#i’m generally bad at recognizing faces but i do think i would recognize him again because of his leather jacket

[zero-caloriememes3]

Ugh i totally have a crush on this guy i saw in the bus earlier. He looked good, but not that special that i would’ve noticed him normally, but he was so nice to everyone and just had a very smiley and positive vibe, even though it was super busy and everyone else was kinda grumpy lol.

I do feel like he was kinda looking at me (or maybe past me?) and we made eye contact a few times. He came from the same university campus as me, but i don’t know what he studies or in which year, so the chance i will see him again is kinda low (though not zero as he does study at the same location)

[dailydegurechaff]

Tanya²

Today's Daily Degurechaff is… I’ll do you one better: Tanya³

(+ a small fic I never finished.)

Erich… isn’t sure what he’s seeing. He knows he’s wearing his glasses and he definitely has not been drinking… So what in the world is going on here? Why is he suddenly seeing things in triplicate?

Three of them. There are three little Degurechaff Devils in an office where there should only be one. 

When he’d knocked on her door, she’d called out that she needed a second. He hadn’t listened to her and opened it anyway. He’s regretting that now. Staring at them, both his head and his stomach are starting to hurt. 

All three of them are staring back at him. One is looking at him in abject horror, the next one’s eyes flash in recognition and she actually smiles (even more shocking, she does it in a way that isn’t uniquely terrifying, but perhaps actually cute), and the final squints at him a bit, as though she doesn’t know him. 

One of the three, the one who looks absolutely horrified, opts to greet him after a moment, “Ahaha—… Colonel Lergen… did you need something?” She sounds like she might be freaking out a bit. Erich feels similarly to her.

The second Degurechaff, the one who had smiled at him, turns her head to look at the first. She looks confused now. “Did you just say ‘Lergen?’ Not Rerugen?”

The first responds again. While she sounded nervous a second ago, it’s forgotten as she turns to her counterpart, “Seriously? You’ve been speaking this language for over a decade and your accent is that bad? Yes, I definitely said Lergen. Why would you pronounce it Rerugen?”

Now it’s the third one’s turn to speak, “No, I agree, it’s definitely pronounced Rerugen, but… this isn’t him. Rerugen has dark hair and brown eyes… and if I’m going to be honest, a fairly unfortunate haircut too. This guy looks too normal to be Rerugen.”

Degurechaff One immediately disagrees, “What are you even talking about? Lergen’s always had blonde hair and blue eyes.”

The second one backs her up, “Yeah, I agree this is definitely the right sort of coloration, but… now that I’m looking at him, Rerugen is supposed to be more handsome than this.”

“Handsome?! Has Being X poisoned your brain that badly?” Number Three yells at Number Two.

Two snaps back at her immediately, “That’s not what I meant at all, and you should know that! I meant by conventional standards! You know, stronger jawline, sharper features!”

Did— did she just say he was ugly?

Before the other two start arguing, the first one cuts them off, “Hold on. Are we sure we’re all talking about the same person here? Maybe you both are thinking of someone else, this is Colonel Erich von Lergen, my superior, formerly a part of Personnel, but now he works in Operations in the General Staff. He’s been looking out for me for a while now. For example, he made an effort to keep me off the frontlines, and when I was stationed in the southeast, he gave me a preliminary warning that Dacia would invade. Things like that. He’s a very good superior. Does any of that seem familiar?”

“Ah… that does seem to match up with who I was thinking of. I wonder why he’s so different from what I know…”

Now that Erich’s kind of over the shock now, he’s a bit tired of being talked about like he isn’t here. Interrupting the conversation between them, he finally speaks, “Degurechaff… what is going on here?”

All three seem to remember that Erich is actually here and a part of the conversation suddenly. They turn back to look at him, but none of them seem to really know what to say, faces varying shades of hesitation, confusion, or irritation.

The way they act and carry themselves is… actually slightly different. Looking closer at them, maybe it’s only that there’s one Degurechaff and two extremely close doppelgängers? If he studies them, yes they’re close enough to be siblings, but there’s differences between each.

The first one is the one he recognizes, the one who looks as he expects her to and also is getting his name and appearance correct. She’s just the slightest bit taller than the other two, but it’s a marginal thing. She’s paler than the other two in all aspects, a corpse-like pallor to her skin, hair colored platinum blonde, and eyes the color of ice. When he meets her gaze, it’s easy to tell her apart. It’d be impossible to mistake those disconcerting eyes that look a bit dead, or perhaps look like she’d want everyone around her dead if it’d bring her a bit of peace. So this one he mentally categorizes as ‘Original Degurechaff,’ or perhaps more accurately ‘The Degurechaff That I Know.’

The second one that he heard speak— the one who had called him ugly?— is the smallest of the three. Of course, Degurechaff has always been small, but this one beats the other two. Actually, she even looks younger than the others, if that was even possible, and honestly she kind of acts like it as well. She has shorter, curlier hair than the others, and it’s much brighter in color— much closer to gold than platinum blonde. Compared to the one he knows, she seems more… emotive, perhaps the best word for it is. So this one has to be ‘Little Degurechaff’ or something to that effect.

The third one is about a midpoint between the two in hair color and stature, though her hair is a right mess. A prominent flyaway sticks out of the top of her head, refusing to lay flat. Framed by pale lashes, her eyes are a more vibrant blue than either of the others, but they’re just as cold-looking and tense. He wouldn’t call any Degurechaff patient, but this one gives him the impression she’s much more irritable than the others. Her uniform is also starkly different from the other two, who are almost matching, but all three carry a recognizable Silver Wings Badge. This one… perhaps he should denote her as the ‘Irritable Degurechaff’? She’s always been irritable, though, hasn’t she?

The designations are a start, but still he has to wonder... Why? Why is this happening?

Ah, hold on. Is that it? Is this a punishment from God, specifically designed to torment me?

[fatuismooches]

Hi Smooches!! I know a little while ago you said you were thinking about reader feeling ignored by Dottore and the segments, but that you probably wouldn’t write it because it would be too angsty. So please feel free to disregard this but… I’m thinking about Zandy throwing a fit on readers behalf. Like, storm into Prime’s office and stamp his little foot type of fit. And he gets upset about how he feels reader is being treated and ignored. And Prime and the other segments brush him off at first until the start making their own observations and realizing that something IS wrong with reader. Bigger angst is them being too stubborn and set in their ways to think a change needs to be made.

(x) It's funny to think out of all the mature adults you have as lovers, a child is the one who's able to understand your feelings the most. Sure, he probably can't understand everything precisely, but you're sad, and that's all that little Zandy needs to know. It's so simple for him and that's what makes it so endearing - he knows what it's like to be sad, it hurts really bad, and he knows you must be experiencing the same pain right now. The parent he loves so much! It makes his tiny chest hurt too. He can't let that be - you always comfort him and remedy the situation when he's sad, he must do the same for you! Even if that means confronting the big, bad... P-Prime, and the other segments by extension.

It's pretty hard considering they don't really want Zandy around in the first place, but for you, the boy is the most persistent child around. Initially, he just drops a few sentences about how much you miss them, and how much you talk about them (smart boy he is) to see if that'd do anything, if they'd maybe make one percent more of an effort. The child's experiment is a failure. Despite your insistence and fake smiles to leave it be, Zandy still pouts in dismay. You're the best grown-up ever, you had the kindness to give him a chance, why don't the others reciprocate that? He does try to listen to you and leave it be, but it makes the boy's poor heart ache too much to see you distracted and despondent. So in true child-like fashion, he throws a big fuss.

Admittedly, Dottore and the others are a bit surprised because Zandy isn't the sort of child to do this - when he has something to say, he usually ends up being mostly ignored, and then he just makes himself scarce. But nope, this time the boy is fully adamant about expressing his displeasure on your behalf, because you've given up apparently. Unfortunately... the brief feeling of surprise is again replaced with general apathy once again. Zandy probably cries by himself after that.

Still, eventually, they do take notice as to how their routines have slightly been changed, more like not disrupted for once - you're not popping up around them anymore, not fiddling with their items and notes, any acts of service you'd do, you barely even strike up a conversation nowadays, even when they're right there giving you medicine, you hardly even meet their gaze anymore. The more days that go by, the more the list grows. Dottore tries to ignore it, the pile of work in front of him isn't growing any smaller. He tries to justify the treatment in his mind, you've dealt with this for so long, you know his role, and you should be able to deal with it. Admittedly, he recognizes you didn't exactly sign up for this, but what can he do? He pushes your disheartened face out of his mind and believes you should find more to occupy yourself, just as he does. (Deep down somewhere, he knows he's in the wrong.)

By the time the man realizes his part in the growing problem, it may be too late.

[popponn]

how one looks. [isagi yoichi x f!reader]

notes: this was born out of love and rage for his anime official arts' clothes because why is my man dressed like t h a t way too many times already... so i will bully him a bit (then feel bad about it. and it shows). other than that: fluff, yoichi got so sappy and so smitten for a hot sec, yoichi's fashion sense slander (and lets be honest. it deserves it. yoichi's plus point, many. negative point, his closet.)

“You know,” you began and Yoichi instantly felt like he was about to get a ball kicked to his face. “I had been thinking. Why do you look like an unfashionable grandpa sometimes?”

“…huh?” Yoichi responded, not really knowing how to answer to that. What should a guy do when their girlfriend of three years plus a half, who is also probably the love of their life, insinuate something about their appearance? Neither Blue Lock nor his parents prepared him for this.

With your eyes squinting at him, you leaned towards him from your seat in the armchair. One hand perched on the armrest and supported your chin as your face scrunched up from your thoughts. “I mean, I do think you are cute and handsome. Charming too,” you said.

Yoichi tried not to melt. Years passed and he is still weak whenever you praise him out of blue like this. From his parents to his teammates to Noel Noa knew about this—so, in attempt to be normal, Yoichi tried to kept everything under a soft smile directed to you only, “Gosh. You know, you are—”

“Hey, this is about you not me. Shush, shush,” you scolded him lightly with a finger pressed to his lips. This time, Yoichi could only blinked absentmindedly as you continued in a serious manner, “But, you see, if I look at you properly without bias—I wonder why I could think like that.”

It was at this point Yoichi realized you were trying to call him not cute, not handsome, and not charming in a very roundabout way. Again, confused on how to react to things like this, he said, “…uh?”

You were not Rin, Barou, Kaiser or anyone he shared competitive trash talking with hell and back—and even calling him ‘ugly’ really was tame to the shits spitted out straight at his face. You were never like this and Yoichi knows since the four years ‘unclear situationship’ period that his appearance really does not matter to you who would look at him gently even with his face dressed in odd drawings courtesy of Bachira’s oil markers. With that being said, he really didn’t understand what was going on.

“Your hair is honestly generic. Like, I really get why Rin said he called you NPC back then,” you explained and Yoichi tried not to wince. “Oh, but don’t change it! If it changes, especially without me knowing beforehand, I probably won’t recognize you. Though what’s a bit unique about them are probably only your sprout and bangs…kind of?”

In silence and in attempt to be a good boyfriend, Yoichi could only nod.

“And then, your fashion sense…” you continued, pity coloring your face, “…actually, where do I start on that one? I think that one part of you is so hopeless it kind of turn around to cute… in a really naive and stupid way though.”

For a moment, Yoichi remembered how he used to think in Blue Lock some people could be very harsh in commenting. Turns out, listening to your girlfriend obliterating you appearance wise is a whole another level of ego bruising experience. “Now, come on, you know I’m not good at those mix matching thing…” he admitted with pain in his voice. Because at this point what could he do?

“Of course I know,” you said as if he was saying that sky is blue. “I mean, remember how I used to tease you about ‘all point in soccer and social skill, zero in others’?” Yoichi doubted that it was all ‘teasing’. At this moment, it felt like lighthearted bullying. “I’m not exactly a hundred percent kidding, you know.”

At least he saw this one coming.

“Ugh, what brought this on suddenly, seriously?” Yoichi asked with a groan. Did he do something? He didn’t forget an anniversary or something, right?

You hummed, before answering hesitantly, “Hmm…nothing much actually?”

“So you just said all that for no reason?!” he cried out, not actually buying you answer. At that, you stayed silent for a moment.

“…actually, it’s because I saw a photo of you online, not the most recent, I think,” you finally admitted, your eyes slowly drifting away from his face. “…your clothes was so ugly there I felt like burning your closet suddenly.”

“Please don’t,” Yoichi said quickly, before prompting you to continue. “And?”

“…it’s a waste,” you continued. “You are handsome, cute. Your eyes look good when you are focused. You are like a really handsome cat who is really good at soccer. But you dress like an unfashionable grandpa who really loves neon green sometimes, so it’s a waste.”

Listening to your explanation, both fondness and exasperation overcame Yoichi in a wave that felt like a pleasant breeze compared to whatever you just dished out to him seconds ago. “Don’t burn my closet though,” Yoichi said, utterly serious and yet somehow still couldn’t find it in himself to be even be a little stern on you after such honest praises.

Suddenly feeling a bit shy and tired, Yoichi buried his face in his hands. He knew for sure his face was red. And he knew how obviously weak he is for you. From the back of his mind, he could hear some familiar voices poking at him for being like this, but in the end there will always be a part of him that is so in love with you it becomes straight up stupid.

Maybe it indeed is so dumb and selfish, because as long as you are happy and it is a time shared with him, Yoichi probably wouldn’t really mind having to listen to you calling him an ‘unfashionable grandpa’ everyday.

He, more than anyone, understands how the two of you has dreams and life that took the two of you away from each other. And even then, Yoichi knows that that one part of him—one that always gaze at your sleeping figure silently, wondering how he could have this and why someone as wonderful as you is here by his side—is rightfully fearful of a ‘bad ending’. Yoichi knows you love him. Yoichi knows he loves you. Yoichi got called selfish, egoistic, self centered, and self serving many times already in matches, and that is exactly why—he knows himself.

If it’s for you—for every part of life you had given to him, for every part of you that he had fallen in love with—he is ready to be as selfless as he could.

Happily and gladly.

“Hey, you have been silent for a while now.” A pair of hands warped itself around him, meekly, as your head rested on his back. “…sorry. Was I too much? I made you overthink, didn’t I? You know I still love you, right? Even if you suddenly wake up as a wrinkly grandpa with creaking knees tomorrow.”

Yoichi laughed at that, still covering part of his face. “I don’t want to retire yet so that better not happen,” he replied lightly, going along with you.

