#don’t worry march — i will take a whole bunch!!

[unriding]

oh goodness — we have reached true safety at last !!! 😭 <- i say this as i nervously glance back … please no more surprise attacks aaaa my poor heart … but for now, yayyyy!!?? & my first actual photos !!! i also made halovian moze let’s go ^^ amphoreus is wonderful !!

[chvoswxtch]

slumber party

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!reader x derek morgan x spencer reid

summary: while en route to a case, the four of you let off a little steam.

warnings: all of them. every single one of them. swearing, a lil angst, derek morgan's smile, explicit sexual content (minors dni)

word count: 3.3k

a/n: let's be real. you didn't come here for a plot, and I didn't write one. enjoy this slutty vision I had in the shower. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!

The jet was quiet apart from the sporadic sound of pages being flipped and Spencer’s occasional soft noises of either being intrigued or perplexed regarding details of the case, deciphered only by their volume and pitch. Hotch had read the same paragraph on the report at least seven times, and there seemed to be some kind of disconnect between his tired eyes and unresponsive brain. Letting out a quiet irritated exhale and diverting his attention to the top of the paragraph yet again, a soft noise caused his ears to perk up.

Finally looking up from the report for the first time in half an hour since he originally sat down, creases furrowed in the midst of his forehead when he glanced towards the other end of the jet and caught sight of you. From where he sat, all he could see was the back of your head since you seemed to be facing the back of the seat you were in, which he found extremely odd. But as he craned his neck, he noticed a familiar pair of hands on your hips and instantly clenched his jaw.

“Son of a bitch.”

The second Hotch shot up out of his chair, Spencer finally tore his own eyes away from the report and turned his head to follow Hotch’s angry march down the aisle of the jet with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. Now that there were no obstructions in his line of sight, Hotch had the full view of you sitting topless on Derek’s lap with your skirt bunched up around your waist, grinding your hips down in a slow but sensual rhythm. Derek’s hands were firmly grasped on your hips to help guide your movements, and his face was buried into your exposed chest.

“Morgan you greedy fucker.”

The sound of Hotch’s angry voice booming in the comfortable silence caused you to immediately tense up and stop moving, but Derek wasn’t having any of that. He gripped a little tighter onto your hip and gave your ass a light smack, pulling his head back to look at you with that dazzling smile of his that could make anyone weak in the knees.

“No no no no, keep goin’ baby girl. Don’t worry about him. You just keep doing what you’re doing…that’s it.”

Derek leaned his head back against the seat, looking over at Hotch with that same charming grin on his face. His warm chocolate brown eyes were glazed over with lust and had been eclipsed into half moons of pleasure. 

“Sorry Hotch, she just looked too goddamn good.”

“What’s going on back-oh.”

As Spencer took his place beside Hotch, his eyes immediately went wide at the sight he was met with. He seemed to be completely mesmerized by the erotic flow of your hips while you languidly rode Derek’s cock as you sat topless on his lap. While Spencer was bewitched by the spell of your hips, Hotch was furious. The stern look that seemed to be his default expression was unaffected by the show taking place before him.

“Morgan, you know the rules-”

“Come on, Hotch. We still got another hour before we land. Lighten up a little. You know, some stress relief would do you a whole lotta good.”

Before Hotch had a chance to respond, Spencer was already stepping forward and unbuttoning his cardigan.

“You could’ve at least asked us to join.”

Derek let out a soft chuckle, rubbing his hands up and down your smooth thighs as he flexed his hips upwards to match your pacing.

“Hey, you were the one more invested in exactly how many trees there are in the Acadia National Park than you were in the beautiful woman on the plane, pretty boy.”

“Well if I had known-”

Letting out a frustrated huff, you stopped moving and placed your hand over Derek’s mouth before turning to look at Spencer and Hotch over your shoulder.

“Boys, you know I hate it when you argue. It makes me dry up.”

Spencer dropped his forgotten cardigan on the chair behind himself, his attention solely fixed on you again. In the dim lighting of the plane, you could just barely see that the green flecks in his honey eyes had deepened into a wicked hue. He ran his fingers gently through your hair before cradling your face in one hand and starting to unbuckle his belt with the other, all while looking at you and dragging his tongue along his bottom lip.

“Don’t worry, we can get you wet again.”

“Not if you’re all standing around bickering instead of fucking me.”

Hotch wasn’t giving in, no matter how badly he wanted to. It was late, he was exhausted, he was beyond sexually frustrated, but above all he was fucking stubborn.

“There is one rule on this fucking plane. When we are en route to a case, we are focused on the case. Playtime is for after.”

Brushing Spencer’s hand away from his belt, a smirk tugged across your lips as you looked up at him and began to unbuckle it yourself, which only caused him to bite down on his bottom lip seductively. Throwing a glance over your shoulder at Hotch, you could visibly see just how pissed off he was, but as your gaze wandered down south, you could also see the outline of his impressive cock starting to strain against his pants. Sinking your teeth into your own bottom lip, you looked up at Hotch through your, flashing him a sultry smile while you teasingly unzipped Spencer’s pants slowly.

“Aw, come on, Aaron. If anyone needs some relief, it’s you. Just come have a little fun with us.”

The hardness in Hotch’s glare wavered only slightly at the provocative sound of your voice. It was an unrelenting struggle to keep his eyes focused directly on yours and to not let them roam over your body. If he let his gaze wander for even a split second to see the way your nipples were peaked from the cool air in the cabin, the way your soft hand was caressing Spencer’s cock through his pants, or the way your ass moved against Derek’s lap while you fucked him, he would break. While Derek began to flex his hips upwards a little harder to fuck up into you now that there was no longer a reason to stay quiet, you were pulling Spencer’s cock out of his briefs and leaning over to take him into your mouth.

Before he could watch you wrap your lips around Spencer’s tip, Hotch quickly looked away and stormed off towards the other end of the jet, dropping into his chair and loosening his tie with a hardened scowl on his face.

“You’re all getting written up.”

“For what?”

Derek's protest was only faintly heard since Hotch’s blood was now pounding in his ears like a high school marching band, and throbbing in other places. 

“Insubordination.”

There was a slight growl to his voice as he barked back at Derek, not even bothering to look up as he angrily began to look through the case file again, but he couldn't focus. No matter how hard he tried, all he could hear was Derek and Spencer praising you in tandem as they each took an offering from your body, and the soft noises of gratitude that flowed from your lips. It was absolute fucking torture. He thought about palming himself through his pants, just to get a little reprieve without alerting any of you to his moment of weakness. But he was so fucking angry with all of you, he didn’t even want to give in.

His mind was a jumbled concoction of juxtaposed thoughts, none of which had anything to do with the case in front of him. Hotch wasn’t sure why he was so pissed off right now. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if he had joined in, it wasn’t like the four of you hadn’t done it before. It certainly would’ve put him in a better mood. But this was a big case, and Strauss had been on his ass more than usual lately, and things at the BAU had been so chaotic that the team was getting split up just to keep up with the influx of cases coming across JJ’s desk.

Maybe it was a mistake not to send you with Rossi, JJ, and Prentiss. The air always shifted when you were alone with him, Reid, and Morgan. It was inevitable. Maybe that’s why he ordered you to come with him, because even if he didn’t want to consciously admit it, subconsciously he knew that this was exactly what he needed. He needed you, and the peace that you brought him.

The sharp sound of a smack landing on flesh caught his attention, and Hotch looked up to see that the three of you had moved to the bench directly in his line of sight. Derek had his head thrown back as pounded into you from behind, occasionally smacking his hand against your ass while he grunted about how tight and wet you always were. Spencer held your hair back while he fucked your mouth, watching you as he moaned praises of what a good girl you were. Your face was obstructed by Spencer’s back, but Hotch could hear how much you were enjoying yourself, and he couldn’t look away.

As Derek and Spencer came in unison, Hotch gripped onto the edge of the table so tightly his knuckles turned stark white, and he inhaled a sharp breath that he let out slowly through his nose. Gritting his teeth, he glared down at the blur of black ink on the pages, listening to the sound of your angelic laughter and kisses being exchanged between the three of you. Why was he doing this to himself? Why hadn’t he just fucking given in and joined?

While Spencer was sitting on the couch with his pants around his ankles, head back against the window with a blissed out look on his face, Derek snaked his arm around your waist and pressed a soft kiss to your neck before whispering into your ear.

“Do me a favor, baby girl. Go take care of grumpy over there.”

Letting out a quiet giggle, you turned and brushed your nose against Derek’s before kissing him softly.

“Already ahead of you, D.”

Discarding your skirt completely, you dropped it in Spencer’s laugh and planted a quick kiss to his lips before sauntering down the aisle of the plane, completely naked. Hotch glanced up when he caught the smell of your familiar perfume and looked at you with a halfhearted glare. All you could do was smile at the sight of his thick brows furrowed and the permanent scowl that he always seemed to wear. You both knew he couldn’t stay mad at you, and he didn’t even put up a fight when you made him lean back against his seat so you could sit on his lap. 

“Why are you so mad baby, hm?”

Wrapping your arms around his shoulders, you ran one of your hands through his dark brown hair, giving a gentle tug at the root which earned a quiet grunt from him. As you leaned in to place featherlight kisses along his jaw, you could feel his body physically relax, as well as how much his hardened cock was straining against his pants. But despite the giveaways from his body, Hotch wouldn’t budge. He didn’t make a move to touch you, and he didn’t speak. He was always the hardest of the three to break, but you knew exactly where his weak points were.

“Oh, you don’t wanna talk, huh? That’s okay. I’d prefer to do something else with my mouth right now anyway.”

Gently biting down on his earlobe, you felt his thighs tense up beneath you and a quiet grunt sound from his chest, and you couldn’t help but laugh softly. As you got off his lap, you slowly got down onto your knees in front of Hotch and unbuckled his belt. Since he was already in a sour mood, you decided to skip the teasing, and honestly you were so turned on yourself that you didn’t have the patience for it.

He was trying so hard not to give in while you were pulling the leather of his belt out of the buckle, and even as you were unbuttoning his pants and tugging down the zipper, he was trying to appear completely unbothered while looking at the case files. But the second he felt your luscious lips wrap around the throbbing head of his cock that was slick with pre-cum, he completely lost it. 

Letting his head fall back against the seat, he closed his eyes and his lips parted as he focused solely on the warmth of your mouth and the wetness of your tongue sliding against the underside of his sensitive tip. In that moment he completely forgot whatever he was mad about. Every single coherent thought in his head vanished, and all that was  left was you.

You don’t mind when he slips his hand into your hair and grips at it roughly, or when he starts to push his hips upwards to seek out more. It was rare that Hotch ever gave in to his selfish desires, and you were all too eager to let him. The sight above you was one you wished you could frame. His dark brown hair was messy from you running your fingers through it and his eyes were peacefully screwed  shut. There was a twinge of heat covering his cheeks, and his lips were parted further as heavy pants and soft whimpers escaped. Those little noises only make you want to steal more of them from the man that was normally so stoic and closed off. 

All of a sudden, Hotch roughly pulled at your hair causing you to moan around him. He grunted while leaning down to slip his hands under your arms, pulling you up from your knees and shoving all the reports off the table in front of him carelessly onto the floor. He grabbed you by your hips and lifted you up onto the table, and you immediately spread your legs wide for him to slot through. Without wasting another second, Hotch pulled you towards the edge of the table and easily slipped his thick cock inside your drenched pussy. Both of you moaned simultaneously at the contact, and he only faltered for a second before he started to aggressively snap his hips against yours.

Faintly, you can hear Derek whistling from the other side of the plane and the sound of him clapping as he calls out to Hotch.

“There he is. Come on, Hotch. Give us a show.”

When you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist, Hotch wrapped one of his large hands around your throat and lightly squeezed. You can tell he’s still frustrated by the feral way he’s fucking you against the table, but you can feel just how badly he needs this release. Sneaking one of your hands down to play with your clit, you only get away with it for a few seconds before Hotch roughly smacks your hand away and tightens his grip on your throat. He replaces your hand with his own and starts to furiously rub quick circles over your sensitive clit, tearing a sharp moan from your chest. You can feel how close he is already by the way his rhythm starts to falter. When he speaks, his voice is so low and husky that it almost sounds like a growl.

“You insatiable little slut. You haven’t come enough already? You think you deserve to come again after the way you’ve been acting?”

“Aaron-”

“Shut up.”

The only thing you can hear over the obscene sound of Hotch’s thighs smacking against your ass with every powerful thrust and the lewd squelching of his cock disappearing over and over inside your tight cunt is the dark chuckle that sounded from Spencer before he spoke.

“Uh oh, someone pissed off Daddy.”

The way you moan Hotch’s name nearly has him combusting right there. When he starts to rub your clit harder, your jaw becomes unhinged and hangs open, but nothing comes out. You can’t speak, you can’t even make a sound. Hotch grunts as his pace becomes even more fervent and brutal. He was fucking you with everything he had, using your body to expel every ounce of pent up frustration, and you were already ascending into the clouds.

“You wanna come so fucking badly? Then do it.”

The tightening of your cunt around his cock sends both of you over the edge, and both of your moans seem to echo in the small space of the cabin. Hotch continues to fuck you wildly through his orgasm, gripping onto the edge of the table to steady himself. Once he starts to slow down after emptying himself inside of you completely, the blissed out smile that replaces the frown on his mouth makes you giggle, and it causes him to finally open his eyes and look down at you with an arch of his brow.

“What?”

“Better?”

Hotch just stares down at you for a moment with slightly narrowed eyes before he finally gives in, his lips parting into that wide grin that you love so much but rarely get to see. Taking a moment to catch his breath, a light chuckle leaves him as he gazes down at you with softer eyes this time and brushes your hair away from your face gently.

“You know, the whole point of me being your boss is you’re supposed to actually listen to me.”

“You of all people know I listen very well.”

The sultry tone of your voice and the implications behind it caused Hotch to smirk, and you can feel the effect it has when you feel his cock twitch inside of you. Leaning in, he brushed his lips against your own and gave your ass a light smack.

“When you’re being a good girl and not such a brat.”

A soft noise of surprise left your lips when he smacked your ass, and you giggled while grabbing his face in your hands to pull him in for a soft and slow kiss.

“I don’t hear you complaining.”

Rolling his eyes, Hotch reluctantly pulled out of you with a soft hiss and helped you down from the table. He ran one of his hands through his hair and took another deep breath before tucking his softened cock back into his pants.

“Alright, everyone back to work.”

“Wait, everyone got to fuck her but me, that’s not fair.” 

Hotch glanced down at his watch on his wrist before looking over at Spencer, shooting him a pointed look when he caught the slight pout on Spencer’s lips.

“We’re landing in twenty minutes and we still need to prep.”

As Spencer began to protest, you walked over towards him and placed your hand on his chest, leaning up to press a soft kiss to his cheek with a mischievous grin.

“Don’t worry, Spence. I’ll share a room with you tonight, and you can fuck me all you want.”

Spencer’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas, but Derek and Hotch immediately began to protest as they shared a look before staring at the two of you with looks of frustration.

“Whoa whoa whoa-“

“That’s not-“

Spencer wrapped his arms around you to pull you in, bending down to kiss you deeply while grabbing a handful of your ass to squeeze tightly causing you to giggle. He nipped at your bottom lip before turning to look at Hotch and Derek with a smug smirk.

“Don’t worry. Unlike you two, I know how to share. Maybe we can all have a slumber party.”

tags: @mars-rants-a-lot @ninejlovebot @oscarisaacsleftknee @ameliaswife @vane28282 @kmc1989 @avencol

[mooooonnnzz]

Hi I just wanna say I read the Dad! Stanley hcs you did and it was sooo goood I loved every bit of it.

I was wondering if you could do a bit of an angsty request where Stanley's child is in there late teens an gets possesed by Bill, like what do you think his reaction would be, since when dipper got possesed by bill, bill physicaly injured dippers body a lot and was just genuinely careless with his body. Also I have no idea when the reader would be possesed by bill mabey after Ford is back to make things extra angsty since ford knows of bill, idk do whatever you like with this request I just like angst with for no reason whatsoever.

Also I did try to find if you had any request rules but I couldn't find any so if you do have rules and this request is something you don't feel comfortable writing then please just ignore this request, I hope you have a brilliant day or night :D.

Another thing I just wanted to mention is I'm sorry for how long this request is.

Far From The Weight of The World

Dad!Stanley Pines x Teen!Reader

❀ 9,1k words its a loottt so if ur ready to hunker down and read a whole bunch this is for u!!

❀ guess who finished far from the weight of the world THIS GUYYY

❀ it wouldn't have ever seen the light of day if it wasn't for @raventeen they helped me sm!! like they helped every single step of the way and chose the direction of where this should go so big thanks to them <3

❀ i hope you all enjoy this! :3

❀ possible tw: description of skin melting off, throwing up blood, self inflicted harm, more blood, uhh broken bones? even more blood

❀ gn!reader

❀ i love dad stan pines smmm

❀ requests r still open hehe

“Sweetheart!” Stan’s footsteps could be heard thumping on the ground towards you. You marched forwards, your throat painfully knotted in a ball, suppressing your sobs and swallowing your words. Your head swirled with the word liar, spinning around hastily. Whispers of Mable and Dipper could be heard distantly behind you, their concerned eyes digging holes right through you. Too swept up by your wind of emotions you ignored their worried looks. 

“We can talk about this, kiddo. Just give me a second.” His fingers curl against your arm but you yank it away before he’s able to wrap them around you. “What do you want, Dad?” You promptly turned around, glassy eyes somberly staring into his wide ones. “Can you please give me a chance. Hear me out,” his voice cracked at the end, his hands twitching to desperately reach out to you and prevent you from taking another step further away from him. “I don’t know If I can trust you, Dad.” Uttering that sentence shattered something within you. Not once have you thought of yourself ever telling your very own dad that you don’t trust him. He had never given you a reason to distrust him. To you, all his past lies were seen as truth to you, undeniable facts that couldn’t be broken apart because his word carried high validity, to you at least. But now, you’re not even sure that he’s telling you the truth right now.

Ford’s heavy shoes sounded on the creaky wooden floors, announcing his presence wordlessly. “[Name], dear. Listen to your father.” He adds. He looked at you with an analytical stare, twisting your stomach inside out. You didn’t like how he looked at you like you were one of his captured anomalies, inspecting you and reading your tense body language, anticipating for the second where you’d act out of pure emotion so he’d supply you with meaningless words that held nothing but empty hope to burn out the flurry of emotions that ran rampant inside you.

“I don’t want to hear anything from you, Uncle Ford.” You spat out. He was the last person you wanted to hear anything from. From time to time, you’ve begged him to tell you what exactly is going around here yet he’d always brush you aside, dismissing whatever you’d ask and move on with the next thing that gripped his attention. “You never wanted to say anything to me until now.” 

Ford, not expecting your answer, stumbled with his words. He shakes his head, almost as if he’s expelling his shock with the shakes and regains his composure. “[Name],” he starts off with a stern tone. “You are acting purely on your emotions. I need you to compose yourself and talk to us when you’re relaxed enough to form a proper sentence that doesn’t have you snapping at us.” 

Your jaw gawks open. “So you’re telling me that I shouldn’t be feeling upset over this? 

Ford clicked his tongue, a twinge of frustration oozing out of him. Everything you’re saying is going off the script Ford had curated in his head. He’s rendered useless as he scrambles for words he can put together in a sentence that’ll feasibly flip your train of thought around and convince you that the way you’re acting is irrational. 

Ford waved his head side to side, unsure with his answer. Stan noticed the apprehension shrouded on Ford’s face and he silently signaled to him to not say what he’s about to say, already knowing that his poor choice of words was going to send this whole situation right on its back. Too stubborn for his own good, Ford stood his ground and opened his mouth much to Stan’s clear distaste of him speaking his mind. 

“Yes but no.” You grit your teeth together, eyes narrowly staring daggers at Ford who looked seemingly pleased with his response.

Stan gulps nervously, taking a cautious step forward. “Sweetie, don’t listen to him. He’s an idiot. He doesn’t know what–” 

“--You’re telling me that I’m overreacting? I have just found out that my dad has been lying to me since the moment I was born! And to make matters worse, you all are hiding things from me. None of you are bothering to tell me what the hell is going on here. Why are we all so secretive? We all promise to tell each other everything, no more secrets, no more lies! What happened to that? You all know something and I have a right to know as well!”

You heaved out a ragged breath, words spilling out of you in a madden rush. You held down your tongue for too long. Long nights of sneaky meandering had left you scrambling all the pieces they had discarded on secrets of Gravity Falls together, solving and answering all the questions you laid out for them but chose to ignore. All the lies Stan had fed you over the years concerning this supposed lazy town was unraveling right in front of you. What else had he been hiding from you? What other filthy lies had he pushed on you that you so mindlessly believed? 

Stan’s mouth flounders, stammers of jumbled sounds spilled out. His arms are rendered at his side, stunned with your outburst. “I thought I was protecting you.” He whispers, his fingers flexing anxiously. “Dad! This whole summer has been nothing but crazy. I didn’t know that we had half of those monsters in our woods because you lied to me and told me that it’s been my imagination. What if I had gotten close to one thinking that it was all in my head, and the beast mauls my head off. What then, Dad?” 

Stan deflates. Lost for words, he runs a hand down his gray hair. Thinking about finding your bloodied body sent full body chills down his spine and his stomach lurching. He never sat down and thought of the consequences of what he told you. As long as he said that it was all in your head, he thought you would’ve strayed away from them. 

“I’m going outside. Maybe some stupid gnome would actually tell me what’s going on here because nobody here wants to even tell me anything.” The door slammed shut, causing everything on the wall to rattle and almost tip over. “Oh,” Stan drooped his head onto his palms, tears swelling in his eyes. “I really screwed up here.” He whispered to himself, his voice crackly and small. 

Ford patted his back and Stan believed for a quick moment that Ford was going to say something so beautifully uplifting that he’d see the brighter sides of things, but he tells him, “When are you not?” and continues to pat his back.

Stan violently shrugged Ford’s hand off, his hand pushing Ford away from him. “Really, poindexter?” He scoffs, walking off into the living room where Mable and Dipper watched the whole scene unfold. “I thought it would offer some comfort!” He defeatedly argues back, a dejected sigh escaping him when his eyes meet Mable’s watery ones and Dipper’s disappointed glare. “Kids, I—“ Mable swiftly turns her head to the side, mumbling something under her breath as she ambles up to her room. 

“I’m going to find them.” Stan walks in, slipping on a jacket to shield him from the cold. “I’m coming too.” Ford reaches out to grab the doorknob when Stan’s hand stops him from doing so. “I don’t think they want to see you right now.” Stan gingerly shoved Ford out of the way, leaving him to his thoughts as he shut the door behind him. Cursing to himself, Ford rams his foot on the door angrily. 

Venturing far into the lush woods, you grumbled bitterly to yourself. You couldn’t even trust your own family to tell you something so simple. How utterly pathetic is that? 

