#in our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks….

[compacflt]

Thank you so much for sharing your Tom Kazansky and related playlists because I’m obsessed with them and how perfectly the songs fit. Yesterday I cried on a plane to When All is Said and Done

uncritical support for abba and mamma mia! for providing me the perfect song with which to end my top gun fanfic series called “easier done than said”

[konmarkimageswords]

Philip K. Dick (1928-82) was the kind of science-fiction writer who is read and praised by people who don’t like science fiction. His fame moved beyond the genre’s ghetto after some of his novels and short stories were turned into movies—Blade Runner (1982),  Minority Report (2002), and A Scanner Darkly (2006), to name a few. He is sometimes compared to Jorge Luis Borges, one of the finest short-story writers, and his work has influenced many authors (genre-bending Jonathan Lethem, for example) and filmmakers (the Wachowski brothers, directors of The Matrix).

Just as critics dub certain writers’ visions of the world “Orwellian” or “Kafkaesque,” some now use the awkward term “Dickian.” Dick’s paranoid vision is a unique, sad, funny, and—in its strange and sometimes very moving manner—even ennobling way to think about what we are meant to be as humans. In his later work, Dick’s outlook became deeply, even explicitly, informed by a Gnostic sense of the struggle to be fully human. Ancient Gnosticism was, among other things, concerned with the dilemma of humanity trapped in delusion, imprisoned in a world ruled by malign and unseen forces—a recurrent theme in Dick’s work.

What does science fiction have to say about human nature? For many serious readers, this is GeekCity, a corner of genre fiction inhabited by sad and lonely people who go to Star Trek conventions and collect action figures. The science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon is credited with what has entered the wider critical discourse as “Sturgeon’s Law.” When it was said of science fiction that “90 percent of it is crap,” his answer was, “90 percent of everything is crap.” Who can disagree? Serious science-fiction criticism finds examples of imagined alternatives that illuminate our own world in Plato’s description of Atlantis in the Timaeus, in his vision of an ideal society in The Republic, and in Thomas More’s imaginary society in Utopia. Some writers prefer another name for the genre, “speculative fiction,” since much science fiction has little to do with science. Whatever term you choose, the best examples show that one way to see our situation clearly is to imagine another, very different one. This can be done by placing a story in the remote past, an alternative present, or a near or far future. Philip K. Dick was the writer who did it best.

The animating idea behind Dick’s fiction—hardly original in itself—is that things are not as they seem. This is, of course, a major part of any religious insight—and as an Episcopalian, Dick understood this. Walker Percy’s essay “The Message in the Bottle,” for example, describes an island (this could be the beginning of a sci-fi plot) where everything is pleasant. Life seems good for all its inhabitants; then someone walking along a beach finds a bottle with the message, “Don’t despair, help is on the way.” This is what the Christian gospel says to a complacent, obtuse world, and it is not unlike one of Dick’s plots. In many of his stories, as in Gnostic theology, the world is depicted as not merely asleep, but deliberately deceived. Any remedy or salvation will therefore have to include a battle against powers that not only seem insane, but are evil. Overcoming the ruse requires special insight or special revelation that is shared by only a few.

This theme of widespread deception is woven throughout several of his plots. In The Simulacra (1964), the U.S. president is an android, but the citizenry has no idea. In The Penultimate Truth (1964), World War III starts with a fight between two superpowers. The battle begins on Mars, spreads to Earth, and is fought by robots. Humans are forced to live and work underground in huge shelters. The war ends, but the people are told that the battle rages above them on an uninhabitable surface. Meanwhile, the authorities continue to generate false war stories while they themselves live a bucolic life on the earth above. In The Zap Gun (1967), two great superpowers are at peace, and citizens of both nations are reassured that they are secure because of their side’s superior arsenal—but the weapons are designed not to function. Weapon design is, in effect, a kind of conceptual art, although the fact that the weapons do not work is kept from the masses. This is what keeps the world truly disarmed. When aliens threaten the earth, the weapon designers have to come up with something that really functions. There is an implicit Gnosticism here: only a select few know what is going on; most of humanity is sleepwalking.

This isn’t a happy point of view, to be sure. Yet what’s missing from the film adaptations of Dick’s work (of which the best are Minority Report and the director’s cut of Blade Runner) is Dick’s humor. Even his darkest stories are laced with funny moments. Another quality missing in the movies is Dick’s enduring compassion for the sadness of ordinary, confused human existence. His stories usually take place in a future, or in an alternate reality, where paranoia reigns, where appearances cannot be trusted, where people may be androids—robots made to resemble humans—and androids may be whatever human beings are, where the world we are presented with is a lie.

Dick’s life was messy. (Lawrence Sutin has written a good biography, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, Carrol & Graf, 2005.) He was born inChicago in 1928 and died in 1982; his twin sister died in infancy. Dick’s parents moved toCalifornia and divorced. He lived with his mother until he matriculated at UC Berkeley for a short time, majoring in German. He was fascinated by German culture. After dropping out of college, he worked in a record store, and music plays an important part in much of his work. He was married and divorced five times, used drugs, was convinced at various points that the FBI was after him, feared for his sanity, and hoped for spiritual deliverance.

At the same time, Dick felt a keen loyalty to many friends, whose lives were often as complicated as his own. His novels are full of regular people with ordinary, often dull jobs; they struggle for decency, sometimes fail, sometimes succeed. There is always something sad, frustrating, and funny about their struggles, and I can’t think of another science-fiction writer who comes close to describing this sort of ordinary life with such compassion. The science-fiction novelist Ursula K. Le Guin once wrote that Dick’s characters reminded her of Dickens’s; sometimes you remember one and can’t place which novel he or she appears in, but the humanity remains vivid. Dick drew from his own life, sometimes quite directly, in writing his novels. A Scanner Darkly is about drug use—based in large part on his own experience—and it’s scary. It begins, “Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair.” It contains the only funny suicide scene I’ve ever read, and at the end of the novel Dick uncharacteristically explains what he has just written:

This is a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed—run over, maimed, destroyed—but they continued to play anyhow…. Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a lifestyle. In this particular lifestyle the motto is “Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying,” but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your lifestyle, it is only faster.

Before movies made him known beyond science-fiction circles, Dick’s best-known work was The Man in the High Castle. It won the Hugo award (science fiction’s highest) in 1962. It describes an alternative 1962 America, in which the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II. There are some nicely imagined touches (Americans forge Wild West artifacts to sell to wealthy Japanese collectors; Germans fly rapidly around the world not in jets, but in passenger rockets), but at the center of the novel is a search for the author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an alternative-world tale in which Germany and Japan were defeated. This alternative world is not the one we know, the one that really followed from the defeat of Hitler; and finally, it is suggested that the world the protagonists live in isn’t real either. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese text, figures in the book’s plot, and Dick apparently used its chance-based methods of divination in composing the story. Although Dick never alluded to it, this sense of not being able to know what reality really is reminded me of the Taoist sage Chuang Tsu’s dream that he was a butterfly: it wasn’t clear to him whether he was Chuang Tsu dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Chuang Tsu.

In 1978, Dick delivered a lecture, “How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later.” In it, he said: “The two basic topics that fascinate me are ‘What is reality?’ and ‘What constitutes the authentic human being?’” This fascination went back to his first published story, “Roog,” which “had to do with a dog who imagined that the garbage men who came every Friday morning were stealing valuable food that the family had carefully stored away in a safe metal container. Every day, members of the family carried out paper sacks of nice ripe food, stuffed them into the metal container, shut the lid tightly—and when the container was full, these dreadful-looking creatures came and stole everything but the can… [T]he dog’s extrapolation was in a sense logical, given the facts at his disposal.”

Dick’s approach was not always so light. In an angry short story about abortion, “The Pre-Persons,” he wrote of a future in which the courts had decided that a person was a real human being only when capable of doing algebra. Children not yet old enough to grasp algebraic concepts lived in dread of extermination trucks that could come and take them away. Dick’s antiabortion stance led the feminist science-fiction writer Joanna Russ to send Dick a letter, “the nastiest letter I’ve ever received.” Although he later apologized for any hurt feelings, he said, “for the pre-persons’ sake, I am not sorry.”

If Dick’s early work sometimes had an implicitly Gnostic aspect, that quality became more explicit in his later writing. In 1974, Dick, recovering from minor surgery, answered his door for a delivery of painkillers. The young woman delivering the medication was wearing a fish pendant, and when he asked what it was, she told him that it was a sign worn by the early Christians. In “How to Build a Universe,” he writes,

I suddenly experienced what I later learned is called anamnesis—a Greek word meaning, literally, “loss of forgetfulness.” I remembered who I was and where I was. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, it all came back to me. And not only could I remember it but I could see it. The girl was a secret Christian and so was I. We lived in fear of detection by the Romans. We had to communicate with secret signs. She had just told me all this, and it was true.

For a short time, as hard as this is to believe or explain, I saw fading into view the black, prison-like contours of hatefulRome. But, of much more importance, I remembered Jesus, who had just recently been with us, and had gone temporarily away, and would very soon return. My emotion was one of joy. We were secretly preparing to welcome him back. It would not be long. And the Romans did not know. They thought he was dead, forever dead. That was our great secret, our joyous knowledge. Despite all appearances, Christ was going to return, and our delight and anticipation was boundless.

Dick was never entirely clear about what that experience meant. But he was convinced that something of great significance had happened to him, and wrote at length about his encounters with what he called “the cosmic Christ” in a free-form journal called “The Exegesis,” in which he understood Christ as part of a continuity which included Ikhnaton, Zoroaster, and Hephaestus. This syncretism is typical of Gnosticism. Dick’s efforts to explain what all this meant are less interesting than the work that came from the experience, his final three novels.

Dick’s visions and dreams coalesced in the VALIS trilogy—VALIS being an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, or God (of a sort). The most tangled, complicated, and autobiographical is the first, VALIS (1981). It is the least successful of the three, but worth reading because of its seriousness and its painful closeness to Dick’s own life. The plot of VALIS contains not only autobiographical fragments, but a movie with a secret meaning and a rock-star couple whose daughter, Sophia, is thought by some to be the returned Savior. The novel wrestles with the first question that haunted Dick—“What is reality?”—and it suggests one good answer, based on a real incident in Dick’s life. When a student asked him during a lecture for a simple definition of reality, he answered, “Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn’t go away.” Toward the end of the book Dick writes, “I lack Kevin’s faith and Fat’s madness…. I don’t know what to think. Maybe I am not required to think anything, or to have faith, or to have madness; maybe all that I need to do—all that is asked of me—is to wait. To wait and to stay awake.”

The second book of the trilogy, The Divine Invasion (1981), tells of an exiled or absent God—another Gnostic theme—trying to return to earth, which has been held captive by Belial, a fallen angel, since the fall of Masada. The novel involves a virgin birth, which perplexes the Catholic woman who is pregnant with a divine child. She says remotely, “Catholic doctrine, I never thought it would apply to me personally.” The child must struggle to awaken to his own identity. As in classic Gnostic teaching, a perverse power holds the world in its grasp, and it is represented by both the established church (the Christian-Islamic Church) and the imperial political establishment, whose members are uncomfortably but profitably allied. The Divine Invasion is an amazing story of parallel realities, redemption, and the war between good and evil, with a wonderful ending.

The final novel in the trilogy, the last Dick completed, is The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). The author based Bishop Timothy Archer on Episcopalian Bishop James Pike, who went on an odd pilgrimage into the Judean desert with too little preparation and died of exposure. So does Timothy Archer, in search of the truth about Gnostic scroll fragments. Archer is a complicated character: brilliant and selfish, genuinely insightful and clueless. The novel is narrated by Archer’s daughter-in-law, Angel Archer. In Dick’s novels, the point of view frequently shifts from person to person; but here Angel is the sole narrator, and her voice carries the novel, which contains serious arguments about Gnosticism and a few genuinely funny and politically incorrect jokes.

In these and his other stories, Dick creates characters who struggle not only for salvation, for ultimate truths, but sometimes merely to be decent human beings—and the two struggles are really one. What reality is and what it means to be authentically human are intrinsically linked. Dick’s answers, such as they are, range randomly from new-age nonsense, through his own episodes of delusion and paranoia, to a Gnostic Christianity that contains more of the pain and compassion of real Christianity than most Gnostic visions. Many Gnostic writings advance an elitism that delights in being among the chosen in whom the divine light resides. Dick saw glimmers of the shattered divine light in many confused and struggling people, and he found something of cosmic significance there, both in the light and in the struggle. His finest novel, The Divine Invasion, for example, ends with the fall of Belial, the angelic dark force that held the good God at bay. Belial “lay broken everywhere, vast and lovely and destroyed. In pieces, like damaged light.”

“This is how he was once,” Linda said. “Originally. Before he fell. This was his original shape. We called him the Moth. The Moth that fell slowly, over thousands of years, intersecting the earth, like a geometrical shape descending stage by stage until nothing remained of its shape.”

Herb Asher said, “He was very beautiful.”

“He was the morning star,” Linda said. “The brightest star in the heavens. And now nothing remains of him but this….”

“Will he ever be as he once was?” Herb Asher said.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps we all may be.” And then she sang for Herb Asher one of the Dowland songs…. The most tender, the most haunting song that she had adapted from John Dowland’s lute books:

When the poor cripple by the pool did lie Full many years in misery and pain, No sooner he on Christ had set his eye, But he was well, and comfort came again.

Philip K. Dick’s fiction—perhaps because most of it was written in a genre known for conceptual risk-taking—dealt in an unembarrassed way with questions involving the ultimate meaning of our lives in a tone that was compassionate, often funny, and at some unexpected moments very moving.

[eemcintyre]

Mini playlist alert

A tribute to my favorite lil sweetheart of an action hero, Ethan Hunt

"...Ready For It?", Taylor Swift

Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him. Wondered how many girls he had loved and left haunted. But if he's a ghost, then I can be a phantom holding him for ransom... Knew I was a robber first time that he saw me, stealing hearts and running off and never saying sorry. But if I'm a thief, then he can join the heist...

"Stayin' Alive", Bee Gees

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, no time for talk... It's alright, it's okay, I lived to see another day.

"Private Eyes", Hall and Oates

I see you and you see me. Watch you blowing the lines when you're making a scene. Oh, girl, you've got to know what my head overlooks the senses will show to my heart. When it's watching for lies, you can't escape my private eyes. They're watching you, they see your every move... Why you trying to put up a front for me? I'm a spy, but on your side, you see. Slip on into any disguise, I'll still know you.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World", Tears for Fears

There's a room where the light won't find you, holding hands while the walls come tumbling down. When they do, I'll be right behind you.

"Getaway Car", Taylor Swift

The ties were black, the lies were white, in shades of grey and candlelight... You were driving the getaway car, we were flying but we'd never get far... Riding in the getaway car, there were sirens in the beat of your heart... I knew it from the first old-fashioned we were cursed- it hit you like a shotgun shot to the heart.

"No Time to Die", Billie Eilish

I should have known I'd leave alone. Just goes to show that the blood you bleed is just the blood you own. We were a pair, but I saw you there. Too much to bear. You were my life, but life is far from fair. Was I stupid to love you? Was I reckless to help? Was it obvious to everybody else that I'd fallen for a lie? You were never on my side.

