#asking each other what was added and what was in the book/canon (the book being. the fucking Torah lmao)

[fruitlicense]

I had a few friends over to make matzo brei (which I’ve never had before!) and watch Prince of Egypt, and I think it was the best possible Pesach activity besides the Seder itself!

[loveanddeepthroat]

Unlucky Thirteen

Summary - Sylus liked the quiet girl with the poorly heart. She was the only kid in the laboratory who hadn’t come and gone before he could even remember what she looked like. When he doesn’t see her for a whole day, he knows that there’s only one place she could be—the Medical Bay. He’d been through it all before she’d even arrived at the lab over a year prior, and felt a duty to keep her company whilst her heart healed.

Word Count - 2.4k

Warnings - Child!Sylus and Child!MC as experimental lab rats. Mentions of child experimentation and non-consensual medical treatments. This theory of them being lab rats is not canon, so keep in mind that I have made this all up!

Sylus couldn’t find the girl with the poorly heart.

It was the third and final free hour of the day in the laboratory’s Playroom, and she was nowhere to be seen among the children.

Again.

The girl had been missing a few times before now—usually for further experimentation. But for all three of their free time breaks from observations and alterations meant only one thing.

She had to be in the Medical Bay.

He didn’t know much about the quiet girl, other than the fact that she had problems with her heart. There was always a big, white bandage over her chest that just peaked out over the neckline of her plain white gown, but he would never ask her questions about it. They only got to see each other during mealtime and free time, so discussing the things they were put through in between was something neither of them wanted to commit any time to. She didn’t want to talk about her heart as much as he didn’t want to talk about his eye.

In fact, they didn’t talk much at all. They just had a common denominator that seemed to draw them to each other.

Sylus had watched kids come and go from this place for a few years, hoping that one day it would be his turn to leave. That futile hope had been short lived, and it became clear that he wasn’t going anywhere when all the other kids around him dropped off like flies. 

When she came in with a new group of kids around a year ago, he thought nothing of it. She was just a face he’d forget after she would undoubtedly be released. But as those weeks turned to months—the few children she had arrived with long gone—her face had remained a constant for Sylus.

He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that she’d finally been freed today. The people in the lab coats were far too interested in her as of late, and she was starting to look more withdrawn each time he saw her. Much like he had when he woke from an operation he didn’t know he was having.

The more he thought about her condition, the more he hoped that she was in the Medical Bay—rather than somewhere more sinister.

He’d grown a bit of an attachment to the girl. She was the only friendly face that hadn’t left him. Even in their lack of conversation, he enjoyed her company. Felt comforted by her. They often read in silence side by side, always in whichever back corner of the Playroom was free of other kids. The less significant test subjects always delved straight into the toys and games, but the two of them had no interest in joining in.

Sometimes, if the lab coats had prodded around in his eye too much, the girl would quietly read aloud to him. He liked it when she read to him. So much so that he sometimes played on his eye problems just to hear her read for an hour.

He was used to her being absent for one or two of the three free hours they get, but this was too much for him. 

He had to get into the Medical Bay.

His head had purposely been rested against the electric heater beside the bookshelf for a few minutes as he made himself appear as clammy and feverish as possible. His cheeks burned as he pinched them repeatedly, and he put on his best nasally voice once he approached the Playroom supervisor with a little book tucked under his white t-shirt, rubbing his good eye for added effect.

“I feel sick,” he whined to the stone-faced woman in all-black clothing.

She barely threw down a glance at him, raising a lazy eyebrow. “You were fine during dinner.”

Damn.

Plan B came into quick effect. He rolled his eyes back a little, swaying where he stood. The hot skin of his forehead bumped against her hipbone as he stumbled forward dramatically, and she quickly bent down to his level, steadying him with her firm hands.

“Oh for goodness sake,” she mumbled, her frown deepening when she pressed the backs of her cold fingers against his head. She pulled out a little radio device that was tucked in the chest pocket of her shirt, speaking into it frankly with a push of its button. “Patient S013 is feeling unwell. Feverish. Permission to move from Room 11 to the Medical Bay?”

Sylus held his breath, willing whoever was on the other end of the radio call to grant the cold woman the permission he didn’t know she would need. He’d only ever been to the Medical Bay once before, and hadn’t ever wanted to return. Being examined and tested by strange scientists everyday was bad enough. He had no interest in spending time with the nurses who tended to him after his surprise surgery.

“Permission granted,” a male voice affirmed through the radio.

The stern lady grabbed suddenly at his shoulder, pushing him lightly out of the noisy room and down the silent halls. He liked when they were silent. He’d heard enough screams from children to haunt him for life.

The walk to the Medical Bay was short, and Sylus remembered to throw a few sniffles and pathetic coughs into the silent trek to keep up his charade. He must’ve still looked red faced and sickly, the nurse on duty handing him a gown to change into straight away upon his arrival.

He changed as quickly as he could behind a curtain that gave him only a sliver of privacy, tucking the book he’d smuggled from the Playroom into the inner fabric. The nurse checked his vital signs In the small triage room with nothing but a blank look on her face for comfort. Nobody around here tended to smile or show any true emotion towards the children. 

It didn’t affect Sylus at all. He didn’t know any different. Didn’t remember a time when someone smiled at him. Or when he had smiled at someone else. 

He wasn’t sure if he ever had.

The small, sterile Medical Bay was empty as he followed the nurse inside—save for the tuft of the girl's hair he could see peeking out above her blanket. He almost audibly sighed with relief to see her, but the fact that something was wrong enough for her to even be in the Medical Bay struck alarm bells in his head.

“Patient S113 isn’t feeling good, so try to be quiet,” the nurse told him. She pulled back the covers of the bed next to the girl, hurriedly ushering him to get in before giving him a syringe of medicine to take. “I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

He nodded, waiting for her to turn around before he took a look at the sickly girl a few feet away. The skin on her face was shiny and damp in the stark light of the strip lights above them. She didn’t look well at all, and had the thin, white blanket pulled right the way up to her chin.

The nurse administered a dose of something fluorescent yellow to her in another syringe, pressing her hand to the girl’s damp forehead with a tut. Sylus could’ve sworn that the nurse sighed a little in concern.

“That medicine should make you feel a bit better soon. Try to sleep,” she murmured to the girl quietly, moving the strands of hair that were stuck to her skin before leaving the room. 

He didn’t know what to do once the nurse closed the door behind her. The quiet girl looked so…deathly. Her colouring was a good few shades lighter than it usually was, and there was a greyish tinge to it too. Whatever was going on with her, it didn’t look good.

“What happened?” he blurted quietly.

She slowly turned her head towards him, blinking a few times to focus her eyes. They widened a little when she realised it was him.

“Hi,” she whispered, her voice small and croaky.

The sound hurt something in Sylus’s chest. “What happened?” he repeated again, sitting up a little further in the bed to get a good look at her.

The girl lifted a shaky hand, pointing straight to where her heart was. “I think it’s broken,” she replied.

Sylus frowned a little. He didn’t know that hearts could break. Bones could break, he knew that much. He’d seen broken bones quite often in this place. Her heart wasn’t like most people’s—he knew that too. 

But it couldn’t break. Right?

“Are they going to make it better?”

She blinked at him a few times, and he really studied her. This was the most they’d ever said to each other in conversation, but it didn’t feel strange or wrong like he thought it might. It felt natural. Almost like they were both still here in the wake of so many other young patients’ departures for a specific reason. 

He found himself wanting to know more. He wanted to know everything about her heart—including how to fix it.

Her weary eyes glanced around the room for any listening ears, and she shifted the blanket down from her chin so she could see over it. She eventually whispered back to him, “I’m not sure that they’re even trying to fix it.” She took a shuddering breath in, wincing a little bit. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

That’s when he noticed it.

In the absence of the blanket, he saw the gnarly tail end of a stitched up incision where he would usually see a bit of the bandage she always donned on her chest. He may have been young, but he knew without having to ask what the lab coats had done to her. They’d done the same thing to him once before. Put him to sleep without warning to poke and prod into the innards of his most interesting body part—his right eye. He had no idea why they were so interested in it, or why they were equally as interested in her heart. But whatever the reason, it was mutually exclusive to the two of them.

“They’ve done that to me, too,” he reassured her quietly, trying to shift that anxious look from her tired face. She didn’t know what was going on, so he felt a duty to soothe any worries on her mind. “I woke up in here with a big bandage over my eye before you came to live here. Couldn’t see properly for a few weeks, but it got better. Like your heart will.”

The girl looked apprehensive, but seemed a little bit more settled to know that he’d been in the same situation previously. They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment before she spoke. “You’ve been here for a long time.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but he answered like it was. He didn’t want to stop talking with her, hoping it was bringing her some semblance of peace. “I have,” he confirmed with a nod. “Me and twelve other kids were the first here. That’s why I’m patient S013.”

“Thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number,” she whispered.

Sylus cocked his head to the side, wondering if she was kidding. He’d never heard of that before, but if she was right, it would make perfect sense. Patients S013 and S113 being the two most focused on subjects in the lab coats’ top secret experiments did seem a bit too coincidental in his mind.

He sure did have a lot of time on his hands to think about things like that, too. She was the one hundredth kid after him to arrive, and ended up stuck here with him for the foreseeable. Maybe whichever newcomer unlucky enough to be patient S213 would end up in their same predicament.

“We’ll find our luck one day,” he finally responded, exuding all of his confidence into that one sentence. He was determined that he’d fight his way out of here one day, and that he’d be able to bring her with him. He wasn’t strong enough—not yet. But whatever they were doing to him here, he’d use it to his own advantage once he got a good understanding of it. “Maybe we’ll both get out of here, and we can see what the world is like.”

The girl smiled. Smiled at him, even in her state. It wouldn’t have been possible to not smile back, no matter how unnatural it felt for the corners of his lips to curl.

“Yeah,” she whispered. Her blinks were slowing down, and she looked sleepy. “That would be nice. I’d like to see the ocean one day, like I’ve read about in books.”

Sylus suddenly remembered the book he’d smuggled in, still resting coldly against his stomach beneath his gown. He quickly reached down into the neckline, grabbing it out and waving it up for her to see it.

“I could read to you, if you want? While you fall asleep.” He wasn’t sure if it would help her in any way, but the familiarity of a book seemed like the best form of comfort he could think of for her.

Her tired eyes lit up a little, and her smile widened. It struck something in Sylus’s heart, and for a moment, he wondered if he had a heart problem. He’d never felt such a feeling, but he liked it. It felt like a real feeling. Not just the horrible physical feelings of aches and pains.

It was a mental feeling. A caring feeling.

He settled himself back against the plump pillow behind him, opening up the book. It was a children’s fable that they’d read many times before, and the one book he enjoyed hearing her read. He checked on her once more, making sure she was still awake and eager to hear him read.

The idea of a book seemed to wake her up a bit from her fatigue, but even so, Sylus would read the book over and over until it lulled her into a peaceful sleep.

He quietly cleared his throat reading the title aloud the way she always does.

“The Kitten Who Met The Crow…”

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this little story! I think the lab rats theory is so interesting and couldn’t resist this sweet little idea! I’ve been a bit slow on the content recently and I do apologise, but I’m in the midst of moving into a new apartment and the stress of that on top of the way my neurodivergent son is struggling to cope with it has turned my brain to mush. Things should settle soon and I’ll be back on the requests 🤍

[huginsmemory]

Ford's Dreams; Attraction and Asexuality

In Bill's quips in TBOB on what the characters dream about, the quip he had on Ford caught my eye: "Sixer dreams about a pop quiz that asks him "what are you attracted to?" He usually writes "I'm attracted to logic and preparation." Not sure what to call that! Plansexual?". Immediately upon reading it, it made me question the implicit meanings of that small blurb, on Ford's sexuality (as someone whose aroace) and on the potential reason why such a dream was reoccurring, which I've explored below:

Extra addition added (Jan 6 2025)!

The first of two pages in TBOB on Bill's quips on characters dreams; this page includes Ford's, Dippers, Mabel's and Wendy's dream comments.

First of all, there are two types of quips Bill makes about the characters dreams. First, and the main type of comment, are negatively connotated, generally close to or even are nightmares. Dipper, about over hearing his parents fight about divorce, Mabel who has nightmares about waddles dying, Wendy who dreams about her Mom, who died, Stan's about Ford getting stuck in his science fair experiment, and Pacifica about the lumberjack ghost and blood that doesn't wash off her hands. Most of these are things that play off subconscious or conscious fears or grief (or memories in relation to fear or grief). The second type of quip, are goofs; such as Robbie's real hair colour, or Blubs and Durland only dreaming about each other (both on the other page, not depicted). So where does Ford's comment for in? At first glance, Ford's dream quip somewhat comes out as a goof (especially considering the horrible things he's gone through and seen). But for a central, serious character, and considering the context of the book, I really don't think this is a goof, but more of the first type of quip, on darker/nightmare sort of dreams.

But if it's is a nightmare, then why would a pop quiz about what he's attracted to be nightmare material?

First of all, regarding the set up of the dream, a quiz explicitly implies that you are being judged on your answer. There is a rubric for right or wrong answers, and someone, in a higher position of power, often in an academic institution, judges you by this. Ford is a character that's been clearly driven for the good first half of his life by excellency in academic achievement, and this implies that it's very important to him to get the quiz correct, to have the right answer, and that he fears being wrong.

Now on the subject matter of what the quiz entails; the subject of romance and attraction. Regarding canon, romance isn't one we get particularly clear images on with Ford, compared to Stan who flirts and literally goes out on a date during the series. We only really ever get two direct human interactions that could be implied to be considered romantic in nature (sorry fiddauthor's, there isn't anything from Ford's side of things that imply any extra feelings beyond cherished friend; Fiddleford in the other hand...). These are when he speaks to a girl at a dance and gets juice thrown on him, and in Journal 3 on the page that decodes on the page about himself to "LITTLE CATHY WHAT A DREAM HELD HER HAND AND MADE HER SCREAM". (There is also technically the one throw away line about Ford dating a siren in one of the Lost Legends comics, which would be the only time we know of Ford actually being in a romantic relationship; but that's something that never gets elaborated on, and when Dipper says that he's literally reading from the Bill page from Journal 3, so I'm unsure on the weight of such a statement). Compulsory heteronormativity aside as demanded by censors, both the implied attempts don't go well, and in the second one it directly implies Ford's six fingers are directly part of the reason why he's undesirable. Ford clearly deeply struggles with belonging around his 'weirdness'; case in point with the whole page about it in Journal 3. In this case, his bad luck in romance as a teen, possibly as a result of his 'wierdness', continues to alienate him from other people. As a result, a quiz focusing on romance may further remind Ford about his 'wrongness' as he doesn't have the socially expected romantic relationship.

Stanford's author pages in journal 3. The cipher on the right page decodes to what is described in the paragraph above. Note his emphasis on feeling alienated.

However, what's perhaps more telling about it is that the quiz asks what are you attracted too?, which is more sexual than really romantic in nature. And it's telling because what Ford puts down is logic and preparation. These aren't physical attributes as one may assume to answer these questions; neither is it gendered, or even really based on a person, but rather left open as the concepts (ie, he doesn't say someone who is logical and well-prepared). This Bill even jokes about, with 'plan-sexual'. And Ford's answer is not a typical 'male' answer (in the toxic sense, but also, just generally, since people experience sexual attraction) which Bill also notes with the joke. This 'incorrect' answer could be construed as another thing that's wrong with him, especially back in the day; emphasizing again Ford's wrong-ness and alienation.

Not to mention, beyond those two instances described above (interestingly, these occur previous to Ford's falling out with Stan, in which after he highly prioritizes academic achievement) Ford shows no interest in romantic relationships. This disinterest in pursuing romance is contrary to a lot of people who are still workaholics who have significant others/hook-up on the weekend in their meager time off. Ford's general disinterest in romance is also something that others him, with how our society puts so much emphasis on romantic and sexual relationships. And this is something that IMMEDIATELY caught my eye as someone whose within the general ballpark of aroace; there is a huge amount of alienation from society when you are disinterested in sexual/romantic relationships. Especially when toxic masculinity expects you to constantly be horny. So having someone ask you that question of what you are attracted too is awkward, and depending on the audience, socially difficult question to field. And often an answer to that comes out sounding exactly like Ford's, based on personality rather than physical attributes, if you don't decide to come out (not that Ford would know queer jargon anyways). So this question, posed in a quiz, with Ford being quite Ace-coded, would bring up these feelings of alienation, along with those about failure on not having the right 'answer' regarding attractiveness and the failure of not having a girlfriend.

The infamous Billford page in TBOB, of 'one thing led to another'. Also note Ford saying that Bill's "really got it all figured out".

Now, beyond that, we're also reading this in the context of TBOB. Even before the new info in TBOB, Ford openly worshipped Bill; and in TBOB it becomes clear that they certainly had something going on between them (cough, one thing lead to another, cough). This suggests that Ford found Bill attractive in some form of attraction, whether romantic, sexual or queer-platonic-ish. This especially so, considering the answer Ford puts down; logic and preparation. Bill, who corrected and furthered Ford's knowledge, who came to him as a being of pure knowledge (logic), and who helped him plan the portal, who ironically also had other plans of world domination beyond that (preparation). Bill fits the description, even if he's not human, but Ford's not bothered by that, Ford's a freak himself and it's clear in finding that acceptance he's ecstatic (freak4freak). And that attraction, that care Ford had/has for Bill? Now that's something that's horrifying, something that's filled with guilt, terror, and also embarrassment and fear of how others will react; case in point with Ford literally ripping those journal pages out so the others don't know about the extent of his and Bill's relationship, and in TBOB he acknowledges that. And that's not to mention the potential additives of negative emotions from failing to have attraction for the right person, from failing to meet toxic masculinity standards, and the emphasis of being a freak that made him fall for Bill. Now that's emotionally negatively charged for a fucking nightmare.

Like. Fuck. What are you attracted too? The being that I thought was a god of pure knowledge and thought that strung me along like a fish on line with bait of knowledge and companionship, and I ate that bait, hook, line, and sinker, so deep within my belly I fell in love with him; the being that betrayed me, that wants to destroy my world and used me to do it. The being I shouldn't even love in the first place, because you're supposed to love what's normal, but I've never been able to do that as a freak show. The being I've spent half my life hunting down to kill. And now here I am, with this fucking mess of my own making, after threats and torture and the world ending, and some small fucking part of me still loves him.

So, yeah. I don't think that's just a comedy line. I think that's a line that potentially has way more about Ford's feelings of alienation, of his failure to be attracted to the right person, of guilt and fear around his relationship with Bill, and especially so of others perceiving it.

EDIT (05/01/2025): Also for your consideration, as mentioned in the tags by @vespertin-y and @5p4ced-0ut, these DIRECT QUOTES BY FORD IN TBOB. ABOUT WHY ONE WOULD MAKE A DEAL WITH BILL.

All the scenarios listed by Ford apply to himself;

You're at a desperate low? Failing to find, or prove the universal weirdness theorum; but really, truly beneath that, being basically completely alone for all the years since college, and being desperately lonely and seeking affection and acceptance.

Lost something dear to you? A bit more abstract, but Ford's alone, and he's alone because he chose to lose Stan, to seek acceptance through academic achievement. And it's his loneliness that truly drives him to Bill; not academic achievement, even if that's part of the reason. He's trying to fill that void of love and acceptance thats been there since Stan left. That's something that's dear to him that he's lost. Although it could also just be a nod to Bill's magic, in that he can use it to fulfill things.

Throes of all-consuming monomaniacal ambition? Do I need to say anything about this? Ford caused the apocalypse (partly) out of his ambition.

Now of course these all lead up to the very last one: or perhaps you're just attracted to things that hurt you? This heavily implies Ford's felt, as I outlined above, some sort of attraction to Bill.

It's also a strong thing to say about their relationship. What's interesting about this one, is that at the beginning, their relationship wasn't a painful relationship for Ford; codependent as fuck, sure, but no one was actively hurting the other. It wasn't until they began to become jealous and petty with each other when Fiddleford began working that there is resentment and emotional pain, and then there's the big reveal, and all there is of their relationship for Ford is emotional pain and betrayal. In that manner, he wasn't originally attracted to Bill because of masochism in the literal sense; but rather due to rather an attraction built on genuine connection and companionship that ultimately ended horribly.

So basically, the 'attracted to someone that hurts you', is another line that falls under the heavy implication that Ford felt some sort of attraction to Bill; and that Ford struggles with shame and guilt around his attraction to Bill, especially as the comment is actually a lie (a common abuse victim lie) that minimizes their relationship, especially from Bill's side.

But he still says the sentence. So why is he lying/believing he's telling the truth? That comes down to what he's trying to diminish, and the guilt he has around attraction. The sentence, written of course post series when Ford is deeply jaded about Bill and his relationship, is written in a deeply bitter way. And it's a very self-directedly bitter way! Of course the being I fall in love with ends up betraying and hurting me; I never can do anything correctly. By saying that 'he's attracted to pain', he implicitly within the statement blames himself for the abuse, construing it as some way inevitable that this would occur due to his 'wrong' nature, especially around attraction as evident above. This self-blame and 'inevitability' is actually common to those who have low self-esteem and are victims of abuse, which Ford is. Ford already is shown to feel guilt and shame around his attraction to Bill for various reasons, such as the failure to be attracted to the right being, and doubly so with it ending up being an abusive relationship. This self-blame of 'i'm attracted to pain' denies that Ford was seeking genuine connection, and found it in Bill; it construes Bill as always having hurt Ford. Which is untrue! But this does function as a way to suppresses Ford's possible remaining positive emotions he has around Bill (by demonizing him as something horrible, understandable as he's been trying to kill him for 30 years) and also provides Ford an illusion of power over the situation; of course I had and remained in a relationship with Bill because I enjoy pain. It's easier to say (and delude yourself you like it, and you abuser may even encourage that, to avoid the pain) then admit you don't know how to escape, or fear escaping. And I think Ford did just that.

(Also, side note: What's also a kicker is that we are creatures of habit. So relationship dynamics we grow up in, are often ones we tend re-create later in life, because those are dynamics we are comfortable in, even if they are terrible dynamics. But that doesn't mean that it will always, nor have to be recreated. In some way, Ford did this; he recreated a dynamic from his father, in always looking up to Bill, and requiring praise from him to support his self esteem.)

Also, contextually, this negative recount of Bill makes sense as it's functioning as a warning for the reader within the page; informing the reader that no matter what, Bill will hurt you if you make a deal. This embarrassment and shame about Bill is contrary to some readings, in which Ford confesses to having cared about Bill; but this page is early in TBOB! It's before the pages all the rest of the family put in; it's possible this page was added 'before' the rest of the family read TBOB and Ford comes to acceptance with his feelings around Bill.

[bianquitasworld]

Can we have Dave as a total nerd who gets invited to his first highschool rager where he meets reader who's interested in him?

Parings: Dave Lizewski x Reader ₊ ⊹

A/N: Sorry for being gone I had no inspiration. I would make this a story but i’m scared to I trust myself doing little head-canons better :( also! Did y’all see the brawl in alabama !? 🪑

Warnings: Underage drinking, I pictured the characters around being 17-18 since they are in high school!! Dave is 18 reader is 18!!

• Well first of all we all know Dave is a huge nerd and kind of a loser, So how he even got invited to a rager is unknown.

• He decide to go, figured it would be better than spending his time away at home reading comics. Poor boy was lost and confused he did not know what to wear, he was stressed!

• He spent so much time trying to find an outfit at the end of it clothes was all over his bed and floor hangers were everywhere. All this mess just for him to go with the first outfit he had originally put on.

• Dave was so stressed out about absolutely everything he wanted to turn back and go home and read his comic books in the safety of his room.

• The music was far too loud teenagers were everywhere indulging in underage-drinking and dancing, some making out and practically having sex, gross.

• Dave was scared he couldn’t find the person who invited him so he just walked around, he grabbed a cup just to try and fit amongst everyone else at the party.

• Dave recognized some of the people from his school and decided to keep his head down to not embarrass himself in front of them. He noticed many jocks playing beer pong and cheering each other on.

• As he walked around he found comfort in a dark corner away from everyone. Dave would definitely just sit in the corner by himself and people watch, which is exactly what he did until some shirtless drunk dude accidentally slammed in to him, making him spill his beer all over his shirt.

• Dave tried to find a bathroom to clean off his shirt but all the bathrooms downstairs were occupied, so he went upstairs he tried finding the bathroom but instead walked in on a couple about to have sex. He was mortified, the girl threw her shoe and screamed at him to get out.

• once he found the bathroom he opened it without knocking (he didn’t learn his lesson) and walked in on you adjusting your dress,

“Dude what the fuck? Didn’t anyone teach you to knock?”

he was a stuttering mess while he apologized.

“Sorry-sorry i was just trying to-nothing never mind”

• when he was about to leave you stopped him telling him it was fine and you were done anyways. He couldn’t make eye contact with you he was so nervous he thought you were so pretty and his nostrils were overwhelmed by your sweet perfume. Was he drooling? probably.

• Before he could leave you stopped him.

“No, Sorry it’s fine I was done anyways. You okay? You seem like..uncomfortable?”

He was blushing and nervous, he grabbed some toilet paper and tried to clean the now almost dry beer off his shirt.

“Y-yeah? I’m fine-i’m cool just never been to one of these things before-and and…you’re really p-pretty and you smell really good..”

His smile and was cute and his glasses only added to how adorable he looked.

• When he heard your laugh he was done for! That man would’ve done anything you asked and he’d only spoken two sentences to you.

• “well..thanks uh —?”

“Dave my name-it’s uh Dave w-whats yours??”

“I’m —“

• You guys would probably spend 30 minutes talking in the bathroom and laughing, you can definitely tell this is not his scene like at all.

• “So Dave..do you want to give me your number? Or are you just gonna stare at me?”

his loser ass is so embarrassed!! He gives you his number and you guys text all night and morning.

[mendessi]

things i say when you sleep | chapter eight

multi chapter bodhi durran x fem!oc

word count: 5.2K

chapter summary: bodhi durran on ania alistair

tags: slow burn, friends to enemies to lovers, canon typical violence, mentions of death, she falls first he falls harder, majority canon compliant, some canon deviance, eventual smut, angst with a happy ending, additional tags to be added

AO3 masterlist

six | seven | eight | nine | ten

b o d h i

Ani had always been an exceptional girl.

She'd been a part of my life since I can remember. When I think back to my earliest memories, she's always there.

Once Ani learned to walk, the Alistairs would join our family at Riorson House for weekly dinners. Despite being the youngest, she learned to read before any of us. Every adult I knew always talked about what a bright child she'd grow up to be—a Healer, maybe, just like her mother. 