“…you are not crying, right?” you asked, guilt written all over your tone. Yoichi tried and failed to held back a chuckle. So, accepting his fate as a lovesick asshole, he turned and pushed you to the sofa, laying his face down on your stomach as he settled in an uncomfortable position to hug you.

Yet, without paying any mind to his lower body that remained sitting whilst upper body rested on you, Yoichi said, “I’m not. How could I with you hugging me like this?”

“…really?”

“Really.”

“…should we really stay like this any longer though…?” you asked, eventually. “I’m worried for your hips.”

“I’m fine,” Yoichi said while nuzzling his face slowly to your clothes. “Just think of this as payback for bullying me.”

You scoffed lightly at that, “And you said you were fine.”

“Yeah, I am,” Yoichi said as he felt your fingers combed through his hair. So much for commenting his hairstyle. He made a note to tease you later, but for a bit longer—

“Just, let me stay here, okay?”

[vodika-vibes]

I need to see Papa Wolffe doting on his child rn—

A New Addition

Summary: Wolffe gets to meet his newborn several hours after she's born.

Pairing: Commander Wolffe x Reader

Word Count: 700

Warnings: Discussions of mother's dying in child birth (what do the clones know about natborn births, after all)

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni

A/N: So. Not exactly him doting on his kid, but a first introduction is not a bad way for the story to go, right?

You stir awake at the light knock on the door, and you smile at the familiar face that pokes into the room. Familiar, in part, because Wolffe has millions of identical brothers, but also because he’s Wolffe, and you’d recognize your riduur even if he was dressed identically to his brothers.

“Hey, can I come in?”

A warm smile crosses your face, “You don’t have to ask, love.” You reply gently.

He slips into the room, silently closing the door behind him, “Just making sure.” Wolffe crosses the room and takes a seat next to you, and then he immediately reaches out and smooths some hair out of your face, “How are you feeling, cyare?”

“Exhausted.” You reply with a small smile, “But also, really good.” You lean into his touch, “How are you?”

“I wish I had been here for you.”

You hum softly, “Not your fault.”

“I still feel bad,” He takes your hand in his and brings your joined hands to his lips to press a light kiss against your fingers, his gaze is locked on the small cradle next to your hospital bed, “Is that her?”

You laugh softly, “It is. Our Ellie.” You extend your fingers to brush against his cheek, “Go on and introduce yourself.”

He starts, “Am I allowed?”

A slightly louder laugh falls from you, “She’s your daughter, Wolffe. Of course you can.”

He releases your hand and stands to walk around the bed. Once he’s at the small cradle he just stares into it for a moment, “She’s so…small.”

“She’s only a couple of hours old, riduur.”

“The Tubies never looked so small back on Kamino. Is she healthy?”

“She is. Just small. My fault, I’m afraid.” You reply with a small smile. And your smile grows as you watch him reach into the cradle to scoop the infant into his arms. 

“She looks like you,” Wolffe murmurs as he cradles Ellie in his arms.

“Really? I think she looks like you.” He turns to sit on the edge of the bed, bringing Ellie into reach. She’s still asleep. “Those Fett genes run true,” You joke quietly, as you brush a light finger against Ellie’s dark cheek, and then up through her dark curls.

“My coloring, maybe.” Wolffe allows, “but she has your features. A perfect mix of us.” He pauses, “Cyare,” He admits, his voice quiet, “I don’t know anything about being a parent-”

“Shh. Neither do I. We’ll learn together.” You smile at the baby, and then up at Wolffe, “We’re going to be fine, I know it.”

“Well, if you say so then it must be true.” Wolffe teases as he leans in and kisses your forehead, “My brothers and General Koon are in the lobby, can I take her to meet them?”

You hum thoughtfully, “Why don’t you give Ellie to me, and then you can bring them in here to meet her?” You offer.

Wolffe flashes a small grin, “Even better idea, I know they’re worried about you too. Cody made the mistake of asking General Kenobi about natborn childbirth, and they were convinced that you were going to die.”

“Well, not on Coruscant.” You admit with a tired smile as you take your baby from him.

Wolffe blinks, “Wait, what?”

“Women generally don’t die in childbirth on Coruscant unless something goes really wrong.” You clarify as you adjust Ellie on your chest, “If my midwife had been concerned, I would have reached out to the temple for help, Wolffe. So, no need to worry.”

“...okay. I’m going to go and get the others.” He kisses your forehead once more, and then he ducks his head to kiss Ellie’s head, before he circles the room again, and steps into the hallway.

Only minutes later, the room is flooded with people. General Koon immediately takes a place next to the bed to quietly talk to you while Wolffe shows Ellie off to his brothers.

And when they leave an hour later, Ellie’s picture has been taken a dozen times, and she’s been officially named as the Wolfpack’s mascot. And also the mascot for most of the other Battalions as well.

After all, she is the first niece.

[jezabelle9299]

Rise and Shine S.R x FEM! Reader

Overture- This is a part 2 of Morning Sunshine, which if you'd like to read you could do Here, but if you don't feel like doing that the gist is that these two are roommates on a long case (separate beds they're awkward enough without being under the same comforter), and when Spencer wakes up Reader is already up getting ready, so they decide to get breakfast together. But Spencer is very sleepy, and starts drifting off again.

CWs-Spencer falls down, but he's fine.

A/N- Someone actually requested this! It made me very happy and I would like to give that person a very small kiss on the nose. Also it's technically Halloween, so happy Halloween! I'm beginning to think I may not finish all of these before the end of the month (but I may die trying) Anyway, this is day 23, and if you'd like to read the other things I did this month you can do that here: October Writing Master List

You let Spencer sleep in an extra 15 minutes, long enough for you to finish your makeup– before trying to wake him up again. You agreed to get breakfast and coffee before the morning briefing, and if you were going to make it in time, he needed to start getting ready. 

“Hey Spencer?” You called out to him, and although you were only a few feet away, he didn’t respond. 

“Spence?” This time he only turned over in response, so you leaned over his bed to gently shake his shoulder, lowering your voice a little bit so as to not startle him. 

“Hey, come on, we gotta go if we’re going to make it to the briefing on time and still get breakfast on the way.” He turned his head towards you, sleepily grumbling a little bit. 

“5 more minutes Sunshine?” That he’d never called you before. He wasn’t very into nicknames outside of occasionally calling you and your colleagues by their last names. And you could see the very moment he recognized it in himself, his eyes shooting open, and him immediately sitting back up in bed. He registered your slightly shocked expression and threw the blankets off of himself. 

“Ah— I mean I— I’ll get ready now.”  He stumbled to get out of that bed so quickly, he didn’t even notice his leg caught in the sheets until he went tumbling to the floor. 

“Oh my god Spencer are you ok?” You rushed over to him, trying to pull the rest of the bedding off of him.

“Yeah-yep, I’m fine. How about I meet you in the lobby in like 10 minutes?” He spoke while still collecting himself from the floor. 

“Sure, I’ll see you then.” You gently closed the door behind you, and made your way down to the lobby to wait. Spencer however, spent the first minute screaming into a pillow because he was so mad at himself that he not only let the nickname he preferred to keep confined to his thoughts slip in front of you, but that he immediately fell down after. Like a baby deer learning to walk. 

When he came down to the lobby, his face was still as red as could be. But you didn’t say a word about what happened earlier, leading him with his cute little message bag to the cute little cafe down the street. You got your food and coffees, and then after the waitress made sure everything was ok, you decided you could now tease him just a little bit.

“So Sunshine, huh?” He almost choked on his coffee, and you felt just a little bit bad for bringing it up. 

“I’m so sorry about that, I wasn’t thinking– I didn’t mean to call you–that.”

“I didn’t think you liked nicknames.”

“Generally I don’t.”

“So what got me the honor of such a flattering one?”

“I don’t know, you’re just so warm? I guess?” Warm, bright, the light of his life— it was all semantics really.

“Aww, thank you. That’s really sweet, Spencer.” 

You took a glance at the clock on the wall, and realized you needed to be at the briefing in less than 20 minutes. Everyone on the team knew you were sharing a room so if you both turned up late, they’d have a field day. You could make it on time, but you raised your hand when the waitress walked by so you could get the check. 

“Oh the two people at that table already paid your tab. They said you were a very cute couple.” She said it in a way that was so sweet and genuine, you really weren’t sure who you were picturing when you looked towards the door, where the waitress had pointed. 

Yet there they were, Derek and Emily, smug as ever. Spencer followed your line of sight and all of the color drained from his face. They each gave you small waves before putting their sunglasses back on and walking out. 

“Alright, we’re getting made fun of this morning anyway, you might as well finish your coffee.” Spencer grumbled while picking up his own mug again.

[dickmedowndc]

When Stars Die - Conner "Kon" Kent x Reader

Word Count: 1,868

Summary: There was always the knowledge that someone bigger, someone worse could come – they could descend upon the Earth and the best line of defense would always be the heroes. But it was hard to bow down to the knowledge that they were not invincible. You had the chance to sleep next to one almost every night, and it seemed like almost nothing could stop him. Nothing could touch him; nothing could keep him from you. Until it does. Until the world is ending and you can do nothing to stop him from being taken from you. 

Notes: Requested by @/Anoymous (Tumblr). P A I N. I was told to make this one hurt. Somewhat based off the Apokolipse War movie, but not directly from it – this is also an older Superboy, as all my writing use adult/young adult versions.

…★…

”Mm, good morning, my star.” you hum, rolling over to throw one lazy arm over the torso of your lover. 

The early morning light has already caused him to stir, but he only whines in response and tries to bury his face deeper into the pillow, determined to put the day off for a while longer. “It can be a good afternoon if we wait a few more hours.” 

“It could be, but I was promised breakfast this morning and I still want to cash in on that.” 

He groans once more before shuffling over onto his side so he can look you in the eye – though he seems to be having a hard time keeping his own open. Nevertheless, Conner still has a soft look on his face, with that same sweet smile, as he gazes at you. “You’re lucky I can’t say no to you.” 

“So, is this a good time or a bad time to remind you that you still have chores to do today?” You grin, wide as the cheshire cat before sneaking just out of his reach when he makes a half-hearted grab for you in retaliation. 

“I’m gonna burn your food.” he swears, pushing himself to his feet before stretching, standing on the side of the bed opposite from you. 

“You don’t have the heart to burn my food,” you stop, scrunching your face before making a sound of concern, “at least on purpose.” 

“I thought we weren’t going to mention that again?” He says, moving over to you sluggishly, just so he can drape himself across your shoulders. 

“And I didn’t, technically, say a word about it.” you remark, poking your finger to his nose before pulling away from his embrace – no matter how much you wanted to remain. You wanted even more to get to the kitchen and watch him cook with that silly apron you had bought him last year. From behind you can hear him reluctantly stumbling after you with little more than a whine falling from his lips. 

“You get what you get this morning.” 

You snort at that before giving a funny bow. “Of course, chef.” You take your seat, moving the mail he had left at the table away so you can watch him. “Do you have anything planned today?” 

Kon glanced back at you as he took some of the pans from the drying rack. “I don’t think I do, but.” 

His words were cut off with a thunderous rumble in the distance and the sky outside turning a dark red and orange. You both froze where you were, sharing a worried glance with one another before making your way to the window. 

Dotting the sky above, in the distance leading to Metropolis were scattered arrays of war ships. None that you recognized from stories, but you shuttered as more came through boom tubes and filled the sky. Earth had faced its fair share of attacks over the years, and despite the win that the heroes brought home, it never erased the damage done. With the number of vessels above, it was going to be extensive. 

Avoiding the damage had been one reason Kon had wanted the two of you to stay in the countryside – to keep you away from the more populated areas likely to be targeted first, as seemed to be the case currently. 

“Get to the cellar,” he demanded, eyes hard and voice stern as he placed one hand on the small of your back. “Generator is ready if you need it, I wrote down the channel you need for the radio if it comes to that. I’ll come get you when it’s safe.” 

It was like second nature, as terrifying as that was. To be ready to hide at a moment's notice. To lock yourself inside until your evening star returned to you with the news that all was okay. You were always terrified, deep down, that one day it wasn’t going to be him opening those cellar doors to pull you out. Or that bad news would come to you over the radio. Still, you follow him out the door silently, ready to jump at any sound, or at the gentle touch he places on your arm. “Stay safe,” you beg, before placing a kiss to his lips that lasts a heartbeat before he’s nudging you underground to safety. You know he waits for you to lock yourself inside because with your ear to the door you can hear when he takes off. 

There is a stone settled in your stomach, the fear and apprehension weighing too heavy on you. You have enough reserves to last you for a time, medicines you could get a hold of, and well water you could access if needed. You had learned from last time when the world had been ending, after the pair of you had moved in together, and Kon had worried when he had been away for days unable to reach you. At least like this he knew you would be okay for some time, and you knew it took one more worry away so he could focus on his task. 

Shutting the secondary door he had insisted on, locking it down, you make your way further inside. He had been kind enough to help you set up a reading area to keep you occupied, the houses' electricity still running through and keeping the lamps on until it would no longer be able. Then you would have to go with the lamps or the generator for lights. But you hoped it would not come to that for some time, if at all. Instead, all you could do was wait. 

Times in the past Kon had been lucky. Sometimes the world would just be ending for the day – and while the damage was nothing to scoff at, there was time and chance to rebuild. Others, fights had raged on for days. The League had gotten stronger, recruited new heroes, new abilities, but sometimes it just wasn’t enough to end a fight against an army quickly. And to Kon’s horror, as soon as he had looked out, he had recognized the battleships above his home as Darkseid’s legions. 

One of the only things driving him is knowing you'll be safe. His first goal is to reach as many of his teammates as possible, as quickly as he can. Darkseid had moved so carefully this time that to the best of Kon’s knowledge, no one had even known he was gearing up to strike once more. Or he had already taken out any members that might have been able to warn Earth. Neither was an appealing option, but they had handled him before. He just hoped they could do so quickly this time. 

This, Kon realized after a month of fighting, was a wish that fell only on deaf ears. Darkseid had come more than prepared for the League and anyone else brazen enough to stand against him. The paradooms had descended on the Earth like a plague, wiping out and stealing away anyone they found. Cities had been burned to ash and leveled in days, scores deceased. The League, or what little was now left of them, had needed to draw back almost immediately when their main fighters had more than met their match. Ambushed almost as soon as they had stepped foot on the ship to face him, they were overwhelmed. Some were killed, some were kept and altered like battle trophies, and some were still missing. 

