#it was completely accidental exposure and we talked it out it's fine

[originalaccountname]

sorry I really don't want to bother you with this, but I've seen you suggesting that the dazai anon would go away if you just ignore them more times now and... I know for sure someone who's been severely harassed by the dazai anon weekly for a year despite not having answered to their asks a single time, I just wanted you to know that it doesn't work all the time. feel free to ignore this, just thought you'd know

I'm so so sorry this keeps happening this sucks to no end, especially since they're known for making new blogs from every few days to every few months. Keeping up is work.

Just to be sure everyone has all the tools they can to fight this and similar situations, a few tips:

1. Blocking on tumblr is a bit clunky: if you use side blogs, be sure to manually block them on your side blogs too. You need to do this on a web browser; there's no way to do it on the app. Blocking someone will only block them on your main blog, which will prevent you from seeing their messages, but will not prevent them from interacting with your other blogs. This works in reverse too: blocking a side blog will not prevent that person from interacting with you, just prevent that side blog from interacting with you (not relevant here, since asks can only be sent from the main blog).

2. If the asks are anonymous, Tumblr says blocking that will block the sender's IP address for you. If it fails, turn anon off. Either they'll give up, or they'll reveal their name and now they can be blocked as normal.

*On that note, going around someone blocking you is against Tumblr's guidelines, so you can report it as harassment, no matter what.

3. If you are a constant target, slightly change your blog name/address. Maybe the branding is essential, but if not, adding something at the front of the url will prevent anyone from easily finding you with your old url. Your followers will barely notice.

4. For added safety, you can choose to hide your blog from search results; it will prevent your blog name from showing up if someone looks it up, unless they know the full blog name and use the @ function. Your posts will also no longer appear in tag or content searches.

5. This is a group effort. So long as some people react to their provocations, they'll keep coming back and shoot their shot. They probably have a hit list, hence the slight url switch if possible (and willing), but by virtue of this being a public platform, they'll always have new targets to find.

Stay safe all of you, this sucks but I guarantee that it will be so much worse for you and everyone else if you provoke or respond to them.

[glacierclear]

Can I... can I ask for some househusband Leon hcs?

alright. okay. we're gonna work with a few assumptions for these headcanons.

this all comes from the hypothetical of leon being fully retired from his line of work. he still has the same backstory, skillset, traumas, everything, it's just...now he's your loyal house husband!

cooking? this all depends on where he's at in life. mid-30s and onward? he's a chef. i don't believe he'd be terribly gourmet about it. you aren't coming home to a roasted duck served with a reduced wine glaze and a perfectly made risotto...but god. he can make some damn fine spaghetti. he'd likely shoot for simple dishes, with perhaps an added flair or two. homemade burgers. lots of steak dinners. he'd prefer anything that can be prepared with minimal mess. recipes that are made with one pot or one pan...a big hit for him. he is not a pretentious eater, and that would reflect in his cooking.

now, if we're talking early to late-20s leon? erm. well. let's just say he's learning. his transition from zombie apocalypse policeman to military meat shield didn't do much for his cooking skills. and a diet of MREs and scrounged up viper parts did even less. if post-re4 leon is your house husband you're gonna be eating a lot of questionable meals. he's not completely oblivious. he won't try and feed you absolute slop, but his abilities don't much exceed kraft mac and scrambled eggs. still! he's a domestic man now. plenty of free time to try out all sorts of new things in the kitchen! be on standby with a fire extinguisher when he decides 3am is a great time to make fried chicken from scratch!

leon's independent food preferences likely revolve around utility. protein. nutrition. careful rations. compact energy a growing boy needs to kill bioweapons. he doesn't strike me as having a particularly strong sweet tooth, but he also won't say no to a bit of dessert! but he's adaptable, of course. one must be in his line of work. your tastes and favored dishes will influence his palate a lot. he'll naturally associate flavors with you and will, over time, come to adopt a lot of your dietary choices.

cleaning? leon will do his best. you can count on him to not accidentally mix mustard gas in your bathroom, but his knack for cleanliness would be...odd. i choose to believe leon has a strict standard for bodily hygiene. his extended exposure to all manner of glop and viscera means he strives to smell nice and stay on top of dirt the best he can when he is able to...on his body. a house is different. he's never had to see it as a home, merely an empty room where he sleeps and eats. so maintaining it as a tidy space might not come naturally, and it's not as if he had a proper upbringing to teach him proper housekeeping techniques (cough, cough, he's an orphan).

man's a fast learner though. expect a lot of trial and error. him accidentally using glass cleaner on the stove. or not understanding the exact purpose of fabric softener. why do we need make our bed if we're just gonna sleep in it and mess it up again? he likely has a lot of bad habits from living on his own, but gentle guidance and persistent advice will go a long way.

of course, leon needs his private time. space for him to isolate and be alone...but, you're at work all day. the loneliness is easily accessible, and now that he has all the time and freedom to be with you...it's grating. his favorite sound is the noise your key makes when it unlocks the front door. he's careful, not incredibly overbearing, but you don't make it more than a few steps into your home before his head is poking around the corner. "how was your day? you look tired. here, let me take your coat off-" leon is a listener. he doesn't talk about himself much, if at all, so he'd prefer to just hear you ramble on about whatever you need to or want to. neck rubs. gentle squeezes on your arm. light kisses on your brow. he doesn't smother. he doesn't drown you in the touch he's so starved of. but you can tell, he misses you a lot.

the real issues will probably stem from the quiet. the absolute lack of danger. take a person out of their traumatic environment and things start crumbling real fast before they can start to heal. he's hyper-aware. paranoid. has all this pent up energy and an instinct to fight. and he has to redirect it all somewhere, right? it'd come out in bizarre ways. diy projects. you come home from work and he built you a fucking chair. you don't even need a chair, but now you have one. lots of yard work. he renovated your patio and set up a birdhouse (also handmade). you didn't really want him to rearrange your living room but he did it anyways.

and it's hard for him to relax. for him to feel truly safe. he'd insist on installing locks on all the doors. bulletproof windows. guns hidden and stashed in corners of the house, just in case. any tech that could impede on his privacy (ie, amazon echos, doorbell cameras, etc) are out of the question. he'd run you through drills and hypothetical scenarios. make sure you know what to do in any situation. he's vigilant, and honestly, you've never felt safer, but it wears him down and you aren't sure if it's truly good for him.

[lucszli]

Can I request for a welcome to demon school iruma-kun x genshin impact!reader?? You can pick any character and if you have a character limit you can pick any characters you want

– Iruma x genshin impact reader

authors note: im sorry this took so long for me to write. a lot of things happened, I almost died a couple of times and my friend got shot but anyways this isn't about me so, i hope it'll reach ur expectations<3

One second, you were in teyvat, and the next you were in some other dimension.

You honestly don't know how this happened, you were in a daze from hitting your head upon arrival. All you could remember was running from something because you got separated from the group of people you were with and then falling into some portal that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

and now you were in what appeared to look like somebody's backyard, which is great. you're on the verge of passing out and you accidentally trespassed into someone's property. You could hear someone approaching you, all before you completely blacked out.

— — —

you could feel yourself waking up, confused and tired, with your entire body in pain. you wanted to go back to sleep, but despite all that you still managed to force your eyes open. The first thing you saw was whiteness, and for a split second you thought you died and ascended to celestia before a knock startled you, making your head turn to the direction of where the noise came from.

"Hi, are you awake? may I come in?" a soft voice asked, and you were conflicted between staying silent or saying something. your mind was too tired to think it through properly, and so, you responded.

"im awake." your voice was still laced with sleep, you noticed. ofcourse, I just woke up.. in a strangers home.

upon that thought process, you realized, oh. I don't know where I am and who the hell that was. you tried to keep your exposure since the door was opening and someone was coming in, your hand immediately going to where your vision was placed, to reassure yourself that you have some sort of way to defend yourself still. being completely helpless in this situation wasn't the most ideal outcome.

a young boy with blue hair, who looked about the same age as you, came in with a tray of food. you could see two more figures behind him, seemingly looking at you cautiously. your eyebrows furrowed out of confusion, because you still don't know where you are or who these people are. the boy with blue hair placed the tray on the bedside table, then turned to you with a smile. "ah, I'm sorry! I should probably introduce myself. I'm iruma, another human like you. Those two out there are opera and my grandpa, we found you in our backyard.." he explained.

you started to recall what happened, well, most of it. you were still confused, not knowing what to say.

"I'm y/n. Thanks." is what you settled on.

The two of you conversated a little and you found out he was a human who ended up here because his horrible parents sold him to a demon for money. And apparently, you're here now too with no knowledge of how to go home. You didn't know what to do, or how to react to any of this.

After talking for a while, Iruma left the room to give you some time to yourself. Staring up at the blank ceiling, you tried recalling everything that's happened up to this point.

first, you fell and landed in a random garden.

then, you woke up in a strangers room. said stranger proceeded to give you food.

thinking about it made your head hurt more, and so, you settled on going back to sleep.

— — —

upon waking up a second time, the tiredness and pain seemed to lessen, luckily for you.

you stayed in bed for a couple of seconds before deciding to get up and go explore, whatever place you're in. walking over to the door (which was unlocked, thank the archons) and opening it, you seemed to bump into a familiar figure. "ah!- im sorry, i didn't think you were awake yet!" you heard irumas voice exclaim, you rubbed your head and told him it was fine.

the two of you realized how close you were still standing to one another. iruma was the first one to move away while smiling awkwardly. "are you feeling better?" he asked, a more sincere smile on his face this time. "mm. i guess. im still confused, though." you answered, eyebrows furrowing towards the end of the sentence. iruma couldn't help but laugh a little at your expression, while you just stared at him trying to look betrayed, for dramatic effect.

"i get how you feel, don't worry. we can talk it over with my grandpa if you want, maybe he can find a way to send you back from where you came from?" iruma suggested, which earned an eager nod from you. this place was.. okay, but, you really wanted to go back home and lay on your own bed. "should we go see him right now?" you ask, which got you a nod from iruma this time.

the walk over to where his grandpa was wasn't that eventful, with just the two of you making casual conversation. finally reaching where iruma said he was, he opened the door and walked in, gesturing for you to follow. "hey grandpa, y/ns awake now. we wanted to ask about if you could find a way to get them home?"

irumas grandpa, or whatever his name is, looked up from the papers he was holding in his hands. "I've been trying to research it actually, I don't know if I'm going to be able to anytime soon," he shared with the two of you, causing you to physically deflate, followed by a sigh. "am i gonna be stuck here for a while..?" you murmured. iruma looked at you in empathy, feeling bad that you'd have to stay in a foreign world cooped up in a random house.

"I think you'll have to be, atleast until i know what to do. in the meantime you can just stay here, or.." he trailed off, making both you and irumas interest peaked. you gestured for him to continue, wondering where he was going with this.

"or, you can attend the school iruma goes to?" he finished, looking up at the two of you.

wait, what?

///

ending this off here, because im too lazy to continue the rest rn T_T , didn't proof read this either imsosorry. anyways! if you guys want a part 2 then just let me know, I'll work on it as soon as possible:D

[c-swirlz]

I’m Pale as the Loose-Leaf Paper They Grow (From Hollowing Out All My Lungs in the Snow)

Summary: Tom Simons, Prince of Endlantis, is sick. His father, King Philza, must venture to the neighbouring kingdom for medicine. In his absence, Tommy and his brother Wilbur are left in the care of Technoblade, a mysterious individual who Phil claims to trust more than anyone else in the entire world. Relationships: Tommy & Wilbur & Phil & Techno Warnings: Minor descriptions of illness Characters: Tommy, Wilbur, Phil, Techno Notes: A gift fic for @florasicsfr! Title comes from Nurse's Office by Melanie Martinez. [AO3 link]

To be frank, Tommy feels like shit. His nose is running, his eyes are itchy, and he’s sweating bullets despite the goosebumps lining his arms and legs. He groans, letting his head flop back onto the pillow behind him. He retrieves a tissue from his bedside table, taking care not to accidentally bump the crown sitting nearby before proceeding to bury himself within his blanket. He holds the tissue to his nose, an incoherent grumble escaping him.

Tommy blames Phil. He only got sick after he was forced to accompany his father to the tundra for what he said was ‘urgent business’. Urgent business my ass. Now he’s here, having been bedridden for two days now, wallowing in isolation and sorrow. Sure, he gets the occasional visitor, but he’d much rather be among the people, socialising and just— being himself. Instead, it feels as if he’s a completely different person, deprived of energy, all because of some stupid virus.

There’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” Tommy calls, his nasally voice muffled by the blanket currently thrown over his head. He assumes it’s just a maid, here to bring him a fresh box of tissues and possibly clean his room, depending on if he actually managed to stomach his food this time — which he did, thank you very much.

The blanket is abruptly tossed off of Tommy, the sudden exposure to the cool air sending a shiver down his spine. “Shit!” he shrieks, sitting up and lunging for the culprit of this heinous theft. Uncontrollable laughter stops him in his tracks, and his arms drop down onto his knees, bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly. “Wilbur!”

Wilbur wraps an arm around his stomach, wiping a tear from his eye. When he eventually calms down, he grabs at the glamorous robe draped around him, tossing it aside and flopping onto the bed beside his brother. “Sorry, sorry, Tom.” Wilbur grins. “I couldn’t resist.”

Tommy crosses his arms, turning his head away and pointing his chin upwards. “Well, I don’t accept your apology.”

“Aww, don’t be like that. Why not?”

“Because you’re a dick.”

Wilbur gasps, prompting Tommy to drop his over-dramatic facade. “Tommy. Now, is that any way a prince should speak?”

“Oh, shut up, man, you do it too!”

“In moderation,” Wilbur clarifies, smirking. “You, on the other hand, have the mouth of a sailor.”

Tommy opens his mouth to retort, but ends up spiralling into a coughing fit. Wilbur rests a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, and Tommy waves a hand as he hacks and wheezes.

“I’m fine, I’m—“

There’s another knock on the door, and before Tommy can react, Wilbur is patting his shoulder and standing. “I’ll get it, Tom. You sit tight and get comfy again, yeah?”

Tommy nods, watching as Wilbur approaches the door. He can’t see who’s on the other side, but based on Wilbur’s joyful exclamation, he can make a pretty good guess.

“You’re supposed to be resting, Tommy.”

“Hello to you too,” Tommy grumbles as his father approaches the bed, the smile on his face contradicting his scolding words. He takes a seat roughly where Wilbur was just moments before, reaching over to ruffle Tommy’s dishevelled hair.

“Wil and I have been talking,” Phil starts, running a hand through his hair. He’s not wearing his crown, which isn’t something Tommy sees every day. “You only seem to be getting sicker, and we hate seeing you looking… well, like shit. So, I’m gonna head over to Flowerfell and grab some medicine. Word is their stuff is super effective against colds and such.”

Tommy’s brow furrows. “Why not just get stuff from here? It’d save you the long-ass trip.”

“Endlantis’ medicine is crap, Tommy, why do you think Phil gets so many complaints every day from sick people?” Wilbur plants his hands on his hips and Phil throws him a look, clearly not impressed by his interjection.

“Yes, like Wilbur just said, our medicine isn’t the best at the moment. I am working on improving that, but for now, it’d be best to outsource for better results. Plus, the royals over there owe me a favour anyway.”

“So,” Tommy bites his lip, “you’re leaving?”

“Only for a little while.” Phil stands, turning and gently pushing Tommy until he’s laying down again. “You’ll be fine, I’ve left you two alone before.”

“Yeah, but—“ Tommy swallows. “You’ve got someone to stand in for you, yeah? By the sounds of it, this all seems to be on really short notice…”

Phil chuckles, crossing his arms. “It was a little difficult to find someone, but I did manage to sort that out in advance.”

Tommy turns onto his side, hugging his pillow and tucking his knees up towards his chest. “It’s not Jack Manifold again, is it? Hate that guy.”

“You only don’t like him because he lectured you about ‘princely behaviour’,” Wilbur throws up air quotes, “one time! He’s actually a great guy once you get to know him.”

Tommy flips Wilbur the bird. Phil sighs, running a hand down his face as he shakes his head. “No, Tom, it isn’t Jack. You two haven’t met this one before.”

“Wait, seriously?” Tommy says, at the same time Wilbur’s eyebrows raise.

“Okay, now I’m curious.” Mischievous twinkle in his eye, Wilbur grabs Phil’s arm. “Who is it, Phil, tell us.”

“Bruh, I’m getting to it,” Phil says, gently prying Wilbur off of him. Tommy throws the blanket back over himself, sniffling. “He’s been a friend of mine for a really long time, even before the two of you were born. His name is Technoblade.”

“Technoblade?” Wilbur’s eyes grow big, and Tommy pokes his head out from his bundle. “That’s such a badass name, what the hell?”

Tommy wishes to express similar excitement, but winds up in another fit of dry, wheezing coughs. Fuck’s sake, he thinks, huffing when Wilbur’s fingers tangle themselves into his hair.

Phil sees himself out a few minutes later, promising he’ll try his best to be back within forty-eight hours; possibly less depending on the Flowerfell royals’ attitude. Tommy and Wilbur share quiet snickers at that, knowing better than anyone how hard it can be to communicate with them, especially on their bad days.

“Techno should be here in an hour,” is the last thing the boys’ father says to them before they’re left to their own devices. At least until Techno arrives.

Tommy immediately begins whining.

The main door of the castle swings open, a gust of cold air rushing inside. Attention falls on the stranger who steps inside, the castle staff momentarily abandoning their work to stare at him with gazes of varying scepticism.

“Relex, everyone, quit lookin’ at me like that.” The stranger places his hands on his hips. “Your king sent me to keep an eye on things while he’s gone. Don’t tell me he didn’t say anything?”

He’s met with deafening silence. He sighs. “Figures. He’s an old man; of course he forgot.” He reaches his arms out on either side of himself, grinning. “Bow down before me, peasants, for I am the mighty Technoblade.”

More silence. Techno’s face falls, and his arms flop back down to his sides. “Bruh.”

“Technoblade?”

Techno’s gaze moves towards a nearby staircase, where a young man with a faint white streak in his hair has descended, coming to a stop at the bottom as his left hand slides off the rail. His clothing is much more regal than that of the staff, and a shiny, golden crown sits atop his head.

“Ah.” Techno takes a step forward, bowing his head slightly. “Prince Wilbur, I presume?”

Prince Wilbur smiles, nodding once. “My father told me you would be coming. On his behalf, allow me to extend a warm welcome to Endlantis.”

Techno chuckles, quietly enough that only he is able to hear it. He can’t help it; the kid just sounds so polite, too much so for his age, in Techno’s humble opinion. However, if being friends with Phil has taught him anything, this isn’t the prince’s true personality. Far from it, in fact.

“If you’d like, I can show you to your room. I imagine you’ll want to get your bearings and make yourself at home before you begin your duties.”

Techno grins. “Sounds great. Lead the way.”

The moment Techno and Wilbur reach the top of the stairs, Wilbur leans against the nearby wall, breaking into fits of giggles. The laughter is delightfully contagious, and Techno quickly finds himself joining in.

“Oh–” Wilbur snorts, wheezing at the pitch of an old tea kettle. “Oh my god, I almost couldn’t keep myself together, holy shit–” He starts fanning his face with a hand, taking a breath. “Sorry, sorry, I just– I’ve not had to do that for a while.”

“‘S alright,” Techno says, lifting his arms above his head and stretching. “Now, I know you mentioned showin’ me my room, but I hear there’s a sick child I wanna check up on first.”

Wilbur blinks. “Ah– of course!” He approaches the nearby hall, motioning for Techno to follow. “C’mon, I’ll bring you to him.”

Tommy can hear voices out in the hall. Though he recognises one, belonging to Wilbur, the other is strange and unfamiliar. His best guess is that it belongs to the aforementioned Technoblade.

The voices are just outside his room now. Someone knocks, and the door swings open. Tommy reaches for the tissue box, blowing his congested nose as Wilbur enters, Technoblade – or whoever it may be – trailing behind.

“Tommy! My best brother in the whole wide world,” Wilbur exclaims, flopping down onto the bed as Tommy sits up, despite knowing he really should just keep himself comfortable so he can rest. Wilbur extends an arm towards his company. “Meet Technoblade.”

