#kind of talking into the void right now but if anybody aside from my one good friend bentley is reading this hi

[loachbro]

after some consideration (5 minutes) i think i may open little doodle requests for peoples wc ocs/canon characters.. i dont know if ill be drawing ship art (unless theyre ocs) btu i can drawwhatever canon characters uo want playing + having fun for the small price of your unconditional love and support no matter what for the rest of eternity

[drabbles-of-writing]

Reverse Au! Dump

Don’t mind my idea dumping here. Brain decided to have fun while I was at work and I have too many wips as it is, so… Thought I’d ask before I dumped, experience. Used morningmark’s comics as a base, so if you want reference. Now this isn’t all that well compiled, but here it goes.

~

Magic in the Other World is varied as it is crazy. So many styles over the generations and not a lot of organization. There are some that try to categorize it all, but that works as well as you’d expect. Some were lost, some erased, some weren’t passed down/recorded because “the power is all mine! Ahahaha!” It took a lot of time and collaboration, but eventually a sort of system was installed to help out. Still a lot of work to do, but its a step forward. Nowadays the term Wild Magic is generally reserved for those that aren’t all that well documented and understood.

Some Magics are very powerful and desirable, but also tend to be very high risk/high reward, kinda pass/fail, pretty literally Do or Die most times. So not a lot of people can use those or are even willing to. Story says this one guy named Odin hung himself on a massive tree by his own spear for nine days, no food water or rest in constant pain before he could unlock the secret of Runes. But it’s also said he gouged out his own eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom so… 

There are lots of different ways to channel magic too: wands, staves, jewelry, certain gems, familiars, potions, enchanted armaments, chants, scripts, etc. Each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages and play into a Witches’ style. Every Witch has at least two methods of spellcasting. Only children have one. Haven’t thought of how Luz gets her Palisman though. Maybe its one of those magic Artifacts like Dr. Strange’s cloak, Elder Wand, Thor’s hammer, or a Green Lantern’s Ring. Something that can’t be recreated because the secret is lost, materials no longer exist, too hard/dangerous to make, accident that can’t be recreated, etc. Happens more often than people like.

Camilla is sometimes called the Blue Witch. She’s a healer by heart and trade, but push her and she will become a one Witch Battleship. Bismark who? Aaaaand she just deleted a whole battalion. And the fortress behind them. Hide me. There are the very rare occasions, like count on one hand rare, when someone near and dear to her heart is in trouble that she takes up her other job. She’s especially terrifying when she decides to torture, those who know how to heal the body know best how to break it. Many shades of Blue, some are very close to Black. She doesn’t necessarily hate Humans exactly, but doesn’t have the highest of regard from past experiences.

Luz has training and is a proficient Witch for her age. Camilla and her father were adamant about having a general knowledge/skillset alongside her specialized skill. Jack of all trades and a master of none, still better than a master of one. She has gone through the system for her magic with varying success. Oracle magic? Zero talent. Bard classes? She can play an instrument, but can’t sing at the same time. When she does sing she tires too hard and messes up. It’s only when she doesn’t try, like absently singing along with a song or playing by her heart, that she’s good at it. Beasts? Can use them, but would rather play with them. Bleeding heart and all that. She does have a good handle on healing magic partly due to Camilla drilling necessary skills into her and partly osmosis. Her father arranged for some CQC lessons from an old friend of his which the girl loved. You get the idea. It wasn’t until she discovered Glyphs that she found her niche and her skills took off. Glyphs are one of those ‘eccentric’ or 'archaic’ styles since they haven’t been used in so long after being lost and are barely understood. She still has a long way to go, but she is on her way.

Luz never really had much in the way of friends, partly cuz of high profile parents which leads to certain pressures and a target on her head, partly because of her magic style and personality, and partly because of the trouble been going on. Luz grew up her whole life with this tension of a group of anarchists trying to burn society that’s just trying to do the right thing. The anarchists started small, but have been a growing problem the past few decades with talk how to 'reshape the world’ in not a good way. Anyone with critical thinking skills can tell this is a bad idea, but they are too brainwashed to notice. They harass anyone who doesn’t follow their rhetoric and attack anyone who even questions them. Luz’s parents put a real kink in a lot of their plans for years, which makes Luz guilty by association. 

Luz got caught in one of those sudden larger scuffles and was accidentally chucked/blown through a portal created by an attempted tactical retreat that went off course. Hence why she can’t go home because she hasn’t learned how to do portals yet. Those are high level anyway so how did these guys pull it off so easily? Luz has a hard time blending in obviously. Learning how to use a phone was a fun endeavor. Internet was a trip. Luz is amazed how these people can do all this cool stuff without magic. Keep a low profile sure, she can pass off as a weird out of town kid. Keep the beanie on, underperform in gym and stuff because some things don’t change, like genetics. Someone sharp eyed will see discrepancies. The Beanie has a small Glamor spell built in that covers her witchy traits but she forgot the ears which is why it sits like it does. Luz can erase memories in case she has an accident, but it’s less of a 'remove my face from this picture with a scalpel’, and more of a 'lemme just hack off the past hour or three from your brain with an axe.’ If she tries to take any more then she starts burning into some more dangerous territory and those Wiped are groggy and disoriented for a while after already. Then the magic attacks start happening and her heroic instinct/anti-bystander complex kicks in and there goes that. It runs in the family so Camilla isn’t surprised in the slightest when she finds out.

“Oh titan, why did you curse me with another me?” “I’m right here Mami!”

Eda has a shack very akin to Grunkle Stan. Lots of junk that Lilith can’t believe that people are dumb enough to buy. She’s also involved in some not so legal dealings on the side. Well, Eda isn’t actually hurting anybody and the tax dollars she should be paying would only go towards some politicians’ next yacht or another pointless overseas 'investment’ instead of where it’s supposed to go so. Eda does give some good intel on occasion and a place to vent so Lillith overlooks her. Lil’s more of the secret police for witches and a petty crook isn’t part of her job anyway. Eda understands Luz’s predicament and is willing to help. The cover story is that Camilla work in hospitals and has to work crazy hours while her dad passed away so is living with Eda for a while. King is that kind of critter that grew up weird and acts like ten different animals all the time.

Gus is the nerdy kid who infodumps on everybody, even if they’re not listening. Loves anything fantasy/sci-fi related and plays Minecraft too. A good kid at heart, but needs some social skills. Keep him away from anything more sugary than tea. Luz learned a lot listening to him. Not all of it is entirely useful, but still. Some of his ramblings give her some good ideas for magic and stuff, like putting Glyphs on cards.

The Blights are the cool rich kids obviously, and have some discipline and social issues. Big family name makes them intimidating for normies and a meal ticket for the unsavory. These kids need real friends. They decided to act out to get some attention from the parents who then decided to ignore them. “If you’re going to act like a child tantrum, get treated like one.” Ed is perfect for Drama classes, if he were allowed to partake. Can’t decide what Em is great at, hacking perhaps? Amity’s car is an inheritance from the only family to treat her as such Twins aside, even if she’s too young to remember it. She only remembers that she has feelings surrounding the car. All three of them were pretty impressed with Luz for standing up to them, calling them out on their shit, and not giving a crap about their family name. Being treated like a normal person is pretty weird. Can we get her to do that again?

Amity tried dating Boscha once, didn’t work out very well. Boscha is still hurting over Amity’s comment of “I’d rather go date the new weird kid (Luz) than go back to you.” It’s one of the reasons she goes after Luz. She has that kind of Bud personality from Spider Man, feels lesser and so acts out so much. 

“Wow, this new Witch is amazing. Not as cool as the original Witch.”

“What is it with the Witch with you?”

“Oh, she’s a hero. Looks out for the city and the little guy. She inspires me. Makes me want to be a bigger person. *sees Luz* What’s up Luz-er?”

~

And that’s what I got right now. I know there was more, but it’s lost to the void right now. Might come back later, maybe not. Lemme know what you think.

............

DAMN you weren’t lying when you said you had an info-dump this is *chefs kiss* you got me intrigued now

[itwoodbeprefect]

decided to just compile a bunch of comments about my sga 1x01 rising rewatch into a single post because i don’t actually want to make a hundred posts in a row, so here, under the cut, many rambles:

announcer guy does, in fact, speak english upon a second attempt. well done on not forgetting to not speak german, announcer guy.

“i’m afraid of the thing” elizabeth says, about the drone chair, while standing next to it and looking like she wants to fuck it

rodney in that orange sweater! very orange! very warm!

john is on screen. john’s first words are helicopters he knows how to fly. john KINDA LIKES IT in antarctica. john has barely done anything and i already feel like crying a little bit about this guy who LIKES ANTARCTICA because he just wants to fly

POOR CARSON when he almost kills two people. “ai told ya ai was the wrong pursohn” :(

i really love how john sees the drone coming at the (landed) helicopter and yells “get out!” and they throw open their doors and john JUMPS and then it’s just “ugh.” and he’s belly-down on the floor and still like, almost under the helicopter. an attempt was made, for sure. just not a very succesful one.

the way john looks around like he’s never seen a ceiling before when he enters the base is just. very funny. and then some guy in particular is looking at him because he’s a bit of a weirdo and john looks back and the guy sort of looks him up and down and john looks away as if to check if anybody saw that. hmm.

john’s face of “oops” after he sits down in the chair and it ACTIVATES and carson RUNS OFF to go get literally everyone and john is realizing he MAY have just made a very giant big mistake. PRICELESS

teyla: my people have long believed the wraith will come if we venture into the ancient city. sumner, when the wraith come after he ventures into the ancient city: [surprised pikachu face]

gotta love how john insisting on saving his people is what wakes up the wraith, and saving his people is also what landed john in antarctica in the first place because he tried it in afghanistan once before. which wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been an american war in afghanistan in the first place, which there wouldn’t have been if bush hadn’t thrown the us into it, which wouldn’t have happened without 9/11, so... bin laden woke the wraith?

on the other hand john would never have had to go on a rescue mission on his first day in pegasus if sumner hadn’t gone into that city against the wishes of the people that already lived there and had a history dating back thousands of years with the place, so more realistically, the expeditions’ colonizer mentality woke the wraith. and then they just kinda... kept going with that for the rest of the show, because it worked out so well on that first day.

anyway i’m not even there yet - puddlejumper! it jumps puddles!

have to love the moment john realizes the puddlejumper is pretty literally reading his mind and giving him anything he can think of that is within its power (so no turkey sandwiches, but that’s okay). john is already in love with it just based on the fact that IT CAN FLY AND GO FAST (“i kinda like it here”, restored) but then all the ancient technology just seems to know him and love him back and gives him way more than he even thinks to ask for. which, for john, who doesn’t really do well expressing desires? a FLYING SHIP that then READS HIS MIND? starstruck. love at first sight. john&puddlejumper, instant bffs. i bet it would have popped a compartment with some stray bits of wire if he’d asked for a friendship bracelet right then and there. ford sitting there witnessing this doesn’t even know how hard he’s thirdwheeling it in that moment.

now i am at the bit where sumner is taken from the wraith prison to see the actual wraith, and look, obviously they’re evil and feed on humans etc etc, but this particular wraith’s sense of dramatics? unparalleled. she has them bring her victims one by one to a large foggy room with a looong table set with a wonderful dinner and then she LEAVES a DEAD BODY sitting at the head of the table (implied to be the athosian that was taken before sumner?) and drops down from the ceiling while sumner has his back turned for no reason except the spectacle of it all, and dracula himself literally couldn’t have made a better display out of this. it’s maybe scary in the way that it makes clear she’s a cat toying with a helpless mouse before she eats it, but it’s also hilarious in the way that this is absolutely a very bored immortal being who had to stay up while the rest went to sleep and is inventing high school improv plays with her dinner for some diversion. don’t play with your food, wraith queen. you’re scaring your dinner.

life signs detector!!! ford didn’t get to name the puddlejumpers gateships, but that one stuck, no matter how much “we can name it later” john was trying to throw at it!!!

(god. there’s a ficlet somewhere in there about season 2 john having a moment where he realizes he’s on the hunt for ford using the thing they first discovered together and that ford gave its name.)

getting sidetracked here, but when john and ford find the group of humans caught by the wraith teyla goes “major!” and it makes me think that. well. how are the athosians supposed to know things like “major” and “colonel” are military ranks? what are the chances the pegasus galaxy uses the same designations? (don’t really know how the language thing works here - we’re hopefully not supposed to think they’re all speaking english, are they? i’ve never watched sg1, there’s probably lore about this, i assume. maybe alien titles somehow get perfect translations to earth ones and vice versa.) but i mean, teyla is too smart, she’d have it figured out already even if those words don’t exist in her galaxy, but some athosian somewhere is going to be very confused by this earth tendency to name way too many kids private and lieutenant, and then put all of them into the army. strange, to have your job decided for you at birth like that. earth people are weeeeird.

fjdkl john is like bye, gonna go find colonel sumner all on my own, run if you don’t hear from me in twenty minutes, and ford’s like “you’re the only one who can fly these people out of here” and “i’m saying i should be the one to go, sir” and john, with his savior can’t-leave-anyone-behind-gotta-do-this-personally-or-i-will-literally-die-from-not-almost-dying complex DOES NOT LISTEN to ford’s EXTREMELY ACCURATE objection. which is his right, as ranking officer, but is also a perfect showcase of why john Should Not Ever be in charge of atlantis, and why sam saying he was totally on the shortlist when she takes over command in s4 is funny but frightening if you’re on atlantis and like being alive.

sumner: “we travel through the stargate as peaceful explorers.” FDJKFD. god, that line, from that character, hilarious.

rodney comes to elizabeth full of enthusiasm about all the interesting stuff they’re finding in the city only to find her staring at the empty gate and when she says she should never have let them (the rescue party) go, he sobers up and says awkwardly “for what it’s worth, you made the right decision” and that’s GOOD that’s KIND.

back on the planet with the wraith everyone is running to the jumper while there are wraith darts whizzing through the air and teyla turns back, catches up with ford who was told to cover their six, disarms him (because he was firing at illusions, revealing their position), hands him back his weapon, pulls him in the direction of the puddlejumper, and PUSHES HIM ASIDE when they’re almost scooped up by a wraith dart, and i’m so here for teyla being allowed a moment of heroics that saves specifically ford, guy with a gun, and not a random athosian damsel in distress. teyla is fully on their level. teyla is perhaps above their level. thank you.

that scene at the end of this episode!! in which there’s a sort of party on atlantis and it’s all buzzing and relaxed while the athosians are mingling freely with the expedition members and they’re talking of friendship and ugh. UGH. there’s a better version of sga in an alternate universe where the expedition didn’t decide atlantis was totally theirs, actually, and they cooperate with the people that were already in the galaxy when they came there and learn from sumner’s mistake to actually respect what they have to say and form a single front and teyla takes over as head of the expedition in s4 when there’s a void left by elizabeth’s absence.

final thought that has always haunted me a little: john suddenly becoming the ranking military member on atlantis after sumner’s death is ?? one of those things where i wonder what the sgc was thinking in their personnel assignments. john wasn’t even supposed to BE THERE. if john hadn’t gone and sumner had still died (which was something they should have considered as a possiblitiy! they didn’t know what they were walking into at all! sumner is apparently the type to lead his own missions!), then what exactly would they have done? i don’t know much about how the us military operates but i’ve watched enough mash to have figured out the order of the ranks and it just seems. very odd to me? to take one (1) colonel on this mission and then ZERO lieutenant colonels OR majors (if john hadn’t stumbled his way into it, that is). like, are there any captains on atlantis? (i think there are?) or would ford, a lieutenant, have ended up ranking military member? this is like the surely-they-only-need-a-single-medical-doctor-right thing. WHAT IS THE SGC THINKING.

anyway. this was good. i liked this. i hadn’t rewatched the pilot in a while, and i only just now figured out how much of a while, because there was a bunch in here i didn’t remember. ON TO EPISODE TWO.

[bondsmagii]

anonymous submitted:

Let's talk about sleep paralysis! I have some wild theories, feel free to believe them or not, but this has been my gatherings after over 15 years of experiences. So - after years of Slffering from it, I've slowly learned how to control my sleep paralysis. I can morph them into cool/interesting incidences now, and have even begun using it as a jumpoff for lucid dreaming. (Disclaimer: Not reccomended if you can't control it yet, please don't try to induce SP unleash you're TOTALLY prepared for it. I don't want anybody to get hurt. And still, I cannot guarantee my own results. This took YEARS of practice.) Anyway, I've found that if you're able to force one small body part to move or jerk your head (repeatedly til it works), you can break out of patalysis at will. It takes some high focus, and becoming conscious of your physical body vs your sleeping self. You CAN move, it's just difficult. Jerk your head, snap your eyes open, or set an alarm if this planned. You'll feel intense heaviness upon waking and a strange desire to fall right back to sleep, but you'll need to sit up straight and fully wake yourself up to end it, otherwise you'll just resume it as soon as you fall asleep again. There's probably a reason for that, actually. What I may have learned through these trials is that sleep paralysis might just be the nightly beginning of the sleep cycle that we aren't meant to be conscious for. Let me run my theory by you. There was a point in my life where sleep paralysis would occur every single time I slept. Every night, it'd start with a buzzing hum that I'd kind of "melt" into, like tinnitus slowly washing over til it's all you can hear. And suddenly, I can't move. Horrific entities bearing down on me.I don't need to go into detail, you've been there. I didn't understand why, until I slowly realized I'd been conscious of the entire business of falling asleep - and that it was a several-step process. Body falls asleep first, mind follows. That's why most people don't remember the act of falling asleep and just seem to become conscious in dreams once they've already begun without you. You're paralyzed because your body is dreaming and you aren't supposed to be conscious yet. It's perhaps a REM stage that's supposed to be painless, nothing. I tested this theory by forcing myself to be calm through my nightly episodes. They would happen regardless, so I may as well try to make them less horrific, right? I would slow my heart rate using breathing exercises. I observed what was happening rather than panicking, and noticed that crushing weight on my chest slowly shift into this peaceful, almost pleasant sinking-down feeling. Like heavy water pulling you down, like a cool blanket of static coccooning around you. And sink down I did - right through this strange buzzing dark haze and directly into dreams. Most of them starting lucid. I was completely conscious of them, sometimed even seeing the dream world "load in" and fill in textures and buildings and skyline. It was surreal. I tested this over and over, and every time got the same result. If I "survived" the paralysis and just calmed, I'd drop into dreams. Sometimes I'd litrrally feel myself sink into my bed, going "below" consciousness. Soon I mapped out the enitirety of the process. Waking, pre-sleep imaginings, those imaginings getting surreal as my brain drifted, static hum overtaking, the ordeal of paralysis, and then I'd sink into what I began calling "The Platform". It was this shifting midpoint between dream-awake where it'd allow me to choose my own dreams. Sometimes I'd see dreams floating movie-like in bubbles at the edge of a void, sometimes I'd see a hall of doors, sometimes I'd literally land on a platform and build dreams from nothing, sometimes I'd fall straight through the void and start the dream flying. Now, as an aside, I am someone who experiences chronic nightmares. Almost all of my dreams have some "horror" element to them, to the point where I've learned to forcibly wake myself up by snapping my "real" physically eyes open. Now I'm overall

able to exert control over them, and overall more conscious of the state of dreaming. I can enjoy them like first-person horror movies and nope the hell out when shit gets too Sideways. The only ones that get me bad now are ones that feel real enough to hurt (real world fears like loved oned dying) ordered ones that deal with a specific phobia that makes me lose my shit. A lot of the method seems to do with "feeling" your real body outside of the dream and understanding that your dream/metaphysical(?) self is a separate entity. I wish I could describe how to do that better - its sort of how you center your body during grounding excersises. Forcing myself awake from nightmares and yanking myself out of sleep paralysis feel extremely similar. I've given myself a sort of Eject Button. Anyhow - I began talking to my SP entities and exerting some gentle control over the whole scene. Changing the power dynamic, de-escalating scary situations by joking with the entities, standing up for myself or catching them off guard. I still get terrifying incidents where I'm attacked or forced to view esoteric horrors, but, well.. I'm a horror movie fan. Sometimes creepy imagery is cool and enjoyable, and now I can cut it off if I want to. I'll even sass them if they get rude. I think I differ in beliefs with you in that I do believe that SP has a spiritual aspect (the same way that dreams do), but I recognize the psychological element as well. I think they go hand in hand, and in finding this I've been able to turn something that was deeply traumatizing into something pretty neat. Thanks for listening, friend. I'm sure this is long and rambling, but I felt like I needed to tell someone, and you seemed like the right person to tell. Be well, I hope you have pleasant dreams, or at least that your nightmares are very cool.

this is actually very impressive, because yeah. this is exactly how and why sleep paralysis happens! I always find it interesting when people arrive at a theory through their own investigation, and it adds up with official findings -- if the time and the place had been a little different, you would have been the person to pioneer the theory! but essentially yes, this is precisely why it happens and why it can be used as a platform for lucid dreaming. when you sleep, your body enters a natural state of paralysis to ensure that you don't injure yourself while sleeping. sometimes this goes wrong, but the usual failure is seen in sleepwalking -- the paralysis stops, the body wakes, the mind does not, and the person wanders around acting out their dreams or perhaps going about their usual morning routine on autopilot.

sometimes, though, it's the other way around. your brain is still awake, but your body is asleep. your dreams translate as vivid hallucinations, you can't move because of the natural paralysis (and this feeling translates itself as a heaviness, especially on the chest, resulting in the all-too-common description sleep paralysis has become known for: the feeling of something sitting or pressing on your chest) and the feeling of dread is likely because of the realisation somewhere deep down that something is very wrong; that you're not supposed to be experiencing this. some people theorise that's why sleep paralysis is overwhelmingly a terrifying event -- rarely do you hear stories of pleasant hallucinations, and this is likely because of the fact we're terrified on some level, aware that something is very unusual. combine this with the fact that sleep paralysis happens to most people only rarely -- once or twice in their lives -- and it's clear that many people don't have the opportunity to understand what happened and become familiar with it.

you're also correct in your observation that moving a small part of the body can snap you out of it. generally it's better to focus on a small part -- moving all of you is too much, but focusing on a small part like a finger or toe is much more effective. it takes a lot of effort, but the effect on the paralysis is instantaneous. the dread and the heavy feeling may take a while to pass, though. another trick to minimise how unpleasant sleep paralysis is is to keep your eyes closed. you can still sense things, and some people might hear things, but overwhelmingly the worst hallucinations are visual. keeping your eyes closed means you at least don't have to see what's crawling up your bed!

