#anyway i swear to god i did actually work on comms after coming back from the mountain last year

[gender-trash]

this week i am going back to the mountain (<333) for oil painting & reading books & chilling! not officially opening comms this time because i still have two from last year i need to finish up (sorry 😬😬😬 in my defense my stated SLA was "when you least expect it" and i take payment only when i finish the thing) but if you have an idea for something you think i should paint, now is a good time to tell me about it!

in general though my #1 priority is chilling the FUCK out because from as soon as i get back next week through at least the end of november, my team at work is going to be slammed. i'm bringing my comfiest folding chair and a box full of books and i look forward to being the least productive i've ever been in my life

[plantenjoyer]

I SWEAR I KEEP TRYING TO DO ART BUT THEN SOMETHING GETS IN THE WAY AND THEN I PROCRASTINATE AND THEN SIX MONTHS PASS

[lilysdaydreams]

Praise Bingus (No fucking way)

→  I do not claim to know corpse- therefore please don't think that this is what he would actually act like, or that any details about his life are actually true. this is fiction.

→ Pairing: Corpse Husband X Fem!Reader

→ Genre: Angst and fluff. (FLUFF IS COMING I SWEAR)

→ Words: 3.9k

→ In a world where everyone is born with a mark on their wrist, two souls come together over the power of bingus.

→ (this isnt crack lol)

→ Warnings: Lots of swearing, um self-depreciation? rejection (kinda) and negative thoughts overall. Sorry im new to warnings.

→ Authors Note: this is the first time im doing like angst so please tell me if I did well? Um also, I’ve already started on the part 2 so keep your eyes out for that. If you wanna be tagged for part two please comment and lemme know. Also check out my other fics if you want!

