#he is at the end of a day a human being like everyone else and he is on our side
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misstycloud · 19 hours ago
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Yandere bully x f. reader
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{He’s not a bully towards reader.}
Yandere bully who is the terror at school. No one want to be close to him in fear of being his next target. People are afraid of even looking at him, thinking it will trigger his bully-instincts. No one wants their head shoved down the toilet, their books thrown in the fountain or getting shaken down for cash.
Yandere bully who is, despite your reluctance, you friend. The two of you are neighbours and childhood friends. You often sigh whenever he will go on about his latest victim and the ‘funny’ expressions they made when scared. He truly thinks it was hilarious. You truly don’t know how he got this bad.
Yandere bully who targets anyone who’ll talk to you for more than five minutes. Who are they and why do they think they have any right to be near you? It seems he’ll simply have to teach them a lesson or two.
Yandere bully who smirks in sadistic delight as his victim crawls on the ground like the worm they are. Don’t they know that worthless insects shouldn’t go masquerading as something else in order to get close to a butterfly? Their pleas for forgiveness fall on deaf ears. They shouldn’t have talked to you but they did it anyway. It’s their own fault. The entire school knows you belong to Yan. Bully and to stay away of face the consequences. Just follow the rules and you’ll be fine and dandy!
Yandere bully who is a completely different person with you. There are no traces of the cruel, sadistic bully whenever he’s in your presence. Although, he can still be a bit cranky and leave a mean comment to anyone he deems deserves it.
Yandere bully who treats you like a real princess- his princess to be more exact! He buys you gifts like stuffed animals, puts the small candies he knows you adore on your desk and writes you cute notes with a bunch of compliments on them. If others had knowledge of the extent he’d go for you they all be shocked. Does this vicious bully really have enough human in him to care for someone else? Seems unlikely. He’s a total monster in others eyes. He’s nothing more than a rude, condescending, sadistic freak who would love nothing more than to torment you- that’s who he is to everyone but you.
Yandere bully who you know you should break of contact with. Though you’ve never seen it(which is a conscious decision on his part), you’ve heard of the things he does to other people. He has never done anything bad to you but he doesn’t really hide his hideous deeds either. It’s a struggle. Especially since your families are close as well. They’d never believe you if you told them the stuff he’s up to. The same as you, he also plays ‘sweet angel’ with your families. They simply believe he’s nothing more then a (slightly) overprotective friend who’s hopelessly in love with you (yes, they all know about his feelings towards you, he’s told them in hope of getting support from both sides and it worked).
Yandere bully who you can never get rid of. He’ll be around every corner waiting for you. Even your families think it’s a fantastic idea for the two of you t be together. It would be such a sweet story; two childhood best friends who, throughout their growth, develop strong feelings for each other! It’s often that someone asks whether the two of you are dating yet, to which you sigh and he lets out a warm chuckle, saying ‘hopefully soon.’
Yandere bully who is not above threatening others’ lives if you refuse him. He’ll use these disgusting filths as leverage and make their lives hell (as if he wasn’t doing that already) unless you date him- specially with marriage as the end goal. By the end of the day, people would be begging on their knees for you to just love him back already. If you just dated him then they wouldn’t be in so much pain.
Please, don’t force him to him hurt others.
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no-you-dont-see-me · 2 days ago
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Hello!! Good morning/afternoon/evening/night. I would like to request platonicDad! Lilia vanrouge headcanons please! If you do do this tysm!!
Hi! Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night to you too! Thank you so much for the request! I wasn't sure if you wanted biological daughter or adopted daughter so I'm doing adopted. If that's not what you wanted just tell me and I'll do a bio one too!
!Platonic!Dad! Lilia Vanrouge x Adopted Daughter
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Lilia found you on his doorstep mere days after he took Silver in. He was still a bit iffy on the whole 'raising a human child' thing so at first he had planned to take you off to a human village and leave you on someone else's doorstep there. However, when he found you it was night and he thought it would be best to wait until morning to make the trek so that night you stayed in the Vanrouge cottage.
You were laid on a blanket on the ground next to Silver (he didn't have a crib yet) to sleep. The blanket rested a few feet away from Lilia's bed so he could keep an eye on Silver, and now you as well, without accidentally stepping on the two of you when he gets up at night.
Contrasting to how he found you on his doorstep, wailing and crying, you stayed perfectly silent the whole night. It took him a moment after he woke up to realize the lack of crying, but when he did he freaked out thinking you'd somehow made it out of the room and possibly even out of the house. He immediately sprung out of bed: whipping his head around frantically.
That's when he saw it. On the blanket, huddled together, were you and Silver. He stumbled over to the two of you, the adrenaline quickly fading from his body, before collapsing onto his knees. Breathing a sigh of relief he reached out to brush a small, wispy strand of hair out of your face. He knew he had no right to freak out since he was planning to hand you off later that day, but he couldn't help it. It was the 'new father' instincts (or so he told himself).
Right as Lilia was about to get up to prepare a basket and note he was stopped by a tiny little hand wrapping around one of his fingers. He looked down to see you smiling sleepily and gripping his index finger with one of your chubby baby hands.
He didn't end up handing you off that day.
When Lilia rarely decides he's going to let someone into his life he loves and cherishes them like they're the very thing that keeps him going and you're no exception.
As Lilia raises you alongside Silver he makes sure you never feel out of place in the home.
That means he makes sure to quadruple his cooking just to make sure everyone has enough to eat and can still have extras :) (How the two of you lived only the sevens know).
If you're like Silver and say you want to become knight, he'll start training you to become one. However, whether you say that or not, you're at least getting self-defense training.
I don't see Lilia being one of those overprotective dads that's bordering on a helicopter parent.
He'd be really supportive of you no matter if it's coloring quietly in your room or venturing out into the forest to have a wrestling match with your bear pal (he will make sure you have a helmet though (safety first))
When you're old enough to start dating he'll only do a bit of the whole 'intimidating your partner' thing, but only as a joke (tell that to the threatening glint in his eyes hiding under his goofy tone as he tells the person he was kidding).
Anything and everything you make gets hung on the wall and never gets taken down (no matter how much you beg him to take down that cringy old drawing you made).
You'll never have to worry about doing your hair. Lilia says that he learned to tie it up in all those cute styles from when his hair was long, but you know dang well that the great war general Lilia Vanrouge was never french braiding his hair into a heart (and the old books hidden under the bathroom sink, pages tattered and worn from being repeatedly flipped through and studied are pretty telling too).