I'm like you in the way that I enjoy horror, and I also find sleep paralysis fascinating. now that I know what it is and how to get out of it, I very often just let it run its course -- at least until things get too repetitive or spooky, and then I snap myself out of it. it's absolutely incredible to see what tricks the human mind can play. the hallucinations are so incredibly real, and it's a brilliant opportunity to observe while being in no real danger. only a couple of times have I come across something genuinely paranormal during a sleep paralysis episode -- or what I thought was one, anyway. thankfully it doesn't mimic it exactly, so I can continue to enjoy watching the wild shit my brain comes up with in relative peace.

[popatochisssp]

Heya Poppy! I’m loving the new gem headcanons and was wondering if you have a diamond au too? Or any other stuff about the new gems? I love this au so much

Ohoho, of course I do! I do have the new gems’ Backstories, but since you asked about the Diamond AU specifically... UwU

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Cubic Zirconia (Undergloom Sans) emerges alone, in an abandoned Kindergarten galaxies upon galaxies away from Homeworld’s (known) reaches. He doesn’t stay alone for very long, and not too much later, Moissanite (Undergloom Papyrus) emerges too--another gem.

...Not that they...know too much beyond the fact that they’re both gems. They certainly have no idea that they’re both products of diamond replication experiments at this outpost, commissioned by the (recently ceased) Void Diamond and forgotten when The War began and other priorities became more important.

But! They have each other, so even if their origin is shrouded in mystery and there’s nobody else here on this dusty, deserted rock of a planet, they both decide things could be worse.

They go about their lives for awhile, poking around in things, bonding with each other, making guesses about their species and civilization from their bare-bones programming and the artifacts of the Kindergarten.

It passes the time.

And then, one day, the seismic activity starts.

The two of them have no idea what’s happening or what to do about it; if there’s anything to do about it, and it’s a stressful few cycles before they get any solid answers.

Raw Diamond (Horrorfell Sans), clawing himself up through the ground from the deepest, darkest caverns of the planet, is about as ‘solid’ as an answer gets.

Cubic and Moissanite shouldn’t know the newcomer at all, yet they find themselves automatically saluting, calling him ‘My Diamond,’ and Raw...

Raw is just as confused as they are.

He doesn’t know what’s going on either, where they are, what he is, who he is… he simply is.

He couldn’t know that he’s a forgotten project of Void Diamond’s, too, a new diamond meant to join the ranks with him and Brown and Gray as their empire expanded and needed more leadership. He was simply left in the ground to incubate without being refined or even cut.

(He's monstrous, huge even for a Diamond, and oddly formed with a crooked jaw that won’t open and a hole in his skull…but Cubic and Moissanite hardly know any better than he does what he’s supposed to look like, so no one makes any mention of it.)

Freshly emerged and very lost, it goes without saying that Raw wants answers. The Imitation brothers have a few, but nowhere near as many as he’s after, and he stubbornly demands to be shown around the Kindergarten and the outpost, to see it for himself.

And it all lights up for him in a way it never did for the two that came first, doors and sensors and screens coming to life, responding to the signature of a true diamond. There’s brand new access to everything, reports, records, files and procedures… they learn a lot about what they are, what they’re supposed to be and what they’re not.

They also learn how true diamonds are made, in full and not just halfway.

Raw is certain this is the answer. Cubic and Moissanite are the first of their kind, they barely have any programming, but a diamond…a diamond done right and not left unfinished like he was, surely they would know more and be able to make sense of…whatever it is they’re not getting.

The brothers aren’t totally convinced... but admittedly, they don’t have any better ideas and well…rough he may be, but Raw is a diamond…

Champagne Diamond (Horrorfell Papyrus) unfolds himself gracefully from a craggy cliffside on the abandoned planet, massive in size but otherwise perfect—and he does have some answers.

Champagne knows he is a Diamond and he knows of gemkind. He knows of their society and of their directive to expand their empire.

…What he doesn’t know is the answer to Cubic’s well-meaning query of ‘...what empire?’

Champagne has no clue where the hell all the other gems are, where this little rock is in relation to the Empire, if the Empire even still exists if this place has been abandoned as long as all the charts and data logs say it has been.

He wants answers as much as Raw does, possibly even moreso…but to even start looking for them, they have to get the hell off this planet.

As it turns out, what he lacks in inherent knowledge of their status and origin and social structures, Raw has a real knack for gem-tech, understanding the principles and functions of even the old and mostly broken down devices they have access to, enough to design a passable space-faring craft that they all pitch in to build.

The first world the quartet comes across is empty now, but was once uniquely occupied by both gems and by organics. There’s a handful of gem structures, Kindergartens, bases, et cetera--long abandoned and in disarray of course, but hiding lots of new data and potential clues to mine about what happened to gemkind, and more importantly, where the fuck Homeworld is...

(Like the lost city of Punt, it seems that nobody ever thought to store something as obvious as Homeworld’s coordinates anywhere in the days before warp pads--why bother? Everyone knew where it was.)

There’s a lot to repair and sift through, a whole planet’s worth of it, and there’s only four of them, so it’s probably going to take awhile…

So when Raw finds some old notes that this planet would be a good candidate to incubate a diamond if not for all the useful organic life on it, he nudges Champagne and jokes that all the organic life is gone now, maybe they should…?

To Raw’s surprise, however, Champagne is intrigued.

It could be something worth thinking about, actually… Another pair of hands, another set of eye-sockets… a diamond would be a costly investment, both time and resource-wise, but certainly more bang for the buck than a mess of soldiers or technicians that they really don’t need…

Plus, it’s something to do while they scour the whole damn globe for everything of use on it.

So... might as well try it.

A nice chunk of forest is summarily leveled by Cloudy Diamond (Horrorswapfell Sans) when he decides he’s good and ready to emerge—and while he’s certainly an extra pair of hands for the group, the eye-sockets…didn’t really work out the way they’d thought.

Cloudy, it turns out, is blind as a bat, a defective diamond—but still a diamond, able to interface with and access everything the other two diamonds can, if guided to it.

He sticks with Cubic and Moissanite, mostly, a quid pro quo sort of arrangement that works for everyone, at least until everything of use and worth is mined out of the artifacts of the planet, and it’s time to move on to the next lead: what seems to have been a military base on an almost entirely aquatic world.

Cloudy isn’t interested in visiting a water-world, not for a long-term stay like they’re talking about. He prefers solid ground beneath his feet at least most of the time...and he actually has very little investment in their Quest for Homeworld, so he decides that he’ll stay here.

The others question if he’s sure, and even offer to leave at least Moissanite with him to help him around, but he refuses. Aside from not feeling altogether right about splitting Moissanite and Cubic, Cloudy has his pride and he’ll manage just fine. He is a diamond, after all!

And so off the others go to the military installation.

Raw has a great time digging around in all the decaying ships and weaponry, Cubic and Moissanite explore the things left behind by the gems that were once upon a time stationed there, and Champagne researches.

Cloudy’s defect...weighs on him, though...

(Possibly because they kind of…created the poor guy, imperfect, and then left him there, which sucks… but Champagne is a diamond and doesn’t have half the emotional intelligence to realize the injustice of that is what’s bugging him.)

He somehow decides that it’s the defect itself that’s bothering him, that he failed to create a 100% functional diamond. But he didn’t fail, he could do it, if he tried again…which he’s not going to do, just to prove a point, to himself even and not anybody else!

………

That’s exactly what he does.

Pink Diamond (Horrorswap Sans) rises from the sea one day, kicking up a tsunami in his wake, much to the surprise of the others who were definitely not kept in the loop on this matter.

Champagne, for his part, is unapologetic and unashamed: Pink is a total success, strong and complete and perfectly formed (aside from, perhaps, the occasional, very minor glitching of his physical body... but that can surely be put down to all that water he was incubated beneath, smoothing his intended rose-cut over time into something more like a cabochon. That’s nothing to do with him...)

Pink, for his part, is happy to help and join the search for answers.

He dives right into it all without complaint…until…

Well...

Seeing Cubic and Moissanite, and Raw and Champagne…they get along so well, and his recent arrival hasn’t opened up any space for him in their dynamics.

He’s very pointedly the odd man out, and it’s enough to make a diamond quite lonely,  quite aware that he’s the only gem here without a brother to call his own.

………

Taking a page from Champagne’s book, telling absolutely no one, Pink sets out to squeeze one more diamond out of this big ball of water, even though the planet’s resources are low after his emergence.

It’s not long before Olive Diamond (Horrorswap Papyrus) is slogging out of a dark, wet swamp, assisted by his brother—which is appreciated, because he seems to have a hard time keeping his legs to retain the ‘hard’ part of ‘hard light projection.’ Sometimes they’re solid light and sometimes they’re only light and maybe that’s what happens when you try to make a gem from a planet that’s running on empty...

Pink is delighted by his new sibling all the same!

Even so, a rule is made amongst the gems after that and agreed to by all: nobody makes anymore gems without telling somebody, no more surprises!

………

In retrospect, they probably should’ve decided on that rule a lot sooner, maybe a planet ago.

By the time they all return to the ghost world with a stockpile of newer tech and ships, they find Cloudy in the middle of a fully-operational and tidied up base, with everything rigged to accept voice commands and read out text, and a brand new shadow hovering around him.

Pepper Diamond (Horrorswapfell Papyrus) emerged from the ruins of one of the abandoned cities, Cloudy explains, and has been very helpful in the others’ absence, wonderful company—he told them he’d manage fine. > 3c

Well.

After all of that, the military base had been their last, best clue to finding Homeworld, or at least the remains of it, if gemkind were truly gone…

After a bit of discussion among the group, they decide to take communicators and ships and anything else they wanted/needed and just…go their separate ways, to do their own things.

Cubic and Moissanite set up shop on the first world they can find with sentient organics that will accept them, wanting to be around other people and to live peacefully.

Raw and Champagne choose to stick to their mission, going on the wild goose chase that is the search for other gems somewhere in the universe, even without any solid leads—the gem empire was expansive, but not As Infinite As the Universe-expansive, so they haven’t had any luck yet.

Pink and Olive are curious about other gems, too, but make it their mission to hunt down all the deserted bases, Kindergartens, and outposts in their neck of the universe and fix them up, restoring everything to its former glory as best they can—whether those places are promising in terms of leads/clues or not. It’s their heritage and they want to explore it and restore it, if they’re able.

Cloudy and Pepper intend to stay put on their birth world…but when Cloudy’s done everything he can on their planet, he gets a little bored sifting through the ruins of this dead world and wants to go find somewhere with living organics to stay instead. Pepper (reluctantly) agrees and they stumble upon a fledgling, primitive society that seems to think of these giant, shining and glowing immortals as some sort of deities… Oops, it seems as if they’ve started a colony of sorts on accident!

They’ll all keep on keeping on, and if anything interesting happens or someone needs a hand, they can reach the others to get back in touch.

…

Unbeknownst to the Outer Galaxy diamonds or the Diamond Authority back on Homeworld, a strange pair of Chameleon Diamonds—one Reverse (Gastertale Sans) and one Classic (Gastertale Papyrus)—are spat out of a singularity, somewhere in a galaxy in between.

They’ve got a lot of knowledge between the two of them, in the skulls behind their briolette-cut gems, but not a single solid memory, and their only clue is a whole lot of wreckage of some strange machine scattered around them in space.

They don’t know what they are, where they came from, how they’re alive, or what all this junk is…but once they make their way to a planet with gravity and stuff they can fashion tools and parts out of, they do figure out that they can cobble together a ship out of all this...

What better use of a couple of brothers’ time than a bit of adventuring, leisurely exploring the universe and any interesting lifeforms or civilizations they find along the way, with little more than respect of the Prime Directive to argue about? ;3

[hideawayintheimaginationworld]

I adore your fazbear fright house au and would love to hear of lefty fixes bonbon for funtime Freddy but of course take your time that's just my suggestion for the boredom thing

Funtime Freddy knew he had been outside all night, he was sitting with his back against the house, his eyes shifted focus from place to place, like this garden outside, obviously which was not to be disturbed by him, he didn’t know if Lefty was the one who planted things or if this was someone else's place to do things. He knew Millie wasn't the only one living here, he didn’t bother to remember everyone, he remembered that kid Alec because he had the audacity to drop a stack of plates on his head once, he also knew about Sarah because of Eleanor mentioning her in every sentence, like it was an obsession.

Funtime Freddy always thought she was slightly creepy.

He preferred Ballora honestly.

Actually, he hadn’t seen her in years.

He couldn’t hear anything inside the house despite he knew he was outside of the kitchen, he didn’t know what Lefty was doing inside that house generally, he had seen enough of Lefty to know coming in uninvited was a big mistake. He couldn’t tell if Lefty locked him outside, he was slightly wary if he tried to open the door, he'd be met with an angry black bear.

The only thing that bothered him was how lonely BonBon might be. He hadn’t seen BonBon in years and he just gave them to Lefty, with a possible loosely veiled promise of repair. He would have liked to keep him but he wouldn’t argue with Lefty.

Dark had turned to light, he watched the sunrise above, lighting everything, seeing everything in a new light, he could see a tree that was showing flowers, the flowers themselves were coloured bright red, this whole garden appeared well kept, he could see the grass on the ground was cut down to size.

The sun had brought everything into perspective, how much time passed, and where he was exactly in this world.

He had always thought of the sun as a clock, being able to tell roughly the correct time by looking at its position high in the sky, a skill he had with some pride.

He started to wonder how long it would take, and how long he'd be outside for, he wouldn’t leave without BonBon at this point, he felt like an unreachable goal was now within his grasp and he didn’t want it pulled away now.

But the anxiety was killing him in a way.

The door finally opened and Funtime Freddy hurriedly got to his feet and backed away, Lefty came outside, he looked at Funtime Freddy almost inquisitively, “I thought you would run away. You've been outside for over 12 hours.”

“Not without BonBon,” Funtime Freddy answered.

“Well you've been out here for hours, I didn’t even think you'd sit still.”

“I have some self-control.”

“Not a hell of a lot though Funtime,” Lefty sneered, closing the door and standing near the doorway, clearly so he could go back inside quickly just in case, Funtime Freddy always noticed people would like to stand near the door whenever they were around him as a means to get away quickly, which indicated just how well-liked he was.

“Have you looked at BonBon?” Funtime Freddy asked him.

“Not really, it's a normal day for me, I haven’t gotten a spare minute until now, I wanted to see what you were doing.”

“Nothing!”

Funtime Freddy to Lefty sounded like a whiny child, which he had heard plenty of those, Funtime Freddy's voice, in particular, was grating to his ears.

“I need parts.”

“What?”

“I need parts to fix BonBon,” Lefty further explained, “And tools, ideally I'd need new parts, I don’t even know if some of the parts I might need are still being made.”

“That doesn’t really matter.”

“Yes, yes it does. We aren’t from the same generation, your exoskeleton is made of coiled wires that bend and move like snakes under the skin, my body is an advanced exoskeleton that is tough to break, you have a chest cavity, I don’t.”

“Wait you don’t?” Funtime Freddy frowned, he assumed because Lefty was just as big as him that he had some sort of storage tank in his abdomen somewhere.

“No, I don't,” Lefty repeated.

“What have you got then?”

“A lot of complicated mechanisms, that all simultaneously work around the clock, Henry builds the most advanced machines, the only reason why I can’t ever get rid of you for good is that William made you have almost the same strength level as me. Henry made us with the intentions to act as security guards.”

“How do we know Henry didn’t copy anybody?” Funtime Freddy asked.

Lefty turned sour, “You're asking that despite what you are? We aren’t the same. You are a dressed-up cage for children basically,” He jabbed his finger at his chest.

Funtime Freddy looked at his finger poking at him, then he looked at the house and remembered something.

“Speaking of children....”

“At school,” Lefty answered immediately, “They're all out of the house, I told them about what happened.”

“Even... Millie?” Funtime Freddy asked, not knowing if this was a question he shouldn’t be asking.

“Yes, I don’t want her safety threatened by your presence, I have a set of rules regarding her and the other kids that I want you to obey.”

Funtime Freddy should have expected this.

“Don't talk about death, ever, I don’t care if it's hypothetical or you think it's funny, you're not funny, no one wants to hear that,” Lefty said.

“Okay.”

“Do not ever enter the house unless you are invited in, and I only want you downstairs, you can be in the garage, do not go upstairs ever, if I catch you up there, I will throw you downstairs.”

“What if I have to?”

Lefty frowned, “What? Why would you need to?”

“Say Eleanor shows up, for that other girl... um, Sarah right?” Funtime Freddy suggested.

Lefty was silent before responding: “Then come to my room, it's the first room, do not go into anyone else's room, especially Millie's, are you clear now?”

“Yep.”

“This should go without saying but I know because of how much a nuisance you can be if you even make a threat to anyone, this little deal we have, is null and void.”

“Understood!” Funtime Freddy gave him a thumbs up.

“If I can’t fix BonBon, then you need to accept it.”

Funtime Freddy's happy demeanour dropped, “What?? But-”

“You aren’t modern neither is BonBon, there is a chance BonBon will require parts that are now obsolete,” Lefty explained.

Funtime Freddy shook his head, “Then I'll look in the Scrap Yard, I've found all kinds of things there, I could find–”

“I understand you want BonBon fixed, but this isn’t a guarantee, and I'm holding you to our deal, I will be fair, I expect you to be also.”

Funtime Freddy gave a smile, he saw Lefty immediately narrowed his eyes at him, so he stopped smiling.

“You are covered in filth,” Lefty told him, “Would you protest to being cleaned up?”

Funtime Freddy shook his head, he knew he hadn’t been washed in years, he knew Lefty was probably getting cleaned regularly, as he didn’t even have so much as a bad smell on him and he appeared very well groomed from top to bottom, Funtime Freddy knew he was covered in dust, dirt and other stains like paint, grease, and oil.

Lefty turned and opened the door, he then stepped aside, “Come in, but when I say leave, go back outside, no complaining.”

Funtime Freddy didn’t push his luck with a snide remark, he sped walked inside, Lefty closed the door and Funtime Freddy looked around more in the kitchen.

His eyes briefly rested on the knife block, before realising that looked bad so he looked at the dining table instead, seeing a folded newspaper there, along with a black coffee mug, which he presumed was Lefty's.

Funtime Freddy then looked around, he expected to hear something else aside from his exoskeleton loudly creaking and shifting with the movements of his neck— he could honestly do with a slight maintenance check, but it wasn’t urgent.

“Are you the only one home?” Funtime Freddy knew he said the kids were out but he knew some adults were living here too.

“Matt's bedridden, he picked up some sort of virus, he's been throwing up everything he eats, Stanley had the day off and said he'd deal with him, and Delilah been spending time with this new man she met, means I can catch up on some chores, then have some tea.”

“The kids don’t do any chores?” Funtime Freddy questioned the situation.

“They do the simple stuff, like washing dishes, washing clothes, mopping the floor... I mean the more intense chores, like cleaning all the carpets which usually takes a few hours, cleaning the oven...” Lefty explained.

“What can I do?”

“Sit in the kitchen, be silent, I'll clean up stuff.”

“What about BonBon?”

“I'll get around to it later,” Lefty shrugged, “If I have time.”

“BonBon isn’t an it.”

“Whatever, the thing is valuable to you, not me.”

Funtime Freddy felt offended by that, and he countered, “It's the same as you and Millie! You look out for her!”

Lefty stared at him coldly before answering, “You do realise you just compared your relationship to what is your friend to that of me and the girl you traumatised? Do you not realise my point of view now? You are the monster that terrorises her, Millie is still a child, her parents are overseas, her grandfather is elderly and he can't protect her from you, she hides behind me because of fear, oh but you wouldn’t know what real fear feels like? Would you?”

Funtime Freddy went silent, he then walked over the dining table and sat down on one of the chairs, he felt completely uncomfortable.

[makorragal-312]

Void (Part Six)

We’re back, baby!

Allura sighed as she sat on her bed, exhausted from the events of the night. Lance had dropped her off at her room a few minutes ago, so she couldn't help but to lose herself within her thoughts. A small smile came to her face as she recounted the night she had with Lance's family. They were truly wonderful people and had effortlessly made her feel like she was apart of the family. She was reminded of her mother's kindness during her talks with Lance's mother. She was reminded of her father's quiet yet sensitive nature when she looked at Lance's father. She laughed when she conversed with Veronica, Marco and Rachel and immediately felt like a kid again when she watched Luis and Lisa watching over Nadia and Sylvio. To say that the kids were miniature versions of Lance was an understatement.

Speaking of Lance...

The Altean couldn't help but to think about the red paladin. She noticed the unusual shift in his behavior throughout the majority of the night. She noticed how confused and conflicted he looked at the dinner table while she wasn't looking. He seemed to have calmed down just a little while they walked in the park, though she could feel there was still some tension from his end. And it didn't help matters that way he acted when he dropped her off.

Lance, would you like to come inside?

U-uh, no thanks! I'd like to, but I gotta get me beauty rest, you know? We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, so kinda need the energy!

Alright. So I'll-

Yup! See you in the morning! Good night, princess!

The princess furrowed her brows at the memory. She couldn't forget how fidgety and anxious he was to get out of there, like he was stuck in a mine field and was in fear of being blown to bits She knew that Lance didn't hate her, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he's starting to avoid her. Just as she thought that, she felt little feet climb up to her shoulder. Allura turned her head to find the mice, happy and eager to see her and squeaking in delight. She couldn't help but to smile.

"It's good to see you, too. Have you been behaving well?" she asked, grinning. Platt turned their head, looking at the door for a quick moment before turning their head back to Allura, asking about Lance's whereabouts.

"He left not too long ago. He came over just to drop me off." Chulatt quickly climbed atop of Platt's head, tilting their head in curiosity before squeaking.

"Oh, he's alright. And don't worry. he was the perfect gentleman." Allura responded with a chuckle. Soon enough, the mice lined up next to each other, heads on their paws and eyes wide in anticipation.

"You want to know how the date went, don't you?" Allura asked in exasperation, already knowing the answer. Sure enough, all four mice nodded their heads in excitement. The Altean let out a sigh before she began.

"Well, it was…nice. We had dinner at his house and I got to meet his family. They're very lovely people. So…close." Allura let out a sad smile, being reminded of her parents and Altea. She let a cough, trying not to dwell on the memory.

"Anyway, afterwards he took me to a nearby park. We talked for a bit and then he decided to take us back to get ready for tomorrow. That's pretty much everything." Allura finished. She watched as Chuchule climbed on top of Platt, puckering their lips and mimicking kiss sounds. Allura blushed in embarrassment.

"A-absolutely not!" she yelled. Allura quickly turned around, trying her best to hide her blush. She wasn't going to go ahead and feed into their teasing. She heard the mice squeak in glee, assuming that their princess was lying and did in fact kiss the red paladin. Frustrated, Allura turned her head back to them quickly.

"I'm telling you I didn't! Well, he didn't." Allura spoke softly. The mice stopped squeaking as they observed Allura, taking aback by her sudden somber expression. They all tilted their heads in confusion. The princess noticed the gestures and sighed before explaining.

