#i mean the arson was just grass

[sarcasticdolphin]

[luveline]

hello jade! i just want to say i absolutely adore your writing!! if you have the time, could we see some more grumpy steve in the zombie au? id love to see anything from before the college, i just miss that grumpy era! <3

thank you my love!! steve zombie au —you try to make sense of why steve is so grumpy. 1k, fem!reader

"No," Steve says. 

You sigh and turn away from him, hands braced either side of your face. Steve doesn't talk much, but when he does, his favourite word is no. 

"Why not?" you ask. 

"There's nothing left in Hawkins," he says, stepping with ease over a huge puddle of diesel, the expelled gas strong enough to make you feel nauseous. 

"There's, you know, our homes." 

"What's the point?" he asks. "I'm trying to be fair here. What's the point in going back when everyone is gone and half the town was burned to the ground?" 

You ease over the diesel puddle with much less ease, muttering expletives to yourself when your left foot sinks into the instep. Now you'll smell like diesel for the next week. Great. 

There isn't any point in going back home, but that doesn't mean you don't want to. There really is nothing there, half the town was on fire when you bolted, the Hawk, the school, anything that would catch. It was an organised arson by the escape group you and Steve were supposed to be in (or rather, just Steve, flame to draw the geeks attention. You hadn't known anyone who knew anyone that knew the plan, so you hadn't realised everybody was leaving until they were already gone, the sound of what must've been fifty cars departing northward your lone clue. 

You kick the floor as you and Steve step out of the road and back onto the dirt path beside it, hoping the grass and mud will soak up the acrid smell stuck to your shoe. You'd brought Hawkins up because you're still grieving. Because you want someone to talk to about what you've lost, and Steve isn't abiding. 

"What guarantee is it that the world isn't just as razed as Hawkins?" you ask without pep. 

"There's no point thinking about it that way. We keep moving or we die. We go home, we die. We need to keep going and if we're fast enough, we can catch up to the Hawkins group. It'll be safer when it isn't only the two of us." 

And you'll never have to speak to me again, you think morosely. 

Steve is handsome. He went to your high school, though that was, like, four years ago. He's not the kind of guy who wasted time with girls like you, you know that. You guess you'd been hoping he'd be nicer alone. 

"You're not how I remember you," you say. 

"I don't remember you," he says. 

"Why would you?" you ask. You pretend to mess with the zipper on your jacket rather than look in his direction, worried he'll meet your eye, and see the actual hurt in your expression. "I was nobody, and you were a jock. Everyone knows how that goes."

"It's not like that," he says. 

You bat a rogue insect away from your cold cheek. You hate the forest. "What's it like?" you ask. 

"It's not about what kind of person you were. I had a lot going on back then." 

"Like what?" 

"Like getting beat up so bad I had a concussion twice in the same year," he says. 

"Woah." You look at him through the corner of your eye. "You got beat up that bad twice?" 

Steve doesn't answer you. You continue following him, making your way across a big stretch of road, the next crop of buildings about twenty minutes away if you had to guess. The weather is brisk, the sun occluded by grey clouds, and the air smells like ash. The sky is a hazy shade of white.

"Wait, by Jonathan Byers?" 

"No, he's the one who didn't give me a concussion," Steve says contritely. 

"Oh. Hey, you don't have to look so down about it, Harrington, this is a good thing. I can trust you, now." 

"You didn't trust me? I've been feeding you for the past week." 

"Yeah, but you're a guy I don't really know. I was worried you might try to kill me and eat me in my sleep or something when the food ran out, but now I know you're bad at fights, I'm not so worried." 

"Fuck off," he says dryly. 

"I'm bad at fighting too, if you were wondering." 

"I wasn't." 

"Hmm. Who beat you up the third time? I know that jerk Hargrove got you." 

"Just some guy."

"Must've been an angry guy," you mumble, looking at him with your head tilted. 

Steve is an asshole often and unapologetically to you, but you don't think you want to hurt him. He's shown you that, while he sucks, he knows how to be nice. He makes sure the blankets are covering your shoulders before you fall asleep, and he gives you bigger portions if he hears your stomach grumbling. Plus, no guy so eager to find their best friend can be evil, you think. He must have a whole lot of love stored up. Or stored down. Deep down inside. 

"Stop staring at me," he says. 

"Okay." You stare at him some more. He has a nice nose. He has really nice eyes, kind of hooded and almond shaped at once, brown irises that look dark as tree bark as the sun goes down. "Well, I won't beat you up." 

"Thanks," he says. He sounds less grumpy. You try to push it further. 

"I'm really sorry," you say, slowing your steps a touch. He slows to match you. "That someone hurt you like that. Twice. I know concussions aren't funny, that it must've sucked to recover from them." 

"I had a perforated eardrum," he says. "It hurt like hell. All of it did."

"I'm sorry," you say gently, offering him a sympathetic smile. 

He smiles back. "Not your fault," he says quietly. Then, louder, "Don't walk so slow. We need to be inside soon, the sun is setting." 

"Yes, sir," you say, saluting him sarcastically. 

He doesn't speak to you for half an hour. You don't mind so much, especially when, the next time you come across a puddle of diesel (someone seriously needs to learn how to syphon gas properly), he holds out a hand and helps you cross it, even though you could've easily walked around.

[agneslovestheinternet-blog]

FUCK YOU, don't leave me

Part One: Paper Thin

Gally x Fem!Reader

You were the first female greenie to arrive in The Glade and your continued feud with Gally is legendary among your fellow Gladers. It’s about to dazzle them even further tonight because it’s bonfire night. Which means you’re both excessively drunk, hopping mad, standing right next to an enormous open flame and contemplating one question; is arson really that bad?

Genre: pure plot, the set up to enemies to lovers

Word Count: 2.7K  Read Time: 9.5 mins

Warnings & Info: strong language, brief mention of needles and flesh wounds, underage drinking, Your POV, Movie!Gally, the only Glader slang I use is “shank” because the rest sounds dumb to me (sorrryyyy), minimal Y/N use, you’re not the only girl I added several unimportant OC’s, Thomas is there but the plot of TMR doesn’t move forward

Author’s Note: I was originally going to write this whole fic in one part but then I got too excited and it got really long, so I broke it up. The other parts will be coming very shortly, let me know if you want to be tagged when I post them! This is the first fic I’ve ever posted so all constructive criticism is welcome! The Maze Runner community on Tumblr is amazing & I just wanted to throw my hat into that very talented ring; thx for reading! fun fact: Gally’s name appears 62 times in this fic :)

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I can’t fucking stand Gally. And everyone knows that. Everyone also knows that he can’t fucking stand me. If it weren’t for saint Alby’s most sacred rule, (“Never harm another Glader”), I would’ve split his lip with my knuckles a long time ago. 

It started with The Box, obviously. That clanging, rusted, menacing machinery that brings life-sustaining supplies and headache-inducing complications. Like me. 38 months in a row The Box brought up a flushed-faced, wide-eyed, scared-shitless teenage boy. Every month, like clockwork. Until lucky month number 39 when it sent my sorry ass up. The first girl. Since then, The Box alternates between male & female greenies each month. No one has any idea why those who control The Box suddenly decided to make The Glade co-ed. But Gally’s working theory is that it’s to destroy everything they built before me.

He has a well-deserved reputation for having the loudest mouth in The Glade and he wasted no time using it against me, starting on my very first day. The first memory I have of him is watching his tanned face contort with confusion and anger upon opening The Box’s gates and finding me at the bottom.

“Why’d they send a girl?” he’d barked, piercing through me with his gaze even though his question was directed at the several dozen boys standing around him, also peering down at me.

“We’ll just welcome her like any other greenie. Maybe they thought it was getting too rowdy in here with only boys,” Alby had responded calmly, parting the sea of boy’s shoulders as he strode up to Gally’s side. He stared down at me with a much kinder expression on his face.

“I’d like to get rowdy with her,” a boy interjected loudly, sending a cascade of wolf-whistles and whoops through the group around him. I was still lying on the cold metal ground of The Box, dazed and barely aware of what was being said. But at the sound of the whistling I’d instinctively covered my chest with my arms, blocking any sight of the skin exposed above my top. Gally sharply lifted his head to meet the boy’s eyes.

“Stop thinking with your dick, shank. She,” he pointed harshly at me, “is only going to cause trouble,” He turned to Alby and lowered his volume but not his scathing tone. “If you want to welcome her like any other greenie, be my guest. But you know that a change like this could ruin everything we’ve built. Don’t expect any sympathy from me when it does,” He strode off in a huff, grabbing the set of tools he’d abandoned in the grass and going back to his construction site on the other side of The Glade.

That was my first impression of him. At the time, I didn’t know my name, where I was or what was happening but I knew that Gally hated me. And since I didn’t know anything else, I decided that the first thing I would be sure of in this new place was that I hated him too.

It didn’t take long for our fellow Gladers to take notice of our feud and prepare accordingly. It became part of the tour for every new greenie that came up.

“That’s Gally,” Newt would say, pointing out his broad figure as he ordered his crew around with a pointed finger, “And that’s Y/N,” he’d continue, pivoting 180 degrees to the front door of the med hut, where I was helping a bloodied Slicer get inside.

“If you ever see them standing closer to each other than they are right now, run or grab the nearest weapon,” he’d finish with a devilish grin. The Builders and the Med-jacks had an open agreement to keep us away from each other at all times. Whenever a Builder got injured and Gally brought them to the med hut, I would be forcefully told to take my break in my hut. And whenever the med hut needed construction work, Gally would be told to do work elsewhere in The Glade until his crew finished.

Alby had declared bonfire nights to be the DMZ of The Glade pretty early on in our feud. Gally and I have a paper-thin agreement to not start shit, but tonight? Tonight that paper thin agreement goes up in smoke.

I’m sitting on a horrendously rotten log surrounded by the few friends I have that put up with my constant outbursts towards an otherwise pretty popular member of The Glade. Elsie, (the 2nd girl to arrive in The Glade & by default my closest friend), passes me the dusty glass bottle full of Gally’s elixir and I take a hearty swig, my vision already blurry from the first round of passing. The only thing I can respect about Gally is that his concoction gets you fucked up, fast. With all the horrors we all have to deal with at such a young age, (running a functioning town, trying to find a way out of the Maze, hiding from Grievers, trying not to get stung & coming to terms with the fact that we might never know who we are or where we came from), it’s good to have a reliable way to get drunk.