Even when you were too little to do so well and with a steady hand, Lilia has always let you paint his nails. The look on Baur's face when he first saw Lilia walked into his house with sparkly rainbow nails, the polish appearing to be more on his fingers than anything was priceless. However, any questions he had were answered as the little girl with adorably done hair, a frilly little dress covered in dirt with equally as dirty jeans under it, and a big toothy smile (minus her front teeth) came skipping through the door with muddy Silver.
When the time finally comes that Lilia and Silver head off to Night Raven college along with Malleus and Sebek, Lilia is hesitant at first. He only finally leaves after weeks of convincing him you'll be fine. You'll be attending the school in the castle town and living in a dorm only a few minutes away from where Sebek's parents live.
He makes sure to call you every night to check in, the call often including not-so-surprise guests such as Silver, Sebek, Malleus, and a few times even his friends from his club (though they think you're his niece or cousin or something).
If you come to the cultural festival he makes sure to get you front row seats to his performance and give you a full tour of the campus after the show.
He only introduces you to his friends if you happen across them or directly ask to meet them. He doesn't want to interrupt this rare father daughter time unless you want to. Otherwise, he'll give you his full attention and make sure to remind you how much he loves you and is proud of you.
With Lilia as a father, you'll never have to worry about being unloved or unworthy. No matter your grades, interests, or hobbies, he'll be there supporting you every step of the way. All he asks is that you be true to yourself and always keep your old dad in your heart (He's so dramatic. As if anyone could ever forget or stop loving such a wonderful dad)
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 3 months ago
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Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.
#Mouthwashing#blood#body horror#Emphasizing here that this is in reference to a media and character and not a cry for help on my end.#Mouthwashing is one of those games that tickles my brain and checks all the boxes for my niche interests -#-but it wasn't something that got the silly comic part in my cortex firing up. My analysis brain is eating well though!#What said...It is impossible for me to see this scene and not say out loud: “Me in the middle of my work day".#While there is a lot more going on with curly I personally resonated a lot with his struggles with burnout.#Burnout feels like mouthwash to me. That you keep rinsing out your mouth trying to get rid of the rotting smell#but it's just surface level solutions. The real cure requires something far more significant to actually make a difference.#The job 'is hard' and 'everyone struggles'. It's part of the process right? You're tired? Anxious? Depressed? Us too! Chin up!#Actually I resonated with a lot of things within Curly (this is a curly positive space - he's not perfect. He's just human).#One thing being his desire to see the good in people and believe in their potential.#Because here's the thing. Some people truly do just need someone in their corner who stands by them so they can grow and improve.#And some people will take advantage of your kindness. You focus so much on their humanity while you stop being a person to them.#The horrifically toxic relationship persists because Curly tries to see the bigger picture and believes in the good within.#Anyone who has lived through constantly trying to reframe the hurt as something else knows-#-just how many excuses your brain will make to avoid cognitive dissonance. It's human psychology.#Jimmy sucks so bad. But we the audience have the privilege of not having years of baggage associating him in our minds as 'friend'.
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lovelyrotter · 4 months ago
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can ppl in this fandom like... stop... implying that transmasculinity in hcs or (especially) canon is shallow or misogynistic or even transmisogynistic on princible, like literally just by being prescent in someones mind or in the text. like that doesnt fuckin feel good. thats kind of really nasty to imply. if its not okay to say about other trans experiences, maybe dont say it about this one either. why is there a weird little exception here. yall KNOW how much that sucks to hear all day every day. what the fuck
#my t#idk how to tell the hs fandom that every piece of trans coding in roxy in hs1 can be read as transmasc too. like transfem and transmasc#at the same time from the EXACT same reasons. its almost like we all share experiences just by way of being trans. weird i know#its almost like being trans rlly truly highlights what it is to be human and how we are all in fact at the end of the day human together#i just want everyone to stop trying to 'poke holes' in other fans trans hcs FULL STOP across the board no matter who they are#or what the hc is. its needlessly hurtful and more often than not trips into real peoples dysphoria which then#makes the target more likely to lash out. so the person poking them abt it can do a ''SEE? THEYRE ALL MEAN ONE OF THEM#WAS MEAN TO ME JUST NOW'' routine. its so obviously a 'im not touching u!!!' playground maneuver like holy fuck grow up#if you wanna fight for transfem/me folks right to just exist random fans personal headcanons is not the fuckin time or place#the XY in roxys name could be read as her having been DMAB or it could be hussie having a long running giggle about him preordering#his own transmasculinity. roxys colour being pink could be bc shes a girl or it could be compcis!!!#roxys desperation for a bf is from loneliness in canon but its often read as her feeling like she needs one to be a real girl#it can ALSO be read as another aspect of him struggling with compcis and comphet esp w/ his fantasies abt being 'a mother'#yknow what i never fuckin see that rlly highlights the fact that this is just a shitty 'girls rule boys drool' thing? theres like. no#discussions on the potential of roxy being any kinda intersex. absolutely none. he could be mtftm for all you fuckin know#but oh yknow being mtftm is A Shallow Read so we cant have that. hs is only for girls didnt you know we need to terf- i mean turf#out every single instance of queer mascness bc its Evil in the text didnt you know#god help the fandoms word of god token trans boy dirk strider for 'choosing' his eternal misery while everyone else is enlightened#by way of transforming into a girl. bc we must place girlhood on an inhuman pedistal of perfection and niceness and joy and rainbows#like what IS this mahou shojo brand gender essentialism???? im fuckin sick of it#can we remember that girlhood isnt & wasnt safe or joyful for everyone & that that can translate into how we curate our fandom experiences
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dykedvonte · 2 months ago
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you make really good points, I think I used the term karmic wrong sorry. I think of it more as not how I personally think he deserved all that happened to him (which thinking back os exactly what karma means, I messed up sorry), but as his fate being directly tied/parallel to anyas. I handnt noticed the toxicity of jimmy and curlys relationship, from the first playthrough I watched and the first interactions I had w fandom I saw so many ppl just. dismiss the terror Anya went through and focus too much on him as the "ultimate victim" and that just didn't sit well w me. I really dislike seeing ppl go "oh well nothing could've been done" I think it's much more complex than that. also I forgot to mention in the last ask that I really appreciate you bringing the point that this game isn't just about the harm of patriarchy but also very very critical to capitalism, I haven't seen too many ppl touch on this. I hadn't thought too deeply about how it makes "he deserved to become disabled as punishment" come up and I agree that's really messed up. I'll try watching a playthrough again with all of this in mind. but either way thanks! I really appreciate your answer 🫶🏼
I guess this is just part of being in a fandom like this. I've noticed a lot of people don't actually see posts outside of their curated view. So some people only get like anya posting or jimmy or curly and it can make it seem like that is what is saturating the conversation.
