#frying his backups

[glitteringcrab]

Mental restraints of the puppeteered

[or: Frying his backups (part 2)]

Okay so this theory has been sitting in my head for a long while and I had the feeling it might be accurate but I could not find a way to tie it up with the rest of the plot my headcanons...

Until now, when something changed (namely, the possibility that Rick Prime has been puppeteering other Ricks).

So.

1. Let's observe this scene:

I think we can all agree that Evil Rick was having lunch alone (there are a lot of bittersweet fanarts where Eyepatch Morty seeks comfort from post-surgery Evil Rick in some way or another, but if this one scene is typical of their post-surgery interactions, it appears this hypothetical comfort-seeking was not a thing. They did not even eat together). He broke the plate, either accidentally or on purpose. He picked one of the shards up. The rest is history.

So what I'm seeing is that he was not puppeteered 24/24.

In the incredible, gut-wrenching fanfiction "Ghost in the machine" which you should all totally read (in fact, drop this rambling post and go read it now!! Go go go go!!!!! Like, shooo!!! Come back after you've read it, if you still feel like it. Because there will be SPOILERS in the following 2 paragraphs!!!!) Evil Rick was constantly following orders, 24/24. Even when Eyepatch Morty did not puppeteer him directly, he still had orders to follow, like "bring me this object" or "stand there and wait", and the wiggle room for Evil Rick to resist was minimal. Said resisting mostly took the form of twitching (ergo momentarily disrupting whatever he was ordered to do) at crucial moments, maybe kinda like a computer lagging at the worst possible time. Like I said, absolutely incredible fic, go read iiiiiiiiiiit!!!

But now that Unmorticken has aired and we saw more of their interactions, if we think about the above scene, I think we can reach the conclusion that that's not how it worked. Evil Rick may have received an order to eat, as well as orders to keep the place neat and tidy (and therefore he began picking up the shards) but actually jamming the shard at his eye is not a matter of twitching nor just barely managing to change the trajectory of a movement at the last possible second. It's a fully deliberate action, from start to finish. He had the agency to do it.

So I think we can reach the conclusion that Evil Rick was technically free to... be himself when not puppeteered.

With some restrictions in place, of course:

I am just spitballing here, but I'm thinking of what kind of other actions Eyepatch Morty may have forbidden Evil Rick to do, such as:

Cannot damage any equipment (duh, otherwise he'd be throwing a massive tantrum, destroying everything Evil Morty is working on)

Cannot attack Eyepatch Morty (duh, otherwise the kid would never get a moment's rest lol)

Cannot escape

Cannot call for help

...and probably a bunch more, such as "cannot speak" because of Evil Rick's lack of words when Evil Morty came to him during his failed suicide attempt... Plus the fact that he has a scar on his mouth, which a couple of amazing fanart and fanfiction made me wonder if Evil Rick said something during his surgery that Evil Morty very much could not stand hearing so he shut him up with a scalpel or whatever he was holding... before shutting him up for good.

What a nightmare, huh?

And that's when he was allowed to be himself. The rest of the time he'd be forced to watch himself kill Ricks, and kidnap and torture a thousand versions of his grandson.

2. Now, if the theory that Evil Morty was once himself puppetered it true...

...wouldn't he also have a similar list of prohibitions restraining his actions? Such as:

Cannot harm Puppetmaster Rick

Cannot escape

Cannot operate a portal gun (we've never seen Evil Morty operate a portal gun made by a Rick, he made his own. Is that a coincidence? Of course, both are "portal guns" so maybe that's a stretch, unless he calls his own portal weapon something else, like the dinosaurs called their own "portal pistol" lol. Or maybe using a portal gun to escape counts as "escaping" and therefore a separate order is not needed)

Cannot reveal to anyone what Puppetmaster Rick has been doing to him (maybe. Is that one even necessary? Would anyone even help him if he did reveal it?)

3. Like I said, I'm just spitballing here, but I think the above stand to reason. I mean they just seem like reasonable precautions. If this assessment is accurate, we can reach the following conclusions:

a) If Evil Rick's puppeteering experience was a nightmare, Evil Morty's was a living hell considering what Puppetmaster Rick was doing to him, especially if he was not allowed to leave the house and ask for help.

b) The fact that Evil Morty managed to free himself while operating under such massive handicups is another testament to his incredible intelligence and resilience.

c) It may be another reason he showed no empathy to other Mortys in his attempt to escape. They've had it easy, they had their chances to leave the Citadel or kill their Ricks, they had a million other ways and opportunities to escape and either never bothered or blew them. Now it's his turn.

4. Okay, now... what do you think happens to all these mental restraints once Evil Morty severed his connection to Puppetmaster Rick by tearing his receiver off???

One scenario is that they all became void. They were cancelled. Evil Morty was free to be himself, however he wanted. This could very much be true, and in that case my rambling ends here, I have nothing more to say.

Another scenario is all the old restrictions were still in place and effective, and he would just receive no new orders nor be directly puppeteered anymore. (I suppose this would make it into a good metaphor about abused people being conditioned to act in certain ways and it being very hard to rebel against them. E.g. imagine Evil Morty being unable to confess to other people about what happened to him because he'd expect pain and failure and no support, similar to actual abuse victims learning to expect accusations and failure and no support) Assuming the second scenario is true, then let's head off to the next points:

5. Depending on the exact extent of Evil Morty's mental restraints, it may be that using Evil Rick as a puppet was not only a clever way to get the upper hand, but that he had literally no other choice. E.g. imagine if he actually was physically incapable of operating a portal gun. He would literally need to hold it via Evil Rick's puppeteered hand. The whole thing would be Eyepatch Morty taking all his mental restraints and turning each and every one of them to his advantage in a convoluted, ingenious way.

6. Judging by Evil Rick's halted suicide attempt, it seems that while he knew that removing the receiver would kill him (I mean... you don't normally die by poking your eye out, so it has to be tearing your receiver off that will kill you, and he knew that) the puppeteered have no knowledge of the restrictions placed on them until they stumble upon them. (That, or Evil Rick knew he was not allowed to commit suicide but was desperate enough to try nonetheless.)

Therefore it's theoretically possible there are still some restrictions employed that Evil Morty is unaware of, which are waiting to spring up on him if the right (wrong) conditions are met.

Personally I think that's unlikely because I'm sure he has studied his own implant extensively since he became president and had access to adequate equipment, but:

7. Even if he studied it, this doesn't mean he was able to alter it nor undo it. From what we've seen it appears that unauthorized removal of part of the puppeteering implant equates with a death sentence. And while Puppetmaster Rick thought it unlikely his scrawny, stupid Morty would ever be able to put together a plan to break free or have the guts to mutilate himself, if the puppeteering equipment was originally, I dunno, a prototype designed by Rick Prime and was intended to be used against Ricks, then it's entirely possible that it is designed to kill the victim both for trying to remove the implant itself and for altering the accompanying code. It's the absolute prison, and despite whatever fast-acting healing equipment Evil Morty successfully used to remove his receiver in the past, it might be that it barely worked and he might not be too keen on trying his luck again.

8. So let's continue this thought experiment and assume that, if not all, at least the core mental restraints of the mind control implant are still very much effective inside Evil Morty's brain.

...Including the "cannot harm Puppetmaster Rick" one.

Now, I don't want to reduce the very important plot point of Evil Morty's mental restraints into semantics of "attack vs hurt vs harm vs kill", but... I'm going to go ahead and assume there are limits, definitions, to these mental restraints, otherwise Evil Morty would never been able to even look at Puppetmaster Rick wrong if there was the tiniest chance of it eventually leading to Puppetmaster Rick getting harmed. So I'm going to assume that the restraint is about something blatant.

Like... shooting Puppetmaster Rick, running him over with a car, poisoning his food, strangling him are all no-go, but aggressively poking him with your finger or not warning him about his impending doom might be okay.

My guess is that restraining Puppetmaster Rick is also okay, because as long as that the "no harm" order is still in action, Puppetmaster Rick would just immediately puppeteer Evil Morty into stopping or freeing him. The puppeteered cannot really get very far with this, especially when they're a child with no equipment of their own... Or that is what Puppetmaster Rick would think.

9. Anyway, before season 7 we don't see Evil Morty directly kill (or try to kill) another Rick. (It's not his fault the Ricks walked into various deathtraps, occasionally when he even specifically told them not to lol) This observation tipped me off to the possibility that some restrictions might still be in place... Of course, I cannot think on why there'd be a restriction against Evil Morty killing random Ricks, so it might simply be that in his attempts to bypass the restrictions against Puppetmaster Rick Evil Morty has learnt to think outside the box and later fully employed this skill to minimize the risk to himself.

And in season 7, he has no difficulty in killing Nice Rick, nor to shoot and attack Rick Prime during the Prime Fight.

10. BUT THEN WHAT'S THIS ABOUT:

I couldn't stop thinking about this phrase!!! It just doesn't make any sense!! WHY DID RICK PRIME ACT LIKE EYEPATCH MORTY WAS INCAPABLE OF KILLING HIM?!

So I kept thinking on what sort of mental restraints might still be active inside Evil Morty's brain.

Like, what? Is it something like him "not being allowed to kill a Rick who isn't currently posing a threat", so he could shoot Rick Prime in the beginning but not now that he's restrained? (But he shot Nice Rick again with no problem inside the box, when he was down and weaponless and dying...) This didn't really make any sense, like... why??? So I dropped this theory and forgot about it...

... until the theory that Rick Prime has been mind controlling other Ricks came up. By more than one fan!!!! (and we followed different lines of thought to reach it!!!)

SO LET'S PUT EVERYTHING TOGETHER:

(1) Evil Morty absolutely does still have some mental restraints in his brain and has been carefully operating around them this whole time, trying not to trigger them.

(2) One of those mental restraints effectively prevents him from killing Puppetmaster Rick. This would provide an additional explanation about why Eyepatch Morty didn't kill Puppetmaster Rick the moment he realized said Rick was freed by Rick C-137 resetting all portal travelers. Like, I can think of other explanations:

Puppetmaster Rick being terrified of the Citadel and having no idea that it no longer exists and worrying that they'll come get him to throw him in the Machine of Unspeakable Doom again, therefore laying as low as possible, either hiding himself so effectively that even Evil Morty can't find him, or protecting his home base to withstand an attack from the Citadel itself, making it extremely difficult for Evil Morty to defeat him.

Evil Morty being either extremely scared or extremely repulsed by him, simply never wanting to deal with him ever again, and thinking it highly unlikely Puppetmaster Rick would ever be able to successfully track him down as long as Morty took certain precautions...

...But it's also very likely that Evil Morty is physically unable to do it. Like, I doubt Evil Morty is morally above neutrino-bombing an entire planet just to get this one Rick, but maybe he can't do it. Maybe he is not allowed to fire such a weapon.

(3) In fact, the only things Evil Morty can do is hide himself in the fringe between worlds, employ a number of sophisticated shields, and surgically add the mind-cotrol-implant-overriding fingerguns on himself. An attack with these might at worst cause pain for Puppetmaster Rick, but as we've seen the fingerguns don't actually physically harm nor kill their target, they just... override the target's nervous system. So he can use those against Puppetmaster Rick.

(4) Fast forward to the Prime Fight, where Evil Morty uses a gun to try to kill Rick Prime--and why not? Of course he can do it. He also attacks Rick Prime with his bare hands and hijacks one of Prime's Dianebots to pummel him into a pancake. All good.

(5) Eventually, Eyepatch Morty's temporary allies go down, all the weapons and physical attacks he has tried got him no results, there are no more Dianebots for him to hijack and he's about to get shot:

Desperate, he tries one last thing: the finger-gun, which would only work if Rick Prime also has a mind-control-implant in his forehead.

(6) Bingo!!! It works.

(7) ...But this means that Rick Prime is also defined by a "Puppetmaster Rick status". Whatever mental restraint Evil Morty struggled to operate around is updated to extend to Rick Prime.

While the remains of the mind-control implant inside Evil Morty's head did not receive any new orders (as he no longer has a receiver), the old orders are still in place, and the updated knowledge concerning Rick Prime's status as a "Rick who puppeteers others" (or "admin" if you like) firmly slots him inside the "cannot harm" box.

(8) Whatever. Evil Morty is annoyed, but he knows how to work around this. He's unconcerned.

We have no confirmation of this, but it's likely Puppetmaster Rick had a special room and special equipment and used it update or oversee Evil Morty's implant (I mean... we've come up with similar imagery for Evil Morty and Evil Rick). Evil Morty therefore knows Rick Prime should also have something similar, and knows just what to do. He immediately drags him to the control room, where indeed the relevant equipment is waiting for him.

What I find funny is that Evil Morty probably didn't stick himself inside the wall panels to get all those cables out, but puppeteered Rick Prime to do it in his stead.

And this explains why part of the room was wrecked: Evil Morty was unfamiliar with Prime's strength and implants, and as we've seen, when controlling an unfamiliar body with implants, accidents might happen:

Evil Morty then puppeteered Rick Prime into sitting on his chair (aaaaand I assume deactivated his time-healing ability) before holding him still.

(9) Rick Prime woke up, saw/felt the fingergun and cables on his forehead, noticed he was unable to move, saw Evil Morty, remembered Evil Morty shooting him with something... and probably also immediately began employing his own implants and defense systems to get feedback on Evil Morty's fingergun and on how it could be overridden.

Doesn't this line make a lot more sense now???

He really is getting the picture. And in fact he may be getting a much bigger picture than Evil Morty might like; he may be stealthily scanning Evil Morty's brain through some other implant of his; see it full of cables, recognize the similarities to his own handiwork. He might understand that Evil Morty has puppeteered others, might understand that Evil Morty was once puppeteered himself. He might get a feedback on Evil Morty's list of mental restraints.

And he immediately begins stealthily mounting attacks against the fingerguns, which retaliate each and every time, turning red and hurting him. He keeps trying nonetheless, while simultaneously trying to distract Evil Morty by sweet talking to him (which is nothing but a testament about how clever he is and his ability to multitask) but his fate is sealed; maybe he'd be able to override the fingerguns given enough time... But he doesn't have enough time, and Evil Morty has prepared himself for this exact moment moment. His fingerguns are not easy to be overridden.

(10) So Evil Morty successfully fries each and every one of Prime's puppeteered victims (which do not have "Puppetmaster Rick status") and Prime says this:

DOESN'T THIS LINE MAKE A LOT MORE SENSE NOW?

He got feedback on Evil Morty's brain control implant. He knows that from the moment the fingerguns worked Eyepatch Morty could literally not harm him anymore.

(11) Not that this matters, because Eyepatch Morty knows just what to do...

...bring someone who can finish the job:

DOESN'T THE ABOVE LINE ALSO MAKE SENSE NOW?

Evil Morty is not the one harming him!!! I mean if you wanna look at semantics he didn't even tell Rick C-137 to kill him, he said a joke, a pun.

And he has the added bonus of coming out of this looking like a team player (I mean... as much as he ever could) and gaining an enslaved, morally obligated Rick to himself lol (turning his mental restraints to his advantage)

(12) AND TALK ABOUT POETIC JUSTICE. RICK PRIME IS BEING PUPPETEERED TO SIT STILL IN HIS OWN CHAIR AND GET PUMMELED TO DEATH when he's the one who had been tricking and enslaving countless Ricks to be puppeteered by him forever.

He's literally forced to sit still there and live through it, unable to even lift a finger to protect himself. Poetic. Justice.

(13) Evil Morty had been very careful up to now to hide the fact that he has puppeteered others, but there is no way Rick C-137 didn't understand that Evil Morty is familiar with the puppeteering technology after this encounter (I mean... Rick C-137 knew not to remove the fingerguns, he knew to remove the cables, he knew what this whole thing was).

Which on one hand, doesn't mean he gets to reach any plot-relevant conclusions (at least, not yet) because he knows Evil Morty scans Ricks' brains and steals their technology. On the other hand... we don't know how much more he needs to put 2 and 2 together and reach the same conclusions that Rick Prime did.

(14) And now for my last point.

If all the above is true...

...and depending on the semantics of the mental restraints...

...I would not be surprised if it turns out that Evil Morty using the Omega Device against Ricks is nothing but a GIGANTIC BLUFF.

Like this is literally the worst he can do: improve its design, build it, threaten to use it. (Depending on whether he intends to do a demonstration on e.g. Churry he may not even ever bother to build it.)

