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moonsandmobilityaids · 2 months ago

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Muggle Pills

Pairings: Poly!marauders x disabled!reader Summary: The boys learn what your pills do. Warnings: Mentions of seizures, depression and suicidal thoughts Series Masterlist

You sit cross-legged on the plush carpet of your bedroom floor, a small pile of pill boxes scattered around you. Your fingers move with practiced ease as you sort the pills into their respective compartments in a weekly divider—Monday through Sunday, morning, noon, and night.

It's a routine task, one that offers a strange sense of solace amidst the chaos of everything else. Plus, it saves you from the struggle of prying open blister packs every day.

Around you, the Marauders lounge about as if this were any other lazy afternoon. Sirius flips idly through a Quidditch magazine, his brows furrowing at an article about the latest racing broom. James lies sprawled out across your bed, tossing a Quaffle up and down while he debates strategy. Remus sits quietly in a corner, engrossed in a book, a sliver of sunlight illuminating the dust motes dancing around him. Your room has become their second home, just as comfortable and familiar as their dormitory.

They've grown accustomed to these quiet moments together, each occupied with their own thoughts or interests. And yet today, something shifts. A question hangs in the air, unspoken but palpable.

James is the first to break the silence, his voice cutting through the soft hum of activity. "Y/N?" He pauses, catching himself before the words tumble out unchecked. His gaze flickers over to where you sit, still dividing your medication for the week ahead. "Why... why do you take all those? Like, on top of the potions?"

For a moment, time seems to stretch thin, the seconds elongating as you weigh your answer. They've seen you like this before—pills in hand, water glass nearby—but never asked. Not until now. Something about the directness of the question gives you pause, but then you realize: they deserve to know. Especially now, when lines have blurred and friendships have blossomed into something more intimate, more profound.

"Right," you begin, letting out a breath you didn't realize you'd been holding. Your fingers trace the edge of the first pill box—a small, round tablet that's more crucial to your daily life than any potion or spell could ever be. "This one is for my blood pressure."

James, Sirius and Remus lean in closer, their attention rapt despite the seemingly mundane topic. The significance isn't lost on them; every detail about you feels important now, woven into the fabric of their care.

"It's always been too low," you explain, eyes downcast as if you're sharing some great secret. Perhaps it is, in its own way. An admission of frailty, of the battle you wage within your body each day. "If I don't take this, I get dizzy... faint sometimes."

A flicker of understanding passes across James's face, then Sirius's. They've seen you like that before, pale and unsteady in the corridors during your early years at Hogwarts. At the time, they'd chalked it up to nerves or fatigue—anything but a chronic condition. But now...

"Wait," Sirius says, his voice rough with concern. "Are those fainting spells why you had to go back to the hospital wing so often?"

You nod, a hint of relief washing over you. It's easier than you thought it would be, opening up about this part of your life. Maybe because they listen without judgement, accepting each revelation as another piece of the puzzle that is you.

"Yes. That was before I started taking this," you say, tapping the pill box lightly.

Sirius leans back slightly, processing this new information with a furrowed brow. He opens his mouth to speak again, but Remus beats him to it.

"Do you still feel like you might pass out even with the medication?" His tone is gentle yet probing, respectful of your boundaries but curious all the same.

"Sometimes." You shrug, trying to downplay the gravity of what living with such unpredictability means. "But it's better than before."

Remus nods, storing away this tidbit of knowledge like he does with everything else. He understands, perhaps better than anyone, what it means to navigate the world with a body that doesn't quite cooperate. And while your experiences are vastly different, there's a silent kinship in shared struggle—a bond forged through resilience and endurance.

"Next is this one." Your fingers move to a different compartment, closing around another pill. "It's for my heart rate."

Their brows furrow almost in unison, confusion etching lines across their young faces. You suppose it must be strange for them, hearing about the inner workings of your body when all they've ever known are charms and potions, Quidditch injuries and common colds.

"But isn't that connected to your blood pressure?" James asks, his forehead creased as he tries to make sense of it all.

"In a way, yes," you explain, appreciating his attempt to understand. "But while the first medication helps raise my blood pressure, this one keeps my resting heart rate from getting too high."

"That doesn't sound pleasant," Sirius chimes in, leaning back against the couch with a sigh. Although he's always been more comfortable with banter than serious conversations, there's an earnestness in his expression that speaks volumes about how much he cares.

"It's not something I feel most of the time," you admit, setting the second pill aside. "I don't really notice unless I forget to take it or if I'm especially stressed out. But without it, my heart behaves like I'm running even when I'm sitting still."

You let the implication hang in the air, a testament to the silent battles waged beneath your skin. A hush falls over the room, punctuated only by the occasional crackle of the fire. The boys exchange glances, each processing your revelation in their own way. From the corner of your eye, you see James run a hand through his already messy hair, a gesture betraying his unease.

"I remember once," you begin again, your voice barely above a whisper, "I got a concussion in school, no big deal but headed the A&E to be checked out, and I ended up being admitted because my heart rate was over 180 beats per minute and wouldn't come down. They were so alarmed, kept asking me if I felt okay..."

The memory is vivid, etched into your mind with sharp clarity. The steady beep of monitors, the worried faces of doctors—reminders of just how fragile human bodies can be.

"And did you?" Sirius interrupts, his grey eyes reflecting the flickering flames.

"Did I what?"

"Feel okay? Or were you..." He trails off, unable to finish the sentence. It's clear to see why; the notion of such turmoil within you, unbeknownst to them until now, is unsettling to say the least.

"I mean, my head was killing me but otherwise, I felt fine," you state, "but that doesn't mean it's safe to ignore."

There's a pause as they digest your words, the gravity of what you're sharing settling heavy in the silence. Remus shifts slightly beside you, his gaze thoughtful. As ever, he seems to carry an understanding beyond his years—a quiet wisdom born from living in the shadows.

"When we were in the hospital wing together in first and second year—you know, after the full moon and your... episodes," he begins cautiously, mindful of the delicate territory he's treading on. "Was this part of it? Your heart thing?"

You shake your head, offering him a small smile. "While I did have the heart rate as a problem, that's not why I was there."