Kon himself had barely managed to escape, sustaining his own fair share of injuries in the process. And even then, with the threat of bleeding out, he was more terrified of the idea that you could be in harm’s way. That a paradoom could have found you. The consistently returning thought had driven him into a sleepless fueled haze, driving him to beg one of his teammates to reach out to you on the radio. Before they made their next stand. 

You had been waiting, day by day and trying to gauge what was going on outside without going up. Limiting generator use, limiting light, rationing food as much as you could. So, when you had been half asleep only to hear the radio crackle to life with your partner's voice you had nearly cried on the spot. The radio had been rigged so you could respond, and you nearly fell over yourself in a mad dash to do exactly that, on a one-track mission to relieve the desperation you could hear in his voice. 

The audio was patchy at best, blanketed in a layer of white noise, but it was enough to hear his calls for you. 

“I’m here! I’m here, Kon. Right here.” You stammered out, still barely in the seat before you had begun to respond. 

On his end, Kon nearly collapsed, overwhelmed by a brief sense of relief. “I don’t have a lot of time – we’re going to attack the terraforming machines tomorrow – and I can’t talk much. I just needed to know that you were okay.” 

You breathe in a sigh of relief, it’s enough for now to know that he is alive. But you would be a liar to say it doesn’t kill your heart not having him next to you. You're lonely, and the world is on fire around you or in rubble. It’s terrifying. But your rock is needed out there, so you can’t be selfish and beg him to come back. Especially when you know that he might give in and do just that, or he will at least consider it. So, you put on a brave face, collect yourself, and try to keep your voice steady as you speak to him. “I’m okay – I've stayed down here. Nobody has been by, and I haven’t heard anything outside.” 

“Promise me you’ll stay there until I come to get you?” 

It breaks your heart to hear him like this. “I promise you.” 

Kon can barely stop himself from crying, but he can still see the motions to get off the radio, so he chokes it down to end the conversation. “Stay safe, love, okay?” 

You nod, forgetting for the moment he can’t see you before you risk speaking. “I will. Just make sure you come back to me, okay?” 

“I always do.” The words sit heavy on his tongue as he speaks them, terror evident, but he hopes you don’t notice. 

You do. 

You always do. But you don’t mention it this time. Concerned that you’ll break if you say anything else, instead you sit silently by the radio, hoping that tomorrow you’ll hear his voice or see his face one more time. 

But tomorrow comes, and the burning light of the day takes every star with it. It even takes yours – not in the form of light hiding them away, or a scarce cloud. But the sun shines a light down on your evening star as he is snuffed out by gnashing teeth and jagged claws, in overwhelming force. Leaving you in the dark of the cellar, alone with no more than your rations and worries while you wait for your guiding light to return. 

[lifblogs]

We're a Family

Week 10 Prompt: Hugs Alt. Prompt: "Just when were you planning on telling us that?" @summer-of-bad-batch Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 3004 Summary: Crosshair tries to find closure over Tech's death. Author's Note: I can't take all the credit for this fic since one of the main ideas for it comes from @fea-warriorheart, specifically involving grieving and Tech's recordings. READ ON AO3

The darkness of the Marauder weighed on Omega, and it had drawn her from sleep to waking leaving her thinking she was in a cell again. But then she recognized the lights that were still on, recognized her family’s soft sounds as they slept. Restlessness took her as it usually did this time of the night, and she knew tossing and turning was useless.

Suddenly she had the sense that someone was watching her, and she thought she caught a glint of familiar brown eyes in the dark.

“Crosshair, are you awake?” Omega whispered.

“No. Are you?”

Omega covered her mouth to hold in her giggle.

It quickly subsided as she saw shifting in the dark, Crosshair getting out of his rack. He came over to hers, and she sat up.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. He tilted his head towards the cockpit, and the entrance to the ship. “Outside.”

Omega nodded, and got out from under her blanket, following him into the balmy night air.

He leaned against the ship once they were outside, and it looked like he had acquired a toothpick.

Omega crossed her arms as she waited for him to speak, an almost-cool wind caressing her and playing with her hair. Still, it remained a warmer night on Pabu than usual.

“I… I need to see where it happened,” Crosshair said, rough whisper of a voice almost too quiet for Omega to hear. He wasn’t looking at her. “I need to see where… where he… where…”

Omega caught on, and her chest filled with terror and hurt and shock and loss, and—

She dragged in a ragged breath, turning from Crosshair. She covered her face with a hand, the other fisting in her pajamas.

“It’s too dangerous,” Omega eventually said. “That’s what Hunter would say.”

“I don’t… I can’t move on,” Crosshair admitted. “To me he just… disappeared. He was never dead to me. I was in that mountain, thinking he was alive, because I told him to run and hide. And then in all that… darkness… I find out my brother’s been dead for weeks, and now for months. But he never died to me, do you understand that, Omega? He’s not dead for me. I keep expecting to see him, keep expecting to have someone else there annoying the kark out of me. And he’s not there.”

Omega came forward, and took his hand, not sure who she was doing it for.

“So much happened so quickly,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ve been able to move on either.”

“Then let’s do it. Let’s go to Eriadu. Please, I need to see. I need to know.”

Omega shook her head, pulling at his hand insistently. “You do not want to see that. I did, and now my dreams keep picturing it, keep showing me how high the fall was, and it hurts. It hurts because I wonder if he was afraid, if he wished he could say goodbye, if there was something he had badly wanted to do and had to let go of. And did it hurt, when he—”

Crosshair pulled her close then, arms wrapping around her, and her sobs were muffled against him.

“I’m… I’m sorry I brought it up,” he said.

“No. You had to. Someone has to.”

She curled her fingers in his tunic, trying to breathe rather than sob.

Eventually she pulled back, wiping at her face.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

“What?”

“Let’s go to Eriadu.”

“Are you sure we should be meeting up with a pirate?” Crosshair asked.

Omega was grinning, almost bouncing with excitement. The sun shone, agreeing with her cheery mood.

“She’s not just a pirate. She’s my friend. And she was Tech’s friend.”

At his name Crosshair stopped speaking, letting Omega drag him to the meeting place by the caves on the beach. Batcher bounded ahead of them, barking in delight, and chasing birds that dropped to the sand to scavenge and perhaps enjoy a delicious meal.

They were near the caves when Batcher bounded towards someone, a half-eaten fish in her mouth.

Crosshair put on his best skeptical look, not a fan of Omega being friends with a pirate, and headed over.

Omega rushed ahead of him, and hugged Phee just as she was accepting the “present” from Batcher.

Crosshair dragged his feet, partially to observe. The thin, dark-skinned woman seemed genuine in her excitement at seeing Batcher and Omega, her smiles reaching her mirthful brown eyes.

“Phee, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Omega said as he stepped over to them. She came back over, holding onto his right arm. “This is Crosshair.”

“You’re Phee?” he asked, knowing he probably sounded judgemental or disinterested. Either would do.

Omega whacked his side. “Don’t be rude.”

He gave her a tired look, and she threw her hands up in defeat.

Then she turned to Phee, grinning, “Sorry about him.”

Phee deposited Batcher’s present on the ground when the panting lurca hound wasn’t looking.

“No worries. I expected… this.” She gestured at him.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Tech told me all about your sparkling personality.”

Crosshair almost huffed a laugh at that, but then grief hit him so hard he could barely breathe. Tech was gone for all of them. He stepped back slightly.

“So why are we meeting here?” she asked, looking around. “And what exactly are we discussing? You weren’t very forthcoming, Omega.”

“Sorry, uh… about that—”

“We want to go to Eriadu,” Crosshair stated, not having time for cold feet, or worry at how certain words struck him deep. “I need to see where he died.”

Phee sighed, and sat on the rocks. She picked up a shell and tossed it into the blue waves.

“No, you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t need to see that,” Phee said. “I went, and… it broke my heart.”

Crosshair didn’t want to admit to his pain, but it was dragging at him, urging him. This wasn’t real! Tech wasn’t dead! He couldn’t be. He just couldn’t be. How was he dead? The last time Crosshair had seen him had been that platform on Kamino, and it just wasn’t fair. Why Tech? Why someone so brilliant, and brave? Perhaps those were the reasons for it, for a sacrifice that felt empty and hollow, like the hole in Crosshair’s chest, in his life. His emotions couldn’t comprehend that he was really gone. He couldn’t be.

He came forward, raising his voice, hardening it, “I need to see. I need to know. He’s not even dead to me. For all I know he could come walking down to us right now. I never saw him die, and he died while I was…” His hand shook, and he grasped it. “It’s just. Not. Real. Not to me. That's why I need to go.”

Phee pulled Omega close, wrapping a hand about her wrist, and something stung Crosshair in the chest, and it sizzled with electricity.

Jealousy? Protectiveness?

She let her go after rubbing her back in a consoling manner, and Omega reached out to Crosshair. He almost backed away, right foot lifting, toes digging in the sand, but then he held his ground.

The sun seemed to burn, the brightness too much. For a moment Crosshair didn’t completely understand where he was, what he was feeling, what was happening.

Focus.

He pretended he was aiming at a target, finding it with his eye. In his distress he picked the hilt of Phee’s sword, saw it glinting in the light, watched as it moved as she shifted and breathed.

He felt too exposed down here, and he looked up. Maybe Omega would say he was being paranoid if they weren’t in anyone else’s company. But he felt watched, felt like someone’s prey. Maybe he was. Maybe the coming pain was stalking him.

Seeing Eriadu would hurt. He knew that. Of course he knew that. It would be like seeing Mayday’s helmet. But he had to do it. He just had to.

“You don’t have to go back there,” Crosshair eventually said to Phee. “We just need to borrow your ship.”

She crossed her legs and leaned back on her hands. “Uh huh. So what makes you think I’d let you have my ship for free?”

Crosshair paused. “Omega said—”

Omega wilted under Phee’s suddenly tough gaze.

“Sorry?” she offered. “I didn’t know who else we could go to.”

“Why not Hunter?” Phee asked. “I’m sure he’d listen to the both of you, want to hear you out.”

Crosshair shook his head. “He’s done with that. He was there, he doesn’t know what… what it’s been like.”

“Then why don’t you tell him?”

Crosshair crossed his arms. “You know, I wasn’t expecting to be told to work on my communication skills from a pirate.”

“Trying to insult me, sniper?”

He sighed, looking around.

He thought he spotted something, a glint of sun against armor, but it passed behind a rock.

Crosshair changed how he was standing, Phee on one side, the direction they had come from on the other.

“Are you sure no one else knows we were meeting here?” Crosshair asked Omega.

“It’s just us.”

Batcher came over, offering Omega a stick, which she threw for her. Batcher bounded away down the beach, racing along beside the waves.

“So, are we getting your ship for a trip to Eriadu, or not?”

Phee stood. “Hmm. Not.”

“Good girl.”

Crosshair turned, seeing Batcher had given Hunter the stick. What was he doing here?

Crosshair faced him, and Hunter crossed his arms, Batcher nipping and tugging at the stick he still held. “Eriadu, huh?” he asked. “Just when were you planning on telling us that?”

“I wasn’t,” Crosshair said.

“So you were just going to leave, let me, and Wrecker, think you were missing?” Hunter asked. “And Omega, you know better than this. The Empire is—”

“Searching for me, I know.” She kicked the sand, refusing to look at Hunter. 

Guilt pulled at Crosshair, and he stepped forward. “Look, it’s my fault,” he said. “It was my idea.”

“Oh, I know it was because it’s stupid.”

“How did you even know we were here?” Crosshair asked.

Phee came over now, Hunter nodding to her. Phee took Omega’s wrist again, showing the comm she’d secretly activated earlier. Omega, a bit sullen, pulled out of her grip, switching her comm off.

“We’re not your enemies,” Hunter said.

“Then get out of my way,” Crosshair hissed.

“Why?” Hunter eventually asked, dropping the stick, Batcher pawing at it, giving a slight whine.

“What?”

“Why do you want to go?”

“Hunter, don’t be mad at him,” Omega pleaded. “He just wanted to know. He wanted closure about… about Tech. He never got that. He wasn’t there.”

Hunter’s stance relaxed, but wasn’t fully pulled down by grief.

“I think I can give you closure,” he admitted. “Come on.” And then he nodded at Phee. “Thanks for alerting me.”

“Anytime. Omega, stay out of trouble.”

“As if you stay out of trouble.”

“I only get into the fun kind of trouble.”

Crosshair noticed Batcher wasn’t following as they headed back up the beach, and he whistled for her.

He petted her smooth head as he walked, wondering what Hunter thought could possibly give him closure from a loss so tragic it felt like he’d had vital organs cut out of him, and with each breath he was bleeding out.

By the time he was back at the Marauder he was panting a little, and definitely sweating. Sometimes Crosshair wasn’t sure if he could get used to Pabu, but it was better than going on missions.

Hunter directed him to one of the seats before the ship’s central computers.

“Sit.”

He did, raising an eyebrow, which was interrogatory enough for Hunter.

He sat next to him, and Crosshair realized he wasn’t that upset by his nearness.

Hunter pulled up files, fingers not moving as fast as Tech’s would have.

“I pulled the data from the recorder on Tech’s goggles, put all the files into the computer. Wrecker and I have been sorting and organizing them, but there’s so much. We’re not even close to finished. But um, here…”

Hunter pulled up a recording, and Crosshair was stunned to see his younger self. All of them were younger.

“Tech, what are you doing?” cadet Wrecker asked.

The view shifted slightly, like Tech was adjusting the recorder.

“I’m recording us.”

“Erm, why?” Wrecker asked.

Crosshair was in the back, chewing on a toothpick, a habit he had only recently picked up at that time.

“It’s fun!”

Crosshair flicked his toothpick at him, and Tech laughed.

Crosshair found himself laughing a little too.

Hunter opened another file.

Tech was flying, and Crosshair saw a beach and a jungle through the viewport. Then he heard, “Why is Omega hanging off the side of the ship?”

“It is an unscheduled study break.”

Omega laughed at that, and she came in between Crosshair and Hunter. She leaned against Crosshair. He laughed too.

“Were you really hanging off the side of the ship?” he asked.

“It wasn’t like it was my fault,” Omega said. “There were giant crabs.”

“Yes, that explains everything,” he said, tone flat and deadpan.

Oh, there was so much he had missed.

