#its okay king solar will comfort you

[socksandbuttons]

Socks... Socks... I have passed the point of not being OK. My bbg candy corn male wife...

-🥭

The male wife.... im so sorry mango

[dracotheocracy]

okay ive gotten my few days to think let's talk about LANCER!!!! i'm obsessed with its setting so every sci-fi OC i've made in the past year or so has ended up spawning in the lancer universe even if they're not really a pilot as their main thing. and i think there's somewhere between 20 and 30 of them in total by this point and they're all connected to each other somehow but let's just focus on a few of them

as i mentioned i love tricksters plotters and schemers and while not all of my characters are tricksters plotters and schemers today we will discuss some of the ones that are. in some universe all 4 of these goobers know each other and can occasionally be found hanging out together or perhaps even conspiring:

first up is isabel jin, a prolific digital forger and self-described businesswoman who runs what's best summarized as an "alias daycare", effectively a giant network of front companies created to legitimize fake ids of all sorts and keep them active even when their creators/owners aren't using them. aliases under her care are practically bulletproof against background checks. she can forge new identities too, obviously, but if you go to her for a new identity why would you settle for a forgery when she's richer than god and perfectly willing to buy you a legally recognized one (for the right price of your own)? she walks, talks, and lives life with all of the gravitas and swagger of the trillionaire she probably is, and to some extent her solar system's economy is dependent on her not spending too much money in one place because with how much of the local currency she's sitting on she could devalue it more if she did. (un)fortunately she's very weak to a pretty voice (voice, not face. that's important.) and will do just about anything if a beautiful set of pipes tells her to

next we have serenity graves, one of the beautiful sets of pipes in question. serenity is short, sweet, and a completely different person behind closed doors. like a super goth dolly parton. maybe idk what dolly parton is like behind closed doors. which is part of the point, actually, because they are in fact a moderately famous musician and nobody draws a harder line between their public and private life than they do. publicly she's a touch eccentric and leans very hard into a "goth rebel dream girl (but hyperfeminine)" type persona. cool and mysterious and avoidant in a way that would totally attract all the scott pilgrims and "i can fix her" guys of the world if not for the fact nobody knows shit about what's going on in her life the second she steps off stage and/or camera. behind closed doors they're a little prissy and very down-to-business, in fact quite confrontational and rather the opposite of the persona they put on display in some respects. she's still a goth, but a completely different sub-variety of goth. they also happen to moonlight as a gun for hire specializing in corporate espionage and occasionally real black ops shit

third in our lineup is kayode legua, the first person for whom the fact they're a pilot is actually a little bit relevant! kayode is an accomplished lawyer who, some decades ago, successfully argued on several technicalities that squatter's rights can be applied to mechanized chassis, a court case that conveniently happened to secure him an abandoned HORUS minotaur that they have since turned into their very large (on the inside) and comfortable yet obscenely well-defended house. he's the legal king of doing things just because he can and the mech squatting case is only their second biggest claim to fame. their first biggest claim to fame is their proclivity for taking on unwinnable cases run by kangaroo courts in diasporan worlds and using their own bullshit against them until he somehow manages to win the case. a minotaur is a very convenient hideout for a guy literally no regime likes. he can play the system like a fiddle, which is perhaps the main and only reason why he and isabel jin can get along

number four is vasuki kataria, a girl who calls himself a garden variety con artist despite the fact there are few people out there doing it like he is. his favorite marks happen to be militaries (public or private, who cares), and as such she has probably committed a statistically significant amount of treason against every established galactic empire in the setting, with the exception of union because she isn't going to fuck over their mission statement without a really good reason. he's not evil, just a bit of an asshole! vasuki has proverbial balls of steel and is constantly jumping in and out of proverbial hot water, occasionally with the aid of any of the other people i've mentioned here. she just moves too fast to ever get caught, grifting whoever she pleases as long as their net worth is high enough to make them worth conning. he and isabel met under the pretense of one of his cons, in fact, and while she eventually saw through the ploy, she let him succeed because he was going for a truly trivial amount of cash (given her obscene wealth) and one has to respect the gall of a guy willing to cross one of the most powerful people in the local system

serenity and vasuki cross paths both as enemies and allies quite frequently and absolutely cooperate on stings and missions whenever they feel so inclined. there's always money in it for both of them and while serenity finds her annoying and overly chaotic, she will reluctantly admit that he's surprisingly effective and maybe, maybe just a little bit fun to be around sometimes. both of them use kayode's minotaur as a hideout with their permission, and isabel will bankroll all three of them in their reckless endeavors because their crowd is exactly the type that keeps her business afloat. they also keep her business afloat, with the three of them combined accounting for about 50 of the aliases she babysits, a service that is not fucking cheap. essentially they just kind of use each other as an infinite money glitch (though they all know the infinite money glitch is really just passing around the money in isabel's seventy thousand bank accounts)

quid pro quo my friend you must explain one of your oc groups to me

shriek. you daare squid pro quo ME. you don't even know that I HAVE oc groups actually who am I kidding. beans you over the head with these funny bastards. afterwards its your turn though

HUMAN RESOURCES DISPATCH AGENTS TEAM: Scrap Havoc (not sure if that's the team name or the story name) has a population of five (who only have code names because I haven't gotten around to real names. Team leader is Corleone and she orders around a squadron composed of Redbelly, Crispie, Cinnabar(&Mercury) and Shinjii.

Redbelly, joined the team as a pal of Corleone's and a solid worker is named after piranhas because that's her job. She has holdover magic powers from a system migration that gives her dope ass blood magic that's mostly used to heal real fast but you can also make pointy constructs out of blood and also she has a Special Unique blood dude ability, Devour, that she shares with her favorite shotgun. Devour is basically a blast shaped beam attack that annihilates matter and directly translates destroyed organic matter into more fuel for the Infinite Blood Healing.

Shinjii is Redbelly's fucked up and weird little nephew. He's in Redbelly's house and also business because he's the survivor of a Concerningly Redacted Sci Fi event that saw any family members with more respectable employment Deleted. He's also short enough to mention and kinda babyfaced which makes it odd for him to be doing Sci-Fi Adventure Bullshit, but Shinjii is also a fucked up little savant at the job. He's clever, small and fast and hard to keep track of, deadpan rude in a way that's GREAT for bantz, and best of all almost everyone else in the team can throw him if they need him through a high up window. He also may or may not be an inspecifically prescient were-dragon depending on the previously mentioned magic system migration. Either way it's a bit of an Image to put him (short, subtly and tastefully schemeful and unsettling) next to his auntie (tall, covered in blood, and very gregarious and boisterous.)

Cinnabar is an old friend from when she are Corleone were kids. She was SUPPOSED to be a cool and suave sharply dressed Corporate Agent you know the type of shit you see as bad guys in cheap cyberpunk-the-game stuff. She's great at things like infiltration, espionage, not being as horrifically crass as some of her teammates, and managing the paperwork that Sci Fi Adventure Bullshit probably causes. Her corporate base did get super duper blown up in the middle of corporate war. Cinnabar got not-exploded by breaking the glass on some Super Secret Corporate Bullshit and hitting the road with it and by it I mean Mercury. Mercury is a nanomachine grey goo with all the abilities a secret corporate grey goo project would probably have. It spends most of its time on Cinnabar's shoulder like a really fancy scarf and has all the brainpower of a really stupid smart dog. As a refined, dignified corporate agent she can appreciate fine art, such as Redbelly after a thirty minute street brawl.

Crispie is the team's funny operator robots guy and also the most honest character design here in that he's a guy who Maximizes his Gamer Skills by doing as much computer bullshit as humanely possible simultaneously. As the penultimate manifestation of such l33t g4m3r ski11z, Crispie can split his attention between his actual body and ludicrous amounts of drones and bots and hacker bullshit at any moment, to the point that he considers the entire network as part of his body more than his meat body alone. Despite such freakish computing power, Crispie has to put significant effort into preventing Shinjii and Cinnabar from sniping the shit outta him in most games. This universe is one energy-drink heart attack from the first true strong AI being made by accident by a dweeb who likes FOV drone racing.

You may think to yourself, what secret sauce does Corleone have to be the wise, respected, and even occasionally listened-to leader of this conference of freaks. Well for starters Corleone is a 6 foot something butch lesbian with a CDL and a set of sci-fi turbocarabiners. She also builds and mechanics dope-ass power rigs, the kind of shit that looks like wearing forklifts (and also she works on trucks because truck is still a concept even in the beautiful far future.) Leo also has a natural sense of wisdom, down-to-earth-ness, and capability for rough-housing that really contributes to the chill and love-and-friendshipful environment of this gang of Commits Tremendous Violence For Money And Advancement Opportunities Out Of The Back Of Corleone's Shop.

These guys kind of kick it inspecifically in a sci-fantastika setting that I gnaw on sometimes. Occasionally I lob these guys at funny hypothetical situations, or perhaps interactions with other characters in the setting like "1/4 of Satan" and "Capital A Alchemist who specializes in party drugs."

[sanderssides-springfling]

Honestly I had a lot of fun with this, and I really hope you like it @penguinkool because it’s really just me rambling about things I think are neat. Here is your gift! (By the way, there is some slight Logan angst but for the most part he’s just a happy boi). It kind of fits into two of your requests and I hope that’s okay

-

Logan did not get to ramble very often. That was mostly because he would stop himself before starting, but he never wanted to bore any of the other Sides with his random and often useless facts. He kept them to himself unless it was necessary to share, and even then he was often brushed aside.

This is why he was surprised when he felt someone else sit beside him while watching a documentary in the living room.

“Whatcha up to, L?”

Logan turned to the gruff voice, finding Virgil looking back at him. He saw genuine interest in the other Side’s eyes, which was a bit unexpected, but he knew Virgil’s interest would soon pass.

“I am watching a documentary about DNA and the human genome,” Logan replied, expecting Virgil to leave. Why would he not? DNA was not something any of the other Sides had ever expressed any interest in.

“Do...” Virgil started, “Do you mind if I join you?”

Logan his his shock and nodded, letting out a sound of affirmation. This was unexpected, and it piques Logan’s curiosity.

“This is cool,” Virgil said, pointedly keeping his eyes on the screen. “All I really knew before was that DNA is kinda what makes stuff work around here.”

Virgil gestured vaguely around the Mindscape. He seemed to actually care about the topic, so Logan took a chance.

“Yes, deoxyribonucleic acid is quite fascinating,” Logan states, “For example, did you know that at least twenty percent of Neanderthal DNA is present in the human genome?”

“Really?” Virgil almost whispered, seemingly enticed.

Logan nodded. “Along with that, all humans have genetic material from a woman who lived roughy 200,000 years ago, known as Mitochondrial Eve.”

Virgil sat up a bit straighter, clearly wanting to know more. Logan had read about such verbal cues, but they had never been directed toward him before. He took it as a sign to continue, though remained wary.

“Scientists have even discovered that there are approximately 20,000 genes in the human genome.”

“That’s... a lot,” Virgil said. He was looking at Logan earnestly, encouraging him to keep going.

“It is,” Logan nodded, “In fact, one strand of DNA is about six feet long. If you were to put together all the DNA in one person, it would be about double the diameter of the solar system.”

“Woah,” Virgil muttered, “How do you know all that?”

“I am Logic,” Logan shrugged, turning back to his documentary.

After several weeks, Logan expected that to be the end of it.he was certainly not expecting Virgil to approach him one day with a question.

“How much do you know about space?”

“Well,” Logan said, “I suppose I know an adequate amount about space. Why do you ask?”

“Uh,” Virgil looked away, his face the slightest bit red. “I liked hearing you talk about DNA the other day. It was calming and I was hoping you could tell me about space.”

Logan blinked. He had not predicted that to be Virgil’s next statement.

“I can go,” Virgil mumbled, making Logan realize he had not responded. He jumped up from the couch, almost panicked.

“No!” Logan’s volume made Virgil flinch. Logan cleared his throat and tried again. “No, it is quite alright. I have time to tell you about space.”

Virgil nodded and perched himself on the arm of the couch, already smiling softly in anticipation.

“Did you know,” Logan began, “there is a planet called 55 Cacri e? It is part of the constellation Cancer, and scientists believe it to have a surface made of graphite and diamond.”

“Diamond?” Virgil questioned, “Really?”

Logan nodded continuing to rattle off his facts. “On Venus, one day is 243 Earth days. A year, however, is only 225 Earth days.”

Virgil shifted, making Logan glance up at him from where he had been looking at the wall. The logical Side was met with a smile. He shot a small grin back, not stopping his facts.

“Halley’s Comet will not orbit past Earth again until the year 2061,” Logan recited easily, “and neutron stars can spin up to 600 times a second.”

“Thanks, Lo.” Virgil was already looking at him when Logan lifted his gaze once more. The two shared a smile before Virgil got up and Logan summoned a book he had been wanting to reread.

The strangest occurrence yet was when Logan left his room to see Virgil face-down on the couch. Now, this part was actually fairly normal. What Logan said next was the weird part.

“Virgil?” Logan queried, “Would you like to hear about Ancient Greece?”

Virgil hummed in response, prompting Logan to begin sharing his knowledge.

“Did you know that there was an Ancient agree, god of beekeeping named Aristaeus?”

Virgil shook his head, face still buried in the couch.

“There was also a festival called the Thesmophoria, which was for the goddess Demeter, and was attended only by women,” Logan rattled off, hardly taking the time to breathe. “And of the main deities there were three virgin goddesses: Artemis, Athena, and Hestia.”

Virgil raised his head a bit to look at Logan, who caught a glimpse of dark circles under the anxious Side’s eyes.

“Throwing an apple at someone typically symbolized your love for them,” Logan finished, “and there are six types of love from Ancient Greece, still often used today.”

Logan prepared to get up, but stopped when he heard Virgil grumble something into the couch cushion.

“What was that, Virgil?” Logan asked.

“What were the six types of love?”

“Oh,” Logan said, “There is Eros, or romantic love, which shares its name with the love god whose Roman counterpart is Cupid. Then there is mania, or obsessive love, which is a very jealous and unhealthy type of love.”

Virgil was still staring up at Logan, and had curled up a bit to be more comfortable.

“After that is ludus, or playful love, which is often just considered an infatuation. Pragmatic is practical love, the love held between two people who work through problems and share a commitment. Platonic love is storge, the type of love held between friends.

“Lastly is agape, perhaps the most well-known type of love. It was mentioned in many separate occasions by Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. Agape is the love of everyone, an altruistic and giving love.”

“Thanks, Lo,” Virgil said quietly. He looked exhausted, eyes starting to droop.

Logan grappled a blanket, and carefully placed it on top of Virgil who was already beginning to drift off.

Just a few days later, Logan was in his room trying to figure a more productive schedule (the Roman would approve of) when he was interrupted by a knock at his door.

Logan furrowed his brow. Surely it was not time to eat already. Or had the others decided to film a video? Logan was still wracking his brain when he opened the door to see a smiling Virgil.

“My Chemical Romance is back.”

“... dopamine and norepinephrine?”

“No,” Virgil chuckled, though not unkindly, “the band. They broke up in 2013 and I just found out that they’re getting back together.”

“Ah,” Logan hesitated, “Would you like to listen to them with me?”

Virgil’s eyes lit up and he nodded, coming into Logan’s room with an extra bounce in his step Logan had never seen.

Virgil quickly chose a song to listen to, playing ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ louder than was truly necessary. Logan, however, did not complain. He just smiled, learning the lyrics and eventually singing along with Virgil.

And if the pair sang for hours before Logan began giving facts about the brain (“Information in the brain can travel up to 268 miles per hour, Virgil!”), then that was their business.

[lizzieraindrops]

Chapters: 6/6 Fandom: Destiny (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eris Morn/Ikora Rey Characters: Eris Morn, Ikora Rey Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Hello destiny sapphics; allow me to introduce myself, Femslash, if nobody is going to write the content i want to see then i will create it myself, listen. it’s about perceiving the weak and wounded places in someone you love, and lavishing love and care upon them even when they won’t admit they need it, it’s about the Mutual Support, it’s about being kind to them even when you don’t know how to be kind to yourself, Light Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, oh and ikora has the most Distinguished Bisexual energy i’ve ever seen so jot that down, it doesn’t come up but you needed to know, this is all just a bunch of softness and tenderness don't @ me okay, Grief/Mourning

Summary:

Five storms Eris and Ikora weathered and one they didn’t need to.

The Shadowkeep weblore lives in my head rent free. Set post-Taken King and mostly during Shadowkeep.

“As I told Asher, there is a storm coming…” “Oryx is dead. We’ve weathered the storm.” Ikora is upset. She has yet to understand the bigger picture. “Yet his sisters would see his will done. There will always be another storm.” “Then let’s weather it together.” -Shadowkeep Narrative Preview #1

Chapter: |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  +1  |

Set early Shadowkeep. Happy Ikora returns day!

As the afternoon sunlight sweeps across her study in slow motion, Ikora thinks on time, and distance. Their immensity and insignificance are so deeply, paradoxically interwoven. Leaning over the many strike reports on her heavy wooden desk, she thinks on decades passing, centuries, and the way the earth still turns under the sun every day the way it always has. She knows that even without encouragement, the sun has always been running down to eventually collapse into darkness. Yet the process is so slow that she has not witnessed the slightest telltale change to indicate it in all her long life, and unless they are all very unlucky, she likely never will. 

She considers the great stretch of space from her desk chair in the Tower to the near reaches of the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system, the pitted stones of which her own eyes have beheld in her youth. That great span is not so different from the kind of invisible gulf that oft forms between people. Ikora will sense that spaceless distance yawning wide even between herself and someone mere paces away. With some time and thought, she can often close it again. Compassion and carefully chosen words, thoughtful gestures; they hold more power than most people credit. But other times, no matter what form of communication she employs to attempt to bridge that void, people cannot or will not hear her. It is endlessly galling. It can happen with anyone from intractable faction leaders during a Consensus meeting to dear friends she does not want to lose to her own Traveler-forsaken ghost.

Despite any physical separation, she knows that felt distance would collapse if only she could understand and make herself understood to those she cares about. If only she could find the right way to reach them. Then she remembers all over again: the too-frequent sensation of reaching and reaching and reaching and not even being met halfway.

Ikora thinks about the universe’s tendency toward entropy, and the way time and space have torn people away from her again and again, be it by kilometers or eternities. She cannot forget the way she lost her mentor, her closest thing to kin, to his obsession with the mysteries of temporality long before he physically left the City. She remembers the way someone she could have loved was already leaving before Ikora could ask her to stay, vanishing to parts unknown. She considers her own time on Io during the Red War: Lightless and lost, desperately seeking a connection to anything that would give her hope or answers. All she found was herself even more alone, feeling farther from everyone than she ever has.

Then, Ikora recalls the way Cayde and Zavala seized her in a doubly crushing hug the moment she returned to Earth and stepped onto the unexpected refuge of the Farm. There she was, weaker than ever and harshly humbled by her own insufficiency in the face of insurmountable odds. Yet they not only reached out to her, but caught her as she fell into their arms broken. Maybe, in their own way, they had been reaching all along, and she had been turning away unknowing. She didn’t know how she’d gone so long without letting herself lean on them.

Now though, with her closest friend ripped out of her life and buried in a few years of grief, she still doesn’t know how she’s going to do it again. There’s only so much of each other’s pain and weariness that she and Zavala can hold. 

She thinks of the way it felt when Eris returned, feeling their separation in time and space draw to a close while a buffer of uncertainty remained. Truly, after the years of silence following their painful parting, Ikora had never expected to see the woman again. Yet Eris came back. Now she lingers at the edges of Ikora’s space, in the back of her mind; sometimes closer. Ever drawn back to the Moon, Eris comes and goes; but now, she remains within reach. 

Eris has always been hard to keep up with. Impelled by her immense grief and rage and pain, she drives herself so hard in pursuit of vengeance or closure. Ikora has always admired her tenacity in reshaping her suffering into a knife of purpose, one effective and deadly beyond even the means of most Lightbearers. Eris’ knowledge and sacrifices are what enabled them to defeat two gods of the Hive. And still she strives to further eliminate the possibility of her cruel fate ever befalling another. But it pains Ikora to see her still flinging herself into the fight with fury while foregoing her own healing.

It feels different, though, to be around her now. While as fierce and focused as ever, something has gentled some of her edges while sharpening others. It’s evident that Eris’ return to the Moon has spiked her dread with memory. Sometimes she is as wary as she was when she first returned from the Hellmouth, hissing at shadows. But her conversations with Ikora turn soft and halting far more than they ever did before. Perhaps she has found some measure of peace, given a few years with the defeat of Crota and Oryx to turn her avenged grief over and over in her hands. Or — as Ikora distinctly suspects — she, too, regrets the harsh words of their previous parting and thinks of reconciliation.

Maybe it’s just that Ikora is hearing her more clearly now. Or perhaps Ikora herself has just finally learned how to listen. What she hears is something that could be, not an answer, but the beginning of a conversation.

Shadows grow longer and Ikora moves from her desk to one of the soft chairs in her little library of an office. Ophiuchus compiles in a small flurry of Light, and she brushes a hand over his shell as she passes by. He watches her settle into the chair to watch the setting sun through the window. They do that sometimes: just watch each other. It has only been a few years since they started speaking to each other again after many decades. It’s still hard. But now that they have, their silences are friendlier. Ikora isn’t sure that they’ll ever be as close as they were before they pulled away from each other. But she’s still glad for what they have now. This is the kind of thing she promised herself she’d do better at after the Red War, so she’s been trying even harder. If she’s going to rely on anyone, her own ghost should be first among them. All the time they spent so far apart right next to each other has left its mark. But this is one of the few rifts that Ikora has been able to even begin to repair, and she treasures every rebuilt link.

Ikora thinks about the way Osiris tore time and causality itself apart to breach one of those unfathomable distances and bring back someone precious. With a little help, he saved someone thought irretrievably lost beyond a thousand layers of temporospatial distance. And yet, Ikora cannot help but see the way Osiris still struggles to close that gulf even when Saint is right in front of him, impossibly alive. As guardians, they are given so, so many second chances, but they are still far from infinite.