She and I could always relate, being the youngest of the group. Sometimes we were left out of the plans that Xaden, Garrick, and her brother, Beckett made. Eventually, as we got older, we started to be included too. More often than not, Ania would choose to exclude herself to stay in the library.

But she was always there. Her presence was always there. She was just as much a piece of our family as we were to theirs. The times she did decide to join us, she'd shut her book cooly, but the way her eyes lit up was undeniable.

Sparring with her was always entertaining. Once she turned ten, we started letting her into the gym with us. We thought having a girl on the mat was amusing, but we learned quickly that her adaptability was unmatched. Observing us, she picked things up and engraved them into her brain. She never won, but she always put up a challenge.

With us being the youngest, our mothers always dreamed of the idea that we'd grow up one day and get married. In turn, Xaden, Beckett, and Garrick would tease us. "Lovebirds", they called us. I never minded the jokes, but I'd put a stop to the conversation when I saw Ani's cheeks flush.

Once the rebellion began, the talk became more serious. While Xaden had been betrothed to Catriona, the backup should something happen, I was betrothed to Ania. Under any means necessary, we had to preserve the Throne in Aretia. She never understood the severity past that point. It was still a harmless joke amongst our families to her. How could she understand when she was left in the dark?

We had always planned to tell her, we just never had the chance to. It was hard when her mother was so against it. It was too late when we finally wanted to let her in. Beckett died and we barely had time to blink before the executions. 

The last time I saw Ania, she was thrashing in a man's arms as he pulled her away from us. The new relic shimmered against her skin as she hit his chest. Xaden and I fought for her. We at one point had all managed to grab onto each other but, were ripped apart, and shipped off to new foster homes. 

Years went by and I could nothing but hope that she was being treated right in her new home and grieve what had been taken from us. We were just kids. 

My first year in the quadrant practically flew by. Xaden and I were different and for some deluded reason, we had expected her to remain the same after six years. We were wrong to think that she'd be happy to see us. 

Xaden found me after Parapet and his jaw flexed as he pulled me into a quiet corner where we could talk.

"Is she here?" I asked him. 

"She hates us," He said as he ran a hand over his face. "Wants nothing to do with us."

"What do you mean?" I pressed further. 

"She blames us for Beckett," He replied. "I helped her cross but-"

"She told you this?" I looked around the courtyard to see if I could see her. 

"No, I just know," He sighed, "She's not the same. Just keep your distance til we can figure out how to handle this."

Gods, did she make it hard on us. 

We were fools to think that she could be the same after everything that happened in Aretia. 

Keep my distance. That's all I had to do.  

I didn't question it when Xaden told me she had changed. We all had. The ramifications of the war were not light on any of the Marked ones. The things we went through as kids, molded us as people. 

The Ani that I saw step onto the mat during Assessment Day was not one I was ready for. She'd grown. She was always a beautiful girl, we'd heard it our whole lives, but I was seeing it now.

Our first mistake was sending Quinn in. 

She left the mat with a broken nose, even though she, by technicality, won. Since Ania had yielded. This hard exterior was fascinating. I never imagined Ania to be what other cadets would call "ruthless." I had a hard time grasping the person she had become. 

I didn't heed Xaden's warnings to stay away. How could I when that night, I found her sitting under a tree watching the stars? I instantly was reminded of a time when we were kids. The stars were beautiful from the top of Riorson House. 

Things had seemed to be going well, I was making progress, actually getting through to her. Until I brought up Xaden. 

"She hates us but at least she doesn't seem to be getting closer to anyone else in the quadrant," I said to Xaden as I sat in his room one night. 

"I don't want her to be isolated. Unfortunately, you can't make it here without some sort of teamwork." He replied and I knew he was right. 

Ania was isolating herself. Excluding herself like I'd seen her do on several accounts growing up together. 

We took what felt like a million wrong approaches toward her. We had to tread lightly, and carefully, to avoid pissing her off. We noticed early on that she had developed a very serious anger problem. We'd all been there, all shed it, but her's had stuck. That became the top priority. We could use her anger and do our best to avoid it backfiring. Once she let us in, we needed to focus on her control. 

Her anger would get her killed. 

Only after calling her to the mat did we start to slowly make progress. And it wasn't because of me. If anything, I'd set our progress back to the start. I'd call it tough love, but I'm not sure it deserved that name after I knocked her out. 

"Let me talk to her," Liam had said to us. 

Xaden had told him about Ania during their time being fostered together. Liam had been excited to meet her. He, like us, had been expecting someone different. 

Xaden pondered on the thought, slightly angry with me for taking it too far, and then nodded. 

Liam Mairi had been the first of us to get through to her. 

When Xaden decided that she had trusted Liam enough, he sent me back in. 

With Threshing approaching he was beyond stressed.

"I'm stretched thin," He kept saying.

At this point, it was a matter of if she lived or not would we finally be able to make things right.

"Ani?" I asked. He had been observing in the valley and was supposed to keep an eye on her.

"I lost her," He replied, running a hand through his hair.

'What do you mean 'you lost her'? I raised my voice. 

"Sorrengail was in trouble," He said and he had to put his hands on my shoulders to keep from running into the damn valley myself.

"And what about Ania?" I screamed. 

I forced myself to walk away from him for my own sake. Xaden was not a fight I could win.

I found her squadmates and asked if they had seen her. My stomach sank when Violet returned, and she still hadn't. 

Xaden's jaw ticked and I know he was worried. We had broken Beckett's promise. If he had just kept eyes on her-

"Ani!" The second I found her in the medical tent, my heart sank. I practically ran toward her. 

I cupped her cheeks into my hands my eyes scanning her over to assess her injuries. She looked like she just went through hell and back. Maybe even shook Malek's hand while she was at it.

Her face was covered in blood, hers or someone else's, I'm not sure. Her hand had a gaping hole through the center and I can only imagine it's from a dagger. 

I tilted her head to the side, clenching my jaw when I saw the fresh bruising in the shape of handprints. 

I'm the one who has to control my anger now. The second she tells me who's responsible, I'll fucking kill them. 

"I'll relay to Sgayel that she's okay," Cuir says and I mentally thank him.

Xaden appears within minutes, but I'm still pissed at him. As he surveyed her, I could see regret swimming in his eyes. 

She killed two men. My Ani killed two men. Innocent, bookworm Ania Alistair. A murderer. Justifiably.

But she survived in the process. Ruthless, she lived up to her name. If she looked like this, I'd hate to see the other two. 

With a glare in Xaden's direction, I helped her to the healers after the celebrations begin. She didn't even flinch when her Red Swordtail burned a relic into her skin. 

She's strong. In shock maybe, but strong.

"She made it, she bonded," Xaden said to me when I returned to the flight field. I had members of my own squad that I haven't checked on yet, being too preoccupied with Ania. "Is she okay?"

"She killed two men today, Xaden," I replied with my arms crossed over my chest.

"That's a part of life, Bodhi," He was stern with his tone, "We can't coddle her. Especially when she doesn't let us. Beckett wouldn't want that. We want her to live past the quadrant, yes?"

"Of course," I said. 

"Then we can't hold her hand through it. She's not a kid anymore. We can do our best to protect her and trust me, we will. But we can only do so much." Xaden said.

As much as we want to believe that she's someone we can shield from the hardships of the world, we just can't. "When do we tell her about what's really going on?"

 "We'll take it day by day," He replied with a curt nod.

The next morning when I went to check on her I was not expecting Ridoc Gamlyn of all people to open the door. Shirtless.

His eyes flared wide like he knew he was not where he's supposed to be, "Oh shit."

I ran my tongue against my teeth when Ani appeared behind him standing in nothing but her tunic. I accidentally let my eyes glance her over, noting the angry dagger wound in her thigh.

All I did was look at him, but that seemed to scare him enough for him to scramble out of her room without even putting his shirt or shoes on. 

That was a situation I could've handled better. She didn't need me to be overbearing in that moment and I was, but I couldn't help it. I told myself the anger came from concern over her not letting her injuries heal. I had no right to tell her who she could and couldn't bring into her bed. Or that she can't bring anyone into her bed at all. 

Garrick and I met in Xaden's room that night to talk about the next drop-off. We never made it through a meeting without bringing her up. How could we not? We'd all been there the day Beckett died. Xaden held him in his arms while we surrounded him. We all made a promise. 

"I see her in the gym a lot," Garrick said, "Pretty much every night. If not with Gamlyn then with Liam. She's pretty intense." 

"She still avoiding you?" I asked.

"Yeah, but because I give her the space to. She'll come to me when she's ready." Garrick replied, tapping his fingers mindlessly against the table. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. I think we should consider letting her in."

"I agree. But we can't just pull her aside and lay everything on the table. She's a logical person. Extremely intelligent. We have to plant the idea inside her head, let her figure it out." Xaden explained and then turned to me after a beat, "You should be the one to start. She's starting to trust you."

"I can do it," I nodded.

"Anything else?" Xaden asked. 

"I found Ridoc in her room this morning," I said, trying to ignore Garrick and my cousin's shared glance.

"Does that bother you?" Garrick asked as he crossed his arms. 

"I think that she should be focused on other things, that's all." I defended. I should've kept that to myself.

"As long as she's not sleeping with a psycho like Barlowe, then I hardly think it's our business," Xaden smirked. "Cadet Gamlyn cares for her. In a strictly platonic way."

My cheeks heated up and I hated the way that Garrick and Xaden burst into laughter.

"Some things never change," Garrick laughed as he stood up and pushed his chair in.

Hardly any progress was made from our end. I began to accept the fact that she genuinely wanted nothing to do with us. When we started sparring, she took the notes I gave her and didn't say much to me otherwise. Watching her from a distance as she grew closer and closer to her squadmates was bittersweet. She was meant to be coming on runs with Xaden, Garrick, and me by now. Our dynamic was supposed to have returned to how it had been in Aretia. She made it so hard, but we were not letting up.

Even though I had a way of saying the wrong thing at the wrong times. 

"You don't necessarily make it easy to care about you," I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth that night.

Progress reset once more. 

Xaden took matters into his own hands after that. He finally sat her down and talked to her about the promises he'd made to Beckett regarding her. He was convinced now that moving forward should be easier. We were so close to fully earning her trust.

I was the first one to test that theory.

We finally were able to meet in the gym to spar and I was grateful that I had caught her before she left. 

I let her put me down once, but in her second match, she earned her victory fair and square. 

On round three, I attempt to do what I was sent down here by Xaden to do. 

"Do you remember those stories that Xaden's dad used to tell us?" I asked, as casually as I could. Plant the idea. Let her figure it out.

"About the venin?" She ducks under my arm as I throw a punch. "They were why I was scared of the dark forever. You really wanna bring that up right now?"

She had always been scared of the dark as a kid. There's a distant memory of a night we had a sleepover at Riorson House. Garrick was staying with us for the summer and Beckett and Ani had come over as well. We spent the night playing hide and seek in the dark and trying to scare each other with the tales of the dark wielders. When Beckett and I woke up the next morning, Ani was sleeping at the foot of our bed because she had gotten scared in the guest room by herself. 

I never expected her to manifest moments later. 

There's only one other time in my life I've felt fear like that. The day that our parents were captured and we knew that we had lost the war. 

The scream she let out rattled my bones as I held her. Every mage light in the gym shattered. The second I felt her skin rising in temperature, I lifted her into my arms and carried her to the bathing chambers. I put the water on as cold as the lever would allow, but by the time we got there, I could hardly touch her without wanting to pull away.

"If her power is backlashing, she could kill you in the process," Cuir said through our bond.

"I don't care." I slammed my shields shut to block him out. I just needed to focus on her.

I pulled her tunic over her head to try and cool her off, but she was shivering and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. I couldn't understand how her skin was so hot, yet she seemed to be freezing. Was she going to wield fire? Ice? I couldn't tell.

My hands shook as I cupped her cheeks and forced her to look at me, "You have to ground, Ani. Please. Please ground." 

I'm begging her to ground, I'm telling myself she'll be okay, I'm begging Malek to not take her from me. 

"T-t-the library. R-R-Riorson Ho-use," She said after I asked where she grounds. 

I brushed the wet hair from her face, searching her eyes to do my best to counter whatever the fuck she was manifesting. 

"I'm trying. You're going to be okay, I'm right here." I fought back the tears, trying to catch the glint that would tell me how to counter what was happening. 

We both were drenched, fully clothed as the cold shower sprayed over us. I flinched when the mage lights in the bathroom shattered just like they had in the gym. 

I tucked her body to my chest in case any glass were to fly at us and I realized then how heavy I was breathing.

I'd never felt so hopeless. She was either going to live through this, or she was going to die and take me out with her.

You're okay, you're okay, you're okay.

The whispers were continuously falling off my lips when I finally heard her say my name. When I opened my eyes, the entire bathing chamber was pitch black. But her hands were glowing. 

Magnificent. 

My forehead fell against hers at the sheer relief of hearing her voice. She pulled my face a few inches from hers and I wished I could see her face. I wanted to see her eyes just for the extra confirmation that she'd be alright. 

Light returned to her fingertips, nearly taking my breath away. My hand finds the base of her neck, brushing the soft skin there. Soft, golden light illuminated her face and within an instant, she was the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on.

She gently tugged my face toward her but I held back. I reached for the lever instead, afraid that she'd do something she would regret, and turned the water off. 

After I left Ania in her room, I immediately went to Xaden's, hoping he was still awake. 

"What's going on?" He asked once I stepped inside. "You're dripping water all over my floor."

"She manifested," I said, turning to face him. "And she- Gods, she was so close to fucking backlashing."

"What did she manifest?" Xaden asked me. 

"She can bend light," I said to him. "I had to carry her from the gym to the bathing chamber, she would've combusted if-"

I sat in one of his chairs, covering my face with my hands. The overwhelming feeling of relief settled within me and tears threatened to spill. I don't remember the last time I cried.

"I was so scared," I admitted in a whisper. "I couldn't counter it. I couldn't help her. She was in so much pain and-" 

"You did everything you could," Xaden reassured me with a hand on my shoulder, "She's okay because you were there. Thank you." 

Time was not something gifted to us after she manifested. Between her squad's trip to Montserrat and prep for War Games, I didn't get much time to train with her. I'd wanted to check in so many times, ask how she was, and see how her signet was developing. But there's just no time. 

I replay our time in the shower when she tugged my face toward hers. It was so subtle that I didn't even want to suggest that she was going to do something like kiss me. Would I have let her if she tried? 

After the first battle of War Games, I find her and Ridoc on the flight field. I can't help but be amused at how Ridoc still does his best to avoid me after I found him in Ania's room. 

I'm sitting on the edge of her bed and she's explaining something she did with her signet and I just want to listen to her talk about it endlessly. Flight leathers look good on her and I find myself fighting the urge to stare. Her hair is wind-blown from flight and she's got lines from her goggles, but she's stunning regardless. 

"How have you been otherwise? We haven't seen each other much," I asked, forcing myself to be coy. There was a line that I was threatening to cross and I needed to stop before I could start. What would the others think?

"Fine," She answered as she crossed her room. She's annoyed that I'm avoiding the conversation she really wants to have. But I can't go there with her. She turned her back to me while she undressed and I forced myself to look away, my knuckles turning white from how hard I gripped the edge of the bed. 

My gaze returned to her when she turned back around and I couldn't help but look her over. The way the fabric cut off in the middle of her thigh, the sounds her bare feet made across the stone as she walked to me. Her hair rested in waves from the loose braid she'd had it in. I nearly felt sick to my stomach at how divine she looked.

"Ani," I whispered when she stepped between my knees. Fucking hell. 

"Yes?" She asked softly. She had to know the effect she was having on me. 

"Don't do this to me," I practically begged her. Thin. Ice.

"Do what?" Her skin felt like silk under my fingertips as I trailed them up the sides of her thighs, stopping short of the hemline of her sleeping gown.

"Tell me to stop," She whispered. I'd rather die.

She settled herself deeper between my thighs, looking down at me. 

I want her.

"Ani," I warned. Moreso, for myself but I wished she'd heed it too.

My fingers dug into her thighs as I fought every illogical thought I was having. I couldn't do this. She shouldn't either. She'd regret it in the morning. 

But I've never wanted someone more in my life than I do right now. 

"I can feel it," She whispered. Feel what?

My thumb brushed her bottom lip and my lips parted. Soft, plush. I needed them against mine. Just once. I cupped her jaw gently pulling her face toward mine.

The position in which we were in, me sitting on the edge of her bed while she stood between my legs. As she looked down at me and I up at her, things couldn't be more clear. She had me in the palm of her hand. 

"You're gonna be the death of me," I said under my breath. Just this once. 

I couldn't hesitate any longer. I pulled her face towards mine, pressing my lips to hers in a soft kiss. She wanted more and I did too, but I couldn't help but hold back. 

She tangled her fingers in my hair and she deepened the kiss for the both of us, urging me further back on the bed. She pushed me back onto the mattress, tugging my bottom lip between her teeth and in that moment, she could've done anything. I would've let her. 

She was on top of me and I wanted her so fucking bad that I'd give up everything good in my life to just spend the rest of my life in this bed. 

My hand was around her throat, pulling her lips against mine in a heated exchange. It felt like I'd been deprived of air and she was the first breath of it. Her hips grinded into mine and I groaned into her mouth, my fingers pressing into the sensitive skin at her neck. 

I want more. I want this. I want her. 

But I'm holding back and I don't know why. 

Too many thoughts were clouding my mind. What would Xaden say, what would Beckett think, she'll gonna regret this in the morning. 

"Just kiss me, what are you so fucking scared of?" My eyes flared when she pulled away and I had to second guess if I said any of that out loud. "What? Bodhi, please. You want this. I know you do."

She leaned to kiss me, but I stopped her, "Ani, what are you feeling right now?"

"I want you. But you won't let me. You're holding back." She said.

I pulled her face back toward mine, my lips brushing hers but then I stopped myself again. She whimpered and the sound made my heart throb. I looked up at her, something primal in me taking over. We would not be leaving this bed tonight.

I flipped us over so that I was pressed between her thighs, kissing her hungrily. The anxiety and uncertainty of it all still lingered, but I couldn't find it in me to care. Not when my tongue was against hers and she's whining into my mouth while my hands run up and down her sides underneath her sleeping gown. 

I'm right where I need to be. 

The thought is shoved into my mind and the anxiety dissipates almost immediately as I pull her chest flush with mine. As the anxiety faded, logical thinking returned and I forced myself to pull away. 

She groaned in frustration when I let my forehead rest against hers. 

This could ruin everything. I could lose her if we get involved like this. I can't lose her. Not when I've worked so hard to get her back into my life. 

"You're not going to lose me. Stop thinking that," She said breathlessly.  

I pulled away to look at her, my eyes scanning her face. The second it clicked, I wished it didn't. I wished this information hadn't been set on me. 

"What, Bodhi?" Her voice is soft and her lips are slightly red and swollen.

"You're a fucking empath."

The disbelief is fresh on my tongue as she slowly crawls off of me. I'm amazed she has a second signet, but terrified of what it'll do to her.

She hesitates and looks down at her hands before she slowly crawls off of me. 

"You say it like it's a bad thing," She has hurt in her eyes. 

"It's a death sentence, Ania," I whisper. "You can't tell anyone." 

"I didn't know that I was until just now," She defends herself, wrapping her arms around her body. "You can't even be sure that I am."

I stand up from her bed and she grabs my hand and when I turn around her, her knees are pressed into the mattress and she has tears in her eyes.

"Where are you going?" Her voice cracks. 

"I can't be around you right now," I say. I'm trying to be gentle, but the words refuse to come out in the tone I intend.

"Wait, please." She holds my hand in both of hers and my heart nearly shatters at her frantic words, "I- I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, Bodhi. Please, I won't do it again."

"I have to go," I pull myself from her grip and leave her sitting on her bed. I try to ignore the soft sob that leaves her lips right before the door shuts.

Halfway to Xaden's, I have to lean against the wall to regain my composure. 

"You did not handle that accordingly," Cuir says.

"Yes, I'm fucking aware," I huff, punching the wall so hard that my knuckles split. 

She wanted me because I wanted her. She was acting on my desire, not her own. 

"Have you thought that maybe her desire was simmering before tonight?" My dragon says down our bond. 

I can't think about that right now. 

Xaden opens his door the second I knock, but he looks like he's heading somewhere. 

"What happened? Where's Ania?" He asks immediately. 

"She's..." How do I explain this? "Something happened Xaden, but I-"

"She manifested again," Xaden says, and my brows furrow.

"You knew this would happen?" I ask. 

"What did she manifest? Walk me through it," He leans against the door. 

My heart pounds. Her second signet is a death sentence. I know for a fact that Xaden would never let anything happen to her because of it, but I speak it out loud that just makes it more real. 

"I'm not sure if I'm right. I could be overthinking," I backtrack. 

"Bodhi, get it the fuck together, I have somewhere I need to be," My cousin says. It's tough love. 

"They'll kill her if she can't keep it hidden," I say quietly. 

"She's an inntinnsic," Xaden whispers. 

"She's a type of inntinnsic, I've only heard of them by word of mouth. I wasn't even sure they were real, but I'm positive she's one." I explain. "An empath."

"I need the step by step," Xaden says. 

Well here goes.

"We were," I hesitate, "Kissing-"

"Naturally," Xaden smirks. He deserves to be punched for it but I'll let it slide.

"She picked up on my fear, on my anxiety, my doubts. The lust most of all. The idea of losing her, she picked up on it." I tell him.

"She can read emotions." Xaden nods slowly. "Eventually manipulate them with practice, I'm sure. Like Cat." 

I take a deep breath and sit on the edge of his bed, running my hands through my hair. "She didn't just read them, she absorbed them."

"I'll help her get it under control. She'll learn to sort what's hers and what isn't. It's an easy signet to hide," He says. "Do you find it intriguing that both of her signets manifested in your presence?"

"Why would I?' I ask. 

He shrugs and then stands at his full height, "What happened after that?"

"I told her what she was and then left." Not my proudest moment.

"You what." Xaden's jaw clenches and for a split moment, I fear for my life. 

"I couldn't be around her anymore. She was absorbing all of my emotions, I was trying to help her," I argue.

"And how exactly did you 'tell her what she was'?" Xaden balls his fists. 

"I said, 'You're a fucking empath.'" I repeat my words.

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that." He opens the door and nods his head. 

"You asked how I said it," I defend myself as I walk toward the door. 

"I told her that when it manifested, to find me or you. Because I trusted that you would handle the situation with care. You just left her there alone to deal with the aftermath." Xaden pulls the door open and gestures me out. Right, he's heading somewhere. If I had one guess, I'd say its to Violet's room. "I'll try to talk to her tomorrow."

Amari, if you're up there, please help. 

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[dentos-wife]

Let’s talk how about Chrom and Robin’s bond evolved over time

With everyone clamoring over the new emblem I wanted to take a look back how we got here with their relationship and why I think at this point Chrobin is the intended or inferred Chrom pairing when it didn’t used to be.

In 2012 we got Fire Emblem Awakening, and as Chrom was related to Marth, his inferred pairing was Sumia a pegasus knight as a nod to Caeda, Marth’s canon wife. Granted because part of Awakening’s charm is you could pair anyone up, you didn’t have to pair Chrom up with Sumia if you didn’t wish to. But to IS she was the intended choice.

She had special scenes with Chrom and was the most likely to end up paired with him if you weren’t gunning for a specific wife for him

And you see her here in the opening with Lucina

Robin is you, the avatar, they don’t even have official art, just them with a hood

They had a canon design what we all know now but it wasn’t really used. And that should have been it as far as IS was concerned. Awakening was their last hurrah. And then FE blew up.

Robin’s canon design is now getting used, both the male and female version are now in Smash Bros. Then we have Warriors and Heroes and the Awakening cast shows up more. But not Sumia. Perhaps it’s because she’s not popular or the people flocked to Cordelia instead but she is the pegusus knight everyone loves. Sumia isn’t even in Warriors or the base FEH she gets added much later to FEH only with other less popular Awakening characters.

It’s here when FE became more maintstream I believe that IS changed their tune on Sumia being the intended wife and retconed it. I fully think Sumia was dropped and they no longer had an intended pairing for him all because she just wasn’t popular. Him and Robin were close of course they always were, obviously some would see it as friendship others would see it as something more the usual nothing really changed there.

And then 2022 ten full years after Awakening’s release...this happened

Couple things here. I fully believe the reason Chrom was paired with MRobin here instead of FRobin is for two big reasons reasons.

1) If they paired him with FRobin it canonizes a pairing so MRobin is the safer option, FEH doesn’t usually pair men and women unless they’re already a pairing. So MRobin got paired with Chrom and FRobin was on her own but she still has lines about how much Chrom meant to her.

2) MRobin is the more popular Robin as has been shown every year in CYL and he’d even win next year

So Chrom and Robin were always close it was a no brainer to make them a duo unit, they picked the male version on a very family oriented banner.

That said some of these lines...well let’s just say if a man and a woman were saying that to each other there would be no doubt here. Imagine if this Robin was the female version

Robin: There's Lissa, Emmeryn, Lucina, Frederick... I think we've got gifts for everyone. Don't we? Chrom: Well, all but one. What would you like your gift to be, Robin? Robin: What? Me? You can't just come out and ask like that, you know. There are rules! Chrom: You know I don't care about that. Just tell me what you want. Robin: Truthfully...I can't think of anything. Chrom: You don't want anything? Aw, come on. Think of the bind that puts me in. Robin: You gave my life meaning when I had nothing—not even my memory. The sense of purpose I've found at your side, working for peace in the world, is all I could ever ask for. Chrom: You're not alone in that, you know. I feel the same way. That's why I wanted to give you something nice. To show you how I feel. Robin: All right, all right. In that case, why don't you give me one of those flowers you're wearing? Chrom: It's only going to wilt. Robin: I'll press it into one of my books. That way I'll never forget this Day of Devotion.

Snippet from their duo convo. Usually when someone gives flowers it’s considered a pretty romantic gesture I’ve heard plenty of people call this alt playfully the gays and yeah this is very strong.

FRobin even comments on them in one of her lines.

“That man with Chrom is a Robin from another world, right? They get along so well, I'm almost jealous...“

There was no need for that line at all, we can tell from their lines how flipping close they are but they felt the need to have another character comment on it in base lines

I do believe MRobin was used not to canonize a pairing...at first. And then they gave up because it looked like people really liked it going even further in the next year.

In Awakening Chrom and Robin refer to themselves as two halves of the same whole which is already a loaded term. But it’s never been used after and was just part of the game

Enter the next time they pair up as the Emblem of Bonds which brought that back for the first time since 2012, in full force

Correct me if I’m wrong but no one besides them have referred to each other as their other half in Awakening

Lucina does it in Engage. For reference other half means husband, wife or partner (romantic). I think after the Valentine’s alt they decided sure why not and now they’re really going in with Robin being Chrom’s other half when they only touched the term once past Awakening in a FRobin cipher card. Other half in Engage is Robin and he pops up when engaged with Chrom to mix magic with the attack. I don’t doubt you can mean a friend with this term but when paired with everything else they say to each other, it’s pretty strong evidence it’s further than friendship.

