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thestarkerisobvious · 5 years ago

Text

Antinous

“Tony? Can we… umm, god…”

Valiantly Peter moved his mouth away from his mentor’s hungry mouth and tried again. But turning down Tony’s kisses was not easy under the best of circumstances. Peter would know — he was becoming an expert. This was the third time he had been melting into Tony’s kiss, melting into Tony’s arms.

The difference was they were now kissing in Tony’s bedroom, sitting on Tony’s bed in fact, which meant things were getting into ‘now or never’ territory.

“…Tony?” he tried again. But dammit now Tony was using his tongue to tease Peter’s bottom lip and making his head swim.

In the end it was only because he was significantly stronger than Tony (and also currently panicking!) that he pulled far enough away to talk at all.

“What’s the matter, baby? Too much? Do you want me to slow down?” Though he wondered how simply kissing the boy could overwhelm his senses enough to push him away. Perhaps he misread the entire situation. “What do you want me to do, Pete? Are you okay?”

Peter opened his mouth but found nothing coming out. But this was not good, now Tony was looking doubtful, and the last thing Peter wanted was the man he had been crushing on for so many years looking doubtful. He solved the problem quickly. Unfortunately his solution was kissing Tony again.

But kissing Tony meant being kissed by Tony, and being kissed by Tony meant Tony was undressing him, which is why he twisted away and found himself gasping “Tonycanwedothiswiththelightsout?” in a tiny, whimpering voice.

“If it’s what you want. I want you to be comfortable. But Pete, you’re beautiful. I would miss seeing those gorgeous eyes of yours. Watching the adorable way you blush and how I’ve wondered all this time, seeing it at your collar, how far down it goes.” Tony reached for the top buttons on Peter's shirt, the lights still on, hoping the kid would forget his request by being distracted with Tony’s fingers on his collarbone, his lips brushing the sharp angle of his jaw.

His fingers slid down the front of Peter’s shirt, slowly, feeling the buttons he was going to loosen. “I want to see you. Want to know what you’ve been hiding all this time. You’re stunning. I can’t help noticing. Noticed that all along. More now that you’ve grown into your body. Baby, I can’t keep my eyes off of you.” Buttons worked their way undone. One from the top, one from the bottom, back to the top, alternating until the boy’s chest was almost entirely revealed, hidden only by one last button, valiantly holding on.

Tony kissed the divot between Peter’s collarbone. Kissed up to his adam’s apple, bobbing as Peter swallowed nervously. “You taste like a little slice of heaven,” Tony crooned, his lips moving over the boy’s vein, feeling his pulse against them. The last button surrendered and he pushed Peter’s shirt open, sliding it over his shoulders. Tony caressed the curve where shoulder met arm, ran down Peter’s firm strong bicep, covered with smooth, flawless skin.

“So perfect,” he whispered, nuzzling the spot right behind Peter’s ear. His tongue teased just behind Peter’s earlobe and the boy’s shirt wound up on the bed. “God Peter. Stunning. I can’t think of another word. Flawless. Beautiful. Sweet. You taste sweet,” Tony said, capturing Peter’s lips with his.

Sliding down Peter’s back, circling around his waist to rest just below the boy’s navel, Tony’s rough hand caressed smooth skin.

“I’ve wanted to see you. Know every square inch of your body. Learn the curve and contour.” As Tony spoke, he kept his lips brushing across Peter’s face. Softly kissing his cheek, his jaw, his temple, to his lips again. “So soft,” he said, his breath warm and moist against Peter’s hairless face. “Baby, you are beautiful. I love that you are frozen in time like this. How you’ve been captured at the moment where you are the ideal of perfection.”

“Baby,” he whispered as his fingers found the button of Peter’s jeans. “I want to learn you. Everything about you, mind and body.” He closed his fingers on the tab of Peter’s zipper. “Want every part of you to be mine.” The zipper slid down and Peter’s jeans slid down after it, leaving the boy hidden by nothing but his boxers.

Tony worked his hand under the waistband of Peter’s jeans, loosening them from around his waist, pushing them down as far as he could. The way Peter was laying, he needed to raise his hips just slightly. With a bit of a tug, Tony tried to show what he needed Peter to do. The boy seemed reluctant, so Tony moved him just enough to slide his pants over the angle of his hip and move them down to his knees. He sat up just a little so he could work the tight jeans down over his calves, down to his ankles, and off of his feet.

He leaned back and looked at his beautiful boy. Pale skin stretched out before him. Those long, graceful legs that danced him in the air as he swung on a strand of web. Peter’s boxers had shifted as Tony took off his jeans. They were loose over the curve of his ass, pulled snug across the front of his body. Where the smallest of bulges showed within them.

Tony slid his hands up Peter’s legs. Strong, he could feel the muscles under the boy’s limbs, hairless, not shaved, simply perfectly smooth. He was a little taken aback by Peter’s apparent lack of response. But Tony passed that off to nerves. Until his hands pushed over his thighs, up over Peter’s boxers, and his thumbs hooked in the elastic, sliding the last bit of covering from Peter’s body.

Peter closed his eyes tight as the boxers began to come down… oh wait weren’t those lights supposed to be off by now? He took a deep breath and promised himself everything would be all right…

Then the elastic of his boxers slipped down past where his treasure line should have been and Peter jerked upright like a man who had been electrocuted, jerking his boxers back into place and started babbling helplessly.

“Okay I KNOW what you’re going to say but you of all people can not accuse me of lying about my age you know how old I am you’ve ALWAYS known how old I was and I’m told my dad wasn’t very hairy either and… it’s just… okay I don’t have to explain the spiderbite to you but after the spiderbite it just… it’s like everything just stopped…”

“Shhh,” Tony said soothingly, stroking Peter’s hair. “I know how old you are Pete. And there is nothing wrong with the way you look. You certainly don’t look underage. Not with those abs. Not with the way your arms look so strong. Whoever thinks you’re not as old as you are, simply isn’t looking at all of you.” Tony paused. “I’d like to look at all of you. Baby, I want all of you to be mine.”

“It’s just… dammit Tony.” He lowered his boxers to show what little amount of hair he had. “It was like this when I was fifteen… and then the spiderbite happened and it all just stopped. “ His shoulders sagged, but the truth is he was relieved. There was no one, no one on the planet, that he could talk to about this. And now there was Tony.

Of course Tony would make it all right.

“Is it really okay?” he asked in a whisper. He tried not to smile. But inside he was smiling. He didn’t have to pretend that it was about shaving, he didn’t have to pretend at all.

Tony leaned closer to Peter. His hand ran slowly down the boy’s chest and he leaned his head against the side of Peter’s, feeling the boy’s soft curls brush against his forehead. His arm circled comfortingly around Peter’s back. “You are perfect as you are. I love you as you are. You’re not fifteen, baby, and you don’t look like a fifteen year old boy. You look like a very handsome young man.”

Peter leaned into Tony’s embrace and took in his scent, letting it comfort him, calm him. He took a deep breath before speaking again.

“Okay. But then there’s this.”

He lay his head on Tony’s shoulder and thumbed the boxers down all the way. He kept his eyes closed, trusting his mentor to, at the very least, say something gentle.

Tony’s hand continued its downward caress, following Peter’s lowering of his boxers, feeling the perfectly smooth skin of his lower belly, where most young men of his age would have a defined treasure line. All Peter had was smooth skin over taut firm muscle. His hand slid lower. And Tony realized what problem the ‘this’ was. Peter was smaller than averagely endowed. Tony’s gaze followed his hand.

“Peter, you’re… beautiful,” he said, slightly awestruck. The boy was like a perfectly sculpted classical statue. Only warm and alive, not cold marble. He ran his hand over the slight swell of Peter’s cock. “Proportioned to your body. I might be larger, but not proportioned to my height. I will never have the amazingly classic beauty that you carry.” Tony lifted Peter’s cock in his hand, caressed it, encircled it with his fingers. “Too rough, too coarse, to touch your perfection.” He looked down at Peter’s cock. “But perhaps to kiss…” he said, looking back up into Peter’s face. “You are the ideal size for a kiss. A long, slow, deep kiss.”

Peter tried not to grin like an idiot. Tried and failed. It wasn’t just the flood of relief it was something else, something like… amazement. He trusted Tony to be gentle, but he wasn’t expecting poetic.

Still, the amount of nerves that had plagued him up until this moment forced him to argue. A little.

“Okay, but you have to say something nice because you’re my… wait… wait…“

Suddenly Peter pulled away to look Tony full in the face.

“Did you say… you loved me?”

“I’d hoped I was your lover. That you were mine. And a lover, loves.”

“Oh… Tony…” He couldn’t speak much more because he was kissing Tony’s mouth. And he couldn’t kiss very well because he was grinning from ear to ear. Finally he gave up and wrapped his arms around the man he had been in love with for what seemed like his whole life and held on, probably a little too tight, and spoke. Or tried. In the end all he could say was, “I’m so glad you said that.

“I’m so in love with you Tony Stark,” he said breathlessly when he finally let the man go. He pulled away enough to yank off his boxers and send them to the floor as he confessed. “I’ve been in love with you for so fucking long.”

“And if this is… if this is really okay… I mean you’re not just being nice… “

“Baby, you are so beautiful. All of you. Next to me? You are my Antinous and I am simply the much coarser, more earthly, Hadrian. And that love is forever.”

Peter stopped for a minute, his brain turning. Quickly he placed the story that Tony had told him of Antinous and Hadrian (one of many stories Tony had told him of late of famous men who had loved each other.) Suddenly he was grinning and blushing and covering his face. Oh god. Tony was comparing him to a white marble greek statue, the kind with the tiny dick.

Oh well. If that’s what Tony liked… who was he to complain?

He reached for his Hadrian’s hand and brought it to the subject in question, the thing he had been so ashamed of, the thing that had kept him shying away from Tony’s obvious amorous advances for months now. Why had he wasted so much time? He should have known…

Tony made him feel strong and brave and powerful. Was it any surprise that, now, Tony would make him feel beautiful?

“Well,” he whispered. “If you want to kiss it…”

“Come lie back down with me and I will kiss you everywhere.” Tony gently lowered Peter back to the bed. He kissed the boy’s lips, his chin, his throat, his chest, his firmly muscled belly, down to the rise of his cock. Fully hard now, Peter was the ideal size, a perfect complement to him. He wrapped his lips around the boy’s cock, bringing him all the way to the root inside the warm caress of his mouth. Drawing his lips back up along his shaft, Tony placed a kiss on the tip.

Peter’s hands flew to Tony’s back, then to his head, then to the headboard of the bed, finally landing on Tony’s shoulders where he held on desperately as Tony’s skillful mouth brought him over the edge, and he came moaning his lover’s name.

Tony let Peter’s cock gently slip from his mouth. He put a kiss on the softening swell of his shaft. “Beauty,” he said, resting his head on Peter’s hip. He looked down at the way Peter’s cock went from hard to soft, lying against his thigh as if formed by a renaissance artist sculpting an angel.

Peter blinked up at his lover’s ceiling. Then he looked down at his lover’s face. But when he saw what Tony was doing he moaned and hid behind his hands.

He had to hide his face behind his hands, because he didn’t want Tony to see that he was grinning.

He couldn’t help it. His lungs were filling up with beautiful oxygen and it was making him giddy. He felt like he had been holding his breath for weeks. Weeks? Maybe for years. And why? Because it was very difficult to get a man into bed and while also desperately trying to hide his body. A body that Tony had just described as ‘classic’ and ‘perfection’. A body Tony thought was beautiful.

He had been so worried about this moment. Worried that Tony didn’t really want him. Worried that Tony would want to keep the lights on. And worried, more than anything else, that once he was in bed with Tony he would embarrass himself, might accidentally say ‘I love you’.

Now, as Tony moved to lie next to him, Peter was overwhelmed with relief, knowing he had nothing to hide at all. He let his arms fall around Tony’s waist. Relaxing in his lover’s bed. In his lover’s arms.

Feeling like a work of art.

#Von's Moodboards #Starker #TheWitchway writes stuff #Peter Parker/Tony Stark

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tacosandtomcos · 4 years ago

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U pointed out the flaws, continuity errors & retcons in the magic book of spells? But were there any in the Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension since it came after season 2 & befor seasons 3 & 4

oh definitely

i guess as the current star vs expert, it comes in handy that i bought basically almost all the merch for the series. XD I own the stump day edition as well (Even though that episode is not very good)

it’s not as bad AS the book of spells, that one has way more contradictions and has the flaw of feeling like you need to own it to understand a lot about s4. But it has a few tidbits were you can tell there were changes.

one of my favorites was when they mentioned tom’s parents, cause as anyone knows, i was REALLY invested in meeting tom’s parents at the time. And well, obviously at the time we were under the impression tom came from an abusive family with an anger demon father tom hated.

and this seems to be reflected in the book.

but uh.....yeah, obviously this was changed AFTER the book because we meet tom’s parents and they basically never acknowledge this ever again.

You’d think “The big guy”, would imply tom’s dad is some important figure but like, wrath gets more screentime and more significance in the series in their two appearances then tom’s dad.

outside of his feud with river, he doesn’t get to do much that matters.

so they basically didn’t really do much to jusitify what all that was about, not that they needed to. but i feel like if his dad was originally obviously going to be important, and they changed it, he should’ve done something to reflect that because this mention of him feels weird now.

also there is a map in the book.

the jaggs, spiderbite, musty mountains and even some of those spots in the underworld are confirmed to hold kingdoms. But like, none of them are on the map for some reason? I mean i’d claim they were only showing the significant kingdoms but most of these kingdoms are around for one or 2 episodes at most, and river’s old kingdom doesn’t matter at all.

not to mention there’s a lot of these locations we don’t see anyone.

Not a contradiction, i just find it weird.

star also mentions for jackie that jackie was born with the teal streak, which obviously is not true because we’ve seen baby jackie . But maybe you could round that up to star being star and hearing rumors. (Also Jackie shops from the salvation army of this universe and i hope they’re better then ours)

Also, omnitraxius was made to keep the universe from eating itself, which uh.....now that he’s dead.....

oh fun fact, celena had the power to disarm monsters which her beauty apparently? that isn’t in her chapter but it is mentioned in this book.

also there is mention of this accord , the mewman/monster one, which i don’t think is ever mentioned much but maybe i’m forgetting. But toffee broke it apparently or something.

it’s even mentioned ludo’s family and the septarians have a treaty, which also is not mentioned.

oh yeah, still bothered pony’s trans sister literally never showed up in the show.

actually in this book they mention star’s marks changing shape in s1 is like, a legit thing, but i don’t think it ever comes back after s1.

Oskar had a freaking record, i completely forgot XDDD

Tbh you could claim all of glossircks section is contradictory but star says all the information she has is probably not true anyway so yeah.

apparently the ponyheads have indoor plumbing,, but i mean, mewni not knowing what toilets are then having plumbing already was a problem already in the show.

Pony makes a reference to henious’s marks which actually i believe she never sees before this point, so either that’s a bit of a contradiction or i guess we’re assuming she saw them out of the corner of her eye.

she also doesn’t know ludo is a prince, but i guess depending on how smart you consider her that can both make sense or not make sense.

The stump day booklet and the mewman settlers are not the same ones we see in the s4 episode, there’s no resemblance (they’re not pilgrims either for the record), though that can be chalked up to it being a kid’s book in universe and not remembering who these people looked like....there’s also like...20 of them in here compared to the four we saw.

you could argue the “Pic” they took of the stump day party also doesn’t make sense for the episode since that clearly doesn’t happen in canon. But tbh i think a bigger thing is the fact star has her wand XD Star didn’t actually have her wand in that episode.

star doesn’t remember skywynne made warnicorn stampede when the spellbook says it was basically the only chapter she really read for the queens.

