses his forehead against yours while undoing the buckle on his belt. 

“Tell me this is okay… tell me if you don’t want this, we can stop… tell me you want me…” He whispers softly to you as he strokes himself above you. 

“Yes. Touch me.” You meet Kid’s gaze and cup his jaw in your hand, truly magnifying his size against yours. 

Kid wordlessly moves his hand to your sex as he smears his own saliva across your clit. You throw your head back and sigh. 

“Have to get you ready for me…” Kid says tenderly as he pushes two large fingers inside of you. “I don’t want to hurt you…” Such softness you had never seen from your captain before was only adding to your arousal. He stroked your g-spot gently as he whispered sweet praises to you in assurance. “Such pretty sounds, baby… You’re doing so good getting so wet for me… you ready to take my cock?

“I-I need you… Kid… please…” You plead, wanting him inside of you so badly that you could swear your slit was dribbling out onto the bed beneath you. 

Kid nods his head against your forehead and takes his fingers from your clenching hole. You groan in frustration, but only for a moment as Kid returns and slides his massive member into you. You squirm at first, so unused to such a massive stretch. It didn’t hurt, but it was going to take a little work to get it all in…

Kid hears you whimper and tries tor assure you. 

“I know baby, it’s a little big… we’ll make it fit… you’re gonna feel so good…” Kid coos at your boneless form on the hospital bed as he gingerly thrusts the first half of his cock in and out of you. 

With each few thrusts, Kid sinks his cock a bit deeper inside you and with each additional centimeter you squealed. You moaned but you never protested, as your gushing slick coated him further, he was eventually able to sink himself balls deep inside of you. 

“See, pretty? I told you it’d fit.” Kid smirks and presses his flesh hand on your lower tummy while his metal arm holds your legs apart. 

“Ahh, Kid don’t do that I’ll-“ You protest and try to push his wrist. 

“You’ll what? Cum? Squirt? That’s the point, love.” Kid chuckles and rips your hand off his wrist. He pins your wrists together above your head in one hand as he presses on your belly with the other all while he relentlessly fucked into you. 

You shriek. Your vision turned starry for a moment and you feel liquid gush from your lower half.  Your eyes roll back in your head and your thighs twitch from the stretch to accommodate such a large man between them for so long. 

“That’s my girl… my fucking girl…” Kid grips your face with his hand and forces you to look at him. “Let me make you mine.” Ge growls at you. 

“Y-yes, Captain.” You make out through your post orgasm haze. 

“Mine…” Kid grunts and slams his hips so far into yours that it made you cry out. He came hard and heavy deep inside your cunt. 

Kid’s feet shuffle against the wooden floor as he tries to pull himself off of you. He pulls back and lifts your chin to face him. You were cock drunk and exhausted, still recovering from your wounds. 

“Come finish the rest of your treatment in my quarters. You’re not staying in this shithole anymore.” Kid says as he nuzzles his nose against yours. 

“You’ll have to take it up with the doctor, but I have a feeling you’ll be very convincing.” You place a gentle kiss against Kid’s lips. 

— — 

**A/N** This was too much plot with not enough porn? I can admit that but IDK I HAD FUN WRITING IT? I hope y’all like it!

[sunny-and-moonbow]

A Night To Remember

Fumikage Tokoyami x Shy Alt Reader

Word count: 1279

Warnings: self depricating thoughts, pining, reader being excluded/ avoided, general fluff, reader is gender neutral

Summary: You've had a crush on your feathered schoolmate for over 2 years, what happens when you run into each other at a concert. Inspired by @faulty-writes Tokoyami x Goth Reader headcannon.

Many people overlooked the feathered hero in training, setting their sights on the flashier students such as Bakugo and Midoriya. But you had your sights set on the quiet, dark boy. His fascinating quirk, his laid back attitude.

As a member of general studies, there weren’t many chances for you to talk to him. Not that you would be able to anyway, having been a stuttering mess the first and last you’d tried to talk to him in the hallways, asking him to move so you could get past. Even if you could talk to him, why would a future pro hero want someone like you, not even nobel enough to try out for the hero course.

He was so amazingly unique and interesting and you were just you, who gets shunned by your classmates for the way you dress, accessorise your uniform and even the music you listen to. You had to buy heavy duty headphones to listen to your music in the dorms without getting dirty looks and angry visits from your classmates telling you to ‘turn that shit off’ no matter how quiet it was playing. You know for a fact that you watch the same show as a few of them, having overheard them talking about it but been too anxious to interrupt, afraid of being judged. They weren’t mean per say, but they were always a little standoffish with you, like they expected you to pounce on them at any moment. You were able to work civilly on group projects, but they never tried to connect with you like they did with each other, and you were too nervous to start the conversations on your own.

The first time you saw Tokoyami was in the sports festival in your first year, watching with awe as he kept his team in the running during the cavalry battle and how well he had fared in the one on one battles. His quirk fascinated you, the gorgeous abyssal creature that resided within him, dark shadow, was so complex in nature. All you wanted was to sit and listen to Tokoyami tell you all the details of his companion and how his quirk worked.

But alas, you could never work up the courage to talk to him, and there's no way he would have noticed you during the sports festival, your healing quirk being useless against the robotic enemies and placing you as one of the last to finish and immediately eliminated. 

The last thing you expected was to run into him at a concert, dressed for the occasion in a singlet with frayed sleeves, patch pants and a spiked choker with matching wrist cuffs to complete the look. You had waited out front of the venue for hours to get a close spot on the floor, one of your top ten bands finally visiting your state, the lead up to the concert was agonising, time passing as slower than ever. You had your outfit mapped out the second you had bought the tickets, anxiously awaiting your chance to see them play live at last. Your eyeliner had taken you over an hour, your trembling hands having made getting a smooth shape nearly impossible.

It took you a moment to get your jaw off the floor, realising that he probably wouldn’t remember you from your one interaction and would think you were just some creepy loner who only came to gawk at all the attractive concert attendees. All the blood drained from your face when he made eye contact with you, immediately rushing straight back to your cheeks, you silently prayed that your makeup would hide your blush, but the slight twitch at the edges of his beak tells you otherwise. You quickly avert your eyes to the ground, avoiding that piercing stare and instead becoming suddenly very interested in the tips of your shoes. Your soul leaves your body when you feel a hand rest on your shoulder, whipping your head up to see Tokoyami. Just centimetres away from you. Touching you.   

You could faint.

His hand slides off your shoulder, having successfully gained your attention.

‘Hello’

‘...Hi’

You shakily respond.

Before either of you can say anything else, the lights dimmed, indicating the opener was beginning their set. You both eagerly turn, you forgetting any self-consciousness at the exciting prospect of hearing music you love around people that also love it. The movement of the crowd shoves you into his side, and him into yours. Both choosing to just accept the circumstance, as it is part of concert culture, and continue screaming your throats raw. 

By the end of the opener you were loosened up and excitedly babbling at him about how amazing they were and how exciting it all was while he just smiled and the great contrast from the half an hour ago. His staring brought you back to earth, stammering out the end of your sentence about how cool the band outfits were, conscious of the fact that you were talking to the guy you have had a raging crush on for the past two years and never spoken to.

‘[Reader]? Right?’

‘Uhh yeah.. Yeah! That's me!’

You tried, and failed, to respond normally. How did he know your name? Why does he know it? Did he hear the rumours about you? Does he already have a tainted view of you? Was any chance you may have had with him already gone? What if he told everyone at school that you were some weirdo that stared at him and couldn't talk to him norma-

‘I’m Tokoyami Fumikage.’

‘I know…I mean, like I remember you from the sports festivals…and..all that.’

Shit. You were blowing this majorly. He was so cool and you were acting so lame. A ridiculous stuttering mess.

‘I see, that’s good then.’

‘Um, yeah…how are you liking-’

Your attempt at communicating was interrupted by the main band finally beginning to play. Your attention instantly shifts away from Tokoyami and onto the large elevated stage, missing the way his eyes linger on you, soft smile on his beak. You push onto your tiptoes to peer around the mass of heads and phones obscuring your view.

After the lengthy experience of leaving the venue, you and Tokoyami file in with the crowds to the train station, ambling along and engaging in quiet and short, but sweet and reminiscent conversation that you know you’ll wish you savoured more after the night ends. 

As you try not to fall asleep in your seat, your head lulls from side to side with the sway of the train. It was a miracle you had snagged a seat at all and you didn’t want to risk missing your stop. In your delirious sleepy state you barely register the large hand that guides your head to the side, urging it to rest on his shoulder. 

‘I’ll wake you at your stop’

That's all it takes for you to turn your body towards him and push your forehead into the crook of his neck.

As promised, he shakes you awake as the train pulls away from the stop before yours, allowing you the chance to wake up enough to walk without stumbling.

As the doors open, you reluctantly stand from your cosy spot. Making a split second decision, you bend over and place a chaste kiss against the side of his beak, spinning on your heels and speeding out of the train just in time before the doors shut. You were definitely never forgetting tonight. 

And maybe, just maybe, if you hadn’t been so nervous around him at school, you would have seen the way he looked at you.

A/n-this one was so fun to write!-sunny🧡🌞

Masterlist

[wheels-of-despair]

The Best $7 Eddie Munson Ever Spent Pairing: Eddie Munson x You Summary: In the fall of 1983, Eddie bought something he thought was cool… but he didn't realize how important it was until a year later. Contains: Uncle Wayne, shopping, time-jumping, snuggles, a little bit of Eddie and Evil Woman's early days. Words: 1.3k

The best $7 Eddie Munson ever spent was at a thrift store just outside of Hawkins, Indiana, in the fall of 1983.

But he didn't know it until a year later.

The night before his Uncle Wayne disappeared for Thanksgiving - the man had worked overtime on every holiday he could, since he'd determined that Eddie could take care of himself - he slapped $40 on the kitchen table between their TV dinners.

"Wha'sis for?" Eddie asked through a mouthful of noodles.

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Eddie swallowed and repeated, "What's this for?"

"Sales everywhere on Friday. Go get yourself a new coat, it's supposed to be a bad winter. And a pair of gloves that still has the damn fingers in them. Looks like I'm raisin' a hobo."

"Does not," Eddie mumbled as he swirled his fork around the pasta in his bowl. He liked his old coat… even though it was faded. And coming apart at the seams in a few places. And the cuffs were so frayed, every time he tried putting it on, his fingers got caught in the threads. And there was that hole from when he'd gotten caught on a chain-link fence during a high-speed getaway. But he'd patched it! And the gloves he'd cut the fingers out of were cool!

Wayne looked up from the piece of bread he was buttering to give his nephew a pointed stare.

"Fine," Eddie gave in. "Thanks, Uncle Wayne."

"Yeah, yeah." The old man's eyes twinkled as he waved off his nephew's thanks and took another bite.

Being a practical and frugal-minded teen, Eddie started the search for a coat at his favorite thrift store.

"Hey, kid," greeted George, the store's owner, who barely looked up from the battered Tupperware he was sticking price tags on. "Just got a pile of 8-tracks, haven't even priced 'em yet, you interested?"

"Business before pleasure," Eddie grinned at the gray-haired man. "I come seeking winter-wear."

"Winter-wear, huh? Good call. Heard it's gonna be a rough one."

"Yeah, that's what my uncle said, too," Eddie nodded.

"Check the back wall, might be somethin' back there that'll fit ya."

"Thanks!" Eddie carefully treaded through the crowded aisles of discarded treasures and found the wall of outerwear. He flipped through cheap plastic hangers holding neon windbreakers, matted fake fur, and load of crunchy raincoats that reeked of cheaper cigarettes than his. And then… he found it.

It was long, and black, and it was way too big for him.

But when he put it on and turned around, it swished around his calves and made him feel like a vampire in a cloak.

Eddie walked to the grubby mirror leaned up against the wall and checked himself out. It was whole. Almost new, even. It was warm, and he could easily fit it on over the lighter leather jacket and battle vest he wore year-round. He lifted his arms out, and the fabric rippled to his sides. He reached for the edges and pulled them away from his body, holding them out to see just how big the coat was.

It made him look like a bat.

He lifted the paper price tag attached to a button-hole by a string.

$10? Sold.

He twirled in the mirror, watching the fabric rustle and sway around him like a creature of the night. He held up an arm to cover his mouth, like he was hiding his fangs. Yep. This is it. This is the one.

He took it off and draped it over his shoulder, deciding to see if any cool t-shirts had arrived since last he'd looked. He sorted through the rack quickly. Nothing new, but you can't win 'em all.

Eddie returned to the front with the coat, and George laughed when he spotted it. "Kid, I could fit five of you in that thing."

"I like it," Eddie grinned. "It's roomy. How 'bout those 8-tracks?"

George heaved the box full of newly acquired 8-tracks onto the counter so Eddie could dig through them. It was mostly show tunes and Christmas music, but he enjoyed the hunt nonetheless.

"Nothin'?" George asked when Eddie looked up.

Eddie shook his head. "A Partridge Family Christmas isn't really my style."

George laughed and scribbled ".50 each" on the flap of the cardboard box. "Will you find a spot for that in the front window?"

"Yessir." Eddie picked up the hefty box and walked it to the front of the store. He moved some creepy dolls and nudged a red tricycle aside to make room, placed the box down with the price facing the window, and returned to the counter.

"Just the coat, then?"

"Yessir."

"$7."

"$7?" Doesn't the tag say $10?

"That thing takes up too much room. I can fit four more in its place."

Eddie grinned and passed his cash to the man behind the counter.

