#knowing in his bones right there that they won't be the same. because any child of his will *always* have him.

[beefcakekinard]

buck who finds out he's pregnant, who was already feeling a renewed commitment to his boyfriend and their relationship, who's so excited to spend his future with him that he gets a little overexcited and asks tommy to move in with him before anything else. before i love you, before i'm having your baby. when tommy leaves buck thinks that by now maybe he should be used to getting left behind, but it's cosmically unfair that his baby is doomed to it too.

[missmeinyourbones]

a tiny little something for you babies! barely edited or proofread. probably not good but hey here we are. soft soft soft fluff with a pain in the ass satoru

…

“satoru?”

your lover replies eagerly, “yes, angel?”

“what’s the point of us having a king-sized bed if we aren’t actually utilizing its space?”

the question is rhetorical, he knows this, yet satoru still finds himself smiling as he opens his mouth to let it do what it does best and bullshit.

“why would i want to spread out in bed when i could be cuddling the love of my life all night?”

the bed is huge, far too big for two people—even including satoru and his ridiculously long limbs. a california king lined with satin sheets and pillows that feel like clouds. it feels like a dream, but the weight of satoru’s body thrown across your own reminds you that this is, in fact, a grounding reality. 

he feels you sigh against his hair, “as romantic as you’re trying to make that seem, you’re on my side of the bed.”

his eyebrows furrow against your chest, and he almost laughs at how silly your statement sounds. 

“there are no sides of the bed,” he easily replies, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. 

“what’s yours is mine baby,” he quips, before lifting his left hand to your face as proof, proudly showcasing the silver band decorating his ring finger. “i mean, that’s what we said in the vows, right?”

you swat his hand from your face and he chuckles, vibrating your entire body and making the room a whole lot warmer than it was a few moments ago. 

“i said in sickness and in health,” you stubbornly remind him, “not on my side of the bed and yours.”

at the tiredness lacing your voice and the grumpy glare you shoot him through your words, satoru decides to throw you a bone. he detangles himself from you, removing his weight and shuffling a bit further from where he priorly laid on top of you. 

now, he lays on his stomach, head turned to face your own. his large hand still makes itself comfortable flat across your soft stomach, his foot skimming your calf every now and then in an attempt to get comfortable. 

“there,” he exhales after a moment of deliberate shuffling, “i’ll let you breathe.”

his statement is so ridiculous, it makes you laugh. genuinely exhale from your nose and bubble deep from your throat. because to the eye of any stranger, the position is still extremely close. satoru is practically nuzzling into your side, glued to your hip as half of his body now slowly works its way on top of you—which is better than whole, so you take it as a win. 

you roll your eyes to hide your flush, “how kind of you.”

the moment is peaceful, but for only that—a moment. through the silence of your bedroom, satoru finds his voice once more. 

“can you rub my back?” 

he watches your face contort in the darkness as you scowl, “you’re insufferable.”

“please?” he whines like a child as his head pushes into your neck. “i’ll do yours after.”

you both know he won't, as he’ll be fast asleep in the next ten minutes, at most. you two do this same song and dance a few times a week: he asks you to run his back, you pretend to be annoyed by it, and then the gentle scratch of your nails on his skin lulls him to sleep rather quickly. it’s a routine, it feels like the two of you. 

through soft sighs of pleasure and dozing consciousness, satoru admits through a lazy grin. 

“this is my favorite part of the day, you know.”

“mhm,” you nod along at his blissed-out trance, “if i got to sprawl out and have my back rubbed til i fall asleep every night, i think it’d be my favorite part too.” 

satoru smiles with his teeth and he laughs from his belly at your quick remark. “not because of all this,” he claims through a whine, “it is a huge bonus, though.”

he slightly shivers beneath your fingertips when you whisper in return, “then why?”

satoru places a kiss on your neck, and his lips feel softer than the luxury bed you drift off in. 

“because i get to be with you,” he easily replies.

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

Communication is good. It's wonderful, even! But screaming matches? Especially ones that last this long, aren't healthy in the slightest. In fact, all they do is damage relationships. So, after convincing Barbra and Tim to go upstairs, promising that he'd be up in a few minutes with Dick, he went back to where Bruce and Dick were screaming at each other.

Nothing had been thrown yet. Small mercies.

God, Danny hated being a mediator. Why couldn't people just work out their problems by talking? It'd make his life so much easier. Was that so hard to do? Too much to ask? Apparently.

"And you-!" Bruce rounded on Danny the second he closed the door behind him. "You don't get to come into my house and-"

"Let me stop you right there, Mister Wayne." A few days into his running away, Danny discovered a new power. He can't control it, but sometimes, when he's angry or needs people to shut up, the inside of his throat goes cold and his eyes narrow. It's really cool, from Danny's perspective, and pun fully intended. Something about Mister Wayne had brought that power to the surface, and thank the gods for that because Danny really needs to be listened to right now. "I told you earlier that my name was not a fight you wanted to pick. I think I should reword that. I am not a person you want to pick a fight with."

Bruce narrowed his eyes, meeting Danny's glare with his own. "Is that a threat?"

"Yes, Mister Wayne, that was a threat. And you can hold me to it. I will win any and every fight you try to pick with me."

Dick kept glancing between the two. He had a bad feeling about these two interacting like this, but something was stopping him from getting them apart.

"I have your name and your face. It won't be too hard to get you arrested for several crimes."

"Framing a child, Mister Wayne? Good luck with that. I don't exist anymore. Besides, I can threaten the same thing about Batman, and that holds significantly more weight than anything you could do to my name."

"If you're not scared, then you'll give me your whole name."

"That was a horrible fish for information, Mister Wayne. You're slipping. You must be getting rusty in your old age."

"Danny-"

"Dick." Danny held his hand out to his - on paper - responsible adult, "C'mon, Tim and Barbra are waiting for us upstairs."

Danny lead Dick out of the room, Bruce staying behind and obviously glaring at the back of Danny's head. When the door shut, Dick sighed, every bit of tension he hadn't felt melting off of him. "Sorry about him."

Danny shook his head. "Don't apologise, Dick, you didn't do anything to spark that. However," he glanced at him from the corner of his eye, still holding his hand, "Screaming matches aren't going to fix anything between you two. I don't know if you even want a relationship with him, but he's right. We came into his house, so it's up to us to be polite. You may be his kid, but you are a guest in his home until you two can form some kind of positive relationship. The hostility between y'all right now? That demotes you to 'house guest' instead of 'visiting child'. Got it?"

"..yeah."

"Good. Now, Tim and Barbra are waiting upstairs; go find them."

"What about you?"

"I'm going to go apologise to Alfred."

"Alfred? Why?"

"Bruce may claim this as his house, but Alfred's the one who takes care of it. It's his haunt, so I'm gonna go apologise for almost starting a fight."

"Um, alright..?"

***

Dick found himself wandering into the room that had been given to Tim. It was bare bones and barely looked used, but that's where he found Tim and Babs. He sat next to her.

"Where's Danny?" Tim asked.

"I- He's gone to talk to Alfred for a minute."

"Oh? Why?"

"I don't..he wasn't really clear on that."

"Oh."

The three lapsed into a silence that hovered somewhere between comfortable and uncomfortable. Tim was on his bed, messing with something on his phone, smiling occasionally or chuckling softly. Dick and Barbra sat together on the couch against the wall between the two windows. None of them spoke for a while.

It was a lon twenty minutes of sitting, doing nothing. Sometimes one of them shifted, but no conversation was made.

The door opened. "Wow. Did I end up in a graveyard or something? Y'all're quieter than the dead." The three flinched back as if struck. "Sorry, that was in poor taste." He closed the door behind him and sat on the foot of Tim's bed. "Seriously, though, why're y'all so quiet?"

"Waiting for you," Tim answered, "What'd you talk to Alfred about?"

Danny waved his hand in the air as if to physically dispel the words. "Nothing you need to worry about. Good news, though, I have a standing invitation to the Manor, so.."

"Is that a good idea?" Barbra asked, "You and B, well...You didn't really.."

"Yeah," he smiled, "Alfred's given me permission, and that's all I need. I won't be going with you guys to the Bat Cave, though."

"What?" Tim's voice pitched up a bit, "Why?"

"That's Mister Wayne's haunt. Because he doesn't like me, I'm not gonna risk even thinking about going down there."

"But you'll come and go from his house?"

"Yes."

"Weird."

"I don't make the rules, Timmy." Tim snorted softly. Barbra smiled.

"I hate to be the one to bring the mood down again," Dick said, "But why were you wanting to go to the Cave?"

"I just said I wasn't."

"Yeah, but why would you ever need to go down there?"

At this, Danny looked a bit sheepish, turning to look away from the others and rubbing the back of his neck. "Alfred said we're staying the night."

"What!" Dick shot up from his seat.

"Are you coming on patrol with us?" Barbra asked Dick, her eyes expectant.

Tim grinned. "That'd be so cool! You two should totally join us!"

Dick shook his head. "I really-" He cut himself off, making the mistake of looking Barbra and Tim in the eye. He sighed. "Alright, I'll join you guys for the night. But I don't answer to Bruce."

"Yay!"

"Wouldn't expect ya to."

"What about you, Danny?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I don't do the whole vigilante thing anymore."

"'Anymore'?" Babs raised her eyebrow, "That's a story I wanna hear."

He blushed. "It's really not,"

"You'll be on comms, though, right?" Tim wondered.

"I, um.... Sure. I'll join you guys on comms."

"Yes!"

"But I'm still not going into the Bat Cave."

Part 13 Part 15

[wherenymphsroam]

don’t say it’s unholy, if I let you come hold me (pt 1)

⟡ -- leon finds you drowning your grief in the back of a bar just outside of town. but don't worry, he won't blow your cover.

w/c: 2.1k

warnings: themes of coping with grief and depression, implied underage drinking and unhealthy coping mechanisms, vendetta leon, leon is just a wee bit morally grey here just due to the point in his life this is staged during, no sex but explicit language, leon is readers dad's coworker/friend, angst - eventual sex

a/n: okay, I've been sitting on this baby for a hot minute just because of how self indulgent it is iaqhdsiuwsjih. I wanted to make this longer before I released it, but I think I'm going to just continue this in parts (and even then, don't hold me to that lol judgwiuhd !!). again, please heed warnings, and if you are uncomfortable with any themes presented, please just don't read!

playlist: unholy (hey violet), disconnect (she wants revenge), discipline (nine inch nails), paralyzer (finger eleven)

You shouldn’t be here.

By all legal and ethical means, morality aside, you should be at the library, studying for a final you know damn well you won’t be passing. Or better yet, at home. Maybe poured over a mug of tea, that blend your mom has made you since you were a kid. Some shitty romcom playing in the background, ignored as you doze off surrounded by papers, scattered around the dining table like any other honorable, dutiful college student. Not some… dingy, shithole bar outside the parameters of your hometown.

(One you know your dad doesn’t frequent with colleagues. One you know is just outside the radius of people that would see you here, know you enough to know you shouldn’t be here.)

Maybe you would be back home right now, studying until you felt like your brain was going to melt out of your ears, if not for what happened. The “would’ve” “could’ve” and “should’ve”s are stacked high in your brain, like a mountain of now unattainable possibilities laid bare, slain by the events of recent nights. Something so chilling, so bone shattering and brain dissolving you just can’t manage to wrap your head around it. 

‘Shock’, right? 

That was the operative term for the numbness that has recently buzzed dully in your limbs, the heaviness of your own weight whenever you roll out of bed every day. The term itself is thrown around so flippantly, so easily outside the walls of a hospital, a clinic. General medical common knowledge be damned, everyone knows what shock is.

'Shock' is being betrayed by your child who marries someone of the same gender, rendering you and your paper thin beliefs meaningless. Generations passed down worth of indoctrination gone moot by one, unholy union. It’s coming home and finding your husband in bed with another woman, that blonde bitch at his front desk. The one he told you not to worry about? Yeah, that one. 

It’s the unspeakable, the unimaginable striking. It’s blinding, horrid in how it leaves you.. Empty. You’re compelled to apologize for its effects on your nervous system.

Sorry guys, I promise I’m sad. I know I don’t look it, I’m taking it out on all this- shit lying around. I’ve been meaning to throw this out for ages you know. Guess I finally have a reason now, huh? No, I don’t know how much sleep I’ve gotten the past week, it’s probably fine. I’m fine, don’t worry about me. That’ll make me feel worse. Now, if you would, let me go finish my manic episode in peace, will you-?

Could you blame this too as to why you finally dug out that fake ID your friends coerced you into agreeing to?

This wasn’t like you, not one bit. I mean, really, sitting in the back of some gnarly bar, surrounded with the sorts of people Daddy always warned you about? The sorts of people that only came out after dark, that hung around till dawn when they would then go back to dwell in whatever crevice of the city they called home until dusk? Maybe this was moms genes catching up with you – the predisposed ones you always knew would come to bite you in the ass. Maybe you should go check your eyes, don’t people's pupils dilate when they’re manic? “Crazy eyes'' those people on Tiktok would call them, right? 

“Unwidin’, huh?”

His voice calls through the air between you like he might’ve well been standing yards away. It takes you a moment longer than maybe appropriate to track his distance, his place at your side at the bartop. Glancing over, you first get a look at his hand, gesturing to the drink in front of you, the cigarette dangling between your fingers. The one that was currently beginning to slip in your weakened grip, speaking of. 

They’re long, nimble. Broad hands, worn at the tips, smooth along the meat of his palms. Even under the hazy atmosphere surrounding you, you can make out the glint of the watch up his sleeve – probably expensive, if the quality of the leather of his jacket sleeve has anything to say about it. Look at you. Even buzzed like this, you were spotting the finer details. A daddy’s girl with daddy’s tolerance.

Despite yourself, you nod numbly, head heavy on the bracket of your neck. A sign directly arguing with the idea of your tolerance – or rather, lack thereof – but it can't be as noticeable as your brain is attempting to trick you into believing, right?

Leon settles into the stool next to you, and you don’t so much as cast him a proper glance. Maybe that’s why he finds himself sitting down. You looked out of place, like a damn kicked puppy with your head drowning in a few shots worth in the back of this bar. It was a wonder no one else had approached you up till this point, especially given the time of night. It was hard not to feel like your guardian angel. 

“We both know this ain’t the healthiest way to do it.” He says as he flags the bartender down.

Touche, mystery man. 

Well, alright. Technically you knew the guy. You vaguely recognized him as one of Dad’s colleagues through the haze of your buzz. It was too sweet to interrupt, you find yourself completely unfazed in the face of the inevitable consequences that would come from your fathers colleague finding you here.

If anything, you couldn’t complain.

His voice was nice. Beyond “nice” actually. If you were any more wasted, you’d take him for a certain type of actor. More specifically, the ones you listen to late at night. The ones that speak to you behind pseudonyms and expensive microphones, nestled into crevices of the internet any mentally stable person wouldn’t dream of wandering into.  