Like i said, this book isn’t as bad, because tbh, it was made around the time were the continuity was a lot better, not perfect, but more consistent.

it’s a guidebook, instead of lore it’s focus is more on fun activities and small interactions between characters that aren’t technically contradicted by the series.

Probably because a lot involve characters we barely see after this book, so we can’t claim these small moments didn’t happen.

But there are some issues here and there, not enough to really “Ruin” anything, they’re mostly minor compared to the WAY more confusing ones the BOS has, but they are there.

Bonus though: The comic series was intended to be canon to the series, taking place between s1 and 2.

a lot of it is kinda contridictory, like marco’s amount of hoodies, these random mud people monsters that like never come back besides the time travel thing, but tbh the biggest one that i point out.

marco is allergic to cats in it, which is a plot point in the last comic they printed with marco’s earth pals, but like, this is never mentioned in the series and marco is around cats quite a bit

he met the same cat dimension with the human faces in s1 and wasn’t allergic then and def wasn’t in later seasons around babs cats or anything.

the comics probably aren’t considered canon now but felt the need to point that out since they originally were going to be.

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starker-stories · 4 years ago

Text

Antinous

Also on AO3

Written by @thestarkerisobvious and @starker-stories

This story was posted on @thestarkerisobvious‘s blog back in the beginning of April. But we’d had a little disagreement and I took my name off of the story. We’ve since discussed it and here it is with my name back on it. So if the story seems familiar, that’s why.

Tags: Shyness, Self Confidence Issues, College Student Peter Parker, Not Canon Compliant, Peter Parker Feels, Small Penis, Worried Peter Parker, Oral Sex

Summary: But kissing Tony meant being kissed by Tony, and being kissed by Tony meant Tony was undressing him, which is why he twisted away and found himself gasping “Tonycanwedothiswiththelightsout?” in a tiny, whimpering voice.

“Tony? Can we… umm, god…”

The difference was they were now kissing in Tony’s bedroom, sitting on Tony’s bed in fact, which meant things were getting into ‘now or never’ territory.

“…Tony?” he tried again. But dammit now Tony was using his tongue to tease Peter’s bottom lip and making his head swim.

In the end it was only because he was significantly stronger than Tony (and also currently panicking!) that he pulled far enough away to talk at all.

Tony kissed the divot between Peter’s collarbone. Kissed up to his Adam’s apple, bobbing as Peter swallowed nervously. “You taste like a little slice of heaven,” Tony crooned, his lips moving over the boy’s vein, feeling his pulse against them. The last button surrendered and he pushed Peter’s shirt open, sliding it over his shoulders. Tony caressed the curve where shoulder met arm, ran down Peter’s firm strong bicep, covered with smooth, flawless skin.

“So perfect,” he whispered, nuzzling the spot right behind Peter’s ear. His tongue teased just behind Peter’s earlobe and the boy’s shirt wound up on the bed. “God, Peter. Stunning. I can’t think of another word. Flawless. Beautiful. Sweet. You taste sweet,” Tony said, capturing Peter’s lips with his.

Sliding down Peter’s back, circling around his waist to rest just below the boy’s navel, Tony’s rough hand caressed smooth skin.

“I’ve wanted to see you. Know every square inch of your body. Learn every curve and contour.” As Tony spoke, he kept his lips brushing across Peter’s face. Softly kissing his cheek, his jaw, his temple, to his lips again. “So soft,” he said, his breath warm and moist against Peter’s hairless face. “Baby, you are beautiful. I love that you are frozen in time like this. How you’ve been captured at the moment where you are the ideal of perfection.”

Peter closed his eyes tight as the boxers began to come down… oh wait weren’t those lights supposed to be off by now? He took a deep breath and promised himself everything would be all right…

“Okay I KNOW what you’re going to say, but you of all people cannot accuse me of lying about my age. You know how old I am. You’ve ALWAYS known how old I was and I’m told that my dad wasn’t very hairy either and… it’s just… okay I don’t have to explain the spiderbite to you but after the spiderbite it just… it’s like everything just stopped…”

“It’s just… dammit Tony.” He lowered his boxers a little to show what little amount of hair he had. “It was like this when I was fifteen… and then the spiderbite happened and it all just stopped. “ His shoulders sagged, but the truth is he was relieved. There was no one, no one on the planet, that he could talk to about this. And now there was Tony.

Of course Tony would make it all right.

“Is it really okay?” he asked in a whisper. He tried not to smile. But inside he was smiling. He didn’t have to pretend that it was about shaving, he didn’t have to pretend at all.

Peter leaned into Tony’s embrace and took in his scent, letting it comfort him, calm him. He took a deep breath before speaking again.

“Okay. But then there’s this.”

He lay his head on Tony’s shoulder and thumbed the boxers down all the way. He kept his eyes closed, trusting his mentor to, at the very least, say something gentle.

Tony’s hand continued its downward caress, following Peter’s lowering of his boxers, feeling the perfectly smooth skin of his lower belly, where most young men of his age would have a defined treasure line. All Peter had was smooth skin over taut, firm muscle. His hand slid lower. And Tony realized what problem the ‘this’ was. Peter was smaller than averagely endowed. Tony’s gaze followed his hand.

“Peter, you’re… beautiful,” he said, slightly awestruck. The boy was like a perfectly sculpted classical statue. Only warm and alive, not cold marble. He ran his hand over the slight swell of Peter’s cock. “Proportioned to your body. I might be larger, but not proportioned to my height. I will never have the amazingly classic beauty that you carry.” Tony lifted Peter’s cock in his hand, caressed it, encircled it with his fingers. “My hand is too rough, too coarse, to touch your perfection.” He looked down at Peter’s cock. “But perhaps to kiss…” he said, looking back up into Peter’s face. “You are the ideal size for a kiss. A long, slow, deep kiss.”

Still, the amount of nerves that had plagued him up until this moment forced him to argue. A little.

“Okay, but you have to say something nice because you’re my… wait… wait…“

Suddenly Peter pulled away to look Tony full in the face.

“Did you say… you loved me?”

“I’d hoped I was your lover. That you were mine. And a lover, loves.”

“And if this is… if this is really okay… I mean you’re not just being nice…”

“Baby, you are so beautiful. All of you. Next to me? You are my Antinous and I am simply the much coarser, more earthly, Hadrian. And that love is forever.”

Oh well. If that’s what Tony liked… who was he to complain?

Tony made him feel strong and brave and powerful. Was it any surprise that, now, Tony would make him feel beautiful?

“Well,” he whispered. “If you want to kiss it…”

Peter blinked up at his lover’s ceiling. Then he looked down at his lover’s face. But when he saw what Tony was doing he moaned and hid behind his hands.

He had to hide his face behind his hands, because he didn’t want Tony to see that he was grinning.

Feeling like a work of art.

#starker #ironspider #tony stark x peter parker #peter parker x tony stark #Von writes stuff #thewitchway writes stuff #von's moodboards

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twofacedbelief · 5 years ago

Note

How does Virgil contact the ghosts? Does he use some ancient spell, or just start slowly experimenting with a Ouija board?

The Crystal Coven is a small store at the end of an alleway that would otherwise be a dead end. The windows have a display of crystals, tarot cards and animal bones, all showcased against black fabric that hangs from the ceiling, making it impossible to look inside. The door is quiet when Virgil opens it.

It's not his first time in the occult store. They sell books and jewellery, both things that he has bought in the past. But he hasn't been there since he started working at the motel - not that the store has noticeably changed in the almost decade that had passed.

No one is behind the counter, though that's not unusual. It's a small town; few stores have anyone behind the counter at all times. He knows that an employee is either in the backroom or hidden among the shelves; it's just to call out if he needs any help.

He doesn't know exactly what he's looking for. There is a small selection of Ouija boards, but if there is another way of summoning a ghost, Virgil would prefer it... Especially since he has to summon at least three ghosts.

"May I help you?"

He pretends like the sudden voice didn't make him jump as he turns around to see the speaker, his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. The speaker is about his height, although slightly shorter than him. The person has long hair that has been dyed black, the roots showing, smokey eyeshadow, spiderbite piercings and a badge on their shirt with Andy, haun/haunt written on it in purple ITC Schizoid. Virgil gives an awkward quick smile as a greeting.

"Um, I need to summon some ghosts?"

It comes out as a question, and he clenches his fists inside the pockets. Social anxiety might be the death of him one day.

"Sure. Ouija board, crystal ball or spell?"

The store employee looks completely unfazed and Virgil can't help but wonder if people often come in asking about ways to summon ghosts.

He shrugs helplessly as he tries to answer.

"What hurts them least?"

"I don't think any of the ways hurt them," the employee pauses to raise an eyebrow at him. "But I'd probably rule out the crystal ball just to be safe."

Virgil nods at the answer.

"So which one do you recommend?"

The employee looks like haun wants to say something, but then haun looks around the store as if to check that no one is eavesdropping before haun leans in closer.

"If you want to interact directly with the ghost, a spell is better. Not any from the books though; they don't really work."

Yeah okay, Virgil should have expected that. Though the way the employee was wording it...

"But you know a spell that works?"

The employee leans back again, with a smile on haunt face like haun knew something that Virgil didn't. Which was probably the case.

"You run the motel, right? I'll come over and help you out tomorrow night."

Okay, that's sketchy. Maybe he should have just googled it instead of coming to the store. Virgil takes a half-step back as he tries to think of a way to leave without like, getting cursed or something.

"Free of charge," the employee continues. "See it as a favour."

"What's in it for you?" Virgil asks. His sense of self-preservation is kicking into overdrive.

"It was about time something interesting happened in this town. See you tomorrow." The employee smiles at him before disappearing as quickly as haun had appeared.

Virgil leaves the store without buying anything. He never did agree to anything, but he has a feeling that the employee will find him tomorrow night even if he isn't at the motel.

#haunted motel au

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jess-the-vampire · 5 years ago

Text

Sky And The Forces Of The Multiverse, Chapter 33

Previous/ Next

"So, the trial has been announced tomorrow huh? They.....it's sooner then I thought.".

Judas sipped on some demonade as he rested his head against his fist, "I guess they didn't want to waste any longer on this, no point in it...the commission won't be the judges...they'll just be going over the event putting out evidence....it'll be a sloppy mewnian trial....considering...this place ain't as organized or clean as earth's...especially with magic and stuff. The biggest issue though is while thankfully the commission are not allowed to judge, well....they chose people that might be harder to convince....the other leaders of the kingdoms....".

"Our parents are judging?!", she almost spit out her taco, before taking a swing of chocolate milk, "That's....are we sure it's worse? The high commission are pretty bad to go against these days, even if they're trying to be better...". But Judas nodded, "Here's the thing, my parents told me they had a meeting with all the representatives, well the kings and queens, of the other affected mewni kingdoms, and they've decided this matter is more universal to the kingdoms then magic...which is where the high commission stands...and should stand, angel's crimes weren't well...they weren't on magic...they were against the kingdoms...so they thought it fair they were the ones to judge him...".

"Guess that does make sense...they were the ones he kinda messed with the most...".

"And.....look, even if we convince our parents, we have to convince most of the others as well, the pigeons, the spiderbites, the jaggs, the ponyheads....i mean loki was turned into a mindslave for this woman...thing...and they're going to just forgive him for it? The queen would probably rather stab him with her horn, even if she sucks as a parent and how much she cares about loki is on the fence.", he tugged at his hair, "Sunny did manage to meet with me for a few minutes today after she found out, these kinds of trials are rare....mostly because the High Commission for a long time handled these kinda crimes and the kingdoms rarely had the time...but their distrust in them has made this outcome more desired since every kingdom gets to have their imput.".

"They're not brutal enough to...exile him...right?".

"Unless they're all from the johansen clan, probably not...he's too young...but they're still going to be a challenge to convince not to dethrone him....I mean Angel getting involved put them all in jeopardy, your mom had to give them all magical security to make them feel better and safer. And if he hadn't been involved she might've been caught right away and saved them so much time and money and panic, angel's not exactly the most popular guy in mewni, i mean...none of us are...but...he's in the worst position right now...he's in a vulnerable position for people who already hate him to take their revenge on him.".

Sky put her food down, staring down at it as if it was the most interesting thing at the table.

She didn't want to speak up about it, but she had such an urge to and she had to force it out.

"Is he....ok?".

"Angel?", judas looked to her, surprised at first but sky could tell judas knew how much sky actually did care for the prince's well being.

"Yeah...".

"Well.....", he put down his drink, crossing his arms on the table and relaxing his shoulders, "He...didn't react much to the news, I guess there's not much for him to react to, he knew he was going to on trial and he knew someone other then the commission would probably do it, so this can't be too much of a surprise. He was probably thinking someone in charge of a kingdom would take the trial and be judging him, makes sense of all the kingdoms to do it then one random one.".

"Think the same thing will happen to me?", her voice was both more aggressive and more nervous, her arms lying on the table as well as her friend reflected on the info he had gotten, "Maybe, It's hard to say for sure, my parents haven't confirmed if or when you might go on trial, but then again...you haven't even been convicted of anything, you're only under investigation. Though I don't think that makes the situation any less stressful honestly for you...because of our investigations, they have more of a reason to convict you, you were everywhere the criminal had been and you would have the knowledge the criminal could have, even if you weren't in the costume you're highly suspected as an ally and I can imagine that's terrifying.".

"No, no it doesn't, I'm half expecting them to take my wand in my sleep....the worst part is, i don't even get to see them...hear from them. All I'm hearing is from other people, like yourself...the cowards don't even have the nerve to confront me, they're talking behind my back...to you...and my moms....and who knows who else...". The boy was quick to reach across the table to comfort her, trying to be positive, "At the very least me and your moms think you're innocent, that's gotta count for something here...".

"Yeah, at least my moms are on my side I guess...I'm not even sure if angel has that...considering how much they never defend him...".

"From what I can tell....he's not too confident either, angel was just a troubled kid......his parents are so used to him doing dangerous stuff and...you know....though here, there really isn't anything they can do to defend him at all, and trying to defend his actions would only make things worse, I think angel's worried if his mother did wake up, she'd be more then dissapointed in him for his actions. He says he's very close to his mom, what she'd do if she were here seems....to really worry him....".

"He told you that?".

"He's had no one else to really talk to recently besides me....so we've been talking, I think at this point he's more comfortable opening up....he's got nothing to lose, he might as well....I...think it makes him feel better to talk about this stuff then keeping it to himself. He's never had someone to vent to, to talk about this stuff with, we always had each other but he....nora...so much bottled up emotion for years...he doesn't want me to feel guilty about it....but...It's hard not to...even if it's all in the past...".

"Well, you're here for them now, aren't you?".

Yeah, yeah I am....and I think he's a little better now...he's...better on the outside...and he's getting his emotions out...", sky simply nodded, thinking back to the time angel did something similar with her. Judas's brows furrowed, "He misses you, y'know...you don't have to speak to him right now but it tears him up inside he hurt you...". Sky didn't answer, playing with her food now, not really looking the demon in his eyes, leaving judas to sigh and continue.