"I'd ask if you want a bag, but I don't think I have any I could fit that monstrosity in," George teased as he handed Eddie his change.

"Thanks, George," Eddie laughed and collected his coat. "See ya soon."

"Stay warm, kid."

The morning Wayne came home from his long and tiring holiday stretch, he found far more change than he'd expected on the table, two pairs of new gloves… and a hulking mass of black draped over the back of a chair.

Wayne picked up the coat and held it out in front of him, marveling at its size. Well, it was warm, didn't have any holes in it, and clearly hadn't cost an arm and a leg. He folded it and put it back where he found it, spotting a note underneath the cash.

"Coat was $7. It'll come in handy when I finally become a vampire."

Wayne snorted.

"Gloves were buy one, get one free. I can show you how to cut the fingers out of yours if you want to look as cool as me."

He rolled his eyes at the boy snoring down the hall, put down the note, and started getting ready for bed.

"Why is it so fucking cold? I'm freezing my balls off."

Eddie raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend of three months in the Hawkins High parking lot. Most of the sensible students went on inside when it was this cold, but his girl - who hated this place as much as he did - decided to stick it out with him outside until the bell rang and forced them in.

"Shut up, you know what I mean." Her eyes rolled and her teeth chattered.

He checked his watch - seven minutes before the bell - and took one last drag off his cigarette. He exhaled as he dropped the butt on the ground and put it out with a twist of his boot.

"Wanna go in?"

She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. Stubborn.

"C'mere, then." Eddie unbuttoned the massive black coat he'd bought the year before - now decorated with band buttons on the lapels - and held it open to her. Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. "Come on," he urged.

She looked at him suspiciously. Shit, was this weird? Was inviting your girl into a coat cocoon more of a six-month thing? And then she walked into him. He wrapped his arms and his coat around them both and felt her relax against him almost instantly. She slowly slid her arms around his middle and rested her head in the crook of his neck. Oh god, oh god, did she just nuzzle her cheek into him?!?

Eddie was glad she couldn't see the grin on his face. He tilted his head down and let his hair fall around his face so no one else could see it either. He leaned his cheek against her head and inhaled the scent of her, closing his eyes and wishing the bell would never ring so they could stay just like this forever.

What had George said the day he bought this coat? That he could fit five people in there?

Eddie was quite happy with just two.

[hashbrowpn]

──★ ˙WHAT ARE YOU? ̟ !?

YOU WEREN'T AWARE that mermaids, sirens, all those, truly existed. After all, you spent nearly all your years at sea, so it was only right you could assume so ... but he certainly proved you wrong.

NOTES: dont mind me just walking by .. *accidentally drops my bag full of pirate!reader x merman!muichiro*

You stand with your heart beating fast, you can hear it in your ears. Waves crash over the deck, wracking the ship. Rain pelts down like stones, accompanied by lightning that lights the gray  and stormy night up like an explosion. 

You reach into your pocket for a bar of chocolate to compose yourself.

You see something in the corner of your eye.

Whipping your head around, you lean over at the railings, and you catch sight of it again.

It was no fish, you were sure. Because no fish had eyes so... 

...human.

 It gazes up at you with suspicion, and dives off.

"Hey!" inclining yourself further, you desperately search for this divine creature.

You nearly fall over the ledge, but someone catches your wrist.

"Careful," Shinobu warned, her voice both a whisper and a yell over the noise. You stopped to look at her, her crisp white shirt, adorned with intricate lace at the cuffs, frayed brown trousers and heavy black boots. She gives you a thin smile that didn't reach her eyes. You nod, swallowing, and mutter a "Thank you,"

You slip out of her grasp and your eyes rove over the raging sea, but your train of thought is broken with a shout.

"Guys! there's a leak!" Mitsuri cries as she scrambles to look for something to patch up the giant hole in the wooden floors. 

You swear under your breath as you try to desperately wrack your brains for something to help, glancing over at the three little girls and Aoi whimpering in the corner as Shinobu consoles them, heart wrenching.

Kanao comes to help as her hands fumble clumsily at the makeshift she had crafted to patch it up, but water still seeped through. As your chest tightens with anxiety, there came an ear-splitting crack. The three little girls screamed. Overhead, the lightning still roars, and below, the waves still crash. 

You turn to Mitsuri in panic. "Did you hear that?"

Mitsuri looked at you slowly, green eyes as big as saucers, but before she could even open her mouth to speak, the floorboards beneath you gives away, and you fall into the icy embrace of the sea.

The sea breeze is cold, and it leaves a taste of salt in your mouth. The sand tickles your feet as you kick your way around it. 

You look around. Ah, you're dreaming.

The ocean's surface shimmers like a canvas painted with the liquid gold of the sun. It's so tranquil, so peaceful. You let out a relieved sigh.

The sea washes a few shells at the shore. As you take one, it's beauty so enchanting, you pocket it and trudge through the sand and into the peaceful waters.

But it isn't as expected.

The water is cold, too cold for your liking. But as you try to get out, you find the seaweeds beneath you had found their way up your feet and shackled your ankles.

The sky turns gray again.

The seaweeds drag you back, and you cry out for help, screaming until your throat gives out, until the water in up to your neck—

"Hey."

"Aah!" you wake up cold but sweating, shaking, covered in sea weed, sand, and God knows what. "Eugh!" you wail after eyeing an odd looking thing stuck to your finger, and shaking it off violently, before your eyes settled on...

what in the world?

"What the-?" you shuffle backwards, realizing you were on shore. The sunkissed sand sticks to you as you back away. 

It gazed at you. Hypnotizing eyes, eyes the color of the sea on a beautiful afternoon. And oh, hair like a black canvas fading into the same color as his wonderous eyes. Your eyes drifed to his body... a tail instead of two human legs. He was leaning on his arm, his other half in the water.

You stammer, "What... What are you? are you what i think you are...?"

He squints his eyes in annoyance, and merely plops back into the sea. 

"Hey! Hey wait!" you scurry to reach for him— and grab his wrist. You struggle to hold on, but he struggles to escape.

"Let go of me," he hisses, pulling harder. "You can talk," you say, flabbergasted.

"Are you underestimating me, human?" he seethes, then lets his head dip underwater and dives. You yelp, refusing to let go of him, even if that meant getting dragged into the sea.

It wasn't exactly a refreshing experience. 

Being drenched in sweat and being in ice cold water. You were sure to catch a cold after this, well, if there even was an after this.

You're losing air, but as soon as you plan to let go, he brings you back to shore again, pushing you into the sand. "Go." he says, irritation obvious as he shakes your hand off. "If you bug me one more time, i'm drowning you."

You're simply awestruck, at loss of words. He's beautiful.

You lean forward to touch his face, but he turns away forcibly. "What do you think you're doing?" he grouses. "I should have never saved you. I knew humans were stupid."

You try to speak. You can't speak.

It didn't quite matter where you were right now. You were focused on him.

He shakes his head and turns to leave, but you shout, "Wait!"

You undid the button of your pocket, and was ever so relieved when you took the chocolate bar in your hand. "U-uh, do you eat-?"

He eyed it just like how he eyed you when you were on the ship. "What's that?"

Before you could even answer, he snatched it from you and began chewing at the wrapper. "No wait, you have to..." you gestured to him to peel it off.

He took a bite into the chocolate and looked simply taken aback. "What is this?"

"Uhm... chocolate."

In a few seconds, he had already eaten the whole thing. "Do you have more?" he leaned in and began to search your trousers, palming at the pockets. "No, wait," you swatted his hand away. He looked at you, offended.

"I'll give you another if..." you swallowed, head spinning. Clearly, you weren't thinking straight. "If you tell me what you are, and who you are."

He raised a brow. "What I am?... Who I am?..." 

"Yes."

"...I don't quite remember."

You just look at him with several questions. But another more important one pops up. You swear under your breath. "Oh no, the ship, the others!"

You stand up, and you immediately almost fall over from dizziness. "Where even am I?" 

"I've forgotten too." 

You shake your head at him, annoyed. "Whatever. Now I'm stuck in God knows where with some Ariel asking me for my only food."

Massaging your temples, you sit down at the shore where the water washes away at your leather boots, and you reach into the cuffs of your sleeves, stained with dirt and sand, for a small piece of chocolate. You peel off the wrapper and bite on it, staring off distantly.

"Hey!" The merman calls, looking ever so photogenic in the water. He swims over to you, but before he could, you eat the last small piece of chocolate. His brows furrow as he looks at you as if it were the end of the world when you popped the last piece in your mouth. "How greedy," he muses. "I have to take it from you forcefully, then."

He leans over and takes your chin, and presses his lips against yours. 

It breaks your train of thought, and you yelp and try to pull him away, tangling your fingers in his wet locks, but he pushes you closer to him. 

Finally, he pulls away from you, licking his lips discreetly. He savours the chocolate he stole from you, and his brows lift a little as if having a realization. "I remember my name now," he says, gaze drifting off. "Tokito Muichiro. You've asked me that, yes?" 

[lunasglow]

One day we need to have a legitimate discussion on how Jace and Luke weren’t even bullies and how a huge factor in Aemonds internalized rage is his perspective on blood purity. Oh, and how Aegon was really Aemonds biggest bully. And that day is today.

- Alicent herself knew this was true. “You may cuff him about as you wish at home, but in the world we must defend our own” she says after trying to frame Jace and Luke as “savages.”

-Alicent refers to Jace and Luke as Aegons “playthings” in the same scene. What kind of power dynamic do you really think was at play here? Aegon clearly liked to toy with his vastly younger nephews and influenced them.

- Mind you, Jace and Luke were 5-7 years old and NOT aware of the feud that ran in their frayed family. They lack the awareness of characters like Aemond and Aegon who are repeatedly reminded by Alicent that Rhaenyra’s family is a THREAT and that they are bastards who are beneath them in station.

-In contrast, there is not a single scene of Rhaenyra speaking about Aegon, Aemond, or Helaena in derogatory ways to her children. Even in the books, it’s evident that the feud between the children is entirely one-sided with the Greens growing up and *learning* to resent Jace, Luke, and Joff.

-the teasing in and of itself was so mild. What makes Aemond upset is that he doesn’t view Jace and Luke as his equals.

-to Jace and Luke, this was normal teasing. From Aemonds perspective, he’s being emasculated by younger boys who he views as sub-human and unworthy despite having dragons of their own because he’s been TOLD and ASSURED that they’re bastards.

- THIS IS WHY THE TEASING ACTUALLY SETS HIM OFF, NOT THE SEVERITY. Need we be reminded how strongly Aemond feels about “blood purity”? In a show about the Targaryen dynasty, he’s the only character to mention it.

Bonus:

- Aegon hating and wanting to tease Aemond is so on brand for them as characters. Aemond is a momas boy and Aegon is the disappointment. The allure to make his life hell is there, and what better way to do that than get their bastard nephews to help him undermine Aemond even more?

[cherryblossombankai]

Being Endeavor's favorite sidekick has its perks.

Warnings: smut with no plot, oral sex, sixty-nine, bondage, bratty behavior from Hawks and reader, fem!reader

@pixelcafe-network

"Stop teasing," Enji growls as you drag your hips slowly. Your wet pussy leaks all over his cock with every teasing movement, and he doesn’t know how long you’ve had him tied up here but it feels like forever. Although you let the tip prod your hole, you don't let him in. Watching the number one hero squirm underneath you is much more fun.

You see red wings stretch out before they wrap around you. Keigo chuckles in your ear, kissing your neck softly as his hands drag over your hips, feeling the way you’re grinding against Enji. The older man growls and bucks his hips impatiently. 

“Stop this bullshit and ride me,” Enji growls through gritted teeth. His skin feels heated between your thighs, the threat of flames but the careful control of a man who is a master of his quirk. 

"You're not playing nice at all,” Keigo tuts disapprovingly at Enji. It had been Keigo who talked him into getting all tied up for the two of you to play with. Enji didn't think you would be torturing him. It had sounded like a good time with his most beloved sidekick and the number two hero. Instead, he’s being teased to an inch of his life. His cock is so hard it almost hurts, the tip is bright red and leaking thick beads of precum. 

"I'm being plenty fucking nice to you brats,” he growls again. He pulls hard on the cuffs. The fluffy pink cuffs bend under his strong yanks.

"It's time to quiet him up,” you smirk.

"Mm, I agree," Keigo kisses you sloppily.

You pull away and crawl up Enji's body. His eyes are locked harshly on yours. You straddle his face and giggle at the way his lips close around your clit like a desperate man seeking a drink of water. You barely have time to enjoy the sensation before Keigo’s greedy hands are tugging at your waist.

"Baby, turn around to look at me," Keigo begs. 

You look down at Enji between your thighs. His brows are furrowed with intense concentration. He grunts when you momentarily pull away to change angles.

"That's my pretty girl,” Keigo winks ."I thought you might want to see this."

With that, Keigo lays down on his stomach between Enji’s thighs. His heavy wings rest over his back. Then, he leans in to place a kiss on Enji's cook. He wraps his hand around the thick, veiny shaft to begin stroking it slowly and then kisses the angry head again. Enji's moans vibrate against your pussy.

“Don’t stop,” Enji demands. It would be a plea from anyone else’s lips. 

You whine as Enji begins lapping at you once more. His tongue is warm and wet against your needy pussy. As you watch Keigo explore Enji’s cock, your mouth waters. You lean down, your face stopping right beside Keigo’s. He pulls off Enji’s cock with a lewd pop and grins at you. 

“Hi there, beautiful,” he kisses you deeply, your tongues rubbing together in a sloppy dance.