Remus nods slowly, absorbing this new information. His brow furrows, not in judgement but in concern—a silent question lingering behind his amber eyes. How much more is there to learn?

"Right," you say, moving on to the next pill. It's a small orange capsule and looks innocuous enough, but its role is no less vital than the others. "This one's for my epilepsy."

"Epilepsy?" James blurts out, his eyes widening at the revelation.

The room goes quiet, save for the crackling of the fire in the background. Sirius and James exchange glances, their expressions mirroring the unease that hangs in the air.

You nod, acknowledging his surprise with a wry smile. "It helps prevent seizures. But it's not foolproof. I regularly have atonic seizures still, they only last a few seconds and nothing needs to be done with those. I don't really have big ones anymore, but when I get sick or stressed—or before I got my implant, when I had my period—I can still have them."

"How long have you..." James starts, then clears his throat, struggling to find the right words. "How long have you had epilepsy?"

"Basically my whole life," you answer simply. "But it's mostly managed now. The stress of exams and assignments can trigger the big seizures sometimes, but most people don't notice."

Sirius frowns, running a hand through his hair. "Have you had any since getting with us?"

"I mean, I've had little ones but not any big ones." You reach over to squeeze his hand reassuringly before letting go. "But during last year, I did have several because of the stress of OWLs."

His grip tightens around yours, concern etched into every line of his face. It's strange, seeing Sirius so unguarded, his usual bravado replaced by raw vulnerability. But then again, nothing about this situation is ordinary.

"You never told us," James says quietly, meeting your gaze with an intensity that leaves no room for doubt. He's not accusing, merely stating a fact—one that seems unthinkable given how close you all are.

"I didn't want to worry you, you were just my friends then," you admit, looking down at your hands. "Besides, you three were so focused on your own exams. You wouldn't have noticed even if you tried."

There's truth to your words, but they do little to ease the guilt that flashes across James's features, and Sirius remains silent, his grey eyes clouded with thought. Both boys are processing this new information, trying to reconcile the image of you—a force of nature, unbowed despite everything—with the reality of your condition.

Remus, who has been listening silently, finally speaks up. "I remember... those nights in the hospital wing when we were younger. I'd be in there because of the full moon, you'd be there because of a seizure…"

"Or worse," you say, almost to yourself. "To be honest, I was also there because no one trusted that I wouldn't try to kill myself, and no healer or doctor would give an 11-year-old birth control for their PMDD. I got the implant at 14, and the seizures went away with my period, as did the temptation to kill myself."

James blinks, stunned into silence. "I never knew any of this," he says at last, his voice barely above a whisper.

"By the time we became proper friends, I already had the implant. There was no reason to tell you about something that was no longer a problem." You give him a reassuring smile.

James nods slowly, although the concern has not entirely left his eyes. Sirius, too, seems pensive as he stares into the fireplace, blowing out a slow breath. Only Remus appears unchanged, his expression calm and thoughtful, as if the revelations were expected.

"Right," you say, taking a deep breath as you reach for the final pill box, a small white container that holds a different kind of lifeline. "This one's my antidepressant."

The change in atmosphere is almost palpable as James and Sirius stiffen beside you. Remus, ever the stoic observer, merely watches.

"Is that... because of everything else?" asks Sirius tentatively, his grey eyes searching yours for answers. You can tell he's treading carefully now, aware that this conversation has ventured into territory far more delicate than any duel or prank gone wrong.

"Yeah," you reply, letting out a long exhale. "It helps manage the lows, but it's not foolproof. Nothing really is."

James's thumb brushes over the back of your hand, tracing patterns there as if trying to will away the pain etched between your words. He doesn't speak, but his silence carries its own weight, heavy with understanding.

"You're not always..." James starts, then stops, uncertain how to phrase his question without sounding insensitive.

"Depressed?" you finish for him, offering a wry smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes. "Not always, no. But when I am... well, let's just say it's better for everyone involved that I have these."

Your fingers tap against the pill bottle, the sound echoing lightly through the room.

A moment passes before Sirius breaks the silence. "And do they work? The pills, I mean." There's a hopeful note to his voice, laced with a quiet desperation that mirrors the way his eyes never leave your face.

"For the most part," you admit. "But like I said, they're not perfect. They help keep things under control, but they don't make my symptoms go away entirely. And some days are harder than others."

You pause, considering how best to explain what living with depression feels like—the relentless heaviness that often threatens to pull you under despite the medication designed to keep you afloat.

"It's like walking through a storm," you say finally. "Most days, the meds are like a good coat—they keep the worst of the rain off. But sometimes the storm gets too strong, and all the coat can do is stop you from getting completely soaked."

"Merlin," James breathes, running a hand through his hair as he processes your words. "Have you been dealing with all this since..."

"Birth?" you supply, nodding once. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Since you were a baby?" Sirius asks, his voice rough with disbelief. "How long have you been taking all these pills?"

"I was little when I was put on the epilepsy meds," you admit, "but the others were added as new conditions developed."

"And what happens if you forget to take one?" James's tone is gentle, but there's an underlying urgency that betrays his worry. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Well, missing a dose here and there isn't the end of the world, usually." You shrug, trying to make light of it, though the truth is more complex. "But if I go too long without them... Let's just say it can lead to some serious complications."

Remus watches you, his gaze steady and thoughtful. "It must be exhausting," he says quietly, "keeping track of all this, making sure you're always taking the right thing at the right time. Especially with the potions you use for your pain."

"It's a lot," you agree, not seeing any point in denying it. "But the alternative..." Your voice trails off as you picture yourself without the medication: the pain, the fatigue, the despair. "Let's just say I'm grateful for muggle and wizarding medicine, even if it doesn't fix everything."

The words hang heavy in the air, a quiet echo of your confession ringing in the stillness of the room. The boys sit with straight spines and furrowed brows, each processing what you've just shared in their own way. For a moment, no one speaks, the silence filled only by the crackling fire and the soft patter of rain against the window.