Okay now for the the ultimate Robin is now Chrom’s intended partner view, Legendary Robin also released this year

“Tactician of Ylisse. Celebrated as Exalt Chrom's other half in the legends that followed their exploits. Appears in Fire Emblem Awakening. “

I saw some people argue exalt could mean Lucina too but no it doesn’t, it clearly means Chorm it says so and if you didn’t believe that, we got a map that was the two called Chrom and his other half. Which is Robin.

His art also references his other half status, he now wears blueish green jewelry which stands for Chrom and the brand of the exalt is on his chest plate

Finally in his damage art he once again has the symbol of the exalt formed in magic.

And a ring, some have argued it’s his clothes but usually the magic gauntlets he wears are on his middle finger and not under his gloves; pretty sure it’s a ring, it’s even on the ring finger of his left hand, where you generally put a wedding ring.

All this together is some very strong evidence, but put it with everything else they’ve done since last year and it’s clear to me, IS now is pushing Chrom and Robin as the intended pairing. Not canon like Marth and Caeda or Alm and Celica, but intended like they do with Eliwood and Ninian and some others I’m probably forgetting. And because MRobin is who they use and their “canon” sort of like FCorrin is the “canon” Corrin, IS is strongly hinting at MChrobin

Which fascinates me, we went from Chrom with a intended implied wife to scrapping it and pretended it never happened to this, Chrom with an intended husband. Him and his best friend, both two guys, very much in love. In ten years IS changed it’s mind on the intended canon pairing that isn’t even possible in the base game. They are a fate defying duo, the emblem of bonds, the exalt and his other half, two halves of the same whole and they are showing that in symbolism harder than ever. I think that’s really cool

To end this I’m aroace and see romance a little differently from the amatonormic norm Chrom and Robin could just be really good friends lord knows I also think friendship should be just as important as romance BUT if they were, it’s very clear they are each others most important person over any wife they might separately have.  But even that doesn’t follow a typical heteronormative relationship no? Chrom and Robin’s bonds are so strong they transcend the concept of romance and friendship as we know it, there is no name for the type of love they share it’s beyond us.

But what about Lucina? (and Morgan) In a world with magic, dragons, people dying and coming back to life, time travel and more the idea of two guys somehow having a child is no longer far fetched at all really, or even surrogates exist.

Also they act like kind of like dads with her and it’s really cute

Now granted IS could remake Awakening and MRobin will still not be able to marry Chrom and this whole analysis would have been for naught but I think if they do remake it they’ll add it. Look at how many people have been introduced to them just through Heroes and Engage you don’t think people are going to want to pair up the exalt and his other half in their game?

To sum it up, yes there literally is no heterosexual explanation for where IS has taken this. It wasn’t originally the intended pairing but it sure is now, I don’t think there is any room for denial anymore until we see what they do with a remake.

[ninyard]

Thoughts about Kevin having an actual Ed and not doing all these rants about food for fun and giggles like some ppl think

OKAY. Okay. So this is just some kind of headcanon stuff based on canon that I’ve thought about for a while. Obligatory trigger warning for ED topics specifically related to ortho/fasting/general shitty relationship with food stuff.

So. I don’t think that Kevin is capable of admitting to himself, by himself, that he has an eating disorder. But I think there’s two sides to it - there’s his body image, and there’s his healthy eating. Their overlap is sizable, but blurry, in the sense that it’s not quite clear where one starts and the other ends.

I have this image in my head of two parallel situations; the first a situation where a young Kevin is sat on a couch with his mom by his side. It’s a lazy Sunday, the TV is playing old cartoons, and Kayleigh is sitting next to her young son, both of them curled up in pyjamas and awake too early to be sane. Kayleigh a book open to one side of her and a notebook on her lap, and she’s scribbling something down that a five or six year old Kevin couldn’t care less about. He’s a good kid, a quiet kid, and all he wants some mornings is just a bowl of cereal, his mom by his side, and his favourite tv show. So he gets all three; an old episode of Kayleigh’s favourite childhood animation, the two of them curled up beneath the same long blanket, and a big bowl of coco pops on his knees, or whatever the sugary, chocolatey American equivalent is. The spoon is a teaspoon, snug in between chubby little fingers, and there’s chocolate milk and cocoa puffs all over his little face, but he’s happy. He’s content, he’s comfortable. He’s a kid, being a kid, eating the cereal that his mom buys him without question, just because it’s his favourite.

Then there’s Kevin, not many years later, sitting at a cold kitchen table with Riko across from him and Tetsuji in between - their little bodies are too big for the chairs they’ve been sat in, but they’ve been pushed forward and boosted up until they’re uncomfortably sat over a gray looking plate. They aren’t allowed eat until they can identify the protein in their breakfast, until they can recount what macros are sat on their plates. It’s a cruel and unusual thing to ask of two nine year olds, but they’re used to it by now. Kevin doesn’t like eggs anymore. Every morning it’s the same. A balanced meal, with the same amount of calories as usual, at the same time every single day of the week. Routine is good for growing minds, the master had told them, and nothing should go into a growing body without knowing exactly what it is.

The problem starts in that, when he was younger, his diet wasn’t necessarily focussed on restricting. The master wanted to ensure that Riko and Kevin were hitting their daily needs. If a plate was not empty, then a goal had not been met, and it didn’t matter how much Kevin cried that he was full, or not hungry, he couldn’t get permission to leave that table until his plate was clean. Their meal times were set and strict - any changes were usually punished in the firing of cooks or the beating of unfocused children. They were weighed each morning to ensure they were growing as they should be, gaining weight as expected, gaining muscle as required.

The older they got the more particular things got; Kevin found himself on an almost unmanageably strict diet and weight management routine - nothing unhealthy, in theory, but too healthy, instead. Times that he couldn’t deviate from, the same meals day in day out, nothing added, nothing taken away. It was when he started working harder on his physique that it became second nature - there was no space for him to be a lazy high schooler who didn’t want however many grams of protein with his dinner. That didn’t exist. Want was a non-factor. Food was always a finely crafted need.

When Exy becomes the biggest priority in his life (as if it wasn't before), when gaining muscle and working out becomes more appropriate for his age, he's introduced to intermittent fasting by a Raven dietician that should've had her license revoked. He was 14, 15, 16 and calculating the times he would be able to stop eating at in order to get a decent amount of time without food in his system. He would calculate what he would need throughout the day to eat as little as possible but to get the nutrition that he needs. They built this bulking/restricting programme into his routine, weeks where he'd eat at regular intervals throughout the day, hitting his calories and nutritional needs, and weeks where he felt like he wasn't eating much at all. It was done in a way that research deemed healthy, so who was he to argue?

So it’s normal to him, this obsession, more of a built-in requirement than something he thinks about at all. He's never been around people that don't care about things in the way he's supposed to. He doesn't remember much of his mother or her eating habits, and until he's much, much older, he isn't reminded of any of the foods he was allowed to eat as a much younger child, until a smell or a taste throws him back. (When he tells David he's never had McDonalds before, he believes he is telling the truth, but when he allows himself to try the fast food some time into the future, he remembers that taste from some memory too far away to touch. It's confusing and sickening and it feels wrong, wrong, wrong.)

I think the thing about Kevin's eating disorder is that, until he is around people that can tell him it's not normal, he doesn't see any problem with it, and even then he sees the foxes as unfocused and unserious when he's called out on it. He doesn't believe anyone when they tell him he has an unhealthy obsession with what he does and doesn't put in his body - why would he? Why would he have any reason to believe that they're right?

The way I like to imagine him understanding his issues is between a few different ways. There's David, first off, in those first couple of weeks after he broke his hand. It's beyond David how Kevin can be in their hotel room with a barely recognisable hand asking about dinner, or calculating how he could properly fast around this whole ordeal. How Kevin could barely keep down any food he was in that much pain, but still insisted on having a full meal that he forced down his throat because he had to. He watched how frustrated Kevin became when he would throw up his food, some app on his phone or a scribbled-on napkin calculating what he was missing with every day that went on where he was in too much pain to eat. There's David, who tells him he can't justify cooking him a huge meal that he can't eat, and Kevin who has a panic attack at the idea of missing a week, two weeks, of being on track. I can't play if I don't eat, he sobs, when all David is thinking about is, I'm not even sure you can play at all.

There's Abby, who does his first physical a couple of weeks into his time in PSU, who carelessly tells him his weight, and Kevin who immediately freaks out and the number being much lower than he's expecting. Abby who tells him it's okay, that he's recovering, and he who panics and asks her to buy him as many protein bars as she can find.

There's Bee, who tells him his relationship to food is unhealthy, and Kevin, who doesn't trust her at all. There's the number for an on-campus dietician and a pamphlet about eating disorders pushed across a table that he throws out into the first trash can he can find.

(There's Allison, something I could fill a whole other ask about, who can't stand watching the way that he eats, his obsessions with food, who begs Bee to do something about it because of how triggering it is for her to watch.)

So that's one side of it - his obsessive health, his over conscious eating habits, his learned behaviours that he would never deem to be unhealthy. There's that need for control over everything that goes into his body, that sends him into a spiral when he can't keep on track of things. It's the eating disorder than most people in the sports world wouldn't bat an eyelid at. He's dedicated, of course he is, he's admirably obsessed. That's just what athletes do. That's just how he was taught to care for his body. He doesn't comprehend for a long time just how damaging it is for his whole world to revolve around his next or last meal.

The other part is his body image - this one, maybe, is less tied to canon than the healthy eating, but something that I feel goes hand-in-hand with 1) him being an athlete in the public eye and 2) already having underlying issues with orthorexia and the way that he eats.

Imagine this, Kevin who has always been mindful and obsessed with the way that he looks, how much he weighs, how his body is shaped and built - he's 17, 18, doing some of his first major magazine shoots. One is for a sports magazine, or maybe a pop culture magazine, and he's doing this shoot in a few different outfits. But the last of the bunch is some shirtless shots, all harmless and not-too-revealing, but shirtless nonetheless. And Kevin has been so obsessed with his own body for so long that he knows exactly how he looks when he's unclothed. Maybe he has a mole on his lower stomach. He has a rib on his left side that sticks out a little more than the rest. His six pack isn't perfect, but it's there. He has acne on his back. Something.

Kevin does the shoot, and honestly? He feels great. He feels like he looks his best, he's happy with himself and how well he's been looking after his body, and then the magazine comes out. Then the magazine comes out, and he flicks to the section dedicated to him, and there, in a full fold-out spread, is him, shirtless. It doesn't take him long to notice the differences - he'd asked the photographer to flick through the photos at the shoot, and there's some tiny, minor editorial differences that he can't stop staring at.

There's a little bit of normal body fat that usually just hangs over his pants - it's muscle, he knows it is, and it is minuscule when he sees it on himself, but for some reason they've edited it out. The mole on his stomach is gone. The redness on his chest, on his back, the textured skin on his stomach - smooth, gone, no longer a problem. It's the first time Kevin has ever seen his body photoshopped, as if the things normal about him are a problem, and he looks closer at any shoots he's done before; tiny blemishes on his face, little scars, freckles, things he'd never even considered to be a problem, disappeared through the magic of photo editing. It's jarring, at first, but he realises then just how much it's been done. And it's not necessarily that the editors of these photos sees these things as problems, we know that, it's just how normalised it is for celebrities to be flawless at that point in time, but Kevin doesn't see it like that.

Some other times he compares edited photos and non edited photos of himself - ones where he's been made to look taller, leaner, sometimes bigger, whatever the publication required, and that manifests itself into a different obsession. It manifests into the desire to look perfect, flawless outside of the healthy eating and muscle toning he's already doing. I've always thought that if Kevin's eating disorder was to turn from something along the lines of orthorexia into something else, that that would be the reason. When he loosens up from his strict routine after joining the foxes, maybe then would come the au or the point where it'd manifest into knowingly fasting without it being a healthy-diet thing. Maybe then it'd manifest into harming his body knowingly because he feels like it'll make him look "perfect", instead of harming his mind unknowingly because he needs to be "healthy".

I should stop myself before this gets too much longer but the TL;DR is that I have a lot of thoughts about Kevin & his relationship with food and his body and I could talk about it forever. <3

[bluebasie]

Hashira Character Analysis Sexuality head canons!!

Since the canon sexualities of the Hashiras were never confirmed and will likely never be confirmed, I have taken it upon myself to come up with a sexuality head canon for each of them based on scenes from the anime, manga, and fan books, etc. This is a pretty large task and analyzing every piece of Demon Slayer media is a huge task so please forgive me if I miss a piece of information that could be interpreted as information suggesting a character’s preference for love! Keep in mind that these are just personal head canon that I wanted to share, and I will include some non-canon ships to show cases of interest. Also, disclaimer, I will not be adding a head canon for Muichiro because I genuinely don't know about him, and I don't think there is enough information about his character loving another and I also don't feel comfortable speculating about his sexuality given his age. But anyways, I will be using a series of quotes, scenes, and situations to come up with each potential sexuality for each Hashira and some may be more detailed than others due to a surplus of scenes or personal bias causing me to pay a little more attention to my favorites. Sorry in advance but I'll try and make it not as noticeable!

Starting with the Water Pillar, Tomioka Giyuu!

Starting off the bat, I really don't think that Tomioka has an interest in women. Let me explain. A huge example of this can be seen in Tomioka’s attitude towards a relationship between Shinazugawa Sanemi and Kocho Shinobu. From season one we can see Kocho’s attempts and friendship with Tomioka and just how unreceived they are despite Kocho's adamant insistence to the point of annoyance. While one could say that he just doesn't like her, it is mentioned during his soba eating contest with Tanjiro in the anime that he definitely does worry about her. Despite this he treats her like an annoyed older brother with an annoying younger sister who likes to pretend they don't care about each other but actually do. Regardless of this dynamic, Tomioka has made it clear he does not always enjoy her forced company, and he has clearly shown a reluctance to try and form a deeper bond with her. On the other hand, while Tomioka is known for being socially avoidant, he actively tries to befriend Shinazugawa where he genuinely breaks his emotionless mask that he's had on for years at the thought of closeness with Shinazugawa. He is shown to genuinely have a deep fascination with Sanemi as seen in his conversation with Tanjiro in the Light novels where they talk about Sanemi and a situation where he asked Giyuu out to eat and he rejected him because he had just eaten. After understanding why Shinazugawa had gotten angry afterwards, he smiles at the thought of Sanemi wanting to eat with him. There is also the fact that in the fanbook when it shows what each hashira thinks of each other for mitsuri it says that he thinks she shows too much skin implying that he thinks it unsafe for her without regard to the sexual implications of exposing her chest and legs due to the skirt. Also, it is said in an extra chapter looking at what each character was doing after the war, it is said that Giyuu and the Uzui family frequent the hot springs which if you didn't know are common in Japan to soak in without clothes. When in the panel at the hot springs it can be seen that Giyuu sits alone away from all of them. This again shows a small glimpse into his potential disinterest in women. Then there is the entire Sabito situation. While it is not said in Demon slayer that Giyuu and Sabito were romantically involved, it is implied throughout giyuu’s entire character story of the impact that Sabito and his death has had and continued to have on his life for years. Giyuu’s interest and want for closeness for both Sanemi and Sabito throughout the Franchise shows his preference for relationships with men rather than women in general. Because of this I would say that my head canon for Giyuu would be that he is definitely a gay man. I don't really think he’s bi just because of his lack of interest expressed in women at all in the entire franchise so I think he is exclusively attracted to men. However is implied in the final chapter that he had a ‘descendent’ implying that he ended up with a woman, he has other family as seen when we was taken away by extended family after his sister’s death and I frankly don't think it’s in character for Giyuu to find and leave a woman pregnant within the three to four years he has left with the demon mark seeing as he has little to no natural charisma and social skills as well as the fact that it would be terrible to leave a woman alone to raise a baby by herself with no close family in the 1920’s but I digress. Overall, I think that based on character interactions my final head canon for Giyuu is that he is gay.

Now onto my girl the Insect Pillar, Kocho Shinobu.

Throughout the franchise it is seen that Kocho seems to have no romantic attraction to any characters in the entire manga, anime, etc. She also is shown to have no want or need for romantic connection due to her priorities is not only demon slaying but also running a hospital and planning her own death after being blinded by the idea of revenge on the demon who had killed her sister. It is also seen that her character largely revolves around family unlike Giyuu’s character revolving around friendship/love for others. Shinobu’s motives and relationships revolve around her sisters, Kanae and Kanao, as well as Aoi and the butterfly triplets. She also seems to hold a connection with Inosuke as a sort of mother figure. Clearly, we can see that Shinobu places a higher emphasis on family, including found family, which shows her character prioritizing care for platonic relationships. She also seems to not care for romantic relationships for the future because she never planned a future for herself with her plan being to sacrifice herself to kill Douma to avenge Kanae. It is clearly shown that her priorities lay in the family she has collected over the years and creating justice for the family she has lost including her sister and the fact that her reasoning for becoming a demon slayer was the impact of her parents' death. Overall Shinobu does not have any romantic feelings for others being too clouded in her mission to kill the one who had killed her sister, and she never planned to find a partner one day due to the fact that she never planned for another day after the infinity castle. Because of her preference for platonic relationships, lack of interest in romance, and opposition to sexualizing herself as seen when she burns the original female uniform given to her, I think she is aromantic asexual. This head canon is very dear to me despite not actually being aroace myself because of her serious priority to her family that just isn't seen often in shonen media with girls who are never shown to be interested in romantic love and instead have their own story and goal to focus on. If you couldn't tell at this point, I really love Shinobu’s character.

Now I'm moving onto the Sound Pillar, Uzui Tengen.

To start us off with the obvious, Uzui is polygamous. This is cannon and not a head canon so we can add that as a fact so moving on to beyond his polygamous status I guess I am mainly interested in if he is only attracted to women or also men. Right off the bat, purely based on speculation, I would say that he would be open to something like that just due to his openness to ideas that were not common during this time period or in his communities as well as his preference for the extravagant, in his words flashy. This can not only be seen with his polygamous relationship but also with his insistence that his wives put their own lives before others which was practically unheard of in the shinobi communities that they all had grown up in. While this took a long time to adjust to for Suma, Makio, and Hinatsuru, Uzui was open to this new life priority seeing as he was the one who had come up with it. He is also seen to be open to multi-gendered bathing in the hot springs with his wives and Giyuu which could further the point that he has no preference for gender or things like that and that he just wants to have a flashy time. One final thing that could possibly point towards his lack of preference could maybe be the fact that he puts a lot of emphasis on his looks. While during this time period men usually didn't wear makeup, jewels, paint their nails, and wear shiny clothes, Uzui disregards social norms to be the best self that he can so this could possibly point towards his lack of care about love between the same gender because those things just would not matter to him. Because of his supposed ‘lack of care for gender’, I definitely think he likes both genders, but I also do think he has a slight preference for women for whatever reason due to the fact that he has three wives obviously. For Uzui’s final head canon, I would say that he’s bisexual with a slight preference for women.

Now going on to the Flame Pillar, Rengoku Kyojuro.

There also isn't much to see about relationships between Rengoku and other characters but based on his dedication to his family's traditions through Hashira lineage, breathing style, and estate, I do believe that if Rengoku was to stay alive that he would have wanted to find a wife and settle down at some point like his family before him. He is shown to love being around his mother and taking care of his brother so I can definitely see him growing to be a huge family man who just loves his wife a lot. There was a small quip in a fan book where Rengoko refers to Tomioka as handsome, but it honestly just felt like a supportive bro thing where he doesn't feel ashamed to compliment his friends. Rengoku’s relationship with mitsuri could be somewhat evidence that he does not feel much attraction for women but obviously he's not just going to be into every woman he sees, and he clearly views mitsuri as a younger sister. This only proves his family man status even more with his care to those who are younger than him. Due to his constant support of others and traditions of a traditional family I feel confident in saying that Rengoku is the number one Straight ally. He would totally be supportive if any of the Hashira ended up getting together with a person who is the same gender as themselves.

Moving on to the Wind Pillar, Shinazugawa Sanemi.

Shinazugawa is one of the characters who have seemed to show interest, whether romantic or other, but interest nonetheless in both men and women. It is seen in the fan books and the light novels that he was interested in Kocho Kanae when she was alive stating that being with her made him remember his mover and his infatuation with Tomioka over the span of the series with him getting distracted by the sound of his voice, getting visibly worked up over even the smallest of actions that he does, encouraging him in the war, and being seen having a close relationship after the final war arc. Sanemi is shown to be a very expressive individual who feels a lot of feelings towards others and some of those feelings I would say are feelings of attraction, infatuation, and even love. Sanemi is also shown to be very defensive of his feelings as seen when Tanjiro walks in on his and Tomioka’s fight which is seen to be very unguarded and raw with it being a direct expression of everything Sanemi was feeling and everything he wanted to express. However, when Tanjiro views this exchange Sanemi immediately jumps to the conclusion that Tanjiro was ‘spying on them’ as if this fight was meant to be hidden and private not for the eyes or knowledge of anybody besides Tomioka. It seems to me that Shinazugawa clearly knows what he feels about Giyuu and he is scared of it and tries to hide it from others and also himself. He ends up losing this guard after the war though when it is seen that he goes out to eat lunch with Giyuu after sorting out the miscommunication between them over the years. Because of his intense feelings towards people who are both genders, I would say that he is definitely bisexual. I don't know if he has a preference and what preference he would lean towards if he had one but for now I'm just going to say that he is bisexual.

Moving on to the Stone Pillar, Himejima Gyomei.

This one is pretty simple, I think. Gyomei is a Buddhist monk so that means he is celibate. This essentially means that he would not have a romantic partner or have children in an attempt to forward his path to enlightenment. He has never shown romantic interest in anyone throughout the span of the series, so I think it's safe to say that he is Unlabeled? I don't want to say that he is aroace because I don't know if he has romantic feelings but just doesn't act on them or if he doesn't have them at all, but I guess it would make sense if he was on the aroace spectrum. I think either aroace or unlabeled would work here and are headcanons that would make a lot of sense.

Next, we have the Love Pillar, Kanroji Mitsuri.

In connection to her breathing style, Mitsuri is a very expressive and loving person to people of all types. This does also include women as well. In her character introduction in the first season this is explicitly shown where after every character introduction of the other Hashiras Mitsuri would include a small quip about some words of admiration, she has for them including Shinobu. While Kanroji did join the Demon slayers for a husband, I think that she actually does have love for everyone regardless of gender and she just really wants a husband specifically because of social norms and the fact that she wants somebody who is stronger than her and while there are very few men who are stronger than her there are few women who fit that standard as well. Other than that, I don't think that the LOVE Hashira really has a preference for gender, and she just feels a small attraction towards everybody. I think that she could be pansexual or at least under the bisexual umbrella if anybody believes she has a preference towards one gender, but I think she just feels a good amount of love for everybody and everything with a high surplus for Iguro and therefore pansexual!

Finally, we've got the most difficult to understand in my opinion, The Serpent Hashira, Iguro Obanai. 

Iguro has got quite the history with a distaste towards women due to the trauma he had endured during his childhood. His lack of romantic affection had been carried with him for his entire life until meeting Mitsuri when he fell head over heels for her. Iguro’s love for mitsuri has frankly made it pretty difficult to understand or come up with a headcanon due to his disinterest in literally every one besides her. I don't think he would ever love another woman or show affection to another man which makes it difficult to come up with something. I guess I could say that he is unlabeled because he literally does not love anybody and has never loved anybody besides Mitsuri before. I could also say that he is Asexual because as seen in his entrapment, the fascination the snake demon had of him, her watching him at night, and his family overloading him with overwhelming food he did not want. This could all be seen as an allegory for sexual assault and/or grooming as a child and that might have caused him to want to avoid anything sexual and therefore I think it could be very possible that he could at least be under the asexual umbrella. 

That was a lot of writing so thank you if you read this far! Keep in mind that these are head canons and if you disagree on anything please don't start a war in the comments or anything. Please. Anyways I would love to hear your own head canons and what you think of this small character analysis! 

[hydriadd]

WOOO RANDOM DEATH FAMILY HEADCANONS

Lmao sorry pissa and death family nation for being somewhat inactive, take these headcanons that probably don’t align with canon as compensation

THIS IS ABOUT THE CHARACTERS NOT CONTENT CREATORS BTW

Not a single person in the Death Family is warm to touch and can often be cold before bed, their houses and nests are always somehow really warm and blanket full

Missa and Phil built a small shelf in the kitchen in the house at old spawn, Missa and Chayanne have filled it with cookbooks

Tallulah knows how to make perfume and because Missa has been away for a while, Tallulah has been making perfumes for him for when he gets back

Adding onto the last one, there have been lots of ‘failed attempts’, ie Tallulah was being nit picky with the scents and trying to figure out exactly what he likes

Missa will like anything and everything given to him, so long as it’s made with love

Phil, on the other hand, will like everything and anything given to him even if it’s given with hate, because he assumes the other has a connection to it (assumes they might just like things like he does)

When Missa first left on the old spawn Phil used to make small dinners for him that wouldn’t go bad for a while just in case Missa came back when he came back

Overtime, they would get more complex and put in the fridge with a note left for him

Every single meal, regardless of what it is, will have toast cut in the shape of Phil’s had with avocado making the green stripes, and another toast cut like a skull with blueberries for the details

Chayanne used to stress bake when his parents were gone, and that improved his skills in cooking really quickly

Tallulah walks extremely quietly, Chayanne picked this up and it scares Phil every time

Despite his parents vibes and all that, Chayanne refuses to wear black sweaters specifically, shirts are on thin ice and black k shorts or pants are a coin flip, this is because he doesn’t like flour showing on them when he doesn’t want to use an apron

Tallulah used to pick at her nails when nervous, but started picking at flowers instead and now her nails hurt if she scratches you

It doesn’t matter who you are, if you become apart of the Death Family, the first thing you’re taught is how to paint your nails

When Phil doesn’t have a bookmark with him and when his wings had healed enough, he would pluck a feather out and use it as a bookmark

Either Phil or Missa doggy ears pages in a book and genuinely can’t tell who, I just think one of them does even if they have a bookmark available

There are a shit ton of keychains on Phil’s bag, you give him one, it could be of anything (besides anything fed related), it’s going on that bag

Phil sometimes wishes he could proper speak bird, I guess, this is only so he could also flirt with and compliment Missa in another language like he does

Chayanne has crocs

When Tallulah cut her hair, she asked for a photo of Missa and mimicked his hairstyle

Whenever Missa is awake/goes to sleep with Phil, the eggs silently rejoice because those two hug each other extremely closely when they sleep

Despite Missa being gone for the longest time, when Phil didn’t come back on Mexican Independence Day, he developed a fear of him leaving him, like physically being far away when he didn’t know where he is and if he was okay, he understands now what Phil feels when he’s gone

Missa, because he’s the tallest between a bird man and children, will pick them up and spin them, even if only for a bit lmao he’s not strong

Adding onto that one, whenever Phil is too excited or stress or just overwhelmed with any emotions, Missa spins him around to help and it works for some reason

Phil started to spin himself in circles when overwhelmed and when Missa was gone

After the birdhouse and when Phil was physically alone, he used to sit by a crafting table with rocks and ores and make little figures of Chayanne, Tallulah and Missa, they weren’t the best and didn’t the proportions weren’t amazing, but he spent weeks on each one and added little faces with a marker

He left the Chayanne and Tallulah statues on their respective beds, with Missa beside the flower pot, hoping they would be replaced with the real people when he woke up

They never were, but Phil put them in the window upstairs once the eggs were back

When the eggs first went missing, Phil took out some cookbooks, and every single meal that looked frequently used/visited was made, and always left out for Missa

If they weren’t eaten, Phil would eat half of it for his dinner the next day, the other half in a fridge

He actually made Missa a fridge to put all these meal in and painted it to suit his vibes

The trash cans used to always filled with sticky notes because everyday, Phil would write ‘Dinner for you’ with a silly little doodle on it for Missa if he returned while sleeping

Tallulah writes in cursive

When Missa was gone, Phil used to write his name like Misƨa (second s is backwards) and make the tops each s look like half a heart, so it made a heart in his name

Missa picked up on this and always wrote Philza instead of Phil so he could put a heart with the z and a

Im bad at explaining so this is what I mean by their names:

[nofomogirl]

Good Omen's problem with having two canons

They're fundamentally different. That's the problem. That's my point.