Because he literally cannot fire such a weapon against Ricks as long as Puppetmaster Rick is alive. (edit: I'm gonna correct myself and change this to: he cannot use such a weapon against Ricks directly but he still can trick or force someone else to fire it in his stead)

Of course, he would still be able to fire it against Ricks' family, which is probably more effective as a deterrent considering Ricks' suicidal tendencies, but you get the idea.

(...On a different matter, Rick Prime wins plenty of extra cruelty points for vengefully trying to turn Rick C-137 against Evil Morty by warning him about a weapon he knows the kid literally cannot use (edit: cannot use in a moment's notice, in case a furious Rick C-137 pops up in his doorstep))

Again, this may not be true. We don't know if firing such a weapon by throwing another Rick in the Omega Device (and therefore killing eeeevery Rick) counts as Eyepatch Morty directly killing Puppetmaster Rick or not, but I fail to see how it's different from dropping a neutrino bomb on Puppetmaster Rick's head.

(15) Or maybe I'm wrong and I'm only trying to connect dots that don't exist. I honestly cannot think of another explanation for Rick Prime's lines to Evil Morty in Unmortiricken but this doesn't mean there isn't one.

And I do think Evil Morty being deathly scared of Puppetmaster Rick is adequate explanation for not wanting to even try to kill him, and plot-wise and character-wise I think it's a lot more interesting than semantics.

But then again, it's possible for both of these things to be true... Because even with Rick C-137 suddenly becoming his slave, Evil Morty very much did not jump at the opportunity to kill Puppetmaster Rick. He chose to remain hidden. He doesn't want to deal with him.

[irregularbillcipher]

someday i'm gonna write something about how futurama is such a rich series from a "literally all three protagonists are disabled in some way and parts of this show are such a disability power fantasy" perspective

[aapothic]

Shiori took the small orange pill in her hand, rolled it around for a second, then casually dropped it onto the table. A small retractable knife, no longer than her pinky finger, appeared in her palm, blade out. The flat of the blade went to work on the offered pill, turning it into a ugly orange-white powder. Finger to one nostril, head bent down, and quick, disgusting inhale eliminated (most) of the pill’s presence.

“Someone should work on making those things strawberry-flavoured, at least,” she joked, dabbing at the edge of her nose to make sure there was no powder left behind. “At least you won’t have to wait too long this way.” Not that she was sure he cared about her being comfortable either.

“If you wanted to do something horrible to me, you probably would have done it already, given the waves of annoyance radiating from you all evening.” She plopped herself into the chair and worked a few of the levers so she was slightly tilted back... and at his mercy.

“You figure it out, you’ll tell me right? No secrets?” She offered a curled pink... in the gesture of a promise? Hard to tell if she was being serious or making another joke.

"I do my best to limit my exposure to Essex to the moments when I have to make my reports to the Quiet Council - seeking him out for a good old fashioned chin wag about his little torture box is the very last thing on my mind." He'd rather shove a surgical tool into his own eye and twist until the pain stopped than subject himself to more of the fruit than was strictly required. He rather suspected Shiori felt the same.

Beast watched her, fingers curling around the edge of one of his lab desks in obvious anxiety, himself feeling mostly impatience - she could either submit to the procedure or leave, he had no time for her to be sitting around having a crisis. He had already fixed her wound, he owed her precisely nothing, and his offer to provide her with answers to questions she hadn't even known she had was a rare kindness, not to be abused.

But then, seemingly, she came to her senses, even if the question had him sighing. " You will need to remain at least semi-conscious for the procedure so that the instrument can record the electrical impulses from your eye to your brain without impediment. To fully anaesthetise or numb you would risk rendering the entire scan pointless. But . . . I suppose I can give you something, just to make sure you don't move and disrupt the integrity of the scan topography."

Beast rooted around in a drawer, pulling out a little orange pill that he offered her with a quirked brow. "Most people choose not to leave themselves unable to move in my presence these days. Your last chance to change your mind and leave approaches. Take it, or sit down in that examination chair."

[punkshort]

In Another Life | Part II

Pairing: Marcus Acacius x f!reader (time travel au)

Chapter Summary: Danny unexpectedly drops Marcus off at your office, but it works to your advantage when you decide to use him as the subject for your next article, and your research brings the two of you much closer together.

Chapter Warnings: language, typical brother embarrassing his sister, threats of physical violence, a little fist fight, some blood from said fist fight, mention of drugs, jealousy, food consumption, fluff, flirting, sexual tension, smut (18+ MDNI), unprotected piv sex, fingering

WC: 8.4K

Series Masterlist

Your apartment had devolved into utter chaos the last two days. It seemed like every time you rounded a corner, you had to dodge some person or scrap of metal or power tool, and it was getting on your last nerve. New York wasn't exactly known for spacious living arrangements as it was, so to have what little space you did covet overrun with your brother's shit really sent you into overdrive.

"Lizard's mom has a house in Queens, why the hell is all this shit here and not in her basement?" you snapped at Danny early one morning after you stubbed your toe on a drill.

"He's worried about her finding out what we're up to," Danny explained, and you immediately scoffed into your coffee.

"She's deaf in one ear and hasn't stepped foot in her basement since his dad died."

Danny agreed to move his time traveling project to Queens later that day.

The scowl on your face smoothed out the moment Marcus entered your kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes and looking absolutely devastating in the pajama pants you had bought for him just a few days prior. It took all your willpower not to let your eyes drop below his waist, having already made that mistake the day before. The noticeable bulge hidden amongst the thin sleepwear had you spacing out the entire train ride to work and you couldn't afford any distractions that day. You had a big meeting at eleven where you had to present the next topic for your column and you were scrambling. The source you had for your long-distance relationship idea fell through last minute, so now you were tasked with brainstorming a spectacular backup plan in the next four hours.

"Morning, General. How did you sleep?" Danny asked as he scooped cereal into his mouth.

"Quite well, thank you," he replied, then his eyes met yours and he smiled. "Good morning, my lady."

You grinned like a school girl, your heart fluttering excitedly in your chest when you stammered, "G-good morning." Danny rolled his eyes but chose wisely to keep his mouth shut.

Marcus was able to find his way around by that point, however he still seemed hesitant to just start opening your drawers and cupboards when he needed something. Tired of reminding him to just help himself, you set down your coffee and picked up your loaf of bread from the corner of the counter.

"Same as yesterday?" you asked him as you popped two slices of bread in the toaster, anticipating his answer.

"Please," he said with a grateful nod, then dutifully clasped his hands at his waist.

When Danny watched you crack some eggs into a frying pan along with a few sausage links, his jaw dropped.

"You're making breakfast for him but not for me?" he whined.

You swiveled around and pointed your spatula in his face. "He is our guest, thanks to you," you reminded him, and Danny quickly shut up.

"I do not wish to be a burden," Marcus said. He hadn't moved but his broad frame felt like it took up the entire room.

"You're not a burden, Marcus," you told him softly, then gave him a small, reassuring smile.

"Yeah, no worries, man," Danny said, clapping him firmly on the shoulder before dumping his dirty dishes in the sink. "I'm just giving my sister a hard time because it's obvious she wants to jump your bones."

"Danny!" you shrieked while throwing an oven mitt at his head. He dodged it and ducked out of the kitchen, his laughter fading down the hall towards his bedroom.

Your cheeks felt like they were on fire as you turned your focus back to the frying pan. When Marcus cleared his throat, you closed your eyes in dread because you knew what was coming.

"What did that mean, jump your bones?"

"Nothing, just ignore him," you said, sliding the eggs and sausage onto a plate. A few seconds passed when Danny's voice shouted down the hall, "It's a euphemism for sex!"

"Goddamnit," you muttered through clenched teeth. You began to storm out of the kitchen, prepared to kick Danny's ass, but Marcus shot an arm out to stop you.

"You look lovely today."

You gazed up at him, mouth agape, while you tried to find your voice.

Say something. Anything.

"Thanks. Uh, thank you," you mumbled, smoothing down the pink and white floral dress you picked out. On days where you had your big monthly meeting, you tried to make an effort to look like you belonged at a fashion magazine.

"Do you have plans today?" he asked, his eyes swooping down your frame appreciatively, and for once it didn't make your stomach turn when a man looked at you that way. "Daniel tells me there is a beautiful park in the city. I desire to see it and would very much enjoy your company."

You knew you were reading too much into it, but you couldn't help but feel like he was asking you on a date.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Marcus," you said, "I have to work today. But I promise we will see it before you go home."

Home.

His face fell at the word and he quickly dropped his gaze to the floor, trying to hide his disappointment.

"Of course, I understand. Thank you for breakfast," he said, sliding past you so he could pick up the plate you made for him. You chewed your lip and glanced at the time. If it were any other day, you would just call in sick, but today was too important to miss.

"I promise, okay?" you told him as you gathered your bags. "We will see Central Park before you leave. And whatever else you want."

He nodded and took a bite of his food. Although he appeared to be unbothered, you still felt an enormous amount of guilt.

"Danny!" you called from the front door, "this shit better be gone by the time I get home!"

"Yes, Mom!" he shouted back sarcastically from the bathroom. You rolled your eyes and gave Marcus a quick wave before hurrying out the door.

You were fucked.

You had one hour until your meeting and you had absolutely nothing.

Already, you had done your usual brainstorming techniques five times over. You scrolled through social media, hoping to find some trend or topic that might be popular and garner attention, but you were coming up dry, so you kept circling back to your long distance relationship idea. You had sent out every feeler you could think of, asking any of your usual contacts if they had anyone you could use for a story about your chosen topic, but so far you weren't having any luck.

Suddenly, your phone rang and you lunged for it, hoping it was a lead, then groaned when you saw Danny's contact picture pop up on the screen.

"Hello?"

"Hey..." he began, and you could tell by the tone in his voice that you should brace yourself.

"What did you do?"

He laughed on the other end. "I didn't do anything. Actually, I did do something - I am getting all this stuff out of your place, but there's just one thing."

"Spit it out," you said, your eyes flickering to the time. 45 minutes to go.

"I can't take Marcus with us to Queens. There's no room in Lizard's car."

"So let him stay in the apartment."

"I'm not leaving him all alone in New York City!" he protested. You heard some familiar sounds in the background of the call and you frowned.

"Where are you?"

Danny paused and you instantly began to put your defenses up.

"I'm... in your lobby. With Marcus and Lizard."

"You're what?!" you exclaimed in a loud whisper, glancing around to make sure nobody overheard you in your cubical.

"I told to him to just stay in the lobby and read your crappy magazines and if anyone asks, to tell them he's here for meeting."

"Danny! You can't do this, I can't babysit a fucking Roman General right now!"

You heard Danny walk a few paces away, presumably to get some privacy so Marcus wouldn't overhear, before he answered.

"He'll stay downstairs, I promise. I told him what floor you're on in case of an emergency but maybe you can pop down and take him for lunch. You've been making heart eyes at this Roman General for the past three days, don't try and lie."

Anger coursed through your veins but you were running out of precious time, so you gave up.

"Fine," you seethed.

"Great!" Danny said cheerily. "But I might not be back til late. We're burning tons of time moving all this stuff, we got work to do."

"So I have to bring him home?"

"Yes, you'll have to bring him home. You're going there anyway, aren't you? What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is he's going to be bored and lonely all day down there!" you snapped.

"He's not going to be bored. He's in New York City. The elevators alone are blowing his mind right now."

Despite yourself, you smiled when you remembered how in awe he was the first time he rode in an elevator.

"Tell him I'll be down to take him to lunch in like, a little over an hour. I have a meeting at eleven."

"You're the best!" Danny said, then before you could respond, the line went dead.

You grumbled obscenities under your breath when you heard a familiar voice say your name from the opening of your cube.

"Hey, ready for the meeting?" Matt asked. You practically dropped your phone from his sudden appearance and he chuckled. "Did I scare you?"

"Yes," you hissed as you began to gather your things, trying to hide your annoyance. You looked over the top of your cubical wall, hoping and praying you would see someone - anyone - else to walk with to the conference room, but you were shit out of luck.

"Doing anything fun tonight?" he inevitably asked, like he always did, and you sighed. You made the mistake of hooking up with him after one particularly rowdy work happy hour and ever since then, Matt's been waiting for his next opportunity. "I know a guy who works at that new French restaurant, I can get us a reservation and then, who knows..."

"I have a friend in from out of town," was all you said. No matter how many times you turned him down, he remained persistent.

"That's cool. Girls night, then?"

"My friend's a guy," you quickly corrected him.

Matt stumbled over his feet as you reached the conference room. It was the biggest one on your floor, directly across from the elevator banks. The entire wall was made of glass, floor to ceiling, so you could see through the room to the opposite wall, where there was a fantastic view of the city.

"Oh, like a cousin, or..."

"Nope," you replied, voice clipped so he knew the topic was closed. With a frustrated huff, Matt plopped down next to you and flipped open his portfolio. You gave him a sideways glance, momentarily feeling bad for him. He was by all accounts a good looking guy. He wrote a column for the men's health section and based on his physique, you assumed he practiced what he preached, but sadly his looks is where his good qualities came to an end.

Charlotte, your editor, breezed into the room, her presence enough to make everyone sitting at the long table quiet right down. She ghosted her palm over her perfectly coiffed grey hair and sat her portfolio down in front of her chair at the head of the table. As you got yourself organized, your mind scrambling to come up with a lie about a long distance relationship source, Charlotte placed her phone down delicately next to her leather portfolio, then slowly uncapped the expensive looking pen someone once told you was gifted to her by Marc Jacobs. Everybody watched and waited until she was ready, which was signified by a dainty clearing of her throat and a quick, sweeping glance over the table followed by a curt nod. At that point, the usual routine began.

Without having to be asked, one by one everybody took their turn presenting their idea for the month. Each person's name was listed on the agenda in the order Charlotte wished, and mercifully yours was dead last.

Your anxiety began to spike when Sara, the girl who was before you in nutrition started to wrap up her brief speech about some gluten free lifestyle benefit bullshit.

Keep it short. Keep it vague, and you'll figure it out later. Everyone wants to leave, it's almost lunch.

Then some movement by the elevators caught your eye. Your breathing ceased and you broke out into a cold sweat when you saw Marcus had stepped out of the elevator and was fucking talking to the receptionist. Then you locked eyes when they both turned to look towards the conference room.

"Shit," you whispered.

Matt nudged your ribs and you startled, glancing around the room to see Sara had sat down and half the table was staring at you, waiting for you to begin. You shakily stood up and swallowed the lump in your throat when Marcus began to weave his way towards you through the maze of cubicles.

Call it a stroke of genius or divine inspiration, but an incredible idea hit you right as you opened your mouth to speak. You had about half a second to decide if you should wing it and trust your gut or talk out of your ass about your first idea.

Fuck it.

"This month, I have a very interesting idea that I'm super excited about exploring," you began, watching when Marcus came to a stop outside the glass door. He looked back and forth, his fingers twitching at his sides. "My topic will be Romance without Technology," you announced with a confident smile. "I'll be researching how adults navigate their love lives without the help of dating apps, social media, or even texting," you said, listing each item on your finger as you spoke.

"Who's that guy?" Sara asked, pointing towards the door. It was at that point you realized most of the table was gawking at the tall, broad, handsome looking Roman General waiting to get your attention.

You smiled and walked toward the door with your arm outstretched.

"This is Marcus," you said, holding the door open and ushering him inside. He murmured your name but you cut him off. "He's the subject I'll be interviewing for this month's article. He doesn't use technology of any kind. In fact, he doesn't even own a cell phone."

The entire room gasped and Marcus looked around, confused, but understood what you needed him to do. He raised one arm up to greet the room and said, "Good morning."

Most of the women began to whisper excitedly to one another, shooting him looks and giggling behind their hands until Charlotte cleared her throat and once again, the room fell into silence.

You chewed your lower lip anxiously as you waited for Charlotte to silently appraise you both. Finally, you saw the corner of her mouth twitch and she gave you a barely perceptible nod.

"I look forward to reading it."

She stood abruptly and collected her things, signifying the end of the meeting, and relief flooded your veins.

"Are you okay?" you asked Marcus, pulling him to the side while the room stood and slowly filtered out. He nodded.

"Yes. There were many vehicles that passed by with bright lights and loud sirens. When I asked what it was for, I was told there was an emergency."

You giggled and shook your head. "So the fearsome General was scared?"

His brows knitted together for a moment before he answered.

"No. I grew concerned for your well being."

