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godsandmonsters505 · 2 years ago

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Roll Like Thunder | Negan Smith

dbf!Negan Smith (The Walking Dead) x younger fem!reader

(AU where the apocalypse never happened)

Summary: Negan is your dad's best friend and the two of you settle some tension while on your family vacation.

Warnings (18+): age gap (reader is college age, maybe 20-ish, and Negan's age is not specified but I'm feeling early 50s), smut (fem receiving oral, unprotected p in v), possibility of getting caught, edging

Notes: this actually kinda turned out sweet in a way I think, which is surprising because that's not often an outcome when I write for Negan lmao. not proofread yet because I just wanted to get it out to you all asap, but will edit if needed when I get the chance. hope you enjoy!! (also the intro is kinda long oops)

Grabbing your glass of wine you take another much needed swig, cringing at your dad and uncle. They always find some way to turn every conversation into a political argument while the rest of your family eat their meals and exchange knowing glances

Family holidays were always like this. The one time a year when everyone was together: your parents, aunt, uncle and cousins. Only this year, there was a new addition.

Negan had grown up being a close friends with both your father and uncle and they are still best friends to this day. He recently went through a messy divorce and this is his first Christmas without his wife in a long time. Your dad never was good with showing kindness or friendship, but your uncle had convinced him it would be a good idea to invite him to his cabin for your annual Christmas getaway.

And that's how you got here.

You'd always had a little bit of a crush on Negan, for as long as you could remember. Though you never saw much of him as a kid. It wasn't until you got older - old enough to be able to drink in front of your parents - that you got to spend more time with him. Drinking was a big part of their social life, so once you could join in, you got to know him better. You got on well with your parents so you'd have barbeques with them and their friends, join in with conversations in the kitchen when they'd have people over, go out to dinner. But then you went off to college and started spending less and less time with them. So now it's Christmas time, you're happy to be able to spend time with your family. And Negan, more than you'd care to admit.

"Okay fellas," your mom chimes in. "Enough of that."

Negan makes eye contact with you from across the other side of the table and you smirk at each other. You're both all too familiar with watching this from an outside perspective.

"The food's delicious, Negan," she adds, turning to Negan, who had cooked this meal for you all. Sort of as a thank you for letting him tag along. For the first few days in the cabin he felt a little out of place, like he was intruding on your family's time together. But eventually he began to find himself settling. You were lucky to have a very fun, non-judgmental family so everyone was happy to have him there.

You nodded in agreement with your mother's statement. "I'd have more if there was any left." You motion to your empty plate.

"I'm glad it's got your approval, ladies," he grins.

The meal comes to an end and alcohol starts flowing. Your cousins are all younger than you so they head off to their bedrooms to do whatever it is kids their age do.

"I'd better get these dishes cleaned," Negan declares, standing up from his seat.

"No," you say, protesting. "You cooked. I'll clean."

"It's fine, you don't have to," he says kindly.

"I want to," you smile. "Really I'm happy to."

"We'll do them together?" He suggests, coming to a compromise and you nod in agreement.

"You raised a stubborn one," he mumbles teasingly to your dad, patting his shoulder as he walks past him.

"She gets that from me," your mom chirps as the two of you pick the plates up from the table and carry them into the kitchen.

Putting the plates on the kitchen top, you head to the fridge and look inside.

"Beer?" you ask, peeking around the door to look at Negan's response. Though you already have two cans in your hand, knowing he won't turn down the offer.

He nods. "Can't do anything without a drink in hand in this family, huh?"

You close the fridge door and pass him his beer, cracking open his own.

"You should be more than aware of that," you tease. "I've heard what you and my dad used to get up to."

"I'm sure you've not even heard the most of it," he teases back.

You laugh softly under your breath at his response.

"I'll wash, you dry?" You suggest as the sink begins to fill with soapy water.

The two of you get the dishes done relatively quickly as Negan tells you a story from his college days. You have to keep yourself composed and remember who he is. Remember that these stories he's telling of him at your age took place before you were even born. A decade before, at least. But, every so often, as you pass him the plates to dry, your fingers touch his and such a small motion has you weak. You can't look him directly in the eyes as he stands so close to you. That signature grin of his spread across his face.

The two of your finish and you take a large swig of your beer, but it's no surprise that the flush of alcohol doesn't help your body heat. You can only hope and pray that your cheeks aren't beetroot red right now.

"I'm sure you've got plenty of stories, though, right?" He asks. "Being in college and all. And with your dad's genes...God."

A playful smile spreads on your face. "Sure. I'm absolutely not telling you though. My dad would have a heart attack."

"Ahh," he smiles back. "So this whole 'good girl' thing is just an act, then?"

Holy shit. Good girl? He has no clue what he is doing to you calling you things like that.

"I can be good when it suits me." You say, almost flirtatiously, and immediately kick yourself. Why the hell would you say something like that to him?

Your off-the-cuff reply has him grinning. He swipes his tongue over his teeth as he contemplates your words and you almost drop to your knees.

"Let's go see what political debate has become the talking point now," you say, changing the topic to hide your complete embarrassment. You leave the kitchen and head to the living room, Negan following.

Somehow, in the time it took you to wash the dishes, your mom and aunt have gone through a bottle and a half of wine, and they're sat on the floor with your dad and uncle playing some sort of drinking game.

You sit down on the couch and Negan sits next to you. Why? Why could he not just sit away from you? Give you some space to compose yourself? But the action is completely innocent. There is just less than a foot between the two of you, yet it still feels like he is on top of you. Like you're breathing the same air.

"What was I just saying?" Negan says, nudging your arm with his elbow. "Alcohol."

You shake your head in playful disagreement with your relatives' actions.

"Hey, mom," you say and her head whips around, as laughter escapes her lips. "Think you've had enough for tonight?"

"Oh, you're so boring," she waves her hand at you dismissively.

The four of them continue for about half an hour as you and Negan observe and laugh. The game finally comes to an end when your aunt and uncle discreetly head off to their bedroom for a reason you don't even want to think about. Your parents follow shortly after, your dad having to carry your drunk mom up the stairs.

You come back from the kitchen where you were getting another lager for you and Negan. As you do so, you look for the TV controller and find a blanket that was lying around. You sit down again next to Negan and look down at your phone to check the time.

"God, it's not even 10 o'clock yet." You laugh.

"Amateurs," he says sarcastically.

You pass him his beer which he thanks you for, then get under you blanket.

"Want some?" You ask, holding out some excess blanket towards him.

"Sure," he accepts, getting comfortable himself.

The whole situation you're in is completely innocent, but it dawns on you that you're currently alone with Negan, tucked under the same blanket. Given that fact, you make a conscious effort not to touch him at all and try to remain composed.

"Put a movie on?" You ask him, passing the TV remote to him.

He takes it from your hand, brushing his fingertips across yours.

You watch him carefully as he selects a film to put on, making sure not to get caught admiring him. He just looks so good. The salt and pepper sprinkled throughout his hair and beard. The tattoos that cover his arms. The way his white t-shirt hugs his body just right. You're brought out of your thoughts when he speaks.

"You seen Batman Returns?" He asks, looking down at you.

"Of course," you smile. "It's a classic."

"Feel like watching it again?"

You nod. You'll watch whatever he wants. Do whatever he wants.

"Absolutely," you answer. "I didn't peg you as a Batman kind of guy, to be honest."

"Like you say, it's a classic," he says. "Plus there's always Michelle Pfeiffer."

You laugh at him. "I feel you."

You polish off another beer as you watch the film. You try your best to pay attention, to keep your eyes open, but you grow increasingly tired. It must have only been fifteen minutes into the film when you finally drift off, reality slipping away.

When you wake up again, it takes a while to fully gain consciousness, You feel something under you head, under your arm, but you don't pay much attention to it.

You feel warm. Comfortable. You don't want to wake up, you could stay here forever. The smell of men's shampoo and cologne comforts you, a soft material under the touch of your hand.

All of a sudden reality dawns on you. You realise that your head is leaning on a shoulder. That your hand is draped across a torso. You shoot up, sitting upright and see Negan smiling at you softly through slightly hooded eyes.

"Oh God," you say, feeling incredibly humiliated. "I'm sorry." But he just chuckles.

You look over to the television and see a black screen.

"Did the movie finish?" You ask groggily and he nods. Fuck. You slept for the entire duration of the film and who knows how much of that time you spent laying on Negan's shoulder.

What you're only just realising now, though, is how close you're still sat to him. How even though you're sat up, Negan's shoulder is casually draped across the back of the sofa, dangerously close to your shoulder blades.

"Why didn't you just wake me up?" You ask, feeling flushed.

"You looked peaceful." He answers, honestly. "Didn't want to disrupt you."

"I'm sorry," you apologize again. "You should've woken me up."

"I didn't mind, sweetheart." He insists. "Honestly."

The pet name drives you utterly insane. As if this whole thing wasn't already enough. Your body feels so hot. What with the blanket, his body heat, your arousal.

"I will say though, you do talk quite a bit in your sleep," he smiles coyly and dread shoots through your entire body.

"Wh-what-" you can't even get a full sentence out. "What did I-"

A flash of a dream comes back to you in that moment. Oh God. Oh God, no. You can't remember the details, but you remember the feeling. Negan on top of you. His body weight on you. The ecstasy you felt. His hands on your body. His name slipping from your lips.

You had a sex dream about Negan while you were laying on his Goddamn shoulder. You're lost for words, but Negan is enjoying watching this play out. He bites his lip, trying to suppress his smug grin as he watches you realise the possibilities of what you might have said.

His arm slowly slips off the back of the sofa and creeps around to touch you, the movement making you flinch a little. What is he doing?

He takes his other hand and places two fingers just under your chin, forcing you to look up at him. The two of you make eye contact and you can't even contemplate what is happening - still a little groggy from your nap - before his lips are coming down gently on yours.

You kiss him back almost immediately. It's a surprising delicate and intimate kiss, and you daringly bring your hand up to his neck to pull him in deeper, but he pulls back.

You worry that he is having second thoughts, but the look in his eyes says the complete opposite. He just wants to get a good look at you before he tears you apart. You feel vulnerable under his hungry eyes but you love how it makes you feel.

The two of you take a moment to catch your breath before your lips join again, this time the kiss rougher. More passionate. His arms wrap around your back to pull your body snug to his and you intwine your fingers into his hair, tugging ever so slightly. His large hands snake further down and grab your hips, pulling you onto his lap. As you get comfortable you shift along his length and gasp, feeling that he is already hard.

"You were practically fucking dry humping me in your sleep," he chuckles. "You can't blame me."

"So that's why you didn't want to wake me up, then?" You're barely able to mumble, teasing him.

"Hmm, maybe." You can feel him smile into the kiss and it makes you want him more. Everything about him is so endearing. He just radiates this warmth, this aura, and it's radiating.

Even now, however, you're nervous to move things along. You know what you want but this is still so surreal, and it would be an understatement to say you feel a little intimidated in this moment. You have enough sexual experience, but this is Negan. This is different. So you're glad when he takes control and begins to lift up your top, pulling it over your head to expose your bra.

His mouth makes contact with the flesh of your chest, sucking and nipping while he reaches around to unhook your bra. He feels his cock twitch when he sees your bare breasts, taking a nipple into his mouth immediately as his warm hands roam and caress your back, travelling over your smooth skin.

As you start to subconsciously grind into his bulge, Negan continues to explore your breasts. You're looking for any kind of relief and you begin to find some as he presses up into you, but both of your pants are restricting you.

You feel yourself crumbling further and further as Negan's hands come around to aid him with his attention to your breasts, squeezing and practically groaning as he does so. The noise changes something inside you, and makes you realise that you need him stripped of his clothes right this second.

You grasp the bottom of his shirt and he briefly pulls away from you to allow you to move it, but the second you're done, his lips are back on your skin, leaving marks on your collarbone and neck. Next, you move onto the buckle of his belt but he swats your hand away.

Pulling back from the kiss, you look to him with wide eyes full of confusion. That look alone is nearly enough to cause him to fold and fuck you right then and there. But he has other plans.

"Be patient for me, honey," he says sweetly, and as badly as you want him, you trust him.

He pulls your body flush to his, so that your breasts are pressed entirely against the heat of his chest. Then he grips your lower back and stands up, holding you tightly.

"We can't do this here," he says, carrying you towards the stairs. You grind up against him playfully as he does so and he stops momentarily half way up the stairs, clearly affected by the action. In retaliation he gently swats your ass and you giggle at his response.

"Shh," he hushes, but he can't hide the grin that spreads across his face as you bury your face in his shoulder to muffle the sound.

Being as quiet as possible, he takes you into his bedroom which - awkwardly - is across the hall from your parents' room.

He puts you down on the bed, barely allowing himself to be away from you for a second, climbing on top of you hastily. He goes back to kissing you, the taste of him intoxicating. The way he kisses are gentle yet so hot and passionate at the same time, becoming increasingly sloppy as they shift from your lips to your jaw, neck, chest, abdomen, until you're a writhing mess beneath him.

Once he has kissed so far that he reaches the waist line of your trousers, he unbuttons them and pulls them all the way down. He throws them onto the floor, leaving you just in your lace black panties. He nudges your legs open and moves his kisses to your thigh. He's slowly breaking you and you're not sure how much more you can take. Painstakingly slow, he trails his tongue up your inner thigh until he reaches the edge of your panties.

Eventually he slips your panties off and you tremble as you feel the cool air of his room against your hot, aching core. He places his hands on your inner thighs to push them open further, mouth watering at the sight of you. The delicate touch of his fingers send shivers up your spine and you're in desperate need of more.

"Please, Negan," you say, barely a croak.

"Shh, let me take care of you," he soothes, his voice low and gravelly as he tries his best to stay quiet. "Wanted to taste this sweet pussy for so long."

As if to affirm his words, he lowers his head and licks a stripe straight through your folds, groaning as he feels how wet you are.

He then moves his mouth to make contact with your clit, your hips raising at the action. He starts off by sucking gently, leaving you aching for more as you reach down to grab his hair, not knowing what else to do. He chuckles as you do so and sends vibrations straight through your core. Unable to control yourself, a moan escapes you lips and he squeezes your thighs warningly, wordlessly telling you to be quiet.

He takes his time to precisely pull you apart, but then his motions begins to get harsher, faster. You feel that rising feeling in the pit of your stomach begin to spread after waiting for what feels like so long. He alternates between kissing, sucking, licking, nipping until you're desperate for more. Sensing this, he teases one finger at your entrance.

