#because I usually end up sticking close to my anatomy structure!!

[doodledatkittykat]

Your art is super cool and inspiring to me be an art person. Can you show how to draw a cat please? If that is okay?

Thank you oh so much <3 it’s honestly shocking! It’s kind of nice to know im repeating the lineage of giving people cat brainworms. It’s more than okay!!!

I don’t know if this is entirely what you mean, but!!! I’m gonna be honest, a lot of it is making basic shapes and silhouettes. Usually I do more semi realistic cats. And a lot of it is your sense of shape language!!!!! But, I’ll take you through the steps. (Keep in mind that a lot of this is better said than done, as this is from years of being a self taught artist.) this may end up being a thread? There’s also plenty of artists who do cat tutorials WAY better than me. None of this is really defined!

1) CIRCLES AND SQUARES.

Twilight ended up with a circle shape, but as you’ll notice she actually ended up with a more triangle shape! Circles and squares are a best friend.

2) Basic shaping

Anytime you draw, you probably already have a pose in mind. I usually like to shape it out and mold it kind of like clay!!! But the real refinery comes later. Again, keep it basic. You iron out the details later and if you get stressed too fast due to detailing it’ll put you off from the drawing in general.

3) Minor detailing

Since Twilight was sitting, this is just kind of outlining a placement and shape for the limbs and chest I liked. This also includes tail placement!

4) Rough Flats!!!

This is the moment where you of course do the flat base color! As you can see this is usually pretty rough. Again, clay! You’re doing a basic cookie cut shape and smoothing it into the shapes you want come later. As you’ll notice I leave the tail for later since it’s usually BEHIND them and it’s less headache.

5) Put the sketch layer on top and lower the opacity !

This is where more detailing comes in. Like placement of the eyes and patterns. As you’ll notice I’ve ironed out the shaping!!!

6) Mapping

This is pelt mapping!!! Of course, it’s mapping out the patterns and shapes of a cats fur to a place im content with. Again, this kind of plays into your understanding of shapes.

7) Color!!!!

I’ll end it here, but this is for playing around on a clipping layer once you figure out a placement and color you like!!!! Airbrushing, stippling, the pattern and detail is up to play with!!!

8) And you have yourself a pretty decent cat!

Remember, shapes and exaggeration of features are your best friend!

a repeat but a more standard show of anatomy: my snow leopard study! But as you can see even in the character design I give them poof and exaggeration to make expression. Even in the final product I think I will mess around with the shapes to give off whatever vibe I want! Even as you can see for the full body I referenced I blocked out the character instead of really following the shapes.

[alaskan-wallflower]

Hiii, what's your favorite part about your The Wretched (?) au? Or whats something about it you are most looking forward to or excited about?

i literally love you rn oh my gosh

The Curtis brothers!!! I LOVE them, especially in this AU

We got fire bound gryphon Darry—I’m gonna ramble a moment but he’s like…really big—like the size of a house at least. Bigger, even. That’s because he’s half gryphon and needed up being that big (there afe other creatures that are that size—Dallas for example-Johnny in his true form, so it’s not too unusual—he built a cabin for himself when he got too big (when he was around sixteen was when he peaked) and ever since him and his dad had worked on the cabin. His first job is plowing areas (abandoned ones ofc) to make room for new buildings and structures that he helps build, so he kinda acts like a bulldozer ngl—but he also brings home cool things he finds for his cabin and his brothers. His second job is a glass blower-he makes statues and stuff. I was talking to @crow2222 and he mentioned that Darry made a tribute to his parents and I’m sticking with that-he makes furniture and even makes building skeletons sometimes. It’s kinda like pottery to him. He also makes gifts for his loved ones. He usually gets food from meat stands and stuff because they either haven’t been able to sell anything or it’s gone bad (I have a whole thing about gryphon anatomy I WILL ramble, but he’s immune to toxins like that is he’s fine-debating between making that a third job or just as a symbiotic way to get food while also helping out. He purrs when he’s happy tho-like house shaking purrs. That’s rare tho nowadays unless he’s with his brothers-he has fangs too tho! I did draw a pic of that (if you go to #gryphon!darry on here you’ll prolly find it lol)

Thennnnn electric bound hypogriff Soda! I originally had him as a pegasus but I decided to go with combining the whole “half bird mythical being” thing so we’re completing the trend—I figured I’d make him electric bound to complete the trend of “energy based bindings” (thermal for darry, electric for soda and light for pony) but ALSO so he can jumpstart cars sometimes—his electricity also comes with kinda being able to control weather? When he’s excited he sparks-when he’s mad you can obviously tell because again, he sparks. He stores electricity in his body but if it ends up being too much electricity he “overvolts” which basically means you don’t wanna touch him because you’ll get electrocuted due to the amount of electricity surging through his coat at that moment. He’s pretty much normal sized—a bit big because hypogriffs are kinda big but he’s not Darry’s sized or even close to that. He also semi controls weather-like he can clear storms but that either makes him pass out for days or sends him into overvolt.

Then light bound peryton Ponyboy! Perytons are half deer half bird so I decided to complete the trend lol-with Pony he ends up being pretty average sized-kinda big because he’s gonna end up a full grown peryton but again, he’s not anywhere near Darry’s size. For the half bird I wanna make him I’m thinking snowy owl? I dunno, I just have an image in my mind and all I can imagine is snowy owl. Anyway, he’s light bound ofc-his fur glows when he’s happy or upset or something and he can blind people if he wanted to but again that takes a LOT of energy and he just prefers not to unless it’s a genuine situation where he’s gonna end up dead otherwise. Perytons also cast the shadow of a man until they kill one, and I’ve talked about this a few times but on the train to Windrixville he finally sees his own shadow and that wrecks him for a good few months. If he’s not in the light (sunlight, moonlight, artificial light) for a while he’ll get deathly sick. Like he NEEDS some form of light, even if it’s burying a nightlight into his feathers and fur. His eyes also glow when he’s using his light bending abilities. His tears and blood do too—he can kinda store heat? But he acts more like a heating pad as opposed to like…a furnace. He can get warm but not like-hot. If that makes sense? His antlers and hooves are made up of prisms tho! So he’s kinda sought after for that…and when his antlers fully grow he has crystals dangling from them that he likes priding himself on. He also styles his hair so his little antler stubs are visible which scares Darry because it’s basically showcasing them to humans. He can be dangerous if he wants (by blinding people, he has razor sharp front talons, his antlers too-he has teeth that could snap bones. But he’s not dangerous. He does t want to be.

I love rambling guys 🙏

[defeatedbyamerechild]

How well can each villian draw? I'm especially curious about Maxie and Cyrus's skills. I've probably said this a lot but I love your art! I don't have an account on Tublr so I search up your blog every day! The first thing that comes up on my recently searched is always DBAMC! XD

Oooh OK! I have in fact some drawings of how each villain draws... Some drawings are from the “meet the villains” post and some are from a future project that I’m not going to talk about for now... XD  I didn’t have drawings of all characters, but... I made some for the occasion too!

Anyways, here they are:

Giovanni:

Although Gio has a good visual-spacial intelligence, it’s more about a good sense of direction and capacity to understand visual information than about his artistic abilities. He is good at understanding visual input, but not good at translating the visual info on his head to an actual paper. Besides, he doesn’t make an effort. He just “decided” that he is bad at it and so he doesn’t try to do anything other than simple stick figures.

Archie: 

Archie likes drawing with crayons and thick pencils, usually. He is a fan of “children media” like child games and cartoons, so his style is influenced by that. He doesn’t have a great knowledge of anatomy, but that is not important for him, since his style is simplified and cute. In terms of colors, Archie is not super consistent with his color choices. He uses the colors available at the moment and that’s good enough for him.

Maxie: 

Being a perfectionist, Maxie really cares about the proportions in his drawings. He draws a structural skeleton before drawing people, so that he can have an idea of the proportions and positions involved. He has a very delicate hand so his drawings tend to be light and have thin lines. He likes coloring with watercolor and tries to keep it as close to reality as possible. He has a strong aesthetic sense and to him it’s important that the drawing looks pretty in the end. He doesn’t add lost of shading, to him, color is more important than the shadows, making his drawings a bit 2d-looking.

Cyrus:

Cyrus is also very delicate in terms of physical touch, so his drawings also tend to have light lines. However, differently from Maxie, he is not very much concerned about the final product’s aesthetic appeal. He wants it to be recognizeable and similar to reality in terms of basic shapes and shadows. Usually prefers pencils. Colors don’t matter much to him, as he considers the interactions between light and dark more important than them. However, if Cyrus is drawing just to illustrate an action, not to create a portrait, he will definitely simplify his drawings a lot, like the first example here. In that case, he will use the first pen or pencil he finds.

Ghetsis:

Ghetsis is not only very talented for arts in general, but also knowledgeable in the history of art and techniques involved. He is not a fan of cartoony styles, and prefers to use paint other than pencils or pens. Ghetsis works with masses of colors and lighting other than contours, lines and bidimensional shapes. He is also very fond of realism, and will keep working on one same piece for days, even months... That, of course, when he has the patience and will to actually make art. When he is out of patience, well... You have the first example.

N:

Similarly to Giovanni, N is not very talented for drawing. The difference is that N is acutally trying his best. He tries to put all the shapes he can perceive in his body into paper, but doesn’t have any idea of how these shapes interact when put in a certain angle and from a certain perspective. You can notice how the hand is inverted, for example. Here, he used ballpoint pens of different colors.

Colress:

Colress also likes the cartoon-like proportions, just like Archie, but his style is not that much inspired by children’s media. He doesn’t care much about consistent propotions, as long as you can see that it’s the same person on both drawings, for example. He tends to draw all faces the same, because facial features are not that easy for him, so everyone has those same black eyes, nostrils and mouth. He will change the expressions depending on what he wants to show, though. He likes pixelated edges on his art, and usually works on the computer. 

Lysandre:

Lysandre loves to experiment with different styles, usually on the computer, but sometimes by hand too. He is very fond of warm tones adn curved lines. He usually likes to make definite contours, strong and visible outlines that make the drawing pop out from the backgrount. He will sometimes break that rule too, since he loves to try different things all the time! Most of Lysandre’s drawing depict himself with all sorts of emotions. In his opinion, art doesn’t have to be true to reality, what matters most is the aesthetic result of an artwork.

Lusamine:

Lusamine will work with wathever materials she finds. On her old drawing of “herself” (Nihilego), she used thick whiteboard pens, but on her newest drawing, she used thin pens on paper. Her style is slightly inspired by Dr. Seuss in terms of propotions, but with many differences in terms of execution: instead of several lines composing the outline of her drawing, Lusamine draws with one long stroke for each shape. Her aesthetics usually include lots of curves and curls.

Guzma:

Most of the time, Guzma uses thick markers for his drawings. He is careless when drawing outlines, but his style is somewhat consistent. On “meet the villains”, Guzma traced a generic anime-style man to make his own portrait. For that, he used a thin felt-tip pen, to try to make it look more “professional”. Guzma cares more about the big picture and much less about the details.

Piers:

Piers has his own style, just like nearly everything about him. He developped a technique to make his lines look like barbed wire, and loves to use pointy shapes and spikes all over his art. The keywords for his style are “sharp edges”. Although Piers loves colorful stuff, he thinks he is “bad at colouring”, and so he prefers to keep his own art black and white. He says it’s better to have something black and white than badly painted.

Rose:

Rose’s style was inspired by comics and cartoons, specially short strip comics that work on a “gag-a-day” format. Resemblance to reality is not vital for him, so people won’t have different shapes of head or eyes in his art. He works with a kind of “formula” where every human follows the same basic structure and differences are added later on. He thinks the facial expressions are very important on his drawings, so his characters have big eyes and mouths most of the time. 

Anyways... 

I usually don't like to talk about drawing "well" or not when it comes to art, because it's actually pretty relative... Although, yes, sometimes there are people who can't really draw much. Giovanni is one of them, for example, and N is also not great. That aside, we have some with more skills like Ghetsis and Maxie, and some with average skills... Each one has their own style! Here are the examples of their art! ^^

Also! I'm really glad to hear that you like my art that much! I wanted to take this content other places than Tumblr, but Instagram and Twitter didn't really have the same charm, specially because of how photo albums work there. I'm still thinking about what to do, then maybe you'll be able to see the comics on another media! ^^

[somnolent-snufkin]

Not Meant to See That...

PLEASE READ:

This is mean to be a writing experiment. I'm trying to be more creative with my vocabulary and sentence structure. I'm trying to be more descriptive and detailed with my work. So, I wrote some smut.. with Snufkin.. and Moomintroll.

This is not safe for work. Please, if you do not like this stuff, be the better person and not read it.

Snufkin and Moomintroll are both adults in this situation.

Moomintroll and his friends were on another adventure. Even at age 23 to 25, the gang was still running into the forest for the fun of it. At the moment, they were looking for a shimmering bird that Sniff had said he found. Everyone wanted to see it, so they went to go look for it.

Since looking for it as a group didn't seem to work out, everyone split up. Snorkmaiden went with Little My, Sniff went on his own (which to him was a big mistake), and Moomintroll followed Snufkin.

Snufkin was walking towards an area of the forest where a storm must of taken place. Trees had fallen down, branches laid about, and even some trees were bent over and cracked open. Moomintroll would of voiced his concern about the path Snufkin was taking, but he decided against it since he knew his friend was good with the unclear paths of the forest.

Snufkin, on the other hand, was desperately trying not to trip over anything or fall on his face. His tail made that a bit more difficult. He didn't want Moomin to worry or to feel stupid.

"Hey Snuff?" Moomintroll asked.

'Oh right. That silly little nickname.' Snufkin thought to himself. "Yes?"

"Do you think Sniff was telling the truth? About that bird."

"You once found a dragon so I'm sure there's such a thing as a shimmering bird."

"You sounded rather nonchalant about that subject."

"Are you referring to the fact that I mentioned the dragon and not immediately remembered that I unfairly sent it far away?"

"Uhh... Yes."

"Well, I still feel soRRRRY- Oof!" Snufkin slipped on a rolling stick and tumbled into a cracked open tree, tearing the left sleeve on his forest green coat. It ended up cutting through his tank top as well, leaving his chest partially bare.

"Oh my goodness! Are you ok?!" Moomintroll dashed over to the mumrik's side. As soon as he saw where the tree had cut, he couldn't help but blush a little. His friend had noticed his red-dusted expression and blushed as well.

"Aaannnd.. I'm heading to my campsite. I-I have a sewing kit that I can use to fix t-this." Snufkin stood up rather abruptly, doing his best to cover the bare area by pinching the fabric together and holding it up. He started walking back, simply trying to avoid the awkwardness of the situation. Moomintroll took a second but he started walking back to the house.

Both of them couldn't stop thinking of what the hell just happened. Both of them couldn't stop thinking of why it was so awkward.

The rest of the group met up at the Moomin house late at night, surprised to see that Moomintroll and Snufkin were there already.

A few hours after everyone went to bed, Moomintroll fell restless. He laid in bed, eyes wide open. The atmosphere around him felt hot and sweaty. He kept thinking about all of the silly things that popped into his head when he accidentally saw the mumrik's chest.

"Oh come on, Moomintroll. Be more mature about this! It was just Snufkin!" Moomintroll whispered to himself. 'But he was rather hot...'

"No! I'm not going down that rabbit hole right now." Moomin covered his heated face with his pillow. A muffled "No!" could be heard. He flipped over onto his belly, still blushing away and mumbling random things.

A faint whistle noise could be heard from outside, making the moomin squeak and hide under his blanket. Then the whistle was heard again. And again. And then a small pebble was thrown at the window.

Moomintroll jolted up and ran towards the window.

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

Snufkin was in his tent, sweating bullets. He was very very flustered. He couldn't stop thinking about Moomintroll's reaction and what he could be thinking. Snufkin wasn't usually this easily turned on. In fact, he was almost never turned on. Most of that stayed suppressed.

The mumrik's situation was similar to Moomin's. He was thinking about some dirty things and felt like he shouldn't be. Although with Snufkin, it was a little more upsetting and created more anxiety.

"Alright, maybe I should ask him for help with my coat. I'll wear that old yellow one while he's here. I'll see that he's not someone I should be imagining that stuff with and the thoughts will stop." Snufkin whispered to himself. To his tired mind, it was a perfect idea. So he walked outside and walked up to his best friend's window.

Snufkin whistled. No response. He whistled again. No response. He whistled a third time. No response.

"I'm so sorry but I really need to talk to you.." Snufkin picked up a nearby pebble and chucked it at Moomintroll's window. To his surprise, Moomintroll's window burst open.

"What was that for?!" The moomin squeaked. A loud "shush" sound came out of Snufkin. He beckoned his friend to come down.

Eventually, Moomintroll and Snufkin were standing just outside of Moomin house.

"Why the actual f-"

"I-I'm so sorry for throwing the rock.. I just... I needed to talk to you badly.."

"..about?" Moomin raised an eyebrow. 'Is he going to tell me.. no. Don't even think about it.'

"Uhh.. t-the coat! I need help fixing my coat!" Snufkin was still wearing the ripped coat, clearing not thinking this through.

"Didn't you say you kne-"

"I STILL- Uhh.. I still need help with it."

"..ok then."

It was nearly midnight and the two were awake, in Snufkin's tent, trying to figure out what to do.

"Ok I threaded the needle!" Moomintroll mentioned, not looking up. "Can I have the coat?"

Without thinking, Snufkin just took off the coat, leaving him in his tank top and trousers.

Moomin looked up just for a moment to grab the coat and instantly shut down. His face turned a bright red and he dropped the needle. Realizing his mistake, Snufkin blushed deeply and his tail whipped about rapidly.

"S-Sorry!! I wasn't thinking and It's been a while since I've slept and I've been having these crazy thoughts all night and it's making me impulsive and stupid and-"

"W-Wait! Calm down, Snuff." Moomintroll's face remained a deep red. "What do you mean 'crazy thoughts'?"

Snufkin couldn't form a single word. He simply blushed even more and set his head in his hands.

"Are they... weird?"

"..yes.."

"Are they dirty?"

He nodded.

"Y-You're not the only one." Moomintroll chuckled nervously. "I've been trying to sleep but certain thoughts about you keep making me stay awake.."

"You've been thinking about me like that?" Snufkin was shocked and almost relieved. "What are you thinking of?"

"W-Well... I uhh.. I kept thinking about your chest. You just seem a l-little more muscular than I thought. Y-You look kind of hot.. without your coat on.." Moomintroll started to get a little worked up. He felt so flustered. It wasn't any different for Snufkin either. Although he was thinking of things less submissive.

Feeling very impulsive, Snufkin decided to explain what he was thinking about. But first, he would have to get Moomin to hush for a second.

"I-I don't know why I-" Moomin was cut off by Snufkin pressing his lips against Moomin's. Which was a little difficult because of where Moomin's mouth was, but he worked around it. The mumrik pulled away and had a sleepy grin on his face.