"You Know My Name", Chris Cornell

If you take a life, do you know what you get? Odds are you won't like what it is. When the storm arrives, would you be seen with me by the merciless eyes I've deceived? I've seen angels fall from blinding heights, but you yourself are nothing so divine, just next in line. Arm yourself, because no one else here will save you.

"When All is Said and Done", ABBA

Here's to us, one more toast, and then we'll pay the bill. Deep inside, both of us can feel the autumn chill. Birds of passage, you and me, we fly instinctively when the summer's over and the dark clouds hide the sun. Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done. In our lives, we have walked some strange and lonely treks. Slightly worn, but dignified and not too old for sex... It's so strange, when you're down and lying on the floor, how you rise, shake your head, get up and ask for more.

*Honorable mentions: "Hypnotic", Zella Day, "Dress", Taylor Swift, and "Holding Out for a Hero", Bonnie Tyler*

[marlinspirkhall]

In our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks

Slightly worn but dignified and not too old for sex

We're still striving for the sky

No taste for humble pie

Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun

Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

What wise life advice do you have for me, Talon? 👀🐉🐲

OMS "When all is said and done" by abba. Thats my final answer

[earnestly-endlessly]

Hi! I'm wondering if you can make a list of fics where Erik's jewish heritage isn't ignored? I just came across the fact that a lot of authors don't explore this part of him for some reason and i found it kinda upsetting so i'm wondering if you have any recs! I liked "As They Kiss, Consume" and "Who Shall be King Hereafter" by sherwoodfox, in case anyone who's reading this ask is interested in the same topic.

Hi Anon. I'm sorry for taking so long with this list but your request sent me on a wide search for fics that fit with your request. I tried to find a variety of fics where Erik's Jewish heritage is addressed. Some of them aren't necessarily cherik, but most of them are. I hope you enjoy this list.

Mistletoe, Latkes, and Long-Term Revenge Strategies – pocky_slash

Summary: Charles knows that Erik hates working at a department store in the best of times. Being Jewish in a department store during the holiday season is far from the best of times. He does what he can to help.

A Nice Boy (the Family Matters Edition) – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik's not sure whether the problem is that he doesn't want his parents to meet Charles or that he doesn't want Charles to meet his parents. Either way, he never invites Charles to brunch. Why should he? It's not like they're dating.

A Road Trip to Pennsylvania – Aainiouu

Summary: For a year Charles has nurtured the biggest and most embarrassing crush known to man towards Erik. They are friends and roommates and when Erik asks Charles to accompany him to home on Thanksgiving of course Charles goes.

In the Bleak Midwinter – keire_ke

Summary: It is not easy to find out, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, that your mother arranged a marriage for you. It is even less easy to convince her that you have no interest in the very fertile Magda, she of the wide hips and lustrous auburn hair. Fortunately, with a good friend at his side over the holiday weekend, Erik is sure he will prevail.

Speech Making – phalangine

Summary: Modern Emma AU- Charles Xavier, accomplished matchmaker and headmaster of North America’s preeminent school for mutants, intends to add another notch to his belt: setting up his friend Moira. His oldest friend, Erik, has doubts about this plan.

Charles doesn’t share them.

This is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

Bashert – AvengingAngel

Summary: Erik and Charles meet and fall in love. I wanted to write a story where Erik had a huge family. Pretty fluffy (for me anyways). I suck at summaries.

Note: The summary doesn’t reveal much but if you’re looking for a fic where Erik is jewish and has a large family with a heavy dose of cherik fluff and angst then this one is for you.

Math Reasons – pearl_o,  pocky_slash

Summary: "Mom says Erik always knows what he wants, it just sometimes takes him a little while to actually realize it," Ruth said.

Charles fell in love with Erik the first night they met, the first week of freshman year. Two years of friendship, adventures, arguments, hijinks, secrets, and summer visits later, Erik is starting to catch up.

Ser

It’s kind of our whole things – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: After two years of best friendship, Charles and Erik thought they knew everything there was to know about each other. They're surprised, then, when their first summer as a couple reveals that they have a lot to learn about each other and themselves.

Sequel to Math Reasons

A Winter in New York – nextraordinaire

Summary: Charles and Erik have been childhood friends for as long as they can remember – Erik, living with his mother in Queens, and Charles in the big mansion in Westchester. For all, expect themselves, it was just natural progression that they'd end up together.

A series of ficlets from the same universe – can be read as separate and are out of chronological order.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside – heyjupiter

Summary: "It's just, this is my first Chanukah away from my parents. And it's--it's like 90 degrees out."

Erik Lehnsherr and Kitty Pryde celebrate a Genoshan Chanukah. It's a little different from the way it used to be in New York, but some unexpected visitors help them embrace the spirit of the holiday season.

Hold Back the Rain (front!strict mashup) – euphorbic

Summary: Charles Xavier: society darling, powerful political activist, well-known professor, and Dominant.

Erik Lehnsherr: anti-social, international motorcycle racer, and defiant submissive.

Erik is at Sepang in Malaysia for the fourteenth leg of the International World Championship. After doing poorly in qualifying, he's furious to find he has to take another VIP around the track instead of meeting Charles at the KL airport.

The Swan – waitfornight

Summary: In 1939 Erik and his sister Ruth are sent to Devonshire, England, during the Kindertransport refugee program to live with Kurt and Sharon Marko as foster children just before the start of World War II. Angry and wishing he could return home on the night of his seventeenth birthday, Erik meets a boy alone in the forest who is cursed to transform each day into a swan, only taking his true form by night.

Swan Lake AU.

The boy with the heart on his sleeve – euphorbic

Summary: Charles loses a high-stakes bet to Raven and is required to get a tattoo. However, when he makes a disparaging remark about the art form, Raven's acerbic mentor, Erik, steps in.

Or, the one where Erik and Raven are tattoo artists.

The Wurst Case Scenario – sareyen

Summary:If anyone asked why Charles, come rain, wind or shine, made the significant trek during his dismal lunch hour to dine at "Edie's Kosher Delicatessen", he would stubbornly say that it was because their pastrami on rye and potato knishes were absolutely to die for. He wasn't completely lying, because the deli's namesake, Edie Lehnsherr, made the best matzah ball soup Charles has ever had in his life. Still, Charles would rather shave his full head of hair off than admit that the real reason he would willingly walk through hail and fire to get to the corner deli was because of Erik, the insanely attractive man working the counter.

Sure, Erik has barely spoken two words to Charles other than "Hello, what can I get you?" or, after the third day in a row that Charles came to the deli, "Welcome back, what can I get you?", but Charles was more than happy to just ogle at the man from afar while devouring the juicy wurst Erik had put together with his (large and very capable) hands.

But, little does Charles know, Erik doesn't usually work the front counter. He only does it when he knows the cute blue-eyed man will be dining in.

This is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

c'est regarder ensemble dans la même direction – melonbutterfly

Summary: Since that day on the beach, Charles and Erik have learned to agree to disagree for the sake of living and working together. Then, for Christmas, and Charles gives Erik Hanukkah back a second time, and their relationship shifts a little further.

Terrible Hanukkah Sweaters and Other Life Challenges – professor

Summary: “Why am I here again?” Erik groans.

“I need you to lift things and glower at people over my shoulder when I tell people that it’s not ‘politically correct’ or a ‘war on Christmas’ to have a non-denominational winter holiday festival,” says Theresa Pryde.

Well, at least those are two things he’s good at.

Shrapnel – librata

Summary: It's late 1940, and tensions between the Axis and the Allies are tightening. Displaced and alone, 16-year-old German Jew Erik Lehnsherr finds himself employed as a servant by some snobby, terrible family in England whose house is far too big and whose money never seems to end. The worst part is, he isn't just mucking stables or cleaning plates–-he's tasked with tending to the whiny, disabled son named Charles, who might just drive Erik into absolute madness.

Or, the World War II fic in which Erik and Charles experience a changing world and a lot of teen angst.

Defying Expectations – Baamon5evr

Summary: Charles and Erik meet each other’s family. Neither of them gets what they expect.

table for three – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik should have known to call ahead to the Chinese restaurant--it's Christmas Eve and he lives in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, after all. But before he can go home to mourn the loss of another one of his mother's yearly traditions, he's accosted by a teenage girl with a strange proposition--that he should stay and have dinner with her and her mother, instead.

different from all other nights – metonymy

Summary: "This year we are slaves; next year we will be free." Kitty and Erik host a seder for Passover at the Xavier School.

Libertad – ariadnes_string

Summary: Erik knew the look, had seen it his whole life, even before the war.  ”You, with your height and blue eyes and straight nose, you can pass. You can be free of us. You are not marked with your difference.” If you only knew, he’d thought then. He thought the same thing now. And it was that thought, as much as anything, that made him move towards the gate.

Wash Away – sebastian2017

Summary: One quiet, lonely morning, before Yom Kippur, Erik makes his way to the sea in search of forgiveness.

After? There is No ‘After’ – Unrepentant_Marvelist

Summary: Erik knows what he is for. He has known his responsibilities as a survivor since the moment he woke under a scratchy, lice-infested blanket in the Red Army hospital. His world is painted in lucid blacks and whites (so often splashed in red) and there is no room for uncertainty or indecision... until a certain sunburned Englishman throws himself into his world.

The Children of an Idle Brain – Margo_Kim

Summary: Sometimes, when he’s lucky, Schmidt can’t hurt him. It’s like there’s a room inside of Erik’s head that’s he’s usually locked out of, that won’t open no matter if he beats himself bloody against it. On those days, he endures. But sometimes—and Erik doesn’t know why, whether it’s that the stars align or some higher power takes pity or Erik screams loud enough to earn his reward—the door opens. Erik can duck inside and slam it behind him and watches himself through the windows as Schmidt slowly, methodically tortures him to strength.

These days, this past week, there’s a boy in the room with him and he tells Erik, “That’s horrible,” like that means something.

Somehow, across the world, Erik's and Charles' minds touch when they need each other most. They can't be sure that the other boy is real. They suspect that he is not. But that doesn't mean they aren't each other's lifeline until they lose each other and then for a while longer.

Tehillim – kvikindi

Summary: Erik, in Israel, afterwards: another life he could have had. If.

I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) – childishinquiry

Summary: Erik has worn long sleeves his whole life, even before they had to wear yellow stars. Marching along his arm, in neat, black, English letters, are the words "My name's Charles Xavier."

Precious Few Years – sherwoodfox

Summary: Erik and Charles (known only to each other by the letters inscribed on their wrists) are meant to be together, soulmates, destined for the most powerful kind of love and connection a human being can experience.

But they are separated in almost every possible way- by distance, by circumstance, by language, by war. Their chances of success- of finding one another in the labyrinth of the world- are very slim. There is a reason why most people never find their soulmates.

But of course, Charles and Erik aren't ordinary children-

They have their gifts.

[bloomingcockroaches]

sparbossa for the ask meme

woke up this morning and stared at this ask for too long trying to figure out if this was the abba meme or the smokes weed meme but i'm fairly confident it's for the abba meme thank you for your ask

waterloo

and how could i ever refuse... i feel like i win when i looooooose / waterloo, i was defeated you won the war / waterloo, promise to love you forevermore

when all is said and done

In our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks / Slightly worn but dignified and not too old for sex / We're still striving for the sky / No taste for humble pie / Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun / Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

knowing me knowing you

No more carefree laughter / Silence ever after / Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes / Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

send me a character or a ship and i'll assign them an abba song

[cucumbers-and-olives]

When All Is Said And Done

⚠️stop! have you read part one, the winner takes it all yet? if not, click the link and read it cause idk if this will make much sense!

Summary: You slowly repair you relationship with Reggie as you get closer to the end of the show.

Category: high school au, musical au?

Fandom: JATP

Paring: Reggie x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings/Includes: mentions of cheating

A/N: this is for @reggiepetersappreciationweek day 5? whatever yesterday was, i have a trash memory, and i forgot to post this so... whoops!

(also @williexmercer asked to be tagged in this so.... ta da?)

Mandatory Thanking of the Betas: ahhhh ty so so much @wrhen for helping me give this story the ending it deserved, i had no idea how to end it, so thank you!

AO3 link here (nope)

Please don’t repost my work without my permission, in part or whole. My work can also be found on AO3 under the same username. Thank you!

Here's to us

One more toast

And then we'll pay the bill

Closing night was always a sad thing. But after the last three months, all of the drama, and the nightmares… You could tell that the smile on Reggie’s face was his, and he was happy. Truly happy.

Deep inside

Both of us

Can feel the autumn chill

“Y/N, I’m sorry. I’ll be better. I want to explain, so I’ll be at our spot at 7 pm tomorrow.” You listened to his voicemail over and over, trying to decide if you should trust him this time. You got one of these voicemails every week on Monday. It had been a month since “the incident” and he wasn’t giving up.

“Y/N, I’m sorry. I’ll be-” You tossed your phone at the wall as hard as possible, but with your bad luck it landed on the soft white sheets of your bed and you let out a scream. It was loud and heart-wrenching, and you collapsed into the shag carpet. The soft blue carpet he had bought for you when you found out you had landed the role.

And from your spot on the floor, there was the photo of the two of you that you had framed after your second date. When you knew he was the one. He had taken you to the fair, and one of his friends had come over to take a photo of the two of you, but someone had bumped into him, and there was a ton of bright pink cotton candy in his hair. That was your favorite moment with him.

You rolled over, and like a bad omen, your phone played the voicemail again. “Y/N, I’m sorry. I’ll be better. I want to explain, so I’ll be at our spot at 7 pm tomorrow.” You had crawled onto your bed to turn it off when you heard him whisper something he hadn’t in any of the other voicemails. “I love you.”

As you lay down to sleep that night, your brain looped his words. I love you, I love you, I love you. I. Love. You.

He hadn’t ever said it before.

Birds of passage

You and me

We fly instinctively

The cast all had slight tears in their eyes. Most of them were seniors, including you and Reggie, so this was your last show at a school you had grown to love.

When the summer's over

And the dark clouds hide the sun

Neither you nor I'm to blame

“Y/N and Reggie.” Your science teacher moved on and continued calling out other pairs to work together.

He moved to where you were sitting. It seemed as if his personality had changed. He was no longer the confident, happy boy you knew, but a shy, quiet one. “I- I can ask for a different partner. You probably don’t, don’t want to work with me.” His eyes were transfixed on the desk.

You don’t know what led you to do this, but you slipped a finger under his chin and tilted his face to look at you. “We have 5 minutes left in this period, and then we have rehearsal. You have that long to come up with a convincing argument as to why I should trust you, go it?”

He nodded softly, and you released his face. Now you had that long to figure out if you should trust him again.

As the bell rang you began to pack up your stuff when a note fell out of your bag. You picked it up and began to read it.

“Y/N. I kissed him. I’m not trying to cover for him, it’s the honest truth.” You looked up at your teacher.

“Y/L/N, get to rehearsal, or at least get out of my classroom.”

“Yeah, sorry!” You said, hurrying out of her classroom. You stepped into the hall, and you continued to read the note.

“I know it sounds like I’m covering for him. I’m not. I came into his dressing room, I kissed him. (I’ll spare you the details) But you two are an amazing couple, and he’s been a mess without you. There’s a hole in his heart that only you can fix.”