I mainly just follow the general tags and look for anything new because I'm like obsessed but I know some are only looking for what they want or believe to be the case and can get weird about other ideas.
Sorry if I came off mean its just a last few of the asks have been like circular conversations like this and its not draining per say but seeing all the nuance and details get overlooked to fit a straightforward and basic narrative really sucks cause there's a lot to explore character and theme wise.
#its like idk i feel like im yapping about the same stuff over and over and over again cause people confuse simple on paper with simple in#execution or like without the human factor like idk sometimes to humanzie Anya people dehumanize the other characters to an extent#which is also part of the systemic problem because by dehumanizing people you take away from the awareness like idk the statements#that curly was the captain and just a guy like have to exist together hes like an okay find decent even good captain just not great#hes not exceptional and i think a lot of people are acting like the game said he is when thats just jimmy like Swansea and Anya see that he#just a guy under everything else hence why they dont feed into the vitriol jimmy tries to serve about him crashing the ship and how they#talk to him pre crash even with anya i feel like people are so focused on trying to see what jimmy doesnt that they are adding intention w#where there isnt not even on like she cant be this scale more so you are treating this like everyone in this game is doing some secret gran#gambit when they are just trying to surviv in really back circumstances like having anya respond to jimmys behaviro through the#fawn effect isnt making her a weak depiction its a real response that can coexist with purposeful action because she is clearly scared of#Jimmy even if she hates and thinks he's incompentent like shes not gonna roll over for him but shes gonna be docile in his presence so he#doesnt create a reason in his head to lash out at her like people simply cannot combine concepts to create the complex responses we see in#the game and idkn why its so hard because not every statement contridicts like Jimmy is a monsterous asshole can exist with how#systematic oppression and social enabling create/allow people like him to do their worse cause at the end of the day he chose to do#everything he did despite other options vs the others trying to figure out the best option for all whether that was the best or not like#he dug his own grave vs the others sorta being lined up in front of theirs and shot like this is more interesting to me than him just being#like idk cartoonishly evil and gross and why cant concepts stakes like fitting aspects together is fun its like the worlds shitties puzzle#mouthwashing#mouthwashing game#anon#ask#ur fine anon im just insane and get frustrated easily when i think im explaining something bad
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spxrm · 4 months ago
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I’m gonna be honest. I understand all the frustration, but honestly, I can’t fault him bc love IS so extremely complex, and he has a right to speak on anything he wants… especially something that he is the topic of.
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buttercup-art · 6 months ago
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omarwolaeth · 9 months ago
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thinking 'bout how the lads interact with what the bracelets represent, especially in their decks
#marwospeaking#Yuuya is by far hardest to work with on this because he Varies. but that might just be him being opposite to Yuzu so it might count?#anyway Yuuya is a bushfire made by fireworks set off without proper precaution (the improperly set off fireworks being Zarc..#.. being influenced into the position that made the lads through his desire to both destroy and entertain his crowds)#It's small sometimes. but in the right conditions is an unstoppable conflagration#Yuuto literally does not die. In a world where we never truly get the other two (Yuugo and Yuuri) interacting with their host (Yuuya)..#.. outside of duels. he very much does. He is undead in a way the others don't quite match (pre Zarc revival) and it's opposite to..#.. En Bird's life (assuming it counts death too as part of its cycle)#Yuugo uses machine monsters - things that distinctly don't breathe. and in most cases have exhaust pipes billowing fumes#and machines can be warm to the touch at times. which you could feasibly slide against Rin's Windwitches for being Very Cold Ladies#Also he's trapped no matter where he is. Neo Domino has a stronger grip on him as a person than anyone else. and when he might finally..#.. escape that. he's trapped in someone else's body with no canonical recourse. because the story ended on Yuuya's terms and no one elses#Yuuri is hardest to place but I think he's very stationary. Sere's monsters are dancers - constantly moving - and she's very able to#adapt as she goes despite how stupid she can be book-wise. Yuuri is rooted into his role. even when he discards his loyalty his role was..#.. always in Zarc's interest no matter if he knew or not. The Professor's loyalty from him is an add-on to that#... I'd argue Zarc cared more about his pieces than Ray cared about hers also? He made cards for them on the fly so they'd Win#Even in moments where that victory is not in a wholly positive light - Odd-Eyes Raging and Gatlinghoul - but we know he's capable of it..#.. a la allowing Yuuya to debut pendulum monsters on his behalf in order to win against Ishijima#something something this can then apply to the other lads. they never lose except to each other and Ray's girls (at least on screen)#Yuuto survived 3 years of war. even despite Yuugo and Yuuri showing up. so methinks Zarc must've had a role in helping him survive#Like. Zarc's distinctly present for his Lads. Ray's not present for her lasses until one of them speaks through her#Sure it's very possible that's a bracelet thing - they are floodgates at the end of the day - and not a Ray thing. but it also wouldn't..#.. surprise me given Ray is an Akaba. we know they will sacrifice others for a gain later on - Ray's was sacrificing a whole world to make.#.. a safer one for everyone to live in. irrelevant on if they remember it or if they never existed originally. Except Leo Akaba. He does#(with memory reading tech) and it tortures him the whole time. she didn't mean to hurt him but Still#Zarc's distinctly not better than Ray - he's still broken wide open when it comes to his hatred of humanity (but not his human half)#and it resulted in multiple near-deaths the second time around - but I can't say Ray's that much better if it turns out the bracelets..#.. weren't floodgating her ability to help her lasses#Completely unrelated but. I don't like what Arcray represents ngl. makes it seem like Zarc could never move on with the help of his lads#and has to rely on someone who killed him and sent him to purgatory about it in order to heal.