Your heart could have melted on the spot.

"Oh," you said softly, and just like that, the annoying little flutter in your chest was back. "I-I'm fine, but thank you. That was... that's really sweet, actually."

He grinned as his eyes swooped down your frame, causing butterflies to awaken in your stomach.

"Did you wanna get something to eat?" you asked as you stared up at him, his large frame making you feel so tiny in comparison. "It'll be on the company's dime since I kinda just signed you up to be the subject of my next article."

He cocked an eyebrow at you and shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis, the action bringing up the memory of you measuring his inseam and you felt your face begin to heat up. God, you must have looked ridiculous, standing there in front of Marcus in the middle of your office, looking up at him with big doe eyes.

"Of course," he replied, "but what do you intend to write about me?"

You grinned and hurried back to your abandoned chair, scooping up your things before pointing to the door.

"Let me drop this stuff off at my desk and I'll explain everything."

"My marriage was arranged," he reminded you from across the table draped in white linen. You decided to take him to a nicer steakhouse not too far from your office, one that didn't enforce a dress code but still had good food that you rarely sprung for out of your own pocket.

"I know, but I'm sure you can still give me an idea of what romance was like," you replied. "For example, did you get her any gifts? Give flowers? Take her to places that were meaningful to you? Or to her?"

Marcus dropped his gaze to the table and shrugged. "We knew each other for such a short period of time, there was unfortunately not much in the way of romance."

You clocked the forlorn look in his eye and began to feel guilty for bringing it up. "I'm sorry. I'll just make something up, don't worry about it. No one'll know."

"No, no, I wish to help," he said quickly, his hand stretching across the table to loop two of his fingers around yours. "Just because I do not have many personal stories to share does not mean I cannot help with your research."

"I don't want to reopen any old wounds," you explained, your eyes fixed on the way his hand linked with yours so naturally on the tabletop.

He chuckled softly, his smile causing his deep brown eyes to sparkle and a dimple to appear on his cheek.

"It was a very long time ago."

When your salads arrived at your table, Marcus released your hand to pick up his fork, frowning down at the bowl before asking, "This is the salad named after Julius Caesar?"

You giggled and shook your head, the sound causing him to lift his chin with a warm smile.

"No," you said once you collected yourself, "No, it's named after another Caesar. The guy who created it, I think."

Marcus didn't seem to mind he was wrong or that you found his error so funny. In fact, he enjoyed it.

"You have a beautiful laugh."

Instantly, your cheeks flushed and you shyly looked down to focus on your salad. "Thank you," you said softly.

He watched you silently for another minute more, admiring the way your eyes fluttered shut when you tasted something good or tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear, then took a hesitant bite of his salad.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and you grinned from behind your napkin.

"Delicious."

You giggled again and nodded. "Yes, it is."

Once your salads were taken away and before your main course arrived, you pulled out a notebook and flipped to a blank page.

"Let's start from the beginning. You don't have to go into excruciating detail. Maybe just some things you know of that others did to... court women? Is that even the right word?" you mumbled the last part to yourself as you scribbled something at the top of your paper.

"It was seen as a sign of weakness for a man to become infatuated with a woman," he said, and you looked up at him in surprise.

"Why's that?"

"Marriages rarely were based on affection. They were viewed as a way to improve your social standing, but it was mutually beneficial," he explained, his finger tracing the design engrained in his fork. "Women were taken care of, looked after and tended to while the men were able to claim a high ranking senator or nobleman as their family. And, of course..." he trailed off, his cheeks staining pink when he dropped his gaze to the table and said, "received the traditional benefits of having a wife."

You smirked to yourself as you wrote notes on your pad of paper.

"Thought you were used to talking about sex openly," you teased. He cleared his throat and your pen paused over your paper to meet his eye.

"I admit, at times I feel nervous around you."

"Me?" you balked, but he just nodded and your brain scrambled for something to say that wouldn't entirely embarrass you. You landed on deflection.

"I thought it was a sign of weakness to grow infatuated?"

He grinned and leaned back in his chair. "I never said I agreed with that line of thought."

"No, I suppose you didn't," you said, shyly dropping your eyes to your paper. His gaze was too intense. Every time you looked at him it felt like he could see right through you. "So, tell me. Hypothetically. If we lived in Rome and I caught your eye, what would you do? How would you win me over?"

Marcus took a deep breath, his broad shoulders relaxing as he thought about your question for a moment, staring at your pen hovering over your paper.

"I would write you letters every day," he said softly, forcing your eyes back onto him. His voice was low and deep, smooth yet firm as he spoke. "I would write of your beauty. I would compare the color of your eyes to the flowers and fauna that grew in my garden, delicate and all encompassing. I would tell you how food tastes better on my tongue when you are around, and how I ache for you when you are not near. I would try to explain how difficult it is to breathe without you, and how I would gladly die a thousand deaths just to feel the softness of your lips against mine."

You stared at him, hand frozen where you left it resting on your notebook. He waited patiently until you finally blinked yourself out of your stupor and inhaled a shaky breath.

"Uh, s-so love letters, then," you stammered, shakily scribbling down something incoherent on your paper. Jesus fucking Christ, get it together.

"Yes. Love letters," he repeated. He sounded so cool and collected. How was he so relaxed? A moment ago, he was admitting you made him nervous. Maybe he was just better at hiding it than you.

Your server arrived and placed your food down in front of you, the heavenly scent wafting up and making your mouth water. Placing your pen down in favor of picking up your fork and knife, you asked, "Have you ever had steak?"

"I am not sure. What animal is it?" he asked, picking up his fork and testing the tenderness of his steak by giving it a little poke.

"It's cow. Try it, it's good."

"Cows were used for farming," he said before slicing a piece off and examining it closely. "We could not afford to slaughter them."

You watched as he popped a bite into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully before giving you a smile and nod.

"Good?" you asked, your heart skipping a beat at finding another food he liked.

"Very," he replied once he swallowed. "You are quite perceptive and have good taste."

"Thank you," you answered, taking another bite and trying not to preen too much from the praise.

"So tell me," he said after he finished up his filet and moved on to his potato, which he eyed wearily. "Do you not receive love letters as a form of courtship?"

"Uh, no," you replied with a laugh. "Closest thing to that nowadays would be a text and even those are... sub par."

"So what is it that you do?"

"What do you mean?"

He pointed to your notepad with his fork. "For romance. What activities do you take part in?"

"Oh," you said, wiping your mouth and pushing your empty plate to the side. "You mean dates. Uh, this actually. Get dinner together. Sometimes see a movie," you paused and rethought your word choice when you saw his face. "A show, or a play. Um, sometimes go to a bar. Stuff like that."

He nodded and let your answer roll around in his head for a moment before asking, "So, is this a date?"

Marcus smiled when he saw you become flustered. You thanked the server for clearing your plates and leaving the bill before responding.

"Uh, I don't know," you finally said shyly, making his smile grow even wider. "Do you want - I mean, well... I'm technically working, but, you know, if - if that was something you were interested in, then, I guess w-we could classify this, or, you know, it could be construed-"

"Yes or no," he said, interrupting your insane ramblings with a soft look and an outstretched hand. Your face was hot with embarrassment but you reached out for his hand, anyway.

"Yes."

"Yes," he repeated, squeezing your fingers. You grinned and nodded, your stomach doing cartwheels as you tried to steady your breath.

Once you paid with your corporate credit card, you walked back out to the street, Marcus holding the doors open for you before offering you his hand. You sheepishly accepted it and walked a few paces in the direction of your office before he stopped you.

"Must you return to work?"

You gave him a sad smile and took a step closer. "Yeah, I'm sorry. But maybe I can play hooky tomorrow."

Marcus raised a curious eyebrow at you while playing with the material of your dress with his free hand, gently pinching and feeling the fabric between his fingers. "What does-"

"It means I'll call in sick without actually being sick so I can have the day off," you explained without him needing to finish asking.

He grinned and dropped your dress in favor of cupping your cheek. "I would like that very much."

"Me, too," you said, gazing up at him while leaning into his touch. His strong, calloused hand felt rough against your skin, but you liked it. As if reading your mind, he stroked his thumb over your cheekbone and murmured, "You are so soft."

You hummed, not trusting yourself to speak when you watched him slowly lean down to your level, your eyes fluttering shut as you waited to feel his mouth against yours. But just when his shadow got close enough to block the sun behind your eyelids, you heard someone shout your name.

You swiveled around angrily, your hand still laced together with Marcus's as you looked for the person who interrupted one of the more romantic moments of your life.

And then you saw Matt stalking up to you from the direction of the restaurant.

"Is this why you've been ghosting me?"

You frowned and tilted your head. "What?"

Matt came to a stop in front of you both and jutted his chin towards Marcus. "Too busy sleeping with your profiles to hang out?"

"W-what?" you stammered again, too shocked to fight back with your usual vigor. You felt Marcus stiffen next to you. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he immediately sensed your discomfort. "I'm not - this isn't-"

"Oh, sure," he sneered, crossing his arms, his biceps bulging out of his thin dress shirt. "I saw you two in there. You were three seconds away from crawling into his lap."

Your mouth hung open in shock and humiliation. "Were you following me?"

Before Matt could answer, Marcus took a step forward.

"I am going to have to insist you stop yelling," he seethed, and even though Matt followed his own advice in his articles and worked out plenty, Marcus still towered over him.

Matt's eyes went wide for just a moment before his bravado returned. "C'mon, man. She's just using you, don't you see that?" Matt prodded, then he scoffed. "Unless you're good with it. Then by all means, have fun. She's a good fuck but I don't think she's got much else."

It all happened so fast, you couldn't remember Marcus dropping your hand and cocking his fist. You couldn't remember the first sickening crunch of his knuckles against Matt's nose, but you did remember hearing his pained howl.

Marcus only landed a few more blows before you came to your senses and tugged him by the shoulder. It was laughable to think you would be strong enough to move him, but you must have also said something because Marcus immediately stopped and turned back to you.

"Jesus Christ!" you cried shakily, hands trembling as they hovered in the air. You weren't sure what to do and people were staring as they walked by, driving up your anxiety. Marcus was fine except for his skinned knuckles, but Matt was much worse. He had a busted lip and already a bright blue shiner forming on his cheekbone, and when he stood to face you both, you noticed another cut on the other cheek.

"The fuck is wrong with you!" he spat, blood dripping down his chin.

"Mind how you speak to women and perhaps they will wish to spare you their time," Marcus snarled. Matt turned his attention to you, the pad of his thumb swiping against his lower lip.

"Who is this guy? What the fuck is his deal?"

You took a deep breath, your mind settling and your fortitude returning.

"If you had just backed off when I said no the first dozen times, maybe you didn't have to find out!"

"Oh, come off it. You like the chase. You get off on guys trailing after you-"

"You're the only fucking one, Matt!" you yelled, no longer caring who was looking. "We hooked up once, years ago, and you just can't take the hint! I'm not interested!"

His eyes clouded with disbelief as he propped his hands on his hips and shifted his weight to one foot, standing there as if he were somehow new to being shot down.

"I'm telling Charlotte about this. About your little..." he trailed off and gestured vaguely over your shoulder, "guard dog. I'm sure she will love to hear about one of your profiles assaulting an employee."

You crossed your arms defiantly and made a face. "Oh, yeah? Do that and I'll recommend to HR they give you a drug test."

His face paled for a moment but he tried to hide it. "Drugs? I'm not on drugs."

"Oh, so you're telling me your balls are just naturally that shriveled up and small? Because, shit," you laughed, "if it's not steroids, you might want to see a doctor about that. That's not normal."

Matt swallowed tightly and clamped his mouth shut. You smiled and turned around to Marcus, who had been listening to your entire argument and probably understanding less than half of it.

"Let's go."

You tugged on his arm and he obediently followed, leaving Matt to lick his wounds.

"Your work - the building is the other way."

"I know," you said, raising your arm to hail a cab. "I'll figure something out. We're going home."

Marcus watched as you paced around your kitchen, phone pressed against your ear as you spoke to your boss and faked a sudden illness that included the word cramps. When you finished up, you looked over at him from across the room.

He looked so normal now. Sure, he spoke a little strangely but without his tunic, clad in khakis and a polo shirt, he looked like he fit right in. Like he always belonged right there.

"I don't think I even thanked you," you said. Marcus smiled and shrugged.

"No need."

He was so damn adorable, it was killing you. "I've never met anyone like you before," you confessed, leaning a hip against the edge of your counter.

"In a good way, I hope?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. You giggled and nodded, the sound making his heart soar.

"Yes, in a good way."

He brought his hand up to smooth over his mouth nervously and your stomach dropped.

"Oh, my god! Your hands!" you exclaimed, crossing the room to snatch one of his massive hands within both of yours.

"It is alright, there is no-"

"Come on, let me clean up your knuckles at least," you said, pulling him towards your tiny bathroom, which somehow felt even smaller when you were both crowding the space. "Sit here," you told him, pointing towards the closed toilet seat, "I have some stuff somewhere," you muttered under your breath as you rifled through the medicine cabinet behind your mirror, then tugged open the drawer in the vanity that always stuck. Marcus did as he was told and watched you with amusement dancing in his eyes.

"Ah ha!" you announced victoriously when you held up a bottle of clear liquid and a box of bandages. He smiled as you washed your hands before meticulously laying everything out you would need. Picking up a cotton ball, you doused it with the liquid and turned to him, having little choice but to stand between his knees and lifting one of his hands to look at it closer.

He splayed his hand out flat, palm pressing against your palm while you carefully dabbed at the dried blood.

"You have laid with that man before?" he asked out of the blue. Your cheeks felt warm when you nodded and avoided his eye.

"A long time ago. It was a mistake."

He didn't say anything else for a few minutes, just watched as you tenderly cared for his broken skin, your proximity and touch overwhelming his senses.

"Did he mistreat you?"

Quickly, you shook your head. "Oh god, no, nothing like that," you told him. "It just... wasn't a good fit."

Marcus couldn't stop staring at the soft slopes of your face and the bright sparkle in your irises, growing infatuated with the way your brow scrunched together in concentration while you worked.

"Did he not worship you?" he asked softly, watching as your breath hitched and you swallowed the lump in your throat.

"Uh, no," you finally said, setting down the cotton ball in favor of a tube with some salve. You squeezed a small dot onto your finger and began to apply it carefully to his knuckles. "Can't say there's been a lot of worshipping happening in my life," you added with a dry chuckle.

"No?"

You shook your head and wiped your finger with a tissue and tried not to let his injured hand that had fallen to your hip distract you.

"No," you whispered, your shaky voice betraying you.

He tsked and brought his other hand up to your hip, slowly splaying his fingers wide and crumpling the fabric of your dress. "Shameful. You deserve to be worshipped."

All of the air rushed from your lungs, your body thrumming with desire. Marcus noticed the fine hairs on your arms raise when goosebumps flashed across your skin and he delicately picked up your hand, flipping it over so he could press a kiss against the inside of your wrist.

His deep brown eyes met yours and with his lips still brushing against your skin, whispered, "Will you allow me to worship you?"

You found yourself nodding before your voice had a chance to catch up with you, then his hands gently cupped your face and pulled you down to his level. The moment your lips finally met, you forgot how to breathe, how to move, how to think. His lips were so unexpectedly soft and tender as they slowly massaged against your own that it sent you into a tailspin.

You pressed your mouth against his with a little more force, the fear that he may just stop at one kiss gripping your throat and driving you forward. He made a soft, surprised noise in the back of his throat when you began to kiss him with more intensity, but he didn't skip a beat. He tightened his hold on your face, fingers dimpling your cheeks and his nose bumping lightly against yours.

Your hands pressed against his chest, then your fingers curled to grip his shirt, wanting to tug him closer, wanting to feel him everywhere but you were still in your stupid fucking tiny bathroom and it was difficult to maneuver. Seemingly anticipating your next move, you felt Marcus stand. Your head tipped back, neck craned upwards at an impossible angle, refusing to break the kiss even for a moment so he began to carefully walk you backwards towards the door. Every step towards your bedroom felt like you were walking deeper and deeper into the sea, drowning in his overwhelming presence and touch.

Marcus's palm slid over your shoulder, down your arm and only stopping when he found your ribs. He wound his arm around you as you both stumbled through your doorway with as little grace as you would expect from two people growing more and more intertwined by the moment.

