#no crabs were harmed after this

[pengucolas]

Found you....!!!

[ckret2]

This is the first time I see someone saying that Filbrick kicked out Stan as primarily a protective measure. To me, honestly, he sees his children as investing to make money and found the perfect excuse to throw away the son he never wanted on the streets when a convenient excuse appeared. After all, he already had a bag full of clothes when he throwed Stan in the streets.

It's a cartoon episode that had 22 minute to pack in the entirety of Ford & Stan's backstory. He flung a duffel bag at Stan as a way to tell the viewers "he's serious about kicking Stan out" and we didn't see him pack it because that would've cost 30 seconds to animate a boring scene that's unnecessary to the flow of the story, and where else in the episode would that 30 seconds have come from?

The show takes tons of visual & narrative shortcuts to tell its story. We don't question how a digital clock appears on Stan's desk between one shot and the next in Boss Mabel. We don't question where Soos's Burrito Bites went before and after traveling into Stan's mind in Dreamscaperers. We don't question where the remains of Quentin Trembley's ripped pants vanish to in the crate after he tosses them aside. The only reason we question the duffel bag is because there's a way to weave it into the narrative to make a bad character look even worse; but I think it ignores the spirit and intent of the scene to treat that, and that alone, like it's indicative of Filbrick's character rather than indicative of the restraints of the cartoon medium.

I don't think he saw his kids as investments. I think, prior to discovering Ford could be worth a fortune, he saw his kids as his responsibility. It was his duty to get them to adulthood and make them into proper men. What we know about their upbringing is:

When he thought they were wusses, he sent them to boxing to toughen them up.

When he thinks Stan stole a gold chain from the pawn shop, he also berates him for stealing from other people, starting a crab-fighting ring, and "pickpocketing and monkeyshining." He's opposed to Stan committing illegal or dishonest acts even if they're profitable.

And when he kicks Stan out, yeah, he says Ford "was gonna be our ticket out of this dump," but he also says "All you ever do is lie and cheat, and ride on your brother's coattails."

Before Ford is revealed to be a genius, we have no evidence that Filbrick saw them as future moneymakers. And in fact, given how the show emphasizes how hard he is to impress and how newly impressed he is at Ford's genius, it seems like he DIDN'T previously see any such potential in his kids. This was a new development. Before that, we only know of two things he wanted out of his kids:

For them to be tough enough to protect themselves

For them to be honest, law-abiding, and hard-working

His dreams of making money off one of his kids lasted a few days tops—high school science fairs don't exactly last long. If he was hotheaded enough to kick out one of his kids for dashing some pie-in-the-sky dream that was only a few days old, then either they woulda been kicked out long before then, or they woulda almost been kicked out enough times that that would be their dominant impression of their dad that they'd report 40 years later, not "hard to impress." Yeah, he was mad he could've made a fortune and then didn't, but that alone wasn't the main motivation behind disowning Stan. He was taking out years of frustration with Stan all in one moment.

"All you ever do is lie and cheat" "This time you cost our family potential millions!"

You've been a bad kid and a troublemaker for a long time; this time, your behavior has impacted someone other than yourself—it's harmed your brother and your family—and I won't let you do it again.

(And this is pure headcanon/conjecture, so I'm keeping it as an aside—but I think there's something to his relationship with Caryn in all this. We know from how he treats Stan's lying that Filbrick highly values honesty. We know that Caryn is a pathological liar—it's one of the only things we know about her. We know from out-of-show interviews that Stan's "—the girl snuggles up next to you, next thing you know you gotta raise a kid, your life falls apart—" is him repeating something his father said. We know Filbrick sees their current living situation as a "dump," but lacks the financial means to get out of it. We know now the baby WAS intended to be Shermie, which makes a nearly 18 year gap before the Pines decided to have another kid. I think the twins were an accident, that Filbrick married Caryn out of a sense of duty to his sons and their mother, that he does love his family but still feels trapped; I think he hates that Caryn is such a liar, that it would have been a dealbreaker if there weren't kids involved, and that now he doesn't feel like there's much he can do about it because that's his wife; and I think that's a major motivating factor in his demanding honesty out of his sons—because he doesn't want them to turn out like their mother.)

To be clear—I don't think Filbrick is a good father. But in interpreting him as a bad father, I want to interpret him as the bad father he ACTUALLY IS, not make up some new, different bad father and paste it on top of his characterization. Sometimes fandom has a tendency to take a bad parent and stick entirely new bad parent traits on top of them, in a way that makes it seem like some fans think "well, if they're a bad parent, they MUST do THESE THINGS too, because ALL bad parents do that (and therefore, if they're not doing these things, they must not really be a bad parent)."

And at times I think it's important to hold the line. Based on what we know of him, Filbrick is bad enough to be a Bad Father even if he doesn't do XYZ that fandom assumes all bad fathers must do. Filbrick is bad enough to be a Bad Father even if he didn't see his kids as a way to make money.

I think he raised his boys the way he did because he thought that was the best thing for their future happiness—and he was wrong, and his ideas about manhood are outdated and toxic, and he was a bad father.

I think he saw them as his responsibility rather than as profit machines, and that he cared about their well-being—and his decision to express his caring through emotionally distant tough love was harmful and neglectful, and when he got angry he was verbally abusive, and he was a bad father.

I think he was devastated at the loss of potential millions not because his primary motive as a person is greed, but because his primary motive is being a good caretaker for his family, and his family was in a tough financial spot and that kind of money would turn all their lives around—and even though pinning his financial hopes on his son was a recent development, it was still an awful position to put his kid in, and he never should have done it, and he was a bad father.

I think he cared about his family MORE THAN their finances—but he still prioritized their finances too much, and in a moment of anger prioritized their finances more than one of his own sons, and he was a bad father.

I think kicking Stan out wasn't a consequence of thwarted greed, but of years of anger at Stan's delinquency, and that the issue wasn't the lost money but rather the fact that he thinks Stan deliberately harmed his brother for selfish reasons—and it was still a cruel thing to do and the man seriously needed some anger management classes, and he was a bad father.

He's a bad father even if his intentions are good. He's a bad father even if he cared about his sons. And that's why I'm insistent on maintaining his characterization that way—because it's worth remembering that a parent with good, caring intentions can still be bad, and their intentions don't excuse their actions.

[mixelation]

worked on some async today. takes place immediately after tori attempts to turn minato into soup

Tori watched Minato disappear into the water in great satisfaction. She peered over the embankment. Steam clouded her view, but she could see his blue and green uniform under the rolling boil of the river. The bodies of dead minnows bubble up above him. 

Then he disappeared. 

Tori tensed automatically. She hadn’t caught him dropping any Hiraishin markers anywhere, but ninja were sneaky. 

Minato didn’t spontaneously appear behind her over the course of the next minute, and Tori relaxed ever so slightly. A bigger fish came to the top of the still boiling river, its body flipping over and over. 

So. Boiling someone alive did not kill them nearly as fast as she had expected. She’d seen various propaganda about Terumi Mei cooking people alive with steam, and that varied from “instant death” if you were pro-Mei, to “incredibly long and painful and cruel” if you were anti-Mei. But Tori had given little weight to the propaganda as actual evidence, aside from that she was positive boiling hot water could kill you. 

Hopefully Minato was currently dying of his injuries wherever he had gone. While Tori could not recall any stories about people being boiled alive, but she was something of a connoisseur in bizarre and horrific bodily harm. Sometimes adrenaline was enough to get a ninja through the initial part of receiving a major injury, only to collapse moments later. Tori balled her hands into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms. She hoped his pretty eyes were cooked solid. Then he’d never be able to trick a poor girl’s heart with a pretty face ever again. 

On the other hand, given Tori had no real data about boiling people alive, she could be royally fucked if he lived. It occurred to her that he definitely had Hiraishin markers back in the village, and if he had pulled some sort of main character ninjutsu bullshit and was still fighting fit, he could just come back to the river and kill her. 

I guess I’ll just lie out my ass again, Tori decided, trying to convince her brain not to panic. She was very obviously just a civilian woman who couldn’t even get her life together to wash her hair properly. She could act hysterical and say the Kumo-nin had told her the trap did something else, or else that she was just trying to protect her home and beg for mercy. It would be humiliating, but while Minato obviously had no qualms about killing ninja without asking questions first, he did seem to want to play nice with civilians. 

Also, if he did kill her, probably he would just abandon her body like he had the Kumo-nin. He was unlikely to stick around long enough to figure out Tori’s little problem with dying and attempt to kidnap or question her over. 

It’ll fine either way, Tori told herself. She still didn’t go back to the village. Instead, she walked stiffly down the embankment as fast as she could without breaking into a run. She was going to miss the dirty laundry and the cute crab mug she’d left behind, but all her other belongings were in a storage seal, and she didn’t want to risk going back and discovering a pissed off and half-boiled Minato. 

Minato did not show to bother her at all that day, as she marched forth in a random direction. He didn’t show up during the horrible three hours of paranoid sleep she got while camping. 

When a full twenty-fours passed, Tori finally started to calm down. She’d found a fisherman and convinced him to take her further down the river than she could get walking, and while she wasn’t untrackable, she gained confidence that Minato was at the very least too injured to hunt her down immediately. 

She tried to travel deeper into Grass Country as fast as she could, paying for transport more often than she would normally. 

Days passed and no news sprang up about the Yellow Flash mysteriously dying, but also there were no new sightings of him. Tori had no way to draw real conclusions from this. Konoha was unlikely to advertise him dying or being grievously injured, but also he was a key player in the war and his enemies would be sniffing around for information like this. That there was no news could mean she’d succeeded, or it could be she’d failed and so there was nothing worth gossiping about. 

The lack of knowing what had happen turned to a festering sort of anxiety that kept her up at night and made her head dizzy at random moments. And so, Tori switched up her goals. Even if she’d killed Minato properly, that his body was somewhere where she couldn’t hide what she’d done meant Konoha could potentially track her down. She needed to protect herself more than ever. She holed up in a cheap hotel in the middle of nowhere and spent every waking moment making drafts of seal diagrams and fussing. 

How to set up a barrier that could activate faster than a ninja could kill her…? She could paint i directly on her skin, then link its activation to being hit, or to an increase in her heart rate. This would mean she’d inevitably activate it on accident when she walked into a table or got excited about something, but perhaps for now she didn’t care…

Weeks passed. Tori’s anxiety hit a maximum where she didn’t sleep at all one night, and then slowly started to calm. She obtained a raw potato and stuck it in her room’s windowsill to sprout, hoping to use it to add to her chakra phylogeny. She walked into town and stole a library book to try and add to her notes on plant and animal relatedness. She did accidentally activate her seal multiple times, but at least she knew it worked. 

Her funds were running dangerously low, and she’d have to move on soon. She started talking to people again, asking about where war refugees in this area were moving to, and if she could join a caravan. 

She was organizing her things one evening, preparing to move out the next morning. She’d spread all her various fuuinjutsu and research materials across her bed, and stood over it with her hands on her hips, debating the best way to repack and also, how to best transport a sprouted potato?

She looked up at her window potato, now in a paper cup with dirt. It had grown three alien-looking shoots, jagging out at random angles before reaching towards the window. 

Then, as she regarded her potato, a shadow passed over the window. Tori frowned. The window started to move upwards, a hand appearing in the open space, and Tori’s eyes widened. 

She panicked, obviously, which activated her barrier. This was still somehow not faster than the Yellow Flash could break into her hotel room. 

He was toe-to-toe with her in an instant, kunai in hand. Tori yelped in horror as the barrier flicked up around them, a dark pink bubble that was supposed to keep her safe. 

Somehow, Minato looked exactly the same as before, like she hadn’t done her best to turn him into soup. 

The barrier pressed him up against her, his chest and shoulders blocking her view of the rest of the room as he boxed her in, and Tori’s back hit the other side of the barrier. Minato's arm was forced forward as he bent over her, and thank God he was competent enough to roll the kunai in his hand so the broadside pressed against her neck rather than the sharp edge. His chin brushed against the top of her head. 

Tori wished he smelled bad, so she could find this new predicament gross. Instead, he just sort of smelled like dirt and an inoffensive odor of sweat. His body against hers was also warm and firm and bigger than her in a way she regrettably found she liked. 

He also maybe wanted to kill her. She needed to focus on that. The rush of adrenaline and the increase in her heart rate was very confusing in this moment. 

“Oh,” he said, sounding mildly surprised but not at all upset. The hand not holding the knife reached around her, knuckles knocking on the barrier next to her head. “Interesting. Well, I still think this is my win.”

What the hell is he talking about? Tori thought. She was sure he could feel her rapidly beating heart, as sure as she could feel his completely steady heartbeat. 

Well, if he wasn’t already pissed off, she could test the waters a little to see if she could figure out what he wanted. 

“You haven’t won yet,” she said hotly. “What are you going to do? Trap yourself indefinitely in an enclosed space with my corpse?”

He shifted slightly, bringing the kunai away from her throat. He could only pull his head away a couple inches, and he didn’t step back so his body was still pressed against hers, but it was enough distance that she could peer up and see he was smirking at her. His eyes were exactly as pretty as they’d been before. 

Oh no, his smirk is hot, Tori thought helplessly, regretting yet again that boiling was a less efficient murder technique than she’d anticipated. Her insides squirmed with some bizarre contradictory emotion. She was terrified, yes, but also she was a little turned on. 

Then suddenly they were standing on the other side of the room, near the door. He must have chucked a kunai across the room in the tiny fraction of a moment before the barrier had gone up. The barrier was still in place around them. 

Minato’s smirk slipped slightly. Somehow, Tori found his apparent confusion even hotter. 

“Oh, did you try to teleport us both out?” she asked, and smooth and coy as she could make her voice given her insides were flipping out in either panic or arousal. “You’re not getting me out of this that easily.”

Minato was outside of the barrier a second later, and the kunai clattered to her feet, undoubtedly scratching up her shoes. He’d left Tori where she stood, with the marked kunai still in the barrier in case he wanted to go back in. 

He hadn’t gone far— just back to where he’d stabbed a kunai into the wall over her bed. Somehow, on top of planting multiple kunai and outrunning her barrier, he’d also left her window potato completely untouched. Damn him for being so thorough. 

“How’d you do it?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious. His eyes were bright and inviting in a way that made Tori want to answer. Even though he’d literally held a knife to her throat only a moment earlier, he just seemed like he’d be really easy to talk to. 

Touché, she thought. 

“Do what? This barrier?” she said. “Believe it or not, you’re not the only ninja who wants to kill me. A girl learns to protect herself.”

Minato flopped down to sit on her bed and cocked his head. 

“I don’t want to kill you,” he said plainly. 

“Uh-huh,” Tori replied. 

“So how long does your barrier last?” Minato asked, leaning back on his hands. “I have all night. Do you?”

Tori twitched in annoyance. The barrier was tied to her, so it would be up as long as she was alive and producing chakra, or until she chose to deactivate it. But she didn’t want him to know he could just teleport back in and kill her. It was better if he thought the barrier had a time limit, like most barriers would. 

The barrier was also draining her chakra, so it could “kill” her in a day or so without food to replenish herself. She supposed that was the time limit. 

That, or Minato could attempt to deactivate the barrier himself, which meant he’d have to teleport back inside the barrier and then remove her shirt and…

Tori’s face went hot as she imagined what his hands would feel like on her bare skin. This idea should frighten her, and yet she kind of wanted it to happen. What was wrong with her?!

Fortunately, Minato did not react to her blush and simply continued to just stare at her in mild interest. Tori turned her gaze to the kunai at her feet, desperate to distract herself. She had just enough room in her barrier to awkwardly squat down to pick it up. 

“How does this even work?” she asked, picking at the tag with the Hiraishin marker. It wasn’t hard, once she peeled up the edges, to pull the whole thing off the kunai’s handle. “This isn’t real fuinjutsu, is it?”

The tag was… well, technically it was seal script. But also it was just some characters. One of them was “love.” Why. 

Minato’s cheeks had actually turned pink. 

“It’s… it is a seal,” he spluttered. 

“What happens if I destroy it?” Tori wondered, tugging at the paper like she meant to rip it. 

Next moment, Minato was back in the barrier with her again, hands around her wrists as he pushed her back up against the barrier. 

“I stop you before you can,” he said, and somehow this made Tori’s stomach completely flip over. 

“So I can destroy it,” Tori said smartly. She wondered what he would do, if she continued to be sassy with him. 

Minato sighed dramatically. She felt the puff of his breath on the top of her head. She waited excitedly for his reply. 

He took a tiny half-step back, as far as he could get in the cramped space. He let go of her right wrist, but his other hand slipped up her arm to cover her left hand. He held it up in the small space between them, her wrist facing upwards. A brand new Hiraishin marker, written in black across the delicate skin of her wrist, glared up at her. 

Tori’s eyes widened. “When did you…?”

Minato’s stupid sexy smirk was back. “I don’t need ink to place one.”

Fuck, Tori thought. If she’d known this about the Hiraishin once upon a time, she’d definitely forgotten it. Truly this was an OP technique. 

Minato teleported back out of the barrier, this time appearing facing the bed. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the notebooks and scrolls Tori had left out, his head leaning back to regard her window potato. 

He can also control how close he gets to the marker and his position around it, Tori thought. What the fuck, honestly. She was glad she wasn’t a ninja. She’d absolutely hate having to figure out how to fight that. 

As it were, she was a civilian. If she fought anyone outright, she’d just die. Finding out the Hiraishin was even more OP than she’d thought just meant she could figure out new ways to trick him into teleporting directly into his own demise. 

“Who taught you fuinjutsu?” Minato asked, picking up one of the scrolls and examining it. 

Tori did not answer, instead glaring at him as he went through her things and she was helpless to stop him. How rude! She liked her things! 

“I’m honestly not going to hurt you,” Minato said after a couple minutes of silence, picking up a different scroll. 

Tori eyed him, rubbing at her wrist. The Hiraishin marker didn’t smudge the way ink might. Clearly Minato was still underestimating her, if he thought she wouldn’t be willing to also destroy a marker physically on her. 

“Not the vengeful type, then?” Tori drawled. 

Minato actually laughed. He tilted his head back slightly, grinning good naturedly at her. 

“They managed to regrow all my skin, so no harm, no foul.”

They did… they did what?

The face Tori made at this statement must have been funny, because Minato laughed again. It wasn’t mocking or cruel; he sounded genuinely amused. He really did seem like he was telling the truth, that he was just here to ask questions. 

Except, Tori knew better than anyone how good a manipulation tactic playing kind and demure was. Minato was a killer and a tool of Konoha above anything else. She couldn’t forget that. 

“This is a Konoha scroll,” Minato said conversationally, holding up the scroll in question. “Where’d you get it?”

Tori narrowed her eyes at him. I’ll make him break, she decided. 

“One of your buddies decided it would be a good idea to get drunk and harass women,” Tori said, which was the truth. “So I decided he’d be better off with a pair of collapsed lungs and none of his stuff.”

Minato’s easy smile shrank slightly, and his body language turned stiff. 

There, Tori thought. Now show me your true colors. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Minato said, voice tight. 

“I’m not,” Tori replied. “What did Konoha tell you to do about me?”

Minato cocked his head to the side. He studied her for a bit, even as he tucked the Konoha scroll into the pouch at his waist. 

Eventually, he said, “They don’t think you could possibly be real.”

Tori actually laughed. It ripped out of her against her conscious efforts, a single, resounding Ha!

Minato’s lips quirked upwards, his body language loosening. 

“I already knew you’ve killed Konoha-nin,” Minato said. He picked up her notebook and flipped through it idly as he spoke, not really reading it. “And Iwa-nin, and Kusa-nin. I’ve been following you for a while.”

“Really?” Tori asked, and then wanted to slap herself at how obvious it was she wanted the attention. Minato picked up on her tone shift immediately, resummoning his stupid sexy smirk and then stepped towards her. 

“There were rumors of a fuinjutsu master, so naturally I investigated,” he said. Then he snorted with laughter. “Konoha doesn’t believe any of the rumors could be true. So I have no orders from them about you.”

“So…?” Tori prompted. She wasn’t sure if this was good news for her or not. Although, hearing Minato had been looking for her out of personal interest made her insides go all funny again. 

“So,” Minato said, eyeing her up and down. “I’m not lying when I say I don’t really want to hurt you. I’m here to make friends. I just really, really want to know more about the mysterious girl who nearly killed me.”

Then he smiled that smile again, the one that had made Tori feel safe and cared for, the one that she knew was fake. Her face went hot again, but not from whatever confusing hormonal responses she was having. Truly, if she could kill people with her mind, Minato would be dead right then and there. 

