#but now I possess the ability to sleep at any given time of the day or night take your pick

[tired-aliensoul]

A rainy, dreary morning

perfect for sleeping

[scarletcomalies]

may i request something??. nat having f!r in all fours, taking her w her strap. all soft, vulnerable. please? need her domestic possessive side (you can create a plot if you're up to, but that's pretty much it!!)

all of you, all of me

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word count: 1,608

Warnings: 18+ content, strap-on usage (R. Receiving), fluff.

A/N: Thanks for the request, anon! Hope you enjoy <3

After a dangerous yet successful mission, Natasha Romanoff returned home to you, her loving partner.

Your thumbs gently ran over the once smooth skin of your beloved, now stained by a few scrapes and bruises to which she gave very little importance.

The woman before you was immune to any stimuli, except your caresses, or you as a whole, for that matter. It was obvious from the way she sighed and closed her eyes as soon as you had placed your hands on her cheeks.

After each life-risking mission, the only thing she needed was to feel your touch, and she wouldn't let some silly superficial wounds to deprive her of this delight.

"Oh, baby," you cooed, tracing a path with your hands from her cheeks to her ears, ending at her red hair. It was tangled, and you could even feel the powdery texture of dirt within. "Would you like me to run you a hot bath? Or would you prefer me to bring the first aid kit? Or would you rather rest?"

"Don't 'baby' me," Natasha grumbled, pulling you closer and wrapping her hands around your waist. "I'm not fragile, I don't need to rest," her tone indicating irritation, as if it was an insult that you simply offered to give her the care she deserved after such hard work. “I just want you, okay?” She added lowly.

You hummed disapprovingly, scratching her scalp in circles to soothe her usual high-defense demeanor. She rolled her eyes slightly, and threw her head back so your hands could continue to run through her scarlet locks.

"You're like a kitten," you commented with a chuckle. "A kitten that needs a bath, a massage, and a good night's sleep."

"I don't need any of that, you know I've had worse," she protested, stubbornness shining through. And it's true, Natasha's been through worse. Much, much worse. "What I need is to get you out of these clothes in the next five minutes...—" she stated, her lips moving to kiss your neck as her hands gripped your hips, pushing you tighter against her.

"Whatever makes my love feel better," you agreed, and it was your turn to tilt your head back to give her more access to that area, to let her slowly give in to the intoxicating need for more of you.

Natasha had given you a fair share of small heart attacks whenever she returned unexpectedly from missions at the most ungodly, unpredictable hours known to human kind. The first time, you had given her a bruise on her torso when you felt an extra weight on your shared bed, thinking someone had broken in.

It took some time for you to become accustomed to the fact that an additional weight no longer signified danger, but it rather indicated the return of your partner from another successful mission.

"I want to touch you," she pleaded, mewled against your ear.

"Well, nothing's stopping you," you whispered, your voice full of desire.

"Damn right!"

One of the things that characterized your relationship with the redhead was her ability to elicit a strong physical response from you, regardless of whether you had been sleeping, or had experienced a rough day, she just had to say the word, and that was sufficient to prompt a readiness on your part to comply.

Natasha's hands exerted pressure on your shoulders, guiding your back against the matress. She observed your body from an arm's distance, her eyes tracing the outline of your skin.

"You have no fucking idea how badly I've longed for this," she murmured.

Her lips captured yours for the first time in three weeks, her tongue exploring your mouth passionately. Said kiss was deep and hungry, chanelling all the longing that had built up during her absence. Her hands desperately traced the contours of your skin beneath your shirt, roaming up and down your body, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

As the kiss intensified, Natasha nibbled at your bottom lip, pulling it gently between her teeth before releasing it with a soft pop, proceeding to begin a journey southward, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your neck. She paused at your pulse point, sucking the sensitive spot, and in consequence, eliciting a soft moan from you.

Her hands, meanwhile, had found their way to the hem of your shirt, slowly pushing it upwards. As more of your skin was exposed, the redhead's kisses followed, intending to cover every inch of your upper body with her touch.

She paused for a moment, looking up at you with a brief vulnerability.

"I've missed this," she whispered, her voice raspy with need. "And I've missed you."

With a gentle but quick maneuver, Natasha gently turned you onto your stomach, her hands caressing your back as she did so. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of your pants, slowly sliding them down your legs.

When the fabric pooled at your ankles, her hands returned to your hips. She leaned down, pressing a trail of kisses along your exposed skin, from the small of your back up to your shoulder blades.

"You're beautiful," she murmured against your skin, her breath warm and even comforting in comparison to the already present winter. "So perfect,” she added, as she lifted your hips to position you on all fours.

Natasha sat back on her heels, her eyes never daring to leave your ready body as she slowly began to undress. She started with her sweatshirt, pulling it off to reveal her toned abdomen and the simple black bra underneath. Her fingers then moved to the clasp behind, unhooking it with ease as the garment fell down.

Subsequently, she stood up, taking out of her pants, letting them pool at her feet before stepping out of them. Her underwear followed, sliding down her toned legs to join the rest of her discarded clothing on the floor.

Now fully naked, Natasha stood before you, her soft skin adorned with a few bruises and scratches. Perhaps it was wrong to admire the marks of such physical exertions such as her soul-draining missions, but there was something undeniably magnetic about the way she wore those bruises with pride.

She allowed you a moment to appreciate the sight of her, a small smirk playing on her lips at the obvious hunger you displayed shamelessly.

She then reached for a strap-on dildo from the bedside drawer, and fastened it around her hips, your all-time favorite black silicone perking up and adding to her already alluring form. And so, like a lioness eyeing her prey, she positioned herself behind you.

She started slowly, easing the toy into your hole with gentle, shallow thrusts. Your body welcomed the intrusion, already primed and prepared due to her earlier teasing.

Her hands then gripped your hips firmly as she began to thrust with more force, each movement driving the toy deeper. The room filled with the sound of your combined moans and the rhythmic slap of skin against skin.

"Mine, mine, mine," she remarked accompanied by each thrust, making you cry out in response.

They became deeper, more forceful, each movement causing waves of pleasure to drown you more and more, threatening to leave you breathless and defeated. The only sound present in the room was that rhythmic, familiar one of skin meeting skin.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" You cried out, followed by high-pitched gasps.

Your eyes were shut tight, your hands gripping the bedsheets with such force your knuckles turned white, anchoring you to reality.

Your back arched involuntarily, pushing you further onto Natasha, seeking more, always more. The clenching on your walls, and the tension on your core built to an almost unbearable level, teetering on the edge of oblivion.

Hers, hers, hers. Utterly and completely hers. With each thrust, each caress, each burning kiss, she once again branded you as her own.

“Nat! M’ gonna…” You weren't able to finish the sentence, for your body went rigid, as the pleasure of release overcame you.

Nevertheless, her hips continued to move, albeit slower and gentler as she helped you ride out your orgasm.

Her lips found the sensitive skin of your back, trailing soft kisses along your spine. This moment, this connection with you, was what she had craved during every lonely night on during her mission.

The feeling of your skin against hers, tte sound of your voice, your addictive scent that was uniquely you, it all reminded her of why she fought so hard to come back home in the first place.

As the aftershocks subsided, you collapsed onto your back, and Natasha took the opportunity to snuggle against you, the last bit of energy gone.

She had the presence of mind to be slightly embarrassed by how quickly and intensely you'd managed to affect her, excessively so, if she was being honest. But she was too drained, too satisfied to care much about it.

"Feeling better, baby?" You asked, your voice soft and filled with affection. Your fingers traced lazy patterns on her back, soothing and filled with tenderness.

Instead of a verbal response, Natasha managed a weak nod against your skin.

Her hands moved languidly, cupping your breasts in a delicate manner that contrasted with her earlier fervor. She let out a contented sigh as she settled her face more firmly between them, nuzzling against your soft skin. She could perfectly fall asleep right there and then, all spent and completely at peace.

Natasha pressed a soft kiss to your chest, right above your beating heart. It was a wordless expression of gratitude, of love, of coming home. No matter where her missions took her, no matter what dangers she faced, you would always be her sanctuary, her safe haven in a world of disaster.

[st0rmyskies]

What Your Favorite Link Says About You

A.k.a. The Links as tarot cards/your rising sign/your blood type.

Time

You're likely an older Zelda fan. Ibuprofen has become a food group for you. Anyone who thinks OoT isn't the greatest Zelda game has you clutching your pearls and tutting. Kids these days don't know how good they have it.

You are a person to whom young people come for advice, either in your career or in life in general. You're happy to give it, especially because you love to help, but on the inside you're silently screaming, What?? Why me???

You may have trouble sleeping through the night. Even if it's not every night, there are some where you just can't turn your brain off and worries or worst-case scenarios just keep playing and replaying ad nauseaum.

You enjoy time in solitude to appreciate the beauty of nature. I bet you know how to braid a mean daisy crown.

“The flow of time is always cruel...” - Some event in your life took your innocence from you, perhaps much too early. You grew up quickly because of it.

Legend

Either you had a crush on the emo kid in high school or you were the emo kid in high school.

You might be jaded by the world, but you still have a solid work ethic and a soft heart despite it all. Even if you hide it all beneath a healthy layer of sass.

You possess a multitude of skills, not all of which are related. Anytime a friend needs a piece of clothing mended or a picture frame hung on the wall or a leak in a faucet addressed, you have the tools and the willingness to help.

Either you have a history of moving frequently when you were young, or you have a restless spirit. You may never quite feel 'at home' in any given place.

"But, verily, it be the nature of dreams to end." - You’ve suffered a meaningful loss in your life and you have a hard time opening up again because of it. 

Hyrule

You root for the underdog, or perhaps you are the underdog. Any of those "against all odds" stories just hit you square in the chest.

Somewhat quiet by nature, you do vital work behind the scenes but you aren't the type to seek out a leadership position. Leave the limelight to somebody else, please.

You might sell yourself short when it comes to your skills and abilities, but you should believe in yourself, man! You can do it!!

You have a capricious streak in you that rears its head now and again. That smile can look sharp and devilish in the right light.

"It's dangerous to go alone!" - You either already have or are destined to find 'that one person' with whom you can open up and truly be yourself. 

Twilight

I'm willing to put money on the fact that Twilight Princess was your first Zelda game.

You have a strong sense of justice and get really bent out of shape when you encounter unfairness or flaw in the system, whatever that may be. You might be considered an outsider in some way because of this.

You're the friend who scoops spiders up in a cup and sets them outside. Live and let live.

You were the 'wolf kid' in middle school. Come on, those amazing tie dye shirts? Wolf Woman? Julie of the Wolves?? Even if you kept it inside, it was there in some way.

"Your current power would disgrace the proud green of the hero's tunic you wear." - You put a lot of stock in the opinions of others and hold yourself to a higher standard because of it. Sometimes that standard isn't achievable, though, so try to be kind to yourself. 

Sky

You, my friend, have a soft heart. You're generally a happy-go-lucky sort of person. You're likely to make excuses for those who've been mean to you in the past and come out as friends on the other side.

You're crafty, or at the very least good with your hands. You're the type to give someone a handmade gift rather than go buy something for them for their birthday, a holiday, etc.

You have a strong affinity for your friends. If anything bad were to happen to them, you'd turn violent at the drop of a hat.

You may have some level of chronic illness that affects you. Although you might do things in a different way or at your own pace, though, you still come out on top.

"You fight like no man or demon I have ever known." - You have the capability for great things. World-changing sorts of things. Don't give up!

Wild

You're some flavor of neurodivergent, if I had to guess I'd say ADHD. You have 42 tabs open in your brain at any given time and you have no idea which one the music is coming from.

You're an incredibly creative person, although you might have trouble finishing tasks/works-in-progress. Doesn't mean you didn't learn something along the way!

Rigid guidelines or deadlines stress you out. You'd rather be given a goal and decide for yourself when and how to get there. When you do have a deadline, you're a bit of a procrastinator.

Sometimes you don’t get the 'right' way to do things, but you carve your own path--although sometimes it's unorthodox--and get there in your own time.

"Courage need not be remembered, for it is never forgotten." - In spite of how your life changes you, for better or for worse, you have a driving inspiration or ethic or vocation that moves you forward at all costs.

Warriors

Those who don't know you well tend to boil you down to one or two trite traits. In reality, you contain multitudes. Most people couldn't handle all of you, not that they deserve to know even part of you.

You tend to lay it on thick--be that your charm, attitude, or whatever else your social shield might be--because you're hiding some deeper secret or insecurity at your core.

You're the mom friend or the planner in your group, or perhaps you're the oldest child. You’ll pass on an authority role if and when you can, but likely you’re still involved in some supervisory capacity in a given situation. 

You kill spiders with fire. Show NO mercy.

"You dare raise the blade of evil's bane to me? So be it. Hyrule's blood will be on your hands." - You have strong convictions and you aren't afraid to take risks, major risks, to do what you know to be right.

Four

Babe, if you ain't short, you've got short person energy. You scare me a little bit tbh.

You were praised for not being a problem child growing up, or for being very responsible at a young age.

You have a vivid imagination! You may have had an imaginary friend as a child or lived in your own little world altogether. I bet your notebook pages were strewn with little doodles in school.

You're a lover of information. If you could choose between an afternoon at the library or a movie matinee, it would be the former.

"Hanging around with you fools is dangerous for my health." - You're the snark friend, aren't you.  

Wind

You are extroverted to a fault. You need the company of others to recharge that social battery. The quintessential golden retriever friend.

You had active involvement in the music and theatre department. I'd be surprised if you weren't in at least one show in high school.

Having adventures is where it's at! You're a big fan of travel, either cross-country road trips or international flights. You could happily live out of a suitcase.

You tend to make friends easily wherever you go. If everyone in this classroom/workplace/bar doesn't know your name already, they will pretty quick.

"I have been waiting for you, boy... Do not betray my expectations.” - Against all odds, you've proven yourself to be worthy of great things. Screw what fate has in store! You're the type to take your own destiny by the 'nads.

[dimalry]

Second you in loving depressed, dark circle, chronic insomniac Azriel with demonic possession undertones. I feel like often he’s portrayed as very soft uwu baby or dark daddy dom when really he’s a workaholic grouchy introvert with a fucked up sleep schedule.

Do you think he has any connections to Hel in the larger Maasverse? I’ve had a theory for a while that he’s a descendant of one of the princes which would explain how he ended up with Truth-Teller.

Anyway, just want you to know that I picture your version of both Az and Gwyn when I write in canon, so thanks for the inspo!

Yes, absolutely! Though I’ve never thought of what kind of connection Azriel might have to Hel until now. Your ask got me to think…

What if Shadowsingers, rare as they are, were actually created by one of the Princes of Hel? I wish Truth-Teller wasn’t Gwydion’s twin, but rather a long-forgotten weapon once wielded by a long-dead Prince of Hel. Azriel could have discovered it eons later, feeling a strange connection to it, as it was the very weapon responsible for birthing his kind.

(Excuse my poor attempt at drawing shadow- soldiers/beasts. This is basically what I had in mind. This too)

Let’s say Shadowsingers were once a single shadow entity. But over time they split, with shadows becoming just one part of a person rather than their whole form.

A good number of them remain in Hel, but they've transformed into strange, nasty creatures. In Prythian, there are hardly any left, and Azriel may be the last. There are a few in Throne of Glass and Crescent City worlds, but they differ from Azriel.

It is very difficult to find any information about Shadowsingers. No one knows where they come from or how they came to be.

Who gave them the title 'Shadowsinger' anyway? What if it was simply a fitting name given by a mad scholar who first encountered someone with dark, shadow powers? What if these soldiers originally had a different name, given to them by the long-dead Prince of Hel?

And let’s give Shadowsingers the ability to shapeshift. I’ve always found it strange that Azriel is considered the best spymaster in the world, yet everyone knows he’s the Night Court's spymaster, which defeats the whole purpose of being a spy. It’s like imagining a Russian spy working in an American office, and everyone there knows he's a Russian spy. (Lol)

But what if Azriel could change his identity through his shadows? That would truly make him the best spymaster. He wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of creating fake identities; he could simply turn himself into one of Beron’s personal guards. People might know who the Night Court’s spymaster is, but they’d never know when or who he’s pretending to be. Additionally, he could winnow through his shadows instead of using the typical method. By commanding his shadows, he could transport himself anywhere, making him even more powerful than Rhys in terms of winnowing. He wouldn’t need to pause for breath like Rhys; he could take 10 people with him effortlessly.

Connect that to the shadow soldiers from Hel. They used to transform into whatever they liked (like this) and winnow with ease, which is why the war went on for like forever. The prince’s army was incredibly difficult to take down.

Shadowsingers still speak the language of Hel to this day. Azriel uses it to communicate with his shadows, and only Shadowsingers can understand this language—no one else. They don’t even have to learn it.

Okay, wait—can we consider that the winning side was the mother, leading her own army? That Gwydion was wielded against the Prince of Hel? Thus, the Maas universe was forged from the remnants of that eternal war ages ago.

And while Gwyn isn’t related to the sword like Azriel is to the dagger, nor to the soldiers who fought for the mother, as a priestess who worships her, she does have that little connection.

It would be quite amusing for the Fates to pair a descendant of those Hel creatures with a priestess who worships the Mother as mates.

Good god, I somehow pulled this out of my ass. Now I have to incorporate that idea into my story cause it‘s kind of awesome.

Anyway, I’d Iove to read your fic. It makes me happy to know that people use my art as inspiration 🥹

thank you for the ask! Have a lovely day 💕

[yanderes-galore]

Yandere Platonic Bewilderbeast being raised from an egg by a viking woman

Sure! I still need to rewatch HTTYD but since this is not a specific Bewilderbeast, I can do a concept. I still made Darling gender neutral though as it does not change the story I don't think....