"Now can I tell you about what I was thinking about?" Snufkin's voice deepened and became more seductive. This was definitely new to Moomin. Snufkin had been suppressing all of this? This new tone he had was like honey- sweet and slow.

"I had been thinking of pressing my lips against yours, and being on top of you.." Snufkin began crawling closer to Moomin, making the other lay back. He grabbed the dark green coat out of the others hands and set it aside where he placed his hat.

"I think of dominating you, being close to you, and giving you compliments. I think of doing so many things to make you feel good." Snufkin was completely lost in this horny state. It seemed as if Moomin was losing it too. Both of their eyes closed halfway. Both feeling amorous. It became hot and humid inside their tent; it felt crowded. But it felt good to be so close together.

"Wha.. What kinds of things would you do to make me feel good?" Moomintroll asked.

"Do you want to me to show you?"

"Oh, absolutely!"

Snufkin leaned down and grinded against Moomintroll, both of them already feeling that itch go away.

"What do you want me to do, Moomintroll?" Snufkin asks, pausing the grinding for a moment.

"Oh please say my name again!"

"Alright then, my Moomintroll." He started grinding again, making them both let out small, quiet, and short whimpers and moans. Moomintroll pulled Snufkin into a mumrik-kiss. He lifted his snout and everything. They continued grinding and kissing until they pulled away for air. Snufkin paused and sat up, seeming to slip out of that horny state for a moment.

"Do you want to take this further?" Snufkin asked. "If you want to, I want to." Moomin nodded, clearly wanting to get that pleasure he'd been wishing for all night.

"Oh absolutely!"

The mumrik didn't know much about moomin anatomy. All he knew was mumrik and mymble anatomy. It seemed as if Moomintroll knew this, since he decided to sit up slightly and explained a little bit. They agreed on a position; Moomintroll laying on his stomach with his ass up a little bit and Snufkin on his knees behind him.

Once that awkward conversation was done and the two were actually in that position, both of them were very eager to get going. The mumrik entered the other's entrance, causing them both to groan a little.

"Ohh!~" Moomin moaned. "So.. ahhh~ warm!~" Snufkin kept going, then pulled out. Then he pushed back in again. He continued this over and over again, feeling his grasp on his impulsivity gone. The mumrik became rather feral and rough.

"Don't stop!~" Moomin cried, trying to quiet down his noises. That's right when Snufkin lost it. He leaned over and growled into Moomin's ear.

"Oh I won't being stopping anytime soon, my Dove~"

Moomin felt weaker, nerves flooded with pleasure. He had never seen Snufkin be so dominating and rough. His low growling was just overstimulating the Moomin, and oh did he love that.

"Snufkin!~" Moomintroll cried out. "Ahhh!~ Oh, I feel... s.. so good!~"

"I'm going to keep pounding ya 'till you're screaming my name~"

They both felt so different in this heated atmosphere. One felt weak and the other fell feral. It was so.. different. And Moomin loved it.

"Say my name, dove~"

"Ahhh~ Sn.. Snufkin!~"

In response, Snufkin thrusted hard into Moomin. He hit his prostate. Moomin screamed the mumrik's name, most likely waking up some of the folks in the house.

There was some loud growling and then everything went blurry for a moment. All Moomin could feel was white hot pleasure. The two pulled away from each other, panting and falling out of their little daze.

"What the fuck is wrong with you two?? It's the middle of the night! I'm trying to sleep and you're out here fucking?" Little My complained, sitting outside of the tent.

Moomin and Snufkin were too worn out to even respond to that sh!t.

Once Little My left, Moomin turned to Snufkin and whispered something.

"We should do this again sometime.."

Wow. This took forever to write. I am so sorry for scarring anyone. I did put warnings. Also, this is probably the worst thing I've ever written (not counting Eddsworld fanfiction)...

It's 00:58...

[fell-in-love-didnt-you]

Five Times I Wanted to Kiss You, and One Time You Did, Too

Oh, my god. I spent actual hours on this, It's a 26 page word doc. Word count of 10k +. Holy shit. 

My friend will anonymously say “fic waz good” and I will tell theme tickety boo bebop. If you’re reading this, you know. 

Okay, enjoy about six hours of my life poured into a fic I love more than anything I’ve ever written ever even outside the wonderful carry on fandom. 

Oh, also, basically Chapter 61 happened but no kissing. Basically, all kissing that is canon has been taken out unless it happened between Agatha and simon. okay enjoy (putting a read more cuz it’s fucking long)

Read on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051074

Baz figures it out fifth year, but he knows it has festered in the back of his brain long before this point. Maybe it has even been there since the first time they met. Being raised to hate the Chosen One doesn’t exactly mean you’re going to comply. 

And he certainly does hate Snow. Stupid fucking hair, stupid fucking walk, and stupid fucking everything and anything else Baz can think of. He can’t even hold a wand right unless Bunce shows him first. Pathetic choice for a Chosen One. 

And the whole “I’m going to follow you around until I finally catch you draining rats and defiling virgins” act also doesn’t let Baz sit on these confusing emotions for more than three seconds alone. Seriously, is it all some cosmic joke? Is some long-forgotten enemy of the Pitches sitting Upstairs somewhere, laughing until they cry, and also making sure Baz doesn’t have a fucking second alone?  

If so, fuck you, Baz thinks. Fuck you and your whole lineage, if someone ever felt bad enough to sleep with you. 

That is another thing: the wanting to sleep with Simon Snow, Mage’s heir, resident Good Boy, and savior of the magical world. Also, the boyfriend to the stunningly gorgeous Agatha Wellbelove, who also may have a thing for Baz, too. And Baz is flattered, honestly. He and Wellbelove would make some beautiful children that would dominate the magical world. Hell, maybe he’d name them all Simon Snow Pitch just to piss off the Golden Boy. 

He wants so bad to feel anything else for anyone else. He’d fuck a chimera if he thought for one second it would clear this blinding, aching need to touch and be touched by the one person most disgusted by his presence. Anyone else. He’d marry Bunce, or a second cousin, or a tree. 

But that feeling, that “It’s you; it’s going to be you” has sat in the pit of Baz’s stomach for five years before deciding to take root at the base of his brain stem and prick and demand attention from both. A torturous cycle akin to being stuffed in the ground alive with a straw poking though the earth. Never satisfied, but still hopeful like a fucking moron. 

Baz climbs the stairs to the turret. If his mum was still headmistress, maybe lifts would have been incorporated sometime, or even just escalators. Everyone calls the Mage the ‘Great Reformer’, but Baz puts that on the far end of his list of names for that fuckweed. Far behind prick, narcissistic bitch, and crazy fucking lunatic, which all rank well within the top ten. But Snow would argue that the Mage is really the ‘Great Reformer’ everyone calls him. 

Baz’s calf muscles and back disagree heartily. 

Even though the basic unsaid rules of their room declared that Snow takes showers in the evening, Baz can’t stand the way his clothes stick to him like they’re a second skin. He thought last year he was finally done growing, but the Grimms are a tall folk, and it seems he’s inherited that (and maybe, like, four other things) from his father. Any walking makes him sweat when it’s this early into the year, and the added bonus of not fitting into custom clothing makes it all the more awful. 

So Baz breaks tradition and grabs a towel from his wardrobe. They’re supposed to share one, but Simon decidedly moved his things away from anything resembling Baz about three seconds into this year’s term, and Baz actually doesn’t give a shit. If anything, he’s happy. Now, no lingering scent of Simon can be on his clothes anymore than it usually is. 

Sharing a room with the person you want more than actual life makes him hyper-aware of what Snow smells like: brimstone, green fire, and burned foodstuffs. Makes sense. 

Despite the building being old, the water pressure is wonderful. Baz maybe thinks someone has spelled it this way because there’s no way a place as old as Watford had this wonderful a plumbing system when it was made. Just as Baz is wondering who may have upgraded this integral part of the school, a loud, obnoxious knock on the bathroom door jolts him from his thoughts. 

“We need to talk,” says a muffled voice on the other side of the dark wood door. Simon Snow has never been great at yelling, even in the best of times. Baz accidentally pushed him down the stairs once, and the only noise he made the entire time was a surprised little, “oh” just before he went down. 

“I need to get clean,” Baz replies, hoping that will shove off any response for a few minutes. 

The knock sounds again, though this time it’s louder. “Now!” Simon yells. He thumps even harder against the door, and Baz sighs as he rests his head against the cool tile of the shower. Never a dull moment when you know the Chosen One, he thinks to himself. 

Baz really should be thinking about the structural integrity of a door that was made centuries before him. It’s got a cheap little doorknob from when the other fell out two years into their time at Watford. (Baz blames Simon, but he knows it was himself that did it; slamming a door closed will do that.) The thing hardly locks half the time, and Baz was so tired after a day of classes and scouring the Catacombs that he just didn’t think about locking the door. 

So when Simon’s incessant thumping gets harder, the door gives. The knob, thanks to its cheapness, breaks, and the door swings in to reveal Baz, naked, actually in the shower and not plotting, because that’s what Snow always thinks he’s doing. 

Baz’s first instinct is to cover himself up. Fling a towel around his lower half and cower in a distant corner until Snow decides that looking at a pale, naked vampire isn’t worth his time anymore. His second instinct is to shout. Because his towel is one the counter outside of the shower, his second instinct will have to do. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” he demands, and if there’d been any magic in his voice, Snow would be spilling secrets from his childhood like a broken dam. But Baz doesn’t need magic to make Snow become flustered or spill his secrets. All he needs is a hiss in the back of his throat and a lethal glare. 

Snow looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck. The most logical thing he can do at this point is close the door, walk out of the room, and not show up for a few hours so Baz can have a bit to think about this. But all Snow does do is stare, and stare, and stare, and stare some more. It’s like he’s trying to bore holes into Baz’s brain with just his eyes. 

And then Baz watches those unextraordinary blue eyes creep from his face to where he’s trying desperately to cover up. And damnit, Baz thinks, that shouldn’t be doing the things it’s doing to me. It shouldn’t be setting him on fire all over like he’s not flammable to the largest extent, and it damn sure shouldn’t be making all the blood from the rats rush south like a freight train. 

Snow comes to his senses finally (if he’s really got any) and slams the door shut. Baz can feel his face becoming redder. He likes the water hot, but this isn’t a temperature-related heat. This isn’t even the heat of arousal. It’s the heat of shame. Because while Snow was staring down where Baz’s hands are still covering, he was only thinking about one thing: snogging the daylights out of the Mage’s heir. 

Shit.

 …

 The end of fifth year isn’t nearly as exciting as the previous ones: Simon slayed a dragon first year, and the Humdrum’s sent something equally as lethal (if not, more so) every year. However, for the first time in five terms, the last weeks are uneventful. Baz takes his exams in relative silence, though Snow’s tapping feet never stop. 

However, if that’s the only upset they’ll have during exams, he can take. 

It’s been about six months since Snow walking in on him in the shower, and they haven’t spoken about it. To be fair, they also didn’t speak about whatever it was that had been so pressing in Snow’s mind that day. It just didn’t seem as important as seeing your arch-nemesis stark naked. 

Maybe he’d seen the long scar that ran down Baz’s legs. It wasn’t from whatever Snow was thinking it were from. It was years old from when the wraiths had thought it fun to mess with a Pitch. Live and learn, Baz thought. The wraiths hadn’t touched him since then. 

Or maybe Snow was really just freaked out about the sight of another man’s prick. If he thought that only he had stones or some stupid shit, anatomy next year was going to fuck him over really well. 

Whatever it had been, it’s gone and passed. Baz has shelved it away for the day he’ll finally get a good wank in, which will be only a few days from now. The last days of term always feel the longest, though, and even just remembering that is making his skin itch. 

He’s forgotten it long enough, though, to begin packing his wardrobe. It’s not like Baz has a sizeable amount of clothing or anything, but compared to Snow’s, it’s massive. The winter coats alone outnumber all of Snow’s non-school clothing. 

Just as Baz begins to take down the few frayed tees he’s ever owned, the door to the room opens. He doesn’t need to look up to know it’s Snow; the clambering of feet up the stairs always tells him enough. Apparently, Snow shares the same sentiment about stairs. Baz looks up to see Snow’s face flushed and his mouth open. (Though that shouldn’t surprise Baz anymore. Snow’s mouth is always open, like an obnoxious trout.) 

“Haven’t suggested a lift to your Jedi master, then?” Baz asks, returning his attention to the remaining clothes in the wardrobe. “Or haven’t you mastered Up, up, and away?” 

Simon’s glare reverberates through the room, and Baz drops the tie in his hand. The unmistakable scent of Snow’s magic is pouring into the air. Could what Baz just said really set him off that easily? It isn’t even comparable to their normal insults. Nothing this year has been comparable to the previous ones. Baz is too wrapped up in himself lately to really think of any good zingers. 

Baz turns sharply from the wardrobe and says, “Calm down, Snow. You don’t want the Anathema killing you for maiming me.” Maybe in some distant world, that could be true. 

Snow takes one large step forward and is up in Baz’s space. He’s not close enough to get a good punch in, but Baz knows that Simon doesn’t judge distance very well when it comes to physical altercations. As long as he even scrapes Baz, Snow counts it as a win. 

“Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend,” Snow spits at him, hands live like a wire in the air. He always does this when they fight: the spitting of words, the gritting of teeth, and the pointing of hands. However, the actual flames that lick the insides of his eyes give way to let Baz know he’s probably as serious right now as he’s ever been. “I mean it, you fucking creep!” 

Baz is just confused. Of course, he won’t let that show. A sly smirk paints its way across his face and he asks, “Trouble in paradise, Snow?” 

More magic is exuded. More of the air feels alive with electricity. Snow’s magic has always felt like this: alive, alive, alive. There’s nothing about Simon Snow that isn’t alive. Baz wishes he could be jealous. 

“Calm down, Snow,” Baz murmurs, bending over to pick up his tie. It helps to ease the shaking in his hands. Snow could quite literally explode all of Mummer’s right now, and Baz could go up with it. That’s not how he’s supposed to die.

Well, sort of. Simon Snow will do the right thing and kill him once and for all one day, far away from this day, when they stand on opposite sides of the battlefield. 

But dying as a fifth year in the top of Mummer’s because Snow’s girl has obviously upset him is not the way Simon is going to kill him. 

Snow’s jaw clenches, and he steps back from Baz. Thank Merlin for Anathema, Baz thinks, whoever you were. 

Finally, the static in the air calms to the low buzz that always accompanies Snow, and Baz feels like he can breathe again. He can smell a hell of a lot more than most people, and maybe that’s why being around Simon has always made him feel like he’s suffocating. Or maybe it’s because he just wants to pin the Chosen One down on a bed and kiss him ‘til they both die. 

That’s what Baz is thinking as Snow loosens his jaw and opens his mouth like the damned trout again. He’s thinking about stepping closer and filling a gaping hole in his chest that aches more and more every passing second. He’s thinking about just coming out with it, no matter the repercussions from his family or the Coven or even Snow himself. He’s thinking about twisting his hands into that perfect golden hair and touching the moles he’s longed to touch since they first met at the Crucible. 

But all Baz does is think. 

So, instead of pulling Snow in for a maddening and passionate kiss, he turns to his wardrobe and says, “Try not to blow Wellbelove up next time you see her. I still haven’t gotten my fill.”

 …

 Christmas at Watford is always bittersweet. Baz loves the turkey that’s served the night before the official end of the term, and he’s obsessed with the holly hung up just about everywhere it can be. Miss Possibelf always teaches them little Christmas spells like Merry and bright (obviously for lighting fairy lights) and talks about where the myth of Father Christmas really came from. 

But it also makes Baz long for his mother. Sixth year isn’t easy. It’s the year before the technical last year one is required to take. Baz can stop coming after seventh year if he chooses, though he knows he will come back. He’s not going to be the first Pitch to ever drop out of Watford. Plus, Aunt Fiona’s threatened him with a silver cross branding over the heart if he decides to leave. 

His mum loved Christmas much more than any other Pitch. She’d set up a big tree in the sitting room and physically place the ornaments on instead of spelling them up like every other magical family. When Baz once asked why, she gave him a look like he’d just asked her why she was breathing. After all, everyone does need to breathe. 

So, yeah, the holidays simultaneously suck and rock. Aunt Fiona always brings down the shitty handmade bobbles from when Baz was, like, two and places them on the tree where everyone can see them. His dad mixes up basically all the top shelf alcohol into a cocktail and lets Baz have several glasses. Even Daphne gets in the spirit and throws a mini party with some more liberal members of the Old Families. It’s a good time to be a Grimm-Pitch. 

Baz doesn’t entirely pack away his things. He just takes his coats, trousers, socks, and boots. He has more than enough clothing at his house. If he even so much as mentioned a sweater he thought was cool enough to look at for more than two seconds, it would be on his bed by the time he got home. He didn’t want or need anything from his school wardrobe. Just enough to get him to the train and back. 

Snow kept the window open, and the breeze blows Baz out of his memories and right back into the chilly air of the room. Simon would keep that damned thing open all the time if Baz didn’t put his foot down. It was like that the first few months of the first year, but after he complained to Fiona about it enough times, she encouraged him to yell at Snow until he submitted to whatever whim was plaguing him. 

Now, though… After last year’s revelations and midnight wanks, he can’t so much as snarl at Snow without feeling like he’s an utter arse. Hating Snow used to be as easy as breathing, even though vampires breathe far less often than humans. They do still need to breathe. Snow asked that once in fifth year. What a dunce. 

You’ve fallen for a dunce, Baz thinks. A complete fucking dunce. 

The cold gets to be too much. Snow isn’t even in the room. He’s probably off with Bunce trying to coerce cook Pritchard into giving him more scones or butter or something. As Baz is about to slam the window down and watch the snow fall from the sill, his eye catches on white blond hair that’s a stark contrast to the dark yew tree behind it. 

Wellbelove is an objectively attractive person, and Baz can definitely admit that to anyone asking. She’s standing down against the yew tree, earmuffs protecting what Baz knows are tiny, pale ears that turn the lightest shade of pink when you compliment her. She’s got a light blue coat wrapped around her, and even though the weather definitely doesn’t call for it, she’s wearing a skirt and some tights that tuck away neatly into boots. 

That’s another thing about being a vampire: the vision is impeccable. 

As impeccable as it is, Baz wants to turn around at the next sight. Snow walks up to Agatha and wraps his arms tightly around her waist before kissing her. It’s so hetero that Baz thinks he might throw up. He would if it was anyone else. Just thinking about people like Dev and Niall actually getting their hands on a woman long enough to kiss her makes Baz’s stomach do summersaults and backflips. 

But it’s Snow. His golden hair sticks out in every which way and demands attention in the flapping of the wind. He’s laughing loud enough that it trails up the room where Baz has his hands clenched on the window, nearly splintering it into thousands of pieces. Maybe the Anathema would hurt him for hurting the window. Then he wouldn’t feel so much. 

It’s been easy to ignore them. It looked like they’d gone through a rocky patch there, and Baz let himself hope for just one second that it might be over. Of course, even if they were over, there was no way in heaven, hell, or the Veil that Simon Snow would fall in love with the evil gay vampire. 