"He hopes you'll forgive him someday, it almost feels like he cares more about you two reconciling then what happens to him at the trial to me. I guess you really did make an impression on him....sky I just want both of you to be happy, you're my friends...",still nothing from sky, who shoved more taco into her mouth to keep herself from answering. He was just going to have to save this for another time, "I know our parents freaked when luna's room was found empty....I was worried they'd assume we helped her escape but...guess luna had prepared for that, she left them a message as well.".

"She's probably fine....on her own...".

"I hope she is....I just worry....".

"Well, you were closer to her then me, sister or no sister, we weren't exactly always on the same page...and she drives everyone up the walls.".

"She did help you with your magic for a bit...didn't she?", sky thought back to the time she and her were with eclipsa and nodded, "That's true, but that's not like....it's the closest thing we had to real bonding, thought hanging out with katrina at her restaurant was sorta fun too...in a weird way...I guess...", she almost hated to say it, "Luna's not so bad...when she isn't trying to be in charge of everything, just...hanging out and stuff, she just gets so.....mad...and then no one wants to be around her...".

"I can understand that...celeste is also not entirely the easiest to get along with, she tends to keep to herself most of the time and the only person I usually see her around is landon....I...don't think she's just as comfortable around us, she seems antisocial and I think...well I think she's been able to connect to landon more then any of us..". Sky understood, neither of them seemed to get along with celeste, but then again she wasn't easy to get along with and tended to rarely speak to any of them, nora was shy and antisocial but in a very different way.

"Sunny is absolutely lovely, even if she's....a little scary sometimes...I mean, wielding a knife, knowing extremely powerful magic, being good at persuading others...she's the most friendly, and I think the most trusting, but surprisingly the most intimidating for reasons that are hard to explain....", and then his mind wandered to the last girl, "Galexia is.....mysterious...she's nice and well-meaning, but I always never know what she's thinking and where her mind is at...".

Sky tapped on the table and judas poked at her arm to get her attention.

"If we're going to get through this, we all need to communicate, we already lost luna...I don't want anyone else running off, we need to band together more then ever...these girls are your sisters sky, and two of them are technically also my sisters as well, even despite the circumstances and that we have our parents watching us like hawks, we still have them and we can't let anything happen to any of them. I don't want us to lose anyone else out there.".

"That's gonna be even harder with nora being well....yeah".

"We'll manage, luna was powerful and strong but...we just have to manage without her, maybe i can convince them to meet in our archives, it's usually insanely quiet down there, though....Katrina will be following me regardless...we can't leave anywhere outside of our castles so....we're kinda limited. We should find time to talk more with the others, celeste especially, I....feel like she hasn't left her room since....they found out....I...get the feeling she's not thrilled about mom knowing she's their kid in another timeline...".

"She shows up to dinners....right?".

"No, not even that, she requested the food be sent to her...though I doubt she's not still talking to landon despite this...".

"That bad huh?".

"Celeste has never exactly been the social type, and with sunny and galexia being tight and hanging out more often, she might feel left out...maybe, maybe she just gets along with my brother and we're just not people that can get along with her.....I don't wanna give up though...I want to bring us together as best I can. I'm not promising anything, I just...losing luna made me think that I want to make sure we all stick together as best we can...it's already rough that I can't see nora....losing luna too....I don't want it happening again...".

"I haven't been down to the hospital wing...are her parents actually trying to the cure the queen?".

"I've seen them, yes actually, I'm not sure what they're doing and if it's working but It seems nora being complacent with them just to help her might actually be working...though I wish I could see her and ask what she said to them.", he took out his compact, thinking as his fangs pricked his lip, "I wanna get in touch with loki again, but....I know his parents won't allow me anywhere near him after what happened, I just wonder...if there's more I could get out of him...last time I saw him was before he got caught, and I haven't gotten a chance since....".

"Then just ask coral....you got her number right? They probably haven't taken her compact."

A Lightbulb seemed to turn on in the boy's brain.

Coral.

He quickly took out his compact to speed-dail the pony's number, only waiting for it to ring a couple times before the image of a green-ish blue pony to show up on the other side, and unsurprisingly, she was in the middle of playing video games. Though it seemed for once in her life she actually paused it at the sight of the boy, and that was enough to tell judas she already knew about the situation at hand. And her voice was loud enough to even startle Sky.

"JUDAS! WHAT HAPPENED!!".

Geez, if she was this eager to talk to him he'd think she'd try calling him herself, but then again maybe time got away from her while playing games as often as she did. "Coral, oh uh....hi....it's uh...It's complicated, but look.....I need to know how loki's been doing, if that's ok?". Coral's face suddenly looked more annoyed then anything and judas simply gave her a strange smile and shrugged, "Look, trust me, it's important....If you do i'll promise to do another verses game with you."

"I'd rather verses you to see if you can beat me, if you win i'll tell you everything.".

Sky, snorting, got up and walked over next to judas and appear in front of coral, "Uh....yeah, judas can't go over there, and not sure you can come over here either...so you're just gonna have to go with his option.". Coral snorted at the sight of sky but sighed, "Fine fine fine....but lemme guess, the entire reason you both got in trouble has to do with why you wanna know more about my brother, right? What did he do? Is he about to be arrested too?".

"Hopefully not, look.....last time I spoke to loki he couldn't recall anything about his actions cause he thought he was sleepwalking, but I remembered something....the day he vanished.....he was going to see angel to confront him and he doesn't remember a lick of it...as if he were mindwiped or something. I just want to see if maybe we can jog anything from his memory about maybe who magically infected him....I know your parents aren't....easy to converse with and....we need help coral...". The pony's eyes drifted back to her game before laughing, "Another day in the life of Prince Judas lucitor Diaz....you never seem to have a normal week do you?".

"Well, at this point it's happened enough to feel normal...".

"Judas, honestly i'm surprised you haven't gotten killed at this point, you crazy weirdo....alright i'll cave and see what I got, you do owe me a verses game tho, maybe also I could use someone to scare off one of my game rivals too....", judas's face was enough to tell her to only expect half of that offer, "Alright, look, my stupid brother has barely been allowed to leave his room unless our parents are preparing him to take the throne, he's tried to flee a few times though....I think Queen Butterfly found a way to prevent that....".

"Does he recall anything....from what happened since I last saw him?".

"Well, I normally completely ignore him....uh....", her eyes wandered back to her game, "Ugh...I'll make this exception for you judas....". Holding her compact with her tongue, she floated her way up to the green ponyhead's room, placing the compact on top of her head and she moodily knocked on the door to be met with loki's voice on the other end. "Huh? Whose there?", judas couldn't see her faced but he was sure coral was rolling her eyes as she spoke.

"You got a call...".

"From who?".

"Freaking Lucitor Diaz and Butterfly, it's not like you have anyone else who calls you....", the door was locked so they couldn't see his face, but they could hear him, and that was fine for now. He clearly had slammed his body up against the door at the mention of their names, "Wait, what? Why? Are they still dating? Please tell me you're not getting married, I can't even leave this tiny room long enough anymore to even be a best man anymore...".

Even Judas looked annoyed.

"No you dunderhead! They wanna ask about you being possessed and if you remember anything else since the last time lucitor showed up! Look, make it quick, I had to pause my game for this...", loki seemed to pause on his end and judas and sky eagerly awaited an answer from his end. "Uhhhh.....wait...about me being all....that? I mean....that was awhile ago for me...and uh....I mean, I can't remember much from it, it's kinda just...a fuzzy blank...".

Sky could already feel her friend's shoulders sag.

"Loki....the day you seemed to get.....controlled, you went to go find angel remember? Well, i mean you didn't remember but you did do that! And you never made it....how....how far did you get? Where were you when you got......what was the last thing you did remember? Can you recall where you were?". Loki didn't respond right away and judas was about ready to give on on this idea but much to his surprise loki did answer, "Oh well....um...uh...I mean this is kinda a pointless thing to ask about since I barely remember this happening but uh...I guess I might've been in the woods already...maybe...like...close to the spider place..not the other spider place...but THAT spider place.".

"Think closely, did you ever see angel...or the masked being before you got....y'know?".

"Uhhhh....I don't remember....like I said I like.....can't remember anything about when I was sorta kinda taken over....it was....bad...", sky jumped in, crossing her arms, "Loki, you're a sneak, always spying and prying and tagging along when it's not appropriate, I find it hard to believe you never tried to confront angel again after the first time, especially considering how much you knew we were getting involved with him and you love following us, even if you were in trouble with your parents. You decided to go after him yourself a long time ago and after it doesn't happen you just....gave up? Even when judas told you you did you didn't even try to figure out why? You don't even leave us alone no matter how many times I say to go away...".

"Well, that's mostly cause Judas-".

"That's not the point Loki, the point is after that one time you never bothered angel ever again supposedly, you basically acted like you didn't care enough about it after the situation, that's weird for you...", judas himself even had to agree with that, Loki wasn't prone to backing off unless forced too."Yeah, Loki, you wanted to confront angel...basically for me and to get in sky's good graces...and you didn't get caught for being...y'know....under control for awhile after, are you sure you never saw him again?".

Sky bit her lip, "Hm...I mean i guess with you all buddy buddy with angel he'd probably say if loki ran into them I guess...".

"True, but I think you have a good point sky, if loki went to find him again, maybe on one of those occurrences he could've seen something, I never questioned the idea that loki might've seen something if he went to find angel, who was working with Her, I just assumed loki gave up and forgot and...it's worth a shot.". He tried again, "Loki, look, i'm just asking you to dig deep into your memories, I need your help right now, more then ever, is there anything you can recall that could help us?".

"Well uh...I mean...uh....".

"Look loki, we don't get along and i kinda say rude stuff you you all the time, i know judas wants to sorta promise some weird hangout between us three so...look, if you really wanna impress me...or do something worthwhile for once...then please, try and recall something...it'd mean the world to me and judas right now.", sky was practically pressing her face against the compact, silence still coming from loki's bedroom door. And slowly the hope started to drain.

Coral snorted, "Ugh...sorry guys, seems this was once again, a waste of time...my brother can't remember things when they actually matter-".

"I SAW A CAVE!!!".

He practically screamed through the door, catching even coral off guard that she almost dropped the compact, Loki sounded like he was panting, "Like, maybe I blocked it from my memory cause everything was so fuzzy but...I got lost....I think, trying to find the stupid spider kid...and at one point I might've...stumbled upon some weird monster cave, like....it was old...probably used to be used by the monsters in the old monster and mewman wars....but like, I think I saw it....and then like....I passed out I think...".

Judas's heartbeat seemed to beat a little faster, "Anything else? Loki, can you remember anything else?".

"I...I might've heard a voice....I..I wasn't paying much attention to it though....".

Sky raised an eyebrow, "What kinda voice? Man's? Woman's? Supernatural entity? When we heard them speak their voice was all...warped...It was hard to tell who was under there." Loki huffed, "I mean...I think it was a woman's.....I think...no one I knew tho...she was like....creepy....or soothing? I only heard her for like...5 seconds and i'm not sure if i dreamed her or not.". Even sky was intrigued by this, Loki? Actually being kinda helpful for once? This was a miracle.

"Did you see her face?".

"Heck no, i don't think I ever saw anyone, not weird spider boy, not weird masked lady......it was all woods".

Judas seemed to be thinking hard about loki's answer, whether it was extremely factual or not, "A woman's voice....that would imply....she was older...unless he's just mis-remembering her....or he heard someone else...weird.", even Sky seemed more puzzled, though then again they were talking to loki, who was pretty common to not understanding stuff. Even they couldn't be sure of how accurate this account was, and Judas himself knew if Angel had head the foe's voice he would've mentioned it by now.

"I swear....that I think,that's what I heard....maybe...".

He didn't even sound sure himself.

Coral sighed to herself and mumbled to the royals on her compact, "Alright, well, then looks like this meeting is over...that's what you're stuck with unless something else jogs his memory...mom doesn't let him outta this room though so....good luck with that". The demon looked to sky and back to the compact, "Thanks for the help loki, it means a lot...maybe the sooner we put an end to this the sooner you might be allowed some freedom again...and we'll get a chance to hang out...we promise to let you know if we find out anything".

"Will you promise to confess to your obvious relationship?"

"And we're done...bye coral, text or call judas later or something....whatever". Sky hung up the compact for them before Judas could protest, he could call coral back later, at least he got something out of the pony that might be useful. Well, it's possible it might not help at all if the prince's memory was fuzzy, but judas was quick to write it on his napkin, "I'll maybe talk to angel about this later, see if he has anything else he wants to add to this whole thing but I can't imagine he knows too much more...".

"Not even a...cave?", sky moved her hands around to emphasize the cave, "Like that thing is a kinda big thing he should probably mention if it exists, like...no one's been able to find a hideout for this chick or whatever because no one can simply track her down.". Judas shook his head, "No no, angel talked to me, they never met in any hideout, whenever they met they contacted each other through notes or such and went to a certain meeting place, angel's never been to a hideout....they probably knew it was possible angel would back out...".

Guess it figures, that would be pretty stupid to just invite him into a secret hideout you don't want anyone knowing about.

"At least my parents might appreciate it, it could reduce their search a little more...", he pocketed the napkin and Sky returned to her seat as judas took his compact out again, "Maybe I can convince them to take loki in for questioning themselves...I'm not sure truth potion would work in this case though, so better off with normal questions....". That reminded Sky, they had truth potion they made themselves didn't they? The commotion was so crazy she didn't quite remember where she left it.

Hopefully nowhere dangerous.

"Hey, thanks for hanging out with me today jude...".

He looked up from his compact to see the sad face of his friend, munching on her meal rather pitifully. He closed up the compact and leaned against the table, smiling, "I'd gladly make time for my best friend, you know that, and....I needed this too sky....I'm stressed...like....REALLY stressed. Sky I can't stop thinking about....my arm, the time it attacked that knight, sky my arm had teeth....it had a mouth....i can't stop thinking about it. It's never done that before...it's....uncomfortable...".

"Judas...".

"I....also....needed some normalcy, even with angel, he does remind me when i'm around him that i'm a target and could get hurt, you've been with me since the beginning and I just...sky i'm really scared...i'm trying to be cool but i'm terrified right now. But everyone needs me to remain clam and be the voice of reason and no matter how much I wanna calm down, I can't...it gets worse sky, angels's worried she might....use my arm against me and....I don't ever want that to happen.".

"I'm sorry judas, I just wanted you to rest...but I guess it's hard to under these conditions...I get the feeling it's building and you can't catch a break....", he nodded, "I just....what if...what if you do get hurt because of me, sky i'm going to be crowned soon, and I don't....I don't know if I should be taking charge as the leader right now, I don't think it's good for my health right now and.....without luna I feel more then ever like I should be stepping up but maybe it's too much for me to handle with....this going on...".

"Well, what if....I-".

"Sky...I can't let you take care of all this....that's not fair to you either, all this stuff with your moms-".

"-Is petty and nothing compared to what you've been going through, judas you've done a lot already, and you keep coming back cause you're...well...you're used to handling everything....you're used to being everyone's big brother whose always looking out for everyone and helping everyone and trying to guide everyone...you're....cool that way. But...you're so stressed with your arm and you already have pressure because your family has put so much blame on you for your siblings being involved....judas...maybe you should let...someone else have a go while you sort yourself out...".

"Sky you know me, something will happen and I'll get back in there and..I can't relax long enough to-"

She covered his mouth with her hands, "Jude.....you need to rest and I need to take responsibility for this...a lot of this....revolves around me, you wouldn't have even gotten involved in all this if It wasn't for me. Jude I'm not asking you to not help sometimes or assist but....it's getting harder watching you like this...you're getting worse....look i'm asking, I wanna handle some of this, I should be handling some of this...you shouldn't be the one with all this on your shoulders...especially not like this....".