"Please," you whimper, legs trembling. He answers your pleading by pushing his single digit inside you in one long push, as deep as he can go, and keeping it there momentarily. As he continues to eat you out, he begins moving his finger, fucking you gently. When he adds a second finger you have to clasp your hand over your own mouth to stop yourself from calling out his name. Your legs wrap around his head, wanting to pull him closer to you in any way possible.

Closing your eyes, you feel that white hot feeling flooding through your veins, but right as you're about to reach your peak, he pulls his fingers out and his mouth away from you.

You let out a guttural sound, one of desperation which causes Negan to laugh under his breath.

"Negan, God, please," you whine, putting both your hands on his head and pushing him back down.

"So bossy," he mumbles with a smile on his face, but he obliges.

He doesn't use his fingers on you again, but it makes no difference. You're already pent up enough as it is that it won't take a lot to make you reach your peak. Plus, you don't doubt that Negan's skillful mouth is more than enough for you.

He circles his tongue around your clit, going back to sucking while using his free fingers to absentmindedly trace little patterns into your thighs. The only noises are your heavy pants and the wetness of his mouth against you, and it fills the otherwise deadly silent bedroom.

He's starting to become more familiar with your body and your reactions and he can tell you're getting close again. To which he stops and pulls away yet again.

"Negan," you almost cry. Tears prick in the corners of your eyes as you throb for him. "Please, I need to-"

"I got you baby," he assures you, stroking the flesh of your thighs comfortingly.

You can't bare it. You almost despise him for doing this to you, but you can't. It's all so surreal: having this man between your thighs. So often you have fantasized of it and though it's so wrong, it's now happening.

Before you can beg again, his lips make contact with you. This time he's a man on a mission. His tongue flicks against your clit as two of his fingers slip back inside you. You're so wet that it's an easy motion, but you still feel the tight, delicious stretch. He allows you to get used to it, building you up until he adds a third finger and you have to use all your power not to yell out his name. You try your hardest not to hurt Negan by squeezing your thighs too much or pulling his hair too hard, but he loves it. He loves driving you crazy, seeing you unwind for him. The noises you make. The taste of you.

Relentlessly, he penetrates you with his fingers, pushing and curling his fingers deep inside you, hitting a spot that eventually brings you your release. One last push, one last flick of his tongue and you're falling over the edge. You squeeze your eyes shut and you can't help the animalistic sound that leaves you as white flashes behind your eyelids. He continues eating you out through your orgasm and it hits you that you think you're doing something you never have before.

Once you manage to come around again, you let your legs relax and look down to Negan who looks up at you. He smiles smugly, your wetness remaining in his beard and it causes you to go weak in the knees.

"Did I just-?" Squirt, you want to say. But somehow it doesn't seem like the nicest word to describe what just happened between of the two.

He nods with a glimmer in his eyes as he makes his way up the bed, his body above yours.

"I've never-" you croak. "I've never done that before."

"You just needed a man, that's all," he gloats and you roll your eyes. "It was hot as fuck, for what it's worth."

He leans down and places a soft kiss on your lips. You can taste yourself on him.

You're still shaking a little, but you manage to pull back a little to look him in his eyes.

"Are we really doing this?" You ask, bordering on timid.

"Do you want to?" He counters.

"Yes," you say, quickly, not wanting him to think you're having doubts. Because there is absolutely no doubt in your mind that you want the man above him. Hell, you need him. But somehow you find yourself feeling a little insecure and needing reassurance. "Do you?"

"Darling," he laughs. "Not to be crude, but you just came all over my face. I want this more than you know."

You nod and smile, feeling more confident. "I'm sorry, I just-"

He interrupts your babbling with a long kiss to your lips, silencing you.

"You need to worry less," he says, bringing his hand to stroke your cheek sweetly.

"Make me." You propose flirtingly, smiling up at him.

"That I can do." His lips crash down on yours and his tongue intertwines with yours.

Reaching down to his pants you fumble with his zip, which he helps your shaky hands undo. He shifts both his pants and boxers down off his ankles, and though you can't see his length fully from this angle, you can feel its hardness press against your lower stomach and he feels big.

"You ready, baby?" He raises his brow at you as he grips his member and teases it through your folds.

"Yes, please Negan," you pant, even after having the best orgasm of your life, you still need more. "Need you inside me."

He groans as he slips inside of you and the way you practically beg for him drives him crazy.

"So fucking tight, holy shit," he mumbles into your ear, his head dropping down to bite and suck on the crook of your neck. "Oh, baby, fuck."

Hearing him say such obscene things affects you in an indescribable way. His voice has always been massively attractive to you, but now...you're done for. The deep rumble, smooth like honey, even lower in an attempt to remain quiet to your family in the surrounding bedrooms. It's like dark magic. It has you hooked. He could say the right thing to you with that voice and you'd cum right there and then.

His movements are slow, savoring the sensation of you around him. He wants to take his time with you. He never wants it to be over.

Instinctively, you wrap your legs around his back and lift your hips up wanting more from you. He maintains his pace, but does start pushing deeper inside you like you wanted.

"I've wanted you for so long," you say, not even in control of your words anymore. It's like he's fucking them right out of you. He moans into your neck at your admission and starts thrusting a little faster, as if in response to your statement.

"Do you know-" he stops speaking for a moment to breathe and compose himself, clearly enjoying this as much as you, "how often I get myself off thinking about you?" He punctuates his point with a particularly hard thrust and that - in combination with the idea of him masturbating to the thought of you - causes you to cry out. You thought he would shush you, but he seems too far gone at this point.

"A fucking pretty little thing like you," he says, his hands groping at your tits, his touch rougher than before, "it'd be hard not to."

"Oh god," you whimper. "Harder, please."

His movements get harsher gradually, following your command and getting you closer and closer every second.

He lifts his head up and the way he looks at you makes your insides collapse. To be the sole object of his attention. How he looks at you like you're all that ever mattered.

"I'm so close, Negan," you tell him.

"Taking me so fucking well, darling," he praises, reaching one hand down to lazily play with your clit. That's all it takes and he can feel it coming as you begin to squeeze around him. He takes your lips in a long, sensual kiss as you climax, trying to muffle your moans as he fucks you through your orgasm. Your hands are wrapped around his back, squeezing into his shoulders as you try your hardest to be quiet. Pure pleasure surges through your veins as he presses his entire body weight into you: suffocating in the most beautiful way possible.

Gradually, Negan's movements come to a halt and he stops moving inside you briefly, letting go of you come down from your high.

"You're gonna be the fucking death of me," he declares and before you can reply, he suddenly starts moving inside you again, faster than the last time, placing a quick peck on the tip of your nose as he does so.

He soon reaches a pace much faster than before and you're rendered speechless.

Your attention is grabbed, however, by the open and shut of a door somewhere. You gasp and your eyes widen at the sound. The possibilities of who it could be and if they'd heard you start to race through your mind but your thoughts are cut off when Negan clasps a hand firmly over your mouth to keep you quiet. He presses you further into the mattress as he fucks you even harder than before, enjoying tormenting you.

You listen closely to the footsteps. They're quite loud - that of a man - probably your dad or uncle. The pitter patter grows closer and your heard races, both from the fear of getting caught and from the sensation of Negan deep inside you. Hitting places you're sure no other man ever has or ever could. You relax a little as you hear the footsteps pass Negan's bedroom and head into the shared bathroom, the door closing afterwards.

Negan takes his hand off your mouth and you gasp for air.

"Oh my god, please don't stop," you beg as he sets a pace and sticks with it, snaking his slender fingers back down to your clit and circling it gently.

"I don't plan on," he chimes. "You're taking me so well."

You've never felt anything like this. Your entire body is numb and slick with sweat. All you can do is grab onto his hair and try your best to lift your hips to meet his thrusts.

To help you out, he grabs your body and switches positions slightly. He lifts himself up then clutches your thighs, lifting them onto his shoulders. Then his hands grip onto your hips and he has access to you in a way that allows him to go much deeper. You know you can't take much more. You're close to crying just from how much you want to scream his name.

Your eyes keep fluttering shut but you force them opening, wanting to keep them on the man doing this to you. His tousled hair, his flexed biceps, his tattooed chest.

"Harder, please," you whisper. "I'm nearly there."

Thrusting harder, he also adds his fingers back to your clit, rubbing harshly. It's almost painful on your sensitive nerves but it feels unreal and it's enough to build you up to near-ecstasy.

Your mouth hangs open but you refrain from making any noise. In one unexpected motion, he lands a slap to your clit and it sends your orgasm rushing.

"Good girl, that's it," he guides you through as your body starts to spasm.

He continually pounds into you and turns his head to the side to place soft kisses to your inner thigh, contrasting the way he now ruthlessly moves inside of you.

You contract around him as you cum and you can tell he is trying his hardest to hold on as he visibly hesitates, not knowing where to release.

"Cum inside me, Negan," you give permission. "Want it so bad."

Those words were all he needed as he spills inside you, the warm liquid filling you.

Gradually, his movements slow down as he fucks you through the both of your orgasms, fucking his cum deeper inside you, and then pulls out and collapses next to you.

You rest your head on his shoulder and to your surprise, he pulls you closer to him, placing a kiss to your forehead.

"Holy shit," you giggle, the whole situation setting in.

Negan's about to speak but his sentence stops forming when the bathroom door opens and closes again. You'd completely forgot about that.

The two of you exchange a glance as you wait for the footsteps to disappear down the hallway. Once they're gone, you relax back into his embrace.

Absentmindedly, you place your hand on Negan's warm chest, tracing the ink of his tattoos. Its surprisingly comforting having him this close, to be held by him. You're entranced by the smell of his cologne and the way his chest heaves up and down, catching his breath. He smiles as he watches you, equally as entranced by you. He can't quite believe that the daydreams he thought were exactly that - daydreams - have come to life.

"We'll have to do this again," he grins coyly, "some place where you can scream my name as loud as you need to." His hands run over your body, cupping your breasts as if to appreciate as much of you as possible.

"I'd like that," you smile back, snuggling into his arms. You know you can't stay here all night, but you'll appreciate it for as long as possible.

#negan fic #negan x reader #negan twd #negan smut #negan smith #the walking dead fanfiction #jeffrey dean morgan smut #jeffrey dean morgan #negan smith smut

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tin-wufborf · 4 months ago

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Tin's Favorite Sterek Fics (Part 14)

Hello, and welcome back to Tin's Favorite Sterek Fics! I truly cannot believe we've reached part 14 of this series, but I have had a lot of fun along the way and am so happy to be able to share all of these wonderful fics with you all!

As ever and always, thank you all so much for your continued support of this series. It continues to blow me away how many of you have liked and shared the previous parts. We'll probably be coming to the end of this series in the relatively near future, but I'm thinking of maybe doing some themed rec lists if anyone would be interested in that? Idk, we'll have to see how I feel when this series is all said and done.

Okay, that's all from me today. I hope you all have as good a day as you can, if not a great one. Oh, and don't forget about that Bad Friend Scott McCall warning.

Smoochies and squeezies!

List and links to previous/next part(s) below the cut.

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DISCLAIMER: This is me warning you all that some of the fics I've included in this list may cover explicit, dark, and/or "taboo" subject matters. I cannot express enough how little I care what anyone thinks about any of that; all I want is for you to use caution when reading anything I've listed here and to please review and heed whatever tags the authors have provided in order to keep yourselves safe. Your experience from this point on is your own responsibility, not mine and not the authors'.

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Consigliere by neil4god (NR | 5/5 | 7,042)

It's been years since Danny left Beacon Hills behind and everything that happened in it. He moved on, joined the FBI and forgot all about his junior year of High School. At least he tried, but with Stiles Stilinksi leering at him from the FBI's most wanted board, well that makes it kinda hard to forget, and now they want to know all about it. They want him to talk to Stiles, worse still, they want him to wear a wire while he does it.

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Stilinski Orphanage by pineneedlepants (M | 1/1 | 10,514)

Throughout the short months Derek has been spending at the Stilinski Orphanage, he's come to a few conclusions. One, for the Stilinski's, bullying is a zero tolerance thing. There are hundreds of kids staying under their roof and they want things to be peaceful.

Of course, with that many children in one place, with different backgrounds and ethnicities, not everyone follows this rule. The thing is that because the Stilinski Orphanage is actually very popular and well respected, kids circle in and out in a decently fast cycle. Enforcing the strict no bullying rule isn't always as effective, and so sometimes, these bullies get called to the headmaster's office and then transferred to another orphanage, in a place that's far, far away from Beacon Hills.

Except Derek knows better.

He's pretty sure the Stilinskis eat the 'transferred' bullies. Not that he really cares.

-- Happy Early Halloween!

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Snow Flirting by thepsychicclam (M | 1/1 | 11,396)

As Beacon Hills get pounded with foot after foot of snow, single dad Stiles can't quite keep up with his four year old, his job, and shoveling his driveway. Derek makes his teenage son shovel Stiles' walk, and that just leads to Derek helping Stiles out with a whole bunch of other tasks. That's okay with Derek, though, cause any chance to be with Stiles is okay with him.

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stop, drop, and roll by thepsychicclam (M | 1/1 | 12,237)

Stiles knows he's in trouble when he invites the Beacon Hills Fire Department into his third grade classroom and he can't stop staring at a certain scruffy fireman. But after the third graders take a field trip to the fire station and participate in the fire department's holiday canned food drive, Stiles can't ignore his crush any longer.

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Would You Like to Make a Deal? by the_sporadic_writer (NR | 4/4 | 14,180)

Stiles never meant for everything to spin this far out of his control, never thought it would turn out this bad. Never thought that he would enjoy playing as the resident human and enjoy spending time with a pack of wolves. Never expected to get tangled up with Derek Hale of all people, and never thought that he would have enjoyed their time together.

OR, the story where Stiles is a demon and got more than he bargained for when his boredom got the better of him.

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A Tiny Bit of String by bunnymaccool (T | 1/1 | 14,382)

The pulling of a single bit of string can sometimes, perhaps, unravel the entire piece of knitting.

Sometimes the universe decides it has taken too much... and chooses to give back.

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little boy lost by crazyassmurdererwall (smartalli), smartalli (T | 1/1 | 14,862)

If someone asked Stiles to write a parenting book, Stiles would say the best and most important rule is to love your kid. Just love the hell out of them, and make sure they know it.

The second most important rule would be don’t turn your back on a curious three year old with supernatural speed.

Stiles is currently failing at the second rule. Badly.