The world of pills and doctors is foreign to them, so far removed from the magical healing they know. They are warriors in their own right, but this is a battle they do not understand, cannot see. It's in the lines that etch deeper into Sirius' forehead, the way his fists clench at his sides—not with anger towards you, but with a burning frustration for an enemy he cannot confront.

"I can't believe we didn't know," James finally breaks the silence, his voice barely above a whisper. It's not an accusation, merely a statement laced with self-reproach. But there's no need for you to respond; the truth of it hangs in the air around you. How could they have known? You've become a master at concealing the extent of your pain, hiding behind masks of normalcy even when your body screamed otherwise.

Sirius shifts slightly, and his voice is quiet when he finally breaks the silence, a note of confusion threading through the words.

"Why didn't you say something before?" It's not an accusation, just a question born from concern and a hint of hurt. Sirius has never liked being left in the dark, especially when it comes to those he cares about.

"I didn't want to worry you," your voice barely rises above a whisper, carrying with it a weight that sinks into the silence of the room. "And knowing doesn't change anything." You glance at them, each face mirroring the gravity of your confession. "It's not like any of you can fix it."

James looks as if he wants to argue, to insist that there must be something they can do. But he remains silent, understanding—for now—the boundaries you've put in place. Relief briefly washes over you, even as you see the frustration flicker in his hazel eyes. James has always been a man of action, someone who leaps forward to shield those he loves from harm. To know there's a wound he can't mend must feel like salt on an open cut.

"I don't need you to fix it," you say gently, guessing his thoughts. "I just need you to understand."

Remus nods, his face softening as he speaks for the first time in a while. "And we do," he says quietly, his voice calm and reassuring. "Or at least, we're starting to."

There's a pause as the four of you absorb this shared understanding, a quiet acknowledgement that hangs in the air like a promise. You can almost feel the shift in the room, tangible and real, a subtle strengthening of the bonds between you. They may not fully comprehend your reality, but they're reaching out, trying to bridge the gap. And for now, at least, it's enough.

The fire dances in the hearth, painting the room with flickering shadows and bathing you all in its comforting glow. For a moment, everything else falls away, leaving only the crackling flames, the soft murmur of conversation, and the sense of peace that seems to settle over the world outside.

You finish sorting your pills into their designated compartments, the rhythm of the task grounding you. The lid of the weekly pill organizer closes with a satisfying click, a small victory against the chaos that often threatens to consume you. It’s a simple act, but in these uncertain times, even the smallest semblance of control is a lifeline.

James, ever the man of action even in stillness, shifts on the bed, leaning closer. His voice is a low rumble, steady and sure. "You know we're here, right?" It's not just a question—it's a tether, a lifeline thrown out to you in the darkness. And it's a promise, one that James Potter has every intention of keeping.

Sirius doesn't let himself be left behind, his own hand reaching out to touch yours lightly. There's something almost reverent in the gesture, as if he's afraid you'll shatter at a heavier touch. "We're not going anywhere." The words hang in the air, solidifying into a pact made of iron will and unyielding loyalty. His grey eyes are hard with resolve, the decision made long before the words had even left his lips: He will stay by your side, through this and whatever comes next.

Remus doesn't say anything more, but the silence that stretches between you is far from empty. His gaze never wavers, each exhale a testament to the quiet vigil he keeps. He understands, perhaps better than anyone, the battles waged in silence, the wars fought within oneself. And though he doesn't speak, his presence is a constant reassurance—there, always there, offering strength when yours threatens to wane.

#james potter x reader #remus lupin x reader #sirius black x reader #poly!marauders x reader #poly!marauders x you #marauders era #marauders fanfic #marauders fanfiction #moonsandmobilityaids

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canmom · 10 days 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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shady-tavern · 4 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 · 3 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 · 9 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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tenebraevesper · 6 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.

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anukulee · 2 years ago

Text

Surprise (pt 1)

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A/N: I will warn you the relationship protrayed here isn't the most healthy relationship. I wouldn't make this to be a role model relationship since some it honestly may scream red flags. Not because Loki abuses her or she abuses him in any way just how stubborn these two can be and how angry filled it can get. So be warned this isn't a fluff relationship nor my happy bickering couples but a couple who does bicker but can be far more angry then usual.

Loki god of mischief had a nasty habit of faking his death in order to get out of situations especially when it came in regards to his enemies. He had been in the mess of dealing with a particularly pesky one, when he thought what better way but to fake his death, so he could regroup. An idea he had failed to mention to anyone before doing so, as this itself would lead into trouble....

The last thing Loki remembered was being pulled into a bag, this was a feat that was uncommon, for being to sneak up on Loki of all people was something that very few could tell at least while living. Before Loki could even attempt to summon his daggers he was already pulled into a bag, and was soon faced with only darkness. Loki had assumed it had been his most recent enemy, so when Loki allowed his eyes to flutter upon he found himself tied up in chains he wasn't surprised. While some would panic at the idea of being chained up. This wasn't the first time Loki had been chained up, after all being the god of mischief Loki was quite familar with chains in both mischief and other times. But that was neither here or there first thing he needed to do was figure out where he was and who had him. As Loki tried to think through his list of many enemies elimating the ones who were no longer with them including Thanos, and a few others who had attempted unspeakable things. Including trying to pull off being the god of mischief. Loki hadn't been thinking long when the door opened, and rather be faced with an enemy Loki was faced with someone unexpected. As he allowed his features to form into a grin.

"Surprise," was the first thing that Loki uttered upon Iris entrance into the room. The first thing he felt through was something being tossed at his head, the first thing he saw aside from an item being tossed at his head was the look that Iris wore could rival even his, as her eyes seemed to almost glow, the same eyes that would glow so happily were now glaring daggers at him. The brows that he loved to kiss while she was frustrated as she would somtimes try to swat him off as she insisted that this was a serious discussion. Yet with each word she would utter he would plant another kiss on her brows. Yet rather then the bit of her eyes holding amusement and even fondness, her eyes were still pointing daggers at him, as her brows were very much up.