She removed her hands and took one of his.

"Dude....promise me, as your best friend, to take it easy from now on....if something happens, you tell me and i'll try to get a grasp on it...ok?", she was pleading to him with her pretty blue eyes and judas's shoulders sagged, he looked tired, and he gave in. "I promised to trust you, and always believe in you...sky....if you're really sure, I can't argue....I know i'm not doing well, angel knows it as well, and even my family last night came to check on me, asking If i wanted out of trying to help and just wanted to stay out of it...".

"I can handle it....".

"You sure?".

"Yeah".

"Then I trust you to help bring this to a close...".

She quickly pulled him in a tight hug, standing up to do so, "Thank you.".

"Luna really did run off on us....huh?", Celeste sat on her bed, landon pacing close by, her legs swinging off the bed and arms crossed. "Whatever, she was a pain anyway....she can go out there by herself and....be a nuisense to some squirrels or something...", she seemed amused by the meer thought of that, laughing to herself a little. However, landon didn't turn around to look at her, still pacing and thinking to himself, annoying celeste who snapped to get his attention.

"Yo...Landon, what's with you?".

He tugged on his hair, "Well ignoring the fact that i'm being followed and tracked all the time because my parents are super paranoid about me and mason, Queen Butterfly went out to the magic dimension to look for clues, I've just been wondering...if...maybe...well". Celeste could tell where he was going with this, "People lose their minds out there y'know? And it's big, like SUPER big. you'd have to do some searching to find any clues out there, though no doubt that weirdo wouldn't stay in it very long unless she had an unlimited supply of puddling or something, even....mom...this mom....even she's been taking breaks by searching other dimensions.... and magic wells...".

"Yeah it's just....what if we could find something she can't? It'd give us a chance to be one step ahead closer to solving this...".

"and making you look cool to your family? No point in wallowing in success if you're not around to see it right? Like the interrogations and investigating? Sure whatever...but are you willing to like.....die just to be better then your older brother?".

"Don't make it sound...so...weird...".

"i mean, that's what it is...isn't it?", she looked him up and down, "You're pretty bad at making it out as anything else, you wanna save the day and be seen as better then judas and all that. I mean....considering everything else, get the feeling the dude's gonna be kinda pissed you might get hurt trying to overpass him.". She leaned back on the bed, sighing, "Like, all the stuff we were doing, it was kinda meh before, normal detective stuff, going out in a magic dimension though where people lose their minds and some creepy guy who tried to kill us went? I dunno....".

"Since when do you care so much? You usually don't care about getting into dangerous situations all that much....", celeste simply shrugged, huffing through puffed cheeks, "I don't want you to like...get hurt, or end up like that stupid ponyhead prince, it's like...is it worth it THAT much? Like you can do cool things with your music and you got a guy who kinda seems to like you, I mean at this point you might as well not even bother, s'not like your parents want us doing anything anyway....".

"You're an only child, you wouldn't get it...".

"What about me makes you think I "wouldn't get it"? Or that i'm an only child for that matter? You should know that's not true...", she sat up, he had stopped pacing of course, and now she was glaring at him with those brown eyes. "Look, i'm just saying maybe we should stop bothering with all of this and let them figure it out...trying to catch them did nothing but almost get us killed and attacked over and over...they'll probably sort it out and we can go and whatever....i'm just.....i'm done..".

"You really aren't very proactive when push comes to shove...are you?".

"I beg your pardon Mr "I sit in my room all day"?".

"Well, right now I'm trying to do stuff, since when have you done much to help out on your own besides the time you almost got attacked in the woods? You just get mad at people for not doing things and do nothing yourself, at least luna does stuff all the time...you won't even leave your room anymore.". He was probably being too harsh to his friend/half-sister, but she was being pretty hard to him as well for just wanting to take action at a time where action needed to be done.

"Ugh.....look, I've had my own experiences with that kinda place back home, it's where I cross the line....it's a MESS. I'm just trying to make sure you don't go out there and die....I've been attacked by ponies dressed in dark clothing, girls going through demon mewberty, and masked weirdos who tried to murder a monster for trying to get the heck out, we have GONE past crazy, if the magic dimension doesn't hurt you, the rest of us here sure will", she was being serious too, and landon pouted.

"But if I find something...".

"You might end up worse off...".

She was stubborn, there was no way landon could convince her otherwise, closing all of his eyes.

"Then...what am I supposed to do celeste? Just....give up? You can tell me to not do something I want to do, I want to do this ok? I....It might be my only chance right now.". She got up and off the bed, arms still crossed and trying to look him in the face, "Dude, you don't gotta "Prove your worth" to people, some people out there just suck, they're idiots, you want people who are idiots to like you? Or do you want people who you like to like you?".

"My parents aren't idiots...neither are my brothers....", she mumbled under his breath.

"Well I mean, if you gotta almost die for them to even like you then that's a problem..."

She had a point.

Celeste wasn't the type to go out of her way to impress anyone really, she didn't seem to care that much what people thought of her most of the time. Landon probably looked silly to her, trying to do all these things to one-up judas, even if she went along with it. She was starting to tear him down and he grumbled again, he prided himself on being more mature then her but he was sure if judas or his parents were listening in they'd agree with the grumpy brunette.

For now he sighed, "Fine....".

He still didn't entirely agree and he had a feeling Celeste could tell the idea wasn't entirely out of his mind, but this seemed to settle her a little. Walking over and pressing his face into the sheets, feeling celeste walking up behind him. "Look, I snuck out once...but it was only to help luna....like i didn't sneak out on my own....you know that. But at least I had my wand with me...if you went in there and lost your mind, there's nothing you can do to protect yourself...you go in there, who know what could happen to you...".

"Yeah, I got it already, you don't have to keep telling me..." he pressed his face further into the mattress.

She took a seat once again next to him, sighing, "Look, When I showed up here I was kinda...I guess...maybe.....mean to everyone ok? It's pretty clear that...nobody really seems to like me all that much...well, outside of your dog and maybe sunny...you're like...the only person here who kinda sorta likes being around me. If you did something stupid and got hurt or something...you're gonna make me feel guilty for not stopping you from doing the stupid thing...".

"Is this your way of trying to say you consider me your best friend?".

"No, i already have one of those back home...".

He turned his face to give her a dirty look.

"But here? Yeah, you're my best friend...".

Guess this was as nice as he could expect from her honestly.

"You know you can't stop me if I change my mind right?", he mumbled, only to be answered with another shrug, "Yeah, I kinda know, but I'd like to think you're not stupid enough to put that over your own life, we all want to make it out of this in one-piece if we can...". His grumbled turned to sighs as his mind shifted to other matters, sitting on the bed properly, celeste could see his tail slightly exposed from his jeans, much to the demon's frustration.

"Alright...spit it out...".

He turned to look at her, confused, "Wha-?".

"You wanna ask me something, I can tell, as long as it's not....personal, you might as well spill it out.", she elbowed him and she could practically feel him snorting smoke from his nose, "Do you think I should....do my song....for bernard...for him? I've...had it for awhile...but...he's never actually heard it, he's heard a few of my songs but...not that one...and...I dunno, we've been talking a lot and...i'm not sure if he'd think it was creepy or not If I made him a song...".

She almost seemed to smile, she had pretty much expecting something along these lines to have come from his mouth, "Well I mean, if you were some kinda stalker i'm sure it would be pretty creepy if you made an entire song about him, but you're friends aren't you? Not really the creepiest thing you could do, you just tell him you made a new song for him and see if he likes it, it's not that big of a deal.....of is this your weird way of confessing to him?".

Landon was silent.

"Hold on...", she looked him more closely in the eye, brows furrowing, "

Are

you trying to confess through song?".

"What's it to you?", he shifted his gaze away, "All I asked was if you thought i should play it for him with my violin, nothing else.".

"You could've just said "No celeste, i'm not trying to confess to him through song", sounds like a big ole "Yes" if i ever heard one", landon still wasn't looking her in the eye but he puffed is cheeks and mumbled, "I dunno, I like him, I don't know if he actually likes me...the only person he even talks to much besides me is melaine and talking to her is a pain for any of us since she thinks us demons are supposed to be evil or something cause earth is just stupid....like If i said something, he could say no...and i'd look silly.".

"Or be rejected...?".

Landon's silence said a lot.

"Honestly I think it's bold you want to confess to him, I'd think you would still be too nervous to say anything...why the sudden need to do it?".

"I dunno, I guess I just though, if things went to wreck......he should know? He....he kinda poured out and talked to me a lot more...and...he kinda trusts me and....I guess I feel like maybe i'd be breaking his trust if I didn't say anything. I mean, my mom likes to tell us these cheesy stories about how they got with my dad and they do all these cheesy stuff like singing the other songs or doing these weird gestures of romance. It worked for them I guess...".

Then he coughed into his hand, the realization of what he said coming to him, "Uh oh....sorry celeste, I uh...should be more careful when talking about my parents...or my mom in general around you...". She was silent, though still grumpy, he looked over her and then turned away as if looking her directly in the eyes might kill him. "They couldn't have been...always like that though....i'm sure, i'm sure they used to be super happy and everything", he almost expected celeste to say something mean after that, but she didn't.

She seemed dazed in fact.

"C-celeste?".

"They were....a long time ago....now all I see is them being happy with others..".

"Sorry....I'll uh...change the subject...I just...I dunno, maybe it is kinda stupid, I guess I just thought and....look, i'm not good at flirting or wooing people, judas makes people anxious and that's why no one dares even peruse him but he's still more attractive then me...he'd probably have all the princes and princesses after him if people didn't think he'd strange them in their sleep." Now it was landon's turn to get sad and frustrated, "I'm not...exactly prince charming here...".

"Well, no duh....no one is...no one can even be some perfect sweet handsome prince".

"I think Bernard's like a prince charming....even if he isn't actually royalty...".

She almost seemed bemused, "Man, you really

have it bad...".

She stood up, tapping her foot with her back to him for a bit, before turning around.

"Look, if it gets you to focus on something less stupid, then go for it, you clearly like this boy, so you might as well.....do...whatever it is you want to do. Unless you wanna just have a wingman of something around too, but he seems too smart to be fooled by that.", Though landon's eyes widened, "Actually, if someone could ask and see if he likes me, that could take so much pressure off me, maybe help me feel more confident in asking him, that's...a good idea.".

"Dude, are you serious?", she looked dumbfounded.

"Well yeah!! Maybe you could do it?".

She suddenly wished they were talking about the magic dimension again.

"Dude, I barely know the guy, If i go up and ask him if he likes you , i think he'll know what this is all about...".

"Right right....I...would need someone else close to him....."

"You're...not going to ask that nerdy conspiracy theorist are you?", though judging by his face,that was about exactly who he needed to ask. Though he seemed to smirk, "Well no, I can't ask her, she's not good with us, but sky could ask her....to ask him...and well...uh...". Was he starting to blush now? He certainty looked a little pinker then before, "Ugh, maybe I am going too far with this, Bernard's...he had a few exs back in some of the other places he moved...like he told me through our texts and....I don't wanna make a weird impression.".

"Is this your two moods? Trying to be cooler then your brother or crushing on the dude with 50 piercings?", landon wasn't paying much attention though, still thinking about texting sky to help him out, though he could just see her face wondering why THAT was his biggest priority right now of all things. Though he still pulled his compact out, looking over the texts he'd received, "Sky's kinda judas's friend more then mine, I don't really text her directly very often...even though we're the same age and stuff....".

Then his voice suddenly got sad, and the compact closed, catching Celeste's attention as he sighed.

"Never mind...I probably shouldn't....".

"Landon...?".

He changed his mind rather quick, back to being sad and unsocial landon, the confidence he had being washed away in an instant. He stood there, holding the compact and sighing, "I was getting ahead of myself there...wasn't i? I gotta stop doing that....i'll make a fool out of myself doing that...". He ran a hand over his hair as celeste practically blurted out to his face, "Are you ok?". His eyes looked to her and back to his compact, "I dunno I...I don't have a lot of friends...".

"What about it?".

"Well....if....y'know...".

She was confused intentionally but another look at him, and the situation clicked.

"You're worried he'll reject you and you'll lose that friendship..huh? I'm sure that's come to mind before though? I mean, he's the guy you hang out the most around besides your brothers, he's basically your best friend around here unless that violin counts.". Landon almost snapped at her for a moment but pulled himself together, "Of course, yeah I've thought about it...but actually trying to do it....If I do screw this up....he might be too uncomfortable to even be my friend....".

"You're that worried he'll feel uncomfortable....I mean, he's already cool with demons and your family, I mean...it can't be the weirdest thing he's seen...".

"Celeste i've never done this before...I...I don't want to screw this up...".

"Fine, then i'll convince sky to help then....".

He turned his head towards her in shock.

"Wait...you're....celeste?".

"I'm going to go up to sky, and tell her to convince mel to help you out on this, I'll...leave the stupid room and talk to her...", she sounded annoyed by the prospect but landon clearly seemed touched by the gesture, celeste didn't seem to commonly do nice things for anybody, especially if it affected her. His face grew soft, "You'd do that? That's...really nice of you, I mean, well, you don't have to get involved in all of this if you really don't want to, I know this is all my issue and with everything going on my parents are breathing down our necks as is....".

"No no, i'll do it, I'll get out there and actually speak to them...don't...make that big a deal about it. It's really not that important, but if you really need some help...I'll....see what I can do, just...don't do anything stupid ok?", Landon was still smiling though, even though his half sister was grumpy and blushing in embarrassment. He nodded though, "I swear I won't do anything stupid...", though she still gave him a suspicious look, but it'd have to do for now.

"You know, I think the fact you wanna confess....it's pretty brave of you...like all this stuff about trying to take down the enemy and make yourself cooler then judas, I mean....that's one thing, but...like...wanting to tell the guy you like that you...well...like him, even despite everything....it's....it's cool landon. I think it's kinda cool you wanna sorta be honest with him about how you feel....", the boy rubbed the back of his neck, "Bernard's just been...really personal with me...i'm not...used to people trusting me like that...with this kinda stuff...it's...".

"You're such a lover boy....".

"C'mon, it's a first crush, better tell him now before one of us actually does get killed...I...maybe if he knows....I don't know, the thought of doing it has been driving me crazy", then he laughed to himself, "Judas has never been on a date so I kinda can't ask him for advice...even if i wanted to, unless he's dating one of those princes or princesses he hangs out with and just didn't decide to tell anyone for some reason....". He grabbed his violin from it's case, "I uh....I guess you don't have a crush back home...right?".

"No....", she said, though her tone made landon curious if she was lying or not.

"Well, you're a cool person, most of the time..so...I think people are...missing out, even if you can kinda be a jerk.".

Celeste didn't have much time to ponder on that though, pulling out her compact that had suddenly buzzed, texts coming from-

"Sky....texted me, asking me to meet with her....and....the other girls?".

Landon put his instrument down, looking over at her compact and back to her, "Wow....usually judas does that kinda stuff, weird...but well, there you go, an opportunity to talk to her and....looks like the other girls too I guess.". Celeste still grumbled and growled about it, but if luna wasn't there it couldn't be so bad. She got up and collected her things, "So..are you just gonna chill in my room and play violin or something? Cause you look like you are...".