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Claudia's Puntastic Life series by JoMouse (6 works | G | 15,410)

1. Holy Guacamole (G | 1/1 | 4,278) Derek runs into an old friend on Halloween. Inspired by that scene of Derek with the kids on Halloween - you know that one. 2. Kiss You Instead (G | 1/1 | 3,712) Derek has been invited to join Stiles and his pun-loving daughter, Claudia, for Christmas cookies and present wrapping. 3. The Happy Couple (G | 1/1 | 2,492) Derek and Claudia decide to surprise Stiles with breakfast in bed, but that's not the only surprise in the works. Day 2 of Sterek Valentine Week 2020. Theme: Breakfast in Bed. 4. It's Lit (G | 1/1 | 2,550) Claudia is scared of fireworks; Derek tries to help out. 5. Full Moon Ficlet #140 - Stir (G | 1/1 | 704) Stiles comes home to a flour-coated kitchen. 6. Spring has Sprung! (G | 1/1 | 1,674) It's Spring and Derek is thinking about the future.

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Keep It Together by ravingrevolution (T | 1/1 | 23,129)

“What if I guess what you are?” Derek asked.

Stiles sighed. “Why do you even think there’s something to guess?”

Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re taking a cold bath and showing no signs of being chilled. A normal human would be shivering by now and your body temperature hasn’t dropped at all.”

Which, okay, fair point.

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Start Small, Like Oak Trees by SmallBirds (M | 1/1 | 24,237)

The months following Allison's death have passed Stiles by in a haze of monotony. He sleepwalks through days that seem to lose their color, an unwilling passenger in a body he no longer trusts. Eventually, he thinks, he'll just fade away. He isn't sure anyone would notice. Then, during a spur of the moment grocery run, he stumbles upon Derek Hale attempting to console a lost child, and for the first time in recent memory the world doesn't seem so awful. He's not sure what he'd been expecting when he eventually convinces Derek to move into the Stilinski's spare bedroom, but a newfound passion for weeding and topsoil certainly isn't it.

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I found you hidden in plain sight (why'd I take so long?) by Gorgeousgreymatter (E | 7/7 | 25,419)

Stiles is pretty sure he��s hallucinating. He’s got to be. There’s no other plausible explanation, he thinks, as he sits on the sidelines of the lacrosse field and feels the cold, hard bench underneath him, the roar of the crowd at his back like the worst white noise machine in the world.

There’s no other reason why he sees it, the hulking, black figure of a wolf peering at him from the treeline behind the bleachers. Its eyes flare in the glaring glow of the stadium lights, but they’re the wrong color, he thinks: blood-moon red instead of cobalt blue, but the familiarity of it all makes his stomach roll and clench.

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Between Dogs and Wolves by artemis69 (T | 1/1 | 25,934)

"This is…not four million in cash,” remarks Stilinski.

“Isaac. Did you fail to get my money back and decided to pick up a stripper on the road to bribe me? Because let me make this perfectly clear: this would totally work. Well done.”

The mafia!AU where the Hales owe four million to the Stilinskis, Laura rents Derek (but not as a stripper), Stiles gets a new favorite, Derek gets a new boss, a new puppy and a new family.

Sometimes they break people, but mainly, they just snark at each other.

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I've Lived A Better Day by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere (NR | 18/18 | 32,819)

When Stiles comes across a rogue Alpha during his first year at Berkeley, the ensuing fight doesn't exactly go his way. He calls an unlikely ally to help him with his transition, and finds out his new pack isn't quite who he might have thought it would be.

Stiles is now left with the task of trying to figure out how his old life will fit in with his new, but that is not without its challenges.

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It's A-Boat Time! by Fae_vorite, isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella) (T | 1/1 | 33,681)

He could hear the others talking outside, Scott and Isaac freaking out over something and Stiles snapping at them to shut up and help him get inside.

“Dude, how the fuck can you expect me to stay calm right now! Seriously, that’s a fucking tail!”

“We can talk about it later, just get me inside before someone fucking sees me! I don’t want to end up in a fucking aquarium!”

“Christ, you’re heavy!” Isaac grunted. “How much does this thing weigh?!”

“Shut up and walk,” Stiles snapped.

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Blindsided by AClosedFicIsNeverRead (E | 16/16 | 39,664)

Derek exhaled tremulously and tried to stay calm. He called several more times, growing steadily more frantic each time, before allowing the truth to settle in: Stiles’ phone was off. “No. No, no, no, please, no,” Derek whispered to himself, barely able to see the screen through his tearful eyes. What had he done? Had he been so blinded by rage that he dismissed Stiles' call for help?

- OR -

Fuming over Scott's betrayal, the Alpha is out of his mind with anger. When he receives a call from Stiles in that incredibly inopportune moment, he does not even let the teen speak - just screams at him, blames him for everything, and hangs up. But then Erica and Boyd show up, frantically insisting that Stiles is out there somewhere, likely hanging onto life by a thread after being tortured for hours... Will they be able to find Stiles before it's too late? And just how much of the Stiles they know will be left if they do manage to track him down?

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The More That I Know You (the more I want to) by LadySlytherin (M | 1/1 | 43,656)

When death, in the form of hunters, comes for a family of Kelpies seeking refuge in the Preserve - in Hale territory - the Hale Pack is too late to save them. Before he dies, the male Kelpie presses a precious bundle into Stiles’ arms and begs the Emissary to take responsibility for it, which an initially reluctant Stiles does. When he agreed, Stiles had no idea what the sight of him with a baby would do to his esteemed Alpha, Derek. If he’d known, he might not have been so reluctant to agree.

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let's get lost by hot_damn_louis (NR | 12/12 | 57,232)

Stiles was used to hiding things from those close to him. He hid his grief from his dad, his anger from Scott, and the deep sadness from everyone else. Somehow, he can't seem to hide anything from Derek, who is now acting more and more like a real person. Maybe even a friend. All Stiles wants is to feel normal, and Derek seems to be the most normal thing in his life.

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Intention by AlliDee12, ReadablePlot (E | 14/14 | 125,612)

The idea of making things better clings to Stiles: He needs to undo even a fraction of what he did, stop it from happening again, make something around him better in a way he can't for himself.

And things do get better, for all of five minutes.

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A Teenage Love Song by HaleHathNoFury (My_Trex_has_fleas) (E | 26/26 | 155,834)

Stiles is sick and tired of how much he fucks up. His dad is disappointed, his step-mom judges and his step-brother can do no wrong. It's not that he doesn't love them, he just gets so tired of being different. Now he's being moved lock, stock and barrel to Beacon Hills aka the town his mom grew up in so they can go live in his grandma's house and his father can get him back on the straight and narrow.

It's going to suck.

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You're stronger than you know by Littleredridinghunter (NR | 15/15 | 234,195)

Set at the end of season 2, Stiles survives his encounter with Gerard and his goons, but it isn't easy.

The pack are letting him down again, his dad is not speaking to him, his life is just generally falling apart.

Until he has to get a bronze dagger to kill a siren and his whole world gets flipped on it's head!

My summaries are rubbish but I hope you'll still give it a chance!

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

#teen wolf #sterek #derek hale #stiles stilinski #sterek fic rec list #sterek fic rec #fic rec list #rec list #fic rec #tin's rec lists

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libraryofgage · 7 months ago

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Life in Miniature (Two)

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually

So, I'm not dead, despite any suspicions otherwise lmao; life just got a little wild and I needed a tiny break from writing, but hopefully I'll be back! We'll see! I'm literally on my knees begging my brain so maybe it'll stick lmao

Anyway, this part was line-jumped on Ko-Fi! If you want to line jump your favorite series, you can learn more here

Also also! I actually commissioned a wonderful friend of mine (@gamanyne) to draw Emperor Steve! She also did my current header and icon, so you know her art is fucking peak. Anyway, it'll be attached at the bottom of the fic so have fun getting there

And, as always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;)

----

"Heard the guard mention you've got some new blood in your display, Ocky."

Octavius glanced over as Jedediah sauntered through the hidden tunnel that connects their displays. It had been built during their admittedly embarrassing courtship, a gift from that time's night guard.

He'd been waiting for exactly this moment, and some of his nervous energy drained when Jedediah stood close enough for their shoulders to brush. He turned to face Jedediah, staying close so he can keep his voice quiet. "Yes, a new battalion and..."

"And?"

"A young emperor."

Jedediah whistled lowly, eyebrows rising as he looked over Octavius's shoulder at the buildings across the display. It was all pillars and domes and aged marble, but newly added splashes of color could be spotted here and there. "He a brat?" Jedediah asked.

"He is my sovereign!"

"Yeah, sure," Jedediah said, shrugging as he met Octavius's eyes, "but is he a brat?"

Octavius felt indignation rise in his chest but quickly subdued it. He knew Jedediah meant well. And then he saw the smirk on Jedediah's face. "Lover or not, I can not tolerate insults to the emperor," he said.

Jedediah hummed and held his hands up in surrender. "Still ain't answered my question, Ocky."

"I don't know!" Octavius finally exclaimed, looking away when Jedediah blinked at his outburst. "Admittedly, I was more focused on seeing you than meeting him."

"Gee, almost sounds like you've got a crush on me, Ocky. That's kinda embarrassing, don't you think?"

"We have done things that would make satyrs blush, Jedediah. Are we not past embarrassment?"

"Still embarrassing," Jedediah said, grinning wider when Octavius finally looked back at him. "Don't worry, Ocky. He's just a kid. You've got nothing to worry about."

"Child emperors do not have the most...positive reputation," Octavius said. He frowned, looking away as Jedediah glanced over his shoulder again. "Many are spoiled and unaware of how politics should be conducted."

"Ocky...," Jedediah whispered, reaching out to tug on Octavius's cape.

Octavius smiled, appreciating the comforting gesture. "Short tempers are also common, and I worry about any palace staff that anger him. They are just as likely to have their head cut off as they are to walk away."

"Uh, Ocky," Jedediah said, tugging on the cape again.

"And perhaps I am getting ahead of myself, but I don't look forward to measures that may need to be taken if my soldiers are terrorized by a, well, as you put it, love, a brat."

"Ocky!" Jedediah shouted, grabbing Octavius's shoulders and spinning him around.

"Ah," Octavius said, a cold sweat covering him at the sight of the young emperor staring at them. Strands of brown hair fell over the golden laurels at his temples to curl around equally brown eyes. He's taller than Octavius expected, nearly reaching his own height, and older, too. He was, perhaps, around 20, meaning he had several years' experience as emperor.

Above all, though, Octavius managed to see the brief flash of...insecurity? Perhaps it was self-directed disappointment and acceptance? Whatever it was, it vanished the next moment as the young emperor pressed his lips into a thin line, rolled his shoulders back, and said, "General Octavius."

Hearing the young emperor's voice finally freed Octavius from his frozen shock. He cleared his throat, placed a fist over his heart, and bowed to the emperor. "Your Majesty," he said, "What can I do for you?"

"You can raise your head," the young emperor said. When Octavius did, he saw tensed shoulders, and he was briefly overcome by the thought that someone so young should not, in fact, look as if they carry the weight of the world. "I intended to have you introduce me to the soldiers, but I see that you're busy."

Octavius cleared his throat and stepped aside so Jedediah was easier to see. He then placed a hand on Jedediah's shoulder and said, "My liege, this is Jedediah, Cowboy King of the Wild West, and my close companion."

"Woah, woah, cowboy king?" Jedediah whispered, glancing at Octavius like he might be crazy.

"Ah, I see," the young emperor replied, nodding respectfully to Jedediah. ""I am Servius Tullius, Sixth King of Rome, son of Vulcan, weapons master of the gods. I look forward to making your acquaintance at a later date."

"Uh, yeah, acquaintance making and stuff," Jedediah said, nodding back with a strained smile. "I'll be sure to pencil ya in."

"Yes, well," the young emperor replied, his jaw ticking slightly like he wanted to say something but held himself back. "Until then."

Octavius watched as he turned on his heel and walked back to the palace. It wasn't until the emperor was halfway there that Jedediah leaned closer and asked, "He seem a little off to you?"

"Yes, a little."

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

Steve glances at Eddie, both to make sure he isn't about to fall off Rexy and just because he wants to. Eddie's hair is a little frizzy and his cheeks are flushed, but Steve assumes that's just from performing in front of such a large crowd earlier.

"So, you are a performer," he says as Rexy makes his way to the stairs. "Who did you apprentice under?"

"I didn't," Eddie replies, frowning slightly. "I mean, I just taught myself. Like, with YouTube and stuff."

"Oh! Yes, YouTube, I have seen many cat videos with Robin. I was unaware there were other kinds of videos available."

Eddie snorts, and Steve thinks it's a surprisingly endearing sound. "Yeah, definitely more than cat videos, Stevie," he says, drumming his fingers along Rexy's skull before asking, "So, uh, you're an emperor...does that mean there's an empress?"

"No," Steve says, glancing away and returning Attila the Hun's wave when they pass him. "I should have, but it just never happened."

"Why not? Is it okay to ask?"

"I don't mind. It was naive and bullheaded of me, but I wanted an empress I actually liked."

"Nothing wrong with wanting love, sweetheart," Eddie says, bumping their shoulders together.

"I agree."

Silence settles over them, and Steve wonders if feeling this awkward is normal. He's never had a problem keeping a conversation going with Robin, and his fathers are plenty good at bantering. But here, he's not sure how to proceed. Robin once told him that he can come off as arrogant, someone others don't want to be around, and he's trying to not do that with Eddie.

He thinks Eddie is handsome. If Steve could only convince him, he's sure a chest-plate and shield would make Eddie look particularly dashing. Steve also likes the way Eddie looks at him. It's not quite the devotion he's seen from people under his rule; Eddie's gaze is far more heated than that, making Steve's skin prickle wherever it lands.

"Hey," Eddie says, pulling Steve out of his thoughts, "how's all this coming to life stuff really work? It's not actually that tablet thing, right?"

"It is," Steve replies, nodding once. "Ahkmenrah's tablet was a gift from his parents, who wanted their family to stay together even in death. It harnesses the power of noble Luna and the stars that surround her to breathe life into everyone here. Without his presence, you and I wouldn't be talking right now."

"That's....kind of crazy," Eddie says, trying to wrap his brain around it. "I mean, magic?"

"How else might we be alive right now? According to Robin, you and I are but plastic, perhaps wax or wood depending on our manufacturer."