→ Buy me a coffee

Part two  →    

~~~

Soulmates were a phenomenon. They'd been there for ages, drawn into the Egyptian tomb paintings, seen in the cave paintings from millions of years ago, talked about in stories passed down from generation to generation. They could be matching drawings, first words, names; all black before the soulmates met and turning gold the moment they talked to each other. There wasn't a scientist in the world who could explain the phenomenon.

You'd received your mark at birth just like everyone else, a sentence running around your wrist,

"No fucking way."

Your parents weren't that happy when you asked at the age of 4 what "fucking" meant but it wasn't that bad. You were happy that you had something unique, something other than the "Hi," or "Excuse me," that was on every other arm.

When you were 13, a little girl on the train pointed to your wrist and asked her mom what it meant. Ever since then, you'd taken to wearing bracelets over it. This had turned out to be a good idea because a few years later you started making Youtube videos. At the age of 16, you started a Youtube channel where you focused on a variety of things; makeup, fashion, games, art, skits and a whole lot more.

At the age of 20, you had a steady following of a little more than a million subscribers, and you had moved to LA to be closer to all your Youtube friends. You hadn't just grown on Youtube, you'd also started a lot of side projects. You were known for the art that you did on the side, along with the makeup palette you'd come out with a year ago. Soon you were planning to release a merch collection, one that you had been working on for a whole year now.

You hadn't met your soulmate at this point but honestly, you didn't really mind. Balancing Youtube and study (along with all your other side projects) was hard. There was no need to add the struggle of love into it... Or that's what you told yourself anyways.

There were days though, days where you wished you had someone to hug, someone to cuddle in bed with, someone to go on long walks with. You didn't let yourself wallow on it that long though. Crying about it was gonna do absolutely nothing.

It started on a rainy day. The story of you and him. You were editing your soon to be uploaded video, an e-girl outfits lookbook, which had been requested by your followers. Your personal style was all over the place and your previous soft girl and cottage care look books had done well, so you decided to continue the series.

You eyes blurred as you looked at the same point of the video, and you sighed, removing your glasses and rubbing your eyes. Your editor was sick and had let you know that they wouldn't be able to edit it by the deadline so here you were, editing it yourself. You stretched in your chair letting out a yawn. You were contemplating on whether to make coffee or not when your phone pinged.

"Nooooo" you whined when you noticed it was on the coffee table that was just a little out of your reach. Stretching your foot out, you tried to grab it between your toes and then sighed when the phone fell.

"I have zero luck, I swear" you muttered to yourself, bending to pick up the phone.

The text was from Rae, asking you to join a game of Among Us. You and Rae had been friends for a bit now, which all started when she came across your art and decided to order something from you. You had chatted and clicked immediately, immediately becoming fast friends. Ever since the lockdown started, she often asked you to join in on Among us games and your friendship had really grown over these past few months.

You sent a quick "sure!" and then went to your table, waiting for the PC to turn on. Quickly tweeting out that you were streaming, you opened up Youtube and turned on the stream, saying a quick hello and letting them know what you'd be doing.

"Rae just invited me guys, I don't really know who's there," you mumbled, replying to a comment asking you who you were playing with.

You squinted your eyes, joining the voice chat and then opening your phone camera to quickly check that you didn't look horrible. Sure you didn't really care about how you looked but it was always good to check that you didn't have anything stuck between your teeth before you turned on the camera.

There was already a conversation going on, between who you thought was Corpse and Sykkuno, judging by their voices.

"Yeah I could totally do that. Get a cat and name it Bingus. I wonder if th-"

You gasped when you heard what they were talking about and unmuted yourself immediately yelling "PRAISE LORD BINGUS" and effectively shocking everyone in the chat.

A moment of silence and then Rae yelled: "OH MY FUCKING GOD Y/N, YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME."

You giggled as everyone groaned and whined, saying hi as they realised who it was. You had played with Sykkuno and the others a few times before but you'd never met Corpse before. You'd heard his voice though, as he was trending on twitter constantly over the past few weeks. Once they all quietened down, you realised Corpse hadn't said anything. Since you knew everyone else in the lobby, you introduced yourself, wondering if you'd scared him a bit too hard.

"Hey Corpse, I'm Y/N from Y/C/N, its so nice to finally meet you," you said gritting your teeth at you awkward introduction. For a second there was no response and then three words were said that made your jaw drop to the floor.

"No fucking way"

He had whispered it, obviously still in shock, and your eyes widened in surprise as a tingle spread all over your body. So this was what everyone meant by "you'll just know," when you asked them about how you would recognize your soulmate.

"Holy shit" you thought frozen in your seat.

Never had you been more glad that you hadn't turned the camera on yet.

"Uhhhh-" you started, but stopped now knowing what to say.

What the fuck were you supposed to do now.

"Wha- Whats wrong?" Rae asked after a moment passed.

Corpse cleared his throat and started "Its um, shes my -" and you cut him off, heart beating in your chest.

"Nothing. Its nothing." you said talking over him. "Who else are we waiting for Rae?" you asked joining the lobby quickly and choosing red as your colour.

"Uh one more person," she said slowly, still a bit confused.

"Oh awesome!" you said fake enthusiasm prevalent in your voice. "So Sykkuno," you started, wanting to keep the conversation going. "How's Bimbus doing?"

Sykkuno launched into a story of Bimbus and you blew out a sigh of relief, mind still numb over the revelation.

Corpse was your soulmate.

The guy who had literally went viral the past few weeks was your soulmate.

You'd finally found him.

You heard Rae cut Sykkuno off, telling everyone she was starting the game and muttered a "Thank god" when the words "CREWMATE" appeared on your screen. You would not have been able to play imposter at the moment, your mind pretty much stuck on the fact that Corpse was your fucking soulmate.

Heading down to admin, you realised you hadn't said anything yet to the stream so you quickly turned on your cam, saying a quick sorry to the viewers.

"Sorry guys, I forgot to put the camera on," you smiled focusing on card swipe.

"I hope everyone's been okay, I know this was quite sudden, but Rae invited me and I was like why not you know," you said rambling as you moved to comms and did the task there.

Lights were called and you moved to electrical, arriving there just as Leslie fixed them. You moved into the back of electrical doing the three tasks you had there when Sykkuno suddenly came in and went straight to standing on top of the vent.

You giggled already knowing his trick.

"Okay guys," you mumbled watching Sykkuno wiggle on the vent. "do we trust Sykkuno or not?"

"You know what," you said making a split second decision. "Its the first game, we might as well."

Joining him on the vent, you stilled for a second and then breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't automatically kill you.

"See, what did I tell you guys huh?" you question smiling straight at the camera. "I knew Sykkuno could be trusted."

You decided to follow Sykkuno going into reactor with him and starting 'Simon says' and just as you were on the last part, a body was found making you let a whine out.

"Guysss," you whined to the camera as Rae started talking about how she had found Daves body in admin.

"Um, I havent been in admin since the start of the game," you said, "also I can clear Sykkuno, for the last part of the round, he's been with me since lights went out."

Sykkuno confirmed it, "Yup that's right, also I can hard clear Y/N cuz guess what? She stood on the vent with me and none of us died."

Everyone chuckled as he said "Thats good enough for me."

"Uh, I was in navigation mostly." said Lily.

"Poki, can I just ask what you were doing?" said Sean, an undercurrent of mirth present.

"Me?" asked Poki speaking for the first time. "What was I doing?"

"You weren't doing any tasks, you were literally just walking from one side of medbay to the other when I peeked in."

Poki started laughing, trying to get her words out at the same time.

"Okay so-" a giggle. "okay okay- I was just, I was trying to um do the beep test," she said finally breaking down and making everyone else laugh as well.

"What the fuck?" you said, laughing at the image in your mind.

"My chat told me to do it last game so I decided to do it now, I was literally just playing around," she said finally, adding "I swear I'm not imposter" at the end.

"Hmmm," you hummed, bringing a hand up to stroke your chin. "Are you sure it was last game Poki... hm...."

Giggling at Poki indignant "YES it was last game", you quickly skipped voting like everyone else as the timer went into the last ten seconds.

Humming a tune under your breath, you went back to reactor, taking a minute to carefully do Simon says and then moved to the other task counting out one two three as you pressed on the numbers. Humming, you moved out of reactor, only to come face to face with Corpse. You paused for a second, and then moved ahead, refusing to show anything on camera. For some reason he followed you as you went to storage, looking at you while you did the trash.

"Why is he just staring?" you mumbled, biting your lip. God, you really didn't wanna think of him right now. You started walking to shields, him still walking with you when lights were called and not a second later a body was reported.

Suddenly there was screaming your ears as Toast and Rae both started accusing each other.

"Wait- Wait WAIT" yelled Poki trying to get them to stop. "What happened?"

"I'll explain" declared Rae, not letting toast get a word in. "We were in navigation okay, me, Toast and Leslie. Lights went out, and suddenly a report buttons there. It's either Toast or someone came in just as lights went out and killed but that doesn't seem likely because I didn't see anyone anywhere near us at all. Anyways I'm fucking telling the truth guys, its Toast, he's the one who did it."

"Toast, do you have anything to say for yourself?" asked Corpse, his voice making your insides shiver.

"Holy shit, this is my soulmate", you thought for the fiftieth time.

"Uh yeah," replied toast. "I didn't do it."

Everyone laughed as he continued.

"Like seriously, I wouldn't do anything like this because it'd be a stupid move from my own part, and I think Raes smart enough to not do this as well. I think someone else came in just as lights went down and killed immediately, which to be honest, was pretty smart of them."

"Okay so I can clear Corpse," you cut in noticing the timer was close. "he was with me in weapons when it happened, he wouldn't have had time to go all the way up, or even vent there because we were literally walking in."

"Yup that's right," confirmed corpse.

"I'm in cafeteria" said Poki.

"Yeah, I saw her on my way to weapons," said Sykkuno, "and I'm in weapons right now,"

"I'm in lower engine" said Sean, and Lily said she was in reactor.

"I think it's Toast," you mumbled and then rose your voice to talk over everyone. "Look okay fine, maybe he said it was a stupid move and he wouldn't do it but maybe he did it for that exact reason. He thought he could get away with it because no one would expect him to do something like that."

As the timer started going down by 10, you voted for Toast and it turned out 3 had skipped the vote while five had voted for him.

damn.

"Guys you actually voted for him?" you said in a high voice, re-enacting one of Sykkunos most said lines.

You heard a "oh for gods sake" from Rae before everyone went silent and you giggled as you moved back down to weapons to do your tasks.

You finished all your tasks and decided to go to security to check where everyone is. Humming as you moved through the electrical hallway, you narrowed your eyes as Corpse came out of electrical and went towards storage. Quickly ducking in you didn't see a body so you headed back out, going into cams and gasping as you saw the body. Reporting immediately you were shocked to see the four kills that had happened. Now only you, Corpse, Sean and Rae were left.

"Oh my god," you mumbled confused. Either there were still two imposters, and Toast wasn't the imposter or the imposter literally killed and did nothing else. Now either that could mean that its definitely Rae if Toast wasn't the imposter, or that it was Corpse as the only imposter left. That was a bit weird though becuase he could have totally killed you at the start of the game. You didn't suspect Sean at all.

"What the fuck?" mumbled Corpse, and Rae made her animal noises expressing her shock.

"Okay," you said taking charge and relaying the kill and your theory to everyone. "So either it was Toast and there's only one other imposter, who is Corpse. Or Toast wasn't an imposter and there's two of them left. I-" you took a deep breath in at the end, very confused. " I don't know anymore,"

"I think its Corpse as well,"

Corpse who hadn't said anything up till this moment suddenly started stammering out "hey-hey uh let-lets not gang up on me okay. It's not-"

"No, wait, its because Y/N said you came out of electrical right, and I saw you in upper engine literally a bit ago and you went down. I went towards cafeteria so I don't know exactly where you went but its totally possible that you killed."

You voted form him after that, convinced it was Corpse, and the other followed quickly.

"Guys what the fuck, at least give me a chance to explain my self" he whined when his body was thrown off the ship seconds later. You cheered when the "VICTORY" sign was displayed across the screen, bringing up your chat and laughing at Toast as he pretended to be angry at me.

"That was a great round, good work Y/N"

"Thankyou" you mumbled staring at your chat. You were confused when you saw the absolute influx of messages on there, and you were barely able to read them because they were going so fast. You scrolled up, and read through the few of the messages;

"You've made corpse sad."

"Corpse has literally been so quite since you came in, can you leave."

"Omg stop with the hate messages, its not her fault if corpse isn't talking to you"

"are you his ex or something? What was that reaction at the start?"

"what did you do? Corpse literally hasn't said a word since you came in."

"Um..."

Corpse POV

Corpses heart stopped for a minute, his breath catching. The words on his wrist glowed gold, and he stared at the little red character standing there.

This person was the reason that he had "PRAISE BINGUS" stretched across his wrist.

They were the only reason that he had searched "Bingus" on google for all of his life. The only reason Corpse knew about the meme before anyone else was because he was constantly monitoring the word online. Ever since March, he had been waiting with bated breath, anxious that he could meet his soulmate at any moment. and here you were.

For some reason, he had never expected that he would meet you in among us, or while he was on stream. He always thought it'd be someone outside. It was a bit stupid in hindsight as all he did nowadays was play among us.

He heard you introduce yourself to him but the only thing that came out of his mouth was “No fucking way”.

Immediately after he wanted to slap himself.

“Idiot” he thought to himself. “At least try to make a good impression.”

When Rae asked what was wrong, heat sprung to his cheeks as he started revealing that they were soulmates, but Y/N cut him off, saying that it was nothing.

Corpse’s heart sank a little then.

'Maybe she’s just a private person,' he reasoned with himself.

'I shouldn’t have tried to say it on stream either. God, I’m a fucking idiot, if I said it, literally everyone would know and not only would I have hated the attention, she probabaly would have as well.'

Convincing himself that she was right, he reassured himself that it wasn’t because of him. She wasn’t revealing it because she probably didn't want all the attention.

For some reason though, his heart sank even more when Y/N didnt talk to him, instead talking to sykkuno about his dog. Like sure he could understand not wanting to reveal they were soulmates but shouldn’t she at least wanna talk to him? At this point he wouldn’t even mind if she talked about his voice like everyone else.

He groaned when the word "Imposter" came across his screen, his and Toasts character standing together. He was not in the right mindset right now to be able to be a good imposter. Breathing in deeply he continued in the game, with the first round passing by quick. The second round, he saw Y/N and stood with her for a bit wondering if he should kill her. Her red character moved to weapons and he sighed moving the mouse over the kill button. Just as he was thinking of clicking a body was found. Corpse swore as Toast flew off the ship. Deciding he needed to speed it up he killed four people in the round, hissing when the meeting was called. The moment Y/N accused him, he knew it was over. He didn't even bother defending himself much, just hoping the game would end soon.

When they were in the lobby, he quickly told everyone that he was going to leave because his internet was acting up. Turning off the stream after saying a quick thank you to everyone, he leaned back in his seat breathing through his nose.

What the fuck was his life.

Even his soulmate didnt want him. Honestly, he should have expected this. Abandoned at 12 with no one around him, why did his expect his soulmate to even give a fuck about him. Tears pricked his eyes and he blinked trying to get rid of them. He breathed in deeply, grabbing the water on the table and taking a big gulp. He had never hated himself more than he did right now. Why couldnt he have an easier life.

“Why cant I just fucking be NORMAL” he yelled throwing the empty bottle of water at the wall.

Throwing himself into bed, he scrunched up his eyes, hoping that sleep would come today, not noticing as his phone lit up with a single message.

Your POV

You stayed for another game and then ducked out apologizing and making an excuse up.

"Sorry it was such a short stream, everyone," you said pouting at the camera. "It was fun though so hopefully I get to do it again." Waving goodbye, you turned off the camera and leaned your head back staring at the ceiling.

What the actual fuck.

Grabbing your phone, you stared at it for a bit. Everything that you had pushed to the back of your mind in the game, was suddenly in the forefront.

The only thing you knew about Corpse was that he had a really deep voice, he narrated horror movies, and he maybe did music?

'Rae mentioned that once right?' you thought to yourself.

You unlocked the phone and then locked it again, too scared to actually do anything.

Unlocked.

Locked.

Unlocked.

Locked.

"Oh get a grip," you muttered to yourself, opening the phone and sending a text to Rae.

‘Hey Rae, do you have corpses number? Do you mind sending it to me, I need to tell him something.’

A reply came in a minute,

‘umm, why. he's pretty private so idk i don't rlly wanna give his number if he doesn't want someone to have it’

You sighed, and decided you might as well tell her. You knew Rae wouldn't betray your trust.

‘He's my soulmate’

Immediately a ‘AHDJHAKJKAGDAK’ came as a reply and you giggled at the string of emojis after it.

‘Don't tell anyone,’ you sent quickly, trying to calm her down.

‘Okay okay, its XXX - XXX - XXXX, ASHAGDH IM DYING OMG. GO TALK TO HIM.’

Biting your lip you added Corpse into your contacts hesitating before putting a small black heart next to his name.

"Already simping," you mumbled under your breath, hands hovering over the keyboard as you struggled to think of what to write.

You finally decided on 'Hey, its Y/N, can I call?' thinking that something short would be the best way to go. Hand hovering over the send button, you sucked in a breath and pressed it, waiting with bated breath.

A minute passed.

And then five.

And then, without you even you realising, it'd been half an hour of you just looking at your phone.

An hour later, you were slumped on your desk, eyes closed and snoring lightly, the phone still open, the message you sent lighting up the screen.

tbc.

[miss-smutty]

Forbidden

Chapter 3

A/N- Evey couple of chapters you will get Professor Hemsworth's POV and this is the first one 🥵 I really wanted to write his story and hear his thoughts too.

Summary- He can't get her out of his mind, the girl in the coffee shop. Will fate bring them together again?

Word count- 2.9K

Pairing- Prof!Hems X Reader

Warnings- Age gap (OC is 20) student/professor relationship, swearing, dirty talk

18+ Only!

Disclaimer: This is an entire work of fiction/AU and has no affiliation to real life what so ever! This is a fictional story about fictional characters who happen to share names and faces with some real people.

Posted: 5th Sept 2021

Taglist:- @innerpaperexpertcloud @pandaxnienke @chickensarentcheap @jjpogueprincess @longlostinanotherworld @mostly-marvel-musings @darklydeliciousdesires @monet-belle @help2700 @presidentpotts

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Chris Pov

My Apartment was silent as usual, empty like always when I arrived home from work, throwing my coat and bag on to the sofa and slumping down next to them.

I couldn't stand the silence, it taunted me and brought back memories I'd rather not remember. I'd thought about getting a roommate but still hadn't gotten around to posting out an ad, the idea made me nervous. Although I hated being alone, living with a stranger would be even worse. I turned on the TV to fill the expanse of the large empty room that I'd work so hard for but ultimately meant absolutely nothing to me.

My mind began to wander back to this morning and the chance meeting with the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on. She'd taken my breath away and made me so nervous that I'd used some cheesy chat up line. I'd known at the time it would come back to haunt me tonight, no wonder she ran out of there as soon as she could. Thats why I hesitated, my hand brushed against the small of her back when I was about to ask her for her number and it took away my sensibility. I leaned in like I was about to kiss her, thank god I stopped myself though, how ridiculous would that have been?

I'd spoke to her for no more than ten minutes but somehow felt like I'd known her all my life. Asking for her number wouldn't have been the most unusual thing but she was in such a rush and I didn't want to make her late. There's absolutely nothing more I hate than tardiness.

I still couldn't get her off of my mind, she was beautiful, long dark hair that flowed down her back and the most piercing green eyes I'd ever seen. I couldn't stop looking into them, framed by dark eyelashes that made the emerald green pop even more. It's been a long time since I'd met a woman that made me feel as nervous as she did. The only thing is, she was young, much younger than me and I'd be fooling myself to think I'd actually stand a chance with her. Even if by some miracle I did, she deserved more than what I could give her, I was a mess, even after all this time I was still living in the past.

**********

I woke up feeling like a teenage boy again, a tent of my erection in the cotton sheets sprawled across my middle. I'd dreamt about the girl all night and honestly nothing about it was innocent. I rubbed at my eyes and stretched my muscles before finally getting out of bed, I had my first Junior Comms class to teach today and of course, I couldn't be late.

To say I was dreading today would be an understatement, I'd made a deal with the Dean to teach the Comms class because none of the other professors were willing and I was desperate for a job. I was hoping that if I exceeded expectations during my first semester I would finally get to teach psychology like I'd planned in the first place. Of course that meant being on my best behaviour and a lot of arse kissing, which I would do, albeit reluctantly.

The air was crisp this morning as I set off walking towards the university, luckily for me I didn't live to far away from the campus and the walk would help distract my thoughts because God knows they needed distracting. They always did.

Before I knew it, I'd arrived at the halls, looking up at the architecture of the building and realising my idea to walk obviously hadn't worked. I'd barely paid attention the entire time and it was only muscle memory that had gotten me to my required destination.

I held onto the door handle of the lecture hall and took a deep breath before stepping in, the room erupting into wolf whistles was not what I expected but admittedly better than what I was thinking. I scanned the room and my students, rolling my eyes at the girls lining the front row, their eager faces taking me in. 

The class was full of typical students, the usual cliques you see at every educational institution. The jocks and cheerleaders, the nerds and oh fuck. The air was almost knocked from my lungs when I spotted her sat at the back of class. The girl I'd been talking to in the coffee shop yesterday, the girl that had been on my mind and in my dreams ever since. She was here, right in front of me which meant she was my student and younger than I'd actually thought. Fuck.

Even though she was now out of bounds I couldn't take my goddamn eyes off of her, the way her wavy hair cascaded over her shoulders. I could feel my cock tingling when my eyes fell to her low cut top and that unreal cleavage. I pulled my eyes away from her so as not to draw attention and focused on preparing for the lesson, leaving the students to whisper for a while longer while I recovered my composure.

Like a magnet, my eyes unwillingly kept finding their way back to her and she looked uncomfortable, squirming in her seat. I was making her uncomfortable and I still couldn't stop myself, I frowned as I subtly watched her cheeks blush and realised she's probably embarrassed because she'd been flirting with her Professor. Of course she'd be embarrassed, I was so much older than her but was it wrong that I didn't feel one ounce of awkwardness at the fact I had been flirting with a student?

All I could think about as I watched her tits bounce as she moved In her seat, was burying my face in her cleavage and I knew I had to look away before my dick reacted. The last thing I needed in a class full of students was to be walking around with a fucking erection.

I could stand there and watch her all day but certain students had stopped talking and they were waiting for me to speak and I'd almost forgotten why I was here In the first place. I really needed to get my head in the game, being infatuated with a student would definitely not get me the promotion I was looking for.

I pushed my hands in my tight pockets, hoping to stretch the fabric a little so my semi-hard dick wasn't so apparent, then my eyes were drawn to her again and she was talking to Jake. That pissed me off and I could feel my jaw tensing as I cleared my throat rather forcibly, hoping to get the attention of the whole class at the same time as distracting her from the rather friendly conversation she was having with another guy. A guy her age at that.

"Now I've got your attention, we're going to use our first session to get to know each other a little better. You'll be doing quite a lot of speeches so it's best if you feel comfortable with one another. I'll start by introducing myself." I looked at her again, gulping hard when I saw her with the end of her pen in her mouth and the way her lips wrapped around it. Fuck. "So, I'm Professor Hemsworth and I'm originally from Melbourne in Australia." I looked to her and she smiled, remembering what we spoke about yesterday.

