#i took up sewing masks

[happy74827]

One Call Away

[Wade Wilson x Female!Reader]

Synopsis: During one of his "jobs," Deadpool gets a call from his favorite gal [GIF Creds: jdsheart]

WC: 1970

Category: Fluff, Major Comedy {TW: Deadpool’s Humor/Nonfiltered Personality}

This man is so hard to write. I’m always stressing the noggin when it comes to planning and plotting 😔

『••✎••』

"And away we go..."

One neck crack and a couple of hip twists later, he was off like Aladdin and his fucktoy carpet, scaling the building similarly to a chameleon on LSD.

The only thing that was missing was some epic music.

He'd been chasing this baddie around the city for almost two days now. Some big-shot mob boss with ties to Hydra, or the Mafia, or the Yakuza, or some other three-letter-acronym organization. It was hard to keep track of them all at this point. They were all the same, except for the name.

They all had their own agenda.

Kill him, keep him prisoner, pay him off...

Wade never cared enough to listen because it was always the same. He just got hired to do the dirty work, and the pay was good.

The killing was better.

This one, however, was particularly good at eluding him. He'd been trying to get his hands on this man for a few days now. It wasn't as though he was trying to be stealthy or anything, either. He'd walked right up to his front door, knocked, and was greeted with a spray of machine gun bullets.

So, the usual.

But then the guy ran and didn't stop. It was like the fucking Roadrunner met Sonic the Hedgehog, and they decided to fuck around and find out.

Wade was getting real sick and tired of being a Roadrunner, too. He had a reputation to uphold. He wasn't known as the Merc with the Mouth for nothing. He was supposed to be the one doing the running and the killing.

Not the other way around.

Finally, finally, he managed to reach the roof where the guy was currently taking cover behind a small brick shack. The sun was rising, but it was still dark, and there were a couple of floodlights shining on the rooftop. It made him think of the night he'd had that heart-to-heart with Blind Al, even though all she really wanted was for him to bring her some of that special brownie mix.

What a night that had been.

But anyway, this monologue is starting to get too long, and we should probably move things along, eh?

Right.

So, the baddie.

His name was something long and non-English.

Salvatore, or Santino, or Salvation... Whatever the fuck it was, it didn't really matter. What mattered was that it was time to make him dead.

He stepped around the corner and was met with a spray of bullets, all of which lodged themselves into his Kevlar vest.

"Oh, come on!" he yelled over the sound of the gunfire. "This is real leather, you know. I'm tired of all the offscreen sewing and shit."

When the spray finally ended, he took a moment to catch his breath.

"…ow," he whispered to himself.

"You shouldn't have followed me here," the man said.

"Yeah, whatever," Deadpool replied. "Look, I'll make this easy for you. You drop down and give me fifty, and I'll let you keep that hideous mustache you're sporting."

The man's eyes widened in surprise.

"It's not that bad, is it?"

"Yes, yes it is," Deadpool assured him. "You got a squirrel living in it or something?"

"It's just a little bit of gray, you dick," the man argued. "What about you? What's with the mask? Are you hiding a mustache under there, too, or something? Maybe some acne scars?"

Deadpool shook his head and stepped forward, his guns drawn.

"Don't come any closer!"

"You know, this would be much more intimidating if you didn't look like a cartoon mouse."

"Stop it with the mustache!"

"Alright, alright," Deadpool said. "Enough with the mustache. But what is it about your hairline? I can't put my finger on it."

The man sighed in exasperation and pulled out his pistol, aiming it right at Deadpool's face.

"Hey now, don't point that at me," Deadpool scolded him. "That's not a very nice thing to do."

He ignored him and pulled the trigger, a loud boom ringing out as the bullet fired. It whizzed by him but missed its mark.

"You really are a dick," He grumbled before aiming his gun right between the man's eyes. And he was going to shoot, honest.

He really was.

But then his phone rang, and he was well-reminded of the current song playing through his head.

I'm a buff baby that can dance like a man. I can shake-ah my fanny, I can shake-ah my can!

Needless to say, he was distracted.

He lowered his gun and looked down at his pocket, where his phone was still ringing and still vibrating against his leg.

"Shit, hold that thought," He said to the guy, and he holstered his gun.

"Wh-what the hell are you doing?!"

Deadpool put his finger up to shush him before pulling his phone out of his pocket to answer it.

If you're an evil witch, I’ll punch you for fu—

"Heyyyy," he said in a sing-songy voice, "you've reached the phone sex hotline. For kinks and fetishes, press one. For booty calls, press two. For your favorite mercenary, press three."

"Ey, pendejo—" His opponent started, but he cut him off by snapping and raising his finger.

"Cut it, Tuco Salamanca. Breaking Bad called and wants its meth-cooking mustache back."

"Wha-I-you-"

"Anyways, this is your favorite merc speaking. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

"Is this a bad time?"

Wade's eyes widened in shock, and his jaw dropped open when he heard her voice on the other end of the line.

"Baby girl! Is that you? Oh, how I've missed your voice. It's like hearing an angel, or an angelic chorus, or a whole bunch of angels, but you're the most important one. Like, the lead singer or something."

"I literally saw you last night." Your voice was always drenched with the most amazing kind of sarcasm, and he'd missed it.

"And?"

"It's only been a few hours."

"And?"

"That's a short amount of time."

"And?"

You sighed, but he knew you weren't really annoyed.

"Anyways, you sounded busy," you continued, "so I'll just let you go."

"What?! No! Don't hang up!" He shouted into the receiver. "I've only fiddled with my pistols! Nothing interesting is happening right now!"

"Your pistols, huh?" You asked a hint of mischief in your voice.

"Well, yeah. They're the most important part of the mission, you know."

In the corner of his eye, he could see his target making his way towards the edge of the building. Quickly and efficiently, without dropping his attention from his conversation with you, he lifted his gun and fired a shot at the man's knee.

"Ah, fuck!" the man screamed in pain. "My knee!"

"Hey! Language!" Deadpool scolded him. "The lady of the house is listening!"

"Lady of the- what the fuck?!"

"I said language, you mustachioed rat!"

"Mustachioed rat?" You asked.

"Sorry, babe," he replied. "You know how excited I get when Downtown Abbey is on."

“There’s gunshots in Downtown Abbey?"

"Gunshots? Oh, no, no. That was… uh, a car alarm. Yeah, the neighbor's car alarm was going off."

"Uh-huh," you said, not sounding very convinced. And, of course, that was right around the time the guy's gun went off again, this time hitting him square in the shoulder. It made the phone fall out of his hand and clatter onto the ground, but the call was still connected.

"Dammit!" He yelled, looking at the fresh blood dripping down his arm. "That's gonna take forever to heal!"

"Who are you talking to?" The man demanded, his gun still aimed at Deadpool's face. "You're working with someone?"

"Hey, now, I don't remember giving you permission to talk," Deadpool told him, holding his bloody arm up to his face. "Look, I've gotta call you back, babe. I know it's been so heartbreakingly long—"

"Again, only a few hours," you said.

"—but duty calls. Love you, bye."

"Love you, bye."

With that, the line disconnected.

"Ugh," he groaned, his heart aching for the loss of your sweet voice. "I miss her already."

"Ey," his opponent growled, drawing his attention. He started speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, which Deadpool didn't really understand, but he didn't have to. The guy was just ranting and raving.

"Alright, alright, chill," Deadpool said. "Just calm down. It’ll all be over soon, little buddy."

"I am not little! I am a giant!" The guy protested, and Wade could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. "And I will not chill!"

"Well, can't argue with that, I guess," Deadpool said with a shrug, and he took aim. But before he could pull the trigger, the guy was running again.

"Hey, what did I tell you about running?!" He yelled, but his voice fell on deaf ears as the guy reached the ledge.

"I am a giant!"

"No, you're a giant asshat!"

"I will not be bested by some masked buffoon!"

"Buff? Me? Why, I never!"

"You're the biggest asshole I've ever met!"

"You know what? I am a big ass! A big, round, bubbly ass." He paused for a second. "Hey, what's your favorite flavor?"

"Fuck you, you red-clad imbecile!"

"You know, I'd ask you out to dinner first, but we're kinda past that now."

"Argh!"

"Alright, enough stalling," Deadpool said. "It's time to end this."

"Yes," the guy said, turning his gun back on Deadpool. "It is."

Of course, Deadpool being the smart-ass he was, he'd already taken a step to the side. As the bullet whizzed past him, he reached for his gun.

"Now, where did I put that thing? Oh, there it is."

He aimed the gun and fired, and the man fell back onto the ground. The bullet hit him right in the middle of his forehead, his blood splattering all over the concrete.

"Ha ha! Fatality. Deadpool wins!" He said, his voice taking on the deep, grounded tone of the narrator from Mortal Kombat. "Flawless Victory."

He stood over the body for a few seconds, reveling in his victory, before he felt the presence of another.

The gun on his right side got ripped from its holster, and the barrel was aimed back into his face, as it always seems to be.

But, he already sensed it was coming, so his fingers wrapped around his other and aimed that right in the golden spot… and let’s just say, The Golden Girls was a little less golden and a lot more crimson.

"Wow, this has got to be a record," He said as he bent down to stare at the new one’s anguish. "Two dead ugly mustaches in the same day. You can call me Sweeney Todd because shit… I just shaved you the fuck up."

He didn’t give the poor bastard a chance to even whimper before he fired another two shots into the man's head. All in all, this had been the easiest payday he'd had in a while.

He picked up his cell phone and slipped it back into its pocket before bending down and scooping up the mustache man's pistol.

"Ooh, lookie here, a nice, shiny new pistol," he said to himself. "Just what I've always wanted. Well, I don't actually need it. It's not like I have any other holes in my body, but you know what they say. The more the merrier."

He stuffed the gun in his holster and turned around, heading back the way he'd come.

"Time to get back to the good stuff," he said. "I have a date with my favorite girl."

He hopped up onto the ledge and looked down, his eyes locking on the window to his apartment.

And when he arrived, bloody and battered, you could only smile while holding up little ole Mary Puppins in all her drooling glory.

God, how he missed his girls.

[dragons-and-handcuffs]

Aegon Targaryen x Niece!wife

A/N: After watching the new trailer I just wanted to write a little something for Aegon

"Where is my wife?" Aegon asked, as he looked around the chamber. The hint of fear and heartbreak was masked by his anger. The maids and guards stood in the corner with fear in their eyes. "I am going to ask one more time, WHERE IS MY WIFE?" Aegon yelled, commanding an answer. 

"Your majesty...she...the Queen heard about the death of her brother Lucerys," One of the maids finally replied. "She...immediately left for Dragonstone with her dragon."

Aegon froze for a second, not able to process what he just heard. How can she leave? How can she leave after she assured him last night that she will always love him no matter what? How can she leave when she is carrying his child? This is why he didn't want to tell her about the death of her brother, at least not till he figured out how to break the news as gently as possible. 

Suddenly the crown on Aegon's head felt heavy, and it only got heavier and heavier by the second. His wife left him. His wife, his niece whom he has loved ever since he knew what love is, left him. She left with his child, the proof of their love inside her. 

Soon the anger creeped up again. Aegon looked at the guards and the maids who were assigned to his wife. "You...all of you failed to protect your queen," He said through his gritted teeth. "Throw them all in the cells," He commanded his guards, no mercy in his voice.

They all begged and cried but it was of no use. None of them deserve any freedom or the right to live after they failed to protect the queen. Failed to protect her from the heartbreaking news. 

Aegon looked around the room as he took off his crown and dropped it on the floor. Suddenly the entire place started to feel cold. The flowers he gave his wife in the morning are still by the bedside. The baby clothes his wife was sewing for their unborn child were left half done on the bed. His wife's favorite necklace was on the vanity. Everything was there where it's supposed to be, but his wife was not. She is gone. 

"It's okay. She is just a little upset," Aegon said to himself, his words coming out in between his heavy shaky breathing. He couldn't help as tears rolled down his face. "She loves me.  She will come back," He was trying to convince himself. "I will make sure she comes back to me.”

[bi-writes]

bestfriend!roommate!simon leaves on an assignment, but he needs your help first. (18+)

more bff!roommate!simon (part 9/?)

cw: mature language and content, suggestive language and content, simon has thicc thighs, lap sitting, fem+m!receiving touching, thigh riding because i cant resist, soft!dom!simon, praise kink, size kink (reader described to be moved/handled easily by him), the mask doesn't come off, simon is a cocky bastard, a lotta angst

"simon, if you keep moving, i won't be able to finish, quit squirming."

"sorry, luv--afraid you'll prick me with that bloody thing."

you stuck your tongue out at him for a moment before setting back against his thighs. you sat so nicely there, your ass perched on the thick muscle as you worked. you had your tongue between your teeth as you concentrated.

your fingers held a thick needle, weaving it through the fabric of simon's balaclava and the plastic skull plate. he had ruined another piece; he had come home after his last deployment with the skull plate in pieces. he did not explain what had happened to it; you only tried to ignore the streaks of red along the face of it when you watched him throw it away.

you saw him sitting on the couch, trying to sew it together, but his big fingers made it a little difficult; you sweetly asked if you could help. a big plus--you got to sit in simon's lap and bask in the heat of him.

you adjusted, moving around until you were straddling his wide hips. you had to spread your own to accommodate his size, sitting up high to be able to reach the top of his head, weaving the thread through to tie the plastic to the fabric.

"bloody tits are in m'face, luv."

"yeah? never heard a man complain about that before," you laughed lowly. he grunted in response, a gloved hand wrapping around your waist to hold you steady. "what? you don't like 'em?"

he clicked his tongue, shaking his head, and you laughed again, continuing to sew the plastic to the fabric.

"you're gonna look so scary," you smiled wide. "you like looking scary on the field?"

"keeps the little ones at bay."

"everyone's little to you, simon."

"aye."

you snorted, settling in his lap as you were almost finished sewing the mask. you tied off the thick thread when you were finished, using some scissors to cut the excess fabric. you met his eyes as you sat there, and you smiled at him; maybe he did look intimidating, but all you could think about was how those pretty eyes sparkled last night when he came into your hand and how much you were going to miss that look when he was gone.

"the paint, simon?"

he held up a small jar in one hand, and you took a brush from the coffee table and began to draw lines down the face of the mask. you passed over his dark eyes, winking at him playfully before doing the same line on the other half of the mask. you put the brush down, dipping the tip of your manicured finger in it and then starting to draw the lines down where the mouth of his face would be.

you could feel his warm breath against your finger, and you cupped his cheek with your other hand, holding him firm as you drew along the mask.

"i'm going to miss you, simon," you whispered, swallowing hard. you avoided his eyes, focusing on drawing along the cloth. you let out a shaky breath. "i-i mean...i always miss you, but now you're gonna be gone and...whenever you go, you go for a long time, and--"

simon squeezed your waist gently, quieting you. your bottom lip trembled a little, and you looked down, away from him.