And just like the “I love you,” those last words rang in your head through rehearsal.

“There’s a hole in his heart that only you can fix.”

When all is said and done

In our lives

We have walked

Some strange and lonely treks

He crossed the stage and looked back at you. The strength it would take the entire cast to not laugh like children would be incredible.

Slightly worn

But dignified

And not too old for sex

We're still striving for the sky

No taste for humble pie

“Thank you.” He said, passing you a coke. “The pie will be out in a second.”

The booth in the back of the diner was a quiet one, but there were so many memories here. Your first date, your first kiss, Reggie asking you to be his girlfriend, and getting cast as Donna and Sam. You had found out sitting in this booth.

The waitress came over. “Two slices of apple pie, enjoy you two,” She said, with a little wink.

You took a fork and stabbed the pie like an enemy. “Talk.”

“I didn’t mean to. She came in, and she started it, I-” You shoved some pie in his mouth. His face was alarmed for a second, and then he smiled.

“Not about that, idiot, about the project. We have to present tomorrow.” You took a bite of your pie.

“I thought…” He was lost in thought for a moment and then he spoke. “I was thinking we could alternate slides? Or if you just want to do the chunks you wrote, that’s cool too!” He said, eating some more of his pie.

“That sounds good, we can alternate slides. Also, could you help me with my math homework? I’m- well, I’ve got a D. Can you help me? I brought it with me if you want to now, I have it with me, or we can do it later?” You rambled off.

“Scooch over,” He said, standing up. As you did, he sat down next to you. “Okay, pull it out, and show me what you’re struggling with. We’re not leaving till you have it down.”

He smiled at you, and you knew you were back to normal now. Or at least, a new normal.

Thanks for all your generous love

And thanks for all the fun

Neither you nor I'm to blame

As he sang that line, you both glanced into the audience where your former-best-friend-now-acquaintance sat. Your relationship had healed over the last month. He and you were clearer, and when/if anything happened, you both gave each other a chance to explain your side of the story. It was better now.

When all is said and done

It's so strange

When you're down

And lying on the floor

“Okay look up when you open your eyes,” He said, removing his hands from your face. You looked out at the beautiful rolling hills and then up. Up to the sky, and the shining stars. You gasped as you saw them, each one more beautiful than the last.

“Woah, Reggie this is so beautiful, I-” You turned around to face him. He had a picnic all laid out. There was a full apple pie and ice cream, along with a bunch of your favorite sweets and some popcorn and pretzels.

“Reggie, when did you have the time for this? It’s almost tech week,” You said as you sat down next to him. “Not that I’m ungrateful but seriously, when did you-” He cut you off as he stuck a bit of pie in your mouth.

“Did you?” He nodded. “You bought a full pie from the diner?” You smiled at him so big. And it was a wonderful night.

How you rise

Shake your head

Get up and ask for more

Clear-headed and open-eyed

With nothing left untried

Standing calmly at the crossroads

No desire to run

“I’m scared Alex.” It was Reggie’s voice you heard as you walked up to the garage. Over the past 2 and a half months, your relationship had changed, and now, it was the Saturday before tech week.

You froze outside the garage as you listened to Reggie.

“I- I, I messed it all up before, and I keep feeling like I’m gonna mess up again,” Reggie said. His voice was shaking if it was even possible for a voice to do that.

“Reg,” Alex said. “What happened wasn’t your fault. They came in and kissed you.”

“I should’ve stopped it. I should have stopped them.”

“Reggie, she forgave you. And trust me, Y/N wouldn’t be with you if she thought you had done it on purpose.”

You knocked on the garage door. “Reg, you in there? We’re gonna be late to rehearsal!”

“Yeah- yeah, I’m coming, I’ll meet you in the car babe!” He hollered back.

There's no hurry anymore

When all is said and done

Then he did something unexpected. Something unscripted. You just felt him pulling you in and dipping you down, and for a moment in one amazing kiss, the audience wasn’t there.

You pulled away, smiling and breathless as the audience cheered.

~

Send me an ask or fill out this form to be added to my tag list! Send me an ask to be removed from my tag list!

JATP Tag list: @screwunsaidemily @crybabyddl @n0wornever @crybabyddl @dream-a-little-bigger-x @crybabyddl @badwolf00593

Reggie Tag list: @willex-owns-my-heart

Everything: @funsizearsonist

[tendercoretroglodyke]

dean's top 13 ABBA traxx*:

*(in chronological order)

He is Your Brother - (I was a fighter always looking for trouble/ And my life was so empty, there was nothing left to live for// Treat him well, he is your brother/ You might need his help one day/ We depend on one another/ Love him that's the only way/ On the road, on the road that we're going)

Dancing Queen - (With a bit of rock music/ Everything is fine/ You're in the mood for a dance/ And when you get the chance// You are the dancing queen/ Young and sweet/ Only seventeen)

Nina, Pretty Ballerina - ('Cause I know she's got a little secret/ Friday evening she turns out to be...// Nina, pretty ballerina, now she is the queen of the dancing floor/ This is the moment she's waited for/ Just like Cinderella (just like Cinderella)/ Nina, pretty ballerina, who would ever think she could be this way/ This is the part that she likes to play)

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) - (I open the window and I gaze into the night/ But there's nothing there to see, no one in sight// There's not a soul out there/ No one to hear my prayer// Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight/ Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away)

Angeleyes - (Look into his angel eyes/ One look and you're hypnotized/ He'll take your heart and you must pay the price/ Look into his angel eyes/ You'll think you're in paradise)

Does Your Mother Know *Cas POV - (There's that look in your eyes/ I can read in your face that your feelings are driving you wild/ Ah, but girl you're only a child// Well, I can dance with you honey/ If you think it's funny/ Does your mother know that you're out/ And I can chat with you baby/ Flirt a little maybe/ Does your mother know that you're out)

Take A Chance On Me - (My love is strong enough/ To last when things are rough, it's magic/ You say that I waste my time/ But I can't get you off my mind, no, I can't let go/ 'Cause I love you so// If you change your mind/ I'm the first in line/ Honey, I'm still free/ Take a chance on me)

Lay All Your Love On Me - (I've had a few little love affairs/ They didn't last very long and they've been pretty scarce/ I used to think I was sensible/ It makes the truth even more incomprehensible/ 'Cause everything is new/ And everything is you// Don't go sharing your devotion/ Lay all your love on me)

When I Kissed The Teacher Angel - (Everybody screamed/ When I kissed the teacher angel/ And they must have thought they dreamed/ When I kissed the teacher angel/ All my friends at school family/ They had never seen the teacher angel blush, he looked like a fool/ Nearly petrified 'cause he was/ Taken by surprise// As I held my breath the world stood still, but then he just smiled/ I was in the seventh heaven/ When I kissed the teacher angel)

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do - (I can't conceal it, don't you see, can't you feel it?/ Don't you too?/ I do, I do, I do, I do, I do// Oh, I've been dreaming through my lonely past/ Now I just made it, I found you at last// So come on, now let's try it, I love you, can't deny it/ 'Cause it's true/ I do, I do, I do, I do, I do)

I’ve Been Waiting For You - (You thrill me, you delight me/ You please me, you excite me/ You're something I'd been pleading for/ I love you, I adore you/ I lay my life before you/ I'll have you want me more and more/ And finally it seems my lonely days are through/ I've been waiting for you)

Honey, Honey *Dean OR Cas POV - (I'd heard about you before/ I wanted to know some more/ And now I know what they mean, you're a love machine/ Oh, you make me dizzy/ Honey honey, let me feel it, a-ha, honey honey/ Honey honey, don't conceal it, a-ha, honey honey)

When All Is Said And Done - (In our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks/ Slightly worn but dignified and not too old for sex/ We're still striving for the sky/ No taste for humble pie/ Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun)

+ 1 epilogue (bc FUCK the finale):

Lovers (Live A Little Longer) - (Making love is a dynamite drug, baby/ So why don't we start right away?/ I don't care if they're watching 'cause listen/ We've got a reason for each time we're kissing// 'Cause lovers live a little longer, baby/ You and me, we got a chance to live twice/ Lovers live a little longer, ain't that nice?)

(art by euclase/Elicia Donze yes, those are painted)

(inspired by this amv by visionary @bedlund)

[crystalirises]

In The Wreckage of Exile (Safe and Sound Part I)

What was casted away... shall be found.

(An alternative take in which, Eret and Fundy find Tommy during exile, thus changing history.)

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31232840/chapters/77199998

"You really need to chart a map, son. You can't keep losing an entire country." Eret ran a hand through their disheveled hair, nearly knocking the flower crown that Fundy had given them off of their head as they peered around at the forest they had both gotten lost in. Fundy scouted ahead, sunlight casting his ginger hair with an angelic and warm glow, his fox ears twitching every so often. "We've been walking for miles now, Fundy. I'm quite sure this isn't the way to Drywaters."

In truth, Eret was quite sure that they’d gone the complete opposite way.

Fundy casted a look over his shoulder, traces of exhaustion clear on his face as he finally leaned against a tree. Eret slowly walked up to him, dark shades glancing down at the fox hybrid as they took a momentary break. Fundy's golden-flecked brown eyes traced the area they were in, coming to the horrible conclusion that yes, he had gotten them lost again. "Sorry, ren. I'm not the best when it comes to direction."

They took a deep breath, their heart aching with pain for their companion, their friend, their son. Eret didn’t mind the long trek towards the wilderness, having been the one to suggest they go to Drywaters to take Fundy’s mind away from his troubles. A walk was sufficient enough for that.

"It's alright, Fundy. You're just tired is all." Eret placed a hand on Fundy's head, caressing his hair before settling next to him. They weren't in a hurry, it would do both of them some good to rest. "Tell me when you're ready."

They watched Fundy run a hand through his hair, ginger and white strands blending in together, but he didn’t get too far before his fingers touched Eret’s hand. Fundy smiled, holding onto Eret for a moment before his eyes turned back towards the ground. There was a guilty look in Fundy’s gaze, his mouth curled into a grimace while his free hand reached down to pick at the end of his shirt. Eret tsked at the small holes at the bottom of Fundy’s clothing. It was inevitable with Fundy’s nails being so sharp, but if it helped Fundy calm down then Eret would not stop him.

"I should've made a map, ren. Now, we're lost."

They shook their head, patting Fundy on the head and scratching him behind the ears. The fox hybrid sighed, leaning into the touch with a small smile on his face. Eret smiled along with him. They’d rather not Fundy be upset, that was the opposite of their goal after all. They continued to pet Fundy until his tail was wagging, the fluffy fur of orange and white thumping against the tree’s bark. They gave Fundy one last pat, happy to see Fundy’s contented and joyful smile.

"We'll find our way to Drywaters. Think of this as an adventure. We never know what secrets lurk within the wilderness." Eret surveyed the thick foliage of the forest, not a single sign of civilization for miles. They only hoped a mob wouldn't appear out of nowhere. As they looked around, they noticed a thin line of smoke emerging from the treetops a distance away. It was a small wisp of smoke, barely visible in the brightness of day that colored the forest with its golden hue. Eret wondered who could possibly be living in the middle of nowhere, slightly worried that a familiar pinkette would appear to threaten them for being on his territory. Eret shook their head, knowing that Techno wouldn't do anything to harm them if Eret just explained that they were lost. Techno wasn't cruel enough to simply strike them for existing… unless they were orphans. "Fundy, I see smoke over there. We should try to move towards it, if we're lucky we might find the ever elusive Dream's house."

Fundy scoffed beside them, rolling his eyes until Eret could only see the whites. Without really meaning to, they reached up towards their sunglasses, adjusting them for a moment despite them having not moved at all. Fundy peered up at the wispy smoke, raising an eyebrow at it. A bittersweet smile flashed across the fox hybrid’s face, but it quickly disappeared.

"I have a slight suspicion that he doesn't even sleep, much less have a house of his own." Fundy rolled his eyes again, pushing off the tree as they both slowly made their way towards the smoke. Fundy chewed on the inside of his cheek, picking at the sleeve of his shirt as they drew closer towards what he could only hope was not a painful death trap. There weren't many people who wandered this far into the desert, fearful of what horrifying and bloodthirsty monsters lurked in places where no man dared to travel. Fundy knew firsthand how terrible the outside world could be outside the confines of the Essempy. His father was a man who travelled the world, and Fundy used to have the same urge for adventure… until he had wandered into a dark forest filled with beasts that should never see the light of day. He shook his head, tearing the memories from his mind as he followed after Eret. As they neared, he took notice of the trees, slight indentations of axe markings digging into their barks. Some marks looked fresh and horribly made, as if whoever left them was too weak to hold the axe properly. Someone was actually living here. Eret paused too, their gaze meeting Fundy's. "Uhm… You know we could always turn around—"

"I'm sure we'll be fine, Fundy."

They both stumbled into a clearing, a beachfront that overlooked a never-ending ocean. Eret took notice of the shabby white tents that had been set up, the shelters covered in grime and dirt. Nature truly was a cruel mistress, how anyone could live here was beyond Eret’s understanding. A small dirt path led up towards a poorly made cabin, if one could even call it a cabin that is. The wood was splintering and rotting at the sides, threatening to collapse on whoever dared tried to stay in it. It was a pitiful sight, clearly made with limited resources… or the person was too weak to finish it… or the person had held no desire to actually finish its construction.

They inspected the pitiful structure, noticing the lack of roof for shelter and the various holes that littered its sides. From their angle, they could just about see the numerous amounts of chests that decorated the back wall of the structure. They looked back towards Fundy, noticing the way Fundy was sniffing at the air, like he was picking up on a muted smell. Eret didn’t know what it was, but there was a familiarity in the air. A scent of past regrets and the destruction of hope…

"There's a nether portal over there, we could probably use it to head back home." Fundy walked into the clearing, seeing the familiar hue of purple against the color of dark green grass and soft yellow sand. He slowly made his way over to it, his eyes shifting towards the destroyed nether portal just below the one he was currently standing next to. Maybe he should take the obsidian… "Ren, I'm going to mine the obsidian for a sec, okay? At least we can get home with this… Gods, know where we even are by this fucking point. I want nothing more than to go home and sleep."

Eret didn't get the chance to respond before Fundy began to mine the second nether portal. They smiled, putting in a reminder in their head to make tea once they both got home. Fundy would insist on hot chocolate but Eret knew very well that Fundy was allergic. They shook their head at the thought, turning instead to look around the strange area. "I'll be right back, Fundy!"

"Don't die! Or else I'm stealing your stuff!"

"Don't burn the forest while I'm not looking, Fundy! I mean it, son!" Eret heard the indignant and insulted scoff, saw the glint of mischief in the fox hybrid's eyes before they finally headed closer towards the shack. Fundy wouldn’t dare. Even if he did, Eret knew that they had a bucket of water within their inventory. As they walked through the dirt pathway, they looked at the unlit tiki torches that they supposed lit up the path during the nighttime. It felt lonely. A lit path at night, with perhaps only one person traversing it. Eret shivered at the thought of such solace and silence. In the far distance, they saw what appeared to be a roughly put-together Christmas tree decorated with bits of broken glass and fraying pieces of dyed wool. It looked like a mess.