"Well I was gonna show you my new song...but....if you gotta go you gotta go, I can practice in here....I kinda can't get a lot of privacy in my own room anymore...mom's always kinda checking in on me...the whole situation kinda spooked them...gotta prepare if i'm going to perform right?", she shrugged, "well, if you're staying here....get out before I get back and go to bed...and word of advice, if you don't want to get caught, maybe don't play your violin too loud, not exactly like there's a lot of violin players around here they could mistake you for...".

"Good idea...".

She sighed as she headed out the door, leaving landon by his lonesome.

Landon huffed to himself for a moment before pulling out his compact, setting it aside next to him, he needed to breathe. The silence of the room made it easier to clear his head a little bit as he pressed the record button, attempting to make himself seem presentable. "Ok, ok.....take 1....this is...landon, and he's me trying not to make an utter fool out of myself by practicing my....well...how i'm going to talk to...bernard. Whose kinda currently my best friend..and...I uh....yeah....".

He suddenly felt himself grow red and he quickly grabbed his violin, "So I wrote this, I hope it's good...and uh...ok...".

He then grabbed his bow, and began to play.

"You're probably wondering why I called you all here...", sky mumbled, looking over the three girls sitting before her, the guards outside of sky's room simply to keep a close eye on all of them had only added to her anxiety on the matter as she cleared her throat. "I mean, I don't normally text you...or even really do this kinda stuff, but well, it's.....judas has enough going on in his life and...I decided...to kinda sorta be in charge of whatever group we're in.....kinda sorta..".

Sunny and galexia simply blinked, Celeste raised an eyebrow and somehow she seemed almost offended.

"Wait wait...you're doing what now?".

"I'm....taking control, I'm gonna help us end all this....while judas takes more time to get himself together....".

But celeste still didn't seem to get it, standing up from her seat on the floor of sky's room and shaking her head, " Sky, since when have you ever been the type to command the rest of us and do all this stuff? Is this because luna ditched us all to go do whatever?". She had to stand her ground with this girl, had to stand for judas, and sky attempted to hold her head high. "Look, Judas needs a break, and i'm his best friend, we need a new direction right now, angel's on trial tomorrow and with all the stuff before we all barely spent any time together, we....we can't so it again...so...I figured...-".

"Figured-?".

"It's my universe, all my friends are getting hurt by all this and....I should've been the one trying to help since the beginning...Judas shouldn't have had so much of this on his shoulders...", she had a ting of guilt in her voice, even leaving judas to go about the rest of his day sucked. She knew he was mostly off to probably prepare angel for the trial ahead, she was so relieved to see him a little more relaxed and even if judas may not agree, she felt she could've done more to keep so much of this from being on his shoulders.

She carefully reached out and set a hand on celeste's shoulder, "Look, we're all kinda mad and weird...and....frustrated....but we're not going to get through this if we keep.....pushing each other away. Judas...had a lot of pressure placed on him, he had to keep an eye on you all, he had to deal with nora, deal with angel, attend meetings to try and get some new information, he had to deal with his brother and deal with all the stuff with his arm...and I....I just attended class and tagged along sometimes to help with these issues...I...I want to be more useful..in helping you guys...".

Celeste's expression seemed unimpressed, "You sure it wasn't just to look cool enough to surpass mom? I'm fairly observational, i'm not fooled by lies and that kinda nonsense.". Sky huffed but she brushed some of her hair from her face and split it, "Fine, maybe to a degree it was....but I still want you all to make it home...and...angel almost died or got his mind zonked by some creep, and that creep put nora in danger, and put my best friend in danger too...they...need to pay...whoever they are...".

Celeste seemed almost....taken aback, sky had never been so mad before, at least, not in this fashion.

Then Sunny raised her hand, Sky taking it as the girl spoke, "I'm not opposed at all, I just want to know if judas is ok? You want to do this because so much is on him right? He must've been...well....tired and stressed...", even galeixa perked up at that, celeste turning to sky for an answer as well. "Well, I think he'll be ok, he's had a rough time recently, i'm at least hoping he might get more of a break to rest...though doing this means I gotta be the one to meet with his parents and...uh...can't say i'm looking forward to that...".

"He's not dropping out entirely?".

"Well, he kinda has to help to a degree, I mean, he is the one mostly talking to angel and he knows things I kinda can't replicate, but he's...he's not in any condition to keep piling this stuff on him so....i'm going to do my best to make this work, despite our parents being involved and everything else...if you'll have me I guess. I don't really wanna kinda force you into it cause I kinda can't stop any of you regardless, you're all kinda more useful then i am...but...can we give this a shot? Please?.

"YES!", everyone turned to Galexia, who beamed at Sky.

Sunny crossed her arms, "Well, I can't say no sky, honestly....I missed the fact we all didn't really get to hang out a lot...". She beamed, showing off her fangs, "And if judas is ok with it, then I say I'm happy to have you make sure we get all this done, right Celeste?". Sky kinda figured Celeste would be the hardest convince, if only because luna wasn't here and celeste was clearly not easy for anyone to get along with, though all the girls beaming at her was making anxious.

"Welll I uh.....uh...are you even allowed to be doing this with your parents not wanting us younger ones involved?".

"Well as being primary kinda a big part in all this supposibly, that sorta doesn't apply to you, you're all worth having involved to a degree...though i'm sure it's awkward for all our parents right now since you're all technically their kids too.....", Celeste couldn't argue against that, "Fine fine, but what do you plan to do about luna or....y'know, handling the matter?". She was clearly trying to find holes she could to not agree off the bat and sky leaned against her bedroom wall, fixing her hat.

"Nothing...".

"Nothing?".

"There's nothing to do when it comes to luna, she chose to leave and none of us sure can convince her to change her mind.", Celeste couldn't really argue against that after how luna's acted to her throughout their time together, "We kinda just gotta focus on us right now, the trial is tomorrow, so we'll deal with that and....hope for the best. Mewni's legal system ain't exactly....great, but, I guess we hope to use that to our advantage...then after we hopefully prevent angel from being eaten alive by all the kingdoms he angered...we'll....set a trap...".

"You made that up just now, didn't you?", celeste being so observant was incredibly uncomfortable, made sky question how much else she was able to tell about her and the other's through her observation. "Maybe...but..angel makes pretty good bait....if she goes after him, then we'll be able to pounce on her easily.". She seemed sure as the words slipped from her mouth but even Sunny had to interject, "Well, it sounds like a good idea, but angel probably wouldn't want his life in jeopardy like that, he nearly escaped her last time, and she most likely would easily tell it was a trap...wouldn't she?".

Celeste turned back to sky, "You can't just put the dude out on a silver platter and expect her to go fetch, she can't be

that

stupid! They gotta know by this point Angel spilt the beans on them, got nothing to gain by grabbing them now unless they're super petty or something. He was only useful because he knew stuff, now that we know that stuff, no point in trying to stop him....if you wanna set a trap, you kinda need to know what they want and not make it blatantly obvious it's a trap."

"Look fine, can I just...", the anger was getting to her, she regretted not trying to work on this sooner, she probably looked foolish trying to look like a competent leader when she didn't have a very good plan as to what to do next in their course of action. As she struggled to find something else to say though, sunny coughed, the brunette turning to her, "Celeste? C'mon, sky's trying, it's not a perfect plan but it's a good start, I think the idea of drawing them out and capturing them sounds really smart actually!".

Her voice always seemed to have a certain 'Pep' to it, as if it alone could make anyone smile and feel better even when they were bleak.

She stood up, almost rather defensive actually, despite how small and rather adorable she was.

Though the knife under her dress was enough to be clear she was not one to underestimate.

She stood between celeste and sky, hands on her hips.

"I think we should give sky a chance, it's not like she can make anything worse, judas is basically your brother too anyway. We're all the ones most affected by this...and we're all competent without judas or luna around, sky's creative, celeste can read people well, galexia is sweet and keeps us going, we can do all this stuff...we should be building each other up right now, not trying to tear us all down. Only way we're going to win is by doing all this together....".

Celeste looked like she would barf.

"This isn't one of your little musicals or plays, our lives are on the line here,

believing in the power of sisterhood

isn't going to make us go home!".

Then Galexia stood up, catching her REALLY off guard.

"Let Sky help.".

She felt surrounded.

She was outnumbered, 3 to one, and if judas were here that'd make 4. Though her reluctance was clear on her face she gave in, though she wasn't really looking anyone in the eye, closing both of them and fighting back the urge to say anything else. "Fine....you win it seems, can't convince the rest of you of anything....but if something goes wrong, I hope you know what you're doing here...we're already on thin enough ice as is and we are not cracking it any more unless we all wanna suffer....".

Sky felt a sense of relief wash over her, at least the girls knew about it and she had convinced them to give her a shot. Now it was a matter of moving forward from there, "Thanks guys....I guess now, we just need to put most of our energy into the trial tomorrow, and help angel as best we can...sunny, you've got everything you need?". The small girl nodded, "You know it, we'll go out there and make a case for him...of at least we'll try and defend his actions where we can....speaking of which, I kinda think you outta speak to him....at least before the trial?".

Sky blinked at her, nervously looking away and fixing her hair, "I'm not sure i'm still in a good mood for that....actually. He still betrayed me....y'know? It's not a big thing that i can just...forgive...like you can't easily forgive anyone for stabbing you in the bacl.", the blonde shook her head in response, correcting her. "I just said "Talk", you don't have to forgive him now, but if he's going up against pretty much all of mewni...he's going to need everything he can to make it easier on him....and you're really close with him...I know he'd appreciate it.".

"I'll....think about it....".

Her smile turned from happy, to a little sad, "I can imagine how scared he was...doing that, I....I've....had bad people....try and hurt me too, mind-erasing....it's something I hate to see...because...people have tried to use it on me before and it's terrified me ever since then....he must've been terrified to lose his memories, but he was willing to do it to keep everyone safe....he's lucky to have friends like you. You're all really lucky to have each other in fact, you, judas, his brothers, nora, and angel...it's cute how much you care about each other.".

She wiped at her eyes and smiled sadly at sky in almost a relieved way.

"Ugh....don't make it so sappy....", celeste mumbled under her breath, getting the demon's attention. Sunny smiled and reached out to touch celeste's shoulder gently, trying to calm her down and reassure her, "We care about you too celeste, I don't know what it's really like back home for you....but...we care about you. You don't got to be alone in your room during all this, ok? We're here to help out and we'd love to have you if you'd want to join...?".

The brunette didn't answer, looking around the room at the three around her and sighing, "I'll see you for the trial....don't screw it up...". She was quick too head out, closing the door behind her, sunny sighed, "Give her a little more time, but I should leave soon too, being monitored like this means I can't be out too late so....I better get back to my own room and you'll have to report all this to the Lucitors and your moms....oh, and i'll see you tomorrow for the trial!".

Galexia blinked at Sky and hugged her, rather tightly, before following sunny out.

Most likely to say goodbye to sunny as well before she went off to bed.

Sky was left to her own devices one more, gripping her wand tightly as she thought it over. She almost didn't notice celeste had left a note on her bed, guess she had been so worked up with sky she didn't think to ahnd it over herself, sky snatching the thing and reading it over. Sky almost wanted to smile, landon actually convinced celeste into talking to her just so she could help him confess to a guy huh? She sighed, quickly pulling out her compact to shoot melaine a text, once this trial was over, if she could find a way to bring melaine over as she promised her before, she outta anyway.

Hopefully mel wasn't weird about asking bernard anything, she could only hope.

"Celeste really is softer then she looks...huh....".

Kinda like Luna a bit, or her mom, or angel...

There was a part of her that really didn't want to do it, but a part of her that really did want to. Even as she put on her pjs it kept hitting her on the back of her head, she stared at her door in the dark, getting off her bed and and reluctantly grabbing her wand just in case. There was a part of her still telling her not to bother but then again if she were in that situation , she knew him well enough to know he was definitely show up to see her before the worst part came.

"Ok...fine....i'll do it"., she grumbled as she slipped out the doors carefully, trying not to wake the guards who certainly were going to be fired at this rate.

"I just hope i'm not too late to speak to him...".

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svstfoe #sky and the forces of the multiverse #tomco bby #janstar bby #ostar bby #starco bby #tomstar bby #my art #fanfiction #fanfic

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lyssismagical · 5 years ago

Text

Darken the Sky, Light up the Moon

Day Three of Whumptober: Delirium

Read on AO3

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tony demands, glaring at the doctor.

Banner sighs, scrubbing a hand harshly over his tired face. “I’m sorry, Tony. Cho’s done every test in the book and outside the books too. We’ve tried but there’s not much we can tell you. We’ve never had to deal with this before.”

“You’ve never had to deal with a brain injury before?” the billionaire says, voice raising to nearly a shout.

“For one, I’m not that kind of doctor in the first place, but I meant that we haven’t dealt with a brain injury on an enhanced individual before. Peter’s… capabilities are different to anything we’ve worked with before and we haven’t had the chance to properly test everything out yet. I’m not saying we couldn’t, but I just-”

“What do you know?” Tony asks, taking deep breaths to try to stop the panic that’s bubbling inside him. The last thing he needs right now is a panic attack. “All you’re giving me is ifs and maybes. I need something solid.”

Banner moves anxiously to the sink in the room and peels off his gloves. He starts washing his green-tinged hands and sighs again.

“Honestly?” he says. “Not much. Not enough, at least. We’ve seen the Baby Monitor Protocol; we know how it happened. We know he has a brain injury. We have the CT scan and the MRI and everything else to base our assumptions off of. If he were a regular individual, he would’ve been dead already, Tony, so it’s hard to say when he’ll be better.”

“Fuck,” Tony breathes unintelligently in response. His phone rings in his pocket, declining yet another call from Pepper.

Bruce leaves, probably to go check on Peter, who’s still too unstable for any visitors, with a quick suggestion to call Pepper and let her know what’s going on and maybe try to get in touch with Doctor Strange. Cho’s a real doctor, one of the best, but having a sorcerer might give them a little bit more luck with Peter’s state.

“Hey, Pep,” Tony breathes, finding a chair in the waiting room area. “It’s not looking great.”

“What’s going on?” Pepper asks. Tony has trouble thinking he’s the only one who cares about Peter, but Pepper loves the kid to the moon and back, as well.

“TBI,” Tony replies. “He got hurt real bad on patrol and I guess… They’ve done scans, but they don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t- They can’t even guess.”

Pepper sighs heavily. Morgan’s asking questions and making a lot of noise in the background, but Pepper says she just thinks Peter’s sick.

“He is sick.” Tony runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “He might- They’re not even sure if he’ll wake up or not. All they know is if he didn’t have his healing, he would’ve died.”

“But he does have his healing, Tony. He’s been through a lot; this isn’t what’s going to take him down.”

“A bullet went into his fucking skull,” Tony spits, more angrily than he should. He knows Pepper’s just trying to help, but she doesn’t get it. She didn’t watch the bullet. “A few centimeters over and he would’ve died. Not just should’ve. This isn’t- this isn’t just a few broken bones or a stab wound. This is- He has a traumatic brain injury, Pepper. This isn’t-”

Pepper shushes Morgan gently. “Tony, I know, take a deep breath. I know this is scary, but Peter’s a strong kid-”

“Kid, Pepper, key word there. He’s a kid. A child. And he’s- they had to take a bullet out of his fucking head-”

“I know, I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

Tony huffs, sliding a hand over his face, scared to find tears all down his cheeks, he hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“Take care of Morgan for me?”

“Of course, Tony. Update us when you can.”

Tony’s finally been allowed to sit at Peter’s hospital bedside. It’s not much better than sitting in the waiting room on an uncomfortable chair – Friday already has a note reminding him to change them into something comfier.

