#just in case for the last part even though it's not technically accurate it's near enough I don't want to risk not tagging | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tehuti88-art · 2 months ago

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10/25/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's characters from my anthro WWII storyline are Herzog von NN and Herzogin von NN (full names never given). These are the parents of Adalbert and Adelheid, and grandparents of Ratdog/Adel and Edelgard. Part of a long line of dukes and duchesses, they're long deceased by the time of the main story, though their unfortunate fate is reflected later on in what happens to Edelgard and Adel. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding their design, they have the same muddy gray fur and bright blue eyes as everyone else in the family. They're Victorian era, around the mid- to late 1800s; the duke has a mustache and goatee.

TUMBLR EDIT: Rest of entry modified to avoid repetition.

Firstly, in case anyone has noticed something rather obvious and is puzzled, here is a rough graphic of Ratdog's/Adel von NN's family tree:

HERE.

...A distinct lack of branches, right? The hereditary Dukes and Duchesses von NN traditionally practiced the weird custom of brother/sister marriage. I don't know why yet, though I imagine geographical isolation played a big role; Lt. Ratdog and PFC Godfrey Klemper's unit accidentally stumble across the remains of the old Castle von NN in their military duties, way out in the middle of nowhere, so that even Ratdog--its technical owner--is surprised to see it. As Junkers and members of the German nobility (Deutscher Adel), the von NN family, in ye olden days (Ratdog claims the line goes back to at least the 1500s, perhaps earlier), owned vast farmlands surrounding the castle, and these were worked by nearby peasant farmer families who were barely a step above slave labor; a genealogist traces Klemper's family line back through these, so it's highly possible his distant ancestors once toiled for Ratdog's. As time went on, however, for one reason or another, the farmland dwindled, the farmer families were released from their servitude and moved away, and the von NN property began to shrink as the wilderness took over. If they hadn't already followed the practice, the von NNs likely began their custom of sibling marriage around this period as there were no suitable marriage partners available anywhere near; I imagine younger siblings--non-heirs--ended up moving away and taking suitable mates elsewhere, effectively branching off from the main family line (so Ratdog/Adel surely DOES have distant cousins still alive out there, somewhere, just no longer carrying the family name--so his claim of being the last of his name is technically, though not genealogically, accurate), though the eldest von NN brother and sister stuck to the tradition for generations. Eventually, this just became the norm.

I don't know very much at all about Duke and Duchess von NN--not even their names (I named their heirs Adalbert and Adelheid, hinting that most of the oldest siblings in the family bear names related to the nobility--see also Edelgard and Adel--yet saw no point in naming these two), as Edelgard effectively erases their hereditary name from everything in the estate, and Ratdog refuses to divulge it to anyone but Klemper, who never tells. Adel is born around 1910, I think, so going in 25-year (generational) increments (even though Edelgard is a few years older), Adalbert and Adelheid date to roughly an 1885 birth, and the Duke and Duchess here to roughly an 1860 birth. Give or take. So they're late Victorian. I assume that the last of the few castle servants remaining on the von NN estate have left by the time the Duke and Duchess take ownership (the farmland has long gone completely fallow), as Adalbert and Adelheid are left on their own following their exit. For an indeterminate reason, von NN generations never seem to last long by this point--this could be due to all the inbreeding, though for the most part, the von NNs seem to escape the unpleasantness inherent in that. Physically, at least. Mentally, it might be another issue. Anyway, another possibility is a familial curse...Ratdog/Adel is an avowed atheist, he disdains both the Christian faith and the völkisch beliefs of the poor farmer folk, and he brushes off things such as Major Jäger's heathen practices as superstitious nonsense, yet he's perfectly willing to believe his family is cursed, because how could it not be? (Oddly, the very superstitious Klemper is skeptical of this, and thinks maybe the family just has bad blood or else plain bad luck.)

The Duke and Duchess inherit the estate when their sibling-parents...die, disappear, who knows, I don't. They genuinely care for each other...this is something I should've mentioned earlier, the von NN situation can't really be compared to the Dannecker situation. Ernst Dannecker's mother's side of the family also apparently practiced a sort of intergenerational incest (in this case, parent/child), except theirs was definitely warped and nonconsensual, as it involved adult/underaged relations. Although Dannecker carries on a consensual relationship with his mother as an adult, the relationship began when he was an adolescent, and thus unable to consent; and his stepdaughter Gret certainly never consents to what he later puts her through. The family has normalized nonconsensual behavior. With the von NNs, on the other hand, although the siblings might be underaged when they first get involved (given how briefly the generations last), they're always members of the same generation, there are no adult/underage relationships. There's also no coercion involved--although there's technically no CHOICE, as there are no other romantic prospects around, the von NNs are definitely allowed to refuse marriage to each other, if they wish (the decision Edelgard and Adel make)...they're just so used to these marriages that they don't mind. Tl;dr, it's still incest, but it's consensual, and no force or abuse is involved. It's weird and morally/legally wrong, but nobody really cares.

Anyway...the Duke and Duchess do love each other, and don't mind carrying on the tradition. I briefly mulled over what their relationship may have been like. The Duchess sadly confiding in her brother-husband, what if it's always like this, what if we're just cursed?--makes me suspect she suffers a few miscarriages and/or stillbirths that leave her worried about carrying on the family line. The Duke does his best to allay her fears, promises that he won't leave her even if she ends up barren. Eventually she gives birth to a son, Adalbert...and then some time later, thankfully, a daughter, Adelheid. I say thankfully, because the von NNs by necessity need both a son and a daughter, and they've always managed to luck out so far. I already mentioned extra siblings who go off into the world; by this time, with fewer and fewer children being born, extra siblings are a rarity, and I doubt the Duke and Duchess have any other kids. They're grateful for their son and daughter, and spoil them the best they can, because of course the von NNs always want their children to be healthy and happy (so they too will later marry and continue the line). If there's anything to be said for the von NNs in general (whether it be the Duke and Duchess, or Adalbert, or Ratdog/Adel himself, or Adel's daughter Tatiana von Adel), it's that they always dote on their children, and do anything they can for them. (Adelheid is the exception...for reasons.)

Adalbert and Adelheid have a relatively happy childhood. They grow up isolated from the outside world, with the full expectation that they'll marry someday. Doesn't even occur to them to think differently. I know little else about the old Duke and Duchess other than that they love the outdoors and hunting, even the Duchess, they often go off together into the forest with their rifles, doesn't matter the time of year--summer, winter, rain or shine or wind or snow, nothing deters them. They obtain food this way--as neighbors to trade with are few and far between--yet they also just plain enjoy it. They take Adalbert out with them a few times once he's old enough, though he's not really into it himself, and Adelheid isn't interested. So as they get older, and are able to be left home on their own, the von NN children are more often left alone to their own devices for long stretches as their parents are off in the woods. They don't mind, they're just used to it.

One icy morning deep in winter, the Duke and Duchess bundle up in their heaviest furs, strap on their skis (a necessity in this part of the world), ready their rifles and supplies, kiss their children farewell, and head off into the snow. Adalbert and Adelheid see them off, then go about their typical daily routine, reading, wandering the castle, napping, working on a painting or a carving, going to the kitchens for a snack. It's not unusual at all when their parents haven't returned by nightfall; hunts often last a few days or more, so the two teenagers prepare themselves a late supper, share a few words across the giant table as they eat, then sit in the parlor to read before the fire for a bit before retiring to their beds.

The next day, the sky grows ominously dark and a snowstorm blows through. It isn't the typical violent but brief squall; it goes on all day long and into the evening. Adalbert and Adelheid stay inside, watching anxiously out the windows with wide eyes as the blizzard gusts, the trees creak, and the snow piles. They don't get much sleep. The storm finally breaks the next morning, and Adalbert steps outside (after having to dig a space out around the doorway) to examine the aftermath. The landscape is vastly changed, hills and drifts of snow piled against the castle and trees and rocks; the old paths around the estate are gone from view, and if it weren't for the castle squatting right behind him, he wouldn't recognize anything familiar. Even the shapes of trees he knows well have been changed, snow weighing down their boughs. He peers around a few minutes before going back inside. It's only been a couple of days, he tells the anxious Adelheid, no point trudging off into the snow just yet, best to conserve his energy. Their parents are excellent hunters and trackers, far better than he is, surely they'll be back soon. Truth to tell, he's very uneasy and worried...he's never seen a snowstorm like this one, and if it's this impassable here, on the relatively level terrain around the castle, he dreads to think about what it's like in a deep forest full of hidden hollows, caves, and ravines. He keeps his fear to himself for now, and focuses on distracting his sister for the rest of the day, keeping her thoughts preoccupied so she doesn't dwell on unpleasant possibilities. As night falls, however, this grows more difficult, and the two end up just sitting huddled together before the fire, Adalbert's arm around Adelheid and her head resting on his shoulder as they stare anxiously into the flames.

The Duke and Duchess don't return the next day, or the next. Adelheid's mental state unravels; she starts weeping uncontrollably, begging to know where are their mother and father, and even Adalbert's reminder that they've been gone longer than this in the past, they really shouldn't get upset just yet, does nothing to convince her...he isn't even convinced himself, surely their parents would have started home early after such a storm, unlikely to successfully continue the hunt. They also wouldn't want their children to worry. Adalbert finally offers to go out looking for them, if only to allay her fears, yet she insists that he at least wait until tomorrow as it's already afternoon and is growing dim. He agrees, and prepares supplies for possibly a long trek through the woods; they share a silent dinner, and doze off in front of the fire, Adelheid still sniffling and wiping her eyes.

Adalbert wraps up in furs, straps on his skis, readies his rifle just in case and secures his supplies to a sled the next morning; kisses Adelheid goodbye, promising to be careful and to try to be back by tomorrow; and sets off. He heads into the forest and spends hours searching, seeking out all the spots his parents took him to when they brought him hunting, even though they're difficult to find in the vastly transformed landscape. It's bright and sunny, yet so skin-pricklingly cold (he keeps a scarf wrapped around all his face but his eyes) that none of the snow has melted yet, as he'd hoped it would. He finds no tracks, though that too had been a dim hope. He tests his path frequently with his ski poles, to make sure he isn't about to walk off into a hole or dropoff; this slows his progress, though he does cover a decent amount of ground, and hits all of the familiar spots he can think of. At each one he pulls down his scarf and yells, "Mutter...? Vater...?" as loudly as he can, strains his ears for any response...yet never hears anything but the occasional call of a bird or crack of a branch. Even his own echo is muted by the snow. He nearly gets buried in a gout of snow that plummets from an overhead branch, and one time is almost pulled down into a ravine when his sled slips; after he's forced to cut the straps and watch his supplies disappear from sight, he decides to take this as a sign that it's time to head back, though he does call out for the Duke and Duchess one more time. Holds his breath and listens to the ringing stillness. Pulls his scarf back up, turns, and reluctantly gives up his search, trudging back the way he'd come.

It's dark by the time he reaches the castle, Adelheid hovering at the door; she throws her arms around him, brings him in, sets him before the fire--he's too exhausted to protest--and frets over him, pulling off his snow-caked garments and wrapping him in blankets. She weeps as she tries to rub the cold from his hands; he's returned alone, without his sled, and downcast, so she knows what that means. She brings him a bowl of hot broth to sip; it finally pulls him from his frozen daze, yet his melancholy mood remains, and this time he has no reassurances to offer his sister. Although he doesn't tell her so, he's convinced that their parents won't be returning home.

Adalbert and Adelheid awake the next day, and begin a new routine, a new life without their parents. They're the only ones left, and they realize it now. For quite a while they merely go through the motions, too numb with shock and grief to think too hard, though every once in a while the silence and the absence hits them and Adalbert has to pause to hold Adelheid's hand as she cries, or privately wipe his own eyes dry. He takes up hunting for food, himself, and occasionally travels to a distant neighbor to trade. The winter passes, spring comes, the snow slowly starts to melt; Adalbert and Adelheid search the forest, yet find nothing. It's as if the Duke and Duchess have disappeared from the face of the earth. As brother and sister sit at a mournful supper that evening, Adelheid wonders aloud if perhaps the Wild Hunt carried them away. Adalbert quickly shushes her; although the von NNs are nominal Christians, superstitions run deep in this part of the world, and some things are best not mentioned or thought about too much.

As soon as the two siblings come of age, Adalbert contacts the old pastor who's familiar with the von NNs' odd ways and doesn't question; he marries them, and alone they start their own family as intended. Adelheid has a daughter, Edelgard, but it's obvious early on that something is not right about her, mentally, and she spends much of her early childhood locked away and isolated from the tiny family. Next comes a son, Adel. Adel is by all appearances a perfectly normal child, if only average in intelligence (despite her mental imbalance, Edelgard is unusually bright and clever), and is the only one Edelgard trusts, so Adalbert entertains hopes that someday the two will continue in their place, though Adelheid refuses the thought of Edelgard playing any role in continuing the family line. Edelgard and Adel, meanwhile, never even bother pondering such things; marriage and raising a family is a thought that doesn't cross their minds.

Adalbert introduces Adel to hunting. Adel takes to it better than he did when he was around the same age. As they wander the forest one day, they separate, and Adel stumbles and falls down a ravine; he tumbles to the bottom, battered and bruised but otherwise uninjured. As he checks himself over, his attention is caught by the sight of something manmade peeking from the undergrowth; he brushes aside the leaves and grass and finds an old and weather-beaten sled, its rope straps frayed and cut short. He peers around to see if there's anything else, and notices a dark spot nearby--a cave opening, almost lost in the foliage. He trudges toward it and peeks within; curiosity overcoming his fear, he turns on his lantern, and crawls inside. The cave is low, but wide, with numerous passages and hollow spots located along the sides; most of these are blocked by fallen debris, but Adel turns to an inset space to the right, seeing something within it, and lifts his lantern. Then gasps and jerks back at the sight of the face within, eyes wide and black, mouth gaping.

It takes him a moment to recover himself, though once he does, he simply lifts his lamp again, and creeps forward for a closer look. He knows that whatever it is, it can no longer hurt him, and now he's more curious than anything. There are actually two faces, he sees now...two bodies huddled against the wall, their eyes and hair long gone but the rest of them mummified by the cool, relatively dry air of the cave, skin pulled tight over their bones, lips pulled back in toothy grimaces. As he shines the light over them, other small details catch his eye: the tattered scraps of furs and cloth around them, the rusted-out rifles and broken skis lying nearby, the way one has its arm around the other, the second resting its head upon the shoulder of the first. Whoever they were, they died waiting for help that never came, yet at least they died together.

Adel gasps--he hears his own name being called, and at first thinks it's the mummy before him speaking. Then realizes it's his father, calling out for him outside and above; he sounds worried. Adel crawls out of the cave, climbs back up the ravine side, jogs to meet his father, who exclaims in dismay over his battered state; Adel reassures him he's fine, he only fell a little way, though Adalbert insists on heading home to patch him up (and to check on Adelheid and Edelgard, who mostly avoid each other). As they make their way back to the castle, Adel decides not to mention the derelict sled, or the two pathetic bodies...he doesn't know all the details, but he knows his grandparents, the old Duke and Duchess, disappeared one night after a storm and never came back, and he's pretty sure that was them, and that the nearby sled was Adalbert's. He doesn't want his father to know just how close he came to finding them...even if they were already gone.

Some time later, while Adel is out hunting on his own, the tense situation between Edelgard and Adelheid explodes, with Adalbert getting caught in the middle. Edelgard and Adel are now the only ones left. Edelgard demands that Adel leave before she ends up hurting him, too; although he heads back out into the snow, he insists that he'll come back, that he won't turn his back on her.

Adel treks to a distant neighbor's place, offers him payment in exchange for staying a few days. Heads back to his castle. Finds the doors and windows all thrown open, snow drifting inside. He has to stay bundled up as he wanders the halls and rooms calling for his sister, it's nearly as icy within as it is without. He finds no Edelgard, no Adelheid, no Adalbert; the bloodstains of the confrontation remain, yet the castle is deserted. Edelgard must have removed the bodies on her own, then wandered off into the snow. He stays a while, hoping she'll return, yet she doesn't; he writes a note for her, gathers his belongings, stands before the castle calling out for her: Again he promises that he'll come to check on the castle now and then, if she comes after him he vows not to turn her away. The snowy fields and woods echo only his own voice. He reluctantly leaves his home for good. He keeps his promise, stops by a few more times in the following months, leaves a hand-drawn map to the new home he's building deep in a different part of the woods, yet never sees Edelgard again. The snow takes her away, and she never returns.

Many years, and many more painful losses later, not long after welcoming his new grandson into the world, Adel returns to his little stone cottage deep in the woods, cries himself out, drinks himself numb, throws open the windows and the door. Lets in the cold, lies down to sleep. Like the Duke and Duchess, like his sister, he lets the snow come in, and quietly dies alone, taking the von NN name--and its "curse"--along with him.

Please see also his wife's, Duchess von NN's, entry.

[Herzog von NN 2024 [‎Friday, ‎October ‎25, ‎2024, ‏‎12:08:12 AM]]

#artists on tumblr #ibisPaint x #SketchDaily #original characters

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honeypiehotchner · 4 years ago

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intelligence & issues (Hotch x Fem!Reader) -- chapter eighteen

Helloooo I almost posted this yesterday as a thank you gift and then I totally got caught up in schoolwork. Gotta love finals season am I right

Anywho, thank y’all so much for 1.7k followers <3 Here’s a long ass chapter that’s a good ol’ mix of fluff and angst xx.

Chapter Warnings: waking-up-together kinda fluff, no sexytimes but there are some ~suggestive~ comments of course, ANGST at the end (i’m so sorry), the end of this case is very near on the horizon

Previous chapter || Fic Masterlist

Aaron wakes you when his first alarm goes off at 5a.m. It’s way too fucking early in your opinion, but you know he wants you to have time to go back to Emily and JJ’s room to get ready for the day.

Still, being woken by a kiss on your forehead is something you can see yourself getting used to. Not to mention using his chest as a pillow all night.

You tilt your head to capture his lips in a sweet kiss, not caring that the both of you probably have disgusting morning breath right now.

He pulls away first, nudging your nose with his before he rests his forehead on yours, looking deep into your eyes. “Good morning, sweet girl.”

You can’t help the smile that splits your lips. “Good morning.” You close your eyes in your flustered state, burying your face down into his chest. “I don’t want to leave.”

“I want you to stay,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “But we’ve got a job to do.”

“I know,” you sigh, opening your eyes to bring yourself back to reality. Then, you hook your arms around his neck, starting to grin. “Same thing tonight?”

He smirks, wrapping his arms around your waist. “Depends on how much of a good girl you are today.”

“Ooh, a challenge,” you tease. “I dunno…I’m feeling pretty bratty this morning.”

You feel his arm tighten around your shoulders, drawing you closer to him in warning.

“I’m just teasing,” you murmur, propping your chin on his chest, giving him your best eyes.

But he isn’t fazed. “I know. I’m keeping track.”

So, naturally, you pout. “Fine.”

“Strike two.”

“I have a feeling this isn’t like baseball. Three strikes and I’m out?”

“Are you trying to find out?”

“Mm, maybe?” You grin, but, as always, the FBI Agent part of your brain comes back to life. “If we didn’t have to be downstairs soon, I’d say yes. But I probably should go get dressed.”

“Understood,” Aaron replies, a small grin on his lips too. “I suppose even as your boss, I can’t keep you here.”

“As my boss, we’re technically not even supposed to be in the same bed together,” you remind him with a snort, but seriousness comes over him. “What?”

“We still need to talk,” he says quietly. “Really talk about this, but right now I just want you to know...I don’t regret this. I want this. No matter the consequences.”

“Me too,” you whisper, fingernails gently scratching the base of his skull, your weak attempt at comfort. ��Do you think there’ll be consequences?”

He sighs, and you rise and fall with his chest. “I don’t know.” He pauses. “If Strauss finds out somehow, maybe. I don’t know if keeping it from her until she inevitably finds out is better than telling her ourselves, but…”

“We’ll figure it out,” you assure him with a small smile. “But you wanna do this?”

Instead of answering you verbally, he pulls you closer for a soothing kiss, coaxing all your worries away.

“I want to do this,” he says, knowing you need to hear the words from his voice.

“Okay,” you murmur, taking a deep breath. “What do we do about the team?”

His eyebrows furrow. “What about them?”

You give him a tired look. “Come on. They know.”

“What?” He blurts, sitting up a little, taking you with him. “Rossi knows.”

“And Emily and JJ and Garcia,” you chuckle. “I didn’t even tell them. Emily saw us at dinner one night. JJ figured it out from the phone call a few days ago. Garcia just...knows.”

“What about Morgan and Reid?”

“Are you kidding me? Morgan knows. Have you seen how he irritates the shit out of me every day?”

“Exactly,” Aaron says. “He does it every day.”

“Have you noticed how he’s been doing it especially when you’re around?” You raise an eyebrow. “Come on, you’re our supervisor! I thought you were a better profiler than that!”

“We have a rule not to profile each other,” he says sternly, obviously a little butthurt that he didn’t see that everyone else knew.

“A rule that none of us stick to, by the way,” you laugh. “We just don’t voice it. But we do. Trust me.”

“I didn’t think you’d figured that out yet,” he admits.

“Eh,” you shrug. “It wasn’t hard. I caught myself profiling everyone. I figured I couldn’t be the only one who does it by accident.”

Aaron only smiles. He’s amazed by you every single day. Sometimes he wonders if you even know how intelligent you are. If you even know the full scope of your mind. Maybe you don’t, maybe no one does.

“But anyway,” you swerve back on track. “I feel like it should be unspoken, but just...no PDA, you know? It’s fine that they know because honestly I think they knew before we knew, but let’s not make it a big deal.”

“Agreed,” he nods. “We still need to be professional.”

“Exactly,” you breathe, glad to be on the same page.

His second alarm goes off, the one for 5:30, and you groan, dropping your forehead to his chest.

“Why does it have to be so early?” You mutter, your lips brushing against his skin as you speak. It sends a hot wave through him, one that causes him to promptly shift your body off of him. “What are you doing?”

“You need to go get dressed,” he says. “And if you stay here wrapped around me any longer, I won’t be able to let you leave.”

You grin. “Point taken.”

You roll off the mattress, fully aware that he’s looking at your ass, and at your entire body, marveling at the way you look in his shirt.

“Oh,” you say, doing a dramatic turn, watching his eyes very quickly move back to your face. “Do you have any boxers? I probably shouldn’t walk down the hall in just a shirt.”

He’s scrambling for a pair of his boxer briefs, the thought of anyone else seeing you just like this making his blood boil frighteningly fast.

“Thanks,” you smirk when he hands them to you. And you put them on in front of him, partly for a show and partly because the look he was giving you demanded it. “I’ll see you in an hour or so?”

He nods. “Try not to spend too much time gossiping.”

“Oh, please,” you shake your head. “They’re getting all the details.”

You’re out the door before he can even catch you, and you just know you’re going to get it later.

+++

Emily and JJ are on you as soon as you open the door, both of them dressed and ready, arms folded over their chests like Moms whose daughter stayed out too late last night.

In a way, that’s completely accurate.

“And where have you been?” JJ asks, fully entering her Mom persona.

“Uhm, a friend’s house?” You play along, trying to inch your way to the bathroom.

But Emily knows your move, and stands in front of the bathroom door. “Is this friend named Aaron?”

“...maybe.”

And the façade falls, because they both cheer, pulling you into a hug.

“Finally!” Emily screams.

“Finally, what?” You laugh. “The night before I was also in his room.”

“Oh, we know,” JJ assures you.

“Finally, you admit it,” Emily clarifies. “So...details?”

“So...we have to be downstairs soon and I need to get dressed,” you walk past them to your bag. After grabbing your clothes, you turn back around to find them still staring at you. “What?”

“You’re in his shirt,” JJ says, still smiling.

“And boxers,” you laugh, pulling the hem of his t-shirt up a little. “Guys, don’t make this a big thing.” You pause, heading toward the bathroom. “He was a little upset that I knew everyone knew, and he didn’t.”

“How did he not?” Emily scoffs. “He can be so dense.”

You shake your head, shutting the bathroom door to get dressed.

When you emerge from the bathroom, now dressed and looking more presentable, Emily and JJ are finally getting ready, too. They still watch you like a pair of hawks stalking prey, though. You just hope they won’t make any comments later.

That’s wishful thinking and you know it. But hopefully the comments will be held in at least until you’re all on the jet, heading back to Virginia.

+++

When you walk out of the elevator with Emily and JJ, you find Hotch standing with Rossi, the former looking much more grave than you left him. And he’s on the phone.

“Shit,” you mutter under your breath, picking up the pace. You glance at Hotch, silently asking, and he nods. “There’s another body,” you fill in Emily and JJ, ignoring the strange look that Rossi gives you.

Once Hotch hangs up, he looks immediately at you. “There’s two bodies. Male and female.”

“What?” Emily blurts. “In the same location?”

He nods. “Same house.”

About this time, Morgan and Reid step out of the elevator, jogging over when they see the team’s faces.

“What’s going on?” Morgan asks.

“Two bodies this time, same house, male and female,” you explain briefly.

Hotch jumps in. “JJ: you, Reid, and Y/N head over to the precinct and get Garcia on the phone. Get her to find everything she can on these new victims.”

You nod, glad he’s not sending you to see anymore bloodied bodies. Just the thought has a chill running down your spine.

You don’t want to admit it, but it’s hard not to picture Trevor’s face. It’s hard not to feel the thrill of the possibility of revenge. But you know that’s only the irrational part of your brain. You know you wouldn’t really act on those thoughts.

But they’re still there.

+++

Back at the precinct, you’re dialing Garcia and stirring a cup of shitty coffee. When she picks up, she sounds about as frizzed as you feel.

“Good morning, my angel sent from Heaven,” she sings, sounding far too bright for seven in the morning. “What can I do you for?”

“Good morning,” you chuckle. “We’ve got two new victims.”

“Mm, I know,” she groans, and you begin to hear typing. “Morgan texted me their names, I was waiting for your call.”

“Yep, we just need you to work your magic, that’s all.”

“That I can do,” she replies, no doubt through a smile. “Speaking of magic…”

You already know where this is heading. “Seriously? Who told you?”

“JJ and Emily texted me,” Garcia admits. “But you know I was going to weasel it out of you eventually, anyway!”

“Yes, I know,” you roll your eyes, tossing the coffee stirrer and empty cream and sugar packets in the trash. “Listen, how about this: Once this case is over, we’ll all have a girl’s night at my place with a bunch of junk food and wine, and I’ll give all the details -- whatever they might be at that point.”

You can’t let yourself believe that you’ll still be together because who knows what could happen. Anything could happen. The universe has a bad habit of getting in the way of your love life.

“You know the way to my heart,” Garcia sighs dreamily. “It’s a date. Speaking of dates, it looks like our two victims were married.”

“Married?” You nearly yell. Talk about a plot twist. “And the guy brought our unsub home for a one-night stand?”

“Looks that way so far,” Garcia says with a grimace. “Caroline Merritt, 35, was the CEO of her own company and traveled a lot. It looks like she changed flights yesterday and landed around eleven p.m. She checked her car out of the airport parking lot at eleven forty-five.”

“Great, so she might’ve walked in on our unsub.” You rub your forehead from the stress. “What about the other victim?”

“Jasper Rhodes was 34 and a part-time worker at the local Walmart,” Garcia lists off. “They had been married for three years, but Caroline never changed her last name.”

“Don’t exactly blame her,” you remark. “Alright, which one had allegations?”

“I’m about to burst your bubble, babycakes. Neither of them.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Garcia echoes, just as solemn. “Caroline has a squeaky clean record, aside from one speeding ticket when she was seventeen for going forty-five in a school zone. Jasper also has a clean slate for a record, but he does have one DUI from when he was twenty-two. Nothing else since.”

“It’s been twelve years, so for all we know, he could be sober for a decade now,” you mutter. “Okay. Do they have any connection at all to our other victims? Please say yes.”

“Cross referencing as we speak,” Garcia says, typing furiously. “Almost done… Negative,” she sighs. “I’m sorry, babe.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you shake your head. “Thank you for being such a wizard, as always.”

“It’s my specialty,” she quips. “So...do I get some details about you and Hotch now?”

“Goodbye Garcia…” You chuckle, ending the call before she can ask anything else.

You walk back into the conference room, shaking your head sadly at JJ who looks up with hopeful eyes.

“Garcia found virtually nothing. Caroline got a speeding ticket at seventeen, and Jasper a DUI at twenty-two. Nothing since. And no connection to any of our other victims,” you relay the information, ending it with a sip of your coffee.

“This unsub is good,” JJ says, exasperated. “How is she always three steps ahead of us?”

“She’s not, really,” Reid says, and you can feel something else coming on. “It’s like she knows we’re closing in on her, so she’s going after those who have no reported allegations. She’s not as far ahead as we think, but maybe that’s what she wants us to think.”

“Reid, dude, you’re sounding like a fortune cookie right now,” you laugh. “I get where you’re going with this. But unless they find some DNA at the crime scene, we’re back to square one again.”

“Maybe…” He trails away, getting up to look at the map.

Something is going on in his head, but you’re not sure what. He’ll tell you when he’s finished with it, you’re sure.

In your pocket, your phone starts buzzing. Thinking it’s Garcia, you pull it out and answer without looking, but Garcia’s voice isn’t what you hear on the other end.

“I’m heading back to the precinct,” Hotch says.

“O...kay,” you furrow your eyebrows, mouthing, ‘Hotch’ to JJ. “Why just you?”

“I need to show you something,” he says slowly, like he’s struggling to get the words out. “The unsub left a note.”

“What does it say?” You ask, wondering why it’s like pulling teeth to get him to speak.

“It’s addressed to you,” he finally says, and all the blood drains from your body. “It’s in an envelope and sealed. Your… Your name is on the front.”

You’re not sure what to make of that at all.

“Okay,” you say, your brain unable to really process it. “Okay, we’ll look at it when you get here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Aaron,” you whisper, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Don’t say that to me. You’re scaring me.” You pause. “What are you sorry for?”

“For this note,” he replies, voice quiet. “For this unsub targeting you, and now for scaring you.”

“What does the note say?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I didn’t open it.”

“Okay. Just...hurry, I guess.”

“I’m turning into the parking lot now.”

“Okay, see you in a sec,” you murmur, ending the call.