Chuck is babbling a retelling of Minho’s latest run in my ear excitedly when he suddenly comes into focus; Gally. He’s marching up to me, fists balled and face flushed. It took me a lot longer than usual to realize he was coming due to my inebriation.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Y/N?” he snaps, jolting me out of the warm feeling his drink was bringing me. “Hank just told me he has a crush on you. Are you just going to seduce my crew? Or do you need to have the entire Glade under your control too?”  

He’s slurring his words slightly and swaying where he stands, telling me he’s probably just as fucked up as I am. Gally rarely drinks from his own supply, so this must be why he has the sudden gall to confront me despite our agreement with Alby. I get to my feet unsteadily, anger replacing my calm demeanor, but before I can speak, Newt shimmies in between us and puts his hands up, metaphorically waving a white flag. 

“Gally, mate, you’ve had a few. You don’t want to start something here. Just sleep it off and we’ll figure this out in the morning,” he says reassuringly, putting a timid right hand on Gally’s left shoulder. Newt’s keeping his voice purposefully low as he’s aware half The Glade has started staring in response to the confrontation.

“I’m not talking to you Newt, I’m talking to her,” he snarls, shaking his shoulder out of Newt’s grip, his blue eyes never leaving mine.

“I don’t know why you’d think I’d want to seduce a Builder. You all have the IQ of fruit flies,” I snapped back, my voice coming out far hoarser than I intended it too. At the sound of this insult, the rest of my group of friends get to their feet and several of Gally’s jog over from the other side of the bonfire. Elsie’s hand instinctively grabs my left wrist as Chuck holds onto my right forearm. Gally’s arms are also being held onto by Thomas & Ben, who are exchanging worried glances. Our friends mobilized so quickly that Gally & I barely had time to react. But despite Newt’s pleading & the four pairs of fingernails now digging into our arms, Gally continues.

“Please Y/N, like a guy’s intelligence has ever stopped you from opening your legs,” he chortles, before going in for his finisher, “Just stay the fuck away from my Builders. It’s hard enough to keep them working without some slut parading around The Glade like she’s God’s gift to teenage boys,” he spits, his eyebrows furrowing and his muscles flexing, as he rigorously pulls against Thomas & Ben.

His comment rings in my ears for what feels like an eternity. That choice of insult is vicious, even for Gally. Alby has all but banned that word in The Glade, chastising & throwing in the Pit any poor shank that dares to use it against any of the girls here. 

My cheeks are hot and I feel Elsie & Chuck tighten their grip around my arms. Maybe it’s the alcohol in my system or the stress of the day finally coming down on me or the wolf whistles I got this morning for taking my jacket off echoing in my ears or the smug look on Gally’s face or the memory of crying myself to sleep last week or the nods of agreement to his comment by several onlookers, but all of it is too much and something in me snaps. Fuck the agreement with Alby, fuck controlling my anger and fuck dealing with any of this sober; this means war. 

Before I’m even fully aware of my own plan, I’m ripping my arms from my friend's grip. Elsie & Chuck stumble to the ground as they call desperately after me. The crowd formed around our altercation parts for me easily as I rack my brain for the easiest way to cause Gally pain. The Glade is spinning haphazardly as I stumble to Frypan’s table with tonight’s feast set upon it. I search furiously for the rusted copper pot that holds the rest of Gally’s elixir. 

Thomas and Ben, who are now joined by Newt, Minho, Chuck, Alby and Jeff, are trying to forcefully pull Gally away from the fire, towards The Pit. He is fighting this punishment with the spirit of an angry Griever, his voice echoing continued insults towards me that I can’t quite understand at this distance.  Elsie & another Glade girl, Lireale, are sprinting after me, clearing the crowd and scanning the darkened clearing for any sign of me. Gally breaks from his friend's grip and has only a second to take in his surroundings before I’m back next to the bonfire, right in front of him.

I stare into his eyes with as much venom as I can muster, my left hand flat against the bottom of the pot, my right hand tipping it sideways. Months of swallowed anger and dismissed indignation swell in my chest. I take one last look in his eyes before chucking his famous elixir into the flames with as much might as my drunken body can muster.

The bonfire immediately swells to the height of our treehouse, quickly absorbing its new fuel. Gally’s drink has about as much alcohol in it as a bottle of medical antiseptic and I take a moment to drink in the cleverness of the destruction I’ve caused. Gally’s expression has melted from anger to fear. 

I win

I watch the orange hues reflected in his wide eyes before feeling the electric shock of stray flames connecting to my body. As I fall to the ground in pain, I feel two sets of calloused hands picking me up and carrying me quickly in the direction of the med hut. My vision is tunneled as I watch two other figures pick up Gally and carry him in the same direction. 

We’re going to have to be in the same room for the first time since our friends learned better. And after the stunt I just pulled, he’s going to murder me. I focus on preparing my mind for whatever counterattack he has planned, instead of the searing pain now blossoming in my hands and on my chest.

I come to my senses a little more in the bright med hut as I’m gingerly placed on a cot by Ben and Newt, wincing at the contact of charred skin and coarse fabric. Gally’s voice brings my ears back to reality with a ring. Though he can’t attack me physically through the pain of 2nd degree burns being sterilized, he still finds enough energy to take verbal shots at me.

“Fuck you, Y/N! I’ll be out of work for a week because of this,” he grunts emphatically, voice still slurring. I look up at him through the line of Runners & Builders standing between our two cots, trying to prevent the counterattack he’s in too much pain to plan for now. He’s balling his fists and wincing as Clint uses a damp cloth to wipe gently at the largest of his burns; a large red stripe on his right bicep. Thomas and Hank are standing at his shoulders next to the cot, helping pass supplies to Clint as he works.

“You don’t do anything but bark orders, your crew will be fine without you, shank,” I spit back. “Shank” was often used jokingly and with affection between other Gladers but when Gally and I use it, it sounds more like a slur. 

I’m still smiling cartoonishly from the sight of him getting his comeuppance. I can deal with my own pain if it means Gally has to be in pain too. I’m lying on my back as Jeff places an aloe-soaked bandage on the burn I have on my cheek. Elsie kneels next to me, holding my left hand, whispering mixed words of sympathy and scolding that I don’t hear. I’m attempting to stare at Gally, bobbing my head from left to right, trying to move into a position where her head’s not blocking my view.

The med hut is swarming with people. Alby is standing by the door, arms crossed, eyes jumping between Gally and I, getting the story of what happened told to him by Newt and Chuck. The former is in damage-control mode, sticking up for me with an earnest tone and the latter is beaming with pride, unable to contain the excitement in his voice as he recounts how high the flames got. The several large Runners & Builders that formed a human chain in between Gally’s cot and mine are starting to relax and disband, as they finally take in the severity of our injuries. Lireale is passing supplies to Jeff on my left, who’s whispering instructions to her. There are several other lookers-on who snuck in to see the action before Alby started stopping people at the door and telling them to go to bed, lest they lose their right to lunch tomorrow.

“Oh yeah and what do you do, greenie? Besides seducing every poor shank that gets bloodied up enough to have to come here,” he yells back, voice getting hoarse and gaze softening as Clint bandages the site on his arm that he injected the anesthetic into. He sighs with relief at the sight of it kicking in so quickly.

I shouldn’t be surprised this sentiment is what started this mess. Gally is known to rant to anyone who will listen that girls are a distraction in The Glade, and any shank dumb enough to fall for that distraction deserves to be thrown to the Grievers. I’m not the only girl and haven’t been for a while; there’s four more of us he could direct his sexist anger towards. But he never looks at them the way he looks at me; as if my existence itself causes him offence.

“You wish Gally. Is that why you always get your wounds patched up in your hut?” I croak back, my voice starting to falter as Jeff pulls an identical needle containing anesthetic out of my arm. “Afraid you’ll get too riled up if I’m the one stitching you up?” I mumble, my voice barely audible as my eyelids flutter close. 

I feel my shirt being pulled off gingerly by Elsie, exposing my bra. Jeff gets to work on a particularly nasty burn going from my collarbone to the top of my right breast. The last thing I see before being lured into a drug-addled sleep is Gally’s blue eyes, tracing my now-exposed figure. Maybe it’s the heat of the burns, or the stress of the pain, but I swear I can see his cheeks flush and his eyes widen before he quickly looks towards the ceiling and succumbs to the sedatives in his system as well. Like I said; Gally doesn’t look at me the way he looks at any other girl. But I’ve never seen that look before.

[katyspersonal]

Also ya'll are boring haters. Just because I have stupidly long hair and wear black leather goth coats + boots, like to stab things, am associated with black feathers because crow, am a homeschooled freak, have a weird connection with deep space, miss my mom almost chronically, tend to get overly attached to friends because I didn’t know hardly any people growing up, have a fiery, impassioned lore-obsessed bestie associated with the color red that duels with me every weekend, a calmer, more sensible literal angel bestie that reminds me to be rational and tells me to chill when duelling with the red friend, have a hard time expressing deeper emotions, am fairly introverted until I’m around friends I trust, don’t like public attention, have dreams about the apocalypse, can’t seem to escape the color scheme of purple/green, will probably have a mental breakdown at 25, am only a few steps away from committing arson, doesn't mean that you now get to make Sephiroth jokes ffs 🙄 Not literally everything is a reference to your most hated fictional not-blorbos, touch grass sometimes :pensive:

Nah, you aren't Sephiroth over all these things, you are Sephiroth because you annoy me by literally just standing there. Perish

[thekingofthenameless]

Welp I guess I’m posting what I currently have of the revamped chapter lol. For the former version, check it out on Ao3!

By the way, sentences are a bit more simplistic in this to match the fact that Charlie’s a literal baby at this point!