Peter looks young lying in the white sheets, thick bandages wrapped around his forehead. Apparently the external healing is already almost complete, but they’re not even sure he’s capable of the internal healing. And if he is, the process of getting there, might take years of hard work. For the TBI patients Cho’s helped before, sometimes they never get past it.

Research was pretty easy, there’s studies and personal stories all over the internet that Tony’s had a fun (read: awful) time reading through. It scares him that those are some of the things his kid might have to deal with depending on the extent of his healing factor.

Right now, Peter’s on some heavy sedatives and even heavier pain medication. Banner’s busy synthesizing some more that’ll hopefully help him a little bit more than the one’s he’s on now. It doesn’t help as much as it should, but it’s hard to find the balance between an overdose and enough for Peter’s high metabolism.

Peter’s hand is cold in his. That’s one of the only things Tony can think about.

(He can’t think about Peter’s ghostly pale face and his unresponsive corpse-like body. How he’s almost always a restless ball of energy, even in his sleep, but now he’s still. He can’t think about that. He’s too dehydrated to start crying again.)

His hand helps warm Peter’s up and he can almost pretend Peter’s just fine. Almost.

Peter wakes up coughing. It startles Tony awake from where’d been dozing in the chair beside the bed.

Tony doesn’t have to think about how Peter’s finally, finally, awake, he just hurries over to the little sink in the room and gets the kid a glass of water to drink.

“Take it slow, kid.”

Peter sips at the water, movements uncoordinated and clumsy. He nearly spills it down the front of his hospital gown but catches himself. Peter’s always been a bit of a klutz, but never this bad. He’s always had his spidey-powers on his side.

When Peter’s done, Tony fusses over him, taking the cup and fluffing the pillows, and checking all of Peter’s IVs.

Peter’s watching him, pupils dilated more than usual and glazed too. Tony suspects it’s the drugs, but then Peter speaks up.

“Ben?” he slurs. “What- What happened? I… the last thing I remember is… is May’s terrible meatloaf…”

Tony flinches hard. That was at least eight years ago, with the five-year gap. Only at least three years ago for Peter, but that’s still a lot of time for him to forget. Peter doesn’t even know Tony; he thinks Tony is Ben.

It’s an impulse decision, it really is, but the last thing Tony wants to do is scare Peter more. So he brushes back Peter’s curls and throws on the gentlest smile he can manage.

“We just got into an accident, Pete,” Tony says, trying his hardest to make sure his voice doesn’t crack. “You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Peter nods a few times, blinking too slowly like he isn’t grasping anything. He probably isn’t.

“You okay?” Tony asks quietly, gently cupping Peter’s soft cheek.

The kid tips his head to the side, glazed eyes struggling to find Tony’s.

“Ben?” he says slowly, like he can’t get control of his tongue. “What- What happened? The last thing- I can’t remember-”

Tony’s heart breaks just a little bit more. “Just an accident, Pete. You’ll be back on your feet before you know it.”

“Okay,” Peter murmurs. His eyes are closed now, leaning into Tony’s touch. “Loud.”

If it weren’t for Peter’s sensory overloads and Tony’s experience dealing with them, Tony probably wouldn’t have understood.

“Hey, Fri? Could you enable Goodnight Moon Protocol,” Tony murmurs. Immediately, all the lights are dimmed, and external noises are dimmed to nothing. The equipment by Peter’s bed are all quieted, but they can’t be totally silenced.

“What…” Peter starts saying but trails off before he can finish.

“What was that, Pete?” Tony asks.

Peter jolts a little bit, dull eyes struggling to focus again. “What- Ben?”

“Yeah, Pete?”

“Where- Where are we? What… Happened? What happened?”

“Just an accident. You’ll be all better in no time.”

“You can’t go in there, Tony,” Banner says, blocking the doorway.

Tony had only been gone for ten minutes, about an hour after Peter had fallen back to sleep. Enough time to have a breakdown and make himself a coffee.

“Why not?” Tony demands, hands clenching around his mug. He sets it down on the windowsill, worried his shaking hands will drop it. And it’s his World’s Best Dad Mug with the boss crossed out and Boss written in Peter’s messy, scrawling handwriting with a stupid little smiley face. And then the Boss is crossed out and Dad is written underneath with another little smile.

“He had a seizure while you were gone,” the doctor replies bluntly. “We’re still stabilizing him.”

Tony’s heart drops. “He- fuck, Bruce. You should’ve seen him. He thought I was his Uncle Ben and he couldn’t- He could only remember things Pre-Spiderbite. I just- I played along. I didn’t want to scare him, but that’s eight years he’s missing. He’s not going to-”

“For all we know, this could be his brain’s way of healing. Amnesia and delirium are both pretty normal with brain injuries. It could be a good sign that he’s having those symptoms. And that he was awake so soon.”

Tony covers his face with his hands, taking a few steadying breaths to try to chase off his tears.

“Be honest with me,” Tony says, keeping his face hidden. “Is he going to be okay? I know you don’t know, but give me your best guess here, doc.”

Bruce sighs. “Cho thinks he’ll be okay, but that the symptoms will last either a long time or forever. I… I’ve had a little bit more experience in Peter’s biological compositions with his metabolism and healing factor while synthesizing his medications, so I might have a little more knowledge than her in that area, but I’d have the best guess as her. I think Peter’s going to pull through. I think he’ll be back on his feet and that this amnesia he’s dealing with is only temporary. I think he’ll be okay, but like Cho said, his symptoms might last a really long time, Tony. The forgetfulness, the confusion, the delirium. Who knows.”

Tony presses his fists into his eyes, shoulders hunching over himself as he continues to struggle to bring his walls up and push his emotions down.

“Doctor Strange is going to be here in a few days’ time, so hopefully he might have a better idea of how Peter’s doing, but for now, he needs you,” Bruce continues. “Whether it’s as Tony or as Uncle Ben or as whoever he needs you to be. I know it’s asking a lot, but I think right now, Peter just needs someone to answer his questions, even if he’s asking the same ones over and over again.”

“I have Morgan,” Tony says, trying to laugh. It comes out forced and hoarse and all wrong. “She’s constantly asking me the same qusestions. I think I’ll have enough patience for Peter.”

The patience isn’t really the issue, it’s whether or not Tony can endure Peter being so lost without breaking in front of him.

Peter is unresponsive once he settled after the seizure. His eyes are open, but they’re hazy and dull like he isn’t taking anything in. He’s awake but not really. He might as well be asleep.

Tony takes his hand anyway, sitting in the chair beside his bed. He has a feeling that this chair will become more of a home to him than the cabin at this rate.

“Hey, kiddo. I don’t know how much you’re listening, but if you are, I just wanted you to know I’m here. I’m sorry I left earlier. Just had to get myself a cup of coffee,” Tony says, voice too loud in the silent room except for the steady noises of the machines at Peter’s side. “I… I heard you had a pretty nasty seizure, bud. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, at least for support. I, uh, I’m here now, though. I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”

Peter just blinks slowly at the ceiling in response, fingers twitching in Tony’s strong grip.

It’s weird to know that Peter’s there and awake and alive, but not acting at all like himself. No excited or nervous rambling, no constantly jittery movement, no bright smiles or loud laughter. It’s like he’s not even Peter anymore.

It reminds Tony a little too much of the months after the Snap was reversed. Everything was different, Peter was dealing with the fact that he’d died, Tony nearly died, and May had died during those five years in a car accident. Peter had struggled a lot with his mental health throughout those first few months before he allowed Tony, his friends, and the other remaining Avengers to help him flourish once again.

“I know this is scary, bud, but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’ll keep you safe. I love you.”

It’s not the first time he’s said that he’s loved Peter. After the snap was reversed, it was common for them to say I love you, all the time. Goodmorning, I love you. Goodnight, I love you. Goodbye, I love you. It’s less common now, just once a day more or less because it doesn’t need to be verbalized to be known.

“I love you, kiddo. You’ll pull through.”

Morgan desperately wants to visit her big brother, promising everything to be allowed to see him. But Tony’s not sure it’s a good idea. It’ll be too hard for Peter’s brain to understand since he can’t remember anything post-spiderbite. And also because Morgan’s not going to understand that Peter’s not going to know who she is.

Tony doesn’t want to put either of his kids through that, so he settles for letting Morgan send them a Get Well Soon card. Drawn in every crayon colour with pictures of sunshine and superheroes.

“Who’s this from?” Peter asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Visually, he looks one hundred percent again. He looks healthy and strong, but it’s obvious that he’s not when he asks questions like that. “Who’s Morgan?”

Tony tries to offer a smile, running a hand through Peter’s curls. “She’s family. Distant.”

Surprisingly, Peter just nods and sets the card back on his nightstand, picking up the box of chocolates from Pepper. He pops a caramel one into his mouth with a smile.

“When’s May gonna be here?”

Tony flinches, the loss still sitting heavily on his chest.

“She’s, uh, she’s busy, kid. Sorry. She’s not going to be visiting for a little while. That okay?”

A sad expression crosses Peter’s face, a little confused and dazed like always, but at least he’s present. He looks pained all of a sudden.

“Is Skip visiting?” he asks quietly.

“Do you want him to?” Tony asks. He doesn’t know who Skip is, but if Peter wants to see him, he’d do anything to track him down and get him here.

Peter frowns, shifting uncomfortably. “No, thanks… If that’s okay? I’d rather it just be us and May whenever she can get here.”

“That’s fine, kid. You don’t need to have any visitors if you don’t want any.”

The Get Well Card and the box of chocolates on the nightstand from Pepper and Morgan, the balloons tied to the end of the bed from Happy and Rhodey, the vase of flowers from the Avengers. That’ll have to do.

Peter wakes up gasping, tears racing down his pale cheeks, limbs flailing under the hospital sheets, tangled in them.

“Hey, hey, hey, kiddo. It’s okay. You’re in the hospital. You’re okay,” Tony says quickly, hands catching Peter by the elbows to still his movements. Instantly, Peter falls like a marionette into Tony’s chest, heaving for breath.

“I- I dreamt I… I thought I died,” Peter cries, burying his face in Tony’s shirt.

If Tony thought he had any fragments of heart left after the past few days, he might’ve felt them break. Peter did die. Nearly a year ago. And yet, he doesn’t remember it. And Tony won’t remind him. He couldn’t do that to his kid. Not after everything.

There’s a part of amnesia for a superhero that almost seems appealing. Peter can’t remember the majority of grief that’s come out of his life. He can’t remember his uncle’s death, his own death, Tony’s near death, May’s death, the whole ordeal that went down just last summer in Europe. He can’t remember Toomes or Thanos or even Germany.

And maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better that Peter can’t remember all of the shit he’s been through.

On the other hand, though, that means Peter can’t remember any of the good that came out of it either. His little sister, Morgan. Tony adopting Peter officially. Pepper becoming his stepmother. Peter’s acceptance into his dream University. The amazing things he’s done as Spider-Man.

All of that is gone too.

Tony just holds Peter tight and hopes that whatever happens, he’ll be allowed to be at Peter’s side through it.

“Peter’s strong enough to do as he pleases,” Bruce says. “I’d suggest daily checkups with me or Cho, but if he wants to move throughout the tower, he can. I’m sure he’s dying to get out of that bed.”

“It’s only been a week, Banner. Don’t you think this is a little soon?” Eight days since Peter got hurt, seven since he woke up. Tony’s barely slept.

Bruce shrugs. “He’s pretty much healed externally. There’s not even a scar. But you’ve seen it. He’s getting irritable and annoyed at being kept in there when he thinks he feels fine.”

“The symptoms are still pretty strong,” Cho adds in, flipping to a page on her clipboard. “I mean, delirium, long-term and short-term memory loss, confusion, irritability, difficulty concentrating, increased sensitivity to light and sound, some slurred speech or slow speech. He’s mentioned some blurry vision issues, ringing in his ears, frequent pain, insomnia, and he’s had three seizures.”

“We’re pretty positive he won’t develop anymore symptoms as he begins to heal, but there’s not much we can do to help him other than keeping him comfortable,” Bruce says with another shrug. “We’ve tried predicting how long all of this will last and we’re hoping it’ll all go away pretty quickly, especially with him dreaming about the time period he’s missing, but we aren’t too sure.”

Tony gives himself thirty seconds of panic, lets it all wash over him for half a minute, before he’s carefully tucking all his emotions away once again.

“Doctor Strange is coming by today. We’ll see what he says, and we’ll work from there.”

Tony didn’t want to say it, but he didn’t want Peter to leave the hospital room because he’s not sure he could explain why Peter’s in the tower without breaking the kid’s brain more.

Turns out, Doctor Strange didn’t have much more to offer.

Full of Ifs and Maybes.

Which wasn’t good enough when he’s talking about Tony’s kid. He needs certainty before he makes any decisions.

He can’t risk losing his kid when he only just got him back.

He can’t.

Hospitals are weird and warp time.

Tony never has any idea what time of the day, day of the week, week of the month, unless he looks at his watch. He wouldn’t know. The blinds to the window are closed all the time due to Peter’s light sensitivity he’s dealing with. Tony rarely ever leaves Peter’s side, not wanting him to feel alone and small in the unfamiliar hospital room by himself.

The docs bring him and Peter food and coffee whenever they ask for it, always prepared to be a helping hand, and Tony’s become all too familiar with the added couch in the hospital room for naps whenever he gets too tired.

Ever schedule he has is thrown off the charts, but he can’t find it in himself to care. It’s all for Peter. Always. Even if Peter still thinks he’s Ben.

Pepper and Morgan facetime him whenever they both can, whenever Peter’s sleeping and Morgan’s home. A rare occurrence, especially because of Peter’s insomnia and nightmares.

He feels more alone than he should.

He feels like a fraud, pretending to be Peter’s late Uncle.

Lying to the kid about why May can’t visit, playing along with who the Get Well Soon gifts are from, pretending to be someone he’s not.

It’s all wrong and Tony spends about an hour every few days crying in the shower so Peter will never know about the emotional toll this has taken on him.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Peter says, out of the blue on one of his Lesser days. The days where he’s less receptive and less aware. His eyes are trained on the TV, but he isn’t taking any of it in.

Tony squeezes Peter’s hand. “Course, bud.”

“I heard you talking the other day,” Peter says, sniffling. He’s gotten a little bit better with his short-term memory. He remembers where he is when he wakes up and he’ll remember why he thinks he’s there, and he can hold conversations for a few minutes now.

“Hm?”

“You were talking to… Morgan and Pepper?” Peter says, confusion and concentration filling his face. “Your wife and child? You’re not Ben, are you? I’m just- my head’s just fucked up isn’t it?”

Tony sighs. “No, I’m not Ben. I’m Tony. You, um, there’s a lot you don’t remember.”

“I dreamt he died last night.” Peter swallows thickly, watery eyes refusing to look at Tony. He pulls his hand away. “Is it true? Did that happen?”

“I’m sorry, kid.”

“Could you- I just- I don’t know what to do.” Peter sits up suddenly, nearly hitting his head against Tony’s in his haste to get up. “Can we go outside? Am I allowed to leave? I need some air.”

Tony takes Peter out to the field behind the tower, a ring of trees separating the grassy area from the rest of the city. Peter’s changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and he sits down on the grass, staring blankly at the trees swaying gently in the breeze.

Tony keeps his distance, unsure of where they stand. He knew this would happen eventually; he just couldn’t ever anticipate how Peter would feel about it.

“Is May gone too?” Peter asks, voice breaking.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

It’s silent as they both watch the steady traffic through the trees.