You know better than to entertain that thought for more than a few seconds, even despite the dregs of nicotine floating through your blood coaxing you towards such a mental image. 

Finally, you brave a glance over your shoulder at him. He’s pretty. Real pretty. How are you only just noticing how sharp his eyes are? They look darker under this bar's lighting, that typically professional, almost playful glint in his gaze nowhere to be found. It had been a few years since you’d last seen him… maybe it was age finally starting to jade him.

Not that you knew the specifics. He was easily older than you by a decade and some change. And clearly all too happy to bypass all niceties in this situation. Damn. Did you look that bad? He was pretty enough to be an angel, but that didn’t mean he had to act like one. Maybe he felt bad for you. Maybe he had a better head sitting on his shoulders than a better half of the people in here. 

A huff of soft breath leaves through your nose, tendrils of smoke swirling out of your system with the action. Shaking your head, you dip it, taking another long drag from your quickly burning cigarette, an excuse to try and string together some sort of response that won’t make an ass out of you. Or actually, anything that didn’t scream “you’re hot and I don’t know how to conduct myself around good natured, attractive men” would do just fine. Those damn eyes of his… it was a mistake, letting your gazes lock. His eyes alone were enough to make your stomach flip. 

“Well,” you mutter, not daring to look back at him. “This is better than my plan b for the night.” 

You don’t so much as flinch when the bartender comes over, taking an order he murmurs in a tone you want spoken against the shell of your ear from behind. Your periphery catches the actions of the bartender pouring his order into a short glass, bronze in color.

Whiskey. Of course.

Reaching for the middle of the table, you stub your cigarette in a conveniently placed ashtray. Sure, you were a little fucked up in a way you’ve never been before tonight, but you had manners. 

Meanwhile, Leon is doing what he does best. Observing. He tries his best not to make it obvious how he watches your hand wobbles when you lift it. He watched the subtle change in your expression when he called to you, how your head bobbed when he sat down. Anyone else would be paying attention to how quickly you recoiled with the action, as if self conscious of your dragged reaction time. However, he had spotted the tension in your slouched shoulders. A reaction rooted in self preservation, a fear of judgment. It was enough to tell him just how many shots you probably had in your system. 

He was no stranger to girls like you, ‘situations’ such as the one he was currently sitting next to.

It was a familiar, cliche dance – the unspoken, drowning struggles of a near stranger on display, insecurities risen to the surface like hemorrhaged blood under thinned skin. It was written all over you. You were scrappy, worn paper, and he was the storm settling overhead. Baring your weariness and struggle and strife to his blind eye, painting you transparent. He could see right through you. You were running from something. Likely attempting to drown, bury it somewhere deep if not for just a night or so. 

“‘Plan B’?” he questions, tone calm, even almost lighthearted. It betrays his sharp gaze, perceptive and on guard as ever. As if he were approaching an injured doe in the wild. Not that he’s done much hunting lately. He’s found that meat off the streets bleeds more freely than the skin of doe’s and rabbits does in present times. 

A wry smile tugs at your lips, almost as if you figured he’d press the topic. It was already too much to ask that he didn’t mention your connection to his coworker, how Leon knew you were definitely not supposed to be somewhere like this, and he had managed to uphold that silent prayer.

Maybe your otherwise handicapped condition was blurring whatever lines that stood between you right now, the lines that constructed what he should be doing, finding you here without a legitimate ID.  He should be outing you to the bartender, dragging you out of this place by the scruff of your neck with your dad dialed into his phone.

He shouldn’t be… entertaining you, right? Could you go so far as to call his complacent presence.. Encouragement?

Taking a seat beside you, joining you in your mission to drown your ache, your pain. Keeping you calm under his gaze, as if a sedative rolled off him in gentle waves. His throat bobs around his sip of whiskey, and you can’t help how your gaze lingers on the action. 

“Plan B consisted of finding someone to fuck me into next week,” you mutter dryly, as if the admission of your half hearted ‘plans’ for tonight left a sour taste in even your mouth. It wasn’t who you were. This wasn’t what you did. For fucks sake, you weren’t even supposed to have gotten this far, knee deep in an actively self destructive decision. But life sure did have one hell of a way of knocking you one hundred eighty degrees in the other direction, didn’t it?

No. That’s an excuse. A shitty one, at that. It's an excuse you've heard your dad mutter under his breath when he slouches into the couch with a beer in hand.

This is a poor choice, and you knew this was a poor choice. And yet, that didn’t stop you from walking your happy ass into this bar, nose up and full of talked up confidence you poured into yourself in the parking lot. No amount of tugging and pulling and pleading your guilty conscience did on your brain would stop you, not this time. You knew that getting into an Uber to haul you outside the lines of town would seal your fate to the whims of this bar. How classy. 

If Leon was a worse man, he’d take your words at face value. (Or maybe he’s just damned with all that thorough training he’s been rung through. It’s practically impossible not to read people nowadays. Even alcohol has ceased to debilitate him of this begrudgingly equipped set of skills that was all but pummeled into him.) 

His gaze wavers. Flickers, almost with a wash of amusement for a moment. You were trying oh so hard, taking that clipped, short tone with him, all but puffing your chest with this aura of  mental toughness you likely wanted to think you had. It was cute, really. But oh, the lacing of desperation in your tone... The sweet vulnerability in your breath… every hairline fracture your already cracking front is bleeding. 

He doesn’t have to be a bloodhound to want to dig for more. He just can’t help himself. 

thank you for reading! I have emergency commissions open, so if you enjoyed this piece, please consider taking a look at my menu or rb’ing :^)

[kiame-sama]

you know how it’s kind of seen as a failure for a woman not to be able to make children? at least in a lot of cultures, including mine. do you think the monster boys will care if reader physically could not conceive? not to get into specifics but i actively avoid telling people because i have been shamed and told that my future husband will be disappointed with me or to warn any future man i date because he deserves to know incase he wants to be with a woman who can fulfill her role.

Most of the boys won't be heartbroken over it and some may even try to find a work-around if their Human is comfortable with it. Such work arounds include adoption- as many still want to raise young with their Human- or even using magically advanced treatments to make an infant with their Human.

Lilia will be one of the first to suggest adoption and will likely hop right into adoption when he learns that his Human can't conceive. Raising a child together would be enough for him as he has already taken in several children to raise in the past. Certainly wouldn't make him love his Human any less regardless of if they can bear him children or not. He just wants to be a team with his Human to raise a child, as all his children thus far have not been related to him by blood.

Idia will be the first to suggest making an artificial womb and taking bone marrow to literally make a child that is a combination of genetics. He enjoys being given something to work on and he will happily do so to make his own young with his Human. Infertility isn't a deal breaker to the Shinigami, it is a new project to work on and something he can help his Human through.

The species that can implant others with eggs will also be considering using their own reproductive abilities and magic to make a child. It isn't an uncommon practice in Twisted Wonderland as some species have trouble conceiving together without magical and scientific aid (Driders and Centaurs have this trouble quite often). Besides, for most it really isn't an issue to have kids or not.

Leona may be a bit relieved as he isn't fond of children and though he would only consider cubs of his own with his Human, he is the second born and has no obligation to actually have children at any point in his life. If his Mousey really want a cub to raise with him, he can always kidnap Cheka and let them raise his brother's cub. Falena will be angry Leona took Cheka, but for appearances he wouldn't dare take the cub back from the Human especially if they wanted the cub to raise. The positive impact it would have socially for Sunset Savana would be worth letting the Human and Leona raise the cub instead.

In the case of Malleus, some dragons have been able to asexually reproduce and he will go out of his way to ensure he has a Draconic babe to raise with his Human mate. He is quite alright that his Human can't have young, so he will have the young for them. Either way, he is getting an Heir for Briar Valley and keeping his Human mate.

In the case of the Nymphs and elementals, they don't need a fertile mate to produce offspring that have traits of both parents. It is an elemental core that they form with magic and a combination of DNA from both intended parents. All they need from you is your blood or hair and they can typically form the element cores themselves. Nymphs and elementals are truly constructed and given life by magic and their elements, they will do the same to create young.

[gojosbf]

can u tell us about geto's goals/philosophies and his reasoning for them? or abt geto's mind overall (I wanna l read you yap abt him 😞) /nf

okay so buckle up i am going to talk from the very beginning

Geto wasn't meant to be a special grade, it was gojo's birth that caused shift in the balance of the world and suguru was born as a counter, he was doomed from the very beginning!! A special boy with two normal human parents was a rare case, he was a ticking time bomb since the start. His strong principles turned out to be his biggest weakness. When he was defending and lecturing gojo about how it is their responsibility as the strong ones to protect the weak he did not for once stop to think that the weak people he saves includes awful human beings too. He believed that what they as jujutsu sorcerers did was right and just, until they were hit by riko's death, that shock of watching a crowd cheering the death of a child was the first time he was facing real world, unlike gojo he always believed that he was putting himself through so much (ingesting curses which literally taste like a rag drenched in puke) for good people.

He believed in humanity and compassion, he thought that was his role, to protect, to save humans and it was his ideals that did not allow him to let gojo kill those cult members in the beginning. That was the first slap of cruelty to his face, then comes watching his best friend being overworked to the bone for the same people, then haibara's death because again! They're expected to protect normal people!! It does not matter if they die in the process or how outnumbered or untrained they're because that's their duty!! And then he visits the village where nanako and mimiko were kept in a cage and abused just because they happen to have cursed energy, the villagers refused to let those two little girls go even after geto assured them that the cursed spirit wasn't their doing. It was an event after event where he kept witnessing the ugliness of humanity, there was no logical explanation to their behaviour, he couldn't find a "meaning" in their actions neither was there any "meaning" in saving when all they perpetuate is violence and abuse and death, specially of his loved ones. For a 16 year old boy of course that was too much to bear. He did not want his friends to keep dying protecting people who couldn't care less whether the sorcerers die or live, who won't hesitate to throw them in harms way if it meant protecting themselves or for whatever selfish reasons they have, which is why he turned his attention to his loved ones who were risking their lives day and night. He saw what their future looked like: aka just a pile of dead bodies of all good sorcerers (and he was not wrong!). It was like a wake up call in worst way possible you know? He decided to become the villain if that meant his end goal could achieve a safe and happy environment for his loved ones to live and grow.

It's the "someone has to do the dirty work, someone has to have the blood on their hands to break the cycle" obviously it's not the best way of thinking but to him it seemed possible, gojo could do it, special grades have the ability to wipe out a country and he might've if he won against yuuta and captured rika. Not just that but his cult was literally build on killing and looting from rich scums, i am in no way trying to defend him but he always had his principles in check and followed them in his own twisted way even after leaving jujutsu high. (He did not attack anyone from jjk high either until it was absolutely necessary in yuuta's case). I think he did regret his decisions because in the novel it was mentioned that how his last words were from a man who has wiped himself away in pursuit of his goals for whom there was no turning back.

[ach-sss-no]

I feel weird giving out unprompted permission statements because I'm making a big assumption that anyone's going to want to use my work. That said I also know people do like to build on other people's art and can't always work up the nerve to ask, so: Anyone is free to use this design if they want to for any reason- I don't own this character anyway. (Although I am hopeful that you do not, you know, monetize it, because i cant do that and if you do that its not fair ;_; ) Feel free to remix, improve, use as basic inspiration, etc. I would appreciate a tag/mention if you use it so I can see what you did!

This design has evolved a little since I first started drawing it, and I will see people reblogging the original design notes and think 'oh no! those are out of date and I don't have new/accurate ones!'

Reblogging the old one is still an honor- and the first take on a design just sometimes has a different appeal because it's less refined and more chaotic (especially with a character that should be chaotic), so I suspect some people will just prefer the older drawings & they'll still get shared, which is great! But I felt as if the project was a little bit incomplete without an update, since I think I've reached the point where if you see that old post & then come to my blog and look at my current content, there's a noticeable difference.

Also I kind of like making design notes.

If anyone's wondering why things changed, the answer's really simple- 90% of it is just the result of him settling into having more consistent anatomy and facial structure so that I can keep him looking accurate across different angles and poses. If you look at the old drawings you may notice that Gollum has an inconsistently shaped squishy head. That's fine for a concept post but doesn't work as well for maintaining him across different comic panels or in an animatic, at least not the way I work.

In the same vein, while my art is still & will always be heavily stylized, I started giving him more structured semi-sorta-realistic anatomy so that he wouldn't look entirely out of place next to less bizarre-looking characters such as Aragorn. (I feel that's also helpful in nudging Gollum into the uncanny valley where he ought to be, rather than leaving him so abstractified that there's a risk you won't see anything wrong with him having noodle arms.) He also acquired the new-style 'garbage bag' outfit because I found a reference in LOTR to his arms and legs being bare/exposed (it's in one of my favorite passages, the 'an eagle would think Gollum was dead if it came by right now' passage in The Two Towers):

Not even an eagle poised against the sun would have marked the hobbits sitting there, under the weight of doom, silent, not moving, shrouded in their thin grey cloaks. For a moment he might have paused to consider Gollum, a tiny figure sprawling on the ground: there perhaps lay the famished skeleton of some child of Men, its ragged garment still clinging to it, its long arms and legs almost bone-white and bone-thin: no flesh worth a peck.

[gonnalosemydougdimmadomedamnmind]

Batman beyond the white knight is apparently a universe where jason??? Is the first Robin?? And dick uses the name as his stage name until he becomes Robin?? Am I the only one that thinks this is extremely disrespectful??? Like What were you fucking thinking writers??? Just where did the name come from then??? Like where did Robin come from then??? If Dick isn't the first??? Role reversal doesn't mean other people would somehow have a connection to that name. The connection comes from Dick. The meaning comes from Dick. You can't have Robin without Dick. Those two are one and the same. Everything about Robin came from Dick. Everything that made people look at this kid and go, 'What a Boy Wonder! He can do anything.' comes from Dick. Like you can't have Nightwing without Clark Kent because that's the origin. That's where it came from. Those are its bones. Is anyone else so tired of seeing things just get taken and taken and taken from Dick without any regard to his character or legacy?

Edit: there's a reply in the reblogs I'd like to address. The idea of jason being batman's first sidekick- it actually doesn't work. It won't work with Tim, Steph, or Duke either. The whole reason batman gets a sidekick is because bruce takes in Dick and the reason why he takes Dick in is because he sees himself in Dick in a way he'll never see himself in the others. Jason is a poor kid from the streets, bruce will never identify with that. Dick is a prodigious circus star. Bruce will also, never identify with that.

But.