He leaned into her, even as it had him leaning closer to Hunter.

Another file was brought up.

Crosshair was surprised to see himself with his light gray hair, and almost wanted Hunter to change it, but he decided to stay strong.

The cockpit of the Marauder was dark. Crosshair sat next to the pilot’s seat, trying to keep a wound on his arm from bleeding.

“Are you all right?”

Tech’s voice, asking him if he was okay, caring about him.

Crosshair put an elbow on the console, leaning in, and resting his face in his hand. He didn’t know if it was to hide his tears, or if he was just too shocked.

“Didn’t I tell you if you asked me again I’d use your goggles for target practice?”

Crosshair, Hunter, and Omega all gave weak laughs at that that could have been half-sobs, laughter awash with tears.

“Yes, and I know you’re lying.”

Crosshair put his foot down from where it had been resting on the chair, tightened the bandage on his arm like it was some kind of sign of strength, and leaned in. “You want to bet?”

“No, because last time I bet against you you completely cleaned me out.”

Blood seeped from the bandage, trickling down Crosshair’s arm.

Crosshair almost grinned at hearing Tech’s weary, annoyed sigh at him.

He pushed Crosshair back, and started helping him with his arm.

As he pressed gauze to it, hard, Tech said, “When will you learn that we care about you?”

“What’s there to care about?”

Crosshair felt those words deep in his bones, especially now. He was scarred, unable to fire a blaster with precision.

He was nothing now.

Just a tortured remnant of the man he had been in this recording.

Tech placed his other hand on Crosshair, a soothing gesture.

“Plenty,” he answered.

And somehow he thought maybe someday he could believe him.

Crosshair was crying silently as Hunter found another file. “Oh, this one is good,” he commented, all choked up.

Crosshair heard a little sob from Omega, and he started rubbing her back.

The view showed a cave with a pool before them, a waterfall plashing into it like a hidden song. The cave glowed blue, lighting up the water, the droplets glistening like jewels. It was so beautiful it broke Crosshair’s heart.

“Everything is changing, and you don’t even care,” Omega accused.

Crosshair glanced at her, and she was holding onto Hunter too, burying her head against his arm. He stroked her hair. Seeing that, it made things feel more normal than they had in a long time. Contentment made a home in the hole in his chest, even as it left room for plenty more, for a yawning darkness that still pulsed inside him like a dark poison.

“It is a fundamental part of life,” Tech answered.

“Echo left. Why doesn’t that bother you?”

“I am aware that you miss him, but we have to adapt and move on. That is what soldiers do.”

“We’re more than that. We’re a family. Aren’t we?”

Tech paused. “Well, uh, yes. Yes, of course we are.”

We are, Crosshair found himself mouthing.

And here his family was, missing this wonderful man, no longer whole anymore, but different, changed.

“Then why don’t you act like it?”

Tech sighed. “Echo chose a different path, as did Crosshair.”

Shame colored his cheeks, but he kept watching, needing to hear Tech’s words from this moment.

“I have to respect their decision. Even though it can be difficult to understand, we must carry on.”

Somehow it felt like Tech was speaking to him, telling him of his own loss.

“I may process moments and thoughts differently”—(he sure did)—”but it does not mean that I feel any less than you.”

Screaming and coughing filled the cavern as Wrecker and Hunter fell from the waterfall.

Crosshair couldn’t stop laughing, including when Tech said, “See? That wasn’t so bad.” Knowing him, it was pretty bad.

“No, no, we’re watching another one,” Hunter said, as Crosshair laughed at seeing them soaked and angry.

Crosshair put his hand on Hunter’s, and he could barely see from the tears in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Crosshair choked out. “I… I’ve seen… what I needed to see.”

He cried then, and Hunter and Omega pulled him into a hug, crying with him. Maybe it took a few moments, or more than that, but Crosshair tentatively held them like they held him.

We’re a family. Aren’t we?

Tech was gone. No more words to be spoken or flying to be done, but he lived in his recordings, lived in them, lived in their hearts, and in the bond they had with each other.

Yes, of course we are.

[dancingtotuyo]

1. tame the ghosts in my head

Woman | Joel Miller X Reader

Series Rating: Mature/Explicit

Chapter Summary: Joel Miller finds an unexpected face upon his return to Jackson.

Tags: Joel Miller x Reader. Age Gap. TV show characters. Mostly Cannon compliant for show and game.

Chapter Warnings: references to canon type violence, injuries, swearing, medical exam, illusions to loss & grief.

Words: 2437

Series Masterlist | Author Masterlist | Playlist

Familiarity is a foreign thing in this world. A priceless gift from the universe if you’re deemed to be so worthy, it’s a treasure to be treated as so, but when one is lucky enough to be chosen, fear tarnishes it. Gifts only last so long before they are taken away, leaving only grief and loneliness in their wake, making you wonder if it was really a gift at all or just a cruel prank. Yet, it gets you everytime, roping you into its trap.

It might be 20 years since you’ve laid eyes on him, but that stance, those brown curls, you would recognize them anywhere You spent the younger years of your life committing him to memory. You feel the trap tugging you toward him. You can’t be caught up again. You tell yourself you won’t be.

“Joel!”

He turns around, dark brown eyes meeting yours. He doesn’t expect anyone else to know his name here. Why does it sound familiar to him?

It all escapes from the recess of your mind. That all-encompassing file titled “before,” flies open. Memories come flooding back of him and of Sarah. You’re only conscious of the first trap, but there are others lying in wait. You and Tommy talk about her sometimes, but this brings up so much more.

He looks confused at first. You watch him wrack his brain. He recognizes you, but from where? You’re not the kid he once knew. The fresh, doe-eyed look of a 20-something new graduate is replaced by the 40-something worn woman you’ve survived into. Finally, it dawns on him.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He walks over to you, disbelief written across his features.

“Hi.” You smile.

“Hi.”

It’s an awkward thing. Do you hug? Shake hands? You were Sarah’s babysitter from the time she was 6 until she complained she didn’t need one once she turned 13. The two of you still hung out when you were back from school. Joel usually slipped you a $20. You would’ve done it for free, never expected the cash, but you were also a broke college student. You never turned it down.

The lure of a familiar face is strong. The two of you settle on a comfortable distance. Closer than strangers, further than family.

“Tommy told me you were here at Christmas. He’s been worried about you.”

Joel nods. “It’s been a long couple of months.”

“Just months?” Your brows shoot up.

Joel fights back a smile. He remembers the smartass remarks you used to give Tommy when he teased you while you waited for Joel to cough up the cash he owed.

Flashes of coming home to pillow forts and Sarah’s giggles, arts and crafts with glitter that littered the house for weeks afterwards, and the countless other memories play in his mind.The memories send a pang through his chest, but he can handle them now, and here is another person who holds those precious memories.

“Relatively speaking of course.” The smile breaks through on his face. It’s starting to feel less foreign to him these past few days.

Joel wasn’t the most smiley person when you knew him 20 years ago. It suits him, you think. Another lure. Another diversion you don’t catch because you are so aware of the trap you’re sure it set, you don’t see the other one hiding. You won’t let the universe give you another person just to take them away.

“Of course.” You return his smile.

“I’m supposed to get checked out at the clinic. I think they gave me bad directions. Either that or my memory is shit.”

“I was just headed there. You can follow me.” Nod your head in the general direction.

“You’re a nurse.” He seems slightly unsure.

“Memory can’t be all that shitty, I guess.” You shrug. “If you call 3 months in the trauma unit being a nurse that is.”

“You got the education. I remember that.”

The keys jingle in your hand as you unlock the doors. The lights buzz to life with a flip of a switch. The slim medical supplies you have are neatly organized on shelves. It’s enough to care for basic needs. Scout teams sometimes bring back supplies from other places when they go on longer expeditions. All medications are safely locked away. You have the only key. You count the meds on a weekly basis with Maria and go over your meticulous logs. There’s a board-certified doctor in town. He practiced family medicine before the outbreak. He’s good with routine stuff but didn’t want a key. Too much pressure he claims.

You deal with the big stuff. Gaping wounds, infections, whatever it was that resembled surgery in this world. You play doctor, nurse, surgeon, and midwife. It falls on your shoulders and what you can remember from school. There are a few medical journals and textbooks on your shelves. Dr. Pooley has taught you a lot, but his knowledge is more outdated, more about family medicine. More often than not, you fail. People remind you; you do the best you can, you’re not trained for this, supplies are limited. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.

“You can take a seat.” You nod toward the medical table.

Joel nods, hopping up. “Did Ellie stop in last night? She said she would.”

“Yeah she did.” You wash your hands with soap. “Seems like a good kid. She’s got quite a mouth.”

Joel chuckles. “She seem okay?”

“For someone with two bites on her arm, yeah.”

He looks up, his eyes a mix of fear and concern and then it goes away. “Tommy told you?”

“Yeah… wanted to make sure I was the one who checked her out.”

“He tell anyone else?”

“Probably Maria.” You shrug and watch the uneasiness leave him. “I won’t tell anyone, Joel. It’ll either get people's hopes up or cause a witch hunt. Besides, doctor patient confidentiality and all that.”

He looks relieved. “Thanks.”

You nod. “Now, take your shirt off.”

He raises an eyebrow. You roll your eyes.

“I swear if you give me some snarky comment, I will stab you with a scalpel.”

He cringes feeling fantom pain in his scarred abdomen. “Noted.”

“You okay?” You catch the twinge on his face, stare at the gash on his neck.

“Yeah… it’s just…” He sighs, slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

For a moment, you are 22 years old again and sense of medical professionalism ceases to exist. It’s embarrassing really, the crush you had on him. Though, it’s just as embarrassing that it’s still affecting you. 20 years ago, you thought the world was more likely to end than anything remotely close to this happening. It seems Ironic now.

The nurse in you returns before his shirt slides off his shoulders. Your eyes go wide as you spot the big, angry scar on Joel’s abdomen. “What happened?”

Your fingers press around the scar, inspecting it. It’s cruel and jagged, still pink, but healed. It’s several months old and there’s no signs of infection.

“Your fingers are cold.”

You roll your eyes. “What happened?”

“We came across some raiders. I took them out, but not before one of ‘em got me with his broken bat.”

“Fuck, Joel.” You press a little firmer, searching for any signs of sensitivity or irritation.

It hits him that he’s never heard you curse. He bites back the tilt of his lips. He doesn’t think you would appreciate it. He never teased you like Tommy did. He was more of a quiet observer before the outbreak. He still considers himself so, but there’s an urge to tease you now. Maybe he wants to steal a slice of pre-outbreak life back.

“Does this hurt at all?” You continue to press all around, this time looking in his eyes. You’re firmly in his personal space now.

He never got to look at your eyes this closely before. They’re beautiful. He reads so much swirling in them. He still sees bits of the 22 year old he knew, freshly graduated and eager to help a world so close to damnation. He sees the shadows floating around, the trauma of living in this world. He sees it in others all the time. He sees it in himself everytime he looks in the mirror, but he wants to know what caused the darkness in yours.

He catches the fine lines that have started to age your face, and a few silver hairs beginning to weave through your natural hair color. He thinks they suit you.

“Joel.” Your voice is firm, shaking him out of his thoughts. “Any pain? Discomfort?”

He shakes his head. You let out a low whistle. “You’re one lucky bastard. It’s a bang up job on the stitches, but it did its job.”

“It got infected. Ellie managed to get her hands on some penicillin.”

His eyes darken. There’s more to the story, but you know better than to ask. One doesn't just “manage” to get their hands on penicillin, especially out here.

Your eyes scan his abdomen, but it is purely medical this time. Joel has several old scars covering his back and abdomen consistent with what you expect. The gash on his neck has already scabbed over, a couple of days old. You do your best to clean it without opening it back up.

You bring your stethoscope to his heart. It thuds in your ears. He breathes in at your instructions: long and steady in, long and steady out. His breath tingles in your ear. Your eyes scan up his neck and face. You think he might be just as handsome now as he was 20 years ago. He meets your eyes and you snap back to the tasks at hand. Heat rises over the back of your neck. You pull away before it reaches your cheeks.

Joel keeps quiet the whole time. His eyes track your every movement; a hazard of living in this world. It’s a hazard you learned to drop when within the walls of the settlement, though it took you years to do so.

His blood pressure is a little high, nothing too concerning or surprising. It’s not like you have medication to help. “How old are you?”

Your eyes meet again. “56.”

You wrack your brain. You helped Sarah with his birthday on numerous occasions. “September 26, right?”

“You remember?”

“I believe I helped put on several of your birthday parties.” You crack a smile, writing it down on the form. You have one for each member of the settlement in case of emergencies. “Shit… that’s-”

“Yeah, I know.” Joel crosses his arms. He hasn’t put his shirt back on yet. His biceps bulge, drawing your eye toward them. It hits you; maybe adult you also has a crush on Joel Miller. You shove that thought to the side. You’re avoiding that trap too.

Joel catches your eye. You swallow, hoping he didn’t catch you staring. “You can put your shirt back on.”

He nods. You don’t watch as he buttons it up. You study the file in front of you like it’s the next great American novel. “Do you know your blood type?”

“O negative.”

“You absolutely sure?”

“You calling me a liar?”

“No, but I’d hate to tap you on the shoulder asking for you to transfuse blood and the person drops dead because you had O positive or some other type.”

“I’m sure.”

You nod, marking it the chart. Joel’s shirt is back on. You can’t decide if you’re relieved or not, but something else catches your eye as he struggles with the last button.

“Hold out your hands.”

His eyes roll but obeys. You visually inspect them. Nothing seems wrong at sight.

“Now make a fist.”

He does, internally cursing when his right hand shakes and shutters. It still doesn’t close all the way. Taking all those fireflies out the day before doesn’t help matters. He eyes you, but you’re completely focused on his hands.

You place your index and middle fingers in his palms. “Now squeeze.”

You feel the fight in his right hand. Its grip is loose compared to the left.

“I broke it back in September.”

“How?” You take his hand. It’s warm and calloused. You ignore that part away as you feel through the bones and tendons searching for misplaced bones or built up scar tissue.

“Took out a Fedra guard leaving Boston QZ.”

“Define took out.” Your inspection continues.

Joel shifts looking away from you. It gives you a good look at his profile. Your eyes flicker up the muscles of his neck, his strong jaw and the scruff that covers it. You catch sight of a faded scar on his temple. He didn’t have that 20 years ago… you kick yourself for remembering that.