"What the norns Laufeyson," Iris uttered her voice almost growling at the words. Upon hearing this Loki winched a little knowing he was in some real deep trouble. For as long as he had known her, she never called him Odinson, as he prefered to take Frigga's name, yet in anger she would his biological name as another way to show how unamused at him she was. Loki knew if Iris was using Laufey's name that she was beyond angry. Loki tried to think of a solution with his usual silver tongue. Yet he didn't have much time before Iris had something else to say. "I swear if you try to excuse yourself, so help me. I will have Strange drop you in a portal again."

Loki took this moment to let out a light chuckle something that wasn't the best move given the gravity of what was happening. "As if that second rate wizard could."

"He did it before, and I am sure he wouldn't mind doing it again."

"Because he got lucky that's all," Loki said his words only making things worse.

As the daggers Iris was giving only seemed to get deadlier. "If you are so confident then you wouldn't mind me roping in Wanda to help."

"So what as if Maximoff couldn't hold me down for long. Not before I get out of these." Loki thrusting his chest showing off his chains.

"She won't be the only one through."

"While you are strong not even you could hold me down long enough for you to find somewhere to daggle me."

"Perhaps, but with me and Wanda holding you down. Then Strange could easily drop you through a portal. Or if you would prefer being daggled that would work too."

"With whose help last I checked the wizard, Maximoff, and you aren't able to mutitask when focused on one thing."

"You honestly would underestimate me darling of all people?"

"I never said that I just think you maybe over estimating our allies skills."

"I am perfectly aware of our allies skills. So aware that I am sure Peter could string me up a nice bit of web to hold you over, all chained up, and as mentioned before you could be dropped and left to fall."

"And the other option if I choose not to take it?"

"Simple we could leave you to daggle for a nice long while."

"You wouldn't. My brother wouldn't allow me to daggle for so long," Loki protested, as he was quickly running out of options. Thor was very much his last resort other then Iris. For whenever Thor found out Loki used him he would bring Loki into his arms and give him a bone crushing bear hug stating I love you too brother. The bruises that were left on Loki from the tightness of Thor's squeeze were ones that lasted at least a day. For when it came to Loki, Thor seemed to forget his strength with all the time spent around humans.

"Already using Thor? You must be truly desperate to already be on him."

"Who says I am? After all he is my brother."

"Yes, but as you say adoptive."

"We may not be related by blood, but that doesn't mean he isn't my brother."

"How convinent that you use that card on me now."

"Card I don't know what you are talking about darling?"

"Don't you?"

"No, I think in my absence you have become delirious."

"Well if I am so delusional I am sure you wouldn't mind Thor leaving Stormbreak with you for a little while at least until I become less delirious. Remember how heavy Mjolnir was? Now imagine that but at least double. But since I am so delirious I suppose Thor can handle your punishment while I recover."

"Why would that happen," Loki asked as he began to get nervous over the thought of Stormbreak on his chest. While Loki was a man who feared few things the list of things he disliked, through topping the list was handling Stormbreak, and falling through one of Strange portals.

"Because if you recall last time you choose to fake your death without telling us Thor said that he would be in charge of your punishent next time around. So since I am so delirious then your brother can handle your punishment. But not to worry it wouldn't be that bad."

"You wouldn't," Loki uttered as he tried to move, but it was then when Loki was reminded he was in chains. Making his movement very much restricted. As he fall flat upon his face upon moving.

Upon hearing this Iris edged closer as she brought Loki's chair up as her eyes now met his. "Try me."

"Fine, I give what do you want?"

"Maybe a little warning next time you decided to fake your death."

"I didn't think of that."

"Clearly always so perceptive of everyone else."

"Well darling I did have so matters to handle."

Hearing this didn't seem to calm Iris now in fact it only served to make her mood worse."Speak of those matters when the hela were you going to tell me that you had a problem?!"

"After I handled it of course."

"YOU MEAN AFTER YOU CHOOSE TO FAKE YOUR DEATH AGAIN!" Iris voice was very much raised as with each word Loki said only seemed to make things worse and anger Iris more. Reminding Loki of why she was named goddess angry, rage, and revenge. As her wrath rivaled even the gods especially in matters concerning Loki. It had been such a thing that even Odin was in awe of how much anger one mortal could direct. Her powers were ones while rooted in psychic like Maximoff couldn't extend to as much chaos as Wanda's could. Through it didn't mean that Iris was weak by any means, for Iris was far darker then Wanda, it was often Iris who would people up and tossing them if need be, even going so far as to invaiding their minds further then Wanda would. If need be she could inflict far more damage in the mind rather then just scratch the surface as Wanda was. The reason for this despite her being a little younger then Wanda, Iris trained more intensely in Hydra methods, extending both her powers uses, not to mention she was taken at least six months to a year after Wanda and Pietro escaped.

"Would it help if I told you I was going to tell you....," Loki said unable to finish before Iris had something else.

"If you say after I swear to Hela, her rage won't compare to mine. So if I were you rather then talk I would shut up for once and listen."

"Shutting up," Loki said not wanting to provake Iris even further.

"While I am very still much angry you faked your death again. I am choosing to ignore that due to the fact you wouldn't tell me your damn wife of any of it choosing to hide it instead like a coward."

Hearing the word coward sent something in Loki almost like a survial instinct from the years of facing Odin wrath. Despite their many squablings, bickering matches, and fights they had never been like this. Despite both Loki and Iris being the two most stubborn people alive it was never this much. Due to Loki usually giving Iris a heads up before doing so. This time hadn't been like that through. "Coward me?"

"Yes."

"SAY THAT AGAIN," Loki nearly growled. Rather then thinking this through Iris didn't, she was made the goddess of rage for a reason.

"GLADLY COWARD!"

"SO THAT'S THE WAY IT'S GOING TO BE!"

"YES!"

"GOOD BECAUSE I WILL SHOW YOU I AM NO COWARD," Loki growled as he figeted with his restraints.