“For example,” Minato continued. He held up a page of her notebook, which contained a draft of the chakra phylogeny she was trying to make. “What is this?”

“You know,” Tori said tersely, “if you actually wanted to play nice, you wouldn’t be going through all my personal belongings like a creep. You wouldn’t have snuck in here waving knives around.”

Minato’s eyes widened slightly. His cheeks went ever so slightly pink. 

“I don’t think I want to tell you anything,” Tori said, crossing her arms. 

“I came in waving kunai around because last time we talked, you nearly killed me for no reason,” Minato replied, annoyance seeping into his voice, although he didn’t raise his volume. He jabbed a finger against the outside of the barrier. “What if this had been an offensive jutsu instead of a defensive one? I want to play nice, but don’t think you can play harmless civilian with me.”

Tori scowled. Okay. So. He had a point. And she did… she did want his attention. She liked him smiling at her as much as she hated it. 

“It’s a phylogeny,” Tori said finally, pointing at the notebook. “It’s a family tree that shows evolutionary relationships between species. I’m trying to see if more closely related things have more similar chakra than distantly related things.”

Minato stared back at her, mildly dumbfounded. Her explaining this probably just created more questions than it answered for him. 

Good, Tori thought. She wanted to be mysterious and unsolvable. 

She pointed at her window potato. 

“So my hypothesis is that that guy will have more similar chakra to the trees outside than yours or my chakra.”

Minato eyed the potato for a moment, and then stared down at the phylogeny, then looked back up at her. 

“So you’ve been carving seals into trees,” he said slowly, “to use… tree chakra…?”

“Well,” Tori said. It was unclear to her if this was a secret she should be keeping or not, but if  she wanted to establish a friendly rapport and not be killed by an upset famous ninja, probably she should tell him something. This she couldn’t exactly hide, and it was less risky territory than time travel or Orochimaru or Ame. Also… something inside her was pleased, that he’d noticed she’d been doing that. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Huh,” Minato said. 

“So will you be reporting my creative endeavors to Konoha?” Tori asked cautiously. 

“I think they’d be even less likely to believe me,” Minato said, grinning cheekily at her. “As that sounds like crazy bullshit.”

Tori felt her face collapse into a pout, and Minato’s grin broadened. 

“How about…” he said, lazily tossing the notebook back onto the bed. “Next time I bring you another plant, and you show me how you're using plant chakra?”

Tori bit her bottom lip. What was this angle? So he was threatening to come back to her, to make her show him her fuinjutsu experiments? Was he just curious, or was he mining her for information to report back to Konoha? What would happen if she said no? What would happen if she agreed?

“So you’ll bring me flowers?” she said instead of a real answer. 

He winked at her. “It’s a date, then.”

And just like that, he was gone. 

Tori sank to her knees. Her hands were shaking, and she wasn’t sure if they’d been doing that the whole time or not. The adrenaline seeped out of her, and Tori felt exhausted. 

Minato definitely could have killed her. That he didn’t must mean something, but she wasn’t ready to believe he wanted to be friends. That didn’t make sense. That wasn’t the crapsack world she lived in, or how the people of the Third Shinobi War behaved. 

She stared down at her wrist, at the Hiraishin marker now permanently affixed to her. He had acted all nice, almost flirty, but also he’d made it so she couldn’t back out if she wanted to. He wasn’t a good person, and he wasn’t as friendly as he claimed. 

He had won this round, she supposed. But he was still underestimating her. He had left her like this, assuming she wasn’t crazy enough to hack off her own skin… and assuming she wasn’t smart enough to remove the marker herself. 

Let’s see who wins the next one, Yellow Flash, Tori thought. 

[plutonium-sky]

AIGHT HERE WE GO.

So! About the revelation I mentioned with WL and Eden statues- I’m going to give some context first. Me and @halcyon-xxy-art were discussing some Sky DND stuff, and then had an interesting idea- what if there was light corruption, alongside dark corruption?

We immediately establish dark corruption as the crystalized bodies, with the soul (light) trapped inside. The thing is, we wanted to make it so that there wasn’t any weakening of their light- it’s just that there is more darkness. After that got put out, we started thinking about what light corruption would look like, and Aria basically perfectly described a Winged Light. That’s when I had my revelation. What if Winged Lights are sky kids who got light overflow?

I’ll elaborate on that in a bit when I establish another fact we put out right after. Skykid DO have darkness inside them. It’s just hidden in a way no one would expect- it’s right in front of us. A skykid’s darkness would be their physical Body. And, if we go by that logic, their light would be everything else that the body holds- their light and Soul.

And then we added more to the corruption parts. Darkness corruption would work that the soul is trapped inside the body- and cannot return to Megabird (it would slowly weaken inside, losing its power bit by bit as the overbearing darkness drains it.) Light corruption was easy to figure out from there as well. The soul doesn’t have a body to guide it back to the cycle (it had burnt it away, and now the soul is horribly exposed, frozen in time, until a new, temporary vessel guides it back to freedom.)

The skykid’s body needs to walk alongside a delicate balance of light and dark, lest things go to SHIT for them. Too much light will result in being corrupted and overloaded by it, and the body will burn and flake away and the soul be frozen in time and space without the body to guide it back to the cycle. Too much darkness will slow them down, overtake them, eventually turning the skykid into an immovable statue, the soul covered on all sides, and it’s now trapped in a cage of its own making.

Also, absorbing WL (the lost souls of someone else) benefits us instead of harming us because all the overloaded light is still being taken by the other’s soul, not yours. Of course, a little still leaks through- and that’s why it makes flying easier. It’s a sort of…. symbiotic relationship, where the sky kid gives the soul a temporary vessel for it to rest in, while the soul helps the vessel, benefitting it as safely as it can. It takes more WL the longer you have to fly for safety concerns- if they keep on sharing the same amount of energy, the light corruption will happen once more, to a new victim, and now there will be two souls trapped beside each other.

Also, the body and soul theory is further supported by sky kids extinguishing. NORMALLY, we don’t grow crystals. By normally I mean stuff like rain and non-shard crabs. That would be a “normal” death- we aren’t corrupted, the soul and body are still in balance. There’s the pity WL too- you can still be saved. For lore reasons, I’m going to partially ignore the fact that you would still get a pity WL if you lost all of yours to a krill, shard, or shard crabs, because let’s be honest- it’s just ingame things. And, if my memory serves my right (I can’t play sky at the moment to check properly), you would grow crystals for all of those deaths- corrupted by darkness.

There’s then Eden. We run around, giving WL to the lost to darkness bodies of sky kids- or perhaps spirits. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. But, what matters is that somehow, this works in freeing them. My theory for how is that the light corrupted and overloaded soul helps balance out the dark corrupted body, sharing its light with the trapped soul inside. By the point we find the eden bodies, though, the souls are so weakened that they’re barely there- my explanation as to why we don’t see double the winged lights in orbit. They need time to recover.

The last nail in the coffin for this theory, to me, is the cutscene in eden that happens when we finally lose all of our winged light and become a statue ourselves. Where we fall in darkness, as a dark figure, then land. The light and dark of our being in a limbo meet. The light (soul) is sitting there, unmoving, trapped. Meanwhile, us, as the darkness (body) moves, going back to the light, to guide them back. This supports my “the light and soul cannot be guided without the darkness of their body” talk- because it IS the body guiding the soul here. It frees us.

TLDR? Skykids aren’t only light- they are also darkness. The light is their soul and the dark is their body. Without a body, lost because of various reasons (the one I gave is being overloaded/corrupted by light), the soul is trapped and we see this ingame as Winged Light. This creates a delicate balance where there can’t be too much light or too much dark in the soul and body. When you are corrupted by darkness, the soul gets trapped but it is still there. A normal death for a sky kid is when no crystals grow on their body. Eden statues are helped with WL because the overloaded darkness and the overloaded light balance each other out.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, hope it lived up to your expectations.

[magics-neptunes-things]

Sneaky Cheeky

Hi guys :)

Another Luna fic, I hope you will like it :) It's from requests here and here. For this story, let say England qualified for the Olympics instead of the Netherlands, sorry Viv I love you.

Enjoy ♥

TW : Suggestive but not explicit content

______________________________________________________________

"Lucy is moodyyyyy, she miss her Oh-niiii" Ella Toone sings, catching Lucy’s glare.

"Fuck of Tooney" Lucy mumble, arms crossed on her chest. "At least say her name correctly for fuck's sake"

Sitting in one of the beanbags provided in the TV room, her leg is crossed on the other and her foot shakes nervously. Next to Ella, Alessia puts a hand on her best friend’s arm to prevent her from adding a layer. Lucy seems to be on edge and the blonde thinks wisely that it’s useless to add fuel in the fire.

"What’s the matter, mate?" inquired Leah once Ella decided to go after Mary. "This is not the first time you have been separated because of national camps"

"You’ll make fun of me" Lucy replies, taking a quick look at Leah.

"Of course not duh"

Lucy looks carefully at Leah for a few seconds, judging her captain’s sincerity before giving her an answer.

"Come on. I miss my girlfriend too, I can understand"

"I’m still worried about her with this damn federation. Rubiales and Vilda are gone, but it’s still a basket of rotten crabs. I already know a lot and I’m sure she didn’t tell me everything so I wouldn’t worry too much for her."

Leah reluctantly nodded, the difficulties faced by the Spanish national team broke out after the World Cup final. She learned it at the same time as the rest of the world and it was a real general shock.

"I can understand. But they’re together and that’s a good thing, right? They know they are supported now, I don’t think they can make things worse now that everyone knows"

Lucy answers only with an unconvinced grunt.

"Putellas and the others are there to watch over the younger ones, including Ona" Leah gently recalls.

Lucy sighs softly and lets herself go against the back of her seat this time, relaxing a little. Leah is right, she knows full well that Alexia or even Irene and Jenni wouldn't let anyone harm one of the other players. But they can’t be everywhere every time either. Lucy asked Ona to stay as close as Alexia as she can.

"I know that… but it’s my job to look after her" mumbles Lucy.

Glancing at the blonde, Lucy realizes she is smiling. But it's not a mocking smile, rather a kind of soft smile.

"What?" made Lucy, a little defensive

"Nothing. It’s sweet to see how much you care about her"

Lucy prefers to roll her eyes and take her phone out of her pocket, although a smile comes to soften her face. Yeah, of course she cares about her girlfriend. Leah is a close friend of Keira’s, but seems to have accepted their breakup without taking sides with either of them. It makes sense that she exchanges more with Keira since they are best friends, but that never prevented her from having a good relationship with Lucy.

The smile of the English girl however quickly fades noticing that if she has several notifications, none of them bear the name of her girlfriend.

Lucy ❤️‍🔥 Ona, I swear, if I don’t hear from you in ten minutes, I’ll show up at your hotel, I don’t care.

She isn't joking. To pass the time, Lucy excuses herself to Leah to go get something to drink. Their diet being monitored given the circumstances, Lucy opts for a banana-kiwi smoothie. However, they have nothing of the taste of those that Ona makes her every morning at home in Barcelona. And, when it's only two minutes left, Lucy finally feels her phone vibrate in her pocket.

Hoping that it's indeed Ona and not her mother, Lucy takes a quick glance on the screen, sighing of relief when seeing the name of her girlfriend appear. Without any hesitation, Lucy picks up and relaxes a little while seeing Ona’s face appear on the screen of her phone.

"Where the hell were you?"

It was harsher than she wanted, and Ona makes a slight grimace when hearing Lucy’s tone but decides not to hold it against her, knowing that there is only worry behind this reaction.

"We had a meeting that went on forever, I'm sorry"

Lucy sniff and Ona smile softly, lying on the bed of her hotel room.

"I’m so sorry. I went to my room as fast as I could, the others are still downstairs. But everything is fine" assures Ona, that Lucy listens only with one ear, distracted by the long hair and the brunette that scatters around her head. "Where are you?"

"In the cafeteria. The others are in the TV room but Ella was starting to get on my nerves" confesses the English, making Ona smile.

The brunette knows Ella well, and Alessia too, since they all played for Manchester United before Ona went to Barcelona and Alessia to Arsenal. She is therefore perfectly aware of Ella’s behavior and character, even if it never bothered her personally.

"What was she doing?"

"Nothing" Lucy replies, rolling her eyes.

Noticing that her girlfriend’s bad mood persists, Ona rolls on her stomach and looks more closely at Lucy through the screen. It’s been three weeks since they saw each other, even if their hotels are not even one kilometer from each other. Nothing more frustrating in the eyes of the two young women.

"Qué pasa mi Vida?" asks Ona affectionately.

"I miss you" Lucy says in a low voice. "I can't sleep when you’re not with me"

"I miss you too. I can’t wait to be on holiday and having you only for me"

"I’ll be so glued to you that you’d be sick of me" Lucy smirks

"There’s no way I can ever get sick of you. I miss you too much. You will be the one asking for air"

"I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you. You’ll be lucky if you can take two steps without my hands on you."

"Cant' wait for it"

Lucy hum for any answer, without leaving Ona’s face with her eyes. The two young women planned a two-week trip to Fiji after the Olympics Games, wishing to be able to meet and relax before returning home to Barcelona.

"You look tired too" Lucy notes after a few seconds.

"Being away from me changes you, usually you tell me how beautiful I am" Ona tease her.

Lucy laughs softly while shaking her head and Ona can only smile when hearing the young woman relax a little.

"I said you looked tired, not ugly" Lucy objects.

"Yeah. I liked it better when you threatened to come to my hotel to see me"

"Don’t tempt me" sighs Lucy.

Ona just sent her a sad smile, leaning her chin on her hand.

"Don’t look at me like that" whispers Lucy.

"Like what?"

"You know very well what I mean"

Ona gently shrugs her shoulders, biting her lower lip. She always try to make good figure while talking to her, but learning that Lucy miss her too didn't help.

"I sleep badly without you, too" ended up confessing Ona. "Your sweater almost doesn’t smell like you anymore"

"Okay, that’s enough" Lucy abruptly said as she jump from the stool she was on.

"What are you doing?" asks Ona, surprised by Lucy’s behavior.

But the Spaniard receives no response, finding herself suddenly in the belly pocket of Lucy’s sweatshirt. Various noises giving her no explanation or even the slightest clue about what is happening are heard, before the communication is cut off.

Ona 🧡 Lucy what the hell are you doing?

But Ona doesn't get the slightest answer and it's suddenly her turn to be worried and nervous by not getting news of her girlfriend. She asks herself if she should call one of her english friend but she decided to give Lucy some minutes.

Deciding to go to the bathroom to change her mind, Ona puts on a t-shirt that she borrowed from Lucy (without really asking to be fair) and undertakes to brush her hair, then her teeth. She didn't plan to leave her room anyway and Aitana with whom she shares her room saw her less dressed than that more than once.

However, the Catalan girl’s eyebrows frown a little when she hears knocks at the door. Ona takes the time to finish tying her hair in a bun for the night before going to answer. This doesn't seem to suit the person behind the door since new knocks are being made, stronger and more pressing this time.

"Llego" Ona says in Spanish, feeling a strange sensation in her stomach.

She still remembers Vilda’s unexpected visits a few months ago but she tries to reason in the short seconds before she opens the door to her room. But Vilda is no longer there, so there is no risk that this will happen, right?

Her face is however slightly anxious when she opens the door, quickly relaxing when she sees Lucy’s face. Before she realized Lucy had no reason to be here. But she doesn’t have time to ask her a single question before Lucy sneaks inside, fearing to be surprised by someone else.

Relieved to finally be safe, the Englishwoman turns to Ona who has meanwhile closed the door of her bedroom before hugging her. The Catalan responds quickly to herembrace, passing her arms around Lucy. Her face in the hollow of her neck allows Lucy to find the perfume and smell of Ona she loves.

"Lucia if they catch you…" ended up whispering Ona, without breaking away from her girlfriend.

"I don’t care. You're worth it"

Lucy’s voice is masked by Ona’s hair, which makes her smile.

"I missed you so much" sighs Lucy, slowly detaching herself from Ona.

But the youngest doesn't seem to hear it from this ear since she tightens her arms around Lucy, the latter still so surprised to remember the strength of her girlfriend, despite their difference of size of a few centimeters.

"Ona" laughs softly Lucy

But Ona shakes her head negatively, continuing to refuse to release her girlfriend and puts her head in the hollow of her neck.

"Let me at least look at you" the Englishwoman asked, which Ona finally accepted not without pouting.

Ona supports Lucy’s gaze when she gently takes her face in her hands, observing her attentively for a few seconds.

"That’s what I thought. Tired, but still beautiful"

Ona laughs softly as she hears her, her giggles causing as every time strange tickles in the pit of Lucy’s stomach. Using their position, Lucy delicately draws Ona’s face against hers to unfold a kiss on her lips.

Without losing a second, Ona puts her arms around her neck and it takes them only a fraction of a second to get lost both in their embrace. Forgetting that they are not in the security of their apartment, their many kisses eventually lead them to Ona's bed who doesn't hesitate to rid Lucy of her sweatshirt before starting to kiss her again.

It's only when the door of the room reopens that the two young women regain consciousness of things. But it’s obviously already too late. Luckily, both are still dressed.

"Ona?!"

Needless to say, Aitana didn't expect to find her roommate in an intense makout session. Especially since she's supposed to be in a relationship and that her partner is in another hotel. But Ona barely has time to hear the amazement in Aitana’s voice and to see the surprised look of Alexia behind her, before Lucy gets up a little under her, revealing her identity to the other two young women.

"Madre mía what's happening here?" asks Alexia

"You both are so in trouble" smirks Aitana.

"Shhh" makes Ona while leaning forward, to be sure that the door of the room is properly closed.

********

It took long minutes of discussion for Lucy and Ona to find themselves alone in the room, Aitana going to sleep with Alexia for the night. Even if the Catalan knows perfectly well that she will have the right to be teased until the end of the Games, she doesn't care if it allows her to spend a night in her girlfriend's arms.

"Ona?" gently makes Lucy

It takes a few seconds for the Spanish to react, her mind a little shut between the recovery after their intense and long reunion and the caresses that Lucy makes with her fingertips along her spine column. Not to mention the regular heartbeat of Lucy right under her ear that lulls her.

"Mh?" ended up answering Ona in a bewitched voice, without opening her eyes.

"Why did you seem worried earlier?"

"You know how Aitana can be when she’s surprised. I already saw Jenni coming and if she knows, everyone will know" says Ona mumbling, burying her face in her girlfriend’s belly. "They will tease me for all the rest of the stay tho"

"Yeah, I know" laughs Lucy gently before talking again. "But that’s not what I was thinking about."

Lucy feels Ona’s eyebrows frown against her skin before the fullback turns her face so she can look at her.

"I don’t understand then" Ona said, looking closely at Lucy’s face.

"When you came to open the door earlier, you seemed worried"

"Oh"

In a few seconds Ona’s mind goes back to what she thought at that moment, the constant discomfort and worry that inhabited the Spanish players. The surprise visits in the rooms, supposedly to check that their environment was healthy, diets without any senses, comments displaced and degrading in front of others… If the players came together - at least most of them - it was a lot of fun for the high-ranking players and their little friends.

Ona and Lucy had been dating for a few months when Ona went to training camps with the national team and then during the World Cup. If Ona had already told her parents and her brother about the situation, Lucy knew nothing about it until the Spanish woman told her about it one evening on the phone, after a particularly hard day morally.

Lucy’s reaction was as strong as her surprise and it actually happened to Ona not to tell her everything so as not to push her concern too much, wishing that her girlfriend could focus as much as possible on her own career.

But Ona’s silence is far from reassuring Lucy, who stands up on her elbows in bed, forcing Ona to also sit on her legs.

"Did something happen again?"

"No" assures Ona, shaking her head. "Promised"

Tenderly smiling, Ona gently caress her girlfriend’s cheeks with her fingertips. The green eyes of the English look at her carefully, seeking to detect the slightest sign that could tell her the opposite of what Ona claims. Understanding that it will take more for Lucy to be reassured, Ona sits on her legs before resuming the speech.

"It’s not as bad as before. I just wondered who it could be and it reminded me of what we were going through before this summer."

Lucy’s frowning doesn't seem to relax but the other brunette has a little trouble understanding why. Ona doesn’t need to open her mouth though, as Lucy ends up answering her questions with a small sigh.

"I know how you think and I know you probably didn’t tell me everything so I wouldn’t worry anymore" said Lucy, Ona blushing at it. "But I think it worries me even more. I need to know, Ona."