Ever since the day she formally became Vanguard, Ikora has been telling herself she’s not going to let herself repeat his mistakes. She keeps a firm grip on her emotions, leashes her ego, puts the City and its people’s safety first. She has failed many times, but succeeded more often; the Last City stands yet. But it’s been so hard to reconcile those imperatives with the harsh lessons of the Red War: sometimes, she is not enough; and sometimes, having others in her corner with her makes them enough, together.

Perhaps she should have paid more attention to those smaller lessons before then. Losing her Light, however temporarily, showed her just how fragile the greater ones are without that groundwork. No matter how mighty, a tree that does not anchor its fine roots into the ground will bow before a stiff wind. 

When the dust had settled and her Light returned, she swore to herself that she’d learn to let herself need other people. Intellectually, she knows it makes her stronger, even when she feels weaker. But losing Cayde so soon after that decision demolished what progress she had made. Time and again she ends up trapped in her own attempts at self-sufficiency, alone whether or not anyone else is there.

Ikora already knows what she wants, what she needs. She knows she needs people. And she knows she wants someone.

She just doesn’t know how to go about it yet.

[lovemongerer]

visitations.

Her eyes strain against the searing starlight.

Something tells her she’s seen this before but when she averts her gaze she finds only more flaring white light in all directions. It moves. It burns. Her eyes can’t adjust, not when the ichor thick void flickers with the direction of her gaze. It doesn’t take long before her vision distorts and her head strains with an incomprehensible migraine. 

She lets out a sound of agony, trying to press the heel of her palms into the socket of her eyes but finds no respite nor balm, only distorted starlight dancing in the dark. She sobs pitifully, unable to block out the light. 

“There you are,” she hears a voice and knows the sound of contemptment. It’s a presence manifesting around her, she thinks as she cannot see through the heels of her palms dug into her eyes. Tears have welled and wet her palms; she doesn’t dare remove them. Doesn’t dare to see this new adversary that’s crawled it’s way through the deep recess of space to torment her. Her teeth grind and her body shakes and she knows a fear so inevitable that there is no surrender - only sovereignty.

There’s a whisper, a deep sound of displeasure. She’s failed its evaluation. 

A ghost of a touch sends her recoiling away but there’s another at her front to steady her, guide her back into its awaiting touch. The gesture is not kind - it is a mockery, and she feels the hostility of its phantom touch. 

“There’s no need for fear now. Nothing will ever be able to harm you again.” It says in a disquieting voice. 

She refuses to speak to it - refuses to look.

Its thumb draws a line between her shoulder blades as it speaks. She can’t ignore the way it tries to mimic comfort, this enemy of theirs. All she wants is its hands off of her, yet its presence is curled around her form as it tries to imitate something intimate with her.

“You poor, pitiful creature. You awoken to a home you had long forgotten, a home that had long forgotten you. Your people lost your solar system centuries ago, yet they still desperately grasp what forgotten familiarity they can protect. 

“But they forget: you are a dead thing, made by a dead power, in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill.”

Its hand now rests along the length of her shoulders, so huge in comparison to her body.

“What do you want from me?” She’s pleading now. 

“You killed my son,” it seethes and now she understands. The grip at the back of her neck tightens to excruciating pain, bone threatening to be crushed under its weight.

She gasps, jolted from the dream so abruptly that she is still going through the motions of asking a question she does not remember asking. “What?” She asks, searching the room even as hands hold her gently down. “What?” She cries.

Eris lets out a noise of distress before descending upon the smaller woman. She desperately bundles the woman in her arms and holds her close. “It’s okay. He can’t harm you. Not here, not now--” she nearly sobs. It’s the most frightened she’s ever seen Eris. 

“That was--”

“Oryx.”

Dread washes over her, even as her own arms find their way around Eris. They’ve never been this close to one another, not even in their sleep.

She doesn’t know what to say -- doesn’t want to say anything at all. She feels exhausted and petrified as Eris’s concern confirms that it hadn’t been a dreamt encounter. Whatever monster that had been was real and had come for her and nearly took her. Now, she knows the hive has a vendetta. 

The room is still dark. It can’t be nearly morning, not yet -- she feels as though she’s only gotten a few hours of deep sleep but not enough, leaving her eyes burning with exhaustion. Her eyes could also be burning from the tears welling in them and she’s reminded of how petrified she is.

“Are you okay?” She whispers, turning her head deeper into Eris’s shoulder.

“No,” Eris mutters awfully. She takes a deep, shaking breath before she continues. “I felt his hold on you. I tried to get you out sooner, but he is infinitely more powerful than Crota. I was afraid --” Eris cuts off abruptly, unable to continue the thought. 

They don’t speak further. Later they will lie down again on their shared mattress, but they won’t be able to sleep. Tonight they will sleep closer than they have ever before, the hunter keeping a hand on the warlock’s, to know that she is still there and not taken. In the morning she will fly out with her fireteam and leave Eris behind, approaching the dreadnought that the Taken King had flown in on. For now, they will  remain the way they are for a while longer, Eris holding her while she gently runs her hand along Eris’s back.

[hearts-hunger]

Take Care of Those You Call Your Own || Part One

Read on ao3 here if that’s more your thing!

Series Summary: It’s nearing the holidays, and the boys are trying to finish up their first album and navigate what it means to be in a relationship with four people. When Roger and John catch cold in the snowy weather, their boyfriends show them how much they love taking care of those they call their own, and how much more Queen means as a band when they’re in love.

Part Summary: Freddie comes home exhausted from a long day of work, but it’s nothing his three soft and sleepy boyfriends can’t cure.

Pairings: Poly!Queen

Genre: Fluff, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: None! Brian explains some spacey things, and any discrepancy between that and how science actually works is 100% my fault.

A/N: My loves! This is my poly!queen week offering, which I wanted to have completed in time for the celebration but thanks to illness have only just now been able to finish (bleh). I don’t know when the next part will be out, but I’m hoping to be working on it pretty regularly as I heal up. I hope you like it! ♡

Freddie felt himself breathe easily for the first time all day as he stepped through the door of the flat, the tension in his shoulders easing with a heavy sigh. He laid his bag haphazardly on the kitchen table and kicked off his shoes, taking a moment to enjoy being home.

Work had been a nightmare, what with the schools let out for winter break and all the uni students back home for the holidays. It was the coeds in particular that seemed to flock to the clothing stalls, desperate to see any new trinkets or fashions Kensington's salesmen had drummed up in the past few months. One one hand, Freddie was glad the stall was getting so much business; they could use it with rent coming up and Christmas just around the corner. On the other, it made for very long days, and as soon as he was home all he wanted to do was sleep. 

He made his way to the bedroom, fully intending to crash and sleep until he woke up naturally, work and school and alarms be damned. They had a gig tomorrow and he would probably need to go in to work for a bit before sound check, but he couldn’t bear to think about that now. He just wanted his bed.

When he got to the doorway, though, he saw there wasn’t room for him on his bed. Not that there was ever a great amount of room; even on a king-sized bed, four people was a lot for one mattress. He found he wasn’t at all put out, though, as the tenderness of the scene before him more than made up for its inconvenience.

Roger and John were both asleep, John sprawled on his stomach and Roger on his side with his leg over Brian’s, who was sat up in the middle between the two sleeping beauties. He was in his pajamas, reading over a large bundle of papers with the corners dog-eared and margins marked, muttering softly to himself as he read.

“Burning the candle at both ends, I see,” Freddie said softly, leaning against the doorframe.

Brian looked up from his papers, a sweet smile lighting his face as he saw Freddie. “You’re home,” he said happily, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the younger men. Freddie felt the aggravations of his day fade in the warm glow of Brian’s sincere happiness at seeing him.

“I’m home,” he agreed with a smile.

Brian’s expression took on a shade of worry. “You look tired, love,” he said. “How was work?”

Freddie sighed. “Murder,” he admitted. “But that’s no fun to talk about. What are you reading?”

Brian chuckled. “I’m not sure it’ll be any more entertaining for you.”

“But it will be for you,” Freddie said gently. He pushed off the doorframe. “Come on, I’ll make some tea and you can tell me all about it.”

Brian carefully disentangled himself from the John and Roger, taking care not to wake them, and followed Freddie out to the kitchen. Spurred by a sudden need to comfort Freddie, to let him know how much he appreciated Freddie working late into the night for their family, Brian took Freddie’s hand and turned him back to face him, kissing him deeply. Freddie sighed and leaned closer to Brian, feeling utterly at home against the younger man’s body.

“Mmh, what was that for?” Freddie asked, his voice hushed with tiredness and the daze of being so headily kissed.

Brian smiled. “I have to have a reason for kissing you?”

Freddie’s smile was warm and endearingly shy as he traced his fingers over Brian’s jaw. “I love you.”

Brian stole another quick kiss. “I love you too. I can make tea, if you want. You’ve had a long day.”

“Nonsense,” Freddie said, waving Brian over to the island. “You sit and tell me about your paper.”

Brian gave a soft laugh and did as Freddie said, sitting on one of the bar stools at the counter. He knew better than anybody that Freddie liked to keep busy; he felt nervous and jittery without something to do with his hands, even if he was tired. Many times had that manifested in Freddie playing with his boyfriends’ hair, just to give him something to do that soothed both Freddie and whoever was getting their hair braided.

“It’s on zodiacal light,” Brian said, shuffling through his papers. He noticed a bit of handwriting that wasn’t his own at the top corner of one of the pages; looking closer, he saw it read love you brimi! in John’s distinctively neat lettering. He smiled and gently ran his fingers over the words.

“You’ve got me hanging in suspense, my love,” Freddie said with an amused smile. “What’s got your attention?”

Brian shook his head. “Just a note from John.”

“Darling thing,” Freddie said. “What’s it say?”

Brian smiled. “Just, ‘love you, brimi’.”

Freddie put a hand over his heart. “Oh, bless him.” He filled the kettle at the sink. “I was surprised to see the both of them already in bed.”

“John wasn’t feeling well,” Brian said. “I suspect Roger wasn’t in top form either, but you know him.”

Freddie chuckled. “Stubborn as a mule, yes. I know that all too well.”

“Who’s stubborn?”

Both Freddie and Brian looked over to the bedroom door, smiling when they saw John padding out in wool socks and Brian’s favorite jumper.

“Roger, darling,” Freddie said. “Roger’s the stubborn one.”

John gave a short laugh. “Yeah.” He made his way over to Freddie, putting his arms around the older man’s torso and burying his face in Freddie’s shirt.

“Well, hello, flower,” Freddie said gently, putting his arms around John. He could feel the warmth of the younger man’s fever. “Lovely to see you too.”

“I’m glad you’re home,” John said, pressing a kiss to Freddie’s collarbone.

Freddie gave a contented sigh. “Oh, me too, lovely.” He studied John’s face. “Bri said you weren’t feeling well.”

John’s face flushed with more than fever. “I think I caught a cold going out without my jumper the other day.”

Freddie tsked and brushed John’s soft curls back from his face. “Naughty thing,” he said, though it was teasing and affectionate. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, my sweet. Have you taken some medicine?”

“Yes,” John said with a smile. “Bri made sure I had some before I went to sleep.”

Freddie hummed in agreement. “He is studying to be a doctor, after all.”

Brian smiled. “Not that kind of doctor, and you know it.”

“Ah, of course, I forgot,” Freddie said. “You’re going to doctor sick stars, not sick people.”

Brian couldn’t help a chuckle. “Right.” He looked John over with a mix of tenderness and worry. “Are you feeling alright, love? Did we wake you?”

John shook his head. “I mean, well, yes, but I don’t mind. I wanted to see what you two were getting up to.”

Freddie kissed John’s forehead before releasing him to tend to the kettle that had started whistling on the stove. “Brian was telling me about his zodiacal light.”

“Ooh, do tell us, Brimi,” John said sweetly, going around the counter to sit next to Brian. He tucked himself close to the curly-haired astrophysicist, leaning his head on Brian’s shoulder.

“Well, something I’ve found particularly interesting is how it’s constantly being replenished,” Brian said, making a note of something between paragraphs in his favorite blue pen he used for all his edits. “It’s not at all the same dust night after night creating the same light - well, forgive me, it’s not creating light at all - ”

“It’s reflecting, right?” John asked.

Brian gave him a warm smile. “Well done, my love,” he praised, drawing an adorable blush to John’s cheeks that Freddie couldn’t help but smile at. 

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” Brian said. “It’s reflecting the light from the sun, so the spectrum is the same as the solar spectrum. Which is actually rather - oh, but now I’ve got off track a bit.”

“Oh, sorry,” John said quickly.

Brian chuckled. “That’s quite alright, love. Not your fault at all.”

“So, what were you going to tell us?” John asked.

Brian tapped his pen against the paper. “I was saying how the zodiacal dust is replaced almost constantly. The Poynting–Robertson effect forces - ” He seemed to realize that his boyfriends might not know what on earth the Poynting–Robertson effect was, and gestured with his hands like he did when he was passionate about what he was talking about. “You know, how solar radiation forces dust particles to lose momentum?”

Freddie and John shared a knowing and affectionate look, gentle smiles lighting their faces.

“Not really, darling,” Freddie said. “But if you want to tell us, we’d love to hear it.”

“Oh, dear, I wouldn’t dream of boring you more than I already have,” Brian said with a chuckle. “Just - well, that’ll suffice for an explanation for our purposes.”

“You’re not boring us, Bri,” John said, sounding a little distressed that Brian thought so. “Go on, tell us.”

Brian gave John a chaste kiss. “You’re very sweet, dearest,” he said. “But that really will be enough for you to understand what I’m saying.”

“Okay,” John agreed, giving Brian a smile. “So, solar radiation makes dust lose momentum.”

“Exactly,” Brian said. “And when that happens, the dust slows down, and it’s forced into a spiral towards the sun, basically.” His slender fingers depicted a picture of what he said, twirling and dancing in the soft light from the living room spilling into the kitchen. “There’s always new dust coming in to replace it, from smashed comets and odd bits like that, but it’s a constant cycle of replacing old dust. Which means no two instances of zodiacal light are ever the same.”

“Ooh, I like a bit of unpredictability,” Freddie said. He handed John and Brian their mugs of tea, cradling his own in both hands. “Very sexy.”

Brian and John laughed.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard zodiacal light described as sexy,” Brian said.

Freddie smiled. “Yes, well, when you’ve got a very sexy astronomer boyfriend, it tends to spice it up a bit.”

Brian was going to tease Freddie with some joke about how they could create their own Mercury-May effect when a noise came from the bedroom, rather like a shout, that made all three of them jump.

“Rog?” Freddie ventured when it was suddenly quiet again.

The blonde in question came stumbling out of the bedroom, looking rather disheveled and done in. His boyfriends were about to each ask him what on earth that noise had been when he raised a hand, a look of mild panic crossing his face; he bent at the waist with a loud sneeze, revealing what the earlier noise has been.

“Goodness,” Freddie said when Roger had recovered. “Gesundheit. You alright, darling?”

Roger groaned and scrubbed his face, knocking his glasses askew. “If I could stop bloody sneezing like that, I’d be top notch.”

John giggled. “You’ll wake the neighbors, Roggie.”

Roger gave a tired laugh and straightened his tortoiseshell frames, snuggling further into his hoodie as he padded over to Freddie and let himself be held.

“Oh, you poor love,” Freddie cooed, running a soothing hand up and down Roger’s back. “To hell with the neighbors.”

“Can I have more medicine, Bri?” Roger asked, his voice muffled against Freddie’s shirt.

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Brian said with a sympathetic smile. “You’ve got another two hours or so before it’s safe for you next dose. What hurts?”

“Everything.”

Brian gave a soft laugh. “Oh, love. I’m sorry. Maybe a cup of tea would help?”

Roger nodded and Freddie gave him a chaste kiss as he pulled away to fix his younger boyfriend some tea. 

“Fred,” Roger said petulantly as he was released.

Freddie chuckled. “Let me make your tea, darling, and then I’ll hold you all you want.”

Roger agreed to this with the provision that he kept a light grip on the hem of Freddie’s favorite sweater, a soft old thing that had already been well-worn when he found it at another second-hand stall at Kensington Market. The color had caught his eye, a greenish blue in a sea of drab tans and greys, and Freddie had insisted on getting it, saying it would bring out his eyes. Roger didn’t know about that - he was captivated by Freddie’s lovely brown eyes and the kindness he saw there no matter what the older man wore - but the sweater made Freddie happy, and Roger couldn’t help but smile every time he wore it.

“Bri was telling us about his zodiacal light,” John said, his voice cheerful even as hoarse as it was. He hid a yawn behind his hand, leaning his head on Brian’s shoulder.

“I heard,” Roger said with a smile. “Poynting–Robinson effect, right?”

“Robertson,” Brian corrected gently, a soft smile playing on his features. “But yes, that’s what we were talking about.”

Freddie handed Roger his mug of tea, his hands going to tenderly comb through Roger’s curls. Roger gave a soft sigh of contentment as he settled into Freddie’s touch and sipped at his tea to soothe his sore throat.

“Maybe we should stay in from the studio tomorrow,” Brian said, his voice softened to match the quiet of the kitchen.

Roger whipped his head up. “No way!” he protested, ignoring Freddie’s huff.

“Don’t get so excited, darling,” Fredie chided. “You’ve gone and made me muss your braid. Hold still.”

Roger bit his lip as he let Freddie resume his gentle braiding. “We’ve got so much to get done, Bri,” Roger said. “We’ve got to go.”

“Not if you and John aren’t feeling well,” Brian said. “It can wait.”

They all knew they were pressed for time in finishing the album; they all wanted it to be perfect, but they’d come to see that perfectionism wasn’t exactly something an inexperienced band working on their very first album could afford. They didn’t have any leverage to ask for more time, and the deadline was drawing closer; they really needed all the studio time they could get.

“We’ll be fine,” Roger said. He was fine speaking for himself, since even though he knew he wouldn’t feel any better tomorrow, he could still muscle through it; he felt a little guilty speaking for John, though, and looked over at their youngest boyfriend.

Before John could answer he leaned away from Brian and caught a few coughs in his sleeve, each breath crackling in his chest. When he recovered he met Roger’s eyes with a bit of a blush, embarrassed he hadn’t been able to put up as strong a front as he guessed Roger was hoping for.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Brian said, rubbing John’s back soothingly.

“I’m fine,” John insisted. “I’ll be fine to go tomorrow. We can’t lose another day.”

Brian looked to Freddie for support, the two of them weighing what was best for their boyfriends against what was best for the band.

“How about this,” Freddie said, his voice calm and reasonable. “You two get a good night’s sleep, and stay in while I go to work and Brian goes to school, and we’ll see how you’re feeling then. Alright?”

John and Roger looked to each other. That was as good an option as any, and it would give them some more time to rest up and hopefully not feel as miserable when they went into the studio.

“Okay,” Roger agreed.

“What about you, Deaky?” Brian asked. “Feel alright about that?”

John hummed in agreement and buried his face against Brian’s shoulder.

Brian chuckled. “Very convincing, sweetheart.”

John just gave a low groan, drawing a sympathetic laugh from Brian. He knew John couldn’t feel very well; he’d been coughing all day, and his fever was holding steady. Brian was proud of how he’d gotten through the day - they saw each other frequently at the university, when John would take a break from his job in the tech department and convince Brian to set down his research for a moment and have a bite to eat or just stretch his legs. 

Sometimes, if he was feeling particularly lovesick, Brian would call in a repair for the phone in his broom-closet office when it really wasn’t broken, and John would come down and give Brian an affectionate roll of his eyes and tinker about with something Brian hadn’t even known was acting funny. Once in a blue moon would they have a quick shag on Brian’s desk, tossing papers all over the floor, but more often than not it was just for the two of them to spend time with each other and update each other on their day.

“I’ll be ok,” John said. “You’ll have to let Mr. Baker know I won’t be in tomorrow, and make sure - ”

“Shh, don’t you worry about all that,” Brian soothed. “I’ll take care of it.”

Roger turned to face Freddie as the older man finished braiding his hair, feeling a bit guilty. “Maybe I should come in with you,” he said. “That’ll be two days in a row you’ve had to work by yourself.”

“Oh, well, today was your day off,” Freddie said, unconcerned. He brushed a bit of hair that had already fallen out of the braid behind Roger’s ear. “So that doesn’t count.”

“Are you sure?” Roger asked. He touched a hand to Freddie’s cheek. “No offense, but you look really worn-out.”

Freddie chuckled. “None taken, darling. I am worn out. But that’s nothing a bit of sleep won’t help, and then I’ll be perfectly fine to go in tomorrow.” He met Roger’s eyes and smiled. “I’ll miss you, of course - it’s always rubbish when you’re not there - but it’d make me happier for you to stay and rest at home rather than come in and over-exert yourself.”

“And I live to make you happy,” Roger teased.

Freddie laughed, putting an arm around Roger’s waist and pulling him close. “Don’t you?”

Roger just smirked and gave Freddie a kiss, letting him deepen it for a second before pulling away in a shock of worry, suddenly realizing something. Freddie looked surprised, studying Roger’s face.

“What?”

“Bloody hell, I shouldn’t be kissing you if I’m sick,” Roger said.

Freddie rolled his eyes. “Oh, hell. If Brian and I are going to get sick, we’ll get sick with or without kisses. Don’t you think, Dr. May?”

Roger and Freddie both looked over to see Brian fully preoccupied, though he didn’t need to answer. He and John were lost in giggly, sleepy kisses, Brian’s fingers tracing under John’s jaw and John’s fingers tangled in Brian’s curls. 

“See? Brian thinks it’s fine,” Freddie said, the smile on his face at two of his boyfriends turned to warm his third. “Now, may I kiss you, darling? Or would you like to fuss some more?”

Roger hid a shy yawn behind the sleeve of his hoodie. “Mmh, no fussing. But kiss me in bed, please.”

“Whatever you like, darling,” Freddie said sweetly. He took Roger’s empty mug along with his own and placed them in the sink, leaving them for the morning to be washed. Twining his fingers with Roger’s, he turned to Brian and John.