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microcroft · 2 years ago
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sometimes i see ppl like "no one is talking about this" and all that and i just look over to twitch.tv/hasanabi open on my tv talking in depth about it to an average of 30k+ people. i greatly appreciate the spreading of important information but it is such a strange experience to see and so frustrating because i understand the place this individual is in where it seems like no one cares because you arent exposed to these kind of communities. i just gotta say that despite hearing all this shit about current american politics for hours a day in the background now while i do work, i used to hear this stuff while not seeing so many like-minded people reacting to it in real time and without seeing for example, hasan expressing pure righteous anger on my behalf and the behalf of all lgbtq individuals under attack in america, sometimes directly to idiots in the chat. it feels so much better to hear the news from someone who is outspokenly on your side and unafraid to outright laugh in the faces of right wing people
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three-plums · 2 months ago
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i forgot how many x-men adaptations there are and how many of them are bad LMAO
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erinwantstowrite · 3 months ago
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Halloween AU!!!
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hey so. i put SOOOOO much effort into this au and for what? at least it ended up looking cool? anyways Halloween is my favorite holiday and i just HAD to make something for them!
i had a LOT of ideas for what everyone would be, but i really wanted to stick to a certain theme cause it's based around Halloween. i knew i had to have a vampire, werewolf, and a witch. cause like... obviously. iconic Halloween stuff!! but i took some liberties with everyone else and i think they turned out pretty cool!!
Jason was originally a fox shifter (which i still love and might draw art for some day) but i went with a bear in the end. is that because i thought about tiny bear cub Jaybin and wanted to cry? yeah. yeah it is. i KNEW Steph was going to be my werewolf though i started doubting myself when i went to draw her. turned out to be my favorite drawing on here which makes sense cause she is my light my love my daughter my will to live and all that jazz
Tim was actually gonna be a harpy but thank god i didn't go for that in the end. Duke was the one that was a bitch and a half trying to figure out BUT!! comments on the post asking what y'all thought led me towards Psychic so THANK YOUUUU everybody that commented!! (specifically those who thought of ghost!! Duke and Tim ended up being a perfect duo in this au)
Babs was pretty easy to figure out what I wanted for her. I read somewhere that they are seen as protectors of forests/ are considered spiritual authority figures and also.... she looks cool as fuck. Did not expect how easy it was to find a ref for a deer in a wheelchair though? I can never find the right hand or face angle reference but that was super easy???
For Bruce there was literally no question he HAD to be human. it's literally so funny that everyone who knows Batman thinks he's a spooky vampire but he's human. his first son, however?????? THAT'S the vampire. I knew Dick had to be a vampire too. A little nod towards that one comic run but in my au nothing bad happens ever 🥰 Damian also being a bat shifter is very on purpose because how funny is it that he's a bat man. Literally not a single person in the League thinks that Bruce is telling the truth about being human. Bruce you are NOT beating the secretly a vampire allegations.
adding in Jay's hilarious joke it's so fucking funny:
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Alfred is actually a demon. I CAN NOT remember who made this post so if someone can help me find it, it would be appreciated!! because this was inspired by them!!! but somewhere i saw someone talk about Alfred being a demon that Thomas and Martha made a deal with (i think it was for an au idea?) and I just HAD to put it here. Alfred looks so human and everyone expects it, but he's definitely not. I put the ??? because it's so fucking funny. see if you can spot the 1 hint i put on his drawing that something is amiss!!
Peter is from an alternate dimension still, but it is not a world of creatures like him, it's just the same as LoF canon except Peter grew some extra limbs and eyes. He finds that it's actually pretty easy to fit in with the Waynes. Hard to feel like a freak when a guy can turn into a fucking bear, or your dad is a vampire, and the teenagers in the family are trying to summon ghosts or make potions.
additional doodles for this au:
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i am still debating whether i am going to draw something for this au or write a oneshot, but i DO want to do something with these for Halloween
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timmydraker · 4 months ago
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Tim begins to distance himself from his family after Damian becomes Robin.
It was obvious in the way he ran off to rescue Bruce, but that was more of a physical thing at the end of the day. He was desperate and had lost any kind of safety net and support he had after Dick threatened Arkham and how badly he hurt Alfred with his instance that Bruce was alive.
Either way he was going to get Bruce back, if not because he felt like he was an aimless, nothing human being without Batman then there was that he wanted to be believed.
Then Dick handed over Robin to Damian who at that point genuinely despised Tim, though there was also a level of jealously in the young Wayne’s mind at the intelligence and analytical Tim.
It was then that Tim decided he would bring Bruce back and then do his own thing, outside of Robin and outside of Batman.
He clearly had done his job hadn’t he? Sure Bruce was dead, but Dick was acting as Batman and that Batman had a Robin, so his reasoning for being Robin was extinguished.
Tim brings Bruce back and the older man praises and thanks him for several days and then, like everything else, the attention moves away. It goes to him connecting with Damian on a vigilante level and catching up on the last several months of him being ‘dead’. It goes to Jason who, now that he’s lost his foster father has decided that maybe he could try a little harder after all.
It goes to everyone and anyone other than Tim and this time? That’s actually the plan.
Tim isn’t as good of a hacker as Barbara, but she’s basically a god at it so compared to others he might as well be master level, just not against her. This he uses to shift around peoples schedules so Alfred has no choice but to let him go to school on his own (Tim may have also invented an early morning ‘club’ that was totally legit and not at all a fabrication). He makes it so when Dick is over or Jason takes the rare opportunity to visit he had to work at WE or DI, something important he can’t neglect.
He never has to walk Ace or Titus because he’s busy with his team mates.
Team mates who think he’s busy helping out Batman.
Tim still does work as a hero, but it’s entirely through his businesses after a while. A few times he has no choice but to go out in a boring black suit with a full face mask and hoodie. It’s got nothing on it, no symbols or gadgets. Nothing to connect him to anyone.
He starts with the homeless, dishing out vaccines like candy without even doing a campaign to showcase it.
Then he changes Bruce’s rather naive approach to orphanages and makes it so every single child who is put through is given a small amount of funding. He makes it so kids have more chance to stay with siblings, makes sure everyone who even so much as enters the ground of a orphanage have a real background check and sure the adoption rate drops, but so does the missing kids and DV cases.
Tim steals over fifty million from people like Luther and Penguin and all kinds of corrupt rich assholes for the majority of the funding and not even a cent of it is traced back to Wayne or Drake businesses. Whiles he’s digging into Lex be manages to get enough evidence to put a sizeable dent in his reputation, even if Lex manages to smooch a fair bit of it back.