You look up from the phone to find both JJ and Reid staring at you, concern swimming deeply in their eyes. You don’t even have the energy to offer them a reassuring smile. Nothing about this is comfortable for you.

Why would the unsub leave a note addressed to you?

Hotch walks through the precinct doors a few moments later, a man on a mission as he walks directly to the conference room. You’re explaining to JJ and Reid about the note when he walks in, and you fall silent upon seeing him.

He hates that he even called you to warn you, but he had to do something. His mind was racing on the drive. He had to hear your voice, and he knew you were bound to ask why he was coming back on his own, what’s so urgent, so he knew he’d have to tell you.

But the fear in your eyes right now is something he never wants to see again. Ever.

“Where is it?” You say, your voice wavering.

Slowly, Hotch pulls the envelope out of his jacket pocket. It’s in a plastic bag, which is standard protocol for evidence, and you begin searching for a pair of gloves.

You find a pair and start to slip them on, grimacing at the way your hands shake, and using your peripheral vision to see that Aaron is watching you closely.

Once you’re gloved up, he hands you the plastic bag. It feels much heavier than it should.

Carefully, you pull out the envelope, swallowing down the nausea you’re feeling. As Hotch said, your name -- Agent Y/N L/N -- is scrawled on the front in messy handwriting. Fortunately, Reid can examine that, and this letter if it’s handwritten.

You break the seal on the envelope, flinching slightly, and ignoring that you did. But Aaron saw it.

You pull out the note and half of you cries in relief because it is handwritten, and the other half of you feels sheer terror because your business card is taped to the top left hand corner.

“Shit,” you cuss, closing your eyes.

“What?” Aaron asks, taking a step closer, lowering his head to meet your eye level.

“My business card,” you say, opening your eyes again, hating the way things look blurry for a moment. JJ and Reid are just fuzzy figures at the table when you look around the room. “It could’ve been anyone at the meetings. I handed my card to as many that would take it. There’s no way I’ll remember everyone, or even half of them, I mean, I ran out of cards, I had to go stand by Morgan because--”

“Okay, okay, slow down,” Aaron stops you, putting both hands on your arms. “Look at me, please.”

Slowly, the world comes back into focus and you meet his brown eyes, finding your peace there like you have so many other times before. You focus on the weight of his hands on your arms, grounding you, bringing you back.

“I know it’s difficult,” he says. “But you need to breathe.”

You nod, sucking in a deep breath a little too abruptly, not even realizing you had been taking shallow breaths in the first place.

“Good girl,” he whispers, so low that he’s almost mouthing it, careful not to let JJ or Reid hear. And it’s not sexual or sensual this time. It’s comforting. “Can you read the rest of it?”

You nod. “I can help you end your suffering. I can help you avenge. I can help you heal. It doesn’t have to be this way.” You pause, looking up from the note, looking between Hotch, JJ, and Reid. “What does that even mean?”

“Did you talk about your experience during the meetings?” Reid asks.

“A little bit, but I barely scratched the surface of it,” you admit. “And I didn’t mention any names. I might hate him, but...I’d never send a serial killer after him.”

“I know,” Hotch says. “We’re not accusing you of that,” he adds gently. “It’s clear our unsub feels a connection to you now. Something you said must’ve resonated deeply with her.”

“But all I said was that he was my fiancé and that I didn’t report him, so that still gets us nowhere. She’s still a ghost.”

“She’s not a ghost,” he says sternly. “We will find her. You’ve already seen her once.”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember seeing her, Hotch.”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is she’s reaching out. Which means we’re close.”

“Not close enough,” you protest, tossing the letter back on the plastic bag on the table. “I need to take a walk.” You move toward the door, and he’s following you, so you add quietly, “Alone, please.”

Hotch nods, and watches you go, more worried than he’s ever been in his life.

+++

When Rossi, Emily, and Morgan return to the police precinct, they spot you sitting alone on a bench outside the front doors.

“I got this,” Morgan says, hopping out of the car and heading to you, gesturing for Rossi and Emily to head inside. They share a look and nod, disappearing into the precinct to leave Morgan alone with you.

You don’t even look up from your hands when you see Morgan coming over from your peripheral vision.

“What’s up, kiddo?” He asks, standing in front of you.

“I’m really not in the mood right now, Derek.”

“Too bad,” he shrugs, sitting next to you on the bench, stretching his arm out behind you. “What’s going on? You know I’m just gonna keep buggin’ you until you tell me.”

You snort. “I know.”

“So…” He pauses. “Tell me. It’ll save us both a whole lotta time. And it’ll save you a whole lotta stress, sittin’ there with all that in your head.”

You know he’s right. And you know he’s the only one who really gets it.

So, you tell him what’s wrong.

“The unsub left that note just for me. My card was taped to it, Morgan.”

“And?”

“What do you mean and? It means I laid eyes on her, maybe talked to her, handed her my fucking card, and I still didn’t know it was her.”

“We’re not superhuman, Y/N. We only see what they show us. She probably put on a mask while talking to you.”

“Well now she’s still out there--”

“Listen to me. I ran out of cards too, remember? We started using yours. I easily could’ve given her your card. Hell, I was there with you, I probably looked at her a dozen times, too. Are you gonna yell at me for not recognizing her?”

“No--”

“Then stop doing it to yourself, you hear me?”

“I just… She feels a connection to me. What does that say about me?”

“That you’re a relatable person,” Derek offers, causing you to glare at him. “Hey,” he raises a hand in surrender. “I’m just being logical. It doesn’t say anything about you. Because a serial killer’s view of you is not who you are. You are who you are.”

“Thanks for the fortune cookie.”

“Don’t get that tone with me, kid,” he replies tiredly. “You know you’re not really mad at me, so don’t take it out on me, okay?”

“I know, I’m sorry,” you rub your forehead. “I’m just…”

“It’s not your fault, Y/N.”

“I know that.”

“I know you know that, but you still need to hear it,” he says. “And I’ll always be here to tell you, got that?”

You look over at him with a small smile. “Got it.”

He smiles too, glad to see you’re feeling better. He shoves your shoulder lightly, playfully. “Come on. Let’s get back in there.”

“Yeah,” you nod, standing up.

He walks ahead, but you stay still, wondering if you should even ask what you’re about to ask. But Derek notices your hesitation and turns back around, studying you.

“Spit it out,” he says, knowing there’s something.

“The unsub is trying to talk to me,” you say, shrugging your shoulders nonchalantly. “So...what if we set up a trap.”

“What?” Morgan deadpans, raising his eyebrows, turning his body to completely face you.

“What if we--”

“Use you as bait?” Morgan finishes, incredulity coating his words.

You nod. “I wasn’t going to word it like that, but--”

He scoffs, looking more and more pissed off as the seconds go on. “Hell no. Are you outta your damn mind?”

“No, I’m not. I��m--”

“No,” he stops you, holding up his hand, pointing at you. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. Don’t go there. We will find this unsub, and we will do it without you sacrificing yourself.”

“I wouldn’t be sacrificing myself!” You protest. “You guys would be there. You’d have my back.”

“We can’t predict everything this unsub will do, Y/N, you know that,” Morgan fires back. “And I’ll be damned if I let you throw yourself into danger like this. It’s not happening. You hear me?”

SIghing, you nod. “I hear you.”

“Have you even told Hotch about this?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t,” Morgan replies. “You’ll just get a lecture and you and I both know you don’t need that right now.”

“I know.”

He pauses, shaking his head. He steps forward, wrapping you in a hug, eyes closing when he feels you burying your face in his neck. “I love you, kid,” he whispers. “And I know it’s hard, but you got this, we got this. And it’s gonna be okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” you nod into his neck, taking a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Next chapter

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thornedrose44 · 4 years ago

Text

Ends of the Earth

(Read it on AO3)

The world ended.

Well, that's not technically accurate… humanity's time on earth ended, a lot sooner than to be expected which is where the tragedy of it all lies, if Lena were to guess.

Not that Lena's own time on earth had ended. She was still here, pottering on, miles underground, fiddling with forgotten experiments and watching endless hours of television that she never had time for before…

She wondered if this was what retirement was like…

Admittedly, Lena had always imagined it involving more travelling, maybe some gardening and it had never been lonely. She refused to acknowledge that when she thought of getting older it was with crinkly blue eyes and silver streaked blonde hair at her side which always helped soothe the ache in her chest that such morbid thoughts produced. Now, even that fantasy was well and truly gone.

She would only ever get to watch herself grow old now, at least she didn't have to worry about the paparazzi's comments about her receding good looks.

It wasn’t a bad life, not really. She had enough food to see her through old age or until the tempting call of the void summoned her. If Lena was being honest, which she kind of had to be when the only person she had left to lie to was herself… She knew it would be the latter that would take her in the end.

See the thing is… Lena hears… things.

They’re not real, or they are but they are merely the sounds that an empty building creates to keep itself company. The groan of a pipe. The squeak of a beam. The hiss of a fridge. The knock of a mechanised system keeping the air breathable and the water on hand.

Lena still had enough of her sanity to convince herself that the sounds were a natural part of her safe haven (‘prison’ more like). But there were mutters at the back of her mind that said other things. That squeak was a mouse still alive on the outside. That groan was a ghost, trapped forever alongside Lena. That hiss, the blast-proof doors whistling open and irreparably bursting Lena’s protective bubble. That knock…

The knock was the worst.

The knock was the call of the void that allowed Lena to fantasise. To dream.

That knock meant she was no longer alone.

That knock… that knock could be everything she ever wanted…

That knock could be Kara…

And that…

Lena knew that it would be the void that got her before old age. It would be that knock, her loneliness and the hope of seeing blue eyes just one more time… just one more time…. That would do her in.

***

The first six months hadn’t been too bad. Lena had kept herself busy making the repairs she needed to keep her safe haven ‘safe’ for as long as possible. The Children of Earth’s final attack, that had prompted humanity’s departure two months ahead of schedule and Lena staying behind to ensure their escape, had wrought significant damage to the structure of the bunker.

The work was dull. But it was good. It kept her hands busy. Her mind distracted. And it meant she could fall into bed, utterly exhausted and free of thoughts of what ifs and almosts and not yets and soons and new beginnings…

The majority of the work required for Lena’s home to be brought to tip-top shape was done after six months. The next six months were about optimisation. Trying to make her home… more homey… An already difficult task when there was little in the way of colour to decorate the concrete bunker, but a nigh on impossible task when Lena’s home had never been four walls but blue eyes, golden hair, a bright smile and a warmth that made even the darkest moments survivable.

It was the second year that broke something in Lena that she would never get back again.

It made the light in her chest steadily dim and extinguish.

A candle that had remained alight with the childish possibility that Lena would get her miracle, her last second save and a happy ending.

She knew it was impossible. Knew that the surface of the Earth was not accessible to another living being. That the transmat portal could not be repaired, the necessary materials completely depleted - even if Lena had the materials to repair it, she wouldn’t have been able to generate a high enough voltage to power it. That the survivors were now countless lightyears away and a ship travelling to her would arrive long after she had turned to little more than dust in this mausoleum.

To survive the breaking (more specifically the ‘breakdown’ that had Lena spending pretty much the entirety of a month drunk off her ass), Lena found a routine. She found a routine and stuck to it.

A routine that kept her busy, mentally and physically occupied because if she stopped… if she let her thoughts wander… Well, that knock started to sound rather enticing.

Lena performed regimented checks of her safe haven and its equipment.

Lena had time for reading. For television.

Time for fun science experiments she never had time to progress when the scientist part of her was told to give way to the business woman part.

Time for exercise; soft curves hardening to muscles as she threw around equipment and worked tirelessly and rigorously.

Set meals.

Set bedtime.

Set wake-up.

Day after day passed by in this fashion. Weeks. Months.

Two years in her concrete bunker became three, became five… and before Lena really knew it… she was rapidly approaching a decade in this prison of monotony.

***

It had started with an innocuous ‘beep’.

A fucking beep foretold the destruction of Earth - Lena prayed that humanity, when they re-told the story of the fall of their first home, would ignore that particular aspect of the tale.

It had all started out as a minor reading on a random L-Corp machine tucked away at the back of Lena's lab. (It had been the beginning of yet another half-formed experiment by an idealistic Lena when she thought that being in charge meant she could spend time on her own projects. How utterly naive she had been.)

Lena had taken it over to the DEO where she and Brainy looked over it together for a weekend - mostly because Lena had nothing better to do, what with her friendships being more or less non-existent since her near defection back to the Luthors and despite her subsequent assistance in bringing down Lex.

Lena assumed it was an atypical reading, a presumption that had been reinforced by Brainy with knowledge of the future. Because if this erroneous result was in fact true and accurate then… the Sun clearly had it in for the Earth.

It was heating and expanding at a ridiculous rate. A rate which would make the Earth uninhabitable in a mere handful of years, the heat and radioactivity increasing to such a level that it would be like living in an overpowered microwave.

So, the result had to be wrong because as far as Brainy was aware the Earth was very much still standing a thousand years down the line.

It took a month, with nearly all of L-Corp's resources working on it to find out that, as it turns out, the future can change.

Which was great news for those strongly in favour of free will and heavily against predetermination. Less great news for those that had recently got a mortgage for a new house…

It was full go then.

The next two years were some of the worst and best of Lena's life.

The sun's sudden failure was a parting gift from the Daxamites, who were big believers in ‘if I can't have it, you can't have it either’. Lena assumed Lex would appreciate the pettiness of the action.

The first six months had been filled with hope and a fervour to fix it. Solve the problem like the Superfriends had so many others before. Kara was their guiding light, tirelessly chasing down every lead, ready to get whatever Lena, Brainy and the whole cohort of scientists required at a moment's notice.

Lena, however, wasn't hopeful. She wasn't an optimist. Not anymore at least. Maybe once, when she was young and her mother was there to chase away the monsters under the bed and lift her into the air when the sun was at its warmest.

She had been hurt, though. Lied to and betrayed far too much to have faith in some intangible and, as of yet, unknown success. She was a Luthor. Raised to be resourceful, stubborn and with a tendency to doubt.

So, whilst her team of great minds slept, Lena would stay awake an extra couple of hours and plan and prepare for the worst. Because you never know when 'just in case' would be the only option left.

Lena and Kara's friendship over that six months steadily rebuilt.

It rebuilt over peace offering coffees brought to Lena's side by fidgeting fingers, “You look like you need it.”

“You didn’t have to.” Lena would always remind, not wanting there to be an obligation, not wanting Kara to be there unless she wanted to be.

“I know… I wanted to…” Would always be murmured back, soft and sincere, a rope cast out in the darkness.

It was rebuilt by softly spoken encouragement when either flagged.

“What use am I? It’s not like I can punch the sun better.” Kara huffed on days when she was left to pace without direction waiting for the next task, the next lead, the next… whatever...

“No, but I know that you would if you could.” Lena would reply, earning her a small upwards tick to Kara’s lips that made Lena’s heart flutter with something other than a constant state of anxiety. “You are more than just your powers, Kara. Far more.” Lena would whisper earnestly, and Kara would simply rest her head on Lena’s shoulder.

It was rebuilt by fingers gently interlacing to offer comfort, “We’ll find something.”

“Together?”

“How else? A Super and Luthor are unstoppable, didn’t you know?”

It was rebuilt by Kara sharing her fears of losing yet another home and Lena listening, “I don’t know if I can take another loss like this.”

“I know, I can’t even begin to understand what you must be going through, but it's not going to be the same as last time, you know?” Lena would murmur, soft and hesitant, afraid of stepping wrong, afraid of treading on Kara’s open wounds that she had never known were there before. “If it does happen…” Lena would tack on (always if, never when) in those first few months. “You won’t lose everything. I won’t let you. Everyone that can be saved, will be.”

“Is it bad that I don’t… I can live with a few losses… I can, but there are some… Some that matter more...” Kara confessed haltingly, blue eyes wide and scared as if she was revealing something she wasn’t sure Lena was ready to hear yet.

“No, there’s nothing bad about that. At least,” Lena murmured, ducking her head as she curled her fingers tighter around Kara’s, her thumb rubbing back and forth over knuckles, “I don’t think of myself as a bad person for it.”

“You’re not.” Kara would insist, finally covering over the hurt of ‘villain’ once and for all.

It was rebuilt in Kara carrying Lena to her cot in the backroom of the labs whenever she found her slumped over her keyboard in the early hours of the morning.

“Hmm…” Lena would sleepily hum as she felt herself being cradled in Kara’s arms who never used super-speed when she was carrying her anymore, something Lena was grateful for as it gave her precious extra seconds of being safely ensconced by everything Kara.

“Sleep, Lena, just sleep.” Kara would mutter tenderly, lowering her onto the blankets and pressing an almost imperceptible kiss to Lena’s forehead which guaranteed Lena pleasant dreams.

It was rebuilt on tragedy and hope. It was rebuilt on optimism and pessimism. It was rebuilt by two people who just wanted to save each other in whatever way they could.

***

After six months, it was known. It was known that there was no Hail Mary that could undo what had happened.

Now, it was just about survival… and, for some unfathomable reason, everyone was looking at Lena to ensure that.

“Me! Kara, they’re looking at me to… to… save them!” Lena yelled incredulously once she had returned to the sanctuary of her lab and it was just the two of them (as it often was now).

“Yeah… they are…” Kara replied with a shrug like it was obvious and understandable.

“Me! A Luthor!”

“No. Not a Luthor.” Kara declared firmly, lifting her chin in that way that always made Lena’s knees just that little bit weak. “Lena. The woman that has saved this planet and its people time and time again. A woman who has proven herself selfless and a hero in every way possible. The person that I…” Kara swallowed thickly and in that moment, Lena couldn’t breath, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. Kara stepped towards her, strong and confident, reaching out to take Lena’s hands in her own, squeezing them tightly as earnest blue eyes stared deep into lost green. “Lena Luthor, you are my hero and I am always looking to you to save me.”

Lena finally inhaled a shuddering breath, nodded her head once and got to work.

The first step was the underground bunkers that would provide shelter for humanity whilst a more long term solution was achieved. The bunkers were not designed to be aesthetically pleasing or even remotely homely. They were functional, quick to put in place and hopefully temporary (which they would be for all but one).

Whilst the bunkers were built, Lena and her team were given two momentous undertakings that were critical for humanity’s continued existence:

Find a suitable new planet to call home.

Figure out how to get the entire population of Earth there as quickly as possible.

Lena hated the second six months of those two years. Kara was barely around, constantly buried under miles of earth, supporting the construction teams in their work, her help was crucial as having someone who could manoeuvre large weights delicately removed the overheads of large pieces of equipment and the time they would take to get in position and slowly carry out the task. When Kara ever did manage to poke her head above sea level, she was off to far flung places trying to minimise the impact of whatever natural disaster was occurring due to the Sun’s interest in making Earth a holiday destination for lava monsters in the near future.

Kara only ever made it back to National City for the occasional weekend once a month. A weekend that she mostly spent sleeping after having pushed herself past the point of exhaustion.

Kara had taken to sleeping in Lena's cot whenever she was back, holding Lena close instinctively whenever the former CEO managed to collapse beside her after her own ridiculously long days.

“You know, you have a far more comfortable bed at home? With proper sheets and pillows and blankets and all those really good things that are conducive to sleep…” Lena drawled as she slipped off her heels and sat on the edge of the cot that was already filled with a dozing superhero.

“I could say the same thing to you.” Kara yawned in return, shuffling to the edge of the single-person cot to leave a reasonable gap for Lena.

“Yeah, but…” Lena began to argue, biting her lip; Kara was out there everyday pushing her body beyond its limits in places with little sun, little hope and little in the way of comfort. And when she was granted a few hours of reprieve, just a few measly hours to rest before she was pulled back under, she spent it in a darkened back-room of a laboratory.

“No buts.” Kara cut in, tugging at Lena’s sleeve to pull her down into the empty space and open arms. “I’m here because…” Kara murmured, nuzzling her nose against Lena’s forehead whilst kindly ignoring Lena’s pounding heart, “Because I want to be here.”

“I want you here too.” Lena would eventually reply once her heart had returned to a normal beat and she was sure Kara had fallen into a deep slumber.

(The Superfriends talked about Kara never returning home and choosing to be wherever Lena was amongst themselves, but they never brought it up with either woman, presumably out of respect or simply being too busy with the impending end of the world).

During that time, Lena was under more stress than she had ever been in her entire life. A whole planet on her shoulders and she was being crushed under the weight of it all.

On the plus side, it was the longest anyone had ever gone without spitting her last name out with disgust. It was difficult to damn the person working tirelessly to save you. Not that there weren't some that tried to call her saviour and devil in the same breath, but the Superfriends, who had become her friends again, would put a stop to it before they ever got to the second part of their sentence.

Lena knew that Kara had asked them to look after her whilst she was away. And she appreciated the thought more than she appreciated the actual looking after. Alex had taken to looming over her shoulder like a bodyguard and frog marching her to the canteen at set times to eat three meals a day. Nia, meanwhile, insisted that Lena walk up and down the white-washed corridors of the laboratory at least twice a day to ensure she exercised.

She grew to love them all: Brainy who was constantly by her side, Alex who was holding her up when she nearly collapsed from exhaustion and Nia who always managed to remind her of the small things she was fighting to save when she got lost in the big picture. She loved them but every time they pulled her away from her work, Lena would hear a voice in her head whispering an ominous countdown.

***

One year post-world-ending-beep, and humanity was tucked away in its new home - the bunkers underground.

Lena and Brainy had finally found a promising planet that they could call home, code-named Goldilocks until an actual name was selected when they finally stepped foot on it (it felt weird officially naming something that they had never seen or experienced). Now, they just had to get everyone there and Lena doubted that there was an intergalactic moving service - maybe that could be her new business venture after her secondment as humanity’s supposed saviour was complete.

Their best option was the transmat portals (mark two) that she somehow needed to make so that they didn’t require a corresponding portal on the other side. Their idea was more of a wormhole or slingshot, that flung them across the galaxy. They had transports that they could load people up in, they now just needed to create the ‘road’ or ‘shortcut’.

Lena spent day after endless day with Brainy in contact with Earth’s greatest physicists trying to solve problems and reconcile theories that would probably have taken centuries to solve, but mother was the necessity of invention. And dear god, did they need this invention.

The pressure was destroying Lena and more importantly it was creating a gulf between her and Kara that they had so pain-stakingly worked to remove over the last year.

“Lena, you need to eat.” Kara pleaded, her fingers making only fleeting contact with Lena’s elbow, the last time she had made contact Lena had flinched which had hurt Kara in a way that no physical attack ever could.

“I’ll eat later.” Lena replied sharply, her eyes remaining fixed on the board in front of her.

“Come on, Lena. Everyone else has taken a break.” Kara murmured, gesturing to the empty room and the blank computer screens.

“I’m not like everyone else.” Lena responded absent-mindedly.

“I know, I know…” Kara soothed, fingers twitching with the obvious desire to pull Lena into her arms.

It had been weeks since Lena had been in Kara’s arms but Lena knew… knew that if she sunk into Kara’s embrace, she would crack open and she didn’t know if she would be strong enough to put herself back together again.

“Just, I’m here… for you… always.” Kara promised with a sad and lost tone of voice that made Lena’s throat tight and scratchy.

***

The Children of Earth were the single most irritating thing about the end of the world, and Lena knew that was saying something.

They were also the people that saw Lena’s near year long record without an assassination attempt as a challenge.

They were a fanatical group that believed if the Earth was ending, the human race should too. That was pretty much it. Considering the rather bleak sales pitch, Lena was impressed by how many people they convinced to eagerly join up.

Unsurprisingly, Lena was the number one target on their (s)hit list - what with being the main person working on getting them all off planet. Kara, took to being by her side almost constantly, an ever present shadow to the youngest Luthor; dark, steely blue eyes and a harsh frown on the world’s celebrated heroine made even the most committed of assassins think twice.

Kara’s shift to bodyguard came after the very first attempt on Lena’s life.

Lena was at her desk in her laboratory, making changes to an algorithm in the dead of night, the rest of her team retreating to their beds for a few hours whilst they could. It was Lena’s shaky hands that saved her life (exhaustion, stress and a near constant caffeine overdose had produced tremors in Lena’s long fingers that Kara couldn’t bear to look at anymore), Shaky hands reaching for a mug of cold coffee. Shaky hands so tired they couldn’t summon up the strength to hold it steady. The porcelain slipping through her fingers and rushing downwards to smash onto the floor.

Lena instinctively scrambled after it, pitching herself awkwardly downwards and to the side,

It was this that saved her.

Ensured the bullet aimed for the centre of her back actually hit her shoulder.

It was the sharp inhale of pain and whisper of Kara’s name as she fell off her stool that saved her.

Because Kara was always listening out for her. On hand and ready the second Lena needed her.

Lena didn’t hit the floor. Didn’t smash into the ground like her coffee mug.

Warm arms were around her before she even got close.

“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” Was whispered endlessly on repeat as she was carefully transported to the medbay where Alex and Eliza (quickly roused from sleep by a terrified superhero) got to work. Lena didn’t ask about the assassin, she knew she was safe with Kara watching over her and the Danvers so tenderly cleaning out her wound and that was all that really mattered. She didn’t have any space left in her mind to think of anything else, so overwhelmed with all the problems she had been asked to solve. There was no processing power left to confront other unknown questions.

Kara didn’t leave her side from then on. Not that Lena would let her. Not that night.

Their hands were clasped tightly together and would stay that way even when it inconvenienced the two doctors, who were wise enough not to raise it as an issue.

Lena’s wound was dressed efficiently and in such a way as to minimise scarring, Eliza and Alex returned to bed as they moved away from early morning, and the leaders of the survivors underground were made aware of the threat against their chief scientist. If Kara, as Supergirl, hadn’t insisted on serving personally as Lena’s protector, Lena was pretty sure the leaders would have demanded it, having grown equally fond of and dependent on the youngest Luthor.

When it was just them… just Kara and Lena… that’s when Lena let the tears fall and the sobs wrack her body. She was cradled carefully in Kara’s arms in an instant and everything she had been holding back burst out of her in an unending stream.

It was cathartic, letting it all out whilst Kara just held her and listened and whispered words of reassurance and affection.

The gulf that had formed, disappeared in an instant as Lena buried her head into the crook of Kara’s neck murmuring apology after apology for keeping her out, for putting distance between them, for not being good enough, for not saving Kara’s second home.

Kara listened, rejecting every single apology with a firm voice and understanding blue eyes.

“Don’t push me away again.” Was all Kara asked for.

“Never. Never again.” Lena promised, not knowing at the time how she would be forced to break that promise less than a year from now.

***

The looks and hints and flirts and teases started in earnest then - they had always been there but boyfriends, secrets, distrust, confusion and hurt had blanketed it and kept it from growing. Now, it was just them and the end of the world.

Their days were spent together, Lena trying to save the world and Kara just trying to save Lena.

“You know I was a prodigy back on Krypton…” Kara revealed her past quietly as she was oft to do when the lab was empty and the bunker was blessedly quiet.

“In writing?” Lena asked, abandoning her work to give Kara her full attention - Kara was the only thing, especially when she was like this (soft, vulnerable and eyes aching with the loss of one home) that could make Lena turn away from the screaming voices inside her head.

“No…” Kara laughed lightly, “I was to be the youngest to join the science guild.”

“Really?” Lena murmured in disbelief.

“Hmm…” Kara hummed, her mouth quirking up at the edges; Lena’s eyes dipped down to stare at the movement as they had begun to do with increasing frequency.

“Then why…” Lena began curiously wondering why Kara would turn away from something she had been preparing for and so obviously excelling at.

“Because, on Krypton…” Kara reached out with tentative fingers and pushed a dark lock of hair behind Lena’s ear. “We didn’t have people like you. People who worked on the ‘just in case’. People who spoke up. People who… thought everyone should be trusted with the truth. People who thought everyone deserved to be saved, not just the select few.”

Lena grabbed Kara’s hand and brought it to her lips, pressing a comforting kiss to its palm as Kara revealed her scars to her.

“I didn’t see science the same.” Kara confessed, her gaze turning far-away and distant as she took in the scribbles on the white-board like she recognised the odd syllable of a language she hadn’t spoken in years. “Science was elitist. Science led to hubris. Science failed to save us. But it was the lies that damned us in the first place. So… when I had the chance to start again…” She trailed off, expression melancholic and wistful.

“Thank you for telling me that.” Lena whispered sincerely, once it was clear Kara had nothing left to say.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Kara chuckled dark and pained in a way that made Lena’s heart crack across the surface.

“What is?” Lena prompted, squeezing Kara’s hand tightly in the hopes of grounding her.

“If I had been a journalist on Krypton, I could have made a difference. And if I was a scientist here, I could have made a difference.” Kara said, her smile a dark and broken thing that looked just wrong on her face.

“You make a difference, Kara. Every day. Just by being you.” Lena declared, green eyes sharp and jaw clenched determinedly.

The twisted smile receded back to something soft and adoring. “Maybe for the next one I’ll switch back to science, I mean how long do you think it would take me to get upto speed?” Kara questioned teasingly jerking a thumb at the board covered in excessive equations.

Lena let go of the heavy moment, though she wanted to reinforce to Kara that she was perfect just the way she was. But there would be other moments, other conversations, other secrets shared, other wounds tended…

“Depends on your teacher. With me there to help, I could make you an expert within a decade.” Lena asserted with a confident wink.

Kara’s gaze narrowed, a smouldering smirk slowly appearing as the kryptonian leaned into Lena’s space, “Is that so? Professor?”

Lena gulped.

***

It was a known yet unspoken thing between them.

They spoke around it, danced right up to it, fogged up the glass with eager breaths and pressed against the membrane with curious fingers. Lena knew Kara felt it, in the same way Kara knew Lena felt it. Though, both were too fearful to define it, to say how deep it ran, how much it meant to either of them.

It was ambiguous in its immensity, not in its existence.

Whenever they brushed up against it, and came close to breaking that barely visible wall between them, they were pulled back with murmurs of ‘soon’ and ‘almost’...

They were both too dutiful, too dedicated to the task at hand to leave room for much else. And they both didn’t want to start when they couldn’t commit all of themselves to each other. Wanted their chance to have the highest probability for success that it could. Because that's what they both deserved.

“The first sunset.” Kara murmured when they were cuddled up together on Lena’s cot in the small room put aside for the chief scientist at the back of the lab in the bunker. “Me, you and a picnic under the very first sunset.”

“Sounds romantic.” Lena teased, rubbing her cold nose against Kara’s clavicle.

