#once I get blade I will have Doubled my total five stars from before this update lmfaooooooo

[petrichorium]

Husband and daughter acquired 🙌🏻

[sweetsubharry]

Do you know of any good Larry fics where one of them is in a abusive relationship and the other saves them from it? Thanks!

I do! 

I want to say though; I went through a rough time in my life and it was definitely a coping mechanism for me to read stories like this, so considering the severity of the topic I just wanted to make it extra clear that everyone should read the tags please! <3 if it will not benefit you to read these, please don’t! I can make you a fluffy no hurt comfort request if needed!

HERE is a list for a lot of useful helplines for different areas and reasons!! xx and I’m here if anyone has any raised queries from this :)

once again, please read the tags and stay safe everyone!  💖

These are not in any order but I will say the first five are ones I still often think about, they definitely leave an impression and rebuilt my soul in different ways x

run through rivers and smile by bravestyles 

Harry is stuck in a long-term abusive relationship with his abusive boyfriend Sam. His friends try to help him out of it; along the way, Louis and Harry become closer.

breathe into me and make me real by greeneyedstranger

Harry's fading away, bit by bit everyday, and all he can feel is numb. He finds Louis, who's like sunshine, bright and glowing, and smells like red velvet cupcakes and whipped cream.

Petrichor by spotofpurple

Harry is a filthy rich, straight A student that lives in one of the biggest mansions in London with his father. He is also bullied and beaten in school and neglected at home.Louis is a quirky punk who owns a bookshop and sings in a rock band. He is also providing a cover for the two of the most wanted of London’s criminals, Zayn and Niall.When Harry has a panic attack in front of Louis’ bookshop and the older boy helps him, a weird friendship is formed. And soon developed into something neither of the boys expected.

Give Me Truths by iwillpaintasongforlou

'Just like a little cat,' Louis thought later, as he drifted off to sleep. 'A little kitten with his claws sunk right into me.' It isn’t that terrible of a thought, after all. ............. Louis is a psychology student with a tattoo count as high as his genius IQ. Harry is in a (sort-of) relationship with a homophobic man and hates himself a little more every day. Things fall apart and Louis puts him back together.

Or, the one in which Louis falls in love with a fragile boy and tells him every beautiful truth in the world, as long as it makes him happy.

Shake Me Down by AGreatPerhaps12

Harry's new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

It's A Start by Magiic_Shop

“This is dangerous, love,” Louis smirked, his lips pressed against Harry’s shoulder blade.

“Why’s that?” Harry asked.

“Because,” Louis’ smirk grew into a smile, “I might never want to let you go.”

Harry shifted against Louis, reaching up to cover Louis’ hand on his stomach with his own, “Then don’t.”

--

Or, the one where Harry can't sleep at night, and because of that, neither can Louis. Louis thinks it could be the start of something.

There is a Rose That I Want to Live For by Yourfavouritechild

How long has the sun been gone from his life. When did the sky fall down. When did the air become so heavy, wrapping around Harry, forcing him to collapse like an old star.

or, Trapped in an abusive relationship, Harry contemplates suicide until a punk rocker enters his life and pulls him up before he drowns.

keep me safe inside your arms by stylinson

When Louis first noticed it he thought nothing much of it, because Harry was just an all-around sweet and caring person, and it made him fall even more in love with him...until it got to a point where Louis realized that Harry was almost too eager to do what he was asked.

You are a lovely adjective, no word ever enough by angelichl

"I love you, Louis thinks now, feeling the words on the tip of his tongue. Willing them to spill out. But he knows that if he spills these treacherous thoughts out loud, Harry will panic. Maybe he'll even run away, like he ran away form The Monster.

I love you, Louis wants to tell him anyway. Wants to whisper it into his hair, kiss it onto his cheekbones, breathe it down his throat.

Instead he chews on his nail and says nothing."

The hurt/comfort AU in which Harry leaves away an abusive relationship, and Louis offers to share his flat

love is so good when the love is young by drunkonyou

Louis falls for his pregnant best friend who has a bit of baggage. They make it work though.