Dick has just watched his parents get murdered right in front of him due to a senseless act of violence, his entire life changes in an instant in the worst way possible, and he's all alone and hurting and angry and shocked and will blame himself for not being able to save them and that- that Bruce knows intimately. That is why he takes Dick in. They are the same, 17 or so years apart. If you took Dick out of the equation, they never met, but jason still steals the tires off the batmobile- Bruce would just get those tires back and tell the kid to go home or take him to a shelter or something. Bruce would care about him the way he cares about all of Gothams street kids or orphans, but not anything more than that. There's nothing special about Jason until he knows and cares for Dick, because Jason reminds him of Dick. And Dick opens his heart up in a way no one else has managed since his parents died. The next closest is probably Clark.

And being the first sidekick, really being the first child hero, is obviously a daunting undertaking, a lot of responsibility, something that requires perfection in order to be taken seriously by the adult heroes and the public at large. If Robin had been mediocre, no, if Robin had been just 'good', there would've been a lot more pushback, an outcry, a dismissal of batman himself from the OG heroes. The first sidekick has to be Perfect.

Who is literally known for being a perfectionist? For working himself to the bone but seemingly effortlessly? For always knowing the answer, the right action to take, to read and adjust himself and others accordingly in order to produce the best team effort, who has an athleticism and physicality Bruce instantly realizes he, himself, does not possess? Who is known for being the poster child of the ideal child hero/sidekick that grows into the ideal adult hero as well? Dick is the only one that could've been the first sidekick. He was So Good at being a hero while being a child, he opened up the door for other kids to do the same.

You can't switch these roles up without changing something fundamental to the characters. And then. They wouldn't be those characters.

[raspberrysmoon]

WELCOME TO THE SOTBAW MASTERPOST!!!!

sotbaw is short for the spawn of the black and white. it follows kai drew, in her adventures being adopted and raised by the lords in black.

KAI DREW IS NOT MY CHARACTER. kai belongs solely to @pastriibunz and her custody has not transferred to me outside of this series.

kais age and condition fluctuate. sometimes shes dead, sometimes not. you'll know.

each lord has "papa" tacked onto their name. papa wiggly, papa tinky, papa pokey, papa blinky, and papa nibbly. nibbly is also called mama nibbly on occasion. paul and emma are dad and mom respectively.

IN CURRENT CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER THEY ARE: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,8,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22. minifics aren't included in this as they are generally less important to the main plot

AO3 UPLOAD

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST LINK

FICS-

number- title | song credit | lyrics you'll find in the fic | short explanation

1- i forgot my name again. | devil town - cavetown | "i still get a little scared of something new, but i feel a little safer when i'm with you." | kai, at 15, discovering that shes not quite as alone as she thought.

2- i truly am my parents child. | family line - conan gray | "i can run, but i can't hide, from my family line." | kai, at 17, fighting for what she wants.

3- deserves the same judgement. | average - sushi soucy | "you've got the skills of an idiot, who got too much praise." | blinky's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

4- i'm losing on their side. | i bet on losing dogs - mitski | "my baby, my baby.. you're my baby, say it to me." | pokey's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

5- make me love myself, so that i might love you. | saint bernard - lincoln | "when i am dead i wont join their ranks, because they are both holy and free." | tinky's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

6- apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime | goodbye - bo burnham | "am i going crazy? would i even know? am i right back where i started fourteen years ago?" | nibbly's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

7- you're scaring us and all of us- some of us- love you. | achilles come down - gang of youths | "soldier on achilles, achilles come down, won't you get up off, get up off the roof?" | wiggly's thoughts and feelings after losing his daughter.

8- what if i told you i made it? | inevitable - the guy who didn't like musicals | "what if i told you a story, that settled all the dust? i'm still the man you trust. it's inevitable, for us." | pokey and kai, meeting one last time in the starlight theater.

8- what if i told you i made it? | inevitable - the guy who didn't like musicals | | pokey and kai, meeting one last time in the starlight theater.

9- i won't let go of your hand | two birds - regina spektor | "say that they're always gonna stay together, but ones never going to let go of that wire." | emma and her thoughts as paul and kai leave.

10- you'll never settle any of your scores | little lion man - mumford & sons | "take all the courage you have left, and waste it in fixing all the problems that you made in your own head." | paul, discovering how it feels to lose your body, but not quite how it feels to die.

11- it's so cold and i don't know where. | another love - tom odell | "so i'll use my voice, i'll be so fucking rude, words, they always win, but i know i'll lose." | emma, waking up.

12- i wanna be your left hand man | riptide - vance joy | "i love you, when you're singing that song and i've got a lump in my throat 'cause you're gonna sing the words wrong." | paul and emma waking up. for real.

13- you're skin, oh yeah you're skin and bones | yellow - coldplay | "its true, look how they shine for you. look how they shine. look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and all the things that you do." | christmas.

14- someone just like you | share your address - ben platt | "i want a key to your house, i wanna pick up your clothes, i wanna clean up your mess, i wanna know where you hide your things, wanna be in your pictures, wanna share your address." | kai and max.

15- the land was godless and free | foreigner's god - hozier | "her eyes look sharp and steady into the empty parts of me, but still my heart is heavy" | kai's first try.

16- swinging at somebody i can't knock down | take me to war - the crane wives | "all the words i've swallowed, all the sharp things i've kept in my mouth, i am always burning up." | kai's second try.

17- i'm gonna keep doing it | breakfast - dove cameron | "do you wanna see a magic trick? cause you don't know, what you don't know, but i know." | webby.

18- honest with myself | i'm not a cynic - alec benjamin | "not every sunday is a picnic 'cause the sky ain't always blue." | wiggly.

19- blame i can't face | stick season - noah kahan | "now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes, and i'm split in half , and that'll have to do." | blinky, watching

20- i need something to rely on | somewhere only we know - keane | "is this the place we used to love? is this the place i've been dreaming of?" | little kai drew, exploring.

21- holding the world | epic iii - hadestown | "and i know how it was because, he was like me, a man, in love with a woman." | max.

22- finale.

EXTRA FICS AND FICLETS: COMING SOON

[glitterguts13]

Idk if you fine with this or not, but what about them having a still birth /miscarriage? This isn't like a kink thing, I just love angst (for genshin)

I'm in the mood to write some angst tonight, so buckle up! Obvious TW for stillbirth/miscarriage as well as topics such as suicidal thoughts and depression.

Mondstadt

Albedo It doesn't hit him at first. He finds his underwear soaked with blood before any sort of pain begins, but he's very aware of what's happening. Tries to keep calm, reminding himself over and over that sometimes these things just happen. He's barely two months along, only learning a week prior of his pregnancy. It hurts, but ultimately he's able to place logic above emotion, grieves quietly for a bit, but moves on rather quickly.

Bennett The guilt swallows him up when the midwife breaks the news to him. His little one is bundled up tightly, born sleeping. Silent at first, he's left shaking, blaming himself over and over because he knows he's unlucky, he should have never even tried to bring a child into this world. Refuses to hold his baby, he can't face them, and it's all his fault.

Diluc There's no warning, only the sudden onset of cramps that leaves Diluc scrambling from the tavern to the closest doctor. Gasping in pain, he begs them to do something, anything. He followed everything they told him to do, why was this happening? The doctor does their best to explain things, that miscarriages are far more common than people think- Diluc doesn't care, once the doctor is certain everything has passed and the bleeding begins to slow, he's shut down. Refuses to speak about it, won't even acknowledge his pregnancy at all.

Kaeya Perhaps, it's divine punishment. His newborn is cradled to his chest, silent and looking angelic. Only crying once he's left alone with his child, begging them to forgive him, and cursing every deity he's ever heard of for taking his child. "Take me! Why...why didn't you just take me instead..."

Mika It was an accident. A mistake heading down the library stairs, his foot slipping out front under him and his body crashing to the ground below. The pain is instant, stabbing him in the gut. People rush to his aid, calling for a medic, a healer, anyone- It's too late by the time they get him help, and Mika is left sobbing, begging for another chance, it was just an accident.

Razor Isn't unfamiliar with stillbirth, it's common among the wolves that raised him to have pups that don't survive birth. However, he isn't prepared for the deep, bone-shattering grief that overtakes him when his child doesn't cry. Limp in his arms, he's left howling in agony while the wolves that raised him stand nearby, quietly mourning alongside him.

Venti It isn't the first time. Beings such as himself didn't hold the same rights as mortals, and each child he's tried so hard to bring into the world, all meet the same end. Venti cradles them close, laughing through his tears, whispering tales of his past, and promises to meet them on the other side.

Liyue

Baizhu The risks were well known, Baizhu isn't a fool. It was a terrible idea to even try, but he was so blindly hopeful that maybe, things would be alright. He wakes with slight cramps, praying that it isn't what he thinks, but by noon, the blood begins to flow. Held up in his bathroom, he sobs, guilt pouring over him like a cold rain. Why did he even try?

Chongyun He wasn't even aware of his pregnancy when it happened. Confused and alarmed by the blood and pain, he hurries to the nearest doctor. Is left in shock at the news, and it takes a few days to process the events.

Gaming The entirety of his family is around, prepared to celebrate the newest addition to their family when the unthinkable happens. Gaming is screaming, begging the midwife to hand him his baby, but no matter how they try, not a breath is to be taken. The joy of the day is dashed in minutes, and Gaming can barely breathe, chest constricted with such grief he's certain his heart will stop.

Xiao Just another form of divine punishment for his past actions. The blood running down his legs mixes with the rain pouring around him. The valley is filled with the sorrowful cries of a mourning bird, but no one pays it any attention.

Xingqiu He's ready every book, listened to every doctor, and followed every rule, so why?? Why did his waters break at only five months? Why was there nothing they could do? What sick, cosmic joke is this? Forcing him to give birth to a child with no chance of survival. Following the events, he locks himself in his room, refusing food and company. It isn't worth it, nothing was worth it.

Zhongli Like Venti, he isn't shocked. His body simply wasn't meant to bring life into this world, not after taking so many in war. Stoic and cold, he buries them under a tree, marking the spot and promising to come back to visit again in the future, when the pain has dulled.

Inazuma Arataki Itto Doesn't understand what's happening. Why is he bleeding? Why does it hurt? It isn't time yet, not for another few months! Ignores it at first, because he really isn't sure what to do, and by the time he's finally ready to seek help, brings his child into the world far too soon. No one sees or hears from him for weeks afterward, but he returns looking exhausted and drained, but smiles and waves it off.

Ayato The cramps he awoke with were mild, and the doctors had already warned him that it wasn't uncommon to feel light cramps in the first trimester. His body was adjusting, womb filling, so he continues about his day as usual. The meeting is dragging on longer than it needs to, and by the time it's done and he takes from his seat, the blood splatters to the ground between his legs. Shocked and horrified, he screams for them to find a doctor, but in the end, it's too late.

Gorou The first two pups are born perfect, healthy, and squalling. Exhausted, he expects the third to be born the same, but the silence is deafening, and before the midwife even has a chance to break the news, he knows. Shuts himself off from everyone, pouring all his time and attention to the two little ones he has, torn between trying to forget and fearing not remembering.

Kazuha Laughs bitterly, tears dripping down his cheeks. Looking down at his silent newborn, he feels an indescribable mixture of hate and bitterness. Why him? After already losing so much, how was it far to lose this too?

"Tomo...please...guide him."

Heizou Doesn't know he's pregnant until he's sitting in front of a healer, being told he's experiencing a miscarriage. His heart sinks, but in the end, he can't really feel all that much since he hasn't even known.

Thoma The whole Kamisato estate hears the desperate wail. Thoma begs the midwife to hand him his child, even for just a moment. Ayaka rushes to his side, holding him close while Ayato quickly makes arrangements for Thoma's child to be buried alongside the other Kamisato family members. Sumeru

AlHaitham Silence. Just silence. Alone at home, trembling quietly on the toilet while his body rejects the little life he'd dared to grow attached to. Never speaks a word of it to anyone, and no one even notices something had happened at all.

Cyno Isn't aware of his pregnancy until he begins to bleed. It doesn't occur to him until later what had actually happened, and he feels ill realizing he wasn't even aware of why he'd been in such pain while in the desert.

Kaveh Screaming. It chills the blood of everyone who hears, and he's inconsolable. Sinks into a very deep depression. Can't bring himself to move from his bed, loses weight rapidly, and finds himself thinking of wandering out into the desert at night. Perhaps his father would be waiting for him alongside his child.

Sethos It's the halfway mark in his pregnancy before it all goes wrong. Tries to deny it, and forces it from his head, but every time he hears the birds overheard, he swears he hears a baby crying.

Tighnari Rational to an extent. He knows the first trimester is the riskiest, and that pregnancies fail all the time, but it just feels so unfair that it happened to him. Thankful he didn't tell a soul, but feels so isolated going through it alone.

Fontain

Freminet He knows he shouldn't be lifting something as heavy as a claymore, but when his siblings are in danger, Freminet can't bring himself to sit by and do nothing. The regret is instant, and the blood causes him to freeze up, the sound of his sibling's voices distant in his ears.

Lyney Sobbing, begging for another chance. Lynette and Freminet do their best to comfort him, but really, their words fall on deaf ears. Nothing is going to be enough to heal the wound in his heart now.

Neuvillette The sight of blood has him frozen in place, stomach-turning. He deals with it privately and says nothing to anyone. Fontaine has horrible rain for weeks, nearly flooding some of the lowers streets.

Wrio Doesn't know, not until he's in a boxing match, and he sidesteps a little too slow. Normally, a single punch to the gut would mean nothing, but this time, he's brought to his knees instantly. Blood begins to pour, but in the moment, all he can do is drag himself upright and finish the fight.

[ginneke]

let's do the time warp thing 2 (whoops accidentally a followup)

@flashfictionfridayofficial's prompt for this week is "Take My Hand" -- which gave me more than a few ideas, but this is the one I decided to go with. Because reasons.

This ficprompt follows directly on from my fill for FFF prompt #217 (Portal Fiction), in which Link finds a mysterious stone in a secret chamber at the forgotten temple... and hits it with a sword, like you do.

If I get to the point of a part three, I'll have to find a title for this and port it to ao3. whoops.

--

"–Who are you," the kid demands again, trying to sound authoritative and failing, "and what were you doing down there?"

Link can do nothing but stare. The head of his drillshaft drops to the temple floor. The Rito child looks and sounds so much like the ghost of Champion Revali, but that can't be right. It has to be impossible. Or perhaps there's a simpler explanation. He doesn't know whether Champion Revali had any descendants, but –

"Are you listening to me?"

"Listening," Link murmurs, distracted. In the secret chamber below, the stone still hums – but he doesn't know how long it will stay active. The Slate isn't showing him the right time, even though he's back on the surface again. That rules out interference from the Sheikah tech as the reason why it failed. So why has it failed? What's up with this place? It's the same temple as the one he'd been exploring. But it doesn't look right. Apart from the missing Guardians – and that, at least, isn't something he's sorry about at all – there's altogether too much rubble around, and...

