#but that’ll never happen so I’ll take a few hours at this point

[wherethewaterstarts-andyouend]

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[makncheese12]

Top Shelf pt. 3

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Masterlist

Summary: being the kid of a well-known book store owner was easy, so was running into famous people. But being book smart doesn’t make everyone people smart.

A/N: me and my friend were talking what to have happen next yesterday and we remembered how R is ‘book smart’ but not people smart and I kept coming up with ideas that made R look kind of stupid and she kept saying “yeah cause she’s book smart, don’t forget’ I would have posted it yesterday if we had gotten anywhere but we could stop laughing.

Warning: my attempt at being funny?, bad writing, angst at the end if you squint?

Word count - 3.3k

Credits: @novmoth (my friend from school who feeds into my delusions and gives me more ideas for this story🫶🏻)

Jenna Ortega x fem!reader

You didn’t text her.

You told yourself it was nerves that were getting to you, the way Lyle kept insisting you texted her before she changed her mind.

A week after the whole incident you decided it was too late and that he was right, maybe she would have forgotten about it.

You could always hide in the storage room if she ever came back and let Lyle take care of her while you drowned in your own self pity on the floor next to the masses of boxes.

But what if she hadn’t? What if she was waiting for your message the day she put her number in your phone and never got it or the entire week after?

What if you did text her and she texted you right back?

You had doubted it but there was still a string of hope left in you as you continued to contemplate it all.

Dru said you were stupid for not even texting a simple ‘hey’ just so the celebrity could at least have your number.

Mj, of course, has been referring to you as coward instead of your name since the day after you talked to Jenna which only made you feel worse.

Would they do it differently if they were in your position? Mj would, already having had texted her the minute she left. Dru would have deleted the number as soon as he got it, he only had eyes for Mj it seems these days, and Lyle he would have done the same as Mj but at least waited a few hours.

So, your situation was different from theirs you supposed.

“That’ll be thirteen fifty.” The man behind the counter states in a monotone voice as you pull your card out.

You decided to go to 7/11 to cheer yourself up a bit after being insulting by your group of friends the whole time while playing Apex, not caring that you were still in your pajamas.

The large slushie and snacks were certain to cheer you up and allow you to brag to the group about.

You grab your bag before quickly making your way out of the door and sliding your ear buds back in before your phone buzzes.

Lyle🗿:

My freezie senses are tingling.

You snort as you quickly begin typing.

You:

Stop stalking me on life 360 loser

Lyle🗿:

Did you get me one?🥺

Your smile grows at his disregard your statement completely and getting straight to the point.

You:

No, since I’m such a dingbat weirdo

Lyle🗿:

I take it back, please, I need a slushie🙏🏼I’ll even get on my knees and beg

You roll your eyes knowing he’d do it for free if you asked.

You:

The day DD chops off his musty hair is the day I’ll get you a slushie.

Another notification goes off and you click it.

Dru Danvers🤓☝🏼

Fuck you🖕🏼

You continue to smile and text, unbeknownst the the person who stops suddenly behind you and looks back.

Their eyes lingers on you for a moment before looking to the much larger man who lets out and sigh and nods begrudgingly, the person smiles before rushing after you.

Just before you could cross the street, they touch your shoulder making you stop and look back.

Your eyes are met with the brown ones you’ve been thinking about nonstop as a smile comes across both your faces.

You yank out your ear buds, something you seemed to do whenever it was her specifically when it came to Lyle or the others they would have to yank them out to get you to listen.

“Hey,” she says, her smile still on her face as she looks up to you. “Hey.” you reply before looking up to the man who stood a few feet behind her then back down to her.

“So I never got that text you promised me.” She says in a teasing tone and you tense, your mind racing through excuses to tell her.

You laugh awkwardly and guiltily before rubbing the back of your neck. “Yeah, sorry about that I’ve just been busy lately I never got the time.”

She looks at you for a moment, clearly seeing through the lie and you wondered if she actually could with the way she was looking at you.

“Or..” she says as she begins walking past you. “You just didn’t want to text me.” She says sending you a playful glare but there was also something else.

As she turns around to continue walking, both you and the man on her heels, a deep frown forms on her face.

She had hoped she was wrong.

“What? No,” you reply quickly catching up too and walking beside her. It was quite the opposite, actually.

“I really was just..” you reply before stopping yourself. It felt like you were lying to the girl but you weren’t, you were just trying to save yourself the embarrassment of the truth.

But then again that was lying, about how you felt.

She looked toward you, the look of hope in her eyes seemed to crack you and you let out a sigh of defeat. “I really was just letting my nerves get to me.”

Her eyebrow raised slightly and you let out a huff, not liking the way this girl just made you want to spill every truth.

“I guess I was nervous to text you. I only really text my friends so I didn’t really know what to say.” You mumble, thinking about what Mj would say to this.

She can’t even see you, just text something it’s not that hard

She let out a hum, satisfied with your new answer while also satisfied hers was wrong.

“A simple ‘hey’ isn’t that hard.” She says, amused by your embarrassment and you huff out once again. The statement proving Dru right, not that you’d ever tell him that.

“It’s not everyday I get asked for my number,” you mumble and Jenna feels a smirk creep onto her face.

Good; she thought to herself as her smirk only grows on her face at the thought she was probably one of the first. Or at least she thought she was with how you described it.

“How else was I meant to react?” You ask.

She lets out a snort. “You didn’t, your friend did actually.” You roll your eyes and chuckle.

Your eyes travel to across the street to see some people hiding and taking pictures while others do the same not so subtly.

You grimace slightly before turning your attention back to the girl, deciding to ignore the group.

You smile before pulling out your phone and typing quickly and a ding comes from her pocket as you put yours back.

She takes her phone and opens the text to see the unknown number and the simple ‘hey’ added to it which makes her scoff lightly. You feel your smile grow bigger at her reaction, finding yourself very amusing.

“Very funny.” She rolls her eyes before sending a text herself and pushing it back down into her pocket.

“Thank you, I try very hard.” You say, looking forward to see the snow begin to fall again. Your smile grows knowing it’ll be a good day tomorrow at the shop.

Your eyes travel to the moon before letting out a hum at the lack of stars in the sky.

“Why are you out so late?” You ask and she shrugs. “I just like to walk, you?” She asks turning slightly toward you.

“Would you believe me if I told you I’m a very active person?” You ask, of course you weren’t but who wouldn’t want to make themselves seem impressive.

She looks you up and down slowly before a smirk forms on her lips. You look down to see your black and white plaid pajamas with you zip up sweat shirt, the snacks and slurpee in your hand only proving you wrong further.

You looked more like you were late to school and didn’t want to get dressed than out for a late night run.

“Touché.” You mumble nodding before looking up to see her smiling. “Did you just get out of bed?” She asks and you nod.

“Yes, actually.” You reply.

“Oh, makes sense.” she mumbles with a small smile before it falls. You quickly notice her eyes traveling to the people taking pictures making the both of you frown.

How someone could get used to cameras always in their faces was unknown to the both of you.

The non stop flashing or the loud yelling from a director seemed overwhelming to you and it was for Jenna.

“So,” you say before beginning to walk again. “Wednesday Addams?” You ask and she sighs before nodding.

“I thought you’d figure it out sooner or later.” She groaned softly making you chuckle.

“I kind of already knew, just needed to be reminded.” You admitted making her stare up at you in wonder.

“You knew me but didn’t know me?” She asks, too seriously for your liking. “I mean, yeah I used to watch you when you were younger with my friends. Stuck in the middle I think they said?”

She groans louder this time, clearly embarrassed by the thought of the show she starred the main character of.

“But other than that no.” You finished laughing as she rubs her hands down her face.

“There are literally so many others and you just had to have seen only that one, great.” She mumbles and shakes her head.

Too say she was embarrassed was an understatement, she has so many shows and movies she’s been in recently that she completely forgot about the ones of her younger self.

Her acting was good but not as good as it was now so it wasn’t really great to hear you say what you said.

“You’ve had to have watched something else?” She’s pleading now, her hand resting on your forearm as you look down at her. You shake your head and laugh as she groans once again.

“I don’t watch much TV.” You admit once again making her sigh. “At least watch Scream or Wednesday,” she says, huffing slightly.

“Just so you see how much I’ve improved?” She asks looking up to you and you nod, deciding not to tell her you don’t really remember much of the older show.

“Sure, if it’ll make you feel better.” She let’s out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, oh my god that’s so embarrassing.” She says looking around and shaking her head.

You smile down at the girl who continues to look around New York, mesmerized by all the sights as you both continue to ignore the paparazzi flashes and cameras.

You thought she looked stunning as snow fell on her head and eyes shining with wonder, the street lights only helping her look better if she could.

Suddenly the man steps up and taps Jenna’s shoulder making you both look back to him.

He points to her watch and Jenna’s face falls as she nods to the man who takes another step back, waiting for her patiently.

She looks up to you and gives you a sort of sad smile. “Sorry, I have to go.” She says gesturing to the man who sent you both a glance before looking back to the paparazzi who kept their distance for some reason.

“It was fun talking to you though.” She says and you nod. “Totally.” you say, voice cracking lightly making her smile grow.

You stare at her for a moment to take in how stunning she was from the front angel instead of the side now.

Her freckles seemed to be much more noticeable up close, eyes darker without the light and a smile that makes your heart skip a beat.

“Text me, I mean it this time.” She raises her eyebrow and unfortunately walks toward the man while leaving a cold spot from your side which makes you realize how close she actually was walking.

You clear your throat this time and nod, “I will and you too, now that you have it.” You say watching her look over her shoulder as the man leads her away.

You smile as you watch her walk away, eyes linger on the last place you saw her before you turn around and begin walking in the direction of your apartment.

Once you do get back, you’re greeted with your cat rubbing against your leg making you place down your bag and drink before walking toward his food bowl and feed him.

Once that’s done you looked back to your half melted slushie that had sacrificed itself so you could talk to Jenna making you let out a happy sigh as you put it in your freezer.

A buzz is heard from your phone making you reach back and pull it out of your pocket, a smile immediately forming on your face at the sight.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

So, you were gonna make text first?

————

You hear you alarm go off making you groan as you pull the covers from off your head. You hadn’t realized how late it was while texting Jenna that you had just fallen asleep on your own and you were starting to regret it.

You grab the alarm clock before pressing off and looking at the time.

9:23.

Your eyes shoot open, suddenly wide awake as you practically shoot yourself out of bed, your cat jumping off with you as he runs away.

That’s twice in one month had you scared him like that.

You realize you don’t have time to shower as you pull clothes on and grab your keys before rushing out of the door and running as fast as you could down the stairs — ignoring your neighbors scolding— and onto the street.

You continue to run before yanking the glass door open to see your mom who sends you a unamused look and your father who looks disappointed.

“You’re late.” She states matter-of-factly as you pull your t-shirt of, now only in your sports bra as you grab the shirt. “And now your indecent!” She says, rushing over and pulling your sweat shirt down for you.

“Animal!” She says, hitting you with her rolled up magazine she grabbed from the shelf.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t see what time it was last night before going to bed!” You say, trying to block her hits.

“Playing your game all night again I assume.” she states instead of asks making you nod your head. A little white lie won’t hurt.

“You’re an adult in college, Y/N.” Your father sighs and stands up from sitting in his chair. “You shouldn’t still be going to so late because of a silly game.”

His scoldings were much gentler than your mothers which makes you smile lightly. “I know, I’m sorry.” You mumble and he only nods before going back to work.

You looked to your mother who raises her eyebrow at you as she walks passed you. “You have a lot to do today as a consequence now, so I suggest you get to work.” She says, tossing you the clip board of work you need to do which is much longer than normal.

You huff out quietly while reading over it, knowing this is what you get for being late.

————

The day was quiet and you had a few more customers than usual so it was sort of busy as you rush around helping people while doing your work as the sun began to slowly set.

It was easier than expected but definitely a little stressful.

You were glad your parents were making you do this now though. Getting used to it all before taking over after they retire.

You were in the middle of helping a customer when you see Lyle practically sprinting down the street and toward the shop making you knit your eye brows together.

“You’ll find it in the romance section, just over there by the bean bags.” You say with a smile and the boy nods and leaves you to go find her book.

You look back over to seem him yank open the door, eyes scanning over the library before they land on you.

He moves as quickly as he can without being loud in the quiet library to get to you.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! You weren’t answering your phone and you weren’t at your apartment.” He says in a whisper yell as he pulls you down a aisle.

You knit your eye brows further as he pulls out your phone from his back pocket. “I got it for you when I went to see where you were,” he says shoving it in your hands. “Open it!” He ushers you while you just stare at him.

“What?” You ask, looking down at the device in your hand making him groan out in anger.

“Check your damn Insta!” He demands making you further confused but begrudgingly open the app making your eyes go wide.

You first thing you see is the 99+ symbol on your notifications tab and over two thousand messages next to it.

You click your profile not to see you one hundred and thirty followers but seventy thousand.

You click on the photo of you and Lyle, he was pushing you in a shopping cart down the road along with the other pictures you all had taken while high that night. It had over ninty thousand likes.

“What?” You mutter and Lyle nods. Before pulling up his twitter on his phone. “It gets better!” He says a little too loudly making the person in the aisle glance over in annoyance.

You give him an apologetic smile before look to see the link he put to your face.

Celebrity Jenna Ortega seen with lovestruck mystery woman in New York City. Could this be the start of a sprouting love story? Click here to read more..

Under it showed a picture of you and Jenna on the street last night with her staring toward the city and you staring at her.

Your eyes go wide as you take his phone and continue to scroll seeing the many pictures the paparazzi took last night along with the picture you recognized to be on Lyles Instagram.

“And let’s not forget the picture I took of you while we were playing chess.” He says, snatching his phone and opening his own Instagram before showing you the picture he took now had one hundred fifty thousand likes.

“You’re like, known world-wide as Jenna’s girl or something.” He says, smile on his face as he scrolls through his twitter looking at all the stuff they had to say about you and Jenna.

“Woah,” you say, zoning out slightly as you take a seat on the little stool nearby made for children. “This is…”

“Sick? I know, right? You just became famous over night.” Lyle says as he too takes a seat next to you.

You were gonna say unsettling or strange but that works to you. You hadn’t expected it but you now realize you should have.

With the paparazzi last night and you being with Jenna it was expected.

But it hasn’t even been a fully twenty four hours yet? How exactly had it happened so quickly? Was she really this popular

So many questions swirled in your head as something suddenly comes to your realization.

The real question was how people found you so quickly on Insta? That was probably the unsettling part, it felt like you were part of a man hunt but instead of joining it like you preferred you were what they were hunting for.

You think about texting Jenna but she quickly beats you to it as if she had telepathic abilities.

You wouldn’t have been surprised if she told you she did though with the way her eyes seemed to capture you in some form of trap.

You knit your eyebrows together as you read the message and your stomach drops slightly.

Read next part here!

A/N: idk if this is angsty thinking about it now🥲

I’m also begging like Lyle on my knees that you guys send me request🧎🏽‍♀️my pea brain can only think but so much

[bridgemino]

MINOR CONTENT WARNING: This story contains some heavy topics!!

(This story is a bit of a duzie…so buckle up, buttercups!)

Hell in Hurricane

Hurricanes came and gone. The worst that had happened was a lost house or damage; nothing the rescue team couldn’t fix. They were scary, rainy and windy, but they had never needed to evacuate or relocate. It was an occasional phenomenon. One they had dealt with many times.

Jin wriggled along to the music that blasted through her headphones. She had found the song recently, and it had definitely placed in her favorites list. “Ba, da da dada daaaaaaAAH-“ she jumped up from her seat, her headphones flying off her head. The bass could be heard still from where they fell. “P-Poli! When did you show up?!”

Poli gave her a concerned look. “A few moments ago. Perhaps you should turn that down a bit, Jin.” He said, pointing his tire towards the headphones that were so loud, they vibrated across the floor. “Jeez! How high did you turn that up?!” His tone turned more playful than stern. But it quietly switched back.

“Ummm, moving on…do you need something, Poli?” She asked, turning the music off, and brushing the headphones to the side with her foot.

Poli shook his head. “No, I was just checking in. We could use some rain soon, though. Amber’s flowers are wilting..”

Jin nodded slowly. “Okay. Uh, hey Poli, can you get the rest of the team here? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you guys.”

“Oh, alright. I’ll make an announcement.”

…

“So you’re saying that this massive hurricane is coming, and you had no idea?” Helly hissed, looking both shocked and upset. “How are we supposed to prepare for a hurricane like this in less than two days?!”

Jin cringed. “I know, I know! I should’ve known that my broken weather machine meant no good…nghh..”

Roy moved forward. “Hey, instead of complaining, let’s work on getting the town ready for this storm. We only have a matter of hours til the storm hits, so we should get started now.”

Amber nodded. “Yes, but have we had a hurricane of this strength hit Broomstown? Do you think our town can handle it?” As pondered aloud, her eyes wide with worry.

“I don’t know.” Jin said, then slinking down into her chair. “It’s expected to be a strong category 5 hurricane by the time it reaches us.” She frowned.

“Perhaps we should evacuate some of the towns people to other towns with the other rescue teams?” Poli suggested. “We’ve never done it before, but perhaps it would be helpful. It would be easier to tend to the town without most of the people here. It will also be safer for them.”

Roy nodded, “That’ll work. We just have to see if Carry is willing to transport people back and fourth. It’ll take too long by boat, and the ocean is a bit rough right now. Cici also needs to be out of the harbor very soon to ensure she doesn’t get stuck out in that storm.”

“Right..”

Jin sighed, “Poli, you try to come up with a quick plan, and the rest of us will prep the town for a hurricane. Sound okay?”

“Mhm.” The room was silent for a few moments, but soon Roy turned. “Let’s go Helly, we can start by the harbor and make our way inland.”

“Okay, Roy!”

They soon disappeared, and Jin and Amber followed shortly after.

Now Poli sat alone in the empty HQ. He watched the hurricane radar on the screen in front of him. It was really big. Had they ever been hit by a Cat 5 before? It was a direct hit as well. Estimated 30 feet of storm surge..? It definitely wasn’t safe for everyone to stay, especially those near the harbor. Did they have any other choice besides evacuation?

Poli shook his head and sighed. It’s just the same as any other hurricane. He tried to convince himself. Treat it as so.

[26 hours until landfall - HARBOR]

The sound of the crane triplets loading luggage and other items onto Cici filled the harbor. The wind had begun to pick up, and clouds rolled in among the horizon. A large group of the townsfolk was kept towards the storage sheds. Most of the town was here, and anxious at that. They had little information on the situation other than there was a hurricane and they were being evacuated.

Spooky shivered in fear. “Cap, do you think the hurricane will be really bad? What if we come home and everything’s destroyed?!” He asked timidly, watching as Poli guided Carry to land.

Cap shrugged, “I don’t know Spooky. Nothing like this has happened before, so I really don’t know any more than you do.” He frowned as well.

Cleany moved a bit closer. “Have you seen the rescue team? They look really worried…”

“Yeah,” Spooky agreed. “Wait, is Posty coming? I haven’t seen him since the announcement.”

“Me neither,” Cap said. “Do you think he’s staying?”

“He would be out of his mind if he was.” A raspy voice sounded from behind them. They all jumped and whipped around. There was an old grey car behind them, black triangular glasses rested on his nose, “I’ve been through many hurricanes in my lifetime. All the ones I’ve seen here were little baby ones. This one ain’t no baby.”

Cleany gulped. “W-Well, no…I s-suppose not..”

“We’ll hopefully only be evacuated for a day depending on damages. Rgh…something about this storm is givin’ me bad vibes. If your friend a’ yours is stayin’ here, he’s gonna learn a big lesson ‘bout them hurricanes.” The car grumbled, driving off as Carry’s door opened for another round of people.

The three friends looked at each other, confused and worried.

“I hope Posty doesn’t stay then..” Cap muttered.

Spooky and Cleany both replied at the same time. “Me neither.”

[15 hours until landfall — MR.WHEELER’S TIRE SHOP]

Roy shuffled boxes over, letting out a sigh. “Mr. Wheeler, are you positive you want to stay? It won’t be very safe for you here. You can still catch Carry’s last flight out if you hurry.” There was the soft constant sound of wind blowing outside. Darker, meaner clouds were beginning to engulf the town. It wouldn’t be long now.

Mr.Wheeler shook his head. “Well, are you guys leaving?” He countered Roy’s question, raising a brow as he stood up.

“We have to stay.” Roy said simply. “Unless every Broomstown citizen we’re to leave, we must stay.”

“Then no.” Mr. Wheeler sniffed arrogantly. “I trust you guys enough to save me in worst case scenario. Plus, hurricanes usually significantly weaken once they make landfall.”

Roy didn’t say anything, but he pressed his lips together tightly. He knew there was no way to change his mind now, so he decided not to fight it.

“I want to finish my TV show as well, I’m pretty close to the end and I don’t know what will be available in…wherever that relocation place is.” Mr. Wheeler said.

“You know you’ll quickly lose power, right?”

Mr.Wheeler sighed. “I’ve been in a hurricane before. I also have a generator now, so I’ll be okay.”

Roy was at a loss for words, but what else was there to say? You’re an imbecile? That would just be plain rude… “Hey Mr. Wheeler, can I temporarily take down the sign outside of your shop? I just want to ensure as little debris flies around as possible.”

“Sure, do what you want with the place. Oh—say, who else is waiting out the hurricane?”

Roy shrugged. “There are quite a few other families and individuals who are riding it out. Most of the town left, however.” He pushed through the doors of Mr.Wheeler’s shop, and looked up towards the sign. He would have to take everything out front down, then tape and board up the windows. There was still so much work to be done, and so little time.

Roy climbed up to the sign, loosening the bolts.

Pitter…patter…

The rain slowly began. It was a soft sprinkle, but it was also the beginning of a long, long night.

Roy shivered at the thought. Hopefully Mr.Wheeler was right. The hurricane would make landfall, then dissipate. If only.

[10 hours until landfall — SIDE ROADS NEAR THE HARBOR]

Poli stood near the edge of the cliff that lead down to the water. He could already tell the water was very slowly rising, the waves crashed among each other constantly. The sea seemed to be at war with itself, as though fending off an imminent threat.

He watched as a large flock of birds battled against the slowly growing winds, their cries signaling abnormality. Poli was checking the emergency phones, yet he would be lucky if they still stood after this event. He stared down at the harbor. It was strange not seeing the crane triplets, Cici, or even Lifty down there. It was completely empty.

Moving the crane triplets had been a bit of a hassle, but they didn’t want to stay, and the rescue team had to fulfill that wish. It was almost like looking into a ghost town.

The birds soon faded into the distance, and the only sound that occupied the area was the raging waves of the ocean. There was a soft rumble among the horizon. The storm was getting closer.

Poli cought a hold on himself, driving on to the nearest emergency phone. He did a few quick inspections, came to the conclusion it was fine, and carried on. On his way back towards the heart of the town, he heard a voice.

“Poli! Wait!”

It was high pitched, and Poli knew exactly who it was. He sighed and turned around. “Hello, Posty. How are you so far?”

Posty soon caught up. “I’m well, thank you. I hope the preparations haven’t been too much of a hassle on you and you team?” He did seem a bit worried.

“It’s been fine. Just a little stressful, I’ll admit.”

“I can only imagine!” Posty exclaimed. “I hope everything turns out okay, these clouds are looking pretty mean..but anyways, I better be headed back. I need to do something important. Bye Poli!” He then raced off.

“Ah, goodbye Posty.”

Poli sighed again. Posty did have a point, the clouds were looking rather worrying. But he did suppose things wouldn’t stay bright and sunny forever. Even though sometimes he wished it did.

[5 hours until landfall — BROOMS FOREST]

Amber headed deeper into the forest, which was completely void of people now. She had to settle down some things and fix some other things, but otherwise it was just a quick skim of the forest. The wind effortlessly rattled the trees around her like toys. The previous sprinkles of before had now become fat, yet slow, droplets that plopped down from the sky.

Admittedly, she was nervous. Very nervous. Something in her gut screamed to get away from here as fast as she could, but there was no leaving now. Carry was not going to fly back in, and the storm was too close. It was a matter of hours now before it made landfall. It was creeping up on them like prey, and it was ready to kill.

The storm growled above her, eager and hungry. The winds tried to push her back, but she continued on. The storm was growing stronger as it approached Broomstown. It loomed over them like a dark shadow, cutting out the sun and glaring down upon them. It sent shivers down her spine.

Finally, she reached the emergency phone that she had needed to tend to. She stabilized it into the ground, then ran a quick inspection. Admittedly, she did not want to spend another second here. Leaves flew off of the trees, begging her to run with them. Run to some place safe. Somewhere that was not home.

This place reminded her of when she and the team had to rescue Helly during a hurricane. Not fun, considering she was basically in one right now.

Amber turned back, ready to head home. With every step her legs seemed to carry her faster, the wind assisting her until she was moving at full speed towards home.

[Landfall — HQ]

Jin stared as the rain lashed against the windows. The hurricane roared above them, shivering the building below them. The rain was already beginning to pile up within their parking area outside. Lightning flashed and thunder clapped loudly.

There was one thing that worried Jin. Her teammates. None had returned yet, and Jin was left alone within the confines of the rescue center. It was cold inside, unlike the humid outdoors. Jin shivered. She was unsure whether it was with fear, or if she was just cold.

Thunder roared, and the ground shook. Jin clutched her coffee.

Jeez, where are they? Jin wondered. They should have been back a while ago…

Jin wanted to go out and look, but the conditions were far too bad to go running out and about. She would just have to wait until she gets a sign.

[HELLY]

Rain pounded against Helly’s skin, leaving red marks with each hit. The wind hassled the rain around at such high speeds it hurt. And it hurt pretty bad. Helly swallowed as water began to pool at his feet. Town square was somewhat high up, yet still too close to sea level to be comfortable. He was far enough inland not to worry right? Or was the town closer to the water than he thought-? After all, he did live on a island…what if they water engulfed them entirely?

He shook the thought away, wading to grab hold of the Thunder statue. The water at his feet moved with speed. This water was not clear and sparing, it was muddy, dark, and mean. This water had no intentions on passing by lightly. To add to that, the rain came down quickly in large quantities, the water was quickly rising. Plus the harsh winds pushed him around, and he was obviously unable to fly.

WHOOSH.

Helly’s heart stopped. Something flew right past his head. Something metallic and hard.

KA-THUNG!

It collided with great force against a building behind him. He slowly turned around. It was a road sign. A road sign that had been pulled from the ground and launched at his head. A few inches over and…no. No, don’t think about that.

The clouds above erupted into a loud laughter, and the ground shook once more.

CRASH!