He’s manages to take out a large sized trafficking ring and helps get the victims into a real recovery home that he hand picks out security for.
Later, as in a few days afterward, he discovers a dog meat farm and everyone medical veterinary student suddenly finds themself free of student loans and debt and with multiple work opportunities available and volunteer work being down right pleased for.
Tim knows he’s being noticed but given that he basically lives in his office in the heart of the city, he isn’t there to hear his old teammates and ‘family’ talk about the mysterious Dread.
Dread who was named that after a report came out about a theory of an unknown hacker or ‘cyber vigilante’ who was stealing money and information from rich folk and giving it to the poor, giving all of the 1% dread that he would hit them next.
The exact quote was ‘Those with money deeper than their pockets dread the hackers next moves. And they should feel that dread as a warning for this Robin Hood like legend seems to be getting braver.’
Dick was sure the hacker would have been called Robin if he hadn’t chosen that name already, to which Barbara responded with grumbles and growl because she couldn’t find anything other than holes and traps left by the hacker. It was like they knew her every move before she even made it!
Tim, obvious to his growing reputation until it fully took off, hadn’t even considered that his actions would be framed a threat by Batman. He would say it was because he didn’t think Bruce would ever really target him like that, but in actuality it’s because he knew Bruce was one of the few good rich folk. Surely he would be on the side of a secret vigilante hacker trying to use horrible people to do good? He embraced Dread quickly and was happy he make the rich squirm and brought a sense of hope to people, it was just like Robin but instead of them being safe and given light they were given a peace of mind in a mix of revenge and justice.
What Tim doesn’t know is that Bruce is still too far into his whole image of black and white, good and evil, that he tends to forget there’s grey areas.
At least Jason is on the side of Dread, even if he still thinks the myth of a story is just that, a myth.
It’s when Tim blows up a bank when everyone has gone home for the night just so people will find the underground money ring that and he visits the manner to get a few things that he hears them talking about it.
By that point it’s been around two years since he dropped Robin and as usual Dick always greets him with a look of a desperate puppy, “Tim! Hi, you’re here. I haven’t seen you in months, how have you been?”
Tim smiles at Dick even if he hasn’t gotten over his anger at his oldest brother and moves to sit at the breakfast table with everyone (Alfred, Bruce, Jason and Damian).
“Good. Busy, we’ve had a lot of donations lately.”
Jason snorts, “No shit. Isn’t Wayne Enterprise one of the few ones not hit by Dread?”
Bruce grumbles and shakes his head, “I wouldn’t say that. They’ve managed to get into our system and completely changed the Jason Project.”
Jason grins and laughs happily, “you mean improved! Crime Ally is doing great now. Not the best, but still a fuck of a lot better.”
Smiling at the man who once beat him to an inch of his life, Tim takes a sip of his tea and casually says, “You’re welcome.”
The whole table goes quiet as Tim continues to casually sip his tea.
The silence carries for a total minute before Bruce puts down his cup and leans forward with a slight growl in his voice, “Explain.”
“Explain what?”
Bruce stands over his son even from halfway down the table and very obviously tries to calm himself with a deep breath, “What do you mean ‘you’re welcome’?”
Tim makes an ‘oh’ expression before cocking his head to the side in confusion, “I was the one who fixed the Jason Project? Wait, did you guys not realise I’m Dread?”
Damian shouts out a ‘what?!’ That makes Titus jump and Tim laughs under his breath, “What did you think I was doing?”
“Running the business! Not stealing from people and black mailing politicians!”
It’s Tim’s turn to growl now and he stands up himself with a glare at Bruce that is as close as any of them have gotten to the famed Bat-Glare, “Are you fucking kidding me? Like are you a Tully kidding me with that horse shit?”
Bruce looks stunned and Alfred doesn’t even tell him not to swear.
Tim slams his chair into the table.
“What the fuck else would I be doing, Bruce? I’m not Robin, that was taken from me, so what else was I gonna do? I finished my job, not only keeping you from killing anyone but bringing you back, so I had do pick something else. I’m not stealing from the rich, I’m stealing from selfish cunts who ruin peoples lives for no reason and giving it to people like Jason. So, don’t you fucking yell at me and don’t try to make me feel bad for this, not when I’ve done more in two years than you ever have and- don’t you fucking speak Dick, not when you were the one who took my place here away from me! Now, I have a trafficking ring I need to expose so good. Fucking. Day.”
Jason is the only one who follows him.
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keferon · 1 month ago
Text
Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D
“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”
“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”
Part one
Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.
Under the cut⤵️
Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?
Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?
For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.
Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.
It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.
Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.
His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!
But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.
Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.
He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.
Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.
Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.
He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.
So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.
That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?
Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...
His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.
Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?
Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.
Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.
It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!
People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.
In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.
He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.
Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.
Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..
He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.
Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.
In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.
Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.
Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.
But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.
Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.
Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.
Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.
Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.
Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.
Uggh.
The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.
Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.
When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.
When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.
The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??
Freaking cursed.
Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.
One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???
Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.
It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.
If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--
He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?
He's going to get sick.
He needs to talk to Jazz right now.
____________
Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.
They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).
“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”
Jazz frowns
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.
“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”
Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.
“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”
Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.
“Mech, what the hell?”
“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.
Before thinking for a bit, and adding.
“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”
And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.
This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.
Prowl looks confused.
Jazz looks absolutely frantic.
“SWERVE????”
Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?
Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.
Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.
“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."
Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.
“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”
“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”
There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.
“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”
Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.
Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?
“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”
He pauses dramatically.
“The long version is...”
Jazz raises his hand
“What's a holoform?”
Swerve sighs.
“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”
Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl
“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“
Prowl hums
“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”
Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.
“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”
Jazz laughs
“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”
“ I was.”
Prowl frowns.
“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”
“.... I had a lot of practice...”
Jazz claps his hands.
“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”
“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.
Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused
“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”
“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”
“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.
Swerve blows the hair out of his face
“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”
Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.
“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”
Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets
“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”
Prowl twitches his door wings
“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”
Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.
He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.
He's thinking.
Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!
Then he remembers the mess he left behind.
Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.
Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”
“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”
Jazz looks...puzzled.
“Is that bad?”
Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...
“It's...complicated.”
This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...
And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...
Hahahahah oh fUCK.
He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.
It's also probably too late.
But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.
And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.
Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face
“ That expression you have...”
Swerve puts the smile back on his face.
“I need to get to Earth.”
___________________
Swerve is not an idiot.
Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.
He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.
Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.
The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.