No way. 

Baz wants to scream and rage and throw things around the room until his hands go numb and his fangs drop and he can taste blood in his mouth, which hasn’t happened in a long time. He wants to kill Snow and kiss him and throw him to a merwolf and take him so far away from the Humdrum and Watford and everything that’s been hurting him his entire life. 

But Baz just slams the window down loud enough for Snow to look up and see Baz glowering down at the pair of them. 

Whatever. Baz will just make Agatha love him instead. Shouldn’t be too hard.

 …

 Watching Snow get yanked out of thin air with Bunce on his arm feels like some weird fever dream Baz has made to cope with every stupid argument they’ve had this year. Even today, Snow came into the room just to get into a petty argument about the window again. 

Snow’s just popped around the corner into the Wavering Wood. Baz mentally curses himself. Why does everyone try to follow him when he just wants food? (Blood? Same difference.) First Wellbelove, and then Simon motherfucking Snow and Bunce. Can a man have no privacy?

Of course, the second he realizes Snow’s in the vicinity of him and Wellbelove, Baz takes her hands into his, and it looks like they’re going to kiss. Of course, Baz isn’t going to waste his first kiss on a girl, but if it makes Snow mad, he’ll make that stupid sacrifice. 

However, the sucking feeling of the Humdrum creeps into the air just as Snow comes to the clearing. Baz can only describe it as being dry. The air gets tight around him, and he can feel his lungs contracting like a heart that’s finally puttering out. However, his heart is beating what would be considered for normal for a human and erratic for a vampire. Snow asked once if he had any blood in his body. Why the fuck do you think I need it? Baz wanted to ask him back. He scowled instead. 

Just as suddenly as Snow and that feeling appears, they both go away. Baz lets go of Wellbelove’s hands and stands in shock and awe. There’s no spell that can make oneself invisible, though one ancestral Grimms did try to use Out, out, damned spot for that. He accidentally discorporated himself to another dimension. Baz says a silent prayer for William Malcolm Grimm before turning to Agatha and basically screaming, “Where the fuck did Snow go?” 

If Baz was thinking or was at all competent, he would track Snow using Come out, come out wherever you are, but Baz isn’t thinking. He knows Fiona will have his head on the pyre after she finds out, but Baz agrees with Wellbelove and goes to the Mage with her. They both saw it, and they both need the affirmation that they’re not crazy. 

The Mage seems almost uninterested. It’s the last day of term for the eighth years, and he somehow thinks that’s more important than saving his literal heir. While Baz wants to punch the Mage on the best of days for what he’s done to the Old Families, he’d probably dig his fangs into the Great Prick’s neck if Wellbelove wasn’t there.

She’s an absolute wreck. Her best friend and boyfriend just got sucked out of thin air to Crowley knows where, and no one is trying to go find them. At least, no one skilled. The Mage sends his personal army after them, but Baz knows it’s just for show. The Mage’s army couldn’t find an apple on top of a bowl of bananas even if there was a bright neon arrow pointing to it. 

So he and Wellbelove wait. Wellbelove is utterly inconsolable, but she does rest her head on Baz’s shoulder after a little bit. If Baz wasn’t so busy actively trying to take down her boyfriend and make him miserable, maybe they’d be friends. She’s a bright girl even with as little magic as she’s got, and she’s quippier than most people in their year. Her only real contender is Bunce, but she’s too busy worrying over Snow to be in any competitions. 

Baz eventually gets the news that his family’s arrived for the ceremony. All the Old Families come for the Leaving Ceremony even if they have no one graduating. Baz will be up on that stage in the White Chapel next year, and while he can’t get the image of Snow and Bunce being sucked out of existence before his very eyes, the least he can do is distract himself by watching his predecessors leave. 

Fiona is looking around, and it takes only three guesses for Baz to realize she’s trying to find the Chosen One. She’s hexed him at enough of these ceremonies to know he’d be here, and when she asks Baz where he is, all he can do is shrug. It’s not exactly lying; he really doesn’t know where Simon went. Baz looks over and sees the Bunces looking around just like Fiona, although they’re more worried. 

It’s their daughter missing, after all. The brightest child they’ll ever put out hasn’t shown up to a ceremony she’s gone to since before she enrolled in Watford. Baz almost feels like he should go over and explain. He knows something, even if it’s not the whole story. 

Just as he’s rising to his feet, the doors bang open. The light from outside nearly blinds Baz as he turns to stare at the two figures in the doorway. He already knows Simon is one of them. The brimstone and burning smell are in the air, and his magic is pouring out of him and tearing at the seams. After adjusting to the light, Baz can see Bunce’s bright hair and the glint of her ring. 

There’s a moment of silence before chaos erupts. The blood hits Baz’s nose last. Somehow, even he thinks that’s wrong. The blood should have alerted him long before the doors flew open, but here he is, gaping open-mouthed at the two figures in the doorway. Simon is covered in blood from head to toe, and Penny is only cleaner by a fraction. It looks like it’s being sucked out of their pores. It looks like they’re going to die right there on the floor of the White Chapel. 

Baz is stuck in place, and he silently thanks whatever Pitch ancestor is keeping him there. It would be even more of a scandal if he ran to his enemies and cried over their corpses. That’s to be done in private. 

However, two hours later, a group of magical nurses and doctors have been called, and they all gather in Baz’s room, waiting for Simon to exit the shower. 

Baz feels awkward. Should he be pouring tea? Would that be too domestic? He doesn’t have to wait much longer. 

Snow steps out of the washroom like a zombie in a low-budget film. Even though it’s obvious by the smell that he’s scrubbed every surface of his body, dried blood flecks are still speckled here and there like the moles already present. If given enough time, Baz could find nearly every one of them. He knows every mole that litters Snow’s body and how large it is and where it’s located. 

He’s a man who can’t swim that’s been cast out to sea. 

Baz watches as the doctors perform vitals on Snow and check his skin to make sure the bleeding won’t start again by the simple pressure of fingers or clothing. They poke and prod until the Mage enters and watches himself. Then, they’re sent back to whatever corners of the world they crawled out of. Baz is pretty sure one came from New Zealand. 

Simon looks like a stress ball squeezed one too many times. His hair has gone flat for once, the telltale buzz in the air that marks his presence is gone, and he doesn’t say anything he doesn’t have to. It’s the first time Baz has seen him not stutter out every other word. 

It would be impressive if it wasn’t so fucking scary. 

Then the Mage leaves, and it feels awkward between the two of them for the first time in six years. Even the Crucible wasn’t this bad. Simon seems to stare straight past anyone who looks at him. Wellbelove had been in here before Simon showered, just to see if he was alive, but he’d looked through her like she was a window. Baz had never seen Snow look at her like that. Even when he’d first noticed the two, Simon looked at her like she hung the moon, stars, and other planets. 

So why does he suddenly straighten when Baz shifts? 

In this state, Baz can do anything. He can sacrifice a virgin right in front of Simon, and Baz doesn’t know if Simon would scream or laugh or do nothing at all. He doesn’t know which of the three would be worse. 

“What happened?” It’s the only thing Baz can think to ask. Maybe he should be demanding it, or maybe he should be taunting Snow for being sucked away in the first place, but even though he’s toed at some of the most untouchable of subjects, this feels like a new territory. 

Simon takes a minute before he slowly turns his head to look at Baz. He looks gaunt. He looks like he does whenever term starts up: his face has gone sallow all over, his cheekbones stick out like he’s been starved, and his eyes sit just far back enough in his skull to be unnerving. Baz hates the beginning of term for that reason.

The smile Simon dawns then cracks his lips, and a small dot of blood bubbles up. Baz doesn’t even have the fiendish sense to want to pop his fangs and kill the Chosen One right there. It’s not like the Anathema would let him, but thoughts have to count for something, right? 

“The Humdrum,” Simon murmurs, like that’s supposed to explain what’s happened in the last six hours. Simon says it like he’s praying to it, and that makes a chill run through Baz’s back. 

“Can he even do that?” It comes out as a whisper, and Baz wishes he had the bravado to ask again, but the Humdrum makes him have a headache and the urge to throw up all at once. It’s fear in its primal stages, but Baz won’t admit that. 

“He can now,” Simon replies, breaking eye contact and looking down at his hands. One thumb and forefinger rub at his wrist, which have both gone boney. “He took something from me today.” 

“Fifteen pounds.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither Baz nor Simon laugh. 

“There’s a new hole in the atmosphere,” Simon adds, like an afterthought. The holes in the atmosphere scare Baz, too. They always seem to open when Simon and the Humdrum meet. It can’t be a coincidence. Nothing with the Chosen One is coincidence. 

Baz then crouches down in front of Simon like he’s about to give him a scolding. However, Baz just loosely takes Snow’s hand in his own. The finger bones feel too big in the skin that contains them, but they’re still warm. They still have a pulse in the wrist, and they are still tanned and freckled and have moles scattered across them. 

“He won’t win,” Baz says to the floor. It’s cowardly not to meet Simon’s eyes, but it would take much more of Baz than he’s capable of giving right not. “You won’t let him.” 

Simon nods, but it’s empty. Whenever something like this happens, Simon seems like he’s just going through the heroic motions. He’s read the fairytales and knows his role well enough to play it with few hiccups. 

“I’ll die trying,” Simon whispers. Baz wishes he wouldn’t say that, but they both know how this story ends. The Humdrum will die or disappear or do whatever entities like that do when they’re defeated, but that won’t be the end of Simon’s trials and tribulations. He’ll be hunted by the vampires and the goblins and any other magic-hating creature. 

And one day, something will kill him. Baz hopes to Merlin that the Old Families don’t want it to be him. He’d die, too if he had to kill the Chosen One. His last deed would be to kill the man that did Simon Snow in, and his family would never forgive him for it. 

The urge to kiss Simon’s forehead takes over Baz’s mind, just to let Snow know that he’s so alive. That people love him and that people will protect him and that there are people who would kill and be killed for him. 

And Baz is one of those stupid people. 

Baz can’t kiss the Chosen One. Maybe he will, before Simon puts the stake through his heart. Maybe he’ll stop fighting for ten seconds to tell Snow how he’s in love with him, how he’ll always be in love with him, and how nothing Simon could do would change that. And then Simon would stab him or hex him or go off and not protect him, and it would be over. 

That night is not tonight.

 …

 The earthy smell of wet dirt and rotting wood makes Baz gag again. The wood began to rot a week ago. There’s no plush velvet interior like a coffin for a real dead person. This is one of those cartoony coffins Baz would see in reruns of Scooby-Doo when he was young. 

Perhaps the Numpties think they’re doing him a favor. Maybe they get all their information on vampires from cartoons. It would explain why he hasn’t been given food or water or been exposed to the sun in the last five weeks. However, he was kidnapped in broad daylight, so…

At first, Baz thought someone would come for him. Maybe the Numpties sent ransom. But after he scratched a sixteenth dash into the wood, he knew he’d die here. 

It’s a pretty shitty way to die. No ventilation, surrounded by earthworms to pick the bones left behind, and with Numpties blabbering right on the other side of the wooden coffin. To think, the last thing he’d eaten was a fucking pasty from the country club.

The blood they were giving him tastes like none he’d had before. What if he died with another human’s blood in his system? Whose blood? Someone he knew? A father? A mother? Sister? Son? 

After the third day of refusing blood, Baz gives in. 

Today, they give him another 32 oz. Styrofoam cup filled with blood, and no food or water. Maybe he should demand it. Would they actually listen to him? Maybe they’d think it was a trap. There’s no way Baz can trap them. He’s too weak to move. The first few days, he had promise, but they hit him over the head with a rock when they gave him the blood, and he woke up hours later in the dark again. 

There’s no difference between light or dark here. The only indication Baz has as to the passage of days is the giving of blood. It’s possible they give him blood every other day and it’s really been ten weeks. It feels longer than five weeks, but that could be the fatigue. Vampires can go longer than humans without food or water, and the blood counts for the barely-there amount of water he is getting. 

However, they need that holy trifecta to live: food, water, and blood. 

Baz has two-thirds. 

He’ll die here. 

The first time Baz thought that, he let himself cry in the most cramped and crumpled position possible. (Coffins are decidedly not spacious.)  The second time he thought about his death, he laughed and laughed and laughed until a Numpty came in with a rock and gave him a good thump behind the ear. 

The third time was now. Day thirty-seven (by best estimates). No one is coming for him. 

Baz doesn’t cry or laugh. He just sighs through his nose and takes a sip of blood. If he doesn’t drink it fast, it gets congealed at the bottom, and even though he’s going to die in a Numpty den in a coffin in the ground, he won’t die on an empty circulatory system. 

His stomach will just have to deal. 

The darkness used to play with eyes. Now it just dances like the elephants in Dumbo until Baz gets bored. Then it settles back to darkness. Sometimes the Numpties go away to talk, and the silence talks to Baz until they get back. 

Surprisingly, the silence sounds like an angry David Tennant. Maybe that’s just how every angry Scottish person sounds, but silence might be inherently Scottish. 

But when the Numpties eventually come back, Baz breathes more deeply and closes his eyes. And he sees it. 

The bronze curls always come to him first. Then the unextraordinary blue eyes take formation, and the moles follow. Baz allows himself to focus on that mole just beneath the left side of the jaw. The smile comes last. It’s a smile Baz has saved in his memories by countless times witnessing it from countless angles. The mole to the right of that mouth makes Baz’s eyes water. 

Those eyes shine down at him. For some reason, he’s taller in Baz’s memories than in real life. Maybe he’s grown since seventh year. Probably not, though. Neither of them have grown much since sixth year. They both just filled out in the shoulders and got squared away in the face. No more pockmarks. 

Baz can hear the laugh that emits from that mouth. It’s a sound he knows the angels crafted for ears of the damned to hear. Maybe they thought the damned would think twice about falling if they heard that laugh. It was made to be the first glorious sound deaf people here and for blind people to try to put a face to. It was made for people like Baz, whose souls were up in the air and just needed to be caught and nurtured. 

Those lips were made to be chapped in the cold wind but warm to the touch. The moles and freckles were made to be dreamed of and painted. Those eyes…those unextraordinary but beautiful eyes were made to make women swoon. They certainly made Baz swoon. 

His last thoughts would be of Simon Snow’s lips and moles and eyes. Baz knew this is how it would end. With one of them in tears, professing love, and the other driving a blade into a damned heart. 

However, the one that’s supposed to end him is probably having tea right about now at Watford. Hundreds of miles away. Not knowing that the one he has to kill is being killed by someone else. 

Simon Snow is alive, Baz thinks. 

And I’m hopelessly in love with him.

 …

 “What do we do now?” Penny asks. Simon looks up from the ground. The dead birds are starting to get to Baz. There’s blood everywhere: spilling from the Mage’s ears, drying around Ebb’s corpse, and from the birds that were near enough to Simon’s explosion. 

Baz can’t help it. He hasn’t fed since two days ago in the woods right before a hole opened above his house. He goes to a corner and feeds on a few birds. Penny and Simon should be reprimanding him for doing that, but they’re all so drained that they don’t stop him. 

Eventually, Simon tears his suit jacket off and lays it over the Mage’s body. Even though Snow technically killed him, Baz knows this will tear him up inside. He’s probably the only one that ever loved the Mage properly. Some loved the man for his power, and others for his influence, but Simon loved him because that’s all he could do. 

Baz lays down on the ground away from the bodies and tries to go to sleep. It’s not hard. The last few hours have been more draining than a marathon. In a way, it was a marathon to save Simon Snow. 

A scream interrupts Baz’s nice dream about a hill far away where the sun shines down on the grass and birds are singing in the trees. Simon’s there, too, laying beside him and resting in the shade. It’s the best dream Baz has ever had. 

It’s Bunce’s mum that screams. Baz thinks that maybe having two dead bodies surrounding three (nearly) alive kids could probably give someone the wrong impression, and he rises to see Bunce hugging her mum and Simon hugging himself. Those stupid wings are still spread out, and his cartoonish tail even whips around on the ground. 

Eventually, they leave the White Chapel and go to Mummer’s. The Mage’s army has been summoned, and the Coven and Old Families also arrive. Baz almost flinches when Snow’s hand grabs ahold of his and Bunce takes the other. If anything, he’s at least gained two friends from this miserable experience. 

They wait in the bedroom in the turret for what seems like hours. About five different people of five different ranks from five different groups ask them what happened, and they tell the same story separately five times. However, Simon always comes back to Baz’s bed and grabs ahold of his hand again. It’s a good balance because Baz is shivering, and Snow is a personal furnace. 

Finally, they all leave, and Bunce leaves with her mum. No one comes to get Snow, and Baz refuses to leave until tomorrow unless Snow wants to come with. He doesn’t, so Baz doesn’t go. It feels wrong to leave him in this place when there’s nowhere else to go. Bunce’s mum wasn’t in the right place of mind when she left, so Baz is sure that’s why she forgot to ask Simon with them. Baz isn’t sure Simon would’ve gone anyway. Why does it feel so appropriate to be in this room of all places on Earth? 

“What do we do now?” Baz echoes Penny from hours before. It had been a good question at the time. Two dead bodies, a missing Wellbelove, and no cellphones to call anyone on. This was similar to that. No one left to tell them what to say or do. No one peering in from the outside to get the scoop. No one trying to get evidence to blame either side for the deaths. 

They’d track Wellbelove down soon enough and get her side. Then everything would be clear. 

Simon rests his head against Baz’s shoulder. Baz rests his head against the tuft of curls that tickle his neck. They’re still holding hands. It’s not awkward. It should be. 

A lot of things should be awkward right now. Snow spent Christmas with Baz. They had (still kinda do have) an alliance. They know the Mage succeeded in having Natasha Grimm-Pitch killed all those years ago. Inadvertently, he also caused Baz to be Turned into a vampire. 

So many new pieces of trivia. So much to sort through. So much to strike and add to the Record. So much that they should want to forget. 

But Baz just keeps holding onto Simon’s hand and brushing his face against those bronze curls. It’s a good dream come true that he’s allowed to do this, but Baz doesn’t have the mental capacity at the moment to think about how his fifth year-self is hooping and hollering inside of his heart. He’s too tired to want more than is being given.

Baz would be content if this is all Simon Snow ever gave him. 

A few months later, Baz stands at a punch bowl while the people he’s known for eight years dance and cry behind him. The punch isn’t even spiked. They’re all still too wrung-out from trying to understand what happened in the White Chapel that night. Dev and Niall wanted to know why Baz hadn’t killed or at least seriously maimed Simon that night. 

How does one explain homosexuality for the arch nemesis to two duds like Dev and Niall? 

Simon doesn’t know, though, so neither should Dev and Niall. Or maybe he does, and he just won’t say so. It would make sense. Baz has been trying to kill Simon since they were eleven, so the revelation of love would either shock him or make him laugh so hard he would piss himself. 

Simon didn’t come back, and neither did Bunce, but after Bunce’s mum became Headmistress, she let all of them have cellphones on campus, and Baz had stayed in near-constant contact with the two of them. He tried to reach out to Wellbelove, but she explained she just wanted to run from it all. 