Yet it felt painful to look at. They glanced at the poorly placed pieces of wool on the lanky tree, Eret could only hope that it didn’t decide to collapse the moment Eret looked away. Someone had placed the wools on the tree’s rotting branches, pieces of string barely holding them up while others had already collapsed to the ground. The pieces of glass glinted underneath the sunlight, casting the ground with shimmers of golden light. At night, Eret thought, it probably decorated the ground with the silver glow of the moon and stars. They weren’t colored glass, but shards that looked like they came from smashed bottles. Eret turned away from the sight. Their heart was beginning to ache for the poor soul who had tried to feel some semblance of Christmas joy.

They stopped at the shack's small entrance, barely big enough for anyone to truly fit through. Eret glanced inside, finally seeing those rows of chests within the small cabin. They turned away, heading over towards one of the tents.

Eret paused midway.

Their eyes widened for a moment, their feet carrying them towards a particular spot on the ground. Eret blinked, mouth hanging open for a second. Someone was here. Someone was here and they needed help. Eret stood by the edge, eyes casted low. They couldn’t really believe what they were seeing. A hand reached up to clutch at their chest, fingers shaking despite themselves. Eret forced themself to keep calm, breathing in through their nose. They felt nausea bubble up from within, but they forced their sickness down. It wasn’t that the sight was anything new, but it certainly was not one that they thought they’d ever see again. Not in this lifetime, at least.

There was a pit in the ground, scorch marks tainting the sides as though a fire had been set in the middle of the hole. Eret peered down, seeing small chunks of metal sticking out from the burnt earth. They crouched beside it, fingers touching the sides. The ground still felt warm, a residue of gunpowder in the air as Eret slowly backed away from what they now saw as a crater. What had happened here? They couldn't see blood anywhere, but someone has just recently been here. The smell of ash was too strong, the earth too hot for it to not be recent. Eret didn’t understand it. Why would anyone throw explosives down a hole in the ground? Something felt wrong here.

"Boo!" Eret nearly fell in as Fundy suddenly appeared behind them, cackling as Eret tried to keep their balance. They gave Fundy a look, one that just made the fox hybrid grin as he finally took a glance at what Eret was inspecting. Fundy tilted his head, his eyebrows drawn together in thought. "I know I burn forests down when I get upset, but this is a bit excessive. Dangerous too since it looks like someone dug a hole and just, ya know, plonked an explosive inside. They must have had a lot of shitty stuff if they really wanted to get rid of it all… wait… is that… are those armor pieces?"

"It seems so. Though why anyone would waste such precious resources out here in the wilderness is quite confusing." Eret looked over at the tent nearby, wondering if this area's tenant was inside. Fundy looked over, a questioning look in his eyes as though he were thinking the same thing. It wouldn't hurt to check. After all, the person living there might be injured from the explosion. They needed to check. "I'll go ahead. Stay behind me, Fundy. We have no idea or clue if the person who lives here is friendly or… not. It would be best if we did not take our chances."

"Thanks for volunteering for death first." Fundy mumbled beneath his breath, following after Eret as they slowly edged their way towards the tent. He held out his hand, his trusty axe materializing in his hold. "This is such a shitty situation, why can’t we just leave and forget this place…? But if you insist on imminent death, then okay… but… be careful, ren. I mean it."

"When have I never been careful?"

They reached the entrance to the tent, stopping as they heard shuffling from within. Eret heard labored breathing from inside, a stuttering inhale of breath as whoever it was began to move away from them and into the back of the tent. Eret pursed their lips together, worried that the stranger might run off into the woods. They wouldn't want to chase some poor soul out into the wilderness to be at the mercy of the mobs. Eret tried to peek through the small slit in the middle of the tent, seeing nothing but a moving shadow. They could see the faint outline of blonde hair at the corner, though that didn't give Eret enough information. "Hello? Is anyone here? We apologize for stumbling into your home, but we noticed the smoke from the forest and came to investigate. Are you alright? We saw the crater and wanted to see if anyone was injured."

"Eret?" They froze, a familiar voice reaching their eyes. Neither they nor Fundy hesitated before quickly entering the small tent. Fundy bit back a gasp as dull blue eyes stared at them from the corner, disbelief dancing in Tommy's gaze as he glanced at the two of them. Tears sprung from the boy's eyes as his breath stuttered into gasping sobs. Eret stood still, surprise still filtering through their veins. Tommy was here, and he looked like a mess. Even with only a sliver of light, Eret could see the tattered clothes that Tommy wore, his hair disheveled and long from what must've been months of isolation. He looked thin… too thin. Eret felt a pang in their heart. How could they have left Tommy like this? "No. No. Please. Why can't the visions just go away. Just go away. This isn't true. This isn't true. Go the fuck away you fucking bastards. Dream, if this is some sick joke of yours, just fuck off… please… I fucked up, I know! Please, leave me alone…”

"Tommy… it's us, man. Eret and Fundy!" Fundy took the first step, his boot crunching against the grass which caused Tommy to curl deeper into himself. Fundy paused before slowly crouching down until he was at the same height as Tommy. Fundy's hand hovered a bit closer as he bit the inside of his cheek, he didn't want Tommy to go into a panic the moment he tried to touch him. "Tommy, it's us! Look, I'm going to tap you on the arm, okay?"

Eret watched as Fundy moved a bit closer, tapping Tommy with one finger. Tommy stilled, confusion flitting through those his dead blue eyes as realization finally dawned upon him. "You're real… you're… you're actually here."

"We're here, Tommy. It's okay. You're safe."

Tommy's gaze suddenly turned to Eret, and for once Eret didn't see a single trace of malice in them. Tommy had never quite forgiven them for what they had done during the first war, regarding as a traitor for the rest of Eret's days. It had stung, but Eret knew that they deserved it. Guilt gnawed at their chest as they wondered if it was their fault that Tommy was in such a state. If it was their fault that it had come to this. Tommy would be happy in L'Manburg if Eret hadn't given in to the temptation of power. Tommy would be okay, Wilbur would be alive, Tubbo wouldn't have been forced into the presidency… Fundy… Fundy wouldn't have been an orphan. So many things gone wrong, and all with the press of a button. Fundy caught their eyes, a warning in them as though Fundy could hear the despicable thoughts that races through Eret's head. A weak voice brought them back to the present, "Eret… I—"

Fundy quickly caught Tommy before he could drop to the ground, the teen collapsing in utter exhaustion. He glanced at over Eret who had raced to Tommy's side, looking over for any injury that could have caused the sudden faint. Fundy sighed as Eret moved away, slight relief on their faces. Tommy must have collapsed from exhaustion. That was probably it. Fundy held onto his uncle's unconscious form, frightened by how he could feel the bones beneath his hands as he tried to hold Tommy in a comfortable position. What had Dream done to him? Fundy felt a searing anger bubble in his veins, but he didn't know who was to blame. Was it Dream for lying to them about Tommy's condition? Or was it Fundy for not stepping in to stop his uncle's exile?

"It wasn't your fault either, Fundy. We made our mistakes but we are not to blame for Tommy's condition." Eret spoke before Fundy's thoughts could go deeper. Fundy bit his bottom lip, but didn't argue, knowing that Eret could tell when he was upset. Fundy shifted his hold, one arm supporting Tommy's back and another supporting the back of his knees. Tommy's head rested against his shoulder, and Fundy wished Dream was nearby so he could take one of the man's lives, for even in sleep Tommy looked absolutely miserable. It wasn't fair. Tommy shouldn't have been left alone like this. Dream shouldn't have dared to do this. Fundy had no doubt that the crater outside was Dream's doing… Tommy wouldn't do such a thing, destroy armor for the sake of it. Fundy let out a growl, ears pressed against the top of his head as he slowly stood up. Eret followed after him, their mouth set into a thin line as they both left the tent. "We can't leave Tommy here. I don't… we shouldn't leave him here. We need to go before Dream decides to come back."

"We could take Tommy to Drywaters, I never told Dream about it. He shouldn't be able to find us there." At least, that's what Fundy hoped. He never saw the purpose of telling his ex-fiance where he planned to live. Why should he? He didn't want Dream knocking at his door one day to apologize for a relationship he probably was never invested in. Tommy would be safe at Drywaters. He and Eret could help Tommy recover there and once things have settled down, they could tell Tubbo and Phil about Tommy's whereabouts. Fundy looked over at Eret who nodded, a smile forming on their face as they began to head towards the nether portal. They could only hope they didn't bump into a familiar masked man during their trek through the nether. Fundy shivered as he realized they'd have to cross New L'Manburg to get to Drywaters. If anyone caught them… well, they were completely and utterly fucked . It was time to be sneaky. He slowed down, trying to match Eret's pace as he realized he has accidentally been walking too fast. "Do you think… Do you think Dream would try to look for Tommy?"

"Dream has a goal in mind. I have a suspicion that he needs Tommy under his complete command for it. That man is a bastard , one could never tell what his true motivations are." Eret shook their head, remembering those piercing green eyes that glared at them when they had tried to protest. "We can only hope he doesn't find us."

"If he does… I'll fucking kill him." Fundy held Tommy closer, still sick at the thought of Tommy being left alone with no one but that tyrant's company. They both finally reach the portal, the harsh sounds of the nether reaching their ears as they both take one final look at Tommy's base. Tommy lived here… for months. Poor kid, not a soul to speak to other than that despicable Dream. "I'm not letting him near, Tommy. Over my dead fucking body."

"No. It'll be over mine." Fundy tossed Eret a look, raising a brow at Eret's statement. It held truth, an undeniable one. Eret didn't know much about Dream, but a part of them knew the man had attachments. They'd seen the way Dream would pause at an empty castle hallway when he thought no one was looking. How he'd bring out a diamond ring from the inside of his sweater pocket, pressing a soft kiss on it before quickly placing it back into the safety of clothes. Eret didn't quite know what had caused the sudden break-up a few days before the scheduled wedding, but they knew Dream cared. If Dream were to ever find them, Eret would be the only to lose a life. It was alright. They had two lives to spare, and they'd gladly toss them all away -even their final life - if it meant giving Fundy and Tommy a chance to escape. Fundy could protect Tommy from then on after, but as long as Eret breathed, they wouldn't let Dream near their son and Tommy. Eret wrapped an arm around Fundy, holding him closer as they brought a sword. "No. If Dream comes for us, I want you to run. Don't look back. You have to promise me you won't look back. Tommy needs one of us to stay alive for him, and I am not letting Dream kill you. Now, do you promise to run if he comes to attack us?"

"I'm not promising that, ren. I'm not leaving you with Dream of all people. I'm staying by your side. I'm not losing another parent figure." Fundy rolled his eyes, inhaling as he tried to shake away the tears. He knew Tommy needed them both, needed someone who could actually serve as a parent instead of a confused nephew who didn't know what to do. Tommy needed Eret. "I can't lose you, ren. And Tommy can't lose you too. We both need you."

"I know, son, but Dream is a stubborn man." Eret gripped Fundy a bit closer, wishing that Fundy would just promise them that. Fundy held his ground, a smug grin on his face. "I suppose, you of all people should know that. Son, you know what could happen if we come across him. You know. He’s dangerous when it comes to his goals. Can you please just promise me that—"

"No. Insert heart here."

Eret laughed at Fundy's antics. Fine. If Fundy wouldn't promise them that then Eret would just have to fight hard enough to keep them all alive. Dream wouldn't know what hit him. At least, Eret could hope that they’d have the element of surprise over the man. Still, it was a long trek home and the nether is not a place one wishes to be trapped in while being hunted. Before they could get home, they needed to survive the nether first… and perhaps even Dream.

"Are you ready?"

"Let's go home."

Eret glanced down at Tommy, giving him a gentle smile.

“Don’t worry, Tommy. We’re getting you out of here.”

“And Dream can suck it!”

Eret sighed, chuckling.

Eret could only hope and pray that Dream wouldn’t find them.

They stepped into the portal, leaving behind the traces of bad memories and misery.

Goodbye Logstedshire, you won't be missed.

[captainsolare]

Todoroki with childhood friends to lovers and high school AU please! Thank you! :)

A/N: Thanks for requesting! ���🥰🥰

High School AU + Childhood friends to lovers + Shouto Todoroki 

The cafeteria was bustling as you entered, students chatting with their friends, some playing cards, others looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. Your eyes scanned the room until you found a head of red and white hair. "There he is,that’s  my favorite white boy!" You exclaimed, sitting next to Todoroki and ruffling his hair. He frowned as he put a hand up to fix it, "but Y/N I'm not even white." 

"I know that, I was just teasing you. You're still my favorite though." To everyone's surprise, Todoroki smiled at the compliment. "Good, I love being your favorite." You smiled back, knowing you were his favorite also. Being third years, your other friends were used to your antics. No matter how close any of them were, they’d never be closer than Todoroki to you, or you to Todoroki.  

He really did love being your favorite. Looking back on a cool winter day, snow was gently falling; that's when you first met him. He was alone in the schoolyard, leaning against the wall like the world itself was too boring to interact with. He was aloof, angry, stubborn, but you were stubborn too, perhaps even more so, and you were determined to make him your friend. 

Eventually your stubbornness prevailed, and a cautious friendship was born that turned into an easy friendship once he let you in. Regardless, these years with you had truly changed him. There were points of light in the dark life he was born into, and you were that light. When he looked at you even now he saw it; it was as if you were bathed in it. 

He watched the familiar way your eyes crinkled as you smiled and joked around with your other friends at the table and it was like he was seeing you for the first time. In a dark and lonely world you were his sunshine, you were his warmth and he wanted more. He wanted to bask in that light forever not just days and moments captured in the few minutes he saw you in the hallways. 

But, he stopped himself, was he allowed to want more? Did he deserve to have you, as something more than a good friend? Should he allow his selfish feelings to ruin your friendship? 

The bell rang and he walked you to your next class, even though his was across the building. "Thanks Shouto, I'll catch you later!" 

When he saw you after school on the way to his club, it was like he couldn't breathe. You had your hands on your hips as you were chatting with one of the other members in the photography club. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but there was something different about you, and it made his chest feel strange. You looked so serious as you instructed the underclassman on camera settings, and setting up the perfect shot. Your face brightened when you noticed him, the camera hanging from your neck bouncing as you jogged to his side. 

“Hey! How was your day?” You asked, smile warm as ever. “It was fine.” He replied, hoping you hadn’t noticed the way his breath was catching in his throat. You got a thoughtful look on your face and Todoroki cocked his head, that was your ‘I have a question but I don’t know how to ask it’ face. “What are you wondering about Y/N?” You shook your head with a smile, “Nothing ever gets past you. We’re working with the yearbook club and I was wondering if I could take pictures of you and the other boys on the track and field team at practice today” 

“Sure, if you think we’re worthy.” You lightly tapped his cheek with your hand, eyes lingering for a bit too long, “Of course you are. Be there in 15, make sure to let the team know, captain.” He nodded and ran to the field, hand stuck on the spot you’d just touched him. “You okay Todoroki?” a member of the team asked. He snapped out of his thoughts long enough to nod, and the team got to work on drills. 