"When we were talking, there was a moment where Lance was opening up. He said that he wanted to help me find a family. A home. Something inside me just told me that he meant it and he truly did care for me. He truly loved me. I tried to get closer to, you know. But he pulled away and kissed my hand instead. I guess I got the wrong idea." the Altean recounted.

Allura thought back to that moment in the park. Words couldn't describe how safe she felt in that moment with him. How her heart felt like it was going to beat itself right out of her chest. How grateful she was for him being there for her. So yeah, she really wanted to kiss her and given how he's felt for her all of this time, she just assumed that he wanted it, too. And he did, it just happened to be her hand and not her lips. She felt Plachu climb up her shoulder and nuzzle their head against her cheek in comfort, which Allura genuinely appreciated. For the third time that night, the princess sighed and plopped her chin into her hand as she slouched.

"I just wish I knew what happened. If I did something to make him change his mind, I at least want to apologize and make things right."

And that's when it hit her. She quickly sat up straight, face filled with anxiety and horror. The mice looked the same.

"Do you think it's because of Lotor?" she asked in fear. The mice looked at each other for a second before shrugging. That certainly doesn't help matters, she thought.

But the more she thought about it, she honestly wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. When Lotor came along, she had completely brushed Lance aside, aiming to focus on her alchemy and helping Lotor whatever the cause. And somewhere down the line, she started to fall for the prince, and he for her. And sure enough, she let him kiss her. She wanted to let him kiss her. And everything was great…until it wasn't. She was exposed to his true colors and his true motives and let him go. And it hurt, because she wanted to believe that he could never do such a thing. He would never go ahead and kill innocent Alteans. She let him onto her ship. She let him near her paladins. And what's worse, she let him near Lance. He warned her of his intentions, but she chose to stand by Lotor.

He thought he was going to betray them. She chose Lotor.

He thought he was after Voltron. She chose Lotor.

He was in love with her. She chose Lotor.

The guilt she felt was immeasurable. It was bad enough that Lance had to witness her getting close to Lotor. But she knew that if he ever found out about their kiss, it would destroy him. And the last thing Allura wanted to do was put him through any more pain.

"He can't know about this."

_______________________________________________________________________

"You know you don't have to stay here, right?"

"I know, but I'm doing it anyway. But don't worry I'll be on my way out soon enough." Keith walked towards Lance, whom was laying down on his bed. He was about to leave Lance's room a few minutes ago until the red paladin began suffering from a tear-induced migraine, so he decided to hang back and look after him until the migraine showed signs of passing. Hence why he was currently walking towards the blue-eyed man with an aspirin pill in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

"Ugh, who made post-cry migraines a thing?" Lance wailed, accepting the pill from Keith's hand. He sat up and popped it into his mouth before taking a huge gulp of the water.

"I don't think the person who was crying intended to get a migraine in the first place." Keith chuckled, walking to the kitchen counter and sitting on its corresponding stool. Lance swerved his head at him to give the half-Galran a scowl as the latter merely smirked. Lance let out a defeated sigh, knowing he wasn't going to win the argument and plopped back onto the bed. Eventually, the room went into silence.

"Hey, man. I'm sorry you had to see me like that." Lance said somberly.

'Lance, you don't need to apologize. You're going through conflicting emotions with Allura. Anybody would break down over that." Keith replied reassuringly. Lance kept his gaze to the ceiling. Even though he already somewhat broke down in front of him earlier, he refused to let him go back to that place again. He was also trying to get to sleep without his head feeling like it's been hit by a sledgehammer.

"Yeah, but-"

"Lance. You're human, You feel what you feel. Don't feel like you have to keep everything down while everyone else brings theirs up." Keith said firmly. He refused to have Lance feel ashamed for breaking down. He may not have been with the team all that time due to him being with the Blades, but he already felt that Lance was the one who was going through the most shit on the ship and would most likely keep it to himself as to not annoy anyone. And Keith would be damned if he had him act the same now that they're back home.

The red paladin was speechless. He didn't expect the leader of Voltron to say something so profound and comforting, especially to him. And in all honesty, he felt as though he had said the words that he had hoped someone had said to him back in the castle when the latter had left and he was left to his own emotional devices.

"I guess you're right." Lance sighed, signaling the return of the original silence that plagued the room. A good ten minutes drifted by before Keith spoke.

"Lance?"

"Yeah?"

"I want to ask one question, and you totally have the right to not answer. Just wanted to let you know." Lance finally turned his head at Keith, intrigued and nervous at the statement. He gazed at Keith, whom was looking back at him, grasping his hands together firmly.

"What is it?" Keith took a breath before he dropped the bomb.

"What are you scared of?"

Lance's eyes widened in surprise. He had almost forgotten that him being scared caused him to not kiss Allura, but he had no idea that Keith was still dwelling on it. He knew it came from a place of genuine concern, which he was grateful for. But he really wished that he had left it alone so that he didn't have to go through those waves of thoughts and emotion again. The thoughts of not doing the one thing he's wanted to do for ages. The feeling of confusion and sheer relief when he didn't go through with kissing the princess. The guilt he felt in going for a kiss with someone when he already had someone else on his mind. And more importantly, the weird longing of the purple eyes that made his chest tight and his heart skip. The same eyes he was looking into now. Hesitatingly, he looked away from Keith as he connected his eyes with the ceiling once more.

"Everything."

[redstainedsocks]

The Pet Store Pet

I’ve been perfectly content being a reader of all the Box Boy Universe content – first posted by @sweetwhumpandhellacomf and then @shameless-whumper – happily just enjoying the fics people have been tirelessly putting out (though I’m sure I’ve missed a few out there, you’ve all been busy!). Partly because I’m new around these parts and partly because I had no ideas of my own.

And then yesterday this one ask and reply from @ashintheairlikesnow pretty much slapped me across the brain with a fully formed idea… so now I have this fic, and several character ideas and a plot. So I guess this is me adding my hat to the ring?

TW: dehumanization, modern slavery, memory loss, loss of identity

Kit watched the clock hands turn and listened to the radio, ignored the quiet shuffles of the products on the shop floor and went through his mental checklist for the day.

Cleaning was done. Restocking done. The cash box was out — ready for the money from the till to be transferred in — as were the account books. The front window display had been straightened and the front step swept clear of leaves and rubbish.

The products had had their midday water and the evening “meals” were ladled out in the back, ready for them once they were put to bed. The back entrance was clear for the late-night shipment that was due.

Had he missed anything else? He looked down at his hands and saw how grubby they were and a thrill of panic shot through him. Was there time to clean them before the owner — his owner — came back? Hopefully, maybe. He had to try. He rushed to the back room and scrubbed until his hands were red, heard the tinkle of the bell on the shop door at the same time his owners footsteps clunked down the stairs. He scurried as quickly as he could on quiet bare feet but his owner reached the front of the shop first.

The customer only wanted a new leash and the transaction was done and over in minutes as he stood and cursed his slowness in the dim doorway that led to the back of the shop.

“Kit!” His owner sounded impatient, a layer of fury underneath the one syllable name. He closed his eyes in a moment of weakness, taking a second to enjoy the calm behind his eyelids, before slinking from the backroom and around the counter.

His owner pulled him close by the ring on the front of his collar. “Were you slacking off?”

“No sir, just checking on something in the back, sir.”

His owner made a disgruntled noise and surveyed him up and down. “Well. Everything seems to be in order. Close up, will you? Brandon’s coming round ready for that new shipment and I wanna set up for a card game.”

Kit nodded. The restriction of the collar tugged on his neck, the ring still hooked on his owner’s finger.

“You just need to do the money sir, I can’t.”

“I know, don’t tell me how to run my own store.” He was shoved sideways and the corner of the counter dug into his hip.

His owner grumbled through the process of sorting the money, locking away the credit card reader and putting everything into the safe upstairs. Kit busied himself tending to the other pets, the unsold ones, the litters his owner liked to call them.

Turn around was always slow and they were usually here for a few weeks before being sold. Every day he would bring them from the crates out back and put them on display, pretty them up in the hopes a sale would be made. Putting them away again was harder. Crueler. He felt dirty with it, closing them up in cages — crates — every night, cramped and squashed on rusty bars in a too-cool room.

At least on the shop floor they had cushions and gilded cages to lounge in, were given soft collars and pretty accessories to wear to entice customers. Out back was bleak, void of colour and comfort.

Most of them went without a fight now, the punishment — corrections, he reminded himself — received for fighting back enough of a deterrent. He unleashed them one by one and supported them to the back. Some with limbs gone numb from hours in the same position, some muddled after the doe eyed reverie of staring at nothing all day. He let them stretch, use the bathroom, held their hands as he guided them into their crates. Some looked at him pitifully, mournful, pleading. He tried to reassure them.

“Any day now, someone will come in and want you. Any day, keep being good. Look there’s food, you can sleep. Nothing else to worry about, hmm?”

He was their keeper, and their charge, and their comfort and he envied them. They’d be gone soon, he would not. Not that this was a bad life for a pet, there was stability in the sameness of the shop, the customers and the constant new products that they advertised.

But… but that was the hard thing. He watched pets come and go, never knowing if the life they were going to was a good one, or a safe one; if they’d be hurt or touched or loved or loathed or or or, his mind always throwing up new nightmarish possibilities. He’d look at the customers and try to imagine them in their homes with a pet at their feet and see if he could glean any insight into what kind of owner they would be.

He had no idea whether he was ever right. He didn’t understand humans at all, couldn’t fathom why they wanted pets, why there was any status in it or anything to like about it. His only real knowledge of people were his owner, owners friends, and the customers. He never spent enough time with the latter to really get what people were like outside of the interactions between buyer and seller, and the former… they just seemed to tolerate him for his usefulness and be constantly irritated by his failings.

And he hated them for it. He wasn’t supposed to, probably. And he didn’t ever do anything about it, but it festered inside him. Soured him. He wondered why anybody would bother with such an ungrateful, wilfully obstinate being living in their house.

And then there were the others. The Box Boys (and Babes, and Buddies) the proper pets, the ones with real shine and promise. He saw the adverts on T.V or heard talk of them on the radio, how revered they were, how plush and sophisticated their lives were. With their pristine delivery boxes and high end accessories, tailored training, stunning looks. The way the company had the best reputation, the highest honours, everyone knew they were offering the best quality of product and the most thorough training.

It was infuriating, to be on the wrong side of the divide between the products. To be less. To be messier. To be brutalised more regularly because his training didn’t cover the things his owner expected of him. He remembered very little of his initial training, just dark rooms and beatings and the sharp-bright sting of electricity that obliterated everything so they could start from the ground up. Start with kneel, and obey without question, and be afraid and really… not a lot else.

His owner could pretend to his middle class clients that everything was above board, everything sourced reliably and safely, but he knew it was all a lie because the leaflets they pushed on people with spiel about good facilities and happy pets… he printed those off himself on the printer upstairs and he knew he’d never been anywhere like that.

But the private trainers they could recommend to people — for a hefty price—  they were all too real and all too good at their jobs. He knew that from experience, his Owner had used their services enough times to get him in line that he shuddered at the mere thought.

“Kit, are you done yet? Get your ass up here.”

The shout startled him and he soothed the last pet into her crate and clanged the door shut too loudly, made her jump and he apologised under his breath.

He took the stairs two at a time and slowed down just as he pushed open the door to the office space above the shop.

“Brandon will be here soon, but I think there’s time for your daily meditation before he gets here.”

“Yessir,” he bowed his head and sucked in a lungful of air. His meditation, as his Owner liked to call it, was just a time each day that he was supposed to kneel, leashed, and ruminate on his place — so that he wouldn’t forget, even when he walked around on two legs with his head held high and his manners neatly presented for the customers — where he really belonged.

“Any problems today?” His owner asked from the small kitchen counter.

“No, sir. Everything was quiet.” Two pets had fallen asleep in the store front, but there hadn’t been any customers in the shop who’d noticed, and they’d woken without fuss a couple of hours later so he didn’t feel the need to mention it.

“Good, good. Shirt off, you won’t be needing it.”

He took off the tight fitting tank top that was his “uniform” and folded into the small wicker basket that contained all his belongings. Or, more accurately, all the belongings that his owner set aside for him to use. He kneeled in place at the foot of the large floor bed that served as his space in the building, and clasped the metal rod into place between his collar and the hook embedded in the wall. It was a short restraint, he almost had to press his nose to the wall to not strangle himself and he had to stay kneeling with a straight back to be remotely comfortable.

He placed his hands behind his back and tried to slip into the mindset his owner wanted him in. Cool hands circled his wrists, left smooth worn leather behind and locked the cuffs together.

“Sir?” He said, voice higher than usual with surprise. Usually the short leash was all that was expected of him during mediation.

“Just want you lookin’ good for Brandon, you know how he admires you.” His Owner ran a rough hand over his head and scratched at his short hair, and then knocked him aside, playfully. He choked briefly before he could right himself. “Did you eat yet?”

No? Of course, no. He hadn’t had time, he’d been run off his feet. “Na-huh. Sir.”

“Well, either you’re gonna go very hungry or we’ll have to feed you later if we remember,” his owner chuckled. “Could make you eat right off the floor, that’d be a show for Brandon wouldn’t it?”

Kit had no idea why his owner wanted to impress Brandon so much, he was only the body-mod guy they used for tattoos and alterations. He was only coming over to put barcodes on the new shipment. But his owner was always desperate to make a good impression when Brandon was around; laughed too loud, drank too much, let Brandon touch whatever he wanted…

He shook his head and realised he hadn’t answered the question. “Sorry, umm, yes?”

Owner laughed again, “Look at you, already getting deeper into your meditation. Carry on little Kitty, I need you on best behaviour tonight.”

[Part Two]

[violetsystems]

#personal

The holidays are quiet if not a little more restful than usual.  I facetime’d my dad and his wife and talked to my mom on the phone.  Since I left my job way back in July I haven’t had much video contact with anybody.  Everybody is too busy baking banana bread on YouTube I guess to check in.  The final days of my employment had devolved into a virtual SCRUM twice a day led by myself on camera.  It was exhausting at times to lead but kept people focused.  That is when they bothered to show up.  One of my employees was off making music with my boss half the time I was trying to lead those discussions.  I’m beginning to sense a theme.  People saying they are there but not really.  Maybe the mic is muted.  Maybe you can’t see behind the screen.  All I know is the follow through lately with people is missing entirely.  I spent a good hour the last two days trying to decouple a credit card from my old job’s contact info.  I’m locked out of both the phone number and the email attached to the account.  I got the run around trying to provide a US passport to confirm my identity.  It was good enough to enter China alone.  The first call that ID was sufficient.  They had said they sent an email to follow through with the process to two different emails I provided.  The email never came most likely because neither had been tied to the account previously.  I called back on Christmas eve and suddenly the passport wasn’t good enough.  Neither was an expired driver’s license.  The woman actually asked me why I hadn’t renewed my driver’s license.  I told the truth.  My ex girlfriend stole my car.  That didn’t really help the situation.  I sent a passport photo to unlock my facebook but they never followed through.   I had an easier time unlocking my Fortnite account with it although that took a full week.  I ended having to call the police on Christmas eve to explore filing a report for fraud and identity theft.  The police officer on the phone pretty much gaslighted me at the end of the questioning.  “Nothing criminal.” he stated plainly.  I didn’t get mad.  I didn’t even complain.  I simply said Happy Holidays and hung up.  Much like I’ve hung up on the last twenty years of my life at this point.  Nobody seems to want to answer the video call.  The opening introduction if they did would be something like “What exactly have you done with my life?”  Maybe they’re afraid to confront the truth.  The media, the government, and even the police seem to not want to believe evidence that contradicts their narrative.  I guess you could throw up your hands and revolt.  But the holidays have been peaceful and quiet enough to simply roll my eyes and move on.  I’ve had years of failures to connect.  COVID has taught me a lot of things.  I heard the mantra in all the mandatory corporate webinars.  This pandemic has brought to light structural problems we were never aware of before.  Sexual harassment in the workplace.  Check.  Organizational corruption.  Check.  The fact everybody is full of bullshit and will just mute the mic and pretend it never happened.  Check.  People feel invincible behind a screen and think they know it all.  Check.  Now that we’re aware.  What do we do?  How do we move on with our life now that we have all this space?  How do I even care about participating in a broken process when I have no debt and fiscal maturity?  How can I go back to being the old me when I’ve been completely erased and conveniently forgot about?  Why would I even bother?  

Mostly I take the time with this process to make sure my identity is completely secure.  Which is why it’s not really fun to be locked out of twenty years of your own information in the form of an email account and forgotten about for six months.  But this is just the structural reality come to light.  Much like the rest of America is waking up to the reality of what greed really does to people.  That was my Christmas present this year aside from the coffee that never came and that Cyberpunk game that I don’t really have the time or the subpar computer setup to criticize.  I’m guilty of tricking myself into thinking people care about me.  I have statistical data from the last six months that proves otherwise.  I also have financial data that points to whatever hustle I have been hustling during that time has paid off and will continue to.  But I don’t really have an answer to anything.  I’m in the worst kind of limbo.  I don’t get the sense these days that I should even remotely worry until July.  Which is kind of like saying fuck you to the world for the next six months.  I spent the last six waking up from a nightmare.  The only times I look back is to clean up the mess.  And a Christmas Eve call to the police is kind of messy.  But the result is more of the same for me.  An extravagant “I told you so.”  I’ve been telling myself for awhile now a lot of things.  Some of them were kind of unbelievable.  Now those very dreams are all I really take comfort in.  The limbo I’m in is more pointed to the light at the end of the tunnel than the void.  But I can’t say the same for everybody else.  I work for myself for the time being.  It looks really nice on paper.  I can even pay myself if it fits into my organization’s financial outlook.  But none of this matters when you or your struggles don’t even exist to people other than to mock or judge it.  All the work we do to survive.  All the work we do to create art and to be beautiful in the face of chaos.  All of that is negated by a loud mouthed jerk who can bark you back into submission.  A mob of dumb ass fraudsters that talk over and mute any opposition without any warrant or merit.  The press follows this mentality pretty clearly.  Everybody has a hot take and a theory.   But nobody wants to sit down and listen to the culmination of lies spread about people and situations.  Everyone is too emotionally interested in sharing their recipe for banana bread to an invisible audience.  I guess I could be guilty of that too.  Except that I share actual human emotion and care with a community of people who pay attention week to week.  For a person like myself who has no real need to worry about money for the foreseeable future what’s the value of care and attention?  A lot.  I don’t feed myself with vapor or fake sentiments.  I take it all at base level as real as it gets.  You can’t build a future on speculation.  You can technically if you are in the stock market.  But risk is risk.  And money is money.  No one can be me at the end of the day.  Sometimes I can’t even prove I’m myself.  My mom reminded me I had to provide ten pieces of documentation to renew my passport ten years ago.  The reasoning was simple.  The government did not believe I existed.  No bullshit.  A decade later nothing really has changed.  I’ve been to Shanghai by myself and eaten McDonald’s.  I read all these Republicans talk about how you put your identity at risk just setting foot in that country.  

And yet when does the rhetoric and brainwashing fall flat on it’s face?  When you can’t pass economic stimulus to not only save your own people but the fragile stock market all this bullshit is built upon.  I could keep telling you I told you so.  Or I could save my own ass.  And largely I did without really owing much to this country whatsoever except taxes in Q1.  Taxes billionaires don’t have to pay because they offer us so much relevant employment and benefits that fit on their bottom line.  The real truth is that America would rather not face the truth.  It hasn’t for years.  It’s built on this kind of thing.  It always has been.  And the world gets bigger and the excuses get worse.  And so what does anyone expect a person like me to do after you openly admit that there’s nothing criminal going on here.  How does that sound when you’ve been treated openly like a criminal in so many unsettling ways that you just don’t want to participate in society anymore?  Not that anyone really asks me to participate.  They’re too busy signaling or whispering secret messages.  Is it suggestion or valid communication?  I’m the one that has to shift through it all and detangle the mess from what is real and what is some sort of mass hallucination.  An alternate reality hunger game that the rich have been playing for years without any punishment or oversight.  When you get caught up in the crossfire they expect you to know the drill.  Keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.  None of this is good for me.  You could argue it made me the beast that I am.  But I am the one who had to actively make that choice to adapt and survive.  But I’m not like any normal person these days.  I refuse to admit it anymore.  They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.  I have a problem.  One that it seems I cannot fix.  And if you isolate and quarantine yourself from an entire twenty years of nostalgia what is left?  Where are the texts of merry xmas from yesteryear.  Probably pinging my old work number.  I can’t access my facebook.  Maybe that’s for the best.  I can’t shut down lines of credit until I renew my state ID.  I could jump on a plane and visit Shanghai Disney quicker than I could prove I’m alive to the US government.  And when does the constant gaslighting break down?  When do we realize that people gaslight to cover up an elaborate lie that has gotten out of control.  That we are not all in this together.  Not by a longshot.  That the problem of connectedness is right there in front of our faces.  We’re exhausted propping up entire infrastructures that keep a bloated empire alive.  Family fortunes built on opioids and war strewn out across the landscape in trusts and elaborate tax schemes.  Oligarchs that have generational wealth that buy our politicians and scam people into debt and forced labor.  This is America.  This is the systemic problem the pandemic brought to light.  This shit was built this way.  And like any fort constructed with shaky foundations, good luck hiding from the storm in that shit.  At least I can still access my Epic account.  What am I going to do for the next six months?  Complain about something I can’t fix because everybody wants to consider me part of the problem?  I don’t know what to do anymore except move forward and lead by example.  There’s enough quality people who follow to keep me warm with those thoughts through the holidays alone.  I won’t be drunk on a zoom call.  I’ll be in bed watching Wonder Woman or something.  When everyone you worshipped comes out of this looking fake, tired and exhausted you’ll know where to find me.  Unlocking more accounts tied to an identity that doesn’t exist anymore.  Nothing criminal.  Hopefully people will stop treating me like one eventually.  <3 Tim

[crowleyellestair]

Jaskier’s Study of Expression - Valentine’s Special

AN// Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s a special little thing I did for the occasion.

Slow burn, but fluff and fun.

Masterlist

WIP: Princess Bride AU – Jaskier x Reader

Geralt x Healer Reader Pt. 2

Part 4 of Jaskier x Reader – Adventures in the South

  No woman was ever supposed to be a Witcher. The Trail of Grasses were too vigorous even for trained male bodies. And that’s what she had led them to believe- that she was a young boy. Growing up, and before the trials, no one had questioned why Y/n would ever want to bathe separately or change alone. People had the ability to be introverted through and through. Who was everyone else to judge the boy? Witcher’s are orphans, found across the continent. Of course, some have spawned from the Law of Surprise, but they were Witchers all the same.

Y/n had been the only one in her batch to survive.