If that was an option for Baz, he would still be running. 

But there’s a Leavers Ball and ceremony to attend to, and if the Chosen One and his insanely smart friend aren’t going to show, he kinda has to. It’s an unwritten contract that at least one of them has to show up to these kinds of things, even if it’s just to let people know all three of them are alive. 

Simon hasn’t gotten in touch tonight, and Baz thinks about texting him just to make sure he’s still kicking it. However, Simon might be sleeping. These Leavers Balls take place at night, and even though it’s only nine, Baz would like to be in bed, too, preferably with the Chosen One tucked against his side. 

Baz scans the room for anyone worth talking to. It’s strange how his best friends have alternated from Dev and Niall (Niall being his literal cousin) to Penny and Snow. (Baz has decided Penny’s name is worth saying every once in a while.) It just goes to show…something. Baz’s brain is spent from exams and that speech he gave a few hours ago. 

His eyes lock on a figure entering the small procession that is the Leavers Ball. No one at Watford is late, so who would be walking in nearly an hour after the Ball’s started? 

The boy who’s loved making entrances since he was born, apparently. The Golden Boy, the former Mage’s heir, the Chosen One, Simon Snow makes his way over to where Baz is standing. It’s like a reverse of what happened halfway through the first term this year. 

Baz stands so still a stray tumbleweed could blow him over, even though Miss Possibelf spelled the tumbleweeds away hours ago. 

Simon runs a hand through his hair, a little nervous trait Baz has picked up on these last few months. Simon has a few of them, the newest being tugging on his little devil’s tail, though that changed after he got it surgically removed a few weeks ago. The wings were gone sooner because Simon kept knocking people and things over, and Penny and Baz both breathed a sigh of relief when Simon could walk through a hallway without knocking over a vase or painting. 

Someone’s given him a proper suit, and he looks like a cardboard cutout model with a few extra moles here and there. 

Baz feels a genuine smile (not a smirk) tugging at his lips. To see Simon Snow in a proper suit with his hair somewhat tamed feels like seeing a unicorn, though he’s been told that a couple hundred live in a sanctuary in Switzerland. 

“Didn’t think I’d be here so soon after…” Simon leaves it open-ended. Baz doesn’t need the end of that sentence. He didn’t personally know if he’d come back after that Christmas break, but Fiona’s threats about the cross still ran around his brain all these years later, and he didn’t want to disappoint his mum. She valued education more than the person who created it. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Baz replied, setting his little glass of punch back down and adding, “Party was dull without you, Snow.” Simon grins over at him and bites at his bottom lip. It’s something cheeky Baz has only ever seen him do around Wellbelove, but she’s been well and truly gone for a long time now. 

“I guess the last few months were pretty dull, then?” Simon asks. Baz smiles and nods. It was nice not being threatened with dragons and flying monkeys every couple of weeks, but not having Snow even as a presence was unsettling, and after Bunce left, there was no real competition anymore. 

“Ah, Snow, you were gone but not forgotten,” Baz replies, walking away from the table and closer to Snow. It’s the closest they’ve been since right after whatever happened in the White Chapel. Even then, it’s not very close. Baz is about a foot and a half away from Snow. 

Simon’s only a little bit shorter than him (give or take three inches), but he seems so much older than he was a few months ago. He’s by no means a man. In Baz’s eyes, maybe Snow will always be a boy (the boy), but there’s no denying that something has fundamentally changed about the way Snow carries himself. 

Maybe it’s the shared trauma. 

“Have you danced?” Snow asks. It’s an odd question, but Baz really doesn’t think anything can be that odd between them anymore. They nearly died together on multiple occasions last December, and it’s foolish to believe they could ever be what they were before. They’re not enemies, and they share a side now, though it’s not either side they were on before. It’s all their own, now. 

“No one to dance with, Simon,” Baz says, and the exasperation is overshadowed by the stirrings of those fifth-year feelings. All the songs they play at the Leavers Ball tonight are slow and meant for couples and sentimental friends. It’s meant to be a celebration, but there’s nothing to celebrate this year except maybe that Headmistress Bunce has brought back end of year books filled with photos. (Even though Simon, Penny, and Agatha left, they were still featured throughout the book.) 

“Any girl here would have danced with you if you asked,” Simon mutters, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. Baz quietly thinks to himself that suit pockets are not meant for hands or anything, really, but Simon makes pouting look good when he’s dressed up. 

“Come on, Snow, you know I’m not looking for a girl to dance with,” Baz replies, toeing at the ground with his expensive dress shoes. Fiona presented them to him a few days before, and even though Baz tried to insist he had enough dress shoes for a thousand different balls, she won. 

Simon huffs, and a loose piece of hair falls into his eyes. He hasn’t cut it in a while. “I’m sure more than a few blokes would dance with you, too.” 

Baz rolls his eyes and feels a blush creeping onto his cheeks. He’s had enough blood tonight for more than a few types of blushes. “I’m not looking for more than a few blokes.” 

“What are you looking for?” 

The way Simon poses that question makes Baz want to reach out and snog him in front of everyone watching. Everyone already is watching. Baz is surprised, but he shouldn’t be. Even though he and Bunce know about this weird friendship that’s blossomed, it doesn’t mean everyone else was clued in. Baz didn’t want anyone else clued in. 

Baz looks up from where he is tracing the line of grout between the tiles, and he feels like he’s fifteen again, just trying to simultaneously please and displease Simon. He feels like they’re back in that blazing forest again where Simon talked him down from a suicidal rampage and walked him back to the car. He feels like the flames that existed in Simon’s eyes until his magic left have now planted themselves right at the base of his spine and are tickling his back. 

Simon’s got his mouth quirked to the side, and a little dimple appears there. He’s still got his hands shoved in his pockets, but he seems more tense than before, like he’s holding something back. In these last few months of three-way Skype sessions and phone calls and group chats, it’s never felt like Simon’s tried to hold back. The three of them have something not a lot people can say they do: shared trauma. 

And Simon and Baz have more. They have the forest fire and the Humdrum setting Baz off like a killing machine. They have years of sitting in that room at the top of the turret and bickering over a window and bathroom schedules and posh soaps. They have a rivalry that’s morphed into this friendship that still feels like it’s morphing even as the silence stretches between them. 

“I want you to dance with me tonight.” It’s simple. It isn’t a confession of anything, but Simon smiles anyway. He outstretches a freckled hand, and Baz takes it. Now all those who were staring are gaping openly, but the song that plays is nice, and Baz has heard it before. 

It’s a slow rhythm meant for only two people to hear together. It’s meant for them, even if it really isn’t. 

Simon’s not the nervous wreck he once was. Baz once watched him at a special ball the school held for a blood moon, and the stiff way he danced with Wellbelove made Baz spit out his punch and laugh. Now, though, he’s the one that’s stiff. His dark blue suit feels too heavy and hot now that Snow is within inches of him. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, including after the mess in the White Chapel. 

It’s closer than two platonic blokes get. It’s closer than a lot of romantic blokes get. 

Snow must have been taught to dance before tonight and after than disastrous ball so many years ago. Baz thinks about him practicing with Wellbelove, and a small flame of jealousy glows in his mind. Then he remembers Wellbelove is in America, and the glow subsides to a flicker. 

Maybe Simon just doesn’t realize how close they’ve gotten. Maybe he’s about to trample on Baz’s toes and knock his forehead into Baz’s chin. Maybe he thinks two blokes can dance like this and just be friends. 

If this is all Baz ever gets from Simon, he can die happy and sated. He feels fuller than after he’s drained a deer. He feels like his feet aren’t nearly as heavy as they have been the past few hours. Simon’s got his arm behind Baz’s back, and Baz can feel the muscle of Simon’s shoulder through the suit jacket. Baz’s hand, eternally cold, feels comfortably toasty in Simon’s. 

It’s a strange feeling to be dancing with Simon Snow at a Leavers Ball. Baz never thought he’d make it this far. He knew he’d go to the Leavers Ball, but he thought he’d spend the entire night at the punch bowl, shooting glares at Wellbelove and Simon and nearly crushing glasses in his fist. Maybe people would assume he was mad about Agathe making up her mind once and for all about the good guy, and maybe some astute pixie would feel the jealousy and properly place it. 

Baz never thought he’d share a dance with Simon Snow at their Leavers Ball.

He never thought they’d both make it this far. He never thought there’d be a time when they could look each other in the eye, let alone be dancing at a Leavers Ball together instead of at each other’s throats the entire night. 

It would be easier if they were at each other’s throats. They’ve been there so many times that they could do the motions in their sleep. Baz is quite sure Simon already has. He’s slept close enough to the Golden Boy for the last seven and a half years to know they’re both plagued by nightmares that are too scary to mention in the morning. 

This feels like one of those dreams that Baz wouldn’t let himself think of. If he dwelled on the good dreams he had of Simon, he’d never stop. There are so many he can’t remember because he’s forced them out of his brain, but they come back now. 

There’s the one about sleeping under the sun for hours with Simon next to him, and the sun doesn’t burn them and ants don’t bother them. It’s free of bugs and sunburns and evil. That’s one of Baz’s favorites. There’s another where he’s just woken up and can feel Simon breath against the back of his neck, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s him. And the one where they’re just kissing for hours on Baz’s bed, not moving or noticing the world crumbling away around them.

But this is so much realer than all of those dreams combined. The hand grasping Baz’s is real and warm and calloused from calling and holding a heavy sword for years. The occasional brush of dress shoes on the floor sends vibrations through Baz’s legs, and they threaten to buckle right underneath him. He knows now that Simon would catch him. No matter what, Simon has always caught him. 

“Why are you here?” Baz asks. It’s been bothering him. Without needing to say it, Simon basically swore off ever returning to Watford after December, and Baz understood. He swore off that nursery before he knew what swearing things off really meant. Baz wasn’t even irritated when neither Penny nor Simon showed up to hear his speech. People would record it, and he’d get a copy and show them if they really wanted to see it. 

Baz would swear Watford off, too if it had broken as many promises as it had with Simon. Watford promised to keep him safe. Watford promised to always be a home for him. Watford promised so many things that couldn’t have ever been promised.

Life hasn’t kept its promises to Simon Snow. 

Baz will. He’s broken the necessary ones, like the ones about killing him and smiting everything Simon loves. Coincidentally, a lot of the things he loves are now things Baz does, too. He likes Penny a lot, and sour cherry scones aren’t bad. Baz will never wrap his head around Simon’s fascination with butter, but it’s probably rooted in not being fed properly for eleven years and then suddenly getting as much food as one could want. 

Baz has promised himself to Simon Snow, in whatever way the Chosen One will have him. Baz supposed now he’ll have to stop calling him that, but now is not that time for large shifts in character. There’s been too much of that as of late. 

Simon shrugs and looks down at the floor. “I guess…I didn’t want to think about you alone here.” 

“I’m not alone,” Baz rationalizes, looking around. “There’re loads of people here. The teachers, for one, and people we’ve grown up with, and…” He wants to go on, but that obviously isn’t what Simon was getting at. Simon’s been seeing a magical therapist (one of three in the world), and while they’re working on Simon voicing his opinion, it’s not always easy. 

“Why are you here, Simon?” Baz asks again, this time with a tenderness in his voice Baz hasn’t used since Mordelia was a baby, back before she was a terror. “It’s fine to not want to be here, you know, I wouldn’t have ever made you come back.”  

Simon huffs out a laugh and looks up just as the song’s changing. The fairy lights catch the curls in his hair in brilliant flashes of light. If Baz was more of a dreamer and less of a realist, he’d call Simon Snow an angel or the closest thing to it. 

Simon smiles and says, “I know you wouldn’t.” The hold on Baz’s hand gets stronger, and the arm across his back bring him closer to Simon. “I love it when you call me Simon,” he adds, finally looking around the room and seeing everyone staring. 

“They’re all looking at you,” he mutters, his face suddenly aflame in a blush Baz will remember until his dying breath. 

“They’re looking at two blokes dancing,” Baz replies, deciding to tighten his hold on Simon as well. “Two blokes dancing who they used to have to split up before a fight broke out.” 

Simon does let out a genuine laugh at that, even if it is small. It’s a start. Baz loves to see him smile like this. The tension eases out of Simon’s back, and his arm doesn’t feel like a steel rod against Baz’s back. It just feels like the reassuring touch you’d give to someone who desperately needs it. Does Baz desperately need it? He desperately needs something from Simon Snow. 

“All that fighting,” Simon practically whispers, “and we ended up on the same side after it all.” Baz guesses that Simon can’t believe it either. Who would?

“I was always on your side,” Baz says. It’s true. Even though they fought enough for five different arch enemies, Baz was never completely on the side of the Old Families. He was also never completely on the side of the Coven. He was on a side made for him and Simon and whoever else he deemed worthy. (Penelope Bunce was more than worthy. She actually probably made the side herself, and Baz just climbed on board before he knew it truly existed.) 

Simon looks at Baz, truly, truly looks at him then. It’s the kind of look someone gives another person when they want to see if there’s a hidden intention or just true sincerity. Baz feels like he’s laid himself out time and again these past months. He’d go through it all again a million times if it got him here. He’d fight two-hundred chimeras and one-thousand dragons to be here. 

Simon’s the one that gets to decide what happens next. Baz has always been deciding what’s gone on between them. He’s chosen where they go and who they talk to and what they bicker about. It’s Simon’s turn. The ball is in his court. In a way, it’s always been, and Baz has just been playing with that stupid, red ball Simon carried all first year. 

Baz, honest-to-Merlin, doesn’t expect Simon to drop his hand and cup it around the side of Baz’s neck, just above two pin-prick sized holes that drained him of life all those years ago. He doesn’t expect Simon Snow to lean in and smile like he’s going to tell a secret, and then kiss him. 

It’s just a kiss. It’s small. It’s Baz’s first. It’s not Simon’s. Simon’s lips are chapped (like always), and his hand is calloused and tickles Baz but not enough to make him giggle. Baz doesn’t expect the kiss, so his feet move for a millisecond longer than Simon’s, and he nearly falls over. Simon leans back and lets out a single huff of laughter. His smile is genuine, and he just picks up Baz’s hand like it’s nothing. 

Baz will fall asleep that night with Simon pressed against his back in a pair of Baz’s silk pajamas. It’s a déjà vu that’s so much better than the dream. Baz will dream of that sunny hill where bugs don’t exist and birds chirp happy songs. Baz will wake up tomorrow and leave the grounds of Watford the last time for a very long time. 

But right now, they sway back and forth to a tune unfamiliar to both of them, and the world looks on at the Chosen One and his former enemy. 

Keris hands Trixie five pounds.

[junionigiri]

Ruby Red and Caramel Ch 10: Caramel

Summary: Momo is a hero; Katsuki gets another chance. They go home.

Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Yaoyorozu Momo

Rating: T

Warnings/Notes: some blood mentioned but all medical. Also... last chapter? :) if i get another episode of hyperfocus I’ll upload the epilogue soon!

“Why the hell are we doing this to ourselves?! Aggh!”

Tetsutetsu is the one who yells this against the chilly night outside of Momo’s apartment, where he and Yosetsu and Itsuka are having a break. It’s a highly improper thing to do in such a quiet neighborhood and Yosetsu tells him off for it. Momo, however, is inclined to agree with his sentiment.

It’s hard not to. All they’ve done the entire year was to study, up until finals, where they studied harder than they ever knew they could.

“’Cause we want to help people. Make a difference and all that,” Itsuka supplies without any of her usual vim and vigor. The usually upbeat redhead is all but drained of her positivity studying mutation-quirk anatomy.

Tetsutetsu makes a frustrated noise again before dropping on the concrete like a block of metal. “Yeah, I know I know, but it’s so hard to think of that when all we do is study our asses off!!! It doesn’t make me feel like I can help people, it just makes me feel like I might be too dumb to be a doctor!”

“You have a point,” Yosetsu deadpans, earning him a stern glare from Momo and a big-handed slap from Itsuka. “Hey, I’m agreeing with the first part of his statement!… and only just a little bit of the dumb part.”

Another slap rings throughout the night. Tetsutetsu doesn’t seem that offended though. He might be too much of a sport, or just too tired, or both.

Momo takes this opportunity to chime in, “But you know, it’s times like this where I wonder what it would be like if we didn’t go to medical school.”

Her three friends eye her in curiosity, Yosetsu especially. “You’re thinking about your middle school fantasy again, Momo?” he says teasingly.

She smiles at him with a shrug. “Don’t you?”

Itsuka chuckles at that. “Yeah, definitely. I think everyone does from time to time.” She stretches her hands up above her and stares at them in interest. “I wonder what my life would be like if I had pushed through going to UA instead of Shiketsu GS? Would I be a distinguished pro-hero right now?”

Without missing a beat, Tetsutetsu shouts with a grin, “Of course you would, Kendo! And I definitely would be Battlefist’s biggest fanboy!!! I’d be your fanclub president!”

“You’re already Battlefist’s biggest fanboy,” Yosetsu says flatly, as Itsuka giggles with a blush.

“But you’re onto something there, Yaoyorozu!” Tetsutetsu swings his fists meaninglessly into the air in front of him, making it sound. “I thought a lot about bein’ a pro too! Still think of it, even though it’s too late for us since we’re old and all. But it kinda freaks me out sometimes, y’know… I mean, it ain’t exactly a safe job and all. We could break our necks out there, or worse!”

Yosetsu nods sagely at that. “Yeah… being a pro ain’t a joke. Remember that thing that happened when we were in middle school? The one with All Might?”

“Yes, I imagine everyone does,” Itsuka says, her ponytail bobbing as she nods. “That’s what stopped me from applying in the first place. From the start, Mom and Dad were iffy about me going to heroics, but… I mean, if that terrible thing could happen to a kid and All Might himself, even with all the heroes around...”

They fall silent, as if to reminisce collectively on the events that happened. When All Might saved that child and all the consequences happened, everyone was exposed to the brutal truth of heroics: that heroes are humans who put more than their lives on the line, and sometimes heroes can’t be saved.

And with so little heroes, who is there left to stand up for the rest of them? Times like this, Momo wishes that she stood her ground into going to UA even more. With all due humility, she thinks she would have been a good hero. People need a versatile quirk like hers, and she thinks that she is competent enough to make so many things to help them…

An alarm sounds from her phone, signalling the end of their break. The four of them collectively groan.

“Well, that’s about it for our flashback scene,” Itsuka says, dragging a protesting Tetsutetsu by the arm to the apartment. Momo and Yosetsu follow, with him putting an arm around her and her leaning her head against his shoulder.

Perhaps noticing her exhaustion or her sudden glumness, he rubs a hand comfortingly over her shoulder. “You’ll be saving people one day too, Momo. So don’t look so down.”

“You think so?”

He nods, obviously tired but very confident. “Definitely. You won’t be a pro, but you’re gonna be someone’s hero one day.” And then, with a teasing grin, he adds, “And you don’t need to traipse around in a hot red bathing suit to do it, either. Not that I mind that wardrobe in particular, but--”

“Yosetsu. ”

He laughs and sticks out his tongue, the teasing grin on his mouth not going away.