Once you felt your mattress pressing into the backs of your knees, you released your death grip on his shirt so you could reach behind you and unzip your dress. The cool air washed over your bare skin when it pooled around your feet and suddenly, you felt extremely exposed. What kinds of women was he used to being with? It felt like every day when you went into work you learned something new that men found desirable in women. How could you possibly be expected to keep up in the modern world, let alone with what Marcus might find appealing?

But when his palm reconnected with your middle and he felt your smooth skin under his hand, he grew desperate for more to the point where you could sense it, pushing your insecurities to the back of your mind. His injured hand left your cheek so he could glide both massive hands over the soft swell of your curves, his fingers twitching as he sought out more of your skin but when he came in contact with your bra, his hands stopped.

You could feel his hesitation by the way his lips stalled against yours so you took his hands and wrapped them around your back, wordlessly guiding him to the clasp as your tongue slid inside his mouth.

He figured out the hooks on your bra after only one or two fumbles and it dropped to the floor to join your dress.

"Fuck," he whispered when he finally managed to pull away to admire your nearly naked body. Your eyes widened with surprise.

"I don't think I've heard you curse before."

He inhaled a ragged breath, his eyes still drinking you in when he murmured, "I did not have a reason to before now."

He gently grazed over your breast, barely even touching you while he watched with fascination as your nipple tightened from the brief contact. "You have stirred something within me," he said softly, his eyes and hands continuing to roam. "Something I believed did not exist for a long time."

You leaned into his touch when he cupped your breast, enraptured with how soft you felt under his hand. Your fingers curled around the waistband of his khakis, sliding your nails across his lower stomach, across the coarse hair you very much wished to see while his mouth descended on your throat. His beard tickled the spot below your ear and it sent a shudder down your spine. His lips curved into a smile against your skin at the involuntary movement and he asked, "What else do you like?"

It was becoming difficult to breathe. The way he was so slow and careful yet sure of himself was unlike anything you had ever experienced before with a man. It was making your knees weak and your head swim.

When it took too long for you to answer his question, he lightly pinched your skin between your teeth, causing warmth to bloom just underneath the mark.

"T-touch me," you stammered, your eyes sliding closed and your head tipping back, surrendering yourself completely to his prowess.

His hand slipped down your body, over your stomach and underneath your panties. You gasped sharply when you felt one thick finger part your folds, sliding over your clit and dipping into your entrance, drenching him with your arousal.

"Lay down for me," he whispered in your ear while wrapping his free arm around your back, holding you steady so you didn't collapse from the torture of his singular finger working in and out.

He laid you down carefully in your bed, his hand never losing its rhythm and his mouth still ghosting over your neck and chest.

You whined and bucked your hips under him, fingers getting tangled in his thick curls while he whispered words of adoration into your skin, imprinting himself on you forever.

He could feel you growing rigid, your muscles tense and your exhale coming in short bursts. He brushed his lips over yours at the same time his thumb grazed over your clit, making your jaw drop and a sob erupt from your throat.

"Relax," he murmured, increasing the speed of his wrist while slowly sliding his tongue alongside yours. "Relax and let go for me, cor mea," he said against your mouth.

Your body convulsed beneath him when he brought you to your climax with just one finger. His mouth locked over yours, swallowing down your cries and allowing them to feed his ever growing desire. When you whimpered and lightly pushed his hand away, he withdrew from between your legs but continued to deepen the kiss. It was so sweet and loving that it sent you reeling, wondering how you would ever find satisfaction from another man again after Marcus.

"Take these off," you breathed, tugging on his belt loops. He reared back to sit on his heels while deftly undoing the button and zipper of his khakis, leaving them gaping open at his waist before yanking his polo shirt over his head and tossing it onto the floor. You bit your lip, admiring his bare chest for the first time while he pushed his pants down and kicked them off.

"Christ," you muttered, eyes trailing over his tanned and scarred skin. You reached out and traced a particularly jagged one on his shoulder but he was more focused on ridding you of your underwear. If you ever questioned the validity of his time traveling story, any doubt was erased from your mind when you saw his body.

"Did these hurt?"

He paused and followed your gaze to his marked up torso.

"Some, at the time, yes."

Your expression softened to one of pity as you continued to scan his body, losing count of the shiny, pale scars.

"W-what... how did these..." you trailed off, unable to keep the emotion from your voice. Marcus cupped your cheek and pressed a kiss against your lips.

"It is alright. I have been in many battles. It is my job, and just like yours, I must do it."

You laughed but you didn't really find it funny. "You risk your life every day while I write about best places to take a first date or what to do if you're faking orgasms with your boyfriend. You can't compare the two."

Marcus cocked an eyebrow as he hovered above you. "And do you have much experience faking orgasms?"

You felt your face flush. You knew he was just trying to distract you, but it was working. "Some."

He leaned down and kissed the tip of your nose, then each one of your eyelids before asking, "But not a moment ago?"

You shook your head and raked your fingers through his hair, making him growl at the sensation of your nails across his scalp. While he focused on positioning himself at your opening, you dragged your mouth over his shoulder, tongue dipping to trace over his scar. You couldn't do anything about them now except show them love, something you were realizing Marcus was desperately lacking in his life back home.

Home. The thought entered your brain right when he first pushed inside you, stealing the air from your lungs and bringing tears to your eyes. You did your best to brush it aside and focus on the present, like the way he stretched you open or the soft noise he made when he fully sheathed his heavy length deep within you.

"Fuck," you gasped, clawing at his shoulders while you tried to get your bearings.

He released a groan so guttural and deep it had you squeezing around him. Your mouth found a home on his neck as he slowly began to rock his hips, your lips and teeth leaving temporary marks over his skin to join the scars. Every kiss was slow, every touch was attentive and it was hard to stop yourself from giving into him.

"You - oh," he moaned, eyes sliding shut as he lost himself in the moment. It might have been the first time you'd seen him ever falter, and the thought sent a fresh wave of arousal through you. "You are so soft and beautiful," he mumbled before finding your mouth once again and plunging his tongue past your teeth. "I fear it is almost too much for me to bear," he confessed between kisses.

Marcus was unlike any man you had ever met in so many ways. His vulnerability staggered you. Most men you had known would consider it weak or embarrassing to speak the way he spoke, but Marcus managed to do it without sacrificing an ounce of his raw masculinity.

His broad shoulders and thick arms caged you in, giving you a feeling of safety and security you never felt before with another person. It was always you who had to be strong, who had to figure everything out and be responsible. And for once, with Marcus, it felt like you could let go and not have to worry.

Your body relaxed beneath him, legs spreading even wider to accommodate his powerful thrusts. He pulled an arm out from underneath you to press down on your thigh, pushing it into the mattress next to you in order to open your hips up even more. Then he leaned up just a fraction so he could grind his hips against you with his new found space, drawing a shaky moan from your throat when he came in contact with your clit.

Marcus paid attention. He took note of what you liked, what made you writhe and gasp and he teased you with it until you were begging him for more. He couldn't deny you, so he gave you what you asked. When you whined for him to go faster, he did. When you begged him to touch you, he did. He gave you everything you asked for until your legs trembled and your breath quickened and you were tossing your head back into your pillow, his name on your lips as you fell apart for him.

Then you gazed up at him, eyes smoldering, your lips swollen and parted and looking more beautiful and satisfied than he ever could imagine. Pulling him down to you by the back of his neck, you whispered his name in his ear and he shuddered, his hips faltering for a moment all because of one simple word from your lips.

"Marcus," you whispered again, mouth sucking a bruise into his neck. "Are you going to come for me?"

"Yes," he groaned, his eyes fluttering shut as he neared his peak. A lazy smile spread across your face, body still flooding with pleasure as he fucked you a little harder seeking his own.

His hand fell to your side, pulling you closer, rolling your hips in rhythm with his, and with his teeth bared and eyes flashing with hunger, he came with a broken groan that sent a shiver down your spine. You gasped at the feeling of him emptying himself inside you, eyes squeezing shut in ecstasy. His mouth crashed over yours with your eyes still closed. Your tongues danced together, first with lust, then once your heart rates slowed and your skin stopped tingling, with something more. Something like longing and desperation to hold onto the moment as long as you possibly could.

You both spent a little too long sharing tender kisses and gentle touches. For once, the world around you ceased to make noise and the only thing that mattered was what to order for dinner so you didn't have to leave your bed the rest of the night. You picked Mediterranean food and spent the hour after it was delivered discussing how it compared to the food he was used to, neither of you daring to mention the elephant in the room.

You curled up into his side, his arm draped around you, his back leaning against your headboard as you watched a romantic comedy together. Just as you were explaining the plot and how you had used the movie as inspiration for an article the year prior, a breakthrough was happening in Queens.

The volume on your phone was off and neither of you were paying attention to it lighting up on your nightstand, too busy ignoring the movie in favor of fusing your lips together again with your limbs slowly tangling together under the covers to notice the text come through.

Danny: staying in Queens for the night, we're on a roll. The mighty General shall be out of your hair b4 you know it.

[chuckeroo777]

Laios got Eaten AU Chapters 1-52

So, I was pondering a lot (as I do), and was thinking about this AU. Here's my take on it. Sorry if my grasp on characterization isn't the best. Expect lots of Farcille.

This is mostly a plot point based summary, going chapter by chapter. If something isn't elaborated on, assume it's the same as canon.

Note: This first installment ends at the same point as the anime, but as a manga reader, there are spoilers for later in the canon story.

Edit: Wowzers, that ended up being over 4,000 words! Guess I had more to say than I thought.

This is pretty long, so I'll begin under the cut.

Chapter 1:

Unlike Laios' self deprecating take on this scenario, the rest of the team doesn't immediately give up on him. Marcille and Chilchuck are his friends, and if Falin thinks it's possible, then they're in.

Namari leaves of course, but Toshiro is more complex. He argues with Falin, trying to convince her not to embark on such a risky mission, and may accidentally frame it as Falin choosing between him and Laios. Falin, of course, picks Laios. Toshiro leaves, dejected. After feeling sorry for himself for a while, he gets his retainers and heads after her, hoping to offer backup.

Falin proposes the dungeon eating plan, having casually discussed the possibility with Laios in the past. Without the gourmet guide, she isn't as knowledgeable about monsters, but she is pretty good at identifying stuff from her days of eating weird stuff in the woods, so she can tell the walking mushroom isn't poisonous. She also manages to grab the scorpion, having messed with crayfish as a kid.

Unlike Laios, she doesn't try to eat the venom, but they still struggle, and Senshi comes in to help. Falin is very excited to have such an expert helping them out, and is happy to have him join the team.

In general, Marcille is just as squicked out by monster cuisine, but she tries to put on a brave face for Falin. In fact, her attempts to be more accepting results in her not yelling at Senshi, so the slime doesn't attack her.

Chapter 2:

They go after the man-eating plants, and things mostly go down the same. Without Laios, it takes a little longer for Falin and Senshi to figure out how to save Marcille, going for the root. Marcille gets seeds planted in her skin, but Falin is able to heal her and get them out.

Chapter 3:

Senshi takes them Basilisk hunting, and Marcille is dismayed to see Falin knows the trick for intimidating Basilisks, a sight she will not soon forget. While Senshi slices the snake, Falin caves the chicken's head in.

While Senshi prepares the Basilisk, Falin is able to use a detox spell on Doni. The two still stay to eat though.

Chapter 4:

Events mostly play out the same, though Falin is a bit more gentle in rejecting Marcille's help. Falin admits to having skipped class the day they learned about mandrake harvesting.

Chapter 5:

Chilchuck uses Falin's metal staff instead of the sword to find the passage. When they go to get the oil, Falin casts a fire-ward spell on Chilchuck, just in case. Senshi declines to take one too.

Chapter 6-7:

Without Laios' insights, they deem the living armor too dangerous after the first attempt, and take a slightly different route to the third level.

Much to Marcille's chagrin, they run into a nest of giant rats, and they end up having giant rat stir-fry instead.

Chapter 8:

Falin thinks Senshi's utilization of the golems is absolutely delightful.

Chapter 9:

Falin is rather uncomfortable with Chilchuck's suggestion to trade at the seedy bar, but doesn't argue.

Events with the orcs go more or less the same. Falin thinks Bahay is very cute.

Chapter 10:

No Kensuke, so they get ambushed by the bugs. Chilchuck gets bitten, but Falin is able to heal him.

Falin applies much better ghost wards than Marcille. In fact, she quickly realizes they are just paralyzed, and is able to heal them. Yeah, no. That would have way too big of a butterfly effect on the story. Maybe she's too distracted by the pretty bugs to notice.

Unlike Marcille, Falin thinks the centipedes are adorable. In fact, she secretly takes one and hides it in her pack to keep as a pet.

Chapter 11:

As one would expect, the ghosts are a complete non-issue. No ice cream for them.

Chapter 12-13:

No one in this party is crazy enough to bother with the living paintings. Without the delay, they are able to make camp at the level 4 entrance, bypassing the mimic.

Senshi catches some fish, and they have a very nice dinner.

Chapter 14:

Mostly the same, except instead of Laios, Senshi is saved by Falin. She has experience in such manners.

Chapter 15:

Sadly, Falin does not know the song, so they have to resort to earplugs. This leads to a silent but amusing argument where Chilchuck has to talk down Falin from eating fish-men without words. Falin does not pull the waterweed stunt.

Chapter 16:

The kraken battle is pretty much identical.

Unlike Laios, Falin has eaten calamari before, having gone to that restaurant with Marcille several times. She is very disappointed the kraken tastes bad.

Senshi cooks up the parasite, and Falin doesn't eat any raw.

Chapter 17:

No one is sick, so this chapter doesn't happen.

Chapter 18:

Marcille has a sponge bath and insists Falin take one too. Chilchuck is annoyed by their flirting, but Senshi thinks it's cute.

When the Undine attacks, Falin is able to waterwalk and help Marcille, but neither of them has particularly good magic for fighting an undine. Both are badly injured, but they manage to escape.

Falin is able to heal both of them, but they are both left very hungry, and relatively low on mana. They have a barbecue to help them recover.

Chapter 19-20:

The Tansu party arrives. Tensions aren't quite as high between Marcille and Namari, but it's still there.

After Tansu fails to pacify the Undine. the two parties agree to help each other out. First, they help get down to the tower. A well placed fireball saves Kiki from the tentacles. Sadly, without Laios' knowledge, they can't eat them, at least not as easily.

When coming up with a plan to stop the undine, the idea to trap it is brought up, and they basically use the same plan, except Namari is in on it from the start.

After killing it, Falin suggests eating it, and the two groups enjoy some kelpie stew before departing opposite ways.

Chapter 21:

More or less plays out the same. Chilchuck suggests making the suits, to which Falin enthusiastically agrees. Senshi makes froggy hash instead of pasta, since he doesn't know how to neutralize the stinging.

Marcille puts on the frog suit without complaint since Falin puts one on first.

She attempts to take it off to much complaint still.

Chapter 22:

Most identical chapter yet. Namari asks about Laios instead of Falin. That's it.

Chapter 23:

Plans are made to take down the red dragon. With Falin here, their warding spells are much better, but no Laios means Senshi is the only proper warrior. Falin is a decent fighter, and plans to join Senshi and Chilchuck on the frontline. They search the orc's storehouse and find some spears, which will hopefully be enough for the inverse scale.

They mostly come up with the same plan. Crush the dragon, then kill it.

Chapter 24-25:

The pot defenses fail, and they go ahead and crush the dragon. When the dragon emerges, Falin is able to execute the plan, stabbing the dragon as they play dead. However, she isn't able to stab deeply enough before the dragon recoils, the spear getting pulled away from her, landing some distance away.

Senshi tries to stab the dragon in the foot, but the spear breaks. Things go as they do in canon, with Senshi and Chilchuck managing to toss Falin the spear and blind the dragon in one eye.

Falin meets up with Marcille, and ends up pulling the same self-sacrificing gambit Laios did, stabbing the dragon in the throat while dangling from its mouth.

Chapter 26:

Falin falls unconscious, and has a dream about when Laios first left home, leaving her behind. And how he later promised to never leave her behind again.

Marcille still has to heal Chilchuck and Senshi herself, since Falin is in no state to do it herself. They retrieve her leg, and Falin is able to finish healing all four of them.

They begin carving into the dragon, with Senshi taking the lead. Laios' intrusive thought fun facts end up saving the day, reminding Falin about the flame sac.

Chapter 27:

Falin doesn't even bother mentioning the resurrection office, already knowing what must be done. Marcille doesn't hesitate to offer her ancient magic as the solution.