Charlie:

“He isn’t going to survive much longer.” Mama’s voice is cold. Papa doesn’t answer. “We could just have another kit eventually. Hopefully, that one will be stronger.” Papa hums. “I’m sure he would’ve been the runt if we had litters.” His heart hurts. Why is Mama being so mean? Why didn’t Papa defend him? He isn’t going to die. I can be strong, Mama, he thinks. He wishes he could talk. Papa, please- Mama’s jaws pick him up by his scruff. He hopes she’ll change her mind and stop being so mean. She walks to the front of their cave, spreading her wings. His body relaxes in relief. She said those mean things, but she’s still taking him with her while she goes hunting! Just like she always does. She starts flying, and Papa follows her like always. The wind blows through his fur, and he just enjoys it, listening to the sound of his parents’ wings. They still love him. He can’t wait to fly with them someday. It seems like a while before they both land somewhere, but he doesn’t mind. Maybe they’re getting a new type of prey. She walks over to some bushes, lowering her head to set him down under them. He doesn’t protest because she’ll be back soon. She nuzzles his cheek, and he purrs. He hears her walk off, but then two pairs of wings are flapping, and two gusts of wind are all that’s left of them. Oh. Maybe they’re going back to their usual hunting place after all. They’ll be back soon, though. He stays still and quiet like they’d want him to, listening to the birds that start chirping again. He’s wide awake after his nap, so he passes the time by trying to imagine what everything around him looks like. The grass, the bushes he’s under, the birds, the sky. Mama and Papa. He’s sure they’re both so pretty. But then the wait becomes longer and longer. They’re still not back. Different sounds are in the forest now, new creatures chirping instead of the birds. He’s never been left long enough to hear them before. …Did they not change their minds after all? Did they really leave him here? No, they wouldn’t do that! They’ll change their minds and come back. He just has to be patient, and good, and they can all go home, and he can have some milk before he goes back to sleep. His stomach growls at the thought. How long has he been here?

TKN taglist: @gaylightisminetocommand, @the-arson-author-gamer, @aroace-edward-elric, @figureitoutinthemorning, @mxxnlightwriting, @lets-zofifi-stuff

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook: Take It All [2]

In which your fate had always been predetermined- but fate is a flickering flame, ready to change and morph at any given moment.

Tags/Warnings: ABO au, Alpha!Jungkook, shut up, omega!reader, shut up², anyone remember this?, well I do so open up babybird here's me feeding you another chapter

Additional Chapter Warnings: attempted murder, arson

Length: mid

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You can't do this.

Leaving Jungkook behind was one thing you could somewhat stomach. He was like a fever dream after all; a perfect mate and partner if only the circumstances had been different, though even then, logically, it would've never worked out.

You're not a leading person, you've got no drive to be at the head of a pack- so running away with him to start your own would've never worked out even if you wanted to. But right now, as you stare at the letter sent from Han, the man you're being admired (or more so demanded) by, you're sure anything would be better than the situation you're in right now.

It's why you pack your most necessary items right now, trying to keep the suspicion low on yourself, so no one was to tell the man that you're about to flee the scene.

Within the forest, you try to be quiet. As a female, you can't shift, so you completely have to rely on your senses to lead you where you need to go. The shed deep in the woods is your last effort to sit out Han's patience and hopefully make him loose interest in you, so that both your life and pack stays free and untied to his rather unstable emotions.

And for a while, it seems to work.

Days go by without a single letter, or any hint that he knows of your whereabouts. He surely must've given up on you to let it all rest like this, and for a moment, you believe that there might be a chance to travel back and find Jungkook even- at least attempt to find him, no matter if he's moved on as well or not.

But then you wake up coughing, eyes stinging immediately as you open them.

The shed is filled with smoke and glowing flames, everything in front of your makeshift bed already burning brightly. And one look outside shows the man you've been trying to run away from all along, holding the burning torch before he throws it to the ground, dead patch of grass catching the flames almost instantly as he turns and leaves you do die in the fire he'd set.

Just like he said; he will have you, one way or another. And if he can't , none ever will.

He'd threatened it before, and you know he's a man of his word. There's nothing he'd shy away from if it meant it would get him the prize he craves- in this case your life, your home, your pack. He's a hungry soul, never satisfied, always craving more than he has, even if he has it all.

He's the sin of gluttony reborn, it seems.

You've been running, trying to escape the fate you've known had always been set into stone for you- he'd told you so himself, that once your pack was his, he'd chain you to himself by the means of a bite, and there would be nothing you could do.

And you know what he meant with that.

The roof breaks and tumbles down, threatening to bury you beneath, when you hear the thundering footsteps on the ground somewhere, sounds of fighting heard outside of your walls that barely hold together at this point, and you pray that whoever tries to go against Han can at least escape with their life. Everything you want is for it to just be over- no one should fall into harms way for you.

And then it's quiet, save for the flicking flames around you, and wood giving up on the structure. Your eyes are closed as you hear someone approaching- probably to take you with him now, as you try and at least stand your ground, eyes opening to look at the man your heart simply doesn't want.

But the wolf that's standing in the wooden shed you'd been hiding in doesn't wear the sandy brown coat of Han. It's not his cherrywood eyes in which the flames reflect as if they're raging inside them that are staring at you. It's not his fangs that bite into the burning wood trying to save you from drowning in the heat that's trapping you inside this place, despite the danger he's facing himself, flames licking at his fur and skin.

No- his coat is darker than the burned walls of the shed, and those eyes that remind you of molten glass belong to one wolf only.

The one that said he'd change your fate.

You want to say his name, but all you can get out is coughing as you struggle to breathe, as he leans his head down for you to grab onto. You know it must hurt, it must hurt a lot- but you want to survive, because if he's here, that means there's hope, that means he at least fought off the man trying to kill you in sick twisted desire. It means there's a chance of a future for you.

Outside, he runs off into the woods for a good moment, leaving you to somewhat limp towards a stream of eater to drink and soothe your throat, when suddenly, a hand holds your hair out of your way.

You know it's Jungkook. His scent is everywhere.

"..why?" You ask, sitting in the soft grass as you turn around to find him watching you with a warm gaze.

He simply sits down next to you, holding your arm out before he gets some water into his hand, letting it cool the already angry red burns on your skin. "I told you " He simply shrugs, tending to your wounds. "I'll change your fate."

"He will come back.." you start, but he shakes his head, avoiding your eyes.

"He won't." He simply shakes his head, occupying himself by helping you. "Never again." He mumbles, and its only now that you notice the red stains on his neck, remnants of what you can't be sure is his blood-

Or someone else's.

"You-" you start, but he simply looks over to a lump of fur on the ground, close to the burning shed.

"Its not my first time taking a life." He confesses. "But I was hoping I wouldn't have to do it again." He explains.

"Then why?" You ask, and he slowly turns back towards you.

"Because you deserve a choice." He tells you. "And as long as he was to live, he wouldn't have given you one."

That much is true. He's right in that as long as Han would've been alive, he would've tried to get you under his claws, no matter the cost. But what hits you most about his answer is that he's not justifying his actions by claiming you- he doesn't give you the answer of 'I want you instead', no. He gives you a choice.

For the first time, someone is giving you the power to decide your own fate.

"And if I choose to stay with you?" You say, making his eyes widen a bit as he looks at you- before they soften.

"Then I'll gladly keep you at my side-" He nods, leaning in to place a kiss against your neck, right where your bonding mark would be, "-for as long as you want."

[eiirisworkshop]

A Fireside Chat

(A Hazbin Hotel ficlet) Rated: T Length: ~ 500 Summary: Aesthetically pleasing arson and talking to your bestie about your FWB—it's a pretty good day in Hell. Warning: Rape mention. Can be read on Ao3, along with its whole series!

Different things burned different colors.  Blue and green was copper.  Angel didn’t know why the shell of a building at the bottom of the hill had so much copper in it, but it sure was pretty.  He slurped at his iced coffee and watched it burn.

Cherri whooped excitedly, jumping up and down as some support or another succumbed to the flames and half the roof fell in. She plopped next to Angel in the scrubby red grass of the hillside, took a deep breath of smoky air, and let it out. “Ah, that’s the good stuff. Thanks.” She took her own coffee back from him and sipped it. “Anyway, yeah. Other than all that bullshit, pretty good week. How’s things with you?”

“Well,” he gave his cup a shake to dislodge the ice, “I’m getting raped by my boss.”

Cherri looked over at him sharply. 

He shrugged. “Nothin’ new, you know that,” he sighed. “Just something I can actually say out loud now.”

“Angie,” she said heartbreak-soft, putting an arm around him. He leaned his head against hers. She gave him a comforting squeeze. “I hoped that’d be better with you moved out.”

“It is, but better doesn’t mean fixed and I’m still under contract so….”

“Yeah.” She took his hand. “You know you can call me, doesn’t matter what time it is, if you need me I will burn the place down to get to you if I gotta.”

“I know.” He smiled appreciatively then shook his head, looking back to the blaze. “Honestly thought you might be who took me home last time, but there’s no sign in my phone I called you and no texts.”

She frowned. “I haven’t been your ride home anywhere for more than a month.”

He stirred his coffee with the straw. “Yeah, I dunno how I got home.”

“Because you were high, right?” 

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Angel mumbled.  “I remember being…with Val, and I remember walking up to the hotel—between there, I got nothin’.”  He picked at a thread on the edge of his jacket.  “Husk took care a me.”

Cherri smiled a little.  “Ol’ grump’s a good kitty, huh?”

“Yeah,” Angel grinned.  “Just don’t say the kitty part to his face.  But, Cherri, he purrs during sex sometimes and it is the cutest fucking thing.”

“Aw!” she laughed.  “So much for your not being into pussy.”

He snorted.  “Shouldn’t be a surprise; my best mate’s a cunt.”

She laughed harder and flopped back on the grass, hair fanned out under her head.  “You really like him, don’t ya?”

“Yeah,” Angel leaned back on one pair of elbows.  “He’s a good friend.”

She handed him her coffee so she could roll over onto her front, kicking her feet.  “Okay, but do you fancy him?”

Angel sighed, eyed the dregs of his coffee, drank some of hers, and grumbled, “Babe, I think I’m in fuckin’ love with him.”

“Oh.”  Cherri’s feet dropped to the ground.  “Are you gonna tell ‘im?”

He shook his head.  “Nah, that’s more of a mess than I wanna deal with.”

“Fair.”  She rested her chin on her hands.  “I’m glad you’ve got ‘im anyway.”