"i-i'm sorry. i don't mean to get upset. it's stupid."

stupid. there was nothing stupid about being vulnerable. nothing stupid about baring yourself, being naked to someone in more ways than just the physical. the sex was easy together; it was everything else that simon fought with. feeling. being. loving. the mundane of that love, like coming home.

and coming home was not easy.

"'s not stupid, luv. i know i leave y'here. i know," he shook his head. "i don't do it on purpose, y'know that."

you nodded, "yes, yeah...i know. it's your job. and you're good at your job, and you made a commitment to your team, and they rely on you like you rely on them--i-i know the reasons." you smiled sadly. "i know. i just miss you...that's all."

there was an itch in the back of your head, a hoarseness lodged in your throat--sometimes you wanted to just keep talking, because forbid this be the last time i say it to you.

he hummed lowly, sliding his hands down low and cupping both sides of your ass, bringing you close. you wipe your hands off of the paint, sighing deeply, relaxing as simon leaned back against the couch and held you near. your hands circled around his neck, hugging him back as you breathed in each other--your scent, the sounds of your breath, the feel of each other's warmth.

you cleared your throat, smoothing your hands down simon's cheeks.

"let me get you geared up, yeah?"

you didn't wait for simon to answer. you picked yourself up off his lap, going to where he had his things laid out. you picked up his tactical vest, holsters, his skull-painted gloves, and you brought them back to the couch. simon sat up as you draped the vest over his head, fitting it over his shoulders. you untucked the hood of his jacket from under the vest, making sure it sat right before fastening the straps and making sure it was secure. you tugged on the straps just to make sure, your eyes skimming over the British flag on his chest and the prominent letters spelling SAS.

you busied yourself with switching out his gloves now, replacing the plain black ones with the painted-skull bone gloves. you didn't react to the calloused fingertips or the jagged scars along his hands. simon was so beautiful--every part of him was.

"i'm really proud of you, simon," you said softly. he hummed lowly but said nothing. you kissed his cheek gently, trying to meet his eyes and smile at him. "have i ever told you that?" simon shook his head, his eyes raising to stare intensely right into yours. you bit your lip. "well, i am. proud. you've come so far. they would be proud, too."

you didn't have to specify who they were. simon didn't flinch, but his eyes flickered.

you reached for one of the thigh holsters, sitting back and motioning for him to stand. when he did, you tried not to think about how much simon towered over you like this. he was taller than you, so much broader, taking up so much of your space. you reached up and started to fasten the holsters around his thigh, your fingers skimming the taut muscle there as you buckle it around him. you didn't comment on the fact that you nearly had to loosen the strap all the way just to fit around the thick of him.

you reached for the other holster, fastening it around his other thigh and looking up at him after you had finished. fuck, he looked good like this. he looked so much bigger--the width of him was greater, with you seated, you had to bend your neck back far, and having his back to the window cast low shadows over his face, darkening his gaze and giving him an eerie backlight. but you would never be afraid of simon--even all dressed up.

your lips part gently when his gloved hand cups just under your chin. you mewled lowly, looking up at him with those big eyes and a soft voice. simon knelt down suddenly, widening his thighs to cage you in on the couch and keeping a gentle hold of your chin.

"'m gonna be back before you know it, luv. sittin' right there--" he tilted his head to the spot to your left, "--y'know that, right?"

you broke out into a soft smile, bouncing a little as you nodded your head. simon clenched his jaw under the mask--fuck, you were so cute, so fucking sweet. there was nothing more comforting than knowing you were waiting for him when he came back--that you would be sitting here just like this, with this little smile on your face, your eyes so wide and pretty.

"i know," you whispered. you leaned over, smoothing your hands over the front of his vest before absentmindedly playing with the straps of it. "i know, simon. still going to miss you."

you don't meet his eyes. it was hard; simon was an important part of your life. any time you lived in his absence, it was lonely. now that you lived together, it felt that much lonelier--there was a room cold and unoccupied, an empty seat at the table, a spot on the couch without him in it. his voice soothed no nightmares and his warmth took away none of your shivering. you never told him that when you called; you only spoke of the meal you had cooked that you told him he would like and the annoying step at the entrance that the landlord still hadn't come to mend.

"c'mere."

simon smoothed his gloved hand down your chin, wrapping his fingers delicately around your throat. with a firm grip, he guided you into his lap as he sat back against the couch again, your body easily settling between his thighs again. your face relaxed, cheek smushed against his shoulder as you pressed your lips to the fabric over his neck. you sighed deeply, legs resting on either side of one of his thighs.

your head tilted back, your eyes peeking up to look at him. he moved his own head to the side, and beneath the skull, you could see those pretty dark eyes--beautiful, undeniable need in them. simon was terrible at hiding what he felt behind his eyes--they were warm, and his pupils were dilated, and you wondered if he saw the same pretty things in you that you saw in him.

your eyes fluttered when you felt one hand slide down the length of your spine. a warm, gentle hand, smoothing along the back of your shirt before cupping one side of your ass. you whined, a soft little sound escaping as you jumped slightly. your legs squeezed around his thigh, and you let out a gasp at the gentle grind. you reached up and cupped one side of his face at the first trace of pleasure, your lips pressing to the other side of it as he encouraged you to do it again.

you did. following his guiding hand, you dragged your hips up again, a strangled moan leaving you as you grind against his thigh. but it wasn't enough--as you moved, you whimpered against simon's face, letting out hot breaths of frustration. your jeans were too much of a barrier, not allowing for enough stimulation, and you felt pathetic when you heard simon's low chuckle.

"awww, sweetheart...look at ya..." he reached up with one paw of a hand and tangled a gloved hand into your hair, tugging on it firmly. he grunted as he watched your mouth fall open, slack jawed, drooling a little as you squeezed your thighs around his own. "look at tha'face. fuckin' beautiful, innit? that face you make when you want your cunny all nice and wet...when you want it pet..."

you cried out at that, nuzzling your face into his mask, kissing at the fabric and licking over the strong line of his jaw and hoping to god that he would have mercy on his pretty little roommate. that he would have mercy on her pretty face, on his name tumbling out of her mouth, on the way she grinded on his thigh like a lovesick bunny in heat.

"sound pathetic, luv..." he gripped the back of your neck, holding you at a distance now. he gripped the front of your jeans roughly, undoing the button and pulling the zipper down. "now be a good puppy and take 'em off."

you shimmied out of your jeans, slipping them down your legs and kicking out of them. you were about to slip your panties off, pretty pink lace that hugged your ass so cute, but simon stopped you, forcing you back down to straddle his thigh.

"i like these," he murmured. "want them on."

you smiled, putting both hands on his vest. you gripped it tight, as tight as you could handle kevlar and bulletproof material, and then you nuzzled your face into mouth of his mask and began to ride his thigh. you were shaking. the straps of his holster were catching on your clit, and your hands were growing clammy as you tried to hold onto him for stability. you wanted to be good. you wanted to show simon how good you could be, how if he just unzipped his cargo pants and dropped them low enough, you could ride his cock so good, he'd see the fucking stars.

you hitched yourself higher on his leg, your thighs squeezing around the meat of his thigh, and he grunted lowly when your knee met his crotch. as you bounced, you rubbed up against him, and you squeaked when his gloved hand gripped your hair roughly, forcing your lips against the front of his mask. your mouth dropped open into a silent scream, a choked moan leaving you, and you kept going. you needed to show him, he needed to know--he needed to know that you wanted him, that you wanted this.

you let one hand drop, fall from his vest, and he growled out a string of angry curses when that soft hand gripped his cock through his pants. it was rough, a little aggressive, and you met his eyes easily.

"i want it--i-i want it--!" you cried. "i w-want more--"

he chuckled, and you felt tears prickling the edges of your big eyes as he laughed. your heart ached because you knew he was laughing at you. you sounded broken. you sounded lost. you sounded pathetic, but you couldn't care, you just couldn't bring yourself to. you needed more with simon.

you were tired of the in-between. you were sick of what if, when, the maybes that surrounded the unspoken thing between you. every grind of your hips, every drop of your slick that dampened his pants, all of it was just something in you screaming what are we?

he called your name, and you wanted to care about what he thought, but you needed him to know. you slipped your arms around his neck, moving until you straddled his hips, pressing your cunt right over the hardness stuck in his zipper and continuing your desperate pace.

you were going to make him understand this feeling inside. the gnawing in your chest--the thing that wanted to be outside so bad, it would claw its way out, it would force its fingers through your throat until simon could see that this wasn't a mistake.

this wasn't forgotten moments that lingered after dark. this wasn't the inevitable of a man and a woman who lived together. this was the catalyst of a bond too strong. two things, unable to be taken apart, to be reduced to separate things. there was not a simon riley without you, and there was no you without simon riley, and if he couldn't understand that, you didn't think you would survive the homecoming.

so you were going to fuck simon riley until he understood the knot was tight, and it would never unravel.

"kitty, wait--"

but he couldn't stop you. you swallowed his words, moaning desperately against the mask, your hips chasing the warm buzz that was creeping up your chest and down your thighs, your toes clenching as you notched the tip of his cock right up against your clit and fucked yourself harder against the smooth fabric of his pants.

"kitty--fuckin' christ--"

you sobbed, squeezing the back of his neck as you soaked his pants. your hips stuttered, small little circles that you made as you tried to ride out the trickle of warmth that was covering you like a comforting, pleasurable wave. your body relaxed, and you sucked on his jaw through the mask, tasting the musk and cigarette smoke that lingered there.

"simon--p-please--"

he grunted, pressing on the back of your head to tuck your face into his neck. you sniffled, moody and emotional from coming so hard, and you shook your head.

"y'r not ready for it. not time yet."

"i am," you sounded like such a baby. a cock-drunk pretty little roommate that needed something so desperately, she was so scared of what she might do to have it. to have him. "i am, please--"

"luv--"

"it's not fair," you gasped, pulling back from him. you stared up at him, and he hummed lowly, reaching up to wipe the tears that gathered under your eyes. "it's not fair, why--why can't i--?"

he tsked, clicking his tongue as he got to his feet, and your eyes lowered as he cursed under his breath, adjusting his pants, and you felt a sliver of victory as you realize that you made simon cum in his pants like a teenager.

"i w-won't wait forever."

the air in the room changed immediately. it came out of your mouth faster than you could stop it, and you tensed against the couch as his head turned, snapping to look at you.

"wot? wot did y'just say?"

"nothing."

"look at me."

you grit your teeth as he leaned down and knocked you under the chin, forcing your head to tilt back.

"wot did you just say?"

"nothing," you repeated, firmer this time. his eyes narrowed, two black, dull eyes staring down at you. his gaze was intense, and it was meant to scare you, but simon could never scare you. deep down, you knew he would never hurt you, at least not physically.

emotionally, simon had your heart in his hands, and those hands were not made to nurture. they were made to make pretty roommates cum and to pull dirty triggers. but nowhere in that did it say they were made to love you. nowhere did it specify he would keep it safe. you had given it up, before you had even realized, and he was playing you like his favorite instrument.

but simon didn't know how to play music. and there was a part of you that knew nothing about this was in tune.

when he goes, he doesn't say goodbye. and when you cried, it echoed in an empty room.

you would not wait forever. i will not wait forever.

he will not wait forever.

[hunterwritings]

𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 | 𝐁𝐈-𝐇𝐀𝐍

summary: bi-han comes home wounded, trying his best to keep it from you warnings: mention of blood/laceration, stitching notes: i can only think of writing for bi-han rn 😭

You knew that Bi-han was hot-headed, ironically. You knew that he liked to fight and even though he would most likely win, he would still have battle scars.

It was something you expected, but never looked forward to. Bi-han has a problem being vulnerable and asking for help, so whenever he would get injured in battle he would do his best to hide it from you. Sometimes he'd get away with it and you'd eventually find out after the fact, but sometimes he's a bad liar.

It was the middle of the night when Bi-han stumbled into the temple, his brothers at his side. "Please brother, let us-" Tomas began before Bi-han shut him down. "I can deal with my own wounds." He beckons as he pushes them off and begins walking to your bedroom, holding a hand at his side. "He will be fine Tomas, the pain of us helping him would cause more damage than the wound itself." Kuai Liang reassures his younger brother as they turn and return to their own rooms to rest.

A small groan falls from Bi-han's lips as he rips the mask off his face, his teeth grinding together. He swiftly opened the door of your shared bedroom, trying his best to not wake you. As he quietly shuts the door, he turns back to see you sleeping peacefully on your side of the bed. A sigh of relief fell from his mouth at the sight of you, just knowing you were safe was enough to put him at ease.

His eyes darted to the bathroom, thinking that he could make his way there and clean up, while being quiet enough to not wake you. Bi-han would be lying if he said it wasn't difficult with the large wound at his side, but he would rather die than admit that. He took a breath before slowly beginning to walk towards the bathroom, a small wince caught in his teeth as his hand shot to his side.

As if you had super sonic hearing, you tossed in bed and turned your body to face him as your eyes slowly begin to open. Once you saw the shadowy figure in the dark, you quickly sat up. As you realized it was Bi-han, your heart began to relax for a moment. "I didn't think you were going to be so late." You whisper, still half asleep. "We ran into some trouble, it was a quick fight." He bluntly tells you, relieved you weren't able to see his wounded body in the dark. His relief is quickly gone when you reach over and turn on the soft light next to your bed. Your eyes instinctively shut as you held a hand over your eyes and try your best to focus on Bi-han. When your eyes adjust as best they could, you finally noticed the dark red on his blue uniform.

"What happened!?" You ask, now awake and pushing the covers off of your body.

Bi-han just groans before quickly walking into the bathroom. He tries to shut the door on you, but you quickly make your way into the bathroom.

"Are you okay?" You ask with your eyes glued on his wound. "I am fine." He hissed, keeping his gaze away from you. "Clearly not." You said, a bit of anger setting in.

You pushed him back and made him sit down on the edge of the tub. You turned to grab a small bit of bandages and stitching kits from under your counter. You crouched down next to him as he exhaled deeply. His hands reached down and tried to take the needles from you but you pulled your hands away from him.

"Stop." You began to open up the sewing kit. "I can dress my own wounds, go back to sleep." He tries to demand. You look up and give him a sour look before gripping his shirt. "Take it off." You demanded as you pulled up on the upper part of his uniform.

He reluctantly abides, knowing that you are too stubborn to let him do this on his own. Now with his skin exposed, you could see the wound in full. It was a large cut from his upper ribcage down to the side of his lower abdomen. "Bi-han." You breathe out as you touch the skin around the wound, feeling dried blood around it.

"You act as if I am fragile." He snarls, still looking away from you. "I know you are not fragile which is why this is a bit much, but I knw you will be fine." You nod before pouring a bit of alcohol on a rag before dressing his wound. The alcohol on the wound causes Bi-han to wince loudly as he tightly grabs hold of your leg as you stood next to him.