“We’re off to bed, my loves,” he said. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“We’re coming to bed too,” Brian said, standing and helping John down from his perch on the bar stool. The four of them went to their bedroom, the younger men feeling the effects of their medicine again and the older men ready for sleep after a long day. 

Roger was first to get in bed, burying his face in a pillow.

Brian chuckled. “Let me have your glasses, Rog,” he said. Roger groaned but lifted his head enough to allow Brian to take his glasses off and kiss the bridge of his nose.

“Thanks,” Roger mumbled.

Brian smiled and folded his boyfriend’s glasses neatly, setting them on the nightstand before getting in bed next to the blonde. Roger abandoned his pillow in favor of Brian’s chest, cuddling close to the older man and giving a sigh of contentment.

“Does everything still hurt?” Brian asked.

“Not when I’m with you,” Roger said, already nearly asleep.

“Glad to know I’m a cure-all,” Brian teased gently.

“Sing something?” Roger asked. “I like to listen to it in here.” He gently tapped his fingers against Brian’s chest, and Brian couldn’t help but smile.

“Sure, love.” He kissed Roger’s forehead and began to sing “Here Comes The Sun”, keeping his voice soft as he ran his hand up and down Roger’s arm and watched his other two boyfriends with a gentle affection as they got ready for bed.

“Which pajamas do you want?” John asked, rummaging through one of the dresser drawers as Freddie took off his clothes and tossed them in the hamper by the bathroom door.

“The blue ones, if you can find them,” Freddie said. He pulled his Sgt. Pepper t-shirt over his head, catching the pajama bottoms when John tossed them over.

“I’ll do laundry tomorrow while you two are out,” John said.

“If you feel up to it,” Freddie said, tying the string at his waist. “Promise me, flower, you resting comes first.”

John smiled and nodded, leaning into Freddie’s touch as the older man put his hand to John’s cheek.

“Wonderful,” Freddie said. He tipped John’s chin up and kissed him gently. “I love you, trouble.”

John giggled. “I love you too, Fred. Promise you won’t work yourself too hard tomorrow.”

Freddie gave a jokingly exaggerated sigh. “Oh, if you insist.” He smiled when John laughed, endeared as always to the younger man’s beauty in joy.

“Say, that reminds me,” Freddie said, heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth. John followed, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest, snuggled in his jumper.

“I found the most beautiful kimono at work today,” he said around his toothbrush. “It would look absolutely stunning on you.”

“Just about as stunning as that toothpaste looks all over your mouth,” John teased.

Freddie gave an indulgent roll of his eyes, rising his mouth and washing his face. John handed him the hand towel and Freddie gave a muffled thanks as he buried his face in it.

“What color?” John asked, going around behind Freddie to wrap his arms around his waist and leaning his head against Freddie’s shoulder blade.

“All kinds,” Freddie said, his voice a bit hushed as he painted a picture of the kimono for John with his words. “Emerald green and soft rose and deep indigo on this champagne-colored silk, and these darling little birds perched in cherry-tree branches. It’d bring out your eyes, flower, and the bit of red in your hair. You’d look an absolute vision.”

He turned to face John and framed the younger man’s face with his hands, John enjoying the warmth of Freddie’s touch and the coolness of his rings that decorated his lovely fingers.

“Not that you don’t look a vision every time I see you,” Freddie said gently.

John gave a soft laugh. “Even now I’m sick?”

Freddie kissed the tip of John’s nose. “Yes, darling, even now you’re sick. Speaking of which, you need to get some sleep.”

“So do you,” John said.

“That’s why I’m coming to bed with you,” he said. “Come on, flower.”

Freddie took John’s hand and led him to their bed, letting John get in first to snuggle up next to Roger.

“Alright, lovely?” Brian asked John, his voice hushed to keep from waking Roger.

John smiled. “Perfect.” He gave Roger a gentle kiss on the blonde’s flushed cheek, careful not to wake him.

Freddie gave a contented sigh as he got in bed next to John, turning out the light before drawing the younger man close to him and draping his arm over his and Roger’s waist. In the darkness, John settled back against Freddie’s chest and Brian’s fingers found Freddie’s, twining together as Brian rubbed soothing circles against Freddie’s knuckles. The silence was broken by a few muffled coughs and a sleepy “sorry”; Freddie pressed soft kisses to John’s shoulder and gently hushed his apology. Eventually the younger man’s breathing evened out to match Roger’s, and it was just Freddie and Brian awake, listening to the sound of snow coming down just outside their window.

“Love you, Fred,” Brian said softly.

Freddie smiled to himself, feeling sleep come gently with the sound of the snow and his boyfriends’ warmth and the comfort of being at home with his family. “Love you too.”

Read part two!

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[emsartwork]

If you’re comfortable with sharing, it would be cool to hear more about your winx next gen, if that’s okay with you?

Yes of course!!!! below the cut cus i get rambley

the story so far: Daphne and Thoren are king and queen of domino. Ashia and Nex are king and queen of Andros. Sky and Bloom are king and queen of Eraklyon. Stella and Brandon are queen and king of Solaria. Tecna was queen of Zenith for a while but got bored and decided to do something else, now she and Timmy run an exploration research company that explores the outer reaches of the magix dimension. Flora is the potions teacher at Alfea, Helia runs a small art gallery in Magix city. Musa started her own record company, and Riven became the assistant combat instructor at Red Fountain. Icy broke Tritannus out of mer-prison and transformed his tail into legs, the two are now in hiding along with Darcy. Stormy left the Trix after an issue with Icy. 

THE CHILDREN:

alrighty lets start off with Sky and Bloom, or Skoom as I like to call them. This is Aidan.  He attends Novatan University, a new school now on Magix. He’s a classically trained necromancer but will use magic in just about any way he can. He uses the tile of Necromancer of Ash.  Aidan does not posses the dragon flame, and boy is he angry about that. Though he gets along with his cousin Ophelia pretty well, he is intensely jealous of her destiny as bearer of the dragon flame, and to compensate he seeks power above his own and some times other’s safety. Aiden is loud, prickly, and easy to rile up, but cools down quickly and forgets about whatever made him angry. Bloom, in true Bloom fashion, generally avoids her son because she doesn’t know how to deal with his attitude (he also occasionally reminds her of Valtor and that scares the hell out of her). Sky does his best to spend time with and curb Aidan’s more destructive impulses but he also has to rule his kingdom. Aidan basically only gets along with Ophelia, he can hang out with Selene and Jack occasionally but they tend to annoy him. He and Thorn do NOT get along. 

Daphne and Thoren!!! Daphen? Thorphne? idk their names don’t mesh that well lol. any ways this is Ophelia. Ophelia attends Alfea and is known far and wide as fairy of the dragon flame. After Daphne became pregnant, she had to ask bloom to return the dragon flame to the royal line of Domino since its always been passed down from one heir to the next. Bloom(after a few emotional breakdowns) eventually transferred the dragon flame to tiny fetus Ophelia. Ophelia doesn’t want it. She doesn’t really tell any one, but she hates being the bearer of the dragon flame. She hate the attention, the pressure, the legacy, the kidnapping attempts, the random attacks, the fact that she’s always the target. Ophelia isn’t even sure she wants to be queen of Domino in the future. in her free time Ophelia writes stories. Ophelia shoves her feelings down, holds grudges, and she can be VERY passive aggressive. When she finally explodes she can very destructive and cruel. Ophelia loves her cousin Aidan but can’t spend a lot of time with him because she can eventually feel the jealousy streaming off of him. She gets along really well with Anemone, but when they do fight its Armageddon. She also gets along really well with Thorn, as they’re both level headed older sibling types.  

Timmy and Tecna!!!(Tecmy?) I know. She looks nothing like either of them.This is Ruth, Timmy and Tecna’s adopted daughter(they have actually adopted several other children but Ruth is the oldest and most important to the plot). When Ruth was about 10, her family’s ship crashed on a tiny desert planet in an uninhabited solar system. Her parents didn’t make it, and Ruth herself was severely injured. She managed to stem the flow of blood from the gashes in her shoulder and thigh, and cobbled together a radio system from the pieces of the ship. Timmy and Tecna were out on an scientific exploration mission when they picked up her distress signal. Infection had already set into her deeper wounds and her arm and leg had to be amputated. Ruth uses a prosthetic leg in day to day life, but prefers not to have a regular prosthetic for her arm. Ruth attended and graduated from Cloud Tower, and is the Witch of Metals, she manipulates metal into a movable prosthetic arm when she needs to, but doesn’t maintain it as its a drain of her magic. Ruth is Koyuvian(a fake planet/race thats in my version of winx club) and wears the tinted glasses to filter light. Ruth is a mechanic, and loves to build different contraptions. She’s hopeless at coding, but builds a lot of prototypes for her adoptive parents. She gets along Selene the best. 

Flora and Helia! Floria!!! (Helora?) This is Thorn. Thorn is Silva Lynphean and a quarter Vaonaaj. He attends Red Fountain and is a team lead in his class and possibly the strongest. Thorn is quiet and sarcastic, generally preferring a books to spending time around people. He’s a little awkward when not in a “specialist” situation. he kind of wishes he was really good with people, but also doesn’t bother practicing socializing because he’s scared lmao he’s basically Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. to compensate for his social ineptitude, Thorn hangs out with Jack a lot. He is very observant though and can pin point people’s weaknesses in a snap, and he’s not shy about using those weakness if he needs to.  He and Ophelia get along well, but he thinks Aidan is a spoiled brat who throws too many temper tantrums. 

Musa and Riven = Riva. So this is Jack. Jack attends Red Fountain. Jack loves to be the center of attention, and hides all of his insecurities behind an over the top inflated ego. He isn’t terribly interested in his dad’s career (fighting) or his mom’s career (music) but he is decently talented at both. Jack true passion is design. He isn’t totally sure the type of design he wants to do yet, but fashion and architecture are both interesting to him. He’s the best or the worst dressed guy at Red Fountain depending on who you ask, considering he usually throws together items that don’t seem like they should be on the same body at the same time. His mom and dad don’t really get either of his interests, but are trying very hard to be supportive. Jack is the easiest going out of these characters (except maybe Ramiel) and gets along with just about anybody. He’s Thorn’s “wing man”(for both platonic and romantic interests because Thorn just doesn’t frickin talk to people) and the two are kind of a funny pair to look at since Thorn is so so tall, and Jack is….. not. He also gets along well with Anemone. Jack is very intuitive, and doesn’t feel comfortable around Eirlys, usually actively trying to avoid any contact with her. 

Stella and Brandon have Selene. Selene attends Alfea and is the Fairy of the Sun and Moon. Selene is kind of a screw up. She’s clumsy, forgetful, chronically late, messy, and awkward af. Selene doesn’t really think she suits the role of “princess of Solaria”, one of the most televised planets of the Magix Dimension(kind of like Los Angeles is the celebrity center of the US), but is constantly trying to be better at her role. Unfortunately she’s trying to force herself to be like her mom instead of trying it her own way. The one thing Selene is really good at is sculpting, and can usually be found hidden away in her studio with clay in her hands. and in her hair. and on her clothing. basically everywhere she is not neat. She’s pretty quiet in general but get her started on a project and she’ll rattle ideas off one after the other. She and Ruth are crafting besties, and trade creations frequently. She’s horribly intimidated by Thorn, though its mostly their mutual awkwardness clashing. She doesn’t like to be around Aidan much at all. 

This is Anemone! The unlikely product of Aisha and Nex! Anemone is the Fairy of Coral, and is attending Alfea. Anemone is the girly-est girly girl to ever girl. She likes the pink she likes the ruffles she likes the make up and the fashion and the pastels. But the thing Anemone REALLY likes about being a girly girl is that it means stupid people underestimate her, giving her the upper hand and allowing her to reign terror down upon her enemies. Anemone is a girly girl and also a stone cold bitch. She’s not the nicest girl, but that’s mostly because she has the highest self esteem of any of these characters and does not bother with things that are not worth her time. She’ll be respectful and polite as long as you are. She does confide in Ophelia and considers her a good friend, but also thinks Ophelia needs to get her shit together and stop moping lol. She also gets along well with Jack, as they both enjoy fashion and whatever trend is happening at the moment. She dislikes Eirlys, but doesn’t have a solid reason for why lol. 

Ramiel! Ramiel is Stormy’s son, his father isn’t in the picture. So basically after the news broke that some of the winx were pregnant (because lets face it they would be celebrity news) Icy processed it as “shit. they have reinforcements. we need reinforcements.” and proceeded to have herself, darcy, and stormy try to have kids. Icy had already broken Tritannus out of prison, and it was now just a matter of getting their human merfolk mix to actually work. Darcy has always been a romantic at heart so she promised to have a kid with the next man she was actually interested in. Stormy on the other hand has never really given a damn about romance, so she bore the brunt of Icy’s new obsession with continuing the ancestral witches blood line. Stormy didn’t necessarily mind the actual sex part(wasn’t enthusiastic about it either tho so :/ ), but HATED being pregnant. After a rough pregnancy, Stormy gave birth to a son who Stormy immediately became attached to, which was NOT was Icy was looking for, the ancestral and the trix power is passed down through the female line, meaning a son was functionally worthless to her. After Icy basically told her she would have to try again, Stormy took her son and noped out of there asap. She went to Ms. Griffin for help as a last effort, and after agreeing to be stripped of her magic she and Ramiel were relocated to a hidden, sparsely populated village deep in one of Lynphea’s forests. Ramiel knows nothing of his mother’s past, and, against her express wishes, decided to enroll in the Paladin program at Lynphea College. He thinks of Cymmeri as an annoying younger sister, and doesn’t know Eirlys or Arcturus. He vaguely knows of Thorn and Jack due to Red Fountain and the Order doing group training together occasionally. 

This is Darcy’s daughter Cymmeri, usually just called Cymi. She’s kind of a know-it-all, sassy child, who has only just started to display signs of her magic. She and Ramiel form coincidental friends after a random encounter, and she’ll occasionally go to him when she has a problem she can’t talk to her mom or other cousins about. She, like my version of Darcy, is at least part Koyuvian(my own personal made up planet not from the winx) which gives her the solid eye color. She wears enchanted glasses to make her eyes appear more ordinary, and to filter light that would otherwise hurt her eyes. Cymmeri also really likes to lean into the creepy goth child role just for kicks.

Eirlys and Arcturus are Icy and Tritannus’ twins. Eirlys attends Alfea and is the Fairy/Witch of Snow, Arcticus will eventually attend Red Fountain, though right now he’s learning magic from Tritannus, and acting as a support to his sister. The twins are actually too young to be attending either school, but their height and forged documents take care of that. both of them usually have spells in place to hide their more fishy traits but i wanted to draw them lol. Eirlys is a fitness nut and spends most of her free time exercising or playing sports. This also gives her an excuse to go on long solo runs so she can relay info to Arcturus who then takes it to their mom. Eirlys is kind of arrogant and can do no wrong in Icy’s eyes, where as Arcturus lacks self esteem and is constantly trying to prove his worth to their mom. Arcturus has an affinity for water, and most of his spells use it. Eirlys tries to force her relationship with most of the winx’s kids, but does genuinely get along with Ophelia.   

this isnt totally accurate for their heights but i did some of these really fast and the proportions are off lol. 

[thetourguidebarbie]

KC + angst and happy ending preferably canon-y (no babies or sc or anything after season 4 lmao) but if the muse takes you in a different direction that’s okay :)

This has a cliffhanger. Please don’t hate me. I have another prompt I’ll use for a part two if there’s interest :)

———

Caroline shifted in bed, pulling the fluffy comforter more tightly around her body, absently tracing the embroidered floral pattern with her fingertip. The cabin was cold, the rain pelting the windows, and she was trying to figure out whether or not to be worried that Klaus was two days late coming back from his negotiation meeting.

She knew it was silly on its face, since Klaus couldn’t be killed, but she vividly remembered the way he looked when she finally rescued him two centuries before, finding him dessicated and buried in a shallow grave, trapped and unable to escape, his eyes still very much alert. It had haunted her nightmares, and she suspected his too, though he’d never admit it. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like, to be buried alive while the people on Earth were being slowly evacuated to Mars and then beyond, not knowing whether anyone would find him, whether he’d be buried alive for eternity. She’d kept tabs on him over the years and had been confused when he seemed to fall off the face of the earth, but she knew something was wrong when he didn’t call or make any sort of contact on her birthday. Call her arrogant, but she knew that he wouldn’t just stop contact abruptly, especially when she’d just started being open about warming up to him.

So, knowing the direction the wind was blowing, that they wouldn’t be on Earth much longer, she set off to rescue him before there weren’t any evacuation ships left. It would have been difficult without a constant food source, but Caroline was a natural planner, liked to be prepared for everything–including the eventual end of the world–and she’d known from the first iphone video after she turned that the days until vampires were discovered were numbered. She got a medical degree and two PhDs and recruited-slash-compelled a few of her professors’ contacts to start working on a synthetic blood substitute that would be sustainable. They succeeded just in time, and her idealistic optimism made her hope that humans wouldn’t be nervous because they’d have no reason to feed.

She’d been wrong.

She managed to rescue Klaus and hop on one of the last fleets. She soon learned that no matter how many solar systems the technology allowed them to jump through, he still somehow managed to piss people off anywhere they went, creating a laundry list of enemies. It was infuriating, honestly. She wasn’t exactly the most diplomatic person in the world, but she at least had some tact, and Klaus seemed to be the only person in the three solar systems they’d discovered so far that was worse than her at keeping his mouth shut. It didn’t help that his enemies were organized enough to hate him together.

His hybrid army was now an actual army in every sense of the word, used to defend them from people, both humans and aliens, who wanted to eliminate them as a threat.

Vampires were scattered around the various planets that had been discovered, generally sticking together in areas of the bigger cities, but humans were still wary despite the overwhelming majority of vampires being perfectly willing to live off of a diet mostly comprised of the synthetic blood (which, honestly, was just as good as the real thing, and she didn’t just say that because she’d helped invent it). The strain had come to a head just two decades before, and as the de facto king of the vampire race, Klaus had taken the mantle of general of the vampire army easily. She hadn’t been content to stand by the sidelines while he plotted and fought the small group of humans who were trying to destroy them, and he mostly seemed to understand that she couldn’t be a passive contributor, but he’d managed to convince her that she shouldn’t be on the front lines. 

As the unofficial war had waged on, she’d begun seeing less and less of him. The number of vacations they took and cities they toured per year dwindled over time, and she’d been so excited for this getaway, their first in months. She knew that he probably hadn’t been overpowered by the humans across the negotiation table, but it didn’t stop her from worrying, and he knew that. He knew how annoyed she’d be if he was too distracted by his plotting and planning to remember that she had planned time out of her busy schedule to spend with him, and if he had a single shred of common decency…

She huffed, trying not to go too far down that path. He was being a jerk and she was mad, but in her three hundred years of life (two centuries of which she’d spent in a monogamous committed relationship with the jerk in question), she’d gotten reasonably self-aware, and she knew that she was more hurt than anything else. He loved her, she was very aware of that, and when she brought it up before a few times over the last few decades he’d promised that once the threat had been taken care of he would whisk her away to New Australia (her favorite planet of the ones nearest to New Brazil, their current home) and make it up to her. 

And frankly, she was looking forward to that. She was sick of his assurances that it was almost over, that they were getting closer to victory. Maybe Klaus had been a bad influence, but the past two centuries had jaded her and at this point non-violent negotiations were getting close to being off the table. Not that she was advocating genocide, but she wasn’t exactly happy to call a ceasefire and continue to live in fear. She knew Klaus wasn’t either.

Sighing after another few minutes passed, she threw off the blankets to throw on one of his henleys, a heavy sweater, and some leggings, grabbing her phone off the bedside table to check the time, deciding she’d call him soon if he didn’t turn up. She poured some synthetic blood into a mug and sat down on the couch, absently fiddling with her phone and staring out the window for a bit before feeling a bit pathetic and turning on the hologrammer, settling on a competition reality show where people were dropped on an “abandoned” planet and had to figure out how to find their way back to civilization to win six thousand star coins. 

It didn’t do enough to distract her, though. He almost always called if he was going to be late, and the feeling that something was horribly wrong was nagging at her. Still, she toughed it out, checking her screen every few seconds to see if there was a text or a voicemail or something, but it remained stubbornly blank.

Once the episode was over she decided it was time to call, if only to make sure that he’d at least be home before she went to bed. He picked up on the second ring, and she found herself frustrated by the smile she could hear in his voice. “Hello, sweetheart.”

“Hey,” she said cooly. “Are you going to be home soon?”

“I’m about to board the ship now. I was just about to call,” he said, hesitating for a moment before continuing, clearly interpreting her tone correctly. “Everything all right?”

“I just…I was…”

She trailed off, not wanting to admit that she’d been worried, knowing that it was irrational, but Klaus had clearly picked up on it from the soft hum and the whoosh of air and cutoff of background noise that meant he’d found a more private place to talk. “I’m sorry, love. I should have called. We’d agreed on jamming communication to the outside for the duration of the negotiations and it took much longer than expected to reach an agreement, but I do have good news. We’ve agreed on a truce for now.”

Caroline snorted, momentarily distracted from her anxiety about Klaus’s safety to fall into strategy mode. “Yeah, like they’ll keep to it.”

“Oh, I expect they won’t,” he said, his tone deceptively mild. “But I don’t intend to either. We’ll talk more when I get back. I’d like your input on some possible avenues we can take.”

Caroline felt a slow smile grow on her face, feeling pleased that Klaus clearly wasn’t trying to shut her out. “Okay. When do you think you’ll be back?”

“A few hours.”

“Ugh. I still don’t get why they wanted to meet so far away from both base planets. ‘Neutral ground’ my ass. They’re totally up to something.”

“I had the same thought, but turning them down wouldn’t have been advisable,” Klaus said, sounding just as irritated as she was with the whole thing. “I’ll see you in a few hours, sweetheart.”

“Okay.”

“Stay safe.”

“You too. I love you.”