A tree branch snapped off a tree and slammed against a nearby building. The trees around him shivered in terror, as though they would be next to be torn apart by these winds.

I have to get out of here! Helly thought quickly, his eyes wide and his heart pounding. The water reached his ankles now. Helly waded through the water, clutching onto a tree after a few steps. “Ngh..” the wind prevented him from taking smooth steps. It pushed him back, trying to pull him down into the water.

There was a loud rumble in the distance. The loud sound thundered in his direction. Though this wasn’t thunder. It sounded more like…rushing water?

Then it clicked.

No. No, nononononono-! He thought frantically. The dam! The one that kept the town from completely flooding. It had broken! Helly didn’t have much time to think before he was swallowed up in the water. It hit him like a brick, slamming his body to the ground before the debris-filled water rolled over him.

He waved his arms around, trying to pull himself up to the surface. This had to be at least 5 feet of water that weighed him down. His head popped up above the water, and he gasped for air. The water moved quickly, sweeping him away. The storm cackled again above him, and he saw victorious lightning light up the sky.

The water pushed him under again, and he flailed helplessly. Then, his arm caught something. A tree branch! He clutched it hard, trying to pull against the current to get atop it. His legs began to feel tired, and he pushed harder. “Rgghh!! Helly c’mon!!” He cried to himself. “Agggh!” He hissed again.

Finally, Helly was upon the branch, and he lifted himself further into the tree. The wind growled at his success, and tried to force him back down into the rapidly rising water. Helly wrapped his arms around the trunk of the tree as the little branch snapped off. The bark dug into his arms, and oil began to spill.

“Help!” He cried, though he could barely hear himself over the thrashing rain and howling winds. His arms begun to hurt, the rain hit his back like bullets, the wind threatened to tear him off the tree and into the water, and the tree shook violently, barely managing to stay up.

“Help me! Somebody! Roy! Poli! Please! Anybody!” He sobbed he couldn’t tell whether he was crying or if it was just the rain slapping his face. Everything hurt now, his arms were tired, his legs were tired, his skin burned, his lungs burned. At this point, what didn’t?

“Poli! Please!” He cried, hiccuping between his cracked words. “Help me!” The water creeped up to his feet again, and he tried to push himself further up the tree.

Now he wasn’t even sure if any of his friends were even alive. None of them had ever called in their return, and if they were out here…Helly didn’t want to think about it, but it sat in his brain like a rock. He hadn’t eaten in hours yet he was disgusted by the thought.

Then, he saw something that made his heart want to stop. An arm. It was a human arm, there was no body attached to it, just a lonesome limb, wandering the world. Away from its home. Helly choked on his own saliva for a moment. He looked away, burying his face into the tree bark.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR……

The sound of the storm tearing apart what he once called home.

BANG, CRASH

The sound of debris of what was once his town being whipped around like toys.

CATHOOM

The sound of homes being washed away from their premises, and collapsing into the abuses below,

CRACK, SNAP!

The sound of the tree he clutched to breaking and bending, ready to come apart.

Helly didn’t know what to do anymore. He had no idea how he had come to this point, but he was terrified. His eyes were sealed shut as he used his remaining strength to hold on.

CRACK!

The tree leaned, and began to fall. Helly shot open his eyes to the piercing rain. Havoc. Pure havoc. He kicked away with his feet as the tree tumbled into the water with a groan, then disappeared in the abyss of death below. Now Helly clutched to the sharp, prickly remains of the stump, which was already beginning to be covered itself in water.

“….s-save me…” Helly whimpered. His strength was almost gone, and his arms wanted to give away. He wanted to sink into the death pit below it accept his fate. His teammates, his friends, his family…they were most likely there themselves. Helly didn’t what to die alone; not like this.

He wanted to be in the arms of his family. The ones who had brought him up and saved him. He was ready to give up.

Just as his strength was about to give into the harsh winds, to the beating rain, to the tornadoes that danced around him…it stopped.

Everything. The wind, the rain….everything. Helly shivered and looked up slowly. “Wh-wha..?” He was shocked he was still alive.

Was that the sun?

Was that the beautiful blue sky he missed so dearly?

The sun stared sadly down upon Helly. It seemed as though it wanted to cool everything down, remove the wind that sheered the land. But it could not.

Helly stared up at it, his tears reflected it’s beautiful rays.

He was in the eye of the hurricane.

All of the chaos, all of the pain, everything, had slowed to a stop. Now he had 20 minutes to decide what the heck to do. What to think.

Helly looked around. Mr.Wheeler’s shop was completely washed away now, trees had been pulled from their roots and their stems, stoplights, gates, fences all pulled up from the ground and tossed away.

Helly saw something. Something that for some reason…gave him hope. Oil. It remained separate from the water, refusing to give in to the storm. It was broken, and it strayed far from its home, but it remained strong and separated. It would not let itself be washed over by the water. Till it’s last drop it will fight.

Though oil usually meant someone was hurt or…in this case dead. Something told him differently.

He needed to be that oil. To not give up until it’s very last breath.

But how? He thought as he looked around. Everything was gone. The buildings. The vegetation. The life. It was all sucked away in a blink of an eye. Everything that took him and his family generations to build up, destroyed within a matter of moments.

He didn’t know how he felt anymore. He didn’t know if he was happy or sad, cold or hot, wet or dry, alive or dead….he was just numb. Completely.

Numb.

He sat, staring off into the nothingness silently. He knew he had little time before the second half hit but..he was still struggling to process that he was still even alive. For all he knew, he could be watching in a third person perspective, dead.

Finally, his senses came back.

Helly scrambled to his feet, stabilizing himself atop the uneven tree stump. His heart pounded, but he knew he needed to find a better spot. Then, a large fallen tree began to float by in the deep waters. Helly knew what to do. He jumped onto the tree’s back, taking a few moments to ensure he didn’t fall, then gazed around.

He floated past a few thick trees, and he decided to climb one for the second half. It was his only choice. He latched onto a tree’s remaining branch, and rested himself in between it and the trunk. He turned his gaze back to the waters, and he gave a frightened shiver.

Body parts. Limbs. Homes. Personal items. They all floated around in the water that was beginning to temporarily slow, yet didn’t lower. He wondered how many people whom had stayed even survived. He was numb to everything around him. He just wanted things to be normal again.

Then, a tear. Another. A choke. A cry.

Helly sobbed.

He sobbed for the lives that had been lost, sobbed for the homes that had been destroyed, sobbed for the sun that was already beginning to hide again.

Pat..pitter…

Round 2 was beginning.

…

It was a long night. The sun set as the second half of the storm went through. But just as quickly as the storm had come in, it left. Helly remained clutched to the tree all night long. By morning most of the storm water had gone down a few feet, but Broomstown was still a disaster.

Helly slowly climbed down from the tree, looking around. To feel solid ground against his feet was a blessing. He collapsed onto the ground, finally feeling the freedom of relaxing. Just to be able to lay on the ground, even in the murky water, it was still so much for comfortable than being stuck up in a tree.

At was so, so nice.

But wait. Helly thought, what about the others? Helly jumped up to his weak feet. He picked a direction and ran. Though he could barely stand, he could not lay around any longer. He pushed through all the rubble. “Roy? Poli! Anybody?!” He called, feeling a stab of desperation.

Then, a weak voice.

“..o-over here..! H-Help…!”

It wasn’t Roy’s or Poli’s or Amber’s or Jin’s, but it was one he recognized. “Mr.Wheeler! Where are you?!” He called desperately.

“Down…here..!” He called, and a small hand appeared from the rubble. “I..can’t get u-up!”

Helly ran over quickly. “Don’t worry, let me help you!” He picked up a few pieces of wood, throwing them to the side. Mr. Wheeler then pulled himself out. There was a large gash across his stomach, and many cuts up his arm, but otherwise somewhat okay.

“Rgnh, that hurricane packed quite the punch, didn’t it-?” Mr.Wheeler said, an attempt of a joke shown through, but Helly could tell he was devastated. “My shop…”

Helly sighed sadly and nodded. “I thought I was dead for sure…are you okay for now? I need to go look for other survivors and I can’t tend to you wounds right now. I’m so sorry…I was just stuck over there…” Helly pointing to the tree that was barely hanging on now.

“Oh,” Mr. Wheeler said simply. “I did too. But I’ll be okay for a little bit. I’ll see if I can patch this..” he then turned and sat down on a pile of wooden boards.

Helly didn’t reply, yet he stared for a few moments. Though he felt hopeful, he also felt lost. He could only pray that his family was still alive…he shook his head. No. He refused to believe that.

“Hello?!” He called as he limbed quickly down the street. “Is anyone out here?!”

No response.

[POLI]

He rubbed his head, groaning in pain. He was atop a random house’s roof, and felt defeated. He was beginning to dry off now, since the hurricane had left a few hours ago now. His lungs burned from the water he had swallowed. He had spent many long minutes coughing it back up when he awoke. Though his world still spun, but he tried to stand. He was in the middle of a neighborhood. By himself, as far as he knew.

House was one of the only ones in the area that hadn’t collapsed, and he was thankful for that. He didn’t know he had gotten there, but he was just glad to be alive.

Poli slide down off the rooftop, plopping harshly onto the mushy ground below. Now that he was really looking around, he saw a small family huddled together at the end of their driveway. Their dog ran around them in circles, and the dad offered some small pieces of food to his two kids.

He knew the family well, they were all together and they looked mostly alright. Poli decided not to confront them, he wanted to look for others who needed immediate assistance. He walked through the street, his feet never straying from the yellow line. Road laws had to value to him at the moment.

He would have to build all of this up again. And for what? To be destroyed again when another storm rolled through? His mind spun. He didn’t know what to do. Would they rebuild or leave the town to slowly drown? Thinking about it made his head hurt. He would think about it later.

A voice sounded softly in the distance.

“Hello?! Anyone out here?!”

Sounded a bit like Helly….wait, Helly!

“Helly?!” He forced out in reply, moving faster towards the sound. His voice was raspy from not having spoken.

“Poli?!”

Poli saw him.

“Helly!” His voice cracked with relief and excitement.

They ran into each other hard, holding on tight. Helly sniffed, and Poli could tell he was crying. He tightened his grip on the smaller male, leaning down a bit a match Helly’s height. Before he knew it, he was on the verge of tears himself. He was just so thankful to have at least one of his teammates alive and breathing. Right in his grip, where he didn’t want to let him go.

After a long few moments, Poli slowly stood up. He looked down at Helly’s teary eyes, and gave him a small smile. Something he hadn’t done in so long. It felt nice.

Helly sniffed and rubbed his face. “P-Poli, do you want to try to find the others?” He asked softly, taking Poli’s hand and not letting go.

Poli nodded. He felt like he couldn’t speak, perhaps it was from the lump that hung in his throat. He squeezed Helly’s hand and moved forward along the path.

They walked for a while, Helly occasionally calling out to people. Though Poli did want to look for the others, they needed to get back to the Rescue Center. Hopefully the others would be there.

[AMBER]

She held her arms up, eyes wide with worry.

“Posty, jump down. I’ll catch you, I promise.”

Posty shook his oily head. “No! I’m going to get hurt even more than I already am!” He was pretty scratched up.

Amber nodded. “I know, but I can’t treat you when your still in that tree! You won’t feel any better bleeding out in a tree like that!” She said, trying to get him down.

They had climbed those trees to escape the rising river waters. They were in the forest, near where the bridge used to cross the small river. Due to the hurricane, the river had risen to a concerning extent. Yet the debris that flew around posed more of a danger to them.

Amber hadn’t seen any of the damage that had happened in town, but she was worried about it. She lifted up her barely working transmitter, and called back to Jin. None of the others had responded when he tried to reach them.

“C’mon Posty,” she tried to lull him down again.

Posty grimaced. “Fine…” he slowly shuffled from the trees. “AHH!”

Amber rushed forwards, barely catching him. She sighed exhaustedly. “…see? That wasn’t so bad.”

Posty was laid onto the ground when Jin’s voice came through her transmitter.

“Amber! Do you think you’ll be able to make it back to the rescue center?” Jin asked.

Amber looked around. The water had significantly lowered since last night, so she should be able to wade through the river without an issue. She lifted her transmitter up, “Yes, I think I should be able to. I’ll try to be back as soon as possible. I need to help Posty cross the river, since the bridge broke.”

“Okay! I’m glad I’m at least hearing from one of you guys…I’m really worried.”

They both sat in silence for a few moments, before Jin hung up. Amber turned to Posty. “Okay, so I’m going to have to carry you across…are you comfortable with that? If not I could always carry supplies from one side to another. At least until we can get something safer for you to cross on.”

Posty shook his head. “No, no, you can take me I guess. I don’t want to make things harder on you guys.”

Amber didn’t argue, it would be easier if he could just run back home. She nodded. “Okay. Come on, I don’t have much time.” Might as well get things over with quickly so she can check on the rest of the town.

Posty and Amber headed for the river, Amber pushing past tree limbs and other random pieces of debris like road signs. Soon, they reached it, which was mostly calm, but still moved quickly.

“Alright, you sure you want to do this, Posty?” Amber asked, ensuring he wanted to do this.

Posty nodded. “Yes! All my packages are going to be ruined! I need to see their condition!” He hissed, jumping up and down worriedly.

Amber sighed, bending down to pick him up. She pulled him up into her arms, just barely being able to see past him. She slowly made her way through the water, feeling it tug on her legs. They reached the other side, and Amber rested Posty on the bank side.

“There, now you go head off to your—AH!” Amber felt her foot slip. She fell and landed hard in the water. She felt her screen scratch the rocks in the bottom, and the water tugging her along. She pushed up with her arms, getting up onto her knees. She took a surprised few breaths, and shook the cold water off of her.

“Oh my gosh! Amber! Are you okay?!” Posty asked, looking shocked himself.

Amber stood up, spitting out some water that got trapped in her mouth. “Ugh, yeah. I’m fine…”

***

“Oh thank god you guys are okay!” Jin cried. Running up to them. “Where were you guys?!”

Helly frowned. “We got stuck in the hurricane…sorry Jin. I should’ve known better…”

“We all should’ve known better, Helly,” Amber said, giving him a sympathetic look. “It wasn’t just you who got caught in the storm you know..” She gave him a small pat on the shoulder.

Jin sighed. “It’s great to have you all back but—wait, no, where’s Roy?” Her voice shifted to a concerned one.

They all looked around.

“Has anyone seen him?” Jin asked.

They all shook their heads.

Amber thought for a moment. “I did see him before the storm hit, but otherwise no…”

Helly looked at Amber then back at Jin. “Should we go look for him? What if he’s in trouble?”

“No,” said Amber. “we need to make sure all of us are fit to travel, Helly, you’re all banged up. Before we go look for him, we will treat our wounds.” She established. She did know best for this situation.

Jin nodded in agreement. “That sounds good, Amber.”

It took a few days before Poli got out of the rescue center to look for Roy. We was getting worried now, especially with no signs of him. Surprisingly, there were a few emergency phones that still worked, and they were getting many calls from residents who stayed. They begged for help and cried about their homes…it was horrible.

But Poli wanted to find Roy first. He needed to. He couldn’t stand still a second longer not doing so. It stuck to him like a needle in his kneecap…however that works. Of course he felt like shit, but it was a weight on his shoulders that seemed to strangle him.

He groaned. It was all so much. So much for one leader. One guy who had to chose whether they should give up or rebuild, what to do and how, when to do it and where, try to somehow fix his town from…that.

That monster.

The monster that slowly shrunk among the horizon, yet it’s teeth still sunk through the grounds of Broomstown. Through the heart. Through his and everyone else’s hearts. Homes. Lives. Everything.

He shook his head, trying so desperately to clear it. He wanted everything to just be okay again. To fix themselves. To go back to when everyone was happy and healthy and safe and…and…

THWAP !

Something struck Poli hard in the head. Then black.

Birds chirped and plucked at the flowers that tried ti heal within the soil’s bounds. Their wilted, destroyed petals slumped sadly against his cold skin. Yet, even in their wilted state, they protected him. The ones that had managed to heal enough stood triumphantly over his body. Like an I survived statement to the world.

Because they survived. Unlike others, they continued to try to bloom even in the thick of it, when their petals were torn away from their stems.

They brushed his face, a call to wake up. A call to come back to reality. There was much to do for this young, unconscious man in the grass; huddled by beautiful, yet hurt, flowers.

His eyes slowly opened, the sun brightened with excitement to his sigh of waking up. Waking up.

From this nightmare?

No.

He sat up slowly, feeling trickles of water that hid in small dark spots of his body scatter away. Everything remained fuzzy as he looked left-to-right. A small bee flew from a flower petal to his knee. It buzzed happily as it saw him. Hello! It seemed to say. Wake up! Wake up! There is work to be done! Buzz along, boy!

He looked closer at the busy bee. Very busy indeed. There were many flowers to be pollinated. The bee buzzed it’s wings on his knee. That town won’t pollinate itself, boy! Go save your hive! Then, it flew off. He was glad to know he wouldn’t be the only one busy tonight.

Now, he stared at his hands. His feet, up to his knees, his waist, his arms, then his wrists. His once bright red paint was now stained and scratched and cut up. He felt like the little bee that had buzzed off. Did he have to pollinate the town, make it beautiful so it can flourish and spread once again? Like the bee with its flowers?

Yes.

He look his grey cut hand and lifted it to his face. Then…

WHAP!

His cheek stung, but he was ready now.

He jumped to his feet, ignoring how his legs screamed in pain as he did so. “C’mon, Roy,” he said to himself. “Sitting around won’t help people.”

Before he knew it, Roy was plunging down the small hillside. His legs and feet brought him speed, his arms brought him strength, but what he needed was his town. His town gave him bravery. Endurance. It made him and shaped him into who he truly was. He would not let it go to waste now.

No matter how many hurricanes plunged through and threatened to tear them apart, they would always be together. Whether in Broomstown or somewhere far, far away.

When he came back to reality, he stood in the middle of town square. It was only now that he noticed the thick, long trail of black oil spilling down the front of his face. He probably had a concussion. He wiped it away.

The town was in ruins. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. Many years; one storm. Gone. Everything.

Roy refused to let this deter him. He pushed his gaze towards the gate that lead to the rescue headquarters. His home. Almost by instinct, he pushed past the red and white bars, his feet carrying him further and further. He last many broken families, but for once his mind wasn’t in them. His mind was on home.

home…

He missed his team—his family so much. He had not idea when things had been so suddenly torn away, yt it left a whole in his heart he wanted to fill. Just seeing one of their faces would…wait.

There it was. There he was. On the side of the road, clearly unconscious, laid his friend. Best friend, to be exact. A fat tree branch laid beside him. He must had somehow been hit.

Roy rushed to Poli’s side, almost tripping over his own feet.

“Poli? Poli!” He cried, shaking Poli’s shoulders weakly.

Poli shifted with a short groan of pain. His beautiful blue eyes met Roy’s thick, teary, brown ones.

“R-Roy?” Poli’s eyes widened, and the suns rays made them sparkle like new. Every aspect of them was illuminated. It was almost like looking into a glacier. The prettiest, bluest, bestest glacier he’d ever known.

“Poli…”

Roy ducked down and engulfed Poli in his arms. Oil from his bleeding head stained Poli’s forehead, but he didn’t care. He hugged a little tighter.

“W-We thought you were dead, Roy!” Poli exclaimed, tears escaping his relieved gaze. “You we’re gone for d-days and we had no idea w-where you w-were…”

Roy’s eyes widened again in shock. Days? Had he really been knocked out that badly?

“I-I…I got some kind of bad head injury…I didn’t think I was out for that long…I’m so sorry for worrying you guys…I don’t know..”

Poli slowly got up from the roadside. “…well I guess we’re matching in head injuries, that’s for sure.” He joked, though his voice was still thick from his tears and worry.

Roy nodded. “Let’s head back to the rescue center. Then we can discuss what we’re going to do with the town. Remember Poli, we, your team, will be there every step of the way. The weight isn’t just on you, you’re not alone. If you ever need help, or need a break, we have you covered. Just please…don’t overwork yourself. I know how it is coming from me but…”

Poli’s gaze went to his feet, then back up at Roy. “T-Thank you. I’m so lucky to have you guys.”

Roy took Poli’s hand with a soft smile. “Come on. We have things to do.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

That’s it 😭

I’m sorry to end it a bit abruptly but this is getting so long already….

W to you i you read all of this.

I’ll check for grammar mistakes later, so I’m sorry if I left any weird/random cliffhangers or just stupid grammar mistakes lol

Good night :3

[smilesrobotlover]

Whumptober day 23- Motion Sickness

It’s a bit messy but I had fun :) and I also wrote a day before so hopefully I can get back on schedule! And no waiting!