A student started with the typical Australian stereotypes although I'm actually surprised no one told me to throw another shrimp on the Barbie. I laughed along anyway, I'd been expecting it, it's literally the first thing anyone who isn't Australian says when they first meet me. So when I told him it wasn't very original I meant it, I'd heard it a thousand times before and I'll hear it a thousand times again.

I told the class a little about myself before informing them they would do the same, it didn't go down well, the room filled with groans. I looked to her and she looked downright terrified, I sympathized for her, it wasn't easy speaking in front of a room full of people but was the best way to break the ice.

"Claire Abbott." I called, watching the blonde at the front stand, nervously. She giggled and twirled her hair around her finger as she smiled at me, I knew what she was doing. I quickly glanced at the girl from the coffee shop as she rolled her eyes at the blonde at the front, I smirked back at her, amused at her tolerance for predictable girls.

"I erm… I don't know what to say?" The blonde said, looking at me questioningly.

"Just anything about yourself that we might find interesting, the first thing that comes to mind."

"Well I own four horses and I'm the cheer captain." I had to stop myself from laughing when she rolled her eyes again but the smile soon disappeared when I saw Jake lean over to speak to her and the way she laughed at him made my blood boil. I was seething, not because they were speaking instead of listening but because she was speaking to him instead of me.

"You two at the back, we'll wait for you shall we?" I called them out, my voice more stern than I expected. I was pissed off that Jake would easily be able to get to know her and I couldn't. She stared at me, her eyes wide, she was surprised I'd called them out in front of everyone which made me even more pissed off because that probably blew my chances even more. What the hell am I thinking? What chances, I need to remember I'm her fucking Professor.

She sat silently through the rest of the class, I still couldn't keep my eyes off of her and thankfully neither could she. She looked flustered and I liked it, I liked that I could make her feel that way without even touching her. She was so goddamn hot I could hardly concentrate on what the other students were saying.

When I glanced down at the sheet of names in front of me and saw Jake's name my jaw clenched.

"Jake Hudson." I couldn't help narrowing my eyes as he stood up, I just knew he'd say something cocky and I was so fucking jealous of him right now. I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath, I needed to keep my cool, especially in a room full of students and her. If she knew what I was really like she wouldn't look at me the way she did.

"Hi, I'm Jake." I bit onto the inside of my gum, that bit of pain keeping me grounded. "I'm also from Australia." He gave me that fucking cocky half arsed smile I'd been waiting for and the adrenaline shot through me. I was thankful no one noticed apart from maybe the one person in here I didn't want to notice. She was watching me carefully. I had to loosen my tie a little as he continued to speak, I was burning up with rage.

I'm glad class was almost over, I needed a stiff drink and I needed it now. I looked at my sheet of names again and there were only a couple left, I wondered which one was hers. I needed to know her name. Fuck. I needed to know everything about her.

"Jessica Watson." She stood up. Fuck, Jessica, it was a cute name and fit her perfectly. I was mesmerized with her and the way she spoke as she tucked her long hair behind her ears. "These last couple of days have been pretty eventful for me." She looked right at me, what was she going to say? "I'm living the life of a romance novels heroine and I'm excited to see what the next couple of days bring." Oh fuck. Was she talking about meeting me? Or Jake? I like to think by the way she studied me as she spoke, she was talking about me. This was wrong, so wrong but why did it feel so right? I forgot there was anybody else in the room, my cock twinging as I pictured myself fucking her on this desk. I needed to stop thinking like this, it's unprofessional and completely immoral. I shook my head and turned back to the class.

"I hope we all feel a bit more comfortable with each other now, some of you shared some pretty revealing things." I looked at Jessica. "Some of you, not so much." Then raised my eyebrows at a group of guys in the middle of class that had used thier time to inform everyone about the party at their frat house this weekend. "I'll have a schedule for you all next time I see you, anybody that has any questions can see me after class, everyone else is free to leave." I looked at her one last time, hoping she'd use this opportunity to come and speak to me.

I sighed when I sat back at my desk and a group of girls took their opportunity, I wasn't in the mood for it but answered their questions anyway. I didn't take my eyes from Jessica, especially when Jake started speaking to her again. The girls in front of me were taking up my time, trying to flirt with me instead of asking relevant questions and I was over it.

"Do you actually have any questions about the course ladies? I have other things to be getting on with if not." I was a little short with them without actually meaning to be. I just wanted them out of my goddamn way so I could see what was going on with Jessica and Jake.

The girls finally left, more like stormed off but I couldn't care less right now. She was still sat at her desk which means she waited until I was alone which has got to be a good sign. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, the silence driving me insane so I cleared my throat and she blinked like I'd woken her from a daydream. What was she thinking about?

She packed up her things into her bag slowly, I could tell she was buying herself time but I felt relaxed now we were alone, in fact I felt excited which was completely ridiculous. I felt like a damn teenager.

"Did you need to talk Miss Watson?" I was amused and I needed to break the ice before the silence got the better of me. I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest.

"I erm…" She walked towards me, down the stairs, looking at her feet. She was unsteady and looked nervous as hell, was she going to tell me to back off? "I wanted to apologise, I had no idea you were a Professor." She stood at the bottom of the stairs, I was glad she wasn't too close. I don't know if I'd be able to control myself around her and lord knows I had to. The atmosphere was tense, neither of us really knowing what to say or do, all I could think about was ripping off her clothes.

"There's no need to apologise Miss Watson, I also had no idea you were a student but I was hoping to bump into you again. Funny how things work out isn't it?" I cocked my eyebrow at her, testing her, seeing how she would react to my comment. Something changed and she didn't look quite so nervous anymore.

"I think fate can be rather cruel Professor Hemsworth." The way she called me Professor stirred something deep inside me, a hunger I didn't know I had and when she moved closer to me I began to feel nervous.

"Oh really? Why is that Miss Watson?" She was so close now, I could smell her sweet scent of coconut shampoo. I wanted to touch her badly, I didn't though. I didn't dare because I knew if I did I wouldn't be able to stop myself and I must restrain, she's my student after all. It's wrong. It's forbidden.

I still couldn't stop myself from flirting, like an uncontrollable impulse and as soon as I opened my mouth to try and be professional I would just go right ahead and flirt. She was so outrageously attractive but the kind of attractive where she didn't know it and didn't flaunt it, which I found even more endearing.

"I was hoping to bump into you again too, only now the thought of what could've happened will have to remain a fantasy." My restraint was really being tested now, she was teasing me, egging me on and the fact she'd also been fantasising about me made it extra difficult to resist. I had to loosen my tie again, I needed my fingers to be busy so I didn't touch her. I had an internal conflict going on inside my mind and it was like torture, if this was day one of class how the hell was I meant to survive the whole semester?

"I better get to my next class, we can't have anyone thinking I'm your favourite now can we?" Fuck sake. I ground my teeth together, I was glad she was leaving, I couldn't take the tension any longer but at the same time I knew, with distance the desire would only intensify. She turned to leave and I couldn't stop myself watching her hips sway as she walked, her ass was so round and bouncy, it hypnotised me and that's when I knew I was in deep trouble.

[ideasihadbutdontlike]

Lost In Time (2)

SUMMARY: This is the prelude to Lost in Time, answering the question, How did the Avengers lose one of their own? 

Word Count: 2,224

The italics is present day for the Avengers. Also this picture is my background lmao. 

Accepting that you were supposed to work with the Avengers was mind boggling. It was weird, and yet not totally out of your element. In a weird way you felt at home here. There were people who could do crazy things, the same way you and others at Camp could.

Right now you were following Strange, Steve, and Tony to the common room. Taking in the advancement in technology made your head hurt. And you wondered if you would remember this when you were sent back. 

"So how exactly did you "lose" me?" You asked, sitting on one of the chairs in the common room. 

"Well," Tony started, stopping to collect himself. The room grew tense with silence. Steve looked angry and sad, and all of that left you feeling uneasy. 

You were so excited; it was your first day off in months. Being an Avenger was extremely time consuming. 

You were practically bouncing off the walls of the compound, you were so excited. You had made plans with Annabeth to go visit Chiron at Camp Half-Blood. Between being a demigod and an Avenger, the Avengers got 98% of your time. It’s not like you were complaining, you were so over being the gods little pawn. Still, you missed your friends and the sentiment of Camp. 

You said a quick farewell to your team as you stepped into the elevator with Annabeth, “Don't get in too much trouble without me!” You called as the doors closed. 

The ride to Long Island was full of laughter and catching up. You haven't really talked to anyone outside of your mom and the Avengers in almost a year. Anyway, Percy and Annabeth decided they were going to get married despite Hera. And you, well you were in New York fighting the battles so no one else had to. Approaching Half-Blood Hill you pulled the car off to the side of the road.

After greeting your old friend Peleus (The dragon that guards the fleece), you stepped through the barrier. The smell of the strawberry fields, the warmth of the sun, the sound of arrows hitting their targets, and swords clashing, kids laughing. It all brought you right back to being a 17 year old half-blood, when nothing was more important than making the most of the summer. The faint music from Apollo cabin drew you in for a second. Looking over at the cabins made your chest bubble with pride. You and your friends, your family even, fought so hard for this. For once, you felt truly at peace standing next to those strawberry fields. You were home, you grew up here, and all at once the weight of your influence stole your breath. You helped rebuild this place, and against all odds you were alive at 30 to appreciate it. 

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Annabeth said, standing next to you. She was doing the same thing. Reminiscing, allowing her walls to come down in the safe place that is Camp Half-Blood. 

“Yeah,” you laughed breathlessly. “This is amazing.” You looked at her. “Let’s go see Chiron.” You and Annabeth made your way over to the Big House, where Chiron was standing talking to some campers. You guys stood back until he was finished, but their constant glances your way made him turn. 

“Annabeth, Y/N,” He said with a huge smile. “Welcome back!” He turned his attention back to the campers. “Michael, Kya, give these two the full tour. Then bring them to Cabin 11” Chiron said, The two older kids, whom you assimes were counselors, nodded, leading the two smaller boys away. 

“Is it just me or do they look strikingly like Percy?” You whispered to Annabeth. She nodded, looking just as perplexed as you felt. You figured Poseidon was no longer under oath, but you actually weren't expecting him to have any more demigod children. Meanwhile, a glance over at Cabins 1 had you biting your tongue. New campers poured in and  out of Zeus’ cabin which was pretty on brand for Zeus, you thought. 

“Walk with me ladies,” Chiron said. “A lot has changed since you’ve been gone.” So, the two of you walked with Chiron through the mess hall, where dozens of new tables stood. When you walked over to admire the renovated cabins, a boy, not much older than 12 maybe 13 ran up to you. 

“You’re Y/F/N Y/L/N right?” He asked. The kid had sandy brown hair and excited blue eyes.

“I am,” you smiled at him. 

“No way! I’m Dean, I’m in Apollo cabin. You’re like a legend! And you’re an Avenger! That’s so cool.” Figures. Most of these kids were from New York, and the majority of them knew who the Avengers were. 

“Nice to meet you Dean. Listen, I’ll swing by the archery range later, the hour before dinner. Maybe I’ll see you there.” You ruffled his hair and nudged him along. 

The time flew by, and before you knew it, it was time for Dinner. You were walking with the Apollo cabin over to the Dining pavilion. The day was spent with Annabeth and Chiron walking around camp, meeting and training campers, and hanging out with the Apollo kids. Lacy Partick was head counselor these days, nice girl. As you sat for your last meal at Camp, you were with Chiron and Annabeth. Your phone rang, interrupting your conversation. 

“Work calls?” Chiron asked. 

“I don’t know, Excuse me for a second.” You said, walking away from the noise of the pavilion. 

“Hello?” You answered. The call was from an unknown number. 

“Y/N?” A woman called from the phone. 

“Speaking, who is this?”

“My name Is Jenna McAllister, I work with S.H.I.E.L.D. We need you to come in ASAP.” She said, the urgency in her voice made you tense with worry. 

“Okay. Give me a minute,” You said, putting her on hold. You ran back to Annabeth. “I have to go, I’m so sorry.” You said. Luckily, being an Avenger meant these things happen, and being a demigod/demigod trainer Annabeth and Chiron were more than familiar with last minute quests. 

“Go,” Annabeth said, “I’ll call Percy.” You nodded and looked at Chiron.

“It was great to see you, Chiron. The Camp is absolutely amazing. I’ll be back soon, I swear” You said. 

Chiron laughed, “I’ll hold you to that dear. Go.” he said, waving you off. So you ran. You ran down the hill into your car. Starting the car you took Jenna off hold. 

“Alright McAllister, what’s going on?” 

“Our sources are telling us the Avengers are being held captive somewhere in Boston.” 

“Hold on, you mean to tell me every one of them is out of commission?” You asked, in disbelief. 

“That’s what we think. None of them are responding, it’s been hours.” She said. No, no, no, no, nonono, you thought. No them, not your family. “We’re sending in a team, we were hoping you would lead it.” 

“Of course, have a jet ready, I’ll be there in 20.” 

“Yes ma’am.” She said, “We’ll have all of your weapons ready to go as well.

“Thank you,” You said. The call was over, but your mind raced as you took the fastest way to the compound. Speeding through New York might not have been your best choice, but at this point it was all you could do. You had managed to reach the compound in 15 minutes, going 90 through the city and on the rural roads leading up to the building. 

You were met in the hangar with a team dressed in combat gear, guns strapped and ready to go. 

“Y/N!” You recognized Fury’s voice. Your suit and weapons are all on board. You have a team of 14 of our top agents. There’s a box on top of your suit, it’s an earpiece in it. Wear it. You’re in charge, Bring 'em' home, whatever it takes.” You nodded. 

“See you soon boss,” You said, waving the team into the jet. 

Landing in Boston you were suited up and ready to go. You were going to split the team in two, enter the building from both entrances and meet in the middle. The “Building” was an inconspicuous Brown Stone in the middle of Boston. That meant you had to walk to the building as discreetly as possible in an attempt to attract as little attention as possible. 

Your half of the team was going in through the front door, the other was going through the side. Kicking in the door you cleared the first three rooms as quickly as you could. Looking for any signs of the Avengers.

It wasn’t long before you came across the disaster that was the basement. There were holes in the walls from Clint's arrows, repulson beams, Steve’s shield, bullets, everything you could think of marked these walls. The blood splattering the walls and floor was what got to you. Who or What had the power to take down the Avengers. Hand on your comms you asked the other team how it was going. The “Captain” of that team had nothing but family pictures and soccer schedules. “Come down to the basement. We’re searching every inch of this place until we get an answer.” “Spread out, take pictures, document everything. Then Fuck it up. Push on the walls, look for anything unusual and run with it. You find ANYTHING, you let me know. Got it?” You said in your most commanding voice. You were trained for this, but this was the most high stake mission you’d ever been on. 

Surveying the room, you noticed a faint glow behind one of the bricks. It was a faint golden hue, much like that of Celestial Bronze. Reaching toward the brick you pushed it. To your amazement, the surrounding bricks pulled apart harmoniously to reveal a pathway. It was buried into the ground, and had to be about 10 feet deep, but at the end the golden hue was brighter.

 “Okay,” You whispered. “Whatever’s down there is not going to be friendly. We need to be quiet. Our main goal is to get in, find the team, get them out. Who wants to come?” No one raised their hand. And you couldn't blame them. You didn’t want to go down the tunnel either but your friends were down there. 

“Alright, you three, you’re staging here to cover us. Anything goes down, or comes up, deal with it. The rest of you follow me.” You turned, putting your bow on your back and pulling out your knife of Celestial bronze. Leading the team through the tunnel you listened for any signs of monsters. You had a bad feeling about this. This was pure “Mythology” and you weren't happy about it. Reaching the end of the tunnel you caught sight of Steve’s shield. Peeking around the corner, you saw the team, in a cage of whatever was strong enough to keep them there. Signaling the S.H.I.E.L.D. team to wait for you, you went over to the Avengers.

 “Y/N,” Nat whispered. 

“Hey guys, what are we dealing with?” You asked. 

“It’s some kind of dragon,” Tony said. “Nothing we threw at it worked. And it’s got little minions.”

You had an idea of who they were talking about. One of Apollo’s greatest enemies was Python. A dragonesque snake. In the last war against Gaia you had slain Python again and again, until he finally stayed dead. 

“I think he wants me.” You said. 

“Y/N, whatever you're thinking, stop it.” Natasha said. 

You had grown closer to Natasha than most of the other Avengers. She was like a sister to you, and that’s why it was so easy for you to make the decision. 

“I’m sorry Nat,” you whispered. 

“Python!” you yelled. “Come out here. Let’s make a bargain.” You said, looking at Natasha the whole time. 

“Y/N stop it!” She yelled. The booming footsteps alerted you of Python’s presence. 

“We meet again.” Python said. He spoke in a combination of a hiss and a growl. It was unnerving to say the least. 

“Python, release these people.” You demanded. 

 Python laughed, a bone chilling sound that you swore on your life you never wanted to hear again. 

“Why would I do that?” He asked. 

“Because you can have me. Release them and you can do whatever you want with me. They have nothing to do with this.” You said, glancing at the team behind him still in the tunnel. 

Python laughed again, “Very Well.” Reaching out, he grabbed you in one of his giant claws. Moving over to the cage he wiggled you in front of them. Natasha covered her mouth to contain her sob. Steve, Tony and Clint looked at Python with searing rage. “One wrong move and she dies tonight.”  He opened the cage and walked away with you to the depths of his lair. 

Taking their confiscated weapons, the Avengers met the S.H.I.E.L.D. team in the tunnel. On their way up they heard the sound of chains, and your screams. But they knew there was nothing they could do right then. They just had to move quickly. 

“You saved us,” Steve said. His head down. “You saved all of us.”

[onecanonlife]

careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 4,369

Chapter Warnings: swearing, references to past child abuse (regarding c!Tommy)

Chapter Summary: In which Schlatt is his own brand of irritating, Wilbur and Tommy talk a bit but not about everything, and they make their way to Dream’s prison cell.

(masterlist w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Five: hide your soul out of his reach (i)

“You’re stalling.”

“I’m what?”

His response is automatic, comes spilling out before he truly registers that someone has spoken to him, much less who it is. So when he looks up and locks gazes with Schlatt, the annoyance bubbles up quickly. He’d been sitting quietly, in a relatively secluded area near Tommy’s house, thinking about nothing in particular and everything all at once, and he’d felt settled. Peaceful. His mind quiet.

So much for that.

“I thought you’d fucked off somewhere,” he says.

“And deprive you of my company?” Schlatt shoots back. “You wound me.”

“I wish I could,” he mutters. He glances away, staring off into middle space, hoping that maybe, Schlatt will go away if he pretends very hard that he doesn’t see him. No such luck, and he sighs. “What am I stalling about?”

“Dream,” Schlatt supplies. He strides closer, then kicks off into the air, drifting aimlessly in a seated position. The sweater still looks odd. Too soft, when the man in front of him is anything but. “You said you were gonna go see him.”

“And I am. Just not yet.”

Schlatt snorts. “What’s keeping you?”

He frowns. Meets Schlatt’s eyes again, and finds no sympathy there. A bit of hard amusement, at best. Not that he was expecting anything else.

“Tommy’s going to want to come with me, when I go,” he says. “But I don’t want him near Dream.”

Schlatt makes a sound that’s more mocking than understanding. “Right, Tommy,” he says. “Where is the kid? I’m surprised he left you alone in the first place.”

“Tubbo went back to his town. Snowchester, I think they said it was called.” There is an undefinable melancholy that fills him at the thought. Even now, after everything, they are still trying to make a home. Still trying to carve some corner out of the world and make it theirs. Or Tubbo is, at least. He’s no longer quite sure what Tommy wants. “Tommy went with him.”

“But you didn’t.”

He shakes his head. Tubbo said that there were other people who lived in Snowchester, when he asked. Jack Manifold, for one. Maybe a couple of others. Captain Puffy, maybe? Either way, to go with them would have been to invite the possibility of meeting people, and every cell in his body cringes away from that idea. He’s not ready for that just yet. If ever.

(you’ll have to face them eventually, will have to stand your ground against the hatred in their eyes, burning and so well-deserved, shattered fractals of a people you used to belong to and did your best to destroy)

(you’ll have to face them eventually, and yet you hide)

“Tommy said he’d be back later,” he says. “He doesn’t live there. In Snowchester.”

“So here you are, waiting for him.”

“I suppose.” He frowns, shifting in place where he’s sitting on the ground. He brushes his fingers against the grass, absently pulling up a flower or two. “It’s not as if there’s not time. We can wait until Tommy’s not quite so—” He trails off here, not quite sure how to finish the sentence. Not quite so what? Not quite so traumatized? Trauma doesn’t work like that, doesn’t go away within the span of a few days or weeks. He knows as much, though he used to be content enough to ignore it

(when he was the one causing it)

back in the old days, when there was no choice otherwise, when there was no chance of rest.

“Well, aren’t you considerate,” Schlatt says, and Wilbur looks at him sharply, because that was definitely snide. Schlatt stares right back, brows lifted, smirking. “Waiting for your little brother to be a little less broken. How kind of you.”

He bristles. “Don’t talk about him like that.”

“I’ll talk about him however I want,” Schlatt says. “What are you gonna do, shout at me? Play some shitty music? Please. But all I’m saying is that a few days isn’t gonna make a difference, and you know it. You’re stalling to make yourself feel better, to try and convince yourself that you’re better now, that you’re not gonna hurt him anymore.”

His mouth goes dry. “I’m not—” He shakes his head again, as if trying to dislodge the idea. “It doesn’t matter right now, anyway,” he says. “He’s in Snowchester. He’s not here. There’s nothing to do until he gets back.”

“Oh my god, just comm him,” Schlatt says. “Tell him you’re going over to the prison. Do it now, and you can leave before he decides to go with. Win win.”

“I don’t—” He furrows his brow. He doesn’t have his comm. He’s not sure where his comm is. Except—

For the first time, he thinks to check the pockets of his coat. The first couple turn up nothing, but then, in the third, his fingers wrap around a sheet of thin, hard plastic. He freezes for a moment, and then draws the communicator out, holding it loosely in his hand. A tap on the screen, and it lights up, just the way he’s used to.

It doesn’t make sense for him to have this.

Schlatt leans over his shoulder and whistles.

“Daddy’s worried about you,” he says, and Wilbur blinks, pulling up his unread messages. There shouldn’t be any, shouldn’t be any at all, because he can count the number of people who knows that he’s back on one hand. And yet, there is one, and perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised at the identity of the sender, but he is.

Philza whispers to you: don’t mean to be pushy but could you let me know you made it to smp lands safe?

He has to read the message several times before its meaning sinks in, and once it does, he’s not sure how to feel about it. It doesn’t particularly read like Phil wrote it; it’s too hesitant, too apologetic. But Wilbur remembers what Phil looked like, standing in that kitchen, wingless and so very cautious, flinching away from his words as if they were physical blows. And in the end, letting him go, even though it was plain as day that he would have liked nothing more than to keep him there.

He’s angry with Phil. For a lot of reasons. But then, he’s angry at the world, too. Angry at himself, most of all.

(and there is so much of him that just wants someone else to swoop in and fix things, just wants his dad to make everything better in a way that he hasn’t since he was a kid and the first fracture formed, splitting their family apart, and as much as he is angry there is a large part of him that just wants to go back to that house and sink into his father’s arms and learn how to call a place home again)

“You gonna answer?” Schlatt asks.

He ignores him, checking the timestamp. It was sent a few hours after he left the tundra. So, a couple of days ago, now, and there have been no messages since. Perhaps it’s no longer relevant.

He hesitates, eyes tracing over don’t mean to be pushy.

It feels so strange, for Phil to qualify a sentence like that. Like he’s unsure of his welcome. And perhaps he’s right to be.

You whisper to Philza: I’m safe.

“Touching,” Schlatt says dryly. He scowls, trying to bat him on the arm or push him away or do something, but his hand goes through, and Schlatt just smirks some more for his efforts. “Now do Tommy.”

He puts the comm down on his lap, turning to face Schlatt fully. “Why are you being so fucking insistent?” he demands. “You’re a ghost, you can go by yourself. Through the walls and shit, since apparently you get actual ghost powers.” Ghostbur didn’t get ghost powers. He recalls that very clearly, because Ghostbur was immensely disappointed by this. For once, he agrees with the shade.