It’s hard for Ona to deny Lucy anything in general, but when she looks at her that way, it’s almost impossible. It's Ona’s turn to sigh softly, watching her girlfriend attentively. The latter rises to sit in turn, a hand in the back of Ona to prevent her falling because of her movement.

"I know that you want to do well and that you seek to protect me, but I too need to protect you"

"Okay" sighs softly Ona after a few extra seconds of hesitation.

After a smile, Lucy tenderly puts her lips on those of Ona, sealing the promise made.

"I don’t know how I’m going to let you go tomorrow morning" said Ona, after Lucy lay down again, taking her against her. "Maybe I’ll lock you up here until the Games are over."

Lucy laughs softly, trying to ignore the breath of Ona who tickles her neck when she speaks.

"Why don’t you start by getting rid of your apartment in Barcelona instead? It’s useless except to store furniture. Coco must have slept there four times since you got her"

Ona smiles softly at the evocation of her dog, guarded by her favorite cousins. Her parents had made the trip to Paris to see her play, it would not have made sense for them to keep her.

"Maybe yes" thoughtfully say Ona by mechanically sliding her finger on Lucy's arm.

"If you don't want to..."

"No! I want it. I'm just wondering how I can put all my stuff in your apartment. Maybe I "

"Well... Maybe we can look for a bigger one?" ask Lucy before adding when she feels Ona freeze before looking at her. "Like our apartment or maybe house so when can have a garden for the dogs"

"I'd love that" Ona smiles despite her eyes fogged with tears.

Lucy smiles and kiss her sweetly. Ona doesn’t know yet that Lucy has already unconsciously looked at apartments and houses in the neighborhood in which they already live, but it is a secret that she will tell her when they are both on vacation in Fiji.

The most urgent thing is to get Lucy out of the hotel before everyone gets up the next morning. They will have only slept a few hours, but it is well worth it in the opinion of the two young women. Their separation is only brief now, but that won’t stop them from spending long minutes saying goodbye, just like the day Lucy flew to the training camp with the England team.

"See you soon Superstar" Lucy whispers against Ona’s lips, smiling and feeling her smile against her lips.

"Shut up" smiled Ona before putting a new kiss against her lips.

Managed to leave the Spanish hotel without being spotted, it's facing Mary and Alessia walking for their morning walk that Lucy finds herself arriving in the English hotel. Long story short, it's not only Ona who will be teased until the end of the Games.

[whillywisp]

moments in between. pt. 1

⚠︎ | moments of rest and unrest between lovers who are afraid, who hestitate, and who see little sense in peace. proceed with caution.

Summary: reader disappears suddenly during the funeral of her fallen District partner, who had died at her own hands, and comes back home to her lover's grief.

Category: requested.

Timeline: set post 70th Hunger Games, one month after reader won.

Tags : angst, destructive love; mild comfort towards the end,

Warnings: implied canon typical violence, toxic relationship, toxic coping mechanisms, PTSD, implied suicide attempt, implied self harm, destructive behaviour.

Pairing: Finnick Odair X Reader

“Where were you?”

She didn't look at him, too focused on dragging the bag in her hands next to him. It looked heavy, he noted mildly, and he wondered what on earth was in it, why his girl—his victor—was carrying it around.

She looked up from the floor, strands of her wet hair sticking to the sides of her face, and his heart sank at the blank, unfocused gaze that met his.

“Out.”

He took a deep breath, trying to keep his temper in check, to calm his racing heart, that was still twisted into a knot of fear in his chest that refused to loosen as he slammed the receiver back in it's place.

"Out where?" He asked, his face twisting in bewilderment as she walked past him, carrying the strange bag, into the kitchen. He watched her as placed it on the counter and took plastic containers out, blinking when he saw them full of steaming, spicy crab stew. “Doll—”

“I went to the market,” she mumbled distractedly as she looked for bowls and a ladle. “Ate dinner with a friend. Brought back some stew for you. I'll make you some ric—”

“You left a funeral, Piers' funeral, went missing for nine hours and now you want me to believe you just went to eat dinner with a friend?” He asked, staring at the girl in front of him as if she was speaking in a completely different language.

“Mhmm.”

And he immediately knew something was wrong.

Finnick knew her better than anyone, anyone, and he knew that she would never do this. Piers Morgan had died by her hands in the arena. She wouldn't abandon his funeral for nothing. She wouldn't miss a chance to apologise to his parents for his sacrifice, despite the fact that it would get her into trouble.

She wouldn't. But she had.

And now, he couldn't even think beyond the sheer amount of anger suffocating him. He couldn't think beyond the worry etched in the lines of Mags' aging features or the hysteria that suffocated Annie. He couldn't think beyond the way he could feel his heart nearly give out from fear, of the way he nearly ripped his hair out in the last nine hours calling everyone under the sun to help him find her—

“Do you think this is some kind of joke?” He asked quietly, his eyes trained on her, on the soaked fabric of her black dress, clinging to her skin, on the way her fingertips had turned blue from the rain she had been walking around in. “Do you think it's funny? Scaring the shit out of everyone like this? Do you know what you have put me through for the past nine hours—”

“I needed some time alone—”

“And you couldn't wait to have that alone time for an hour?” He asked, letting out an incredulous laugh. “You couldn't tell me before you went off to God knows where—”

“That's the fucking point isn't it?” She asked, letting out a short, sardonic laugh, making the room go still, freezing him in his place. Part of him was glad, relieved at the sight of an emotion, even if it was anger, in her eyes. He couldn't stand the lifeless grief that stained her skin like indigo on ivory.

“I needed a few hours of feeling like a normal human being. One that doesn't have blood on her hands. One that doesn't have cash deposited into a bank account from the Capitol because she killed people. I needed a few hours of feeling like myself again and I can't do that with one of you constantly breathing down my fucking neck!"

“Well, guess what? You're not normal!” Finnick shouted back, trying not to breathe too hard because God his heart, his heart hurt. He could feel the way shards of his ribs and glass of her words and his own stuck in the soft tissues and making it bleed. “You're a fucking Victor and I'm your fucking mentor and that means you don't go disappearing on me for nine hours!”

But even that did little stop the venom flowing from his lips.

“You think I enjoy babysitting you?” He asked stepping up to her, staring down at the way his own, twisted features reflected in her empty eyes. “You think I enjoy having to watch your every move and keep my eyes on you all the time? You think I like waking up every morning with a knot in my stomach wondering if you'll still be breathing by the end of the day?”

Poison. He was poison.

“I never asked you to care!” She screamed back, making him flinch back a little his chest heaving. “I didn't ask you to care! I didn't ask you to do anything for me! It's not my fault that you can't be a normal mentor who can't give up after his job is done! Your job was done when my time in the arena ended and it's not my fault that you don't recognise that!”

“Well, that's fucking unfortunate because sadly, for both of us, I do care. Beyond what my job description entails.” He snapped at her, breathless at the sight of her rage, stunned by the fact that despite her state, despite the unbound tempers, she still was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes on.

He leaned against the kitchen island, rubbing his shaking hands across his face as he tried to breathe, tried to see beyond the red and blue of their combined rage.

“You can't keep doing this, baby,” he whispered, looking at her through the thin film of moisture in his eyes, pleading, begging her to stop hurting him. “Y-You can't keep doing this. You can't disappear for hours like this and-and come back looking like you jumped into the fucking ocean—”

“Go home, Finnick.”

“I thought I lost you. I thought you tried again—”

“Please stop it and go home.”

“And-And then you walked in through the door, looking like t-that and not saying a word and I knew, I knew you did. I knew you tried to leave again—”

“Then go home! Then go home if I scare you so much! Go home if I'm so fucking terrifying!” She screamed, slapping her hands down on his chest and he gasped, his very breath lost at the way her wet hair curled like tendrils of smoke.

“I am home!” He shouted back, grabbing her wrists before she could do it again. He tugged her as close as he could, leaning his forehead against hers, trying to ignore the way she flinched at his touch, at the way his fingertips pressed into the lines on her wrists.

“I am home,” he repeated firmly, ignoring the blood staining his fingertips, his lips trembling against the cold of her skin. “I am home. And so are you. And you need to stop this. You need to stop hurting yourself, baby— please just listen to me!”

Her blank eyes snapped up to meet his, and he pressed his lips to hers desparately, begging her to come back to him, to please come back from the world he had lost her to.

“You can't keep hurting yourself,” he whispered, gently pushing back strands of her hair, wiping away the tear teetering on her lower lashline with his thumb, leaving behind a streak of red in his wake. “You can't disappear like that again, ever. And you absolutely cannot go anywhere alone, not with the way you are acting these days. You can't—”

“I don't want to do this anymore,” she whispered, her lips trembling, breaking whatever was left of his heart. “I c-can't do this. I'm not meant to be a-a Victor. I'm not. I can't live like this anymore—”

“Yes, you can,” he whispered, shaking his head, pressing a kiss to her forehead, cheek, nose before finally on her lips, desparate for her to feel him, to know that he was here, right here and that he would never leave. “You survived the Games, you'll survive this too. You'll be fine. We'll be fine.”

“I'm so sorry,” she choked out in a breathless sob, crumbling in his arms like fine snow. “I'm s-so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

I'm so sorry that I can't stop hurting you.

“It's okay,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her, tight and misplaced as if he was trying to hold too many pieces of her together at once. “You're okay, baby. I'm okay. We're okay. We're going to be okay.”

The lie burned his tongue like acid and his lungs like the cigarettes he smoked. But even if it did little to ease the fear and pain and grief and rage clawing at her skin like vultures asking for their share of her flesh, he'd do it again. He pressed a kiss into her hair and prayed to whoever would listen, to accept his lie this once to give him a truth in exchange. This once.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ •─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

A/N: Written in the middle of a study break, on Tumblr before being unleashed into the world and so please be kind. English is not my first language so if it has some weird lines then that's why. Inspired by the song above but not a song fic. I have been burnt out and unable to write for a while but this has been on my mind for the last few days. Hope you enjoy.

All my love,

Moon.

[fl100r]

✦𝘾𝙀𝙇𝙀𝙎𝙏𝙄𝘼𝙇 𝘼𝘿𝙈𝙄𝙍𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 ✦

||ᴋᴀᴛꜱᴜᴋɪ ʙᴀᴋᴜɢᴏᴜ x ɢᴏᴅᴅᴇꜱꜱ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ||

・┆✦ʚ Chapter 1 ɞ✦ ┆・

"𝙄 𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙣𝙤��"

"𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙒𝙝𝙮?.."

"𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙩. 𝙙𝙪𝙙𝙚"

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺༻✦༺༻✦༺

Bakugou is so depressed after war shi happen so god game happen to him too, meet a gyatt goddess wow fell in love real? or cap?

{ Slowburn }

tw: Violence, rape.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ .

⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣

Two days had passed since the War of Ravager's Crusade. Returning to his kingdom, Bakugou saw the ashes and broken homes of once-smiling children and families, now reduced to rotten, burned bodies beneath the rubble of their own homes. He felt a deep disappointment in himself for failing to protect his kingdom, even after promising his parents he would continue their legacy and be like his mother, the Queen of the Crimson Bones. He had lost everything he swore to uphold, and now he lay in his room, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Hopeless and unsure of what to do, the realization hit him hard: his army, his village, his kingdom, his family-they were all gone. A tear rolled down his cheek, landing on his wrinkled, rough bed. He cried quietly, his sobbing filled with regret. He longed for revenge but felt utterly useless.

Katsuki Bakugou, the Crimson Warrior, was supposed to win this war, but instead, he had lost the souls of those who loved and admired him. He had managed to kill the leader of the Crab Clan without magic, which was impressive enough on its own.

Wait... magic. Magic had been forbidden in his kingdom. His mother had outlawed it, believing that no one should rely on the "easy way out to victory." She felt that those who used raw strength alone were worthy of respect and honor, with the sole exception of healing magic, which was revered for its usefulness.

But now... maybe he could use magic to bring some of his people back. The bodies weren't too far gone yet. Dark magic could be the key.

Bakugou quickly rushed to his library, searching frantically for dark magic spells.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧Meanwhile... At The Abyssal Sanctum (Y/N's Realm).. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ . ⋅ ˚̣- : .

"Y/N, you've got to stop your people from using your magic to revive the dead! Ugh! People in heaven are starting to disappear. We don't want our world to overpopulate!" An angelic but rough voice shouted angrily. It was Azariel.

"Erm... you're overreacting, dude. It's just a couple of people. It's not like a billion people got revived," you replied, unbothered by Azariel's concern and his constant ranting about the "overpopulation theory."

"My point still stands! Oh, Great Heavens, you infuriate me! Please get rid of the spell, since you and your family invented dark magic! YOUR MAGIC IS SINFUL AND EVIL!" he yelled, stomping away angrily, clearly annoyed by your stubbornness, and slammed your enchanted, huge doors behind him.

"It's just reviving, though. What harm does reviving someone cause? And sinful and evil? Alright, buddy, my magic doesn't have morality... it just is what it is," you muttered, feeling annoyed. He kept complaining about people showing up in heaven almost every day, which was apparently tiring for him. Then, when people used your magic to bring loved ones back, he complained about that too? It didn't make any sense.

While you were deep in thought, your doors suddenly burst open. Your best friend came rushing in, beaming with excitement.

"Oh~ HERE COMES THE GODDESS OF LOVE! WORSHIP ME, AND THERE'S A 50/50 CHANCE YOU WON'T DIE ALONE! Heheh! Y/N! GUESS WHO'S GONNA BE THE HOST OF THIS YEAR'S 500TH ANNIVERSARY GAME!" Koemi cheered, her happiness radiating.

"It's you. I know," you replied, unamused.

"Oh..." Koemi's tone dropped, sounding disappointed by your flat response.

"You could've maybe pretended.. To not know.. Jeez you always like this even when we were mortals." Koemi said annoyed.

"What? I'm stating something that I think is correct based on your reaction Dumbass."

"Okay.. Okay anyway you already know I'm gonna be the one who host this game event, so I've been thinking maybe we can bring the mortals into our little game. Can you guess why?.." Koemi said excitedly.

"We're gonna invite them to tea or something?..." Y/N said, still unimpressed.

Koemi huffed in annoyance. "You've known me since diapers in the mortal world. Jeez, it's like I'm a character introduced in your story mode, but the most forgotten character ever... Anyway, no. I have an idea! So, we do this game event where we pick our mortals-without looking into their past or future-and then make them fight for a single wish! A wish that can grant anything! Like, really anything! They can even join us as a god! What do you think?" Koemi asked, excitement bubbling in her voice. She eagerly awaited Y/N's opinion, even though deep down, she expected something simple-yet sharp-that would probably hurt her feelings.

"Okay that's good." That's it? You fucking piece of shit koemi said in her mind. Well it's fine anyway she's your best friend and she acts like this its fine! Koemi said in her mind, rambling about Y/N and her friendship, lost in her thoughts now.

"Soo.. When will the games begin? Since were gonna pick our own mortals whats the rules? We can pick any mortals right? So some of the gods can just pick someone who' better than everyone else and win the final fight"

Y/N said questioning Koemi ideas if she got a planned for those will use this advantage to just win unfairly in the event.

"Well here are rules of course!" As Koemi make a contract appear out of thin air with her magic,

(If you can't read it)

Welcome to an intense and fiery competition where mortals are subjected to extreme conditions and trials. Selected by the gods, these mortals, driven by lofty ambitions and desires for greatness, will face a crucible of challenges designed to test their determination and resourcefulness. The gods watch from their celestial thrones, relishing the spectacle as these chosen mortals confront their destinies. The gods and goddesses who participate in this grand event shall be rewarded handsomely for their involvement.

Rules and Regulations:

No Handpicking Mortals: Deities are strictly prohibited from personally selecting mortals for participation. The selection process must be predicated upon a divine trait or power inherent to the gods, ensuring that mortals are chosen based on their intrinsic qualities or motivations aligned with the deity's domain.

No Assistance Beyond Emotional Support:Gods are forbidden from utilizing their divine powers to aid mortals directly or indirectly. Any form of intervention, be it through supernatural influence, guidance, or manipulation, is prohibited. Only emotional support, such as encouragement or moral fortitude, is permitted.

No Manipulation of Mortal Trials: The divine entities must refrain from altering or manipulating the trials and challenges faced by the mortals. The integrity of the competition must remain unblemished, with each trial designed to test the mortals' innate qualities without divine interference.

No Breach of Confidentiality: The gods must maintain absolute confidentiality regarding any internal deliberations or decisions pertaining to the selection and challenges faced by the mortals. Any unauthorized disclosure of such information to the participants or external entities is strictly forbidden.

Punishment for Breach of Rules: Gods or goddesses who violate these rules shall be subjected to the most severe of divine punishments. The offending deity will be exiled from their divine realm and cast into a void of endless darkness, where they shall experience the profound isolation and despair of being cut off from divine powers and companionship.

-Koemi Ramírez.

⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚.

"bravo.. The goddess of Love and Lust actually thinks for once!"

Koemi's face expresses just 😐. "Sorry. I know you're not the goddess of lust only love.. Just a joke.. Anyway let me see the contract.." Y/N said as she reads it. "Make sure to signed it if you want to join the game!" Koemi said.

"Alright that looks good, I signed it. Did you already have other gods signed it?" Y/N asked

"I did just now-almost all of them have signed it!" Koemi said enthusiastically. "Anyway, I've got to find my mortal! Good wishes and love to you, my dear friend! You won't die alone-"

Before she could finish, Y/N snapped her fingers, and Koemi vanished from the realm with a soft pop.

Y/N let out a sigh, shaking their head with a wry smile. "Good luck with that, Koemi." She muttered to the empty space left behind, the air still crackling with the remnants of the goddess's departure.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . Meanwhile... Katsuki Bakugou. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒

"Fuck... I can't find anything in this damn library. I want my people back..." Bakugou muttered as he stood up, the chair creaking as it was pushed by his back. He walked through the empty hallways of what was once a lively and grand castle. Now, it lay in ruins, with rubble scattered around and burned curtains and carpets.

"Goddamn it... Why couldn't I just... protect them? They played dirty with me. I've searched through every book, but not one is related to dark magic..." Bakugou sighed, his eyebrows furrowing deeper, his expression a mix of frustration and sadness.

He stopped in front of a large mirror in the long, desolate hallway, gazing at the scars and burn marks that littered his body. He stared at his reflection, seeing someone tired and stressed-every word in the definition of exhaustion and depression. Once a great king, now... someone entirely useless.

"I should leave this place... The food here is stale. I can't survive another day without eating properly." Bakugou packed quickly, determined to leave the place he once called home, vowing not to return until he could restore honor and bring back the souls and bodies of his people.

As he ventured deeper into the woods, he heard a rustle in the bushes behind him. He gripped his axe, ready for anything, but kept walking forward.

"WAH! GIVE ME YOUR MONEY!" A creature with purple balls for a head leapt out at him. Bakugou swung his axe, purposely missing, the blade landing beside the creature.

"OH SHIT!-YOU! OUH MY GAWD-Y-Y-YOUR MAJESTY! UH, UH... SORRY! I THOUGHT YOU WERE THAT HOMELESS MAN WHO STOLE MY SILVER COINS, SIR!" The creature immediately dropped to his knees and bowed before Bakugou.

"Tch..." Bakugou scoffed, placing his axe back on his shoulder as he continued his journey.

"Mineta, buddy! You done yet? Did you kill that homeless man? It's getting dark-Oh! Hey, stranger. Did my buddy scare ya? Sorry, dude!" A yellow-haired man walked into the scene just as Bakugou was about to head toward the nearby town, which seemed to be having a festival.

Bakugou walked past the two boys toward the town. As he entered through the open gates, he noticed people celebrating. Decorations hung from house to house, and in the middle of the town stood a statue of someone, though Bakugou couldn't really see it due to the crowd. He made his way around the large crowd and headed for the food area.

"Ah! Hello, young man! Would you like to buy some bread? I've got all types-never old, only fresh!" the bread seller joyfully exclaimed.

Bakugou remained quiet as he picked a freshly baked loaf.

"Young man, I'm guessing you're not from around here, hmm?" the man asked.

Bakugou nodded. "What are you people celebrating?" he asked, his tone curious but still rough.

"Ah! We're celebrating our goddess, Koemi Ramírez.-the goddess of love. She lived in this town 500 years ago, but she left on a journey to gain more power and to help the people here. That's all I know... If you want to kno-"

Bakugou left, placing a block of gold on the man's counter before he could finish. He moved on to another food stall, buying more food. He didn't know exactly where he was heading after leaving, but his goal remained clear: to find a dark magic user or learn dark magic himself.