Hideaway. by arrowtomyheart

Harry is in a borderline abusive relationship which ends after the news that Harry's pregnant. He is homeless for the night and travels 3 hours on the train to turn up at his best friend's Liam's house unexpectedly for somewhere to stay. He meets Louis, Liam's flatmate, and they discover that they have more in common that anyone would expect. They fall in love.

It's the Sun In Your Eyes by Bearandleonardwrite

Harry's not the best with relationships. Then he finds Louis.

(Basically; Harry's insecure and hurt, but Louis loves him anyways and knows how to help.)

Shine Like Silver by asphodelknox

Sometimes what you never thought you needed is exactly what you need. Sometimes it's right in front of you. Harry find love when he's broken and abandoned, in the one place he never thought to look. Although once he figures it out, he's really not surprised.

on a wednesday, in a cafe by wreckedboyfriends

“What can I get for you today?” he asked without looking up, arranging the last of the pastries.

“Have any recommendations? Never been here before, actually.” Harry hit his head on the top of the case in his haste to look at the source of the voice. It was a really beautiful voice, small and high and just lovely, if a voice could be lovely. Harry thought so. “Alright, mate?” the man asked when Harry finally composed himself, rubbing the top of his head as he took his place at the register.

Harry opened his eyes, and fuck. If Harry had thought his voice was lovely, the man himself was on a whole other level. “Alright, mate?” He repeated and shit. Harry had been openly staring for quite awhile, hadn’t he?

“Yeah,” Harry replied, and it came out sounding like a semi trailer running over gravel. He cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Um, the cherry danish is quite good, I think. ’S my favorite.”

The man smiled. “One cherry danish it is, then.”

OR Harry’s spent the last year with six locks on his door, a pair of too-flamboyant boots buried in the back of his closet, and insecurity issues the size of a mammoth. Louis changes some of that, but Harry changes the most.

drain the whole sea by brainwaves

For a great chunk of his life, Harry has had a passion for writing, a passion that turned into an aspiration, which turned into a dream he’s been chasing for the past few years, first in the States and now in a shitty flat in London. None of his attempts to get anywhere have succeeded, leaving him with weary bones and two dead-end jobs that he doesn’t enjoy in the slightest. When he finds an unusual yet promising opportunity that could possibly get him somewhere and help him further his current failure of a writing career, he doesn’t hesitate to take it. Despite his boyfriend Sam’s pleading, he lets this dream bring him to the luxurious yet quaint home of world-renowned, best-selling author Louis Tomlinson.

love is blind (it will take over your mind) by babygrxxt

a story in which louis moved to paris to get away and is now working a nine to five job he hates, niall can’t speak french, zayn is so far gone for a boy he doesn’t even know and the pink of harry’s lips stands out even more against the purple of a bruise

Stop Making Tired Excuses by midnightskies

Louis hates many things; cold tea, countdown, tuesdays, and university, but most of all he absolutely, categorically despises Eric Davidson, current boyfriend of Harry Styles.

Keep Me From Falling Apart by sweetly_disposed

Harry shrugs, nicking a biscuit from the tin on the table. "Here." He holds out the styrofoam cup he's carrying. "Hot chocolate, double whipped cream." "Oh my god. You're perfect," Louis moans, taking it from him and sniffing it appreciatively. Harry blushes and stuffs the rest of the biscuit in his mouth to stop him from saying something totally ridiculous like 'you're perfect, too'.

Or, Harry doesn't think he needs help, until there's Louis.

Blue Eyes Like Blue Skies by sunflowerstyles

Harry's last relationship was horrific, leaving him with physical and mental scars. Louis comes into his life and does his best to treat Harry how he deserves.