You stretched, reveling in the early evening sunshine. “Hey Y/N.” Your friend said, a teasing tone in her voice. Frowning you turned to them, “What? Don’t tell me you’re going to tease me about Shouto again. Like I’ve told you before we’re just friends.” Defensively they put their hands up, “Look, all I’m saying is that friends don’t look at each other like that.” As you trekked to the field you tried to push their words aside. You were just friends, weren’t you? It was normal to feel like you couldn’t breathe around your longtime friend, right? There were no feelings there, so why? Why couldn’t you shake this feeling from your head? 

You called out to him and he waved his hand to gather the team. “Alright guys, today the photography club is going to take pictures for the yearbook. So practice as normal but you might get pulled aside for solo shots.” You tucked your hands behind your back, “Care to be the first solo shot captain?” His heart sped up, he’d modeled for you plenty of times before, and he’d gotten a lot more confident about his looks, but nonetheless, today felt different. He felt nervous. “Sure.” He couldn’t resist the pleading look in your eyes, he’d never been able to. 

You led him to a spot on the hill where he’d be facing the sun. Your breath hitched as you peered at him through the camera, the sun lit up his features, “Beautiful.” You said breathlessly, he looked almost ethereal in this light, red hair ablaze, white hair shining. Your comment made his skin heat up, he was sure he was bright red. He looked at you, backlit by the setting sun. You looked like an angel, surrounded by light. He swallowed thickly, “You too.” The words were soft, almost too quiet to hear, but you heard them and it made your heartbeat quicken. 

You let your camera drop and it thudded against your chest. “W-what did you say?” Your words came out in a stammer, your mind racing too much to speak coherently. Shouto’s cheeks were on fire, “I said, you’re beautiful too.” The words sent your heart to your stomach. “Why would you say something like that?” 

He bit his lip, unable to bring himself to look into your eyes. “I’m sorry. I hate to do this but--” 

You frowned, “Hate to do what? You’re not making sense Shouto.” He swallowed, clamping his eyes shut. “I hate to ruin our friendship but I think I’m in love with you.” He forced out. Sighing defeatedly, he brought a hand to his knee, trying to find something, anything to ground him in this moment when he felt so out of control. Your eyes were wide, “Shouto of course you love me, we’ve been friends for--” 

He looked up and met your eyes, a look you had never seen before in his two-toned eyes. “No. It’s more than that. Friends don’t want to spend the rest of their lives together. Friends' eyes don’t linger too long, not the way ours do. Friends don’t fall asleep hoping to see your face in the morning. Friends don’t make me feel the way you do.” You blinked, he surely couldn’t be serious, right? This was real life, not some romcom where you got the boy you wanted. You sighed, hands falling to your lap. “Your right. They don’t, so maybe we need to talk about it.” 

Blue and gray eyes met yours, and you reached forward, hands intertwining with his. “I think-- Gosh this is so embarrassing. When did our lives turn into a bad romantic comedy?” You chuckled, eyes crinkling in that way he loved. “Well, let’s make the ending a happy one?” He said hopefully, peering at you through long lashes. You smiled, heart warm as the light hitting your back. “Sure.” You sat like that for a while, yearbook photos long forgotten, until you heard a camera shutter. 

Your friend giggled as they ran away, “Aha! I have evidence!” You began to stand up to give chase. “Delete it!” You yelled, but Todoroki lightly tugged your hand so you’d sit down again. “Let them keep it, hell, let them put it in the yearbook. It’ll help everyone know you’re mine.” You rolled your eyes, and sat next to him in the grass. “When was that ever a question?” He rested your head on your shoulder, “Never.” 

As you watched the sunset, practice long forgotten, you tried not to laugh. Somehow, your life had turned into a childhood friends to lovers romcom, but really, you could live with that.

[fallenrepublick]

If these are still open... can I request a part 2 of our Feral family? Possibly with Maul and his reaction to seeing this other brother of his and also that he actually has a family of his own? We get to see more interaction between Savage and Feral's children as the boys just adore their uncle? While, of course, Feral is making them a nice home meal to let his pregnant wife relax with their coming daughter. I love this family and they shall live on!!

This ended up long as fUck but it was cute, so whatever

Here is the first part.

Warnings: A screwy timeline

“Did I not tell him to stay with the ship…”

Having thoroughly scoped out the land and finding it annoyingly peaceful, Maul had returned to where he had landed with Savage hours later only to find the ship… empty. It was unlike him to wander around anywhere without reason, but even more unlikely that the over two meters tall Zabrak had been captured, especially not by people like these. The only reasonable conclusion, Maul decided, was that something had caught his brother’s eye and he had chosen to follow it.

He turned in the direction of the nearby village, the faces of the houses and buildings obstructed by thick forest life and plants taller than any natural greenery Maul had ever been in the presence of. He trekked forward, unsteady footing slowing down his pace, and pushed through the vines and leaves that blocked his path. Mumbling to himself as he walked, he dearly hoped, for Savage’s sake, that whatever he had followed was worth it.

The forest ended at the edge of the village, loud lively, many residents having taken to the streets enthralled in conversation and tasks, some children running to fro as they played. It hadn’t seemed like Savage had been through there, but then again, one could never be too sure.

As he began walking amongst the people, his vision glazed over the people largely too interested in their own business to notice a stranger traveling within their midst. Faces of various colors blurred together in a haze of surreal memories. He understood, at least a little, the appeal of this planet, the rainbow of appearances that spanned not only through the population but also the environment kept everything interesting, preventing its natives from falling into the dangers of monotony.

The noise of the bustling town didn’t interest him, but one single voice stood out from the others. Though it wasn’t one he knew, there was a strange familiarity to it, as if it was one he was supposed to.

To his right stood a lone house, modest in size, but no less pretty, with multiple figures moving in the front, backlit by the lowering sun. The voice had come from there, light and cheerful, the primary trait an airiness that he hadn’t heard in a long time. Upon venturing closer, hesitance slowing his pace, he could more clearly see the family in question and the source of his curiosity.

Savage stood with the family, arms crossed in deep consideration. Beside him was yet another Zabrak, similar in color, but lighter, soft brown tattoos framing his face less intrusive than his own. He was smaller, younger, more innocent than Maul or Savage, but he held himself assuredly, as if the cruelty of reality hadn’t quite hit him yet. Or maybe it had and he had just chosen to ignore it.

Three children, varying in height, were beginning to be herded together, directed towards the house as the smaller Zabrak continued his conversation.

“-but to this day I still don’t know where the ship came from. But you know how we were, always ready to fight outsiders when the goings got tough!” His laugh was just as cheerful, ringing in everyone’s ears like bells from a clocktower in the mornings. As he spoke, he lightly elbowed Savage, who himself was smiling at his companion, more pleased than Maul had ever seen him.

Though the conversation halted when Maul approached, Savage’s smile fading as he remembered what he had even come for, and Feral’s eyes widening in surprise at the new visitor.

“Is this-” Feral began, gesturing towards Maul, who’s annoyance had faded into simple confusion when he had fully processed the scene in front of him. Savage simply nodded in response, and it wasn’t long that Feral was hurrying over to Maul, a grin plastered on his face.

“We haven’t formally met, yet!” His hand was outstretched, eager to make contact. “I’m Feral. I’m not sure how much you know about me, but I’m your brother!”

Maul took the hand, albeit reluctantly, and nodded. “I’ve heard… only a small amount. Though I was under the impression you were-”

“Dead?” Feral shot Savage a glance. “I might’ve been, if I didn’t have help along the way… Oh well, both of you should come in! I cook around here most of the time, so we can catch up while I feed the monsters.”

Savage smiled at the thought, watching as Feral led them back to the house. Maul however, remained wary, uncertain of how his brother had come to build such a comfortable life while he still struggled to get more than three hours of sleep each night.

“You look so concerned…” Savage mentioned as Maul came up beside him, brow furrowed. “I’ve known him our whole lives. Nothing bad will happen.”

Maul shook his head. “It’s not that. I just don’t understand it. How can he come from a planet like ours and still be able to maintain such… domesticity?”

“Feral was always more tame than the rest of us. I wouldn’t call it weakness, just… an aversion to the violence he was born into.” He stopped a moment, sighing as he watched his nephews race to get into the house first. “I always worried for him, hoping he wouldn’t be targeted as defective if he didn’t adapt to the harshness. He found a way, though.”

Maul said nothing, mind still contemplating the strangeness of it all. He had never considered the possibility of anything other than the power he was raised to believe in, yet here was one of his own kin, living out a life free from that constant struggle. It didn’t sit right.

Still, both followed their brother inside, the children wrestling in the living room and a female Togruta laying on the plush couch. The colors on the interior were light and natural, soft on the eyes and fitting for the natural aura of the village.

Already, Feral had prepared drinks for the company, setting cups on the wooden table outside the kitchen. His brothers sat, Savage visibly more comfortable than Maul was.

The oldest child had seemed to take a liking to Savage, lingering around him as often as possible. He couldn’t have been older than ten, head-tails still very short, encircled by budding horns that were placed more like Savage’s than Feral’s. His skin was a lighter brown, as were the stripes on his head-tails, and he carried himself with more authority than his siblings, prepared to remind him of his elder status at any moment.

“You know,” he said to Savage, leaning forward on the table’s edge, restlessly kicking up his legs. “I’m gonna be like you when I get older. I’m the biggest and the strongest of my brothers, and I’m going to make sure it stays that way!”

“It’s ah… not an easy task…” Savage replied, not wanting to admit that he effectively cheated. Maul snickered. “You’ll have to train for years if you want that to happen.”

“I don’t care!” He leapt up, arms crossing and chest puffing out. “I look kinda like you anyways, so I’m already halfway there!” Well, that’s good, at least he was aware of it.

Feral piped up as he filled a pot with water. “Terren, you’re still not done with school. Please wait until you can long divide before you do that.”

Maul felt something on his leg. It was the youngest, about two, tapping on the metal casing. Rounder and softer in features than his older brother, he was a deep green, like his mother, but the horns that just barely poked out from the area around his head tails bore a strange, uncomfortable resemblance to Maul’s when he was that age. Remarkably curious, he was easy to please as long as he got the answers he sought. And at that moment, he was seeking answers about the being in front of him that he was certain was a droid.

“Fake?” His nails tapped again, harder. Maul didn’t like children in any situation, but what he liked even less was that he found this one mildly charming. He moved his foot back, just to see what would happen, fully expecting the child to cry. But no, he simply scooched himself back with it, gaining an even closer look. “Fake.” He nodded, having determined his hypothesis correct, and placed both hands directly on top of Maul’s foot in confidence.

He really wanted to pick this kid up.

Against his better judgement and personality, he reached down and lifted the child up to eye-level, not sure what he was looking for, yet searching nonetheless. Upon seeing his uncle’s face for the first time, as he was much too small to have noticed it before, the child’s expression hardened into intense concentration. This being was certainly not a droid, and it was unfortunate that now he’d have to go back to the drawing board to discover the truth once more.

“Oh that’s Uta…” Feral said, noticing his brother holding up the young child like a small sack of potatoes. “He’s… a handful.” He laughed as he said it, the sounds of cooking food blending with his smooth voice.

Uta was still frowning, having earned his spot standing on Maul’s lap, and very clearly trying to reason out why he had been tricked before. “Real.” He pointed at Savage. “Real?” He turned to look up at Maul, whose expression was difficult to read. “Fake?”

“It’s about half and half…” Maul offered, hoping to relieve the child of what might’ve been the most stressful situation of his mini life.

“Half-av?” He considered a moment, letting the newly learned word sizzle in his mind a second. Feral tried to choke down his laugh. Uta finally nodded. “Half-av.” The answer was acceptable.

And in came the middle child, mother in tow, who was still discussing an old legend about Nautolans as he entered the room. Stalky and narrow, he was the researcher of the family. He looked most like Feral, with kind eyes turned down at the edges, his mild yellow colors dimmer than his siblings and a slight air of nervousness surrounding him like a cloud, but that didn’t stop him from opening up to his family in ways few would understand or expect. Madin was nodding thoughtfully as she listened to him, pulling out a chair so that she could also sit with everyone else.

“I, for one, don’t understand the Anselmi’s goals in the long run.” He leaned against the table’s edge closest to the kitchen as he finished his explanation. “Oh hey, I’m Forta.” He gave Maul a small two-fingered salute as his introduction.

“Out of the way, out of the way,” Feral chuckled as he waved his kids away with one arm and set down a large serving platter with another. Forta scurried over to Savage’s side, where he marveled at the sturdiness of his uncle’s armor. He began going on about various materials found throughout the galaxy, and was gushing about Beskar, while Terren tried to convince him that no one wanted to hear his boring facts.

Sitting down beside his wife, Feral rubbed Madin’s back while the three boys hurried to their seats across from them.

“You know…” he began slowly, considering the environment. “I didn’t think this sort of thing was possible, getting off of Dathomir… having something more than what we were told was allowed.” He glanced over at Savage, who met his eyes and looked down. “But I get to have all of this… and I’m so glad that you two get to be a part of that now, too. So… I guess what I’m trying to say is… Thank you. For everything.”

[rosedavid]

Ooh ... Childhood toy for the Merthur prompt please

Thank you for the prompt!!! I got too carried away on this one so I posted it on AO3

Here’s the link

however, in case someone wants to read it on tumblr, I’ll post it here too :)

...

Merlin heaves up the final crateful of his stuff. He looks over the tiny, ramshackle room fondly, a smile gracing his lips. It’s strange seeing it completely bare again, just like the day he first arrived in Camelot. Things were so different back then. Merlin never would have expected to be where he is today in his wildest dreams, yet here he is moving into the King’s bedchambers not as a servant, but as a companion. Despite his happiness about officially moving in with Arthur, leaving his old room is bittersweet. So many memories were made in this little room, from trying to turn a stone dog into a real one to clumsily trying to hide his spell book when Arthur came rampaging in unannounced. With one last glance and a deep breath, Merlin closes the door for the last time.

Merlin runs into Gwen on his way to Arthur’s (or, he supposes, his and Arthur’s) chambers. She’s long been promoted as a key advisor to the King, a position well deserved. Her affections have been stolen by Lancelot once again, and the two have been courting for quite some time. It’s obvious to everyone how besotted they are for each other.

“Finished moving in yet?” Gwen asks.

“Last crate,” Merlin responds. “Shouldn’t you still be in the council meeting?”

“Shouldn’t you?”

Technically, Merlin is supposed to be at the meeting. As Court Sorcerer, attending all meetings and royal functions is in his job descriptions. However, he skives off enough so that when a meeting is particularly boring, Arthur doesn’t even nag him into going realizing it’s a futile effort. Not to mention, today’s meeting was supposed to be especially dull. Arthur constantly reprimands him about his complaints, saying that “All meetings are equally important to the King.” Of course, they both know that’s not true, especially when Arthur continuously sends looks at Merlin throughout the meeting.

“Well, you know me,” Merlin shrugs. “But I actually have permission from the Royal Prat today. I’ve been so busy recently with these new magic laws that I’ve hardly had time for a break, let alone to move all my things into Arthur’s chambers.”

“Are you nervous?”

A few months ago, Merlin may have said yes. Despite him and Arthur being as close as they were for so long, a romantic relationship brought with it a lot more awkwardness and learning than either of them expected. It took some trial and error before they got back into a rhythm again and felt completely comfortable around each other. Now, though, Merlin can safely say that he’s not nervous about moving in with Arthur officially. It just feels…right.