Technoblade performs a half-hearted salute with two fingers, smiling softly. “Hey there, Tommy. Oh, and you guys can call me Techno if you want. Less of a mouthful, plus it’s what your dad calls me, so…”

“Is that your real name?” Tommy asks, completely out of the blue. Techno blinks, visibly taken aback by the question. “I mean— don’t get me wrong, Technoblade is a badass name, but it just doesn’t seem like something a parent would name their kid, y’know?”

Techno laughs. “Alright, alright, you caught me. The name ‘Technoblade’ is just an alias.”

Tommy’s eyes light up. Wilbur sighs quietly, shaking his head and smiling fondly. “So what’s your actual name?”

“That’s for me to know and you to never find out.” Tommy pouts, and Wilbur giggles. “Names and aliases aside, I think the first order of business before I begin my royal duties is to make sure you don’t starve to death.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Phil would actually kill me if one of his kids died on my watch.”

Tommy immediately retreats back underneath the blanket, and muffled sneezes can be heard moments later. Wilbur places his hand on the lump and pushes. Tommy yelps, but doesn’t emerge from his cocoon.

“C’mon, Tom, let Techno feed you.”

“Shut up, bitch,” Tommy responds, and Wilbur can imagine he’s being flipped the bird from within. “I can feed myself.”

“Yeah, but in that condition, I doubt you’ll be getting up to even make the food,” Techno interjects. “I’ll make you some soup, yeah?” Wilbur stands up, stretching, and Tommy huffs, defeated.

“…Mushroom?”

Techno nods, despite Tommy not being able to see him. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

Technoblade sticks around for roughly two days. Tommy doesn’t find himself recovering at all, but the frequent visits from his brother and stand-in king at least make things bearable.

Wilbur slips in whenever he can between his tasks, when the castle staff’s gazes aren’t fixed on him. They chat, mostly about the annoying people Wilbur has to deal with. He claims that Tommy would handle them better. Tommy agrees.

Techno’s visits are less frequent, but Tommy doesn’t complain. Most of the time, he brings food, and even manages to smuggle a few desserts Phil had specifically informed the kitchen not to let Tommy get his hands on. When Tommy isn’t dying of a coughing fit or constantly sneezing, Techno lets him roam around the room for a time, as opposed to being confined to his bed like Phil instructed. They agree to keep quiet about it.

When Phil returns, the medicine he brings is a blessing. If he were able, Tommy would guzzle the entire contents. By the end of the day, he feels like a whole new prince. A whole new Tommy.

Techno is gone by the time Tommy ventures beyond his room. When he eventually finds Wilbur within the big, empty halls, he’s led to the study, where, tucked away in a hidden space, are some more sweet treats, a folded note placed carefully on top of them. Tommy doesn’t recognise the handwriting, but when he looks to Wilbur for an answer, his brother simply smiles.

Enjoy, Theseus - T

[standingappablog]

I have theories I would like to share with y’all:

-We are left not knowing the fate of Marty and Nora, so I have some ideas of what could have happened to them.

Nora:

1.The most obvious theory, and probably the most likely is that she is in fact dead. With Rachel talking about her in the past tense and wearing her old runners it seems like she died saving her in the shark attack. Rachel also mentions that “their story” doesn’t end well. She also references at the beginning of her interview about how she treated Nora. Perhaps she felt guilty about how she treated her in their last few weeks together.

2.Now this one I know seems like a reach but, the shark attack was staged by gretchen to get Nora off the island so the experiment isnt exposed to the girls. Nora “dies” in the attack, therefore Leah has no way of blaming her. So to everyone else Nora is dead, which is why Rachel speaks of her in the past tense. (Again I’m leaning towards the her actually dying in the shark attack)

3. Or Nora could be completely fine and wasn’t interviewed because she was an informant.

Martha:

1.Now really we don’t know what happens to her. (So what I’m about to say is complete speculation) The only hint that we get is Agent Young going through her things in an attempt to find blackmail against her family. This makes us assume that she is either dead or in critical condition. Out of all of the girls towards the end of the season, the two who seem to be struggling the most are Leah and Martha. Shaken up by killing a living creature and facing the reality that she was abused as a child, makes me think Marty may have tried hurting herself. Probably towards the end of their stay on the island. Marty’s parents presumably signed her up for a relaxing time away with her best friend. So Gretchen, needing blackmail against the family so they wont sue her for whatever happened to Marty, makes me believe something like this happened to her.

Or

2. Marty’s death could have been an accident like Noras and Janettes, how? There is many possibilities, I mean they are surviving on an deserted island so exposure, sickness falling from a high place..getting lost. Ect.

Shelby:

We are left with a lot of questions about Shelby.

Her ankle:

1. The First shot we see of her in the facility is her ankle, so when I finished watching the first time, I assumed she must have ran after Nora to help save Rachel, this one is easy to believe but her leg doesn’t look like it was bitten by a shark, there isn’t any visible wounds, so I’m doubtful of this possibility.Also her injury seems fresh enough and the girls where supposed to be on the island for three months, so I doubt she got it in the shark attack, which took place three weeks into their time on the island.

2.We know that Shelby was suspicious throughout her interview, so maybe she might have tried escaping the facility beforehand and was tackled?Or she fell? So this happening before hand could explain why the investigators mentioned they weren’t going to go easy on her in her interview. She was also described to be in a pretty fragile mental state, and they didn’t know what version of her they where going to get.

3. Shelby hurt her ankle trying to save Martha. Like I mentioned before Marty may have died or got badly injured by hurting herself. Maybe Shelby was there and tried saving her, somewhat similar to the situation with her friend Becca.

4.Another theory I saw was that Toni may have accidentally hurt her like she did Reagan. There has been a lot of speculation if Toni and Shelby are on good terms or not. Maybe Marty’s death/ injuries become a conflict between them since she was present. Or a conflict about something entirely different could have cuased her ankle injury

5.Or simply she could have just fallen before her rescue from the island lol. Though her ankle is the first shot we get of her in the facility. That’s what makes me think it’s significant.

Her hair:

1. The two possibilities that I could think of is that, her hair was just so matted and unkept by the end of the three months that there was just no salvaging it so it was shaved, or:

2.Shelbys hair seemed to be her form of releasing her frustration. We know that her mental health declines after the shark attack, so she may in upset/frustration cut it all off or continues to take chunks out of her hair as a form of release.

Leah and Shelby (+possibly Dot and Agent Young)

Leah:

1.After the shark attack, if Nora does die I think Leah will have a difficult time convincing the others, especially Rachel that Nora is some sort of agent.

2. The groups friend just died, so hearing from Leah that Nora was in on whatever is happening to them won’t be taken well. Certainly not by Rachel, I can imagine Leah saying this about Nora would make her furious. They will probably assume that she is once again having a mental break, and won’t listen to her.

3.Even if Nora doesn’t die, she was told to do as much as she can to keep everyone in the dark, so I wouldn’t put it past her making Leah look like she is going crazy.

Shelby:

1.At first I don’t think Shelby will believe Leah, but she will probably slowly begin to suspect things like Leah did. The two have an understanding, as we where shown, Shelby knows what it feels like to breakdown, and have everyone think they are crazy. But she knows in that moment she isn’t crazy, and neither is Leah. So when she is rescued and quarantined in the facility it will probably convince her completely.

Anaphylactic shock:

1.Shelby going into anaphylactic shock. How did she even go into anaphylactic shock? Where they given food in their rooms and Gretchen would have to have known that she is allergic. Right?

2.I think Shelby left a time on the note to Leah for her to escape. She maybe was able to order shellfish to her room, and then would eat it during the time Leah was going to escape.

Or:

1. I think MAYBE Shelby and Dot figured out what was going on before being rescued. We see that Dot orders a plate of seafood, which she barely touches. What if somehow Dot got the seafood to Shelby, maybe by leaving it underneath the table and shelby taking it back to her room after her interview. So when Leah tries to escape she eats the seafood, which sets off the alarm and distracts the guards. And with Shelby leaving a time on the note for Leah to escape, she would know when to eat the Seafood. (Another reach I know)

And:

-Agent Young could also have helped them. We saw that he sympathised with the girls and that he was the one keeping tabs on all of them. Maybe he knowingly let the girls do this without telling anyone, making it easier for them to pass notes and for Leah to escape.

They all know:

-Another possibility is that Leah somehow convinces the others that something is going on. And plan out how to figure out what really is going on. All of the girls get their stories straight, and they purposely leave out parts that could be used against them. Playing the investigators. I’m less inclined to believe this one since Shelby gave the note to Leah telling her she was right all along, why would she do that if they all knew anyways?

Toni and Shelby:

I think a lot of us suspect that the twos releationship is a little rocky by the time they get to the facility. (I have another post explaining why I think they aren’t on good terms currently)

1.Like I mentioned before Toni and Shelbys conflict may involve Marty, with her dying or hurting herself, Toni who we have seen can have huge outbursts when she is upset, could blame Shelby for not doing enough ,because maybe she was present when it happened. So maybe Toni irrationally blames Shelby for whatever happened to Marty.

2.This irrational anger could also be the cause of Shelbys ankle injury. Of course I don’t think Toni would ever purposely hurt Shelby, but she could accidentally, just as she did with her previous girlfriend.

3.A theory I’ve seen suggested a few times is that, they staged their break up to protect each other. If they seem like they aren’t together anymore to the investigators, they can’t be used against one another. (I personally think this one is hella cute)

4. Another possible conflict is Tonis anger issues affecting their relationship just as it did with Reagan, Tonis outbursts may be too much for Shelby and that may become an issue.

5. Shelby not being able to come to terms with her sexuality. This one isn’t as likely, because as far as everyone is concerned they are stuck on the island for god knows how long. The idea of not going home any time soon only seems to make Shelby want to explore herself more. And everyone I feel like would be completely supportive.

Although:

-Martha may have an issue, not with the fact that they are together but more that when they found food instead of taking it back to everyone, they hooked up. Leaving Martha to kill the goat by herself, when she really didn’t need to. Maybe this could lead to Toni having to choose who’s side to take, her girlfriend or best friend. (Martha has “you and us” mentality with Shelby after her homophobic remarks. Toni also has told Martha “since when where there sides?”)

Annnnnnddd that is all, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I felt like typing it all out, I’d love to know what everyone thinks and your theories!

[ineffectualdemon]

I want to talk about trauma, triggers, and accomodation and what is reasonable to ask and personal responsibility with a personal story

I am doing physio through the pain management clinic

So I need to do the exercises regularly

I also have a trigger around someone who is not participating watching me do physio

That was fine when husband and child were out of the house most of the day but it's summer and one person is around like all of the time

Now I could just not exercise which isn't an option as I need to do this to get better

I could also demand they leave whenever I have to do it which is also not an option

What I actually did was sit them down, explained my trigger, and suggested what basically amounts to exposure therapy

We'll start off with only one person with me in the living room and one in the kitchen or upstairs

I have identified my main fear (being laughed at or mocked) and they will make sure they aren't listening to or watching anything likely to induce laughter

Slowly we'll get me to the point where I am comfortable with people being around while I exercise

Also I won't spring this on them. I will give them a heads up

Now I didn't say "this is what's happening" I asked "does that sound good to you"

And we talked about it and my husband and kid both made suggestions and we left that situation happy to have a plan of action

When people say you are responsible for your own mental health and triggers this is what they mean

My husband and kid had no way of knowing that that was a trigger for me. So I explained it calmly in a neutral space and time and we discussed how best to move forward for everyone

But that's a specific trigger that is easy to accommodate so here's another example:

Detailed talk of or descriptions of school bullying is a huge trigger for me. The kind that can effect me badly for days after with panic attack, disassociating, among other things

It's really really easily to accidentally stumble across it. It's in books, movies, TV shows, and online posts or videos

So I filter for the word bullying and if I realise something is going to depict it I skip that part or just stop reading/watching completely

If I get triggered I do not blame what triggered me unless it was deliberate

This is what we mean when we say you have to manage your triggers

Other people are not mind readers

Other people and creators have no way of knowing your personal triggers

You ultimately are responsible for managing your mental illness and you don't get to be a dick to people because they don't know about it

There is a huge difference between someone accidentally triggering you and someone deliberately triggering you and some of you need to learn that

[red-cape-morgana]

FIAT LUX

Everyone sees the girl of steel as an almighty, indestructible being. But before being a hero, she is a person, and this implies some quirks. Some fears as well.

Chapter 2

(Chp 1) // (ao3)

Of course Lena knows about Kara's love of phosphorescent things, and especially about those sneakers.

She can actually see the shoes' faint glow in her entry every single evening, when Kara gets back home. And if now it has become a comforting sight, something she looks for when she wakes up and Kara was on patrol the previous night, it has not always been that way.

The first time she had seen that greenish glow... she had thought of kryptonite.

She had been quietly reading perched on her couch, when Kara had finally gotten back home from a grueling long workday. The blonde had an agar look on her face, leaving her bag and kicking her shoes off. Lena had heard her mumbling something about breaking pencils, spilled coffee and needing a shower, before heading to Lena’s luxurious bathroom.

Lena had decided to let her girlfriend unwind for a while before asking about that apparently rough day. Now that she knew about Kara's alter ego, she understood her girlfriend's clumsiness on a whole new level and knew that a simple task could require a lot of focus from her. Consequently, the number of incidents grew up accordingly as the hours of the day passed, and many phones had been the innocent victims to the super's strength.

Lena was getting lost in her historical novel once again, when she had noticed a faint light in her entry.

Odd, she had thought. Lights are turned off. What’s there?

She had closed her book before getting up to check on that. On her way, she had grabbed her phone, just as a precaution. After so many assassination attempts, she had learnt that communication means where really what mattered (as well as an efficient punch in the nose from time to time).

A couple of meters away in the entry, she could distinguish a faint greenish light coming from the messenger bag that Kara had abandoned there.

A bomb.

She started to run toward the bathroom. She needed to warn Kara! The kryptonite would suppress her powers, she had to flee! She speed dialed Alex to ask for an intervention squad while barging in the bathroom.

"Lena?! What's going on? Why are…?" Kara stammered when Lena had opened the shower cabin.

"You have to go!" Lena had said in a hurry while dragging the soaping blonde out of the shower.

"To go? But, why? Lena, what's…"

"There's a bomb Kara!" Lena shouted at her, in a near panic

She needs to go, she thought to herself. If it's kryptonite, she is even more at risk then me. The residual radiations would deepen any potential injury and worsen her state. And considering the rate of cellular degradation from direct exposure, even the DEO may not be fast enough.

"Lena, you, hide while I take it away." Kara stated while fumbling to activate her suit.

"You don't understand. It's kryptonite. You can't risk getting anywhere near it!"

"What?" Kara exclaimed. "But, I thought you had installed a biometric security system after last time?"

"I did!" Lena answered while trying to shove the unmovable kryptonian toward their bedroom, where she could escape through the window.

"But there is that greenish glow in the entry, and I know how to recognize kryptonite Kara. Believe me if…"

Kara had held up a hand to stop her mid sentence.

"You said in the entry?" she had calmly inquired.

"Yes! Why do you care where it is? It's still a bomb Kara." Lena said, her voice filled with exasperation.

And Kara had laughed. She had laughed till tears streamed down her face, mixing with water and shampoo left from her half finished shower. She had laughed even harder when Lena started to scream at her to go while she had time.

The brunette started to fear it may be something else than kryptonite, and that it was messing up Kara's mind because who laughs at the prospect of a toxic bomb in their apartment for God's sake?!

Kara didn't stop before hearing her talking to Alex, asking for help in their apartment. That got her attention, and she took the phone out of Lena's hand before uttering between giggles

"No it's fine Alex. Lena… Lena thought my shoes were some kryptonite trap. Can you, can you believe that?!"

Lena felt as if she could hear the groan Alex surely made to accompany her “I’m tired of my sister” expression.

Well I guess 13 years of that kind of shenanigan does that to someone, Lena mused. She had only known Kara for 3 years, and yet she was sure she had her own special kind frown as well.

Kara ended the call, promising they would explain more clearly tomorrow, before proceeding to explain that what she had thought to be a kryptonian bomb was only the new sneakers she had bought that were phosphorescent.

“They are the best glow in the dark shoes one can buy Lena! I had to get them, you understand?” she said as if her point was obvious, bouncing on her feet like a kid who had just been promised a trip to the candy store after school.

Lena had debated throwing the shoes out the window, just for the scare they had given her, and also because she wanted to erase Kara’s smirk.

Now the blonde keeps referring to that moment to tease Lena, a reminder that the genius she is got fooled by glow in the dark material. But coming from the Luthor family, can you blame her for thinking of an assassination attempt first?

And if that incident wasn't enough, the hour-long rant Alex gave her about Kara's love for glowing things would have clued her on it.

The next day, Lena had dropped by the DEO, willing to apologize for the false alert of the previous day. She knew Kara had said they would all gather at the end of the day for a drink, but Lena felt the need to see Alex first thing in the morning. Those apologies also included freshly brewed coffee from the best roaster in town, and enough pastries to satisfy a small army. The redhead vented to her for an hour straight, using memories from their shared childhood in Midvale to illustrate her explanation. As well as justify her exasperation with her sister’s eccentricities.

Lena took the opportunity to learn what her girlfriend was like when she got on Earth, Kara oddly quiet about this period of her life. She also thought it was the safest move possible in her situation, to let Alex get it out of her system. No one wanna get on the bad side of their possible future sister in law, and even less when they work for a secret agency that has a knack for making people disappear.

What she learns though, makes her see some of her girlfriend's habits under a new light.

Lena knew it must have been incredibly jarring to not only start a new life on a foreign planet, but learning that she had been lost in space for decades, and that Kal-El didn’t need her anymore must have been devastating. It was her mission after all, the reason why her parents had sent her away. Knowing that now, she didn’t have any purpose anymore… And it goes without saying that the enhanced senses she suddenly gained thanks to the yellow sun, would be enough to drive anyone crazy on their own. Heart beats, motors, reading through a book, crushing your mug of hot chocolate accidentally,... And all that during teenage years. Earth must have looked like hell at first. No wonder why Kara is unusually quiet whenever this topic arises. But Lena sensed there may be something else lying there, and since she wouldn't pry at Kara's traumatic memories, Alex was the next best best source for informations.

So far, she only thought Kara was that kind of forgetful/lazy person that never really complete a task. When the blonde would leave the curtains in their bedroom slightly open, or their door ajar, or her phone on the bedside table and always displaying time. Lena simply thought that Kara didn’t mind any of it. And since it wasn't bothering herself much, she let her do.

For Lena it was just Kara's little quirks. Just like her love for phosphorescent things.

Though, now that she thinks of it, she can remember an incident that happened when Kara had first moved in with her.

So far, in their relationship, the blonde had rarely slept over at Lena's place. Either because Lena was actually the one sleeping over, or Supergirl was needed for an emergency mission, or when Lena was travelling the country for scientific and technological conventions and checking up on branches of L-Corp. They had decided to move in together to make things easier for both of them. There was no point in sneaking around like lovesick teenagers, and Kara had already claimed two drawers at Lena's (who was very keen on borrowing oversized sweaters from said drawers when her girlfriend couldn't be around).

The move in itself was as smooth as possible: Kara stacked her boxed belongings in the van, Alex drove it to Lena's place, Kelly had looked for the best itinerary during this busy week day, and Lena had prepared snacks for everyone once they'd arrive. All in all, it had been the matter of a day.

Alex and Kelly had stayed over for dinner at Lena's demand, and Kara had just dug out what she would need for the next day.

"It will all be unboxed tomorrow Lena. What would be the point in putting it all back in the boxes now?" Kara had said, when Lena pointed out she couldn't see the color of her couch anymore with all the stuff the hero had thrown on it.

At some point, Nia and Brainy had joined them, bringing a couple of bottles to celebrate "an event I didn't think I would get to see before having grey hair, considering the pace you were going!" Nia had said.

The evening had continued full of laughers, memories of moments the couple had been completely oblivious to one another, and potstickers of course.