Soon you add Enji’s cock to the fray. Both tongues tease him only to meet each other again. 

Keigo pulls away first, smirking at you playfully. Enji groans against your cunt, but doesn’t pull away. His groans become more insistent when he feels Keigo begin sucking his balls at the same time you start taking him down your throat. 

It was delicious torture for Enji. The number one hero reduced to a moaning mess for the two of you would be a scandal if anyone knew. However, this would remain the best kept secret in the hero world. You, his most trusted sidekick, and the number two hero Hawks were the closest people to him. He knew, no matter how many times the three of you did this, that it would remain a secret. He never had any doubt. 

You swallow around Enji’s cock as your head continues to rise and fall at a steady rhythm. It’s driving him nuts. He tugs at the handcuffs again, growling in a pitiful attempt to get you to release him.. You grind against his face, redirecting his attention from the cuffs. He sucks urgently on your clit, drawing out a whine from you. You pull off his cock, but Keigo is quick to replace your mouth with his own. You notice him insistently tugging at his own cock. 

When your orgasm crashes over you, it’s a messy crescendo. You tremble on top of Enji, laying your head against his thigh as you pant. Your juices soak his chin, sticking to his stubble. 

“Fuck,” you whisper softly. Keigo let’s a small chuckle escape the back of his throat, but otherwise focuses on pleasure Enji who is fit to bust at any moment. 

You finally catch your breath and move to lay beside Enji. Your soft fingers play with his chest hair as you kiss his cheek. He’s flushed and damp with sweat. His spiky hair has become a mess, some strands still standing straight while other stick to his forehead. 

“Are you going to cum for us?” you ask him softly. You kiss him deeply. 

“Fuck, yes, yes,” he growls against your lips. 

Keigo sinks his mouth further down Enji’s cock, sputtering softly as he acclimates to the thickness. Then, a lewd squelch follows as he picks up the pace. Enji bites his lip, stifling his needy groans. Keigo looks up to watch the older man’s reaction to cumming. 

Swallowing every drop before pulling away, Keigo feels a sense of pride wash over him. He gives Enji’s cock a soft kiss, then kisses up his tummy. 

You sit up on the bed and reach for the small key for the cuffs. Enji is still panting from his high when you unlock the cuffs. His thick arms fall heavy to his sides, and then he rolls over to kiss Keigo deeply. You watch the pair making out passionately. Before you have time to get jealous, Enji is grabbing your waist and pinning you underneath him. 

“Oh!” you giggle. There’s a clever retort right on the tip of your tongue, but it fades when you hear the click of the cuffs. This time trapping your wrists. 

[no-saints-no-scholars]

Hear me out: Duncan's got more homemaker skills than Courtney.

Courtney's parents were always focused on her academic life and career. They got her private tutoring any time she slipped, had her in all advanced classes, and they made sure she never did an extracurricular she couldn't put on a resumé. But they never taught her any regular life skills.

It's not like she's clueless, though. A lot of stuff is common sense. She's too much of a neat freak to have a messy dorm or apartment, and she can do her own laundry, but she can't cook. She ruined her new frying pan the day she bought it trying to make eggs. She doesn't know what to do when her bookshelf collapses the first week of college, and resorts to stacking her books next to her desk. She burns a hole in one of her most professional looking blouses with the iron when she doesn't realise fabric can melt.

So when her favourite jumper begins to unravel, the pale purple one with tiny flowers on the cuffs, she very nearly cries about it. It's just a jumper, but Courtney is nothing if not particular. She knows there's no replacing it.

When she mentions it to Duncan, frustrated and not thinking much of it, he raises an eyebrow and asks why she doesn't fix it, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind.

"How would you even begin to fix it? There must be half a foot of wool coming off already, and the hole's in this super awkward place by the elbow."

"So you didn't try?"

Courtney goes a little red in the face at that.

She doesn't expect Duncan to come over the next day with a banged up biscuit tin and ask to take a look at the jumper himself. He inspects the damage, careful not to tug at any of the loose loops of knitting, and looks up at Courtney.

"This is the "huge hole", you mentioned?"

She might have exaggerated a little, but she's emotional about this, damn it. Duncan sighs, and grabs the biscuit tin. He cracks it open to reveal a sewing kit, packed full of loose fabric and needles and threads of every colour.

"This won't take long. Put the coffee pot on."

Courtney bites her tongue about manners and does as she's told, pouring them each a cup while she watches Duncan work.

It shouldn't surprise her that he has this stuff. Most of his clothes look D.I.Y'd somehow, with little tears and patches tacked on. But the scene before her is just so uncharacteristically domestic. He tries mending the hole normally at first, but the yarn keeps fraying when he tries, and he huffs before rummaging through the sewing kit.

When Courtney sets his cup down in front of him, Duncan is sewing what looks like a loose scrap of fabric over the hole.

"I had some blank patches left over and this thing is being a bitch, so it'll have to do."

After some time, he hands the jumper over for Courtney to see. There's an oblong white patch neatly stitched onto the left sleeve, covering the hole, and the elbow entirely. If she didn't know better (and if the other sleeve wasn't blank) Courtney would almost think that the jumper came that way- the evenness of the stitches is shocking.

Courtney blinks. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"My mom. I used to fuck up everything I wore within a week, and she always fixed it. She showed me how to do it myself when I was ten." Duncan takes a sip of his coffee. "You're welcome, by the way."

Courtney rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. "Right, thank you. Really."

"You really didn't think to do it yourself?" Courtney opens her mouth, and it's like Duncan can sense the indignant response before she gets a word out. "I'm not judging, I just figured little miss C.I.T would know how to do this stuff."

She huffs. "Not all of us were burning holes in our shirts before 8th grade."

"It was barbed wire, thank you very much. And it's still a good skill to have."

"My parents were just focused on teaching me other things, and it's not like I ever needed to know before now."

"Uh-huh." Duncan looks at her, thinking.

"I could always teach you anyway?"

"You'd teach me to sew?"

Duncan down at his cup. "Well, not just that, but yeah. I just don't wanna be the one to fix all your shit."

Courtney crosses her arms. "It was one hole in one jumper, Duncan."

"And the bookshelf?"

She flushes. "I just haven't got around to it!"

"Sure you haven't."

Courtney thinks, rubbing the soft wool of her jumper between her fingers. She gets a small hole in one jumper, and suddenly it's like she's hyperaware of how little she knows. Sure, not everyone can sew, but it's not just that. She doesn't want to admit to Duncan how many times she's eaten out this semester after burning her dinner, or how many times she's called Bridgette in a panic over her dishwasher making weird noises.

"...I guess it couldn't hurt. To get a second opinion."

Duncan smiles. "Whatever you say, Princess."

[omnis-hostis-resurrexit]

The Light of Absent Eyes

Vander has taken to visiting Ekko's mural on quiet evenings. Without the oppressive haze of the grey, Zaun's nights are colder than they used to be. Silco, ever observant, brings him his sweater. Sentimental shenanigans ensue.

Read on AO3

Rating: T for mild smut

Tags: Silco/Vander, S2 Utopia AU, Fluff, Old men being sappy and cute, Multiverse-Typical OOC

Word Count: 2110

Without early winter's chill in the air, Silco thought, this place would smell intolerably swampy. A few browning lilypads still clung to the surface of the pool, and a carpet of the giant ginkgo tree's shed leaves slid and squished under his boots as he made his way through the water. Dusk barely filtered down into the abandoned reservoir, and the only clear light came from a cluster of mismatched candles in front of the mural of a young woman's face. A young woman with fiery red hair and a fighter's wraps on her hands. A young woman whose expressions made her look by turns angry and angular, soft and smiling, and utterly at home in her own skin.

A young woman Silco had never met, and never would.

"Missed me that much, eh?" Vander was leaning against one of the mossy concrete pipes that littered the reflecting pool, and his voice echoed off the metal walls around them.

"Were you gone?" Silco asked with a mocking tilt of his head, slinging Vander's thick, much-mended cardigan off his shoulders and holding it out toward him. "You shouldn't be wandering around the fissures this time of night in your shirtsleeves."

"Yeah, alright, mum," Vander said with a good-humored roll of his eyes as he shrugged his arms into the sweater. In the poor light, Powder's riotously-colored darning washed out to a shadowy camouflage around the cuffs and elbows like flashes of unpolished ore emerging from the mud-brown yarn.

"I'm serious. Winter's getting colder every year since they redid the air filters," he said, wrapping his arms across his chest and burrowing his chin further into his scarf as he settled himself next to Vander on the concrete pipe. "Not that I miss the grey, mind, but I'm beginning to understand the topsiders' penchant for hats and gloves and twenty-seven petticoats at a time."

"Oh?" Vander reached over to twine a finger absently through the fringe on Silco's scarf. "Is that why a pallet of Shuriman cashmere shawls fell off the back of an airship straight into the upstairs storage closet?"

"Just reading the market, darling. Remember our deal," he said as he gently unwound Vander's hand and held it in his own. "You don't stick your nose into my��perfectly legitimate import-export business, and I don't complain that you still don't put enough bitters in an Old Fashioned."

"I did agree to that, didn't I." He shook his head and settled his hand comfortably on Silco's knee. Wind sighed across the mouth of the reservoir far above, scattering a grace of golden leaves across them. Vander looked up into the branches, one fan-shaped leaf caught against his hair.

It pulled at something in Silco's chest, the thin thread between them that had been cut and re-tied against all better judgment, frayed and worn and haphazardly repaired again and again. Stronger at the mended places, he thought as he plucked the leaf between his fingers and quietly slipped it into his shirt pocket.

He didn't know how long Vander had been here communing with this uncanny vision of his dead child, older and more fully-formed than she'd ever been in life. His girl, his Violet, his fierce little firecracker, and Felicia's and Connol's before that. Never really Silco's. He was an infrequent visitor to their cramped little rooms under the old water tower, while her parents lived. And after? Forgiveness refused to be rushed, it took its own hard-bitten time, and time in Zaun always had casualties.

"She's definitely Connol's work, no mistaking that," he commented as he drew one leg up, perching on the dry moss. "The one on the far left? Tell me that's not exactly the scowl he'd give every scab who walked past us on the picket line."

Vander chuckled and shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Gods, he was a force of nature, eh? Always the quiet ones."

"Hmm," Silco nodded. "They made an odd pair. I always thought he grounded her a bit. Not always a bad thing." He pressed the side of his leg against Vander's warmth and felt him shift closer.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Vander gave him a brief sidelong glance. "What else is different over there. Who else might've…" He dropped his head slightly, and his grip on Silco's hand tightened.

"Been spared?" A corner of Silco's mouth contracted, and he squeezed Vander's hand in return. "We were children of Zaun when that meant even odds we wouldn't live to lose our milk-teeth," he said, his voice tempered by something like remorse. "Who knows if any of us survived to see her at that age?"

Vander made a soft grumbling sound in the back of his throat. "The way Ekko talked, sounds like I never did learn to give a good apology. The other Ekko, I mean. Her Ekko." He tilted his head toward the mural.

Silco tucked a strand of Vander's hair behind his ear and saw how the candlelight glimmered in his eyes. "Sounds like I was never smart enough to let you try until you got it right. I would have been a great fool to walk away and leave all this on the table."

His fingers strayed to the back of Vander's neck, warming under the smooth blanket of his hair. Every silver strand still felt like victory to him, a shining thread of resistance against the years of want and days of ash and blood.

Vander leaned into his touch, and his breaths deepened. "That your way of saying it's time to head home?"

"It is where we keep our bed, for better or worse," Silco murmured as he gently scraped his nails over the base of Vander's skull, just to feel him shudder.

Vander turned, placing himself between Silco's legs and sliding his hands slowly and firmly along them, pulling him closer. "Since when did we need a bed?"

Without waiting for an answer, he pressed his lips to Silco's with a gentle familiarity that did little to hide the underlying hunger. Silco clutched at him, hid his hands under the warm wool, strained to twine his calves against the backs of Vander's thighs. The cold air around them seemed to hone every exposed edge, every shirt-hem lifted, every collar drawn aside. It made the warmth of Vander's skin even more precious and ever more urgent.

They kissed like drowning men with something true to live for, lips and tongues a sliding, driven dance, Vander's hand at the small of his back, both increasingly ravenous for the other's heat. Vander bit gingerly at Silco's lower lip as he sucked it into his mouth, and Silco swallowed back the needy sound that threatened to leave his throat. He scraped a fingernail over Vander's nipple through his shirt, provoking a low and blissfully undignified whimper.

Never let it be said that Silco didn't give as good as he got.

Vander's thumb was toying with one of the brass buttons on Silco's trousers, making maddeningly patient little circles that just barely grazed the head of his cock through the stiff twill. "S'alright?" He breathed into Silco's ear, just a shade of hesitation in his words.

Silco's breath hitched, and he put his hand on top of Vander's, stilling them both. In an instant, Vander had gently tilted out of Silco's embrace and propped himself one hip against the mossy concrete, his other hand still resting on Silco's ribcage.

"Happy to take my time, you know," he offered. "You could wear my sweater if you're cold." He couldn't see the tentative smile on Vander's face in the dark, but he could hear it. He couldn't hear the concerned little line between Vander's eyebrows, but he knew it was there.

"No, it's not — it's fine, Vander. It's not you." He leaned forward and tucked his cold fingers under the waistband of Vander's trousers, nodding toward the mural. "I just can't shake the feeling we're being watched."