At the foot of one of the giant columns, Link spots the remains of a heaping midden. A monster camp had been here, if not terribly recently. Abandoned long enough that the stink has dissipated, but the ruins are hot and dry enough that the bones remain. Mushrooms have tried to sprout from the rot. They don't look safe to eat.

There wasn't any sign of a monster camp before. The haywire Guardians would have shot down a bokoblin party just as readily they fire on Link.

Same temple. Somehow different. How? How can this place be so different to the temple he was exploring not even a few hours ago, and yet look so similar?

He hefts the drillshaft and makes as if to step out into the cavernous temple; the kid snaps at him, "Hold it!"

Ah.

"Haven't your teachers told you not to aim where you don't intend to shoot?"

The kid bristles. "Who says I don't intend to shoot?"

Bluster, rather than a threat. The kid isn't quite old enough to appreciate quite what a statement like that needs to back it up. Revali would have shot him by now, questions be damned. Link's sure of that much.

And sure enough, the kid lets the bowstring go slack, replacing the arrow in its quiver, though not without aiming a thunderous glare at Link in its place.

"You're not a spy, are you?"

Why is that the first thing this kid thinks of...? Link shakes his head. The kid eyes him mistrustfully.

"Shake on it."

...Huh?

"That's what you Hylians do, right? If you won't shake, then you really are a spy."

What kind of twisted-up logic is that? More to the point, if the kid does suspect him of being some sort of enemy, why insist on a – handshake? Bringing a potentially dangerous person even closer to you is the furthest thing from sensible.

Except the kid's already got a wing outstretched. Left wing, naturally, because the right wing's grip on the bow hasn't slackened off at all. (Probably, Link thinks, in case he does turn out to be a spy.) Almost lethally overconfident, but...

Link lifts his left hand and takes the kid's wing with solemn ceremony. Even so, he can only really wrap his hand around the first pair of fingers, given the difference in their body shapes. It's enough to satisfy honour: the kid finally puts the bow away, and even makes a little half-hopping motion in place, like all previous suspicion has melted like a thaw.

...It's cute. And also a little worrying how quickly the kid went from clumsily threatening violence to making equally clumsy overtures of friendship. Link doesn't get it at all.

He doesn't have much opportunity to think about it. Now that he's deemed trustworthy enough to be allowed out of the tunnel entrance, Link can see far more of the temple. A piece of cloth catches his  eye. It's a tarpaulin, Sheikah tan and red. Another thing different. He moves towards it. The kid follows him like a little shadow; the tallest tuft of feathers in that bright-blue crest barely reaches Link's shoulder.

Link has to put the drillshaft down to be able to navigate the ropes. He pulls the tarp away; what's underneath has him immediately reaching for a sword he isn't carrying. His heartbeat spikes. Swordless and not thinking clearly, he puts his arm in front of the kid like a futile shield --

"It's just a Guardian," the kid says, tugging Link's arm down. "Look, it's not even awake. They've been digging them up all over the place. Even here."

...Excavating Guardians. Yes, people used to do that, didn't they? But Link is used to the Guardians being dangerous. A horrible thought occurs to him and he blurts out, without thinking, "Have they dug up Vah Medoh?"

"...What's a medoh?" the kid asks, a note of confusion entering his voice, and Link has just enough time to think, 'oh', before –

– chime –

The first thing he registers is that Revali – the far too young Revali, who didn't know what Vah Medoh was – is gone.

So is the tarp, and the second thing he registers is the beeping, and the bright red target fixed on his chest.

Link grabs his shield and deflects the now-active Guardian's beam. The parried blast is enough to destroy it, though Link doesn't dare hang around to scavenge the pieces from the husk, because the noise has brought a half-dozen more eyes swivelling in search of him, bright blue cutting through the smoke and dust.

He grabs the drillshaft he'd dropped an eternity and scrambles for the Sheikah Slate, making a hasty retreat.

Later, as he makes camp half a continent away, he takes note of the drillshaft's condition: it's rusty, like it had lain abandoned in the temple for over a century.

It strikes Link that it has.

[otterlyfoolish]

Eat Crow

(Zombieman x GN!Reader)

Warnings: Mentioned Human Experimentation, Animal Death, Abandonment, Implied Child Abuse/Neglect, Swearing, Blood & gore (come on this is ZM), self-harm (ZM does some reckless things), there's probably other things in here that I can't think of right now so if you're particularly sensitive maybe you should just avoid this,

Tags: Pining, borderline romance, strangers to friends, maybe lovers (in the future), Reader is starved for any kind of companionship, Unstoppable force & Immovable object, oneshot, angst, comfort (very barely), open-ended ending, so much build-up for a fucking oneshot, not edited so sorry

Word count: 11k

Summary:

Zombieman had what he thought was a simple case: "Find the source of the toxins in the assigned area."

One of his specialities is investigating contaminated or toxic areas - places that only robots or cyborgs could reach, areas where organic matter struggled to make it out alive. Other heroes would be dispatched to a monster infestation, and he would be sent to the local ghost town. This was fine to him - he would describe himself as more of an investigator than a hero anyways. So, in one way, this task was like no other.

In another way, he's never seen a case as peculiar as this. A product of human experimentation, just like him. He's never really had a case like this before. Curiously, they didn't seem to want to admit it. He can't blame them for their decision either - especially not after he found out some reasons why. And it's not like he could have found out the normal way - after all, what's considered poisonous to a dead man?

So, he couldn't quite complete his investigation - at that point, he couldn't really confirm or deny his suspicions. That is until he saw their touch wilt a crow's life within seconds.

...Well, the crow is already dead. You just have to eat it now.

-----

Ao3 Link here, if you prefer reading there!

A/N: I'm mostly writing this to ward off my impulses for the other idea I have for ZM - I can't start another multi chapter fic on him when I've not even finished the other one I'm writing right now... (TBH if I just dedicated my time writing this into that, I might have been able to finish it... Uhhh I just won't think about that)

I've kept this on the drafts so long, but now I've finally vomited it out (I ran it through a spell checker, not even edited) - I hope that it's coherent because I struggle editing so much, and I don't know if I have it in me to make it more articulate than it is... Uhhh story isn't fluid sorry (>>_>>)

But if I used the wrong pronouns for the Reader (anything that's not they/them) please feel free to point it out since it is supposed to be Gender-Neutral!

---

"QUARANTINED AREA AHEAD"

"TOXIC WASTE NEARBY"

"LEAVE NOW"

The danger signs were littered everywhere.

From the very moment he even came near the location - even miles away, he was warned not to approach. As he got closer, the signs and fences only increased in frequency. Just a few caution signs at first, illustrated by the humble exclamation mark. Then the potentially comedic skull and bones - pirates would be overjoyed at the sight of so many of them. And finally the unnerving biohazard symbol appears. He's never liked the look of it - maybe because he doesn't understand what it was actually supposed to be, or maybe it reminded him too much of Dr. Genus' lab - the same symbols were also hung up everywhere, the scientist liked to be organised after all.

The final hurdle was in sight now - a chain-linked fence with barbed wires that had rust collecting on the bright red sign that hung brazenly on the door.

"DANGER: YOUR LIFE IS AT RISK FROM THIS POINT FORWARD"

He nodded at the final warning as if letting the inanimate object know that he acknowledges the danger, then swung his axe against the metal lock, easily snapping it in half. Time must have also wore the lock down, helping the process of decay because it behaved far too flimsy.

If most people showed me as much concern as these signs did, then I would be out of a job.

He pushes on the door, the hinges on the door creak loudly as if it was doing a drum roll for his demise. As he walks through, he's careful to shut the door behind him and lock it with another one - the one he brought in preparation for this. As he does so, he notices that the key for it must have fallen out on the way over. It was his fault for not repairing the hole in his pocket after tearing it from his last brawl.

No way out now I guess...

He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and rubs the cherry on the back of his hand before he drops it on the floor, crushing it with his black boots. Just as quickly as the cigarette left his mouth, another replaces it, the lighter coming up as if joined together with the cigarette. The nicotine was too addicting, he didn't mind the lethal poison that accompanied the chemical potentially affecting his body.

He's been critiqued on his bad habits by a fellow hero before, the smoke was just flat out unhealthy to have near people, so he should stop.

(He puts it nicer than what was actually said - Tatsumaki had gathered the all of the smoke in the room with her powers and stuffed it back into his lungs, hissing out hostile remarks as she did so. The product of a particularly bad day. Apparently she couldn't find any monsters to kill, and that caused her foul mood. It doesn't help that he was probably the closest thing to a monster she found that day.)

Even so, Zombieman couldn't disagree with the comments made, and though he never stopped smoking, the thought always flashed in his mind for the briefest of moments.

But this time he lit it without any guilt of others. This was a completely isolated area, where the air was already considered toxic to all organic matter. What's the harm of adding a little bit more poison in the air?

He dragged a large cloud of smoke out from his lips as he exhaled, almost like a sigh of relief from the long journey. Almost drearily, his eyes followed the grey mist drift through the air before it quickly dissipated into the atmosphere, the very last remnants of it lingered in one spot before fully turning transparent. His red pupils slowly fixated on that spot as he spotted the building he was headed towards. 

...Break over. Back to work.

His arm slung the axe over his shoulder, resting the weight of the metal head in the crook of his neck as he continued his descent to his destination. He walked with calm confidence, not fitting of a man that's entering a toxic waste zone, but that suited him.

The thrill of an investigation was too addicting, he didn't mind about the dangers that had been constantly waved in his direction.

Perhaps the danger even added to the thrill of it.

-----

"Toxic waste land...? Hm." He murmured to himself as the read over the file they sent him. The low clicking of the train wheels was just as faint as his voice as he spoke. Zombieman positioned himself to a quiet corner of the fairly empty train, the folder in front of him messily sprawled out, but in a fairly controlled manner.

He had requested it to be in paper format, call him old-fashioned, but he viewed the information to be more tangible that way. Besides, he often breaks the phone the Hero Association provides him anyways. Once Child Emperor had leaped at the opportunity to make him an 'unbreakable' phone after hearing the staff members talk about how this was the 'fourth one this week', it had a pretty good run, but he still lost it in the end. 

...It makes him feel bad to bother the kid for another one, so he'll just do this until Isamu notices and chucks him another. He'll treat it more carefully this time, he didn't realise just how much shitter the one's he gets from the Hero Association is. Isamu really was a genius, but he didn't want to pressure him too much.

He flips through the information provided, it was choppy. The testimonies didn't seem clear, and there wasn't a lot found by HA. Well, a lack of information never stopped him. His red eyes scanned the pages, picking up what he deemed the most vital snippets of data and committed it to memory. 

"...Laboratory...", "...Mithridate...", "...Antidote...", "...Pancea...", "Dozens died from poisoning", "...Scientists Evacuate...", "...Local Town Falls Sick From Mysterious Illness...", "...Abandoned Area...", "...No Organic matter found in the vicinity..."

He concluded after reading it, there used to be a remote laboratory out this far that was focusing on creating strong antidotes. But it seemed that they weren't able to control it effectively enough, and apparently some sort of sample hadn't been contained properly had caused many of the scientists to die from poisoning. It seems that even though they tried their best to clean the place and dispose of the source, there was still trace amounts lingering and many workers became sick. The entire building was forced to evacuate - and a few years later, apparently some of the people that had lived nearby had to be admitted to the larger general hospitals. It started happening too frequently without any obvious cause and people started moving away. Satellite scans showed that the grass around this place slowly started dying, and bird avoided migrating near the area all together. 

All in all, an typical case for him. He predicts the following days to be somewhat laid back. His only objective was to find what was the source. The implication in that was that he didn't even have to get rid of it, only report back. 

There was something bothering him though. Like when you feel your feet shift a little too much - you're nervous but you don't know why. Or when you felt a pair of eyes watching you, but you couldn't place who in the crowd of people would spend so much time on you. 

Current suspicion: There was something more to this case. 

They could simply send one of their many drones to check out the area, scope out if there's a leak that's causing the increase of toxins detected. But they sent him. 

His first thought: They suspected there was a monster there, and wanted him to kill it. 

He could do that, they often do when they're worried about a particularly dangerous monsters most heroes couldn't defeat without wearing it down massively. But they didn't say anything in the report - they kept it hidden from him. To feign ignorance of the missing piece of the puzzle before even asking him for assistance.

...But why?

He's never shown hesitation to brutalise monsters. It's written in his fucking Encyclopedia page - something Bang had showed him after his disciple had pointed it out to him, and the old man just had to pass on the message, chuckling at the descriptors. Something something about how gore and death followed him or something along those lines. 

...Is it related to Dr. Genus? 

He clenches the paper a little too tightly, crumpling the otherwise pristine pages. The Hero Assocication might have had an inkling to his past. He never talked about it much, but did they find out? He wouldn't put it pass them - staying private in this day and age was getting more and more difficult by the day even if it would do both parties good if they stayed in their own lane. If they did know about his days of being an experimental sample, why were they assigning him to this case?

...Was this their way of turning their cheek the other way? By letting him confront his own past alone?

"...Sir?" He hears the train conductor walk over to him, nervously eyeing him up as the scowl on his face grows deeper at the thought of meeting the Doctor again. "This is the last stop." He hears as he snaps out of his thoughts, tilting his head up to look at the lady. 

"...Thanks."

"...Are you sure about getting off here? There's nothing for a few dozen miles..."

"I'm sure. Thank you." He said, picking up the axe he had placed on the wooden floorboards, but didn't raise it above his head to rest on his shoulder like usual. Instead, he kept the metal head close to the ground, the blade pointed towards him and never her. He didn't want to alarm the lady.

"No, it's fine... I've not seen someone get off at this stop for perhaps a couple years now... It's nice to see people still come here in this little corner of the world - you know there's a forest a hour or so west from here? Beautiful place, you should check it out." She rambled on, the smile on her face causing the corners of her eyes to wrinkle. "Used to go there when I was young, took this same train out. I'm just a little too old for that now."

He nodded politely at her, taking note of the sun spots speckled on her skin. "...You're still younger than me, so there's no need to talk like that."

Besides, it's a privilege to be able to age. I'm sick of looking at the same damned thing everyday.

"Oh, aren't you a charmer..." She laughed, slowly escorting him down over to the train doors. He trotted after her, his boots made a small sound with each step he took. "Don't forget, the next time this train will be here is at eight tonight. Don't be late or you'll have to spend the night camping." She said, only getting a simple nod from him before the doors closed on her.

...A forest? I guess the toxins or whatever hasn't spread that far yet then...

As he walked away, he raised his axe back up and slammed it back on his shoulder, resting it there. Something of an reminder that he's on duty.

He's grown used to the weight of the axe.

-----

The building is fairly large - almost industrial. He could see it as a speck in the distance, but as he approached, he see that it's size wasn't anything much to be scoffed at. Definitely not at big at the ones he's seen at HA, but still, impressive. 

As he approached the laboratory, he could see a... Fully-clad yellow figure running full speed at him. 