"Do not treat me like a child." He shakes his head, his eyes tightly pressed together. "I am not treating you like a child, I'm treating you like my husband. It is my job to worry about you, to want to help you." You explain, feeling his grip on your leg soften as he finally turns to look at you. "I know you do not want my help even when you need it, but I am always here to provide it. Because I wish for you to be safe and not in pain, just as I hope you'd like that for me." You hold his face in your hands as he looks up at you, his cold demeanor completely faded as soft eyes stare at yours.

"I would freeze the world over to keep you safe."

A soft smile goes across your lips before pressing a sweet kiss to his lips, pulling away and pressing your forehead to his.

Although you interpreted his saying as a metaphor, he meant every single word.

[cheesycatz]

The Making of: Life-Size Malworm Plush

(Wormton AU)

STATS

16 ft 3 in (495 cm) long

Total time: 150 hours

Material Cost: $124

Theoretical minimum cost (based on seamstress wage): $2,524

(Progress photos and commentary below)

I'll be referring to my life-size wormton plush as "malworm" for convenience sake.

Unlike my Spamton NEO, Caine, and Fake Peppino plushies, I didn't spend a lot of time on concept art. Since I planned to make the malworm plush as close as possible to its 2D design, I didn't have to add much stylization, other than simplifying some details (no way in hell was I going to make 104 separate embroidered stitches for the segments of his toes, sorry). I mainly used the planning stage to calculate how wide the body pieces needed to be, plotting it out in 1/4 in : 3 in scale and using circumference formula to find the values I needed. I planned to make it around 10 feet long, the length of a young adult malworm. A lot of this project was improv, but, I mean, it wasn't my first or second or third time making a spamton centipede.

The head was quite a complicated shape, so I carved a tiny model out of craft foam, covered one half of it in masking tape, then cut the masking tape mask (hah) into flat pieces. I then traced the pieces onto graph paper and manually scaled them up by using the fact that I wanted the nose to be 1 ft long as reference. The rest of the pattern pieces were very simple, as wormton's teeth, body, legs, etc were very easy to translate into 2D shapes. I used old school notes as paper for the body, as I needed a lot of it. It was entertaining cutting exerpts of Moby Dick and English Renaissance biographies into body parts. I ended up making the body significantly longer; I had to spend $100 dollars on fur anyways, so why not make a maximum size one?

Making the pattern pieces took around 8 hours. While waiting for the fur to ship, I started cutting out the teeth, legs, and eyes. By the time the fur arrived, I had already sewn 36 worm teeth. I did an 11hr all-nighter to cut all the fur in one sitting the day it arrived. After a long vacuuming session and an uptake in the amount of polyester fiber in my lungs, I finished cutting the pieces, taking about 18 hours and 40 minutes.

As usual, the head was the first thing I worked on. It was...kind of wonky once I flipped it inside out. I trimmed some of the fur so that I could actually see what was happening. The main issues were the lack of any forehead, the nose being way too wide, and the cheeks being too flat. I did some ladder stitching as well as modifying the thing from the inside, and eventually made the head look much better. The cheeks still don't stick out that much still, but I'm happy with how the head looks now. I think it conquered the sopping wet owl resemblance. I inserted wire into the nose and jaws to help them keep their shape.

When I started this project, I wasn't sure whether to make it based off of Wormton or just a copyright-free malworm; I decided to do both. I went with red for the non-Spamton version, as I think it really fits the cartoony fly/mothman-style cryptid look malworms are supposed to have.

I sewed a square pouch into the throat and put in all those teeth. I used hot glue to wrap blue squares around a wire for the proboscis, because I think I would've gone bonkers cuckoo bananas if I had to hand sew that entire thing. The throat pouch holds the proboscis when it's not extended, as well as anything else I wanted to shove in there. I never measured it, but it's around 4-5 ft long. I finally made the Spamton... eye patches(?) and a pair of eyelids, though I didn't end up using them in the photo shoot. I also made a new pair of nostrils, as the old ones kind of got swallowed up from all the plastic surgery I was giving him

Now that the head was finished, I got to work on the body. I sewed the white belly and segments of the body together. I left most of the tail open, as the fur was too thick for me to flip it out at a certain point. I worked on the legs, next. After living out my cosplay dreams by putting the claws on my fingers like bugles chips, I grouped the claws together and sewed most of each leg and foot together, leaving me with many pairs of charred drumsticks (did not taste good)

I attached an extra long wire structure into each set of claws, then threaded the wire through each respective leg and stuffed them. I ladder stitched the claws to each foot, then stuffed each with some plastic beans in order to give the feet weight. I then finished sewing each foot shut. I now had a pile of disembodied limbs and one very long scarf.

I wound many long pieces of wire together to create an armature for the body. While the plush's body is way too heavy to be properly posable, the wire does still give some structure. I wrapped the extra long ends of the legs' wires to the metal spine, using the body's leg holes for reference. I then pulled the body up the metal armature like a sock.

I pulled the legs through their respective holes and stuffed the body. It was the first time the malworm was huggable! It's sort of like an oversized body pillow, in a way. I had to ladder-stich all the limbs, the head, and the rest of the tail, as it would've been completely impossible to flip inside out. It was quite difficult to do on furry fabric, and my thread frequently broke from the force I had to pull with to keep the stitches tight. Eventually, I got everything attached to some degree.

The last details I worked on were the mane, tail tufts, and scopula pads. The mane and tail tufts were ladder stitched onto the body, but I decided to use glue to attach the pads to the feet. I think the extra blue details make his proboscis fit much better, and who doesn't love spider paw pads? I also glued some velcro to the eye patches so that they stay attached better. They slide under the black eye rings.

My malworm was finally finished! I tried to put a lot of effort into the photo shoot so that people who don't know about the AU can enjoy it. I wanted to make it seem like some weird entity whose only goal is obtaining more Spamton brainrot. Hence it making Spamton on Mario Kart DS under the bed, obsessing over the Spamton Plush, inspecting the Spamton Shrine, and just generally harassing the photographer (me, I guess?). I wanted to capture the silliness, creepiness, and lack of respect for personal space that Spamton is known for. I thought about giving him a bag of doritos under the bed like that one image of the isopods eating them, but went with the DS instead. I thought it would be funny to see this thing playing Super Mario 64 DS (or Super Spamton 64) and here the "buh bye!" sound effect when it closes the DSi XL.

That's all from me, for now. I have other Wormton related matter to attend to.

Don't let the parasitic Spamton larvae bite

[xxblairexxss]

Tradition

Pairing : Charles Leclerc x reader

Theme : Fluff

In which you decided to surprise Charles to cheer him up. Based on this,

You had been with Charles ever since he was in Formula 2. You were there and witnessed every sweats and hard work he put in to chase his dream. You knew him at the back of your hand and you knew very well how he would always put on his mask to cover up his actual emotions. The first time you saw him putting the mask on was when he had a race in Baku, only a few days after Hervé Leclerc passed away.

“Good luck, Charles. Come back to me in one shape.” You mumbled into his chest as he pulled you into a tight hug. When he pulled away and you locked eyes with him, all you could see was an unwavering stare full of determination. “Thank you, bébé. I promise. Wait for me, alright?”

He won the race and you were so elated that you couldn’t stop crying. You saw him stepped on a podium with a smile, completely illuminated the fact that he lost his father 4 days ago and that he wasn’t and won’t be there to give him a hug and to witness his win anymore.

But all those strong facade he had came crashing down when he pulled you into his driver’s room after all media sessions and immediately locked you in his arms, tears rolled down his eyes almost instantly. “I managed to block all thoughts during the race but when I stepped on the podium, part of me was looking for his face, his smile. When I went and hugged the teams, I was looking for him to hear him say ‘You did it, son.’ as he always did. How do I get used to this, baby.” “You’ll be okay, Charles. I promise it’ll be okay but it takes time, don’t push yourself to be strong.” You placed your chin on his shoulders as your hand went to the back of his head to gently massage the back of his hair.

A year later, he lost his grandmother. You have met her a lot of times and she was the sweetest ever. Charles always talked about how his grandmother would sew a little cross on his race suit before he raced but he let it go when she passed away and he stopped having a small cross on his race suit.

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

His mood hasn’t been very bright this season. The constant problems with the car, the sudden DNF in Bahrain, the crash in Miami’s qualifying, you knew he was struggling mentally but again, the mask.

Until one day you were alone in your hotel room in Austria as Charles went to the paddock to have a short briefing regarding the upgrades. He left his Ferrari hoodie because it started raining and he was sensitive to cold, he said.

So you took the jacket and pulled out a travel sewing kit that you brought from home and started to sew a small hand embroidery heart at the end of the sleeve. God knows how many errors you had when you first made an attempt to follow the Youtube tutorials but guess it was all worth it.

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

When he came back, you were sitting on the bed with the hoodie hidden under the duvet and you grinned at him as he made his way to sit in front of you. He tucked the loose strand of hair behind your ear and left a peck on your nose. “Hi, pretty girl.” “Hi, baby!” You replied, still keeping the grin on your face. He chuckled and cocked an eyebrow, eyes still locked with yours. “Precious, I know that smile very well. Did you have something to tell me?”

That was when you took the hoodie and handed it to him. He took it, but full of confusion because it’s not like you never worn his shirts or hoodies before. “Look at this.” You pointed at the small, grey coloured embroidery heart. “It’s not a good luck charm, I know you don’t believe nor do you need it. I just thought it would remind you about your late grandmother, about how strong you are and how far you have made it.”

“I love it, baby. It’s cute.”

“You think so…?”

“Yeah! Are you kidding me? How could I not love this? Oh, I am so gonna show this off to everyone. I’m gonna pretend as if I’m scratching my hair so this could be seen in the camera or like playing with my bracelets so everyone can see it.”

“Stop it!” You laughed and cupped on his cheeks. How could you not fall in love with him.

charles_leclerc

Liked by f1 and 897,608 others

charles_leclerc It feels good to be back in the podium. We'll work flat out to be back on the top step as soon as possible

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noahschnapp 👏🏼👏🏼

charlesdimples is that your good luck charm

sharllerc now we know why you are back on podium

lordperceval PARENTSS ❤️

[spicyyy-muffin]

Confessions

Mentions of punching, missiles, misogyny 

Genre: Fluff 

Simon Riley x Reader

--

Negotiating as a woman was the most frustrating, teeth pulling part of my job. 

Men didn‘t take me seriously. Especially when I was trying to get information out of them. 

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, who told you American missiles would be transported at that time, and at that location?”

He spat blood out on the floor smirking back up to me, “What will u give me if I tell you sweetheart?” 

My fist flew across his cheek again. I couldn’t say anything back because that would just add fuel to his fire and I refused to give him that satisfaction.  But his words are cold stones, sinking my stomach further into the ground. 

It was just Ghost and I in the room alone with him. 

“Tell me sergeant, do they take turns on you? Who leaves you the sorest-” 

It was Ghost’s fist flying this time. 

“It’s lieutenant. Watch your mouth or I’ll sew it shut.” 

“Ohhh full of threats, I bet you're the one that gets the most fucks in.” 

Ghost’s fist swung a couple more times before Price pulled the metal door aside and walked in. 

“Enough, back to base, both of you.” 

Ghost swiftly turned his head walking out without another word. 

Turning around to follow him, Price gripped my wrist. 

“The facade is fading lieutenant. You better tell him to rein it in before Shepard finds out and you're on a one way ticket back to the states without a brooding boyfriend.” 

His mustached face grinned staring down at me. 

“He’s not my boyfriend sir.” 

“Do you copy lieutenant?” 

“Copy.” 

I walked out following the hot path behind Ghost. 

His long legs moved swiftly in front of me making it hard to catch up. 

“Ghost.” 

He ignored me. 

“Ghost!” 

He kept walking. 

“Goddammit-” 

He turned around, I bumped into his chest and my cheeks were being held in the palms of his hands. 

“Why do you do this to me?” His eyes gleamed into mine expecting a response. 

I’m not sure what I expected him to say but it wasn’t that. 

Was he even blinking?

“What?”

“Do you know?” 

“Know what?” 

He shut his eyes in imitation pain. 

“How much you mean to me, do you know or not Lieutenant?”

His hands shook. 

“Yeah, yeah Ghost I know, what’s wrong with you?”

“You. You are my problem.” 

He took his hand off my cheek, pulling the bottom of his mask up and bringing his lips down to mine before I could rebuttal.

We stayed there for what I wished was forever but only a short amount of time before he pulled away. 

“I wanna take you away. Show you where I grew up, my favorite pubs, the shitty flat my mum raised me n my brothers in.” He shook his head in disapproval. 

“What’s wrong with wanting me to see that baby?” 

“No you don’t get it. I could care less if I ever saw Soap or Price again-” 

“That’s not true.”

“Y/n please.” His voice was vulnerable and shut me up quicker than a hot iron. 

“Be with me.” 

“I’m right here Ghost.” 

He pulled me closer into him. 

“No baby.” He smiled softly. “Just be with me. Be mine.”

I smiled back, stepping on my toes to press my lips against his. 

“You're funny if you think I’d be with anyone else.”

“Why cus I’ll cut their lips off?” 

I laughed against his mouth.

–

Walking through the cafeteria I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“So you n Ghost aye?” 

I smiled while putting some meatloaf on my plate. 

“Don’t know whatchu mean.” 

Soap laughed, “Full of shit, the both of you’s.” His eyes crinkled gleaming across the room to Ghost nonetheless. 

“Have you seen his face yet?” 

I paused, turning around, “Why? Sad you're not gonna be the one to sit on it anymore Mctavish?” I bit into my apple, smirking at him while walking away. 

Walking up close to my hunched over man staring directly into Alejandro. 

“Dunno ‘bout that one mate.”

I set my tray down as he looked up at me. 

“Ello love.” 

His arm slithered around my waist pushing me flush to his side. 

“Missed yeh.” He mumbled into my ear, pressing his face momentarily into my neck. 

It wasn't a large act of PDA, but noticeably enough among our peers. 

“Christ, is this what it’s gonna be like from now on?” Soap muttered sitting across from us. 

“Why are’you jealous Mctavish?” 

Soap stared incredulously at the two of us as Ghost’s hand slipped to my inner thigh. 

“For fuck’s sake, you two are made for eachother.”

--

Lmk what you think!

[sl4sh3rs]

Slasher’s reaction to their S/O being Goth🦇 || Slashers x fem! reader

꒰ ୨୧ Slashers include: Charles Lee Ray/Chucky, Tiffany Valentine, Freddy Krueger, Amanda Young

꒰ ୨୧ Warnings: hints of nsfw, no smut

—

Charles Lee Ray/Chucky: He absolutely loves you being goth, I mean adores it. He loves your style and the way you dress, he just doesn’t fully admit it. He hints at it, but never fully says it. He loves how mysterious you are, but also how gentle you are. When you guys first started dating, he would stay at your apartment a lot to hide from the cops. When he saw your apartment for the first time, he was intrigued. You being goth resulted in more affection and persuasion. If you have piercings (especially on your face/lips) he loves to feel them when you two make out. If you have long nails, he loves when they claw into his skin.