"But I don't feel like plastic or whatever," Eddie replies, poking at his own arm before poking at Steve's as well. "Neither do you. You feel, like, warm and alive."

"Yes, because of the tablet's magic. Would you like to see it? Ahkmenrah is very understanding of new exhibits that wish to look upon it."

Eddie looks like he's about to nod when he suddenly stops and tilts his head. Steve looks in the direction his gaze has gone and smiles when he sees the temporary exhibit about the history of party fashion. It's only in the museum for a few more days, and the people inside have been partying even harder in the face of their fleeting mortality.

Steve assumes Eddie's attention was attracted by the music, so he looks back and asks, "Would you like to join them?"

"Aren't we, uh, a little small for that?" Eddie asks.

Steve grins as he knocks on Rexy's skull twice. The dinosaur comes to a sliding halt outside the exhibit and lowers its head until its jaw is touching the ground. "Do you trust me?" Steve asks, standing and offering his hand to Eddie.

"Uh, yeah, I think," he says, taking Steve's hand.

His grin widening, Steve tugs Eddie to his feet and then leads him carefully down Rexy's skull. When they reach its snout, they're still a few feet off the ground. "Please don't say I have to make that jump," Eddie says, frowning at the distance.

"Don't worry," Steve says, letting go of Eddie's hand in favor of simply picking him up instead. "You're not the one jumping."

Eddie's eyes are wide as he clings to Steve's neck, glancing between the floor and Steve like he might be insane. Steve flashes a bright, reassuring smile before walking to the edge of Rexy's snout and simply jumping down.

"Holy shit!" Eddie shouts, holding onto Steve tighter and flinching when he feels the jolt of Steve landing. "You're crazy. How are your legs not broken?"

"I am the son of a god," Steve says, carefully placing Eddie on his feet once more. "A mere jump wouldn't harm me."

Eddie is quiet for a few moments, his face red as he looks at the entrance to the exhibit. He takes a deep breath, nods once, and says, "Man, they'd better have tequila in there."

----------

Tag List (if you'd like to be added, please let me know!)

@itsall-taken, @acaademicqueer, @mx-jinxous, @y4r3luv, @daydreaming-mood, @just-a-tiny-void, @villainousalair,

So, as promised, here is the art I commissioned from my wonderful friend @gamanyne of Steve in his Roman outfit!

#steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve deserves good parents actually #life in miniature #night at the museum #jedtavius #natm jedediah #natm octavius #my writing #the way i've stared at the art for literal hours tho hfdjks #it's just so good #i wanna cry lmao

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winchester-girl67 · 11 months ago

Text

Wild Hearts (Part 4) - Postcards From Dean

Summary: Postcards from Dean to Y/N; sent over the years they were apart.

Masterlist

Pairing: AU!Dean x reader

Square: Postcards @j3bingo

Word Count: 743

Warnings: underage, age gap (reader is 16-22, Dean is 20-26), language, slow burn, long distance relationship of sorts, pining, maybe a little angst, time jumps, fluff

A/N: This part was written for @j3bingo go as a collection of AU postcards from Dean to Y/N.

_____

A few of your favourite postcards from Dean - from the six years you were apart.

___________________________________

Hey Y/N,

What do you write on a postcard?

Dean

P.S. I picked up a stack of these at a rest stop on the way to Sioux Falls and I thought you'd like some old school snail-mail. I'm aware that your parents and the mailman will probably read this too, so... I'm sorry I got your daughter into trouble and now she has- what, ten hours of community service left? But, she's kind of a badass and saved my life so don't go too hard on her.

P.P.S. And to the mailman: Not cool, dude.

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

Sam told me to start these with 'Dear' instead of 'Hey', I kind of like the way it sounds so I let him be right for once. Bobby and Jody are pretty cool, they won't even let me pay rent so we can save more money. We'll have a place of our own in no time now.

xo Dean

P.S. I hope the 'x' is okay, if not I blame Sam. If so, it was all my idea. You can't tell but I just winked at you.

P.P.S. It's my birthday and Jody made me a cherry pie! It was so good, I had every intention of saving you a piece but now I'll just have to learn how to make one for you instead. Can't wait for your phone call tonight so I can tell you all about it.

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

It took a little longer than I thought but we just moved into our own apartment! It's closer to Sam's college but we can still visit Bobby and Jody with a short car ride.

xo Dean

P.S. Think you'll come visit me on your gap year?

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

It snowed today! And I'm making pasta tonight. You can drool over it via video chat later. I wish we were in the same time zone so you could ring in the new year with me too.

I’m missing you a lot lately, xo Dean

P.S. I'm sending you a big fat kiss. You can put it where you want it. X

P.P.S. To the mailman: Get your mind out of the gutter. She's a lady!

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

I'm seriously craving Donna's mocha ice cream right now. I think it would go great with Jody’s cherry pie recipe. Don't knock it till you try it!

xo Dean

P.S. Sam hasn't stopped playing that playlist you made him for studying. I swear you have the worst taste in music. I'm going to make you a playlist tonight.

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

I think I like the mountains on this postcard best, we should take a roadtrip there together, maybe next Valentine’s day?

x Dean

P.S. I don't like airplanes.

P.P.S. But I'm going to take you to all the places on these postcards some day.

P.P.P.S. I hope you're still pinning these postcards to your wall so you can hold them over my head some day.

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

I'm sorry.

xx Dean

P.S. If I could have one superpower it would be the ability to control the weather.

P.P.S. Getting snowed in would be a lot more fun WITH you.

P.P.P.S. Maybe my superpower should’ve been teleportation! Damn it, is it too late to change my answer?

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

I just dropped Sam off for his first year of law school. I feel old. Luckily, he got another scholarship though, so I don't have to worry about paying his tuition. Kid's a major nerd.

x Dean

P.S. I'm actually in California! The salt air here makes me think of home, of you. You feel so far away right now. I'm not even looking at the same ocean. That sucks.

P.P.S. We haven't talked in a while and I know that's mostly my fault, but I wanted to give you a heads up. I'm coming home... Soon.

___________________________________

Dear Y/N,

Did you notice there's no stamp?

Always yours,

xoxo Dean

P.S. I was going to tell you to meet me where I first kissed you but that's a hell of a walk. So meet me under our streetlamp. The one where you put ice cream on my nose the first night we met.

P.P.S. I hope you come, I can't wait to see you. But I understand and no hard feelings if you don't.

_________________________

Part 5

_________________________ Dean: @akshi8278 @laycblack @thoughts-and-funnies @mrsjenniferwinchester @crustycheeks @kazsrm67 @sexyvixen7 @lyarr24 @suckitands33 @eliwinchester99 @yvonneeeee @igotmajordaddyissues @djs8891 @leigh70 @globetrotter28 @backseat-of-deans-67chevy

SPN: @hobby27

Wild Hearts: @justrealizedimmascifygurl @evieluvsjamie @kimberkingrivers @vicmc624 @ladysparkles78

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i-spaced-sorry · 6 days ago

Text

First Snow

This fic is about a little tradition I started 2.5yrs ago when I moved here, I rode the train the first day we got snowfall and got to see how pretty it was from above. However in this fic, the tradition started when Y/N was a kid and follows when she grows up. So enjoy!

9yrs old

You awoke to someone shaking you, turning around you looked to see your brother Jay smiling at you.

"Huh?" You asked confused to why you were being woken up. It was the first day of Thanksgiving break and you were really hoping to sleep in for a least longer than you normally did.

"It's snowing" responded Jay excitedly. When you just stared back, he turned to another person in the room, which you could now see was Will. "Maybe she's still too young to do it"

That perked you up. "Do what?" You asked while you sat up in bed.

"Come on, get dressed, we'll show you"

20 minutes later you were dressed warm and were following your brothers in the snow along the familiar walk to the Orange Line trains.

You each swiped through and got on the next train going towards the Loop.

"Make sure she is on the side of the window, mom would kill me if anything happened to her" stated Will as he sat down in the seat behind where you and Jay were about to sit down.

"Where are we going? And why did we have to leave at 7am?" You pressed again when the train began moving.

Looking at each other, your brothers gave each other knowing looks, "look outside" stated Jay while pointing towards the window.

You turned your head and saw the prettiest sight ever. The snow fell diagonally to the ground below, that mixed with the sunrising, the sky was the prettiest thing you had ever seen.

"Wow" you gasped with your mouth gaping open in awe.

"Told you" smirked Will while also looking out the window.

You rode into the loop and transferred to the brown line, getting to see the pretty sky from a different direction of the city. "Look at the people with their umbrellas" you pointed out when the train passed a particularly exposed section of the sidewalk below.

"Pretty cool ya?" Asked Jay.

All you could do was nod.

As you exited the loop and began approaching Chicago and Franklin station, Will tapped yours and Jay's shoulders signalling to get off.

You found yourself in a diner called Griddle 24 where you sat in a booth across from your brothers.

As you ate breakfast, you perked up.

"Thank you for showing me this! But how did you know it was pretty up there?"

Taking a sip of his coffee, Will replied, "mom and dad used to take us when we were kids, so last year Jay and I thought you should get the tradition too"

15yrs old

"Jay!" You called when you enter the intelligence bullpen.

"Y/N" mock screamed Jay back, "why are you yelling?"

You walked up to his desk, tried to ignore the eyes on you from the other members when you stated, "it's supposed to snow tonight!"

"Ok?" Replied Jay.

You dropped your backpack and fell into the chair next to his desk. "Can we do the train thing tomorrow morning before I go to school and you come to work?" You asked while using your foot to half spin the chair side to side.

"Train thing?" Asked Adam from his spot in the bullpen.

Sighing Jay rolled his eyes, "it's this tradition my family does when it snows, and sure Y/N, if I don't have a pressing case that needs me to be in early then yes, we can do the train thing."

"Kid, I think Voight would be fine if you come in a little later, he loves the kid for crying out loud" stated Al from his corner.

"Yes!" You exclaimed.

"Now why don't you go into the break room and get any homework you have done."

The next morning, you woke up bright and early, threw on your warmest clothes and ran to the kitchen.

"You ready kid?" Asked Jay while pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Looking at the cup and back at your brother you glumly asked, "no Griddle 24 this year?"

Giving you an eyebrow raise, Jay stood confused, when it clicked he looked down at his cup and back at you, "oh, yea we still are going for breakfast, I just can't be fully awake without a cup of coffee like I used to."

The two of you still lived off the Orange Line since it made Jay's commute to the district easier. So the two of you got in the train headed to the loop and watched as the sky lit up with the beautiful sunrise and pretty falling snow clumps.

"I don't think I ever want this tradition to end" you stated while still looking out the window.

"I hear that" replied Jay while watching as the train made a particularly fun turn past Roosevelt station towards Harold Washington Library.

"We'll transfer at Harold to the brown line, we'll still get to see the falling snow but we'll be on the right train to get to Griddle 24."

You nodded absent mindedly.

22yrs old

You were finally at the age of college that you didn't have to live in on campus housing. Although that really didn't make a difference seeing as you had lived at home the past 2 years while going to school at UIC. But this year you had told your brothers about how you wanted to live with roommates your own age for a change. They supported it. So you found a nice room in the first floor of someone's house in Logan Square. You had 2 really nice roommates who didn't fully match your vibes but it worked enough that you didn't have many arguments.

The first hint of any snow fall that November got you pretty well excited! You texted Jay wondering if he was up to going for a little scenic tour of the city via the sky the following morning. However he just wished you the best, told you to go for it by yourself, and explained he was about to go undercover for a bit.

The next morning, you woke up bright and early, quickly changed and hopped on the bus heading towards a brown line.

You were so excited you couldn't hide your giddy as you already could see the snow falling from the bus windows.

You just knew the sight would be even more breathtaking when you were seated above.

And when you finally made on the train, you snapped a photo to commemorate the occasion and sat in awe while watching the sky fill up. Your ride was cut short seeing as since you lived off the brown line, your commute to Griddle 24 was only 3 stops away rather than what felt like a million when you lived along the Orange.

28yrs old.

Being a solo mom to a 7yr old, that you adopted with the help of your brothers and their friends being references, you awoke one morning to the announcement that schools were shut down to the inclement snow alert in the area. As you rolled over, you thought about how you could spend the day with your kid. When it hit you. You rushed out of bed, ran into your kids room and slowly woke them up telling them to quickly get dressed and that it was a suprise.

You had moved back to living along the Orange Line so that you would be closer to your brothers.

You and your daughter walked to the orange line, swiped through and you told her that she had to sit on the inside seat for the ride. The whole time she kept complaining about how she wanted to know what was going on and how she was big enough to be trusted with the contents of the surprise. You laughed to yourself wondering if you had sounded the same way way back when and made a mental reminder to ask Jay about it the next time you saw him.

"Just look out the window" you chuckled while running a hand through your daughters hair. She turned and looked on in awe as the sky lit up with beautiful colors and the prettiest clumps of snow falling.

Transferring to the Brown at Clark and Lake, you were excited to show your daughter your favorite long time diner spot.

And when your daughter asked you over breakfast about the morning, you felt your heart burst in memories and nostalgia. Snow really was the best part of living in the city and you couldn't thank your late parents more for starting a tradition way back before you were old enough to take part.

#jay halstead imagine #will halstead imagine #halstead sister x halstead brothers #halstead sister imagine #halstead sister #jay halstead #will halstead #one chicago x reader

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aleksa-sims · 1 year ago

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RL Simself Story ( 18+)

After I finally told N. that I was pregnant, I wanted to tell my Mom too. N. & I went down to the living room, to talk to her, but my Mom wasn’t in the house... The windows were open. I heard her talking to someone outside, so N. and I also went out into our backyard/garden. My Dad wasn't home. That’s the only reason Nico accompanied me. Otherwise he would have had to hide in my room. My Dad still didn't know about him and me. 😬

While trying to eavesdrop on the conversation between my Mom and that.... man who was there with her, Nico's Simself decided to.... water my mother’s plants. 😂🤣

Nico (to me): What's wrong?

Me: Be quiet!.... Damn it, that's-..... That's Daniel's Dad, hell!

Nico: Daniel's Dad!... Maybe D. came back?😒 ... What are you gonna do now, babe? 🤨 You wanna go back to him, ha?

Me: What?... Um... n-no. I-... I don’t think Daniel is here. I wonder a lot more what his Dad is doing here? And why is my Mom seeing his Dad alone?... Agh, I've had enough of this shit here!

Nico: Wait! Don’t go!

Me: But-........