“It was just a hairline. Healed up fine on its own.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Obviously.”

Joel refuses to meet your eye. He doesn’t answer your question. Your annoyance grows.

“I’ll give you some options. Stunned? Mamed? Knocked unconscious?”

“Look, I'm not the person I used to be.”

You straighten up. “Nobody is, Joel. We’re literally in hell.” You push back images of your own actions- and inactions. “Now tell me so I can make a rough estimate on the force you used.”

Joel sighs. He remembers the cracking of bones. The way the guard went limp. It doesn’t haunt him. He would do it again to protect people, so why is he so hesitant? Is it that he associates you with Sarah?

He swallows. “Killed.”

He waits for you to kick him out, for a look of disgust to cover your face, but it never happens. You simply keep going with the exam. “Okay.”

You hit a sensitive nerve in his hand. He hisses. “I think it was more than a hairline… but it seems to have healed okay all things considering.”

Joel nods.

“I’m going to rig something up to help you strengthen the hand. It probably won’t help the nerve though.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I will. I’ll drop it off at your house this evening.” You make note of a few things on a clipboard. “Otherwise, I’m giving you a clean bill of health.”

“So I’m free to go?”

“Free to go.” You nod.

He’s almost out the door when you turn around. “And Joel…” He stops, meeting your eye for the first time since his confession. “We’ve all had to kill people, do ugly things for the sake of survival. Don’t think you’re the only one.”

He wants to ask further questions, but you turn your back to him and it dies on his tongue.

[intheshadowsbehindyou]

Could you do like a little one shot of nsfw Scout with short s/o? Your writing is so good 😭😭😭 the short headcannons got me feeling some sorta way

*cracks knuckles so hard that I spontaneously combust* ok

Scout X Reader: There Are No Good Guys In War (NSFW)

Jeremy hated halloween.

Every year, something incredibly supernatural would happen and it would never be within’ the Mercs’ favor. A guy with a pumpkin head, a floating eye, a centuries old lich that Soldier had once called his friend? He wondered what would occur now — now that the Gravel wars made their way to Japan. Scout had did very short history lessons of this country in high school. But overall the general population in America seemed to agree that Japanese people were somehow “bad.” And Japanese people themselves didn’t enjoy Americans either. He wondered if maybe the locals would kill him before a vengeful kami would find him and Team Fortress.

“I mean— Look at this place. Look, I can’t blame them. Everybody’s lookin’ at me. I’d be fuckin’ pissed too if somebody blew up my city.” Scout told you, as he impulsively scooped white rice into his mouth.

You looked out the window of the countryside restaurant. Watching people walk by. “They are suspicious of us. Like you said. Although to be honest I don’t think they want to hate you.” You said slowly.

“Why not? I’m literally a guy from the country they went to war with not that long ago.”

“Well, yes. But you didn’t give the direct orders, did you? You just want peace. Like the majority of civilians.” You respond. Your gaze fell upon the window again, contemplating his words.

Scout was contemplating your words too. A mild frown spread across his face as he put his empty bowl down. You could recognize that face anywhere from Scout— something was bugging him and he’s going to be ungodly amounts of stubborn about it: He’ll never tell you what the problem is.

The both you left an hour later. Walking out into the stratus clouds overhead. The trees you could vaguely recall having cherry blossoms were now bare and the rest of the trees lacked any shade of green. Scout looked greatly affected, as if his mood couldn’t get any worse from that conversation. He had expressed to you before having mild seasonal depression. He looked down at your short physique and tilted his head.

“Uh, so that bathhouse or whatevea, huh?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute. I forgot to turn in a contract.” You said, the australium contracker in your hands looked dull with so little sunlight. You knew Scout didn’t look too good, but you hesitated out of respect for his wishes. If he didn’t want to speak that was fine. “You remembered to hide that body right?”

“Huh? Yeah. I threw it in some trash bin or somethin.” Scout swayed his arms impatiently on the sidewalk. Shuffling his feet and getting distracted by every single thing that moved.

“Oh great.. They definitely won’t find it there.” You said, sarcastically. Although you were less than surprised. You were used to this incompetence by now.

Suddenly, you felt a lack of weight and you were being hauled into the air. Scout threw you over his shoulder and left your legs kicking in the air. You let out a shameful yelp that would give a Pomeranian a run for its money.

“Wh— Scout! God dammit I need t—“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shuddup. Let’s go, nerd.” He placed oddly seductive empathsis on the last word. Although you considered yourselves as friends it was slowly beginning to seem otherwise. Treating you like a high school bully was a subtle hint. Scout was in denial and swore he had eyes for only Pauling. Your interactions begged to differ. You weren’t dumb.

You snarled at him, allowing yourself to be carried for a short distance. Part of you wanted to reach down and spank him on the rear because of how close you were. But Scout was jogging too fast. The bumpy ride didn’t even give you time to think. Let alone his heavy breathing.

You let yourself down from the taller man, trying to assess your surroundings. Only to find you were at the exact address listed on the magazine. You blinked for a second and took in the forested path that wasn’t there before. He shoved you forward with one hand to the bridge that led to the Onsen.

“Hey!” You exclaimed, holding your back. “You’re stronger than you look, that hurt!”

“You’re adorable, y’know that? You’re like a kitten if a kitten was like.. four inches.” He said, raising his hand to your height. “Yeah well, maybe don’t be so small. It’s like you’re begging me to throw you. FYI. Stop drinkin’ coffee and maybe you’ll be a more respectable height, doofus.”

“Jesus, Scout..” You mutter, trying to hold back the smile that nearly crept its way onto your face. He was a rather lovable asshole.

It only took a few minutes to find a private room. By a few minutes — that is — an hour of Scout trying and failing to speak fluent Japanese to the poor caretaker in front. But finally they got the memo and took you two to the outdoor bath, muttering something what you could only assume was derogatory towards Scouts’ behavior. You began to wonder if the reason he felt hated so much by them is because he has a general disregard for common decency.

You watched Scout take off his shirt. This was an unintentional strip tease for you. Watching him undo his belt was making you feel even more. You decided to look away, feeling a bit guilty.

“Hey uh.. Y/N.” He sighed. “Do you think i’m.. A bad person? Like, as in a bad guy?”

“Can you rephrase the question?” You tell him, sarcasm dripping off your tongue like venom. Rolling your eyes at his occasional lack of self awareness. You went about undoing your own work uniform.

“Hey, I mean it. Like, do you think i’m.. Bad, for being a mercenary? Beating the shit out of old men and whatnot?” He asks you. There is a hint of sadness in his voice that makes your heart break.

You sigh in defeat. This is not a conversation you wanted to have, but it was an important question you felt nonetheless. You couldn’t blame his innocence in this situation. It’s not like his Mom had a coherent answer to this either. You fumbled around in your brain for a nempathetic yet truthful answer.

“Scout, none of us are truly good guys.” You say, looking at yourself in the reflection of a puddle. “A mercenary is opportunistic, and takes jobs because he knows it will get him the money he so desperately needs.”

You continue on. “When the war happened, when you were a newborn I mean — they attacked each other because they were scared. Is it bold of me to assume that humans act crazy in general when they feel threatened? In your case it was poverty. You wanted your family to survive. Any other method felt hopeless. Not that these actions are justified but—“

“I enjoy beating the shit out of people, is the thing.” Scout got his clothes off while you weren’t looking. You could hear slight concern in his tone.

“Yeah well that’s probably because you went to school in a shitty atmosphere— what the FUCK?!”

You were about to tell him that in the grand scheme of things, you’d always adore him nonetheless. Even if he was a massive morally dubious prick. But your intimate philosophical conversation with him was cut short when you gazed upon his body. This was the first time you’ve seen him fully undressed.

..Let alone with a massive hard on.

“What?” He asked you. “You see this shit? This is all god’s handiwork, babey.” He assumed you were just admiring his figure and presented himself by flexing. “Lookatdis. Fuckin’ unstoppable titanium. Fifty pounds of concrete stacked atop a goddamn bedrock foundation.”

He was completely unaware of his throbbing dick. Your mouth began watering, and you looked towards the bath. It didn’t really occur to you until now that him holding you might’ve done this.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” You ask him, taking a deep breath.

“I mean.. Two friends bathing isn’t romantic in any way, right?” He asked. “Right?”

“Right.” You lied. Oh lord, you were about to fuck a godamn trigger happy twink silly until he couldn’t walk.

A trigger happy twink that was loved nonetheless.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

I told myself I was going to work on my chaptered WIPs after dinner today, but instead, I saw this TikTok on my FYP and was instantly like I need to write this. So I did write this. Enjoy maybe? I don't even know

“We're sorry ladies and gentlemen, but due to the bad weather at our destination, we will be delayed again. We will now begin boarding at 8:40. Thank you.”

Nesta barely swallows down her sigh, and a number of groans and grumbles echo around her, clearly mirroring her annoyance and souring mood. Three hours. They're delayed another three hours. It's just the cherry on top of an already stressful travel day.

She digs her phone out of her bag and quickly sends a text in the groupchat with her sisters, giving them an update on her flight status. With that done, she spends some time scrolling aimlessly through social media, already mentally chastising herself for not packing a backup book into her carry-on. She should've known. She should've known everything that could go wrong, would, and she'd be stuck sitting at her gate for hours with her book already finished from the first hour delay.

Rather than stare at the walls for the next three hours, Nesta thumbs through her apps until she finds Tinder, knowing that will at least provide some entertainment while she waits. As soon as the app loads, she starts judging and swiping. Shirtless photo with the face cut off? Swipe. Group photos of generic looking white dudes where you can't even tell who the profile is even for? Swipe. Photo with an obvious ex? Swipe. Photo from the gym? Swipe.

“Wow,” a voice says from behind Nesta, making her jump. “You didn’t even want to think about it a bit more before swiping? Looked like a great guy to me.”

Nesta twists in her seat, and to her horror, comes face to face with the exact man she just swiped left on. He has his hair scraped back into a bun rather than down the way he had in his picture, and this close, Nesta realizes his eyes are a bright hazel, the gold of them seeming to flicker in amusement under the harsh airport lighting. But despite the slight differences, there’s no denying it’s most definitely him.

Nesta is sure her face must be the picture perfect of embarrassment, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. She can feel the tell-tale signs of a blush creeping up her neck and threatening to spill across her cheeks, but she quickly schools her features into a scowl instead. From the smirk that tugs up the left corner of the man’s lips, he’s clearly clocked it anyways.

“Gym rat isn’t really my type,” Nesta tells him primly.

“Is that so?” the man laughs, the sound warm and seeming to rumble deep from within his chest. “You didn’t even swipe through all the photos either. The third one is a nice photo with a dog. Doesn’t that show I’m a caring guy?”

“I think it shows that you try too hard on your dating profile.”

“You know, just for that, I’m going to remove my like,” the man shoots back, tossing Nesta a wink when he takes in her surprise. “That’s right, sweetheart. If you had swiped right, it would have been a match.”

“Oh, no. Whatever will I do now?” Nesta remarks dryly with a roll of her eyes.

The man laughs again, stretching out his hand over the backs of their seats toward her. “Cassian by the way, since it looked like you swiped too fast to even read my name.”

Nesta scoffs, but she slides her hand into Cassian’s. His hands are much larger than hers, practically swallowing hers whole as his fingers curl around her hand. The calluses of them slide against her palm, but his hand is warm and steady, and for a moment, she swears her blood heats from the contact, that some flame deep within rises to meet him, to greet him as though her very soul seems to recognize him.

“So what has you flying to Velaris?” Cassian asks when he pulls his hand back.

“Family,” Nesta explains, shifting in her seat to face him properly. “My sister lives there, so I’m flying out for her engagement party.”

“Same for me. Both my brothers live in Velaris, so I’m flying home for them. Well, Rhys in particular, but…” Cassian says with an easy shrug before reaching his hand up and rubbing it almost nervously along the back of his neck. “Anyways, you know with the delay, they technically have to give us food and drink vouchers now. Want to go check out one of the bars?”

Nesta can’t stop the surprise laugh that tears past her lips, refusing to acknowledge the warm feeling that blooms in her gut when Cassian’s face lights up at the sound. “Are you asking me on a date? In an airport?”

“Absolutely,” Cassian agrees, his grin wide. “Do you have anything better to do for the next three hours?”

Nesta blinks once, twice, but she can’t say he’s wrong. Not to mention, that after spending so long dealing with the lines and the delays at the airport, she could definitely go for a big glass of wine.

“Alright, fine. I'm in,” Nesta agrees, standing up and gathering her things.

Cassian's grin widens even more somehow, the greens and golds of his hazel eyes seeming to alight as he stands up as well, shouldering his backpack. They retrieve their vouchers from the worker behind the counter, and then Cassian offers his arm toward Nesta like they're in the countryside of some period movie and not the middle of the crowded, dingy airport in the twenty-first century. Nesta raises an eyebrow at the gesture, but she settles her hand in the crook of his elbow nonetheless, letting Cassian lead them away from their gate and toward one of the airport bars.

Nesta hates to admit it, but she ends up having a good time with Cassian. Despite Nesta's correct assessment of him being a gym rat, he tells her about the gym he owns and operates, the classes that he teaches there. She tells him about her own job, about the law firm she's working at and some of her past cases, and he actually seems interested, asks her questions and listens. But more than anything, for every dry remark, every quip, she throws his direction, he doesn't balk or get offended. Instead, he rises to the challenge, laughing and smirking and throwing his own suggestive comments right back at her. For as much as he has her rolling her eyes in fond annoyance, he has her laughing too. It’s easy in a way it probably shouldn’t be, but Nesta doesn’t mind.

Almost too quickly, the three hours pass, and Nesta and Cassian make it back to their gate. Thankfully, their plane is actually boarding now. Cassian has a higher boarding number than Nesta on his ticket, so she expects that to be the end of their chance encounter today, but when she steps onto the plane, Cassian waves her down.

“Saved you a seat,” Cassian explains, gesturing to the open seat beside him.

Nesta glances at the seats further down the plane, at the line of people waiting behind her expectantly. She steels her nerves and slides her bag into the overhead compartment, settling into the seat beside Cassian after all. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long after she’s seated for the plane to finish boarding and takeoff. Nesta prepares to settle in for the flight, but to her surprise, Cassian takes two sets of headphones from the flight attend when she offers them.

“So what movie do you want to watch?” Cassian asks, touching through to the entertainment options on the screen in front of him.