Sorry if something is OOC! Hopefully it's not, I tried to keep it vague which should work as this is a rarer species. Most of it is HC.

The dragon was given the name Boreas due to me not wanting to type Bewilderbeast a thousand times. Also, Boreas is a male Bewilderbeast. I'd love feedback :)

Yandere! Platonic! Bewilderbeast with Viking! Darling

Pairing: Platonic/Animal/Pet-Like

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Possessive behavior, Accepting mortality, Desperate dragon not wanting to lose his rider, Cryogenic freezing, Vague if darling is dead or not, Threats.

Wild Bewilderbeast on their own are rare.

There's also only been maybe two cases of tamed Bewilderbeast for one reason or another.

You may have found the egg in the arctic somewhere and decided to take it in to study.

Upon finding the egg you placed it in a safe space within your home to raise.

Not many have seen a young Bewilderbeast and the egg seemed to have no dragon looking after it.

Taking up the job you decide to study the climate needed to raise a Bewilderbeast.

Since dragons and vikings began to coexist with one another, dragon studies have been conducted.

However, Bewilderbeast barely have any research done due to their rarity.

You spent most of your time sketching out the egg during the first few months.

Your home is near glacial waters on Berk.

A decent area to raise your new dragon.

When the spiked dragon egg hatches it wakes you from your slumber.

The moment you see the young Bewilderbeast emerge, you give a smile.

The young dragon isn't that big... yet.

It was comparable to that of a pug in size.

Other vikings wonder how you plan to take care of such a dragon.

Most vikings have something smaller than... well... a Bewilderbeast.

While things may be fine now...

What will you do when it grows?

To that you say... you'll find out.

For the first part of your Bewilderbeast's maturity you keep the dragon in your house.

The smaller dragon follows you everywhere.

His favorite time is when you fish, the dragon nudging you for food.

Due to the dragon's nature you name him Boreas.

Boreas was given his name due to his love of frost lakes and the out of control freezing water he keeps blowing around.

Boreas sees you as his parent.

Even when he became the size of a great dane dog, the size where you try to train him, he lumbers around you with excitement.

You learn that most of your training with Boreas occurs in the water.

Boreas has no wings and is a tidal class dragon, leaving you to train him in swimming and hunting instead.

You have to be careful as the freezing water would harm you if you were clumsy.

When Boreas was still able to fit in your home he was reclusive towards other vikings.

His species is usually non-aggressive, but it appeared he grew territorial.

The growing beast often grunted at you to stay in your home.

You have to ease him by rubbing his face, growing tusks not yet pointed.

He had to get used to people and other dragons....

At night Boreas would either block your home's door to prevent anyone from coming in or he's sleeping in the middle of your home.

It was a pain to convince Boreas he had to start living in the water instead of your home.

He was getting too big and probably needed to start an ice nest at some point.

Many on Berk heard Boreas's roars and whines as you tried to get him used to staying in the water.

Some would complain... but your journal full of Boreas's growth was important.

After this, years passed.

Boreas grows more in the water, soon towering over many homes on Berk.

Everyone knows him as your dragon.

A young dragon prince who'll have his own kingdom some day.

Bewilderbeast have the ability to control and provide for dragons, that's why they're seen as royalty.

The unfortunate thing is... Boreas will take awhile before fully hitting adulthood.

Even with him at this size... you had aged to your 60's.

You were coming to terms with the fact you'll... die soon.

Boreas notices how distant you become when looking at him, your dragon.

You reflect in your journal on all the times you rode Boreas across the freezing waters and cared for the young beast fondly.

You stare at the nest he created from the dock.

The spiked icicles glimmer in the sunlight... a beautiful sight made by your dragon.

You smile softly before Boreas sits in front of you, body covering your view.

"Boreas." You command, the dragon staring at you expectantly. "You are aware I won't... be here anymore, right?"

The dragon doesn't entirely understand your meaning but the grim look on your face tells him enough.

The dragon makes a groaning noise before sinking into the water.

He wants you to ride him.

Softly you get onto the dragon you raised from an egg and allow Boreas to take you to his nest.

The dragon places you on a platform in his nest, allowing you to sit.

The dragon then roars softly.

"... Boreas, why did you bring me here?"

With a soft growl you realize what he means.

"Boreas, you can't- I promise I'll find a successor to be your new rider. You can't do this...!"

Boreas has a hesitant look in his eyes.

The dragon refuses to lose his rider.

You can barely defend yourself when Boreas breathes freezing water upon you.

By the time the assault ends you're cryogenically frozen to the dragon's nest.

A frozen look of fear on your face.

Berk assumes you've died due to your age.

Not many try and attempt to enter the nest of Boreas either.

Mostly because those who try to enter are met with an aggressive and territorial Boreas, the dragon with no owner threatening any with death if they try to enter.

Boreas accepts no other rider.

The Bewilderbeast decides a solitary life is all he wishes for now.

That's what many on Berk assume, at least.

In reality, Boreas has a rider.

He has one rider.

You're his rider... whom he keeps in his nest for decades in a frozen sleep.

In the dragon's mind you never left him... you're still his rider and he's still your dragon.

[fairystar111]

Dead Man's Wish

By: fairystar111

Rating: Gen

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Summary:

Life isn't fair to most of us, that's something almost every villain with tell you.   So somebody decided to make it fair, and now it is.   Except not for everybody.

Characters: Tomura Shigaraki, Izuku Midoriya.

CW/Tags: Kidnapping, Platonic Yandere, Yandere Shigaraki Tomura, Big brother Tomura Shigaraki, Kidnapped Izuku Midoriya, Possessive Behavior, Obsessive Behavior, Infantilism, Stockholm Syndrome.

Start/Previous/Next

My dearest Tomura, if you are reading this then I have already passed on and for that I am sorry. I won’t be able to help you on your path any longer my dear boy but I trust in your abilities to succeed me and do what I could not. You will change the world like I always knew you could. My dear child I have not been completely honest with you and I am sorry you had to find out this way. But I have another child, his name is Izuku Midoriya. He is your brother in all but blood. I had originally planned for you two to meet in his first year of high school but circumstances changed.

I had a younger brother myself once that I loved very much. I gave him everything the world could offer but that was not enough for my dear Yoichi. My younger brother opposed my work as All for One, he hated what I did and what I stood for and tried to stop me until he perished in an untimely accident. Shortly before he passed I had given him a weak stockpiling quirk to help his sickly body gain back some strength, the quirk had melded with an invisible quirk I did not know he possessed at the time. Yoichi had the ability to pass on quirks which was quite useless on its own but once I gave him a quirk it became a new quirk known as One for All. A stockpiling quirk that is able to be passed onto others through DNA transfer and would become the key to my own demise. The wielders of One for All are all successors to my brother that want to end me and my “reign of terror” whatever that means. I know you're probably wondering but what does this have to do with Izuku Midoriya being my brother? 

Well the year before you were set to meet, through unfortunate circumstances Izuku met All Might ,the eighth successor, and became the ninth wielder of One for All. Your paths would intertwine but you would be on opposite sides of the battlefield. The tale of two brothers will repeat itself once again and I won't be able to help you. Tomura all I ask of you is that you try to help him, my child has horrible self-sacrificing tendencies and will die on his own. I need you to take care of him as I have failed to do and love him as I have loved you because one day all you will have will be each other. I want you to love each other as much as I loved both of you.

With love,

Hisashi Shigaraki 

“Don't worry dad I'll find him and I'll save him even if he doesn't want me to.”

Izuku awoke in an unfamiliar but rather comfortable bed. He rubbed his eyes trying to rid the morning grogginess when he remembered with a jolt that the league had infiltrated their base and captured him along with several of his friends. He jumped out of bed only to crash onto the floor. He groaned in pain and looked up to see a chain connecting to a thick padded cuff around his ankle. 

He studied the room around him and found it odd, he had been expecting to wake up in a concrete prison cell or maybe a laboratory. The room he found himself in was draped in soft pastels reminiscent of a baby's nursery, games and toys lined the shelves, the floor was covered in soft fluffy carpet, there was a mass of plushies on the bed. Wait, were those toddler rails on the bed? Why was he wearing bunny pajamas? He had been captured in his tattered hero outfit. Did someone shower and change him in his sleep?! 

What is going on? Izuku thought, trying not to panic. He yelped when the door opened to reveal a frantic Tomura Shigaraki.

“Izuku are you okay I heard a loud crash? Oh bunny, did you roll off the bed?” Tomura asked, feeling rather frazzled as he picked Izuku up off the floor and placed him back onto the bed. God he hasn’t even been here for a full day and he was already hurting himself even when unconscious. Dad was right, his little brother does need to be protected at all times. Hmm maybe he should install padded flooring or maybe full railing around the bed?

Izuku was too shocked to say anything in response. This monster was checking looking him over for injuries like a concerned mother looking over her young child. This murderer, his enemy, was treating him like he was something fragile and precious.

“Don’t touch me!” Izuku yelled, wrenching his arm out of Tomura’s grip. How dare this villain try to treat him this way! Soft gentle touches by hands who have murdered thousands. What did he do to deserve this?

“Calm down little brother, I know you're scared but you're safe now. Everything is okay because I am here.” Shigaraki said with a small smile petting the boy's soft curly hair. Though he hates having to use All Might's catchphrase, it is a necessary evil. Right now what his little brother associates safety and protection with most is All Might. He needs to switch that over to himself. Izuku needs to feel most safe and protected with Tomura. 

Izuku could feel his blood start to boil. How dare this monster use his mentor’s words against him in such a mocking way. And what did he mean by brother? Izuku didn't waste any time thinking about that before he launched himself at the villain trying his best to attack while still chained to the bed. He tried to reach for his quirk but felt nothing but empty space in its place. Well he didn't need quirk to gouge someone's eyes out. Before he could try Izuku was slammed back into the bed and his arms were pinned above his head.

“Izu bunny, calm down everythings alright.” Tomura cooed, trying his best to be soothing. He’s never had much experience comforting other people but he’ll try his best for his little brother.

“Let me go! Let me go!” The boy shouted as he thrashed in the villains grip.

“Izuku you need to stop–Ow!” Tomura’s scolding was interrupted by a strong kick to his side. 

“Stop!” Midoriya screamed as the villain got onto the bed raising his knee to pin his legs down, effectively immobilizing him.

“Are you ready to calm down little brother?” Tomura was a little irritated but tried to not let it show on his face, judging by the look on his Izuku’s face it wasn’t working. He had to keep his cool. Sensei did say it would be difficult in the beginning; he just had to be patient and everything will turn out okay.

“Shut up! You are not my brother, I hardly even know you. You're nothing but a monster who's been fighting me and my friends since the beginning of the year.” Damn his little brother really knew how to hit him where it hurts. None of what he said was technically wrong, but back then he didn't know they were brothers, Dad hadn't told him yet. They really were enemies before but things are different now, they are family, Izu will learn to accept that eventually.

“I see you are still not ready to be reasonable. I tried to be cordial. I wanted us to get off on the right foot but you made me do this. I will return when you are ready to listen to reason. And little brother the next time I come back you better be on your best behavior or you won’t like what will happen to your little friends.” Tomura replied with an ominous expression, closing the door to his little brother's room.

Despite how much it hurt him to leave his little brother so soon. He just wasn't ready to listen yet. Some time apart will help him adjust. After all, his only family left is Tomura. Izuku will eventually learn to be dependent on him and only him for all his needs and safety. Just like Sensei said he had done for his brother in the past.

===

Izuku was ready to tear his hair out. It had been weeks since he has had any human interaction and the isolation was starting to get to him. He can’t even take out his frustrations on the room because as soon as he tries to destroy something he is sedated, if he tries to hurt himself he is sedated, if he tries to take off the collar he is sedated, if he goes too long without sleep he is sedated. His meals are delivered while he is asleep and if he tries to ignore them he will receive a note threatening him with a feeding tube.

He can’t take it anymore, he lost everyone, his mom, his dad All Might , his school, his quirk. He can’t even find comfort in the vestiges of One for All because he can’t get the collar off. Izuku could feel his eyes starting to well up with tears as it started to set in that he lost his entire world within the span of six months. All might is gone, heroes are over, he will never be able to become a hero and make All Might proud. He lost . With that last thought Izuku broke into heart wrenching sobs, thick globs of tears clouding his vision and running down his ruddy cheeks. The poor boy was so lost in grief that he didn’t notice the door opening.

Izuku whimpered as he felt himself being pulled into someone's lap, warm arms wrapping tightly around him. Something felt off but couldn't help leaning into them. He was so tired, he just wanted his mom. He wanted to go back to his school with all his friends and teachers. He wanted his family but they don't exist anymore. Izuku’s wails started up again with a fresh set of tears rolling down his face. Shigaraki gently shushed Izuku, rocking him back and forth, gently running his hands up and down his back soothingly, until the boy fell asleep.

Tomura really wasn’t supposed to be down here, he had promised himself that he would be a strict guardian for Izuku. Izu’s punishment for his bad behavior was spending one month in isolation. Two weeks for trying to fight Tomura and the other two to help him reflect on the past few months and come to terms with his new reality. But he couldn’t help himself. He saw his little brother breaking down on the baby monitor and he had to go comfort him. It had been three weeks anyway so close enough right? 

Plus Izu didn't even reject him this time in fact he even leaned into his hug and was comforted by his presence, now that's progress. Tomura just had to wait for Izu to wake up and they can have their heart to heart and he can learn why they are brothers and the story behind their father. Then they can finally be happy together! 

===

When Izuku began to stir, he realized he was sleeping on something warm and squishy. He sleepily rubbed his face into it and felt it gently move up and down as he heard a scratchy chuckle. He sat up startled to see Shigaraki only to be pulled back down into a hug. Had he been cuddling with Tomura Shigaraki this entire time?! He tried to wiggle out the tight embrace only to be shushed by the man.

“Settle down little brother, you remembered what I said last time don’t you?” Tomara asked. Izuku just nodded into his stomach not trusting his mouth to not say something that would count as ‘bad behavior’. He didn't want any of his friends getting hurt because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

“Good boy. Now I have a very important story to tell and you will not interrupt me until I am finished or else either you or your friends will be punished. Yes it has to do with how we are brothers and who our father is.” Tomura added knowing that was probably the biggest question running through his baby brother's head.

“But-”

“Ah ah ah no interrupting or else your friends won't get to eat for a week.” Tomura threatened seeing the augmentative look that appeared on his little brother's face when he mentioned their father. Izuku promptly shut his mouth.

“The story begins at the dawn of quirks with two brothers, Hisashi and Yoichi Shigaraki. The older brother was born with immense power and charm while the younger was born sickly and seemingly quirkless. Their mother had died during childbirth leaving the boys to a childhood of danger and homelessness. Since both boys had white hair and unique eye colors the brothers were often persecuted by anti-metahuman extremists. Because of this the older brother began to delve into a life of villainy to keep the younger brother safe and off the streets. He began to amass loyal followers and influence while his younger brother remained safe and oblivious in their home. Yes I know you have questions but save them until the end.” Shigaraki grinned at his brother's pouty expression.

“Until one day while Hisashi was off on a business trip, Yoichi decided to snoop around his older brother's office. Up until that point Hisashi had been very vague when describing his work to his little brother and that had only fueled Yoichi’s curiosity. He was horrified when he discovered what his brother was actually doing to pay for their new home. So when Hisashi came back home he was immediately confronted with an arm full of angry baby brother. Hiashi tried to reason with Yoichi, telling him he could ignore everything he saw and they could live normally again. He could even join him if he really wanted to but Yoichi rejected every offer Hisashi gave him. He had gotten the idea in his head that it was his job to take down Hisashi and his empire of ‘evil’. You see, Yoichi had always loved comic book heroes and heroic morals ever since he was a child. And when the idea for metahumans becoming government sanctioned ‘heroes’ became a reality he wanted to be a part of it though he had no quirk. Dad did always call uncle Yoichi an optimistic naive little idiot, kinda like you.” Tomura chuckled at his brother's offended face.

“Anyways Yoichi gave Hisashi an ultimatum. Either he stopped his villainy all together and turned himself in or Yoichi would have to stop him himself but either way Yoichi was leaving. So Hisashi did the only reasonable thing he could think of to protect his little brother, he locked him away in a vault. Which sounds bad when you say it out loud but Dad was only trying to protect Yoichi from his own stupidity. And you know what they say: If you want your family to stay, lock them away!” Tomura cleared his throat awkwardly at the deadpan look Izuku was giving him.

“No?…Hm maybe that was only a thing Dad would say… Anyways after a while in the vault Yoichi started to refuse his meals as an act of rebellion. His already sickly body was getting weaker and weaker everyday. So dad decided to give him a quirk. It was just supposed to be a weak stockpiling quirk to help give Uncle Yoichi’s body some strength but it unfortunately became One for All. Soon after while Hisashi had been away on a business trip, two vigilantes: who would later become the second and third user of One for All, broke into Dad’s mansion and broke into Yoichi’s room vault , kidnapping him from his only family. Yoichi’s naive little self then decided he wanted to become a vigilante too with the new power his brother had given him. So he was a dumb little vigilante on the run from his caring older brother for a while. During this time he also discovered that he had a quirk: the ability to pass on quirks, which was useless by itself but once melded with the stockpiling quirk became quite powerful. I don’t even want to know how he figured out he could pass it down through dna.” Tomura said with a grimace. But Sensei did always say to watch out for boys with spiky hair because they'll steal your family and your quirk. Hm, maybe the second user had spiky hair? 