You fought the urge to punch a nearby tree and continued on, getting yourself lost in the natural maze of the forest. You wanted to get as far away as possible just so you can find time for yourself to cool down. After a while, the cold air started to nip at your exposed arms. The hairs on your body stood up as a cold shiver rippled through you. Hugging yourself to provide some warmth you found yourself sitting on the grassy floor, back leaning against the bark of the tree. 

The soft chirps and squeaks of the animals brought a sense of calmness over you. These woods have been declared dangerous by Stan and for the longest time you never went out here without Stan hovering behind you or Soos mindlessly meandering through the woods with you. Your hands swayed across the green blades of grass, focusing on the itchy feeling that ran through your palms rather than the bitter cold. The faint whistles of the wind swirled around your ears and out around you. Has this forest always been so peaceful? Leaning your head against the trunk of the tree, you closed your eyes shut. Relishing in the comforting nature the woods provided you. 

“Sweetheart?” Your eyes shoot open. “Dad?” Your heart quickens, your head whipping around rapidly. “Sweetie?” Stan’s voice grew closer and closer. The sound of the grass crunching and bending under his steps resounded throughout the quiet woods, his calls becoming more frequent and louder. How did he find you so quickly? 

A shadowy figure, one you’ve grown to recognize, stepped out from the shade and presented himself. “[Name].” Stan sweetly calls out, kneeling down beside you. “Dad? What are you doing here?” 

Stan smiled, opening his mouth but all that came out was a raspy breath. “Wha–” Your voice hitches in your throat. 

Stan’s skin started melting off in a disgusting mess of bubbling flesh. The side of his face became a drooping mess and a crazed cackle left his lips. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, kid!” He points a boney finger at you, melted flesh sludge dripping from the bone. You scramble back, terrified screams ripping out of you. 

“W-What is going on?” You push yourself up from the floor with your hand, bile coating the back of your throat at the horrid sight of Stan’s bloodied flesh sploshing to the floor. “I’m just playing tricks on you!” With a snap of his finger, Stan poofed away in thin air. What took his spot was an ominous floating triangle with a top hat. “Well, well, well, look who it is, [Name]! I knew we'd cross paths sooner or later. I gotta admit, I'm thrilled!” His eye crinkled in a joyous smile. 

“How…” You blinked dumbly at the floating triangle. “I’m dreaming, right?”

“You sure are, kid!” 

A wave of recognition passes through you. This was the god Ford was talking about in one of his journals. Your knowledge of him was not much, but from the tidbits you have read, Ford had admired this god. He went as far as to calling the triangle his muse. What was his name? Wasn’t it– “Bill?” His name spills out of your mouth. “Ah! So you do know about me?” He tilts a little in your direction, his hands clasped together. “Hear anything good?” A glimmer of forlorn hope shimmers in his eye before it’s washed away with an inquisitive look. “I-I think so? My Uncle really liked you from what I had read in his journals.” You squint your eyes in thought.

“Oh, he really liked me.” Bill’s charmed voice had entailed that there was more to the story than what was told but he didn’t give you time to mull over that thought before jumping into the flow of another topic. “But that’s all in the past now, right?” He snaps his fingers, a comfortable looking chair appearing before your eyes. He floated down on the chair, kicking his legs up and crossing them. 

“I heard that a little someone has been lied to, isn’t that unfortunate?” The corner of his eye pulled to the side, almost as if it was a sadden frown. “How did you know?” The chair poofs away.  “I see everything, kid!” His hands fall to his sides and he slowly leans towards you, his eye pulled wide open. Flashes of images you couldn’t quite comprehend flickered by in a brisk montage. “Everything.” He draws out. “Anyways, I've got a deal for you. You give me, I give you. Sounds fair, doesn't it?” 

You raise a brow. “How can I trust you?” You rolled your fingers around the grass, delicately pulling on them. 

“Your dear Uncle Ford trusted me!” He shakes his hands enthusiastically. 

You pressed your lips into a thin line, still not convinced. “You literally pretended to be my dad and melted him right in front of me.” Bill put his fists to his sides, huffing out like a little child. “Can’t a triangle have a little fun here?” He rolled his eye dramatically. You eyed him, skepticism evident on your face. “I don’t know…” You plucked out a few blades of grass from the dirt. “I feel like if you wanted to gain my trust then you shouldn’t have done that.” You crumpled up the grass into a little green ball and tossed it at Bill. The ball passes through his body. 

“Maybe you’ll change your mind once I propose the deal..?” Bill’s eye stretched out and morphed into a mouth with his lips puckered. He whistles out a tune you can’t recognize and innocently kicks the air. “Go on,” You wave your hand out to him. “If you make a deal with me, everything that you’ve been wanting to know will be revealed to you. All you have to do is shake my hand.” He extended out his hand, blue flame engulfing it whole. You blink your eyes in surprise. Was it really that easy? “There’s no catch?” 

Bill’s fingers trembled in anticipation. “None whatsoever!” 

You could trust him, right? Ford had trusted him! Bill even confirmed it himself. And with what you read, Bill had been giving him infinite knowledge. Feeding him thoughts that no one else had thought of before. He did manage to build that portal and come to think of it, wasn’t it triangular shaped? Was that Bill shaped or were you reaching? You think for a minute more, weighing the pros and the cons. Biting your tongue, you looked at Bill. Bill made a deal with Ford and he’s still alive and well, so how bad could it really be?

You bite the bullet and grasp onto his hand, the flame trailing towards you and consuming your hand whole. A maniacal laugh rips through the air and the world stills. The color drains around you, unpleasantly welcoming you to a monochrome world. “That was just too easy!” Bill wipes a tear from his eye, his firm grip on your hand never wavering. “W-What do you mean?” You tried forcefully pulling your hand away from Bill’s iron grip but it felt like your whole hand was encased in stone. No matter how hard you tried prying yourself away from his hold, his hand still didn’t budge. His eye twists into a pleased smile, his fingers thumping against the edge of your palm gleefully. 

“Was I an idiot for trusting you?” Your words came out in a quiet whisper. You can feel the life being sucked out of you as Bill drew his hand back. “Yes! Absolutely!” He said with a cheer, yanking his hand back suddenly, pulling you out of your physical form. Bill wasted no time taking over your body. He rose up with a delighted laugh, his hands running down your body, taking in the new but familiar feeling. “Wow!” He pressed your palms on your lower back, stretching out your back with a few gratifying pops. “It has been so long since I’ve possessed someone!” Cracking your fingers, he turned over to your floating form with an eerie smile. The world bleeds back into its colors and the soft tranquil sounds of the forest flooded your ears. “Funny how we switched places, huh?” 

You let out a shaky breath, your mind relentlessly battering you with words. How was this even possible? How could you be so foolish? You couldn’t even comprehend any of this. Bill moving around and using your body was terrifying. That was physically you and right now, he was joyously ramming your fist into the tree. You can see the skin on your knuckles rip and tear, blotchy patches of blood tainting the light bark. A light tingle of pain buzzed on your knuckles but it went away as quickly as it came.

“You’re so easy to injure! How weak are you?” He observes the damage eagerly, making your finger pinch on a frayed piece of skin. He twisted it and pulled it back, lightly chuckling to himself as he watched pearls of blood bead up from the now exposed skin. “Bill, stop!” Out of instinct, your hand went over to swat his arm away. A cold gust of wind flows through you as your hand phases right through yo–Bill. He stopped, plucking off the skin and flicking it aside.  “If you keep hurting yours–, I mean, me! They’re going to wonder what happened.”

“Not if I tell them that you got attacked!” He said in a sing-song voice, his eyes keenly looking around for anything else that’ll harm your body. “[Name]!” Stan’s voice rung in the air, pulling you and Bill from your thoughts. A sinister smile tug at Bill’s lips as an idea fills his head. Your stomach flips inside out. Discreet grunts and groans seized your attention and you whipped your head over to Bill climbing up a tree. “What are you doing!” Your hands fly to your hair, gripping it tightly. 

“Breaking the bones inside this meaty vessel, duh.” He hoists himself up on a thick branch. “Would a fall from this height kill you?” Bill ponders out loud, shakily standing up. “Are you seriously going to do this!” Your eyes darted from Bill sticking out your foot from under you to the direction where Stan’s voice could be heard. Bill lets your question float up in the air and with a child-like shout, he jumps off the branch, keeping your legs straight. You look away, unable to witness Bill carelessly treat your body like a toy. 

A stomach turning snap sounded in the air. “[Name]!” Stan��s distressed voice alerted you.

You whip your head around to see Stan cradling your body. Bile crawls up your throat upon seeing your twisted leg limply hang on the other side. “Sweetheart? What happened?” Stan’s words rushed out in a flurried frenzy. You slapped a palm to your mouth, anxiously awaiting for Bill to slip up and sell out his identity to Stan. “I don’t know…” You hear your very own voice leave your mouth. Bill’s agitating voice was nowhere to be heard. Vomit fills your mouth and you fight every muscle in your body to not spew it out. “I was just laying on the tree, not doing anything when something attacked me. I…” Bill allows a few tears to cascade down your face before continuing. “I thought I was going to die, Dad. I was so scared!” He dramatically sobs onto Stan’s sweater, purposefully grazing your shredded bleeding knuckle on his jacket. 

A gasp swelled in Stan’s chest. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I-I…” He harshly shuts his mouth closed, his pupils shrinking upon seeing your bloody knuckle. He was at fault for this, if he had never lied to you, if he would have just told you the truth from the start, you wouldn’t be so injured. Silently he carefully picked you up from the floor. To sprinkle a little more dramatics on the show Bill had out for you, he hissed out in faux pain, shooting your hand to your bent leg. Stan cringed, his eyes avoiding the general direction of your broken leg. “I’m sorry, baby.” He weakly muttered, his eyebrows pinched firmly in worry. 

Stan trekked through the thick foliage with your body curled in his arms. He dodged under branches that stuck out and sidestepped the stones that protruded from the ground. The entire walk was in silence, aside from the periodic sniffles coming from Stan and quiet hiccups. All you wanted to do at that moment was wrap him in a hug and tell him everything was going to be okay, but you weren’t even so sure of that yourself.

When Stan approaches the front door of the shack, a wave of conflicted emotion flickers through Bill’s eyes before he closes his eyes abruptly and goes slack in Stan’s arms. 

Stan chokes out a garbled yell for Ford. He heaves your body over his shoulder, twisting open the door with a slam and barging into the shack. “Stanley?!” Ford frantically ran over to Stan, his hands gesturing wildly at the sight before his eyes. “Th-They passed out in my arms! I don’t know what to do, Stanford!” 

You grapple at your face, desperate to make sense of what’s happening. You watch with a heavy heart when Mable and Dipper scramble to Stan’s side, troubled voices speaking over one another trying to understand what happened to you and to ask if you were dead. Their frantic cries and yells chaotically fill the silence in the shack. Ford yelled over their voices, instructing Stan to quickly settle you down on the couch so he could conduct a proper examination on your wounded body. All Stan could do is go along with his commands, mind hazy with borderline delirium as he stumbles towards the living room. 

“Dad,” you whisper, your fingertips grazing through him. You hold back the sob that scratched at your throat. This can’t be happening right now. 

Cracking an eye open to your direction, you can feel Bill’s sleazy smile draw on your face. Your stomach shrivels up in disgust at the sight. His yellow eyes gleamed under the dimly lit shack as he stared at you. Mable’s rushed steps drew Bill to close your eyes. “Grunkle Stan! Please tell me they’re okay!” Mable has the collar of her sweater pulled up to her mouth, her never ending stream of tears staining the sweater. “Mable. Give him some space.” Dipper murmured, holding Mable back as he tensely watched Stan lay you down. 

Ford eventually came in with a first aid kit. His appearance looked a little more disheveled than before. His hair was strewn about and ruffled, glasses crookedly sat atop of his nose and one of his sleeves was rolled up and cuffed while the other one was untouched. He sucked in a harsh breath upon seeing your split knuckles, dried blood crusted around the wounds and raw skin. The gashes reminded him of his own busted up knuckles when he was possessed by Bill. Alarm signs flared in his face but he batted them away, chalking it up to your injuries being caused by whatever animal had attacked you in the woods when you were alone. He treated the lacerations with antibodies and meticulously wrapped your hand in medical gauze. Gently placing your hand beside you, he looked over to your broken leg, holding a bated breath. Broken bones weren’t his favorite injury to heal since it takes extensive time off from anything physical and you having a broken leg at a time like this wasn’t ideal. He just needed to find ways to heal your leg quickly. 

“I need you all to leave the living room.” Ford clapped his hands together, dragging a hand down his fingers. “W-What, why?!” This was the first time Stan spoke in a while and it surprised Ford. Clearing his throat, he answered: “Because I can’t focus with your eyes hovering all over me. I-I need to think and if I’m going to treat their leg, I need you all to leave.” Against everyone’s wishes, Ford ushered them out,  leaving him alone to fully think about possible treatments he could have you undergo to heal your leg. 

You didn’t have a good feeling about leaving Bill alone with Ford. They had history with each other and having a past with someone like Bill doesn’t seem like a good thing. 

“Fordsy…” 

Ford’s body physically recoiled inwards at the familiar nickname. His head darted around the room, helplessly searching for the owner of the voice. He can’t be here can he? That voice just sounded so eerily similar to yours, but why would you call him Fordsy? Blood pumps in his ear drums, obstructing his hearing. 

“Sixeerrr.” His fingers curl around his arms. The light glow of horrifying unforgettable eyes glimmer in the corner of his eyes. He turns over to see you sat up on the couch, a smile stretched from ear to ear as Bill’s eyes shone into his. Ford’s blood ran cold, his mind swirling like a whirlwind. “Bill?” His heart pounds behind his rib cage. 

“The one and only, Sixer.” Hearing Bill’s voice crackle through your own instilled despair all over Ford’s body. Taking a wary step back, his shaky eyes watched as Bill threw your legs down the couch, your left eye flinching closed as pain shivered through Bill. He severely underestimated how much pain your leg would cause him. To fight against it, he slammed your leg on the floor. Pain jostled through him, a shuddering sigh blowing past your lips. The aching pain overtook your leg for a moment before it relented into a numbing buzzing feeling. “Much better!” He stands up, smiling broadly. 

Ford sucked in a stuttering breath, his eyes fleeting over to the hallway. “What do you want, Bill?” 

“I don’t know…” He rolled your head in thought. “Maybe the rift to the portal? It’s a crazy thing to ask, I know!” He laughs to himself. 

You wanted to bash your head on the wall. This was the reason why he made a deal with you. It was because of a stupid rift. You’ve only heard bits and pieces of the importance of the rift, but you knew it was serious business with how you heard Ford talk about it in passing. You need to find a way to stop Bill. 

Ford sneered. “Try all you want, Bill. But you’re not getting the portal.” Bill rolled your shoulders, earning a few noisy crackles of your bones. Ford tenses up, readying himself for the fight that’s about to pursue when Bill charges towards him, side stepping him at the last second and darting out of the living room. “Haha! I got you!” He teases, hissing out in pain when he applied too much pressure on your busted leg. “Stanley!” Ford yelled out, stumbling over his own feet as he ran after Bill. Hurried footsteps stomp down on the stairs, panicked talking and breaths littered the air. “[Name] is possessed by Bill!” A chorus of “WHAT?” echoes in the house. 

He skids to a stop in front of the open vending machine. Ford tugged on his hair, mumbling to himself in shock. How does he know the password? Wasting no time to dwell on that, he pads down the stairs. His stomach lurches forward when he notices Bill step inside the elevator, a snarky smile on your face as he turns around and waves at Ford. “Bill!” He launches himself forward, missing a few steps of the stairs and landing on the ground near the elevator. He trips over to the closing elevator, his fist slamming on the door as it shuts. 

“Ford, what is going on?” Stan pants out. Ford rapidly presses the elevator button, anxiously watching as the elevator dinged on down to the bottom. An idea passes through your head. Mumbling a self-motivating sentence Mable had showed you, you dived straight through the floor, phasing through the other two rooms and landing in the lab room. As stupid as it sounds, you’re going to repossess your body back.  

“Bill, he–he has [Name]!” Ford delivers a punch to the buttons, knocking the plate off its screws. Stan’s face contorts into a mixture of anger and concern. “He has what!? How the fuck does Bill have [Name], Ford!” Ford rested his forehead on the wall. “Now’s not the time to freak out, Stanley!”

Stan clenched his fists, grinding his teeth together. “It’s the perfect time to freak out, Stanford! Bill has my kid!” 

“Bill has [Name]?” Mable’s shrill reverberated through the empty staircase. “Kids, you can’t be here!” Ford warns, shooting out his hand to stop Mable and Dipper from getting any closer. “We want to help, Grunkle Ford.” Dipper sternly said. “That’s a funny joke, kid.” Stan chuffs out dryly, his attention snapping towards the elevator that was now rising up the shaft, dinging with each stop. “It’s not a joke!” Dipper dipped under Ford’s arm and stood in front of the elevator, Mable following in suit. “Stanley, do something!” Ford gestures to Mable and Dipper who are unmoving from their spot. Stan scoffs, dismissing him with a flick of his wrist. “They’re already here, Stanford. There’s no point in stoppin’ them now.” 

With a loud chime, the elevator pulls back its doors. The twins were the first to step inside, whispering to themselves as Ford and Stan walked in. Mable rushes over to the panel containing three buttons and using her tippy toes, she slams the last button with the palm of her hand. The elevator registers the destination with a slight rumble and shuts the door closed, leading them down to Ford’s lab. 

Ford could see Stan’s harsh breathing and clenched fists out the corner of his eye. Placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, he steels both him and Ford with: “We’re going to save them, Stanley.” Stan breathes out, teetering his head back with his eyes shut. “I hope you’re right about that.” 

The elevator quivers to a stop, the doors creakily pulling open. The four of them step out of the elevator and into the lab. “I was expecting it to be destroyed down here.” Dipper comments. 

Through the protective window, Ford could see Bill fighting with himself, your body laying limp for a few seconds before revving back up to life. He watches the cycle repeat for a few more times before shaking his head. “He’s outside.” He advises everyone. 

In a blink of an eye, Stan was already out into where Bill was, blowing countless angry questions at his face, his eyes shifting everywhere but at you. “Woah, woah, woah!” Bill took a cautious step back as he watched everyone circle around him, caught off guard with the sudden intrusion. “Don’t get your underwear in a twist, haha, am I right?” 

Pure and utter silence. 

Bill’s smile falters. “Okay, touch crowd!” 

“Cut the crap, Bill. Give me back my kid!” Stan grunts out. “I can let them talk to you! After all, they’re up here.” He taps the side of your head. “Stop messing around!” Ford takes a step toward Bill. “Don’t come any closer!” Your own voice filters through Bill’s interdimensional voice. Ford hesitates in his steps, sharing a cautionary glance with Stan. Shuffling your hand behind you, he pulls out the shimmering rift. “I will break this!” He threatens, flipping it upside down. 

Ford narrows his eyes at Bill. “You would’ve done so by now. What’s stopping you?” He motions Dipper and Mable to sneak past Bill and hide behind him, just in case he decides to do anything that’ll compromise the rift and you. “Nothing!” Bill strains out, trying to wiggle the rift out of your grasp. Ford takes notice of your white knuckles and connects two and two together. You’re somehow fighting against Bill for your body. “Fascinating…” 

“Aghh! Why can’t this stupid kid let go!” Bill grumbles, using your other hand to scrape at your clenched hand. He scratched and clawed until the skin on your hand was red and raw. “Is [Name] currently fighting against you?” Ford inquires, a delighted smile on his face. “W-What? No!” Bill plucks your pinky finger off the rift. “See! I’m in total–” Your body jerks forward, and for a slight second, your eyes glinted back, only for you to be propelled backwards. With a shake of your head, your eyes blink and Bill’s eyes are back on you. “[Name] is a fighter, that’s for sure!” He awkwardly laughs out, still regaining control over your body with how he waverly stumbled side to side. 

Taking advantage of his vulnerability, Ford sent a quiet signal to Mable and Dipper. The twins tackle Bill from behind. A startle yelp leaves his mouth as he falls forward. “Stanley the–” Stan was already swooping in and snatching the rift out of your hands in one swift motion. Bill's face planted on the floor. “This stupid weak body!” Bill whines out, having your hands buckled tightly to your back by Dipper and Mabel. “Get something to tie their arms together with!” Stan said, jogging back into the lab, discreetly hiding the rift away from Bil’’s prodding eyes.

“I was so close!” Bill pressed your face into the dirt. The sharp tiny stones cut into your cheek and all Bill could do is focus on the itching pain rather than the humiliating feeling of being pinned down by two twelve year olds. Ford grabs the rope and securely binds your wrists together. The twins finally shuffle away from your body, watching Bill struggle under the restraints. “I’m going to be traumatized by the end of this.” She lets out a dejected sigh. “I feel like nothing can phase me after this.” Dipper adds. 

“How are we going to get them back into their body?” Stan questioned Ford who was double checking the bindings on your wrist, making sure they weren’t too tight to burn your skin off but tight enough to keep Bill detained “I think I have an idea on how…” He breathes out, looking over to Stan, face full of unease. “But it might not work if everyone isn’t present.” 

Stan found himself staring dumbly at the diagram that Ford had etched into the dirt with a stick. “What is this?” Ford finished the final symbol within the diagram, discarding the stick behind him. “A zodiac diagram.” He says, dusting off his hands. “And what does this have to do with saving [Name]?” 

Ford spares a quick glance over to you. Mable and Dipper sat on each of your sides, keeping a careful eye on you as you alternated with yourself and Bill. Dipper’s face contorted into a painful expression whenever you’d jerk your head upwards, a random assortment of words spilling out of you before your head flies back down. That agonizing process continues for what feels like an eternity and he could clearly see the toll it’s taken on your body. Stan couldn't make himself  watch you suffer, biting his lip so hard blood builds up on his lip.

“Yes.” Ford curtly nods his head. “I had always hypothesized what this would be used for but It never occurred to me until now that it could be used like this.” 

Stan doesn’t like the slight sound of uncertainty in Ford’s tone. How could Ford be so sure that it works? “So, you’re telling me that you have never done this before?” 

“Pretty much, yeah.” He shrugs, pushing up his glasses that were sliding down his nose. “Don’t worry about whether it works or not. We don’t have time to think about what if’s.” Curiously eyeing the symbols on the floor, he pondered in his head. Who could possibly stand on what zodiac?

Mable had walked right next to Stan, she looked like she had something to say when her eyes fell on the diagram, her eyes shining. “That one reminds me of Wendy.” She points at the zodiac that was an ice bag. An idea dawned upon Ford. “Does it now?” He kneels down to Mable’s height. “Mable, dear. Can you look at these zodiac signs and tell me who they remind you of?” 

Mable was quick to point out and tell Ford each symbol that reminded her of a person. Jotting down all the names in his head, he began calling each and every one of them, stringing Mable along to help him convince them to come over to the Mystery Shack. One by one, they all started pooling in. Questions sprouted from one mouth to another and every single time, their questions received answers when their eyes landed on your struggling form.