Falin is able to assuage Chilchuck's concerns a little better than Marcille did, clarifying that the ancient magic is just used to perform magic of a magnitude impossible with just natural mana. He still doesn't quite buy it, but doesn't protest further.

Putting Laios' skeleton together takes longer, since no one here is super knowledgeable about dog skeletons. They get it eventually though.

Marcille does the ritual. Falin thinks Marcille is hot when she lets her hair down like that.

Laios is revived successfully, and everyone is incredibly happy.

Chapter 28:

No bath scene. :(

Laios is incredibly curious about their journey, and is running his mouth asking questions. He is extremely excited that his monster eating idea worked, and is practically glued to Senshi for a while asking questions. Due to his presence, Senshi doesn't explode the dragon.

Marcille isn't surprised in the least by Laios' enthusiasm, and is just glad to have her friend back. They enjoy their little dragon feast, regaling Laios with their tales of monster eating.

Unlike Falin, Laios does not realize that forbidden magic was used to revive him, and apologizes profusely for abandoning Falin, even though she insists it wasn't his fault.

Chapter 29:

When Thistle summons Laios, a ghost wakes Falin up. She wakes the others, and they go looking for him.

Unlike Falin, Laios doesn't gain magical power from the dragon, instead getting an even bigger boost to his strength. Falin isn't just knocked unconscious, but is badly injured by his punch.

Not even being dominated by the mad mage can stop Laios from yapping. As he is transformed, he gives Thistle tips, causing his chimera form to be significantly more dangerous, featuring a bigger but more slender build and bigger wings, allowing him to actually fly. As well as a few other embellishments, such as tail spikes and small horns.

The ghosts save the party, and things proceed as normal.

Chapter 30:

Chilchuck's arc is mostly the same, except that it is easier to convince Falin once she wakes up. Healing the internal bleeding Laios caused took a lot out of her, and both her and Marcille are tapped of magic. They agree to return to the surface.

Chapter 31:

Literally Identical.

Chapter 32:

Kabru's deductions are mostly the same, only altered slightly due to being warded by Falin instead of Marcille.

Shuro isn't quite as haggard. Falin isn't actively dead, so he doesn't feel the need to run himself ragged. Funny enough, taking better care of himself ends up canceling things out, and he arrives at Kabru's group at about the same time.

Chapter 33:

Senshi and Chilchuck have to fight the Dryads by themselves. They use the axe instead of Kensuke. Not that Laios helped much, but the first dryad manages to attack Senshi, leaving him in much rougher shape by the end of the fight.

Thankfully, he makes a full recovery once Falin recovers some mana from the yummy pottage.

Once Falin is recovering, she suggests teleporting out of the dungeon, but Marcille flat out refuses to let Falin do that again. It's way too risky. Now that they have a source of food, mapping out the area should be simple.

Chilchuck does not escape the sex ed.

Chapter 34:

A dramatic reenactment of chapter 34:

They still need to spend several days making the map, but at least petrification isn't an issue.

Chapter 35:

The ghost warns Falin about the wyvern, and they hide in the wall, so business as usual.

When Marcille accidentally puts on the frog suit, Falin decides to put hers on too. This somehow makes Marcille more mortified, not less.

Recognizing Falin, the ninjas don't attack. Marcille is annoyed how happy Falin is to see Toshiro, considering the bad terms he split off on.

Chapter 36:

Since Falin has been enthusiastic, but not overbearing about monster food, Chilchuck chooses to go with Senshi even more easily.

Falin explains what happened to Toshiro, leaving out the ancient magic. Toshiro has no reason to think Falin wouldn't be able to revive Laios. He is happy to learn that she intends to return to the surface, and he plans to try and talk her out of returning once safe on the surface.

Kabru can tell Falin is lying about something, but remains quiet.

Chapter 37:

Even though harpies show up, everything seems to be going well, until Hien splatters on the ground. The Laigon quickly proves to be a ferocious foe, with razor sharp claws, a vicious thagomizer, and the ability to easily fly out of reach, or drop opponents from deadly heights.

Marcille didn't know that sufficient brute force could splatter an Undine to death, but apparently so.

Falin watches in horror as she can see an almost joyous look in his eyes. He would never do this of his own volition... but he clearly doesn't hate it.

When Rin grounds the Laigon with lightning, Falin steels her resolve and charges in to pummel his weak point, but he smiles and says her name.

Chapter 38:

After Kabru fails to kill him, the Laigon is too powerful, and kills Kabru before Falin can do anything. Seeing the Laigon about to attack Falin, Marcille hits it with an explosion.

Snarling, the Laigon looks like it's about to pounce at Marcille and company, causing Falin to fully freak out and unleash her strongest offensive spell, causing several massive rocky spires to erupt and impale the Laigon from below, and accidentally hitting Rin in the process.

Screaming and convulsing in pain, the Laigon takes for the sky, fleeing as fast as it can, leaving behind a thick trail of blood.

With both Falin and Holm alive, as well as Marcille not being barred from helping, the revivals go smoothly.

Toshiro ends up getting into a shouting match with Falin regarding her goal of saving Laios. Falin insists that if they defeat the mad mage, they can save him. He insists that trying to do so at this point is suicidal.

In the heat of the moment, Toshiro declares that Laios isn't even worth saving, and Falin slaps him. The conversation comes to an abrupt end, with both severely regretting their actions. Toshiro walks off to think, while Marcille comforts Falin, who seems on the verge of tears.

Toshiro ends up apologizing, saying he can't understand her decision, but he will respect it. He has Maizuru give them supplies so they can head down immediately, and gives Falin the bell.

Asebi overhears Marcille speculating with Chilchuck about the Laigon, and the possibility of the dragon's soul getting mixed in due to her revival magic.

Kabru leaves with a higher opinion of Falin than he did of Laios, because while she seemed fascinated by monsters, she wasn't as crazed about it as him. Plus she didn't offer him a harpy omelette, so that helps.

Chapter 39:

Without the living paintings, they aren't able to quite grasp the mad mage's motives, but are still hopeful that they can talk to him.

And then the shapeshifters happen.

Chilchuck's Falin is an airhead, reflecting her calm demeanor and lack of commanding presence, even though she is ostensibly the leader without Laios around.

Senshi's Falin looks just like his Laios, but with longer hair. They look identical to Senshi.

Falin's Chilchuck is colder and more even-tempered than the real Chilchuck. She appreciates his levelheadedness and maturity.

Falin's Senshi is always spouting fun facts about food and food prep, and is always smiling. Senshi reminds her a lot of her brother's passions.

At first, the group is confused. They seem to be short two fakes. But then they find Falin's Marcille and Marcille's Falin making out in one of the cells. Both are too shy to admit their feelings, but apparently their mental images aren't so shy about it.

Once obvious stuff is out of the way, and equipment has been checked, Marcille and Falin have been found, but Chilchuck's Senshi, Marcille's Chilchuck, and Falin's Chilchuck are still around.

Chapter 40:

Marcille and Falin manage to eliminate Chilchuck's Senshi, since they both get a weird feeling from it, and all three Chilchucks agree it's the right Senshi, practically confirming it to be Chilchuck's.

The Chilchucks prove much trickier, until Falin comes up with an idea. We skipped chapter 13, so Falin suggests the Chilchucks provide their age. Marcille's says 20. Falin's says 45. Chilchuck is able to explain those guesses are way off the mark, and as the only one able to give a proper explanation of half-foot age ranges, he is clearly the correct one.

With all the copies locked up, the shapeshifter gives up and goes to find other prey.

Asebi ambushes the party as normal afterwards.

Chapter 41:

There is a bit of confusion at Asebi's accusations, since Marcille never confessed to using ancient magic, but Asebi overheard her talking about how she may have blended Laios' soul with the dragon, and that is not something someone does on accident. Clearly she must have been using black magic to do something like that.

Nonetheless, Marcille agrees to break the collar's magic, and things proceed the same. Falin attacks the hag with her mace-staff, creating a messier cut, but functionally the same.

The explanation of their goals goes about the same, including Falin being rather happy to meet Izutsumi, though she's a little less weird about it, talking about how Laios was fine before the mage kidnapped him, and that hopefully he'll go back to that state of mind when saved.

Chapter 42:

In Falin's nightmare, the Laigon appears and tries to kill her, but Falin becomes lucid before it can strike.

Falin goes into Marcille's nightmare to help her. Being more experienced with this sort of thing, she is able to calm Marcille down, and cause her to become lucid, dispelling the nightmare without violating Marcille's private traumas.

They then spend the rest of the lucid dream having fun together. I'll let you decide how much those shapeshifter clones inspired their behavior.

Senshi cooks the nightmares, and much to the girls' dismay, the dream is shown for all to see. Everyone agrees not to bring it up again.

Chapter 43:

While searching the recovered packs, Falin is delighted to find the Dungeon Gourmet Guide. She was afraid it had been digested with Laios.

Note: Falin should be seeing the ghost by now, but I don't want to break up the chapter flow, so just assume the ghost got caught in ghost traffic.

Without Laios to block them, Marcille gets impaled by a few stalactites, and Falin has to tend to her. The fight goes as normal.

Izutsumi is able to undress without anyone being weird about it.

When doing the sauna thing, Chilchuck can't help but notice how closely Marcille and Falin are sitting. He tried to block the dream out of his mind, but it's clear that now that the feelings are out in the open, that's just how they're going to act from now on. He just hopes this doesn't cause any issues.

Chapter 44:

Falin finds the boiled mandrake quite tasty, and so doesn't question it when Izutsumi gives her a second.

When arguing over dinner, Falin is just as baffled as Izutsumi regarding the Barometz. As they run over, she flips through the guide, discovering the potential danger a few seconds too late.

Izutsumi and Marcille run off to do their thing. Falin panics and does something dumb. She starts barking. She isn't as good as Laios, but it's enough to scare off the wolves. Chilchuck isn't even surprised at this point.

Chapter 45:

Pretty much goes the same. Toshiro plans to report the Chimera, at least so people know to be wary, and Falin is just as careless with the bell as Laios.

As they eat their eggs, the ghost finally catches up and Falin is happy to chat.

Chapter 46:

Our party arrives in the golden country. Falin wants to check out the monster corrals, just like Laios, but while he was ecstatic about minotaur milking, Falin is much more charmed by the opportunity to pet the basilisk chicks.

Falin becomes extremely flustered at the sight of Marcille in a pretty dress. Unlike Laios, Izutsumi lets her pet her.

Since minotaur was not requested, they are served basilisk cordon bleu.

Sadly, the running joke of turning ghosts into ice cream is dead.

"One shall come who bears a staff of living wood." With Laios out of the picture, Marcille is the lion's next choice of champion.

Marcille really isn't sure what to think about this. Her? Become new queen of the land?

She ultimately gives no conclusive answer, but the possibility of gaining dominion over this land where no one ever dies is tempting.

Marcille and Falin share the double bed, while Chilchuck gets the single bed to himself. At least until Izutsumi curls up on him.

Chapter 47:

Breakfast goes smoothly, and they head back into the dungeon.

Things in the cistern go mostly the same, though Falin also thinks the griffon is Laios. Senshi doesn't panic until the griffon actually appears.

Chapter 48:

Marcille puts her plan into action, and Falin carries her.

With the second familiar, Falin suggests shaping it like a dragonfly, since they are very fast and agile. It isn't as fast as the wyvern, but it dodges a lot easier. The third familiar is still sky fish.

Once the griffon is defeated, Falin suggests eating the sky fish. Marcille objects, but she can't say no to Falin's smile.

And Senshi shares his story.

Chapter 49:

Unlike Laios, Falin doesn't push Senshi to try the griffon. She suggests cooking it, since they don't want to waste good food, but Senshi doesn't have to try it if he doesn't want to.

Senshi decides to go for it. You can decide if he's traumatized further, or if changelings follow logic, and meat without any spores on it (since it was cut from inside the griffon), and was then "washed" by turning it into soup turns back into hippogriff. Senshi tastes the "griffon" soup, and is immeasurably relieved.

Changlings are a lot of fun, but they sure open some plot holes. By all accounts, it should have reverted to hippogriff soup.

Look, this is my silly what-if AU, things don't have to be perfect.

Chapter 50:

Falin is a dwarf now. She sucks at magic, but now she can really smash some heads in.

Falin thinks half-foot Marcille is adorable. Marcille isn't sure what to think of dwarf Falin.

When they reach the door, Falin is surprised when her pet pearlipede crawls out unbidden and unlocks the door.

Despite the disadvantages, Falin's mace proves super-effective against the gargoyles, managing to defeat one, but tiring out while one is still left. They flee through the door.

Now that the party knows she has it (and that it's oddly useful), Falin starts wearing her pet as a bracelet.

While preparing dumplings, Falin ponders if maybe the griffon wasn't actually a griffon, but Chilchuck shuts her down before she can accidentally re-traumatize Senshi.

Chapter 51:

Falin notices Marcille's strong adverse reaction to the news that half-foots only live fifty years, but doesn't say anything.

Falin suggests the possibility of using the changelings on Laios, though unlike him, she doesn't consider that the two halves might change separately. She just imagines them turning the whole Laigon into a gnome or something.

When the last gargoyle arrives, Falin's staff gets knocked out of her grasp, and thrown by the gargoyle.

They use the knowledge from the transformed staff to defeat the last gargoyle. Sadly, Marcille does not get to fly.

Falin washes her staff.

Chapter 52:

Senshi grows curious and asks about Laios. Falin talks about how Laios always had trouble fitting in, and it wasn't until he started dungeon diving that he finally seemed able to make friends and be happy. Falin had dropped out of magic school because she didn't want Laios to be alone.

Marcille starts crying and clinging to Falin. She talks about how she used to hate Laios. But as they adventured together, he became like a brother to her. Falin starts crying too. Izutsumi sits by Chilchuck to avoid all the tears.

Senshi proposes his bacon and eggs plan. Falin can't find any issue with his reasoning, and thinks its a great idea, but Chilchuck points out how long it will take to eat that much meat. They start making plans for the foreseeable future.

Thistle tries to stop the Laigon from eating a walking mushroom, but is unsuccessful.

Chapters 53-85

Chapter 86-Finale

[feyclowns]

Ok I’ve got a genuine question this time lol. I forgot when Cosmo was born, half of Fairy World blew up. Does he still manage to do that here. I can’t imagine how easy it was to have him given how magically potent and dangerous he is.

so, after a lot of personal debate on the cosmo thing, i think i've come to an interpretation i like!

cosmo has an incredible amount of magic due to his von strangle bloodline. while his mother and grandmother were above average powerful, cosmo was born with nearly the full power of a proper fey. this wouldn't be so much of a problem if cosmo's central core hadn't began producing its own magic before he was born.

when a fairy is pregnant they're not so much giving all their magic to their baby as sharing it; while yes, they expend a tremendous amount of magic to develop their young, father and baby sort of even out their magic levels between themselves.

what i'm saying is cosmo gave his dad magical backup, which is nearly unheard of in pregnancy. cosmo could handle it for longer, because his higher endurance core system matured way too early. cosmo was given access to a training wand when he began showing signs of magical backup himself at the hospital, and he proceeded to release a magic shockwave that ended up frying a power grid, knocking out half of fairy world's energy. it was kind of a catastrophe overall but euphemia still chose to love and adore cosmo anyway- blaming her own genes if anything for papa cosmo's death.

also cosmo was doing his happy buzzies at the ripe age of 6 hours old

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Been thinking about this one for a bit

Mini Headcannon

How would the M6 react to someone breaking into the shop WHILE M6 and Mc are inside? Like it’s late at night and then all of sudden they hear a window smash and voices coming from downstairs or whatever goes on during a burglary/robbery. How would they react?

- 🃏

( I love when I seen people leave I little emojis so I wanted to do it too )

The Arcana Mini-HCs: When someone breaks into the shop

Julian: ever the reckless one, dashing downstairs with 1 (one) random clothing article to whip in the face of whoever intruded and no plan

Asra: asking Faust to keep an eye on the intruder for them while they concoct a Home Alone-style prank gauntlet to subject them to

Nadia: drawing a sword, leading the way downstairs trusting you to be her backup as she bests them in combat and takes their names

Muriel: heading for the nearest window. except your safety is at stake, so you two can just hide together. Inanna scares them off

Portia: sneaks up with a frying pan, but ends up eavesdropping on their conversation. blackmails them into submission with it

Lucio: the intruder can hear his infuriated squawking from upstairs. between that and the dog's growling they take off quickly

[dunmeshichilchuck]

For That One Guy on Tumblr part 6

Chilchuck x !fem !halffoot reader

The party trudged through the icy floor they'd found you on. 