"GO RIGHT AHEAD BECAUSE TO ME SOMEONE WHO WASN'T A COWARD WOULDN'T MAKE THEIR WIFE WORRIED SICK ABOUT WHETHER THEY WERE ALIVE OR NOT! TIME AFTER TIME! SOMEONE WHO WASN'T A COWARD WOULDN'T HAVE TO FAKE THEIR DEATH ALL THE TIME! LEAVING THE WIFE TO DEAL WITH THEIR MESS! AND MOST OF ALL IF THEY DID THEY WOULD AT LEAST TELL THEIR WIFE WHAT'S GOIN ON RATHER THEN LEAVE HER TO MOURN HIM! UNTIL THEY FIND OUT FROM THEIR SISTER IN LAW AND HEIMDALL THAT YOU NEVER DIED! SERIOUSLY DON'T YOU GET HOW HEARTBROKEN I WAS WHEN I HEARD THE NEWS ONLY TO FIND OUT YOU HAD FAKED YOUR DEATH YET AGAIN!?!?!?"

As Loki tried to get out of his restraints, Iris kept glaring daggers at him. Through upon hearing what Iris had to say Loki wasn't one to let quiet overtake anything even a fight. As he tried to do two things at once. "WELL MAYBE I DID THAT SO I WOULDN'T WORRY YOU SO SOON AFTER OUR MARRIAGE!"

"YOU ACT AS IF YOU DON'T WORRY ME EVERYDAY!"

"WHY I AM A GOD I CAN HANDLE MYSELF!"

"I KNOW BUT WHAT IF ONE DAY THEY GET CLOSE LIKE THANOS DID!?! WHAT IF YOU HADN'T MANAGED TO STALL HIM OR ONE OF STRANGE VISIONS CAME TRUE AND YOU DIED?!"

"BUT THEY DIDN'T NOT WITH THANOS AND NOT THIS TIME EITHER! SO I DON'T SEE THE PROBLEM!"

"OF COURSE YOU DON'T BECAUSE YOU ARE USE TO BEING A GOD, BUT I AM NOT! WHAT IF IT HAPPENED ON A DIFFENT DAY?! WHAT IF THEY KNEW YOU WEREN'T DEAD!? WHAT IF WE COULDN'T HANDLE THEM?! IF YOU CHANGE ANYTHING WOULD YOU HAVE STILL LIVED THIS TIME?!?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" "EXCATLY YOU DON'T KNOW YOU MAYBE A GOD BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU ARE INVINSABLE! YOU CAN STILL DIE IN BATTLE IF YOU HIT HARD ENOUGH!"

"I WOULDN'T HAVE LET THEM GET THAT FAR!"

"SO YOU CLAIM BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE AS STRONG AT HELA!?! WHEN YOU WENT TO SEEK HER WHILE ODIN WAS IN ODIN SLEEP, SHE BROKE MJOLNIR AS IF IT WAS NOTHING!"

"SHE GOT LUCKY BECAUSE WE DIDN'T KNOW HER STRENGTH!"

"AND WHAT IF THEY GET AS LUCKY?! WHAT WILL YOU DO THEN? YOU CAN'T FAKE YOUR DEATH FOREVER!"

"I WILL FIGURE IT OUT!"

"WILL YOU TELL ME OR WILL YOU LEAVE ME TO WORRY AGAIN!" "I DON'T WHY YOU ARE ACTING THIS WAY YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GETTING INTO WHEN YOU MARRIED ME!"

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT IS WHY I AM WORRIED!" "WHY?!" "BECAUSE IF YOU DIE WHAT DO I DO?! JUST LIVE AS A GODDESS FOR 5,000 YEARS WITHOUT MY HUSBAND AND THE REASON I BECAME A GODDESS?!"

"I WOULDN'T DO THAT TO YOU!"

"BECAUSE YOU CAN CONTROL WHAT THE FATES HAVE IN STORE FOR YOU!" "NO BUT..." "BUT NOTHING! THIS IS WHAT I MEAN YOU WOULD RATHER FIGURE OUT EXCUSES THEN TALK TO ME! AND I AM DONE WITH IT FIGURE OUT YOUR OWN STUFF BECAUSE YOU MAY NOT HAVE ME TO DEAL WITH ANYMORE!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!" "I MEAN YOU MAY NOT HAVE A WIFE TO COME BACK TO AT THE END OF THIS!" "YOU WOULD LEAVE ME?!" "I WOULD PREFER NOT TO WORRY MYSELF TO DEATH SO IF THAT IS WHAT IT WILL TAKE SO BE IT!"

Loki had been wanting to ask for help to get out of this but seeing how angry she was it may not be the best idea to do it. "I..."

"I NOTHING! AND YOU WILL NOT ASK ME FOR HELP BECAUSE I AM NOT GIVING IT NOT THIS TIME! NOW IF YOU DON'T MIND I WOULD RATHER NOT SEE YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW! COME FIND ME WHEN YOU ARE WANT TO FIGURE THIS OUT BECAUSE I AM NOT DOING IT THIS TIME," Iris cried as she used the door and slammed it shut on her way out as the door went off it's handles. Leaving Loki to try and wiggle out of his restraints for who knows how long. After what felt like forever the fates decided to taught Loki as soon Tony choose to walk in. Despite Tony's and Loki relationship improving since New York he still managed to push Loki's buttons like no other. While Loki found it very attractive on his wife, with Tony it was far more annoying then even attractive.

"Stark," Loki said allowing the name to slip from his lips. As he tried to get himself up and look as if he wasn't struggling mere moments before.

"Nice to see you too reindeer games. Trouble in pardise I see?"

"Shouldn't you be up with your wife and child rather then here?"

"I thought I should pay a visit to everyone before our next get together."

"Then shouldn't you be finding someone else aside me to visit?"

"Perhaps but they wouldn't be as fun as you reindeer games."

"I wear horns one time and I never hear the end of it."

"Still trying to change the subject I see."

"Says who?"

"Me because unlike you I am not in a fight with my wife."

"Who said we were in a fight?"

"Strange when he called me to report that someone recently visited his Sanctorum to go somewhere else."

"So what it could be some else."

"So anyone could look excatly like your wife? My my reindeer games," Tony said as a smirk began to cross his features only serving to annoy Loki even further.

"Fine, if you insist on pestering then I will say Iris and I are having some diffculties."

"Oh now was that so hard?"

An animalistic growl escaped Loki lips one that would be far more threatening if he wasn't occupied by the chains around him. "Say another word Stark and..."