Vander let out a breath that sounded relieved, and clouded in the air. "Well, I can't say my knees aren't grateful," he said with a subtle lilt of laughter, dragging one heavy boot through the limestone gravel beneath it. He held one hand out, and Silco slid down from the concrete pipe into his arms.

"Don't go making them any promises," Silco said, pressing himself closer, hands flush with Vander's chest. "Plenty of dark and relatively dry alcoves between here and the Drop. You might get your chance yet." He patted one hand in joking reassurance and pulled away with languid steps, heading toward the tunnel mouth.

Vander's answering low laugh was a banked coal, deep in the belly. "Relatively dry, hm?" He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "You really know how to show a fella a good time."

"So you keep telling me," he said, the scars on his cheek straining against the slow, vulpine smile that overtook his face in the dark.

He stood at the edge of the water while Vander put out the candles under the mural, one gentle hand lingering on Vi's painted hair for a moment. Silco might have heard a murmured g'night, love in the gathering dark. He must have heard it. Nothing else explained the swell of sentiment that rose beneath his sternum for a breath.

Vander slung his arm across Silco's shoulders, and they fell into step as they sloshed back toward the tunnel. Its inky depth was broken only by a thin trace of glow-chalk on one wall — Powder's helpful contribution, a new invention she was justifiably proud of. Its light pulsed faintly in time with the hollow sound of their even steps.

And if their youngest cast a skeptical eye at the smear of chalk across the back of Silco's jacket, or looked askance at the mud on Vander's knees before he hid them conveniently behind the bar? Well. There were worse things out there than two old rabble-rousers having a nostalgic fuck in a forgotten corner of the infrastructure.

As Silco stood by the back counter and made them both a proper cocktail, still loose-limbed and supple with fading afterglow, he pondered over all his hard-won blessings. How many did the other Silco have? Useless thought, but there it was.

Had he already died an ignominious, lonely death? Died young? Been cut down in his prime, coughing up blood until he drowned in it, like so many of their comrades from the mines? Lived still, driven by spite and distrust, fighting for every scrap until a violent end became inevitable? It didn't bear imagining. Not standing here in the warm light of the Last Drop, two full glasses in his hands, gazing at his partner's broad back as he pulled another pint of lager.

"There you are, love." He sat one glass on the counter near the taps. "That one's yours."

Vander handed the pints off to Gert with practiced efficiency and picked up his drink, reflexively wiping a wet ring from the counter with the bar towel. Behind him, a table of academy students boisterously toasted Live forever!, leaving a careless shower of suds in their wake.

"Now that's a prayer for bad luck if I've ever heard one," Silco mused, swirling the liquid in his glass.

Vander gave him a thin smile and cast his eyes briefly over his shoulder. "At their age, anything feels possible. Even in Zaun."

Silco rested his drink against his breastbone, looking aside in a satire of shame. "Gods, what am I like. You'll tell me, won't you, if I become one of those hideous old men who can't stop going on about how the younger generation's gone soft? Just say the word, and I'll give Powder a length of piano wire and tell her I hate her haircut."

"Oh, now I definitely won't tell you," Vander replied, his smile broadening into something genuine and bubbling under the surface. "Besides, someone has to teach these young'uns what their city's made of."

Silco raised his glass. "Blisters and bedrock?"

There was a warm shadow in Vander's eyes as he clicked the worn gold rims of their glasses together and returned the age-old toast. He held Silco's gaze longer than usual, looking at him as if he was something Vander couldn't bear to lose, someone he couldn't imagine living without. And for a moment, Silco felt the terrible, dizzying weight of the trust he'd placed in this man. The other Silco — Vi's Silco — would no doubt scoff, and fume about the catastrophic foolishness of his choice. In any other timeline, he'd be right.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," he said.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

── PURSUIT // PROLOGUE

Series Synopsis: When your cousin goes missing right before he can challenge the Champion of your region, you must embark on a journey of your own in the hopes that one day, you might finally find him — wherever he may be.

Chapter Synopsis: Your cousin, Shoei, sets out on his journey, leaving you behind with a final gift as a farewell.

Series Masterlist

Pairing(s): Nagi x Reader, Barou & Reader

Chapter Word Count: 2.5k

Content Warnings: pokémon au except i make the world emo and infest it with blue lockers, angst, character death, familial bonds, found families, male-female FRIENDSHIPS, a slow burn so insane the main love interest isn’t even in a solid amount of chapters, it’s my world i do what i want which means liberties are taken, near death experiences, this story is long bro literally everything happens in it the amount of arcs i have planned is insane, original characters because reader will NOT be the only girl i refuse to write in conditions like that, this is being written as if gen vi is the last generation to come out because i cba to catch up on new pokémon lore

A/N: this is SUCH a niche crossover i’m actually crying but ykw at least it’s different from the typical aus LMAOOO anyways um please be sure to read the warnings and if you enjoy this then like…reblog or comment or send me an ask or smth HAHA (only if you want though i can’t control you)

tag list (send an ask to be added): @sharkissm

The last time you saw Shoei Barou, he was pressing a Pokéball in your hand. His backpack was slung over his shoulder, his typical scowl on his face, and his Houndour sat at his feet, wagging its tail at you. The surface of the Pokéball was glimmering, ruby on top and a pearly white on the bottom, and because you could not bear to look at him, you trained your gaze on the watery sunrise it reflected.

“She’s yours,” he said. “I registered her under your name.”

“Guess that makes me a trainer, too,” you said.

“Don’t start on your journey for a while,” he said. “Or else you’ll catch up to me. Wait until I’m good enough that I’m someone you want to chase after, and begin then.”

He was embarking on his journey later than usual, but you had no doubt that he’d quickly surpass those with five or even ten years of experience on him. Shoei was like that, and so was his Houndour. What they lacked in battle prowess, they made up for with dogged tenacity, and it was impossible to imagine either of the two struggling for any amount of time.

“I won’t,” you said.

“Good,” he said. “Look, she’ll probably be better off if you just leave her in her Pokéball until you start training seriously, so don’t worry about that.”

“Won’t she get bored?” you said. He shook his head.

“Being in the Pokéball is a kind of stasis for them. She’ll know the time has passed, but it won’t be the same as if she were actually living it. It’s better that way, trust me. She’s the destructive type, and I won’t be around to help you if she acts up,” he said.

“Ah,” you said. “I see. I’ll do as you recommend, then.”

He reached out and placed a hand atop your head. You swallowed, staring at the dirt path beneath your feet, the worn toes of your old sneakers, the frayed cuffs of your too-short jeans — anything but him. You couldn’t bear it if it was him.

“You’ll be okay,” he said. “Y/N.”

“Yes,” you sniffed, though you had sworn to him so many times that you wouldn’t cry.

“You’ll be okay,” he repeated. “I promise.”

“Yes,” you said again. His hand balled into a fist, and then he knocked it lightly against your brow. Unlike you, he was smiling, and you did your best to quell the trembling of your lower lip when you made eye contact with him.

“Hey, kid,” he said. “Enough with the bawling, okay? How am I supposed to call you my cousin when you’re like this? We can’t be related if you get so upset about every little thing. That’s not how it works.”

“I can’t help it,” you said, and then he sighed, hugging you tightly. His Houndour barked, rubbing his head against your calf, which was the only method the small Pokémon had of comforting you. “I can’t help it, I know I should be happy but—”

“Be happy,” he commanded you, letting you go and placing his hands on your shoulders. “Y/N L/N. Be happy. I’m going to be Champion one day, and that’s nothing to be sad about.”

“Will you come back home once you are?” you said.

“No,” he said. “No, of course not. I’ll be busy with the duties of the role. Have you seen how many television appearances Mr. Mikage does? But I’ll bring you there with me, you and your parents and mine, and all of us can live there together. Is that enough of a consolation?”

“Okay,” you said, even though it really wasn’t. But it’d be a cruelty to stop Barou, akin to clipping the wings of a Pidgeot and telling it to fly. He was as restless as his Houndour, who even now sat and stared out at the horizon instead of the home it was leaving behind. The both of them were turbulent, impossible to cage, and if one tried to hold them back, then they were little more than a brazen fool.

“I’ll see you later, Y/N,” he said. “Try not to be to sad without me, alright?”

The Pokéball was cold and heavy in your hands as you watched him and Houndour walk off. Neither of them turned back, not for a moment, and then they were over the crest of the shallow hill in the road which led to the nearby cliffs, disappearing from your line of sight for good.

“Y/N!” It was the same boy again. He had been bothering you since you both had entered secondary school, mostly because that was around the time that Shoei had begun his league challenge. Of course, he had obtained all of the gym badges in quick succession, but conferences were only held every four years, and so he had had to wait until the next one before he could attempt to storm through it and reach the Elite Four, hence the delayed interest in his talent.

“Hello,” you said. He had never bothered introducing himself to you, and you were at the point now where it would be awkward for you to ask, so you generally pretended like you recognized him and hoped your conversations never grew to be too long.

“Did you hear the news? I mean, he’s your cousin, so of course you did, but still, still, can you believe it?” he said.

“What are you talking about?” you said.

“Barou!” he said. At the mention of Shoei, your Pokéball grew warm against your hip, and your left hand instinctively flew to the thin chain around your neck. “He’s actually done it — he beat Noel Noa!”

“Noel Noa…the last Elite Four member, right?” you said. The boy nodded at you. He was grinning as hard as if it were his own cousin who had mastered the league, or indeed as if he were the victor, but the truth was that besides you, there were very few in the entire city who could claim to know Shoei, so his pride was unwarranted.

“Yup! No one’s ever beaten him but Mr. Mikage,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Mikage is the champion,” you said. “So what’s next? Does he battle Mr. Mikage?”

“Pretty much,” the boy said. “Although he’s allowed to take his time in between and train his team. The conference win and Elite Four victories are only prerequisites, but it’s not like you have to do it all at once. In fact, hardly anyone ever does. Your team needs to rest in between battles, and besides, challenges to the Champion position are so rare that they need time to set it all up.”

“What do you mean, ‘set it all up?’” you said, sitting down at your desk at the back of the classroom. The boy didn’t usually sit with you, but today he was too excited, so he collapsed rather awkwardly in the chair at your side, leaning over with his elbows digging into his thighs.

“Didn’t you know? All Champion matches are televised!” he said. “The entire region will be able to see him battling. He’s amazing, you know.”

“Of course he is,” you said matter-of-factly. “That’s good that it’ll be filmed. It’s impossible to get tickets unless you’re a league official or have more money than you know what to do with.”

The boy coughed, his face turning red. Your eyes flicked to his belt, which was conspicuously devoid of any Pokéballs, just like the rest of your classmates, and then you curled inwards when you once again recalled that amongst your peers, it was only you who required the league-issued stipend for trainers to afford your tuition.

“Anyways,” he said, pursing his lips — a reminder to you that he had sat in the stands of the last league conference and was in fact one of those such types that you had been referring to earlier, “I’ve heard they’re thinking of moving towards broadcasting the entire conference andany Elite Four challenges instead of just the Champion matches.”

“Really?” you said, eager to change the subject. He nodded.

“Yup, it’s the case. The TV studios and news stations have been pushing for it. As long as they can throw in some advertisements and sponsorships between the battles themselves, their profits will shoot up like crazy,” he said.

“Well, that makes sense,” you said. “Why hadn’t they implemented it earlier?”

“They’ve been trying, but supposedly, there’s been a lot of pushback from some of the league officials. They think they’ll lose money if people can just watch battles online, since there’ll be less of an incentive to buy tickets to watch them in person,” he said.

“Ah. So what changed their minds? Aren’t the league officials notoriously stubborn?” you said. He snorted.

“That’s what my dad says. He’d rather deal with a Slaking than any of them,” he said. You couldn’t quite remember what his father did for a living, but if you had to guess, it was something financial-related, given the boy’s unnatural interest in the field. “Apparently, they tried it out in Johto to great effect, so they plan to give it a go here in Kalos as well.”

“Interesting,” you said. “I guess it doesn’t mean much to me now, since Shoei’s already through, but I’m sure it’ll be helpful to someone or another in the future.”

“Maybe we’ll see you onscreen next, eh, Miss Trainer?” he said. You rolled your eyes at the nickname; coming from him, it wasn’t so horrible, but it wasn’t always like that. Most of the time, you hated when the others brought up your trainer status, because it only set you further and further apart from the rest.

Of course, almost everyone had a Pokémon or two as a companion or to make the activities of their daily living that much easier, but there was a difference between a Pokémon owner and a Pokémon trainer. Trainers were the ones who were registered with the government, who were sent a monthly stipend by the league to pay for their and their Pokemon’s upkeep, and who made a career out of the sport. At least, that was what they were supposed to be, but nowadays, genuine trainers were few and far between; more often than not, those with the distinction were like you, with a single Pokémon that had never known the heat of battle and a desperate need for the extra income that their status, passive though it might’ve been, brought them.

The school-issued Gogoat that was designated to escort you home trotted along beside you, its tail bouncing with the gaiety of its pace, its ears perked against the wind as you went along. You sometimes wondered if the Pokémon you supposedly owned was anything like that, but based on Shoei’s description, you had mostly decided it wasn’t.

“Thanks for taking me back, Gogoat,” you said, patting it on the forehead when you reached your doorstep. It bleated at you, nuzzling you happily and then bounding away. You watched it go with a smile, incredibly fond of it though you knew it wasn’t actually yours — just a vehicle assigned to you because the school knew that most of its students weren’t proper trainers. The institute didn’t want to be held liable in case there was some kind of an attack, so the Gogoats had been trained to accompany students to and from their classes as well as to protect them as best as they could.