[splicejunction]

Please tell me about shatterstar's Childhood

oh my god anon okay I’m assuming in context of what I’ve recently posted you want like... my version of events rather than what’s canon but just in case I hope you know that there’s basically zero canon material that actually describes his childhood/young adulthood beyond “I was a warrior born” or whatever the fuck. if you want to know about that idk go on the fucken... marvel wiki page or something

also--I hate that I have to put this out here and I doubt anyone would actually do this but just in case--I have spent like 1 million hours thinking about this because I have brain disorders and it is very close to my heart so please do not A) use this in fics, etc without letting me know/getting my permission in advance or B) reblog this post

anyways. this is a can of worms so I’m going to do a cheeky lil

first we have to get something out of the way: I hate the “shatterstar’s his own grandpa” paradox. I am sorry if this angers people but it makes me mad so I ignore it. the reason it bothers me is because it means alison blaire essentially married her grandson, which is A) weird and B) bad from a genetics perspective.

in my version of canon ‘star IS the biological child of longshot and dazzler but longshot wasn’t cloned using ‘star’s DNA because..... oh god... another whole separate post can be made about this but... in my head, on mojoworld the way genetic engineering works is not really the same as it is here. here genetic engineering generally means taking an existing genome and inserting or deleting genes. this is how they make, for example, animals that glow, or confer pesticide resistance to plants.

but on mojoworld I think the way they genetically engineer is more like... the way we mechanically engineer. like the entire organism is built from the ground up. there’s a master genetic blueprint which is essentially the “minimal genome” required for a functioning humanoid. this was created by study of Earth humans by arize and the other genetic engineers. they can then go in and customize by adding elements to the genome that code for the signals/building blocks that control things like height, strength, hair color, eye color, having hollow bones etc. so in my head longshot was sort of... designed with ‘star as the inspiration, but not directly cloned. that wouldn’t even make sense anyways because A) different hair color and B) LONGSHOT HAS 3 FINGERS ON EACH HAND and shatterstar has 4!! thats NOT HOW CLONES WOULD WORK!!!!

(side note, the concept of a minimal functional genome is a real thing in biology! some scientists have taken a bacterium that already has a small genome and reduced it to the minimum size required for viability. here is a wikipedia article on it and here is the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5447.2165) which I can explain in more detail because I took a class on synthetic biology which this technically falls under and I had to read this paper very closely).

fuck I’ve written 4 paragraphs and not even talked about his childhood yet. I am so sorry. anyways. so the way I think they raise the gladiators on mojoworld is they create them in batches of 5 to 10 identical copies of a certain “model”, place each copy in a different “class” with a set of 2-3 mentors/teachers, and train them to fight until they are 13 or 14. until this time the only names they have are the names that identify the “model”--like for shatterstar that would be gaveedra-seven where the model identifier is “gaveedra” and he is (in the lore that I have come up with) the 7th of 8 total.

the reason they create multiples and put them in different classes is each mentor is going to have a slightly different style of teaching which is going to work better for some and worse for others, so it allows them to have more mass production while increasing the chances of creating a truly great champion. it’s classic nature versus nurture--the genetic engineers create your nature, but you don’t end up exactly the same as others of your model. maybe you get an edge, maybe you don’t.

another thing that happens is different mentors believe in different ways of raising the kids in their care. shatterstar specifically was raised in a class where there was absolutely zero emotional development at all and no attachments allowed beyond fighting alliances. that’s not the case in all classes, and it also had the effect of making him somewhat of an outsider even within the other gladiators as he got older.

at 13 or 14--and yes I realize this is very fucked up but dude its fucking mojoworld idk what you expected--they start participating in fights. the first ones aren’t to the death and they’re as teams and they’re not usually televised they’re more like high school sports games that are attended by scouts (here, they’re “sponsors”--I think that’s a canonical term but I honestly can’t remember) and if you get sponsored you leave your class and join a new “team” that’s really just a bunch of people who all have the same sponsorship. this is where things can get interesting because they’ve all been raised with slightly different fighting styles but more importantly, slightly different degrees of Personhood.

also at this point I should mention that by this time, there are usually only 2, maybe 3 of each model left. either they died or were recognized as not having talent so they were sent to eventually fulfill other roles in the network. in ‘star’s case there was just him and gaveedra-five. once you get to the stage where you’re sponsored and you’re actually fighting to the death one of the first people you’ll fight is any remaining members of your model group.