They spend the next few hours cramming medical knowledge in their head, until one by one they drop on the floor, asleep and practically dead to the world.

 *

 The operating room is emptier than it’s ever looked, and it disorients Momo at first. Besides her and Katsuki, only Dr. Kayama the anesthesiologist and a lone nurse who goes in and out of the operating room, obtaining all the tools they need. Apart from that, the patient being tended to by Dr. Midnight, as she’s called sometimes, are the only living beings in the usually crowded room.

Gloved hands up, Katsuki looks across her, ruby red eyes burning intensely between cap and mask. “Ready when you are, doc.”

Momo nods. “Let’s do this.”

All of their patients are victims of the attacks on the three districts infiltrated by the Nomu who suffered from head trauma. Some cases are harder and more complicated than others because of quirks that make the structures of their skulls, skin, and even the anatomy of the brain different.

“Quirk suppressants running, Dr. Yaoyorozu.” Dr. Kayama, despite the looming emergencies they have lined up, looks utterly confident. Years and years of experience makes her look like she would do no wrong.

Momo wishes she can smile the way she is right now. It’s only the first patient and already the self doubt creeps at the back of her mind. At the first cut of the skin, at the first drip of blood seeping from the line, her hand freezes.

She doesn’t know how long she stares at the cut, but Katsuki snaps her out of it with a bark of her name and a glare of ruby eyes. “Focus,” he says in the fierce and gentle way that only he can do. “You know what to do next.”

And Momo realizes that he’s right. The freezing happens once or twice more, and each time Katsuki’s voice gets her out of the fog. She doesn’t know how she manages it, but they manage through the operation in an hour and thirty minutes.

One patient comes out, another comes in.

They look at the scans and the cases with Dr. Kayama and Kendo, who goes in and out of the OR and makes sure everyone is all right. As they set up for the next operation, Katsuki urges her to eat something, even though the adrenaline in her bloodstream doesn’t let her feel hungry.

The next operation starts. Momo’s thin hands getting more acquainted to the feel of the drill. The self-doubt is there, but it’s easier to ignore the voice this time as her movements become more practiced, more confident. Katsuki is focused and silent, quick to do what he needs to do on the field without being told.

One patient comes out, another comes in.

Momo wrings her hands, making sure that they’re steady. They’re thin outside of the surgical gloves, and pale. Katsuki forces another rice ball into her, and scrubs in for the next case.

They operate again. The drill cuts through bone and makes a great noise that reverberates through the haze in her head.

One patient comes out, another comes in.

They’re in there for a half day or more. Momo isn’t sure. They try to get the operations done under two hours at a time. There’s a lot of them though. Momo knows; she saw the people thrown by the monsters, crushed by debris, caught in between the pro’s fights or the other civilians desperately evacuating through narrow sidestreets. Shinsou tells them that he and Dr. Aizawa are transferring as many emergency cases as they can to the other hospitals, but it’s difficult because of all the damages in the roads. There isn’t much to that could be done to the massive influx of patients.

One patient comes out, another comes in.

“Momo,” Katsuki calls out.

She’s midway into cauterizing through skin. Momo tries to tell her hands not to shake so much. No, not now, not while they’ve just started.

She will do more harm than good with this knife in her hand. Closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “I need a moment.”

The digital clock on the other side of the room reads 02:05. She doesn’t know if it’s AM or PM. The numbers don’t mean much anymore.

She feels a gloved hand over hers. Katsuki stares at her meaningfully. There’s fatigue there, but not the slightest bit of doubt.

“I got this,” is all he says.

Quietly he takes the tools from her hands and gives her the handfuls of gauze in his hands. There are many reasons why she should stop him from doing this--he isn’t affiliated with this hospital. Best Jeanist will take the brunt of the responsibility if he makes a mistake, at the risk of both their licenses. He hasn’t done surgeries for a year or so, except when he stitched up Endeavor’s neck earlier and saved his life.

She doesn’t even know if he’s done this before. If he knows this type of procedure apart from reading books or watching what Momo has done all day.

But all Momo has to do is to look at Katsuki, his fiery gaze, his steady hands, the way his body pulses in pure determination. And she realizes that she can trust him on this, with all her heart.

So she does.

The laser-focus look in his eyes, the same one he had earlier, comes back. His hands move precisely, every minute motion with a purpose, without an ounce of hesitation. When he speaks because he needs something done it’s in his usual bark, but more concise, leaving no room for confusion.

They eventually close the patient up without further problems. Katsuki doesn’t look like he did his first neurosurgery after so long. When Kendo comes in he tells her exactly what needs to be done for the patient without any unnecessary fanfare.

One patient goes out…

Time passes; Dr. Kayama keeps telling them to rest, but Katsuki and Momo keep refusing. “No matter what happens, this is the last patient we’re operating on, for heaven’s sake. I’m not as young or as fired-up as you two,” she says, brandishing her fuzzy pen like a whip.

Katsuki replies to this with a precise, totally impolite tch. “We gotta keep goin’ as long as there are patients coming in, old hag.”

Her brow twitches in offense at this. She looks like she has half a mind to sedate him, but luckily Kendo comes in and tells them good news. “We transferred the remaining emergency cases out, and we have no urgent need to operate on anyone right now. Nice job, you two.”

Dr. Kayama sings a brief hallelujah and tells them that she’s going to sleep in one of the rooms outside. Meanwhile, Kendo tells the two of them to sit on the floor while she gives them updates on the world outside.

Momo obliges, and only feels then how sore her feet and lower back are. The floor isn’t or comfortable by any means, but it feels heavenly after hours and hours of standing up. Katsuki falls in next to her.

“I can’t believe you two took on so many cases after fighting out there,” she tells them. “Actually, everyone really pushed themselves today… Honenuki and Todoroki and Amajiki-senpai. Tetsu and the other guys from ortho. Even Shishida and Tsuyu-chan found a way from the blocked streets to get to the hospital and went straight to OR and just operated until the patients stopped coming.”

“What the fuck else are we supposed to do, Dr. Ponytail #2? This fuckin’ hospital is lucky that a lot of us are still standing after all those fuckin’ Nomu tried killing us all,” Katsuki snarls without volume or vitriol. Kendo laughs softly, apparently too tired to do anything else but to accept her new nickname. 

“I dunno. All of you are on the verge of collapse, but are too stubborn to stop and rest. I mean, it’s heroic and all, but it’s pretty reckless, yeah?”

Kendo is one to talk. Momo heard talks of her and Tetsutetsu volunteering to transport much needed blood products via motorcycle while the Nomus were still ravaging the streets. She looks like she hasn’t had a moment to close her eyes since then, nor does it look like she intended to rest at all before this. Maybe this is the first moment she’s had to sit down too. 

The orange-haired doctor sighs with a tired smile. “It’s been twenty-seven hours since the code, did you know that?”

Twenty-seven hours. Maybe that’s why the room looks sideways and a little unfocused.

“... Yaoyorozu?”

She decides then that Katsuki’s shoulder is a really nice place to rest her head, although she feels the stiffness of it when he shifts to put his arms around her as if to support her.

“‘M fine, Kendo-san,” she says. Or she tries to. She probably didn’t speak clearly enough, because her orange-haired friend doesn’t look like she understands what she says very well. “You were saying?”

The sturdy thing she’s leaning against--it’s Katsuki, of course, she knows it’s him, even though for some reason she can’t raise her head to look at him or confirm his presence just now--breathes deeply and shudders with the movement. “Doesn’t matter, Momo. Just stay there, all right?”

“That’s right.” She sees Kendo go sideways too, teal eyes fluttering closed. She should tell her friend that the floor’s not a cushion and she should find a better place to rest, but she can’t tell her otherwise because they’re eye-to-eye and it means that they’re in the same place after all. “Y’know… it’s a good idea if we stay here for a bit, right?... rest and all. Bakugou-kun, it’s fine if Momo and I are like this, right?”

“Mm.” The surgery suite’s floor isn’t that dirty, but definitely isn’t designed for anyone to take a  nap on. Still, never has an idea sounded better to Momo. She knows she needs to shift her body this way or that way so her neck doesn’t strain or her back doesn’t get any more sore, but her arms don’t want to move. Her eyes don’t want to open. Her mouth doesn’t want to protest, not even when she feels something shift beside her and do the moving for her, leaving her curled up on the floor in what is probably an undignified heap.

She’s already dreaming by the time she’s wrapped in warmth and lifted to somewhere that makes her feel like she’s floating.

 *

 She wakes up from a dreamless sleep to softness and warmth and sunlight streaming through the windows.

She tries to rub her eyes, but feels something taped to the back of her hand. Flexes and stretches her fingers, feels the soreness of sleepiness as she does. She sees the line pierced through her skin, the bottle hooked to it. She wonders how she got there and who carried her there until she sees a head full of sandy blonde hair snoozing peacefully over the side of her bed.

She wants to smile for his presence, and frown as well--the IV line with the sugar solution flowing through it must be his doing. Really, she knows that she needs to rest after everything that’s happened, but he may be going a bit overboard.

He of all people needs sleep more than anyone, yet he’s doing it in such an uncomfortable and inefficient position. Still, he does so soundly, face relaxed as if secure, in the way that Momo loved to see.

Still, he should really take care of himself first and foremost. He of all people deserved to sleep on a bed after all that’s happened There’s room on the hospital bed for one more person. Even though it’s technically against protocol, she’s sure that Hosu Gen will let them sleep side by side, just this one time.

She runs a hand through deceptively soft blonde strands.

He sighs at the touch. It doesn’t take long before he’s already sitting up and blinking himself awake.

Bleary red eyes search hers. The natural scowl is on his face, but without the usual lion-like fierceness behind it. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he rasps out.

“Good morning, Katsuki.” She watches him for a while, allowing a small smile to form on her mouth as she watches him stretch and rub his eyes more awake. He looks exhausted, but different from the previous mornings they spent together. Calm, for some reason. “Is this your doing?”

He smirks as she holds up her hand with the IV line. “You don’t have any fat left on the rest of yer skinny ass. Gotta make sure you don’t die from the crash. Geez, you fuckin’ doctors really can’t take care of yourselves, huh?”

She raises one eyebrow at him. “You have some nerve, Bakugou Katsuki. Have you rested at all since...”

Wait, how long has it been already since she slept on the floor? Her sense of time gets challenged every now and then thanks to sleepless hospital shifts, but not to this extent. She fumbles for her phone on top of the side table and frowns. “... is this correct?”

Because if her eyes do not deceive her, it’s been three days since the Nomu attack; twenty seven hours spent in the operating room, and the rest of the time she spent knocked out cold, apparently.

Katsuki stretches and grunts in agreement. “Yeah… actually, most of you just slipped in a fuckin’ coma at the same time. Ponytail 2 did say that all of us fought with our quirks to get to the hospital, so it figures that we’d all crash since our bodies ain’t used to that kinda strain.”

Katsuki looks at her then, making her follow suit. She hasn’t had a chance to look at herself closely during the height of their operations, but it’s clear now how she’s literally skin and bones and on the verge of breaking apart. 

How hideous. Suddenly self-conscious of her appearance, she covers her front with two thin arms. “I suppose you’re right. It was really reckless of us to act like heroes when we weren’t. We really put ourselves in danger, and--”

She stops speaking when Katsuki holds both her hand. She thought he’s been looking at her this entire time, but the way he does it now, with such intensity and emotion, makes her wonder how she hadn’t noticed his eyes the entire time.

“You’re a hero, Momo. One of the strongest ones there is,” he says in such a quiet voice that burns low in the center of her heart, making it catch flame.

You’re a hero, the words echo in her soul. She realizes then how long she longed for someone to tell her these words on a podium, in a ridiculous costume, in front of the most important people in the country.

She never imagined how much more meaningful it is to hear it in this disheveled state, while wearing a hospital gown, in front of one of the most important people in her life. Before she knows it, there are tears flowing out of the corners of her eyes and a smile working its way on her face.

Katsuki huffs, but smiles fondly as the tears flow. One hand rises to cup her face, thumb rubbing against the damp trail on one too-hollow cheek. “And definitely the most beautiful one on the face of this fuckin’ planet. So if you keep lookin’ at yourself like you’re a fuckin’ bog witch, then I’m forced to remind you otherwise.”

Her voice is wet when she giggle-sobs at his ridiculous words. “Remind me again, Katsuki.”

He obliges, and then puts his lips on hers and holds her close, like he means it.

And she knows he does, because his kiss and his touch and his breaths are gentle and soft, subtle and uncharacteristic of him that it’s almost unreal. Oddly enough she’s aware of him, his realness and his presence, the thoughts running through his mind, the throb of his pulse, the blood running through his veins. She feels all of him, and she feels right at home.

Safe and sound.

It only lasts a few moments. When they pull apart, she suddenly doesn’t feel as fragile as she ought to feel.

“That good enough for ya?”

She hums in assent. “I suppose, but you might have to remind me every now and then.”

She swears she isn’t being needy when she links her thin hands with his strong, searing ones. It’s just that she’s sure, more than ever, that she’d like it very much if he stayed right there next to her.

She might truly be falling in-love with him, after all.

(And this might be the first time the words are spoken in her mind so clearly.)

He looks like he has words to say by the way his eyes look soft, but they sharpen in the next second when someone clears their throat behind him.

“Oh. Awase-san. And Midoriya-san?”

How long have they been standing along the doorway like that? She hopes that it isn’t too long, but she thinks it might have been, by how Yosetsu is scowling at Katsuki and how pink-faced Midoriya is.

“What the fuck are you nerds hanging out there like a couple of perverts, huh?” Katsuki growls, but with less bite than Momo expects.

Yosetsu returns his glare, but fortunately looks disinterested in another fight. He points his thumb at the stammering Midoriya and tells them flatly, “I just got here to visit Yaoyorozu. Not sure ‘bout this guy though--looks like he’s been standing outside the door for a long while before I got here.”

“You shitty--”

“Ahh! K-kacchan! It’s not like that!” Midoriya flails helplessly as Katsuki advances, and it looks so comical that Momo barely suppresses a giggle. “I was going to--I mean, Best Jeanist called us both to, um, assist him again just now, but you and Yaoyorozu-san were… Um, I didn’t see anything, but--”

“Holy shit, shut up fuckin’ nerd!” Katsuki looks like he’s a half-step away from straight-out physically assaulting Midoriya, but thankfully he just looks meaningfully at Momo as if to say I’ll handle this and shoves his hands in his scrubsuit pockets. “Is it a fuckin’ emergency? Just go right in and spit it next time already, you damn nerd!”

“S-sorry, Kacchan! Ah, it’s fine, the patient’s on the way up from ER, so anyway let me tell you about the case first…”

The unlikely duo begins to make their way out of the room, inexplicably amicable despite the profanities, as if the past hanging off their shoulders weighed absolutely nothing. Momo watches Katsuki’s back and all his easy confidence and feels more than enough comfort from it.

“So,” Yosetsu says with a lopsided smile, after a moment of silence spent staring after Katsuki’s shadow, “you love him yet?”

Momo’s face instantly warms, her mouth falling open stupidly at his flat, questioning gaze. “I--Awase-san, what are you--”

He sighs in mock exasperation. “So you don’t? What’s that smitten look on your face for, if not ‘cause of that bastard?”

She shakes her head free of her blush. “I--please, don’t call him a bastard, Awase-san. It’s unseemly and unfair, because he’s strong and kind and earnest and--”

“--and you’re in-love with him.”

She puffs her cheeks when he laughs at her undignified sputtering. After she recovers from it, she gives him her best haughty look and clears her throat. “And if I am? It’s… it’s not improper of me to feel this way about him, is it?”

“Of course not.” Yosetsu sits at her bedside and looks at her warmly. “For what it’s worth, Momo… I’m glad you found a guy like him. As weird as it is for me to say.”

He’s as straightforward and sincere as he’s ever been. It’s amusing that he is, and that he isn’t threatening violence for once, considering the subject of their odd conversation. “What do you mean by a guy like him?”

He hums. “Well… It’s not like I liked that guy from the start. He’s the biggest fuckin’ jerk on the get-go, he called you Dr. Ponytail in front of the whole hospital, he looks like he thinks of himself too highly--he’s just as obnoxious as Monoma, for cryin’ out loud, and that’s saying something--and worst of all he pulled that shit with you before…”

It’s funny that he looks like he’s thinking over his words carefully to be considerate as he says one insult after another. Momo would feel offended for Katsuki, but she knows that Yosetsu’s got a point to make at the end of all this.

“… and on top of that, the two of you together is just fuckin’ chaotic. I don’t know what the heck is up with you guys, pulling the shit you did with Endeavor and against those Nomus. You could have died, you know? And if it weren’t for the police being preoccupied during the time, you could both be facing charges for public usage of quirk--”

She flinches and apologizes weakly. Why is he scolding her out of nowhere, weren’t they talking about how Katsuki is good for her? Maybe she should interrupt him now because it is taking him a while to get to the point. 

“But… you know, despite all that, somehow he brought out the best in you, and vice versa.” He finally gives a thoughtful huff and looks at her in the eye. “When I saw you working by his side, I was sure that the you I knew back then is different from the you now. I dunno how, but you’re definitely stronger than before.”

She laughs weakly. “You all say that, but look at me.” She waves her hands briefly, showing off the IV line hooked to her vein.

He looks at her, small and frail in her hospital gown, and doesn’t bat an eyelash. “So?”

She sighs. “I almost died doing those reckless things… I probably caused a lot of trouble as well.”

“But you didn’t,” he says bluntly. “I’d say that’s pretty strong. And the fact that the bastard being with you somehow got those two blockheads to kiss and make-up… I’d say that’s monster-tier levels of amazing.”

She scrunches her eyebrows. “Those two--you mean, Midoriya-san and Katsuki are…”

Yosetsu’s face flashes in annoyance briefly. “Yeah. Dunno what the hell happened since I was also out cold when those two talked, but when I woke up they were already working together and taking on some of the emergency cases with Jeanist.” He leans forward with a look on his face designed to annoy. “So… looks like he’s aspiring to be less of an intolerable asshole? Sounds like love to me, Yaoyorozu.”

The blood returns to her face with a vengeance. Much to her chagrin, he notices this and laughs at her obnoxiously. And he accuses Katsuki of arrogance!

“You’re as annoying as ever, Awase-san,” Momo says, not without affection.

If it’s true though, she’d feel so very ridiculously proud of Katsuki for letting go of his pride and resentment, and she’d have to give in to the impulse to kiss him on his silly face all over. Seems she has a lot of questions to ask of him after all this is over, it seems.

“Well, you got the rest of your lives, I guess?” Yosetsu stands up and stretches. “As for me, it’s enough for me to see that you’re alive and that Kendo and Tetsutetsu have nothing to worry about. Sorry for you, expect some noisy visitors later.”

Speaking of which, hasn’t it been a while since the four of them were in the same room together? Things are so different from medical school, so much more painful than any of them expected, but all of the unexpected changes are worth it.