He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....
Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.
“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”
Swerve laughs.
“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”
“It's not harmful?”
Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.
“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”
Jazz tilts his head
“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”
Swerve bites his knuckles.
“ I have some unfinished business?”
“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”
Swerve only laughs in response.
_______________
Concentration is tricky.
Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?
Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost
Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.
What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.
He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.
The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.
After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.
He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--
Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.
This is the place where he was last.
He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.
Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.
Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.
Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.
All right.
He's got things to do.
_______________
He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?
He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.
He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.
Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.
All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...
He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?
The answer is probably none.
Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.
A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.
Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.
Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.
Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.
Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.
It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.
He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.
It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.
Blurr's name isn't there.
So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.
He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.
That's...something's wrong.
He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”
Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.
“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?
Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.
Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”
This is it, Swerve thinks.
He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.
He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.
He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.
Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi
Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.
Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.
Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.
Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.
Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.
“'Got bored without me Swindle?”
Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.
“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”
Blurr wrinkles his nose.
“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”
Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.
“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”
Swindle adjusts his glasses
“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”
“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.
Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.
“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”
He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.
Goes back to his seat.
“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”
He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.
“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”
Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again
“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”
Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.
“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?
Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose
“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”
Blurr blinks.
“Why are you telling me all this.”
Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.
“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”
Blurr's eye widens
“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”
“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”
Blurr runs his fingers through his hair
“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”
Swindle puts his hat back on.
“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”
The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.
Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”
They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.
“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”
Blurr smiles sourly.
“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”
Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.
“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”
Blurr bites his lip.
“I..don’t know...”
Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.
Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.
Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.
The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.
The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.
Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.
Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.
Ah, damn it.
Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.
And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.
Blurr ... is crumbling.
Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.
But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.
He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.
And continues to act like a jerk of course.
The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.
Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.
When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.
Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.
It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.
It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.
Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”
Investors say, “I think he likes me.”
Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”
Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.
Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.
On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.
Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.
Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.
Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.
Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.
But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.
It makes a difference. Small one. But still.
It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.
From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”
More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?
There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.
While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.
After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.
“Good show.”
Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.
“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”
Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.
Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.
“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”
Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.
“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”
Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.
“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”
Blurr freezes.
No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't
“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”
Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.
“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”
Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.
Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.
“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”
Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.
“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”
Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.
“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”
He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.
“You are broken. I can fix you.”
Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.
“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”
Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.
“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”
Blurr flinches.
“I don't need your help.”
“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”
...
“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”
Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.
____________________________
Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.
Holy shit...
Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm
“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”
“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”
Jazz laughs
“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”
Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.
“Ah...”
“So it worked?”
“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”
Jazz rubs his hands together happily.
“I'll take it.”
Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.
He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.
He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.
Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.
Left to himself.
He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.
....
Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?
He looks at Jazz and Prowl.
“You two get along really well.”
Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.
“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”
Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.
On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.
_____________________
”Are you a ghost?”
Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.
He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?
“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”
Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.
Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.
“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”
Blurr squints amusedly.
“You can walk through walls?”
“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”
He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.
“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.
Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.
“ Show me more?”
“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”
“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”
Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.
Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.
“They really drugged you huh?”
“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”
He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair
“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”
Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.
"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?
Race???”
He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???
Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket
“I won't.”
He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.
“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”
Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.
“Well...at least you're alive....”
Blurr shakes his head.
“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”
“...”
“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”
Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.
Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.
“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”
Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.
“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”
“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”
Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...
Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.
“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”
“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”
Swerve stiffens.
“I...Wwhat?”
“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”
He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues
“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”
Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.
“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”
“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”
Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.
Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.
“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”
“You'll tell me later?”
Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.
“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”
---------------
Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.
“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”
Swerve snorts.
“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”
“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”
Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.
“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”
Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.
“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.
Swerve laughs.
“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”
_______________
His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.
He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.
They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.
Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.
Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.
Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.
Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake
“Mind some company?”
Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.
“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”
Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.
“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”
Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly
“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”
“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”
Pharma tilts his head
“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”
Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.
“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”
“What do you mea...”
“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.
“No I'm just...”
“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”
“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”
Swerve shakes his head.
“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”
“Wh..”
Blurr rolls his eye.
“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”
“Wait..”
“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”
Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.
“Can at least one of you shut up??”
Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner
“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”
He raises his eyebrows knowingly
“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”
Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.
“…..Wha....there's rumors?”
“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”
He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself
“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”
Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.
“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma
Swerve shrugs.
“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”
Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.
A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.
“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”
Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.
“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”
Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.
Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.
Then he reaches out his hand to him.
Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.
Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.
Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.
Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....
“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”
Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.
“You're real???”
Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him
“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”
Blurr shrugs.
“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”
Swerve twitches.
“Third??? How are you still standing???”
He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.
“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”
Blurr laughs quietly.
“I'm glad you're back.”
_____________________
He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.
When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.
“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”
“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”
Jazz smiles
“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”
“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”
“Worried about what your human friends will think?”
Swerve swings back and forth on his heels
“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”
Jazz frowns
“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”
“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”
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always-a-slut-4-ghouls · 1 year ago
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I hate how inconsistent the temperature iOS this time of year. Today the high is like 64 but two days from now they are predicting a high of 80 something. Every morning i have to check the weather to see what I have to do, air conditioning on or off, and when I’m getting out my clothes for the day i have to figure out just how much of the day I’ll be outside. In the morning it will be like 60 something and then at noon it’s like 80. What pants am I supposed to wear like this? And do I need a sweater or will it just be extra bulk in warmer weather? On Monday I was like “oh hell yeah, I can wear my skinny jeans now. And the new ouija board sweater i got at target! And then yesterday it was 75 and i forgot to check the weather so i didn’t turn on the air conditioning or open a window until i noticed it was uncomfortably warm in the afternoon and i had trouble falling asleep because my bedroom (i don’t open the window here very often because i live near train tracks and I’d rather not hear it louder in my bedroom while i try to sleep, and any wind will blow my curtains around and let light in) even with my window open all night while it dipped to around 60 felt too hot, but I refused to use the air conditioner when it was 60 out and nice. I had been using the stove though and that combined with my body heat and the weather warming the small apartment up, I was sweating in my bed and I couldn’t fall asleep. And then! If you sweat a whole lot overnight and your window is open cooling the place down, you’re hit by cold when you remove the blanket. I need to wash shorts and pants and it’s weird. September is always super inconsistent here.