Mom ( to D.'s Dad): You have no idea what you’re doing. I know how to deal with a drug addict kid, you know?

D.'s Dad: He trusts me now! Alex trusts me too. He'll help Daniel. I'm sure he can do it!

Mom: But you lost him again! You understand?... I don’t doubt Alex’s intentions, but Daniel is hooked. He's gonna drag Alex into all this.... sorry- shit, too. Don’t be stupid!... You’ve been gone for over 20 years. You can’t be his friend! You have to finally act like a parent and do the right thing for him. So let me help you! Trust me, please.

D.'s Dad: You’re right!. .... As soon as I find him again, I’ll take you to him. But he was here! He was in his apartment and planned to stay there.

Me: I know he came home.... He picked up his things. Why didn’t he stay? Why didn’t he wait for me? 😢

Mom: A.!? When did you get home? I thought you were-....

Me: You thought you were alone, right? 😠

D.'s Dad: I came here for you. Alex asked me to get you a message. Here, that's for you!.... Don’t worry, I didn’t read it.

Mom (to D.'s Dad): You-... you had this letter with you the whole time??.. Why didn't you read it??? Maybe Alex tries to tell her where Daniel is.

D.'s Dad: I thought the same! I asked him of course. He said it was about something else. And as for Daniel, Alex was with him when he was at your place. He told me that Daniel wanted to leave after a while. Alex tried to stop him. At first everything seemed ok. He was determined to stay and ready to talk to her. But something changed Daniel’s mind. He didn't want to tell Alex. He just wanted to get out there. So Alex went with him not to lose him again. He called me the same day and told me all this. He said, he'll stay with Daniel. Alex will get him back, I know that.

Me: But what did I do wrong? Why did he leave me? 😢

D.'s Dad: He never wanted to tell me. He meant, I didn’t understand him. No one would understand him. Daniel wasn’t well when I found him. He relapsed, just like... you. ... It was really bad .😞 Alex and I helped him. Some weeks later he seemed fine, but.... he took off again. I'm so sorry.... I think you have to be patient with him. I have the impression that he doesn’t want to give up your marriage or you.

Me: All he had to do was talk to me.... But he decided to run away, a second time!.... I think it's over. He doesn't want me. It’s easier for him to run away from me, than to finally confess what he did. I would never have done that to him! 😭

Mom (to D.'s Dad): Don't worry, I'll talk to her.... You should go now.

Dad: Yea.... And thanks for...... helping. 😕

Mom: Call me as soon as you know where he is! This time, I’ll come and talk to him.

Dad: Deal! So, we'll do! Alex’s gonna drop by my place anyway. I’ll get him to tell me where Daniel is.

Shit! I totally forgot about Nico.😞I was just hoping I didn’t say anything wrong or didn’t trigger his anger from back then. And what Alex’s wrote me, I’ll tell you soon. But he didn’t tell me where Daniel was. He only asked me to trust him and that Daniel was NOT with Irena! Because of that pic Irena posted. Nevertheless, my feeling was that Daniel didn’t love me the way I had hoped or wanted it. I mean, how can he do that to me, if he really loves me? He knew how sad & broken I was! Alex must have told him. And yet Daniel kept making me suffer. 😞Alex at least tried to tell me what was going on, but he couldn’t!!! Daniel was completely against it!

Previous/Next

#ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 story #cw addiction #myrlgameplay #rl story

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daddysfangirls-dc · 5 months ago

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UnTamed Ch.20 -Interlude

Prev | Next

Damian Wayne x OC!Female

It was as if Asta had forgotten how well Damian could read her. She stood simply unbothered as Tim talked about the gag gift he had gotten for Bruce, something to make fun of his age but still thoughtful enough to be considered a gift. On the surface, she appeared unbothered, laughing along with Tim about the gift, but Damian could see that she was anxious and saddened. He, however, didn't know why.

"It is a decent Gift, Tim"

"Decent? It's hilarious." Tim says as he continues to wrap the gift

"Your Gray Ghost memorabilia was more thoughtful."

"Jason's Idea. I just chipped in and wrapped it."

"We'll take our leave. I'll inform the other to stay out."

"Dont. Dick will come running in like a sneaky kid." Tim said," I'd rather not fend off a grown man like a toddler."

Asta laughed at that. Despite being the oldest, Dick often acted like the youngest of Bruce's kids. As endearing as it was, it was also annoying.

"You're anxious," Damian said as they stepped out of the library, leaving Tim. " Care to tell me why?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to project-"

"You aren't, but I can still see it on your face, body, and silences." He takes her hand in his, squeezing it gently." You're unwell."

"You all do a lot of gifts. I swear I counted two dozen under your tree already, and you plan to put more down there."

They strolled down the hall, stopping in front of a bay window. "Well, there are many of us and the things under the tree that aren't just random. Some of it is things we need, like new gear and weapons that we haven't gotten for ourselves yet. Also, Father likes to overcompensate for all his wrongdoings throughout the year. What is a gift if not to show how much one cares and pays attention? The perfect gift."

Damian smiles as he remembers his father standing at the door, trying to get all the packages before any of his children. And his secret trips to the stores. He'd be damn if the paparazzi spoiled his gifts.

"I don't have anything under your tree," he looked at her and continued, " I'm sorry." She pulled her hands away. " Maybe I should go. Allow your family to have your holiday without me burdening you."

"Asta"

"I can go to your apartment." Your apartment?

"Asta"

"Or one of the centers to help out. They always need extra hands."

"ASTA. I want you here. I want to spend Christmas with you. This will be our first Christmas together." He takes both her hands in his. "Please, stay?"

"DAMIAN"

Suddenly, her hands are gone, and so is she. All that remains is a pile of clothing and the faint buzzing that fades away.

"Hey, Damian," Dick says as he places a hand on his shoulder " Where did Asta go?"

"What do you want?"

Dick put his hands up in surrender at the sound of anger in his voice.

"Bruce wants us in the cave. Apparently, someone has something played for the holidays; nothing good, though."

Damian was semi-paying attention, but most of his thoughts were elsewhere, on Asta. The debriefing was long but nonsense. More activities were happening at the docks, including drug and weapons trafficking. Black Mask and Penguin were both involved, but to which and to what extent was still a debate. They were all to watch the dock and the crime lords.

"May I speak?" Damian spoke before anyone could leave; they all groaned but sat back down nonetheless. "I would like for us to tone down our celebration this year. Specifically, the gift giving."

"No presents, why?" Stephanie asked in dramatic shock.

"No, I just want it to be toned down. Decrease the amount of gifts. You can pass the off individual on a later day."

"Why?" Bruce asked, confused as the others.

"Asta," he says softly. " She has nothing to give-"

"Then take her shopping. I'm sure there is something she can get at the last minute. We don't care." Tim says, offering a solution to the question so he can leave.

" This is last minute. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. How did she not know?" Dick asked. The trees, bright lights, and Christmas carols

"She doesn't celebrate the holidays. This will be her first official Christmas."

"You've known her how long? And this is her first official Christmas. What have you been doing?"

"She doesn't like receiving gifts when she knows she can't give anything in return. I usually bring her a plate of food and blankets and spend the day after Christmas with her." Well, at least they solved the mystery of the day after Christmas with Damian and extra food with Alfred.

"I still don't see you. Just don't take her shopping," Tim says

"She won't take our money to buy us gifts. She won't." Jason Saw Tim opening his mouth again. " She has no money, no home, hell, the clothes currently on her back aren't even hers. She already feels like she owes us."

"She doesn't -"

"But she does. That's why she's constantly helping Alfred, always cleaning or tucking herself into the smallest corner or in Damian's room when she can't. You can take someone from nothing, from the streets, and expect them not to feel suspicious or like they owe you. On the streets, everything is an exchange."

Jason knows this. Jason lived this. He had been in her shoes at one point. He constantly worked and was on his best behavior just to stay in this manner, fearing every action would have consequences. It wasn't until his adoption that the fear disappeared. That he thought himself worth.

"I bet she saw a present or more with her name on it. The idea of presents won't upset her but for her specifically, and she had nothing to return. Yeah, that would be upsetting." It was moments like these where the family was reminded that Jason himself had spent time on their streets and that Jason himself had at one point been homeless. While Jason often took pride in being from Crime Alley, he never really spoke of his time in its cold.

"No gifts?" Cassandra asked

"Two gifts each" was still a considerably large number," and all the gifts with Asta's name on them should be removed. You can all exchange your other gifts at a later date." Bruce gave the order, and everyone began to move.

"Jason," Damian called for him to stay back. The others left, and Bruce stayed to work on the computer eavesdrop. " Your gift can stay under the tree. It's the one thing I know she'll appreciate.

Early Christmas morning

3 am

She was jealous you, Damian, could sleep so peacefully while she couldn't even close her eyes. She lay awake, listening to the silences and watching time go by. Eventually, she could not take anymore, so she shifted into a serpent and slipped from Damian's hold, slithering to the door and underneath. She turned human in the hall and made her way to the nearest window. Cracking it home, she slipped out and took flight as a snow owl. Hoping the clouds would clear her mind.

Hours later, Asta returns. Upon her return, she finds the kitchen light on. Being polite, she knocks on the kitchen door before opening it and sticks her head in it.

" It's a bit early and cold to be outside, no?" Alfred asked as he looked at the clock hanging on the wall, which read 6:17 am.

"I couldn't sleep, so I took a flight," Asta said as she stepped into the kitchen, closing the door tightly behind her and stopping the cold from getting in. "What are you doing up so early? "

"Cooking," Alfred said as he pulled more ingredients out of the fridge.

"Do they have an early morning?" she stepped to the counter, seeing everything splayed about.

"No, but it is Christmas, and dinner tends to be more special during the holidays, so more prep and time is needed. Plus Breakfast and Lunch in between." Alfred explained as he checked one of the ovens that held the Ham.

"Do you do this all by yourself?" she asked as she found a bookmarked with dozens of recipes on the counter.

"Jason will assist with after breakfast." Jason was the only other person Alfred trusted in the kitchen. He had no bad history of burning or breaking anything. But he also needed his rest after patrolling, so he only accepted assistance after breakfast, giving him time to rest.

"Can I help?" Asta asked shyly. "I would ... I would like to help you make your family dinner." After all they had given and done for her, it was the least she could do. She could never give them gifts, but the least she could make their family dinner. Gift them a warm meal just like Damian had for her every year since.

"Our family," she looked at him confused. " Our family dinner." Alfred pulls out something from a drawer and hands it to her. It is a long dark blue apron dress. It is then Asta remembers that she is naked. Before she can even apologize, Alfred shakes his head (Damian has already explained her displeasure with clothes. And while he understands, he will not allow her to cook in the nude).

" You can start with the chopping." a cutting board and knife were placed on the counter.

"Thank you," it was a load of thanks, but they weren't going to unpack. He knew what she meant and what she was grateful for. He knew. He always knew.

#dc comics #dc universe #fanfiction #batman #robin #damian al ghul #damian wayne #fanfic #damian wayne fanfiction #damian wayne fanfic #damian wayne x oc #damian wayne al ghul #damian al ghul x oc #untamed #interlude

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blindrapture · 4 months ago

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FRIDAY AUGUST 5TH, 2011 (Don't Speak Its True Name V: Dominiere)

3:39 AM Still surrounded by mirrors. I'm not sure if I like looking at my face right now, but. It's the one I was given. And I'm not alone in this. In the reflections, two Musicians stand behind on either side of me. I see the outside.

3:40 AM Finally got out of the Sky's Neighborhood. Jesus, how long was I in there? The sky's the darker red of night. I don't have Tiger Stripes anymore. Guess that was just a thing specific to that.. "world." This carnival is empty, the entertainment powered off. Where did Bones go?

3:42 AM No one is here. o_o I'm near the outskirts of town, all I hear is the wind rustling the trees. Some of the trucks walling the carnival are slowly ticking as they cool off. I just need to.. assume that Bones went home, and do the same.

3:57 AM Walking home at night, past streetlights that still work, houses sleeping. Alone with my thoughts. What actually.. I mean. If someone were to ask me what I've been doing. And they will. What can I say? That I got suicidal? That the Musicians talked me off the edge? That I talked myself off the edge? That I don't want to be here anymore. Not here in Dominiere. If that's what an attempt at "normal" would be for me, sitting in my room, waiting for my friends to all disappear… That it took a lot to shake me out of it, a whole world injected into my head. And that I'm not even sure I've been shaken out of it? We'll just have to.. wait and see?

4:20 AM Coach Motel. Lit hallways, late at night. Up the stairs. Find my room. ..knock on the door. u_u

4:21 AM door opened a crack. donnie's face peering out. "Where have you been?" Carnival. "It's been two days." ...that explains why I'm so hungry. oh man. Two days? "Uh-huh." Shit. Well, I ran into the Musicians. "…" she's letting me in.

4:22 AM paper is scattered on the floor, soaked in food grease. remains of dinners. paper mario is on the TV. chapter 6. oh man, my least favorite. Have you been playing? "Not much else to do. I like RPGs." You started your own file, right? "Yes." Okay. "But, you do need to explain some things." About the game? "About what happened to you. Did Bones make it home?" I don't know. He wasn't with me when the Musicians took me to.. another place. And he wasn't there when I came out in the end. "..." a sigh. "Did you.. write it all down?" Apparently, yes. "Go over it with me. Please."

4:37 AM She's definitely still mad. Concerned? She didn't like the parts where I wrote about Fentzy. And the Sonic stuff got absolutely no response. But as it wrapped up, with the visions of wooden skin and strings, and the final talk with the Musicians, her hands were on my shoulders. I found myself crying reading some of it. "This sucks. I hate it here." I'm so sorry, Donnie. >_< "I'm not really sure that this was your fault." I'm not either, but I hate not being sure of that. I don't like to settle for a Maybe on my guilt. "Things just sort of started happening when we got more people." I didn't like that. I feel like I'm watching things happen on a movie screen. "You need control." I don't want control when other people are involved. D: "No, you need control over yourself. Just like I do too. While you were gone, I was playing some of these video games, and realizing what it means that this is part of who you are. The controller is like meditation sometimes. It lets you engage with the concept of control, and hopefully get used to its presence in your life."