“Okay, everyone stand in your respective spots and hold hands!” Ford’s voice was quiet in the distance. Stan had found himself kneeling in front of you, his expression unreadable but his eyes carried a deep sorrowful guilt to them. “Feeling guilty, Stanley?” Bill drawled out, pulling your heavy head up, only for it to be knocked down to the side. Your body was growing weak and Bill was tirelessly fighting against it. Unbeknownst to Stan, you were right next to him. Your unrelenting attempts to gain your body back had caused an aggressive strain on your body. You couldn’t stay in it without feeling utterly exhausted, allowing Bill to abuse your weak spot and take over your body. But that weak spot had also applied to him as well. You were trying to regain your breath before you’d try again. 

“Can it, Bill.” He scoops you up from the floor, walking towards the diagram. 

“You don’t have to do this!” Bill aggressively barked out, throwing himself around in Stan’s hold. “I do have to do this. You’re in my kid's body.” He grunted, throwing your body over his shoulder. “They made a deal with me! I won this body fair and square.” Bill argued, hammering your head down on Stan’s back. “Look, I just found out about you not too long ago. But for someone who was supposedly this all powerful demon, you pathetically really weak.” 

He approaches the diagram, setting your body down in the middle. “That’s because I haven’t revealed my true potential yet!” He struck the back of your head hard on the floor, causing your vision to go bleak for a moment. “Do you really need to do all of that?” You grumble, rubbing the back of your tender head. “I do what I please.” He mumbles to himself, rolling over on your stomach. 

Standing in his spot, Stan locked hands with Ford and Soos. “It’s most likely going to feel weird! Stick it through and don’t, I repeat, don’t let go!” A blinding blue light shoots up from the middle and travels through the lines of the diagram, illuminating the place in a bright blue light. 

“No!’ Bill writhed around. He could feel himself slipping away. Your forehead makes direct contact with a rock. He smiles at it, knocking your head against it again. “Oh, Billy! You are just full of ideas today.” He whispered, shuffling over to the stone to the point where he was hovering over it. He laid your head down, feeling the cold stone press against the middle of your forehead. Breathing in through clenched teeth, he raised your head up high. He nailed your head down on the rock, splitting through skin. You could feel the ghost touch of blood trickle down your forehead. 

He laughed crazily as he continued to bash your head onto the rock. With each blow, the rock was painted with more and more blood. He was going to kill you at this rate. Bill lowered his head back down on the rock and you shut your eyes closed. You weren’t going to see Bill crack your head open. But the blistering pain never registered, peeking your eyes open you saw Stan had caught your head in his hand. 

Ford yelled out Stan’s name but Stan ignored it. His chest rapidly heaved in and out as he fell to his knees, resting your dazed head on his lap. You had noticed that Bill was slipping out of your physical form. Darting over to him, you grabbed his hand and ripped him out. Before you could hear Bill’s flurry of cries, you dove right in, repossessing your body once again and hopefully for the last time. 

Grumbled groans escaped you as you regained all your senses. You jolted up in striking pain. Everything hurt, even more than the last you took over. Your stomach rumbled, a flood of whatever liquid shot up into your mouth. You leaned to the side, expelling the fluid. Peeling open your weary eyes, you felt yourself grow nauseous at the pool of blood in front of you. “[Name]!” Stan grabbed your face, directing it toward him. He looked at your eyes and a look of relief settled on his face. “Dad?” You groggily said, your whole world spinning. “Are you okay? Is that demon gone? Where is he?” The massive load of questions made you want to vomit all over again. 

I’m still here! Bill’s grating voice grinding against your brain. You crumble under Stan’s hold, your head thumping in pain “No. He’s still in my head.” You felt another rush of blood clamor up into your mouth. You meekly shove Stan’s hands away from your face, hurling another dump of blood. Cautious voices sounded all around you, your vision distorting in a blurry mess. “Dad?” You forcefully focused your eyes on Stan’s face. “I think there’s something wrong with me.” Talking was enough to strip you away from all the energy you had left and you weren’t sure you had enough time to say anything else before Bill took over again. 

“I know, baby. I know. We’re goin’ to get help, stay with me. Please.” Stan said something to Ford you couldn’t quite catch.

You felt his arms wrap around you and lay you down back on his lap. I’m going to kill you. You scratched at your aching head. “His voice hurts. Hearing it hurts so much.” You murmured, feeling a hand run down your arm up and down soothingly. “Stay strong for me, sweetheart.” A light kiss was pressed on your forehead. 

You cried out, feeling yourself being pulled away. 

“Stanley! Come back now!” You could make out Ford’s scream at Stan. The world was fading before you and you couldn’t help but break down as you heard Bill cackle in your head. Stan saw your eyes flicker to yellow and he delicately placed you down on the floor, running back to his spot. Bill seamlessly takes over, blinking himself awake as he’s shuffling your body up to your knees.

“This is all your fault, Stanley Pines. [Name]’s death will be on your hands!” He bellows, purposely allowing your voice to break through. The strenuous action causes him to tremble forward, blood splattering on the grass. Bill started yelling nonsensical blabbers, anything that would make Stan budge from his spot, to stop the whole process but he stayed put, directly staring Bill down. Bill fell to the side, coughing up bile and a random assortment of fluids. 

In a flash of blue, you feel yourself fully grounded back into your body. A feeling you feel like you haven’t felt in forever. 

A grinding yell echoed in your head. You are so disgustingly weak! Bill screamed in your head. Another splitting headache bore into your head but all you could do is lay there and take it in, feeling so worn-out and droopy that you weren’t able to physically react. I didn’t do much and you’re dying! I did all of this for nothing, for nothing! And it is all your fault! I should’ve broken every single bone in your body and twisted your neck. At least I would’ve gained something from that! You are so useless! 

He was wreaking havoc in your mind. The blinding pain subsided to a lingering pain, black dots swarming your vision. He seems to be doing last minute damage before he’s left with no other choice but to leave your body. With a rugged distorted babble from Bill, your whole world went dark. 

The waiting room was cold, so numbingly cold. Stan casted his gaze down to his hands. Your blood had stained them. He couldn’t tell if it was the blood from your forehead, or the blood you vomited out. But your own blood had been smeared all over him and it made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t erase the image of your cold limp body laying on the grass, face covered in streaks of blood. This was all his fault. If he had just told you how things were from the start, this wouldn’t have happened. You would’ve been next to him, chattering his ear off about something irrelevant while asking him multiple times if he was listening to you. Despite his thoughts, your soothing presence wasn’t there to console his mourning heart. 

Your doctor had came in earlier to share the state that your body was in. Everyone listened intently to her words as she described the damage that Bill had caused to your body. She said doctors were so mortified with your condition, labeling it as one they have never seen before with how many injuries you sustained on the outside and inside. Stan and Ford had to dodge some questions that had the doctor fired at them, excusing your evenstive wounds with a slip off a mountain, silly teenage activities that almost cost you your own life. She didn’t buy it. 

The doctor's slight graphic description of your injuries only cemented the guilt deeper into Stan. He was a bad father wasn’t it? The only thing he prided himself in for doing right was so easily taken away from him in a blink of an eye. He really was a screw up. Ford and his Dad were right. 

“Stanley.” Ford’s hand on his shoulder withdrew him from his thoughts. “We need to go home. It’s late.” He looks briefly to the seat next to him. The twins had sat on the same seat, their muddled expressions were no longer on their face, instead they were sleeping peacefully, heads leaning against each other. “The twins are asleep.” He tells him. Stan’s gaze glued on his tainted hands. “I’m staying here.” He weakly said. “You need sleep, Stanley.” 

“I can sleep here, Ford.” He snapped, expression tight. “They are going to kick you out.” 

Stan shrugged, clasping his hands together. “Then they’d hafta kick me out then.” 

“I’m not leaving you here.” 

Stan leaned his head back against the wall, huffing out. “I’m not in any mood to fight with you here.” Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his burning eyes. “I’m staying here and there’s nothin’ you can do about it.” He placed his glasses on his lap and crossed his arms, closing his eyes as he shifted around to get comfortable enough to sleep. “Always been so stubborn.” Ford shook his head, getting up from the seat with a light groan. “I’m leaving.” He picks up the slumbering twins, being extra careful to not jostle them around and wake them. Stan grumbled in response, hearing Ford’s footsteps fade away in the distance. 

Stan doesn’t know how long it’s been, all he knows is that he had fallen asleep with the way his neck was sore. “Sir?” A voice broke through his drowsiness. “Sir?” They call out again. “Hm, wha?” Stan peeled open his eyes, the glaring hospital lights momentarily blinded him. Covering his eyes with his palm, he squinted at the lady in front of him. “What’s goin’ on?” 

“We’re closing up for the night, sir. I need you to leave.” She calmly said, offering a soft smile to Stan. “But my kid, they’re in here. I need to be here if anything happens.” He scrambles to put his glasses on. “I assure you sir, whoever your kid is, will be fine. We will keep a lookout if anything happens.” 

“How are you guys goin’ to keep a lookout when you’re all home sleeping away like there isn’t people dying in here!” Stan argued. “Now's not the time, sir. I need you to leave or you’d be personally escorted out by the guards.” Stan sighed, standing up from his chair. “You don’t have to do all that.” He mutters, cracking his back before walking out. Walking out into the summer night, he pulled out his phone to check the time. 

11 P.M. it read. It looked like the doctors allowed him to stay overtime. Usually they’d kick people out of the waiting rooms by around 9 P.M.

His eyes freeze at the baby picture of you on his lockscreen. The photo was taken on your fourth birthday. Stan had gone all out, as he always did, and got you a little birthday hat, little cupcake with a candle that had your age on it, and a mess of confetti and other birthday assortments. You had such a large smile on your face as you were mid bite into your cupcake. He remembered the day so vividly as if it happened yesterday. He clenched his phone tightly, tears flooding his vision. Why did it have to be you? Running his arm roughly over his eyes, he sniffed. He shoved his phone back into his pockets and started walking back to the shack. 

Ford found himself being startled awake by a knock on the door. Sluggishly getting up from the couch, he walked over to the gift shop entrance. He opened the door to be pleasantly surprised to see Stan. He stepped aside, letting Stan walk in. “Kicked you out?” 

“Yup.” Stan accentuating the ‘p’.

“Told you.” 

A quick moment of silence takes over before Stan breaks it. “Is this all my fault?” 

“You were just trying to protect them.” Ford walks over to Stan, shoving his hands under his armpits. “Look where that got ‘em.” Stan cracked his thumb, whispering something to himself before timidly looking at Ford. “Do ya think you can stay with me tonight?” He sheepishly scratches his cheek. “I don’t think I can trust myself bein’ alone or whatever.” 

Ford earnestly smiled at him. “I don’t mind.” Stan nods. “You sleep on the floor though.” 

Stan’s phone loudly rattled on his nightstand, his ringtone noisily blaring its song. “Turn it off!” Ford cried out, folding his pillow over his head. Stan arose from his abundance of blankets and grabbed his phone, dragging it off the nightstand. He squinted at the screen, trying to make sense of the blurry text. Stan reached out for his glasses, shoving them on his face and directing his eyes back on the screen. The word hospital flashed on his face. 

“It’s the hospital!” He swiped his finger, answering the call. He put his phone to his ear and anxiously waited. “Stanley Pines?” A snotty voice spoke from the phone. “Yes!” He clears his throat. “Yes, yes. That’s me. Why’re you callin’?” 

“[Name] has woken up and…” Stan had blocked everything else she said and shut up from the bed. “They’re awake!” He announced, shedding off his blankets and launching off his bed, accidentally stepping on Ford in the process. The whole morning was spent dashing around the house, vigorously getting dressed and making sure everyone was ready to head over to the hospital. After Ford’s triple check, they all clamored inside in the car and drove to the hospital. 

Stan burst into your room, his eyes locking with your bandaged form. “Dad!” You weakly called out, a shaky smile on your face. “Pumpkin!” He sighed out, relieved at seeing your beautiful smile. He wraps you in his arms, burying his face into your hair as he sobs. “I thought..I thought–!” He blubbers out. More welcoming arms wrap around you, wailing wracking through the air. “[Name]!!” Mable dragged out. “Don’t scare us like that ever again.” Dipper sniffed, scrubbing his eyes clear of tears. “Welcome back, kid.” Ford plants a kiss on the top of your head. 

“I’m here guys, you don’t have to worry so much.” You laugh, Stan wiping your tears with his thumb. “How can we not? We almost lost you, pumpkin.” After a tearful reunion, everyone stepped back, allowing you to breathe. They only gave you a few more minutes to yourself before they bombarded you with apologies. Mable and Dipper were stuck to your side, each of them giving you their own version of puppy eyes. Mable was more into it than Dipper, but you still accepted their apologies with a big hug.

“I’m sorry too, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I should have been honest from the get go.” You took Stan’s hand, patting it like you would a dog. “It’s okay, Dad. I forgave you long ago. I should have followed what Ford said and calmed down.” You slightly glare at Ford. “Though, I didn’t like how he said it to me at the same time, so maybe I am justified in my anger?” 

“Ford doesn’t know how to talk. What’s new?” Stan knocked his shoulder with Ford who rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I’m the butt of the joke. As always.” 

“If it isn’t you! Then it would be Dipper,” Mable pokes at him. “But me and Grunkle Stan told all the jokes possible so it isn’t as funny as making fun of you, Grunkle Ford! You’re so nerdy and losery, more than Dipper. And that isn’t a good thing.” 

A crackly laugh leaves Stan. “Thanks for explaining, dear.” Ford said with a strain, his smile wavering. “Someone one upped you, Dipper.” You chuckle. “I don’t know if I should revel in it or feel sad for Ford.” Dipper tapped his finger on his chin. “Don’t overthink it, dude.” You flick his forehead. 

“And Grunkle Ford, where is your apology?” Mable raised her chin up high, doing her best attempt of a haughty queen looking down at her jester. Ford scoffs, “I’m so sorry, your humble majesty.” Dipping his head low to mimic a bow. 

“Oh?” You and Mable share a bewildered expression. “I wasn’t expecting him to actually do it.” You look over to Dipper who had an uncomfortable expression on his face. “I don’t like what’s going on here.” 

“Wait, are you going to have a cool scar on your forehead now?” Mable questions, pointing at your bandaged forehead. Bumbling conversation fills the air, laughter occasionally humming here and there. In the end, they all had to leave for your routine check up by the doctors. Stan was the last one to bid goodbye to you. Kissing your forehead, he held onto your hand, his eyes glistening with tears. 

“I love you so much, kiddo. If I had lost you back there, I dunno what would have happened to me.” He caresses his thumb against your hand. “Don’t say stuff like that, Dad. I’m here, that’s what counts.” 

You share a long hug together, with a few tears being shed.

“I know, I know.” Giving you one last kiss and embrace, he waves you goodbye. 

“I love you!” 

“I love you more, Dad!” 

Taglist: @boredwithlifeatthispoint, @lovexsage, @teddycricketdream, @theilluminatidragonqueen, @raventeen @cedarmoonzz, @katharine3000

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[ronearoundblindly]

Hideout (3.1)

touch-starved!Nomad Steve Rogers x motel employee!Reader

Sensitive Boy, part I (see previous or series)

Summary: Steve surprises you with help at the perfect time.

Warnings for light smut (I have to split this chapter or it's just suddenly twice as long as the last, but really there's just massage and an implied orgasm in this half. You know me: too many feels and too much development...) MINORS DNI. This series is 18+ only. If you are underage or simply enjoy lighter content, there is plenty for you to read on my Light Masterlist, but this post is not for you! WC 3.2k

With so much on your mind, scaring the crap out of you is not difficult, so his strong hands hold you upright.

“Don’t do that,” you shriek, barely glancing at Steve’s face. You startled so suddenly your housekeeping cart is left rolling away at a snail’s pace.

“Sorry, I—“ long arms abandon you and reach to stop the bin “—it said on your website you were closed for renovations, and…”

You look him up and down. You were sure after he left two months ago that you’d never see him again. You’d gone too far. You’d pushed him too hard. He wasn’t ready.

Steve adjusts the strap over his shoulder. “I thought maybe I could help out…if you want?”

The last guests checked out a half-hour ago, and you readied to spend the whole week meticulously refreshing each room with your parents. The list of what needs done, however, doesn’t only include the motel. There’s a bunch you all had let slide up at the house. Help would…be extremely helpful actually.

Steve pulls a paper bag out of his knapsack. “Or I brought you some lunch if you just want a break or something.”

“It’s okay,” you rush out. “More than okay. Thank you, yes. We’d love—I’d love that.”

No one else can know it’s him-him there though. You’ll have to think of a way to keep your parents and St-‘Grant’ as far apart as possible, and how long you can manage that is…questionable.

If Steve’s not worried though, you’re okay.

Turns out, keeping your family up at the house is easy. Your mom shouts down the phone with relief that she can tackle the fridge, and you hear your dad mumble something about ‘the garage in daylight.’ You can enjoy a sandwich in the office with Steve in peace, explaining what all needs done before the electricians show up Friday afternoon.

The closure hasn’t been planned for a long time—not even before Steve and ‘Tom’s’ last visit—hence why you just painted Room 8, 5, 2, and 1 since March, but doing all those is how you and your parents really noticed that the light fixtures from the ‘90s were not only dated but very worn and that the same color layered over and over again for twenty years was, well, getting old.

Warmer months are better for the work. Pipes won’t freeze while you air out paint fumes, etc. The week after the gigantic, city festivities of Independence Day is notoriously dead. Since there were no reservations this stretch as of April, the family jumped at the chance to fix it all in one big, daunting go.

Saying you’d looked forward to this is a wild overstatement. You’ll be glad when it’s finished, and that’s the bulk of your excitement.

With his assistance though? Hope soars.

Steve will help you take down the sconces, the hanging lamps, and the panels above the vanities, then you both can—

“Where’s the paint?”

He’s very intense with the gameplan. Three guesses why.

“Dad’s gonna pick it up today. Probably. I’ll text him.” You whip out your cell again. “We didn’t think we’d get that far by evening.”

Steve nods.

“We also need to move all the furniture away from the walls and drape plastic to protect the carpet. Oh, and put tape along the trim and doorframes, ya know.”

Steve nods again. He wads up the wrapping from his sandwich and casually asks, “are all the doors open?”

You only just get your finger in the air to point at the desk.

“Master key is—“

But Steve is observant and has clocked everything about his surroundings each time he’s stayed, apparently. He stretches over to the wall beyond the counter, snatches the (correct) unmarked key, and heads out the door.

The service bell rings gently to emphasize the conversation is over.

All furniture in every room is pulled away by the time you finish sanitizing the one guest room he interrupted.

He asks where you keep the ladder, not that he’ll need it, but you will for reaching some of the lights.

You don’t know whether to be in awe of or exhausted by his efficiency.

He’s rigid and militant—go figure—until these few moments he suddenly can’t be.

As you toss plastic over the last bed to move, Steve yanks that sucker across the floor so fast, you roll off. His eyes are saucers as he apologizes, but you get the giggles and pick yourself up.

His fingers can’t separate thin layers of the plastic at one point, and he throws a minor fit until three rip apart together. Steve frowns at you and grumbles that he’s only ever used cloth for this before. It seems to take everything in his power not to say “back in my day,” but you can read between the lines.

Years of crusted paint makes the removal of some fixtures tricky.

Steve rips out one stripped screw with needle nose pliers, squeaks in alarm at the hole left behind, and then quietly asks if you have patch paste.

You call your dad before he’s left to buy paint. He adds spackling to the list.

The closest Steve comes to telling you anything specifically about himself is when you struggle with a stuck bolt.

“Just a little trick I learned when I was—“ Steve wraps his big hand around yours to pull the wrench instead of push from the other direction “—smaller.” He huffs out a laugh, adding, “when I couldn’t, ya know, ‘put my weight into it’ because a feather could’a knocked me over.”

As you relish the simple contact of his fingers, you smile, too.

“Hmm. I heard you got into back alley scrapes.”

“If you heard that I won any of those, you were lied to.” He patiently waits for you to finish removing the bolt before he pries the aged metal and glass away from the old paint it’s stuck in. Steve sighs dramatically.

“Shoddy education these days…”

“I…” You tap his bicep with the claws of the wrench. “I can’t argue with that. We hear only what they tell us about…heroes.”

You should have known he’d shut down at that word, but it’s the truth. Even with him right in front of you, the only things you know about Steve Rogers are from books, newspapers, and the internet. At face value—looking directly into the face of this man—all of what you’ve been told is hogwash. It’s insufficient. It barely covers 1% of who this man is.

He teaches you tricks of the weak man’s trade because it helped him once, too. Today, he’s friendly. Not that he was unfriendly before, but Steve is so reserved he never reference the past, in general, i.e. that there was a past existence of like the planet much less him.

It’s the number one rule of Fight Club: you don’t talk about Fight Club.

If there was ever a real fight club, it’s the Avengers.

You have no official rules for what this is between you. You don’t have to to know that is the most important one. You do not talk about Fight Club. Steve isn’t afraid of silence, that much is clear, but he isn’t a fan. He tries—he is trying—to connect and relate. He can’t be a man of the people, however, if he can’t talk to the people. 

It’s important: connection. You know with every fiber of your being that Steve deserves it, but even with unlimited, super-human strength, he cannot get himself out from between this rock and that hard place.

You do not talk about Fight Club, especially when you’ve been kicked out of Fight Club.

Today, though, he’s a little different, a little softer. Perhaps it’s knowing there are no other people in the building, perhaps he is truly more comfortable with you, but either way, Steve is not flat or off-putting.

His organized persona, his focus on the work, his indirect interactions and practical touch; they all fit here while he has a project. It’s the closest he can be to his old self, maybe even his real self, without mentioning the past—the fighting past—at all.

“You’re really good company,” you tell Steve, “even when you make holes in the walls.”

He tilts his head down and blushes. He shrugs as he takes the sconce out to the dumpster. Although he didn’t say it, you hope this is okay.

Either way, you relish it. The help. The touch. The silence. All of it.

You relish Steve.

Your dad brings by the paint, spackling, and a surprise of pizza for dinner while Steve is taping the baseboards in a corner. You introduce ‘Grant’ from afar and haul the cans and boxes from the car to the room, cataloguing all you two have finished to this point and what you’ll do before stopping for the night.

Dad is impressed. He’d suspected the three of you—you, he, and Mom, that is—might settle for slapping some paint up around where the electrician would install the new lights. No one planned on getting this far in one evening.

He won’t stand in the way of progress, so your dad simply calls out, “bit of an artist, are ya?”

Steve looks up, confident with only the side table lamps plugged in, he can barely be seen. “Just want to be useful,” he mutters.

You wink at your dad as he heads back to the still-running car. “Grant is a jack of all trades.”

You’re sure to thank him for the food and let him know all the motel stuff is completely covered for tomorrow, too. You’ll work as late as you can and start as early as possible.

Dad says your friend has gone ‘above and beyond.’ You agree wholeheartedly.

‘Grant’ would more aptly be described as a machine.

All the furniture moved, all the lights taken down, all bordering taped, and now all blemishes in the walls smoothed, your impromptu contractor finally calls it quits when he’s forced to watch stuff dry.

You’ve kept the air conditioning going in one room.