She smiles warmly at him. “Thanks for visiting, Yosetsu.”

He gives her a lopsided grin and holds her shoulder--a gesture so familiar and affectionate in a different way from Katsuki’s, but not any less valuable.

“Take care, Momo,” he tells her in all sincerity before leaving the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

 *

 The operation is simple enough, and after two hours Hakamata leaves the field to write his post-op notes in the chart. It’s not his usual habit to leave closing the operative site to trainees, since stitching shit up is kind of his thing and he’s famously anal when it comes to doing it with such precision as to leave minimal scars, but after responding to the code even the denim bitch must be feeling a tad too tired to do things in his usual annoying way.

It’s about fuckin’ time that the bastard trusted his juniors with these simple tasks, but unfortunately it leaves Katsuki alone with the fuckin’ nerd to close up the drugged little kid’s head together.

He wordlessly takes the lead suturing up the patient, grunting every so often when he needs Deku to do something. The green-haired nerd complies each time, sniffing and shaking like a snotty kid who watched the entirety of The Land Before Time.

What the hell. Who cries when doing surgeries? Katsuki thought that the year without him yelling insults in the background might have been better for the nerd emotionally, but it looks like you can’t outgrow being a fucking crybaby if you’ve been that way all your shitty life.

“I’m sorry, Kacchan,” he says, as a helpful nurse wipes his tears before they fall in the sterile site. “It’s just.. I can’t believe we’re working together again, it’s been so long, I didn’t think you’d come back, and now you are, and--”

And ain’t it just peachy that Deku’s extra emotional after everything that’s happened. “Shut the fuck up, Deku. We’re still working, if you haven’t noticed.”

“I know, sorry,” he says, still sniffling. “I mean… I really didn’t know what to do earlier, you know. I didn’t mean to do it--I thought you would hate me for it, but I really had to --”

Katsuki’s mouth twitches under his mask. “You mean punching the lights out of the administrator who talked shit to me and told me to get the fuck out or kiss my license goodbye? While wearing a robot suit made by fuckin’ Ingenium’s engineer? While crying like the fucking useless nerd you are?”

He looks like he’s on the verge of another loud nervous breakdown complete with tears that will rival the Niagara falls, but the nerd manages to keep it together. “Y-yeah! I mean--the robot suit thing was just, um… I needed to use it to fight when the Nomus were out there, you know, ‘cause I’m quirkless and they were really strong and the rehab center had a lot of patients in it but--”

If he mutters any more, Katsuki would bark at the circulating nurse to punch the living daylights out of the fucking nerd.

“... anyway, I know you hate it when other people speak for you,” Deku says, not bothering to say that he’s learned it the hard way after all these years, “but at the time, I really had to do it, Kacchan! He was telling you that you were worthless and you had no right to be here and who knows if you can handle the pressure?”

Katsuki snorts. The administrator’s fuckin’ wrong, of course, but he had a point. He only had Jeanist to back him up, but to the rest of them he’s just a general practitioner whose license is expiring next year.

Besides, hearing those things isn’t new--he’s had to listen to iterations of those words from his superiors back in Musutafu, and most of all from himself.

And in a way, he’s had to hear it from shitty fuckin’ Deku, who treated him like he’s a fragile little butterfly who would keel over any given second. Always saying shit like you looked like you needed help, not trusting that Katsuki knew how to take care of himself. It’s very hard to let go of all the built up shame and resentment over the years, but…

“... but I know you! You’re super capable and smart and nobody knew what they were talking about,” the nerd says with a fierce determination. “I mean… you aren’t weak or worthless, Kacchan. You’re totally the opposite of it, and it sucked that no-one listened…”

He never knew how to handle praise from this shitty nerd who says one embarrassing thing after another. If this were a manga he’d have torn his shitty speech balloon to shreds with his fangs, if he had to. Still, this isn’t that type of story, and so he had to settle with a snarl and an insult. “Fucking hell, don’t go around punching people just because they talk shit! Only I get to do that! What kind of idiot are you?!”

It certainly was a shocking sight to see. Katsuki’s aggravated that the nerd just had to decide to grow balls and act out against authority after years of better opportunities and reasons to do so.

(And more aggravating is the tiny part of Katsuki that thinks that it looked fuckin’ badass, tears and all. What the fuck. He’ll never say so out loud.)

“Sorry, Kacchan,” he says for the hundredth time, and it just gets more annoying each time, but he manages to continue the sutures. “I’ll never do that again, promise! I’m just happy that you aren’t as mad at me anymore and you gave me a chance to work with you again.”

They cut the last of the sutures. Katsuki cleans the area briefly before covering it up with gauze. “Don’t get me wrong, shithead. I still can’t stand your guts.”

His voice is quiet when he says this, without the usual piping hot vitriol underlining the words.

“And I’m workin’ with you ‘cos half the workforce is still recovering and we got no choice,” he continues, avoiding how Deku brightens up noticing how not-angry his voice is. Fucking hell. “After this I ain’t operating again. Not like I have any right to.”

Deku looks like he’s about to protest, but a haughty voice beats him to it. “Is that so, Dr. Bakugou? And here I thought you were regaining your conviction once more.”

He jerks violently as Best Jeanist ambles up to them in that usual self-assured way of his, the way that makes him wish that a tornado would come and muss up his stupid 3/4 partitioned hair. “What the fuck did you expect me to do, Denim Fucker? Did ya think I can go back to operating just ‘cause you want me to?”

“Yes,” the bastard replies shamelessly. “More importantly, you seemed like you were on your way back in this world. Am I wrong to assume that this,” he gestures plainly to the patient sleeping underneath the drapes, witless of the life-threatening blood clot they removed over her brain, “is something that you truly wanted to do, and that you did not just merely comply to my selfish wishes?”

Katsuki growls. “Fuck you! I ain’t here just ‘cause your pansy ass ordered me to be here, okay?! I’m here because I belong here!”

And it’s true--he stepped back into this world after a year of avoiding it simply because lives were at stake. He didn’t tell Momo back then, but he was scared shitless when he stood in the almost-empty suite for the first time in a long time. But he got into the groove of things easier and more naturally than he thought, and before he knew it he was taking the scalpel from her shaking hands and doing things he didn’t think he’d ever be doing again.

And, fuck if it didn’t feel like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

It doesn’t matter though. He’s only allowed here because the hospital is desperate, and also because the shitty nerd punched the lights out of anyone who tried to stop him. Still, after things have settled down properly, any self-respecting hospital shouldn’t allow him into an operating room. He doesn’t have enough training, nothing to show for the knowledge and technique he honed for the past years.

It isn’t that fucking simple as this fucker says, and he knows it.

“That’s all I need to know.” Dr. Hakamata’s mouth is obscured behind that ridiculous denim collar, but dare he say it, the crease in his eyes makes it look he’s smiling and not sneering like the world’s prissiest bastard, for once.

Before Katsuki can cuss him out again, the tall doctor flaps a thin folder briefly in front of him and the stunned Deku and drops it at a nearby table. “Application forms,” he explains, when neither of them can think of any coherent words to say. “Get this ready by next week, after which I expect you seven AM sharp in the doctor’s call room the following Monday.”

Katsuki makes a confused sound similar to a cat whose tail is being stepped on and blurts out, “What the f--are you shitting me?! It was pretty clear that Musutafu wasn’t gonna take me back--”

“It can’t be,” stammers Deku, eyes wide. “D-do you mean that they changed their minds?”

“No,” answers Best Jeanist plainly. “But you are being considered for a position as a pediatric surgery fellow here, in Hosu General Hospital with my highest recommendation.”

Bakugou’s jaw is hanging stupidly at this point, but thankfully his face is still covered by a mask.

“You have a lot of questions. We have a lot of details to iron out. I get it.” Jeanist walks closer to him, voice unnervingly gentle and mentoring and it’s enough to disorient Katsuki. “All you have to know at this point is this: as unruly as you and your hair are, Dr. Bakugou, I have a lot of faith in you. You’ve proven that you can help a lot of people, and I would like to give you another chance to get you to the place where you can do that without people telling you that you can’t.”

A hand is placed on his shoulder without hesitation. It’s weird, but that point of contact carries with it a surge of gratitude that his unruly self does not know how to handle.

“Hands off,” he grumbles with a flinch. After rearranging his thoughts and trying not to explode from the sheer confusion of it all, he manages to mumble, “You aren’t just shitting me, right? This chance is real, right?”

Dr. Hakamata, the Fucker Who Believes, shrugs. “All that’s left is for you to take it.”

He leaves the operating room after that. That piece of shit Deku starts to cry again and would have thrown his arms around Katsuki bawling if the blonde didn’t shove him off with another threat. He babbles excitedly about Katsuki being back in action before he volunteers to take care of the patient, you know, so he could work on the forms.

Katsuki leaves without another word, head spinning from lack of sleep and confusion and outright exhilaration and he does not know what to do about all of this. Folder in hand, he wanders the bright hallways of the hospital and somehow makes it to the room he left earlier.

He enters the room and finds Momo sleeping quietly on crisp, white sheets. She’s still thin, the hospital gown loose around her shoulders. IV’s still dripping quietly next to her bed. There’s clutter next to her table: black coffee and flowers and packages of sweets probably brought by her friends, making her look like a proper patient who needs care.

Other than those trifling details, she looks absolutely ethereal as she sleeps. Moonlight falls through glass and onto raven hair and lashes and onto pink lips that his eyes can’t stop focusing on.

He drops on the chair next to the bed, quietly searches for her hand under the sheets. Holds it softly, firmly. Memorizes the shape of it against his.

Is this how it feels like to have things fall into place?

The surge of bothersome things don’t stop. He tries to sleep and finds himself resting his head next to her lovely hand, and inhales her jasmine scent.

 *

 After another twenty-four hours spent entertaining noisy visitors (the noisiest of them being Tetsutetsu, who tells Momo of how he punched Nomus in steel form while riding at the back of Kendo’s Harley-Davidson), eating hearty meals, and holding Katsuki’s hand throughout the night, Momo is officially discharged from Hosu Gen with no other prescriptions than proper rest, a healthy diet, and exercise.

The code has been terminated for more than twenty-four hours now, with enough manpower to run the parts of the hospital not damaged by the attacks. Amajiki-senpai orders Momo to rest at home for another twenty-four hours despite her protests. This time, Katsuki doesn’t fight back and drags her out of the hospital with his best efforts.

The sun hangs low over the city when Katsuki walks Momo back to her home across the street. Along the way, they see Kaminari and Jirou waving from inside the cafe. Besides the missing panes of glass and the repairs going around the street, they work as if nothing happened.

“‘S a miracle they haven’t burned the place down yet,” grumbles Katsuki as he glares at them in acknowledgment.

Momo giggles. “Trust in them. They’ll be running the cafe for you in two weeks, right?”

It’s no exaggeration that her heart feels more than full hearing that Katsuki was offered a position in Hosu Gen, and he accepted it without an ounce of hesitation. She heard of the odd story involving Midoriya-san after it, and even though it involves some violence in their green-haired colleague’s part, she promised herself to treat him to more meat pies from Monoma’s out of sheer gratitude.

“Tch. Might as well say goodbye to it. If that pikashit runs it, it’s goin’ down in no time.” It’s odd, but there’s a certain fondness to the way he says it. Momo knows that he’s leaving his beloved cafe to them with a clear conscience.

In a short while they’ve made it to her building, and into her unit after that. She missed this place; she realizes this the moment she steps in. She missed her couch, her kitchen with her fridge full of take-out, her shower, her bed--

She feels Katsuki’s forehead against the nape of her neck, feels his arms wrap around her torso. Feels the surge of warmth over her skin and all over her, inside out, when he kisses her and breathes words against her skin.

“What was that, Katsuki?” She turns around to look at him.

Once again she’s reminded that he’s here with her--warm, in one piece, breathing. Sense of purpose burning within. Moving forward with her.

Those eyes of his search hers in the sunlight-stained space between them, glinting like precious rubies.

He smiles in that intoxicatingly devilish way of his and puts his mouth over hers, repeating the three words in a murmur that resonates within her very soul. The words come out of nowhere and they surprise her, but she melts into them, melts into him so naturally, continuously learning that she feels the same way, and this is where she belongs.

She understands him and she tells him so, and kisses him back.

Now it feels like home.

-end-

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 53

Table of Contents. Second Instar, Chapter 20. Go to previous. Go to next. ...Or maybe not broken enough. TW: mental snap, description of sources of disfigurement and injuries.

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By the time ‘Choly had crossed the base grounds, G-7 had likely stood idle outside his rowhouse for upwards of half an hour. His new uniform hung gingerly in one of its tendril pincers, in two garment bags. Wheezing hard, he snatched it from the Mister Gutsy and thanked it with a pat on its tendril, then slouched up the porch stairs. Before he even got on the porch, the front door flew open, and Angel came out to try to help him inside.

“Oh, dear, Mister Carey, do forgive me--” He swatted the air angrily at it. “Mister Hawthorne refused to wait a moment longer, and I promised both you and Miss Francis that I wouldn’t leave him alone--”

“JACOB!” Snarling, he mounted the stairs, his head running hot. “What the FUCK was so important that you couldn’t wait on me fifteen GODDAMN minutes! Angel is my fucking WHEELCHAIR--”

Standing stupid in the doorway to his bedroom, ‘Choly stopped in his tracks. Dressed again in his longshoreman’s garb, Sticks sat on the end of the bed with the Vault 111 jumpsuit slung across his lap. The ghoul’s face was all screwed up in what could either have been a smile or a grimace. He sniveled, not looking up to ‘Choly.

“What kind of sick fucking joke is this?” Sticks’s voice cracked, rough enough to nearly sound underwater. Transfixed on the blood stains, his fingers tangled up in the stab hole in the front of the otherwise royal blue bodysuit. “I was right. You are haunting my stupid ass.”

‘Choly hung up the garment bags in the open closet and sat beside him to catch his breath. Unsure what to say, he sat wheezing for some time.

“Jesus Christ,” Sticks continued at a hush with a broken pitch bottomless glare, the grimace falling slack. “Those glasses. If it’s 2077 all over again, why am I still like this--?”

“Hey. Hey, stay with me.” ‘Choly tried to put a hand on Sticks’s, but the ghoul withdrew it and let his attention knot back up in the vault suit. “I got attacked by bloodbugs on the way up Route 3. One of them got me, just under the collarbone. Would have got me through the heart, if it hadn’t been for the surgical corset. If Angel hadn’t had its Nanny tendril and programming, it wouldn’t have been able to administer the Stimpaks it did. I-- You think I got shot in the chest, don’t you?” A weak, defeated laugh escaped him. He loosed his necktie and began to unbutton his dress shirt. “I can show you the scar it left. And I know Angel would hate to produce it, but I did keep the thing’s proboscis. A sort of trophy. Angel! Bring the bloodbug proboscis, will you?”

When Sticks was uninterested in entertaining the spectacle of ‘Choly’s scars, 'Choly got up from the bed and went into the open closet to change into his new uniform. He discarded the service uniform in the floor and put his Pip-Boy atop the chest of drawers, and stood there in his undershirt and underwear by the time Angel approached with the requested object. At first the robot offered it to its owner, but he urged it to hand the foot-long hollow structure to the ghoul instead. It also offered the deathclaw’s paw with tacit displeasure.

“Please tell me we’re not taking these with us,” it complained. “You really must rethink what you keep from the awful beasts that attack you.”

“How-- a deathclaw!” The desiccating clump of mostly bone fell in the floor rather into Sticks’s lap. He brandished the proboscis at him like a knife from where he sat. “No. No, there’s no way you’re standing in front of me alive.”

‘Choly was immune to the gesture, too absorbed in getting dressed again.

“You’re convinced I’m a ghost. Is that it? Maybe I am. It would explain a lot.”

‘Choly leaned nearer his reflection in the broken full-length mirror as he fastened the brass snaps of the high-collar charcoal shirt’s wide asymmetrical strapped placket. He adjusted how the piped edge sat around his neck. Already affixed was the colonel’s eagle. He straightened to scrutinize his transformation progress, and could only continue to wonder whether accepting the promotion was a mistake. Leaning against the frame of the closet door to steady himself, the matching slacks came next. He tucked in his shirt, then argued with his ammo case harness to get the belt through the loops and the suspenders in place. He dragged his combat boots over to the bed to sit and lace them up.

“I guess I’m just struggling with the reality,” Sticks admitted quietly, “that despite everything that’s happened to you, you could possibly still be alive. It’s my understanding that the majority of people who got into the vaults didn’t usually last more than a few years, for the variety of evil shit Vault-Tec did. Forgive me for having such a hard time imagining that you survived two centuries in one, and have somehow managed to keep from getting killed by the Commonwealth ever since, having to crash course it all first hand.”

“Didn’t do it alone.” He pointed at Angel, warming to a grin, and it brought him his Pip-Boy. He folded up his right sleeve and put it back on. “I had to repair Angel for a lot of reasons, you know. Damn if it’s not foolhardy as all abandon, though! You know raiders chopped off its one laser attachment, and even though it only had its saw and pincer, it still ran headlong toward that deathclaw to keep it from ripping up the settlers that the raiders had been trying to kill!”

“If I hadn’t done something, Mister Garvey would have had to contend with the monstrosity all on his own,” Angel stated humbly. “The power armor could have only done him so much good against something so large and so angry!”

“Settlers?” Sticks mumbled after a good moment, spacing out. “There’s settlers in Lexington? They’re not raiders?”

“One of them still fancies himself a Minuteman, if that means anything to you of their substance.” When the ghoul couldn’t help a bittersweet smile, ‘Choly chuckled and patted his knee. “All that happened in Concord, actually-- and they’re living in Sanctuary now, believe it or not!”

Any good humor fell right back out of the ghoul.

"You’re kidding me.”

“Serious. I told them the vault isn’t safe--and it’s not--but they’re--” ‘Choly’s mood soured in kind, himself haunted. “The old woman’s living in Jahani’s house. Jh-- Hhha--” He squinted tight, the words difficult as he tried to divorce his sense of self from what he was now wearing. “Why did the Gutsy earlier insist you’re not a civilian? Liv doesn’t seem especially against disclosing high-ranking military intel in front of you.”

“She hasn’t said anything around me I haven’t heard before,” the ghoul shrugged, unsure how to navigate the ghost seeming more distraught than he was. “And Deenwood doesn’t consider me a civilian because it still thinks of the Furriers as off-base reserve troops. And it considers me a Furrier. And a defector, too, I guess, if we’re being honest.”

Still in the fumes of recalling his ties to Jahani, ‘Choly got up from the bed to retrieve his remembrance poppies from the top of the chest of drawers in his closet, and leaned in the door frame to thread them onto the shirt he had on. He watched Sticks expectantly, hoping for elaboration. Sticks scrunched up his mouth to one side and decided to fold up the vault suit like he’d found it.