“I’ve got it all planned.” Kara admitted honestly. “Every last detail.”

“You’ve really thought about this…” Lena said in awe, pulling back to look down into soft blue eyes.

“It’s all I think about…” Kara replied, her fingers stroking up and down Lena’s back - Lena wished those clever, clever fingers would sneak under her sleep shirt and run along her bare skin.

“Soon.” Lena exhaled their now common commitment.

“Soon.” Kara echoed.

***

The transmat portals were nearly done. Ahead of schedule which was probably a first for any project, yet alone one on such a large scale.

The only problem was the energy source. It was… rather unstable and the amount of energy required to power all the portals at the same time was substantial. To ensure the tentative peace between all leaders and those involved, an agreement was made that all the portals would activate at the same time and humanity would pass through in one go to ensure that there was no group given an advantage.

Lena understood the political reasoning but it was an engineering nightmare.

They were working on putting power stabilisers on the portals to limit the impact of unwanted surges, when the Children of Earth made their play.

Coordinated explosions that threatened the sanctity of the bunkers moved the scheduled departure date up and prompted a mass evacuation. Kara didn’t want to leave Lena’s side but the people needed their Supergirl and it wasn’t fair for Kara to stay by Lena’s side when she was far from the fighting and others needed her to be their shield. Kara left her side with a promise of, “Soon, we’ll get our sunset.”

Lena had prepped the transmat portals from the command centre, monitoring the power levels with a wary eye as the bunker shook with the ferocity of the fighting. Lena watched over transport after transport, making changes as required to keep the power stable. As the numbers of those left to go through began to dwindle, Lena sent her team of loyal scientists led by Brainy (who she had to order to leave) on their way, leaving one transport for her and the soldiers holding off the Children of Earth.

Lena struggled, as time ticked ever onwards, to keep the power surges under control and the transmat portal open. With the energy already expended, Lena knew if it closed… it wouldn’t be possible to open it ever again.

The soldiers led by Alex and Nia appeared following a large explosion that completely caved in an entire section of the (thankfully, now empty) civilian barracks. Held up by Alex and Nia was Kara, bloodied and bruised, skin a sickly green as her eyes fluttered weakly and her mouth moved trying to form words, fighting desperately to remain conscious. A battle she lost a second after catching a glimpse of Lena hurrying towards them.

They made their way as a group (Lena and those that had taken the pivotal last stand) to the transport when the evacuation alarm was joined by a clinically detached voice calling out, “Power Level Critical.”

The transmat portal flickered before brightening and then dimming almost immediately. The power surges threatening the very integrity of the portal.

“Lena, we have to go now!” Alex shouted, jerking her head towards the last transport that her group of soldiers were already piling into when she saw Lena freeze mid-step.

Lena doesn’t remember making the decision. It was just instinct. She could work out the variables, could see the solution and just… acted. It didn’t require actual thought.

There was the portal that wasn’t safe for a transport to go through unless someone was making the necessary adjustments to the power in the command centre.

There was Kara, hurt and beaten but still so alive and so beautiful and without a doubt the love of Lena’s life.

It was never a choice, so how could Lena have made a decision.

“No, you have to go. I need to keep the power levels under control. You won’t make it, otherwise.” Lena said, her voice eerily calm and collected for what she was about to do.

The looks of absolute, sheer horror that appeared on Alex and Nia’s faces as understanding dawned would stay with Lena forever. It was the moment she realised she was making a sacrifice and not just carrying out a simply logical action.

“No, Lena…” Alex gasped, her brown eyes turning watery as she hefted Kara higher as if.. As if she was trying to shake Kara awake so that she could bear witness to what was happening.

“There’s no other way.” Lena declared, striding forward to cup Kara’s perfect face in her hands before leaning down to press a soft, farewell kiss to Kara’s cheek. “I was really looking forward to that sunset.” Lena whispered quietly.

Lena took one second to memorise that light vanilla scent that she would always associate with Kara before letting go of the kryptonian and looking to the distraught sister, “Keep her safe.” Lena requested simply, “And…” Lena swallowed thickly, “Tell her to be happy. Just happy.”

And with those final words, Lena sprinted back to the command centre, yelling for Alex to “Go!”

It was a close thing in the end. The power surges were seconds away from blowing the portal, and the bunker along with it, to smithereens when the transport finally zoomed safely through to humanity’s new home. Lena cut off the power just in time to limit the extent of the explosion that followed. The portal blasted apart but it didn’t have enough oomph to rip through the bunker.

It did knock out the lights, though, leaving Lena in absolute darkness for the first week of her new existence as the last human on Earth.

***

Okay, so Lena needed to admit to something… just a small thing… it was just, she knew it made her sound… you know… not really all there…

She had a dog.

A… uh… robot dog… that she had built for herself for company…

And, you know, Tom Hanks had a volleyball so, in comparison to that Milo seemed far more… sane…

(Don’t worry she had resisted the urge to call it K-9 and she had made it far more mobile and life-like than the rather square Doctor Who companion).

His name was Milo, after the main character from Atlantis, one of Kara’s favourite films. He was sleek, more grey-hound shaped than terrier, but moved rather clunkily. He had a tendency to trip when going up or down staircase B5-1 since that particular set of stairs were a little steeper than the others in the bunker and Lena had forgotten to factor that in when she created him. Now, she found the little stumble he made on those steps gave him character, made him seem even more alive than the adaptive AI that operated him so she never bothered to fix it.

Lena resisted the urge to give Milo a voice, since a robotic voice coming from her robo-canine companion kind of ruined the image that she had of Milo being a real dog but she couldn’t stand the silence anymore, couldn’t stand only hearing her own voice.

That was the other thing… after a year she’d started narrating for lack of a better word. Commenting on her work, speaking her thoughts aloud rather than keeping them inside her head. Partly to add some sound to her quiet life and partly (but mostly) to remind herself she was still here, still had a voice.

If a tree fell in the forest would it still make a sound?

Did Lena still exist if no one was around to see or hear her?

In year four of her solitary existence, the narration became full-on conversations with herself which eventually prompted her to create Milo after she realised that she had gone to bed two consecutive nights in a row angry at something she had said to herself.

Milo spoke to her in song.

“You’ll always be here to keep me company, right Milo?” Lena would ask after crying over The Notebook.

“I’m never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.” Milo would blast at her through the speaker in his mouth alongside a friendly wag of his tail.

Lena was working on a beam with a crack in it, bending her head down to check on Milo who was looking up at her through green LED lights. “Did I get it all?” She called down.

“Higher, higher and higher. I said your love…” Milo directed, his LED eyes emitting a beam of light to point out a spot above Lena’s head.

He was a good dog overall, though he definitely had a preference for 80s classics much to Lena’s equal amusement and chagrin.

***

She tried not to think of Kara. But it happened.

The longest she had gone, not including sleep (though most of her dreams involved her blonde best friend so it wouldn��t have helped her average anyway), was three and half hours. An event which occurred during her drunken month in year two; she had grown irrationally angry at the transmat portal and had taken a crow-bar and smashed up the remains of the structure whilst listening to screaming death metal music.

She knew Kara would mourn her, miss her at least for the first year. But Lena knew she would keep herself busy. That there would be near endless tasks to occupy her mind and distract her heart and that whenever there was a lull or a break, the Superfriends led by Alex would be there to soothe whatever pain may surface.

Hopefully, by the second year Kara would be able to think of her and it be a joyful experience rather than one of pain. She knew Kara would still think of her often even one year removed from their separation (loss). Knew she had been significant enough to Kara to leave a wake behind.

By the third year, Kara would be ready - Lena didn’t doubt - to open her heart to another, to find someone else to fill the spaces Lena fleetingly occupied. There would be plenty ready and waiting, many probably far more deserving than Lena.

Kara would find someone else to share that sunset with.

Years four to six, Lena hoped Kara would be rediscovering her passions, that her new home would be stable enough that Kara could get back to the things that made her happy. Lena hoped Kara was still writing, still turning her hand to paper and creating wonderful prose.

Years six onwards… Lena imagined Kara with a family of her own. The image would shift and change but there were always two children underfoot that Kara adored and both of which had inherited Kara’s blue eyes and pure heart. The other person in the picture was blank-faced, their features undetermined. Male or female, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was they put the brightest smile on Kara’s face possible.

“Just be happy.” Lena would whisper her plea out to the universe last thing at night and first thing in the morning. Because, if she said it enough, willed it enough then there was a chance she could make it true. Make the picture in her head of Kara real just by wishing it hard enough.

***

It was the start of her ninth year - Lena kept track by way of scratching into the walls a tally since it pleased her to think she was leaving some indelible mark on this place even if no one else would ever see it - and the knock was starting to become just that little bit more enticing. Lena had started to find herself walking up to the large blast doors and just… staring at them for hours on end.

It was only Milo that was keeping her going by this stage, blasting out, “Don’t you forget about me”, and “Oh, won’t you stay with me? ‘Cause you’re all I need”, whenever Lena’s fingers so much as twitched towards the manual override button.

Lena didn’t think too deeply about how her only reason for carrying on was the potential guilt that came with breaking the heart of a robot dog.

“Spread it like peanut butter jelly...”

“Whilst I appreciate that you found the perfect song for my current actions”, Lena chuckled, casting an amused glance over her shoulder at her companion, whilst she spread the peanut butter over the plastic-like bread that had been made to last decades, “I don’t think you realise what that song is really about…”

Milo’s head tilted to the side at the words - Lena had designed him so that when he was processing new information or analysing anything he would tilt his head to the side like a real dog.

“Oops!... I did it again…” Milo proclaimed, dropping to the ground with an embarrassed shake of his metal head.

“You’re still my best boy, don’t worry.” Lena reassured, finishing off preparing her lunch and making her way to the little living space she had made herself, a rather ratty red sofa and television screen had been added to the small room behind her lab that she had made her own. She had just sat down and was about to take a bite of her sandwich when-

Bzzzztttt…

That was new.

The buzzing sound was so loud and clear that it felt like the entire bunker was vibrating with it. Lena was on her feet in an instant, Milo by her side, as she grabbed her tablet and went towards the source of the sound. As soon as the sound had begun, though, it decreased in volume to a mere hum. Outside Lena’s lab, in the long corridor covered in tally marks was a bright purple circle with blue streaks of light hovering below the ceiling. Beneath the light in a crumpled mass was a figure dressed in dark blue and crimson red with a silver cable connected to their centre which disappeared back up into the portal.

“Okay, I got the angle slightly wrong… Yep, face planted…”, The intruder groaned as they pushed themselves up to reveal a mess of hair. “I know, I can fly but I wasn’t thinking about flying and didn’t react in time… and-” The figure struggled to their knees and shifted round, finally catching sight of Lena who was simply standing there, mouth agape, leaning on Milo to keep her upright.

Kara.

It was in that moment that Lena saw a shade of blue she had been deprived of for over nine years. Kara’s eye colour, though, was possibly the only thing about her that hadn’t changed.

Familiar golden curls had been cut away to be replaced by slightly darker blonde with the odd streaks of silver that only just grazed a jawline Lena’s fingers had traced countless times. Also gone was Kara’s defined and overly muscular body, she looked thinner… almost gaunt. Her cheeks hollower than they had ever been before. The crinkles around her eyes were nowhere near as deep as Lena had imagined them to be whenever she thought of Kara with her family. There were instead, however, lines around her mouth that implied she frowned more than smiled and that… that cracked whatever fragile grasp of reality Lena had left completely apart.

Because of this - Lena no longer trusting her eyes, unable to accept an existence where Kara hadn’t been happy, as Lena had begged the universe to make happen everyday - she didn’t truly see the expression on Kara’s face.

She didn’t see the sheer joy, the tears of elation, the broken smile that couldn’t smile as wide as it wanted due to being so out of practice.

“You’re here… You’re really here…” Kara breathed out, her blue eyes drinking in the sight of Lena shifting shyly from foot to foot as she stroked the smooth metal surface of Milo for comfort.

“Kara.” Lena murmured, testing the word out in her mouth, trying to see if she still knew how to say it after all these years.

“Lena, you’re here…” Kara whispered totally awestruck, getting to her feet and taking slow, careful steps towards Lena, her fingers reaching out for the raven-haired woman.

“I don’t under-... this isn’t real… you’re not real… you can’t be real…” Lena stammered, shuffling backwards away from the ghost in front of her, unaware of the gasp of pain that it caused. “Did I answer the knock? Is this a dream? Milo analyse the surroundings and conditions.” Lena ordered, dropping her gaze to her tablet as she tapped frantically against the screen, mumbling her every thought out loud as she had become prone to do over the years. “Hallucination, most likely… potential causes… sleep deprivation? Unlikely, I have a set sleep schedule. Radioactivity has finally penetrated the bunker and has caused a multitude of health problems. Possible, though I take regular readings of-”

“Lena! Please, stop…” Kara cried, collapsing to her knees in front of Lena, tears streaming down her face. “I’m here, okay? I’m really here!”

“No! No!” Lena shouted in return, “This isn’t real! Because… because…” Lena’s breaths came out sharp and panicky as she was overwhelmed by a tempest of emotions she had worked so, so, so hard to deaden herself to over the last nine years. “You’re meant to be married! You’re meant to be happy! You’re not meant to be here…”

Fingers curled delicately around Lena’s biceps; she wasn’t even aware that she had fallen to her knees as well, that she had brought her hands up to cover her face.

The touch and its sheer gentleness almost made Lena jerk away but the barely there scent of vanilla instinctively made her lean forward instead, her head moving to rest as it always used to do on Kara’s reliable shoulder.

“Lena, how could I be happy without you?” Kara whispered, her fingers moving ever so carefully from Lena’s biceps, round to her back… so tenderly wrapping Lena up in her arms. “Let me take you home, please, please Lena… let me take you away from here, please…” Kara begged, pressing featherlight lips against Lena’s forehead. “Let’s go see that sunset, yeah?”

Lena pulled away so that her hands could move to cup Kara’s beautiful, anguished face, thumbs wiping away the endless tears, “You still want to? Even after all this time?”

“It’s all I’ve thought about.” Kara confessed, a breathtaking smile overtaking her face… and that… that one smile made it all worth it… made nine years in darkness… nine years alone all worth it.

Lena loved how that smile stretched under her palms and she wondered how it would feel under her lips; the thought barely even crossed her mind before she started to lean forward to find out, Kara inhaling sharply as she realised what Lena intended, when-

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la, music play, do what the music say, you wanna kiss the girl.” Milo sang out for them, his metal tail thumping happily against the concrete floor, his green LED lights looking between his best friend and this blonde newcomer excitedly.

“Thanks, Milo.” Lena chuckled wetly, glancing over at her robo-dog before looking back to find Kara’s blue eyes sparkling with joy at her. “I have a robot dog, now.” Lena explained needlessly, cheeks turning an embarrassed pink.

“I can see that.” Kara replied with a laugh, her hand reaching out to brush through Lena’s dark hair, as she asked her voice brimming with hope, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am…” Lena admitted with a fervent nod of her head before pressing a delicate kiss to Kara’s cheek. “I want to see that sunset.”

#supercorp #lena luthor #end of the world AU #happy ending (I promise)#I cried writing this but adored it (what does that say about me?)#Would people be interested in Kara's POV?#Or another part following their time post-saving?

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mimeparadox · 4 years ago

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The New Half-Truths about Corsets

As true as it is that corsets are often misrepresented in audiovisual and written media, and as glad as I am to see people defending them, GOD, am I annoyed by the current discourse. Not because the defenders are wrong —they’re not, in general terms—but because Twitter, Instagram, and their incentivitization of easily digestible sound bites over nuance haves stripped the conversation from all the complexity inherent in a subject as big as corsets. In seeking to be more accurate, corset defenders have often just muddied the water further, with a brand-new set of half-truths.

Here are my favorite (least favorite) talking points.

“Corsets are literally just bras!”

As a cis dude, I’ve never had reason or occasion to wear bras. I have worn corsets, though, and let me tell you, things like having to take off one’s boots after one has been out in the snow while wearing a corset is work—moreso, I imagine, that if I’d been wearing a bra. Actually putting on boots before a corset? Even harder, enough that “boots before corsets” is a common bit of advice. Corsets aren’t torture, but they do force one to rethink how they interact with the world, in ways different than bras do.

To be less glib though, yes, corsets could and did provide the sort of breast support that is now provided by bras. This doesn’t render the multiple differences irrelevant! For one, breast support is the one thing bras are meant to do: with corsets, it is secondary or even inessential, evidenced by all the corsets that do not provide breast support, such as corsets for men, old-timey corsets for kids, and underbust corsets, which are still definitely corsets.

(Megan Fox in Jonah Hex, wearing a corset that is doing exactly the same thing as a bra. Yes, I know it’s not historically accurate; that is not the point.)

What most miffs me about this argument is that it is exceedingly reductive, and displays simplistic thinking regarding both corsets and bras. Because yes, corsets were like bras…and? What is this argument trying to say, given that bras their own baggage? Is the argument that corsets aren’t torture because corsets are bras? Plenty of people find bras uncomfortable, and something to be abandoned as soon as it becomes feasible. Corsets were purely practical because corsets are bras? Plenty of bras exist for primarily aesthetic purposes—some even do a fair amount of shaping. In the end, both garments have complicated, multifaceted, and distinct features, histories, and semiotics, and trying to equate them in a single sentence says nothing useful about either of them.

“Stays are not corsets!”

Amusingly, this argument seems somewhat incompatible with the previous one, given that stays have much more in common with corsets than with bras, but here we are.

Yes, 18th- and early 19th-century stays are significantly distinct from the corsets that we see later in the latter century, and if someone wants to don Bridgerton-inspired looks that accurately reflect Regency fashions, they should not look at Victorian corsets to obtain it. And yes, one can make the case that stays and corsets were entirely different animals.

Here’s the thing, though: historically, that’s not a case that people made. Corsets are we know them weren’t considered to be a completely different thing from stays, but rather a different style of stays—two different breeds of dog, perhaps, but dogs all the same. Once the term corset entered regular parlance, the two terms were usually used interchangeably, as can be seen in multiple 19th century documents, including technical ones where differences between the two, if they existed, would have been noted.

The Duties of a Lady's Maid: With Directions for Conduct, and Numerous Receipts for the Toilette (1825)

English Patents of Inventions, Specifications, 1865, 3186 - 3265 (1866)

----

What’s more, it’s not until very recently that people began treating stays and corsets as altogether different things. Gone with the Wind, the book? The terms corsets and stays are used interchangeably. The Oxford English dictionary? Describes stays as a sort of corset. The longest-lasting site dedicated to corsets on the internet calls itself the Long Island Staylace Association, with no indication that doing so represented an inaccuracy on its part. Sure, Elizabeth Swann should have properly said “You like pain? Try wearing stays”—at least it one wanted to be more accurate (if not good: good writing is partly about making oneself understood). But speaking here, and now, looking backwards? Very few people are trying to be that precise.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that corsets have had a variety of styles and features throughout history, and the term is by no means exclusive to what we most often see as corsets. The S-shaped corsets from the Edwardian era are very different from Victorian corsets, as are the more girdle-like garments that followed. While not everything is a corset, I’ve yet to see a convincing argument that the term isn’t broad enough to include 18th-century stays.

Tightlacing, Part 1: “Almost nobody did it”

Statements about tightlacing annoy me more than most, largely because they involve clearer instances of wrongness, but also because they hit closer to home.

Tightlacing has always been an imprecisely defined term: Lucy Williams, one of the best-known contemporary champions of corsetry, talks a little bit about the various ways the term has been used in her post “Waist Training vs Tight Lacing – what’s the difference?” found on her site. Usually, it refers to a quantitative measure—your corset must reduce X amount to be considered tightlacing—although recently, the discourse appears to have adopted a more qualitative definition, applicable to any instance where someone is shown displaying discomfort at being laced into corsets, regardless of how tightly they are (or aren’t) being cinched.

(Left: Moi, wearing a custom corset from The Bad Button Corsetry; Right, Upper: Scene from Bridgerton; Right, Lower: Scene from Enola Holmes)

----

Take, for example, the scene that has most recently caused a stir, from Bridgerton, where the character Prudence Featherington is seen grimacing as she is laced into her corset stays corset, while her sisters wince in sympathy and their mother, Portia, insists that she be laced tighter. Others have raised objections to this scene, focusing mainly on the fact that Portia’s mania for a smaller waist is anachronistic and makes little sense given fashions that de-emphasize the waist, but fewer have noted that for all the hemming and hawing that is being done by the characters, Prudence’s figure is ultimately not all that compressed, and seems perfectly in line with everybody else’s. Is what is been done to her tightlacing? A lot of people appear to think so! And yet, that assertion carries some implications. If Prudence is being forced to tightlace here, is everyone else with a comparable silhouette (again, pretty much everyone) also tightlacing? The answer is kind of important, especially if one also wants to claim that tightlacing was rare.

It’s worth noting that Valerie Steele’s The Corset: A Cultural History, one of the seminal works on corsetry throughout history, doesn’t actually attempt to make a case for the rarity of tightlacing. What it does attempt is to determine the accuracy of claims that women regularly laced down to 18 inches, 16 inches, or even smaller measurements, which is not quite the same thing. When exploring the question by looking at collections of surviving corsets from the era, the book has this to say: "Statistics from the Symington Collection [...] indicate that out of 197 corsets, only one measured 18 inches. Another 11 (five per cent of the collection) were 19 inches. Most were 20 to 26 inches.” While Steele readily admits this is hardly conclusive evidence, she took it as a sign that women with 16-inch waists were nowhere near as common as accounts suggested they were. Case closed, asked and answered, no one tightlaced, right?

Well, no.

Again, it comes down to definitions. Even speaking quantitatively, very few people define tightlacing as “lacing down to nineteen inches or fewer” (certainly no woman in Bridgerton is that tightly laced). The consensus, rather, is that tightlacing is not about the size of the corseted waist, but about the size of the reduction. How much people cinched, however, cannot be determined by looking only at corsets, because doing so requires not only those corsets’ measurements (and even those don’t tell the whole story, given that they don’t necessarily indicate how tightly they were worn) but also the starting measurements of the people wearing them.

In other words, say someone with a 33-inch waist uses corsets to reduce their waist measurement to 25 inches. This, according to most definitions, would be considered tightlacing—a 24% reduction!—and yet the absolute measurements would be nothing to write home about. How is that reflected in Steele’s sample of corsets? Impossible to say. A 25-inch corset could also be worn by someone with a natural 27-inch waist.

What, then, can we say about the frequency of tightlacing? Well, if we’re talking about dramatic reductions of, say, more than four inches (a two-inch reduction, by the way, can look like this��again, more dramatic than what we see in Bridgerton) one can say, with a fair level of confidence, that it was probably not the norm. And yet, “not the norm” is itself a very broad category, and given the numbers involved, “a minority of people” can easily still be “loads and loads of people”, as seen, for example, with COVID-19. Even if two percent of the population who wore corsets tightlaced, that’s still hundreds of thousands of people—hardly “almost no one”, as some argue. And if wearing corsets as seen in Enola Holmes or Bridgerton counts as tightlacing, the number becomes even higher.

Tightlacing, Part 2: “Tightlacing is bad”

Perhaps not coincidentally, another element of the current corset discourse involves taking all the baggage usually assigned to corsetry in general and applying it to tightlacing instead. Corsets are not painful, goes the argument, but tightlacing is. Corsets are not unhealthy, but tightlacing is. People could do everyday things in corsets, they’ll say, but not when tightlaced. Arguments made against corsets in the 19th century were slander made by people who just hated women (another half-truth I have little time for), but are apparently utterly unobjectionable when applied to tightlacing. This, as many modern-day tightlacers will tell you, is bullshit, but it feels like an especially odd argument to make in light of everything else.

As in, what is the point? It feels a lot like saying “I’m not sex-negative, but having sex with more than X partners is icky.” And given the history-focused slant of the current discourse, it’s safe to believe that most people arguing against tightlacing are not people who have attempted it. There is, however, an existing community that will happily tell you, based on personal experience, what tightlacing is actually like.

So from personal experience: tightlacing may not be like wearing a bra, and there are definitely some considerations that you have to take while doing it— getting dressed, sitting down, and eating are all done differently when tightly laced—but this is more logistical than anything, and also applies to other things—running in steel-toed boots is much different from running in sneakers, and the advice when doing the former is often “don’t”. Additionally, the margin for error decreases the more tightly laced one is, but corsets aren’t special in that regard: proper care is much more important when one is flying a commercial jet than when one is flying a one-seater. But yes, you can do physical activity while tightlaced. Not necessarily the sort that you could do in exercise clothes, but then, the fact that suits are not optimized for running doesn’t make suits bad.

Tightlacing, in the end, is not really different from wearing a corset. Some people will like it, some will not, but ultimately, how pleasurable or how unpleasurable it is (it’s very pleasurable, in my book) depends on what you put into it, and that’s something quite a few people—not a majority, but also not “almost nobody”—who are often far more tightly laced than people in movies, would attest to, if people listened.

#Corset #Historical Fashion #Bridgerton #Enola Holmes #Tightlacing #Stays

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chaolie · 4 years ago

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Fundy Week, Day 2 - Family

Here's what I managed to write for the 2nd prompt of @fundyfiles' Fundy Week! Instead of going by blood family, I decided to pretend that the adoption arc actually ended good and all is well. So yeah! Just some Fundy & Eret fluff! Again, this is also on my Ao3!

Characters: Fundy, Eret

Words: 1k

Warnings: none

Summary: Fundy prepares to spend some time in another SMP, but he still finds some time to spend with his adoptive parent, Eret, before he has to leave. And for once, things feel great.

Fundy slowly opened his eyes and found himself lying in a big, comfortable bed placed in a rather spacy room. He sat up and looked around, it sometimes took him a moment to remember where he was after waking up, he moved around quite a bit after all… as soon as the sleepiness left his mind, he felt stupid for forgetting. This was his room. His home.

He got out of his bed and walked over to the window, pushing away the curtains and letting the sunlight into the bedroom. The sun was quite high, he must’ve slept in a bit, but it’s not like he was in rush, he had nothing planned until the evening. While watching the world outside, he noticed a familiar person enter through the gate, and found himself smiling. ‘Familiar’ was an understatement.

He grabbed his jacket and hat before leaving the room, quickly going down the stairs and to the main entrance, managing to make it outside just before the person he spotted through the window could enter. They stopped before Fundy crushed into them, and smiled upon seeing him.

“Hi! Good morning!” Fundy greeted them, fixing up his hat as he came to a full stop.

“Hey, it’s good to see you awake.” Eret, the person Fundy saw, answered. “How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well, pretty well,” the fox hybrid admitted. “Though I did wake up just a couple of minutes ago…”

“Of course,” Eret nodded, it was something she expected to hear. “In that case, you must be hungry. Let me just put this bag away and we can have a late breakfast.”

“Sounds great! What are we eating?” Fundy asked as he stepped out of Eret’s way, allowing them to enter the castle. They shrugged in response.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked while walking inside and heading towards one of the storage rooms near the entrance.

“I don’t know, uhh…” Fundy hesitated. What did he want to eat? Eret seemed to wonder about that for a moment as well.

“How about some bread and carrots? We can get some more fulfilling foods for dinner,” they suggested eventually. Fundy nodded, he didn’t have that for quite a while.

“Yeah, sure,” he agreed.

Eret quickly put the blocks she had in the bag into one of the chests in the room before heading towards the room they usually ate in, Fundy following her not far behind. The food didn’t take long to prepare, so within moments, they both sat at the big table and both enjoyed their very-late breakfast. Despite its simplicity, it was tasty and Fundy felt lucky to have woken up just in time to have it. After eating in silence for a bit, Eret finally spoke up.

“So… you’re leaving today, aren’t you?” he pointed out. Fundy nodded to confirm.

“Yeah. But I’m not going until the evening, so I still have a bit to spend here,” he clarified before going back to his food.

“I see… so what do you want to do today?” Eret asked. Fundy shrugged, he wasn’t sure himself. “...I could show you the progress I’ve made on my building project, if you’d like? Who knows, it might be completed when you get back.”

“Oh, yeah, we should do that. I also want to drop by my old place, if you don’t mind? To make sure I didn’t leave anything important there,” he explained. That seemed to confuse Eret a bit.

“Sure, but… you can’t bring anything with you, can you?” he reminded. Fundy nodded.

“Well, yeah, that’s how it works. But without me here, what’s stopping anyone from walking in and taking anything they want?” he explained his concern better.

“Oh, I see. If you find anything, I’ll look after it while you’re gone,” Eret promised. Fundy smiled upon hearing that.

“Thanks, mum ,” he said, adding the last word somewhat jokingly, but it still felt somewhat accurate.

“You’re welcome, son ,” Eret shot back. “Are you done eating?”

“Oh, yeah! We can go now, if you want,” Fundy confirmed, getting off his chair and stepping back from the table. Eret did the same.

“Great, let me just grab some things and we can be on our way.”

It was a good day. Fundy got to see all the progress Eret made on their latest build, and happily listened as they described all the things they still planned to add. With him away, they could probably focus on bringing their ideas to life… and he couldn’t wait to see the results once he’d get back. They also stopped by his old house, checking the chests for any valuables, but except for an iron ingot or two, there was nothing there. It wasn't too surprising, most of Fundy's belongings were already stored in his room, in Eret's castle.

As the sun started to linger over the horizon, they both headed back home, and Fundy quickly went to his room to leave his things and grab the device that would allow him to travel. He was heading to a different SMP, where he’d meet some of his old friends, but without the small machine, it would be impossible to get there. Once he made it downstairs again, Eret was still waiting for him, and offered to walk him into the woods, where he intended to use the device. He gladly accepted that offer, and the two of them quickly made their way further from the castle, until the surroundings seemed just right. There, they’d have to part ways.

“Stay safe, and have fun,” Eret said before they’d have to turn back.

“Yeah, yeah… don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I know some people there, and from what I heard they don’t have any lives limit there either,” he explained as he pulled out the device from his pocket.

“I’m glad. Take care of yourself, Fundy. And good luck,” they wished him, putting a hand over his shoulder.

“Thanks. Have fun building,” he answered before going quiet for a moment. “...I’ll miss you,” he admitted finally.

“I’ll miss you, too. But you can always come back, right?” Eret reminded him. And she was right, from what Fundy heard, traveling back and forth shouldn’t be too complicated after the first time doing so.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he nodded. After hesitating for a bit, he leaned forward and gave Eret a short hug before turning around and walking a bit further. “Bye, re-” he cut himself off before he could finish.