It was Vesemir who found out, going into the chamber and checking to see if she had successfully undergone the transformation. He wouldn’t have found out- not for another year at least when puberty struck, but somehow the light gleamed just right. Everyone would admit they had never seen her sleep, but seeing the usually tense and scowling face rest, people could immediately tell. It hadn’t mattered- women have been visitors at Kaer Morhen for seasons at a time, so this couldn’t be any different.

She was a Witcher, and she would be treated as such.

Their thought was correct in finding that nothing was different. Instead of a brother, they had a sister. A sister who was the best at concealing all emotion, though had the gentlest touch. A sister who would help with anything, no questions asked, get the job done perfectly, and still have time to relax over afternoon tea. A sister that had traveled at some point with each of her brothers, trying to set them all up with women from their adventures- though, all the boys would argue that it was for her own amusement, and less for their wellbeing.

Geralt was apart of the last generation; the final undertaking of creating a Witcher. Eskel and Geralt had been borne from the Grass together, sharing a tight bond. Y/n had only five years on Geralt, but she filled a void in him that he didn’t know he was missing. She took him under his wing, void of emotion, but still giving him all the love and support an older sister should.

Because of their bond, Geralt knew Y/n could feel. Ask any other man at Kaer Morhen and they’d tell you she was the reason they all still believed the Trail wiped emotion. Sure, Y/n could flinch, but never a brow. Never the corner of her lips. Lambert used to joke that she had lost the ability to smile from a loss of muscle integrity in her face. All of them had been sitting around the table when the statement was made, Y/n sitting at the end. All eyes had fell on her, and she responded in kind. She gently placed her fork beside her plate, let out a deep breath, and smiled. It was a kind, gentle smile- one you’d only find if you asked a pure hearted soul. They all laughed as it fell, and Lambert was put in his place. But Geralt knew, that despite her exterior, she felt. And she felt hard. Geralt was an anomaly, his emotions still very prevalent in his personality. He would be scolded time and time again by Vesemir growing up, but Y/n had pulled him aside one night, and told him he wasn’t alone.

So, when Y/n knocked on his door that night, he wasn’t completely surprised.

He had been settling down to meditate on the dingey inn floor, but her soft voice calling to let her in stopped him. When the door opened to reveal her to him, a blush was spread over the usual pale cheeks. He wordlessly stepped aside, and she immediately flung onto the bed as a child would. She paused, staring at the ceiling before covering her face in her hands, and expelling a groan.

“I don’t know what to do.” Geralt’s lip tipped up, sitting next to her on the cot. His tone came out playful, but he truly did want to know.

“Jaskier?”

“Yes.” Her answer was one concealed in another groan. He had noticed a while back that the bard had shifted his focus from him to his sister. Geralt and Y/n frequently traveled together, but it wasn’t until Jaskier caught up with him, did he realized the bard and the woman had never met. The two had ‘Geralt cycles’ opposite of the other. It was almost as if fate pushed them together to finally meet when they had.

And when they did, Y/n was floored.

That first night, rather than asking the bard personal questions, she waited till he fell asleep and berated Geralt for answers.

“What has our friend gotten himself into this time?” His amber eyes met her liquid gold ones when she dropped her hands. Geralt crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at her. Though she was upside down to him from her laying position, he could still perfectly see the dramatization that has rubbed off from the bard onto her.

“My heart.” He let out an amused hum, his small smirk becoming a grin.

“Then why aren’t you out there?” She rolled her eyes and sat up.

“It’s not that simple, Geralt. When you’ve lived as long as I have-.”

“You’re five years older-.”

“I can’t just sit there like an obedient pup, taking compliments left and right. What am I supposed to do? I can’t dish them back either- I fear that would make them sound disingenuous.” She cast her gaze downwards, finding that her shoes seemed interesting.

There was a long pause, Y/n finally looking at Geralt again. He too had started to look at her shoes, but when he felt her eyes on him, the only reply he had a small shrug.

“Really?” He met her gaze, and gave an understanding look. He felt bad, as when he first fought with Yennifer, he asked for counseling from her. In fact, after every instance of meeting the sorceress, Geralt had asked for advice from Y/n. He did want to help, but all of the advice he had received from her was on how to deal with already being in love, not how to start a relationship.

“I would only be able to recite your own words on these matters.” Y/n’s shoulders slouched, and she lazily pulled herself from the cot.

“Okay.” She straightened and headed for the door. She stepped out, but popped her head back in to say, “If I die of embarrassment, don’t make a scene.”

 “What rhymes with amber?” Jaskier’s head lolled to the side, almost falling onto her shoulder. They had been somewhat huddled together to keep the bard warm. They had gotten caught in a chilly thunderstorm high in the Kestrel Mountains. They had a job to eradicate the enclave of Harpies that have made nests there. The trio were lucky enough to find a small cave right as the storm had started. Geralt had left the two towards the opening, scouting out some of the tunnels to find any danger.

It had only been a minute until Jaskier started to shiver. She would scold him on not dressing appropriately, but she couldn’t help but love his flashy outfits. Y/n had simply kept her mouth shut as she draped her heavy cape over him as he sat. When it happened, he refused it, saying she too could get cold. Y/n heavily protested, but gave up, settling under the cape next to him.

“Clamber. Geralt does a lot of that, so it would fit nicely, and be accurate.” Jaskier gave a little chuckle that she felt blow against her neck. Controlling her expressions was easier than breathing, but major alarms where going off. She couldn’t think straight be all the internal screaming occurring.

“Who said I was writing about that clot pole?” A laugh came tearing out of her throat that she tried to cover up with a cough. Jaskier simply looked down at his pad of paper and smiled. He knew her reputation for being as ruthless and unbreakable as the worst curses known to man. Jaskier thought he had a lot to do to rework Geralt’s reputation, but practically fainted at the sight of the workload following her.

But he was just as happy to help her. Eager, almost, as it meant he had to be near her to get all the details. While she showed no emotion, she was quite the talker. He appreciated that she would never let a question go unanswered. She would respond to all his quips, jests and remarks, no matter what mood he tried to perceive her to be in. And she did remain impartial to all political affairs, unlike her Witcher brethren, but that led for great discussion.

It was only recently however, that he realized there was only on thing she never responded to, complements. It seemed like her brain would shut down, and awkwardly segway to something else. Jaskier adored those moments, but he just added it to the list of things he already loved about her. She was the definition of perfect in his eyes. Strong, but gentle. Caring, but fierce. Impartial but passionate. Everything he thought the ideal being should be. The price to pay, it seemed, was her expressions. Now, Jaskier loved expressions. On anybody. It doesn’t matter who or why, but he loves to see the what people are feeling.

It was lucky for him that the only way he could see that on her was to flirt.

“I’m serious. Who said I was writing about him?” Y/n didn’t look in his direction, continuing to stare at the patterns on the cave wall.

“I apologize for assuming, then.” He shoved his shoulder against hers in a playful manner.

“Don’t worry about it. It has been the meanest thing you’ve done to me, but since it is the only thing, I’ll let it slide.” She gave a soft nod that Jaskier has come to know means a smile. Most would place a large or bashful grin, but she will give a slow nod in place of that. Curt nods are used for large smiles, usually used in the heat of the action or in place of a laugh. Downcast eyes meant for a frown. Side glances, that he has now become very fond of, signify her embarrassment. He loved seeing her look around for something- anything else to talk about. Her anger was harder to see, but she detested wearing gloves, but like Geralt wore. When she was angry, he could see the whites of her knuckles. Her skin had been so scarred and so taught that the force she needed to make the discoloration prevalent was immense. All of these things have been studied intently by him. He had given up charming others as he was usually too focused on her. He had to analyze all of her to try and break the enigma that was Y/n.

He was head over heels for her, and all of this was trying to calculate if she felt the same. So far, it seemed true.

“Tell me,” he started to inquire. She turned to meet his gaze, there faces centimeters apart. “What’s your favorite colour?” Y/n didn’t hesitate when she responded with,

“Pale blue.” She continued to stare at his irises, the object that convinced her a while ago that their colour outshone all others. When Jaskier blinked, she was brought out of her trance, and her head tilted away slightly, her gaze scanning the wall. The side glance didn’t go unnoticed, in fact flaming his need to continue.

“Hmmm. Could you give me an example? Is it like an afternoon sky or like the sea?”

“I uh-.” She coughed, fully looking away. “I don’t know, I guess. Just blue.” Jaskier had a plan, and since Geralt was gone for the moment, he decided it was a good a time as any.

“Um, Y/n?” He fiend a worried tone Her head whipped back with a stern look. Of course, her version of stern was a ghost of a squint. “Is something wrong?”

“Is there? I’m not aware of anything out of place.” He could feel her hand that rested against his leg shift towards her sword.

“Well, I can see a flush creeping up your neck…” Her squint dropped, and she straightened her posture. He watched as a flush did actually appear. His heart clenched as her cheeks became dusted with a light pink. The contrast of the colour against her skin was beautiful. The only thing, he thought, was a missing glow- all Gods glow.

“All Gods what?” It was Jaskier’s turn to flush as he spoke his thoughts openly on accident. Though, seizing the opportunity, he complied in telling the truth.

“I just thought that you needed a glow, as all Gods glow.” He watched as she side glanced again, but he saw a smile grace her face. He jumped up from under the cape to kneel in front of her. Her expression showed one of pure shock, and her back pushed itself as far as it could into the cave wall.

“Jaskier-.”

“Let me see it again- I couldn’t really see it at all.” It seemed to the bard that he had broken her. Her features morphed into one of great confusion. “That beautiful smile that you failed at hiding. Let me see it.” Her face read shock, and he leaned forward.

Again, his face was centimeters away. His hand rested on top of her bent knee, his body somewhat fitting in between her slightly parted legs. Y/n’s tongue darted out to swipe her bottom lip, and he made it obvious that he followed the movement. His eyes found hers boring into his.

“Tell me,” he started again. “Do you love me as I you?” A bewildered smile spread fast, falling slightly, then continued to spread. Jaskier’s chest felt like a fire was spreading just as fast. As if he had a forest just begging to be ignited. He returned the smile with one of his own. He knew he had his answer. Even if she didn’t verbally reply, he knew. He knew he was the only one, outside of perhaps Geralt, to make her smile.

“Julian Alfred Pankratz, you really did get into my heart.”

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 20

Your name is MICAH, and ten nights have come and gone in what felt like a few hours.

It’s still early enough that even Lynera is still asleep in the next room over, which is really saying something because that girl is up at the asscrack of dusk no matter what night it is. You’re curled up on the sofa in the study, staring at a fungus-shaped nightlight that does a poor job of actually illuminating the surrounding area, and wondering what the hell you were going to tell your friends in the future.

Hey, guys! Sorry I kind of dropped off the grid for a while there. I fought this fucked-up version of one of my human friends, vanished into the literal void to take a nap because I was super tired from splitting a whole universe apart, and then traveled back to the past to help fight in a literal revolution… because I want to save my other friends, I guess? You don’t have to worry about that changing the future or whatever, I promise! I’m literally a god now, so I have total control over time and space.

Geez. You hope Vriska is ready to stop the others from kicking your ass.

Should you just go? You could easily spend the night on future Alternia and be back by breakfast. Teleporting still makes you a little nervous; the fear of messing up still lingers in the back of your head, but nothing bad has happened yet, so…

Yeah, you’re definitely not getting any more sleep. Might as well be productive.

You roll off the couch with a grunt, stagger a bit as all the blood rushes down to your legs, and then stumble over to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. Maybe you were about to pull up to the future to get yelled at by a bunch of teenagers, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you have to look like crap.

The person looking back at you in the mirror startles you more than you’d like to admit. Their eyes are tired but wild, like a feral animal that’s been hunted to the point of exhaustion. Too-pale skin reflects the ceiling lights with an intensity that hurts your head if you look for too long. The dark shadows underneath both eyes are so dark they look like smudged mascara. You’ve always been very fair, even for a white kid, but you know that looking like this can’t be healthy.

Then there’s the fact that you’re still pretty underweight. You’ve been doing your best to eat on a somewhat regular basis, but you just don’t feel hungry anymore. It’s like your body already decided to give up.

And to be honest, the rest of you isn’t too far behind.

“Look at you. Sans Undertale looking-ass,” you tell the shadow in the mirror.

The shadow blinks in agreement at the same time you do.

You can’t look at yourself anymore. Moving as quickly as you can, you brush your teeth and do your best to assemble yourself into what could maybe pass for a functional human being and leave to go get dressed.

You’re rifling through your backpack for your water bottle when the lights come on in Lynera’s room. The bedroom door cracks open, and a messy head of pair pokes out, bits of sopor slime still clinging to black curls.

“Micah? What are you doing up so early?” she yawns.

“I, ah, I gotta go visit some friends a ways out of town. I’ll be back in a bit,” you promise. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“You didn’t! A new cluster of eggs is due to hatch tonight and I want to be there!” she practically sings as she gets ready.

You feel the sadness leave your body as Lynera practically prances around as she gets ready for her shift. It’s not often she lets down her walls, but when she does, you can’t help but take a step back to enjoy the show.

“Give those babies some love for me,” you tell her as you hoist your backpack over your shoulders.

“I will!”

Alright. Here we go. You close your eyes and visualize Vriska’s living room. That’s a good place to start, right? You’ll have a quick talk with Vriska, you’ll go visit your other friends one at a time to explain what’s going on, and then you can talk to those who are interested about helping the rebellion from the future.

Time and space part easily as you zap out of Lynera’s study and--

“-- worry about OH MY FUCKING GOD.”

You yelp in surprise as somebody shrieks at a deafening volume right next to your ear. Instincts take over, and you spring backward into something big and hard. That ‘something’ turns out to be a bookshelf, as you soon find out as a couple of novels fall from the top shelves and hit you right on the head.

“Ow! Shit!”

And that’s when you realize you have twelve young teenagers sitting around Vriska’s living room, all staring at you in various degrees of shock. Nepeta, Equius, Kanaya, and Sollux are all on the sofa, with Sollux perched on the backrest like he’s ready to take flight. Terezi and Vriska are standing on the coffee table together for some reason. Eridan’s curled up on the loveseat with one hand on his rifle. All of the others are sprawled out on the carpet.

All of the others except for Karkat, that is, who seems to have been returning from the kitchen with a pile of chips on his plate.

“Oh, hi!” Aradia says cheerfully. “Wow, I can see your bones--”

“THEY’RE BAAAAAAAACK!” Vriska hollers, launching herself off the coffee table and slamming into you at full speed.

The air is smooshed out of your lungs before you can brace yourself for impact. Thankfully, Vriska catches you before you can eat shit, otherwise you would have probably just teleported back to past Alternia and tried this whole thing again some other time.

“Hey, Vris,” you wheeze, patting her back. “Happy to see you too.”

“Fucking HELL, don’t do that,” Karkat yells, stomping over to the sofa and plopping down next to Kanaya. Kanaya purses her lips in mild amusement and delicately plucks a chip from his plate to eat.

Vriska just scoffs. “Don’t be a baby, Vantas, you know full well Micah can teleport--”

“Eat my full ass, Serket.”

“Hi, Micah!” Nepeta trills. A general murmur of greetings follows that, some more enthusiastic than others. Sollux, Equius, and Tavros all seem to be very on-edge tonight.

Feferi actually hops up to give you a hug as well, thankfully with a lot more care than Vriska had. It’s becoming weirdly normal to know that this big-ass six-sweep old girl could crush your skull like an eggshell.

“Don’t worry, nobody’s mad at you, I promise,” she whispers in your ear.

“Huh?”

Vriska grins and clasps your shoulder. “Oh, I already told them everything.”

“... Oh, boy.”

You turn back to the others and try your best winning smile.

“Yeah, what the fuck, dude?” Sollux demands.

“How are we even gonna exist with this kind of thing?” Karkat splutters, throwing his hands up in the air.

Tavros winces. “We get that you can do crazy space-time stuff, but--”

“You’re in way over your pan, retard!”

Ah, fuck. “Listen, guys, I know what I’m doing sounds pretty insane. And I’m sorry that I can’t tell you how exactly I’m going to pull all of this off because… you know, time shenanigans. But I need you guys to trust in me, at least for now. Also, Karkat, let’s not use that word. It’s extremely disrespectful.”

“Who are you, my lusus?” he challenges.

“No. Should I zap over and get him myself?”

“NO!”

“That’s what I thought.”

Vriska snickers under her breath. Karkat gives her a look that just screams murder.

Everybody else still looks a little queasy. Guilt rears its ugly head for the millionth time in the hour you’ve been awake, fearful and taunting and ashamed all at the same time. If you could just tell them everything, right now, you wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore.

Tell them.

You don’t, because you’re a coward, but you do try and calm everybody’s nerves again. “To elaborate on what Tavros just tried to say, yes, I can do crazy space-time stuff. Which means I can do stuff in one point in time and it won’t completely fuck up all the other points in time. It’ll change things, sure, but it won’t erase people.”

“What about our memories?” Eridan asks tersely.

“Definitely not,” you tell him. I won’t let that happen. “If everything goes according to plan, things will just start… changing.”

“We’re gonna make a new world that’s better for everybody!” Vriska announces proudly. “That’s why you guys are all here today.”

“By our human friend fighting in a rebellion that was already lost? Setting aside the fact that’s… treason… that also sounds rather dangerous. Micah, you aren’t a great fighter,” Equius says. His voice is quiet, but he’s so stiff you could probably use him to prop open a barn door.

“A rebellion is a lot more than just fighting, dude. So far I’ve just helped teleport people around,” you remind him.

“... Still.”

Nepeta suddenly surges to her feet, eyes blazing. “I don’t care that it’s treason! Don’t you care about what they did to me? My whole neighborhood got burned down in a drone strike!”

“Nepeta--”

“No! I remember everything now. I’m gonna help them win, ‘cause, ‘cause… even though we all had to suffer, the ones who come after us might not have to.”

Nobody speaks for many heartbeats after that. Something about what she said rings inside your head, sticking to your neurons like glue.

“See? Nepeta knows what’s good!” Terezi yells.

“This is insane.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome!”

“I’m in,” Aradia agrees, winking at you as she smooths her skirt down. Your anxiety backs down a little at her blatant support. Aradia Knows Things, right? Surely if she thinks you should keep doing what you’re doing…

“So am I,” Tavros announces, setting his jaw defiantly. Nepeta seems to have set off a chain reaction, because everybody else sits up a little straighter, eyeing each other as if daring anybody else to go first.

“And I,” Kanaya adds.

Karkat groans. “Fuck you guys. Fine! It’s not like we can play SGRUB anymore.”

“You guys are gonna die,” Sollux says, scrubbing his face with the palms of his hands. “We. Are. All. Gonna. Die.”

“So are you in?” you ask, reaching over to poke his arm.

He smacks your hand away. “Get fucked. Sure. Whatever.”

“Yay!”

Eridan huffs quietly and crosses his arms. “Well, you guys are gonna need somebody with power to help. And money. I’m in.”

Equius turns to stare at him with his jaw nearly on the floor, and you’re so full of pride you think you’re going to explode. You should have known your friends would eventually come around. And with not one, but two whole seadwellers on their side, they were truly going to be a force to be reckoned with.

“I knew it! I knew you cared!” Feferi squeals, jabbing a finger at her ex-moirail. Eridan curls up tighter on himself, but that doesn’t stop a small smile from lighting up his face.

“Is that a yes from you, Feferi?”

“It’s a hell yes, Micah!”

Gamzee smiles lazily from underneath the coffee table. “I told you motherfuckers. I told you a miracle was coming, and here it is.”

Poor Equius looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “I-I… you can’t possibly, I mean--”

“If you’ll excuse us!” Nepeta chirps, effortlessly pulling her moirail from the couch and slinging him over her muscular shoulders. The indigoblood yelps indignantly, but Nepeta just prances on upstairs as if she’s carrying a sack of potatoes and not a teenage boy nearly twice her size.

“What’s up with olivebloods and being insanely buff? I mean, my girlfriend’s taken on a jadeblood and a teal at the same time and she won,” you wonder.

Karkat immediately focuses on you with the intensity of a laser. “A girlfriend? You’re in a relationship?”

“Micah’s got a girlfriend!” Feferi yells, picking you up and twirling you around.

“What quadrant?”

“Is she cute?”

“An oliveblood, right-?”

“We wanna meet her!”

“Guys! Can we please focus on taking down the Empire? We can gossip about Micah’s love life later!” Vriska yells, clapping her hands for order.  

You rest an elbow on Feferi’s shoulder, enjoying being tall for the moment as she’s carrying you. “Ooh! You got a mission plan, Vriska?”

“You bet your skinny alien ass I do!” She pauses for emphasis and puffs out her chest. “We’re gonna go beat up a bitch for using lowbloods as FLARP bait!”

“Didn’t you do the exact same thing not too long ago?” Karkat scoffs.

Vriska scowls down at him. “Yes! Yes, I did! But now I’m gonna turn things around and help them instead, okay? ‘Cause I’m changing my…. my toxic behavior.”

She looks to you for support, and you give her the thumbs-up.

The others actually look a little impressed, which gives her the courage to keep going. “In half an hour Terezi and I are going to meet this violetblood dude who’s been responsible for a lot of rust and bronze deaths in the area. It’s a FLARP session at sea, so he’ll have his team-- I mean hostages-- on board with him.”

“You need a team?” you ask.

“You offering?”

“Of course.”

“Yes! But no passing out on me! Our goal is to neutralize the threat, secure the hostages, and deliver them back to shore so they can go home. Any questions?”

“I’m coming too,” Eridan says. He hops to his feet, dusting off some invisible debris on his pants. “That’s not a question, though.”

“Can I come? It sounds exciting,” Aradia begs.

“Sure! Anybody else?” Vriska scans the crowd with a smirk, as if saying You are all too pussy for this kind of adventure.

Unfortunately, it works. Karkat and Feferi step forward as well, which brings the team total up to six. Everybody else gets ready to go home before the sun comes up. Out on the horizon, heat lightning crackles in the sky like a strobe ball. You end up leaving your jacket with your backpack on the couch, because even for somebody who has trouble retaining heat, Alternian summers are brutal.

Surprisingly, the team figures out their FLARP-ing shit quickly enough, as they all played at one point or the other. You still have no idea what to make out of all the numbers and stats and scores that come with each move, even though Vriska makes it all look like child’s play. Karkat keeps grumbling about “games for girls” which has your hackles up until you remember that female trolls tend to be more violent than the males. That makes sense to you, especially when you remember Remele beating the shit out of that purpleblood and all of Lynera’s knives.

In almost no time at all the six of you are sailing out to sea, the wind in your hair and the smell of salt water filling your nose. If you close your eyes and pretended, you could almost imagine you’re back on Earth, taking a boat ride with your mom’s boyfriend and your stepsister at the lakehouse--

A particularly large wave knocks you back on your ass, and the memory cuts off as quickly as it began.