Warnings for throwing up, the words “throw up” and “vomit” being thrown around, and a mysterious tentacle monster appearing

~~~~~|

“Oh no.”

All the men gathered to where Leon stood, looking at a vast, blue lake. It was huge, with the land across it barely visible.

“Well, this���ll be a long trip,” Benji said, watching the waves gently lap against the shore. “Are we going around?”

Leon shook his head. “No. That’ll take forever. We need to keep moving that way.” He sighed watching the water reflect against the sun. How were they going to get across?

“Hey, I see some people down there,” Linebeck said, pointing to the beach. The rest of the men looked and spotted a group of people next to a big boat huddled far away from them. Leon turned to Linebeck and nodded, walking to where the group was.

“Let’s hope they can take us across.”

The men stumbled through the trees and bushes to reach the group, and when they arrived, some looked their way while others ignored them. But one man marched up to them, a hat on his head, a stick in his hand, and a forced smile on his face.

“Welcome! Are you here to take the ferry across the lake?”

Leon looked between the man and the boat, before nodding. “Will it take us to the other side?”

“He said he’d take us across the lake, Leon,” Linebeck muttered, and Leon gave him a look.

“Yes! Do you folks need a ride? The lake is awfully big and will take you weeks to get around! This will cut your time easily! It’ll only be a few hours!”

Leon nodded, along with the rest of the men. It sure beat traveling for weeks in the woods. They’d like to get away from the mountains anyway.

“Perfect! It’ll be twenty rupees per person!” The sailor said, his hand held out for Leon, but he only stared in shock, realization hitting him.

“Uh, Leon, do we have rupees?” Linebeck asked quietly, and Benji leaned up next to him.

“No, he gave all our money to Shirley, remember?”

“I knew we should’ve saved that money,” Linebeck grumbled, turning to the men who had their pockets empty of all rupees.

“You—you folks do have money, right?” The man asked, and Leon pursed his lips, staring wide-eyed as if a solution would appear out of nowhere.

“I—”

“Not a problem! I take people regardless of money!” The man exclaimed, putting his hand away.

“Oh, well thank you. I’m sorry we—” Leon started, but the man grabbed his arm and started pulling.

“Come now! I’ll seat you first!” The man said, pulling Leon aggressively through the crowd of people. Linebeck latched onto Leon’s arm before he was completely pulled away, with Benji, Rusl, Talon, Kass, and Ammon all trailing behind.

“Well, at least we don’t have to wait to be seated!” Rusl said cherrily.

“I wonder what a boat ride will be, I’ve never been on one,” Talon muttered thoughtfully. “I bet the water would be beautiful and we’d see fish and everything.”

The men wondered as well, imagining a boat ride on the lake. They bet it’d be beautiful and peaceful, with wind blowing through their hair and water splashing on their faces.

But that did not end up happening.

“WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?” Linebeck yelled, staring at the brown wall in front of them. The men were stuck in the storage, where it was dark and damp, with droplets of water landing on each man. The boat had started moving, and the men were all sitting miserably, with Leon, Talon, and Benji in particular bent over, trying not to vomit.

“I would’ve preferred it if we stayed on the dock,” Kass muttered, curled up on himself as he watched the walls with a fearful look in his eyes.

“I guess that’s what we get for not having rupees,” Rusl grumbled, leaning up against a box. He glanced over at the sick men. “Are y’all doing ok?”

“I’m f-fine,” Talon said weakly, his eyes closed and his brows pinched together. Leon grabbed Benji and leaned towards him, his face pale.

“Benji, give me your guitar, I’m gonna throw up.”

“You are not vomiting in my guitar!”

Ammon got up, looking around the storage bins. “Maybe there’s something you can all throw up in if you do?”

“If we were on deck we wouldn’t need anything,” Linebeck sighed, plopping down on the ground. “You all could just vomit in the water.”

“Can we stop sayin’ that word please,” Talon begged, his hand over his mouth.

“What, vomit?”

Talon gagged, and the men silenced themselves, watching Talon in fear as he froze. Benji leaned in, staring wide-eyed at Talon.

“Are you gonna throw up, Talon?”

Talon gagged again and Leon shoved Benji away.

“You’re making it worse!” He scolded, holding Benji back.

“Look I’m just saying that if Talon throws up, I’m gonna throw up too,” he said with a shaky, thick voice.

“Stop saying those words!” Talon yelled as Ammon placed a bucket up next to him.

“Just try to throw up in there,” Ammon said, and Talon shot him a glare. “I—sorry.”

“Ok, guys, let’s calm down,” Rusl started, putting his hands up. “Clearly this is gonna be a long ride so let’s talk about things to distract us from… regurgitation…”

“That doesn’t help, buddy,” Talon mumbled, leaning over the bucket, and Rusl sighed.

“Well I tried.”

“How about we talk about that loud sound coming from in this room that’s making my ears bleed!” Leon grumbled, his hands over his ears. Rusl raised an eyebrow and looked around.

“What noise?”

“That—mechanical noise—agh—” Leon doubled over, hovering near the bucket in Talon’s hands, but luckily did nothing else.

“Mechanical noise,” Linebeck muttered, scrambling to his feet. He walked around the small storage room, listening for the noise. It was quite enough that he thought it was in another room, yet as he searched, it was sounding like it was closer than he originally thought. He stared at the boxes, moving them one by one until he saw a machine pumping and whirring, and he cheered. “This is a mechanical room! This is the ship’s engine!”

“Engine?” Leon asked weakly, and Linebeck frowned.

“Why are all these boxes next to it? Is this guy stupid or something? They could get caught in there!”

Rusl and Ammon walked up to him, staring at the machinery in front of them.

“I’ve never seen machine work like this before,” Ammon muttered under his breath, stroking his beard.

“It’s a steam boat, just like my own ship!” Linebeck explained, stroking his hand against the workings. “Such a beautiful boat. And this moron isn’t taking good care of it!” He spun around, looking at the damp place. “I don’t think he’s ever been down here! It’s disgusting!”

“You take good care of your boat, Linebeck?” Rusl asked with a teasing smile on his face.

“Of course I do! You must always treat your ship with the utmost care if you want her to last forever! Obviously.”

“Linebeck takes care of his boat better than actual people,” Leon mumbled, and Linebeck glared at him, stomping to where he sat.

“And what the heck has gotten into you? This motion sickness has made you insufferable!”

“Why don’t you get closer and I can show you how insufferable I can be,” Leon said in a low voice.

“Are you gonna make out with him or something?” Benji asked.

“I think he’s gonna throw up on him,” Kass corrected, and Talon gagged, finally emptying his stomach into the bucket. The men all yelped in surprise, some moving away, others getting closer to comfort him, and Benji was clinging onto Leon without looking at the mess as if his life depended on it.

“Oh I’m so sorry Talon!” Kass wailed, resting his wing on his back.

Talon swallowed, his face twisting in disgust as he tried to recollect himself. “W-what part… of ‘don’t say those words’… did y’all not understand?”

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking!”

Talon sighed, knuckles white as he clung onto the bucket, until Benji reached for the bucket, wordlessly gesturing for Talon to hand it over. Talon glanced at the bucket, then at Benji, who nodded and waved it over, and Talon pointed at it, making Benji nod again. Talon nodded back and handed Benji the bucket, and the man also emptied his stomach.

“Alright, I can’t do this,” Leon whispered, standing up and walking around. “I’m going to conquer this, I’m going to conquer this, I’m going to conquer this—”

“You think walking is going to make it better?” Linebeck asked, and Leon shot him a dirty look.

“It certainly beats sitting near the vom—the… already eaten food that… they ate,” Leon stammered, wavering slightly and breathing heavily from the rocking boat.

“Well good luck with that,” he said with a smile, and Leon huffed, pacing back and forth against the floor.

“It’ll work, I’m already feeling loads better than before. I just need to stay on my feet the entire time and I’ll be free from this sickness! Just you wait, Linebeck! I’ll prove you wrong and I—”

The boat suddenly heaved, sending Leon landing face-first on the ground. The men all hung tight to each other and to the boxes, and the boat stabilized itself, leaving the men confused.

“Wh-what was that?” Kass asked, hugging himself, and Rusl walked up to Leon, who remained laying on the ground.

“Leon? Are you ok?” He asked, and Leon only groaned in response. Rusl put his hand over his mouth, giving Leon a thumbs-up. “Y-you ok?” Leon groaned again, and Rusl began laughing, giggling hysterically as he nearly toppled over onto Linebeck, who looked unamused.

“What is wrong with you,” he murmured, but Rusl continued laughing.

“You think the fumes from the bodily fluids got to him?” Ammon asked, watching as Rusl held his stomach in laughter.

“Must be a human thing to burst out laughing at bad smells,” Linebeck joked, and Rusl wiped a tear from his eye, panting as the laughing slowed.

“I-I’m sorry that was just so funny—the way he toppled over—” he burst out into hysterics again, sitting on the ground.

“I’m glad my pain is amusing to you Rusl,” Leon grumbled in a monotone voice. Another heave of the boat silenced Rusl though, and the men grew silent as they stared.

“Ok, something’s not right,” Ammon muttered. “Lakes don’t have large enough waves to cause this.”

“Do you think…” Linebeck started, but screaming appearing and getting louder above them gave them the answer they needed. “I think we’re being attacked.”

All the men jumped to their feet, sick or not, and rushed up the stairs to the door. But when they tried to throw it open, it remained closed.

“What the— ARE WE LOCKED IN?” Linebeck yelled, and he let out a string of curse words as he started searching for something near the engine. The men all nearly fell over again with several shoves to the boat, indicating that something was attacking them.

“What is that?” Ammon exclaimed, holding tight to the wall as the boat leaned, and Linebeck cheered, holding up a thin piece of metal.

“Now we can escape this place!” He cheered, but before he could get up to join the others, the walls broke down, water spewing everywhere inside the room as a tentacle slithered around the storage room. The men all yelped in surprise, luckily being too far from it to grab them. Except for Linebeck, who sat paralyzed as he watched the limb.

“Linebeck!” Leon shouted, but the man remained frozen, his face turning paler and paler as he clung onto the pick. The tendril got dangerously close to him, but before Leon could jump down to save him, Benji wordlessly hopped down the steps, running to Linebeck and shoving him out of the way. The tentacle missed Linebeck, but it snaked its way around Benji’s waist, and he was pulled towards the hole and out of the room.

“BENJI!” The men all shouted as the man disappeared beyond the hole, and while the men started to bang on the door, Leon hopped down to Linebeck who remained frozen.

“Linebeck! Get up, we need that pick!” He yelled, trying to drag the man.

“He–he took him—he—I—” Linebeck stammered, his tan skin pale and his eyes wide. But just as Leon got him on his feet, he snapped back into reality, turning to the door and sprinting to it with the pick in hand. “We–we need to save him! Come on!” With one motion, Linebeck shoved the pick in the lock, unlocking the door in seconds and kicking it down. He gestured for the men to follow him, his overcoat flowing with the movement. “COME ON! We gotta kill this thing!”

The men all grunted in response, leaping up the steps and reaching the dock. They didn’t know what they were up against, but it took one of their own, and it was going to pay.

[canirove]

I don’t like you, Mason Mount | Chapter 12

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Masterlist

“Dani, there is someone at the door asking for you.”

“Me?”

“Yep” my sister says.

“Who?”

“You have to go and see for yourself.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds, Monica.”

“Just go, auntie. Please” Lola says next to her.

“Ok, then” I sigh, putting away the book I was reading. “But I swear, if this is a trap…”

“Hello, Daniela.”

“No. No, no, no.”

“Just listen to him.”

“Please, auntie” Lola pouts.

“I hate you all. All of you” I say, pointing first at Lola, then at my sister and then… Then at Mason.

“We’ll leave you alone” Monica says, she and Lola disappearing into the kitchen.

“Speak.”

“I’ve broken up with my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, sure” I snort.

“I have. And I am going to make it official. Right now” he says, taking his phone from his pocket and starting to type something.

“What… What are you doing?”

“Making it official” he says, showing me his phone. “Will this story be enough, or do I need to also make a post and tweet about it?”

“I… I think that’ll be enough.”

“Good. It is live now.”

“Do you want me to congratulate you for it or something? It was just posting a story, anyone can do it.”

“Yeah” he chuckles. “Anyway, that was all. Enjoy the summer, Daniela.”

“Are you… are you leaving?”

“I have training session in an hour, this weekend is our last game. You guys are invited if you want to come.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Still. I’ve reserved tickets for your family, they can go if they want.”

“Thank you, Mason” I mutter.

“Goodbye, Daniela.”

“Bye.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Dani, where are you going?”

“To the beach. It looks like the sunset today will be breathtaking.”

“You are so lame” Monica laughs.

“It isn’t lame” my dad says. “Your mum and I loved watching the sunset together. We actually shared our first kiss watching the sunset back home.”

“Aww, dad. You had never told us that story.”

“You never asked” he shrugs.

“Now I want to know more” I say.

“I’ll tell you all the details later while we have dinner. What do you say?”

“That sounds like a plan. Dani?” my sister asks me.

“Yeah, sure. I won’t be gone for too long, I promise.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Maybe I am a bit lame” I laugh to myself while I take another photo of the sunset.

This was the first time I had managed to walk down to the beach since we had arrived in Portugal for our holidays. Going there made me think of what happened the previous year. Of Mason. And I was here to disconnect, not to keep thinking about him.

After his visit to show me that this time it was real, that he had broken up with his girlfriend, we hadn’t seen each other again. And I hadn’t heard from him either. He had gone silent on Instagram, probably to focus on the few games he had left with Chelsea and the national team, and avoid all the drama his ex was creating online. She kept doing Instagram lives answering fans questions, saying that she still loved him and that if they had broken up, it was because of a third person. Had Mason told her about me?

“That’s a beautiful sunset, isn’t it?”

“It was until you showed up” I manage to say, my heart beating so fast I fear it may break my chest.

“Glad to know mean Daniela still is with us.”

“You are my favourite victim, Mason. I can’t help it” I shrug, turning around to look at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m on holidays with my family. They loved this place last year.”

“And here at the beach? Did my sister tell you I was coming?”

“What? No, no. I’ve actually been coming here every day expecting to see you” he says with a shy smile, his dimple showing. Dear God, I had miss it so much.

“You… You have?”

“Yeah, I have. Which is something lame to do, not taking photos of the sunset.”

“It is a bit lame, yes” I chuckle.

“But I wanted to see you again. To talk with you.”

“About what? I’m pretty sure we have already said everything that is to be said.”

“We haven’t. Or at least, I haven’t. Because in case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve fallen in love with you. I seriously don’t know how or even why, especially keeping in mind that since the moment we met you’ve only been a mean bitch to me” he laughs. “But it has happened. I’m in love with you, Daniela. I love you.”

“Mason, I…”

“I know I’ve hurt you and that it probably is too late. That you’ve moved on. But I had to say it. I needed to say it aloud to someone who wasn’t Dec or my siblings. I needed to tell you.”

“Wait, everyone knows?”

“Yeah…” he says, scratching the back of his head. “I’ve apparently been a miserable shit for the past few months, they were worried about me, and I had to tell them. Anyway, that was all. I just wanted you to know, and I understand if now you don’t want to see me again.”

“I…” I’m frozen in place. I don’t know what to do. What to say. He is in love with me. He loves me. Mason… he loves me.

“Goodbye, Daniela” he says, starting to walk away.

“Wait, what?” I say, watching him leave. “Mason… Mason!” I call. But he doesn’t listen, he just keeps walking. “Mason… Mason Tony Mount!”

“You know my full name? That’s new” he says, still walking.

“Bloody hell…” I murmur. “Mason, can you please wait!” I say, running towards him. “Mason, I love you!”

“You what?” he says, suddenly stopping and making me crash against his back. “You... what are you doing down there?”

“I don’t know, I just fancied sitting down on the sand for a bit.”

“You did?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course I didn’t, you idiot. I fell when I crashed against you. Are you gonna help me get up or not?”

“Yeah, yeah” he says, offering me his hand. The moment I’m up, he grabs me by the waist, pulling me closer to him. “What were you saying before you almost broke my back in half?”

“Before I did what? Who is the one who ended up on the floor?” I say, my eyes fixed on the way my hands are resting on his chest.

“Ok, fine. It was my fault. But what did you say?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Dani…”

“Don’t call me that, you haven’t earned it. Yet.”

“Yet? Does that mean that I am close to it?”

“Maybe” I shrug.

“Interesting… But are you going to repeat what you said earlier or not?” he says, pulling me a bit closer to him.

“I… I said…”

“Yes…”

“I love you” I whisper, my eyes still fixed on my fingers.

“I didn’t hear you” he says, moving one of his hands to my chin, making me look at him. He is trying really hard not to smile, and as always, I get distracted by his dimple.

“Have I ever told you that I am obsessed with that dimple on your left cheek?”

“That is very cute, but my dimple isn’t what we were talking about.”

“I…”

“You what” he says, lifting my chin a bit more, forcing me to look him in the eyes. This time I can’t escape, I can’t stop looking at them. Since when does he have such beautiful eyes?

“I love you, Mason.”

“Finally” he smiles, leaning forward and kissing me while the sun sets behind us.

[dragon-queen21]

Okayokayokayokayokayokayokayokayokay HEAR ME OUT: regressed characters reacting to watching a new slice of life anime! I’ll talk about the anime at the end!

Oh, and btw, it’s a huge ramble-lamble of an ask, just letting you know real quick that it’s about to get long

With Regressed Tanjiro

Tanjiro: Why is that boy all by himself?

Giyu: Is he even allowed to be alone?

Kie (I’m having her be in this, sue my butt): No, I think he has someone living with him.

*the boy’s aunt gets mentioned*

Tanjiro: Ohhhh, I see it now.

Giyu: What happened to his mom?

Tanjiro: *gets teary eyed* Did… Did she die…? And his dad too?

Giyu: Oh sh- Uh… Uh- N-No, I think he’s not an orphan.

Tanjiro: *sniffle* Are you sure?

Kie: *in the kitchen* It’s not horror, so I’m sure it’s okay.

*a few minutes later*

Tanjiro: *sees a small round creature on screen* 😮 Is it a embryo child?

Giyu: They just said that a mummy was sent over.

Tanjiro: 😦 Did a child die to look like that? 🥺

*the tiny mummy starts crying on screen too*

Tanjiro: 😶 DID I MAKE IT CRY, I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE YOU CRY! ;-;

Giyu: *pauses the episode so he can let Tanjiro cry for a few minutes* We’re gonna be here for a while.

*Tanjiro stops crying after Nezuko came in to explain that no kids died and no one became a mummy for the creature to exist, so they go back to watching the episode*

With Regressed Kyojuro

Kyojuro: … *tries to eat dog food*

Tengen: Noooope, no, lil’ buddy, we do not eat food for puppies. *takes away the dog kibble* Kyojuro: How come pillow child can eat it, but I can’t?

Tengen: One, that’ll make you sick. Two, you just ate.

Kyojuro: Still hungry, though!

Tengen: *sighs* I cannot believe I’m saying this, but you’re not getting food now, Kyojuro!

Kyojuro: 😨 Did… Did I lose food privileges… because you mad at me…? 🥺

Tengen: *under his breath in a panic* Shit!

Makio: *out of sight* Tengen Gonzalez Uzui! What did you do?!

Tengen: Uh, I’m working on it, honey, we just have a little mishap! *to Kyojuro* Hey, bud, I’ll tell you what, I’ll get you chips, okay? 😅

Kyojuro: (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀) Sweet potato an’ apples too?

Tengen: Sure, just… don’t tell Mama that I made you cry, please! ;W;

Kyojuro: Oki! ∩^ω^∩

*They go back to watching the episode with Kyojuro happily eating his snack*

Tengen: That was close… 😮‍💨

*note: Makio is referred to as “Mama” by regressed Kyojuro

With Regressed Nezuko

-Has watched the anime first out of everyone, so more often than not, she sits with them to explain what happens in the show.

-On the rare occasion she does need to regress at home, she gives someone a heads up before locking herself in her room for an hour to watch the show.

Nezuko: *has loaf of bread in her mouth, as she regressed and was hungry*

Giyu: I see why you were familiar with this show before. Did you find it on YouTube?

Nezuko: *nods* Mmmhmm!

With Regressed Aether

Paimon: *staying out of reach because Aether did try to eat her while regressed once* Why does that blue haired social emo wanna eat the mummy?

Aether: PAIMON, MUMMY NOT FOOD!

Paimon: I never said I wanted to eat him! 🙄

Aether: You better not have! 😤

With Regressed Venti

-Being babysat by Klee because she begged to be Venti’s “big sis” to Jean, who relented, only on the condition that neither go fish blasting the whole time (Klee actually didn’t try sneaking out to do that, for once, surprisingly)

Klee: *giving Venti apples while watching the episode*

Venti: *munching on apple* I see why mummy kid likes apples to be rabbits!

Klee: Oh? Why is that, Ven?

Venti: You like apple too!

Klee: Me? How so?

Venti: Apples are red and bunny shaped, big sis is red and has bunnies, so big sis is an apple too!

Klee: *decides to agree with Venti on that statement because he made a good point*

Jean: *did not have the heart to tell both of them that apples don’t normally look like bunnies nor do they have a habit of blowing up fishies*

With Regressed Zenitsu

-He relates to the mummy the most because of the crying they both do

-Sanemi wasn’t allowed to be watching him alone because Zenitsu was scared of him until a later point

Sanemi: *watching an oni kid get yelled at for eating someone else’s food* Dumbasses.

Zenitsu: Language, meanie!

Sanemi: What? That girl should’ve put a label on her food if she didn’t want it eaten! That dumb foodie is like Inosuke, he’s gonna see food and think it’s his, but not everything is his pantry! He kinda deserved it.

Zenitsu: *didn’t feel the need to really argue because Sanemi made a good point* Oh.

*later…*

Sanemi: Okay, I’m out, this is ridiculous.

Tanjiro: *upstairs* You better not be leaving, Sanemi! You promised to watch Zenitsu in exchange for me watching Genya next week!

Sanemi: *groans* I forgot… But this part of the episode is gonna suck! Why are they trying to find the free loader?

Zenitsu: *chewing on the couch*

Sanemi: Mouth off the leather, child. (He wasn’t allowed to call Zen a brat when he was regressed)

*a few more minutes later…*

Tanjiro: Okay, I can help you with Zen if there was- Uh…

Sanemi: *on the floor weeping silently*

Zenitsu: *trying to comfort him while also crying* Ro, the baby red child got food thrown and it got a boo-boo, and we called him a pig! *wails*

Tanjiro: Um… Can I get an explanation please?

Sanemi: *sniffle* Can we get ice cream first…?

-After that, Sanemi was allowed to watch Zenitsu alone for an hour at most because turns out, seeing him cry was what made Zenitsu less afraid of him

With Regressed Inosuke

-Keeps asking about any fighting, much to Shinobu’s chagrin

-Hama frequently stops by to help and brings food for Inosuke to have

Inosuke: *happily eating the tempura Hama made while watching the show silently*

Hama: *makes a note to make new foods based on the show for Inosuke to try next time she comes over*

With Regressed Sanemi + Genya

Gyomei: For the last time, just because you two like the blue one does not mean I’m getting you a pet like that.

Sanemi: Make us not get it! *pouts*

Gyomei: It’s not happening.

Genya: *grabs one of Gyomei’s cats and tries to sneak off*

Gyomei: …Which one did you pick up?

Genya: 😨

Sanemi: RUN FOR IT, GEN! *nopes off before Gyomei can grab him*

*Since Sanemi is actually faster than Gyomei, he distracts the Stone Hashira while Genya makes off with one of the kitties; they managed to keep it for three months before Gyomei came over to have it back*

*It ironically backfired, though, as a week later, Genya got to keep that same kitten that he named Isao*

-Both of them liked the blue and white creature in the show the most

With Regressed Mitsuri, Muichiro, and Giyu

Mitsuri: *drawing an orange dragon*

Muichiro: *drawing a blue and white creature*

Giyu: *trying to figure out how to draw a friend for the small mummy*

Kanae: How are you three holding up?

Mitsuri: Look, look! I drew Isao! *holds up her drawing proudly*

Muichiro: I um… I drew the fluffy bean. *holds up his drawing*

Giyu: I can’t draw the mummy a friend… 🥺

Muichiro: *sorta pats Giyu’s head (he’s doing his best, he doesn’t know how to pat)* It otay. Why not draw mummy’s human?

Giyu: Oh! I didn’t think of that! 🙂 Thank you!

With Regressed Obanai

-He hates one of the characters because she hates reptiles/lizards

Obanai: Give dragon new name, dummy! *grumpy face*

Mitsuri: *is doing her best not to get fed up because she likes that same character Obi hates* It’s fine, Obi, I promise, she doesn’t hate the dragon.

With Regressed Shinobu

-Turns out, she doesn’t like the same character like Obanai, since she isn’t a fan of furry animals herself

Shinobu: Can I poison her?

Giyu: SHE’S IN HIGH SCHOOL! 🤦‍♂️

With Regressed Tengen

Tengen: *attempting to eat cucumbers with dog food*

Kyojuro: 😑 Not again…

Itto: Is that normal for him to do?

Kyojuro: Not really, he’s not supposed to do that.

Itto: *picks up a regressed Tengen* Okay, buddy, I think that’s enough trying the dog food with cumbers.

Tengen: Awwwww…

Itto: We’re gonna try some of that with lavender melons now!

Tengen: Yayyyy!

Kyojuro: NOOOOO! *panicking*

*Turns out, watching that episode gave both Itto and Tengen the idea to try and eat dog food, and given how much smooth brain energy Itto gives out, he’d probably encourage the idea for fun; poor Rengoku, and he’s a foodie too 😂😭*

(I had Itto get involved in this because nuts to keeping the characters in their universes, I’m doing a crossover 🤣)

With Regressed Gyomei

-Since this man can’t really tell just how small the mummy is, Mitsuri offered to make a physical version of the mummy character for him to hold.

-The rest of the Hashira watched Gyomei’s reaction to the mummy character because they were curious about his reaction (Gyomei gave them permission beforehand)

Gyomei: *holding Mitsuri’s physical version of the mummy character from the show* Is… Is this how tiny he really is?

Mitsuri: Mmhm. Did I do a good job of describing him like that to you?

Gyomei: 😶 *he starts tearing up* He’s so tiny… and impressionable… like a newborn kitty… *immediately goes softie mode and starts crying*

Sanemi: Man, it’s not a huge deal, it’s just a doll she made for you.

Aoi: *smacks Sanemi’s shoulder*

Gyomei: IT IS MORE THAN A DOLL, SIR! ;W;

-Gyomei gets super attached to the doll quickly, which lead to Mitsuri getting many people involved to make more dolls based on the show’s characters so they could let Gyomei experience the show in his way. He makes quite a few Saturdays his “regression days” just so he could watch the show

With Regressed Kotetsu + Hu Tao

-Both of them would demand onesies of the oni kid and the baku respectively

Kotetsu: Halloween time!

Hu Tao: Halloweeen!

Zhongli: *facepalms* Not again, it’s March…

Muichiro: *hands Zhongli some candy* This usually works on them, I got them from Nezuko and Mitsuri.

The name of the anime that all of them were watching that I was referring to is called Miira No Kaikata (otherwise known as “How To Keep A Mummy,” but I usually call it by the original title), which is about a young boy named Sora who gets sent a small and adorable mummy from Egypt by his traveling father, so he adapts to having this mummy be a part of his life.

It’s a really cute slice of life anime that I honestly adore and want to recommend; turns out it’s also a good anime to relax with. Think of it like Bluey in anime before Bluey ever existed because it gives very similar vibes to that show. Thank you for coming to my ted talk about how I just made a few Genshin Impact and Demon Slayer characters interact with each other over an anime about a cute mummy who I want to hold because no one is stopping me from doing crossovers :p

Heck yeah do all the crossovers >:3

I love this! This is so self indulgent and I love it. It's all my favorite characters for two fandoms am obsessed with right now and a recommendation for a new anime. (Sending you hugs! Thanks so so somuch for sharing made me very happy <3)

~Ahh, Tanjiro is like little me. Super over sensitive to shows :<

~“Tengen: *under his breath in a panic* Shit! Makio: *out of sight* Tengen Gonzalez Uzui! What did you do?!”

<- Mama Makio senses

Let. The baby. Eat. Snacks! 👏 Movie snacks are the best!

~“*staying out of reach because ether did try to eat her while regressed once*”

<- sdjoanfoas Oh gosh Aether would. Emergency food taken very literally.

~Poor Rengoku would be at his limit. Extra caregiver? Nah nah nah, another gremlin child to keep in check

~Awww Mitsuri making Gyomei the little mummy friend is so cute!!

~I love Hu Tao. Poor Zhongli is so fed up with halloween antics XD

(Gives you a round of applause) this has made my day. Haven’t been doing the best when I got this, hence the very late reply, and this lovely post I have been reading through slowly over the past days while trying out the anime. It is adorable! Thank you so much again for the recommendation and the silly crossover <3<3<3

[ovaruling]

hey girl! happy to—the buccal fat removal was pretty simple compared to the other surgeries, but it was still very painful. as i understand it, the surgeon made incisions on the inside of both of my cheeks, and entered that way, and sucked out the “buccal fat yolk,” as he called it. he explained to me that there’s a pouch of fat there that is yolk-like, and does not usually disappear, even with dramatic weight loss, except in cases of extreme malnutrition where there is no reserve left. that’s how he put it, anyway.

so, he essentially stabbed inside my cheeks through up where the “cheek fat” was, just under my cheekbones, and sucked the fat through those incisions and stitched them from the inside. it was, as i said, extremely painful, and eating and drinking was very difficult for a long time. the scars are inside my cheeks and i can still feel them if i run my tongue over them.

the entire cheek area on both sides, inside and out, is mostly numb. sort of like… when Novocain has started to wear off at the dentist.

but i get sudden, electrifying wallops of pain where the buccal fat used to be at completely random times. i get at least one or two a day. it is pretty agonizing, ngl. it feels like instantaneous nerve pain, if you’ve ever had a dentist nick a nerve on a sensitive tooth. it runs through the cheek into my sinuses and down into my gums and it takes my breath away. when these episodes first started happening i genuinely thought i was having a stroke.