Steve tentatively asks if he should walk you up to the house, but you counter with “it’s not any less dangerous for an average guy alone to return” and a cheeky smirk. Besides, it is very late. You let Captain OCD keep going; you tapped out a while ago.

He puts his hands on his hips, arms akimbo, thinking of a comeback that never manifests. After giving up, Steve takes his tiny bag into the bathroom and brushes his teeth.

You can faintly hear it over the murmur of the TV.

You aren’t really watching. It’s background noise to your general exhaustion.

With only a side lamp and the screen as light, Steve’s bare feet crumple over the discarded plastic sheet on the floor. He falls into one side of the bed, fully-clothed and (finally) tired.

Though productive, the day has been a distant one, working in different rooms for most of it and tiptoeing around real conversation. You want him to feel appreciated, not pressured, so you ask if he’d like the TV on for a while or would rather quiet.

Steve just grunts with his eyes closed.

Gently, you place a hand on his chest to steady you, leaning to kiss his bearded cheek.

“Thank you, Steve,�� you say softly. “Good night.”

He hums when you say his name, and before you can lift your hand away, he captures it under his, holding you in place.

His eyes aren’t open. He can’t see you smile wider.

“Okay.” You tuck yourself into his chest as he raises his other arm out of the way. “Okay.”

Your ear sits in the dip beneath his collarbone, listening to his steady heart, his thumb sweeping back and forth over you knuckles.

He smushes you closer to his side. You toss your leg over his.

You forget to turn off the TV.

He’s sanding the spackled spots by the time you wake, so you rub across his back and dismiss yourself to get breakfast up at the house.

Steve makes no effort to go with, which is fine. You assumed as much.

Your dad calls Grant a ‘magician’ over the pop of oil in the skillet and insists you give your friend whatever he needs to keep working so fast. You are only half-joking when you admit the key is staying out of his way.

Bonus: the exchange reinforces your parents simply leaving the two of you alone down the hill, and you proudly tell Steve that when delivering him an enormous plate of scrambled eggs.

He jumps right back into planning-mode and orders you to roll the first coat of paint onto large areas. He’ll follow, completing the edges and corners.

It’s such a domestic thing to do. There is no one in danger, there are no bodies piling up if he makes a wrong move, and he can go faster or take his sweet time. Steve breaks when he wants or needs to. He sits outside and listens to the birds in the sunshine. No one is around to question him, not even you. You are only there to encourage.

You realize he was looking for a project. He’s used to—and likes—being busy, getting his hands dirty, producing results.

It’s a long, messy day where he becomes more serene in spirit the more intensely he works. You reward him with gentle sweeps of your hand down his arms, pats on his shoulders, and brushes at the small of his back.

Despite the almost constant movement, the day is over before you know it, earlier than yesterday, but it’s too hot to go on.

All the windows stay open to air out the fumes.

Though it won’t stop you from sweating, you both shower off as many splatters and flecks of paint as you can. You insist he goes first so there’s plenty of hot water.

He’s sitting on the bed, shirtless, checking his phone when you come out of the bathroom, but he immediately squirrel the device away in his small bag. Not much to carry around. Not much to leave behind. Steve can’t leave a trace of himself anywhere.

Hunched over and fatigued, he flashes a polite smile your way and blinks heavily.

He deserves the world.

You grab the small bottle of lotion from the countertop and playfully jump onto the bed behind him.

“How about a massage, yeah? You much be aching.”

Honestly, you don’t mean for it to sound sexual, but the phrase comes out downright dirty, making Steve awkwardly chuckle.

“You don’t have to,” he placates.

“Nonsense, I want to. It’ll make the air feel cooler.” That’s as good of an excuse as any. Who cares when the rippled expanse of his back flexes wildly in your touch?

His breathes are audible from the beginning.

You dig at his traps, his leg bouncing as he tries to relax. You use your thumbs, the flats of your hands, and your knuckles.

He shoves his fist in his mouth when he starts to moan, covering the move with a cough, but muffling the noise is abandoned in favor of clasping over his lap. He’s intent on hiding his hardness this time. There’s nothing you can say to truly lessen the sting of needing more. You can’t simply tell him he’s allowed to desire this; you have to ignore his misplaced shame.

But you can take pity on him.

“If you lie flat—“ you step off the bed to give him privacy “—I’ll have more leverage.”

You hear him crawl and adjust on the sheets. “Unlike the torque on a wrench,” you add, just to show you’ve been listening to him.

More lotion is needed for the surface area.

You turn up the TV, feining interest in the late night show so any noise he makes is not as obvious. What the speakers can’t cover, however, is Steve’s involuntary thrusts when you rub the heels of you palms up and down the sides of his spine. If you prop up on your knees, he has more range of motion and doesn’t obviously rock you while mindlessly humping the bed.

His sweats are slung low on his hips, two darts of muscle prominent above his ass.

They are irresistible, the perfect grooves to target and roll into, and he immediately mewls long and deep into the mattress, fingers curling and relaxing while his body seizes.

He hasn’t even finished coming, you think, before he taps at your leg and races to the bathroom.

You hope you didn’t push too far. You hope he’d tell you to stop if he needs more space, more time. Mostly, you hope he knows you’d give him every conceivable pleasure, just because he is him.

The water runs a long time, continuous splashing in the sink, and then nothing.

He didn’t bring much because he doesn’t have much. Your heart sinks, realizing you’ve made him soil one of only two pairs of pants he has here.

He cracks open the door, muttering, but you can’t make out the words.

You turn the volume back down. “What?”

“It pretty hot.” He clears his throat. “Would you mind if I sleep…without…?”

“Naked?” you squeak before composing yourself. “That’s fine. Whatever’s comfortable.”

You shuffle up the bed to click off the lamps. This man isn’t the type to strut around in the nude—yet, anyway—so in the faint and ever-shifting glow of the screen across the room very little can be seen.

‘Little,’ however, can’t describe anything that is visible about the man emerging from the bathroom.

You have to make a point not to stare, but no skit or commercial on the channel promises the same level of entertainment.

Steve slides himself beneath the sheet, sitting near the headboard.

You hold up the remote. “On or off?”

“Off,” he says, “please.”

You’ve certainly done enough for one day. You won’t push your luck, so you hit the power button, toss it on table, and snuggle into your half of the bed, facing away.

“If it’s too hot for any covers, that’s okay, too.”

A rustling interrupts the rhythmic whir of crickets in the night until you feel a warm hand lightly mold to your waist.

This should be encouraged. This should be rewarded.

“Hey, Stevie,” you whisper, waiting for his hum, “happy belated birthday.”

At most you expect a grip of notice, but instead, the big hand snakes across you and hauls you into his chest, his long legs bending to match the crook of yours, his nose and forehead tucked against your occipital.

“We did okay today,” Steve mumbles into your shirt.

You walk your hand over your stomach to find his, lacing the fingers together. “Yes. Yes, we did.”

Steve got to be useful today. He had a partner today. He will tomorrow and the day after, for as long as he stays, for as long as you’re alive. Nothing can change that.

Maybe he can’t talk about Fight Club, but he connects with you anyway.

A/N: Whoopsy. Didn't want to make y'all wait for a 6k+ chapter, so here's the first half! I am DEEP in the feels of this one. So, so many notes have been taken. The brainrot is real, and I fucking love it!!!!

[Next: Sensitive Boy, part II]

[Main Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

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[boul3vvard]

Bring your child to work day･*.:+

Sanemi AU x GN! Reader DRABBLE!

S/n = sons name

I started writing this story back in nov 2022 I abandoned it and came back to it March 2023 erased the ending and rushed it so sorry if this isn’t up to par I’m just trying to get this out of my drafts lol. Now a few pointers

★ Sanemi is OOC I just think that it would be really cute to picture him in this sorta dynamic.

★I tried to keep it gender neutral as possible this is also my first time writing a gn story so feel free to give me any possible feedback

★also as I always say this isn’t proof read AT ALL!! so there might be a ton of grammatical errors idrc HAPPY READING

There are only 3 characters who are color coded

Y/n sanemi and s/n

“Are you sure you’ll be fine taking him with you I mean he’s only 4, He won’t be too much of a distraction for you?”

y/n said while doing their sons hair making his curls pop out a little more.

“He’ll be fine we’re not doing too much in class today anyways” sanemi sighed as he was getting dressed for work. “You’ll be good for daddy right?” y/n asked s/n while looking at him in the mirror. “MMHM” s/n said happily. Y/n was a little nervous at first about this whole ordeal when sanemi brought it up but all the doubt disappeared when y/n saw how giddy their son was to spend time with sanemi this was also the first time their son is going to be around a bunch of people at once, let alone a bunch of teenagers. how will he react? “he’ll be fine plus I’m there if anything does happen, which nothing will so stop worrying, You act like we’re going to war or something” sanemi chuckled as he patted his partners shoulders. “I know I know I guess I’m just a little worried” they sighed “for nothing, we’re gonna head out inna bit I have to get to work early. where is the little guy so I can put his shoes on?” “IM RIGHT HERE DADDY” his son squealed excitedly “LOOK”. sanemi sighed, a soft smile appearing on his face. “your shoes are on the wrong feet you dork c’mere” Y/n packed everything sanemi needed for Haruto in his book bag so he wouldn’t get bored. “are you all set and ready to go?” sanemi said while picking his son up into his arms. “Have fun you two” y/n waved at the two before they left.

Sanemi got to class 1 hour early so he could prepare his classroom for the day. students started rolling in and filling in their seats, two of his students ran into his classroom one slapping the other repeatedly. “INOSUKE STOP HITTING TANJIRO FOR THE LAST TIME I WILL NOT REPEAT MYSELF” Inosuke gruffed as he plopped into his desk. “hey sir, who is that child sitting in your chair? if you don’t mind me asking” Tanjiro asked pointing to the child as his classmates started to quiet down since they all wanted an explanation. “He’s my son. I decided to bring him in with me today he won’t be too much of a distraction” sanemi said as he started gathering all of the papers on his desk into a neat pile. The class all became strangely quiet so he looked up to see what was wrong “yes?” He said as he quirked his eyebrow. “YOU HAVE A CHILD??” they all yelled in Unison. “FORGET ABOUT THE CHILD YOU’RE MARRIED??” Zenitsu yelled freaking out. “Is that a problem?” sanemi started to get angry. “I just feel bad for the sorry sack who decided to tie the knot with you” Inosuke said bluntly. Sanemi threw an eraser at the boys forehead. “Before we get started on today’s plan how about I let him introduce himself to you all” just before the boy was about to speak everyone zoomed in on him making him feel so small, he hid behind his daddies leg. “it’s okay remember how we practiced in the car do it exactly like that okay don’t be shy” sanemi said as he pushed him up front, everyone weirded out about how soft he got for a sec-. “h-hello my name is s/n and I’m 4 years old” he showed everyone on his fingers. All of the girls in the classroom started cooing at the young boy. “AWWW HES SO CUTE” they shouted. “thank you” s/n said blushing at his shoes, he ran back to his dad and hugged him. “You did good, now go sit down for a little bit alright daddy has to do his job okay” “okay” s/n said shyly as he ran back to sanemi’s seat.

The rest of the day went smoothly as s/n opened up throughout the day and became more talkative. During passing periods Haruto would run to the other teachers classrooms to greet them. He ran up to the first classroom and walked in. “Uhhhh mr Iguro Theres a Child standing in the door way” one of his students said confused. Iguro was about to tell the child off before he raised his eyebrows in confusion. “s/n?? What are you doing here?” “I’m with daddy today he let me come to work with him today” he basically shouted happily “I see, well im in the middle of teaching right now how about you come back later okay? “Okay see you later” on his way back to his fathers class he stopped by Uzui’s class, they were all circled around a bowl of fruit quietly drawing it on their own. “I LOVE DRAWING CAN I DRAW TOO?!” The entire class was startled by the broken silence. “s/n??, What are you doing here kid? And what a flashy way of entering a room” Tengen said smiling at the kid ear to ear “I’m here with daddy” “of course you are but where is he? “In his classroom” “well I’m kinda in the middle of a class kiddo so how about you run back to your father and I’ll catch up with you later, how does that sound” “OKAY BYE BYE” just as he was about to run off again sanemi scooped him up “there ya are punk, you can’t go running off like that especially not at my job,what if principle Ubuyashiki caught you before I did huh?” “Sorry daddy I went to go see uncle Oguro” “let’s go eat lunch y/n packed you something delicious” sanemi said “YAYYYY”.

overall he enjoyed being at work with his father and seeing what he did daily. Some of the kids would chat with him which he loved of course and even colored with him. The class fell in love with him very much only knowing him for such a short while. I liked today Do you think I can come to work with you tomorrow daddy?” “Of course you can.” Now let’s go home I’m sure y/n can’t wait to hear all about your day today”

©Boul3vvard. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. SO ANY FORM OF PLAGIARISM OF MY CONTENT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

[smolcinnamonchipmunk]

Kidnapping Mishap

(It is very late as I’m posting this, so apologies for any spelling or continuity mistakes.I don’t really have additional comments to go with this one, lmao. Hope y’all enjoy the read.)

Word count: 13671

TW/CW: Accidental, soft, safe M/nb G/t  vore; implied fear of digestion, worry of death, mention/brief description of vomiting

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“Nova, March, be ready to make an escape,” Dan Heng advised, making me glance over towards him. His eyes were a bit narrowed in thought, even as he kept his gaze towards March.

“Huh? Really?” March asked, sounding a bit surprised and kind of disappointed as she looked back toward Dan Heng. “I just wanted to say something…”

“You sounded pretty convincing,” I told March, thinking of the sealed off alleyway myself. Given our meager options, it sounded pretty much like our best option to get away from being arrested. 

“Three of a kind,” Dan Heng murmured to my left, catching me off guard from our situation of, well, being surrounded by guards.

“Huh?” I blinked in confusion, looking over at him at the quiet statement. Didn't he just say to get ready for an escape and now he's saying fucking card terms?! My fingers itched to manifest my bat in trigger-happy self-defense and it was taking all of my focus just to not be too twitchy and start a fight prematurely.

“Shhh,” March shushed me, only adding to my confusion. “It's an old Astral Express escape signal. Do you play cards?”

“I don't think I need to play cards to be told that there's a fucking escape signal,” I hissed back quietly as Dan Heng murmured “Two pair.” in the background. So it was some sort of countdown. “I feel like that should be shared BEFORE getting in an escape situation! Maybe a pre-mission brief with the newcomer next time!”

“Hey,” one of the guards snapped, taking a step forward. “What are you whispering? Let’s get going!”

“Ace!” Dan Heng shouted loudly, enough that there was no mistaking it as anything other than the word to act on.

Like a trigger pistol being shot, my body reacted instinctively to the exclamation, fingers twitching open as I manifested my baseball bat to close around the grip. I swung behind me and whacked one of the soldiers across the cheek, knocking them to the ground and causing the others nearby to recoil away. I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see Dan Heng knocking almost everyone else within arms reach down by swinging his staff at their legs.

“Nice,” I said, following after March as she led the retreat down the street. I heard more footsteps behind us and glanced back to see Dan Heng. And the guards were raising their guns to aim towards us. 

Yeah, I think guns definitely won in the whole weapons Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Thankfully, I could just barely see the glimmer of something crystalline growing on their guns in the distance, feeling relief flood through me as March called back behind us, “Have an ice day!”

Looking forward with a slightly deadpan expression at March’s back from the pun, I followed as she ran through the Fragmentum portal, grimacing at the weird feeling of charging inside right behind her. An almost nauseous feeling sat at the pit of my stomach, but spacial travel was something I was starting to get used to with the Space Anchors that the Nameless have put around in a bunch of places to make some travel easier. 

Thankfully, despite the still present fear of just being torn apart by the molecules, we ended up safely on the other side in an abandoned alleyway. An alleyway in the Fragmentum, but I’d take what I could get given the current circumstances of running from the planet’s law.

“Hah! See, they weren’t brave enough to follow us! Freedom,” March exclaimed triumphantly, looking back at Dan Heng and I with her hands on her hips and a wide smile on her face. “Serves them right! Better luck next time, slowpokes!”

“I feel like we got lucky,” I said, shuddering to get rid of the lingering feeling of spacial travel. There was a lingering tingle at my fingertips that had me opening and closing my hands a bit.

“Well, you can get good at getting lucky,” March replied nonchalantly, looking proud of herself.

“We caught them by surprise, nothing more,” Dan Heng retorted bluntly, dissipating his spear and crossing his arms over his chest. “They’ll be in pursuit soon enough. We need to guarantee our own safety before making any further plans.”

I nodded in acknowledgement as March said “Right.” and turned to walk further into the alleyway. I trailed just behind Dan Heng and March, more or less along for the ride and just needing to trust that they knew kind of what they were doing. Well, Dan Heng mostly. I felt like March was just laissez faire and somehow squeaking by. Which was fine by me, as long as we got out of this scenario.

“So what do you guys think happened back there,” March asked as we walked, likely to pass the time. I was fine with that considering I was already starting to feel antsy without any conversation. She glanced between Dan Heng and I. “Why did the supreme guardian send people to arrest us?”

“I don’t really think that we can guess based on our single interaction with her,” I replied, absentmindedly twirling the baseball bat clumsily in my hands. I yelped as I almost dropped it, a tiny pulse going through me as I instinctively dispelled the bat before it could hit the ground and re-materialized it back in my hands. I knew I should be more conservative with my energy, but the move had been automatic. “Maybe she felt threatened by outsiders just showing up.”

“Yeah, but imagine launching a surprise attack when your enemy is fast asleep.” March sounded irritated at the supreme guardian’s change in demeanor, huffing, “The cheek!”

“That woman had a troubling aura…” Dan Heng mused, thinking about something. Per usual, it was hard for me to even try to decipher what he was potentially thinking when I tried to glance over at his stoic expression. “Our instincts were correct.”

“Speak for yourself,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck as I stretched a bit. “I was more focused on the weird feeling of deja vu I was getting.”

It was true. Ever since coming here there’s just been a few instances of very vivid deja vu that have left me lightheaded and almost nauseous, particularly in regards to Cocolia. Something about her made me feel like I knew everything and nothing about her.

“Wait!” March hissed under her breath, surprising me as she swung her arm out to stop me from moving forward. Out of curiosity I glanced in the direction that she was focused on, seeing familiar attire down the path to the left fork of the intersection we reached, through the bars of a semi-open gate. “There are Silvermane Guards here. Careful not to alert them!”

“They must have entered from another direction to cut us off.” I could feel Dan Heng lean a bit over me to get a better look down the alley. Thankfully he didn’t linger long, pulling away and adding, “We should avoid an open conflict. Let's find another path.”

“I mean, there’s only the gate on the other side,” I gestured to the other fork as I walked towards it. There was a gate that was supposedly blocking the way through, but it didn’t make sense for monsters to lock gates. Fragmentum creatures probably didn’t really care about privacy. “May as well see if it’s open.”

Unfortunately, it made me feel a little dumb in front of the others when I tried to open it and found that it was, indeed, locked. I was trying not to be loud about shaking the metal to try and avoid alerting the guards nearby but I was easily growing frustrated after a few unsuccessful seconds.

“Doesn't seem like there's any way to open this gate…” March said quietly, looking over the length of the gate.

“You think?” I hissed back, wincing when I shook the gate too much and it rattled a little louder than I meant it to. Freezing, I waited a couple seconds before messing with it more to make sure the Silvermane Guards hadn’t heard, not hearing any voices or footsteps from the other side of the intersection.

March was unperturbed by my irritated reply, finding particular interest in a nearby object in front of the gate. After a second of staring at it her eyes lit up with recognition, touching my elbow to make sure she had my attention and pointing at it. “Ooh, check this mechanism out. Look familiar?”

Pulling away from the gate I let myself be led to the front of the object and tilted my head while looking at it. 

Gears clicked in my head as Dan Heng quietly spoke up. “Yes, we saw one in Serval's workshop. We need to solve it before we run out of time. The Guards are right on our heels.”

“I think I remember how to work these,” I said, looking at the switch. I felt around for the latch to get inside to the wiring, humming in thought for a couple seconds. Reaching in, I started twisting gears and circuits. It took me a couple tries but the switch’s light quickly turned off with an audible clunk coming from the gate as it opened. Pleased with myself since it had more or less been trial and error, I pulled away from the switch. “There we go!”

“Let’s go then.” Dan Heng said, not hesitating to lead the way through the now opened gate. March and I didn’t hesitate to follow along.

There were a few Fragmentum monsters littered around the alleyways as we traversed deeper, most we tried to avoid fighting so that the Silvermane Guards wouldn’t hear our exact location. When it came to trying to open other gates, however, the monsters were too close to not get their attention to reach the switches in question and we had to attack them. Dan Heng managed to take out the monster at the first gate quietly, but March and I struggled to ambush the one by the second gate.

“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed to the Fragmentum monster as I cracked it across the skull when it let out a startled screech, causing it to shatter and the rest of the body crumpled to the ground. I huffed a bit in irritation and rubbed the back of my neck nervously, walking over to the switch and messing with its circuitry as well. “Ugh, hope the guards didn’t hear that.”

“Even if they did, we’ve passed by so many monsters that they’ll have a hard time reaching us at this point,” March lowered her bow to her side with a smile. Ever the optimist. Still, it helped me not focus on the negatives.

“Fair point.”

I followed after the other two through more of the cobblestone labyrinth as we continued to search for an exit from the Fragmentum, eventually spotting it up ahead after turning around another bend towards what looked like a courtyard.

“There!” Dan Heng said, and all of us kicked up into a sprint now that we were so close to the exit. We were only halfway to the Fragmentum portal when he suddenly shouted, “Look out!”

My heels dug into the ground automatically, able to hear March and Dan Heng’s footsteps also skid beside me. Several gunshots rang out, striking the ground in front of us to kick up sparks and slight debris. I looked up with a scowl to see Silvermane Guards lining the walls on either side of us with their rifles at the ready.

“She really caught up with us…” March said, all of us looking towards the Fragmentum exit as more guards ran in from either side to block our path to it. “Even had time to set up an ambush…”

“Hmph, you dare underestimate me?” Bronya’s voice came from behind us and I looked back to see her approach with several other guards. She somehow straightened even more than she already had been, chest puffing out a little proudly as she declared, “Even though it has suffered Fragmentum corrosion, this is still part of Belobog. It was our home. The Guards know this place like the back of their hand. Enough cat and mouse. Drop your weapons and come with me.”

“Ugh, you're such a nuisance.” March put her free hand on her hip, demanding, “Just what crime are we supposed to have committed again? It better be worth you following us all the way out here!”

“My orders are to arrest you,” Bronya replied, looking at us with disdain. “It is for the adjudication panel to present you with the nature and penalty of your alleged crimes.”

“That didn’t answer the question,” I snapped. When she looked from March to me I couldn’t help but tighten my grip on the bat in my hands, daring her to do something. 

“You saw us yesterday, do you remember?” Dan Heng asked, tone far more level than mine or March’s as he tried to deescalate the situation while March and I kind of were making it worse. “Madam Cocolia received us as honored guests. How can such a drastic change have occurred in the course of one night?”