Huh. Y'know, the controller was the biggest obstacle for me for years. Gamers on the internet didn't really talk about that much? That it actually kinda sucks to learn how to use a controller, any controller, even the best ones. I guess, when you've grown up with them and are even older than me, you've gotten so used to them that it's like a second skin, you don't think about it, but that's because all the actual gruelling learning happened when you were a kid, during times you've entirely forgotten or reinterpreted as Game Difficulty. "It's never easy to gain control. In our own lives either. I think school and family and jobs and socializing distract us from engaging with the gruelling process of learning how to control our own brains. At least video games give us some time to think along those lines." Yeah. You're better at seeing this stuff than I am. "I was much more of a book reader. That's the toolkit I was given: Turning things over in my mind, connecting dots, processing information. You were more of a gamer, your processing is more immediate but you're not given as much insight into recognizing what you're seeing." I did read some books. "Oh yeah? Which ones?" I, uh. I read all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. "All the short stories?" And the novels, yeah. 60 pieces in total. Read 'em in a year. I also read, like. Fahrenheit 451. The Giver. Julius Caesar. A lot of my reading was for school, though Sherlock Holmes was on my own. "So a decent, if not large, amount." Oh, and I read Halo books! "...Halo books?" Yeah! Actual novels in the Halo canon. I read two of them. Fall of Reach, The Flood. And then there was some Stephen King. I read The Dark Half, that was pretty much the only one I cared about. "What.. was your childhood?" Video games. Late-night Full House marathons on TV. Boomerang, Nicktoons. Flash sprite animations on Newgrounds. And a lot of lonely summers writing fanfic no one was gonna read. "Oh my god. I love a fucking dork." You still love me? "Of course I do." You're not.. mad at me for disappearing? "I was worried about you, you dolt. I'm still worried about Derek, but we'll have to look for him tomorrow. We need sleep." Okay. Do we have anything to eat?

2:35 PM When I woke up, Donnie had gone next door to talk with Fentzy. A shadow had cast over the window, darkening the room, so I almost didn't get up, but the thing is, it doesn't get that dark at night, the red sky is always bright like a full moon on a cloudy sky. So I sat up in bed, and I looked at the window, and I saw a person. Arms outstretched to hang on our window, legs awkwardly balanced, reminded me of a bat or a bird. Their jaw was hanging open, stretched down to their belly, a narrow but gaping maw breathing fog onto the window. And they weren't wearing clothes. Naturally, I loudly said "What the fuck!" and got out of bed like I was dealing with a spider. Watched its eyes follow me. Covered my boxers, as if I thought it was judging me. It hissed something, drool dropping from its mouth. Definitely tried to say something, ended up licking the window. But it wasn't trying to break the window down or otherwise... get in. So I anxiously stepped a little closer. Tried talking to it. Asked it if it's a friend. Maybe Salmacis. And then it just let go and dropped from the window altogether. I rushed to the window, looked down at the street, saw nothing out of place. The people walking by hadn't even noticed. Where did it go? I gave it a minute, waiting to see if anything would follow it up, waiting to let my paranoia settle a little bit. Then I started talking to the woman in the mirror.

2:36 PM She's someone I've seen before. Back in early July, on our way to the God Machine, there was a woman in the mirror there too. And I saw her again when we got here, when I was alone in this room. I'd been talking to her. She has long dark hair that often covers her face entirely, and an old-fashioned dark red dress. For a little bit, I even thought she had something to do with the Musicians, as they started appearing in mirrors, but I don't actually think she does? "I don't. That's right. We know each other, but we're very different." You know the Musicians? "And they know me." Who are you? "You wouldn't be able to spell my name if I told it to you, and I don't want you to butcher it. 'The woman in the mirror' is fine enough." Okay. "I'm glad to see you're more lucid today. You've been drifting lately. Very absorbed in nothing at all." Thank you. I'm going through something. "How's your stomach?" I don't know. Waking up to ol' Peeping Mothman kinda pumped me full of so much adrenaline that it's hard to tell. "Hmph. Maybe it's happening to your friends, then." A stomach bug? "Do you honestly think I'd be trying to tip you off about something so mundane?" Well, I don't know anything about you. Maybe you love the mundane. "Absolutely not." Are you a.. Fear? "I refuse to be called that." But, so, you're a god, then. "That one's acceptable." Ah. Okay. You're not a god I've heard of. Are you from.. Xanadu? "Now that's an offensive question." I'm sorry! I'm just trying to gauge if you're.. from Earth or not. "I think you'll find very few of us are from Earth. I'm one who likes to wander, it comes easily to me, I'm not tied down to bodies like so many others. It doesn't surprise me that you have heard of others and not me. There is still so much you don't know about your gods." Tell me about it. ..like, rhetorically, but also, if you do want to, please do tell me about it. "Well, for starters, do you know anything about the Topography Genera Center?"

o_o No, not a clue. Never heard of it. "They were a research lab, before the red sky. You'll find they had a presence across the world. But now... they're in the business of making new gods." ..like the Harlequin? "Look at the places that your mind goes. Let me speak, boy." Yes, sorry. o: "There is one who works for them, a man we call Doctor Cloud. He has found an ancient abyss, darker and colder than the space between galaxies, a place where gods like to hide from bigger fish that come hunting. We did not show him this abyss; he impressed us by finding it himself. And he is curious enough, stubborn enough, human enough to go prodding it with measurements and theories until he discovers how it works, how it breathes. It is only a matter of time before this has consequences." ...'what did doctor cloud find in the genera…' "You have heard the whispers. You have seen the writing on the wall. Listen well, child: The abyss is measuring him too, and coming to conclusions on how he breathes. The good doctor is in an intellectual battle for his soul. As long as he continues digging into the abyss-- and he will-- then the abyss will change him, and knowledge of the abyss will change him." This sounds like an allegory. Are you talking about me? "Such narcissism! This is literally happening. Doctor Cloud is real. The battle for his soul is real. And furthermore, the changes to Doctor Cloud have not gone unnoticed by his coworkers. The Genera is real, and they have a vested interest in finding anything, or anyone, who might know how to protect him." The trucks. The trucks we've been seeing say 'Genera Transit.' They're here? "Dominiere is not what it seems." Nothing ever is. "You're taking a tour of the totem pole of power, and you're still at the point where you're surprised it's a hike. Boy, you must climb."

2:40 PM I'm dressed. Going next door to check on Donnie and Fentzy.

2:41 PM Foul smell. Bathroom door's open. Donnie's holding Fentzy's hair, she's on her knees with head in the toilet. Donnie looked at me and shook her head. Stomach bug. ... Fentzy, did you eat anything strange? "Ugh... no, I don't think so. We have been eating a lot of cafe food, but it tasted alright. ...fuck, don't make me think of food…" Sorry.

2:45 PM Fentzy wanted to be alone in the bathroom, so I took Donnie out into the hallway and filled her in on the conversation I just had. We're gonna look into the Genera today. We'll let Fentzy rest.

3:22 PM Asked around the market. Tried to be kinda casual about it. Expected some noncommittal answers, and yeah there was some, but we also got some "You shouldn't be asking about that." Oh well. Had to ask around, had to be sure. Now we can go look for those trucks.

3:26 PM We know for a fact the trucks are out by the carnival, so that's the way we're going. As we walk, Donnie wants to talk about Fentzy. "She was your crush. Is this going to cause problems?" I hope not? "I want you to commit, Jordan. If there are problems, are you going to stay true to me?" I mean. o_o Yes. Of course, sweetie. "Because you two have had more time to be friends than we have. She didn't know about your crush, and I may have.. told her. I kinda had to, to find out if she knew." Well, there are ways to ask more discreetly. "I don't make a habit of lying." I don't either! "I'm just saying, she knows now. So you two may have an awkward conversation about that. And I want you to…" You want to do damage control. I get it. I promise, Donnie. It's you and me. :) I love you. "I love you too, baby."

3:36 PM Ooh, hang on. Let's stop by Marty's. ..he's with customers right now. donnie "what's this place?" blacksmith. I left my sword here. "you left your sword? you mean you went defenseless?" well, as far as I knew, I was just going to a carnival. ..he sees us. one second. yeah you got it.

3:37 PM "Hey, kid. Your sword was just what I needed. I'm upgrading all my stock for my clients. Thanks for letting me look at it." No problem! :D You said you'd have a replacement for me? "Yeah, actually, how'd you like to have two?" Would I!!! Donnie, do you want a sword? "I like blunter things. But keep the second one, it's good to have spares." marty "If you work on your arm strength, you can even dual-wield." Fuck, that's the coolest thing. Please, swords, give me.

3:38 PM hooooly shit. one sword is fucking black. the other one is black on one side and purple on the other. donnie "fancy colors." marty "Luxury craft. Call it a thank-you for arming us." is there anywhere I can go and.. play with these things? a practice dummy or something? "Plenty of alleyways around here. Find some empty cans, try to slice them up." eeeee!!! :D

3:50 PM okay this is a little detour from what we were supposed to be doing, but can you blame me??? I get to play around with two swords! obviously can't write in my journal when dual-wielding, but I was given sheathes, so I can put them away. Donnie wants to know if I want to name them. ooo: As a matter of fact, I put thought into that while I was swinging them around! This one, the black one, is Hammett. And this one, the half-purple one, is Hackett. "Ham It and Hack It? What's 'ham' mean in this context?" Kirk Hammett, and Steve Hackett! O: The! The lead guitarists for Metallica, and Genesis, respectively!! "...yeah, okay. I can see that. That might be one of your better naming decisions." What was wrong with 'Tiger Stripes?' "Uh, honey, the guitar was perfectly white. No stripes on it." It had stripes when I got it! "Did they get scratched off?" They were dirt stripes! They.. washed off. "Ew." It was second-hand!!! From Electric Town in Castleford, shortly after we moved to England! ..she patted my head. .w.

4:09 PM Caval-Arcade should be right here. "But it's not." It's an empty lot. No hammer games. No mirror maze. "No trucks." What the fuck are we going to do?

4:14 PM We turned the place over. Looked in fucking trash cans, for god's sake. There isn't even a single flyer from the carnival. I was just here 12 hours ago. I had been here for two days. "If they packed up in the trucks and drove off, can we catch them?" We can't even leave the town without hitting a wall of zombies. "But doesn't that mean they can't either?" I'm pretty sure a caravan of trucks could just plow through them. "You're pretty sure, but you don't know. This is what we need to do, Jordan: We've got to try." Sure. But there's one more thing I'm thinking of. "What's that?" We left Fentzy alone. If we're going after those trucks, we might be leaving this place. We need to bring her with us. "But maybe the trucks have only just left, and time is of the essence!" Maybe, but I'm not leaving her! I'm not leaving any of you guys! I've been careless enough! "It'd take at least an hour! Even if we did something stupid like split up, one of us goes and gets Rauri, the other stays here, there's no telling" Then, look, I'll go get her, you go out of town, follow the road, get past the zombies, watch out for trucks! We'll catch up! "Can I get past the zombies by myself?" That's why we have two swords! Here! Take Hammett. "..alright. But be careful, baby." You too. You're the one going into potential danger. kiss

4:46 PM I tried running part of the way, but I just had to slow down more after to catch my breath. God, I feel that stomach thing coming on. But I'm there, I've got to get Fentzy.

4:47 PM knock knock. "..don't come in.." Fentzy? We've got to go, we've got a plan.. of sorts. But we've got to go nowwww..... o___o she's in bed. wrapped up under the covers, face pale, cringing. because there's a dozen clear tubes coming out of the walls, draped across the floor, slipping under the covers, pumping blood and bile out of her… other tubes pumping something else red into her… what. the fuck. "just let me die… just go away and let me die…" >_< Not a chance.

4:48 PM With one sharp slice of Hackett, I cut the tubes, draining blood across the carpet. They made a startling squeal sound and then slithered away, as if alive, retreating into holes in the walls that were then quickly covered up with mechanical closing doors, false doors, completing the facade of an ordinary hotel room. Fentzy's sick. She's lost a lot of body fluids, and something foreign has gone inside. She's gone straight to the bathroom. ...stomach bug. Did this.. happen to me the other day? o_o;;;; ...hey, Fentzy. drink some water, take care of yourself, then come downstairs. I'll be down there, causing some fucking trouble.

4:50 PM cozy reception. smiling guests waiting for a taxi. Hey. I need to speak to the manager. receptionist. "Certainly, sir. Can I ask if something's wrong?" Yeah, the tubes in our rooms trying to drain us of blood just malfunctioned, we need someone to fix that. >_> "Uh." >__> "I'll.. get the manager. Just wait here, okay?" I think I'll come with you. No need to make the manager come all the way out here. "No, really, there's no need for that, I'll be right back." Exactly, there is no need for that. Let's go. >___> "…" … "Do I need to call the.. police..?" It's just the manager, actually. Look, okay, if I can be sure you're really gonna come back and that you're not actually the manager yourself trying to bolt, I can wait here. "I'll.. I'll be right back. I promise. I'll go and get him." Fine.

4:51 PM ..checked behind her desk after she left. there's a panic button. and I hear sirens approaching. she already called the police. goddammit. I'm fucking this up. It's been a while since I've caused trouble on purpose, okay.

4:52 PM Cops with guns. "Dominiere Constabulary, put your hands where I can see them!" Thank god you're here! She went that way, officers! … holy shit that worked. I see fentzy coming down the stairs fentzy c'mon c'mon we gotta go, now like, now now, really super now

4:53 PM "were you able to figure out what was going on?" well. no! not in the slightest. kinda just got the police involved needlessly. "ugh, do we have to walk so fast..." clutching her stomach. I'm sorry. we may have the police after us. "then can't we just, like. steal their car?" … fentzy, you're a genius. "I'm good at finding the laziest way forward. good at dealing with body pains."

5:02 PM thank fuck for cars. we've already caught up to Donnie. baby, get in. we're on the run from the police. "What do you mean you're on the run from the police? You just went to get Rauri!" Yeah, uh. Our warm welcome at Dominiere may be wearing out. I'll explain on the way. We've got some trucks to catch.

5:48 PM driving through canadian highway. trees on all sides. following tire marks. lots of them. heavy ones. we think we're on the trail. (god I hope we're on the trail.) stopped for a quick pee. donnie is disconcerted by what I said about tubes. even fentzy didn't really realize what was happening. she was in and out of deep sleep, just felt utterly rotten. we still don't know the story behind dominiere. maybe we'll never find out. but maybe the genera knows. back to the road.