“Yeah, me too.”

[screams-in-writing]

I’ll be using this single post to live react to wotfi, and will update the post at random as thoughts come to mind, or just a reaction. I’ll keep it below a cut to be sure to keep the spoilers out of view.

Here we go I’m not prepared, nor is my wallet because you get your backside I’m gonna be dropping saved up money on merch for this wotfi.

Neighbor stop using power tools istg

Anyway.

Lmao

Yes backstory

Pls let some of it sink in to smg4 and Mario even if Mr puzzles is having delusions

Friendssss lmao

So it’s Mario and smg4 going through it nice

Omg smg4

MARIO

Why

Tari wow ok

Gotta say I’m loving Mario and smg4 going through it

*wheeze* arson

Smg3 messing with 4 yes checks out

Digging bobs look

Puzzles chill

Luigi how

You toucha the spaget

Grass

Sigh. Bob why

Mario is being smart kinda

Hi moon wut

Wonder if they’ll get through to Meggy

Puzzles what

Well that was easy

Wheeze

Wondering about the concern. Real or just losing a friend again

Lmao Omgggg puzzles why you use that

Gdi pls don’t kill mr puzzles

Oh boy

Puzzles chill

Is that that stuff again

Sigh

Pls don’t kill him

Wtf man chill geez

Song ahhhhh

Pls don’t make him pay with his life

Sonnnnnggggggg

Plssssss I’m begging you don’t kill him

Puzzles stop

Ughghhhh I’m not okay

Omg ahhhhhh

Yes yes yes yes yes

Meggy

Please please please

Puzzles

Come on ugh

Sigh

Please don’t turn him into a child.

Just reconcile

It’s cute pls don’t kill him

And don’t turn puzzles in a child x10

Keep the puzzle man as a tv

Pls save himmmmmmm don’t do this to him

Pls pls pls

Did you really ugh

Prison is okay I guess

He’s alive I suppose

Chill man you get a third chance

Soooo does that mean he can come back eventually? But after a good long rest

Also isolating him is a dumb idea just saying. It’ll let him stew in negative thoughts and feel justified about his actions. Like. He needs interaction with people or he’s just going nowhere

[voidoffline]

I was writing and a character hears the voices of these spirits called ‘concepts’ and I

The voices are just tumblr. The Concepts are Tumblr. (The voices in question below:)

*‘Eh whatever.’*

*‘Oh look!’*

*‘Ooo it’s happened!’*

*‘Yippee!’*

*‘Nice.’*

*‘Awww but I liked the forest.’*

*‘Yeah let’s go back.’*

*‘Forage privileges revoked.’*

*‘Forage??’*

*‘Wait I mean to say forest.’*

*‘Hahah prev can’t speak.’*

*‘Shush you fuck mouth you ass prev. Slash affectionate of course.’*

*‘Slash what?’*

*‘Sword slash to the chest, and your dead!’*

*‘It’s on fire not your dead.’*

*‘I love you prev.’*

*‘Sword slash to the chest, and your on fire.’*

*‘Yeah there we go.’*

*‘Sunlight! Sunlight! No more tree shadow!’*

*‘Poggers.’*

*‘Don’t ever say poggers again I will kill you.’*

*‘Poggers. Bitch.’*

*‘REEEEE.’*

*‘Freedom!!! No more forest!’*

*‘It’s still there prev.’*

*‘Not for long.’*

*‘Arson?’*

*‘Ooo yes yes Patrick go commit arson.’*

*‘Oh no not more fire.’*

*‘This grass is uncomfortable.’*

*‘You don’t even have a body prev.’*

*‘Shhh guys we’re giving the human a headache. It’s not nice to give friends headaches.’*

*‘Hey Patty boy, open your eyes.’*

*‘’Patty boy’???’*

*‘Eh I dunno just what came to mind.’*

[iamfruitie]

Of course I’d always love to see Danti with the watermelon idea!

“So what’s going on?” Wilford asked as he walked with Dark to the yard where the other Egos had gathered. 

“Not sure. Anti just said he saw something online that he wanted to try with everyone.” Dark answered with a sigh. 

“You’d think you’d be used to his antics by now.” Wilford teased. 

“I am. But I still worry about what it could be.” 

“I think-is that a pile of watermelons?” 

“What?” Dark followed Wilford’s line of sight and saw that there was, in fact, a pile of watermelons next to where Anti was. Anti was also sitting in the grass, wearing shorts and a black, tight-fitted tank top. “What?” He said again, this time when they were closer to Anti. 

“I saw this cool thing.” Anti took one of the watermelons and put it between his thighs. 

“I need you to clarify what you mean by cool thing. When you say that, it can vary from you showing me a rock to literal arson.” Dark said as Anti adjusted himself, pressing his palms to the ground and gripping the watermelon with his legs. 

“No rocks and no arson. I’m testing my strength, is all.” Anti stated, and Dark wasn’t sure if he believed him. But how much damage could he do with what he’s seeing?

“Alright.” Dark stepped back and stood with Wilford. 

“Give me the countdown, Maddy,” Anti said to Mad, who was in the crowd and standing between Mare and Phantom. 

“Oh! Um…three, two, one?” Mad wasn’t expecting to get called on, and his countdown was quick.

“Good enough.” Anti giggled before tensing his body, his clothing showing off all of his muscles as he squeezed the watermelon and easily cracked it in half, getting the juice of it all over his legs. “Hell yeah!” Anti let out a victorious laugh. Dark’s eyes went wide, and he felt a rush of pure lust go through him. 

“I have never wanted to be a watermelon before.” He blurted out without thinking and shook his head when he realized what he’d done due to Wilford laughing loud and hard enough that he started coughing. “I-I did not say that, understood?” 

“Whatever you say, Dark.” Wilford got out between his laughs. “Now, go get your boy before the others notice that you are totally not jealous of a fruit.” His eyes glanced down. That was enough of a hint for Dark to know what he meant. Dark quickly went over to Anti and pulled him up to his feet. 

“That was cool, ri-” Anti stopped his question when he could feel something hard poking his leg. “Oh~? Do we need to take a trip to the house~?” 

“Yes.” Was all Dark would say before they were gone in a puff of black smoke. 

[yandere-fics]

I have been reminded of the worst perfume idea I've ever come up with thanks to the spray bottles. It mostly involved collecting the sweat and musk of a person and turning it into a perfume brand. I mean, sure it'd PROBABLY work on a darling's Yan with their scent.

probably, speaking on perfume my mom's best friend was really into making perfume when they were in highschool and my mom would use these perfumes to commit arson(mostly just burning fields of grass though she also tried to burn down a tree once.) because they were insanely flammable.

[oc-aita]

[Author's note: This is written in my character's perspective, as if she were writing it to the official tumblr aita, and the only reason she would want to do that is for pity points and also maybe getting some of that annoying guilt to go away. Basically what I'm saying is some parts of this are half-truths or straight up lies. !!But dont let this author's note effect your vote!! I just wanted to mention that a lot of this is not what actually happened ;P]

tw: (technically implied) arson and also fire in general

Aita for burning down a school and almost getting a kid killed?

[pt: Aita for burning down a school and almost getting a kid killed?]

Ok I know that sounds bad!! But just listen! This is gonna be a long one since it's hard to explain So I (14f) really do not like this kid(13f), who is one of my classmates and I will call her G. I also have a friend group with R(14f), L(14f), and T(f). I guess we'd be the "popular girls," but tbf the school is pretty small anyway. See, the school we go to- or I should say went to- was erm well, cheap. Very cheap. Also mainly made out of wood (of course some parts were made with metal and other materials). So I mean it was bound to break eventually, right? Haha, anyway. So yeah I hate G, she thinks shes something she isnt (I will not expand on that). Also she's weirddd. Like really weird. Like, once I just saw her staring at the grass during recess watching bugs, that kind of weird. Oh! And she was mean to my friends and me! So we kinda wanted to get back at her for that. And one day ONE OF MY FRIENDS came up with the plan to freak her out by taking some lighters to school and after school ended we'd corner her and shove the lighters in her face. I thought that was a really mean plan, but I went along with it anyway because they were my friends. See, I didnt have anything to do with coming up with the plan! It's not my fault, I couldnt just not go along with it because they're my friends! And also their parents would be really mad at me if I didnt listen to them But anyway in the afternoon a couple hours before school ended, some random 3rd grader pushed me and my lighter fell out of my pocket and accidentally ignited! And I just happened to be standing near a bush, which was right next to the long wooden fence that encircled the school. So the bush caught on fire, and then the fence, and it quickly got out of control. I didnt mean for it to happen! At all! Totally! It's not my fault! If anything it's that stupid 3rd grader's for pushing me, or even G's fault for having the need for this plan in the first place Anyway the fire alarm went off and the staff started evacuating everyone, but in L's rush to get out of the building, she accidentally bumped into G, who fell near the fire. G then started screaming at us for "being so inconsiderate" (what a brat!). Then all 4 of us (me, L, R, and G (T was sick btw and couldnt come that day)) got trapped in a circle of fire near the lockers, because apparently someone had left a bunch of flammable things randomly. in a circle. G tried to bite me (ew) so obviously I pushed her back and I may have accidentally hit her too hard because there was a loud thunk as she slammed against the lockers but its not my fault she tried to bite me!! (Also she was claiming it was self defense but like ??) L, R, and I helped each other get out of the circle before the fire got too big and ran away before we could find out what happened to G Several hours later and the whole school is burned down (we're in the process of finding a new school) and also found out some other weirdo from a different classroom helped G escape

Anyway, am i the asshole for being forced to follow my friend's plan to try to scare a kid and then accidentally setting the whole school on fire and almost killing that kid? (I didnt mean to!!!!🥺)

[edensungilda]

New story on wattpad | Your Demise

Hey guys! Just published two chapters on a story I'm working on. I'm still practicing and writing on "FIREWEAVER" and will finish that first before I continue on "Your Demise" just wanted to get feedback on how the first two chapters are before I continue working on it. Would mean a lot if you take a look because I hope to self publish <3

-Description-

Lunaris Sernet, an outlaw who narrowly escapes her execution, finds herself entangled in the arms of one of the very rangers who could have her killed. Arson Chaucer, a ranger who risks it all for a girl he barely knows, chases phantoms and memories as he tries to unravel a decade old plot. Can the two learn to trust each other in this country filled with serpents and thieves, or will they be the others demise? Isarapho is a country in the fantastical world of Irevia, filled with brimming biomes of deserts and timber forests, a mountain with century old secrets, and a political conflict that threatens to explode into an all out war. For Lunaris Sernet, all she cares about is surviving the wildfire and hiding within the ashes. She's tired of running. And she'll do everything she can to leave the Wild West of Isarapho, even if it means leaving her heart behind. **SLOW UPDATES**

-PREVIEW-

Well this put being six feet under into a whole new perspective.