When everyone had left it was finally time to go to bed, the super had become strangely agitated. Lena had brushed it off as all the emotions of the day and finally living with her.

It will all settle once we lay down and get some rest, she had thought.

She had been proven wrong. Kara had spent the night turning and tossing, unable to find sleep. Lena had tried to soothe her by pressing her front to her back, gently holding the blonde in her arms. But when Lena had woken up some hours later, Kara wasn't in bed anymore.

"Darling?" Lena gently called as she padded in the living room, barefoot and eyes still full of sleep.

Kara was on the couch, huddled against an arm rest and looking at her laptop without really seeing it.

Lena closed the distance between them before sitting next to her girlfriend. Sensing that she wasn't in the right headspace to explain what was going on, she simply decided to just lean against Kara, anchoring her in the present. Together.

After some time, the sun had started to rise.

Lena had slipped in a state between sleep and alert, still here but not fully conscious of how long they had stood there together. At some point Kara had closed her laptop, setting it aside on the coffee table, and she had pulled Lena on top of her, holding her close. The weight and warmth of her girlfriend must have calmed her nerves somewhat because Lena felt the stiff muscles finally relax under herself.

Lena was about to suggest they move to the kitchen to have a well deserved breakfast when Kara had softly said "It was so dark, you know. I just… it brought up some memories. I'm sorry."

Lena hadn't prayed any further. Kara had every right to keep some things secret, and she knew she would learn about it eventually, when the hero would be ready to face this.

After that, Kara had always left a small source of light in their bedroom. At the end of the first month living together, she even bought some star stickers that she put on their ceiling as well as on some furniture. Lena had raised an eyebrow at that, but Kara had brushed it off, saying something about how it remembered her of her apartment and that she thought it comforting to share this with Lena.

Showing the Luthor a part of the Super that very few select people had ever witnessed.

But now, after her talk with Alex, Lena knows that it comes from a different place.

From what Alex told her, on earth Kara had never liked total obscurity. Elyza and Jeremiah had tried to help her of course. They offered the teenage girl therapy, sophrology and many alternatives to help her conquer her fear. But nothing had worked.

Every night Kara would wake up drenched in cold sweat, her breath coming up in short pants, convinced she was back in the phantom zone. Those nights, Alex would begrudgingly get up and walk to this new sister she didn't ask for bed, and lay down with her. She would take Kara in her arms, because that was the only thing that would ground her in the present.

Until one night, when Alex slept over to a friend.

[harryandmolly]

fear and loathing in mandeville canyon *5*

summary: Shawn & Lilly, derailed, detoured, but maybe not destroyed

warnings: language, NSFW (unprotected sex), The Reckoning pt. 1 (this warning brought to you by Georgie Kingston)

wc: 4.7k

------------

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. I mean… wow.”

“I know, right?”

Shawn and Lilly are sitting up in Lilly’s bed, her sheets pooled around their naked hips. Her phone sits between them, glowing the only light in the room. Her home screen is a picture of Lauren dressed as the Statue of Liberty from Halloween in college.

At first when Lilly checked the time, she was sure it said 5:04 PM. But given the time of year, it was too dark for that to be true. Shawn stirred and they inspected it together, equally bewildered. 

5:04 AM. They slept for a clean 14 hours. By the way they each stretch and groan, neither of them moved a muscle the whole time. Lilly feels like she’s at the brink of atrophy, with a comfortable soreness between her legs. 

She looks over at Shawn. He’s bleary-eyed, extra flushed from all the body heat they produce in the same bed together, with pillow marks on his cheeks and chest. Lilly has a mark across her side from the weight of his arm. It’s like they’ve been asleep for years.

Lilly lets her phone screen go dark. Dawn isn’t coming for a while. They’re alone. Their breathing syncs. Shawn yawns. Lilly follows. The quiet aches.

She reaches over to her nightstand and flicks on the lamp. The orange glow is made warmer than usual with his big brown eyes watching her. It’s different, though, than it has been. He’s not watching her like one of them is impersonating a dog in an ASPCA commercial. It’s curious and gentle, but there’s a confidence there, too. It seems she’s missed it.

“Hello there,” she sighs, coming down onto one folded arm on her side. He follows, mirroring her.

“Hi.”

She’s quiet for a few moments, looking him over. He squirms a little under her gaze.

“Thanks for shaving the gross facial hair.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “No problem. My mum made it pretty clear that she was going to ask me to shave it every time I FaceTimed her, so it was just delaying the inevitable.”

Lilly’s brows lift. “Did you like the gross facial hair?”

Shawn chuckles. “No. I guess I was just curious. I don’t really get to try shit like that most of the time. So.”

She nods, continuing her inspection, as though she hasn’t looked at him in the weeks they’ve been in Mandeville Canyon together. She doesn’t comment on his weight or the pallor of his skin. She has no business, given the way she’s been treating her own body. She internalizes it and moves on.

Timidly, she lifts her hand through his hair. His eyes flutter shut, he nuzzles into it automatically. She feels that ache between her thighs again, more prominently this time.

“But about the hair… maybe I should cut it. If you want me to.”

Shawn’s eyes brighten. “I didn’t know you could cut hair.”

“Oh, I can’t. I mean, I haven’t yet. But I’ll watch a video, we’ll be fine.”

He hesitates only for a moment, surprising her. “Ok. Yeah. It’s probably time.”

Lilly feels an odd sensation getting out of that bed and it can’t be blamed on low blood sugar or dehydration. The writer in her feels a scene ending when Shawn pulls himself up and walks into her shower, leaving the door open when he turns on the water and inspects his hair in the mirror, along with a couple of zits. The finality is an illusion, because life isn’t so neatly told like a screenplay. Even though she feels the scene is over, she has to stand up and find a clean pair of panties and think of some search terms to find a useful hair cutting tutorial on YouTube. There’s another scene and she doesn’t know what it is yet. She doesn’t even know what she wants it to be. But there’s putting the laptop down and walking away. There’s no stopping it.

Lilly wanders into the kitchen in panties and a tank top, too preoccupied to notice the utility scissors when she opens drawers looking for them. His footsteps are house-shakingly loud as they carry him from her side of the house to neutral ground. He arrives with a towel around his waist. His hair looks even more like sad limp noodles when it’s wet. He stops in the doorway, watching her. He waits until she pulls a chair into the empty space between the breakfast table and the island, under a bright cluster of lights. He takes the invitation to sit.

He even smells warm, somehow. Lilly’s urge to lick up the rivulets of tepid water coasting over the mountains and valleys of his back is disorienting.

They watch the tutorial together on her phone. It seems a small concession to make, given what he’s putting her in charge of. He doesn’t have any specific direction to give her beyond longer on top, shorter on the sides. So she goes hunting for some inspiration.

You would think she would know better than to dive into the “Shawn Mendes” tag on Tumblr. The seizing half-hiccup, half-pseudo stroke sensation she gets from accidentally coming upon a hoard of pictures of them together is back. Lilly blames a recent lack of exposure for the completely noticeable, pity-inducing reaction. Her callous has softened. After an awkward few seconds, she pivots to Google.

“I think we’re going for… like… February 2019 hair. That was really good hair,” Lilly insists, plowing ahead, gesturing to photos of him on the red carpet at the 2019 Brit Awards.

“Yeah,” Shawn replies, “That was good hair. Maybe a little longer on the sides though. I liked what I had going, like, before quarantine.”

Lilly grumbles something under her breath about googling photos of that era over her dead body. Shawn relents.

“It’s fine, you should cut it-- just cut it however. It’s fine.”

Lilly begins by balling up a little tuft from the top of his head into a teeny bun. She stands between his legs to arrange it, making sure it’s even on both sides. His eyes remain on his feet the whole time.

She starts at the back of his neck, smoothing his curls out to decide how much to trim. Her fingers are more helpful than the comb, she soon realizes, in keeping them flat enough to judge. She begins by cutting it shorter at the base of his neck so the short curls can do the sproing thing she likes. As she moves up the back of his scalp, she leaves it longer until she hits his funny little man bun. When the silence breaks, she’s so jarred she has to ask him to repeat himself.

“I…” he clears his throat, “I think it’s time that you ask me some of those questions.”

Lilly hates that she knows him so well she doesn’t have to ask which ones. She fluffs out the back of his head with her fingers and decides it’s not completely tragic, so she moves onto his left side.

There are considerations, of course. Is her stuff in a state that she could easily pack and bail in a short time frame if he reveals himself to be dumber than originally feared? Is digging up old dirt to toss it over a wound that won’t heal really necessary?

Is it a good idea to have this conversation while she’s wielding something that could easily be used as a deadly weapon?

Lilly takes a long moment to blink and sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, eyeing the way his hair wraps over the tip of his ear. She brushes it with the pad of her thumb. It reddens.

There’s a preamble in her head, one that lectures him about the absolute necessity of honesty in this situation, the futility of the exercise if he’s not willing to be completely transparent. When she notes the way his knee bobs anxiously, she stops it in its frilly-worded tracks.

She pulls curls off the side of his neck, right over the freckles she likes, and snips.

“When did it start?”

Shawn doesn’t shrink or react in any noticeable way. This isn’t a surprising question.

“I started feeling it when we were in working on Senorita. We weren’t really talking much before that. We started texting a little. It was the first time I felt anything for her since you and me started.”

Lilly sections off the hair above his ear and starts to feel herself working slower. She remembers the first time she heard about the idea of the Senorita collab when he told her over the phone. He sounded tired. Lilly was enthusiastic, knowing he and Camila had been closer before Lilly was in the picture. She felt some guilt for driving some kind of wedge between them, however unintentional. The collab seemed like a nice way to reconnect with a friend.

“The music video.”

Lilly doesn’t phrase it as a question. She doesn’t need to.

“That was when things came more… into focus. She and her ex were in the process of breaking up. I didn’t know for sure then what was going to happen. But it was the first time I thought something actually might.”

Lilly focuses on the way his hair sits above his ear, debating about how short to cut it. She recalls FaceTiming with him from rehearsals. He was so excited. He was nervous about dancing. Lilly teased him. He reminded her repeatedly that he loved her. She wonders if it was more for him to hear out loud than it was for her.

“What exactly happened between you before you broke up with me?”

Shawn flinches slightly. Lilly feels the sick pleasure of it sizzling in her fingers, imagines a tick arriving with a satisfying ping in her nonexistent column.

Shawn takes a deep breath. “It was… at one of the viewing things before the final cut of the video. We got drunk.”

Lilly’s heart slams in her chest like a fish out of water. This was a mistake.

“I knew she and Matthew were done but I asked anyway. We were… we were the last ones there and just fucking around, being goofy. I kissed her.”

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Shawn doesn’t ask to look at whether she’s defacing one of his calling cards.

“Anything else?” Lilly asks coolly, wondering if a fuck might’ve actually felt like less of a soul-deep betrayal. Doesn’t matter, probably. She still lost him.

“Not until after.”

Lilly systematically strokes her fingers through his hair as she switches over, angling to determine if the sides are even. Her stomach hurts.

“Did you tell her you were going to leave me before you did?”

She watches him swallow.

“Yes.”

Lilly remembers the image she had of her sitting in the back of a dark Uber Black, hunched over her phone, waiting outside Lilly’s house for the deed to be done.

The questions are sprouting faster than Lilly can come up with a strategy for dealing with them. She takes a weed whacker to her mind unsuccessfully.

“What did she-- how did she--”

Lilly stalls out and drops her scissored hand by her side. Shawn looks over at her patiently. He doesn’t cower or turn away or guilt her out of this line of questioning with a glance.

Lilly shakes her head and waves her not-sharp hand for him to turn his head back. She gets to work evening out the sides, pinching his strawberry-scented ringlets, making a focused effort not to yank at them.

“All the pictures… the paps, whatever. Did you consider what that would do to me?”

Shawn keeps his head forward, eyes fixed on the refrigerator at the other side of the room. He wets his lips and speaks, “I… didn’t really let myself focus on it. I told myself it wasn’t really my fault, I wasn’t the one calling them and doing all that shit we did in the beginning. I told myself it wasn’t about me and Camila, it was about the single, so anything we did to promote the single was ok.”

“That was a very long-winded no.” Lilly keeps her voice even.

“There’s so much I did that I handled completely fucking wrong. We, I mean you and I, we were hitting this point, this weird, shitty point where we were both really busy and couldn’t be around each other that much. It had been over a year and the, like, giddiness wasn’t there at the time. Like, neither of us was that happy then.”

Lilly’s nostrils flare. Her lips purse and begin to part, ready to unleash hell.

“I used it as a shitty fucking excuse for something I was probably going to do anyway.”

Lilly takes a step back. She drops the scissors beside him and crosses her arms, staring expectantly. Shawn takes the scissors and fiddles with them.

“The honest, stupid fucking truth is that I had this… I dunno, this thing for her. I could never totally let go of it. That’s not to say I wasn’t happy with you, or that I was thinking about her when I was with you… that was never it. But when she started showing interest in me, when she was telling me about the shit with Matthew, I just… I think I felt like it had to happen. Like something I had to get out of my system. I romanticized it at the time; it felt like fate, maybe.”

“I’ve heard the song, Shawn,” Lilly snaps. Shawn blinks hard, but is otherwise still.

“I know. I know you, Lill, I know you’ve been through the whole catalogue, tearing it apart, deciding what was about her.”

He’s not wrong, Lilly thinks bitterly.

“I felt this weird kind of instant relief when I was sure she wanted me. It checked this old box that felt like it was going to stay unchecked forever. I felt so shitty, calling it off with you, but it felt like I was doing what I was supposed to. But it wouldn’t have felt so shitty if it were really what I was meant to do.”

“Do you realize how entitled and selfish you sound right now?”

“Yes.”

The tightness in Lilly’s face relaxes, her expression blank. She wasn’t expecting such an easy response. She wasn’t expecting a real response at all.

“I do. It’s ok if you don’t believe me, I don’t really blame you. I haven’t given you any reason to. But if we have a shot in hell, and fuck, I hope we do, I think you need to hear this. I don’t think you’ll ever stop wondering unless I really lay it all out.”

Lilly swallows a lump in her throat and releases the tuft of hair, sliding the elastic back on her wrist. As she ruffles through his damp hair, Shawn’s eyes slide closed.

“Keep talking,” Lilly whispers.

“So I did it. I ignored how fucking bad I felt after that initial relief. Like, not just bad because of our fight, just… bad. I had done the wrong thing. I made the wrong choice. I do still think it was the choice I was going to make because I’m fucking young and stupid. I just--”

His jaw tenses, the muscle in his cheek twitching. Lilly waits patiently, parting his hair.

“I might’ve always wondered. I’m a hopeless romantic idiot. But at least now she’s not the one that got away anymore. She’s the one I tried it with and realized it didn’t work.”

Lilly closes her eyes and exhales through her nose. She waits for the words to hit all the spots they did before when he tried to talk this out with her, the pain points. Spots that made her snarl and retch and wail and slash at him. Instead they feel like a rising tide around her knees.

“So… what happened?” she whispers.

“For a while we lived on the high of the single. Both our teams were so focused on it and on us. The VMAs and everything, finishing tour. By the time the Grammys came around I think we were both so fucking sick of that song. The backlash that came from all the media attention… it didn’t just go away like we hoped it would. I started laying really low on social. She was getting ready for tour and I was working on the album. Not being focused on the same thing, on promoting one song, it helped put things more into perspective I think. Pulling away started to feel… natural.

“And then the pandemic came. It felt like a time to hit reset. I went down to Miami and felt pretty stupid because everything just got so much worse every day and I was worried about not even being able to leave. But… we were on the same page, basically. It wasn’t fun, but it was… right. Neither of us wanted it. We tried it, it ended. I think… I mean, we don’t hate each other. I don’t think we’ll be like, writing friends again. But maybe eventually we’ll talk again.”

Lilly sucks at her front teeth. “You haven’t talked at all since you left?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

Shawn looks thoughtful. “Not… yet. I don’t think I have anything to say that we haven’t said already. Maybe… I dunno, maybe that was part of it. I always felt like I wanted to talk to you, like I always had stuff to tell you, even stupid stuff. Me and Camila ran out of stuff.”

Lilly shifts to stand in front of him, keeping her gaze on his hair, though her eyes are not in focus. She sifts her hands through it while she thinks.

“I still have more questions. I’m just…”

She trails off. Shawn nods carefully.

“It’s ok. I’m… not going anywhere.”

Lilly’s eyes shut. “I think it’s important for you to understand that when you say things like that, my head immediately comes back with “but you did.” You did go somewhere. You didn’t come back for a long time.”

Shawn pauses, then nods again. Lilly sighs.

“I’m not saying this to punish you anymore. I don’t want that. It’s not doing anything for me. But you need to understand that I can’t just turn it back on. Even when you make me want to.”

Shawn’s expression clears. He turns his head slowly as she continues ruffling his hair, snipping odds and ends. She doesn’t look down at him.

“I do understand. I’ll wait, Lill. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“And what if I don’t know what I need?”

Shawn looks unconcerned. “Then I’ll wait for you to.”

Lilly continues sculpting his hair like a topiary. He looks older with his hair this way. She thinks it’s not a total disaster, maybe.

“I have another question,” she announces. Shawn waits expectantly.

“If the pandemic didn’t happen… when were you going to end it? When were you going to come to me?”

Shawn’s brows raise, but he looks far away again. “Truth is I almost did a few times. A bunch of times after the holidays. I had this countdown clock in my head because I knew as soon as we finished the album, I wouldn’t just be able to spontaneously come see you, not if I wanted to spend any real time with you. I just kept scaring myself out of it.”

She understands that, especially given the way their first meeting went down.

Lilly internalizes the answer, then turns back to her imaginary notes. Each question has a line through it. Nothing new materializes. She frowns.

“I don’t have any more questions.”

Shawn bobs his head, watching her closely.

“I might have more questions later,” she continues. His expression doesn’t change.

Lilly drops her hands to his shoulders. He blinks but reorients himself, slowly guiding his hands to her hips. She steps closer. His knees widen. As Lilly folds herself over him, pressing her face into his hair, he collapses into her, his forehead against her sternum. Her relief is narcotic. Her head hasn’t been this truly empty since… she can’t remember when.

He smells like her. He’s holding her. He’s breathing her air. He’s hers. Little by little, she’s starting to believe it.

Lilly steps around his legs and lowers into his lap. Their eyes are nearly level. Shawn locks his arms around her back. His nose brushes hers.

“Ok,” Lilly murmurs.

Shawn inhales and exhales deeply. “Ok.”

Lilly’s hands rest on his chest as he kisses her. He doesn’t come at her with fire and brimstone this time. He has nothing to prove. He knows exactly how good it feels. He seems to want to slow down and enjoy this as much as she does. He kisses her long and slow because they have the time. His hands remain mostly still. He seems to feel that she needs the stasis, despite their frenzied night.

Shawn’s kisses whisper to Lilly with each pass -- is this ok? How about this? I don’t want to push it. I care too much to push it. They’re the easiest sentiments to believe when they’re said like this.

Lilly drapes her arms around his shoulders, enjoying the breadth of them, plucking her lips away in shorter bursts until they’re pecking innocently, smiling with closed eyes between points of contact.

“Do you want to check out your hair?” Lilly offers, shifting back in his lap. He’s the most marvelous shade of pink.

“Oh,” he starts, pulling a hand up into the still damp chunky strands, “I can look later. I’m sure it’s great. It feels way lighter, actually.”

Lilly is smug. “You just want to sit here and keep kissing.” His smile is megawatt. She’s blinded.

“Can you blame me?”

Kissing him is… completely lovely. Lilly refamiliarizes herself with him in a way she didn’t yesterday. Her fingers find the tendons in his shoulders, the ridge of his adam’s apple, the little hoop in his earlobe. It’s a redundant kind of flirtation, given that she’s already in his lap, but it might be more for her than for him.

His lips skate down her neck as they break for air. He tucks kisses under her hair over marks she doesn’t remember him leaving. Lilly closes her eyes and exhales slowly, letting herself hate them a little for tearing each other to shreds. It wasn’t like them. Even when they were at their most frantic together, it wasn’t like that.