8:13 PM The tire marks continue well into the night. They're fresh, we're following something, a lot of somethings. But it's also not like anyone's going around cleaning these highways, so there are a lot of trails. We're pausing so I can stretch. Donnie wants to take over driving. Fentzy jokes that now I get to be the prisoner in the back. Donnie took over and said I'm under arrest. ...girls. >w<

8:35 PM ..how far did these trucks go? where the hell are we going? fentzy points out that canada is a big place. we could be on the road for weeks. it's a whole other america. please, let us not be on a big goose chase. >__< this was donnie's idea. ...I need to trust her. I dealt with the Musicians on my own, in my way. I need to trust Donnie to know what she's doing on this one.

10:55 PM The trail is leading us towards Vancouver. o_o In that direction, anyway. Doesn't look like there's all that much else in that direction.

11:08 PM "The trail makes a turn here. We're not going to the city." The sign says Abbotsford. This is somewhere smaller.

11:22 PM We've pulled up. Donnie's found the trucks. "Genera Transit." But they've parked at a warehouse with no label. I had been expecting to find the big Genera Center itself. Donnie's asking to borrow Hammett for a while longer. Of course. Fentzy's got her gardening thing billhook. Let's.. ..what are we gonna do? What's our plan? donnie "Walk in there and make them tell us what's going on with Dominiere." fentzy "Ask them if they know where our friends are." And if it's all a bust? Do we have a contingency? donnie "Drive back to Dominiere and storm the place." ..jesus. o_o okay, sure. I'm gonna.. follow you ladies on this one. fentzy "don't fucking call me a 'lady.'"

11:24 PM Into the warehouse. Lights are on. Lots of little generators powering them, lots of little screens going over inventory. Charts and data I can't read. The more pressing thing, though, are the guards coming our way. Donnie "Excuse me, are you with the carnival?" "You kids need authorization." Fentzy "Do we really look like 'kids?'" Donnie "This doesn't need to get ugly. We saw these trucks in Dominiere and followed them here. We left some of our stuff in one of the carnival booths, and" okay I can't bear to listen to this. my eyes are wandering. what's even in these trucks? … pod people. why are there people in pods. Why are there people in pods? ..the guards are reaching for their radios. and donnie just cut one's fucking arm off. this just got ugly.

11:25 PM hiding behind a table

11:32 PM We didn't stop until every guard was dead. We just killed a bunch of people. donnie "They're keeping people in pods, and they attacked us." You cut off a dude's arm. "He was reaching for his radio!" I! ..yeah, I would have done the same thing, probably! I'm just saying, let's.. acknowledge that that happened. fentzy "I think we caught them when they weren't expecting a fight. Their uniforms are serious, these guys weren't armed but I think they easily could have been. This Genera group we're looking into, they're not, like, a private army or anything like that?" I was told they're a research lab. fentzy "One that needed a lot of secrecy. Donnie, we need to look around now, and we need to be thorough. I don't want to find out that there's a whole platoon of backup on its way."

11:33 PM These pod people. They're not breathing. They look lifeless. Dead? ..is that Marty?

11:34 PM I'm seeing a lot of Dominiere people here. Either the Genera rounded Marty up a couple minutes after we saw him, got him to the trucks, killed him, then immediately started driving, or this is some heady shit. This computer, in the truck. I think this is a map. There's blips on it, some moving around. It's a town. Is this Dominiere?

11:35 PM Fentzy found a door leading out of the warehouse, into a corridor. Brick walls. Industrial. Slightly cool. donnie "If that's where the trucks drop things off, then there must be rooms in here where the gadgets are used and research is done." Thank you for explaining that. "Sorry. I'm.. trying to be clear." I wasn't being sarcastic! It's been another long day, I'm getting tired, I appreciate the clarity. fentzy "guys, not so loud. we don't know if we're alone." shit. sorry. … What's in this door? Locked. Corridor turns. Lots more doors. One of them's ajar, down there. Quiet. Easy does it. Let's have a peek.

11:36 PM It's a rec room. Small kitchen. Coffee's boiling in a pot. We're all looking at each other. We hear footsteps approaching. ..a woman in a lab coat entered the room behind us, saw us, and stopped eating a bag of peanuts. Staring at us. "Uh. Can I help you?" high-pitched voice. mature. she's gotta be in her 40s. ..donnie's stammering. Look. We're here to learn the truth about Dominiere. And maybe find our friends. We're not going until we've done at least one of those. ..donnie sighed relief. you're welcome. "Did someone let you in? How do you have access without knowing about Dominiere?" fentzy "Our blades are covered in blood." "That doesn't really answer my-- oh. Oh, yes it does. You killed all of them?" "Yep. It's not a good idea to go against us right now." "Hostility. Brilliant, we're doing this right now. Okay." putting her bag of peanuts on the counter. "May I squeeze past you and pour my coffee?" Uh. Sorry, yes you can, but, is there enough for another cup in there? she gave a laugh of disbelief. "I'm the only researcher here, and I'm stationed here indefinitely. There's coffee. Help yourselves."

11:37 PM All three of us got a cup. The scientist is leading us a couple doors down, to her computer lab. "You can put your weapons away. In fact, I'd prefer that you did. It's unsafe." fentzy, strapping her billhook to her back, "You're handling this whole situation very well." "You are here with a specific purpose, you're willing to talk, and my line of work is very weird." Talking is how I handle threats like the Fears. I get it. "You know of the Fears? That's one thing less to explain." into the computer lab. three desks, each with computers, several monitors. oh shit, more computers. the back walls are big towers. fentzy, in awe "Are those supercomputers?" "Dell PowerEdge. That one's Abe. The higher-ups pulled some strings." "ohhh my goddd." "You know your computers?" "Um! Not exactly! I just think they're really cool? And that name sounds like a big deal." sip of coffee "It suffices." donnie's still tense, expecting a fight. "Sorry, can I ask, who are you? What's your name?" "Oh, honey." condescending. "Weapons alone won't buy you that kind of clearance. You're on codename basis; you can call me Lilith." donnie "I mean, that's still a name, that's all I asked for…" "You came here for the truth about Dominiere. Shall we focus on that?"

11:38 PM Lilith's clicking some things on her computer. "So you three know of Dominiere." donnie "We've been staying there for the last five days." "Interesting. That means, if you give me your names, I might even have you on our systems." donnie and fentzy both went "Uhhhhh. No." lilith's looking at them over the top of her glasses. now at me. "What about you, ska kid?" 'Ska kid?' "No? You're dressed exactly like a ska musician. Not intentional? ..will you give me your name?" … … ..yeah, it's Jordan Dooling. That's D double O.. "I got it." tippatappatip "Thanks." … <:) "Sorry, this fucking software... it always does this… it always hangs…" That's Windows for ya! "It's all modern computer architecture, all the OSes have it. What I wouldn't give to use our grant money on developing a solution for it... ah, here we are."

a lot of rows and columns, a zigzagging line graph, tons of pairs of numbers... those are called matrices, I think? "You are on our system. Your vitals stabilized from a severe panic attack on August 1st... particularly receptive to the medication on the 2nd... no data for the 3rd and 4th? Not sure how that's possible. But then you're back in on the 5th, and the pattern almost resembles a multifractal. How old did you say you were?" fentzy "He didn't." I'm sixteen. fentzy "okay." I wanna see where trusting gets us! let me be the guinea pig! lilith "16 years old, and somehow registering the curves of a mature adult, and only on this one day. Can I ask what you got up to the last two days?" Sorry, that one's a question I don't want to answer. "Maybe later, then. Okay. ..wait, you say you're looking for friends? Because I have another two boys who arrived in Dominiere on the 1st, one of them on the system and the other not, I have them in the other room." You what?? Really?? "The boy who's registered on the system is one Derek Taylor, is he yours?" YES "So they're probably both with you. Should I tell you about Dominiere now, or bring them out here and tell all of you at once?" Can. Can we do that? Bring them out?? 'Cause that just sounds more convenient. "Eh, you'd be surprised. Bigger groups mean slower information. It's often more efficient to distribute the information to a few and let it spread organically." fentzy "Get them now. ..please." lilith shrugged. "Alright. I'll need you to come along, for insurance." o_o

11:41 PM Down another corridor is a room containing large cages. This doesn't seem humane. "I don't write the policy. I see to it that they're fed. Will you wake them up and make sure they don't attack me as soon as I open the cell?" Y.. yeah. o: Hey! Danny! Derek! ..they're waking up. :D Looking at us, wide-eyed. ..you had them share a cell? "Yeah. Should I not have?" ..no? "Well, sorry. I don't exactly have experience in imprisoning people. They don't write documentation on this stuff." ...that's. fair. o_o

11:43 PM We've let them out of their cells. Gave a.. loose explanation of how we got here. We're waiting for them to get out of the bathroom now. ..god, this is weird, isn't it. let them out of cells. an unfair imprisonment. and we're just, like. here. whatever. we're all together now. just gotta ask about that damn town now. then we can go.

11:45 PM Computer room. Danny and Bones are keeping their distance. I want to stand near Lilith to ask questions. Donnie and Fentzy are nearer to the boys. lilith "Are we all good now? You want information now, yes?" bones "I don't actually care right now. Like, I'm not exactly over the fact you kept us in a cage." danny grunted. lilith "Fair enough. I'll talk to Jordan over here, then." aw, man. don't put me in the middle here. fentzy "Maybe I can get them some coffee too?" ...danny said "please," and bones grunted this time.

11:46 PM Now everyone's got a cup. lilith "The first thing you need to know is that Dominiere is not a town. It's.. classified as a town-like." everyone's giving her funny looks. "It's a branching-off of an older fossil-- sorry, an older Fear-- that we call OVER THERE. It's like a.. magical.. city." Oh, the Empty City? "Colloquially, yes. The City is, was, that's an open question, let's go with 'is,' the City is a living thing, and like all living things it is capable of reproduction. It branches off into small town-likes, and sometimes those town-likes end up on Earth. I suspect the mechanism is like a daffodil's seeds carried by the wind, though this wind is more nebulous, maybe even metaphysical. But the point is, the town-like manifests on Earth, connects its roots to local roads, and starts growing." bones "It's a.. baby Empty City?" "Again, colloquially. Yes." "That's. Hhhuh." did you already know about the empty city? "yeah. I'll tell you later." lilith "Dominiere is one of these. We designate this stage of the life-cycle 'underscore.' Dominiere, as an offshoot of OVER THERE, is an underscore." underscore. got it. fentzy "I had tubes…" ..she can't finish. Yeah, uh, we found out that things were happening to us while we slept. lilith "Right. The tubes." Was that, like. ....digestion. "No. An underscore does not eat people. People are an underscore's blood vessels. Those tubes' primary purpose is to transfer fluids into you, to adapt your body to serve as a blood cell for the operation of the whole. The fact that fluids are also removed from you is just basic physics: You are already complete packages, you are already full, so to transfer fluids in will necessarily displace the same volume out of you." donnie "And. That happened to all of us?" "The transfer happens during sleep, with no witnesses." "Every night?" "Every time that a body sleeps in an underscore." sweet jesus. danny "So I'm fine, then?" It looks like it. danny pumped his fist.

lilith "Dominiere is a special case, in that it is an underscore that we are actively monitoring. We've tagged the transfer fluid, so every time it enters a body we've got that person in our system. That's how I was able to look at your levels, Jordan." Ah. I don't know how to feel about that now. o_o "It's disconcerting, yes. I don't envy you. I'd never spend a night in that town." fentzy, pale, "Are we.. okay with this shit inside us?" lilith "You'd need to stay in Dominiere for a lot longer to be properly subsumed. I believe the process is on the order of years? Though even staying for a month would have physiological effects, you'd become used to the transfer fluid and find it easier to convince yourself to stay. You guys weren't even there for a week. Your bodies will have been fighting it off and generating more blood to replace it." The stomach bugs! O: donnie "Why would anyone stay past the first week when there's such a violent reaction?" lilith "You had convinced yourselves these were stomach bugs, from the sounds of it. Most people respond similarly. The early stages of the process are fuelled by social mechanisms moreso than physiological. The people there are nice. The economy self-sustains." bones "Wait, so. What about those people. Who were they? What about the people in the pods?" Yeah! What about the pod people? "Those are a highly classified project. They're not the standard underscore ecosystem, I'll tell you that much." bones "You imprisoned us for even seeing them." "And that's because they're highly classified. Highly. Classified." … … "..and this is where we reach an impasse. Because I'm really not supposed to tell you about that project." ..but? "But. I may need your help with something."

...do. do you. "Hm?" Do you mean. Doctor Cloud? "How do you know about Doctor Cloud?" A Fear told me. "What did they tell you?" That. That he's a valuable enough part of your group that the Genera is willing to go to great lengths to help save his soul from transformation? Or corruption, or something bad. Something about an abyss. ..she's blinking. "I'm sorry, I'm legitimately surprised that one of the fossils knew enough to tell you all this." Hey, I'm surprised the gods are rather eager to tell me things at all! "Well. Yes. There is a Doctor Cloud, that's his codename. His department is researching potential insights into the nature of Xanadu, though in that search he discovered another project that's.. the details are beyond even my clearance, though there have been declassifications of details that are critical to being able to assist him in his dilemma." There's an abyss, and he's trying to learn about it, but it's learning him back. "...colloquially." Yes. donnie "Where is Doctor Cloud? Can we meet him?" "He's in the UK." ..but the UK is all one giant rabbit hole. Uh, Door. "You.. are way too knowledgeable on these things. Yes, the UK is inside Xanadu right now. You cannot get to that branch of the Genera." ...I wonder. "No, look, listen, let me tell you what I need from you." Yeah, okay. Sorry. "There's a." raised her finger. lowered it. puzzled. "How do I say this colloquially." … "There's a monster in these labs. I need you to capture it." o_o fentzy "Not kill it?" "It is not killable." o__o danny "Not…" donnie "..killable?" lilith "Many have tried. We've been getting Genera security from the US branch-- the.. Indiana... fuck it, the US branch-- coming in waves, whatever they can spare. I think you killed one of the waves." sorry "That was not the first wave, that was in fact the..." checks computer "..thirty-first. I believe my request has been approved, and the next wave will have military-grade weaponry." huh. bones "So why don't you just wait for them to arrive? What can we do?" "Indeed, that's the million-dollar question. What can you do? You bold assortment of inquisitive, resourceful, strangely knowledgeable teenagers. I honestly don't know what you can do." ...hm. "Isn't that exciting?"