“And do what, look at him? Like it’s a fucking zoo? Watch him twiddle his thumbs and chuckle evilly to himself? Not exactly my idea of a good time,” Schlatt says. “I don’t know if you forgot, but nobody can see me. Hell, for all you know, I’m not even real. You could be making me up.”

He tries to brush the comment off. It hits just a bit too close to home

(whispers in shadows and enemies around every corner, people watching and staring and plotting against him, and no one else can see, Tommy can’t see, but that’s alright, he sees enough for both of them, and he will have his victory, and if he cannot have that, then nobody can and there is laughter, laughter, laughter)

for his comfort.

“If I were making you up,” he says, “I would simply stop.”

“Cute,” Schlatt says. “Do you wanna know what your problem is? Your problem is that you’re scared of people seeing you for what you really are.”

His hands clench.

“You say you don’t want to hurt Tommy? Fine. I even believe you,” Schlatt continues. “But don’t act like you’ve come back to life and suddenly you’re some saint. You’re fooling yourself, Wilbur. People like us don’t change. You can put on as much of a shine on the outside as you want, but scratch that paint off, and you’re still the power-hungry asshole who blew up a city as a hissy fit.”

His mouth works for a second, wordless.

“Fuck you,” he snarls, and scoops up his comm again.

You whisper to TommyInnit: I’d like to visit the prison today

“Was that so hard?” Schlatt asks.

“Fuck you,” he says again. “And fuck off. Or I swear to god I’ll figure out a way to exorcise you.”

“Please do,” Schlatt says. “I’d thank you for it. But sure, have it your way.” He shrugs, looking completely unconcerned. “I’m never too far.” Then, he disappears, and there is a shimmer of blue in the air, and even that fades away, and Wilbur is left alone and feeling no better for it.

“It wasn’t a fucking hissy fit,” he says to the empty space. There’s no one left to hear him, no one left to justify himself to, but

(it wasn’t a hissy fit it was desperation and fear and wild abandon and a surging, terrible victory and a fire in his chest driving him onward and he relished in it, relished in the freedom and the power and the control and he was the villain, he was the villain and he was good at it, he was the villain and he loved it, he was the villain and everyone else paid the price and he didn’t pay at all so what happens now, what happens to the villain back from the grave what happens)

he’s not wrong. Not about this.

TommyInnit whispers to you: ok

TommyInnit whispers to you: i’ll be back soon

TommyInnit whispers to you: dont leave without me or your a bitch

He doesn’t leave without him.

He should. Should venture on to the prison by himself, to spare his brother the effort. But in the end, he can’t bring himself to do it. Can’t bring himself to go it alone. Perhaps it really is pathetic, but he wants to have someone by his side when he starts revealing himself to the rest of the server.

It’s certainly selfish. But he’s never claimed not to be.

They don’t meet anyone on the way. Wilbur doesn’t understand why, not when the sun is shining brightly and they’re walking the established path, matching each other stride for stride,

(there was a time when he would have walked behind you, would have trailed on your coattails, would have looked to you for direction and guidance and look at him now, look at who he has been made into, a child who should not have to be as grown as he is but there is no changing it now and he really is someone to be proud of, isn’t he?)

but they run into nobody, and those vines are fucking everywhere.

“Why hasn’t anyone cleared these?” he asks, more to himself than anyone else. “They’re a fucking eyesore.”

Tommy snorts. “You don’t need to tell me,” he says. “They’re ugly as hell. But there’s this Egg thing, see, that BadBoyHalo and a couple of others are all constantly going on about, and those vines come from it, I think. I don’t see what all the fuss is about, personally. I mean, it’s just an Egg. Can’t be all that great. But BadBoyHalo swears by it.” He pauses. “Well, he doesn’t swear. He says muffin by it, I suppose. Still can’t get him to swear.”

“An egg,” he says, and then frowns. “An Egg,” he repeats, and there’s a difference in the way he’s saying it, in the strange emphasis that implies the capital letter. “That’s—vines don’t come out of eggs. They’re not—vines don’t hatch, and eggs aren’t fucking plants.” And then, he remembers— “Techno told me about an egg. Said he thought it was some kind of cult. He didn’t know much else.”

Too late, he realizes what he’s said, and catches the way that Tommy stiffens.

“You’ve been to see Technoblade, then,” he says, and his voice is far too casual to actually be casual. He winces.

“When I—woke up,” he says, “I was really near the tundra. And I remembered where he lived, from when Ghostbur would visit. And I thought that maybe—”

“I mean, you don’t need to explain it,” Tommy interrupts, but his tone of voice tells Wilbur that actually, he really does need to explain it, because there is undoubtedly a note of hurt there, and that won’t do.

“No, no, I do,” he says. “I know you’re not exactly good with each other right now. I’m not really good with him either. But I woke up and it was raining and I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, and I made a list, see? And number one on that list was to get to you. But I was cold and wet and I had no idea what was happening in the SMP because Ghostbur’s memories are patchy as hell, so I thought that Techno could tell me some things so I wouldn’t go in blind and walk into—I don’t know, a nuclear war or something.”

Tommy makes an odd sound at that, like a cross between a cat having a hairball and someone choking on water gone down the wrong pipe. “Nuclear war,” he repeats, in a voice that’s a bit strangled, and his words seem to trip over each other in his rush to get them out. “Right. Yeah, no, none of that here. Nope. No way that could ever happen. Uh, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.” He stops, and Wilbur is about to ask what the actual hell that was about, when he speaks up again. “Is he—I mean, how is he? Still a fucking crazy arsehole?”

Wilbur looks at him. Tommy does not look back. In fact, he seems to be making a point of looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Still an arsehole. Same old Techno, you know him. Phil, too.”

He doesn’t think he imagines the way Tommy’s shoulders relax at that, just fractionally.

“Right, yeah,” he says. “Good to hear.”

“Tommy—” he starts, and is saved from having to figure out what he’s going to say, because suddenly, he sees it. The prison. There’s no way that it could be anything else. And he has to stop and stare for a long moment, because he’s never seen a build like that before. Not on any server he’s ever lived on. He’s seen some impressive buildings in his life, and he’d like to think that he’s made a few himself,

(walls to keep them safe to protect them and hold them dear and he hasn’t seen Fundy yet, has he?)

but nothing compares to this.

“Who built this?” he breathes. He feels claustrophobic just looking at it, dark walls towering over them, looming, intimidating.

“Sam did,” Tommy says. “He’s the warden, too. But Dream commissioned him, which is what makes it so fucking funny.”

He feels a grin spread across his face.

“Wait,” he says, “Dream’s locked in his own fucking prison?”

“Dream’s locked in his own fucking prison!” Tommy whoops, and just like that, he’s laughing, and they both are, and maybe he can do this after all. He follows Tommy’s footsteps as he leads him to the doorway, to an empty room with a portal frame, and he’s sizing it up, trying to figure out how they’re supposed to get through, when Tommy steps forward.

“Sam?” he calls out. “You here?” And then, to Wilbur: “Sam’s kind of a dick when he’s got the whole warden thing going on, but he’s pretty nice when he’s not working. He’s been a good friend, you’ll like him. Later, I mean. When he’s not being a dick.” And then again: “Sam? Sam, we want to visit Dream!”

“You don’t need to yell, Tommy. I’m right here,” someone says, and there is another person in the room, and every muscle in Wilbur’s body tense because he didn’t see him come in. “I wasn’t expecting—” And then the man stops, staring right at Wilbur, and Wilbur is left to size him up and rack his brain as to whether or not he’s formally met Awesamdude before. He’s been on the server for a while, he knows. Was around for L’Manberg, was a part of the Badlands, was neutral. He’s met him before. He’s almost certain he’s met him before. But there’s no spark of recognition in him, looking at this man, with his full netherite armor and the mask covering the lower half of his face and the green patches that dot his skin.

“Wilbur Soot,” Sam eventually says. “I would assume? Not Ghostbur?”

He regains himself. Inclines his head. “You’d be right,” he says, and then he steps forward, taking his place at Tommy’s side, and he extends a hand. “Sorry, I’m not sure that we ever really got the chance to meet.”

Sam takes his hand, showing only a bit of hesitance. His grip is firm.

“I’d say it’s a pleasure,” Sam says. “I’m not sure if it is or not.”

“You know what?” Wilbur says. “That’s fair.”

“Hm,” Sam says, and it’s hardly approval. But Wilbur is very aware of the fact that they’re standing in the entrance of a prison, a prison that is supposedly inescapable, and that he has definitely, by the standards of the server, committed at least one crime. And what’s more than that, he doesn’t particularly regret it. Not the act itself. The effects it had, maybe. The pain it brought. But in his heart of hearts, he is glad that L’Manberg is gone.

So really, the fact that he isn’t being arrested is a win.

(he thinks, he wonders, what would he do if he was, if he was locked away in the dark and the walls loomed all around him and the sun was a distant memory and ah, he thinks, no, I would rather die, and then the imagined prison becomes Pogtopia, shadowy and dank and every sound echoing off the stone, melancholy and abandoned, and he wonders what it looks like now, now that there is no life in it at all, and he wonders if it is haunted with the ghost of who he used to be, if he left some important part of him behind to shrivel into dust)

“So, I assume this is a recent development?” Sam asks. He’s being very calm about this, which Wilbur appreciates. But then, they were never close. Were never connected personally. The real tests still lie ahead.

“Couple of days,” Tommy says cheerily. “We’re taking it slow.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” Sam says, and Wilbur blinks, because it’s a joke. Someone feels familiar enough with Tommy to make the comment, and likes him well enough to make it playful.

That’s—good? He thinks it’s good? Probably? Yes. Good. Tommy has friends. Good.

(he doesn’t need you. not really. he wants you, for some godforsaken reason. but he doesn’t need you)

“Oi, I can be slow,” Tommy says. “I can be the very slowest. I am excellent at being slow, I’ll have you know.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” Wilbur says, and Tommy gapes at him, looking back and forth between them with a dawning expression of betrayal.

“Oh no you don’t,” he says, stabbing a finger at both of them. “I didn’t introduce you so that you could go ganging up on me. That’s just not right. I changed my mind, Wilbur, you’re not allowed to like Sam. None of this bullshit.”

Wilbur laughs, and for a moment, it’s like nothing has changed at all. He’s ribbing his little brother, and there’s even someone else here for support, and it’s not Techno, but that doesn’t seem to matter so much. The motions are familiar, the words an old pattern.

“You’re here to see Dream, right?” Sam says, and just like that, the illusion shatters. And the smile is gone from Tommy’s face.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we are.” He hesitates. “We can both go in together, right? Because I’ll tell you right now, nothing else is going to work. We’re a package deal, me and Wil are.”

Sam tilts his head. “No one’s ever tried to visit with someone else,” he says. “I don’t see an issue with it, as long as you both pass security.”

This is relieving. But Wilbur’s a bit more concerned with the way that Tommy’s hands have begun to shake. Just slightly, barely enough to see.

“Good,” Tommy says. “Wilbur, there’s so much security, it’s honestly ridiculous. There’s a bunch of checkpoints and lava and you have to put all your stuff in a locker and get splashed with potions, and oh! There’s wavers, too, you’re going to have to sign a bunch of shit.”

“Great,” he says. It’s not great. It sounds nerve-wracking, in fact. But if Tommy can do it, so can he; he’s just a bit worried that Tommy can’t do it. Or rather, not that he can’t do it, since he’s done it before, apparently. Just that maybe, he really, really doesn’t want to do it. That maybe, it will not be very good for him to do it. That maybe, he’s putting himself through this for Wilbur’s sake, and hasn’t Wilbur just established that he doesn’t want to hurt Tommy anymore?

(but the past echoes forward into the future and there’s no way around it now)

But they’re here, and he’s not going to be able to get Tommy to turn back, and he’s not sure that he would even if he could, because his nerves are all shot and he doesn’t want to be in this dark prison without an ally. So Sam guides them through the checkpoints, and there are indeed a lot of wavers, and a lot of splash potions, and Tommy has to put all of his things in a locker. Wilbur pulls up his inventory, certain that he doesn’t have anything on him, still, but he’s not entirely right about that; he must have kept the flowers he was pulling up earlier, because he’s got about five cornflowers in one of the slots.

He puts them in a chest, and ignores the startled look that Tommy shoots him when he sees. He’s not sure what that’s about. They’re just flowers.

The walls are too close. The shadows too dark. The crackle of lava too near. Tommy is putting on a front, chatting at Sam more than he is with him, and to his credit, Sam puts up with it with easy acceptance. But Wilbur knows that a front is all it is, because his smiles don’t reach his eyes, and he knows how Tommy sounds when he’s talking for the sake of hearing his own voice.

This may, perhaps, be a mistake.

(you can’t let him near Tommy don’t let him near Tommy not after what he did to Tommy don’t you know can’t you remember how can you be letting this happen after what he did Tommy shouldn’t be anywhere near here but now he is and you brought him and what kind of a brother are you)

But he has questions he needs to ask. And he hasn’t forgotten his list. His goals.

If there is anything he can do on this server to make it better, after everything he’s done, let it be this.

“Alright,” Sam says, “call for me when you want to leave. Make sure to walk with the bridge.”

And then the curtain of lava falls, and there is a moving platform, and Tommy is deathly still by his side, and there is the cell, and there, in the cell—

Dream.

He’s wearing an orange jumpsuit. A prisoner’s outfit. But he’s kept his mask, stark-white and smiling and laced with spiderweb-thin cracks. His mouth is visible, canting upward into a slight smile, one that mimics the black paint. He stands at their approach, and then they’re stepping into the cell, and Wilbur lets his hand land on Tommy’s shoulder, to steady him and to steady himself.

“Oh, fuck,” someone says, and it’s not him, and it’s not Tommy, and it’s not Dream, and it sounds faint and far away. The living aren’t the only ones in this cell, then. He hopes that Schlatt has the good sense not to be too distracting.

Dream takes a step forward. Under his hand, Tommy stiffens.

“Hi, Tommy,” Dream says. “It’s good to see you.” It’s directed at Tommy and Tommy alone, like Wilbur’s not even there at all, Dream’s mask tilted toward toward him, toward the kid that he manipulated and abused, and Tommy is trembling and Dream has no fucking right to address him like that, so soft and friendly, and Wilbur—

—sees red.

[solange-lol]

just doing my silly little tasks

words: 3,205

AUctober day 10: murder mystery

notes: MAJOR TW // graphic description of violence and murder, major character death (its an among us au)

read on ao3

—

Nico was on a ship with nine other crewmates hurtling through space when they got the message.

IMPOSTER ALERT came over the comms. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND EJECT MEMBERS IF NEEDED. 

Which was great. Nothing scarier than being in space than being in space with an “imposter”— whatever that means—  on board with them.

Nico went through the list of crewmates through his head. He talked to them all briefly while boarding, but for the most part, they trained separately and he since has been traveling the ship on his own. (To be fair, it was a big ship.) 

The issue was that none of them really seemed suspicious.

Percy Jackson, the first crewmate he met, just seemed excited to be there, and just followed around Annabeth Chase for the most part. He liked being around them, but they were such good of a team that Nico can’t imagine either of them would be the imposter being as close as they are. Same with Jason Grace and Piper McLean, who were less of a perfect duo but still stayed around each other, usually accompanied by Leo Valdez as well.

Nico knew Hazel Levesque going into it since they worked together before, so he was hoping it wasn’t her.  She was into witchy stuff though… Nico had met Frank Zhang through her as their mutual friend. And Reyna Ramirez-Arellano was crazy intimidating, but also the most honest person he’s ever met. 

The only person he didn’t know that much about is Will Solace. He was nice enough the first time they met that he didn’t even think twice about it, but now it made Nico wonder if possibly he was just trying to gain everybody’s trust. 

Nico decided to go about his tasks. They already set to turn around ever since that message, so perhaps if they could just prepare the ship for landing then everything would work out fine.

They met in the cafeteria, dividing and handing out tasks to fix the ship. Nico heads out once they do so, heading towards navigation to divert power over to the electrical. He knows for a fact that electrical not only is on the other side of the ship but also one of the darker and bigger rooms. All he can do is hope for no one to be around when he does.

Of course, that’s exactly where Will Solace was, sporting his bright yellow suit like the sun itself.

Nico considers turning around, but the last thing he wants to do is make him think that he’s the suspicious one here, so he continues onto the room.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Will turns around. Nico can see his eyes widen through the glass pane on his helmet.

“Oh god,” he takes a breath. “Please don’t kill me, I’m just trying to fix the wires.”

“It’s not me,” Nico says, then adds, “not that you would believe me just by me saying that.”

“Same. Not that you would believe me either,” Will nods, then turns back and opens the wire box. He resists the urge to lean over and check if he’s actually fixing them or just breaking them further, but Nico can only imagine that’ll just be his one-way ticket to death.

It doesn’t take long for him to divert the power, but Will finishes at the same time.

“How did you do that so quickly?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at the boy. 

Will shifts. “I originally wanted to be a surgeon. I’ve got really steady hands, which turns out to work just as well with small wires as it does with human organs.”

“Right…” Nico says slowly. He doesn’t know enough about Will yet to fully believe him, but the guy probably could have killed him already if he wanted. “What other tasks were you assigned?”

Will glances up, counting on his fingers. He stops at three,

“Align engine output, a few more wires, and clean the O2 filter. You?”

Nico racks his brain, trying to remember what Percy and Annabeth assigned him. “I have to go sign into admin, prime the shields, and do some other downloads, I think.”

Will tilts his head. “Why didn’t you go to admin first?”

Nico shrugs. “I was gonna do everything from the right side of the ship to the left.”

“But you came to electrical. That’s on the left.”

“Look, I don’t know,” he sighs. “I’m just trying to keep my chill and get everything done before we all get killed.”

“Alright, di Angelo, I’ll believe you,” Will decides. “But only if you accompany me to O2.”

“Scared?” Nico asks, nudging him. 

“Aren’t you?” “Like I said, trying to keep my chill.”

“A tough guy, I see,” Will says, finally nudging him back.

Nico rolls his eyes. “Let’s just head to admin.”

“Why not go left to right? I can align the engine first and then head the opposite direction?”

“Because I want to go right to left. Everyone is probably on the left side of the ship right now anyway.”

“Doesn’t that make it more dangerous?”

“Not if we’re together. Are you coming?” he asks, tired of Will’s questions. If they wanted to get off this ship alive, they were going to need to land as soon as possible.

“Yeah, yeah I’m coming,” he says, shaking his head, although Nico can just barely see him grinning through his helmet.

They head to admin together, passing by Hazel in storage, who waves a single pink-gloved hand, a fuel canister in the other.

Arriving at admin together, Nico walks over to the desk and pulls out his ID card from one of his pockets. The card reader was especially finicky, as Nico found out after multiple failed attempts.

Too fast.

Too fast.

Card error.

Too slow.

“Nico?” Will murmurs quietly staring at the floor.  Nico’s chest tightens, hoping that he doesn’t think Nico is the imposter just because he can’t get the stupid card reader to work.

“Hold on, just give me a second.” Too fast.

“Nico...”

“I told you, I got it, just hold on!” Card error. Try again.

“Nico.”

“What?” he says finally, turning to face Will. “It’s not me, the card reader is just-”

He cuts off once he notices the body in front of them following Will’s line of sight.

The only way Nico knows it’s Jason Grace is from the lime-colored suit. Otherwise, it appears he’s been stabbed multiple times in the back. Literally in the back. 

“Is he…?” Will says slowly.

Nico reaches out, nudging him with his foot. The body doesn’t move. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess we gotta call a meeting or something.”

“Yeah. Probably before someone comes in here and sees us just staring at it.”

Will’s eyes widen. “Yeah… yeah.”

They leave the body in the room before calling everyone into the cafeteria where they had originally divided up tasks. Crewmates walk in, confused and concerned as they gather around the middle table.

“What’s up?” Frank asks.

“And should we wait for Jason?” Piper adds.

Nico grimaces. “That’s, um, that’s the thing actually. Jason is dead.”

Several ‘What?‘s echo around the room, followed by worried murmurs.

“We found the body in admin,” Will continues. “He was stabbed to death, judging by the wounds. 

“Was there anybody nearby?” Annabeth asks.

Nico hesitates. “Hazel was in storage underneath, but she was filling fuel.”

“Well, where was everybody else?” 

“I was in the reactor,” Piper says.

“And I was across in security,” Leo adds, tugging at his orange suit.

“Percy and I were in upper engine,” Annabeth defends.

“It’s true, me and Piper passed them.”

Reyna shrugs. “I was in O2. I didn’t see anyone else around, but I haven’t been it admin at all.”

“I’ve been in the cafeteria,” Frank says, nervously glancing around. 

“And Nico and I were in the electrical together,” Will adds.

Piper glances at Hazel, raising her eyebrow. “So Hazel was closest?”

Her eyes widen. “Wait, what? I was just filling the fuel like you asked!”

“But Will and Nico only saw you when they passed into admin,” Annabeth says. “Unless… they did it.”

“It wasn’t us,” Will raises his arms in surrender. “I swear, I was in electrical the entire time before Nico showed up, and he had just come from nav.”

Nico glances between all of them. His eyes eventually land on Hazel. It feels impossible that she could have been the one to kill Jason, but the facts line up. There wasn’t anyone else around…

Hazel notices him staring. Her eyebrows furrow from under her helmet. “Nico, you have to know it’s not me,” she pleads with him.

He clears his throat. “Should we skip the whole ejecting thing for now? Wait for more concrete evidence.”

“There’s no skipping with a killer on the loose, Nico,” Piper crosses her arms. “All in favor of ejecting Hazel?”

Hands go up around the table as Hazel meets her fate. Leo, Percy, Annabeth, and Piper, put their hands up. Nico’s relieved to see Will’s hand still down, along with Reyna and Frank.

“It’s a tie,” Annabeth announces.

“Then we’ll wait,” Nico says. “If something happens, we can vote for her after. We just need more evidence.”

They get dismissed to go back to their tasks, but before Will and Nico can even arrive at admin together so Nico can finish signing in, another meeting is called.

“I found Leo’s body in storage when I went back to finish filling the fuel tanks,” Hazel says grimly.

“Well, who else was around? We all just went back to where we were, right?” Annabeth asks, and everybody nods.

She turns to Hazel. “So it must have been a self-report type situation to make yourself look innocent.”

“No! I swear-” 

“All in favor?”

Hands go up again. This time, Reyna and Will both hesitantly put their hands up. Frank and Nico say nothing.

“Majority vote,” Piper says, then grabs Hazel’s arm.

Nico turns around when they push her out.

Once everyone is dismissed again, Nico can hear footsteps behind him as he attempts to head back to admin. He freezes, but it’s just Will catching up to him.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks, trying to grab Nico’s hand, but he pulls away.

“I don’t know, we just ejected someone who was possibly innocent out of the ship and everyone was just okay with it. I don’t know how you could expect me to be okay.”

Will sighs. “I get it. But there was a pretty good chance she was the imposter, right? Everyone else was with someone except for Reyna and Frank.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t worry, di Angelo,” Will says, stepping closer and lacing their gloved fingers together. “I’ll protect you.”

Nico raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t pull away. It is oddly comforting to walk around with him.

He finally signs into admin, and then the two head off, doing all their tasks on the right side of the ship. So far, no signs of any dead bodies, which makes Nico wonder if maybe it was Hazel.

That is, until they’re passing through storage, heading to finish tasks on the left side of the ship, when suddenly the lights start flashing, and an automated countdown starts around them.

OXYGEN DEPLETED IN 30… 29… 28…

“Shit!” Will curses, unwinding their hands. Immediately, panic courses through Nico’s body. Imposter or not, if they can’t fix this, they’ll all be dead in a matter of minutes.

“You head to admin and put in the code from there, I’ll run to O2. Meet up in the cafeteria, okay?” 

“Got it!” Will says, and they dash off in opposite directions. All thoughts of the imposter forgotten, Nico runs as fast as he can towards the O2 room. He passes Frank as he’s doing so, who’s staring at one of the downloading screens and completely ignoring the flashing lights overhead.

Huh…

He doesn’t have enough time to think about that, though. When he arrives at O2, he notices a blue figure squatting down in front of the oxygen machine.

“Are you?” he asks, and Percy turns his head, nodding.

“Yeah,” he says in a rushed breath, then gestures towards a post-it on the wall. “I’ve almost got it, I just need the code. Can you…?”

Nico grabs the post-it, reading off the code written. “267983”

Percy punches in the number code and hits enter. After a moment, the lights stop flashing, and the countdown stops.

Nico lets out the breath he was holding. “That was close.”

“Yeah,” Percy agrees, nodding. “I gotta go find Annabeth. I told her to head to admin while I would go to O2.”

“That’s the same thing I told Will.”

They head to the cafeteria together, still heavy breathing after their near-death experience. When they get there, they almost run straight into Will, who’s coming out of admin. Nico resists the urge to hug him, instead opting to just lean into his side.