i get a lot of migraines now (brow and temple) and my jaw sits really uncomfortably—i’m always having to bite my inner cheeks or suck my cheeks in manually, or else they become fatigued.

a good experiment is—try to hold your mouth open as long as you can. just—open like a crocodile. as wide as you can go, until your cheeks reach the utmost point of fatigue. that’s what it feels like all the time if i try to relax my face—unless i am constantly drawing in my cheeks or making a “duck face,” my cheeks feel fatigued. i don’t know why—maybe they’re strained without the fat there to support them. collapsing, i guess.

it’s really uncomfortable tbh. i’ve gotten used to it, but it sucks.

and it just looks weird as hell too. all it did was age me and make me look dehydrated and starved.

ykw, i guess it really has affected how i do everything with my mouth and facial expressions. they all had to change in some way to accommodate the new “dimensions.” i wish i could show a before and after pic, bc i had a ton of nice healthy buccal fat and now i just look soooo hollowed out and honestly i look so bad lol. i smile differently, i make all my expressions differently. what feels “natural” is kind of weird—cheeks sucked in manually, or lips sucked into my mouth manually. biting of upper and lower lips into the mouth. just… a constant need to draw the face inward to relieve the cheek fatigue.

which leads me to say that once again there does not seem to be a resting position for my face anymore. it’s a neverending strain on the cheek muscles. maybe that’ll change over time—or maybe i’ll strengthen the cheek muscles with facial yoga, idk. but for now it’s a constant nagging need to keep my cheeks sucked in or my lips drawn into my mouth, like this…

…so that they’re supported in some way from the fatigue. idk, it’s really weird. hate it.

the sudden pains are pretty bad too esp bc i never know when they’ll happen. there’s no trigger, really, but i have noticed that cold or hot drinks/foods mean they’ll happen within the half hour. the worst is when they happen WHILE i’m drinking hot coffee or am mid-chew in food. i’ve almost choked a few times that way, lol. super annoying.

that’s all i can think of for now! hopefully that helps a bit. please feel free to ask any specific questions i didn’t answer!

[kingluffy5]

Psychic Kids and Other Worldly Monsters Pt. 3 (Stranger Things OCs)

Everyone is on the trail of Will Byers but they are all being lead in different directions. His family finds a monster, his friends find a psychic kid, and the police found a lab. Will they be able to find him before it’s too late.

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

I was woken up in the morning by my mom’s voice. “Will? Will? Sweetheart, can you hear me? Will? Please… Will… It’s me.”

I got up and went into Will’s room, with Jonathan following quickly behind me, where whatever happened the night before happened. “It’s me. Just talk to me. Talk to me. Just say something,” she said to the lightbulb

“Mom?” he said.

“Jonathan, Judith. Come here. Come here.”

“Mom, what is this?” he asked.

“Come here,” she insisted. We sit down next to her.

“What’s going on?” he asked again.

“It’s Will, he’s trying to talk to us.”

“He’s trying to talk to you?”

“Yes, through… through the lights,” she told him.

“Mom-”

“I know. I know.”

“I saw it to Jonathan,” I told him. “Last night.”

“Just… just watch. Will, your brother’s here. Can you show him what you showed us baby?” The lightbulb flickered, it wasn’t a lot, but it was a sign.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“It’s the electricity, Jude. It’s acting up, it’s the same thing that fried the phone.”

“No! It is not the electricity, Jonathan. Something is going on here,” she insisted. “Yesterday, the wall-”

“What? What about the wall?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Mom, first the lights, then the wall?”

“I just know that Will is here.”

“No, mom.”

“Maybe if I just got more lamps.”

“No, mom,” Jonathan said again. “You don’t need more lamps. You need to stop this, okay?”

“But she’s right, I saw it, I saw everything. He isn’t just missing. There’s something going on here,” I told him.

“No, there isn’t. He is just lost. People are looking for him, and they’re going to find him.”

“Okay,” she relented.

“This isn’t helping.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Can you do me a favor, mom? Can you just try and get some sleep? You too Judith?” he asked us.

“Yeah,” we both said.

“Can you do that for me?”

“I just need to sit here for a minute,” she said.

“Alright, I’ll go make breakfast.” After that he got up and left.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We were busy in the basement of Mike’s house trying to find a way to get some time outside.

“Just tell your parents that you have AV club after school. That’ll get us at least a few hours for Operation Mirkwood,” Mike told us.

“You seriously think the weirdo knows where Will is?” Lucas asked.

“Just trust me on this, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Did you get the supplies?” Mike asked.

“Yeah. Binoculars… from ‘Nam. Army knife… also from ‘Nam. Hammer, camouflage bandana… and the wrist rocket.” He listed, taking out several items that have never been to ‘Nam.

“You’re going to take out the Demogorgan with a slingshot?” Dustin asked.

“First of all, it’s a wrist rocket. And second of all, the Demogorgon’s not real. It’s made up.”

“How can you say that with everything we’ve seen?” I pointed out.

“But if there is something out there, I’m gonna shoot it in the eye… and blind it.”

“Dustin, Oliver. What did you guys get?” Mike asked us.

“I got a first aid kit, a knife, another knife, a spare taser my dad keeps around the house, and my sister’s old softball bat,” I listed.

Dustin poured out a bunch of snacks on the table. “So, we’ve got… Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, apple, banana, and trail mix.”

“Seriously?” Lucas asked.

“We need energy for our travels, for stamina,” he told us. “And besides why do we even need weapons anyway? We have her.” He was referring to Eleven.

“She shut one door!” Lucas yelled at him.

“With her mind,” Dustin pointed out. “Are you kidding me? That’s insane. Imagine all the other cool stuff she could do. Like… I bet… that she could make this fly!” he said excitedly holding up Mike’s Millennium Falcon model. It would be pretty cool to see it fly. “Okay concentrate, okay.” He dropped the Falcon right in front of her and it crashed on to the floor. “Okay, one more time. Okay. Use your powers, okay?” He dropped it again.

“Idiot,” me and Lucas said simultaneously.

“She’s not a dog,” Mike tells him.

“Boys! Time for school!” Mrs. Wheeler shouted from upstairs. We all grab our stuff and Mike said bye to Eleven and we left for school.

— — —

Sasha P.O.V.

Nancy walked into class right before the bell rang. That wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was that Barb wasn’t already here, when I first got to class and she wasn’t there I assumed she was walking and talking with Nancy. But she wasn’t.

“Did you see Barb?” I asked, she shook her head.

“You haven’t seen her anywhere?” I shook my head.

We both looked at each other confused. Barb wouldn’t miss school unless she had the plague, which begged the question, where the hell was she?

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

We were driving up to the lab, Hopper in the drivers seat, me in shotgun, Powell and Callahan in the back.

“There she is. Emerald City.” Powell said.

“I heard they make space weapons in there.” Callahan said

“Space weapons?” I asked. Oliver talked a lot about stuff like that but it sounded like nonsense.

“Yeah. You know, like, Reagan’s Star Wars.” Callahan replied. “I guess we’re gonna blow the Ruskies to smithereens.”

We pulled up to the entrance.

“Hey can I help you?” The guard asked.

“Uh, yeah. We’re here for a tour.” Hopper told him.

“Oh, we don’t give tours.”

“Okay… A quick look around.”

“You have to get clearance for that. You can contact, uh… Rick Schaeffer at the Department of Energy/“

“Maybe you seen on TV. We got a local kid that’s missing.” Hopper told him. “We have reason to believe that he might have snuck in here.”

“Life I said, you have to speak to Mr. Schaeffer.”

Hopper turned off the engine and took his hat off. “What’s your name?”

“Patrick.”

“Patrick, I got a panicked mayor, and I got reporters breathing down my neck, and I got a very upset mother. You see my partner here? His son is friends with the missing boy so he’s been riding my ass to get him found. Now, I know the kid’s not in there but I gotta check this box. Patrick, would you do me a favor? Would you speak to your boss and see what you can swing for us? I’d really appreciate it. I’m talking ten minutes, tops.”

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

“And you think this missing boy may have crawled through there?” One of the officials from the lab asked, referring to the sewer drain.

“Well, that was the idea.” I told him. I looked at the large building and wondered what kind of weird shit they’re experimenting with in there.

“Yeah, I just don’t see how that’d be possible. We’ve got over a hundred cameras. Every square inch covered, plus all my guys. No one breaks in here. Certainly not some kid.”

“Those cameras, you keep the tapes?” Hopper asked.

We then went inside to get a look at the footage. We passed by an area closed off with radioactive symbols over it.

“If you don’t mine me asking, what do you guys do in here?” Hopper asked him.

“My son, he reads comic books about these guys who get powers from radioactivity, are you trying to make your own spider-man?” I asked, half joking.

“You’re asking the wrong guy.” He chuckled.

“Staying one step ahead of the Russians?” Hopper asked.

“I expect. Something like that.”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“That’d be Dr. Brenner.”

“And he builds the space lasers?” Callahan asked, completely serious.

“Space lasers?”

“Ignore him.” I told the official.

We went to the surveillance room where they put in the tape from the night Will went missing.

“This is the night of the 6th and 7th we’re seeing here?” Hopper asked.

“That’s correct.” He confirmed. After a little bit of static the tape resumed as normal, only it wasn’t, something was off about it.

“Is that it?” Hopper asked.

“Like I said, we would have seen him.”

We left the building and went back to our car.

“Night of the 7th, we had a search party out for Will. You remember anything about that night?” Hopper asked us.

“Hmm, not much to remember. Called it off.” Callahan replied.

“‘Cause of the storm.” Powell realized.

“Yeah, a lot of rain that night.”

“Didn’t see a lot of rain on the tape.” I pointed out.

“What are you two thinking.” Powell asked us. Me and Hopper have been on the same page about most things since high school and I could tell that we were on the same page about this.

“I don’t know. But they’re lying.” He said.

— — —

Sarah Reed’s P.O.V.

We were sitting at lunch. Me, Sasha, Ava and Judith. Nancy was sitting with Steve and his friends.

“Hey, did you guys see Barb today?” Sasha asked us.

“No, why?” Ava asked.

“I didn’t see her in class. She never misses class.” Sasha told us. That was weird, she never skipped willingly.

“I’m sure she just has some kind of doctor thing and had to miss the morning classes.” I reassured her, and myself.

“I don’t know. Something strange is going on here. First Will went missing, now Barb.” Judith commented.

“Judith, you can’t think like that. Will’s going to be fine, the chief’s going to find him soon and Barb is alright.” Ava tried to comfort her. But the look in Judith’s eyes showed she wasn’t convinced.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

At recess we were looking for rocks for Lucas’ wrist rocket.

“How about this one?” Mike asked.

“Too big for the sling.” Dustin told him.

“I think I got a few.” I called. They came over and I held them up.

“They’re perfect.” Lucas praised. I stuffed them into my pockets.

“So do you think Eleven was born with her powers, like the X-Men, or do you think she aquifer them like… like Green Lantern?” Dustin asked us.

“Well, the ring is an external factor, without it Green Lantern is powerless. Flash is a better example.” I pointed out.

“She’s not a superhero. She’s a weirdo.” Lucas said, scornfully.

“Why does that matter? The X-Men are weirdos.” Mike defended.

“If you love her so much why don’t you marry her?” Lucas teased.

“What are you talking about?” Mike asked. Was this kid blind, or stupid, or both.

“Mike, seriously?” Lucas asked.

“What?” Wow, he really was oblivious.

“You look at her all like, ‘hi, El! El! El! El! I love you so much! Would you marry me?’” Lucas said, mockingly hugging Mike and getting on one knee. Me and Dustin were laughing.

“Shut up, Lucas.” Mike told him.

“Yeah, shut up, Lucas.” Our bullies, Troy and James, told him, walking up to us. “What are you losers doing back here?”

“Probably looking for their missing friend.” James laughed.

“That’s not funny. It’s serious. He’s in danger.” Dustin told him.

“I hate to break it to you, Toothless, but he’s not in danger. He’s dead. That’s what my dad says. He said he was probably killed by some other queer.” Troy said as he and James laughed. Oh things that I could’ve said to him, how his dad was an alcoholic, he only bullied us because he was ashamed of his own face, how his dad meant that he probably killed Will, or that he wished that he was in Will’s place then. But it would only have gotten all of us beaten up and we didn’t need that.

“Come on. Just ignore them.” Mike said as he tried to walk past them. The assholes tripped him making him land on his face.

“Watch where you’re going, Frogface.” They said high fiving. We rushed to help him up.

“You all right?” We asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, how about this one?” Dustin asked holding up a rock.

“Yeah.” We all agreed.

“Yeah, this is the monster killer.” Lucas said holding it up.

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

We walked into the library and went up to the front desk.

“Hey, Marissa, how you doing?” Asked Hopper.

“You have a lot of nerve showing up here.” She replied.

“What?”

“You could’ve at least called and said, ‘Marissa! Hey, it’s not gonna work out. Sorry I wasted your time. I’m a dick.’” Me and Powell looked at him, not even surprised, just tired.

“Yep. I’m sorry. Uh… Maybe we could go out again next week?” Hopper suggested. We then had to endure the longest few seconds in history. “Newspapers? You guys got newspapers around here?”

“We have the New York Times, the Post, all the big ones.” She told us while she showed us the cataloging system. “Organized by year and topic. You can find the corresponding microfiche in the reading room.”

“Okay, we’re looking for anything on the Hawkins National Laboratory.”

“Well, shouldn’t you be looking for that missing kid?”

“Yeah. We are. Uh so why don’t you start with the Times and we’ll check out the Post.”

She scoffed and walked off.

“The librarian?” Me and Powell asked him at the same time. We then got to work looking through anything we could to find information on the lab and anything that could’ve led us to Will. A lot of stuff came up about a lawsuit involving a woman named Terry Ives and Dr. Brenner.

— — —

Ava Sinclair’s P.O.V.

We were in the parking lot by the Reed twins’ Camaro. We talked about the usual stuff, trying to feel comfortable.

“So, got any new music?” Sasha asked me.

“Okay, this is stupid.” I said. “Yes, we’re all worried about Barb and Will. Both seemingly up and vanished.”

“There’s something I should tell you guys.” Judith said, clutching her coat.

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“A couple of nights after Will went missing, we got a phone call.” Judith started to explain.

“What the hell is going on over there?” Sasha asked. She pointed at a somewhat agitated Jonathan talking to Steve and his friends. Judith immediately ran over and we followed her, because why not.

“What’s going on?” Nancy asked, who got there the same time we did.

“Here’s the starring lady.” Tommy said.

“What?” Nancy asked.

“This creep was spying on us last night.” Carol told her.

“What? There’s no way that’s true.” Judith defended her brother.

“He was probably gonna save this one for later.” She handed Nancy a picture. Some of us went to look at the picture while Judith stayed to give Jonathan a look that was begging him to say it wasn’t true. The picture was of Nancy taking off her clothes at Steve’s house.

“Really, Jonathan?” I asked him. He was a good guy, but this is just wrong.

“See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but… Man, that’s the thing about perverts… It’s hardwired into them. You know, they just can’t help themselves.” Steve said.

“Hey, back off.” Judith said, shoving Steve. That only made him laugh.

“Or what?” Steve asked. He, like everyone, knew that Judith couldn’t hurt a fly even if she wanted to. “So… we’ll just have to take away his toy.”

“No, please, not the camera.” Jonathan pleaded.

“Hey, man, knock it off.” I told him. Jonathan shouldn’t have taken those pictures but that camera was his holy grail. He treasured the damn thing.

Jonathan tried to get to Steve but Tommy blocked him. “No, no, wait. Tommy, Tommy. It’s okay. Here you go man.” Steve looked like he was going to hand him the camera, but instead he dropped it right onto the pavement.

“Come on, let’s go. The games about to start.” Steve said. Walking off. I’ve never seen Jonathan look so defeated, and Judith, she never looked so angry. So while Nancy grabbed one of the shreds of the pictures, one with Barb on it, Judith called out, “Steve!”

He turned and Judith kicked him right in the balls, and it was amazing.

“Holy shit.” Sasha shouted.

Sarah just couldn’t stop smiling.

And I cheered.

Judith, who only just then realized what she had done, simply walked back and helped Jonathan.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We walked out bikes up the hill to a chain link fence. It was exhausting.

“El!” Mike shouted to the nearly bald girl. She looked like she was catatonic. “You okay?” He asked.

She nodded.

He patted the back of the seat on his bike. “Hop on, we only have a few hours.”

We then rode off to the woods.

Mike and El were ahead of us a bit and the were talking, silently, to each other.

— — —

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

After what was the most thrilling experience of my life I went back home. Mom had set up a bunch of Christmas lights around the house in order to track where Will is. Suddenly the lights started flashing. The two of us started following the path. It led to an area of the house blocked off by some stuff so we moved it and found a bundle of Christmas lights.

“Will, are you here?” Mom asked.

The bundle lit up.

“Okay, good, good, good, good. Are you- Um, blink once for yes, twice for no.” She told him. “Can you do that for me sweetie. Can you do…” The lights blinked once. “Oh, good boy. Good boy.” We both hugged the lights. While she asked the question I was just happy to know that we had some way of talking. I couldn’t believe that I nearly told people about what me and mom were doing. They would never believe me.

When mom realized the yes no system wasn’t working she pained the alphabet onto the wall under some lights so Will could actually talk to us. Whatever he’s going to say is going to be crazier than any high me and my friends went through.

— — —

Anthony Reed’s P.O.V.

“I don’t know, chief.” Powell told Hopper.

“Don’t know what?”

“This lady, Terry Ives, sounds like a real nut to me. Her kid was taken for LSD mind control experiments? She’s been discredited, claim was thrown out.”

“Okay forget about her.” Hopper told him. “Take a look at this. Dr. Martin Brenner.”

“Who?”

“Brenner. He runs Hawkins lab.”

“Okay?” Powell asked, still wondering what was going on.

“You don’t find that interesting?”

“Not really. He was involved in some hippie crap back in the day, so what?”

“No, this isn’t hippie crap. This is CIA-sanctioned research.” I told him.

“Doesn’t mean he had anything to do with our kid.”

“Come on. Look at that. Hospital gowns. All of ‘em. Now that piece of fabric that the teacher found by the pipe. That sure looked like a hospital gown to me, high? Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know, chief.”

“Come on man. Work with me here. Reed believes me.”

“That’s because you two’ve been best friends since about the eighth grade.” Powell pointed out. He did have a point.

“I’m not saying that there’s some grand conspiracy. I’m just… I’m saying maybe something happened. Maybe Will was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that he saw something that he shouldn’t have.”

“It’s a reach.”

“It’s a start.” I insisted.

“Hey, Powell, is the chief with you?” Callahan asked over the radio. Hopper grabbed the radio from his shoulder.

“Hopper here. What do you got?”

After hearing what he said we ran out to the car and sped off with the sirens on. I didn’t believe any of it. It couldn’t be true.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We were still walking, long into the dark. We came across Will’s house and we stopped.

“Here.” Eleven said.

“Yeah, this is where Will lives.” Mike told her.

“Hiding.” She said.

“No, no, this is where he lives. He’s missing form here. Understand?” Mike insisted. He was talking to her like he’s trying to train a puppy, a puppy who likely had the power to rip you limb from limb.

“What are we doing here?” Lucas asked annoyed.

“She said he’s hiding here.” Mike said.

“Um… No!” Lucas said angrily.

“I swear, if we walked all the way out here for nothing-” Dustin complained.

“I’m with you on that one, buddy.” I panted and patted him on the shoulder.

“That’s exactly what we did. I told you she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about!”

“Why did you bring us here?” Mike asked.

“Mike. Don’t waste your time with her.”

“What do you want to do then?”

“Call the cops, like we should have done yesterday.”

“We are not calling the cops!”

Sirens started blaring and me and Dustin were the only ones who noticed because Mike and Lucas were too busy bitching to each other.

“Guys!” We yelled at them, finally getting them to notice.

They were a couple of cop cars and an ambulance. They were heading for the reservoir.

“Will.” Mike said. We ran for the bikes and followed them.

— — —

Judith Byers’ P.O.V.

We were finally done with the letters.

“Okay, baby, talk to us.” Mom told him.

“Talk to us, where are you?” I pleaded.

The R blinked, then the I, and the g, h, t, h, e, r, e,.

“‘Right here.’” Mom questioned. “Right here? I don’t know what that means. I need you to tell us what to do, what should I do? How do we get to you? How do we find you? What should I do?”

R. U. N.

The monster in the wall bulged out and the lights went haywire. It tore through the wall and roared. Me and mom did the only sane thing and ran the hell out of there.

— — —

Oliver Reed’s P.O.V.

We raced after the cars. Since we were riding bikes we went significantly slower. When we got to the reservoir there were fire trucks and ambulances and lot of cop cares. There were trying to get something out of the water.

It looked like Will. But it wasn’t. Right?

“It’s not Will. It can’t be.” Mike assured us.

“It’s Will. It’s really Will.” Lucas said.

“No.” I said “It can’t be him.”

We turned and walked away.

“Mike-” Eleven started to say.

“‘Mike’? ‘Mike,’ what?” Mike yelled. “You were supposed to help us find him alive. Your said he was alive! Why did you lie to us? What’s wrong with you? What is wrong with you?”

“Mike…”

“What?”

“Mike, come on, don’t do this man.” Lucas said.

“Mike.” We all called for him as he rode of with his bike.

Eventually everyone went back home. He was gone, and there was nothing we could have done to save him.

[illfoandillfie]

trying to dom Lucy for the first time but it’s really hard until finally Lucy takes over for you and it’s so much easier to just do as she says

Blurb Advent 2023: Day 23

oooo this is a v interesting prompt and i hope i did it justice!

Warnings: sub!Lucy, dom!Reader, but also references to the other way around, finger sucking, oral sex, sex toys (strapon)

You don’t really know what came over you. One minute Lucy had you pinned to the bed, straddling your pelvis while she kissed you, the next you’d rolled the both of you over so that Lucy was under you. Every time you remembered it, you wondered how you’d done it. And Lucy seemed just as surprised. You’d apologised and quickly gone back to following her orders, finished how you’d started only with her strap pressed into you. But now she was handing you a cup of tea and saying you should talk about what happened and you weren’t sure what to say or how to explain it.  

“I guess,” you finally admitted after a solid quarter of an hour dancing around the topic, “I have kind of thought about it recently. Being in charge I mean. Like what you do where you give me directions and call me a good girl and all of that. I s’pose I am a bit curious what it’s like from the other side.”  “I had no idea baby,” she cooed sweetly, “I’m happy to give it a try if you want to. I just really didn’t realise it was something you’d be into.”  “Well I don’t know how into I will be because I’ve never done it before, but I think I’d like to try.”  She laughed a little and leant in to give you a quick kiss, “Well lets try it then. Maybe later this week. That’ll give you a few days to think about how you'll handle me.”  “What do you mean?”  “Well have you thought about what you want to do to me? Are we talking as much as spanking? Or tying me up? That might make it easier to control me but it can also be a little harder because theres a lot of safety stuff to keep in mind.”  “Do you usually plan things out?”  She thought for a moment, “No, I tend to wing it unless I’m very horny about seeing you in a particular way. But because it’s new for you, it might make it a bit easier to have at least some idea of what’s going to happen.”  “Hmmm, yeah. Well, maybe nothing too hard for now. I’ll just give you orders and be bossy and not worry about restraints or spanking or anything like that.”  “That sounds like a good plan. Have a think about some of the things I do to you and see if you like the idea of doing them to me.” She gave your hand a squeeze, “This will be fun.”  Lucy being so on board made you feel much better and you nodded in agreement.  

Lucy wore her cutest lingerie for the occasion. It felt kind of strange to see her in so little whilst you remained fully clothed, but you had a greater understanding of why Lucy enjoyed doing the same thing to you.   “So, how do you want me?” she asked.  “I want you to kneel. Um, here.” you pointed to the ground at your feet. You’d decided that you’d start by explaining a few things to her, make her anticipate what was to come and maybe see how she reacted to some of your ideas. You’d thought long and hard about the sorts of things you could request from her, the sorts of things she liked doing to you. There were a few possibilities, but you’d decided to keep things fairly simple. You’d make her get you off first, probably with her mouth. Then you’d tell her to fetch the strap she liked to fuck you with so that you could fuck her for a change. There were some vague ideas about degrading her and maybe a little spank or two if she didn’t obey properly, but nothing set in stone.   "You don’t sound very sure.”  “I am sure. Kneel.”  Lucy obediently settled on her knees, looking up at you expectantly. It made you feel nervous but you tried not to show it. She was right, you had to seem sure about your commands if she was going to be able to follow them. Feeling a bit silly, you reached out to stroke her hair, letting the strands run through your fingers as you composed yourself and contemplated how to start. It occurred to you that when Lucy made you kneel with the intention of receiving oral, she’d tease you a bit by putting her fingers in your mouth, making you drool. So you let your fingers run down Lucy’s cheek towards her lips. The problem was, she didn’t open her mouth. You’d been conditioned to stick out your tongue whenever she pulled the same move.   “Open up,” you said, trying to sound in control, “Show me your tongue.” 

The clear direction was all it took for Lucy to do it and you breathed a sigh of relief as you rubbed your fingers up and down her tongue.   “I’ve got a couple of things I want to do with you, um, whore.”  It seemed like Lucy was trying not to smile but you ignored her as you continued, though you suddenly felt ridiculous stroking her tongue so drew your hand back, wiping her saliva off on your pants.   “First you’re going to use your mouth to get me off.”  “You want me to eat you out?”  “Yes, but uh, not yet.”  “But mistress you know I love your cunt. You taste so good.”  That made you flustered and blushy, the way she made you feel when she bossed you around. You shushed her but followed it with, “Not yet, but uh, good w-whore.”  Lucy smiled, pleased with herself.  “After I’ve cum, then I’ll fuck you with the strap on.” She looked at you expectantly and you remembered that she’d usually threaten you a little bit so you added, “but you’ll only cum too if you’d been a good girl and pleased me.”  “Yes mistress. But-” she cut herself off, “Sorry, I shouldn’t interrupt.”  “But what?”  “No, it’s nothing.”  “Well, no, I want to know, tell me.”  “Well I was just going to say fucking someone isn’t as easy as it seems. It can be really tiring and hard, especially if you’re not used to it. But I’m sure you already knew that.”  “Oh, yeah. I knew that.” you were starting to second guess your plan but you figured there were work arounds, “If I get too tired, you can ride it instead.”  “Good idea, mistress!”  “Thank you,” you felt very pleased at her praise, until you remembered she was meant to be listening to you. “But, that’s later’s problem. Right now you’re going to lick my – lick me.”  Lucy bit her cheek but a small laugh still escaped from how bad you were at saying things like pussy or cunt unless she forced you too, but she did her best to play along, “Yes mistress, can I now?”  “Yes, go on. Show me what a good girl you are.” 

She nodded and tugged you a step closer by the belt loops on your pants. Looking up at you she undid your fly and pused your pants down, only breaking eye contact when she leaned forward to kiss you through your underwear.   You couldn’t help but moan as you felt her tongue wetting your knickers.  “Oh I love hearing you mistress.”  So you moaned more as she mouthed at you and eventually pulled your underwear down too. She pressed her lips to you in a series of soft kisses along your slit, her fingers following to part your folds and tease you more. As you got wetter she hummed against you, trailing her tongue up to your clit for a few seconds before you sat back to watch how her fingers disappeared into you.  She was working on fitting a third finger when you realised she wouldn’t be fucking you so you didn’t need to be stretched and technically she’d stopped using her mouth and so wasn’t doing what you’d said. So you told her to stop. But you wanted to whine when she removed her hand because it really did feel good and you loved how she fucked you, so you told her to keep going.   “Which is it mistress? What do you want?”  “Fingers, please.”  You groaned happily as you felt three of her digits filling you and a second later her warm breath against your clit.     It didn’t take long at all for Lucy to make you cum. She moaned as you did, and worked you through it, with a, “Good job baby, such a good girl.”  The orgasm distracted you so that you didn’t catch it immediately but she continued to praise you between gentle licks to clean you up and it dawned on you that she wasn’t acting very submissive.   “Hey, I’m in charge here.”   “Sorry mistress, I forgot.”  “Well I’ll have to remind you,” you felt very proud of such a powerful line, “Go and bring me the strap.”  Lucy nodded obediently and hurried to get everything out of the cupboard, handing it to you with a chirpy, “Here you go mistress.”  It dangled from your hands, complicated confusing. You’d seen Lucy put it on before but weren’t quite sure where to begin yourself. Turning it in your hands, you tried to work out which bits your legs went through, but it was hard to focus when Lucy was speaking again.   “Mistress, I’m a little nervous about taking your cock.”  “How come?”  “Well I’m a little out of practice. It’s been ages since I took more than a couple of fingers. So you’ll have to get me really really wet and ready first and then probably you’ll have to fuck me more slowly to start before I can handle anything more. But I’m already very wet from eating you out so I’m sure it’ll be very easy for you to get me ready.”  “Oh, um. Uh, what do you mean?”  “Well, I’m not used to being fucked so you’ll have to finger me a lot first. Get me taking at least three fingers really well before I could handle your cock without it hurting.”  “Well I don’t want to hurt you.”  “I know mistress, you’re so sweet to me.” 