#emma posts#and when i have my window open to the cold I worry about my cactus#I wonder if living on the second floor makes it warmer? heat rises#and when we had that insane cold snap last winter the first floor felt cold enough for a coat indoors m#I think the actual apartments were warmer with the heaters but it was still cold af#I’m surprised my African violet didn’t die#that thing has been through hells and keeps going#is scoffs at any other plants i have that maybe get stressed by watering schedule being changed or temperature dropping a little more than#is comfortable for them#a seasoned veteran who has put up with the strain that is depending on a human with adhd#looking upon the orchid that stopped flowering the moment I forgot to water for a little too long#those violets can live for 80 years and i don’t want to jinx it but i would only be half surprised#if the violet outlived me. it might be a close competition though because the women on my dad’s mom’s side of the family have lived crazy#long lives. at least one got cancer. but unlike her husband she got better#to be fair she had skin cancer and everyone else in that family that got cancer got it way worse#my grandpa lived like two decades longer than the doctors expected when he was diagnosed but towards the end it wasn’t great#so on my dad’s side it’s kinda like. if cancer doesn’t kill you you’ll be old af#unfortunately cancer has gotten several people#I’m half convinced that something the farm was using back in the day was worse than they thought#I don’t know of anything that has actually been proven to cause cancer being used. but it’s weird that it happened four times#maybe it was the aresenic water? it’s filtered now but no one knew the groundwater had it until I was like six or seven
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risuola · 8 months ago
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ENTRY #11 ♡ F. READER X GOJO SATORU // I starve for your touch yet fear to savor it.
contents: arranged marriage!au, nudity, reader discretion is advised — wc. 1690
a/n: there was no way i wouldn't write a fic based on this picture. just no way.
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Satoru loves to sleep naked.
The beauty of his innate technique, the blessing that he mastered to no end, has stripped him off one of the most basic human needs — touch. He wasn’t missing it that much, he thought, but there was something in letting go of everything and allowing himself to be wrapped in the silky layers of bedsheets that made his body crave the feeling.
He has always picked expensive garments, the ones with soft fabrics and luxurious feel, despite everyone telling him it’s unreasonable to spend so much on a shirt or a pair of trousers, but to him, it did matter. To him, that was the only thing touching his body when a thin layer of infinity effectively forced everything else back. To Satoru, touch was forbidden, threatening. It was a vulnerability that he, the strongest, couldn’t afford.
But that until he’s met you. Until he’s married you.
You were one of not many people he’s made an exception for. You were able to touch him whenever you wanted because the protective surface of endless matter let you in. Because he himself altered his technique to make you capable of laying your hands on his body.
He longed for your touch. So soft, and delicate, and warm. He craved more of it and yet, despite being shameless and confident, he has not allowed himself to sleep bare even once since the day you and him were bound by the knot of matrimony. It would cross boundaries he wasn’t sure you’d wish to cross; it would make you uncomfortable, awkward maybe — and he liked the way your relationship looked like now. He liked the late evenings you talked quietly, alone and intimate in the warm embrace of sheets and your own house.
For you, he let go of the way he used to sleep before because you were worth the sacrifice, but now, you were gone for few days. You were sent on a mission away from Tokyo and the hours Satoru spent alone in bed, thinking of nothing more but your fingertips on top of his skin, made him desperate — and so, he allowed himself the comfort of soft cotton and silk.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You were tired. Exhausted even, by the intense fight you had to pull through, by the uncomfortable nights spent in the dingy hotel room, by the humid weather and rains. In moments like this, there was nothing you envied more in the world than your husband’s ability to warp from one place to another, but you got lucky. Incredibly so, because Ijichi offered you a ride home two days earlier than you were supposed to head back and you thanked all gods and devils for that man’s kindness. He was willing to put on some more road just to get you home.
“Thank you so, so much, Ijichi,” you kissed his cheek — a ghost of a peck that made him all red and steamy and you felt giddy for a moment, seeing the tips of his ears turn crimson. Adorable. You liked him, he was dutiful, polite, trustworthy and constantly terrorized by your husband, so you were determined to at least be the Gojo he likes.
“You’re very welcome,” he mumbled and fixed the frames on the bridge of his nose, pushing them up with the tip of his pointer finger. “Have a good rest.”
“You too, Ijichi.”
Then, he was gone and you were stepping into the house with a deep sense of relief washing over you. Home sweet home. If you were to guess, it was most likely somewhere around 4 am, way too early for anyone to be up — especially your husband — so you gave it your all to stay as quiet as possible. The sun was just showing its first rays from way below the horizon line, crawling up with golden hues and breaking the nightly, navy darkness.
On your toes you moved across the house. It seemed as if Gojo was spending his time alone quite ordinarily — you saw a modest stack of empty takeout boxes, much less humble pile of candy wrappers and his uniform jacket thrown over the couch backrest, along with few other little items that you struggled to differentiate in the nocturnal haze.
You put down your bag, hung up your coat and pushed off the shoes. Ghosting your way towards the bathroom, you were desperate to wash away the combat residuals. You lathered up the shower gel in a rush, desperate to rest and sleep in the comfort of your own bed and then, wrapped in the towel, you tippy-toed to the bedroom, but—
“Came back earlier?”
—you truly didn’t expect to be met with a sight like this. Your husband was awake, just barely, most likely awaken by the water running in the bathroom. His eyes were closed, hidden underneath his forearm and shielded from the lights that were slowly creeping inside, between the dark curtains and onto his face. His body seemed relaxed between the sheets. The softest, gentlest lines of golden glimmer that painted its patterns over his uncovered chest and leg, his hip and one of the muscular arms. The duvet was covering less than half of him, hiding a part of his stomach, the other leg and—
“You’re staring.”
Satoru didn’t even have to look at you to know that your gaze was lingering on his frame. On his very, very naked frame, just barely concealed by the comforter.
“Sorry,” you mumbled, feeling the heat creeping up your cheeks and reaching the tips of your ears and you thanked the darkness for hiding it away. You walked around the bed, hoping to find your pajama where you left it and trying to force your head out of the gutter. You heard your husband letting out a deep exhale and then, a soft hum. His voice was as melodic as always, though you could tell how much sleepiness was laced into it.
Satoru should’ve notice you when you entered the area of your house, but he didn’t. Tired by his own job, by the classes and all of the meetings, he allowed himself to lower his guard and when he realized you’re home, he contemplated for a moment getting up and dressed, but he just didn’t want to.