Tiffany Valentine: Very similar to Chucky, she just admits that she likes you being goth. You two love to share clothes and she loves seeing you in her outfits. She loves when you wear chokers, especially ones with spikes. If you have an interest in dolls, she is attracted to you even more. She loves to put makeup on you, and she’s let you pierce her a couple times. When you two first started going on dates, instead of her picking you up, or the other way around, she’d love to prep you and do your hair. She shows her love to you through actions. She loves you so much I can’t even explain it.

Freddy Krueger: You were walking through the halls of the boiler room when you first met. He appeared behind you and took a liking to your appearance. He liked your messy hair in that ponytail, he liked your piercings, your smeared makeup you forgot to take off the night prior, he immediately found a liking to you. He couldn’t kill you. One of his knives played with the bottom hem of your crop top.(imagine you’re wearing a crop top with a skull on it, and skull pajama pants) When you two officially started dating, he would get you little things he know you liked. He would either put them in the room he made for the two of you, or let you take them to the real world.

Amanda Young: You might’ve fell first, but she fell 10x HARDER. She loves to make things for you, it’s her love language. She’s made traps named after you, she’s made gifts for you. When she first made the pig mask, she let you put makeup and piercings on it. Actually for the robe she used some of your old clothes and sewed them together to make the robe. She’s just so adorable. She loves feeling your piercings when you kiss/touch her. She’s just a little hopeless romantic.

—————

tysm for reading! This is my first real Drabble and I think it turned out really well! If anyone wants to suggest anything feel free too!

[alllgator-blood]

I have ten billion WIP sketches I need to finish, but for some reason I stayed up from 9 PM to 4 AM conceptualizing, making patterns, sewing, painting and applying makeup on this stupid fucking felt squid......the detailing needs to be cleaned up cause there's only one coat of paint so far, but he's pretty much done

my neighbors probably think I'm insane because I was running around the yard clenching this toy kallamar in a death grip and flying him around like an airplane/putting him in the barbecue/poking him with a stick. I want to tie him to a string and recreate the opening of napoleon dynamite >:) ALSO I MADE HIM SMOKE OUT OF A STUPID CRYSTAL PIPE BUT PLEASE DON'T ACTUALLY USE THOSE, THEY ARE SUPER TOXIC LMAO MINE IS FOR DECORATION

I don't have any process pics because I had tunnel vision autism style and forgot the rest of the universe existed while I was working on him. BUT if you're curious I'll ramble below the cut

Okay I am not a seamstress by any means. I've sewn my entire life but very, very infrequently. I've done plushies, clothes, cosplays, fursuits, accessories, etc. but I only do one like once a year, so while I planned to make all 5 bishops, I'm not really sure I'll get them all done. The material cost was like 20 bucks tops so I'm not too upset if I don't finish them. I AT LEAST WANT TO GET SHAMURA OR HEKET DONE.

here is the concept sketch ft. heket's toes and shamura's fingers. I decided to do his pre-schism version so I could fit him with jewelry! I did him first because like I said I sew infrequently and don't know wtf I'm doing, everyone else seemed a lot more complicated.

So I basically just traced this drawing on a printer paper-sized canvas in SAI, and guesstimated how everything would look in a 3D space. His head is four pieces, one triangle identical to the one in the picture, two wide triangles that are sewn together in the back, and a circle for his chin. You can't really see it in any of the pics but he's literally like a black cylindrical stick with little tentacles sewn on where his mantle connects to his cloak. The leg tentacles are one piece of felt that look like tassels, where they're connected by a rectangle but branch off into individual pieces. He can't stand up very well, so his cape keeps him up (that's gonna be an issue for every other bishop too except heket cause she's gonna be ROUND). Mostly everything like the crown, cloak, head, etc. are cones so I just had to make a lot of wide triangles.

For the details, I just used acrylic paint that was watered down so he's not especially crunchy, and for the blush tone I used a makeup palette my mom bought me 10 years ago in hopes I'd get in touch with my "feminine side", but I grew up into a nonbinary butch lesbian so OOPS. Kallamar looks better with makeup than me anyway. I'm kinda sad I couldn't get his freckles as lopsided as I draw them but it probably looks better in plush form to have them even anyway....

I could just post the pattern so I don't have to explain this but 1. I am mentally ill about the thought of my kallamar being in someone else's house and 2. the original pattern had to be tweaked while I was working on him so the final pattern straight up doesn't exist, I winged it the whole time

OH and the jewelry is just scrap pieces I had laying around, I might repaint it all to be gold instead of silver + bronze. I used 20g aluminum wire for his armlet thing, jumper rings for his earrings + ring (+ a diamond dot from my mom's kits for the gem) and chain for the bracelet. I made him an amulet as well but it felt like overkill so I took it off. I'm probably gonna make him a plague doctor mask and medicine bag sometime because I think about nurse kallamar more than I probably should :') I've already sewn one as a prop for a toy raven before so it shouldn't be too hard

[and-so-he-rambled]

Costume

(Gotham Rogue Vlad Masters)

Masterlist

“You’re going to fight Batman?” Daniel’s curious eyes peeked over the table, watching Vlad feed material into the sewing machine.

“Not exactly, I’m planning to avoid him as much as possible, but I’m sure we will cross paths.”

“Are you going to fight him with your superpowers?”

“No, remember how no one can find out we’re special? Not even Batman, he’d turn us in to the bad men.”

“Oh.” Daniel continued to watch him as he cut and arranged black material. He’d gone light on any body armour since he didn’t need it and needed the extra movement. He did have some for appearances and in case his powers still were on the fritz by the time he went out. He was getting better with time, but it wasn’t perfect.

“You should be a Badger.”

Vlad paused, looking at the child.

“Pardon?”

“A badger! Wait here!” The boy ran off, leaving Vlad staring after him.

He returned with his animal encyclopedia, plopping in on the table and pointing to a honey badger.

“You call me little badger and so Jazz showed me, I’m this one.” He pointed to the badger on the next page, a European badger. “But these ones are called Honey Badgers and they’re really cool and mean, and you should be one like Catwoman is a cat.”

Vlad thought that over. It did seem on brand for a Gotham rogue to have a theme, and while he was only planning on petty thievery it couldn’t hurt. He had gone more for the vampire look once his fangs had grown in but a badger was different enough that nobody would connect the two identities.

“I’m not calling myself Badgerman.” Daniel giggled at that, delighted. “Perhaps you’re on to something though.”

“Would you help me pick a design? I just can’t choose myself.”

Daniel’s eyes lit up in joy as he ran away to go find his drawing pad.

Jazz and Daniel worked together for the next few hours, his sister keeping him from making it too complicated. They ended up with a catsuit with a gray stripe down the back with lots of secret pockets and zippers. The mask he had to make a few alterations on, but it had a more American badger design with white down the center of the face and up the cheeks, leaving two stripes of black over his eyes. Jazz vetoed the full cape, with both Vlad and Danny complained about, but he managed to sell her on the shoulder cape.

“I can’t believe I’m going to become a two bit criminal for a giant bat.” Vlad murmered at he started in on his sixth hour of costume creation. He’d cheated with being able to change his ghost clothing at will after a few years of trial and error, this was hard. “I was supposed to be a scientist.”

Jazz was face down on the table, but she raised an arm to synthetically pat at him.

“Th’ goal is t’ avoid th’ bat.” She reminded him sleepily before falling back alseep. He took a break to bring her to bed.

The first goal when they got a payout was to get an apartment with their new identities. As much as he wanted them to stay ghosts it wasn’t feasible for the kids. They needed lives, to be children. Daniel was getting better control of his powers with daily training and eventually he might be able to go to school.

Vlad knew they couldn’t stay in Gotham forever, that once day the government would catch up to them and they’d have to disappear again, he was pretty Jazz knew it too. He needed to give them something before that happened. This time he’d spread the money into off shore accounts, they’d never be left with nothing again.

[a-small-writer-in-a-big-world]

A little Drabble for Ghost x mute!reader (Quiet)

Figure you might like it @thedevillovesflowers 🩵

Blond.

That’s really the only thing going in your mind right now as you sit across the table in the common room, your breakfast getting cold as you stare at Ghost.

Ghost is reading the newspaper that Price has left on the table after he had finished his morning tea. He’s not wearing his mask with the skull plate sewed on or one of the many black balaclavas but instead a simple cloth face mask that covers the bottom half of his face. Strangely, he still has the black face paint around his face as if he had planned in wearing a different mask.

“They were dirty.” He told you when he first walked into the room and you had gawked at him. “So they’re in the wash.”

You haven’t stopped staring, unable to take your eyes off his blond hair as if it were a spectacle. Never mind that you could most of his face now, being able to see exactly the shape of his eye brows and how his eyes are tired, his hair is what caught your attention the most.

He was blond. Not exactly what you imagined for him at all, in fact you would’ve guess he has stark black hair or very dark brown.

“Quiet.” Ghost glanced up at you from the newspaper. “You’re staring.”

You eyes widened and you suck in your bottom lip. Of course he knew you were staring, you weren’t exactly keeping it hidden but Ghost was also incredibly observant.

“Sorry.” You signed truthfully but didn’t look away. “It’s just that…you’re blond.”

“As opposed to…?” He raised an eyebrow and you weren’t sure if it was because he was curious or confused by your statement.

You shrugged. It was hard to explain him being blond was such a shock to you. Perhaps maybe it was because you never expect anything of color to be on him besides his dark brown eyes. The sight of light blond locks, not like straw but not quite platinum either, on top of his head was a stark contrast to the mostly black attire he was wearing.

“I thought maybe you’d have black hair.” You continued to stare at the short hair on top of his head.

“Dyed it once, didn’t like it.” Ghost told you and you can bit the inside of your lip.

“That could mean your blond hair is dyed too.”

“It’s natural.”

Ghost couldn’t help but let out a huff of amusement from his nose. Out of all the things that you could possibly talk about, his hair was not something that he had thought about. Truthfully he doesn’t ever really think about it unless he needs to cut it. He didn’t even brush it this morning.

You eyed him suspiciously. You weren’t sure if he was joking with you or not, but now you were determined to figure out the truth of something this trivial. You couldn’t ask him because he would lie and you were sure no else probably knew either.

Before you could even really think, you stuck your fingers through his hair to feel the texture. Surprisingly, his hair was soft to the touch and not dry or bleached in any way, which made you stare at it in awe.

Ghost on the other hand was too shocked to react. Every muscle in his body tensed up and he couldn’t look at you as he felt a shiver run down his spine when your fingertips lightly scratched his scalp. The feeling of you pulling his hair made him short circuit and he couldn’t think of anything as he felt the tips of his ears start to burn hot.

“Quiet…” His voice was strained as he glanced at you and you stopped moving your hand. “What’re you doing?”

You blinked at him for a few seconds before you realized what you were doing and immediately reacted your hand as if you had been burned. You felt your entire body heat up as you began to panic.

“Sorry!” You couldn’t look at him as you quickly took your plate and practically ran out of the room. “I’m going to go.”

Ghost sat at the table unable to really move as he watched you leave.

He could still feel your touch even though you were there and another shiver went down his spine as thought about it again. He couldn’t read the words on the newspaper as he ran his hand across the place that you had touched, unsure if he was trying to get rid of the feeling or if he was trying to replicate it as he tugged on a few of the strands himself.

It was the latter, especially as he realized he would like to have you hands in his hair again.

(Disclaimer: don’t touch people or people’s hair without permission irl.)

[thatonebirdwrites]

Cheating Death Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 Doctor Alex Danvers and Karen Starr moved in perfect symmetry, as they worked to extract the bullets.

Kara had sensed the one that punctured Lena's lung, but another had been hidden by her spine. Her stomach rumbled, but the granola bar Nia had dropped off sat uneaten in Kara's pocket. Instead, she kept her vigil, her stomach knotted at the sight of Lena's still form. Alex had been stiff-lipped about the prognosis. Each second, minute, hour, Lena still breathed, unconscious, while the doctors sewed her body back together. Machines hummed and beeped, and Kara took to pacing a groove into the floor. Nia had tried twice to convince her to come eat with the others, but Kara couldn't leave Lena.

If she did, she'd do more dangerous stunts, testing the edge of her powers, just to not feel the intense shame, fear, and worry that throbbed through her muscles.

One of the nurses rushed out of the room. "Rh-null blood!" she shouted to one of the technicians, further down the medical wing. "We need another batch!"

"That's our last one!" the technician called back. "Ms. Lena Luthor was our only donor."

"What do you mean Rh-null blood?" Kara asked, anxiously.

"Need it to prevent hemolysis," the nurse said. "Her blood type is one of the rarest, compatible as a donor with any human blood type, but only able to receive Rh-null blood in return."

Dread curdled through Kara. "When does she need this?"

"As soon as possible," the nurse glanced back at Alex and the other doctor.

Alex leaned over Lena's bed with her tools, her body blocking the spine region from view. They'd propped Lena up on her side with a thick pillow on the other. Her skin was pallid, deep shadows under her eyes, and her body limp against the body pillow. A terrifying sight for Kara.

Kara clenched her jaw. She pushed past the nurse despite the nurse's protestations. "Alex! Does she need another transfusion?"

Alex waved a blood-stained glove at her. "Kara, don't interrupt, and yes. Nurse --"

"We're out of her blood type. Nurse said it was super rare, is that true?" Kara ached to reach out to hold Lena's limp hand, but she didn't want to disturb the delicate surgery.

Alex looked up. Even with the mask, she looked haggard. "Well shit. And yes. i wouldn't even know how to begin to find it. All the stock we had is what Lena herself donated. She's one of the few Rh-null donors in the world."

Kara grimaced. "Then what about synthetic blood? I could make some in the Fortress if I had a sample of her blood."

"Synthetic? Would her body reject it?" Dr. Karen Starr glanced at Kara, her eyebrows scrunched. She held a scalpel in her hand, its edge gleaming silver in the florescent lighting.

"Not if it's an exact match. I should be able to replicate down to the atomic level, but..." Kara nibbled on her lower lip and the urge to weep nearly overcame her. "I could only do a small amount. It takes considerable time and energy to do larger batches. Maybe enough for one or two transfusions."

She didn't want to admit that it had been years since she did any science of this magnitude, and that had been with Kryptonian blood, which differed slightly from human. The protocol for working the synthesizers was the same regardless.

One of the monitors beeped. Alex cursed again. "She's dipping again. Starr we may need a breathing tube if she continues to dive." She stripped off her gloves, tossed them in the bio-waste, and replaced them. "Kara, if you can pull that off, then we need it as soon as possible." She used the IV to pull a small vial of blood. She handed it to Kara.

"I'll be back in a jiffy." She dashed out of the room, leaving a gust of wind in her wake.

Again the sonic boom rattled the windows of National City. The blood vial she held close to her chest.

Returning to the Fortress so soon left her feeling ill.

Here Lena had saved her from Rama Khan. Here Lena and her had fought. And here, Lena encased her in a Kryptonite ice cage. The horrifying truth was Kara could have broken free, it'd been painful, but she had the strength. Instead, she'd stood there, stunned.