Lilly feels a lump in her throat. He must sense the change in her breathing. But instead of pulling away to check on her, Shawn pulls her closer, fills all the spaces her body leaves until she’s cradled against him, chest shuddering. He presses his nose into her hair and rocks her softly, back and forth, until he feels her tears dripping off his shoulder down his bare back.

“It’s ok,” he murmurs, the vibration from his voice tremoring through her body, “If it feels good to cry, you should cry.”

Shawn has a way of saying things to her that would bring her no relief to hear them from anyone else. Even though she believes him, and she’s pretty sure he’d sit here into the night and let her cry herself dry against him, she pulls back. He looks her over. She stares at his swollen mouth. He sweeps his thumbs beneath her eyes.

“I’m sick of crying,” she tells him with a short nod. He nods back. His eyes are clear and so warm. His hands sift back into her hair and hold it all, scrunching tumbling, escaping strands like he can’t bear to let any of her go. He kisses her breathless.

“Be gentle with me,” Lilly pleads on a sigh, releasing him only long enough to undress. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

He’s always been patient, even when she could barely stand to let herself be touched by him. He waits until every sound out of her chest is nearly a whine and her fingers curl into his freshly cut hair, cajoling him. When their bodies finally connect, he’s slow and deliberate, the tips of their noses together, their fingers clenched together against her thigh. She doesn’t thrash or force or scrape for him. He doesn’t stop until she’s melted for him, draped over his shoulder, panting with need. She clings, he gives. When she’s finished, she cups the back of his neck and whispers until he’s shaking beneath her.

They slither to the kitchen floor, exhausted, reluctant. He tosses tufts of his shorn hair at her. She pretends to put it back where she cut it off. They order from a local cafe for breakfast and kiss until the food is cold.

+

“So when do you want me to cut your hair?”

Lilly looks up from the Instacart order in progress on her phone. His arm is around her shoulders, his fingers sifting through the dry ends of her gold hair. He said it like he’s reminding her of something she had already asked of him. Her brow furrows.

“You’re not cutting my hair.”

Shawn looks down and mirrors her expression. “What?”

“I’m not letting you cut my hair, Shawn.”

He gawps. “But you just cut mine!”

“Yeah, what the fuck were you thinking? Your hair is like half the reason people like you.”

Shawn’s eyes light up. His grin is so big she thinks his face is gonna split. This time, she’s the one mirroring him.

“You seriously don’t trust me to cut your hair? It can’t be that hard, your hair is straight. I just have to keep it even.”

“But I have layers,” Lilly explains patiently, turning to pull her legs up beside her on the couch, “And my stylist uses thinning shears, which we don’t have. And also… you’re not cutting my hair, Shawn.”

He huffs and pulls away. “Maybe not when you’re awake anyway.”

Lilly looks up from her phone. He’s wearing an impish smile. She kisses it until his lips are soft and pliable against hers, and he’s making the little content sounds she likes.

Shawn gets curious and trails his kisses off down her jaw. Lilly’s eyes are shut. She’s getting ready to crawl into his lap for the third time in 24 hours when her phone buzzes with a news alert.

LA County extended shutdown to all but essential business through July.

They stare at the phone together. Shawn’s brows lift. He rubs a hand over his mouth.

“Jesus,” he mutters.

Lilly chews her lip. July?

July.

Quietly, because they’re both in their own heads, they make their way to the kitchen to continue taking stock of the groceries they have and what they need. Lilly’s head is swimming in numbers -- will the bump in unemployment continue? Is she going to have to ask for her parents’ help with rent? Could this go through the end of the summer, or even longer?

She senses him behind her even through the haze of her own anxiety. He places a hand on her hip, his thumb rubbing the worn cotton of her t-shirt.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, more as a request than a demand. Lilly turns and tucks herself into his arms. He rocks her back and forth on their bare feet, which make a soft smushing sound against the cool tile. He’s sturdy enough to rest her weight against. Her hands clamor up only as far as his shoulder blades. It feels good.

“I know it’s really, really bad,” Shawn says into her ear, “Like, really bad, if they’re shutting down through July. But… I’m glad I’m here with you.”

Lilly rolls her eyes and lifts her head as her hands drift down his back.

“Yeah, seems like your plan is working out nicely. Taking me hostage, and all.”

He seems pleased with her teasing. He nods.

“Yep, got ya right where I want ya,” he admits, shrugging.

Lilly shakes her head and dives deeper into false dramatics. “Luring me here in my vulnerable state. You’re like Dracula. This is Stockholm syndrome. I should know, there’s a One Direction song about it. You’re holding me here against my will.”

Shawn grins again, that same face-breaking grin from before. It warms Lilly through more than the afternoon sun streaming in through the kitchen windows. He presses his forehead against hers.

“Your hands are on my asscheeks right now,” he points out.

She squeezes them. He flinches and somehow smiles even wider.

“Stockholm. Syndrome,” she insists, giggling until his lips meet hers again.

----------

Taglist: @smallerinfinities​ @the-claire-bitch-project @achinglyshawn​ @infiniteshawn​ @mendesoft @singanddreamanyway​ @alone-in-madness​ @abigfatmess​ @shawnitsmutual​ @awkwardfangirl2014​ @september-lace​ @sinplisticshawn​ @rollingxstone​ @randi-eve​ @fallmoreinlove @heyits-claire​ @itrocksmysocks​ @parkerspicedlatte​ @simpledomain​ @abeautiful-and-cloudy-day​ @thecurlsofgod​ @magcon7280​ @bensbuttercup​ @shawnsmusical​ @paigeasourous​ @tell-me-when-ur-ready​ @softmendesss​ @searchingunderthestars​ @buggy-blogs​ @mendesficsxbombay​ @siennarossi​ @lostinshawnsmemory​ @umbreakablesoul​ @sleepybesson​ @shawnsheaven @shaawnie @shawn-youth​ @graysonmendes​

[gwens-projects]

Day 19 - Theme Memories

So I’ve been around this fandom for a long time, not as long as some people, but since TPOM was still kicking out episodes. Today I’m going to talk about some of the memories I’ve made through this fandom.

Under a read more because this is going to be long.

I remember first when I was really small getting to watch Madagascar when it first came out. It was very blurry and pixilated because it was on one of those cam copy discs that my dad had brought home. It was fun, I liked it, but didn’t think anything about it really. The same happened with Madagascar 2 a few years later, and then after that I got my first exposure to TPOM when dad had a disc with the When I was a Penguin Zombie ep collection on it. I’m pretty sure I watched that disc on repeat for weeks in the car, I loved it but had no idea there were like actually other eps I could watch anywhere else.

Years after that, somehow I managed to catch the Return of the Revenge of Dr. Blowhole on TV actually in the midst of all the singing, we almost turned the channel but I was amazed that there were more eps than what I had seen before and we watched what was left of the episode.

I’ve never been someone who easily makes friends. I’m very quiet, nervous, and rather weird. 8th grade I made my first decent friends, and then at the end of the school year both transferred away to different schools. I was about...15 maybe? and I was crushed. I had never really noticed how lonely I really was until then, and so I started watching some shows on youtube I remembered I liked but never got to watch every ep of...Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch, the Smurfs....I was looking for something Smurf related online when I accidentally discovered fanfiction, specifically Smurfs fanfiction that I thought was actually like a canon Smurfs book. This led me to exploring fanfiction a little more and then I accidentally come across some TPOM oneshot (written in Spanish that my computer translated) about Private? It reminded me that oh yeah the penguins was a show I liked as a kid, so I looked it up and started binging those eps. 

Watching those eps, I honestly felt the least alone I had felt all summer. Private was my first comfort character and at the time I found him super relatable. I also started reading a few TPOM fanfics. Season 3 still had episodes coming out and so that was pretty exciting. That August I started writing my first fanfic, A Trixy Situation, and drew my first fanarts. I also consequently made my first OC.

I look back at that first fanfic and the reviews I got and all I can think is “People thought this was good?” But at the same time, if it wasn’t for those kind comments back then, I wouldn’t be the writer I am now. A Trixy Situation wasn’t just my first fanfic, it was the first piece of written fiction I ever wrote and FINISHED. People’s kind comments spurred me to write and for the first time I really felt like I was writing for a purpose AND having fun with it. I was over the moon.

Granted, I did get my first critiquing review a few fics later, and as much as I cried over it...I will admit, it made me a much better writer. I still wish they had phrased it differently though.

Through fanfiction as well I made my first fandom friends. One of which I still keep in contact with even now 7 years later. She became my first best friend that I could truly say was my best friend and I wouldn’t have made her except through this fandom.

When I transferred schools from private to public in 10th grade, TPOM eps and writing TPOM fanfiction got me through it. It was...a rough 3 years of my life. I had 0 offline friends, but I had that one very good online friend who I would sneak chats to through a google doc during lunch and class breaks.

I remember when AHKJ came out and I’d have to stay off of tumblr because tumblr mobile wouldn’t let me tag and block spoilers and GEE WERE THERE SO MANY SPOILERS POSTED. 

January 2016 I gave roleplaying a try and made a slew of Private_Private_Penguin rp accounts across multiple platforms. I made a few connections and associates then, but none really stuck. However, I had a lot of fun rping as Private until the rp community more or less went silent.

Junior and senior year of high school and the first couple years of college, I was too busy and stressed to think of TPOM much. Then I noticed a new up-springing in TPOM rpers again. I watched a few eps and this time around realized that I really, really related to Kowalski now....Far more than I ever related to Private in the past. Granted, in the past I was kind of driven away from Kowalski because the fandom was so...well, let’s just say there were a lot of rapid Kowalski fangirls where it made me nervous to even approach the character. Private didn’t have as many fans so he was calmer to have as a favorite. But modernly, the Kowalski hype had died down and I finally felt at ease finding him as a comfort....I also think the age old “disliking a character until you realize there’s a lot of yourself in that character and that’s why you dislike them” theory applied to that as well...because he and I do have a lot in common, personality wise.

Anyway, through the new round of rping as Kowalski, I made some new fandom friends and through them was exposed to new fandoms and experienced a new love for the series as a whole. I also was introduced to new ship ideas and got new headcanons....And then I got back into writing fanfiction. My friend who rps as Blowhole, they got me into the Franski ship...Our rping was a slow burn enemies to friends to Kowalski muse having a crush on Blowhole. It’s a fun thing to look back at the old rps like “oh Kowalski started liking this ship before I did.”

After I got back into fanfic writing, I made yet another friend who IMed me about my writing and since then I’ve been co-writing with her on her fic. I also discovered a discord group where I ran into several fanguins who I recognized were around the fandom back when eps were coming out as well and I just sort of felt...at home? It’s the best way I can describe it. It was new but familiar all at the same time. Did we all share the same ships and headcanons? Heck no, but with such a vague canon that’s understandable and completely fine. It’s interesting seeing the different ideas and such and the joint enthusiasm we all have for this franchise.

I’ve recently started watching A Little Wild...Admittedly, I’m struggling with it but for its target audience, it would be a great intro into the franchise, honestly.  

I have so many memories from this franchise and its fandom, some bad, but mostly good. And now I just will take this moment to thank both the franchise and the fandom for the memories and comfort its given me through the years. 

[nightofthemeteor]

Falconry/Bonsai

(Also here on AO3)

“Tobirama, can you come help me with something?”

“What?” came the disgruntled answer from down the hall.

Hashirama stuck his head out the door. “I need you to take a picture for my Instagram!”

He could hear his little brother stomping down the hallway, so Hashirama returned to his table and picked up a pair of pruning shears, considering the lighting in the room and the best angle to take a photo. A moment later, Tobirama walked into the room, saw Hashirama, and immediately turned around and walked out.

“Hey! Come back!”

“No way,” said Tobirama, without turning around. “I am not taking a picture of you in your underwear.”

“I’m not in only my underwear!” Hashirama protested. “I’m wearing a shirt!” Granted, it was the shortest shirt he owned, and it did leave a substantial strip of skin bare, but still.

“Can I ask,” Tobirama said witheringly, stopped in the doorway but without turning around, “Why you’re posing for a half-naked picture to put on your gardening blog? Don’t tell me you’re that desperate for exposure.” He was forced to turn around for this last part, because he had to raise his eyebrows at Hashirama to make sure he got the double entendre.

“Very funny, Tobirama. No, it’s not for more followers.” Although that could be a nice side effect, come to think of it. “It’s a…” Hashirama knew there was a word for this, if only he could remember – “Thirst trap!” he announced, proud of himself for getting the terminology right.

Tobirama wrinkled his nose. “Please never say that again, Anija. Do I know the person you’re posting this for?”

“Nah – I just met him yesterday! I ran into him on the subway as I was bringing home this very bonsai.” Hashirama affectionately patted the pot containing his newest leafy charge, a lovely boxwood tree rescued from the back shelves of a garden store on the other side of town. “I’m telling you, Tobirama, this tree is good luck!”

“Are you out of your mind, Anija? You gave your Instagram handle to some random stranger on the subway, and now you’re posting ��� ” Tobirama made a vague, sort of circular gesture to encompass Hashirama’s general state of undress “ – for him to see? I’m begging you to have just a shred of common sense.”

“No, this guy is fine, I promise! I have excellent judgement about this sort of thing.” Tobirama crossed his arms and gave him a flat look that said, Your judgement is terrible and we both know it. Hashirama sighed. “If you help me, I’ll buy you that expensive, iced coffee you like,” he wheedled.

“Two coffees,” Tobirama snapped. “And when you end up with some creepy stalker, I’m not going to help you.”

“Yes! Thank you!” Hashirama shoved his phone into Tobirama’s hands before he could change his mind and struck a pose next to the boxwood, shears in hand. He’d just finished pruning the tree, in fact – this picture was to show off his handiwork with the bonsai, too. The guy on the subway - Madara, he'd said his name was - had asked about it, after all. “Is the shape of the tree still good from that angle?”

“It’s fine,” Tobirama sighed in exasperation, and then, apparently resigned to his role, added: “Maybe turn it clockwise a little.”

Hashirama complied, spending a few more seconds arranging the miniature branches. “Did you get your exam marks back yet?” he asked, to keep Tobirama occupied while he fussed with the tree.

“Just got my mark for organic chem,” his brother replied, lips pressed together in an angry pout. “One point away from perfect. I swear, that TA was just trying to find some excuse to take marks away; he was a huge asshole to me all semester, just because I pointed out his synthesis problems had more than one correct solution.”

That explained why Tobirama was even grumpier than usual. “Well, you must have done an excellent job, if this TA could only find one point to take away,” Hashirama tried, in an attempt to mollify him; Tobirama’s stony expression remained unchanged. “Plus, the year is over, so you’ll never have to deal with him again!”

That got a grudging half-smile out of Tobirama. “Yeah – at least there’s that. Are you ready, Anija? I want to get this over with.”

---

The picture was…it was…different from the majority of Hashirama’s posts. Madara had been stalking his Instagram for the past half hour – was it really stalking if the guy had given him his handle and invited him to look for updates on the bonsai he’d been carrying? Probably not, right? – Madara had been looking at his Instagram for the past half hour, and it was all innocent pictures of trees, flowers, and houseplants, meticulously cared for and clearly thriving. Occasionally, Hashirama’s smiling face appeared in the background of a photo, or his hand showed up in a close-up to showcase some clippings, but there was nothing like…that. Broad shoulders in a loosely draped shirt; smooth skin over taut muscle at his stomach; sharp hipbones leading down to –

“What are you looking at, Nii-san?”

Madara jumped, fumbled his phone, and dropped it onto his chest. “Izuna! How many times do I have to tell you to knock?”

“Oh, it was porn? Sorry,” said Izuna, sticking his face obnoxiously through the crack between Madara’s bedroom door and the wall.

“It wasn’t porn,” Madara replied reflexively, before realizing that not only was he now going to have to provide an explanation, but he sort of had been looking at porn. Almost. “It’s this guy I met yesterday,” Madara mumbled at his phone. “I'm on his Instagram.”

“You met someone?!” Izuna exclaimed in delight. Madara sighed – there was no keeping his little brother out of his business now. Sure enough, Izuna threw open his door the rest of the way and bounded over to sit next to Madara on the bed. “How did this miracle occur?”

“It was…kind of accidental.” Madara wasn’t exactly the sociable type, and he certainly didn’t strike up conversations with strangers on public transit – in fact, he usually did his best to maintain a menacing aura so that people didn’t talk to him. But yesterday, after staring for probably a solid five minutes at the impressively muscled forearms of the guy standing in front of him, Madara had realized even those muscles might get tired of holding an entire bonsai tree, and he should probably offer the guy his seat. The man had accepted the offer with a very genuine-sounding thanks, and then had proceeded to flash Madara an implausibly sunny grin, gesture to the bonsai in his lap, and say, “Trees-ed to meet you!”. The line was so terrible Madara hadn't been able to let it go without comment, and before he knew what was happening, he’d been talking to the guy for twenty minutes and had acquired his Instagram handle.

“Well, can I see a picture?” Izuna demanded.

Madara winced, rapidly weighed his options, and reluctantly unlocked his phone to show Izuna the picture he’d been looking at. Izuna, shockingly, didn’t comment on the nature of the photo, but squinted down at it and said, “Hm…I think I know that guy.”

“You do?”

“I’m pretty sure I met him on campus one time, when I was waiting for your lab to finish. He was waiting for someone too, so we chatted for a few minutes. Nice guy.”

With sudden, dawning horror, Madara asked, “Was he hitting on you?”

“No, no! Nothing like that. I think he’s just a friendly type of person.”

Well, a man who flirted with anything that moved – or worse, Izuna – would have been a crushing disappointment, but a ‘friendly type of person’ was nearly as bad. Hashirama had given him his Instagram handle and told him to watch for a post with an update on ‘his’ bonsai, and said bonsai update had included a half-naked Hashirama. Madara had nearly dared to interpret that as interest…but if Hashirama was just a ‘friendly type of person,’ Madara could have been reading the cues entirely wrong. Perhaps their conversation yesterday had just been a fun way to pass the time, and the photo was intended for somebody else.

As if reading his mind, Izuna said, “You should ask him out for drinks or something.”

“I followed his Instagram,” Madara announced, “And that is exactly the number of moves I am willing to make. I’m busy, you know – I can’t go chasing all the time like you.” Just one of many excellent reasons to save that picture for his fantasies and never meet the real person ever again.

“You just finished marking all your exams,” Izuna countered. “I know you’re not that busy. Come on, Nii-san, be reasonable: when are you ever going to get another chance like this again?”

“Thanks for that, Izuna,” Madara muttered. Who said he was even interested in dating, anyways? Relationships were messy, confusing, and time-consuming; not at all worth the hassle –

Madara’s phone buzzed. Instagram message from Hashirama: Hey, sorry if this is presumptuous, but do you want to meet up for drinks sometime?

Madara stared at his screen. Then, disbelieving, he held out the phone for Izuna to read. A stunned moment of silence, and then Izuna shrieked, “You have to go!”

Well, maybe this wasn’t quite as complicated as Madara had feared. Izuna was right; he wasn’t that busy. Pursing his lips in concentration, Madara typed out a reply.

---

Tobirama had been completely wrong, as it turned out: Madara was neither a creep nor a stalker. He was a grad student with an acerbic tongue, passionate opinions, and a lovely embarrassed blush. Hashirama had become so absorbed in the conversation he’d completely forgotten to order more drinks, which was seriously unlike him – although, since he’d made up his mind to pay for the date, it was probably for the best.

“I can’t believe I’m here,” Madara remarked abruptly, somewhere around hour three or four.

“You mean existentially?”

“Literally here, in a bar, having drinks with you,” Madara clarified. “I mean – my younger brother is convinced I’m incapable of socializing. He was probably planning to set me up with one of his friends from…art school…” He leveled a suspicious glare at Hashirama as he said these last few words. “He didn’t put you up to this, did he? What’s he paying you?”

“It wasn’t your brother,” said Hashirama seriously. “It was the bonsai.”

“The bonsai paid you to take me out for drinks?”

“The bonsai brought us together.” Hashirama raised his glass; Madara followed suit, looking a little bemused but playing along, nonetheless. “To the bonsai!” Hashirama announced. He drained his glass, surreptitiously watched the way Madara’s throat moved as he drank, and thought. Tobirama would definitely judge him for thinking it, but though Hashirama barely knew Madara, he felt an immediate connection to him. He didn’t want to lose this opportunity.