For quite a while I focused almost exclusively on the new season of Good Omens, but now I am slowly delving into analysis that takes the entire show into account, and I've encountered a little obstacle. Namely, things from S1 can be really tricky to interpret.

Fair warning: this post is going to zig-zag between various points but I want you to trust me and take this scenic route with me. It will take us somewhere eventually, I promise.

The Arrangement

It's one of the core elements in the Good Omens universe and at the same time a perfect example of the issue I want to discuss. So let's have a closer look together.

In the book, the Arrangement is presented to us in two passages:

the first one, where it is first - very briefly - mentioned:

Aziraphale had tried to explain [free will] to him once. The whole point, he'd said - this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement - the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be.

and the second one, where it is properly introduced and explained:

The Arrangement was very simple, so simple in fact, that it didn't really deserve the capital letter, which it had got for simply being in existence for so long. It was the sort of sensible arrangement that many isolated agents, working in awkward conditions a long way from their superiors, reach with their opposite number when they realize they have more in common with their immediate opponents than their remote allies. It meant a tacit non-interference in certain of each other's activities. It made certain that while neither really won, also neither really lost, and both were able to demonstrate to their masters the great strides they were making against a cunning and well-informed adversary. (...) And then, of course, it had seemed even natural that they should, as it were, hold the fort for one another whenever common sense dictated. Both were of angel stock, after all. If one was going to Hull for a quick temptation, it made sense to nip across the city and carry out a standard brief moment of divine ecstasy. It'd get done anyway, and being sensible about it gave everyone more free time and cut down on expenses.

In the show, the Arrangement is presented to us in two original scenes in the cold opening of S1E3:

(I am quoting most relevant dialogues only)

537 AD, Wessex:

C: So we're both working very hard in damp places and just canceling each other out? A: Well, you could put it like that. It is a bit damp. C: Be easier if we both stayed home. If we just send messages back to our head offices saying we'd done everything they'd asked for, wouldn't it? A: But that would be lying. C: Eh, possibly, but the end result would be the same. Cancel each other out. A: But my dear fellow... well, they'd check. Michael's a bit of a stickler. You don't want to get Gabriel upset with you. C: Oh, our lot have better things to do than verifying compliance reports from Earth. As long as they get paperwork they seem happy enough. As long as you're being seen doing something every now and again. A: No! Absolutely not! I am shocked that you would even imply such a thing. We're not having that conversation, not another word!

1601 AD, The Globe Theatre:

A: I have to be in Edinburgh at the end of the week. A couple of blessings to do. A minor miracle to perform. (...) C: I'm meant to be heading to Edinburgh too this week. Tempting a clan leader to steal some cattle. A: Doesn't sound like hard work. C: That's why I thought we should... Well, bit of a waste of effort, both of us going all the way to Scotland. A: You cannot actually be suggesting what I infer that you are implying. C: Which is? A: That just one of us goes to Edingburgh, does both. The blessing and the tempting. C: We've done it before. Dozens of times now. The Arrangement- A: Don't say that! C: Our respective offices don't actually care how things get done. They just want to know they can cross it off the list.

S2 doesn't actually reference the Arrangement. But it does reuse the dialogue about free will where the 1020 date is dropped. We will get back to it.

The challenge of adapting Good Omens

Good Omens shares a certain characteristic with all of Terry Pratchett's solo books I've read - it couldn't care less about "showing instead of telling". Which I love, just to be clear. A book is a written medium. It's made with words and one of words' major strengths is that you can use them to just tell things point blanc.

Good Omens does it a lot and it's fantastic.

Look at that second passage from the book I quoted earlier.

From just those few sentences we learn a lot about the relationships between:

Heaven and Hell (opponents and competition)

Aziraphale and Crowley (two individuals in the same position and in direct contact with each other)

Aziraphale/Crowley and Heaven/Hell (field agent and a remote HQ that are not in direct contact)

Aziraphale/Crowley and Earth (two individuals and a space they live in)

Heaven/Hell and Earth (a board where the game is played, only winning or losing matters, what actually happens on a board does not)

It's really an extra condensed worldbuilding gem sprinkled with humor, so it's no surprise it's become one of the most iconic passages from the book.

I mean, just browse through some interviews with David and Michael - especially the ones from 2019 - where they explain what Aziraphale and Crowley are about. You'll be hard-pressed to find any where they don't reference that specific paragraph, consciously or otherwise.

But it's only this neat on the pages of the book, where narration like this takes mere seconds to absorb. It's impossible to convey the same information in a visual medium with anywhere near the same efficiency.

The fact that the majority of Good Omens is like this was, in my opinion, a main challenge the adaptation faced. The book is very narration-heavy. It's full of fun facts about characters, side jokes, hilarious comments, etc. Some of that precious material was salvaged by introducing God as a narrator, but there was only so much of it you could squeeze into a TV show. The rest had to either be fit into dialogues or lost in translation from the written medium to the visual one.

Obviously, in the case of the Arrangement, it was the dialogues.

Book canon and show canon

We all know they're not the same. Neil Gaiman also pointed it out several times. But I think our mistake is that we still tend to think about them as complementary.

Look at the Arrangement again. The show canon seems to merely expand on the book canon. Add extra details and fill in the blanks. The Arrangement works the exact same way, except now we also know more about how it started.

If we compile what we know from the book with what we know from the show, we get a more detailed timeline:

Crowley first proposes the Arrangement in 537 (show).

The Arrangement starts in 1020 (book), ie. Aziraphale finally agrees to it (show - deduction); we don't know for sure if it's a "basic version" (not getting in each other's way), or a "full version" (doing each other's jobs) but we can assume it's the former.

In 1601 "full version" of the Arrangement is in place for some time (they've done it dozens of times) but Aziraphale still objects and needs convincing.

But read that description from a book once more.

Does it really fit into the version of events shown in the TV series?

The Arrangement in the book is something that just happened. A natural, and in a way inevitable result of Aziraphale and Crowley's circumstances. We are never told who came up with it first because it doesn't matter. Because it could have been either of them. Because after five millennia on Earth, they were both ready to do it. They were both of the same mind. For all we know it might have been an unspoken agreement all along!

But for the show, the creators had to come up with a good reason for the Arrangement to be discussed out loud. And what could be a more natural situation for someone to describe and explain an idea than trying to sell that idea to someone else?

For that practical reason - among many others, no doubt - the Arrangement is not only explicitly Crowley's idea, but an idea Aziraphale vehemently rejects at first. He needs to be convinced and even when he finally relents he's never entirely comfortable with it. He keeps objecting and it requires Crowley's constant effort for them to keep cooperating in any way.

The fact that Aziraphale is reluctant gives Crowley a perfect reason to keep convincing him ie. talk about the Arrangement. But the fact that he needs to explain and keep convincing Aziraphale means that Aziraphale is no longer a person who understands the same things and feels the same way.

That is a huge change.

Of course, you may say that what I've written about the Arrangement in the book is just my interpretation. It's true that technically there's nothing there that would contradict the events from the show in any way. The thing is, the events in the show aren't very compatible with the overall characterization of the ineffable duo in the book.

Evolution of Aziraphale and Crowley

You might have read that our leading pair was originally conceived as a single character that Neil and Terry eventually decided to split into two separate individuals.

My reaction when I first learned about it was: "Of course they were! That makes so much sense!" Because honestly, as a person who watched the show first and then read the book, I was surprised at how few differences there were between the two in the original text. If you squint your eyes really tight, you can see how book!Aziraphale and book!Crowley are two versions of the same character. They're far more similar than their show versions.

Most importantly, their attitudes toward Heaven and Hell are pretty much identical. Perfectly mirrored in every regard. What Hell is for Crowley, Heaven is for Aziraphale. What Hell is for Aziraphale, Heaven is for Crowley. In. Every. Possible. Way.

Allow me to present some evidence from the book.

Exhibit #1: the end of the scene where Crowley convinces Aziraphale to interfere with Warlock's upbringing

'You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?' he said slowly. 'Potentially evil. Potentially good too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped,' said Crowley. He shrugged. 'Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.' 'I suppose it's got to be worth a try,' said the angel. Crowley nodded encouragingly. 'Agreed?' said the demon, holding out his hand. The angel shook it, cautiously. 'It'll certainly be more interesting than saints,' he said. 'And it'll be for the child's own good, in the long run,' said Crowley. (...)

When Crowley first points out that good and evil are just names for sides, and then insists it's something they both know, Aziraphale doesn't react in any way. That's because these aren't things that book!Aziraphale disagrees with. He does indeed know it and doesn't deny it.

Also, please note just how cynical the angel is here with his comment that influencing the Antichrist would be a more interesting project than influencing saints!

Both would be rather OOC for show!Aziraphale.

Exhibit #2: the scene just after Warlock Dowling's birthday party, when it becomes evident he is not the Antichrist

'You said it was him!' moaned Aziraphale (...) 'It was him,' said Crowley. (...) 'Then someone else must be interfering.' 'There isn't anyone else! There's just us, right? Good and Evil. One side or the other.' He thumped the steering wheel. 'You'll be amazed at the kind of things they can do to you, down there,' he said. 'I imagine they're very similar to the sort of things they can do to you up there,' said Aziraphale. 'Come off it. Your lot get ineffable mercy,' said Crowley sourly. 'Yes? Did you ever visit Gomorrah?' 'Sure' said the demon. 'There was this great little tavern where you could get these terrific fermented date-palm cocktails with nutmeg and crushed lemongrass-' 'I meant afterwards.' 'Oh.'

Can you imagine this kind of exchange in the TV series? Can you imagine show!Aziraphale being this realistic about Heaven, and show!Crowley so naive about it? There's no way.

Show!Aziraphale genuinely believes that Heaven is good at its core.

Book!Aziraphale knows Heaven isn't any different than Hell and would punish him just as ruthlessly and unfairly as Hell would Crowley.

Show!Crowley understands both Heaven and Hell on a very deep level and is highly aware of their true nature.

Book!Crowley buys a piece of celestial propaganda about ineffable mercy and actually expects Heaven to be forgiving.

Let the magnitude of that difference sink.

Exhibit #3: same scene, a bit further

'So all we've got to do is find it,' said Crowley. 'Go through the hospital records.' The Bentley's engine coughed into life and the car leapt forward, forcing Aziraphale back into the seat. 'And then what?' he said. 'And then we find the child.' 'And then what?' The angel shut his eyes as the car crabbed around the corner. 'Don't know.' 'Good grief.' 'I suppose (...) your people wouldn't consider (...) giving me asylum?' 'I was going to ask you the same thing. (...)'

This is just a cherry on top, really.

Yes, in the book, when things go pear-shaped, both Aziraphale and Crowley consider seeking asylum on the opposite side.

Do you need more proof that book canon and show canon really aren't as compatible as they may seem?

Free will

As promised, let's get back to that dialogue because while it may not be obvious at first glance it really illustrates perfectly the problem arising from balancing between two canons.

Here is the full quote from the book:

Aziraphale had tried to explain [free will] to him once. The whole point, he'd said - this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement - the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crowley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked. Crowley had thought about it for some time and, around about 1023, had said, Hang on, that only works, right, if you start everyone off equal, OK? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a castle. Ah, Aziraphale had said, that's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. Crowley had said, That's lunatic. No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

And here, for comparison, is how it was reused in S2E3:

A: There is a stolen body in that barrel! This is wicked! C: Oh, I'm down with wicked! Anyway, is it wicked? She needed the money. A: That is irrelevant. Look, I am good. You, I'm afraid, are evil. But people get a choice. You know, they cannot be truly holy unless they also get the opportunity to be wicked. She is wicked. C: Yeah, that only works if you start everyone off equal. You can't start someone off like that and expect her to do as well as someone born in a castle. A: Ah, but no, no. That's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. So Elspeth here has all the opportunities because she's so poor. C: That's lunacy. A: No, that's ineffable.

I'll be honest with you - I didn't like that scene in the show. It felt jarring and off. Aziraphale was acting like it was his first day on Earth and it was frustrating to watch.

Then, on one of the rewatches, just as I was rolling my eyes at "that's ineffable", a bulb lit in my brain. That line didn't work there because it wasn't created to be there! In the book and in S1 "it's ineffable" was kind of Aziraphale's catchphrase but in S2 it only appears this once. More importantly, in the book and S1, the fact that the angel would say that was all a build-up to the scene when he threw it in Heaven's face at the Tadfield Airbase. Using that word in S2 was like trying to make a running joke that has already reached its destination run again.

And just like that one line the entire dialogue didn't fit because it wasn't meant to be there. It was created for an entirely different context.

What's the difference?

Firstly, book!husbands' conviction was very shallow and it wasn't uncommon for both of them to spout slogans without meaning them. Therefore, book!Aziraphale's words didn't carry that much weight. The very fact that the conversation took place at the same time they formed the Arrangement tells us something about how serious he was. But show!Aziraphale's relationship with his beliefs is different, so when he says things like that it's a much bigger deal.

Secondly, the book explicitly states that Aziraphale and Crowley only developed free will on Earth, due to extended exposure to mankind. The show never really makes a stand on the matter but based on what we've seen so far I think we can safely assume that angels and demons are capable of making their own choices as much as humans do.

In other words, in its original context, the conversation was just Aziraphale talking about a concept he didn't fully grasp, quoting propaganda he didn't fully subscribe to. He was being ignorant and mildly obnoxious in an endearing way.

But using the same dialogue verbatim in the Resurrectionist carried a completely different meaning. Aziraphale who utters it in the show has no reason to be so ignorant about free will. Aziraphale who utters it in the show genuinely tries to defend Heaven. Most importantly, Aziraphale who utters it in the show, doesn't just idly bicker with his friend about general things but is judging an actual human individual that's right in front of them. That, more than anything else, makes it sound heartless and ignorant.

What is the problem with having two canons, exactly?

It's time to wrap things up.

In the opening paragraphs, I've mentioned that I've noticed the issue while interpreting scenes from S1, and yes, that was the case and I do believe that the existence of two canons is especially problematic for S1. That's because pretty much every scene in S1 is potentially like that dialogue about free will in S2, except subtler and harder to spot.

A grand majority of what we see and hear in S1 comes directly from the book. But while words and actions were kept, in some instances things that gave them their original meaning might no longer be valid in the show universe. Sometimes they easily take new meaning, and we don't even notice. But sometimes there's this dissonance that's not as easy to work around.

S1 deviated from the book and created its own canon. But the difference didn't seem to go very deep and it seemed perfectly reasonable to use some trivia from the book to shed some extra light on the content of the show. I used to do it in my head, even though I was aware of the changes that were made.

But S2 expanded the show canon so far beyond what was in the book that I'm really not sure it makes sense to compile them anymore.

There are a lot of things that were only explicitly stated in the book that I keep clinging to. But perhaps it's time to let go...

Thank you for your patience.

I know all of the above isn't exactly a revolutionary discovery, but I needed to get it off my chest before writing anything else.

[tossawary]

Regarding "The Hobbit" film trilogy, even if I ended up personally disliking and resenting how much time and focus the elf characters (and others) ended up taking away from the dwarves whom I think deserved more focus as rich internal characters (I know that studio pressures are a factor in that terrible love triangle and so on), I still... vaguely appreciate the effort to create and include named female characters like Tauriel, when the book is sadly lacking in them. I think she's fine, actually. Comparatively, there are many other elements in these adaptations that I think are much, MUCH worse.

But still, if you want to add female characters to this story, the obvious answer to me seems to be to just make half the Company into dwarf women? (With similarly fancy beards and other facial hair! Because I think that's fun.) It's just... so much easier?

Do NOT come at me with that "dwarf women are rare" bullshit. Unreliable narration. Logistically unlikely. Also, if you believe that "men are the warriors and craftsmen, the women stay at home" is how dwarf society strictly functions (boring, honestly, on top of being incredibly sexist), I could argue that the Battle of Azanulbizar and other struggles probably left a significant dent in this dwarf group's male population, leaving behind many widows and mothers without children to pick up the work. The battlefields have come to and TAKEN both Erebor and Moria from the dwarves. I see no good reason why dwarf women would not have equal investment in reclaiming their home and the gold. Many of the Company are not presented to be formally trained warriors, anyway.

Now, ideally, we could do way queerer stuff in terms of both romance and gender here, but we know cowards with veto powers would not let this happen. Still, I feel like basic genderbending would have been a very doable move and is, actually, a very reasonable ask of an adaptation that would have added some depth to the story even if you didn't acknowledge the change at all.

Like, preferably, this would be an adaptational change that would be directly addressed. Maybe all of the Company appear male at first due to traveling that way (and assumptions made by humans and hobbits), then Bilbo might learn that some of the Company are dwarf women when he becomes closer to all of them. We could have a brief scene acknowledging that dwarf women are fighting these battles for their pasts and their futures too. It doesn't have to be a big thing! They can just be there. Existing. Participating.

I even think it would be fun if two of the dwarves were actually an older married couple traveling together, instead of brothers or cousins, because loving married bickering and battle couples are fun. You can have running jokes in the background about how Smaug's invasion ruined their wedding day, and going back and forth with "you never take me anywhere nice" @ each other whenever they're stuck in Goblintown or the Mirkwood dungeons. (I like seeing good marriages & partnerships in fiction and established couples going on fantasy quests together. I just think it's neat.)

But another (sillier) direction is that you could just cast some actresses in beards to play some of the dwarves, then leave the fact that some of these characters are probably dwarf women (traveling as men) as a fun detail for the audience. Bilbo is either too oblivious to notice or much too polite to bring it up at all. It's canonically compliant to the text this way!

Now, obviously some few people would have complained that Tolkien's work was being ruined by "political correctness", but they complained anyway about Tauriel (when there are MANY other bad choices in these movies), and what worthwhile arguments could they have possibly made against genderbending some of the THIRTEEN dwarves? Like, most casual fans I know cannot NAME the entire Company, who get so little character development in the book that the films had to come up with unique designs and backgrounds for most of them anyway. Bro (directed towards someone objecting to the idea of including female dwarves), be real, there's no way that you honestly cared this much about "Nori the Dwarf" before right now.

[chubbybunny25]

Hello, I hope you’re doing well :D

Recently I was thinking about the “X falls first, Y falls harder” trope with specific regard to Percy and Nico and idk in my head you’d be the best at playing around with and breathing life into it so here goes:

Nico’s confession and how he does it is still canon (in vibe, maybe not word choice), Percy ponders that confession, breaks up with Annabeth (for reasons separate to the confession), builds a friendship with Nico, falls SO hard, but Nico has been trying so hard to get over this man at this point and put so much into feeling Platonic Thingz™️ only that his response to Percy’s confessions and advances is denials and soft rejections—dodging what look like one on one dates, “I love you” R being met with “I love you” P, and, when Percy outright says “I wanna be with you” Nico is like “Ummm… no you don’t?”—but eventually Nico confronts himself and they wind up very happily together?

Yeah :)

Hello! The “X falls first, Y falls harder” trope is definitely perfect for Percy/Nico. However, as sweet as it sounds, there's also a lot of potential for drama and.. angst.

One of the things that us, percico shippers usually love to delve on is the interactions between Percy and Nico in canon (tbotl is such a percico book 😏), hence their chemistry. But also, that's the thing!—they had so much history it would definitely take time (years, maybe) to fully unpack everything and realistically get them together.

This might be longer than I'd intend it to, so I'm putting more details under the cut:

It is undeniable that Nico indeed fell first. But what makes Percy fall harder? It's time—the time that has passed since Percy knew Nico (but Percy has to reflect on that) and the time Percy would only ever have after everything is over (outside quests and saving the world). Inevitably, it's also the same time that wasn't allowed for perc*beth to have (which might be the reason why Percy and Annabeth haven't fallen hard enough for each other, but that's for another time).

Going back to what makes it angsty.. What if Nico can't wait that long? What if by the time Percy wanted to be with him, Nico had already accepted that they're not meant to like each other that way?

As for Nico's self-confrontation, ig we're taking the hoo!Nico route where Percy hasn't done enough to be his friend (which again, Percy didn't have the time). Some of the reasons why Nico would dodge Percy's advances are 1) Nico thinks Percy is just being too kind to him; 2) Nico thinks Percy is still guilty and would want to take responsibility for how Nico turned out to be; or 3) Nico enjoys their friendship too much and thinks that being "more" would destroy everything between them.

I took the "mild" route in one of my fics because I gave Nico time to go away and Percy stepped back. But with your ask, if Nico and Percy are always together, and Percy is more.. forward, I think no matter what Percy does, it wouldn't be enough to make Nico believe that Percy loves him.

Again, the waiting time here is crucial. Yet we know that patience is never Percy Jackson's strong suit. So Percy just.. snaps, either by outright kissing Nico or (adding drama here) yelling something along the lines of "I love you, Nico! Why wouldn't you believe me?" Going from here, there has to be an outside intervention (e.g. Hazel or Jason or Reyna or even Persephone if Nico runs to the Underworld)—anyone or anything that would make Nico realize that he and Percy actually can have the chance.

It ends maybe with Percy finding Nico, Percy saying "Fine, if you don't believe me, just never leave like that again. I'd take what you'll give me." And that's when Nico sees himself in Percy—that somehow cements his belief, that maybe, Percy Jackson has fallen for him, too.

Whoo.. I hope you're ready for such a ramble, because I can never stfu about them. Thanks for the wonderful ask 💀🌊

[thelargefrye]

FIRST MEETING MONTAGE … head canons

pairing : ateez x f!reader (separately)

genre : idol au, headcanons, each member has their own mini genres and tropes, future dad!ateez au

warnings : language, a nose bleed (jongho), some members are longer than others! sorry! also i’ve never been to a fansign so i’m only going by what i think happens 🥲

note : a remake and return of the mr. housedad series! been thinking about this for a while, so yep! here it is, enjoy… feedback is appreciated

how you and ateez met, setting your future in stone.

KIM HONGJOONG x ARTIST!F!READER ( fake dating, strangers to friends to lovers )

you felt stupid for some reason. like you should have never agreed to doing the blind date your friend insisted on setting up for you.

mainly because right now you are getting stood up, it’s been twenty minutes past the time you were suppose to meet your date and now you just feel silly. maybe you should just go home.

“um, excuse me, are you y/n?” a voice asks behind you and you turn to see probably one of the most handsomest men you have ever seen.

everything about him was just so put together. his split hair being eye catching and his outfit just being so stylish makes you feel underdressed if you’re being honest.

“yes! I’m y/n, are you hongjoong?”

“haha, yes i am, sorry i was late. i got caught up with work,” he says before he’s walking you towards the restaurant doors. “shall we go in and talk?”

you nod and can’t help the heat going to your cheeks as he opens the door for you before following close behind you into the restaurant.

“to be honest, i only agreed to this date because my friend has been pressuring me to try and date,” he says and you feel an odd twist in your stomach. he didn’t even want to be on this date.

so that’s why he was late, you think to yourself as you nod at his words. granted at first you weren’t that excited to be going on a blind date, but you really did want to get out there and start dating.

“my friend insisted i go on this date as well. she tells me that maybe going on a few dates here and there would help with my creative block that i’ve been in for the past few months,” you tell him with a laugh and he nods at your words.

“i hate creative blocks,” he says as he runs a hand through his split colored hair. “what do you do for a living?”

“i’m an artist. i do a lot of commission paintings and illustrations for children books. i also do paintings for myself and a few galleries here and there when they want me.”

“you’re an artist? that sounds amazing,” he says and you notice the immediate stars appearing in his eyes and you feel a sudden boost in your ego. “i think if i wasn’t so in love with music, i would definitely have become a painter.”

“hey, i suddenly just had an idea,” hongjoong says which quickly earns your attention as you look up from your food. “this might seem crazy, but what do you think about pretending to date?”

“pretending to date? what do you mean?”

“well it’s obvious that i’m not interested in actually dating and you’re in a creative block, so what if we help each other out. we pretend to date so i can get my friend off my back and when we do hangout, i help you try to get out of your creative block. a win-win if you ask me.”

god, what kind of fanfic are you living in right now. fake date an idol? that sounds like a recipe for disaster, but you can’t ignore how tempting it sounds. you really do need to get out of your creative block soon in time for the next exhibit and maybe doing painting based on love could be a good thing to try.

“okay, let’s do it.”

hongjoong smiles at your words before saying, “can’t wait to fake date you!”

PARK SEONGHWA x IDOL!F!READER ( strangers to lovers, nct added member )

you looked so pretty, sitting there along with the other hosts is what seonghwa thought as he watched you from where he was sitting with his members. he licked his lips, stars in his eyes as he still couldn’t wrap his head around seeing you.

his members would tease him later but he didn’t care. you’ve been his celebrity crush for a while now, even back when he was a trainee, he’s adored you.

and recently he found out that he was your ideal type. he felt like it was a huge ego boost. he wanted to talk to you, but at the same time he was nervous.

some of his members — i.e wooyoung and san — told him he should give you his number while they were in the show. he tried arguing with them, telling them no and that he honestly couldn’t because what if you rejected him. he couldn’t handle such a rejection from you.