Bronya’s stoic and proud expression faltered for a moment, enough to make me think that maybe we could actually talk this out. But, her eyes regained a steel of resolve, firmly replying, “...The Madam Guardian investigated your backgrounds. She summoned me last night to tell me that you had deceived her. Your identities and purpose here are counterfeit. You seek to overthrow the rule of the Architects.”

“Ah!” March stomped her foot angrily on the cobblestone beneath our feet, something that actually surprised me as I looked over to her. This was probably the most pissed off I’d seen her so far. “What a two-faced hag!”

“Publicly insulting the supreme guardian only elevates the seriousness of your crimes,” Bronya declared, pointing towards us. “Throw down your arms and surrender!”

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked in regards to just insulting the supreme guardian being considered serious. I wondered how much trouble I’d be in if I tried to smack her in the teeth then.

“We're wasting our words,” Dan Heng said seriously. His gaze looked at March and I, the gray intense with his own resolve. “At least one thing is clear: We mustn't be caught.”

I wasn’t sure what would happen if we did end up getting caught, but Dan Heng was a hell of a lot more observant and smarter than I was. It didn’t take a genius to guess that Cocolia didn’t have good intentions but I nodded back at him in acknowledgement, tightening my grip on the baseball bat.

“Well, if there's no escape, then maybe it's time we gave them a taste of Astral Express medicine!” March exclaimed, raising her bow and firing a shot off towards one of the guards on the wall. The guard was knocked down and, as the rest began to raise their rifles, ice began to crystalize on the barrels once more.

This allowed Dan Heng and I the ability to start knocking down the nearest guards that surrounded us while March started picking off the ones from the wall, not needing to worry about getting picked off ourselves with rifle bullets.

Once the ones on the wall were dispatched or had retreated out of view, I noticed frosted arrows flying around eye level to strike some of the guards on the ground with us. One struck a guard running towards her and I looked away as crystalline ice began to form on his armor to turn to my next target.

I ended up only knocking down one other guard before I heard Dan Heng shout behind me, “Duck!”

I whirled around on instinct of course, unsure if he was talking to me or March, seeing him absolutely beam a soldier with his staff and send them flying towards Bronya. Unfortunately, the soldier was only a couple inches from hopefully knocking her down. 

“Lady Bronya,” the soldier grunted after he was saved from smacking the back of his helmet on the ground by one of her gloved hands catching his arm. Bronya waved her hand at him dismissively, something that made me tense slightly as he started to back away.

“Uh, guys?” I called out to the others to catch their attention as Bronya started to reach for her sheathed gun, eyes widening at seeing the double-bladed end of the bayonet.

“I’ll handle these evildoers myself!” Bronya shouted, firing off a shot towards March before I could react. 

The bullet pinged off of the metal of Dan Heng’s spear as he lunged into the fray, filling me with relief. The way his eyes narrowed at Bronya made it very obvious that he was now pissed off, having no difficulty reading his expression like I usually did. He rushed forward towards her and swerved around a bullet that was fired off in his direction.

I quickly darted forward myself, narrowly avoiding an axe to the face as something within me sensed an incoming attack. I whirled around to see another Silvermane Guard just behind me, throwing up my bat to block another attempt to cleave at me.

“She said she can handle us herself.” I snarled at the guard, struggling to keep his weight from letting the axe follow through. I wasn’t very strong, hence why I tried to just run in and out of combat. “And aren’t we supposed to be taken in alive?”

“Resisting arrest for treasonous crimes is an offense punishable by death,” the guard snapped back, my arms shaking as he continued pressing down on the baseball bat. 

I grit my teeth in exertion, glancing over to where the others were fighting. Dan Heng continued his assault on Bronya, his speartip meeting her bayonet blade more than once as the two fought. Thankfully, I saw some ice blocking the rifle barrel but March was dealing with a few Silvermane Guards of her own. She was more used to ranged attacks, struggling to stay far enough away from the guards chasing her to retaliate properly.

Glancing back to the guard I was dealing with, my mind raced as I looked for ways out of being chopped up. As soon as a thought popped into my head, I acted on it. 

I stopped resisting and dropped to the ground in a dead weight, hearing the clatter of metal on stone as I rolled to the side and pulled my bat with me. I huffed a bit, arms burning as I looked back at the guard. The blade of his axe was embedded in the stone, feeling a bit appalled at seeing the guard struggle to pull it back out from the stone and reaching up at feeling something slide down my cheek. 

My fingers pulled away with red and gold. 

“You motherfucker,” I said, jumping to my feet and narrowing my eyes at him. I rushed forward and felt energy expand from my fingers into the bat, swinging at him as hard as I could. He looked up at me right in time for an explosive clock along the jaw, cracking the mask on his face and sending him flying away from the stuck axe into the wall behind him with the sound of breaking stone. It created a crater on the walls surface and the guard fell to the ground with a groan.

The nearest Silverman Guard, who had seemed to be watching the interaction, quickly raised his hands placatively as my eyes narrowed on him. I debated hitting him as well when I heard Bronya shout behind me, glancing back at hearing her.

“I said I’ll handle them myself,” she stated angrily, using the barrel of her rifle to stop Dan Heng’s spear. She threw her arm to the side, Dan Heng dodging bayonet blades and pausing as she turned to address the remaining guards in the courtyard. The two trying to corner March she pinned beneath an authoritative glare as she demanded, “Fall back! Commander’s orders!”

There was a hesitance among the remaining guards as they glanced at each other and Bronya, but it only took an angry and stern ‘Now.” from their commander for them to reluctantly back off from their fighting stances. The ones by March backed away to the nearest wall, as did the others that were still standing.

“Now,” the commander said, directing her attention to us. Her gaze was cold and calculative, holding nothing but contempt as she looked around the courtyard between all of us. “I appreciate the honorable spirit of letting me address my troops without interruption. However, this changes nothing for your crimes. I’m allowing one last chance for you all to lay down your arms and come with me willingly.”

“Oh, fuck OFF,” I snapped before I could stop myself. Her gaze looked towards me in disapproval but I felt too much irritation to quail under her glare. “Why the hell would we give up now?”

“Yeah,” March added on, nocking another arrow to her bow as she pointed it towards Bronya. “This whole thing stinks of unfair treatment!”

There was a couple seconds of silence in reply as Bronya looked towards Dan Heng. I couldn’t see his expression from here but I saw the way his grip shifted on his staff. It was enough of a response for the commander, it seemed.

“Very well,” she stated, using one of her gloved hands to rack the rifle. The ice coating the barrel had weakened enough to crumble off as she did so, allowing her maybe a shot or two before it’d be able to be refrozen as she aimed towards Dan Heng. “I’ll just have to continue using force.”

The shot went off and struck the ground behind Dan Heng as he darted out of the way, charging forward to start sparring with her again. I rushed forward myself, conducting more energy through my bat as well. A frosty arrow whizzed by me and was cut from the air by Bronya as she twirled her bayonet.

She struck the end of the barrel against the ground once, raining more ice shards off of the metal like dandruff before raising the bayonet to block my bat. I was thrown off with a jerk from her arm, Dan Heng needing to roll to avoid the almost point blank shot to the face. Even if these were nonfatal rounds, there was no telling if she knew he’d be able to have dodged it.

With another strike of her barrel to the ground, she raised her sights and fired at March, forcing the other woman to move.

I blinked in the realization that she was thwarting March’s attempts to block her rifle by slamming off the ice before it could get thick enough to do anything, and that had to be a strong metal if there wasn’t even a dent caused by the action. 

There was no time to relay the information however as she set her sights to me, making me dodge a bullet myself. It seemed Dan Heng noticed at least, running forward to try and intercept the end of her bayonet before she could strike the ground again, successfully grabbing her attention when she was forced to block a strike of his spear to her chest. 

The battle dragged on as Dan Heng tried to keep her attention on him long enough to either allow the ice coating to be thick enough that she was forced to only use the bayonet blades or allow March and I the opportunity to get our own strikes in. Everytime I thought we could get a hit in on her, however, she was able to slip her rifle from focusing on Dan Heng to either cutting frosted arrows or blocking baseball bat hits that I put enough energy into that I ended up being the one flung to the side instead of her.

Eventually all three of us ended up beside each other as Bronya metaphorically looked down on us.

I winced a bit and reached up absentmindedly to my chest at an odd feeling, trying to ignore it given our situation. I just had to last until the end of the fight. The question was which side would be on top, but with the fact that we were struggling to catch our breath while Bronya stood tall in front of us made the chances of escaping feel very slim.

“This girl's pretty strong,” March panted as she backed up beside me and lowered her bow tiredly, looking over towards Dan Heng on my left side. “Hey Dan Heng, maybe now's a good time to show off your secret strength!?” 

“...You first.”

“Ugh, you're no fun.” March groaned tiredly, readjusting her grip on her bow.

“Intruders, give it up!” Bronya shouted in front of us, putting the butt of her rifle on the ground as she addressed us. “You will be guaranteed a fair trial.”

If there was anything that I could gather from their justice system with our meager interactions we’d had with it, I think I could guarantee that it definitely wouldn't be a fair trial. Especially not after we’ve been evading arrest and fighting back this hard. My mind raced as I tried to think of a way out of this, knowing that the others were probably doing the same.

“Ooh! Sorry,” a familiar voice called out from the wall on our left, coyly adding, “I don’t mean to ruin the intensity of the moment.”

A series of clatters diverted my attention from looking up towards the voice, glancing down to our left as three objects rolled closer. I gasped and stiffened when I realized they were bombs, barely even able to take a step back before each suddenly releasing a thick smoke. 

“What is this?” I heard Bronya in front of us, but the smoke was so thick that both Dan Heng and March looked hazy despite being right beside me.

“The fuck?” I covered my mouth with my free hand, trying to avoid inhaling too much smoke but it was impossible to take a breath without it. 

I struggled to not cough, hearing March’s own coughing on my left as she wheezed, “I can’t breathe…”

Finally the smoke irritated my lungs enough to cause me to cough loudly, eyes watering. I heard footsteps nearby, instinctively looking towards them as I felt entirely on edge. I tightened the grip on my bat even though I started feeling lightheaded, wondering what would happen if I reverted to my normal in front of an enemy.

“I have one thing to say,” Sampo’s voice came from the approaching figure, flicking his hair with his right hand as my vision started to unfocus. “Sampo never lets friends who've helped him come to harm.”

I struggled to stay upright and keep my eyes open, scowling at the smug man when he stopped in front of us, clapping his gloved hands together eagerly. My body betrayed me despite the adrenaline running through my system, eyes becoming too heavy to keep open and limbs refusing to work right, causing me to collapse near his feet. 

“I say what I mean, and I mean what I say,” the man’s voice was the last thing I registered before everything completely faded.

—-----------------------------

Sampo Koski was a man of his word, even if keeping that word meant essentially stalking his new ‘friends’ as they ended up hunted by the Silvermane Guards. Still, even if it was technically illegal, surely they wouldn't hold anything against him after swooping in and saving them at the just oh so opportune moment. He could clock friends in high places from a mile away, and these three were not only the most interesting thing to happen to the Overworlders in a long time, he had a feeling that whatever this Astral Express was would be better if he kept on their good side.

And, if he just so happened to bring the Supreme Guardian of Belobog in the process, well, how was he supposed to know? A smoke screen large enough to knock out an entire crowd of people long enough to relocate a few to the Underworld was a very disorienting thing to maneuver through.

He just had to wait near the stage for the perfect cue.

Sampo had to hand it to the newcomers though. They were able to put on one hell of a show while holding their own against the Silvermane Guards AND Commander Bronya! He gave them a round of mental applause from his position atop of one of the abandoned buildings next to the courtyard the fight was going on in, he wasn’t expecting them to make a dent towards her.

But, even though the newcomers were visibly more exhausted than the Silvermane commander he still noticed that she was also starting to get a touch sluggish.

“Well, best not keep them waiting, hehe,” Sampo chuckled to himself as the newcomers backed off from the commander to try and collect themselves again. He stood up and hopped down to the wall where the Silvermane Guards had been positioned for the ambush, calling out, “Ooh! Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt the intensity of the moment.”

He pulled out a few smoke bombs and lightly tossed them between Commander Bronya and the newcomers, watching all of them startle at the sight of the bombs before quickly becoming obscured by the thick smoke that released.

Sampo jumped down from the wall lightly and walked into the smokescreen, able to breathe in the cloud of smoke like it was normal air while four sets of coughing led him to the group through the dark gray. After all, it’d make no sense if he was susceptible to his own tools, he’d spent a while building up his immunity for escape situations.

“I have one thing to say: Sampo never lets friends who've helped him come to harm,” he declared, walking up to the newcomers as he flicked his hair from his eyes to get a better look at them. 

None of them could really do anything as the smoke started to bring them to their knees, but he could tell by the smoke-irritated glares that none of them would have had any hesitation in hitting him if they were able. Especially the guy with the staff. Yeesh, the glare that was being given was mean. Casually directing his attention to the shortest newcomer to try and ignore the metaphorical daggers on his right, he clapped his hands together and added, “I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.” 

He watched as they collapsed one by one and wasn’t even sure if the others registered what he said as they were knocked out, but it was a hell of a line to go out on if they did. Very good theatrical timing if he said so himself.

“Now,” Sampo pulled out a few small devices from one of the hidden compartments on the inside of his jacket, tossing them slightly in the air. With quick fingers he pinched one between his two pointer fingers while the rest were held securely against his palm. “Let’s get this ‘special delivery’ down to the Underworld.”

He threw the single device onto the ground like a child’s Bang Snap. Instead of letting out a loud crack, however, it exploded and crackled a wobbly portal into existence. Not too dissimilar from the ones created by the Fragmentum spread.

In fact, the whole thing was based on and even used samples taken from the Fragmentum warps. But, this technology was very early in the development and it took Sampo a long time to try and steal as many as he could from the Architects while the devices were developed. After all, he couldn’t just swipe ALL of the prototypes. That would have had the Silvermane Guards on high alert months ago. 

“Alright, let’s start with you, big guy,” Sampo slipped the other devices back in their pocket, turned to Dan Heng and crouched beside him and his spear as the smoke began to thin. The other guy was shorter than he was himself but it was still awkward trying to gather both human and spear in his hold, straightening up and walking up to the pseudo-Fragmentum portal. “And let’s hope I set this up right.”

He braced himself before walking through the portal, grimacing a little at the feeling of Fragmentum almost prodding him in a way as he stepped through. From frosty cobblestone to a warmer alleyway with the Underworld being closer to volcanic activity, he’d almost jump for joy if he didn’t have an entire person in his arms. Looking back he saw the prototype receiver he set up down in this specifically abandoned alleyway ticking away in the corner as it held the portal open on this side.

“And THAT’S why you don’t doubt Sampo Koski,” he said proudly to himself, even though a part of him had also questioned whether or not it would have worked. He didn’t exactly test any of this, he hadn’t had enough prototypes to feel comfortable wasting any.

With a light bounce in his step, Sampo nimbly maneuvered around the scrap and trash piled up in the abandoned alleyway, needing to duck beneath a rickety palette to emerge in the main street. It was blissfully bare of any bystanders, but that wasn’t due to any luck. He caught the eye of a little blonde with a comparatively large fur hat and coat that was perched on a stack of abandoned boxes, shifting his hold to throw her three fingers.

‘Three more ‘shipments’.’

Hook grinned with one of the Overworld lollipops he’d used to bribe her and threw him a thumbs up in acknowledgement, looking over down one of the side streets.

Sampo didn’t waste any time making his way towards the medical clinic discreetly. Well, as discreetly as one can with someone in his arms. Thankfully, most people down here were more worried about their own survival to be concerned about him going to the clinic with an unconscious person. This wasn’t the first time good ol’ easy-going, kind-hearted Sampo had helped someone in their time of need by taking them to Natasha.

He walked into the rickety building and made his way to the infirmary, asking one of the few volunteers, “Is Natasha in?”

“No,” the older gentleman shook his head, peering at the man in his arms. “She had to attend a house-call on the other side of town. Is it urgent?”

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Sampo said dismissively. He’d wave his hand dismissively as well if they weren’t both preoccupied still. “Just a couple newcomers that got into a scuffle nearby. I deescalated the situation myself, but just wanted to see if they could get checked on before anything else happened.”

“Uh huh,” the older man made an unconvinced noise. But, he was one of the longer standing volunteers who was used to Sampo and Natasha. Matt was his name. Gesturing to the rest of the room he said, “Find some empty beds. I’ll let Ms. Natasha know they’re here when she gets back.”

“Thank you very much,” Sampo kicked up his charming smile as he walked over to one of the empty beds and carefully placed Dan Heng down. The spear he leaned against the wall beside it and, with a flourish, he closed the privacy curtain around the bed and told the volunteer. “I’ll be back with about three more.”

The older man grumbled in acknowledgement and Sampo was out of the clinic and back by the receiver device in a flash. The portal was, unfortunately, already dissipated. Each warp device only had enough juice to stay open for about five minutes, but that’s why he had multiple. Now, his biggest concern was that the receiver wouldn’t be able to recreate the last portal's trajectory. 

Only one way to find out though.

Sampo pulled out another warp device and slipped it into a cartridge holder on the receiver's side, flicking the switch that was meant to essentially send a reverse portal to the last location. The thing whirred and ticked to life, a flash of light expanding from the prongs that had held the last portal open to create a new one. He hesitated only a moment before walking through, finding himself back in the courtyard where the other three were still lying unconscious on the cobblestone.

“I’ve got to hand it to those Architects,” he mused in pleasant surprise, deciding to grab the pastel newcomer next. She was a little easier because he could just slip the bow over his own shoulder before picking her up. “This makes it WAY easier to move things around.”

He was able to take March to the clinic without any issues and came back to retrieve the Silvermane Commander. Each time the older volunteer just side-eyed Sampo as he placed each ‘newcomer’ in their own respective bed and pulled the privacy curtain closed around them. Entirely for privacy and definitely not because Commander Bronya was still in Silverman attire and would be singled out for being an Overworld guard.

“Keep it up,” Sampo gave Hook a mini-salute as he walked back to the alley. “Just one more.”

“Don’t forget the second half of our deal,” she called after him chipperly.

“I won’t!” Sampo called back and managed to make it back to the receiver before the third portal charge depleted, stepping through to return to the cold cobblestone. He walked over to the last newcomer and crouched beside them. “And then there was one, ey, Trailblazer?”

Of course, they didn’t respond as he started to scoop them up in his arms like the others. At least he didn’t have to worry about their bat.

He almost recoiled in surprise when there was a sudden crackling sound from the inside pocket of his jacket like an electrical hiss. Concerned for his gadgets and tricks, he pulled his arms from beneath Nova as he dug his hand into the pocket that held the Fragmentum devices. What he pulled out were the capsules with thin golden arcs like electricity where the intricate seams had come apart.

“What the-?” Sampo blinked in surprise, getting to his feet. There was a noise behind him and he looked to see the active portal enfold on itself as it disappeared.

Plucking a single capsule from the bunch in his hands he threw it on the ground like he had been, but this time there was no expanding into a portal that led back down to the Underworld. There was NO portal. At all. Instead there was just the sound of metal hitting the cobblestones with a pathetic flash of Fragmentum that flickered to life before completely dying. Confused, he tossed another on the ground with the same results. Then another, and another. 

“What?” he exclaimed, looking down at the remaining couple he had in his palm, other hand against his head in confusion. “ What happened?! They were just working!”

His mind struggled to both figure out what could have happened to cause the Fragmentum capsules to malfunction suddenly and how to continue forward. He supposed he’d just have to take the Trailblazer down to the Underworld on foot, but that was a much longer timeframe than he had been hoping for.

Sampo was hoping to be back at the clinic before Natasha came back so he could try to explain himself before she saw the newcomers - and the Silvermane Commander - but now he was definitely going to show up after she got back. Hell, the others and the Trailblazer at his feet would probably wake up before they fully got down to the Underworld and he didn’t really want to experience their bat first hand. 

Still, he couldn’t just leave them on their own in the Fragmentum or put them back in Belobog because they were still wanted like the others.

“Oh boy,” he murmured to himself, turning to look down at the still unconscious newcomer and slipping the still broken capsules back into their pocket. “The things I do out of the kindness of my heart…

“I suppose I spoke too soon about giving the Architects credit,” Sampo told Nova as he knelt back beside them with a sigh. He slipped his arms beneath their knees and back like he started to in the first place, standing up with a bit of surprise as he mentally miscalculated their weight. “You’re a little lighter than you look.”

He huffed a little as he looked around, mapping out the nearest shortcuts to the Underworld in his head before deciding on a nearby route that should put him out somewhat close to Natasha’s clinic. 

Shifting the newcomer's weight in his arms he started walking through the Fragmentum. He mostly just needed to keep an eye out for the monsters created by the Fragmentum since he knocked out the Silvermane Guards that had set up temporary checkpoints through the Fragmentum while the Commander set up the ambush. They should be fine, the guard was pretty good about setting up barricades.

Most of the monsters proved no difficulty, either too absorbed in their own bumbling or easily distracted by a well-kicked stone in a different direction. In fact, aside from the setback of the Fragmentum devices suddenly not working this was probably one of the easiest jobs he’s done recently. 

Which meant that, naturally, something had to go wrong to ruin the whole operation and prove him wrong.

Sampo’s fingers twitched a bit when he felt Nova shift a bit in his hold, tensing a little as he looked down to see if they were starting to wake up. Their eyes were still closed, thankfully, but their brow was furrowed and there was a frown on their face that hadn’t been there before.

It looked like they were having some kind of nightmare, especially when he heard them start to murmur under their breath. He wondered whether or not he should try to wake them, worried that if they started sleep-talking that the closer monsters would hear them and start coming over. He didn’t really want to just drop them on the ground and cause some kind of head trauma to fight off Fragmentum monsters.

Before he could come to a decision there was a sudden flickering of golden arcs across their chest and skin similar to those he saw on the Fragmentum devices. He felt more than saw some kind of change in their weight as the nightmare seemed to kick in more, about to tighten his grip on them when the arcs multiplied and he had to avert his gaze at a sudden flash of light that paired with the sensation of the Trailblazer completely disappearing from his grasp. 

He blinked quickly in surprise and looked back to see a tiny shape starting to fall about chest level. Instinctively, his hands reached out to grab it with cupped hands and opened his palms to see what it was, eyes widening. 

“Wha- Trailblazer?!” Sampo shouted before he could help himself, but how else was he supposed to react to the person in his arms suddenly becoming a microscopic percentage of their original size. He tensed when he heard a monster nearby screech in curiosity at hearing his exclamation. Oh, great.

He panicked a little as he looked himself over, trying to figure out what to do with his now tiny pseudo-captive as he heard the incoming footsteps. Almost every pocket and compartment on his person was full of his gimmicks and helpful items. 

Another screech caught his attention and he looked over to see a couple Fragmentum monsters that took on the shape of Silvermane Guards from one of the side streets start charging towards him. In the distance, another Fragmentum cry rang out. He yelped as he started running away from the monsters, deciding to try and just book it for his shortcut.

On the brightside, with the Trailblazer being so small it meant that he could cup them in one hand sort of against his chest as he ran, using his free hand to help him vault up to the tops of the walls that lined the streets. 