by the time you’re the only one left of your group, you’re also eligible to earn a stage name. this usually happens if you have a particularly epic fight with a lot of viewers, you win and the commentators will typically say something like “Let’s give this crowd a real name to cheer!” and they’ll have a few candidate names and they’ll kind of just pick one. AUGH I actually have this scene written out in story form but its too long so I think I’ll save it.... :) 

after you get a name you also get a cool outfit and usually some kind of mark or tattoo that serves as a brand. this brings me to another important point--shatterstar inherited the X-gene from alison and therefore he IS a mutant. his mutation is the swords vibration thing and the glowing eye. the star mark is a tattoo and teleportation is benjamin russell’s mutation (how he fits into all this is... for another post). basically after he got his name the costuming department guys were like “hey your eye glows, you look like the Legendary Warrior of Old, Longshot, we’re gonna pattern your look after him” so they gave him the star tattoo and the outfit that’s literally inverse colors of longshot’s.

also this brings me to another aside: you’re probably wondering “if he’s the biological kid of longshot and alison how are there 8 gaveedras?” when the genetic engineers got a hold on him as a baby they were like Sick! free baby! free genetic material! thats our job done for us! so they cloned him (in the traditional sense) and made 7 copies. this was also to kind of conceal his identity as technically being from outside mojoworld, which would make him stick out and thus be a target. they DID edit out the x-gene in the other gaveedra models though. this wasn’t a problem for ‘star because his mutation didn’t manifest until he was already sponsored.

I think that’s .... pretty much it for macroscopic lore on what it was like to be a kid gladiator on mojoworld. now let me give you some Tidbits of his life specifically:

like I said he was raised in a particularly cold and ruthless class. the mentors that raised him are like well-known by everyone to produce some of the best warriors but also there’s discourse on mojoworld because some people say perfectly emotionless killing machines aren’t as fun to watch. when he was sponsored there were 4-5 others in the same sponsorship and they were like Theres Something Wrong With You LOL

they speak earth languages on mojoworld because they’re imitating the broadcasts they (the spineless ones) used to hear from earth. however, most of the lower-class as well as almost all arena fighters and other television personalities speak cadre or other languages which are native to the planet. the stage names are all vaguely in english, but the gladiators don’t really understand them at first.

shatterstar got his name before he got the glowing eye, and when he learned what stars are, and saw his eye as a little star, he was like wow :) this is Me :) which is why that name is so important to him. it’s also one of the first things that wholly belonged to him.

(you can’t see stars on mojoworld because of light pollution and also because it’s a pocket dimension and there just aren’t that many stars to see)

I hate to bring up the s**ley miniseries but I do think it would be interesting to have him have a sort of ... mentor/first friend, similar to the concept of gringrave but they were NOT in a relationship. it was more like... another kid who was a year or so older than him got a soft spot for him and helped him not be so clueless. she didn’t make as much progress as xforce did, obviously. but they were.... something like friends.

unfortunately she was used by spiral to get shatterstar to murder the first rebel guy who tried to get him out of there. then she got switched sponsors (this can happen) and he had to kill her, and he was like well I will simply never develop any kind of attachment to anyone ever again.

he almost didn’t make it out of the first training session with his sponsorship group (this is semi-canon--there’s a reference when he’s teaching terry to swordfight to almost not surviving the first time he was in a gladiator class or whatever it was).

the closest he ever came to losing was the day he got the name. that’s why the crowds loved it so much.

the double-bladed sword was a gimmick weapon but when he got his mutation they realized it works way better if there’s resonance between two parallel blades so they redesigned it as an actual weapon.

(forgot this but I feel like I should include it) at 17 he escaped the arenas and joined the cadre alliance. two years later he came to earth and joined xforce.

I think that’s going to have to be it for now because it’s literally almost midnight and I have work tomorrow and I did NOT intend to stay up this late but I did. thank you for this opportunity anon :) feel free to ask me any other questions and also I realize a lot of this probably makes no fucking sense and that’s because I am not a writer or anything I’m just a biochemist with brain problems that cause me to obsess over stupid shit