“you should just try it, hyung, i’m sure she’ll say yes,” san said and once they all took a break in filming it was san who pushed seonghwa over towards you.

“hi, um, i’m ateez’s seonghwa,” he says and cringes at how he chose to introduce himself.

“oh, hi, it’s nice to you meet finally you seonghwa! i’m nct’s y/n,” you say as the two of you bow to each other.

“i just wanted to say that i’ve been a big fan of yours for a while and wanted to know if you would want to hangout sometime?”

you look surprised by his sudden question and seonghwa wonders if maybe he crossed a line, but your words are quick to make him think otherwise.

“o-of course! i would love to hangout sometime!” you say and seonghwa can’t help but find you extremely adorable in this moment.

“do you… maybe want to exchange numbers?”

“yes, sure, of course!” you say and seonghwa laughs at your response as he pulls his phone out while you do the same. you two are quick to exchange numbers before the producers are calling for everyone to return to the spots. “i guess we’ll talk later, right?”

“definitely.”

“great, good luck on your group’s performance!” the two of you wave before you walk off and seonghwa can’t help the lovestruck feeling that over takes him.

“soooo… how did it go?” san asks coming up to the eldest member with a sly smirk.

“shut up,” seonghwa says before shoving san slightly and walking back to join the rest of the members.

JEONG YUNHO x GAME DEVELOPER!F!READER ( strangers to lovers, dad!yunho )

you were use to being alone. especially since you started living abroad in korea away from your friends and family you had grown up with and cherished. you often relied on memories to keep you company, but recently one of your coworkers told you a solution to your loneliness.

“a dog?” you had only thought about getting a pet a few times, but concluded that maybe getting one while being abroad wasn’t the best idea. your job wasn’t always the most stable as any game you and your team were working on could get cancelled last minute. plus you were still slowly trying to figure out how to take care of yourself, let alone a dog.

“you should think about it! there’s an adoption center nearby, so maybe check it out sometime,” they told you and only agreed to think about it.

and think about it you did because the next thing you knew, you were making your way to the adoption center.

you were going to adopt a dog.

you decided that maybe it was for the best to adopt a dog, maybe having someone else to take care of would make you less lonely. and of course it would get you out of the house more…

and that’s exactly what is happening three weeks after you adopted a cute labrador retriever named lily who you just immediately connected with. she has a lot of energy, that’s for sure but you don’t mind.

that’s actually how you found yourself at the park, playing fetch with her. throwing the bright yellow ball and watching lily as she goes and retrieves it.

you watch as she runs back to you, ball in her mouth as she drops it in front of you. picking it up, you toss it and your surprised by how far it goes. watching the ball land in the ground and roll to a complete stranger, a black cap on his head and mask pulled up over his face. the stranger picks the ball up right as lily comes barreling towards him.

“wait, lily!” you shout as you watch her pounce the man and you immediately take off towards the two. “oh my gosh, i am so sorry!”

the man laughs as he shakes his head and gives lily the ball. lily turns to run back to you, but seems surprised and happy to see you right there next to her.

“no worries, i probably shouldn’t have picked the ball up,” he says and even if he’s wearing a mask, you can tell he’s smiling from how his eyes crinkle.

“still i am so sorry, i just adopted her and we’re still learning,” you say, feeling an embarrassed heat take over your face.

“really, don’t worry about, but if you still feel guilty how about you take me to get some coffee? i know a good dog friendly café that’s nearby,” he says as he bends down to pet lily.

wow, he’s smooth. “o-oh, uh, sure! um, i’m y/n and this is lily!” you say and cringe at how a little too excited you seemed.

“i’m yunho.”

KANG YEOSANG x FASHION STUDENT!F!READER ( idol and fan to friends to lovers )

you actually managed to get into a fansign. and one for your ult group nonetheless. you were so excited that you almost threw up, twice. but you didn’t! then as the day drew closer, you got more nervous. you were worried about what would happen if you accidentally made a fool of yourself in front of your favorite group.

oh god what if you tripped! no, don’t think like that because then you will definitely trip.

when the day finally came, you made sure to dress cutely. despite knowing that none of the members would probably remember you, you still wanted to look cute so that you could look back fondly on this memory.

however, what was suppose to be a good day with meeting your favorite group soon turned into probably the worst day you’ve had in a while.

first you had to chase after your cat after she managed to escape your apartment. then you miss your bus by a second — you literally watched it take off as you were running down the crowded street to make it. so in a hurry you grab a cab in order to take you to the fansign. thankfully you managed to grab a cab fairly easy and arriving there was also just as easy.

however, it started going down once again when you tried to enter the fansign and the guard stops you.

“sorry this is a fake ticket,” he says before handing you your paper back. you’re completely shocked as you look at him.

“w-what?” you are easily pushed aside by the other fans behind you and you let them as you are still in shock. you were scammed into believing you had actually won a fansign with ateez.

what kind of cruel world is this you think as you walk outside the building and onto the steps. you know you probably shouldn’t be sitting here, but your legs don’t allow you to go any further. even after the fansign started, you find yourself still sitting on the steps. you can only faintly hear ateez from inside along with all the lucky atiny who didn’t get scammed.

when the fansign is over and all the fans had seemingly left, you find yourself on a nearby bench. you can’t help but look at your ateez album and wondering how this day that was suppose to be a great one turned out to be so… disheartening.

“excuse me,” a deep voice startles you from your thought and you turn to see… yeosang standing next to you. “did you go to the fansign?” he asks, gesturing to your album.

“o-oh, no, i didn’t. i had a fake ticket,” you say before you quickly wonder why you are explaining it to him.

“oh, i’m sorry…” he says trailing off before you watch something click in his head as his whole face lights up, “do you mind if i take it for a moment?” he asks, again gesturing to your album and you willingly hand it over. “what’s your name?”

“y/n.”

once he has your album, he motions for you to say before he dashes off back into the building. it’s several minutes later when he returns and hands you back your… now signed album.

“thank you for supporting ateez,” he says with a small bow before a man — who you assume is his manager — calls for him and yeosang is soon disappearing back into the building with a small smile and wave as a quick goodbye.

what… just happened? you look at your album, quickly opening it and flipping through the pages to notice how each member had signed it. however you notice something different when you get to yeosang’s pages.

“sorry you got scammed, but hopefully this makes it better! btw you looked cute, so smile okay? xx-xxx-xxx”

did you just get kang yeosang’s number?

CHOI SAN x COLLEGE STUDENT!F!READER ( idol and fan to friends to lovers )

no way. no fucking way. this was not happening. there was no way THE choi san was standing right in front of you while you dressed like an elderly woman. not that there was anything wrong with dressing like an elderly woman, but meeting your bias while dressed as such was not ideal.

“oh? are you the exchange student my grandma was talking about?” oh shit, his grandmother talked about you to him.

“u-um, y-yeah, i’m y/n,” wow, smooth y/n, real smooth.

“ah, well if you need help with anything while i’m here let me know,” he says with a smile before turning and walking away leaving you a little dumbfounded.

you watch him walk back into the room that is only just down the hall from yours and felt your heart jump down to your stomach. holy crap, choi san is staying only a few rooms from you. what kind of fanfic trope is this?!

this had to be a dream, this had to be anything but real. you refuse to believe it. you slowly closed your bedroom door, walked over to your bed, and grabbed your pillow before screaming into it.

these next two weeks were going to be interesting, that’s for sure.

SONG MINGI x WEBTOON ARTIST!F!READER ( strangers to friends to lovers )

mingi felt weird. not weird in a bad way, but just felt… weird. actually he wasn’t really sure how to explain it. his mom had asked him to go greet their new neighbor who was his age.

was this her way of trying to get him to start dating? to have him meet her new neighbor and have them just… fall in love?

but even if it was weird, mingi didn’t argue or question his mom and so that’s how he found himself standing in front of your door ready to knock and introduce himself.

when he did knock, it took a few minutes before someone eventually came to the door. and mingi won’t lie, you looked like you hadn’t seen another human for a few days with how disheveled you looked.

he wasn’t trying to judge you or anything, but it was quite obvious.

“can i help you?” you ask after you both stood there in silence for a few moments.

“o-oh, um, i’m mingi. my mom lives next door and wanted me to give you this as a welcome present,” he says presenting the kimchi he almost forgot he had in his hands.

you glanced down at his hands and noticed the container of kimchi. he seen you hesitate for a moment before you took it with gentle hands and that was probably the softest thing he’d witnessed from you since meeting you less than five minutes ago.

“thank you,” you said before going back into your apartment and closing the door behind you.

“so how did it go?” his mom asked once he returned. mingi still felt like the interaction happened a little too fast for his liking.

“it was… okay. she’s seems… interesting.”

“good! maybe this could be the start of a new friendship!”

“yeah, a new friendship.”

JUNG WOOYOUNG x IDOL!F!READER ( strangers to friends )

“just talk to him, y/n, what could go wrong?” your group member insisted as you both stood near the vending machines at music show.

“a lot could go wrong and then i would just end up looking stupid in front of him and never be able to show my face in front of him again,” you told her and she gave you a pointed look as if to say really? but yes, really!

“come on, y/n, why don’t we go visit him and his group under the guise of giving them our album? maybe then you can get the chance to talk to him,” she suggests and you are about to deny it when she stops you and drags you back to your group’s dressing room.

which is how you all end up knocking on ateez’s dressing room door, your group’s album clutched tightly in your grip. when ateez’s manager opens the door, your leader bows and introduces you all and tells him how you wish to gift ateez a copy of your album.

“hello, we are visage,” you all say in unison before ateez is quick to also introduce themselves.

“we were just wanting to gift you all a copy of our album,” your leader says before gesturing to you who was still tightly holding onto the album.

your other group member gives you a light push which makes you step forward. your eyes flicker between wooyoung and the album before you’re quickly holding the album out for the dancer to take. could you have been any more obvious about your feelings? probably, but you didn’t want to think about it.

you really wish a giant hole would open up on the ground and swallow you up right now. wooyoung only smiles as he takes the album from you and you step back in your spot between your members.

your leader and hongjoong speak a little bit more before your group leaves and once back in the safety of your dressing room, you collapse onto the leather couch. again, can a giant hole just please swallow you up. you lay there for several minutes, just accepting that you probably made a fool of yourself in front of your crush.

ding! you look up and at your phone to see you got a text from an unknown number

‘hey this is wooyoung! love your dance covers let’s hangout sometime and film one together!!!’

CHOI JONGHO x PRODUCER!F!READER ( co-workers to lovers )

jongho felt his jaw dropped when he was told that you would be working for kq and especially with ateez. how the company managed that is beyond him, but he’s not complaining.

of course his first time meeting you could have gone better than him causing you a nose bleed, but alas not everything goes as plan.

jongho doesn’t even remember all of what happened. one minute he was waiting to record his lines when he had to use the bathroom. so when he opens the door, he opens it smacking you in the face and watching you fall to the floor. your bag falling and papers scattering around you and jongho feels like his soul should have left his body.

“oh fuck, i am so sorry, are you okay?” he asks quickly bending down to help you pick your stuff up when he looks over to notice some blood dripping down your nose. jongho feels even worse as he immediately tries to help you even quicker. “oh god, your nose is bleeding! again, i’m so sorry!”

“i-it’s okay! i wasn’t paying any attention. i should be the one apologizing,” you say as you take a tissue out and attempt to stop your nose bleed.

“i can’t believe i gave my favorite producer a nose bleed,” jongho mumbles as you can’t help but laugh at how cute he is acting. the pout on his face doing wonders to make him fit into the role of the maknae, that you are well aware that he doesn’t always fit into.

“i’m your favorite producer?” you ask, eyes shining and jongho realizes that you heard him.

“y-yes, i love a lot of your songs even your solo stuff. your first album has always been a personal favorite of mine,” he says as he helps you stand, your bag now in his hands as he gently opens the door for you.

“well i’m a fan of your voice,” you say as you take your bag from him, “and i can’t wait to work with you jongho,” you say before walking into the studio and leaving jongho by himself in the hallway.

“she likes my voice.”

tag list : @invuwrld @frankenstein852 @watamotee33 @kawennote09 @mixling-blog @marahleiwhen @kpopnightingale @harry-the-pottypus @rdiamond2727 @sanniesbum @marvelahsobx @khjcoo @mysticfire0435 @exfolitae @kryybebe @dementedaly @simonswhore @cvpitvno @kangskims @moonm1st

[screamforyani]

family ties

pairing ↠ miguel o’hara x (f) shapeshifter!reader

genre .. warnings ↠ angst, violence, recurring mentions of death and murder, shapeshifter!reader, non-spiderperson reader, enemies to lovers esque, parenting!au, neighbor!au

summary ↠ six years ago, your ex-fiancé and the father of your baby was killed in a fatal incident involving the head of alchemax. ever since then, you’ve devoted yourself to a life of crime to take care of your daughter. by day, you fall deeper in love with your neighbor, and by night, you come face-to-face with spider-man.

word count ↠ 14.5k

a/n ↠ most of this is set in mc’s universe so anything’s canon here. this is a repost!!!! feedback is appreciated!!!!!!

if anybody asked, you would tell them that doing a crime lord's bidding was nothing to write home about. it was assignment after assignment to keep a roof over your head and putting up with a nineteen-year-old (at least you think he's nineteen) with a reckless mouth. his tongue had gotten him into unimaginable trouble, that was for sure. not just him, but you. curse you for being benevolent enough to not let the poor kid die.

but on the other hand, it could sometimes be rewarding. sometimes.

the venue was sizeable and bustling with rich people. as expected, given the occasion. rod malone-fisk would be hosting an event with his daddy’s money, though most significantly, somewhere upstairs lodged their family’s priceless gemstone.

drawn to your partner’s chest, you could easily pass for a lovely rich couple eager to stuff yourselves full of expensive appetizers, which you had to subtly swat hobie’s hand to keep him from grabbing. he was sporting a tailored red suit to tone with your deep crimson gown, each of you donning masks to match (given that it was a masquerade). 

it was strangely foreign to see hobie outside of his typical punk fits. none of the boots and chains and leather jackets - which looked cool on him, not that you would ever admit it - though he still had his unshakable attitude.

your partner in crime scanned the menu with disdain. “have you seen the menu? what the hell is a beef bourguignon?”

“you butchered the shit out of that,” you told him none too politely, wincing at the horrid pronounciation. “and stop being a baby. i can make you something later if you want.”

hobie dramatically put his hand over his heart. “you know, you treat me like your own son.”

“somebody has to,” you mumbled under your breath.

hobie obviously heard that, and before he could make a comment that would more than likely blow your cover, marsai interrupted through your ear pieces, “um, guys?”

hobie, sobering, asked, “any updates, mar?”

“i just hacked the surveillance system. as expected, the door to the diamond room has tight security. now, i can get you a distraction in roughly two hours, but the rest of the weight is yours to pull.”

marsai was your guy in the chair and that was her way of saying that she could get you both in, but she couldn’t get you out. 

“got it,” you said. 

for half an hour, you and hobie pretended to give a damn about what rodney had to offer, other than his father’s precious gemstones. even through the mask you could tell hobie was bored half to death by the monologue and the second it was over he didn’t hesitate to drag you to the dance floor.

the plan was etched into your memory. including the initial, backup, and safety plan. you were just waiting for marsai to give you the go-ahead. biding your time, one would put it. then you’d bolt upstairs, steal the gem, and book it.

this boring event being a test of your patience was your only concern. it gave you too much time to fret, to worry about what meadow was doing and if she was alright. of course, she’s alright, you thought to yourself. you left her in the most trustworthy of hands. nobody else would do.

“marsai, you’re killing me. it’s been fifty-leven hours,” hobie groaned impatiently for only you and the woman in his earpiece to hear.

you snickered tiredly and added in agreement, “give me any more chances to drink vodka and i might not be able to walk in a straight line. let alone carry out the mask.”

“okay, okay. give me, like, five minutes.”

devon, your getaway driver, tapped into the line and said, “hurry up. i’ve been waiting outside for like an hour.”

“only an hour?” you asked curiously. to be honest, he had been so silent that you’d forgotten he was even there. 

“oh, yeah. i got hungry and went for a burger.”

hobie snarled, voice dripping with obvious envy, “lucky you.”

you laughed.

not even a minute later, the fire alarms began to cry, alerting everyone about a potential fire. you immediately made a beeline for the stairs in spite of the crowd of people flocking towards the exit. you wanted to throw your stilettos over the railing and possibly hit rodney square in the head.

hobie was right behind you. the diamond was in a room down the hall on the far right end of the corridor. it was the perfect place to corner a potential thief.

you looked suspicious running the opposite direction as everybody else, but fortunately for you and your partner, everyone was too scared for their life to question you. even if they noticed, they sure as hell wouldn’t stop and ask why. not with their lives in jeopardy. 

marsai announced in your ears, “most of the security have evacuated their posts, but there’s a couple coming upstairs. they’re not far behind you.”

“i’ll take care of it,” hobie said without leaving much room for argument. he spared you one little look before spinning on his heels.

you drew your gun from the slit in your long gown and continued to pace down the hall, never stopping no matter what. time was most valuable in predicaments like this and you had very little. you needed to be calculated. 

there was no security guarding the door when you arrived. piece of cake, you thought to yourself smugly. and jotted down a mental note to definitely reward yourself with a sickly sweet desert after tonight. 

barging inside, you instantly spotted the gem and wasted not another second to swipe a tiny device from your thigh holster, hurling it at the glass case. it ruptured on impact, shattering on itself. you swiped the jewel and turned.

another voice spooked you and abruptly said, “thank you. i’ll take that.”

the stranger didn’t even let you get a word in before he was snapping the priceless gem out of your clutches, and in a blink, he was running for the door. it only took one glance for you to recognize your unexpected company as the masked vigilante known as spider-man. 

you hated that guy. kind of. on the one hand, you weren’t against him making new york city a safer place for your daughter, but on the other hand, all he did was get in the way of your work and you needed to be able to provide for her.

you aimed your weapon, but spider-man was quick to smoothly slip to the side, quite literally dodging a bullet without even turning around once. “nice shot,” he taunted, pursuing his escape unscathed.

hot on his heels, your stilettos clicked loudly against the cool marble floor. spider-man couldn’t even made it out the door before you were on him, sending him off of his feet. he swore under his breath but never dropped the gem, and you feared he would destroy it with with his grudging clasp. before you could move again, he stole your gun no longer strapped to your thigh, grabbing it with his webs and tossing it across the room.

“how clever,” you snarled, snatching the gem and running the opposite direction.

the masked self-proclaimed superhero charged after you with featherlight, nimble steps that you matched with a graceful agility. you didn’t bother to try to take back your weapon, because you weren’t aiming to wound or maim and there was no need for a body count. 

the two of you danced around the broken case, careful not to slip in glass shards. it reminded you of children playing tag. with you holding the weapon now, you were undoubtedly it.

spider-man pranced around the glass, walking in a circle. he could have easily taken you down and he knew it. he was bigger than you, quicker than you, and stronger than you, but he didn’t particularly want to use his strength on you.

“i don’t want to hurt you,” admitted spider-man in a way that almost came off as a warning. he was stepping around you in the way someone would walk around a sleeping dragon.

you scoffed, “oh, don’t worry, baby. you won’t.”

the feeling was not mutual. you promptly grabbed some glass shards in your black gloves - never taking your eyes off of him - and chucked them his direction. the stranger missed them narrowly, dancing out of their way. you had to give credit where credit was due. this human spider was better than any opponent before him.

in the second it took him to skate out of harm’s way, spider-man inched closer to you, enough for the diamond to be at arm’s length of his body. you slid, the jewel taking to the air. he smoothly caught you and the diamond in his arms all in the same breath, and your shock granted him a few seconds leeway for escape.

for a second, you were too stunned to take action. then, you noticed he was getting away and it wore off as quickly as it came, with you right behind him. 

you took off one of your stilettos and chucked it towards him with superhuman speed like a weapon, and he swore again, whirling around quickly enough to catch the other one before it could strike him too. “woman, you’re insane,” he hissed, eyeing you darkly as you approached him.

“i’ve heard that one before,” you teased, eyes still on the prize. “do better.”

you reached for his mask and he quickly caught your hand before you could reveal his identity, though with your spare hand you snatched the jewel while he was off guard and made a beeline for the exit, your bare feet slapping against the floor. jesus fucking christ, where the hell was hobie when you needed him?

spider-man flung the broken glass case in front of the door with his webs in a final attempt to prevent you from fleeing, immediately giving chase. it was too bad that you had already suddenly shifted towards the window, making him stop short of the broken shards, and stood at the edge of the tall window with the gem pressed to your bosom.

“this has truly been fun, spidey,” you told him, just as you fell out of the window. 

and he would have caught you. he would have stopped going easy on you, would have wrapped this tango up if it weren’t for the fact that you were nowhere to be found. he peered out of the window and saw nobody falling to their death. he crawled up the building and swung from place to place, but it was like you had disappeared in the shadows.

literally.

crawling undetected across the gloomy crevices of the building before taking to the air, you made it to the other side of the building and to the getaway car.

hobie was sitting in the backseat and was baffled when he heard the gem drop just before he saw a jet-black raven that he recognized as your go-to bird identity. “oh, hey,” he said coolly. “how’d it go?”

you transformed back into your original form and hobie glanced away. it was never a process he wanted to look at. not some perfectly animated transition like in the movies. you ignored him and said, “devon, drive.”

“it’s about time,” devon said, speeding off.

“my bad. i had a surprise guest,” you droned, massaging the balls of your feet while hobie placed the gem in the front seat and even wrapped the seatbelt around what would’ve been its chest if it had one. which wasn’t the most brilliant idea, given that rodney was definitely going to report it missing and though the windows were tinted, the roof of the car was down.

devon pushed, “as in?”

“as in spider-man,” you replied coolly. jesus, your feet were killing you. marsai should not have let you walk around in stilettos for hours.  no matter the reward of your sacrifice.

hobie was none too pleased by the intervention. “how in the hell did he know we were going to be there?”

you could see devon’s baffled face from the rear-view mirror. “that’s something to have marsai follow up on.”

you shook your head, bemused and engrossed in thought. your first encounter with spider-man. how exciting. “he caught me when i was about to fall even after i threw glass at him.”

“you were about to fall?” hobie asked, amused. “what is it you always say? never get caught slipping? you quite literally-”

“never get caught slipping. i know. thanks,” you finished, finally clicking your seatbelt into place. 

“aw, shit. she’s in love with spider-man,” devon quipped, earning a sharp glare from the backseat.

hobie laughed. obnoxiously. 

“can you guys shut the hell up already?” you hissed. “i’m just surprised. he treated me better than the two of you even as i came for his life.”

“alright. don’t call us when he throws you in a prison cell,” hobie said blankly.

you rolled your eyes.

the drive was longer than usual because devon wanted to ensure that there were no cops tailing him, aimlessly coasting around town for a while until ultimately taking a very elusive route to your house where he eventually dropped off you and hobie, who didn’t hesitate to remind you about that dinner offer.

when you opened the door to your house, you barely even stepped inside before meadow forwent her coloring book and ran over to you, shouting, “mommy!”

“hey, baby,” you said, watching her short arms wrap around your leg. “how was your day?”

“it was fun. tt took me to the park and she said we can go again tomorrow!” meadow exclaimed giddily, literal stars in her eyes. nothing made you more soft than the sight of your baby girl at the end of a long day.

“that sounds like loads of fun,” you told meadow, gently patting her back.

meadow went to hobie next, calling out for him, and he picked your six-year-old daughter up in his arms. “‘ey up, cheeto. did you make any friends at the park?”

cheeto was the nickname hobie had given your daughter four years back after he saw her eating a bag of cheetos. for whatever reason, it just stuck. everyone called her that, even you every now and then.

“i did,” meadow said, noticably less enthusiastic than before. and it took a lot to get your daughter down in the dumps. she was just so full of life and you wanted her to hold onto that innocence for as long as she could. “but there was this bully. he wouldn’t let me get on the swings.”

that got hobie’s attention, as well as yours. he sat her back down, flexing his muscles and making punching motions. “what? do you want me to handle him for ‘ya? look, i learned some new moves.”

meadow was her giggly self again, watching hobie box the air. 

you, on the other hand, were not happy. you crouched to be eye-level with her and said gently, “if there’s somebody bothering you, cheeto, i can always take to their parents.”

“that won’t be necessary,” came another voice, and you quickly glanced up to see your best friend of many years, lani lee. she was also the one and only person you trusted to babysit your daughter, although you would consider letting hobie watch her for forty-five minutes maximum. “i already talked to the little boy and his parents. he won’t be bothering her any more. i made sure of it.”

“what would i do without you,” you said, standing up to pull your best friend in for a hug while hobie entertained meadow. 

“die of paranoia, probably.”

you rolled your eyes, though she wasn’t wrong. it eased your nerves a lot bit to know your daughter was under the watchful eye of someone like a sister to you. you pulled back, noticing she had her purse in hand, and asked, “you aren’t staying for dinner?”

“oh, no. i can’t. i have a… date,” lani said, the fleeting pause and her constant awkward glimpses between you and meadow making her implications obvious. 

hobie, who also got the memo, snickered. “a date, you say?” 

“stay out of grown folk’s business,” you and lani said simultaneously. 

“mind you, i’m nineteen! i can drink!”

“in london, yes. in brooklyn, no,” you said under your breath, almost hoping he didn’t hear you. you weren’t inclined to have this conversation for the umpteenth time.

“well, i’m gonna head out. you kids have fun,” lani said, slipping out of the house before hobie could make a quip. 

instead, hobie turned to you and asked, “yo, mind if i crash here for the night?”

“you know you can stay whenever you want, hobie,” you told him, heading to the kitchen to prepare dinner. 

“sweet. i’m going to go settle down and i’ll watch cheeto while you cook.”

that’s sweet of him, you thought. you acknowledged him with a nod and immediately washed your hands.

after steaming up the kitchen and donning a more casual outfit you called the youngins out for dinner. hobie, the gentleman he was, helped you set the table and the three of you ate dinner together as if you were one big family. you didn’t mind it. usually, meadow was fed and asleep by the time you got back from work, so you warmed up whatever lani had cooked and ate alone. if lani had time, she’d stay to chitchat, but what was even more rare was you getting home early enough to eat dinner with your daughter.

you made sure lani had whatever resources she needed to take care of meadow and herself. she insisted that you didn’t need to compensate her, but you didn’t care. you couldn’t thank her enough for stepping in when you couldn’t be there like you wanted.

meadow got sleepy after dinner, like she usually did after eating, and you tucked her in, whispering, “goodnight. mommy loves you very much.”