The Fragmentum monsters roared up at him angrily now that he was out of reach of their ground-bound forms.

“Haha! Better luck next time, suckers,” Sampo taunted the two, running along the wall. This was at least a lot easier than carrying them normally and allowed him the ability to run without draining himself as much. Didn’t mean it was entirely safe though.

He let out an exclamation when a crystalline wing almost beamed him in the face, just barely managing to duck beneath it with nimble feet. His hands instinctively went for his sheathed daggers but one hand was preoccupied. Briefly forgetting that it was an actual person in his hand, his body moved on instinct and put the bite-sized offending object into his mouth to unsheathe his daggers.

It wasn’t until he jolted out of the way of a crystalline wing and felt his tongue instinctively pin the object to the roof of his mouth to hold it in place that he realized what he’d done, eyes widening and freezing in place at the feeling of limbs on his tongue.

Sampo didn’t exactly have time to dwell on it or think of an alternative, the winged Fragmentum creature swooping in to attack again. He raised his daggers to block it, ducking beneath to cut at the joints of its wings but something knocking against his ankles threw off his balance and he had to focus on just not falling off the wall.

The winged creature whizzed above his dagger's reach and he glanced down to see that one of the Fragmentum Silvermane imposters had its staff lifted, moving to swipe at his ankles once more.

Oh, come on!

He had to quickly jump over the swipe to avoid being tripped, eyes widening when he simultaneously had to block the screeching winged Fragmentum creature that aimed for his head, planting his feet on top of the wall with a brief second of thought before deciding to just retreat. Spinning on his heel and avoiding another stab at his ankles he sprinted along the top of the wall. He heard the trio screeching behind him as the Fragmentum monsters all took pursuit.

Something shifted in his mouth, the Trailblazer's limbs twitching against both his tongue and the roof of his mouth. A very weird and unfamiliar sensation that threatened to be incredibly distracting.

Not now, he thought worriedly. He found himself twirling a dagger briefly to sheathe it quickly, raising a gloved hand to his mouth as he debated taking them out right now. But he didn't want to risk dropping them in his haste to escape so he scrapped that idea almost as fast as he thought of it.

If he could just slip into his shortcut to the Underworld out of the Fragmentum, then he could just spit them out, no harm done, hopefully before they fully woke. Then all he'd need to do is make the rush down to Natasha’s to find out WHY THEY SHRANK IN THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING, far easier said than done with the loudmouths tailing him. He could hear other screeches in the distance of other Fragmentum monsters catching onto the chase that was happening.

Of all the days for one of his heists to go wrong, this had to be one of the worst and the oddest.

Sampo was getting close to the alleyway he used to get in and out of the Fragmentum zone, balancing between deteriorating cobblestone and metal railings that lined some of the walls. A glance behind him showed that he'd lost a couple monsters but gained a few more, particularly the faster winged ones and one that seemed like it had a skirt of crystal with crystalline antlers crowning its head. It raised an arm for a ranged attack using the Fragmentum around it and he had to jolt to the side to avoid what looked like the air shattering beside him.

He turned his gaze forward just in time for the shaft of a halberd to clothesline him in the chest as he ran into it, knocking him off the wall ungracefully. He felt something hit the back of his throat harshly and his body instinctively flinched as it started trying to cough but his back hit the ground, forcing the object into his throat.

Sampo struggled to clear his airway, swallowing hard once then twice to move it past his trachea painfully, barely rolling out of the way as the end of the halberd struck down where his head had just been. The sound of faux-metal hitting stone rang out and echoed with his coughing as his body tried to ease the sharp pain in his throat that dulled to an ache, ignoring the feeling of something slipping deeper into his chest in favor of giving the Fragmentum creature that ambushed him his full attention.

“H-Hey, watch the face,” he snapped at the creature from the crouched position he ended up in after rolling away, gesturing to his face with his empty hand. “It’s one of my money-makers, you know?”

The creature only snarled in response, raising its halberd back into the air to prepare another swing as it lunged forward.

“Not much of a talker. I can work with that,” Sampo quipped to no one, not hesitating to rush into the fight and draw his other dagger. From the brief glance he got around the street, this Fragmentum monster was the biggest threat along with some incoming winged ones behind him. He could hear other Fragmentum screeching but Sampo Koski was quick and light on his feet, knowing he outran a few and probably even lost a couple in his run.

His blades clanged against the creatures as he blocked its swing. He slid one of the blades so that the halberd shaft slotted against the hilt of his dagger, twirling the other one in his hand from assisting the block to pinning the halberd staff to his hilt, trapping the halberd and giving the Fragmentum creature resistance as it started trying to pull its weapon free.

“Sorry, pal,” Sampo wrenched his blades to the side, jerking the halberd staff along with it, and backflipped with a kick. His boot knocked into the forearm of the Fragmentum creature, messing up its grip on the halberd as his entire body weight pulled against it. Thankfully, the halberd was forced out of its grasp, otherwise that would have been a scramble to regain his composure.

One of the winged Fragmentum caught up to the fight as he landed back on his feet and flung the halberd to the side, ducking to dodge a wing to the face and dashed around the Silvermane imposter, hooking one of his daggers into its side. Using the dagger as an anchor he pulled himself towards the creature as he rushed past it, allowing him to quickly turn to stab his other dagger into the back of its neck. With a sharp twist and pull the creature's head fell off to land on the ground, letting out one final death rattle as he dodged the winged Fragmentum again.

With empty hands and being able to hone in on the fight more it was far easier for him to slide beneath the winged Framentum and stab upward to cut through the core where wing joints would theoretically be on both the already present Fragmentum and the second that had managed to catch up.

Sampo huffed a little in the aftermath of the small battle, turning to run towards the alleyway he’d been going towards, quickly slipping into it as more screeching sounded closer. He had no idea if Fragmentum creatures mourned each other, but he didn’t want to stick around to see if they understood the concept of revenge either. And, now that he was relatively safe he could focus on the perceived aftermath of what he’d done.

He didn’t just swallow one of the newcomers, did he? He wanted to say no, but there was a distinct weight in his gut that hadn’t been there before, sheathing one of his daggers and placing a hand against his abdomen cautiously as he continued to rush for the shortcut to the Underworld.

“Ah, y-you doing alright?” Sampo asked hesitantly, feeling a weird sensation as the Trailblazer twitched in his stomach. Okay, that meant that they were fine, right? He felt his breath hitch in his throat as he felt more movement, sounding far more calm than he felt as he told them, “Don’t you worry bout a thing, good ol’ Sampo Koski will hav-.”

His impending monologue was interrupted by his insides suddenly exploding, barely covering his mouth in time to muffle a pained shout. He couldn’t quite tell what exactly was happening past the pain, but he knew that Nova was doing it and that they were obviously panicked from the muffled shouting he could vaguely hear. Maybe he’d be able to tell what they were saying if he wasn’t more focused on not doubling over in pain.

“Wh-Why the sudden hostility, friend,” Sampo managed to say through gritted teeth, not expecting a response. Not a coherent one at least. He could feel his own heart race and his lungs struggle to take in a full breath of air past the agony. He didn’t blame them, but it made him wonder if they’d burst from his chest. “L-Look, just hold on and I’ll getcha out, okay? Sampo’s word.”

Part of him hoped the statement would calm their nerves somewhat but he didn’t expect it to, and it didn’t. He’d just have to rush to Natasha’s clinic as quickly as he could before either of them ended up dying.

Without further ado he rushed through the alleyway past piles of snow-covered scrap until he reached the end where a hatch was hidden amongst the debris, clumsily opening it and falling into the Underworld. He barely used the ladder in his haste, sliding down with his gloves on the lengthy poles holding the rungs, stopping himself barely a few feet from the rocky floor.

Stumbling in the shafts of an abandoned mine, he sprinted as much as his body and the pain would allow, relieved only slightly when the sharp pain stopped by the time he reached the tunnel that led him to the active mines and the town. It left a throbbing ache that spread throughout his insides and made him worried that the newcomer had succumbed to his body. But, he felt them move and shift with each corner he took, letting him know that they were alive.

The time it took to sprint to Natasha’s clinic was a different kind of agony, not acknowledging a waiting Hook as he ran through the streets he had blocked off by the kids, beelining it to the door of Natasha’s clinic to rush up to the main clinic floor and bursting through the door.

“Natasha!” Sampo exclaimed, freezing when multiple pairs of eyes looked towards him. There were the patients and those waiting, of course, obviously looking towards the sudden noise that disturbed the otherwise mostly quiet clinic. But there was also Natasha herself talking with both the older volunteer, Matt, and the newcomers. 

Great, they were all awake.

“You again!” shouted the pastel-haired one, pointing towards him with an accusatory finger. He felt the Trailblazer in his stomach stir and hoped they wouldn’t start beating up his insides once more, or to at least make it quick as the dark-haired newcomer narrowed his eyes towards Sampo and sent a chill down his spine.

“Yes, me,” Sampo agreed, walking into the room as his mind tried to figure out the best way to go about this. He certainly didn’t want to alarm the other people in the clinic, and he had a feeling that both March and Dan Heng were ready to tear him apart. Looking at Natasha, he said, “Miss Natasha, I-.”

“Have a lot of explaining to do,” the doctor interrupted him sternly, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s this I hear about-?”

“Yes, yes,” Sampo interrupted her back, feeling like an imaginary clock was looming over his shoulder. Even if Nova seemed fine now, who knows how much longer they had? “Miss Natasha and friends, I swear I will explain everything and more, or my name isn’t Sampo Koski! However, there seems to be a bit of an EMERGENCY and I’d like to see you in your office, hmm?”

He clasped his hands together, giving Natasha a strained smile and hoping to whatever Aeon was listening that she would take the hint to pull him aside.

“Emergency, huh,” Natasha’s voice sounded a little unconvinced but intrigued. She gave him a stare for a few more tense seconds before walking towards the door leading back out into the stairwell. “Come on, then.”

Sampo didn’t hesitate to trail after her like a large dog lumbering after its owner  with his height over her. He felt the newcomer shift a bit in his gut, unsure how to feel about just how well he could make their movements out. A shudder went down his spine at the odd sensation, having not really had to pay much attention to it in his panic.

“So,” Natasha opened the door to her office and walked inside. It wasn’t really an office, more of a private checkup room for those that didn’t want their medical affairs to be as public. She waited until he was inside and closed the door, looking back at him with crossed arms. “What kind of emergency is it, Sampo?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure where to start,” he admitted, reaching up and running a gloved hand through his hair. “I was just helping the newcomers get away from the Silvermane Guards- Hey, these guys scratched my back, it’s only fair if I scratched theirs.”

Natasha looked unamused at being interrupted from her questioning the second she opened her mouth but thankfully just watched him expectantly.

“A-Anyway,” Sampo continued, absentmindedly resting a hand against his abdomen when he felt Nova start to move around more. “Something happened with the last newcomer and the next thing I know they’re TINY! I’m talking able to fit in the palm of my hand kind of tiny, Miss Natasha.”

“Uh huh,” the doctor raised an eyebrow at him like he’d just grown another head. “Go on.”

“Well, there was a lot of running and dodging, and I may or may not have accidentally put them in my mouth to free my hands up for fighting and… well,” he found himself struggling to finish, still very much in denial about the situation himself. “I accidentally swallowed them…”

Sampo stared at Natasha, waiting anxiously for her reaction. But, it wasn’t her that spoke first, the door slamming open.

“You WHAT?” the dark-haired newcomer stared at him with gray eyes. He didn’t shout but his tone stressing the end of the question got the point of it across as good as any exclamation.

“Oh boy,” Sampo’s voice trailed off with a nervous chuckle, eyeing the readied spear in the other man's hand.

—-----------------------------

“... They will suffer, sacrifice, and die because of my order.”

I blinked in surprise and confusion at the voice of Cocolia so near, unable to move and only able to see. In front of me stood a figure in the same garb as the Supreme Guardian, back turned to me as she faced a machine that looked like it held a black and gold diamond shaped structure in front of her.

I felt like that would be more alarming if part of me didn’t register that these weren’t my memories, these were memories imparted to me once more. 

“It is not death which greets them…” another voice tried to reassure the visage in front of me, some pang going through my chest as though the Stellaron within me felt some sort of kinship with the machine. “They will be swept into the infancy of a new world.”

“What about the Underworlders?” Cocolia asked, worry lacing the edge of her voice. “They will lose the protection of the Architects. They will see me as… as a tyrant.”

“You have witnessed… the world we have promised. A temporary misunderstanding… for an eternity of prosperity. We will honor… your decision.” The machine whispered to her, coaxing.

In front of me, I saw Cocolia’s hands tremble at her side as a second went by in thought, fingers going limp as her shoulders slumped in resignation. “I understand.”

I wanted to protest everything that was going on, mentally stamping my foot down and trying to get the attention of Cocolia to try and say that she’s still fucking with peoples lives and to not listen to the Stellaron. But, I knew it was in vain, that what I was observing was the past. Whether I was receiving the memories from the Stellaron itself was unknown, but I knew that time was starting to run out on whatever deal she had made with the thing.

I couldn’t dwell on it too much though, not when my entire world began to jostle and shake suddenly. But I wasn’t anywhere physical, did some kind of earthquake happen in the memory? Cocolia wasn’t reacting like there was…

The jostling stopped and made me think that it was somehow a part of the dream, like perhaps the connection to whoever’s memories these were was being interrupted or something. But, my mind started to slip into darkness, no longer a vision and not quite waking up. I also couldn’t quite force myself back into awareness, only vaguely noticing things if at all.

Like how everything felt unstable for a moment, giving me the stomach in my throat feeling that happened sometimes with sleep, before steadying somewhat again. Only to feel slightly warm and claustrophobic a short while after. I didn’t even know you could feel claustrophobic with dreams. 

And the jostling and shifting returned.

My brow furrowed as the sensations slowly became more and more prominent, frowning at the oddity of it all. Jostling and shifting felt sort of familiar, having been manhandled a couple times in the last week in my smaller state but that didn’t explain why it felt sort of hard to breathe, why it felt humid and hot where I was, or what the sound of gusting air was coming from.

I tried for a while in my weird moving surroundings to move my own arms, able to occasionally hear a muffled screech or a far louder grunt nearby, but it was slow going. By the time I felt like I could twitch my fingers everything was kind of smooth in a consistent bouncing sort of way. Opening my eyes in bleary confusion to darkness I was barely given a moment to try and figure anything out past the mind fog when everything around me jerked violently.

Jolting a bit more into awareness as adrenaline rushed through my system there was another all encompassing jostle that forced me into a space that felt almost too tight, not even able to process anything when I heard a loud gulp all around me.

“Heh?!” I barely managed to wheeze out a startled noise as I was forced down what felt like an extremely tight rubbery tube, realizing that my clothes and hair were soaked with something that made it difficult to get a hold of anything. In a sort of mounting horror I noticed that the walls of the tube were moving, shoving against me and making it difficult to breathe, my vision spotting with colors. Somehow it got even more compressed with the sound of another swallow and what sounded like a sigh of relief, both far too close than logically possible.

“H-Hey, watch the face! It’s one of my moneymakers, you know?” the sound of a certain shifty man boomed around me, realizing it was getting a bit further away and more muffled above me as he responded to a screech with, “Not much of a talker. I can work with that.”

“S-Sampo?!”

I felt everything jolt and jerk around me, the tube around me twisting and compressing with some kind of movement from… somewhere, only made worse when the claustrophobic squeezing turned into essentially being within some kind of bouncy house. It felt like a bouncy house at least, except more wet and warm with the bouncy house having control instead of the person inside.

I was relieved to not have a full stomach, the tossing and turning making me feel nauseous.

I’m not sure how long it was before the screeching outside stopped and everything stilled somewhat. It hadn’t been long, I think, but I still stayed mostly still for several seconds to try and wait out the daze. I thought that it was just my dizziness making me feel like everything was still moving but I realized that, no, the floor was still shifting beneath me.

“Ah, y-you doing alright?” Sampo’s voice above me caught my attention, still extremely louder than usual.

“S-Sampo,” I asked quietly, forcing myself to slowly push myself up into a sitting position despite still being a bit dazed. I frowned a bit in confusion when there was no response, focusing on whatever small amount of energy I could reach within myself to muster a spark. My face scrunched up a bit at the sight, struggling to comprehend what exactly I was looking at. Pink walls glistened in the light, pulsing almost in time with the…. breathing I noticed.

That’s not my heartbeat, I thought to myself, eyes widening when I realized the heart I was hearing wasn’t the blood rushing in my ears.

 “Don’t you worry bout a thing,” Sampo’s voice spoke up above, only solidifying what my gut instincts told me. Before I could think much on it I felt a jolt of energy travel to my fingertips, the space lighting up with a crackling light as my baseball bat manifested. “-good ol’ Sampo Koski will hav-.”

I didn’t even wait for the man to finish, swinging at the nearest wall of flesh as hard as I could several times, shouting, “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

I heard him respond back but didn’t pay attention to it as I continued to swing, summoning as much explosive energy into each hit on the walls, shouting everything I could think of from demanding what was going on, what happened to everyone else, what he was doing and why he fucking ATE me. He answered none of my questions or demands to be released. I lost my footing a few times as it felt like he was moving somewhere, feeling more fear and panic as time went on. 

I summoned another spark at some point and saw more liquid on the floor beneath me. I didn’t want to find out whether or not it was harmless.

Continuing my barrage as long as my body would allow, I eventually lost my footing to the shifting floors and couldn’t gather the energy to push myself back up, my bat briefly lighting up the surroundings weakly as it fizzled from existence. Panting, I could feel the pool of fluid in the chamber with me and flinched when a particularly sharp movement from Sampo caused it to lap entirely over a forearm. I instinctively tried to hold onto something everytime things shifted me ‘out of place’, trying to not be sent sliding around.

On the brightside, I didn’t feel like anything was happening to me. But I also didn’t know much about the human body. I just knew people ate things and then it was essentially gone a few hours later. Maybe things just hadn’t kicked in yet, even when the walls started closing a bit more with each undulation, much to my dismay.

After a while I realized I could hear the muffled sounds of people outside. Nothing in particular, just what felt like the general sounds of street activity, albeit through an overlay of a racing heartbeat and panting above me. The sound of footsteps on stone, then wood.

Pondering on whether or not that meant Sampo was as panicked as I felt, I jolted in surprise as he suddenly shouted “Natasha!” above me.

“You again!”

I heard March’s voice from outside and quickly sat up, holding a hand to my head as a round of dizziness from laying in exhaustion kicked in at the sudden motion. “March!”

My voice came out hoarse and scratchy, a whisper compared to the loud shouting I’d hurled at the shifty man earlier. FUCK. I tried clearing my throat and testing my voice as Sampo talked above, not feeling satisfied for several seconds. When I felt like maybe I could shout loud enough again, I heard ‘Come on then.’ from an unknown woman outside.

“Wait” I exclaimed, breaking out into a cough immediately afterwards as everything moved again from what I assumed to be Sampo’s footsteps. Pissed that I may have missed my chance I shifted and hit part of the flesh beneath me, hissing, “Fuck!”

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like I was exactly a secret to be kept hidden away, hearing Sampo start to explain to some Natasha about what happened. It filled in some gaps of memory I had since I was knocked out but it was incredibly weird to hear about my own situation. Especially since it felt almost unbelievable that this was entirely accidental.

I jolted a little at the sound of a door slamming open, hearing a familiar but muffled voice demand, “You WHAT?”

“Oh boy…” Sampo chuckled overhead but I heard a distinct increase in his heartbeat and breathing.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to- ma’am!” the unknown woman, Natasha, shouted in surprise.

“We’re not leaving until we get answers about our friend,” March’s voice was somehow able to cut through everything very well. “You didn’t actually eat them, did you? This is just some weird prank, right?”

Unfortunately, it isn’t, March…

“Ma’am, I assure you that’s impossible- sir, put your spear away and step away,” Natasha replied just as everything moved again. Only once, making me think of Sampo stepping back. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“L-Let’s settl-.”

“It’s not impossible,” Dan Heng’s voice interrupted the other man and I heard the sound of a footstep followed by a few lighter ones, along with another ‘Sir!’ from Natasha. “And if he’s telling the truth, I won’t hesitate to cut them out of him myself.”

“Fucking hell,” I mumbled to myself. On one hand, I was a little mortified at the thought of him doing that but I also felt like I’d be the same way if something happened to the other two. Them and the others on the Astral Express were about all I knew since being found recently.

“Our friend has a condition, you see?” March’s voice spoke hurriedly like she was trying to prevent a fight. Maybe she was just trying to keep them from getting kicked out. “If they don’t take a specific medicine, they shrink to only a couple inches tall. We don’t know how to fix it yet and they must have forgotten to grab some medicine when the Silvermane Guards woke us up this morning!”

“Your friend… shrinks,” Natasha repeated slowly in disbelief from outside.

“Yes!” I shouted even though no one could hear me, forced to more or less wait and see what would happen.

“I told you,” Sampo said adamantly before suddenly yelping and swallowing hard above me.

Did Dan Heng or March threaten him or something?

“Well, you all seem rather convinced,” Natasha spoke up from the outside, sighing a little. I could only imagine what was going on through her head. Shrinking seemed pretty rare in space, I can only guess it’s entirely unheard of on a planet that was just focusing on its survival. There was the sound of heels on the floor and the door closing again. “Come on.”

“Eheh, r-right,” Sampo sounded nervous, everything moving with a weird side-to-side jerk that shuffled me along with it before going to a more familiar motion that ended with a bit of a jolt.

“Now, hold still,” Natasha’s voice was a lot closer, surprising and confusing me. I waited for anything else to be said, by anyone, but several weird moments of silence went by that was only interrupted by the sound of the body around me. As I wondered what the fuck was going on the woman spoke up again. “I don’t hear anything abnormal.”

“W-Wait, are you sure?” Sampo asked while I heard two muffled ‘What’s from both March and Dan Heng. 

“Fuck, was I supposed to be talking,” I exclaimed to myself with a jolt of panic, not realizing that she’d been listening. 

“Are you sure about that? I mean, they were shouting an awful lot at the-.”

“Quiet,” Natasha’s voice interrupted Sampo as he started talking. “I think I heard something.”

Oh shit, please let that be me! I thought to myself, quickly calling out, “Hello! Uh, Natasha lady?”

It felt kind of awkward since it felt like I was talking to nothing, especially when I had screamed myself hoarse earlier with no results in any regard.

“Well, that’s a surprise...”

“What is?” March’s voice asked nervously.

“I did hear a small voice. And here I thought Sampo was trying to spin some sort of tall tale for some unknown reason.”

“Wha- then why didn’t they speak up the first time?” March asked, somehow sounding concerned, relieved, and annoyed at the same time. I couldn’t help but feel indignant.

“Oh, MY fucking bad,” I retorted automatically, my own irritation and tiredness making me snap back despite not being heard. Bristling, I resummoned my bat after minutes of resting, still feeling tired yet continuing, “How the fuck was I supposed to know anything was going on outside? I can’t see dick in here and I’d like to be out of this fucking BASTARD!”