“Fuck!” you hiss, trying to get your bearings. You try as hard as you can to visualize what you just remembered, but all you can recall is sunlight sparkling off water, the rumble of an engine, a man laughing and nearly choking on his beer as your tiny preteen self got knocked around by the rocking of the motorboat.

A strong hand picks you up by the arm and sets you on your feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Fef.” You pat her elbow. “Sometimes it’s rough being a little guy.”

Her eyes are round with sympathy. “Looks like it. That reminds me, I wanna ask your opinion on something really important.”

“Oh, okay!” Wow, the Heiress of Alternia is asking my opinion on something? Talk about friends in high places.

… Wait, what was I trying to remember?

“What do you think of the hemospectrum?”

You purse your lips. “Well, if that ain’t a loaded question I dunno what is.”

“I mean, you don’t have to answer, but…”

“You know what I think? I think that the hemospectrum could have been a really good thing. Those who live for quite some time, paving the way for those who won’t be here as long? Sounds great. But then it became about power and control. And-And I think that if-- that once we win, we can’t go back to that system. There’s just too much trauma that’s been birthed from it that’s affected literally every troll to have ever existed,” you explain.

Feferi considers that, and then she nods in agreement. “That makes sense.”

“Oh, shit, is it big brain hour?” Terezi calls from the wheel.

“It is!” Then you do a double-take. “Why is the blind girl driving?”

“Vriska’s getting dressed.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Forward.”

“Bruh.”

Karkat throws up for the fifth time over the side of the ship. You groan and stumble over to him to pat his back.

“You’ll get your sea legs soon,” you promise.

“I hate the ocean. Why does there need to be oceans. I never would have thought I would ever say this but by infant Troll Jegus do I miss Texas. It’s hot, it’s human-racist, but there is hardly any damn water and for that it’s easily one of the best places I’ve ever been,” he rasps.

You smile. “Wanna see Dave after this is over?”

“Yes, please. Strider’s bullshit is the only thing that can numb me to the pain of occupying the realm of mortals.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Eridan smirk. You turn to look at him in confusion, and he makes the quadrant symbol for flushcrush: two thumbs pressed together over the center of his chest, where a troll’s heart would be.

Really? you mouth at him, delighted by this unexpected turn of events. He nods eagerly, clearly just as enthusiastic about Karkat getting a boyfriend as you are, but before you can sneak off with him to get the tea his gaze fixates on something past you.

You turn to see the small speck of what is undoubtedly another ship coming your way. A ship that is much bigger and fancier than the 8rigantine, at full sail and most likely armed to the teeth.

“He’s coming on our eleven!” Feferi calls up to Terezi.

“Go get Vriska,” the tealblood orders. Her perfectly white fangs flash in the light of the moons as she grins like a shark. “Time to kick this bitchboy’s ass!”

[roseyserpents]

Someone You Loved

Summary: You were the love of Billy's life. Even when tragic events happened in both of your lives, you're always there for each other. But eventually one of you become the tragic event.

Warnings: cussing, angst, car crash, death

Word count: 3,986

A/N: This is written to the song Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi. I've been working on this for a while and I hope you like it!

I'm going under, and this time, I fear there's no one to save me

This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy

For the past week you'd been stuck in your own head. You'd been trying to figure something out but no matter how many times you started over and over again, you couldn't find the answer. The two weeks before you'd been talking to Billy Hargrove, the new kid and new king of Hawkins High School after dethroning Steve Harrington, and despite what the other girls said you'd seen a softer side of him. You only saw a little bit, but it was enough for you to want to see that side of him, the side of him that didn't start random fights and hookup with every girl. But, after you tried to get him to open the door to that version of him, he slammed the door in your face and stopped talking to you. You wanted to forget it all and just move on like every other girl after they got their short time with him, but you couldn't, and the fact you were stuck in place in the situation was driving you absolutely crazy.

I need somebody to heal, somebody to know

Somebody to have, somebody to hold

Billy staggers out of his house, rage boiling in his veins as he sees red and wipes blood off his lip. His back ached and screamed for his attention as bruises formed from him being slammed into the wall repeatedly. His head throbbed with a headache and a few cuts on his face, bruises in the shapes of fingerprints on his arms. All he could smell was the alcohol suffocating his father's breath, even with him and the aroma out of sight.

He climbs into his car, slamming down the gas pedal and speeding down the road with no particular destination, just needing to get as far away as he could from his house. He had nobody to turn to in his darkest times. Nobody dared get close enough to understand him or get to know him, nobody knew this side of him. Everyone who did was gone, either left him behind or back in California. He yearned for somebody just to help him or sit with him or tell him it was okay or just let him rant until he passed out, but there was nobody. Nobody was there for him when he needed them, he didn't know anybody like that. There were plenty of people waiting to know him for a few minutes, but no one to stay, nobody to be a permanent and constant in his life.

He didn't realize where he was going until he was stopped outside your house, the only light on being the one to your bedroom. He tossed the idea over and over again in his head before reluctantly climbing out of his car and making his way to the softly illuminated window.

You really didn't expect a knock on your window at one in the morning, the not so subtle knock nearly making you jump off your bed. Another knock comes and you grab a piece of wood that had fallen off of your bed frame from under your bed, slowly approaching the window. Your hand shakes as you pull back the curtains, letting out a small yelp when you see Billy's face peering inside. Hurriedly you open your window, confused as to why he was at your house and why he looked like he got hit by a truck.

"Billy? What the fuck?" You whisper yell as he closes the window, running a hand through his unruly curls.

"I know I kind of blew you off all week but I didn't have anywhere else to go." He says quietly, barely meeting your eyes.

"What... What happened?" You could hardly get your words out, utter surprise stopping every word from passing your lips. Your mind raced with every thought you'd had the week before and some more, going from asking yourself why in the hell he was here and why he looked guilty, to what to say and do and everything in between.

Billy stays quiet, the only sounds in the room being both of your breathing. You tried to meet his eyes to see the emotions hidden in the ocean blue, but he refused, sticking to the floor instead.

"Billy?" You say softly, trying to get an answer from him.

"Look, I just... Not now, okay?" You see his hand clench into a fist and his jaw tighten and decide to leave it at that, not wanting to push him anymore and make something bad happen.

It's easy to say, but it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain

"I'll be right back." You say before quietly stepping out into the hall, digging through your bathroom cabinets before finding the first aid kit in the very back. You go back to your room, finding Billy sitting on your bed, staring out the window. You cross your room and sit down next to him, placing the first aid kit at your feet. He still looks forward, not removing his eyes from the sky freckled with stars. You examined his side profile, a saddened expression on his face with his lips slightly drawn into a frown. Your eyes wander to his arm where you see small oval shaped bruises making almost a ring around his bicep. Slowly you reach a finger up and graze it over the mark, Billy flinching away and you retracting your hand.

"Who did this?" You ask, looking up at him again.

He looks at his arm before looking at you, letting out a heavy sigh. "Me and my dad don't get along too well."

You gently place your hand on his shoulder, giving a pitiful look before picking the first aid kit up off of the floor and flipping it open. You take a bottle of water off of your nightstand and pour it onto a gauze, holding Billy's chin in your other hand and cleaning off the scattered cuts on his face. His eyes examine your expression as you focus on cleaning him up. A few minutes later you closed the kit and set it aside, returning at Billy's side.

For once all of the pain and anger seemed to disappear and become an almost unrecognizable ache. You numbed all of the negative feelings, his body and mind relaxed just with your presence. He didn't exactly know why you had this effect on him, but he knew he didn't want it to go away.

"Do you need to stay here tonight?" You ask after a long period of silence, snapping Billy out of his daze.

"Yeah, as long as it's okay with you."

You nod, a small smile grazing your lips. "The bathroom is the first door on the left if you need it."

Billy stands and leaves the room, you lying down in your bed after throwing your hair into a ponytail. You turn off your lamp, turning onto your side just as the door cracks open again and Billy slips inside. The hallway light disappears as he closes it again, making his way across the room. The bed dips with his weight as he lays down behind you, a small blush creeping up your cheeks.

"Y/n?" He says quietly after he settles, the room silent except for the barely audible sound of crickets outside.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

That's how it was for the next two months. Billy's dad would give him a hard time and he'd escape to your house and spend the night. Sometimes he was calm enough to talk to you about it and other times he didn't talk and just sat with all his muscles tense and anger in his eyes. Either way you cleaned him up the best you could and gave him a safe place to stay. You learned more about him and saw the soft side of him, and while it wasn't the prettiest you were still there for him.

I'm going under and this time I feel there's no one to turn to

You were working on your homework in your bedroom when flashing lights caught your attention from in front of your house. You close your book and step towards the window, your face falling when you see three police cars, a few of the officers talking to your parents. Fear of the situation consumes you as you run out of your room and fly down the stairs, making your way out the front door and standing next to your parents. You could hear your mom crying now and see quiet tears rolling down your father's face.

"Mom? Dad? What happened?" You ask, both of them turning to face you. Your mom starts crying harder and your dad looks down, more confusion displayed on your face.

"There was a fatal head on collision between two cars." One of the police officers, Chief Hopper, answer. "Your brother was in the passenger side of one of them and unfortunately he didn't make it."

Everything freezes around you, a ringing noise replacing everything else in your ears. The news seemed impossible. When your brother told you he was going out with his friends, you thought you were going to see him the next morning. They'd just learned to drive, but they all seemed trustworthy.

Hopper was trying to explain more things to your now family of three but you ran back to your room, curling up in your bed and sobbing into your pillow. All you could think about was how unfair the whole situation was and how you would never see him again, hear him or talk to him. Your house would be empty of his laugh, void of his presence. You would trade all of your memories with him just for him to be in the room just next to yours again but no matter how many times you tried to it didn't happen. You were drowning in your sorrow and overwhelming feelings, your head sinking below the waves and nobody was coming to save you.

The next day you didn't go to school, and you didn't the day after either. You got a few calls from Nancy and Jonathan but you just let it ring each time as you layed on your bed and stared at the ceiling with endless tears slipping down your face. You only left your room to use the restroom, in the span of two days only eating a peach and two slices of toast. You felt like you had no motivation for anything, not wanting to move on in a world where your brother didn't exist.

The day dragged on into night, the clock on your wall telling you it was eleven pm. You hadn't moved from your bed, lying on your side numb and void of feeling. You hear a knock on your window but don't move, a few more knocks coming before the person opens the window. They climb inside, momentarily letting the noise of the late summer night into your bedroom before it's closed again. You feel the end of your bed dip with the weight of your visitor, more tears dropping down your face and into the wet spot on your bedsheet. A hand lies on your back, their thumb gently rubbing circles into your skin. A small sob comes from the back of your throat and you close your eyes, tears somehow making their way through the cracks.

Now, I need somebody to know

Somebody to heal

Somebody to have

Just to know how it feels

"Do you... Want to talk about it?" Billy asks quietly. You shake your head and swallow a cry, feeling a pull at your heart at the suggestion of bringing his passing to reality. You sit up and turn to look at him, both of your faces barely illuminated by the small lamp on your bedside table. You see a multitude of expressions on his face, including concern but unlike the other people you'd seen there was no trace of pity. He wanted to be there for you instead of just shooting you a pitiful look and moving on.

You move closer to him and wrap your arms around his torso with your head against his chest, letting your tears fall instead of holding them in. Billy freezes a moment, emotions not being his strong suit by a long shot. Slowly his arms wrap around your waist and pull you closer to him, one of his hands running up and down your back.

"I'm sorry." You whisper after your tears slowed to a stop, pulling away and drawing your arms to your side.

"Don't be. You were there for me, so now I'll be here for you." Billy says asuringly.

So that's how your relationship progressed with Billy. Both of you were pretty broken people, but your broken pieces seemed to fit in perfectly with each other's. Everything was said to be platonic, but you knew that you were slipping down the steep slope that is falling for Billy Hargrove and you were starting to gain momentum.

Billy came in your window as usual, kicking off his shoes and plopping down next to you on your bed.

"You're still studying for the test?" He asks, looking to you with your nose in a text book.

"I want to get a good grade." You say, closing the hardcover. "You should study with me."

"Or," Billy counters, propping himself up on his arms, "We could go to a party."

"Billy, no." You immediately reject, repulsed by the idea of going.

"I am not going to take no for an answer." He says, standing up. You shake your head with a sigh as he grins down at you.

"If I get killed I'm blaming it on you." You grin, walking towards your closet to find better party clothes.

-

"Gather round we're playing seven minutes in heaven!" Carol announces. You recognize other people in the large circle, including Steve, Nancy, Tommy, and some others. You stood next to Nancy, across the haphazard circle from Billy.

Carol spins the bottle, two of your classmates running off to the coat closet down the hall. exactly seven minutes later they're back, a few more people going and more and more people coming back with lipstick stains and forming hickeys.

"I think it's Y/n's turn." Carol grins, placing down the empty beer bottle sideways on the coffee table. Your mouth twitches in disapproval but you don't say anything, watching the opaque green glass slow to a stop in front of a denim clad mullet of curls. He smirks at you and you quirk a brow before standing and walking towards the closet, whistles and yells following you. Almost as soon as you step inside the small room, hands are placed on your hips accompanied by the sound of the door closing. Your back was pressed against the wall, your breathing inclined as your eyes adjust to the dark, revealing Billy's face two inches away from yours.

"Are you sure about this?" Billy whispers, scanning your eyes for your emotions.

"Of course." You reply, breath laced with alcohol. "It's just a game, isn't it?" An unreadable emotion flashes on his face but it's quickly replaced with a smirk before his lips attach to yours in a hungry kiss. He abruptly pulls away, though, rubbing a hand over his face before stepping away.

"I can't." He sighs, leaning against the wall opposite to you. You give him a confused look, wondering why the boy who was usually all over any girl he could get was suddenly rejecting you. You chew on your lip before walking out of the door, smiling to everyone with Billy following shortly after you.

"I'm gonna head home." He says before worming through the crowd of teenagers and towards the door, leaving you confused and without a ride home from the party.

Two days later you lied in your bed, around three am giving up on the chance of Billy coming. Just as you'd shut your eyes and gotten comfortable, there was a gentle knock on your window. After opening it you sit back down on the side of your bed, Billy kicking off his shoes and closing the window before taking his usual seat next to you.

It's easy to say

But it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain

"You know how I always say I like girls." He starts, you nodding and giving him a tired and confused look. "And while that's far from being wrong, when I say I like you it's different. I don't really know why and I've never felt this way before. Maybe it's because you just magically take away everything that my dad causes, you just kinda numb all of my pain. That's why I couldn't kiss you at the party. I didn't want you to be just another hookup for me, because you mean more."

"Billy are you sa-"

"I'm saying, that I'd love it if you'd consider going out with me." He says, a small smile trying to hide a layer of nervousness as he waits for your response. You don't say anything verbally, instead you throw your arms around him with a smile, sending him down into your mattress with you lying on top of him. You look from his glowing blue eyes to his lips before placing your own on them in a sweet and delicate kiss.

"So is that a yes?" He asks, you rolling your eyes and trying to get up but Billy's arms hold you firm against him. He rolls onto his side so your face is buried in his chest, a warm feeling of comfort spreading through you.

From that moment on, Billy made sure everyone in Hawkins knew you were his and nobody else's. Every time you two were around each other he was touching you in some way, whether it be holding your pinkie with his or holding you flush against him with both of his arms around you. Whenever anyone attempted to ask you out or touch you, they were quick to get a black eye from Billy. He was extremely protective of you, throwing fits if you got hurt in even the smallest of ways.

You and Billy sat on your couch, your head in his lap and his hands running through your hair, a movie playing in front of the two of you that you were hardly paying attention to.

"I love you." You say suddenly, causing Billy to freeze his actions.

"Really?" He asks after a few moments of silence, disbelief in his voice.

"Really." You smile, turning onto your back so you can look up at him. One of the most genuine and pure smiles you've ever seen spreads across his lips, you being quick in copying it.

"Say it again." He mumbles, leaning over you, with his hands holding your face.

"I love you." You smile.

"I," Billy pecks your lips, "love," another short kiss, "you." The last kiss lingers, both of you being forced apart when your grins become too wide.

But now the day bleeds

Into nightfall

And you're not here

To get me through it all

I let my guard down

And then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

Everything was going perfect between you and Billy for about nine months, but nothing could ever stay perfect for either of you.

It was only supposed to be a quick drive up to the Quarry to have a midnight picnic at the cliff when a truck t-boned Billy's precious car driving right into the passenger side. He seemed to watch in slow motion as you were thrown violently to the side only to be stopped by your seatbelt and being jostled side to side while glass and metal slammed into both of you. The car ends up slidding into a metal pole on the driver's side, the final sound of crunching metal and cracking glass ringing out before there's nothing but silence. Billy painfully turns his head to the side, wanting to scream out when he sees your body crushed between the middle council, your door, and your seat. Jagged pieces of metal stook out in places, some starting to be coated in blood. Your blood. Your face was entirely still as the impact had knocked you out cold, hair sticky with maroon sap sticking to your cheeks and forehead. Billy attempts to move but is forced to remain still as everything in him is lit on fire at the smallest movements. He feels utterly useless just sitting there as you were basically dying before his eyes. The love of his life was slowly loosing the life inside of them and there was nothing he could do.

Sirens ring in the distance and pull up to the devastating scene less than a minute later, emergency responders working on trying to remove the two teens from the totalled car. They eventually get Billy out and load him onto a gurney, a few moments later removing you, looking so small and fragile. You lie limp in the arms of multiple people, panic gripping their faces as they lie you down on the pavement, yelling for someone to bring them something. Someone brings a defibrillator, an electric sound running through the air before they shock your chest, your body giving a violent shake. Nothing can describe the devastation Billy felt as he watches the workers try time and time again to bring you back. Eventually they yell something, rushing you onto a gurney like Billy's and wheeling you away to a different ambulance than his. He tries to protest but blackness quickly takes over his vision.

-

"Hey Billy."

Billy groans as he squints open his eyes, seeing the fiery red hair before seeing Max's grieving but relieved face. Sudden panic grips his heart as he remembers the previous events up until watching you being rushed away from him.

"Y/n." He mumbles in a weak and hoarse voice. "Where's Y/n?"

Max is quiet and looks down, a sniff emitting from her as she looks up again with tears brimming in her eyes. "They, um, they brought her here after the revived her b-but the crash was just too much for her." She hiccups, wiping at her face with her sleeve.

Billy goes silent. This had to be a dream, some kind of fucked up joke his mind was playing on him. There was no way you'd died. It wasn't possible for you to no longer be alive and breathing and laughing and smiling. You're supposed to be with him right now back at your house after taking a relaxing picnic at the Quarry. Soon he was going to wake up with your head on his chest and your body gently rising and falling with each breath that kept you alive because you are alive.

Even though visitors came and went Billy didn't talk to anyone, each day bleeding slowly into night just as you had slowly bled out next to him in his car. He was utterly broken, his heart chipping away and the pieces crumpling at his feet, but you weren't there to pick them up and gently put them back together. You weren't there to get him through this because you were the one putting him through this. The only thing he thought about was how it should've been him sitting there instead of you, or how he could've prevented everything and the girl he loved would be still with him. He was finally getting used to someone accepting him and loving him but now it was all gone, and now you were just a memory of someone he loved.

[lord-explosion-baku]

Thorns

Plot Summary:

Big changes are to come to Sir Cornelius Hollowstone’s School for the Phenomenally Gifted when the Supreme, the man with the living embodiment of magic itself, Toshinori Yagi announced his long awaited retirement. Six witches and six warlocks were to compete amongst themselves in trials to see who will be the next to reign over the the magical community as the Supreme.

Pairings: it’s complicated

Warnings: dark themes, occult themes, swearing, vulgar insinuations, sexual themes, slight bullying, one mention of suicide, drug use insinuation, just dark stuff idk uh

A/N: hi! I got this idea in my head while I was at work and I had to write it down! It’s a magic school au and like GIS, there’s a lot of pairings and it gets a little complicated. I just thought I’d post the first chapter here and then with updates the rest will be on my AO3 like I do with most of my serieses! (Serieses sounds wrong uh) but basically!!! Magical school heavily inspired by American Horror Story: Coven! If you can’t watch American Horror Stiry then I suggest that you don’t read this because it’s gonna get pretty dark and kinda spicy! It’s not a smut fic but there will be smut. Just throwin this into the void. For a better summary about what this story is gonna be about, you can check my AO3! Hizzzaaaht! (Everyone is aged up to 18 or older)

Magic exists but it’s nothing.

Magic is to casters the same way that instapots are to mortals. Magic is a cheat; a means to make everyday things easier to casters who have far too much power to exert and not enough time to brew their morning coffee. Magic is unbiased and has no laws to abide by until somebody was bound to come around and make them. Magic can open your car door when you’ve locked your keys on the inside but magic can’t force people to fall in love and it can’t bring people back to life. So it’s nothing.

Or so you thought.

Magic was nothing until you learned that magic is everything.

You were a third year at Sir Cornelius Hollowstone’s School For The Phenomenally Gifted, aptly and absurdly named after a famous warlock who hailed as Supreme three hundred long years ago, who once settled the war between casters and the demons in the underworld by slicing his entire right arm off and feeding it to a hungry hell pit. This would actually be your second year attending Hollowstone since the all girls academy you previously attended in your first year was shut down due to poor funding and the plague of talking rodents that infiltrated the school grounds who had demands that no caster was willing to meet. The current Supreme, the man with the living embodiment of magic itself, Toshinori Yagi, was all too willing to flex his power and rule that the boys and girls academies would be merged in hopes of bringing the magical community closer together. However, if anything, that just made everyone all the more competitive.

Witches and Warlocks did not agree on a lot of things and part of the reason for that was because there hadn’t been a witch reigning as Supreme in almost four hundred years, half because one warlock Supreme from the past lived to be over two hundred years old and half because the witches just gave up as a whole.

There was a power imbalance in the community as well that was very obviously misogynistic in its own right. When the time came for a Supreme to retire, both witches and warlocks were to compete amongst their selective gender for the titles of High Priestess and High Priest. After the two champions are chosen, they must compete against one another to see who will be ascending as the next Supreme. Many odd years ago, a warlock Supreme made the preposterous law that when the High Priest champion became the Supreme, the High Priestess champion would be forced to marry him. He made it law on the grounds that he had fallen deeply in love with his champion counterpart, Harleen Blackwater, who did not reciprocate his feelings. Upon hearing the terrible news that she was to wed the Supreme, she exhausted the dauntless task of taking her own life, resulting in the tradition of High Priestesses ending themselves when they did not become the next Supreme, as one last hail to Lady Blackwater. Of course, that wasn’t mandatory. The tradition was never set in stone but when it did happen, it wasn’t something that the community would bat an eyelash at. It just be like that sometimes.