“Well lets start with this,” you jangled the strap, “help me get this on.”  “Of course mistress. It can be a little tricky but we just have to get it adjusted so it stays on you properly and then you’ll be able to finger me for a while and get me really drippy wet and then you’ll be able to fuck me for as long as you want until your legs start to hurt and if you’re not ready to stop then I can fuck myself on your cock for you.”  “Good girl,” you said, though hearing her lay everything out made it seem really hard. Your hand was sure to cramp from how much she’d need to be fingered and you weren’t sure your muscles were really cut out for how much effort fucking her would be. And that wasn’t even getting into how confusing the strap was to put on and how careful you’d have to be to keep Lucy safe and really you were already wet and ready and it would probably just be a lot easier to let her fuck you.   “Wait stop.” you caught Lucy’s arm before she could fasten the harness around you and your voice came out as a whine, “this is too hard.”  “What do you mean mistress?”  “Being in charge is too tricky. There’s so much to remember and I don’t understand how this thing goes on and I don’t want to hurt you by accident and it’s too hard. I was wrong. I don’t want to be in charge. I like when you tell me what to do and I like making you happy and you’re so so good at it and so smart to remember all the safety stuff and everything else.”  “Aww, my poor sweet girl. So you want me to do it for you?”  “Please.” 

She hummed as if she were thinking it over, “Well, okay. But I need you to tell me what you want.”  “Please be my mistress. Please be in charge. You can do whatever you want to me, just please tell me what to do again.”  Lucy smiled triumphantly, “good girl. Now hands and knees on the bed. Might as well use my cock since it’s out.” 

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I keep threatening to say something about Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but it keeps not happening. I either can't figure out what I want to write or am unable to actually write it, like I'll have an idea and then sit up, but that'll make my head get weird and make me give up on it for the rest of the day. Again.

I think I finally figured out what I want to talk about though, and if I can make it through 265 hours of the game itself (plus another 35 on Future Redeemed, the standalone DLC story) I can probably handle writing a single post about it, even if it takes me a few tries across several months and turns into kind of a retrospective on the entire series.

As a brief intro for context, in the summer of 2022 when the game came out my health had reached a new low point, even compared to the already not great lows it's been at other times in my life, and XC3 is honestly probably one of the reasons I'm still here now. And I don't just mean on Tumblr.

Ok, maybe that's a little too brief. I have a weird and wacky combination of physical/psych/neuro things that have been going on for years, but up until 2020 they were only partially disabling and left me moderately functional and still fairly happy, and they seemed to be improving for a change. Since that summer they've all been gradually going downhill though, and I've at least for the time being ended up basically completely disabled and unable to do a lot of basic things in my life, and I haven't been having a great time with it.

It doesn't help that I've gotten the absolute bare minimum support for a lot of it (or sometimes even less than that) because most of my doctors retired or moved or changed jobs in the past couple years, and along with it taking forever to get set up with new ones a lot of the new ones have been extremely reluctant to actually address any of my needs. It's super cool to not only get next to zero help with any of the new problems that came up but also not be able to get prescriptions for any of my psych meds and be effectively forcibly detransitioned. That's starting to slowly turn around now, but only barely.

Anyway, by the beginning of the summer of 2022 I was at the point where I was having periods where I was having trouble forming coherent sentences some of the time, and while my brain generating gibberish like "aspirational truth-pissing" or "post-kneecap society" is very funny (to me at least), it's not super useful. I'd become pretty isolated, a lot of friendships and relationships had become pretty distant for various reasons, and I'd had to move back in with the one person who actually abused me (which is pretty far in the past but still pretty uncomfortable).

Basically my life had next to nothing going for it at that point, not much was showing any signs of improving, and it was pretty hard to find anything to look forward to.

(ok so maybe that ended up being not so brief because I don't talk about all that stuff much and apparently I have a lot of feelings about it)

Good news, though! There's a new game coming out in my favorite series!

I have a long and complicated relationship with the Xeno games. I first played Xenogears before Xenosaga was even out, but I never finished it because some of the jankiness frustrated me (and I'm replaying it now and those things about it have aged really poorly, but it's still plenty interesting otherwise). And then I never really played Xenosaga myself (although it's probably next in line after I eventually finish Xenogears) because I never had a PS2, but I had friends who were super into it that I absorbed everything from.

And then by the time the first Xenoblade came out my Wii had already died. A couple years later I had a computer that could emulate it though, so I played it in Dolphin with the HD texture mod...until about halfway through the game, when my CPU caught on fire. A friend gave me a free replacement, but it was slower and didn't run stuff like that nearly as well, so I held off on finishing it until 2020 when I finally could afford new computer stuff (mostly because I had to spend some of my SSI backpay because you're only allowed to have at most $2000 in your bank account at any given time because this country hates disabled people).

And of course it was great.

And then I grabbed the Switch version so I could play Future Connected, which was also great, and then quickly moved on to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 after that...and then stopped playing that one for several months because Tora really grated on me. I think "blushy-crushy" is the point I gave up at. Thankfully I went back to it a bit later, because aside from that and some of the overly horny character designs it's pretty great overall, and Torna completely recontextualizes so much stuff and makes the base game even better.

I even played some of X, and I would've finished it too if my save hadn't gotten corrupted. Maybe some day I'll figure out how to use a memory editor or something to fix it, because it seems almost fine, and I don't really want to replay 70 hours of it...

So I was understandably pretty excited by the surprise announcement in early 2022 of the third game and then its release date getting pushed up even sooner, and even though my life had imploded further by that summer, some of that feeling carried through.

And you know what? Xenoblade Chronicles 3: also great. I know, big surprise. It looks great and the music's great and the actual gameplay is great (and much better explained than in the previous game), and all of that is great and has already been said by a million other people.

And they've also all had plenty to say about how the characters and their interactions and development are great, generally handled even better than in any of the previous games, and how the side quests are mostly great and actually advance character growth and world building, unlike a lot of them in the first game.

And then also lots of people have had lots to say about their mixed feelings about the story itself and its ending, which some people didn't like for what it didn't answer but which I personally did for the things it did focus on and the general vibes, and then there's been plenty of wild speculation on the implications of Future Redeemed too.

But it wasn't until I finished Future Redeemed and sat on it for a while that I think I figured out what I have to say.

I think what hit me the most about it is the way it expands on the base game and rest of the series, not in the literal narrative way that I've seen most people talking about (although that's definitely fun too) but more in terms of how it made me think about the third game and the series as a whole thematically.

By giving more context and more info about the motivations for the different sides of the conflict (and also introducing another side) it got me thinking about how the entire series can be looked at as how we (or anyone) approach the future, and it doesn't really frame any of the possible ways of doing that as inherently correct and unquestionable.

The central conflicts of each of the games are all about who gets to decide what the future will be and which people and ideas from the past/present should be brought into that future. The settings and situations they find themselves having to make those decisions in are also all the result of previous people's decisions and what was inherited from the past.

Is the future predetermined, or do/should people have free will to make their own choices? Should those choices be individual or collective or by a single central entity? If the outcomes of those decisions turn out to be flawed should they keep pursuing it and stick to the original vision or should it be replaced by something else? If there's been so much pain and suffering and loss in the past, is a future even desirable? Which existing things should be preserved, or should we just start over entirely?

And generally there's more than one answer presented for each of those questions, and often there's even more than one different way of approaching the same answer shown, e.g. you can have no future by preserving the present indefinitely so nothing changes and nothing is lost, or you can just delete fucking everything.

Even answers to those questions that are implicitly endorsed in one game by being associated with the protagonists of its story may turn out later to have more nuance to them. Ok, predestination and fate suck and we should all have free will to make our own choices. But now what if people use that free will to choose things based on fear and anxiety that ultimately restrict other people's free will and choices?

There's no simple answer, no one correct solution, and it takes continued hard work to push the world forward towards a better place. Even when people don't know or even can't know what led the world to the state it's in and all they know is that the way it is is cruel and unfair, they have the ability to come to their own conclusions about the answers of those questions and can work together with like-minded people they find to try to change the world to make it more like what they envision.

And that's real and how things work in reality too. We inherited the world in the state it's in from the people before us, who made their own decisions about those things. Sometimes it was genuinely what they thought would be best for everyone, sometimes it was lashing out because they'd been hurt, sometimes it was someone who didn't care about anyone but themself. But no matter what the reasons, it ultimately is the way it is, and we have to take that and do with it what we will.

Only we, the people who are here right now, can decide what the future will be. Only we can use the power of friendship to kill god. Or heck, you spend half the game in XC3 literally building mutual aid networks. That seems like a pretty reasonable place to start.

[velowri]

Novelvember Day 8 (Late)

I FORGOT TO UPDATE LAST NIGHT -

11724 words!! Some connection building and BACKSTORY! For Diric, at least...

-*-

Their wild run across Vrachos and the scrap with the assassins clearly lowered Rykos’s guard. Diric kept his mouth shut as he continued arming himself, stepping away from the armor rack to reach under the bedframe for his weapons. He could see Rykos wavering on just how much to tell him; after all, they had only just met within the past hour, but Diric had ensured Rykos and Veli had gotten to safety. That had to work in his favor somehow.

"I'm sure she'll explain once she’s feeling better,” Rykos sighed, not taking the opening to explain himself. “Jhiris should be here soon, if he went back to our lodgings.”

“It’ll still be a bit of a trek; we dropped at least two or three tiers from the Foreign Arc,” Diric pointed out as he straightened. “On foot going quietly, that’ll be an hour or two. You should get some rest.”

Rykos hummed, as if not really hearing, but Diric made sure to focus on getting his weaponry checked and in place. Arrows counted and in order, quiver intact – over his left shoulder, followed by the wrapped oilskin protecting his unstrung longbow. Then Diric lifted his greatsword carefully up from the bed. The weapon was a little shorter than Diric was tall, with a sturdy leather hilt and respectable crossguard. The one thing that made Diric’s blade somewhat different from another in a smith’s shop was the split blade: a second grip filled a handspan about a third of the way down the blade from the crossguard. Diric made use of it as he carefully eased the sword over his right shoulder, ensuring the off-hilt set on a catch that then secured over the crossguard.

“…that’s a fine blade,” Rykos spoke after a moment. Diric tilted his head to realize Rykos was looking over his sword with a practiced eye. It wasn’t a soldier’s familiarity, unfortunately, but an appreciation for craftsmanship, at least. “Is it from your homeland?”

“Hardly,” Diric scoffed. “No, this…it was a gift. From someone that helped me a few years ago. Said it was more than it seemed, but for now it’s been a decent blade to keep me goin’.”

“Sometimes, that’s all a weapon needs to be,” Rykos pointed out, lifting his spear slightly. It was still bloody from the fight, but as Rykos realized it he drew out a stained rag to start cleaning off the spearhead. “But there can be a time when it can be more, too. Depending on the scenario.”

“For now, it’s sharp. Sharper than fists,” Diric chuckled, and a faint smile pulled up the corners of Rykos’s lips. Once armed, Diric nodded in satisfaction. “Get some sleep; I’ll watch for your mage.”

Diric walked past the bed to take one of the chairs, lift it into his arms, and carry it closer to the door to his room. He set it such that both Rykos and Veli were behind him, though if either of them was to get up Diric wouldn’t be impeding their movement. Diric heard Rykos settle back onto the bed and fall quiet once Diric was seated at his post.

A deeper calm sank into the room, a stark contrast to the insane sprint from Vrachos’s height. It let Diric think, flexing his left hand slowly before his right rubbed at his eyes. Something had happened, in that fight and just before. The ache behind his eye was too familiar, too recent; only one thing could have made that pain return, and it was impossible such a thing could enter Vrachos, let alone realize he was here. But the assassin’s panicked whisper lingered in his thoughts.

What are you?

He had only been living on the surface for five years; Diric’s entire life had been lived in the vast underground city of Arasan, surrounded by politics and secrets but never allowed to reach through to test the game himself. Half-blooded, a shame to his noble mother, and hidden from view so her status wasn’t impacted. Better to be a successful, powerful, influential woman with no attachments than a walking scandal. So, when Diric finally had control of his life, he took a path that would keep her clear of him and he could make his own name: the path of the soldier, someone that could earn his place despite his heritage. But he ended up bottom-tier, trawling the outer tunnels and killing monsters that could threaten the city.

Diric winced at another twinge in his head as his thoughts wandered to a dark, blank stretch. The only things that pierced that haze were pain and hundreds of voices pressed within his own – enough that Diric itched at long scars down his right cheek, coiling around his neck. The best he could guess, from the last memory he could clearly call his own ahead of that emptiness, was that he had been captured and nearly consumed by a colony of no’jaa. Brain-eating parasites with a singular hive mind, no’jaa weren’t a threat to dismiss – which was how they had ambushed Diric’s unit and slaughtered nearly everyone. Those that hadn’t died in the attack had either managed to escape somehow, or…

Diric clenched his left hand into a swift fist, to ground himself here, in Vrachos. Not in the darkness that had suppressed him, consumed him, until, somehow, he must have escaped.

The clerics at the temple he had come to, voice lost and memories shards, had told him a date seventy years later than Diric could clearly recall. They had been astounded; he had been mystified. He should be dead. He should be a mass of individual white parasites puppeteering his bones with no sense of who he was, entirely enmeshed with the hive.

“So you survived.”

Diric bolted out of his seat, starting to reach up to the hilt of his sword, as the voice cut through his thoughts. Jhiris remained poised in the doorway, unfazed at Diric’s instinctive movement as his gaze swept the room. Once Jhiris appeared satisfied that Rykos and Veli were in one piece, the mage leaned forward over Diric with narrow eyes and slightly pursed lips.

“Let me be clear about something,” Jhiris murmured. “The wellbeing of Prince Rykos and Lady Kyveli are my purview. You? Are nothing more than a guard. Or guide, whatever it is Veli believes you’ll be useful for. But there is nothing else you provide. Once the prince achieves his goal, you will leave our company. Well-paid, yes, but you will leave.”

A chill ran down Diric’s spine as he was effectively forced to sit back in his chair. Mage Jhiris might be, but that tone of voice reminded Diric too much of his superiors in the army. Diric could only tilt his head down slightly in acquiescence, which was enough of a response for Jhiris to ease away from him.

“…you did well to bring them here, at least,” Jhiris confessed. “We shall rest, then leave in the morning.”

Diric managed to make a stronger nod as Jhiris breezed past, undoubtedly taking claim to the remaining chair in the room. He had to take a few moments for the tension to bleed back out of his body, leaning forward to press his forehead into his hands. “What the hells have you gotten mixed up in, Vajon.”

[alexie-writes]

Extra Ordinary Chapter 12

A/N: We're almost to the point where we head out to the academy!! Just a couple more chapters now!!

Series Masterlist Prev Next

Chapter 12: Missing

Not long after, a social worker showed up and decided that Michael would stay with Ostin and Essie and their family for the time being, as the Lisses already had permission from the state to be guardians. Michael was released from the hospital not long after, as he had no serious injuries.

As the group walked back into the Liss’ apartment, Mrs. Liss stopped them. “Michael, honey, you can get your things and bring them over. You three will share a room for the time being.”

“I’d like to stay in my own room for now, if that’s okay.” Michael answered softly.

Mrs. Liss took a minute to think about it. “It is just down the hall. I guess that’ll be alright. Take this with you.” Mrs. Liss took a bag of red licorice from the pantry, hanging it to Michael. “It will help.”

“Thanks.” Michael said, not looking at any of them.

Essie reached over to try to comfort him, but he moved away.

“Want Essie or me to come over with you?” Ostin asked, looking up at Michael.

“Thanks, but not now.” Michael said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Ostin nodded. “We understand.”

Michael walked out of the door to go to his apartment. Ostin went to the kitchen to get a snack while he decided to reread one of his many books, and Essie told no one in particular that she was going to take a shower.

She grabbed a change of clothes from her and Ostin’s shared room, and walked into the restroom. She closed the door, looking at her exhausted face in the mirror. In the past two days, they had found out an evil corporation was after them, their friend’s mom went missing, and their friend ended up in the hospital. She wasn’t sure what could happen to make this worse.

About a half hour later, Essie left the restroom, finally feeling somewhat better. She was in her room, getting out her journal to write in, when there was a knock at the door. She got to the door at the same moment as Ostin, who had chosen a toaster strudel as a snack, holding it in one hand as he opened the door with the other. They looked up to see a terrified looking Michael standing in front of them on the other side of the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Ostin asked, looking like he was trying to figure out how this could’ve possibly gotten worse.

“They’ve got Taylor.” Michael answered in a shocked whisper, as he motioned for them to follow him immediately. They ran down the hall to Michael’s apartment as fast as they could without it seeming too weird.

As soon as they closed the door, Michael began to explain, “Mr. and Mrs. Ridley showed up a few minutes after I got back here. I thought that they were here about my mom, but they asked if I knew where Taylor was.”

“Taylor was kidnapped, too?” Essie asked, already knowing the answer.

Michael nodded. “She never came home yesterday. Apparently someone pretending to be her texted them saying she was running away, and to not look for her. Then they were texted ‘tell Michael I’ll be seeing him soon.’”

Ostin paled. “So when Maddie texted her yesterday…”

“It was someone else. She was already gone.” Michael said.

Essie put a hand over her mouth, trying not to feel any more sick. “What are we going to do?” She whispered.

“I don’t know. We have to figure something out.” Michael said, pacing the living room.

Ostin sat on the couch, trying to think of any way to fix this.

Essie pulled out one of her notebooks and sat down at the kitchen table where they’d celebrated Michael’s birthday three days ago. She began to try to plot out some kind of idea, scratching out her ideas every few minutes, becoming more and more frustrated with how stupid every one of them seemed.

After the third crossed out page, she noticed the page began to get blurry, and she began to cry softly, putting away her notebook. She wasn’t going to figure this out that easily, and definitely not while she was crying too much to see her notes.

After a little over an hour of the three of them discussing and formulating their questions and ideas, Ostin had a realization.

Michael spoke, still pacing the living room, “I just don’t get it, how did they know who I am? How did they know about our powers?”

“That’s it!” Ostin shouted, causing Essie to jump in her chair.

“What’s it?” Asked Essie and Michael simultaneously.

Ostin jumped off of the couch, looking at the two of them. “I’ve been trying to figure out why they came after you at all. You weren’t looking for those records. It’s because they don’t care about the records.” He said, looking at Michael with a grin on his face.

Essie looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean they don’t care about the records? Why would they have systems in place to check if someone looks them up if they don’t care?”

“They’re not trying to hide the information about what their machine did. They’re looking for the survivors. And when they found Taylor, they found you!” Ostin said, pointing at Michael.

“Wait, I thought we established that they were looking for survivors? They seem to have powers, I thought we knew that?” Essie was getting more and more confused as this conversation progressed.

“What do you mean, ‘we knew that,’ Essie? Just, these guys have the records of every baby who survived. If they all have powers, like Essie apparently put together without telling us, then that could be worth billions.” Ostin said, shooting a look at his cousin.

“That’s a big ‘if,’” Michael said, trying to stop the two from arguing before it started.

“Is it? You said the other kid, Zeus, shocked your mother, right? So we know there’s at least one other… mutant. The only other people we know who were born at that hospital at the time have electrical powers. So, statistically, we’re batting a thousand. There were seventeen children who survived. Maybe they all have powers.” Ostin paused for effect, hitting the palm of his hand with his fist. “It was a fake. The entire thing with the gunman was a fake. It was a test.”

“That’s one fucked up test.” Essie said, scowling at the floor.

“Why would they do that?” Michael asked, looking at Ostin.

“Because you don’t pick up an electric eel without getting shocked. They had to see what you could do. You said the man in sunglasses appeared after you shocked the gunman, right?” Ostin asked.

“Yeah. He said, ‘well done, Michael.’” Michael stopped pacing, standing in the center of the room. “You might be onto something. He knew my name and what I did. And Clyde…”

“Hold up. Clyde?” Essie said, looking like she had no idea where the conversation was going.

“The gunman, he looked really nervous, like he didn’t want to be there. He was shaking like crazy. And his gun didn’t even have bullets.” Michael looked at the ground. “But then why did they take my mom and not me?”

“They probably wanted to take both of you, but didn’t get to. We came back outside pretty quickly.” Essie said. “They were gone by the time we got there. They didn’t have the time to get you too.”

“So they’re probably still looking for me.”

“They don’t have to.” Ostin corrected him.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“They have your mother. They know you’ll come looking for them. Whoever took your mom took Taylor. So if we can find one of them, we can find the other.”

Michael looked up suddenly. “I think I know where Taylor is.”

“Where?”

“The academy.” Michael ran back into his room, returning with the brochure that he’d gotten from Taylor the previous day, handing it to Ostin. “Here. It’s got to be the place. Or at least it’s connected.”

Essie walked over to the two of them to get a look at the brochure.

Ostin looked up at Michael. “I think you’re right. I’m betting that the Elgen Academy is really just for kids with electrical powers.”

Michael considered it. Why else would a school only take seventeen students? “You could be right.”

“Now what?”

“We tell the police.”

“No. Absolutely not. There’s no way they’d ever believe us we’re three teenagers with what sounds, at best, like a conspiracy theory. At best they’ll laugh at us.” Essie shut the idea down.

“Why would they do that?”

“Think about it. Three teenagers walk into a police station and tell them that a secret agency is kidnapping mothers and cheerleaders?” Ostin answered.

“It sounds like a bad joke.” Essie added.

“But we have proof,” Michael said, looking annoyed.

“No, we have a hunch and some articles on the internet. They'll think we’re crazy. And even if we somehow convinced them to look into it, this is a multibillion-dollar company. If they find anyone snooping around, they’ll just move your mom and Taylor to some place else and then we’ll have nothing.” Ostin began pacing. “We need to know more about our enemy. But it’s not like they’re going to have a Facebook profile. Where do we learn more?”

“Clyde, the gunman,” Michael said.

“But he’s in jail.”

“Lieutenant Lloyd could get us to him.”

Ostin stopped pacing. “Why would he do that?”

“He said their first interrogation was worthless. Maybe I can convince him that I might be more effective.” Michael took out a business card. “I’m going to call him.” He said, walking over to the landline.

Essie tried to make sense of the half of a conversation that she could hear from Michael, before he hung up the phone. “So? What’s the consensus?”

“He wants to talk to his partner.” Michael answered.

The three waited anxiously next to the phone for about ten minutes until it rang, making Essie nearly jump out of her skin.

Michael answered and spoke for another couple of minutes before hanging up again. He turned to the other two. “We’re in.”

Essie gave him a high five, grinning.

“Well done. You know, you could always just shock Clyde again.” Ostin said.

“Maybe not, considering interrogation rooms have both film and audio recordings, so that would cause more problems if anyone noticed.” Essie stated.

Michael shook his head, looking serious. “The man helped kidnap my mother. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.”

Essie nodded in understanding. “Please just stay safe.”

A/N: I am a bit upset that I don't get to write about Taylor and Tara's meeting, it's one of my favorite parts. However, this is from Essie's pov, so it couldn't be helped.

Taglist: @sam-vey

[hellmouth-manor]

Playing the Hero || Kamiya || Trial 3 || Re: Nike, Micah, Hibiki, Yukiko.

You know, hearing everything that Yukiko was saying was starting to click… Maybe he was too sweet for his own good, and, maybe there were things he could be better about, sure, that all stood out to him… Hell, he even had predicted her taking a jab at his intelligence, something he was preparing himself for as soon as the reveal had happened! After all, she had told him time and time again that he wasn’t stupid… That much was obviously a lie, something he knew from the very beginning…

Yet others spoke, others expressed their anger or disdain toward Yukiko a few in particular, starting from Nike, someone who he had gained constant respect for in their time there, they were the first person to actually lie to him, and he was the first person to really come clean about it all… At the end of the day, he knew he was a good person who he could rely on, so, everything being said was clicking more and more, they did deserve better, the friends Cass had made didn’t deserve this, none of them did.

Then came Micah, the other person who he had grown to trust in their time there, someone who he gladly would sit and talk about Jerma moments with, given the chance… It caused him to give a look to him, as Yukiko retorted against his every statement, deciding to say one thing in objection to her statements. As if the entire time her comments began the sadness for Cass seemed to fade. He would miss his dear friend, but, this wasn’t her, and he likely would never see her again.Yet every jab at Hibiki just intensified this determination on his own part, thinking more and more back to the past conversation he and Hibiki had in the past.

‘...I...might have to work out a better name, but...alright. You'll have...some sort of sound based power, for sure. M-Maybe the kind that'll perk the rest of the group up, and make them stronger. Like in real life. Is that alright, Kamiya-san?’

Hibiki’s words were really starting to resonate with him more and more over time, it was something that he hadn’t really thought about all that much, until this very moment, where the person he looked to as a hero here, someone who he had always viewed as a positive figure in his eyes was brought down to his absolute lowest, his best friend suffering more and more as she spoke.

‘People are supposed to do the right thing when they can, that's just how it goes! That'd make you a hero too, anyways! S-So call yourself the hero, huh?’

Maybe he could do try to take that spot in the spotlight, just once for Hibiki this time. A deep breath as his grin grew, all the former sadness seeming to fade as he did so.

“Where the fuck do I begin with all’a this?” Kamiya paused, pointing to Micah first. “First of all! Bro! I’d support yer tier list any day! I wanna hear it! So get fucked Yukiko! He’s got one person who’s willin’ t’ listen!” Okay that was a bad first start at the hyping the crowd thing, but, he was working his way up!

Motioning over to Hibiki now he offered a grin, trying to be a light that could drag the hero out of the darkness, he had promised him he’d do that after all. In the darkest of hours he’d be there to support him, that’s what friends did, right?

“--A heroes gotta rise up from the ashes an’ fight another fight, right? We'll both play the part'a the hero today, you an' me both can work through this t'gether, man... An' I know this is probably rough, an' it's takin' its toll on ya... But I'll be there t' offer a shoulder every second of the way, okay?”