If Lena had decided to kill her, Kara would have let it happen. There was no doubt in her mind; she could never fight Lena.

But Lena hadn't wanted to kill her. She'd done all she could to make sure Kara recovered fast. That seeded Kara's wrecked heart with a wild hope.

Turning down a side corridor, she raced for the medical wing of the fortress, the area she had not taken Lena. Inside a massive tube took up much of the room, with several medical instruments, machinery, and a control panel covered in Kryptonian glyphs.

She keyed the command for the synthesis of blood, a program coded into the Fortress long ago, likely when Kal's father sent it on its way.

She flipped open the side panel and inserted the tube. Now Lena Luthor's blood would join her own and Kal's in the archive, along with all of Kara's and Kal's family.

A three-dimensional DNA strand appeared in the air, along with various imaging of the cells contained in the blood. She keyed an analysis against her limited database, then keyed the command for a replica of the blood.

A red alert appeared requesting more material. Kara scowled, of course. Can't synthesize a larger amount from nothing.

She recalled a vague lesson from her father. How he'd used raw ingredients from plants to show her how any ingredients worked for synthesizer as long as it held the correct set of elements.

So, okay, raw ingredients could come from anything. So why not herself?

All that mattered was that the final product exactly match Lena's blood.

"Kara Zor El?" Kelex floated up to her. "Do you need assistance?"

She glanced at the floating robot. "Yes, actually. I need you to take my blood and put it in the synthesizer. It's low on ingredients."

He flew closer to the medical control panel. "This is human blood you are synthesizing. Are you certain you wish to do this?"

Kara rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm. "Yes, do it." She closed her eyes and tensed for the pain of a kryptonite needle. Kelex worked quietly. The soft slosh of blood in the tubing he'd hooked into the synthesizer rang with the hum of the machine.

She opened her eyes to see the data from her donation form on the other side of Lena's blood imaging. She watched in fascination as her blood was broken down into its smallest components and reassembled with Lena's parameters.

The entire process lasted fifteen minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Kara kept shifting and nearly dislodged Kelex's needle from her vein twice.

When the signal rang for completion, Kelex applied an coagulating agent to her wound and gathered up the tubing. "This will be destroyed per protocol. Do you wish to destroy the original sample?"

Kara tugged the larger container free from the synthesizer. The smaller vial still sat in its slot. "Yes. Thanks Kelex. I got to go."

The entire flight back her head swam with dizziness from the blood draw, the night sky not at all conducive toward recovery. By the time she stumbled into the surgery room with the container, it'd been nearly twenty-five minutes.

"Please tell me I'm on time," she said.

Alex stared at the metal container. Several monitors beeped alarmingly in the background. "Yeah, yeah, how do I work it? Because she needs it now."

She showed Alex the set of controls and where the tube could be inserted for the transfer. "I tried to make enough to last awhile."

Alex swiftly hooked it up to Lena's IV. "All that from a small sample?"

"Well, not exactly." Kara rubbed the back of her neck. "I used my own blood as raw ingredients so the synthesizer could reformulate it for Lena."

"Shit." Alex's hand hesitated on the clip that would start the transfusion. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Hundred percent match to the original sample. Do you have a choice?" Kara crossed her arms. "You said her blood type is rare."

"Nearest hospital with Rh-null stock has only a quarter of what we need," Dr. Starr said. She worked on the final stitches to Lena's spine surgery. "We've had no other replies on the network."

"Fine. Let's hope this works." She flicks the clip and breathes out a long sigh. "As for you," she pointed to Kara, "great work. Now shoo and go sit under the sunbed. You look pale as fuck." Alex waved her hands toward the door. "I'll let you know when she wakes."

When. Alex said when.

Hope dug its roots into Kara's heart for the first time that day. *** Light danced across her eyelids. Whispers echoed in her ears. Soft fabric lay across her skin. Pain melded with the aggravating thirst and pulsing headache.

If she was dead, then the pain would cease.

Which meant she was alive.

Her eyes slowly opened to a small room of mostly glass walls. She lay on a bed, and a sheet and blue blanket covered her body. Someone dressed in a white lab coat and black pants fiddled with the IV bags. Or rather one metal container that had a tube connected to her IV, its contents blood-red.

The red hair cropped short rang with familiarity. "Alex?" Lena rasped. Speaking hurt her throat. Her mouth way too dry.

The woman turned with a smile of relief. "Hey, the sleeping beauty finally awakes." She turned and lifted the blanket to adjust the blood pressure cuff and examine the IV needle in her elbow. "Maybe now my sister will stop bothering the hell out of me."

"Kara?" Lena struggled to comprehend what happened. "How? What is that? Why am I..." She tried to lift her finger to point at the container, but she seemed to have misplaced her strength on the stairwell.

"The signal watch." Alex lifted her head to study Lena, her eyebrows furrowed. "You're lucky. A few minutes later and I'm not sure even surgery would have saved you. You lost far too much blood. It's a good thing you donate blood a lot, as we had to do several transfusions. When our stock ran low, Kara raced to the fortress to synthesize more."

Lena struggled to parse Alex's words. "Synthesized?"

Alex shrugged. "I'm no expert on Kryptonian tech. That's Kara, Kal, and Brainy. All I know is she used her own blood as ingredients to craft a replica of yours."

"Her own blood?" Lena repeated, stunned.

But why? She'd raged at Kara, trapped her in a Kryptonite cage, deceived her for months, and yet Kara saved her? And why was Alex helping her? If Alex knew about the Kryptonite cage, she'd be more likely to shoot her or throw her in a cage to die. Not save her life.

Hot brands swept through her neck and back, and she hissed, her eyes briefly closing. The machine hummed next to her like an irritating bee. Each pump alleviated some of the dizziness, but the pain burned with a dogged persistence.

Alex reached over her to dim the lights. "Look, I get the whole being reluctant to use the watch. But for that situation? You should have used it sooner." She fiddled with a tablet. "Those bullets did some nasty damage."

She gave Lena a faint smile. "You also don't have to worry about Leviathan assassins any further. Kara took care of them."

"Took care of them?" She felt like a parrot, repeating words that made no sense to her. "But why? We -- we fought."

Alex hesitated far too long, her smile tight. "Ah, she just took care of them. They won't bother anyone going forward."

It dawned on her slowly. "She killed them? But..."

Alex understood her trailed off sentence. "I know," she said, softly. She grasped Lena's hand and squeezed gently. "It's against her code to kill, but you've always been her exception."

This was a dream. It had to be a dream.

Tears blurred her vision, and although she tried to hold them back, they burned on her cheeks. Her body throbbed in agony, her condition atrocious, and this information overwhelmed.

She had been prepared to die on the stairs. Any signal watch activation had been only for a last goodbye.

Kara should have left her there. Moved on and found someone better. Not save Lena, who out of bitterness and heartbreak hurt Kara and deceived her for months.

With a tenderness she didn't deserve, Alex wiped away the tears with a kleenex. "Take it easy, Lena. You're safe here." She gestured to a cup with a straw. "Want a few drops of water? Can't have too much but it'll at least eliminate the dry mouth."

"Alex..." the urge to confess simmered, but the words clogged her throat and came out as a strangled sob. She wanted to curl up in a fetal position and cease existing. She should have died. Why couldn't Kara let her die? She'd lost everything.

"I don't deserve this..."

"Nonsense." Alex smoothed back Lena's hair. "You deserve it more than anyone." Her smile held a hint of melancholy. "And I'm sorry I wasn't as supportive of you and Kara. No matter what happens, we're here for you, Lena. And I want to make up for my mistakes to you."

"Don't!" The word erupted in a coughing fit. "Please, don't. Alex, I hurt Kara. Don't you see? I'm not good." Her tears burned with shame. Her thoughts fixated on the Kryptonite cage, the pain of seeing Kara in it, the urge to free her, how it'd taken all her willpower to walk through that portal. How she'd collapsed into tears on the other side. She loved Kara, and yet still hurt her? What kind of monster did that?

God, she loved Kara. She loved her so much it hurt. Now she was broken on bed, trapped with the knowledge she was capable of hurting Kara. "You shouldn't have saved me."

Alex frowned. "Lena, we all make shitty mistakes. I fuck up and hurt Kara sometimes, and we talk it out and fix it. You doing it doesn't mean you deserve death."

"Shitty? Shitty doesn't cover this." She felt loopy and out of control. Her emotions bubbled and frothed, her head spun, and the pain crawled through her spine. "I killed my brother for her. And... and he showed me she was Supergirl. I didn't know what to do. So I went to all of you, and you were celebrating and playing games." The pain with each breath, each word spoken ripped through her. But she had to get it out. She had to make sure Alex knew she was not worth this care.

"Lena..."

"No! Let me finish!" She tried to push herself upright, but her arm wouldn't handle her weight. She collapsed onto her side, wheezing. "Was I just the Luthor on a leash? No more a friend than a cat with a rat? I wanted Kara to feel my pain. I deceived her, used her, and I do not deserve this care--"

"Lena," Alex interrupted, sternly. "Lena, listen to me. You are hurting yourself with this." She gently pushed her back against the mattress and readjusted the blankets. "I am a trained doctor, and one thing I know, that it doesn't matter what a person did. If they come to me needing medical assistance, I give it. Want to know the best thing you can do right now?"

Lena sucked in a breath, still trembling from the pain and exertion.

"Rest. I mean it, you've been through hell. Your heart stopped during surgery, okay?" Alex's voice shook with an emotion Lena couldn't decipher. "I had to call J'onn in to hold Kara back from doing something very stupid. We almost lost you." She breathed in sharply. "Now is not the time for confessions and blame games. As your doctor, I order you to rest."

She picked up the cup and held it out. Reluctantly, Lena took a few short sips. Her head fell back against the pillow in exhaustion. She closed her eyes, but all she saw was the Kryptonite cage.

***

She woke next to voices whispering by her bed. One she recognized as Kara and the other took her a few seconds. Nia? She hadn't interacted with the girl much. She kept her eyes shut, the pain too much to handle speech.

She wished they'd go away. Leave her to mope in pieces.

"Kara, you need rest too. Lena will be okay. She's under Alex's supervision."

"I'm not leaving her side. I can't." Kara's voice sounded uncharacteristically wild. "She died, Nia, she died for almost twenty seconds. No, I have to make sure she's okay."

"I get that, okay? It scared all of us too. We can take shifts or something. Make sure someone is always at her bedside." Nia shuffled further from her bed. "Didn't you say we were stronger together? El Mayarah?"

Kara breathed in sharply. "Using my family motto against me?"

"Hey, just using my full arsenal here. Like you taught me." Nia paused and sighed. "I didn't want to say this, but Andrea has been on me today about our articles. The only reason we even have this extension is because it's Lena in the hospital. Don't make the situation worse."

"Maybe I'll just quit."

"And never be a reporter again?"

"Lena is more important."

"Oh my god, Alex wasn't kidding. You're like a steel mountain. Not budging. Do you think Lena would want you to just throw away everything you've worked for?"

"Lena is more important than anything."

"Even your life?"

"Yes."

"Jesus, Kara."

"No!" Lena winced at he pain from her outburst. Both Nia and Kara turned to her. "No, god no, I'm not more important than your life."

Pain arced down her back, and she blinked back tears, but still they crept free anyway.

"Yes you are!" Kara shot back. "I'm nothing without you, Lena! I just can't. I can't lose you again."

Lena growled deep in her throat, and gathered up every once of energy she had. If she had to walk out of here to prove her point, then fine.

Except, no matter how hard she tried, her legs refused to respond. In fact, she felt only a vague tingling, more in the thighs and not anything below.

She pushed herself upright, which sent pain shooting down her back. Her hands gripped her legs. They were definitely there, but she couldn't get them to move.

"Lena! You shouldn't be moving yet!" Kara said, frantically. "Please, rest." She moved to push her hand against Lena's shoulder.

In response, Lena pushed back, but that succeeded in collapsing into Kara's arms. "Kara," she growls, "if you don't go out there and do your job, I will verbally berate and flay you alive."

"Um, Andrea already does that," Nia said.

"She's too soft," Lena grumbled.

"That sounds a bit like you're telling on yourself," Nia said. When Lena shot her a glare, Nia took a step back. "And I'll just be getting Alex, bye!"

The door swung shut behind her.

Kara gently laid Lena back in the bed, and to her dismay, she didn't have the strength to protest. "I'm going to stay here until you're better."

Lena wanted to yell at Kara. To get her to stop whatever this was. But the pain crackled through Lena's body, and she couldn't think coherently. Instead, to her horror, she wept, her only intelligible words, "I can't, I can't, I just can't."

Kara tenderly held her through it, her hand smoothing back her hair. She didn't say anything, just stayed there, until Lena, exhausted, tumbled back into blessed unconsciousness.

***

Time held no meaning. Depending on the culture, it either flowed like a river in one direction, or it flowed in a circle. Even cosmology couldn't decide if the universe was cyclic -- a big bang, expansive era, then the big crunch -- or ever expanded in all directions endlessly.

Lena felt trapped at the center of some sort of timeless hell. The pain left her short-tempered, and the fact Kara refused to give up on her also grated on her.

"Why can't you see the truth?" Lena shouted at one point. "My body is broken, Kara! I'd rather be dead!"

Kara had stared at her, but then she clenched her fists. "Don't you dare speak ill about yourself." Her voice dropped to a dangerous low tone that did more for Lena's libido than it did to intimidate. "You are beautiful. Gorgeous. And you're hurt and healing. You deserve life, and I will always fight to save you."

Lena didn't know what to say in response.

Because Kara had an alarming point.

She had fought to save Lena over and over again. No matter what her family threw at them, no matter how many assassin's sought her death, no matter the attacks on her person, Kara had been there. Or she'd send Supergirl, which had actually been Kara.

"Was it really you flying me when I was poisoned?" She asked instead. Her voice came out weak, irritatingly timid.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was. I -- I was terrified. Had to use ice breath on you to induce hypothermia to give Alex's medicine time to work." Kara slumped in her chair. "I almost told you then when you said you remembered the flight."

"Why didn't you?"

"James was shaking his head ..."

"I didn't ask about James, Kara. I asked about you. Or do you not make decisions for yourself?" Irritation crept into her voice.

"That's the problem, Lena! Don't you get it?" Kara threw her hands in the air. "I didn't trust myself, all right? So yes, I did rely on others to make decisions, especially about the whole Supergirl identity. I can't afford to mess up. I can't afford to lose anyone else. I just can't."

Lena struggled to parse Kara's words. The pain ricocheted up like it always did before Alex or a nurse came and swapped IV bags for new ones. "What do you mean you didn't trust yourself?"

"Do you know what happened before you came to National City? The attack by my people? That was my Aunt." Kara said bitterly. "My Aunt and her husband wanted to -- Rao, it doesn't matter. I trusted her, and I was wrong. People got hurt. So many died. Alex had to kill my own Aunt because I couldn't do it. Nothing stopped her and Non. And then, and then..."