“And I, you. I’ll call when we get to the landing area.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

She hung up, running a hand through her hair and glancing out the window. The rain was still pounding against the glass, and she winced when she saw the hybrid guard on duty wearing a large, thick black raincoat that obscured most of his body, clearly trying to keep warm. Figuring that the least she could do was bring him some warm blood (it’s not like he was allowed to leave his post for snacks), she pulled her sweater down where it had bunched up around her waist and slipped out of her and Klaus’s bedroom. The hallway to the kitchen was dimly lit, and she froze when she felt something wet on the hardwood floor under her bare feet. She reached for the light switch on the wall, flipping it on and feeling her breath catch in her throat as she followed the red pool down a few feet to see a hybrid with a slit throat.

The hybrid who was supposed to have been on duty.

The reality of the situation hit her all at once. Whoever was outside wasn’t her guard, Klaus had clearly been lured far away by the humans for a too-long negotiation on purpose, she somehow hadn’t smelled the blood all over her hallway, and she was in very deep trouble.

She felt a sharp pain in her neck.

Her world went dark before she could scream.

[rawbiredbest]

It’s All in Your Head

Contains: Fluff, Angst, Unconventional Relationships, Telepathy, Demons Fandom: Marvel (comics) Relationships: Stephen Strange/Victor von Doom Characters: Stephen Strange, Victor von Doom, Wong, Boris Word Count: 6103

Out of the blue, Stephen Strange and Victor von Doom find themselves telepathically connected.

No squealing, remember that......

Content warning for canon typical violence, profanity, implied sexual activity, and a single usage of homophobic language by a very bad individual.

Graciously commissioned by @osheets! Wanna do the same? Check my info!

Read here or on AO3!

- - -

The breakthrough comes with rapturous spontaneity. It’s like Victor von Doom has been standing on the shore of a Latverian loch, and in the blink of an eye, the grains of sand have become an orchestra, the surf their masterful conductor, and he the sole audience. He has captured their forms in glass and steel, multiplied ten million fold in the casings of complex machinery, and the entire laboratory sings the path to a bolder, brighter future. In all of his years of experimentation, innovation, desperation, he has never heard this music before. It pours from every screw and bolt, vibrates along every copper wire, thunders out of every piston and valve. The engineers below him, controlling and monitoring the device, are Gods of melody and time. Doom himself has transcended divinity, rising high on sublime notes of praise. He is Emperor, Encapsulated Universe, and his feet do not touch the floor as he glides to the heart of his machine, his veins coursing with silver beauty. Hydrogen atoms dance into the arms of their palladium partners, and their heat is love, love for each other, love for nature, love for him, and it is a primordial force unlocked from decades of ridicule and shame, and he has set it free. Genius. Monarch. Ultimate.

And then it goes. Slowly, a receding tide. It slides from his bones, leaving them aching. He braces himself against a panel, cold sweat sticking to his brow. His heart hammers in his chest, a lone drum holding a marching beat long after the band has departed into the moonless night. The engineers gape at him, oblivious to the miracle that has deafened their ruler.

Doom touches the shielding glass of the operating CMNS reactor, and its vibrations are an idiot hum. He blinks salt from his eyes, breath condensing on the machine.

Four thousand, five hundred and six miles away, a doctor and his best friend leave Madison Square Garden, wearing concert merch, beaming like loons.

- - -

To Stephen, it’s a tsunami.

He’s watching TV. The nightly news. He could tap into the Eye and view the entire world as it turns, but he doesn’t want to. It isn’t very often he feels human, let alone vegetable, so any opportunity to vegetate he takes with gusto. Stretched across his couch, he tugs down the hem of his shirt, leans his head on his hand, and waits to absorb the country’s woes.

He gets a sharp pain on the nape of his neck instead. He swats at the spot, looks at his palm. “Ow.”

Wong looks up from the email he’s writing. “Are you okay?”

Strange frowns, settles back down. “I think there’s a mosquito in here.” They’re talking about the Amazon fires. Stephen’s heart aches for the birds who will drop from the sky, their lungs full of smoke, voices forever silenced.

And then pain rips down his back, like his spine is torn out by an iron hand from his neck to his waist.

He can’t help but yell then, clutching the cushions. A heavy ache lingers in his vertebrae. Gingerly he sits up, breathing hard, eyes clenched shut. Something a bit like petrichor, a bit medicinal, a bit hot fills his nose.

Wong runs to him, but Strange raises a hand. “I’m fine,” he says, though he already braces against the thick lump rising next to his heart. As it crests, it dissipates throughout his body. He forces his eyes open, expecting to see the black trails of tiny spiders beneath his skin. Nothing but unmarked flesh.

“Should I call Doctor Carter?” Wong asks, thumbing toward the antique phone. It’s enchanted to call anywhere, anytime, any-plane.

“No, no.” Stephen leans on his knees, rubbing his temples. The pain is moving, changing. “This isn’t exactly her--”

--forte, he wants to say, but he is cut off by trees. Huge trees. Trees that consume the sky in fractal tangles of evergreen. Primordial, pristine trees, the definition of trees. The little things that crawl beneath and flit between, some carrying light, some with rigid jaws.

It’s a psychic attack. Strange has weathered them before. This one is weird. As he waves for Wong to get the Eye, he endures the spikes of pain that impale his senses to grab a closer look. This entity is lumbering, gigantic in scope yet wet around the edges.

It’s being born, he realizes. It’s waking up.

It hurts, it hurts but he’s curious. He sees New York now, its spires and streets lined up like so much circuitry. He feels the rough brush of concrete, hears the car horn concerto, smells the burn of rubber, and all throughout are rules, parameters, reasons. The thing is learning, feasting on information, and gathering more at an exponential rate. A tidal wave of green descends on the city, picking and plucking at this imaginary world.

And as it eats, thousands and thousands of hungry mouths devouring America, it hates. It hates the excess, the cruelty, the inefficiencies. It roars, barreling down the Sanctum, thousands upon thousands of tons of incomparable loathing.

Wong presses the Eye into Stephen’s hand.

“Pardon my French, dear friend,” Strange says.

The Eye bursts open, and the Sorcerer Supreme throws every ounce of his mystic might at the slavering invader. The living room cascades with dancing whorls of light as he raises his arms, funneling a solar flare, and cries a spell that every New Yorker knows by heart.

“FUCK OFF!”

Utter obliteration. When he opens his eyes, glittering motes trickle from the ceiling. The pain is gone. The TV has gone to commercial.

The phone is ringing.

Wong answers it as Stephen sinks to the couch. He slips the Eye around his neck, and its weight comforts. He thinks he’ll sleep with it tonight.

“It’s for you.”

Strange massages his ear. Vulgarity is embarrassing, but faced with an immaterial infant in the depths of an unholy tantrum doing everything in its power to cram a fork in a magic electrical socket, seemed like a good idea at the time. He takes the phone. “Hello?”

“Doctor! The master -- Victor -- something has happened, I do not know-- I--”

“Boris?” Stephen sits up. “Boris, it’s all right. Slow down. What’s going on?”

Behind the old retainer’s words, a siren wails. “The master--” He hesitates. “His newest Doombot. He turned it on for the first time. All was well, and then it exploded! And now Victor -- he is breathing this flame, this plasma! It burned through his mask! Doctor, what do I do!?”

Strange inhales deep. Counts to three. Lets it go. “He’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I do not mean to doubt you, but--”

“It will pass. Give him an ice pack and put him somewhere dark and quiet for a few hours.”

“I trust you, doctor, but please, when you can, come and see him. The violence of it, it scares me.”

“I know. It’s fine. Just something he ate.”

Boris thanks him and hangs up.

Stephen wishes the couch would eat him as he heaves a sigh. “Wong,” he asks, “Is it too late to rescind discovering my bisexuality at the ripe age of however old I am now?”

“I don’t know,” Wong replies, “To both parts of your question. I lost count in the five hundreds.”

Strange curses again.

- - -

“So. We have a telepathic link. Any idea how it got there?”

He may as well be speaking to a wall of granite. Doom, arms folded, sneers at him across the table.

Stephen links his fingers together. “I have nothing. It’s rather disconcerting. I don’t believe it’s malevolent, which is always a plus, but it’s unremarkable, which isn’t. So I’d appreciate any insight, Victor. Whatever you’d like to...you know. Get off your chest.”

Doom’s eyes are cold.

“Anything at all. Need to vent? I know you can get heated.”

The table weighs over three hundred pounds, yet Doom flings it at him like a feather. Strange cuts it in half with a bolt of solid light as Crimson Bands constrict around his other arm. They serpentine and splinter into smaller tendrils, their tips unhinging into fanged blooms, and a thought comes to Stephen as the king charges him: he was born in a forest. It’s nature’s fury that fills his head, a cacophony of hellish noise, the wild hunt calling for his spilled blood. Doom’s rage in concentrated, psychic form, howling down their link.

The Daggers of Denak, blades spinning, do an admirable job trimming the vines, their severed heads still snapping, and Strange summons the Winds of Watoomb to push Doom away. The gale staggers him yet he presses forward, arcane runes flashing a ice blue aegis on his gauntlet. Step by step, forcing him back towards the wall.

He lunges. Strange is ready for it. Doom’s arm comes up, Stephen’s arms fan out. Before the king grasps his throat, he calls a pair of razors into his palms. Victor’s grip is suffocating. Strange holds his head between two guillotine blades. An impasse.

Doom’s voice rasps, thin and scorched. “That. Hurt.”

Stephen sips the tiny breaths he can. Something’s pressing into his belly. Sweat beads on his brow. It’s a gun. It’s the stupid gun Doom carries in the stupid pouch on his stupid belt. Why does he even have it? For shooting idiot sorcerers, he thinks. He swallows hard, knows Doom can feel it through the metal. Not so evenly matched as he thought.

And then he notices it. Hiding deep under the screams is a layer of fire. Reaching through the link, he touches it. Color rushes to his cheeks.

“Seriously?” he ekes out, “This is turning you on?”

Doom’s grip loosens. A minuscule amount, enough for Strange to squeeze a few more words. The fire leaps into his psychic palm, eager, aggressive.

“There’s no shame in it. You’re good at what you do, Victor. Very few people can put me in check. Look at you. You’ve pinned me to a wall like a butterfly. That’s impressive. I--”

The king leans closer. Stephen smells ashes on his breath.

“Hoary hosts.”

The gun is holstered. A steel thumb strokes his cheek.

“Reap what you sow,” Doom mutters.

- - -

The aches and bruises will last for days, but the coolness of Doom’s armor against the carpet burn on his back is soothing. He rests a hand in the king’s own. Anything else feels too strenuous. “Was that your first time having telepathic sex? It’s intense, isn’t it?”

Victor takes in the state of the room. Paintings smashed, furniture so much firewood, stone walls fractured and cratered. How much destruction is his? He has no idea. One or the other had to have held back. The castle is still standing, after all.

Neither man speaks. Stephen ventures a glimpse down their link and gets only an image of black curtains. Doom’s already set up defenses. Though some of his own are raised, he lets some satisfaction flow between them. An olive branch.

A quiet, amused huff. “At times, Strange,” Doom says, and already his voice sounds better, “Your physical merits outweigh the strenuous mental exertions you put me through.”

“I never much cared for the medieval aesthetic myself, yet here we are.” He grunts as he looks over his shoulder, thighs twinging. “How drunk were we that night?”

“Doom was sober.”

“Oh no, your golden goblet saw plenty of refills. You were, at the very least, tipsy.”

“You question Doom’s memory?”

Stephen cups his chin, looks deep into dark brown eyes. “I question, my lord, why you claim to remember, with crystal clarity, a night you could have easily decreed never happened at all.”

Nothing comes. No biting remark, no caustic humiliation. Doom only holds his gaze, and under the black curtains flashes something bright, something strong. It lasts for only half a second before the king gets up, using Strange’s shoulder for support. “This link shall be insufferable. Do your part to get rid of it.”

Stephen frowns, annoyed that his legs work. He wonders if Victor left any of his clothing intact. “Right. Ground rules. Stay out of my head, and I won’t make you cough up another star. Deal?”

“Stay out of Doom’s head, and you shall not know pain unending. You have a deal.”

- - -

This lasts for two months.

- - -

On Day 51, a current of malicious satisfaction slithers through Strange’s mind. Gooseflesh rises up his back. The half-chewed wad of pastrami and egg in his mouth goes sour. He spits it out, bracing himself on the dinner table, and without thinking of thinking, he thinks: what have you done now?

The smirk on Doom’s face reminds him of the crocodiles at the Bronx Zoo. The thing Victor is smiling at reminds him of shop class. He can’t begin to make heads or tails of it. Like many of the king’s devices, it could have come off the set of a sci-fi movie. Sleek and chrome, rigged with multicolored wires, pumps, and gauges, a porthole reveals the heart of the machine, a vile purple light. Stephen’s gut tells him that color would eat him alive if it could, tear into his flesh and drip his blood from its teeth. Stephen trusts his gut.

Strange, Doom replies, smile quickly fading into a scowl, We had an agreement.

You broke first. I felt you. My spidey sense tingled.

Victor’s gauntlets ball into fists, and he sends a wave of serrated anger barreling toward the magician. A chained wolf, barking and snarling. An executioner waiting for the condemned to dig his own grave deeper.

Stephen curses. He didn’t mean to think that out loud. Look. Just tell me what it is and I’ll leave you alone.

The black curtains rustle, then lift like a wing. Swimming in the purple light are mathematical equations, coiling around metal rods. It makes perfect sense to Doom, but to Strange it’s a form of gibberish undecipherable by any eldritch tome.

Then he hears it. It’s not coming from the machine. It’s from Doom. Subvocalized lyrics. A silent song. He could recognize the tune anywhere.

He bought its album at the concert.

This is cold fusion.

Stephen snaps back to attention. Cold fusion. Should I be worried?

Victor folds his arms. That I built a safe, eternal form of energy for myself and my people? Yes, Strange, cower and quake. Your country shall never have it so long as I draw breath.

There are many dangerous rebuttals to that he could say. Names he could drop. Yet Doom promised pain unending. Fifty-one days into their connection, Strange has no leads into its inner workings. Finding out if he could make good on his word is a risk Stephen is unwilling to take.

I don’t like this, the sorcerer thinks, but I have to believe you. Don’t misbehave.

His own mental defense is a never-ending subway express train, its doors and windows a veil of golden thorns. Sighing, he sits back down. What’s left of his sandwich has the appeal of wet newspaper.

Doom was right. The link is awful.

- - -

On Day 60, despite the blazing fire in the hearth, Victor’s feet send ripples through a puddle.

He regards it from his antique armchair throne with indifferent curiosity. Through the filters in his mask, he smells the green, pungent scent of foliage rot and seawater. In the puddle itself swim millions of plankton. A frenzy of eating, fucking, dying, and birthing unfolds beneath his alloy soles.

From the corner of his eye, he watches the puddle extend an arm of water across the floor. Sliding under a wall, a line of slithering damp turns the paint a moldy gray. Moisture fans across the entire side of the room in a pattern like falling stars, like skeletal hands trailing through a river. The scent grows stronger as the puddle expands. He rises before it consumes his chair. The leather sinks until it is a speck of mahogany in the brine. Gloom washes over it and it is gone.

Doom folds his arms. A breeze teases the tail of his cloak. Murmuring a quiet word, he puts out the fire with an arc of a finger, and turns around into another world.

It is eternal night. It has no sun, and what few stars can be seen are lucky glimpses through a lush canopy of branches and black, web-like leaves many hundreds of feet above. The grass under him has a sticky grip, but gentle. If grass could want for anything, it would like to give the king safe passage on his journey. He isn’t the sustenance it’s looking for. That comes on the wind, in the form of tiny shards of detritus falling from forest layers high overhead. It shimmers as it tumbles down, the only source of light in this hadal garden.

He doesn’t need to go far. Half-concealed behind a root far taller than he, Doom watches himself and Stephen Strange on the next mound over.

The magician talks with grand gestures, sweeping an arm over trees as dark as ink. Doom remembers himself speaking little, allowing Strange to tell him the highlights of the world. No recorded examples of predation. Negligible changes in evolution for millennia. A slow world. A place of peace.

Stephen steps into the water. Waist deep, he holds out his arm. His garb drips off him, revealing pale skin. He smiles, bare and inviting.

The other Victor undoes his belt.

“And you complain when I get you out of the house.”

Doom peers at the Stephen Strange sitting in lotus position beside him. “You drag me into your affairs with no concern for my well-being or sanity.”

“Please. The times you dig your heels in are cursory, at best. And then we end up doing things like this.”

Across the mound, the other king’s armor sits in a neat pile, and the two doctors stand in each other’s arms, their lips meeting and parting only to inhale.

Victor kneels on the grass. “Even you are capable of stumbling onto a good idea.”

Stephen’s lip curls upward. “I think about this often. This place is beautiful. This memory pleasant. I took effort not to broadcast this to you. My apologies if I disturbed you.”

Doom looks away. “You did not.”

“Oh? Your Royal Highness, we had an agreement.”

“Am I not allowed to reminisce myself?”

“Ssh. Meditate with me.”

He closes his eyes. Strange’s hand creeps into his own, and he lets it stay.

Perhaps he was wrong. The link isn’t so bad.

- - -

Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up!

Stephen rolls molasses slow toward awareness. The bedroom is pitch black, swimming in unholy hour of the morning disorientation.

Your wife is in trouble!

He cracks an eye open, shifting in the sheets. “Clea?”

No! Your big green wife! Get up, right now!

Those aren’t his thoughts. It’s a voice he’s never heard before, coming from inside his head. He holds very still and feels something slither over his brain.

He snaps wide awake.

I’m sorry we have to meet like this, the voice says, but we must hurry. The whole world is at stake!

In any other circumstance, Strange would interrogate the voice within an inch of its life, but its fear is genuine. Swinging out of bed, he yanks some pants on, startles the Cloak of Levitation from of its own sleep, and pulls open a portal to Latveria.

Curse me for a novice! the voice squeaks, That can’t be good!

Enormous rends in reality drape over the castle. Shimmering in the air, some bisect the stone in clean, monomolecular cuts. One vomits a steady stream of magma, causing a massive fire in the castle courtyard. Through each of them Stephen sees other dimensions. Another hole fans out from the keep itself and drops a mass of red crystals that crush an entire rampart.

Please! Hurry!

Stephen slams the portal shut, imagines his destination, and wrenches open a new one directly to Doom’s lab. The room is bathed in sunset colors and thick, acrid smoke. At its heart lies the fusion reactor, which is now anything but cold. The purple light pounds waves of energy, reverberating off its containment and magnifying a new tear in the world.

Victor stands in front of the machine. His motions are jerky, abrupt, a marionette controlled by a mob of children. He lifts a twitching hand and the tear throws itself through the castle to join the others outside.

Sister-Brother! the voice cries, Stop!

Doom’s arms drop, strings cut. The voice that comes from his mind is higher than the other.

No, I don’t think so, it says, I think I’m going to continue. You’re more than welcome to burn.

“You’re the link,” Strange says.

Just figured that out now? Sister-Brother asks, Wow, Brother-Sister. You sure drew the short straw. My host is incredible. I’ve mapped every gyri and sulci in here and it’s gorgeous. I’d stay forever if I could. It’s almost a shame he has to die.

Stephen glares, raising his hands, fingers glowing with magic. “As Sorcerer Supreme, I command you to release Doctor Doom!”

The laugh that echoes down the link is nails on a chalkboard. You have no idea what we are.

“You’re playing with fire. You’re threatening the dimensional stability of all of Doomstadt. And when I find you, you’ll have hell to pay.”

This host has already seen hell, Sister-Brother chides, What better place to grow up than in a body demon-touched? Have you considered that I’m doing him a favor? This is how it plays out. This is fate.

Doom turns around without his mask.

A bloodcurdling shriek ricochets across Strange’s mind, his hand thrusts forward with a will not his own, and a thunderbolt connects with the king’s head. Victor flies against a control panel, smashing it with the weight of his impact. Groaning and creaking, the reactor starts to power down, sprinklers in the ceiling damping the flames.

His face, Brother-Sister whispers, Gods, oh gods, what’s wrong with his face...

Stephen contains his screams until he kneels at Doom’s side, hefting his body into his arms. The scent of burning meat fills his nose. He howls for someone, anyone, to help him, royal blood seeping onto his chest.

- - -

He awakens to the beeping of the heart monitor.

Doom feels like mountainsides have taken residence on his eyelids. Slowly sliding them open, he takes inventory. The room is bright, sterile, no windows. He’s propped up in a bed. His hands are bare yet weigh like continents. He looks to his left.

“Hello,” Stephen says.

The sorcerer looks terrible. Ashen skin, reddened eyes, a frown threatening to rip his mouth off. The clothes he wears belong to any servant of the castle. The hands clasped together between his knees shake worse than Doom has ever seen.

“You’re on a morphine drip. You’ve been unconscious for the past twelve hours. You’re in the castle. We set up a makeshift triage room. For a while...” He takes a deep breath, steeling his voice. “We didn’t know if you would make it.”

Doom thinks, and his head is wonderfully quiet.

“Thank every deity you know that your skull is almost as hard as your armor. You’re going to be in a lot of pain for the next few days, but the alternative...I don’t want to think about. And I got rid of the link.” Strange picks up a jar from a nearby stand. “Meet Brother-Sister and Sister-Brother.”

Floating in cerebrospinal fluid are two worms. One is storm cloud gray bracketed by navy blue. The other is dark yellow-green with flecks of red. Flat as ribbons and only an inch long, they give each other a wide berth.

“Pineal parasites,” Stephen continues, “Stuck to the undercarriage of our minds, learning how to be through our eyes. They talked together through us. Saw magic through us. Deciphered grand machines through us. And now they’re ready to go home. That’s what yours was trying to do. They were looking for a place where nothing changes and nothing happens because all who go there are hijacked and killed. Not such a good idea after all, was it?”

Doom blinks.

Putting the worms down, Strange digs his wrists into his eyes. “Victor, I swear to you on everything I am I had no idea. I thought you’d like it. I thought you could forget being so angry, forget the Four if only for an hour, and be happy. Now you--”

He stares at the door, fist to his mouth. Swallowing his heart, he says, “I’m bringing them back. They’re not at fault. They’re just following their life cycle. Despite what they’ve done, they deserve to live.”