That didn’t sound like the ‘teasing’ kind of way they usually said those things. Of course, they were a family, but ‘official titles’ like that didn’t appear in their conversations too often, and they were mostly said jokingly. But this time, it wasn’t a joke, but a slip-up. Though maybe Eret wouldn’t notice? He looked back at him and found him smiling.

“Goodbye, son,” they waved at him. So they did notice.

Fundy felt embarrassed, in a way. Technically, Eret was his parent, she adopted him after all. But he didn’t plan to call her that just now, it just happened somehow- It shouldn’t matter, should it? Eret didn’t seem bothered by that, so he shouldn’t worry about it either. Brushing the embarrassment aside, he focused on getting his traveling device working. It didn’t take long to figure it out, and soon enough he could feel it starting to pull him into the other world.

He looked back at Eret, at his parent, at one of the few people he considered family, and found them waving at him. He waved back before disappearing. It was nice, having somewhere he could always come back to and having someone he could always depend on.

***

To be clear, Fundy stopped himself from referring to Eret as "ren", which is short of paRENt! I saw it used a couple of times and I really like the term!

Also, I didn't have any specific SMP in mind while writing this, so where Fundy's heading to is up to your interpretation. Is it cogchamp, is it vault hunters, who knows! At least he'll have fun!

#fundy #c!fundy #eret #c!eret #dream smp #mcyt #my writing #fundyweek2021 #yeah this is kinda late but shush its here now

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thedistrictsleepsalonetonight · 4 years ago

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This is why we can’t have nice things (or Jamie’s lucky Dani is a patient woman)

So @the-idea-of-stars submitted a hurt-comfort fic prompt and here’s my best attempt at it :)

*****************************************************************************************

The three rules to getting hurt at Bly Manor, or so Jamie’s heard are these: One, no climbing up on the ledge that hangs midway off the parapet, not even to clear that pesky ivy that hangs all over the walls, very un-aesthetically; two, no putting yourself in precarious situations when Miles was around because the boy had a tendency of fainting around blood; and three, the one that was crucial, no screaming for Dani in case of blood. Especially not when Jamie was the one shedding aforementioned blood.

Saturday made the entire household break rule one, two and three in spectacular fashion.

And it’s such a pity, because the day had started off so well. Jamie had woken up, Dani still snoozing in her arms and had gotten to witness one of nature’s greatest miracles so far: Dani Clayton, prim and proper au pair, drooling on her pillow. An embarrassed facepalm and about five adoring kisses later, they’d found themselves eating Owen’s patented pancakes in the kitchen with the rest of the family. The weekend had found them all lazing around, Flora practically falling into her plate, Miles taking embarrassing photos of her from all angles while being only halfway deterred by Hanna’s warning tsks. After breakfast, Dani had gone to the other side of the house to supervise the kids, and Jamie had walked outside to do a bit of trimming.

It was then that she fucked up first. The ivy just looked so wild and overgrown and she knew she could trim most of it if she could just get up on the ledge. All she had to do was climb up, and then grab onto something and she’d be al—

*****

The adrenaline kept the pain at bay for thirty seconds. It was after those thirty seconds of falling, crashing and her heartbeat pounding in her ears, so loud that it seemed it had set up a new home in her head, the first wave arrived, and before she could control it, the cry escaped her lips.

Jamie gritted her teeth, took stock of the situation. There could be something broken; she could guess from the fact that she absolutely couldn’t move her right arm that was still trapped under her body.

Alright, she could do this. Just had to get up and get inside without making any more noise to alert anyone.

There were just a couple of things that could be a hindrance. The first being the extreme pain that was ringing like static in her ear, a precursor to her previous fainting spells. The second being the fact that she could hear running footsteps from the corridor. Jamie closed her eyes, hoped that it was, by some miracle, Owen or Hannah.

She opened it to the sight of Flora and Miles staring at her. Of course, what Miles was doing was only half-close to that statement. His face was turned away, eyes shielded from the sight by his raised hand.

“Flora, don’t—”

“Dani! Dani! Jamie’s hurt! Come quick!”

Well, that was that, then.

The pain had grown so much that she could feel every part of her arm throbbing. Jamie closed her eyes, heard, very slowly, through static, as though it was coming from very far away, Dani’s sweet voice asking if Jamie could hear her. And then, nothing.

*****

She woke up to the sight of Miles lying on the floor next to her.

Consciousness was the annoying poke of a finger on her arm, a probing finger that somehow knew exactly where it hurt. Jamie groaned, opened her eyes to see the doctor peering at her, turned her head, saw Miles passed out next to her, and closed it again.

(Definitely not heaven, then)

She could also feel Dani’s soft fingers over her other, uninjured hand, and this was perhaps a strange moment to notice it, but there truly was no better peace than the feeling of Dani’s hand on hers. Jamie had had a lot of time to self-evaluate, back when she was locked up, and one of the things that she’d discovered, that she ached for human touch in a way that terrified her. Growing up in a turbulent household hadn’t really given her a lot of chances to receive affection, so she’d become an adult with intense space issues and an inherent craving to be touched, felt and held. It just wasn’t this tangible a need before she’d fallen in love with Dani.

Now it just seemed like whenever Dani was within reach, Jamie’s hands were always reaching out for her. Playing with her hair, tapping out morse code I love yous on her shoulder, tangling their fingers together. Dani grounded her, in a way that even her plants couldn’t. Nature gave her contentment; Dani was sheer joy.

She squeezed Dani’s hand, felt an answering squeeze in return, and the pain abated for that one millisecond.

*****

“So, good news,” Jamie announced, dryly, even though her arm was protesting. “Turns out my arm isn’t broken. Yay!”

Dani glared at her so hard she could almost hear the words written all over her face: You. Idiot. Big Trouble.

Jamie turned to Owen, begged for help.

“In other good news,” he cut in, hastily, “Miles also faints at the sight of awkwardly angled bones!”

Miles sputtered for words.

“I didn’t,” he started, floundered, “faint! It was a momentary nap!”

Flora giggled.

“I — Hannah!”

“Of course you didn’t faint, poppet,” she reassured him, though her lips were twitching. “Flora, could you help Owen out with dinner?”

“But what if Miles faints again?” she asked, and the last either Jamie or Dani saw of them was Hannah chasing an irate Miles who was running after his sister.

Jamie looked at the ceiling, the door, the nightstand, and finally, at Dani’s inscrutable face.

“Blimey,” she tried. “Children, eh?”

Dani blinked at her. “I’m gonna help them,” she said, blankly, and then walked away.

So much for a perfect Saturday.

*****

Dani next came in during dinnertime. Placed the tray on the nightstand, and then just stood there, looking a little lost. Jamie hated it.

“Darling?” she asked, softly, hand reaching out to loosely grab at Dani’s wrist. “You wanna sit down?”

Dani jerked a little, blinked.

“I,” she said, bit down on her lip, and the action wasn’t lost on her. Dani would usually bite her lip when she was anxious about something.

“I can’t — I can’t think.”

“Okay,” Jamie said, leaned up a little, pulled softly, and this time Dani let herself be pulled onto the bed. “That’s okay. Take your time.”

Dani was breathing heavily, and Jamie waited. Kept her hand very, very still on Dani’s, and waited for the panic to pass.

“You can’t do that again,” she said, when her breathing was even again.

“Dani, I know, I—”

“No, hear me out, okay? You were lying on the ground, blacking out and you couldn’t fucking hear me or say anything other than my name, and you — you were in so much pain, Jamie. I couldn’t—”

“—Dani,”

“I couldn’t do anything! You said my name, and I couldn’t help! I was just. I was so useless—”

“Dani,” Jamie kissed her cheek, her shirt clad shoulder, gently rubbed at her arm with her uninjured hand. Dani’s breath was speeding up again. “Baby, baby, stop. I’m okay. You got me inside okay—”

“—I’m just sick of watching the people around me getting hurt, okay? Feel like we’ve had quite enough of that already.”

Jamie closed her eyes. Kissed Dani’s cheek again, and buried her face in her neck.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said, finally.

Dani took a shuddering breath, turned to face her and kissed her for the first time after the accident. Jamie felt the tears sticking to her cheeks, felt the careful, restrained way Dani’s lips moved over hers, and felt the sudden, embarrassing urge to cry herself. She wanted to bury her head in Dani’s chest and cry until she fell asleep, wanted to be touched, felt, held. She heard Dani murmur You’re okay, You’re okay between kisses, felt her hands trembling as they moved over her face, and, not for the first time, thanked whatever higher power was up there for creating the miracle that was Dani Clayton.

*****

“You’re an idiot.”

There she was. Jamie grinned at her, tilted her chin a little so Dani could get better access to the tiny scratches that had somehow bled, unnoticed, near her neck.

“But I’m your idiot, am I not?”

Dani looked at her in that half-exasperated, half-fond way of hers, carefully kept dabbing at the cut with disinfectant, and stuck out her tongues.

“Ouch,” Jamie muttered, just because she could.

“Where?” Dani was immediately on alert. “Where does it hurt?”

“Sorry, sorry,” she apologized, contrite. “I was kidding. Doesn’t actually hurt.”

Dani glared at her. “Oh, it doesn’t? What about now?”

(The subsequent cry of pain was closer to accurate. Also completely deserved)

“You giant baby.”

“Eh,” Jamie shrugged. “You love me.”

Dani finished putting the band-aid on it, then bent to give the spot a quick kiss.

“I do, unfortunately,” Dani said. “I really, really do.”

Jamie tapped out another morse code I love you on her back.

*****

“You bullied Owen into baking a strawberry cake for dinner? Dani, you know he hates the flavor.”

Dani giggled, and the sound felt like a warm blanket settling over her. “But you love it.”

“I do, but I could’ve eaten anything else, you know that. I’m easy, me.”

“I know that,” Dani said, looking right at her, very seriously. But I don’t want you to just have to eat anything, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she looked away, searching for words, “that I know you can eat almost anything, and that includes the things you hate, but I want — I want to give you the things you like, okay? I know that technically, you can eat eggplant, and that you can eat pineapple and you can eat mushrooms, but I’d rather you didn’t have to. That’s not the kind of relationship you deserve, alright? I guess I just — I just want you to eat the things you like, that’s all. No adjustments.”

There was the stupid impulse again. Jamie closed her eyes, tried, very, very hard to stop the tears, the burning in her throat. It took a moment.

“Have I ever told you,” she said, when she was sure her voice wouldn’t crack, “how much I love you?”

Dani’s smile was tremulous, and bright and the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. “Not in so many words, no.”

Jamie smiled back.

*****

The next day, Jamie woke up and stared at the ivy hanging over the wall. Watched Miles and Flora running around on the parapet, heard Owen and Hannah yelling terms of endearments at each other through the house, and wrapped an arm around Dani’s shoulder.

“You sure I can’t—”

“—absolutely not.”

“The things you do for love,” she said, and kissed Dani instead.

The things you do for love, indeed.

#the haunting of bly manor #thobm fanfic #fanfiction #dani x jamie #I don't think I've ever only written hurt comfort but here goes I guess #also another incoherent rambling written-at-a-stretch fic from yours truly #no editing we die like dani clayton #thobm #found family feels #submission

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currantlee · 3 years ago

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Language: English Rating: Mature (M) / P18 Warnings: Mentions of Cannibalism, mentions of non-consensual body modification Fandom: Kingdom Hearts Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Horror Characters: Kairi, Sora, Ienzo, Yozora (memory), Ventus (mentioned), Master of Masters (mentioned) Relationships: Sora & Kairi or Sora/Kairi (SoKai) - can be interpreted either way Words: 4,544 Chapter: 1/1 Beta: FanficWriter827 Notes: This is probably one of the darkest fics I’ve written so far. Nothing explicit or extremely gorey, but please be sure to proceed with caution regardless. Other Platforms: -

Kairi tried to be quiet when she closed the door of the lab behind her and walked towards the middle of the room.

Sora was sitting on an examination bed, his legs dangling over the edge. He didn’t look happy, but calm and relaxed. Almost as if he had never been gone in the first place. Seeing him with an expression like this, it was a bit hard to believe the horrific things that had happened to him during the year and the few months he had spent in Quadratum alone.

He almost instantly spotted Kairi when she came through the door, despite her best efforts to be quiet. A wide smile formed on his face. “Kairi!”

She smiled back. “Hey.”

Kairi still couldn’t quite believe that he was really back yet, even though Riku and her had found him weeks ago. Maybe she just wasn’t used to it yet.

Sora slid off the examination bed and walked towards her.

Kairi tried to not stare at his body. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable… In a helpless attempt to distract herself, she turned to Ienzo, who was currently arranging some papers, probably related to the examination he had just completed by the looks of it.

“How are you?”, Sora asked. He now stood right next to her.

She shrugged as she turned back to him. “I’m good,” she said. The more important question was… “How are you, Sora?”

He laughed. “I guess I could be worse.”

Kairi supposed that was true. The past few weeks and month had been rough. There had always been the very real possibility that Sora was already dead and their search was for nothing, something Kairi and Riku had feared very much. Despite that, they refused to give up on him, especially after they finally had a clue that was as good as a confirmation that he was still alive.

Even after they had finally saved him, they initially weren’t sure whether he would recover from what had happened to him for some time. And after that, there had been little time to spare for looking after his wellbeing. Yozora and his friends had needed every bit of help they could get, and of course Sora had wanted to help too. She just hoped he hadn’t overdone it, especially after everything he had been put through previously.

“Are you sure?”, she asked. “You’ve been through a lot…”

“In fact, he is doing surprisingly well despite his… Current condition,” Ienzo remarked as he walked towards them. Apparently he was done arranging his papers. “I must admit that when I first heard about the occurrences that befell you, Sora, I presumed you would be in a much worse state.”

Kairi bit her lip. So there was something wrong with him aside from the obvious part?

“If you excuse me, Kairi, but I must ask you to leave the room for a few minutes,” Ienzo continued. “I want to talk to Sora about his condition…”

“It’s fine,” Sora interrupted. “I don’t mind her listening.”

Ienzo turned to Sora. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “It’s fine, Ienzo. Really.”

Ienzo sighed and did something with his papers. “Alright…”

“How bad is it?” Kairi couldn’t keep quiet about this question any longer. It had been lingering in her mind ever since they rescued Sora from the Gigas – well, actually, she had wondered about it ever since she first met Yozora. He had been through the same thing after all, although he additionally had his memories erased as well, something that Sora had fortunately been spared from.

Ienzo sighed. “As I’ve already told you during the examination, Sora, some of your organs were technologically augmented. Several of them were also removed and replaced with mechanical compounds entirely.”

Kairi gulped. That sounded awful. She couldn’t help but think about what the Gigas must have done to him in order to get those augmentations where they were, and she felt like the thought alone was tearing her apart. It disgusted her. But even more so, it made her angry to know that Sora, or more accurately his body, had been modified in order to be used to power and control a weapon, all while he had been forced to watch without being able to do anything about it. Now he had to live with the aftermath of it, while the person behind the Gigas force had gotten away and would likely threaten their reality next. Kairi had no idea what the Master of Masters was up to, but she wanted to tear him to shreds for the pain he had caused Sora, albeit indirectly.

It was just so unfair!

To her surprise though, Sora seemed to take the news with much composure – he simply nodded slowly. Maybe it was because Ienzo had already told him before, or maybe Sora had changed at more than she had realized yet.

“Disregarding those deviations in your physiology however, your bodily functions are just fine. Again, I must say I am quite surprised.”

Kairi sighed. That was a relief… She had been prepared for worse. That still didn’t answer the big question though…

“Can…” Sora paused. He was looking down on his own hands, and the black plating that covered the skin. It made him look more like a machine than a human, but Kairi knew that underneath that façade, he was still Sora. He would always be Sora.

“Can you… Change me back to how I was before?”

Ienzo looked down onto his papers. He was avoiding direct eye contact, Kairi realized. “I have to admit… I do not know.”

Sora sighed and hung his head.

“I will have to discuss it with Even,” Ienzo continued quickly. “He knows much more about these things than I do.”

“Can’t you duplicate the missing organs with the replica technology?”, Kairi suggested. She didn’t know too much about how it worked, but… “You did replace one of Ven’s kidneys that way when it had stopped working in the Realm of Darkness.”

“Indeed,” Ienzo nodded. “However, it was a fairly easy surgery with little risk of failure. If it had not worked, he would still have had the other one to keep him alive. At worst, we would have had to remove the replica kidney again if his body had rejected it.”

Kairi already knew that the procedure had technically not been required. But Even had been eager to try and see if the replica technology could be used for good purposes, such as medical ones, as well. Ven wouldn’t have had to agree, but he had done it anyways. Much like Sora, he could never decline an opportunity to help someone, even when it meant getting surgery for research purposes.

“In Sora’s case, however, it would involve multiple complicated surgeries, some of which I am not sure we are even qualified for. Additionally, the internal organs are not what I am most worried about regarding such a procedure.”

Kairi gulped. That didn’t sound good…

“Then what is the problem, Ienzo?”, Sora asked. He had become very quiet.

“The exoskeleton,” Ienzo answered. “It is practically fused with your skin. In order to even reach the internal organs, we would have to remove at least parts of it, which subsequently means that we would have to remove your skin in the area concerned as well.” He sighed. “In any case, it would be a very lengthy procedure with multiple complex surgeries involved.”

So there really wasn’t any way… Kairi lowered her head as well. Of course she had been aware that it might not be possible to restore Sora’s body to how it was before he had been taken by the Gigas. She had hoped that there might be a way though, for his sake. They had never really talked about how he felt about the state of his body ever since his rescue, but she strongly suspected that he didn’t feel comfortable with it. She couldn’t blame him after everything he had supposedly been put through.

If it already upset her that much – how must he feel about it?

Sora lifted his head and nodded. “I understand.” He tried to manage a small smile, but it didn’t look like an honest one to Kairi. “Thanks regardless, Ienzo.”

“You are very welcome, Sora,” Ienzo said. “I promise I will talk to Even as soon as I get the chance. I just don’t want to make you any promises right now.”

So there was still hope? Kairi would have liked a definitive answer better than this…

“Why don’t you two catch a bit of fresh air and come back later?”, Ienzo suggested. “It might help to take your mind off the situation.”

How long had it been since she had last spent an extended amount of time with Sora alone? They hadn’t exactly gotten to that in Quadratum, unless the times when Kairi had watched over Sora while he was asleep counted.

“It sounds like a good idea to me,” Sora said. “Are you up for it too, Kairi?”

She managed a small smile. “Of course,” she nodded. “Let’s go!” After all, that’s what she had come here for: to spend some time with him, and maybe to help a little if it was required. She just wanted to make sure he was okay.

---

They ended up going to the castle garden, where they sat down on a bench near the fountain. It was currently in the shade of a tree, so the sun didn’t burn down on them.

For a while, neither of them said anything. Kairi didn’t really have an idea on how to start a conversation with him. As many questions as she had, she didn’t want to pressure him into talking about the time he had spent in Quadratum alone, the state of his body, or his appearance for that matter. He was the one who had to decide whether he was ready for that or not.

So she simply allowed herself to look at him for once, taking in all the changes to his appearance for the first time in weeks.

Instead of the comfy clothing he used to wear, a skin-tight black exoskeleton now enclosed his entire body up to the neck. It had a few scratches here and there, but overall it seemed pretty indestructible. Kairi still had no idea what exactly it was made of, but it surely wasn’t metal. She had been surprised by how little Sora weighed when she had freed him from the wreckage of the Gigas he had been the central unit of, since she had expected him to be much heavier.

He also had those weird things that looked a bit like headphones now. At first, Kairi had assumed that he could just take them off, but as it turned out, that wasn’t the case. Just like the exoskeleton, they were like a part of his body now.

The by far most outstanding piece of the exoskeleton however, at least when Kairi was concerned, was the backpiece. It looked a bit like a second spine, just that it had some red-glowing circuits and ports on it. It was the part that had connected him to the machine he had been a part of. Kairi knew there was also a tracker in it, but it wasn’t functioning anymore. Ran, one of Yozora’s friends, had ensured that so the Gigas would stop trying to retrieve Sora in order to insert him into another mech – or to turn him into nutrition for other central units.

Kairi’s stomach turned just thinking about that. She remembered how shocked she had been when she first learned about this from Yozora, back when he had first explained what Gigas did with the humans they abducted. ‘What did you expect?’, Yozora had commented in response. ‘The central units still have to get nutrients. And it’s not like the Gigas can just walk into the next store to buy some food, especially considering they give it to them intravenously.’

‘I know that,’ she had retorted. ‘I’m not dumb! It’s just cruel and really gross!’

‘They’re machines,’ Yozora had responded in his rather infuriating calm and collective way. ‘They don’t care about ethics.’

The conversation had taken place before they had found out that the Master of Master was responsible for the creation of the Gigas – and also the one who gave them the idea to use humans as a core component of their mechanical bodies. It just made the entire thing even more gross in Kairi’s opinion.

After all of this, she was simply glad Sora was still alive, even though they hadn’t found a way to restore his body to how it was before he had been transformed into a central unit yet. Quadratum might be free from the Master of Masters’ rule at this point, but the city was still in chaos. The undamaged equipment at the hospitals was needed to treat the injured survivors, and things would likely take some more time to calm down.

They also didn’t want to be an additional burden to Yozora, who had turned out to be none other than the rightful heir to the throne and was now getting accustomed to his new duties. It hurt to leave their new friends behind, especially since clearly everything wasn’t well just yet. But like Yozora had said: they had done everything they could for Quadratum. They rest was something they could help very little with. They needed to look after themselves now. Besides, someone still had to stop the Master of Masters, who had escaped to their reality. Kairi really wanted him to get a taste of his own medicine.

Therefore, they had decided to return to their own reality, hoping that Ansem and his disciples might find a way to restore Sora’s body to its former state. She had barely realized it had already been a week since then – it felt like yesterday since they had finally arrived home.

„You know,“ Sora said, „this body actually has its advantages.”

He didn’t sound too convinced of his own words. Knowing him, he might just trying to be optimistic in order to push his true feelings away, since he couldn’t change his situation right now anyways.

Kairi raised an eyebrow. “Like?”

“Uhm…” He seemingly couldn’t think of a single thing immediately, which only supported her suspicion.

Kairi sighed. Ever since they had returned from Quadratum, he had been avoiding his friends to some degree. Whether it was because he didn’t want them to see him like he was now or because he didn’t want them to worry about him because they noticed how much he hated the state he was in she didn’t know, but it was so unlike him. She wished he would open up about those feelings, but she also knew she couldn’t force him to.

“I can hear a lot better than before,” he finally said, but he still didn’t sound convinced of his own words. “Like, I can hear very high and very low sounds, even if they’re really quiet…”

“You actually hate it, don’t you?”

Kairi couldn’t bite her questions back any longer. It hurt to see him like this, trying to convince himself that everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t. Why did he not open up about it? Was it just a classical, stupid Sora-move because he didn’t want to bother his friends with his problems? Or did he not trust her anymore? Maybe he even thought she couldn’t take it because she was too weak…

‘No,’ Kairi thought. ‘Sora would never think of you that way, even though you were too weak to prevent this from happening.’

Had she not get caught by Xemnas, Xehanort wouldn’t have killed her. If Xehanort hadn’t killed her, Sora wouldn’t have used the Power of Wakening to bring her back, which eventually led to his disappearance to Quadratum. And if that hadn’t happened, he would never have encountered the Gigas, meaning that he wouldn’t have been transformed into a central unit for one.

It was all her fault.

“You’re right,” Sora admitted quietly. “I do hate it. But it’s not your fault that I am like this, Kairi.”

Kairi meant to tell him that he was being too good – it was her fault, at least indirectly. But she knew it would only lead to a discussion she wasn’t here for. She wanted to help him as far as she could, not argue with him. “You can still talk to me about it though.”

Sora sighed and leaned back against the back of the bench. He looked up to the sky, seemingly absent-minded. “You heard Ienzo before,” he finally said quietly. “He doesn’t even know whether they’ll be able to restore my body to how it was, and even if they are, it could take a long time. I might as well come to terms with it.”

It made sense, when he put it like that. But at the same time, it scared Kairi. The Sora she knew would have stayed optimistic that Ansem and his disciples would come up with a way to restore his body. Had he really changed that much in Quadratum or was he just desperate?

“I...”

He hesitated. Kairi bit back another question that burned on her tongue – she wanted him to take all the time he needed if he was going to open up.

“I miss eating.”

Kairi had never really thought about that part before. She had gotten so used to him not showing up to the meals that she didn’t even question it anymore, and neither did the others. She knew that the central units were fed intravenously – with what were technically human remains, that part would undoubtedly haunt her forever. In fact, both Yozora and Sora still took in their meals that way, although nowadays their nutrients came from labs, not from corpses.

“I know you don’t have to eat anymore, but can’t you just get yourself something and eat anyways?”, she asked carefully, realizing that she still had no idea how all of this worked and probably should have asked about the details sooner. She didn’t want to upset him even further.

But Sora just shook his head. “They replaced my entire digestive system with mechanical compounds,” he explained. “If I eat or drink, it might damage them beyond repair. I could die.”

“Oh.” She should have thought of something like that. Kairi knew he liked to eat, and especially to try out new dishes. If there was any way he could still eat, he probably would have already. “I’m sorry, Sora.”

“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “I just wish I could at least drink some water. It’s not the same to get your nutrients injected into your veins, even though that at least keeps me sated.”

He sounded so sad… Kairi wanted nothing more than to take his hand and squeeze it, but she stopped herself from doing so, seeing as his hands were also covered by the exoskeleton. He had explained to her, shortly after waking up for the first time, that the sensors in it registered the touch and even told him what it was, but he couldn’t feel it and how that was weird. Kairi found that a bit hard to imagine. She didn’t know if holding his hand would actually help him or only remind him further of the fact that his body had been changed without his consent.

So instead, Kairi slowly raised her hand and gently brushed the skin of his cheek with her fingers. It was a lot cooler than she expected – was that another effect of having part of his body mechanized?

Sora turned to her with a surprised look on his face, and for a moment, Kairi worried that she had gone too far. But then, a small smile tugged on his lips.

Encouraged by the fact that he was apparently fine with this, Kairi placed her entire palm on his cheek. She even dared to push a few hairstrands behind the weird headphone thing that covered or replaced – she wasn’t entirely sure about that part – his ears.

His hair was shorter than it had been before Quadratum, but spiky and unruly as ever. Kairi suspected that it had been shorn off completely when Sora had been changed, and that it had grown back over the time he had spent inside the Gigas as its central unit. According to Yozora, the machines weren’t exactly known for great maintenance, since it was much more efficient to build a new one than to repair the old ones beyond the most basic functions. So why should they have cared about his hair beyond what was necessary to change his body for their purposes?

Sora leaned into her touch, sighing quietly. “I miss this too.”

“What?” She had never touched his cheek like this before, so that couldn’t be what he meant.

“Feeling,” Sora clarified. “I mean, I can still feel things on my face and head, and I get information from what the sensors in the exoskeleton are picking up, but…” He didn’t finish whatever he was going to say, and instead nuzzled her hand with his cheek, closing his eyes. “This is so good.”

“But it’s not the same?”, she tried to finish what he had said earlier.

“Yeah,” Sora confirmed. “At least on the parts covered by that stupid exoskeleton.”

Kairi suppressed a giggle, not wanting to give him the feeling that she was laughing at his situation. She couldn’t help a smile however. It was good to see that he hadn’t changed in each and every possible way.

Sora yawned. “I’m tired.”

She hadn’t heard that from him in a while. Immediately after his rescue though, she had heard it a lot, but she couldn’t blame him for it.

Apparently the entire time he had spent inside the Gigas, he had been fully conscious. How he and others that had been rescued before him had managed to survive this ordeal was a complete mystery, but after his rescue, the first thing Sora had done was to sleep for several days straight. No one had been able to wake him during that period of time, and Kairi had even been worried that he might never wake up. Even once he did eventually wake on his own, he had still complained about how he was incredibly tired for two weeks. She was pretty sure he had slept more than usual as well.

“Do you want to rest a bit?”, Kairi asked him, just like she had back then whenever he had mentioned how he was tired again.

But Sora simply shook his head. “Nah. I’ve already been resting quite a bit after all.” He yawned once more and stretched. “I just didn’t sleep that well tonight.”

Kairi had a suspicion why. “Nightmares?”

He nodded. “The usual ones.”

Kairi sighed. ‘The usual ones’ meant dreaming about being stuck in that robot again, with no control over his own body, forced to watch as horrible things happened in front of him. She would have liked to give him a hug, but she wasn’t sure whether Sora was comfortable with that either. “Do you want to talk about it?”, she asked instead.

Sora shook his head. “Not right now,” he responded. “Maybe another time.”

“Okay.”

Sora yawned again. “Maybe I could close my eyes for a little bit though…”

Kairi grinned. Sure – just closing his eyes for a little bit. “Do you want to lean on me too?”

It was a joke that had become common between them after Sora’s rescue, when at first he had gotten tired quickly and needed to rest frequently. Every time, Kairi would ask him jokingly if he wanted to lean on her, and every time Sora would end up responding in some non-sensical way. They would then both have a laugh, and depending on whether Sora was up to it or not he’d rest his head on her shoulder for a little bit before leaving to take a nap somewhere. She didn’t expect the answer he gave her this time around though.

“That would be nice.”

Kairi felt her cheeks heating up. Sora had never been that upfront about it before. He still was full of surprises, wasn’t he? Maybe it was just because he was really tired – the examination on top of not sleeping well must have exhausted him. Kairi just couldn’t tell him no. “O-okay,” she said. “Come here.”

He moved a bit closer to her, until their shoulders were touching. Huh. That was new as well.

Much to her surprise, Sora flinched at the contact.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I just… You don’t have to do this, Kairi. I understand if it’s uncomfortable for you or…”

He was talking about the exoskeleton, she realized. Well, that and the fact that he was technically part-machine now. Not that Kairi minded much about that. Sure, his appearance had changed a lot and in some ways, she couldn’t interact with him just like she would before his disappearance. Simple questions had become potentially dangerous ground to thread on, and physical contact was something both of them still seemed to be insecure about.

But to Kairi, he would always be Sora, even when he was stuck as the central unit of a giant robot.