Like second nature, he pulled out the guns from his sleeves and swung his axe back down to his midsection, his palms tightly gripping the weapons. It couldn't be a civilian - they would be fatally ill at this point from being this close to the site. 

His blood-coloured eyes scanned the person (or perhaps monster) sprinting up at him. At closer inspection, he could tell that it was a human wearing a hazmat suit.

...Zombieman slowly retracted his desert eagle back into his trench coat and the axe also returned to its last position. There didn't seem like there was an danger yet, more so someone he needs to interrogate. 

...Maybe there's still some people working here without anyone knowing?

They were... waving at him? He raised his thin eyebrow at them, shifting over to a more relaxed stance than before. He waited for them to approach - and as this mysterious figure got closer, he could hear muffled shouting from them as their hand waving in the air got more frantic. He noted that in their other hand, there was a blue gas mask. 

He debated snuffing out his cigarette, but kept it in his mouth. It's not like they would be affected judging by the protection they're already wearing. 

By the time they were close enough to him so that he could hear their words, it didn't matter since they were huffing out their lungs trying to breath in as much air as they could. Sprinting must have been hard - the hazard suit and heavy boots didn't help do them any favours either.

"...Are you alright?" He asked, staring down at him as they doubled over. The sound of their heavy breathing was clear even through the thick suit.

Regardless of their exhausted state, they sluggishly yanked him down to their level and slapped the spare gas mask onto his face. "...uckING STUPID!"

The impact of the plastic against his face caused him to glare at them with squinted eyes as he took the mask. He didn't bother dodging it - it's not like the action was malicious anyways. The force of which the firm plastic wasn't painful enough for him to make a noise, but he still grunted from the shock of their actions. "...What'd you say?" 

They didn't respond, seeming satisfied with the fact he taken the respirator from them already and just crumpled back over on their form. He gave them a moment to gather their breath. "...Don't you know that this is a toxic area...? What the hell are you doing without any equipment...?"

He crouches down to their level, seeing as they were still catching their breath and he couldn't quite hear between their suit and the small distance. "I don't need it. What are you doing here?"

They tilted their head over to him, seeing that he had taken the blue mask off and just hung it around his neck by the strap. "...I live here."

Live? Not work?

"...Then don't you know that this is a toxic area?" He parroted the question back to them, trying to look into their eyes, or face, only to see that the glass they see out of is a reflective surface. Only his red eyes locked on with his own. His

"The inside of my house is safe, when I go out I wear this." There's something about the way in which they said it which made him think that they had rolled their eyes at him as they spoke. 

"House?" He brushed off their attitude quickly, he didn't really care about it to begin with anyways, "what house?" 

"Why would I tell a stranger where I live?" They snapped back, getting back up on their feet. Zombieman quickly followed suit. "What are you doing here anyways?"

"I'm a Hero. I've been sent here to find the source of the poison in this area." As if on cue, their head tilted at him in disbelief. He goes on to answer further, hoping it would dispel any more of their suspicion. "...You can call me Zombieman."

He could tell even without any facial expressions to help him nothing he said was convincing. "...Alright, 'Hero Zombieman'... If you've been sent here to investigate, then why didn't they send you off with any equipment with you? We both know that this isn't the safest place to be."

A reasonable question, he supposes. He just hopes that the answer he gives them is just as logical in their eyes. "I can't die - hence my name."

"...Can't die?" They repeated slowly, taking a few steps back from him. He could see the distrust in their body language, and he wanted to fill the gap quickly - they probably had a lot of information on this area he didn't. "...Don't lie to me, everything dies."

He nodded at them, trying to indicate that he acknowledges their suspicion then pulled his gun back out. They're not given much time to react to it, as the muzzle was pointed at his temple, his finger on the trigger. "I'll prove it."

Just as he pulled the trigger ever so slightly, he notices in that split second they've close the distance between them instantly. Their hands shooting out to tear the weapon out of his hands-

Only for him to tilt it ever so slightly upwards from its original position in surprise - instead of the bullet going through his skull at a straight line, it was just angled slightly differently, shooting through the top of his skull. 

They froze up at the sight - the pink of the bone and the pink of his brains, the smell of blood was thick and metallic. They could smell it even through their suit, and nothing about their protection could block the sight of his hand. Limp. In your grasp.

Zombieman examined at them from the corner of his eyes, feeling that their hands was trembling slightly through the thick gloves they wore. It was from either the sight of his skull being blown open or the fact they thought he was now dead.

...I wanted to close the gap between us, but not physically...

"...Proof enough?" He asks, moving his head to face them. They practically leaped back, even in the chunky boots and protective gear they were wearing, they found themselves a couple feet even further than before.

...Was that too much?

No, I only shot myself. That's nothing. 

...Am I too numb to gore compared to the average person?

"...Yeah. Yeah. I believe you." They say, their voice shaking as they watched the hole slowly fill itself back up again. First the grey matter in the brain, then the pink plating of the skull, and finally his pale skin and dark hair. It was as if nothing had ever happened - the only proof that they had was the dark streaks of blood that ran down his temple and the small splatters of flesh that had ended up on them. They did their best to quickly compose themselves."...So... Uhm... Do- do you need anything...?"

He nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt at their reaction. Yeah, it was too much to witness. Next time, he'll just cut his hand off or something. "Could you get me into that laboratory? I want to inspect it to see if I can find anything inside."

"...I can do that, follow me." They agreed, probably still in shock and stiffly placed one foot in front of the other, their hands having the same nature of movement - almost mechanically. 

He was quiet for a minute, looking around the building. He wanted to ask more questions about them, but he had a feeling he needed to build back some sort of foundation of trust again if he wanted any good answers. Short, snippy ones aren't bad, but more detail is better this time.

"...What's your name?" He starts off simple.  

They slowly moved their head over in his direction, stopping in their tracks. He briefly thinks for a moment that asking for that was too soon, but when he hears your name slowly uttered from your lips the thought is gone. He could sense the uncertainty of his character coming off in waves, but you still chose to tell him. 

He nodded, "I'll keep that in mind."

"...And I don't think I'll be able to forget yours." He could hear you mumble faintly as you took long strides over to the entrance door. "Mr. 'Can't die'..."

...I don't mind if you were able to find a way to change that name of mine.

He didn't correct your words, and accepted his newfound alias. "How come you have access to the lab?"

It took you a while to respond, at first he just thought you didn't hear him or maybe you were busy fiddling with the keypad on the door, but it seems that you were considering telling him or not.

...Zombieman lowered his axe, resting it at his side. He may still be on duty, and it's not even the weapon he used to shoot himself, but it's not like he needed it this very moment. And if it helped soothe your worries even a little, then it will have been worth it.

When you get the door open, you turn back around to face him. He still can't see your eyes, but he could feel yours staring at him - cautiously inspecting him and his intentions before opening the door. "...This is where I live." You answered him.

...Huh, it worked.

He hummed appreciatively through his cigarette, reaching up and holding the door open for you. You paused your movements for a moment and nodded back, "...Thanks."

"No problem." He replied back, then followed after you, shutting the door after himself. When he walks in, he realises that the entrance is double sealed - one door after another to ensure that as little toxic gas leaves or enters. "So, you live in a lab...?" He says, practically repeating already known information in the hopes you'll slip out a little more data for him to piece together.

"Mhm. There's lab equipment everywhere." You say, though not intentional, your tone was pretty dismissive. It makes him wonder if he should play the long game or the short game.

He sticks to the former - besides, if he's really pressed up for time for whatever reasons, he can resort to more... forceful methods.

You open the other door, pressing even more buttons on the security system before beckoning him to follow through, holding the door open for him. "Quick - if you're there for too long, the doors will automatically shut and won't open without a special password."

"Oh." He nodded, the sounds of his boots increasing before the heavy door clicked securely shut. The two of you were now locked in together - he wonders if you're more anxious than him about the situation. One hand hand, he could be locked in with a mad scientist and be subjected to experimentation once again. On the other hand, he was a man that doesn't exactly have any indication of sane mental health paired with the fact he has a fair variety of weapons on his person ready to go any moment.

...They should be more scared than me.

"Do you work here?" He asks, trying to place down the foundations of trust.

"Yeah...?" You say, your thick gloves grabbing the other and pulling them off. "I'm... something of a researcher. Or something along those lines." The way you said it could be viewed as avoidant, or simply distracted - judging by the way your now exposed hands was fiddling with the hazard suit, taking it off and throwing them into a large plastic container off to the side of the door. Presumably to be disinfected and reused. "I've just been told to stay here until the toxins reach an acceptable level. Then I'm free to leave."

He narrowed his eyes at you, taking mental notes on your choice of words and actions. It was entirely unconscious behaviour, akin to second nature - Zombieman was already crafting a mental corkboard of everything he knew about this place and you. You took the final piece off, your large headpiece, finally revealing your face to him.

His eyes fixated on you, his red irises re-examined your figure, taking new mental notes to add to his corkboard. His eyes found their way following a sweat drop that traced the side of your face, a small trail of liquid trailed down your facial features before the head of it became too small to follow anymore. He briefly wondered it that sweat was a shade or two darker than it was supposed to be, but concluded that it was just the lighting of the room. "...Hot in that thing, huh?"

"...Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess I'm not really used to it..." You say, not noticing him observing you.

...Not used to the hazmat suit, I don't recognise them from the list of scientists provided, and they're uncertain about their role.

Current thoughts: You've turned out more suspicious than he thought.

-----

Nervously, your eyes kept glancing over to him, drinking in every detail of him that you could with each glance. At first, you thought it was the glass of your suit playing tricks on your vision when you spotted his red eyes, but even when you took your headpiece off and looked over him again, they were still red.

Blood red, to be more specific, especially now that you had a very, very recent reminder of the colour of blood.

His skin was almost porcelain white, but there was something of a grey undertone to it. His hair was a ink black and his getup didn't have a single drop of colour - the only thing you could even perhaps suggest that had a hue was the buckles of his (many) belts strung tightly against his chest. Everything combined, this monochrome sense of fashion contrasted with his striking red eyes and dark eye bags made it incredibly easy for you to focus on his face. Basically a sinkhole of attention.

Zombieman... From that name, you'd expect more decay, but...

...He's handsome. You concluded, as you kept finding your eyes shifting over to him as you showed him about the place. But he's also scary. Why would he shoot himself to prove a point...?

"Are you gonna show me around...?" He asked after what must have been you staring a little too long at him.

"Sorry." You say, turning your head away from him. Despite looking at him so carefully, you couldn't pick up on his mild discomfort. You try to remedy the situation, giving a honest reason to your actions should suffice, right? "...I was just thinking that you're very visually appealing."

The answer seems to shock him, or at the very least, throw him off his feet a little. His eyes widened at your response before he tilting his face slightly to his right clearing his throat into the sleeve of his trench coat. His left hand seemed to tighten his grip around his axe. "...Thank you."

You think that you shouldn't have said that - was he uncomfortable? You don't really have much of a chance to interact with people, and it's leaves you wondering your next move.

...Should I apologise? What did I do wrong? Is there such thing as too honest?

On quick glance back up at him, tells you that if he did feel uncomfortable by you, he's recovered. He's leaning against the plain white walls with his axe by his side. You note the fact he still hasn't raised it back onto his shoulder - whatever the reason for this, it somewhat made you feel more relaxed.

"...Uh, I'll take you around the first floor first...? It's mostly just like laboratory equipment, but it might help you?" You say, trying to gauge his reaction.

He simply nodded, and as you took your first step, so did he. You glanced back to see that he was a step or two closer behind you than before as you walked down the large white hallways.

...I hope that he leaves soon.

Just before you stepped through into another set of doors, there was a few equipment littered on the walls of the lab. Coats, gloves, masks. Though, you've used and ruined most of them at this point.

Please, please, leave.

You watched him place down the gas mask you had given him earlier alongside the other ones lined up on the wall for anyone to take. The others were faulty at this point, the one he put back down was one of the only ones that still functioned at this point.

It's not safe here, even for you.

-----

"...That thing..." You say, gesturing to him, your index finger waved over his face a couple times. "...smells terrible. Do you need it or something?"

He raised one eyebrow at you, wondering if his breath smelt for a moment before realising what you were saying. "...My cigarette?" He asked, taking it out of his mouth, bringing it a little closer to you to confirm your request. Your lips tightened and your eyebrows narrowed at the distance decreasing. So it is. "I suppose that I don't need it."

"Yeah, that... cigarette." You say, slowly rolling the word out on your tongue as you took a step back. "If you don't need it, can you get rid of it? There's vents all over the place, but I'm worried that smell will linger if you keep using it."

"...Sure, do you have an ash tray or something of that kind?" He asked, rubbing the lit part of the cigarette over the back of his hand. The burning sensation felt like it was shorter each time - the initial burn from the very first time he put out his smoke was almost exciting to feel. Now, it feels like pointless rebellion.

You looked at him, blinking. It took you a second to respond to him, trying to think of what would be suitable. Your eyes glanced around the room, landing on the shelf of conical flasks, before the blanket hung up on the wall that's placed there in case of a fire emergency.

...He thinks he likes the way your features scrunched up as you rapidly skimmed through all of the available items. You looked like you were in in deep thought over something rather minor - maybe he likes the way you took him so seriously, or was it the way you were so confident you could find a replacement within the confines of the room within seconds?

It didn't take you too long to find something. "...There's sand bins. Will that do?"

"Mhm." He nodded, and you walked over to the bucket filled with sand - presumably, it was to put out fires, but it could also be repurposed for a more crude use. Your hands wrapped around the bucket's handle, planning to bring it over to him, but he simply just followed after you and smothered the cherry into the sand. There was no chance of it catching fire now.

You nodded at him, then pointed at another table with glass equipment on top, giving a rather detail explanation to him as you picked up different parts - he was barely listening, his mind quickly filing away this odd morsel of information about you as he got back to his actual work.

...Have they never seen a cigarette before?

I mean, public smoking places are less and less common nowadays, but still...

He thought your behaviour was strange, but it'd be rude to point out. He let you continue guiding him around the lab. Besides, if you felt comfortable enough to tell him to stop smoking, then you must be somewhat amicable towards giving him more intel.

-----

The two of you finish the tour of the first floor, and you glanced over to the clock on the wall. "...I'm gonna head off to lunch. You can join if you want." You say, walking away from him and into another room. He peered in - seems like a break room for staff. He debated joining you, or wandering off on his own to investigate.

The former wins as he argues that he could just wander about later. It didn't seem like you were rushing about to get him to leave quickly anyways. If anything, he'd say you enjoyed the company judging by how he often caught you waiting for him to catch up when he spotted something of interest. Or when you stared at him intently when he spoke, taking his questions to heart.

...Or it could be for another reason. Tons of people flocked to Amai Mask for one big reason, Zombieman just... never suspected he'd be on the receiving end of the same kind of attention.