And with that, he turned his attention back to Yukiko, offering the brightest grin he could possibly muster at this time.

“There's a lot I could say t' ya Yukiko, but, I think the main thing I wanna comment on is how funny it is ya say we don’t deserve t’ breathe the air yer breathin’. ‘Cause way after yer burnin’ in hell we’ll still be breathin’ it without ya, sucks thinkin’ ‘bout that, don’t it?”

[aphrodita-from-foam]

**** Feel free to ignore this if it's too much; I just had to get it out and this is a rash decision to send it but here goes nothing - you know who**** If I ever saw you again I don’t know how I’d react. Our last sighting was under horrible circumstances, I’m sorry for blind sighting you like that. I don’t know how much you know or how private things had to be, but I was a mess every time I saw you, I hate how everything happened. We’ll never fully make sense to me, but I think I’ve known that from the start. I found all my old poetry from 2016. (What a sucker punch) I’ve been thinking of publishing a collection eventually so I’m interspersing some old with the new (but not the ones for you, I can’t bring myself to do it) Why do I still write to you? I don’t have a clear answer there. I don’t even know if I’ll gather the courage to leave this for you. She knows everything, which is why I can’t respond to you. It's been quite the rollercoaster of a year. I really didn’t expect to get to the point where I’d be making you an accidental visit like that... It's been a rough few months. It’s been twice not once, I just opted out of inpatient the second time. How did they let me get away with that? Unclear. I guess I’m good with words. I’m taking the semester off of school to get my meds under control. I don’t have to be telling you any of this, but I know you care and as much as I don’t speak it I still care too. I think I always will. But we crossed a line. If we had tiptoed a little softer, If I could have just been honest with her from the start, Who knows where we would be? Colleagues? Friends? Confidants? Who knows what we could ever be now? Only time will tell. I’m just writing this to say that even though it’s been dark, I am alive and well. I hope the same goes for you. I can’t contact you any other way, but I’ve thought of leaving you something for some time now, I just didn’t know what to say or how to even say it. I want the best of everything in the world for you and I always will. Looking at the old writings is still gut-wrenching because it was so intense. One of your lines has stuck in my head and will never leave: I was real, and I was here, with you. That’ll never go away. I hope your life is full of love and laughter and if this is in ill taste and causes pain then to believe me, I’m sorry. That’s not my intention. I just know that you know I was in pain and didn’t know what to do or say nor were you allowed to, and I don’t want you to worry. I don’t know how much your coworkers are allowed to tell you, but it was an emotional stay knowing you were so close. I don’t say that to be rude, it’s because I wanted to talk to you but couldn’t. I guess here is where I’ll end. Good luck in everything you put your passion towards, anyone will be forever lucky to have you. Maybe one day we’ll meet again, and if we don’t I hope you keep the songs. I’ll never forget anything.

Thank you for writing. It’s good to hear from you. I’m sorry for having pushed the boundaries between us. I’m going inpatient for a while myself and also took the semester off- what a wild year this has been- I miss talking to you, I miss seeing you and holding you. I wish I was in your life- in whatever capacity… I’m doing a lot of step work as well, sex and love addicts anon, it’s a great program and they have helped me heal so so much. I’m happy to know you are alive and prioritizing your mental health- it has helped me son much to cut back several hours of work and take a break from school. I’m single now, for the first time in a long time and this time- I am okay with it… I’ve been rediscovering myself and learning to love myself and be kind to myself.

I have so much love and softness for you. I talked about you just the other day to a close friend- told him how much my heart yearns for you, but how we always get our timing wrong.

I fear you may be my life long “almost” and “what if”, it’s painful to think of all the lovely scenarios we could have been, but through the program and (a lot) of therapy, I’ve been accepting the fate of what we are.

I believe you in you. I love you, even after everything and only want the happiness and kindness you give to the world for yourself.

Publish your beautiful work, fall in love with yourself, grow, nurture, and heal.

Forever yours,

Lola.

[everalii]

So, today is the last day of my crazy december working hours and I must say a few things that happened

I had terrible cramps on my period, my boss had to change my shift bc I was almost passing out at work. I loved that she did it, bc I got some rest, the medicine did it’s job and I was finally a functional human at night.

I became quite a good saleswoman (is this the right term? correct me please). Experience is all, and I learned to manage the different types of customers. Some do require more of your social skills, others are quite rude, and others are just quiet and want to do their shopping in peace. 

Honestly, multi-functionalism sucks, but if you have to do it, you do it. And I did it. Taking care of the office and part of the store at the same time sucks, I almost got insane. But somehow, everything worked out fine.

If you have fibromyalgia, working in stores might not be your thing. I know that from experience. While I’m grateful for everything I did, learned and endure, for the strength I realized I have, I’ll never work like this again. And this is a vow. I’m currently looking for another job, one that’ll not demand so much from me.

Last night, I ate a cake one of my coworkers brought to us, and I got intoxicated. Terrible stomache ache, headache, dizzyness, mind foggyness, pain all around, even threw up a couple times. I was in no condition to stay until 10pm, so I asked my manager if I could call it off for the day to go to the hospital. Se saw me rushing to the restroom to throw up, so she decided I had to go. I’m better now, my boyfriend took care of me.

The stress is real, y’all. The whole team is almost jumping on each others necks because we’re so drained we can’t even look at the each other. We needed a whole week off just to rest and recharge. But, this is capitalism, we’re not allowed. I got to a point where my ADHD and tiredness simply took over and I can’t function, I’m using a calculator to add 4 to 96, my brain can’t work right anymore.

So that was my experience from working monday-to-monday, 9am to 10pm in december. This is UNHUMAN, CRUEL and VILE. I learned a lot, yes, but mostly of what I don’t want in my life ever again.

And please, BE KIND TO THE SALESPEOPLE! I’ll never get tired of screaming this to the world. BE KIND TO US!

[no-droids]

Ask Me Again Tomorrow

gif credit @pedros-pascal​

Part Sixteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 16.3K

Warnings: SMUTTTTT, following/stalking, some fluffy moments but mostly just a lil action and interaction, I don’t think there’s any other warning besides language and the smut (comm sex WITH A TWIST YALLLLL) but if you happen to find something else that warrants a tag, please let me know and I will do so accordingly!

A/N: The response to this story has grown beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined and I genuinely thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the privilege of writing for you.  Hope this one ends up being okay and I’ll get to work on the next chapter soon!

***

Headstart—12:17pm:

The sky is so pretty.  There isn’t much to look at on the surface—rolling hills and plains, grassy but with dry bare spots breaking up the green stretches, but the sky.  It’s an oil painting above you, pastel swishes of yellows and pinks and purples with an enormous ringed planet taking up half the horizon and another sizable moon hanging high.

You should probably be running.  Like, for real sprinting, but you can’t push yourself to go faster than a brisk walk.  It’s so… free out here, more hills springing up every time you get to the top of the next, warm air filling your lungs.  Even though you know realistically that the beginning will likely be the hardest—where you need to focus most on running and putting distance between you instead of hiding—truth be told, you’re not foreseeing making it more than a full day.  You’re going to try, obviously, but in the grand scheme, you wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he finds you tomorrow.  So, instead of wasting all your energy going as fast as you physically can right out of the gate, you just decide to stroll and think for a little bit.

You know what your goal is.  Obviously, to last as long as you can, but more specifically… well, if Din is going to chase after you, then he’s going to try to think like you.  Anticipate your movements, if he can’t already see the tracks you leave plain as day.  Very soon, he’ll be walking this same exact pathing, following the footprints you’re leaving behind, but if you’re ever able to shake him or throw him off course, he doesn’t have a tracking fob.  He doesn’t have any mechanical device that points him in your direction—if you can lose him with the footprints, then he’ll have to rely solely on predicting you. Which means you need to think… exactly the opposite of yourself if you want to outsmart him.

That’s harder than it sounds though, because… is he going to predict you predicting him?  At what point does it stop?  You somehow have trouble seeing this as an advantage the way he said it would be—you almost wish you had someone else chasing you, someone you didn’t know and someone who didn’t know you if only so this paradox could end before it begins.

You’re walking for about ten minutes before spotting a dirt road in the distance.  There’s a person following it in the direction of the sun—you don’t know this planet’s magnetic field but you do know it’s after noon and the sun would set on Arvala-7 in the west, so that’s what you’ll call it for now.  You call out to them as soon as you’re in range, and the stranger turns to you.

“Excuse me!”  It’s a woman, you see it as you get closer.  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but can you tell me where this road leads?”

She removes a sheer yellow shawl covering her dark hair and gives you a friendly smile.  “Hello,” the lady greets, before spinning around and pointing back the way she came.  “Osiruu is a few hours that way.  There’s not much there, but it will take you to G’ila, a transport hub with many opportunities for drifters, or Nariss, the capital.  I’m on my way to Shabeth,” she points in the other direction.  “It’s far—a day’s walk, but it’s a holy place and offers quite the view.  I would be glad for the company, but I understand its lack of practical appeal.”

So this place is safe enough to be inviting strangers along on your travels, noted.  You’re going to have to make the decision right now, then.  Which path should you take?

Something deep inside you tells you that you want to see this holy place, and just from a few sentences, you already like this woman and feel safe with her.  But then all of a sudden, you remember something.

Last known locations tell you a lot about a quarry, Din’s voice drifts back to you, sounding soft and distant from the dark forests of Naboo.  Smart ones go to populated planets, planets like Coruscant, planets that make it nearly impossible to find people.  Brave ones go to dangerous planets, suicidal ones try their luck in the Unknown Regions, idiots continue to go about their business on their homeworld without caring.  But planets like this—like Naboo… those are the pacifists.  The ones that don’t ever put up a fight.

You suppose you should decide what kind of quarry you want to be.  Friendly company and a view is something you normally crave—it’s something your soul speaks to after going without it for so long during your previous life.  You never pictured yourself as the fighting type.  When Din first asked you, you told him you wouldn’t run from him if he was chasing you, and choosing to accompany this kind stranger to her destination is essentially just that.  Sacrificing a chase for a pretty view.

“Does Shabeth have a sizable population?”  You ask her, and she shakes her head.

“It’s the sight of an annual pilgrimage that happens in a few months, but it’s beautiful there and I like to go whenever I can,” she tells you with a soft smile.  “But there’s nothing for miles outside it, I’m afraid.”

Your footprints will lead directly there.  He’ll find you easily.

“It sounds very nice, but I need to find somewhere with a lot of people,” you give her an apologetic smile.  Truly, you think she would’ve made for a nice friend.  “Thank you for your help, though, and good luck with your journey!  I hope we meet again.”

“Do you need any food or supplies?”  She asks you, and you stop short of passing her by.  “I don’t have much with me, but know what it’s like to be a newcomer to Sanctuary II.  I’d be glad to help.”

Good Maker, is this how everybody is here or did you just hit the jackpot with this lady?  She seems like… you, almost.  Her voice is gentle, she looks like she’d give nice hugs.  You’re about to politely turn her down, but then you realize the brilliant opportunity that’s presented itself in her image.

“Actually, this might sound like a really strange question, but…” you tell her, before looking down at her feet.  “Wanna trade shoes with me?”

***

Headstart—6:12pm:

You don’t think it’ll work, but as you walk into a small settlement a few hours later in a unfamiliar and worn pair of sandals, you decide that you’ll need to do this as often as possible.  You can’t come up with anything else that’ll throw him off your physical trail besides constantly switching shoes—is that bad?  Are you just an idiot with no hope?  You’ve had—you check your watch—like, five hours to think of a game plan, and all you’ve come up with is shoes?  You’re screwed.

At least there’s food here.  Plenty.  There’s vendors stationed along the street, multiple people passing by and going about their business.  Osiruu, that nice woman said—not much here, but you think she was wrong.  There’s children giggling and jumping rope on the corner, a shopkeeper sweeping her storefront, a graying man with an empty cup plucking an unfamiliar melody on an unfamiliar instrument—and while your tummy growls and you know you should quickly buy supplies and be on your way, you still stop for just a few minutes to listen.

It’s a lovely tune.  You drop a few credits in his cup after he finishes and find yourself humming it as you look at the plethora of goods being offered by the vendors.  Water, food—you buy enough of everything to sustain you for at least a couple days, not wanting to go hungry but also feeling realistic over optimistic.  The cuisine is foreign and you just point to things that look appetizing since you’re not sure about the name or pronunciation, but after paying and taking a bite into a rather large piece of purple fruit, your eyes nearly cross at how sweet and tasty it is.  Holy Maker, that might just be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.  You ask for two more after you finish the first, tucking one in your backpack next to your blaster and munching on the other as you keep browsing.

Suddenly you see shoes—yes.  Fucking shoes, your salvation.  You take a good look at all your options, of which, there aren’t many.  Generic men's, women's, and children's, all in the same color and design.  It’s good in a way—you see most people walking around in the same type of clothing here and you pray there’s not a way for him to track your gait or the whole thing is a bust, but truthfully, what you’re most worried about is the fact that you’ll create a brand new set of footprints wherever your old ones disappear.  Unless you trade with someone else, you won’t ever have a back pathing, you know that Din will probably be able to easily spot it.

“Three pairs of these, please,” you point to the correct shoes and tell him your size, but then—“Oh wait, actually, can I actually have one of them that’s the next size up?  And another that’s the same but in men's?”

The man behind the counter gives you an odd look but acquiesces, measuring the size of your preferred pair to multiple men’s shoes to find one that looks roughly the same—you doubt he’s ever had a request like this, but you’re also a generous tipper.  His smile is grateful when you tell him to keep the change and then you’re stuffing the new shoes into your backpack and moving onward.

Would there be some kind of map here, you wonder?  One that shows distance so you won’t waste time trying to reach a place you won’t be able to walk to?  That lady said a transport hub and the capital are through this settlement, but she didn’t provide much information beyond that.  You don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere when he finally catches up to you, you’ll need some place to hide.

When you stop to ask an elderly gentleman as he passes by, he freely provides you a basic gist.  There’s a large forest beyond Osiruu—after it will be a road that passes through a few notable places, with a town called Sijua to the west that leads north to G’ila, and Devain to the east that leads northeast to Nariss.  Both are within walking distance, though it may take a couple days to reach your destination.

Alright then.  Through the forest, you suppose.  You probably should’ve asked which way is east, but he’s already leaving and you don’t have the nerve to ask him to stop again.  You have a finger point, that’s all you need.  Making sure to use one of the small restrooms near the square before heading out, you eventually decide to make your way towards the direction he said this forest would be.

***

Headstart—6:58pm:

A bus.

You’re not going to take it, of course, but it’s the perfect solution to the problem you’ve been mulling over.  It’s at the very edge of the small settlement, and you quickly speed up into a half-jog as soon as you hear its engine running.

“Last call for the seven o’clock!”  A large man stationed near the doors yells as you approach.  “Last bus to G’ila until tomorrow!”

The sun is setting and you have to extend your hand out in front of you to not be blinded by it.  “Hello,” you give him a smile, before grabbing one of the handles on the side and stepping up onto the metal platform.

“Ah!”  The man quickly stops you, moving to stand in front of the open doors.  He’s as wide as he is tall, big enough that he blocks the entire exit.  “That’ll be ten credits, miss.”

“Oh,” you say, patting your empty pockets and pulling your eyebrows inwards, trying not to move too much in case the sizable amount of credits you have stashed in your backpack happen to rattle.  “Oh, no.  I think I lost my wallet.”

He sighs.  “Off the bus then please, miss.  Come back tomorrow if you find it.”

You nod, leaning your forearm against the paneling and beginning to take your shoes off.  “Will it be parked in the same place exactly?”

The driver looks curiously at you, clearly confused at both the strange question and your strange actions.  “I’m sorry?  Please—off the bus.”

“One second,” you tell him, now barefoot on the platform and digging into your backpack for the slightly larger sized shoes you bought earlier.  The sound of credits clink against your blaster, but you hope he takes your lead in purposefully ignoring them.  “Does the bus to G’ila park in this spot every single day?”

“Yes,” the man tells you impatiently, eyeing the way you’re stepping into the new pair with a subtle look of distaste.  Everyone is polite here, it seems.  “It will arrive back at seven am sharp with passengers from G’ila, in the same exact place.  Please get off the bus.”

“Thank you, sir,” you tell him with a smile, watching him step to the side to allow you to drop down into the dirt again and continue on your way.

Brilliant, if you do say so your fucking self.  Eliminate the need for a back pathing.  All footprints facing this direction are going to be the first footprints, and all of them facing the opposite way are going to be the last; if Din manages to figure out you didn’t take the bus, then he won’t be able to tell which new set are yours and which belong to the other passengers.  You pray the helmet can’t track gaits, but while you’re still paying enough attention, you make sure to keep your steps just slightly longer and even try placing more weight on the edges of your feet to make it look like you have a slightly higher arch than you actually do.  You’d put a pebble inside of them or something, but you know you’re going to be walking through the night and you don’t want to commit to having your feet hurt more than you already know they’re going to.

Eventually the quaint shops and small houses disappear behind you, and the sun setting over the horizon turns the clouds above turn more dusty green and brown than yellow and pink.  You hope Din opened up the ramp after you left.  You want him to see the sky.

***

Headstart—9:34pm

The forest here is different from Naboo, too.

Maybe it was because you only saw it while you were in crisis-mode, but that forest seemed much scarier and darker than this one.  The vegetation there was thick and overgrowing, but these trees look like they’ve never had leaves on them at all.  No twigs or small branches that sprout from the trunks—the branches are all thick and gnarly, criss-crossing with each other with how close they’ve grown together.  You bet their roots are practically one at this point, stretching for miles and miles but all sharing the same system.

Because there aren’t any leaves, there's nothing to block the moonlight shining clear and crystalline through the twisting maze of branches.  Sanctuary II appears to have a sister moon—Sanctuary I, perhaps?—that’s likely a similar size, because it’s the same one you've seen all day and it’s barely moved a few degrees that you can tell.  It must orbit incredibly close and be tidal-locked with this one then.  Two massive satellites swinging around each other as they circle a ringed gas giant, but it makes a stunning view and reflects more than enough light to see.

The sky is deep blue and maroon and you’ve been walking in a straight line for hours, using the stationary moon overhead as your guide.  The only issue with this plan that you’ve been able to come up with is that there’s no widely traveled path through the trees—even you can see your footprints and the clear trail you’re leaving behind.  You’ve been trying for a while to figure out another clever evasion tactic, but it’s harder than it sounds.  Can’t just change shoes again, that’ll be a dead giveaway.  How do you lose him?

You stop for a second, reaching into your bag to grab some water and stay hydrated.  Looking up once more at the beauty of the swirling colors peeking through the branches above you, you find yourself pausing after returning the bottle to your pack.  There are… an atrocious number of branches up there, and all of them are long and tangled and thick.  Sturdy.

You’ve… never climbed a tree before.

Without thinking much beyond that, you decide to bend your knees and jump, grabbing hold of one of the strong wooden tubes over your head and then swinging your legs up.  Ouch—the bark scrapes against your palms and you have to hold on tight with your thighs while you shimmy yourself upwards, but at least the wood is solid as fuck.  It takes you a minute or two, but you’re eventually able to shuffle yourself around so you’re straddling the thick branch, and then you look out to see the large collection of them criss-crossing in every direction around you.

Oof, this is dangerous.  You know it even before you start.  The gaps leading to the ground are bigger and more numerous than your potential pathing forward, but the only thing that gives you reassurance is how thick the wood is—you’re almost certain the branches aren’t going to break as long as you’re careful.

Okay.  Shoes, these are too big for the kind of dexterity you’re going to need.  You take them off slowly, being extra careful not to drop them, and then exchange them with the better-fitting pair you bought earlier, making a mental note that the sandals and the larger shoes are the two you’ve already worn.  If your pursuer manages to catch on to the multiple footprint changes, your most recent ones should ideally just… disappear right there, shouldn’t they?

You grin, before struggling into a low crouch and looking around your wooden cage for a safe way forwards.

***

Headstart—11:37pm:

Water.

A blessing, and not because you’re thirsty.  You have clean water in your bag and decades of habits formed in the desert to ensure you’re taking breaks and drinking enough—what you need is a way to disguise your footprints once you get back on the ground again.  This was good; scuttling your way along thick and twisting branches for as long as you have was time-consuming and exhausting, but it allowed you to avoid touching the ground for at least a mile or so, which means he’ll have to comb that entire radius to look for your drop.

And it was fun.

You even found yourself giggling as you ducked and scooted, ignoring the bark scraping your skin and your panting breaths, the way your face got sweaty and hot.  You had to do some brave maneuvers at tricky spots—jumping, balancing, hugging—but it almost just felt like an exciting little obstacle course for you and you’re honestly having a fucking blast right now.

Water, though.  Water is an unexpected beauty, even more than you’ve always considered it to be.  Water is an eroder.  Not only powerful enough to smooth down the rough edges of strong elements over time, but it will hide your footprints as soon as you create them and leave no indication that you were ever there.

Eventually you see it—a babbling stream cutting a considerably wide line through the trees.  You creep forward and hang tight to a branch above you to make sure you won’t fall, wiping the sweat on your brow with your other hand as you study the terrain.  The water is… a considerable distance below you, maybe about ten or so feet, and there’s quite a few branches on either side that extend and hang out over it.  You could probably find your way to the other side somehow, but something tells you to avoid the road beyond the forest if you can.  It leads to multiple places, it would be better to follow the stream until you can eventually merge with it later.

That means you’re… fuck.  You’re going to have to jump, aren’t you?

It’s the only way—you can’t leave footprints which means you’re going to need to land in the water.  The trees clear too far from the shoreline, so you can’t shimmy down the trunk of one for a shorter fall.  You’re going to have to climb out on one of those long branches until you’re suspended over the stream, and then you’re going to have to lower yourself as far as you can and then let go.  With your height already accounting for at least half the distance plus the length of your arms as you hang, you should only have to drop two or three feet before reaching water, and then maybe another two feet to the floor under it.  It looks forgiving enough—the moonlight shines and the stream is clear and you can mainly just see sand at the bottom, no sharp rocks or other potential dangers to be found.  This… this is doable.

Okay.  If you pull this off, you’re a badass.  If you don’t break any bones or seriously injure yourself in any way, you deserve some kind of commendation.  This is probably kiddie shit to Din, who keeps literal rockets strapped to his back and jumps out of ships flying thousands of feet above the ground, but this is a challenge for you and you’re feeling just excited enough to be up to it.

You’re eventually able to climb onto the thickest, sturdiest branch you can see that happens to hang over the water, straddling it and beginning to scoot.  Your thighs are killing you at this point but you’re holding deathly tight to the wood, your movements becoming more and more cautious the further away from the trunk you get.

You’re directly above the water now, but you need to go out a little further.  Aim for right in the middle so you don’t accidentally leave any tracks or prints on the shoreline if you need to catch yourself.  The unfamiliar wood in this forest is admittedly sturdy, but the branch begins to subtly sag with your weight as you keep slowly scooting forward, and you’re just about to the correct spot when—

Day 1–12:00am:

“Sweet girl.”

—You nearly fucking fall.

“Maker,” you gasp, suddenly scrambling to catch yourself on the branch before you can plummet.  It creaks and groans under your weight but supports you nonetheless, and when you’re one hundred percent certain it isn’t going to break, you jerk your head down to the communicator and see that it’s midnight, on the dot.

Shit.

Your heart slams against your ribs and your arms shake with adrenaline while you study it for just a moment longer, trying to calm the fuck down.

“Hey,” Din’s voice comes sharply from your wrist, crackling and tinny through the comm, nearly scaring you again.  “Answer me.”

You don’t want to sacrifice your grip right now, but you have no doubt he’ll fly the Crest out to you if you don’t respond.  So you quickly let go to press a button on the front face and then latch onto the branch tight once more, raising your voice because you can’t risk bringing your wrist up to your mouth to speak.  You hope he’ll be able to hear without the microphone picking up the sound of the stream below.  “Uh.  Ahem.  Hello.  Yes?”

“You’re too quiet,” Din’s disembodied voice immediately informs you.  “Or something on your side is too loud.  There’s an earpiece built into the side of the communicator, take it out and use it instead.”

You study the wrist brace without moving, until you finally see what he’s talking about.  It’s a small, wireless piece of machinery hidden on the left side of the electronic display, and you quickly pop it out and stuff it into your ear just in time to hear the sound of hydraulics clanging through the speaker as you clutch the branch again.  You’d know that sound anywhere, it’s the ramp of the hull closing.

“Are you already on the move?”  You ask him incredulously, your thighs starting to go numb with how deathly tight you’ve been squeezing this tree.

“Can’t sleep,” Din murmurs, sounding so much closer and deeper than before.  Does he have his earpiece on under the helmet or something?  Stars, is that why his voice sounds that good?  It’s like it’s coming from inside your own head, bassy and rough.  “Ready or not.”

You huff, your tummy going warm.  Of course he can’t sleep, of course he’s going to look for you as soon as he’s allowed to.  If he waited until morning, you’d probably be slightly offended.  You try to slow your heart rate into something acceptable, but being this far above water and hearing his baritone murmur directly in your ear make it difficult.  “But I’m… sleepy.”

“You’re always sleepy,” he tells you, and though you can’t actually hear him walking, the sound of his footsteps shake through his voice just slightly as he speaks.

“Hang on,” you huff, ducking your head to drag it against your shoulder, keeping the sweat from your eyes without using your hands, “you’re gonna make me stay up all night just because you do?  This isn’t fair—”

“Fair wasn’t part of the rules.”

Well.  Fair.

Stars, you can’t stay here.  You don’t know how long he wants to check-in for, but you’re also not confident with this branch’s ability to hold you for an extended time when you’re this far out from the trunk.  You need to get in that stream one way or another, but now that he’s here, you have an extra problem.  Din is going to hear you no matter what.

“Um.  Can you give me a second?”  You ask him, glancing around to make sure there’s no better way of doing this.  Nope, you realize very quickly—this is the best idea you’ve got, and you don’t really know what that says about the quality of all your other ideas.

“What?”  Din grunts shortly, but you just clear your throat.

“I need to… mute myself.  Give me like… five minutes.”

“What are you talking abou—”

“You of all people cannot be upset about asking for five minutes of quiet,” you return testily, looking down at the distance to the stream once more.  That’s a long way.  You… you can’t swim obviously, but again, the water doesn’t look too deep.  Just a couple feet likely, shouldn’t go past your knees.