At one point Laois pointed out where they'd dug you out of the ice. There were what looked like explosions, signs of battle, and a dead ice golem. Ahhh so they'd been fighting something else and your body had just happened to have been uncovered. That made sense. 

You spotted a chunk of fabric attached to...something, and shuddered. Looks like they hadn't collected everything. The experience of seeing your own flesh, disconnected and dead was surreal. Maybe you should take it along with you as a souvenir. Laois would probably be all too ready to help you pickle it. 

You felt a hand on your shoulder and jumped. Turning, you saw Chilchuck. 

"Hey, come on, you're starting to fall behind."

You hadn't even realized you'd stopped to stare at the remains of your death, but the party had indeed started to pull ahead. 

Chilchuck turned without another word and you fell in step beside him as you both caught back up to the party. 

The door to the next part of the dungeon opened into what looked like one long hallway, bending to the right off in the distance. You stepped through the threshold and immediately shucked off the blanket you'd had to borrow to use as a jacket. It felt wonderfully warm in here. 

As the party continued walking you noticed that they had been working together long enough to automatically sort themselves into an order that made sense for combat. Laois was up front with Senshi, the two most durable heavy hitters. Then Marcille, presumably for quick backup and/or healing. Then Chilchuck, who would need to be out of the way of any fighting, and would be best equipped to hear anything sneaking up from behind. Izutzumi drifted around wherever, up in front, back behind, racing ahead and then flopping down and digging a stone out of her shoe. You weren't sure what her role in the party was yet, but she seemed extremely agile and confident, so you'd guess she could hit a lot harder than her skinny frame and lack of obvious weaponry would suggest. They really were all very well coordinated and used to working with each other. 

You kept in line with Chilchuck. Both because of all the tactical stuff you'd just run through, and because it was nice to get to chat with another halffoot again. It'd been a year since you'd seen another halffoot when you went into the dungeon, and then another six months or so in the dungeon.

Up ahead Laois and Senshi appeared to be in excited conversation about cooking the remnants of the barometz. From the sounds of it Senshi was looking forward to taking advantage of the tender meat to make delicious stir fry, and Laois was theorizing about the best way to use the plant as bait for larger monsters.

You glanced at Chilchuck. "Laois and Senshi seem to be having fun."  

He chuckled. "Yeah they do that. They're both kinda freaks about monsters, Laois MUCH more so. That guy..." He shook his head ruefully. "I mean don't get me wrong, he's a good fighter, and the monster knowledge helps him fight and survive, and he's even picked up some healing magic so he's a good guy to have on your side, but he just does not understand social or cultural norms or how to deal with people. Plus he's just kinda a freak about it."

You nodded. Up ahead, Laois and Senshi dropped their voices a bit and started discussing meals that would be suitable for you to eat until you recovered from revival sickness. 

You grimaced. "Ah, have they not..."

"Realized we can hear them even if they think they're too far away? No they haven't, they still think of me as a tallman child after all, I doubt they clock that we can do stuff they can't." He snorted and said. "I bet they think of you as a toddler. After all they already think I'm a kid and you're so much shorter than me."

"Wha- hey!" You spluttered. "I'm not the one that's short, you're ridiculously tall! Being around the tall races has warped your idea of whats normal for sure."

Chilchuck grinned. "Regardless of what's normal for us they're still gonna ruffle your hair first chance they get. Mark my words." 

You'd interacted with enough of the other races to know he was probably right. You'd been able to work people underestimating you to your favor sometimes but that didn't mean it wasn't annoying. 

Up ahead there was a strangled yelp, like a cat being sat on. Marcille gasped. "Izutzumi!" And started sprinting ahead to where the corridor took a sharp right turn. 

Laois and Senshi followed suit. You and Chilchuck followed but quietly dropped back to keep some distance.

You came skidding around the corner to see a very mangled walking mushroom and Izutzumi standing over it looking cranky. 

"Izutzumi!" Marcille gasped out. "are you okay?? What happened??"

"I can't stand these things." Izutzumi growled. She turned to Senshi, who was already inspecting the mushroom. "You better not be thinking about putting that into my food! I will NOT be eating-"

You heard a faint series of "chunk" sounds, like a series of very large stones softly falling into place. You whipped your head around, looking for the source. Chilchuck also started glancing around, but no one else reacted. It must have been out of their hearing range. 

it didn't take long to find the source. A solid wall had risen up in the corridor you'd just come down, and doors and turns had opened up in the corridor you'd just entered. 

Chilchuck turned to Senshi and Izutzumi. "Stop squabbling about that! We've got bigger problems." 

Tag list, ask to tag:

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[nicestgirlonline]

Tell me a little more about Hot to go?

Thank you for asking!! It's one of my fanfic for The Bear, my less angsty and sad one haha. It takes place starting in S1 and the reader is a new front of house cashier. She’s very sweet and bubbly, offsetting the stressful environment of the Beef. She fits in like a little sister type to most of the others. I pictured her as an unlucky in love gal, always having a bad boyfriend or going on lame Tinder dates and it burns Carmy up inside but he’s too introverted/trying to stay focused on work to say anything. Of course eventually the jealousy gets to a breaking point ;)

Here’s an unedited snippet from it!

Carmy heard the yelling in the dining room over the bustle of the kitchen but it seemed wrong. He wasn’t sure he had ever heard you yell before, now like that at least. If Richie wasn’t right in front of him, goofing off with Tina, giving him a headache, he’d assumed it was him up front. He heard a clattering of something on the floor and a loud

He burst through the door to the register, “Yo, what’s going on here?” He immediately took in the scene. The large, red in the face man who was screaming at you, while there were coins all over the counter and ground.

“You the manager? She’s got a fucking attitude problem, she is mouthing off to customers willy nilly.”

“Don’t talk to my employees like that. Are you going to order or are you going to leave?” He quickly slid in front of you at the register, making sure he was between you and Mr. Karen.

“What the fuck is this kind of place? Whatever happened to the customer comes first?”

“That only applies to non assholes. It's on the wall.” He pointed to a faded sign that said “no assholes” that hung over the men’s room.

“Now you’re giving me lip, small fry? First this bitch now --”

It all happened at once, Carmy leaping across the counter to shove Mr. Karen to the wall, the rest of the guests scattering and shrieking at the sudden violence. Richie finally decided to poke his head out, baseball bat in hand, ready as backup. You ducked beneath the counter as the two of them removed the man.

You heard the jingle of the door. Richie spoke to the rest of the customers, trying to lighten the mood and assure them everything was back in order. He gave you a nudge with his foot when he took his place behind the register again.

“Take a fifteen kid,” He said softly. “Yo, next customer. Step up, let’s keep it going -”

You slunk to the back, to the small place by the dumpster where you knew you could be completely alone. You’d never been so rattled at a job before. You were ashamed you lost your temper, ashamed of how scared you’d felt, and embarrassed that you had such little control you needed your boss to kick out a customer for you.

You sat with your head in your hands, trying desperately not to cry. You could cry when you got home.

“Hey uh, you good?” Carmy poked his head out, he had his hand in his hair, not really making eye contact.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine…are you ok? I’m really sorry about all of that. ” He let out a half chuckle, half sigh.

“It was nothing.”

“Richie grabbed a bat.” you pointed out. He rolled his eyes and took a seat on the curb next to you.

“So look, next time if a customer is giving you trouble and you can’t handle it, just come and get me ok?” He leaned in close to you, his big blue eyes sucking you in.

“I’m going to handle my shit I promise. I mean it, I can handle a rude customer. He just started to fly off the handle over nothing and I’m sorry I couldn’t de-escalate”

“Don’t apologize for customers. I know they’re mostly assholes.”

“He was right though.”

“Huh?”

“It is weird we have spaghetti on the menu.”

Carmy laughed. You started to laugh too.

“I do agree with that. I have no idea what Mikey was thinking with that one. Might have to take it off the menu, to keep my cashiers safe.” He grabbed a cigarette from his apron and offered you one. You shook your head. His mouth twisted for a moment, then he lit his own.

That was the first time he had ever brought up Mikey in front of you. You knew a little bit about the story, Mikey used to own the place before Carmy. Nobody really liked to bring it up and you weren’t looking to pry. You knew it was his brother.

The two of you sat in silence while Carmy smoked. You didn’t feel like crying anymore and you were grateful for that.

[glitteringcrab]

Frying his backups

I'm wondering if various stuff was taking place during this scene that went right over our heads:

(First of all, I'd like to say that I absolutely love the composition of this scene. Rick Prime is bathed in light, yet is almost indistinguishable from the machinery in which he's confined. Evil Morty, on the other hand, is standing on the dark side of the room, yet he's clearly visible; a bright figure among the darkness. Simply a manner of color balance and scene composition?? Symbolism ??? Symbolism of what????)

(Rick C-137, on the other hand, is almost as dark as Rick Prime; his color scheme shifting towards red from all the blood, his body as much machinery and tubes as the chair Rick Prime is currently confined in. Symbolism of their lost humanity? Accidental symbolism?)

A) What exactly happened before Rick Prime came to? This room is clearly wrecked. These metal panels are cracked or broken.

Did Evil Morty break them or did another battle, with some other enemy of Rick Prime's, take place soon before Rick C-137's battle?

Did Evil Morty accidentally wreck the whole room while attempting to extract/insert those thick cables from/into the metal panels in the wall?

Were the thick cables originally part of Prime's chair, or part of the machinery in the wall?

If they were part of the chair, what was their original function? Where were they supposed to connect to?

There are no empty sockets visible on the control panel to accommodate them, and wouldn't they be a trip hazard unless they were to go into the floor, which doesn't appear wrecked?

If they were part of the wall, how did Evil Morty connect them with the chair?

Admitedly, this doesn't look like a chair-oriented chair: it's a piece of machinery. Like, it seems to have served a specific function and not just Prime's butt. It has lights, and the thinner cables that are connected to Prime's brain via fingergun seem to emerge directly from the chair, with in-built openings to accommodate them. The thinner cables emerging from the bottom of the chair and to the tablet seem to be in their normal position, too...

The chair doesn't seem wrecked, either; just the walls, which points towards the thicker cables being part of the chair as well (but then what were they supposed to connect toooo?? And did Evil Morty stuck himself in the wall panels to connect the thick tables to whatever system was hidden in the wall lol?)

And, shouldn't the chair be facing the control panel?? No wheels are visible, can it even rotate?

What was the actual purpose of machinery of the chair?? We've seen Rick Prime fire the Omega Device while standing, using only a tablet. Why did he need his chair to be so sci-fi? What purpose did it serve??

Am I overthinking this?

B) What "picture" are you getting????

You are being murdered. This isn't complicated. This isn't something for you to "get".

Is he surprised that he found himself tied in his own chair in stead of, I dunno, not waking up at all?

...Could he tell from the cables stuck on his head that Evil Morty was messing with his brain? Was this the picture he "got"? In a "ooh, you are reading my mind" fashion? (But Evil Morty did not start stealing his secrets until the end...)

C) Notice that whenever the ends on the mini implanted cables from Eyepatch Morty's fingerguns go bright red, the thin black cables attached to Prime's forehead become visibly overloaded or something, and he always grimaces in pain...

But the mini implanted cables going red and Rick Prime being painfully electrocuted don't seem to coincide with Prime's clones getting fried...!

I'm counting 4 times Prime's clones getting visibly fried that weren't accompanied by a painful electrocution and the mini fingergun cables going red.

It seems to me like two separate things going on: (1) Evil Morty frying Prime's clones and (2) Evil Morty's fingergun weapon doing... something. Interacting with Prime in some fashion.

Either punishing him whenever Evil Morty got slightly mad (but this seems unlikely, Prime did not get electrocuted neither when he offered Evil Morty a job, nor when he insulted Evil Morty's murdering abilities) or... I'm leaning towards the theory that Prime was stealthily trying to override the fingeguns by using his own implants, and his attempts were halted? (whew) And, maybe, he was trying to distract Evil Morty from these attempts by talking to him...?

D) Why was Prime criticizing Evil Morty's murdering technique????

What do you think it is???

Was Prime simply confused that getting tied on a chair preceded getting murdered? In a "why take an unnecessary step" fashion?

Did he think that Evil Morty planned to torture him?

Is this the torture lol?

Cause this insult doesn't really make sense... Sure, it's kinda funny, but it doesn't make particular sense. Prime had just witnessed Evil Morty shooting him, attacking him physically and having a buttload of weapons implanted on his person. Did he think Evil Morty was incapable of finishing him off for some reason? I mean, I wouldn't say "ooh, what are you gonna do to me, huh???" to a guy armed to his teeth lol

Did his own hidden implants interacting with Evil Morty's fingerguns grant him some insight on the nature of Evil Morty's own brain implant and whatever limitations it might have?

Was it just an insult? In a "oh, you like to play tough but you're just a kid" fashion?

Was he confused that the murder wasn't concluded already?

Now you get it??

(I have to give it to Rick Prime for not fearing death, though. He looks slightly worried when Evil Morty drags Rick C-137 into the room, but he gets over it pretty soon. He also looked slightly nervous while Rick C-137 was disconnecting the cables from his head, but he got over it very fast, too. He's a horrible jerk but he ain't a coward)

E) Am I obsessed and do I need to find another hobby?

(Why, yes. Definitely.)

(Part 2 here)

[darkserenity24]

𝑭𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒐𝒎 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒐𝒔 - 𝑪𝒉. 1

Loki x Reader

𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 2 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴

𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭, 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘰𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘥.

𝙏𝙤𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙁𝙞𝙘 𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: 𝘿𝙖𝙧𝙠! 𝙇𝙤𝙠𝙞, 𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙖��𝙡𝙮 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙮! 𝘼𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙋𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘽𝙚𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙧, 𝙑𝙞𝙤𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚, 𝙎𝙢𝙪𝙩 (𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙡𝙪𝙛𝙛!), 𝙚𝙩𝙘.

𝘈/𝘕: **𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩** 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘢'𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴? 𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰, 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘖𝘎 🤙🏾

18+ 𝙊𝙉𝙇𝙔 - 𝙋𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙧𝙚 18+. 𝙈𝙞𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝘿𝙤 𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙮𝙤𝙪.

𝑷𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒚 𝑭𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 🌹

The steady beep of a machine was the first thing you heard. Peeling your heavy eyelids open with a struggle, you dazedly stared out of focus. You were in a room. It looked like a hospital room, but the usual eye-frying fluorescent lights were dimmed enough for you to only have to squint slightly.

The next thing you spotted were various flower bouquets placed around the room. Before you could get a better look around, you heard the sound of your name being called softly. Slowly turning your head, you were met with the sight of a woman with brown hair and green eyes. 

“I knew you would awake soon,” she said softly, gazing at you with a sad smile.

You closed your again briefly before opening them with a dazed frown. “W-where am I?” your hoarse tone sounded unfamiliar to your sensitive ears.

“You’re still in the tower, on Dr. Cho’s medical floor,” Wanda explained, rising out of her chair to move closer to you. “You’ve been here for a few days, about three. After we found you and Loki…” She trailed off with an unsure expression.

Your eyes opened up a bit wider at that. “Loki!” you choked out. “What happened to him? Oh my god- I- he saved me from Jacob and–!”

Wanda placed a hand on your arm, calming you down from your sudden panic attack. “I know, we know.” She responded before handing you a glass of water from the bedside table. “Drink this first and I’ll explain.”

You nodded, shakily bringing the glass up to your lips. She waited until you slowly downed half of its contents before continuing.

“We got the security alert as soon as they broke into the tower. We were halfway to Europe by then but we had immediately turned the plane around. It was utter chaos.” She breathed, shaking her head. “Tony’s backup feed caught everything that was happening in real-time. Everyone was completely out of their minds. Steve…” 

She closed her eyes briefly as if she was experiencing what happened right at this moment. “He was… not good.” Her eyes opened and you could practically feel the pain they held. “He was out of his mind, everyone was. We couldn’t believe that we failed you again.”

You shook your head slowly, trying not to give yourself a bigger headache than you already had. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It was no one’s fault except for Jacob and those two guards.”

You didn’t want her or anyone else carrying the weight of your attack, it wasn’t fair. 

“What’s… what’s happened since I was out?”