"What you will have my head, or my suit perhaps? We've been through this before so why not skip the bickering and get to it already?"

"You are being quite cocky considering you are a mere mortal."

"A mortal who kicked your ass when you tried to take over Earth."

"That was your friend Banner's doing had it not been for him. You likely wouldn't be alive to be bragging."

"So you say. But do you know what I think?"

"What do you think Stark because haven't you tested my patients enough?"

"No and I think you wouldn't have done it."

"Done what?"

"Killed us."

"And why is that? Because even without Thano's inflence I still would've shown no mercy on you if you had gotten in my way."

"Perhaps or maybe you are just all bark and no bite," Tony teased.

"You are lucky you have a cute kid and that I am tied up at the moment or..."

"Or what?"

"You dare question me?"

"Doesn't your wife do that all the time?"

"If all you have come to do is to taunt me more with mentions of my wife then you can stop Anthony or I might be sending your remains to your loved ones."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I," Loki asked as his gaze went to a dark look through if one were to look closer they wouldn't see pure blood lust more rage then anything else.

"You wouldn't because while you maybe mencing and in your words burdened with glorious purpose I happen to think you love your wife too much to kill her closest friends."

"Her closest friends happen to be Maximoff and Strange, not you Anthony so you will have to try again."

"Fine, if I can get you out of those chains will you stop and listen to me for once reindeer games before you do something you regret."

"Listen to you? And what advice do you have to give to me?!"

"Considering I've been in a relationship for over 13 years I would say I have plenty advice to give."

"Didn't I hear you and Mrs. Peppers were on and off again for a while there?"

"Must you do this now when I am trying to help?"

"Always," Loki remarked as he flashed his famous Loki smirk.

Upon seeing this Tony allowed his eyes to roll at Loki's direction. "Anyways before you interupted me. I was going to tell you that whatever Iris thought she might've not been out of line."

"And what would you know what Iris thought Anthony?"

"Knowing you I am guessing this has something to do with you faking your death once again."

"How do you," was all Loki could get out before he was treated to one of Tony's cocky smirks.

"Who do you think helped catch you off guard? Or who sent the telportantion that brought you back here? Not to mention create the chains that are currently holding you?"

"It was you?"

"Who else?"

"Why?"

"Because I was bored and I happen to like seeing you like this reindeer games."

"Clearly now is there anything else you have to say? Or are you going to get me out of here?"

"All in due time but listen for once."

"Fine."

"Glad to see we are on the same page finally."

"Yes, yes just get onto it. Not all of us are you Anthony and have time to waste."

"I know aren't I lucky?"

"It is a wonder Mrs. Pepper puts up with you."

"You act as if I don't please my wife."

"Must you go there? I would prefer not to think about your activies."

"Considering it payback for some of the times I walked into something I would rather not see."

"At least we weren't in the middle of it."

"Not helping."

"I never said I would."

"As I was saying before we got off discussing your mating habits. You tendency of faking your death is likely a rift in your marriage."

"And if you were right what great advice would you give me oh great Stark."

"Oh great Stark,” Tony started to say, his hand up, before he put it down to finish his thought. “Actually never mind, I think I like the name."

"Cocky as ever?"

"Like you are any different reindeer games. Now as I was saying your tendency to fake death likely can be a strain on your loved ones."

"Thor has no problem with it."

"Because I am sure he has had to deal with you doing this for years, but if you remember Iris is still new to this."

"And this matters why?"

"It matters because she worries about you."

"Something I don't want her to be. It's why I didn't tell her."

"Yes and while that is nice in theory. It's only theory because she is going to worry about you. She is your wife which is already a big deal, but add up the god with many enemies part I am surprised she hasn't had a heart attack."

"Gods don't typically die from that more sickness, low health or often in battle."

"That isn't point of this."

"And the point of this talk of ours is what again?"

"To stop worrying your wife."

"But she didn't do this when we were dating."

"Oh she did you just didn't see it."

"So she hide this from me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because she knew as a mortal it came with dating a god."

"And what makes now different?"

"You made her a goddess did you not?"

"Yes but I don't see how that matters."

"You know for such a smart person you are sometimes not that smart."

"Rude."

"I am sure Iris covered it in your fight. She has never had trouble speaking her mind before. Just think back because I am not going to connect all the dots for you," Tony said as he rubbed his fingers against his head. Growing tired of this talk as he started to figet around to see if he had the key to unlock the chains. Only to be reminded it was in the car that was locked. "And while do that I'm going to work on getting you out of here."

"Wait you don't have a key."

"Hey don't point this at me. It's your own fault for not talking with your wife."

Just as Loki was about to say something else, Tony used this moment to sneak out in search of either a key or at the very least a laser to get Loki out. During this Loki had plenty of time to think as with each thought and repeat of what had happened with Iris all he could think of how much of a fool that he had been. Little did he know he wasn't the only one thinking such thoughts.....

A/N:Yes, a cliff hanger because this is already 10 pages long and honestly I can't drag this out for 15 pages for one chapter. Instead I leave you all to wait *evil laugh*. I was heard the song above and was like I should do something and post a chapter! Thus how this chapter was born now that is all said and done I will see you all next chapter.

@wheredafandomat @jennyggggrrr @sailorholly @mochie85

@vanilla-daydreaming @christineblood @queen-paladin @rosierose1995

#Angst #loki friggason #Loki x oc #wife oc #goddess oc #respectful loki #i am sorry #loki was harmed #bickering couple #stubborn oc #stubborn loki #loki get punished for dying so much #Youtube

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toastess-with-the-mostess · 1 year ago

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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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godestof3worlds · 2 years ago

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Ten Random Lines

Rules: pick any ten of your fics, scroll to the midpoint, pick a line (or three) and share it. Then tag ten people.

I was tagged by @sivan325 & @scottxlogan. Thank you for the tag!

Have You Ever Seen Something So Wonderful (VLD)

I fumble with my own swords as I take several unbalanced steps backwards until my back is leaning against a wooden pole that holds the sails. I look down to see water just below me, roaring as the storm finally greets the battle.