It’s fitting that he doesn’t say anything, which you eventually take as disgruntled acceptance, so you quickly press the proper button on your wrist to silence the mic and then take a few deep breaths.  You have a time limit now, you have to do this.

With incredible patience and precision, you eventually slide until you’re clutching the branch upside down like an only slightly quicker and less coordinated sloth, before slowly dropping your legs and hanging over the water.

It’s… admittedly a bit further down than you anticipated, or maybe that’s just you making things worse than they actually are, but you’re committed at this point and there’s no going back.

You close your eyes, count to three, and then you let go.

The sandy floor meets your feet with considerable force and you make a hell of a splash doing it, nearly falling but just barely managing to keep yourself balanced and upright at the last second.  The water is cool and comes up just over your knees, your backpack miraculously didn’t get wet and all your limbs remain shaky but unbroken.

Okay.  Okay, fucking success.  It feels… thrilling, accomplishing a dangerous feat, and you quickly let out a loud whoop before clearing your throat, trying to sound normal as you press a button on the communicator’s face once more.

“Mando?”  You ask, slightly out of breath.  “Sorry about that, I’m back.”

Okay, now which way do you go?  Downstream seems like the easier path after getting in so much unexpected exercise, so that’s the one you go with.  As soon as you lift your foot from the sand bed, you watch your footprint almost immediately disappear through the moonlit water, and you bite your lip at just how well everything turned out for you.

After a moment though, you realize he hasn’t answered you.  You look down at the communicator again to make sure you pressed the right thing.  “Hello?  Shiny?”

“Did you trade shoes with someone?”  Din’s voice suddenly comes through the earpiece, sounding absolutely incredulous.

“Shit,” you tell him, trying not to smile.  “Hoped that was gonna buy me more time.”

“It… might’ve, if you kept walking in the same direction as they were,” he informs you after a moment.  “Your shoes went south, but this other pair got all the way out here just to turn back around again?  Good idea, but the execution needs work.”

Maker, he’s smart.  It was the first attempt at a footprint change so you weren’t thinking much beyond tricking the tracking mechanism in his helmet, you ignored his logic completely.  Essentially, the exact opposite of what he told you to do.  You like to think you’re getting better at it by this point, thinking beyond just the original exchange, and you’re hoping you’ll be able to trick him with at least one of the other fifty times you changed shoes today.  You’ll have to see tomorrow night, if you can make it that long.

Also, the road you were on apparently goes north-south, that’s important information you make sure to take note of.  The man in Osiruu said Devain and Nariss are to the east, and that Sijua and G’ila are westward, right?  Remembering that you thought south was west earlier, you do some quick calculating and immediately come to a stop in the moving water as soon as you figure out your positioning, turning around and walking upstream instead.

You want to go to Nariss.  The capital, and the biggest city in walking distance.  Smart quarry go to populated places, places that make it nearly impossible to find people.

“Alright.  Mando: one, Me: zero,” you finally acknowledge, swinging your backpack around and unzipping it to dig inside for another piece of fruit.  You’ve been hungry for hours but had to use both hands to stay safe and far above the ground, it’s the perfect time to eat.  “How’s the baby?  Behaving himself?”

“He kept trying to follow you after you left,” comes Din’s response, and you stop with just your teeth piercing the flesh, wondering if you heard him right.  You actually open your jaw and pull the fruit away with just a bite mark in it.

“You’re joking.”  No fucking way, not that little demon.

“Wish I was,” he tells you solemnly.  “Made a fuss, tried to open the ramp a few times.  Didn’t cause any trouble after, just… pouted.”

That’s… that’s exactly how he responded the very first time Din left the kid on the ship with you instead of bringing him along.  He threw a fit, tried to ditch you for his dad multiple times, and then ultimately just looked cute and mopey with his limp ears until Din came back.  Do you think it’s just him rebelling against change?  That has to be it, right?

“He better not be giving you any hints about where I am,” you warn his father.  “I’d tell you to put him on but I don’t want the earpiece getting lost forever.”

You hear it.  The softest laugh—barely a breath, coming after years of learning to make it just quiet enough not to be registered by the helmet.  It gets picked up by the communicator in all its understated beauty when normally it’d be silent, and it’s just jarring enough to make you careless.

On your next step, you accidentally lift your foot too high and make a splash, and you already know you fucked up before he can say a single word.

“What’s that sound?”

You immediately stop moving, allowing the cool water to move as silently as possible past your stationary knees.  Shit.  “Uh.  What sound?”

You think he purposefully doesn’t say anything.  Probably because it feels a little like cheating, doesn’t it?  It’s to your disadvantage, having him be able to catch hints from your environment when he’s the one who made check-ins mandatory, but then again… how smart do you think he is?  Something tells you that he might not need to track you at all—what are the chances he stumbles upon this little stream and just naturally assumes you were clever enough to use it to hide your trail?  Did you waste time trying to engineer a vanishing act when it’s not going to matter regardless?

Oh well, too late now.  You quickly decide to change the subject.

“You should try the big purple fruit that one vendor sells when you get into Osiruu, by the way,” you tell him pleasantly, taking a big chomp out of it and then letting out an extended hum of delight that only really fucking good food or sex causes a person to make.  “I’m eating one right now, it’s so good.  Be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”

“Mm.  Doubt it,”  immediately comes his low response.  Fucking immediately.

“Mando,” you gasp, scandalized and giddy enough that juice dribbles down your chin a bit.

“Are you having fun?”  Din asks, instead of pushing the conversation any further in that direction.  You don’t know if you’re thankful or disappointed with how quickly he decided to abort, but you take a moment to consider his question while swallowing and wiping your mouth.  Not the answer, you know the answer—but why he bothered to ask.  Did he know you were going to enjoy yourself as much as you have?  Your only possible lament is how you’re talking to him through a communicator instead of having him next to you.

“I am,” you say warmly.  “Be… be better if you were here, though.”

“Give me your coordinates,” Din proposes, and his voice is just low and rumbly enough to make you pause.

You’re really, really proud of yourself for only considering it for a few seconds before scoffing.  “Psh.  Nice try.”

“Was worth a shot,” he sighs through the earpiece, and you smile, taking another bite of fruit.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” you offer, grinning at the implication.

“We’ll see,” you hear him return, and though his tone doesn’t really change, you know he’s probably rolling his eyes.  He won’t have to ask for your coordinates because he’ll already be there, but it’s nice to pretend for a while longer.

And then you both walk all through the night, sharing casual banter with each other for hours.  He never once implies he wants to disconnect, even when you hit him with more nonsensical questions—

“What’s your favorite food?”  (“I don’t have one.”)

“Okay, well what about just a food that you like?”  (“I don’t like food that much.”)

“What do you mean?  Everyone loves food.”  (“Not me.”)

“Alright, well um.  What’s your favorite color, then?”  (“I don’t have one, either.”)

“Come on, you must have some kind of color you like.”  (“What’s your favorite color?”)

“…Brown.”  (“Then that’s my favorite, too.”)

—until the sun rises and you both say your goodbyes.

***

Day 1–6:15am:

You resolve to waiting until you see another person to allow your feet to touch dry land, figuring the longer you stay untraceable, the better off you’ll be.  Your toes are wrinkly and your pantlegs and shoes have been drenched for hours, but then you finally spot a few fishermen standing upstream with their backs to you, speaking to each other in the dawning light.  Two look to be full-grown, but there’s a smaller one in the middle, maybe a teenage boy, and you pause for a second, looking at the riverbank next to them.  All their valuables—water, food, bait, extra rods, but also… their shoes.

Quietly, you reach into your backpack and remove the pair of men’s shoes you bought earlier.  The ones closest to you on the shore seem to be the smallest, so you sneak over as silent as possible and rapidly make an exchange, fitting the new ones on your wet feet before allowing yourself to touch dry land and then speed walking away.

The ones you left him are newer and roughly the same size anyways—yikes, maybe slightly smaller now that you’re thinking about it—but at least you have a back pathing.  If that kid decides to take your offering and the shoes fit, Din will follow him, and if he decides to go barefoot instead, he should still follow him, right?  You’re not really aiming to trick him outright, mostly you just want him to waste more and more time.  This likely wouldn’t work if there wasn’t a time limit attached to this hunt, but you’re going to do everything you can to disappear while he’s still far enough behind you.

***

Day 1–7:06am:

You get to Devain remarkably quickly after finding the correct road.  The pit stop is much bigger than Osiruu, big enough to call an actual town instead of just a settlement, but still not large enough to feel concealed.  You want a city.  This place at least has cars and ships moving about and overhead respectively, but you’re looking for somewhere with lines.  Somewhere that feels as cramped and busy as possible.

Still, you find a restroom to use and then decide to grab some more food for your trip, happily spotting your new favorite purple fruit in one of the shop windows.  As you’re reaching out to hand the storekeeper the appropriate amount of credits, Din’s gruff voice comes through the earpiece so suddenly that you jump, nearly dropping them all on the counter.  “Hey.”

“Holy shit, what?”  You gasp, earning a confused look from the lady in front of you.  You quickly shake your head at her and mouth an apology while Din grumbles in vexation.

“You were supposed to stay on foot.”

Ah.  So he got to the bus, then.  Okay.

“Oh,” you answer ambiguously, exchanging the money for your bag of food and giving her a polite smile.  Din stays completely mute while you grab your snack, stuffing the rest of the goods in your backpack and then turning to leave—mute for so long that you have to double check you didn’t accidentally do it yourself.

“…Smart girl,” you finally hear him say.  Quietly muttered under his breath, half proud of you and half frustrated for making his job more difficult.  “Which one of these is yours then?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you announce, before taking a large bite as you leave the establishment and talking with your mouth full.  “You really gotta try the purple fruit, it’s great.”

The communicator abruptly clicks to silence on his end without anything else and you laugh so unexpectedly that a few pieces of it fly out of your mouth.

***

Day 1–1:32pm:

Somewhere miles away from you, Din jerks to a halt in the middle of a forest.

He looks around the dirt floor, walks a few paces and hears the kid coo gently from his cradle.  Behind the visor, the red footprints he’s circling are the last ones around for hundreds of meters, as far as his display can read.

His helmet slowly tilts upwards, and follows the endless maze of thick branches overhead.

With the beskar hiding his face, no one can see the way he slowly breaks into a beautiful grin.

***

Day 1–9:51pm:

Oh.  Oh stars, you’re tired.

You’ve been walking all day without really seeing anything, not having any place to disguise your tracks in the wide open plains.  You could’ve stuck to the road, but you started to feel the exhaustion creep in during the early afternoon and you wanted to be far away from other travelers and potential danger if you needed to rest.  You knew this would be a long journey when you left Devain earlier—over a day’s walk, a group of children told you—you even tried skipping or jogging a bit to see if that would inspire more energy in you, but it didn’t help much.

The large cup of caf you bought while in town was drained hours ago and it didn’t help much either, probably because your exhaustion is more physical and not necessarily mental.  It just felt like a sweet warm drink to sip before you go to sleep, that’s how much the caf helped.  Still, you kept walking, kept moving forward even as you squinted in the setting sun, your feet aching from traveling for this long wearing unfamiliar shoes.  The last time you changed them was hours ago, pulling another bus maneuver but with an air shuttle instead.  Still, you don’t think it’ll be enough.  You don’t even know where Din is but you already feel like you’re losing ground just knowing that he’s the one in pursuit.

You feel it—the hair standing up on your neck, the tingles in your hands, the stirring of your tummy—whatever the incessant gogogo that your instincts happen to scream when you’re in first place but you know the person behind you is quickly closing in.  It’s day fucking one, it’s day one and you feel him in the wind as it brushes through your hair, you can’t even pause to rest because nobody knows better than you that he’s an absolute fucking machine when he wants to be.  The kid may have powers beyond that which can be explained by the laws of nature, but Din is a force all his own.  He drives you forward when everything inside you is telling you to stop.  He keeps you awake and determined when you just desperately need to rest.

But that only goes so far.  You’re bordering on two full days without sleep, and though you’d normally be able to suffer through, the constant movement is just brutal after being confined to a stationary ship for so long.

There’s a lone tree in the distance, you think.  It’s hard to see.  Not because it’s dark—well it is, just a bit darker tonight compared to last, but mostly because your eyelids have grown heavier and more burdensome than the bag around your shoulders.  That looks like a good place to just sit for a second, right?  Maybe eat some more food, try and wake yourself up?  Yeah, that’s a good idea, you’ll head towards the tree and just… sit…

***

Day 2–12:00am:

Completely dead to the galaxy and sitting on your ass with your back against rough bark, the comm clicks and Din’s voice comes through the earpiece.

“Wake up.”

It startles you enough to make you lurch forward and jerk your head around in a panic, looking for any flash of beskar so you can instantly break opposite to it.  You scramble on all fours to look around but you don’t see anything, not even behind the trunk when you crawl, and then you take a deep breath and use the bone of your wrists to rub your eyes vigorously after a moment, knowing your hands are filthy.  “Fuck, how’d you—”

“You’re always sleepy,” Din repeats, and you collapse back into the tree with an exhausted groan, not entertained but not even having the energy to get mad about it.

“I… I gotta sleep,” you tell him, already feeling your body let go of its tension and search for the darkness of unconsciousness once more.  “Shit.  How d’you… mm.  Stay awake all the time…”

“Sleep,” Din encourages, you can still hear him walking.  “You need rest.  I’ll see you soon.”

No—

“No,” you whine like a child, moaning and shoving yourself upright.  Maker, you’re trying to focus, but asking that of yourself is almost impossible right now.  Everything swims—you were dreaming, you think, but you can’t remember and it’s not important other than to emphasize how woozy you are.  Things still feel like a dream, somehow.

You think he can hear your struggling through the comm, because the sound of his footsteps pause.  “Go to sleep.”

“You go to sleep,” you tell him bluntly, giving your head a violent shake to try and wake you up.  You want to slap your own cheek but you don’t want him to hear it.  “I can’t sleep if you don’t.”

“I’ve have at least a couple more days in me before that happens,” Din murmurs, and you bet he knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing to you.  You start to slouch, hearing the voice he uses when he’s curled around your body in the darkness of the hull.  So warm, so gentle.  If you use your imagination, you can feel his fingers drawing slow circles on your back, the vibration of his low voice rumbling against your ear as you lay your head on his chest.  “If I hunt you the way I’d hunt a quarry, I’m going to find you before you wake up.”

“Then I’ll jus’ have to… not let tha’ happen,” you slur.  Even this close to unconsciousness, you try your best to throw in a misdirect.  “Already… paid for the bed an’ everything.”

“Sure you did.  You in another tree?”

You immediately frown even as your eyes drop closed, too tired to fight but still managing to sound upset.  “You makin’ fun of me?”  You ask him with a harumph.  Genuinely, you’re not smart enough to figure it out right now.

“Not hardly,” Din sighs, sounding… you don’t know.  Is that displeasure or not?  It’s not immediately clear.  Does it sound that way because you’re just dumb stupid right now?  Or because Din can’t actually decide how he feels about it?  “Lucky I heard water over the comm last night, I would’ve wasted hours in that forest.”

“Noooo,” you whine in response, trying to push yourself off the tree but tipping sideways in the process, “that’s not fair—”

“Fair wasn’t part of the rules,” he repeats himself again and… nope, you don’t even have the energy to snark something back.  You just grumble your best imitation of him while you do everything you can to heave yourself upright.  It’s pitiful, you lose your balance not even halfway through and just plop on the grass for a second and groan.

“Stop,” Din eventually orders through the earpiece, tired of it.  “What’s sixteen times itself?”

You’re loopy to the point where you don’t even question why he decided to ask you that.  You just furrow your brows for a second and try to think about it, before suddenly realizing you… don’t know, you can’t remember.  Multiplication tables and squares up to twenty are elementary to you, you know them by heart.  Sixteen times sixteen.  One forty-four.  No… no that doesn’t sound right, is that twelv—

You take way too long answering what would’ve been an immediate response two days ago.

“I’ll stop here for tonight,” Din tells you with a resolved sigh.  “I won’t move until you wake up.  Go to sleep.  You’re putting yourself in danger, you can’t even do the basics.”

Later, this moment will come back to you.  That problem isn’t basic, not many adults would be able to tell you very quickly that the answer is two fifty-six.  You don’t even think Din would.  You would, though.  On Naboo, you used rapidly applied trigonometry in your head to find his location, and that was barely two minutes after waking up.  You should know this.  And he knows you.

But for right now, you don’t pay it a single lick of attention.

“You promise?”  You ask quietly, voice incredibly small as your head tilts back towards the sky, already feeling yourself beginning to fall back into the darkness again.

“I promise,” he vows in return, gentle but a promise nonetheless.  He doesn’t have to do this.  You wouldn’t be able to keep going even if he didn’t offer up this temporary truce, but knowing he isn’t currently gaining ground on you makes the idea of sleep so much more welcoming, something you want to seek out instead of fight.

“Will you, um…” your expression furrows.  How do you say this?  You sigh, giving up before even trying to figure it out.  “I’m… not in a bed.  I’m outside.”

Din doesn’t say anything when you pause, and even through the haze wanting to take over, you know it’s going to sound needy.  You want him to stay.  Even in the midst of an adventure, you want him to stay, you want to hear him breathe as you rest, but there’s not really an integrous way to ask.

You don’t need to ask.

“I’ll keep the comm open and wake you when the sun rises,” comes his lulling baritone before you can elaborate anymore, enveloping you in comfort in this dreadfully uncomfortable bed of grass and dirt.  “Sleep, sweet girl.  I’m right here.”

***

Day 2–5:34am:

The sun shines over the hills and you lift your head up to squint your eyes at it, confused as fuck.  Looking down at your wrist to check the time in the warm rays, hands and clothes dirty from laying on the ground that long—you stay groggy and clueless for just a moment longer, before your heart lurches when you remember Din’s promise to you.

You open your mouth to address him but then catch yourself just in time.  Wait.  Don’t panic.  Listen.

Breathing.  Slow and relaxed through the earpiece, a rhythm now branded into your memory from months of nights spent in pitch black.  He’s… asleep.

Din is asleep?  Seriously?

You can count like… twice that this has happened, and one of those was because he got you to touch him just right after closing up a wound on his back, and his body couldn’t handle the strain and passed out.  You’re never awake when he’s asleep—you’re just not, it doesn’t happen.  Din… sleeps like it’s just a choice for him, he doesn’t ever really need it.  Almost like how he used to eat before he started sharing meals with you, he said he doesn’t even like food that much.  You think he just severed all of those things long ago, things that are basic fundamentals of survival and operated like a bounty droid that lost its voice box.  It’s… nice, feeling like you’re somehow giving back some of the things he lost.  Unintentionally encouraging him to find sleep again.  Making sure he eats more, listening to him speak.

You struggle to your feet as quietly as possible, hearing him continue to breathe slow and relaxed through the communicator.  This isn’t purposeful, you don’t think he actually allowed it.  He promised you, and Din doesn’t take shit back.  If he tells you he’ll do something and he doesn’t follow through, it’s either out of his control or a mistake, it’s never been purposeful.  He didn’t mean to fall asleep.

And, in other circumstances, you most definitely would not find some way to take advantage of this.  You’d let him sleep and do other things in the meantime—make some food for you and the kid, find something on the Crest that isn’t spotless and clean until it is, or just… lay there next to him until he woke up.  But… these circumstances are their own.  You have to capitalize now, this is your chance.  You passed out last night around… ten pm, you think it was, and then he promised to stop at midnight.  That means you have to walk at least two hours before he wakes up if you want to prevent any loss of ground—you don’t know where he stopped, he could be a few miles back even.

You have to find Nariss—you have to.  It’s your only option, if you keep trying to run, it’s just going to make it so much easier for him.  Now is the time to hide.  You know it hasn’t been long, it’s barely been two days since you first left the Crest but it feels like you’re already in endgame, already making moves in self-defense instead of actually planning your maneuvers ahead of time.

The capital should be half a day’s walk from here, then.  As long as you get there, you think you’ll be okay.

***

Day 2–8:28am:

Din’s groan suddenly comes through your ear.

You immediately stop, seeing a busy road in the distance and glad you haven’t quite made it there yet, before trying to disguise your voice as drowsy.  “Mm?”

“Shit,” he breathes, and you hear him get up, the sound of beskar moving as he grunts.

“Mpph,” you groan back, squinting your eyes to see if that’ll help sell the act.  “I thought you… Mando, fuck, y’said you’d wake me when the sun came up.”

“I… fell asleep,” he admits, voice rough with it, sounding just as confused as you felt earlier.

“You said you had days in you before that happened,” you murmur, taking a deep breath and stretching your arms up above your head.  Stars, your back hurts, how does he possibly manage to carry a fucking jet pack around all the time?

“Yeah, I…”  He pauses for a moment and you bite your lip, not liking the quiet as soon as you hear it.  “How long have you been up?”

Op.  Not good.  “Wha?”

He’s not falling for it.  “How long?”

How in Maker’s name?  This is impossible.  How can you hope to hide from him when you can’t even manage to hide the smallest fucking truth from him?  Can you salvage this somehow?  “…Like ten minutes.”

“Least a few hours, then,” he sighs, and you get ready to hit him with the same line he used when you complained about his leg-up, opening your mouth as soon as you hear him speak.  “That was smar—”

“Fair wasn’t part of—”

Oh.  Well.  Apparently you didn’t have a reason to feel shitty about deciding to haul ass while he was passed out even though you kind of ended up doing so anyways.  There was no agreement besides that he wouldn’t move until you woke up.  Reason is on your side, but it still feels a bit like you fucked him over.  Is that valid or are you just so used to being nice that putting yourself first feels like a wrong you’ve committed?

“Don’t feel bad,” Din tells you, and you hear a soft coo in the background.  It makes you smile the smallest bit, your shoulders relaxing even as they ache from carrying your pack around.  “You should feel bad about stealing that poor kid’s shoes, though.  He walked home barefoot.”

You smack your forehead.  “It was just….”

“Yeah,” he scoffs when you don’t finish your sentence, and you can’t keep back a giggle.  “Alright, I’m up now.  See you when you get here.”

And then the communicator clicks, and you’re…

Uh.  What the fuck was that?

No.  Nope, you’re not going to get played.  That was a brilliant attempt at fucking with you, but you’re not falling for it this time.  You’ve grown since that night on Canto Bight, you know him, he can’t just say shit to fuck with your head and then smile at your flailing response from under the helmet anymore.  You normally would stew in that last comment until it got to you, made you make a mistake most likely, but the more you think about it, the more certain you are that he has nothing.  He was just trying to see if you’ll abandon your entire plan just by implying he already knows it.  That’s beginner shit, you’re not falling for it.  Din wanted to leave the conversation with the upper-hand since you gained at least an hour of extra ground while he slept.  You’re certain of it.

***

Day 2–12:35pm:

Nariss is big.  Nowhere near the size of Coruscanti sectors of course, where billions of people are packed from surface to exosphere and require oxygen recirculation towers to breathe at the very top, but just slightly bigger than you expected.  It’s bustling and you haven’t even made it through the city gates yet—you’re approaching them and the large number of people waiting in line, seeing buildings stretch out for miles in front of you and grinning.  Yes, this will work nicely.

As you peek over shoulders in the sizable crowd, you see only two or three people allowing people to enter one at a time… is that a biometric scanner?

Oh.  That looks good and it also doesn’t look good at the same time.  If Din’s safety meant nothing to you, you’d have no trouble whatsoever getting in line and waiting to do a retinal scan, but you immediately pause and consider the potential consequences.

Your dumb ass almost weighs the option of clicking the communicator on and asking his opinion.  You’d give away your location in a heartbeat (if he doesn’t know it already) just because you’re worried he’d… what, exactly?  Stand in line for an hour, take his helmet off in front of a crowd of people, have the system ping his scan, and then hang out and wait for New Republic reinforcements to show?  You have to stop worrying about him.  He’s not a baby, he can handle himself and you need to stop considering the possibility of taking a loss just so he doesn’t have to, even if the self-destructive sentiment feels ingrained in your nature to do so.

So you wait in line, moving at a slow pace but at least moving.  While you’re standing there quietly, a man in front of you decides to strike up a conversation.  You don’t come from a place with an excess of people, but the ones in your sector were friendly and did this kind of thing often, so perhaps for that reason, you decide to chat.

“Do you have some place to stay?”  He asks at one point.  So far the conversation has revolved around him—every time he asks about you, you deflect.  He doesn’t need to know.  “Nariss isn’t kind to drifters.”

This catches your attention, though.  This is relevant.  “What does that mean?”

“It’s expensive?”  He scratches his blonde hair, giving you a soft smile.  “Food, housing, all of it is way out of my price-range.  I stay with my uncle and work overnights at the eastern docks.  It’s not much, but it’s enough to keep a roof over our heads.  We used to live in Gibrath, but then we moved to the city because he’s a good architect and they’re always expanding.  It’s nice, of course, but really expensive.”

He’s handsome, you think… in kind of a boyish, charming way.  Blonde hair, sparkly blue eyes.  He doesn’t look much older than you, and maybe in another lifetime you would’ve found him appealing, but… you like darker features, you think.  Someone a little less expressive.  This guy… talks a lot.

“I thought this moon was a safe world for people displaced by the Empire,” you offer, taking a step forward as the entire crowd shifts.

“Sanctuary II is,” he comments.  “The capital is safe, too—what, with all the orangies walking around,” he tilts his head to two jumpsuited guards trying to organize the glob of people so the line can move faster, rolling his eyes as if they’re some kind of joke.  “But not… welcoming, not if you’re looking for a place to settle.  You would’ve been better off in G’ila.”

“Is there anywhere you know that would take me for free?”  You ask.  You have quite a few credits left, but you don’t think it’s a good idea to stay in an inn.  It’ll be the first place Din checks.

“Are you a virgin?”  He returns, and you immediately pull back at the unexpected question, your heart thudding at the possibility of danger.  The man’s sandy eyebrows shoot up at your response and he quickly apologizes—“Heavens, I’m so sorry to ask like that!  It’s just… the only place I know is the Holy Keja Orphanage on the northern outskirts.  Their signs say they only house children and teenagers, but I’ve heard from other girls your age that they’ll accept any woman as long as they’ve stayed pure in the eyes of the Maker.”

“Oh,” you say after a moment, leaning sideways to see just a few people standing in front of him.  Good, this is almost over.  “Um.  Yep.  That’s me.”

He smiles at you once more, giving you a nod.  “When you get to the city, just go straight through.  It’s about a mile outside of the gates, no more than a day’s walk from this side of town.”

Okay, that’s… interesting.  You think about it while you thank him and begin to exchange polite goodbyes, moving up another step until he’s next in line.  That might actually be a good move.  Din could spend a long time in the city without ever finding you.  Smart quarry go to populated places, but… smarter quarry defy the expectations placed upon them, right?  He knows you’re smart, and even though you’re confident his “See you when you get here” was purely psychological fuckery, that also implies… at the very least, that he’s assuming there is a here to get to.  Meaning, he knows you’re not going into the wilderness to evade him.  He’s not going to comb the outskirts when there are so many places to hide within the city gates, with an entire perimeter of New Republic guards stationed around it.  Even if he does, the signs will say only children and teenagers—categories you do not fall into.

The unnamed man is soon ushered forward but you stop him quickly.  “Oh, by the way.  I doubt this will happen, but if a man in a big metal suit with a tiny green baby happen to ask you the same thing, please don’t tell him what you just told me.”