She sighed heavily before returning to her seat. “Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D has gotten involved but we are handling them. Fury is, for lack of a better word, quite furious about the situation and is trying to keep things as quiet as possible. The last thing we need is the US government knowing about this.”

Her troubled eyes met yours. “We may… understand why Loki did what he did, but it’s doubtful that anyone else outside of our circle would. The whole world finding out would be the end of… well, all of us.”

Faded memories of pained screams and splatters of dark red plagued your mind. You didn’t notice that your hands were rapidly shaking until Wanda called your name again.

Your eyes snapped to hers and she was transfixed on your trembling hands. You tried to get them to stop shaking, awkwardly placing them underneath the sheet that covered you.

“I’m okay,” you murmured, looking away from her worried gaze. “How does the team feel about all of this?”

She was quiet for a moment, most likely contemplating on what she was allowed to tell you.

“We have been… a bit divided. This kind of incident has never happened before and I think everyone is still processing. We see death all the time, yes, but this was something completely different. What Loki did to those three men was completely barbaric. I have never seen anything like that in my entire life. Yet if I am to be honest, from what I witnessed on camera, I am not one hundred percent sure that I would have done much different than what he did in his position. Jacob could have killed you,” Her voice slightly broke, but you could still hear the anger and fear in it. “and no matter how anyone else feels about the methods Loki used, they knew that Jacob deserved some of what was coming for him.”

You rubbed your forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Does everyone know what happened to him? Kayla? The rest of the Bale family?”

She shook her head. “No. We… wrote a letter to his family. From Jacob’s email account. All they know is that he was fired from Stark Industries and moved overseas to start a new venture. It was something he talked about with his family often, so it wasn’t very hard for us to make it believable.”

You were stunned into complete silence, mouth slightly agape. If what Wanda was saying was true, that meant that…

“You’re covering it up? His death?” You whispered with a horrified face.

“Yes, we are. Less or more,” Wanda replied quietly.

Slowly, you leaned back into the bed, eyes stuck on the ceiling and head resting on the pillow. Everything was suddenly feeling incredibly disorienting, and it wasn’t just because of your head injury. 

You felt as if you had woken up to a dystopian world. 

The Avengers were covering up a murder, no, several murders, and for who? You or Loki?

Your lip started to wobble as you thought about the man in question. He must have been so afraid of everything that happened. Your memory was a bit spotty but you remembered the quivering sound of his usual steady and confident voice, and how his body shook as he held you in his arms.   

Your head swiveled towards Wanda, eyes focusing on her. “What happened to Loki?”

Her brows rose as she glanced away. “Initially, he was sent into S.H.I.E.L.D’s custody. They claimed that we weren’t able to control him anymore. But yesterday, Tony, Natasha, and Thor had a meeting with Fury to petition for Loki to be released back into our supervision. The meeting took hours, and I have not spoken to them since then so I don’t know how it went.”

You blinked. Thor was of no question, but Tony and Nat trying to get Loki back was certainly a shock to you. 

“If it makes you feel any better, he has been compliant the whole time and hasn’t tried to cause any trouble. Maybe it’s because he knew what he did was well beyond anything else he’s gotten punished for.” Wanda muttered.

“What about when you found me? H-how was he?”

Wanda stared at you with a grave expression on her face before sighing. “It’s… It’s not exactly something I can describe with words.”

Looking at you hesitantly, she rose from her seat and gently placed her hand on your forehead. Your head tilted back and your eyes closed.

The team had burst into the room, doors completely ripped from their hinges as they readied for a fight, but what greeted them was well beyond what they could have ever expected. They were met with the petrifying sight of a murder scene. 

Tony was completely frozen, strapped in his iron suit while staring at the chaos in front of him. Natasha covered her mouth and stepped back, and you could feel tears running down Wanda’s face as she let out a horrified gasp.

Torn limbs, broken body parts, and glass shards were lying in a pool of blood that covered most of the floor. But past all of that, there sat Loki on a bed with you lying unconscious in his arms. His hair was wild and matted with dark red, clothes torn and eyes wild as he shielded over your now blanket-covered form. He did not flinch or look up at anyone else, only continuing to stare down at your bruised face. The same bloody hands that had caused the massacre that laid before them were now glowing a deep green as they held onto you. His whole body was trembling but he was determined to keep a tight hold on you.

While the rest of the team were wide-eyed and in too much shock to do or say anything, Steve was the first to take a step forward before Thor placed a hand on his arm, giving him a look. Reluctantly, Steve stayed where he was while everyone watched as Thor carefully stepped through the nauseating and grotesque mess.

When he got close enough to Loki, he scrounched down to his level and looked at him carefully.

“Brother,” He said softly. “We can take it from here. Pass her to the Captain and I will help get you cleaned up.”

When Loki didn’t move, Thor reached out to grab you causing his younger brother to emit a deep growl and snap his head towards him. This was the first time he was looking at someone else that wasn’t you. 

Thor raised his hands. “Hey, it is alright. We are not here to harm her any further, you understand that. Your powers are low, and you can only do so much. Let us take her to a proper Midgardian healer, please.”

Thor could see so much emotion in his brother's eyes, but the one that shone mostly was fear. He was scared of letting you go. Thor could tell that he had gotten through to him when tears sprung into his wide green eyes and his sharp expression transformed into a pained one. 

Loki shakily turned his head slowly to look back at your unmoving form before rising to his feet with you still in his arms. He caught eyes with Rogers, making his way over to him before carefully placing you into his arms. 

Steve immediately took you out of the room, and Loki stared after you with regretful eyes while Sam and Bucky took hold of him before cuffing his hands together behind his back. 

Your eyes shot open as soon as Wanda released you from the vision. You were utterly speechless. Seeing Loki in that state brought tears to your eyes and you let out a shaky breath.

Wanda backed away, staring back at you somberly.

“That’s enough information for today. I now realize I shouldn’t have shown you that. You just woke up and are probably still in a state of shock. I’m so very sorry.” She shook her head, cursing to herself. “I’m going to leave so you can rest more. I will be back soon.”

You nodded your head while avoiding her gaze, and in a matter of seconds, you were alone again. You laid unmovingly in the bed for a while. You weren’t upset with Wanda for sharing her memory, you were just shaken from seeing everything from a much clearer point of view.

You stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like forever, but eventually, your lids slowly closed as you were pulled into the dark abyss of sleep.

When you woke again, a dark-haired woman in a white lab coat was now in your room. She seemed to be checking on the machines while scribbling on a clipboard. The overhead lights in the room were brighter, and you lightly groaned as you tried to sit up.

“Hold on,” She said, while gently leaning you back down on the bed. “There’s an easier way. See?”

She pulled out a small remote and pressed a button that slowly raised the back of your small bed.

“Um, thank you,” you muttered, glancing at the beautiful woman. “Are you Dr. Cho?”

“Yes, I am,” She replied with a smile, still scribbling on her clipboard. “and you are a very lucky young lady. You had a lot of people scared there for a minute, but you’re pulling quite a speedy recovery.”

You blinked. “I am?” Not that you didn’t believe her, but you still felt like absolute shit.

She nodded, finally tearing her eyes from the papers and meeting your confused ones. “If Loki hadn’t used his powers to begin the healing process, you would have most likely been in a coma for as long as a month. The drugs you were attacked with were poisonous, and he helped extract most of it out of your system.” She scoffed lightly, raising her eyebrows. “It’s a miracle how much he could accomplish without having access to his full strength.”

You swallowed dryly and she passed you your now full glass of water. You squinted down at the glass, “Wait, aren’t you a famous geneticist? Why are you here wasting your time taking care of me? You must have so many more important projects to work on.”

She dropped down her clipboard and sent you a look. “You may not be a project, but there is no question that you are very important. I learned how to be a doctor before I dived into the field of genetics. I am honored to be able to provide care for someone like you. You are a very special girl, for many reasons other than you studying to become a physicist.” She winked at you.

You glanced down at your sore form. You were lying in a bed wearing an unsightly hospital gown and a pair of thick non-slip socks with a sheet thrown over your body. Nothing about you seemed significant at this moment. To be completely candid, you felt pretty ugly and disgusting.

“When will I be able to leave?” You asked her. You were certainly grateful for all she had done for your recovery, but you didn’t know how much longer you would be able to stay in this room without going insane.

Her brows furrowed, lips thinning as she peered back down at her clipboard. “I’m only expecting to keep you for a few more days. Your vitals are looking stronger by the day, but now that you’re awake I need to run a few more tests before I release you.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing I can see now. I just want to be one hundred percent sure, that’s it. Nothing you need to worry about.” She gave you a reassuring smile which did not make you feel any better. 

Patting your arm, she backed away towards the door. “Right now you should focus on resting and getting yourself well-hydrated. I’ll release you as soon as all the tests are complete.”

A few more days passed by but you didn’t hear much more from Dr. Cho about your upcoming release. The uncomfortable clinic bed wasn’t helping your stiff limbs, and the best you could do was lift them up and down to get some movement going. You still had tubes stuck in your arms so you weren’t allowed to get up and walk around just yet.

On the first day of your awakening, you did as Dr. Cho ordered, resting a lot, and the few times you did wake up, there was a new card, balloon, or flower bouquet in your room. It was obvious that people were visiting you while you were still asleep, but it saddened you greatly that you weren’t able to be awake whenever they came by. 

On the second day, you were able to stay up long enough to enjoy a visit from your father. Your eyes lit up when he entered the room and you had never been more happier to see him. Yes, your last conversation with him wasn’t great, but he was still the only family you had left.

To his credit, he seemed even more grateful to see you. You could tell that he had been regretting his past choices that directly drove a wedge between you two. It did not have to be said that he felt awful about his part in Jacob’s deception, but to your surprise, he did admit his wrongdoings. 

He looked haunted. His eyes were sunken into his face, his skin a bit ashy, and his body looked at least fifteen pounds lighter. He apologized to you countlessly, and you accepted his apology with a hug. You knew you had a lot more to discuss with him, but this was not the right time to do so, as you were still feeling a bit out of sorts.

When you started looking drowsy, he left you be so you could rest, and the next time you opened your eyes, the whole team had gathered into your room to surprise you. Even through the tragedy of the situation, they made sure to put on big smiles for you and you did the same, genuinely being excited to see them all. 

Thor held a huge cake that had a photo of you on it which you thought was funny for many reasons, one of them being that you couldn’t eat any sugar until all of your blood work was done. It was all theirs to enjoy. 

Tony and Clint talked your ear off, catching you up on the latest happenings and the rest of the team hung out in the room, chatting with you when they could.

Steve made sure to grab a few minutes with you, filling you in on how they moved your entire room into a much larger one that was closer to his and Bucky’s. You wanted to tell him that they didn’t have to do that, but you refrained when you remembered all of the strange things you experienced in your old room. Jacob completely ruined it for you. Furthermore, by the way that Steve was looking at you and constantly asking if you were okay, you figured this room change would reassure everyone that you’d be a lot safer.

You wanted to ask about Loki, but since no one brought him up, you assumed it was too soon. It was no secret that you cared about him so if there was any bad news, they probably wouldn’t want to tell you while you were still stuck in the clinic.

Thor must have noticed the hesitance on your face, as he lingered in the room a bit longer after everyone else left. You gave him an apprehensive stare as he placed his hand in the pocket of his jeans while facing you.

“He is okay, my lady.” He said with a gentle smile. He sent you a farewell nod and exited the room before you could gather the courage to ask him any more questions.

On the third day of your stay in the clinic, you were able to get through most of it without taking more naps than an elderly cat. 

However, you did wake to see a singular flower laid on your bedside table. It immediately caught your eye as it was the most vibrant red you’ve ever seen. It looked to be a poppy flower. You were never a fan of that kind before but this one was entrancing you by how gorgeous it was. You felt as if its mere presence gave you the strength to get through the rest of the day. 

You had a few more visitors but still no news of Loki. 

Then the morning of the fourth day, you woke up to a fresh new glowing red poppy flower that was placed beside the old one. This intrigued you enough to ask Dr. Cho if she knew who was leaving them in your room.

She paused before looking at you with an indecipherable expression on her face. “I don’t know, but security did mention that someone has been coming by after all the staff leaves for the night. They stay for hours before leaving without a word. I would assume that they are on the list of people allowed to visit you, so it could just be one of your friends.”

“But they never wake me to let me know they’re visiting.” You say with a frown.

She gave a thoughtful look. “Maybe they don’t want to disturb you. I mean, they are visiting in the middle of the night so it’s a good thing they have consideration for your rest. It’s needed for full recovery.”

You hummed at that, accepting her answer as it made sense. Could it be Kayla? It was a possibility but you also couldn’t see her leaving flowers for you. At least not that kind.

“On the other hand, I have something else I’ve been needing to talk to you about.” Her face sobered up, making you focus your attention on her.

“Do you know much about your parent's medical history?” She asked.

You shrugged. “I know my dad’s. Not so much about my mom’s.”

She nodded, briefly looking down at the linoleum floor. “Yes, that’s what I thought.” She looked back up at you with a solemn expression. “As you are already aware, there’s a reason I have been keeping you here for this long. My lab has finished running all your blood tests and after double-checking them, there’s something that you need to know.”

You didn’t take your eyes off of hers as you asked the dreadful but unavoidable question. 

“What is it?”

Story Masterlist

✦ 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰. 𝘙𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 ;)

✦ 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘒𝘰-𝘧𝘪 ✨: 𝘩𝘵𝘵𝘱𝘴://𝘬𝘰-𝘧𝘪.𝘤𝘰𝘮/𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺24

𝘛𝘢𝘨 𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵: @aintnooooway @mischief2sarawr @talesofadragon @cass0419 @lcolumbia1988 @timeladyrikaofgallifrey @echo-is-worth-more-than-2000

[ms-demeanor]

my thing is I'm capable of any of this stuff up to at least level 3 and can do them for special occasions and if I've rested enough no problem, but I can't do it OFTEN because it just uses up too many spoons. any thoughts on this? besides practice, I already cook as often as I can (which is not very)

Mise en place your life as much as possible. I've talked about this before but this is what I do to make things easier on myself. My baking station with all the ingredients out and clearly labeled instead of at the bottom of the pantry where I have to dig for them makes it much, much, much easier to bake. My knife strip on the wall and the dozen cutting boards in a rack on the wall and the frying pan that lives on the stove instead of under the counter all make it much easier for me to cook.

Like, a lot of what I've been going through and doing in terms of home improvement/home decor is attempting to configure the house in such a way that large bastard and i can easily do the things we want to/need to do. We need batteries all the time, so the batteries live in an organized box where we can see it instead of in the back of the cabinet. We also need to *discard* batteries all the time, so the battery discard tub is right next to that box otherwise we'll start accumulating used batteries on surfaces.

The instruments that live on my kitchen counter are the ones that get used most often so that I don't need to go looking for them and so that I know at a glance if they're clean (if so they're in the canister on the counter) or need to be washed. The appliances that I use the most either live on the counter or get put places where it's convenient - I don't have enough bowls and plates that I need to use the top three shelves of my cabinet for bowls and plates like my parents did, but I do use my rice cooker twice a week so my rice cooker lives in the same cabinet as my dishes (as does my tofu press, my waffle maker, and the easiest-to-use 16oz food storage containers).

And you know what sometimes i just can't do it. Sometimes my back isn't working or my hip isn't working or i got glutened recently and I can't do much of anything.

I've got a variety of low spoon foods that I always have ingredients for (one recent addition to this list is tofu; i went from eating no tofu to eating tofu twice a week because two days a week i can't really use one of my arms to make dinner so i just prep the tofu at lunchtime and when i get home from the plasma center all i have to do is season and pan fry it and make a pot of rice. And I also make a shitload of extra rice because rice with eggs and sweet-spicy sauce is now one of my easiest and best go-to lunches) and whenever I make a pot of soup (something that I do pretty much every weekend when it's cool enough) I will make enough for lunch that week plus usually some extra to go in the freezer as backup "I don't feel like cooking" meals.

So, yeah I guess what I'm saying is get a good list of low-spoon foods that you like and can keep the ingredients handy for (ground beef goes bad in a week, tofu lasts like a month, i love tofu, it's so easy and so cheap to keep a bunch of tofu handy), and throw out the idea of what a kitchen is "supposed" to be like and figure out if there are ways to make your kitchen more adaptive for you.

