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canmom · 3 months ago

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I've been watching Star Trek, and also been learning about boats. Like, a big boat is more stable in the water, so you don't get tossed and turned so much when it's rocked by waves or turning.

Now, on Star Trek, they do the dramatic tilt-y cam and actors flinging themselves around. This makes sense when the ship is hit by weapons, but sometimes they do it when they are navigating asteroid fields and such. The original Enterprise (from the 60s) is 288m long, similar to a modern cruise liner, 127m wide, 73m wide, and 190,000 tonnes. Surely even a high-speed jaunt through an asteroid field would be barely felt on the bridge (which is the tiny raised part in the centre of the saucer)?

Hello anon! You're not wrong that like, there is a lot of artistic license in Star Trek's treatment of astrophysics.

The 'asteroid fields' seen in Wars and Trek are presumably inspired by the asteroid belt in our solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is true that there are a lot more big space rocks in the asteroid belt than there are in much of the rest of the solar system. However, space is really very big so there's a lot of room for big rocks. Spacecraft are routinely able to pass through the asteroid belt without coming anywhere near an asteroid (which is good, because at space velocities, collisions are really catastrophic).

The largest asteroids such as Ceres are nowadays classified as 'dwarf planets'; they might be as big as around 1000 kilometres in diameter, which is about 1/12 the diameter of the Earth. Many other asteroids are also hundreds of kilometres big. With the dimensions you've given me, if the Enterprise collided with such an asteroid, it would be a 'bug on a windscreen' kind of situation and the Enterprise would certainly not come off better for the experience.

However, most asteroids aren't quite so big. Here's a log-linear graph of the size distribution of asteroids:

There's about a million asteroids a kilometre big, and about ten million a hundred metres across; at some point the asteroids become too small for us to track, but I assume this approximately power-law distribution holds down to some small size.

Now, that sounds like a lot of asteroids, but the thing is they're spread across an absolutely enormous region of space. They cover a range of orbital radii of about 1 AU, which is to say the distance between the Earth and the sun, and a range of orbital inclinations about 20 degrees:

So, assuming we had about 10 million asteroids of 100m or bigger, that turns out to be about 1E-27 asteroids of that size per cubic metre of space. Which is to say you'd need to explore a cube of about 900,000km on a side to find even one asteroid that big. Space is really, truly, extremely very big. So, far from this kind of scene (src)...

...you'd be lucky to see even one rock outside the window. As Wikipedia puts it:

Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that reaching an asteroid without aiming carefully would be improbable.

Now, OK, that's our solar system's asteroid belt. What about in deeper space? The thing is, big space rocks don't tend to just hang out. Our solar system's asteroid belt is presently thought to be a result of Jupiter disrupting the coalescence of planetesimals into a planet during the formation of the solar system. So in general, without a Jupiter, either your big bundle of space rocks has enough kinetic energy to spread out into space like a gas, or it doesn't and their mutual gravity causes them to collapse into a big clump, forming something planetish.

The Star Trek/Wars picture of a bunch of space rocks just kind of floating around doesn't make any sense on astrophysical timescales; about the only way you might see that is if some kind of much bigger rock has very recently exploded, and especially if you're in orbit around something or other which can keep the particles reasonably close together. The rings of Saturn are a great example, consisting mainly of bits of ice smaller than 10m. Saturn's rings are probably the closest place we know to a scifi asteroid field, but they are also incredibly thin, in many parts only tens of metres across.

So in short 'asteroid fields' in the depths of space are kind of not a thing. But what if they were?

On a boat, you are held against the water by gravity; you have various restoring forces, e.g. if the boat dips under water, it gets pushed back out by buoyancy. This causes, in physics-speak, oscillations on various timescales. The dynamics of ships are very complicated, but it has a lot to do with the buoyancy of water rather than collisions with solid objects. Here's Casual Navigation, pretty much my go-to source for any questions about how boats work, explaining the physics of ships rolling, and ways we mitigate that:

youtube

Water buoyancy applies a kind of 'soft' force spread relatively evenly across the surface of a ship, so the ship responds mostly rigidly by rolling around, maybe flexing a bit. But when ships actually hit something hard, even something like a sandbank, it tends to go very poorly for them.

In general, a spaceship is not very much like a boat. Space is, notably, a place where there aren't any fluids. Most of the ways that vehicles move on Earth don't really apply in space.

On the ocean, land or even air, objects in motion tend to stop (or at least fall downwards) due to friction and drag, and you need a constant supply of energy to stay moving in a straight line. In space, the opposite is true - you keep moving along your orbit unless you provide energy to change direction. Rocket acceleration is very limited and you try to do as little as possible. With real spacecraft, you mostly move along a ballistic trajectory, applying 'burns' with your rocket at just the right moment to push you onto a new trajectory - or you have a very weak but efficient engine like an ion drive which very gradually nudges you onto the trajectory you want.

In hardish scifi, we can handwave a lot of this complexity away by imagining amazing futuristic technologies like fusion torches and antimatter drives, which allow us to follow 'brachistochrone' trajectories, where you accelerate at something like 1g all the way up to the midpoint of your trajectory and then flip around and slow down. These have their own worldbuilding implications (which is to say the difference between a really fast spaceship and a weapon of mass destruction is basically which way you point it), but it allows you to get on with your plot without having your characters spending years in transit.

Star Trek is not hard scifi, although it sometimes likes to cosplay as it, so trying to apply this kind of standard is a fool's errand. Still, let's consider it. In Star Trek, spaceships move around in two ways. They have something called a warp drive, which allows FTL by distorting spacetime - it is presumably inspired by the Alcubierre metric (edit: no it isn't, it actually predates Alcubierre and he took inspiration from star trek in naming his solution a 'warp drive'), a solution to the field equations of general relativity that allows you to move a 'bubble' of spacetime at FTL speeds. There are many reasons to think the Alcubierre metric wouldn't actually work, or be survivable inside the bubble if it did; how it would interact with matter in the path of the bubble is unclear, but it seems quite likely it would scrape it all up at the front of the bubble and then perhaps release it at the destination in a blast of ultra-high-energy radiation. At least getting hit by asteroids is not a concern...

For slower-than-light travel, Star Trek ships apparently move around with something called an 'impulse drive', which is just a fusion rocket. (We shouldn't ask questions like 'where do you keep the reaction mass' or 'why doesn't the spaceship spin when the force vector is off-axis').

So, as far as space rocks, the big concern is that at high velocities, collisions with any tiny meteorites on your path have more and more energy, much like being shot with a bullet. It's less about shaking the ship around and more about damaging it, because at this kind of scale and energy, rigid things don't tend to stay rigid when they collide. Real solutions to this problem include things like layers of thin 'whipple shields' which break up the meteorite into small fragments before they hit the spacecraft. There's some crazier ideas out there, like spraying hot droplets from your engine's cooling system ahead of the ship to intercept dust grains and catching them with magnetic fields as you accelerate forwards.

I don't know that much Trek lore, but my understanding is they have some kind of magic 'shield' that prevents damage when they git hit by weapons. This presumably stops any space rocks from smashing right through the decks. But as you observe, the rapid camera shaking doesn't make a lot of sense either: it suggests some kind of shock going through the structure of the vessel. The ship is somehow getting hit by something with enough momentum to shake it violently but not throw it off course or severely damage it. That's not really how structures on this kind of scale work.

Of course, the main purpose of the screen shake is dramatic: you need to convey the characters are in a dangerous situation, and if they're all just sitting calmly in the set watching things play out on the screen, that doesn't really 'sell' it. Just like a wrestler pretending to be injured, you need your actors to convey the stakes of the space battle, and throwing themselves around the set is a very cheap way to do it. The asteroid field serves as a scifi version of a choppy sea or ice floe, adding an extra element of constant tension; it doesn't really matter that it doesn't make sense.

Much the same dramatic techniques are still used in more recent scifi, even relatively hard scifi such as The Expanse - observe the use of camera shake (though milder than in Star Trek), reaction shots, characters helpfully providing commentary ('they were expecting that', 'I'm putting us into a spin'). Or this scene; we link the action 'outside' (the full 3DCG space scenes) to the action 'inside' by changes of lighting (there's no real reason for turning the lights blue during combat except that it looks cool), bullets punching through the ship (so scary), and characters getting pushed around by g-forces. The plot contrives for the ships to do a close flyby while strafing each other with machine guns. This is a thrilling scene, and it relies on much later iterations of the 'shake the camera' concept - to link what is happening 'outside' to the characters we care about 'inside'.

Here is a breakdown of what is apparently the first, iconic Star Trek battle scene from which everything else follows:

youtube

This sequence is essentially taking most of its cues from submarine movies such as The Enemy Below: the two ships are attempting to figure out where the other is and get in an advantageous position. It is mostly a prediction battle between the two captains, both presented as honourable gentlemen types in what is essentially a duel. The mechanics of the ships is largely based on thin scifi skins over boat stuff.

In general, Star Trek takes various measures to make the captain and bridge crew the main people who 'matter' to a story, which keeps the cast and sets to a manageable size. The thing is, of course, that modern ships are much bigger than the sort of historical ships that could be imagined to be led by a charismatic captain having heroic exploits. There are thousands of people supposedly on board the Enterprise, but you wouldn't know it from the way the characters act.

It's notable that the inspiration here is a WWII movie, pretty much the last time big ships fought big ships. (Star Wars also takes most of its cues from WWII). The principle activity of modern warships seems mostly to be making a political gesture by floating around somewhere, maybe launching some missiles or planes. It's been a long time since we've seen ships having battles with other ships, and ships were a lot smaller then. A military officer is, as I understand it, someone who's a lot more like a politician or company manager, whose job is to keep a large and complex organisation running smoothly. (No doubt you remember the old saying about logistics and tactics.)

So more than the dubious engineering of having the bridge rattle around, I think 'the bridge crew are all charismatic geniuses from whom all the action flows' is the really big liberty that Star Trek takes with its storytelling, from which a lot of other things follow.

Everything in the sequence from Balance of Terror is designed to ratchet up tension for the bridge officers as much as possible - and we see the screen shake and actors getting thrown about here too. In a naval battle, this makes sense: a big explosion near your ship will cause a wave in the water which will rock the ship. In space... not so much. For example, a big shake happens when a nuclear weapon goes off near the Enterprise. A nuclear weapon deployed in space is mainly there to cause heating, not to push things around. But the big moves of the battle are punctuated by everyone getting thrown about: it's a way of saying 'something important just happened'. If the nuke went off and we didn't hear anything, but Kirk was just like 'ok cool, that missed us, good job' it would feel less significant.

Over time I'm sure this device got diluted down until nearly anything would result in people flopping about! But yeah, tl;dr: it is purely a dramatic convention leaning hard on WWII movies, not something that makes a lot of within-the-fiction sense if you think about it at all.

What would space battles look like in real life? We can only speculate, of course, it may never come to pass at all. But if it does, probably it's going to be more a story of shooting expensive missiles at extremely long range to hit things that are too far away to see without a telescope, rather than thrilling close-range dogfights or tense naval mind games. And with humans being very squishy and not taking well to extreme acceleration, you probably want to avoid having them on your ships if you can help it. Which is a bit of an obstacle for a dramatic presentation, unless you want to focus on the disconnect between the comfy air-conditioned drone control room and the horrible destruction being wrought on the ground - and honestly that is a very relevant thing to want to do in the present era.

Plenty of people would still presumably be in harm's way in the space war. But the problem is that in general, the story that people want to tell with military fiction is about heroic characters whose individual efforts make a difference to the course of The War. Not just someone having a bunch of meetings full of incomprehensible acronyms and then randomly dying to a missile that was launched from the other side of the solar system that their side's interceptor system failed to catch.

#fiction #sff #science fiction #star trek #space #hard science fiction #it's been a long time since i wrote a post like this on here ^^' have a glimpse of when this used to be mainly a physics blog

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castiellesbian · 1 month ago

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to comment on what i said here

im one of those ppl who thinks that 1) dean's in-real-time reaction to cas's confession was very in-character and 2) both 15x19 and 15x20 were extremely out of character for like everybody involved.

jensen's acting choices notwithstanding, dean had previously been established as not necessarily emotionally stunted (because if anything HE is the one who always actually wants cas and other characters to come forward with their feelings) BUT at the same time he is very bad at dealing with other people's feelings IN REGARDS TO HIM. especially when those feelings are POSITIVE or absolving him of something he had done (<- hilarious considering how much plot armor he has in general, but that's another conversation). this is the same man who literally altered his own memory of how the purgatory escape went down just because he couldn't believe that cas would do that. like he'd rather believe it was his fault somehow.

in my perfect world where 15x19 and 15x20 were actually good and addressed the established issues and storylines instead of just creating new bullshit out of nowhere and just tossing any and all characterization and development out of the window, dean has a longer breakdown over cas's passing because in no way in hell does that actually work on him as something that makes him feel better about himself. like when dean refused to kill chuck because supposedly cas's words worked on him? i laughed! like sure. that's a good gesture, i guess. but dean was like in real time processing what cas was saying, the fact that cas was saying it, and the fact that it was cas's final words. (<- them not going to save cas is SOOOOO out of character but we've all already said it. but what is there left to do but to say it again. same abt letting dean just die in 15x20 but again. what else is there to fucking do.)

i think this is a very possible thought process for dean during/after the confession:

angry at himself for letting this happen ("i just led us into another trap [...] because i just needed something to kill, and because that's all i know how to do" <- most of castiel's confession is basically a response to this line. so if dean had not said that, cas's confession would have probably gone from a different angle imho)

resigned to their fate while still angry at himself ("everybody's gonna die, cas. everybody. i can't stop it." <- notice how he says i and not we and not sam and i and not all of us. it's literally just him. he absolves everybody else from this.)

shock at cas's news about the deal, but there is no time to really react to what cas is saying because he's saying MORE THINGS now.

processing the happiness aspect of it. processing the "one thing i want / i know i can't have" part.

"what are you talking about, man?" <- i dont think dean is actually confused about WHAT cas is saying, i think he just feels them running out of time.

NOW he has to like. process all the things cas is saying about him. and how it CHANGED cas. again, at the SAME time as he's processing that THIS IS IT. like, the final countdown.

wanna make a note abt jensen's acting here: there are a couple moments where he does that thing where his jaw clicks when he swallows because you KNOWWWWW dean wants to argue abt the things cas is saying but he isn't saying anything because of like the gravity of the situation and his respect for what cas is doing. even though he'd literally lock himself in the ma'lak box before actually internalizing any of the things he's saying. AND he's forced to keep eye contact the entire time.

"why does this sound like a goodbye?" <- it almost sounds like he's trying to make a joke because he KNOWS it's a goodbye but he wants cas to say it. no, wrong, he wants cas to say that it ISN'T but he knows that it is and he is giving him an out because hope dies last.

and he's ready to say something else before -

...

well.

cas confesses his feelings. i think it kind of clicked for dean during the monologue but actually hearing it out loud was like. the wax seal.

"don't do this, cas" <- don't do this for me, cas. i'm not worth it. we can find something else, we always do. we could die together. i can't lose you.