“It’s fine. You don’t make me uncomfortable, Sora,” she said, carefully wrapping an arm around him and gently nudging him a bit closer to her. “I’m just glad you’re back and alive. We’ll figure out the rest, okay?”

Sora nodded while moving a little bit closer to her. “Okay.” He sighed when he placed his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. “Are you comfortable?”, he asked quietly.

“I’m alright,” Kairi said. Sure, the material of the exoskeleton felt hard and sturdy, but nothing she couldn’t handle. The more important question was… “Are you comfortable, Sora?”

He hummed quietly.

“Or shall I remove my arm from around your shoulders?” There technically wasn’t any necessity for it to be there, and his sensors must be ticking off.

She didn’t get an answer however. Instead, she heard regular breathing from her shoulder.

Kairi smiled. So much for just closing his eyes for a bit. She’d surely be stuck like this for a while, at least until Sora woke up again. Not that she minded much though. If she could help him like this, she was gladly doing it.

She did remove her arm from around his shoulders though, not wanting to do anything without his consent. And he didn’t look like he was slipping off the bench or her shoulder any given second.

Just when she did though, one of Sora’s hands tentatively touched her leg, as if he was looking for her in his sleep. Kairi blushed when he sluggishly wrapped his arm around her hips. Sora had always been a rather clingy sleeper.

Carefully, Kairi wrapped her arm around his shoulders once more. It was nice to see that despite everything he had gone through, despite the fact that his body had been changed possibly forever, some things were still the same. But most of all, it was good to see that he was still Sora.

#Fandom #Fanwork #Fanfiction #Kingdom Hearts #KH Fanfiction #Sora #Kairi #SoKai #Fanfic Friday #Currantlee writing #Currantlee completed #Currantlee completed Story #Currantlee completed KH Fanfic

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rpsocsandcanonohmy · 3 years ago

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A Fighting Chance

Note: This is part of an ongoing story that can be read on AO3 here. Reading previous installments is reccomended for context purposes but is not required. Posted here for Whumptober 2021 @whumptober-archive

Day 6: Bruises

-------- The next day, Lori was tasked with helping Abilene around the house. Despite the size of the house and how many people trekked through it on any given day, very little of the work centered around cleaning. No, today, Lori was going to be testing her patience with cooking and food prep.

Lori knew how to cook. In theory. She knew how to use an oven (electric, gas, and the occasional wood-burner). She knew how to heat up something in a pan or a pot. She could even make a few things from scratch, assuming she had the ingredients handy, mostly eggs and pasta.

Food prepping for a ranch was a much different story.

There was no experimenting to see if the temperature dial was accurate. There was no obsessively checking the clock in lieu of a timer. There was no double-checking the instructions written on the box.

Nope. Abby’s kitchen was run with fresh ingredients that were either being prepped for a later meal or being used in a current one. Abby had (semi-correctly) assumed Lori didn’t have much experience with cooking like this and just put her in charge of cutting vegetables or stirring sauces. Technically she was also a Taste Tester but that seemed more like an honorary title than a useful role.

She was chopping some apples under Abby’s not-so-subtle watch when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” she said, leaving Lori to her chopping. A few moments later, she heard giggling and the sound of loud footsteps coming near the kitchn. “Oh, Cordi’ll be so happy to see you! It’s been ages… Oh, Lori! Hoyt, this is Lori. She’s one of Stella’s friends from school; her dad’s out of town so she’s staying with us for a while.”

Lori smiled softly and waved. “Hi….”

“Howdy.”

Abby snorted and gently pet Lori’s back. “I’m gonna go check on Bonham and Liam. Will you two be alright alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

She turned back to her chopping. Hoyt came around the counter and grabbed a few pears to chop with her.

“So,” he started. “What happened?”

“Pardon?”

Hoyt chuckled. “You’re at home for the day on a school day, you’re working in the kitchen instead of being sick in bed, and I noticed that bandage. Something happened.”

Well. That was her caught. Lori shrugged, clearing away some apple chunks to make room for the next one. “I got into a fight. Some girl was being a bitch to Stella and August so I broke her nose.” There was no point in lying; it’d probably just come out later anyway.

“I can respect that,” Hoyt said. “Sounds like the kind of stuff I used to get into back in those days.”

Lori nodded, focusing on her chopping.

“You’re a good friend. Stella’s lucky she found you.”

She liked the way he said that, like she wasn’t some lucky charity case that got picked up out of pity. That didn’t make it any (potentially) less true, but still. Lori wondered if he had his own experience in a situation like that.

-----------

Lunch was miraculously uneventful. Hoyt didn't even ask her about why Liam was being careful around her, course he was likely too busy telling wild stories about whatever mess he’d gotten involved in while he was away. She was just glad not to be the topic of conversation at a meal for once.

She felt her phone vibrating in her pocket while she was putting away the last of the dishes. Checking to make sure no one was paying attention to her, Lori ducked into the next room and pulled out her phone. The text was from an unknown number, but she knew who it was. Only one person would text her out of the blue like this without an introduction.

[Text from: Unknown]: Hey boo. You still in Austin? There’s a tourney starting next week and I’d love to put your name in the ring. Withdrew your entry fee from my bank account today xo

[Text to: Unknown]: Hey. Yeah, I am. I’m not sure if I can compete though; I’m under a little surveillance atm

[Text from: Unknown]: When has that ever stopped you before lol xo

[Text to: Unknown]: It’s different

[Text from: Unknown]: Come onnnnnnn

[Text from: Unknown]: It’s a massive payout. Big city, big names, big tournament. It’s all monsters right now though. They’ll flip if they get a hunter in. Massive bucks sweetie

[Text to: Unknown]: There’s always a massive payout

[Text from: Unknown]: Not like this. We’re talking almost 5 digits if you make it to the top

Okay, that was impressive. It would definitely come in handy when she met up with Dad again. They would definitely need the cash even if she didn’t have to pay bail this time.

[Text to: Unknown]: You know me so well

[Text from: Unknown]: Is that a yes?

[Text to: Unknown]: Duh

[Text to: Unknown]: Just get me the time and place

[Text from: Unknown]: I knew I could count on you xo

[Text from: Unknown]: I’ll get you the deets. Meet me in the locker room and we’ll discuss my cut

She wanted to respond but the number was blocked. Of course it was. That was how he operated. She’d never get used to that. He’d get her the address later, probably through email, and they’d just go from there. Like they always did.

All Lori had to do now was figure out how to sneak out….

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

One day, Lori was going to suggest the Walkers invest in a security system that wasn’t accessible through a smart device. She’d have to figure out how to bring that up without mentioning she’d been able to bypass the alarms on Cordell’s phone with relative ease first though.

Regardless, she was out and headed for her destination. Why are these things always held in the most out of the way place possible? she thought as she entered the abandoned warehouse. She worked her way through the crowd, holding her duffle bag with her gear close to her chest, and headed for the locker room area. Once she was there, she got dressed and checked her first aid supply while she waited

“I was afraid you might back out,” came the all too familiar voice.

“Like I’d ever squelch on a deal with you,” Lori replied with a grin. She turned around and there he was, standing uncomfortably close as usual. “How’s the crowd looking?”

Darian grinned. “Very good turnout. I worked the room a bit, lot of people looking forward to seeing you in the cage. And, get this, they put you against a Were for your first fight!”

Of course they did. Hunter v. Monster fights drew a crowd as it was. Pitting a Hunter against their Thing? Pure gold. “Do you know anything about them?”

He shrugged. “Just that he’s a small thing with a big temper. It’s not his first rodeo but he’s not as well known as you. A lot of people are betting on you to win.”

“I take it you tossed your hat into that ring too?”

Darian smirked. “Always. Don’t worry, you’ll get your cut of that once you get to the top.”

Classic Darian, working all the possible angles. He was a smart guy, for a shapeshifter. She was about to respond when the fighting bell rang and her name was called over the loudspeakers.

“Showtime, babygirl. Make me proud!” Darian waved her off as she headed for the arena.

Lori took a deep breath and her mind cleared as she entered the cage. The crowd roared and she let it all wash over her. The sounds, the lights, the smells, everything. This was it. In here, she wasn’t a pitiable soul taken in by a friend. She wasn’t a reminder of her mother. She wasn’t a forgotten soul in the wasteland of The System. Here, she was Lori fucking Graves, one of the best fighters in the ring and the youngest hunter in the system. She was a badass, an icon, the love-to-hate-em fave. And she owned it.

The bell rang and the fight was on. Werewolves were tricky because of their claws and teeth, especially when she didn’t have a weapon of her own. But she’d been in worse situations before. A swift kick to the nuts took him to his knees and gave her the chance to land a few solid punches to his face before he got back up. A part of her couldn’t wait to see the bruises later. The larger part of her was regretting she couldn't run away faster when he lifted her above his head and threw her at the chain-link wall. That was going to smart later. But she could handle it.

Punch, kick, jab, punch, dodge, swerve, punchkickjabdodgepunchkickswerve and on it and on it went. Once she got into a rhythm, she could work off muscle memory and fall into a state of near zen. This is why she loved the fights. This is why she’d never walk away. This is why the payout was always worth it. This is why working around the bruises and scrapes would always be worth it, no matter who she was with.

It felt glorious.

Her opponent was tiring out and she took advantage of that to elbow him in the face and knock him to the ground with a kick to the shin. She pinned him down and spit in his face while the ref counted her.

She won.

She was bloody and bruising and she was definitely sleeping in tomorrow.

But she won.

“Excellent work, darling.” Darian smiled proudly and gently clapped her on the shoulder as she stepped out the ring. “Payout for tonight is $915. Well, minus my cut, of course….” He handed Lori the cash and she stuffed it in her bag.

“Thanks. When’s the next one?”

“They’re gonna finish out the first round over the next couple days. I’ll text you the morning of so you have time to figure out your excuses.”

Lori shouldered her duffle bag and made her way to the back exit. “Alright. I’ll see you then.”

It was a long walk back home, but the bills she counted later were more than worth it. She just had to figure out how she was going to hide the evidence from the rest of the house…..

#whumptober2021 #no.6 #bruises #walker #oc #fic #cage fights #secrets #shady deals #shapeshifter

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lilbit-of-kizzy · 4 years ago

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Hey so Ethan/@crankgameplays posted a video about his allergy scares last week and I just had a chance to watch it and I have things to say!! This is long but I urge you to read it (and call me out if I'm wrong!! I tried to look up things I wasn't sure about!!)

So here is a long/basic allergy tutorial from someone who has allergies and a mother who worked for an allergist for many years as a nurse!

Histamines: these are what cause your basic allergic reactions, they cause the swelling and the itching. Most people for example are allergic to mosquitoes, and have a histomic reaction to the mosquito bite. Mosquitoes release a substance to technically numb the pain of the bite and most people are allergic to that substance and therefore have an allergic reaction. Your histamines cause that reaction, an itch and swelling. Some people are highly allergic to mosquito bites and will have varying degrees of an histomic reaction, I'm sure there's some people out there who have anaphylactic reactions to mosquitoes.

Antihistamines: basically tell your histamines to chill out. They come in varying strengths from your daily pill (Zyrtec, Xyzal, Allegra, Claritin) to your emergency or once in a while pill (like Benadryl). For example some people who have bad reactions to poison ivy will take a Benadryl, while people with a dust or pollen allergy might take Zyrtec everyday.

Epinephrine: epinephrine is a type of adrenaline. The reason that Ethan said it doesn't cause a real problem if you don't need it, is because he's never had it when he didn't need it. You will have the racing heart and other symptoms that come with a rise in adrenaline. While you probably won't bleed out from an epi needle, because you or whoever will be able to put pressure on it and it's not that big of a hole, you can cause hypertension and death if it happens to go into a vein (which is hard to do but can happen, use it on the outter thigh). Ethan never had any symptoms when his was used when he "didn't really need it", because his heart rate was already slowed/sped up so the rise in heart rate and other symptoms of an adrenaline boost didn't register, because he did technically need it. He's right that if you accidentally give it you'll probably be fine, but you still want to call a doctor and make them aware of the situation and let them decide what you need to do.

Other types of allergic reactions: We all know the classic signs, itchy, throat/other kinds of swelling, eyes watering/itching etc. But you can also have: coughing, sneezing, sniffly nose, itchy palms/bottoms of your feet, nausea, vomiting, severe diarrhea, heartburn/indigestion/acid reflux, itchy mouth/insides (the weirdest one honestly) and others. None of these necessarily mean you're going into anaphylactic shock, in fact there are very few allergens that cause anaphylactic shock. Things like insect stings/bites, nut allergies, and dairy/egg allergies are some of the worst for anaphylaxis. Other things can cause it but those are your worst offenders. Most other allergies are just annoying, they can be debilitating sometimes but they're not necessarily going to cause death.

What to do if you experience allergies: go see an allergist! Even if you're like "well it's only for like a month I get a little sniffly" still go! You may think you just constantly have a heartburn when you eat one food, but you could be allergic to it and there are ways to avoid the heartburn so you can still eat your favorite foods! Don't be afraid of the allergy test, there are two, one where they prick your back and one where they test your blood. The blood test doesn't test as much as the prick test though, and most normal doctor's offices will go with the blood test, so be sure to see an allergist. They'll ask a lot of questions to try and figure out what you might be allergic to, to figure out what they ought to put in the test. Then they put little drops of the allergen onto itty bitty little needles and prick your back. There are going to be one or two places where it's going to "hurt" but for the most part it's like running your fingernail over a spot of skin. Make sure you bring some hydrocortisone with you to slather all over your back when they're done, but make sure they tell you they're done before you do that!! Tell them that's what you're going to do. They'll honestly probably do it for you. They then measure the size of each reaction to determine whether or not you are allergic to a substance and whether or not that's what's bothering you. (So if you put hydrocortisone on before they're done they won't get an accurate measure) It's actually kinda of neat to see yor back all splotchy lol. Some allergies can be fixed with shots, which are not as bad as they seem, some just need daily medication.

Different allergies: if someone tells you they are allergic to a food and then proceed to eat the food you don't necessarily need to panic. I, for example, am allergic to rice. But I don't have an anaphylactic response, it just upsets my stomach if I eat too much. Before I figured out what was wrong I was throwing up almost daily. While there's no specific shot or pills for rice, getting all my other allergies in check helped the rice not be so bad. I was also allergic to dust which there are shorts for, and once I got that under control, stopped eating rice all the time, and started taking an acid reflux medication, I was able to start eating rice again without any problems (again as long as I didn't eat it all the time) When it comes to environmental allergies there often are shots for those. These can also cause some pretty serious reactions but don't usually cause anaphylaxis. I said I was allergic to dust and if I've been off of my meds and shots for a long time and I touch a surface with dust on it my hands will actually burn. It's extremely painful but nothing I need to go to the hospital for.

Allergy shots: these are really not anywhere near as bad as you might think they would be. They're once weekly shots that are teeny teeny tiny needles, it's the medication that hurts and even that isn't that bad. Especially not if it keeps my hands from burning, or someone who has anaphylactic reactions to bee stings from dying. They also tend to "cure" you of your allergies, my dust allergy has been reduced from a 9+ on the scale all the way down to 5. So while I'm still allergic to dust, it doesn't burn me if I go off my meds, it's just very itchy and gives me headaches. (They're also in the testing phases for a peanut shot!! Still have a long way to go on that one though but at least they're working on one!)

One other thing to keep in mind, an epipen is not a solution to the problem, it's a slowdown on the timer to death. You still need to go to the hospital and you still need to get there as quickly as you can. Especially for things like peanuts and bee stings, which cause severe reactions and very quick death. If there's more than one person there you need to be calling 911 as you're giving the shot. Even if they just need to be watched as they come down off of the epi just in case. Ethan's right you can re-react the stuff up to 6 or more hours later. Whatever you ate/was injected into you has to make its way out of your body before you're reaction to it stops, all the emergency crew is doing is keeping you from dying while that happens. When they gave him so much Benadryl they were basically just trying to completely kill his histamines.

This is by no means a full course on allergy knowledge but it's what I have available from years of having allergies and living with a nurse, and I hope it helps any of you out there who aren't sure what's going on with you/need more knowledge!! Sorry it was so long 😅

TL;DR all allergies are different and need different care (also please read it lol)

(I did also post this in the comment section of that video! I just made it prettier here lol. This was made using the voice to text on my phone though so I apologize for any weirdness/grammar mistakes)

#crankgameplays #ethan nestor #unus annus #allergies #allergy advice #medical advice #seriously if i got something wrong call me on it #i wanna fix it

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

Text

Down with the Recipe, Bake from the Heart, 5/10 - Juno

Chapter summary: Dessert week will see bakers having to keep their cool as temperatures rise in and out of the tent, with a caramel signature, a coffee technical, and a white chocolate showstopper. Meanwhile, Asttina’s astrology app proves oddly prophetic, Tayce and Aurora get closer, but Lawrence’s nerves intensify after an accident with one of her bakes.

A/N: We’re at the halfway point! I really appreciate all the support from all of you so far! I hope you enjoy this chapter.

WEEK 5: DESSERT WEEK

I’m here to win a cake stand. I’m here to win a cake stand.

Tayce thought that if she kept repeating this in her head, maybe it would stick. Because she had a Star Baker badge now, so she’d proven she was a competitor, here to win; and that meant she had to keep being one of the top bakers, to stay in the spotlight. That way, she’d avoid slipping down the pack.

The problem was, all through the practise runs she’d baked for this week back at home, all that had been on her mind was Aurora.

She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t, so stop torturing yourself, Tayce.

When Tayce had suggested fake-flirting in the tent, she’d wondered if maybe she’d been reading the signs correctly. She’d noticed Aurora becoming a little flustered, a little tongue-tied, in her presence, and dared to hope for a second that maybe … just maybe …

She thought that mentioning faking it might give Aurora a chance to tell Tayce if she wanted it to be real, if she felt the same way. But Aurora’s nonchalant tone, the polite, business-like manner they’d discussed their boundaries, confirmed to Tayce that she didn’t.

So, here they were. Tayce was faced with the prospect of having to pretend that her very real feelings were just for the camera. Even if they went so deeply down that she ached at every touch, every smile …

I’m here to win a bloody cake stand!

Aurora had turned up to Norton Hall this week a little late this morning - trains delayed, groundbreaking - and sprinted past the rest of them, dragging her weekend case, as they waited to go into the tent for the Signature.

Around the common room, the other six bakers waited along with Tayce. Asttina was on her phone, her free hand in Bimini’s; Tia and Veronica had kicked off their shoes and put their legs onto the sofa, curling up together and watching something on Tia’s phone; while Lawrence had a paperback copy of Cujo in one hand, chuckling at intervals, and Ellie twirled a lock of hair between her fingers and watched the brilliant sunshine through the window, ignoring everyone else.

“Moon in Cancer, waxing,” Asttina said suddenly, nodding at her phone. “Co-star is reading me this week.”

“What does that even mean?” Bimini asked her.

“The moon is your emotional self, right? And Cancer is its home sign. And Cancer is all about emotions and being emotional. I think,” she added with a shrug. “I’m only a beginner. So anyone with Cancer in their big three will be feeling all the emotions right now.“

Tayce didn’t know where her moon was, but emotional was right.

Seeing Aurora again after the week back home restarted the ache in her chest at the knowledge her feelings were in vain. Aurora did not feel the same way about Tayce as Tayce did about Aurora.

If she did, she’d have told me that she didn’t want to fake anything.

Still, even though it was unrequited, part of her still looked forward to seeing Aurora again.There was nothing about her that hadn’t piqued her fascination. That dimple when she smiled made Tayce’s chest tingle. The nervous way she tucked locks of hair behind her ears and the way she would look away modestly when the judges came near her made Tayce want to just hold her …

But I’m here to win a cake stand!

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Tayce said to Asttina, “but I’m sure it’s riveting.”

“What’s your big three?”

Tayce huffed. “Not a clue. Not a Scooby Doo. I just know I’m a Gemini, baby. We get a lot of stick, but that’s because not many other signs can handle us!”

“Okay, well what is your birthdate? I can put your details into the -“

“Sorry!” Aurora careered into the room, pausing for breath, and as soon as she did, the producer opened the door to call them to the tent for the Signature.

Tayce’s big three, whatever that meant, would have to wait.

——

Signature: 6 Creme Brûlées with set caramel discs

This week had been hot, and this weekend was forecast to be just as hot. All they’d been subjected to on telly and the news had been this week would have record-breaking temperatures, warmest May since last year probably, and pictures of people crowding at Brighton beach on the front pages as if sunshine was news.

We only get one nice weekend a year, and now we’re in a tent.

Tayce always hated the way the most intricate, delicate challenges always seemed to happen when the temperature was high, making all the bakes melt in the tent. It was always that one week where there was a heatwave especially prepared for the Bake Off, and this seemed like it would be that week.

Oh yeah. And the Signature is creme brûlée. Great idea.

It was still quite early in the morning, but the tent was already starting to feel like a greenhouse. Eight bodies in the room, not including the judges, was already starting to drive the temperature up, along with the beaming sunlight, not to mention the ovens and hobs when they would all start to light up for baking -

“On your marks -“

“Get set -“

“BAKE!”

Tayce grabbed for her ingredients. She’d made this creme brûlée recipe two or three times, and it hadn’t normally gone quite right, so she was not expecting to have a repeat of last week, when she’d won Star Baker.

Now that Cherry had left, she was right behind Veronica, and could see the exact regimental order that Veronica had everything. Her ingredients were split around the workbench in order that she would use them, with the caramel ingredients for the caramel disc right at the far end. Each timer she had - and she still used all five - was set up differently, with the one on the far left being the time for the whole round, but the rest timed for individual parts of each challenge.

Everyone was struggling with the heat. Even Asttina, right at the front, normally cool as a cucumber, was letting out frustrated noises, becoming more irritated the longer the bake went on. The cameras seemed to all be on her this week, as she clutched at her hair and stomped around the tent to the tea machine at intervals.

Lawrence too, to everyone’s surprise, was having an off-week. Whenever pans fell to the ground, everyone always just expected it to be Ellie, who didn’t seem to realise that she was about 70% limbs; but this week it was Lawrence who dropped the pan - and once she’d dropped one, every other kitchen implement seemed to slip through her fingers.

Then Tayce looked at Aurora, and her jaw fell to the floor.

That smile, that dazzling smile, the dimple visible from this distance; her hair tied off her face and neck, calmly mixing her custard ingredients, merrily humming as she heated up the sugar for her caramel discs, not really saying a word to anyone.

Aurora was calm, poised and accurate, like a Stepford Wife.

Tayce’s whole body tingled for a few moments as she realised that the happy aura she was exuding was contagious.

“How are you getting on?” Tayce said, walking over and leaning into Aurora’s side.

Aurora let out a contented hum. “Pretty good. Crème brûlées look good and so does my competition!” She glanced at Tayce through her eyelashes, as Tayce’s insides turned to jelly.

She’s a good actress, I’ll give her that. She’ll definitely convince the audience.

And Aurora’s calm mood continued all the way through, despite everyone else in here seeming to be falling apart. Tayce’s first caramel refused to thicken, and the second crystallised, but the third batch worked - finally, she said to herself - and she was able to harden it just in time for the discs for her creme brûlées.

It was a close shave.

At the front, Asttina slumped against the back of Lawrence’s workbench, dropping from view so fast that the medics hovered, thinking she’d fainted; but as Tayce approached her, after Bimini and Tia had already rushed in, it was plain to see she was fine, physically at least. She sat against the cupboards, sighing, as the others crouched around her.

“Bloody caramel,” Asttina pointed to the pan, still on the hob, “it’s my Achilles heel.”

Tayce peered into the pan, where the sugar had completely crystallised, just as her own had earlier; and all of Asttina’s creme brûlées were just setting custard, without the caramel disc on the top.

——

“Alright, Tayce,” Paul said, as they came to her for the judging, “you’re up. Tell us again the flavour of your creme brûlées.”

Tayce waited for the camera to point in her direction as they had all been instructed to do, before she opened her mouth to speak. “They’re blackberry-flavoured, and the caramel is salted and also flavoured with coffee.”

She watched, holding her breath, releasing it when the caramel disc cracked at Paul’s spoon hitting it - one of the main judging points for this dessert - and waiting as patiently as she could while the judges were tasting.

“Good flavours this week - custard hasn’t quite set, but the caramel gave a great crack, and the sweetness of the blackberries is nicely off-set by the salt in the caramel and the bitterness of the coffee.”

“Great job this week, Tayce.” Prue added. “Just needed a little longer for the custard and it would have been fantastic. Thank you.”

“Thank you!” Tayce grinned, as the judges moved away from her.

Noel hovered for a second, the cameras still on him. “I’m taking this one to go, alright Tayce?” He said, picking up the nearest dessert and walking off.

They all had to continue waiting for the judges and cameras to set up for Aurora, who was last to be judged. Tayce relaxed on the stool, as Veronica looked over at her.

“Well done on the feedback,” she whispered, giving Tayce a rare smile.

Veronica had started to talk to her a little more since Cherry had gone, no more people between them; and although Aurora didn’t seem to like her too much yet, Tayce thought she didn’t seem that bad.

“And you, too,” Tayce grinned back at her. “You and Tia got some good comments this week!”

“Everyone seems to be this week, apart from … well.” Veronica glanced to the other side, and Tayce hummed in agreement. Everyone on the other side had had poorer feedback this week, although still kind as always; but Asttina, Lawrence and Ellie all looked dejected at their comments.

Only Aurora was left to be judged, and Tayce watched the judges crack into the caramel disc and take their first tastes of her creme brûlées.

“The cinnamon’s there.”

“Yes, and the apple flavouring is too. The caramel is not too sickly, and the texture is really nice and smooth.”

“It’s … pretty much spot on.” Paul nodded, his face the vague surprise that he normally wore when he tasted good bakes. “You nailed it. Good job.”

The whole room erupted into applause as Paul held out his hand to Aurora for the handshake, Aurora’s jaw dropping in delight, Tayce finding herself making the most noise of anyone in whoops and applause.

Wow. I’m keen.

——

“Congratulations on the handshake!” Tayce smiled at her in the common room. “I said I wasn’t going to eat loads more cakes and things while the competition was on, but I’ll make an exception for yours.”

“Tayce,” Aurora murmured, smiling and letting Tayce draw her to her side, looping her arm around her waist. “It’s - it’s nothing - dessert week! It was the last thing I expected, I didn’t know they’d like it that much!”

“A win’s a win, bitch! Don’t knock it!” Tayce smiled at her, picking up one of her creme brûlées in the ramekin. Aurora’s was good, although the caramel melting with the heat meant there wasn’t really a crack to the top any more.

As she turned to go back to sit down, Tayce almost walked into Lawrence, who was standing staring blankly at her own tray.

“Oh - sorry Lozza.”

Lawrence sighed. “It’s alright. I’m just -“

But she didn’t finish her sentence, putting a hand to her mouth and chewing her finger, still staring. Tayce took a moment to really look at Lawrence, the vibrant purple of her hair slowly fading as the weeks went on, the rings around her eyes deepening.

“You were all nerves today, girl! What’s with that? You’re always so bleeding confident! Where’s that Lawrence gone?” Tayce followed her as she walked away, out into the sunshine again, away from everyone else.

“Just - I’ve just been really dreading this week,” Lawrence muttered, her voice starting to creep higher. “Desserts, caramel, all that shit - it just really makes me annoyed that I can’t do it -“

Her voice broke as she put her hand to her forehead to cover her eyes, but there was no hiding the way her shoulders shook. Tayce shuffled for a second, chewing her tongue, wondering what she could do, before resting a hand on Lawrence’s shoulder and squeezing it gently when she didn’t have it thrown off.

“Sorry - I don’t know why I’m this upset -“ Lawrence took a couple of breaths, turning her eyes to the sky to stop herself crying any more. “I just want to be good at things and when I’m not …”

“You just … panicked a bit I think,” Tayce said, “and then you panicked more because you were already panicking. You need to relax a bit! It’s just a baking show! You’re here to win a cake stand!”

Lawrence let out an exasperated snort. “We can’t all be like you. You’re practically fucking horizontal.”

Tayce laughed, although she wasn’t sure how funny Lawrence was trying to be.

——

Technical: Tiramisu cake

The Technical challenge didn’t see Lawrence looking any more sure of herself.

Tayce found herself keeping an eye on Lawrence more than she’d expected to, a small pang of sympathy for her growing in her gut. Her movements were cautious, tentative at first, but once Lawrence had knocked another pan over, she was off again. Her hands were shaking even from this distance, her moans of frustration turning into growls.

The problem was, the bake was so hard that no one really wanted to leave their workbenches and go to help her. Asttina turned around once or twice to watch her and ask if she was alright, which was batted away by Lawrence with a dismissive wave; but when the third one was met with a harsher tone than any of them had heard from Lawrence, Asttina promptly turned back to her own bake, and didn’t disturb her again.

With ten minutes to go, Tayce watched Lawrence slump against the back of Ellie’s workbench and slide to the ground. Ellie batted away the cameramen to run round her own to sit with her, and as Tayce peered over she could see that Lawrence was fine - physically - just sat against the cupboards with a look of utter despair on her face.

By contrast, Tayce glanced at Aurora, in her own world, taking her perfectly-risen cake from the oven and wafting it with a cool baking tray, looking completely composed and unruffled.

What the actual shit is going on?

Ellie was muttering into Lawrence’s ear, waving her hands emphatically; and Tia, her own bake already on the tray, cautiously approached them both too, crouching to Lawrence’s level to offer some comfort too.

In a few moments, Lawrence was nodding, rising back to her feet, and grabbing her glass of water.

Once the bakes were done, all loaded onto the trays to take to their photographs, Tayce stole a glance at Aurora’s. It looked incredible, immaculate and neat. Tayce’s own was sinking a little, but Aurora’s could have come from M&S. Maybe it had. Maybe she’d taken a leaf from Joe’s book.

She followed Aurora to the table, placing hers behind her photo, before turning to Aurora and mouthing well done in her direction, to watch her tuck her hair behind her ear and smile in response.

But before they had made it back to their benches, there was a gasp, a clatter - and Tayce turned to see half of Lawrence’s tiramisu cake on the ground, the other half intact but dripping from the side of the plate, having slid partially off it.

On her right, Ellie had blanched, a hand at her chest - a hand with a smear of cake over the back of it.

——

“I saw a fly. I saw a fly. I saw a fly.”

“We know, Ellie.” But Aurora’s exasperated words didn’t stop Ellie’s stream of thought.