“You know you can’t plug two sets of headphones in, right?”

“True, but I can hit play on both our screens at the exact same time.”

Nesta snorts quietly at that, but she doesn’t say anything more as Cassian pulls up a movie on both their screens, lets him plug in both sets of headphones and takes the ones plugged into her screen. She has to bite her lip around a laugh while Cassian hovers a finger over both screens, ensuring he presses play at the exact same time on both.

Nesta relaxes back to watch the movie, but it’s not long before the stress of the day catches up with her, exhaustion digging deep into her bones and pulling her under. She tries to focus on the actors on the screen, on the dialogue and the story, but her eyes feel heavier and heavier with each passing minute. She decides to close her eyes, just for a few minutes.

When Nesta opens her eyes again, the screen in front of her is black, and a quick glance toward Cassian’s screen shows a new movie playing. Her head is nestled against his shoulder, his arm wrapped snuggly around her shoulders and fingers drawing senseless patterns against her bicep. Nesta knows that she should move, that she should sit up, but she’s so comfortable, so warm. With each relaxed inhale in and exhale out, it doesn’t take much coaxing for Nesta to fall back asleep again.

Nesta wakes again when a gentle hand on her shoulder rouses her. She blinks her eyes a few times before Cassian’s face comes into focus, and he offers her a small, soft smile.

“We made it to Velaris,” Cassian explains quietly. “Just landed.”

Nesta nods her head and sits up, rubbing at her eyes and the remnants of sleep still clinging there. The plane starts to deboard, and they both clamber out of their seats, Cassian getting Nesta’s bag down for her. They follow the signs to baggage claim, waiting until bags start to drop down onto the carousel. Nesta spots her bag first. She goes to grab it, but Cassian pulls it off the carousel for her. It doesn’t take his own bag long to appear, and he grabs that too.

With both their bags now in hand, Nesta turns toward him, realizing that this is it. This is the end of their unexpected traveling together. That now they’ll go their separate ways in Velaris. That now she’ll probably never again see Cassian and his hazel eyes and his easy grins, never hear his suggestive barbs and his warm laughter.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye then,” Nesta tells him, surprising even herself with the way she feels… disappointed, the way her heart prickles and squeezes between her ribs.

“I guess it is,” Cassian agrees, leaning down and pressing a kiss against Nesta’s cheek. “Enjoy Velaris, Nes.”

Cassian turns and heads for the airport doors, leaving Nesta standing there and blinking in shock after him. She reaches a hand up, pressing her fingers against the spot he had kissed her, only the ding of her phone finally pulling her back to reality. She digs it out of her bag, finding a text message from a new contact blinking up at her.

—

Airport Hottie

Maybe next time, you’ll swipe right ;)

Updated Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added): @moodymelanist​ @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430​ @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld @isterofimias @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust @a-trifling-matter @blueunoias @kookskoocie @cassiansbigwingspan

[vro0m]

2016 season summary

Alright let’s get the general stuff out the way first because we all know this is mainly gonna be about brocedes anyway.

General stuff :

First of all F1 really fucked up with trying to change quali and with the incredibly stupid radio ban. Also they’ve been sold to Liberty media so you know things are gonna change.

At the start of the season Ferrari looks pretty good but they’re not winning the development war. For RedBull : there’s the controversial swap with Max making it into the A-Team after just 4 races. The relationship between Daniel and Max is interesting. There’s a clear time when you can tell Ricciardo starts feeling threatened by the kid. They’re getting closer and closer to Mercedes as well. And of course there’s literally a whole rule added by Charlie because of how Max drives, i.e. dangerously.

Okay now let’s get to the main topic, brocedes :

Look. It’s gonna be difficult to write this because what hasn’t been written about it already? I’m not gonna have a smarter or original thing to say, so I guess all I can do is give my own outlook on things.

First of all, I do agree Nico probably would not have won a title if it wasn’t for Lewis’ bad luck. But it doesn’t actually matter. Luck is part of the sport. In 2015, Nico was the unlucky one out of the two. That’s just how it is : you need a good driver in a good car with a good strategy but if your driver is unlucky none of it counts.

Reliability is also not the only problem Lewis faces that season. Because of it and because of the mechanics swap (which imo was a very poor managerial decision btw, way too radical), he gets very very deep in his head. Adaptability is truly not his best trait, to this day. He’s very unhappy about the swap, and then he gets paranoid with the reliability issues, even suggesting some conspiracy theory at some point (Malaysia - and yeah I absolutely do not believe the official Merc version that he was alluding to a higher power rather than someone sabotaging him). He just can’t get over himself, not that it would have changed much of anything to his engine repeatedly failing.

Thus, Lewis’ self-narration progressively goes from “I’m heroically battling the odds and not giving up” to “he’s only winning because I had reliability issues” when it becomes clear he’s only gonna beat Nico through actual divine intervention. He’s absolutely unable to recognize Nico’s work. Even after Nico has won, he keeps saying “I don’t wanna take anything away from him, he did everything he had to this year BUT”. And he just can’t let go of that “but”. He says it every single time. He can’t accept that he lost, or maybe he can’t accept that Nico won. I know I keep saying it but once again : Nico won against someone he saw as better than him, and Lewis lost to someone who he saw as not as good as he is. And he can’t accept it. And that’s why to this day, Nico is able to talk freely about their rivalry and about Lewis, and Lewis can’t. 

And – sorry for this personal vendetta but yes, I’m gonna mention it – the funny thing about this is, Lewis early on in the season (Bahrain GP) said in an interview that the issue with racing now is that drivers get coaches when psychologists just mess with your mind and they don’t need all that. Meanwhile Nico credited part of what allowed him to win that year to working “extremely intensely” with a sport psychologist. So. Yeah. Just saying. Maybe if he worked with a psychologist he wouldn’t have gotten that paranoid but who knows. Anyway, moving on. This really isn’t Lewis’ best year. That’s probably the least likeable I’ve seen him. And I understand why some people saw him as arrogant. Because he fucking is. (Doesn’t matter btw, I love a cocky asshole, but it’s honest to mention it I think.)

I’m absolutely fascinated with Nico’s departure as well. We’ve talked about it a bit in the last review but of course I’m gonna talk about it again. Right when I started watching the brocedes era for this rewatch (which, again, up to this point isn’t really a rewatch but a watch), I mentioned that being in this fandom without actually having seen it with my own two eyes gave me the very wrong picture of what it was like. Nico has been demonised a lot by Lewis’ fans, and I don’t think most of it was justified. I also think a lot of newer fans interpret the story with the current Lewis in mind (i.e. generally extremely clean racer, very good at media com, very good at portraying himself as good and above petty disputes – whether he truly is above them remains to be proven) but Lewis was an asshole much more outwardly at the time it happened, and he still had a lot of maturing to do, and his com was pretty bad (think of the Japanese GP snapchat scandal stupidity, I mean… the whole thing was ridiculous to being with, but he unfortunately handled it very poorly as well – if such a thing happened today he would react very differently). Anyway, I will forever wonder whether it could have been possible for them to have such a rivalry in a mature way later on, or if the fact that it’s THEM makes it impossible for them to be mature about it, in the way siblings can never fight without all the weight of their childhood on their backs.

Similarly, I feel like when you don’t know the actual story, like I mentioned in the Abu Dhabi review, it seems like Lewis won the war as Nico gave up on F1. But that’s not true. And look. You know I don’t really do fanfiction but I want to say that the first person who opened my eyes to it even before I got to the end of the season and saw it for myself was Akira (@effervescentdragon) in this ficlet. Credit where it’s due, what she wrote really stayed with me while watching the end of this season. Anyway, forgive me for quoting myself from the last race review, but there’s no use paraphrasing something I already wrote :

And I think it’s an important thing to finish on. Because a lot of people have said (I mean I’ve just read it in one of the articles I’ve read for this conclusion) that Nico won the battle but Lewis won the war because Nico basically gave up. I myself have alluded to this in the “Lewis breaks his teammates essay”. Lewis did break Nico. I mean Nico said pretty plainly that he was unable (but maybe more importantly unwilling) to keep putting so much effort into beating Lewis. But Lewis didn’t win the war, Nico did. Because Lewis never got to beat him again. [...] And Nico robbed him of a chance to set things right in his mind. In the story of their rivalry, the last thing that happened is, and will forever be : Nico won. And that’s Nico’s everlasting victory.

Let’s talk numbers : so far, I’ve completed 56.6% of my rewatch. In total, I’ve made 1,862 GIFs to illustrate it.

Here’s a list of the 2016 GPs with a quick summary and the link to the actual recap if you wanna read it or take a look at the GIFs I made :

Australian GP : season context, quali fiasco, Lewis pole, interviews, bad start, horrible crash with a redflag, slight Toro Rosso drama, Lewis P2

Bahrain GP : quali fiasco still being revised, Lewis pole, Alonso is NOT back, another interview, Angela, got overtaken by nico then contact with val, pretty good racing but not at the front, Lewis P3

Chinese GP : absolute disaster of a weekend, first PU failure, chaotic start, three pit stops in the first ten laps???, lots of overtakes, Lewis p7

Russian GP : abysmally stupid halo conversation, second PU failure + issues during the race, messy messy start, mechanics swap, lewis P2, bonus

Spanish GP : lewis pole, Max promoted to RedBull, obviously well. Double DNF.

Monaco GP : not on pole, mixed conditions, but still 44th win!

Canadian GP : controversial start incident, battle with Seb, nice podium, the seagull incident, Ted being very partial, Lewis wins!

European GP : bad quali and another engine problem, stupid radio ban, Lewis P5

Austrian GP : pole!, complicated race, shocking plot twist, lots of post race debrief, Lewis wins

British GP : Lewis pole, karting interview, wet start, loads of cars losing it, radio ban issue for Nico, Lewis wins

Hungarian GP : huge quali controversy, the radio ban gets even stupider, possibly some shady backing up and brake issues?, Lewis wins, championship lead! Raikkonen doesn’t like Max’s driving

German GP : Nico interview, strategy group meeting, pretty boring race, Lewis wins

Belgian GP : engine penalty, terrible Brundle opinions on the halo, incredibly chaotic race, Lewis P3 after an extreme recovery

Italian GP : extremely boring race, nothing to say, Lewis P2

Singapore GP : chaotic start, very very weird strategy calls, Lewis P3

Malaysian GP : fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck (but more seriously : turning point moment?, tragic ending, hurt no comfort, conspiracy theories, etc.)

Japanese GP : Snapchat controversy, another bad start, many overtakes early on, suspenseful ending, WCC decider

US GP : Lewis interview, Lewis pole, but more reliability problems, Lewis’ 50th win! Adorable podium.

Mexican GP : Lewis pole Lewis win, but nobody cares because there’s incredible drama between Max and Seb, none of your business

Brazilian GP : very very chaotic wet race, Massa’s last home race, lovely radio, baby Charles is in love, Lewis win

Abu Dhabi GP : obvious title decider, some stuff about Nico’s decision to leave F1

[incorrectpizza]

Hehehe know how I said literally 72 hours ago that I wouldn't be posting anything for @sabezraweek because of my concussion and general life chaos?

Fic also available under the cut for anyone who would prefer to read here on Tumblr. :)

Ezra’s cleaning up the tower when he finds the holoprojector. 

He’s halfway through a drawer of seemingly sentimental junk - an old comm of his, one of Ursa’s hair clips, Sabine’s own paint sprayer - when he spies a puck he doesn’t recognize. Curious, he flicks it on

He’s greeted by a younger Sabine, not much older than when he’d left. Her hair is the same dull dark purple as when he’d left with Thrawn all those years ago. It’s a bit longer though. Sabine sighs and runs a hand through it.

“So, it’s been a while since I’ve dyed my hair. I haven’t been able to since- since you and Kanan. But, well, things go on. I hoped you would be back by now but still no leads. So, I decided today would be the day.” Holo-Sabine holds up a can, shaking it. Then the image flickers and she returns with flaming pink hair. “Not bad for my first dye job in a year.”

Ezra’s eyebrows scrunch A year ? Sabine Wren, Mandalorian artist extraordinaire who dyed her hair at least once every six months, if not more, had been so out of sorts she hadn’t dyed her hair for a year ? 

In their brief reunion, he’d gotten the sense she’d missed him a lot. But not dying her hair?

Before his brain could come to any dramatic conclusions, the hologram glitched, faded, and returned. Sabine’s hair, a solid, shimmering lilac shifts into a gradient, the tips darkening to indigo. She tilts her head and spins to show all the angles before disappearing.

Holo-Sabine reappears with a full head of indigo holding a hair tie, a single odd lilac strand hanging down. A padawan braid?

“So, it’s been two years.”

She gathers her hair together as she speaks, knot nearly reaching the nape of her neck.

“I decided after the last dye job to let it grow out a bit. What do you think?”

Holo-Sabine smiles, but the expression is hollow. 

“So much has happened. Hopefully you’ll be able to come see yourself soon.”

The image fades and for a few seconds there’s nothing before Indigo Sabine reappears.

“I’m going to try something new. I’ve never done any sort of red hair because I dyed Tristan’s red once and he looked hideous. It doesn’t mesh well with the Wren complexion, but I’m feeling creative and I think this shade might be just the ticket.”

She pulls out a box of chestnut dye and sits it directly in front of the holoprojector. 

When she pulls it away, her hair is an odd shade of red slightly akin to the sky on Atollon.

“That was a very bad mistake.”  She shakes her hair out of the ponytail.

“Unfortunately, I can’t fix it for at least a week, and there’s a big banquet coming up soon.”

A static image displays next. Red brick haired Sabine in a floor length gown unlike anything Ezra had ever seen her wear. 

A meow from Murley alerts him to the fact his jaw is no longer aligned with the rest of his face. He clamps it shut, quickly, biting his lip in the process.

“Lesson learned.” A blissfully dark haired Sabine says. Hair the color of caf dangles past her chin, brushing against her shoulders, a few strands hitting her collarbone. “Worst two weeks of my life so far. I am never dying my hair anything close to red again."

The image shifts to Sabine sitting with a towel wrapped around her hair.

“I wish you were here.” 

Sabine closes her eyes and yawns, leaning her head back against the back of the coach.

“Force, Ezra. I just don’t know what to do without you around sometimes. I don’t see much of Hera or Zeb these days, which doesn’t help. I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.

“I guess I have to, though. I can’t go anywhere or do anything until this dye is done. And there’s still so much to do here on Lothal.”