Get anti-fatigue mats for your home kitchen. Get a tall stool that you can sit at while cooking at the stove instead of standing. Reorganize your cabinets for maximum efficiency for your needs. (large bastard and I have been doing this both with organized visible storage like wall racks as well as putting his stuff up high because bending over isn't easy for him but it is easy for me).

And also, like, consider if it's worth it, or how it can be worth it. How do you want to be a better cook? Do you want to be better at making meals for large groups or do you want to be more comfortable cooking for yourself or do you want a wider repertoire of recipes - all of those things will take a different path and some will be harder than others if you're wrangling disabilities that make it difficult to cook. I'm probably never going to be great at cooking for large groups because it doesn't really suit my lifestyle and it hurts! It hurts a lot and after hosting thanksgiving last year i needed to use my cane for a week because of how much it hurt my back! But I can work on stuff that makes it easier for me to cook, like having my baking station or keeping my rice cooker in an easy-to-reach cabinet.

[ratsoh-writes]

Give us the FULL backstory of one set of skeleton siblings.

Ehehehe alright, cause I’m sure y’all are interested in the fell bros….

It all began in a distant land called hotland, where red was born to fell gaster! Gaster was deeply in love with Felby, a fire elemental who was a total player. Red was an intentional baby that gaster had in hopes that he would get Felby to commit… and we all know how that worked out.

It didn’t if you were curious

Regretting having a child and resentful of his son, Gaster mostly ignored red for his childhood, only paying him mind when the toddler needed feeding. Red grew up being hyper independent because of this. You can blame gaster for his issues in accepting help from others.

As red grew older, Gaster realized his son could be useful. See red was a very curious child. He has a hunger for knowlege and would try to remake the tools he sees the adult monsters using. Recognizing this talent, Gaster finally took an interest in his son and began teaching him to eventually take a place with the royal engineers that gaster worked with. Compared to being thrown out in the streets of underfells hotland all day, being stuck in the Smokey greasy warehouse lab was like Heaven to child red. He threw himself into his education, determined to keep his place with the engineers who barely tolerated the kid running around.

And of course, just when things were starting to get good, gaster had fall right back into felbys grasp again. The two had an on and off relationship for years now, but this time Felby was around more often. Gaster was sure this time, this time his lover would stay for good. Gaster was strong in the art of science but weak in the art of common sense clearly.

The year red turned 23 was the same year gaster had edge, and the last time red would see Felby again until after the crash. Depressed at his so called “soulmate” disappearing off the face of the underground, Gaster didn’t even fry with edge, leaving all the childcare to red. Red tried to resent his brother, he really did.. but he just couldn’t. Edge was so sweet and soft when he was little. Red would give the world for him if he could. Edge spent the majority of his childhood under reds protection, and was like his older brothers shadow. Edge used to be a cheerful and affectionate kid.

When edge was around 13, gaster snapped out of his depressed funk and turned to the next stage of grief; anger. Gaster began taking out his frustrations on edge whenever red wasn’t around. Having many jealous enemies because of his position, red was unable to leave the safety of the warehouse, but leaving edge to gaster was out of the question either. He couldn’t hide his brother, not with his father being his superior. So red had edge shipped off to the royal guard before things escalated. Edge spent the rest of his childhood there, and the kind streak in him was stamped out, replaced with the cold grouch we see today (well, when he’s around new people that us)

Edge and reds relationship was strained greatly with edges move. Edge viewed this as the one person who gave a damn throwing him away, while red was hurt that his brother blamed him when he did so much for him. Only the passing of their father got the two back in contact. The underfell brothers had a shaky truce until edge got promoted to captain of the snowdin branch of the royal guard. Edge quickly left for his new position leaving red behind in hotland.

With gasters death, things weren’t going so well for red. His father was the whole reason he got the apprenticeship with the engineers. Say what you will about gaster, but he was a powerful monster. Red now had to defend his place on his own, without daddies reputation to back him up. Facing sneak attacks daily, red began to grow paranoid. One evening, he was jumped by three monsters, a would be engineer and his backup. Red escaped, but not unharmed. When edge got word of his brothers condition, he forcibly drug red down to snowdin with him, apprenticeship be damned. At this point it wasn’t worth it.

Red stayed with edge, recovered, and became a bitter and resentful sentry guard in snowdin until the crash. Meanwhile edge had flourished in snowdin, becoming close with his dog guard and the neighboring captain undyne (storm) of waterfall. When the crash happened and the AUs merged on ebott, edge had allies he could lean on as their world was turned upside down.

Sensing the change, and growing hopeful at what ebott could become, edge threw himself into his new home. He got a quick and dirty law degree, helped get many of his dog guard buddies homes and jobs, and even started talking to someone about his own issues. Edge was on the path to… well he isn’t sure but he’s on it! There was just one thing holding him back..

Red. His brother is still acting like ebott was underfell. He was constantly getting into fights with others, skirting the edges of the law, and well edge can only take so much. Red and edge had been fighting constantly since the crash, and these spats kept escalating until edge finally kicked red out of his home.

At his lowest point, red got through the days listlessly. He got a cheap apartment and did small odd jobs to keep afloat. He was angry at the world, scared of the future and without anything to look forward too. The world had f*cked him over and he responded by giving the world his finger. Red was stuck in this funk until he met his first real friend.. oak!

Oak doesn’t remember his first meeting with red. Oak doesn’t remember a lot of things really. Ever since his head injury in horrortale, he’s needed lots of repetition for things to really stick. And he finally got out of the institution he was recovering in. Oak was delighted to move back in with his brother willow! … but stars, he shouldn’t have gone out to get groceries on his own. He thought he could remember his street, he remembers his house now, but apparently the street name hadn’t stuck yet. So he paced around the old beat up gas station as he wracked his empty skull doing his best to recall the street. Meanwhile red, who was working there is loosing his mind as this big scarred stalker skeleton passed by the door for the seventh stars damned time in two minutes!! The first meeting ends with red storming out, yelling at oak angrily to get lost, and a tired sad oak replying that he already is lost. Fed up, red shows oak how to track his brothers phone to find his way home. Oak thanks red profusely, seemingly not bothered by his rudeness and goes on his way

This exact interaction happens at least three more times in the next few days before red just tiredly escorts the forgetful famine skeleton at the end of his shift. Within a month red and oak have become tentative friends. Oak is gentle and frankly too helpless for red to ever feel threatened by. And he seems to think reds dry humor is funny. And oak likes having red around, he never treats him as invalid, and he glares at people who stare at the hole in his skull for too long. It’s nice that red noticed it made him uncomfortable

As their friendship developed over the next few months, red began to unwind around oak and started telling the other his worries. After all, the guy is perfect for secrets. It’s a 70% chance he won’t even remember them anyways. When red first tells oak of what happened with edge, oak was horrified and urged him to reach out. Oak was able to point out from reds story that it’s obvious that edge cared for him still. He compared it to his own perspective, of his old au.. the things he had to do for him and willow to survive. Willow had been angry and betrayed the same way edge had been after oak brought back the first.. you know what. But they stayed together through even the worst part of the famine, not out of survival but out of brotherly love and loyalty. Oak eventually wore red down enough with his story that the paranoid skeleton was willing to give edge one last chance.

Five years after the crash, and two years since their last fight, red knocked on edges door. Shocked and angry, but still happy to see his brother again, edge let red in. For months the two would talk a little bit each week as they tried to slowly repair their relationship. Edge had missed red dearly, and red edge. Finally able to listen, red could see where he hurt edge too, and his little brother pretty much blackmailed red through guilt into seeing the same person he was going to so red could work through what happened in underfell

Two years later, red moved back in with edge, and using his old royal engineer position, was able to secure an entry job at an electric engineers guild. He and edge still fought now and then, but nothing crazy like it used to be.

That’s it for their backstory!

[anthurak]

I for one cannot wait for the Ruby/Mercury rematch where she just eviscerates his cynical let-it-all-burn worldview better than Tyrian did. Something tells me that after the past few volumes, she's going to have precisely zero patience with selfish edgelord bullshit.

The funny thing is that on the one hand, I absolutely agree that Ruby COULD tear Mercury's whole edgy worldview to shreds at this point.

But on the other hand, I feel like at this point Ruby just has WAY bigger fish to fry (Jax, Cinder, Salem, etc) to waste time on Merc.

Mercury is flat-out small potatoes to Ruby right now, and I think it's way more likely that Emerald is going to be the one to deal with him, possibly with some backup from Oscar (to provide helpful advice and giving Merc a 'kid in way over his head' to relate to) and/or Yang (to deliver a helpful and cathartic ass-kicking)

[moonlight-tmd]

Hi! I just want to say that your headcanon and aus are so cool! I love reading every one of them! I'm really glad i saw your blog, because my favorite character is bumblebee and blitzbee is one of my otp.

The idea that bee is more than what his team think he is really excites me (like your celestial, electro, spark-eater, and warframe bumblebee aus), because i can read bee being a badass or have some hidden trauma.

I do wonder if electro bee have any side effect with his power?

I hope you are doing well! :)

Thank you so much!

I do enjoy giving Bee more than they expect him to handle- which he handles just fine in secret. The thrill of hidden danger is too good. And yes, angst is the best.

As for electro Bee- as I mentioned in earlier posts about it, he gets his power via EM field or touch, that's why he likes being in the city- it makes him more energetic than if he was in the forest.

He can drain of electric energy anything that has it- machinery and mechs alike. He wasn't aware he was doing it until Ratchet pointed it out to him after her handed him a tool with full battery and it shortly died after Bee gave it back. Guess that's why mechs always seemed tired when he hung around for too long.

He also gets hyper during thunderstorms. You can't get him to sit still at all.

For the "bad side effects"- before he had his stingers he was struggling to keep his ability under control- he still does sometimes, if he's holding in too much emotion his static charge will rise and make electric arches across his frame and to nearby things that conduct electricity. He accidentally zapped his teammates few times when they were arguing, they try to do less yelling and more reasoning in behavior so Bee won't get too mad and get the point across.

Since Bee's circuitry is fucked enough to not make him take shock damage I imagine he wouldn't notice if he has high static charge, he's just go about his business and it often ends up in his frying something/someone's circuit if it/they are too close. Ratchet has started checking his EM field everytime Bee comes back from somewhere so they won't get hurt nor something gets broken.

A funny one- Bee is essentially a walking battery. He has a lot of energy stored for such small size, if need be his teammates will sit him down plug those weird car battery clippers to his horns and make him the backup power supply for the plant. He often just plays games on his pocket console while sitting near the braker box all upset, Optimus always gives him baked sweets to make up for these situations.

That's all I can come up with for now, thank you for the ask! And ye, I'm a lil iffy from all the shit blooming rn but I'll be fine! Have a good one yourself!

[sweet-evie]

Satoru, Suguru, Sukuna, and Choso in a Rock Band AU... I need my brain to shut up about this and I need to quell my thirst!

✨ masterlist ✨

I could have used J-Rock artists as prime reference, but... listening to my own playlist got me into this mess.

The band lineup in my head:

Sukuna on Drums

Choso on Bass Guitar

Suguru as Lead Guitarist & Main Backup Vocalist

Satoru as Rhythm Guitarist & Lead Vocalist

All of them can scream sing and growl, but...

Sukuna is the best at death growling + gutturals. Think Nergal from Behemoth.

Choso is a false chord scream king. Plus, for some reason, he sings like Corey Taylor in my head.

Suguru is 100% a pro at fry screaming. Also sings like Alex Varkatzas probably.

Satoru probably screams and growls like Andy Biersack or sings like M. Shadows or David Draiman... I can't decide. Although, can 100% picture him belting out The Vengeful One.

Anyways...

Satoru and Suguru are power duo lyricists... Like, they're so good at writing songs together. The themes in each album always defer, but they're really good at hammering in a message (subtle or overt) into every song.

Also also, picture Satoru and Suguru singing into a mic onstage, taking the entire crowd hostage with those never-declining face cards, fingers flawlessly gliding over the frets, pressing on the strings, playing their guitars in perfect harmony. 😩 LAWRD HELP ME, I WANT THEIR TONGUES IN MY MOUTH. 😭

Them playing these guitar solos on 3:21 - 3:55... Satoru doing rhythms at 3:21 and Suguru comes in at 3:36...

From debut, Satoru became extremely popular for never showing people his full face. The fans have never seen his eyes. Yes, he performs with a blindfold on, and during interviews, his eyes are always covered by his signature dark sunglasses.

His eye reveal was in a music video. It played a part skyrocketing the band's fame. And when the band performed live after that music video, Satoru is playing onstage without a blindfold or sunglasses on. Cue the infinite rizz.

Fans always rave that Satoru looks so innocent and cute when his eyes are on full-display (man belongs in a romcom movie) and he's not performing or screaming like a demon into the microphone.

Even after the eye reveal, Satoru still performs with a blindfold on most of the time, and he takes it off with extra flair and drama when the fans ask for it during a concert.

Satoru is very playful when interacting with fans -- a far cry from his onstage persona.

Also, fans are so tickled and pleased that for all his screaming and growling in songs and concerts, Suguru is actually very soft-spoken when he's just talking normally.

Suguru has a tongue piercing and the sexiest dragon tattoo sprawled across his back.

Need I mention the fans love the way Suguru says Satoru's name? Even in this AU, the fans ship SatoSugu. 😝

Suguru is also the one band member who gives insightful answers during interviews. Like, it's always deep with him, much to Choso and Satoru's amusement, and Sukuna's irritation.

Speaking of Sukuna...

Sukuna never wears a shirt during concerts. He has tattoos and he's showing them off like no one's business. Imagine him pounding at those drums, tattooed face, chest, and arms in full display, eyes blazing, tongue out and everything. [DON'T YOU WANT TO LICK HIM? 😜]

Sukuna's the drummer, but he has a microphone too, because he's the best at death growling and they have songs where they get into that.

No one plays drums like Sukuna can. It's a running gag in their fandom that Sukuna had four arms in another life because how in the fuck can he do what he do?

Sukuna is also famous for getting shit-faced before an onstage performance. For some reason, he plays perfectly fine even when he's inebriated or high. It's a flex! 😩

By contrast, Choso and Suguru eat super healthy.

Satoru is always on a sugar-high. Did we expect anything less?

Satoru and Suguru will write really dark songs and they will hand over the vocals to Sukuna, because it fits him so well. Kinda like this:

Satoru may be lead vocalist on paper, but all the boys in this band can sing, and they're all hot when they do it. 😝

The fans love it when Choso goes apeshit on the microphone. I imagine him singing this and it's a treat every fucking time!

Choso is baby. 😝 He's so cute and always looks out for everyone behind the scenes. The band has filmed backstage documentaries before, and the fans who've seen those love Choso so much because he takes care of all the members.

Choso plays bass and each time he has a solo in the song, it's a guaranteed eargasm. 😩🙏 Can he finger me the way he fingers that bass please?

Choso is so sweet to the fans... Always gives them attention even when he's not supposed to. (e.g., when he leaves his house and he finds them outside the gate). He just can't be mean!

Satoru and Suguru are fan service kings! Like during concerts, they don't shy away from getting super close to the crowd. They're also multi-tasking kings, because imagine playing an instrumental solo, singing, and doing crowd work at the same time.

The four of them are trolls! Satoru and Sukuna are the biggest trolls and menaces. Suguru goes along with whatever Satoru wants, and Choso tries and fails to be responsible.

They are well aware of the baseless rumors around their songs and performances (that they're spawns of hell, they worship the devil, etc.), and they play into it to annoy the haters some more and give them fodder. Hate comments are free publicity apparently.

Dating any one of them will either be fun and chill, or just outright chaos. No in-between.

I don't think Sukuna would date anyone though. He strikes me as a pump-and-dump type of man. Hooking up with him means a grand time in the sheets, but it's only good until he gets bored. After he gets bored, it's done. Bye!

Choso would treat you right, no questions. He makes time and does whatever you want to do. You want to workout with him? Okay! You want your own personal concert? Why, of course! You want time for private getaways? He's booking first class plane tickets to a vacation destination of your choice. You want to learn how to play bass guitar? "Come here, Darling. Let me show you."

With Satoru and Suguru, it's a toss up. Mostly because I think it will have to take someone super special (a person who isn't easily cowed and who loves either of them so much) to get either of them to fall in love. When they fall in love with their S/Os though, they're all in.

Dating Satoru or Suguru in this situation means having rock songs written about you. It's one of their love languages in this AU.

I also don't know what their band would be called. 😝