Supposedly it was a common practice, one that had been invented in Aquacorde Town, but there they used Arcanines instead of Gogoats, so privately you thought that those of you in Coumarine City got the better deal.

“Mother?” you said, peering into the kitchen, smiling when you saw her there, stirring a pot of something that smelled delicious. “I’m home.”

“Y/N!” she said. “How was school today?”

“It was fine,” you said, self-consciously drumming your nails against your Pokéball. “This guy told me that Shoei’s going to challenge the Champion soon. Mr. Mikage. They’re going to film it and everything. We should ask Uncle and Auntie if they want to come over and watch with us.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” she said. Shoei’s father, your uncle, was her brother, and they had remained so close throughout their adulthood that it felt at times like Shoei was less your cousin and more a genuine brother of your own who occasionally slept in another house. “Imagine if he can become Champion!”

“He will,” you said, unclipping your Pokéball from your belt and setting it on the table, where your mother’s Espurr was sleeping. At the movement, she sat up, giving the unassuming ball a disgusted look and climbing to the top of a shelf where she could continue to nap. “All everyone talks about is how strong he is. There’s no way he’s losing, especially if he beat Noel Noa.”

“It’ll be great for the family,” she said.

“Yes,” you said. “And for him.”

“Do you know when the match is scheduled for?” she said. You shook your head.

“No, I don’t. The guy said people usually take a break in between defeating the Elite Four and challenging the Champion, so that their teams can rest and all. I’m sure it’ll be announced well in advance, though. It’s not everyday that somebody fights Mr. Mikage himself,” you said.

“That’s true,” she said. “In the meantime, how’s this for dinner?”

“Looks good,” you said, though it was out of distraction, not approval. Your mind was racing as you tried to picture how the battle between Shoei and the Champion might go. Would he look different? Of course, he would have to, it had been a while since you had seen him last, and it might be a while more until you saw him next, depending on how long he took to put in the formal request to battle. Two weeks, or maybe even three.

Yet weeks turned into months, which turned into years, and still he did not appear to face Mr. Mikage. Eventually the excitement faded into a distant memory, and soon, if his name was brought up at all, it was as nothing but the Never-Champion, the one who was too frightened to fight against the undefeated head of the league and the Mikage Corporation alike.

At first you weren’t worried, but as time stretched on, you resorted to begging the police, the local Gym Leader, anyone who would listen, just for a chance at finding him. Yet one by one, they each refused. After all, what could be done? He was a top trainer, they worked in mysterious ways, everyone knew that. Any day now, he would reappear and that long-awaited battle between himself and the Champion might finally happen. Nothing about the situation was abnormal in the slightest. Maybe the cowardice was a bit uncharacteristic, but otherwise? There wasn’t any cause for stress.

And so, for that reason, nobody but you ever thought of actually looking for him — they never even knew that they had to.

[footprintsinthesxnd]

Good Girl

So this has been the long awaited ‘Kinky Ron’ fic requested by @ronsparky which sparked the whole creation of the discord chat with @malarkgirlypop. It is finally here and will most likely be in two parts of people want to see what happens. I’m sorry this fic took so long Jess but I hope you like it. Warnings: sexual images, swearing, Winters being awkward, kinky Ron, themes of war

Bastogne had been cold but Haguenau wasn’t much better. The wind bit fiercely at her face, freezing the tip of her nose and chapping her lips as she marched, head down, hands balled into fists. She couldn’t believe it. How was it when something went wrong it always seemed to be her damn fault? It’s not like Easy was her company, she was just a Corporal for Christ's sake but for some reason known only to God, Ronald Speirs had it in for her and regardless of the situation he would call her for a little chat.

Her boots sounded loudly up the corridor, snow and mud flaking off on the rotten wooden floor. First Sergeant Lipton greeted her with a small smile from beneath his mountain of blankets, his voice weak and shaky as he told her to take a seat.

“Just stay calm, Y/n. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems.

“That’s easy for you to say, Sir,” Y/n reminded him of the last time Speirs had called her to his office and Lipton had nearly lost his head to a flying plate.

Heavy footfall from the left caused Y/n to stand, her hand swiftly saluting the three offices as they entered the room. Winters and Nixon nodded at her before heading out, still deep in their conversation and leaving her with Speirs who looked as though he was about to blow his top.

“Y/l/n, with me. NOW!” Y/n trailed along like a dejected puppy, her head hanging low as she waited for the onslaught that was to come. Speirs slammed the heavy, oak door behind her but she didn’t jump. This exact situation had happened enough times that it barely phased her anymore.

“Corporal, why do you think I’ve called you here?” Speirs asked, leaning against the desk in the centre of the room. He had his overcoat off and the sleeves of his jumper rolled up, revealing the bulging veins of his arms as he glared at her.

“No, Sir,” Y/n replied innocently and she noticed the very subtle change in his eyes. She was in for it now.

“Well funny enough I didn’t expect to find one of the finest medics in the company having a snowball fight with some of the replacements. We’re in a war zone for fuck sake. You’ve been through Bastogne, I’d have thought you could have been trusted, could have been relied on but…”

“Sir, it was just for a few minutes. We were back from the line by our billet. The boys are homesick, Sir.”

“HOMESICK. FUCKING HOMESICK! How long has it been since you’ve seen home, Corporal,” he demanded, his eyes wild and his jaw shaking with the effort to not explode.

“Nearly two years, Sir,” she muttered, toeing her boot into the floor.

“And how long has it been for them? Two weeks? If anyone should be homesick it’s us. The Toccoa men. The men who have been through hell and back and are still fighting. I rely on you to set a good example and if I can’t trust a medic. Well, who the hell can I trust?”

Y/n picked at the cuff of her frayed uniform, “will that be all, Sir?”

“Yes, you may go.”

Y/n saluted the Lieutenant before heading to the door, she was pulling it closed behind her when Speirs spoke. “Do you want a drink?”

“I’m sorry, Sir?” Y/n raised an eyebrow as she peaked around the edge of the door.

“A drink? I managed to find some half-decent whiskey that Captain Nixon had yet to drink. Would you like a glass?”

Y/n wasn’t sure what to say, she wanted to get the hell away from his harsh glare as soon as possible but she was also curious. Why did he suddenly want to have a drink with her? For all Y/n knew he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

“Ummm, alright. Thank you, Sir.”

Y/n took a seat on the dark, leather sofa to the left of the desk, cautiously on the edge in case she was mistaken and needed to make a run from an angry Lieutenant.

“Here,” Speirs hesitantly passed her a glass of the amber liquid and she took it gratefully, the alcohol burning her throat pleasantly as it slipped down. She hadn’t had good alcohol since the celebration when Easy received their jump wings. The rest of the time it had been lukewarm, foamy beer.

“So, how are you holding up?” Speirs watched her from afar, his dark eyes boring into her as he waited.

“I’m fine. Thank you, Sir.” How else was she supposed to reply? She couldn’t exactly tell him how much she hated the God-awful hell hole and could wait to be back somewhere that was warm and allowed her to feel her limbs once more.

“Good. That’s good.” Speirs swirled the orange liquid around his glass, having not taken a drink yet and instead glared at the liquid as if someone gave him a sour aftertaste without consuming it.

“Sir, is there something you wanted to discuss?” Y/n wanted answers, there were only so many times she could avoid his eye contact and swallow nervously.

“Not especially. I just… wanted some company.” Speirs admitted, turning to look out of the window onto the deserted streets below. Y/n sat very still, her eyes tracing over his frame, strong shoulders tensed, large hands leaning splayed against the window frame.

“I can feel you watching me,” Speirs spoke in a hushed tone but Y/n knew he heard her small intake of breath. “I always know when you're watching me.”

“Sir, I…”

“Don’t deny it. I watch you too, you know. I watch when you stock supplies, I watch you when you throw back your head and your eyes crease as you laugh. I watch you more than you realise.”

By this point, Speirs had turned to face her and Y/n didn’t know whether to be flattered or terrified as the lieutenant approached her.

“Sir?” Y/n couldn’t help the unsteadiness of her voice and her eyes grew wider as he knelt before her, his hands tracing up her thigh.

“We can’t deny ourselves of human touch, Corporal. Desires of the flesh”

“Lieutenant Speirs…Sir… I,” Y/n gasped as his hand slipped up further under her jacket, fumbling with the belt that secured her trousers. With his body hovering over her, Y/n couldn’t remember how to breathe, the air entered her lungs in short, sharp gasps as she felt his fingers travelling along the soft flesh of her stomach.

“Please,” she whispered, feeling completely pathetic but no longer able to care. “Please just touch me.”

“Oh Darling, I thought you’d never ask.”

Y/n wasn’t sure what happened next, the order of events was a blur but soon enough she was moaning into Ron’s neck, her hips rolling in time with the rhythm of his fingers against her clit. She withered beneath him, nails wracking down his clothed back but Ron didn’t seem to notice. The knot in Y/n’s stomach was tightening and she could feel her thighs beginning to shake with the effort of controlling herself from reeling off a string of profanities when the door flung open.

“Speirs, could you…” Lieutenant Winters stood frozen in the doorway, the apple in his hand long forgotten and his cheeks blushed the colour of the hair on his head. He gulped and Y/n felt herself trying to clamp her legs shut and move away from Ron but the grip he had on her hips was firm and unwavering.

“Yes, Major Winters?” Speirs asked as if he wasn’t seconds away from giving Y/n the orgasm of her life.

“I’ll come back at another time,” Winters shook his head avoiding eye contact with Y/n and pulling the door closed softly behind him. Y/n felt herself let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and glared up at Ron who was just smiling smugly at her.

“Ron, I swear to God…”

“Now, now or I’ll forget to play nice,” Ron winked at her and Y/n thought she could fall apart just from that one action. Her mouth snapped shut and Ron snickered, “That’s what I thought. Good girl.”

Tags: @iceman-kazansky @yeahcurrahhe-e @lieutenant-speirs @sharpshootershifty @liberteuniteegalite @msmercury84 @mayhem24-7forever @blvestxr @dustyjumpwjngs @theflyingfin @jump-wings @kafka-ohdear @kmc1989 @mads-weasley @docroesmorphine @liptonsbabe @lena-basilone @sweetxvanixlla @hesbuckcompton-baby @ronsparky @allthingsimagines @whollyjoly @bucky32557038ww2 @panzershrike-pretz @xxluckystrike @malarkgirlypop

[waight-gain]

Chapter 1: The Unexpected Encounter

Dylan & Simon

The sun hung lazily in the sky, casting long shadows over the sprawling college campus. Late summer still clung to the air, but the promise of autumn lingered, hidden in the cool morning breeze. The quad buzzed with the energy of a new semester, students milling about in groups, reuniting with friends or navigating the unfamiliar territory of their new environment.

Among the crowd, Dylan Walker stood out like a beacon. At six-foot-three, with broad shoulders, a chiseled jawline, and the kind of easy confidence that only comes from years of being the best at everything he tried, Dylan was the epitome of the college jock. His letterman jacket, worn despite the warmth, clung to his muscular frame, announcing his status on the football team. His dark hair, always perfectly tousled, complemented the piercing blue eyes that made more than a few girls on campus swoon.

Yet, for all his outward bravado, Dylan was feeling a little out of place. It was his sophomore year, but there was a gnawing sense of something missing, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The parties, the girls, the camaraderie of the team—it was all great, but none of it filled the void he felt. He hadn’t told anyone, but there were nights when he lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what else was out there, beyond the expectations that everyone had placed on him.

As he cut across the quad, heading toward the student union for his morning coffee, his thoughts were interrupted by a collision that nearly knocked him off balance. He looked down, surprised, and saw a small figure sprawled on the ground, books and papers scattered everywhere.

“Shit, I’m sorry, man,” Dylan said instinctively, reaching out a hand.

The figure on the ground was a stark contrast to Dylan’s imposing presence. He was small, barely reaching Dylan’s shoulder even when standing, with a slight build that suggested more time spent in libraries than in gyms. His light brown hair was tousled, as if he’d been in a hurry, and thick-rimmed glasses sat askew on his nose. He wore a faded, oversized hoodie that seemed to swallow him whole, and his jeans were worn and frayed at the cuffs.

The guy looked up, clearly embarrassed, his face flushing as red as a cherry. He hesitated before taking Dylan’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. “N-no, it’s my fault,” he stammered, hastily trying to gather his scattered belongings. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

Dylan crouched down to help, noticing the titles of the books as he handed them over: Advanced Theoretical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Introduction to Linear Algebra. “Whoa,” Dylan said, impressed. “You must be, like, a genius or something.”

The guy blushed even more, if that was possible, and adjusted his glasses. “I-I don’t know about that,” he muttered, clearly uncomfortable with the attention. “I just… like to study.”

“Dylan,” he said, offering his hand again, this time for a proper introduction.

“Simon,” the smaller guy replied, his hand trembling slightly as he shook Dylan’s.

“So, Simon,” Dylan said, trying to break the awkwardness, “what’s your major? You’re obviously into some heavy stuff.”

“Physics,” Simon replied, the single word laced with a quiet pride. “I’m actually a junior. Got a scholarship, so I’m trying to finish early.”

“Physics, huh? That’s cool. I can barely pass my math classes.” Dylan chuckled, but Simon’s serious expression didn’t change. He nodded, though, as if to acknowledge Dylan’s attempt at humor.