He furrows his eyebrows at you and cocks his head, but smiles and agrees nonetheless.

***

Day 2–5:43pm:

You have an idea.

You’ve been working on it all afternoon, but you were hit with it the second you were looking for another pair of shoes to buy and find a clever way of putting on.

The cheapest ones were ridiculously overpriced, blonde dude was right.  You blinked down at the tag and asked the salesman where the cheapest shoes in this part of town were, and then he just wrinkled his nose at you and shooed you out of the store.  Granted, you slept in dirt and spent two days walking—you bet you reek, but he didn’t have to be like that.

Though, the man’s displeasure with you had an upside.  You were holding a possible pair of pants and a shirt to buy when he threw you out, not yet having checked the atrocious pricetag on them, but it appeared as if he’d rather let you have them for free than rip them from your… admittedly, pretty filthy arms.  Oh well, you weren’t complaining.  Fancy clothes for free, score.

But now you’re here, and you have the best idea.  You don’t need to change shoes, not yet.  Why?  Because you’ve figured out how to turn your incessant detriment into an advantage.

You’re in the middle of downtown, you think, maybe just some random crowded square, and there’s an inn in front of you.  It’s fucking enormous, and you already know it’s gotta be incredibly expensive just looking at the sheer number of stories.  It’s an eyesore, it sticks out.  But that’s okay, because you’re only planning on staying for a night.

It’s also… right next to New Republic headquarters.  Or fuck, at least a station of some sort, because they’re swarming in and out of the constant crowd, passing by the valet doors.

At first you naturally wanted to steer away from the jumpsuits, since you know they’re bad news for Din, but then you remember what he said before you left.  I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it.  I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.

It’s to your advantage, he said so himself.  Everything lines up perfectly—the street is bustling, the inn is well protected, it’s nice—it’s everything you’re looking for.

And there’s another upside, see.  An omnipresent, omniscient ghost in the form of a communicator clipped to your wrist right now.  If Din is always going to be able to predict you, he’s always going to know when you’re lying, always be able to read you… then you’ll just have to let him.

Let him know.  Let him know exactly where you are.  Right in the middle of the most populated street you’ve seen thus far, a constant barrage of people walking by and New Republic officers patrolling.  If you were planning on staying in the city, this would probably be your best option to hide.  He could waste days here if you’re smart about it.

The concierge doesn’t appear too pleased with your lack of cleanliness and neither do you, honestly, but at least he allows you to book a suite for the night.  It’s… not as bad as you were originally assuming, credits-wise, but it’s worth more than half your stash and you’re going to have to conserve from this point on.  It shouldn’t be too bad—your destination is a holy orphanage, you’re sure they’ll have some extra food and a bed for you even if it won’t be ideal.  Still, you think you’re going to enjoy some lavish experiences for once in your life before you go.

***

Day 2–11:54pm:

Alright, so this was the best idea ever.  This is the shit.

You’re leaning back against a fluffy stack of pillows, squeaky clean from an absolutely glorious bath and watching the flickering drama on the large holonet display in front of you.  You don’t have any idea what’s going on, as it’s being broadcast in Rodian, but you haven’t been able to change the frequency because it’s so fucking intense—somebody’s sister is their mother, you think?  No, that must be a mistranslation, right?

You’re also in a robe.  Yes, there is a motherfucking robe in here.  And… and slippers, it’s like a dream.  Do people normally wear slippers in bed?  You do.  Hell, maybe you should stay here, screw the credits and the chase.  This mattress is even better than the one on Naboo and you’re basking in the luxury after being outdoors for so long.

The lights are off other than that and you’ve opened the drapes wide, knowing you’re on something like the fifteenth floor and nobody would be able to see you anyways.  You just like being able to turn your head and look out at the sky.  Violent and periwinkle tonight.  You wonder if he’s looking, too.

Luckily, you snap yourself back out of it and glance down at the time on your communicator, quickly pressing a button on the remote to mute the Rodian show and then opening the line the moment the hour changes.

Day 3–12:00am:

“Hiya, Shiny,” you say before anything else, laying back and running a few fingers through your damp hair.  Your eyes close against the flickering light, taking a slow, relaxed breath.  Maker, this feels nice.

“You sound happy,” Din comments.  Astute, you feel happy.  Well… you’d obviously feel happier if he was here.  Your eyes flick over to the open bathroom door, still steamy from your bubble bath earlier, imagining him walking through it completely naked and then climbing over you on the covers.  You can only really picture it from the neck down—no, hang on… you can see his shaggy brown curls, that one spot on his forehead you know, how his facial hair would be dark and frame his mouth.  No face, though.  Missing just one fraction of him from your imagination, feeling incomplete but also somehow… complete in a way.

“I feel better after sleeping last night,” you tell him, purposefully leaving out the softness of the sheets underneath you, the sheer comfort of all this extravagance.  You don’t need it, you’ll never need it, but it feels nice to have for once.

“I do, too,” he replies quietly, and your eyes flutter closed.  You… miss him.  This mattress would feel softer with him next to you.  He’d probably be able to translate this show for you, even though you already know he’d fucking hate it.  You can imagine it—you with your eyes closed, him propped up on an elbow next to you and grumbling vague descriptions of the nonsense happening on screen just to hear your chuckles.  Adventures are great, but maybe they aren’t as great by yourself, you think.

“You should sleep tonight, too,” you encourage, but he scoffs.

“Not a chance,” Din mutters.  “Oh, before I forget, we need to charge the communicators today.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”  You ask him, glancing at all the multiple wireless charging outlets stationed around you.  “I’m in the middle of nowhere.”

He doesn’t even take a fucking second before responding.  “Good one.”

You grin up at the ceiling, warmth flooding you.  You love him.  Literally every single time, he just knows.  Your curiosity is too overwhelming after this happening so often.  Your plan to distract him relies on him being able to read you, but that doesn’t prevent you from wondering how he does it so accurately, time and time again.  “How do you know?”

“You slept outside last night,” he immediately tells you, like that should mean anything to you.

Does he… does he truly know you well enough to know how much your back and shoulders hurt today?  How much you were aching for a shower and clean clothes?  A bed to sleep on that isn’t dirt or metal?  You give into the accurate prediction with shameless honesty, not caring if he knows it’s the truth.

“This bed is soft,” you murmur gently, dragging your hand across the mattress next to you.  “You should be here.  I’d make you feel good.”

Admittedly, your comfort is making you a bit drowsy and you said it in the easiest way possible, but you didn’t necessarily mean it sexually.  Well… you sort of did—you’d make him feel so good in this bed—but what you meant was more… comforting.  He could take a bath, or a shower, and get all the grime off him.  He could feel clean and unburdened, take a break instead of constantly moving around.  The baby could have a whole bed to himself if he wanted, though you know he’d probably want to be on this one instead.  You could all look at the sky together.

Din is quiet for a little bit, before his voice comes back through the earpiece.  “Are you in an inn?”

“No,” you say, a little too quickly.  Perfect, that sounded just right for a lie.  You are lying, you absolutely are in an inn, the only difference is that you want him to catch on that it’s a lie, so… why does he take way too long before responding?

“Hm.”

What the fuck—why… how is it even physically possible?  He read you that deeply from one single word?  You’re not sure if he’s somehow psychic and figured the whole fucking thing out or if he just knows there’s something off, but it’s still enough to blow you away.

“Are you doing this on purpose?”  You blurt without thinking.

“Doing what?”  He grunts, sounding like he’s stepping over something, his breath changing intensity as he walks.

“If I look out this window right now, am I gonna see you standing out there just messing with me?”  You don’t even know what to believe anymore.  How do you beat this?  If you don’t want him to know the truth, he’ll figure it out, and if you do want him to know the truth, he’ll still figure it out.  His perception is unbelievable.

After a moment of silence, he murmurs gently through the comm.  “I thought you said you were in the middle of nowhere.”  It sounds like he’s smiling.

“I…”  your eyes shift around awkwardly, “am…”

Din lets out a deep sigh.  He’s right, that was bad, even for you.  “I found your bed a few hours ago,” he admits.  You close your eyes as you listen to him make his way closer to you, step by step.  “I’m nowhere near the city yet.  You have time to sleep.”

Your expression furrows and you frown.  “Why are you helping me?”

“Why do you want me to think you’re in an inn?”  He tosses back, and you huff.

“Because I’m trying to outsmart you but you make it really fucking difficult,” you grumble, not happy about him catching on so quick.

“You’ve also gained about four hours on me since we started.”  His voice is gruff.  You don’t know if he thinks it’s a good thing or a bad thing.  “You should give yourself more credit.  I thought I would’ve found you by now, never expected you to get all the way to Nariss.  It’s… not good for me.”

The honesty creeping in makes you go soft.  It makes you want to reciprocate, even if it’s dumb and you haven’t thought it all the way through.  “Wanna know a secret?”

“Tell me.”  His voice is a bed all its own, deep and gentle and safe.

You say it before you lose the nerve.  “I might just turn around and walk back.”

His footsteps stop and you hear a small sound in the background, a quiet little baby noise that suddenly makes your heart ache.  You’re comfortable but incredibly aware of how alone you are.  People pass by on the streets below, cars and hoverbikes honk in the distance and you’re by yourself.  For the first time in over a year, like you have been for years, you’re by yourself.

“Sweet girl,” Din sighs, and all of a sudden… you can feel his arms around you with it.  You feel so… known, somehow.  Every sentiment you could’ve possibly given in your last sentence, he relays his understanding back with his.  He makes you feel loved with it.  “Never wants to run.”

You don’t say anything, because you suddenly realize you’re totally fucking whipped, up down and sideways for his metal ass and the little floating grimlin that follows him around, and you would throw away the fifth quarry, adventure, the sky—literally everything if you could be with the both of them right now.

But again.  You don’t have to say anything, he already knows.  “Give me your coordinates.”

Your eyes pop open and you bite your lip.  Oh, stars.  You hate that you do genuinely consider it.  He could be here, and very soon.  With the jet pack, both of them could be here in less than an hour, probably.  He could take a shower.  Watch these stupid shows with you all night without needing to be on the move, help you build a bed of pillows for the kid on top of this one.  You could be with both of them again, even if it’s only for a little while.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” you finally whisper, looking down at the soft white fabric of your robe, the way one of your slippers is falling off your foot as the holonet program continues to play on mute.

Din’s footsteps eventually start up again, and you both relax in silence together.  You, squinting at the screen because your eyes are getting heavy; him, continuing to travel step by step and gain ground on you.  Let him come.  You’ll be long gone by the time he even makes it to the gates.

It’s been about ten minutes of shared, quiet existence before you hear him bite into something and chew, and your face suddenly lights up.

“Are you eating the purple fruit?”  You ask, your slipper falling off with excitement.  You don’t know why, but it’s like… you’re stoked for him.  Just as proud of him for doing normal things as he does when you step out of your own comfort zone.  You like to think you’re both better that way.  Balanced.

“Mm,” Din replies with his mouth full, and you grin down at your bare legs peeking through the robe while he swallows.

“Is it not the best thing you’ve ever tasted?”  Your voice goes a little breathless with it, and you hear his footsteps stop once more.

“Close,” Din murmurs lowly, sending a small shudder through you.  It suddenly feels a bit warm in here, doesn’t it?  This morning was one of the rare times you were awake while he was asleep… it’s almost always the other way around, and just from the implication in his tone, you’re reminded of the thing he likes doing most when you’re resting.  Maybe he’ll let you do it to him, next time around.  The thought gets you hot enough to warrant the other slipper falling to the floor.

“You’re alone, right?”  You whisper, knowing he must’ve pulled the helmet up to take a bite of the fruit.  He must still be following your path through the hillside, then, not yet reaching the road.

“The kid is awake,” Din tells you, sounding like he’s trying to stop everything before anything starts.  His words are short and clear in their meaning, but…

This has a very small chance of success, you already know.  “…Do you want to—”

“No,” he responds quickly, already way ahead of you.  “We can’t.”

Something in his voice… you don’t know, there’s just something there that makes you feel just a little reckless.  Should you push it?  You’re by yourself in this suite, what can go wrong?

“You can’t,” you correct him quietly, shifting around on the bed just a bit and biting your lip.  It’s a thrill—being able to tease him without having him in front of you, drive him crazy knowing you’re just out of his reach.  “But I can do whatever I want, can’t I?”

There’s a pause, a tense and knowing silence suspended between you before he eventually speaks.

“I’d be real careful,” Din mutters low in warning, but what is he gonna do?

“What are you gonna do?”  You whisper to him devilishly.  Quiet and breathy, beginning to snake your hand down.  Stars, your heart is already pounding.  You’d only likely mouth off like this in person just to see how hard he’d fuck you, but this feels extra dangerous for some reason.  He’s stuck, he can’t do anything about it right now, and you know it’s playing with fire.  “You could hang up if you don’t want to hear me.  Or you could find me before I’m finished.  Come make me stop.”

Din doesn’t say anything but he very much does not hang up, nor does he come busting into your room like you imagine he’d like to.  The sheer fact that your door is still closed and locked tells you for sure that he isn’t just hanging out in the hallway, just letting you have your fun.

You start pressing your fingers against your robe at the apex of your thighs, humming at how nice the pressure feels.  You don’t even spread your legs or push the fabric away, you just sigh into it and wiggle your hips a bit, pressing hard against your clit and listening to him breathe.

“Do you want to listen?”  You ask quietly after a moment, and Din still doesn’t respond.  Likely because there’s not a real answer, both yes and no would imply the wrong thing.  “I’ll talk.”

Still, nothing from him.  Dead silence through the comm.  You’re starting to understand.  For two days, you’ve felt like he could read your every thought just by the cadence of your voice.  He’s staying quiet so you can’t even attempt to do the same to him—if he doesn��t talk, you can’t find a weakness and pounce on it, you can’t feel any more confident or reassured about your own ability to read him.

You’ll just have to push a little harder, then.

“Hm.  If only this fancy communicator could…” you pause to look down at your wrist for a second, studying the menu.  You don’t think you’ve ever really looked at it, you never had the time.

Din’s growl is sudden and sharp through the earpiece.  “No, don’t even think—”

“Ah,” you smile, tapping the face and immediately finding the correct screen.  “Take pictures.”

He’s deadly quiet for a moment, and you bite your lip with excitement.  When he does speak, his voice is a pure threat, chilling you to the bone as much as it burns deep in your tummy.  “…You wouldn’t.”

Ignoring him, you suddenly locate a menu option that sounds phenomenal right now.  “Oh shit, does this holocall?  Or is it a video option?”

“Holo,” he says very seriously while you study the lack of complexity of the built-in camera in skepticism, “and the kid is awake, so you can’t—”

“Oh, it’s definitely a video,” you unclip it from your wrist and he curses as you sit up, and then you press a button and wait impatiently for him.  “Pick up.”

Din takes forever before responding, and you hear the continuous beeps as it attempts to connect, before his quiet baritone rumbles in your ear.  “What if I don’t?”

You feel your mouth pull down at the corners, not so much frowning as you are dubious.  He’s going to turn down the opportunity to see you and your surroundings when his whole goal is locating you?  Really?

“You sure?”  You ask softly, raising an eyebrow.  “You’d get to see me, where I am.  What I’m…” your eyes dip down to the loose robe riding your curves, your skin glowing against the white fabric, “…wearing.”

The beeps continue on for a few more seconds, until they finally stop.  You frown down at the black screen of the communicator, not seeing anything at all.  Did he decline the transmission request?  No… there’s a little red light next to the small lens that wasn’t there before.  Why can’t you see him?

“Why can’t I see you?”  You ask.  You want to look at him looking at you, you don’t want to always be stuck on the other side of a one-way mirror.

“I… have it linked to my helmet, but it only has a front-facing camera,” Din tells you after a moment, and he sounds… slightly out of breath.  “Easier to see, the watch is useless now besides the controls.”

Wait, does that mean you’re… being shown on the inner-display of his helmet instead of his wrist?  Right in front of his eyes, as if he were actually here with you?

“Nobody can see me but you?”  You clarify, and when he doesn’t respond, you bite your lip and lean back into the pillows.  You lift the watch up slightly, extending your arm out until you can get the angle as wide as possible.  “Can you see… this?”  You ask softly, before hooking your fingers in the collar of your white robe and slowly pulling it open for him.

“Where are you?”  Din asks instead, and you hear his footsteps through the earpiece, as if he’s walking away from something very quickly.

You don’t answer him, parting the soft fabric until your breasts are completely exposed and you sigh, closing your eyes and snuggling back into the pillows once more.  “I’ll tell you where I am if you keep watching me.”

“Why?”  Din grits in frustration, coming back around to the same dangerous question he had earlier.  “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know.”  You slowly tilt the camera down until you can spread your legs and the robe falls open with the movement, letting him see your pussy peeking through in the flickering light of the muted screen in front of your bed.  “Can you see that?”

“Yeah,” he says shakily on the end of a breath, and you feel yourself get wet.  Fuck, he sounds so fucking tempted, the sight making his voice come without any of the self-assuredness as it usually has, but… he could also just be saying that.  How do you know he’s telling you the truth?

“What am I doing?”  You test him, lifting your knee just the slightest bit so you really give him something to look at.

“Spreading your legs for a camera,” Din responds without hesitation, voice scraping against your ear, making you shiver and your nipples harden.  Fuck, the way he says it, like it’s wrong and bad even though he’s the only one who can see or hear you do it… it makes you feel even more naughty and emboldened.

You bite your lip and reach your hand down to spread your lips for him, too, hearing his breath immediately catch on the other end.  Already your pussy makes your fingers slick against your soft skin, the sash of your robe still holding the fabric together on your body but also loose enough to allow it to part in the right places and reveal everything you want him to see.

“I am in an inn,” you whisper teasingly, letting your finger drop to brush against your clit and then sighing in soft delight.  Oh stars, that feels nice, it feels so good to treat yourself after being completely nomadic for two days, getting to be clean and soft and comfortable while you feel this pleasure, and Din’s voice growls through your communicator like you’re doing something painful to him.

“Fuck,” his breathing picks up while you begin circling your clit.  “Where?”

“Nariss,” comes your quiet moan, turning your head on the pillow to blink slowly at the camera.  Wanting him to see your eyes as well as your finger slowly dip into where you’re the hottest, caressing the sensitive skin there knowing he’s watching.

“Where in Nariss?”  Din’s voice is as pleading as it is sharp, desperately trying to keep either you or himself on track.

“I don’t know,” you say again.  Truthfully, you don’t—you don’t know the cross streets, you don’t know the part of town, you don’t know much of anything at all besides physical descriptors.  You quickly move the camera to the side as far as you can hold it and let him see you from a different angle with the window as a backdrop.  “But the window is open.  And there are lots of people outside.”

“Can they see you?”  Din immediately challenges.  Of course they can’t, you’re fifteen stories up and the room is darker than it is outside with all the city lights and swirling colors of the sky, but you suppose he doesn’t know that.  You think he just needs to relax—if this is what he’s always like during hunts, you now know exactly why he comes back to you all riled up and tense.

“I don’t know,” you murmur back, starting to rub your clit a little faster, trying to make it feel like him.  It doesn’t—your fingers aren’t large or strong enough to give you those perfect circles; you just feel like you’re meandering yourself towards ecstasy instead of picking you up and hauling your ass there like he does, but it’s okay.  Hearing Din’s rough breathing come through the earpiece, knowing his hands are probably clenched tight into fists, wondering if he’s hard yet… all of it culminates into a power trip unlike any you’ve experienced recently.  It makes you bold, tells you to open your mouth.  “Does it matter?  I’d still let you fuck me against it if you were here.”

“Stop it,” comes his growl, but what is he gonna do?

Your leg lifts a little wider so you can slowly slide your fingers down and push two of them inside yourself, and Din swears as you moan, “Come find me.”

“Give me your coordinates—”

“Are you giving up?”  You offer breathlessly, lifting your eyebrows and your hips up slightly at the question, but you’re… not expecting the extended silence following.  You assumed a growled no would immediately come next, or just another empty threat said with enough force to make you tremble with excitement, but not… nothing.

The response makes you pause just for a second, easing your fingers out and dragging them across your thigh to clean some of the wetness off before extending your arm out towards the communicator.  Din stays quiet while you navigate through the menu with trembling fingers, eventually finding your coordinates and hovering over the unchecked share location box.

You wait with your lip bit, confident he knows what you’re doing and you don’t have to narrate or repeat yourself.  Fuck, you knew you were considering abandoning this entire adventure just to be next to him again, but you had no idea.  No fucking idea that it could ever be a thought in his own mind as well.  You… assumed he likes this, hunting is what he does for a living and he’s the one who conceived of the idea in the first place.  Is he just that aroused by you?  Or is there something more?

“No,” Din eventually murmurs, and you immediately navigate out of the menu so you don’t accidentally press anything catastrophic, before pulling your hand away from the communicator with a resolved hum and settling back into the pillows again.  Making sure to look directly into the lens even if your eyelids are heavy with heat and desire, you slowly lick your fingers and then reach down once more.

His deep, shaky breath is so telling.  Exhausted after all this, but still not hanging up, still doing his hardest to tough it out when he’s only miles away from you and has jets attached to his back.  You don’t want to drag it out but you also do, you want to be kind but something about Din makes you also want to be as formidable as possible.  You’ll never be able to threaten like he does, you’ll never have anyone cower just because you walked into the room, you’ll never be as powerful or strong as he is, but you can still put up a fucking fight against him in your own way.

You whimper softly, your breathing beginning to find a quicker pace as surely as your fingers do.  It begins to spark and build, a red hot flame being kindled by the knowledge that he’s as close as possible without actually being close, right here with you when he always seems so far away.

“Mando,” you whisper, though your expression pulls inwards just slightly because it… in a scenario as sensual and intimate as this, it almost doesn’t sound righ—

“Din,” he whispers back, so quiet you almost don’t hear it, like he almost doesn’t want to but has to anyways, and then you just start to fucking burn.

“D-Din,” you whisper instead, trying to keep your voice as quiet as possible through the rising swell.  He’ll be able to see it, you think.  The way your tummy and chest start to heave, how your body begins to brace for it—and yeah, Maker, he sees it, because his voice suddenly changes.

“Stop,” Din growls roughly, knowing exactly how you cum—knowing exactly what it looks like, the way it sounds in your breathing, what it tastes like, how it feels on the inside.  It’s been so long since you’ve touched bliss without him, months and months since you brought yourself to completion on the floor of the Crest by yourself, and though he’s rarely ever denied you, your own high on newfound control causes it to slip.  He barks your name and tells you to stop once more, but it’s too late.

“I’m gonna cum, Din,” you breathe out—

“Don’t—”

It tears through you, rapid and surging, and he snarls a curse, something loud snapping and thudding and… did he just punch something?  You can’t think, it’s delicious and hard as fuck and everything you needed after two days of near constant movement and thought with little rest, and you bite your lip to keep quiet but a pained whimper still shoves its way out of your tense vocal cords regardless.  It sounds like it hurts because it does hurt; the orgasm shatters your body into pieces and you’re left trembling by yourself on this soft bed, wishing he was with you on a metal one.

You sink into the mattress in the moments following, sluggish and exhausted and just conscious enough to keep the watch facing you.  You bet the camerawork was terrible, shaky at best, but you can’t find it in yourself to care right now.  You just lay there and listen to his harsh breathing while you work to slow your heart rate, reveling in the filthy little show you just gave him and wanting to finish it out properly.

“Come find me,” you breathe out once more, lazing soft and naked for him, blinking dazedly at the watch as you pan it over you.  Your thighs are still twitching and there’s a thin sheen of sweat clinging to you, but you drag a finger through your swollen lips and carefully wipe the wetness across one of your nipples.  “Clean me up.”

“Fuck,” Din suddenly spits through the earpiece, furious.  “You think—y-you think—”

“What?”  You hum, basking in the afterglow and so, so curious.  Truly, you’re dumb as fuck, you have no clue what you’re thinking, but if anybody would be able to tell you, it’s him.

There’s a moment where his breathing stops.  It’s completely silent on the line, before you hear another few heavy footsteps on his end pick up and then halt just as quickly.

“You think you can taunt me?”   He murmurs, dangerous and deadly quiet.  “Show me exactly where you are, disappear and then make me waste forever trying to get there?  You think that’s gonna work?”

Your eyebrow lifts, considering.  He… may or may not have predicted your strategy perfectly, but his insight has stopped surprising you by now.  “Maybe…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t fall asleep tonight.”

Ooh.  That one sends goosebumps down your arms, but you’ve gained four hours on top of a twelve hour headstart.  He can’t scare you with that tone, not when you’re still woozy with pleasure and he isn’t right in front of you.  Instead of wilting beneath the hard threat, you just blink gently at the communicator, finding strength in being the only one to get him this mad when he’s always so composed, this talkative when he barely says a word.  “Maybe I’ll just stay here then?”

“Maybe you wanted me to know you’re in an inn because you already found someplace to hide that isn’t one,” Din reasons very, very adeptly.  Stars, your heart subtly begins to pick up, your legs continuing to tremble as the small red light next to the lens stares you down.  “Can’t be planning to stay with someone you just met because you’d already be there, can’t be going to a hostel because you found the one city on this moon built for commerce and not aid.  Not staying in another inn, you can’t afford it—the view looks high up, that robe is expensive, and you already bought food and at least five pairs of shoes in two days.  I don’t think the place you found is even in Nariss.  You think you can outsmart me, sweet girl?”

The chill down your spine doesn’t reach your eyes, you won’t let it.  You just feel yourself smile, tilting your head at him and licking your lips while your finger brushes one of your nipples, but Din doesn’t accept your silence the way you’ve always accepted his.  He wants an answer from you, right now, and it’s clear in the dark rumble of his voice, the danger slowly brewing beyond what you originally planned for.

“Tell me,” he orders, unamused and leaving no room to disobey.  “How long do you think you can keep running?”

Your eyelashes flutter, suddenly deciding… why not?  What have you got to lose?  Nothing that you didn’t already go into this situation completely expecting to lose anyways.  What’s the worst he can do?  Find you?

You close your eyes, pinching one of your nipples and wondering if you might just go for another one since he’s still here.  “Ask me again tomorrow.”

But then, instead of immediately responding, you just hear Din’s footsteps suddenly pick up, faster than any pace you’ve been able to keep over the past few days.  You don’t think it sounds like a run necessarily, but you know that his legs and strides are far longer than yours and it’s probably pretty much equivalent to a run for you.  You hear the rhythm of your demise speeding up, coming closer and closer, and everything in you both fears it and welcomes it.

“We’ll see,” he tells you, and then the red light vanishes and your earpiece clicks to silence.

***

Day 3—2:23am:

Even though it takes you much longer to do so than it normally would on a bed so large and comfortable, after such an exciting interaction and not being used to flickering light when you try to sleep but wanting to experience the rarity anyways, you’re eventually able to pass out.

But, not even a few minutes into a restless dream, you turn over and accidentally knock your communicator off the wireless charging station on the side table.  It blinks with four percent battery life.

***

To be continued!!