Percy nods at the blonde. “Did Annabeth help you?” he asks.

Will blinks. “What do you mean?”

“In admin. I told her to go there while I went to O2.”

Nico feels Will’s body tense. “I was the only one in there…” he says. Nico sees the realization cross Percy’s face, before the boy dashes off, Nico and Will right on his heels.

It’s not long before they find Annabeth’s body, blood splattering the white suit as she lays limp just like how Jason was.

“Percy…” Nico says slowly, watching as his eyes darken.

Another meeting was called.

“Who now?” Frank asks grimly.

Percy says it so quietly that Nico almost doesn’t hear him. “Annabeth.”

“Wait, where’s Reyna?”

“Oh,  I saw her in navigation,” Piper says, then backtracks. “Well, I found her in navigation. I was about to call it, but I guess Percy beat me to it.”

“Two in one go?’ Will asks nervously, pulling at his gloves. 

Percy crosses his arms. “Well, it had to be either you or Frank. And I told her to head to admin, which is where you were.”

Will backed up. “Woah, woah, but I stayed in admin until O2 was fixed!:

“Right, right, it just so happens her body was right outside of admin as well.”

“But I left storage!” “Doesn’t mean you didn’t go back.” “I didn’t! I was the only one in there fixing O2!”

Nico’s head swivels back and forth, not knowing who to believe. On one hand, he’s been with Will the entire time. If Will wanted to kill him, he had multiple chances to already.

But on the other hand, Annabeth was headed there…

“Wait, no!” he interrupts, suddenly remembering what he saw on his way to O2. “I’ve been with Will this entire time! And there was someone else in storage,” he says, turning to face Frank.

Percy follows suit. “Frank?”

“When I was headed to O2, I noticed he was still downloading, even while the lights were flashing,” Nico accuses. If Piper found Reyna, Will was fixing O2 in admin, and he was with Percy, it has to be Frank, right?

“I left, like, right after you passed, I swear!” Frank defends.  “I saw Annabeth headed to admin and you headed to O2, so I figured I would just finish the download and then go check if you guys needed help.”

“You saw Annabeth?” Piper asks, crossing her arms just like Percy. 

Frank’s eyes widen under his helmet, realizing the corner he’s backed himself into. “Yes, I saw her, but then I left, I swear-”

“All in favor?” Nico asks.

All hands go up.

Once Frank was ejected, Will catches up with Nico again, as the two hesitantly head to the left side of the ship. 

“If we just finish out tasks, we can land and get out of here,” Nico says, glancing behind him. Will nods in agreement, also silent. Whatever was between them before has now disappeared, replaced with fearful tension.

The two make their way through the tasks on the left side, aligning engine outputs and fixing the rest of the wires. Nico finishes his last task, adjusting his gloves. “That’s it, right? We should be good to land?” he asks Will, who is staring at the engine.

“Yeah, um, here’s the thing,” he says, and Nico can see his face turning red even through the glass of the helmet. “Remember that wire task I was doing in electrical when you found me? I never actually finished it…”

Nico groaned. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m sorry!” Will says. “You just finished yours so quick I was worried you would kill me! I wasn’t completely sure it wasn’t you until Leo died. We just have to go back and do that one last set, and then we can land.”

Nico sighs. “I mean, it’s not like we have a choice.”

They arrive at the electrical together, and he tries to ignore his pounding heart as Will opens the box, fixing the last two wires inside. The longer it took, the harder it felt like his heart was pumping until he could practically hear it.

Unless… that wasn’t his heart he was hearing.

Nico turns to the source of noise, heavy thumps coming from the vent next to where Will was working. It definitely sounded like someone was crawling through, and they were getting closer.

“Will, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

It was too late. Just as Will turns to face him, a person in a red-clothed suit pops out of the vent and grabs his body, pulling him close.

“‘Sup, Nico?” Piper grins, then snaps Will’s neck.

DEFEAT.

Will frowns. “I don’t like this game very much,” he says as Piper’s character appears on screen, the red letters fading on screen for everybody except Piper’s phone.

“You hate this game? I always get killed first,” Jason sighs. 

Piper kicks his chair playfully. “That’s ‘cuz you’re an easy target, Jas.”

“If you had just finished that one task, Will, we could have won!” Annabeth groans.

Will makes a noise of protest, and Nico just snuggles closer to his boyfriend on the couch in Percy’s living room where they had all gathered that night. He was silently proud of himself for technically surviving until the end, even if his imminent death was implied.

“Piper came out of nowhere. I swear I thought it was Hazel,” Leo shakes his head. “She kept giggling, I thought it’s because she was murdering a bunch of people.”

Hazel smiles like she can’t help it. “It’s just funny the way they run around. They don’t have arms!”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust Hazel when she’s not smiling,” Reyna says.

Percy shakes his head. “We should have known it was Piper. It’s always red.”

“I take offence to that statement on behalf of everyone who mains red.”

They continue bantering back and forth, and Nico feels Will’s hand land on his knee right where his jeans tear, sending electric currents through his body. 

Defeat or not, there’s nothing about this moment he wouldn’t change.

Will leans down, kissing Nico on the cheek, and Nico smiles as he holds up his phone. “Anyone up for another round?”

—

solangelo tag list (message to be added/removed)

@anxiouswinter @soulangelou @number-of-fucks-i-give-0 @underworldystuff @theeloquentsnake @solangelover@thefandomsaretakingover @internallyexplodingrainbows​ @hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon​ @motivatedcryptidtamer @emilyfairchild @wherethewildthingsare-nt @hetapeep41 @blavk-dahlia 

[bloodfromthethorn]

Passing Out

When Matty calls you to the War Room, you don't stop to tell her that you're feeling a little rough. Even if you definitely, definitely should.

Part eight of the July of Whump 2021 prompt challenge.

Also on AO3. 

..

If she was telling the truth, Riley hadn’t really been feeling up to a mission when they got called in. She’d woken up with a niggling headache and even two cups of coffee hadn’t been enough to properly offset the drowsiness clinging about her shoulders. Worse, all of her joints were aching quietly, like she’d somehow managed to sleep in the most uncomfortable position known to man and was now paying the price for it, despite the fact that she’d slept solidly through the night undisturbed.

Regardless, when Matty sent a message telling her to get to the War Room, she hauled ass with everyone else and didn’t even think to utter a complaint. It wasn’t until she was boarding the jet and found herself staring up at the overhead luggage rack, wishing her bag could magically lift itself up there, that she suddenly realised this was almost certainly a bad idea.

It was probably just a cold or something, she told herself, perhaps a little fatigue build-up from too many missions in the last month – nothing serious. Nothing worth bothering the others over and certainly not something she should use as an excuse to get out of going to Peru with everyone else. Besides, for the plan to work they needed her. She couldn’t let them down.

“Hey, earth to Ri,” Jack called, dropping a heavy hand on her shoulder and making her jump. He instantly withdrew, holding the hand up in surrender. “Hey, woah, you alright?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, trying to patch over her flinch with a sheepish smile. “Daydreaming, I guess. Sorry.”

Apparently her act wasn’t convincing enough. Jack squinted at her with one of those intense looks he always got when he knew something was up and he was trying to pinpoint exactly what it was. He was always scarily good at doing it, too.

“You sure you’re alright? You’re looking kinda pale.”

“Wow, thanks,” she muttered sarcastically, snatching at her suitcase as a distraction.

Jack’s hands darted out to take it from her instead, hefting it onto the rack as though it weighed nothing at all, despite the fact there were two back-up rigs in there with enough spare parts between them to build a whole other laptop if she needed. Even though she was vaguely annoyed by his hovering, she couldn’t help but be grateful he’d saved her the task. Her shoulders really were bothering her.

“I don’t mean nothing by it, you know that,” he said dismissively once the bag was settled. “I’m just worried about you. You’d tell me if something was going on, right?”

Sudden, sharp guilt bubbled up in the pit of her stomach as she forced herself to smirk. “Are you always such a worrier?”

“With you and Mac around? Hell yeah! Someone’s got to keep you kids from running into traffic.”

“Oh my god Jack, that was one time,” Mac put in loudly from the other end of the plane. “You’ve got to let it go.”

Jack’s attention was immediately diverted, and Riley had to stop herself from letting out a relieved breath. Trust Mac to come through for her when he didn’t even know he was doing it.

With Jack busy delivering a put-upon rant to a mostly bemused Mac, she was free to settle herself in her usual seat and get her laptop set up in front of her. She couldn’t do a lot to cover it if she really was pale, but at least with her rig she had a solid cover for sitting quietly and minding her own business – it was her usual go-to strategy for getting through long flights. Besides, she’d planned to go over their game plan again anyway.

Of course, she then immediately encountered another issue: what had been a mild headache in the back of her skull pulsed sharply the second she looked at her screen, the light burning her eyes. She squinted, wincing, but it did little to help. The pain was still bearable, but she had an instinctive feeling that if she had to keep looking at the screen for a lot longer, it was going to get worse. It was one thing to go into a mission feeling a little run down, but actively letting herself deteriorate on an infil flight was something else altogether. Putting her laptop away might raise questions, but she wasn’t stupid enough to run the risk of letting the others walk into danger when she might not be ready to back them up.

She shut her laptop with a decisive click.

Behind it, two feet away on the other side of the small table, Bozer was staring at her like she was the mystery at the heart of the universe.

“What?”

He raised an eyebrow, and said nothing.

“What?”

Still, nothing.

“Boze, I swear-”

“You know,” he interrupted like she hadn’t even been speaking, “It’s okay to say you’re not up for this if you’re feeling down.”

If she’d been smart about it, she wouldn’t have reacted; as it was, she couldn’t stop herself from shooting an alarmed look in Jack’s direction to make sure he was still too busy hassling Mac to be listening in. From the knowing look in Boze’s eyes, he’d definitely caught the slip.

“Like I told Jack, I’m perfectly fine,” she hissed, wishing that she actually felt it. The scrutiny only seemed to be making her feel worse – there was a warm blush rising on her skin that she wanted to write off as embarrassment, but likely had more to do with how overly-warm she was starting to get.

“And he didn’t believe you. Neither do I.”

“Boze, it’s going to be a long flight. Just leave me alone?”

He leaned back in his chair, visibly weighing up whether she trying to divert his attention or if she was genuinely frustrated at the pestering. In truth it was a little of both – she knew that she wasn’t in top form and it was a really bad idea to not at least let the others know that, but at the same time, she was sure that she had to do this. Her job in Peru would mostly be sitting around on her laptop and provided her headache didn’t get worse, she was perfectly capable of that. If she told Jack that she wasn’t feeling up to par then she wouldn’t entirely put it past him to get Matty to turn the plane around.

“Look,” she said, keeping her voice low to keep from drawing Jack’s attention, “I’m a bit tired, that’s all. I’m in for this mission one hundred percent. I was just hoping to get some shut eye on the way over there to be in the best shape I can be. Please, please just let this go.”

For once, Bozer’s expression was entirely serious as he took her in. After a long, tense moment he nodded. “Okay. I trust you. Just- let us know if anything gets worse, alright? I know Jack can be- well, Jack, but we’re all on your side here.”

Without waiting for her to formulate some sort of response to that – and god knows what that would even look like – he jumped out of his chair with an energy she wished she had and wandered over to insert himself in Mac and Jack’s conversation. A few minutes later, when she’d closed her eyes and leaned her chair back to try to get the sleep she’d asked for, she heard Jack muttering a quick aside to Bozer:

“Hey, is she doing okay?”

Riley tensed for a heartbeat, but it turned out she should have had more faith in her friend. “Yeah, she’s fine. Just catching up on a bit of sleep before we land. Can we do anything about getting Matty to stop calling us in at six in the morning?”

There was a quiet round of laughter, the comment launching Mac into a series of tales about the ridiculousness of their working hours when they were on rotation. That Jack didn’t join in immediately was telling, but he didn’t contradict what Boze had said and no one came to disturb her so he must have bought it at least a little.

Fortunately, Riley didn’t have long to ponder it. By the time they cleared California airspace, she was already asleep.

..

The mission was mostly a bust, in that their primary target had managed to flee the country before they’d even touched down, but there was still important information to ferret out. Fortunately, with the main head honcho gone, the rest of his men didn’t put up much of a fight and between them, Mac and Jack were able to get what they needed and get out without a single scratch between them. Bozer and Riley, confined to backup and technical support respectively, got to spend most of their time hiding out in a dingy hotel room with absolutely nothing exciting going on.

For perhaps the first time since joining the Phoenix, Riley was endlessly grateful for that. She’d hoped the sleep on the plane would help her get over whatever it was going on with her, but if anything it seemed to have made things worse. Her headache had increased ten-fold, to the point that even thinking about looking at her laptop made her feel distantly nauseous, and a sore throat had crept in to join the stuffy nose and creaking joints. She’d managed to explain away her persistent flush by citing Peru’s summer sunshine, but she knew that wasn’t the truth and from the sideways glances Bozer had been throwing her, he knew it too. Fortunately he’d been smart enough not to mention it on comms, or she might just have hit him.

Exhausted and feeling worse with every passing minute, she didn’t think she’d ever been more relieved when she and Bozer stepped out of their cab onto the airstrip. Mac and Jack were standing around by the steps to the jet, waiting for them.

“There you are,” Jack called when they were within earshot. “What kept you?”

“The hotel was on the other side of the city, Jack,” Bozer reminded him, clapping a hand to Mac’s shoulder in greeting. “Some of us had further to go.”

“Sure, sure. It wasn’t that you were leaving us to do all the work or anything.” Jack jostled his shoulder against Bozer’s, apparently thrilled that their mission had gone so utterly without note.

Beside them, Riley was staring at the stairs of the jet wondering just how exactly she was going to haul herself up them. Her skin felt too hot and the car journey over here had ratcheted up her nausea to the point she was reflexively swallowing every few seconds. Her vision was spinning idly too, which was doing absolutely nothing to help with the dizzy spells she’d been fighting off since they’d left the hotel.

Someone called her name, or perhaps something like it, but it sounded much further away than she’d expected. Had the others gone on without her? She turned her head to look, but as soon as she did, what little vision she was still clinging to whirled away in a cloud of black. She had a heartbeat to ponder that undesirable state of affairs, then the heat surged and her legs turned to water.

She was unconscious before she even started to fall.

..

She woke to find herself stretched out on the jet’s couch, her head pillowed on something soft that she rapidly identified as someone’s lap. A warm, familiar hand was stroking her hair. She remembered, distantly, waking in this exact position a thousand years ago when she was still young and naïve and trusting – and just like then, a tiny piece of her mind wished fiercely that she’d never have to leave it.

“Jack?” She asked quietly, her voice rasping faintly.

“There you are,” he responded, equally softly. He sounded watery with relief, but the hand didn’t stop its gentle path through her curls. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re okay. We’re heading home and you’re safe and sound, I promise.”

Inexplicably, she felt a sudden urge to weep. Here she was, cradled and cared for, and she hadn’t even had the decency to tell him that she’d been feeling ill. She didn’t deserve his comfort. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey now, none of that.” A second hand brushed soothingly up and down her arm. “Everything’s okay. You’re going to be just fine. You just rest up – we’ll be home before you know it.”

“Should have told you,” she said miserably, too cowardly to even open her eyes as she said it. She didn’t want to bear his frustration when she already felt so thoroughly awful and worn out.

“It’s okay, darling, don’t you worry about that right now. I’m not mad. You hearing me? I’m not angry or upset, I just want you to be alright. So quit worrying about any of that and get some more rest if you can. There’s a med team waiting for us in LA to look you over, but they think you’ve probably caught the flu. All you’ve gotta do right now is relax, okay?”

“Flu?” That couldn’t be right, could it? She’d been feeling off, sure, but it really hadn’t been that bad. If she’d thought it was anything serious, she would have said something.

“You spiked a fever,” he explained with what could only have been intentional calm. “You’re going to be feeling pretty rough for a few days, but you don’t need to worry about that right now.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling small. She thought she should be relieved at his lack of anger, but somehow it just made her feel worse. Like she knew she hadn’t earned his forgiveness, and he was insisting on giving it anyway. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“I told you Ri, you don’t need to be. I’m not mad. You just focus on getting better and I’ll be right as rain.”

He sounded genuine and this time she couldn’t help it; a few tears slipped out from under closed eyelids to wet the fabric under her cheek. It did nothing to make her feel less infantile, but her body was aching and her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and she felt utterly powerless to fix any of those problems. Childishly, she just wanted Jack to make her feel better.

“Hey, shh,” he soothed lowly. “It’s okay. I’m right here. You’re okay.”

The string of comforting platitudes continued, not really saying anything but acting as a constant reminder that she was not alone while she struggled desperately to reassert control over her emotions. It was harder than it should have been, with fatigue and malaise fighting her every step of the way, but she did eventually get the tears under control. The same instant that she did, exhaustion was right there waiting for her.

“That’s it,” Jack murmured, “You get some rest. We’ll be right here if you need us.”

Comforted despite herself and more weary than she could ever remember being, Riley took him at his word. She burrowed herself down a little, relishing the feel of fingers lightly brushing against her scalp and sighed.

This time, when sleep rose to meet her, she was waiting to greet it like an old friend.

[pandoraborn]

I dunno if your taking prompts/ideas, but I keep seeing things in Techno's streams and keep connecting them to Tommy (like little reminders of Tommy) so maybe Techno reacting to these sort of things? (Cobblestone towers, the hole to tommy's basement [if it's still there idk], little things like that)

Part one || Part two word counter: 1537 words triggers: suicide mention, abuse mention, violence, hearing voices, anxiety, panic attack

Techno hates being here. For some reason, his own home feels wrong, like something is amiss. Nothing feels safe right now; he barely feels safe in his own skin.

He rubs his arms as he wanders about, trying to fight back a panic attack. He’s Techno, he doesn’t panic. He doesn’t lose his cool, he doesn’t... he doesn’t need to feel like this. Yet, everything feels wrong, nothing feels comforting.

Maybe it’s the remnants of that stupid cobblestone tower that still exists by his house. Phil had missed a few chunks in his haste to mine it away, but there’s enough of a reminder that sends Techno into flashbacks. He remembers joking around with Tommy while he built it, Techno remembers playing around with the scaffolding to scare Tommy.

At the time, it had been fun. The tower only became harmful after Tommy left.

Techno heads inside the house, wanting to erase that particular memory. He can’t afford to think about Tommy right now. He still wants to recover from the earlier visit, not wanting to focus on how much Dream had terrified him.

The humming from the villagers down below startles him. Techno’s hearing is far too keen, and he’s letting out a panicked yell in response. When he settles, he hears nothing but the blood rushing in his ears, accompanied by the faint, distant sound of the voices. They’re still screaming Tommy, and he doesn’t know why. For a second, he wonders if Tommy is hiding in his house again, so he heads down the ladder to check.

The first basement is skipped over. Techno goes even deeper, landing in what should have been Tommy’s hole. It’s no longer the raccoon basement. Techno stands there for a second, caught in yet another memory. He vividly recalls Tommy sassing him, throwing potions and giggling. At the time, Techno would have given anything to throw Tommy out into the snow, but now, he misses having Tommy around.

He hates missing Tommy. Techno hates remembering all the silly little moments that had won him over in spite of himself. He hates remembering how he tried his hardest to help, even if his intentions hadn’t been the best. He remembers hiding Tommy in a box, with Tommy eating gapples the whole time, peeking out to glance closer at Dream.

A new wave of panic washes over Techno. Dream. He’d fucked up bad enough to the point he’d isolated the teenager who was clearly crying for help, turning him away in favor of the entity who’d abused him. All because of one stupid debt Techno felt he owed.

Oh gods, he really did fuck up.

The voices are screaming louder. Some yelling Tommy’s name, some yelling at his stupidity, and some yelling incoherent nonsense that he can’t decipher. Amid the cacophony, there is something hushed, whispered, barely carrying through above the din.

Intruder.

The blood drains out of his face. The word is not repeated. All Techno hears now is the sound of screaming, blood rushing through his ears and drowning out the sound of the villagers. He crawls back up the ladder, trying to slow his rapidly beating heart. It’s too soon for another fight, it’s too soon for him to get into another scuffle. If it’s Dream-

No, it shouldn’t be. He would have heard over the comms by now if Dream had escaped. It’s not Dream, it’s someone else who isn’t supposed to be here.

On the first floor, Techno grabs the axe Ranboo made for him. It just makes him think about how Tommy still has the axe of peace, and for a brief second, the thought fills him with comfort. Tommy has his axe, Tommy’s keeping it safe. Techno doesn’t even want it back at this point, it’s enough to know that it’s in good hands.

The thought is gone once again when Techno moves outside, seeing a dark figure in the distance move closer. It’s someone who’d come through the portal, but Techno recognizes the silhouette almost immediately.

The panic gives way to anger when he lunges for Quackity, rushing through the snow and closing the distance between them. He knows Quackity is doing the same thing, running headfirst for him, with a sword in his hands. Quackity looks just as pissed as Techno feels.

“If it’s death you want, then you should have told me at my own execution,” Techno snarls. He swings his axe hard, but Quackity parries him with a strength that Techno doesn’t remember him having. He’s almost impressed. But he swings again, hoping to actually chop off a limb this time.

Quackity dodges out of the way, letting out a furious snarl. “I’m surprised you haven’t dropped dead yet,” he snaps. “I wanna know why you visited Dream.”

“What?” Techno pauses momentarily. He’s surprised people had seen him near the prison. Had word gotten out already?

“You’re such a piece of shit Techno, it’s bad enough that you helped Dream blow up L’Manburg, now you’re still in contact with him? What are you planning? What are you up to? I swear to god, if it involves any of my friends-”

Quackity interrupts himself to swings at Techno again, aiming for his midsection. Techno’s eyes widen as he blocks the blow, pushing back against the sword with renewed panic. He knows exactly who Quackity means by ‘friends’.

“I went to ask him why, idiot!”

“Why, what? Don’t play innocent here,” Quackity snaps. “You’re just as guilty as he is.”

“Why he tried to kill Tommy and Tubbo! Jesus Quackity, do you really think everyone who doesn’t automatically side with you is a card-carrying villain?” There’s no actual point in fighting, not if they’re just going to keep going around in circles. He pulls back and wipes snow off his axe with his pants. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“It is my business. Tommy used your stupid axe to hold me at knife point because I told him I hated you. So naturally I had to come see why he’s so suicidally attached to you. I still don’t get it.”

“That’s because everyone else is too stupid to figure out what Tommy was fighting for.” Techno turns to leave. He knows he sounds hypocritical, but right now he’s not in the mood for anyone’s bullshit, especially Quackity’s.

“You’re a hypocrite then. Because you knew Tommy was fighting for L’Manburg, and you turned against him anyway. If I remember correctly, you helped blow it up.”

“If you want accuracy, Dream blew it up. I stood by and watched, just like literally everyone else did. I remember Tommy and Tubbo trying to talk me down, and I heard Tommy was the only one who did anything when you all confronted Dream. So we’re all hypocrites here, letting a teenager do all the work for us. Congratulations Quackity, you’re a villain too.”

“That’s not true,” Quackity protests. “I’ve always put my friends first. I always tried to do what’s right.”

“Did you? I can’t remember details, exactly. But when Tommy was at his lowest, he ran to someone for help. Who was it he turned to...? I really don’t think it was L’Manburg.”

Techno glances at the still-standing mailbox. He has no room to talk here. It’s not like he treated Tommy the best during their brief time together, but he likes to think he tried.

“Oh, so now you’re some glorified savior because Tommy ran to the nearest location for help? Remember how Tommy was exiled from L’Manburg? It’s not like he could run home.” Quackity sheathes his sword and glares. “Don’t pretend you know what’s best for anyone, because you’re still a tyrant.”

“Think of me as whatever you want,” Techno mutters. “Dream’s the one in prison, not me. You don’t have any power anymore, so any delusions of grandeur you might have about arresting and executing me are just that: delusions. Now if you don’t mind, get the fuck off my property before I decide to add your teeth to my collection, officially.”

“What is Tommy to you? Why is the kid so attached to you, and why are you so attached to him? What’s going on between you two?”