“Soon after he passed on the quirk Hisashi had found them, he was going to kill the vigilantes for daring to steal his most prized possession. Hisashi aimed a powerful blast at the Second but Yoichi using his last embers One for All leaped in front of him before the Second could be hit. The Second and Third escaped while Yoichi died in Dad’s arms. After Yoichi’s death Dad soon realized that the Second was wielding Yoichi’s quirk alongside his own and figured out that Yoichi wasn't quirkless after all. He went on a rampage trying to find all the users and killing them one after the other. But by the time he would catch one they would have already passed on the quirk to their chosen successor…You have to understand Izuku. Everything Dad has ever done has been to make a better world for his family, for us.”

“By the time the Seventh successor came around the world was everything Dad never wanted it to be. Her name was Nana Shimura and she was my grandmother. She left my father in an orphanage so she could continue playing the hero. She abandoned her child so she could go off and raise some new successor. Her child grew up to be a child-beating bastard. This is why heroes are bad Izuku. All they care about is themselves. They don't give a damn about the people they hurt because of their actions, no one else matters to them.” Tomura growled out with tears starting to form in his eyes.

“When I was four my quirk: Decay, came in and I killed my entire family. It really was an accident. I never meant to harm anyone. I was just a baby back then. I wandered the streets looking for help but not a single person would answer my plea. Do you know why? Because why would a civilian help a child in need when a hero can come along and do it for them. There is no reason for them to be good people when there are heroes around to do that. Day after day people wouldn't even spare a glance at me even the heroes patrolling wanted nothing to do with a dirty villainous looking child. Not until Sensei, he found me and took care of me as if I were his own child. That day I became his son. He didn't care that I was the Seventh’s grandson; he still loved me and raised me until the day he died.” Tomura said in a thick voice choked with tears. 

Izuku looked away, uncomfortable seeing so much emotion on the villain's face.

“Izuku look at me.” Tomura cried, gently cupping Izuku's face and turning it to face him.

“I know you don't believe me right now and this is all very confusing. But I need you to understand that our Dad loved you. He loved us, more than anything in the world. And if it was possible to stay with us forever he would have. He died to help make the world a better place for us.” Tomura’s voice trembled as tears fell down his face.

“How about we take a little break. Stay here and big brother will be right back in a minute.” Tomura said quietly as he rushed out of the room. He didn’t mean to burst into tears in front of his little brother but Izuku needed to know these things even if they hurt him to tell. 

He took the elevator down to the communal kitchen to grab a snack for Izuku ,since their panty is pretty empty right now, only to run into Dabi and Toga. 

“Hey Tomu, wait… have you been crying?” Dabi asked gruffly, concerned for their other man's well being. 

“Shut up, I'm fine.” Tomara replied, covering his face with his hands.

“Aww it's okay Shiggy, you don’t have to be embarrassed to cry in front of us.” Toga cooed, reaching out to hug the blue haired man.

“It’s just getting Izuku to understand why he is here and why the collapse of hero society is for the best has been really hard. I just want him to understand that all of this is for his own good.” Tomara replied, rubbing the residual tears from his eyes.

“Shiggy, it's going to be okay. We all knew the first months were going to be the hardest. I can't even tell you how many times Ochako has made me and Dad cry.”

“Can’t relate Shouto has been a total sweetheart since day one.” Dabi said smugly.

“No but seriously it's going to be alright. The little one will eventually come around when he realizes that know one is coming for him and he doesn't have the power to stop us. And If he doesn't, well we’ll be here to help you knock some sense into the little guy's head.” Dabi added.

“Yeah! And when they are finally settled in we can bring them out to the garden for a playdate.” Toga said happily.

“Thank you,” Tomura said quietly, rummaging through the drawers for snacks.

“Shut up, we're family, we help each other.” Dabi murmured averting his eyes, the healthy skin on his cheeks flushing pink.

Tomura left the room with his snacks and a small smile on his face, filled with a rush of  determination from the impromptu pep talk. Tomura walked into Izuku’s room to see him sitting right where he left him. Huh he didn't expect him to actually listen to him when he told him to stay put. “Hm, maybe I'm making more progress than I believed,” Tomura thought. He shut the door and sat down on the bed beside Izuku and handed him his snacks.

“Here you must be hungry, eat this for now and we can eat breakfast once we're done with our conversation. Now where did I leave off? Oh right a few years after Sensei found me you were born. We were never told of each other because we were both being raised to lead completely different lives. I was being raised to be our fathers successor, the man to bring hero society onto its knees and you…You were never supposed to be a hero or villain, you were just meant to be Izuku, not Deku, not the next symbol of peace, just Izuku, my little brother. You were never meant to be risking your life for people who would never appreciate you. But we’ll talk about that some other time I'm getting off topic.”

“Dad helped raise you until you were nine when he had to leave on a business trip. It was never supposed to be permanent. He was going to kill All Might, take back One for All and fix Japan himself. But the damn eighth almost killed him in their initial fight, All Might ripped his head off and spattered his brain on the concrete. He almost didn't make it but Garaki managed to save him. With injuries so severe there was no way he could ever come back home to you but I promise he never wanted to leave you. After that he only ever communicated to you through phone calls and sending funds for you and your mother.”

“Originally we were supposed to meet in your first year of high school though you were supposed to go to a normal run of the mill high school not UA. Sensei was so happy that you were finally coming back home to your family, but something changed. You met All Might and became the ninth user of OFA and enrolled in UA. You never came home. After that Dad had to scrap those plans and make new ones. The next time he planned for us to meet as brothers was once the heroes had fallen and he was dead, I am fulfilling dads plan. We can finally become brothers like he wanted us to be. Alright, you can ask your questions now.” Tomura said with a small smile. 

“You’re lying there is no way All for One is my father! My dad’s last name was Midoriya and he was the kindest, most loving father in the world. There is no way that villain could ever be him.” Izuku argued, offended at the very notion that the symbol of evil could ever be his father. 

“I was thinking you were going to say. Look at this picture of me and Sensei. Do you recognize the man in the photo?” 

Izuku felt the blood drain from his face, there in the photo was his shy awkward father smiling with a child shigaraki. 

“No you’re lying, that's fake!” Izuku argues, tears starting to well up in his eyes.

“Izuku, I can show you thousands of pictures and videos of me and dad together. You know this is real.” Tomura barked. He hated to make his little brother cry but he needed to rip off the bandaid. Izuku cannot go any longer denying their bond. Izuku is his little brother, he belongs to Tomura and only Tomura and he needs to get it through his thick skull.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Izuku shouted, bursting into tears. His Dad couldn't have been a monster. 

“I know this has been a lot for you to take in, I'll have Kurogiri bring you breakfast and you can spend the rest of the day reflecting on what you learned. Maybe think about how you can be a good little brother as well.” 

And with that said Tomura left leaving Izuku in a catatonic state. His Dad was a two-hundred year old villain? And Tomura Shigaraki is his adopted older brother! What is he supposed to do with that information? Also what was wrong with that story? It felt very biased towards AFO and made Yoichi’s ideals seem like child play. Did Tomura seriously believe that junk? Izuku spent the day wondering what exactly being Shigaraki’s brother would entail until he fell into a restless sleep. 

===

The next morning Izuku awoke to the door being slammed open to reveal a smiling Shigaraki.

“Good morning little brother! I don’t have any work to attend to today so we’ll be spending the day together. But first we need to go over the rules you’ll need to learn if you're going to live here.” Shigaraki explained happily, excited to finally spend time with his little brother. He sat on the bed and pulled Izuku onto his lap.

“What? Hey stop! What are you doing?” Izuku yelled trying to squirm out Tomura’s hold.

“Settle down little brother.” Shigraki warned as he popped Izuku on the thigh.

“...” Izuku stilled, face flushing; he was so shocked to be reprimanded like a toddler he couldn't even come up with a response.

“Good boy. Don’t worry there won’t be too many complicated rules to remember just pretty basic stuff all little brothers do.” Tomura said, patting Izuku on the head. Izuku just sat there, shocked still.

“Firstly you will always address me as Tomura-nii, Tenko-nii, nii-chan, Tomu-nii, or big brother. You can choose whichever you like most but you always need to say one of them when you address me, understand.” Tomara said sternly this was a sign of respect Izuku needed to do and was not something he was willing to compromise on. 

“Yes.” Izuku grumbled, an annoyed pout forming on his face.

“Yes, what?” Tomura growled.

“Yes, big brother.” Izuku spit out, cheeks flushing light pink.

“Good job bunny.

Rule number two: always obey big brother he knows what is best for you. That one is pretty self explanatory I think. 

Rule number three: no fighting, cursing, or lashing out at your big brother. Little brothers are supposed to be calm, docile, and sweet. You can't be a proper little brother if you're acting out like a heathen.

Rule number four: If something is wrong you come to me immediately and I will help you. If I Am not available you can go to any of the other adults in the house but you cannot ignore your problems. If I find out something is wrong with you and you ignored instead of asking for help, you will be punished.

Rule number five: No escaping or leaving the premises without my permission, breaking this rule will result in a severe punishment.

Rule number six: You cannot shy away from my touch. If I want a hug you cannot refuse. 

Rule number seven: You will never try to use that quirk. It is too powerful for you and you were never supposed to have it anyway.” Tomura said sternly. These rules were here to keep his baby brother safe and protected.

“Okay I think that is all the rules for now, let's move on to punishments. Punishments can range from timeout, toys being taken away, writing lines, spanking, a night in the vault, solitary confinement, withholding food from your friends, erasing your quirk permanently, torturing your friends, killing your friends.” Tomura said, looking up to see his baby brother's face flooding with tears.

“Don't worry those last three are only for big things like if you escaped and did not return within 24 hours or if you tried to use your quirk against us. But you would never do that right Izuku? You’re a good boy aren't you? You would never put your friends' lives in danger like that would you? Tomura asked gently, wiping away Izuku's tears. Izuku whined, shaking his head no.

“Good, now onto the rewards. These will depend on how long you can keep up with the rules, a week would equal an All Might toy or something you like or a few weeks would be a walk around the manor. If you make it through a month without breaking a single rule you can have a playdate with one of your little friends. But only the ones in our care and it depends on their progress as well. From what I hear the baby Todoroki is doing the best out of all of you. You can have a playdate with him if you can behave for a month. You're still settling in so these are pretty basic but once you are done. You can earn a phone, a new quirk, a pet, trips outside wherever you'd like, even supervised trips with your friends.” Tomara explained grimacing when he saw Izuku's eyes glitter when he mentioned going outside. He’s likely thinking of escape but he would snuff out those ideas soon enough.

“That's all for now. That shouldn't be too hard to remember, right Izu?” 

“Yes Tomu-nii,” Izuku chirped. Oh he was so going to bust out of this place. He just needed to be on his best behavior and earn that visit playdate with Shouto. Then they can make a plan to get the others out of here. Though he is kind of worried about what's been happening to Shouto. What kind of progress is Shigaraki talking about? 

“That was so cute,” Tomura grinned, squishing Izuku's cheeks.

“Now do you know how to play video games?”

===

This is how they spent most of their days. Tomura would wake him up and hang out with him. Punish him if he did anything wrong or give him a reward. He was treated like a weird mix of a pet and a toddler. His plan to earn the visit with Shoto was not doing great, everytime he would get close to the two week mark he would accidentally break a rule like calling Tomu-nii, Shigaraki. And the count would restart, honestly his brother was expecting too much out of him. 

Speaking of Tomura, he was surprisingly affectionate, showering Izuku with hugs, cuddles, kisses, and pets constantly throughout the day. Izuku would hate it if he wasn't so touch starved though he supposed Tomura did isolate him on purpose. He actually wasn't too bad if Izuku ignored the creepy possessiveness, at least he seemed to genuinely love Izuku and wouldn't hurt him. Well unless Izuku was breaking a rule then all bets were off. 

One time while leaving in a sleepy state Tomura had forgotten to lock his door, Izuku did what any reasonable person would do, he ran like hell trying to escape and was immediately sedated. When he woke up Tomura had taken him over his lap and spanked him. He couldn't sit properly for days afterward! Izuku hasn't done anything bad enough to receive the worst punishments but he's trying to break out of here before those can happen.

After nearly three months he finally did it. He made it through a whole month of good behavior. He can finally start his plan to get out of here. Though a small part of him will miss Tomura just a little bit. Somewhere along the way he actually started to like Tomura and his awkward presence, he really was like a big brother to him. But that didn't matter, he was still his enemy, Izuku still needed to get out of here and take him down. There's still a whole society that needs fixing out there and he'll be the one to do it. He’ll make All Might proud.

“Nii-chan I did it. I was a good boy for a whole month. Can I see Shouto now?” Izuku giggled, jumping up and down looking up at Tomura with his best puppy eyes. Damn he was really playing up the little brother thing wasn't he. Whatever he can be embarrassed later when he successfully escapes but for now this is a necessary evil. 

“Yeah yeah I'll ask Dabi how Shouto’s been behaving and if he's been good we can set something up for you guys tomorrow” Tomura said, picking Izuku and spinning him around.

“Yay! Thank you Tomu-nii!” Izuku giggled.

Don't worry guys I’m coming to get you out. I'll save you no matter what.

Start/Previous/Next

[yunessa]

Owlcatober day 29: Sleep

Act 1, Before the Shield maze, BelowKenabres.

The tent the Mongrels had given Yunessa to rest in was clean, dry, and most importantly, gave Yunessa privacy. Yunessa had gratefully sunk down into a seat. There was no stretching or pushing the weariness away. The start of the day seemed like it happened months ago. Waking up from being attacked outside of Kenabres and dying, surviving a demon Lord’s attack, wandering through caves and finding an Angel’s sword. Lariel’s memories were as clear as window panes in their mind, easy to relive if Yunessa focused on them. Much like Lariel’s sword, Yunessa was somehow aware the memories would never fade or tarnish with time. It would remain until Yunessa wanted to relive it or to summon it to their hand

Inside the tent was a moss filled bed, enough clean water to wash themselves off, and the personal possessions of the mongrel kind enough to share their tent in a small basket. Yunessa caught a glimpse of a brightly colored arrow shaft among a pile of carved arrows before they removed their lute, setting it next to them gently on the ground. They should be sleeping. But to many thoughts sped through their mind, chasing away the desire for sleep with worry and twisted fears.

Beyond the tent the mongrels moved about, a low murmur of noise and sound accompanied by the crackling of fire as the tribe got ready.  Yunessa let the weariness sink into their bones, feeling relief as they let themselves remain still. It was good to have time to think, to focus and get a bit of rest in.

Safety was a lie here but it was safer than the tunnels or the city above. There were others here and they would cry out an alarmif trouble reared its head.  “I’m sorry.” Yuness murmured to the ceiling of the tent as they looked up. The words would ultimately change nothing. The people above would continue to suffer, even if Yunessa was willing to stay and fight. Some guilt gnawed at their chest for it. Being given an Angel’s sword would have been enough for any of the crusaders to cut off their own limbs or as Lann stated: tie it to their limb stump and go. 

_I don’t know any of you. I don’t want to. If I’m tied to this crusade I’ll be stuck here until I die and then you’ll all throw a few flowers on top of my grave and be done with me. Well, once you tried to see if you could pull Lariel’s blade from my corpse._ 

They’d use Yunessa until Yunessa was just a pile of meat. Something about that seemed a certainty and it drew a shiver. The crusade had been ongoing for a hundred years and was likely to continue. The many discussions they had heard from their fellow bards discussing Mendev's crusades against the World Wound suggested as much. _ Wish I'd paid some attention to those discussions now_

_Tethered. Ordered about. My lute gathering dust or decaying in a duty corner._ 

It bothered them on some level to leave innocent people when a difference could be made- but it was easy to push that aside and focus on getting out. “Get through the maze, find the kids, Help Lann. Get us all back to the surface.”

 _My freedom is not worth the shackles that helping them would be put on me._   

One concern gnawed away at Yunessa more than the rest as they set their lute down with care. More than the rest one thing concerned Yunessa and they pulled their shirt sleeves up. The wink of the chunky stone set in the bracelet greeted Yunessa as they checked the bracelet.  The cuff bracelet was wide, in a design that was gaudy with a chunky stone set in the middle. At one point the design was fashionable. Now it was gaudy, tacky like the sort of cheap jewelry sold at a stall by a greasy snake oil seller.

But for Yunessa it was the life raft they clung to. The tacky stone in the center still glowed and as long as the stone glowed Yunessa’s curse would be suppressed for a time longer. _I can’t go back to that._ Lacking the ability to understand the world, losing their reasoning and their mind- Yunessa shuddered in suppressed fear. 

“Please.” Yunessa whispered to the stone. “A little longer. Not much more.” The chunky stone in the center still looked bright and vibrant if dull. When it turned dark and lightless that meant Yunessa would need to find another priest to offer up prayers and fill it with their energy.  Only a priest had the ability to keep the stone glowing. Divine effort, magic, heartfelt prayers- whatever they did worked to keep the curse at bay. Kept the world clear and sane. 

“If it dies on me…” Yunessa shuddered. They reached out with their senses and the 'hum' of divine magic smelled like burnt sugar. "Almost to a new priest now." They promised the bracelet. It continued to glow, unconcerned. I can’t go back to what the world was. A confusing mess of scraps of memory, their sense of self gone, sanity lost. Yunessa couldn’t remember it, a blur of confusion, anger, and despair tainted the fog of the memories that had been. Recalling it pur pins and needles along Yunessa’s spine, making them shudder.

_I just need a to find a priest._ That was all. _Just a priest to do what they need to do and then bury the curse for a while longer_ The curse wasn’t something that could be fixed, they had tried. First after they had recovered and after they had parted from their Mentor. Nothing panned out.

Eventually Yunessa focused on the one thing that could be done- suppression of the curse. To wake up remembering the previous day, to remember their name or even what directions were left and right- precious things easily lost if the bracelet was dimmed and the curse crept back, insidiously killing Yunessa slowly.