She shot to her feet and began to pace. "You're not the only one who can make kryptonite, okay? Max Lord did it first but he made red."

"Red? What does--"

"It was horrible. I -- I got infected and it shut off my inhibitions, it made every bad thought, every intrusive nightmare, come to life. I acted it all out, and people got hurt. I almost killed Cat Grant. Alex and J'onn used every Kryptonite they had to capture me."

Lena blinked. She didn't remember reading that in the papers, but then she'd been very distracted by shit in Metropolis at the time. "Were you in control?"

"I don't know." Kara dropped back into her chair and put her head in her hands. "It haunts me to this day. I hear the word synthesized Kryptonite and I start to have flashbacks. I can't let that happen again."

"That's why you acted that way during the worldkillers crisis." Lena didn't ask it as a question.

Kara's shoulders slumped. "I had to be in control. That way no one could get hurt. No one would die. And that was out of my control. But I was trapped back in the Red-K nightmare, and I didn't realize it at first. I -- i was wrong. I shouldn't have acted out my trauma on you. I'm sorry for that too. It hit home how bad I fucked up in the elevator when we were on our way to comfort Sam."

No wonder Kara had looked so upset when she said she'd never trust Supergirl again. She sighed and rubbed her fingers against the IV line. "I tend toward dramatics and can be terribly petty," she said finally. "You tried to talk to me as Supergirl to fix it, and I refused to listen. So as Sam likes to remind me, two wrongs don't fix anything. I'm sorry too."

Kara tentatively touched Lena's hand. "Thank you for this conversation. How are you feeling? Are you in pain again?"

"Alex mentioned internal bleeding once and you're hovering again?" Lena grumbled.

Kara winced. "I just want you to be well."

Lena sighed. "I know, Kara. And yes, I'm in pain. How about you get your sister, and read more of your book out loud?"

She wasn't sure what started that activity, but listening to Kara read soothed her far more than she'd like to admit.

"Okay." Kara shot to her feet. A breeze whipped Lena's hair into her face, Kara vanishing.

Still not used to it, but she was getting closer at least.

***

Two weeks and four days after she woke in Alex's medical ward, Lena was examined by Alex and a Doctor Starr. Part of that exam required her to sit in a wheelchair, which hurt far more than Lena wanted to admit.

Alex's checked her reflexes with her little hammer, while Starr listened to Lena's lungs.

It was irritating, but she was slowly accepting this was her reality now.

At least, the odd Kryptonian container had been used only once since she first saw it. She had a stress induced bout of hemolysis, which didn't surprise her. She knows she's prone to anemia. Kara's frantic reaction had Alex banning her from the room for two whole days.

It should have brought relief, but Lena missed Kara by day two.

As the doctors conferred, a startling thought hits Lena. "Alex, has Kara ever had a loved one in a condition as bad as mine?"

Alex turned and crossed her arms. "When I got sick from Pestilence, I'm told Kara was uncharacteristically erratic. But I was only sick a day or so. So I guess, no, not for this long."

"Hmmm." Lena turned the thought over in her head. "I think I know how to calm her down."

"Oh?" Alex had adopted a neutral tone since Lena's high-on-pain-meds confession. "And what wonderful idea does my patient have today?"

"Take me around wherever we are. Let her see me outside this room." She attempted a smile. "Yes, I'm in a pain, don't ask. Just let her see visible progress."

"I'd advise against..." Dr. Starr started to say but Alex held up her hand.

"No, she's right. Kara needs to see progress. And you are progressing, it's just not really that visible right now." Alex stepped closer and leaned over Lena. "But I need full honesty. Are you positive you want to do this?"

Lena nodded. "Yes. If it helps Kara, then yes."

"I'm not asking about Kara. Will this help you?"

Lena tilted her head puzzled. "I suggested it to aid Kara not myself?"

"Oh my god." Alex threw up her hands. "Do you see what I'm working with here?" She said to the other doctor. "They're both idiots."

Lena sniffed a trifle offended by that statement.

"I mean, yes, you have a pertinent point." Dr. Starr chuckled. "Maybe just indulge her?"

"Not you too. Go right the report." Alex flicked her wrist at the other doctor. "And you," she pointed to Lena. "Tell me immediately if your pain increases. Or else."

Lena knows an empty threat when she sees one. She gives a half-shrug. "Sure. Now shall we?" She waves her good arm toward the door.

Alex grumbled under her breath and pushed her through the door. A certain satisfaction warmed Lena's heart. She'd won against Alex, which was not an easy feat.

The hallways outside the medical room were all a dull grey. The austere architecture painted this place as the DEO. Ah, so that was why she was under Alex's care.

"Lena?! Alex!" Kara skidded to a halt near the door to the control room. Lena can hear the voices of agents and machinery beyond it. "Oh gosh, should... should you be up? Are you okay, Lena? Do you feel any pain? Oh Rao, Alex, what if she's in pain?"

"Kara..." Alex started to say, irritation in her voice, but Lena cut her off.

"Kara, listen to me." Lena held up her hand. "I suggested this. Needed some fresh air. I'm fine. Honest." Yes, her pain has increased a bit, but honestly, she needed out of the medical room.

Plus, this served a dual purpose of showing Alex that perhaps she could go home to rest and do outpatient or whatever happens next for recovery.

Kara wrapped her hands around Lena's, holding it gingerly like she's glass. "Are... are you sure?" She looked so pathetic, that Lena relented.

"Kara, darling," Lena said, gently, "If we're going to get through this, I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

Kara nodded. "Anything."

"Then trust me when I say I'm okay. Don't assume what I need. Always ask. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I can do that." A hint of relief coated Kara's voice.

Lena realized an important fact about Kara that day. When dealing with a situation Kara couldn't control, Kara needed tasks to do. Even simple ones worked.

She tested this hypothesis the next three days. Her conclusions confirmed her hypothesis correct. Kara truly did a lot better with tasks.

If there was one thing Lena excelled at, it was crafting a list of tasks. Whether she got them all done in a day? That was another story.

On the fourth day, Alex stopped in for the usual check-up. "So, you've really figured my sister out, huh?"

Lena studied Alex carefully, uncertain if the question was in good faith or not. "I'm reconciling all parts of her in my head. I can't say that means I have her figured out."

"No, I mean, you solved it." Alex gestured to the building beyond the medical ward. "She has calmed down by a million percent. I no longer feel the need to kick her off the planet twenty times a day."

Lena couldn't help but chuckle at the image of Alex's boot knocking Kara into orbit. "That annoying, huh?"

"God, yes. I get it, I do. You really scared us. All of us. Even Andrea Rojas has been in my business. And now Sam demands to know when she can visit." Alex scribbled her vitals onto the chart by her bed. "So now Kara is dealing with them. Using your phrases too. 'Don't assume, ask Lena.' I can actually do my duties for once."

"About Andrea and Sam..." Lena leaned back in the bed, fatigued by the act of sitting up. Which was incredibly annoying, but fine, that was her life now. "It's been a few weeks. How are you handling those businesses? I only spoke with Jess once."

"I'm not giving your phone back yet," Alex scolded. "I can't trust you with it. You'll try to solve world hunger or something."

"I was merely answering my emails and..."

"Nope, no work. You can't heal if you're working." Alex capped the marker and stuck it to the board.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Alex, I am dying of boredom. Answering emails won't kill me."

"You weren't though. You were heads deep in programming, and then wondering why your pain was so bad, you couldn't move for a whole day." Alex shook her head. "Can't trust you. And I'd like to."

The way she said those last few words had a seriousness that contrasted her slightly playful, scolding tone from earlier.

"How do I build up that trust then?"

"Prove to me you're serious about this." Again that sense the conversation had a double meaning. Something more than just her health. "I need to see you acknowledge your limits."

Lena frowned. "This conversation isn't just about me, is it?"

Alex put her hands on her hips, oddly similar to Supergirl, except Alex held far more authority in the stance. "Perceptive. Yes. I asked Kara about your confession. It wasn't easy. She finally told me everything. You put her in Kryptonite, Lena."

Lena looked at her hands. "I know," she said, softly, "I remember. I had hoped it wouldn't come to that. It's why I programmed in the sun burst."

"Which is great that you did that, but Lena, can I trust you to never trap Kara in Kryptonite again?"

Lena clenched her fists. "Yes." She met Alex's gaze, resolutely. "I love Kara, Alex. I recognize I fucked up. I lashed out exactly how Lex wanted. Played into his hands again. So as a big fuck you to my brother, I'm going to stick by Kara's side, and do what I can to aid her."

Alex studied her silently for a long moment. "Okay."

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Just okay?"

"Yes, just okay. Geesh, want a rambling speech, ask my sister." Alex walked to the door but paused, her hand on the doorknob. She looked back at Lena. "You're good for her, Lena. Kara has never been as happy than when she's with you. Please don't fuck this up."

"I thought you didn't do rambling speeches?" Lena smirked at Alex's raised middle finger.

"Oh, before I forget, you feel up to start physical therapy?"

"Is this where I prove to you I will honor my limits?" Lena asked dryly.

"You could say that. So a yes?" When she nodded, Alex smiled. "Great."

After the door shut, Lena sat in the semi-darkness and wondered if she could trust Kara and Alex. Could she trust any of them?

She raised her blankets and looked at her legs. They tingled now, but moving them caused pain bursts at the base of her spine. She didn't trust Lilian to help her with this. She did trust Sam, but after ghosting her and not answering her calls for months?

She dropped the blanket and laid down. She needed to trust them, and that scared her far more than any promise to a prickly sister of a Superhero. Trust was not something she did well. It tended to backfire on her, and yet, what else could she do?

Trusting no one but an AI had gotten her exactly nowhere. Other than more heartbreak and stuck in the medical ward, disabled from waist down for who knew how long. She truly did want to get better, but was she hiding from the world by half-assing this recovery?

Kara didn't know the extent of her treachery, or how she'd used the DEO to test the mind-control she'd uncovered from the Martian. Yes, that test had helped Andrea, but it also showed that her programming had a troublesome flaw. One she never quite ironed out. Hope's calculations had been her last ditch effort.

It led her to the same question that had haunted her since she woke up here: why were they helping her? Only her own paranoia answered that question, which wasn't helpful.

She closed her eyes and let the darkness of pain pull her out to sea.

***

When she next opened her eyes, the light was muted even further.

A person snored softly in the chair next to her bed. She turned her head to see Kara slumped there in jeans and a purple button-down shirt. Her blond hair spilled in loose ringlets around her face, and a book perched in her lap.

It was the book she'd been reading out loud to Lena: Poseidon's Wake, a fascinating science fiction romp about aliens, human's hubris, what constituted sentience, and sentient elephants.

On the table just behind Kara's chair, a vase with flowers sat with a card in front of it. She picked it up, the paper rough against her skin. Inside and decorating every page was kind 'get well soon' words from Nia, Brainy, Kelly, and all of Kara's friends.

The people she'd deceived in her single-minded quest of revenge. Her stomach twisted with nausea. The card slipped from her fingers to fall onto her stomach. A small card sat taped to the vase, and that one just read, "From Sam and Ruby."

She sucked in a sharp breath and winced at the pain in her left side.

Kara flinched and sat upright, her eyes blinking sleepily. "Lena?" She focused on her bed and smiled in relief. "Hey, how are you feeling?"

The question bubbled out of her before she could stop herself. "Why is everyone helping me?"

"What do you mean?" Kara reached up to fiddle with her glasses, but she wasn't wearing them so the gesture became tucking hair behind her ear instead.

"I deceived all of you. I hurt you." Lena's voice turned bitter. "Alex said she wants to trust me. That I'm good for you. I knew Kryptonite hurt you and I did it anyway. Why don't they all hate me? Why am I here?"

Kara shrugged. "The cage dropped as soon as you left. Then came your lovely sun bomb thing. I saw the code you used. You programmed that. So that means you never meant to hurt me. And I think you needed to get that all out. I -- I'm sorry it took me so long to understand. So, don't worry, it's okay."

"Okay? Just okay?" Lena couldn't believe her ears. "Kara, I need you to be honest. Why am I your 'exception' to your rules? Why is Alex giving me the shovel talk? What are we to each other?"

Kara sighed. Her fingers drummed against her knee. She took a deep breath and seemed to come to a decision. "Because I love you. I didn't realize how much until our fight. Until I almost lost you." She briefly closes her eyes. "I nearly lost myself to rage. Dunked myself in the ocean to try to calm down. And I couldn't let you die without telling you my last secret."

"Last secret? I -- I know you consider us friends..." Lena had heard Kara say 'love you' before, but this moment felt charged in a way the others did not.

She smiled, sadly. "It's not friendship love. Lena, I love you. Everything about you. I want to be with you in whatever way you'll have me. And if you don't want me around? Say the word and I'll vanish. Well, maybe still save you when needed but only in a professional way I guess."

"Be with me?" God, she was being a parrot again, but the words from Kara's mouth felt unreal. "You love me? And yet deceived me for years?"

Kara slumped in her chair and pulled at a thread on the cuff of her sleeve. "I'm sorry, Lena. I really am."

"Yes, you've said that many times," Lena said. She sighed and picked at her blanket.

For a long moment, she struggled against an absurd urge to cry. Fatigue lined her body and soul, and truthfully? She didn't want to fight Kara or enact revenge any more. Her retaliation hadn't helped her feel better; she'd felt worse instead.

No, maybe she should try the harder road. Talking. God, what would Lillian think of her now? She was going to discuss her feelings instead of of manipulating the universe.

"Did you ever trust me?" Seemed a good place to start.

"Yeah!" Kara nodded. "In most things, and I wanted to trust you about Supergirl. I just." She leaned her head back with a growl of frustration. "At first the DEO pressured me to tell no one, especially you. But then it became about me wanting to be just Kara with you."

"The whole not trusting yourself come into play there?"

Kara nodded. "I let others convince me that not telling you was good. That if I told you, I'd be selfish and ruin a good thing for you."

"Wait, did someone actually advise that?" Lena wrinkled her nose. "Because that's shit advice."

Kara winced. "Mon-el did."

"I see. From now on if someone says lying to me is better for me and honesty is selfishness, just punch them for me, okay?"

Kara blinked at her before bursting into laughter. "Oh Rao, okay, sure, I can definitely do that."

"Great." She imagined Kara punching Mon-el, and it definitely brought more satisfaction than anything she did the past few months. "Do you trust yourself now?"

"I..." Kara hunched down in her chair. "I don't know." She breathed out roughly and a piece of ice formed on her knee. She flicked it to the floor. "When I -- I found you? I lost myself in rage. I killed Rama Khan and his allies. I don't really regret it, but... can I trust myself? Because if you're hurt, I -- I probably should be restrained."

Just as she suspected, guilt threaded through Kara's voice. Lena shifted to the good side, her pain ever present a minor ache from the pain meds. "Will it help to know I trust you?"

Her own words surprised herself. And yet, it was true.

She did trust Kara.

Kara looked up and smiled faintly. "It does actually. I wasn't sure you ever would again."