The hologram pauses and skips forward to Sabine unwrapping her freshly-dyed hair. It’s a damp teal blue fading into white. 

The next image to appear is not Sabine, but Jacen. The little boy’s face takes up the entire span of the hologram, one lock of green hair brushing against the recorder for a moment before Sabine yanks him back. 

“I told you to be careful, Jacen.” She scolds, teasingly, setting him on his lap.

“Do you want to tell your big brother what you did?”

“I helped Aunt ‘Bine dye her hair!” Jacen giggles, hands gathering some of her hair and tossing it in front of the projector. Her brilliant green hair. Then he scampers down to go find Murley.

“Don’t worry. It’s temporary,” Sabine laughs and tosses it around, too. 

Her hair is blonde next - kriff , it looks so weird on her - and then purple again. She doesn’t say anything in these brief clips; Murley’s in the second one, playing with her padawan braid. 

Then a Sabine with a purple and pink gradient comes into view.

“It’s been five years now.” She sighs, and Ezra can practically hear the weight she’s carrying. He has some idea what she was going to say next, from what first Sabine herself and then Hera had told him about what happened. It doesn’t make it any easier. 

“The Empire’s gone. So that’s nice. Well, almost gone. A few stragglers but Hera and Zeb’s recruits will finish them off soon enough. And Jacen, if he has his way.” She smiles, slightly. 

The fond expression quickly disappears and as she turns her head slightly Ezra notices her padawan braid is conspicuously absent. 

“But the Empire struck one last blow. A retaliation against random worlds. Hera says one of the defectors called it Operation Cinder.

“They bombed Mandalore.”

“I haven’t heard anything from Krownest. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. But still, millions. I wasn’t- I couldn’t save them. My people.”

The transmission cut out and stayed quiet for several seconds. 

Sabine reappears with jet black hair, pinned up in a bun with the Clan Wren clip Ezra found earlier. 

“Krownest’s gone.” She sniffles, wipes her nose on the back of her orange shirt. “Mom. Dad. Tristan.”

“I wish you were here. I don’t know- I don’t know how you did it.”

Seven more hairstyles appear in rapid succession, solid pictures, flicks of hair. Black with pink tips. Black with green tips. Black with blonde tips. Brown, the color of her brother’s hair. Her natural color? Ezra wonders, absently. The same brown, but faded into pale pink. Then a whole head of pink, slightly darker. Pink into orange. 

And then purple faded into white, the reverse of the dye job she’d done after Malachor. The one she’d let him pick, that day she forced him to snap out of his trance with Maul and be himself again, if only for a few hours. It’s braided up into a severe bun, almost like the one Ezra remembers her mother wearing all those ages ago. 

This Sabine sits still in front of the camera for a few seconds, then speaks.

“Ten years.” She said. “What are you like now, Ezra? Have you changed your hair at all? Does the Chimaera have any razors or do you have a scraggly beard?” Ezra scratches his chin, fingers deep in his magnificent beard, and he scoffs slightly at Sabine’s lack of faith in his ability to grow facial hair. 

“I miss you.”

Then she shakes her head, letting it out. Hair spills past her shoulders, past her elbows, almost to her waist. Ezra gasps. Murley opens one eye and looks over at him, annoyed. 

Ezra doesn’t care. 

He’s transfixed, wondering what it would have been like to run his fingers through Sabine's long hair, and how much she’d experimented with that much canvas. 

He doesn’t have to wonder long.

Sabine appears again with hair dyed four different colors: Orange into yellow into pink into purple.

“Pretty cool, huh?” She asks. “I think it’s getting a little too long, though.”

She chops it off, live, on screen. She doesn’t say much - just a bit about how she misses even Chopper but doesn’t get to see any of the old crew often. 

“I miss you the most, though.” She confesses. “Hera told me that maybe recording would help, and I think it has. But I’m ready to start looking for you. Really looking. Not just researching and waiting on Ahsoka or Hera to find a lead.”

She finishes with her hair still well past her shoulders. 

“Not yet, though. I still have a piece of artwork to finish.”

One last Sabine pops up, with freshly dyed purple-pink-orange hair. “Almost done.” She says.

Then a much more familiar Sabine pops up - shortly cropped, dark purple hair. A bit of makeup. And armor. 

“It’s time. Ahsoka found something, just after I finished my mural in Capital City. I can't wait to bring you home."

The holo goes still, fades, and Ezra's sure it's done. 

He bends down to pet Murley and nearly falls over when Sabine's voice came back a solid thirty seconds later.  He scrambles back to his feet, grabbing the counter to pull himself up. He found himself staring right into Holo-Sabine’s eyes.

“If you’re seeing this, I guess I’m not there to hit pause and I owe you an explanation.

“I knew you were counting on me, and I knew you needed to come home. There’s so much in the galaxy you need to catch up on. And you have a little brother to meet.” Sabine smiles, a hint of sorrow lacing her expression.

“But most of all, I needed you. Whatever it took. If I’m not here…I don’t have any regrets. I’m just glad you’re home.”

She pauses a moment, runs a hand through her too-short hair, lets out a shaky breath.

“Ni kar’taylir darasuum, Ezra Bridger.”

Ni kar’taylir darasuum ?

Ezra furrows his brow as he pulls out a datapad and types in the best approximation of Sabine’s words. Murley jumps up and meows, and Ezra pushes him aside gently to reveal the confirmation of the hunch he's had she held him on Peridea like she never wanted to let him go.

“I hold you in my heart forever,” literally.

Or, in plain Galactic Basic, “I love you.”

[obsidiancreates]

One Undead To Another (Chapter 5)

(Trigger warning for more vampire vs ghost fighting, general brain fog, Shawn convinced he's hallucinating/has brain damage, Shawn turning into a vampire and all the anguish that entails.)

“I need you, Shawn! You can’t leave me alone! Wake UP!”

It’s the first anything Shawn is aware of. Before he can feel his own body, hear anything around him, before he can see.

He hears Gus, begging and distraught, and it pulls Shawn back to the world.

It takes a couple of tries, but he opens his eyes. His vision is blurry, and he must have brain damage, because even as it clears up he sees not only Gus bent over him sobbing, but his grandma. 

Who died when he was three.

“Oh my god, Shawn!” Gus doesn’t even bother to wipe his face, just pulls Shawn up into a hug- but pushes Shawn away just as fast. “Don’t even think about drinking my blood while I’m rescuing you right now.”

“Wh… wha?” Shawn’s voice cracks and scrapes against his throat. He’s parched. Dry like a desert, or his own dating life for all of highschool. “Wha’ th’ hell…”

“It’s okay, I’ve got you. And I’m pretty sure Lassie and Jules are wiping the floor with the vampires.”

“... Wha?” Shawn tries to sit up, to figure out where he is and what is going on and why everything is numb but all he manages to do is turn his head a little. That’s not a good sign. Something bad happened to him.

His vision swims just from that simple movement, and when it refocuses he’s not sure it actually does. Lassie is driving a shard of wood into the chest of some nondescript person (Popsicle, he thinks, though he can’t make the connection why) as Jules fights like a woman possessed against… someone Shawn would put money on as being a lawyer, or some other equally extremely desk-bound job.

When he looks at her, some of the numbness goes away- because he’s suddenly very aware of his neck exploding with pain. He wants to scream, to thrash, to fall back into that Nothingness where pain didn’t exist and neither did he- but all he manages is a weak moan.

“Just hang on a little longer.” Gus loops his arms under Shawn’s armpits and, with great grunts and puffs of effort, stands just enough to begin dragging Shawn away somewhere.

And then a hand grabs onto Shawn’s leg. It should feel cold, Shawn’s mind supplies for reasons he can’t pinpoint. The hand doesn’t feel any colder than he does, though. … But now that he thinks about it, he is cold. Very cold. But he’s not shivering. Tick that next to the possible head trauma in the list of Very Bad Things To Wake Up To.

“I’m not dying without killing you and your stupid mouth,” a gruff voice growls (Gramv- he nicknamed these people at some point. This is an investigation, then?). Gramv yanks on Shawn’s leg, easily pulling him out of Gus’s grasp.

Bad guy. Right, he’s in danger, this man is trying to kill him, he’s barely able to move, Lassie and Jules are busy and Gus just almost got his arms dislocated and the rest of the people in the room can’t possibly be real because they’re dead. His vision is still not a hundred percent, but he zeros in on a candle by Gramv’s hand and his own leg.

He barely manages to twitch his leg, but it’s enough. The candle tips over and the burning wick catches the sleeve of Gramv’s robe, and apparently it’s a very flammable material because he lights up quicker than a clue at a crime scene.

“Heh.” Shawn wishes he could make a pun, but even if he could speak at the moment, he still can’t really think. It’s a sludgy, foggy, all-around unclear mess in his skull. He’s not used to it, and if he had a clearer head he’s be panicking over not having a clear head. There’s a word for that. He can’t remember it right now.

Gus grabs him again and drags him somewhere deep within the maze (oh, he recognizes this maze, that could be good or bad, but is probably both). Shawn watches Lassie and Jules fade into the stacks of useless forgotten whatever, and begins to nod off again. Then Gus props him up against one of the stacks and lightly taps Shawn’s face to wake him back up.

“I need you to try and stand. I can’t carry a grown-ass man up the world’s most unsafe stairs all by myself.”

“St’nd.” Still can’t get out full words without slurring them- he definitely has brain damage. What happened to him? “Yea.” Shawn tries to push himself up, but his arms collapse under him within seconds. He starts to tip to the side, and Gus has to reach out and steady him. “I don’... f-feel…”

“Okay. Okay, we can do this. I can do this. How many times have you gone boneles son me? It was all leading up to this.” Gus bounces on his heels while he hypes himself up. “Burton Guster, you are about to carry your best friend up these stairs.”

Gus slings one of Shawn’s arms over his shoulder, and manages to stand and support Shawn’s entire weight without any help from Shawn himself. He feels like a bundle of wet noodles, but knitted together to be really dense and heavy, and way too overcooked, just absolutely inedible. 

… He’s hungry.

“G’s…”

“Just a little longer. Oh gosh… okay, we can do this.”

Someone else is supporting Shawn’s weight too.

“I’ve got him, Gus. I’ve got you, sweetie. Let’s get going.”

His grandma who isn’t real because she’s dead and Gus have to basically drag him up the stairs. Feeling starts to return to his legs as they go up, little by little, with each smack of his shins and ankles against the wooden slats pretending to be steps. 

Feeling is returning everywhere. He almost wishes it wasn’t.

He is in serious pain.

His neck is the worst of it- it feels raw, dug at, deep and tender and he can’t even begin to imagine what a wound that feels like this must look like. He’s a little surprised Gus hasn’t passed out or thrown up at the sight, because it must be gruesome.

Almost as bad is his stomach. No, wait, it might be worse- his evaluation is shifting as awareness slowly trickles in. … Yes, his stomach is worse, though not by much. It burns. His stomach, his guts in general, they burn. They twist and ache and stab and he can picture them shredding each other apart inside of him, little claws and teeth on his spleen or whatever else is down there, he doesn’t know, he just knows it hurts.

“Gus,” he gasps out. Okay, full word, not slurred, maybe his head will be okay after all. “I-I don’t feel-” He grits his teeth. Good? No, it’s deeper than that. He doesn’t feel… “Right.”

“I know.” Is it that visible? It must be. His neck probably looks like Spam what a feral cat got into, if the way it feels is any reliable indicator. Gus gives Shawn’s arm a squeeze. They’re slowly moving down a hallway now- his grandma disappeared sometime between the top of the stairs and this halfway hallway point. That’s another good sign for the brain damage clearing up, or at least he hopes it is. “It’s just a little farther to the car.”

Something in him twists. It ties itself up in a knot, and then instead of unrevelling itself it cuts, splits apart and the pain is like a shockwave, ripping through his entire body starting in his guts moving out and settling most in his head and his mouth and god he’s parched and hungry and it’s all he can think about as he stumbles and falls out of Gus’s hold and the whole thing leaves his ear ringing and his heartbeat hammering in his…

… Skull…

… That’s not…

His…

Heartbeat…

Gus’s arm is under him again, but everything is a blur. A hazy, quickly-moving blur, because all he can take in is that heartbeat.

It’s racing, pounding, the heartbeat of someone in deep distress, and Shawn doesn’t know why but it’s amazing. It’s his favorite sound in the world, thumping against the inside of his skull and mixing with the shockwaves of pain, rippling out from his head into his body and his limbs and it feels good.

He doesn’t realize they’re at Lassie’s car until Gus is shoving him into the backseat and buckling him in. He would laugh, but it comes out a wheeze. Gus leans over into his space to buckle him in, and Shawn can’t sto staring at his neck. Smooth, soft skin, and his vision highlights the pulse…

“Do you taste as buttery as you look?” He feels consciousness starting to slip again- no, not consciousness. Awareness. They’re different, somehow. 

“What?” Gus is only half listening, and Shawn needs to look away because staring at Gus’s neck is starting to make the pain worse, especially in his mouth…

He doesn’t have as much control over his head as he’d like, and it lolls, and Gus makes a choked gagging noise as the part of Shawn’s neck that hurts the most stretches out. There it is. That’s familiar. That’s good. Now he needs… he needs…

Gus is rooting around in Lassie’s glove compartment and that box-armrest-thing between the two front seats. Shawn can see his head, and his neck again, and he thinks his mouth would be watering if there was any water in his body. No, that’s not right, if he was that dry he’d be dead. Is he dead? If so then Gus is dead, that’s no good. Gus has a lot of life to live, and a way more productive one then Shawn’s will ever be, Shawn’s sure of it.

“I better not be dead so you’re not dead,” he mumbles as Gus comes back to the back door with a packet of wet wipes. “You don’t deserve to be dead.”

“What? Shawn, you’re talking nonsense.” Gus takes a deep breath, gags one more time, then swallows it and tilts Shawn’s head to he can clean Shawn’s neck. Clean it? Right, the wound. Probably blood.

Blood. He groans as his insides go to war, burning and twisting and tearing and dying and- and- and something else-

“Gus.” He paws at Gus’s shirt, pathetic and weak. “Gus, I’m hungry.”

Gus’s eyes widen, and Shawn sees panic- why? Gus swallows and keeps cleaning, but he’s shaking twice as bad now. “I already told you you better not. I will slap you, Shawn. Don’t think I won’t.”