“Madara,” he said. Madara looked at him with his dark, expressive eyes, shadows from his hair falling across his face, and Hashirama bit his lip. Careful, he thought. “I really am glad you’re here, in this bar, having drinks with me.”

Madara flushed again, his cheeks and the tips of his ears turning red; Hashirama wondered if he could make Madara flush anywhere else. “I’m glad, too,” he said, low and a little shaky, as though he was unused to saying things like that.

Hashirama immediately abandoned his caution of just a moment before and said, “Do you want to get out of here? We can go to my place – my brother won’t be home.”

“Yes,” said Madara. “Yes, definitely.”

---

Hashirama had the bonsai – Madara’s bonsai, the one he’d toasted that evening – set up in pride of place in his bedroom. That should have prompted Madara to suspect Hashirama had planned for this to happen, and make him annoyed at Hashirama’s confidence. He should also have been a lot more panicked when he looked at Hashirama’s face, sleepy and content, with his previously immaculate hair tangled on the pillow, and felt a tug somewhere under his sternum. Instead, he looked at that bonsai on his way out of the room and thought, Thanks.

Hashirama’s apartment wasn’t very large, considering it housed two people, but it was still annoying to search for the bathroom in an unfamiliar place. Madara had been sure Hashirama had told him it was down the hall on the left, but now he was in the entranceway. He was about to retrace his steps and try again when he heard a key jingling in the door.

“Hey, Anija, I just came back for – ” The man in the doorway spotted Madara and froze. Madara, too, had frozen in horror, because even in the dim light he’d immediately recognized Hashirama’s brother.

“You!” yelped Senju Tobirama.

“No,” Madara said, backing up a step. “Absolutely not.”

Tobirama pointed an accusing finger at him. “I was supposed to be done with you!” he hissed. “You took off that one mark on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Oh, because you think all your solutions are perfect, do you?” He’d certainly acted that way all through that torturous organic chemistry class.

“Tobirama?” came Hashirama’s concerned voice from the hallway.

“Tell me you’re not sleeping with my TA, Anija!” Tobirama practically wailed, and suddenly, Madara’s annoyance at the appearance of his least favourite student was replaced with pure schadenfreude.

“I’m afraid he very much is,” he said, before Hashirama could reply. “So you’d better get used to seeing a lot of me.” And to his great satisfaction, he watched Hashirama’s face brighten in delight, and Tobirama’s drop in utter horror.

[potestessemagishomosexualitatis]

LAOFT but make it a pregnancy romcom

okay so this is based both on this post and my pre-existing idea that gage witches can reproduce through magical parthenogenesis (self-cloning) and roman is a clone of abby and therefore a trans guy

so: let’s re-write laoft as a fairy tale pregnancy romcom

first change: virgil never got cursed. however, shortly after greta’s death, durant somehow tricked him into a semi-permanent banishment/exile from wickhills. trudi and may assumed his disappearance was grief-based and by the time they got concerned the trail was long cold.

so now, when roman is planning to make a deal for logan’s freedom, he instead semi-accidentally manages to summon virgil back instead, breaking his banishment.

roman makes a deal for logan’s freedom in return for his firstborn. not to keep, virgil assures him, but for virgil to be godfather to (he might still be missing trudi & may, oops)

however, virgil first has to win back his forest. it takes several years for him to do that, although in the interim he and roman meet sporadically in the clearing in the woods. as soon as he learns about logan and patton’s situations he insists on meeting them and helping to teach them about magic whenever he can

so basically, the entire group is a complete mess of pining and unrequitement angst

everyone thinks that different subsets of their friends are together and therefore “taken” and/or uninterested and/or unsuitable

roman thinks that l&v are endgame as the Fae Power Couple but that patton is pining for logan and would never choose roman over him

logan thinks that p&r are borderline-already-dating (and still has the immortal angst thing) but that virgil is way out of his league because Fae Politics

patton is aware that they all have a thing for each other but feels like he is out-of-place as the only non-magical being and fears that he doesn’t contribute anything to the group and he’s scared that if things change it will end with him being left behind

virgil is completely enamoured with all of them but would rather die than make them feel even 1% pressured and is thus physically incapable of making a move. also has no idea that the other three aren’t already dating.

this is where we’re at when virgil finally manages to help logan shake off the last threads of eirwen’s control

“my half of the deal is complete,” virgil says. “i guess there’s no reason we have to keep meeting up. unless you’re planning on having that baby any time soon.”

roman laughs, of course. but in the back of his mind he imagines having a baby – having virgil’s baby, a child for the two of them to share, and… well. that’s very much not a thought he minds having.

and thus, six weeks later: a positive pregnancy test.

roman, who is very much still a virgin: what the actual fuck.

roman now recalls the conversation with virgil and it takes on a very different tone. he assumes that this is his side of the deal which – was not what he expected, but okay that’s what you get with fae, clearly he and virgil misunderstood each other.

of COURSE he tells pat and lo fairly immediately, the only reason he doesn’t tell virgil is because he assumes it’s virgil’s fault

roman does not realise how describing the situation as “virgil’s fault” will sound to the others because roman does not have the sense god gave a goose

he does notice that the others seem shocked/upset but assumes they, like he, are pissed at virgil’s violation of boundaries (don’t get people pregnant without asking first! even if roman is… kinda into it, actually.)

logan & patton of course think that ro & v made the baby the old-fashioned way

patton is completely gut-punched. change has come without his permission and it doesn’t include him, he only just manages to hold it together long enough to make supportive noises.

logan of course is doing the “this is fine it is perfectly reasonable they can do whatever they want what do you mean i’m growing whatever-flowers-symbolise-jealousy everywhere”

virgil notices that EVERYONE is pissy and roman is showing symptoms and puts two and two together and gets twenty-five, i.e. assumes it’s an unplanned pregnancy between the three of them and there’s some dispute about what to do about it

(roman hasn’t even really thought about that, because even though he’s only about 19-20 there is a part of him that craves family that says “yes, this is what i want”)

(he hasn’t really thought about a plan because he just kinda… assumes that lo & pat & v will always be there for him. and also he would fight a grizzly bear armed with a spoon for this child already so even if they aren’t he will make it through on sheer Gage Stubbornness)

roman puts off telling may with the excuse that “she probably already knows” because he doesn’t want her to be disappointed in him

but everything is really weird and brittle in the friend group now and roman is Struggling a bit

and now he suddenly gets very scared that he might actually lose his friends and be alone raising this baby

(okay except mamaw but that’s Different, obviously)

roman breaks down one day b/c hormones and feeling overwhelmed and of course does it in the most awkward possible place: all over logan

logan is panicking a lot but he is trying his best to comfort roman and then roman sobs something about “didn’t even get to do the fun part of making babies -”

wait what

so roman explains the whole magic deal thing and logan is like Oh Okay I See, There There

two minutes later: logan kicks down virgil’s door like WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO

virgil has never seen logan so pissed and he is genuinely a little scared

logan starts giving him the talking to of his LIFE and of course virgil has. no idea what he’s talking about.

fortunately this very quickly becomes apparent to logan who calms down and catches virgil up on the situation.

and okay, now everyone is very confused because Where Did This Baby Come From???

but you know what, that’s 3/4 of the group up to speed and we’ve barely had any misunderstandings so -

logan gives patton a call and says something about how they have to talk about roman’s baby and something about magic and pat is like “you’re a part of this?” and logan is like “of course i am”

patton’s worst fears confirmed: all three of them are involved, and he isn’t part of it. isn’t powerful enough for them, just a weak little human -

he hangs up the phone immediately because he doesn’t trust himself to speak any more

logan and virgil are FLIPPING OUT about the mystery baby. roman is pretty chill about it actually and gets downright pissed if either of them gets too close to insinuating that maybe the pregnancy is too dangerous…

also virgil is now fussing over roman so much “stress isn’t good for you right now” “you telling me that every five minutes is not helping my stress levels”

no-one really notices that… they were expecting patton to be joining them… several hours ago…

when they do realise there is a small argument of who should go over: roman: “i think he’d rather hear this from you, specs” logan: “you’re being ridiculous. he clearly prefers your company” virgil: “uhhh…. does it make a difference? aren’t all three of you… y'know?” ro & lo: “we’re WHAT NOW”

so yeah virgil spills the beans that they’re all hearteyes for each other and the other two are like “oh fuck” and go to patton together

(virgil stays behind… of course he does. he’s always the one left behind.)

logan and roman go to patton and tell him how important he is and roman winds up giving a big speech to both patton and logan about how he can’t imagine raising this baby without either of them there and he knows it’s a lot to ask but -

of course they are both on board. they have been since the moment roman told them the news.

(although logan makes a comment about how much he’s going to miss when he goes away to college, he’ll have to defer a couple of years -)

so yeah, a round of love confessions followed by a round of “uh. and virgil too, right?” “yeah of course.”

they all fall asleep crammed together in patton’s bed, finally at peace again.

mamaw comes to pick roman up the next morning like “you can’t stay out all night without telling me, not in your condition”

roman is Busted, of course she already knew, and she invites all four of the boys over for tea that afternoon to explain the Gage Parthenogenesis Witch Magic thing

(may does NOT know who the “father” is and would rather die than ask)

when she explains that it’s triggered by the witch wanting to have a baby badly enough, roman gets very very blushy and then goes outside and virgil follows and roman explains that it was the conversation they had about the deal that triggered all this

logan is like 5% jealous that it wasn’t him or patton but roman quickly points out that he’s had years of practise suppressing those thoughts about the others but much less exposure to virgil

virgil is Surprised Pikachu at roman’s confession

the others are Surprised Pikachu at his surprise

everyone gets together

roman gets fussed over and pampered for the rest of his pregnancy (to the point where he sometimes threatens to stab his loves if they don’t give him breathing room)

he gives birth to a healthy baby girl, linda, who very clearly takes after all four of them so that’s okay then. and is also a fae somehow, not a witch (shh its magic)

may grumbles a little about not having a Witch Heir and roman’s like “hey, we can do it all again in a few years”

and the others? are very okay with that.

[writingesgaypism]

been wanting to write some Quality BROT3 content with cormac and aisling, but i hit a snag and ended up writing this horribly soft nonsense as a palate cleanser. i’m kinda proud of how i captured that Morning Mood though so i’m subjecting the rest of you to it

sangarinus and the setting are ofc from my favorite wip, @diasporatheblog

————-

“I don’t think you should be allowed to be so alert in the morning,” Fionn mutters. They turn their face into the pillow, half-considering falling back asleep before their better judgment kicks in and they prop themself up on their elbows.

Sangarinus doesn’t reply, though they know he heard them from the way he tilts his head. It could almost be a concession of their point if it wasn’t far more likely to simply be acknowledgment that they’ve spoken.

They lift a hand to their face, scrubbing it over their eyes, then drop it back to the bed. After a moment more spent feeling sleepy and the slightest bit grumpy, they sigh and swing their legs to the floor. Sangarinus already looks to be ready for the day, but that’s not surprising. He could’ve been awake for the past several hours or he could’ve just woken up; he never displays any visible difference between the two, so it’s hard to tell without outright asking. In comparison, Fionn is slow to shake off drowsiness, and no one would be able to mistake them for being anything other than freshly awoken right now.

This morning they appear to be slow enough that it necessitates intervention. Sangarinus makes his way over to the bed where they still sit and takes a knee to be something closer to level with them.

They smile, slowly but still bright. “Fancy meeting you here…”

“In the place that I live,” he finishes with a roll of his eyes. It’s a common enough exchange between them, though his exasperation with it is mostly for show. “You’re going to have to get dressed if you want me to do your hair.”

“I don’t know about that,” they say. “You could always braid my hair and then I could go back to bed.”

He sighs. “Allow me to rephrase. I’m not going to do your hair unless you get out of bed.”

Fionn typically sleeps with their hair loose despite it being easier to keep it in a braid. They don’t like the feeling of sleeping on the braid. Playing at thoughtfulness, they run a hand through their hair, only to wince and ruin the illusion when they hit a snag. Definitely easier to keep in a braid, and less painful.

Sangarinus reaches up, measured enough to give them time to pull away even though they both know they won’t, and brushes a few strands out of their face.

They huff, soft and amused. “All right, fine. You win.”

His hand lingers for a moment or two, fingers grazing their jaw in a way that could almost be accidental but almost certainly isn’t when he finally withdraws. He rises to his feet to give them room to do the same, and they swap positions. While Fionn steadily moves about the room, carrying out their morning routine, he sits on the edge of the bed and observes.

They still like to have his attention on them. It doesn’t always fill them with that same half-nervous energy that it used to when it was all new, but it does make them smile. They have no idea what he’s thinking as he’s watching them; they find him easier to read than most do, but he remains remarkably good at keeping a straight face. Still, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever is running through his head, the line of his shoulders is relaxed and he doesn’t appear to be in a rush to go anywhere despite his insistence that Fionn stop lazing around.

Eventually, they pick up their comb and wander back to the bed. Sangarinus moves back, crossing his legs underneath him as he resettles, and Fionn perches in front of him with their back to him. They offer Sangarinus the comb with one hand and stifle a yawn with the other.

“Don’t mind me if I fall asleep,” they murmur.

“I thought the point was that you were waking up,” he replies, just as soft.

They hum noncommittally as he begins to run the comb through their hair, starting at the bottom and working up to avoid the worst of the tangling. His motions are gentle and repetitive, which inevitably means that it begins to feel soothing and does indeed reinforce their lingering drowsiness. With a small, discontented sound, they cast about for something to talk about to keep themself awake.

“Ah,” they say eventually, a satisfied smile quirking the corners of their mouth. “You promised to tell me about the material used to build Tarracina’s harbor. The concrete. Something about binding agents?”

He’s reached their scalp by now, and runs the comb from the roots of their hair to the ends a few times, checking for any last tangles. “Yes,” he says after a moment or two has passed. “The marine concrete we use is the same as any other in that it consists of an aggregate and a cement. The addition of volcanic ash and quicklime is what makes it uniquely suited to building in or near sea water.”

Fionn thinks for a moment. They’re slower than usual, but Sangarinus neither presses nor moves on without them; he merely starts separating their hair into sections. They yawn again, but largely ignore it.

“So, it… resists erosion,” they say. “I suppose the ash and the quicklime must react with the sea water itself somehow?”

“Just so,” he replies. He sounds pleased with their correct deduction, or maybe just with their engagement in general. “The result is that the concrete is actually strengthened by exposure to the sea.”

They smile. “How very opportunistic.”

“It’s been useful. Cost-effective.” There’s the sound of shifting fabric, which Fionn interprets as evidence of a shrug. “The increased durability of course translates into longer-lasting structures. Less pressure to shore up what’s worn away every few decades.”

They fall into a few beats of silence, but Fionn’s gotten their mind working enough that they’re no longer in imminent danger of nodding off. They haven’t seen a volcano themself in a while, not since the island they found the Eye of Maros on. They wonder how common such geologic features are in the south, or if volcanic ash is a limited resource that makes the creation and use of marine concrete particularly expensive.

So they ask.

“Common enough,” Sangarinus says. He reaches the end of the braid and Fionn automatically hands back something to tie it off with. “Enough that the cost is not prohibitive. Even if the materials were rarer, up to a certain point the longevity of this type of concrete would likely pay for itself.”

“I can think of a few things we could’ve used it for back north. Too bad we didn’t have any convenient volcanoes lying around.”

With that comment, Fionn stands, flipping their newly completed braid over one shoulder as they do so. Then they turn and offer Sangarinus a hand up. He certainly doesn’t need it, but he takes their hand anyway, and lets them keep holding his even after he’s back on his feet.

They give his hand a soft squeeze and smile. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t ask whether they’re thanking him for their hair or for answering their questions, which is just as well because the answer is both. He merely nods, smiling a bit himself. “Of course.”

[wickedgamesoyaoya]

Amnesia - Let the Games Begin

A mixture of delicious fragrances engulfed the café, compelling those who were fatefully walking by to enter the bistro. While the intoxicating scents may be what lured guests, it was the diverse set of attendants that created loyal customers. Jack Rose was founded by Hyroshi Miya eight years ago after the passing of his wife. Kaori Miya was known for having a sweet-tooth and her obsession with the tragedy of the Titanic. During Kaori’s battle with leukemia, Hyroshi developed an obsession with baking, with young Atsumu serving as his assistant. At first it served as a distraction for the duo, and a source of happiness for Kaori. However, when Kaori passed away, Hyroshi wanted to honour his wife’s life, and so Jack Rose was established. Named after the two love interests in Titanic, with an eccentric menu that no neighbouring café could challenge – it was a massive success.

“Hi, welcome to Jack Rose. Please follow me.” The rehearsed dialogue was not short of any enthusiasm, despite having said it hundreds of times.

“Oh my god, she’s so cute!” The middle-aged woman cooed to the male stood beside her, who nodded in approval. His amusement was untraceable due to the dark lenses that adorned his face, but he too was enthralled by your uniform.

A sugary smile had painted across your fuchsia painted lips, earning you a few extra points with the couple. It was a simple act that came natural to you, serving at Jack Rose had never struck you as a tedious job, rather it was a pleasurable experience.

After leading the pair to their assigned seat, a gentle hand had pressed into your lower back indicating that your replacement had arrived.

“Thank you, y/n. I will take it from here,” The mocha haired boy radiated an alluring aura, instantly capturing the interest of the two patrons. “Hi. I’m Tooru, your server for today.” Once introducing himself, his mouth twitched into his signature grin, prompting his eyelashes to flutter shut for a moment. Seated a few tables away, Oikawa’s fangirls were huddled together, squealing in unison.

“Enjoy your stay.” Folding an arm over your stomach, you bowed to excuse yourself before their hypnosis wore off, and the fangirls’ attention landed on you. Needless to say, anyone close to Oikawa Tooru was considered a threat. One they were eager to eliminate.

At the hostess stand, a familiar figure had shifted their weight onto the podium, the ends of his golden strands were frayed from the exposure to chemicals, yet with the sunlight sneaking through the glass behind, he resembled the subject of a painting.

“Oi. Are you feelin’ better today?” Atsumu Miya had always insisted that his accent was a natural product of his environment, although no one truly believed him considering the fact his family home was located in the wealthiest part of the city. Nonetheless, the accent persisted beyond his teenage years and into his young adulthood. It never bothered you, particularly because you had never heard him without it. After eighteen years of friendship, there wasn’t a single thing you did not adore about him.

“I am, don’t worry. Now will you please get off my stand? You are going to scare the customers.” Playfully you waved a hand in the air, gesturing for the blonde to reside elsewhere. “And if I’m not mistaken, you are skipping class right now, aren’t you?” As your tongue hit the roof of your mouth, a clicking sound was created to exemplify your disappointment.

“What was that? ‘tsumu is skipping class again?” If you had not become accustomed to Kuroo Tetsurou’s large and notable presence, you would have flinched the second his shadow had blanketed over you. Rather than experiencing any form of fear, his presence had only amplified your gaiety.

“Uh huh. Shall we get Papa Miya?” The bed-headed server leaned down, nestling his chin against your shoulder as he grinned provocatively at the target of your amusement. Kuroo was only a single year younger than you two, despite physically appearing to be older. The three of you were inseparable since the tender ages of six and five. When Kaori had passed away, Atsumu relied heavily on his two friends, as he had lost motivation to complete the smallest of tasks. That was why you took a job at Jack Rose, you needed it to succeed for his sake. It was a reminder of how his mother lived, rather than how she died. Kuroo had joined you in your quest a month later, and somehow your dream – Hyroshi’s dream had become reality.

“I swear yer the worst friends ever. It’s an online class! Don’t bring pops into it.” The blonde blew out a huff, turning his gaze away from those who threatened to ‘betray’ him.

“Oh my god, you guys are the worst! Poor Omi is in the back preparing all the drinks and you’re out here doing… whatever the hell this is!” Makoto Saito waved a small napkin at the black-haired server, unwilling to engage in any physical violence since it would require energy she wished to conserve. “Go back there, you man-baby. Help him. Shoo. Get off my adorable y/n.”