“You’re exhausted, screw pajamas, just come here,” he said before he managed to think twice about it. It was a daring offer, inappropriate even and he opened his mouth to apologize for it, but then, you rendered him speechless.
Your weight felt good on top of him. You lay your body over his own with feathery gentleness and carefully maneuvered your way to rest on his chest completely. The touch of your skin flush to his own made his brain to short circuit, it felt divine, too good to be true and just so very right, he couldn’t say a word.
“Is that alright?” You asked quietly, pressing your ear right above his heart and letting out a breath that you held for a little too long. Your face felt hot, you were flushed and flustered but also oddly at ease with the current position and you wondered for a moment if it was the tiredness that made you so bold.
“More than that,” he replied, pulling the covers to hide you beneath them. He allowed one of his arms to snake around your waist and his lips to kiss the top of your head. “Rest. Sleep well, wifey.”
“Good night.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
10:19 AM
Satoru thought he was dreaming, but the weight on top of him felt too real. The soft scent of citrusy shower gel that lingered on your skin filled in his lungs each time he took a breath in and there was a tickle, he realized — every time his chest raised, a strand of your hair seemed to be moving against his jawline. You were not a dream.
He opened his eyes, blinking few times, adjusting them to the bright light that forced its way into the bedroom and then, he looked at you. You were still very deep asleep, he could tell based off the long inhales you were taking, slow and relaxed, fanning against his peck rhythmically. Your body was mostly on top of him, you were on his chest, your leg was between his and only your hips were resting on the bed. He still had his arm around you, as if making sure you were as close as possible.
It felt incredible. Intimate. It was everything he could have wished for. A touch, skin to skin, so intense it almost took his breath away. He felt nauseous at the thought, realizing that it’s the first time in his life, he’s that close to someone. So impossibly close that just a little bit more and you’d become a part of him. His heartbeat quickened.
It was so right. So awfully correct and at the same time, so very threatening. He felt helpless. Vulnerable. He was at your mercy, he was robbed of everything what made him the strongest, because at this very moment, he was bare. Uncovered before you, wrapped in an embrace that felt loving, that felt soothing, addicting, but if you only wished to hurt him, you’d—
You moved, shifting your weight a little bit, adjusting the position and the way your hand run down his side made him shiver. A soft sound escaped your throat when you let out a deeper exhale. He felt your fingers squeezing the flesh above his hip and then, you relaxed again.
“Your heart is beating so fast,” you whispered, not bothering to open your eyes, and Satoru held his breath. “Relax…”
And he chuckled. His chest vibrated below your ear and the adorable sound of displeasure you let out made him lose all of the tension. He turned, twisting his body inside your embrace to face you fully and he squeezed you with both of his arms, pulling you close. So impossibly close, and you whimpered, suddenly enclosed in a tight hold of your husband’s limbs. That was it for your sleep.
You could get used to it.
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kyseya · 4 months ago
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Yandere beast
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This inspired by Beauty & the Beast.
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Yandere prince who has everything one could desire. He is royalty after all. There is nothing he cannot have and he is used to it being that way; the king and queen had spoilt him to no end.
Yandere prince who is mean and selfish. He treats everyone at the palace like dirt. He doesn’t even seem to carry much respect for his own parents. No, they’re used to give into his whims. The servants are all laughed at by him, he does not care when he sees the tears running down their faces at the cruel comments. His biggest talent may just be wickedness.
Yandere prince who does have one person he actually likes: you. You are the one exception. As the child of a servant, you too, were subjected to his bullying in the beginning. The people always had one of two reactions to him, either they stayed down and wept, or they started fuming. Both options were equally funny to the spoiled prince. However you surprised him, because you did neither. Whenever he was mean to you, you took it in silence before asking about his day. This bewildered him to no end. Why would you ask such things? It didn’t make sense. The more he bullied you though, the more intrigued he became. You were always kind, no matter the person; even to him. It was after that he decided he loved that about you.
Yandere prince who opened the door to a stranger. It was a heavy storm that night. If anyone were to be caught in it they would surely not survive. The stranger asked for shelter, and as payment the prince would receive a single rose. This made him scoff. The audacity some had. He turned them away as fast as they had come. Unfortunately for him this was no ordinary human. The stranger revealed themselves to be a magician. They told him they saw no love in his heart and therefore he should be punished for his cruelty.
That night his life changed for ever; now he was a monster. He sprouted fur all over his body, his nose grew into a long snout and a tail with spikes protruded from his lower back.
Yandere beast who has lost all his beauty. He was nothing other than hideous. Such a creature should surely be hidden out of sight. Not only did he lose his appearance that night, he also lost his status. The king and queen were horrified at his new form. This turn of event was not what they prepared for. Disgusted with him they sent him to a dreary little castle on the country side where no one would ever lay eyes on him.
Filled with despair he wallowed in shame; for his appearance and his situation. The only thing that could break the curse was if he learned to love someone and earn their love in return. Clearly, his parents did not believe the curse could be lifted, which was the reason they sent him away. They couldn’t have him at court anymore after all. Perhaps they were also glad to be rid of him once and for all.
Yandere beast who was all alone in his castle. He was left without servant or any gold. He was not used to a life without luxury. He thought he’d be alone forever and waste into nothingness, but he was surprised by you once more. You had come to the castle and chose to work there. When you’d told the king and queen of your decision they could not fathom why you would do such a thing when you were under no obligation to do it. You knew how horrible the prince was to all your colleagues, but you saw that underneath all that pride was an insecure young boy who wanted attention. It was not an excuse for his behaviour though. Still, your kindhearted nature made you want to help him.
Yandere beast who is elated with your presence. Now that he has company he is not as pessimistic. He always had a soft spot for you but now the fondness has turned into a full blown obsession. He loves you so much! When no one else was there for him and his life got turned into shamble, you stood by his side- willingly too! You weren’t frightened by his hideous form, no, you held his hand and stroked his snout without a care in the world. You were clearly the one to break the curse!
Yandere beast who does everything to make you fall for him and love him just as much as he loves you. Are you hungry? Good, because his transformation made him a great hunter! Are you in the mood for deer or rabbits? This monstrous prince can offer you a lot more than any normal prince or commoner human. No one can protect you as well as he can; his strength and sharp senses is the one upside to the curse. When the two of you marry, he’ll get back his title and whisk you away to a new castle. This one will be filled with the luxuries he bathed in before, and you’ll be forced to swim in them too whether you want to or not.
Could you ever love this beast?
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