Techno pauses. He doesn’t know what is going on between he and Tommy. He doesn’t know if he considers Tommy his brother; they certainly don’t act like it. Some sort of bizarre family? Definitely not his best friend, that would be Phil.

It’s something strange, something deeper. Whatever it is, Techno doesn’t want to let it go.

“He’s my Theseus,” he finally mutters. “He’s always been my Theseus, and I’m going to protect him.”

“What did Dream tell you?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Tommy’s safe, alright? Will you please leave?”

Quackity doesn’t respond. Techno can hear him trudging off through the snow, hopefully going back through the portal. Maybe he’s taking the long way home, but it doesn’t matter. The blood lust is no longer driving him to madness, the voices are finally quelled for now. He’s left feeling tired and exhausted, ready to rest, finally.

This time when he enters his house, the memories don’t hurt as much. Theseus once lived here, and that’s okay.

@mysterio-is-the-truth @egopocalypse @lilsprout-exe @dragonsight9

[kate837]

I Love You

I completely recommend watching 2x14 Borrow or Rob, and the beginning of 2x15 Draw O Cesar Erase a Coward, before reading this fic. While this fic is AU it does have many similarities and minor details that it couldn't hurt to watch the episode first! Anyways enjoy!!!!!

#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:

Kurt had a day.

Not bad. Definitely not good. Just... A day.

A day he'll never forget actually. It was so full of ups and downs. From Shepherd plunging a knife into Sean's heart, to joking with Jane about whether or not he could handle Rich Dotcom. From shooting Rich to... Jane's date. That hurt. When Shepherd shoved a knife through Sean Clarke, Kurt's adrenaline spiked, he felt so alert for so long, he thought he would throw up. He got the same feeling from Jane. Except it was everytime she moved, spoke, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, etc. Her admission of her date was too much. Kurt went straight home, got a damp rag, and laid down. Staring at the ceiling.

Though he did have to say, it still wasn't the worst part of his day. He felt bad. Witnessing first degree murder should automatically be the worst part of your day.

But when it comes to Rich.....

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Kurt and Rich were sneaking through the secret underground tunnels of Jamison College, in order to get into the Deadalus gathering.

"This is interesting." Rich says, while coming to a stop.

"What?" Kurt replies shortly.

"Well this is the door, but the handle's different."

"Different how, Rich?!"

"Wel- well it's not there anymore?? Probably on account of all the hookers I snuck in it." Rich gestures to the handless door.

"Ok, so what's behind this door?" Kurt inquires, looking around.

"The closet. What are yo-"

"Stand back."

Kurt, with a running start, kicks the door in to find himself deep within the walls of a massive walk in closet.

"Aaaaa just how I remember it."

"SHHHHH!" Kurt puts his ear to the door, the one still on it's hinges, just in time to hear the gasps of attending guests and a soft female voice hushedly asking someone to notify security of the discrepancy.

"Shit."

"What?" Rich asks, genuinely confused.

"The guests are getting security to come check out 'the noise in the closet'."

"Oh. What are we gonna do Stubbles? I'm a sly guy but how do we explain that?"

"Oh God, why do you hate me?" Kurt says looking towards the ceiling.

"What? You're acting strange Stubbles, like weirder than normal. I mea-"

Rich was cut off by Kurt's large hands cupping both sides of his face, to kiss him. Without separating he backs Rich against a near wall, mimicking the earlier noise. Rich squirmed at first but expectedly went along with the unexpected.

"Come on Stubbles, you can at least use some tongue!"

"Shut. Up." Kurt snarls. "Actually. . . I need you to make some. . . noises." Kurt says while blushing furiously.

"Security is on their way." Tasha notifies through comms.

"Yeah you guys better get out of there." Reade warns.

"And say what? Oh hey haven't seen you in a while, please excuse my entering through a closet?!" Rich whisper-yells.

"Everyone shut up!" Kurt also whisper yells. "Now Rich I need you to moan a lot. Loudly."

"You could always make me Stubbles!"

"Rich!"

"Kurt what the hell are you doing?" Reade asks, growing increasingly concerned about his teammate's mental health.

"Rich just do it!"

"OOOOH! STUBBLES, YES!" Rich practically screams.

The party guests turn a side eye. But the security, like Kurt hoped, were turning away, figuring that the noise came from two enthusiastic partygoers. Or if the other patrons were anything like Rich maybe more.

Of course Weller didn't know that yet.

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"Ohhh. Now i get it, I can't believe this is working." Reade says, half laughing at the ridiculous noises coming out of his earpiece. "Hey Kurt it's work-"

"Will you shut up?!" Tasha butts in.

"What are you tal-"

"He doesn't know that they stood down yet." Tasha says wriggling her eyebrows. "Hey Kurt most of the security guards stood down but you still have a couple incoming. . . You might need to amp it up a bit!"

Her and Reade try and fail to stifle their laughter after Rich let's out a completely overexaggerated 'UNGH'!

"Come on Stubbles, they're not buying it, you're gonna have to join me if you wanna get out of here."

"Why me? God why me?" Kurt says again looking up.

Kurt let's out a loud and breathless 'Oh God' that completely undoes all of Tasha and Reade's composure. They are hysterical by now. They completely lost it when Rich and Kurt started harmonizing!

"Stop! Stop!" Tasha said. "I can't take it anymore." She pulls herself up from the floor of the van, where she fell from laughing so hard.

"Yeah guys, the security's gone. They're long gone." Reade adds, clutching his stomach.

"Yeah Rich so goo- wait what?!"

"Yeah you're clear." Tasha clarifies.

"You could have compromised this entire op!" Kurt says furiously.

"We all know that's not why you're mad Stubbles. And as the bible states-"

"I swear to God Rich, if you say another word I will shoot you."

"Another word."

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Kurt flushed red just thinking about it. What was he going to put in his field report?!

He turned to lay on his side to take in the fresh scenery of the wall instead of the ceiling. After laying there for about two minutes, he finally got up to fix himself dinner.

While gathering ingredients, Kurt's mind inevitably wandered back to Jane's date. Everything about it tore at him. What she'd be wearing, what she'd eat, would she cover her tattoos, would she wear makeup. . . . . . . .

His thoughts were interrupted by a phone call.

It was Jane.

A million questions ran through his head. Why is she calling him? Shouldn't she still be out on her date?

He lunged for the phone but then. . . He stilled. Didn't move a muscle. He picked up his phone, turned it over, and resumed gathering ingredients.

Once the phone eventually stopped buzzing, Kurt's inner turmoil came to play.

'Why didn't you answer?! Jane could be in trouble!'

'Be rational Kurt. She's on a date, probably just calling to let you know that she'll complete her paperwork tomorrow, since she's busy.'

'Look, everyone knows you're in love with her, but you can't act like some overprotective boyfriend whenever she's around.'

Kurt shakes his head. He wasn't in love with Jane Doe. Was he?

'Of course you are! That's why you lunged for the phone as soon as you saw her name, but put it down when you realized she was still on a date.'

'No. If I was in love with her, I would have immediately answered.'

'No. You love her so much that you realized that if she's having fun, even with another man, you wouldn't want to ruin that. That's love.'

'What am I supposed to do? I can't love her from afar.'

'This may be selfish but what if I proposed the idea that Oliver is Sandstorm?'

'It could work. But why not just tell her how you feel?'

"Because I'm just not ready yet." Kurt voiced sadly.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

First thing the next morning, Kurt was walking up and down the hallways, over and over again. In order to 'accidentally' bump into Jane on her way to Patterson's lab.

After three consecutive minutes, Jane appeared. She was wearing this loose, pastel green shirt, that roughly covered all of her upper body tattoos as well as bringing out her eyes. She paired it with tight blue jeans, which she almost never wears, and a few silver rings on her right hand.

"Wow." Kurt whispered. What looked like any other outfit, looked stunning on her. He almost forgot to 'bump' into her.

"Jane!"

"Oh, hey!"

"You get Patterson's text yet?"

"Yeah, heading there now."

They walk in silence for a few heartbeats, until they turn into a secluded hallway.

"Jane wait." Kurt says while gently grabbing Jane's arm.

"Kurt, what is it?"

"After you told me last night, about your date. I started thinking. . ."

Jane subconsciously starts to hold her breath. Her expression wreaks of hope.

"Hey! Glad I found you two, Patterson's got something." Tasha pops in.

"Yeah." Kurt says releasing Jane.

Saved by the bell.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

The debrief, while no longer than usual, felt unbearably long. The charged energy from Kurt and Jane's previous conversation still radiated off of them.

While any hope of continuing it was completely shut down by the tattoo clues pointing to three different entities, causing the team to split up completely. Kurt with Roman, Jane with Tasha, and Patterson with Reade.

This was going to be a longgg day.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

The team finally reconvened at about 5pm. They had just finished the field reports. All three of them. It was exhausting.

Fortunately for Kurt his adrenaline spiked right back up about an hour later when Tasha, so graciously, reminded the group that they never filled out the field report for their Deadalus mission. Which caused Reade and Patterson to burst out into a fit of giggles.

"What's so funny?" Jane asked, looking to Kurt, smiling.

Kurt goes wide-eyed. She doesn't know.

This was going to be a long night.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

The team had just finished catching Jane up while writing the 'going to be extremely redacted' field report.

"Wait I'm still confused. If you just wanted Rich to moan, why did you kiss him?"

All eyes look to Kurt.

"We- well I was under the impression that security was going to be charging through the door at any second." He says glaring at the pair of agents who were strategically avoiding his gaze. "And when they did, if they saw us. . . you know-"

"We don't know, Weller!" Patterson howled.

Kurt glared.

"Yeah I kind of want to know how far you were willing to take it Assistant Director!" Reade joined in.

"We're done here." Kurt said as he walked out.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Jane had just walked out of the locker room to be met head on with Kurt.

"Kurt, hey!" Jane says, surprised.

"Hey."

"Umm. . . I actually wanted to talk to you."

Kurt raises his eyebrows in obvious confusion, cueing Jane to continue.

"When we were. . . Uh you know- outside of P- Patterson's lab. You didn't finish." Jane stumbles through her words as a new wave of nervousness hits her with full force.

"Oh that." Kurt says, grabbing Jane's arm, mirroring his earlier gesture and leading her away from the locker room door.

"Jane, I was up all night and I couldn't stop thinking about it. We need to be careful. Sandstorm feels like it's everywhere."

"You think Oliver is Sandstorm?"

"Yes. . . No." Kurt shakes his head.

"Kurt you're not making any sense." Jane says studying him.

"I know. I know. I just- no I don't think he's Sandstorm."

"Then why did you-"

"I've been trying to come up with reasons of why you shouldn't date him for the better part of 13 hours."

"Kurt wha-"

"And I got nothing, because the only reason is that I love you."

Jane goes wide-eyed. It was as if all the air was sucked out of her.

"I love you Jane."

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

[mason-knight-retired]

A personal debrief between the two of them wouldn’t have been complete without Mason pilfering one of his husband’s 206 year old whiskey bottles and sneaking off with Marie to some darkened corner of the hold. They perched together on top of the Mako, out of sight of prying eyes and both warm with amber in their veins as they passed the bottle back and forth between them and giggling like teenagers.

“God,” Marie takes another swig of the bottle. “This stuff is amazing. And I don’t normally drink it.”

“Sorry I couldn’t find any prosecco or merlot or whatever the fuck you usually have.”

“This works,” Marie smiles at him, eyes a little glazed over and cheeks pink. “I can’t feel a thing and it tastes… like a party on my tongue.”

Mason snorts. He’s not sure Ethan would put it that way. “Well, my husband is known to enjoy the finer things in life so I knew it had to be good.”

“Finer things like you?” she teases.

“Ah, ha! So you admit it, I am fine-“ he pokes her in the side and she swats him away but not before unleashing a flurry of curses when she can’t make him budge.

“It’s nice to know your healthy sense of self-worth hasn’t changed, Masey.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve had a lot of smoke blown up our asses over the years.”

Marie laughs a little but then her smile fades. Mason catches her just before she crumbles. “Hey… Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got you.”

“Fuck,” she swears through her tears, and he tugs her into his lap. “Fuck it all to hell.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m so sorry, Ree,” he says into her dark hair at her temple. He’d forgotten how tiny she was, how soft and sweet she could be. He tucks her head against his chest. He knew this was coming, he just wasn’t sure when. “I can’t imagine how much you must be hurting right now.”

--

Marie was wiping her tears after a therapeutic cry when the cargo hold doors slide open, light spills in from the hallway outside. Her little engineer shuffles over towards the Mako, one hand over his eyes, the other stretched out in front of him as though he was feeling his way blind through the dark.

“Luca,” Marie says in amusement. “What are you doing?”

“Uh. Well, Davis sent me to find you.”

“I’m off duty.”

“I know, but… uh. Is it safe to uncover my eyes? The last time I got sent to find someone, they had no pants on and it was kinda awkward. I still don’t know if I should have saluted or-“

“No pants? What kind of operation are you running over here, mullet?”

Marie growls and thumps him, then winces when her hand bounces off him. She goes for his hair instead, giving the dark strands a solid yank that made him laugh. The engineer was still rambling down below.

“What’s he talking about?” Mason muttered and Marie cut him a look.

“Archer. With…”

“Ah,” Mason nodded sagely. That explained the no pants. He didn’t need it spelled out any more than that. “Say no more.”

“Commander?” Luca says again.

Marie sighs. “You didn’t have to come down here, Luca. You could have pinged me.”

“No, um. Actually no, your comms are off.”

“They are?” Marie looks at her wrist then frowns. “They’re not…”

She cuts a glare at Mason. “Did you do something?”

“Oops?” Mason tries to look innocent. This time her yank on his hair is a lot more violent and he winces as he ducks away. “Whoa, easy tiger.”

“Mason,” she hisses. “I’m the XO, I can’t be off comms-“

“Relax, it’s not that big of a ship. Besides, Luca found you. No harm done.”

Marie tries to get up on her feet. She peers down at Luca with a sight frown. “How did you know where to find us?”

Luca shrugged. “The lounges were all empty, so was the mess and… well, everyone knows this is the best seat in the house if you need some time to escape without actually leaving the ship. Ben and I-“

“Okay, stop right there,” Marie orders and Luca squirms, cheeks red.

“Uh, ok. Um. Anyway, Cap wants to talk to you. Both of you.”

[chick-from-nz]

Paper, Scissors, Rank  (Ch: 7)

CHARACTER/PAIRING: Modern!Carrillo x Army!OC (eventually) 

WARNINGS: maybe some swearing, military slang, more military talk,  spelling and grammatical errors. Flippy floppy points of view and tenses. Could be very OOC/AU for some. Carrillo may not be narcos accurate as this is an AU. Some OC x OC 

AUTHORS NOTE: ok so idk how good this is, kinda just word vomited onto the page, tryna generate some emotion in there but lets see how it goes, thanks for reading peeps. I know I said I wasn't gonna post but middle of the night inspiration stuck so imma keep writing this 

WORD COUNT: 3.2k

CHAPTER: 7 OF ?

TAG LIST(OPEN): @girlpornparadise @1zashreena1 @xxidontwikeitxx @nicke0115 @allalngthewtchtower @lettherebrelight

The drive to the teams new base of operations was by no means short. While still being on defence land they were nearly three hours away from the main base, located in a flat valley in the hills and surrounded by greenery and training equipment. Ash had been here once before during a cadets course many years ago with her father, but it was vastly different now. The house had changed drastically from what used to be multiple cabins to what was now a single stand alone one story place. However while the accommodation had changed the grounds had stayed the same. There was an assault course set up that flowed into the trees to the south of the house and there was a pool to the west of the house, all in all, it was nothing to complain about. 

The house itself was relatively modern, having been rebuilt within the last few years or so. The entrance was sealed by heavy wooden doors that required a pin in order to access. Upon entry Ash took in the place, it was actually really nice. It was open plan living, the kitchen was directly to the right as you came in the doors, nice wooden benchtops and crisp new appliances. Directly in front of the breakfast bar sat the living room. Three nice couches surrounded a rather large square coffee table, laden with maps. The fireplace that the couches faced was made of a slate grey stone and sat underneath the rather large tv.  To the right of the fireplace was a door that she had been informed led to the only bathroom in the house that held a shower, while to the left of the fireplace was the door to Ash’s room.

Across the small hallway was the Colonels room, which was attached to his office that was on the far end of the house. At the end of the small hallway was an open archway that, from what she could see, led to a gym. Stepping further into the house and left from the kitchen Ash noticed another two sets of doors. One that led to the boys room, containing four single military style pits and separate draws for each of them, while the second door opened up onto the workspace for them all, which had a door in the back right corner that opened up onto Carrillo’s office. All in all, Ash couldn’t find a single fault to the house, okay perhaps one bathroom to share was gonna be a little tough.

She was startled from her thoughts and exploring when Carrillo called out to her while making his way to his office. “There's some food in the fridge and everything is pretty easy to find so make yourself at home, the boys should arrive in around about five weeks. You’ve got the single room closest to the bathroom”  Ash nodded in thanks and watched as he disappeared into the teams workroom, no doubt going to his office to work through the enlistment papers for the rest of the team. Ash didn’t waste much time going to her room, she could eat later when hunger eventually struck her, she was miles too tired from the drive here and sore from moving about so much. Her room was nice. A large double bed sat in the middle of the room encompassed by grey side tables, each sporting a small lamp. In front of the bed sat a tall set of drawers and a small bookcase. Very homely indeed, thankfully, cause god only knows how long the team would be confined to the house doing research and/or planning and training for future raids.

Ash barely gave herself any time to get changed, haphazardly pulling on an oversized shirt and a pair of comfortable gym shorts, before she all but launched herself onto her new bed, grunting in pain when her left side made contact with the bed a little too harshly . She moved onto her back sinking deep into the comfort of the mattress. The bed was like heaven for her after sleeping on either a creaky army pit or the ground for the last twenty some weeks. If this is what she had to look forward to everyday her enthusiasm for work was about to increase ten fold.  The moment her head touched the pillow she was out like a light. Thankful for her own space and a bed big enough to move around on and toss and turn how she used to.

                                                            -------

As much as Carrillo enjoyed the rank he was and the respect that followed his name, the paperwork at this level was a nightmare. Especially due to the complaints Sinclair had lodged against him due to the incident  at the base hospital. Having to describe in detail the events that occurred between that despicable man and the young officer a mere few rooms over made his blood boil, yet again. He was starting to understand the warnings that came with being posted here, apparently work affairs between ranks wasn’t a condemnable act like it was back home in Columbia. An odd world indeed. Still, within his team he would not tolerate any kind of fraternization, hence his decision to cram the boys into one room together and give Greyson her own room, partly for her own privacy but also for his peace of mind.

Pushing the paperwork to the side of his desk, he sighed. That damn soldier might well be the best thing for the team but she sure came with some complications. He’d done extensive research into his team members upon his arrival to the base, most came from non-military backgrounds, a solid high school education or higher, and most but not all had been serving for at least four years and had seen some kind of fire fight. Then there was Greyson. Military background with files upon files that had been redacted and unable to be accessed by anyone in the force, no matter how hard he’d tried. Only the most basic of information could be found about the young soldier; graduated school with honors and received many scholarship proposals but turned them down, participated in many extracurricular activities before and after her education, applied to join the army as both a regular soldier and an enlisted officer as her father had served but yet again, any information surrounding him and his career or rank had been redacted. A Lot of mystery surrounded this soldier, a mystery the Colonel found himself wanting to solve, even if it did go against his own rule.

                                                          ------

When Ash awoke the room was bathed in light from the full moon outside, the sounds of the bush were a welcome homely feeling for her, nature was her comfort. She went to sit but was struck with immense pain. Both her stab wound and head injuries were sending waves of pain throughout her body, making her vision temporarily blurry. The need to puke was high but Ash pushed it down as far as she could. She was hungry, in pain and now cranky, she just hoped her medication would be easy to find in the kitchen. Stumbling like a newborn deer she tried to shake the dizzy feeling from her head, this concussion was a pain in her ass, but the medics did say the symptoms should be gone within the next few weeks, until then Ash would have to put up with feeling sick and dizzy sometimes.  Celebrating when she finally made it to the kitchen without falling on her ass, she then struggled to find the lightswitch, now that was one thing she really should have paid attention too when scouting the house when they arrived.

Having located the switch and turning on the lights she winced, they were just that tad bit too bright for a tired concussed brain. It was when she turned to grab a glass of water to quench her thirst that she noticed a glass already laid out on the bench, with what looked like her meds already measured out beside it and a note beneath the glass. Either she was hallucinating or the stoic Colonel had laid this out for her. Gripping the bench as tight as she could as another wave of nausea overtook her sense she moved closer to the glass, there were her meds. Perfectly placed atop a piece of paper that was covered in a rather elegant script. Each pill had the name and the purpose written next to it and at the bottom of the note were the words “Dinner is in the fridge, eat first. That's an order”  

Ash scoffed a little at the note, of course he’d write that, seemed the man was more by the book than she thought. She was silently thankful for his detailed note explaining her meds, if she had to pick them from the bottle she wouldn’t have known what to take. Opening the fridge and grabbing out the only covered plate she was surprised to find that the meal looked home cooked, Did this man really cook dinner? . It was safe to say she was shocked by the thought but proceeded to microwave her dinner anyway, leaning against the bench to keep herself upright, lest the Colonel come into the kitchen later in the day and find her sprawled out on the floor.

Ash all but devoured the food when it was ready, not waiting for anything to cool down, she was far too hungry. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate, or the last time she ate this good. She never would have guessed that Carrillo was this good at cooking, like sure she’d guess he cooked, but this was some next level stuff. Finishing her meal and cleaning up any mess she’d made was an effort at best, the dizzy feeling was getting worse every time she moved. Quickly she gathered the pills from the bench and downed them in one gulp, chasing them down with water, she hoped at least one of them would help with the horrible dizziness and the nausea that accompanied it. The need to sleep was beginning to overtake her again, something she figured would be common while she was recovering, as much as that might annoy her she’d be thankful for the rest.

Like clockwork she yawned, stretching her arms above her head in an attempt to shake the sleep from her body, only to regret the motion a few seconds later. The stitches in her side had pulled impossibly tight at being stretched, her side felt like it was on fire. She reached down to grab her side in pain and pulled her hand away at the warm feeling. Glancing down she noted the rapidly growing red spot seeping into the gauze pad. Of course she had ripped her stitches, she'd been warned by not only the medics but also Carrillo to not move around too much due to her side. Seems she really hadn’t been listening to the warnings. Deciding that she was entirely too tired to deal with the result of her stretching Ash just walked as calmly as she could back to her room and clambered into bed. There was always tomorrow to fix this. And with that, Ash was quick to fall back to sleep, her medication no doubt aiding her plight.

                                                    ------

It was the smell of freshly made coffee that had Ash climbing from her bed and shaking off sleep the next morning. Her medication had definitely kicked in, she could feel no pain from anywhere in her body and the nausea had disappeared finally. To her surprise, Carrillo was standing in the kitchen, dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and simple white t-shirt that was entirely too tight, not the Ash was complaining cause the view from her vantage point was amazing. If Ash believed in a higher power she woulda thought that the gods had gifted her with the man standing in the kitchen. No man had the right to look so sinfully delicious in a simple white shirt like that. It was so tight that it clung to his sculpted upper body and left very little to the imagination The thin shirt was stretched thin across his chest, pecs struggling to stay contained. The fabric was stretched tight across his broad bulky shoulders, his biceps straining against the confines of the sleeves that were sure to tear if he were to flex just the right way. He reclined against the bench facing her but was wrapped up with whatever was on the tv. Ash was obvious in her gawking so it was only a matter of time before his eyes fell to her. When they did, his eyes widened comically in shock. Ash wasn’t sure why until his eyes travelled down her frame and landed on her side before a look of realisation overcame his face.  