More than the cold water Yunessa had washed with, focusing on the curse was like submerging in ice. Even in their new clothes the cold remained.

“Desna please.” Yunessa held their arm up to eye the bracelet, the tacky stone mocking them. As weary as they were, sleep refused to come to them now on the mossy mat that doubled as a bed. Yunessa stared at the tent ceiling, feeling the tension as their heart refused to obey, tightening and speeding up.  “Send me someone.” Yunessa muttered. “Anyone, at all. Something, anything.”

Sleep, when it did come was restless and brief with Yunessa’s nightmares a combination of angry angels, forgotten scraps, and a tension never quite. Yunessa’s hands ached from where their hands had clenched into fists and while sleep had certainly come to them, they felt stiff as if their muscles were made from wires.  

[ghostinthegallery]

If you’re still doing prompts, would you mind doing “Just... don't."

oh boy you just gave me an excuse to mess around with this pairing which had been bouncing around my head for ages! Behold, Szarekh/Imotekh (because you can’t just give me two rival kings and NOT expect me to wonder what would happen if they kissed)

Damn, I am getting mileage out of this prompt list ###

Mandragora did not have much in the way of native flora. Most species had been driven to extinction long ago by environmental shifts and violent acid rains. Biomancers saved, cultivated, and jealously guarded some plants for whatever nonsensical reasons they had to examine organic life. But Mandragora was not and would never again be a lush world.

So Imotekh was surprised to find a small, white flower lying in wait for him on the highest balcony of his palace.

He dismissed his lychguard, an act which was not unusual. He came to this spot often to think, to unravel the threads of logic and possibility that now formed so much of his mind. This was more easily done alone, away from any onlookers. On a clear day he could see hundreds of khet in any direction. This was not a clear day. It was foggy and damp, impossible to perceive much if he relied purely on visual data. Imotekh could only see his lychguard departing by the soft glows of their cores and weapons.

Once he was sure they were gone, Imotekh examined the delicate flower between the metal fingers of his gauntlet. Five petals the color of fresh snow surrounding a red pistil. He could not remember what it had been called in the time of flesh. His abilities of near perfect recall had only formed after his awakening from the Great Sleep. However he did not need to remember what it was called to know what its presence meant.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded.

For a moment he received no answer. His circumspection protocols revealed nothing. Until the mists swirled and his guest revealed himself.

The Silent King did not speak. Imotekh did not expect him to. Szarekh had always taken his kingly oath of silence comically seriously. There had been a time when Imotekh had enjoyed making him break that vow. Moans and cries of ecstasy counted just as much as words.

“You did not get it here,” Imotekh said, twisting the blossom between his claws. It took all of his meticulous control not to crush it. “It no longer occurs naturally. And I cannot imagine how you would have preserved an old specimen for this long.”

Imotekh had few memories of the time before the fires had taken him. Yet he remembered that once a general had been presented before his king after a great victory. A gauzy curtain separated him from the throne, but thanks to luck, chance, or some god's dreadful sense of humor an errant gust of wind had blown it aside. Just long enough for the general to see and be seen by the monarch he served. 

Imotekh had not been at all romantic, even when he had possessed a soul. He had simply been…enthralled. 

“No,” he continued. “I imagine you had one of your crypteks engineer it for you.”

Ensnared by the beautiful king who had done him the greatest possible cruelty…by loving him in return.

Imotekh released a static scoff through his vocal buffer. “What a sentimental waste of time.”

The affair would have been beyond scandalous, not to mention dangerous. Discovery would have meant disgrace for the king and execution for his sand-born lover. So they had devised a signal. A single white flower, left on the king’s balcony, and the general would know it was safe to enter his liege’s chambers. He had never found cause to object to the welcome he found there, whether it be sensual delights or simply calm. A rare thing for a general constantly at war. 

That chamber had been the only place in the universe he had truly felt safe. 

“Are you here to kill me?” Imotekh asked.

Szarekh’s glance fell. As much a sign of hurt as he had ever given. 

“That is what logic would dictate. Am I not in open rebellion against you?” Imotekh took a step towards the intruder. Where once the flower had promised unrestrained adoration, seeing it now only brought bitterness. How could it not when the king he had once worshiped had failed so utterly?

Szarekh closed the distance between them in three long strides, faster than Imotekh had calculated he would. He trapped Imotekh against the balcony’s railing, the only thing guarding them from a three-khet high fall. Rough stone ground against Imotekh’s back. Even more so than in life, the Silent King towered over him. Staring into Szarekh’s blazing oculars, he debated if he had a better chance of surviving gravity or the king’s wrath.

Or worse, his affections.

The Silent King’s slender fingers brushed against his hip as they moved to settle on his waist. He traced a line from the Stormlord’s shoulder, down his arm until their hands came together and began to intertwine. Sensory recollections flooded Imotekh’s neural buffer. Cool sheets, warm caresses, kisses both tender and desperate. To touch him after centuries, millennia apart was almost too sweet and painful to bear. 

Szarekh took hold of Imotekh’s chin and tilted his head back, bringing their faceplates close. 

“Don’t.” Imotekh’s anger, forged and tempered over countless years of war, suddenly felt brittle as glass. “Just…don’t.”

He pushed Szarekh away and pressed his hand against the balcony. The old memories burned in his core, but he shoved them down and strangled them with newly formed engrammatic chains. Not this. He did not want a cold mockery of the comforts they had once shared.

“You left,” he said, tone heavy with unspoken accusations. “You condemned us all, locked us away in tombs, and then you left. That doesn’t come without consequence.”

Szarekh recoiled. In that moment, Imotekh could have asked why? Had the guilt really been too much? Had Szarekh always been a coward, deep down? Instead, Imotekh turned away, unable to look at him any longer. Because of all the things biotransference had taken from the necron’s king, beauty was not one of them. 

Damn the weakness the gods cursed me with, even now, Imotekh thought.

“I heard it said that you had been killed by rivals while you slept.”

It took Imotekh a full half second to realize that it was in fact Szarekh who had spoken. The general nearly spun around, but he braced against the railing to keep himself in place. His fingers left furrows in the stones.

“It will pain me more than anything if it transpires that we must destroy each other, but still…I am glad the rumors were false. I am glad I got to see you again.”

“Selfish bastard.”

“Is selfishness not the right of kings?”

Imotekh could no longer resist turning, a retort forming in his vocal buffer, but Szarekh was already gone. Only a disturbance in the mist served as evidence he had been there at all.

It felt like something had been torn from him and his reactor had suddenly grown cold.

Imotekh shut down his optic array. He had known his resolve would be tested. That was the burden he had accepted when he had taken the phaeron’s throne. When he had challenged the triarchy. When he had denounced his one and only love. Their people needed someone to lead them out of this time of strife and darkness. There was no one else. 

Imotekh activated his gauntlet and watched as the white flower was consumed by flame.

[flowercrown-bard]

“Here, you can have mine.” Jaskel, please 💕

thank you for the prompt! I love it!

word count: 1690

AO3

Jaskier's shirt was plastered to his chest and Eskel was not looking. If he had been anyone else, it would have been different. Everyone always looked their fill of the bard and Jaskier didn't seem to mind, but with Eskel it was different. Jaskier had said so himself, one summer evening years ago, when they had both taken off their sweat soaked shirts. Jaskier had slouched his shoulders lazily, hadn't tried to make his body look more appealing - not that that was necessary or even possible - and then he had thanked Eskel. Thanked him that with him, he didn't have to make himself into something desirable. The implication had been clear. Jaskier saw him as a dear friend he could trust, but certainly not someone he would ever consider taking as a lover. 

So Eskel wasn't looking. He kept his eyes on Jaskier's face, though that proved even more dangerous. His damp hair was curling at the ends and some droplets were still dripping down the strands and onto his cheeks. Eskel had to clench his hands into firsts to stop himself from reaching out and wiping then away. 

"Look at this!" Jaskier lifted the wet sleeping bag up and pulled a face. "I get that the drowner pulled me into the water, but couldn't it wait until I had let go of my sleeping bag? It's going to take forever until this is dry again." 

Eskel swallowed the words that were fighting their way up his throat. 

We can share mine, he wanted to say. I can hold you at night and keep you warm.

Instead, he said, " Here!" and tossed his own bedroll to Jaskier, who struggled to catch it but managed to do so eventually. When he gave Eskel a confused look, Eskel shrugged. "You can have mine."

"Don't you need it?" 

"I'm good. I don't mind sleeping on the ground. Besides," he threw a glance at their surroundings. "I should probably keep watch. Make sure no more drowners show up."

Jaskier frowned and for a moment it looked as if he was going to protest, but then he set the bedroll on the ground without another word. 

Eskel didn't find any sleep that night. But the next day, when Jaskier handed him his bedroll back, it smelled like ink, lute wood and lavender and that was better than a full night of sleep. 

--

Eskel stared at the plate in front of him. He should count himself lucky, he knew that the innkeeper had given him any food at all. Still, his plate had barely been half full when he had received it and now it was already empty. Judging by the growling and painful twisting of his stomach, so was Eskel's belly. He scraped uselessly at the crumbs left on his plate with his fork. 

Jaskier, who was sitting opposite of him, frowned. He looked at his own plate, which was still laden with potatoes, bread and some vegetables. His scowl deepened and he pushed his plate toward Eskel. 

"Here," Jaskier said, "You can have mine."

"What?" Eskel's stomach did a flip. "But you -" 

"I'm not the one who has to fight some ghouls later. You'll need your strength. I'm full anyway."

When Eskel hesitated, Jaskier snatched up some of the bread and held it up to Eskel's lips. 

"Eat something," Jaskier said softly. "Please."

Eskel, weak as he was, complied. 

--

"I am an empty shell of a man," Jaskier lamented dramatically and dropped the book he had been reading onto his face. "A fool and a doomed soul."

"What's wrong?" Eskel asked. With his finger he marked the page he had been reading and looked to Jaskier, who was lying next to him amidst the flowers. 

"Valdo Marx. That's what's wrong."

"Of course." Eskel's lips twitched upwards. "What has he done this time?" 

"He asked me to proofread his newest poetry collection and it's just so bad . I cannot read a single sentence more or I'll lose any poetic ability in my possession." 

"Then don't." 

"Yeah, but I don't have any other book with me, I'll be bored."

Eskel snorted and rolled his eyes fondly. 

"Here," he said, took another look at the page he had marked to remember where he had stopped reading and handed it to Jaskier. "You can have mine."

"What, really?" Jaskier perked up. "But you have been talking about this for weeks! You were so excited to read it!" 

Eskel's cheeks began to glow and he had to look away. At the tip of his tongue lay the suggestion that Jaskier could simply read it to him. But that would be too intimate and it would only solve half of Jaskier's problem. So instead, Eskel snatched up Marx' book. 

"I'll read this instead. Let's see if I can give Marx some criticism."

He pretended to be immediately engrossed in his new reading material, though he felt Jaskier's gaze burning into him. After a while, Jaskier began reading. Still, Eskel found it hard to concentrate, as every once in a while, Jaskier let out little laughs or gasps as he read. Out of the corner of his eye, Eskel caught sight of him reading. Maybe finishing this book could be a reason why they should travel together a little longer. And maybe, once they inevitably parted, they could write each other letters, discussing the book. It wasn't as good as getting to hear Jaskier read it to him, but it was pretty damn good nonetheless. 

--

"This really isn't the right festival for people with allergies." Jaskier let himself fall onto the bench beside Eskel. A bead of sweat ran down his temple and his eyes were alight with joy. "You never think about how hard it is to dance while wearing a flower crown. Let alone three. Those things are really difficult to balance."

Eskel rolled his eyes goodnaturedly. 

"Maybe if you weren't so charming, people would stop giving you all those crowns." 

"You think I'm charming?" 

Eskel choked and flustered as he was, he failed to explain himself any better than, "I mean… people think you are. I assume. Or else they wouldn't give you the flowers, would they? I mean. Not that I don't think -" with a groan, he broke off and covered his face with his hands. 

Thankfully, his rambling didn't insult Jaskier, who merely laughed and nudged Eskel in the sides. 

" Don't worry," he said lightly, "I know what you mean. I would say the people have good taste, but - where is your flower crown?" 

Eskel snorted at the absurdity of anyone giving him such a token of affection. 

"I don't have one." He tried to make it sound as if he didn't care, but even as the words left his mouth, they tasted bitter. 

Jaskier stared at him, his brow set in a determined frown. 

"Here," he said and pulled one of the crowns he was wearing off his head. It was the one with little blue blossoms that had almost the same shade of blue as Jaskier's eyes. "You can have mine."

Eskel's heart skipped a beat. 

"Really?" 

"Of course. It's not right that you don't have one. You're handsome and generous and kind. Why wouldn't I give you a crown?" 

Because of what comes after, Eskel didn't say. There was no need to make this uncomfortable. Maybe Jaskier had forgotten about the tradition and Eskel wouldn't hold him to it. 

Slowly, he took the crown from Jaskier snd placed it on his head. 

"Beautiful," Jaskier whispered. He pushed the crown a bit higher up, so that no leaves would tickle Eskel's forehead. His hand came to rest on Eskel's cheek and before Eskel had time to ask what Jaskier was doing, Jaskier was leaning in and brushed his lips against Eskel's scarred cheek. It wasn't quite the kiss tradition demanded, but it still left Eskel stunned. Jaskier cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. 

"Alright then," he said with a strange smile. "Guess I'll leave you to it then. Happy Belleteyn."

"Happy Belletyn," Eskel echoed, but Jaskier had already disappeared back into the dancing crowd. Only the memory of his kiss lingered in Eskel's skin. 

--

It took Eskel a while to find Jaskier. Instead of mingling with some folks at the bar or singing in the middle of the room, Jaskier sat at a table in the corner, away from any prying eyes. In front of him stood a concerning amount of empty tankards. In his hand, he was gripping another one. 

He had deep bags beneath his eyes and his tousled hair looked as if he had spent the past hour running his hands through it. 

"Jaskier."

At the sound of Eskel's voice, Jaskier looked up at him with bleary eyes. 

"Oh. You're back." Jaskier tried for a smile, but it was shaky and his eyes were glistening. 

Eskel frowned, uncaring of the way the expression tugged at his scars. As gently as he could, he pried Jaskier's fingers off the tankard and held his hand.

"How can I help you?" he asked, lost for what else to do. "What is wrong?" 

Jaskier gave him a long strange look that slowly wandered to their linked fingers. 

"Nothing," he eventually said, so softly that Eskel would have missed it, were it not for his witcher hearing. "I just lost my heart."

Eskel's blood turned cold. He had seen Jaskier fall in and out of love so many times, but this was different. Normally, Eskel's heartbreak at least meant that he got to see Jaskier laugh and smile and have that beautiful shine in his eyes when he talked about his paramour. Seeing Jaskier like this, so miserable in his love felt like his chest getting pierced by a blade. Eskel wanted to help, wanted him to be happy. 

Here , his foolish hope was screaming at him to say, you can have mine! 

But that wasn't the heart Jaskier wanted, even though it had been his for years already. 

So instead, Eskel gave his hand a helpless squeeze. With a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, he said, "Yeah. Me too." 

[goodluckclove]

I have spent some time now trying to formulate a question but every time i arrive back at there's probably no answer. OH. So. (Please ignore if you do not want to answer or can't or whatever. I'm thinking instead of sleeping and that tends to lead to strange thoughts.)

Where does creativity come from? Like, how do people get that spark that turns into an idea an universe. How do they step outside what they have experienced (tropes, stories), and... create something of their own.

I don't know. The answer is probably somewhere between "it just comes" and "they listen and notice it" (as in they are not in something resembling chronic creative burnout).

Writing looks fun. Creating stories. Having a world take shape in your imagination. I enjoy getting glimpses into that process and seeing the end products. (I would love to try it myself but it's one of those "so far away i have zero idea where to start" things. Where on the other hand rants, thoughts, concepts *prompted* by anything and routed in something already existing seem to come freely and turn into whole essays (sometimes at least). Oh well.)

I really don't know. Please ignore if this is weird. I should maybe have some water.

Take care if where you are it's also way too hot. Have water or rest or whatever might be good in that moment, if you want. I hope your day goes as well as can be, with nice moments and strength for the hard ones. (How do people end asks i am not good at people today.)

Hi! You sent this to me a while ago and I hadn't answered it, but I've been thinking about it a lot. I think I'm finally settled enough to answer it.

I think every human being - at least every that I've come across - possesses innate creativity and the ability to make art. I never believed in the concept of god-given "talent" and actually find the concept deeply patronizing as, in my mind, it implies no real effort. Which is bullshit. I will call an artist capable, honest, skilled, passionate - I will never call them talented.

Children are creative in their natural state and in their own way. What happens is an exposure to poison over the years. Your favorite books and movies aren't good for the reasons you like them, or if they are it doesn't matter because they're not real art. People project what they think art is onto you and negate any opportunity for you to grow and form your own sense of intuition.

Or you're never given a chance to really explore art at all. No one makes an effort to show you books you can relate to, so you decide you don't like reading. You think the stuff at art museums is just stuffy Old Dead Guy paintings, and since no one suggests you explore otherwise you never explore painting or sculpting as something accessible to you. It's an unbelievable tragedy to me and I cringe inwardly every time someone tells me they just aren't creative.

There are no uncreative people. There are no boring people. There are only people who were lied to and demeaned until they felt the only real option was to deny themselves the language of communicating through art and storytelling. And that's fucking horrible.

So how can you move past that? I talk to a lot of "aspiring writers" (another term I despise), who tell me blocks in their creative process that keep them from doing the work they want to do. Oftentimes I just respond by asking who told you that? Was it a teacher who was unable to finish their novel because of some poison they consumed? A parent who only sees you through the lens of a career they've decided you're meant to pursue to have value in the world? Perhaps a stranger on the Internet who realized that you can gain a facade of illusory "respect" by making individual taste and limited artistic scope as an overall rule of thumb everyone else has to follow?