“goodnight. i love you, too. very much,” meadow said sleepily, snuggling her favorite stuffed animal. it was a dragon named cheeto junior, much to your amusement.

you giggled, pressing a kiss to her forehead and turning on her nightlight before shutting the door behind yourself.

then, you grabbed a plate you’d set aside and wrapped up and you even made a total of twenty steps to the front door before hobie appeared out of nowhere - you could of swore he was washing the dishes a minute ago - and asked nosily, “is that for the miguel guy you’re crushing on?”

“jesus fucking christ, hobie. i’m not crushing on him,” you said, maybe a little in denial. sitting at the table eating dinner with someone other than your shadow made your chest hurt, which factored into the denial. “he just helps out a lot. mows the yard and… stuff.”

��and stuff,” hobie repeated with air quotes, because apparently you needed an echo, as if you weren’t loud enough. “that’s rubbish.”

you groaned, “look, i’m just repaying the favor. not that that’s any of your business. go to sleep, kid.”

hobie threw up his hands, mumbling, “fine, fine. but only because i’m knackered.”

you slipped out the front door, somewhat antsy, not that you would ever admit it. you just got all jittery around miguel for whatever reason. maybe it was because he was attractive, which you had no problem admitting. very attractive.

you remembered the first time meeting him. 

it was a saturday and you were cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing down every surface and wiping every dish clear of stains and clearing out the fridge. you’d only taken your eyes off your daughter for a second before you looked back up and noticed her absence. 

your heart immediately sank with panic. “meadow?” you called out. 

no answer.

you had to have flipped over the entire living room and been on your way to her bedroom before you realized the front door was more than a little cracked just as you passed by the foyer, impenetrable fear spreading through your body like wildfire.

you immediately stepped outside of your house, frantically calling out, “meadow!”

“is this who you’re looking for?”

you spun around eighty degrees, spotting meadow walking through your yard with your neighbor. you sighed out in relief, rushing over to swoop your baby girl in your arms. “sweetheart, i’m so glad you’re okay,” you told her. then, you your tone turned chastising. “don’t you ever leave this house again without me or tt, you hear me?”

meadow looked confused for a split-second, but seeing your brows furrowed with worry and your features tensed with panic, she seemed to have understood that she had messed up somewhere along the line. “‘m sorry, mama.”

you sat her down, noticing the dollar bill in her hand. “now where on earth did you get that?”

“i asked mr. o'hara if i could have a lollipop but he said it’s very bad to take food from strangers, so he gave me a dollar.”

that was when your vision panned to your next-door neighbor, miguel o’hara, who was standing there with a small smile on his face. your eyes were watering and you tried not to let them fall, repeatedly telling him, “thank you.”

miguel shook his head, a palm flat on his hips. “it’s no problem. i just wanted to make sure the little girl got back home safe.”

ever since that moment, you’d been extremely grateful for miguel. to say nothing of the fact that he did a bunch of yard work out of the sheer kindness of his heart. he insisted multiple times that he didn’t need any reward, but you had to argue. there was a chance you might not have ever seen meadow again had he not brought her back to you. if you lost your daughter, you would have nothing left.

so, your idea of compensation happened to be food, which miguel didn’t mind at all. you loved to cook. you used to cook all of the time, every meal from breakfast to dinner.

that was a while ago, though. standing on his front door now with a hot plate in hand, you tried desperately not to go down memory lane. 

not too long after, miguel opened the door and spotted you standing in his doorway. “good evening.”

“good evening, miguel. this is for you,” you said with a polite smile, extending the plate. 

“thank you,” he said graciously, accepting the food with a matching smile. “may i ask what for?”

you didn’t really know the answer yourself. the yard had already been mowed and there didn’t seem to be any other issues that lani couldn’t take care of herself. “just in case you were hungry or something. but if you’re not, you can always save it later.”

“i’m starving,” miguel replied, smiling with his eyes. they were beautiful. much like the rest of him, you might add. his broad shoulders and dark hair and the way his muscles poked out of his t-shirts.

“well, then. that solves that,” you said with a laugh. “have a goodnight, mr. o’hara!”

“you, too!”

miguel watched you back off his doorway, just until he was certain you were safely back in your house. you could feel his eyes on you like a sixth sense, but didn’t dare turn around, shutting your front door behind you.

“you’re seriously telling me you weren’t checking him out?” came hobie’s voice from your couch. 

rather than startle, you took off one of your slippers and said, “you have until the count of five. one, two, three-”

“c’ya,” hobie said, darting down the hall. 

you shook your head and let out a sigh.

EARLIER THAT DAY…

miguel shook his head and heaved a breath. 

peter, who had taken a kind of passion to his job, was none too thrilled by the news. “you let a thief wanted in forty-two counties get away?”

“forty-three,” lyla chirped.

miguel glared, on the verge of letting out an animalistic roar. normally, this would be something miguel yelled at the others about, so it was a very unwelcome change of pace. “we have a back-up plan,” miguel reminded, pinching the bridge of his nose. “i’ve got it under control.”

“you sure that you’ve got it under control?” gwen asked, definitely pushing miguel’s buttons in ways that she shouldn’t have. “and not-”

“stop,” miguel hissed. “everyone go. i need to be alone.”

nobody wanted to contend with that tone, so gwen dragged miles out of the room in case miguel decided to take his anger out on him, with peter quickly following. jessica stayed behind, closing the door behind them, and lyla was, well… a computer.

miguel really did have a plan, because of course he did, he was never without one. in fact, not having a plan to follow made him lose his mind. so it was safe to say it wasn’t the fact that his mission had failed that was making him upset. it was you.

“hey,” jessica said, brushing his shoulder. “what’s on your mind?”

“i’m fine,” miguel said a little more harshly than intended, though it was to be expected with him. 

jessica snickered, putting her hands on her hips. “well, when you say it with that mean ‘ole tone of yours, i know you’re lyin’.”

look at him. a grown man sulking. it was hilarious, not that jessica would say that aloud. right now.

not too many people knew the actual plan. jessica knew. lyla knew, because of course she did, but miguel deliberately told the others that the plan was to catch you because you were a threat to the multiverse. which was the half truth, but the part about you potentially destroying the multiverse was just feeder for the birds. he didn’t want them to ruin things.

in reality, he did intend to catch you, but not because you were going to destroy the multiverse. he wanted you to help them save it. he’d been watching you for a while now, gauging your power. battling you for the first time was merely a test. he could have taken you down in no time if he wanted, left you for the cops to grab, but that would only put a dent in his plans.

miguel had seen what you could do. now, he was ready to bring you in.

TWO WEEKS LATER…

you were running, a bit more comfortably than last time considering this thiefing ordeal didn’t require you to wear painfully long heels and a dress with a huge slit down the front. just your typical mask. you burst out of the door that led to the rooftop, heaving, given that you’d just ran up what felt like fifty flights of stairs.

you were just about to shapeshift into your signature jet-black raven until you felt something stick at your feet and realized you couldn’t move. glancing down, you saw red webs, and threw your head back with a groan. not good for takeoff, you thought, in spite of the fact that you absolutely could not get caught. maybe you could still fly, but if the webs got stuck to your feathers, it was game over.

spider-man emerged from the shadows of night, moonlight glimmering on his suit. “going somewhere?”

“well, not anymore, looks like,” you grumbled, irritated. 

little did the police know, you had already dropped off the stolen item. so you would still get your next paycheck. though the expenses for having to get you out of jail could’ve potentially taken a toll on it, depending on how benevolent your boss was feeling.

spider-man chuckled, approaching you. “what did you steal this time? an emerald? a ruby?”

“wouldn’t you like to know?” you hissed.

“you got me there,” replied spider-man, although there was a kind of arrogance in his tone that really pissed you off. “i’m not letting you get away this time.”

you cackled, almost like a witch. “you can deter me, spider-man, all you want,” you told him, trying to break out of the webs, but to no avail. “but i’m unstoppable.”

spider-man took one look at you, struggling to free yourself from your restraints, and cackled. “here. let me help.”

you sucked in a breath when his talons started to protrude from the tips of his fingers, but they were gone after the mere three seconds it took for him to slash the thread of string to bits. you stepped back an inch, as if you were testing your freedom. then, you threw him a baffled look behind your mask. there was no reason why the same man trying to catch you just set you free. unless it was a trap.

now was your moment. you could have shapeshifted and been on your merry way, but something told you to stay put. just for now, as if you were going to miss something. 

“i think she went up here, boss!”

hearing those voices, your first instinct was to take flight, but spider-man had different plans and you quietly gasped when he shoved you behind a wall, placing a sheathed hand over your mouth. it was the only part of your mask that wasn’t covered. breathing issues.

there were footsteps. you glanced at spider-man, who was looking at you. the two of you said nothing, but there had to have been a billion thoughts warring through your mind and they each blurred into each other. 

“don’t move a muscle,” spider-man growled, stepping from behind the wall and approaching the police. for whatever reason, you listened, despite the fact that you should have fled while you still had the opportunity. some nerve this guy had telling you what to do.

spider-man donned his friendliest tone, greeting, “everything alright, sheriff?”

“we got a tip that a woman ran this way,” the sheriff said, glancing around the rooftop. now would probably be a great time to shapeshift into a chameleon. or literally any small critter.

“i didn’t see a woman. i can assure you it’s just me up here,” spider-man said, scratching his head. “but i can help you find her.”

the sheriff seemed to mull it over, from the brief pause you noticed him take, but ultimately responded, “no, no, that’s okay. you do enough around here, spider-man. we’ve got this one.”

“alright. you have a good night, sheriff.”

your eyes flickered, hearing the footsteps of the sheriff and his team fade. did spider-man just protect you - again?

“why did you do that?” you asked, narrowing your eyes at him from behind your mask. you didn’t like this guy, if it wasn’t obvious enough. you felt like he was trying to get you off guard, and that made you dig in your heels even more.

“because if anyone’s gonna turn you in, it’ll be me,” spider-man said in a low tone, cornering you against the wall and trapping you in front of his chest. “i want to take you down all by myself.”

you snickered. that had to have been the most amusing thing you’d heard all day. you placed your hands on his shoulders, purring, “really now? you think you can take me down?”

“i know i can,” he told you, his words whispering to you with the rustling of the wind. “and i will.”

“hm,” was all you said, bringing one of your hands down his chest. he sounded so certain. 

spider-man cocked his head. you couldn’t see, obviously, but there was a little grin dancing on his lips. “do you touch every guy like this or am i special?”

“i loved a man once,” you told him. not that it was any of his business. you cloaked the wistfulness in your voice with sultriness. “didn’t end too well for either of us.”

spider-man paused, like he was surprised by the sudden confession, but wasted no time to recover. “is that why you’re here?”

you chewed your lip. he was right on the money. “i’m here because i choose to be.”

“but if you had the chance to be something else, something… better,” spider-man started, tracing your lip with his concealed thumb. “you would take it, right?”

of course, you would. those kind of opportunities just weren’t something everybody was fortunate enough to have. you had it all and then you lost it in the blink of an eye, watching it all crumble before your feet. if you were being honest, you were cheating death.

“i guess we’ll never know,” was all you said before breaking out of his arms and jumping off of the building. 

spider-man watched you, but he knew you would be alright even before he saw the raven come up and disappear into brooklyn’s dark evening sky and he couldn’t tell you apart from a star.

THE FOLLOWING DAY…

with your line of work, you had quite a few days off. but that was because you didn’t have a fixed schedule, which was a blessing and a curse wrapped into one. when your boss called, you answered. even if it meant having to haul ass out of bed at four in the morning.

today was one of those days off. you insisted lani didn’t need to do anything, sending her money to make sure she was set since she was basically your daughter’s full-time babysitter. you made meadow breakfast, dropped her off at school, and went back home. 

thinking about meadow and if she was safe always made you nervous. since you could afford it these days, you enrolled her in a private school. it didn’t hurt, even if she hates the uniform at first. you just wanted to decrease the chances of something bad happening to her.

miguel was on his front porch when you pulled into the driveway, your houses not significantly far from each other. every now and then, you let your eyes wander, and then you let your mind wonder why a man as fine as himself lived all alone.

“hey,” miguel said, waving you over. “you’re home early.”

“so are you,” you replied, shocked that he was home. this was a man that worked a typical nine-to-five, so he should have been gone longer than you, technically speaking. though he did tend to disappear often. “i admit i was a little curious when i saw your car still parked when i went to drop meadow off.”

“off day,” was all miguel said, flashing you a full set of teeth. jesus fucking christ, this man had a mesmerizing smile. “what are your plans for today, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“oh, you know. just catching up on sleep and throwing something on the stove,” you told him offhandedly. like any other working individual on their day off, you just wanted to rest. “there’s nothing like a nap on a full stomach. what about you?”

miguel rubbed his nape. “well, i was going to do some extra paperwork and some work around the house, but your plan sounds better than mine.”

you chortled, because you couldn’t even politely disagree. “in that case, you can always come over, if you’d like. no one’s home but me and i don’t bite.”

though you didn’t realize until it was too late, miguel had gotten very close to you. you could feel his warmth on your skin, although your bodies didn’t touch. his arm was just shy of yours. “no, no. i couldn’t,” he said. 

you waved him off. “of course, you could. you’re not a parasite, miguel. we both give to each other.”

“are you sure it’s okay?”

“positive. we’re both grown adults. you don’t need anyone’s permission but mine to come over to my house, you know,” you joked.

miguel visibly mulled it over, his brows furrowed in deep thought, almost as though he thought you were going to eat him or something. but then he bobbed his head and said, “sounds like a good time.”

you broke into a smile that you hadn’t made in years, leading miguel to your house. ironically, it was the first time he had been inside. you hadn’t had any indoor issues that you or lani couldn’t take care of on your own so far, which meant he stuck to yardwork. foolishly, you were a little nervous.

“tidy,” miguel remarked while he followed you to your kitchen. you didn’t see the way he smiled at the tiny pairs of shoes on the rack in the foyer. he noticed that there were a lot of pictures of meadow hanging around, ranging from when she was a mere infant until now.

“very. thank god for lani. i used to think i was a good, but that woman is a different breed of clean,” you said after washing your hands, grabbing a bunch of ingredients from your cabinets and refrigerator. 

miguel observed from behind your island, leaning up against it. “you two seem very close.”

“i trust her with my life. and my daughter’s life. she’s like a sister to me,” you told him, smiling. for a split-second, miguel swore he saw something wistful. “she almost was.”

“almost?”

“almost,” you whispered, plopping a bag of peppers onto the counter. 

miguel didn’t press. if you wanted to talk about it, you would. the two of you weren’t exactly close, no matter how blurry the lines between just friends and neighbors had gotten over the years.

reading the room, miguel expertly shifted the subject, “what are you making?”

the stars were back in your eyes as you gushed, “it’s a family recipe. my mother used to make it all the time. i feel bad now for complaining about how much she did when i was a kid. it’s mouthwatering perfection.” you deliberately left out the part that you felt bad because you would never get the chance to eat her food again.

“i hear you,” miguel replied, watching you cut the peppers. he didn’t like how sharp the knife was. “let me help.”

you brushed him off. “it’s fine. sit down.”

“i wasn’t asking,” miguel said sternly, his feet already moving. 

you blinked. “oh. okay.”

miguel maneuvered around the island, grabbing your waist while he walked past you, which admittedly made butterflies flutter in your gut. you chided them, begging them to keep the excitement to a minimum, but it was no use when you saw miguel had rolled up his sleeves and taken the knife out of your hands.

you pretended to look at the vegetables, though it couldn’t have been more obvious that you were watching his bare, exposed forearms and the taut muscles tense with his every movement. then, reminding yourself that there were other things you could have been doing, you tried to concentrate on the meat.

absentmindedly working, your thoughts were still on his arms, though for more chaste reasons. there were some lingering scratches on his skin, like he’d gotten into a fight or two. you wondered if he was taking care of himself. 

something particularly paralyzing hit you when you realized that that was all you could do - wonder. you didn’t really know miguel, nor did he know you, and you had long convinced yourself that it was better that way. you kept your family a distance from others until they bared their souls to you.

miguel was different. there was an air of familiarity to his presence. like he had half a soul that was completed by yours.

after forty minutes of what felt like reckless conversation featuring the two of you cooking instead of the other way around, lunch was ready and it was noon. you offered miguel wine and chattered over a meal and through your wine drunk haze. 

good thing he only lived next door.

“you know, you cook the best food i’ve ever tasted,” miguel told you, not a single sign of insincerity on his face. 

you perked up, glancing at him from across the dining table. what a kind gentleman he had been, refusing to let you set the table. or carry the dishes over. “really?”

“i wouldn’t say it if i didn’t mean it,” he said. “such great flavor.”

“thanks,” you chirped, breaking into a broadening grin. “i’ve been hoping to pass it down to meadow so that the legacy doesn’t die. she loves watching me cook. her grandmother would be proud.”

miguel cocked a brow. “no other family?”

you shook your head, fidgeting with the near-empty wine glass now that you’d finished your meals. “nope. my mother was single, my father is god knows where, so it was just me and her for the longest. and you know how i said lani was almost my sister?”

“mm-hm,” miguel hummed, brows furrowed as a sign he was listening deeply. 

you sucked in a breath. you had never admitted this to anyone before. “she was my fiancé’s sister. he, uh, yeah. work incident. six years ago.”

miguel’s features softened, the ache on your face conspicuous. hurt recognized hurt. he grabbed your hand from underneath the table, gave it a gentle squeeze, and said, “i’m sorry that happened.” 

“me, too,” you mumbled.

you deliberately left out the part that you were involved in that incident. it was a dinner at alchemax with the man you were about to start a family with and his boss, who had sent the rest of the company home. you wished you would have seen it coming, wished you would have known your drinks were spiked before your almost husband sipped from that glass.

the dosage had killed him, but mutated your dna. you should have died. it was a miracle your unborn baby at the time survived. instead, you turned into a shape-shifting entity, a mere test subject.

though there weren’t any signs, you were always wary, wondering if meadow had been affected by the dosage, but the doctors declared her very healthy at birth and during checkups.

“i lost my family, too,” miguel confessed, much to your and his mutual surprise. “i wasn’t always a lonely old man. i had a wife and a daughter.”

that piqued your interest. “have you looked again?”

“have you?”

that was fair. “no,” you said. not particularly, came a voice in your head, but you didn’t let it speak. “mainly because i have a daughter. i’m careful who i bring into her life. and with work, i don’t have the time to do background checks on who i date.”

“you’re a good mother,” miguel said after a moment or two. “meadow is lucky to have you.”

you smiled gently. “i like to think so.”

minutes of conversation turned into hours with miguel, but you didn’t forgo your plans of napping. almost the second you put on the movie, both of you were fast asleep, your head on his shoulder. 

when you woke up again, your head had fallen to his chest and his arm was tightly secured around your waist like a seatbelt. it wasn’t time to pick up meadow, you had set a time just in case you got a little too distracted, but you noticed a text from lani insisting that she would drop your daughter off since she was in the area of her school and wanted you to rest.

for a little while, you let yourself wallow in the feeling of miguel’s warmth and the sound of his soft snores. it wasn’t very often that you actually let yourself enjoy things.

you were too paranoid. too vigilant. it was nice to put your guard down for a second.

the doorbell rang after a while and you felt miguel’s arm flex protectively around you. he was awake.

“it’s lani. she dropped off meadow,” you whispered, feeling his protective grip slacken. your heart fluttered at how instinctively cautious he was over you.

standing to your feet, you opened the door and greeted your daughter. you made small talk with lani at the door before she said she had places to be and drove off. 

“hi, mr. o’hara,” greeted meadow when she entered the living room, plopping on the couch to watch cartoons. 

“hey, cheeto,” miguel greeted gruffly, sitting up. “you don’t have any homework to do?”

“nope,” meadow said, popping the p. “we don’t have homework on friday’s.”

“oh, silly me,” miguel said, making you poorly stifle a laugh.

meadow giggled, too. 

miguel cocked his head at you, standing beside him, leaning against the arm of the chair. “who are you laughing at?”

you raised your arms defensively. “nothing.”

“i said,” miguel started, donning a playfully monster-like tone, probably for meadow’s amusement. you gasped when he switched your positions, though he was rather gentle when he pushed you into the couch. “who are you laughing at?”

when his fingers started to dance over your skin, you couldn’t even get the words out, convulsing in a fit of giggles as he tickled you and pressed you for answers. you squirmed and writhed, laughing uncontrollably.

“meadow,” you called out for help, but she simply covered her ears and kept her eyes glued to the television screen for all the times you tickled her. but you saw her lips twitch into a mischievous grin.

there was almost tears in your ears at this point. miguel’s fingers were merciless, almost killing you with how much they made you laugh. 

“oh my god, miguel, quit it…,” you chanted, your cheeks hurting. 

“what’s the magic word?”

“stop.”

“wrong answer.”

“please,” you blurted, a line of tears rolling down your face as you writhed beneath him. “please!”

miguel let up, at last pulling back from your frame as your chest heaved and you tried to catch your breath. meadow lifted up her hand and high-fived miguel, both of them looking like nothing but trouble.

miguel plopped back on the couch, asking, “are you okay?”

“i almost pee’d myself,” you admitted through ragged breaths. 

both miguel and meadow laughed. 

once you could breathe again, you called meadow into the kitchen for an after school snack since she insisted that she wasn’t very hungry. “mom,” she called out, standing beside you. “a boy told me he liked me at school today.”

any other parent would have had a heart attack, but you knew your daughter well enough, and asked expectantly, “and what did you say?”

“that he’s icky,” she told you with a straight face. 

you snickered in amusement. “atta girl.”

“do you like mr. o’hara?”

now that almost gave you a heart attack, but you feigned some kind of semblance of calm, asking, “what makes you think that?”

“it just looks like it,” meadow chirped, but she was quick to get distracted by the snacks in the pantry and asked for a blueberry muffin.

but that was the million dollar question. did you like miguel o’hara?

THE NEXT DAY IN DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN…

“it’s about time you got here,” was the first thing hobie said when you arrived at the warehouse.

the abandoned warehouse was rusty and run-down, and it wasn’t too much of a leap to make that it hadn’t been used in years. you swore you saw a critter scurry away upon your entrance.

“hello to you too, hobie,” you greeted levelly. “cutting to the chase, where’s michael fontana? you didn’t leave a live body alone, did you?”

hobie scoffed, “ay, do i look like an amateur to you? follow my lead.”

you followed hobie through the warehouse littered with clutter, boxes cast aside that were presumably filled with old junk and spiders. the job was supposed to easy. tie the guy up, press him for answers, and relay the information. it could have been a one-person job, but your boss preferred having multiple witnesses.

hobie’s fingers curled around a doorknob, turning it and pushing the door open. but the room was void of life. your brows furrowed, glancing up at hobie, uttering, “there’s nobody here…”

you screamed when you felt somebody grab you from behind, assuming it was an escaped michael fontana. this is why you don’t hire nineteen-year-olds, you thought grumpily to yourself.

struggling in his arms, you shouted to your partner, “hobie, the gun!”

hobie didn’t move a muscle, much to your shock, shooting you an apologetic wince. “sorry, mate. it’s nothing personal. i actually like you,” he said. “but boss’ order.”

you glanced back, the sting of brutal betrayal settling in with the mind-numbing realization that the person grabbing you wasn’t michael fontana.

before you could shapeshift, you felt a needle poke your arm and hissed, just a grand total of seconds before your body went slack and the world around you vanished.

when you regained consciousness, the first thing you noticed was how bright it was in whatever room you were in, sunlight filtering through the blinds. the second thing you noticed was that your hands were cuffed behind the back of whatever chair you were now sitting in, followed by the pain flaring through your right arm. 

glancing around, you opened your winced eyes. an interrogation room with an outdoor window. that was a first.

“she’s awake!” you heard someone calling out, craning your head to spot two teenagers. if you had to guess, they didn’t look over seventeen. the boy waved, but the girl tugged his hand back down.

they must have heard someone coming, but they moved out of the way, letting them cross the threshold between their room and yours, the door already open. like they knew for certain that there was no way you could escape.

spider-man came to sit in front of you, across from you. your last memory was of him standing behind you. you narrowed your eyes, sneering, “you.”

you didn’t wonder how he knew who you are, remembering hobie had betrayed you. he must have been ratting you out for the longest. marsai had been looking into how spider-man seemingly always knew when and where you’d strike, but found nothing. you guessed you had your answer.

“not me,” spider-man said, deactivating his mask. “me.”

shock paralyzed you, not that you could move very much in the first place. this had to be some kind of dream. or, better yet, a nightmare. “miguel?” you gasped.

it all made sense now. the disappearances at random hours of the day and ungodly hours of the night. the scratches and bruises you sometimes noticed on his skin, and lord knows you hadn’t even seen half of them. it was because he was out fighting evil, out fighting you. 

“i’m not your enemy,” miguel said, his voice stern like it had been in your kitchen.

“yes, because only my ally would set me up, drug me, and cuff me to a chair,” you droned, voice dripping with sarcasm.

you shifted as much as you could,  uncomfortable at the thought of being drugged. the last time it happened, you lost a fiancé, the future you always wanted, and - on the brink of death - turned into a shape-shifting creature. you were also a little hurt, not that you would show it on the surface. you’d trusted miguel, even liked him, much to your daughter’s suspicion.

wondering how long he knew was even more maddening. this man was posing as your kind next-door neighbor all the while knowing where you were and what you did when you left your home everyday. and all of it was for what - to capture you and cage you like an animal?

miguel lolled his neck. you could see the exhaustion in his eyes, weighing him down. “it was for your own good. you would have tried to shapeshift and get away from me, no?”

you chewed your lip, saying nothing. you didn’t want to admit that he was right. much to miguel’s amusement. 

“about that,” came one of the two teenagers, the boy, you noticed. “we really wanted to ask you about being a shapeshifter. i mean, that’s so cool. i’ve never met a shapeshifter before.”

“most people haven’t, kid,” you said stiffly. “who are you two?”

“i’m miles morales,” the boy introduced himself, stretching out his hand for you to shake. 

wiggling your fingers behind your back, you droned, “my hands are kinda tied here, kid. literally.”

miles made a face, immediately rushing to uncuff you after miguel unceremoniously tossed him the key. 

“i’m gwen stacy,” the girl said as your cuffs slackened and your hands were freed. “can you please tell us what it’s like to be a shapeshifter?”

“no, no, and no,” miguel said for you, clearly against the idea for whatever reason. 

“but why?” gwen pressed. then, an idea hit her and she looked to you, continuing, “miguel didn’t mean any harm. he has a good reason for doing all of this.”

“i’d sure like to hear it,” you mumbled under your breath.