...'Visually appealing.' What is that supposed to mean?

As he enters the break room, he spots you waiting patiently by the microwave. There's a rather large pile of delivery boxes collected in the corner of the room. Perhaps one would feel shame at a 'guest' of sorts seeing the mess, but you didn't seem to care much. Upon noticing him, you opened the microwave door and added another packet of food.

I guess I'm eating too now.

He stands next to you, pretending to also wait for lunch, but in reality he just stared at you from the corner of his eyes. It doesn't take you long to return the action, your pupils also shifting over to his direction.

The two of you share eye contact until you turn away and go back to staring at the packets of food spinning around in the microwave. He lets out something of a cough, then goes to check his phone, (It's not like the could just whip out the files he had brought with him right in front of you anyways), maybe you were on the lists of scientists, and he just doesn't remember you that well.

Your eyes are casted away from your lunch, catching the glimpse of movement in the corner of your eyes. "...Whoa, you have a real nice phone..."

He tilts his head up at you, then turns the screen off before giving his device a quick spin for you to see if you wanted. You nodded at this, as if you were some sort of phone collector inspecting the goods before buying.

"No," he shakes his head, giving it a closer inspection as he spun it despite already giving it a verdict. "It can't even withstand falling off a skyscraper."

"...I don't think that's a good way to measure it." You say, a ghost of a smile on your lips. "Here." You fiddled with your pockets, before pulling out what he thinks is a brick at first as you carelessly held it out to him. "Here's one I found a couple years ago. Under my Dad's desk."

"...Maybe I do have a nice phone." He says, staring down at the device as you let out a small laugh out at him.

The phone was pretty old.

The equipment in the lab also looks quite old, but I don't know enough about it to know if it's actually old, or if it's just old compared to Isamu's hoard of equipment.

It seems like you had enough money to deliver food to yourself, but not enough to fund your research. You probably aren't being paid.

Probably because you aren't a real researcher.

But his conclusion just brings more questions than answers - why would you stay out here if you aren't getting paid well? You've been tasked with staying here until the toxins have subsided, but why would you do that? Money clearly wasn't the reason - maybe it was something more personal. His eyes meandered across the room until it landed.

Maybe it was your Dad.

"...Say, your dad worked here too?" He asks, slowly reaching out to take the phone from you, feigning fake interest in the device in your hands. His cold fingers brushed against your skin making your breath hitch - practically throwing the phone away from yourself.

He caught it before it collided against the surface of the table, but he wasn't even looking at the phone anymore as his eyes shifted over to you, examining your body language quickly to figure out what caused that reaction from you.

You held one hand in the other, your eyes fixated on him, one foot back and holding your breath as if you were waiting for one of you to drop on the floor. The two of you shared a look, the room sinking into a tense quietness. Just as he was about to speak, apologise, anything that felt right to say, you babbled something to dispel the tension.

"O-Oh! Yeah!" You exclaimed, slowly taking your footing back to it's original position. He didn't care so much about the answer anymore after your reaction but still, he listened. "My mother did too. Uh, both of them worked together. H-here."

"Huh..." He nodded, accepting the fact the two of you will skip past that moment. He felt his hand tingle from where your skin touched it - it was almost the same sensation as the one he used to get when pressing the lit part of the cigarette against his skin. Burning, hot. Maybe painful to a normal person but an fleetingly exciting moment to him. "And then you started working here too?"

"...Uh, yeah. Been here for a long time." You say, the words slow to come out. Your eyes drifted away from him and your hand slowly reached back over to the phone he had caught and placed on the table before retracting it back into your pockets. "Actually, I've been here... for a really long time."

He nodded, "how long?"

You didn't answer him at first, only tilted your face over to his direction. You looked... lost. Like you weren't sure what you were doing, or what's even going on. A sense of distant confusion with a vague or faraway goal. "I... don't know."

He frowned. You didn't seem like you were bad-intentioned, but you also seemed like a vital part of this mystery. "How come?"

You pursed your lips, turning away from him again before the microwave went off. The beeps echoed through the silence of the lunch room.

"...Lunch is ready." You say, opening the door of it. "You don't have any allergies do you?"

"No, but even if I did," he made some sort of general motion towards himself. You made a 'Ohh' sound. Some colour returned to your face that he didn't quite realise had left it.

...They don't know? How is that possible?

Also, their parents worked here, and now they do as well. They're most likely staying here not out of choice - are they trapped here? Threatened to stay? Guilt? You couldn't pay most people to stay in such a dangerous area.

"I've just been told to stay here until the toxins reach an acceptable level. Then I'm free to leave."

...What kind of messed up family business is this?

Zombieman could only see the rabbit hole grow deeper the longer he looked in - yet he'll jump head first anyways. He was never much for self preservation.

That same trait comes the thought: if he touches your hand again will it burn the same thrilling way?

-----

After you showed him around the whole lab, he concluded that there was nothing there was still working - and even if there was, it wasn't anything large-scale enough to cause such a large waste area. In fact, the only experiment he saw was you spitting into a test tube and then running it through a machine. Something to do with how it can detect what kinds of chemicals are inside it.

But that machine was clearly broken since he recognised many of the listed items inside to be toxic. You had explained that you had fixed it up after finding it in the storage room, but since that room wasn't well maintained, there was a chance that the toxic air was just stuck inside it now. At least, that's the conclusion you came to, and he didn't see a reason to deny it.

Apart from that, it was mostly you just explaining what each room was and the equipment inside. The tour was over quicker than he thought - but there truly wasn't anything noteworthy. The past researchers had taken all of the papers with them, so he couldn't snoop around to see if there was any information he was missing. It didn't seem like you were trying to hide anything either. You've always seemed like you were honest - perhaps a little apprehensive, but most of that was mostly because, well, he was a stranger in your home.

"That's all... I think I'll get going to bed soon, do you need anything or..."

"No, that's all." He said. "I think I'll get going."

"...At this time?" You ask, seeing him walk out to the door, trying to open it. His hands pressed randomly against the wall's buttons. Quickly, you walked over to him. "Are you going home?"

"I've missed the train, so I can't really go back, but I've been given a recommendation to visit a forest." He says, watching you as you brushed his hands aside to help him open the sealed doors. It burned like before, "I think I'll go check it out," he thinks he wants to feel it again."...Then I'll probably come back with a fresh mind."

"...Seriously?" You asked, pulling the door open for him. "You're gonna spend the nights in the woods?"

"Well, it takes a while to walk over. By the time I get there, it might be sunrise." He says, walking through the first set of doors. Your eyes nervously switched between him and the door, unsure if he was really going to walk back out into the toxic wasteland. "Thanks, I'll see you tomorrow. Or if I find the source of the poison, this will be the last you'll be seeing me."

"...Yeah. That's... fine." You nodded, now trotting over to him, hand hovering over the keypad to let him out. The inner set of doors shut tightly behind you, a slight hissing sound as the air was compressed in the room, ensuring that none of the toxins got in as the vents whirred faster in anticipation. "Here, I'll let you go."

He paused, looking over at you. "Don't you need your hazmat suit?"

Your index finger stopped over one of the buttons as you started pressing the password to get out. "...No, it'll be fine. My parents said that I have a higher immunity to this sort of stuff anyways."

"...Okay, if you say so." He nodded, accepting your words. Every rotting bone in his body was screaming that there was something off about the way you said it, but his heart didn't utter a single peep in protest. He wonders if you're hiding the truth from him judging from his physical reaction to your words.

You nodded back at him, your eyes flicking back up at his for one more time before the door opens, a small gust of wind blew his hair back a little as the heavy entrance opened itself - exposing the two of you to the chilly evening air. "...It's nice meeting you." You say, your words as distant as you could muster with your almost wistful expression.

"...You too." He nodded simply, taking a step out, his boots landing on the dirt footing outside. He paused then turned his head back, speaking again as if he couldn't leave without finishing his all of his thoughts. "Real pleasure to meet you."

You blinked at him repeatedly, taken aback. There was... a slight smile on his face? You weren't given a chance to respond back before the doors let out loud 'beeps' rapidly and the doors slammed down.

He turned back around, taking a couple steps forwards as he languidly pulled out a cigarette and his lighter. His eyes casted over the cherry of the cigarette, watching it catch a flame as he took in a deep, slow breath, inhaling as much of the smoke he could. Impatient, he'd usually call himself for trying so hard to get the taste of the poison as quick as he did just moments after lighting it. It's just getting him more hooked on the nictotine (if he could be anymore addicted), it'll kill him faster (if he could die). But this time he won't fault himself even with all the negatives.

Smoking won't help relieve this... feeling, but it won't make it worse either, he supposes.

His boots forcefully move his body forward as he let out a low grumble.

Move. He urges himself. This is ridiculous. I barely know them.

"Wait!" He heard from behind him, and he found his head turning around without his input. "...I have some sort of car in the lab. Do... you want me to drive you to the forest...?" You ask, holding something of a car key attached to the lanyard around your neck, jangling the sliver object.

...Zombieman knows that it's not the first time you smoke you become addicted. It's the second time.

"Yeah, that's be great." He responses, the cigarette practically falling out of his mouth as he spoke, but he barely cared, only catching it in his hands and crushing it in his palm. It burned - but he barely felt it.

He didn't know that infatuation worked in a similar way to chemical addiction.

-----

You drove him over to the forest, his voice quietly murmuring out the directions for you to drive him. He had made some sort of comment on the car being a off-road vehicle, but you didn't fully get what he was trying to say.

The interior of the car was cold, the heater was very slowly warming it's way up. He insisted that it didn't bother him, but even so, you tried cranking that bloody thing up all the way. There's not much fuel in the car to begin with, but you didn't mind using it on him. It's not like you were going to be driving again.

"Keep going straight, try to avoid that rock if you can." He says, his hand motioning towards the obstacle on the ground.

"O-okay..." You nodded, trying your best to keep the car steady. There was practically sweat dripping down your arms from your nervousness. "Like this...?"

"Mhm." He nodded, "do you not drive often?" He asked, noting your anxious features that was crawling it's way up your face.

"No, uh, can- can you tell...?" You say, pressing the accelerator a little harder, making the car go faster.

"Well, we've been either going 20 or quadruple that. You've not really decided on a constant speed to drive at." He said, pointing a finger at the speedometer. "Also, I've been the one controlling the stick shift since you keep putting it in the wrong one."

"...Ah."

"I think you don't even know how to drive, but I don't really mind." He says, leaning his arm out the window as he blew out another cloud of smoke out of the vehicle. "You got the air bags, so you'll be fine even if we crash."

"...Maybe I'm just a really bad driver." You mutter, feeling your face grow hot even in the cold breeze that came in through the window.

"It's not a maybe." He says, turning back to you, "but it doesn't matter. I appreciate your help. I'll teach you how to drive for real after we get to the forest."

You raised an eyebrow at him, "You can drive?"

"...Eh." He makes a non-committal sound until you shot him a questioning glance, making him answer you properly. "...I don't have a valid licence, but I can drive."

"...So you're just as qualified as me?" You laughed, "or perhaps just as unqualified as me?"

"No, I've passed before. It's just that I've not driven in so long I don't know if I pass the current standards." He answers, maybe a little quickly as you chuckle at his explanation, not exactly buying his answer. "I should still be valid to drive."

"What are you, a old man?" You laughed, the car slowing down as your foot released the pedal, your mind too distracted by what he just said to properly process both things at once. "How could your licence just expire?"

"I had a licence before I was used for human experimentation and I've not had the time to try to renew it." He answers causally, taking in another breath of the smoke before breathing it back out. "I think."

You almost completely stopped the car before turning your head back over to him. "...Huh?"

He turns back to you, staring back into your eyes as your face grew pale at his words, unsure of what to say in response to him. "It's not a secret. I just don't talk about it."

"...Oh." You nodded, then took your hands off the wheel and your foot off as well. "...Is that why you can't die?"

"...Yeah." He nodded, then blew out one last cloud of smoke before he rubbed the light out on his skin again. There wasn't a moment of hesitation between his actions and words - he's too used to the pain he inflicts on himself. The slightest pink tinge on his skin from the burn is gone within less than a second.

The car let out a splutter, filling in the silence that took place in the car. Then stopped dead in it's tracks. "...Uh oh." You glanced down at the screen in front of you, trying to see what went wrong. "...I think we're out of fuel."

"...Mhm. Yeah." He agreed, glancing over to you. "It's fine, we're mostly there anyways." He says, nodding his head forward as he indicated towards your destination.

Your eyes casted over to the view in front of you - you didn't even realise until he pointed it out, but the two of you reached the forest he was guiding you to earlier.

It was dark, the bark of the trees was jet black against the faint light that shone down on the trees. You could barely see past them to see their fellow family. You've never seen them before in person - it was much larger than you had expected. The air smelt... clean.

Even so, it doesn't keep your attention for long as you looked back over to the man next to you. His pale skin contrasted strongly against the darkness outside, his red eyes shifted over to you, and you could pick up on the slight tinge of metal from the dried blood from earlier.

He didn't look human. He didn't have the warm undertones of blood running underneath people's skins. His response to pain was too lukewarm. He had no reaction to being in such grave danger. 'Zombieman' fit him.

"...Shall we go?" He offers, clicking open the car door for him to leave. "You can stay if you want."

"...No, I'll join you."

But he was still far, far more human than you were.

-----

The two of you wandered out into the woods. You flicked your flashlight on while he bravely moved forward in the dark, unafraid of any possible dangers that would be lurking in the woods.

"...Are you looking for something in particular?" You asked, your eyes flicking back over to him as you carefully shined down towards the ground to see where you were placing your heavy-duty boots.

"No." He replied back, still moving like a man on a mission. "The train conductor said that I should drop by here if I had time. I have time."

"...Do you think you'll find your source of poison?" You asked, your voice wavering towards the end, almost backpedalling last second in the hopes he didn't hear you.

He tilted his head backwards, glancing back towards you when you asked. "...I think it's from your home. I just don't know how yet."

*...How honest.

Well, I suppose that he doesn't really have anything to be afraid of anything he can't die. There's not much reason for him to lie.

"...I see." You nodded, your palms feeling slightly clammy after his answer.

...I wonder if he opened up about his past in the hopes that I'd also be more honest with him.

He continued to stride ahead, not taking any particular detours, walking in a straight line forward as he dragged his axe across the ground. It was still low to the ground.

...I hope not. Because I think it's working.

Then, you heard a branch snap off in the distance. You froze up instantly, your feet stuck on the dirt as your head swung over in the direction of the noise as you tried to find the source.

Finally, Zombieman stopped walking, standing still as he tilted his head in the same direction as the sound, the two of you almost perfect mirrors of each other.

"...We have company." He says, as he takes a step over to the sound, swinging his axe upwards to lean rest on his shoulder as he began to stroll over. You think you heard the metallic 'click' of his gun as well. "Let's give them a proper hello."