"Hey, well if it isn't the Goated Man! Hey, uh... can I get some bread?" the yellow-haired man asked, but was immediately cut off.

"Denki, you didn't help with the festival decorations, or anything really... No aid, no gain for you. Wait... is that how the kids say it these days? Hm... Anyway, no, get outta here," the bread seller replied.

"Can you at least tell me who that was? I bumped into him once near the woods after Mineta lost his coins because of a homeless man. He looks pretty tough! Is he a royal?" Denki asked.

"No idea, well just ask him. Anyway, move along, you rogue thief. Heh!" the bread seller laughed.

Denki rolled his eyes playfully and followed the man with ash-blonde hair.

"Hey! Your Majesty!" Bakugou ignored the sudden yelling behind him-on purpose.

"Can't you hear me?! Hey!!..." The footsteps grew closer. "Hey, Your Majesty! Hehe, sorry for interrupting your shopping, but can you please help-wait, hey man! Stop walking past me! Okay! Wait, I have something you're looking for!"

Bakugou stopped in his tracks and looked back at the yellow-haired man. The man pulled out a medium-sized diamond.

"Isn't this yours? Hmm?" the man said.

Bakugou glanced at the diamond, then back at the man's eyes. "Yeah. Get lost."

The man was shocked. He had stolen a precious, medium-sized diamond from him, and those things were very valuable-at least to people like him.

"Please, I'm Denki Kaminari, the Rogue of this town! You can trust me! Tell me what you want! I really need your help!" Denki pleaded with Bakugou.

"Ugh. Find me a dark magic user, or give me a book with dark magic spells."

Denki was stunned. Dark magic... It was ancient and illegal in many towns, cities, and kingdoms. He couldn't find something like that.

"...uh... Hm, I can't find you a dark magic book, but-"

"Ugh, of course..." Bakugou scoffed.

"B-but! I can lead you to someone who knows more about magic. Maybe there's a chance they have a dark magic book or know a user!"

Bakugou glanced at the dunce-faced man.

"Just help me with something... And I'll lead you to the person! Deal?" Offering a hand to Katsuki, Bakugou hesitated. "Fine.. what is it? as they both shook hands.

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟMeanwhile... At The Sanctum of Eternity｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ

"Azariel, did you find your mortal yet?" Y/N asked.

"Why do you care? Since you don't care about the mortal world..." Azariel replied, a touch of annoyance in his voice.

Y/N rolled her eyes but then smirked. "Yeah, you're right, dude. I don't really care about the mortal world, even when we were mortals ourselves," Y/N said playfully, trying to annoy Azariel on purpose. Even though she was a goddess, being immortal could get pretty boring fast.

"Sigh... Did you find yours yet?" Azariel asked, referring to Y/N's own mortal puppet.

"Found what?"

"I-no, I hate you. You know exactly what I'm referring to, Y/N," he responded, filled with annoyance.

"Yeah, yeah, no. Not yet at least... I thought there'd be more people using dark magic who are worthy of my attention."

"What about the people who worship you?" Azariel asked.

Y/N stared at him as if he had offered his own beating heart on a plate. Y/N might as well have eaten it.

"Hell no. I don't want more people worshipping me," Y/N said.

Azariel looked shockingly confused. "Wait, what? I thought you-"

"What? You think my family and I invented so many dark spells and stuff because we love being worshipped? That's just racist to us creatures. Plus, some of us actually want to die-some of us are pretty much suicidal," Y/N said.

A portal suddenly appeared in the realm, and animals began to come through: bunnies and deer. Following them was a beautiful woman who emerged from the portal, reminiscent of Snow White but dressed in a more provocative outfit.

"Great entrance, Yui," Y/N said, recognizing the newcomer as Yui, the Goddess of All Animals and Creatures.

"Now that I think about it, why do gods need such sexualized clothes? Even you, Azariel-aren't you supposed to be holy? Why are you wearing a tight-ass corset?" Y/N teased.

"Okay, I-" Azariel started to respond but was cut off.

"Yeah, Azariel, why do you have that? But I have to say, you look stunning in it!" Yui chimed in, her voice gentle.

"Oh, thank you, so I-" Azariel began, but was interrupted by a loud sound coming from another portal. This one was pitch black, almost like Y/N's portals but with a more ominously emo ahh.

"Is the meeting starting yet? I want to go back to sleep," said Death, Y/N's older cousin.

"Hey, Damien, you look edgier than me as always. The meeting hasn't started yet-" Y/N began, but before they could finish, a bunch of portals appeared, each a different color and type of magic. Gods and goddesses began to come through, and the ground of the sanctum shook. Thrones emerged from the ground, forming a circle around a table made of gold, jewels, and crystals.

"Alright! Hello everyone, welcome! Welcome to the Gods' Contest of Valor! You may all sit down on your thrones, of course! I am Koemi Ramí-"

"BOOO! WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE!" a voice interrupted loudly. Sounds like Y/N.

Koemi sighed and continued, "Alright, alright, settle down. As I was saying, I am Koemi Ramírez, the Goddess of Love, and I will be hosting this grand event. We are here to select mortals who will compete for a single wish, one that can grant anything they desire, even the chance to join us as gods."

Another god shouted, "Get on with it! We don't have all day!"

Koemi smiled through her irritation. "Very well. The rules are simple: each of us will select a mortal from the pool of candidates. We won't look into their pasts or futures. The mortals will then face trials designed to test their strength, cunning, and resolve. The one who emerges victorious will earn the grand wish."

A goddess in a shimmering blue gown raised her hand. "Are there any restrictions on what the wish can be?"

Koemi nodded. "No restrictions. Anything goes. The only limit is their imagination. Now, I know everyone here has already selected their mortals-except Y/N!"

Y/N glared at Koemi, who smiled triumphantly, clearly enjoying embarrassing Y/N. "Okay, tomorrow we'll mark our mortals with a gem placed on their chest, close to their heart. It'll be implanted there and visible to other mortals in the competition. Of course, if they're wearing clothes, you won't see it. So, Y/N~ pick your mortal faster or you might get disqualified~ :3"

Y/N groaned and rolled their eyes at Koemi, visibly annoyed. "That's all, folks! Thank you so much-"

Before Koemi could finish, the gods began to disappear in clouds of enchanted colored smoke, leaving behind their magical residue. "Ugh... so disrespectful..." Koemi muttered as she, too, began to depart, leaving only Y/N behind.

"Fuck... I can't seem to find anyone who's good at dark magic, except for my family who's still alive, but I'm too stubborn to support them. Well, it's not mandatory for the mortal to have dark magic as their power; it can be their tendency. Sigh... I really need a strong candidate for this event. I keep losing to the others in past events..."

"Meow~ You gonna pull a Disney Wish song out of your ass?" Y/N's cat, perched atop the throne, meowed.

"What the-dawg, where have you been? And hell no, you know I wouldn't," Y/N replied.

The cat jumped down into Y/N's lap and settled in, purring contentedly. "How long have you been here?" Y/N asked, petting the kitty.

"Purr~ purr~ Hm, since the meeting started," the cat replied. Y/N petted the kitty more roughly, pulling back its fur and causing it to look mildly annoyed.

(Example cuz why not)

"You fucking rascal, I've missed you, buddy. You haven't been visiting me in my realm, always going into the mortal world," Y/N said, clearly annoyed.

"Just find me then! Jeez, woman... I've heard you've been-struggling to find a mortal. STOP PULLING BACK MY FACE, LADY-" the cat protested as Y/N continued to pet him, pulling back his fur. "Ehehe- it looks funny, Anyway what did you say?" Y/N asked "I marked some mortals I found, i think they might be worthy for you" "AWH you FUCKING JUST AGHHH!!"

"STOP PULLING BACK MY FURRR!!!!!" the cat yowled.

Y/N stopped petting him and giggled. "Alright, tell me the ones you marked."

The kitty barfed up a tiny crystal ball onto Y/N's hand and Y/N of course gagged a lil. "Here, just watch them and pick who's worthy!" he said.

As the tiny crystal ball began to shine, it summoned a mirror, revealing on the glass the mortals the kitty had marked.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . Meanwhile... Katsuki Bakugou. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ - : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : - ⭒

In an abandoned church, Kaminari said, "Whew-kinda spooky, heh!"

Bakugou rolled his eyes as he scanned the surroundings. Kaminari had mentioned that a buddy of his got lost in the church basement, and when Kaminari was close to finding him, he heard a scream and ran like a coward. So, Bakugou was helping him find his friend.

"So chilly... uhh, right this way! Erm..." Kaminari said, leading Bakugou into the darkness. The only source of light they had was Bakugou's lighter.

"Okay, where the fuck is your rascal? My lighter is running out. Why were you he-" Bakugou started to ask, but before he could finish, someone placed a piece of cloth over his mouth from behind. Kaminari watched with a look of regret in his eyes.

Bakugou struggled and managed to knock the person behind him with his elbow he tried to punch kaminari, but the cloth had some chemicals on it, making Bakugou dizzy. He eventually passed out.

"Ugh... What the fuck." Bakugou looked around. He was chained to a wall, his wrists cuffed. He remembered how Kaminari hadn't helped him and had watched him pass out. Without any of his belongings, Bakugou cursed his decision to team up with the rogue.

The room was cold and bleak, with hard concrete and bricked walls. A set of stairs led up to a closed hatch with a lock. "Urgh... ugh..." Bakugou grunted as he tried his best to break free from the metal cuffs. After a struggle, he managed to get them off and rubbed his wrists.

Bakugou climbed the stairs and, using his strength, managed to force open the hatch. The crimson warrior had no trouble with a simple wooden barrier. As he opened the hatch and climbed up, he was confronted with a horrifying scene.

People were caged up-some of the women were helpless and naked, while some of the men had bruises and cuts on their bodies. Bakugou's concern grew as he walked up to one of the cages. He examined a woman who was curled up facing the wall, seemingly lifeless. As he inspected her, he noticed that her private parts had been brutally torn apart. The woman had an umbilical cord leading up to her arms, indicating a baby had been born, but both the baby and the woman were long gone.

Bakugou's heart raced. What the hell was going on in this place? He needed to find out and put a stop to whatever horrific activities were happening here. Can't believe he made a deal with a person maybe responsible for these people.

The room was filled with caged individuals, and Bakugou noticed a set of stairs in the middle of the room. He was about to ascend them when he heard footsteps. Quickly, he hid at the bottom of the stairs.

A pair of red boots began descending the wooden steps. "Ehe... Denki, thank you so much for tricking THE Crimson Warrior! Haha! I can't believe he fell for your obvious act!" said a man with black hair, an almost shaved beard, green eyes, and a golden coat. To Bakugou's shock, the man was wearing his red cape, a gift from his mother when he was a child.

"Eheh... Yeah..." Denki replied, his tone nervous and regretful.

"What's wrong, kid? You got half of what we earned-aren't you grateful?" the man in the golden coat said.

"What? No, no, sir Gardinier! I-I just... can you please- I-just..." Kaminari stammered, clearly unsure of how to voice his concerns, knowing that Sir Gardinier is a powerful man.

"Spit it out," Gardinier's tone grew ominous.

"Can we bury the people who got caged up in here? I just... I want to pay respect to them. I know they didn't pay their debt on time, but please-" Kaminari's voice quivered, revealing his inner turmoil.

Gardinier's expression darkened, and he stared at Kaminari with cold eyes. "Bury them? They were criminals. They had their chance. They chose their fate."

Kaminari looked down, unable to meet Gardinier's gaze. "I understand, sir. I just... feel it's the right thing to do."

Bakugou, still hidden, clenched his fists. He knew he needed to act quickly. Gardinier and Kaminari's conversation had revealed the depth of their cruelty and the true nature of their scheme. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, Bakugou planned to intervene and put a stop to their vile activities.

"Check on the crimson guy. I don't want to speak of this again," Gardinier ordered.

Kaminari, squeezing his way through the cramped space of the cages, approached the hatch with a look of horror on his face as he saw the lifeless forms of the people inside. He was shocked to see Bakugou had broken free.

"Denki! What's taking you so long? Open the hatch, I'm not hearing a cree-AGH! WHAT?! ERGH!" Gardinier's voice turned to panic as Bakugou pinned him down onto the hard wooden floor.

"ERUGH! You bastard! Get off me!" Gardinier yelled, struggling as Bakugou punched and pushed him onto the floor.

"SOLDIERS! HELP! URGH!" Gardinier shouted in desperation, but before he could call for help, he felt a sharp pain.

In a sudden twist of fate, Denki appeared, his hands gripping a bloodied sword. With a grim expression, he swung the sword with precision. Gardinier's head rolled onto the floor, his body collapsing as blood pooled around him. The crimson warrior's fierce struggle had come to an end, and Denki, though visibly distressed, stood over the fallen villain, having taken a dark step to ensure justice was served.

"Why... why did you help me?" Bakugou asked, his crimson eyes still burning with anger.

"I... I just wanted to help. I-" Kaminari began, but his voice faltered under the weight of his guilt and fear.

"SIR GARDINIER! WHERE ARE YOU? SIR!" A voice called out urgently from outside the room.

Bakugou's eyes narrowed as he glanced toward the sound. "We don't have much time. If more of them come, we'll be in serious trouble. Why did you really help me? What's your angle?"

Kaminari, visibly shaken, took a deep breath. "I... I couldn't stand what was happening here. I knew I made a mistake helping Gardinier, and I wanted to fix it. I just... I wanted to make things right, even if it meant risking my own life."

Bakugou's expression softened slightly, though his anger remained. "Well, you've got a lot to make up for. But right now, we need to get out of here before more of them show up. Can you help me free these people?"

Kaminari nodded, his resolve firm despite the fear. "Yes. Let's get them out of here."

Together, they moved swiftly to unlock the cages, working to free the imprisoned individuals as quickly as possible. The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder, heightening their urgency to escape and ensure the safety of those they had rescued.

As Bakugou and Kaminari worked to free the captives, the distant sound of heavy, booted footsteps grew louder.

"Move faster!" Bakugou barked, his fingers working furiously to unlock the last of the cages. The freed captives, though disoriented, began to escape towards the exit.

The heavy door to the room crashed open, and a squad of armored soldiers stormed in, their weapons ready. Bakugou's eyes blazed with a fierce intensity.

"Looks like we've got company," he growled, grabbing a heavy iron bar from the corner. Kaminari, his sword stained with blood, braced himself.

The soldiers charged, but Bakugou met them head-on with a brutal ferocity. He swung the iron bar with bone-crushing force, his blows landing with sickening thuds. The first wave of soldiers fell, their armor caved in and their bodies crumpled under his relentless assault.

"Come on, then! I'm not done with you!" Bakugou roared, his voice a harsh growl as he smashed another soldier's helmet into his skull. Blood and metal flew, and the floor became slick with gore.

Kaminari, though still rattled, fought alongside Bakugou with a grim determination. He swung his sword in wide, lethal arcs, slicing through armor and flesh with ruthless efficiency. Each strike was precise, severing limbs and opening gaping wounds.

The soldiers fought back with desperation, but Bakugou's rage was unstoppable. He swung the iron bar like a battering ram, crushing ribs and splintering bones. His attacks were unrelenting, each swing a brutal testament to his fury.

"Stay out of my way!" Bakugou shouted, deflecting a soldier's strike with a violent twist of the bar, sending the soldier sprawling. He grabbed another soldier by the throat, lifting him off the ground and slamming him against the wall with a sickening crunch.

Kaminari, his face set in a mask of grim resolve, slashed through the soldiers with cold precision. He drove his sword into the chest of one soldier, twisting it before yanking it out and moving to the next target. His blade was a blur of deadly steel, cutting through the enemy ranks.

The soldiers, overwhelmed by the brutal onslaught, began to falter. Their numbers dwindled as Bakugou and Kaminari pressed their attack. The room was filled with the sounds of violence-metal clashing, screams of agony, and the heavy, thudding blows of Bakugou's iron bar.

One soldier, seeing the carnage and realizing the battle was lost, attempted to flee. Bakugou, with a feral snarl, intercepted him. He hurled the iron bar with deadly accuracy, pinning the soldier to the wall with a sickening thud. The soldier gasped, struggling weakly as Bakugou approached, his eyes cold and merciless.

"You think you can run from me?" Bakugou growled, delivering a final, crushing blow with his fist that ended the soldier's suffering.

Breathing heavily, Bakugou surveyed the aftermath of the battle, the room littered with fallen soldiers and the splattered remains of the once-proud soldiers. He turned to Kaminari, his expression hard but focused.

"Is everyone out? We need to get moving before more show up."

Kaminari, his face smeared with sweat and blood, nodded vigorously. "They're all free. Let's go!"

With a final, contemptuous look at the carnage, Bakugou and Kaminari led the way, guiding the freed prisoners towards the exit. The distant echoes of men of Gardinier and the harsh sounds of their escape faded behind them as they made their way out of the hellish scene.

Bakugou and Kaminari sprinted through the dense forest, the moonlight casting eerie shadows across the underbrush. The night was still, except for the occasional rustle of leaves and the distant calls of nocturnal creatures. Their breaths came in ragged gasps, the adrenaline of the battle still coursing through their veins.

"Keep moving!" Bakugou barked, his voice barely audible over the sounds of their pounding footsteps. The forest was dense and twisted, with gnarled trees reaching out like skeletal fingers. Branches snagged at their clothes, and the undergrowth crunched underfoot.

Kaminari glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide with fear. "Are we clear? Did they follow us?"

"We're far enough away now. Wait... damn it, my stuff," Bakugou said, frustration clear in his voice.

"Oh right... your stuff is-wait, it's with me!" Kaminari said, seemingly nonchalant. Bakugou looked at him, confused, since Kaminari was only carrying a decently large shoulder bag, not a backpack.

Kaminari suddenly pulled out Bakugou's big axe from the bag. Bakugou's eyes widened in shock. "WHAT THE-"

Kaminari grinned, his nervousness barely concealed. "Here! It's from my-just kidding! I didn't actually put it there. I really did grab it before we left."

Bakugou, still stunned, reached for the axe but hesitated as Kaminari's joke sank in. "Seriously, don't mess around like that. We were almost killed back there. I needed this axe!"

Kaminari's smile faltered. "Sorry, man. I didn't mean to add to the stress. I thought it'd be funny, but I see now it wasn't the right time."

Bakugou grabbed the axe, his irritation evident. "Just don't pull crap like that again. We're lucky to be alive.. How'd you pull my axe from that tiny bag?!..."

Kaminari shifted uncomfortably, but tell Bakugou The reason, "So, uh... I'm one of the chosen mortals. By the Goddess of the Stars and Cosmic Guidance. She enchanted my bag, but she didn't tell me what it was for. I figured out that it has infinite storage. I wasn't sure how it worked at first, and I didn't want to bring it up until I was sure I can trust you. I thought it might be useful in a pinch. I just didn't expect it to be this useful."

Bakugou glared at Kaminari, his eyes cold and unforgiving. Kaminari's face was a mix of regret and relief. As Kaminari opened his mouth to speak, Bakugou cut him off.

"I still don't trust you. I don't forgive you for what you've done," Bakugou said, his voice sharp.

Kaminari's head hung low, guilt evident in his posture. "I understand," he mumbled.

"But if you want to keep breathing," Bakugou continued, his tone low and dangerous, "tell me where that person is who knows about dark magic. And give me the rest of my stuff from your infinite bag. Maybe then, I won't kill you right here."

Kaminari nodded quickly, scrambling to retrieve Bakugou's belongings from the enchanted bag. "I-I'll tell you everything I know. I'll lead you to the person Like I promise!" Bakugou took the items from Kaminari, his expression hard. "Lead the way," he said, not bothering to hide the hostility in his voice. "And if you try anything funny, I won't hesitate." Kaminari swallowed hard, nodding vigorously. "Understood. I'll take you there. Just please, let's move before we draw any more attention." as they walked Kaminari leading the Way, Towards the Mysticland of Scales Where dragons is very uncommon there.

Thank you! ❤

Chapter 2 , Chapter 3

[ladyluscinia]

There are obviously some people not taking Edward's S2 arc very well. Or - more often - twisting it to fit into absolutely wild takes and then pretending they are taking it well while everyone else is wrong and problematic for beliefs like "S2 clearly establishes Edward was harming his entire crew in his depressive spiral and he's still in the process of making that right." One of them wrote this section from a post that I found absolutely fascinating (if also wildly off base) in the way it buys into Edward's clearly faulty POV without hesitation...