“Okay, okay. I’m going.” Kuroo raised his hands in defeat, unbothered by the napkin that was now being swayed towards his chest. Makoto had joined Jack Rose two years ago, and not because she was in any need for money – you were the reason she found herself sending in an application for what others would consider a low-end job. She had stumbled into the café one evening, boredom plaguing her after finishing a three-hour lecture. Oikawa had been the one to greet her, yet it was the positivity you emanated that brought her to return a night later. A month later, a job application was handed to you bashfully, whereas you could barely withhold your excitement. She was the second female to join Jack Rose, with Atsumu (accidentally) recruiting Ichika a year later.

“Now that he’s gone, y/n, I’m here to replace you. Omi said something about teaching you the new drink? I honestly don’t remember because I was on the phone, but let’s ignore that fact, hm?” Makoto’s interest in the boys was below minimal, the only male who was deserving of her respect was ‘Papa Miya’. Once Atsumu had jested that it was because she secretly had a crush on the much older male, to which she responded, ‘so what if I do’. The response had defeated his humour instantly.

“Oh, he must be talking about the blue pearl! It’s the newest addition to our menu.” Tapping a finger against your cheek, excitement burned in your y/e/c irises, prompting something to stir inside of both Atsumu and Makoto. What? You were so damn adorable.

“I don’t care, but you are so cute that I’ll pretend I do.” Reaching out, the black-haired girl patted your cheek affectionately. “Now go on, little bird. Fly fly away.”

“You guys better not fight while I’m gone.” With two fingers, you pointed at your eyes then at the two chaotic individuals you called friends, even with the warning, it was highly probable that the second you turned around they would begin bickering.

“Shoo, birdie.” The comment was accompanied by an unusually heavy sigh, Makoto completely intended on annoying Atsumu, but that was none of your concern.

Upon entering the kitchen, your nose crinkled at the delectable scents wafting towards you. When Sakusa Kiyoomi was working in the kitchen, everyone knew magic would materialize in the form of sweets. No one had believed the germaphobe could bake until he dropped off a box of home-made pastries along with his resume. Papa Miya was in the process of finishing his first bite when he declared that Sakusa was hired. He was just that damn good.

“You’re here.” The curly haired male had a bad habit of stating the obvious, he argued that it was key to the proper performance of his logical processes. No one tried to refute his claim, considering the fact he was essentially a genius. “Are you ready to learn?” Raising an eyebrow, his slender fingers wrapped around a glass-vessel before placing it on the counter.

“Mhm hm.” It was a bad habit of yours to chew on your bottom lip when in thought, but Sakusa found it endearing – even though he would deny such a claim out loud. Removing the notepad from your apron, your eyes darted aimlessly, searching for a writing utensil. You may have been a little too occupied with your pockets, a detail that the male picked up on, as he removed the pen tucked behind your ear.

“Are you sure you are well? If not, you should return home.” He held out the pen, analyzing your visage for any physical sign of illness.

“Woops. Sorry. I forgot it was there! But I promise, I’m fine!” It seemed that everyone was a bit on edge since yesterday, when you may have accidentally forgotten to eat and passed out mid-shift. You appreciated the sentiment, but you were fine. Really.

The curly haired baker refused to begin his demonstration until you consumed some food and water, his dark hues did not waver until each inch of the plate was clean. By the time you were done, Ichika had joined you in the kitchen for the lesson.

“I should have recorded that. I feel like I forgot it already.” Ichika was the youngest person on the team, Atsumu had offered her a job after finding her crying at a bus stop one night. The young girl was the breadwinner of her home, and due to her fathers gambling addiction, she was the only parental figure for her two younger siblings. Atsumu, after learning that her mother had too passed, was unable to turn a blind eye.

“I can show it to you tomorrow. I think I’ve got it.” A reassuring smile was presented towards her as you captured her hands and provided a gentle squeeze. “And then we all have the day off. I think everyone has decided we’re going to the amusement park, so it will be fun.”

“Okay… Thank you, y/n.” Ichika blinked excessively to withhold the tears that were brewing, she could always count on you to provide her with the support she so desperately needed. Sakusa who was simply watching the two interact was on guard with a rag to catch any tears that could possibly fall onto the counter he had just disinfected.

“Please do not cry.” The black-haired boy had almost sounded sincerely concerned for his co-workers emotional state, it was enough to fool Ichika who redirected her affections to him.

“You care about me too? Waa. I’m so loved!” As the tears began to exit her eye sockets, Sakusa jumped forward on instinct, pressing the cloth against her face. Laughter danced past your lips as you shook your head slowly. Jack Rose really attracted the strangest of people.

After your shift ended, instead of returning home to complete your assigned work, you decided to finish your assignment at the café. It was fairly quiet after 11pm, and Kuroo had offered to walk you home after closing up. Recently there were a striking number of assaults occurring in your area, and so you accepted the proposition without any hesitation.

“Welcome to Jack Rose! We are about to close soon, but I think I have enough time to serve you a drink or two. Is that okay with you, kind sir?” The words were conveyed in an anxious tone, as Ichika glanced at the clock plastered on the wall. Upon hearing the ‘kind sir’, both you and Atsumu glanced up from your laptop screens, stifling the laughter that was bubbling inside your throats.

“I won’t be long.” There was something peculiar about his choice of words, prompting your neurons to convey the word danger to your body. Before your mind could catch up with your physical movements, you had lifted from the chair and shuffled closer to where Ichika was stood. From the side of your eye, you saw your childhood friend following close behind, presumably picking up on your apprehension. But before you could utter a response to the mystery guest, the lightbulbs illuminating the bistro had burnt out.

The second darkness had enveloped the space, someone had seized your waist aggressively and a cloth was pressed to your mouth. The more you squirmed, the harsher their touch became – fear gradually paralyzed you. Or perhaps it was the chemical coating the fabric on your lips. Piece by piece your senses began to dull. Whether the person screeching your name was a hallucination or not was unclear…. All you knew was that your intuition was right, but unfortunately a bit too late.

Hume, who pioneered the bundle theory, would state that the human soul is nothing beyond a collection of still-shots and experiences. The self is a loosely connected bundle of perceptions, one that would change overtime. The question that remains is…. who will you be now? Who will you become? Without your memories as a guide, can you win the game that was designed specifically for you…? Or will you lose the never-ending battle? 

Amnesia - Let the Games Begin 

Masterlist - Previous - Next

A/N: and so it begins! also in this I may have erased osamu!? LMAO sorry 

Tag-list: @kara-grayson04 @namyari , @cuddlesslut , @iloveanime691 @shakiraisawesome @idiot-juice-enthusiast @fangirling-25-8 @krynnza @yetchann @chxrry-wxne

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.4

Lance kept the rear view mirror on the two strangers in the back. The shorter one of the two was unfairly hot. Lance might never have had sex, out of fear of losing self control, the fact he was monster, and he didn’t know if he was going to knock some poor stranger up with some half vampire kid, but he knew well enough that the man was edging on his type. Untalkative, the man had his arms crossed, hand clutching the raspberry slushy Pidge had forced upon him. He looked as impressed to be in Lance’s car, as Lance was to have him there.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that you three do that has you out so late at night?”

Lance did mind. Thanks to Pidge these two strangers had been committed to memory for the rest of his undead life

“Man, you don’t want to get Pidge started...”

Hunk was also uneasy. He’d found his way into the bag of chocolate eclairs, the pile of wrappers now more than the chocolates left

“Oh? Pidge?”

“We’re paranormal investigators. You’ve heard all about Garrisons blood past... well, we’re going to be the first to capture it all on film”

Shiro raised an eyebrow, Lance accidentally meeting his eyes in the mirror, quickly averting his gaze back to the road

“Oh, but Lance is a lawyer... He’s the serious one who doesn’t believe in ghosts”

Thanks for that Pidge, now Shiro’s attention was on him

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Yep. Got the fancy piece of paper and everything”

“Wow. What kind of law do you practice?”

“Family”

Yeah, Lance knew his manners were lacking, he didn’t need Pidge kicking the back of his chair like she did

“Ah. That must be tough”

“Some days are worse than others, but it is what it is. What do you two do?”

It was on the tip of Lance’s tongue to mention the photography thing, but being a dumb human meant they didn’t always remember what was said

“That’s right, you said your brother was into photography?”

Aaaaand the attention was back on Pidge

“Yeah, Keith likes to take photos, it’s more a hobby than anything. I’ll save you the details and just say I’m in finance. Not terribly interesting”

Great. A finance guy right next to the registered hacker of the group...

“Sounds boring”

Shiro snorted a laugh. Lance cursing mentally that he now had Keith’s name in his head

“It has its moments. So you guys are into the paranormal? Ever see anything?”

“Not yet. But you never kno-ooow. Watch where you’re driving!”

Turning onto the dirt road that lead to his house, Lance could have probably been gentler on the ditch. Each year the council filled the damn thing up, only for it to all erode away with the first rains of the year

“If you’re not used it by now, you never will be”

“That’s because you can’t drive for shit”

“It sounds to me like you want to walk home in the morning”

“I’ll be good”

Lance’s lips betrayed him with a smile. Pidge would never “good”, her rebellious behaviour was just another thing about her to love

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve told me that a hundred times and I’m still waiting”

“Oh, shut it, dad”

“If I was your dad, you’d be grounded for life”

“That’s fine. People suck anyway”

“With no wifi”

Pidge lunges forward in her chair, an arm coming around him in a hug

“I’ll be good! Please don’t take my wifi away”

“As if I could. You’re the one who set it up”

“Oh, right. Guess I don’t need to be that nice to you then”

Licking his cheek, Lance wrinkled his nose

“You’re so fucking gross”

“You love me”

“That I do. We’re nearly home. Sorry it’s not much, I don’t really have visitors over. And I hope you’re not allergic to cats, Blue likes to shed all over the place”

In the back, Keith scoffed

“What kind of a name is “Blue” for a cat?”

How dare he insult Blue and her perfect little body of complete perfection. Blue was Blue, his number one girl, not a number one emo reject in the backseat of a strangers car because he hadn’t bothered learning basic maintenance

“I don’t know, what kind of name is “Keith” for a mullet”

When Shiro laughed, Lance was certain it was the man’s first real and genuine laugh for the night

“He’s got you there”

“Go fuck yourself”

Pidge laughed as Keith sulked. If he wasn’t good at taking a joke, then he shouldn’t be dishing it out. Not that Lance was one to talk

“Don’t mind him. He gets cranky when he’s sleepy”

The wrinkles between Keith’s eyebrows deepened at his brother’s explanation

“You’re the one who could have just got a hotel room”

“And you’re the one being rude. Lance, and his friends, are doing us a favour”

“Or they’re going to murder us in our sleep”

“Nah, man. That’s too much effort. I’ll make you a deal though, you don’t murder us and we won’t murder you”

Keith seemed even grumpier at Lance’s joke, Lance just anxious to reach his house already. This was terrible idea, a disaster in the making, and the plot of a pretty average b-grade movie. One thing was for sure though, he wasn’t wearing a matching bra and underwear, pretty much guaranteeing he wouldn’t be the first one murdered.

*

Parking by the steps of the porch, the rain started pelting down as Lance cut the ignition. Relieved to finally be home, he could see Blue sleeping on the windowsill of the living room, having decided to ruin yet another set of vertical blinds in her search for the perfect napping spot. Seeing her was what brought the greatest relief, not the warm light filtered between the blinds, and the knowledge his house would be nice and warm with his bed waiting for his tired arse. Opting to leave the equipment in the car for the night, Lance figured he’d collect it once the other’s fell asleep. All Pidge needed was the camera cards, and her laptop, which she was small enough to climb into the trunk for. God. He really didn’t want strangers in his house, judging things, and even worse, touching things. He liked all his things and he liked them where they were. Routine was key to keeping his sanity, and familiarity helped his Mami whenever he brought her home for a visit.

Fleeing from the car, they all managed to get themselves wet despite the short distance. The rain didn’t bother Lance, not when he couldn’t actually catch a cold from prolonged exposure to the cold. It was his guests his had to worry about

“Come on in. Leave your shoes by the door and I’ll grab us all some towels. Shiro, you and Keith probably don’t have a change of clothes with you, so I’ll lend you some robes now. You can chuck your stuff in the machine, then put it in the dryer before heading to bed. Hunk, wanna show them through the kitchen? I know we’ve got snacks, but I would kill for a glass of red”

“You got it, buddy”

The look in Hunk’s eyes seemed to question if he really wanted Shiro and Keith to know where Lance kept his knives. Hunk was too polite to blurt that out, not like Pidge who had no filter

“Out the way losers, I’ve got a date with my princess”

“My princess, is sleeping on the living room window sill. Don’t blame me if you get scratched”

“That’s just her way of telling me how much she loves me”

“Or how much you drive her insane”

“Rude, much. I’ll meet you guys in the kitchen when I’ve got my Blue”

Pidge pushed both her slushies over to Hunk, Hunk seemed nervous about left alone, but mentally rallied as he managed a smile

“The kitchen’s through here”

With three robes and a bundle of towels, Lance returned to the kitchen where Hunk had started stress baking. The signs were obvious, from the flour next to the mixing bowl, to Pidge sitting on the kitchen bench with an unhappy looking Blue held in her lap

“Sorry, some lazy arsehole didn’t sort the linen closest”

It was lie. He simply, really, truly didn’t want to deal with his visitors. Passing Shiro and Keith a robe and a towel each, Lance went on to wrap a towel over Hunk’s shoulders, then throw Pidge’s at her. Catching the towel, she managed to keep Blue contained in her lap, despite Blue’s displeasure

“Let me guess, that means you?”

Lance’s big blue eyes widened, shocked Shiro would make a joke

“Damn, Lance. I think I might just like this one”

“Oh, bite it, Pidge. Yeah. That lazy arsehole’s me. Even if there were more hours in the day, I’d still probably spend them sleeping. Did Hunk offer you guys a coffee?”

“Already on it, man. I’m whipping up some butter cookies to go with the tea”

Lance sighed to himself again, mentally of course because his mother would have smacked his arse had he done it out loud. He didn’t do guests for a reason. The feeding them thing was annoying

“I hope you don’t mind, but can you show us where the bathroom is?”

Right. They were wet. He was wet. He was supposed to be human, which meant sliding his robe on over his clothes, or rather starting too then realising it wouldn’t go on over his jacket. God. He was making an idiot of himself.

With his jacket over his chair, Lance flashed Shiro and Keith a smile

“Yeah, through here. You guys can go ahead and take a shower if you want. I mean, seperate showers, or whatever, no judgment if you’re into that kind of thing. Sorry, I’m not used to visitors. Feel free to use whatever you find in the guest bathroom, most of it’s Hunk and Pidge’s stuff they’ve left here, but there’s fresh soap bars and spare toothbrushes in the second drawer”

Someone needed to shut him up. Stitch his goddamn lips together, then bury him until his embarrassment worse off. Lance’s moves were still as he led his guests from the kitchen to the bathroom

“Here we go. I’ll put you in the spare room down here, and we’ll sleep upstairs. There’s not much down here, just my office which is the end room. Your room will be the next door up, it’s got two twins in there, so plenty of space. Pidge set up a charge pad, because you guys probably didn’t bring your chargers either. If you go all the way the other way in this hall, you’ll reach the laundry. Everything’s out in the open, so help yourself. I know this is awkward as fuck, and probably is for you two, but there’s no saying no to Pidge once she thinks something is a good idea. Oh, yeah, don’t be afraid to take your time, if you get lost, give us a yell”

Shiro thanked him, towing Keith into the bathroom by the arm. Lance not going to question that one. Not at all. Nope. Nooo... God that family had some good genetics though. Under all his brooding pouting, Lance had caught sight of Keith’s eyes... Eyes like two small galaxies had been captured and shoved in there. How they were so damn purple when he was human, Lance didn’t know, but fuck it was unfair.

When the bathroom door closed, Lance headed down to the office. Pidge couldn’t be trusted with electronic locks, leaving him the only option of dead locking the door. His explanation was that the cases he worked on deserved privacy, which his two friends respected. He’d let them in the office once to satisfy their curiosity, Pidge finding the sheer number of books boring. On the outside it appeared a normal office. Bookcases, filing cabinets, his framed diploma, laptop, printer, all those sorts of normal office things. His desk was organised around the clutter, that totally wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t help he had a weakness for quirky stationary. His current favourite pen was decorated with dancing cacti. The small things in life helped him deal with life’s less than pleasant things. Under his desk were the only two anomalies of the room. On the left, instead of drawers, was his wine rack. On the right, behind the drawers, was his fridge. Lance might be the worlds biggest klutz with his glasses on, but he wasn’t stupid enough to leave his blood bags where everyone could see them. Locked behind a heavy iron door, the previous fireplace of the room meant no one paid much attention to the outside protrusion where it once sat. He’d kept the decorative tiles in place, making a feature of it around his desk in order to keep the questions to a minimum. When it came to time leave his current set up, he was going to be devastated.

With precious minutes ticking down, Lance grabbed himself out the blood pack he’d started for the day. He never let himself go hungry, but with two strangers in the house it was better he let himself have a small feed just to keep his nerves in check. Grabbing down a wine glass and the closest bottle of Shiraz, he poured himself a double before pouring in a good double shot of blood. The bag was O+, not his favourite, yet not the worst. He wasn’t one of those blood snobs that only every drank one type. He was grateful for what he could get, and more grateful to the people who donated their blood under their own free will. Naturally they were compensated for their blood and their time, Coran who ran the blood bank in Platt wasn’t a man to be messed with. Lance knew Coran wasn’t human, yet he had no clue what race he was, nor did he have any idea the race of his niece Allura who often helped out. The pair of them were the coordinators for most of Platt city, and the surrounding area, providing safe blood for those not in a coven or forced from a coven due to whatever reason, with in reason... He knew they weren’t human, as neither of them had aged a single day in all the years he’d known them... which was a pretty long time when he stopped to think about it... which he definitely didn’t have time to right now.

Straightening up his office, Lance then headed back to the kitchen. Hunk busy with the cookies he’d just placed in the oven, while Pidge was sipping on her slurpy. Blue knew she wasn’t supposed to be on the kitchen table, yet gave zero fucks, Lance striding over to scoop her up and pepper her with kisses, after placing his glass down carefully

“Who’s daddy’s good girl?”

Blue shot him look that expressed how little she thought of him, done with his craziness and protesting of her less than regal treatment

“Yes, I know. You don’t care, you just want your wet food and the blanket turned back on. It’s such a hard life”

Stooping to let Blue down, she gave him a look of disgust before licking at her fur as if to erase his pats. Picking up his wine glass again, he took another sip, feeling the way the blood coated his mouth as it slid down easily

“Well, that’s done. They’re in the bathroom now, doing whatever. I still can’t believe you volunteered my house”

Pidge shrugged

“I know if it was Matt who was stuck, I’d want someone good to help him out. I promise to pay for anything that gets damaged”

“Damn, girl. How much they pay you for that tour?”

Pidge shrugged again. They both knew she wouldn’t be paying, if she tried Lance wouldn’t let her

“Enough”

Matt was a bit of a tricky topic. He was a firm believer in all things paranormal and supernatural. For all her enthusiasm and research, Matt dwarfed Pidge’s knowledge by a long shot. Apparently when Pidge was younger Matt had got himself in a bit of jam chasing ghosts, since whatever had happened, he’d left to track things all across the world. Pidge missed him fiercely, and was left constantly cranky with her brother at his lack of regular updates

“Speaking of Matt, have you heard from him lately”

Lance was glad Hunk was the one asking, he’d stripped Pidge bare of all her defences, keeping her secrets at the same time as keeping her grounded

“Not for something like 3 months now. Dad said he was in Italy the last time he checked in with him. Mum worries herself sick when she doesn’t hear from him”

“Pidge, if he’s anything like you, then he’s fine. You Holt’s are a touch bunch”

Pidge sighed, Lance sympathising over how hard it could be not to hear from your siblings. There was nothing like the love and hate that came with having a sibling. Half the time you want to murder them in their sleep, but god help anyone else who messed with them. His whole family had changed after he’d been turned, they’d aged while he remained the same. Now he was getting depressed.