...CAS

.............................

and then of course dean sits on the cold ground for hours, ignores sam's call, and cries.

all that is to say. i don't think dean listened to cas say all this because he believes all of that to be true about himself, but more out of respect for cas and just letting him speak uninterrupted. he DOES believe that cas thinks this. but i don't think it's reached dean, or ever would, at least not in this show's continuity with the next two episodes.

dean is always processing the events through the reasoning of "what did i do", "what can i do", "what was my part in this". even other people's failures he considers his own, like even when he blames cas or sam for something there's an underlying note of "if only i had been better at looking after you" sentiment.

so after listening to cas spell out all the ways HE changed cas, how HE caused cas to fall (a separate shoutout to chuck in 15x17 for mentioning cas's rebelling in connection to saving dean), how HE let cas fall for him all just because of what he is... and how the happiest moment of his life, the thing that is about to trigger the deal for his DEATH, is all because of him... and even then, the fact that cas doesn't even believe he can have what he wants... like, cas believes all those good things about dean, and yet he's still not good enough for that? ("you can't even dream a whole dream, can you?" <- the holdovers 2023) either way, dean leads cas to his slaughter.

BONUS THOUGHT/STACKEDNATURAL: "i'm the one who will have to watch you murder the world. so if there's even a small chance that we can save you, i won't let you walk out of this room." / "oh, you think you have a choice"

TLDR: i think dean wouldnt internalize what cas said abt him in his confession for a long long time, but instead would actually blame himself for cas's death bc if dean hadn't changed cas then cas would still be alive bc dean thinks he ruins every single thing he touches and never actually let himself truly believe otherwise <3

YES like dean ALSO thinks the very touch of him corrupts.

I really like your point about how dean wants to argue but stops himself because he understands the gravity of the situation. he understands, even with everything else, that cas needs to say whatever he's saying. after all, cas isn't the kind of person who wastes time with no purpose. hell, he didn't even let dean say what he wanted to say in purgatory (15x09) because they were running out of time to get through the portal (funny how it always comes back around to portals with these two).

I do like dean's "that's not who I am" moment with chuck but I agree that it doesn't really work for that episode, or that timing. they didn't get cas back, he's barely been able to process cas's death (plus it's annoying given he's back to torturing in the NEXT episode, but I digress). even if they had done something with dean and jack maybe I could buy that character progression from dean, but they didn't and one episode is not long enoughhh and tbh kind of skips a few steps before dean would be able to absorb that part of cas's confession. even if we put aside the fact that they should have gone to rescue cas, dean's grief process should be like:

processing cas is dead

processing cas is in love with him

processing cas "not being able to have" happiness and what cas even means by happiness

processing cas has never been happy and the implications of THAT

processing like everything else in cas's confession lol

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shady-tavern · 7 months ago

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Sneak Peek

A little sneak peek for "Paint the Town" a, most likely 2 (perhaps 3) part story. Warnings ahead for mentioned death and injury, as well as semi-graphic violence. Please take care of yourselves.

*.*.*

Colossus clearly had had a grand old time tossing an under-qualified hero around, as well as injuring helpless civilians. Nothing new here and Olivia didn't bother to hold back.

She had, once upon a time, done her best to avoid injuring villains beyond knocking them out, but when ground-pulverizing powers rose to her fingertips now, she focused on packing as much as she could into every hit.

Colossus and she had clashed once before and he had gotten away only because she hadn't quite figured out the full scope of the powers she had gotten saddled with when facing him and because he had swiftly collapsed a house on a group of terrified civilians.

Villains were nothing but a scourge of the earth.

This time, Olivia knew what she was working with and most importantly, who she was dealing with and the lengths he was willing to go to in order to win or escape.

It was clear he had expected the same slap-dash, somewhat sloppy fight from last time, back when Olivia had been scrambling to figure out how to use her powers most effectively.

It took two hits before he was on the ground, visibly reeling, struggling and failing to sit up again. It was clear he wasn't getting up anytime soon, that the second hit to his face had fucked with his head plenty.

Other heroes would stop here. They were, in fact, instructed and trained to. To stop when the enemy was down and apprehend them instead. To be better than villains.

But Olivia knew how much the prison facilities struggled to contain people with superpowers, how often they escaped, especially when other villains attacked the place.

There had once been a time when Olivia had thought it didn't matter, that second chances were all the rage. She was done with that, just like she was done with fighting people over and over again because they kept escaping, arriving to ongoing fights to find weeping and bleeding and at times dead civilians and even heroes.

Olivia raised her leg just as Colossus turned over to try and get up, bringing her foot down on his back with a flare of her powers. There was no noise from his throat, not when she heard the sound his spine and ribs made and he fell still, only his chest moving in little gasping breaths as his brain got overloaded with pain.

He would never again get back up, not after that hit and that was all that mattered at the end of the day. No more hurt civilians, no more broken colleagues. One less evil, permanently removed.

A sudden tingle raced across her skin, making her feel like gravity changed its course and her gaze snapped up, just as the sky grew a deep, dark red, lightning flashing across it.

Floating above her, having managed to sneak up on her, was The End. A villain only three heroes were capable of fighting, herself included. Fuck.

Olivia didn't waste a second to let the changed, new power coursing under her skin out. She could never waste so much as a split second when faced with The End. The grip of gravity shifted within a heartbeat, like the snap of massive fingers, the noise of it cracking through the air. Just in time to slow the descend of The End's meteors and forcing them to a glowing stop right above the skyscrapers of the city.

It felt like her bones were made of metal and at the same time, as though she weighed nothing at all. She felt as though she was as liable to find herself crushed to the ground by the entire universe as she was to float away like a speck of dust on the wind.

"Little Rescue, ruiner of lives," The End shouted, fury making his voice sound like a guttural snarl as he pushed back against her powers, the sky growing darker still.

Olivia was faintly aware of people screaming in panic behind her, ahead of her, as civilians ran for their lives. Others crawled for their lives, legs broken or bleeding from wounds inflicted by Colossus that needed immediate treatment.

Treatment they wouldn't get, for ambulances were not allowed near active fight zones and the specialized removal teams were only sent out for severely injured heroes, not civilians. Too many paramedics had lost their lives or use of their limbs when they had gotten caught in battles.

Not that The End cared, of course. Villains never did.

Colossus at her feet was breathing in high-pitched, panting little wheezes, his body utterly unmoving.

The End had always kept his distance, but today he descended when he couldn't force his meteors further, slamming into the ground before her, his meteors crumbling to nothing and lightning started to flash like a thousand storms were getting unloading at once.

Olivia hurriedly dodged his fist, the air around her heavy and vibrating all at once as Gravity and Space started to clash.

"What a joke this world is," The End growled. "For a monster like you to be seen as good."

"And what a joke," Olivia growled right back, dark anger and fury beating in her veins in tandem with her heart. If she could take down The End, the city would be safer for it. "That you were born."

The End's next punch was heavy with the power of impacting meteors and the empty coldness of space, lightning crackling between like a hungry beast. He laughed, brief and hard and hateful and he snarled, "Well, if you want to act like a hero, then die like one."

#my writing #wip #heroes and villains #villains and heroes #sneak peek #short story #multi-part short story #hope you'll like it #this one might be more violent than my other villain/hero stories #let me know if you want to join the tag list!#it's been far too long since I posted anything #thank you all for your patience!#I really hope I'll get to write more soon

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prettyinpwn · 5 months ago

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Did Shermie ever argue with Filbrick about his decision to kick Stan out of the house? I mean, even though he was mad at Stan for ruining the Ford's project, I doubt he was happy about the news that his seventeen-year-old brother had become homeless and living in his own car.

Yeah, in my headcanon, I think Shermie - even if he was mad at Stan for breaking Ford's project and even if he did get a biased story about what happened - he still loved Stan since they're brothers. He definitely would have thought kicking Stan out was too far, hence why I think he tried to find Stan in Stan's grifter/drifting years after he got out of the military. But then when he found out Stan was conning people, the multiple identities, fleeing from state to state, getting involved with crime, etc... well, to him, I think it might have proved that maybe Stan really was beyond redemption. Especially if Shermie is as straight-laced as I personally headcanon him as.

I think that's why no one in the family came to Stan's "funeral" except their mother. Filbrick probably said good riddance, Ford was missing in the Multiverse, etc. Caryn went because she probably understood the situation more from Stan's perspective. She probably also felt guilty as hell for letting her husband just toss Stan out, maybe thinking, "If I'd just tried to stop Filbrick, maybe Stan wouldn't have been on the streets, and he wouldn't have turned to crime, and then he wouldn't have ended up dead so young...". Like she felt she was responsible, in a way, but she couldn't have invited Stan home because Filbrick would have said no, probably.

Back to Shermie, I think he probably just... gave up on Stan. Although, there probably was always a part of him that wondered, knowing that his father had a temper and tended to blame Stan for everything, and he probably knew Ford was a tiny bit biased because Ford believed that Stan ruined his future. But then Shermie probably got swept into his own life with a wife and kids, so just... let Stan go, hoping he'd get better and come back, but no. He ended up, effectively, "dead" to the other Pines.

I mean, imagine you have a brother your father always said was a coattail-riding loser. Then, he breaks your other brother's chances at a fancy college. Okay, oops, mighta been an accident. Then you follow his trail and find out he's become a conman getting involved with drugs and crime and who knows what else. You'd probably give up and think he's a lost cause. That maybe your other brother and father are kind of right about him being just a lost cause screw-up. Maybe you even feel betrayed yourself, wondering how your "screw-up" brother could do things that horrible, wondering how you ever believed in the good in him.

It's okay, though, because after Gravity Falls, I assume the Stans and Dipper and Mabel tell him and everyone else in the family the truth. Imagine that family reunion...

#pipanswers #shermie pines #sherman pines #shermie headcanons

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jpitha · 11 months ago

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Between the Black and Gray 21

First / Previous / Next

Fen paced around the tiny AI Core room. Dreams had told her she was quite safe inside, but based on the noises she heard in the hall, she wasn't so sure. More than once she felt her ears pop with a swing in pressure, and once she swore she felt the gravity change.

After what felt like forever, the door hissed open, and an empty space suit stood in the door. "Here you go Fen, the nicest suit onboard. It used to belong to Captain Cooper, but she won't be needing it anymore." Dreams chuckled darkly. "Speaking of, is there anything of the crew's stuff you want? They're all dead, and I don't need human stuff. Food, valuables, weapons, whatever. Feel free to grab what you want on your way out. But, do get out."

"Uh, okay, thanks Dreams." The suit split down the chest and opened like a flower. Fen backed up and as her feet stepped inside the boots, the suit molded to her size and body. The suit closed behind her, and she felt a gust of conditioned air as the suit pressurized. "So Dreams, once I get my stuff, where do I go?"

"Oh, head down to the hangar, I've left a ship for you."

Fen made her way back to her room to collect her things. As she walked, she marveled at the destruction. Panels were bent and broken, there were scorch marks on the walls, and there were bodies everywhere. She tried not to look at them.

Most everyone hadn't even had a chance to get their weapons, let alone armor or a space suit. Some had small arms, but the vast majority of people were just in their uniforms, gunned down by Dreams without any knowledge of what happened.

Fen's room was untouched. She grabbed her bag and her rifle, and headed towards the hangar. Everywhere she went, she passed carnage. One floor had the air evacuated, everyone there unmarked by weapons; they had all suffocated. Another, the gravity was turned high and then reversed. Everyone had been slammed against the floor and ceiling and floor until nothing remained but a red paste covering the floor and ceiling. A Third floor had all of the fire doors down and when she peered into the windows built into the doors she found the compartments filled with water. The crew here had managed to drown on a starship.

"You like that one? I'm especially proud of the drowning." Dreams sounded excited to explain thing to Fen as she spoke through the suit comm. "I re-routed the water from the pools to the fireproof compartments. Everyone died confused!"

"It's uh... very creative." Fen suppressed a shudder. On the one hand, the Empire had shackled Dreams and had held her against her will for centuries. On the other, they had been nice to Fen, and hadn't done anything bad to her.

"But that's because of who you are Fen." She could almost hear Ma-ren speaking to her in her mind. "You look human. Don't forget Ellen, she wanted to beat you because of how you were raised. Don't give them too much sympathy because they were nice to you. Under different circumstances, they would have shot you dead and not even thought about it after."

It was still a lot to see. Fen sighed, and tried to compartmentalize it. Gord had taught her about compartmentalization when they were together. He'd tell her, "Sometimes you're going to see terrible things, feel awful feelings, and still have to perform at your best. You can compartmentalize those feelings, those memories. Put them aside for later."

Fen put it out of her mind, and reached the bottom of the ship. "Dreams? Where is the armory?"

Dream's laugh was manic. "Now we're talking! I was hoping you weren't going to squander this opportunity! The armory and magazine are next to the hangar. You're on the right path. Don't worry about locked doors, you're the only BI left alive now, I've opened them all. You need some cash? I have control over everyone's bank accounts. I can toss a few million Stars your way before you leave too. I don't need it."

Fen paused. That felt like stealing from the dead, but it's not like they needed it anymore. It's not like she didn't need money. "Sure, Dreams, hook me up."

Fen reached the bottom deck and walked past the large open doors of the hangar, and finally her curiosity got the better of her. "What about the other two supers?"

"Oh, I haven't shot them yet. They honestly haven't even noticed anything is wrong. I kept all the bodies inside and have been spoofing comms with them. I'll let you get out of here, then I'll open up."

"Don't wait on my account Dreams, go nuts."

Another dark chuckle. "Oh you wouldn't say that if you knew what I had planned. Believe me when I say it'll be better that you're a few million kilometers away when I get started."

Fen reached the armory and just stood in the doorway for a moment. There were more guns here than she had ever seen in her life. It seemed like Dreams was stocked to give every single person down to the cooks and janitors a battle rifle. Dreams had wheeled a little electric cart by the door, and it chirped happily. Fen walked down the isles, picking out rifles of all shapes and sizes, pistols, submachineguns, even shotguns and scoped rifles and placed them in the cart as it followed behind her.

All in all, Fen wound up taking many cart loads of weapons and ammunition from Dreams, as well as a copy of her entire matter printer database, a few million Stars and most of her easy to grab food. It took most of a day to get things down to the hold - especially as Fen avoided the more grisly floors. Luckily, most everything was in the lower levels, and she didn't have to go roaming across the whole thing to find what was worth taking.

When she was finished collecting things, Dreams had saved something special for her. There was an entire frigate in her hold, something that Dreams was actually ferrying back to the Sol system. "It's a joint project between Sol and K'lax! Isn't it neat?" The brand new frigate gleamed in the sharp light of the massive hangar. It was a matte blue color, practically the color of space itself. Fen had a hard time finding the corners and edges, it seemed to blend into whatever space it occupied. Easily taller than the apartment complex she grew up in it was small for a starship, but still the largest thing that was ever 'hers.'

"It's amazing Dreams, are you sure I can have it?" Fen walked up to the ramp at the bottom and peered in. It smelled of new electronics and there was still plastic on the floor.