...and I really want to talk about Knife Parade now.

Because I don't think that's what's going on here, obviously.

Edward has internalized some very fucked up shit in his piracy career, a lot of it probably going back to his time with Calico Jack (and others? Fang was with him for 20 years, and Izzy "all his fucking life"?) under Captain Hornigold, aka the man who killed Felix the cabin boy by feeding him a live crab. Edward didn't really emulate Hornigold until Kraken Era because he hated the man, but we can see from how he and Jack act in 1x08 that he still developed a very skewed understanding of violence and social bonding.

And, as unpleasant as it makes him, the Edward of the past was absolutely the kind of guy to "fuck with his crew like that for shits and giggles."

Like - hold the defensiveness because this is not a one-to-one comparison - Edward describing chasing Fang around screaming and terrified as just a fun game sounds like how someone's childhood bullies would describe tormenting them. Bullies often feel like they were just joking around or just playing a game, even when the other party was clearly not having a good time. The show even invokes this with Nigel and Stede in the first episode.

And the reason bullies typically feel this way is because the social environment that they are in treats their behavior as acceptable (or fails to treat it as unacceptable because adults/other children are consciously or subconsciously designating the bullied kids as fair targets).

Edward thought chasing after Fang with a knife and shouting "come here you little fucker" was okay because he grew into adulthood in a culture where that and way worse was normal. Maybe he even got the idea watching an adult do it to someone (for likely non-playful reasons). He was probably older and/or higher ranked than Fang, in a culture where rank entirely out-ranks obligations to give a shit about someone else's feelings.

Just think about how he describes being Captain:

"Oh fuck no. Apologizing? Nah. Didn't apologize for jack shit."

The idea Edward didn't want to hurt Fang is not even on the table, because he didn't pay enough mind to the people below him to register hurting them was even a thing his "fun" actions could do. He's entirely rewritten the events in his mind.

And, again, this is a funny joke and a very understandable mindset to develop that literally no one has ever pushed back on until this moment, so good for Edward thinking back and going "oh fuck I guess Knife Parade was less Yardies and more Torturing Felix" and then immediately acknowledging that Fang has justifiable basis for beef with him. That's pretty big of him. Growth.

But "didn't care about Fang being terrified to the point he legit forgot because peer-accepted behavior" is still not quite the same thing as "genuinely didn't realize Fang was terrified" lol

[vulpixisananimal]

Pains and Patience

TW for self harm/dagger under the cut.

(You are sitting in a chair in the main room of the place you and your family were staying. Bonnie and Nille are around. You asked them to leave you alone for a bit. You can hear them talking in the distance. Your eyes are closed.)

(What does it look like?)

(One breath, two, three, and you're there. This blurry place that feels like a dream yet to be fully formed. Stretching above you so impossibly high was the favor tree. Around you it was pitch black, with stars dotting the skies.)

(It came to your mind naturally. It was... Strange, not a daydream, it was just... There. A place in your own mind that felt so... Real.)

(It's still growing.)

(It is. You turn around and that other part of you is there. Mal Du Pays. It fit here better than you did, it seems.)

(You still can't see the rest of it, can you.)

(No, I can't. You say. It's still the favor tree, just the tree. Where's loop?)

(Hiding, I expect.)

(You're very helpful.)

(I'm trying to keep you alive.)

(You shake your head, that's what it always said. Keep you alive. It was hard to believe when you'd come back to front to find you did something bad that you don't remember.)

(You look out to the stars. This place still felt off, like it was missing pieces. Every time you tried stepping beyond the tree you'd freeze up. Gripped by a fear you had never felt before, was fear even the right word?)

(You'll figure it out.)

(Right. We'll figure it out. We're getting a rest now after all. We'll figure out what's going on with Ramos, figure out why we're still Looping, THEN we'll deal with this disassociating, thing, whatever Odile called it.)

(Odile is not exactly a psychiatrist.)

(She's better than guessing.)

(I will not talk to her. You will not make me talk to her.)

(... Fine, for now, but eventually-)

"'Heyfrin!"

(Your snap to attention, back in reality, Bonnie was leaning in from the doorway. They looked a bit worried.)

"Hey Bonbon."

"Ramos showed up, Nille's distracting them right now."

(Huh?? You stood up.) "Here? Did they do anything?"

(Bonnie shook their head.) "Nuh uh, said they were looking for 'Beau and thought to stop by."

(You breath a sigh of relief.) "Alright, just act like you don't know anything, alright?"

"Duh, I know how to keep a secret."

(Walking to the front room area, Ramos was there talking to Nille. Casual conversation. They looked just as relaxed and cheery as the other loop. They didn't look like a kidnapper or anything, seeing you approach, they waved.)

(Do not get fooled by good acting.)

"Hello! You're Siffrin, right?"

(You waved back, smiling.) "That's me, Nille giving away my secrets again?"

"Your name's not exactly a secret, Siffy." (Nille said sarcasticly. Seemingly, she got the memo to act cool.) "Sorry Isabeau isn't in right now."

"That's fine." (Ramos said cheerily.) "Mind if I stick around untill he does?"

"Sure!" (Nille cut you off before you could say no. Great. Fantastic.)

(Maybe you could learn something.)

(You all headed back to the common area, walking and talking. Ramos making a bad joke and ruffling Bonnies hair, much to their annoyance.)

"So how'd y'all meet Isa?" (Ramos asked.)

"Met 'em a few weeks ago after getting de-frozen from time. Showed up to my place saying lil Bonnie helped save the country."

"YEAH!!! We kicked the Kings CRABBING BUTT!!"

"Language."

(You all chuckle.)

"I met 'Beau running from the curse. Nille told me to run when showed up at Bambouche and I did untill I passed out."

"You must be one tough kid then." (Ramos was smiling.)

"And don't you forget it!!!"

"What about you, Siffrin?"

"Oh, well." (How did it go again...) "I bumped into Mirabelle, Isa, and Odile by chance, off to save Vaugarde and all. They were fighting a sadness and I helped out. Asked me to join after that."

"Woah." (Ramos looked pretty engrosed in the story.) "It must have been real strong, Isa isn't a pushover."

"Oh, well, it was kinda strong." (You shrug.) "Not strong enough though, since I took it out in one hit."

(Ramos beamed, they leaned over and grabbed your hand.) "No way!! That's awesome!! I wish I coulda seen it!"

(You wince, and Ramos releases your hand.) "O-oh, sorry."

"'Frin doesn't like being touched." (Said Bonnie.)

"Ha, it's alright Bonnie." (You replied.) "It just took me by surprise."

(Why was Ramos so.... Relaxed? It didn't make any sense. If it was Ramos who tried grabbing Bonnie, why'd they come to visit? Where you wrong about them?)

(It's acting. Siffrin.)

"How's Isa been anyways?"

"Stupid." (Says Bonnie.)

"A good stupid." (Nille continues.) "Real bumble of emotions from what I've seen."

"Mmhm!" (You nod along.) "He's great, sure saving the country was stresful, but, Isabeau's been there with us the whole way."

"I'm glad!" (Ramos leaned back in their chair.) "Did he mention me at all?"

(You smile, of course he did.) "All the time!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! We went through a lot together, aparently you helped him a bunch? I've honestly been itching to meet you!"

(Wrong.)

(What?)

(That is wrong. What are you doing.)

(Bonnie was giving you a look, what do you mean? Don't you remember?)

"That's, wow!" (Ramos rubbed their neck.) "I didn't, think he'd mention me at all."

"Haha, you left quite the impression."

(Stop talking. You aren't acting.)

"Well, I gotta ask, what was it like? Saving the world."

"It, well, to be honest it didn't go great, not at the end." (Stop.)

"'Frin?" (Bonnie was looking between you and Ramos. Confused.)

(You continue.) "It should have been impossible getting to the King, really."

"Oh?"

(Stop, Siffrin.)

"Well, I shouldn't really talk about this, but if Isa trusts you, then I'll trust you."

(Siffrin, that's enough, stop talking.)

"But, the truth is--"

(. . .)

(. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .)

(It feels like a migrane with no pain. A force of will. A wave of intense, snapping bones. It feels like your brain gets dunked in ice. It feels like a lot of things, all of them hard to explain.)

(But you had to stop Siffrin from talking.)

(You stare at the stranger who's name is Ramos. Whatever Ramos could do, that was it. Siffrin was about to talk about the loops, the wish, everything. All that to an enemy.)

"Siffrin?" (Ramos was staring at you.) "Are you alright?"

(What did you do, Ramos. What did you do to Siffrins little head. You had a cold anger in your soul. Ramos had hurt you. Who are you, Ramos. What are you. You stand up.)

"'Feeling alright, Siffy?" (Nille asks.)

(You open your mouth. You ask a quesion.)

(You see all three of them wince. Nille is conused, Bonnie is gripping their head, Ramos is looking at you, afraid.)

"S-siffrin?? I, uh, didn't quite catch that." (You could see Nille trying to comprehend what you asked.)

(You look at Ramos, they looked confused, and pained. Did they not understand? You say something else.)

"H-hey cut it out, it's giving me a headache."

(Ramos is looking back at you. You can see a fear in their eyes. What do you look like to them right now. Like a monster? Good. You speak again.)

"I, I-I can't understand, please!"

"'F-frin..."

(You open your mouth. You want to hurt them. You want to know what they did. You need to. If they don't understand you, fine then. You'll just keep asking them. As long as it-)

"'Hurts..."

"Siffrin?" (Ramos was staring at you.) "Are you alright?"

(. . .)

(You stand up wordlessly. They didn't know the language. They didn't recognize it. So they weren't from home. So how could they make a wish. Was it dumb luck? Not likely.)

(But, Bonnie...)

(. . . You leave to your room. You ignore them calling after you. It didn't matter anyway.)

(You're tired. You looped again. Yes, it was only a few moments back, though. You could feel the nausea starting to catch up to you, but you forced yourself to continue. You're in your room. You grab your hat. As much as you told Siffrin your skin was sensitive, they ignored you. Thats why you wear a hat, stupid.)

(You Move fast. You go to the window. The jump out isn't that bad. You get up on the windowsil, and jump out. You land solidly, and run for the library.)

(The sprint gave you a chance to think. Ramos did something to Siffrin, and now Siffrin thought Ramos was some friend. It made you sick. What did Ramos do? Touch you? They did touch your hand. Was that it?)

(Why was Bonnie bleeding. Why were they bleeding that shade?)

(You ignore that question, for now.)

(You're at the library. You run inside. There you see Odile, Isabeau, and Mirabelle all about to leave with a couple books. You sprint over.)

"Siffrin?!?" (Mirabelle spots you first.) "What are you doing here? Did something happen???"

(You don't, can't, respond. Instead you go to Odile, who was holding the books, and tapped one.)

". . . What?" (Odile looked confused.)

"Uhh... Are you wondering if we found something?" (Isabeau spoke up. You nod.)

"Ah, well yes we found something. But is everything alright, Siffrin?"

(That didn't matter right now. You shake your head, and tap the book impatiently.)

"Alright alright." (Odile puts the books down on a nearby table and opens one, you follow.)

"Should, shouldn't we be worried??? If something bad happened??" (Mirabelle asked. She was scared.)

"Well, if Siffrin ran all the way here then I bet they're about to loop back anyways." (Isa said confidently. He was also scared.)

"Quite.. Ah here." (Odile got to a page in the book. Looking at it now, it was craftonomy. The page was on different crafts and what kind of tactile response they had with a body.) "This one, a strong scent of mint is often assosiated with potent Mind Craft."

(Mind craft.)

(Odile continued.) "An advanced craft type that's distantly related to body craft; its use is... contreversal. In Ka Bue it is explicitly banned."

"I was taught a little about mind craft at the House, about how it can be used to help with someones memory, or to forget a traumatic experience." (Mirabelle added.) "We weren't ever taught it, though."

"I mostly see it in fiction. Mind crontroll, brainwashing, spooky stuff like that." (Isabeau comments.)

(You keep looking over the page. Strong sense of mint. Confusion. Hard to master. That must be it. Ramos' touch gripped Siffrins mind. You nod.)

"Compared to time craft it shouldn't be hard to undo. Unless it's powered by a wish." (Odile muses.) "Tell the next me about it then, if we don't have time here."

(You nod. It was about time for that then. Your hand slips into your cloak and to your dagger.)

(. . . Isabeau is looking at you.)

(There's an awkward silence. Odile breaks it.) "Er, actually, Mirabelle, Isabeau, there's some complicated intricacies I'll need to explain. Could you go make sure Ramos doesn't disturb us?"

"Huh?? I-I mean-"

"Leave it to us, M'dame!" (With that, Isabeau rushes to the library entrance, Mirabelle hesitated, but followed. You look up at Odile.)

". . ."

(. . .)

(There is a painful silence.)

"I, wanted to ask you something. I did not feel comfortable asking with those two around." (she eventually said. Looking at her face, it was stressed, worried.)

(she continued.) "Siffrin, or, if you want to be called that. Please be honest with me. Do you... Use your dagger in order to loop back."

(Oh Odile, still she surprises you. You tilt your head slightly as if to say "go on.")

"You've had... Moments ever since we defeated the King, and, forgive me if I'm being insensitive, you always seemed to not Care too much about your own wounds." (She paused, clearly uncomfortable.) "That, combined with... With everything, really. It would make sense."

(. . . You nod.)

". . . Is it the only way?"

(You put up a wavy hand. Not sure.)

"Is it the only consistent way? That you know of at least."

(You nod.)

". . . It, does it hurt?"

(You nod. Odile is looking at you, brow creased. She pinches the bridge of her nose. After a moment, and taking a breath, she continues.)

". . . In a next loop. We can, figure out something better than that. If you tell me I promised to keep it secret from the others, I probably will, too."

(You nod, and file that away with Odile's other offer. She was reaching out to you. Why. You don't trust her.)

". . . Thank you, Siffrin." (She takes a breath, and turns her back to you, waiting. Ah, she doesn't want to see.)

(Whatever. It's time. You take out your dagger and. . .)

(. . .)

(It still hurts.)

[obsessive-valentine]

Yandere!Fisherman X F!Selkie!Reader (PT3)

Theo encourages you to come home with him, where his thoughts begin to wander and become darker the longer he has you in his arms... he’s come to far to loose you now.

It took him just a matter of days to gain your full trust and create a strong bond, you sought him out constantly and him the same for you. Today, like the rest before, you climbed onto his boat watched him cast nets and rods helped examined the fish he pulled from the sea, now and then you’d leave but not stray to far and return with trinkets to show or give- and sometimes a fish or two to contribute to the buckets of catches.

Despite your tendency to return to him it never failed to make him jittery, wondering if you’d leave and find another human more interesting, one that would harm you and use you. So when you returned to the bench on his boat (he had made sure to be clear just for you) he’d be just a bit more clingy; he’d watch you closer-sometimes sacrificing some of his catches by watching you more than the rods. Like now as he watched you man handle and observe a crab that got caught by his net.

Were far to busy trying to make sure it wouldn’t pinch you and look into it’s beady eyes to notice that Theo sat closely not observing the crab he let you have but rather you. Brushing your hair from your face letting his fingers linger on the end of your hair then move to lightly trace his fingers mindlessly between your bare shoulder blades. “I’m going to have to go home soon, love” he sighed before pushing off the bench groaning and making his way to fish out the last of the nets and reel in the last of the lines. He looked over to you as he pulled in the net, you shook your head “a bit longer?” You asked.

Your rarely spoke and when you did you had to think hard about constructing even simple sentences, you found you didn’t usually have to use your words for him to understand you anyways. But when he did hear you speak it was mesmerising all the same as the fist time he heard you, his brain malfunctioned for a second taking in the words “um, longer? No I can’t. I keep leaving later and later with you around, i promise I’ll meet you here again tomorrow though. I wouldn’t miss a day” he truly considered sleeping in this boat just for you but he wouldn’t be able to keep it up.

Like a light bulb turned on in his head you could just sleep in his bed, this is the perfect opportunity to manipulate offer to bring you home “or you could just come home with me for the night and we’ll come back out tomorrow, that way you’ll never have to leave or wait anymore” he looked to you hopefully. He regretted asking after the silence lasted seconds “You know I just feel so sad when I have to leave you out here, all alone. And I’m all alone... you can try it just for the night and I’ll bring you back out here tomorrow morning, yeah?” He tried encouraging you further, you nodded slowly-seemingly unsure of leaving the sea for even a night but willing to follow Theo anywhere.

“That great, it’s going to be okay love- I have lots more fun stuff back at home and a warm bed. You’ll be safe and comfy able, okay?” He packed away the last of his equipment, after than usual sacred you would change your mind.

...

He made you wear his coat and slid some oversized wellies he had on the boat onto you, you grimaced at the feel of shoes on your feet but tried your best to ignore it since Theo had insisted you wear them to look like a normal person on the walk to his car, promising you can take them off in the car. He put your seal coat into a bucket and pilled on ropes on top of it to hide it before handing the bucket to you “we’ve got to keep that hidden okay, it’s yours but people will try to take it” he didn’t know how to explain people will take it to use you or even if they didn’t believe, they will accuse him of illegal seal hunting so on and so on. It’s best he scared you into hiding it to avoid complications with the towns people.

With your bucket clutched in one hand you waited for Theo to drag his equipment and and catches off the boat, you silently followed him off the docks “your doing great, we’re going to my car just around this corner and then I’ll drop these fish off to a shop in town and we’ll go home” he explained to ease your nerves “come here” he shifted his equipment to his shoulder and the other hand and held onto your free hand, offering comfort from the over stimulating environment.

...

You had seen and heard cars from afar, you knew they were used to move people around but that was the extent of your knowledge, so when he’d open the door for you and gave you a nudge of encouragement to sit down your eyes examined every inch of the car. And then your hands began pressing every button you could find, Theo was lucky the car was off because if there was a button you clicked it. He walked around the car and sat in the drivers side turning the engine on “it’s just noise you’re okay” he assured and turned the radio on to sit on top the noise of the engine, the radio was something you were familiar with as he had one quietly playing on the boat most the time.

He wanted to laugh as your face was stuck comically to the window the whole drive into town, watching people and store lights as you passed, there were things like massive statues and sudden noises that forced you to recoil from the window in fear but Theo explained to you why this or that wouldn’t harm you with a gentle hand on your thigh. Theo dropped the fresh fish off the local store and returned to his house on the quieter side of town.

...

He truly couldn’t believe he had you in his house under his control, yet another opportunity to drag you closer and become more reliant on him and him only. He insisted on you showering-more specifically- with him, indoctrinating you to believe this was normal to shower together, he put a large shirt on you, introduced you to the tv, got you to try cooked food and eventually (after explaining what a bed is for) got you under the covers of his bed.

“Not to bad here hu?” He asked watching your eyes grow heavy and retreat further into the pile of blankets he’d given you, you shook your head agreeing with a gentle smile “goodnight love” he grinned before turning to turn the lamp off. He pulled the covers over him and then slid a arm under your head, wanting to feel you but not overwhelm you with a hug so soon.

You fell asleep fairly fast whereas Theo slept lightly being sure to check on you every few hours, at some point you had shifted from his arm to his chest and at some point his arms fully encased you trapping you to him unconsciously. He woke up slightly, still dark out, to make sure you were still there only to find you on his chest and he would have it any other way.

You are all his now, he’ll let you have freedoms like the sea while he fishes but if there’s ever a hint of you wanting to leave him for whatever reason, you can bet hes trapping you forever even if that means stripping your rights of freedom and locking your coat away. He’s come to far to loose you now.

He won’t ever sleep the same again without you in his arms like this.

[sleepingdeath-light]

home again ; yandere!wally darling

requested by ; anonymous (09/05/23)

word count ; 2031

content ; platonic yanderes, memory loss (the puppets all had their memories forcibly wiped), references to child/teen reader, obsessive protectiveness, author’s first time writing something platonic so… yeah

note ; i haven’t written anything like this before (sfw yandere stuff) so apologies if it seems a tad off. similarly i’m still adjusting to writing wally’s character in terms of dialogue and such, so that may also seem a smidge ooc.

fandom ; welcome home

pairing ; platonic wally darling x gender neutral!reader

read also on ; ao3

It was a beautifully melancholy evening: the stars and moon were obscured with thick, grey clouds that loomed overhead like ragged old curtains; the air was thick with dust and pollen that clung to your skin and clothes like a man hanging onto the edge of a steep cliff, digging their claws in and holding on with all the relentless might you’d come to hate; your room was only dimly illuminated by the pale blue light emanating from your monitor, the low hum of the vents the only sound to compliment the clicking of keys and the tapping of the mouse. Quiet, drab and dull; how very typical of spring.