“No, I’m not,” Merlin replies. “Although, I’m not looking forward to Arthur’s inevitable complaints about my stuff sharing his space.”

Gwen stifles a laugh. “He’ll get used to it, but he’ll never stop complaining.”

“Exactly. But you still haven’t answered my question. Did you leave because the council meeting is over?”

“Just about. I made an excuse of having a headache, which was about to be true if I stayed in there for any longer.”

“I bet Lancelot tried to carry you down to Gaius himself,” Merlin teases.

“I had to swear to him that I would go straight there multiple times before he let me out of his sight.”

They laugh together. Merlin adjusts his grip on the crate as it begins to slip out of his arms.

“Oh! I’m sorry. I totally forgot that you were still carrying that.”

“I’m strong Gwen, remember?” Merlin jokes. “Don’t worry about it. I always like talking to you. We need to catch up soon.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

They part ways. Merlin finishes his trek, a trek that he’s taken so many times before. Still, this time feels different. This time, he’s entering his room as well. He doesn’t have to worry about knocking or barging in unexpectedly (not that he ever worried about that before). Merlin kicks open the door with his foot, nodding at the guard that’s stationed outside.

He drops the crate with a thud next to the bed and looks around. Arthur’s chambers don’t look much different even with Merlin moved in. Merlin never had much stuff to begin with. In fact, most of his things came from Arthur eventually. A new wardrobe, nicer blankets and pillows, and even a magic book he came across while traveling. Still, his stuff is nothing compared to the grandeur of Arthur’s possessions. Of course, it doesn’t bother Merlin. He has everything he needs as long as they’re together.

Merlin finishes unpacking the crate, storing some books away and folding some cloaks. Then, suddenly, that’s it; he’s all moved in. He lives with Arthur. He gets to go to sleep and wake up every morning at Arthur’s side. They can eat breakfast together without Merlin having to walk across the castle and meet him every morning.

The door opens behind him. He turns and sees Arthur dressed regally, cape flowing behind him. He looks brave and fearless and powerful, as any King should. When he looks at Merlin, though, his expression melts into one of softness and adoration.

“Is that the last of it?” Arthur asks.

“Yup. I’m officially moved in! You’re stuck with me,” Merlin says, poking his side.

“Hmm,” Arthur contemplates. “Are you sure it’s too late?”

“Too late.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to make the most of it.”

With that, Arthur swoops in and kisses Merlin. A gloved hand cups Merlin’s face, while Arthur’s other hand sneaks down to the dip in his spine, tracing over it. Merlin’s hands fly up to Arthur’s hair, knotting his fingers in the tresses. Arthur’s mouth tastes like the watered down wine the castle staff serves during most meetings. Soon, Arthur starts backing Merlin toward the bed, and Merlin giggles when the back of his knees hit the frame. Arthur starts trailing kisses down his neck, just about to push Merlin down onto the bed when he suddenly stops, staring at something behind Merlin.

“Arthur? What’s wrong?”

“What is that thing?” Arthur asks incredulously, pointing toward their bed.  Merlin cranes his neck behind him to see what Arthur is pointing at.

It’s Merlin’s stuffed bear. Beary, to be precise. Merlin has had him since he was a baby. According to his mum, the stuffed bear was always Merlin’s favorite toy. He remembers toting it around with him everywhere, especially before he met Will. It was a comfort object, something to keep him company when he felt most lonely. It helped him through a lot of dark times. Many nights, he remembers crying himself to sleep after being constantly rejected by the rest of the village. He would hold the bear tight to his chest all night long, refusing to let go. Now, it’s more of a comfort just to have it near. He brought it to Camelot with hardly any hesitation, as it was something familiar in a completely new place. He’s never thought to get rid of it, despite it being completely worn down and falling apart He’s had to resew Beary numerous times, yet the stuffing inside of him always seems to come out, and the button eyes always seem to be missing.

“That’s Beary, my childhood toy,” Merlin says simply.

“And why pray tell is it on our bed?”

“He is on our bed because he that’s where he belongs.”

Arthur stares at him. “You’re kidding, right? Why do you even have that thing, anyway?”

“He was my favorite toy when I was a child, Arthur,” Merlin explains, picking Beary up gently. “He always brought me comfort when I most needed it. I don’t know if you knew this, but I didn’t really have friends growing up besides Will. I was pretty much ostracized from the rest of the village. I guess you could say he was a friend of sorts.”

“And you brought him to Camelot.”

Merlin shrugs. “He still brings me comfort, when I look of him, and he reminds me of Ealdor and my mum. Plenty of people still have their childhood toys.”

“Girls, maybe.”

“Hey! Toys are for everyone. Didn’t you have a favorite toy when you were little?”

Merlin sits down on the bed and puts his bear back in the center against the pillows. Arthur sits down next to Merlin, so close that their shoulders and thighs touch.

“I did have a toy sword,” Arthur muses. “Father wanted me to start training to be a knight as early as possible.”

Merlin’s eyebrow furrows. “You didn’t have any stuffed animals? Or blocks? Or puppets?”

“I had books on Camelot and royal etiquette.”

Suddenly, Merlin feels a bit guilty. Although he knows Arthur’s life has been anything but easy, oftentimes he forgets some of the struggles he’s had to deal with. Merlin’s childhood was nothing to boast about, but he was relatively happy. He had his mother by his side, a loving and caring figure. He had his needs taken care of, as well as they could be for a peasant. He eventually came to have Will, his best friend. Back then, Merlin knew nothing about his destiny. Arthur, on the other hand, has known about his destiny to become King since the day he was born. And Uther was anything but a sweet, loving father. Arthur has told him stories before about leading raids as a teenager, killing while he himself was still a boy. Yet somehow, Merlin never considered that he didn’t ever have a childhood even though it makes sense.

“Well, since you’re sharing your chambers with me, I can share Beary,” Merlin offers with a grin.

“I’ll pass,” Arthur says dryly.

“Come on! He’ll be your beary best friend!”

“You’re ridiculous,” Arthur laughs.

“I’m sorry, Arthur, but Beary and I are a package deal. You can’t have one without the other.”

Arthur suddenly tackles Merlin against the bed, playfighting with him as they laugh. It doesn’t take long for them to eventually tire, though, leaving Arthur to collapse beside Merlin as they lean up against the pillows.

“I think the bear is more appealing at this point,” Arthur jokes.

Merlin mock frowns, reaching over Arthur to pick Beary back up. He nuzzles the bear’s face against Arthur’s neck, pouting at Arthur’s previous expression.

“Well I think you’re unbearable,” Merlin huffs, unable to keep a straight face for long. Arthur snorts, grinning with him.

Beary is then taken carefully from his hands and brought under Arthur’s scrutinizing gaze. “Why in the world would you name him Beary? That’s the worst possible name I could think of!”

“I can think of one worse name.”

“You’re just so funny, Merlin.”

Arthur then takes the bear in his hands and places it face down on his nightstand. He pulls Merlin’s body flush against his own. Thankfully, Arthur has forgone his armor for the afternoon, making it much more comfortable.

“Why did you do that?” Merlin asks, referring to his bear.

“Because I don’t want him to see this next part,” Arthur grins, causing Merlin to blush. He joins lips with Merlin again breathily, but Merlin pulls back before they can do much else.

“Does that mean Beary can stay?” Merlin asks smugly.

Arthur rolls his eyes, but it’s followed with a smile.

[tmariea]

Correspondence

Rating: G

Paring: Bagginshield in mention

Summary: After Frodo comes to live with Bilbo, he writes a letter to Balin and The Company to tell of the news, and reminisce. This being the first draft, in which he perhaps does more reminiscing than he first intended.

----------

Being the first draft of a letter composed to Balin and The Company of the Lonely Mountain, composed in Bag End, The Shire in spring of 2980:

Hail Balin!

I hope this letter finds you well, and I apologize that it has been so long since my last.  Undoubtedly I have missed hearing from all of you in The Mountain.  I have had some trouble finding someone capable of carrying messages for such a long way, but I have recently met a fellow named Strider, a ranger who was travelling to Rivendell and promised to see my letter into the right hands.

Today I write to you with momentous news!  Momentous, and life altering for certain, but perhaps not entirely wondrous.  My Nephew, Frodo Baggins, has come to live in my care at Bag End.  I am very glad to have him here, and to have another soul to fill Bag End much the way it was intended.  But this comes at the loss of his parents, Drogo and Primula Baggins, my closest cousins.  I am very saddened by their passing; they were amongst the few family I had living close by that did not view my small adventure as a matter of scandal.  Frodo is saddened as well.  Sometimes I see the same grief in his eyes that I have seen in my own.

But, when he is not saddened, he is settling in well.  We had a grand time cleaning out one of the guest rooms and outfitting it to his liking.  He smiled so widely when I let him choose some books from the study to fill the small shelf in his room.  It was the first time he smiled like that since coming to live here.  I remember thinking I would never smile like that again too.  I enjoy trying new recipes for all of Frodo’s favorite foods (see!  I am quite amenable to company when it is not 13 dwarfs bent on cleaning out my larder!), and we have also been planting the new spring’s flowers alongside Hamfast Gamgee and his son Samwise.  Frodo and Sam seem to be mostly interested in rolling about in the dirt and crushing the flowers at this age, but we managed to plant some Forget-me-Not, Sweet Pea, Zinnia and Lavender.  Each of these are flowers that have some meaning for goodbyes, remembrance and peace; it would be similar to giving a gift of obsidian, green aventurine, and aragonite.

Otherwise, Frodo is doing his best to run me into the ground between dashing about Bag End with no consideration for fragile heirlooms, and making all kinds of mischief.  I feel far more respect for Glóin than I ever have before for raising Gimili, and that is even without Frodo having the ability to find his way into forges, armories, mines, and other dangerous places where fauntlings or dwarflings should not find themselves.  I’ve already had to smooth things over with Farmer Magot over an incident with Frodo, his cousins, and a good many mushrooms which did not belong to them.  If you could ply Glóin for advice on handling energetic youngsters, I would be much obliged.

Frodo asks after Gandalf quite frequently.  He was quite taken with the old wizard when he visited two years ago and of course showed off his fireworks.  He is convinced since Gandalf is a wizard and the two of us friends that I could summon him with a wave of my hand and then ‘poof’ there he would be on the front porch.  The way Frodo imagines it reminds me in a way of the arrival of the company, although all of you arrived with far less magical ‘poofs’ and far more falling into the front hallway!  But, at any rate, if you happen to see Gandalf before we do, would you mention that we miss him on this side of the world as well?  Truth is I haven’t heard of him, not even the barest rumor, since that visit two years ago.  I know well that he can take care of himself but that doesn’t stop a Hobbit from worrying!  I will give a letter for him to Strider as well, to be left at Rivendell for whenever he might pass through next.

Frodo asks for the story of our adventure quite often as well.  He wants to hear about how his Uncle fought a dragon.  As if it was not how his Uncle mostly snuck about and hid from a dragon while others did the fighting.  Telling it again and again makes me nostalgic for those days, and miss you all very dearly.  Balin it makes the grief so fresh.  I had thought it tempered by time and distance but it aches like an emptiness inside me.  I have lost whole evenings after putting Frodo to bed just staring into the fire.  Oh how I wish we had occasion to meet again!  Maybe we should make the trek to visit you in The Mountain.  Walking all that way would certainly use up some of Frodo’s endless stores of energy, and then all of you could keep him entertained for a time.  And how lovely it would be to introduce you all.

I wish beyond anything I have ever wished that I could introduce Frodo to Thorin and Fili and Kili.  Fili and Kili would think him great fun and enjoy teaching him how to get into even more trouble.  And Thorin… you know he loved Fili and Kili so much, loved being their Uncle and having a hand in how they grew.  One only had to watch the three of them together to know that Thorin would have made a wonderful father.  I can picture it so clearly in my mind’s eye, Thorin and I and Frodo sitting around a hearth while I tell stories and Thorin plays his harp and Frodo laughs.  So clearly that sometimes I have looked to my left only to be surprised that no one is there.  We talked about it once, you know, what things might be like once we had reclaimed The Mountain, what it might be like to have a home into which we could welcome a young Dwarf or Hobbit.  One quiet evening, when it was warm and the stars were bright, and we were hopeful.  It’s strange and somehow even more lonely to miss a time which never came to pass.

At any rate, in absence of a visit in person, I was wondering if you might be able to send a current drawing of The Company?  I did a sketch as soon as I returned to the Shire, and Frodo loves looking at it every chance he gets.  But since it was only from my own memory, I worry that I may not have captured every detail as faithfully as I would like.  And then I beg, if there are any drawings of Thorin, Fili, and Kili that could be copied, I would dearly love to have them as well. The last image I have in my head is of each of them lying on that horrible battlefield.  In doing my own drawing I had to fight so hard to keep their lifeless faces from tainting this memory.  More days than I like to admit I lose that fight.

That is the end of my requests for you then, except for one more, which is to send me news of how you all fare and what you have been doing in The Mountain as of late!  I have included some small gifts with my letter, if you could see that they make their way into the right hands.  There will be a new pastry recipe for Bombur, and I had to employ every skill at trickery I learned with you all to pry the secret from my great aunt’s cookbooks.  For Bofur are a few images of some of the new toys I have bought for Frodo; I did my best to guess at what the mechanisms might be.  Ori expressed some interest in Hobbit fashion, so I there are some sketches of the most fashionable Hobbits at this spring’s harvest dance.  If you would not mind, I have included some drawings to place on Thorin, Fili, and Kili’s tombs as well – Zinnia for Fili and Kili, and for Thorin the single blooming tea rose.  And finally for all of you, some sheet music for a song that everyone can sing and play together.  I hope this last gift will give you all an excuse to gather around a fire together once more.

Yours in eternal friendship and burglary – Bilbo Baggins, Bag End, The Shire

This draft will be discarded in favor of a new version with far less cross-outs, and absolutely no tear stains.  It will find itself into a locked drawer in Bilbo’s writing desk, to join Bilbo’s sketch of the company (when Frodo isn’t begging to see it) and a few other important pieces of correspondence.  When Balin’s reply arrives, Bilbo will read this draft once more before throwing it away for good.  In its place will be added the new letter, a sketch of ten smiling dwarfs – only slightly older and more weathered than Bilbo remembered – an image of Fili and Kili with their arms slung about each other’s shoulders, and one meticulous sketch of King Thorin Oakenshield, drawn only a year before The Company set out for the Shire and copied by Balin’s own hand.

[meganshinsou-tm]

Vermilion. (m)

↳ chapter twelve: two very stupid boys

❧ genre:  pro-hero’s bakugou/kirishima, poly, happy ending

❧ chapter warnings: none

[multi-chap masterlist] [previous chapter - next chapter]

It had been over a week since you had your first day as a sidekick and you and Bakugou had your first falling out. You were quick to forgive him though and he was more than grateful for it. Since then, things had become normal again between the two of you, while things also started to escalate between the three of you. 