“miguel hasn’t really told us, either,” miles added. “i mean, i thought-”

gwen covered miles’ mouth before he could say anything that would undo and hender their progress and convincing either you or miguel. 

from the looks if it, though, miguel was unimpressed to begin with, a blank look on his face. “whatever you’re trying to do, gwen, it’s not working.”

“it’s her choice,” gwen reminded, returning her attention to you and clasping her hands together against her chest. “please, please, please? we won’t bother you ever again.”

you glanced at miguel, who was glancing at you, both of you trying to read each other. there seemed to be a telepathic communication going on between you both before miguel visibly relented and you said, “alright, fine. go ahead. shoot.”

“can you shapeshift into anything?”

“animals and other humans, but not objects. and only living things that i’ve stored dna from.”

“do your senses get enhanced, like superhuman?”

“my senses depend on whatever - or whoever - i’m inhabiting,” you explained. “like, if i were to shapeshift into a bat, my hearing would be keener. but when it comes to humans, i only don their appearance.”

“do you have weaknesses?”

“next question,” you mumbled. of course, you did. your abilities were impaired when you were sick or injured, and downright disarmed it you consumed or came into close contact with something that you were allergic to. it was your kryptonite, not that anyone needed to know that.

“how long can you stay in shapeshifting form?”

“depends on my health.”

“alright, that’s enough,” miguel said. “both of you. out.”

strangely enough, miles and gwen didn’t argue, seemingly content with your answers. they bid you goodbye and left the room chattering amongst themselves.

you cocked your head, meeting miguel’s stare. “well, cap, what’s your motive?”

miguel got comfortable in his chair, like he was about to give you a monologue. “you’ve been on our radar since you mutated. i was going to just lock you up and throw you with the others at first, since i assumed you were hurting innocent people.”

“you think daddy’s boy and his family are innocent?” you asked with a hint of amusement. 

“rodney malone-fisk?” 

you groaned at that name. “you call him rodney. i call him a spoiled brat.”

“i know what his family did to you. what they took from you,” miguel started, making all the blood drain from your face. “your fiancé didn’t just die in a work incident. he was killed as a lab rat. fisk was trying to test out a mix that would grant him dimension-traveling abilities but it ended up being a shape-shifting solution instead. you were supposed to die, too, but the dosages weren’t measured properly.”

you said nothing. there was nothing that you could say. just thinking about it made tears sting your eyes.

miguel grabbed your hand over the table, squeezed it like he had the other day. there was tenderness he had for you that he hadn’t felt in a long time. you understood him. “you know why i asked if you had the chance to be something better, would you take it? because i know that you’re more than this. you’re not a bad person. you just do bad things to survive.”

“i can’t,” you whispered, swatting his hand away. “everything i touch, i destroy.”

that miguel understood on levels he didn’t want to nor care to admit.

you fought the tears with all your might. after your fiancé died, you lost everything you had. except for your family. you had meadow and lani and built a safe haven for them from the ground up, swearing to protect them with your whole heart.

“i want to give you that chance,” miguel said stoically. “on a silver platter. i want you to join us.”

your eyes flickered. “join you? to do what?”

“you obviously have useful skill that could be put to better use. but kingpin and his son are going to destroy your universe as you know it if nobody stops him. and if anyone deserves to take him down, it’s you.”

that got your attention. kingpin wanted to destroy the universe? your fiancé always talked about his boss wanting to cross different dimensions, but you never thought it was humanly possible.

though considering you could shapeshift, you figured anything was possible nowadays. but your major concern was your daughter, your eyes widening with the realization that you should have been with her already. you could feel a tingle, sensing that something just wasn’t right. 

you didn’t say a word as you immediately hopped to your feet and ran out of the door, miguel immediately giving chase, but you ultimately disappeared into a crowd of spider-people and although it couldn’t have been too hard to differentiate you from them, you were already on the loose.

running as fast as you could, you didn’t stop, although you didn’t really know where you were going and with all the many spider-people roaming around that resembled each other, it felt as though you were running in circles.

then, you came face-to-face with hobie, and scowled.

“move,” you hissed. 

hobie called out your name. “ay, mate, no hard feelings.”

“all the feelings i have for you right now are hard,” you snarled, pushing past him. you would be affording miguel the same amount of animosity when you were certain your daughter was safely in your arms. right now, he was in your way, and anyone stopping you from being with your kid was going to be met with a snappy attitude.

“wait,” hobie called out behind you. 

you turning around, pointing an accusing finger towards him, and snapped, “i was supposed to be back with my child by now and because of you i’m not. so unless you’re going to help me get to her, i suggest you move out of my way.”

“that guy sucks anyway,” hobie said, not having to even think about which option he preferred. “follow me.”

you hesitated, because he was the whole reason that you were even here, but eventually followed him down the hallway, careful to move quiet and stealthily. you were also wary that it could be trap, but truth be told, you had no other way out.

though you probably should have questioned how or why it was so many of them, that was the last thing on your mind. lani was probably worried sick about you. you didn’t have a clue what time it was, but it didn’t take a genius to know that hours had passed, and you said you would be home way before now. 

the hall broadened towards its end where you saw a gathering of spider-people, all looking like they were scouting somebody out. “blast, he’s got them looking for you,” hobie grumbled under his breath. he walked you back around a corner and handed you something around his wrist. “here, take this.”

“what the hell is that?”

“it’s a wristband. it’ll open a portal to your universe. but you’ve gotta go now,” hobie explained, tapping some kind of button. 

you were more than a little surprised when an orange warp portal opened.

“go,” hobie said, glancing around for anybody. “i’ve got your six.”

hearing footsteps approaching, you neared the portal and almost entered, but there was a gnawing question that you couldn’t ignore. you whipped around, asking, “where do your loyalties lie?”

“in myself,” hobie answered without a second of hesitation. “and in the people that mean the most to me.”

you scoffed. “what happened to boss’ order?”

“i’m my own boss. that was in your best interest,” hobie replied, leaning against the wall. “c’mon. get outta here.”

turning around, you sucked in a breath, and walked through that portal. 

BACK IN BROOKLYN…

you returned right back at your house, just near the road. glancing around, nothing looked too out of the ordinary. lani’s car was parked in the driveway, meaning she had to have been there. didn’t she?

running to your house with all of your speed, you prepared to search yourself for your keys, only for your heart to drop when you realized that the door was already wide open.

heart racing, you burst through the foyer, and the first thing you saw when you entered your living room was lani sprawled out on the floor, a puddle of blood beneath her. 

“lani,” you gasped out, crouching down beside her. 

lani’s eyes were fluttering, a tremble in her weak voice as she whispered, “i tried to stop them.”

“stop who?” you asked, trying to stop the blood flow. she had been shot, lying here for only god knew how long. you threw off your jacket and pressed it to her gut, apologizing when she winced out in pain. 

“kingpin’s men,” she croaked. “they took meadow. they want you.”

you gritted your teeth, bristling with anger. hadn’t that man taken enough from you? you let him get away with killing your fiancé, but your daughter was crossing the line and you’d show him the mistake he’d made. even if it cost you everything. “where?” you asked. 

lani lifted up her arm, and that was when you noticed that it was also coated in blood, but there were symbols carved into her skin. 

it was the symbol of an abandoned alchemax building.

“go,” lani said, tensing as though it took all of her strength to say that one syllable. your fingers were clenched into fists. you would kill everyone involved with your bare hands if you had to. 

“no,” you balked, shaking your head. “i can’t leave you like this.”

lani grabbed your hand, lacing her fingers through yours. “your daughter is more important.”

thinking about what they could have been doing to meadow right now made you shudder with a fear you had never felt before. 

“i’ll take her to a hospital,” came a voice from behind you. you turned immediately, recognizing it. there stood miguel, still clad in his spider-man suit. “go save your daughter. i’ve already sent the team.”

you stood, coming face-to-face with miguel, and hissed, “if anything happens to her…”

“i know,” miguel said, as if he understood you wholeheartedly. “go.”

miguel scooped lani up into his arms, and it hurt you when she hissed in pain. you turned to her. “i’ll come back for you.”

lani smiled weakly. “i know you will.”

and with that, you were out the door, shapeshifting into your signature raven and flying across town.

the abandoned alchemax wasn’t exactly old. it was the building where your fiancé was killed and they covered up the incident as the result of faulty equipment, which ultimately led them to build an entirely new facility. you landed on top of the building that somehow hadn’t been demolished yet, transforming back into yourself when your feet were against the ground.

there wasn’t really an entrance all the way up here. the rooftop door was blocked and bolted as preventative measures. guess i’ve got to make my own door, you told yourself, undeterred.

spotting a stray piece of metal debris, you wielded the pipe in your hands. there was always the option of the lower-level entrances, if you wanted to get caught immediately. kingpin’s men were probably staking the place out, waiting to ambush.

you stepped back, holding the pipe, and charged towards the door as you shattered the window open, glass shards flying everywhere. cautiously stepping over the glass, you fitted your way through the gap you’d created, craning your head downwards until your feet plopped against the floor.

you were in. 

there were two halls on either side of you and though you didn’t really know which one went where, you followed your gut and took the path to your right.

the whole place was eerily dark and empty. duh, it’s abandoned, you cogitated. not that it made things any better. all you could hear was yourself, your own feet against the cold floor, though it would be naive to believe you were truly alone.

someone was here. kingpin’s men were everywhere but nowhere at the same time, waiting for you to make yourself known. and miguel had told you that he sent the team that should have been here by now, making you wonder how they got in and if they’d been detected.

you couldn’t explain it, but it felt like you were being watched, like there was somebody on your heels ready to strike you in your back when you least expected it. though to be honest, you always felt that way. always alert. never safe.

what you would give to live in peace again, to rest your heart and mind even for just a second. but you couldn’t afford not to be careful, not when you had a daughter to live for.

walking by a door, you cried out in shock when somebody grabbed your arm in pulling you inside, instinctively shapeshifting into a venomous creature, but withdrawing when you saw that it was only hobie and his friends.

“i almost killed you,” you hissed to him after donning your normal appearance again.

hobie threw his hands off, feigning innocence. 

there were two people you didn’t recognize tagging along with them. gwen shut the door, while a lady approached you, introducing, “i’m jessica. i work with miguel. and listen, we really need your help.”

your brows furrowed. “what’s going on?”

“kingpin’s making this weird space-traveling machine that’s really a doom machine because he’s gonna kill everyone,” some kid rambled. “oh, i’m pavitr.”

miles looked surprised, like nobody told him what was going on, and asked, “you got evil kingpin in your universe, too?”

“unfortunately,” you mumbled. 

“he’s out of control. he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” gwen told you frantically. “we’re making a device that will deactivate the accelerator but it’s taking some time.”

“so what?” you asked, trying to get to the point. “you want me to stall him?”

“he’s got cheeto,” hobie reminded. “there ain’t no telling what he’ll do to her if somebody doesn’t stop him.”

you gritted your teeth, filled with unadulterated rage. god, you felt murderous. you tried to speak levelly, “so, what’s the plan?”

“we split up into pairs,” jessica said. “we find where he has the accelerator. that’s where he’s keeping your daughter.”

hobie declared, “i dibs miles.”

miles didn’t protest. jessica insisted it was best if the younger ones were supervised, so she volunteered to take pavitr and the device that they were cooking. which left you with gwen. “guess it’s just you and me, kid,” you said, stepping out of the room.

“i think it’s really cool that you can shapeshift,” gwen told you while you stealthily crept down a hall with her. “i mean, it sucks how it happened to you, but…”

“shh,” you whispered, tugging her behind a wall. she seemed surprised, but then she heard the footsteps, too.

someone was coming.

“i’m gonna do something really weird,” you told her lowly. “and i need you to play along.”

“what are you…”

you shapeshifted into kingpin. 

“oh my god. that is really weird,” gwen mumbled. 

you grabbed her arm none too gently, reminding her to play along, and approached the man that was working for kingpin. “found this one lurking around.”

“i knew i heard something from over here,” the guy said, shooting gwen a scowl. “you want me to take her off your hands, boss?”

“take her to the accelerator. now,” you ordered, handing gwen over, who was doing a good job at looking dejected. “i’ll follow behind.”

the man didn’t hesitate to follow orders, leading you to the room where the accelerator was. that was far too easy. 

it was a lot of walking. apparently the accelerator was at the very bottom of the building, beneath the first floor, heavily guarded by kingpin’s men. it was a good thing you were wearing something even better than a hyper realistic costume.

the room was white and starkly bright compared to every other inch of the place, though all of that could be chalked up to the fact that it was the only room in the whole building currently using energy. and lots of it, too.

when you finally saw your daughter sitting in a small cage above the accelerator, between bars like an animal, you almost killed everyone in the room. instead, you kept your cool, ordering the dude to unhand gwen.

“anything else, boss?”

just as you opened your mouth to speak, the unimaginable happened. the door swung open, revealing the real kingpin, who seemed more than baffled when he saw you standing there. until it hit him that he knew of a shapeshifter. 

“you fool,” kingpin bellowed, glaring at the man. “that’s her!”

“fuck,” you swore under your breath. 

the man turned to you, watching you visibly break into a sweat, and called out, “hey, you’re not my boss!”

that cry got the attention of everyone in the room, all of kingpin’s very armed men. you gave gwen a look and shouted, “now!”

gwen started to shoot webs, restraining men that turned to put their weapons on you, and you shapeshifted into a wolf, attacking the man that had been under the impression that you were his boss until he was nothing but a bloody course. 

and the cycle repeated. kingpin ordered more of his men to move in and attack you, keeping his distance seeing as you were currently in a form of a wolf that could bite his head off if she so pleased. some of his men took him somewhere else in the room, away from you, and crowded him defensively. 

all the while, your five-year-old daughter was watching. she was almost six, and she was brilliant, and she was watching you attack with something that surprisingly wasn’t fear. almost like she thought she was watching a movie of some sorts, anticipating the next scene.

you were trying to get to her, but kingpin had made it so that if you really wanted to, you would have to get through him first.

blood quickly started to pool around and it wasn’t yours. there were bodies everywhere, dropping like flies. though you desperately wanted to cover your daughter’s eyes and spare her from the horror of seeing multiple people die at your hands in real time, you were in too deep of a rage to stop and nothing would keep you from fighting.

then, it happened. you didn’t move quick enough. the bullet tore right through you, making you howl out, and you glitched back into your true form. the wound was there, blood dripping around your calf.

gwen gasped, coming to your side, but she was caught and forcibly restrained. 

“mom!” meadow cried out, gripping the metal cage bars. 

kingpin cackled in amusement. “bravo, bravo. you know, i really do have to applaud the show you put on right there. this could have been painless if you would have just complied.”

“let my daughter go,” you snarled with vitriol. 

“i will,” kingpin said, like she was the most insignificant part of this little scheme of his. “after you give me what i want.

“what don’t you understand? i don’t have anything,” you shouted, fingers reaching to your wound and becoming stained in your own blood. “you took everything from me!”

“the code, woman. what’s the code?” kingpin hissed. “your fiancé was working on it. he cracked it. the code to the accelerator.”

for a second, you genuinely had no idea what he was talking about, until it hit you. your fiancé talked at length about a device at work that he’d been programming under his boss’ order, but he wanted to sabotage it. he said that it was unsafe. that kingpin didn’t realize the mistake he was making. it was an underdeveloped device that could destroy the whole planet.

you quickly realized he’d been talking about the accelerator. he’d worked many long days and nights on it and still thought that it wasn’t ready for use. that was what kingpin had been developing for all these years, completing your fiancé’s unfinished business.

“damn that code,” you snapped irritably.

kingpin was furious, and started to ramble, “your fiancé died at his own hand. he signed a contract. it isn’t my fault that the mix killed him, but if you don’t telling me everything i need to know about this damn machine, i’ll kill you and i’ll kill-”

“boss,” interjected one of kingpin’s men. 

“don’t you hear me speaking?” roared kingpin. 

“but boss, the baby,” the man started. “she’s gone.”

kingpin’s eyes flitted up to the cage, immediately noticing the absence of your five-year-old daughter. “what? how did she escape? what did you do?”

“i didn’t do anything, boss, i swear! i…”

the man’s words interrupted by a blood-curdling cry as a small but ferocious animal attacked him to the ground.

it was a baby wolf. and more importantly, it was your baby.

“capture that thing!” roared kingpin. 

not on your watch. you mustered the strength to rise to your feet, snatching a gun out of the man closest to you and briefly knocking him out with it just before doing a complete three-sixty and shooting in every direction.

all the while, meadow was agile and too quick on her feet, and it didn’t hurt that she was super tiny. you jogged over to gwen, wincing as you limped over, dropping to the ground to avoid facing the barrels of guns and shooting at the men that were restraining her.

gwen wiggled her arm, probably sore from how tightly they were holding her. “thanks.”

“thank me later,” you said, panting for breath.

“wait!” gwen called out behind you. “you’re hurt. can you still shift?”

you exhaled a sigh. “remember when you asked me about my weaknesses?”

“oh.”

“yeah.”

when you turned around, you saw meadow still kicking ass. just a second later, one of kingpin’s men grabbed her and your maternal instincts immediately kicked in, ignoring all of your pain and suffering to parade over there and take action.

it was like you blacked out. you didn’t even know what happened. one second, you were marching over there, and the next, meadow was safely in your arms and the guy that had dared to lay his bare hands on her was floored with more than a couple of broken bones and was certainly no longer breathing.

“are you okay?” you asked, cradling her to your bosom. 

meadow nodded, nestling closer to you. you were almost elated to tears, unable to describe the relief you felt knowing that she was okay. though it was a shock, you were pleasantly surprised that she had inherited your ability. 

worried, but pleasantly surprised.

“do i need to make any other examples of what happens when you come between a mother and her child?” you shouted out, watching a couple of men cower.

in the next second, there was another shattering noise, like the one when you broke into the building through the window. and then you quickly realized that it was a window being smashed into, fractured glass pelting everywhere.

there was a blur of blue and red, but you still recognized it, especially when the intruder’s feet skidded across multiple faces, successfully knocking them out, until he dropped his red string and came to a land before you.

“miguel,” you gasped, more than a little surprised.

“lani is fine. they said she’ll make it,” he said, knowing that you would ask. that was what was most important to you right now. “i didn’t leave her alone. her mother came.”

you nodded, content with that. you weren’t on speaking terms with lani’s mother - she’d never liked you - but you knew she cared for her children deeply and that was all that mattered in that moment.

“oh, how sweet. a reunion,” kingpin barked sarcastically, looking at you both with pure hatred.

miguel’s jaw clenched noticing your injured form, and he immediately caged you and your daughter behind him, bellowing back, “we can either make this really easy or really hard.”

kingpin cackled. “hilarious! i was thinking the same thing.”

miguel growled, reaching for the person nearest to him, and you covered meadow’s eyes when he went to rip them to literal shreds. she had shapeshifted back to normal now, still as tiny as ever, though.

dropping the guy’s remains, miguel glanced around, red eyes making contact with the startled ones of kingpin’s men. he didn’t have to say anything else. they all immediately surrendered, even the ones intended to be defending kingpin. 

“you know, good help is really hard to find these days,” kingpin groaned.

“save it, doucheface,” gwen said, swooping in to wrap him in her webs.

the doors burst open, revealing jessica and pavitr holding an orange, radiating deactivator, followed by hobie and miles.

jessica gave a nod. “it’s ready.”

“catch!” exclaimed pavitr, throwing the device in the air. 

you caught it in your hands. if anybody deserved to destroy this machine, it was you. and you wanted to do it with kingpin helplessly watching, just like how you watched your fiancé die in front of your own eyes, unable to help.

“say goodbye to this piece of shit, kingpin,” you taunted, handing meadow over to miguel as you approached the accelerator. 

“no!” kingpin roared, restlessly flailing in his restraints, but to no avail. 

nothing felt as satisfying as when you latched the deactivator on the accelerator. the whole machine started to groan, jerking in place, and you backed away. the surface started to crystallize and you watched in pure uncertainty of if this was even going to work. 

for a whole minute, the entire room was deadly silent, only watching. like nobody could tell if it was starting up or breaking down. then, it started to ebb out, atom by atom.

piece by fucking piece.

“it’s over!” gwen exclaimed. 

you bobbed your head. it really was over. this was closure.

“i’ll handle him,” jess volunteered with a sigh, throwing kingpin an unimpressed look before glancing between you and miguel. “y’all got things to hash out.”

you avoided miguel’s eyes.

THE SEVENTH FLOOR OF BROOKLYN HOSPITAL…

it felt like hours that you were waiting inside the hospital lobby, so the second that the nurse came up to you and told you that lani was finally available for visiting, you politely thanked her and attempted to rush the whole way to her room with meadow in yours arms.

“lani,” you exhaled when you opened the door to her room. 

“hi,” lani rasped. she was hooked to lots of different things, paler than usual. though, to be fair, she did almost die. meadow rushed over, handing her a bouquet. “oh, wow, are these for me?”

meadow bobbed her head, beaming proudly. “i picked them all by myself.”

though her every moment was obviously taxing, lani flashed a smile. “you have a great eye, meadow. how’d you know tt loves pink?”

meadow giggled. 

you stepped closer, feeling your heart warm and a tear escape your eye, but you quickly wiped it. “i’m so sorry.”

lani gave you a displeased look. “oh, quit it. this is absolutely not your fault.”

“but it is,” you insisted. “i should have known this day would come. it could have been avoided. you should have left town like your mom or...”

lani called out your name and grabbed your hand with all of her strength. “hey, hey, hey. listen to me. you are my sister and i love you so much. i don’t care what the law says or what happened and what didn’t. there is nothing that would stop me from being there for you and i’d take so many bullets for you both.”

your eyes dampened with tears. 

“it already happened. it’s over,” lani whispered. “let it go.”

you bobbed your head, squeezing her hand back. she was the strongest women you knew, though you had a feeling she would have a contrasting opinion.

meadow inspected the stitches on lani’s arm. “tt, what are you going to do about the stitches?”

lani made a face, as if to say that that was a good question. “well, that scar is for sure never going to fade away and i will indefinitely have some scientific research company’s symbol craved into my skin, but on the plus side, i ironically think i’m officially over my fear of needles. so i’ll probably get a tattoo.”

meadow’s eyes were glimmering and she looked to you. “mommy, can i get a tattoo?”

“when you’re old enough, sweetheart,” you cooed, gently patting her on the back.

meadow pouted.

you threw lani a skeptical look, scoffing, “you of all people are seriously thinking about getting a tattoo?”

“not just thinking about it. i’ve decided,” lani told you matter-of-factly. “i figured that if i could survive a knife in my skin, then a needle is nothing. it’s like i unlocked a superpower.”

you shook your head in disbelief. leave it to lani to always make something out of nothing and the best out of everything. “speaking of unlocking superpowers, you won’t believe what happened today...”

lani furrowed her brows, trying to guess, but when she saw you wiggle yours, all the pieces came into place. “no way.”

you grinned. “yes way.”

“i want to see,” lani said, glancing towards meadow. 

“she can’t do it on command yet. trust me, we tried,” you replied with a chortle. “but i saw it with my own eyes. my baby’s got a gift.”

lani breathed out a sigh of bliss. “she sure does.”

speaking of gifts, there was a knock on your door, followed by an exclamation of, “special delivery!”

you recognized that voice, and seemingly so did lani from the smile on her face. even meadow looked happy. you went to go open the door, revealing miguel, dressed in normal clothes for a change. 

he approached lani, carrying a care package that he sat on her bedside. “i hope i’m not intruding. i wanted to give you a get well soon gift. i got you some chocolates in there, by the way, but don’t eat them too soon. they make your blood sugar levels increase, i heard.”

he definitely heard that from lyla, but he wasn’t going to mention that part.

“thank you, miguel,” lani said, glimpsing through the bag. “how you’d know i love ferrero?”

“someone mentioned it in passing,” miguel said, scratching his nape. 

your heart fluttered. he remembered something that you mentioned in passing?

lani nodded in approval, ever so grateful. there were also some soft blankets in there on top of other things. “well, i appreciate it.”

“it’s no problem,” miguel responded, then he glanced towards you, an unreadable look in his eyes. “we need to talk.”

“right,” you drawled. “lead the way.”

miguel turned his back, heading for the door. before you walked out, lani mouthed to you, “he’s a keeper.”

your heart skipped a beat. 

you closed the door behind yourself, looking up to meet miguel’s eyes. “well?”

miguel kissed you. in front of all of the hospital staff roaming the halls, in front of the loose patients, but you didn’t care. all you gave a damn about was his lips on yours and the way his broad shoulders felt in your palms. it was slow and sensual, a first kiss between lovers.

nothing else mattered in that moment. you forgot all of your pain and agony, all of your fears and woes. you forgot the past because you were so deeply rooted in that moment that nothing else occurred to you anymore.

when you two parted to breathe, you jokingly rasped, “i sure like the way you speak.”

miguel chuckled, placing a hand on his hip, before he sobered. “listen to me. i know i lied to you, but i wasn’t doing it to hurt you.”

“i know,” you whispered. “i’m not mad anymore. but i’m not sorry for storming out. my baby...”

“i know,” miguel finished. like he knew the feeling. “she means the world to you. and lani.”

you nodded. 

“i’m… i’m sorry for taking you away from them. she might’ve been okay if i hadn’t,” miguel apologized, much to his own shock. you unlocked sides of him that nobody else had seen, pieces of him he didn’t even know were still there.

“it already happened. it’s over,” you whispered, as a wise woman had once told you. it was water under the bridge. “let it go.”

miguel almost seemed nervous, which was a surprise. you had literally never seen this man nervous.

grabbing his hand and inching closer to his chest, you asked softly, “did you mean it? when you said you lost your family?”

miguel swallowed. “yes. i know how it feels.”

“then you know that it’s hard,” you started, scrambling for words. “you know, reopening yourself to people. being vulnerable. becoming a slave to your feelings because you don’t want to risk getting hurt again.”

miguel was silent, but you knew from the look in his eyes that he understood you completely. 

“but i want to give it a try with you,” you said, voice hardly the frequent beeping scattered along the hospital floor. “and the team.”

miguel’s eyes widened. “you want…”

“yes,” you cut him off. “i want to be on the team. although, i’m not sure how i’ll fit in. i’m not a spider-thing after all.”

miguel groaned, “who gives a damn? i’ll change the whole name for you.”

you giggled, wrapped your hands around his waist.

miguel found himself doing the same to you, holding you as he stared at you with all the affections a man had to offer. he just couldn’t wrap his head around it, or what it meant for the two of you, but he knew you’d both figure it out. 

“miguel?”

“mm?”

“you’re always welcome to be a part of my family,” you whispered gently, voice muffled against his shirt, though he heard you loud and clear. 

miguel’s eyes fluttered closed, holding onto you like he never wanted to let go, like he’d finally found a refuge in you. somewhere where he felt safe enough to let go. “you’re a part of mine now, too.”