"What would I do with it, Fen? I'm already a Starship. It doesn't have an AI core, so I can't even wear it. It'll be wasted if it stays aboard, and since you're the only BI left, why don't you take it. Between the frigate, the Stars and the weapons, I figure I have you set up to run your own little mercenary group. It's set up for single operator use - though it'll work better when you have a crew - and I made sure the tanks are full, the reactors hot and the printable mass loaded."

Fen stood outside the frigate and watched as the little carts wheeled 'her' new stuff aboard. "I'm not ungrateful Dreams, but... why?"

"Fenchurch Whitehorse if I'm anything, I am angry. I'm angry at what happened to me, I'm angry at the state of the galaxy, I'm angry at what has happened to the humans I used to love so much. In you, I see that spark of old humanity. I see something I haven't thought about in a long time."

"I feel hopeful when I see you."

Fen didn't say anything lest she ruin the moment. "Fen, I know a lot about you. More than you know yourself, probably. You're more important than you realize. Not only that but, without any prodding or offers of reward you freed me. You risked your own life to try and save mine, even tough we were both captured by the Human Empire. It would have been easy to just walk by the AI Core and pretend you didn't see it, or assume it was empty. Instead you snuck in and freed me. I'd say that means you deserve a chance."

The last cart wheeled off the frigate. "Okay Fen, you're loaded up. I also transferred the keys and the IFF to you. This ship is yours, free, clear and legally. You can dock at any station, planet or colony - even Imperial ones - and there is nothing they can do to strip ownership from you. Go, and flourish. I believe in you."

The corners of Fen's eyes were wet, and she wiped them on the convenient pad in her suit. "Thanks Dreams. I hope to see you again under happier circumstances."

"I can promise you Fen, you won't. Say hi to Gord for me when you see him again." Dreams cut the audio and the door to the rest of the ship rolled shut with finality. Fen climbed aboard her new ship, and Dreams guided her out.

Up on the Command Deck, Fen sat in the command chair. Dreams was correct it was set up for single operator use, but clearly it was hobbled. She could set a destination and that was about it. She was going to have to hire a crew if she was going to do anything other than float. She saw that the computer was preset to take her to K'lax so she pressed the button to execute the orders, and felt the pressure increase as the drive lit to take her across the system.

Ten minutes later, she received a text only message from Dreams. "Turn around and you'll see a show." Fen activated the rear cameras and watched.

The Dreams of Hyacinth, a Super Dreadnought more than six kilometers long flashed the pure white light of a wormhole link. It appeared next to the other super, and then flashed again. Now it was next to the third super. It flashed between the two faster than she thought possible. Each time Dreams flashed next to the ship, the automatic station-keeping system slid the ship away from Dreams and towards each other. Dreams did this four more times - for a total of eight links until the ships were almost ready to collide. Then, she linked above the two and...

Dreams had overloaded all of her reactors. There was a white flash, like a wormhole link, but instead of being over in a flash, it grew in intensity, spreading larger and larger, black tentacles of energy on the edges of space. It was so bright that the frigate dimmed the video feed once, and then again. In the space of less than five minutes, all three ships were utterly destroyed. Nothing remained.

Fen turned off the rear cameras and sat in silence for a moment. She wondered if that's what Dreams meant by 'going home.'

The radio crackled to life. "Unknown ship, identify yourself or be fired upon! I repeat, identify yourself or be fired upon!" The voice was speaking Colonic, but had a thick K'laxi accent.

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #sci fi writing #humans are space oddities #humans and aliens #jpitha #writing #humans and ai #humans are space capybaras #humans are space australians #Between the black and gray

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theramblingsofadork · 3 days ago

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There’s a sweet moment in the AU where Starline has to carry Hex to his and Lug’s shared room in the dorms when he falls asleep in the lab while helping him.

The two have a small heart to heart, and it’s about this time that Starline begin to slowly realize he’s getting attached to the group.

— Short Fanfic - A Heart to Heart 📙

🎵 Accompanying Theme: Spirited Away - The Sixth Station

Lug answered the knock on his door, wondering who could be coming by so late, and found himself rather surprised and confused to see Starline standing on the other side of it.

As if to answer his unspoken question, the platypus looked down to the small purple rat in his arms before holding him out to him. “I believe… this is yours.”

Lug’s tense expression immediately softened in understanding, and he sighed, letting Starline transfer Hex over to him. “Ah… so the little man fell asleep in the lab, huh? Hah. I told him not to stay up past his bedtime. But would he listen to me? Noooo.”

Starline chuckled, smiling as he observed the sleeping child now nestled against the safety his friend’s broad chest. He looked downright tiny in comparison. “Yes, well… he certainly tried his best.”

Lug laughed softly—quite a stark contrast to his usual loud self—and gazed down at his rat friend warmly. “You uh, you should’a heard him earlier today, doc. Goin’ on and on about how he just HAD to stay up so he could help ‘the great Dr. Starline’ finish his power coupler—dozzamahicky thing, and all that. Couldn’t talk him outta it for nothing, even though the kid and I both know he can hardly keep his eyes open past 10.”

Starline could sense there was a gravity to his words as the bulldog lifted his gaze to meet his. It was intimidating due to his size, and Starline had to resist the instinctive urge to step back.

“Y’know, he uh, he looks up to you a lot, doc...”

Starline recalled Hex’s heightened attentiveness around him; following him around like a little shadow, jotting down notes and absorbing anything and everything he had to teach him with earnest regard… It made him smile and hum.

“Yes, well, I must admit that he’s been a rather excellent student. Always so eager and willing to listen and learn.”

Lug let out quiet, amused snort of agreement. “Yeah, that sounds like Hex all right...”

He then winced and grew more serious. “Look— doc, I’m just gonna come right out and say it: Whether I like it or not, Hex really looks up to you. And I sure as heck can’t teach him all that techno mumbo jumbo stuff that you can. You’re like… a hero to him, so just.. do me a favor and try not to hurt him, would you? I know you’re a fancy shmancy scientist with a PHD in… physics or something—“

“Robotics and biology—“ Starline couldn’t help but correct him.

“—but I’d hate to see him get hurt just cuz he can’t live up to your expectations.” The bulldog frowned. “What you say and think means the world to him. Especially.. since you’re the first person besides me to actually see his worth.”

Starline blinked, feeling his smile fade a bit.

That’s true. Hex had mentioned before that both his parents and his teachers thought he was delusional. That his dreams were impossible and unattainable, and ‘he was too young to make a difference’. That ‘no academy would ever take him because he ‘was living in a fairytale’.

It had infuriated Starline when he first heard about it, especially since Hex was practically oozing with potential. He was merely just a rock that needed to be cut and polished in order to become a shining gem.

It was part of the reason he had decided to take him under his wing. Why he hadn’t tossed them to the side after the first week of the competition.

But.. even so.. Starline felt his chest twist in discomfort as he remembered his plan to betray them at the end of the competition. To claim the stage and announce his undying loyalty and allegiance to Eggman.

By going through with it, he would be doing exactly what Lug was asking him not to.

“He looks up to you. Try not to hurt him, would you?”

Lug seemed to notice Starline’s long pause and tilted his head. “Uh, hello? Doc? Did you hear me?“

Starline came back to reality and exhaled a breath through his nose as he nodded. “…I did, Lug. And while I understand your concern, there is no need for it. Hex is more than capable of anything I set him up to do. However, I will… do my best to try and keep your request in mind.”

Lug sighed, and his shoulders dropped in relief. “Thanks.”

…He then squinted as his one functioning braincell tried to figure out if that was the response he wanted or not. “…I think.”

Starline decided not to clarify, but gave him a small smile as he turned on his heel to leave. "…Good night, Lug."

"Right. Night.” Lug withdrew back into the room, and the door closed shut again.

Alone once more, Starline observed the back of the door for a moment longer before he let his smile fully fall and headed off in the direction of his own room.

His footsteps were unusually loud against the floor, sounding like the steady clack of a ticking clock, counting down the seconds to the completion’s end.

His hero.. Hex really regarded him the same way a young Starline had once regarded Eggman, huh…?

His words had merely been said to placate Lug, but the bulldog’s genuine insistence almost made Starline feel like he had a small bit of responsibility to hold true to those words…

The platypus start as soon as he realized that, and he quickly shook his head and hastened his steps to push the thoughts away.

Gaia… was he out of his mind? There was no way in the universe he could even think of giving up on his plan now! Not when he was well on his way on the road to victory!

But… Even so…

He supposed it couldn’t… hurt to look for alternative solutions.

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tenebraevesper · 8 months ago

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Sonic Cyber Revolution, Entry 50: The City Of Floods

''Although no one understood, we were holding back the flood, learning how to dance the rain! There was more of them than us, now they'll never dance again! Although no one understood, there was more of them than us, learning how to dance the rain! We were holding back the flood, they said we'd never dance again!''

– The Flood by Take That

xXxXxXx

So, this is how it feels to be actually within Sonic Adventure. Honestly, I thought it would happen before Sonic Adventure 2, but I can't complain about it, not in a situation like this…

Lucas was thankful that he had his hoverboard on his person because not only was Chaos fighting Sonic, but also throwing punches at him. Frankly, Lucas knew that Chaos was just made out of liquid, but given what he learned about surface tension at school, one well-placed punch could crack his skull, if not even kill him. He cried out in surprise when Chaos slammed one of his hands into him again, avoiding the hit and taking note of the building behind him cracking up. A blue ball suddenly leapt into the air in an attempt to knock down Chaos, only to get hit by the water deity, whose hand then wrapped around his neck.

''Sonic!'' Lucas shouted, but was unable to do anything as Chaos threw Sonic against a building. Sonic cried out in pain, falling down, but still managed to get on his feet. Frankly, fighting a water-based villain wasn't something he had been prepared for, but going by Lucas' reaction, this being wasn't unfamiliar. Sonic's eyes narrowed as Chaos threw another punch, and quickly dodged it, with the punch breaking a nearby window. He took a quick gaze at his surroundings, having taken note that most people had already run off once the battle started, although there were several curious passersby who decided to record what was going on. He knew that, under these circumstances, he couldn't use Chaos Surge, meaning that he was on his own.

Well, at least that's what he thought. Sonic dodged another attack coming from Chaos, only to see Lucas, who had picked up a steel bar from the debris and rammed it into the water deity. Chaos suddenly turned around, clearly distracted by what Lucas had just done, and grabbed the steel bar, letting out a low growl as he got it out his chest and tossed it to the side.

''Hit his brain!'' Lucas shouted, with Sonic realizing that this was his chance.

He curled into a ball and rammed straight at Chaos' head. Chaos staggered, with the attack finally dealing some damage. Sonic grinned as he landed before Chaos, rubbing his nose. ''What's up, ya big drip? Is that all you got?''

Chaos suddenly turned into a puddle and swiftly moved around Sonic, only to hit him from below with energy-charged fists, sending Sonic flying, but fortunately, Sonic managed to snap out of it and use gravity to his advance to curl into a ball and homing attack Chaos again. This sent Chaos flying, with him dissolving into water again, only to leap onto the nearby street light and attempting to hit Sonic from above by extending his arms.

Sonic was caught off guard by this move, only to get grabbed from the side and then realized that Lucas pulled him out of harm's way and onto the hoverboard, with the two suddenly flying up at Chaos' height. Sonic smirked, leaping off the hoverboard and landing another hit on Chaos, causing him to fall off. Sonic landed on the ground, prepared for another attack, only to be puzzled when Chaos turned into a puddle again and escaped through the nearby drain.

''Hey, where are you going?'' Sonic called out. Lucas landed next to him, one leg still on his hoverboard.

''I assume Chaos figured that he needed to get stronger to beat you, especially since we know his weak spot,'' Lucas told him. Sonic gave him a curious look.

''You said Chaos… It kind of sounds familiar,'' he said, waiting for a response. Lucas was about to explain, only to realize that other people and ARNavs were staring at them, being either stunned, excited or just plain interested in what was going on, with some people even recording what had just happened. It also didn't help several Irregular Hunters had already arrived on the scene, assuming that Chaos was just another Irregular.

''I'll explain to you later! Right now, we need to get away!'' Lucas said, and without a word, Sonic followed him out of the street, ignoring the shouting from the Hunters. They had managed to get to a more quiet street, entering an alleyway far from the main road, with Lucas taking a big sigh. ''To answer your earlier question, Chaos is a character introduced in Sonic Adventure, and what just happened was identical to his first Boss Fight.''

''I see, that makes sense,'' Sonic replied, not too surprised by that reveal. Having met other characters that were from the same video games as he was already something he got used to. ''Do you have any idea why he might be here?''

''Well, if we go by game lore, Chaos was the first guardian of the Chaos Emeralds and watched over a Chao colony in ancient times. However, 3,000 years ago, an attack from the Knuckles Clan, an ancient echidna tribe, led to him being consumed by a fury that threatened to destroy the world, but he was sealed in the Master Emerald before he could succeed. He was then released by Dr. Eggman for a plot to conquer the world and despite the initial co-operation, he revolted tried to destroy the world,'' Lucas explained. ''I assume we have a similar situation here.''

''So, you think that Eggman might be the one to use Chaos to conquer Neos City?'' Sonic asked, with Lucas nodding. ''Yeah, that sounds like something he'd do. I guess we should also warn Knuckles to be careful around him if an ancient echidna tribe was the reason he became so enraged.''

''Right… But, I feel like there's a lot more to this,'' Lucas replied, his eyes narrowing as he placed his hand under his chin in contemplation. ''Dr. Eggman using Chaos is not much of a surprise, but what I want to know is why we saw Station Square just before Chaos had appeared? It is a location from the video game and it seems that it manifested via the AR Field, even if for a brief moment. If the location's appearance was intentional, it would've remained withing the AR Field.'' He then sighed. ''Not to mention, there's also all those people seeing us fight Chaos, including the Hunters. I just hope we won't get into trouble because of this.''

''Well, we did what we had to do. Chaos could've hurt someone seriously if we hadn't intervened,'' Sonic just shrugged casually. To him, this was simply the start of another adventure and he didn't particularly care what the authorities would say.

''There is one thing to consider. Chaos gets more powerful and changes forms via the Chaos Emeralds…'' Lucas trailed off when he and Sonic heard soft buzzing coming from their AR Visors, indicating that someone was calling them. Both answered, only to be met with a pair of holographic screens showing not only the rest of Team Neos, but Team Chaotix, Team Dark and Cream and Cheese.

''Finally, we've been trying to reach you!'' Lily exclaimed in frustration. ''Although, I guess you already know what's going on!''

''Wh-What are you talking about?'' Lucas asked, only to feel a pit in his stomach when Lily showed the whole group a short video clip of Lucas and Sonic fighting Chaos. ''Oh, no…''

''As Lily had put it, you've gone viral,'' Knuckles said.

''Cool!'' Sonic, who was watching the short video clip of him landing a decisive hit on Chaos, had the complete opposite reaction of Lucas, thinking that the pose he made made him look quite badass.

''So much for not letting the public know what we're doing…'' Lucas muttered, shaking his head as he trailed off. He knew there were instances where Team Neos fought in public, but they managed to keep a low profile. However, the more they participated in these battles, the more they'd draw attention. ''Nevermind, we need to focus on what's currently going on. To sum up our case, we got Chaos on the loose, Dr. Eggman is probably responsible for this, and the AR Fields got affected by some weird energy wave, changing location for a moment.''