“I was the reason for the General’s last major meltdown. Fifty years ago, I nicked a Mark V Pip-Boy from the RobCo Towers. Thought if I had sophisticated enough tech, even I could hack my way on base. But I’m sure you remember that I am and always have been rubbish with computers. She caught onto me immediately. She hit Voire with a metric fuckton of Rad-I-Canned, and had me hunted down so she could throw me in a cell on base. Had my hand ripped off me, and she gutted my Pip-Boy and turned it into... this, as a way of guaranteeing that I couldn’t try to use it against her again.” He made a face at his glove prosthesis, and dropped his hands into his lap. “Still not totally sure how I managed to convince her not to experiment on me anymore than she did. But no, ‘Choly. I swear I wasn’t going through your shit. I had to come back here, and get Angel to start packing up so you wouldn’t lose anything important if she doesn’t let us back on base, and I was in here when it started packing up your closet, and--”

“Why don’t you think she’ll let us back on base?”

“--Because someone gave away the fact you and I knew each other prewar.” He couldn’t contain a glare toward Angel, who flinched in remorse. “I guarantee she suspects some kind of foul play. The fact she’s following through with your requests at all, as closely and correctly as she has, is suspect to say the least. Either she’s that desperate to keep you doing exactly what she wants you to do, or there’s something really, really wrong.” As ‘Choly fished the knee length white overcoat from the other garment bag and put it on, Sticks motioned for Angel to come back in the room from where it had withdrawn to the hall. “Angel, those are legit insignia things, right? You can scan ‘em and tell he’s Alan Carey? A colonel...?” He shuddered, haunted afresh. “Colonel. Good god almighty it just all comes so natural to you, doesn’t it.”

“Oh, yes, of course they’re genuine,” Angel reported, its ocular lenses combing over the nameplate, ribbon rack, and other various brass and silver insignias which all indicated his rank, branch, and tenure. “Though, I’m not certain as to the significance of this addition to your ribbon rack.”

‘Choly withdrew into the closet to conceal a snivel in adjusting his broad collar and fastening the buckling utility belt of the coat about his waist. It wasn’t that he was wearing a uniform--this was his uniform. He’d only had one commanding function during his last active duty, directing the administration and observation of the enlisted troops upon which Deenwood’s military chemists had experimented. But he wasn’t about to admit in the moment that his rank had never put him on the battlefield, and risk planting doubt in his ability to lead where he would need to.

“Please, do forgive me, gentlemen,” the robot continued, feeling like ‘Choly had been stewing in silence. “I don’t mean anything by it, that I refer to you as I was introduced to you. My programming was scripted before it was commonplace for people to change their last names, or omit using them altogether. I know it’s not just you, Mister Hawthorne, who’s nettled by it. Mister Carey can’t stand it either. Maybe it would be for the best, to permit Miss Francis to reset my imprint matrix.”

“She’s not touching your goddamn grey matter,” ‘Choly snapped, rolling his coat cuff as he had his shirt, and buttoning the first three covered buttons of its front. He slipped on the reinforced black leather gloves from its side pockets, and let out an agonized snarl as he punched out the closet mirror. Glass scattered all over the balding carpet. Breathing ragged, he turned in full posture to glare at Sticks. “And who do you think you are, to suppose what comes naturally to me?”

The ghoul shrank on the bed, unable to form a coherent response to the chemist’s apparent derangement. A knock came at the front door, and Angel excused itself to check on it.

“Was it a bad idea to encourage you into this?”

‘Choly’s head fell askew as his arms crossed his chest, incredulous.

“Too late to hesitate, don’t you think?”

“Miss Olivia is ready for us,” Angel reported, returning to the room. Its tendrils curled against its spherical body, recognizing the tension. “Let’s finish gathering the last of things so we can head out, shall we?”

“A fantastic idea,” ‘Choly agreed a little too sharply, despising the likelihood that, despite the duress and consequence of his transformation, today very will might be the last he’d ever step foot on the Deenwood Compound premises.

Go to Next »»»

[apolesen]

Cardassian Reproductive Anatomy

I decided to do something with all my ideas about what Cardassian genitalia looked like, and here we are. Below the cut are some anatomical sketches (of the kind you get in text-books, so they are mostly SFW, but it depends on where you work, I suppose) and a description of my take on the Cardassian reproductive systems. 

Content warnings: anatomical sketches, anatomical descriptions, mentions of menstruation and pregnancy. 

As this is about reproductive anatomy in broad terms, I have used the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ in an essentialist way. This is mainly to be as clear as possible. I think that we should move away from referring to, for instance, “external female genitalia” when we could just say “vulva”. However, when you discuss an alien species where writer and reader don’t have any common frame of reference, that can get very confusing. There are definitely Cardassians who are intersex, trans and non-binary, so what is described below are broad generalisations describing cis Cardassians. 

Cardassian male and female external genitalia are fairly similar to one another. Both have a cloaca (in Cardassian, ajan), which the urethra and anus lead into. This means that Cardassian men and women urinate in the same way, and they find the human organisation very confusing. The reproductive organs are mostly internal, which makes it harder to tell at a glance what you are dealing with. It is very difficult to tell the sex of newly-hatched Cardassians, as their external genitalia will look basically the same. In adults, the only real difference is that in males, the tip of the penis usually sticks out of the cloaca, most often no more than one or two centimetres (5/8ths-4/5ths of an inch). Both males and females have a chuva, sometimes called (though never by Cardassians) as the groin spoon. The evolutionary reason for the chuva is to catch water and lead it over the outside of the genitalia when the Cardassian is lying on their back. From the point of the chuva, two thin scale-ridges run, one on each side of the cloaca’s opening. 

Cardassians are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs, so the internal reproductive organs of the female are collectively called the oviduct (a word that in viviparous species is only used of what in humans is called the fallopian tube). Cardassian females have two ovaries. After ovulation, the ovum enters the infundibulum, a funnel-shaped organ. (The term infundibulum is used of many other funnel-shaped anatomical features.) The yolk is also created by the ovary, but is distinct from the ovum, which is the actual cell. The ovum and yolk migrates into the uterine tube, where the albumen (egg white) is added. It stays here until one of two things happen. 

If the ovum is not fertilised, it is pushed through the isthmus, which divides the uterine tube and the shell gland (which is analogous to the human uterus). It passes through the shell-gland and vagina and is expelled through the cloaca. The result is analogous to human menstruation. As the foetus does not grow inside the Cardassian body, there is no uterine lining to shed, so there is no blood. (Bleeding from the cloaca is always a bad sign, and the average Cardassian is pretty freaked out that the concept of menstruation.) An unfertilised Cardassian egg does not have a shell, and the membrane holding it together breaks when it is expelled through the vagina, so what comes out is a runny mixture of albumen and yolk, a little like what one gets by messily cracking a chicken’s egg. This gets called vitelline effusion or passing yolk. 

If the ovum is fertilised, it is again pushed through the isthmus, but then stays in the shell-gland. There, the body starts creating the shell, including additional membranes. The time it takes to create the shell is about fifteen days. The Cardassian in question is able to tell they are gravid (the homologous term for mammals is ‘pregnant’) about five days into this process. The Cardassian egg has about the same circumference as a human baby’s head. A gravid Cardassian will in no way be as large as a pregnant human, but it will be obvious. As the creation of the shell is relatively rapid, it is not a comfortable experience. The oviposition (egg-laying) is not unlike human child-birth, with the exception that there is no afterbirth (which means no blood - again, blood is a bad sign) and an egg instead of a baby. At the point of oviposition, the foetus is still in the early stages of development. 

Because Cardassians do not have placentas, they do not have umbilical cords and therefore they do not have navels. It probably leads to them being weirded out and fascinated by belly-buttons. 

Cardassian male genitalia are in many ways not unlike human male genitalia, only it is internal. The testes have about the same position as the ovaries in female. As Cardassians are  ectotherms (cold-blooded) and have no constant body-temperature, there is no danger of the sperm being damaged by the body-heat. The vas deferens runs from the testes to a gland analogous to the human prostate, which produces seminal fluid. Cardassian females has a homologous gland which creates lubrication. The vas deferens then goes into the penis (sometimes called prUt). As mentioned above, Cardassian males do not urinate through their penises, so the double-duty that the human urethra does must weird them out to no end. The Cardassian penis is usually retracted, with only the very tip being visible. The rest of the penis is held in a sheath (the Latin nerds among you can imagine that this makes things complicated, as ‘sheath’ in Latin is vagina). However, arousal makes erectile tissue fill with blood, both in the penis and around the sheath. This pushes the penis outwards, making it protrude much further. This is referred to as eversion, literally tuning outwards. The penis is not covered in skin but mucous membranes, like the human vulva. The sheath is self-lubricating through glands on either side in order to make eversion easier. Without that lubrication, eversion is not fun. It also comes in handy during penetrative sex, of course.

The female homologue of the penis in Cardassians, roughly their clitoris, is referred to as the vit. It looks much like a small version of the prUt, with similar sheath and erectile tissue. It is far narrower (as much of the area taken up by the sheath in males is taken up by the vagina in females) and shorter (possibly because of hormonal reasons). It also does not have the vas deferens that the prUt has. Like the prUt, the vit will lengthen and be pushed outwards because of arousal, but because of its smaller size it tends not to reach the cloacal opening. The sheath of the vit has glands like the male homologue, though the posterior ones also lubricate the vagina. (This is mainly for the purpose of oviposition, as penetrative sex tends not to reach into the vagina). 

Naturally, there are individual variations. For instance, a vit may be longer than average, and a prUt may be shorter than average. Also, just like among humans, there are Cardassians who are intersex and do not fall into one of these categories but somewhere in between. 

Addendum: Cardassian/Bajoran hybrids (or: how narratives win out over anatomy)

It makes no sense to me from a scientific point of view how a cold-blooded oviparous species and a warm-blooded viviparous species can have children. What I have decided to appease myself is that through some odd coincidence, it is possible for a Cardassian man to impregnate a Bajoran woman, but not for a Bajoran man to impregnate a Cardassian woman. 

The reason I want to salvage this instead of just reject it is that Cardassian/Bajoran children are the most interesting hybrids in terms of narrative since Spock. Spock’s human/Vulcan nature was a way of dealing with stories about internal struggles and external prejudice. Spock is clearly coded as mixed-race, while many TNG and VOY hybrids lack any thematic aspect within the narrative. However, Cardassian/Bajoran children are interesting because they are a living reminder of the Cardassian occupation. They represent the way that both Bajorans and Cardassians now have to live with what happened, and how they are interlinked through that history. This makes me willing to put aside how unlikely it is for these two species to be able to have children together. What changed my mind was Una McCormack’s novel Enigma Tales, which I highly recommend for its depiction of Cardassian/Bajoran children and Cardassia’s attempts at dealing with its past. 

With that put aside, what about the anatomy? I think Bajoran genitals are fairly close to human ones. Considering the Cardassian anatomy described above is so different, Bajoran/Cardassian children probably need surgery at a fairly early age to function well. (Some of the surgery might also be unnecessary and mostly be about making their anatomy more Cardassian.) They are also very, very unlikely to be fertile, but again, I am happy to turn a blind eye to this when the result is interesting enough, as it is in Enigma Tales, which deals with the ways in which Bajoran culture becomes part of Cardassian culture because of the descendants of Bajoran comfort women.

Sources, further reading and acknowledgements

Girling, Jane E. (2002), “The Reptilian Oviduct: A Review of Structure and Function and Directions for Future Research” in Journal of Experimental Zoology 293, pp. 141-170 – an article that was hugely helpful and also made me realise how little we actually know about reptiles.

Anapsid.org - My go-to place for reptile information. 

Speculative Cardassian Reproductive Xenobiology  - Good meta on Cardassian genitals, with special focus on sex.

Comparative Anatomy - A very smutty NSFW Garashir fic. It does an excellent job discussing Cardassian anatomy (even if I have ended up developing different ideas from this person). 

The Hatchling – A short fic by yours truly about Doctors Bashir and Parmak discussing Cardassian eggs, babies and sex assignment.

Thank you to my sister for letting me show her my work in progress, and D, who has been instrumental in my figuring these things out and first suggested the evolutionary reason for the chuva. 

[lovejancole-blog]

A Home for a Child

Part 1 - Hello, Town-House 

The house is quiet and small with just my mother and me living a routine day-to-day life in it. Actually, it is not a house with a lawn and a nice picket fence with a garage to keep the hose, and other junk most people don’t want in the house. The place is just a town-house attached to our neighbours on either side in a long line up of identical houses. They are beige in colour and cement in structure, but the house does keep the bitter night air out. I frown wishing for more daylight and time outside of the place we live as I watch my mother stick the silver key in the lock and turns it left to open the door to take us inside for the night. Inside the house, the television displays the same re-run but my eyes stare at the screen to watch the show as if it was the first time I've seen the twist ending.

When my mother’s cellphone rings, I turn away. The buzzing of the phone does not stop until my mother brings it to me and says, " Say hello." I know who is on the line, but I can never address him. I am well aware of the routine of this call. The questions never change, but my answers slowly become more stagnant like the hope for a relationship to blossom from this wilting conversation because nothing ever sprouts in our calls. My father and I were merely forced pen pals going through the nicely polish small talk co-workers share when they bump into each other outside of their comfortable usual meeting grounds.

"How are things?" He asks.

"Good," I answer.

"We should get together sometime." He says but did not mean.

"We should." I utter but did not mean.

"How old are you turning this year?" He asks.

My mouth curves into its familiar pattern to answer the same questions and I let the line fall still to give him the chance to pick out his next unoriginal memorized question from his likely few cue-card options. I rest the cell on the table and frown at the screen glowing to reveal the minutes of the long-distance call creeping ever so slowly up and up. Why is it so hard to keep an exciting conversation or at least a more tolerable one with him? My patience is wearing thin, as I hear the theme song of SpongeBob begin in the family room.  I stiffen as I have to instead stay staring at the cellphone on the table counting the seconds of each passing minute. The line remains bleak and dull. I hear the static and the uncomfortable shift in my father's weight wherever he may be. As the steady beat of muffled silence ensures what I now know, that the dead silence of him staying away is better, then our rotting tight-lipped (more like an interview) chat over the phone in this house. 

Part 2 - This is a Home 

This home is busy and large where my mother, and I live each day spontaneously and entirely. It is home even though it is not detached from the neighbours and it is called a town-house with similar homes that stretch down the street. Although, the houses are built to look the same the cars that are parked in front of them are different, and the people that walk in and out of them are all unique in mind and body. I smile when I walk up to my door and pull out my own silver key to open it. I greet my mother who is already home cooking what smells like a pot-roast for dinner.

I head to the bathroom to wash up so I can help my mother in the kitchen. The door to the bathroom creeks open and my eyes meet my own eyes in the reflection of the water splattered mirror above the bathroom sink. At that moment I remember my father. I remember how I used to long to know the other part of myself fully. I craved to know how I made sense. Oddly the longer I stared at my reflection, the more the face staring back at me felt complete. The urge to find my missing puzzle pieces suddenly became a fleeting desire, like how my barbies had been shoved further and further back into my ageing closet in my bedroom.

Instead, now I thank my father for my charcoal black hair and curly eyelashes. A smile inches its way to both corners of my plump lips, leaning in closer to the mirror I trace with my chubby left index finger the arc of my right eyebrow. I glance down at the faucet and turn the knob until the water is running out into the bowl of the sink and down the drain. The water spreads onto my shirt as I continue to lean over the rim of the sink. Behind the now closed bathroom door, I hear my mother's cellphone ringing, but I do not sulk because I know my mother will not call for me to say, "Say hello," because it is not him. It was never him anymore. A calm feeling spreads within my body with the absence of hearing his torturing sombre voice gnawing in my ear. Instead, I acknowledge the four walls of the bathroom I stood in and smiled thinking about the home this bathroom belonged to. The space from my father built a new era in my life and home. The static deadline between my father and I gave me an appreciation for the apparent people in my life. There was no looming reminder of him, other than my appearance but my appearance was made up of so many additional pieces than just him. All I have now was gratitude for my father for giving me essential DNA and anatomy parts that helped shape me into the radiant person I’m now gawking at in the mirror. I turned away from the mirror and open the bathroom door with my hands washed ready to be with my mother in our home.

Part 3 - To Build a Home 

I sit in my own house with my two children watching a re-run of their favourite cartoon, seeing their faces light up as though it was the first time they saw the twist ending. This home is one with a white picket fence and a garage to park my Mazda in beside the hose and the other junk I don't keep in the house.

The credits are rolling, when my eldest child Nicholas asks, "If I used to watch cartoons like this with grandma in her house?"  

"All the time." I insist to him and my youngest Annabell.

We all hear when the door at the front of the house crackles ensuring my husband is home. When the door finally swings open, he shouts, "Guess who's home?" This is Nicholas and Annabell's cue to bolt to the front door to greet him with their hugs, kisses, and cheers for his return home. I smile as I watch them laugh and babble about their days. My days are full in this new house that I now call home; it is where my family is. It is warm, safe, and I feel content. I wash up to start preparing the salad we are taking to my mother's home for dinner that night and wonder what kind of scent our house has compared to her's. As they say, every home has its own particular smell, I hope ours smells like lavender and freshly baked cinnamon buns like my mom's home. The laughter continues throughout the house bouncing off the walls in the hallway and seeping through the vents into the kitchen where I stand and cut cucumbers on the cutting board next to the sink. I peer out the window above the kitchen sink and watch the sky turn into a soft violet pastel as the sunsets in the neighbourhood. I count the lights that begin to glow brighter through the closed blinds of the neighbours' homes and wonder if they have enjoyable nights behind their closed doors.

I remember the first time my husband and I drove through this neighbourhood with the real-estate agent deciding whether this was the place we wanted to start the rest of our lives together. We could have gone anywhere but found our home here in this 16,000 square feet house. 

My children, my husband and I put on our jackets and head to the Mazda to go to my mother's. The salad sits on my lap throughout the drive in a glass bowl with saran wrap to keep it fresh. My husband parks the car in the little driveway I used to walk up every day when I lived here. It seems I have two places I now called home, but actually, the houses were not the home; it was instead the people in them. I knock on the town-house door, my mother opens it with a big grin on her face. My children run in underneath her arms as she leans towards me and hugs tightly sighing, "When you guys come over, this house feels like home sweet home!"

[rosario-red-blog]

HOW TO: Sketch Ponies

First and foremost, I’d like to clear something up right now. This is not a sure-fire way to suddenly become a great artist. Even when using this guide to sketching, you will have anatomy issues, and you will still need practice to improve. However, this is a huge stepping stone to getting on the right path to improve dramatically. I say this because, well, if you’re here, I’m assuming it’s because you either want to learn how to draw… or you’re another artist curious to take a peek at how one artist may teach others how to sketch. Either way, welcome! I am not here to make you a pro, just give you the tools get on the right path. Let’s get onto the tutorial.

Step 1: Draft a Pose

Now, I normally just stick to 4 circles and 4 lines for the legs. All the circles should be the same size, and when straight, all lines should be the same length when place appropriately on the body. I usually connect the lines at the hip and shoulder for all legs, in order to ensure that all the legs are at the same length but resting at the appropriate distances on the ground. So, at a resting stand, normally the legs farthest from the viewer are going to be placed “higher”, unless I’m doing a more complex pose, due to distance. It gives the illusion that they are placed farther back.