[importantchaosgiver]

Where Loyalties Lie:

To The King

Summary: (Y/N) can't stay hidden for long. And when she is taken to the king, she gets an unexpected turn of events...

Warnings: Canon typical swearing, mentions of nudity

Masterlist

******

Two days. Baelon, Aemon and the guards hadn't found (Y/N) for two days. They had asked and most did say they've seen a girl of her description, but most didn't know about her or just saw her in passing. This girl was smart and quick. Aemon admired the child for her skill at such a young age. Being able to hide from a king's order wasn't something most people could do, especially when in the heart of the city. Baelon then went to a fruit stall. "Have you seen a young girl around this tall with (h/c) hair by any chance?" Baelon asked for the umpteenth time that day. He was quickly growing tired of searching, but Jaehaerys did ask of it. "Oh, yes. I do, my prince. She's the young lass who helps us set up from time to time," the man said. "Yes, she a lovely little girl," the woman added. Baelon perked up as Aemon walked over. "What's her name?" Aemon queried, finally glad they were getting somewhere. "Oh, I am sorry, my prince. That isn't something we know. But you can find her mother on the Street of Silk. The woman you'll need to look for is (M/N)," the woman explained. "She's a whore's daughter?" Baelon muttered to Aemon as they gave thanks to the vendors and began walking. "And a bastard no doubt. This girl gets more and more intriguing," Aemon said quietly in return.

When they came to the Street of Silk and to the brothels, it was noticeably more quiet during the day than how it was at night. So, they went from building to building, having to endure the working ladies in skimpy dresses or nothing at all. Until, finally, they got somewhere. "If you're looking for (M/N) go to the farthest room down that corridor," a woman explained, giving the two princes sultry looks, only wearing a mesh skirt. They nodded and began walking in the given direction, avoiding the people enjoying their time. When they got to said door, it was noticeably more isolated as they entered without knocking. The woman quickly stood up, looking at them as she realised she was in the presence of Targaryen royalty. "(M/N)?" Aemon asked. "Yeah. How can I help you?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest, wearing a sheer shift. "We're not looking for some time. We are looking for whom we've been told is your daughter," Aemon said. That got (M/N)'s attention quickly. "What's she done?" she whispered. "Nothing wrong. Although, the king is asking she be brought forth," Baelon said, eyeing her up and down. "Since when did whores care about their children?" he asked. (M/N) quickly put on some more modest clothing. "She's a child. She doesn't deserve to know my occupation. All she knows is that she's a bastard. But she doesn't let that stop her," she said firmly. "Aye," Baelon muttered. When they left, a couple of guards followed as (M/N) lead them out of the Street of Silk.

When they came to a small house, they went inside. There was (Y/N) holding a book with an elderly man pointing at words. They stopped and looked up. (Y/N) gulped upon seeing the princes. She had been found. "(Y/N), the princes would like to talk to you," (M/N) said gently. "Please, don't run. I would not like to repeat the other day," Aemon said calmly, seeing her stand up. "The king would like to see you, lass," Baelon said, bending down to her height. "I honestly meant no harm," (Y/N) whispered meekly. "I know. Now, come along, child," he said, the guards stepping forward. Her mother watched in worry as (Y/N) was lead from her home, two guards either side of her, a hand each on her shoulder just in case she decided to run.

She felt her stomach churn in anxiety, her throat tighten as it became difficult to swallow. She wrung her hands nervously as she was walked to the gates and into the Red Keep. It was even bigger closer up. She was lead through many confusing twists and turns until she was lead to two large doors. They opened and (Y/N) felt like her legs were about to give way. The entire court was there. The princes went in as the guards gently walked her inside. The men and women of court whispered and muttered. This girl saved Prince Viserys? This bastard, grubby common girl? When the guards stopped, she stopped and lifted her gaze. Her eyes found King Jaehaerys on the famed Iron Throne. It looked even more intimidating now that she stood before it. It's many blades forged by dragonfire and the blades of Aegon the Conqueror's enemies. She had seen paintings of the throne, but it didn't prepare her to be stood before it.

Jaehaerys recognised (Y/N) from the brief time he saw her in the Dragonpit. He stood up from the throne and walked down to stand in front of her. The guards let go of her shoulders and stepped back. (Y/N) gave a curtsy in respect of the king who gazed down at her with kindness. "You saved my grandson, little one. I thank you," he said gently. "I-I... there is no need to thank me. I only did what I thought was right. I only meant to help and protect," she whispered. Almost so quiet, no one heard it. It made Jaehaerys chuckle softly as her bent down to her height. "You are a shy one. But, I saw a pure courage in your eyes. Courage and bravery I have not seen in years, little one. What's your name?" Jaehaerys asked softly. "(Y/N) Waters, your grace," she muttered. "Born out of wedlock," he whispered. Baelon muttered into his ear about her mother too. Jaehaerys nodded in understanding. Then, he gently took (Y/N)'s hand. She lifted her head in shock and Jaehaerys managed to see her eyes and see into her soul. And he could tell, her heart was pure. Despite the scrutiny she would face as a bastard child, her heart was true and pure, untainted. He saw the truth in her eyes of (e/c) and knew she was something rare. He then thought back to a dream he had as a young man.

He dreamt of a woman with (h/c) hair wearing a white cloak, bearing the sigil of House Targaryen, holding a sword of Valyrian steel. The woman he dreamt of had been stood on the walls to the city, her sword soaked in blood, a cut along her face. He remembered how the sun shone behind her as if the gods wanted it. Jaehaerys called this dream, the White Saviour. Because his dream predicted that a warrior would protect the realm. And the courage, truth and purity he saw in the eyes of the woman in his dream was the same as what he saw in this child.

Jaehaerys straightened up and looked at the court. "I have decided that (Y/N) Waters shall be honoured for saving my grandson. It is my wish, my will and my order that she is to be trained in the ways of a knight," he announced. Everyone gasped. Even (Y/N) was stunned. She becoming a knight?! Trained as one?! But, she was a girl! All around the court, people had different reactions. Baelon and Aemon was surprised, but actually thought it made some form of sense, Viserys was shocked, Daemon found it hilarious that a girl would become a knight and -ultimately- fail, Jocelyn and Rhaenys felt pride that a girl could have the opportunity to prove the norm wrong and somewhere, in the corner of the throne room, Otto Hightower narrowed his eyes at the girl. This wasn't coincidental. Jaehaerys knew something they all didn't. It was clear in the Old King's eyes. That twinkle... something he knew would affect the realm for all eternity...

******

Okay, I'll admit, I've been sitting on this idea for a while. So I don't know how many regular updates there will be, but I'm really enjoying writing this. I hope you enjoy it too.

[thevalkyriesshadow]

@valkyrieappreciationweek

Day 7: Free Day/AU

Nest Friends

canon setting | omegaverse AU | 3,845 words

Inspired by a headcanon I saw where pregnant omegas will nest in one big, fluffy pile of blankets together and share tips and stories of their pregnancies with each other. I thought of our Valkyries immediately and had to write this! Read my omegaverse!valkyries AU under the cut or here on Ao3!

Dividers by @adornedwithlight and @strangergraphics-archive

Emotions were running high and everything was falling apart…well at least for Gwyneth Berdara, that's what it felt like.

Azriel, bless him, had landed himself one feisty omega. A fact that was only further confirmed when they found out Gwyn was pregnant. Since then, Gwyn had been on high alert, moody, snappy, picky with everything you put in front of her, and overall, a typical omega – but tenfold. 

She was ten weeks pregnant and in the belly of morning sickness, dizziness, and unpredictable mood swings and of course today she was tasked with getting the nest set up for her, Nesta, and Emerie's weekly nesting session – a task that really wasn't that demanding, but with Gwyn in this stage of pregnancy…

“Az!”

“Azzzz – AZRIEL!!”

Azriel was at the door by the second time Gwyn had called out his name. “Yes – Yes, Gwyn! What is it – Gwyn, what’s wrong, love?” He rushed to her side.

Gwyn started sobbing, holding up strands of different colored strings, “I – I forgot the charms for– for the bracelets!” She covered her face with her hands. “I've ruined it…”

Azriel wrapped his arms around her shoulders, nuzzled his chin against her head, and said – in a calm, collected voice, “You haven't ruined anything – you can still make the bracelets –” He was going to say without the charms, but he stopped short at the glare Gwyn gave him. So instead, he squeezed her tighter and added, “-- I’ll go grab the charms. You stay here and keep setting up.” 

He let her wipe her tears (and probably some snot too) into his sweater before dashing back to their cottage by the water.

Gwyn turned back and sighed as she looked around the room and wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. Perhaps she overreacted…but those charms are a necessity when making bracelets. How could they possibly make bracelets for their first brood if they didn’t have charms?! She needed them.

Gwyn continued to set up the nesting room The House had constructed for them. She changed out the string lights, switching the multi-colored faelights they previously had with softer, yellow lights. Their last nesting was more on the active side with yoga and a dance-out-the-nerves session. But after talking to Nesta and Emerie at dinner last night, they decided something relaxing and creative was in order.

Gwyn made sure they had their coziest blankets and pillows and random garments in stock. She peered around the room at her handiwork and rested a hand on her belly as she took a deep breath in and sighed out, soaking in the scent of her and her best friends.

She’d never forget the look of excitement on their faces when she told them she was pregnant. The three immediately started amicably talking about all the things they were going to do together, from being there for each other during these ten months, to raising their children together. From that moment on, her, Nesta, and Emerie agreed that they wouldn't endure their pregnancies alone. That they'd do it together, like everything else in their lives. 

They had gathered and asked The House to create a cozy room with a large, soft bed, extra blankets, pillows, billowing curtains, soft fuzzy rugs, and food of any kind available.

It was their little nesting getaway for when the alphas were being, well, alphas. A moment for them to enjoy the book they're reading or tea they’re sipping without their alphas, quite literally, sticking their nose into everything.

The Valkyries, of course, loved their mates with all their heart, but when an alpha *Cassian* thinks it’s a good idea to sniff around their omega during their private smut reading time – then it’s time to set some boundaries.

So now, the three omegas could read, nap, and eat to their heart's content without the alpha reading the nutrition label to make sure they’re getting enough folic acid. Or checking they were still breathing, waking them from the deepest, most wonderful naps. (Emerie said she’d lashed out a little too harshly at Mor for waking her from such a deep slumber, but apparently Mor was concerned because Emerie had breathed funny…)

The Valkyries liked to start with a clean bed, no blankets or pillows, and they’d add the heavily scented stuff first, then the newer stuff, wanting to mix the scents in as much as they could. They’d do this on a rotating bi-weekly schedule – unless of course someone’s bladder incontinence wins them over. Then everything is washed and they start anew.

Gwyn had just finished turning on all the twinkle faelights when the door to the nest opened. In walked – or rather waddled – Emerie and a glowing Nesta.

“Gwyn!” Nesta squealed. “How are you doing? Ten weeks yesterday, right?”

Emerie groaned, “Ugh, to be ten weeks again.” Emerie was the furthest along of all of them. Twenty six weeks and she had all the struggles – back pain, practice contractions, headaches, constipation. You name it, Emerie had it. 

Gwyn smiled – and then started to cry. Nesta and Emerie were by her side as fast as their waddling feet would allow.

“Oh, Gwyn – you’re alright –” Nesta put a hand around Gwyn, rubbing soothing circles across her back.

“I know –” Gwyn shuddered a breath, “I just…I can’t stop cryyyinggg….” Gwyn wailed and wiped at her face hurriedly. 

Emerie took Gwyn’s freckled hand in hers and kissed her knuckles, “The emotions are almost always the hardest. What do you need?”

Gwyn sniffed and looked between the two Valkyries sheepishly, “Ice cream.” 

A thunk behind them told them The House was listening and waiting to serve the omegas as needed. 

“With candy chunks,” Gwyn added. 

Another thunk.

The trio gave each other mischievous looks, and the ordering began.

Fifteen minutes later and a mountain of food, the Valkyries could finally begin adding the finishing touches to the nest.

Nesta went to her drawers of the room and tossed a huge, fluffy red blanket down first. Emerie added a silky golden wrap, and Gwyn a teal blanket she’d knitted. Then they threw a bunch of pillows into the nest. Emerie appeared with a handful of bags then, announcing she had gifts. Gwyn and Nesta rushed over, excited to see what Emerie had in her bags. She reached into one and pulled out a fluffy, white pillow with the words Gwyn’s Nesting Pillow embroidered with teal lettering. Nesta’s was black velvet with silver writing. Emerie made herself one too, an emerald green suede pillow with golden stitching.

“Oh my gods, Em! They're amazing!” Gwyn hugged her pillow tight, squeezing it in her muscular arms. 

Nesta inspected the embroidery on hers, “Emerie this is beautiful work.”

Emerie blushed, “Just another weekend project. You guys are worth it.” She pulled Nesta and Gwyn into a group hug, their pregnant bellies bumping together. 

After blubbering and giggling together, they gathered their food and new pillows, and retreated to their nest.

Their nesting area was a half circle bed that sat at just the right height for easy sitting and standing requirements. Perfect to crawl into without needing to exert effort or make a fool of themselves and topple into it. 

And the smell…

A mix of all three of them, cinnamon and cloves, willow and rosemary, and fire and steel. The blankets and pillows they had were rich in these scents, melding together to create a cozy cottage feel.

As they did for all introductions of new fabric or pillows, they stripped down first so that their scents could rub off onto the new items. 

So the three ate their snacks, stark naked, and passed around the pillows, cuddling and curling into them. 

Nesta was rubbing her chin on Emerie’s pillow when Gwyn said, “Ness how do you look so – radiant. More radiant than me when I sing.” 

With her eyes closed, Nesta nestled into the pillow and smiled, “It's that second trimester glow. I may look radiant, but Cassian won't stop staring at me and it's driving me up the wall.”

The girls fell into giggles. Emerie, who was trying to balance Gwyn’s pillow on her perfectly round stomach said, “Mor’s the same. Every time I turn around BAM Mor is staring at me and then smothering me with kisses.”

“Truly insufferable,” Nesta said. She craned her neck to look up at the copper-haired priestess, “How’s Az handling it? I bet he stalks you in the shadows.”

Gwyn smirked, “Only when we’re feeling frisky.” She winked, then her face fell. A seriousness washed over her features. “Seriously though, I caught him doing just that two days after we found out I was pregnant.” Gwyn shook her head and rolled her eyes. A genuine smile crept across her lips. “But he’s been great…really…” She choked up, “- Sorry,” she sniffled. 

Nesta glanced around the room, “You’re sure he’s not in here right now? I think I feel a heat coming on…”

“We’d smell him, no?” Emerie asked around a mouthful of artichoke hearts.

Gwyn shook her head, “His shadows can hide his scent, but –” Gwyn stood, her still naked body showing off the just tangible swollen belly. She wasn’t showing much, but Gwyn still placed hands on her stomach, her natural motherly instincts on high alert. Azriel would never overstep such a boundary, but to put her friend at ease, Gwyn would do anything.

Nesta watched her circle the room and let out a low whine before nestling further into the sheets.

“All clear. He’d know I’d kick his ass if he came in here without permission,” Gwyn finally said. She made her way to her nearly panting friend and sat next to Nesta on the bed, pushing strands of hair that fell from her braid back from her face. “Do you need a private heat room?”

“Yeah,” Nesta answered. The House instantly made a separate room for Nesta, a place with blankets and clothing items that no doubt reeked of Cassian. (Thankfully, The House knew how to mask scents too.)

Emerie and Gwyn took turns napping and braiding each other’s hair while Nesta was tucked away in her private room. 

When Nesta came out they indulged in their new strange eating habits. Emerie preferred pickled foods, but foods that one doesn’t usually pickle…like squash and strawberries….Nesta wanted salty and savory, and lots of it. This time opting for the umami flavors of sesame and soy sauce. Gwyn was a sweet tooth, but a very strange sweet tooth…she wrapped dates in strips of chewy, gummy candy and popped them into her mouth, joyfully.

They were sharing their constipation stories and what they’ve been doing to relieve it when a soft thud echoed throughout the room. The trio looked behind them and towards the door where a giant golden box wrapped in royal blue ribbons sat.

Nesta furrowed her brow and stalked over, her silver eyes pining the wrapped boxed with a piercing death stare. Gwyn and Emerie joined her, the three of them sniffing around and inspecting the box.

“There’s a tag,” Emerie pointed out, slipping a white card out from under a section of ribbon. “From Helion – a present to you and your broods.” She read the card and flipped it over. “That’s it. That’s all it says.”

“Well…it doesn’t smell like anything. Has The House been holding it until it didn’t smell like the Day Court and its High Lord?” Gwyn asked, flicking the voluptuous bow that sat atop the box. 

Nesta shrugged, “It’s intuitive like that.” As if in answer and thanks, The House turned on the water in the separate baths room. The scent of fresh lavender drifted into the nest room, playing on the steam filling the large porcelain tub.

Emerie moaned, “Oooh lets get this opened so I can bathe. My back needs that bubbly goodness in there.”

With wide grins, the trio bent over the box and tore the wrapping from it. Paper flew over their heads. Nesta wrapped the ribbon around Gwyn’s belly. Then the box was falling open and –

The Valkyries screamed and squealed in delight as miniature stuffed pegasus of all colors and types pranced and flew from the box. A gray and black mare bounded towards Nesta. A cinnamon-brown male nuzzled Emerie. And a wild, speckled mare pranced around Gwyn. The other multi-colored pegasus all circled their respective omegas, their collars all bearing the Valkyrie brood they belonged to.

The door to the nest slammed open suddenly, revealing three wide-eyed and frantic alphas. And one very unsure beta.

Emerie snarled. 

Nesta’s claws came out. 

Gwyn crouched, standing in front of her pregnant friends. Her eyes glowed with her magic.

“What are you doing?!” She snapped. Her sneering gaze bored into them. Azriel in particular.

The alphas seemed to shrink in on themselves. The omega’s feral-like states heightened enough to intimidate the harried alphas.

Azriel said, “We thought you were in distress –” 

“I told them you were okay, but –” Balthazar, the level-headed beta, stepped in.

“You can’t possibly know that beta –” Cassian growled, interrupting him, 

Mor turned on Cassian, shoving his shoulder, “Call him by his name, Cassian, or so help me gods –”

A snarl issued from deep within the chest of each of the omega’s, the sound rippled through the room. Quieting everyone’s bickering.

Despite being pregnant omegas, and naked, the three Valkyries were terrifying. But beneath that terrifying presence, was a mother-to-be, nervous for the safety of their brood – and the safety of each other’s broods. With teeth bared they crouched, growling and bristling at the imposing group of alphas in the doorway.

“Get out!” Gwyn said through gritted teeth, “You're breaking the one rule we've established for you to follow.”

Emerie put a hand on the feral Priestess, “Leave now, unless you want Gwyn to rip you to shreds –”

“She won't hesitate – and neither will I,” Nesta added, her iron nails beginning to slide out.

Emerie tried pulling Gwyn back, but to no avail. “We're fine. Just surprised by a gift for our broods.” A couple of the Pegasus peeked out from behind the box, whinnying softly. “Now please, before I have to peel Gwyn off of one of you…leave,” Emerie demanded.

The group in the doorway took a step back, all of them eyeing Gwyn as her hormone fueled rage radiated off of her in waves. They mumbled apologies and turned to continue their work on the communal nursery in The House. 

Azriel doubled back. Keeping his distance he held out a container, raising it like an offering, and slowly placed it on the ground, “Gwyn…your charms.” 

Gwyn narrowed her eyes, but took the box, scowling. She whisked them away without a word, slamming the door behind her. 

“Well you could've at least said ‘thank you’,” Nesta said with a snicker. 

Gwyn glared. Then cracked the door and yelled, “Thank you!”

Azriel’s muffled voice yelled back, “Anything for you, Priestess!”

Gwyn growled, but smiled regardless and turned back to her friends.

“Bracelet making while we take a bath?” 

“I think I'm going to have two alphas and one omega…it just feels very alpha-y in here,” Emerie circled her hand around her belly between braiding her second bracelet. Her first was green, gold, and brown. Her second one was purple, gold, and silver.

“Two alphas?!” Nesta huffed, finally settling into her braiding after shoving her face with noodles. “I think I have at least one alpha in here.” She picked up black, red, and silver threads.

Gwyn furrowed her brow, “Despite my emotions being all over the place – I sense calming energies.” She plucked a few strings from the box after Nesta passed it to her. Orange, black, and teal. “Every time Azriel lays his head on my stomach he falls asleep. He must feel it too.”

Nesta snorted, “Azriel is going to be an insufferable male if your entire brood are omegas. All their future partners better hope he doesn’t stalk them from the shadows.”

“Mor and Balthazar can’t decide who will take care of the alphas. I keep telling them to work together – but that only makes Mor huff and brood for the next hour. Balthazar broods too, but in the garden shed – Oh! I forgot to tell you guys, he’s building little bassinets for the brood!”

Netsa and Gwyn squealed, the three of them then sharing all the things their partners had been preparing. 

Cassian started constructing a backyard sparring and training center. Nesta thought it was a bit early for it, but of course Illyrians start training as soon as they can walk. Illyrian alphas as soon as they start to babble.

While Balthazar was building bassinets and other furniture for the brood, Mor was planning all their holidays and celebrations for the year. She started buying their solstice presents and setting up organization in the house. 

Azriel was reading every book on pregnancy and parenting while curled protectively around Gwyn. Being so early in the pregnancy, they were just enjoying cuddling up in Gwyn’s massive nest together. Though Azriel did start on the nursery early. He had big plans for a detailed painting that would depict everything from the night sky to deep sea creatures to adorable woodland wildlife. 

After their bath and bracelets, the omegas dried off and settled back into the nest. All three of them cuddled up close. With paintbrushes in their hands, they created art on each other’s bellies with homemade paint made from blueberries, strawberries, turmeric, matcha, hibiscus, and coffee. 

They drew little leaves and flowers along their stretch marks. Nesta and Emerie tried to make little stars around as many of Gwyn’s freckles as they could. Emerie painted detailed swords for everyone and their brood vibes. Gwyn scrolled words like beautiful and strong along their bellies.

She was just finishing up the word queen above Emerie’s navel when tears started to well in her eyes again. 

“Gwyn,” Nesta cooed, “You are extremely emotional…more than I was –”

“Same,” Emerie added.

“Maybe you do have at least one alpha in there,” she poked at Gwyn’s smaller belly gently.

Gwyn wiped at her tears and said, “I was just thinking how grateful I am for you two. And how much Catrin would’ve loved my brood. How she’d be the best auntie…” Fresh tears poured from between closed eyelids, clinging to her lashes.

Emerie handed her a tissue and put an arm around Gwyn’s shoulder, pulling her into her side, “Try mind-stilling, Gwyn. It’s honestly the only thing that saved me from the emotional roller coaster. Make Az do it with you. I made Mor and Balthazar do it with me and it makes the emotional roller coaster more manageable –”

Gwyn took a deep breath and began her mind-stilling. Emerie breathed with her, Gwyn’s head resting on her shoulder, Emerie’s head atop hers. Nesta joined them. Scooting over she wrapped an arm around Gwyn, their bellies pressed up against one another.

A calm silence fell over the room as the Valkyries went through the motions of feeling everything, together, and then letting it go. All the stress of their pregnancies, their lives as Valkyries, their every day worries and intrusive thoughts – were all breathed in, acknowledged, and let go. 

Mind stilling became a ritual for the Valkyries. They would do it when they woke, before meetings started, after training, before bed…

But the one thing mind stilling didn't seem to help?

Gwyn shot up from her spot on the couch, startling Nesta and Emerie. “Gwyn what –”

She was already gone and heading straight for the bathroom where she vomited into the toilet.

Her friends came running in to check on her. “Oh, morning sickness, huh?” Nesta knelt beside Gwyn, holding her hair back as Emerie rubbed soothing circles across her freckled back. 

Gwyn spat in the toilet water, “Why – does everyone say this is such a beautiful experience?” Gwyn sat back, resting against the tub next to the toilet. “I can't stop crying…my morning sickness is the most wretched thing I've ever experienced…” She trailed off, as another wave of nausea hit her and she was back in the toilet. 

“It sucks now, but once the morning sickness subsides, we promise, it’ll be worth it,” Nesta said, her voice soothing, like a mother’s. 

“Can we get you anything, Gwyn?” Emerie asked, her hand a constant, reassuring pressure.

As much as Gwyn was enjoying this time with her fellow Valkyries, she knew once her sickness started, she’d be glued to a toilet or bucket for hours. So right now, the only thing she really needed was rest, and to curl up in her own nest with Azriel.

“I’m going to have to leave our nest early…” She closed her eyes tight against the roil of nausea that rose up in her. “I’m sorry –” Her head was back in the toilet.

“Don’t apologize, Gwyn, we’ll have an extra long nesting session next time. I’ve been eyeing a few new Sellyn Drake novels that I think will be perfect for a read-aloud.” Emerie patted a cool, wet cloth to Gwyn’s neck and forehead.

Despite her upset stomach and terrible taste in her mouth, Gwyn smiled at that, “I can’t wait.”

Nesta and Emerie cleaned up the nest, while Gwyn laid curled in a private room, wrapped in a deep blue blanket that smelled of cedar and night-chilled mist. 

When they’d finished cleaning, her friends helped her out into the hall, where a worried Azriel was already waiting. He scooped her up and gave Nesta and Emerie a nod, “Thank you, for taking care of her.”

They smiled as Emerie wrapped an arm around Nesta’s shoulders, “Gwyn did the same for us, of course we would take care of her.”

Gwyn moaned and whined into Azriel's chest, her face contorting in the tall-tell I’m-about-to-throw-up scrunch. Azriel held her closer, his arms curling around her. “I should get her back,” he said, then he pressed a kiss to Gwyn’s forehead.

“Oh – wait! Before you go…” Nesta turned and rushed back into the nesting room before emerging with an armful of things – a myriad of friendship bracelets, leftover food, and prancing toy pegasus that swerved and swooped around the items in Nesta’s hands. “The stuffed animal pegasi are a gift from Helion,” she said with a smile. The speckled mare leapt out of Nesta’s arms and into Gwyn’s where it curled up against her chest and neck. 

Azriel chuckled, “I’ll be sure they’re taken care of – All of them.” He nuzzled into Gwyn’s hair, breathing in her scent.

They said their goodbyes. Then Azriel took off from the training grounds at The House and brought Gwyn back to their cottage where the new pegasi pranced and trotted around Gwyn’s nest of blankets in search of their own corner. Azriel stayed tucked in beside her, curling around his omega and comforted her with soft belly rubs and feather-light kisses.

Gwyn drifted off to sleep, replaying over and over the wonderful nesting session she had with her sisters and how fun the next one was going to be.