Once you find the root of what makes you feel fundamentally severed from creativity, you can start to undo the hold it has over you. You might have to start further back than what feels good for the ego. If you struggle to write a long-term project, maybe you just need to write something. Anything. Just play with fragments and develop a foundation of actually confirming you're able to take up space. Because you are and you absolutely should.

Big ramble but this is a really important topic to me. Don't know where to start? There are really no wrong movies! People watch and wonder what their lives are like! Explore a single plot point of character without worrying about an overarching narrative! As discouraging as it can feel to struggle in a way so many other people seem perfectly well-versed in, it is never too late to develop creativity in your life!

[just-absolutely-super]

Wishing You a Happy Birthday Twelvefold

Very quick and simple oneshot for the Hikari Twins birthday. Hope you enjoy some cuteness! AO3 link coming soon

MegaMan stretched as he came out of sleep mode. Looking to the PET’s internal clock, he saw the digital numbers reading 6:30 AM and the date being June 10th. MegaMan smiled to himself at the date. For others, it was any other day, but for the Hikari household it was considered a very special occasion, and the blue Navi relished in being the first person to greet his NetOp on such occasion. His brother will complain as usual that his Navi was waking him up at such an early hour, but considering how difficult the young boy was to rouse from sleep, MegaMan needed that extra time trying to get him up and out of bed—not just for school this time.

Pressing a button, MegaMan turned the PET’s screen on so he could view into the outside world. He could spot a lump under the covers of the bed across the room, no doubt it was the sleeping boy. Bracing himself for at least a half hour of yelling for his twin to wake up, MegaMan took a deep breath.

“Lan, wak—”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“AHH!” MegaMan screamed, the surprise causing him to fall over. Once he gained his bearings, he looked to see Lan already dressed and staring at his Navi with a large grin.

“E-Eh? You’re already awake and dressed? Wait, how long have you—?”

“Happy birthday!” Lan said again, grabbing his PET to hold up so he and MegaMan were eye to eye.

“O-Oh…” MegaMan said, the words finally sinking into him. As he knew, today was a special occasion—Lan’s birthday.

It’s also Hub’s birthday as well…

Given his identity was a secret for many years, MegaMan wasn’t used to being greeted with birthday wishes. His father would give them, of course, and then his mother once the blue Navi was in the possession of his twin turned NetOp, but it was never given the fanfare like with Lan. He didn’t really mind this arrangement, though…he was just happy to spend the day with his brother like it was always meant to be.

Hearing Lan wishing him a happy birthday today…while it wasn’t unwelcome, it felt rather strange.

“Happy birthday!” Lan said for a third time. MegaMan chuckled to himself. His twin was probably impatiently waiting for his Navi to give some reply, so he had to repeat the phrase over and over again until he got the response he was looking for.

“Thank you, Lan. And hap—” he started to wish his twin the same as well, but was shocked when Lan cut him off.

“No, I’m not done. Wait your turn! Happy birthday!”

“Eh? What do you mean you’re not done? You already said it, like, four times now.”

Lan rolled his eyes, as if MegaMan should know exactly what he was thinking (despite popular belief, twins did not, in fact, have mind reading abilities). Sitting down at his desk chair, the young boy began to explain.

“Okay, so this is our 12th birthday, right?”

MegaMan nodded, “It is.”

“Great,” Lan said, as if there was a doubt his own twin didn’t know that crucial piece of information. He continued, “So I’ve been thinking, and you’ve been wishing me a happy birthday for years, while I didn’t even know it was your birthday too until a few months ago!”

MegaMan frowned, “Are you feeling guilty? You better not, because I keep telling you it’s not your fault you didn’t know I was Hub.”

“No, no, it’s not that.” Lan clarified, “I mean, yeah, I do feel a little bad, but it’s mostly because…well, you deserve to be told happy birthday also. And after 12 years of not being told that from me, I gotta make it up to you!”

 MegaMan blinked, “How so?”

Lan grinned, “By wishing you a happy birthday twelve times before you can wish me a happy birthday! Okay? Okay! So, where was I?”

MegaMan was flabbergasted. The gesture was very sweet, but he was taken off guard. He knew this birthday was going to be different because now Lan knew he was his twin brother, but part of him expected today to be a regular day for the Navi. Lan would continue to be the center of attention, while the other would grin and clap with everyone else as the boy blew out his candles.

It was then that he started to come to grips that maybe…today really would feel like a birthday for him.

“No, seriously, where was I? I, uh, forgot how many I’ve said it up to now…” Lan had a sheepish look on his face at the admittance that he genuinely forgot how many times he wished his brother a happy birthday.

MegaMan laughed, “You’ve said it four times now. We’re on number five.”

His grin back full force, Lan thanked his brother. He then held his hand out, looking to his fingers as he began counting on them as he spoke.

“Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday…”

While he watched his brother chant the same phrase over and over, Megaman felt a warm feeling wash over him. He always knew Lan cared about him, there was never any doubt in regards to that notion. But seeing how the boy woke up at an early hour he always detested just to wish his twin brother a happy birthday not once, but twelve times…it made Hub feel inexplicably loved.

“Happy birthday, and…” Lan took a deep breath before using all his boundless energy to bellow out, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUB!”

Once the final phrase was called out, MegaMan found himself laughing. His little brother looked so proud of himself, it was very endearing. That same warmth grew and the Navi found himself overcome with emotion, causing him to almost choke up. He wasn’t sure if he had any capacity to cry, but if he did, he was sure there would be tears flowing from his eyes. Despite the lack of tears, though, Lan frowned when he caught on the slight change in his brother’s demeanor.

“Hey…are you okay? You’re not upset, are you?”

MegaMan waved his hands back and forth, shaking his head at Lan’s worry.

“No, no! I’m not upset, just the opposite!” he said in reassurance. He then calmed his actions as he stared at Lan with a genuine smile, “I’m just so…happy. That was the nicest gesture, Lan. Thank you so much!”

Lan returned his Navi’s smile, “You’re welcome, Hub. You deserve it!”

Afraid his emotions would get the better of him again, MegaMan fought to change the course of the conversation, “Well, I guess it’s my turn now, right?”

“Huh?”

Pumping both of his fists in the air, trying to duplicate the same amount of energy his twin gave him moments prior, MegaMan shouted out with all his might, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAN!”

He was very pleased with the results as his brother started emitting mirthful giggles at his actions. It was then that the young boy suddenly jumped out of his chair, calling out, “This is going to be the best birthday ever! I have it all planned out too! We’ll hang out with our friends, and then Dad was going to come home and take us to the park, and Mom will have cake! Don’t worry, I heard Dad say someone at the lab managed to create cyber birthday cake, so you can finally experience a cake of your own! And then we can—”

MegaMan sighed in contentment as he listened to his brother rattle off the plan for their day. He had no doubt it would be a memorable birthday for the both of them.

Although…

“Uh, Lan?”

“Huh? What’s up, Hub? I was just getting to the part where we would explore the Net.”

MegaMan rolled his eyes good-naturedly before asking his NetOp, “Did you happen to include going to school and doing your homework into the schedule?”

Lan tripped on his feet, “Oh come oooooon! It’s our birthday! Don’t we deserve a day off?”

“Nope!” the Navi shot down, “It may be a special day, but it’s also a school day, mister! We can have fun afterwards!”

Now it was Lan’s turn to roll his eyes, “Geez, I should have seen that coming.”

MegaMan laughed as Lan got his backpack and supplies ready. After putting his shoes on, Haruka handed Lan a special bento lunchbox, which Lan eagerly took with gratitude. She kissed her youngest on the forehead, wishing him a happy birthday, before taking the PET and pressing a motherly peck to its screen for her other son.

“Happy birthday, Hub,” she said quietly, yet loud enough for Lan to hear unlike years prior when it was out of his earshot. MegaMan felt that same warmth from earlier return. He didn’t know if he would get used to the feeling, but he wasn’t going to complain about it, ever.

As the twins walked out of the house and toward their friend group—all greeting the two with their own birthday wishes and promises of presents later today—Hub knew for sure that this birthday really would be one of the best he and his brother would have together.

[solivar]

Ghost Stories On Route 66 Chapter Three

Hanzo turned his face to the cloudy, light-pollution washed sky and closed his eyes as the evening breeze washed over him. It was perceptibly warmer in the city than it was out on the high desert, but still cleaner than the air of nearly any other city he’d ever breathed, and he drew it deep into his lungs, once, twice, thrice. On the third, he expelled it with a silent prayer for the intercession of his ancestors, preferably all of them, hopefully at least Grandmother Hanako, who until the hour of her passage from the world possessed the ability to defuse any form of about-to-explode much younger Genji right up the point of detonation. It was that sweet and gentle nature he needed right now, the precise words necessary to calm and soothe, the iron-spined powers of almost courtly decorum necessary to avoid having a screaming argument with his little brother on the doorstep in front of who knew how many neighbors and/or housemates. Because that would, of course, be the absolute perfect way to end a day that was already sprawled out insouciantly on its side giving reality an assortment of rude gestures.

He turned to face Genji and found him standing in a physically contorted state trapped almost precisely between flailing limbs-akimbo outrage and fists planted on his hips primarily to avoid strangling anyone outrage. The result was more than vaguely disturbing to the human eye and seemed to involve far more joints that he actually possessed. His hair, recently re-dyed the nature-insulting shades of acidic green he favored, looked as though he had spent a considerable quantity of time alternately tugging at it in a transport of some strong emotion or smoothing it back down in an effort to avoid broadcasting said transport to any observers without any particular success. His face was a mask of mutually contradictory emotions, his eyes were bloodshot in a manner that strongly suggested a lack of sleep instead of chemical mood enhancement, and his eyelashes were stuck together in the sort of spiky clumps they developed only when he’d been crying and he was still crying, there were tears in his eyes, and Hanzo dropped his bag and threw his arms around his wonderful, terrible little brother and embraced him tightly. “Shhh. It’s all right.”

Genji’s return embrace seriously compressed his ribcage and nearly lifted him off the ground with the force of it, his brother’s voice ragged in his ears. “You’re alive you’re alive where have you been I’ve been so worried I filed a missing persons report --”

“Genji,” Hanzo wheezed perhaps a bit more dramatically than was strictly necessary even given the circumstances, “I need air. And a missing persons report? You called the police? ”

His brother let go only enough to relocate the force of his grip from ribcage to shoulders and Hanzo was absolutely certain he was going to have a couple Genji-hand-shaped-bruises in the morning. Some of the half-crazed intensity of emotion had bled from his face but his eyes remained bright -- irridescently glittering lit-from-within green as well as tears, an altogether dangerous sign. “ Four days , Hanzo. You have been gone for four days. I was expecting you home Saturday at the latest. So I ask again: where have you been? And also: who was that and how badly am I going to have to maim him? ”

My car broke down in the desert, something nearly ate my soul, he’s an NPS ranger too beautiful for this world please do not kill him. It was on the tip of his tongue to say it, driven by the force of his brother’s fear, and the only thing that kept the words behind his teeth was the knowledge that there were all exactly the wrong thing to say, particularly the soul-eating bit, which he was completely certain Genji would not accept with anything resembling serenity no matter how many mind-altering substances he might be consuming at any given time. Neither was he going to let it go, the grip on his shoulders tightening, eyes narrowing a dangerous fraction, and Hanzo reached for the first semi-reasonable explanation to come to mind and blurted out, “I -- I -- was enjoying what I was doing and lost track of time!”

The look that took up residence on Genji’s face was equal parts I cannot believe you just said that, aniki and WHAT mixed liberally with oh fucking no you didn’t. “Hanzo. Discovering you have a great deal in common with one of your classmates on the first day of the semester and spending two hours aimlessly wandering the quad talking is enjoying what you were doing and losing track of time . Spending an hour contemplating the menu at Starbucks while trying to work up the nerve to make a pass at the hot new barista is enjoying what you were doing and losing track of time . Driving out into the desert and disappearing for four fucking days? That is something else entirely and I’m vaguely insulted you even tried to pull that on me and for fuck’s sake I was about to call home and tell mother to start watching for ransom demands .”

“Genji, I was in no danger.” Except for the point where YOUR SOUL was almost eaten , the rational voice of rationality remarked, dryly, apparently in league with the self-destructive desire to tell his brother everything . “My car broke down -- I walked to one of the ranger stations. I stayed with him a few days until the arrangements to retrieve my disabled vehicle could be made, and then he brought me home.”

“And you enjoyed that.” And there was the world’s most sarcastic human making himself known.

Hanzo shrugged slightly, Genji’s grip on his shoulders loosening enough that the gesture mostly dislodged it. “Not the breaking down and walking through the freezing desert in the middle of the night, no. Everything else? I managed to get quite a bit of work done and the ranger was excellently helpful and completely professional the entire time we were together.” He bent, picked up his bag, and schooled his face into what he hoped was a serenely competent mask sufficient to cover a gigantic sack of barely believable lies. “I’m sorry I frightened you -- I lost cellular service and -- “

“She couldn’t find you, Hanzo.” Genji whispered, fiercely. “I asked her to find you and she said you were gone , you were nowhere , I thought the police would find you lying dead somewhere -- “

“I would not do that to you.” Hanzo snapped a glare at him, equally fierce.

“I know that.” Genji did not quite reach for him again, though it was a near thing. “And the world continues to be graciously oversupplied with other ways for everyone to leave it.”

“I do not know why she couldn’t find me.” Hanzo could not meet his brother’s eyes and speak that lie at the same time, instead opting to step past him toward the door, head down as though watching his step. “As I said: I was perfectly safe. It has, however, been a very long few days and I want nothing more than my own bed. You cannot imagine how uncomfortable ranger station cots are until you’ve had to sleep on one involuntarily.”

“Yes I can.” He could feel the weight of Genji’s stare laying between his shoulderblades like the tip of a knife. “I let Zen drag me up to that commune outside Angel Fire. I’m pretty sure their beds are Works Progress Administration surplus from the ‘40s. The nineteen -forties.”

Hanzo chuckled, politely, thumbed open the front door and was promptly bowled back onto the steps by the force of the charge that greeted him.

“You’re home! ” Hana Song was, like his brother, a student in the tech end of video game design. Unlike him, she had absolutely no hesitation when it came to hitting him and so she did, and with a startling amount of force for someone that weighed perhaps a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve all been, you jerk , you lousy inconsiderate jackass , you -- “ She stopped, glared up at him, and yanked him inside. “Let’s not do this on the front stoop. Genji, are you coming?”

“Hana, let it go. He’s not dead and he apparently hasn’t been shacked up with persons unknown, either.” Genji stepped in and closed the door, casually deflecting the killing glare that Hanzo flung in his direction.

“Oh, so Person Unknown is free and clear then, hmm? Good, because from what I could see he was a stone fox. Where’d you find him?” Hana gave him a quick hug in apology, gears shifting as quickly as that, and snatched the object Ranger McCree had pressed into his hand on their parting. “Oh -- oh holy crap. He’s a park ranger? Are you serious? ”

Hanzo snatched the object -- a card -- back and physically resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Car broke down, he rescued me, drove me home, perfect gentleman, I would like to go to bed now.”

“Oh, it’s perfect gentleman and not completely professional when you talk to her about it?” Genji asked and now Hanzo found himself resisting the urge to spin hard enough to smack his wonderful, terrible asshole brother firmly in the gut with his bag. “There’s a not inconsiderable difference between those two things, brother.”

“No there isn’t.” Hanzo replied and, fuck it, introduced his bag to Genji’s midsection in a fashion not entirely unlike a hip-check. “In any case, yes, he is a real park ranger, he was extremely kind to me, I had not noticed his appearance, I am entirely sorry I worried you all, and now I am going to go upstairs, take a shower, send a number of groveling emails to my professors, and then go to bed. If that is acceptable to you two?”

“I think we should get Lu and Zen down here and make a family vote of it,” Hana crossed her arms over her chest but nonetheless stepped aside at his growl. “You haven’t heard the last of this, Hanzo Shimada. You, of all people, don’t get to go galavanting off for whole days at a time and then stroll back home without a reasonable explanation -- “

Hanzo leaned over the second story balustrade. “ Genji does that literally all the time .”

“ That’s Genji!” Hana shouted back. “ You are the grounded and responsible Shimada sibling, and if you two are going to switch personalities you can’t do it at random, there needs to be at least two weeks written notice!”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the future.” Hanzo shouted down from the third floor landing.

“Be sure you do!” Hana shouted back. “Seriously, are you going to call him back? Because if you don’t call him, I totally will. I want a look at that in broad daylight.”

“ Good night, Hana.” Hanzo stepped into his room, closed the door, dropped his bag, took the pillow from his bed and screamed into it for five minutes because, sometimes, there was literally nothing else to do if he wished to retain even a modicum of sanity.

Then, because he was indeed the grounded and responsible Shimada sibling, he turned on his holo-terminal and wrote the requisite groveling email of woe and dismay that went into exquisitely embroidered detail about POS rental cars, wandering through the desert at night pursued by coyotes, and the almost total lack of cellular service out in the hinterlands beyond the city limits, which he then forwarded to the four professors whose classes he had involuntarily cut, checked the queue to make certain that the art history paper he had finished last week was still set to go out first thing in the morning and sat, staring, at the little white rectangle of plastic laminate Ranger McCree had pressed into his hand. Plain white bordered in vivid green (National Park Service/US Department of the Interior), the inverted arrowhead seal, his name and contact information (Jesse McCree, Education Liaison, Special Incident Command at Cerrillos National Monument, address, cellular code, email). The laminate coating caught the dim light of even his holoscreen and refracted it in a now-familiar geometric pattern, the card feeling warmer in his hand than could be accounted for even by a transfer of body heat and, without meaning to do so, he pressed it to his lips and slipped it into his underwear drawer, where he was reasonably certain Hana would be completely unwilling to go fishing should she come looking for it. He almost started a second email but acknowledged, if only to himself, that it was considerably beyond pathetic to write a man who had merely been doing his duty, even the outstandingly weird parts, particularly when he didn’t actually have anything to say. At least for the moment. He had a week-long course of medicine to take and he realized that he was, even more pathetically , hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t work so he’d have the excuse.