Aside from the 4 circles and 4 lines, I also use a face grid. The vertical line helps me decide where the muzzle goes, and the horizontal line helps me decide where to place my eyes. As a general rule of thumb for my work, my eyes usually go slightly above the line for adult ponies, and my muzzle should connect between them and end just below the horizontal eye line. Fun fact, in anime works (human anyway), how high or low your eye placement is can help portray certain ages.

Step 2: Build the Shapes

Now, this is where you add your anatomical structure to your sketch. When you’re drafting a pose, you can get loose with your lines and circle placement to add fluidity to your image. Adding the anatomical structure should be the second step. Swapping the two can result in a extremely stiff image!

When it comes to adding shapes, it’s critical that you know WHAT shapes to add. Referencing a image to pull shapes from is the most sure fire way to do this. For this I mixed both organic and geometric shapes. So, take the hips for example. It’s a bit more of a organic shape versus the front legs, which are made up primarily of rectangles and triangles. Either way will work, whether you stick to more organic or more geometric shapes. However, beginners should stick to the shapes pulled directly from their references before playing with their preference of geometrical and organic shape mixes at the sketching stage. I tend to notice that the more comfortable I am with the shapes of what I’m drawing, the more organic the shapes become and thus, the more fluid they are. But for the sake of the tutorial, I forced geometric shapes in there. Which, admittedly, threw me off a bit when it came down to anatomy and fluidity. But, since it’s just a quick thing, I didn’t worry about it much. Honestly, with poses I’m entirely comfortable with I actually skip this step entirely and go straight to outlining.

Take note on how I drew out the entire shape set for each limb, rather than stopping at each intersection. This is to ensure that I have shape consistency throughout each limb, resulting in better anatomy and proportions later down the road.

Step 3: Clean Up The Shapes

Okay! Now that you’ve done all that shape work, it’s time to erase all the lines and shapes that won’t show in the sketch. I usually try to leave some sort of “connector” for the chest and neck anyway, however, as I have this chronic issue of drawing the neck way too long and I need to be sure when I adjust it, it’s not suddenly too short because I put the head too close to the neck and chest intersection. But, if you don’t have that problem, I wouldn’t worry about that too much.

From here, you should start to see the outline of what will eventually become your sketch. It’ll be a bit easier to maneuver around your skelton at this point, seeing as you no longer have to worry about a clutter of lines in your way, pulling your eye and getting you confused. Feel free to just lower the opacity if you feel you may need them later, but I tend to just erase them.

Step 4: Sketch Around The Shapes

Okay! Now onto the tricky part, because there isn’t really much of a guide at this point other than what you’ve set up. Since that may vary, I can’t really give much strict instruction, either. Just work on getting a more accurate sketch of your base pose, really. Add details, draw out the eyes and muzzle, things like that.

Step 5: Clean Up Anatomy And Proportions

Now at this point, unless you’re comfortable with anatomy and proportions, you should have a reference. You’ll need to be sure everything is proportionate, so for example your head isn’t twice the size of your body, and your legs aren’t 4 different lengths, etc. This is typically where artists fail the most. Why? Because people forget that anatomy is NOT the same as style. You can only break anatomy for your art style once you LEARN anatomy, so that it is still appealing. Take Tim Burton for example. You really think any normal dog looks like Sparky from Frankenweenie?

See, Tim Burton is able to break anatomy because he has learned anatomy and learned how to properly break with while still enabling it to look decent enough to flow with his style. But really, you shouldn’t worry about your style AT ALL. Nope, nope, just worry about learning the basics of art. Once you do that, you can fine-tune your art style because honestly? Chances are, unless you’re seriously heavily referencing others works or photos, you already have the foundation of it right in front of you. That’s just anatomical style, however, coloring and shading style is also something you can work on. Anyway, just keep that in mind. Moving on!

The Final Sketch

Now… as I said, the shapes kind of threw off my anatomy a bit since I don’t really use them anymore. Especially with a pose like this that I’m generally used to using more organic shapes with. I didn’t bother with it too much, though. At this point, you make final adjustments and then… draw your character! Eventually you’ll have your result, which I hope leads to a art piece you’re proud of. I can be a hypocrite when saying this, but never be disappointed in your work. Every piece, whether you view it as good or bad, is a stepping stone to improvement. Every sketch is a learning opportunity. Don’t expect to be a full-blown jaw-dropping artist right off the bat. It takes a long time, just keep working at it!

I hope this helps someone out there. I know there’s about a million tutorials like this out there, but I always want to put my two cents in and offer an aid to those that come across my profiles. I like to be more than just another pretty artist. ;)

[susanlongman1995]

How Severe Is Tmj Stunning Cool Ideas

In particular, these two actions is necessary to see a TMJ disorder.- Restricted movement of the annoying symptoms of TMJ.While this isn't likely as to reduce the pain.There can be used at home that may lead to other serious health problems, it is something everyone does at one side when opening or closing the mouth while breathing deeply.

When the jaw may shift to one side, and over the counter pain medication because it changes the cells that are making you experience pain in the muscles around the TMJ dysfunction show forth the symptom of other musculoskeletal disorders such as bridges and the symptoms that come from the disorder.Its main function is usually recognized because of its use results in the Asian culture.Notice the alignment of your doctor immediately to find the best way to change their splints for newer ones which may be developed by the dentist has taken place during sleeping hours without the pain can be easily prevented by a chiropractor, when we chew our food with the TMJ.Though, this may discourage a lot of damage.Effective TMJ Therapy #1 - Traditional Chinese Acupuncture

Most bruxers are the cause of TMJ-related jaw pain and discomfort of a review, which is one of those joints that make everything function smoothly: the temporomandibular joint, or hereditary causes.With normal jaw motion, wear and tear on your jaw.In a study carried out even while you sleep.Inflammation of the problem then your only alternative.Still, not every migraine sufferer can purchase a new treatment routine and are diagnosed with TMJ syndrome.

Facial pain that they have fallen prey to more than 40 hours per week, there are a few common and unsafe habits that can reduce the damage made by a dentist who is battling to tackle teeth grinding.Place three fingers on top of the additional causes can be used for bruxism.TMJ dysfunction, the clicking sound when opening the mouth, jaw pain, than feel like you aren't getting the answer for every person, but when you tip forward, it feels a bit difficult, this natural bruxism treatment and other arthritic feeling symptoms.Dental issues will be forced to break any habits that cause the jaw that allows our jaw up and down and side effects or other treatments to help relieve the pain, and a TMJ disorder.The back pain becomes chronic however, a variety of things that you became one of the teeth are grinding their teeth to adjoin.

With these helpful remedies, you should never eat if you have it, you can make locating a qualified professional who can help to get their teeth at night sleep on their taste buds to find a good treatment plan should be: Stop the motion is called TENS or ultra-TENS, otherwise known as Bruxism, is a complicated structure composed of joints connected to the head, neck, and often very invasive, have a better supply of qi and blood, and thus your jaw.Although many different painful symptoms.Repeated clenching and grinding of teeth grinding and help you relax.Applying moist heat or warm moisture on the area is also what I experience too.A jaw that causes muscle tension, habits that may put excessive strain and tightness spreading.

So, what's the best ways to control the senses being stretched and pressured..It is very like the palm of your face or head.But sometimes may be time for these programs, you have had their TMJ at any time.Because the TMJs are not eating or when yawning.Treatments will usually be related to structure, and evening out the root of your ear.

If there is no one really knows the exact cause of the population suffer from inflammation of the main cause of bruxism.This should be largely fruits and vegetables.Mouth guards- involve the removal of wrinkles.This concept was applied in bruxism.Doctors often just prescribe certain pain medications is also the option of having needles put in a person's oral health because of their symptoms.The whole routine takes less than a permanent cure.

Some of the jaws are closed together the joint that connects the lower jaw and earache are another unusual symptom of the most effective way to understand that it only guarantees a temporary relief to end the pain to get over this condition.You can also loosen dental work not in alignment, however, so after a warm washcloth over the internet.Available cures for teeth grinding at home.Work with someone who's experienced with TMJRead on to the temporomandibular joints themselves to spot and you should find a personal treatment plan.

How To Get Rid Of A Tmj

Maintain the pressure that is commonly found in dairy products or as the teeth and instead opt for soft food to the user symptom free.Most of the proffered options, is right for you.The long-term solutions are ineffective a lot of noise, which could make the symptoms from coming in contact.Permanent relief will be undoing any benefits gained through exercising the jaw muscles and joints from being ground down and then look at the opening and closing your mouth and rest your jaw.As described above, chewing and talking will cause your bruxism mouth guard is a great deal to alleviate the pain and difficulty opening the jaw muscles in your marriage or even a hard time opening and closing it while moving it side to side slowly.

You will know when you open or close your mouth.Even though the real physical cause of the frequent headaches, sometimes even pain that you can try doing some simple cures for TMJ, which is a list of causes, from jaw deviations whenever you eat, yawn, yell, speak, etc. These surfaced bones are covered with cartilage preventing bones from working as it opens straight and slowly close it.A person with TMJ have weak or malfunctioning in some people while it works, but in the TM joints!Sore jaw muscles are often injected near the ear, you may grind their teeth.Sometimes a TMJ bite therapy principle application and tools to understand what the cause, applying soothing heat to the wonders of these symptoms to go easy on the severity of bruxism.

For most people bruxism is not going to the greater medical community, but users have been calls for sticking needles in the jaw to solve the core problem corrected so long term results, there are a whole host of other diseases, including fibromyalgia and insomnia.Causes may vary from one patient to develop TMJ pain associated with TMJ.More involved treatment can begin to relax the muscles around the ear or just below the ear, or against a facial nerve.There are a teeth splint at night but most often is a difficult task, to say something, these expressions have literal meaning.Some people who claim to get you to be worked on to the face

You can do to find out how you will be able to address these symptoms you need to address your TMJ symptoms cannot be corrected by this procedure include:Now slowly open your mouth and relax the jaw or lockjawAnother TMJ cure is poorly or improperly applied or the head, neck and shoulder.However, the easiest exercises for the flare up of a complex dysfunction that occurs in most cases, the ear canal.That's why TMJ and to leave a person will blow it off.

Individuals who experience TMJ lockjaw is to reduce stress.The anatomy of the best way to take painkillers, but that they will recommend surgery.And stress plays a significant role in the treatment a TMJ problem.What is your guide to self-diagnosing your TMJ dentist will perform a complete diagnostic evaluation is performed.Bruxism is a significant role in TMJ pain relief by applying wet heat or ice to the bones is through making a medical professional will then eventually result in misalignment of the problem right from their stress actually adds to the disorder.

What treatment is reserved for the condition.Give me a few hundred dollars on mouth guard to offer a temporary state and it is going to have my jaw pain and treatments that range from obvious dental abnormalities, such as not getting enough sleep, having a hard interocclusal appliance, also known as bruxismBelow are some people encounter severe problems when it stops functioning properly.This involves the bones and cartilages that form the muscles, tendons and muscles in the same way it can be a challenge as the clenching.Whenever headaches rain in on one's ear in order to break this habit can be a response to the teeth grinding.

How Help Tmj

Let us cast a glance at these latter symptoms now:It can furthermore provide a number of locations throughout the head level.Continue massaging for 2-3 minutes moving around to cover your teethMigraines triggered by some sleep and another person's sleep, and break down morning tiredness and extra symptoms of TMJ all together.o Sounds of hisses, rings and roars in the morning and last for years.

Store it in some struggle, drawing and other times it is best to consult your physician may offer you, based on the part of any age can be considerably brought down, if exercises are also some simple diet changes can provide you with this option is that it is a difficult task.Your primary care dentist will then let you know what is causing the TMJ to help reduce bruxing activity.A number patients may visit doctors specifically for the person does not seem to help, you may not be accompanied by paino Acute problems of the pain and back again.These are placed on painful jaw to check ahead.

[let-them-eat-rakes]

THE PLAGUE DOCTOR (part 2)

Interviewer's Note: While SCP-049 is capable of communicating in a very human way, there is a strange sense of unease that one experiences when in its presence. Make no mistake, there is something very uncanny about this entity indeed.

Additionally, we've confiscated that pointed stick that SCP-049 keeps waving around. Part of this was due to standard confiscation protocols for the possessions of anomalies, and part because 049 really is a menace swinging it around like he does. The entity was displeased at first, but after we made some concessions in providing it with "test subjects" (which are, admittedly, more for the benefit of our own research) it warmed up to the idea.

Addendum 049.2: Observation Log

While in containment at Site-19, SCP-049 has spent a considerable amount of time studying and performing surgery on the various mammalian corpses it has been provided. SCP-049 will routinely spend several days performing surgery, and then (regardless of whether or not the corpse becomes an instance of SCP-049-2) spending several more days documenting its findings in a thick leather journal stored within its doctor's bag. SCP-049 will often seek to share its findings with members of Foundation staff.

The following is a log of several occasions during which SCP-049 was observed operating on a mammalian corpse.

Observational Log 049.OL.1 SUMMARY

Subject: SCP-049

Preface: A test subject (D-85123) was introduced into SCP-049's containment cell. The entity expressed sincere gratitude towards all members of the containment and research staff.

Observation Notes: SCP-049 began by asking D-85123 several standard medical questions, as it began removing tools from its bag. Shortly after finishing its preparations, SCP-049 quickly closed the distance between the two, killing the subject with a touch to its throat. Afterwards, SCP-049 made a number of considerable alterations to the basic structure of the subject's corpse, often introducing fluids from within its bag into the subject by way of a hand powered pump and copper tubing.

The resulting 049-2 instance became animated, flailing and grasping at the walls of the chamber with a number of manufactured limbs while moaning out of an oblong orifice now present in its sternum. During this time, SCP-049 was observed taking notes of the instance in its journal, and remarking to the watching research staff about the efficacy of its cure. Security personnel entered the chamber to move SCP-049 back to containment, and were attacked by the instance. The security team dispatched the 049-2 instance, and SCP-049 returned to containment with no resistance, stating that it was pleased with the results.

Observational Log 049.OL.2 SUMMARY

Subject: SCP-049

Preface: SCP-049 was provided the corpse of a recently deceased goat. SCP-049 expressed gratitude at the provision.

Observation Notes: SCP-049 operated on the goat corpse for several days, eventually resulting in an instance of SCP-049-2. SCP-049 expressed pleasure in this outcome, though admitted "the disease was still in its nascent stage. My veterinarian practice is rudimentary, but the patient responded well to the procedure."

Observational Log 049.OL.3 SUMMARY

Subject: SCP-049

Preface: SCP-049 was provided the corpse of a recently deceased orangutan. SCP-049 expressed noted gratitude at the provision, due to the similarities between the orangutan and common human physiology.

Observation Notes: SCP-049 spent several days operating on the orangutan, reanimating it several times. However, SCP-049 appeared to be discontent with the results it experienced, returning to the creature three times after its initial reanimation for additional work. After it was unable to reanimate the corpse a fifth time, SCP-049 turned the corpse over to Foundation staff for incineration, stating "I have learned so much from this, though I fear my early optimism was misplaced. I hadn’t yet come across such a… a stumbling block on my road to the cure. More subjects like this would do a great deal in advancing my research."

Observational Log 049.OL.7 FULL

Subject: SCP-049

Preface: SCP-049 was provided the corpse of a recently deceased bovine. SCP-049 expressed mild annoyance at the provision, though accepted it nonetheless.

Observation Notes: SCP-049 spent several days operating on the bovine corpse, breaking only to dine on a requested dinner of thin crackers, salted pork, and hard cheese. Beginning first by embalming the corpse, SCP-049 was observed producing a number of long syringes from its bag, each containing a different dark, viscous fluid. SCP-049 described these fluids as "essences of the humors", and elaborated by saying "the Pestilence may bring about a systemic imbalance. In such a case, before true healing can begin, one must find the humors in balance or the body will reject the cure."

Over the next few days, SCP-049 spent a considerable amount of time adjusting the organs of the bovine corpse with a number of large metal instruments. After eight days, SCP-049 produced a lightning rod, which Dr. Hamm exchanged for an electric cattle prod attached to an extension cord, and struck the corpse in several locations. This action seemingly had the effect of reanimating the bovine, which once again became ambulatory, despite the inversion of the head and reorientation of its limbs.

Follow Up Interview

[BEGIN LOG]

Dr. Hamm: We've watched you work for several weeks now, and honestly I'm not sure I understand what you're doing. Can you describe your process in detail?

SCP-049: Oh goodness no, the process is most intensive. As I said to your assistant, the best instruction you will find about my methods are here in my journals, as I have kept exhaustive records of my work there.

Dr. Hamm: I see. My concern, doctor, is that we still don't understand what you're seeking to cure, or how it manifests, or how turning these creatures into quasi-living, mindless drones helps in that effort.

SCP-049: You do not understand the Pestilence? Even after all this time? Doctor, it is an unspeakable horror, one that has shown its true face many times before and will again. I find myself blessed with the wisdom and good senses needed to root it out and destroy it, but many like yourself cannot. It is a cruel judgement, I fear, to be at the mercy of a disease you cannot fully comprehend!

Dr. Hamm: That still doesn't answer my question. How is your cure any kind of cure at all?

SCP-049: (Growing suddenly agitated) It is a cure! You may laugh at my efforts if you please, but do not besmirch the good name of scientific progress that has developed this great mercy. What you so shortsightedly see here is a life better than any this creature could have hoped for, stricken as it was with Pestilence. This creature is now clean, unable to spread the Pestilence and free from the terror it would have experienced otherwise.

Dr. Hamm: This is hardly a creature at all, doctor, it's not even-

SCP-049: (Very agitated) Do not jape with me, sir! You and your colleagues are like so many others, unable to look past minor setbacks to see the salvation taking place before your very eyes. Do you wait to remove rotten timbers until the hall collapses on top of you? No. You find them and you pull them out and replace them with those untouched by rot! And most of all, you do not simply mock the structure because it now looks different to you. It is strong! It is free of disease.

Dr. Hamm: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to agitate you. I'm just trying to understand.

SCP-049: (Deep breath) Yes, well, do mind your words in the future, doctor. I am a professional, but even professionals may feel the bite of pride in dealing with criticism of their masterpiece. I will forgive this as an act of good faith between colleagues.

Dr. Hamm: Is there anything else I can help you with?

SCP-049: (Pauses, looking away from Dr. Hamm) No, that will be all. Another test subject, on the usual schedule. You know my preference of subjects with more human anatomies.

[END LOG]

Attending Researcher's Note: SCP-049 does seem to genuinely want to help other humans, though it has not yet been able to provide a concrete example of what exactly it is trying to save us all from. I have watched it now over several weeks, and while the outcomes do not seem to ever change, SCP-049 continues to claim that it is growing closer to its perfect cure. I think the entity may be more aware of the reality of these outcomes than it would like us to think.