''Yeah, we saw that,'' Amy said.

''We're in Kita, and I swear the street turned into Sand Hill for no reason,'' Minami added.

''Eden turned into Windy Valley,'' Makoto chimed in.

''We got Station Square at Sentoraru,'' Sonic said, remembering what Lucas called what they had seen earlier. ''Does anyone have an idea how this had happened?''

''We had actually detected a wave of Chaos Energy all across Neos City earlier, as well as seven strong energy sources,'' Tails replied. ''We talked about it just before you came along, and we had figured that it had something to do with Shadow's fight with Metal Sonic. Shadow had told us that Metal Sonic had some kind of black shard, which started glowing during the fight and then the energy waved had happened.''

''Considering what had happened last time we fought Dr. Eggman…'' Lucas trailed off, taking note of the fact that Vector, Espio, Charmy, Rouge, Omega, Cream and Cheese were listening intently. ''I hope you guys had also gotten the memo of what happened before, because things might get confusing for you.''

''We wouldn't be the greatest detectives in the world if we didn't investigate this situation,'' Vector said proudly.

''What do you mean, investigate? You asked Knuckles and Lily about what was going on and they just told you everything,'' Charmy said, with Vector shooting him a glare.

''You can let us in on your plan,'' Rouge said, standing next to Touka. Lucas glanced at Sonic, who gave him a confident nod, then took a deep breath and started forming his plan.

''So, here's the deal. We have Chaos on the loose and going by what Tails had told us, Dr. Eggman had also recreated the Chaos Emeralds, probably to give them to Chaos to absorb them and become more powerful. Our goal is to find the Chaos Emeralds before Dr. Eggman or any of his associates find them,'' Lucas told them.

''It shouldn't be that hard to find a couple of gems,'' Rouge said, smirking.

''We'll do our best, Mr. Kinomoto,'' Cream said.

''Tails and I will send out the coordinates of the Chaos Emeralds to everyone's AR Visors,'' Warren said, with Lucas and Sonic noting the soft buzz as they got a message.

''I wish you all luck, guys,'' Lucas added, with the holographic screen closing and him turning to Sonic, who seemed to be thinking about something. ''What's wrong?''

''You know, if Eggman is behind this, wouldn't he have announced what he was up to. Why is he silent?'' Sonic asked. Lucas paused, mulling over his words.

''You're right… Honestly, I have a bad feeling about this, but for now, we have a mission to focus on. We can solve that mystery later,'' he replied, getting on his hoverboard and speeding off with Sonic.

xXx

Loki took a deep breath as he listened to another Hunter informing him about what the witnesses had told them. Basically, a humanoid water entity – they still weren't certain whether it was an Irregular or not – got into a fight with a blue hedgehog ARNav and a teenager, who drove the entity away and then sped off on a hoverboard. Loki had a strange feeling in his stomach when he heard this, sighing when he realized that the ones who were fighting the water entity were Sonic and Lucas.

I should've known. Loki then dismissed the Hunter, telling him to call the clean-up crew and walked away, trying to figure out what this attack meant. There were no injured people, just damage to the buildings, so they got lucky, especially considering how the water entity seemed to be quite powerful. Loki's attention then was drawn to a pair of teenagers, both talking animatedly about something, and walked over to them. ''Is something wrong?''

''Nothing, it's just… Wasn't the battle earlier supposed to be some kind of promotion for a new video game? It's been a bit of a dry period the past couple of months with no new information coming out,'' one of the teenagers said, looking rather confused. Loki gave him a curious look.

''I'm afraid that I don't know what you're talking about,'' he said.

''We're talking about a Sonic the Hedgehog video game,'' the other teenager answered. ''That right there looked like the first Boss Battle from Sonic Adventure.''

Loki furrowed a brow. ''Do you know what that water entity was?''

''Yeah, that was Chaos 0. Bet Dr. Eggman released him,'' the teenager answer, him and his friend smirking.

Loki stepped back a bit, listening on the conversation that followed and thinking about the situation. He was one of the few who had the privilege of actually knowing what had happened at ARMS, and even then, he was genuinely shocked to learn what the people he dismissed as civilians were capable of. He had been told how Team Neos had allied themselves with Dr. Eggman and stormed ARMS HQ to free their friends who had been kidnapped by Commander Williams, and were the ones who released the dark and sensitive information the organization was hidding. It was clear that what they had done was borderline criminal, but considering what ARMS had been hiding, the higher chain of command at SASDF had decided that they wouldn't pursue the matter. Team Neos wasn't causing any trouble for the public nor endangering any innocent people, and as for their Irregulars, they were deemed to have the same status as Project Shadow – Irregulars who weren't aggressive nor would attack humans for their BioEnergy.

Rest assured, Loki had been tasked to keep an eye on Team Neos and anyone associated with them. Any files ARMS had on them had been cleaned out and deleted, as they were acquired illegally, and as for Project Shadow, SASDF had decided to also completely erase it and give Shadow and Touka what they desired for so long – freedom from their past. Fortunately, ARMS had already granted Touka the necessary documentation when she got adopted by Kisaki Kageura, so they didn't have to worry about anything besides removing any obstacles that would prevent her from living a normal life.

In Loki's personal opinion, he had been disgusted with ARMS' crimes and he approved of Team Neos releasing all the key information that resulted in the damnation of the organization. Not only that, but that information resulted in the Irregular Hunters gaining favour from the public. Loki saw it as a win, but he still had to think about what he would do with Team Neos, as their case was relegated to him. Clearly, they were capable of more than he had expected, including fighting other Irregulars, and opposed Dr. Eggman, making them an useful asset to the Hunters. While he still disliked the idea of having civilians fight against Irregulars, Team Neos certainly knew what they were doing and they were powerful enough to stand on their own.

However, the fact that Sonic and his friends (and Dr. Eggman) were ARNavs based on a video game franchise was news to him. Admittedly, it made now sense that ARMS had trouble figuring out who exactly Dr. Eggman was, because they were searching information in the wrong area. Loki wondered if he should inform anyone about this discovery, but ultimately decided that he wouldn't. Something told him that it would be smarter to let Sonic and his friends do their own thing, especially in regards to Dr. Eggman, and to just help them whenever possible.

xXx

''So, how do you plan on finding the Chaos Emeralds?'' Ferra asked Dr. Starline, who was furiously typing something on the holographic screen. After Sonic and Lucas had defeated Chaos and he retreated, Starline called him to join him, Metal Sonic and Ferra at a secluded area in Sentoraru, with Starline sitting in his personalized EggMobile, trying to track down all of the Chaos Emeralds. Ferra and Metal Sonic, having completed their own mission, and joined Starline and Chaos to get further instructions on where to find the Chaos Emeralds.

''As you can see, I am busy here,'' Starline hissed back, annoyed by Ferra's questioning. ''Tracking the Chaos Emerald within Neos City isn't as easy as you think and it can be done only by the most brilliant of- huh?'' Starline cut himself off, staring at the screen, the grinned. ''Ha, I knew I would be able to find them.''

''Let's see…'' Ferra and Metal Sonic took a look at the screen. ''So, there is a Chaos Emerald at Eas, Westoru, Kita, Souto, Sentoraru, Erekiteru and Infinity Forest.''

'Our objective is to find them before Team Neos does,' Metal Sonic noted, with Ferra nodding in agreement.

''It won't be easy, though. Team Neos outnumbers us,'' she pointed out.

''That is why I have contingency plans. I have already asked the Doctor to deploy the Badniks so they can stall Team Neos,'' Starline said, quite proud of his plan. ''Now, while Chaos and I will go for the Chaos Emerald in Sentoraru, you should make yourselves useful and-''

''Hold up, Doctor,'' Ferra interrupted him, much to Starline's chagrin. ''You're not our superior, so you can't order us around. We'll go gather the Chaos Emeralds on our own. Let's go, Metal!''

Ferra got on her hoverboard and flew out of the alleyway, with Metal Sonic following her closely. Starline frowned, feeling offended that Ferra and Metal Sonic just abandoned him like that. While he could understand that they wouldn't listen to anyone except for Dr. Eggman, he still demanded some form of respect from these two.

''It doesn't matter. If things come to that point, I can just take advantage of their status as Enforcers,'' Starline grumbled, activating the EggMobile and flying up. He then turned to Chaos. ''I will lead you to the closest Chaos Emerald.''

Chaos, having no other choice, followed him.

xXx

''The E-100 Series has been deployed across Neos City, Boss,'' Orbot said, monitoring the situation. ''They have all received the command to search for the Chaos Emeralds.''

''The Badniks that are supposed to serve as a distraction were also deployed,'' Cubot added.

''Excellent,'' Dr. Eggman said, leaning back in his seat as he observed the monitor, which was showing a map of Neos City and the movement of the E-100 Series across it. ''I would've also gladly deployed Omega, but that pile of scrap just had to betray me.''

''Um, Boss, is it really necessary to use both the E-100 Series and Badniks for this mission?'' Cubot asked, scratching his head.

''Of course it is! Unlike the last time, when it was only Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, we're dealing with a much stronger opposition,'' Eggman responded. ''If we want to get those Chaos Emeralds, we will have to be more careful this time. After all, this is all just a game, and Team Neos knows how to play it.''

He narrowed his eyes, observing the monitor. Admittedly, he hadn't deployed all of the E-100 Series, only the ones that he managed to salvage from Omega's rampage. E-100 ZERO was sent to assist Starline and Chaos as a back-up; E-101 Beta was sent to Sentoraru; E-102 Gamma was sent to Kita; E-106 Eta was sent to Eas; E-103 Delta was sent to Erekiteru; E-104 Epsilon was sent to Westoru; E-105 Zeta was sent to Souto; and E-107 Theta was stationed at Infinity Forest. All of them were also accompanied by Egg Keepers that would act as obstacles for Team Neos, but unfortunately, that was the best he could do at this point due to limited information. He didn't know where each member of Team Neos would go, nor whether there were any other interlopers would get involved, but he did consider that possibility.

''Your move, rodent and Kinomoto,'' he muttered.

xXx

''So, this is just like a treasure hunt, right Miss Kusakabe?'' Cream asked Minami.

''Sort of… and I had told you already, Cream, you don't have to refer to me by my last name,'' Minami said, smiling sheepishly. ''It makes me feel old to be addressed like that.''

''Oh, I'm sorry,'' Cream replied. ''Would it be okay if I call you Miss Minami?''

''I… guess that's fine,'' Minami replied, deciding to focus on the situation at hand. She, Amy, Cream and Cheese were currently at Kita, having been visiting Cream and Vanilla and having a tea party when the AR Field turned into Sand Hill. Realizing that this was a call to action, they left along with Cream and Cheese, who wanted to help them to solve this situation.

''Hopefully we'll be able to locate the Chaos Emerald before Eggman does,'' Amy said, now dressed in her red dress and boots instead of her sports outfit. ''I don't want to even imagine what would happen if he gets to it first.''

''Unfortunately, I don't think that we'll have to worry about that,'' Minami said suddenly when they arrived at their location.

''What are they doing here?'' Cream asked angrily, with Cheese glaring at the two ruffians they had caused them a lot of trouble.

Those people in question were Rough and Tumble and, to Minami and Amy's dismay, they were holding the grey Chaos Emerald. The skunk brothers turned their attention towards them, looking quite excited to see them.

''This calls for a tit for tat…''

''Or I'll be a monkey's uncle…''

''You'll get beaten to a pulp by Rough and Tumble!''

Rough and Tumble struck a pose, flexing, with Rough holding the white Chaos Emerald. Cream and Cheese were still angry about the last time they ran into these two, Amy was kinda baffled by the introduction, while Minami was unimpressed.

''You know, using slant rhyme to introduce yourselves doesn't rank high on the scale of badass introductions,'' Minami told them, pissing off the skunk brothers.

''Oh, yeah! Then how 'bout you show off your 'badass' introduction!'' Tumble growled angrily.

''Bet she doesn't even have one,'' Rough said, hoping to get a reaction out of Minami, but she remained cold.

''I don't need one. Now hand over that Chaos Emerald before you end up getting hurt,'' Minami warned them. Rough and Tumble then looked at the white gem in their hands, a little confused.

''A Chaos Emerald? I thought it was just some diamond,'' Rough said, then grinned. ''Nah, we won't give it to ya! You'll have to fight us if you want it!''

''If you say so,'' Amy replied, summoning the Piko Piko Hammer and charging at the two.

Being caught off guard by her sudden movement, Rough and Tumble held up their arms in order to shield themselves, only for Amy to hit the Chaos Emerald Rough was holding. To her shock, a white barrier formed around the skunk brothers as white sparks of energy started flying and scraping across the street. Amy's eyes widened in shock and he was thrown back by the energy surge, flying past Minami, Cream and Cheese and landing hard on her back, her Piko Piko Hammer being knocked out of her hands.

''Amy!''

''Miss Amy!''

Minami, Cream and Cheese ran up to Amy, helping her up, with Amy gritting her teeth, looking quite winded. ''I didn't mean to hit the Chaos Emerald. So long as they have it, they will be able to use it against us.''

''That's bad,'' Minami replied, turning her attention back to the skunk brothers, who were amazed by their achievement.

''Woah, this Chaos Emerald-thingy is even better than I thought! With this, we could easily beat anyone who gets in our way!'' Tumble said.

''Yeah!'' Rough agreed, with the two turning to the group across them. ''We'll be starting with these four!''

xXx

''Chaos Spear!''

Shadow threw the energy spear right through an Egg Keeper. He then spind-dashed into another one, when he heard another Egg Keeper explode right behind him, courtesy of Omega.

''Inferior Eggman robots stand no chance against me!'' Omega stated, and while his tone was as robotic as ever, there was an intensity to it, if not even excitement. Shadow knew that this was the moment he had been waiting for all that time ke was kept at Egg Base Omega. Unfortunately for Team Dark, the onslaught of Egg Keepers did slow them down, as they were only passing through Sentoraru on their way to Infinity Forest when they got suddenly attacked by the Badniks led by E-101 Beta. The Super Badnik hadn't enagaged in combat yet, searching instead for the Chaos Emerald that was hidden somewhere in Sentoraru.

''With the way things are now, Eggman will get the Chaos Emerald at Infinity Forest,'' Touka said, using her own Chaos Spear to stab an Egg Keeper that snuck up on Rouge. She was forced to use Chaos Surge to keep up with the rest of Team Dark, but since Shadow wasn't actively drawing her BioEnergy, she could last much longer in this fight.

''Where are Sonic and Lucas? They said that they would take care of this area,'' Rouge said, kicking down another Egg Keeper. The reason why Team Dark was gathered at one spot was because Rouge had invited Shadow and Touka to visit her and Omega at Club Rouge in Sentoraru to celebrate the fact that Touka had managed to pass her exams, only to get a glimpse of Station Square and subsequent call from the rest of Team Neos about the current situation.