I lay in a coffin, staring blankly up at the wooden surface that kept my small space separate from the outside world. It was surreal, but my dreams had a funny way of tricking me like that.

I couldn't feel anything. Or maybe that's just what being dead feels like. I wasn't sure. Oddly, I was okay with either outcome. So long as I got out of this place one way or another.

I pressed my palms against the veil that kept my surroundings hidden, sliding the cover off with a bit of effort on my part.

Sunlight met my eyes and I winced, fluttering my lashes before adjusting to the light.

My breath caught in my throat. I was in front of my little cabin, surrounded by a beautiful field of poppies and tall stalks of grass.

Just as I was about to step out I felt myself pulled through the world, the poppies becoming smaller and smaller as the dream slipped through my fingers. I crashed into what felt like cold water, before my eyes flashed open, my lips inhaling a mixture of air and liquid.

I sputtered, coughing as a man clad in armor stood above my form, holding the bucket that had assaulted me.

I caught my breath after a moment and looked up at him with a vice. Not only had he interrupted what very well may be my last dream, but he was late.

'I thought an execution was supposed to be on time?'

I was ushered from the floor to stand in my humid hot cell, my hands quickly restrained behind my back. Heavy, muffled breathing of the guard who awakened me seemed to be the only noise that filled the silence.

I fidgeted, twitched, and tapped my foot in every known possible way to show my impatience. Yes, here I was, impatient for my own demise. All I did for five sennights was await this day, and now even my executioners seemed to take delight in drawing out my suspense.

The guard finished binding my hands, leading me out of the cell and into a dimly lit hallway. My eyes adjusted to the drastic change between my shrouded cell room to the oil lamps illuminating dark shadows against the walls.

I was guided to walk to the left- or more so poked and shoved forward as the chains around my wrists bit painfully into my skin. The clinking echoed down the hall as we walked, my legs aching with a numb sort of pain, like the kind of tingling when one sat too long in one spot, or like pin needles stabbing over and over.

My hands ached and I tried to readjust my wrists, earning myself a sharp jab between my shoulder blades. I stumbled ahead, gritting my teeth and regaining my balance.

I walked past a puddle on the floor, water dripping from a crack in the ceiling. I licked my chapped lips. I wonder if they would be so merciful to allow me a last drink and meal before my execution?

I seemed to walk down an infinite passage, counting the graving on the wall, each lamp and wooden beam to try and retain some sort of time frame to how long I was walking for.

Finally, I faced another wall as a corner came into view. I felt the guard's metallic grip tighten around my arm, moving me around into the passageway and facing a stair case.

The stone looked blankly back at me, stark grey and making my throat tighten as I looked up at its height. I hesitated. I hadn't walked in ages, my bare feet already sore from traversing the tile. It looked intimidating, and I wondered how many steps I'd survive before falling to my death. Maybe this was their way of killing ne.

I wasn't allowed much time to swallow my nerves though, the guard yanking me forward and beginning to climb the extensive flight of steps.

I could feel sparks fluttering to my fingertips as my heart rushed to my ears. It was finally sinking in, the uneasiness of knowing your fate lied just at the top. That in a quick short succession of being condemned and imprisoned, your life was just a fleeting moment away from being cut short.

And my crime, I wondered? I wasn't sure anymore. I had been running before most could even walk. Now it seemed I had finally found myself at the end of those tracks, unable to escape as I looked at the edge of a very high cliff, the world closing in and threatening to shove me off.

I counted the several balusters that emulated the timber trees up north, the framing etched with carvings surprisingly fancy for a staircase leading out of a dungeon. That explained why the rest of the place was in shambles.

As I finally reached the top, I let out a sigh of relief to finally see sunlight. The hallway's left wall was covered with tall glass pane windows, suffusing my surroundings with warm yellow. I didn't bother to familiarize myself with the rest, I didn't want to have my prison be the last thing I remembered.

Instead I found myself thinking of the fields the sun must be basking right now, filled with poppies and tall stalks of grass that tilted in the wind like rolling waves.

I wondered if they'd spare me the favor of burying me there. It was a silly dream, why would they ever do that for an outlaw such as I? And how were they planning to kill me anyway? I speculated it must be something of equal punishment for an individual like me.

For thieves, their hands were cut off before being hung. For murderers, they usually were sent to the guillotine. Blasphemers had their tongue cut out and burned at the stake.

Liars and betrayers, hung by their legs upside down, waterboarded til they asphyxiated.

But for my crime, oh the council would not be so merciful. They were very meticulous, treating every execution like artistry. Everything had to symbolize something. Had to be a punishment equal to the crime, balancing the weights lady Justice held.

I snapped out of my thoughts as we entered a large courtyard. Sand filled it with an open view of the sky above, the only coverings overhanging on either wall with marble pillars etched with the same illustrations of timber trees, except this time including the imagery of huge birds, their talons claiming the shoulders of their victims and lifting them into the sky.

I looked to the middle of the clearing, a wooden platform with a rosetted trim. Two armored sentinels awaited me. A tall wooden pole stood in the middle of the platform, rope woven into a noose meeting my eyes.

A dull way to die. Quick and easy. Not a gaudy execution or showy display. I see why the council had chosen it. They were trying to tell me that my life was too insignificant for the effort. Which also played in part the lack of audience.

I closed my eyes, willing myself to move.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

[thatjellywalker]

The fakemon project thingy I've been putting together is so funny because it's 6 years old at this point

This means it's older than when I figured out I'm trans, which for some reason means a lot of early character designs compared to the ones I'm making now are so so basic lmao

Not only that but it actually affected how I was gonna do production. See, I was going to make 18 gym leaders, and younger me was going to make half of them male and half of them female. There are way more genders than that though, so I'm probably scrapping that whole idea and I'm just gonna do whatever the fuck I want with those 18

Though, some characters have actually survived from my younger years and I guess I'll post a few of them while I'm at it (under the cut!)

CHIRST THIS OLD ART 😭 (it's the only image I could find!) but yeah, Aquaitha was her name but I'm probably changing that. Water gym leader, sailor's daughter, she sails on her spare time and by spare time I mean sometimes she'll disappear for weeks at sea. It's said her and her father together have gone to all of the known regions in the world!

Did I name her? Surely I named her right? I don't remember. Anyway, grass gym leader, a lot like Erika but what if she was punk. She likes to grow and nurture all sorts of grass type Pokémon but her favourite are the ones that are dangerous or unconventional!

Pyriellie! She's my personal favourite, fire gym leader, and was a vigilante that had a tendency to commit arson towards organizations and people that have wronged her or she feels are wronging Pokémon. She's also a pyromaniac though so sometimes she just does arson because she's stressed. The league forced her to work as a gym leader because "if her prison is like paradise then why would she ever run away?"

Mercedes! The poison type gym leader, good friends with basically everybody in the league. She can be a little intimidating but she's not nearly as dangerous as she lets on. Also works part time in the region's sanitation because she genuinely loves the job

[gigijenga]

possible enneagram combinations for the NTs (satire)(offensive)(Pdb be like)

INTJ:

1-INTJs can't be ones cause Si-less (Si=1)

2-INTJs can't be 2s because everyone knows INTJs don't feel emotions 🤓🤓

3-nooooo Ni doms can't be 3s they cannot possibly properly socialize with other homo sapiens

4-Too much Te (4s can only be IxFPs)(4s love to cry and INTJs are incapable of tears)

5-only Sp5 and So5 (being a Sx type indicates that the type has bitches and every INTJ is an incel who lives in their mom's basement)

6-sure why not (not Sp6 because it is too soft and weak and INTJs are emo badasses)

7-Not possible because INTJs hate parties

8-Se-less 💀 (Se=8 according to my uncle)

9-INTJs are not doormats therefore no (an INTJ online started yelling at me because I threatened to call the fbi to accuse them of having an iq below 300)

INTP:

1-not possible, INTPs have no productivity (somehow 1=procrastination-less) (in my experience INTPs never make their bed after they wake up)

2-No Fe 💀 therefore no 2 (INTPs don't know how to bake cookies and all 2s love sugar cookies)

3-INTPs have no ambition or social skills (lack of Te 💀) therefore they are un-3 (INTPs don't even have the ambition to get up from bed)

4-nooo 4 is Fi not Ti 😡😡

5-Only Sp5 (INTPs cannot be social types since social types can properly communicate with human beings and Sx5s have bitches)

6-INTPs are too 200 iq and all 6s are npc henchmen of 8w7

7-INTPs are too 🤓

8-INTPs are too 🤓

9-They overthink too much therefore they not 9 (9s are head empty and the only words they say are: I'm tired and I'm fine either way)

ENTJ:

1-yes cuz ENTJ yell (no Sp1)

2-no cuz ENTJ yell

3-ENTJ intensifies (no Sx3 because female energy 🤢🤮🤢)

4-nooooo ENTJs are Fi-less (ENTJs only have emotions because their zeal is powered by the tears of 4s)

5-nooooo ENTJs have no Ti and Te is too dumb and Ti is 500 iq and 5s cannot be stupid

6-ENTJs don’t focus on danger, they focus on ta grindset 😎💪

7-ENTJs are too sane to be 7s

8-ummm actually Te doms can't be 8s only Se doms can be 8s cause Te doms are just E1 and E3 karens trying to be cool 🤓🤓🤓

9-ENTJs are NOT submissive and breedable hence it is impossible for them to be 9s

ENTP:

1-no Si therefore not 1 (ENTPs hate it when the government threatens them for doing whatever the fuck they want)

2-all ENTPs are chaos demons therefore they can't be 2s (2s are too kind and innocent to commit several acts of first degree murder)

3-only So3 (ENTP is too lazy for Sp3 and too mean to be Sx3)

4-no Fi no 4 💀

5-ENTPs are E types and all 5s are hermits (being an E type indicates that the type touches grass dayly and that is 100% contradictory to 5s)

6-ENTPs never worry (from my mother's friend's cousin's brother's personal experience with his ENTP friend)

7-only Sp7 7w8 (7w6, So7 and Sx7s are too angelic. ENTPs love arson)

8-no Se no chadness 💀

9-all ENTPs are peace-breakers (one broke into my house and asked for Vbucks) therefore they are not 9s

[squishmallow36]

You're My Aurora Borealis

@purplesoup-lad-le You were my Secret Santa! I tried to add as much Dizznee and Fedex as I possibly could in this thing. I don't think there was much more that could've been added. This fic takes place within the Keeper of the Lost Prepositions Universe, but it isn't necessary and the spoilers are very very light if you haven't finished it.