The school year was starting out with an excited frenzy, much to your annoyance, because Yagi had just announced his retirement which meant the trials for the champions were about to begin. Six third year witches and six third year warlocks were to be selected to compete for their champion titles and that was all anybody could talk about. You, on the other hand, didn’t care for the trials, rather, you wished you didn’t. Of course, big changes like this piqued anybody’s interest but you were a cynical witch and a mundane one at that. You were called a T.Di witch, which stood for Telekinesis and Divination. Mortals would think “oh wow, telekinesis! That’s super OP!” but it wasn’t. Not in your world. Telekinesis was the most versatile of the seven affinities and though, when used correctly, it could be very powerful, more often than not, it was only used to float objects to lazy casters. Everyone had telekinesis. To put it simply, you weren’t special. Your other affinity, divination, was looked down upon in your community. Divination: the ability to obtain direct knowledge of an object, person, location, or physical event through a relating energy. Basically if someone needed something to be found, you suddenly became their best friend until you helped them with their lost item and then you’d get tossed back into Loser Village, population: you and Izuku Midoriya.

Most third years already had two of the seven affinities, those seven affinities, the seven divine powers granted to casters, being telekinesis, pyromancy, divination, transmutation, decensum, vitalum vitalus, and concilium. Poor Izuku Midoriya was just a T warlock; he could only use telekinesis and, on top of that, he still had to use a wand. Wands were given to first years so they could get a better grip on channeling their magic. After understanding the basic fundamentals of magic, second years learn to wield their power with their hands and by the end of the of the year, all students should have a better grasp on it. Midoriya was still a ways behind. You felt sorry for him but at least he was pretty decent at memorizing spells. As the two of you were each other’s only semi-casual friends, you helped each other out a lot. He was quite intelligent so he was your encyclopedia and since he was always losing things, you were his finder’s eye.

So you knew that the trials had absolutely nothing to do with you. You hoped whoever was to become the next High Priest and Priestess were two casters that were interested in changing the law a bit but it would most likely be two students who’d already been royal assholes to you. Still, you’d probably end up watching some of the trials, particularly the trials involving memorization or wit but other than that, you’d stay away from the discourse.

You spent most of your time in the herbology room, which was where you were now, since it was the classroom nobody could really use magic to excel in unless one had chlorokinesis like Ibara Shiozaki. You liked tending to the plants. They didn’t care if you were a T.Di witch nor did they talk down to you. They only showed you their appreciation by blooming for you after you’d fed them all your tender love and care.

You were lucky enough to aide for Professor Aizawa’s Herbology 1 class, which proceeded into his Herbology 2 class that you were taking straight afterwards. After taking his Herbology 1 and Potions 2 classes the previous year, he had quickly become your favorite professor at Hollowstone and you, hopefully, had become his favorite student. When the class you aided for ended and it was passing period, Aizawa would ask you for answers to problems he already knew the solutions to, just to humor you and test your knowledge— a fun game that you appreciated.

“A warlock has been struck with a hex that has caused him to convulse and vomit uncontrollably. He’s lost all his teeth in the process. Would you use hawthorn, licorice, or juniper to wean him away from his ailments?”

You stopped tapping your pen on the lab bench you were sitting on and brought it to your lips, eyeing your teacher to see if he was giving you some sort of tell, but Aizawa’s expression was as unreadable as ever.

“Is he suffering from any other kinds of symptoms? How is his heart?”

“Same as it was before the hex and he has no other symptoms aside from the ones I’ve listed.”

“Alright then, that’s easy! Juniper!”

In response, Aizawa quirked a brow, signaling that he needed more than just a simple answer. There was always a catch with him.

“Juniper and…” one steady tap of the pen on your lips brought the answer to your head, “yarrow!”

Aizawa reached out, grabbed the pen away from your lips and placed it next to you on the bench, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Go on.”

You pulled down on your school skirt, always needing to fidget with something when you had to concentrate. Aizawa rolled his eyes and you jokingly scowled back him.

“I would use the juniper and mix it with crushed yarrow. No-! I’d cut the juniper and fuse it with yarrow extract, then that together and give it to the warlock. Then maybe to relax his muscle spasms, I’d have him smoke some lavender because... I’m nice.”

Aizawa clicked his tongue and took your pen from the bench. “Clever witch,” he said, opening his notebook to scribble in it.

“What! That was noteworthy?” You said with a little more excitement than you wanted to show him. If anything, you didn’t want to be a loner and a teacher’s pet but getting Aizawa’s approval was something special to you.

“It was. I would’ve crushed the juniper and something with the same properties as yarrow together and brewed that together but letting the juniper soak in yarrow is close to genius. And I probably wouldn’t have even thought about bringing lavender into the equation. I’m impressed.”

“I carry around dried lavender anyways and I’m always trying to think about what I can use it with,” you grinned sheepishly, trying to hide how thrilled you were at receiving his praise.

“You know, I’m a little disappointed in you.”

You frowned. “I don’t smoke the lavender myself. I just carry it around with me.”

He chuckled. “That’s not why I’m disappointed… why aren’t you taking my potions class this year?”

“Oh…” If you were being honest, you didn’t dislike potions but the students that were going to be taking the class were a whole lot of people you wanted to avoid. Getting bullied at an all girls academy was one thing but now that you had witches and warlocks laughing at the T.Di witch, it was a little overbearing. “I had to choose between aiding and potions and… I don’t know. I guess I really like plants.”

“There are plants in my potions class.”

“Yeah.” And other really gifted casters but you didn’t want him to know how insecure you were.

“Hmph,” he closed his notebook and eyed your school bag that was draped across the chair you were supposed to be sitting on. “So you carry dried lavender around?”

“Mhmm…” your face began to flush.

“And you don’t smoke it?”

“Ha?” Your breath caught in your throat. In the witching world, there weren’t a whole lot things you could get in trouble for but you’d consumed enough mortal media to have a slight fear of getting in trouble with authoritative figures for your recreational activities. “I mean, maybe if I’ve been a bit stressed out.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed. Do you mix it with anything?”

“Professor!” Your face grew hot and the tie around your neck felt too constricting. You knew that you weren’t in any kind of trouble but you couldn’t keep your stomach from forming nervous knots.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, I really am just curious about you,” he grinned, amused at your obvious fluster. “So, you have some on you?”

You looked at your teacher and sighed. To hell with it. Reaching over, you grabbed your bag from off your chair and shook the little pouch you kept your treasure in. “If you want some, you’re gonna have to tell me what you’re going to use it for.”

“You might find it hard to believe but a teacher’s life is far more stressful than a student’s. I have… ways of destressing but a little added lavender could be quite beneficial,” he took the pouch from you. “How much can I take?”

“You can have it. I’ve got some growing in the makeshift greenhouse outside my dorm. It’ll be ready for me to clip any day now.”

He looked at you with surprised amusement. “During Autumn?”

“Well,” you smirked, “I am a clever witch.”

“That you are.” Aizawa thanked you and pocketed your pouch. At that moment, the chimes from the bell tower sounded the end of passing period and the beginning of class; a short eerie jingle you still hadn’t gotten used to even after a year.

“Big surprise,” Aizawa sighed, “everyone’s late.”

“They’re excited,” you said pointedly.

“And you’re not?”

You shrugged. You were just thankful that your last school year had something that would keep everyone else occupied.

“Alright,” he tapped your bare knee, surprising you, “get your ass off of my bench before my students think that’s okay too.”

“My ass?” You laughed, hopping down from the table. “I’m your student too, Professor Aizawa.”

He started walking towards his desk. “Then you should know that I have strict rules for my classroom. No ifs, ands, or…”

“Butts?” You offered.

He grinned and snapped his fingers, conjuring signs to sit atop all of the greenhouse benches that read ‘NO “BUTTS!”’ You stifled a snort as your classmates began shuffling into the greenhouse.

Speaking of the the recreational use of certain herbs, in walked Hanta Sero and Denki Kaminari with two big stupid grins hanging off their faces. You already felt your shoulders begin to tense as Kaminari approached you.

“Hey, tiddy witch!” He tapped you on your back but you kept your head down, resisting the urge to roll your eyes at the horrible nickname. It had been an accident on Kaminari’s part last year when he read off a list of students in your charms class and when it came to your name, he read ‘T.Di’ as ‘tiddy’. Once he saw everyone laugh at his mistake, it was all over for you and the name stuck. You weren’t sure if he knew or even cared that the nickname bothered the hell out of you. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” You pulled your notebook out of your bag and flipped it open to the next empty page, trying to make a point that you wanted to focus on your work.

“Just fine?” You could hear the smile in his voice as he sat on the chair next to you with Sero joining him. It was a shame that Aizawa didn’t have assigned seating in this classroom. “But we’re here!”

“Uh-huh,” you began scribbling down unimportant words so it looked like you were busy but you could still feel Kaminari’s eyes on you. Finally your gaze met his. “What do you want, Kaminari?”

“I need help finding something!” His golden eyes shined while his grin widened and Sero hit his shoulder.

“Dude, don’t,” Sero said, though he covered his mouth to hide his smile.

Kaminari looked back at Sero and snickered and turned his attention back on you. “Can you help me find it?”

Your eyes narrowed. Your brain screamed, ‘shenanigans!’ but a small part of you wanted to help; the small part of you that wished to be well liked. Against your better judgement, you asked, “what is it?”

“I can’t really say what it is but I can describe it to you!”

...That was the kind of challenge that you liked to indulge in. You sighed and said, “okay. Do you have anything on you that’s related to whatever it is you’re looking for?”

“Errmmm, yes and no… maybe you can just hold my hand while I tell you about it?” He rested his hand palm-up on the table.

Your eyes flicked over to Sero whose head was buried in his arms on the bench, shaking with hidden laughter. Suspicious, you took his hand. “Alright, shoot.”

Sero let out a snort and Kaminari snickered with him. “Cool. Cool cool. Uhhh, okay… how to describe it... Well, it’s big.”

“Okay, big,” you noted, closing your eyes to allow your mind to swim through the nether. A spiral of large objects made their way past your consciousness while you started your search for Kaminari.

“And it makes me happy?”

“Happy,” you whispered, barely even able to hear the chuckles anymore. You were focused.

“It can make you happy too… especially if we were both using it.”

“Mmhmmm,” your mind took you to the greenhouse outside of your dorms and swam over to a secret trampoline that was hiding deep inside the eastern gardens of the schoolyard. From what you could tell by holding his hand, Kaminari didn’t have any idea about either of those things. “What does it look like?”

“Well,” Kaminari’s voice bounced around in your head, “it carries blood… a part of it resembles a mushroom… there’s a long, throbbing vein that runs along the underside…”

Your eyes shot open and you quickly pulled your hand away from his. You saw exactly what he was referring to and it wasn’t lost at all. In fact, it was attached to his stupid fucking body! Fuck!

“Did you find it?” Kaminari gave you a toothy grin, Sero still hunched over beside him, shaking and lost in a fit of laughter.

“No!” You spat in a hushed tone. What an incredibly vulgar joke! Wasn’t that considered sexual harassment?! Judging by the look on his face, it didn’t seem like Kaminari cared. Boys were so dumb! “I’m sorry, Kaminari, I can’t help you. It turns out, whatever you’re looking for is a little too small for me to detect!”

Sero hooted, banging his hand on the table. “She totally saw it!”

Kaminari’s smile faltered only slightly. “It’s not small, I measured it last week! It’s slightly above average!” He let out an embarrassed laugh, “you’re so cruel, tiddy witch!”

You scoffed. You weren’t cruel, he was. He might as well had dropped his slacks and flashed you! At least then everyone else would be traumatized along with you. You turned away from him and snarled, “are you done?”

Kaminari was silent for a short moment. For a second you thought that he’d finished his teasing but then he waved his hand out in front of your face. “Hey,” he whispered, “hey, are you mad?”

You ignored him and leaned closer to your desk, trying to pay attention to Aizawa’s lecture but Kaminari wasn’t having it.

“Shit,” he scooted closer to you, “wait, I’m really sorry I’ve upset you… hey… tiddy witch…?”

When you didn’t pay him any mind he teleported himself onto the other chair next to you. Kaminari was a T.Tr warlock, meaning that he already had the affinities for telekinesis and transmutation. Transmutation was simply the power to move from one location to another without occupying the spaces in between, or, in other words, teleportation. Popping up out of nowhere was just one more thing to add to the list of Kaminari’s annoying qualities. “Please don’t be mad at me!”

Aizawa stopped talking about the different properties of several disintegrating herbs and glanced at your bench, scowling at Kaminari. “Is there a problem?” He looked from Kaminari to you and silence followed. “What could possibly be so important that you need to interrupt my lecture?”

“Nothing, Professor,” the two of you said in unison. As much as Kaminari bugged you, you weren’t about to be a rat— a poor ‘woe is me, life is a nightmare, nobody is nice to me’ kid. At least, not out loud and definitely not in front of Aizawa.

Not believing either of you, Aizawa scanned the room until his eyes landed on Shiozaki, who was on the other side of the greenhouse poking at some tomato berries.

“Mr. Kaminari, switch places with Miss Shiozaki.”

In an instant, Kaminari zapped himself over by Shiozaki and said something as preposterously stupid as “hey there, sweet thang,” only to have Shiozaki toss her gorgeously thick, vine-like hair over her shoulder, stick her nose up in the air, and walk across the room. She offered you a curt smile before taking her seat between you and Sero. You liked Shiozaki. Having the power of chlorokinesis easily placed her at the top of this class with you as a close second, so you were a tad envious of her abilities but it was the kind of jealousy that drove you to do better everyday. She knew about your one-sided rivalry and even though she wasn’t competitive by nature, she’d humor you by glancing over at your work from time to time to make sure she stayed ahead of you.

You tried to relax and focus on Aizawa’s discussion about how magically charged valerian root could knock a person out with a simple whiff if aged and acutely diced but you kept feeling Kaminari’s eyes on you. After you had gotten used to it, a folded note fluttered its way to your bench. You glanced back at Kaminari who had the same damn stupid grin plastered on his face.

The note read, ‘I really am sorry! Let me make it up to you by taking you to the Cherry Moon Ceremony!’ signed with a hastily-scribbled little heart.

You nearly gagged.

Hell would freeze over before you let Denki Kaminari escort you anywhere and the world would explode before you even thought about going to the Cherry Moon Ceremony! The witching community had some sort of festival for all holidays and every full moon. The Cherry Moon occurred on the first full moon of September. It involved everyone getting very close to nude, if not completely naked, and engaging in many lewd activities, often regarding a virgin or two. Casters were an open minded people and it wasn’t that you weren’t open minded but having been raised with a caster as a mother and a mortal as a father, you were probably one of the more conservative witches around and that was saying something considering how liberal your father was while he was alive. You wouldn’t call yourself a prude, though you haven’t done anything that says otherwise, but being scantily clad in front of your classmates as well as some teachers just did not sound like a fantastic time to you. But Kaminari didn’t have to know that. Kaminari didn’t deserve to know that the thought of going out with him to an event like that flustered you beyond belief. So instead of explaining yourself to him, you turned back to him and mouthed, ‘you don’t even know my name!’

Kaminari pouted at you before whispering to get Sero’s attention. Once Sero turned to him, Kaminari pointed at you and mouthed, ‘what’s her name?!’

Sero chuckled and turned back to face Aizawa, muttering, “like hell I’m telling him.”

You leaned in and whispered over Shiozaki, “do you even know my name?”

Sero offered up a half grin and tapped his pointer finger on his temple. Right. Like Kaminari, Hanta Sero was a T.Tr warlock but he was already gifted with powers outside of the seven affinities. He was clairevoyant; a telepath. He could read people’s thoughts as well as project thoughts into other people’s minds if he wanted to. That sort of explained why he seemed more empathetic than everyone else, though, if you were in his position and you knew what was going on in the poor T.Di witch’s head, you wouldn’t let your friends make so many jokes at her expense. Other than that, Sero was an alright guy but it was easy to forget that he was a strong caster since he spends so much of his time with imbeciles like Kaminari.

Sero snickered… did he hear that?!

“Now,” Aizawa’s stern voice interrupted your train of thought, “since the lot of you were late to my class, how about a pop quiz?”

The class groaned when dozens of flower pots appeared on the benches. Every pot held the same desperate and ugly plant that looked like they used to have flowers. It hurt your heart in a way.

“If you can return some of the plant’s chlorophyll, demonstrating a freshly green hue, you’ll pass. If you can get the flower to bloom again, you’ll get an A. If you’re unable to complete either of those tasks, it’s an automatic fail. Begin.”

Quickly, you got to focusing on your plant. You knew immediately that it was of the asteraceae family. When the plant was in better shape, it seemed like seedlings had dropped down into the pot. That could’ve been the cause of its diminished state, if not from being completely neglected by Aizawa. You grinned. Flower killer Aizawa.

Tenderly, you pinch the stem and tentatively traced the poor thing. You felt your energy surge through you and as your fingers caressed your flora friend, the green hue trailed along with your touch. Reaching an old bud of the plant, your fingers grew warm as the flower began to change and warp underneath them. The corolla started to form and in an instant a gorgeous pink chrysanthemum bloomed and blushed for you.

You let out a long, squeaky yawn. Making the chrysanthemum bloom must’ve drained a lot more of your energy than you thought it would… either that or you could have had a heartier breakfast that morning. You were pleased to see Shiozaki concentrated on her flower, desperately stroking its withered stem with no success and, taking a quick glance around the room, you saw that nobody else had gotten anywhere further; one witch had actually set her pot on fire! T.Py casters.

“If you hadn’t noticed, the plant is dead. And dead means dead. There’s nothing anyone could’ve done to make these flowers bloom. So,” Aizawa’s lips twitched up into that funny grin he did whenever he pulled a past one on his student’s, “you all fail.”

That warranted another groan from the class. You furrowed your brow. Your plant was very much alive. You didn’t fail. You did another once over of the entire room. You were the only student with a flower in full bloom in front of you.

“Now I do curve your grades and since I’m positive that everyone has failed, this quiz doesn’t matter. But you’ve learned a very important life lesson. Which is…?” A pregnant pause from the room lead to Aizawa pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers in frustration. “Dead means…?”

“Dead!” Yelled one warlock from the back of the greenhouse. A wave of unenthusiastic “dead”’s followed.

“Tiddy witch’s plant isn’t dead!” Chimed in Kaminari, who, for some reason, still had eyes on you.

Aizawa froze. Slowly he turned to you. From the head of your bench, his eyes twitched down to your pot. “What?”

Finally, some good old fashioned recognition.

He walked over to behind your chair and leaned over you. He was so close that you could smell him; he had on a nice earthy blend with a hint of coffee. You tilted your head away from him. Liking your teacher’s scent was probably a bad thing. Morally gray, at least to mortals… probably.

“It appears you’ve completed the assignment,” he said in a low, hushed tone.

“This was rigged,” shouted a student. “It’s ‘cause she was the only one who wasn’t late! That’s favoritism!”

It wasn’t beyond Aizawa to pull something like that over to make a point to his lagging students but he looked awestruck. But it wasn’t a huge deal… you just healed a plant.

Aizawa cleared his throat and, not taking his eyes away from your pot, he asked, “each of these plants are exact copies of themselves. How did you do this?”

“I don’t know. I just,” another yawn escaped you and you hoped it didn’t look like you were bored or even smug with yourself, “I just did it.”

Aizawa examined your flower very closely. He brought his thumb to the steam and steadily traced your plant upwards, fingering the leaves. When he got to your ever-delighted Chrysanthemum petals, he tapped lightly on them, making some of the petals drop and flutter down gracefully on to your bench before they shriveled up back to their previous state. Aizawa clicked his tongue. He looked you straight in the eye. You held your breath. You were proud of yourself but you were sure you were about to get dragged behind your back again if Aizawa said something about you being a clever witch in front of everyone else… though hearing it again wouldn’t be so bad.

“You get a 90%. The rest of the class gets 50.”

You felt the room grow heavy. In Aizawa’s Herbology class, a 50 out of 90 was still passing but hardly. Most students took this class because they thought it was going to be an easy pass like his Herbology 1 class, so this wasn’t fun news to anybody.

There was salty energy in the air for the rest of the period but other than that, you and your chrysanthemum flower were forgotten about. When class ended, Aizawa instructed you to take the pot with you and take notes on any sudden developments your plant my form. “A pet project,” he called your task. “Take good care of it for me, okay?”

Despite your likeability plummeting after the incident, you were excited for your project. Your mind whirled with ideas on what to do with your assignment; what to do with the plant that wasn't supposed to heal. You didn’t want to disappoint Aizawa. You were, at least to him, a clever witch.

Tags for EVERYTHING (closed): @yandere-inamorata @miitaart @dessiedawnwritesfanfiction @wickedlewicked @chickennuggetsarequestionable @nevermorelanore @kpanime @ayeputita @captain-sin-allmight-queen @diisasterbii @iceformer @meganofmars @colagirl5 @colorbookshd @grimmjadeskye @sm0kingcrack @sarcastictextstuck @zellllyyyy @psionicsnow @mynahx3 @andie-in-tumblland @iamthe-leaf @midnightfeline666 @bungou-stray-alies-tales-of-aly -of-aly @rubyred-imagines @kattariapenn @heypartypeps @quirktaker @thecryingsombra @smbody-stole-mycar-radio @ghost-of-todoroki @geektastic84 @davalia @glixeo @rubycubix @mekakushi-dan-01-kido

[themonkeycabal]

Slightly random but Hodgepodge request: the end of chapter 4 of Its Alright We'll Be Up All Night from the lady who was being followed's perspective. Just a wee snippet of how that wee interaction went down perhaps? Please.

Well, since you said please:

***

Izzy Taveres just wanted to get home. She was having one of those days — her shift at the restaurant ran over with a huge family party that ended in a brawl and a police raid. The train was late, she missed her bus, and now she had to walk because she couldn't justify paying for a cab for five blocks. All of which meant she was going to be even later, and the babysitter was going to charge her extra. And it just … ugh. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, her uniform smelled like sour wine and marinara sauce, and now she was going to have to take down the laundry before she could go to sleep and she really hoped she could find a few quarters in the couch cushions or the junk drawer. God, what a day.

Sighing softly, she trudged down the sidewalk. It was late enough that the streets were relatively quiet. A handful of cars, not many pedestrians. Which is why her heart jumped when she heard the footsteps start up behind her. Closing her eyes briefly, she took a deep breath, and then shook her head. She was being silly. The street was well lit, there may not have been much traffic, but there was *some*, and the neighborhood was a long way from desolate. Still, she pulled her bag a little closer to her body, and slipped a hand into the outer pocket where she had that can of gel pepper spray her sister gave her.