It’s been three days since Peter found out Tony was lying. It wasn’t this instant falling into place of all his memories, but he’s been able to see through the cracks sometimes. If he sees something he knows, he’s reminded of some things he’s forgotten.

His short-term memory is definitely on the way to mended. His pain levels are still pretty high, Banner has him on some pretty strong pain meds that don’t make him as drowsy, pill form as well instead of the IV he normally has. Some of his other symptoms have started fading away, but he’s still a little bit more sensitive to light and sound, but they’ve been able to open the blinds for a few hours in the evening without Peter getting a headache. And his concentration is still much lower than it used to be.

Cho says that it’s miraculous that he’s been able to heal as much as he has in only a few short weeks. She says it’s still possible for his symptoms to get worse again, but that he should be okay to be discharged from the hospital by the end of the week. She also says Peter now needs to be incredibly careful not to have any more head injuries as they could be life-threatening, even if it’s just a concussion.

That thought terrifies Tony because concussions were something Peter got regularly while out on patrol.

“It’ll be fine,” Peter says, looking more focused than he has since before The Accident. (Tony hates calling it The Accident for one reason: it wasn’t an accident. Tony’s already found the fucker and he’s locked him away for the rest of his life.)

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to tell you? Not vice versa?” Tony replies, rubbing his thumb over Peter’s knuckles.

The kid grins in response. “Maybe but when have we ever followed the norms, right?”

Tony stares at Peter for a long few seconds, pretending to be exasperated. (In reality, he’s mapping the planes of Peter’s face in his head, making a little note of the thin white scar by Peter’s temple. The little freckles along Peter’s cheekbone that he’s never been close enough to see. The little bits of acne Peter always complained about because his healing never worked on healing his acne; a reminder of the kid Peter is. Too young to be hospitalized for a bullet wound to the skull.)

“Am I Spider-Man?” Peter asks, out of the blue and oblivious to Tony’s gaze. “I kind of thought I was, but now I’m not so sure.”

“You are.”

Peter doesn’t seem surprised by the answer. “It wasn’t a car crash, was it?”

Tony doesn’t answer, but Peter seems to understand.

Before either of them can say anything, Morgan is running full speed into the room and diving onto Peter’s hospital bed with a loud shriek.

“Morgan, inside voice. Petey’s tired and his head hurts,” Pepper chastises gently as she walks in after their daughter. It’s a weird way to put Peter’s real symptoms.

“Petey!” Morgan shouts, hands grabbing onto the front of Peter’s nerdy science t-shirt Tony brought him. She starts rambling about what happened with their imaginary game since Peter was last home. Peter looks lost and confused, but nods along and asks questions as appropriate times, anyways. Forever the people pleaser he is.

“How are you doing, honey?” Pepper asks, carefully tipping Peter’s head up and tutting when she sees the little scar. “Everything okay?”

“Yep, feeling much, much better,” Peter says. It’s the truth but it’s not really the whole truth. “I’m still trying to remember a lot of things, but Tony’s been a lot of help.”

“It’s still weird to hear you calling him Tony,” Pepper says, letting out a little laugh.

The room falls silent as suddenly Peter’s eyes widen and he reflexively pushes Morgan off his lap, glazed eyes unseeing.

To Morgan and Pepper, this is scary, Tony can understand that, but it’s normal now. He’s gotten used to it. It just means Peter’s been triggered by something to remember.

“Petey just needed to check out for a minute,” Tony says, gently shifting Morgan up into Pepper’s arms. He moves diligently to push Peter back onto the bed, lying him down and tucking the blankets around him. It hasn’t been easy, but Peter’s getting better.

“Is he okay?” Morgan asks quietly. Her eyes are wide and filling with tears as she stares down at her brother.

“Yeah, sweetie. He’s fine. Just taking a little nap. He’ll be back with us before you know it.”

And he is. Peter checks in again after only a few minutes, eyes wide and blinking quickly to focus himself again. He looks vaguely confused as Morgan tucks herself into his side, but he slips his hand into Tony’s, a tired smile on his face.

“You ’kay, Mister Stark?”

Tony smiles. “Yeah, Bambi, I’m right here.”

They still have a long way to go, but Peter was lucky. Without his enhanced healing, Tony doesn’t even want to think about what could’ve happened. But Peter’s okay and Tony will help him along, every step of the way. Family.

"Love you," Peter slurs. already drifting off.

"Love you too."

#whumptober2019 #no.3 #lyss writes #tw: swearing #tw: brain injury #tw: amnesia #irondad fic #irondad #spiderbaby

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somebluemelodies · 8 months ago

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SPIDERBIT WEEK hosted by @smallchaoscryptid !! day six: coffee | nautical IM FINALLY BACK !! i know mer au won my poll from a while back so this is kinda a double whammy? spiderbit week AND poll fic :D

For a while, Roier wonders if he’s ever gonna see the deepsea mer ever again. When he doesn’t see him the night after their initial meeting, he’s worried that the Feds may have gotten to the mer after all, and it pains him more than he cares to admit aloud.

But it’s not the last time. In fact, it happens multiple times, to the point where they have a weird schedule of sorts to meet every third day or so.

Communicating isn’t the easiest, with only Roier able to actually talk, but they make do, and he’s getting a real good hold of asking ‘yes or no’ questions or anything else that permits him to learn more about the deepsea mer.

Except for one thing. The mer’s name.

The mer can understand nearly everything Roier says, but he can’t write it. He can only write in his own strange mer-tongue, which is a series of characters that sends the pirate into a deeper confusion the more he tries to make sense of it.

For a little while, Roier contemplates giving the merman a name himself, but that feels a little unfair to the mer. He has a name, after all.

However, his mouth running faster than his mind produces a nickname, gatinho, as a result of staring at the mer for a little too long and getting lost in his eyes. Thankfully, though, the mer doesn’t seem to mind it, and Roier even swears it makes the creature blush. But that sounds like crazy talk, so he tries not to dwell on it.

Nevertheless, the nickname stays. If only because it’s… well… the truth.

(Mostly. He’s a mer, not a cat. Scales and no legs, not fur and four legs.)

(But God, if he isn’t the prettiest being Roier has ever seen.)

A couple weeks or so after their first initial meeting, Roier is sitting on the flattest rock closest to the water, the mer half out of the water in front of him with his arms resting on the rock. A routine, of sorts. Either here, or the cave.

“So, gatinho,” the pirate starts. “I need to figure out your name. We have to find some way. Because I can’t keep calling you gatinho forever.”

(But he’d certainly like to.)

The deepsea mer tilts his head slightly and shrugs, as if to say, “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“What? You like the name, huh?”

A pause, followed by a slow nod. Roier grins. “No mames, wey, this guy likes being called pretty. Like a cat. Are you sure you’re not a cat? I think you’re a cat in disguise.”

The mer looks borderline offended, trying to reach over and slap him. But the pirate pushes back, out of reach, smile growing with a laugh. “You’re swatting like a cat! Holy shit, man, I was right. I’m friends with a fucking cat. A catfish. No mames.”

There’s a growl of sorts from the merman, who definitely looks like he’s blushing now - focus, focus, focus, stop looking at him like that - and shoots up out of the water before Roier has a chance to properly react.

Next thing he knows, he’s flat on his back against the rock, and there’s a solid weight on top of him, two almost-glowing blue eyes staring him down.

(A small part of Roier wonders if he should be afraid right now. He’s seen the sharp teeth and fingers. This mer could theoretically kill him in a heartbeat. Right here, right now.)

(But he’s not afraid, God only knows why. No, he’s… no, no. Enough.)

Roier tries to mask the way his cheeks are rapidly warming up with an accomplished, shit-eating laugh. “Calma, gatinho, calma.”

The deepsea mer huffs, shaking his head before a small smile crosses his face despite himself. He leans down to really shove Roier’s shoulder, but makes no effort yet to get off.

(Not that Roier minds.)

More laughter, and then a lull, and their eyes meet again. Roier becomes acutely aware of just how close they actually are. The mer is staring at him in a way he can’t quite decipher, and it makes him increasingly nervous.

(A look of wonder. Awe.)

(The mer sees the same exact look in those dark eyes.)

The pirate tries to play it off, like his heart isn’t about to beat out of his chest and like his thoughts aren’t circling around the fact that if he sits up enough, their lips could brush. Connect. “See something you like, gatinho?”

The mer also seems to finally realize their current position, and with wide eyes, pushes himself off and all but dives back into the water. Roier kicks himself in the ass for mourning the loss of contact.

For a few moments, as the merman doesn’t surface, he wonders if he’s fled for the night, and starts to feel a little guilty for his teasing.

But then there’s movement, and he watches the deepsea mer breach the surface again, blowing out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, sorry. I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable or anything.”

The mer shakes his head. It’s okay.

(He did see something he liked.)

"Roier!"

The pirate's head whips around, seeing a silhouette in the far distance.

"Oh, shit-- that's Jaiden. I gotta go." He turns back to the mer. "Three days? And I will learn your name, gatinho."

The deepsea mer nods, and three things happen in succession.

One. The mer leaves him a piece of sea glass, a red one.

Two. He hesitates, then hoists himself onto the rock to press a kiss to Roier's cheek.

Three. He dives back into the water without looking back, disappearing in a fleeting glint of deep emerald and leaving Roier to touch his cheek in surprise.

"Roier!" Jaiden calls again, running over to him. "There you are! What're you doing out here?"

Roier clears his throat, willing his cheeks to cool down despite the darkness surrounding them. His best friend was eerily observant sometimes. "I was just... collecting sea glass. See? Look at this piece I found!" He picks up the piece, standing up to show her.

Jaiden looks at it before back to him, her brow quirking ever-so-slightly. "O...kay? Since when do you do that?"

"It's given me something to do recently."

She studies him another moment, trying to decipher the truth. If she doesn't believe him, she doesn't say it. Instead, she says, "fair. But I came to bring you back to the ship, c'mon."

They walk in a comfortable silence for a bit, until she speaks up again. "Y'know, I haven't seen much sea glass around here. You must have some awfully good luck; I see the little pile on the box beside your hammock."

Roier opens his hand, looking at the translucent red treasure as icy eyes infiltrate his mind, the ghost of lips warming his cheek. "Sí. Something like that."

#this is my au and yet it does something to my brain chemistry #HOW I LOVE THEM #i missed writing them this was a lot of fun :'D #hopefully i can do tomorrow's prompt too!#qsmp roier #qsmp cellbit #spiderbit #qsmp #blue writes qsmp #spiderbit mer au

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seddm · 6 years ago

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Season 4: where to go now?

What happened, happened. It’s no secret I’m not happy about it, since the show brought all the shipping related situations to a point of no return at the end of S3, just to then absolutely ignore them for seven episodes, and then go “no but see Marco and Star were constantly eaten inside by how much they love each other but did nothing about it and now they fear it might have been the Blood Moon influencing their feelings even if that had never been remotely hinted at in the show so far and then they realize they love each other but nope lol they forget about it and now Tomstar an Kellco are canon so they’re going to need the rest of the season to re-realize that they’re in love”. Terrible.

But we can’t change the past and I’m not one to suddenly dislike a whole product that brought me years of happiness (and fear and anger and stress) and several satisfactions, and Starco is still a fantastic ship and a fantastic duo of characters to me, even if S4 handled them just plain horribly so far (see a post about it here). So, where could the season go now, and how could Star’s growth arc go back to bouncing between moments connected to the plot and moments connected to shipping that all contribute to her overall development and maturity?

We already suspected as much after the season premiere, and especially after Surviving the Spiderbites, but it looks like a major theme this season is going to be “choices”: Star trusted Eclipsa and gave her the wand and the throne, but now might not be completely sure about this decision anymore. At the same time, she does trust Eclipsa and she sees that she’s doing more for monsters than any other Queen before, but she’s bound to eventually see (maybe next Sunday, in Cornball, an episode that’s going to feature Buff Frog) that it’s not enough, or at least not the right way to go at it. It’s easy to see how this theme of “choice”, of learning how to rule while also ruling her heart and feelings, could relate to shipping and Starco. Furthermore, Curse of the Blood Moon introduce a tangential concept, the idea of free will, of making your own choices without letting external forces influence you. Brian H. Kim, the show’s composer, confirms it while talking about the Blood Moon waltz track:

But I also love this episode for how it moves along the greater story of Star and Marco, and what it says about destiny vs. free will. If they are to be together, would we be happier for them if that was a result of magic, or by their own choice? And if they aren’t to be together, that should be their own choice too. I immediately loved the question mark it left and how it sets up the rest of the season, and the greater idea that we should all be allowed to make choices about who and when we love someone.

Now, while I think that applying this theme to Starco at this point of the show is useless and a waste of time for a number of reasons I already explained here, I can also see why, on paper, an arc like this might have sounded interesting to the writers, and it could genuinely bring some moments of deep emotional intimacy between Star and Marco, and eventually a canonization on very, very sure terms - at that point the L word being said wouldn’t surprise me at all. And how this all ties with what happened in the episode, and with what might happen in the near future (as usual, I’m very often wrong about specifics in these kind of predictions, so take everything with a lot of grains of salt)?

According to Relicor, the Severing Stone was going to sever the bond between Star and Marco by erasing the memory of the moment they fell in love.

Going into the vision, all the kids thought “Well we fell in love when we got cursed by the Blood Moon, so it’s going to remove that”. But then Star and Marco find themselves experiencing new parts of the dance, moments that never happen in real life, and the Stone acts only when they actually do fall in love.

Once the vision is over, they still do remember the Blood Moon ball, and that they were dancing. They just forgot about all the “I like this” part, the part when they ACTUALLY did genuinely, strongly, purely, fell in love with each other. They enter the Stone with feelings at level 99 They dance and level up to 100 The Stone severs that, and brings them back to 99

So leveling up those feeling to 100 again, this time being sure that the Moon didn’t influence anything, is likely going to be the new arc for Star and Marco, and it’s possibly going to go hand in hand with Star having to question her own choices and certainties: one could be that giving the throne to Eclipsa was the best move, another one that being with Tom and not with Marco is the best choice. Now, this is where the speculations become predictions and being wrong gets super easy, but since we know that the picture from the future is important in this season, Beach Day might become the next big moment for Star: playing in the water together and being as happy as they look in this picture might be a new occasion to fall in love, replacing this,

with this.

Because it’d be extremely fitting both the narrative of the show and this arc, and the generic norms of romance, to give the message that when the feelings are true and genuine, love can blossom in any moment, it doesn’t need a fancy ball or a magic light, even going splashy splashy bally bally in the warm waters of California can do the trick.

Obviously Tomstar still exist and Kellco is kinda a thing now (even though she still has to get over Tad before being fully ready to move on with Marco I guess), so I don’t expect Beach Day to canonize Starco, unless by some miracle both of the grow close together enough before episode 16A to realize that they have to break up with the other people in their lives, but that sounds unlikely and, in this season, stupidly optimistic. Still, realizing once again that they love each other - not just like, love, and this time with no Stones immediately erasing their memories, might be the last push needed to solve all the ongoing situations in their respective lives, and finally get together.

If this happens before the series finale, allowing the dorks to enter the climax of the story while already being romantically together and sure of their feelings, allowing for the closing scenes to truly be as close to “I want to spend my life with you and I’m sure about it” as they can get without being too cheesy or too unrealistic for two teens, I’ll probably forget a great deal of the dissatisfaction and anger this first part of the season made me experiences.

Please.