I didn’t even bother getting to my feet, conducting energy through my bat and swinging at the nearest offending wall with an explosive impact. Almost immediately I yelped as I found myself compressed between the folds around me.

“Ow!” Sampo exclaimed loudly.

“What happened?” Dan Heng spoke up this time, quickly.

“Well,” Natasha’s voice replied, sounding far more nonchalant than I feel like most people should in this situation. “Your friend made the question of how they were supposed to know anything was going on when they can’t see anything and then demanded to be let out. Granted, their wording was far more colorful.”

“That sounds about right,” Dan Heng sighed. “Are they alright, at least?”

“They seem to be, yes,” the woman answered, though she sounded far less pleased about it than I was feeling, which confused me. “Although they shouldn’t be… That question can wait, however. Now we need to figure out a way to get them out. And before you suggest it again, I’d like for you not to cut them out of him.”

“How are we gonna get them out then,” March asked.

“Well, I can see about making a medicine to force them back out, although it likely won’t be pleasant for either of them.”

“Ugh, you’re going to make him throw up?” March sounded as disgusted as I felt, which kind of made no sense since I was already in here. Even Sampo made a noise of disgust above me. “... I’m going to wait outside then, Dan Heng.”

You bitch! I thought to myself, though I felt like I’d be in the same boat if I was the one outside.

“If they come out injured, I won’t hesitate to hurt you myself,” Dan Heng said.

“Duly noted,” Sampo replied with a nervous chuckle, shifting a little.

It wasn’t long before some foul-smelling concoction made its way into the stomach with me, both Sampo and I gagging at the smell. I tried to pinch my nose shut and hold my breath, almost yelping when the stomach around me clenched and forced me back upwards. It was way tighter and rougher than being swallowed but it was also almost instant, finding myself in a sudden freefall within a second.

Thankfully, I didn’t plummet to the ground or anything, finding myself caught by something, blinking in the comparatively bright light and seeing that I was in some kind of net. Shivering in the cooler air, I looked around where it seemed like some kind of mesh was placed over the top of a, graciously clean, bucket.

“My goodness, you are small,” Natasha’s voice caught my attention, looking up to see her take the bucket from Sampo, who seemed to have been hunched over it to vomit. I was just glad it was just me and some bile at the most, else I’d feel the urge to hurl a lot more than I already did with the awful smell clinging to me.

“And nauseous,” I replied, sitting up and trying not to touch anything. I didn’t exactly want to pinch my nose anymore since it’d waft more of the smell on me.

“You think you’re nauseous,” Sampo mumbled from where he sat on a rusty exam table looking like he was struggling not to vomit again. Dan Heng narrowed his eyes at the other man, making him flinch. “O-Of course, the least I could do given the circumstance!”

“I hope you don’t mind if I give you a quick rinse,” Natasha said, unbothered by the two guys as she placed the bucket in a deep sink in the room, jostling me in the netting. She reached for the faucet off to the side and a bottle of soap but paused as she looked at me.

“Aeon, please do.”

“Good.” she nodded, turning on the faucet slightly to allow a light deluge and started slathering some soap on her hands. “This is unfortunately the only way I can think of getting you clean at this size. And while I’m helping you with this, SOMEONE can go find the Silvermane overworlder he brought down here that ran off while he was away and maybe find the medicine you left in the Overworld.”

“Right now?” Sampo glanced over, looking a little pale still. But, he made a noise and got to his feet when Natasha stopped sudsing the soap and looked back at him. “I mean, of course, right away, Miss Natasha!”

The man scrambled to the door and out into the hall, giving a ‘Oop, pardon me.’ as he did so, March walking inside a second later.

“Is Nova okay?” she asked, approaching Dan Heng who just nodded in my direction.

“Hi, Ma-arch!” I yelped when a handful of cold water was gently poured on me, shivering more almost instantly. “Fuck!”

“Sorry,” Natasha held out a hand covered in suds, offering the foam to me. “I didn’t want to waste any hot water. We usually save it for those more susceptible to the cold.”

I was feeling really fucking susceptible to the cold myself right now but I held my tongue and just grabbed a handful of foam to try scrubbing the stench of the medicine off. It smelled like mint. 

“Y-You’re fine,” I shuddered, feeling a bit awkward with the quick wash but ignored it for the sake of getting it out of the way. “I’m fine, March.”

“Are you sure? That must have been terrifying,” the woman commented, looking at Dan Heng for agreement.

“Well, I’m not gonna deny that,” I scrubbed off myself the best I could, even taking off my hoodie to make the foam work better as I talked. “Unpleasant, at l-least. Bit of a rude awak-awakening.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Dan Heng said. I looked up at him on instinct when he spoke up and saw something unreadable cross his face, a common enough occurrence for me to ignore it.

“I’m glad you g-guys care.”

“Of course we care,” March exclaimed, sounding almost offended. “You’re one of the crew now! We take care of our own.”

I resisted the urge to remind her that we’d met barely a week ago, Natasha being nice enough to interrupt anything I was about to say with another handful of cold water. A couple more and there was no foam on me at all, though I was left soaked and shivering still. 

“Here,” Natasha scooped me up in her hands, still a weird sensation, and walked me over to the duo waiting. When Dan Heng extended the hand not holding his spear she took great care in depositing me into his palm. She reached into a fold on her dress and pulled out a handkerchief from a hidden pocket, carefully draping it over me. “I have to return to my patients, but you’re welcome to stay or go as you please. Just try to stay safe and out of trouble.”

“Will do!” March said chipperly, putting her hands on her hips.

The doctor waved a farewell to us as she left the room, leaving only the three of us.

“What now?” March asked, looking between Dan Heng and I. “She mentioned some Silvermane overworlder. You don’t think it’s the one that we were fighting, do you?”

“She did get knocked out with us.” Dan Heng replied. 

“All I know is I want to beat the shit out of Sampo the next time I see that motherfucker and I’m normal again,” I hissed, wrapping the handkerchief around myself as much as I could. March looked down at me, giving an unamused expression.

“Trust me, we’ll help you.”

[l3viat8an]

Poly mc: Imagine going to the human world with bros and a bunch of little kids and teens calls poly mc the most ugly person on the street and a fatso, all while laughing.

My friend was called that, and never in my life I wanted to punch a child. They held me back and said it wasn’t worth it.

Fuck them kids and your friend is a better person than me I would’ve helped punch a child- CW: fatphobia / body shaming-

Walking around the human world with your demons is always an…adventure for lack of a better word lol-

Asmo wants to drag you into every little Beauty boutique you pass, Satan wants to take you into every bookstore, Levi the arcade or little comic book shop, Beel every restaurant or café you pass- okay, okay you get the idea, they all want to drag you off and have fun!

But on the nicer days like this~ when the sun is hidden behind some clouds and it’s not too hot, it’s always nice to just go on little walks through the local park together!

It gives the demons a new look on the human world and let’s you show off your hot boyfriends! (Even if nobody’s really looking-)

and you get some much needed human world sunshine! What could be better?-

Until you passed a group of kids at the little play set, the one started pointing and laughing, you can’t hear what the kids are saying yet.

So you crack a joke about the kids being able to tell the boys are demons “Kids can always tell these thing, you know.”

Before laughing and continuing to walk, your group is still out of earshot of the kids but Levi grumbles about kids being dumb and Satan flips them off, Lucifer slaps his hand down, almost immediately, “Satan! Act right, those are children. They don’t know any better.”

Satan grumbles something under his breath.

But all in, all your groups keeps walking getting closer to the little playground and past the laughing kids, “Hey fatso! How much money are you paying to rent these stupid models?” “You know, nobody thinks any of them are actually dating a fat pig like you right?”

To say the demons were ready to punch some children is an understatement-

“Hey, kid c’mon over here fer a minute I just wanna talk.” If the children had any sense they wouldn’t go anywhere near Mammon with that ‘smile’ on his face, Satan isn’t nearly as worry about hiding his true intentions honestly, “I don’t want to talk, I want to punch a child.” Belphie just glares at the children “Tiny humans, really don’t have any manners anymore.”

Asmo looked as if he was in shock before marching up to the children, “Listen, here you brats, because I’m going to give you the lesson your parents never did; Only bitter nasty little humans, judge each other by their looks alone, and only bitter and miserable people decide that everyone else must be. Simply because someone doesn’t fall into your idea of a beauty standard doesn’t mean they’re automatically miserable, or that they’d have to buy love. I’d say you should be you ashamed of yourself but it would be a waste of time.”

Turning on his heel Asmo walks right back over to you, loops your arm through his and starts walking away.

“Wow…it’s been awhile since I’ve seen you get that upset.“ you say a bit impressed “Oh hon, I’m so sorry you had to hear that! But I hate children like that.” He presses a quick kiss to your cheek, and keeps walking.

You turn back to see if the others are following yet, and while you can’t hear what Lucifer or Beel said you can see the childrens faces drop and the two start backing away “What are they doing?…..” you’d almost feel bad, but really the kids started it “Probably just a few empty threats, don’t worry about it sweetie~! Now what should we do when they catch up~?”

The demons aren’t going to let a few nasty kids ruin your whole day after all!!

(Tho if you do want the kids to suffer a bit more Belphie can always give them nightmares- and I’m sure Satan or Lucifer have some ‘lovely’ curses-)

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Mario: Wow! A whole day dedicated to me!

Bowser: Congratulations, you’re the prelude to Stab Julius Caesar Day.

Mario: Screw you Bowser! You’ll never take this away from me!

Peach: And don’t bring up that day! We royals get nervous on March when the Ides roll around!

Luigi: Don’t worry Peach, we’ll be celebrating the Ides of March in style. *evil laughter and crack of thunder*

Peach: ...

Mario: ...

Bowser: ...

Luigi: By which I mean we’re gonna stab Elon Musk in the kidney a bunch.

All: Oooooooh.

[castleaudios]

CastleAudios FAQ!

Commonly asked questions about the channel and its characters

⚜️I want to listen to the channel but I don't know where to start?

I always recommend starting with Beth's playlist, then Claire, Genevieve, Rachelle, Celine then anyone else that catches your eye! Of course, if you want to hear everybody in order so you get the whole plot, check out my Glenwood playlist!

⚜️All your audios are labeled F4A, will you ever make F4M/F4F content?

I want my content to be enjoyed by any and everyone! Making F4A content is the easiest way for me to do that.

⚜️The trauma... The drama... The conflict... Why must you do this?

What good is a story without conflict? I do promise that I'm not just some angst train, I'll always strive to balance out the bad with the good. I'm a sucker for happy endings!

⚜️Who is CW?

CW (Or Camille W. as she is credited in my video descriptions) is my partner and the visual director for the channel! Almost all the character icons were created by her and she frequently does mini channel takeovers in order to share lore and (affectionately) bully me. We've also begun sharing her live reactions to my audios, so you can enjoy some content from her on the channel at well!

⚜️A lot of your listener characters have more than one name, why?

Listeners usually have about two names, one for their romantic partners and the name that others call or refer to them by

Claire's listener: Ranger / Hotshot

Beth's listener: Seer / Beautiful

Genevieve's listener: Knight / Sweetheart

Abby and Rose's shared listener: Open Wielder / Bud / Dear

Rachelle's listener: Mage / Doll

⚜️What does __Insert Listener Character__ look like/dress like/do/ and what's their backstory?

Unless specifically referenced to in the audios for the sake of plot, any information about any listener character is strictly up to your interpretation! I love hearing what you guys think for each of the listeners and all your theories so I wouldn't want to hinder that with one "right" interpretation. I won't be answering any submissions along the lines of this question.

⚜️I've seen you on Twitter/Tumblr/Tik Tok and now I'm scared to post...

Don't be! I made these social media pages so that I could interact and engage with my audience, so please don't be worried if I see your posts about the channel! I love all of it, truly. And don't worry, I wouldn't have come onto the internet if I wasn't fully prepared for what might be waiting there. (I know you have drafts. Post them, cowards (with love))

⚜️Can I make fanart/fanfiction/fanedits of your channel?

I'm gonna be honest, I cried when I first got this question. YES!! Please make whatever you like and please share it with me! You are all so creative and wonderful, I want to see your work! If you make any content that is inspired by my work or make anything within the Glenwood universe, I only ask that you credit me in the description.

⚜️Will Celine get her own listener/romantic route?

Celine will not be getting her own listener. She pops up sporadically in other character's playlists as well as the mega episodes where all the characters are bunched up into one audio. She will be interacting with multiple characters and listeners so she'll never be away for too long. She is a married woman and has a loving wife, so there won't be any romancing on Celine's part. That being said, she has two hands, so go wild.

⚜️Where is Glenwood located?

Glenwood is located on the Southern East coast. Not too specific, since I don’t wanna base it off of any real towns!

⚜️I've noticed hints to Abby/Rose/Wielder becoming a canon poly couple, is this true or should I not get my hopes up?

It is canon that the Library Trio will be endgame, we just need to be patient while we get there!

⚜️What is the Endax Chronicles?

The Endax Chronicles will be a prequel series to Glenwood starting in March 2023! It takes place nearly 600 years in the past and will deal with the war between Vampires and Blood Mages. It will be more of a High Fantasy series compared to Glenwood's contemporary style. We've been given hints to this conflict in Rachelle and Celine's audios, but this will reveal the truth.

⚜️Do I need to listen to Endax Chronicles to understand Glenwood or vice versa?

Nope! You can listen to one without needing the other, they should be able to be enjoyed separately.

⚜️Exactly how big do shifters get in their wolf form?

They're considerably bigger than normal wolves, thought not exactly as big as horses. When a shifter is fully transformed, they stand at about the same height as an average person. Certainly not something you want to be on the biting end of, but just about the best cuddle buddy you would ask for.

⚜️Will we ever get Claire/Celine or any other pairing aside from the endgame couples?

Unfortunately not in the canon storyline! But who knows? Some non-canon audios could always be a possibility!

⚜️Will you ever make merch?

Honestly, we haven't seriously considered making merch for the channel since we're still pretty new to the whole content creation business, but if that's something people would want, we can make it a reality!

⚜️Where else can I get your content?

As of right now, I am only on YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, and Tik Tok with various degrees of activity on each platform. However, later this year we will be launching the CastleAudios Discord server as well as a Patreon!

[cutest-bunny-writings]

The Missing Paper Clause; Chapter 6: Impatience and a Patient

Warnings: some swearing, observation of a fight and possible impending panic attack, referral to people as "specimens", discussion of surgery to fix a deviated septum, Taehyung just appears

The Missing Paper Clause Chapter Index

It’s going to bother you for the rest of your life if you just don’t go see how that guy is doing. He was in obvious distress and your presence calmed him down.

You heard they were going to take him to Taehyung to get a deviated septum fixed, but you’re really worried that Taehyung is just going to accidentally terrorize the guy more.

“Oh hell, I’ll just go,” you mumble to yourself before you start marching down the hallway to the elevator.

Taehyung’s ward is a couple floors below you, so it might take you a few minutes to get down there, hopefully before surgery starts.

You manage to make it into the operating theater just in time.

You see that they’re trying to wrestle the guy back onto the table and he is obviously winning with his jock-like physique against your coworkers' diminished versions.

You notice you don’t see Taehyung in there, but turn your head to see if he might be sitting in a corner somewhere and he’s not down in there at all.

“Enjoying the show?”

You start at the sound of Taehyung’s voice coming from behind you. “I’m afraid not, Dr. Kim. He’s in obvious distress and your team’s methods seem to only be making it worse.”

“You are welcome to try something if you think you can get him to calm down.”

“Fine. You’ll have to get me scrubbed in and explain to them why you’re letting me in. They aren’t exactly some of my biggest fans right now.”

“Then let’s go, Dr. L/N.”

Once successfully scrubbed in and Taehyung tells off his team when they begin to protest, you make your way over to the commotion.

“Let go of him.”

“Are you kidding? He’s a flight risk!”

“You heard the lady, she said let him go.”

You couldn’t be more thankful Taehyung was so scary and that you were on good terms with him than you are right now.

The guy is obviously pissed, understandably, and he looks incredibly frantic.

“Hey, big guy. Look down here.”

You let him finish calming down before making your way closer.

“Recognize me? I’m the lady you saw earlier, Dr. Y/N L/N.” You point at yourself and smile from behind your mask, making your eyes scrunch.

“Yeah, yeah. I know you. You were the only woman around when they woke me up, and that nurse.” He takes the time to sit back down on the table.

“Oh, that wasn’t a female nurse. That was Nurse Min, he just looks really feminine.”

“Oh.” He looks briefly confused.

“So if you don’t mind me asking, why do you not want to be here right now?”

You see his eyes fill with tears before he starts ranting about everything he’s experienced so far.

“I wake up in some foreign concrete building with a bunch of strangers that keep strapping me down and hooking me up to machines that scream with awful beeping noises. I don’t know where I am or who I am and nobody’s telling me anything about what’s going on!”

“I understand how this can be very scary, so allow me to explain.”

He looks up at you, still clearly upset, but willing to listen.

“That man over there,” you point at Taehyung from in the corner, “he’s going to do the surgery.”

“Surgery?!” He towers over you.

“Don’t worry.” You use your hand to gently push him back onto the table. “This surgery is super simple. He’s going to fix your deviated septum there and hopefully it will fix your breathing problems.”

“Will you be here?”

“If you want me to be here, I can stay.”

“Please?”

“All right.” You turn your head in search of Taehyung. “Dr. Kim, we're ready to start anesthetic and then surgery.

You lay the guy down on the table and strap him back in, explaining to him why the whole time you’re doing so.

The anesthesiologist comes over to begin administering the anesthetic and once that gas is going, he tells the guy on the table to start counting backwards from 100.

He ends up making it to something like four, which amazes all of you because people usually tap out around 60.

Surgery goes smoothly, thankfully.

You also decide it would be a good time to discuss some things with Taehyung, even if it does come off as a little bit flirtatious to the others.

You follow the nurses closely after you scrub out so you can find out which post-op room they put him in.

The nurses stop you from entering the room.

“We’re really sorry, Dr L/N, but we were told you don’t have clearance to this patient until further notice.”

“What kind of—”

“They did it under my orders, Ms. L/N.”

All the nurses join you in correcting your evident arch-nemesis before you continue to express your displeasure at being denied access to the newest specimen.

They seem to think I’m some kind of a joke.

Okay, let’s review what I learned: he knows literally nothing, but seems to have a very large vocabulary. He’ll likely panic and try to escape if he’s left alone in his room. If he’s left with the other doctors that obviously don’t care about his state of distress, he’s probably going to try to fight them again. He’ll likely have blood pressure and heart rate spikes. Definitely experience a panic attack at the rate things are going. They’re risking him blacking out…or maybe that’s what they’re counting on, so he can disappear quietly.

Previous : Next

[jooniperbonsai]

This is going to piss people off but I remember during ticketing for PTD in 2021, a bunch of ARMY “jokingly” (they were absolutely serious) posted that they deserved to get tickets more than baby army because they had been around longer, or knew more, or had MOTS tour tickets, or streamed more, etc etc.

It was everywhere and even at the airport as I, an ARMY who got into BTS in March of that year, waited to get on my plane to go to LA, the people around me were competing with me about knowing more Korean, being a fan longer, etc, and judging me.

It was a weird possessive phenomenon, but with the announcement of Hobi’s tour, I’ve been seeing those types of videos and posts circulating again and one thing really needs to be made clear:

The people qualified and “deserving” to attend any BTS concert, event, anything at all are simply people who want to go.

That’s it. They can like one song, they can not know everyone’s names, they can be people who sit the entire concert, who never stream, who boycotted, who are multifans, who are 65 and a fan for years, who found out yesterday and got a ticket.

You are not more entitled than anyone to attend a concert. When you start listing qualifiers and requirements of who gets to go, you are being so antithetical to the message BTS has been trying to deliver since the beginning. Some of the members themselves might not even be qualified to attend their own concert under your silly rules.

Yes, it sucks if you don’t get tickets. But you’re mad at the wrong people. Take it up with their companies for booking smaller venues or Ticketmaster for jacking prices. I understand being disappointed. That does not permit you to be shitty to fans who are able to attend.

“If you don’t know x song, you shouldn’t be allowed to go.”

Why? Because you know it? Okay, so what if someone’s parent takes them because they want to spend time with their child?

“If you’re not standing the whole time and screaming the lyrics, idk why you’re going.”

People are allowed to experience concerts however they are most comfortable. My friends and family sometimes sit through shows because they are disabled. That doesn’t mean they’re showing any less support or reason to not be there.

“What about solos? Antis? Sasaengs?”

What about them? Most of the people you’re attacking in this frustration are not your problem. HYBE is a multi billion dollar company. Let them worry about that instead of you deciding for them. You don’t get paid by them to do it.

Concert culture just has become such a way for people to be morally superior and “win” and y’all need to remember that this is supposed to be about enjoying music. The way fans have behaved has been so rooted in ableism, classism, ageism, sexism, and often times racism that I’m fairly confident if you are feeling entitled enough to dictate who deserves to go to a BTS concert, BTS would not want you there.

[sesshy380-rp]

(continued from here)

Kat had listened at the door for Marik’s reaction and did her best not to laugh. Sure, she had looked. She wasn’t blind and she could easily see he had a nice body, but his personality was less-than-desirable in her opinion. But she also had her own obvious preferences. Her little suggestion was intended as nothing more than a buzzing fly in his ear for future interactions between him and the one he was crushing on.

She quickly got dressed, keeping an ear trained on the conversation in the other room. Apparently she wasn’t the only one giving Marik things to think about, though she didn’t like how he obviously didn’t want to talk about his feelings for Ryou.

She exited the bathroom to see Marik still staring down at the mug he hadn’t touched.

“Alright. And by the way, I didn’t put poison in your mug if it is what you're worried about.”

Kat came strolling up beside the two.

“Yeah, Kura doesn’t do poison. Me on the other hand…”

She flashed a taunting grin that made Marik recoil back a bit.

“Actually, I already had my morning pick-me-up,” he said while shoving the mug away.

Kat couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.

“Relax. If I were to put anything in your drink it would be a paralytic. I find the whole ingesting poison and keeling over immediately to be extremely boring,” she said with an eye roll and dismissive gesture.

“You know, I had to spend some time both last night and this morning making myself okay with the idea of you holding on to me, and you’re kind of undoing all of it,” Marik stated, sounding annoyed.

Kat furled her brow a bit in confusion.

“Holding on to you?”

“Yeah” he stated as though it should have been obvious. “Two people riding a motorcycle is no different than two people riding a horse. One person has to sit behind the other and hold on.”

Kat immediately realized how big of a deal this was. Marik obviously didn’t like being touched, and especially didn’t like her touching him…for obvious reasons. In order to take her out for a ride, he’d had to make himself okay with the idea.

She began to fidget with the collar of her vest.

“You don’t have to take me for a ride if you don’t want to,” she said uncomfortably.

Marik suddenly seemed offended.

“Oh, we’re going for that ride, and before the end of the day you are going to realize what makes motorcycles more than just ‘another mode of transportation’.”

Kat frowned, feeling mildly annoyed.

“It’s a bunch of metal that moves you from one point to another, same as a bus or train.”