And @song-tam you suffered through my ramblings because I couldn't talk about my ideas with everybody!

Word Count: 5.4k

Tw: food, light swearing, Alden mentions, the end is probably really cheesy

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @theseasonismerrybutimnot @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @ahyesitsshmeegus @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @xanadaus @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @cherryys-stuff @arson-anarchy-death

On Ao3 or below the cut!

    Fitz shivers. 

    It might be the cold, it might be the gnawing pit of dread in his stomach, or it might be Dex’s hand clasped around his own. 

    A gust of wind rushes past, chilling Fitz’s already frozen fingers clasped around too many tubs of plastic containers filled with mallowmelt and other sugary goods. 

    Yeah, it’s probably the weather. 

   Rimeshire is pretty much always freezing--a byproduct of the latitude of the Gloaming Valley--despite Elvin thermoregulators. There’s even several centimeters of snow on the ground, filthy from the months the majority of it has spent there. 

    The last time the grass could be seen, Fitz was still speaking to his father. 

    His eyes flicker to the horizon, just beginning to turn orangish with a sunset, small stratus clouds reflecting the warm tones, making him want to sit here on the porch and watch it. 

    Instead, his stomach growls, making the fear he’s trying to ignore that much more apparent. And studying the fine silver details around Rimshire’s door is quickly becoming insufficient. 

    Fitz feels a soft squeeze on his hand, dragging him back to reality. And by reality he means Dex’s dimples. 

    That’s certainly one way to simultaneously calm him down and cause his chest to tighten at the same time. 

    “Hey,” Dex whispers, barely audible beneath the blood rushing through Fitz’s ears. 

    “Don’t give me that look,” Fitz snaps. 

    “I’m not giving you a look.” Dex closes xor eyes and faces the opposite direction just to prove his point. 

    Fitz rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

    “Just--just think of it like a normal family dinner. You’ve suffered through several of those before.”

    Fitz forces himself to exhale. “Dex, I know you mean well, but don’t. You know as well as I do that trying to reason either of us off the edge doesn’t work.” 

    “That’s just because I’m good at arguing against you when I don’t want to do something.” 

    “Well, I graduated with Honors from the Keefe Hesledge University of Being a Tosser.”

    “You say that but then you don’t seem to use your degree.”

    Fitz absent-mindedly rolls his ankle. “That’s because I don’t enjoy using it, not because I failed most of my classes.”

    “You know, every time you bring this up I tell you to remind me to see the curriculum the next time we see Keefe, and yet that hasn’t happened yet. I need to see how it let you out.”

    Fitz stops. “...Are you trying to make me mad to distract me from the fact that I am currently standing outside my boyfriend’s house with a copious amount of stress-baked, questionably edible things?”

    Dex blushes. “Yes,” xe lies. At least he’s consistent. 

    “And how well did that plan work out for you?”

    “It was going pretty well, then someone had to figure out my master plan. That was very inconsiderate of you.”  

    Fitz takes a breath. “I apologize in advance for messing up your Gloamhenge. Whatever I inevitably do, I’m sorry.” 

    Fitz watches Dex as xe processes this, trying to find the best way to tell him to shut up without leaving himself open for counterarguments. “You’re gonna have to bring your A game, Fitzy. I have a feeling the Triplets will make it their personal mission to screw everything up the fastest.”

    Fitz decides to give him that. “Yeah, that sounds on brand.”

    “Okay. So we’re good? We’re fine? We’re mildly okayish enough to continue functioning for one evening?”

    Fitz has to hold back a smile. It’s the exact thing they’ve said to each other too many times to be healthy but now it’s lost most of its actual meaning because of semantic satiation--oh, Exile, is he actually learning things from Dex? This is terrifying. 

    “I’m not sure I’d go that far, but sure. It can’t go much worse than a certain dinner with someone.” 

    Dex looks just a little murderous at the reference to Alden. “Is it really necessary to bring that up every single time?”

    “Yes, because it was glorious and you should regret not being there.”

    “Oh, trust me, honey, it would’ve had the same outcome, just way faster.” Dex smiles. 

    Fitz’s heart still flutters a bit, even after however many months it’s been. “And there’s scary!Dex. Lovely. I always love being mildly afraid of you.” 

    “That’s exactly what I’m here for.”

    Fitz fakes a gasp. “Preposition.”

    “Oh, great. Don’t mind me as I pull a Henry David Thoreau.”

    Hey, I told xem about that. I do exist somewhere in his brain. I didn’t expect that. 

    Thoreau basically got angry at society--honestly, mood--so he went and lived in a cabin in the woods for like two years and wrote an infuriatingly dense book. And now he’s like human famous or something because of it. 

    “No, don’t do that! Don’t leave me alone with these people!” Fitz jokes. 

    Dex laughs, knocking on the door. 

    Juline opens it much too quickly to honestly believe she wasn’t eavesdropping, but at least it wasn’t Bex. And if that’s the bar, you know you’re in for a wild ride. 

    Oh, who am I kidding? These are the Dizznees. We knew that coming into this. 

    “Aw, Fitz, you didn’t have to bring anything. Come in, come in.” Juline exclaims, stealing his baked goods from him, probably never to be seen again. It won’t be the first time the Triplets have chewed their way through a plastic container. 

    Wait, no. That was the squirrels getting into the Everglen garbage can. 

    “I tried to stop him, trust me,” Dex says, deadpan. “Also trust me when I say he would be living in a cave on the coast of Lumenaria Island if he didn’t bake.” 

    “I am not as bad as Keefe,” Fitz argues, voice cracking embarrassingly, stripping him of any credibility he could’ve had. 

    “Aren’t you living at Candleshade in an attempt to avoid your father?” 

    “We do not acknowledge that wanker as being biologically related to me unless it’s for comedic purposes,” Fitz snaps.

    Before Dex can come up with a coherent response, the Triplets have seemingly sensed Fitz’s presence as they swarm him, nearly knocking him over. 

    His knee wails in protest at the attack of his ankles and--ow!

    “Did one of you just bite me?”

    The only response is unintelligible screaming. But wait--is Bex laughing harder than before? That little--.

    “I’m here to eat dinner, not to be dinner!”

    Dex turns away to hide the fact that xe’s laughing, but it doesn’t work when his shoulders shake that much, and Juline even has a hard smile. 

    “Speaking of dinner, it’s almost ready, so make yourself comfortable until then. I will be making sure Kesler hasn’t, in my absence, blown up the kitchen.” 

    “Hey, it’s been two whole weeks since then!” Kesler yells from the kitchen over the sound of the vent hood. 

    Juline turns and walks towards the kitchen, yelling, “You haven’t had many opportunities in those two weeks. I don’t trust you!” 

    Fitz smiles. “Hey, that kind of sounds like you after you found out about my relationship--or, more accurately, lack thereof--with recipes.” 

    Dex begins explaining, talking more with his hands than actually talking, “Baking is a chemical reaction, so that means it’s alchemy you can eat, and while you really shouldn’t eat anything in the lab because it all tastes bad anyway--don’t worry, I checked--it’s still a science and that means it needs exactness! Not just, oh, a little baking soda here and, yeah, a little flour there! No! You need order! And structure! Not this absolute madness!”

    “Don’t hurt yourself, love.” 

    The Triplets laugh. 

    “I’ll hurt myself if I want to hurt myself. You can’t tell me what to do,” pouts Dex.

    “You’re not smacking yourself in the eye again, Dex.”

    “That wasn’t my fault. You got me started on the types of Supernovae.” 

    “That was for my Universe final. What else was I supposed to do?”

    “I don’t know--Bex, why are you looking at me like that?”

    She only responds with indecipherable giggling, burying her face in Fitz’s jerkin instead of confronting reality. 

    “Exile, you’re insufferable,” Dex complains. 

    “That’s what I’m here for, Dear Brother,” replies a voice that’d probably be Bex if she wasn’t hiding. 

    Dex and Fitz lock eyes, simultaneously mouthing ‘preposition’ and collapsing into a fit of silent giggles. 

    “Can you maybe not sound like Biana?” Fitz asks the tumor that’s now permanently attached to his leg. 

    “No,” comes her muffled response. 

    “Is your stubbornness by chance genetic?” Fitz asks Dex.

    “Not to my knowledge. What on Earth would make you think that?” Dex asks, trying and failing to hold back a smile. 

    That adorable smile. How the Exile am I supposed to function with those dimples? It’s not fair. 

    Fitz shakes his head, shuffling over to the couch. It takes the same amount to get comfortable as for Juline to call, “Dinner’s ready!” causing a Triplet stampede as they rush to their seats. 

    There’s a lot of yelling, and several alleged thrown elbows. One would think they would have assigned seats by now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. 

    “Don’t you, I don’t know, want to go reserve your seat?” Fitz asks, still trying to get off the couch. It’s like a black hole. Except it’s dark blue. 

    “I think I threatened them sufficiently this afternoon. It should be fine,” Dex replies.

    I don’t want to know what that means. 

    Fitz’s knee groans as he stands, finding two seats actually next to each other for once. Dex’s threats might have actually worked. That’s scarier than it should be.

    He plops himself down in the right seat so he doesn’t get elbowed by Dex and his left-handedness. 