Her steps picked up, and so did her heart rate, as she crossed the eerie black void of a mid-block alley. The footsteps behind picked up with hers and her mouth went dry.

Izzy most definitely did not need this. She really, really did not need this. She could not afford this, absolutely not. She had just enough to get her and Mia through to the end of the next week, and then she'd get paid. If she lost tonight's tips, it would be so much harder. She'd probably have to ask her sister for another loan.

The footsteps got closer. Oh God, she hoped her tips was all they wanted. She had an eight-year old daughter, and while being a single mom was hard, going home to her kid made everything worth it. That's all she wanted, to go home to her daughter. Oh Lord, help her. Please help her.

She thought she felt fingers brush her back and a sharp tang of adrenaline and terror filled her mouth. Pulling out her pepper spray, she hunched her shoulders, and tried to be brave as she turned around to face her attacker. Except, she couldn't help but squeeze her eyes shut, which probably wouldn't help. However, before she got all the way around, she heard a weird yelp and a thud, and that presence behind her wasn't there anymore.

Prying open one eye, still hesitant, still afraid, she peeked towards the alley as a man in a black leather jacket stepped out dusting off his hands on his jeans. Another, much larger, man turned towards her and held out his hands, trying to show he was harmless. Except he really was huge and she almost straight up hit him with the pepper spray on instinct.

"Our pardon, miss; we didn't mean to alarm you," he said in a deep, accented voice.

Two more men followed behind the first pair, and Izzy backed away and clung, with a shaky hand, more tightly to her pepper spray. Despite the big guy's attempt to appear not threatening, it was late, dark, and she was out-numbered and terrified.

"Hi, I'm Steve," greeted one of the approaching men. The guy next to Steve turned off and murmured something to the man in the jacket and they both stepped into the alley.

"And I'm Thor," greeted the large man.

Wait …

"Thor?" Izzy repeated, feeling dazed from the still swirling churn of fear.

"Yes," the man grinned a broad smile that flashed in the dim light.

"And … Steve? You're not Steve Rogers, are you?" That could not be right. Not even a little bit. But the big guy was both really big and he had long hair and she'd seen plenty of pictures of Thor. And maybe Steve Rogers looked like, you know, Steve Rogers, but it was still kind of dark by the alley and hard to see clearly. Also her eyes were still kind of squinted. The city could really put a freaking light near the alley. Who designed this lighting? That was terrible and dangerous. She was sending somebody a scathing email when she got home; which, thank God, it looked like she actually would.

"I am," he said gently. Then he waved a hand at the other two who had reappeared form the alley. "And this is—"

"Clint," said the guy in the jacket. Then he thumped the back of his hand on the last man's shoulder and said, "Vasily."

"Stop calling me that," the last guy growled. He looked over at Izzy and hesitated a moment before he muttered, "James."

"Okay," Izzy said. She had no idea who Clint and James were supposed to be, but Captain America and Thor were enough to assure her that she was probably safe.

The fear and adrenaline started to drain, leaving her feeling shaky and a giving her a strange, hollow queasiness in the pit of her stomach.

She would NOT throw up in front of Captain America. She wouldn't do it. Mia would never, ever let her live that down. Actually, she wouldn't be telling Mia about 90% of this story, but her daughter would love to hear that Izzy met the Avengers. Or, two of them at least. Or maybe four? One of them could be the guy with the arrows, maybe the blond in the black jacket? Nobody ever got a good look at Hawkeye without his bow, so who could say? And the other guy, long, dark hair to below his chin, didn't look like Tony Stark for sure, and it's not like Tony Stark would introduce himself as James. So … Hulk? What did Hulk look like when he wasn't green? Did anybody know? Except Hulk didn't have long hair. Except, Hulk was also ginormous and green. And if he could turn big and green, maybe his hair changed length, too?

"Ma'am?"

Oh, Steve Rogers was talking to her while she was stuck in her weird post-terror Avengers spiral. "What? Sorry, I was … just trying to get my head together."

"We were wondering if you'd mind if we walked you home?"

"Uh," she hesitated. Yes, she would like four Avengers to walk her home. Duh. But, also, she was a confident woman with a can of pepper spray who wasn't afraid of the streets (except when she was, because somebody had to put a light on that alley and she would make sure it was done if she had to personally shout at every member of the neighborhood council). "It's not far. You don't have to. I appreciate you … uh, doing whatever it was you did? Was there a mugger? Because I thought— well, I thought I heard somebody but then it was just you? But …"

James and Clint cast quick looks into the alley and shrugged. Steve didn't turn around but his smile looked a little tight. Thor just grinned some more. There was totally a mugger. Though, the mugger was probably currently unconscious or tied up or something. Maybe both. Served him right.

"It's no bother," Thor said. "We were on our way home, as well. We can walk together, as friends."

"It's really fine. I'm fine. Thank you. Besides, don't you live in Manhattan?" Yes, yes, please good-looking Avengers, walk her home. Also, stop trying to tell them not to, mouth. God.

"Our friend," Thor gestured to James, "is opening a tavern in the area. We were walking back from … dinner?" He glanced at Steve, who nodded back. "Yes, dinner. We had hotdogs. And ice cream."

"But not together," Clint offered.

Thor nodded. "Because that would be disgusting."

"Right," Clint agreed, then he frowned. "Although…"

"There was the jalapeño ice cream," Thor murmured back at him.

"Mother of God," James muttered and rubbed at his face with a gloved hand.

Why did he have a glove on? It was like 80 degrees out. And only one glove at that. What was he? Michael Jackson? Oh, maybe that wasn't nice. Maybe he had a problem with his hand. And he was embarrassed by scars or something? Or if he was Hulk, maybe one arm was always green? Wow, Izzy, how insensitive.

Wait … he was opening a tavern in the area? Maybe there'd be jobs. It would be amazing to get a decent job closer to home. Actually, she'd love to move out of the area, because it was getting more and more expensive every day, but her apartment was rent controlled and they'd have to cart out her rotting corpse before she gave that up — aside from their daughter, it was the only good thing her ex-husband The Bum ever gave her before he ditched them to go 'find himself' in Jersey. Plus, Mia's school was close and it was a good one. But, anyway …

"Well, thank you again, but I need to get home," Izzy said, and gave them a wave as she turned to head back up the street.

Steve and Thor fell in beside her. She couldn't bring herself to try to shoo them off again. Besides, AVENGERS! The other two walked behind them.

"You know, I think your bar needs a theme," Clint said.

"What do you mean?"

"Something to get people in the door," Clint explained. "Hey! You know what's due to come back? Tiki bars!"

"What's a tiki bar?" James asked sounding like he didn't want to ask but couldn't stop himself from asking.

"They're awesome. I'll show you."

Izzy had some big doubts about the long-term appeal of a tiki bar. The novelty would turn to tacky really quick. And were they ever really 'in'? She glanced over her shoulder and saw them both on their phones.

James snorted a laugh and tilted his phone's screen towards Clint so he could read it. "Darcy says, 'tell Clint to shut up.' Shut up, Clint."

Clint glowered and shoved his phone back in his pocket; there would be no tiki bar. "Darcy's no fun. She used to be fun, but then she started hanging out with you and her fun level cratered."

"You could have Thursday specials," Thor suggested brightly. "I'll bring you a few casks of Asgardian ales. There are several I think you'll like, though you'll have to mix them with something else. They're far too strong for you mortals. But there are no finer brews in any realm." Thor looked at Izzy and winked. "Thursday is named after me, you know. Thor's day."

That was so weird. She knew he was Thor, but somehow it didn't hit her that he was THE Thor. Or, she knew that, but it wasn't real until he said that, and that mean that he was like hundreds of years old. Or thousands? So weird. "I … remember that from school, I think."

Thor chuckled, mostly to himself. "Ah, Midgard. I love this place."

"Uh, where is the bar going to be?" Izzy asked, changing the subject to one her brain could actually wrap itself around.

Clint waved a hand towards the other side of the street. "You know that big hole in the ground on Havermayer?"

"By the bridge, yeah. Oh, there?" That was disappointing, it was a hole in the ground, and holes in the ground weren't anywhere near being a bar. Plus, Izzy didn't work construction. Well, not yet. If the pay was good, she just might. Also, if they'd hire her without her having any experience. But, she was a hard worker and she'd learn. She could sling concrete. Maybe. She was a hair under 5'1", but that couldn't be disqualifying, could it?

James looked reluctant to talk in general, but he nodded and shrugged at the same time like he was talking and trying to be uninterested at the same time. He wasn't rude or anything, just not very present. "The building on the corner."

"Where the Rosebud Family Restaurant used to be," Izzy said, feeling relieved. Not the hole in the ground! Then she scrunched up her nose and made a 'blah' face. "That place was terrible. I don't know how it lasted so long, it was open thirty years. I think I found cigarette ashes in my hashbrowns once."

"Gross," Cling said with a laugh.

Even James chuckled a little. "We won't serve hashbrowns."

This caught Clint's attention again and he asked, "What will you serve? You know what I miss?"

"I don't care what you miss," James said in a flat voice as he glanced away, his eyes scanning the street restlessly. Looking for trouble? Or looking to escape?

"Bratwurst," Clint said, ignoring him. "The hotdogs tonight reminded me. They were okay, but nobody does good brats here. You'd think maybe somebody would, but no. It's a Goddamned crime."

James pursed his lips and looked up at the sky and Izzy couldn't tell if he was thinking about it, or thinking about strangling Clint. "Maybe."

"I know a place in Iowa," Clint pressed, as if he sensed weakness and was going to take advantage. "They sell all sorts of sausage. German family, they've been making them for like a hundred something years. I worked in their warehouse over one winter when I was a kid. I got paid in liverwurst. Awesome job."

"Remember Mr. Sawicki with the hotdog cart, Buck?" Steve asked with a wistful sort of laugh. "He had the best franks in the city, I haven't found any that taste as good."

"I remember," James said quietly. He glanced at Clint, who gave him a triumphant little smirk.

"My guy does awesome frankfurters," Clint confirmed.

With a sigh, giving in, James nodded. "Give Darcy the number."

"My daughter would eat hotdogs for every meal if I let her," Izzy said, chatting with her new Avengers friends, as one does. Friends who were opening a bar and maybe she'd get a job. No! She wasn't going to try to leverage getting nearly mugged into a job. But, they did bring it up.

Steve's face brightened. "You've got a daughter? How old?"

"Eight," Izzy said smiling back. "And if you stick those hotdogs in a disgusting cornbread mess and fry it, you'll have her loyalty forever."

"I love corndogs," Clint said. Izzy didn't know any of them really, but somehow the idea that Clint — or Hawkeye, if that's who we was — loved corndogs didn't surprise her one bit. "We had some good ones back in the circus. Well, if Cookie remembered to change the oil. Sometimes he didn't for a few days." Clint grimaced and looked away.

The circus?

"It'll be a while," James said, looking thoughtfully across the street. "We just got the place last week. Now we've got to gut it. But Darcy wants to strip the brick off the whole building."

Steve nodded. "It's not that bad, but it doesn't fit."

"Not bad?" Clint echoed, his face twisted in disbelief. "It's horrible. The worst of the 70s. You guys are lucky you missed the 70s. I mostly missed them, but I saw the reruns. That was enough."

Izzy knew the building, it was dingy yellow brick and it looked like a horrible, soulless, government box. It was big and yellow and definitely didn't fit with some of the older brick in the neighborhood. "How do you strip brick?" She asked. "Sand blast it?"

James shook his head. "I guess they have to take this off all the way down to the framing."

"That's a lot," Izzy murmured. It would be a looooong time before that bar opened.

"We'll start in a couple days," James told her.  "But, yeah, there's a lot to do. Probably won't open until the first of next year."

Izzy tried not to pout, and then started thinking about transitioning into construction work again. Being able to walk to work would be a dream come true.

Steve hummed quietly and gave the other man a sympathetic glance. "Kind of rotten timing — starting up just when Darcy's going out of town."

James ran his hand over his face and sighed. "Fur— uh, Nick will be onsite supervising, at least at the start."

"Nick?" Thor asked. "As in …" he covered one eye with his hand and gave James a leading look. "I thought he was dead."

James dropped his head and looked uncomfortable and ashamed, and like he wanted to go back and hide in the alley with the mugger.

Izzy frowned. Except, maybe she didn't want to know. There was drama and then there was probably Godly and Avengers-level drama that she was maybe better off not knowing about. She was curious, it would make for damned fine gossip, but also, might get her black-bagged and tossed in a secret prison somewhere. She had a daughter who needed her. Curiosity wasn't worth the risk.

Clint jumped in and gave them all a sharp look, before quickly sliding his eyes to Izzy and then back to Thor. "You're thinking of our other friend Nick."

"Oh," Thor said and then he seemed to clue into what they were talking about. Good for him; Izzy was lost. "Our other friend Nick. Unlike this Nick, who is not dead. Nick … Hair … son. Yes, Nick Hairson. Harrison. Such a … magnificent head of hair. Not as magnificent as my own, of course, but very nice."

They were crossing under a streetlight, but it was still not exactly day time bright, so Izzy couldn't be sure, but it looked like a little bit of Thor himself died inside when he said all that. The Avengers were horrible liars. Which, she supposed, is what you'd hope for from heroes and role models. And, as a regular person, it was nice to know that even the Avengers could be really bad at something. It balanced the universe.

Izzy saw the lights over her building's front entrance and let out a slow, quiet breath. She made it. With help, but she made it. This long, horrible day that almost went so much worse, but somehow ended up just kind of strange, was almost over. She still had to do laundry, which sucked, and pay the babysitter, which also kind of sucked. But, she made it home safely.

"This is me," she said, waving towards the front doors. "Thank you for walking with me. I appreciate it."

"Of course," Steve said, sticking his hand out for her to shake. "I'm sorry, I don't think we ever asked for your name."

"Izzy Taveres."

"It was nice meeting you, Ms. Taveres."

Steve gave her hand a friendly shake, and then Thor was next, wrapping his giant paw around her little hand. She felt like a toddler next to him. Good lord, he was huge.

"A pleasure, miss."

"Oh, hey," Steve said, as she was now shaking Clint's hand. "What's your daughter's name? I've got something for her." And he pulled a trading card out of his wallet. She saw the Avengers 'A' and his picture in uniform.

James made a sound like a stifled laugh. "You carry around Captain America cards?"

Steve firmed up his jaw and gave the other man a flat look. "Sometimes there's kids."

"Her name's Mia," Izzy said and, okay, today mostly sucked, but the look on Mia's face when she gave her the card would be worth it all. The kid was going to light up like a Christmas tree. It was very thoughtful of him to carry them around, James. Don't be a jerk. Which she, of course, didn't say out loud; she was still hoping for that job.

Steve nodded and took a pen out of his jacket and carefully wrote 'To My Friend Mia' and then his name across the card.

"Now me," said Thor, taking the card and signing his own name. Next he handed it to Clint, who signed it 'Hawkeye' with an arrow as the crossbar on the "H".

James waved his hand, "I'm not one of you jokers." Ah, okay, he wasn't the Hulk. James also didn't shake Izzy's hand, and he hung back away from them a bit, part of the group but also still a little uncomfortable about it. He didn't ignore her, though, and he dipped his head at her in a little bow and offered a little smile. "Ma'am."

Izzy carefully took the card from Clint and waved it in the air to dry the ink so it wouldn't smear. "Well, thanks again guys. Mia will love this."

"Sure thing," Steve said. "Have a nice evening."

There were a trio of additional goodbyes and then the four men started back down the street. Thor's laughter echoed against the buildings and at one point James shoved Clint into the street and Steve yanked him back onto the sidewalk.

Taking out her keys, Izzy unlocked the security door, and trudged up the stairs, her exhaustion on hold as she planned out the carefully edited, but still exciting story she'd tell about how Mom Met the Avengers.

Izzy looked down at the card in her hand and laughed. The Avengers. What a crazy night.

##

[lavenderprose]

45 for victuuri please 🙏

Viktor isn’t even supposed to be in Detroit today, and it’s frustrating that such a seemingly-small snowstorm has grounded him in the motor city for the “foreseeable future”. Six hundred flights out of Metro Airport have been cancelled already, with more forthcoming, including Viktor’s ride back home. Yakov is somewhere in Saint Petersburg, pulling out his hair and screaming.

Viktor isn’t even supposed to be here. But the moment he sees Yuuri–almost six years to the day since the last time he saw him–his heart stops, and he experiences a brilliant, stunning moment of religion. 

Dear God. Maybe everything does happen for a reason. 

Viktor sees him through the large picture windows of a hotel restaurant and bar. He’s sitting with maybe four or five other people, all of them business casual like they’ve just gotten off work. It’s seven PM on a Friday, so that’s very likely the case. It’s also the Friday before Christmas. The lights on Woodward are casting festive shadows and Yuuri is wearing a large and comfortable sweater. There are poinsettias along the bartop every six feet or so. A large artificial Christmas Tree has been set up in one corner of the sparsely populated restaurant. 

It’s been six years. Yuuri has grown from the timid boy Viktor knew in college–his shoulders always closing in, his eyes always averting–and into a gorgeous man. He looks easy in his skin, although not completely void of a certain heightened self awareness. But as Viktor watches, standing in the falling snow like some idiot from a B romcom, he sees Yuuri laugh and drag a hand through his hair–a far more stylish cut than he wore when Viktor knew him–and realizes that he’s grown up. 

Of course, as Viktor’s luck as of late would have it, Yuuri turns around just in time to see Viktor mooning. His eyebrows shoot up and Viktor sees him say Viktor? but can’t hear him, for obvious reasons.

His friends look up, too. Viktor doesn’t know if they’re friends Yuuri had in college. He doesn’t recognize them, but that doesn’t mean much–Yuuri never really introduced him to his friends, in the few short months during which they dated.

There are three men aside from Yuuri, all of them dark haired and looking to be around Yuuri’s age–which would mean late twenties now, Viktor supposes. The one closest to Yuuri says something to him, casting a strange glance in Viktor’s direction. Yuuri nods, and the other man sets a hand on Yuuri’s leg.

Viktor thinks he understands what was said, then, even if he couldn’t hear it.

Viktor as in your ex-boyfriend?

Yes.

Yuuri, to Viktor’s surprise, rises from his seat and walks across the restaurant. Viktor, against his better judgement, meets him in the breezeway.

“Oh my god,” Yuuri says, casting a casually appraising gaze over Viktor’s person. “How are you? I can’t believe it’s actually you. What are you doing here?”

“Photoshoot,” Viktor says, shuffling his shoulders in an effort to seem nonchalant. “I was supposed to, um…I was actually supposed to be out of the city already, but…the storm.” He gestures outside, where the snowfall has yet to really pick up speed–but it will, he’s been assured by weatherman after weatherman, sometime overnight. 

“Oh,” says Yuuri, sparing only a brief glance outside. When his gaze returns to Viktor’s, it’s calm, but unsure. Yuuri used to practically vibrate with intensity. Too much emotion and not an outlet with which to express it–too scared of his own shadow to speak his mind. Viktor supposes that a lot changes with time and age. 

“You look good,” Viktor says, because it’s very true–practically an understatement–and it’s the only thing he can think to say. “Um. Healthy. You look like you’re…doing well.”

“You too. I’ve seen a couple of your spreads. The one in–in Vogue, that was really nice.”

“Oh,” Viktor says, and he wonders if the cold-flush on his cheeks will hide his blush. “That’s…nice of you to say.”

“I’m glad that…everything turned out well for you,” Yuuri says, smiling. It’s an earnest smile, if sad. “I was really–I never stopped wanting good things for you, even after you broke up with me. I hope you know that.”

Viktor can’t help himself–he physically takes a step back, as if punched or slapped. He blinks hard at Yuuri, who’s now staring at him in concern like he’s afraid Viktor is in the midst of a stroke.

“Me?” Viktor says slowly. “I? I broke up–broke up with you?”

Yuuri’s brow knits. “Yes?”

“Yuuri, you broke up with me,” Viktor says, shaking his head. “You ghosted me for like two weeks and when I finally got tired of it and went to your house, your sister answered the door and told me I wasn’t welcome. How is that me breaking up with you?”

“That was after you broke up with me,” Yuuri says as his expression furrow even deeper, progressing from slightly confused to definitely pissed with alarming deftness. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Viktor, you all but outright said you didn’t want to stay with me. How am I supposed to interpret that, aside from as a break-up?”

“When!” Viktor says. He knows they’re drawing attention to themselves, because Yuuri’s voice is raising and his own hands are doing wild things around his head, but he can’t help himself. “When did I ever say anything like that!”

“It was–I can’t remember, I think we were–were in bed.” Yuuri blushes, and Viktor watches it travel up his ears and down his neck and feels that old, familiar stab of want that Yuuri Katsuki has somehow always inspired in him since the day they met. “And I said–I told you I–I said something like…I can see myself spending the rest of my life with you. And I knew it was early, and I would have understood if you had just said–that’s nice, or something, because–yeah, I knew we’d only been dating for, like, eight months. I knew it was too soon to say something like that. But all you said was I’ve never wanted to spend my life with anybody, and then you practically got up and ran out the door.”

Viktor’s eyes widen. He remembers the day in question. He remembers it with perfect clarity. It’s the kind of thing that plays on repeat in his head when he has nothing else to think about, in frayed sepia tones like an old movie. “No. That’s not–that’s not what I said. Or at least, not how I meant it. And I didn’t–I didn’t run out the door. I told you I had something to do. That I had to go do something.”

“How else was I supposed to interpret that?” Yuuri asks, and now his voice is back to the low hush he was using before. More sad, now, than angry. “I said the most–intimate thing I’d ever said to another person. Ever, in my life. And you left.”

Viktor shakes his head. “Yuuri, no.”

He holds up a finger, practically touching Viktor’s lips. Insistent, but gentle. “It’s okay. I understand. I wasn’t–I wasn’t the most stable person back then. I wouldn’t have wanted to tie myself down to me, either. It was probably smart, what you did.”

Viktor opens his mouth to protest again–and he plans to keep protesting, until he can make Yuuri understand how wrong he is–but the restaurant side of the breezeway opens, and the young man from before, the one who put his hand on Yuuri’s leg, steps in.

“Hey,” he says, wrapping his hand gently around Yuuri’s arm. “You good?”

“Yeah,” says Yuuri, nodding. “I’m…fine. This is, um…” he turns his head away, and attempts surreptitiousness as he swipes a tear from the corner of each eye. He clears his throat, turns back. “Phichit, this is Viktor Nikiforov. You probably know who he is.”

Phichit nods, and holds out a hand. Viktor shakes.

“Viktor, this is Phichit. I…work with him.” With the glance that passes between them, Viktor knows that their relationship must be more than a working one.

“Ah,” Viktor says, nodding. “I…understand.”

Yuuri says to Phichit, “It’s fine. I’ll be back in a minute. Tell Guang-Hong to stop gawking, he’s going to sprain his neck.”