“It was a fly. I saw a fly. Just a wee fly.”

Lawrence hadn’t been marked down on the fact that Ellie had knocked half of her cake off the tray; she’d been marked on quality of the rest of it - but she’d still come seventh, the first real bomb she’d had in the Technical challenge. Ellie, ironically, had had a really good week, coming first, just beating Tayce in second and Aurora at third.

But it didn’t look like Ellie would be celebrating any time soon, as she stared into space and repeated the same words over and over.

As soon as they’d all gone into the hall after they’d left the tent, everyone had tried to comfort Lawrence, although she’d maintained her stoic indifference, nodding and saying “it’s fine” to everyone. But the moment Ellie had come in her line of sight, her eyes had clouded over and she’d turned, sweeping from the room back outside.

Since then, Ellie had just sat glassy-eyed, looking at the picture on the wall opposite them and mumbling to herself about the fly she’d tried to swat away from the cakes, resulting in her knocking Lawrence’s.

“I’m gonna go look for a …” Ellie said flatly, standing up, but she didn’t finish her sentence, seeming to float away from them in a dream.

“Rory!” Tayce said. “What’s going on today! This is the first time I seen you when you haven’t been a bundle of nerves! Has someone spiked your cup of tea?”

“No!” Aurora giggled, waving a hand at Tayce. “Just … you know, remembering to enjoy my time here.”

Aurora was looking at Tayce through her eyelashes, a coy smile starting, and Tayce would never have admitted just how much her insides turned to liquid at her gaze.

“It seems to be working in your favour,” Tayce purred. “You came third in Technical, you got a Hollywood handshake for your Showstopper - next you’ll be getting a Star Baker badge just like me! And then we’ll be even!”

“Yeah, well,” Aurora grinned, “that’s the plan! Draw even with you, and then overtake you!”

Tayce threw back her head in sudden laughter. “Not gonna happen, babe.”

“Oh, no?” Aurora giggled, nudging Tayce’s foot with hers. “Game on, babe!”

——

Tayce woke far too early the next morning. She opened one eye a sliver, and saw the time was quarter to five. Much too early to get up. Sunlight was starting to edge at the curtains, not enough light to indicate the start of the day.

But the room looked a little unfamiliar, as if the furniture had been altered slightly. And as her brain cleared from sleepy fog, she realised why.

Shit. I’m in Aurora’s room!

The others had been drinking last night. After Ellie had come back in, tugging Lawrence with her, she’d fished in her bag for a bottle of something and they’d started some drinking game, but Tayce wasn’t in the mood to drink loads, and had leapt at the chance to join Aurora in her room again, for more Netflix.

She didn’t remember what time she and Aurora had fallen asleep together, nestled in the duvet, an episode of something playing in the background - but she vaguely remembered waking up briefly to Aurora’s face before her, her brown eyes soft as they silently searched Tayce’s for something.

It had felt like a dream, but now it was definitely a nightmare.

Once she saw her outline in the bed beside her, a silhouette draped in a halo of dawn light, Tayce sighed.

I can’t be getting in this deep with her. She doesn’t feel the same way. And I’m here to win a bloody cake stand!

She slipped out of the bed as gently as she could, pulled her jeans on from where she’d discarded them at the side of the bed at some point in the night, and pattered to the doorway, hoping the slow creak of her door would not wake Aurora, followed by a thud as it closed again.

Once she was back in her own room, she leaned against the door, the gravity of this situation starting to creep over her skin.

Tayce sighed.

This is going to be an interesting day.

Saying that, Tayce knew as soon as the rest of them had traipsed downstairs for their breakfast, that she and Aurora were probably the least hungover of the group. Tayce was alone at first, tucking into her beans on toast - god-tier breakfast, with a squidge of ketchup on the side - but as soon as Lawrence made an appearance, her face slightly grey, she’d swallowed hard and turned away to the tea machine.

Asttina and Bimini, coming back from their hangover run, looked more tired than anyone had seen either of them.

“No personal bests today, folks,” Bimini muttered, shaking their head as they and Asttina passed Tayce, who shrugged and continued scooping beans into her mouth.

“How long did you all stay up for, Lozza?” Tayce called across the room, but Lawrence uttered a groan and shook her head in response.

“Too fucking long.” Lawrence came over to Tayce, dragging her feet, pulling the chair out and dropping into it. “Asttina and Bimini went to bed, and then Veronica - of all people - challenged me to Truth or Drink.”

“Oh, right.” Tayce picked up her cup of tea.

Lawrence took a deep breath, staring at the tablecloth. “She asked me about Ellie.”

Tayce almost choked on the sip of tea. She hadn’t expected Lawrence to acknowledge the fact that Tayce had walked into Norton Hall last week after Technical, to find Lawrence and Ellie leaping apart from each other across to opposite ends of the sofa.

“What about Ellie?” Tayce said finally.

“You know already.” Lawrence sighed. “Yeah, we’ve gotten a little close.”

“But how did Veronica know that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just say I took drink. Instead of truth.” Lawrence shook her head again.

"Do you want to talk about Ellie now?” Tayce asked.

Lawrence rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I mean she’s - yeah. I kind of … ah, I don’t know. I mean, she’s great. But …” Lawrence sighed. “She’s probably got someone at home.”

“You don’t know unless you try,” Tayce said.

Pot, meet kettle. But Tayce pushed that thought away.

“And I know she didn’t mean to knock my cake over, I just got upset because of how close we’d gotten.” Lawrence’s gaze was downcast. “This contest starts to fuck with your head after a while.”

“You did look like you’d forgiven Ellie before I’d gone to bed, let me tell you,” Tayce said, raising an eyebrow.

“What are you talking about,” Lawrence said weakly.

In the last couple of weekends, Tayce had noticed they would steal glances at each other when they were not within a six foot radius, somehow always at the same time, meeting each other’s eyes and then looking away again. As if just to make sure the other was alright. And they’d been doing plenty of that last night, lots of surreptitious glances at each other, when they thought no one was looking, giving each other secret smiles that lit up their eyes.

“Oh,” Tayce shrugged, “nothing much.”

——

Showstopper: White chocolate cake with at least two layers and one additional flavour.

Tayce still didn’t know why the British weather always waited until a complicated challenge to turn up the heat, but it did, and the Showstopper challenge - making white chocolate cakes - was taking place on an apparently record-breaking day for the weather.

No one was having a good day. Asttina was doing more growling and stomping to the tea tent, where a water cooler had also been provided. Veronica and Tia were fanning each other with baking trays. Bimini, who had turned up in some high fashion suit, was peeling layers off the longer the day went on. Ellie was wiping sweat from her brow with her forearm and plaiting her thick blonde hair to tie it off her neck.

Only Aurora seemed to be unruffled. She was quieter than the previous day, no longer humming, but the dreamy smile was still on her face, that single dimple maddeningly smug. Even though her eyes narrowed a little every time Tayce caught a glance from her, so she couldn’t have been entirely happy herself.

By the mid-point of the Showstopper, Lawrence was in tears, shaking over the workbench, a camera lens approaching her slowly. Ellie, who had been alarmingly quiet all day, almost leapt over her own bench, swearing aloud a few times to make the cameramen’s footage unusable, before seizing Lawrence’s shoulder and marching her out the tent.

It was hard to make out what they were saying to each other. Ellie was gesticulating wildly while Lawrence ran a hand over her hair, coming out of her usual tight bun at the crown of her head. Tayce wasn’t the only one watching them - all the cameras and the contestants were too, peering through the clear plastic of the tent. Eventually, Lawrence nodded, wiped her eyes, and seemed to grow in height by three inches, while Ellie grinned at her, following her back into the tent.

Not entirely convinced, Tayce followed Lawrence to the tea tent as she left to make herself a fresh cup of tea.

“Lozza, you’re starting to worry me a bit now, and you know what you said, I’m horizontal. Tell me what’s going on, girl.”

Lawrence huffed, shaking her head in exasperation, but at herself.

“Ellie’s just … I’m just remembering what I can do, you know? I need to remember that just because my mind’s telling me that I can’t do something, it doesn’t mean that I actually can’t.”

“Yeah!” Tayce clapped her on the back. “That’s right! You’re Lawrence Chaney! You can do anything!”

Lawrence resumed the exasperated shake of her head, but now, she was grinning, and not her normal wry, comedic grin, but one that softened her eyes, some aura of serenity returning to her.

“I can’t put mental boundaries on myself,” she said, “because that’s what’s holding me back. It’s the fucking fences up here.” She turned to Tayce, tapping her forehead. “And I’m not gonna be told by someone I can’t do something, and let it rule my life, because I can.”

“What’s going on here? Pep talk, is it?” Bimini entered the tea tent, holding their own mug and Asttina’s, looking between them both curiously.

“Bimini, I have to ask,” Tayce said, unable to hold it in any longer, “what is this fashion today? I like it - I’m just wondering what the inspiration is.”

Bimini’s apron hid some of the outfit, but it consisted of a black suit and white shirt with braces, along with a monocle, for some reason.

“What, this old thing?” Bimini teased. “It’s a cross between Vivienne Westwood and Noel Fielding as The Hitcher in The Mighty Boosh. You remember that show, right? I was watching it on Netflix last week.”

“And you chose the day when it’s hotter than Satan’s sauna to wear that?” Lawrence blinked.

“Well I didn’t know it was gonna be this hot!” Bimini laughed. “Just my luck, innit?”

——

There were several disasters in the tent today. Not only was white chocolate notoriously hard to bake well into a cake anyway, but the heat melted a lot of them into mush, and meant that so many decorations were melting away into nothing.

Everyone had mediocre critiques from the judges, mainly because the heat had turned their creations into gloopy messes. Bimini’s dark chocolate sculpture and scroll decorations were dissolving into the cake, while Asttina’s caramel had crystallised yet again, her frustration evident from her folded arms and huffs. Ellie whose Showstoppers were always incredible, had her spun sugar disappear, leaving a stain on top of her cake.

When Tayce looked at Aurora, she’d barely noticed any of the critiques, gazing at her own bake, which got the best feedback by far. She might have put a protective bubble around hers, with how perfect it still looked at tasting.

This is so weird. She’s in her own little world.

“What’s the deal, Rory?” Tayce asked her as they filed out the tent, letting the judges deliberate as they waited outside. “You’re not melting in this heat!”

“Don’t know!” She shrugged, still smiling. “Just feel good about my bakes!”

Anyone leaving this week would be a loss, Tayce realised, watching everyone else separating into their pairs on this humid day, looking for shelter among the trees around the grounds. But she knew it wouldn’t be Aurora. In fact, she’d be surprised if she wasn’t getting a badge this week.

None of them wanted to go back into the tent. After the early evening shade and breeze started to cool them down outside, the balmy heat inside the tent felt too much. Everyone fanned themselves with their hands and baking trays until the judges came back in.

“We’ll make this as quick as possible for you to get out again,” Paul said, nodding to them, as they all started linking hands again. One long chain of bakers in a row, any link breaking now a loss to them all.

“I’ve got the great job this week of announcing who will be Star Baker.” Matt smiled sweetly at them all. “And this person was calm under the pressure cooker of the Signature, produced a perfect tiramisu cake, and didn’t bat an eyelid at white chocolate.”

Tayce felt Aurora’s nerves, radiating through her skin, on her right; while Asttina’s hand on her left was an iron grip, her feet jiggling against the stool.

“The Star Baker this week is Aurora! Congratulations!”

Aurora gave a squeak of joy, and Tayce grinned at her.

Well, she deserves it.

But when Aurora responded to her grin by looping an arm around her waist and giving her a peck on the lips - in front of the cameras, and the judges - Tayce kissed her back, their arrangement coming back to her in a rush along with every feeling she’d tried to contain.

The person to go home was still to be announced. Aurora turned to Lawrence, on her right, who was blanched and clenching her right hand so tightly her knuckles were white. Tayce reached behind Aurora to rub her back, and Lawrence held her breath.

They were all getting closer now. In fact, no one in this eight hadn’t grown very attached to someone else, Tayce realised with a jolt. Bimini, on Asttina’s left, looked grim, their lips pinched, letting Asttina lean into their arm. Veronica had let go of Tia to hold Lawrence’s right hand in both of hers.

“… Asttina. I’m so sorry.”

Tayce looked up to Asttina, but Asttina wasted no time in getting up and walking to Lawrence, pulling her into the tightest hug, her smile serene and no tears in her eyes.

“Well done,” she was saying, over and over, as Lawrence’s shoulders shook against her. “Well done. You’re doing amazing.”

One by one they all joined the hug, Bimini wiping their eyes with their thumb, the eight of them far too warm but far too close by now to let that matter. Asttina hugged them all briefly individually, leaving Bimini until last, before she left the tent for the exit interview.

Still no tears, peaceful and serene, blowing a kiss to them all.

——

“I thought she was gonna go to the end,” Bimini muttered, nursing their beer.

“I thought so too,” Aurora nodded.

“Says you, Miss Star Baker!” Bimini gave her an elbow in the ribs. “How the hell did you stay so calm, babes? I thought I was gonna explode with that heat. My mullet was catching fire.”

“Don’t know!” Aurora shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe I just found my groove!”

The three of them were alone. Tia and Veronica had already gone up to bed; Veronica citing her long trip back to Rochdale in the morning as an excuse for an early night. But no one had seen Lawrence or Ellie since the exit interviews.

“It feels really weird, everyone leaving,” Tayce said, looking around the room. “Remember when there were twelve of us here?”

“Yeah,” Bimini nodded.

“Far too many.”

“I agree,” Bimini chuckled. “Much better when you all leave so I can take the cake stand.”

Bimini didn’t stay up much later, standing and stretching before going up to their room, leaving Aurora with Tayce in the quiet of the evening, the windows open to encourage the slight breeze inside.

“I feel like I’m finally here,” Aurora said, running her hands through her hair. “Oh, god, I’m so glad I finally got a badge!”

“Congratulations, Aurora!” Tayce patted her knee, but Aurora’s stare was intent, searching her eyes. “What?”

“What made you leave this morning?”

The question took Tayce by surprise. Aurora’s smile was still there, but her eyes had narrowed slightly, her head cocked to the side. Why was Aurora asking about that? Surely she wouldn’t want to wake up next to Tayce, as they were only meant to be faking their flirting to the cameras.

“I just … I don’t know. Wanted to get ready for the day!”

Aurora’s stare was still intense, her eyes boring into Tayce’s as if waiting for her to flinch, and Tayce held her stare, even though she felt she should look away.

Eventually, Aurora leaned in to kiss Tayce, and Tayce responded with a chaste peck, but as Aurora pulled away again, she continued the same stare, a curious smile playing at her lips.

What’s she doing?

“We weren’t exactly doing anything that would make either of our mums upset. It was just nice, and I just wondered why you left me so early.”

But Tayce couldn’t deal with that sort of question right now. Not when her own mind wasn’t even sure of the answer.

This isn’t meant to be happening like this. It’s just for the cameras.

“I’m gonna get a bit of air.”

She stood without another word, making her way to the door of Norton Hall, stepping into the cooling evening. The sun still hadn’t completely set, the sky a pale lavender blue in the east, and the earlier clouds were parting, revealing a sprinkling of stars emerging.

Imagine living here permanently. When I’ve won this thing, and got my TV contract, maybe I’ll buy a place like this for the weekends.

She put her hand on the stone fence, imagining herself bringing out a yoga mat to stretch here in the evenings, with these stars and this calm and those two people on the grass before her -

Wait.

As she looked over the grounds, she could see two figures shadowed in the dying light of the day, laid on the grass at each others’ sides, and she knew it could only be Lawrence and Ellie, even without the purple of Lawrence’s hair, striking against Ellie’s blonde, intertwined in the grass.

So maybe she’d exaggerated to Aurora about what she’d seen last week. Maybe she hadn’t seen them actually sharing a kiss, more looking suspiciously close to. But this time she felt as if she was interrupting a moment. Soft laughter floated on the air towards Tayce, mostly Ellie’s, and she held her breath as she saw Lawrence roll to her side to meet her lips.

Oh, God, finally.

She found herself smiling. Deciding to leave them alone, she went back into the building, closing the door as quietly as she could

Asttina was right about this ‘waxing moon in Cancer’ stuff. Maybe I’ll actually download Co-Star.

——

SEVEN BAKERS REMAIN

#rpdr fanfiction #down with the recipe #juno #taywhora #tayce #a'whora #asttina mandella #bimini bon boulash #veronica green #tia kofi #lawrence chaney #ellie diamond #fluff #baking au #gbbo au #lesbian au #fake dating #uk2 #rpdr uk

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eevee-haze · 4 years ago

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Aight so It's... not news to literally anyone that I like Ink sans a lot as a concept, and his birthday is today, so I figured what better way to celebrate his birthday than to make a brand new AU (or at least post the info for it)! Or I guess three since I'm working on Swap and Fell variants for it as well.

One of my main questions about the Underground was "how do they handle seismic activity" which was how this AU started forming. It's probably not at all scientifically accurate in the least, but oh well. I call it Rifttale. Cause the earthquakes cause literal rifts in the mountain lmao. I'll put the rest under a read more since this'll get long.

The idea of Rifttale is that Mt Ebott is located on a fault line, and all the hollowing out the monsters had to do made the mountain extremely unstable, and that problem only increased the more the underground's population grew. It's pretty dangerous underground in Rifttale what with the constant threat of cave in due to poor structural integrity and the fact that they don't really have much to work with to make their homes and businesses quake resistant. A fair portion of houses get rubble rained down on them and something always needs fixing.

All four sections of the underground remain, but the layout and placement are different. (And probably larger scale) For example, Snowdin is located near the top of the mountain since snow from the peak falls in through the cracks left in the roof of the cavern, and Hotland is at the very bottom of the mountain, where lava has surged up from the seismic activity. Both Waterfall and New Home are around the mid section, but are separated by a thick wall of rubble that followed a quake that happened maybe days before Frisk fell.

Sans

The man of many jobs adds two more responsibilities to the list rather begrudgingly in this AU. As one of the only Monsters capable of gravity manipulation and teleportation in Snowdin, he and his brother are tasked with being emergency responders in case of an earthquake as well as assisting with any initial construction steps in order to make bridges across newly formed gaps. Sans often gets called to other regions for his services too, but he really doesn't appreciate it.

Frankly he's convinced the mountain's going to crush them before they get the final soul they need, which is part of why he agrees to keep Frisk safe so easily. He doubts anything will change about their predicament with or without them. A No-Mercy route in Rifttale would see him saying things like "Couldn't have waited for the mountain to get us?" Or "I think I would have preferred a cave-in."

Something Rift!Sans doesn't really tell people is that he's blind in his right eye. When he and Papyrus were little, he shielded Papyrus from falling rocks during a quake, and one of them got him good just above his right eye. Most of the injury healed but it left a nasty crack in his socket which prevented him from actually being able to see. He can light the socket, and does so strangers don't needlessly worry about him, but it can't light up all the way like his left does.

Papyrus

Ah yes the sunshine boy. Personality wise he's not that different in this AU. He still wants to be in the guard and he's still confident and friendly, but sometimes he gets a little subdued and worried about Sans since Rift!Sans is much more obvious about his emotional/mental struggles. Another notable part is that he's being kept out of the guard mostly because he's more useful in the emergency unit. He's strong and capable enough to be a guard, but he's too soft, so they gave him a job that was helpful while playing to his strengths.... though like a silly he doesn't see the admirers he has and still hopes to become a guardsman one day.

Frisk & Chara

These two are interesting in this AU. Chara was around 13-14 when they died and spent years underground with the Dreemurrs before their death. They have a strong distaste for their own kind for several reasons, among which being the way they were treated (that led them to run away in the first place) and the fact that they forced such nice creatures into what is essentially a death trap.

They're a bit of a gremlin, but they're certainly not all bad like they consider themself to be.

Frisk on the other hand is a quiet child of roughly nine years. Adventurous and curious, but also blind. They hadn't seen the hole when they were exploring and ended up falling down. They rely on Chara to lead them around the more treacherous parts of the underground since they can't see it. (Chara is able to touch Frisk and tends to tug them by the wrist when guiding them.) Chara starts off really unhappy about guiding them, and depending on the route will even refuse to do so, not that it matters in a No-Mercy route. That's because in the No-Mercy route the Player is more of an active component. Frisk physically can't fight back on their own, and Chara would never help them do so. Essentially the Player is just an entity used by us creators to manipulate Frisk into a No-Mercy route since it wouldn't happen otherwise.

Asriel & Flowey

Personality wise the two really aren't all that different. Asriel is the slightest bit more skittish thanks to his timid nature and the uncertainty that comes with the constant tremors, and Flowey is the slightest bit more bearable. He still doesn't have much in the way of emotions, but it's pretty obvious their situation is bleak without him making it worse (As such, while he has tried No-Mercy in the past, most of his runs were seeing what effects smaller changes had. The volatile environment made it interesting regardless).

Though he's notably far more annoyed about losing his save and reload powers in Rifttale because he'd been in the middle of trying something when Frisk fell.

On the more technical side, Flowey doesn't tend to get around much when there aren't bridges over the chasms. While he can cross them himself, its a pain if they're too awfully wide. This means that the severe quakes tended to impede him a lot.

Toriel & Asgore

As a result of the meddling Flowey was doing, Toriel reclaimed her place as Queen and has been talking things over with her husband about everything that happened. Stuck in the ruins she hadn't gotten the news that Asgore amended his statement later on to say that they would only take the souls of humans that fell if they were hostile or after they died of natural causes. None of the children who fell were killed by monsters. (Many died in partial cave-ins or from falling into lava or the like, though so a quick death from a monster likely would have been preferable.)

Toriel still thinks that going out and just collecting the remaining souls they need would be faster, but Asgore argued a few points on that such as doing so likely angering the humans and giving them a further negative bias as well as the fact that whoever went to get the souls may well die like their children did.

They're still working things out but it's better than how it was before.

Toriel still spends a lot of her time in the ruins, but now its more out of a sense of duty since most of the children fell into the ruins first. She actually guides Frisk up until they meet Sans where she passes escorting them to him since he is more capable of ensuring their safety, and she needs to hurry ahead to make preparations for their stay and inform Asgore.

Alphys

Predictably not much different personality wise. She's actually one of the safer monsters since she never leaves her lab and it's reinforced to withstand rockfalls to some degree, not to mention the basement level with the true lab in it (though its hot as heck down there cause of the magma nearby.) Her primary goal is more geared toward keeping the underground as stable as possible so that they can hopefully last until they get the last soul. That's not to say the amalgamates don't exist, they do, but she's at least been looking busy as sort of an excuse why she hasn't answered back any of the letters. No time for mail when she's trying to save people, after all.

Undyne

Captain of the Royal guard, still. The guard does still exist, it's just less numerous and has more focus on recruiting strong members. After all they exist in case a hostile human arrives instead. So naturally Undyne is even more of a badass than normal, and she's ready in the event of a No-Mercy run. Even in a pacifist playthrough she's a bit wary of Frisk, notably not wanting to leave Alphys alone with them in case they were hiding their true intentions. This means she's the one who ends up escorting the human through the first little bit of Hotland after Waterfall, whereupon Mettaton would take over.

Mettaton

Considering a Human-killing robot was no longer needed, he was created with maneuverability in mind. The idea was that he could help others when needed, much like the emergency rescue portion of the guard, but Mettaton much preferred to focus on his career of course. He’s part of the reason Sans keeps being called to help out in other regions which gets him a healthy amount of resentment from the older skeleton.

Gaster

No major story involvement, but he does have plot importance. Gaster was the Skelebro’s father, and while he made them artificially, he did care about them a lot. Not much about him still remains and very few remember any details about him since he was quite a reclusive skeleton. He was close friends with the Riverperson however, so that’s who ended up essentially raising the two skeletons after Gaster fell into the Core. They provided for them despite being gone a lot.

Misc. Details

Children that stayed for an extended period were often called the “New Hope” a term coined when Chara first became a part of the Dreemurr family

Not all children opted to stay with the royal family, hence their belongings being stored in different regions

There were hostile humans that fell as well, but most met their fate in the lava and their souls were burnt up before they could be retrieved.

Frisk had fairly negligent parents. They weren’t outright abusive, but they really didn’t pay much attention to them.

Portions of the Waterfall part of the Underground have large nets bridging the gaps to catch the garbage that falls down that way nothing gets wasted falling into the chasms.

The Delta Rune on Sans’s coat is a reflective sticker. They told him he needed to wear something reflective for visibility’s sake and because he wasn’t willing to mess up his jacket, nor go without it, he cheated the system.

Papyrus wears a battle body just like normal, but he hot-glued some of the reflective material from human clothing that ended up falling down onto it so that he could both look cool and follow rules

Despite being a very neat and cleanly skeleton, Papyrus often ends up dirty as a consequence of his job. Because of that he takes care to meticulously clean both himself and the house before they go to bed.

#undertale #undertale au #reference #new au i guess #rifttale #utmv #happy birthday inky ily #abuse implied #with chara's bg that is #neglect mention #it's a lot of minor changes but i love this au okay

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 4 years ago

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So in looking at my last post, it seems that the image zoomed in enough that I can finally read this damn text here:

So the shop name is ACTUALLY Ninashito (ニナシト) Momiji (黄葉), a garment / clothes shop. Which makes WAY more sense. Still can’t read the lower sign enough, but it’s probably the specific name of the office that I mentioned… a shame, I wanted to find out the name just in case it was something interesting, but alas.

Also, I realized there were translations I didn’t touch from the beginning of the chapter, so if you want to skip ahead, just scroll down to the title card / text.

Top sign: 英会話 (eikaiwa) [school for English conversation]

I should note, however, that one of the alternate translations for that first kanji is ‘hero’, so this could also mean ‘hero talk’ - an actual pun has been found! :D

Middle sign: フシャ(Fusha/Fushiya) 薬局 (yakkyoku) [Pharmacy]

Bottom sign: 渡辺 (Onabe/Tarinabe) 会計 (kaikei) [accounting/finances] 事務所 (jimusho) [office]

Used Nanori pronunciation for the first one, since that was the company/family name. I’m sure there’s a ‘more correct’ translation based on whichever one has alternative kanji that make a pun of some kind, but I can’t be bothered.

Bridge sign: 田 (den) [rice paddy, field] 等 (tou) [etc., and so forth, class (first), quality, equal, similar] 院 (in) [Inst., institution, temple, mansion, school] 駅 (eki) [station]

While I could fumble around for a rough translation, I remembered to look for Star Wars puns, and so this is the Dentouin / Dantooine station! Though the first kanji can also be read as ‘ta,’ so this could also be the Tatouin / Tatooine station. I’m going to assume this station is close to another school, perhaps a highly regarded university that goes by the name ‘Dentouin’ or ‘Tatouin’, which this is the main stop for.

Anyways, onto the next part, which is short but packed with what I know is a scene that has caused a LOT of division among the fandom. I’ve got my own thoughts on the matter, but that can go into a separate post where I can go into depth about not just All Might’s reasoning, but also Horikoshi’s.

[No. 1 - Midoriya Izuku: Origin]

Where we left off, Izuku had hitched a ride on All Might’s brief ‘hop’ that covered at least a few blocks, maybe more. Now they come in for a crash landing, though we don’t see any actual damage to the roof - either SOLID construction or All Might was still able to mitigate the impact. I wonder if the people in the building noticed the shake from the impact… maybe not, because of earthquake proofing?

(Imagine a timeline where the person who lived / worked below the roof came up to investigate this and overheard this mess. And fucking saw Small Might and heard about that injury. What a world. How the FUCK do you react to that?)

(Hell, imagine if he HADN’T dropped the bottles and the Sludge Villain overheard that. He wouldn’t even try to capture someone else, he’d try to get away and blackmail All Might with that info / sell it to other criminals for lots of money.)

His soul is gone, RIP Izuku. But yeah, while Izuku’s recovering from near-death (again), All Might’s frustrated and saying he’s got no time, planning on the people downstairs to help… both of them get down? I suppose he doesn’t just want to leap off from the roof, with it possibly already damaged from that landing? Or he’s just bad experiences with leaping off of roofs that can’t handle the opposing force for his leaps?

No, it looks like he’s about to hop down from the roof and leave Izuku to it, but Izuku panics and begs for All Might to wait. All Might snaps that he won’t, but Izuku pushes forward, asking if he can be a hero without a quirk, and then asking if someone quirkless can be a hero like All Might. He isn’t repeating himself - he’s asking first whether he can be a hero at all, and then whether he can be one that… I suppose inspires and reassures others just with his presence? Man, maybe I can find out if I scroll down, hmm?

All Might starts to say something about quirks, but gets cut off with some painful attack. Imagine if he was having a heart attack while Izuku was distracted with his rambling and mumbling. Anyways, All Might’s cursing internally as he starts to steam, but Izuku doesn’t notice when he’s slouched over and staring at his hands.

Babey… also, being quirkless wasn’t the only reason he was picked on, and it’s interesting that his being picked on is the reason (or so Izuku thinks) he considers saving people to be ‘the coolest thing someone can do’... possibly because no one has ever come to Izuku’s defense? Which, fucking ouch.

(Also let’s kindly ignore the spooky specter!Might there, even if we know it’s just the smoke obscuring his features.)

In the next panel, Izuku perks up and looks right to All Might, focused on how All Might saves people with a fearless smile, and how Izuku wants to be the strongest hero like him- before cutting himself off with a scream on seeing Toshinori’s thin, raggedy true form.

Alright, so I couldn’t just choose one part of this page, it’s all fucking flawless and deserves to be viewed in its natural, uncropped state. I have the executive right, I’ve been very restrained with my choices of panels up until now, I am allowed one (1) full page.

(...don’t mind that I probably will have others a bit later, most notably in the next post.)

But seriously, I fucking love how Izuku starts out by accusing him of being all shriveled up, and then calling him a fake or imposter because of being so thin. Meanwhile, Toshinori, so totally done with Izuku’s shit, just says nothing for a long moment before finally saying calmly and clearly that he is, in fact, All Might… with blood gushing from his mouth. Which, of course, makes Izuku freak out again and deny it.

(God, imagine making this into a Star Wars scene knockoff. Doing the dramatic ‘no, it’s not true, there’s no way’ and Toshinori playing into that unintentionally.)

Toshinori brings up the ‘holding in the gut’ thing for his big form, and Izuku says ‘no way’ again. Then Toshinori sits down and brings up the ‘fearless smile’ bit, and then tells Izuku not to bring up the ‘real him’ on the internet… to which Izuku gives another shaky ‘no way’. Methinks the boy was broken and not actually processing anything at the moment.