It starts pouring rain, my blood mixing with the falling water. Lotor doesn't slip- lucky bastard- but he walks slowly as I try to catch my breath. I grip my sword in my hand tightly, knowing my knuckles turned white.

Lotor doesn't give a final speech once he approaches me, only an evil smile as he looks down at me like I'm some ant under his boot. I almost laugh at the mere thought but it would pain me too much for just the simple gesture.

2. Gravity is Not My Friend (Iron Man Movies)

I can’t catch for shit and if I do it doesn’t make much of a difference in the outcome. I remember how I couldn’t catch any fruit Jarvis tossed to me or anything Stane threw at me. I remember how I couldn’t catch Pepper when she fell to her ‘death’ or how I couldn’t catch Rhodey when he got hit by Vision’s beam. I remember how I couldn’t catch the moon Thanos dropped on me or when I did catch Peter the kid still dusted into particles and was gone for five years. I'm not a valuable catcher and now it seems like I have to catch again.

This time though... This time I need to catch my baby girl, even if she is fifteen, she will always be my baby who said she loves my 3,000.

3. BANG BANG BANG (TUA)

Finally, a voice breaks through the fog or pain and numbness, “This is going to hurt.”

I try to brace for it but somebody grabs me, definitely aggravating my injuries, and then we’re falling again. I clench my eyes shut at the sudden bout of nausea and barely keep the contents of my stomach inside when we finally land. My injuries turn into fire and I arch my back against the pain erupting all over me.

4. You and Me Against the World (VLD)

No no no no no no. This wasn’t supposed to happen! Pidge was supposed to have gotten away. She was supposed to have followed Kolivan, Sam, and Matt and gotten away. She was supposed to be safe and away, not protecting me. I was supposed to take the hit, I would have survived the hit. Now Pidge is in my arms and dying because she took a hit from that witch that was meant for me.

I killed her. I killed that witch. Grabbed a stake and stabbed it through her black heart. I watched the life leave her eyes as she dragged her nails down my shoulder, possibly scaring me for life though it wouldn’t be the first time she left a wound that wouldn’t heal. It burns but my chest is in more pain at the mere thought of Pidge not surviving, especially before I tell her my feelings for her.

5. Bleeding Out For You (Divergent)

“No.” I growl before I grab his shirt and I punch him in his chest, seeing him get pushed into one of his lackeys, which they decide to come closer and I know that Tris is getting Caleb so I quickly form a wall with my body while she talks to Caleb.

“Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.”

“Everybody just calm down all right?”

And I see Tris start to advance before I quickly grab her wrist, hoping we won’t have to fight. I see her eyes widen as she looks down at her wrist that is now covered with my blood from the wound. She looks startled as she searches me for wounds until she notices my hip.

6. Death is Not the End But a Glorified Existence (VLD)

“I don’t know the other guy, but if he’s with Shiro then he has to be a friend then foe.”

“He’s Keith.”

I look down at the girl, “You know him?”

She nods, “He’s the one Pidge has been getting information from and brought her here before he disappeared. He helped us on our last mission and took with him a baby vampire. He's not one though because he was out in the sun and didn’t turn into ash.”

I turn back to the screen and see that they are both staring at the camera and waiting for something to happen, “What should we do?”

7. I Don't Need to Breathe (But I Still Need Oxygen) (TUA)

“Are you back to the land of the living?”

I nod my head slowly as I take a deep breath, “Y-yeah. S-so-sorry.”

I grit my teeth at the stutter. I see Five just nod before he sits on the bed.

“No need to apologize. You didn’t wake the others; you weren’t even that loud. I only heard because I'm a trained time assassin who was getting his evening coffee.”

I just nod my head as I put my face in my hands and just sigh. I sit there for a minute before I look up to see Five staring at me.

8. I'm Not Sorry (TUA)

“Can we go to the Academy?”

It takes me a second to answer, thinking about what Five said, “I don’t know.”

“I think we should. I want to meet the others! And he did say that he would make us so...” Keith just shrugs his shoulders with a smile like everything was so easy, “Will Uncle Klaus and Aunt Vanya be there?”

I shrug my shoulders at his question, “I have no idea buddy, but if you did want to talk to them, we could schedule a date,” I offer.

9. The Rise of Voltron's Family (VLD)

“Did you hear her?” The Altean didn't sound rude this time, but curious.

Her head was tilted a little and she had her hands on her hips like she was belittling some kit or something. And then her eyes widen as she takes a step backwards.

“And why are you pale instead of purple?” Oh yeah, I forgot I had to shift.

“Because I am what you will call a half-breed, I'm not a full-blooded Galran.” I take a step backwards, not wanting to go into my genetics right now.

10. I'm Selfish (But It's Warm and Safe) (Avengers Movies)

“Who did this to you?” He repeats.

I shrug my shoulders and study the ground because I can’t force myself to answer the question. It doesn’t matter, there isn’t much he can do about it anyway, I'll just worry him for no reason. I just need to live through junior and senior year and I'll be out of his way and hopefully out of his iron hold on me. Besides, Stark men are made out of iron. I can totally handle this on my own because I’m a Stark. I don’t need anybody to worry about me. I'm fine.

I am gonna tag: @flannelfangirl / @quintessenceofdust73 / @dchan87 / @sisiwritesfanfics / @bluedemon1995 / @princessallura052 / @cmdr-fil / @kalluraloveblog / @crimson-mage-02 and whoever wants to join in!

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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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salvosfinest · 2 years ago

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Stardust to Stardust - Ch. 5

A mission.

“Surely it can wait--” “It can’t.”

That was four days ago. All Darius was allowed to do was watch as Siebren’s stress levels spiked and dipped, fluctuating wildly in a high-stress environment.

“You’re getting too attached.” “Because he’s a person--” “He’s a means to an end, Darius.”

He had his doubts before. Now they were only solidified. But he couldn’t leave Siebren alone. He saw how greedy Moira looked when she was introduced to him. He couldn’t leave now. Not without a plan. One that he’d have to hide close to his heart.

“Incoming.”

That was twenty minutes ago. It’d take some time to get Siebren across the base, especially if he was combative. He could barely pay attention to the work he had busied himself with while waiting for his patient - his friend, now - to be brought to him.