Sliding off the counter, Pidge threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug

“I just... really miss him”

“I know you do. I’m sure he misses you, but he’s like you and once he’s off chasing something time looses all meaning”

“Yeah. I mean, I know he is, but sometimes it really...”

“Fucking sucks”

Pidge nodded as Lance finished her sentence for her. She was just a baby, while he was an old man of 44

“Have you messaged him lately?”

“Everyday”

That had to hurt even worse. 120 plus messages left on read

“Until he comes back, you’ll have to be happy with the two of us”

“I mean... if I reeeeeeally have to”

Hunk turned from the oven, enveloping both of them in a bear hug

“Group hug!”

Pidge laughed, faking an attempt at squirming her way out. Hunk laughing too as he lifted them both off their feet for a moment. Lance’s poor wineglass barely surviving the ordeal

“You two are stuck with me”

“Yep. We sure are. And we’re the luckiest people alive”

Well, Pidge was alive. His undead arse sure wasn’t getting any closer to living

“Okay, that’s enough, losers. I’m gonna go set the tapes up. Hopefully we’ll see something good”

“Or not. Not seeing anything is good too. Lance, go make sure she doesn’t edit the video in some way... I’m going to have nightmares tonight as it is”

“I’ve got you, bud. Come on, Gremlin. Let’s go set up your videos”

Lance had nearly let himself forget there were two strangers in his house. He couldn’t actually forget, but he was trying his damn hardest as he let Pidge’s techno-babble wash over him. He’d never met Matt in person, but Pidge’s missing him was bringing up how much he missed his own siblings. Mami would let him know how they’re doing, keeping him in the family loop. It had to be Papi’s funeral when he’s last seen them all. Lance lying through his teeth that he was named after his father, Lance, to pass off his young looks. He missed his papi. His papi had worked hard all his life, a farmer through and through, with every analogy somehow farm related. Especially when it came to his tractor, that was the man’s default go to when explaining anything, or attempting to have a father and son chat. He missed him something fierce, like he missed his siblings. None of them had invited him to his papi’s wake, Lance felt like he shouldn’t even be at the service, but his Mami gripped his hand and kept him close the whole time. She was the only one who wasn’t afraid of him. Lance hated them all for leaving him, but he loved them all because when they were kids things were so much less complicated. Late night bonfires, hunting on the farm, surfing, dancing in the rain. Huge family Christmas’s where it felt like everyone in town showed up. Kids in and out the the house, not like Christmases now days where he’d spend time with his Mami in the morning, taking her to church for mass then out for a drive, blow off his friends, binge bad rom-coms come evening and cook a feast up for Blue.

Smacked in the face with a flying TV remote Lance was forced back out of his self loathing shell. He had a good life, and even better friends. There was nothing wrong with the way he lived, and he had a sense pride in the work he did. Not all cases went his way, but he his head on better than most as far he was concerned

“What the fuck?”

“That’s for tuning out when I was trying to talk to me”

“You hit me in the face”

“Good. I was aiming for you chest, if that help”

Lance rose a finger to poke at his eyebrow where the remote had hit, there didn’t seem to be any blood, so he supposed he could let Pidge off

“You have my undivided attention. What did I miss?”

“I was saying it’s good to go, whenever Hunk gets here”

“You know he’s really going to have nightmares tonight”

“Then he can crawl into bed with you”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Uh, hello. I’m a girl, and Shay’s a girl”

Lance rolled his eyes

“Really? I hadn’t noticed”

“I’m just saying, don’t wanna make things complicated”

“There’s nothing going on between you two. It’s fine, you’ve shared a bed before”

“But not when Hunk was this close to finally getting a girlfriend”

Pidge held her fingers together, rather than the normal tiny gap

“Fine, but he sleeps in your room and you sleep with the light on”

“What are we? Twelve?”

“Awww, did little Pidge sleep with the light on all the way up to 12?”

“Oh, fuck you. You’re only like 2 years older than me. I bet you kept your night light on until you last night”

Pidge’s face said she was thinking over her words, knowing that something didn’t quite sit right in what she’d said, but if he was to point that out, he’d be hit for having the nerve

“Yep. I’m completely hopeless. Who knows what lurks in the dark. What if the monster under my bed attacked my feet because they hung over? What would I do then?”

“You’re such an arsehole”

“Hey, Blue has a stage where my toes were her mortal enemy”

“I’m going to tell Blue you’re going around telling everyone she’s a monster”

“By definition, all cats are arseholes. She knows she’s the cutest little monster that’s too tiny to take me down”

“Dude, she’s got you wrapped around her little finger?”

“Oh, so Lance has a girlfriend?”

Caught up in Pidge, Lance hadn’t heard Shiro approaching. He damp near jumped out of his skin at the unexpected voice

“No, this loser is unlucky in love, like the rest of us”

“Ah...”

Shiro sounded confused, Lance embarrassed

“We’re talking about my cat. She’s a pint sized monster. She’s probably going to be cranky all night because I didn’t give her more wet food”

“Ah, I see now...”

The silence that fell was awkward as fuck... Right. He had to be a good host

“We’re going to watch what Pidge filmed tonight, if you’re up to it. Hunk’s cookies should be done soon...”

“Oh, I was thinking Keith and I might just head to bed. You know, get out of your hair”

“Dude, you have to try Hunk’s cookies. They’re like a gift from god”

Shiro gave a nervous laugh, not everyone got Pidge’s humour, or brashness

“When you put it like that, how can I say no?”

Pidge clapped her hands

“Excellent. Now, the most important thing of all, do you believe in ghosts?”

“I can’t really say one way or another. I do have a friend that’s into that sort of thing”

“Then the next time you talk to them, you’re going to sound like a total expert. Sit down and buckle up, it’s time for an adventure into what lies beyond”

Pidge waved her fingers as her voice adopted a spooky tone for the “what lies beyond” part. Poor Shiro was coping Pidge totally nerding out. At least if she managed to scare him away, Lance wouldn’t have to worry about crossing paths with him, or his brother, ever again. Ugh. Being nice was exhausting.

[danetobelieve]

End Of The Mime || Simon and Winston

Getting sent down to the morgue normally wasn’t so bad, they got to see Cece and Dr Kavanagh. But this time when Winston had left the station their mime had been sat in it’s cell. It was in the same place it had been since Roland had someone put them in there. It had not said anything. Yet there was something about the stillness, the malevolence in the silence, it sent a shiver down Winston’s spine even thinking about it. They didn’t know why but they got the feeling that leaving the station was a mistake. But they couldn’t exactly say no and it was getting late, they’d be going home soon. Walking down the corridors of the morgue, they headed towards Cece’s office, spotting the Janitor they paused to greet them. “Hey, Simon right?” they said tucking the stack of files they were carrying somewhat haphazardly under a single arm and sticking out a hand for the customary handshake, “I’m Winston, I don’t think we’ve properly met, I’m an intern at the station.” 

He wasn’t sure why he was there - Simon supposed he felt the residual filth from helping Dr. Kavanagh recently with her escaped beetle problem and he wasn’t one to simply let things sit, especially if he could make an area look better than when he arrived. The work was tedious but that worked in his favour most of the time and he found himself zoning out slightly when he caught a scent and he glanced up just in time to see a young individual approach him with papers and an extended arm for a handshake. “Er... hi, Winston,” He nodded politely, returning their handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Now he knew where he recognised the scent - he remembered faint traces of it when he’d walk through the station for one reason or another. Now he knew who it belonged to; that would make it easier for him in the long run, he thought. “What brings you to the morgue this fine… evening? Afternoon?” He glanced down at his wrist as if there was a watch there - there wasn’t. Right. “I lost track of time.” He shook his head. “Anyway, what brings you here?”

Raising an eyebrow gently Winston was pleased to find that they weren’t the only person who was slightly awkward, they weren’t sure that would contribute for the most conducive conversation however, but they were nothing if not persistent. “I think we actually met at Kaden’s birthday party, very briefly though, you were doing shots with the rest of the gang from the station…?” it was a tenuous link and Winston had drunk a lot that evening, their memory might not be what it once was of that evening. “I have some files and samples for Cece and Dr Kavanagh.” They shifted their load of files and samples to both hands and gestured at it with their chin to indicate that they actually had something with them, as if that weren’t obvious given the haphazard state it was in. “I think it’s stuff that came in a bit later today and they wanted them to have them for whenever they were able to work their way through them.” Normally they just let themselves into the offices and dropped them there, but this was a nice change of pace. Simon blinked stupidly for a moment; they met at Kaden’s party? He was sure Winston wasn’t lying but he had met so many people that night and most of them WERE drunk enough that the faces and smells blurred together. He must’ve accidentally prioritized his memories of that awkward night incorrectly. “Ah, sorry,” He apologised with a nervous chuckle. “I totally forgot about… well, most of what happened that night.” He glanced down at the papers as Winston explained their reason for being there. “Well, that’s kind of you,” He replied, his smile going from nervous to gentle. “Could you use my assistance in any way?” He asked. “I can hold a door open or something.”

“Don’t worry, I had a lot to drink too, most of that night is a blur, not that that is a bad thing, I am not the biggest fan of mimes if I’m being truthful.” Winston hated the town’s weird obsession and the fact that there was obviously some supernatural involvement at foot. Raising an eyebrow, Winston smiled gratefully at Simon. “Thanks that would actually be really helpful, trying to open doors with the toes of my converse is harder than it looks.” They wiggled the end of their left foot as if to illustrate. “I’ve got to go to Cece’s office first, most of this stuff is for her but I’ll double check there’s nothing for Dr Kavanagh.” Winston headed off, they knew that Simon must know the way too and there was no point waiting. Indeed, Simon had become very familiar with the layout of the morgue over the past couple weeks, making sure to absorb every detail he could and cleaning locations he didn’t think he would have had to. He followed Winston as the latter led the way to Bishop’s office after setting his mop aside, trying to remember when he specifically met Winston at the party but getting caught up with the ‘mime’ comment. “I’m not, either,” He agreed. “Before I came here, I had a respect for the art itself but the mimes here are just… I don’t know but there’s something off about them.” He tried to explain, though not very well. “Either way, that party was a little awkward. I don’t think Kaden liked it.” He recalled both Kaden’s evident displeasure and Regan’s comments that seemed to support his line of thought.

“Honestly, before now I never really gave mimes much thought. They weren’t really anything I ever particularly had cause to consider until now.” Winston wasn’t pleased with their continued exposure to the mimes either. “But yeah, that party was not my favourite thing that I’ve ever been to and I do not think that I would ever bother going back. It wasn’t exactly something that I enjoyed.” They had never thought that anyone would be able to make mimes behave in that way. Heading down the hallway, Winston turned and nodded towards Cece’s office. “If you wouldn’t mind doing the honours,” they said with a smile, “then hopefully we can get out of here.” The small talk benefited them and it didn’t take long at all for the duo to reach Cece’s office wherein Simon gave a small nod and turned the knob, pulling it open and holding it much like a guard, playfully stiff and straight-backed. “After you, my good person.” He said in a much more exaggeratedly British accent. “I shall remain here until your quest is complete.” He wasn’t even sure why he was being so cordial - maybe he was just in a good mood or he felt more comfortable in the morgue given his past profession. It helped that it was just him and Winston. Maybe the moon had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, he felt as though he should’ve apologised to the other for his goofiness but… naaah. 

Slipping into the office, Winston flashed Simon a bright smile and set a large portion of the files down onto Cece’s desk, quickly sifting through them, they rearranged everything neatly and scribbled a quick note for when she returned to work the next day. “I’ve just got to put these in Doctor Kavanagh’s office and we should be good to go,” Winston slipped away for a moment, placing the few files that the coroner would need for the next’s days work on her desk in a neat pile with a much neater note. They were just about convinced that they were done for the day and were headed out into the hall when they spotted it. Black and white stripes, a dark beret, even the mime’s glasses had stripes and worst of all it looked exactly like Winston. “Oh, fuck.” They practically shouted the phrase, their surprise so great, but the mime didn’t say a word, turning silently and making eye contact with Winston and grinning the widest smile it possibly could. Simon was patient though his gaze followed his temporary companion as the latter set the papers down on their respective desks. This was a nice, easy-- Then he heard Winston curse and he peered out from around the door he was holding open and before him was… Winston. But it wasn’t. It LOOKED like Winston but… mime-fied. How did it get in? How had he not heard it? And why was it smiling? “Uhhhh Winston?” He asked, confusion evident in his soft tone. “Whhho is that?” He released his grip on the door, letting it swing shut as he edged closer to the intern, keeping his eyes on whatever that was on the other side of the hall.

Simon was between Winston and this mime. That meant that if the mime stayed true to form then it was possible that it would probably try and kill Simon before doing the same thing to Winston. “I don’t actually know who or what that thing is, all I can tell you is that it is a murderous mime clone of me and it seems fairly hell bent on trying to kill me.” They looked from the mime to Simon and then back to the mime who seemed to be miming the sharpening of a knife? Weird. Winston hated every second of this. “Either way, they’re not a nice mime, so if you could get away from it just a little quicker this would be great.” Please don’t use magic until Simon was safely with Winston. Please don’t use magic. How quickly the environment could shift from casual to tense as Simon indeed found himself between Winston the friendly intern and Winston the intimidating mime and he wasn’t sure he liked this turn of events. This was bad; intuition told him that if this mime was anything like the ones he had encountered already, it probably had whatever was pumping through Winston’s blood, whether human or something else. “Don’t gotta tell me twice, kid,” the older man quickened his pace as he found himself backing up but it didn’t seem to be quite fast enough as the mime suddenly made a motion that looked like a lunge and swung an arm like pitching a ball and a ball it was - a ball of FIRE that quickly seemed to spiral like a curved baseball before smacking into the wall next to Simon. The latter yelped instinctively and jumped like a cat seeing a cucumber and like the coward he was, scrambled around and subsequently behind Winston. “You guys know magic?” He asked, having this be the first time the possibility was presented to him in his reality.

They used magic. Of course mime Winston had decided that now was the time to show their hand. At least this time Winston was ready for the fireball that they hurled in Winston’s new friends direction. They took a breath as they saw the inferno flicker to life in their mime copies fingers, the bright orange flames licking it’s fingers before it wound it’s arm back and hurled it through the still air of the morgue. Winston accessed the chaos, the energy, the writhing void in their stomach that they felt when they reached for magic. The energy surged through them as they forced a small barrier in front of Winston. The fireball ricocheted off into the wall, leaving a dark scorch mark on the white paint. “Yeah, I don’t exactly go around telling people,” Winston replied as they felt the energy from their exertion drain from their body, but they were ready for that, they’d come prepared. They literally didn’t have the stamina to take themselves but neither did their mime, so they had come prepared. “Listen, I can’t beat this on my own, can you help me?” they stepped forward and used the barrier to bat another ball of fire away. It took a few seconds but Simon always had the ability to act and react quickly and he glanced around for a weapon. His first thought was his handy-dandy mop buuut that was on the other side of the hall so he glanced at his hands, the hands that turned into sharp claws when he was desperately afraid or-- well, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t known them to appear otherwise yet so maybe that was the only emotion that called them. He’d have said he was scared at that moment but somehow, knowing that Winston could perform magic and he was proficient at running away since he knew the entire layout of the morgue, he supposed he wasn’t that scared. It might’ve also had to do with the time of lunar cycle… He shook his head. “Yeah of course, what do you need me to do?” He asked, ready to do whatever was asked of him.

As the mime kept eye contact with Winston and seemed to be preparing another explosion of magic that would go in their direction, Winston scrabbled through their backpack. For months they had been working on this. Pulling out a small metallic disk, it was maybe five inches wide with a slight ridge which had wires tightly wrapped around it. The theory behind it, a careful blend of technology, alchemy and enchanting. This had been their project for months now. They had designed it from scratch, hand engraved the various runes, spent hours enchanting everything and they’d even designed the power source by hand. It was ingenious really, a small gyroscopic system that had self maintaining motion which powered itself. Tossing the disk to Simon, Winston heard it clatter to the floor but they weren’t worried, they’d designed it to take some serious hits. “Press the button please and then maybe stand back.” Winston watched as the mime allowed a wave of magical force to erupt in Winston’s direction but they used their magic to quell it, feeling sweat pour down their face as they exerted their effort here. Tried as Simon might’ve to catch the disc, he fumbled with it last second and winced as it hit the floor. He hastily swiped it up as though he did that on purpose and examined it curiously as Winston described what to do with it; he was thankful for the instruction ‘cuz he ain’t never seen a frisbee like that before. It… wasn’t a frisbee, his wires were just crossing inappropriately again. Probably because he was lowkey worried about this fight and how much of a pain it would be to clean up. “Button, got it.” He announced and carefully but firmly pressed the button with a spidery finger. Speaking of spiders, when he pressed the button, out started to unwind four spider-like mechanical limbs from the disk and he mixed dropping and placing it to the ground, indeed taking a step back as the spider-disc fell to the floor and started to zip forward. “Whoa, what’s that do?” He found himself asking as the little mechanical creature advanced to the mime.

Hearing the whir that denoted the small bot turning on, Winston couldn’t help but feel a thrill that they had actually started and appeared to be working for the most part. It was weird, Winston could almost feel it as it scuttled along the tiled floors of the morgue. It zipped away from Simon. “Thanks dude,” Winston said as the mime seemed to completely miss Winston and pulled back another fire ball hurling it at Winston violently. They barely managed to get a shield up in the way, and when they did the fire crushed through it forcefully, it enveloped Winston and knocked them back gasping for air, they lay there, practically on top of Simon’s feet, hoping and praying that they would have done their job well enough. “Ugh, I really am not good at this magic shit.” They grunted as they tried to get back up, but collapsed under their own exhaustion. Simon instinctively crouched over Winston as the latter fell at his feet as if he could protect them from any further damage. He would’ve made a light, sarcastic comment about how a magician wasn’t very good at magic but he was certainly not one to talk in an ‘I can do magic’ sense OR an ‘I can control my own stuff’ sense so he settled with a “Hey, you did a great job!” Unfortunately for either of them, the mime wasn’t ready to give up despite how tired it was becoming and it seemed to forgo using magic - if it was anything like Winston, it was probably close to its limit on magic, too - and decided to pull out a… knife. Okay, old fashioned but okay and it started to rush the two. Simon noted where the spider was and decided to clash with the mime head-on, only just now feeling his nails elongate slightly as he found himself in actual danger this time. He was scared but more than that - he was fired up, actually feeling like he might’ve been helping someone else this time. The two rammed into each other and though Simon twisted his torso around at the last second to avoid the first stab wound, the mime swung broadly and sliced into his arm. The smell of blood was quick to find Simon and that just seemed to make him feel… stronger. It was hard to explain. Sharp claws reacted by grabbing and sinking into the mime’s arm that held the knife, extending his arm as far out as it would go to create space. His other hand on the mime’s parallel shoulder to keep them from getting too close to each other, he noticed that the mime’s other hand was drawing back for what he presumed was one more magic attack. “Nnn dammit,” He cursed.

Delirious with exhaustion, Winston swallowed back a mouthful of blood that had filled their mouth when they hit the floor of the morgue. They watched as Simon rushed to protect them. They would’ve uttered some complaint, some reason for Simon to stay out of it so that someone else didn’t get hurt trying to help Winston, but they were too slow and they were grappling. Winston saw the knife flash, they saw magic gathering in their own hand, although it was the gloved hand of a mime. Swallowing once more, they used the last of their magic to drive the spider onwards. It scuttled up the wall, pausing in wait for Simon and mime-Winston to come close enough and then as the mime prepared to hurl more magic Simon’s way. The spider detached from the wall, it’s four wire legs proving that it wasn’t really a spider, but the legs enveloped the chest of the mime. It did its job, positioning itself on Mime-Winston’s back, placing the contact pad over where the heart was and emitting a powerful electric pulse. Fortunately it wasn’t touching Simon otherwise Winston would’ve probably killed their new janitor friend. Mime Winston looked shocked, silently raised a hand to their lips before dissolving into a black and white cloud of smoke. Winston watched the bot clatter to the ground, wire legs without any power as it smoked there and Winston did their best not to pass the fuck out. One moment, Simon was in a locked position with the mime, ready to take a fireball to the face and the next, it all but disappeared, dissolved into a cloud of black and white. Simon fell forward and caught himself lightly as the spider clacked onto the floor after shocking the hell out of the mime. The older man let out a heavy exhale but didn’t let himself remain there longer than a few seconds before he turned and scrabbled over to where he’d left Winston. “Hey hey hey,” He said with an even tone, his breathing betraying his otherwise mild temperament. Without really thinking, he placed his hands under Winston’s back and the knees of their legs respectively and picked them up gently. “You alright? Stay with me, I’ll take you to the doctor, okay?” He asked, turning on a heel and stooping just long enough to swipe up the little machine in a fluid motion as he walked with a purpose in his stride. “You did really good,” He said with a smile. “That little spider is incredible. YOU were incredible.”