You flicked your head back and forth, from him to off in the distance of where the car was. Even if your vehicle couldn't move and was useless, you'd still rather go and hide in there over wherever the hell he was waddling off to. "C-Can we not...? If I die, I die."

He didn't acknowledge you maybe he didn't hear, only pressing on and got further and further away from even as the flashlight didn't reach that far ahead. You flipped a coin in your head to decide your choice to join him or leave. You mentally cursed yourself. Repeatedly.

...I guess I'm going too...

Even your feet protested against your brain's decision, but you ignored it and willed them to go on.

It didn't take long for him to stop in front of a bush, looking down at the source of the sound. You think that he's already taken care of the problem before you step past the shrub blocking your vision to see what he was looking at.

"...That's a crow...?" You murmured, your eyes fixed on the bird struggling to get off the ground - there was a sense of pure curiosity even at the sight of the animal in pain. "It's... small."

Zombieman barely paid attention to your words - it wasn't that he didn't find them interesting, it's just that he want to focus his efforts on something else right now.

"Mhm, it might be young." He nodded as he stepped out from behind the shrub. The bird started letting out sounds - perhaps to try to warn the man to step back, but he continues forward. "I think the wing is broken." he explains, pointing to the broken branch next to the animal with his axe. "I guess it hit the tree pretty hard and this is the result."

"Oh," you watched him crouch down to the bird, gently picking it up. It squawked louder as he picked it up to inspect it. "...So, do we help it?"

"...I don't know if we can." He replies back, picking it up with both hands, leaning the head of the axe in between his head and his shoulder as if he was taking a phone call with it. "...Have you ever taken care of a bird before?"

"...I've barely even seen a bird before, I'll be honest." You say, the works almost slipping out without you thinking much of it. He flicked his eyes over to you questioningly but didn't verbalise his thoughts. He was still intent on playing the long game.

"I guess we can take it back to the car for now." He says, his fingers clutching onto the torso of the bird firmly as he tried to support it's wing. Do you have any equipment in the car?"

"Maybe...? There's stuff in the back, we could try helping it." You say, nodding along with him as he began to walk back out the woods, you walking in front to guide him out with the only source of light between the two of you. "...Being a hero must be hard work." You mutter under your breath, your eyes flicking back to him practically cradling the animal in his arms as he steadily supported it to prevent it from hurting itself anymore. It's stopped crying at this point. "You even have to tend to the needs of even animals."

"Nothing worth doing is easy." He responses, picking up on your quiet words, his boots unshakeable even as he stepped on multiple uneven tree roots. "...Besides, this isn't my usual work. I investigate dangerous areas or suspects. My information isn't useful without someone to put it to good use. Helping others is inherently heroic. What I do isn't." He says, almost putting himself down as he spoke even if he didn't intent to. His tone was blunt and factual - he wasn't looking for reassurance.

"...Someone has to be the tester. Any important situation needs one." You say, your words sounding almost rehearsed as you spoke. Like you've heard it many times before. "...You fill a role no one else can."

He shifted his attention away from the crow, his head lifted up to look at you as you spoke. You didn't turn your head around though, only faced forward. He couldn't see what kind of expression was on your face.

-----

You opened the car door for him, letting him gently lower the bird onto the passenger seat of the car. The warm air that was somewhat there from the car heater was no longer in the vehicle, now it also reached the temperature of the cold air around you. Neither of you minded, but you still couldn't help the goosebumps crawling up your arms as a strong gust came every so often.

"Go watch it, I'll go check the back of the car." Zombieman said, resting the animal down before he swiftly walked away to open the boot of the car.

"O-Okay..." You nodded, briefly watching him move away from you two before you looked back down to the bird.

It had black ruffled feathers, and bright dark eyes. Eyes that seemed to stare deep into your inner being. It let out another echoing caw as it tried to fly again, getting up on it's feet. You quickly stepped forward, trying to discourage it's escape with your body. You hoped that you didn't actually have to touch it.

It stared up at you, then cried loudly. Clearly something of a battle cry as it then tried to fly - but was only able to hop forward.

You let out a fumbling cry of shock, your eyes seeing it fall off the car in slow motion. You had to catch it- You aren't wearing gloves- You can't touch it-

You have to catch it-

Your body moved on auto-pilot as your hands shot forward to catch it from falling to the dirt floor. Your brain knew, it fucking knew what would happen if you touched it, yet it still commanded it to move forward due to whatever fucking human nature you had left.

It's feathers grazed against the skin of your hands. Your body froze. It was warm. It was warm to touch even in the cold weather cooling the both of you down.

"Good catch," you heard distantly. You felt like you were submerged in a pool of ice water - you struggled to hear whatever was around you. Your eyes were frozen in place. Your body didn't listen to you. "Here, I found a first aid kit in the back."

You didn't process his words. You only watched the lively bird stumble on it's footing as you caught it. It blinked at you with something you'd call indignant anger. It would be right to be angry at you in a moment.

"You can put it down now," Zombieman said, clicking open the clasps on the box and pulled out some bandages. "We need to support it's wing with something strong." He carried on, unravelling the white gauze.

When he saw that you didn't listen to him, he reclarified for you. Maybe you didn't know what to get. "A straight strong stick should do. Go find one."

You still didn't move, and he finally looked up. He stared at you questioningly, not quite understanding the guilt ridden expression on your face until he looked down at your hands.

The black feathered bird was flopped over on your hands, it's eyes closed. It slumped over on it's wings and feet in a strange way. It's beak was open wide, trying to get something out that was never really there.

"...I think..." You say, your head turned over to face him, but he didn't really think you were looking at him. "I think your investigation is over."

...The crow was getting colder.

-----

"...I'm kinda like you." You started, sitting down in the car with dirt in stuck in your fingernails. You insisted on burying the crow before you explained everything. It was a request he easily granted - you had dug into the soft soil with your bare hands and covered the corpse with the same hands that killed it. "I'm... also like this because of human experimentation."

"...Go on." He said, nodding along.

"The lab, I'm sure you already know this, but they wanted to create antidotes. Something that would cure any poison. They obviously experimented on animals, but in the final stages, they wanted to test on a human subject. It was almost to fruition I think. And... My parents brought me in. I grew up in the lab." You sighed. "I wonder if they're even my real parents... What if..." You trailed off, the suspicions had clearly been weighing in your head for a long time. "...Never mind. That doesn't matter anymore. Anyways, one of the vials they gave me apparently wasn't the correct one. I started absorbing the poison in my body, almost like a storage box. No one realised at first."

"...Something happened, huh?" He said, picking up on your choice of words.

"...Yeah, they gave me some particularly strong poison or something to test out how my body would respond to the antidote they prepared. They didn't anticipate that I'd be able to absorb it alongside with the antidote." You let out something of a dry laugh. "That... was the last time I ever touched my mother. They cleared me to leave and I went up to her to say hi. She... collapsed on the ground, convulsing seconds later. After that, no one approached me without hazmat suits again. They quickly stopped working, after something else happened and they fled. My father was the last to go."

"...And that's when he gave you the instruction to stay until the level of toxins were acceptable?" He asked for confirmation. To which you nodded at him.

...Seeing everything fall into place has never felt so unsatisfying to him before.

He gave you a measured nod, his eyes never leaving the sight of your hunched over figure. "...So he sends you money to keep you somewhat alive?"

"...I don't know if he knows if I'm still alive." You shook your head. "Hell, I don't know if he's still alive himself. It's been... years. I only have the bank transactions from him as m only form as contact. I... still don't know if I killed my mother or if she's recovering somewhere."

He let out a quiet curse under his breath, leaning his arm against the window as you continued speaking.

They lived like this for years. Years.

"...I know what that place is, Zombieman." You say, your nails pressing tight against your skin, digging in. "I didn't want to admit it."

"...A prison?" He tried guessing when you didn't speak for a while, only to be met with a humourless laugh.

"Coffin. It's a coffin for me. I was born into a live burial -  I'll live and die there." You say, your voice completely monotone. It was like a reporter going about the facts of the day. "The furthest place I've been from here. This... forest. And just by going once, I ruined the place. I can't just... leave. This was already a mistake."

He listened to you, watching the way you clutched yourself for some sort of support. He stayed quiet, examining your features carefully. Nothing on his corkboard prepared him for this - but perhaps his own personal experience of being on the other side could help.

He slowly forms the thoughts in his head - there wasn't much he could remember when he first left the lab he had escaped from, but he tried his best to gather what he could. What would have comforted him best? Well, probably the death of Dr Genus.

It was just a tad too slow - you had began speaking again.

"...When are you going to end me?"

He turned his head over to you, too quickly. "What?"

"You found the source of the poison." You say, leaning over to him from your seat. His breath hitched as you got closer. "You've known for a while, haven't you? So when are you going to do it? In my sleep? With a gun? Or an axe?"

It probably doesn't help, but at the mention of his weapons his eyes find their way over to their positions. "...I'm not going to murder you." He says, but didn't get up. He let you look down at him from where you were - it was probably the little bit of power you still had over him in your eyes. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"I made that crow die." You state, your retort coming back far too fast. "You saw me. One touch from me killed it. It was barely even a few seconds."

"...That doesn't warrant the death penalty." He sighs. "Nothing you've done deserves punishment of any kind, it's not your fault. None of it."

You stared at him with an unreadable expression on your face, he struggled to place what you were feeling at the moment despite it being the most vital time for him to be able to. "...I have a question," you say, almost reluctant to interrupt him. "If there was something that could only cause harm, why keep it?"

He doesn't given himself much time to think of his answer, knowing that the longer he took the more insincere he would sound to you. "I know many people who's only speciality is violence." He starts out, leaning a little closer to you as you took a step back from him, giving him more space. "...We call them heroes. Or monsters, depending on their intentions."

"...Are you one of these people?" You ask, your words feeling heavier than he expected for such a short question.

"I'd say so." He responded, his voice flat as he continued speaking. "...But a lot of people suspect me as a monster too. "

"...You're more than that." You said, tilting your head at him with scornful befuddlement. You looked upset, but not at him.

"Aren't you the same?" He mirrored the simple question to you.

There's silence from you, until he hears a small sniffle and you bring up one hand to wipe at your eyes. He's frozen solid for a second until he reaches over to a box of tissues nearby and offered it to you. 

"No..." You shook your head. "No thanks, my tears will just melt it... Tried it, trust me..."

"...Yeah, that's what tissues tend to do in liquid long enough." He cracked the dry joke, trying to lighten your mood and still offering the box to you, just slightly further away.

"...No, they're..." You pinch the bridge of your nose and let out a shaky sigh as you forced yourself to bite back the tears. "My tears are corrosive. Highly corrosive."

"...Huh." He said, putting the box aside and stood up. "Would you like my coat instead?"

"...Why on Earth would I want that?" You say, the last of the tears running down your face as you stopped wiping it with your hands. 

"...It's work clothes, I can get these replaced for basically free. It's cheaper than those tissues." He shrugged, trying to make another attempt to cheer you up seeing that you had stopped at this point. They were more stressed tears than anything, so your crying wouldn't have lasted long anyways. 

You blinked at him before letting out a laugh, "no, no... It's okay... I don't want to accidentally hurt you. I'm fine now anyways."

"Mhm." He nodded, watching you sit back down on your seat. "...You know, I have a really, really smart colleague. He might be able to help you leave if you want."

"...Really?"

"He's the smartest person I know. And I've been kicking around for a while." He states a chuckle on his lips as he spoke. The only other person he could think of being close to Child Emperor was Dr Genus. There wasn't a chance in hell he'd let him anywhere near you. 

"...Do you think he'd be willing to help?" You ask, the lilt of your voice going up a little higher, a sense of hopefulness leaking into your tone. "Or wait, would he be safe? I don't want to hurt him by accident..."

He nodded at your concerns as you spoke. "I've seen him analyse venomous monsters during the heat of battle and create antibodies on the fly. I think there's a strong chance."

"...Wow, he sounds really smart. Is he a hero like you?"

"Yes," he nodded, something you'd describe as pride adorned his features. "He's more of a hero than me, though. I could learn a lot from him."

"...I think you're far more of one than you think you are."

He's silent, staring back into your eyes. It takes the both of you a moment before either speaks. His voice breaks the silence gently, his words slow and purposeful as he spoke.

"...I think we should get going soon. We need to catch that train."

[d1ssenter-be-damned]

*opens trenchcoat to reveal several pamphlets with fic tropes on them* What kind of nicities might you be interested in Tumblr user error-is-bae? `<•##>3

well hello there anonymous tumblr user that im fairly certain is one of two people.

listen man i know everyone and their dog has written a fic where gabriel atones for the errors of his ways by throwing himself into rebuilding lust w minos. but i cannot get the concept out of my head

every interp ive seen thus far has minos be angry, yes, but i dont think hes been angry enough. i want him to break. i want him to tear into gabriel like a rabid fucking beast. i want him to grab him by the throat and throw him to the floor hard enough shards of concrete get lodged in his lungs. i want gabriel to scramble back instinctively because he knows hes no match for a prime soul, especially not without his Light but he's not fast enough and then Minos grabs him again and he can't breathe--

and i want him to just go limp. to accept his fate. and minos just gets angrier because he wants him to fight, he wants to revel in the feeling of his bones crunching and listening to him scream but it's not satisfying if he doesnt fight back and he did not waste away in that god forsaken prison watching everything he'd worked so hard to achieve (peacefully! he never wanted a fight, he wanted to thrive, he tried to reason--) be torn down by his own withered hands only for gabriel to rob him of what little gratification he could receive as if he hadn't already taken everything from him. i want him to roar "why won't you fight me?!" as he lifts gabriel by his collar. he wants to see the spirit that gabriel had before (when they were colleagues, friends even, when they would spend their time debating philosophy and literature and enjoying being together), wants to watch it break under his fists--

(and he thinks of the way gabriel looked down at him so long ago, the divine light of the spear held to his throat shining across his armor, the way he had pleaded for some of that previous kindness to return only to feel as the head pierced his skin and dug its way through his flesh, blood curling down his neck in rivulets and pooling in his mouth as he gasped for any semblance of breath he could take--)

and for just a second he thinks of how things could have been so much different if gabriel had a heart. if he was allowed to rule his kingdom in peace, allowed to let his people prosper and grow and have a second chance. and he looks at gabriel, sad and limp and broken in his grip, but hes not broken like a warrior after a valiant fight or a killer after a spree, hes broken like a fledgling bird with clipped feathers pecking at fingers for its own survival, like a child tucked away in a damp street corner waiting for it to be safe to move again, like the people he had helped build a new life in death.

and on one hand it infuriates him because gabriel is the reason he never got to see his people thrive, never got to see his kingdom grow and live and by all means he should despise him for everything hes done

but at the same time he remembers the gabriel from before the Council, remembers their late nights together, remembers the intelligence and the wit and the charm and the kindness they had Beaten out of him, sees how hopeless and faithless he has become

and sees that he has the chance to be better.

but he has to think about it. so he drops gabriel to the ground and watches as he scuttles back and coughs for breath and looks up at him and can practically feel the confusion and disbelief radiating off of him and if he's honest hes not sure hes making the right decision either. so he turns around and stalks away before he has the chance to change his mind.

anygays. i spent way too long writing this out cus im just obsessed with the concept of them growing closer Slowly because obviously minos can never truly forgive him and gabriel cant ever be rid of that Guilt but i do think there's something there to work from. they just have to put in some effort.