“You are an outstanding coward of the highest possible caliber,” He informed his reflection in the upstairs bathroom mirror as he stripped out of the borrowed sweats even as he acknowledged them as another good reason to contact the ranger again -- they were only borrowed , after all, he couldn’t keep the man’s clothes. “Hello, Ranger McCree, this is Hanzo Shimada, you know, the one whose soul you saved from being eaten? I would just like to meet in order to return your tee-shirt and sweatpants and would you possibly also like to have dinner? Perhaps coffee? I promise I will keep my housemates and brother as far from you as humanly possible and once this exchange is done we will never have to see one another again and could you be any worse at this, for the love of the gods, stop. ”

“Hanzo?” The voice on the other side of the bathroom door belonged to Tekhartha Zenyatta, his brother’s constant companion in dubious sobriety and bendy activities that could probably get them arrested in at least thirty states and seventeen foreign countries. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine, Zen. Just talking to myself.” Hanzo replied, and turned on the water in the shower. “My apologies if I disturbed you.”

“Not at all, my friend.” A warmly melodious chuckle from the hallway. “If you wish to speak, know that I am here for you.”

“Thank you, Zen.”

He should, he supposed, have a slightly more antagonistic relationship with the man who was arguably corrupting the quite thoroughly and voluntarily corruptible morals of his younger brother, but somehow he couldn’t find it in himself to work up any serious quantity of animus for the Tekhartha. For one thing, he couldn’t look at the man without perceiving him as some sort of elegant, kindhearted, slightly baked at all times praying mantis, who looked out at the world with enormous jewelled eyes and saw a bunch of people in dire need of enormously gentle talk therapy, palliative massage, and huge quantities of psychoactive recreational chemicals designed lubricate the interaction of minds and bodies with other minds and bodies. Sometimes literally. And therein lay the problem: Zen was an actual trained clinical psychologist underneath the doofy exterior and if there was anyone in the house to whom he would, through accident or design, give up the whole something freakishly weird happened in the desert and my soul was almost eaten and somehow the ranger saved me and I have no idea how to feel or what to think about any of this thing it was most definitely him. Possibly over tea. No, check that: definitely over tea. Hanzo made a mental note to take his medicinal beverage alone in his room if at all possible.

That night, at least, it was possible: by the time he finished cleaning up and went downstairs to the kitchen, the common areas were devoid of life. A faint trace of haunting melody drifted down from above, testiment to the presence of Lucio Correia dos Santos, their fourth housemate, who was likely as deep in the process of musical composition as he ought to be in the process of visual composition. The absence of Genji and Zen from the sitting room, where the holotank and all the entertainment systems were located meant they were likely upstairs, entertaining one another somewhat more athletic ways. The absence of Hana from the same meant she was cramming for a midterm, having laid in a supply of snacks and energy beverages some time before.

He extracted the package from its anonymous plastic bag wrapping, feeling entirely too much like an operative in an action movie just before the villains came crashing in through the windows to steal his laboriously acquired intelligence or, possibly, like a teenager about to open his first stroke mag purchased under plain brown wrappers -- entirely too nervous by half and for no good reason. It was medicine. It was medicine. He absolutely was not about to drink something prescribed to him by some unknown person living in the middle of a nowhere who was close personal friends with a smoke monster and the world’s most desireable park ranger.

“It’s medicine, not a drug,” He told himself, as he examined the tiny, elegant, single-serving tea bell and the tiny, elegant tin, outside etched in a delicate swirling mandala in a dozen shades of blue, the lid covered in a freshly printed sticker written in a language he couldn’t read but which was, he knew from a couple hundred credit hours worth of art history classes, probably some form of Arabic. He firmly ignored the voice of rationality that insisted on pointing out drugs and medicines were exactly the same damned thing.

He snapped a picture of it and asked his phone for a translation, which it provided after a moment of taxing its little computer brain. For the restoration of weakened bonds between spirit and flesh , it said. Take one cup daily for seven days, preferably before sleep. Instructions: steep one teaspoon of the loose mixture in a cup of hot but not boiling water for no more than three minutes. Jesse tells me that you are a gentle, wounded soul who came by your injuries through no fault of your own, and for this reason I will tell you that the addition of a little honey and lemon will not harm the therapeutic qualities of this blend at all. May the Merciful and the Just stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk. Brewed, it smelled wonderfully rich and herbaceous, a deep green-golden color even before he added a dollop of honey. He admitted to himself, after the first sip, that it probably didn’t need the honey: he couldn’t place any individual flavor but the way they blent together on his tongue was delicious beyond any other herbal infusion that he could recall, the perfume of it filling his head with every breath.

He put the tin in his section of the kitchen cabinets and set the cup and the tea bell in the sink for the morning, feeling the tug of sleep on his limbs and head and eyes already, knowing he might just fall asleep on a landing if he didn’t seek his bed at once. He was out before his head touched the pillow and that night, when he dreamt for the thousandth time of coiling sky blue scales and air that tasted of the oncoming storm and lightning-stroke eyes that weighed him and measured him and turned away, he felt the contemptuous weight of that silent judgment slightly less.

*

Hanzo woke five minutes before his alarm was set to go off and, for the first time in a very long time, he did not simply reach over and turn it off and roll out of bed with the intent of getting a fresh and early start on the day. Instead he grabbed it, yanked it until the plug either exited the outlet in the wall or the cord parted company with the back of the clock itself, dropped it in the wastepaper basket, rolled over and went back to sleep. He only began crawling vaguely in the direction of consciousness again when something -- something persistent and annoying -- managed to work its way through the cocoon of formlessly dreamy somnolence wound around his mind and soul like the world’s warmest, softest blanket. A sound? It felt like a sound even as his body refused to admit that he was hearing anything at all, not birdsong from the branches of the ginkgo growing in the side yard nearest his window, none of the usual morning sounds from his housemates going about their daily routines, not even his own breath and heartbeat. The worst part was he couldn’t even put a finger on why it was so irritating, it just was , relentlessly, grindingly so and when his eyes finally snapped open it was with a barely restrained urge to kill pulsing hotly behind them and it was probably a good thing he had nothing sharp or heavy in easy reach and he was not in his own bed. Instead, he was looking again at a fieldstone kiva graced with a little rearing horse statue and the sort of happy little flowering cactus that a neo-futurist clone of Bob Ross would have painted because he decided the horse statue needed a friend, curled on his side in the cushions of the world’s most comfortable couch, nested in the world’s most comfortable throw blankets, listening to the world’s most aggravating non-sound claw at the inside of his being.

How was the first coherent thought to make itself known, followed closely by Genji is going to have hysterical screaming hysterics and then how HOW how the fucking HOW?

“Gabe.”

That was new: a voice he’d never heard before, period, not only in this specific context, deep and gravelly, the sort of voice one could clearly imagine growling orders over poorly functioning communications systems in the middle of a life-or-death crisis or offering a pep-talk on the sidelines to a scrappy-but-legitimately-terrible little league team that lost more than they won and still got pizza and milkshakes at the end of the season because he was just that sort of coach, warm and rough all at once.

“ Gabe. ”

And also beginning to experience a certain urge toward homicidal violence, if the tightness in his tone was anything to go by.

“Gabriel!”

The psychotically aggravating sound-not-sound abruptly ceased.

“What? ” Now there was a voice he knew: the smoke monster. The smoke monster somewhere traumatically close by and Hanzo froze, involuntarily, torn between the desire to pull the blankets over his head in a childish impulse to test their monster-repellent properties and an equally potent urge to leap to his feet and start demanding answers, beginning immediately and lasting until he was fully satisfied with the results. Also nearby: footsteps on the hardwood floor, moving light and swift, accompanied by a gently rhythmic taptaptap ing.

“Hon, I know you’re worried, but you really, really have to stop doing that. There are non-predatory species hunkering down in the bushes, watching the house with murderous intent. Unless you want Jesse to walk into a low-budget remake of a Hitchcock flick when he gets home, you need to take it down a notch.” Little League Commando’s tone was far, far gentler than its native amount of gargled with whiskey and fifty caliber shell casings seemed to allow and, moving slowly, Hanzo eased himself up out of the defensive blanket-nest, stealthily, stealthily, and peered over the back of the couch.

The smoke monster was, at the moment, particularly smoky, a barely humanoid mass of vaporous shadowy coils interspersed with a completely excessive number of smoldering crimson eyes and the fangy slash of mouths, plural. It hovered more than sat in the cushioned window seat overlooking the front porch, a crepuscular appendage that couldn’t quite be called an arm holding the curtains back just far enough to let in a shaft of wan sunlight that clearly, obviously wanted absolutely nothing to do with illuminating it and also for it to see out with multiple sets of eyes. Jack, by way of extreme personal contrast, looked as though all the color had been systematically siphoned out of his hair and skin by extradimensional pigment thieves, leaving behind white and the faintest hint of ash and the bluest blue eyes Hanzo had ever seen. Eyes, point in fact, that were fixed unseeing at a point somewhere above the smoke monster’s putative head; the cane he leaned on, despite not looking like the traditional red-tipped-white, was clearly a sensory assistive device of some kind.

Where the fuck IS HE, Jack. It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t spoken out loud, and the intensity of the emotion in it involuntarily tightened Hanzo’s throat, sent a thrill of fear straight to his limbic system. It’s not that far to the city, he should have been back HOURS ago.

“Gabe,” Jack -- it had to be Jack, there was no one else in the room -- replied, in the sort of carefully neutral tone that suggested, strongly, some variation of this conversation had occurred at least a few dozen times before and would likely occur a few dozen times again in the future, “You know I hate to be the one to remind you of this but, well, he’s not actually seventeen anymore. He is, in fact, a grown-ass adult who is entirely capable of taking care of himself in most situations, including the ones that might, just might , involve shacking up somewhere for a one night stand with an alarmingly handsome MFA grad student that he rescued from mortal peril.”

Holy Mother of Darkness, Jack. The tenebrous mass on the windowseat twitched uncontrollably for several seconds and Hanzo found that he couldn’t really blame it, because he was doing the same and blushing furiously and having to fight the urge to leap up and defend his honor at considerable and vituperative length. In what fucking universe is THAT a good outcome?

“This one, in which commitment and further emotional involvement-free gratitude sex is completely a thing that happens.” In tones of ruthless practicality and Hanzo found himself wishing he could just disappear or spontaneously combust or any option but hide behind the back of his rescuer’s couch and listen to this. “And, of all the things that could be keeping him away from home, I’m willing to lay that down as the least bad , okay?”

No it is NOT OKAY! The smoke monster howled wordlessly, its form shuddering, turning in on itself, coalescing into a significantly more human shape, albeit one with at least six extra pairs of eyes. “He’s vulnerable right now, Jack. They both are. He’d never be that irresponsible so soon after having to forge a connection that strong. What the Hell are you even thinking?”

“I’m thinking that you’re finally not broadcasting where is he where is he if he’s not dead when he walks through that door I’m going to kill him at everything with a functioning medulla oblongata for fifty miles square around this building.” Jack reached up and touched an in-ear communication device of some variety. “Ana? Yeah, don’t take the shot, I think he’s actually down off the ledge.”

“I cannot believe you,” The smoke monster glared with three fewer pairs of eyes. “ Our son is missing and you’re -- “

“Our son just turned onto the far end of the drag, he’ll be here in ten minutes, max.” Jack smiled and Hanzo sank down below the level of the couch and, this time, he did pull the blankets over his head. “Seriously, I can only imagine what you’d be like if you actually gave birth to him.”

“Not. Funny.”

“ Kinda funny.”

“ No. ”

The ranger’s vehicle glided to a nearly-silent halt outside and, summoning all his courage, Hanzo peered out from beneath the shield of blankets, trusting in the general depth of the cushions and the current paucity of natural light to assist in concealing his presence. Actual, physical keys jingled and actual, physical locks disengaged, the door creaked open with the sepulchral moan he recalled from that first night not yet a week prior and the ranger stepped in, a cardboard pastry box tucked in the crook of one arm, looking several orders of magnitude wearier than he had -- how many hours before? It couldn’t have been that many, really -- and froze on his own doorstep, abruptly pinioned as he was between the smoke monster on one side and the Little League Commando on the other and Hanzo felt such immediate and complete sympathy for that impossible situation it was all he could do to hold still and silent.

“Jesse Nathaniel McCree,” the smoke monster said in the sort of smoothly menacing tone that promised quite a number of things and not a one of them pleasant, “where the actual fuck have you been?”

Jesse held out the pastry box. “And a good morning to you, too.”

Smoky the Horrible Tentacular Menace accepted the offering and glanced down at it. “What.”

“You like their flourless chili chocolate thingamabobs, right? I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I’d pick some up. Admittedly, I also figured I’d see you at your place, so my best laid plans are already put awry.” He shrugged out of his jacket, hung it on the pegboard, and kicked the door closed behind him. “Jack.”

“Kid,” And not even pretending to conceal his amusement, which Hanzo was willing to put down to some combination of extreme personal courage, decades-long interpersonal relationships, and quite possibly some form of not particularly well-sublimated deathwish. “Madre here’s been flipping out and I’d appreciate it, if you’re going to be away from the nest for any length of time henceforth, that you not turn your cell off because there was nearly a murder. Possibly more than one. Coffee?”

“I would adore coffee.” Jesse offered the smoke monster the sort of smile that, properly deployed in a diplomatic context, could probably bring about world peace. “Come on, mamá , let’s have some breakfast and I’ll tell you all about it.”

The smoke monster took the sort of deep, cleansing breath which with Hanzo was intimately familiar and murmured, “I see you two are intent upon forgetting that I fucking know where you sleep. Okay. Fine. Let’s eat, and while we’re eating you will describe in exquisite detail exactly where you’ve been for the last sixteen hours.”

“Frankly, my bet was down on shacked up in a No Tell Motel with the scorching art student -- “

“OH MY GOD.” For the first time that day, Hanzo felt absolute vindication because the ranger -- his ranger, his perfect gentleman ranger -- sounded at least as appalled as he felt. “ Jack. ”

“ Or I could be wrong. ” Still palpably amused and Hanzo wondered silently which Hell one was sent to for deliberately tripping blind senior citizens as often as possible. “Incidentally, kid, you sound like fifteen miles of beat up donkey crap that’s also on fire so I can only imagine what you look like. Where’d the thingamabobs come from?”

“Sugarmama’s in Flagstaff. Arizona.” Gabriel, now sounding significantly less monstrous, growled; cutlery and plates rattled on the table a few arm-lengths away. “Which, if I recall correctly, is almost four hundred miles one way from here so I think an explanation is in order.”

Hanzo smelled and heard coffee being poured and someone taking a long, fortifying drink of the same. “After yesterday’s excitement, Hanzo wanted more than anything else to go home and, since I couldn’t really blame him for that, I drove him up to the city and dropped him off with instructions to call me if things were still off-kilter after a week or so.” A pause, as plates were passed and pastries distributed and more coffee consumed. “I...felt a little restless after I left him, so I took a drive to Mesa Urraca just to check on the ward boundary up there and, since I was still not feeling right when I got back, I decided it was time to walk the Red Zone perimeter.”

“The perimeter,” Jack, carefully neutral.

“Yup,” Jesse, the soul of unconcern.

“The perimeter which is over seventeen hundred miles round trip, covers four states, innumerable liminal sub-boundaries, and is generally not left to one person to patrol alone for those reasons.” Gabriel, flatly, without a trace of actual question in his tone.

“Look, I’m not sayin’ I lolligagged around in any particular place. I just wanted to get a feel for how things might be changing out on the tracks. Something ain’t right and it’s getting less right all the time -- the fact that Hanzo nearly got snatched up within spitting distance of Tsé Bit’a’í is proof of that. A year ago nothing, no matter how strong it might be, would have dared. Could have dared, even.” A sigh. “Upshot is, the boundary there is unstable in a way that makes me think someone, or something, has been pushing to make it so.”

“You’re probably not wrong,” Gabriel admitted, ungrudgingly. “Fareeha came down from Los Alamos last night and brought some intel from her friend upstairs. Turns out, the experimental high energy science lab’s been detecting some unusually strong and coherent electromagnetic anomalies inside the boundaries of the Red Zone for the last ten weeks. They’re setting up a semi-permanent research station in the old Albuquerque International Sunport terminal complex.”

“Think I saw some of that going down. Security’s not amateur hour, I’ll give ‘em that.” It sounded as though he were fighting a desperate rearguard action against a yawn, one that failed spectacularly. “Could you top me off? Thank you kindly.”

“You’re welcome.” Jack again and, then, quietly, “How long has it been since you last slept?”

“I got a solid eight Friday into Saturday.” The sound of rapturous sipping. “You still make the best -- “

“You can’t keep this up, mijo. ” Gabriel, his tone unusually gentle. “You’re not going to be any good to anyone if you grind yourself past the point of physical and mental exhaustion. You’re almost beyond the edge even now. Let us -- “

“Do what?” And the pure and perfect weariness in his voice twisted Hanzo’s heart. “Tie can’t be cut until his soul’s firmly reattached to where it’s supposed to be. I sent him back to his real life with Ana’s spirit-mending medicine to speed the process along as much as possible, but it’s not like it can be rushed. If I sleep now, while we’re still tied so close together, we’ll share a single dreamspace and that’ll pull him back here whether he wants to come or not.” Hanzo’s heart almost stopped, his breath caught and he knew, suddenly and absolutely, that only part of him was here and the rest was somewhere else, like it had been before. “It’s hard enough letting this one go as it is, so I would ask that you not invite me to make it harder.”