"Kara, even when I was angry and hurting, I still trusted you with my life. My heart?" She ran a hand through her hair. It needed washing again, which meant asking the evening nurse for help, something she dreaded. "That I couldn't trust you with. But!" She held up a finger to stop Kara's words. She shut her mouth. "I think I'm ready to try. I know this won't be easy. We're both headstrong, but when I'm working with you, I'm a better person. I'd like to find that again."

Kara smiled, tears shining in her eyes. "You feel like home to me. I feel I'm a better person with you too. Even if I'm a bit dramatic about injuries." She rubs her hands on her jeans. "I just, I don't know. I was so worried."

"I know." Lena reached out and touched her wrist. "You've never had someone you love taking this long to recover. A rather intense introduction to mortality, eh?"

"You died for twenty seconds, Lena," Kara whispered.

"Are you focused on that or on the fact I'm alive?"

Kara tilted her head and stared at Lena. "What do you mean?"

Lena waved her hand impatiently, then winced. Her side ached at the movement. "If you focus on that fact and not on the present moment of me, recovering, then you become trapped in the past. You can't move forward, can't plan, and your actions become only reactions. Never a conscious, informed act."

"Oh." Kara tapped her fingers against her leg. "You know, that's a good point. Death has made you wise."

Lena shrugged. "Maybe. I need the reminder myself sometimes."

For a moment, both listened to the drip of the IV.

"I didn't have these powers on Krypton," Kara said suddenly, "I was just a normal kid, well, as normal as the first thirteen year old inducted into the Science Guild could be." A slight smile tinged her lips, but it faded into melancholy.

"You were a scientist?" It surprised her a little.

Kara nodded. "Bred to be so."

"Wait, I'm sorry, bred?"

Kara smiled. "The birth matrix is how we reproduced. It was very rare to have a natural birth like Kal's parents. Usually parents like to edit the child's genes. I was modeled to be a scientist like most of the El family."

Lena hummed thoughtfully. "I'd love to hear more about Krypton, Kara. If you'd like to share." She definitely had questions, though she' wasn't sure how best to ask.

"Thank you." Kara reached out to grasp her hand. "No one has every really said that to me?"

"Seriously?" Lena frowned. "Then consider the offer standing. Whatever you wish to share, I will listen."

"And the same for you. I want to hear what you have to say. Your thoughts. Hopes, dreams, random ideas, anything."

Lena smiles, but one last question still haunts her. "One last question. You've said 'just Kara' a lot. You've always been just Kara to me. Did you think I'd treat you differently if I knew?"

Kara winced visibly. "Yeah? Everyone does. I mean, look at Winn as an example. I wasn't just Kara to him anymore, and he became obsessed with superhero stuff. James knew thanks to Kal. Nia treats me as her superhero mentor. It's just over and over people failed to see me. They saw the cape, and either wanted to be like the cape --"

"James," Lena murmured, thinking of his guardian stunts.

"Or helping the cape. I wasn't just Kara, and I could be that with you, and it felt so good. Like coming home. It's why I can't stay away. I want to make this right, Lena." She yanked the thread free of the cuff. "So, uh, that's why I'll help you with your Myriad plan if you want."

"What?" Lena stared at Kara. "You don't know what it is yet."

Kara shrugged. "So? It's you. I want to help you no matter what. If I have to hang up the cape and go undercover to do it, then fine."

None of Kara's words made any sense to Lena. Her head ached again, and a faint scent of peaches wafted from the pain meds. She tried not to think of her legs.

"The project is dead," Lena said, flatly. "You might as well take Myriad back. It won't happen any time soon. Especially not with this." She waves a hand weakly toward her legs. "I can't feel them yet."

Kara reached over and grasped Lena's hand. The warmth sent a shiver down Lena's spine. "Then I'll help you recover. Whatever you need."

"Kara..." Lena sighs. "What if I hurt you again?"

"I hurt you first," Kara said. She winced, "I mean, not to make a contest of it. But yeah, we hurt each other. So that's a thing we did. But here we are, both of us alive despite it all. And yeah, we might hurt one another again, but I think you're worth it. You're beautiful, Lena, outside and inside. That hasn't changed. I want to work on us if you're game."

Lena recalled her words at the Fortress, said in anguish, "You don't get to tell me who I am anymore." But that had been a lie. She'd wanted so bad for things to be real with Kara. To be loved by Kara. To not have it all snatched away.

She'd wanted to fix it all, but it had not occurred to her she could just talk it through with Kara.

For several long minutes, she quietly breathed and sorted her thoughts. The pain simmered annoyingly, but she wasn't ready to sleep again. Not yet.

"This isn't easy for me," Lena said, carefully. She winced at the pain along her side, but she wanted to get this out. "I wanted to fix the pain. To somehow stop others from hurting one another."

"With your project?"

Lena sighed. "It doesn't matter. Hope was lost and she's needed to run the calculations. And would it have stopped the pain? I don't know. I didn't have time for proper tests. It wasn't ready, but Leviathan kept accelerated my timeline."

"So you sought to end all pain?" Kara tiled her head. "Isn't that kind of... mind control?"

Nausea swirled in Lena's stomach. Those words reminded her of Lex's journals, of his experiments, of his experiments on her. God, Lex really had played her, hadn't he? He knew she'd read his journals, knew she'd turn on Kara for her lies. "It's for the best," she whispered, "that it failed. Lex manipulating me by driving a wedge between us." She fiddles with the strings on the blanket's edge. "He has a habit of snatching away all the good in my life. He tried to destroy what we had. Like a fool I fell for it."

"No, well, maybe for a little while. But we're still here, and we're being honest." She lifted Lena's hand and gently kissed her knuckles. "I understand you might not believe me now, but I'll prove it."

Lena sighed. She wasn't sure what to say to that. The medicine dulled her thoughts, drew back the pain, but now fatigue corded through her body. "You already are. And I want to work on us too." "So where do we go from here?" Kara asked.

Where did they go from here indeed? She knew this was a stupid idea, that she shouldn't allow it, but with the Fortress fight, the assassin, almost dying, surgery, long recovery, and now this?

Lena weakly tugged on Kara's hand. "Ask me later. Right now... can -- can you hold me? I don't want to be alone." Her words came out small and shaky. This asking for things scared her as much as it thrilled her.

"Of course." Kara graced her with one of her winning smiles. She gently moved Lena just enough for her to slip onto the bed next to her. Her arms wrapped around Lena, and warmth embraced Lena from head to toe.

She buried her face in Kara's shirt, and breathed in her vanilla scent.

The anger and pain that had fueled her for months no longer simmered in her gut. Part of her feared giving Kara another chance, but at the same time, her traitorous heart shouted in relief at being in Kara's arms. The hurt hadn't full gone away, but its edges had softened.

"You've always been her exception," Alex had said.

Maybe starting tonight Kara could be her exception. Instead of more revenge plots or running, she'd stay and work on whatever this was between them. No matter how hard it became. Maybe someday soon she can say the words out loud, that she truly did love Kara.

Because even in the fires of hardship and pain, a rock could still become a gemstone.

Epilogue incoming

[alizalayne]

Hello! this will be a quick process post so that you can see how I needlefelted a fursuit head!

I began by following the "bucket head" tutorial by Matrices, then added a layer of polyfill so that I wouldn't use as much of my merino wool. This is how I typically make a doll head, my "core wool" is often polyfill because it really likes to clump together and fuse.

Overall, this project took about two months of my spare time. This is the first fursuit head I have made, but not my first needlefelt project.

I would really like to encourage other people to try making masks this way! You can do any kind of subtle color with wool and the wool fiber is very cheap. If you wanted to make a fursuit head with the entirety of starry night flowing over it, or a head with tons and tons of complex colors, I think wool might be the best material. I also did not need to know how to pattern or sew in order to make this-- it was sculpture rather than sewing, which I am bad at.

The rest under the cut!

Another angle where you can see that I am building up the structure of the head.

I then made the ears, which are translucent because they're felted, just like real ears!

I wasn't happy yet with the proportions at this point, so I spent a lot of time figuring that out and deciding where and how I'd be placing the eyes.

I made a pair of sculpey follow-me eyes by using a little soy sauce dish as a concave circular mold and tried a foam clay nose and teeth. The sculpey eyes could be more successful, they took a lot of shaving and adjusting to get right and they eventually cracked from the strain I'd put them through while making them more shallow. For a while, I intended to make wefts of white wool to use on the sides of the head, but I ended up preferring a domestic shorthair head shape because it reads the most clearly as a cat vs any other animal.

I originally intended to have the eyes behind clear plastic domes and used "shaker domes" that people use to make greeting cards to cover the eye, but in the end they made the eyes too dull. I made foam clay housing for the eyes and painted it pink with acrylic paint. I used stick-on car window tint to create the pupils. My visibility inside the head is really good!

Finally, after fiddling, one of the eyes was deeper than the other and I had to re-set both to account for it. I added spot glitter on top of the acrylic paint on the eye using some gold watercolor paint I had, which was silly because I'll need to wash the head at some point. I will probably seal the eyes before washing and hope for the best. I intend to spot clean the head until it absolutely needs to be washed, at which point I'll remove some pieces or find a way to protect them while soaking the head in a cool dr. bronner's bath.

I glued down a layer of felt fiber on top of the foam clay "tear ducts" and then felted new fiber over the tear duct skin and cheeks to blend them into the face. I also removed the teeth and closed her mouth because I didn't have time to adjust the teeth as much as I wanted before the con that my friends and I attended. I would like to modify this head so that she can open and close her mouth.

Lastly, I added wire whiskers with little glass beads looped onto the ends and paper eyelashes that I also watercolored and sealed, like the insides of the eyes. Like I said before, it's gonna be a problematic wash, but I'm confident I'll figure it out, and I can always repair her or replace her lashes if something goes wrong.

Last thing, to keep the inside of the head nice and cool and prevent fogging since in the end I closed the mouth and had sealed eyes, I made a snorkel out of a snorkel mouthpiece fitted into two collapsible auto funnels.

I would say that realistically this entire project cost me less than $150. I had some materials lying around, like the wire and the beads and the sculpey.

I added two ear vents on either side of the head so that I had options on where to feed the snorkel out. If you look at the other pictures on the blog of me wearing the head, you mostly can't even see the snorkel mouth. However, it was a little problematic to let go of the snorkel to talk. it would be perfect for a silent suiter, but I'm lucky that so many people wanted to talk to me. I'd like to try and replace the snorkel mouth with something I can talk in, but I'm not sure what to use. It should be something that can create a seal to keep my breath out of the head. it's possible that I will be able to make something with a painter's mask.

I hid the "seam" between the head and my body with two yards of tulle tied into a big bow and sewn down onto the neck so that it wouldn't move around.

I hope that if you try making something similar you'll show it to me!

[apple-salad]

Rose Ribbon Embroidery "Mini" Projects (for BABY NYFW) Part 2: Embroidered Bonnet

I decided semi-last minute to attend BABY's fashion show at NYFW!

BABY had mentioned in their NYFW brand description that their newest collection would be a return to their origins, as well as presenting archival items.

You have to dress to impress for NYFW, right? So of course, I had to pull out all the stops and wear my Rose Ribbon Embroidery.

Also at the last minute, I decided to make a few extra complementing items...

A matching RRE kumya JSK, and a bonnet.

What follows is more of a sew-along/journal rather than a tutorial or guide, mainly for my own memory's sake. But if you enjoy looking at my process (sometimes sloppy), I'm happy!

Also feel free to take a look at the more romantic process video I edited.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet (you are here)

This post will be my process pictures and notes for the bonnet, as well as a matching mask as a bonus.

I don't believe BABY released matching headwear for Rose Ribbon Embroidery, although I've seen an unknown velveteen headbow with rose lace sold with RRE before.

BABY usually coords RRE with the bunny ear bonnet since Ichigo wears it this way in Kamikaze Girls.

I do own this because I wanted to wear an Ichigo-like outfit at some point, but for this occasion I decided to do something different and make a "matching" embroidered bonnet.

I originally wanted to make a hard bonnet with a very defined brim that could show off the embroidery clearly as I don't really like soft bonnets, but when looking at existing BABY bonnets as a reference, it doesn't look like hard bonnets were a thing back in 2004 (and as it is, BABY rarely releases hard bonnets). So to keep with the oldschool theme, the bonnet is a soft one, although I later make some decisions to make it slightly more structured.

The next decision to make was full bonnet vs half bonnet. The bunny ear bonnet is a full bonnet and I think this is technically more "period accurate", but I am not a fan of how they look like a weird hood from the back so I opted for half (plus, that makes construction and patterning easier for me).

I still used my own bunny ear bonnet as a reference for approximate brim dimensions!

The kumya JSK was a little easier to carelessly sketch out and embroider since I was copying 1:1 from an existing design, but I felt I needed to do at least a bit more careful planning for the embroidery on this. I'm quite bad at creating embroidery designs from scratch, but with the mental image of the rose clusters and swags of vine, as well as referencing the embroidery from the film, I came up with this:

I wanted to emulate the embroidery style of the Momoko's (well, in reality likely the embroidery designer Onoe Megumi--unclear if she did the actual embroidery, but it's likely) embroidery, which I figured wouldn't be too difficult if I was also embroidering by hand.

For material, I am using the same velveteen I used for kumya's JSK. Not my first choice and I actually purchased some thicker looking 100% cotton velvet that I thought would be more similar to the original JSK material, but was worried it wouldn't arrive in time and wanted this project out of the way in case things went wrong/took longer than I expected (it did arrive about a week before the event, but it was totally wrong IRL so I'm glad I just went with this acceptable option). I also bought some more torchon lace, so I used that and another lace from my stash.

The colours of the embroidery in the film also seem to be quite different than BABY's dress. I'm not sure if the pink of the roses has faded over the years, but it has a slight salmon tone whereas the film's roses seem to be more of a pale cool/neutral pink (hard to tell with the yellow tint of the entire film) with some variegation. I love the colour scheme of the film's embroidery, but to keep things coordinated I try to opt for the same colours as the actual dress I have.

I only have white silk ribbon in the width I wanted, so I opted to attempt to dye it to match. Previously I have used alcohol markers to colour the embroidery afterwards, but I find the colour hard to control and it tends to bleed into the fabric. I've also tried colouring the ribbon with the marker before embroidering, but without heat setting the colour transfers onto the fabric as well (and it seems like trying to do so with the amount of ribbon I need would be a waste of ink).

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but since the ribbon is silk, acid dyeing seemed like the way to go.

Very interesting photo of ribbon in pot (the pink ribbon gets eaten up by pinwheel roses much faster than I expected so this is the second batch I had to dye--not ideal as they are definitely slightly different in colour but it's not too noticeable). In total, I think I had to dye 3 batches of ribbon and 4 for the pink ribbon as I just barely ran out near the end, and they are all slightly different colours. Thankfully the undertone is the same so it's difficult to tell unless you are really comparing up close.