Unconscious. He was carried between two men, expression on his face serene and bruised. Taking the weight of the armored man was a task in and of itself, but it was possible for Darius to move him unassisted - thanks to Akande’s “upgrades.” Ones that he designed himself...

Forgoing the “guest room” in his lab, the armored Siebren was placed in his own bed - one that he didn’t have to curl up on to fit. There was a delay in how he laid, but eventually he rolled onto his stomach, cheek pressed against his ruffled sheets. Better.

Looking about his room, Darius finally let out a heavy sigh, sitting on his couch. He rubbed at his eyes and cheeks, finding the stubble that he had forgotten to shave. He liked it. Sure, he was starting to gray, but he had always disliked his face shape without it. Ah well, if someone complained, he wouldn’t care. Lowering himself, he gazed across the dim room - then shut his eyes. Finally, he could relax.

...

“Darius.” Siebren had him suspended in the air. “Stop moving so much.” He was acrophobic, how dare he--!

“Darius. Darius, wake up.”

THUMP.

“Shit!” That hurt. Oh, he hit the coffee table. The lights were on, but his glasses were somewhere. He could barely make out Siebren’s face above him. Oh. “Well that is rare-- here, come on.” He was lifted onto unstable feet, finding the change in gravity around him highly disorienting. “Ah-- Siebren, I thought we talked about that.” Darius mumbled sleepily, reaching out to the table for his glasses. They were here, right? Where--

“Stop moving, you--” Darius’s skin nearly prickled as his jaw was grabbed - and his glasses summarily put on his face. Oh. No armor. Had he showered? Those bruises looked bad-- “You were making noises in your sleep. Do you normally do that?”

“I’m not sure - it’s been some time since someone has shared the same room as me.” He couldn’t be this close to Siebren for too long. Lest he become impulsive. Pulling away, he tried to move his left arm, finding it to be... entirely unresponsive. Furrowing his brows, he moved to the bathroom--

“What’s the matter?” Opening his mouth - he found words difficult for a few seconds, like the connection between his brain and mouth was throttled. “My arm. I usually-- am alone, so, I...”

“Want privacy. I’ll be here.” There was that warm tone that struck his heart just right, but he forced it down. He hid away in the bathroom, setting his glasses on his sink’s vanity. He struggled with his shirt for a few minutes before forcing it off, then he found the release handle for his arm, catching it by the elbow as it loosened and pulling it straight off. Better.

The mirror offered an all too honest view of his scarred torso, and he had to look away quickly. Right, he was no longer a younger man. This is who he was. It was easy to forget when he rarely looked at himself. Stepping out with his arm in his one hand, it was tossed on the bed without a second thought, rifling through a drawer for a tank top. It was pulled on and tugged at to get just right on his torso. “You have tattoos?” There was a curious voice behind him - then fingers on his shoulderblade. It was simple, a hexagonal pattern with the colors of an artificially purple ocean inside of it. It hid a scar rather well. “First, you curse when you wake up, and you have tattoos. That is ignoring the missing arm--”

“The eyes.” “The eyes. The apparent love for games, and the fact that your age seems to fluctuate every time I see you.” “It depends on how caffeinated I am, Siebren.” His hair was ruffled then, causing him to swat at the hand atop his hair. It was rare a man was taller than he was. “Relax. I know you’re worried about my health and what happened, but relax. I wasn’t the one that was squirming in my sleep.” Shaking his head some, his hand went to rub the back of his neck, circling around the large man that way he could pace properly. Better. Moving was good.

“I was having a dream, when you had me in the air. I never told you why I was so scared.” He could feel Siebren’s eyes on him. “I was terrified. I am... afraid of heights. It was entirely irrational, just--” The next instant, all light was blocked out and the frames of his glasses were smushed into his eyes. Oh. Oh. “I never knew, I thought it was just a normal reaction. I... understand, now.” Darius counted, mentally, the seconds that passed.

Five. Ten. Twelve...

“I missed this.” It was barely audible, but he caught it. Realizing that he could not keep pretending that he didn’t want to hug the man, he used his one good arm to give Siebren a squeeze. “I missed you.” Sighing heavily, Darius turned his head that way his frames weren’t stressed, eyes closed. “It was quiet. I worried, and wondered, I was terrified. You’re... a special kind of man, Siebren.” “Considering you’re not calling me Doctor... I will take it as a compliment.” He felt the weight of the other’s head atop his, and feeling how close, how real everything was, it clicked in his head. “He’s a means to an end. A weapon.”

If Talon wanted, Siebren, the brilliant astrophysicist, could be dead tomorrow. Swallowing the tension that grew in his throat, Darius made the smallest gestures of his head, moving slowly to cup Siebren’s cheek and kiss the other.

No resistance. It’s like he understood. In fact, it was returned-- with a soft chuckle. “You’re scruffy, you know.” Another kiss. Never in a millennia would he have guessed- “I could get used to scruffy. Fix your arm and hug me properly, as you would say- you dork.” Oh, he was in deep. Shuffling back, he caught the beaming smile on Siebren’s face, which seemed to dry his mouth instantly. It was like he was some clueless twenty-something again, not nearing fifty! Gods help him.

Fix your arm. Fix your arm. Right. “R-Right.” He whispered, practically speedwalking the six feet to his bed to reattach his arm - and beat on the deltoid some. OW. Owowowowow. Oh. Working. He’d have to get it properly fixed sometime later but--

Hug me properly. That was easy. Both arms found Siebren, squeezing him close - but not tight. He knew that he might be sore! The squeeze brought out a bout of laughter from the man, both hands touching his bare biceps. The flesh on his right pricked up again, unused to being touched so freely. “So strong. Perhaps we should get used to this.” How casual everything was, the touching, the open shows of affection-- “I could so get used to this.”

He found himself squeezed to Siebren again, practically curled into him on the very same couch he fell off of earlier. Safe. They were safe.

And he could get used to this.

#overwatch #siebren de kuiper #sigma overwatch #sigma x oc #duncan writes fanfic #stardust to stardust

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grimalkinmessor · 6 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

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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.

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