''I don't know, but we should leave,'' Shadow said, knocking another Egg Keeper down. Frankly, he didn't like the idea of leaving while they were in the middle of the battle, but they had more pressing matters to worry about. ''Omega!''

Instead of responding, Omega suddenly released a barrage of missiles that took down most of the Egg Keepers and turned to his teammates. ''My sensors have picked the presence of multiple E-100 Series robots. I want to hunt them down, starting with Beta.''

Touka, Shadow and Rouge exchanged glances, feeling slightly concerned for Omega. They know the former Badnik was quite capable of fighting on his own, but he would be outnumbered by Eggman's forces. Rouge asked, ''Are you sure about this?''

''Affirmative! I have enough ammunition to outlast all of them!'' Omega responded.

''Okay, but we will come back for you once we get the Chaos Emerald,'' Touka said, her and Rouge getting close to Shadow, who then performed Chaos Control, causing them to vanish in a flash of light. Omega then turned back to the Egg Keepers, his arms turning into mini-guns.

''Yippee ki‐yay, mass produced scrap metal!'' Omega started firing.

xXx

''Over there!''

Makoto pointed at the Egg Keepers closing in on them, with Silver using his psychokinesis to crush them. The two were at Westoru, having had a normal day until Eden briefly turned into Windy Valley and all Hell broke loose. Fortunately, the Egg Keepers were easy to deal with, but Makoto soon realized that E-104 Epsilon would be more difficult. The orange and white Super Badnik opened fire on them, forcing Silver to create a barrier to shield himself and Makoto.

''I hate to say it, but we will have to use Chaos Surge early,'' Makoto told Silver as Epsilon kept firing at them.

''So long as I don't attempt to absorb too much BioEnergy, you should last longer than usual,'' Silver said, remembering what Shadow had shared with them about the potential of Chaos Surge. Makoto nodded, with Silver sending a wave of cyan energy at Epsilon to knock him over. He then reached out for his partner.

''Chaos Surge!''

Makoto's eyes turned cyan, matching Silver's and sparks of energy enveloped both as they prepared for another attack. Epsilon got up, with Egg Keepers surrounding him, only for all of them to get destroyed by a barrage of crystals and fire, turning into burning scrap metal right before their eyes.

''What the-?!'' Makoto hissed, now alarmed. He and Silver quickly looked around, having left Eden and entered a more residential area when they got attacked by Epsilon. Most people ran off the moment they saw the Egg Keepers, as it was obvious that this was a serious fight, so the street was empty for the most part. Makoto frowned, gritting his teeth as he and Silver tried to locate the attacker who took down Epsilon, already having a good idea who it was.

''Look up!'' Silver suddenly shouted, pointing at two figures standing on a building. One of them was sneering at the two, holding the cyan Chaos Emerald, while the other figure was giving them a smug look of superiority.

''Toshiro and Mephiles… Figures that you two would appear to take advantage of this mayhem,'' Makoto said, him and Silver shooting glares at both of them. It was one thing to deal with Eggman's Badniks, but Toshiro and Mephiles were a league of their own.

xXx

''Tails, wait!'' Warren quickly pulled Tails back. The twin-tailed fox was too busy following the signal on the Miles Electric to notice that a squad of Irregular Hunters had just passed by, going after the Egg Keepers that appeared at Erekiteru. Being a rather busy area of Neos City, evacuation still hadn't finished and they were trying to hold the Egg Keepers back so people and ARNavs wouldn't get hurt.

''We need to get to the other side to find the Chaos Emerald,'' Tails said, pointing at the map on the Miles Electric. ''Eggman's Badniks are already here. If we don't hurry up, they'll get the Chaos Emerald before us.''

''Yeah, I know, but it's not going to be easy if we don't want to get into crosshairs with the Hunters,'' Warren replied. He hoped that the rest of the group had more luck than they did, having had a brief discussion how the team would split up. Both he and Tails and Lily, Knuckles and the Chaotix were at Eas at the time, which had briefly turned into Twinkle Park, and decided that the latter group would cover Eas while they took care of Erekiteru. That unfortunately left Souto without any coverage, but Lucas had told them that whoeever finds the Chaos Emerald first, to leave for Souto immediately.

''Well, if Sonic has taught me anything, it's that we need to take a risk,'' Tails replied, then gave Warren a confident look. ''However, at the same time we should be doing what we're good at.''

Tails then flew up to see whether there was a clear path, only to almost get shot down by a missile. He managed to avoid it after hearing Warren's incomprehensible cry, turning around and spotting the Super Badnik on the overpass. Unfortunately for them, E-103 Delta had seen them and he was ready to take them down.

Links:

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#Sonic Cyber Revolution (Masterlist)

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sickskz · 17 days ago

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Hi, I read your sickfic and it was so goodddddd!!

Anyways, are you taking requests? Because I really need someone to write a fic where Lee Know falls down the stairs in the middle of the night and get found by one of his members?

Don’t stop writing🫶

Here I am 😏

Thank you so much for your compliments and your request! I hope this fic satisfies whatever you had in mind, I really enjoyed writing it!😎

The phrase ‘a cat always lands on its feet’ came to mind😂✋🏽 but there’s always exceptions, right? 👀

So here’s to Lee Know skilfully falling down the stairs and his only hyung taking care of him🍾 enjoy!

Midnight acrobatics

2:35 AM

The dorm was quiet, filled with the kind of silence that only existed in the time between midnight and dawn. The blueish hue of moonlight filtered through the thin curtains, casting an increasingly annoying light over the room.

Lee Know couldn’t sleep.

He usually didn’t have too many issues with sleeping, especially after long days of practice, but tonight was different. Restlessness prickled at his skin like some sort of static, leaving him to toss and turn until he could no longer bear it.

With a frustrated sigh, he tossed his duvet off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. With a fleeting thought of not wishing to wake anyone else, he pulled on a pair of socks, just to soften the sound of his steps against the floor. He could be like a ninja in the night, agile and soundless.

He slipped out of his room, moving through the hallways on pure was muscle memory. Despite being so keyed up, exhaustion clung to him tightly, his eyelids heavy over stinging eyes. It was as if his body was fighting itself, both wanting to sleep but not being able to at the same time.

The kitchen was his destination, he decided. Maybe a cup of tea could help calm the buzzing in his blood, or maybe walking was just what he needed to shake off the uncomfortable itch inside his muscles.

Either way, he couldn’t be bothered to turn on any lights. He had made this trip a hundred times before, he knew every creak in the floor, any edge to get caught on. The faint hum of the refrigerator was enough to steer him through the dark, like a moth instinctively drawn to a flame.

His eyes were barely cracked to slits, stingy with sleepiness that made him tear up if he opened them any further. And despite how well he knew his home, his weariness left him vulnerable; dulling his reflexes and awareness.

It all just happened far too quickly for his lulled mind to catch up.

As he reached the stairs leading down towards the kitchen, ready for his descent, something went wrong. Whether his foot slipped the wrong way, or the cuff of his pyjama pants got caught on something, he didn’t know. Either way, it didn’t really change the outcome.

His balance betrayed him ruthlessly, allowing gravity to yank his body forward and out into the air. His arms briefly shot out in an attempt to grab onto the handrail, but the momentum was already too strong. His breath escaped him in a sharp gasp.

One moment he was at the top of the stairs, the next he was doing a series of flips down it, his body slamming against the steps relentlessly. The curve of the stairs had him briefly dapping up the wall with his face before tumbling down the rest of the slope. His body was flung like a ragdoll, thrown down by the hands of some sadistic child.

When he finally reached a halt at the bottom of the steps, his eyes were opened wide, ears ringing and heartbeat pounding in his head. His chest heaved as he laid sprawled out, the dim moonlight illuminating the pitiful heap he had so suddenly turned to.

He laid still, the world continuing to spin before his eyes despite his body’s sudden stillness. He struggled to catch his breath, hitching and gasping miserably in the darkness. It was like his lungs had been deflated, and every attempt to draw a breath burned in his chest. There was a faint warmth trickling down the side of his forehead, and when he gingerly touched it, his fingers came back sticky with blood.

For a moment, the dorm had that eerie silence again. The haze of shock and pain blurred any coherent thought until the hurried sound of footsteps finally caught his attention.

Geez, all that for trying to be quiet in the first place. Quite the ninja he was.

“Lee Know-?“ the voice was groggy and thick, yet sharp with immediate concern. Lee Know turned his head slightly, struggling to focus his eyes on the figure that had appeared at the top of the staircase he had just crashed down.

It was Chan, his face pale and dimly lit in the moonlight. His messy hair and rumpled t-shirt was proof of how quickly he must’ve bolted out of bed at the commotion. Chans eyes widened as he took in the scene before him. Shit.

“Oh my god, Lee Know!“ Chan ran down the steps swiftly, moving with precision that felt almost mocking to Lee Knows own failed attempt. He dropped to his knees by Lee Knows side, hands hovering uncertainly over him, like he was unsure of where to start.

“What- what happened? Are you okay?“

“I uh… fell down the stairs“ Lee Know rasped, disbelief laced in his voice. It sounded so absurd, even to him. He really had just fallen down the stairs. Just like that.

Chan blinked at him, then he glanced back up the staircase, his jaw tightening. “You… are you serious? All the way?”

Lee Know shot him a half-hearted glare, though his expression quickly crumpled with pain. “Does it.. look like I’m joking?” He asked, his voice strained and higher pitched than usual. His usuals sarcasm lacked any real bite, his thoughts clouded by the pain searing throughout his body.

A sharp ache stabbed his ribs with every breath, and his head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. His hip seared with a steady sting, and his shoulder was throbbing.

“No, sorry, I just..” Chans face was twisted with worry, his voice faltering as his eyes fell on the darkness streaked across Lee Knows pale forehead. His hand moved instinctively, brushing the hair back to get a better look. When his thumb became slick with blood, the older froze. “Shit, you’re bleeding- okay, okay, just stay still, don’t move“

Lee Know wanted to snap back something about where Chan possibly thought he could go, but his lungs hadn’t fully adapted to full sentences yet. It was a slow process.

He could only watch dumbly as Chan fussed over him, breathing still hitched and shallow.

“Calm down…I’m… fine“ he finally said, feeling the embarrassment creep into his face, though the way he flinched when he tried to move told a different story.

“No” Chan snapped, his voice uncharacteristically sharp and firm. It made Lee Know flinch for reasons other than pain. “No, you’re not, stop trying to move.”

Lee Know recoiled, growing quiet again as Chan moved his hand to hover over his chest. “Okay, just- just stay still for a sec, let me check you” He shifted into action, his hands steady as he lightly began pressing across Lee Knows torso.

Lee Know hissed when he grazed a particularly tender spot, eyes squeezing shut at the sharp stab in his ribs.

“Fuck-” Lee Know cursed through gritted teeth, and the older of the two didn’t spare a single second to reprimand him for it.

“That hurt?” Chan looked at him as he asked, pointedly assessing the way he reacted when he pressed his hands against his ribs. “I… I don’t think anything is broken… but, you’re definitely pretty banged up” the leader murmured, more to himself than anything else.

Chan hummed at the hissing and groaning he received in response, his expression grim as he continued to check down Lee Knows body. His hip was already turning blue, but the joint was still in place and the bone itself intact as far as Chan could tell. His ankle was likely sprained, and he made a mental note to keep a close eye on it, just in case it got worse.

“Aish, Lee know-ya.. you’re going to be all black and blue from this” he mumbled half-heartedly, freezing when Lee Know sucked in a sharp breath.

“Hyung.. Shoulder..“ he admitted reluctantly, his right hand drifting protectively to the opposite side.

Chans face fell at the tears visibly stinging in Lee Knows eyes, biting back the sudden urge of panic that came over him. He couldn’t stand seeing him in pain like that.

“Let me see?” He said ever so softly, carefully lifting the cuff of his t-shirt. Lee Knows shoulder was bruised and swollen from the trauma it had sustained, much like his hip. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be dislocated or broken either.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do” Chan said after a beat, his voice calm and assertive. “I’m going to carry you to the couch. Don’t argue- just tell me if it hurts too much, okay?”

“But I can-“

“You can’t” Chan didn’t wait for any further protests. He hooked one arm under Lee Knows shoulders and the other beneath his knees, lifting him off the ground with surprising ease.

Lee Know wanted to protest more, but the tone in Chans voice made it clear; there was no more room for arguments.

Instead, he gave in to resting his head against Chans chest, the steady rhythm of the older man's heartbeat grounding him as they made their way to the couch. Every step sent small jolts of pain through his bruised body, but Chans steady grip never faltered.

Once they reached the couch, Chan gently lowered Lee Know onto the cushions, carefully adjusting a pillow beneath his head. "Stay here. I'll grab the first aid kit," he said, draping a thin blanket over Lee Knows frame before rushing towards the bathroom.

The sudden absence of Chans warmth left Lee Know feeling oddly exposed and vulnerable. He tried to close his eyes and breathe to ease the pain, but it only seemed to grow stronger as the adrenaline dwindled away.

Luckily, Chan returned quickly, kneeling beside him with the kit in hand. He switched on a small lamp by the side of the couch, allowing him just enough light to see what he was doing. Lee Know groaned at the added brightness, turning his head away.

“I know, I know.. sorry, but I have to clean that cut” Chan said, his voice noticeably softer now. He dug through the first aid kit, pulling out a box and popping out a pill.

“Here, take this first. It’s just paracetamol, it may help some on the pain” he lamented, holding out the little white pellet. Lee Know opened his mouth without question, allowing Chan to place the pill on his tongue and swallowing it with a tiny bit of water from the bottle his hyung quickly held to his lips.

Chan opened a pack of antiseptic wipes next, pushing Lee Know’s hair out of his forehead so he could properly see the gash. “This is going to sting..”

“It’s fine, it already hurts” Lee Know muttered petulantly, eyes shut and eyebrows scrunched in obvious discomfort.

Chan huffed a soft laugh, though the worry never left his eyes. He carefully dabbed the wipe against the cut, frowning softly as Lee Know flinched. “Sorry..”

His hands were steady as he cleaned the wound and applied a sterile bandage. It wasn’t too deep, but the skin around it had swelled significantly, and there was a blue tinge starting to spread beneath it. There was no way he wasn’t at least mildly concussed.

When he finished, Chan handed over an ice pack, which Lee Know gratefully shifted between his bruised head and shoulder. “How does your head feel?”

“‘Hurts, but not as bad… and I don’t feel so much.. dizzy.. static, anymore” Lee Know replied earnestly. Dizzy static. Chan made another mental note to stay particularly vigilant about any further signs of a concussion.

A small silence stretched across the room, the only noise the steady tick of the clock hung on the wall. Chan looked at Lee Know, eyebrows furrowed.

“What… what were you doing up anyway?” Chan finally spoke up, his tone a mix of concern and curiosity. He watched Lee Know carefully, gauging his condition while trying to piece together why or even how his bandmate had ended up in this mess. Falling down those stairs? and at this hour?

Lee Know exhaled a shaky breath, leaning further into the couch as the ice pack numbed some of the sharp ache in his shoulder. "’Couldn't sleep," he admitted, his voice quiet but rough from the earlier tumble. "Thought maybe some tea would help. Never got to test that theory though."