I thought I would take this opportunity to use the "peach" acid dye that I bought years ago for another project, but this ended up being a mistake as the colour was totally off (maybe the red dye was too expired). I ended up using my regular fiber reactive procion dyes (with heat/acid), because I have many more colours I could mix together, and that was much better. I really should have done this from the start as I wasted perfectly good silk ribbon by making it too dark/off for my purposes (I ended up overdyeing it in pink so it's a usable colour now, but not for this project).

The silk seems to take on dye extremely fast--even just heating up the dyebath will colour it. In some cases I removed the ribbon before adding any acid at all because I felt the ribbon was already getting too dark.

I managed to get a fairly usable mossy green colour for the leaves and vines, however the pink still ended up being a little off/dark compared to whatever BABY used. It's not too bad here as one strand of ribbon, but when many layers are on top of each other in a rose it seems pretty dark. While not ideal, I think it's still okay, especially considering the embroidery colours used in kumya's JSK match nothing else (many pinks will be going on in this coord).

After dyeing and drying, the ribbon is super wrinkled so I ironed it and wound it on some spare card so it's ready to use.

And now I can start the arduous process of embroidery.

Like before, I mainly use a combination of ordinary ribbon stitches, pinwheel roses, and french knot roses. However, this time I try harder to duplicate, or at least evoke the appearance of the embroidery of the film.

It's interesting how plain and somewhat boring the roses look on their own, especially with this monotone colouring. The varied colours of the film's embroidered roses are lovely, but I decided against it here because the BABY dress has monotone ribbon roses.

The roses definitely seem to just be pinwheel style which is very easy and doable, however I am a bit more confused about the leaves. They look like a number of straight stitches in various lengths and directions that fill in a leaf-like shape. I have no idea if this technique has a name and if there is a proper method for it, because I am a silly beginner who is very uneducated in embroidery.

Anyway I do my best and hopefully I got close enough. Ribbon embroidery is really all about the texture, which is really lovely to look at. Except I have trouble looking at my own work for too long because I start nitpicking all the mistakes I made...

Adding the green and leaves really helps the embroidery come to life.

I took even fewer pictures of the embroidery process than kumya's JSK this time because it's not that interesting. I was definitely getting sick of doing the same pinwheel over and over...

I stupidly decided that aside from embroidering the front of the brim, I also wanted a little bit of embroidery on the back of the brim for interest, as well as on the side.

The designs I drafted out for these two pieces is much simpler, but still, more work....

Almost ready for construction! Hopefully a lot faster with the handwork out of the way.

I iron on some interfacing onto the back brim panel and the bonnet band for slight extra stiffness.

The bottom part of the brim is plain cotton sateen because I was worried that the part that touches the head would get dirtier more quickly it if was velveteen.

I wanted some lace gathered around the brim and an extra velveteen ruffle on the back of the band, so I prepare that now. The lace is gathered with a single gathering thread and sewn down before sandwiching between the two brim panels.

Brim sewn and topstitched (and band is ready for attachment).

The upper flowers ended up a little closer to the top of the band then I intended, but I think it's okay.

Gathering brim and attaching it to band. Because the velvet fabric is so thick, the usual "sew one line of stitching with a wide stitch length" not only made the fabric incredibly difficult to gather, but the thin polyester thread also continually broke when trying to do so. Therefore, I opted for an alternative method I think I'd remember seeing in my sewing machine manual of all things--a zigzag carefully stitched over a central gathering thread. This worked much better, although I probably should have used a thicker/extra strong thread as the central gathering thread because it did break the second time I had to gather the brim due to a mistake.

I also add a bit of lace to the inside of the brim. I think this adds some luxury and frilliness between the head and the bonnet's brim, so I wanted to add a small width. I probably could have used even more of the lace's width since it turned out very subtle when worn. But I still think it adds a small amount of interest to the innermost part of the brim and was worth adding.

Unfortunately here after sewing on both brim parts I realize that I gathered both using an incorrectly marked centre line, so I had to rip it out and do it again ;_;

Next, I can carefully align and pin the bottom of the brim to the bonnet and sew it down. I tack this down by hand because I'm not skilled/accurate enough with a sewing machine to topstitch both sides nicely at once (look closely, and my messy stitching is quite visible...)

I also fold in the raw edges and finish the sides of the brim by hand, leaving some openings for ribbon ties.

At this point I spray almost the whole bonnet with water to disperse and fade my markings. Unfortunately, some of the earlier batches of ribbon that I dyed (Can you tell the variance in the 3 dye batches I needed to do?) were probably not washed well after dying and seem to have bled into the fabric from the water...but hopefully it's not too noticeable.

Next I topstitched all around the brim and attached the ribbon ties.

I bought some double sided velvet ribbon in my last minute supplies shipment and made some bows from it. I think the material is a little thick and petersham would have worked alright as well, but the consistent velvet material feels more luxurious, doesn't it? I also think as an added benefit (?) the ribbon being plush and double sided made the bows more puffy looking.

I add some clips to the sides and a toupee clip to the top for security. I opted for a toupee clips because I think it's really the way to go if you don't want the head item to move at all, no matter how thin or slippery your hair.

Finished.

Bonus 1: rose accent pin

I was in a bit of a rush at this point as it was near the end of the week coming up to the show, so I didn't take any photos of the process here but the technique and templates I used were identical to my handmade faux rose rosettes I made for UM (and the bonus corsages). I have a post with all the details of this sitting in my drafts that I will post eventually, and I will update this post when that happens.

The brooch was just meant to add a bit of 3D faux flower accent to the bonnet, bringing in the rose motif even more. Partially inspired by the faux flowers BABY adds to their bonnets sometimes, like on Milk Tea Doll.

The fabric was "custom dyed" with the same fiber reactive dye I used for the silk. The fabric was further starched, cut out by hand, and shaped with flower iron tools before gluing together.

Bonus 2: matching embroidered mask

I wasn't sure about whether or not I wanted to wear a matching mask, but decided to do so for situations when I would want my face at least half-covered in public. I didn't really expect to be visible in fashion show pictures as someone in the back, but just in case. (I think this decision was worth it, although my makeup transferred all over the thing and in most pictures my face was even more unflattering. eh well)

I forgot to take a lot of pictures of my process for this, but it's very uninteresting and not dissimilar from every other mask sewalong from 2020. I draft out a design similar to the bonnet motifs on both of my mask panels (cotton sateen), and embroider.

I should have embroidered closer to the centre of the mask because when worn the embroidery is not very visible/covered by my hair at the sides. What can I do since the panels were already cut though...oh well!

The lining material is some Japanese CLEANSE Ex fabric I had bought previously to make masks during the pandemic. It's supposed to be antibacterial and antiviral, as well as washable, but I have no idea how well supported those claims are.

Sew together normally on both upper and lower sides, turn inside out, add a channel for nose wire and side channels for elastic.

I also have some mask elastic on hand so I use that.

And the finished outfit again with all my items~

Thank you for reading! If you ever feel inspired to take up a similar project, such as the kumya JSK, I'd love to see it!

[somber-sapphic]

Snowy Night

〖Notes: I've been up for too long, I know my formatting is bad, I'll do it in the morning <;3〗

〖Summary: You and Wanda end up stuck in a hotel after a mission.〗

〖Word Count: 1133〗

〖Pairing: Wanda x Sick Reader〗

☾Masterlists☽

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“Hanging in there?” Wanda asked gently, looking at you in the passenger's seat. You didn’t lift your head from the glass, relishing the reprieve from the fever-fueled heat ravaging your body. 

“I’m fine baby, just a little sore from the mission.” That was a reasonable excuse, you’d gotten pretty beat up and tomorrow you were sure to see a tapestry of bruises adorning your skin. 

Wanda had received a small cut above her forehead and roughly the same bruises that you did. She’d still volunteered to take the first driving shift as it was obvious that you were in rough shape. 

You’d done a pretty good job at hiding the illness before the mission, but now that it was over you were too tired to wear the appropriate mask. 

“Are you sure that's all it is? You’re fogging up the window over there.” She teased, tossing you a worried smile. You shrugged in response, your throat hurt too much for more talking. 

“How about I find a hotel for tonight?” The witch reached over and rested a hand on your thigh, squeezing it gently in reassurance. She only wanted to help, but you were refusing to let her. 

“We can’t Wan, we might be followed.” You knew that your words weren’t quite making enough sense, but she got the gist of what you meant. 

“We weren’t followed, you know that. You keep checking and there isn’t anything suspicious, right?” You turned from your comfortable spot on the window and raised an eyebrow, glaring at her a little. 

“That’s what I thought. Take a nap sweet girl, I’ll wake you up when we get there.” She said softly, her words lacking the frustration you expected. Tears welled up in your eyes and you dropped your head loudly against the window, relishing the pain it provided. Controlling your pain was good. 

“I know Y/n, but I need you not to do that. We’re going to get you in bed soon.” You didn’t want a hotel, you wanted your bed. You wanted your blanket and your pillows and the stuffed cat that you hid from everyone except Wanda. 

It was the only thing you had left from your childhood. It had helped you through an unnecessary amount of trauma and you refused to get rid of it no matter what happened. You’d had to sew up a few holes and the thing was faded beyond repair, but it was yours and you still loved it. 

“Close your eyes. Want me to turn the heat off?” She asked, noticing your fever-flushed cheeks. You were clearly too hot, but you shook your head, not wanting to bother her. It was freezing out and the snow was making the drive almost impossible. She had slowed down to a snail's pace, following the example of the other cars on the highway. 

“Talk to me, love. What’s going on in there?” 

“Just leave me alone Wanda. I’m fine.” You grumbled, turning your body away from her as much as you could. You didn’t want to make her unhappy, but you were tired and grouchy and you just wanted her to stop trying to fix it.

“Alright, just let me know when you’re ready.” She said warmly, her voice only filled with kindness. You hated how much you loved her. You hated how much she loved you. You didn’t feel good. 

Without much thought you found yourself closing your eyes, the lull of exhaustion washing over you. When you opened them again you found yourself being shaken awake by your concerned wife. 

“I’ve got us a room and this place isn’t creepy at all. The woman at the front desk is super sweet and she’s already got you some Advil and a thermometer.” Wanda was stroking your cheek with soft fingers, anxiety bright in her beautiful hazel-green orbs. 

“Not mad?” You mumbled, stifling a cough into a slightly raised fist. 

“Never. Come on angel,” She lifted you carefully out of the car, your boots crunching in the layer of snow. It took a few steps forward and you slipped on a patch of ice. You grabbed onto Wanda for support and she wrapped an arm around your waist to support you. 

When you entered the hotel covered in snow, the woman at the front desk gave you an apologetic smile. 

“Come on you two, I’ve got a nice room for you.” She said warmly. The woman was clearly a mother, she was completely willing to take care of an absolute stranger, no questions asked.

She led you to the large room, not seeming to mind that you were tracking snow everywhere. 

“Thank you so much, Annie, this means the world,” Wanda said, rubbing your arm gently to keep you awake. You were sort of falling asleep against her, blinking your eyes rapidly to make sure you didn’t pass out. You were still tired. 

“Of course sweetie, let me know if you need anything.” She smiled as Wanda closed the door, leaving the two of you alone in the warm room.

“Wanda…Wanda, I want to go home…” You whispered, allowing her to sit you down on the bed. She pulled your shirt off and replaced it with a dry one, doing the same thing with your pants. 

“Tony’s coming to get us, he should be here in the morning, okay?” She soothed, running her fingers through your hair. A sob caught in your throat and you blinked away tears, biting your lip hard to stop them from falling. 

“Oh angel, hey, hey come here. Oh Y/n/n, it’s all going to be okay.” Wanda pulled you into her arms, but you resisted, pushing against her chest. You didn’t deserve her love. You’d never deserved it. She was too good for you. You could never be good enough. 

“What happened? What’s wrong?” She asked, suddenly panicking. She touched your knee and you curled away, tears racing down your flushed cheeks. 

“Talk to me,” The woman pleaded, giving up on the physical affection piece. You didn’t want it and she didn’t want to make you more uncomfortable. 

“I yelled at you! Why don’t you hate me? Wanda I–why?” 

“Shh, shh no, no none of that. How could I hate you? You’re tired and sick and sad. You didn’t do anything wrong, not at all.” She crooned, going incredibly gentle. A miserable sob escaped your lips and you tucked your head into her shoulder, giving up. 

She pulled you into her lap, rubbing your back as you cried. 

“I've got you pretty girl. It’s all okay.” You felt yourself relaxing in her arms as she talked softly to you, not really hearing any of her words. She was holding you tight, the pressure of the hug making you feel just a tiny bit better. 

[seawardboundsammy]

after many months of work, I reveal my magnum opus. The Sidestep Battlejacket.

pov: ortega seeing sidestep whole for the last time

Holy shit! It's finished!!!

This was my final for my costume design class and it took. so long. Weighing in around 800 pounds in faux leather and spikes, this is by far the most polished and focused battle jacket I've ever made. also noting that typically i wear big glasses! i just had to show off sidestep's eyebags (my hair is always teal though! ult fave color). The prop gun is a nerf gun covered in so much paint.

This design is based off my sidestep Arbor's suit combined with the dog themes sidestep has (eg: bite the hand). More thoughts and wips under the cut!

So this jacket has actually existed in some form since 2020. I bought this leather jacket with the intention of covering it in studs and spikes and then i petered out half way through. Then, after sitting in my closet for 4 years, i finally started back up on it.

These images were my gospel through the project. The design on the left was made a while before and then you can see in real time how i developed my ideas. I had the idea of the front side being "sidestep" and then the back side with the teeth being "retribution/vsona". like a mullet of trauma. the gun was made to match the organic flowing designs of the jacket, to fit the arboreal theme.

the painting of the teeth was a painstaking process filled with much masking tape and clean up. the arm stripes were free handed in a mad dash to the finish. I used Angelus Leather Paints (which i bought WAY too much of, a little goes miles also its so good not sponsored its just good paint) and every section got two coats of white and two coats of teal. The only exception was the orange which is much more transparent which took more coats and hand cramping with those letters. (which btw! no stencil! just moving my brush around all silly style).

i really wanted a prop to make the jacket into something that actually feel like a cosplay, so i hunted down the most sci-blaster nerf gun i could find on amazon and threw gallons of paint at it. the experienced among you may note that nothing wants to stick to that smooth of plastic, but with a solid sanding and angelus acrylic hardener i made it work. originally there were more stripes but it looked busy. there were also going to be two charms for charge and anathema but i um. forgor.

unsanded vs sanded (and some acetone to remove paint) vs final

the hood! good god that hood. that was ripped off an old hoodie and then i found a shirt at a thrift store that just happened to match the color perfectly. its. attached. if you know anything about sewing, please look away from this evil seam. the purple is just to keep it from fraying btw, the actual connection to the jacket it with a much thinner thread in big stitches as to not weaken the faux leather too much. also you can see where i was testing the paint lol.

if you read to here, thank you!! im so proud of this thing and i cant wait to wear it everywhere (when the weather allows.) have a sleepy steppy as a treat for sticking around