Birds that will choke on ashes, he thinks, Countless trees turned to dust. No more. No more death.

“The best doctors in your kingdom are here for you. I’ll be back.”

“Doom will go with you.”

Victor’s voice is quiet but steady. Stephen shakes his head. “No. You’re in no shape to get out of bed, let alone travel dimensions.”

The monarch shuts his eyes. Heavy footsteps pass through the door. A doppelganger in emerald and steel, the Doombot bows its head to its ruler.

“Doom will go with you,” Victor repeats.

Strange blows a ragged breath. By Doom’s creased brow, that wasn’t easy. “Okay. Rest now. Don’t do anything until I return.”

Victor says nothing. Stephen waits until he drifts to sleep, presses a kiss to rough lips, and departs, robot in tow.

- - -

Q-4301 is indistinguishable from the real deal, from its ramrod straight spine to its folded arms, yet there’s no look of wonder in its lenses, no human, if royally restrained, sense of adventure in its copper and silicon heart. It doesn’t care about the bits and pieces of gold falling from the alien canopy, the grass patting its boots. It stares at Strange, emotionless, and that very lack of feeling gnaws at the pit of the sorcerer’s stomach.

They’re on the same black water island mound as before. He can pick out the tree Victor pressed him against from all the rest. Had the microscopic eggs that birthed the parasite twins been attracted to their sex, or had it been sheer luck? He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know.

In his hand is a candle made from the blood of priests. “Do you have them?” Stephen asks.

Q-4301 lifts a corner of its cloak. Sewn into the cloth is a glass vial. Brother-Sister and Sister-Brother are inside.

Strange nods. “I don’t know if Doom programmed you to feel fear. Either way, let me do the talking. If all goes well, you won’t have to do anything.”

The Doombot says nothing. Taking a deep breath, Stephen snaps a spark between his fingers and lights the candle.

The world goes silent. The wind ceases, and so does the steady fall of golden bits and bobs. The grass curls into tight nubs. The only indication that time has not stopped entirely is the gleam of flame like an undulating eel on the surface of the water. Stephen’s breath is deafening in his own ears.

The voice that speaks is low and obsidian slick. “Well, well, well. Look what the fags dragged in.”

The demon, descending from the trees, blends perfectly into the dark. Its teeth are yellowed and pitted from a diet of rot. It moves on long, soundless talons. Its eyes are cherry red, pupils like mouths.

“Doctor Strange,” the khat murmurs, “You honor me with your presence. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re a cautionary tale among khat-kind, you know. A warning about too much power in frail, mortal meat. Like stuffing a sun into a stomach, it’s only a matter of time till it bursts.”

Stephen purses his lips. “Cut the shit. I have something for you.”

The khat’s grin splits up to its ears. “A gift? Is it your heart? Your humanity? Your soul? Please tell me it’s your soul. I would so like your soul.”

“Come closer and I’ll show you.”

The demon pads on water, leaving no ripples in its path. “Is it the thing beside you?” Nostrils flaring, it sizes up the Doombot. “Not the usual breed of lost lambs you lead to slaughter. What sort of lies did you tell it to follow you? An offer of redemption, perhaps? Anything desperate enough to flaunt about in a green skirt would listen to you.”

“Desperation is for the weak,” Q-4301 snaps.

Strange swallows the ball of curses on his tongue and hopes it doesn’t show. Doombots fall for bait. Exactly like the original.

The khat stops. “Everything has weaknesses. You were once a babe in your mother’s arms, no? Look at your companion. The Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, can barely keep a friend around, let alone alive. No, no, no, there has to be a reason he wants you here.” It lies on all fours, rests its cheek on its fist. “What sort of gift was it again?”

Stephen starts to speak. Q-4301 beats him. “The only gift a demon like you deserves.”

Red eyes narrow in amusement. “Oh, it’s too much for a single khat to bear! Let me call my brothers. We shall find out together.” Rising into a crouch, it takes a deep breath.

There’s still time to salvage the plan. Strange shouts, “Do it!”

Q-4301 lunges into the water, tears the vial from its cloak, and thrusts its arm out. As predicted, the khat opens its toothy jaws and swallows the punch up to the Doombot’s shoulder. Payload delivered, they need to flee.

The portal spell is halfway done when Stephen spots Q-4301 motionless.

For a second, the khat too is still. Then, beaming around the steel in its mouth, it bites, and tears Q-4301′s arm off.

No robot could replicate the spray of blood and scream in agonized terror.

Strange doesn’t realize he’s also screaming. The khat snatches Q-4301′s shoulder and slams it beneath the surface. The water boils in the struggle. Shadows like hellish stalagmites reach for the leaf-choked sky as the sorcerer calls his magic. Black muck splatters the trees, the grass, Stephen’s legs as he gathers flame in his shaking palms.

The blast turns the water to steam as the garden sees more light than it has in billions of years. He looks for a target, finds nothing but the bare riverbed quickly flooding to fill the void.

The khat geysers up behind him, grabs his leg, and wrenches him into the water. The Cloak of Levitation has enough time to flip him face up before a heavy paw pins it down. Eyes stinging, heart hammering, Strange fends off the khat’s snapping jaws with novas in his palms. It takes all his training to anticipate where the teeth will be, vision obscured by plumes of bubbles, and not lose a limb.

Claws curl in his suit and drag him through the brine. His head connects with a tree root and all of reality goes sideways. His breath whooshes free, and sour liquid fills his throat.

The demon hauls him out, shoves him against a tree. Three blurry khats grin in Stephen’s eyes. Dozens of fangs.

“The gift is all three,” it says, “Your heart, humanity, and soul. Why were we ever warned about you? You’re nothing.”

It opens its mouth.

LEAVE HIM ALONE!

Stephen shakes water and blood from his eyes. The khat is frozen save its eyes, which widen in shock. Two voices erupt from its gullet. One, higher-pitched, screeches an incoherent string of profanity.

By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth, the other cries, I demand you let him go!

If he squints, Strange can see two ribbons in the khat’s belly. One yellow-green and red, the other gray and blue.

“What have you done,” the demon barks, “What have you done to me!?”

The claws pry open. Stephen beats a hasty retreat, flying to the unfinished portal. As he works to complete it, something moves at his feet. The grass scuttles bits and pieces of shattered human along pathways only it knows. He reaches down, grabs a fragment, and rage flows through him hot enough to make his skin glow, heat radiating from him in convection circles.

The khat breaks free of the parasites’ control, smashing its head against the tree for good measure. Screaming, it leaps for him. Strange sidesteps into another world -- home -- closes the portal, and waits until his ears stop ringing.

His anger he keeps. He storms through castle halls, eager to strike while the iron is hot.

- - -

Doom must really try this relaxation thing more often. It isn’t bad. Balcony doors open, letting in sunshine and a floral breeze, he reclines in his seat, sips his tea, and listens to the vinyl spinning on the antique phonograph.

I’m coming down, coming down like a monkey, but it’s all right Like a load on your back that you can’t see, oooh but it’s all right

The song has been in his head for months. It’s nice to hear it in the open. Doom smiles. Stephen has good taste in music.

“Bastard!”

The chair spins around and Doom is confronted by a feral magician. Strange notes the king’s simple garb: no steel in sight, just a cotton shirt and pants. He aims for Victor’s face but his quaking hands botch the throw. It bounces off his chest and lands in his teacup. “You’re not white!”

Doom looks at his tea. The blue eye in the tea looks back. “About time someone noticed,” he deadpans, extracting the orb by its optic nerve and setting it on a napkin.

The chair bucks like a bronco and Victor spills out. Stephen catches him with magic, hangs him in the air. The cup breaks into a thousand pieces and the king’s disappointed frown makes Strange want to throttle him. “Who was in the Doombot?”

“A nuclear engineer working on the CMNS reactor.” Doom sounds bored. “He tweeted about the parasite-induced euphoria I experienced. Called it an episode. Implications of weakness are illegal. Justice -- and the parasites -- were served. Two birds with one stone.”

“You killed a man for a tweet.”

“Whatever creature you encountered in the garden slew him, not I.”

Stephen drops him, relishing Victor’s grunt as a shard of teacup cuts his foot. It’s a slimy pleasure, and his face contracts. “Bastard. There isn’t an ounce of goodness in you.”

The king pulls the porcelain out of his flesh and points the bloodied end of it. “I have my ways just as you have yours. Until you grasp this concept, we shall always be at odds.”

“Be at odds? I saved your life!”

Doom brushes back his hair. Black stitches stretch from one ear across his head to the other. “You scarred me.”

They’re on thin ice. Strange dials back his fury, fists clenched. Monstrous tyrant or not, Victor is recovering from brain surgery. “You had a worm in your head.”

Tossing the shard aside, Doom sinks back in the chair in a position Stephen calls the regal slouch. “The sentence for weakness implications is community service. The engineer served his community. The sentence for injury to the royal person is death.” A scowl darkens his face. “I have half a mind to not let you leave this room alive.”

The sorcerer shuts his eyes.

“However.” Doom thinks, picking his words. “The extraneous circumstances surrounding the crime cannot be ignored. A different punishment is called for. It shall be made at a later time.” He draws a holographic display before him. A tigress pants in her den, lozenges squirming at her belly. “Three cubs were born at the Latverian Zoo this morning.” He looks at Stephen. “I find myself preoccupied with some wildlife conservation of my own.”

The sigh comes from the bottom of his heart. One day Victor will come out and thank him. Today is not that day. It will have to do. Strange rubs his eyes. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Speak.”

“Exile. A break. Another two months, or two years, or two hundred years. I’m not picky. I just don’t want to see you for a while.”

Doom looks back at the panel. “Your suggestion carries weight. So be it. Begone.”

That’s that. Another story concluded. Feeling empty, feeling light, Stephen turns to go.

“Strange.”

Fuck, so close. The sorcerer looks over his shoulder. “What?”

“When next we sojourn, for Doom knows we shall--” Victor’s lip turns up, the smallest hint of a smirk. “--I shall pick our destination.”

[ckret2]

What are your alien headcanon for ghidorah?

I didn’t realize that i desperately wanted somebody to ask about Ghidorah’s alienness until you did so thank you very much for this opportunity, I won’t let you down. I’ve tried to roughly divide paragraphs by topics and this is obscenely long so most of it is under a cut.

All of these are specific to MonsterVerse.

I know I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve decided that for the purposes of my fics, Legendary!Ghidorah’s backstory is a mix of Invasion of Astro-Monster (he’s been mind-controlled by aliens for the purpose of destroying other planets) and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (he was made out of three tiny adorable mildly telepathic dragon-cat things). So put together: some unknown alien species in the distant past took three sweet little household pets, frankensteined them together, threw in a mountainload of genetic modifications, and trained/mindcontrolled the resulting abomination to be a flying apocalypse to destroy planets they want to conquer. (to stick with the Invasion of Astro Monster parallels, i might go with the aliens being Xiliens. undecided.)

At some point, Ghidorah escaped his handlers, went rogue, and has been bopping around the galaxy razing planets every since.

So this is why he’s a planet-destroyer: because 1) he was specially designed as a weapon that’s so good at planet-destroying he starts passively wrecking the environment simply by flying, and 2) he’s an escaped domesticated pet that was strenuously trained to destroy planets, so he’s kept doing the one thing he was trained to do. it’s the only thing he’s ever known, except for a couple years of being three dragon-kittens before getting experimented on. He doesn’t think it’s his manifest destiny to conquer and rule a private world, he’s not particularly keen on being King; he just, like… has no other hobbies besides mass murder, and is scared to try new things. He’s uh, probably got some trauma to work through.

Yes: he did, in fact, wreck Venus’s atmosphere. There may or may not be extraterrestrial refugees from Venus on Earth. He may or may not also be responsible for Jupiter’s red spot.

And he actually can fly without creating hurricanes, even in hurricane-prone atmospheres like Earth’s; it’s just harder and a lot less comfortable. Like imagine if it rained every time you walked—but not on you, just somewhere else—unless you walked sideways with your hands on your head. like, you COULD, but it’d be annoying.

His heads are not actually related, although all three did know each other before getting mad scienced together.

Because his original species was Domesticated Pet, and because his modifications allowed him to actually understand his “owner” species and what they said to/about him, he thinks of himself and other species that are disinclined toward tool-using, structure-building, and complicated-society-forming as “creatures” rather than “people”—i.e., a naturally inferior state of being. He thinks of himself as a “creature,” which is sorta messed up, because like, he’s definitely a person. Three people? At least one person. (This is in contrast to most Earth titans, who think of titans as highly diverse “people” and, on the other hand, think of humans and their cities as rather like rabbits and their warrens or bees and their hives—that is, most  usually don’t think about them at all, and certainly don’t consider such small critters to be “people.” There are a few rare exceptions—like Mothra—who consider humans to also be people like titans.)

Because of his awareness of “people” that are often much smaller than him, he’s got a capacity for sadism toward humans that titans who don’t even notice humans, like Rodan, lack. When Rodan flies over streets, he’s accidentally blowing around some ants. When Ghidorah flies over streets, he’s slaughtering living sentient individuals, knows it, and enjoys it.

Also because of his awareness of “people,” he’s far warier of their contraptions than other titans. Like, Rodan thinks jets are crunchy birds; but Ghidorah knows. At a glance he understands the rough purpose and use of most human machines based on analogous inventions he’s seen on other planets—he understands jets, drones, missiles, bombs, telephones, cameras, TVs, speakers, street lights, power grids, satellites…

He considers humans a class of people he refers to as “machine makers,” because that’s their defining trait to him, He considers machine maker species the most dangerous type of alien because they’re the ones who might conceivably have the capacity of inventing things that can put him back under mind control.

He can basically flap on up to the moon any time he wants, and probably does from time to time to get away from King Skreeonk and his insufferable friends. Who’s gonna go get him on the moon? SpaceX?

Ghidorah’s original species was genetically modified to be lightly empathic—able to read other living beings’ emotions—to help the pets care for their dear beloved owners’ emotional states; members of the species can also freely telegraph their emotions to each other. Ghidorah retained the power after being frankensteined, but it atrophied greatly over time. Possibly due to trauma, possibly due to three-people-aren’t-supposed-to-share-one-spinal-cord brain damage, who knows. He can still use it, but it only really fully works when he’s deeply sleeping/hibernating (i.e., when he was frozen in Antarctica, or when he’s traveling from one solar system to another and needs to pass time). When he’s awake, he’s got to press his foreheads directly to someone else’s head to sense their emotions. He can also transmit emotions this way. (He doesn’t need the ability to telegraph emotions between heads, since they’ve got a sorta interconnected brain system already.)

As an offshoot of this empath power, one of his multitude of apocalyptic powers that may or may not have been intended by his original designers: Ghidorah is capable of mild mind control—which is actually how he managed to control a whole planet of titans—by “singing.” It’s not direct control so much as it is a forced emotional state; what the victim does in that emotional state is up to them, although he can offer gentle suggestions that line up with their state. (i.e., “you’re extremely angry now; perhaps punch someone?” would function; “you’re extremely angry now; perhaps tenderly kiss someone?” would fall apart.)

This ability works directly on the brains of his targets, and since every evolutionary tree builds its brains different ways, when he lands on a new planet he has to put significant effort into studying the minds on the planet before he can figure out how to compose a song that will affect them at all, much less tune it to the specific emotions that he wants to cause. For this reason, he usually doesn’t consider it worth the effort, and he usually wrecks a planet and moves on long before figuring out how to sing to their minds. He probably wouldn’t have figured out how to sing to Earth’s titans if his battles with Godzilla hadn’t slowed him down from destroying the planet & motivated him to find other ways to get an advantage.

His song didn’t work on humans because titan brains are just too different for the same tune to work on both. His song didn’t work on Mothra because she’s telepathic herself, and a stronger telepath than Ghidorah. His song didn’t work on Godzilla because he was legally braindead at the time; otherwise, it probably would have. His song’s effectiveness is a matter of brain biology, not “alpha” ranking.

He can learn to sing other emotions, but right now the only one for Earth he’s figured out is “PANICRAGE AND DESTROY THINGS!!” because that’s the only one he wanted to figure out.

And I refer to it as “singing” partially because siren song parallels and partially because, from Ghidorah’s perspective, it is like, just singing. He also enjoys totally normal non-mind-control singing, like, just for fun.

When Ghidorah escaped his home planet, there were other “Ghidorahs” that had been made for the same purpose. He occasionally glimpsed them while bopping around the galaxy, but crossing paths with them was usually his signal to Get The Hell Out Of This Solar System because homeworld handlers might be with them. It’s not safe to stick around long enough to figure out whether they’re escaped like him or not.

He hasn’t seen any other “Ghidorahs” in a long time. He doesn’t know if any are still alive, or even if his homeworld is still alive & out conquering. He’s not interested in checking.

When he’s in parts of the galaxy with more well-traveled spacefaring aliens who recognize him as a world-ending weapon gone rogue, he’s sometimes hired as a mercenary to ravage planets. And by “hired” as a “mercenary” I mean “they ask him to destroy a specific planet and he says yeah okay because he was going to destroy a planet anyway and doesn’t care which one, and he doesn’t really have any material needs or keep any possessions so payment would be wasted on him.”

This is how he met Gigan, who is also a gigantic living war machine gone rogue from his homeworld and now occasionally doing mercenary work. Unlike Ghidorah, Gigan actually requests payment for flattening a world; but like, he’s also willing to flatten it per the client’s specifications—i.e. “please STOP flattening it if they pay our ransom” or such—which at times makes him a better hire than Ghidorah even at the extra cost. Being somewhat cyborg, Gigan can download and speak languages that aren’t technically supposed to be compatible with his anatomy, so he was able to strike up a conversation with Ghidorah a lot faster than most aliens because he already knew how to speak Ghidorah’s homeworld owner species’s language.

Along with understanding his owner species’ spoken language, Ghidorah can also read their written language, and possibly the languages of some other aliens too; and he can recognize what The Written Word is when he sees it even if he doesn’t know the language. He can, potentially, write—slowly and badly, like, if he’s got a long enough beach and a big enough stick to hold in his teeth and drag in the sand. He’s really not anatomically designed for writing, or even typing, in any easy way, and he’s never felt the need to find a method that works for him.

If, somehow, Ghidorah managed to spawn offspring, they would be of his original species: extremely small dragon-cats.

Being a deliberately designed weapon with a specific purpose, he probably wasn’t designed to reproduce, or even to simply be able to perform the physical act of mating. His creators did not, however, bother to remove his urge to do so. This has been a source of lifelong frustration. (That said though, he might still be capable in some fashion—if, y’know, it seems narratively interesting enough to pursue. But if so, it WILL be difficult to manage, full of complications and frustrations, and most likely require some creativity and/or unexpected wild accidents on Ghidorah’s part to achieve.)

Despite the fact that he’s a giant murderous asshole, Ghidorah is, in his heart, still just three domesticated pets, and so thinks that being an indoor pet with a loving owner taking care of all your needs is in fact A Fine And Good Thing To Be. All three parts of him were quite happy to be owned and taken care of—up until they got frankensteined and forced into mind-controlled giant monster boot camp.

So if he did spawn a bunch of extremely small dragon-cats and humans, being humans, started snatching them up and taking them home to be quirky exotic pets, he’d be like, “hell yeah. go, my children. this is your destiny.”

Ghidorah doesn’t consider himself as having any name at all. In fic when I call the heads “First,” “Second,” and “Third,” it’s more for the convenience of readers; they themselves don’t bother to think of themselves or each other by any names, even just numbers, because they always know who they’re thinking about already. He’s always surprised when someone gives him a name to go by—surprised and a little bit uncomfortable, because he feels like a name threatens to psychologically anchor him down to a “normal” life amid “normal” people. Homeworld may or may not have given him a name, or at least a code name; might have just him a serial number, idk. In any case he doesn’t remember it. His component parts had individual names before they were frankensteined, which none of them consciously remember, but if someone were to ever call them by their original names they’d probably start bawling like babies.

[theheartchoice]

Lonely Is The Word 

teen  |  2k  |  canonverse s6  |  ao3

for @profoundnet's bi-weekly Bot Stat challenge. prompt issued: April 30th 2019 

Dean needs a beer. Cas is listening to angel radio. S̸a̵m̴ ̸i̶s̵ ̸f̵i̵n̵e̷.̸ ̷E̵v̵e̵r̵y̶t̵h̷i̴n̸g̴ ̵i̶s̵ ̷j̵u̶s̶t̵ ̷f̸i̴n̶e̷..̴.

Sam knows about his soulless gap year and Bobby's having a hard time trusting the resurrected version. Even without monsters, their lives are still a shitshow. Add in warring Angels and friggin' Purgatory-seeking Dragons and Dean just needs a second to breathe.

Dean only leaves because Sam is safe. No safer place than Bobby's. He just needs an hour or two to wrap his mind around things.

With Baby back to rights he drives 'til the sun dips below the wheatgrass horizon, no destination set in stone but half tempted to find a bar just south of the border. It's the best combo there is to clear his head: just the open road, whatever's on tap wherever he pulls up, and the right kind of company for just long enough to sate this desire to scream his lungs out - at crappy circumstance, at the Winchester family curse, at his own bad choices. 

He just wanted his brother back, is that so bad? Sam didn't deserve to be left behind - not in that place; no one does. He shudders to think how Alastair's torture might pale in comparison to Lucifer's. For Sam to go through that again - to re-discover whatever's left of him? Forget calling in Death for a quick-fix favour, because even Dean knows some things can't be fixed, can't be undone, unseen. 

Dean lives with his memories from the pit every day. Avoids 'em, as much as it's possible to do so without some magic mind-block, but he's changed forever because of 'em. And Sam might not've been the one dealing out damnation, but if time works in a similar way down there then he was Lucifer's chew toy for over a century. And if that doesn't shake anyone to their foundations just to think about then they're either a lunatic or a goddamn liar. 

Cas spelled out Dean's fear in no uncertain terms: Let me tell you what his soul felt like when I touched it: like it had been skinned alive. 