He took a few quick paces towards her before turning to his right and disappearing into the bathroom with a look of determination on his face. Ash paid him no mind and made her way to the kitchen counter to pour herself a coffee before taking a long pleasant sip. It was a mere minute later that Carrillo was standing in front of her, a med kit laid out on the bench and an expectant look on his face. She looked at him long and hard before realising he was speaking, she gave him a questioning look, tilting her head to the side, before she heard him huff and repeat what he said.

“Greyson, I asked you to take of your shirt”  

It was Ash’s turn to gape at him, the audacity of this man, why would the most by the book man she’d ever met be so unprofessional. “Excuse me?” the disbelief in her words made him roll his eyes, if she wasn’t so confused right now she probably would’ve gone off at him for that.

“I don’t know what activities you got up too last night, but you’ve obviously torn through your stitches, despite the warning from both the medics and myself” He said with a small amount of annoyance while pointing at her side. Now that Ash looked down she realised he was right. Blood had well and truly soaked through her bandage and through the shirt she wore to bed, She was unsure how she didn’t notice this sooner because now that she was seeing it with her own two eyes, it was pretty obvious.

Begrudgingly she pulled the shirt over her head, unsure as to why she had to take it off completely before coming to the conclusion that the shirt probably should be washed. She had a second to drop her shirt before Carrillo was standing a mere few inches in front of her, slowly peeling the bandage from her skin before inspecting her wound, Since when was he a medic?, that thought had her laughing silently, or so she thought. Being this close meant that he heard her laugh so she was met with a raised eyebrow and a bored expression on his face, that surely ended her laughter. She was silent while he worked, wincing occasionally when he prodded a little too hard to see her reaction.

“You’ll be fine if you rest for the next few days, you tore the bottom few stitches. Don’t do anything stupid and the wound will be healed on time” His tone was definitive and the order was clear.

Ash groaned and rolled her eyes, a brave thing to do this close to the man.  He handed her a bandage then turned around to pack away the supplies from the kit. She quickly fixed the bandage and took off toward her room, coffee abandoned on the bench, she was well and truly awake now. New shirt now acquired and covering herself she returned to the main room, Carrillo now vacant from the space and probably in his office working. She snatched up the tv remote and flicked through the channels, settling on an old war movie before curling onto her side to relax.

She woke hours later, the movie long since ended and the daylight now darkness. A blanket had been draped over her in her sleep and her dinner was sitting on the coffee table with a glass of water and her medication beside it. She would forever be grateful for the subtle ways the Colonel looked after her, even if he would never admit to it. She at least knew he cared enough for his team that he’d go out of his way to make her feel comfortable and like she belonged, even if she was new to the force.

                                                                                                                                                                                          -------

Aside from the incident in the kitchen the rest of the week went pretty smooth. They’d developed some semblance of a rhythm. Both woke early, whoever made it to the kitchen first put the pot of coffee on and poured a cup for the both of them, conveniently they preferred their coffee the same way. Black with no milk or sugar. Then they usually sat at the kitchen counter to eat breakfast, cereal for Ash and whatever Carrillo cooked himself for breakfast, Ash really wasn’t one for a big meal in the mornings. After breakfast the Colonel usually disappeared into his office to work and the younger officer would clean up their dishes and then hog the shower for as long as possible, soaking in the opportunity to have a warm shower all to herself without limits. Ash would spend most of the day watching tv or reading one of the many military inspired books that occupied the wall mounted shelves on either side of the tv.

Carrillo would emerge from his office around sixteen hundred hours each day, and proceed to cook dinner for the both of them. Ash had tried once but burnt the steak and been deemed too inexperienced and untrustworthy in the kitchen, something she was silently glad for cause the Colonel was a better cook than she ever could’ve hoped. Again Ash did the clean up, a fair trade off for not cooking, while Carrillo once again disappeared, this time to the gym or for a run around the perimeter of the property along the treeline, a sight Ash loved to enjoy. Only twice  he had stayed to converse or silently watch the news beside her. Then like clockwork they would bid each other goodnight and retire to their rooms.

Everything was going perfect, the routine now something established and easy to work through, even if Ash did complain about being on couch/bed rest until either the medics cleared her or the Colonel deemed her fit enough to begin easing her way into training. It wasn’t until the Wednesday of their second week together that something changed between them, something Ash looked back on with a smile on her face and made Carrillo have conflicted feelings and wish he had just stuck to their schedule they had so easily adapted to around each other.

[unsteadygalaxy]

all is soft inside chapter 6

a miragehound multichapter fanfiction

Also posted on ao3 at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26475064/chapters/66135538

previous | next

6. street walkers, small talkers

Notes at the end.

The three of them land in Thermal, blessedly alone.  Wattson had been more than happy to agree to play today’s match more passively, and Lifeline had agreed, though Elliott could tell she really didn’t want to.

“Looking for a Wingman today, ladies,” Mirage announces, jogging over to the next supply bin. It’s got a box of heavy ammo, which he stows, and two Mozambique’s, which he steadily ignores. His brain feels foggy but over excited at the same time. The shock of seeing Bloodhound- actually seeing their face- had not quite worn off. 

He flings open the door but stops dead in his tracks, words dying in his mouth. For a moment, a moment that seems to stretch out into lifetimes, all he sees is a person sitting on the hard cement floor- the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. His jaw drops open. Their face is surprised, shocked, but somehow, that makes Elliott find them all the more gorgeous. A strong jawline gives way to defined cheekbones, leading up to stunning green eyes that are filled with alarm. Their red hair falls around their face in long waves, and is set aflame by the light of the hallway behind him. Who is this person? His eyes flicker down to whatever they’re holding in their hands, and he swears his heart stops. He knows those goggles. They belong to Bloodhound.

Which means… that’s Bloodhound sitting there on the floor.

Elliott immediately smacks his hand over his eyes as words spill out of his mouth like a waterfall.

He’d been up most of the night, replaying those moments in his head over and over again. Bloodhound had not looked at all what he thought they would look like. And their hair! Their hair was incredible. He never expected it to be ginger; for some reason he had always imagined it dark, maybe brunette or black. All Elliott could think about was running his fingers through their hair and brushing out the tangles. But their eyes… he never would have guessed they’d be such a gorgeous shade of green. And they were so kind-looking, too. Ever since he had inadvertently seen their face, his stomach did flips every time he thought about them. He’d stayed awake for hours waiting for his body to settle. 

Elliott remembers how rich and melodic their real voice had sounded without the modulator, and he finds himself wishing he could go back to the night before. He’d been an absolute mess in multiple ways, but being alone with Bloodhound was worth the turmoil. And their laugh! Even though it came mostly at his expense, he had nearly lost his mind actually hearing them laugh fully and uninhibited. If he focused hard enough he could hear it over and over again in his head, and the sound of it made him a little weak at the knees. 

“Wingman here!” Lifeline calls. “Get yuh head out of the clouds, Witt!”

Mirage shakes himself from his reverie and looks up. Lifeline holds the sturdy pistol aloft, smirking.

“Thanks, I owe you one!” he replies. He makes his way over to her and picks up the gun, passing it back and forth between his hands. Elliott can’t help but smile as he remembers the last time he fired a Wingman. Well, I mean, technically you fired it this morning at the range but- whatever. He grins at the memory of shooting the gun at Bloodhound as they rocketed down the hill, glowing red. But now, a different image takes form in the forefront of his mind- Bloodhound flying across the field, their hair undone and billowing in a fury, their green eyes shimmering with golden light.

“Yuh gonna get a room with that thing?” Lifeline chimes, a laugh pressing at her voice. “Looks like you two need some alone time.”

“Wh- what?” Mirage stammers, jerking himself out of his thoughts for the second time that day. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He holsters the gun as his face burns fiercely.

-----

“Mirage! Duck!”

Mirage dives away from the door just as a volley of bullets comes whizzing through it. He slams it shut. “Good one, Nat!” he calls. Wattson is crouched next to the window, reloading her R-99 with flying fingers. Her pylon whizzes in the other room, generating a field of electrical energy that makes Mirage’s sinuses buzz. She sets the gun aside for a brief moment in order to place two fence posts in front of the door.

In their oh-so-fabulous luck, the final ring just so happened to be around Fragment, which had made the match a decent trek across the map. They’d held their own considerably well, and each of them had a few kills under their belts. The ring had nearly bottlenecked them in the pass between Sorting and their current location, but they had pushed up the hill, third partying a team on the way and coming out victorious.

A frag grenade comes careening through the window, only to be immediately neutralized in a flash of blue light. Thank God for Wattson’s pylon, Mirage thinks, slotting the Skullpiercer he had just found into his Wingman. The sounds of gunfire and exploding grenades pepper the air around him, and it’s giving him a headache. “Hey, Lifeline! Would you mind tossing down a care package to give us some cover?” he yells into the comms amidst all the noise. 

“Won’t do much, seein’ as we’re on the second floor, but I can try an’ block the stairs, she replies. She’s crouched in the corner, her drone glowing and whirring beside her. Pulling out a small device that looks vaguely like a grocery store scanner, she leaps down the stairs and out of sight. Mirage sends a decoy after her for good measure. 

Very near his head, the occasional bullet whistles through the window, coming dangerously close to both him and Wattson. He’s not sure who’s shooting at them, but he has a vague idea- only Bangalore is that accurate with the G7. He scoots over to the side and peeks through the window to try and get a look at who’s been wailing on them. Sure enough, a woman with a tidy stack of curly hair is crouched low, aiming down the sights of her scout rifle from the building across from them.

“Having fun out there, Williams?” Mirage yells across the way after he dives out of sight once more. He’s almost positive she can’t hear him, but he says it anyway. 

“Is that you, Witt?” she yells back. “Might wanna get your head out of your ass and fight, instead of hiding like a coward!” Two warning shots fly through the window, and Mirage scoots away, his heart hammering in his chest. Wattson mutters something in French that he does not understand as she reaches for her Triple Take. 

Ouch. Now he’s annoyed. He registers the sound of Lifeline’s care package slamming into the ground as he peeks out the window again, gripping his Wingman tightly. A large smoke grenade canister flies towards them but is zapped away by Wattson’s pylon. Now they’re just taunting us, he thinks. He takes careful aim at Bangalore’s head, but two shots from her G7 strike him in the shoulder, throwing him back. A low humming sound emanates from his shield as the pylon recharges it, and he starts to think, hard.

An ominous humming sound fills the air, and Mirage snaps his head up just in time to see Bangalore and Pathfinder running across the open square. The familiar whine of Gibraltar’s Ultimate fills the air, and missiles begin to strike the ground in a concussive barrage that makes Mirage’s ears hurt. To his dismay, Pathfinder quickly grapples away, but not after taking a hit or two. Bangalore dashes between the missiles but takes a large amount of damage, and she stumbles. 

Perfect, Mirage thinks. He waits for the barrage to stop, and throws open the door. He leaps from the balcony and hits the ground hard, his knees groaning in protest. Through the smoke, the sights of his Wingman detect a red figure, and Mirage takes aim. It only takes two well placed shots to finish her off, and Bangalore falls to the ground, swearing. “What was that about me being a coward?” he taunts as Bangalore fades away.

She tries to choke something out, but she only spits blood. MIirage can’t help but feel a little sorry for her; he had been in the same position not too long ago. Bangalore slumps to the ground with a finality, just as the smoke clears. A short distance away, Lifeline stands over an incapacitated Pathfinder, and Wattson is keeping up a steady rhythm of sniper shots in the direction they had run from. Mirage ducks behind the pillars outside the building and reloads his gun. “I think there are only four people left!” he announces.

kzzzhhhCRACK!

Elliott’s blood crystallizes into ice inside his veins. He knows that sound. And he knows who is holding the fully charged Sentinel that made it. 

Right in front of his eyes, Lifeline falls to the ground. Her head is bleeding in waves, and she isn’t moving. Without thinking, he leaves his cover and runs towards Lifeline’s eerily still form. kzzzhhhCRACK! Another shot divides the air around him, and the next shot connects with his head, pain blooming across his skull. His helmet fizzles out, and with no hesitation, he activates his Ultimate. The holo-emitters hum and buzz, and five decoys jump into being around him. Abandoning Lifeline’s body, he makes a mad dash for the building where Wattson is still camped, hoping and praying her pylon is still up. 

The frightful buzz of a Charge Rifle chases him in bursts, and the heat of it catches his left shoulder for a brief moment. He hisses in pain, and dives behind the pillars, tucking into a deft tumble. Mirage pops to his feet and pushes the doors open. To his utter dismay, the doors shred into tiny pieces, neutralized by Wattson’s electric fences. “Dammit!” he yells, and rushes up the stairs.

Wattson is still crouched at the window, steadily shooting at the building with four bins atop it across the way. “Lifeline got Sentinel’d,” he gasps, breathing heavily. “Who’s left?”

“I believe Caustic is the third member of Bangalore and Pathfinder’s squad,” she answers, her voice even and calm as he plunges his arm into a shield battery. “I think the other remaining squad is Bloodhound, Gibraltar, and Renee.”

Mirage notes with a curiosity that Wattson had not used Wraith’s code name, and he wonders in a wild moment if there was something Wattson wasn’t telling him. He finds himself wishing he knew Bloodhound’s name, and wondering what it would feel like to whisper their name in their ear as he-

He stops that train of thought as swiftly as it had come. Focus, dumbass! Elliott shakes himself out of his thoughts once again, discards the depleted battery, and realizes with a jolt that he’d missed the last thing Wattson had said.

“Mirage?” she asks, her voice exuding patience even amidst their tense situation.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“We can still win this. I know we can!” She gives him a smile that punches him straight in the heart with how honest and sincere it is. 

“You’re so damn wholesome,” he grumbles under his breath. “Alright, how are we going to do this?”

“Well,” she considers, turning back to her sniper rifle. “I am almost positive- get it?-  that Caustic has barricaded himself in the train station. I saw him run over when Gibraltar sent his missiles down. Bloodhound and their team must be over near the survey beacon- that is where Lifeline was shot from.”

Mirage nods, digesting the information. “Okay, so do you think we should try and take the train station and get set up in there?”

“It’s worth a shot,” she replies. “We can make a detour through the building to our right so we are not sniped. I will also need to find more ammo for my R-99.”

“Sounds good.” He peeks out the window one last time, and sure enough, he spots a familiar figure squatting atop a building, above the zipline shaft. He swears his heart skips a beat or two at the sight of them holding the Sentinel steady. kzzzhhhCRACK! A bullet comes whizzing through the window and Mirage dodges it, but just barely. “All right, time to leave!”

Wattson dismantles her pylon with the press of a button and loads it onto her back. Mirage’s sinuses stop buzzing, and he scratches his nose as the two of them run down the stairs and out the door. They round the corner, and a giddy delight shoots through Mirage’s veins when he sees Lifeline’s care package. A Mastiff hangs from one side of the package, blessedly out of Bloodhound’s line of sight. “Oh, hell yes!” Mirage yells, and he immediately dashes up to grab it. Wattson continues on, running towards the door of the next building. The shotgun almost seems to vibrate in his hands as he picks it up and discards his Spitfire. It takes everything in him to not jump in the air like a twelve-year-old. 

“Mirage!” Wattson calls.

“Yeah, coming!” He slings the large shotgun over his back and darts across the open space and into the next building. The air is eerily silent, and the lack of noise makes Elliott nervous. The pair of them pass through the lobby to the double doors, and Mirage peeks through the blue glass as Wattson picks up more light ammo. Sure enough, he can just barely make out the edge of a gas trap pressed against the inside of the doors to the train station. How those doors hadn’t been blown up yet was anyone’s guess. He fishes in his bag for an arc star and emerges victorious. Bloodhound and their team shouldn’t have a line of sight on them, so he readies the arc star and opens the door. Mirage lobs the grenade as hard as he can across the street and into the double doors, and they explode in a fantastic flash of blue light. Caustic’s gas trap bursts open, spewing toxic green fumes everywhere before it collapses in on itself with an ominous hiss. 

“Excellent!” Wattson exclaims, readying a fence post. “Try to get around to the north side of the building. I will fence this door.” She crouches low, checks their surroundings, and runs full speed across the street. Elliott follows, but turns sharply and hugs the wall  northward. He peeks around the corner, holding his breath, Mastiff at the ready. No one is there, so he sneaks along the wall and crouches just outside the door. He readies a frag grenade, pulls the pin, and places it outside the doors before sprinting back the way he came. A deafening boom wrecks his ears for just a moment, and he can just barely make out the horrible spitting noise of the gas trap as it goes off. 

Ears ringing, he turns and begins running toward the doors again. Just as the smoke and gas dissipate, he gains sight of a hulking figure lumbering down the stars. Mirage raises his Wingman, but he is too late. An entire clip of Flatline ammo slams into his chest, shredding through his armor and peppering him with holes. But his body is nothing more than blue-white light, and he flashes out of existence.

The real Mirage can’t help but giggle as his decoy dissolves into the air. “You got bamboozled,” he murmurs to himself, absolutely delighted. He checks his weapons, making sure they’re reloaded, and grabs his last grenade. Mirage twists the canister and throws the thermite. It slams into the ground just inside the doors and expands off to either side, sputtering and whooshing. He hears a grunt of pain and knows that Caustic has been caught in some of the blaze.

Mirage cheers silently and hefts his Mastiff into his hands. He prays that Wattson has had enough time to block off all the doors, and he sprints over. Caustic runs to the west side of the building, and immediately gets caught by a torrent of bullets from Wattson’s R-99. Mirage leaps over the wall of fire, aims down the sights of his Mastiff and pulls the trigger. A collection of bullets hits Caustic in the shoulder and back as the bigger man turns, making his shield blink and shatter. Wattson takes advantage of his distraction and shoots him squarely in the head. Caustic hits the ground immediately, and Mirage is reminded of the day before, when Bloodhound had taken him down. Andskoti, he thinks. He doesn’t really know what the word means, but he’s pretty sure it’s some kind of insult. 

Elliott finally notices the dull burning in his legs, just as the thermite grenade stops pulsing. His shield has been depleted almost completely. “Hey, Wattson, do you have another pylon?” he asks, fishing in his bag for a shield cell. 

She nods, breathing hard. “Got it!” The pylon is up instantly, and the familiar buzzing returns to Mirage’s nose. “Only one squad left!” Wattson says happily, running over to the north door to place fences. “We’ve got this!”

“We’re not done yet,” Mirage says, just as a very familiar sound vibrates through the air. It reaches his chest, seizing his heart and squeezing it uncomfortably. That otherworldly roar that had haunted Mirage in his dreams the night before echoes and amplifies inside his skull until his temples creak and groan. But he can’t help but love it; he can’t help but love the way Bloodhound’s voice reverberates inside his skull and overwhelms his senses.

Much too late, he notices that Wattson’s fence posts outside the west door have been shot down. An arc star comes careening across the way, but it is zapped away. Mirage finds himself thanking whatever God there is for Wattson’s pylon for the second time that day. He loots Caustic’s death box in a hurry and grabs the three frag grenades he had been stashing, as well as a shield battery. 

A wave of red-orange energy buzzes through the air around them, making the hair on Mirage’s arms stand up inside his suit. “Bloodhound’s got us!” he yells to Wattson, who has just finished fencing the exits. 

“Watch the south door!” Wattson calls. Mirage rushes by her and runs up the south-side staircase. He lingers on the balcony, Wingman at the ready. 

The sound of footsteps echoes all around him, and he starts to feel jittery and anxious. Where are they going to come through first? Can he and Wattson really hold off all three of them? Is he going to be able to keep himself together? He hopes so, but the fear is starting to overtake him again, and he does not like it.

The east doors swing open and instantly shatter when they make contact with Wattson’s interior fence. Mirage leaps off the short balcony in an instant to bar the entrance. Gibraltar is on the other side of the fences, and he fires a volley of bullets very close to Mirage’s head. Some of them connect with his shoulder, but Mirage dodges out of the way and fires his Wingman. One shot connects with Gibraltar’s head, and the next three hit his shoulder and chest. He wavers, and his R-301 nearly topples out of his hands as he stumbles backwards. The larger man fires at the ground, but not by accident- Wattson’s fence sputters and disappears. Mirage fires one more shot at Gibraltar, and the man topples to the ground, dropping his gun. To Mirage’s dismay, Gibraltar falls into a blue-black rift and disappears, going with a flash of white light. 

“Wraith set a portal!” he yells to Wattson. “I downed Gibraltar but he’s gone!”

“I am busy!” she yells back. Wattson dodges out of the way in a spectacular roll as Wraith takes a well-calculated swipe at her with a deadly looking knife. The two women fight each other expertly, a whirl of fists and bullets and knives. The east fence must be out, Mirage realizes. Gunfire echoes around him, and he turns back to the portal just in time to see Bloodhound emerge from it, eyes glowing red as they leap towards him.

Once again, time slows to a horrifying pace and Elliott’s heart beats immeasurably fast. He doesn’t know how many seconds have passed, but all he can see is Bloodhound. He imagines them charging at him, their blazing hair undone and their eyes glowing gold. For a wild moment, the feeling of wanting to surrender returns. But he shakes himself and releases every decoy he has, and then cloaks himself and runs up the stairs. 

Another wave of red-orange light vibrates through the building. Dammit, he thinks. Bloodhound immediately follows him up the stairs, breathing heavily, growling intermittently. Mirage reloads his Wingman and darts up to the roof, hoping and praying that Bloodhound did not have time to revive Gibraltar before coming through the portal.

He leaps over the train tracks and takes cover behind a pillar. He tosses out another decoy, hoping to buy himself a few seconds, but Bloodhound is smart; they do not shoot at the hologram. Mirage switches to his Mastiff and turns sharply, aiming at his opponent. The hefty shotgun jerks massively as he shoots, missing Bloodhound’s quick form, but only just. Bloodhound aims their RE-45 at him, holding it steady. A brief buzzing noise fills the air as the bullets exit their gun and hit Mirage squarely in the chest and neck. His shields sputter, but just barely hold, and he fires another shot from the Mastiff at Bloodhound. It hits them in the shoulder, taking a sizable chunk out of their shields. Without hesitation, Mirage throws himself off the roof and tumbles to the ground, his ankles screaming in protest. He dives into the east doors, and realizes he was right- Wraith must have broken the fence that was there. He glances over to the corner where Wraith and Wattson had been, and notices that they have somehow downed each other. He tries to slide over to his teammate, but Bloodhound is right behind him, and a spattering of bullets crosses the floor without hitting him. Warning shots? he thinks wildly. Why the hell-

Mirage scrambles to his feet and runs down the stairs. He reloads the Mastiff and turns, hearing their footsteps behind him. They level their gun and shoot, catching his shoulder and cheek. Mirage’s helmet blinks out of existence, and so does his shield. He ducks and fires the Mastiff, hitting Bloodhound right in the neck. Their helmet and shields sputter and die, just as they’re reloading the RE. Blood seeps down their neck from under their respirator, and a wild part of Elliott wants to stop the fight right then and there in order to clean their wounds himself.

But this moment of weakness costs him dearly, because Bloodhound seizes their opportunity and fires their last remaining clip of ammo at him.

“Þú barðist vel. Ég er stolt af þér,” they say to him after he falls to the ground. The victory music begins to blare over the loudspeakers, and the last thing Mirage feels before it all goes dark is Bloodhound picking up his Mastiff and placing it on his chest under his arm, their fingers lingering on his hand for the briefest of moments.

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

A/N: Thanks for your patience on this, guys! I didn't feel super motivated to keep going with this for a while, but I eventually started coming up with a better framework and I'm super excited to show you all what's to come.I kind of have this idea that all the contestants have this safety armor on under their actual shields and uniforms so that when they take enough damage to “die”, their bodies are transmatted to the dropship or something. I don’t know how it works in-universe, so that’s what we’re going with. No one actually dies, they just “die” while the safety armor saves them and transmats them. Can’t have the Legends perma-dying, now, can we?