Marik quickly stood, and annoyed was an understatement.

“That’s it! Go put on those boots I see by the door and meet me outside.”

He didn’t give her a chance to respond as he marched out the door and slammed it behind him.

Kat blinked in confusion then turned to Bakura.

“I realize I made him uncomfortable with my teasing, and I even stated that he didn’t have to do something he’s uncomfortable doing, so why is he upset with me?”

((@nb-lesbian-tkb))

[roosterbruiser]

this post is for Landslide baddies and Landslide baddies ONLY 🫵🤨

remember when I talked about writing a bunch of alternate versions of Landslide? and one of them was what if her and Jake met first?

while that will never be written (I love Landslide so much and I don't want to change anything about it sorry love you) mother has decided to feed her children a few crumbs....

here were the tentative plans for the story where her and Jake end up together (and they're largely unfinished, literally just crumbs!!!):

-starts on December 2016, so only a few months after Maggie's death

-her and Jake meet on NYE so she’s like three/four weeks pregnant but has no clue obvi

-they meet outside The Hard Deck. she isn't going in--she's just kind of standing around the entrance. she's not super fucked up yet, but she's high. he gets to talking to her, obvi thinks she's gorgeous and a conquest. but then cut to the chase bc she's like come back to my house and who is he to disagree?

-and then when they get back there, instead of having sex right away, maybe he notices that her air conditioner in the living room isn’t working. and he fixes it while she kind of just stands there. and then maybe he’s even like looking around her house a little bit while she goes into the bathroom and takes some more pills and he sees all the pictures on the walls and then realizes that he’s with Clover Ledger—whose sister is dead as of recently. like, super recently.

-so then maybe when he goes into the bedroom, she’s waiting for him, naked. and she’s kind of like not really there. he doesn’t want to take advantage of her and feels quite sick about this whole situation. and she’s high so she’s not much help. so maybe he just covers her up and she is able to whisper, could you just stay? and he does stay. he just holds her. 

-and the next morning, maybe he orders in some breakfast and sits in the living room while he waits for her to wake up. so then he starts playing a record and it happens to be Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. she wakes up to her sisters song playing in the living room. at first, maybe she thinks it’s a ghost or something because she can’t see him. but he walks up the stairs holding pancakes and eggs and hash browns. then they eat breakfast together. 

-he can tell that she’s deeply sad, deeply wounded. she's very obviously self-destructing.

-they should have one scene where she’s slightly sober. and maybe it’s the first time she’s laughed in a long time—he’s made her coffee and they’re just chatting about the academy and school and where they grew up and stuff. breakfast accidentally spans out across the entire day. they don’t even kiss, barely even touch. it’s just a pure interaction. she gives him her number and he promises to call. 

-I think he is enamored with her already and he doesn't even have the best version of her yet.

-they end up hanging out maybe once or twice more. maybe they even have a random meeting at the grocery store or something. it’s kind of a weird fated thing. 

-but then she kind of falls off the map after that. so like he calls her and texts her and she doesn’t answer. and then he finally swings by her house, not trying to be creepy. he is genuinely worried something happened to her. 

-finally Bob answers her phone in like late March and there’s a misunderstanding because Bob thinks Jake is just another guy that’s taken advantage of her but Jake has to tell him that they were friends and blah blah blah. so Bob says the next time he sees Faye, he is going to ask about Jake and then maybe he will let Jake know what the next move is. Bob slays.

-so he waits about another week or two and then gets a phone call from Faye’s phone—it’s Bob on the other end of the line. he tells Jake that Faye said if he really wanted to come see her, he could come during visiting hours. he tells Jake that she is in an in-patient treatment facility in Arizona. then he tells Jake to call if he has any questions. 

-Jake can’t stop thinking about Faye. she really touched him deeply. so he does it one weekend—he goes and visits her. se hops on a plane and goes to the treatment facility and sees her. she looks better physically—she really does. she doesn’t look as dead as she did before. she’s awkward and embarrassed and broken and he’s just happy to see her—he doesn’t care that it’s in a rehab facility. she tells him almost as soon as she sees him that she’s pregnant—and then he can actually see it. when he visits her in late May, she’s about 14 weeks pregnant.

-he is randomly all in. he calls her when he can and they have long conversations on the phone. he visits her whenever he can, too—somehow always missing Bob. he is unspokenly there for her for her pregnancy, too. he wants to be there for everything she’s going through. 

-she leaves rehab when she is about 20 weeks pregnant. she goes home. he helps out around her house. and then they start spending like a lot of time with each other. like they’re kind of just best friends. he doesn’t really know a lot of people in San Diego and she doesn’t have her sister or Bob at the moment. or her family. so they just start doing everything with each other. he helps with things like her air conditioning and just stuff around the house. 

-she’s starting to prepare for the baby. she doesn’t want to force anything on him, but he insists that he wants to help her. so he starts going with her to pick out baby clothes and nursery items and all that good stuff. and then eventually he starts going to her appointments with her whenever he can. he will go out and buy her pickles in the middle of the night. he is the one who tells her that she should start going to childbirth classes. and he shows up for her there, acts as her partner. 

-as it progresses, he’s still just there. he’s falling in love with her for sure, but more than anything wants to just support her. he cares about her a lot. she always jokes that he should go out and find a girl and sleep around and go crazy but no—he just wants to be there with her, feeling the baby kick, doing whatever she wants to do. 

-a point of contention is that he is in love with her but she needs him as a friend so desperately. like she doesn’t want to believe that he is only there to fuck her. and he does love being her friend but is truly also in love with her. 

-when she goes into labor, she’s a little bit early. I’m thinking she goes into labor on August 1st, just after midnight. and she drives herself to the hospital and is there for a few hours before Jake figures out what’s going on. and he only figures out because she tells Bob and Bob is scrambling because he was supposed to be flying in in a few weeks instead of August 1st. so he calls Jake to be his placeholder. 

-he's there through everything--even the emergency c-section. he strokes her hair and even manages to get her to laugh a few times. he gets to see her face the first time she hears her son cry. they are both overwhelmed with emotion, crying and laughing, totally shocked and in awe.

-he is very little because he was early, but he's healthy. Jake is actually the first person who gets to hold him (partly because Faye is numb and strapped down and partly because all of the staff thinks he's dad and neither him or Faye is correcting it). he watches her kiss him and love him and oh, boy. he's in real trouble now. all of this feels too good, too weirdly good. too natural.

-she names the little boy Bowie Palmer Ledger.

-she keeps expecting Jake to hit the road. but he never does. he leaves for a half hour to go home and grab a bag and then sets up camp at her bedside. he's totally obsessed.

-the last night in the hospital, in the afterglow of it all, they admit their feelings for each other. but Faye says that she's a mother now and she can't be getting involved with anyone just yet. plus Jake is the best friend she's had since Bob and she doesn't want to lose that. Jake agrees with her. they both decide it's best to be friends for a the time being. but they do share one tiny little kiss.

-but the biggest issue is: Jake is absolutely in love with her. like more than he's ever loved anyone ever before. he has no desire to leave whatsoever. he wants to stay with her and raise this fucking baby—and he knows that’s crazy. 

feel free to send me any thoughts on this....maybe we could expand on some things together....

[dreamgirllz]

Handsome stranger

Warning: alcohol and cigar/drug mention but very mild, cheating, suggestive I’ll leave the smutty part for your dirty little minds

Note: the reader caught her boyfriend cheating in a her own house😔. But her friends convince her to go to the club with them. The reader ends up talking to the secret stranger 😏

After catching your boyfriend with that girl you felt like you wouldn’t be able to move on. You moped around your house with a bucket of ice cream and a heavy cover.

You didn’t tell your friends about what happened they found out through a post from your ex’s page. They came over after the sun went down. “You can’t just roam your house like that, you look half dead. Have you even eaten anything other than ice cream? Did you brush your teeth or shower?” Questions about your physical health went in one ear throughout the other.

You were happy you had a friend circle that wasn’t toxic and actually cared about you. But you didn’t want to feel better, not after you caught him.

One friend grabbed you, threw you over their shoulder and marched to the bathroom. “ your going to take a shower and head out tonight.” “Bu-”, you tried to protest but they forced you in the shower. “We are leaving now, when we come back you better be dressed and ready to head to the hottest club!” You didn’t even get to say anything before they slammed the door.

~2 hours later

Your friends are down stairs hitting the horn for you to come down. You grabbed your purse and keys and left. Ofc you kissed you pet you can’t forgot to kiss them

The club was 30 minutes away, and when you arrived it didn’t even look at that nice. But once you walked through those doors it was a whole other world.

Ofc you got seated with your friends first and ordered drinks. You didn’t want to drink to night though, you just wanted to dance on some random dude. Not like you were a h*e you just needed the attention of a man in the moment.

You made your way to the dance floor and dance like you had no worries. Hands roamed around you, guys trying to slip you their numbers and the smell of hard cigars were in the air.

Suddenly those hands that belonged to a bunch of nobodies left your sides. You looked around a bit to find a man approaching you. His hair was very well kept, his skin was glowing, he suit looked professionally pressed. The only thing that came to mind was ‘he is what I want for tonight😏’.

He stood really close to you and leaned down your ear and whispered “you look really gorgeous in that dress tonight, why don’t you join me for a drink angel?” You died a little when he called you angel. OH and that look in his eyes that smirk he gave you😮‍💨. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY SAY NO?!

Ofc you agreed and followed him to his vip seats. He order a round of shots, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you the whole time.

He finally broke the silence “what’s a pretty thing like you doing here letting those boys put their hands on you?” He put his arm around you, pulling you closer to his body. “I just wanted to dance tonight with someone, just anyone” you said feeling a bit ashamed.

He laughed for a bit then got really close to your lips, just touching them slightly so he can whisper onto them. “Im pretty sure you know you can do way better, cmon pretty why don’t you spend a night with me?”He didn’t give you time to say anything back, he just kissed you, his tongue ruling you mouth in seconds. You really loved how he took over. He assumed sense you didn’t pull back you were interested and he was right.

You both returned to the dance floor, dancing quite erotically. Until your friends pulled you away and ran like the wind.

All of you made it to the car breathless. “What the hell I was just about to take that man home!” They looked at you with a crazy expression. “Are you slow or something!? Don’t you know who you were just grinding on the dance floor with?” You shook your head dumbfounded. “He’s freakin Ran Haitani!” Everyone in the car but you yelled. “W-who’s that?” You said in a low tone. “Are you crazy he is in one of the highest gangs in Japan right now, Boten you idiot!” Your friend explained to you while taking off and heading straight to your house. You didn’t say it but sense you don’t watch the news you still don’t know 🗿.

When you made it home you thanked your friends and headed inside. You undressed and wrapped a towel around yourself. You were about to head into the shower until you heard your Alexa ring alarm go off. You checked your door bell camera. It was that man from the club. He bent down to your camera and said “why don’t you let me in and help me finish what you started angel?” He pointed to his crotch with a sly smirk.

Even after you were given that information of him being in a gang you still let him. And the rest is for your little dirty minds🤭

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Vicarious (Part 14)

Azula can’t recall the last time she has been this close to someone. Even during their bath, she had managed to keep Sokka at arms length, not she is holding him in her arms and it couldn’t possibly feel any stranger.

At some point he had gone silent, at least now she doesn’t have to grit her teeth and listen to the sound of her own crying. It is such a horrible, ugly, painful sound. A sound that puts all kinds of knots in her belly. 

She didn’t want Sokka to cry if for no other reason than not wanting to hear it. Not wanting to see it. She doesn’t like how she looks when she cries, the way that her face reddens and bunches up. She is not a dainty, graceful crier like her mother had been, like even Zuko is. And now that Sokka has gone silent and near limp, it’s almost worse. She looks so fragile, even to her own eyes. Her cheeks are decorated with red streaks and lines of black makeup run down her face. 

She dabs those cheeks dry with her sleeve. Remembering only in retrospect that Sokka might not want his sleeves stained with makeup. He closes his hand around hers and squeezes tightly.

“When did you guys get here?” She hears Jin ask and her body tenses all over again, a chill vibrating up and down her spine.

“Almost the whole time.” Katara says quietly.

And she goes cold all over. It doesn’t matter if they had arrived at the beginning or somewhere in the middle. Either which way, they saw her cry. Just as they are seeing Sokka holding her. They don’t know that it is happening the other way around and she isn’t sure if that is better or worse. Sokka doesn’t let go of her hand and she can’t bring herself to tug out of his grasp. 

For the first time, she sees dread on their faces. Dread and maybe, if she is not mistaken, guilt as they look upon the trembling body in her arms. She wishes with all of her soul that Sokka would stop crying. She’d rather have him march right up to them and apologize. That would be less humiliating than the sobbing. 

“You have to stop now.” She whispers in his ear. 

He has to because the sound of his cries is destroying her thrice over. Once in having to see exactly how she looks when she cries, how small and helpless and week. Twice in realizing that her struggles are so hard to wrestle with that they can break someone who has no real attachment to them. Thrice in that this person who she shouldn’t care for is in so much pain. And to some extent it is her fault. “Please stop crying.” She murmurs. 

“I can’t.” He says quietly back. “I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m not the type of person who can be alone. I need friends.”

And maybe these words have such an edge because they very well could come from the back of her mind where the rest of the things she has repressed dwell. 

She likes to think that she is better off alone but up until Mai and TyLee had left her, she has always done her best work with companions at her side. 

“I-I’ll be your friend, okay?” She tries, she hopes that she doesn’t sound as desperate as she is beginning to feel. She needs to get this under control. Agni, it is already too late for that! “You won’t be alone. Jin will also be your friend.”

The other woman’s mouth opens and then closes. Azula’s heart leaps. But when she finally does speak, her words are a breath of fresh air. “Yeah. I’ll…keep you company sometimes.” 

“You will?” Sokka murmurs. 

Perhaps Jin will keep his spirits up so she won’t have to worry about another moment like this. 

Jin nods. “Sure. I’m not going to tolerate any pushy behavior.” 

Azula tries to pass Sokka off to Jin, but the man clings stubbornly and maddeningly to her. With her own body still in her arms, she gets to her feet. “I’m going to take her to her room.” She doesn’t spare Sokka’s friends a passing glance.

The whole palace seems quiet now. Silent as though it too is waiting, anticipating how this will all play out. There is only the crackle of the various fire pits in the guest bedrooms. Azula reaches her own and carefully sets Sokka down on the mattress. Facedown, with his cheek against the pillow. 

“You’ve been having trouble sleeping, I can tell.” She mentions. “Try sleeping on your stomach with your arms like this.” She positions one of his arms beneath the pillow and the other between his cheek and the pillow. She pulls the blankets up to his shoulders.

It is the most care she has given to her body in a while now. It is the most care that she has ever afforded to someone who isn't herself.

“This is really comfortable.” He admits, his voice still hitching. Cracking particularly when he adds that uncomfortable positioning isn’t why he hasn’t been sleeping.

“I know.” She replies quietly. “But sometimes it helps.” It is fascinating how sleep eventually comes when the situation becomes familiar and then numb. She realizes that she doesn’t want Sokka to know what that feels like. 

She sits on the edge of the bed with her hand on his back until he falls asleep. 

.oOo.

She is terrified when Aang suggests inviting her to dinner. Every time they have tried to include her it has been a disaster whether it was she or Sokka captaining the ship. She can’t see this playing out much differently. 

But she watches Sokka make himself comfortable at the table, he picks a spot between she and Jin and almost immediately hunches over and buries his face in his arms. She thinks that he has a perfect understanding now of how pointless it all is. Even if they invite him to dinner he is only there until they grow tired of him. 

By now he doesn’t seem to be interested in talking to his own friends. 

By now, the rosy tint is wearing off and she doesn’t particular want to converse with them either.

The conversations that had elevated her mood just a few days ago are becoming laborious after watching from the outside how they treat her. She speaks to them only out of a sense of duty, to maintain those friendships on Sokka’s behalf. 

Aang is the first to speak, he always is. Of all of them, she likes him the most. She might even say that she considers him to be something of a very, very distant friend. At the very least, she doesn’t resent him. “We’ve been really hard on you, haven’t we?”

And because she is in Sokka’s body she has no problem leaning back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest, and propping her feet up on the table in the exact manner that drives her absolutely mad when she catches him do it. Because she is in his body she has no qualms about uttering, “no shit.” 

Attention shifts to him. 

“Right.” Mai begins. “You’ve been talking to her lately, haven’t you?”

She nods. 

“And you let her get into your head?”

She has to stop herself from laughing the sort of laugh that borders on hysterics. 

“You know that she lies.” Zuko says uncertainty. 

“She didn’t have to say a word.” Azula shrugs. “I just had to sit back and watch.”

To her surprise, Katara gives an uncomfortable shift and makes a terribly uncomfortable point. “I don’t think that the whole…wrist thing…”

“Suicide attempt.” Sokka cuts in. “You can call it what it was.” In lead in, inflection, and blunt word choice, it is so uncannily like her. She swallows, Sokka may well just be losing himself. Agni, for the first time she considers that she won’t have to worry about him trying to find a way to swap back. 

Tension that already had the consistency of molasses, becomes that much thicker. That much harder to wade through. But Katara, pushes through the liquid. “Yes.” She clears her throat. “I don’t think that, that was a lie.”

There is something in her eyes. 

A look. 

A dullness.

Something distant.

Something haunted.

For the first time Azula wonders just how much Katara is repressing for herself. She can’t imagine that it was anything less than horrifying to have a limp and dying body carried to her. She wonders if the woman thinks about it now and then, replays the moment in her head just as it plays out in Azula’s own nightmares. She wonders if that’s one of the many things that keeps Sokka from sleeping.

And the silence descends once more. 

What is to be said for that?

For as much as Azula has done to hurt them, they can’t say that they haven’t damaged her right back. Maybe she is a monster. But it might be that she is just one of many. It could be that they are all horrible people. At least she has the decency to see herself for what she is. 

The silence becomes absolutely choking and that is precisely how she knows that she has said something to that effect out loud. They are all staring at her. Sokka is staring at her. “At least she…” Azula had pointed at her own body. “Knows what she is.” That is the sentence that echos about the room. That is the sentence that has spoiled a dinner that never had a chance to be pleasant. 

“You all pretend to be such nice people.” Sokka mutters. “Forgiveness this, forgiveness that. I think that all of you are trying to kill me…” rather get her to kill herself. “It wouldn’t have mattered would it have?”

Azula tenses. This is the question that has been burning on her tongue. The one that she is terrified to ask. Were she not petrified with dread, she might have stood and left. 

“If I died that day, you wouldn’t have cared.” It isn’t a question. “You all would have been relieved.”

“Princess...” Jin whispers. 

Sokka shakes his head. “No. I want to know!”

But she doesn’t, not at all. She feels sick. Sick and trapped because Sokka would have no reason to flee the discussion. She wouldn’t want to explain her sudden departure. 

“How long would you pretend to be sad for?” 

“Azula.” Zuko begins just as quietly as Jin. “We wouldn’t have wanted that. We wouldn’t have been happy.”

“But you aren’t doing anything to keep it from happening again.” He says flatly. “You’re making it so easy to give it another try.”

Azula’s blood runs completely cold. He isn’t actually…? He can’t be. He hasn’t occupied her body for that long. But he also isn’t equipped in any way to handle the things that she needs to handle. He isn’t numb like she is. 

Suddenly she isn’t certain of what sort of state he will emerge in if they switch back. 

Suddenly she isn’t certain if happy, goofy Sokka exists anymore. 

She has destroyed him without having to do anything at all. 

She reaches for his hand. He squeezes hers so tightly. 

He needs touch. 

She needs touch.

She has needed it for so, so long.

When she looks up she sees that Zuko is crying. She furrows his brows. “Did you even know?” Azula asks. “Did Katara even tell you?” 

Zuko shakes his head. 

Spirits! She knew that he was oblivious but this? This is a brand new level. “What did you think the bandages were for!?”

“She uses wrist wraps when practicing her bending.” Zuko mutters. “It’s not out of the ordinary to see.”

She supposes that he has a point there. 

“Why didn’t you mention it, Sokka?” Now he sounds accusatory. He needs to shift the blame, put it on someone else because at the end of the day, he is soft. The guilt will eat him alive. It has to be someone else’s fault. 

“I thought that Katara told you.”

Katara shakes her head. “I didn’t think that it was my place.”

“Not your place?” Jin asks. “I feel like keeping secrets is a little different when that’s the kind of secret.” 

“Wow this is a mess.” Toph grumbles. “I just wanted to enjoy some dumplings.” 

“Can’t you be serious for one conversation!” Sokka snaps. “Just one!” 

Azula wonders how many times Toph has made a tactless joke at the wrong time.

“Just trying to lighten the mood.” She lifts her hand.

“Have you considered that some moods shouldn’t be lightened?” Sokka hisses. “Maybe some things should be serious.” 

She wonders if he is addressing Toph or if he is scolding himself. She wonders what TyLee would say if she were here and not off with Suki.

Katara nods. “Yeah. Maybe some things should be serious.”

To Azula’s dismay Sokka is in tears all over again. She rubs her hands over her face. The knots in her stomach tighten even further when he moves himself closer to her. He expects her to comfort him, Agni, he expects her to comfort him…

In her life she has seen many make or break moments. Omashu, Ba Sing Se, Sozin’s Comet…the list is almost endless. In the grander scheme of things this is such a small thing. But she knows it for what it is. If she takes him into her arms now then it will put a new spin on things. She will have an in. 

The one that Sokka has been trying to push her towards this whole time. The one that she had been nervous to take for a good many reasons. 

She doesn’t want Sokka to be in control of her life at a time like this. 

Against her every instinct she takes him into her arms once again and holds his head against her chest. She can almost pretend like Sokka isn’t there; can almost pretend like she is giving herself the love that she has craved for so long. 

Whether they like it or not, as far as they know, Sokka has grown fond of Azula. As far as they know, Azula has grown fond of Sokka too. 

True to her word, Jin takes hold of Sokka’s hand. It is more love and comfort than she has ever received and it isn’t even the one receiving it. She fends off a twinge of jealousy. 

“Since when were the two of you so close?” Mai asks.

“Since I found her bleeding.” The best lies are the ones that are true at the same time. 

“You’re going to be alright, Azula.” Aang promises. 

“How?” Sokka mumbles into her chest. 

“We’ll give you a chance. A real chance. Right?” He looks around the table. Each nod is as reluctant as the next, save for Zuko who has the politeness to agree right away. “I think that we all have a lot to talk about.”

It had only taken watching her break, truly and totally. 

She only had to bleed for them.

[nincompoopydoo]

Hi!I

When do you think the next chapter for your Theseus story will come out?

Do take your time, I don’t want to rush you!

Love 🤍

Hi there! I am aiming to release it latest mid march as I am half way through the first draft (turns out there's quite a lot to unpack whoops) as I'm working on my valentines prompts at the same time! and don't worry I'm not disappearing again haha, I have every intention of finishing caught in a crossfire (I'm assuming you're referring to this series?).

Thanks for checking in, though🤍! I'm still in awe at how the series picked up in the last few weeks. absolutely grateful to know that there's a whole bunch of people who share my love for theseus~