But was he right? Had Dean doomed Sam to a fate worse than death by trying to do the right thing? Trying to save him?

If you wanted to kill your brother you should have done it outright. 

Sam's fine - for now. But how long before his wall crumbles into Hellfire? The structural integrity's already been compromised, and no matter what Sam promised, Dean knows his brother: if Sam wants to right his own alleged wrongs then he'll do it and nevermind the cost to himself.  

And while Dean holds fast that whatever Samdroid did while his soul was MIA isn't on Sam, Bobby's less convinced. Just to throw another wrench in the gears of the 'better life' that was 'spose to finally be possible after the Apocalypse was averted. Not that that was really ever gonna happen. 

No Armageddon, but the tradeoff was Sam jumping into the pit. Sam gets resurrected, but his soul gets left behind. Dean gets a taste of the Apple Pie life, but hunting is his bread and butter. There's a civil war up in the clouds because (as everyone well-knows) Angels are dicks. And as if the self-crowned king of Hell trying to rip a hole between dimensions wasn't enough, apparently that little adventure is now on some dragon-dude's bucket list. 

Crazy as it sounds, Dean kinda misses the ol' days. Y'know, when all they had to do was take down a couple of overzealous Archangels. They've got shit stacking up on so many spinnin' plates right now it's impossible to tell which one's gonna be the first to topple and shatter, that crap raining down on 'em in a mess of blood and pain and one gruesome smear of trouble after another - and it'll soil a bunch of innocent people too, if they're not careful. 

Knowing their luck it probably won't be just the one plate, either. 

But when it comes to this sorta thing all they can really do is.. wait n' see. Try to be ready to divert whatever mountain of crap avalanches at them - or try to outrun it, sidewind it before the risk catches up with them and the goddamn consequences bury them alive. 

    Some small-town city limits come into view just as the clouded night kisses down the last of twilight. Dean knows this place. He can get what he needs here, on a lucky night. Hell, two out of three ain't bad. Booze? Check. Distance? Check. Company?.. Guess he'll have to wait and see. 

He'd kinda like some answers, too. Some goddamn direction to point himself in when he hits the road again. And there is a certain someone who might be able to help with that - or might not. But whatever the case, Dean wouldn't turn his company away. Maybe what he needs right now, more than anything, is a friend. 

Baby slows to a stop in the vacant lot across the street from the bar, Black Sabbath cutting out with the purr of her engine. 

"Hey, Cas.." And where the hell does he go from here? Honesty, or a passable lie? Maybe somewhere in between. "I know you think what I did for Sam was the wrong call, and.." Yeah.. okay. "..honestly, I dunno. I dunno if what I did is gonna make things better or worse in the long run. All I know is that I had to, man - I had to." There's really no more to it than that. Except maybe just, "I could really use a friend, right about now." Reckless little brother, uncle who lied to him for a year; seems he can't really go wrong seeking the advice of his Angelic best friend, right? Even if he has been out of sorts since their little reunion. Better than the alternatives at least, even if there is a year of space between them now. 

Dean'd be lying if he said he didn't wonder what Cas got up to during that year. Caught himself before shooting off a prayer more than once. Maybe just to check in, maybe to brainstorm ways to save Sam. His spirit - already struggling to dry off from the shitstorm of their lives - was dampened to learn that Cas wasn't the one who saved Sam from The Cage - or tried to. Cas did try though, so maybe that's somethin'. 

In the time it would take for Heaven and Hell to play out the last few bars of track seven and most of the closing number, Dean sits alone in the driver's seat, headlights lighting the way to nowhere, waiting. 

Turns out to be just another mistake in a long line of dumbass mistakes, another mark on the board for his tally of bad choices. Baby purrs back to life half only half a minute before she's put to sleep again and Dean's stalking away into the bar. 

    "—Castiel?" Rachel's voice pulls him back before his wings denote a telltale stretch - still a reflex he must wilfully deny. "Is something wrong?"

Yes. "No, I was just.. listening." 

Her eyes harden, and Castiel has been made accustomed to that look over the last mortal year as she nods. "Raphael's soldiers think blocking our channels with their rhetoric will hinder our efforts, but his numbers are not what ours are. And they can't affect our communications for much longer." 

Of course. It is a tactic only effective in the short-term, for the amount of energy required to interfere would significantly drain the Angels pervading the etheric communicative transference. 

She proceeds to inform him of their recent losses in battle along with how many of Raphael's soldiers were presumably wounded or killed. 

Castiel dreads such knowledge perhaps most of all; knowing the extent of Angelic grace being spilled in a war that would not be waging if not for his actions, his choices alone. The only reprieve he finds from the guilt is in the belief that Raphael would have spilled more - and destroyed the Earth, as well - if Castiel and his brothers and sisters had not taken up arms against him. 

He manages a tight-lipped smile, something enough to satisfy that he understands. "Have we any more news of the missing weapons?" 

"Not yet." 

"Then I suggest you get back to it." 

In the very least, being the Commander of garrisons affords him seniority, and with it the propensity to not have to explain himself further. 

She takes her leave, and once he feels her grace reach an adequate distance in the aether, in her absence, he takes flight. 

The familiar silhouette of one 1967 Chevrolet Impala is almost indistinguishable from the night sky, if not for the gleam of street-lamps off the polished metal belying an impression of the sun. 

The moon is hidden tonight, as are the multitudinous stars of this galaxy - a favourite among many Angels throughout the eons. However, given the events of recent times, Castiel suspects he may be one of few Angels who prefer it over other galactic creations primarily for its housing of one particular solar system, which bears one particular planet, upon which a very special species makes its home. 

Dean is gone. 

The bar seems his likely destination, and if Castiel concentrates, allowing his Grace to reach out and survey the atmosphere.. yes. He can feel him near: warm and alive, though not at peace. He has never known what it is to feel Dean at peace in the mortal realm. There was a singular moment - fleeting and seeming so long ago, now - when his Grace touched Dean's soul raw and exposed; it seized his fear, incentivised Dean to feel safe, to trust in Castiel's intentions.

It was something akin to peace, perhaps relief. At the time, Castiel had thought it might be resignation to God's plan. But as he came to know Dean, he came to interpret that feeling as something intensely personal and not at all connected to The Grand Plan. 

Perhaps, once Castiel completes his mission, once he stops Raphael and prevents the Apocalypse for all good, Dean will know peace. He deserves that much. He deserves much more. 

The inside of the Impala is cool. Not as cold as the night air outside, but enough that Dean wouldn't be comfortable if he were to emerge from the bar this instant. Castiel places a hand on the dashboard, and while the engine remains silent, the interior comes alive in light and sound and air-ventilated warmth. 

The music is not familiar, despite having listened through much of Dean's collection during his time with the Winchesters. Over the past year Castiel has not regretted safeguarding Dean's chance for peace, his life away from supernatural beings and the chaos and destruction they wrought. Although, he will admit to a certain discernible ache for their foregone time together; on the road within this now-familiar vehicle, or in whatever capacity Dean would have allowed, in any way that he might have needed Castiel's help. 

The war in Heaven is not going well, despite Rachel's assurances. Without weapons at their disposal, Raphael's forces will soon diminish their own and all will suffer because of Castiel's failing. Which is precisely why he cannot fail.

Castiel always knew the chance of defeating an Archangel on his own was impossible, and therefore anything that could afford him victory in this war - to end the graceshed, to save Humanity, and the Earth, and Heaven from itself - then he must take it. 

But even against all reason, all dangers considered, there are times when Castiel, too, does want for a friend.

For one friend, in particular. 

..been higher than stardust 

I've been seen upon the sun 

I used to count in millions then 

But now I only count in one 

Come on, join the traveler 

If you got nowhere to go 

Hang your head and take my hand 

It's the only road I know.. 

If only Castiel could pray to Dean. 

..Yeah, Lonely is the word 

Got to be the saddest song I ever heard.. 

But the want of a friend is selfish, dangerous. 

Drawing Dean into the skirmish of Angels would further remove him from any chance at peace. And that, Castiel decides, is not worth the win. Even if Dean wants to help, he cannot allow it. He must keep Dean safe, and far away from the destructive reach of Heaven's current state. 

..Yeah, Lonely is the name 

Maybe life's a losing game. 

[oceanna1919]

Contents Under Pressure{1X07, part1}

‘’For the love of pizza, I'm begging you for the tenth time!" I complained through gritted teeth, "Stop pacing!" For the last hour, Clarke couldn’t stop pacing as I was watching the camp being destroyed by the stormy weather. My best friend threw a glance my way, stopped for a moment to stare at stormy weather outside, and then started pacing again. I groaned and covered my face with my hands.

"I'd like to see how you'd react if Bellamy was in Finn’s place’’ She murmured but I heard her.

‘’What’s that supposed to mean?’’ I asked her tiredly.

‘’Nothing’’ she said quickly, as she came to sit beside me. Finally!!

‘’Look, Clarke. You can’t do anything for Finn right now. Not until this girl fix her radio. Who is she by the way? Finn’s cousin or something?’’ I asked quietly, pointing at the brunette. Clarke let out a sad sigh and her jaw clenched.

‘’She’s his girlfriend’’ She said harshly and my eyes widened. But he slept with Clarke and he has never mentioned the brunette from the ark.

‘’But you slept with him. Does she know?’’ She looked quickly at me confuse.

‘’How do you know?’’ She asked and I rolled my eyes.

‘’The night of Charlotte’s death I couldn’t sleep, so I came to your tent and I heard you having sex with him. I didn’t want to interrupt you.’’ She blushed and looked to the ground

‘’It was an accident.’’ She said still looking on the ground.

‘’ How did you accidentally slip and fall on ‘it’? How does that accidentally happen?’’ I asked sarcastically with a smirk and I saw Clarke’s mouth fall opened.

‘’JASMINE!’’ she exclaimed and she hit my arm, making me burst out laughing.

‘’To answer your question. Raven knows.’’ So her name’s Raven. I felt sad for Clarke. She definitely doesn’t deserve this. I side hugged her and she put her head on my shoulder.

‘’He doesn’t deserve you Clarke. You will find someone better than Finn.’’ I said, trying to comfort her.

‘’Jasmine, I love him. I gave him everything and I mean everything.‘’ she said, she was close to crying.

‘’ Baby, I know. I can see that by the way you’re looking at him. But, let him be girl. Save him and let him be. That’s my advice.’’ I said, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. I felt her nod, as she got up, giving me a smile as a ‘thank you’ and I smiled back. I saw her go to Raven and she tried to encourage her, before going to Finn, unwrapping the cloth that had been around the knife stuck in Finn’s side. I glanced over at Finn and he was looking very pale. I frowned as I walked over to Finn and trailing my eyes down to his wound.

‘’ His wound ain’t normal.’’ I said and Clarke nodded.

“Calling Ark Station. Ark station. Please come in.” I hear Raven repeat herself again and again. “I’m on the ground with the hundred.” She muttered.

“This is a restricted station. Who is this? Please identify yourself.” Both mine and Clarke’s heads snapped up when we heard a male voice being transmitted through the radio. We shared a look of hope and rushed over to Raven.

“This is Raven Reyes. I- I'm from Mecha Station. I'm transmitting from the ground. The hundred are alive. Please, you need to get Doctor Abby Griffin. Doctor Abby Griffin. Now.”

“Hang on Raven, we're trying to boost your signal.” Everyone had gathered around us now and was murmuring among themselves.

“Raven? Are you there?” I let out a cry of happiness, as I heard Clarke’s mom, Abby.

Clarke leaned on the desk Raven was sat at. “Mom? Mom it's me.”

“Clarke?” Abby gasped.

“Mom, I need your help.” Clarke said looking at Finn. “One of our people was stabbed by a Grounder.”

“Clarke, this is the Chancellor. Are you saying there are survivors on the ground?” My eyes widened. Wasn’t he dead? I thought Bellamy killed him. Was he a ghost?

“Yes, the Earth is survivable. We're not alone.” Clarke informed him. “Mom, he's dying. The knife is still in his chest.” Clarke said.

“Clarke, is my son with you?” Jaha asked, making Clarke freeze in her tracks. Her lips trembled at the thought of Wells. So I decided to answer this question.

“Hey Chancellor Jaha, or his ghost, or whatever. Jasmine is speaking. I’m so sorry, but… Wells is dead.” The line was silent for a minute as Jaha took in the news.

‘’Jasmine is that you?’’ I heard my dad murmured and it was my turn to freeze. I didn’t expect him to be there.

‘’ No it’s not me. It’s my twin sister.’’ I answered sarcastically and Clarke pushed me gently to the side.

‘’We don’t have time for this.’’ She told me and I nodded. She was right. ‘’Mom I don’t know what to do. I need your help.’’ Clarke said, looking at the radio.

“Okay. I’ll help you. I’m going to talk you through it, step by step.”

Clarke walked over to the bed where Finn was resting.  Suddenly, we were thrown slightly off balanced by the wind as the dropship rocked.

“Just find-” The end of Abby’s sentence was completely muffled, making it impossible to understand.

“What?” I shouted, before turning to look at Finn’s real girlfriend beside me.

“What's going on?” She gazed at the radio and to me after.

“It's not the radio, it's the storm.”

Minutes later, Octavia walked into the dropship, soaked to the bone, with two canisters.

“Great.” I said with a slight smile. I took one of the canisters and went to drink, but its scent stopped me.

“Ugh.” I grunted. “What the hell is that? I thought it was water!’’ I exclaimed

‘’Its Monty's moonshine” Octavia answered

“Pretty sure no germ could survive it.” Octavia joked.

‘’I confirm.’’ I said, raising a hand up.

“Storm's getting worse. Monroe, close the door.” Clarke ordered

“But we still have people out there.” Monroe argued. Who was out there?

“Monty and Jasper still aren't back yet. Neither is Bellamy.” Octavia mentioned with a worried look on her face. Bellamy? I don’t know why I was worried about him. I hate him, or not. No I like him. I just don’t like his attitude.

“It's okay, they'll find somewhere to ride it out.” Clarke said, trying to reassure the younger Blake.

Raven made a noise to get Clarke's attention then she held out a needle.

“One stitching needle.” Raven announced, placing the needle in Clarke’s hand.

“Great, we still need something to close the wound.” Clarke informed her.

“There's some wire on the second level. I used it for the tents.” Octavia informed quickly.

“That’ll do’’ I nodded.

“Yeah.” Octavia walked over to the ladder as Raven called out to her.

“Stay away from the blue wires that run through the ceiling. I rigged it to the solar cells in the roof.”

“That means they're hot! You got that?” Raven continued, raising her voice.

‘’ She’s not stupid.’’ I said, glaring at Raven and she looked at me. Octavia was about to climb up the ladder when Monroe yelled.

“Hey! They're back!”

“Bellamy!” His sister shouted. I saw Bellamy walking in first, also soaking wet from the rain, with two guys beside him, carrying Lincoln’s body.

‘’ The hell are you doing?’’ Octavia yelled, walking up to her brother.

“It's time to get some answers.” He said casually.

‘’He means revenge ’’I pointed out, standing beside Clarke and Bellamy turned his gaze on me, which became darker. I’m pretty sure he was mad at me. It wasn’t my fault, he was being an ass.

“I mean 'intel’.” Bell corrected me with a frown on his face.

“Get him upstairs.” He ordered the two guys who immediately started dragging Lincoln up the ladder.

“This is one of your stupidest ideas of all time and trust me, you have a lot.” I said, ready to snap at him, with crossed arms.

“Bellamy, she's right.” Clarke added, standing beside me. He gave me an angry glare, completely ignoring Clarke.

“Clarke, okay we're ready. Can you hear me?” We heard Abby’s crackled voice through the radio. Bellamy turned quickly to look at the radio and he look surprised and scared, really scared. I forgot about his situation. But I wasn’t going to tell him that he missed his shot and that Jaha was alive.

“Look, this is not who we are.” Clarke said quietly.

“Clarke?” Abby called.

‘’Wait Abby. We’re dealing with a toddler at this very moment’’ I said, still glaring at Bellamy. I heard a quiet ‘what’ coming from Abby.

“It is now.” Bellamy stated, walking away, giving me one last angry look. Clarke turned to Finn and she was giving the information that Abby asked. At one point, delinquents in the room became very loud and I ordered them to go to the second floor. As I didn’t like Finn, because he played with Clarke, I didn’t like seeing him in this condition, so I decided to do my favorite thing in the world. Annoy Bellamy King Blake. I was climbing to the third floor when I heard Bellamy’s annoying voice.

‘’ Hey tie him! Tie him! Last thing we need is this bastard escaping because you screw-’’

As he was finishing his sentence, I almost tripped on the last step, so I let out a small cry and everyone turned to look at me and I looked at everyone embarrassed. I hate being so clumsy. I stood up quickly as nothing happened.

‘’Hello, beautiful people.’’ I said faking cheerfully. ‘’Except you. You’re ugly, inside and outside.’’ I said pointing at Bellamy. He rolled his eyes dramatically and I said.

‘’Don’t roll your eyes like that. They are going to fall out.’’ He let out a growl and I said.

‘’ Don’t growl, you will turn into a werewolf’’ He came at my face and began shouting and I just stayed there, letting him finish.

‘’I don’t have time for this! GET OUT!’’ The grounder began moving, glaring at Bellamy. I let out a fake yawn.

‘’ Did you finish your tantrum?’’ I asked him with bored eyes. He closed his eyes trying to control is anger.

‘’Do NOT cross my limits Jasmine. Go!’’ he ordered me.

‘’I do NOT take orders from you ,jackass!’’ I glared at him and he glared back. I saw Octavia, from the corner of my eyes coming up and when she saw The Grounder tied up and beaten, she looked horrified. Bellamy when he saw his sister, he rolled his eyes again and went to Octavia.

‘’ Octavia, get out of here!’’ He tried to order her too. He really likes ordering people.

‘’ I told you, he healed my leg. He protected Jasmine. You didn't have to do this.’’ She said trying to convince her brother.

‘’This isn't about you or her, I'm doing this for all of us.’’ He said and I let out a sarcastic laugh. Yeah right. For all of us.

‘’ You did that for all of us?’’ Octavia asked with sarcasm, looking at Lincoln. GO Octavia Go!

‘’ I did that for Finn and Jasper and John and Diggs and Roma.’’ I shook my head. This is crazy.

‘’ It wasn't him!’’ Octavia said tiredly.

‘’ You don't know that!’’ He shouted in her face and I went and stood between them, glaring at him.

‘’Don’t yell at her you selfish piece of trash!’’ I yelled and pushed Bellamy to create a distance between us.

‘’We need to know what we're up again. How many there are and why they're killing us. And he's gonna tell us right now.’’ Bellamy said strongly, sending me daggers with his eyes. Bellamy stepped forward, going in front of Lincoln and Octavia grabbed his lower arm to stop him and he roughly took it out of her grip.

‘’ Drew, Miller take her downstairs.’’ The King said, pointing at Octavia and the two puppies nodded before grabbing Octavia but she wrestled free.

‘’ Get-get off of me! I don't even think he speaks English, he won't understand you.’’ Octavia said, with a disapproving frown on her face, before leaving. I was probably the only one that knew he was speaking English. Although I wasn’t going to tell anything.

‘’ Oh I think he will.’’ Bellamy growled, starring at Lincoln and I rolled my eyes. He really is a dick. I don’t know why I kissed him. I don’t know why I like him.

‘’ Jasmine go, before I make you.’’ The older Blake said looking at me with dark eyes and I sat down in the corner.

‘’I like to see you try Bellamy’’ I challenged him.

Bellamy started to ask Lincoln questions and Lincoln, of course, didn’t answer. Unexpectedly, the storm caused everyone to be thrown from where they are, except me because I was already sitting on the ground. Bellamy got up confused.

‘’ What the hell was that? Are we under attack?’’ Bellamy asked no one in particular.

‘’ Please, do me a favor and at least for once, try and use your left side of your brain, which is responsible for logic, and think.  It’s the storm that caused that.’’ I said boringly, while playing with my fingers. I’m sure he glared at me for the 1000000th time today, but I couldn’t care less.

‘’ We're gonna try this one last time. What's your name? Where's your camp? How many of you are there?’’ Bellamy asked Lincoln and he didn’t get any answer.

‘’ Hey, check it out.’’ I guess his name was Miller said and Bellamy approached him and he crotched down, looking at something. Curiosity got the best of me and I crawl to them and I saw a bunch of vials.

‘’ What is all this stuff?’’ The other guy asked and I just realised that I didn’t know him name.

‘’ Who the hell knows with these people?’’ Bellamy said and he started untying what I assumed is Lincoln’s journal. Suddenly the grounder struggled to break free, taking me by surprise and I tried to stop Bellamy.

‘’Come on Bellamy. This is his personal stuff.’’ He completely ignored me, what a surprise, and he opened Lincoln’s journal, flipping through the notebook. Lincoln had a talent at drawing. He had drawings of our camp. Bellamy stopped when he saw a drawn of Octavia. Mhh, I will ask him to draw me too! Bellamy frowned his eyebrows and he stopped again turning the pages. I looked down and I saw a drawing of me. Ah, request done .That took me by surprise. Why he drew me and Octavia? I looked back at Lincoln and he was already looking at me. Okay? That was awkward. I saw Bellamy clenching his jaw a couple of times, before continuing flipping through the pages.

‘’ It's our camp. Guessing that all those marks add up to 102. 10 are crossed out. That's how many people we've lost.’’ Bellamy announced and he got up, still holding Lincoln’s journal.

‘’ You've been watching us ever since we got here!’’ Bellamy said looking at Lincoln, who looked away. I let out a long breath. This was going to be a longggggg night.

[marypsue]

things that didn't happen (here):

1. 

The portal that crackles open in the middle of the living room is a sickly, sinister red and somehow manages to look seconds away from collapse. Still, it hovers in midair long enough to spit out four people. It takes a moment to recognise most of them; Beth's shaved her head to the scalp, a smudge of something black smeared across both eyes and the bridge of her nose, Jerry's musclebound and sporting an extremely ill-advised moustache, Summer - well, Summer looks pretty much the same, just a little more tattered and a lot more comfortable with that pump-action shotgun she's holding.