“Jesse,” And there was no disguising the shock, or the fear, in just that one word.

“It’d be one thing if he were only pretty on the outside. Easier, for one.” A pause, a quiet sigh, the tired smile visible in his voice when he next spoke. “But he’s beautiful all the way through and he was hurt before he got here, before this happened to him, and if I were going to guess? That’s what caught something’s eye -- that wound in his spirit, however it got made, and it’s going to keep being catnip for whatever’s out there. So it’s best that we all do what we have to do to keep him as far from here as possible and for me that means staying awake. All the awake. ”

“That’s pretty crazy, kid.” Jack, dryly.

“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m willing to entertain it. Otherwise? Put on another pot of coffee.”

*

Hanzo descended the stairs slowly, keeping a firm grip on the balustrade at all times, which had the generally palliative effect of making it feel as though he were not, in fact, going to float away at any moment, no matter how light his head might be and his head was, metaphorically speaking, made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium and other such substances that laughed at the weight of air.

You should tell them what is happening to you, the soothing voice of pure and perfect rationality murmured at him as he made his way to the kitchen, his stomach rumbling irritable counterpoint. The people who love you deserve that much, the truth. Even if they can do nothing else, they can support you until whatever this...thing...might be is done.

The voice of reason, he was willing to admit in the relative privacy of his own mind, had a point. He certainly did owe the people he loved, and who at least cared for him, the bare minimum gift of the truth. He most assuredly owed his brother, who had abandoned the life he was building at home and followed him to this nearly forgotten corner of the world, considerably more than that. The man whose secrets he was endeavoring to keep had not, at any point, either asked or demanded any such silence from him and, moreover, they were barely acquaintances of a handful of days, with no obligatory weight of care or consideration between them. He was merely denying himself the most basic form of comfort, rest in mind and body, in order to give the soul of a man he barely knew the best protection he could offer. And he was already weary from the effort required to restore that soul to its proper place to begin with.

And he said he thought you were beautiful , the quietly sardonic voice Hanzo had come to associate with all his worst impulses murmured mockingly in the in the back of his mind. Which was also true and, he supposed, proof that no man was perfect, not even the ranger, but hardly anything that ought to affect his decision-making no matter the circumstances. Fortunately, the kitchen was empty and no man living could comment on the extent and severity of the color that bloomed in his cheeks as that thought took root in the back of his mind and started growing thorns.

Lightheadedness and hunger, on the other hand, most definitely would eventually affect his decision-making, whether he wanted them to or not. The last meal he could remember eating was the breakfast the ranger -- Jesse, he did in fact say you could call him Jesse -- had made and that was Saturday morning. He should have taken him up on the unspoken offer of fajitas and used that opportunity to interrogate everyone he met about everything that was going on and determine if there was anything he could do to actually help. And he realized, as he began assembling the ingredients for his repast, he very much wished to help. He owed at least that much to the man who had opened his door in the middle of the night and thereafter gave freely of his home and his labor, even if one could argue that doing so was part of his job, everything he’d done since was now well above the call of duty alone.

As he put a pot of kukicha on to steep, he began wrestling with the practicalities. Genji was not the one least likely to believe the entire truth about the situation in which he found himself -- that would be Hana who was, of all of them, the lone structural-rationalist in a household full of moony creative types, himself notwithstanding. No, Genji would be the challenge when it came time to convince them that taking action was a thing he should do because he was, like it or not, involved now. His brother might, in all likelihood, be inclined to smile, nod, and then end that course of action decisively with a discreet call to their mother followed by a visit from Size Extra Large employees of their family’s corporate security concern and a private jet back to Hanamura, with no particular consent of his own needed or desired. It would greatly depend on whether Genji’s protectiveness of his person outweighed Genji’s antipathy for admitting that their mother was right about anything, ever.

Whole grain bread went into the toaster, nori and water into the saucepan on the stove,  and he contemplated angles of attack as he diced a stalk of green onion and a few fresh shiso leaves. Provided he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then Genji could not be excluded from any subsequent plans or action without there being Consequences. He would also have to be convinced that any plans and actions were of the Good and Necessary sort, or else there would also be Consequences. He added hot water to the miso paste, whisked, and gently scooped it into the simmering nori stock in the saucepan, along with a few cubes of tofu from the container Zenyatta had prepared and labeled FOR COMMON USE the week prior. The scent of gently heating soup perfumed the air. Genji was not completely unmovable provided one used a strong enough lever and stood on firm enough ground. Often, with him, having more than one person whose opinion -- or judgment -- he respected telling him a thing could turn the tide.

Lucio and Hana were his brother’s closest friends -- the first and still the best that he had made since arriving in New Mexico. Genji loved them and trusted them and treated them with considerably more respect than he bestowed upon their actual biological family. Hanzo did not, however, think he placed their judgment above his own. He mixed the natto together with a generous amount of mentsuyu, spooned it over his toast, sprinkled with onion and shiso and considered, as he ate, how best to approach Tekhartha Zenyatta and recruit him to the cause. Doing so had multiple tactical and strategic advantages: Zenyatta was legitimately the only person Hanzo knew with the ability to completely derail Genji at a full steam of emotion, which would undoubtedly become quite necessary somewhere in the immediate future. It did not quite reach Grandmother Hanako of beloved memory levels of self-discipline reinstitution but, then, nothing did and that was not to be held against him, since he did possess the knack for making Genji think when he would much rather be acting or reacting. Zenyatta was serenely gentle-natured, even-tempered, and just peculiar enough in his own right that Hanzo suspected he would hear the words my soul was nearly eaten by a horrible monstrosity from beyond the boundaries of the world and there is something terrible going on in the desert and I wish to help the man who saved me in his efforts to stop it and I assure you that my reasons for doing this are perfectly rational and have nothing whatsoever to do with how much I want to spend the rest of my life admiring the way his pants cling to him fore and aft , nod sagely, and begin offering completely pragmatic advice on how to accomplish his goals. More than suspected it, he could practically see it happening in his mind’s eye, and a quick consultation with the household schedule showed him that Zenyatta was teaching a class in Advanced Meditation Modalities at the UNM annex for at least another hour.

The tea and soup went into thermoses, the thermoses went into his freshly emptied bookbag. He found a pair of gloves hiding in his catch-all drawer next to his university-issued mass transit pass and he pulled the heavier of his jackets out of the hall closet for the sky had continued to lower as he ate and, as he stepped out the door, the first snowflakes were beginning to drift out of the iron-gray clouds and the wind was beginning to rise. A chill curled down his spine that had little to do with the temperature, feeling the memory of sulfurous eyes on him in the endless dark of the desert night, and he hurried on his way in the hope that the fastest way to his brother’s lover’s assistance was their grandmother’s miso soup recipe and that they would both be home before true dark.

[bitetheriskyrose]

I can't resist a dare, what are your kinks?

OH LAWD I forgot I said that. I really need to stay off tumblr when I'm first up in the morning and overconfident in my ability to confidently talk about my sexual side. Whelp. Heeeeeeere we go anyway!!!! (I kinda wanna see how long the list gets mwahaha)

Praise kink 'cause duh

Found out this year I am an appreciator of degredation to a degree

Casual day to day and slightly hardcore dominance

CNC with nonverbal safe signals

Oral fixation (hence the nonverbal signals)

Certain types of bondage, not a fan of swings, but getting my hands tied behind my back or to the bed posts is a must try at least once.

Breeding. Must I explain.

Very very light exhibitionism

BDSM, though humiliation isn't a huge turn on for me. I feel that humiliation and just giving me the choice to do something slightly embarrassing for a "reward" is different (e.g. saying something quite dirty that I'm wayyyy too shy to say is fine, you degrading me is fine but having me say non-sexual degrading things about myself is a no no)

I'm quite a big fan of marking. Seeing bruises on my skin has me feeling some type of way.

I adore possessiveness, but I feel it can get hypocritical very quickly so I'd rather the absence of it than have both of those together.

Very slight breath play, mostly prefer choking

Orgasm denial/forced edging

Overstimulation

Now, I do not have that kink where you try to feed someone so much they gain weight. I think it plays into my oral fixation honestly. I just love having people feed me directly sometimes. It feels intimate and full of love whilst showing I've submitted complete control.

I honestly think I'm more of a switch leaning person than a full on submissive. I haven't really explored it as I've not had the opportunity to, but I definitely have desires/fantasies that are more dominant leaning than my usual pleasure fodder.

Free use- offset of CNC

Primal play? I think that's what it's called. Basically if you played a very high stakes game of hide and seek with me in a very thick patch of woods I would not become a recognisable person.

SOMNOPHILIA. HOW COULD I FORGET HER.

Brat taming. Though I'm not the best actress.

Lactation kink. my deep dark secret you didn't see this.

Did I mention praise

Double penetrations, like spit roasting, but with a dildo you can stick to things. I'm not big on sharing or being shared in reality.

I go through phases of adoring the thought of getting kidnapped into the woods, and then sometimes it's a hard no. Probably one of the things I would agree to but it would be tentative and the safe word being used is quite likely.

I don't know if forced reading is considered a kink but trying to read something while other things are happening is a big oofta moment for me

I guess CNC/BDSM already implies it, but rough sex on the whole gets me going quite easily.

I am also a fan of just vanilla stuff! More often than not it's very relaxed scenarios that I get off to since I'm usually trying to help myself sleep.

Most of all, and this is the only requirement, I need banter. The idea of being "beaten" or matched mentally and made to feel like an equal/maybe even a bit less smart than my partner is such a turn on for me. Which sounds ridiculous because I can't word it properly. Basically, though it sounds so conceited, I always feel like I'm 10 steps ahead of people. I like being challenged, and being praised for "winning" any sort of game is equally as arousing as being degraded for not getting it. Everyone's always blowing smoke up my ass about how smart I am, and I have a very hard time believing it. If I've entered into some sort of D/s partnership, it's because I've given complete trust over and I'm going to believe most anything you say. If you say I'm smart, I'm such a good smart girl! If you say what a dumb little whore I am for getting it wrong, I must be just a desperate and silly girl who couldn't focus enough to actually try and beat you

This has gotten ridiculously long and the likelihood of anyone actually having made it to these words is so slim I feel silly.

[addictedtostorytelling]

hi aj! hope you're doing well ❤ i always love your theories and interpretations and i was thinking... what do you think grissom and sara's story would have been like if grissom had not stayed her supervisor, back in season 1? like if sara had indeed come to vegas but he did not remain her superior at work. do you think he'd have acted on his feelings sooner than he did in canon? thanks ❤

hi, anon!

thank you for your kind words! i'm so glad you enjoy my work. i hope you're doing well, too. ❤

re: your question:

so, to me, the fact that grissom and sara do eventually have a romantic relationship for two+ years while he is still very much actively her supervisor suggests deference to that particular rule is never really a main issue in keeping them apart in the beginning.

grissom's behavior during s5/s6/s7 insinuates: had he otherwise felt ready to date sara during the first four and a half years she lived in vegas, he likely would have done so (albeit perhaps in secret), department policy be damned.

grissom might list the "but i can't! i'm her boss!" excuse when he is attempting to rationalize to himself why he shouldn't act on his feelings for sara, but at the end of the day, that's all that it is—an excuse.

when he finally works through his real hang-ups that are preventing him from having that relationship, he no longer allows his employment status to hold him back at all.

he dates the fuck out of that girl while he is still giving her annual performance reviews and signing off on her overtime requests, and, honestly? he seems relatively unfussed about doing so.

he is not so much of a rule-follower as to lose sleep over flaunting department policy.

that so, i don't think it's necessarily a given that removing that specific impediment to their relationship would get grissom and sara together any faster than is the case in canon, not unless he also simultaneously were to overcome the real obstacle that is holding him back from giving in to his heart anyhow—namely, his fear of rejection.

see, for as much as grissom points to the department policy forbidding romantic relationships between members of the same forensics team as the or at least a main reason why he shouldn't romantically pursue sara, in reality the thing that really holds him back from jumping in with both feet with her is his deep-seated fear that her love for him is conditional/impermanent.

he fears that despite sara wanting him now, she may not always in the future continue to want him—and especially not once she "draws back the curtain" and gets a full view of him, including his (what he views as) egregious personal flaws.

before sara moves to vegas, her view of grissom is an incredibly limited one, and he is highly aware of this fact. she only gets to see/interact with him in person at conferences and over long weekends, and their communication outside of those brief intervals is otherwise relegated to phone calls, emails, and letters; insulated, as it were, by distance and time.

with 500+ miles between them 99% of the year, she doesn't possess the kind of up-close vantage of him that might allow her to otherwise recognize his (as he opines) numerous failing points and deficiencies of character; she only has access to an idealized version of him—“conference grissom,” who has only to refrain from making a fool of himself in her presence for just a few hours or days at a time before he can retreat back to his safe and secluded everyday life (without her) across state lines and regroup before their next fleeting encounter.

for as long as grissom only interacts with sara on such a limited basis, he is fairly confident in his ability to keep her interest. after all, it's easy to put his best foot forward for such modest periods of time, and particularly when he is "in his element" attending conferences or breezing in for short, romantic visits.

however, once grissom—somewhat impulsively—invites sara to move to his city and join his forensics team, he no longer has that barrier of distance to shield him.

now sara is living and working every night in close proximity to him, and suddenly he has to be "on" in her presence all the time.

she's seeing him not only bathed in the limelight of conference stages but under the dingy, unflattering fluorescents of their shared place of work, oftentimes in fraught and stressful situations.

even far more socially-adept persons than he would have a hard time consistently impressing under such high-stakes circumstances, so considering his (in his view) numerous deficits where the interpersonal element is concerned, he can't help but worry that sooner or later, he is going to do something to slip up and shatter her illusions of him as this charming, romantic, mature man-about-town, instead showing himself to her for what he really is—a misanthropic, socially-awkward old fogey who has never been in a long-term romantic/sexual relationship in his life.

of course, for as fearful as he is that once she sees the "real him," her attraction to him will evaporate, he can't (because he is still ultimately in love with her) 100% keep himself from getting close to her all the same, which is why, even once she begins working for him, he still flirts with her and shows his attraction to her and even occasionally makes her backwards declarations of love, all but in spite of himself, never mind that he ought to probably rein in that kind of behavior if he wants to keep things strictly platonic between them.

however, for as much as he does blur the lines, he does still try to split the difference by keeping their interactions relegated to the workplace.

he won't allow himself to "cross the threshold" and take her home with him—not when he supposes that if he were to do so, she would finally see everything he is trying to keep hidden from her.

even with her "just" being his subordinate and working with him every night, she is still observing more of him than he truly feels comfortable with, but at least there are some boundaries/parameters; at least most of what she's observing is located within the realm of the professional.

if he were, however, to have a relationship with her outside of work, then those last barriers would be gone, and she would have access to everything—and the idea that she would terrifies him.

his great nightmare is that if he were to choose to throw caution to the wind, break those departmental rules, and commence a romantic relationship with sara, sacrificing his career and professional reputation and familiar lifestyle in order to do so, the center would not hold.

she might stay with him for a few weeks or months or even years if he were lucky, but in his opinion, it is inevitable that someday—once she realized what she had really gotten herself into with him—she would leave him.

and then he would ultimately end up with nothing—neither the career he sacrificed for the girl nor the girl herself.

he assumes he is so unworthy of sara—too old for her, too misanthropic, too "dark inside," too inexperienced in love/sex, too insufficiently human, etc.—that there is no way she would want to remain with him forever.

she would put up with him for a while, until she got wise to just how many failing points he has, and then she would book.

and he knows he wouldn't be able to cope when she did.

losing her once he has had her would absolutely break him.

so that's the actual major reason™ why he holds back from being with her for so long—because he figures it's somehow easier never to have her than to have her only to subsequently lose her.

he's preempting what he views as the inevitable rejection by not putting himself into a position to be rejected by her in the first place.

can't reject what you don't have, right?

now.

the way i see things, grissom only gets to the point where he is ready to be with sara once he finally conquers his fear of rejection and a) realizes that sara's love for him is in fact unconditional, all of his flaws notwithstanding, and, b) comes to understand that his care for her well-being outweighs any fears or trepidations he had regarding his own.

in canon, he reaches those particular watermarks only after the gsr emotional roller coaster that is their s3/s4 arc, circa the events of episodes 05x12 "snakes"—when sara confirms to him (in so many words) that despite all of his missteps with her over the years, she does still love him and want to be with him—and 05x13 "nesting dolls"—when he is finally posed with the choice that for four and a half years he has been avoiding, namely to play things safe and prioritize his career over sara yet again or to put it all on the line her, and he at last chooses the latter option.

getting back to your original question, then: would grissom not being sara's boss cause him to get together with her any sooner?

not necessarily.

not just by itself, per se.

but let's say him not being her boss leads him into circumstances where he arrives at those emotional conclusions sooner than he does in canon.

well, then the answer to your question might be yes.

so with all of the above in mind, i've got an example of a scenario where i think grissom not being sara's boss might result in him getting together with sara sooner due to the way it would influence the events of the canon timeline.

conjecture after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

okay.

so this scenario is just one of multiple possible scenarios that could work to give non-supervisor grissom that emotional push he would need to pursue a relationship with sara early on.

it hinges on how grissom not being promoted to night shift supervisor in episode 01x01 "pilot" might affect the course of events in the episodes immediately subsequent.

now.

i of course understand, from a storytelling perspective, why the events of the first three episodes of csi transpire in the way that they do.

from a narrative perspective, the writers very much wanted to start the show with an earthshaking event—with the team dynamics being reshuffled and grissom (the main character) getting thrust into a leadership role he doesn't either want or feel prepared for; with everyone experiencing "growing pains" as they adjust to a new normal.

that's fertile ground for storytelling. there's lots of narrative tension in a situation like that one and many opportunities for character development to be had.

that said, there are some parts of those initial three episodes that are not particularly believable just from a "that's not what would probably happen in real life" standpoint, namely:

in real life, brass most likely would not lose his supervisory position at csi and be reassigned to homicide without there being any kind of departmental investigation into his conduct and leadership surrounding the events of the shooting (and especially not before holly gribbs had even actually died).

in real life, grissom, who had never actually expressed interest in a supervisory position, much less applied for one, most likely would not have been automatically and permanently promoted to the role of night shift supervisor following brass's demotion, and especially not without the department running any kind of official hiring search (even just nominally) beforehand.

in real life, there would have almost certainly been an internal affairs investigation into the entire debacle, with focus placed on both brass's and warrick's conducts.

in real life, it most likely would not have been grissom's sole purview to investigate warrick's conduct (or to bring in sara to do so as his proxy).

in real life, it most likely would not have been grissom's sole purview to decide, once said investigation were concluded, if warrick kept his job or not—and particularly not in light of the fact that in sara's official report on warrick's conduct, she does find him negligent.

in real life, most likely, warrick would either have lost his job or, at the very least, been served a lengthy suspension and faced with other (not insubstantial) disciplinary action.

in real life, while it is not completely impossible that grissom could fully hire sara in less than two weeks' time*, it is still somewhat of a stretch to imagine that he could; more likely, it would take him somewhat longer to complete that process (and get all of her background checks, drug testing, fingerprinting, onboarding paperwork, firearms and lab safety proficiency certifications, departmental training modules, tax forms, etc. completed).

in real life, again, while not completely impossible, it is still somewhat unrealistic that sara quits her job at the sfpd and moves across state lines to start her new job with the lvpd all within less than two weeks.