As they finished gathering the last of Simon’s papers, Dylan handed them over, suddenly aware of how close they were standing. He could smell the faint scent of Simon’s shampoo—something clean, like fresh linen—and the way Simon kept avoiding eye contact only made him seem more endearing. It was strange; Dylan had never paid much attention to guys like Simon before. Hell, he’d barely paid attention to anyone outside his usual circle of friends. But there was something about Simon that intrigued him, something in the way his shyness seemed to hide an entire world beneath the surface.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” Simon said, clutching his books to his chest like a shield, clearly eager to escape the situation.

“Yeah, sure,” Dylan replied, watching as Simon walked away, the oversized hoodie making him look even smaller. He found himself still standing there, staring after Simon long after he had disappeared into the crowd, that nagging feeling of something missing now replaced with a sense of curiosity, maybe even excitement.

Without really understanding why, Dylan couldn’t shake the thought of Simon. There was something about the way their worlds had collided—so unexpectedly, so awkwardly—that made him want to see him again.

[3-2-whump]

The Party

<prev next>

TW/CW: public humiliation, pet whump (I think?), objectification, whumpee on display, whumpee being talked about as if not even there, light microagression towards whumpee (?) This is fun to tag.

By now, Khaled should’ve been used to hearing the faint sound of metallic clinking as he walked. His owner used to bind his feet in cuffs for nearly a year straight when he had first come into his home, leaving just enough chain in between to walk comfortably and not an inch more. That was nearly six years ago, yet even hearing the faint shk shk shk of shimmering chains whenever he moved mentally transported him back to boyhood, when he was scared, shy, and didn’t know what was going on or what was expected of him. Much like tonight.

“Stand up straight, pick up your feet, and don’t look so glum,” Thomas chided.

Easy for you to say, Khaled thought as he eyed his fully dressed owner in envy. The mafia boss was dressed in a three-piece suit as usual, though he had changed into one of the more expensive ones for tonight’s function, a charity ball of some sort. The garnets set into his golden cufflinks glowed like freshly shed blood under the foyer’s lights as he gestured at him.

Khaled wore gold and garnets of his own, except they were…everywhere. They were in his earrings, in his nose ring, studded like pomegranate seeds in his necklace, acting as connection points in the harness-like body chain draped over his bare chest and torso –he was covered in them and still felt naked. A sheer and silky fabric tied unskillfully around his waist matched the color of the sanguine jewels and provided the only shred of modesty in this obscene outfit. Khaled prayed it would not fall off, but he did not favor his chances.

At least I get a break from that chastity cage, he consoled himself.

He straightened his posture and adopted a more neutral expression. His master smiled. “Good boy,” he said, and yet the usual praise did not ease the nervous churning in his gut. The golden bracelets on his wrists, matching the bands on his ankles, clinked softly as the man reached out to squeeze his hands in reassurance. “You look beautiful,” was all he said to him before he dropped his hand and parted the large doors to the ballroom.

Khaled’s skin seared hot under the chandelier lights as he felt the gaze of every patrons’ eyes on him. Keeping his eyes focused on some neutral midpoint ahead of him –like that potted plant, yeah, is that even real? –he followed his master into the fray, swallowing nervously as he heard the heavy doors close behind him. It felt like everyone was staring at him, and from the glances he dared to take from his periphery, he understood why. Every other patron was dressed in formal attire. Even the few escorts he saw -and he could recognize a fellow sex worker when he saw one- were dressed more modestly than him. At least their chests were covered! His face burned with embarrassment, a blush that probably rivaled the cerise garnets, all the way down to his collarbones.

The boss stopped, finally, and so did he as they settled into the corner of the ballroom. They stood next to the bar and very close to the table laid out with several dozen little canapes. Khaled’s stomach loudly rumbled and his mouth pooled with saliva just looking at them. He hadn’t eaten since lunch, which was nearly eight hours ago. He glanced at his master, who was currently receiving a glass of whiskey from the bartender, and he carefully stretched a hand out to reach for the tartlet-thing closest to him.

“No.” His bracelets jingled as his hand was swatted away like he was a misbehaving pet. His master stared down at him as he threw back the shot of whiskey. Khaled drew his hand back to his side. “I’ll feed you when we get home, if you’ve been good, that is.” He sighed, but reluctantly nodded. He cast his gaze down to his sandaled feet as he tried not to think about the ever-present food and the persistent gnawing of his stomach.

A pair of expensive black leather shoes stepped into the top of his vision. “Thomas, so glad you could make it,” the unseen stranger greeted.

“Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” his owner replied, a polite smile in the tone of his voice.

“So, who’s this?” The stranger’s attentions were on him.

“This,” he said boastfully, “is my darling, my dearest, my worst-kept secret!” Khaled wanted to shrink away from the attention, but has master’s hand on his waist reminded him not to. “Come on, Khaled!” He summoned his courage to look up. An older man with a pot belly and a short, dour-faced wife on his arm was appraising him curiously, as if he was an exotic item and not a person. Smile, damn it, an impatient voice rang in his head. He flashed them a shy smile as he looked at them through his kohl-rimmed lashes.

“Your intern?”

“My ‘intern’,” his master clarified.

“He’s a pretty one, how long have you had him?”

“Oh, about six years now, come this spring.”

“Wow! Well, you’ve obviously been taking great care of him!” It was so obvious that this stranger wanted to do more than just look at him, with the way his fat fingers practically vibrated in excitement.

 “Six years?!” a second guest –a tall and thin woman– gasped. Khaled realized by now they had attracted a small crowd of partygoers to the bar, all with the intent to sneak a peek at Don Costa’s boy toy. He ducked his head in shame.

“Mine didn’t even last six months!” the woman whined, trying to garner sympathy.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I just got lucky, I guess,” Thomas shrugged.

“Tell us, how is he in bed?” another guest asked.

“Good, though there’s not much skill in lying back and taking it!” A chorus of laughter accompanied his master’s. He found a scuff on the hardwood floor and pretended that was the only thing that existed.

“Does he speak?” yet another faceless guest asked. The whole semicircle of gawkers fell silent. Khaled dared to look up. All eyes were on him.

“Well, go on, boy, say something,” his master directed.

Khaled wanted nothing more than for the earth to swallow him whole.

“W-what should I say?” he asked nervously.

An irreverent number of oohs and aahs erupted from the small entourage.

“Not even the faintest hint of an accent!” the first man exclaimed. “Now tell me, Tom, did you train him to speak that well?”

“No,” his owner admitted, “I mean, I hired a tutor to teach him English, but he trained the accent out of himself on his own.”

“Why, though?”

The stretch of awkward silence indicated they were waiting yet again for Khaled to speak, that they wanted him to answer. Khaled shifted his eyes to the floor again, swallowing past the discomfort of being scrutinized this closely. “Because… I didn’t want to stand out.”

-

“You were amazing!” Thomas complimented Khaled as he watched him shovel take-out falafel pita into his mouth like it was his first meal in days.

“So, this was just a one-time thing, right?” his beloved slave asked, cheeks distended with half-chewed falafel.

“Hey, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Thomas chastised him, “I trained you better than that.”

Khaled swallowed the food and apologized under his breath. “And to answer your question, who knows? They couldn’t keep their eyes off you,” he smirked pridefully. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you, either. He glanced from the road over to his passenger in the car. Khaled had looked every bit as alluring as he had imagined when he was covered in gold and jewels and blood red silk. He would never admit he was hard for nearly the entire time they were at the party, but the evidence probably spoke for itself through the bulge in his slacks. “It’s no wonder though. Red is a good color on you.” And I want to see what you look like in blue next, he mentally added. “I just might drag you out to other parties in the future if we get attention like that.”

Khaled set his stub of a pita down on his lap. Thomas couldn’t help but grimace; what if it left a stain? “Do I have to dress like this again?” the young man asked, though his defeated tone told him he already knew the answer.

“Oh, don’t be so sad about it, you were gorgeous!” I thought about nothing but how to get you alone for the entire time we were there!

“I was nearly naked, Master. In public. In front of strangers. Does that not bother you?”

“So? I like to show off what’s mine,” he shrugged. “Look, when you’re free, you can choose to wear whatever you want, but until then, you’ll put on whatever I give you, okay?” Khaled slumped further into the car seat. Maybe it was a bit cruel to tease him with the freedom he’d never willingly give him. Thomas sighed, feeling a little guilty. He reached out a hand to pat a silk-covered thigh. “It won’t be very often, I promise,” he reassured him.

“Yes, Master,” his pet murmured.Thomas smiled. At the red light, he leaned over to kiss the side of Khaled’s sauce-stained lips.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee

[sterekotypes]

“Eli, is that my jacket?” The leather was fraying around the cuffs. There were new scuffs on the shoulders, the back. Those weren’t there when Derek inherited the jacket. And they absolutely weren’t there when Derek died.

“It’s not like you were using it.” Eli shrugged with loose shoulders. He looked so much like Stiles in that moment; Derek was at a loss for words.

The stench of anger rolled off Eli like tsunami waves. His eyes flashed between beta gold and his human brown. They would have to work on his control. Again.

“If you don’t want me to have your stuff, maybe next time don’t kill yourself.” Derek opened his mouth to say something, anything. All that came out was a little puff of air.

Eli pushed back from the table with a devastating eye roll and walked off.

Derek growled at his retreating form. His own eyes went red as he dropped his head into his hands.

“I got him. Just remember what we talked about, Der-Bear. Not overnight.” Stiles ran his hand along the back of Derek’s neck, gave a quick kiss to his temple, and hurried after Eli.

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

More Precious Than Rubies: Part 2

This is an alternate timeline story that has a Rafael Barba track and a Sonny Carisi track. The two paths split off in part 3.

WC: 1696

TW: Angst; end of relationship drama; SVU-typical case about alleged rape.

AN: The prompt was "You Know Who to Call"

Sonny spent a long while getting over you.  Deep down, he worried that he would never really get over you.  He had messed everything up so badly, and he never realized how much you had brightened his life until you were suddenly gone.  He practically experienced auditory hallucinations, swearing he’d heard his phone chime with a new message – but there was never anything there.  No short, cute messages from you telling him that you missed him and couldn’t wait to see him again.  No forwarded emails about interesting legal cases.  No slightly risqué pictures, like the one you’d sent him the night before your anniversary…which he had ended up missing anyway.

And you were gone.  He guessed that you blocked his number because none of his texts or calls went through.  He sent you a few long, heartfelt emails that he was certain you deleted without reading.  But that was the thing about you:  no matter how badly you were probably hurting, you weren’t going to let it slow you down or derail your life.  As Sonny had remarked once, you had your life together in ways that Amanda never would.

He heard through his Fordham friends that you’d gotten a coveted internship with a firm that specialized in overturning wrongful convictions.  Sonny had always pictured the two of you as two sides of the same righteous coin:  him, punishing evil-doers and you, righting wrongs. 

He only saw you once in the months that followed.  You were standing on the other side of West 62nd street, so bundled against the cold that he almost missed that it was you.  But it was you – the same blue pea coat with the frayed cuffs, the same plaid scarf wound around your neck.  It made Sonny’s stomach drop, and he wanted nothing more than to dash across the street after you.  He wanted to fall onto his knees in front of you, bury his head against your stomach, and beg you to listen to the apologies that had choked him since he’d screwed up and lost you.  But a long line of traffic divided you, and when it was time to cross, he completely lost you in the crowd.

And then it was a solid year before he saw you again.

********

Rafael Barba stood on the other side of the glass with Olivia and Carisi, watching as Fin and Rollins interviewed their suspect.  A jittery young man, one Jeremy Michaels.  Freshman at Hudson University on a full academic scholarship, apparent hope of his family…and accused of raping a seventeen-year old classmate.

The evidence so far was nothing more than the girl’s word, but Barba knew it was in the early stages and SVU would probably find more for him.  His mind wandered to the other cases sitting on his desk, but his reverie was broken by the sound of heels clicking across the floor.  He looked up and saw some anonymous junior detective leading a young woman towards them.

“This is his public defender,” he said with a jerk of the thumb to the sweating young man on the other side of the glass.  Barba perked up and looked you over, and he while he didn’t miss Carisi’s sharp intake of breath beside him, the older man just ignored it. 

For a public defender, you were in a nicer suit than he’d expect, a well-cut jacket over a pencil skirt that hugged your curves nicely.  But you were young – so young that you looked like a child playing dress up.  Even with your hair swept up into a classic chignon and your perfectly manicured hand that you extended to him in greeting, you looked like you should be settling into your own dorm room for college instead of defending human trash.

“ADA Rafael Barba,” he said, wrapping your slim hand in his larger one.  “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

You introduced yourself.  “Newly minted public defender.”  You glanced over his shoulder at Liv and Carisi, and Barba saw you narrow your eyes a fraction before you nodded at them.  Then you pulled your hand away from his and looked through the one-way mirror.  “Is that my client?”

“It is,” Liv said after clearing her throat.  “It’s good to see you again.”

Barba’s ears pricked up at that – Liv knew you? – but you ignored the niceties. 

“I was hoping it wasn’t Mr. Michaels,” you said.  “Because it’d be a violation of his constitutional rights if you were still interrogating him after he asked for counsel.”

“Not an interrogation,” Liv started, but you cut her off.

“This ends now.  I need a moment with my client, please.”  And then Barba watched as you swept past them and barged into the interrogation room like you owned the place, hustling Fin and Rollins out with a look that he swore was nearly vengeful.  The Liv switched off the speaker, and Barba half-watched you, half-listened to the squad talk around him.

“How do you know her?” he asked conversationally, watching as you talked in earnest to the scared young man and then clasped a reassuring hand to his shoulder.