But at the very least it gave you all the excuse you needed to sit behind a screen and doomscroll. Tired eyes skimming over articles and activists decrying the latest tragedy, thousands of crabs in the metaphorical bucket of social media all fighting for the attention of bystanders — only taking pause when you came across something all too familiar, yet at the same time entirely new.

‘Does anyone else remember Welcome Home? It was pretty popular when it aired back in the 70s and my friends and I are trying to create a complete archive for it’ — the caption read. Below it was a highlighted link and a picture that had been burned into your brain since childhood: bright swatches of paint adorning every surface, all seeing eyes as big as can be, and in front of it, that permanent smile carved into yellow felt. Wally Darling and Home, you remembered them both clearly enough — clearer than you’d have liked, even.

It had been decades since you’d actively thought back on Welcome Home, on your brief stint in stardom, and frankly you’d have rather it’d been kept that way. You still held a bit of a grudge over getting axed: ‘too mature’, yeah right! Every kid loves astrology and nobody is too old to talk about their feelings… you were only 14 for crying out loud! Too mature, your ass.

But perhaps, you reasoned, it wouldn’t be too bad to take a quick trip down memory lane. Sure you’d loved the show when it aired, but you stopped watching after your section was cut, so maybe it would be cool to see what changed in the interim — and, either way, your experiences would probably be helpful to the archivists. So no harm, no foul.

————

The site was easy enough to navigate but man you didn’t expect to get so emotional when you went looking through the recovered art. They looked exactly the same as you remembered, all of them — which is kind of silly to think about since puppets and tv show characters in general tend not to change since, well, they were meant to stay consistent. Frank was always going to look terribly stern, and Julie was always going to come onto scene with a new fabulous hairdo, and Eddie was always going to trip over his own feet on his rounds, and Wally was always going to open and close each episode with a nod to the audience. These things were staples of the characters and the show’s structure so of course they’d be the same.

But, still, you somehow felt like they should have changed in your absence. A small part of your mind, an irrational part surely, crying out that they were alive and that living things were made to change — which was silly. And, frankly, a little embarrassing that you’d even had that thought at all.

So you pushed that idea to the very back of your mind where it belonged and continued to scroll through the various pages of the website. Art from official books (you were sure you even owned the ‘ask Wally’ type book and that it was still at your parents’ place), merchandise like pop up figures (the sort that were found only in cereal boxes and magazines), promotional posters and even one piece from your short tenure on the show. You remembered posing for that photograph, being told to smile and to wrap your arms around Eddie and Wally — but for some reason you couldn’t quite recall what their puppeteers were called.

Or if they even had any puppeteers in the first place.

No. That can’t be right. They were puppets, characters, they had to have someone controlling and voicing them — but none of the promotional art nor your memories supported that basic truth. It didn’t make sense.

None of it made sense. This was why you’d tried to forget that show so desperately after you left. It messed with your head far too much to be worth the effort so why bother burning out over questions that could be explained by a faulty memory.

A memory that could, in picture perfect detail, recall the route from Howdy’s store to Home as clear as crystal — as if it were your own route to-and-from primary school. A memory that could replay patchy conversations between Wally and Julie, bittersweet bickering over hairspray and hairpins that you could only recall in pieces, but that still rang clearly as if you were thinking of childhood friends. A memory that was imprinted with the feeling of warm felt embraces and puffs of warm air from stencil cut mouths that would have been impossible if they weren’t alive. Moving eyes, small bodies, freely walking, freely talking — alive and well and clear as day in your mind as normally as recalling your parents arguing over a cup of freshly brewed coffee on the mornings of each shoot.

The distinctly strong smell of the synthetic hairspray Wally used that would hang around him and mixed with the scent of oil paint like a cologne — that burned your nose if you hung around too close to him in the early morning. The sheer joy of Howdy picking you up and tossing you in the air as a congratulations for your first scene done well — caterpillar fuzz that stuck to your clothes for days, as strong as velcro. The way you and Julie squealed when Barnaby shook back and forth and sent droplets of muddy water raining down on you and on her freshly done up hair — and the joke that followed her exasperated tirade as you, through giggles, explained frustration to the audience through a camera they seemed to not be able to see.

Memories that kept unearthing themselves the deeper you went into the site, eventually culminating with you tearing up at the sight of old friends you’d been forced to leave behind. Silly, perhaps, but you recall telling the audience that it was healthy to cry and to let it all go — so at least your teenage self would be proud of your emotional vulnerability.

After a good hour of this, and more than in need of a break, you finally clicked on the attached message board and typed up a simple few sentences. A greeting and a farewell all in one before you closed down your computer and went to bed.

‘I used to have a segment on Welcome Home when I was a kid. I was meant to do astrology and emotions, before I got cut for being too old lol. This brought back so many memories. Thank you, all.’

————

Wally hadn’t meant to linger — really, he hadn’t — but there had been something oddly familiar about his latest visitor that he couldn’t quite place. Even from behind the screen he was trapped within, even as he watched their message load in, he could tell that they were different. It was their eyes, those tearful knowing eyes — he was sure he’d seen them before in that somewhere different, somewhere brighter, that came before the end he and his neighbours were trapped in.

When he saw their eyes he saw himself, a twisted altered reflection of himself that was filled to bursting with the warmth and awareness that he was created to hold within himself. A child’s eyes in the form of someone who he didn’t know yet he knew he must have once. A lingering, niggling feeling in the back of his skull, like fingertips brushing and scratching and digging into his fabric brain — rearranging and scouring and destroying and reaching for something that he couldn’t quite find.

He winced and squinted and stared through the screen to no avail, tilting his head and watching them as they flicked from screen to screen to screen desperate for a sign that he could use to place this familiar stranger. Unable to do so until finally — finally — their note came through and he was able to read the short greeting they’d left behind.

Then, and only then, did those forbidden memories come flooding back. A formidable tidal wave, a whirling rapid, of bright lights and experiences and conversations that had been torn from him and shredded in the writer’s room of their long gone creators.

He knew you, he’d always known you; the child too old for their youth that visited their neighbourhood in the beginning. Who always wore a beaming smile and treated them all with a grace beyond their years, spreading kindness and joy to his friends and to the audience only the two of you knew about. Who was far taller than his measly 12 apples of verticality but who never made him feel small. Who spoke eagerly of the constellations and painted the most wonderful pictures of stars and moons and planets far beyond their reach that he did his best to capture in his paintings. Who was only 14 but felt more like an adult than he did sometimes — he, who was crafted and sewn without a childhood — but who wasn’t above play and foley.

The child who was the absolute most; his favourite transient neighbour. All of their’s, actually.

How could he possibly have forgotten you?

You with your broad toothy grins, and your warm eyes that shone brighter than the stars you loved, and your arms that were big enough to carry even more apples than he could have ever dreamed of. You, who he promised to protect and keep away from the horrors of the world, theirs and your own. You, who never turned down a favour or plea from his neighbours.

You. Just you.

Wonderful, lovable, unforgettable you. His child of flesh, not felt, but he loved you all the same.

And he didn’t get to see you grow up, because his creators deemed you unbefitting of their world and cut you from their memories as ruthlessly as they’d cut your segments from their show. Welcome Home didn’t feel very much like a home after that — even if they didn’t quite recall what was missing.

Wally didn’t even want to think about all of the horrors and harms you’d faced throughout the years you’d been apart — he could see the wear hanging heavily in the downwards quirk of your lips and the dampened glint in your eye. He knew he’d sooner kill someone than let them hurt you, he’d threatened it plenty alongside Howdy and Eddie and Frank — they all loved you as dearly as him, once.

But in his current predicament he couldn’t do much to protect you. Couldn’t coddle you, couldn’t warm you, couldn’t sooth you with those sweets you used to love (if you even loved them anymore, it had clearly been quite some time), couldn’t do anything to help. He couldn’t even communicate with you, to apologise, to tell you he still loved you and that you were still welcome in their neighbourhood.

So he did the only thing he could; he drew you a picture. A silly little simplistic drawing, scratchy and crude, depicting a strong memory he had of you. The two of you, hand in hand, with your arms overflowing with apples you’d managed to steal from Howdy (oh how he missed such trivial things) — he hoped you remembered these moments as fondly as he did. Then, to the illustration, he attached a small message, a plea just for you, before settling back down behind the screen and hoping — praying — that you’d come back.

‘I’m sorry for forgetting you, friend, please come home’

[dirtyvulture]

I Will Never Have You

??? x Beefy!Fem!Reader

“I Will Always Love You” - Alternate Ending 

18+ only, read at your own risk

Summary: After the traumatic events of IWALY, you find solace with someone else.

Word count: 4386

AN: I wrote this ages ago, but didn’t have the courage to post it until now. Enjoy? 😬

“So, I heard Kate has a girlfriend now,” Natasha says, coming up behind Yelena who beats furiously at a punching bag.

“Oh, yeah, she does. I didn’t know you wanted any updates about her,” Yelena responds.

“Is it you?”

Yelena stops mid-punch, causing the bag to swing back and crash into her body. She’s nearly knocked off her feet but grabs onto it to steady herself. “What?” She looks at her sister almost offensively. “No.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t be upset if you were,” Natasha deflects. 

“It’s not me, Nat.” Yelena slams her fist into the punching bag with so much force Natasha swears she hears her knuckles crack.

“Okay, okay,” Natasha backs off. 

“You’ll see for yourself,” Yelena says. “Kate is bringing her to Stark’s party next week.”

“That’s where I first heard about her,” Natasha replies. “Is it true she’s from California?”

“Something like that.” Yelena doesn’t seem entirely comfortable admitting to more details, meaning that she knows more than she’s letting on.

“Well, good for Kate.” Natasha is genuinely happy to hear that Kate has finally found someone for herself. Natasha knew Clint’s protegee had always been intensely interested in you when she was with you, but hopefully now that you two were broken and you had moved away, Kate’s been able to stop pining, just as Natasha’s had to do.

After the poorest choice of judgment she’s ever experienced in her life, which resulted in Natasha assaulting you and damaging your relationship beyond repair, she has never been the same. She knows she doesn’t deserve better and her actions still haunt her despite the dozens of therapy sessions she’s been to. Fury had you reassigned to a different division at SHIELD and after you moved away, you never made contact with her again. Natasha knew it was best for the two of you to keep your space, but part of her wishes she could see you again, talk to you again, even though she knows she would never be able to have you in the way she had before.

“Well, I guess it’ll be nice to meet her then,” Natasha says.

“Yes, for you and me both,” Yelena agrees.  

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

After a long week, Natasha reunites with Yelena to attend Stark’s party. She had been surprised her invite hadn’t been canceled, especially since she hadn’t seen any of her co-workers in almost six months since Fury removed her from the team. While she had long since adjusted to her new position, nothing could compare to the chemistry and energy of her old team. Sometimes she misses it so much she considers asking him to move her back, but she knows she wouldn’t be accepted back.

They don’t want to work with a rapist. 

Although she hadn’t been convicted for her crime and it was never publicly announced what she did, it seemed that everyone knew that was the reason you and her broke up. She would still stumble across cruel notes slipped into her locker, some threatening to out her and some threatening violent physical harm and occasionally death. There was no point in reporting any of them, since they all spoke the truth. So instead, she kept them all. 

The thrumming environment makes her just as uncomfortable as the familiar faces do. No one dares to talk to Natasha longer than a mandatory “long time, no see,” most of them turning instantly to her sister and engaging in conversation with her instead. Natasha feels the loneliness in her chest deepen. It could not be more apparent that no one wants her here, but as much as she wants to leave, being here is punishment enough for her.

Natasha follows Yelena around like a shadow, literally lurking behind her where she thinks no one will notice. They’re picking at a plate of crab rangoons when suddenly Yelena jabs her elbow into Natasha’s side. Natasha almost chokes on her food when Yelena says, “Kate’s here.”

“Where?”

Yelena points to the bar. Kate is standing there in a flowy purple dress that reminds Natasha of what teenagers wore to prom. Towering next to her is a familiar broad-shouldered figure, wearing a polo shirt in the same shade of purple. When both of them turn towards her and Yelena, Natasha almost faints.

It’s you.

How did you become Kate’s new girlfriend? Why did you say yes to her? A million thoughts swirl in Natasha’s head. You had told her a hundred times that you had no interest in Kate and even viewed her as a younger sister. Then how could this have happened? Did Kate slip something into your drink or hit you on the head? Maybe the trauma Natasha had caused you inadvertently gave you memory loss, and now you couldn’t remember that you didn’t even like–

“Sestra, are you okay?” Yelena interrupts as Natasha turns on her angrily.

“You knew,” she snaps. “You knew Kate was dating Y/N.”

“I was the first person she told,” Yelena admits. “And you know how Kate always felt about Y/N…”

“But it wasn’t returned!” Natasha hisses, although you standing next to Kate with your arm around her waist says otherwise. “How could you let this happen?”

“Let this happen?” Yelena’s eyes blaze with fury. “You’re the one who fucked up the relationship! Not me, not anyone else. And you know Kate would never hurt Y/N the way you did.”

Natasha swallows her anger because she knows Yelena is right. Because despite her faults, Kate would never do what she did to you.

Kate leans against you, her hand squeezing your bicep so hard Natasha is sure her nail marks are going to be imprinted into your skin all night. Marking her territory, Natasha scoffs, although how many times did she do the same to you before? She treated you like a piece of meat, like a possession she had ownership of, never like the human being you actually were. 

But Kate has never looked happier as she pulls you around in tow, although you look just as uninterested in being here as Natasha feels. However, when you make eye contact with Natasha, you freeze and Kate jerks back because she isn’t strong enough to move you on her own. 

Kate looks around frantically until she notices that you’re staring at Natasha, then she tugs you down to her level so she can whisper something in your ear. You shake your head, then nod and Kate kisses your cheek. Natasha wants to dissolve on the spot. Kate readjusts her grip on your arm and leads you over to Natasha and Yelena.

“Hi, Yelena! Hi, Nat,” Kate says first, waving to both of them in turn. “It’s good to see you both again, especially you, Nat. I know it’s been…a while.”

“Yes, hello, Kate.” Natasha notices Yelena move closer to her side, as if her sister is afraid she’ll try strangling Kate. 

“And you both already know Y/N, I think…”

You grin as though it pains you, your teeth clenched as though you’re purposely preventing yourself from saying something. 

“Anyway, we’ll be around if you want to catch up!” Kate says, and Natasha doesn’t miss the way she implies that if she wants to talk to you, she’ll have to talk to Kate too. Kate steers you off in another direction before Natasha can get a chance to say good-bye. Seeing Kate with you now makes Natasha wonder if this is how she felt every time she saw you with Natasha attached to your arm. It’s a sucky feeling. 

Thinking about Kate being with you drives Natasha crazy. Maybe it’s that Kate gets to spend every moment with you. Maybe it’s that Kate gets to call you hers now. Maybe it’s that Kate gets to take you to bed. Natasha remembers when that had been her; she had never been happier in her life. No wonder Kate looked so happy with you. There was just something about you that brightened something in everyone. 

And maybe Kate hadn’t had to do anything for you to turn to her. Maybe her carefree, simple nature was what you needed in your life after such a traumatic event. Natasha feels ashamed for thinking that Kate had to pull mind tricks to get you to fall for her. You deserved happiness, and if you found that with Kate, Natasha wouldn’t judge you or her for that.

Because one thing was clear now: there was no chance in the world Natasha was ever going to have you back.

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

“You okay, babe?” Kate says, resting her head on your shoulder. “We can get you a stronger drink if you–” She stops herself, her cheeks reddening as you stare down at the non-alcoholic margarita in your hands. You had given up alcohol since the assault and were surprised that Kate still didn’t remember this, especially after being with you for almost two months now.

“Uh, I’m sorry,” Kate rushes to apologize. “I’ll just get us some water.” Her hand brushes your arm as she turns away, waving down a waiter and turning back to push an icy glass of water in front of you.

“Thanks.” You take a sip, your hand shaking as you bring the glass to your mouth.

“Maybe we should go back to our room upstairs,” Kate suggests. 

“I’m fine,” you insist. Kate keeps rubbing your forearm, which you assume is supposed to be a comforting gesture, but she’s holding on too hard, almost like she’s afraid that if she lets go of you you’ll walk right back into Natasha’s arms. But that’s an unlikely possibility, even more unlikely than you getting with Kate in the first place.

You’re still not totally sure how it happened, but within the first few months of you being stationed out in California, Kate had texted you. It had started out completely innocent, with her simply checking in to see how you were adjusting, and you were grateful to have someone to talk to. It escalated one week when you admitted to having a really hard time with life and without being prompted, Kate flew over from New York to be with you. She stayed with you longer than she should have, but when she finally went back, you felt you couldn’t be without her. So, you soon moved back to New York and the rest was history. 

But it wasn’t perfect, as no relationship is, and sometimes you’re unsure if you made the right decision to come back to New York exclusively to be with Kate. She was a very nice girl, and since it was no secret how smitten she had been with you the entire time you were Natasha, you’re not surprised at how fast she warmed up to you. You, on the other hand, were facing some very complicated emotions and trauma, and it was difficult to tell if you had genuine feelings for Kate or were just using her as a crutch.

“Did seeing Nat upset you?” Kate asks, taking you out of your thoughts. 

“What?” You hadn’t even said a single word to Natasha. Yelena had warned you both that she would be in attendance tonight, so you had prepared an entire speech of how to confront her, but when you finally saw her again, you choked up. 

“It’s okay if it did,” Kate says, putting her arm around your shoulder now and pressing herself closer to you. “She really should be in jail for what she did to you–”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you snap, feeling immediately guilty when you see Kate’s hurt expression. “I…just…maybe later,” you add lamely. 

Your therapist told you that opening up to a new relationship after what happened with Natasha would be difficult. Luckily, Kate had the advantage of knowing you before the assault, and what happened, so you didn’t have to fully relive the trauma and explain to her why you had trust issues or why you were now so guarded in bed. 

You hadn’t expected to do it so soon, and while Kate would’ve eaten you alive the first chance she got, to her credit, she waited until you were ready. The first time you two had sex, you were certain that Kate was going to pass out when she saw you lying shirtless on her bed, and then she asked you to take her in every position you could ever think of until neither of you could move the next day. But as much passion as there was, the whispered “I love yous” and kisses and cuddles felt meaningless and empty. You didn’t know what it would take to get to that level of emotion, and you wonder at all if you’ll find it with Kate.

“Do you want to go back upstairs?” Kate asks again. “Maybe we can do something to clear your mind a little…”

While Kate’s appetite was worse than a burgeoning teenager, she respected your boundaries and never pushed you into doing something you didn’t want to. You found that your libido was significantly lower than it had been before the assault, but once in a while it spiked, which Kate couldn’t be happier for.

And tonight was one of those moments. Seeing Natasha again was not only traumatic but frustrating, and you needed something to get your mind off her.

You grab Kate’s hand suddenly. “Let’s go,” you say, pulling her out of her seat and scooping her up in your strong arms. She squeaks as her feet leave the floor, wrapping her arms around your neck to steady herself. You ignore the burning eyes on your back as you walk out carrying Kate. 

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

You’re utterly impatient waiting for the elevator to take the two of you up to the suites. Every second that passes and you don’t have Kate underneath you makes your skin hot with need. By the time you finally make it to Kate’s room, you throw her onto the bed and take off your shirt and pants. Kate watches you in awe for a moment, like she’s still in disbelief that she gets to have you like this, before struggling with the zipper of her dress behind her neck. 

Once you’re undressed, you climb onto the bed with her and flip her over by her hips, ripping the zipper down so roughly you’re sure you’ve ruined the fabric, but neither of you seem to care. Kate quickly sheds the gown and pushes it off onto the floor, turning back over and looping her arms around your neck to pull you down into a heated kiss. 

When your teeth knock together, you wonder if you’re being too rough with Kate, but she doesn’t let you pull away. Instead, she wraps her legs around your waist, her ankles locking over your lower back. One of your hands finds her breasts in an effort to steady yourself over her, and she moans when your hand closes around the swell of her flesh. 

“Is this okay?” you finally break away from her lips to ask.

“Yes, yes,” Kate gasps. Her hands trace over your back muscles, before finally digging into your shoulder blades to encourage you to arch into her. She tucks her head against your chest and you feel her lips scraping against your collarbone, bruising your skin and marking her claim on you.