"We're here for Titanic on Blu-ray," she says, giving it a pump, "and we're not leaving without it."

The full story comes out over dinner. After being abandoned in a dimension where every other living human had been mutated into Cronenbergian genetic freaks, they'd realised a few things: Beth and Jerry's marriage works best under outside stress from something they can punch; popularity doesn't mean much to Summer when the only people around to get it from are people she doesn't want to impress; and, they were living out their own personal I Am Legend.

"Like, the book," Wasteland Weekend Summer explains. "Not, like, the one with Will Smith."

"Wait, you - you actually read that?" Morty asks. "I - I - I thought the only things you read were Buzzfeed personality quizzes."

Summer shoots him a glare, and Wasteland Weekend Summer puts one hand threateningly on the shotgun leaned against her chair, but the other Beth just says "Summer, no deadly weaponry at the table," without looking up from her mashed potatoes. Both Summers huff out a sigh and fold their arms over their chests.

"Whatever," they say, in eerie unison, and then stare at each other like they've just walked into a fancy party and seen the other wearing the same dress.

"I...don't recall the plot of that one," Jerry says, casting a nervous glance at the person seated beside him.

"It doesn't matter," Wasteland Weekend Summer sighs. "The point was, like, the Cronenbergs are still people."

"Well," the other Beth says, delicately. "Most of them."

"We may have eaten a few before we figured that one out," buff Jerry admits. "And by 'may have', I mean 'definitely'." He shoots a defensive glare around the table. "Like I keep saying, it's not cannibalism if you have a completely different genetic makeup!"

"And like I keep telling you, Dad, that's not how genetics work," Wasteland Weekend Summer mutters, rolling her eyes. "Anyway. It didn't take all that long before we went, like, wait. Who're the real monsters here?"

The lump of misshapen flesh everyone's been trying to avoid eye contact with pulses in agreement, spattering Jerry with some kind of viscous, greenish fluid. He wipes it off with his napkin, shifting his chair away from its seat as surreptitiously as he can manage, which isn't very. 

"Yeah, it's been weird, but once you get used to everyone being some kind of body horror abomination, nothing's really all that different?" the body horror abomination says, in a voice that's surprisingly normal - and familiar. "I actually kind of like things this way. I mean, now that everybody's equally disturbing-looking, at least I know people are actually interested in me as a person, not just because I've got the right flesh-lumps in the right places. Did you even know I was an honour student? Or that I was interested in astrophysics?"

It's hard to tell, since it doesn't exactly have a face, but it sure looks like its stalk-eye is looking pointedly at Morty.

In the end, the wastelanders leave with Jerry's special edition Titanic box set and a Blu-ray player that Wasteland Weekend Summer and Cronenjessica agree they can probably rig up to use solar power. They're gone before anybody remembers to ask if they've got a TV set.

2. 

"Oh, shit," the redhead says, looking from Rick to Morty and back again. "Not you two."

"O-oh, you've, uh, you've heard of us," Morty stammers. "M-maybe you've heard about all those times we, uh, we saved an entire galaxy, o-or..." He stops, trying very hard not to look like he's staring. "Uh, what...what're you -"

"Taking my top off," the redhead says, a little muffled by the fabric she's pulling over her head.

"That much was obvious," Rick says, not sounding at all impressed. Morty can't say he can relate.

"Look," the redhead says, shaking out her hair and tying the shirt around her waist, "you two have a ridiculously high body count when it comes to random innocent bystanders. But hot girls usually manage to escape with only major psychological trauma. Especially if they're redheads." She gives her hair a fluff with both hands and then adjusts her bra. It's lacy, and pink. It looks satiny. "So my best bet for surviving the next twenty-two minutes is to get sexy and let the fourteen-year-old think he's got a shot."

"Aww," Morty sighs, deflating, and the redhead gives him a pitying smile.

"Hey, you've still got the next twenty-two minutes to convince me!"

She starts to turn, and suddenly freezes in place, her eyes half-closed, caught mid-blink with an extremely dopey look on her face. There's a faint, electric-blue aura clinging to her, and when Morty tries to touch it, he gets a zap, like a static shock but longer.

"Come on," Rick says, tucking some weird sci-fi pistol back into his coat. "Befouuurp that wears off."

"Aw geez, Rick! What - what'd you do that for!?" Morty protests, waving both arms in the redhead's direction. Now that she's frozen mid-bounce, it's painfully apparent what Morty's missing out on.

"Because she's a - a - a pain in the ass, Morty! A big - big genre-savvy buzzkill! Did you actually want that tagging along with us?"

"Well, no, okay," Morty admits, with a last, longing look at her bra, so close and yet so completely out of reach. "But -"

"You - you - you didn't actually think she was ever going to fuck you?"

"No, but - but she was gonna act like she was!" Morty yells, hurrying after Rick. "Twenty-two minutes! Rick! You - you just cheated me out of twenty-two minutes of real-life, in-your-face, 3D toplessness here!"

3.

"You know Mom used to say that whenever she was mad at me about something? 'Bethany Ann Sanchez, you are your father's daughter'." Beth breathes out a laugh and shakes her head. "And she wondered why I moved out as soon as I turned sixteen."

"Wow, you sure - sure showed her," her dad says, with what seems like unnecessary sarcasm, not taking his eyes off the TV set.

Beth laughs again, because she's not sure what else there is to do.

"Look. I loved my mom. But - she was right. We were never going to coexist peacefully under one roof." She taps her pencil against the page of the crossword she's working on, takes a breath in. "I'm just too much like - well, like you."

The words fall onto what passes for a conversation like a couple of atom bombs on an unsuspecting atoll. Beth turns all her attention to her crossword to avoid counting the seconds of silence. Possibly no crossword square has ever been filled in with such careful deliberation.

Just great. Really genius, actually. Her long-lost father finally deigns to spend a little time in her company, and she has to go get her feelings all over it like some stupid - teenage - 

"You kept my last name," her dad says, weirdly flat, and Beth breathes out. Okay. She can pretend that it didn't just happen.

"Well, it is on my birth certificate," she says, scribbling down 'EAVES'. "And not every high schooler can truthfully say they share a name with an intergalactic rock star."

For a minute or so, the silence is just silence, filled with the friendly nonsense noise of the TV. It's even, Beth dares to hope, a companionable silence.

Then her dad breaks it with an enormous belch. "If you're really so - so m-much like me, then I gotta wonder why you still - why you haven't dumped the chump yet."

"Dad," Beth sighs.

"Look, life is short and meaningless. I know that maybe - maybe better than anybody. You gotta - you gotta wring everything you can out of it before it's gone, because it - that'll happen sooner than you think."

"Well, that's cheerful," Beth says, turning over her pencil and furiously erasing 'NIETZSCHE'. "Listen, Dad, I really appreciate the advice, but -"

"The universe isn't fair, Beth. It isn't handing out favours to - to nice girls who wait in line." Her dad finally turns away from the TV to look at her, and Beth sets the crossword down on the end table. "If you aren't smart enough to have figured that one out yet, then you - then maybe you and Jerry really do deserve each other."

Beth takes another deep breath, lets it out through her nose, slow. Suddenly, absurdly, thinks of her mother.

"Dad," she says, like it's some kind of charm that will keep his attention until she's finished. "I've always looked up to you. Maybe even idolised you a little, not that there's anything wrong with that, it's a perfectly normal -" 

She stops herself, twists the pencil in her hands. It feels like she's trying to choose each word, carefully, from a set of fridge magnet poetry that doesn't have anywhere near the words she needs to say what she wants to say.

"I saw the mistakes you and Mom made," Beth says, finally, deliberately. "I don't want to make the same ones. I have people in my life I care about. It's important to me to try for them."

"Oh yeah, how's that one wouurrpking out for you?" her dad asks, that deadpan sarcasm again, turning back to the TV.

Beth chews the inside of her lip.

"I didn't say it wasn't a mistake," she admits, finally. "Just not the same mistake. At least my kids won't hate me for abandoning them."

"Nope," her dad says, flat and casual, like he's completely unaffected, not looking at Beth as he pushes himself up off the couch. The tinny sound of a commercial jingle gives his next words a weirdly jaunty air. "Lucky you, they hate you for a - a whole different set of reasons."

The sharpened end of her pencil isn't even, Beth realises. There's much more graphite visible on one side of the point, while the other is almost completely wood.

"At least you - you - you proved your mom wrong," her dad says, as he heads into the kitchen. He doesn't so much as glance behind him.

Maybe it's terrible. Maybe it's just one more sign of how she's broken as a person. But Beth can't help the little smile that forces itself onto her face.

"Yeah," she says, quietly, picking her crossword back up. "Yeah, I guess I did."

4.

Jerry shoves the door open, flips the lightswitch - and nothing happens.

It's the last straw. It's been the last straw for a while now. First losing his job, then the divorce, and everything that came with it. This shitty motel, his own shitty cooking, the misery wolves, the overwhelming, debilitating loneliness, the mold, the bed bugs...and now this.

Jerry’s running out of last straws. 

“Are you fucking kidding me!” he yells, into the empty, hollow darkness. “Is this some kind of - of sick fucking joke? Have I not suffered enough? What, was I some kind of evil dictator in a past life? Does somebody up there just hate me? What did I ever do to deserve this? What do you want from me?”

“Your help, Jerry Smith,” a voice says from somewhere inside the darkness of the motel room.

“Holy shit!” Jerry yells, backpedaling out of the room and slamming the door. He stares at it, breathing hard, like it’ll suddenly come to life and try to eat his face. Hey, stranger - and worse - things have happened. To him. Recently.

He’s just starting to catch his breath, his heart rate gradually ticking back down to normal, when he hears it. A shadow falls across the door as, behind him, out past the balcony, there’s a swoosh and a thunderclap boom, like an enormous bird beating its wings.

Jerry stares at the number on the motel door for what feels like an eternity, frozen in place. He’s never noticed before that two of the digits are black-painted metal, but the middle one is clearly just painted right onto the wood where the metal number clearly fell off. There are still holes from the screws. What a piece of shit motel.

“Don’t be scared,” that same voice from inside the motel room says, behind him. Jerry wishes he knew how she’d gotten behind him. He also wishes he could remember where he knows that voice from. “I don’t want to hurt you. Believe it or not, I’m actually trying to help you.”

“I thought you needed my help,” Jerry manages. His feet don’t want to turn him around. He makes them do it anyway.

The person - people, technically, though Jerry isn’t sure how much the term applies to somebody who’s more robot bird than person - standing behind him on the balcony is the last person he’s ever have expected to see.

“Aren’t you that friend of Summer’s?” he asks, and the slight brunette’s eyes narrow. “We went to your wedding, you married some alien - wait. No. You’re -”

The brunette smiles. It is not a very nice smile.

“I think we might be able to help each other,” Tammy says, folding her arms and leaning back against the railing her robot bird husband is perched on. Was he a robot the last time Jerry saw him? Jerry doesn’t think so, but he’d had a few more important things on his mind at the time.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jerry says, pressing his back flat against the motel room door. “Last time I had anything to do with you, I ended up stranded on a planet smaller than this motel suite.”

“Oh yeah. That. No hard feelings,” Tammy says, examining her nails. “It wasn’t anything personal.”

“Nothing personal? You turned my entire family into intergalactic fugitives!”

“No I didn’t,” Tammy says. “I think you know who did.”

Jerry opens his mouth, and then shuts it, slowly.

“I’m listening,” he says.

Tammy gives him a thoughtful look. The red glow from her robot bird husband’s one eye is casting some very sinister shadows on her face.

“We’ve got more in common than you realise,” she says. “I lost everything when the Federation collapsed. You lost everything after your divorce. And you and I both know the same person was responsible for both.”

“Wait, how do you know about that? And for that matter, how did you know where to find me?” Jerry looks around the balcony. There aren’t any signs saying “Hidden Camera Here” or anything that have sprung up in the last three minutes, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. “Have you been spying on me?”

“Can you please try to focus here,” Tammy snaps. “Rick Sanchez ruined both of our lives. I want the same thing you want.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah,” Jerry says, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what’s that?”

Tammy smiles that smile again. It’s no nicer than it was the first time.

“Vengeance,” she says.

- and something that did:

“Just stand in the middle of the room, don’t move, don’t breathe, and don’t fucking touch anything,” Morty’s grandpa says, turning his back to rummage through a metal cabinet under the counter.

Jessica turns a slow circle, taking in the garage, strange devices stuffed onto Ikea shelves and hanging next to the weedwhacker.

“I think I’ve been out here once before?” she says. “Somebody threw a party. There were either some really good drugs going around, or aliens were there.” She locks eyes on a glowing blue orb stacked behind a bottle of ant killer and a jug of antifreeze, decides the prohibition against touching is probably a good idea. "If everything you just told me is true, then I'm going to say maybe both?"

“Whatever helps - uurp - you sleep at night,” Morty’s grandpa says. “Thought I told you not to breathe.”

Jessica looks over at him, decides that he’s not joking. She actually does hold her breath for a second before realising just how stupid that is and letting it go.

“There was a galaxy,” she says, slowly, as more memories arrive in bits and pieces. She’d ended up drinking to forget that night. And possibly got her memory wiped, if there really were aliens involved. “A hologram galaxy? Morty brought me out here to show me.” She hugs her own arms, making eye contact with the blinking red light on something that looks like the love child of the Terminator and a sewing machine. “It was beautiful. Almost like really being up there.”

“Yeah, hold that - hold that thought, you can use that,” Morty’s grandpa says, dropping an armful of beeping and whirring machinery on the counter. “And give me your phone.”

Jessica hands it over, with no small amount of trepidation. Morty’s grandpa gives first her ombre teal phone case with its calligraphic-script motto Ad astra per aspera!, then her, a flat, sarcastic look. Jessica crosses her arms over her chest and returns it. 

In the end, the phone case passes without comment. Morty’s grandpa just plugs something flat and silver into the bottom of it, dials Morty’s number, and then hands the phone to Jessica as it’s ringing. She takes it, holds it to her ear, listening to the rings.

“You - you gotta keep him on the line for at least thirty seconds,” Morty’s grandpa says, pulling out a silver box that matches the thing he plugged into Jessica’s phone and flipping up a screen. 

Jessica nods. 

“Is - is he going to be all right?” she asks, the phone still ringing in her ear. “I mean, I barely know him, but -”

Morty’s grandpa shrugs, just as there’s a click on the other end of the line.

[sarah-samedi]

Tattoo for me / tattoo for you / you have tattoos / and I have some too! 

I got my first tattoo when I was 20 at a parlour that isn’t there anymore: Wylde Tattoos on King St. East. I’d worked for them as a receptionist until my first cosmetic job at Shopper’s Drug Mart came up. It was in the area of art that I wanted to be in, since I was definitely no graphic artist and would never be a tattoo artist, myself.

But I am fair and willing, and make a beautiful canvas, I promise. I’m just too broke to get the tattoos I want. But I digress.

I walked in and the artist looked at me and said “It’s about time I get to tattoo you!” We had already decided what I’d get: the dragon from the Dracula (aka Tepes) family crest. The artist who laid this first piece of ink on me had begged me to get a scorpion of some sort, because astrologically I’m a Scorpio. In hindsight I’m so glad I didn’t.

My parents found out on a double-whammy that I smoked cigarettes and that I had this tattoo at the same time thanks to a photo an ex-boyfriend took. I was holdling the back of my shirt up, a cigarette in my fingers, and the thing my mother was most concerned about was the red rash that formed a perfect square around the ink. It was the reaction I’d had to the adhesive on the bandage they’d placed over the tattoo when it was completed, and I was allergic to it. I still am. Screw you, fabric bandage tape.

I’ve seen people who regret tattoos they’ve gotten; I’ve seen tattoos that I’d regret if they were on me. Misspelled, not well done, etc. I can’t say that all of mine are fantastic, but do I regret any of them? No way, not a one.

My second tattoo came on a whim and was from a parlour named Skinner’s. It was on my hip, and at the time was by far the most painful thing I’d ever experienced. I went with a friend I’d known since primary school, and stretched out on my back having a needle scratch at my opposite-of-lean hip, my artist was kind enough to put on some Slayer for me to relax to.

I’ve had lots of tattoos done in lots of places, both on my body and locations: Cambridge, Kitchener, and all over Hamilton.

My legs were done by an awesome dude in a super comfortable environment. I’d worn a super short black dress to get them done, so they’d have a chance to be comfortable post-inking. Those were painful. I went to a girlfriend’s house afterward, riding the bus, and then vomited and passed out briefly in her bathroom.

I assure you it wasn’t from the tattoos. I was less than six months out from a stage four cancer diagnosis, and losing a lot of blood on a regular basis. The experience, while hella frickin’ painful, was fun, relaxed, with tonnes of good music and good energy. Good energy, yup, so much so that he’s done four of my pieces, including a memorial piece for a much-missed friend.

My stomach was tattooed in May of 2016 after I’d had my stapled removed about three weeks earlier. I wanted something to make my Frankenbelly pretty; I needed it to accept this new and permanent part of my body. Even though it needs to be touched up, I love it and am proud of it. My Mom thought it would be funny for me to get a zipper tab at the top. I debated getting centipede legs and antennae at the top. Yuck, right?

I have pieces dedicated to artists I love and respect, and plan more by others: Rob Zombie, David Lynch, Mike Mignola. For my arms — either when my fiancé learns to tattoo or otherwise in my fantasies — I’ll have two Francesco Francavilla portraits: one of HP Lovecraft and Cthulhu on The Horror Arm (my right arm) and Stephen Hawking on The Science Arm (with my cancer ribbon; my left arm). Also featured on The Science arm will be Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan: more people I emulate and look up to.

The future of my body is mostly planned out, already:

Mirrors on the tops of my thighs, one each to represent the reflection of who I am through my parents, pieces of ink of more dedication, love and respect

The Alien Facehugger, its body wrapped around my right calf, its tail wrapped around my ankle

The solar system on the inside of my right arm, from elbow to wrist, in gorgeous linework and stippling, with the phrase “Onward To The Edge” beneath

Runes from the Necronomicon and Mike Mignola’s mythology to fill the space betwen the pieces on my right arm

The inside of my right wrist will have Rob Zombie’s “More Human Than Human” drawing to go along with the sketch of Mike Mignola’s Sea Witch and the Lords of Salem piece — I like the format of the tattoos seeming rough and hand-drawn

The four main phases of the moon on the insides of my right-handed fingers

A little fox on one of my knuckles

An infinity symbol on the inside of another finger, but on the left

A bow on one of the fingers of my left hand — chemo has left me with a goldfish memory and I forget everything now

That leaves my right arm just above my wrist up to the inside of my elbow free, my left calf, ribs, and around my waist free for more ink. I can’t lie, though, when HK gets his skills down for tattooing, I’ll be friggin’ covered. Sorry, Mom!

I have very little colour in my pieces; only two have colour in them while the rest are either outline, graphic black, or greyscale and black. It was important for my cancer ribbon to have colour, same with the bow on my belly. They’ve played an important part of me learning to love my body again post-surgery, and to show the world that I’m a friggin’ warrior. Hah!

Anyone who donates to HK’s tattoo fund will get equivalent tattoo time when he’s practiced, starting with yours truly.

20 years ago when I got my first tattoo (okay, almost 20 years, let’s not make me older than I actually am), they were stigmatized as something people judged; now it’s commonplace, both good tattoos and bad. I can’t wait for more.

xoxo, Sarah

To be sung in the tune of “Duff Beer” Tattoo for me / tattoo for you / you have tattoos / and I have some too! 

[eleteo125]

Kallura Week Day 1: Role Swap

I swear this would’ve turned out much better if I wasn’t writing two research papers at the moment...f*cking research papers.

Anyways, hope you enjoy though.

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

 Allura never asked for this. She didn’t even know how she got mixed into this. All she knows is that she was apprehending these three boy from sneaking out then the next thing she knows, she’s screaming inside the head of a giant mechanical lion badly piloted by a fellow cadet named Lance who won’t stop flirting with her. They were accompanied by three more boys one which crash landed on earth in an alien pod from outer space. Of course she recognized the man as the supposed dead pilot of the Kerberos mission.

 Their run in with a giant alien ship--who are definitely set to kill them--had Allura’s adrenaline running that she almost didn’t noticed the wormhole that just opened in front of them. Once she was back to her senses, they all discussed if they should go through it. Everyone agreed since that alien ship is hot on their tail.  What they saw on the other side left them speechless. It was a planet, but the planet is not familiar to the ones in their solar system. They must be far off from where they came from. Allura was too awestruck by the planet’s view that she didn’t hear what the others were talking about. Her awareness of her surroundings came back once the lion landed in front of a majestic castle.

 As soon as they entered, there was an automated voice telling them to stay put as it scans them for their identification.

“What do you want from us?!” Shiro demanded

 Once the scan was completed, a set of lights began to light up at a specific hallway. Pidge took notice of this and said “I guess we’re going that way.” And that they did. They all followed the lights, quietly admiring the castle’s beautiful scenery--well not in complete silence, Hunk will occasionally yell out a ‘hello’.

 After walking for what seemed like forever--as Lance would put it--they all reached a room with a panel in the middle which Pidge quickly analyzed. Moments later, two pods started rising from the ground one of which hissed and started to open up. Allura and the others stared in shock as the pod opened revealing a young man.

 He appears to be wearing an outfit meant for royalty and Allura couldn’t help but think that the outfit fitted his strong physique properly. He also has soft features she can’t help but find appealing.Oh dear. The boy woke up with a gasp and started to collapse. In reflex, Allura stepped forward to try to catch him but Lance and Shiro beat her to it.

 Lance and Shiro slowly sat him down on the ground. “Hey man, you okay?” Lance asked.

 The boy then acted before anyone could react and in a blink of an eye, the boy had Lance pinned on the ground “Who are you and what are you doing in my castle?!” He demanded

“Ow, ow, ow! A giant blue lion brought us here, that’s all we know!” Lance answered frantically

“How do you have the blue lion, where is its paladin?” he asked letting the poor boy go “Unless...” he turned to face everyone “How long has it been?”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you tell us who you are maybe we can help you.” Shiro softly said to the boy not wanting to appear threatening.