“She used to date Carisi,” Rollins finally said. 

“Huh,” Barba said.  It made sense.  You were a young public defender.  You couldn’t be that bright:  first of all, you dated Carisi.  Secondly, no one at the top of their class ever became a public defender, no matter how much of a do-gooder they were. 

After a moment, you left the conference room with your client, your chin tilted at the squad in near defiance.  “Charge him or cut him loose,” you said.  “In the meantime, if you need to bring him back in for questioning, you know who to call.” 

Then you marched out of the precinct with Michaels, your head high and your heels a steady staccato, leaving little in your wake other than a hint of some sunny perfume and a room thick with tension.

“That was awkward,” Fin said, and Barba glanced over at Carisi, noting how pale he was, how quiet.  Carisi was never quiet. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Rollins scoffed.  “We have this guy cold.  We’ll arrest him before the week is out and have him found guilty within a month.”

There was something appealing about you, the way you’d strode into that interview room, the way you’d marched back out with your head high and a fire in your eyes.  And, obviously, there were a million questions about a woman who had dated Carisi, of all people on earth. 

Barba was going to almost regret annihilating you in court.

********

You annihilated Barba in court.  You only knew about the swaggering ADA tangentially, but you knew that he relied on style points when SVU couldn’t give him solid cases. 

You always knew you wanted to be a public defender – you knew it since you were a kid who shouldn’t have to know what a public defender even was.  Let people make assumptions about your ability or tenacity.  They’d learn, eventually.

Like ADA Barba.  You saw him look you over, and you saw him make an immediate judgement about your skill.  The SVU squad knew you a bit, but they only knew you as Sonny’s sad-sack ex-girlfriend who used to linger around the precinct for a chance to see your absentee boyfriend.

Sonny knew you best of all of them, but you knew he didn’t know much.  You’d dated for over a year, and he likely couldn’t name half the things a dedicated lover should.  Did he know your favorite flower, or your favorite ice cream flavor?  Unlikely.

Did he know your family history and the preternatural zeal for competent – no, excellent – counsel for the poorest and most desperate citizens?  Even more unlikely.

You knew you’d have to defend the guilty.  You already had a full caseload, with at least three clients who not only committed the crime they were accused of, but freely admitted how much they enjoyed committing it. 

Jeremy Michaels wasn’t one of those cases.  He was innocent and never wavered from his story.  You hunkered down and built him a strong defense, and well – if revealing SVU’s slipshod practices was an outcome of the case, then it was just a happy accident.

In court, you parried every one of Barba’s thrusts, and then watched you eviscerated the state’s case.  You called in witnesses of your own.  In a move that felt so good it felt like a narcotic, you called Amanda to the stand and got her twisted in her own testimony.  Then, when she got upset, she came across as openly hostile, even when Barba tried to cross her and salvage it.  You watched at least three jury members turn on the state’s case, just like that.

And then, the coup de grace:  you exposed SVU as sloppy.  You turned in evidence after evidence of the alleged victim’s social media while the victim was on the stand.  Posts from Facebook that SVU should have found and vetted during their investigation – but didn’t.  It had taken you all of twenty minutes of idle scrolling through the young woman’s social media feed.  You had no idea how NYPD missed it.

And then you made the alleged victim read her own words for the court.  Back-and-forth threads with friends about how she, a honey-blonde white girl from the Upper East Side, was hooking up with a black scholarship kid from Biloxi, Mississippi.  And when one friend opined that the alleged victim’s father would go nuclear when he found out about his only daughter’s hook up?

“Miss Prince, can you read this last comment for the jury?” you asked, and your voice sounded so sweet and accommodating that the woman smiled before she realized what you were asking.

She stuttered, turned bright red, and then read the damning bit in a voice that was so low that you cut her off and made her repeat it. 

“What does it say, Miss Prince?”

The young woman glared at you, then read it in a steadier voice.  “It says, ‘if my dad finds out, I’ll just say he raped me.’”

And everything after that was just a formality, really.

[neko-naruto]

I've got the beats, I've got the bass (I've got the treats, for you to taste)

Summary: Floyd doubts there'll be a lot of him left to save when his brothers find him

Warnings: cannibalism, gore, amputation, Floyd is going through it, check Ao3 port for full tags

Authors Note: inspired by the Troll Twins AU by @ohposhers, im aware the cannibalism post was like, not official to the au, but the inner phan demanded i write this. title from DJ Whore by S3RL, hope ya'll enjoy and if you do consider dropping a reblog or checking out the ao3 port

edit 2023.12.28: WE GOT A SECOND CHAPTER OUT NOW!! it displays a small amount of comfort edit 2023.12.30: the third and final chapter has been posted, it's also been turned into a series because I have so many ideas about it

It's a little bit twisted, and a lot bit fucked up.

But they can't sing, they're Trolls and they can't sing, maybe if they were Classical it wouldn't be a problem. But they're born Pop and they can barely hold a note despite the fact they want to be famous so fucking badly. So they turn to the next best option, run away to Mount Rageous and make it big with a bunch of jello jointed freaks.

Of course, they still need an iota of talent to make it with even a bit of success.

Their method for getting that talent is beyond cruel, beyond human, beyond anything that could be conceived by a Pop Troll. But Velvet's everything but a Pop Troll these days, sadistic, uncaring, greedy- she'll get what she wants and she'll take her brother with her. She'll take her brother and the first unfortunate thing that has talent at that, figure out how to use that talent for herself and keep it.

Veneer always stared, unable to do anything as she worked, "Vel, this is-"

"Genius? I know," Velvet always answered with as she shucked slices of meat from the Troll under their ownership, paper thin and raw on a plate she'd hand to Veneer, "Eat up."

And he always did, he always fucking ate it. He always took his half and she always took her half, rejuvenating the talent they lacked with a small tray of raw meat from their own kin. She smiled this darling smile the entire time their captive watched them devour him, and Veneer tried to do the same.

"You two are fucked," Floyd argued as Velvet would bandage his arms and block off the bleeding because she had some civility despite everything. He'd clench and unclench his fist just to make sure he still could considering how spindly he was with how much they took away from him.

Velvet just giggles, "Maybe we'll take off your whole arm next, let you bleed out a bit," She traces a sharp nail across the joint of his shoulder. He shudders and tries to jerk away, the cuffs on his wrists make it shockingly hard to do so.

They get famous while he wastes away, chunk by chunk. They're erring closer to having a fame that reaches outside of Mount Rageous and he's erring closer to them having to nibble on his bones for his talent. The idea almost makes him laugh, but then he remembers that laughing hurts with how frail he is.

It's when Velvet enters the room with a hacksaw and a breaking knife that he cries for the first time. Tears welling up in his eyes and he can't bring himself to stifle them or wipe them away even though the cuffs are gone. He just sobs, aware of the fact that this is it, they're finally going to lop off his head.

"Oh don't be a baby," Velvet chided as she grabbed her marker, bright red, paint instead of ink, and dragged it along Floyd's thigh, just above his knee. She left a dotted line around his leg and he tries to stop crying.

"Do you have any anesthetic?" Floyd asked, trying to be smug.

Velvet gives this falsely contemplative hum, "Maybe," She lays down the jagged end of the hacksaw at the line, "But probably not."

Then she starts to cut, back and forth across the flesh with enough pressure to snap a rib. Teeth tear him open and he yowls, nerve endings fraying as his blood pools around him. It's shiny, not glittery per se, but definitely holding an almost opalescent sheen due to his Pop origins. It makes Velvet's mouth water, the fresh scent hitting her nose and she could tear into him with her own teeth right then and there but she doesn't.

No, she just forces further down through tendon and fat alike. His meat is both lean and marbled quite nicely with the diet they've been feeding him. Just enough to keep him alive, but fatty and carbohydrate heavy to make his flesh taste better and less tough. She presses the breaking knife beside the hacksaw when she hits the knob of the femur and presses hard until she hears something splinter. The scream accompanying it confirms her suspicions that she broke it as she cuts through marrow without any remorse.

He just whimpers and bites his tongue, hot tears still roll down his face as he watches her try and tear it the rest of the way. Twisting and yanking and it hurts so fucking bad but he can't do much to stop her. It comes off with this terrible sound and he wails as Velvet just lops off the skin with the breaking knife, aware she'll have to go at it more finely later.

"Shut up," Velvet demanded, tossing aside the leg and grabbing the bandage, "I'm not gonna let you die, or sleep through it."

He just nods as she bandages up his jagged stump, not even bothering to slice it smooth with her knife so the nerve endings aren't everywhere and torn every way possible. She bandages him with some semblance of care, he is their talent, he is their guinea pig, she can't just let him die. That'd be too nice of her considering how much talent is left on his bones, how much skill they can pilfer from his flesh.

"Hey Vel! We're running out of seasoning!" It's Veneer whose shouting down the hallways and Floyd hears.

"So I'm not good enough raw?" Floyd questioned, trying so very, very hard to be smug despite the pain coursing through every inch of his body.

Velvet scoffed, taking the leg and standing up, "Don't flatter yourself."

There's this stench of decay in Floyd's holding room by the time the twins are actually taken down. Even at that they aren't really taken down, just put in the slammer by their ever present assistant Crimp who would occasionally sneak some iron supplements into his food. She was nice, she was trampled on but she was nice, learned how to play ukulele to Floyd's singing and the such.

But she couldn't put back the flesh they stripped him of, tearing him down to his bones and even at that lopping limbs off. He's missing a leg below the knee and his entire right arm, shoulder down, and the rest of him is worryingly thin. Not because he was starved, far from him being starved, by the time he started running out of meat on his bones they upped his diet to try and make him last. It was futile really, they still tore off his skin and the flesh underneath it till all he had was bones with a paper thin layer of nerves and red wrapped in bandages.

The floor and walls are thoroughly saturated in the scent of his blood, his tears, and the medications they used to keep him from dying prematurely. Tranexamic acid to thicken his blood so he wouldn't bleed out. Midazolam to help him keep breathing even with the frailty in his everything. Benzodiazepines to stop his anxiety and force his muscles to ease up so his flesh wouldn't be so tense. Morphine, acetaminophen, risperidone, the list went on and on, he's pretty sure the nights he spent vomiting them up only hastened his wasting.

Dying would've been better than this though. Being torn apart, picked apart, used for his talent, having the life ripped out of him. At least none of his brothers had to see him like this, at least Branch didn't have to see him so ruined. He'd be the worst brother ever if Branch had to see him like this, if any of them did. Traumatized for life, he doubts he could live with himself if any of them got nightmares from seeing him in such a zombified state.

He winces when the door opens and light filters in, the rush of uncontaminated air doesn't reach him through the overpowering scent of decay. He can barely make out the silhouettes as Trolls, and instead of being defiant like he usually is, he crumbles. He can't fight it anymore, he's on his last leg to a literal degree and he knows he'll die if they take anymore.

"I'm out of talent," He begged, tears welling up once again, "I'm dead, just look at me," His voice catches on a sob.

They take one step further in, "Floyd?"

Floyd barely recognizes the voice, but he still sobs, even harder knowing it's one of his brothers, "I told you it was a trap, John," He's laughing now, it hurts so much but he's laughing regardless. He tries to shove himself up but everything hurts too much to do so, "Why did you bring our brothers?"

"Cause last time you were in a diamond holding cell! Now you're in a fucking closet that smells like shit," John snapped before stepping even further in, one step at a time. He was still getting used to the low light, his three younger brothers followed in suite.

"Don't! Just, leave!" It's a plea, it's the closest Floyd can get to a demand. He desperately thrusts out a paw like it'll stop them even though he knows it won't, and the action rubs the bandages against his raw nerves the wrong way. There's a hiss of agony, "Please, don't."

"We came here to save you," Bruce butted in with.

"I left my tribe to find you, Floyd," Clay said, stepping more gingerly than the others, "We're taking you home."

"Do you want to stay here?" Branch questioned.

And Floyd just sobbed, raising his paw to his face to try and hide himself away from them, hitching his good leg to his chest to hide the bandages. He whimpered and cried as they finally stepped close enough to see him in all of his ruination. The footsteps stop and he knows they're all riddled with disgust, riddled with fear, with regret, with shame. Their brother who looks like he was sent through the wood chipper, their brother who promised he'd come back, their brother, destroyed.

"I told you to leave," He whispers the word, eyes shut and body limp because he can't bear to see their disgust, "I fucking told you."

Paws gently lift him up, cradling him in a set of arms and he keeps sobbing, curling into whoever held him. He doesn't know which one it is because they all wear vests and open front shirts, in the past at least. He just knows he's holding on tight and apologizing for all the blood he's getting on their fur despite the repetition of 'its okay' being spoken back softly.

-/-/-/-

Floyd is out cold in the back of John Dory's van, strapped down with strips of the emergency roll of scrap booking felt that Poppy always brings with her. Branch has never been more pleased in his entire life that his girlfriend is a weirdo who always needs to scrap book because it's keeping his brother secured. He still feels absolutely sick to the stomach and he's not sure if it's the vile smell of rotting blood or the disgust with what Velvet and Veneer had done. All of them feel nauseated.

"Is he gonna make it?" Clay is the one who breaks the silence.

"Of course he will, we have the best doctors across any genre," Branch snapped back with, the sharpness of his voice unintentional.

Clay shrinks back just a bit, but shoots something back just as sharply, "Sorry to hit a nerve."

"Can we not argue right now?" Poppy asked, leaning between the two with this nervous look on her face, "Please?"

Branch crosses his arms and slumps against the wall of the van, Clay mirrors the motions.