(Attached is an entry from the desk of Black Plague: “The Musician sat on the floor in an aisle in the local library, thin and hoarse and surrounded by books and papers. I picked him up by the shoulders, and he tried to hiss at me to leave him alone. ----We have a meeting to go to, c'mon. -----We don't need a meeting; I've already sent them after it! ----What are you talking about? Grimaldi, for fuck's sake, don't make a scene. He vanished, manifesting himself behind me in an attempt to appear superior. -----I will cause whatever I like. I am the creator here now. Then he disappeared once more, and I couldn't find him again. It was then that I heard a meow. The Omen purred from atop a shelf, clearly pleased by things falling apart. Naturally, when I reached over to grab it, it jumped away and ran out the door. Frustrated, I followed it through several streets-- stopping traffic in its tracks and getting many glares from drivers-- until we reached an alleyway out of view. Then it looked at me, a terribly human smile on its face, one paw now in red fur. It muttered fiendishly, ----Alright, I'd say that's enough cat-and-mouse. -----You can talk?! ----No, no, of course not. The Omen can't. I'm Ten Speed. I watch. The thing began licking itself. I could think of nothing to say. Eventually, it continued. ----I've been watching your pantheon for a while now, moving a thing or two behind the scenes-- never doing much, only ever giving people what they want, it smirked. ----You could say I'm a good samaritan. And you have been a particular interest of mine, Plague. I hear the trust that humans have in you is inversely proportionate to your status within this clique. A species loves you, your peers don't. Started to circle me. ----All because of the Azathoth incident? No, that wouldn't make sense. There must be something further back, some quarrel, some issue, that effected your separation and virtual independence. No? Yes? Am I on the right track? Feel free to speak up. Still, nothing came out of my mouth. More than familiar with how to negotiate with someone who clearly wants to keep talking, I just let the conversation unfold while silently piecing things together in my head. This 'Ten Speed' character, whoever it was, is not the Omen. Probably some kind of bodysnatcher, like the Devil. Related? ----Would you prefer if I simply told you? This is all because of the Genera. It stopped walking, in front of me, to look me in the eye. ----Do you feel nothing at that? Bridging the gap between human and Fear! Silence. ----My, you really are passionate about it. I finally replied. -----The policies of my platform have no bearing on the affairs or lives of my colleagues. They know this. ----They do? Ah, of course, some of them might. The Omen here certainly does, though it's not telling anyone. The Omen exists to supplement, after all, not to contribute. -----Will this dialogue take long? I have a thing to attend. It hopped atop a trash can to better look at me. ----I've said all I wanted to. Stuck out its red paw. ----Nice to finally make your acquaintance, Black Plague. I looked at it for a second before reluctantly shaking hands. Or paws. My hand, its paw. -----Likewise, Ten Speed. Respect the eldritch. Then the red paw disappeared and the Omen hopped into my arms, rubbing its head against my body as a cat again. And I turned and ran to catch the most important meeting of 2014.”)

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#ogtrib #oh god the rapture is burning #ogtrib act 2

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c0rpsedemon · 1 month ago

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ok so w the death of g5 i've been having a Lot of thoughts irt how to not fuck up g6 while balancing being for the new generation of kids who haven't been immersed in g4 lore and still being able to rake in those sweet sweet brony $$, as hasbro's inability to decide between the two is one of the main contributors to g5's fuckening. and so here's my outline for my hypothetical mlp g6. honestly this is the abridged version and i might finally cave and make a youtube channel just so i can release a multi hour long video breaking this down in depth.

ok first of all we're getting rid of the recent gens' pony sexual dimorphism . which is stupid . bc they are horses . and will benefit hasbro . bc they can reuse molds . and giving them less catlike and more horselike proportions.

our setting is in equestria in the same time frame as g4 but the version we see isn't actually g4, events similar to g4 are happening but it's like how the comics and the show have diff continuities. the g6 continuity will be borrowing heavily from both. our protagonists live in canterlot, not ponyville, and thus won't be there for a lot of the shit that goes down over there in g4, but it'll still be alluded to when worlds do collide, and unlike the g4 mane 6 who are all late 20s, our g6 leads will be more relatable to kids by being in their earl to mid teens. as for our Main main character. well. she'll be a unicorn (bc that'll sell well to little girls) and for now let's call her sunrise. really her name would be like 'radiant sunrise' or 'sunrise hope' or smthing (see what i did there). now, sunrise is important bc she's the niece of sunset shimmer, a name which has acquired infamy due to her being the most accomplished student princess celestia has ever taken in, even being crowned as an alicorn princess (we'll get to it), until she was last seen having a blowout screaming match w princess celestia during one year's summer sun celebration that no one could make out the contents of, after which she ran off with a few scattered accounts of her performing strange transformation spells throughout equestria in subsequent months and then ultimately disappearing. now, ofc the ponies of equestria are going to view sunset as extremely ungrateful for throwing away what's seen as the ultimate aspiration, and while not being proven to be dangerous, it's only natural to assume they'd view someone w extreme magical strength who was last seen standing in opposition to their almighty god-queen as a threat. so our girl sunrise is a bit socially ostracized as a result. her father isn't in the picture since he discovered a fun little detail abt his wife's family tree only after sunrise was born, and her mother holds so much contempt for the damage sunset's reputation has done to her that she's very emotionally unavailable, so she's basically on her own. that said in the first couple of episodes she miraculously makes a new set of friends.

now, i don't have most of our mane group figured out yet but the rest will all be pulled from earlier gens. toola roola will be there bc mlp is shockingly low on the Artist CharacterTM and as someone who was the Art Kid most of my early life i would've ate that shit up. but more importantly, the first friend sunrise makes is ploomette, a g4 merch-exclusive whose card in the blind bags says she dreams of becoming a princess. now, i don't know where ploomette has been all this time, maybe sunrise was off at boarding school but family finances have brought her back home to public school, maybe ploomette is just new in town, maybe they've had a long history of near-misses, or maybe a million other things have happened. now, ploomette is absolutely obsessed w princesses and everyone and everything they've had contact w, and she makes no exception to this rule for allegedly evil ponies. in fact, she thinks the fact that she now knows a relative of the infamous and mystery-shrouded sunset shimmer is the coolest thing to ever happen to her and they just Have to be the bestest friends and also she has so many questions and also do you happen to have anything she's ever touched or even just sneezed on still lying around. luckily for ploomette sunset's room has remained untouched over the years and so the girls can cautiously open it back up to find out what really happened all those years ago. and as for their other friends, sunrise finally being able to come out of her shell to someone after all these years just naturally attracts other likeminded ponies who don't care abt her family history to be her friends too, and that's how our group is formed (that said i am leaning towards toola roola having been ploomette's friend for a while beforehand but the rest to join their group will be brand new).

now, let's talk abt the mystery elements real quick. children love mysteries. this is a fact. gravity falls is currently having a rennaissance and while it's mainly among now-older fans, i feel like we might get a wave of similar children's programming by companies trying to replicate its success. also, mlp is no stranger to being theorized abt (see: g4) and given the number of young fans desperate to uncover (nonexistent) hidden lore secrets while it was airing its safe to say that we could replicate that but on purpose this time w a new gen.

as for the alicorns, well, hasbro wants to sell alicorn toys and i want to make myself go insane abt the lore implications, so this is a win win. alicorns do not age and are immortal. this is kinda horrifying when you realize the princess of love has a husband who's a mortal unicorn and the princess of friendship's friends are all mortal unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies. now, i fully plan on giving the rest of the g4 mane 6 + shining armour their horns/wings to negate this, but shh. anyways, we're changing a few things around and making amore an alicorn (since her not being one and still being a princess made no damn sense) and cadance having been born an alicorn, we're also going to move timelines around so amore's death/the crystal empire's fall came after the nightmare moon shit. anyways, lullabye for a princess has done more to characterize celestia than official media ever has and logical assumptions will naturally have to be made that being an alicorn is a deeply lonely existence, especially when your closest companion went evil, betrayed you and had to be sealed away. which is why celestia takes in promising students who she thinks have the mental fortitude to become an alicorn to try and fill that void. they usually don't display the ability to handle the responsibility or have a million other failings that are too much of a dealbreaker so there's a high turnover rate. she got so, so close with radiant hope, a pony who was so full of goodness and selflessness and clearly qualified to be princess and she could even perfectly envision what she'd actually be crowned princess of and she'd even begun to get her secondary marks*, but then amore died and hope disappeared into the night and celestia was more alone than ever, having lost both the only other of her kind and what she thought was going to be her perfect peer in one fell swoop.

*(when i was a kid i thought the g3 cutie cascade toys w the cutie marks that covered their whole legs were cool as fuck. i think more ponies should have random ass themed markings on other body parts + more variants = more toys sold. thus in this gen after a pony has their cutie mark if they encounter other defining moments which would otherwise earn a cutie mark instead their mark begins to show secondary traits and branch out. in order to be crowned a princess you have to have a certain degree of these secondary traits bc it shows prowess and experience beyond those of your average pony whose cutie mark will never morph)

now, fast forward a few centuries of the most overwhelming isolation celestia has ever known, and to her next most promising pupil, sunset shimmer. she specializes in transformation magic (make note of that) and while she doesn't have secondary marks we live in much more peaceful times now and it can just be blamed on lack of opportunity. and yes, celestia can't think of what sunset would be princess of but she's so promising it'd be a shame if her talent went to waste and surely she'd think of something eventually, and so sunset shimmer is crowned princess and it's so so so wonderful at first. but sunset is a smart pony. and as time goes on she starts to notice the way the world changes while she stays the same. and just as she's celestia's only companion, celestia is her only companion, but it's hard or even impossible for her not to want for more for someone anyone else, and when she asks celestia to teach her how to make more alicorns she refuses and when she asks celestia to do it for her she refuses as well and as sunset realizes that celestia knew this profound isolation would be her fate and condemned her to it anyways, she runs. she's always been good at transformation magic. she doesn't need celestia for this. she'll do it by herself before celestia can find out and stop her. but in all her travels across equestria, never once is she able to make an alicorn, as it is a power held only by the two sisters. we'll come back to her in a min.

back to sunrise, ploomette and co, midway through season 1 they uncover Something sunset shimmer was working on that they can't quite understand, but they know damn well that extra context is needed and celestia can provide it. hijinks surrounding trying to contact princess celestia herself ensue, and the summer sun celebration rolls around and they're all like 'wow it sure sucks we don't have that here anymore and now it's held at diff locations around equestria instead of being in canterlot every year bc of sunset' but don't think much of it. then nightmare moon's endless night comes and they're a bit confused but end up having a lighthearted sleepover episode abt it. then they see what happened in the papers and ploomette nearly has a heart attack finding out THEE princess luna is back, sunrise gets hopeful abt if ppl can forgive THEE princess luna aka nightmare moon then maybe all hope isn't lost, and the group notices a certain name in the paper, a student of princess celestia, just like sunset was, and the perfect person the lend them the information they need to understand their biggest hint irt the mystery of sunset shimmer, a unicorn named twilight sparkle.

so our mcs journey to ponyville and are miraculously able to pique twilight's interest, as a student of celestia it was hard not for her to spend hours upon hours wondering about what she was like and staring wistfully at her portrait. she was so beautiful and so wonderful how could a pony not wonder what happened. so she agrees to look into what she could and keep them posted. and so over the next couple seasons the two groups, ponyville and canterlot, will occasionally reconvene over a trace of sunset or a false flag while it seems increasingly like the number of villains who don't seem to be originally from this world is increasing.

and then she'll be there.

now, going back to what i said abt gravity falls, sunset shimmer is literally stanford pines. kind of. when she realized she couldn't create an alicorn, luck smiled upon her and she found something else. a way to jump between worlds. and so she figured, surely there's a world populated only by those w a lifespan like mine, and she knew she was good enough at transforming to fit in w the dominant species of wherever she went (this is our eqg sneak, any non-pony market hasbro could ever want to break into now just needs a coat of 'sunset turned into this once. and isn't it a cool what-if to think abt if everyone else did too?' paint and you're good to go for a spinoff line or two or twenty).

sunset is panicked to return to her original world, as she wasn't successful in her quest and is terrified of the possibility that what she's looking for doesn't exist and she's cycled through everything that does. attempts to talk to her fail as she immediately returns to dimension hopping, but now the mane 6 know to invite the canterlot group along whenever they have a villain displaced in reality, and they learn that the magic sunset uses to jump worlds got a lil bit damaged w the summer sun celebration debacle which is why randos keep slipping through, but only one is able to properly control jumps between worlds.

eventually, sunset returns After twilight becomes an alicorn, and twilight gets to speak to her. times have changed, there are more alicorns than ever before, and sunset is absolutely right abt the isolation of being an alicorn, which is why twilight needs sunset, just as badly as sunset needs her, and twilight will gladly offer the eternal companionship she needs bc she fell madly in love w her from the sight of her portrait alone. (we live in a post steven universe world lesbians in kid's cartoons are to be expected at this point). and so, sunset is finally convinced to return to equestria, and splits her time between rehabilitating her image, finding out what she's actually the princess of, kicking the asses of enemies she made in other worlds (and occasionally shapeshifting to do so to sell sunset shimmer fashion doll for practicality), getting to know this niece of hers, and being gfs w twilight.

as for princess celestia? cadence's whole existence as a naturally occurring alicorn has been jarring for her, as was luna's return to sanity. also i kinda sorta plan for the crystal empire thing to play out comics-style but w a more nuanced portrayal of the umbrums so it's not the Intrinsically Evil Race W One Good One and during the shitshow cadence would be attempting to save hope from one of the many, many severe blows she receives in that storyline and inadvertently turn her into an alicorn (or maybe it'd happen to try and incentivize sombra staying good and not self destructing bc he has a much longer lifespan and doesn't want to ever be parted from her? idk) so like. princess celestia gagged hearing twilight explain what happened there. also maybe depending on when this is one of the other members of the mane 6 got turned into an alicorn too. either way, celestia's mind is clearer than ever, and she's been reconsidering a few things, specifically a few things sunset had grievance with. or more specifically, she's high off the rush of companionship and has loosened the rules surrounding alicorns Significantly.

for the rest of the series, the gang has the various loose ends of sunset's time travel to tie up + whatever other plots get added in, and ofc, a large portion of the cast striving to be the best that they can be so that they can maybe possibly become alicorns too.

overall, the message it'd give kids would probably be the value of reaching out to others, the importance of taking time to understand others' perspectives, a feeling of being seen for all the rlly lonely kids out there, and a reassurance that you are not alone and there's someone, plenty of people, actually, there for you out there who you just haven't had the chance to meet yet

and the message it'd give bronies is sunset shimmer isn't going to fuck you she BELONGS with twilight sparkle

#romeo.txt

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