“Oh God, Kate,” you say, your center pulsing with need. You feel her hands come around your sides, brushing across your tensed abs.

“I want to ride you,” Kate demands, but quickly changes her tone of voice when she sees you glaring down at her. “I mean, can I…Can I ride you, baby?” 

It’s not a power play thing, you just don’t like Kate being forceful with her requests because it makes you feel like you don’t have a choice. Although you could say “no” at any point and Kate would stop, part of you is still subconsciously fearful that if you do, Kate won’t respect you and take advantage of you like Natasha did. You stopped drinking alcohol to make sure you were always in control of all your faculties, and your time with Kate so far had proved that she was a mindful and respectful partner, but the fear was still there. You wondered if it would ever truly go away or if you would be stuck battling it every single time you were in bed with someone. 

“Hop on, baby,” you tell Kate, switching positions with her and relaxing with your back flat on the bed. Kate throws one leg over your waist, placing her hands on your chest and slowly lowering herself onto your chiseled stomach. Her core is hot and wet and it excites you to see how desperate she is for you. 

“You feel so good,” Kate pants, slowly rocking back and forth. You take hold of her hips to guide her, flexing your abs until you feel like you can’t even take a breath. Kate moans as she bumps across the defined muscles of your stomach. 

“Look at me, Kate,” you grunt as her nails curve into the skin of your chest. You want to see the light in her eyes when she comes undone, hear the moans she releases because she’s used your perfect body to get off. 

Kate loses some of her rhythm as she forces herself to lift her head. Her blue eyes, swirling with lust and desire, lock onto yours, and you buck your hips suddenly, trying to angle your body to stimulate her into an orgasm. Kate grinds down on you, like she’s trying to stay seated on a bucking bull, but the movement is too much for her and she gushes across your stomach. You keep your firm grip on her waist so she doesn’t fall off, lowering your hips back onto the bed as she falls on top of you, panting hard. 

You stroke the back of her head until she calms down, and then Kate sits up with a mischievous look in her eye.

“Can I clean you up?” she asks.

You smirk at her. “Sure, baby. Make sure you get every drop.”

Almost as if your words alone were enough to reinvigorate her, Kate crawls down your body and you spread your legs apart to let her lie between them. She puts a hand on each of your muscular thighs to balance herself and lower her head to lap at the stickiness coating your abs. You moan as her tongue slides across your muscles, collecting up every bit of the mess she made. Your skin shines not with her cum anymore but her saliva and the heat in your stomach rages hotter as you watch her, her head dipping lower and lower until suddenly her mouth finds the heat between your legs and your back arches with a moan.

“Fuck, Kate,” you gasp, moving your hands to the blankets instead so you don’t accidentally pull her hair out. Her tongue pushes into you with some hesitance at first, but as soon as she tastes you, she dives in deeper for more. Her head bobs up and down as she sets a pace that’s a little too quick for your liking and you try to roll your hips to indicate a better rhythm, but Kate is too drunk on your taste, too excited to be in this position, to pay you much attention. And as hot as her mouth is, as flexible as her tongue is, it’s not enough to get you off. 

Kate may not be as experienced as your past partners, but sometimes you feel like she doesn’t even want or care to know what you actually like and what you don’t. While she’s never done anything to make you feel outright uncomfortable, you aren’t always satisfied with her efforts either–although she does try her best, that much is certain. 

Your excitement begins to dwindle as the minutes tick by and you’re no closer to orgasm than when Kate was still on top of you. You’re surprised she hasn’t gotten a jaw cramp yet, and you don’t want her to, so you move your hand onto her head and push her back. 

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” you say, pretending to pant like you’re coming down from an amazing high. Kate sits back on her heels, wiping her lips with a grin. You know you’re just as guilty for not being honest with her, but for some reason, you just don’t have it in you to tell her the truth. This poor girl had waited years to be with you and probably thought she never had a chance in the world. You could give her this moment. There might not be more of them, anyway.

Kate crawls up to you to kiss you sloppily and you shy away, reaching over to the nightstand and twisting your elbow awkwardly to open the top drawer. Your fingers close around the rubber toy you’re looking for and you pull it out with a flourish, watching the way Kate’s eyes darken when she sees what you’re holding. 

“Think you can handle one more?” you ask.

“Anything for you, baby.” She kisses you again and gets off of you so you can sit up and pull the straps over your legs, positioning the toy between them. 

“Lie down,” you tell Kate, maneuvering yourself on top of her again. You can see the glistening wetness of her center and you know you won’t need any more lube, despite how large the toy is. Even in the beginning, you insisted on using a smaller size but Kate didn’t want that, saying that you looked the best with a big one between your legs. You didn’t argue with her on that and fucked her into the mattress until you were so exhausted you fell asleep with the strap still in her. 

You grab onto each of Kate’s ankles and hoist her legs up, holding them in a wide V and tilting her butt up just a few inches off the bed. Scooting forward until the tip of your cock presses against her entrance, you look down at her and ask if she’s ready. 

“Fuck me until I can’t walk,” Kate says, and she knows you’ll keep your side of the deal. 

You thrust your hips forward, gliding into her almost entirely in one smooth motion, and Kate throws her head back and moans shamelessly. You use your grip on her ankles to pull her forward as your hips move, increasing the power of your thrusts and the entire bed shakes with your strength. Kate bounces along the mattress, trying to reach for you, desperate for something solid to hold onto while you fuck her brains out. 

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

“I think I saw them head out earlier,” Natasha says, trying to act like she hadn’t had her eyes on you the whole time.

“So soon?” Yelena says. “Well, I think the only reason they showed up was to see you anyway–”

“I barely spoke to either of them.”

Yelena shrugs. “Did you expect them to hang around? After what you did?”

Sometimes, Natasha wonders whose side her sister is on. Then she remembers how Yelena had been ready to (justifiably) beat her to a pulp after she found out what Natasha had done. 

“Do you want to go now?” Yelena asks, although she senses that Natasha wanted to leave hours ago.

“Yeah, I think I’m done here.”

“Okay.”

Natasha plans on spending the night in her sister’s room, since it’s too far of a drive back to her place in Rochester. She goes up the elevator with Yelena, feeling a wave of sadness fill her as she remembered the thousands of times she had gone up to the suites with you, with her teammates. Those days were long gone. 

“Do you remember where my room is?” Yelena asks. “I have to grab something from the kitchen, so you can meet me there.”

“Sure.” But Natasha does not have the faintest memory of where Yelena’s suite is. She only remembers where yours and hers was. She wonders who’s moved in now and if they know the history of that room. It would probably be better if they didn’t. 

She wanders down the dark hallway, nervous to realize that all the doors look the same. In a moment of panicked judgment, she reaches for a random door handle and pushes it open. 

Just her luck, Natasha doesn’t stumble into Yelena’s empty room. It’s Kate’s.

Kate is lying naked on her bed with you equally naked and between her legs, holding them open at such a wide angle that even Natasha is impressed by her flexibility. Your abs flex as you jog your hips forward, slapping your thighs against Kate’s loudly. Natasha has a fleeting thought of being in Kate’s position before, but it is quickly replaced by shame and embarrassment.

“Uh, shit…” Natasha says, blush creeping up to the tips of her ears. She doesn’t know if either of you even notice her and quickly backs out, her heart pounding. She would never have you like that again, and it hurts her like a knife in her chest to know that she lost you to Kate.

Kate had seen Natasha peek into her room and never thought she would be so happy to be caught in a position like this. When Natasha leaves, Kate begs you to pound into her harder and faster, until you fear you’ll actually rip her in half. You don’t, but you do break the bedframe when it slams into the wall one too many times. Tony will not be happy to hear he has to order another bed for Kate. 

Kate practically screams when she comes undone, tearing at the sheets and pillows with clawed hands. You finally drop her legs, pulling your cock out and falling on top of her, your body slick with sweat as you lay flat against her. Kate rolls you to the side as you wrap your arms around her and she tangles her legs with yours, resting her head on your chest and telling you to hold her tighter. 

No other words are said, but the silence seems to communicate that both of you know this is a dream reaching its end.

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

AN: Oh how the tables have turned...

This was a very different fic for me. I’d love to hear what you think! Especially from those who were anti-Nat endgame with the original. 👀

Please like, reblog, and comment! Follow for more content. 🥰

[yourlocallyneysimp]

Genshin Boys x Ariel!Reader

!Requested by!: @lacuna-at-dawn

Characters: Kazuha, Albedo, Lyney, Kunikuzushi, Alhaitham, Zhongli, Heizou, Xingqiu, Dottore, Cyno, Tighnari

A/n: Thank you for over 400 followers! ✨

Kazuha

Kazuha first saw you when he was on Beidou's ship.

He was heading back to Inazuma to visit some friends and also because he wanted to visit his hometown, but when he finally got to Inazuma, he saw something in the water.

It wasn't unusual to see fish splashing in the water, but this was different. Why was there a giant tail poking out of the water?

His curiosity increased, but he decided not to investigate further since a lot a people were around at the time and they would most likely want to capture whatever the creature was that he saw.

You both had your first encounter when you were sitting on a rock wondering if you would ever be able to walk on land.

Sure, you could watch humans from afar, but the problem was you wanted to experience the city life yourself.

During this time, Kazuha was taking a stroll around the beach, until he caught sight of someone sitting on a rock in the distance.

He was about to call out for the person since the tides could be dangerous at night until he saw your tail. It was so glittery and bright that he immediately recognized it as the tail he saw when he arrived in Inazuma.

It was beautiful, and so were you. It turns out that he was looking at a mermaid this whole time and that mermaids were actually real.

He heard many stories of fishermen trying to capture these beautiful creatures, but no one would believe them since they only exist in books, but to see one in real life was breathtaking...

After staring for a bit, you felt a pair of eyes on you. Expecting to see a small animal or another Inazuma monster, you weren't expecting to see an actual person.

You were startled since you were not expecting someone to be taking a stroll at this time of night, so without hesitation, you jumped back into the ocean leaving Kazuha behind.

Albedo

He already knew that there was mythical creatures in the sea, so he wasn't that surprised when he saw you.

He didn't even bother letting you know his presence, he just suddenly appeared by your side with a clipboard in his hand, introducing himself as Albedo.

This man was literally a prince in your eyes so you were quiet for a bit while you watched him stare at your tail and scribble notes in his notebook. It was honestly interesting to watch.

You also answered hundreds of questions that he would constantly ask, but each question kept getting more technical and complicated.

To be honest, you don't even know how you managed to answer five of them.

Lyney

Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking..

Lyney ran into you while he was walking on a beach to get some inspiration for his upcoming performances.

When he saw you for the first time he was absolutely flabbergasted.

Lyney can't remembered the last time he was left breathless and paralyzed.

He stared at you for a long time, gathering his thoughts.

Many questions crossed his mind, like: 'Who are you? What are you? How did you get here?' And also: 'Wait, what- is that a talking fish and crab?-'

Lyney loves to use people for his own gains, but he geniunely wanted you to join him in one of his upcoming performances.

You could be his new partner! But after thinking about it, people could possibly try to steal you away or try to harm you.

Instead, maybe you could only be his entertainment for a while.

Kunikuzushi

His mother had just abandoned him and he was left 'heartbroken'. Left with nothing.

He felt hopeless. Left with nothing at all and no place to call home.

While he was wandering around Inazuma thinking about his first betrayal, big shadows started forming above his head. Dark gray clouds were forming.

It was most likely just the weather in Inazuma, but to him, it was his luck. Everything never went well for him.

Looking for a cave to rest in, he eventually found one. At this point, it was already pouring and he was unfortunately soaked. Walking deeper into the cave, he heard a female and male voice.

He was hesitant at first since he wasn't experienced in talking to people, but after looking around the corner he couldn't help but make a small sound due to shock.

A talking crab and a... 'I don't know... What was it?' That was the only thing that was going through his head. He was confused yet you were so pretty to him.

He didn't know what you were, but for some reason he felt a new blossom of hope forming into his chest. It was odd, it was almost as if he had a heart.

Quietly turning around and leaving the cave, he somehow didn't feel as useless anymore. Although he didn't have the confidence to talk to you right in that moment, he made a note in his head that he would meet you and actually converse with you one day.

Althaitham

Alhaitham first met you when he was researching on an area in Sumeru. It was an island surrounded by water and it was quite beautiful.

There was rumors to be many mythical creatures in that area and many odd sightings, so he was sent to get some information on a "creature" if he ever managed to find one.

It was two hours in and no luck. It look just like another island to him, he was even thinking about leaving since people like to lie about commissions like these.

He thought about changing his mind when he heard a few splashes in the water.

Even though he wanted to convince himself it was just a fish, he couldn't help but not think so.

Looking over to where the big splash was heard, he was face to face with you, a mermaid. Something that he has never seen before. Something you might see once in a lifetime..

You so absolutely breathtaking that you even got Alhaitham to take a second to recollect his thoughts.

You were also shocked too since you weren't expecting anyone to be there when it was so late at night, but you couldn't help but stare at him. Alhaitham in your eyes was a prince.

After snapping out of his thoughts, he slowly walked up to you to try to make friendly small talk since he was genuinely curious about who or what you were.

After both of your conversations were done, he suddenly remembered the assignment he had to do on the akedemaia, but he didn't want to write anything on the piece of paper.

So instead of writing information about you, he kept it blank. He didn't want anyone else to find out about you or this secret place.

Zhongli

You and Zhongli have been friends for a long time and you both trust each other. He wasn't surprised when he heard you were a mermaid since he seen many before and even some during the archon war.

He finds you quite interesting to be around and would defiantly become overprotective of you if needed.

He would also scold Hu Tao whenever she would scare you or try to convince you to take part in her pranks.

Heizou

Heizou knew that something was up with you the moment he layed eyes on you.

Taking a dip in the pond? You can't lie to him. Even though he didn't show it, he was genuinely curious about why you really were in the water until he saw something splash behind you. Your tail.

During his whole career of being a detective, he would have never guessed that you would be a sea creature, or what people like to call it: 'A mermaid'.

Paimon was already unusual to him, but this was next level! Don't expect him to not ask you a lot of different questions though.-

Xingqiu

Xingqiu read about mermaids in books, but he never knew that they would actually be real. Seeing you and your tail was a big surprise and actually shocked him quite a lot, but his shocked expression quickly turned into a look of excitement.

He would spoil you a lot and show you fantasy books that he read that might interest you. He would spend hours just finding a good book that might interest you and one you could read together.

When he finds out you start catching feeling for another, he becomes more attached, but wouldn't talk as much. But please don't take that as a sign to leave, he wants to stay with you for a little longer.

Dottore

Don't let this man even SEE you. He would kidnap you and do many experiments to test and see how your tail works. Honestly, don't even be in the same radius as him.

Cyno

Cyno met you through Tighnari and ever since your first meeting, you both have been best friends!

Even though you were a bit intimidated by him at first, you slowly realized that he was quite fun to be around. (Especially when he tells his bad jokes)

Tighnari would always shake his head in disappointment and embarrassment whenever Cyno would tell another one of his bad jokes and you would laugh.

Tighnari

Tighnari knew you for a while and even introduced Collei to you since he knew she liked reading books about mythical creatures, but he was always a bit overprotective when it came to you making sudden appearances in the water.

He would scold you saying that it was way too dangerous to suddenly jump out of the water, especially since there are a lot of forest watchers and hunters in the area.

You understood what he was saying, but you couldn't help about being curious about the surface. You wanted to see more!

When Tignari would scold you, it would feel as if your right in front of your father again, so sometimes it could be quite frustrating.

You and Tighnari first met when he was looking for some non-poisonous mushrooms to use as food, but he wasn't expecting to find a mermaid.

He literally had to look at you twice to realize that there was in fact a real mermaid right in front of him, the same ones that was described in the books that Collei read.

He was snapped out of his trance and realized that monsters were in the area, he knew that you didn't notice, so without you knowing, he tried to lure the monsters away from you and towards him instead.

Even you don't know it, but Tighnari has been taking care of you since day one.

BONUS:

Kokomi was taking a walk around Enkanomiya to meet someone. She smiling while holding a whole bunch of her favorite snacks in her hands.

Who was this person she was meeting you ask? Well her dear friend of course!

You and Kokomi's ancestors have been allies for a very long time and that only seems to continue to remain the same as years go on.

Even though you both don't see each other much, she still tries to make as much room as possible to visit you.

She won't tell anyone of your existence for safety reasons. She doesn't want you to get hurt, after all, you both are close acquaintances.

[starwrighter]

I am not a baby!!(Yes you are)

(Prompt)  (Masterpost) (Previous) (next) (Ao3 link)

( Part three bby! Come get ya’ll juice) @unknownthreat @avelnfear @adeniumdream @meira-3919 @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @hugsandchaos @blep-23  @ashoutinthedarkness 

“Zero human life signs detected" A terrifying string of words to hear after crawling out a lifepod. It didn’t sound plausible, there were dozens of life pods on that ship! Dozens of pods that should have launched with him in the crash, that means dozens of people who should be more alive than him were wandering around this planet. They had too be!

Alterra tech wasn’t as advanced as the corporation wanted him to believe. A thorough scan of the entire planet couldn’t be performed in a matter of seconds. The tablet was impressive sure, but it couldn’t replace the complex tech and the brilliant minds from the brightest of space programs. Living people were unpredictable, especially in times of disaster like this. It would’ve been easy for them to accidentally walk out of range or be skipped over by whatever scan was sent out. All he knew about this planet was that there was water as far as the eye could see. There had to be people somewhere on the planet. The area he landed in was safe from what he could tell, he could only hope the same for the others.

Shallow water surrounded him a tropical warmth to it. The ground was a mix between soft sand he could dig his feet and stone. Giant coral tubes were scattered throughout the area and Danny found himself giggling as he darted through them as fast as he could manage.

“Vital signs abnormal. Self scan recommended,” Danny frowned glaring down at the PDA, a flashing light dutifully reminding him to head up for air. Scrunching his nose Danny dismissed the notifications. Notifications and reminders that would be lifesaving for a normal human would be inaccurate and possibly harmful if you applied it to him. His body needed less oxygen so his heart was slower. It made perfect sense to him but it was very difficult to explain to a trained medical professional that he was just built different without exposing the existence of halfa. Explaining his existence to the Ai was a task he wasn’t looking forward to. Maybe he should play along and pretend to be a dumb baby so he didn’t have to. Explaining how he’s still alive when his heart wasn’t pumping anywhere close to the speed needed for his circulatory system to function.  

Maybe if he scanned himself like his PDA suggested he’d get accurate medical information for once in his half-life. His semi normal life was over the moment he melted into goo and his grave was dug the moment the PDA noticed the irregularities, no harm in digging himself a deeper grave right? Better to be comfy in your grave than fight to be tossed in a ditch. 

Swimming up to the surface Danny allowed himself to think deeply about his situation for the first time since landing on this rock. Alterra drew it’s information from building off confirmed databases, creating new ones and synthesizing theories when they lacked information. For all the GIW’s and his parent’s hard work their research on ectoplasm and ecto entities didn’t exist in any official database outside of fairytales and myths. To his PDA ectoplasm was something they’ve never seen before; something that they’d study without the bias of his parents or the GIW skewing the results. 

Jazz and his friends would still accept him no matter what conclusion the PDA drew on his existence. If worse came to worst he could always pull a couple strings with Technus or ask tucker to wipe it’s memory for him when he got home.

With a small gasp for air Danny dove back down into the shallow waters. Brightly colored fish roamed, nibbling at plants and flitting away in terror when he drew near. Only one of the fish didn’t seem to mind his presence. A slim yellow fish with purple fins, goldish stripes and stalked eyes that gave it resemblance to that of a crab or a snail. It glided slowly through the water, ignoring Danny in favor of munching on bits of greenery growing out of the sand. Danny took to ignoring it right back, it was boring, and not as fun to spook while he scrounged for materials.

A creature that was 60% eye was the most entertaining to startle. Despite the little blue fish being bigger than his head it was still terrified of him, darting away at a sped Danny could just barely keep up with. They dodged and weaved leading him in circles until he either got dizzy and lost sight of them or got bored of spinning.

He plucked mushrooms out of the ground, the purple ring surrounding pink insides left a chalky residue that stung his finger tips. Danny didn’t even want to chance eating these, they felt compressed like all it would take was one wrong cut for them to explode into a million pieces. According to his PDA they could be used to make batteries . Rumor has it, battery acid doesn’t taste that good. A high pitched whistling similar to a dog whistle played from his PDA getting louder and higher in pitch the closer he brought the mushroom to his mouth. It was funny how the PDA thought it could stop him if he really wanted to eat poison. Though, if it would stop the PDA from screaming Danny would graciously hold the battery mushrooms in his backpack not his mouth.