[lu-undy]

Angry kisses? (Maybe in combination with I thought I post you kisses?)

Aaangry kisses for the lady here!

The battle had been long and tiring but thank God the Administrator announced the end of the day’s fight. In his nest, Sniper’s shoulders sank and he sighed as he heard the melodious voice resound loudly across the battlefield. He rolled his eyes and grumbled his exhaustion in a curse.

He was about to turn to head back to the base when he felt a hand on his shoulder. His first reflex was to spin around and swing his rifle as hard as he could.

“Non-argh!”

As he did so, the Australian hit his French teammate in the jaw and nose .

“Bushman!” Spy exclaimed, offended. He removed one glove and put a finger under his nose.

“I’m sorry but I told you already Spook, don’t come behind my back like that!”

“But the battle is over!” The Frenchman put a handkerchief to his nose to wipe the blood.

“Yeah, I know, but the other bastard’s been bothering me throughout the entire match, and I’ve told you countless times before, never ever creep up on me like that!”

“The other bastard? Excuse me, am I a bastard now?”

“Oh, please don’t start, you know what I mean…!” The Australian spat and walked past his colleague as he exited his nest and headed back to the base.

Spy raised his arms to the sky and dropped them down again.

“He might be bothering you during the battle but surely it can’t be him after the end! Unless he visits you anyway and I am not in the know?!” “Oh Christ, Spy…” Sniper put a hand on his brow and let it sink on his face.

“What? Does he?! Really?”

Non, surely he didn’t mean… Non, please, non. They had walked all the way back to the door of the Australian's van. 

“What do you think?!” In his anger, Sniper just wanted to be left alone, take a shower and sleep that day away. He went in his van and slammed his door shut after him.

The Frenchman was left in the infinity of the orange desert, his nose bleeding, and his rage boiling. He might have made a mistake, yes, but Sniper wasn’t the one who had been burnt to a crisp repeatedly for hours on end. Non! And it seemed to Spy that he always tried to not let his work-related frustration invade their lives as a couple. 

Yes, a couple. They had been together for months now, as everybody knew on the base, maybe apart from Scout who always missed the obvious anyway… A couple, together because a shy bastard needed his secretly overly romantic half, because the handsome rogue had actually learnt to see through the yellow-tinted glasses and beyond them, he discovered a touch-starved soul as lonely and misunderstood as his own.

Spy stayed at the campervan’s door and stared at it, fuming. Sniper was on the other side, his hands on the slim kitchen top, his head hung low and his heart beat fast. He knew he had been mean, unnecessarily so, almost cruel with his lover. Spy didn’t deserve that. He surely meant well, he certainly wanted to just come to the arms of the only man he felt safe and loved by. And what did he get? A hit to the face which resulted in a nosebleed, and a fight.

Sniper raised his eyes and through the plastic, cheap blinds of his van, he could see the man in he suit was still standing there, his brow furrowed and his anger flashing on his fair eyes. The Australian lowered his head again. He had messed it all up. Even if Spy knew not to approach him that way, Sniper could have been less aggressive… The Frenchman wasn’t going to leave. Non! Yes, he should have announced himself more clearly when he joined his lover but that didn’t justify the amount of violence. Non! And what was that business with the enemy Spy…?

“Non.” He said and took the step that separated him from the van’s door. He flung it open, startling his lover with surprise and walked straight to the Australian. 

“Imbécile!” Spy took Sniper by the collar of his polo shirt and raised himself to the tip of his toes to match his height. “So the other bastard comes to visit you?! Since WHEN?!”

“What?! No! What the hell are you talking about?!” Sniper answered. “He doesn’t, ya mongrel! Why would you think he does! He’s only interested in my back and the billion occasions he has to stab it!”

Their faces were only a few inches apart. Sniper saw his lover’s eyes shine fiercely and his pearly white teeth clenched hard as he spoke.

“I swear, Mundy, if I catch him getting near you, I will shred him to the point that no Medic or respawn will ever fix!”

As soon as he finished his sentence, the Frenchman felt the urge overwhelm him. He was holding the man that his mind, his thoughts and his very body had shivers from, the one man who knew what to do to him to make him vulnerable and melt. He was so close to him that he smelled the effort of a day’s work, the cheap coffee, his cologne, his scent. His knuckles were achingly close to his face, his rough skin, his sideburns, his hair.

The Australian felt it, the hesitation in his lover’s eyes. All it took had been a split second of time, a twitch of Spy’s eyebrow, and his insides flipped upside down, his mind sent on orbit. He saw those eyes, they were furious, but he could smell the menthol cigarette breath that lingered in the air, the atrociously expensive perfume coming from the body he had mapped out with all his senses before, in the secret of nights that his skin remembered suddenly in the goosebumps he felt.

It was absurd. At that moment, they were fighting, they hated each other. Spy had made a mistake and Sniper had unleashed all his bitterness and frustration on him.

Oh but it didn’t matter because between the shivers the Frenchman felt and the goosebumps everywhere on the Australian’s body, there wasn’t much to go for the whole situation to flip.

“Damn you, Lucien…”

Sniper wasn’t even sure if he said it out loud. His hands rushed to his lover’s sides and grasped them violently, digging his fingers deep in the shirt that he wished wasn’t standing there and he pushed Spy… He pushed him against the kitchen top and lifted him to sit there. The Frenchman’s back hit the van’s wall and the whole of it shook under the shock. Spy got taken aback, especially when he felt his feet part from the ground, but he wrapped his legs around Sniper’s waist and clung to him hard. 

The Australian crushed the Frenchman’s lips against the wall and Spy clenched his still gloved fingers on the collar he tugged on while his naked hand was in his lover’s hair, clenching almost painfully. They sucked the very breath out of each other’s lungs and Sniper pushed himself against his lover as much as Spy pulled him in with his legs and hands.  

They eventually broke the long kiss but kept their foreheads pressed against each other. One after the other, they pressed quick pecks on those sweet lips they couldn’t get enough of. They stuttered and babbled between two kisses, their eyes still closed.

“I’m sorry… ‘m sorry, luv’... Love you… more than anythin’...”

“Non, c’est moi… Pardon… Mon amour… Je t’aime… Je t’aime comme un fou…”

[No, it’s me… Sorry… My love… I love you… I love you like a madman…]

They realised that, maybe for the first time, they didn’t want to walk away from their problems with their loved one. Non, they’d rather stay and mend their broken pieces back.

“There’s nothing with the enemy Spy, Lucien. I couldn’t hate him more.”

“Oui, I know, I just, I couldn’t bear the idea. I could see you and him in my head and… I thought I was losing you.”

“Hey?” The Australian cupped his lover’s face and looked through the blinds of the nearby window. No one. He put his fingers around the edge of the mask and pulled it up and away. The Frenchman’s salt and pepper hair flowed softly as Sniper slid his fingers along Spy’s cheeks and through his hair. “I love you, alroight? I love you and I want you even when you piss me off.”

Spy smiled.

“So do I. But please, I need a shower first.”

“Yeah, me too. Let’s go to yer room and we’ll shower together, I don’t want to let go of ya, no yet.”

“Neither do I, mon amour.”

[elisaphoenix13]

Pains Of Mortality

"Push harder Spaceman!"

"If I push any harder I'm going to break you and the couch!"

"Not if you do it at an angle!"

"Oh my god! Can you two go one day without having a conversation that sounds suggestible?!" Cassie complains from up in her room.

She had her door open while she did her homework and Diana drew in the sketchbook that Steve had gifted her. Cassie usually ignored her parents when they talked like that when she had her door open, but Diana was with her and who knew how much she actually understood. She was tempted to close her bedroom door, but she liked how much more open her room felt when it wasn't.

"What does suggestible mean?" The little girl asks and Cassie sighs.

"Umm...ask Mom okay?" The teen deflects and thankfully Diana nods. She at least understood that were some things she could ask Cassie, and some things that she should ask her parents.

"OW! Fuck me in the liver--" Quill swears and it's followed by laughter.

"What does that even mean?!" Scott cackles.

"Shut up or I'll spank you."

Cassie groans and gathers her things. "Come on Dia. Let's go up to your room."

Diana nods again and gathers her art supplies before climbing down off of Cassie's bed and following her pseudo sister down the stairs to the elevator. As they disappear onto the elevator, Quill pushes Scott out of the way and shoves the couch into place and looks at the younger man with a huff.

"There. Happy now?"

Scott smiles and wraps his arms around the celestial's neck. "Yes. Thank you." He gives Quill a quick peck on the lips and then moves away toward the kitchen. "Want a beer?"

Quill grins and follows him to the kitchen. "Nah. Think I'll have some juice."

"There's only one more left."

"Dibs!" The celestial yells as he runs to the fridge to get to it first.

He shouts triumphantly when he snags the last Capri sun out of the fridge and holds it out of Scott's reach when the younger jumps onto Quill's back. His husband was clearly taking a page out of Cassie's book, but he was unaware that jumping onto his back did absolutely nothing. Quill gave him an A for effort though.

"Give it to me Spaceman!"

"The juice or my--"

"THE JUICE YOU HORNDOG!"

Quill cackles. "Only if you give me another kiss."

"You're insufferable." Scott mumbles half-heartedly before kissing the god again. He snags the juice pouch while doing so and hops off of Quill's back with a happy grin, but before he can even take the straw off, the alarms blare and Scott pouts. "Later." He promises to the inanimate object.

Quill snorts as they go up to their room to gear up for what could only be an Avengers level threat. Every once in a while Quill wondered who or what Scott loved more. Him or juice. He even teased the younger man about it sometimes, and the usual response was Scott taking a sip of his juice while trying to give Quill an innocent look. At least an attempt at one. It always came across as impish or teasing.

When they were both ready, he and Scott walked over to the balcony where Scott shrunk down after grabbing the lapels of Quill's jacket. It ensured that Scott would stay on his shoulder when he was ant sized, and then the celestial would vault the railing and free fall for half a second...much to Scott's very vocal displeasure. It always made him a little motion sick whenever Quill pulled that stunt. There was some dramatic groaning in Quill's ear as he turned on the jets on his boots and flew properly to the battle scene, and he snickers.

"One of these days I'm going to puke." Scott grumbles.

"Well it's a good thing you didn't get a chance to drink your juice."

There was some more unintelligible grumbling from Scott through the comm before he hopped off Quill's shoulder and onto a flying ant. Riding on the god's shoulder was faster but once they got to the vicinity of the battle, Scott went off. It left Quill to find a dense group of minions that was ganging up on Natasha and landed in the middle of them with his godly strength, the shockwave knocking them over.

"You're late." She says as she reloads her guns and Quill scoffs.

"You're welcome. Anyway, I like wearing sweatpants instead of my battle clothes all day, every day like someone I know."

"You weren't even wearing sweatpants today." Natasha points out.

"That wasn't...whatever. See if I help your ass next time."

Quill shoots another minion coming up behind the assassin and she looks at him with an arched eyebrow, which the celestial rolls his eyes at. Ever since joining this psychotic family, it became second nature to protect them so he tended to do things his mouth was otherwise saying. Both Scott and Cassie called him a teddy bear for it and Quill figured he probably earned that. Nevertheless, the two fought side by side while Stephen took on the actual supervillain in charge of the minions. The small army was obviously just a distraction in the hopes that whoever had a stick up their ass could pick off the Avengers one by one, but most of the team had experience with dealing with that situation.

Which meant the supervillain had not done their research. There was the Chitauri invasion, Ultron, the whole war with the stones...one would think any potential bad guy would think twice. There always had to be someone out there who thought they had a better plan though, as annoying as it was. They fought anyway. The kids got civilians out of the way while the team dealt with the minions and Stephen went head on with the main guy. The villain was favoring some sort of electromagnetic field for defense and the sorcerer was trying to get him to put his guard down so Tony could fly in and disable it at the very least.

Everything was going fine until an hour into the fight, when the villain's voice boomed across the battlefield. "One more move and he's fried!"

Quill and Natasha turn their attention to him when even the small army stops their assault, and his heart drops to his stomach when he sees Scott in the villain's grasp. The douchebag was standing at the top of a building with his hand clamped around Scott's neck and holding the younger man over the side. Quill could see that his spouse was desperately trying to get his suit to work so he could shrink out of the man's grip, but it was probably fried by the magnet head. The anger came quickly when Scott was in noticeable pain even from the distance Quill was at because there was a guarantee that Scott's scars were flaring up.

"Quill...don't." Natasha warns and takes the risk of grabbing his arm to anchor him. He wasn't in the state to throw her off and Natasha was trying to keep it that way.

He also didn't want to be the reason Scott was hurt anymore.

Stephen had stopped his assault and Quill could hear him trying to hopefully talk down the villain, but the celestial couldn't hear what was being said. The conversation only lasted seconds but it felt like hours...and the unthinkable happened. The supervillain looked like he was going to release Scott safely but then he looked directly at Quill and sent jolts of electricity into Scott. The thief convulsed in his hand and when he was finished, he tossed Scott off and away from the building. The anguish was enough to push back his growing berserk state and Quill bolted forward to run to where Scott had landed. There were shouts from their teammates from the horror they witnessed and they attacked the villain and his minions with a vengeance as Quill ran over to Scott.

He found him halfway down the street and lying motionless against the wall of a ruined building. His helmet was still down and it had Quill's heart in his throat. Scott was not only electrocuted, but he was thrown from the top of a building without his helmet up.

The odds weren't looking good.

"Scott!" Quill chokes out as he closes the distance between himself and the injured man. He kneels in front of him and looks him over with misting eyes. "Baby?"

He wills his light into his hands and places one at the back of Scott's neck while placing the other over his heart. Panic and even more anguish filled Quill when he felt nothing underneath his hand. No heartbeat.

"No, no, no. Don't do this to me baby." The celestial pours his healing energy into Scott but when nothing happens he sobs. "I can't lose you too. Please."

He sat there, continuously trying to heal what the small logical part of his mind knew couldn't be mended. Scott was unresponsive.

He was dead.

Quill would no longer be able to look into honey-gold eyes and feel like he was falling into paradise. There would be no one to hold at night, to dance or sing with...he lost his best friend. His lover, his better half...his soulmate. The god felt like his heart was ripped from his chest and repeatedly stomped on before it was incinerated in front of him and it hurt. It was one loss too many and Quill couldn't stand it, he let the god in him take over after that with no regards to the consequences. His reason for living was murdered and the asshole was going to pay for it.

He saw red after that. He was only vaguely aware of the ethereal roar he let out before wailing on everything in sight. He didn't know whether it was friend or foe but he no longer cared. His heart was shattered and he couldn't cope anymore. There was screaming, shouting, and eventually someone tried to hold him down but he managed to throw them off the first few times. Whoever it was either got stronger or there was more than one person because the last thing Quill remembered was cool blue eyes and a simple, quietly spoken command.

"Sleep."

Then everything went dark.

=================

Stephen sighs tiredly as the door to the cryo chamber is closed and Tony presses the button to seal the god sleeping inside. The spell Stephen used to incapacitate the raging god took a lot out of him, and when they tried waking Quill again to see if it helped calm him, he only went on another rampage. There was a unanimous decision to put Quill under until they either found a way to calm the god or if the world was going to end. The celestial was the only one who could fix the galaxy.

So the protection of Quill's new resting place fell onto Stephen if they couldn't find a way to calm him. If Stephen passed, the responsibility would fall to the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj.

"I think Quill was the goal all along." Tony says quietly.

"I think so too." Stephen agrees just as quietly. "He had no sense of friendlies and non...he was going after everyone. That person knew he was a god, and knew his weakness."

Tony rubs his eyes. "We've lost Scott. I...I'm still wrapping my head around it. He was part of this family...and I'm still waiting for him to walk through the door to come smack Quill for being overprotective."

"What are we going to do about Cassie?" Stephen whispers.

"Give Maggie a call. We can tell Cassie she's welcome to stay, but if she wants to go back to her mom, she can do that too."

"We'll take care of Scott?"

Tony looks over at Stephen and pulls him into a tight hug after kissing his temple.

"We'll take care of Scott."

That was the end of it. Once Quill was successfully cryogenically frozen and showed no signs of waking and trying to break free, they left the room. Tony went to make preparations for Scott's funeral and Stephen went to the medbay to check on the team members that were injured in the process of trying to hold Quill. Steve, Bucky, and even Thor were a little banged up, and Natasha managed to get away with a few bruises.

To everyone's surprise, Cassie stayed at the tower. She may have lost her father, and she may have only been able to look at Quill through frosted glass, but the Avengers were her family too. She did visit her mom more often though.

Quill?

He remains frozen to this day.

[chubbyooo]

Blurred Lines: Cursed Past Chapter 85 - Love Over Great Distances

Hey all Gacen is back its been so long since this orange oaf has done stuff which kinda makes sense since he's been with Risha Gacen begins the search for Sumalee but makes sure to keep Risha close

Gacen felt calm, he hadn’t left Risha’s side since arriving on Gabredor Prime, the planet was so weird it was so remote but also so beautiful, he had to admit he hadn’t been looking at the planet's beauty much though. He looked down at her lying in his arms and smiled, she really had waited for him, their love was real, he stroked her hair as she looked up at him still looking as smarmy as ever but clearly happy he was here. It was impressive she’d managed to get this set up in five years but not surprising, she could do anything when she set her mind to it and he’d help her whatever it took, he wasn’t a coward anymore.

Gacen frowned thinking to himself “so how do you think Sumalee is going to react when she sees me, throw me down the stairs or just groan” Risha laughed shaking her head at him

She smiled “she doesn’t hate you that much just the right amount, that sweet spot I found too” Gacen faked a gasp acting all offended “oh come on don’t make me feel bad dumbass” she sat up putting her forehead against his

Gacen smiled “I know I’m just kidding I’ll do my best to convince her despite the fact I’d rather just stay here with you, I only just got back and now I have to go again” he pouts at Risha who to no surprise doesn’t jump to comfort him

She tapped the comm link she gave him “you may go but I’m not letting us seperate that easy you better talk to me the whole time i spent ages getting these encrypted so it’s safe for us to talk” Gacen smiled at her 

He teased “awwww you did that for me you must really love me” Risha smirked rolling her eyes

She leaned forward “don’t flatter yourself or I’ll be forced to divorce you” Gacen chuckled right back to their old routine

He faked surprise “you wouldn’t dare” Risha chuckled to herself clearly happy to have her ‘dumbass’ back

Risha winked “oh just watch me” she pulled him in close for what he assumed would’ve been a snide comment but as she did her face softened and she just hugged him tight

Gacen hugged her back “aw Rish I guess we can’t quite go back to what we were, a few things have changed after all” she nodded squeezing him tight “it’s ok it’s ok though I promise I won't turn this off ok” She let him go wiping her eyes and smiling

She punched him playfully “you better not we can’t have anything bad happening to the future Queen's husband” Gacen smiled at her laughing to himself what an odd nickname

He tested his comm “testing one two, ‘Rish...loves... me’ you getting that ‘best...I am…the...best” Risha put her hand on her forehead

She chuckled “I’m already regretting giving you that but yes it does work” she tests her own “and you should be able to hear this ‘No...he...isn’t’” Gacen gasped comically as she spoke

He smiled “well it seems to work Rish” he looked out the window “has M4-SK prepared the ship” Risha nodded following him to the door “and he understands his ‘role’ right he seems eccentric even for a droid” Risha shrugged holding onto his hand

She sighed “I dunno probably he may be weird but he gets really in character so is much more reliable if he gets caught just don’t give him too much backstory or he’ll try to work it in” Gacen made a mental note to avoid that

Gacen took her hands and smiled “thanks Rish I promise I’ll be back in a flash with Sumalee” he pulled her into a long kiss after which neither really wanted to let go holding each other for a few minutes

Risha eventually broke away “well you best be back soon I have other things I need you for” Gacen gave her a quizzical flirty look “I don’t mean that! I mean other missions, come on Gacen that stuff goes without saying” Gacen chuckled squeezing her hands before turning to walk to the ship

Once in the cockpit he turned on the comm link leaning against the wall “hey girl I hear your home alone want some company” a long elongated sigh came back through with what sounded like a stifled laugh as well

Risha tutted “you are the worst I swear” Gacen strolled to the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's chair

He responded “yeah but I’m your worst it’s too late to back out now you admitted how cute you find me” M4-SK looked at him quizzically but didn’t press the issue 

Risha groaned “are you gonna be like this the whole trip” Gacen knew what the answer was but just whistled innocently…

Later they were coming up on Wayland and M4-SK had been asking questions “if I may I’d like to know a little more about my character” Gacen had done his best to avoid answering questions so far but he couldn’t hold out forever

Gacen groaned “you’re a protocol droid for me a travelling mystic” he gestured to the robes he was wearing that vaguely resembled the Jedi robes he’d seen during his time in the republic

Risha came through the comms “ooo wow what a mysterious hermit of course he has magic powers why not show me a few” Gacen rolled his eyes she’d been making fun of his outfit non stop

M4-SK rubbed their chin “yes I’m aware but do you really think people will buy you as a mystic what if I played the mystic” Gacen frowned at him what was so unconvincing about that

He put his hands on his hips “um first of all rude and second of all droids can’t do magic it’s literally impossible” M4-SK tutted clearly disagreeing

He continued “maybe in your small minded universe but in the acting world anyone can be anything” Gacen had a look of disbelief on his face and leaned back whispering into the commlink

He asked “does he have any idea this isn’t a play?” why of all the droids was he stuck with this one

Risha responded equally unsure “Honestly I don’t know I’ve told him over and over but he just seems to ignore me so eventually I just gave up” Gacen sighed of course

He sat back up “hmmm maybe a good idea as an experiment but for now we need to nail this so I’ll play the mystic” M4-SK shook his head going back to co-piloting

He tutted “fine but it’s your funeral when the reviews come in” Gacen just decided to ignore him as the planet of Wayland came into view, it was a mainly mountainous planet with many trees dotted around and as they brought the ship down they found there was a decent number of inhabitants they landed close by and soon encountered the Crystal skinned humanoids.

After a quick translation from M4-SK and a crude drawing of a togrutas montrals they were directed towards a mountain with a flat plateau in the side of it, overall it seemed promising now it was just about convincing Sumalee to come with him

As he walked up the mountain he continued to talk to Risha “so why do you think Sumalee came here I thought she was a respected member of the jedi” Gacen put his hand up against the wind as it blew his cloak back he felt very out of his element

Risha responded quickly “I’m not quite sure apparently it’s one of those ‘strong in the force planets” Gacen got that vibe he wasn’t sure why “and you know she was never really the most ‘by the code’ Jedi” that was true 

Gacen smiled “I mean she knew us that’s pretty not by the book” she had given them far too many favours and pardons over the years

Risha agreed “exactly it may just be that she wanted to strike out on her own” Gacen guessed that was possible

He shook his head “well let’s just hope that she’s more agreeable to smugglers named Gacen than before” Gacen hoped so anyway he didn’t ever appreciate being on the wrong end of a lightsaber

He made his way up the mountain and by the end his feet were as sore as can be he was not a climber, he leaned on the stick he’d found to use as a walking stick. “Yes I made it oh my god I’m so tired” he took a moment to rest 

Risha teased him “oh you poor thing whatever will you do” Gacen rolled his eyes looking up at the rest of the Plateau

He saw at the end there was a figure floating in the air seemingly meditating, he recognised the montrals and hoped this had all been worth it.

She turned and lowered herself to the ground “you have come here seeking answers mystic? Well go ahead ask away” she lifted her hood revealing the red skin of Master Sumalee

Gacen gritted his teeth ready “well not exactly” he took his own hood off with a cheesy grin “I actually came here seeking you, what’s up girl how’ve you been” Sumalee’s expression dropped

She sighed “oh fuck” she strode towards him “what do you want Gacen and if you’re going to ask me where Risha is I don’t know” she folded her arms and turned away

Gacen held the back of his neck “weeeeeelll I actually may have the answer to that question” Sumalee turned around her face softening “and I’ll tell you if you listen to my proposition” Sumalee seemed to consider it for a few seconds

She took a long pause “you get five minutes otherwise I throw you off my mountain” Gacen nodded that seemed fair, he’d have to talk fast...