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #starco #seddm ramblings #svtfoe spoilers

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whenimgoodandready · 4 years ago

Text

*SVTFOE Bloopers, Finale Season

Hey Starlings! Today’s the one year anniversary of “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”! I remember when we were all hyped up for the show and I got sooooooooooo into it. And I mean really really into! My reviews grew from joining the fandom, I collected the merchandise, I met some good friends and I even got to meet Daron Nefcy herself! As tribute to the shows anniversary, I finally got the chance to write my Season 4 bloopers! (like how I did with the first 3 and “Battle for Mewni”) I admit I haven’t really worked on it much since last year cuz I’ve been busy (mostly lazy), but when I heard the one year anniversary was coming up, I decided to get off my a** and write it! With help from my good friend @agentpfangirl1997. Thank you so much! As I was writing this out. I accidentally deleted it and was in shell shock cuz I worked really hard on typing this all out and putting it together, but I picked myself up and rewrote it like a true writer! I hope you guys like it cuz if you get the references in this. It’ll be even better. Enjoy! @daronnefcy I hope you see this! Like you promised from your Q&A!

•Butterfly Follies

-(Star pulls the string of the Queen Moon doll)

Queen Moon Doll:”You’re doing just fine, sweetheart”

(Star pulls the string again)

Queen Moon Doll:”I love you!”

(Star pulls the string once more)

Queen Moon Doll:(in a deep demonic male voice) “I command you! In the name of Lucifer to spill the blood of the innocent!”

(Star shakes her head in disbelief looking standing upright and shocked. She darts her eyes to the doll. She pulls the string yet again)

Queen Moon Doll:(makes demonic shrieking noises)

(Star darts her eyes to the camera still in shock)

-“Queen Moon”:(to Star and River) ”Um, I have to tell you something”

(“Queen Moon” takes off their wig to reveal themselves to be a male actor)

(Star and River gasp)

River:”You.......you’re a brunet!” (the staff off-screen laugh. River laughs as Star holds back her laughter. The Queen Moon actor just smiles. River turns to the staff off-screen shrugging) “I forgot my lines!”

•Escape from the Pie Folk

-(The Pie King is lounging on the giant pie wheel as he spins it. It spins for a moment before it slowly stops)

Star:”I’d like to solve the puzzle!” (The Pie King falls off the giant pie wheel laughing. Star laughs as the staff off-screen laugh too. Star turns to them shrugging and smiling sheepishly) “I like “Wheel of Fortune!”

•Moon Remembers

•Swim Suit

-(Behind the Scenes. Star, Marco and Tom are staring up at the giant crystal prison Globgor is in, but he’s not right now (cuz he’s CGI-ed in), so they’re just astonishingly staring up at the big empty crystal prop)

Marco:”How big is this f***ing thing!?”

•Ransomgram

-Ransomgram Monster:(singing and dancing) 🎶You stole our sword, so we stole your dragoncyclllllllllllll🎶 (stops singing and dancing to laugh at herself holding herself up by her knees. She turns to the staff off-screen) “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, can-can I try that again please?”

•Lake House Fever

•Yada Yada Berries

•Down by the River

-(Behind the Scenes. Toffee is sitting on a chair reading a script from for his upcoming cameo appearance in “Meteora’s Lesson” while holding a coffee mug in one hand and drinking from it. He’s only wearing his white shirt and black pants and matching shoes. Suddenly, the child actors that portray the Maizley kids, Manny and Mendel, run up to him grinning and stare intensively at him on either side. Toffee notices this and stares up from his script. The children continue to stare)

Toffee:”Can I help you?”

Mendel:”Hiiiiiiiiii Mr.Toffee” (rubs her arm up her other arm looking at the ground and then up at Toffee), “We’re huge fans of yours and we just wanted to meet the biggest actor on the show”

Manny:(points at Mendel) “She’s got a big crush on you!”

Mendel:(looks embarrassed then glares at Manny) “I do not!” (turns back to Toffee and shyly holds her hands behind her back and traces her foot on the ground in front of her looking down at it and then up at him) “Anyways, we were wondering if maybe you can help us go over our lines for our episode”

Toffee:”Well, I don’t know, I’m already going over my own lines for my own episode and-“

The Kids:(pressing their heads together with big eyes, cute smiles and clasping their hands together) “Pleeeeease” (they bat their eyes unsynchronizingly)

Toffee:(sighs and then miles) “Oh alright”

(the kids cheer and Manny runs off-screen. He comes back dragging a chair, places it next to Toffee, climbs up on it, pulls out his script for “Down by the River” and Mendel hands Toffee her script. Manny opens both scripts to a certain scene)

Manny:(to Toffee) “Ready!?”

Toffee:”Yes”

Manny:(clears his throat and reads his line) “Hey! You wanna bet I can scream really loud!?”

Toffee:(reads Rivers line from the script) “”No”, okay, so then Moon says-“ (gets interrupted by Manny screaming in his ear. Toffee was startled by it as it made him jump out of his chair and drop his coffee mug having it spill and break on the floor. He was covering his ears when he turned to Manny annoyed) “What was that!?”

Manny:(smiling) ”That was my line! I scream in Rivers ear!”

Toffee:”Yeah, but I wasn’t-“ (gets interrupted by Manny screaming again. Toffee cringes) “I wasn’t-“ (gets interrupted again by Manny screaming as he cringes again) “Now see here, I-“ (gets interrupted once again by Manny screaming as he once again cringes) “Will you st-“ (yet again he’s interrupted by Manny screaming as he cringes once more. Manny screams in-between pauses as Toffee cringes with it. Toffee groans and covers his ears as Manny’s continuous screaming gets louder from his pauses. Mendel pulls out a pan and spoon and starts banging them against each other while howling. Toffee is startled by that and turns to glare at Mendel screaming ) “WHAT’S WITH THE ONE WOMAN BAND!?”

Mendel:(screaming so Toffee can hear from Manny’s screaming) “IT’S THE SCENE WHERE MY FAMILY AND I MAKE LOUD NOISES TO WARD OFF THE HOOKMAN!” (she giggles) “IT DRIVES MOON CRAZY!”

Toffee:(exasperatedly) ”She’s not the only one!” (he sighs and slumps in defeat as Manny is still screaming in pauses as Mendel bangs her pan and spoon together howling. He walks off dejectedly as Manny jumps on his back continuing his screams and Mendel following him howling. We hear Toffee off-screen yell) “WHY DID I AGREE TO COME BACK TO THIS KIDS SHOW!?”

•The Ponyhead Show!

-Pony Head:(on the set of her characters Show-within-a-Show) “Okay, um, so when I said I wanted my own spin-off, THIS ISN’T WHAT I HAD IN MIND!”

-Eclipsa:(singing and playing her guitar as she’s magiced in the air by Star) 🎶Centuries from my home, Can't go back, so let's start some-🎶 (the harness that’s keeping her up for Stars magic breaks leaving her hanging by only one strap now) “Oh! Oh my!”

(the background music for Eclipsas song stops on a record scratch and Star, Pony Head (after spitting out the crystal cupcake prop), Marco, Kelly and Seahorse rush over and try to reach up to Eclipsa)

Marco:(jumping up and down) “I gotcha! I gotcha!”

Pony Head:”Hang on Eclipsa! I gotcha!” (flies up to the harness that’s wrapped around Eclipsa and tries breaking it free with her teeth. Seahorse flies up and joins in)

(the single harness now is slightly torn lowering Eclipsa down with her screaming)

Star:(fearfully) “Eclipsa!”

Eclipsa:(worrying) “Some one get me down!”

(Everyone tries to help Eclipsa and the camera pans to Toffee causally sitting in a chair wearing only his white shirt with a couple of buttons undone and his black pants and shoes while holding his coffee mug and next to him is Rosemary, the little girl who was the only one to like Eclipsas song, sitting on a chair leveled to Toffee sipping her juice box and both are staring up at the chaos of Eclipsas harness failure as people rush in to save her and we hear them murmur)

Toffee:(to Rosemary keeping his eyes on Eclipsa) “Think they’ll get her down?”

Rosemary:(while keeping her eyes on Eclipsa) “Not a chance”

(they click their drinks without looking and sip)

•Surviving the Spiderbites

•Out of Business

-Marco:(to the Quest Buy Sloth) “Hey! My Dude! We’re pros at these, uh, situati-“ (gets tripped on his back after doing a back flip by the “Baby Marco with Wheels for Hands” prop as it zooms by. Marco sits up groaning. He turns up to his left) “Janna!” (Janna comes onto the set with a remote control device laughing and makes the “Baby Marco with Wheels for Hands” prop circle around them. Marco groans at Janna)

•Kelly’s World

•Curse of the Blood Moon

-Tom:”Uh, Relicor says he’ll guide us to the Severing Stone, cuz he’s my grandpa” (sways his hips back and forth) pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-“ (stops to laugh at himself) “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! It was just too funny! (laughs some more. Turns to the director off-screen and waves his hand dismissively) “Just-Just shot again, okay!”

(Take 2) Tom:”Cuz he’s my grandpa” (sways his hips back and forth) “pa-pa-pa-“ (stops again to laugh and holds up one finger facing the director off-screen) “One more time! One more time!”

(Take 3) Tom:”Cuz he’s my-“(is about to sway his hips back and forth, he stops to hold in his laugh, but after awhile, he bursts into laughter bending forward holding his stomach and tapping his foot. Star is annoyed and rolls her eyes groaning. Janna pulls out her iPhone playing with it and Marco sighs)

-(Star, Marco, Tom, Janna and Relicor are in the elevator. Tom is whistling and holding his hands together stretching them around. Star looks annoyed)

Star:”Tom!.....Tom!” (Tom accidentally hits Star in the eye with his stretching hands) “OW!” (Star covers her eye)

(everyone looks towards Star concerned)

Tom:(panicky) “Oh my God! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to and-“

Star:”Damn it! Tom!”

(The staff come onto the set and hover around Star as we hear one say, “The medics on their way!”. Tom panics to himself and a bell rings signaling to stop rolling)

-(Behind the Scenes. Star and the gang are waiting for Vexicor to show up for the scene. Star is slouched down holding a hand to her head moaning silently, Marco has his arms crossed and is tapping his foot impatiently, Tom is looking worriedly at Star, Janna is laying on the couch playing on her iPhone, Relicor is flying in place and Abraxacan is in his tower resting his head on one hand and tapping his claws on the window sill)

Marco:(about Vexicor to the staff off-screen) “Is he here yet!?”

Staff Member Off-Screen:”No, not yet”

(Marco sighs impatiently)

Tom:(walks over to Star putting his hand on her shoulder) “Hey, is your eye okay?”

Star:(stares up at Tom sternly) “F*** off, Tom”

(Tom backs away slowly holding his hands up in front of him in fear. We hear a door open and slam as everyone on set looks towards the noise. We then hear foot steps and Vexicor in his demon costume comes onto the set holding up a fast food bag in one hand and a drink in the other)

Vexicor:”What! What! What! What’s everyone looking at!?” (slurps his drink)

Marco:”Dude! You went to get fast food!?”

Vexicor:(irritated) “Well why not!? You kids cleaned me out on the donuts, so I had to walk all the way to the restaurant” (gestures to his costume) “in this getup! Getting weird looks from strangers and I’m sweating my balls off in this thing and-“

Director Daron:(off-screen) “WAIT! WAIT! Hold up!” (everyone looks at the camera) “This could work!”

Star:”It can?”

Vexicor:”What!? Me and this scenario!?”

Director Daron:(off-screen) “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! It’ll be funny! Okay places everyone! Let’s shoot this!”

(everyone gets into their positions for the new rewrite scene)

-(Star and Marco are wearing their formal outfits waltzing to the “Blood Moon Waltz” with red lighting. Suddenly, the music shifts to Lil Nas X ft.Billy Ray Cyruses remix song of “Old Town Road”. Star and Marco are startled by it and break apart)

Pony Head:(flies onto the scene screaming) “Okay! That is it! Where are those creepy twins!? Imma bust their heads!” (scans the area as the music plays) “I swear, I don’t care if I get sued for this! Those two are dead!” (she notices the music still playing) “CUT THE TRACK!” (“Old Town Road” stops on a record scratch as the lighting turns on to color. Pony Head groans and flies off. Star and Marco just awkwardly stare at each other from Pony Heads outburst)

Marco:”Well” (scratches the back of his head and then shrugs) “least it’s not “Despacito” (crookedly smiles)

(Star covers her mouth from laughing)

•Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell

-(Behind the Scenes. Janna (before CGI makes her a Cyclopes) is bouncing up and down with glee next to Quasar)

Janna:(pleadingly) “Do the thing! Do the thing! Please! Please! Please!”

Quasar:(laughs and playfully waves off a hand) “Oh C’mon!”

Janna:”Pleeeeeeeeease!” (holds up one finger) “Just this once!”

Quasar:(playfully rolls her eyes) “Oh okay!”

(Janna cheers clapping her hands)

Quasar:(clears her throat and gets into a starting position pose. She raises her hand in the air) “JUPITER STAR POWER! MAKE UP!” (gracefully twirls around while waving her hands in the air. Janna awes with joy)

•Ghost of Butterfly Castle

-(Moon is walking the hallway of the abandoned ruins of Castle Butterfly looking at the sewn tapestries on the walls. She suddenly stops and sneezes. The staff off-screen laugh as she smiles and sniffles)

Moon:”I’m sorry” (sniffles again) “It’s just so dusty in here that’s all”

•Cornball!

•Meteora’s Lesson

-(Behind the Scenes. Star is in Toffees huge dressing room putting on his mullet wig for his young characters self. She’s adjusting it in the mirror and starts doing poses with it. She does air guitar and makes guitar noises with it thrashing around. As she does that, she doesn’t notice Toffee walk in dressed in his young characters 80’s outfit while wearing a bald cap for the wig and carrying a coffee mug. He’s perplexed seeing Star goof around in his dressing room and wig)

Star:(singing) 🎶I love Rock n’ Roll! So put another dime in the jukebox, Baby! I love Rock n’ Roll! So come an’ take your time an’ dance with me-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! YEAH!🎶 (she grabs a chair and smashes it on the ground. Then she goes down on her knees and holds both her hands up in a “Rock On!” sign) “THANK YOU! GOOD-NIGHT!” (sticks her tongue out “KISS” style)

Toffee:”Ahem!”

(Star breaks out of her “rock persona” and looks to see Toffee glaring at her. She quickly gets up grinning sheepishly. Keeping her eyes on Toffee, she dusts the broken pieces of the chair behind her under a lounge chair, scoots herself near his wig bust, removes his wig from her head, places it on the bust, brushes it down with her hands and takes a big step next to him. She giggles nervously then frantically zooms out the room. Toffee watches her leave and signs wearingly)

-(Toffee dressed as his young characters self is gripping Glossaryck in his hand and Meteora crawls over to Toffees leg. She starts pounding on it, but then stops and cuddles it cooing. Toffee chuckles and picks up Meteora in his other arm. He turns to the staff off-screen)

Toffee:(embarrassed) “Can we edit this so it looks like she’s attacking me?”

•The Knight Shift

•Queen-Napped

-Ransomgram Monster:(fearfully peaking from the door holding a hand full of envelopes) “It’s just the mail! Please don’t make me dance!” (the staff off-screen laugh. The Ransomgram Monster turns to them embarrassed and shrugs) “I’m not much of a dancer!”

•Junkin’ Janna

•A Spell With No Name

#svtfoe #svtfoe bloopers #svtfoe season 4 bloopers

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