[musicanddancingthroughlife]

Langst/Klance -- Pierrot

Okay guys, I know I forgot to upload something last week but this is like. My longest chapter yet, I guess. It is Klance, which I haven’t written in a while, and it’s probably super rough cause I hate myself and won’t go back and edit, but hey, have. Other than that, I hate myself and that sums up a lot of aspects of my life right now.

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“Hunk? Hunk, where’d you go? All right, so Coran isn’t as good of a cook as you are, but I think by now we should be used to that, there’s no need to run from it.”

              Lance stopped short when he heard loud sobs and that too quick breathing that signaled Hunk’s anxiety attacks. Lance didn’t hesitate, though. “Hey, Hunk? Can I touch you, buddy?” His friend shifted under his mess of blankets, shivering and shaking. Lance swept him up into a hug, holding close for a few minutes before he grasped one of Hunks’ larger hands in one of his own. He settled their joined hands on Lance’s chest, Hunk instantly using lance’s heartbeat to steady his gasping breath.

              It took several minutes, but Lance sat patiently, whispering reassurance and comfort in both English and Spanish. Once he was sure Hunk was calmed down, he pulled back into a tight hug, letting Hunk weep into his neck, uncaring of how the tears were dampening his clothes and making him uncomfortable. “Wanna talk?” Hunk nodded, but it was still a while before he said anything. And when he did, Lance felt his heart stop.

              “Lance, what am I doing here? I’m not a pilot like you guys; I don’t even like flying. How can I save the universe if I can’t even do basic flight exercises like today’s?” And with that, he burst into a fresh wave of tears.

              Lance contented himself with rubbing Hunk’s back, letting him cry out his insecurities and frustration, but he didn’t let that stop him from trying to assuage those fears. “Come on, man, you’re one of the two smartest people on our team! 50% of our brain power! Maybe something like 33% if we’re really gonna count Coran, but let’s also keep in mind that you’re the reason we’re not dying of starvation or too much exposure to goo, so at the very least, you deserve more credit than that. And you’ve come so far! Yellow is lucky to have you as her pilot! And you’ve got some of the top skills in the training rooms, don’t you? You’re just behind Shiro and Keith!

              “And come on, it’s not like you’re the only making mistakes! Remember last week when I accidentally used those weird pellet gun things and shot Shiro in the ass? And what about when I was racing Keith and wound up making both of us crash into the ground? Was that stupid, or what?” Lance belted out a laugh, cringing inwardly when it sounded just a little too loud, but thankfully Hunk didn’t seem to notice. He just let out a weak giggle, but Lance could see that there were still tears in his eyes. That was fine. He had plenty of stories to entertain Hunk with.

              Keith was annoyed. Why was he always the one having to track down Lance when he wandered off? It’s not like Keith was his keeper or anything. Hell, he didn’t even like Lance!

              …Okay, maybe that was a lie, because what wasn’t to like? Honestly, Keith was just as infatuated as he was irritated, even at that moment, which was impressive because at that moment, Keith felt more horrified at what he was hearing. First, the very idea that Hunk was doubting his worth on the team, was ridiculous, and he wished that he knew what to say in order to make him feel better, but at least Lance was handling that okay. Keith just wished it wasn’t at Lance’s own expense.

              At first, he was just surprised at hearing Lance recount those stories, stories which made Lance look like an idiot who can’t do anything right. He was pleased to hear that Hunk was seeming to cheer up, but he also knew that Lance’s laughter wasn’t completely honest. There was a tinge of pain to it. Lance normally tried to avoid reminders of those moments, and here he was, voluntarily sharing them, just to help a friend.

              More laughter spilled from the room, and Keith bit his lip. Lance’s laughter was sounding more and more broken as he continued sharing stories. Thankfully he had begun reminding Hunk of all the good he had done, both before and after Voltron, but the tears in Lance’s voice were starting to hurt him. Thankfully, it was really only a couple minutes later when Hunk and Lance stepped out of Hunk’s room, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. Keith felt a pang in his chest.

              “Keith!” Hunk’s eyes were rimmed with red, but the beaming smile he gave Keith told him that Lance had succeeded in making his friend feel better. “Did you need something?”

              “Coran and Allura wanted me to tell you guys that we’re ready to have dinner, if you want to join us.” His eyes drifted over to Lance, and found himself amazed by how Lance was able to mask the pain in his eyes. Sure, Keith could still tell, because he was actively looking for it, but no one else would have any idea. How did he do that? Why would he do that?

              Hunk quickly ducked under Lance’s arm to clasp a large hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Well, let’s get to it, man, I’m starving!” And Hunk began to drag Keith away, leaving Lance behind to follow. Keith glanced back, but when he did, he just saw Lance flash a wide grin at him, and then Hunk was pulling him around a corner.

              The next time he saw Lance was a few minutes after he and Hunk had seated themselves, when he quietly slipped into the dining hall. He was just a little too quiet while they ate, but nobody else seemed to notice, and that’s when Keith resolved to keep a closer eye on his sharpshooter.

                “Lance! You’re not nearly fast enough!” Lance’s concentration broken, Pidge managed to catch his foot with her katar. Startled at the unexpected catch, she accidentally shocked him, and Lance yelped in pain, crashing to the ground.

              “Oh my god, Lance, I am so sorry!” Pidge started to rush over, but Allura stopped her before she could.

              “Lance!” she snapped impatiently, “get up, now, and try again!” Lance was amazed. She wanted him to what? He just got shocked with who knows how much electricity! Hunk and Keith stared in shock, first looking at Allura in disbelief, then at Lance, still on the ground, trying to breathe through the pain coursing through him, and finally at Shiro, begging him to do something. He stepped forward.

              “Allura, come on, we’ve all been training for hours. We’re exhausted.”

              “You guys are fine. Go get some rest. Lance still has a lot of work he needs to do, and he’s never going to improve if he doesn’t stop wasting our time!” These last words were focused on Lance, who squeezed his eyes shut, shooting hand rhythmically flexing and relaxing. He felt a stab of shame in his chest. Of course, she was right. He was the weak link. He was behind everybody else in hand-to-hand, hell, even Pidge just took him down! They were never going to get anywhere with him being such a baby about training.

              “Allura—” Shiro began, but Lance cut him off.

              “No, she’s right.” Lance shakily got to his feet, small gasps and grunts escaping him as he forced his wobbly legs to support his weight. “I can do better, just let me go again.”

              Shiro looked less than impressed. “Lance, you can barely stand. Let’s just call it a day and we can hit it hard in the morning.” And hell, Lance wanted nothing more than to be able to take a break. He wasn’t positive how long they had been going so far, but he knew it was at least a couple of hours – usually they train hand-to-hand for two, taking turn so everyone could rest, and so that they could each practice with varying styles and techniques. Then they would take an extra hour in the shooting range, and then move on to team building exercises before finishing for the day. Briefly, he wondered how long Allura wanted him to continue practicing.

              “There, you see? He gets it, at least.” Oh, he got it all right. He was a failure, as usual, and he needed to work harder to catch up, to not bring his friends down. People could die if he wasn’t good enough. Lance gritted his teeth, preparing himself to go again. “Come on, Pidge, I won’t make it as easy on you this time.”

              “Actually, I believe Coran needed both Pidge and Hunk for a project today, so if you two would go get showered and then meet with him, that would be fantastic.” Allura’s face was set, decisive. Pidge and Hunk were done for the day. Lance blinked.

              “Okay… Shiro, will you run through it with me again? I know I can get it.” He really didn’t, but he wasn’t going to stop until he did, so it wasn’t like he had any other choice.

              “Lance, I need Shiro so we can plan our next course of action. Got that, Shiro?” Her voice was hard and unforgiving, but still, Shiro hesitated, looking back at Lance almost questioningly. Lance shook his head. “It’s fine, Shiro, I’m sure Keith will help me?” Keith stepped forward, but Allura spoke up again.

              “Honestly, Lance! Keith spends too much time training as is. You are the only one who needs the extra practice, stop trying to guilt the others into staying behind to help you. Keith, I don’t want to see you anywhere near the training room until tomorrow, when we are in fact scheduled to train.” The look in her eyes dared Keith to argue, and Lance knew him well enough to know that he needed to step in.

              “Don’t worry, Princess, I can do it on my own. More fun to have company, but you’re right. Keith deserves a break.” Lance couldn’t look them in the eye. Not only was he going to struggle with the training itself, but now he was going to be isolated from his friends for who knows how long. What a day.

                Keith clenched his fists, anger rushing through him. Lance was trying just as hard as any of them! In fact, he was trying harder than most of them! This was ridiculous, and he had no idea why Allura was acting the way she was. Like Lance needed a punishment or something! But with Lance agreeing with her, Keith couldn’t see how he could stay behind to help him with the combination.

              “Lance, if you need to see the combo again – though you really shouldn’t, seeing as Shiro and Keith demonstrated it numerous times for you and you would have it if you had been paying attention – you can recall it on the databases here in the training room. You will practice until you get the combo, and until either Shiro or myself can confirm that you know it.” And without another word, she swept out of the room, calling to the other paladins on her way out.

              Slowly, hesitantly, Pidge and Hunk wished Lance good luck, before they left to find Coran. Shiro look sympathetic, but ultimately, there wasn’t much they could do. Especially where Lance was willing to just put in the extra time. Already, he was gulping down some water, shuffling and shifting to allow his feet to find the beginning stance. Keith wanted nothing more than to stay behind, to offer some help or advice or dammit, even just some company! Lance needed people, and to cut him off from everyone like this was unnecessarily cruel. But before he could even offer any encouraging words, Lance was moving his way through the combination, slowly mapping out each step. Keith sighed, but then he followed the rest of their friends out of the training room.

              Hopefully Lance would be okay.

              Of course, none of them saw Lance again until way after dinner. The other paladins had long since headed to bed, but Keith had been unable to sleep and was in the middle of debating whether it was safe to go to the training room or not when Lance came stumbling out of it. Trailing behind Allura, he looked beaten and exhausted. His hair and clothes were soaked through with sweat and Keith suspected he was favoring his leg. Meanwhile Allura looked smug, pleased with the knowledge that her slowest paladin was improving, that they were that much closer to defeating Zarkon. Lance slowly shuffled towards the kitchen, but Allura stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

              “What are you doing?” she questioned.

              Lance frowned. “I haven’t eaten yet…”

              “It’s far too late to be making another mess in the kitchen,” she looked at him disapprovingly, and Keith felt anger rising to the surface. “It’d be best if you slept instead. Eat in the morning.” Keith gaped at her, but he was unnoticed by the two of them. Really, that just meant that once Allura had turned Lance towards the direction of their bedrooms, Keith was in the perfect position to see the pained resignation cross Lance’s face.

              Before he even realized it, Keith had retrieved some light food from the kitchen and was knocking on Lance’s door. He left the foot on the floor, where Lance would hopefully see it, and then scurried around the corner as quickly and quietly as he could. He heard the door open, there was a few seconds of silence and then some rustling before the door shut again. When Keith peeked around the corner, the food was gone.

                Only a couple days later, and Keith was again frustrated about Lance. It looked like he still hadn’t recovered fully from that long night in the training room, and he couldn’t understand why. Shiro had been really careful in making sure that nothing like that happened again, but that didn’t stop Allura from pushing Lance’s limits as hard as she could get away with when Shiro wasn’t looking. But despite this, Lance still looked so tired all the time.

              That night, at dinner, Keith kept a close eye on Lance. He seemed normal, though tired, and it wasn’t until after dinner that he realized Lance wasn’t retiring to his room like most of the rest of the paladins were. Instead, he headed to the training room. Keith camped out outside, bored out of his mind, but more determined to find out if Lance was really okay or not. Lance logged a good three hours before he finally came out of the locker room exit. He was breathing heavily, gasping for air, and muscles loose and trembling, but otherwise seemed unharmed. Keith forced himself to relax as he followed Lance down the hallway from a distance. Lance gulped down a water pouch, and then set off to the Lion Hangar, where Pidge was still absorbed in her latest project.

              “Pidge.” It was quiet, and the reaction was slight, but Keith still recognized how Pidge flinched and her shoulders shot up to her ears. “When are you going to go to bed?”

              “None of your business!” Pidge spat, and Keith was more than surprised at the venom in the girl’s voice. Lance only sighed.

              “Pidge. You need to sleep. Please.” Was this why he was so tired? He was trying to make sure Pidge was getting to bed? Keith looked at Pidge critically. If that was the case, he really wasn’t doing a good job. But, he realized with a pang, that wasn’t his fault. No one else was trying to get Pidge to sleep at all, and it was obvious she desperately needed the rest.

              “Fuck off, Lance, I don’t need a babysitter.” Lance flinched, but refused to back down. “Come on, just one night. You haven’t slept more than a couple of hours in who knows how many days.”

              Pidge narrowed her eyes. “Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

              “I’m worried about you.”

              “Well no one else is and the only people who really care are who knows where and I’m trying to find them, so leave me alone.”

              There were a few moments of silence where Keith wondered if he should intervene. Before he could, Lance spoke up again. “I know you have nightmares, Pidge.” Pidge froze. “Come on, did you really think I wouldn’t notice, kid? You’re pushing yourself too far. Keep it up and you won’t control when you collapse from exhaustion. You’ve gotta sleep at some point. At least this way, you’ll have more control over when and how.”

              Pidge shook her head, but even Keith could tell that her eyes were glazing with tears. “Pidge, come on. I’ll stay with you. You don’t have to worry about nightmares. I chase nightmares for my siblings all the time.” Lance’s hands fisted briefly, then relaxed again. Pidge looked up at Lance pleadingly. “Would you really stay?” she asked hesitantly.

              Lance bent down without another word, scooping her up into his arms. “Of course I will. If Matt can’t be here to do it for you, then I’ll gladly fill in for him until he can, don’t worry.”

              When Keith saw them the next morning, Lance looked even more exhausted than before, but Pidge was obviously more relaxed and clearheaded.

              Everyone expressed their joy at Pidge getting rest, and they praised her for finally taking some time to herself.

              She didn’t mention a single word about how Lance basically had to force her to finally get some sleep, or that he was the whole reason she felt comfortable for doing so in the first place.

              And no one else seemed to notice how Lance was so tired he could barely keep a handle on his emotions during training that day.

                In fact, Keith suspects it was because of that loose grip on his emotions that the disaster that was training really occurred.

              “Lance, come on, really try here! Everyone else is working so hard, and they’re doing great, just try a little harder for us! We’re a team, and we can’t be that if we have to drag you along on missions.”

              Keith knew, okay, he knew that Shiro was under a lot of stress. He was still young, only a little older than them, and he’d suffered a lot of trauma that no one should ever have to go through. But, really? Lance was so tired, and he was trying so hard, and he was doing so much for all of them. He didn’t deserve this.

              Lance, though, merely looked up at Shiro from where he was laying on the floor, eyes bleary and unfocused. Shiro clenched his jaw, visibly willing himself to dredge up some of that incredible patience he’s always preaching at Keith about. “Lance, if you won’t take this seriously, then we have no reason to keep you on as a paladin. I’ve been trying to defend you from Allura, but honestly? She’s right. You need to work harder and take this more seriously, and if you can’t even do that then I don’t know why you’re bothering to stick around.”

              Keith glanced around for help from Pidge and Hunk, but they were far on the other side of the training room, and hadn’t noticed what was happening yet. Keith slowly stepped forward. “Shiro, maybe we should…” Shiro barely glanced at him when he walked past, all but racing out of the training room, leaving Lance an overtired and emotional mess on the floor. At first, they both just sat there in silence, but then Lance visibly steeled himself, taking a deep breath and choking back tears. And when he finally staggered to his feet, wiping his eyes clear of any moisture, Keith felt like his heart might break.

              “He’s right, it’s fine. I’m going to go take a breather, and I’ll come back to try again after dinner, I think. I need to get this right.” For a moment, Keith couldn’t breathe, his heart and soul ached so much for this sad, lost boy in front of him, but before he could gather his thoughts enough to speak, Lance had taken off.

              He didn’t see him again until very late in the night, or early in the morning, depending on your perspective. Keith had been heading to the kitchen to get a water pouch, but instead barely managed to stop himself from walking into Shiro having a panic attack. Keith was more surprised by that than by the fact Lance was talking him down from it. He had Shiro’s hand clutched against his own chest, helping him to time his breaths, and he was gently chattering away about his family, joking with Shiro as if it wasn’t a one-sided conversation during which the other participant was having a full-scale attack. It was impressive, but when you looked closely, it wasn’t hard to see that Lance’s hands were trembling, and there were tears in his eyes.

              Some time later, it was evident that Shiro was too tired to notice any of those things, as he instead broke down into tears once he’d calmed down enough. Lance stayed with him the entire time, and Keith kept a silent vigil over his friend. The two of them didn’t retire until the day castle had begun shifting into its day cycle. And if anyone else noticed that Lance was starting to look a little less vibrant, a little less happy, a little less excited about life, they didn’t say anything. Lance appeared to wish to just brush it off, and Keith was content to bide his time.

                But that wasn’t going to last too long.

                “I don’t know how to help you, okay!” The quiet that followed that outburst was just as loud. Keith couldn’t bear it. Lance should never look this depressed, this dejected. “Lance.”

              There was silence, Lance refused to glance up and acknowledge Keith, so he tried again.

              “Lance. Please. Look at me.” Another few seconds of silence before Lance shook his head weakly. Feeling the pain in his chest tighten, Keith tried again. He had a vision of Lance comforting and coaching Hunk through a panic attack, Lance running himself ragged training for Allura’s peace of mind, Lance’s willingness to sacrifice his own sleep to ensure Pidge slept, the trust and faith he placed in Shiro, despite consistently feeling that Shiro didn’t even like him, forget about trusting him.

              “Just.  Please. I just want you to be honest. Be you. Please, just be selfish for a few minutes. I promise, I’ll still be here. I don’t… I don’t need you to be anything but yourself. Please.” Still silence. “You’ve done so much for all of us, and I need you to know that even if you didn’t stretch yourself so thin for all of us, we would all still love you. We would still value you. You’re our friend. None of us knew what we were getting into, but we do all know that none of us would be here without you. We wouldn’t have even found Blue, we would’ve give up, I don’t know what exactly, I just know that we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, and that we can’t do this without you!” Keith’s voice went soft, and Lance stood frozen, looking back at Keith with a shocked expression. “I can’t do this without you, Lance, and I can’t stand to watch you push yourself so hard and get no credit or appreciation or even a thank you. You’re worth more than that to me, and I know you’re worth more than that to the others, too.”

              Lance’s lower lip trembled. “I can’t not help them, Keith.”

              Keith stepped forward, placed gentle hands on Lance’s shoulders, carefully pulled him into a hug. “I know, Lance, I know,” This close, he knew to keep his voice quiet, murmuring directly into Lance’s ear. “I love you for that, but you can’t push too hard too fast. You deserve better, and we want more than that for you. I promise. Just talk to us, we can be there for you, just like you’re there for us. I’ll be there for you, if you’ll let me.” Keith felt his face flush, but he forced himself to stay put. Lance needed him more, right then.

              They stood there for several minutes, no sound save for Lance’s quiet sobs and Keith’s hushed reassurances and promises.

              “I’ll try.”