Bruce clears his throat, "Poppy's right, we should just get Floyd under medical care as soon as possible."

"Is he even awake?!" John shouted from the front, eyes still firmly fixed on the road but body riddled with concern and fear and so many other things.

"He passed out!" Bruce shouted back.

Branch leans up against Poppy, "I'm scared," It's a whisper, it barely comes out at all. He never thought he'd admit an emotion as vulnerable as fear to a Troll as loud as Poppy.

Poppy just wraps an arm around his shoulders before whispering back, "It'll be okay," even though she doesn't know if it will.

"What if it isn't?" Branch asked just as quietly.

Poppy doesn't have an answer.

There's this low groan from the back of the van, no one up front dares to move because Bruce is already back there. They don't want to send Floyd ricocheting into another freak out, "Where am I?"

"In John's van," Bruce answered with.

Floyd tried to move but he couldn't, panic shot through him. His breathing hastened just a bit, "Why am I tied down?" He tries to quell the fear resting so heavily on his voice, weighing down on his calm and cool exterior.

"Because you're not doing so hot, it's for safety," Bruce said, trying to keep his voice soft, slipping into dad mode without even realizing it, "We'll take them off as soon as we get home, okay?"

Floyd gave this weak semblance of a nod, "Okay, is Branch here?"

The aforementioned brother scrambles to get to the back of the van, "Of course I am."

"Sorry you had to see me so messed up," Floyd apologized and Branch feels like crying at the comment because it's so fucked up that Floyd is saying sorry for being destroyed when he could do nothing.

"Floyd, it's fine, you couldn't," Branch tries to speak, he really does, but a whole lot of nothing comes up. He just holds onto Floyd's paw desperately tight, "We should've been there sooner."

"You had your own lives," Floyd countered with, "Thanks for saving me anyways."

"We'll always be there to save you, Floyd," Bruce supplied in place of Branch who was just rendered nonverbal.

"Is he gonna walk again?" Branch asked.

The doctor shook her head, "Even with prosthetics using Funk technology and Rock materials, he still doesn't have enough meat on his bones to properly move them to their full extent."

"Can't you give him a graft?" Clay asked, "I read about it, skin grafts, muscle grafts, take some flesh and use it somewhere else."

"I absolutely would but the thing is," She gives this sigh before gesturing to Floyd's body.

He's near skeletal, not enough of the right bio chemicals in him to scab up everywhere, he's torn up and raw. With the bandages removed he looks even more zombie, even if he is asleep over a hospital cocktail with light analgesia. It wasn't supposed to knock him out, just ease the pain, but apparently he was destroyed enough that the small amount of alcohol did knock him down. His arm is as thin as Clay's, in some places stripped to the bone. His good leg and his other thigh have chunks ripped out of them, whole sections of muscle and tendon alike removed but not quite to the bone there. His ribs are pronounced, so are his collar bones, and the crests of his pelvis, not enough flesh to keep the sharpness hidden.

"There isn't anything to take and use elsewhere. He's a shell of his former self, if we're lucky we can stabilize him and keep him on light foods until he fills out a bit. Then he'll be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, if we're lucky he'd be able to use a prosthetic with crutches on a good day," The doctor explained. A deep sense of horror knotted itself onto the brothers stomachs. Not enough flesh to do a graft, of course there isn't enough leftover, he's a skeleton for fucks sake! They're glad Floyd isn't awake to hear about his brand new future (they don't know he'll take anything so long as he isn't in the hands of Velvet and Veneer).

John Dory won't stand for it, "Hey doc, if you have a donor with the same blood type or whatever, it could work, theoretically speaking," He's grasping at straws really, but he doesn't want his baby brother to live a life without dancing, or going on walks, or any other thing that he can think of. He'd sooner die than use a wheel chair, his life was the mountains, his life was rough terrain. And even though he doesn't know if Floyd feels the same, he doesn't want his brother robbed.

"Are you insane?" Was what Bruce said before the doctor could answer.

"I was in the woods living off of swamp scum and bird carcass for twenty years, I absolutely am," He presses a digit to Bruce's chest as he speaks and shoves him back, "I want my brother to walk with us, to dance with us."

"He can do it in a wheel chair," Bruce countered with, "Medical advances have been made, we've come really far in twenty years."

"Guys," Clay butted in with, they both snapped to glare at him, "Let the doctor speak before you tear your heads off."

"It could work, hypothetically, but if his body rejects the graft for some inane reason he might not make it through the night. Although he might not make it either way given his current condition," The doctor said, "It's up to you four to call the shots because he's out cold."

They all share a tense glance.

"We all have the same blood type," Branch got out quietly.

"Blood type O, universal donor, can only take other O's," Clay tacked on.

"And our fur would match his, he wouldn't look totally frankensteined," John said.

Bruce stayed quiet.

"It's up to you, Bruce, this could work," Branch pressed.

"Fine, just don't take too much off of me," Bruce said, "I have a wife who would not appreciate me coming home butchered."

"Bruce, this is about Floyd," Clay said rather sternly, "We all know your wife will love you no matter how bloody you are."

"Guess some things never change, like your whole 'gotta look good' thing," John teased.

The doctor cleared her throat and all eyes were on her, "If we want to have enough time we'll need to put you under for surgery in the next hour or so, the clock is ticking."

"I'm doing it,"

"Count me in,"

"Me too,"

"So am I,"

-/-/-/-

All of them are unconscious when they're stolen from, strips of flesh taken from their serratus anterior and latissimus dorsi so no one has to see the scars when it's over. They're carefully cut open and extracted, a little bit of skin came with it because Floyd didn't have enough skin himself these days. At least when he still had the bandages on they could lie and say he had scabs and skin, lie and say the stench was because he hasn't had a shower in months, not because his blood refused to dry properly and rot and infect instead.

Mismatched muscles are stitched into the gaping lacerations across his body, surgical glue used around the edges just to make sure. Patches of his brothers skin from where their flesh was taken are stitched atop to try and hide the raw flesh, bright red and shimmery, it might help stimulate his body into trying to regrow his own skin. Otherwise he'll always have scars a deeper hue than his blood beside skin held on with stitches like he's one of Frankenstein's monsters, unfinished and abandoned.

Except his brothers are risking their own hide to try and bring him back from his virtually undead state, so close to death he might as well bury himself. He has four brothers letting themselves be butchered so he'll be able to move his remaining limbs, so he'll be able to live without the risk of developing a medication tolerance too strong. He has four brothers that are giving a doctor permission to take a piece out of them to sew into him instead, maybe if he were awake he'd say something about how poetic that is, how they'll never be apart again.

But he isn't awake, instead he's blissfully asleep on a small shot that was supposed to make him more sociable and numb the pain. He passed out rather fast after taking it, and then his brothers could begin discussing the truth of the matter without Floyd. If he was awake when they brought up the graft they know he would defy it, they know he would say it isn't right for them to make that sacrifice. They also know their brother would waste away without their help, waste away without any extra meat, exposed bone doesn't scream 'healthy' in Pop Village.

There's an extraction from Bruce first, tactfully cut from his lower back and laid atop Floyd's rib cage. Slid over top the painfully thin muscles in thin slices, some if it was placed along his hips to add padding to his painfully prominent bones. To make him less skeletal, it was mostly cosmetic on that front, but if he tripped and fell he could shatter like glass with how exposed they were. He'd shatter and there'd be so much blood it would leave someone scarred for life, so much whimpering because punctured lungs leaves no room for screaming.

The doctor takes from John Dory next because of how insistent he was on the procedure, how insistent he was to make sure Floyd could have flesh again. It's taken from one thigh, a solid chunk taken out and replaced with an almost jelly substance. He'd collapse when he walked without a substitute of some sort, he'll be reduced to crutches until he gets used to it. A consequence perhaps, or just cruel fate that he has the perfect cut of meat to fill one of the larger gaps in Floyd's good leg. He's restitched with most of his skin, but again, a good chunk of it goes to his little brother, to keep him from drying in the sun.

"What's happening?" It's Floyd, waking up strapped down and held open with someone holding a piece of meat. He instantly goes to thrash, scared, afraid, oh god he thought he escaped. What a cruel dream, imagining his brothers would actually pull through, he's still stuck.

"Calm down, Floyd," The doctor said, "We're in a hospital, giving you a surgery, your safe, your brothers are safe."

Floyd tries to nod, "Why am I awake?"

"Analgesia knocked you out, it just wore off," She said, grabbing a needle, "So please, hold still."

He does as told, needle sliding through his skin with ease. It only stings a little bit as he anesthetic pushes through his veins rather sluggishly. The doctor falters on using another needle to actually knock him out and only chooses against it when he drifts back to sleep. There's a long pause of no motion, no advances, just in case he wakes back up again, but when he doesn't she continues.

Placing John's flesh into the cavity of Floyd's leg and stitching it closed, surgical glue to keep it in place after he's been closed up. The stitches almost match his fur, thread off by a single shade, just a bit darker than he is. And it keeps staining on the blood inside of him when the needle goes through, keeps picking up that red pigment that shines like liquid gold. She'll rinse it clean after the surgery is done, after he's patched up using chunks of his brothers who love him so much they'd tear themselves apart for him.

She hesitates to take anything off of Clay because he's already spindly. But he wants to give as well, he's the one who remembered their blood types were all O despite the odds. He gets the exterior layer of skin from his lower back shucked off unforgivingly, he's too thin to take his muscle, that'd put him in danger. The flesh is stitched onto the nub just above Floyd's knee, where he was amputated without any reason. The jagged gore won't connect to a prosthetic very well, it's smoothed with a scalpel before the skin is put into place. Definitely not the average surgical move, but whatever it takes to keep a patient alive, including slicing off bits of meat in need of replacement. It's rotten flesh anyways, always exposed to air and never allowed to properly heal, it reeks of death like the rest of his body.

Branch is the final one taken from, strips out of his thighs spliced into Floyd's arms length wise. They fill out nicely, rest atop the bone in such a fashion they look like they belonged in his arm instead of Branch's leg. The hue of the flesh and the hue of the skin didn't match, the gray that Branch experienced still held strong even upon being cut up and stitched to a new body. It really makes Floyd look chimeric, like a rotten, decaying, beast of mythology that shouldn't be able to exist. And if he makes it out alive he'll fit the description perfectly because his heart rate should've dropped off the face of the planet by now, but it hasn't, he's still alive somehow.

He's still alive and so far his body isn't rejecting the sacrifices his brothers are making for him. It's a miracle really, them getting him to the hospital on time to get him stabilized for a surgery is also miracle. And maybe the defiance John Dory held over letting Floyd be forced into a wheel chair will bring advances to the medical field, probably not. But this in itself is amazing, the fact he's getting pulled together by thread and woke up not coughing blood is absurd.

Maybe when he wakes up at the designated time he still won't cough up blood.

-/-/-/-

John Dory wakes up last, "What happened?" He swings his leg over the edge of his bed and hisses because it hurts real bad.

Bruce is face down on his bed, "We gave Floyd a muscle graft, remember?"

"Right," John answered with before going to stand, he instantly collapsed, heavily leaning on the small table. Crutches, he grabs them instantly to prop himself up, knees shaking, "Where's Floyd?"

"I'm over here," Came Floyd's voice from the other side of the room, he was hobbling over with his new leg. It looked sleek, a lovely metallic sheen to it due to the materials and the Funk craftsmanship ties it together, the shape similar enough to an organic leg. He's using a crutch to walk over, fresh flesh in his thigh sore, but working with a bit of weight alleviation.

"You look great man!" Elation is heavy on John's voice as he tries to take a step over with the crutches. He nearly falls, "Whose are these?"

"Yours, the substitute for the chunk they took out of you is still fresh. It's gonna take time to walk 'normally' with it, but crutches are easy after a bit," Floyd explained, "Thanks."

John sits back down on his bed, "Well jeez, your welcome bro, but I may have to take that flesh back if I can't walk."

"You're lucky you aren't in a wheel chair," Bruce stated boldly, rolling onto his side just a bit, "The doc said that it was almost so bad you'd need one, you're lucky."

"Say, where's Branch? And Clay?" John asked, changing the subject with ease.

Floyd shrugged with one shoulder, the prosthetic not responding as much as desired, "I'm pretty sure they're in the room next too us, still asleep. When I asked the doctor she said they were still alive."

"They fucking better be, I'll crush her skull with these stupid crutches if they aren't," John snarled out.

"See, you're already in love with them," Floyd teased, "I'm sure Branch will outfit them to your style once he's done with his recovery."

Bruce gives a laugh, "Karma."

"Shut up," He pointed the end of his crutch at Bruce threateningly.

Bruce just batted it away with his paw, "How dangerous."

"Guys, neither of you are in condition to get in fight,"

"Beg to differ,"

"I could kick his ass no matter what,"

Floyd sighed, taking a couple disjointed steps closer to take a seat at the foot of Bruce's bed. He leans his crutch on the edge, "You could not, you're a dad."

"Makes me even better at tossing little shits around," Bruce countered with.

John is quick to try and breach the small gap, he ends up face first in Bruce's bed. It garners a loud laugh, "Shut up," it's a muffled plea, "How long are we gonna be in this place for?"

"A considerable while," Floyd offered nervously, "It varies between us. Me, you, and Branch are gonna be here the longest because we need some physical rehab, might be permanent for you and Branch, it will for me."

Bruce hoists up John fully onto the mattress, "I'm regretting saving your life," Bruce clips the back of his head for that comment.

Floyd just laughs, "Gee, I love you too."