Phichit chuckles, and Viktor sees his knuckles tighten on Yuuri’s arm in a squeeze. “Alright.” To Viktor, he only nods.

When he’s gone, Viktor looks back to Yuuri and asks, “Does he treat you right?”

Yuuri frowns. “What?”

“Is he good to you?”

“Phichit?”

“Yes.”

“…Of course, but–”

Viktor nods, pulls his scarf tight around his neck. “That’s good. That’s–I’m glad. I’m going to…Um, goodbye, Yuuri. Merry Christmas.”

“Viktor.”

Yuuri reaches out a hand, but Viktor grabs it–takes it between his own, and kisses it, then sets it back at Yuuri’s side. 

“Merry Christmas, Yuuri.”

Yuuri bites his lip. “Happy birthday, Viktor.”

Viktor, despite himself, smiles as he walks back out into the cold.

–

Back in Saint Petersburg, the first thing Viktor does upon arriving home–aside from picking up Makkachin from Yakov’s house, and touch base with his agent who is absolutely losing her mind–is go to the bottom drawer in a seldom-opened dresser in his closet and dig past the contents–mostly memrobilia of college; pictures, old school supplies, a couple of documents pertaining to his first couple of modeling gigs–until he finds a small box. It’s blue velvet, the inside is satin, and on the center of the cushion is a ring.

Viktor vividly remembers the day he bought it. He remembers how excited he was, almost frantic. 

He remembers Yuuri being gone when he returned. 

Several hours later, Viktor is four shots into a bottle of vodka has the open ring box next to him on the table when his phone vibrates.

The text is from a number that isn’t listed in his phone, but it reads:

Viktor–

I hope it’s okay that I never got rid of your number. I don’t even know if this will work. You might have changed your number, but I had to try.

I don’t know what happened between us. I never really have. But I know that we’ve both done a lot of growing the last six years and I think, maybe, it would be good for us both if we got together and talked. 

I know your schedule is busy. Mine is too. But I really want to talk to you. It may sound stupid, since we only dated for a few months in college, but I’ve missed you a lot. Maybe the feeling is mutual. If it is, please consider what I said.

-Yuuri

(Oh, by the way…Phichit isn’t my boyfriend.)

The sound Yakov makes upon discovering that Viktor is returning to Detroit less than twenty-four hours after he left is legendary. 

[botanistlester]

Sweet Pea (20/34)

Summary: A nickname that goes bitter in your mouth. Cries for help that no one listens to. Gentle hands that make you quake on the ground you’re standing on. When Phil first met Nico, he thought he was a gift from the heavens. But behind the mask lies something daunting, something unnerving, that Phil never foresaw. Through his journey, he finds solace in Dan, the regular at his workplace, who seems to be the only one who sees through Nico’s mask to the darkness underneath. Warnings: Abusive relationship, violence A/N: This chapter includes warnings for anxiety, cheating, and non-descriptive sex.  thanks to @snowbunnylester for editing this for me! The lyrics at the beginning of this fic are from the song Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn!

I have started a patreon account for those of you who would like to support me and my writing endeavors! You can find my patreon account here, and also find more information about perks of this here!

Previous | Masterlist

Read it on AO3 Read it on Wattpad

-

Chapter Twenty

It won’t make sense right now, but you’re still her friend. And then you let her down easy.

-

“Where are you going?”

Phil turned, flinching, his heart beating fast. He didn’t know why he’d flinched, but the sudden voice, paired with the words, made him feel as though he were going to die, and he didn’t really know why. His heart was a train in his chest, and it didn’t calm down even when he recognised the voice, knew that it was Dan, knew that Dan was just asking him in genuine curiosity why Phil was suddenly leaving the house with no explanation.

The words had been said curiously, not angrily, and suddenly Phil had no idea why he’d reacted the way he had.

Phil took a deep breath before he answered. He knew that he was being strange, kind of secretive. He knew that he was a piece of shit for abandoning Dan at his own house while he went out for the first time in weeks. “I’m meeting up with Ledjon,” Phil responded quietly. He messed with a loose string on his jeans, looking at his boots.

“Oh!” Dan exclaimed, his eyebrows raising with surprise. Phil didn’t know why he was so surprised. Phil was allowed to have friends. “Okay, yeah! Yeah, that’s great!”

He was too enthusiastic. It made Phil’s palms begin to sweat. He tried to get over that, tried to tell himself that everything was okay and that Dan wasn’t actually upset with him for going out with other friends, but he couldn’t seem to stop his mind from running, from telling him that everything he was doing was wrong, wrong, wrong. Was Dan actually mad that he was going to hang out with someone else by himself? Did he not want to stay with Phil anymore?

Phil was frozen between the door and Dan, torn. He didn’t know what to do. He stared at the door, at the handle, at how easy it would be to leave. But then he looked at Dan, his smooth face, that smile. Was there a hint of maliciousness in that smile? Was this a test to see what Phil would choose? If Phil chose Ledjon, would Dan leave him?

Dan’s expression turned into a frown and Phil braced himself, squaring his shoulders to prepare himself for the onslaught of yelling that was probably about to take place. Dan was probably going to tell him how he wasn’t allowed to see Ledjon, that he wasn’t allowed to have other friends, that Dan didn’t want him to go.

But no. Instead, Dan just asked, “Are you okay?” in a soft voice, and Phil’s shoulders relaxed only slightly.

“I’m fine,” he lied because he didn’t want to admit that there was something wrong with him in the first place. He wanted Dan to believe him, to back off and stop questioning everything he did for a split second. So he put on his strong face and grinned brightly at Dan. “I just wanted to hang out with Ledjon for a bit, if that’s alright.”

Dan nodded and he smiled back, reaching out to put his hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Of course it’s okay, I’m not your handler, Phil,” he said quietly. “I’m really glad that you’re going to hang out with a friend.”

Phil shook his head. “You and I have been hanging out everyday for like two months!”

“But it’s not the same,” Dan sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes. “You need to see your other friends too. Which is why I’m glad you’re seeing Ledjon.”

Phil could tell that Dan meant it by the way his eyes shone, so soft, so caring. Phil got an overwhelming urge in his stomach to hug him, so he silently held his arms open wide, very much asking for an embrace.

Dan didn’t think twice before giving it. His arms wrapped around Phil’s shoulders and Phil buried himself into Dan’s chest. Dan was warm and he smelled like a mahogany cologne, and it was familiar and relaxing in the best of ways. Dan stroked his hair lightly. “You have fun with Ledjon, okay? I’ll be here when you get back.”

Phil nodded wordlessly, squeezed Dan tightly, and finally let go. He didn’t want to let go, but hugging for that long was probably weird, so societal norms ended up taking over his brain. He felt like one of those hug wolves from Adventure Time, thirsting for affection.

“I’ll be home soon,” he said, and then he turned and slowly left.

-

Jace Owens - 2:47pm

Hi babe, just wanted to drop by and say i love you and i hope youre having a good day!

Phil Lester - 3:01pm

Love u too. Im just having a lazy day today, watching some cartoons with dan. Miss u

Jace Owens - 3:02pm

Miss you too! Tell dan i said hello

Phil Lester - 3:10pm

Will do

-

Ledjon was nice. Phil liked hanging out with Ledjon. He was soft and kind and just a little bit quirky. He made Phil laugh and he was the only person who had experienced what Phil had gone through with Nico. Aside from Dan, Ledjon was another person who Phil could just talk to for hours without the fear of judgement, all because Ledjon had gone through the same things.

His smile was warm and he was warm. Phil liked him, liked being around him, because he made Phil feel at ease. They didn’t do much together, but Ledjon always made Phil a nice cup of coffee whenever he came over, and then they’d have a late brunch with scrambled eggs. The first time Phil saw Ledjon put salsa on his eggs, Phil had crinkled his nose in disgust before he tried it and realised that it was actually really good, and now they ate their salsa-y eggs together with old school Evanescence playing in the background.

Bring Me to Life was blasting on high that afternoon, and Ledjon was singing it loudly and dramatically. He grabbed his fork and used it as a microphone, a little bit of egg flinging from the utensil and onto the floor. Phil watched the egg with rapt fascination as it splattered against the linoleum. A bit of red salsa painted the tile like blood spatter, and Phil couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from it. Ledjon’s bad singing filled his ears, but he suddenly couldn’t hear anything.

Maybe the egg was a metaphor for Phil’s life; a squashed egg on the floor, innards dripping out, staining the beautiful white flooring. Iconic.

Phil was disrupted from his thoughts by Ledjon pushing his chair back, making a disgusting squeaking noise on the tile. He looked up to see Ledjon smiling softly down at him. “You finished?” he asked. Phil silently looked at his plate. He had only eaten a few bites of his food. He nodded anyways and handed his plate to Ledjon, who took it to the sink and started rinsing it off.

Phil cleared his throat. “So you don’t live with Nico anymore?” he asked, and his voice broke on the name. Apparently he couldn’t even speak about him correctly. Phil was the worst kind of human.

Ledjon hummed and shook his head. “No. We moved out a few weeks ago. He didn’t want to put up with me and I didn’t want to put up with him. That’s all there is to it.” He smiled and his hand gripped tightly to the sponge. His knuckles turned white. “I couldn’t stay here with him any longer. Not when I could hear him in the other room just using people. Abusing people.”

A knot appeared in Phil’s stomach at the term abuse, at the fact that Nico had just been using him. He hadn’t heard anything from Chandler since he’d last texted Chandler all those weeks ago, but the knowledge that Nico was cheating on her… abusing her, made something both evil and frightening ignite his bones. For some reason, Phil was glad. He was glad that she was getting a taste of what had happened to him. He was glad that Nico was cheating on her. He was glad that Nico was just using her for his own gain.

It was sick. He was sick. He shouldn’t wish this on anybody, shouldn’t wish for the same thing that had happened to him to happen to someone else, whether they’d done him wrong or not. Chandler used to be his best friend, and she was just like him; so blind-sided by Nico’s charm that she couldn’t see the manipulation and lies just underneath the surface.

And yet, Phil felt the satisfaction brimming beneath the surface of his mind. Maybe she would understand what had happened to him once Nico finished with her, would understand why Phil was now suddenly absolutely fucking crazy, why he couldn’t look at a goddamn pen without passing out.

Maybe then she would understand why he’d needed her to tell him so badly that he was in an abusive relationship and that he needed to get out months before this could all happen.

He wanted to tell her the same thing, but he had no doubt in his mind that she would shame him and would shit on his beliefs and make him feel even more insane than he already did. Besides, he’d made a mental promise to himself not to talk to Chandler ever again after she’d blamed him for Nico’s cheating. Phil didn’t need that in his life when he was already hurting so deeply.

“Phil?”

Phil hummed, blinking, and glanced up at Ledjon, whose brow was furrowed. It was then that he realised that he’d completely zoned out and hadn’t responded or even acknowledged what Ledjon had been saying. He felt strangely empty inside, void of emotions, and it was strange, but he should be used to it by now.

“You doin’ okay, mate?”

Phil nodded. He stood up and felt like he was going to stumble, but he didn’t. He stood tall and met Ledjon’s eyes, forcing a smile onto his face. “I’m great,” he lied through his teeth. Lying came easy for him now, and he didn’t want to think about why that was or when it’d started to be so normalized in his life.

Hadn’t he just lied to Jace a few hours ago?

Phil and Ledjon ended up sitting on the couch together watching television. They were watching Gravity Falls, which brought Phil back to the times when he and Nico had been cuddled up together on the couch, watching the same cartoon while Phil laughed at the lighthearted jokes and Nico ran gentle fingers through his hair. The memory was cloudy now, and Phil’s throat closed up a little bit because he could hardly remember what Nico’s voice sounded like, or the way his lips felt pressed to his forehead.

Shouldn’t he be glad for that? Why did it still hurt?

He and Ledjon were watching the episode about Manotaurs and how Dipper really wanted to be more manly. The jokes about high testosterone used to make Phil laugh aloud, but now he just stared at the television with an empty gaze while Ledjon giggled beside him. Their thighs were touching, and Phil’s eyes were drawn to how close they were. They were so close that Phil could feel Ledjon’s warmth seeping through his jeans. He was so warm that it made Phil crave- crave something, anything. He didn’t really know what, other than the fact that he craved and Ledjon’s thigh was burning a hole through his trousers, and Phil really didn’t want to pay attention to Gravity Falls anymore or how Dipper had gotten his first chest hair.

His phone vibrated twice in a row, and Phil fished it out of his pocket, snapping out of his weird trance for a millisecond. He read over the two text messages, one from Dan, one from Jace, but he didn’t feel anything at all, and that frightened him.

Dan Howell - 7:23pm

Hope youre having fun with ledjon! I had some of the leftover pasta in your fridge, i hope you dont mind soz

Jace Owens - 7:23pm

Hi baby i hope youre having fun with dan. I love you!

Phil groaned and flopped to the side at Jace’s message. This just made him nuzzle into Ledjon’s side, which was foreign but not exactly unwelcome. Ledjon jumped a bit, made a surprised noise, before hesitantly putting his arm around Phil’s shoulders, his touch soft and completely unsure. Phil didn’t blame him for that. He was unsure as well.

He eventually decided not to text Jace back, instead opting to text Dan a confirmation that he could eat all of the pasta he wanted before setting his phone on the coffee table where he couldn’t grab it without reaching for it. He tried to focus back on the next episode of Gravity Falls, one resembling Street Fighter, but his head was swimming and his thoughts were too loud to focus again.

He shuffled a bit, and rested his head on Ledjon’s shoulder. He could smell the cologne that Ledjon wore; something flowery and musky, somewhat like sandalwood. Ledjon was rubbing a hand over his shoulder, and it was soothing, but it was all that Phil could focus on anymore. Maybe he just didn’t want to watch Gravity Falls anymore - the longing for Nico, for being held by Nico becoming too much.

His lips quivered like his hands, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment so he could take a deep breath, but he was only choked by the musky scent of Ledjon. Ledjon, who was there for him, who understood him, who cared for him, and who currently had his arm wrapped around him like he was trying to protect him from all harm.

Phil turned his head up to look at him, and their faces were so close that when Ledjon glanced down at him, Phil’s nose grazed the facial hair on Ledjon’s chin. He could see green in Ledjon’s blue eyes. It was quite pleasing to look at, in all honesty. The green reminded Phil of Nico’s eyes, and for a second, Phil could have sworn that he was on the couch with Nico and not Ledjon.

Maybe that was why he suddenly leaned forward, pressing their lips together in a questioning kiss.

Ledjon didn’t taste anything like Nico, and the noise he made didn’t sound like Nico either, but it felt good. For the first time since Nico, Phil didn’t feel numb when he was kissing someone. Ledjon pulled away and his eyes were wide, filled with uncertainty.

“Phil, what are you doing?” he whispered, but Phil just hushed him by kissing him again.

He didn’t know what he was doing. All he knew was that he needed a distraction, something to stop him from thinking about the way Nico’s hands had once curled through his hair, or the way Nico’s fingertips had once pressed tightly into his hips.

“Just kiss me,” Phil said, and he didn’t like how it sounded like he was begging. He heard his phone vibrate on the table, and he grew just a bit more desperate, his hands wrapping up in Ledjon’s shirt like he was his lifeline. “Please,” he added, and then he kissed Ledjon again.

This time, Ledjon didn’t pull away. He wasn’t as rough as Nico, and his lips were slightly larger than Nico’s were too. Phil could feel his facial hair scratching at his face, a reminder that he wasn’t Nico, but Phil pulled him closer anyway and tangled his hands into Ledjon’s hair to keep him close. Ledjon didn’t kiss with his tongue like Nico did. He didn’t grab Phil’s face to keep him in place. His lips were soft and not forceful. His movements were calculated, caring, like Phil was a piece of glass that he was afraid to break.

Phil growled and pulled away, resting their foreheads together so he could look Ledjon straight in the eyes. He wasn’t thinking anymore, animalistic instincts taking over completely. “Be rough with me,” Phil ordered gruffly. “I want you to kiss me like you hate me. I want you to fucking destroy me.”

Ledjon, still confused, just nodded and sat back as Phil climbed onto his lap and reattached their lips. He was rougher this time, biting and nipping at Phil’s lips until they were bitten red and swollen. His hands gripped onto Phil’s hips, his fingers tightening until Phil could swear they were leaving behind purple bruises that he would later be able to connect like constellations on his skin.

There was a heat in Phil’s body that only intensified by the minute. Gravity Falls was forgotten behind them as Phil ground down onto Ledjon. He didn’t think as he stripped both of their shirts off, throwing them to the floor where they would stay for the next few hours. His mind was blank as he begged Ledjon to fuck him hard and rough, hard enough to leave Phil gasping in both pain and pleasure.

But the best part of it all was that Phil could finally feel something. He could feel something other than the vast emptiness inside of his chest that had been there for weeks now. Yes, it was a feeling of pain, but at least it was something.

When they’d finished, they laid on opposite sides of the couch in complete silence. Phil had a blanket wrapped around his entire naked body, and his hips hurt, and his throat hurt and eyes were watering, but it was good. He stared at the ceiling and wondered when he’d started to stray from his vanilla sex life into someone who needed pain to feel a burst of emotion in his otherwise empty chest.

He wondered when he’d become the type of person to cheat on his partner with one of his close friends. With who used to be Nico’s roommate.

He didn’t know what Ledjon was thinking, but he had been quiet the entire time he’d helped Phil clean up, a slight frown on his face. Phil wondered if the sex had been bad for him, if he thought Phil was a dirty slut. He wondered if he was going to tell Nico.

He fucking hoped so.

“Tell him.”

Ledjon looked at Phil then. Phil didn’t have to glance away from the ceiling to know that. He could feel his eyes on him from across the bed.

“What are you on about, Phil?” he asked. His voice sounded tired. Phil wondered if Ledjon hated him.

And yet, Phil spoke anyway. His voice was hoarse, a mere whisper. “Tell Nico we slept together.” He looked at Ledjon then, his eyes pleading. “Please. Please hurt him like he’s hurt us.”

Ledjon sighed and he moved closer to Phil, which Phil thought was a good thing. He took his hand, and his hand was cold. Very cold. It wasn’t as warm of a touch as Nico’s, or even Dan’s for that matter.

“Phil, listen.” Phil cocked his head. He was listening. “I’m not going to tell Nico what we did. I’m not going to tell anybody.”

Phil’s eyebrows furrowed and a shock of disappointment went through him, followed by anger. Was Ledjon really that embarrassed of him? Had the sex really been that bad? “Well why the fuck not? You didn’t seem to have any problem fucking my brains out ten minutes ago, so loud that the neighbours could probably hear.” He was angry, shaking. He felt like he was worthless, like he was bad at sex and that was why Ledjon didn’t want to tell anybody about this.

Maybe that was why Nico had found somebody else to screw so quickly.

“Phil, Phil, no, hey.” Ledjon’s voice broke through Phil’s insecurities, and he squeezed Phil’s hand tightly in his own. Phil wanted to smack his hand away, suddenly not wanting to be touched, but he didn’t dare do so because he was frozen in place, frozen under that blue-green gaze. “I’m not saying I regret what we did, and I’m not trying to reject you. It’s just not going to be in either of our best interests if anybody - Nico especially - knows about this. You… you have Jace, and even knowing that…” he trailed off and Phil’s eyes were drawn to the dark blue sheets and how they were so blue they were almost black, almost like a bruise. “I love you, okay? A lot. But I love you as a friend. I never want to hurt you, and I never wanted something like this to happen that could potentially ruin our friendship.”

I love you. Those words again. Even in this context, even knowing that Ledjon meant it platonically, Phil’s heart still sped up. He clenched his teeth tight and tried to stop the sudden watering of his eyes so that he didn’t burst into tears right then and there.

Suddenly, he felt dirty. He felt used. He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to face Ledjon anymore. He was embarrassed about how needy and desperate he’d been only an hour before, how he hadn’t really given Ledjon a choice and had just begged him to make him feel something. The bruises on his hips suddenly felt like they were on fire, and his tongue was swollen in his mouth. He was still naked but he suddenly wished that he had his clothes on.

Ledjon didn’t want him, and he’d cheated on Jace, just like Nico had cheated on him. Phil was exactly the kind of person he hated, and neither Ledjon nor Jace deserved that.

“I’m sorry,” Phil whispered, taking in a deep, shaky breath, wrapping the sheet around his body and standing up. “I would like to be friends still I just… I need to get out of here. I’m so sorry.”

Ledjon sat upright and started to make his way over to Phil, reaching out, but Phil flinched away from his touch, his heart roaring in his ears. Ledjon’s hands dropped to his side and he looked helpless. Phil didn’t like that he’d caused that. “Can I at least make sure you get home okay and walk you home?”

Phil shook his head and started throwing his clothes on, not caring that his shirt was on backwards and he’d put his socks on inside out. Ledjon stopped him, tsking, and Phil could do nothing else but still, his mind spinning. With gentle hands, careful not to touch him, Ledjon put Phil’s hoodie on for him.

“At least wrap up properly,” he said softly, and Phil nodded numbly, thanking him in spirit rather than using words. He didn’t know if he could speak just then even if he wanted to.

It wasn’t long after that that Phil found his way out the door, shoving his phone into his pocket without looking at any of the messages. He knew what he would find there; another text from Dan, and probably multiple texts from Jace that would make his stomach churn as though he were going to throw up everything he’d eaten that day. Phil didn’t want to think about Jace, didn’t want to think about how he’d done exactly what Nico had done to him.

He couldn’t help but think that he was turning out to be exactly like Nico, and that frightened him to no end.

Later, when he got home, his face feeling numb from the bitter outside air, Dan greeted him at the door. At that point, Phil knew he should probably just ask Dan to move in with him considering he was there all the time anyway, but he didn’t want to think about that just now. He was too upset over the fact that he didn’t deserve anyone, let alone Dan.

Phil pushed past Dan until he was in his room, ignoring the concerned questions that Dan was throwing at him. Only when he reached his bed did he break down, curling into a ball and crying like the first time that Phil had told Nico to leave.

Dan didn’t even ask before lying down with him, holding him tight to his chest. His hands rubbed over Phil’s back, and it was soothing. It didn’t burn like Ledjon’s had, didn’t burn like Jace’s did. He was calming, didn’t ask questions when he knew Phil couldn’t answer. He was just there for Phil to cry on, his strength when Phil couldn’t be strong by himself.

Phil’s chest hurt, and he wanted to tear his heart out, because he didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t want to feel like this anymore, so used and in so much pain that he could hardly function anymore. He wanted to feel everything and nothing at all.

He wanted to go back to how he’d been before, back when he’d been happy and carefree. Back when he’d been normal.

The only issue was that he didn’t quite remember what normal was supposed to feel like anymore.

Chapter Twenty-One