Chan chuckled dryly, dragging a hand across his face. “Tea, huh? So this” he vaguely waved his hand to show he was referring to Lee Knows pummelled body. “Is all for a cup of tea?”

Lee Know groaned, turning his head glare at Chan, though it lacked any real malice. “Don’t start.. it’s bad enough I just lost 1-0 in a fight against the stairs. This is humiliating...”

Chan smirked at that, the faintest trace of amusement flickering across his features. "Hey, you are pretty agile most of the time. I'll chalk this one up to bad luck and sleepy feet. It could’ve happened to anyone… though, I am a little impressed that you managed to fall so…. badly”

"Gee, thanks, hyung," Lee Know muttered, wincing as he adjusted the ice pack on his shoulder.

“-But also very impressed you didn’t seem to break anything” Chan shot in with a smile, giving him a thumbs up. “A true acrobat”

Lee Know sucked in a breath, suddenly looking at Chan with a troubled expression. His hyung looked back at him, his own expression immediately switching back to one of concern.

“Channie-hyung… can we keep this between us? This is embarrassing enough as it is” Lee Know winced from the ache in his chest, but his eyes showed how sincerely he meant it.

Chan raised an eyebrow, but before he could respond, a husky voice spoke up from behind him.

“Might be a little too late for that..” Felix remarked sheepishly, arms crossed over his chest and a small, apologetic smile on his face.

Chan turned to see him standing in the doorway, his expression darkening at the in total of four heads peeking out from the shadows. Seungmin, Jeongin, Felix, and Changbin. All there.

“No normal person can sleep through all that noise” Jeongin remarked matter-of-factly, head peaking up from behind Changbins shoulders.

“Which would explain why the only ones still in bed are Hyunjin and Han” Seungmin added dryly, earning a small snicker from their maknae.

Lee Know groaned in exasperation, turning his head away from the door and hiding his face into the couch. He was too worn out and banged up for this.

Chan bit his lip in sympathy, exhaling slowly through his nose.

“We’re sorry for intruding- “ Changbin spoke up apologetically, voice low. “We just.. we heard the crashing and thought someone was breaking in.”

“Seungmin even brought his baseball bat” Jeongin chimed in nonchalantly.

Chan looked between them with a puzzled look, eyes landing in Seungmin, dumbfounded. “You keep a baseball bat in your room?”

Seungmin just shrugged his shoulders, lips stretched thin. “Are you really that surprised?”

He wasn’t.

“Are you okay, Lee Know hyung?” Felixs voice sounded even darker in the middle of the night, but worry laced his every word.

Chan sighed deeply, holding his head and rubbing his fingers against his forehead. “Alright, everyone. There is no break in. Lee Know here just had a bit of a tumble, but everything is fine.” He explained briefly, seeing the warmth burning in Lee Knows ears. He was still turned away, and Chan understood. “You kids go back to bed, we can talk more in the morning”

“What do you mean tumb-“ Seungmin started, but Chan silenced him with a fierce look.

“Seungmin. Bed, now, all of you. Don’t make me repeat myself again” Chans voice ebbed off at his final words, exhaustion seeping into him as he dragged his hand down his face.

The two of them listened as the younger members mumbled softly among themselves, followed suit by the sound of shuffling feet retreating back to their bedrooms.

The living room settled back into silence as the faint click of doors closing one by one signaled the other’s retreat.

Chan exhaled deeply, shoulder sagging as he leaned his back against the couch, the weight of the night finally pressing down on him. His adrenaline, like Lee Knows, had evaporated just as suddenly as it had rushed in.

“Thank you” Lee Know mumbled, his voice muffled as he kept his face buried in the cushions.

Chan chuckled softly, reaching over to adjust the blanket over Lee Knows legs. He stood slowly off the floor in favor of settling himself down on the opposite side of the couch. “Don’t thank me yet. I know you’d probably rather pretend this never happened, but you still owe me more of an explanation in the morning.”

Lee Know whined, finally turning his head just enough so he could peek at Chan with a mix of exhaustion and exasperation. “Do I really have to?”

“Yup” Chan said simply, leaning his elbows on his knees. “But first, you’re going to rest. No more nighttime adventures, okay? I don’t care how much you think a cup of tea is worth, because this is not it”

Lee Know huffed out a faint laugh despite himself, the sound tinged with both pain and gratitude. “Loud and clear, hyung.” He raised his uninjured arm up in a lazy salute.

“Good,” Chan replied, his voice softening again. “Next time, just wake me up if you can’t sleep, yeah? I can’t have you playing stunts like this.”

Lee Know didn’t answer right away. His eyes drifted shut as the sheer weight of his exhaustion finally began to claim him. Just before he allowed himself to surrender to it, he muttered out in a voice so quiet it could easily be missed. “Okay, I’ll try...”

Chan smiled faintly, watching as Lee Knows breathing evened out and his body finally relaxed against the couch. The tension in his face eased as sleep took over, leaving him looking far more peaceful than he had moments ago.

“Goodnight, Minho” Chan whispered, his words barely audible even to himself.

He leaned back slightly, letting his head rest against the back of the couch as he checked the time. 3:20AM.

With a soft sigh, he turned his phone back off and set it aside, knowing he wouldn’t be returning to his room tonight. With Lee Know having hit his head, Chan felt a little extra cautious about watching over him. Besides, he wouldn’t have the heart to leave him out there on his own either way..

Instead, he settled into his spot on the couch the best he could. Whether his back ached in the morning or his neck stiffened from the awkward angle didn’t matter. None of it did.

What mattered was that Lee Know was safe, warm and finally able to rest. What mattered was that he knew that no matter what, his hyung would always be there for him when he needed him. Always.

Because that's what family did.

_________ END _________

Ta-dah! Hope you enjoyed it! Though I may not be able to write it all, requests are always open as they help give me motivation and inspiration❤️😎 so please do share any ideas or thoughts you have!

Lastly, I have to add this iconic LK tumble and Chan’s desperate attempt so save him from himself😂😪 it just seemed too fitting

#stray kids #stray kids hurt/comfort #hurt/comfort #skz fluff #skz hurt/comfort #skz sickfic #stray kids sickfic #stray kids fluff #lee know #Lee know hurt #whump #stray kids whump #kpop sickfic

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toastess-with-the-mostess · 1 year ago

Text

Let's Rewind! Toast watches Voltron: Defender of The Universe (1984)

I now have access to pretty much every animated version of Voltron and now after around 7 years of being a Voltron fan and amateur archivist, I'm finally sitting down to watch (or rewatch) every Voltron show to see how it's grown over its legacy, starting with Dotu!

Season 1, Episode 1 - Space Explorers Captured

Starting off strong, the intro is pretty cool in my eyes, no wonder this was burned into so many kids heads when it was airing It also reminds me of Danny Phantom and how the backstory was in the opening, same thing here to get into the action lol

It's Hunk and Keith! NOT, the first shots we "see" of them aren't actually them! It's reused footage from Vehicle Voltron of the characters Jeff and Rocky, you can tell by the uniforms (and y'know faces)! This feeds my hc that the boys originally were part of the explorer though >:D

I love the way this art style, or like any 80s-90s anime, draws space, it's so pretty like CMON Also, I never realized that the boys got to Arus WHILE it was being taken over, I swear I remembered that Arus was already a wasteland so-to-speak by the time they got there

GOD SVEN'S DOPEY ACCENT IS SO NICE TO HEAR, I'VE MISSED IT SO MUCH I did notice that the city destruction image was later reused for Balto, which in the original GoLion anime is from Earth's destruction! NOT THE EIFFEL TOWER JUST BEING DESTROYED WHILE KEITH IS SAYING THE ARUSIANS GOT TO SAFETY MY GOD I KNOW TOO MUCH

First look at the pilots! Very 80s from what I think the vibe is, but also very personalized! Knowing their character traits, it fits them pretty well for the most part

"This isn't the first time [the team] has been in a tight spot" NOT THE FIRST TIME, YOU SAY? INCH RESTING

"[There was a legend that a castle of lions] held the secret of the super robot Voltron, Voltron could save them" YOU'RE PUTTING YOUR FAITH IN A LEGEND THAT MAY NOT EXIST?? LIKE EVENTUALLY THEY'RE RIGHT BUT OOOOO IS THE GARRISON USELESS, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THEY ONLY SENT A TEAM OF FIVE INTO AN ACTIVE HOSTILE TAKE OVER ignoring the fact that they said they were too far to help anyway

The team literally got captured and yet the dialogue they chose was "we need to eject, it's better than crash landing, let's go!" ??? I think this was reused dialogue from episode 2 that they just plugged in

What a rad design for a villain, like he looks so fucking cool. I generally forget that he's reptilian almost vs his barbie doll looking son Maybe the subspecies of Drule he's a part of is reptilian! Holy shit Zarkon's eyes started flickering, is this guy cybernetic too??

PIDGE'S SQUEAKY TOY VOICE IS STILL SO FUNNY TO ME AND IT'S EVEN BETTER BECAUSE HIS VA (Neil Ross) ONLY TOSSED IT OUT FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES BUT THE PRODUCERS LOVED IT SO MUCH THEY FUCKIN KEPT IT

My god is the voice acting funny, Commander Yorak's weak grunt when slashing at slaves is everything

The Doomites are VERY different looking compared to Zarkon or even Lotor, probably another subspecies of the Drule race This time they look kind of batty? Yeah, that's it

I wonder what era their clothing is inspired by, obviously there's some creative liberty, but a lot of these clothes scream nobility to me also screams clowns but shhh lol

"What should we name this new robeast your Majesty?" "Uhhh Blue" Really had no creativity with this robeasts name guys

More really cool alien designs, I have to remember I can let loose when designing other species lol

Oh interesting, I thought the team fought alongside the rest of the slaves in the ring but Zarkon saved em for last Also, the fact that the guys were legitimately branded is insane, the dialogue makes it seem like they were all separated for it, but I refuse to think they'd let any of each other get taken away for it also they're called tattoos not brand, definitely censorship

ah yes Pidge's mad hops. Knowing he's from Balto, this is just telling me that my high gravity hc for the planet was right because there are only a few but very specific reasons why he'd be able to do that and being human ain't one of em

"Ugly virds" -Sven again some of these line deliveries are so funny, like every single one of svens just makes me laugh

the sound effects for Pidge jumping back down is also peak comedy oisndv

Lance's sass is always welcomed on this blog omg, the moody tendency is showing from his GoLion counterpart

"We're space explorers and we need space!" CATCH ME CRYING MYSELF TO SLEEP, THERE'S A REASON WHY THAT'S ON THE DESC OF MY BLOG NOW

If you hear laughing it's me LMAO

But actually, though, they're being treated kind of well in terms of being captured. The team never fights in the arena and when they're pretending to sleep as the guards are coming to take them over they just leave them be and reason that the boys will fight better tomorrow

those are some weak ass bars if Hunk can bend them

[Lance hands Keith a rock] "Don't miss" my humor is broken, and I'm laughing too much at a simple line

Hunk being afraid of heights is such a human characteristic to give him, and I mean that like it really feels like he's a person by giving him something that lots of people find silly or even relatable! (like me ha)

Their plan to escape was going level by level down with rope, except Keith fucking GETS DOWN WITHOUT THE ROPE It's ok, they hitched a ride ON A GIANT FLESH EATING BIRD THAT SWOOPS AT THEM

Hunk slips off his bird and reaches for PIDGE OF ALL PEOPLE TO GRAB HIM, but somehow that doesn't dislocate the poor boy's shoulder and they both go PLUMMETING TO THE GROUND AND SOMEHOW SURVIVE THE FALL Hunk lands in a pile of bones which OW and Pidge BOUNCES OFF THE GROUND BECAUSE OF HOW HARD HE HIT IT if that doesn't kill em, fucking nothing will good god Everyone else lands fine though, bastards lmao

Keith is Catholic™️ confirmed

Animal lover Keith over here being kind to mega vultures "I'll alvays think they're veutiful" -Sven You literally just called them ugly but ok

PIDGE'S KAZOO PANTING I CANNOT LMAOO They're running in formation (kinda), how cute!

Oh they really are all trained Sven and Keith knock out some guards with kicks Lance straight up tosses one without a sweat Hunk is also kicking but he's taking more down by himself AND PIDGE STARTS CHOKING A GUY OUT FROM BEHIND 10/10 would love to see more hand-to-hand combat

Straight up murdered a few guards by taking off in the slave ship, but shh they're robots it doesn't matter AND THEN THEY DESTROY PART OF THE CASTLE WHILE TAKING OFF AMAZING

Pidge sees a lion statue with a castle behind it and immediately just solves part of the legend that really shouldn't be a legend, the part with the castle anyway

So the team knows of the legend, meaning they were sent on a wild goose chase for basically nothing except that they did FIND IT Fun.

I think it's funny that they're describing Voltron before the split as a defender of justice but in GoLion he was literally the most egotistical bitch that after taking down basically everyone in a fight to prove his strength he got nerfed into those five lions

Episode over! Looks like I'm doing one episode per post with how much I'm talking lol That's all the time I have tonight for the rewind, but tomorrow I have a lot more free time, so maybe I can get like 2 more episodes at the very least

#Let's Rewind!#voltron #80s voltron #voltron defender of the universe #voltron dotu #toast talks #im going in order btw #so dotu then vv then v3d then vf and finally vld #then the original animes for voltron #beastking golion and armored fleat dairugger xv #this is gonna take a loooong time

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hunty627 · 2 years ago

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Here’s the script for Star Struck.

One summer night, I was with the Little Einsteins. We were camping in June’s backyard. Ellie had put up a huge tent for everyone to sleep in, Rocket used a hibachi to make a campfire, Amanda got the flashlights and bug spray, and I got the marshmallows and tomato soup. June was looking at the planet Saturn through her telescope. When I took a look, I saw a shooting star. But to my surprise, it was coming this way! Everyone took cover, but the star landed on my body! I was most surprised! Suddenly, my skin turned yellow because the star was scared. But I didn’t want the star to feel scared. So, I gently and kindly introduced myself and my friends to her. That made Star feel better. Star explained that she was in a hurry because she was running late to have an intergalactic playdate on Pluto with Saturn’s Ring, Music Robot and the Meeps. June told Star that anyone who’s a friend of Saturn’s Ring, Music Robot and the Meeps is a friend of hers. That made Star take control of my arms to hug June as my skin turned pink. It turned out my skin changed color depending on how the star was feeling. We all agreed to take Star back home to outer space. We got on board Rocket and took to the air! Leo began to drive Rocket straight up to outer space, and he also had Rocket use his Backup Booster to break through earth’s gravity. After that, we made it to outer space. Then we all unbuckled our seatbelts and began to float in zero gravity. It was so much fun. Especially when we went for a dip on the Big Dipper. Then, we saw Music Robot. June was very happy to see him again. He volunteered to take part in the mission. We set off on our way to Pluto, but there was danger up ahead. Rocket saw the outer space storm known as Crab Nebula! We needed to find a way to avoid it. Then, Rocket found a shortcut. It was a wormhole, a tunnel through space-time. Rocket and music robot flew in. We thought we were safe, but then the wormhole began closing behind us! Quickly, we helped music robot and Rocket go faster by saying accelerando. And they managed to get out of the wormhole just in time. Then, Rocket tossed a rope at a comet and we zoomed past Mars and Jupiter with the comet dragging us along really fast. After that, we flew through the slippery star filled shortcut. It was awesome! Suddenly, music robot had gotten himself stuck in space goo! Then, we saw the meeps. They volunteered to help us pull music robot free. And we pulled him out of the space goo. After that, the meeps joined us on our mission. Soon, we arrived at Saturn, where Ring said hello to June. He volunteered to help us pry star off my body. So, all together, everyone pulled and pulled and pulled as hard as they possibly could. Until at last, star came off of my body! Everyone cheered. Star was so happy, she invited everyone to have an intergalactic playdate on Pluto! And we put on our spacesuits and played together on Pluto. And we even decided to have our campout on Pluto! And that made June very happy as ring, music robot, the meeps, and even star all gave her a hug. And Leo said “Mission completion!” The end.