Danny used Wilson to bash up stone outcrops, praying the fire extinguisher wouldn’t break against the stone. Shoving chunk after chunk of titanium into his backpack he prayed Alterra had something in their storage modules separating the possibly explosive thing away from each other. Copper was what he needed yet it seemed like it was as rare as gold here. All he needed was one piece, one single piece to make the battery needed for a scanner. Did copper even exist on this planet? It was the main component to most things technological so if it didn’t exist here he was screwed. Hoarding massive amounts of titanium wouldn’t make up for it’s lack in conductivity. Powering tools took electricity, and he didn’t exactly want to risk using a faulty battery in the middle of the ocean. Copper was a must have for the machinery he needed, the fabricator wouldn’t let him substitute materials nor did he have the materials to substitute. For now, he was forced to continue his search, smacking away at the limestone in hopes of the ancients deciding to show mercy and give him what he needed.

 Breaks for  air were few and far between, the PDA catching on to the difference in biology quicker than he thought it would. Who knew not drowning when all data says you should leaves one eager to reevaluate their data. Oxygen alerts popped up after a minute and a half instead of the normal thirty second warnings. It wasn’t anywhere near his breath holding record before the crash but it was enough to make the PDA slightly less annoying so he considered that a win. When copper finally dropped from an outcrop, he almost cried from relief; not that his tears would mean anything in the ocean. Relief soon morphed into annoyance as every single one of the outcrops he broke afterwards dropped copper. Of course the moment he didn’t need it anymore was the moment it became the only thing that would ever drop! Why wouldn’t it work that way? Clockwork was laughing at him right now he could feel it. Swimming into the nearest cave to drown out of spite didn’t seem that bad of an idea anymore.

“Detecting sulfur deposits in the local cave systems. Sulfur is an essential component of the repair tool.” A colorful, yet morbid animation played on the screen. It depicted a small child putting sulfur into their mouth before being stamped by the image of a skull. It covered the child’s entire body and as the skull faded off screen so did the child, a small grave stone replacing them. This warning was unnecessary but an accurate assumption of his survival skills. Jazz always said he was like a toddler, putting anything and everything he could in his mouth. While not exactly true, she’d seen him eat a plastic spork and watched him drink ectoplasm so he couldn't plead his case without proving her point. Eating random objects was one of his favorite ways to freak people out! 

A piercing shriek broke through his thoughts. It sounded like someone taking a wheezing breath when they had the flu and it was rapidly approaching him. A flash red entered his his vison and Danny only had time to make brief eye contact with an alien that vaguely resembled a pufferfish before it exploded sending a cloud of loose sand into the water. 

What the hell was that thing!? It just self destructed for no reason! There wasn’t even time for him to get a good look at it before it exploded! It was like the fish took one look at Danny and decided a violent death by self-destruction was the only answer. Why the hell would the PDA warn him about sulfur deposits when their were living tracking missiles swimming around? Did he swim into their territory? Was it protecting something? Ancients he hoped he hadn’t stressed a parent into killing itself to protect it’s babies.

 Heading deeper into the caves, he swam towards where he saw Bomberfish emerge. A plant, with a dark beige base almost blended in with the sand. If not for the vibrant red petals with yellow lining bloomed around what looked like pollen but smelled like rotten eggs he might’ve missed it. The pollen was brittle crumpling into a powder like state that sifted though his closed fist. It didn’t take long for him to realize this “Pollen was actually one of the sulfur deposits he was warned about. A gurgle was heard and he twirled around to face the noise. An eye was peeking out through a plant the familiar red petals hiding the boom fish from sight. These things were ultra territorial, or maybe they were guarding the sulfur for some reason? There weren’t any eggs nearby for them to protect. “Living grenades nearby” would’ve been a more fitting warning than “hey you probably shouldn’t eat this” Then again if you told him directly that there were grenade fish in the caves, he would be rushing in there to see it with his own two eyes. The whole point of a warning would be null if it unintentionally encouraged people to rush towards danger with the promise of seeing something cool. He kicked the sand, hiding himself behind the open sulfur plant and waited for the agitated fish to go back into hiding. A cluster of mushrooms nearby illuminated his face as he carefully pocketed the sulfur. Fleeing the cave, he ignored the bomber fishes warning cry as he swam away fast enough to avoid triggering it.

Now all he needed was to craft a battery for the scanner and silicone rubber for the repair tool. Silicone rubber could be made with something called a creepvine seed cluster. Creepvine sounded like a plant your camp counselor would warn you about before going on nature hike. Something that would give you ugly rashes when you inevitably stumbled into a patch of it. The PDA showed him what the materials he needed looked like but not where they were found. Creepvine seed clusters were bulbous yellow seeds that like the name suggested grew in clusters.

It was just his luck that the thing he needed wasn’t in the shallows. In fact, it was located in one of the places he’d been avoiding. Bordering the shallows, tall stalks of kelp grew so tall it almost breached the surface and dense enough that to classify as a forest or at least the ocean equivalent of a forest. The seed clusters were bioluminescent, growing off certain kelp stalks while others remained seedless. The glowing bulbs illuminated chunks of what he could only assume were pieces of the Aroura. A creature long and sleek with jagged teeth lurked in the green tinted waters. Watching, waiting, and ready to strike the moment it’s pray wandered from the safety of the shallows. Often it snatched up pieces of metal, thrashing around with it like an alligator with it’s prey. Sometimes it wandered to the shallows, drawn in by the metallic sheen of scrap and scattered storage crates or lured by dozen of vibrantly colored fish that flourished in the shallows. They never stayed for long, perhaps an instinctual knowledge that scaring prey into migrating elsewhere wouldn’t be good for it’s survival. Picking off stragglers and hunting occasionally was much easier than having to hunt down your preys new breeding ground whenever you wanted to eat. 

While their trips to the shallows were short, he didn’t trust a particularly tasty looking prey wouldn’t give them the confidence to venture farther into the shallows. There was no way of knowing a metal muncher wouldn’t stalk him back to the shallows if they saw him on his little errand. No way of telling if their interest in metal was limited to just scraps. The fabricator was his only lifeline right now, his only hope for tools and drinkable water. A fabricator that was built into the wall of a lifepod made primarily of metal that would look oh so tasty to a jagged toothed alligator with a craving for titanium. 

There were a lot of things he wanted to do on an alien planet but he didn't want to swim into the home of the metal munching monsters! It was safer to just stay here where the only real threat was a living grenade with territorial issues and the gasmask manatee. The Metal muncher was gigantic and Danny was the perfect bite sized snack! Most of the tastier looking fish were smaller than he was and all Danny had to defend himself was a fire extinguisher and ice powers with the effectiveness of a slushy machine. He’d be the appetizer to tide them over before the main course of a life pod slightly charred! 

Impulsiveness and an apparent lack of self preservation was what he was known for by his community but contrary to popular belief Danny didn’t want to die. Back home, he had the strength to hold his own against the attacking ghosts and the friends to back him up when brute force and bullshittery failed. Now he had neither. Hours after the crash and he still couldn’t go ghost; trying to access his powers was as helpful as it’d been during the crash. Worst of all, his friends were lightyears away with no way of reaching him or even knowing what happened. The situation was dire and rescue couldn’t save him or the other potential survivors if he acted stupid and got himself killed. Believe it or not impulsiveness isn’t the same as stupidity; the two could come hand and hand but that didn’t make them the same when they’re separate. No matter what his grades said about him he wasn’t stupid. 

Daniel James Fenton, that’s who he is and Fenton’s aren’t stupid.

 Common sense ran scarce in their family but intelligence was plentiful. Jazz might be hoarding all the common sense but Danny had just enough to make his own rational decisions every once in a while. Provoking something that big without at least the foundations of a plan would cross the line of impulsiveness and land him with a dunce cap sitting in the corner of his lifepod. That is if he wasn’t torn to shreds first

He couldn’t beat a metal muncher in face to face fight, better to avoid it as much as possible. Out maneuvering  one of them wasn’t even an option. His swimming was slow and uncoordinated like the rest of his tiny body. At least stealth would be easier for him like this. The kelp twirled into itself an easy place to hide. Hiding wouldn’t help if they smelt him, the gators snout was long enough to snatch him out of any hiding spot he found. What he needed was something to defend himself but unfortunately, the only weapon he was allowed to fabricate required silicone rubber to make. So unless he wanted to blunt force one of them to death with a fire extinguisher his wit was his only other weapon. Metal munchers seemed to get distracted easily, diverting their attention from him would be an easy task. If he could spare some titanium or catch some of the smaller slower fish he could sneak through the kelp forests mostly unbothered.

Offering food was the safer bet. Carrying around a chunk of metal would slow him down and give the overgrown gators a chance to eat him and his peace offering. Danny chased down fish, snatching up the slower ones in his little hands. They slipped out of his grasp often, his dull nails did nothing to keep  the fish from squirming out of his grasp. Sharpened canines although small did great work to puncture and kill whatever unfortunate creature he caught in his maw. It they tasted terrible but what more could you expect of holding a raw fish in your mouth? With a dead fish in his hand, he surfaced for one long gasp of air before delving into the kelp forests. Hope the metal muncher didn’t prefer live feedings.  

“Life on this planet grows in distinct and diverse ecological biomes. Further study recommended.” The PDA piped up, playing another short animation of a child using a scanner. The child had three extra fingers sprouting on their wrist and there was an eerie emptiness in the eyes that screamed AI generated. Dismissing the notification Danny began to stalk around the biome. Chunks of sandstone dropped silver, lead and, sometimes gold. A notification popped up for two of the three. Blue lights flashed in his face and Danny had to duck away, hiding inside the curling vines of kelp. The PDA instructed him on handling lead including the usual warning of “Don’t eat it,” given whenever he picked up anything that wasn’t a fish. 

It wasn’t his fault that rocks looked so tasty! The only rock he actually put in his mouth turned out to be salt give him a break! A pain in his gums made the concept of chewing on things he wasn’t supposed to more appealing then it was. 

A loud shriek erupted, so loud it made his ears ring. Gnashing teeth and dilated pupils stared back at him through the creepvine. With a scream Danny chucked a fish at the creatures face hitting it square in the jaw. Shoving as many seed clusters into his backpack, Danny swam as fast as he could towards the shallows. An indignant shriek of a gator no longer distracted by its snack rang out behind him motivating him to swim faster. 

His life pod was in sight, so close yet so far away. With a monster chasing him the short distance felt like miles. Fish scattered in all directions at the sight of his pursuer distracting the gator just long enough for him climb the latter to the top of his lifepod. Air burned his lungs adrenaline rushing through his veins as he stared intently at the retreating form of the metal muncher. The PDA was talking to him. Words that sounded vaguely comforting were drowned out by his rapid breaths and the ringing in his ears.

“Scary,” His voice came out hoarse way too young to belong to him. A string of certain words didn’t make it past his lips. He didn’t know what he was calling scary specifically, everything that’d happened in the past twenty four hours was terrifying. From the crash to the feeling of helplessness he got from being shrunk and hunted. The sky was darkening, soon, the only light he’d have would be from the flames ravaging the Aroura. Another terrifying thought, the Aroura was a tough ship, what could’ve possibly caused that much damage. When Danny was recruited the ship was hyped up as unbreakable, a perfect example of mankind’s brilliance. It wasn’t negligence or a maintenance error, the ship was fine before entering this solar system. With his duel obsession he should have been at his strongest. It couldn’t be a coincidence that his powers went kaput the exact moment the aroura crashes. Something was fishy here and it wasn’t just the living grenades.

The top hatch was heavy and difficult to open. An air tight seal just like the bottom hatch doing more to keep him out than it could with any water. It’d be a lie to say the hiss of air that escaped when it opened wasn’t satisfying If he wanted to investigate further, he needed to repair his life pod. He watched in awe as the fabricator took things from his backpack and turned into something else. Creepvine seeds to silicon rubber, copper and mushrooms to a battery. Silicone rubber, sulfur and titanium to an O2 tank, fins, the survival knife, and the repair tool. A battery and a single piece of titanium built up into a functional biometrical scanner. It was incredible, in just a few minutes Danny went from having nothing to having a knife and other less important tools. If things stayed this easy he’d be ready to fight a minor deity in a matter of days! 

A barrage of PDA messages hit him, all somewhat snarky congratulations for crafting but Danny couldn’t care less. His focus was fixated on repairing all the sparking bits and bobs of the lifepod. It was like magic the lights flickered to life as if they’d never been broken in the first place

“Lifepod secondary systems online. Running full environmental diagnostic and outputting results to databank.” The PDA pinged as Danny stepped over the puddle of goop to get to the radio. 

“Radio online. Broadcasting emergency distress signal, ”Just like the lights the radio was fixed in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t push down the giddy hopefulness at the sight of blinking red light, a message already was a good sign.

“This is Aurora. Distress signal received. Rescue operation will be dispatched to your location in 9...9...9...9...9.. hours. Continue to monitor for emergency transmissions from other life pods,”

That... That did not sound good.

[zelphin124]

Summer x Y/N, pt 2

Hah, you thought I was done? THINK AGAIN- TO THE CAFE! Happy birthday Summer! I'm fashionably late, but I was at work so eat that you highlighter. Anyway.

~o0o~

Cocoa Cafe, 1pm, CoffeeTale.

The smell of coffee beans engulfed you when you entered the cafe. The cafe was made from a massive tree, with thick branches weaved perfectly for its walls, and the roof draped with millions of luscious leaves. A small, stone outlet for the gentle fire-cooked water rested in the corner. Each table and seat were made from natural materials, and there were zero signs of mess or bugs in the area. The birds that gently chirped made it obvious who kept the place clean.

There were many people in the cafe. To your surprise, monsters and humans from every affiliation were here. Many were from different alternate universes, and many were enemies with each other. However, none of them raised a finger of harm toward the other, as if this place was magically keeping peace.

"Hello there! Welcome to Cocoa Cafe! I'm Cocoa, what's your name?"

It must have been the most jolly greeting you have ever received in your life. Your head naturally turned toward the counter. Your eyes gazed down the trunk of the tree that made up most of the shelves before they rested on a short, smiley sans. He wore a tan hoodie and dark pants with lavender slippers. His eyes were marshmallows, and he had a large crack in his head that constantly spewed out cocoa.

You returned a greeting before walking up to him, giving your name.

"What a lovely name! What can I get started for you today?" He smiled gently at you, pulling out a small pen and paper.

You had a feeling he was going off a script, but you also knew he was being genuine as if he loved his job. However, you weren't here to try something new.

The king had given you a promise, and you showed up early to anticipate it.

You communicated that to Cocoa, who eagerly stared into your soul.

"Oh! Your Summer's date! Right! Don't worry about the payment, and I have a table for you guys over here!" He immediately sat down his possessions and guided you over to a cloth table with many flowers scattered across it.

They just so happened to be your favorite flowers.

"Summer will be here shortly. He informed me that he was running late... I think there was some king stuff he had to partake in which took longer than expected."

Cocoa did not seem phased by your reaction, whatever it was. He simply set the table before grabbing his notes. "Please, get whatever you'd like. His majesty will cover it."

Whatever you asked for, Cocoa said they had. It didn't matter if you listed a PB&J to crab roasted on a unicorn, Cocoa explained how he had it all. It was peculiar, but you were able to get exactly what you craved.

"It will be out shortly! I will have Eggnog get started on it immediately!"

Cocoa didn't turn around before a loud thud shook the cafe outside.

You could see through the spare windows a large Gaster Blaster dragon, who knelt to the ground with such grace and honor. It had various printings similar to the king you met last night.

Lo and behold, that same king gracefully dismounted the dragon's back.

Summer strode into the cafe with a bright yellow outfit and a less attention-demanding crown. His grin remained the same, and he bee-lined toward Cocoa, sharing a few hushed words before he spotted you.

His eyes lit up the whole room when they did.

The way he approached you was similar to a ray of sunlight gently beaming on your face after being hidden by a cloud. You didn't have time to react before he took your hand and kissed it gently. "You have graced your beauty once more. Thank you for your patience, darling."

You explained to him that it would be foolish of you to turn down an offer like this.

The king smirked. "Foolish indeed. You wouldn't want to turn down an offer from a king."

Everything Summer did was with grace and elegance. The way he moved, the way he looked at you and his surroundings as if he was the embodiment of grace and charm himself. There was never a dull moment. He made good small talk - if you could even call it that. The questions he asked were deep and inspiring. They forced you to take a deeper look at things you believed, and when he cracked a joke or a flirt, you couldn't help but reward him with genuine smiles and laughs.

Cocoa came out with your food the moment you started to get hungry. Summer told you about his favorite sandwich, but that monte cristo looked better in person.

To your surprise, he had no problem sharing it with you.

"How can I resist such a captivating face?" He teased, reaching out his hand and holding yours. "Ask and you shall receive, princess."

His wink sent an array of shivers down your spine. Your face was red the moment he touched your hand. He made you feel like no one else before, as if you could melt like butter in his arms and he'd be perfectly okay putting you back together. The peace that engraved your heart was permanent, and you never wanted to let that go.

"I could stare into your eyes all day..." The king muttered, adjusting his crown. "This has been enjoyable, and I deeply apologize for the short time span, but a king can never stay away from his kingdom for too long."

It appears the meal had been paid for in advance, as the king got up, swept you off your feet, and gave you a lovely embrace as a goodbye. "I hope to see you again soon, darling~"

To your disappointment, he vanished from sight, and so did his dragon.

"Ah, he's always like that... coming and going on short notice... haha!" Cocoa smiled as he cleaned up your plates.

You didn't mind it... but you did hope to see him again.

~o0o~

Sorry yall it was really rushed. BUT! Here it is.

[scarredlove]

Night snack

Just had an itch for a small and sweet drabble for bad dreams. Thank you @justfangirlstuffs for encouraging me to post this up <3

Moony Slug x reader (No gender specified)~

Y/N slept soundlessly on the Obscura's lap, head tucked into his shoulder as their body curled into his chest. Keeping a firm hand on the blankets that covered the both, his free digits moved up to brush away hair from their cheek, tucking it away behind an ear.

Sunny and Eclipse watched on with soft smiles at the slumbering human, slowly getting up as they all began to wonder what to do now.

"I'll carry them to their bed." Eclipse gave a low gruff, rolling out his shoulders from not having moved from the long movie that had ended.

Moony furrowed his brows and held Y/N closer. "Might stir and wake up again. They haven't been sleeping well."

Sunny eyed the pair of brothers as they silently glared at each other, as if a mental argument was taking place. He looked down at his rescuer and leaned down to pull the blanket further up and over their shoulder. "There we go, pretty pearl..." He murmured softly, feeling rosy eyes dig their thorns into him instead. After a few seconds, it seemed the argument reached it's conclusion and Moony eyed the pair of them.

"Sunny, clean what you can." This made the sun-like fins bounce in eagerness, whilst the darker twin turned to his elder brother. "You, make sure everything is organised." Eclipse gave a sigh, followed by a nod before they both separated to their tasks. As dishes were cleaned and junk was thrown away, beds were made and laundry was neatly folded to where they belonged.

The blue slug looked down at the sleeping beauty and smiled, imagining what would be the funniest ways to awaken them.

Maybe say Sun had gotten salsa down himself?

Eclipse had accidentally ripped a curtain again?

But as his mirth grew, Y/N's face fell, brows furrowing as whimpers squeaked from their throat.

'Another nightmare.'

All thoughts were abandoned as he pulled them closer to his body, beginning to hum a lullaby they'd taught him as their cradled forms began to rock. Moony's free hand began to gently rub the back of their head, slight claws trying to coax out the bad dream and weave through the long locks in a silent plea that this helped them.

As Sun and Eclipse passed by from their duties, he'd worriedly glance up at them as they noticed how distressed Y/N was in slumber.

"Little Crab..." he whispered against the crown of their head, nuzzling, "you're alright... Safe. Always..."

Seconds of silence flew and not long after, the creases on their forehead eased and the slight jolts of their body stopped, melting back into the blanket and into the cuddle slug.

Sighing in relief, Moony pressed his lips to their head and could hear his brothers' hushed voices in the kitchen, though to far for him to actually catch.

"I will eat your nightmares..." He bent down and kissed Y/N's hairline, "Nothing will harm you, my sea star."