And then Izuku gets to see the reality of heroics firsthand:

Yeah, that’s fucking GRUESOME, how did he survive that?? And continue living for FIVE YEARS afterwards? Fucking hells. Izuku’s expression really says it all. And hell, his lungs nearly destroyed, his stomach gone… this man is the most stubborn human being on the planet, and we’re only going to see more of that going forward.

Izuku immediately brings up Toxic Chainsaw, but is still clearly freaking out over this entire revelation. Toshinori says no, that lowlife couldn’t leave an injury like that on him, and says that the fight that did it never went public, because he asked it not to. Still, I have to wonder how it was covered up, a fight of that magnitude should have been intense enough to bring down a mountain…

All I can really assume is that, unlike the drawn out battles fanon assumes, this was actually a fast, dirty, and brutal underground battle that could have been passed off as an earthquake since there was no ‘visible’ fighting. It would also make it easier to cover up if there was no way for there to be footage or eyewitnesses… I think I might run with that interpretation for now.

horikoshi, end of ch 1: I don't feel like I can accurately convey All Might's intensity and dignity through Toshinori's eyes.

also horikoshi ch 1:

Damn sir, save some talent for the rest of us (not that I can draw particularly well anyways…)

Toshinori says that he smiles to stave off the pressure and fear inside himself, shocking Izuku again. While Izuku’s world slips from under him, Toshinori then says that ‘a pro should always be ready to risk his life’ and that without power, he doesn’t think it’s possible for someone to become a hero - crushing Izuku into speechlessness.

He says nothing as Toshinori suggests becoming a police officer if he wants to help people, and that villain custody officers do admirable work even if mocked (which, yeah, tell the kid who gets picked on to go into a profession where he’d get mocked… Toshi, I like you a lot, but sometimes you say dumb shit and I wanna groan.)

Toshinori ends the conversation with the ‘it’s not wrong to dream, but you need to be realistic, kid’ thing that I know a lot of people deride and tear him down for, and this is not the post I’m going to share my thoughts about it in. Plus, well, I’m sure there’s much better meta out there than I could come up with, and I can’t really change minds anyways, so. Yeah, Toshinori slams the door on the roof and on Izuku’s dreams, all at once.

As he goes down the stairs, he thinks about getting the guy to the police while checking his pockets, swatting several times at the empty pockets as the realization sets in, right before an explosion goes off in the distance and he panics.

We then arrive at the source of the explosion, and get this page:

Main panel:

Sign 1: 罔 (mou/bou) [net] 青果 (seika) [vegetables, produce] 店 (mise) [shop]

(Technically this can be the second kanji of a pair that, when put together, mean ‘deception/swindling’ [欺罔] (kimou) or ‘slander’ [誣罔] (fumou). I have no idea if those are relevant.)

Sign 2: 田辺 (Okanabe) [name?] 商店 (shouten) [shop]

(First kanji can also be read as ‘inaka’ ‘tan’ ‘de’ tou’ or ‘ya’. I’m sure one of those is some kind of meaningful name or pun or reference I don’t know.)

生活 (seikatsu) [living, life (one's daily existence), livelihood]

雑貨 (zakka) [miscellaneous goods, general goods, sundries]

Mt. Lady’s panel:

Hanging sign: チャーミークソーツ (Chaamiikisoutsu)

(Not sure how this breaks up or translates, and that last katakana could also be ‘n’, so.)

Wall sign: 喫茶 (tea house/coffee shop) ヤマダ (Yamada)

Death Arms panel:

古着 (furugi) [old clothes, secondhand clothing]

With that out of the way, there’s a LOT to take in from this two page spread. First off, the art is fucking INCREDIBLE, like, hot DAMN I am in awe and this is Hori at the START of the series. Just. Fucking hells. Where do I start?

Firstly, Katsuki is somehow not completely enveloped in the same way Izuku was, possibly because his quirk is acting somewhat as a deterrent? I mean, I understand the dramatic tension, but also like, how? And yikes, that unconscious guy there… I don’t think he’s dead, but like, considering how things look at the moment…

The bottom panels show that Katsuki is very firmly resisting letting the ‘mudman’ take his body, while the villain… somehow seems to think that body will be enough to let him win against All Might. Like, dude, seriously? What’s your plan going into this supposed confrontation? Hoping that All Might will go easy because the body looks like a teenager? And that he won’t gut-punch you and have you spewed right back out?

The crowd watches on, totally unconcerned, because as far as they’re concerned, the kid will be fine as soon as the heroes rescue him. Like, this is just entertainment, it’s not like a kid’s fighting for his damned life or anything.

Going to the top left, we see Mt. Lady can’t fit into the narrow street because her size is too large, though it seems like she technically can fit? I think it’s more an issue of mobility and being able to act without scraping against signs and whatnot. Or just a weird angle?

Kamui Woods is shown pulling Katsuki’s two followers and another civilian (possibly a kid?) out of harm’s way, saying that he’s weak to explosive fires and that someone else will have to handle it.

Backdraft is shown handling the fires because the firefighters have yet to show up, and then checks in on the others.

Death Arms and that unnamed hero with the baseball catcher themed outfit are watching on, saying that the villain’s too slippery but that the hostage is resisting, and that they can’t do anything against him.

Basically, several of them are doing something, others are not.

Onto the next page. Katsuki continues to struggle, and the villain continues to use his quirk to fight off anyone who gets close, like this bird masked guy who I also think is unnamed. And so we get this infamous moment:

And while technically good reasons are given for them to not be able to get close, it’s also, like. You’re still watching a kid die while saying that there’s nothing to be done except wait and pray, which is like. Pretty sus, dudes. Death Arms privately wishes he had the power to blow the villain away, and then we see Toshinori at the back of the crowd, realizing the villain was dropped while he was dealing with Izuku. He clutches at his throbbing side, chastising himself for losing track of time and dealing with the fan, all while calling himself pathetic.

And that’s where I’m ending this off, because this is getting pretty long and there’s no other good breaking point before the very end, so. Next post is gonna be pretty damned long (16 pages of the manga!), so I’ll see how long it takes me to get that done!

#chapter 1 #readthrough #opening arcs #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #yagi toshinori #bakugou katsuki #the brief anxiety that comes out of wanting to do a segment justice #while not descending into a deeper and more personal ramble on what you think went into the scene #sorry for posting this so late #RIP to any readers who would usually find this at a normal time

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chessdaze · 4 years ago

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Three Wishes Institute: New Locations part 2

I realized I forgot a few locations in my last post about new locations, so I decided to write out the rest here! Under Read more for Length

Crystal Woods:

The crystal woods is a beautiful place, so much so that beautiful seems like a lacking term. The area is full of crystalized trees and nature, yet it’s all entirely organic and the animals who live in the woods have adapted to the environment, eating crystalized foot or grass like it is nothing. Some animals even have crystals growing off of them - it’s an entirely strange and beautiful phenomenon that modern science is still trying to explain.

The woods might be out of the way from a lot of places (the closest city being around two hours away), but it’s not a tourist trap or even a place people visit often. There are people who come to research, people who come to buy land, but they’re all eventually turned away by the residence. The people here are almost all dwarves or descendants of dwarves, and take pride in the land they stand on. There is also a mine, like in the old stories about dwarves serving a princess, and a lot of the residence work there on a normal basis.

It’s a hub of history and tradition, and thanks to modern technology some people have gotten together to properly document all about their land and it’s history - they don’t mind it they simply didn’t want outsiders to do it, not trusting them to really understand or take everything they talk about seriously.

They do however allow new people to move in if they intend to work in the mine or on the fields to pick and sell crystalized crops (this is their major trade item with other cities / countries, and how the town has reminded in good shape for so long). Though it’s rumored that there is an...extensive interview process.

Emil and Otto are from here, and are one of the bigger families within the small town. Not just from the fact that have a lot of younger siblings, but the fact they have a lot of extended family as well. Most of which, are still pure blooded dwarves, while the twins themselves and most of their siblings are only a quarter dwarf, only having pointed ears to show for it.

Thieves Den:

The thieves den is located in a canyon, where ‘houses’ are carved into the side of the canyon wall. If it wasn’t filled with the worst people imaginable, It could be a popular tourist or vacation spot. Sadly, that is not the case. The people who live here are the worst of the worst, stealing from anyone or anything - sometimes even eachother, which starts brawls that could last all night. While they all sort of agree to follow one ‘king’ or ‘queen’ of thieves, there is no honor here, at the end of the day it’s every thief for themselves.

Still, the way they have crafted the homes in the canyon walls is both beautiful and functional. Magic and minor electricity keeps the place let up and functioning with the basics, rooms are filled with gold and other treasures gather Instead of doors there’s normally walls of beads and jewels, or expensive looking fabrics and tapestry that close off areas.

No one from the land of hot sands goes near the Thieves Den, lest they rob you blind and not even leave you with the clothes on your back. Some people from the slums seek refuge here if they have been kicked out for their ‘bad behavior’ and have no where else to go. Sometimes criminals are thrown in here by the guards of the surrounding cities as punishment for their crimes - either those criminals end up joining the den, or they aren’t heard from again.

There are two people who have connections to the den that are correctly At three wishes. One of them is unaware of the other, but the other is all too familiar with the former and occasionally tries to offer advice that only a thief could...

Sand Dune Slums:

A place that is exactly how it is described - a slum area within the Land of Hot Sands. It’s technically in the shadow of the major city (Modern Agrabah, cause idk what else they would call it honestly), so another name for the location is Agrabah’s shadow. People here are sometimes former criminals that can’t get a paying job in the city thanks to their previous record, or just people who had tried to make it big in the city and gave up at some point, or simply those who can’t afford to live in the extravagant city. Their homes are built out of layers of tarp, wood, and stone blocks - and they have to build within a certain area or else the guards from the city get mad at them, saying they’re ‘ruining the scenery’ since the city is a popular tourist spot. This is why the slums are contained to the back side / shadows of the outer city walls.

There’s a bit of a barter system in place of money, as no one really has a decent amount, ad any they’re going to spend would be spent in the city getting better quality things if that could afford it. However there’s still thugs and lowlifes here who try to steal from others without bartering at all - they only get stopped half of the time - the guards tend to turn a blind eye towards crimes that happen in the slums, focusing more on if any of the population of the slums makes trouble within the city, or throwing people out too the slums.

But, overall, the people here are pretty kind and try to welcome everyone with open arms. There’s lots of community events to keep people’s spirits up and they try to share what they get with anyone they can afford to.

Ozan is originally from here, but after stealing one too many things, he was thrown out of both the city and the slums. Left where no where else to go (other than the thieves den, but they wanted to avoid that place at all costs aswell), they wandered until they found a mirror to transport them somewhere else for them to live - which is how he came to steal items from Three Wishes Institute, and later be accepted into the headmaster’s family.

Underland:

(a big thanks to my friend Freya @twstriddle who let me use this idea that they had come up with and make a few tweaks to).

Underland is the organized crime capital of Twisted Wonderland. It is not a place you ever want to be caught in if you don’t know the unspoken rules of the place. Crime happens 24/7 here, you can barely take a look around without catching at least 3 crimes going on around you.

Having mostly been a dumping ground for the Country of Roses in the distant past, the city itself isn’t too modernized but instead has a more steam based system. This is someone’s Steampunk paradise on the surface; clock towers, exposed machinery with running gears all day and night, Crazy new inventions being made - and thrown out - every single day. Steampunk fashion is also popular and the most sold (legal) items in the city.

Among the crime families, there is one that practically rules over them all, the Pillars. They practically have a monopoly over most of what comes in and out of the city. They maintain a decent, working relationship with the other families, but they are also the most targeted because of their status. (and funfact the leaders of the Pillars are two husbands. I would say I don’t make the rules, but I very much do in this scenario).

Some say that there has been an uproar in Underland ever since someone stole items from the Pillars and disappeared without a trace.

Chronos Gate:

A stretch of land between the Country of Roses and Underland, which is a famous tourist destination. The land has been touched with time magic, now pretty much forbidden over all of Twisted Wonderland, and while efforts were made in the past to try and correct this area’s disrupted time, no success came of it and soon people founded it as a tourist destination instead.

Different areas of the land have different time zones and seasons, as time does not match up over all of the land. One step you’ll be in summer at noon, the next it might be a dark and cold winter night. The biggest attraction is at what is considered the ‘center’ of the land, time is completely stopped. A special walkway had to be made so that people wouldn’t get trapped here as they traveled through.

Each time one enters a different time, it’s considered walking through a ‘gate’ of time, hence the name of the location.

There are also research facilities set up in multiple areas of the land, studying the time magic and how to dispel it. There are people who live here aswell, but they tend to stick to the outer edges of the land - the ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ gates, the ones closest to Underland and the Country of Roses. These are the two gates that are the most accurate as far as time goes, even if they are a few hours ahead or behind the mentioned areas.

Someone in Three Wishes is very familiar how the Gates work.

Rosa Castletown:

A mysterious castle-town that only few have heard of, and even fewer been to. Apparently it used to be an entire country, but has been dwindled down to just the castle and the surrounding city - all enclosed within large stone walls.

Silas Rosamund is from here and often praises the castle town for persevering through the times, but also has slight criticism for the town as they have not all decided to keep up with the latest technology or trends. A lot of senior citizens move to the castle town because of this, wanting a nice and simple place to retire and relax. They have the basics at least, so at the very least they aren’t entirely in the stone age.

The castle town is said to be rolled by a beautiful and powerful queen, who only shows herself on special nights of the year. International holidays being a few but also a few holidays specific to the town, such as the rose viewing festival - as the castle town, if known by anyone, is known for their roses - they even have vines of roses encasing the walls of the town.

Silas actually lived in the castle as a servant, and tended to the Queen personally, so he’s one of the only ones who has ever seen her face up close.

#three wishes institute #twst fanschool #twst #twisted wonderland fanschool #twisted wonderland #fictional locations #twst ocs #[i mean technically?? my ocs are mentioned]

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the-headbop-wraith · 4 years ago

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3 _ 42 The Land Time Forgot

Part 4 - Final

An extended time later, dedicated to the intense and unrelenting search for their friend, all of which resulted in no leads or inspiration to where he might’ve been hauled off. It was possible Arthur was still within the park, but it was also as likely that he was hauled out to a parking lot and smuggled away in an unmarked van. Vivi doubted those orchestrated events, given only one person was viewed dragging Arthur away. By the build they were larger than Arthur, not the same dimensions as Lewis, but enough muscles and mass to bully their thin friend into restraints.

Nothing positive came from Mystery’s searching. It was harder for him to track scent trails if a possession or shoe didn’t make direct contact with the ground or standing structures, such as plants or fences. Likewise, the cart that got away was speculated to not have returned to the park grounds. If he was not within the park, their search was near impossible.

The remaining three made their way through the Historically Accurate Old West district, with Mystery leading the way sniffing on the air or scanning the ground. By now, the park was nearly deserted aside from the work crews roving around, cleaning up the plots of ambient landmarks – in the case of the Old West ™ - they touched up bleached out paint on stagecoaches and trimmed back cactuses amid a gravel patch. Technical crews descended on the rides, to give last checks before the attractions shut down for the evening. Natural light faded away, permitting the intense lamps dotted across the park to award visibility to the current groups.

“This isn’t working,” Lewis noted. “We just have to go by the security offices and see about examining those cameras.”

Vivi sighed. “I know you’re right, but searching through all those cameras can lead us to the same situation. Trying to figure out where they went, after the train.” She paused for a moment and observed the work crews, expertly raking the gravel around a tall saguaro cactus.

Asking people if they saw a ‘lizard man’ driving a golf cart around, had warranted many obtuse gawks, gaggles, and some giggles. Most people thought they were acting out some sort of park gag or something, and a few others asked if a hidden camera was involved. People.

“It would be a lead though,” Vivi supposed. She gave a whistle, and Mystery whipped his head up.

“Better than nothing,” Lewis quipped.

Unbeknownst to the group, a golf cart rolled through the pathway of the Historically Accurate Old West district. The vehicle only halted when the driver spied the group from a distance, headed for the district exit. The driver wore a park merch hoody, and under the rustic eave of a shut-up memento shop, the shadows draped them near completely.

“There they are,” he muttered, exasperated. He struck the steering wheel, then pulled up the phone. The pale light of the screen traced across the lower features of his face, and a downcast frown. “Last warning. There won’t be another.”

Darkness pressed in upon the expanse of the storage chamber. The noises outside, the screaming and thunder of music rolled off an hour or something ago. There was no certifiable way to figure how much time passed, aside from the pins and needles prickling through his arms, and the claws pinching into his sides.

He didn’t recall when the golf cart lost power. It was motionless, and the steady drone of electric current – something he was accustomed to with car batteries – brought about an unnatural stillness. Like being stuck in a long abandoned, and likely haunted house. Arthur shivered.

No response was coming from the Allosaur. It remained dormant and stiff, some of its features became perceivable as the gloom molded around his senses. He couldn’t see it, but he could perceive the presence of its hull. And the cheese-shredder claws locked into his vest.

At this point, his vest must have been reduced to ribbons. He worked diligently for the past hour, with his wrists bent and knotted into his lower back. Through a grand deal of effort and shifting, cautiously biding his actions by the minute – fearful that any drastic movement might activate the machine (and then what he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to find out) – Arthur managed to haul his entire body up by a mere foot. But that meager amount of transfer set his bound wrists high enough to reach the Allosaur’s sharp talons, where he rubbed the thin fabric of cloth. He was exhausted and hungry, the circulation in his arms hummed. Too focused on the work, laboring to fix this latest fuck up.

The bind on his wrists snapped. Arthur wriggled, twisting his legs beneath him. With the Allosaur’s talons latched around his torso, he was forced to squirm upward. It didn’t have a grip over his shoulders, which permitted him to get one arm free. He hesitated, thus far the Allosaur hadn’t budge, and the servos remained locked. With a lot more twisting and more effort, he heaved his waist free—

And plummeted to the floor at Allosaur’s feet. The dust swirled around his head, and he sneezed. No response and no shift from the Allosaur. Movement. It was waiting on movement. If he could get his legs free, he might could outrun it.

As was suspected, the claws of the Allosaur feet were sharp. He rolled his legs over and, with some fumbling knocked the binds against the dagger claw of a toe.

Without warning the Allosaur shifted, the machine whirred to life. Arthur cringed down, trying to make himself as small and minuscule as possible. Damn! DamnDamnDamn! He winced. The animatronic creaked to life and took a step. It was moving… away? It didn’t notice him? Unable to see, Arthur remained stony and alert. The hissing hydraulics and low grumble of the mechanical dinosaur continued, becoming fainter as it roamed further away. It wasn’t coming back. Of course, it shouldn’t. The machine only knew what the puppeteer told it.

He grappled with the bind on his ankles, tearing out bits and chunks of the threads until his legs could rip the sash free. Then, he stumbled through the murk, up until he collided with the golf cart. He stilled upon impact, certain the machine would come thundering back with a shriek. That didn’t happen. It was called away, and he was fearful of why.

Where was it? The guy dumped it all in— Found it! He unrolled the magazine, and groped around for his phone. The screen lit up when he brushed it, and he was immediately thumbing through the contact list. Shit! He needed to get moving!

Arthur shoved the essentials back into his pockets, save for the magazines. He used the light of his phone to gather his bearings and began moving. “Pick up, c’mon,” he grumbled.

The third ring got a response. “Arthur!” Vivi screeched, “Where are you?”

“I’m in the Bahamas, having the time of my life,” he groused.

“Arthur…” she growled, over the line.

“I dunno!”

Lewis was in the background, yelping, “What ya mean, y’don’t know?”

“I didn’t write up a detailed map of where he took me!” He tossed an arm high, as if they could witness the exasperation. “I’m just calling to say I’m dandee, and also I hope you three are prepped for bagging dino.” He slowed down some when the noises of the Allosaur’s jog echoed ahead. He didn’t want to test its limits, or intents. “I think it’s got your scent.”

In the background flew some fervent discussion, Mystery barking, and Lewis proclaiming they are not prepared at all.

“Where are you?” Vivi returned.

“I. don’t. Know.” The floor slopped beneath his feet and he nearly tumbled. The Allosaurs reverberating march continued ahead, stinted by the curvature of the corridor. “I’m trying to get out of here, so I’m following the Allo. You guys should probably think of something, get to work. I’ll call you back here in a bit.”

“What’re you gunna do?” Lewis called. “Art?”

“I sure as hell ain’t gunna lasso the thing.” He had to slow down at the base of the slope and tone the voice down. Having the pitiful light of the phone didn’t benefit his vision in the abyss surrounding him, but he could make out the noises of… a metal creaking. Familiar metal creaking. The door. That was the entrance. “I’m gonna keep tabs on it, while I can. I’ll call you if anything changes.” He hung up, barring further discussion or argument to follow. Knowing Vivi, she wouldn’t waste time calling back.

The gate clinked, and a bar of light sliced through the barrier of black. The Allosaur’s feathered shape squeezed through the thin veil, its tail zipped out of sight. From a distance, Arthur pursued, cautious of moving through the entry too quickly. He needed to get outside and get his bearings, reconnect with the others.

It was a short ascent to reach the ground floor and the district pathway. The walls surrounding him appeared to be brick, and the ground cobblestone themed. Arthur hurried the remainder of the way out of the alley for cast access, and stopped on the curb to catch his breath. It felt good to drink in that fresh air, after hours trapped in the musty storage chamber.

Upon raising his head back, he choked on the air. Or maybe that was a bug, buzzing around. Or it was the fresh air, and the shock.

Across from him stood the Allosaur, stooped and snarling. That wasn’t so terrifying since it wasn’t facing him. What stole his breath away were the figures directly in its line of sight, those cutouts he knew better than anything else in the world.

They actually didn’t have a lot of time to prep.

The team was well on their way to security headquarters when the call came through. Arthur was all right, excited and out of breath but he managed to make a call. It was a lot to unpack, where to even begin? Then the Allosaur emerged from a narrow crevice in the castles wall. Lewis spied it first, and sagged Vivi by the shoulder before she could take another step.

Allo locked onto them immediately. It crouched down and emitted a low, deadly snarl.

Vivi leaned toward Lewis. “Maybe it’s vision is based on movement.”

“This isn’t a movie,” Lewis warned. Regardless, he pegged survival on not moving.

One of the golfcarts driven by the maintenance crews cruised by, like a tumbleweed sweeping across an old western set. The Mystery Skulls watched it go on its way and keep going; the Allosaur didn’t shift an inch.

Woof.

“New plan,” Lewis hissed. He began pushing Vivi by the shoulders. “Scram while the scrammin’ is good.”

At once the Allosaur flexed the talons decorating its arms and gave a grating growl. It coiled back, gears shifting in its spine and ankles as it measured out its weight. Before it could launch, a screeching theme song began playing… off at its side. The Allosaur shuddered, and swung its snout

Arthur was in mad dash across the pathway, phone held above his head. “Hey guys! Small world!” He gave a piercing wail when the Allosaur gave chase.

Lewis face palmed. “What’re you doing man?!”

A mock crystal display decorated the center of the pathway, with small multicolored chambers, and light glittering within. Arthur ducked into the small crawl space. “Buy ya some time!” He zipped through on his hands and feet; the display was built for smaller guests, with twisting tunnels and chambers within. The Allosaur got its head trapped at the entrance, while Arthur scrambled through the whole thing like a hamster.

“Guys got the control!” Arthur sprang from the exit slide, and swung his phone up high. “He has to be somewhere around here!”

Vivi cupped her hands around her mouth. “What doe she look like?” Lewis tapped her on the shoulder.

“Gotta be someone around here, watching – keeping tabs.” He ran over to a cobblestone wall and leapt onto it, adding some height to his impressive stance. He curled his hands over his brows and began scoping the area.

Vivi grabbed Mystery by the collar. “Go take care of Artie in case he runs out of lives.”

Mystery whimpered and turned his lips down. No, you can’t be serious!

“You got two pairs of legs he’s got one,” Vivi scolded. “It’s just a boring old machine.”

RAWWR!

“With teeth. Go!” She pushed Mystery off, until he got his legs working and galloped on his way. Then, she raced over to the wall where Lewis stood and climbed up. Lewis reached down and took her arm, he hoisted her all the way up to plop down onto his shoulders.

“Not seein’ much. Aside from a giant chicken chasing a scrawny worm.”

Vivi got into Lewis backpack and pulled out a uniocular. “The phone. He might see what our dino sees.”

“Only what the dino sees,” Lewis speculated. He began walking along the wall top, keeping his balance despite Vivi’s insistent leaning and tugging on his shirt collar. “Did Allo hear Arthur, or did our guy see Arthur first?”

“That’s a good question!” Vivi winced, and focused her attention the opposite way Lewis was facing. “Lew!”

“Present.” He reached up for Vivi, to stop her from toppling off. She leaned down over his head, took his chin and angled his view around.

“Over yonder.”

Lewis twisted around and did his best to align his view of sight, with whatever Vivi was fixated on. It wasn’t hard to make out, a vague silhouette fitted at a balcony of some tavern themed building. The figure was not paying heed to the surroundings, but focused on the softly glowing device in their hands.

“They could just be slacking off, and texting somebody,” he offered.. Vivi began slipping off his shoulders, easing down to the wall by her own accord.

The figure moved their interest from the comforting glimmer of their phone, and spied Vivi with Lewis, inspecting their stance. With a jolt, the person swung away and dove off into the gloom of the balcony – towards a door or alternative exit.

“Sure,” Vivi mocked. She tugged Lewis off the wall to ground level with her.

“Hey!” Lewis harked, “You won’t get away this time!” He started running, leading Vivi by the hand. She couldn’t help the sappy smile set on her face. Classic Lewis.

The door to the shop was locked tight. Lewis barreled into it and gave it a firm shake, rattling the plexiglass. “Damn!”

Vivi fixed her headband. “He’d have gotten away anyway, by time Arth—” A sound caught her immediate attention and she whipped around. The guy had tripped, or had fallen, or stumbled on something – point was he was sneaking off behind them. The guy twisted around and scrambled on the descending steps as they flopped about, trying to dart one way or the other in the failed retreat.

“You there!” she screamed, pointing.

The person pulled their legs under them and charged off, towards a cluster of maintenance workers repairing a short fence post and the frayed rope. They slapped their hands over their hoody, keeping it in place while they zoomed.

“You might as well stop running!” she hooted, taking pursuit. “We’ve done this gig a dozen times.”

“Huh?” A touch oblivious, Lewis spun about searching for his teammate. “I uh… yeah! It’s over for you now!”

The cloaked figure dove into one of the unguarded golfcarts and hit the acceleration. His first and only thought get away from these nuts; the last thought he had, and of miniscule importance, was the fact he dropped the phone somewhere.

It would be the most excellent of days if Arthur got out of this without getting snapped in two. He managed to gather some speed and distance on the mecha dino by taking a downward sloping path, which was open only to the maintenance vehicles and golf carts. The path was narrow, but didn’t pause the Allosaur at all in its pursuit; it did however force the machine to slow its movement in order to calibrate for the offset in its balance. That didn’t stop it from hissing and being a friggin’ terrifying attraction.

Mystery gave a yip and hopped the decorative little lattice fence and plopped into a lush shrubbery plot. The garden ran either side of the pathway and was aesthetic in its mission to conceal the vehicles as they roamed. Light flashed through the canopy of the grove, the patterns glittered across Mystery’s white pelt and flashed over his glasses. He gave a sequence of yips as he burst through the undergrowth.

In a breathy lunge, Arthur followed the pooch. “Getting that cardio, eh Misty?” The response was a bark. “Good tu hear!” He stumbled when scrambled off the clear path and into the thicket, his shoelaces snagging on the sinister crooked limbs.

The two burst from the brush, leaves flying everywhere. Arthur spat out a few as he kept pace, taking the left that Mystery tilted into. A small grouping of the groundskeepers halted work blowing leaves and trimming trees, in order to behold the scene. Up until the Allosaur crashed from the barrier of trees, a terrible shriek igniting from its sound system. They scattered with yelps and dives.

Mystery ducked and vaulted over metal guard rails, the scene encircling the zone displayed bright colored metal and cement. Arthur was above, scrambling atop the bars like some anime character in intense training. He slipped on the third to last and tumbled, crashing within the barriers. Mystery zipped back over and took his shredded vast sleeve and dragged him off behind a wall.

A few meters away, the Allosaur came to a halt and stood steely on the pavement. Slowly and with deliberate precision, its head began moving side-to-side scanning the walls and fabrication of the park, examining cement walls and decorative displays, labeling attractions and directions to rides. Nothing caught it’s attention, despite crew members racing around in the background and bailing the site.

Behind the wall, Arthur was struggling to calm his panting. A little black paw pressed over his lips. He frowned. “Where have those been, Mister?”

Mystery snorted.

“You!” Someone snapped, from the side. Arthur’s face paled and her jerked, knocking Mystery off his lap. “What d’you think you’re doing here?” The guy in a park uniform carried a clipboard, metal box combo – the same or near identical to ones used at the shop. This guy tugged at the communicator clipped to his shoulder, a garble of obnoxious static and overlaying conversations rolled through.

“Security! I got some kid here, snuck into the park.” He took his thumb off the transmitter. “Stay put right where you are. Don’t even breathe.”

Mystery grimaced, and brought a paw to his face. “Shh!”

“Dude!” Arthur snapped, on the verge of tears. “Shaddup!”

The guy blinked, clear astonishment radiating from him. “Don’t you dare tell me to shut up! You know how much trouble—”

A bellowing yowl cut him off.

��“What was that!?”

“Fuck!” Both Arthur and Mystery sprang up and darted around either side of the guy, provoking him to whirl around like a top.

An instant later, the Allosaur clambered over the metal dividers of the ride entrance. Once it bypassed the obstacles, it swung its snout and all its teeth to the ride mechanic.

“Ho-shit!” The mechanic properly noped out and took a dive into the nearest shrubs.

It was too late for Arthur and Mystery, the two dashed down the ride dock. An open door to the side caught the hounds immediate interest and he shot in, followed by Arthur. Arthur flipped the lights off and shut the door, but there was no lock.

“Not like it’d use the handle.” A dull thump broke his fantasy of safety, and he looked over to the Plexiglas barrier that displayed the full length of the ride, the rollercoaster train, and the Allosaur glaring in. “Is… that bullet proof? Ya think?”