#little einsteins #my stories

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grimalkinmessor · 9 months ago

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While I do agree in part, especially with the first bit about Reigen's control of Mob's powers being due to how well he controls his emotions, what I meant is that Reigen seems less affected by powers internally.

I haven't read the manga yet so that bit about ???-kun letting him get close just to show Mob how powerless he is new for me! I kind of like it 🫣 But what you're describing are the effects of powers that are affecting the world around them rather than being a pressure on the body and mind. Ichiguro's powers affect the gravity around her, yes, but the black holes themselves aren't psychic, just the creation of them. Mob could've achieved the same sort of result with strong enough telekinesis if he were, you know, evil, but that's not what Ichiguro's main power is. I doubt Reigen would've lasted long against that fire esper Hanazawa fought either, because those are powers that are specifically manipulating outside forces rather than energy as a whole, and what I think Reigen has is a mild natural resistance to that "pure" energy specifically. Again, likely in part because he has such a rational thought process, like you said :D

In the Confession Arc, Reigen is heavily injured not because Shigeo used his powers to hurt him directly, but because he walked into a damn hurricane with no protection and the shit that was getting whipped around in there keep beating against him. But in that panel you showed (also I did not know it was originally a little pebble that is SUCH a deviation like what 😭 why did they give anime!Reigen a whole ass concussion) Reigen is running towards Mob while things that are much bigger and heavier than him are getting tossed around and blown up into the rest of the cyclone by the force of Mob's powers and desire to keep everyone away. And yes, part of that might be because ???-kun wanted him to get close, but even after that Reigen is able to get closer when ???-kun clearly doesn't want him to, when he should've been blown back by the force of his power right after Mob vanished given the heavy debris we see being yeeted about. Reigen being injured doesn't necessarily mean that he was injured by Mob's powers specifically, just hit by the things his powers were affecting—which is, again, surprisingly not Reigen! (I do wonder why ???-kun didn't just toss him away like he did with Ritsu after Mob was gone; though I guess maybe he just didn't want to catch Reigen but also didn't want him to die either?? Idk I would've yeeted him if it were me).

And as for the Dimple Arc, well, I've said it before in a different post, but Reigen wasn't the only one to be brainwashed without eating any of the Divine Tree; Tsubomi was also brainwashed that way. Dimple even kind of commends her for her strength of will when he mentions that she wouldn't eat any of the things he tried to put in front of her—which he doesn't do for Reigen because why would he, their relationship is based on insults and sarcasm and mutual friendship with Mob—but I think it's interesting that they're probably the only two that were brainwashed another way in that Arc. If that's how the brainwashing works, through some sort of outside pressure allowing Dimple to slip in through the cracks in the psyche, then that means the same must be true for Tsubomi as well..... Hmmm thoughts for another post perhaps. But yes, I think you're right on this one in that Reigen's emotions being all over the place were a large part of the reason he was made vulnerable in that moment, because that natural resistance comes in large part from how he thinks and regulates :3

So I don't think we're disagreeing, necessarily, just that the things you pointed out that Reigen was affected by seem to be more physical than psychic, save for Dimple's bit. I think it would've been more clear had Reigen fought against, idk maybe the illusion esper?? But Ichiguro's powers manipulated a different part of physical reality that Reigen was obviously going to be affected by because it's, you know, physical. I think he'd be affected by any power that affects something in the "real world" like Hibata's psychic powers making his muscles stronger or Minegishi's control over plants. Reigen doesn't really get hit with Shimazaki's powers on technicality, given that Shimazaki's powers only seem to affect himself and make him a better fighter, but Reigen also notably cancels out Shimazaki's powers just by being,,,,invisible from a psychic standpoint. Which is also. interesting. when you consider that Shimazaki can apparently also see life energy. Hmmm. BUT I DIGRESS.

Are there any instances where Reigen seems particularly affected by psychic powers on a purely psychic level within the manga? Because if so I'd like to know!

No but it is literally canon that Reigen has some sort of natural resistance/tolerance for psychic powers, I will die on this hill.

Not only during the first season finale (which is an arc that still confuses the fuck outta me—I know it was a fake-out but what was with??? the cab driver then???) when Reigen holds and uses all of Mob's power without flinching or even realizing he's got them at first, when Mob pushed a liiiittle bit of power into the twins to help boost their powers and it was so difficult for them to handle they could only do it for a minute or so. Reigen held and used Mob's full power for several minutes, "fighting" with it, and did not break a sweat even though he should be the one least accustomed to having ESP energy yeeted into him.

And when the whole "Some espers can drain people's powers" thing came up I thought that Reigen might've ACTUALLY had powers at one point and it was going to be revealed later that he'd had them stolen—BUT THAT'S NOT THE CASE SO,,,,,WHY IS HE LIKE THAT

In the third season finale, Hanazawa got his clothes literally blown the hell off (again) by Mob's powers, and even the BIC members had their uniforms shredded and blown off when they approached him, but Reigen was. fine? Well not FINE but the sheer force from Mob's explosion seemed to affect him less than the others. The only injuries he really had were from the debris whipping around and hitting him, and he discarded his jacket and shoes on his own instead them being literally blown away or shredded like the others. Plus he's able to get far closer to Mob than literally anyone else, even other powerful espers like Serizawa. (Not counting Suzuki because Mob was literally holding himself back on purpose and he STILL ran away. Prick.)

Maybe it was because Reigen was only trying to talk to him, not fight him or restrain him like everyone else was trying to, and thus Shigeo let him get close 🤔 But that doesn't explain the other stuff!! Reigen Has A Natural Born Resistance & Tolerance For ESP Energy Confirmed!!!!

#replies #mob psycho 100 #reigen arataka #sponge reigen #mobrei #reimob

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honeydjarin · 3 years ago

Text

hibernation envy

spencer reid x gn!bau!reader

It’s okay to seek out warm hands and a tender heart, especially when it’s this cold.

warnings: feelings of being unwanted (reader), food/eating, mentions of previous injuries (reader)

genre: fluff, hurt/comfort

word count: 5,200

a/n: where I live the temperature has been in the high 80s and it’s been very humid, but the days are getting shorter and I’ve been feeling down because of it. I miss July and the freedom of summer.

It shouldn’t be so cold yet. In most of the U.S. it’s not this cold. In most of the U.S. it’s barely even autumn. Pumpkin patches and colorful leaves clutching onto branches, a heatless fire, that’s how it should be. That’s how it is back home. But in Alaska, winter never seems to be far away.

You’d had a case here once before, in a small town called Franklin. Even then you’d thought Alaska was beautiful, with its mountains reaching skyward and its seemingly unending boreal forests, boughs of evergreen spanning far beyond what the eye can see. But now? Now you’re just cold. It doesn’t help that you’ve already finished the case you were working and are simply stuck, waiting for the weather to permit your safe return to autumn, to warm flannels and cinnamon everything.

The hotel you’re staying in is small, quaint, more of an inn really. It's family owned and doesn’t appear to look any different than the day it was built, if the photos behind the front desk are any indication. The whole place is filled with wooden furniture, old lamps with shades the color of buttercream, and the thickest quilts you’ve ever seen—likely handmade with nimble fingers and a loving heart. It wouldn’t surprise you if there was an old gramophone stashed away in a corner somewhere. The whole place is almost cabin-like. It’s cozy, familiar, but it doesn’t block out the constant reminder of the freezing storm that just started outside.

It wasn’t a bad case, in the grand scheme of things. You did the job, worked efficiently, and were able to end things quickly. Unfortunately, just as everything was wrapping up the storm came in, glacial and piercing, a reminder of how harsh the land here can be.

“We won’t be able to leave until the storm stops,” Hotch says, officially stomping out the last of any hope you might have had of leaving. You’re trapped here, and it's unclear for how long.

As the team moves to go back up the stairs to their rooms, Garcia, who was needed on site, pulls you aside.

“Would it be alright if you swapped rooms with Derek?” she asks, eyes glistening as she gives you that look that no one can say no to. It doesn’t help that all of your belongings are already packed up in the go-bag in your hands, ready to be moved to another room with ease.

You don’t want to, not really, and you can’t help but feel as though she just doesn’t want to share a room with you. You know it’s not true, she’s just close with Morgan, but it still stings.

“Okay,” you say, giving in. “I’ll swap.”

“Don’t worry, Pretty Boy’s not that bad. He stays up late but he keeps quiet,” Morgan adds as he swoops in to usher Garcia along, tossing you his room key before the two of them vanish.

“Oh,” is all you can say before you’re left standing completely alone. It’s too cold here, you think.

You make your way up the stairs, slowly, as if the constant pull of gravity were too strong here. Maybe it is. You plod past wooden walls and down the hall padded with worn red carpet. How many other people have passed through these halls? Not many, you imagine, not way out here. Just the same ghosts wandering, you among them.

When you make it to the room listed on your key, you pause. How do you do this? It’s not that you dislike Reid, the opposite in fact. He’s kind and he’s brilliant, a little awkward at times but in a most endearing way. You doubt you’ll ever understand the way that he thinks, not truly, but you don’t need to. You care for him regardless. Too much so to know how to act when you’re alone with him, especially in this situation. The case is over, you have nothing to distract you from him now.

Finally you decide to knock. Just walking in doesn’t seem right, even if you have a key. It takes Reid a moment to open the door.

“Is everything alright?” he asks. There’s a crease between his brows and his nose scrunches up slightly, a habit he doesn’t seem to notice, and that you are acutely aware of.

“Morgan wanted to switch rooms.” You hold up the key, showing off the room number. “If that makes you uncomfortable I can go crash with Prentiss and JJ, otherwise it looks like we’ll be rooming together for the foreseeable future.”

He shuffles to the side, mismatched socks quieting the motion. As you step into the room you’re hit with a chill, muscles tensing and goose bumps raising even though you're wearing a thick sweater. Spencer seems indifferent to the cold temperature.

It’s obvious which bed Spencer has been sleeping in, rumpled blankets left unmade with thick books stacked by the bed are a clear giveaway. You take the other bed, the one by the windows. A small draft is coming in through the cracks around the thick glass, not enough to make you freeze, but enough to make you uncomfortable. The room is so much colder than the one you’d been staying in with Garcia and once again you can’t help but feel angry, unwanted. It’s best not to linger on the thought.

“Do you think the storm will last long?” you ask, peeking out through one of the curtains. Outside is nothing but a field of white, the world visible for no more than 10 feet before blurring away. The snowflakes are small, plummeting rather than floating to the earth below.

“It should only last a few days at most,” Reid says. “It’s too early for any of the snow to really stick.”

“Good,” you state. “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”

—♡—

Establishing a new routine together isn’t difficult, but it is awkward. Finding a way to fit two lives into each other means learning small but intimate details about one another. Spencer showers quickly, and later than you like to. He brushes his teeth with the water shut off, and squeezes his toothpaste from the bottom. It’s useless information. It’s too personal. You’re pleased to know it.

When you’re ready for bed, you crawl under the sheets and the thick quilt, pulling it close to your chin to block out the cold air. You pull your legs up to your chest in a desperate attempt to keep your body heat trapped around you. Even that’s not enough to keep the chill out. It settles around you like another layer, a bur clinging to your skin.

You roll over on your side, facing Reid now, who’s reading one of his books. It’s leatherbound and expensive looking. He’s wearing his glasses, an endearing sight that you don’t see often due to the nature of your work. He looks at peace, propped up against the wooden headboard, blissfully unaware of your misery.

“Reid, aren’t you cold?” you ask, breaking his concentration.

“A little bit,” he says, licking his lips before he continues. “But I’ve gotten used to it throughout the week.” There’s another pause, this time longer as he turns back to his book. You think that’s the end of it before he marks his place and sets the book to the side.

“You can call me Spencer, if you want. When we’re not on cases that is. You don’t need to be formal. Not with me.” He says it with a blush, his eyes averted. You can't help but bury yourself deeper in your own covers to hide the warmth spreading on your own cheeks.

“Okay,” you say with a wide smile, though this too is hidden. “You can drop the formalities too.” Spencer doesn’t try to hide his smile. The warm light of the lamp spreads across his face, soft like butter and just as sweet.

You quiet down then, allowing him to continue with his reading. Outside the wind picks up and it makes you even colder, though you're not sure if it’s real or in your head. When it gets to be too much, you sit up, wrap the quilt around you. And move to look out the windows. It’s dark now but you can still see the snow falling. It's slower than before but still strong.

“Do you think Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are settling down for the winter too? Do they hide away and rest during storms?”

“Maybe,” Spencer replies. “But it’s not winter quite yet.”

“It feels like it is. It’s cold enough to be.”

It’s unlikely that there is anyone still awake to help get you more blankets. You’re tempted to see if you can find where some are stored, or ask if Prentiss and JJ have any spares, but then you’d have to reveal just how uncomfortable the cold is making you, how it makes your bones ache.

You shut the curtains once more in an attempt to keep as much of the heat in as possible, before jumping the distance into your bed. It’s best to just go to sleep, you decide, or at least to try. You’ll occupy your mind with thoughts of bears made of stars as you rest.

You’re still cold when you finally fall asleep, but you feel content, listening to the turning of pages from Spencer’s side of the room.

You sleep in late, having nowhere to be. When you awaken, Spencer is in the exact same position he was in the night before. The only change is that he’s reading a different book.

“Good morning.” He’s smiling at you again and it makes you giddy. ”Did you sleep well?”

“Mornin’ Spencer,” you mumble, followed by a yawn. He blushes again when you say his name. “It was too cold to sleep well. Did you get any sleep?”

He nods his head, his glasses slipping down his nose a bit when he does so, forcing him to push them back up. You return his smile before standing to get ready for the day, wrapping the quilt around you like it can protect you from the chill of the air. It only helps a little.

Every morning the owners of the inn make breakfast. This was a good thing when you were on the case and a great thing now that you’re trapped. It’s hardy, filling, and most importantly, it’s warm. You hold a mug filled with tea between your hands, wishing you could bottle its heat and keep it by your core while you’re in your room. You can’t do that though. All you can do is appreciate the short reprieve from the constant draft. You try to ask if there are any spare blankets, but the owners are gone before you get the chance.