* the events of episode 01x02 "cool change" take place on approximately 10.16.00 within the universe of the show, while the events of episode 01x03 "crate n' burial" take place on approximately 10.29.00 within the universe of the show.

show canon compresses/truncates/fudges all of those processes for the sake of moving the story along and also allows grissom a lot more power to make unilateral administrative decisions regarding his team than in real life he would be likely to have, working at one of the biggest, most prestigious, most bureaucratic state crime labs in the country.

so looping back around to our au, let's imagine a scenario where things happen in a somewhat more "true to life" way than they do in actual show canon.

let's say that instead of being immediately reassigned to homicide in the wake of the gribbs shooting, brass is instead placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into his conduct and leadership.

meanwhile, grissom is made acting pro tempore shift supervisor in his stead.

internal affairs immediately launches its own investigation into the circumstances of the shooting, with focus placed both on brass's and warrick's conducts and potential culpability.

warrick is also placed on administrative leave pending investigation.

grissom, in his pro tempore role, does not have the authority to launch any kind of official investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting. however, knowing warrick as he does, he already has a hunch about what might have happened. realizing that the internal affairs investigation will move "at the slow speed of government," he decides to get out ahead of it and find out for himself what happened. he therefore brings on sara as a consultant, having her examine warrick's conduct on his behalf in a more unofficial capacity.

essentially, what he wants her to find out for him is how likely it is that once everything is said and done warrick will lose his job.

as is the case in canon, grissom also reaches out to sara on a more subconscious level because she is the one thing during this otherwise very turbulent, distressing time that makes him feel at all safe, and he wants to keep her close, like a human security blanket.

sara conducts her investigation and quickly determines, as is the case in canon, that warrick abandoned holly gribbs at her crime scene in order to go place an off-site sports bet. she submits her report to grissom, giving him the heads up that if ia's findings are similar to hers, then there's a good chance warrick will not emerge from the situation professionally unscathed.

she then returns to san francisco.

but.

since she is now personally involved in the case and has seen up-close how it is affecting grissom, even once she leaves las vegas, she and grissom remain in almost constant contact, talking on the phone for hours after every shift, with him updating her on the latest developments and her emotionally supporting him through what is still a very difficult time, while he is temporarily in charge of what is now a severely understaffed and emotionally compromised forensics team.

if you think catherine and nick are taking all of these developments in stride, they are very much not™.

though his typical mo is to play things close to the chest, during this period of extreme upset, grissom almost can't help himself but to open up to sara. on their calls, he finds himself word-vomiting revealing very intimate things to her and allowing himself to be candid and vulnerable in ways that normally he might never be. he expresses his frustrations with the department's handling of the case to her—don't they realize that by suspending warrick, they've now made it so the team is technically down two criminalists instead of just one?—and his regrets concerning gribbs's demise. he starts to really rely on sara and unveil himself to her, including his doubts and trepidations regarding himself as a leader, especially in such emotionally fraught circumstances as these.

letting her "see him" in all of this emotional nakedness is terrifying to him at first, but what he is pleasantly surprised to find is not only does she not judge him for expressing what he views as his own weaknesses but she also has this uncanny ability to build him up and know just what to say to validate and encourage him. the advice she offers is patient and sound, and her perspectives are simultaneously logical and compassionate. she always seems to know just what to say and just how to help him, even from afar.

he had already felt very close to her from the first time they met, but now it's like they've unlocked this new level of intimacy.

their conversations branch out from just the gribbs situation into other areas of their lives. sara even starts to disclose things to grissom about herself that he had never known before.

not her whole life story but hints of it, more than she had let on in the past, certainly.

eventually, grissom starts to get the idea that maybe sara is just as lonely as he is, and, especially considering how much she has done for him recently, he finds he wants nothing more than to find a way to cure that loneliness for her and truly make her happy, becoming fixated on the notion.

we could maybe even throw in a "sara's having troubles in san francisco and is no longer loving her job at the sfpd" subplot to up the ante here, if we wanted.

as the days wear on, grissom longs to have sara physically near to him always.

for the first time, living 500+ miles away from her really begins to smart.

maybe at some point when grissom is at his lowest during the course of the investigation, sara hops a flight and shows up in vegas during a rare two day-off period for her, without him even asking. her anticipation of his needs and the fact that she is just there for him (at a time when he is not feeling great about himself) means more to him than he could possibly say.

they end up sleeping together (which is something they may or may not have done previously, depending on one's pre-vegas headcanons for them) and eventually one or the other of them drops the l-word and the other one immediately and wholeheartedly says it back.

it all but breaks both of their hearts when at the end of 48 hours, sara has to fly back to the bay.

finally, after several weeks of investigation, the internal affairs team clears brass of any wrongdoing surrounding the shooting, as it becomes evident that warrick essentially "went rogue" and contradicted brass's direct orders for him to supervise holly gribbs.

brass is summarily reinstated as csi night shift supervisor, at which point grissom resumes his role as csi night shift assistant supervisor.

as sara predicted, ia does ultimately find warrick negligent in his conduct surrounding the shooting.

and who knows? maybe if they took their time and did their due diligence, they might also uncover the fact that judge cohen was blackmailing him.

and honestly? if we're going for total realism here, i think warrick would almost certainly lose his job.

however, given that we like warrick and don't want him off the team, let's say that rather than being fired he instead is served with a lengthy suspension, barred from his impending promotion to csi level iii, subjected to various disciplinary actions, and required to attend 90+ gamblers anonymous meetings and some number of peap counseling sessions prior to reinstatement, at which point he will still be on probation.

so all said and done, the team is still down two junior criminalists, though they are probably only allowed to hire for one position (given that warrick is technically still employed at the lab, albeit serving a protracted suspension).

while of course they want to hire a replacement for holly gribbs as quickly as possible, they are still a government agency and can't cut corners in the process, so they open up an actual hiring search.

grissom and sara discuss the possibility of her applying for the job.

however, since they by now both fully consider themselves to be "in a romantic relationship" (and have every intention to move in together should sara indeed transfer to vegas), they're uncertain what to do regarding the department policy forbidding romantic/sexual relationships between members of the same forensics team.

maybe at this point grissom talks to catherine and/or brass about the issue and they help him to come up with a workaround much like the one ecklie suggests to grissom in canon in episode 08x02 "a la cart," where to keep the whole spouse/partner hire thing kosher, they can set up some very specific rules to prevent grissom and sara from "unduly influencing" each other while working on the same forensics team.

maybe grissom ends up stepping down even from his assistant supervisory position, ceding it to catherine (as he has never really cared about having administrative power anyway).

maybe the new protocol is that grissom and sara are not allowed to work cases together unless there is another csi level iii overseeing them and running point on the investigation.

maybe they'll be subject to random case reviews by internal affairs.

maybe they both have to meet with hr and fill out lengthy disclosure forms at the start of every fiscal year.

in any case, let's say they find a way to make it work.

so sara applies and gets the job and moves to vegas with grissom. somewhere along the way, she would still have to tell him fully about her past—which would, of course, be a whole thing™ unto itself—and there might still be a few hiccups as they learned how to blend their lives together and communicate their feelings in the interim.

that said, i think if things happened this way, it would serve much the same effect as the events of episodes 05x12 "snakes" and 05x13 "nesting dolls" do in canon, just on an accelerated timescale and without grissom being sara's boss: namely, grissom would learn that sara loved him unconditionally, and he would also start to prioritize making her happy (and find that doing so made him happy in the process). he would make any and all necessary changes to have her be part of his life.

now.

how things might go with brass and catherine being in charge of the shift and grissom and sara having an "out" romantic relationship from the get-go as early as 2000, i can't say. certainly, the whole trajectory of the show would change, but it's unclear in what specific ways that it would or what the ultimate outcomes of these major changes to the team's composition might be.

as mentioned above, of course, there are potentially other scenarios than this one that we could imagine where grissom not being sara's boss might result in them getting together as a couple sooner; still, i think, for the most part, however said scenarios were constructed otherwise, they would almost universally have to involve similar emotional beats, where grissom learned to both trust in sara's love for him and choose his love for her over his fear of potential rejection.

i also think that it would, for the most part, be less the case that grissom not being sara's boss was the thing that cleared the way for their relationship in itself and rather that him not being her boss would alter the way certain events played out from how they do in canon, such that grissom and sara ended up on a different emotional learning curve than the one they have in canon altogether.

it wouldn't be a deal where grissom would go, "yay! i'm not your boss! let's date!" (because that obstacle was never the only one holding him back from being with her anyway). instead, the real change-maker would be how events transpired differently in the au based on the fact of this major detail being altered.

anyway.

those are my thoughts!

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[suppuration]

experiencing that "adhd urge to tackle cleaning my bedroom in one whirlwind effort" phenomenon this week

a majority of that effort has been the result of an epiphany that i was getting in "clothing hoarder" territory, with how much i own vs how much i wear. my partner and i split the bedroom 50/50 and i do not exaggerate that a third of my side was packed solid with clothes

it was bad enough that while going through stuff, a solid fourth of it was stuff i had completely forgotten i have, and another fourth of it was stuff i liked enough to buy multiples of so i had a backup when the first one got too worn out (some things, the item was either so cheap and/or i was so in love with them that i had as many as six extra)

i was tired of never having space to even use my side of the room to do more than sleep and use my laptop. of owning a ton of clothes i didn't even necessarily like enough to wear, and a ton more clothes that don't even fit. of owning more crap than i can handle owning

so i formed a rudimentary plan and ran headlong into it. it's been messy, but it's made it lower stress to not have too much structure to my approach beyond a simple "finish one step to completion before moving onto the next." (i would put "simple" in air quotes, but punctuating that would've been awkward. anybody with executive dysfunction can relate to the difficulty of forming and adhering to a granular itinerary)

most of this is rambling, but it might be helpful idk. so far it's looked something like this:

pulling everything out and sorting by like items. putting all duplicates in one bin, and making decisive cuts on which extras i actually need to keep. taking a cursory walk through my definite "yes" pile to see what coords i can make with them

it's made it much gentler for me to have a "yes" bin, a "no definitely not" bin, and a bin for "still thinking about it." (and a fourth bin, but that's the trash can, LOL.) not having to think about it in a black and white "decision now" mentality lets me focus on being brutally honest about whether i love each thing, and whether it's past its prime. yeah i have the skills and tools to repair many types of garment damage, but do i love the item enough to spend the time and effort?

i think the hardest thing has been trying every single thing on to make sure it still fits, and fits in a way i like. it's cruelly hot here. there are some winter things i can barely stand to touch right now, let alone put on my body. i have promised myself that i will revisit the off-season bin when it's on-season... but i did suffer through the fall clothes since that's a majority of my clothing, and it's my favs

having that "maybe" bin has also given me the ability to distance myself from the items and marinate. i looked through my maybes one day later, and found making a concrete yes/no was much easier. like the off-season bin, i have promised myself that i will revisit the "maybes" in six months to see if my feelings on them have changed

which, i cannot emphasize enough. clearly label every bin and bag while you're pruning--and date it!!! that way you'll know the last time you went through that particular bin. i didn't have any lingering receipts or anything to go by, but i know that some of these stored clothes have gone untouched for literally a decade. be kind to yourself and never let yourself say "etc, stuff, or misc" either. if you do that, you will have to open it to know what's in it, every single time. if it's a mixture of things--like scarves, belts, ties--write each thing on it. i also don't recommend a blanket "accessories" label on any "yes" bins for the same reason

it's taken me three days to get this far, and i'm just past halfway going through things i think, but i think i've gotten my clothing possessions down by 30-50% with my first pass over everything

once i have all my definite "no"s culled, i am going to make a second pass over everything in my "yes"es to see if they're all still definitely "yes"es. same with the "maybes." i know i can shrink it all down further, but i need to trim the fat before i can work with the meat, to sound like a butcher for a minute

it's been exhausting and very time consuming, but it's also long overdue and i have multiple spoon-adjacent energy restrictions working against me. sometimes the best self-care you can give yourself is getting rid of what you don't need anymore, so you can appreciate and focus on what you do need and love

(yeah, part of it is me looking for stuff that's in good enough condition to see if i can get a resale shop to take it, money is getting that tight... but god i am drowning in belongings and i cannot stand it anymore nefeysfnstksfnstksfnstksfnstnm)

[jestiamy]

🤥 😨 💤🍟✨

your. favourite oc + venera if. they're not your favourite oc

there were. a lot of questions but i didnt wanna bombard you/hj

oh no I love. answering oc questions actually. do bombard next time there was a lot of good ones on this list I would not mind answering

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

venera has the capacity to be a good liar, but would not have a reason to utilize this ability under typical circumstance. antag!venera (I really need to get a better shorthand to refer to her) does frequently have to utilize this ability for various differing reasons including, but not at all limited to, their general knowledge of the world, their general identity, their past, their relation to somewhat antagonistic celestial primates, how they came into existence, what they even are, who they even are, and what they know. they don't really have any avert tells to the fact they are lying, but I'd imagine venera would pull it off better then antag!venera purely by the fact she has a much better resting face (antag!venera looks suspicious always. it's the macaque in her. it makes her seem very untrustworthy, unfortunately. even when not lying) 😨 FEARFUL - when scared, do they go into "flight" or "fight"? it depends the context. antagonist venera's entire thing is that they flight-ed so hard they lived in a cave underground disconnected from society for a thousand or so years. but I'd imagine if sufficiently freaked out, and not given time to rationally think out their actions, they'd both resort to fight on pure reflex.

💤 SLEEPING - do they fall asleep easily? what helps them sleep? I think venera hypothetically sleeps easily when they remember to do it, but they often forget that's something they need to do on any level because of shapeshifter and celestial primate biology coming together in a weird mix that makes it so while venera doesn't need to sleep to stay alive, they still will be very negatively affected by not doing it after a week or so. they sleep easier when not on beds. they tend to not like the lack of comfort that comes from a bed vs something like a tree that's infinitely more comfortable and occasionally comes pre-equipped with food to eat upon waking. antagonist v does not sleep well. or often. though unlike venera they did not, in fact, luck out on the transformation process, and so they do in fact need to do it semi-often in order to stay alive. they sleep best when in dark, somewhat loud, soft environments, ideally a nice bush in a forest but they also can settle for just a normal dark bed room with some white noise or something. 🍟 FRIES - do they order food often? or they prefer to cook their own food?

antagonist venera survived several hundred years eating nothing but moss and the occasional bug. they are somehow still very picky. they don't like the kind of processed food that's in favour these days since they have had no way to adjust to the change of culture over time. even the fruit tastes different now. antagonist venera does not like 90% of all food available and trusts no ones judgement on what they should be able to eat that isn't their own, including macaques. macaque also does not favour processed foods, but he's still able to eat it without throwing it up - so antagonist venera cannot in good faith trust his judgement on food related things. they prefer cooking their own. venera prefers ordering out. they've been pretending for years now they don't know what an oven is and they aren't about to back down now. though they get sick of it sometimes and occasionally lack the funds, so they'll just go around and steal things from fruit trees every so often.

on the last one - I think you meant ❇️ SPARKLE - what is their most prized possession? what do they value? ?? but not sure

antagonist venera actually owns very little. the clothes on his back is basically it. he loves those clothes. he is very protective of said clothing. it does not help that they were technically a gift from a friend, so he feels even more emotionally connected to them then he would have otherwise. venera collects things from different eras that they like the shape of, or general energy of. right now their most prized possession is a book of sorts that they 'collected' (read; stole) from ancient greece during the dark ages. they can't read ancient greek. they have no idea what the book says or even is. for all they know it's some random guy's diary. they refuse to let anyone else read it all the same.