Shawn laughs a little, and this time it actually comes out a laugh.

It hurts.

Gus’s pulse is highlighted again. The racing heartbeat is back in the forefront of Shawn’s mind. His mouth burns.

There’s a hand on his. Not Gus’s. It’s there and it’s not, and he’s felt it a lot of times since he woke up, and he’s still pretty sure it’s a symptom. But Gus is done cleaning, so Shawn turns his head to se ehis grandma, holding his hand.

“Focus on me, Shawn. Focus on me. You’re going to get through this without any of your friends getting hurt, okay?”

“Okay.” But what is this? He still isn’t sure. He still can’t remember. All he knows is he woke up and there was fighting and crying and pain and if his grandma is here he’s probably dead and so Gus is dead, he is, but that’s not fair because Gus shouldn’t ever be dead, Gus should never die and live forever-

“Stop that.” Her voice is sharp and firm- it sounds almost like his dad. It jolts him into a bit more awareness than he’s had since the hallway. “Don’t go down that thoughtpath. No more new vampires tonight.”

That… doesn’t… track. … But neither does his grandma being here. “What do you mean…”

She sighs, and then looks up and nods. “Look, your other friends are here.”

He turns his head to look past Gus, still kneeling by him and looking him over like Shawn might disappear at any moment. He’s not going anywhere though- he can’t even if he wanted to. Lassie and Jules, though, they can move. They run out of the front door of the creepiest, most horror-movie-worthy mansion in all of Santa Barbara covered in blood and dirt and ash, pouring sweat and the blood smells bad. Rotten. It makes Shawn angry, for some reason, until two more rhythms join the one already pounding in his ears. Their heartbeats. He wishes he was more sound of mind so he can pick apart the differences, appreciate the unique beats for his unique friends. They’re entrancing.

Gus slams Shawn’s door shut and runs around to the other side, sliding into the seat next to him. Jules and Lassie jump into their seats, and almost as soon as Lassie’s butt hits the pleather they’re peeling away at high speeds.

Shawn leans his head back, closing his eyes and listening to the three racing beats around him. His grandma’s hand is still over his. He can barely feel it.

“Is he awake?” Jules’s voice cuts through the beats, scratchy and ragged but beautiful, sweet and alluring, but if she wants to she can be overpowering and all-emcompassing and-and she’s like honey and he’s a fly and he’s so hungry.

“Kind of.” Gus’s voice is smooth, buttery as his well-cared-for-skin, rich, Gus is comfort and home and fun like a cup of hot coco and he’s so parched.

“What do you mean ‘kind of’?” Lassie’s voice is smooth too, but in a different way- more like a smooth cup of coffee, or smooth whiskey, something that should be bitter and harsh but when you appreciate it it isn’t, because Lassie is strong and steady and an assault on the senses in the best way and Shawn needs to have a taste of all of them.

“I’m starving.” His voice sounds strange- maybe he’s just not used to hearing himself so openly desperate. He’s used to feeling it, deep inside, but hearing it… based on the silence in the car, no-one else expected to hear it either.

“... How’s his neck, Guster?”

“I cleaned it up, but- oh, my god, I can’t look at it-”

“Do not throw up in this vehicle!”

“Carlton, that’s not the priority right now!”

Shawn laughs. He loves them. He loves them all so much. He wants to listen to them bicker forever. He wants to listen to their voices saying anything forever. He wants them, forever.

“Didn’t your grandmother tell you to stop that kinda thinking?” Rough, raspy, but not the way Gramv’s was- Shawn knows this voice better than any of the other hallucinations.

“Grandpa.”

“That’s right, we’re both here.” His grandpa is holding his other hand- that doesn’t make sense. The car isn’t shaped like that. He cracks his eyes open and sees his grandpa is halfway inside of the front passenger seat, sitting and leaning forward and holding his hand. Now he knows he’s hallucinating.

“He still thinks this isn’t real?”

“Be patient, dear. He’s processing a lot right now. It might not sink in for a while.”

“Right. Shawn, look out the window for me, would’ya?”

If his grandpa is a hallucination, it might be his brain trying to communicate something to itself. Shawn slowly turns his head, thunking it against the window to stare out into the nighttime sights of Santa Barbara. The glass should feel cool against his skin. It almost feels warm.

Gus had been really, really warm, now that Shawn thinks about it. Gus might have a fever. That sucks.

“Remember when you were a kid, and we’d sit on the bench and make up stories about people walking by?”

“Course. My one reprieve from dad.” His voice is still sluggish and quiet, but it’s coming back well.

“Let’s do that now, yeah? Tell me about uh… that guy there. What’s his story, you think?”

“I… I can’t… think right now, Grandpa. I’m hu-”

“I know, I know. We can eat after the game, how about it?”

“You can’t. You’re not real.”

“I’m dead, not imaginary. Indulge an old man, would you? How about… this girl. What’s her story?”

“... I… guess… she could be from anywhere, right? So… so she’s from Spain. She’s a… professional bull wrangler, for when they do the runs.”

“Good, good, I like that! And how about uh…”

“What about that fellow, with the giant hat?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“He got that as a prize, for… for wrestling something big, like a… polar bear, or a whale.”

Everything begins to fade away as Shawn focuses on playing the game. He mumbles out stories, his grandparents encourage him, the heartbeats and the pain are still there but they blend into the background as his mind whirs and latches onto the task of making up stories. It becomes like a trance, a dream, and Shawn slips into it gratefully.

He’s blissfully unaware as the rest of the car have some difficult conversations.

[em03z25]

TMI

Chapter 4, Living Room. (Masterlist)

Next?

Slipping on an oversized tee with a new pair of sleep shorts, you reach for your phone and check the time. It was only 11:45; you had made good time in the shower despite still being a little drowsy. Now you’re sitting on the edge of the tub, with the hair dryer in one hand and a leave-in conditioner in the other. You generously spray the conditioner and massage it in, then reach for the hairbrush on your lap while simultaneously turning on the hair dryer. You think to yourself as you maneuver it around your head until it’s dry enough to brush through without resistance. Would it really be all that bad to try with another guy this year? 

Three pings on your phone pulled you back to reality. Looking over, the preview from your lockscreen shows messages from an unsaved number. Unlocking the phone and opening the new messages, you read them with an eyebrow raised. 

‘032-508-0143’

Hi, is this Y/N? I’m your uninvited guest downstairs. 

I’m sorry for forcing myself into your home.

I don’t handle my alcohol well apparently. 

Thankfully, he’s texting completely in English. You debate telling him he can just leave so you can avoid any awkward conversations that might occur if you talk face-to-face. However, Jisung’s words repeat themselves in your head: “Don’t be such a pussy.” In a way, he was correct; you are a pussy when it comes to interacting with complete strangers. But there’s no way Minho or Jisung would send someone your way if they thought he was a threat. Yeah, even if nothing romantic comes of this, you’ll have a new friend to hang out with when Jeongyeon and Felix aren’t able to. Nodding to yourself in reassurance, you start texting him back. 

‘Y/N’

Yeah, this is her.

I’ll be down in a minute.

After slipping on a pair of fuzzy socks, you head downstairs. Peaking around the corner into the living room, you spot Chan sipping on the water bottle you had prepared for him last night. He was scrolling on his phone, paying no attention to his surroundings. He looks less disheveled than he did after his fall, his curls still a little messy but lacking the tiny leaves that had been stuck inside. He is very handsome; you can’t deny that Minho has a thing for having friends who are just as good-looking as him. Perhaps Chan is even better in your eyes; it has to be the curls, you think. A notification buzzes on your phone, again bringing you back to Earth. This time it’s a number you recognize: your lovely best friend, Jeongyeon.

‘Jeongyeon’ 

Jihyo just sent me a video of a man climbing your fence… 

Are you alive?

‘Y/N’

Yeah, I’m fine. 

Just a drunk friend of Minho’s lol.

After quickly typing your response, you nod to yourself again and put away your phone. You walk into the living room, clearing your throat to announce your arrival. Making eye contact with the man on your couch, he smiles and stands up with a hand reaching out. 

“Hi, I’m Chan. I’m really sorry for intruding on your space like this.” You grab his hand and lightly shake it while nodding. His hands aren’t too much bigger than yours, but they’re so warm. Before you can even open your mouth to respond to him, he starts again. “I didn’t plan on this being how we first met”, he says as he retreats his hand to scratch the back of his neck with a shy smile on his lips.

This is also on ao3 by me, snowballing97, so please do not copy my work or post it elsewhere. -em :)

[naminethewriter]

Enchanting Scales

Here's the second story for @loceitweek, this time with a more mysterious setting. Hope you enjoy 🥰

Masterpost | Loceit Week 2023 Masterpost | Ao3

Summary: Logan disliked masquerade balls but when he's approached by an enchanting stranger, he might just change his mind.

No content warnings

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Logan watched the crowd over the rim of his champagne glass. He hated balls in general and adding masks to the mix just made things worse in his opinion, because it led to people doing one of three things:

One: Do an intentionally bad job of hiding who they are so they can brag about being easy to recognize.

Two: Use the anonymity to be the biggest assholes without consequences.

Three: Actually just being decent.

The third category was the one Logan was a part of and sadly in the minority. Even from his spot leaning against the wall in a rather quiet corner, he could clearly hear the gossip being shared, hardly quieter than normal speaking volume because who would ever be able to track the source back to them? From elsewhere he could hear someone declaring that their hairstyle is just too recognizable to be mistaken. As if he couldn’t have styled it differently for the evening if he really didn’t want to be identified.

Logan sighed.

He truly hated being here, but he had to endure for at least another hour. He had promised his parents.

He took another sip of his champagne, eyes wandering over the crowd in the hopes of catching a glimpse of anything or anyone that would relieve him of his boredom.

“You look like you want to murder everyone in this room, darling,” a voice commented directly next to him making Logan flinch. He hadn’t seen – or heard – anyone approach, but there was a man standing by his side, smirking at him.

The man wore a yellow and black suit, immaculately ironed, with gloves covering his hands. His blond hair was tied in a long braid that laid across his shoulder and the right side of his face was covered by a rather simple black mask while the other side was covered in… were those scales?

“I know I look dashing, dear, but don’t you think you’re staring too much?” the stranger asked, still smirking. Logan startled out of his thoughts and looked away, blushing.

“I apologize, you caught me off guard.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” Logan might have not been the best at reading social cues but even he could pick up on the other’s sarcasm. His blush deepened.

“I didn’t hear you approach. And your choice of attire is unusual, so I couldn’t help but… stare,” he justified awkwardly, causing the stranger to laugh.

“Don’t worry, darling, you haven’t been the first one this evening that lost their words from looking at me.” The easy confidence the stranger spoke with somehow worsened Logan’s flush, and he refused to look back at the other’s face.

“Well, I’m sure none of them expected to see someone with such, um, unique choice of make-up,” he commented after clearing his throat.

“Whatever do you mean?” the stranger asked in a very faux tone that showed his amusement.

“Your- the scales.”

“Oh, those aren’t make-up, darling. They’re real.”

“Huh?”

“They’re real,” the stranger repeated after Logan’s head snapped back to his face in surprise. “Would you like to touch them to confirm?”

“I couldn’t possibly… You shouldn’t allow-“

“Oh, I never said I would allow it.”

“But you asked-“

“I asked if you wanted to, not that you could.”

Logan was once again speechless, and the stranger seemed to take great pleasure in that fact. He was smirking at him and despite knowing that it would usually infuriate him to be treated like this, Logan couldn’t help but be enchanted by this man.

“Would you like to dance?”

“Excuse me?” Logan was entirely unable to follow the sudden switch of conversation topic. The stranger didn’t seem to mind, he simply held out his hand for Logan to take.

“A dance. If you would indulge me.”

Logan usually wasn’t much for dancing, and a glance at the other people on the floor enforced this. But he did want to spend more time with this stranger, for reasons he couldn’t – and didn’t really want to – understand. The other man cocked his head at his hesitation before taking a look at the dance floor himself.

“If you would rather we go outside, I wouldn’t mind,” he offered with a smile that still contained his cocky attitude but also held a softness that Logan couldn’t resist. With a nod, he took the strangers hand and let himself be led outside.

~~~

The cool breeze outside made Logan breathe a bit easier. The murmur of the crowd inside was cut off as the door behind them closed but the stranger didn’t stop pulling him away until they were in the middle of a flower garden a good distance away from any curious eyes.

“Is this better, darling?” the man asked, pulling Logan closer and moving him into waltzing position effortlessly. It took Logan a moment to regain his voice as he stared into the stranger’s eyes.

“But there’s no music,” he whispered finally. The man chuckled.

“That is quite alright, I am confident in my ability to keep the rhythm. Just let me lead.”

Unwilling to protest, Logan simply nodded and the stranger smiled before starting to waltz. And as he had promised, their rhythm didn’t falter and Logan found it much easier than ever before to follow his footsteps.

“You are quite talented, my dear,” the man commented after a few minutes of silent dancing, once again startling Logan out of his revelry.

“You are doing most of the work,” he reflected, blushing once more.

“And you are keeping up.”

Logan didn’t know how to answer that, so instead he asked, “Why me?”

“What do you mean, darling?”

“Why did you pick me, out of all the people in that room? I’m sure you could have had any partner you wanted.”

“I could have. And I did.”

“But why me?”

“Why not?”

Again, Logan didn’t really know how to answer. Because he was unremarkable? Because he was actively avoiding socializing? Because he usually was a killjoy?

But before he could spiral into self-doubt, the stranger spoke up again.

“You were interesting. You watched the room with eyes – very beautiful ones at that – that looked so bored and I couldn’t help but want to see a spark of something more in them.” Logan hadn’t noticed that they had stopped dancing until the stranger cupped his cheek and leaned in close, causing his breath to catch in his chest.

“I can see there is so much more to you than you show, so much intelligence behind that mask, that is wasted with people like them.”

Logan’s blush had returned tenfold, and the stranger seemed to notice because the smirk returned to his lips.

“I look forward to seeing your destiny unfold, my dear,” the stranger hummed, now so close that Logan could feel his breath ghosting over his lips. He didn’t dare move.

“Let us meet again under the full moon, my love, and then I will show you a world that will truly appreciate your talents.”

Those last words were whispered in Logan’s ear and then he blinked and the stranger was gone. He stood alone amongst the flowers, unsure of what just happened but he knew he wouldn’t be as bored anymore soon.