Escalate in a good way though, more and more each day you grew closer to the two heroes. Exchanging kisses every chance you got with each of them all around your shared home, becoming playful and more handsy inside their bedrooms. You were all adults and each one of you had needs, desires - so you fulfilled them. There was never anything more than wondering hands and mouths, fervent grinding and groping, hushed moans and sighs in the night and mornings - but every now and then both the men would let you get out one good intoxicating sound, both always smiling so proudly when it happened as if they were in some sort of twisted contest with the other that would no doubt hear from the opposite end of the hall.

It was a strange arrangement but so far there was no bad blood, no glares of disapproval or even a hint of either Kirishima nor Bakugou being upset or bothered by what was obviously going on with you. More and more you grew to figure out that these two were fucking weird and got along way to well for what was happening. There was no worry in your heart that things would go downhill anytime soon but there was something, you didn’t know what, always screaming in the back of your mind that this wasn’t right. But there was no evidence from either man that it was wrong, they were both the same as usual and still like the best of friends. So to say the least, shit was just confusing to you sometimes but whatever floats their boats right?

Then there were the times where the shitty area of your brain would try to make you think that this was all a game between Bakugou and Kirishima, that they didn’t want you, not like that. They just wanted you as an outlet to blow off steam, let out their pent up energy and then brag about it to each other behind your back. But you knew those two, you knew that they would never, ever do something so cruel to you. 

Kirishima was the epitome of sunshine, of perfect and chivalrous. Bakugou, yeah he could be an ass but he was a good ass, if that made sense. The guy nearly ripped off someone’s head in the grocery store one day for grabbing the last watermelon you wanted, so there was no way in hell he’d do such a terrible thing to you of his own volition, he’d kick his own ass.

No. Everything was fine. Everything was fucking peachy! 

You were just tired is all, since being thrown into literal action you never sat behind a desk again and you just weren’t used to having to actually work this much on the job, that was all. A nice and long weekend of doing nothing but relaxing and resting would put all this nonsense behind you.

At the moment you and Kiri were hanging out in the break-room waiting on Bakugou to change out of his hero suit, always taking longer than you because of all the extra shit he had. It was a Friday, thankfully, and the three of you had off together. You and the red-head were giggling at memes when your boss walked in.

"Kirishima, when Bakugou gets done, I need the two of you to meet me in my office for a few minutes before heading home."

The red-head nodded and gave your boss a ‘yes sir’ for confirmation. The boss looked at you, sitting across Kiri’s lap and smiling.

"(Y/N), great job these past two weeks. You're shaping up to be one of our best new heroes! Enjoy your weekend off and get some rest!"

You smiled and thanked him, once he was out of view Kirishima gave you a high five and pulled you close to him, placing sweet and loving kisses on your face.

"Look at you mama, kicking ass and taking names! Showing em how it's done!"

You giggled and did a terrible happy dance with the hero from your seat.

"What the fuck are you idiots doing?"

Bakugou's brash voice cut through your laughing and made you both look at him as he walked towards you. Kirishima flashed him a sharp toothed grin as his hand rested on your back.

"The boss just came over and said that our girl here was one of the best newcomers we have!"

Katsuki smirked and cracked his neck before rubbing it, "Well of course she is! Now, let's go home!"

"Wait a second man, the boss wants to see us before we head out, it should only take a second!"

You smiled and hopped off Kiri’s lap to let him stand up.

"We'll be back, it shouldn't take long!" The red-head placed a kiss on your cheek and took off towards the boss's office.

You looked at Katsuki and grinned, tilting your head to expose the un-kissed cheek. The blonde scoffed and rolled his eyes but quickly pecked your cheek as well and followed his friend shoving his hands into his pockets. He wanted nothing more than to get this shit over with fast so he could go home, curl up with you and his friend on the couch with drinks, food and a movie and sit on your asses all weekend.

"We need you to go on a mission for the weekend, you're expected to come back on Sunday but it could wrap up Saturday depending on how hard you work to get it done. I understand that since Miss (L/N) has moved in with the both of you, the three of you have developed some type of relationship which is your business not mine. But I also know that neither of you feel comfortable leaving her to stay home alone, even though I'm sure she's very capable of taking care of herself, but I am giving you the choice to either go together as a team, or just one of you. If you choose to go solo, then we'll arrange for another hero to tag along. So, what will it be?"

So much for a weekend off.

The two looked at each other and shrugged, it was true, if they were asked to go on an out of town mission they preferred one of them stay behind to make sure you weren't completely alone, at least until it got to the point where you were asked to tag along. Bakugou smirked and turned back to his boss.

"I'll go, Red stayed behind last time and worked until the morning. It's my turn this time. When do I leave?"

A few minutes later Kirishima returned from the boss's office, he gave you a soft smile and kissed your forehead while telling you to go meet Bakugou in the locker room and that he'd wait for you to come out. Once you found Bakugou he seemed to be packing his hero suit into a bag and a few extra clothes that he kept stashed in his locker just in case of last minute missions.

"Suki, are you going somewhere?" You asked softly as you walked closer to him and stood by his locker.

"I have to go on a mission this weekend, it's only until Sunday but I'm gonna try to be back sooner. I have to leave tonight."

You looked down at the ground and pouted. It bummed you out that Bakugou would be leaving you and Kiri, even if it was only for a day or two. You've worked with the duo for four months now, two of those months you've lived with them, and in that time you've become extremely attached to them and hated being apart from either one.

"Stop pouting like a fucking baby, I'll be back in no time. Plus, it's not like you'll be lonely, you and Shitty Hair always have fun together!"

The blonde was now standing in front of you, his hands on either side of your head on the lockers. You looked up into his ruby eyes and smiled as he smirked at you.

"I know, but I just like having you both around me though." You cooed, hands coming up to rest on his chest as your lashes batted in his direction.

This made Bakugou smile, he had to admit he liked you pouting and confessing how much you'd miss him, it showed him that you did want him and Kiri equally. His lips kissed yours before trekking down your chin and to your neck, making you purr and dig your fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

"How about this you big baby, when I get back we'll both take you out," he said with a gruff voice as he started to bite and lick your skin while his hands made their way to your hips and pulled you against him, eliciting a pretty sigh from your lips.

"L-Like a date?"

The blonde rolled his eyes and looked at you, cheeks flushed and your lip between your teeth. He had gotten pretty good at restraining himself lately when fooling around with you, but that look you'd give him just made it harder and harder each time. Katsuki nodded, "If that's what you want to fucking call it, sure whatever!"

You gave him a goofy smile and nodded eagerly, "It’s a date then! I'll miss you Suki, please be careful and don't get too fucking cocky!"

You smirked and pressed your knee between his legs, making his fingers dig into the skin of your hips as he growled. Bakugou kissed your lips roughly, his hands hooking under your knees and picking you up, pushing you against the lockers. You chuckled and wrapped your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck as you continued to make out with him feverishly. He nibbled on your lip and down to your neck. One of his hands pulled down the strap on your tank top to expose your cleavage, he kissed the skin of your left breast and bit down, sucking harshly, making you gasp and moan.

Bakugou released your flesh and kissed the dark purple mark that now adorned your skin, "Don't tell me what to do princess! Now, get the fuck out of here before I ruin you!"

An empty pizza box and open bags of candy were strewn across the living room floor where you and Kiri were cuddled on a fluffy pallet while you had a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. You'd switch between actually being into the movie, to talking and joking around with each other. Right now he was sitting between your legs with his back flushed against you and his head laying on your chest as you played with his soft and relaxed red locks, his strong arms rested on your thighs and rubbed your soft skin. As much as you loved spending time with Bakugou, rough housing, teasing each other and annoying him with all your affection, you loved spending time with Kiri as well. He loved your affection towards him plus he always returned it tenfold! It was tooth rotting how damn sweet he could be and you also adored how you could be a total nerd and idiot around him.

"Hey Kiri, is your hair naturally this red?"

You asked as your fingers played around and brushed through the mop of hair.

The man in question leaned his head back more and looked up at you smiling, "Actually no, my natural hair color is black!"

Your jaw dropped and you looked closer at the strands between your fingers, there was no way this man ever had black hair.

"Bullshit, your eyebrows are red too!"

Kirishima chuckled and placed a finger on your chin shutting it.

"I dye those too sweetheart. Here come on, I'll show you!"

The faux red-head leaned forward and stood up before turning around reaching out a hand for you, you took it happily and let him lead you upstairs. Even if you knew where it was you were going, your hands never broke from their grasps. Kiri loved holding your hand more than anything. 

Once at his rooms door, he opened it and let you walk in first like the gentleman that he is. You plopped down onto his bed on your stomach, your feet swaying in the air as he looked through his bedside drawer and gathered what looked like pictures. Kirishima smirked and made himself comfortable beside you, laying on his side and giving you the photos.

"Oh my god, Eiji!"

You awed and cooed over pictures of him as a toddler with black locks, also a few middle school pictures of him. It was definitely him, you'd notice those captivating crimson hues anywhere, they were so much more endearing behind pitch black tresses.

"So you didn't always spike your hair? Why the drastic change?"

Kiri half-smiled at you before turning to look at the pictures, you noticed his change in mood and quickly told him that if it was a sore subject he didn't have to explain himself to you. He protested though with a reassuring expression, letting you know that it wasn't exactly a sore subject but in fact a very pivotal moment in his life. 

Kirishima proceeded to tell you his story about his middle school days before he was the manly guy he was now. How he doubted his own quirk at one point because he couldn't seem to save people but instead just stand by and watch someone else do it and how he just gave up on even considering UA as an option for him until something found him in his time of despair and completely changed his life. Once he found out he made it into the hero course at UA, he gave himself a makeover and became a new person.

Once Kirishima finished you couldn't help but kiss him with every ounce of love your body had, to think that this wonderful and amazing friend of yours once thought that he wasn't 'manly' or good enough to be a hero to people blew your mind. Of course that wasn't his mindset now, he knew his worth and went above and beyond it each day and now more than ever you were proud of him.

Your kisses made him melt and you soon found yourself underneath him as he hovered over you and peppered your face with those goofy kisses you adored.

"Hey Kiri, if it means anything, you're my hero!"

Your words made his famous sharp-toothed grin that made his eyes crinkle appear, he nuzzled his face into your neck as he hugged you to his chest and kissed your cheek.

"It means more than you know (Y/N). As long as I can be that for you, I'm content!"

You smiled and almost teared up - god you were falling head over heels for this man fast.

Deciding to lighten the mood more, your hands started to wander over Kirishima’s thick and hard chest, making him look at you and smirk before planting his lips on yours. You kissed back, causing the sweet peck to turn into a hot lingering kiss as you rolled his bottom lip between your teeth and sucked on it hungrily. Kirishima let a playful growl escape his throat as you released him, giving his sharp teeth a chance to nip at your own soft lips.

"So, you have me all to yourself this weekend, what do you wanna do handsome?" You smiled wickedly and hung your arms around his neck, placing kisses on his cheek and jaw that made the massive hero weak in the knees.

Kirishima gripped at the covers beneath you, thoughts becoming muddled and his eyes becoming hooded. He nuzzled his face back in your neck where he placed open mouthed kisses and licked, his wet tongue burning your cool skin in the best way.

"Kiri,” you whined and tilted your head, giving him more ground to cover.

He chuckled and continued across your shoulder, tasting you and teeth lightly nipping your skin and making you gasp as you wrapped a leg around him. Lust was boiling in your veins and making you roll your hips against the hero, followed by him grinding into you. Kirishima’s knuckles were turning white from how hard he gripped at the covers, trying to restrain himself.

Of course he never thought that resisting your advances to go further than you usually did would become easier but shit -  this was fucking torture! As badly as he wanted to fulfill your silent request, he couldn't - not yet, not without his friend.

"Mmm, I could think of a couple of things,” he breathed out, brushing his lips across your collarbone, “But we’re both pretty beat yeah? Maybe we should go finish the movie and go to bed?”

Ouch.

Of course Kirishima was always a gentle as he could be when rejecting your requests for just a little more action but for some reason tonight, it stung much worse. All over again that dumb part of your brain started to work up again, making you question now if something was wrong with you because it wasn’t only Kirishima that would turn you down, so did Bakugou. It was like a double rejection.

The feeling of Kirishima brushing the pad of his thumb across your cheek grabbed your attention, making you look at him as a half smile crossed his face. He obviously didn't notice the struggle you were having on the inside and you honestly didn't want him to. You looked away and bit at your lip, body unconsciously shrinking underneath him.

"Oh uh – yeah, yeah that's cool. But uh I’m not exactly up for finishing the movie, actually I think I’ll go shower real quick," you placed a quick peck to Kirishima’s cheek, “So can you let me up big guy?”

Kirishima’s red brows furrowed and he nodded before sitting up, hesitantly, on his knees. You faked the best smile you could and sat up. swinging your legs over the side of the bed and standing to your feet like a rocket. You wanted to get out of that bedroom, away, not wanting to let Kirishima see you looking any less than happy. Before you could escape though his hand caught your wrist.

"Hey, are you okay? If it's about just now, I'm sorry, it's just –"

He was cut off as you shook your head, hand waving and your body turning back to him quickly to kiss his lips. You ruffled his hair playfully and smirked.

"Don't worry about it Red, it’s all good," you replied with a somewhat strained voice before turning and walking out of the room, leaving Kirishima on the bed unconvinced.

As you showered, Kiri went back downstairs and cleaned up the mess of food that still lay on the floor. He replayed what happened over and over in his head, your mood changed so suddenly. You seemed, hurt?

It wasn't until then that he realized what the problem was and man did he feel fucking stupid. Of course you were hurt, Kirishima had straight up rejected you, no matter how easy he let you down it was still rejection. It wasn’t just tonight either, it was all the other nights, and from Bakugou as well, he knew that. It was their agreement, fooling around was okay but full on sex wasn’t, not without the other. 

However that was an agreement you weren’t in on, you knew nothing about what the two had going on behind your back, how they were 110% on board with full on sharing you in every way possible and both waiting on you to catch on but the thing was - how could you catch on when you were left in the dark? How could they be so dumb to think that this would go well without any problem, any stress or damage to you.

At first it seemed like a good idea to keep it between themselves, but now that he could see that it was starting to affect you he was sure that him and Bakugou would have to move forward with things, which meant sitting you down and having that talk with you.

"Man, someone needs to kick my ass for this dumb shit!"

Kirishima pulled out his phone and found Katsuki's number and called it, walking to the stairs and listening close to make sure the shower was still on before walking outside the front door.

The phone picked up and Katsuki's raspy, tired voice answered, "I was almost asleep you asshole!"

Kiri rolled his eyes, "To bad, we need to talk! It’s about (Y/N)"

The sound of Bakugou shooting up in his bed could be heard through the speaker, even the sound of his hand gripping the device tighter was clear as day.

“What the fuck happened? Is she okay?”

Worry was thick in the blondes voice and Kirishima scratched the back of his neck with a sigh.

“Physically yes, of course, you know that man. Mentally though, I’m not so sure. I think this thing is starting to get to her and to be honest I’m getting tired of keeping this secret from her any longer. We need to nut up and get this fucking show on the road.”

Bakugou let out of breath of relief. “Tell me everything.”