    Looking around the table, Fitz sees a combination of normal foods and, for lack of a better word, Dizznee foods. 

    The glasses of Lushberry juice are standard enough, as are the mashed carnissa root and umber leaves. 

    But then there’s a solid, opaque pink dish that jiggles when it’s moved and tastes sweet, like fraiseberries, and doesn’t seem to belong on a dinner table. It seems more like a dessert, but then Fitz remembers his baked goods he brought. 

    Yeah, Juline was probably planning on that. 

    The Triplets inhale it like there’s no tomorrow, using butter knives as weapons to keep the others away from it. 

    Then there’s a casserole dish with grated breadfruit, covered in a creamy, stringy, delicious yellow substance that got slightly crunchy on the edges. 

    “Cloudberry?” Juline offers, holding out a bowl of golden-yellow berries. 

    Fitz takes one, ripping off a single drupelet and popping it into his mouth. It bursts with a light pressure, exploding sweet and sour flavours across his taste buds. 

    He’s going to be kidnapping that bowl later. Might eat the glass itself. 

    Fitz glances over to Dex to find xem watching him and smiling. For someone who isn’t a telepath, xe’s very good at knowing what he’s thinking. Annoyingly good. 

    Bex leans over her mountain of food, butter knife grasped in her hand. “So, Fitzy…”

    “Congratulations, I am already afraid.”

    “Is Biana by any chance of mercy single?”

    This is the third time you’ve asked this week. Do you think I wouldn’t keep you updated?

    “Before I answer that, you have to be aware of the fact that Bi doesn’t tell me anything. So, to my knowledge, yes. But my knowledge is pretty much zero.”

    Bex swears, stabbing her knife into the container of butter. “Any update on Amy?”

    “If there was, I would have held a whole press conference the millisecond I heard anything at all,” Dex answers tiredly. 

    “Nanosecond,” Bex corrects. 

    “Planck time,” counters Dex. 

    Bex considers that. “No physics allowed in this house.” 

    “Then have fun as all your atoms explode because the strong force isn’t holding your atomic nuclei together anymore.”

    “I will.” Bex crosses her arms, but only long enough to realise that prevents her from shoveling food in at light speed. 

    “No talk of exploding anyone at the dinner table!” Juline reprimands. “Not after last year!”

    Fitz leans over to Dex, whispering, “What happened last year?”

    “Just put that on the list of things I say I’ll explain and then never end up doing.”

    Fitz nods. “Gotcha.” 

    The room is oddly silent for a moment--the longest possible length of time in the Dizznee household it seems--before Kesler asks, “So, Fitz, are you ready for the Gloamhenge quiz tonight?”

    “There’s a quiz? Oh, what am I saying? Of course there’s a quiz. Where else would Dex get it from? Oh, great, preposition. But my point still stands.” 

    “At best, it sits,” Dex mumbles, and Fitz glares at xem. 

    Kesler laughs. “Relax, I’m just messing with you.”

    “...I should make that a thing next year though.” Fitz holds his head in his hands as Dex writes that down. 

    “Do you see what you’ve done? You’ve given him ideas. There’s nothing more dangerous,” Fitz grumbles. 

    “No, Dex. You would make all the questions incredibly specific and then you would cackle the entire time we were struggling to answer them,” Kesler predicts very accurately. 

    “No, I wouldn’t,” Dex argues. Some might even say whines. 

    “Yes, you would,” Rex states. “You’ve given me like ten programming pop quizzes and that’s exactly what you do.”

    Dex puts xor hands on xor hips. “Fine then. How about you make me a quiz. Show me how it’s done.”

    Fitz places a hand on Dex’s, gently tugging it away, quietly promising, “I’ll make you a quiz. I know you have a very unhealthy relationship with Kahoot and I will very much enable it to the best of my abilities.”

    “Thank you,” Dex says softly, smiling just enough to show a single dimple and laces their fingers together. 

    Fitz melts into a puddle of Fitz-goo. This is incredibly unfair and it should not be allowed. 

    “Hey, Dex! Did you tell him about the cinnamon competition?” One of the Triplets--probably Lex because they’re the one that hasn’t caused a catastrophe yet today--asks. 

    “I told you, I’m not adding that to the official Google Doc of festivities. It was a one time thing, and I’d like to keep it that way. Let it live in our memories in its true glory. Don’t spoil it with a sequel. You know those are never as good as the original.”

    “Except for Shrek,” Lex inconveniently points out. 

    “Shrek is an outlier and should not have been counted.” Dex looks at Fitz. “And, no. You don’t get to hear about it. I don’t want to think about it ever again.”

    “What’s so bad?” Lex asks. “I thought sugar and spice makes everything nice.”

    “So does crack though,” Rex chimes in, and Fitz gets the feeling that isn’t the first time that exact exchange of phrase has occurred. 

    “That’s why we host the cinnamon competition. Double the nice. Duh.”

    “Oh. That makes a lot of sense now.” Rex’s attention turns back to the mashed carnissa root on his plate. 

    “And that is why we have a lock on the spice cabinet.”

    “Come on, do you really think a little metal’s going to stop us?” Bex asks. 

    “No. You’d chew through the wood first,” Dex replies like xe’s thought about it at length. Which he probably has. 

    Lex argues, “I’d at least try to pick it.”

    Fitz expects Dex to pull out the good old Yoda quote, but instead xe says, “It’s not a Masterlock. It has to be at least marginally better than absolutely useless.”

    “I can handle it. I’m cool like that.” The moment Lex says that is also the moment that they take a sip of Lushberry juice and cough on it. 

    “Remind me to add that to the very long list of reasons why I’m never getting them a lockpicking kit,” Dex says, taking a bite of an umber leaf. 

    “Does that mean you’ve neglected to get me one for the,” Lex counts on their fingers, “twenty-seventh Gloamhenge in a row?”

    Dex nods as Fitz asks, “Wait, how do those maths work?”

    “Okay, first of all, getting things for other people isn’t even a part of the Gloamhenge tradition. You just want things so you try to add it every time. But, to answer your question, Fitz, there are two a year, one on the spring equinox, and one on the fall equinox. Am I really that bad of a teacher or were you not listening yesterday?”

     “...the latter,” Fitz admits begrudgingly. 

    It’s not my fault, it’s your dimples. I am a very weak man. 

    Dex sighs. “What am I going to do with you?” 

    “Tell me to take notes.” Fitz suggests. “Maybe I’ll be too busy doodling in the margins or maybe I’ll actually listen.” 

    “Or I could threaten a quiz at the end.”

    “Why are we back to this? I’m already under constant threat of pop quiz at any time you’re bored enough to make a Kahoot. Which is at all times!”

    “At least you’re aware of the danger. Not all are so lucky.”

    “You mean Sophie, don’t you?” Fitz guesses. 

    “Mmhmm, yes, exactly, correct, very good. One point of extra credit to be redeemed during the next pop quiz you inevitably fail.”

    “That’s not terrifying at all.” Fitz turns to Dex’s parents. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with him for so long.”

    Kesler is laughing, enjoying this almost as much as Bex is, which is saying something. 

    Juline, on the other hand, says, “Xe gets it from his father,” looking pointedly at Kesler. He stops laughing abruptly with a painful sound. 

    “I’m full,” Lex complains, leaning back in their chair. 

    At the same time, Dex and Kesler say, “Hi full, I’m Dad.” They look at each other for a moment before collapsing into a fit of giggles. 

    Juline takes that as an opportunity to start cleaning up the carnage that used to be dinner. And there weren’t any major injuries, so this was a wild success. 

    Fitz tries to stand to help, but gets pushed back down into his seat by Juline. 

    What the--how dare you not let me help? I want to be helpful. Let me be helpful. Anger. 

    Dex manages to pull him away back onto the couch with a disproportionate amount of groaning.

    They sit next to each other with the minimum amount of space between them to avoid Triplet teasing. 

    An alarm goes off, and Fitz checks behind the pillow he’s currently crushing to see if he caused it, but no. It was Dex. 

    “It’s 9:52, officially Nautical twilight. Got until 11:18 until astronomical twilight when we might be able to see something. Even with the new moon and forecast for tonight.”

    “What are you going on about with all these different twilights?” Bex asks from somewhere Fitz can’t see. “We collectively decided to block those.”

    “You’re thinking of the book and movie series with Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Why do I know that? Scientific twilight definitions are civil twilight, which is still bright and immediately after sunset, nautical twilight, which is the pretty one with a dark sky and a bright orange ring near the horizon, and astronomical twilight, which is only slightly brighter than night,” Dex explains. 

    “Of course you know those. Was it on a Universe exam or does it just live in your brain for no good reason?”

    Dex smiles. “Take a wild guess.”

    Fitz sighs. “Why do I even ask anymore?”

    “I really don’t know, you should know better by now,” answers a mysterious voice Fitz is about seventy percent sure belongs to Lex.

    “Rude!” Fitz calls to the empty air. He doesn’t know where the Triplets have gone, and he’s not over excited to find out. 

    Juline comes back from the kitchen after loading all the dishes into the dishwasher, one of the few gadgets in the house that wasn’t built by Dex, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. 

    “How’s the sun’s activity doing? I know last fall wasn't a great show.” 

    “It’s doing its thing, exploding all over the place. As it does. Throwing particles everywhere. Looking pretty good.”

    What? It’s literally nighttime. Why do we need to monitor the sun?

    “Fitz, would you like an explanation?” Dex asks softly. 

    “Well, considering that you enjoy explaining things to me like I’m a five year old--which I am, more often than not-- so I’ll go with yes.”

    “You better take notes this time. I’m not going through my presentation again for at least six months. I will find other lecture topics if you need a condescending explanation before then.”

    Fitz pulls out the notes app on his Imparter without having to ask for a tutorial, a major accomplishment. 

    Dex begins, “Okay, so. Around the equinoxes, one of which is today if you weren’t aware, the Northern Lights are really bright. Do we know what those are?”

    “Are you going to go into extreme levels of detail regardless of my actual answer?” Fitz guesses. 