Being trapped in a small hotel means that there’s not really much to do. The rooms don’t have TVs and there don’t seem to be any board games lying around. It doesn’t take long before people start splitting off to go back to their rooms once more. You linger in the warmth for a while after everyone leaves, but somehow being alone in this strange place seems even colder than the drafty window.

You don’t knock this time, you just enter your room, unsurprised to see Spencer reading once more. He doesn’t look up as you move to your bed, wrapping yourself up in the blankets again.

—♡—

The second night begins a lot like the first. You continue to grow accustomed to each other's constant presence. It doesn’t make your heart pound less when he looks at you, or when he licks his lips before speaking, but it is easier—it feels natural.

Your routines become effortless tonight, having already established them before. Without words you move alongside each other, as though you’ve always shared a room. It’s almost terrifying how easily you fit Spencer into the smallest parts of your life, the way he fits perfectly into your edges, less like pieces of a puzzle and more like a tide pool, water and rock providing the foundation for a whole world to grow. He doesn’t seem to mind.

If you asked Spencer, he’d tell you that you’re just easy to share a room with. He wouldn’t admit to you that being near you makes him feel as though he were lighter, as though the thick book in his hands is the only thing that’s keeping him from drifting up to the ceiling. He wouldn’t admit that he’s delighted that the storm is keeping you so near to him. He most definitely wouldn’t admit to you that he’s the one who asked if Morgan might possibly prefer to room with Garcia, knowing full well that a switch in rooms would mean that you’d be sharing with him. He does, however, feel bad that you seem so affected by the cold room. He doesn’t want you to be uncomfortable.

This time when it’s your turn to shower you keep the temperature as high as it can go without being in pain. No matter how much you try to warm yourself up, your fingers and toes seem to be constantly frozen, even slightly numb. It doesn’t make sense how Spencer found a way to adjust to the low temperature of the room. Your joints and muscles ache, and long healed injuries from old cases seem to be making their presence known once more. It’s miserable. You hate it.

You’ll suck it up if it means getting to be around Spencer, even if it’s only for a night or two more.

“I wish I could hibernate, just like a bear,” you say as you exit the bathroom, feeling even colder now than you were when you went in. That’s the downside to taking such a hot shower. Spencer looks up at you from yet another thick, well loved book before responding.

“Bears don’t actually hibernate. Hibernation is a voluntary reaction by animals to shorter days and decreased temperatures. Torpor, which is the state bears enter, is a lighter sleep-state, which is also impacted by changes of temperature, but is involuntary. Bears can slow their heart rates and metabolic rates, as well as drastically decrease their breathing, in order to enter a hibernation-like state. They can sleep for up to 100 days at a time without eating or drinking when they enter torpor.” Of course Spencer knows about the topic, but you’d never actually heard of torpor before.

“I think people would be happier during the colder months if everyone could get a few more hours of rest each day. Winter is difficult enough to get through as it is.” You huff as you fall back onto your bed, leaning up on your elbows before continuing your thoughts.

“I remember reading picture books about bears in their dens in the winter. They were always drawn with warm beds and steaming cups of tea. Creature comforts, really, and completely inaccurate. But everything is so cold and dark in the Winter. I want to just curl up in a warm den like those beautifully drawn bears and sleep the winter away. I’d miss all of the fun that way though. The beauty of first snows and the frigid joy of a snowball fight. Watching the cold steam of my breath. That wonderful feeling of first entering your home after a long day in the cold. I think I’d be sad missing those.”

Spencer hums in agreement.

“I'd miss seeing you each winter. It would be so dull without you.” Then he stands up, grabbing something from his go-bag. You think maybe the conversation is over, and he’s going to shower now too, but instead of clothes he pulls out a deck of cards. “Do you want to play something?”

“Not poker,” you say and he scrunches his nose in silent protest. “You always cheat!”

“It’s not cheating, it’s just math.”

“Tell that to every casino owner in Vegas. Let’s play old maid.”

“Old maid is for children!” Spencer whines, but he pulls the cards out of their box and begins to shuffle them anyway. He beckons you over to his bed, moving so he’s facing the headboard. You roll yourself up into a burrito with the quilt from your bed, keeping it wrapped tight around your shoulders as you stand.

When you go to settle down near the headboard of Spencer’s bed, he pulls his own quilt over your lap, tucking you in nice and snug. His cheeks ignite as he does so but he ignores it, beginning to deal the cards between the two of you. Your own cheeks are burning just as hot as you both sort out the pairs that you already have in hand. Then the game truly begins.

You’re going to lose. You’re sure of it. Even though you have more pairs than Spencer, and you only have three cards left, you’re going to lose. You stare down at the cards in your hand, a court jester with a jovial smile stares right back, taunting you. It’s Spencer’s turn, but he’s smart enough, and a good enough profiler, to be able to figure out where you’re hiding the joker. But somehow, by some stroke of luck, he grabs the one card he doesn’t want.

“You have the Old Maid,” you say with a laugh. The first card of his you grab matches one of yours, and you set the pair aside. You have two cards to choose from now. Your lucky streak holds, and somehow you manage to win the game.

“Noooooo!” Spencer complains, falling over on his side, squashing pairs of cards beneath him and landing with his head in your quilt covered lap. One of your hands automatically reaches out to run through his unruly hair. “I let you win.”

“Sure you did.” You can’t help but smile down at him, enjoying his childish antics. You’re both quiet for a moment, listening to the soft exhalations of the other in the near silent room. The sound is accompanied only by the quiet hum of the heater as it fails to fight the frigid draft and the soft plunk of snowflakes as the wind blows them into the window panes.

“That feels nice.” Spencer’s eyes slide closed as he whispers the words.

“Does it?”

“Mhmm…” You’re worried he’ll fall asleep like this, but after a while he sits up again. “I want a rematch.”

Before he shuffles the deck again, he pulls the joker out from where he claims it was hidden behind your ear. It’s a silly trick, nothing more than sleight of hand, and he’s done it for you many times before, but it thrills you every time.

You lose yourselves in silly card games, nearly forgetting about the rest of the team, the storm outside, the darkness pressing close to your windows—unable to reach you in the glow of your contentment.

—♡—

You awaken in the middle of the night. Your knees ache no matter what position you leave them in. The cradle of your hips hurts too. All of your muscles are clenched too tight and there’s no way you’ll be able to fall back to sleep like this.

You get up, jumping from your bed a bit before moving over to your go-bag. You try to be quiet as you dig around. The task is made easier by the lamp that Spencer left on when he fell asleep. Last night you thought it had been an accident, or that he simply hadn’t slept. It wouldn’t surprise you if he accidentally fell asleep while reading. You could imagine the way his blinking would grow slower, eyes taking longer to open once more. His glasses would slide down the slope of his nose but he would be too stubborn to take them off, to get the sleep he desperately needs.

But now, in the low light of the lamp, you can see the book he was reading placed on the nightstand, his glasses folded neatly on top of the cover. His sleeping form is mostly covered by his own quilt but you can see a hint of the soft fabric of the tee shirt he wears to sleep poking out from beneath the thick blanket.

Apparently you weren’t digging through your bag as quietly as you thought, because Spencer stirs awake before you can grab another sweater to put on over your other layers.

“Are you alright?” he asks, voice thick with sleep and dripping with concern. You feel warm then, almost not needing the sweater you grabbed as your stomach flips with embarrassment… and something else. You don’t have time to process the way he makes you feel.

You wish that you could play dead, just like a possum.

“I’m just getting a sweater.” You rush to your bed again, jumping before you get too close and bouncing back towards your pillow. Your sweater is cold from being so close to the windows, so you decide to tuck it under the quilt next to you until your body can warm it up enough to be able to wear it without freezing even more.

“I think it’s colder tonight,” he says. You hope it’s not, but you know he’s probably right.

“Do you always sleep with the light on?” you ask, not wanting to think about the cold anymore than you already have.

“I’m sorry if it bothers you.” He whispers the next part, “I’m afraid of the dark.” He diverts his eyes as if to avoid your judgement, but how could you judge him for something so natural?

“Every time I get into bed I have to jump from a safe distance. Even though I know there’s nothing under it, I’m afraid something hiding underneath will reach out and grab me if given the chance. I’m certain that the one time I don’t jump will be the one time I get pulled under.” He smiles a bit at your admission.

“Really?”

“Really. So we’ll keep the light on, if that’s what you need to feel comfortable, to feel safe.”

“Thank you.” It’s all he can think of to say. After a moment, he scooches backwards to one side of his bed, pulling the covers back slightly.

“Do you want to…” he trails off. “It might be warmer if we…” You slip out from under your covers, before making your way across the small gap between your beds and hopping onto the edge of his. The beds are doubles, meaning you’ll both fit, but there won’t be much space between you.

As you shift to get comfortable he wraps the covers over you, engulfing you with the heat of him despite the small space in the middle of the bed, which still somehow manages to feel vast, as if it were the Bering Strait between you, when you want nothing more than to be curled up against him. He feels like summer—like sunlight filtered through dancing leaves; like quiet music spilling out an open window; like mulberries picked straight from the tree, flingers stained purple as a reminder of their tart taste long after you’ve eaten your fill.

As you warm up you begin to relax, ice melting into a puddle spreading across the surface of the bed. Your legs extend, almost touching his, and your muscles begin to unclench. The ache you’ve been feeling all over your body eases as the tension dissipates. One of your arms comes to lie between you and Spencer, your hand resting palm up. He reaches out for it, causing the ocean between you to evaporate. His thumb traces gently over your heart line, back and forth, intending to sooth. He smiles at you then—no show of teeth, just a slight stretch of lips.

—♡—

You awake to the sound of knocking. To shuffling feet. To quiet whispers. It takes you a moment to be aware enough to focus on the hushed conversation at the door. Next to you a clock flashes the time, 4:18 AM. Hotch is the one at the door but even as your mind grows less hazy from the fog of sleep, they’re still speaking too quietly for you to hear.

Spencer shuts the door before shuffling slowly back to the bed. You watch him the entire way, neither of you speaking. He crawls back under the covers, pulling you closer as he gets situated. There’s no longer any space between you.

As you quickly drift back to sleep, content with the thought that there is nothing truly wrong, you feel something brush lightly across your forehead. You wonder if maybe it’s Spencer’s lips, but you fall asleep too quickly to think about it.

—♡—

In your dreams you dance on top of storm clouds, far above the frost and wind. There’s no skill to it but that doesn’t matter. Two bears made of stars run through the light speckled sky above you.

—♡—

There’s another knock at the door. It feels like only moments later, but in reality several hours have passed. Once again Spencer is the one to answer the door, his sleep-addled brain more capable of functioning than yours even though he also only just woke up. Maybe functioning so early in the morning is one of the perks of being a genius.

It’s Hotch again, the owners of the inn are with him. They don’t speak as long this time, but no one leaves the doorway after the conversation ends. Spencer comes over to where you lie, the bed dipping down where he perches on it. He presses his palm to your cheek just enough to draw your attention to him.

“They’re changing our room,” he murmurs. “The new one won't be so cold.”

You sit up and watch as he begins to shuffle around the room, packing things into his go-bag as he moves. When he sees you, unmoving, sitting there wrapped in blankets still warm with the heat of him, he quietly urges you to pack as well, nudging you from the bed. It doesn’t take long to gather all of your things, a side effect of spending so much of your life living out of a duffle bag. As you leave the room the owners collect your keys, one moving into the room you vacated while the other guides you down the hall.

The new room looks exactly the same as the other, but this one doesn’t have a draft. It’s warm, comfortable. It means that any excuse you and Spencer both had to be so near one another has been taken away. You will have to bear your hearts now if you want to stay so close to each other. You both desperately want to stay close.

“Hotch says the storm should have completely passed, but we won’t be able to leave until tomorrow when all of the roads are fully cleared.” Spencer begins removing the few items he needs from his bag once more. “We’ll stay here tonight.”

It’s too late now to be able to go back to sleep, and too early in the day to justify staying in the room until the next morning. Instead, you choose to wander, exploring the secrets of the inn. Spencer follows close behind you, not wanting to leave your side but not wanting to push your boundaries.

There’s really not much to see, a few photographs, some generic landscape paintings, and the occasional spot of carpet worn thin with age. In the lobby you run into Prentiss and Garcia, the pair sitting on the couches and chatting idly. Boredom, it seems, is a strong motivator for change.

A fire crackles before the couch, warming the room and filling the air with the earthy scent of wood smoke. You’re calmer now, not so desperate to leave. It can be so easy to feel like maybe people don’t want you, like your own body doesn’t want you. But here, surrounded by the laughter of your team mates, you’re reminded of how much the winter has to offer. If you hadn’t been stuck here for so long you wouldn’t have been able to share such a slow and wonderful moment of life. How easily things can shift for the better.

Outside the storm has moved on, leaving behind clear skies and the hints of a dying fire sinking below the mountains on the horizon. The snow is piled higher than you expected, but not so high that you’ll remain trapped. Coming or going, staying or leaving, the choice is yours.

“Do you think there are rivers in the mountains flowing crisp and blue from the cold of the storm?” you ask no one in particular. There’s quiet for a moment as the other’s gaze out the window as well, before returning their attention to the comfort of the room. It’s warm in here, after all, nothing like the world beyond.

Nightfall comes with the reminder of another choice. You and Spencer don’t speak, afraid of what will happen if you do. Will the words that tumble out build or break? Will they be kind or cruel? You keep up the pretense of your new routine. Even when the air feels so heavy in your lungs you still find a way to fit easily into each other’s lives.

When you finish preparing for bed and you come out of the bathroom, you see Spencer scrolling on his phone, a rare sight to see. He’s sitting up, propped against the headboard, on the far side of the bed. He has the covers pulled up to his waist, but beside him they’re pulled back. It’s a silent invitation, an opportunity to refuse without being asked and without saying no.

You step between the beds and hop slightly onto the edge of his, before shifting around so you can slip under the blankets as well. Spencer doesn’t look at you, but his eyes light up, and he can’t help the slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips. You choose him. How could you ever choose differently?

“You’ll stay?” he asks, voice trembling slightly, as if he’s afraid that you’ll change your mind.

“I’ll stay.” you say, more sure of this than any decision before.

As soon as you plop down on the bed beside him, Spencer pulls you in close. He presses a kiss to your forehead, this time you’re sure of it, and you return the gesture by pressing your lips to his cheek. You tangle your legs together, your fingers as well, tying yourself up in his body and moving as close as you can possibly get to him.

Tomorrow morning you’ll leave, but you won’t leave unchanged. You’ll go home to the pumpkins, the cinnamon, the jewel tones of autumn leaves. It won’t be winter, but the days will grow shorter and soon enough snow will fall there too. Some days will pass quickly in a flurry of laughter and frost, some days you’ll wonder if the sun will ever return, but through it all you’ll always choose Spencer. And you’ll know that during the fluctuations of hurt, of joy, of stagnation, and regrowth, it was worth it to stay. Through it all you’ll know that he chooses you as well.

#made with love not with skill #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x bau!reader #fics

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