[l-sincline]

Cybernetics- Cyberpunk!Sonic AU- Chapter 8

Amy Rose has been working tirelessly at her broken down booth for as long as she can imagine. Ever since Tails left their work to join forces with the revered hero of Mobius, ‘The Blue Blur’, she’s grown lonely and desperate to make her life exciting. A strange customer comes in one day asking her to fix his cyborg arm, what she didn’t know was that he would be the catalyst for a brand new life.

AO3 Tags:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Amy Rose/Shadow the Hedgehog, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Amy Rose (Sonic the Hedgehog), Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles “Tails” Prower, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik, Rouge the Bat, Whisper the Wolf, Cream the Rabbit, Knuckles the Echidna, Badnik (Sonic the Hedgehog), E-123 Omega, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Slow Burn, Partners in Crime

AO3 Link

Previous/Next

Bugs buzzed monotonously by her ear, body truly screaming at her to stop moving and lay down now.

“We’re almost there.” He’d promised quite a few times.

She’d at one point exasperatedly asked how he made this trek. He pointed out that he had the chip, and that also when he chose not to use the chip, he had the shoes. Amy supposed she’d have to figure something out. But until then, she was stuck feeling like death while the sun slowly left them less and less light. Her feet felt about ready to fall off, and at this point she wouldn’t be opposed to it, then she would have to lay down and take a break until her feet got replaced by cyborg parts. Unfortunately, unless there was a saw around here, she got the feeling that though they hurt, her feet were firmly attached to the rest of her for many years to come. She stopped when she bumped her head on Shadow’s shoulder blade on accident, not realizing that he had stopped. She looked up and saw him glancing back at her, silently pointing to the building ahead of them. The outside looked just as old as the rest of the buildings, vines and moss grew up the side, but the difference would be that this building had no cracks, no holes, and even had glass in the windows. The thick vines had been pushed away to grow around the doorway, which held a black, steel door.

“This is it?” She whispered. Shadow nodded and beckoned her to follow once more, stepping up to the door and opening up the scanner attached to it, allowing it to scan his face. Once it had, she heard the soft clicking of the mechanism allowing it to unlock, and soon she was following him inside.

The inside was clean, fixed up just like he’d said. The floor was tiled and a round, maroon carpet sat in the middle of it. To the right was a couch with two love seats and a coffee table, as well as a large ProjScreen attached to the wall, the furniture sat on top of a rectangle rug that was the same color as the round one. To the left there was kitchen, complete with an island and any appliances one would need to cook as well as a fridge- she had no idea how they got any power out here, but she’d ask about that later. Lights dotted the ceiling to make up for the lack of windows on the first floor, and in the middle of the back wall there was a staircase leading up. Amy looked over to see Shadow had taken off his cloak and hung it on a hook on the wall.

“Shadow! Watch out!” A voice cried from the steps, and Amy found herself being tackled and pinned to the ground. She cried out in pain, she wasn’t sure how much more of a beating her body was to take today, but she hoped it wasn’t much more as clenched her teeth and squinted in pain.

“Rouge! She’s no danger- get off.” He demanded exasperatedly.

‘Rouge’s weight left her and she opened her eyes, taking Shadows hand that he offered and allowing herself to be pulled up. Then, she looked over to see who exactly ‘Rouge’ was.

She was... an Android. White metal, bright blue, glowing eyes. Equipped with fake lashes and makeup. Two wings protruded from her back and her ears gave away that she was modeled to look like a bat mobian. She currently wore a robe- it looked soft, and it was pink, matching slippers she wore on her feet. Aside from all that, she was much curvier than your typical Android would be, at least from what Amy had seen before.

“Rouge, this is Amy. She’s coming on board as our mechanic.” Shadow introduced her. Amy held out a hand.

“It’s nice to meet you...” She spoke softly, and cautiously, not wanting to incite any more anger from the Android woman. Rouge was silent, studying her up and down. Judging her. Amy couldn’t tell what the Android was thinking- it was strange, Androids tended to be easier to read because they weren’t actually mobians.

“I like your pants.” She said suddenly, crouching down to grasp one of the straps. “They’re practical and yet, very stylish.” Rouge observed before standing back up to look at Amy. Her facial expression didn’t give much away, but her body language told Amy that for now, Rouge would leave her be.

Amy let out a breath of relief as Rouge turned to look at Shadow.

“Does that mean Omega can finally be fixed...?” She asked hopefully.

“I do believe so.” He replied.

“Omega?” Amy wondered aloud.

“Don’t worry about it for now, you need to rest up, you’ve been smacked around a bit more than I think you’re used to today.” Shadow nodded to Rouge, and the bat android stepped forward and lifted Amy’s bag from her shoulder.

“I’ll take this to your room and get everything ready for you.” She explained before turning and spreading her wings, flying up the stairs. Shadow chuckled.

“What’s funny?” Amy asked.

“I think she’s excited to have another girl in the house.”

She ‘ooh’ed quietly, following Shadow as he walked over to the kitchen.

“Sit.” He gestured to one of the stools that sat at the island. Amy sat down gingerly and put her hands in her lap, watching him open the fridge and stare at it absentmindedly. She couldn’t imagine it was easy to get food out here, but then she remembered his teleporting trick and supposed that it was quite possible that he... went grocery shopping? That would be a funny sight to see. He shut the fridge door and leaned down to the freezer door, pulling it open and selecting something from it before tossing it on the table. He pulled out a toaster from next to the fridge and plugged it in before getting to work on unwrapping the food while beginning to speak to her once more.

“The room won’t be great, but you can start to get your own stuff to put in there once you... adjust to our living style.” He explained, popping what she now saw were frozen waffles into the toaster. “ProjScreen- on.” He called, louder than he had been talking to her previously, and she shifted slightly to turn and watch the ProjScreen as he continued to shuffle around in the kitchen. What she saw made her stomach turn.

“-from what we can see, this woman and her partner made a complete fool of the Blue Blur.” The female cat gossip show anchor chided.

“While we up here in the neon city aren’t exactly big fans of any criminal, watching these two lay waste to the Blue Blur is exceptionally funny.” The male deer replied, partially to the camera. The woman laughed.

“As part of our ‘down with the Blue Blur’ campaign, I just want to play that absolutely humiliating clip again!” She cried joyfully, clapping her hands together before turning in her chair to watch the screen behind them.

The screen showed a projection from the angle of what seemed to be a surveillance camera. It was a slow-mo shot of her rolling and shoving herself off the Blue Blur, immediately followed by Shadow’s cyborg hand appearing on screen and hitting the Blue Blur square in the back, sending him tumbling forward and scraping on the ground. Thank god the camera panned towards the blue hedgehog instead of her and Shadow, or else there’d be video proof of them just disappearing. But instead it zoomed in on the Blue Blur, who struggled to get up before collapsing. The video cut off just as Tail’s feet came in frame.

“Now that is just too funny!” The cat woman cried again, smile wide on her face.

“I have to agree with you there- but now we have to get to the more interesting topic- who was that woman?” He asked enthusiastically as a grainy, zoomed in projection of her face from when she was falling came up behind them.

“Now, thanks to some intelligence we do know she ran a shop in the outer ring, but the real question is how did she get wrapped up in all this drama? I mean, Mobius’ most famous vigilante scooping her up and trying to take her away from the mystery cyborg man- what do you think happened?” She questioned her cohost.

Amy grimaced, they were making it out to be some sort of romantic triangle from what she could tell, and before she could hear what the deer had to say, Shadow cut in.

“ProjScreen- off.” He called out. “Sorry, I don’t know why Rouge watches that crap. It was probably uncomfortable to see your face like that.” He apologized gruffly as she turned back around, watching him slide a plate across to her.

“It’s fine.” She reassured, “It was honestly kind of interesting to see how they talked about me- us. They... liked that we knocked down the Blue Blur.”

“Of course they did.” He snorted. “Inner ring folk hate him.” Amy shrugged in response, not knowing what more to say on the topic.

“So, what have you made for me, chef?”

“Toaster waffles with peanut butter on them for protein, plus some apple slices for some good sugar and vitamin intake. Just something to get you through the night, there’ll be something better in the morning.”

“Thank you.” She smiled slightly, glad to be digging in to the food. The waffles were a bit stale and the apples were a bit mushy, but it was better than what she usually ate, so she continued to munch on it happily as Shadow walked over to the living room half of the bottom floor. By the time she was finishing up, she heard Rouge land on the tile at the bottom of the stairs.

“Your room is ready.”

Amy looked over with a tired smile, standing and putting the plate by the sink she had spotted earlier before walking over to Rouge.

“Thank you... for all this.” She turned back to Shadow before stepping up the stairs. “I know this is weird... for both of us, but thank you for giving me this chance and keeping me from getting arrested.” He merely grunted in response and Amy assumed that was the best she was going to get and followed Rouge up the stairs.

They went up two floors before stepping out of the stairs and into a hallway, Rouge passed one door on the left before coming to one slightly past it on the right and pushing it open.

“Here you go, call me if you need anything- I’m a floor down.” She explained as Amy stepped in the room, closing the door behind the pink hedgehog. Amy could hear her slippered feet walking away.

Too tired to care about what the room looked like, Amy leaned against the wall and unlaced her boots, kicking them off before walking over to and collapsing in the bed. She let out a deep sigh before almost immediately falling asleep, too exhausted physically and mentally to even consider what her day had been.

[imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul]

Love and War - Poe Dameron

Fic #16 of the Mamma Mia! Prompts Song: When All is Said and Done

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader Word Count: 1,219 Synopsis: The reader starts to have doubts about their life with Poe after the war against the First Order finally comes to an end. A/N: I really don’t like this song so this was a challenge! It’s always fun to write for Poe, though! The last two MM! fics will be posted tomorrow! I hope you enjoy (have enjoyed this entire celebration)! Anyways, enjoy some Poe fluff and happy birthday to me!

“Earlier today, I accepted the unconditional surrender of The First Order, which means that this war is officially over,” Leia announced to a crowd of cheering rebels. You cheered along with them. She had called you all to celebrate, knowing that the war was coming to an end, but you had no idea it would be this soon. 

Poe was still off with Rey, Finn, and a group of other brave rebels. It had been a few days since word of the defeat of Kylo Ren reached base, and you couldn’t wait for his return. Leia seemed to sense this need in you, and brought you to her side once she finished her speech.

“Looking for someone special in the crowd?” she asked as you gave a once over of the people exiting a newly landed ship.

“Oh, just looking for a certain boyfriend of mine,” you said, smiling back at her. 

“Of course, this is still classified information, I have reason to believe that he will be returning this evening.”

“Wait? Really?” you asked, not interested in playing in her game. She laughed and nodded her head.

“Yes, then we can get our lives back to normal again.” You let out a deep breath.

“I’m not sure I know what normal is any more.” Leia looked at you curiously. “I’m thrilled that the war is over, of course, I just don’t remember what it’s like to have a life without the constant, looming presence of death.” 

“Well, why don’t you start by saying hello,” she said, nodding across the room. At the entrance, Rey, Finn, and Poe walked in, with the former of whom looking around the room quizzically. His eyes found yours and you both smiled at the same time. 

“Excuse me,” you said to Leia, but she was already walking away. You laughed as you walked towards Poe. Anticipation couldn’t keep you back as you started to run into his arms. He spun you around in a tight hug before kissing you tenderly.

“Hi,” he said, brushing a lock of hair out of your face.

“Hi,” you said, smiling up at him. He kissed you again, this time deeper and longer. When you finally pulled away, you stepped back to take him in. “You look good. No injuries?”

“Nothing too bad,” he said, pulling you back into his chest. “You look good, too, by the way.” He raised his eyebrow devilishly at you, making you laugh. 

“Thanks.” You kissed him once more before resting your head on his chest. You took in the party, feeling serene in his strong arms. 

“You know, I feel a little underdressed in this jumpsuit,” Poe said, making you look up at him. 

“Let’s get you changed for the celebration, then,” you said, pulling him out of the ever-crowding room. Once you were in the quiet hallway he stopped you, keeping your hands in his. “What?” you asked, smiling softly.

“I just want to really look at you. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“Are you alright?” he asked softly, pulling you closer to him. 

“Of course I’m alright. The war is done and you’re home.” He smiled and bit his lip, looking at you seriously.

“It’s okay to be not alright, you know?” You opened your mouth to respond but then stopped. “Y/N/N.”

“I just don’t know what’s going to happen. The entire time we’ve been together we’ve been at war. What if-” you stopped with a sigh and shook your head. You continued your walk back to your room as Poe ran to catch up with you.

“Wait, wait, wait! What if what?” he asked.

“What if we were together because of the war?” Poe shook his head and laughed.

“And what? Now that it’s over I don’t love you anymore?” You rolled your eyes and walked away from him.

“It’s stupid, just forget about it,” you called. You pushed open the door to your room and started rifling through your things to find something more appropriate for a party for Poe.

“Y/N, forget about the clothes for a minute.”

“Why?” you asked, still staring into your closet.

“Because I want to talk to you.”

“About?” you asked, looking back at him. He was sitting on your bed, smiling at you. You rolled your eyes as he held out a hand and reluctantly walked over to him. He kissed your hand and sat you down next to him.

“Leia wants me to give a speech tonight, and I was wondering if I could run it by you.”

“Sure,” you said, glad that he didn’t want to talk about your fear of losing him. 

“Alright,” he said, sitting up straight. He cleared his throat loudly, making you laugh. “Imagine I have a champagne glass.”

“I’m imagining. Now go.”

“Here’s to all of us, one last toast, before we pay the bill. Deep inside all of us, we all can feel the chill. The First Order is finally gone. Dark clouds hid the sun, but we brought the light back. In all of our lives, we have walked some strange and lonely treks, we’re slightly worn, but dignified, and not too old for sex.” You looked at him curiously and snorted.

“No interrupting!” he said, smacking your knee playfully.

“Sorry, continue.”

 “We’re still striving for the sky, with no taste for humble pie. There’ll be a cheer there,” he added with a smile. “It’s so strange when you’re down and lying on the floor, how you rise, shake your head, and get up and ask for more. Being a part of this fight, I’ve learned a lot, but the most important thing it has taught me is the importance of the people you surround yourself with. In times of war, in times of peace, the ones you love and trust will always be there for you. Clear-headed and open-eyed, with nothing left untried, we can all stand calmly at any crossroads knowing that no matter what we do, the ones we’ve met today will always be with us.” 

“You just made that up,” you said, rubbing his thigh.

“Maybe. Did you like it?”

“Yes,” you said, leaning in to kiss him softly. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

“Me too.”

“Don’t leave me,” you whispered, wrapping an arm around his neck. 

“Wouldn’t even dream of it. You’re too important to me.” You kissed him happily, smiling as he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you against him. He started to lean back, but you shot up quickly. “What?” he asked with a frown.

“I really liked your speech, but I have one critique.”

“I mean I kind of just made it up on the fly-”

“Regardless,” you brushed off, “The sex part was a little weird.” Poe laughed and sat up, touching your arm gingerly.

“That was only there to remind you that we aren’t too old for sex.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” you asked, wrapping your arm around his waist.

“It has been a long war,” he said, falling back slowly on the bed with you. 

“Too long.” 

“Way too long,” he said, pulling you in impossibly close, kissing your neck. 

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said, looking you in the eye before kissing your lips with all the love in the galaxy.