    “You betcha. How’d you know? Basically, the sun is a mass of incandescent gas that is just, like, constantly throwing a fit. Sometimes that fit is directed at the Earth--it’s actually really similar to pulsars and neutron stars now that I think about it--anyway, because the ionized particles are, well, ionized, they’re deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere at the poles. Sometimes the sun throws a really big tantrum called a Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME, and then the humans have to deal with things like the Carrington Event.”

    “Hang on a second, I can only type so fast. I’m not good at typing like you.”

    “I’m not good at typing, just pretending that I am.” Dex pauses, waiting for Fitz’s thumbs to stop moving. “The Carrington Event is the name for this really strong CME like a hundred and fiftyish years ago and it messed up pretty much all much tech that existed at the time. There wasn’t much, but telegram lines weren’t pleased. And auroras were seen all the way to the Equator. That’s when you’re going to want to draw a giant arrow from aurora to the definition.”

    Fitz nods. 

    “In the northern hemisphere, it’s called the Aurora Borealis and in the southern hemisphere, it’s called the Aurora Australis because Latin is like that.”

    “Hang on, let me write that down. Spelling is difficult.”

    Especially when the keyboard switches to Latin letters like Human English uses instead of Elvin Runes in the middle of a sentence. But it’s not like I can ask for help. I’ll figure it out later. 

    “They translate to ‘north dawn’ and ‘south dawn’ but that’s not really important.”

    “And yet you still felt the need to tell me.”

    “What else did you expect from me, eh? Anyway, like I said, auroras tend to be most visible near the Equinoxes. You’d think they’d like the winter solstice, but I digress.”

    “Maybe the sun particles don’t like travelling the extra distance because the Earth goes like this,” Fitz holds his arm up at an angle that is most certainly not the angle of the Earth’s axial tilt, but it’s a good enough approximation.

    Dex points to xemself. “I don’t know, I’m not an astrophysicist.”

    “Why not? You should get to work on that.”

    “Go get your doctorate in Elvin History, and then we can talk…Are you literally writing that down?”

    “Yeah. Otherwise I’m going to forget.”

    Dex sighs, mooshing into Fitz’s shoulder. “From the Universe, you have a vague memory of the ecliptic, right? The imaginary line in the sky where the sun and moon and planets and human astrology constellations all fall?” 

    “I would have said no, but you just defined it for me, so it all worked out.”

    “On the Equinoxes, the ecliptic is perfectly East-West because it weeble-wobbles with the seasons. That fact is very helpful if one wants to make a calendar but one doesn’t have access to the internets. So you put up some giant rocks in a circle marking where the sun is and when it lines up again six months later, you know it’s an equinox and you can plan for the upcoming winter if you live in a temperate climate.”

    “I thought time was relative.”

    “Leave Einstein out of this conversation. We don’t talk about him.”

    “...okay.”

    “Did you just write down 'stop with the Einstein erasure’?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I--I don’t even know how to react to that. Moving on--”

    Fitz laughs. 

    “--If that circle rock thing I just described sounds familiar, that’s because there’s a big old monument in England that humans don’t entirely understand called Stonehenge and it’s like that. My bet is that it was an elf messing with them, but that’s just my opinion.”

      “Yeah that tracks.”

    “Your spelling is atrocious. Also, why are you in the Latin alphabet? I specifically disabled it. How did you manage to get it back?”

    Fitz shrugs, and Dex chooses to finish xor lecture before fixing the technology for whatever reason. 

    So close yet so far. I should figure out how to fix it myself…which is more likely to result in breaking the whole thing, but I’ll just buy a new one if I get desperate. 

    “Okay, we’re in the home stretch.” Dex promises, but Fitz doesn’t trust him that much. “The human city of Chicago--have you ever been there? Super mega tall building with a name nobody can agree upon, green river both literally and the carbonated beverage, says gym shoes instead of sneakers or whatever, putting ketchup on hotdogs is a punishable offence?”

    “If you think I could tell the difference between the human cities I visited, you’d be mistaken. Maybe pictures could feel vaguely familiar, but there were so many.”

    “Well, Chicago is on a grid system and a consequence of that is that on the equinoxes,  the sun can line up with the tall buildings and it’s called Chicagohenge and it’s supposed to be really pretty. Don’t ask me why I know that. If I knew, I would tell you. It just lives in my brain like that.”

    “Just like so many other things.” Fitz smiles softly, his boyfriend’s seemingly endless well of random knowledge always a source of happiness even when he’s tired. 

    It is decidedly past Fitz’s bedtime, and it’s still another who-knows-how-long before he’ll get to go to bed. Is this what he gets for being a morning person?

    “I know. I have a problem. You’re aware of this fact. I’ve given you many opportunities to run away. It’s not my fault you haven’t taken advantage of any of them.” 

    Fitz puts an arm around Dex, squeezing xem closer. “Stop trying to get rid of me. It hasn’t worked yet and I am progressively getting more stubborn every time you try.”

    “Oh, wow, I did not know that was even possible. Any more Gloamhenge questions before I go into a food coma or are we good?”

    Fitz yawns. “So you eat food then go watch the Northern Lights?”

    “Yeah.”

    “You could have just said that and I would have been fine.”

    “Fitz, how long have you known me? Have I ever explained anything in two sentences or less?”

    “Well, you have told me ‘just go google it, dumbass’ before. Which should still count as one sentence.” 

    “Yeah, that’s fair,” Dex concedes. 

    With that, Dex snuggles deeper into Fitz’s shoulder and Fitz opens up a crossword puzzle to keep xem entertained. 

    Three puzzles and about an hour later, Dex’s alarm goes off once again. 

    “Astronomical twilight! Time to migrate outside!”

    By ‘migrate outside,’ Dex means ‘take folding chairs into the cold outdoors and sit in them for hours on end until something interesting happens in the sky.’ 

    Even with temperature regulation and a blanket graciously donated by Juline, it’s kind of torturous. 

    “And now we wait,” Dex says, breath condensing in the freezing air and fogging up Fitz’s glasses. 

    “Now, one would think that if one was a telepath who lives in a very northern latitude, one would have invented seat warmers,” Fitz mumbles. 

    Dex instead scoots his chair closer to Fitz, lying xor head on his shoulder and twining their fingers together. “This close enough to a space heater for you?”

    Fitz smiles. “Yes, thank you. I am weak and pathetic in cold temperatures.”

    Dex’s brow furrows. “Then how did you go visit Fintan in his ice prison?”

    “Don’t try to logic your way out of this--”

    Dex laughs, a sound that never ceases to make Fitz’s heart flutter. 

    I am also weak and pathetic in the presence of Dex. This is unfair and I do not appreciate it. 

    “Do you have a gadget that’s going to tell me when the sky’s going to do the thing or am I just going to lose my toes?”

    “No, that’s why we all have to sit out here.”

    “You don’t have, like, a sunroom that would work?”

    “No, that’s why we all have to sit out here,” Dex repeats, more slowly this time.

    Fitz sighs, the giant cloud of water vapor obstructing his vision for a good five seconds. “I thought this was just for tradition reasons. Why must I suffer?”

    “That too. But I am lazy and I don’t want to wake you up at three in the morning to tell you there’s going to be a two second aurora.”

    Before Fitz can respond, he gets hit in the back of the head with the regrettably familiar coldness of a snowball.

    “Alright. Which one of you do I need to Exile?”

    Fitx glances back just long enough to find Bex pointing at Lex while Lex and Rex are pointing to Bex. As many disadvantages as there are to there being three of them, at least they’re all very willing to rat out the culprit at the slightest notice. 

    “Oh, come on, Rex, they’re a froster!” Bex complains. 

    Lex just gestures to the snow-covered ground to prove their point, and it’s a very valid point. 

    Fitz rolls his eyes, turning back to Dex. “I’m surprised you still have snow on the ground. Everglen only gets a little sprinkling once a year, if that, and it more often than not doesn’t even stick.”

    “Exile, that sounds nice. Most of the year, it’s actually too cold to snow but October hits that perfect sweet spot of complete nightmare. It’s like living in a snowglobe. At least March is drier so spring Gloamhenge doesn’t tend to snow. But the stuff on the ground,” Dex kicks a plume of it into the air, “is still leftover from snow season. We like to joke that we have two seasons: construction and snow.” 

    “Everglen has two similar seasons: construction and mosquito. Although those more often than not overlap.”

    Fitz yawns, letting his head rest on Dex’s. 

    “Wake me up if anything interesting happens.”

    “Promise you won’t bite me?” Dex asks. 

    “It’s not my fault I was arguing about something I don’t even remember in my sleep and you had to test whether or not I would bite your hand off and, not to mention, that was one time.”

    Sound really does travel farther in cold air, because Fitz can hear Kesler and Juline laughing from the spot where they decided to set up camp. 

    “Fine. I won’t bite you. I’m going to bed now.”

    “Did you know that sleeping makes you more susceptible to hypothermia?”

    “Well, I’ve got a personal space heater on my arm, so I should be fine.”

    Fitz doesn’t wait for Dex to reply before he lets his tired eyes close as he drifts off to sleep. 

    It’s some sort of magic how whenever he passes out--intentionally or accidentally--at Rimeshire, he doesn’t dream. Other than that one time. But that was an outlier so that doesn’t get to count. 

    A jostling on his shoulder brings an unwilling, groaning Fitz back to reality. 

    What century is it? 

    “Look up,” Dex whispers. 

    It takes a solid three seconds to process what that means, and when Fitz tilts his head up, he’s greeted by beautiful ribbons of greenish light dancing against the night sky. 

    It’s so much greener than he thought it would be. The sky isn’t usually green because of something, something, Rayleigh scattering. 

    A tickle of lavender occasionally flicks through, mostly on the edges. 

    It’s absolutely stunning. 

    Maybe not worth losing his toes, but stunning nonetheless. 

    Fitz’s lips pull into an involuntary smile. 

    This is exactly what a family should be. A group of people freezing to death while the Triplets are screaming in the background--how do they have so much energy?--together not just because it’s tradition but because they genuinely adore one another.  

    The green fades from the sky, and Fitz’s exhaustion returns. His brain probably just realised he’s awake in the middle of the night, and that’s not allowed. 

    “Okay, that was pretty. I’m going back to bed now.”

    Dex laughs, dimples showing. 

    And all Fitz’s sleep-added brain can think is, xe’s more stunning than the aurora.