Mystery woofed. Does it really matter, ya think?

The Allosaur shoved its snout against the clear barrier, its eyes flashing ominously in the lights cast by the attraction twisting around it. A crack formed in the window, but the substance held firm. Snarling and hissing, it slammed its head and claws against the window. The clear material snapped in two, one portion warped and slid out of the frame. The Allosaur began climbing through, its jaws snapped inches from Arthur’s face.

He let loose an ear splinting wail and snatched up an empty Styrofoam cup. The projectile bounced off the menacing snout. Mystery yapped and dove under the Allosaurs line of sight, he stopped at the door and stood on his rear legs scrambling at the door handle.

“Are you nuts?!” he shrieked.

Mystery barked, his dogs ears bobbing. Enjoy your corner!

Arthur cursed and, following a grand deal of prayer, crawled under the Allosaur’s gnashing jaws. He was still crawling on his stomach, though he was very clear of the dinosaurs reach, even when he reached the door. With a flick of his wrist, the door popped open and Mystery bounded out.

The Allosaur twisted, its reading and interpretation code aware its quarry was escaping. Yet, it was confined by the shattered barrier. It wriggled, talons tearing at the control panel beneath it. Lights rolling throughout the coaster track blazed, and with a gush of hydraulics not from within the mecha dino, the train carts became active. The animatronic continued the fight to dislodge itself and renew pursuit, all before it had successfully wriggled lose. Its tail swung dangerously through the docking station, nearly taking off Arthur’s head.

Luckily he was spry and managed to stunt roll, following with a few rolls that relocated him far beyond the Allosaur’s range of movement. Mystery was galloping ahead, going for the divers end and the cultivated grove ahead.

With a final wrench the Allosaur tore the Plexiglas loose, and swung its shoulders free. It gave chase after the targets, lunging and snapping.

Arthur wobbled, nearly pitching over the side of the dock. The rollercoaster cart chugged into view on the leveled track, and he made the leap. “Mystery!” He whistled, and waved the dog over.

The hound wasn’t the dinosaurs immediate focus, he still cowered beneath the feet when it snapped out. On Arthur’s lead, he sprang like a gazelle and landed gracefully on the front cart. Then, the coaster hit the divider in the track and the Mystery dog lost his balance and spiraled sideways, off the vehicle and into the shrubs below.

“Whoa, wait! Where’d you go?” Arthur leaned over, searching the five or something foot drop. The divider activated a failsafe in the rollercoaster’s train cart, and the safety bar swung downward over Arthur’s arm, braced to the headrest. “Um?” At first, he mistaken the error as an easy fix. Pull the bar up and loose. But it was a safety mechanism, with a manual override in the control office. Somewhere. He jerked at the bar, even as the coaster train began up the steep incline that initiated the ride. “Fuck… fuck-fuck-fuck! Oh my fucks!” He tried to angle his knee against the backrest, the bar was really digging into his arm. “Feck-fo-FREK!”

Below, the Allosaur watched with perceivable agitation as the roller coaster train inched out of range. Unable to reach its target for the time, it swung away and sought out a new location to reengage.

There was no better option open to Arthur, but hunker down and brace himself. His mind ran through the threats and dangers, what sort of coaster was this? He didn’t see. The g-force could be enough to rip his arm off, he would be lucky if he only suffered a broken limb. Worse could happen, if he didn’t wedge himself down good and tight.

The coaster train peaked at the initiating drop, and Arthur nearly blacked out. A ninety-degree drop loomed, and illuminated here and there were the more prominent twisty-curves of the ride. He tasted blood, he either bit his lip or his tongue, he wasn’t sure which. The others, they had no idea where he was. There was Mystery, but where was he?

A pensive hiss issued from the coaster train when it paused and drew out the agonizing seconds. He patted through his vest and pants, searching for his phone. Then the train slid forward, gaining speed as the vehicle dipped into its full and unrestrained plummet. Its wheels rattled and the whole train vibrated. Arthur held on for dear life and shrieked.

“I say the guy ditched the giddup, and is somewhere mingling with the work crews,” Lewis theorized. He was waiting for Vivi to catch her breath, near a fence and a lush plot of trees. The acreage was mostly thick shrubbery growing beside a sheer and expansive cliff face. “Or, he could be hiding anywhere.” One hand cradled his chin, while he examined the fostered brush.

Some of the lights across the park went off for the long hours of the night, while others remained on to stylize the attraction for all hours of the late. And also safety ordinances with aircraft and tall structures. The intrusive lamps were not the same as the on-ride decorative colors and aesthetic luminosities which thrilled the riders.

“We need Mystery,” Vivi spoke, still gasping and hanging off the fence. “More importantly, we need to get that dino wrangled. It’s really thrown a wrench in the situation.”

“Yeah,” Lewis huffed, trying to blow hair out of his eyes. “It kinda doesn’t let up, huh?” He bent a brow at Vivi when she snapped her head up.

“I think something’s gone wrong. My Arthur senses are tingling.” She looked around. The scenery was placid, the maintenance guys doing their thing, not paying them any mind.

“‘Arthur senses’?” Lewis mused, with a smirk. “Is that a thing now?”

“I’m gonna start it, watch me!” She crossed her arms and nodded, affirming dedication.

“Look, I’m certain the Allo didn’t catch him, or Mystery.”

The careening thunder of the roller coaster ttain swooping by on a nearby, previously cold track, caught his focus for the moment. The churning rumble was no contest to the distinct pitch of wailing assaulting the evening sky, rising in intensity as the whole cart blasted by and then dying out as the coaster train shot out of an inverted twirl. Both Vivi and Lewis observed, deadpan.

“Technically speaking,” he began, “it didn’t catch him.”

Vivi fixed her glasses, cleaned them, then set them back on her face. “Somehow, I think this is worst.”

Across the pathway, the maintenance workers began diving and bolting for the cover of the landscapes they were working around or in. The Allosaur went charging through, a white blur right in its sights.

“All right,” she grumbled. “Allosaur two, us zilch.”

Lewis spun around and hoped the fence. “But who’s keeping score?” He bypassed one of the signs, warning of danger to bodily harm due to the coasters proximity. A slope eased down, to the low point the coaster would pass through. In the distance, Arthur’s harrowing squeal became more pronounced.

“Lew!” Vivi yelped, leaning over the first barrier. “What d’ya think you’re doing? Danger!”

He waved over his shoulder. “No worries! I’m a professional!”

“Of what?! Stunts gone wrong?” Vivi hit her fist to the barrier and winced. She wrenched around, the Allosaur gave a grating and ravenous snarl. “I’ve just about had enough of this!” In the chase of the man in the mask, or shroud, or whatever, they sped through the game zone. There were more food vendors within, along with pistol games that utilized water guns, and some that used projectile disks. If she had to, she’d go Rambo on that hunk of metal.

In the background, Mystery was still leading the mecha dino across the district. He dove under a set of que ropes, scrambling like a spider among the poles. The Allosaur came to a stuttering halt and swayed, its feet pawed at the ground as it sidestepped. Vivi shot by without a glance, toward the entrance of the arcade and carnie games.

While Vivi took off to initiate a fool proof plan, Lewis swung over the last and tallest fence, to place himself within the rollercoaster track lane. Above, the hurtling cart came whizzing through at a speed peaking on fifty miles an hour, minimum. Along with it, the terrorized passenger screeching.

“Hold on Artie!” Lewis sprinted, following the overhead track as it jerked and spiraled.

“Are you nuts?” Arthur howled. He was losing vigor, barely able to keep his legs within the coaster box. “NO! Lew! It’s too— AARRRRRRRRRRRGH!” The rollercoaster twisted and hurtled downward into a steep dip, the track cleaved through an alcove within the ground. When the full train passed through the chasm, it decelerated significantly – enough that Lewis could leap up and snag that last cart, without losing a hand or being belted aside like a ragdoll.

“Hah! Nailed it—” Lewis nearly missed latching onto the safety bar, a fraction before the whole train flew into a sharp series of loops. Once again, the coaster is off on its bullshit, accelerating to sixty-five or something miles per hour, diving and curving.

Whenever the coaster calmed down for a sporadic pause, Lewis inched up a cart. It was tedious, as the cart dividers were somewhat sleek and slippery from being cleaned. The full body braces assisted, in that they were sturdy and didn’t unhook.

“Don’t worry, I’m here!” Lewis proclaimed, when he at last reached Arthur.

Arthur glared back as the coaster inched its way up the steep climb, back at square one. “WHY! Didn’t you just shut off the coaster?”

The grin on Lewis’ face dissolved. “Um, well, that might’ve been a worthwhile option….”

“You meathead!”

“Hey, I’m not the mechanic here!”

Once more, Arthur fought at his arm trapped in the brace. “We’re both gunna DAI, and then we’ll be the latest attractions for this park!”

“Think positive, Artie!” Lewis climbed onto the first and foremost train cart and gave the device a quick look over.

“It’s jammed!” He tried to squeeze down, and jam his elbow under the brace. However, he was short on energy to supply, and flopped sideways when he lost his footing. Lewis wrapped an arm around his shoulder and grabbed ahold of the brace.

“Take it easy, I’ll get you off.” The coaster came to the topmost of its track and paused. Lewis frowned. “Darn.”

“Trust me,” Arthur wheezed, “The first nine times, and you get used to it.” They flew into the drop, and Arthur was pretty certain Lewis was clinging to him so he wouldn’t get thrown off. “Fun, eh?!”

“We’re gunna DAI!”

“That’s the spirit!” Arthur cackled.

The coaster accelerated into a chute and eased off the speed, but it rumbled on with sinister purpose. Lewis released his grip on Arthur. “Brace yourself!”

Before Arthur could inquire why, or really prepare, Lewis smashed his knee against the brace forcing the bar down hard against Arthur’s already strained arm. A pitiful creaking lurched from Arthur’s gullet as the pain zipped through his arm.

“Sorry! Had to reset the mechanism,” Lewis huffed. He shoved the bar up and out of the way, but doubled down on restraining Arthur to the coaster cart, as the train swung into another reckless dive. His sneakers skipped across the slippery metal plate of the floor, while the coaster vibrated along the tracks.

Down below, one of the canopies for the prize corner loomed. It was the basket hoop toss, and there was a sizable net stretched between the poles on the three sides.

Lewis didn’t get the chance to warn Arthur. His shoe already snapped loose, and it was either get flung like a marionette or choose a landing pad. The support of the roller coaster whistled by his ear, he wasn’t really certain if they would hit the mark he aimed for – given the velocity and trajectory of the coaster’s movement. It was swinging into a turn, gaining momentum. Arthur tried to get out some other sort of noise, but he was likely still stunned from his arm that he couldn’t generate the sort of sound appropriate to free flight.

The entire basketball court collapsed when Lewis hit the bar, which suspended one side of the nets. Fortunately, he and Arthur tumbled into the prize corral beneath, among the giant stuffed toys and packaged sport balls. A cacophony of squeaks and deflating balloons, among the toppled metal bars punctuated all ambition for recovery.

“Ow….” Arthur groaned. “Lew. Why?”

“I just wanted off,” he moaned. “No matter the cost.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Ask me in the morning.”

“Lew.”

“Hunh?”

“If it’s not too much trouble… could you get off me?”

It took several agonizing minutes for the two to untangle from the knotted snare, the mountain of cushy prizes, and each other; all in near total darkness. Aside from a lamp gleaming down on the side of the coaster, and it whooshing by periodically and rattling around the tracks, they might’ve lost track of where they’d dropped. Lewis dragged Arthur out by the collar of his vest, some of the netting remained snagged on his scrawny limbs.

“C’mon Art, use your feet.”

“I have been running… for five years now.” He caught himself on his fists, before his nose could smack the pavement. “Wha’s that?”

A blazing shape zigzagged around the faux tents of carnie games, speeding as it closed in on Lewis and Arthur. At last it came in for a landing, skidding right into Arthur’s face. Lewis knelt and pet the dog.

“Wait,” the taller figure said, a flash of worry in his face. “Wait-wait-wait… last I saw you—”

The harking cry of the Allosaur obliterated through the screech of the roller coaster surging through, one more. It’s head twitched and the talons on its fists opened, another peeling shriek plunged through the open air as it lunged, teeth glistening..

Arthur yelped and flipped over, fighting with his sneakers tangled in the net still. Lewis snatched up one of the basketballs and threw it at the Allosaur with all his might, the force and speed would’ve been something to admire. The sports ball merely deflected off the dinosaurs hard plastic frame. Arthur yowled and held Mystery tight—

“KII-YAHH!”

Everyone dove to the side, Lewis one way and Arthur with Mystery to the other. The Allosaur kept going, but it was stumbling and its feet came down in a frenzy when it lost all balance. In a fumbled miss step, the animatronic stalled and spun three times then came down in a heap beside the netted basket hoop tangle.

Likewise, Vivi was still spinning, the bat clasped in her hands whizzing through the air before she crashed into one of the awning shields tied over a carnival game.

“Vivi!” Lewis leapt out from behind the wall he took shelter beside, recoiling immediately when the Allosaur’s head skid into the corner of the solid barrier.

“Did you see that!” Vivi whooped. She jumped up and swung the bat again, like a pro-pitcher. “Lew, you were all ‘I’m gunna wrestle this dino crocodile Dun-Dee style!’ And Arthur, you’re legs got all tangled! What the heck?” She mimed out another thunder-bashing swing. “And I was like, ‘Don’t touch my dog!’ Wham!”

Arthur poked his head up from behind a stage set, Mystery latched to his skull like a koala. “Holy shit.”

Lewis gawked. “I think I’m in love.”

Arthur inched around and prodded the mechanical head with his foot. “Gimmie a break. All this time, we just had to release Vivi on it with a baseball bat. Really?”

“Well,” Lewis chuckled, “you did say the metal wasn’t very sustancial.” He stood by and let Arthur beat the living bolts out of the inactive mechanical head. “Guess it was all bark, and not bite.”

Woof. Mystery let go of Arthur and dropped to the pavement. He moved aside of the drama and flopped over. Gimmie five minutes, folks.

“Should you really be messing with that thing?” Lewis muttered. He took a full step back.

“I’m gonna get my kicks in!”

“Hey! Are you listening to me!” Vivi hurried over. “But seriously, you three okay? Mystery? All puppered out?” She leaned low using the bat as a cane, and gave the poor pooch a well-deserved head rub. “You had us worried, Artie. It’s a good thing you managed to get loose.”

The dino head stuttered, the jaw quivered and the mechanical eyes twitched. Arthur jolted and scrambled behind Lewis.

“You know how the movies go,” Lewis mentioned.

Arthur peeked out. “This isn’t a movie. It should’ve shut down completely, with the power source severed.” He noted Lewis had a vacant and very concerned stare, and followed the line of sight to where the Allosaur was squirming. Trying to stand, with no head. “Welp, that looks horrifying!”

Whatever calibrated the Allosaur’s balance was gone, and also it shuffled sideways onto the collapsed basket court netting. The talons couldn’t coordinate and untangle from the woven netting, forcing the thing to topple sideways over and over.

“I… guess it’s not going anywhere?” Lewis speculated.

“But did you see me? Wasn’t that amazing? I never swung so hard in my whole damn life!” Vivi threw herself at Lewis, and he caught her in his arms.

“I was a bit preoccupied with not getting trampled. But yeah, that was something else!” Lewis was about to pull Vivi in closer, but his attention snapped to a figure a distance from their gathering. A secluded, isolated figure strategically placed within the shade of the arcade patio, sifting through the gloom only enough to view the fate of the Allosaur.

When he refocused altogether, Vivi’s curiosity searched for the cause. She frowned when her eyes alit on the same suspect. “Let’s see if we can get around him and—” The spectator either got wise to their sudden shift in mood, or freaked out completely on the loss of their asset. They took off.

Vivi tore out of Lewis’ arms and snatched up the bat. Losing no time, she darted around the corny carnival tent stations. “I’ve had it with you!” She lined up with the guy, still barred on one side by the boarder of the shuttered-up arcade wall. There was no time to waste. With a decisive swing, the bat went whirling through the air like a saw.

And cracked the wall short of her target. The guy kept running, but cast a fretful look over their shoulder.

“Drat!”

Lewis charged up behind her, winding back his arm. “My turn!” The basketball flew like it was shot out of a cannon and slammed directly into the person’s back, launching them two feet into the air. “Score!”

The person recovered quickly, though they hadn’t gotten their bearing together. Before they could take a full and not lopsided-tipsy step, Lewis grabbed them from behind. The two toppled forward, Lewis on top of the guy and holding one of his wrists.

“We gunna do this quietly, or you wanna make it ugly?”

“Let me go!” The person shouted. “You don’t have the right!”

“We don’t, do we?” Vivi retorted. She knelt beside the guy as he struggled, but Lewis was pressing measured weight onto the person. “This is a citizens arrest, my fine fellow. It would be in your best interest to cooperate until the police arrive, and we can sort this all out.”

“What am I being arrested for?”

Lewis pulled the person’s hoody back. “Being shady as fuck, that’s one,” he muttered.

“Trespassing,” Vivi quipped. “I don’t recognize you, which is interesting. But I know someone who might.”

“You! You can’t do this!” he snarled. Lewis pulled his other arm back, and Vivi applied one of the parks unbreakable wrist bands. “This is unlawful! I’ll sue!”

“Oh no, oh please don’t.” Lewis hefted the guy onto his feet and kept him steady. “In all my life, I have never been threatened in such a way. Oh, the sleepless nights I’ll suffer.” He ushered the guy ahead, making sure to keep his elbows restrained.

“But did you see that pitch!” Vivi proclaimed. “Out of this world!”

Lewis snickered. “Oh Dio mío, Vivi. Calm down.”

When they returned to the site where the Allosaur had its head cleaved off, the animatronic nuisance was still wallowing in the tattered remnants of the basketball netting. Large squeaky toys and some of the sport balls rolled around, or completely pulverized by the broken machine struggling to function without essential system readers. It looked very much like a cocooned lizard, or a spool of finely spun thread – in a clunky mess.

Above the wall where the Allosaur head dropped, Arthur sat with Mystery at his side; the dogs head resting on his lap. He was giving the tuckered pupper shoulder massages after his traumatic and daring evening.

“Ooh, you really did get someone,” he praised. “Y’sure that’s the guy, though?”

“Did you call the police?” Lewis prompted.

Arthur cringed down. “That’s Vivi’s job.”

“You really going to do this?” the guy seethed. “Assaulted me, and now you’re trying to frame me for some… crime!” He struggled at Lewis’ grip, but made no profound effort to break loose.

Vivi whistled. The Mystery dog shot his head up, ears high. “Mystery, hunny. We have a very special job for you.”

Mystery slid back from Arthur and did that dog stretch, with his fore paws stretched all the way forward and his dog claws stretched to their fullest. With a shake of his pelt, he did a roll and flopped off the backside of the wall. Arthur watched this play out, apathetic.

“Absolutely,” Arthur chimed. “You’re our guy.”

“This is slander!” The guy erupted. Arthur lunged over the wall to hide.

Vivi hauled out her backpack and located her phone. “I’m callin’ the cops.”

It wasn’t actually the police that Vivi called, it was the security office, then the security office reached out to the appropriate department. While they waited for security to show up, Lewis returned Arthur’s backpack to him, and Arthur got to work on compiling the evidence the group collected. This evidence included the pictures Lewis caught while he and Arthur investigated around the park, and serial numbers from the materials torn from the Allosaur’s arm. He stuffed all of this onto two USBs the police could have, which was standard procedure for the group.

At length, Mystery trotted back over with something in his teeth.

“Nice going,” Arthur praised. “Didn’t crack it or anything. Clean as a whistle.”

Vivi snatched the phone from Arthur and held it up to the guy, currently seated on the inactive Allosaur head. “How ‘bout you unlock this for us?”

He glared at the device, the locked screen gleamed in his face. “I’ve never seen this before. Ever. I have no idea what’s going on here.” He checked on Lewis at his side, keeping him stationary with his presence alone.

“Mm hmm.” She swept away, and returned the phone back to Arthur. Without a word, Arthur began tapping at the screen. He knelt on the ground beside Mystery, while the hound observed with all the intensity of a teacher overseeing his student. “Yet, you’re not curious about all this crazy we got here.” She motioned a hand towards the broken Allosaur.

The machine body at long last ceased moving. It looked creepy, bent and knotted up the way it was.

“Question.” Arthur rose and moved closer to the guy, holding the phone all the way out to the full extent of his arm. “This you?”

It was a selfie of the guy.

Vivi took the phone and continued scrolling. “Was it really a good idea documenting the whole process of building your dino?”

He scoffed. “You can’t prove I built it.”

“You built animatronics though.” Vivi stuck the phone into a plastic baggy Arthur produced. “Not a lot of people can do that. Your friends, they have a very specialized skillset.” She took the baggy from Arthur and held it toward the guy. “You wouldn’t happen to have their pics on the phone, would you? Of course not, who would do that?”

A large hand capped down on the guy’s shoulder, and Lewis stooped. “It would be a shame if they could be cited as accomplices. Not that we’d touch the topic, pero ya sabes, that is evidence for the authorities to pick—”

“They let me go from the team,” the guy blurted. He dropped his gaze from Vivi’s unimpressed face, and scrutinized his shoes. “When they found out I used parts from another job, to build a substitute.”

Vivi nodded. “You and your colleagues began work for a competitor to Fanatical Hypes ™, and that resulted in the bust contract. A violation. But then you took it upon yourself to sabotage Geoff’s park, and make him fold under the pressure of those lost profits, so he’d compensate for the assets. Do I have that right?”

The guy took a deep breath. “It’s not that simple. It was a percentile in those cancelled payments, and they still have to do something with the skins. A lot of uppity businesses do this all the time, and commissions are hard enough to get right without the client throwing a fit in the midst of finalizations. And getting the courts to recognize contract agreements, it’s a bitch! You get that?”

“Yeah,” Vivi uttered. “We know what that’s like.”

Where he sat beside the wall, Mystery tilted his head and raised one ear.

The guy dipped his head further. “Trust me, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“I sort of have a hard time believing the, ‘oh woes and pity me’ spiel,” Lewis grumbled. He still loomed over the cringing guy, face stern. “The animatronics you built.”

“And programed,” Arthur prompted.

“And programed. They’re not toys, they’re super dangerous when not handled correctly. You put an AI in a bulldozer that identifies as a raptor, and set it loose in a recreational setting.”

“Lovin’ the PSA vibe.” Arthur remained seated by the wall working on his computer to compile essential info, fully engrossed in shuffling files. “Also, you kidnapped me and shoved lots of threats in my face.”

“Did he?” Lewis growled. “That’s seriously F’ed up.”

“Boys-boys.” Vivi pushed Lewis back, before he could… likely haul the guy off the ground and throttle him. “That’s not our business anymore. Now, this becomes law enforcement jurisdiction.” She pointed to a series of golfcarts ambling in their general direction. She looked to the guy. “Our job ended with the Allosaur’s capture. But I recommend you cooperate with the authorities. They’re usually a lot less forgiving than us.”

“Y’know dude,” Arthur stood, and ejected one of the USBs from his computer. “You could’ve just not messed around with us. Taken the dishwasher with teeth and vamoosed. But making a statement, and gettin’ Geoff to crumble under the pressure meant more. You’re lucky, you know that.” He tossed the USB to Vivi.

The guy frowned. “How am I lucky? I’m going to jail for this.”

Arthur shrugged. “We stopped ya before this could escalate. You think soulless corporate would cave, and pay out what he’s not putting to use?” He shook his head, and sat on the wall, finishing up the last USB. “We got you before someone could get seriously hurt. But sure, it’s our fault.”

The golf carts arrived and the enlisted law enforcement along with Fanatical Hypes ™ escort, took over the situation of officially taking the guy into custody. The engineers names was Yandel Jenkins, and there was a little more information about his history tied to the group of creatures builders that supplied assets to the theme park. However, since that was out of the Mystery Skulls hands, Arthur finished compiling and cross referencing the evidence that was collected and handed over the USBs. Whatever else the park security required, they’d assemble it on their own following involved statements.

Hours later the group was on their way out of the park, it was very late and most the work crews fulfilling their nocturnal duties pilfered out. The area resumed relative normalcy, aside from the spare shift tugged out to organize the area where the Allosaur fell. That was way on the far side of the park.

“Seriously a shame,” Arthur was saying, as the crew discussed the recent case. They were going through the events, trying to figure who was where when this or that situation came about. And how Arthur managed to get stuck on a roller coaster. “All that work and talent. I don’t get why people like him do it.” He walked with his arms folded behind his head, stretching out his aching muscles from where the Allosaur pinched him.

Lewis curled a thoughtful hand over his chin. “Well, if you’re company anticipated that extra point something percentage in incurring payments, it can mean the difference in leasing and supplies. Not saying our guy was in the right, but it’s something to regard when reviewing possible motivations.”

“Oh yeah, I guess,” Arthur mumbled.

“My family started their own business,” Lewis elaborated. “Any little profit you can squeeze out go towards improving your services, or the product. They did it without cutting corners, and it was heckin’ hard. Food expires fast, car parts and oil has a longer shelf life.”

Arthur shrugged.

“I guess they’ll have the park opened tomorrow and everything,” Vivi supposed. They made their way down the last stretch, the main road to the grand entrance and exit. “We can come on by and see how it looks. Catch some more rides, if we want. Certify those lifetime passes.”

Mystery gave a little yap and bounced ahead. He wouldn’t need to wear that ridiculous vest, either.

A low groan issued from Arthur, and he fitted his hands down over his face. “I dunno, I’m kinda all vacationed out. I think I’m ready to hit the road. Seriously missin’ the cramped space of the van.”

“What about the food?” Vivi prompted. “Free food. Drinks. Treats. Desserts. Concessions.”

“Mehhh….” Mystery padded over and walked beside Arthur’s legs, bumping his knees. “Pass. Free stuff is great, but kinda burnt out on carnie goodies. Nothing beats Pepper Paradiso’s. ‘Least, when someone’s lil sisters aren’t sabotaging a perfectly good sundae.”

Lewis groaned. “I don’t even know how that’s possible. Lechería is supposed to counteract the burn.”

“Who said that was dairy?”

Vivi tried very hard not to giggle. “If that’s the final verdict, we can start snooping on where we’ll go next. Hmm? Speaking of which.” She pulled her backpack around to her front, and opened it from the side. “Got a something for our scrapbook.” Unanimously, Arthur and Lewis groaned. “I promise it’s really good.”

Pulling out a card, she began moving to one of the tall lampposts that stood beside the pathway. “Check it.” The three followed.

“Oh please, is that what I think it is.” Arthur was first to take the side of the stiff booklet, and shifted it by a fraction under the light. “No, Vivi!”

“What?” Lewis posed. Arthur handed him the card, and he flipped the cover back. “Oh no! Vivi!”

She pulled her collar higher over her lower face. “The machine automatically printed it, I guess. I couldn’t leave it, you both look… excited.”

“Excitement is an understatement!” Arthur whooped. He reached for the card, but Lewis held it up high out of his reach. “Gimmie! I don’t want my near-death experience immortalized!”

Lewis backed away, pushing Arthur off before he could climb up his shoulders. “C’mon Artie! Calm down, we got out of this unscathed.”

“Unscathed! My arm is numb still!”

“Relatively,” Lewis insisted. “It’s a memento. We’ll keep it, and check it out sometimes to remind us to be more careful. Suena bien?” He arched his arm high over Arthur’s head, and handed the card back to Vivi. She secluded it away in her backpack, where it would be safe.

“Mark my words!” Arthur hastened his steps, leaving the protective cone of light. “When you least expect it, I’ll chuck that incriminating evidence!” Mystery barked and scurried after him.

“Admit it!” Vivi slapped an arm around Arthur’s lower back. “You love it! Ten years from now, we’ll have a great ol’laugh.”

Lewis joined on the other side, nearly throwing the two over as he put his arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “I’m laughin’ right now. Don’t deny it. You’re smiling. Don’t smile, Arthur.”

“Stop! That’s not fair!” Arthur capped his hands over his face and muffled a scream.

“Try not to smile Arthur,” Vivi goaded.

“Oh, he’s blushing!”

“It’s too dark to see blushing,” Arthur countered. Regardless, he still fought to hide his face all the more. “Jerks.”

“Don’t blush Arthur,” Vivi chimed. “Don’t—”

Arthur broke free and took off in a run. “Stop it! You’re ganging up on me!”

With a jolly bark, Mystery galloped beside Arthur, his dog collar jingling. He gave off a few yips, nearly stumbling when he veered into Arthur’s legs.

“No we’re not!” Lewis called, staggering into the chase. Vivi skipped along, taking on a couple leaping bounds as they flashed under the bars of light.

“What are you trying to hide Arthur!” From the distance, Mystery barked. “Really?”

“No! Never!” Arthur vaulted through the tall cage of the turnstile and kept going. “I promise!”

Lewis crashed into the turnstile and got stuck. “You’re laughing! Whoa… HEY!” Arthur’s wild cackling rang across the dark parking lot. “HEY!”

Vivi caught up to Lewis and stood, observing. “Um?”

“A little help!”

She sighed, and got out a flashlight. “You tried to follow Arthur.” She clicked on the light. “He kinda slipped through the side here. Just come back through, carefully.”

“OoOOh.” Lewis moved back and shuffled into the opposing slot, where guests were meant to exit. Vivi crammed in with him, and the two nearly got stuck again. However, with some shoving and bickering the two made their way out safely, and caught up to Arthur and Mystery hurtling with reckless abandon.

Concluding a case was not always so brimming with mirth or effortless, despite how well everything turned out. There had been plenty of cases they walked out on, Failed Cases, too dangerous to continue through to a final conclusion. When they had the chance to celebrate, the team sometimes went all out. Or, such as the case with the Allosaur, it felt better to get back on the road and move on. Sometimes staying too long in one location, one that was not home base, it didn’t rejuvenate like the endless road.

No doubt though, by the time they arrived – or collided – with the next case, they would be primed and ready to tackle the demands. There would be fascinating creatures, thrilling perils, and challenges the Mystery Skulls crew would meet.

The night swirled around them, the four racing through the empty parking lot. It was their mission to seek out mysteries, prove what they could or debunk the frauds. Nothing but the passion for work and the ambition to find the truth, and perhaps a steady supply of coffee, fast-food, and junky tabloids.

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