 The boy just ignore him and went straight to the control panel in the middle of the room. “Rude” Hunk mumbled to himself. Allura can’t tell if the boy heard it or not. But even if he did, he just ignored it. He put his hands on the control panel and it caused it to light up to life. “Okay, that’s how that works.” Pidge said watching the boy type something in. While doing so, the other pod opened and revealed an older man with ginger hair. Once the man’s eyes landed on Lance, he exclaimed “Enemy combatants!!” before lunging at him. The attack was easily dodged making the man stumble on his feet.

“Oh quiznack!” he cursed before facing Lance “ You’re lucky I have the case of the ol’ sleep chamber knees. Otherwise I’d grab your head like this, grab it like so...one, two, three sleepy time!” he said as he acted out his description.

“Well before you did that I Hwah, hiyah, hah! Like that.” Lance said punching and kicking the air

“Oh really?! How could you do that when I already-”

“Silence!!” the boy commanded. His voice was strong and had authority that Allura felt goosebumps all over her body. Even the commanders in the Garrison didn’t have a voice like that.

“Apologies your highness.”the older man said, but his face looked concerned once he saw the young man’s face. Allura turned to look and found herself concerned either. His used to be soft face were now horror stricken. Eyes wide and mouth opened in shock as he stared at the screen before him. His horror stricken face twisted into an angered one before storming out of the room. “Your highness!” The older man called out but the boy didn’t stop.

“What’s going on, who are you guys?” Hunk asked trying to break the ice

  The older man sighed before facing them. “Let’s start with introductions. I am Coran the royal advisor and the young man you all saw earlier is Keith. Prince of our planet Altea.” Coran said

  The others introduced themselves before Allura asked “Is Keith going to be fine? He seems troubled.”

  Coran walked towards the screen that the prince was staring at with horror. Once Coran saw what is displayed, he had the same reaction as the prince except he wasn’t angered and didn’t storm out. He just mumble an ‘oh no’.

“Oh no? Oh no what?” Shiro asked

“We’ve been asleep for ten thousand years.” Coran said “Planet Altea and our solar system has been destroyed. We’re the only Alteans left.” his voice is filled with melancholy. Allura put a comforting hand on Coran’s shoulder. “We have to find the prince. He can’t be alone at this moment. Not with our situation.”

“Let’s search the rooms, everyone.” Shiro said and everyone followed

  Allura focused on one hallway opening up every room that seems to be large enough for royalty. Every single room didn’t have anyone in them much to her disappointment. She was about to enter another room but stopped when she saw large doors at the end of the hallway. It’s most definitely the king and queen’s quarters. ‘If all alteans are wiped out except for him and Coran, then he most likely lost his family. He’s gotta be in his parents’ room’. Allura slowly opened the room expecting the handsome prince to be in there, but to her surprise it was empty. ‘Maybe he has a different way of grieving. Yeah that’s it’ But how will she find him now. She doesn’t even know the first thing about that guy. Though admittedly she wants to know more.

  Now she was just walking around around hoping run into someone...cause she’s lost. With a castle this big, she’s not surprised. She rounded a corner and found another hallway. She groaned in irritation before taking the path. She passed a door but stopped in her tracks when she heard a grunt after a clash of metal. She rushed in and found the prince battling a robot. “Keith!” she was worried, terrified, and confused. She then found herself very worried for him like she’s attached to him, like something is binding them together. Sure she found the guy attractive, but getting these kind of feelings for him seemed out of the blue, something unnatural. red strings of fate?

    When Keith took a blow that had him rolling on the ground, she called for him again this time getting his attention. He quickly dodged an attack before shouting “End Training Sequence!” that made the robot vanish. “Leave me alone.” he said between pants.

“Why was that robot attacking you?” she asked rather harshly, adrenaline still running through her.

“I said leave me alone.” he turned his back on her hoping that would make her leave.

“So you were just going to face that thing on your own?”

“It was a training sequence and that thing is called a gladiator. Now leave me alone.”

“Oh...well-um. Coran said you shouldn’t be alone.” She then took a few steps towards him.

“I’m fine being by myself. Just tell him that I’m not in the mood for one of his talks.”

“You should listen to him y’know. He is going to be your guardian from here on out.” she said trying to reason with him

“I’m more than capable of handling myself.” he said putting his weapon away “Besides, he’s always been my guardian.”

“What do you mean?”

“My parents were gone long before our planet was attacked. He’s the one who looked after me since then.”

‘Oh...that explains him not being in his parents’ room.’

“I really wished I could’ve done more in defending our planet.” Allura went up to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder smiling at him as if to say ‘we’re here for you’ even though they just met. Allura saw his eyes soften for a moment before he turned his head away from her. Basically saying ‘this conversation is over’. But Allura is not having it. He needs company. He may not want it, but he needs it.

“So~ If your father is-uh” she paused trying to word it correctly “isn’t...present, how come you’re still a prince?”

“I’m afraid it’s none of your business.” he said trying to shut her out

Allura pouted at his response, but still kept on talking. “So, how often do you spend your time here?” she asked walking towards the display of weapons. She was about to reach for one but was stopped when Keith grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he said letting go of her hand

“Well. the only thing that we’re asked to do is look for you so no.” she said happy with her answer “Also I don’t know my way around.”

Keith raised his eyebrow at her. “You could’ve just told me that you’re lost.”

“Well, I liked talking to you.” Keith blinked in confusion at her answer.

“You do realize that the majority of our conversation is just me trying to shoo you away, right?”

“I know, I just like guys who play hard to get.” she said smirking causing the boy to blush.

“W-what?” Allura started to laugh at the reaction she got from him. “What are you laughing at?”

“Your face!” she said as her laughter started to die down into a giggle.

The blush never went away from his face. “I don’t find anything funny about it.”

“No, no! It’s your reaction.” She said bursting to giggles. Keith just looked away still blushing. But the cause isn’t embarrassment anymore. “Oh come on, I was just trying to lighten up the mood.” she said before holding her hand up.

Keith took her hand gently before shaking it. “I’m Allura.” there was a hint of surprise on Keith’s face which quickly vanished when he brought her hand to his lips placing a light kiss on it. “A pleasure. I’m Keith, though you probably already knew that.” he said giving her a light smile.

Now it’s Allura’s turn to blush. “Oh-um, well I-uh” she let out a nervous giggle as she stuttered. “Y-yeah, of course I already knew, Otherwise I would-wouldn’t call you out by your name when I thought you were hurt.” she gave a small chuckle before turning her head away.

“Did my gesture made you uncomfortable?” Keith asked as he noticed her sudden change of behavior.

“N-no! No, it’s just that...well, men do greet ladies like that, but it happens not so often and when it does happen, ladies might think it’s a form of flirting...?” At least that’s what I think

“O-oh! Then I’m-”

“But don’t worry! I’m aware you didn’t you didn’t mean it that way, I’m just not really...used to it. But hey, no harm done.” she said starting to fidget.

Keith then whistled and four mice appeared on his shoulder “I’m no good at the comforting part, but I assure you they are.” he said gesturing at the mice on his shoulder “They did comfort me when-” he stopped himself when he saw Allura swooning at the mice with a wide smile. Keith chuckled at the image before him. “You can pet them.” Allura was quick to respond as she was already inches away from the mice.

“Ohhh. They’re so cute.” she cooed, carefully petting each mouse’s head. The mice responded by squeaking which made Allura squeal silently. When she was done gushing over the mice, she realized if she was inches away from the mice then...she looked up and their faces were inches apart. They could feel each other’s breath on their face. But instead of backing away, she stayed in her place as well as the prince. None of them made a move liking the comfort of the radiating heat from their bodies.

  The moment was cut short when they heard the door slide open. Allura jumped in surprise before turning to look at the doorway. Coran had a surprised look on him “Oh, am I intruding? Oh dear, I should’ve knocked.” he said while exiting the room.

“What? No, Coran! It’s not like that!” Keith called running after the man

Allura stayed rooted on where she stood thinking about the situation she was in moments ago. She’s not sure why she felt good...but she felt good. But no matter how much she thinks about it, she knows for certain that it will never be brought up again. And will most likely won’t happen again.

But a certain side of her-a side who she refuses to listen to-tells her to admit that she wants it to happen over an over again. But then again, she refuses to listen to it.

End~

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I’m posting this now all because I’m very forgetful sooo...hope you enjoyed.

[loverboy-lancemcclain]

Neverland.

"We can sail away tonight on a sea of pure moonlight. We can navigate the stars to bring us back home. In a place so far away, we'll be young - that's how we'll stay. And with your hand in my hand I am closer now to finding Neverland.”

Heavily inspired by “Neverland” by Zendaya. I just really, really needed to see some sweet Klance comfort. I hope you enjoy it! Full fic is under the cut, or on Ao3 here :) 

Lance sat on the floor of the castle’s bridge with his legs drawn up under his chin and his glassy eyes fixated on a blank spot on the castle’s star map. He let out a soft, shuddering breath and leaned against one of Allura’s glowing pilot pillars, tightening his arms around his shins as a new wave of tears spilled over his blotchy cheeks.

“Ten thousand years.” He said, his voice catching pitifully. “Father.” He choked out, biting back a soft sob as memories of King Alfor filtered through his mind. God, he could practically smell the juniberry flowers that used to bloom all around their kingdom and see Altea’s two suns setting on opposite horizons.  

He had been so caught up in his own sadness that he completely missed the sound of footsteps approaching him from behind. He nearly fell forward in surprise when he felt a light hand fall onto his shoulder. He swiped his sleeves under his eyes and over his cheeks in a feeble attempt to erase his tears from existence, but the evidence still remained. More tears fell to replace those that had been removed in mere moments, anyways. With a sigh, he turned his head to face the intruder. His heart gave a surprised little thump in response to the eyes that met his own.

Keith was knelt down in front of him, eyebrows pinched in concern. The paladin’s hand still weighed down his left shoulder, but he can’t say the pressure was unwelcome. If anything, it was grounding. Lance had felt far off – he had been caught up in the memories of a land that no longer exists, but Keith’s touch was enough to drag him back into reality. Whether he wanted to return or not isn’t up for debate – he’s part of the only resistance powerful enough to fight back against the Empire, now. He can’t afford to lose himself in the past and miss out on the present.

He offered Keith a shy, wobbly smile that probably looked a little ridiculous with the tears streaking down around it. He let out a little sniffle and nodding once as if to say it’s okay; I’m okay. Obviously, Keith saw right through him.

After a moment’s hesitation, Keith tugged Lance forward and wrapped his arms around the prince. He used one arm to support Lance’s shoulders and the other to cradle the prince’s head against his chest. He didn’t say anything, though. Actions speak louder than words and all that. He wouldn’t even know what to say right now, anyways.

Lance struggled to pull himself together for a moment before deciding that no, that wouldn’t be happening right now. He allowed himself to crumble into Keith’s embrace, a shockingly loud cry torn from his lips as he buried his face in Keith’s bare chest (he’s so distressed that he doesn’t even have the energy to try to flirt with Keith by complimenting the pecs he’s crying into).

He trembled in Keith’s arms like a leaf in a hurricane and the sound of his sobs filled the room. He honestly wouldn’t even be surprised if he’s being loud enough to wake someone else. For a centuries old castle, the walls aren’t very thick.

After allowing himself a few minutes to break down, he pulled away with a quiet apology for losing it like that. He kept his eyes glued to the ground and didn’t mention the hand still tangled in his hair, lest Keith take it away.

“What… What were you looking at?” Keith asked, his voice rough and endearingly unsure. He’s never been very good with words or emotions, but he knows that Prince Lance needs him right now. He needs to talk about whatever caused him to fall apart so spectacularly. At least Keith isn’t so socially inept he’d ask a crying boy if he’s okay. That would most likely be pretty high up on the list of things to avoid asking, right now. He had assumed that bringing up what Lance had been looking at when Keith first saw him would be a safe option, but if the way Lance choked up on a brand-new wave of tears was anything to go by, he’d say he’s probably dead wrong.

Lance struggled to speak for a few minutes, but Keith didn’t try to interrupt or change the subject. The damage from his question is already done, and he’s far too curious to try to take it back, anyways.

After a few more ticks, Lance took a deep breath and sat back to face the glowing star map all around them. He reached out with both hands and zoomed in on the blank space in the center of the map. His heart cracked at the sight alone. He’s immensely grateful for the arm Keith had left around his waist. He scooted a little closer as discreetly as possible.

“This… That empty patch of space… That’s where Altea used to be. My entire solar system – my entire galaxy.” He said, clenching his jaw to bite back yet another whimper. “That’s where Altea and so many other planets used to be before Zarkon betrayed us and decimated the entire galaxy. Daibazaal, Altea, Nalquod, Rygnirath, the Dalterion Belt… All of it is gone, now.” He breathed, bundling his long sleeve over his fist so that he could wipe away the tears that continued to spill over.

Keith was at a loss for words. He had no idea how to respond to this. He’s already shitty with normal conversations; how is he supposed to be able to comfort someone whose entire galaxy was destroyed while he was asleep? Eventually, he decided to forego words and pulled Lance even closer, instead. He wrapped both arms around the prince and (awkwardly) pulled him into his lap. He hid his burning face by pulling Lance’s into his chest and hoped the prince wouldn’t feel his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. He gazed up at the immense spot of empty space on the map and his heart ached for the prince in his arms. He doesn’t even have any real family left on Earth and the thought of losing it to someone like Zarkon was enough to make him feel sick. Lance had a family, friends, and an entire life on his planet. He was its prince, for God’s sake. The only saving Grace is the fact that Allura and Coran had awoken from their cryo-sleep with him. Keith can’t possibly imagine waking up 10,000 years in the future and billions of lightyears away from his home with no one else to lean on. The mere thought sent a chill of loneliness through him, and he tightened his arms around Lance just a little more.

“Tell me about it.” He said, after realizing that Lance probably wouldn’t continue without some kind of prompting. The poor prince was so forlorn that he would probably cry himself to sleep without really letting anything out, if Keith allows him to.

“Wh-What?” Lance croaked, pulling away from his burrow in Keith’s neck to meet the paladin’s eyes, his own shining with confusion.

“Tell me about Altea. About your home.”

“Oh.” Lance breathed, slumping down against Keith’s chest as his mind raced with the sights and sounds of his once-great planet. “There are so many things to say. Where can I even begin?

Altea was… Unique. As I’m sure you can see in Allura and Coran, our people were highly adept with diplomacy and bargaining. We played a part in countless important events in the history of the universe. We oversaw the rises of nations, the falls of kingdoms, the formations of alliances, and the births of legendary heroes – most notably, the birth of Voltron. That isn’t all there was to us, though. Our planet was beautiful. Picture a land unlike any you have ever seen, where life is eternal and evergreen and a future of guaranteed happiness is always within reach. Gorgeous, vibrant juniberry flowers blossomed everywhere Alteans lived, our lakes and oceans were pure and untainted, and we had a wholesome, symbiotic relationship with all around us. We were a peaceful people by nature. It’s why Zarkon had no trouble destroying us. In fact, Voltron was the only true weapon we had in our arsenal, and it wasn’t even constructed for us – it was built to spread peace and stability across the galaxies. Aside from the great beast, Altea only had small blasters and the defenses built into the castle, but they were never truly used until the Great War against the Galra began. We were wiped out in mere days because of our lack of weaponry.” He said, his eyes shifting from Keith to refocus on the blank space on the star map. It was obvious that while he was very obviously sitting in the red paladin’s lap, his mind was several galaxies and centuries away.

“As I said, we were a peaceful people. We had no hostile intentions when we constructed Voltron or used it to neutralize the threat that had been established on the Galra home-world, Daibazaal. We merely wished to prolong the era of tranquility we had brought about, along with the Galra and the other species of our galaxy. We did not deserve to be so brutally slaughtered – my entire species… Gods, I can’t even stand the thought. My people… I left them when they needed me most.” He choked out, his hands flying up to his face to muffle his whimpers. His subjects. They all looked up to him and Allura as the next generation of royalty, and they had been let down. The Alfor forced both of his children to abandon the planet during its most dire moment and allowed its entire civilization to perish. If Lance had only been there. If he had been there, he could have done so much to help. He could have organized a retreat by filling the castle with as many Alteans as possible before take-off. He could have manned the defenses and fought back against the Galra invaders for as long as the particle barriers would allow it. Maybe his presence wouldn’t have made much of a difference, but at least he could have done something. He wouldn’t be damned to this hellish present – lost and alone and one part of a near-extinct species, 10,000 years from the life he once knew.

“I’ve taken to calling it Neverland.” He said, after his tears had subsided once more.

“What?” Keith asked, blinking dumbly down at the Altean prince. The sudden shift in conversation caught him off-guard, but he can’t say it was unwelcome. Anything is better than being forced to watch this beautiful boy cry.

“Altea. I’ve begun to call it Neverland, after a story Pidge told me a little while ago.” He explained, slowly standing from Keith’s lap to step closer to the space map. He mourned the loss of contact for a moment, but he had to do this. He needed to see it, and he wanted to share it with Keith.

He swiped his hand across the map to dismiss it and placed one hand on the piloting pillar to his left. He shut his eyes, reached out with his quintessence the way he had been taught to do, and made contact with the castle’s systems. After a few ticks of trying, the window-screens all around the bridge lit up and filled the room with brilliant blue light that shone red behind his clenched eyelids. Once the light faded, he stepped back and opened his eyes. Beautiful fields of red and green spread out all across the screens, and twin suns blazed high up in a pale blue sky.

“I figure it would be easier to just show you. The castle stores recordings of its surroundings every time it is stationed somewhere new as a cautionary measure, in case we ever need to go back and review our surroundings for anything. This is – was – Altea. This was where the castle was docked on my planet. Where Allura and I grew up.” He said, sucking in a shuddering breath as he took in the beauty of his home-world. He is so immensely relieved that his father had thought to include the camera systems. If it hadn’t been for that, his memory of Altea would eventually grow foggy and inaccurate. This way, he has what very well may be the last genuine image of what was his home.

“I call it Neverland now because of its twin suns.” He explained, gesturing towards the blazing balls of fire high up in the sky. “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning, right?” He laughed, though the sound was nowhere near as light or melodic as it usually is. It was sad – so incredibly sad.

“It’s more than that, though.” He continued, cutting Keith off before he could say anything. “It’s… a land that is eternal, now. It exists only in my mind, frozen in time, and it will remain there until I die. I may be several millennia old now, but in my memories of my home, I’ll be young forever.”

Keith was at a loss. He had absolutely no idea what to say or do, right now. Never in his life has he cursed his lack of social skills quite so colorfully as he is now. He aches to comfort the prince standing just mere feet from him, but he doesn’t know how. He’s worried that if he opens his mouth, he’ll say the wrong thing and ruin the moment. Lance is trusting him right now. He can’t let the prince down. He wants to prolong this bonding moment for as long as possible. It may be a bit selfish of him to want to keep Lance in this state, but he can’t fight what his heart is telling him, and it’s very insistent that this moment should last forever. Eventually, he worked up enough courage to man up and just say something.

“When… When I was young, I had a star.” He began, worrying his lower lip between his teeth to help him focus on choosing his words with extreme caution. “Whenever I was frightened or felt alone, I turned to the night sky and stared at my favorite star until I felt better. It wasn’t the biggest or the brightest, but it was the only true constant in my life. Even after I left the Garrison and spent months alone in the desert, it was there for me. It’s the only thing that has never, ever left me.” He said, stepping into Lance’s space until he was pressed against the prince’s back. His heart struggled to beat out of his chest and his breath was coming out a little too quick, but he knows that this is what he wants. He reached out with shaky hands and laced his fingers with Lance’s at the prince’s sides. He lifted one of Lance’s hands and mimicked Allura’s actions from his first day on the castle to bring the star map back up. Once he managed to do it (without making a complete fool of himself, thankfully), he used their interlocked hands to pull up Earth and the rest of the Solar Sytem. Using Orion and The Little Dipper as his reference points, Keith zoomed in on one of the smallest stars nestled just between the two constellations. “I named it Keith 2.” He admitted, laughing a little at his own ridiculousness.

Lance hesitantly leaned back against Keith’s chest, his cheeks burning a deep blue color as Keith’s breath ghosted across his ear and neck. “It’s beautiful.” He whispered, tilting his head a bit to inspect the small, pulsating ball of fire. He could see why Keith had chosen it. It was small and kind of dim, but it blazed just as hot as (if not hotter than) it’s brethren – just like Keith. For whatever reason, Lance finds it extremely endearing, and he’s deeply touched that Keith is willing to share something so intimate with him.

“I wish I could take you back to your home.” Keith sighed, leaning his forehead against the back of Lance’s shoulder blade. “I wish I could make you happy.” He said, squeezing Lance’s hands a little tighter as he spoke. “We could sail away tonight on a sea of pure moonlight; I would navigate the stars and bring you back home. I would do anything to keep you from crying like you were ever again.”

Lance sucked in a breath and he felt tears welling up in his eyes again for an entirely different reason. “Keith.” He breathed, releasing the red paladin’s hands so that he could spin around and pull him into his arms. His heart is beating wildly and he’s probably being even more bold than he has been in quite some time, but he can’t deny that this is what he wants. For all the mindless flirting he does with everyone, he’s positive that this is real. What he feels for Keith – what he’s been feeling since he first met the human – is so much more than a fleeting infatuation. Perhaps his survival of his planet’s annihilation may bring some good to his life, after all.

“Keith.” He repeated, cradling the boy’s cheeks and tilting his head up so their eyes would meet. “I can’t say that I’m happy, right now, but I promise that you just being here with me is enough to make me feel so much better.” He said, leaning down to press their foreheads together. He would be sure to tease Keith for their height difference later. For now, he’s too caught up in the moment. Standing here, bathed in the light of Altea’s suns and Keith 2, with the boy of his dreams cradled in his arms, he feels complete again.

“And with your hand in my hand, I am closer now to finding Neverland.”