[regularme12]

ler alec??

Alec is ticklish?!

So I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume u guys mean Alec from discenture camp😭 also, two ppl requested this so I'm gonna do it.

Author's note: I had someone comment Lee Alec, and this comment had Ler Alec instead, so my dyslexia thought it said Lee and not Ler, but I alr had this whole thing written out, so u guys better enjoy it nontheless.😭

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

Alec and Connor was hanging out by the dock, drinking beer, and staring at the lake. "Hey man, about Riya..." Alec started scratching his neck, "I'm really sorry about that, we were both drunk and that's no excuse but-" He was then cut off by Connor. The older man sounded dissapointed but understanding at the same time.

"Listen, let all that go in the past, I don't like Riya, but it's ok. Honest. U're still my friend." Connor signaled him to stop talking or he's gonna make this situation a lot more unbearable to handle.

Alec sighed. "Alright, I guess..."

There was silence.

"Hey, what u thinking about Alec?"

More silence.

Connor had a brilliant thought that j crossed his mind. The thing he used to do to his grandson if he ever ignored his grandfather. It was tickling, and Alec was really ticklish, is what Fiore mentioned to everyone, but was forced to keep quiet. In her opinion, it was just to toy with the other if he ever got on people's nerves. Fiore isn't the type to just tickle any one, so the fact that she knows about this was out of shear accident. She saw him getting licked all over by a dog and he was screaming and laughing, "Hey, stohohop that! It tickles, hahaha."

Connor leaned his hand to Alec's side and squeezed, and it was the most reaction he got out of hom that he had never seen before. It was quite delightful.

Alec swooped his head to look at a mischevoius looking old man, his face was beat red, and his heart was pounding fast. "Don't you dare, Connor."

But it was too late. Connor pounced on the latter, and pinned his arms to his side. And then he did it. He started rapidly squeezing his sides to no end. "Cohohohonor!! Sthohohop!! Ahahahahah!!"

"Wow, Fiore was right, you are wildly ticklish. This an amazing founding, she may be an evil child, but I send my condolences to her for giving me this information."

"How dihihihid she fihihihind out!!! She never once tihihihickled me!!" He was wiggling side to side and he started humping up and down to fight the older one off, but to no avail.

"Well, she kinda basically told everyone. She said that she saw a dog licking u and u felt ticklish by that. So I thought I just had to find out if the rumors were true, you know, as a good friend I am." Connor switched to rapidly poking his stomach, Alec leaned his head back and started giggling sporadically.

"Gahhahahahd this is thohohorture!!!" At this point, he didn't know what to do. He thought he was stronger than the one with old bones, but he was saddenly mistaken. He then started kicking his legs up and down, kneeing the men in the back multiple times.

"Ouch, would you stop kicking me? That's not very nice..." Connor thought out a plan witch scritching and scratching the lee's middrift.

"You tihihickling me isn't vehheheerry nihihice!!"

"Mmmm, I was hoping you'd say that." The ler brought his hands down to give Alec one little squeeze on his thigh, and he was done for.

"No, nononono, Connor! Connor pls, anything but thAT!!! GAHHAHHAHA CHOHOHONNOR!! SOMEONE HEHEHEHLP!!!" Alec did everything in his might to knock the other off, but he wasn't budging.

"Wow, it's like riding a bull. Is your thighs that ticklish? Wow, I really hope one of the challenges won't be 'See who can untie thier limbs first' while sitting on a chair, rope tied. Because then I'll make everything hard for you. By squeezing your very ticklish thighs, or scratching your toned stomach."

"GOD STHOHOHOP WITH THEHHEHE TEEHEHEHEASSING!!"

"Alright, how about you stop moping around with that kiss scene and acctually talk like friends we are, or I'll stay in this one directly very ticklish death spot you have until u piss yourself and make a mockery of you or u'll pass out. Pick one."

"ALRIHIHIHIGHY ALRIGHT STOP!! YOHOHOU WIN!! YOU WIN!! PLEHEHEHEASE!!"

"Ok man, here let me help you up." Connor gave Alec a hand and they both sat at the end of the dock once again. Alex was near out of breath and Connor still had that evil grin.

"Damn... Never... do that... again."

"We'll see."

They both started laughing again, but this time it was together and not one laughing at the other. The camera pinned over to the sunset, while they had their one last drink together before heading back to their tents.

But what Alec doesn't know is that they're on live television, seen across the world.

[jyndor]

here's something I need people to understand about the hypocrisy of alicent or crispy ass cole, as well as conservative and/or fundie repressed people in general - hypocrisy is not something they give a flying fuck about.

it never has been- its always rules for thee not me, always always always. whenever they don't abide by the ridiculous rules that they hold others to (and I do mean Others - those in some sort of out group) they don't see it as the same as the people they judge. they justify ALL of their actions, and often those justifications for their own rule breaking is fairly reasonable (since their rules are usually bullshit, of course it does make sense for most people to not be able to hold to them).

but see we, people who have been Othered by these institutions like alicent's definitely-not-catholicism, see the hypocrisy clear as day because we already have been victimized by the rules that people like alicent conditionally follow.

this is how patriarchy harms us all - alicent isn't able to live her best queer life and have lots of passionate sapphic sex with the hottest women in the realm because of how she has been raised to serve at the altar of patriarchy.

it is easy for me to have immense sympathy for a character like alicent hightower, a girl whose father basically forced into child marriage with his old man friend in order to gain political power and influence. even if she is jealous of her girlfriend's sexual liberation* (which alicent clearly both reviles and craves) and ultimately falls further into a religious conservatism that I am never gonna be down with, as a queer myself who has only ever been harmed by that christian conservative bullshit.

anyway at the same time, I see that abused girl become a woman with real power because of her refusal to break a system that has done nothing but harm her. because that system ultimately serves her in many ways too.

this goes for rhaenyra, the liberal feminist hillary to alicent's conservative christian phyllis. rhaenyra ultimately doesn't have a liberatory bone in her body if it isn't about her own rights to exist as she is in a patriarchal world and reap the benefits of being at the top of that hierarchy. the closest any noble person in this canon gets to an actual liberatory political theory of power is daenerys (which... lmao - it's still based in her belief in a divine birthright, even if she would want to use that birthright to get as close to being a class traitor as one gets in asoiaf).

and so while she is a compelling and sympathetic character (thanks to olivia, and yes emily as well) she would be my enemy irl, make no mistake about it. (so would rhaenyra ofc I'm not here for girl boss feminism).

and because she's my enemy I know how she works. for example, these freaks irl are always pointing fingers at queer or just regular old non-fundie people trying to live because they've got a bad translation of a religious text that they likely haven't even read, a text which would also condemn these same people for any sexual act that isn't marital PIV. like a blow job. lmao do you think for one second conservative christian/fundie/fundie-adjacent women aren't giving their husbands head??? okay nancy 'throat goat' reagan lol

they genuinely do not see it as the same thing, and they don't care if it's close to the same because They are righteous and saved and justified in their kinky shit. (that is more of a protestant grace over works thing; alicent's faith of the seven is clearly more of the catholic sort, especially given that westeros is akin to pre-reformation europe but I mean its not a one to one comparison).

hypocrisy is not a good weapon to use against anyone. conservative white christians in the us won't hear about trump fucking a sex worker while his wife is pregnant and then giving her hush money and suddenly abandon ship. sure, plenty will lie to themselves about it being fake news but plenty of others legitimately will never give a fuck about that, even if it seems counter to their whole pretense of morality.

they do not give a shit. alicent hightower likely sees herself as a newly widowed woman who did her time and can fuck her hot guard (his being a misogynistic incel likely is not a problem for her because his inceldom is based in a morality she believes in herself - that his oath was broken by some nasty snake bitch seducing him or whatever, but of course when he and alicent fuck it is moral and good sex, no excuse me it is probably ~making love lmfao) until it's time to say a few hail marys, and she's forgiven! except ofc she's not, but it's fine! because she did everything the right way, right???

the hypocrisy is not going to bother her because she can justify her behavior. however the reason these fundies feel the need to justify shit to themselves is because deep down they know they're not actually following the standards they have set for themselves. there must be a good reason for them to break those standards. those standards that must be followed no matter what. it's irrational and brain breaking.

the hypocrisy won't bother a person like that, but the cognitive dissonance? that's another story altogether. that will bring shame and disgust and self-loathing, which may result in them re-evaluating their ideology but also may just make them double down on that ideology.

getting caught up in the team sports of it all seems very contrary to the thesis of this story and frankly all of asoiaf - that this patriarchal hierarchical divine right of kings ass absolute monarchy system is so oppressive and harmful that even those who benefit from it the most are also certain to fall victim to it in time. and that one team may be marginally or even greatly better than another, but ultimately these teams still exist to keep a fundamentally cruel and inhumane system in place.

anyway rhaenyra stans stop saying alicent is a hypocrite for getting her nut with crincel. alicent stans, watch yourselves because some of you seem to forget that alicent is basically a sympathetic phyllis schlafly.

*obligatory rhaenyra was a victim in many ways; her exploration of her sexuality with crispy ass cole was technically consensual (ofc it was messy all around, even for crispy due to the power dynamics, but ultimately she was a teen girl who had literally just been groomed by her uncle, and he was a grown man so... come on folks)

[final-girl96]

Ageless Secrets Chapter Four

YN

It was quiet between Joel and I on our way back to the QZ. We were walking on a residential road. The sun slowly started to go down casting a pinkish orange glow in the sky. I looked up from the road, looking ahead of us. The sky grew darker and darker the closer we got. I turned my head to look at the sky behind us, no sign of rain. The closer we got the more concerned I got. We could hear rumbles of thunder and small flashes of lightning.

I pulled my headphones down around my neck and slowed down. “Joel, I think we should find shelter,” I said, looking over at him. “Yeah, it's not lookin’ good' that way. We'll get as close as possible then find a place to wait it out.” We continued to walk and watch the sky grow darker. The thunder got louder, cracking so loud I thought my bones were shaking. The wind started to pick up, blowing my hair in my face. Then we felt droplets of rain hit our skin. “Alright, let's check that house out.” Joel pointed to a lone house set back away from the road.

As soon as we stepped onto the covered porch the sky let loose. Rain poured down in sheets. The little bit of daylight we had was now gone. A loud clap of thunder paired with a flash of lightning that lit everything up made me jump. Joel opened the front door and cautiously stepped inside. It was a one story house, so it was easy to check. I took my bag off and sat on the couch. The sound of the rain on the metal roof was really relaxing. “We're gonna just have to stay here until the rain lets up,” Joel said.

I pulled a water bottle, granola bar, and my book out of my backpack, making myself even more comfortable on the couch. I took a sip of water, opened my granola bar and took a bit of that before opening my book. What really sucked was when all this shit happened, I was reading the Harry Potter books. Now there won't be any new ones. The fifth book literally came out three months before the outbreak. There were supposed to be two more books being released. And we would never get the other movies either; we only got the first one.

I was reading Goblet of Fire for what felt like the hundredth time. I never really get a chance to look for books while we're out scouting. But I didn't find all five Harry Potter books in a house a couple years ago. It was the most exciting thing to happen to me since the outbreak at the time. Joel said I didn't need them because they were a necessity. Tess told me to take them. She had seen how detached I was becoming. It was the same with the Walkman and cassettes. They keep me sane in this fucked up world.

“Haven't you already read that book?” Joel asked. I finished the page I was on before answering him. “You know you can read books more than once, right?” I sarcastically asked. I wanted to ask about his daughter. Ask if she liked Harry Potter too. From what Tommy told me she was only a couple years younger than me. But the last time I tried asking about her Joel completely lost his shit.

He lost his daughter, Sarah, on the first day. She had been shot when he and Sarah had been running from infected. They were stopped by one of the men from the military. The guy was given orders to kill them. This was something he and Tess have bonded over, they both lost a child. Chase is probably still in that basement as a clicker now. We had the chance to go back to the house. We could have taken care of it but Tess couldn't do it and I didn't blame her.

“I liked these books before the outbreak. I was excited when the first movie came out. It kind of sucks that we won't get the last two books or the movies to go with them. I didn't have many friends. I was more of the loner kind. I didn't go to sleepovers or birthday parties, I mean I was invited, but I just didn't go. It wasn't my thing. Besides, all the girls were into the Dawn of the Wolf movies and I hated it.”

Joel didn't say anything. Hell, I don't even think he was listening to me. I went back to reading my book and listened to the rain. A few hours later I was walking around the house. It was evident whoever lived here didn't have children and probably lived by themselves. There were no pictures around the house of a family or friends. No evidence of the former owner. I was startled when I walked past a door. A loud banging on the other side had a small scream escape me.

The banging got louder and I backed up. My back hit the kitchen counter and I stood frozen. It's like I was back in 2003, standing between the kitchen and living room, Tess’ back pressing against the basement door while loud banging went on behind her. I screamed again at the loud banging that drew me out of the past.

“What's wrong?!” Joel came running into the kitchen looking around. I couldn't even speak to tell him what was wrong. All I could Do was point to the door and when I did another loud bang pierced the air followed by a rumble of thunder and a strike of lightning lighting up the sky, illuminating the kitchen. Joel walked in front of me, “Go into the living room.” I would have listened but I could move. The same image of Tess came back. The banging from Chase echoed through the house.

It switched to the time I snuck back to the house when we were back in Detroit trying to get into the QZ. We had stayed not far from where we used to live. Tess and I talked about going to the house and giving mercy to Chase. She couldn't do it but I thought I would be able to. I didn't tell her that though. She went off on a run with a few people we were traveling with. So I snuck away and went back to the house.

The place had been picked over and trashed. Andy's body still laid where he had fallen a few years earlier. I slowly walked over to the basement door and knocked. There was nothing at first, just silence. I thought maybe someone found him and did it for us. I knocked again, louder and waited. There wasn't anything. So, I took a deep breath and tried to sike myself up to open the door.

Just as my hand wrapped around the handle and loud bang vibrated the wood on the other side. I yelped, stumbled back, and tripped, landing on my ass. He was still there, and I couldn't even help him. I got up and ran; I ran as fast as I could back to the camp, getting there twenty minutes before Tess got back from her run. I never told her that I had gone back. And now here I am, being shook by Joel and hum telling me to get in the living room so he can take care of the infected.