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 104

104

The Blades had no patience, and Keith’s had run fresh out. He was yet to read his mother’s letter, but she’d given him space and hadn’t tried butting in on his life, so for that he was grateful. He was finally allowed back at work, “on light duties”, meaning he was playing desk jockey and doing more of the planning towards missions. He’d liked to say he enjoyed himself, but paperwork sucked and Lance was too busy with Lotor to do much. Though. He had done one crucial thing. Coming to meet Keith after “training” with Lotor, and his generals, his boyfriend had kind of been too full of energy to sit still. Keith did not enjoy the way Lance talked about the thing he talked with Lotor, despite the fact his boyfriend was being open and honest with him. Four sessions with Lotor and Keith wanted to skin the vampire alive for spending so much time his Lance. Lance hadn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t off having some illicit affair with Lotor. Their training was filmed, Keith could even watch if he wished, but the whole thing filled him some ugly growth that sat in a lump in his chest thanks to it. Lance had decided after the third two-hour session that Lotor had given him enough tips to practice at home, the fourth session being the last over the ten day period. Lance declaring it happily as he threw the briefing room door open bounding in. Hyperactive and handsy, his boyfriend threw himself on him, Keith smiling like a moron as Lance nuzzled into him, pressing kisses to his cheek. The news couldn’t have come sooner as his boyfriend kissed his cheek then dashed off to check in with Allura and let her know the good news... leaving Keith to realise he had no idea where he’d been in the stack of purchase orders before him.

Being a desk jockey came with perks, that he was fully taking advantage of. Without being awake at obscene hours, he was able to talk with their friends more, instead of Lance and Pidge alone, due to her insomniac ways. Plus, he’d been going back to Lance’s for the night when his boyfriend had to make the drive back the following morning. Lance was welcome to crash at the apartment, yet his lover wanted to work through the things he’d done with Lotor in their training sessions in the yard where it didn’t matter if the grass was pulled up or things broken. Lotor thought Lance was wasting his potential, but Lance stuck to being as human as possible, meaning Lotor had to fall in line with him.

That’s how he ended up on a double date after that fourth training session. A double date was something he’d never actually ever believed he’d have to suffer through. A double date he could have probably handled, maybe, had the other couple not been Allura and Lotor. Seeing he was busy with paperwork, Lance had gone to catch up with Allura, then the next thing he knew, for some unfathomable reason, that had turned from hanging out into “Hey, let Shiro know you’ll be out tonight because we’re going out with Allura and Lotor”. His boyfriend wasn’t on the ”Team Lotor” bandwagon, he was on the “If Lotor touches Allura or looks at her the wrong way, I’m going to castrate him” team.

And god if it wasn’t the most awkward five hours of his life for the month. Relying on Lance to help him piss after the accident didn’t come close to how awkward an evening with Lotor was. Opera. Keith did not do opera. He wasn’t completely sure he understood why the main character suddenly regained her strength to then go and drop dead. Lance and Allura clutched each other as they cried over her tragic demise... and for some reason the opera kept going! What was this fresh hell?!. Lotor seemed vaguely bored, and Keith had spent most of the time making silent bets with himself over how long he could his breath. He couldn’t use his phone, the screen would be glaringly obvious in the blackness of the theatre. Fuck it. He needed the bathroom and doubted he’d be missed. Allura was holding hands with Lotor, not like how Keith was holding Lance’s hand in his lap, thumb rubbing the back, enjoying the touch and that alone, but like holding hands all the same.

Turning towards to Lance, he nudged him with his knee, Lance raised his head to smile at him. His boyfriend was so damn pretty. Okay. Maybe they were a little loved up. Lifting their hands, Lance kissed the back of his. Keith enjoying that much more than what was happening on the stage. Bumping Keith with his knee, Lance gestured with his chin

“I need to use the bathroom, babe”

“Oh, sure. Me too, actually”

Thank god. English conversation with no singing. He was amazed by the skills and that production it’s self, but the issue came from the fact he didn’t speak Italian, and the story writer had no clue how to write.

Finding himself following Lance to the theatre bathroom, Keith was clueless. Lance walking over and waving his hand under the tap sensor. There was something familiar about the two of them hiding in bathrooms

“Why am I here?”

Here, as in, “Why the hell were they being tortured slowly?!”

“So Allura and Lotor could have a moment”

How did they need to be there to... never mind. They were being good friends

“You could have saved me sooner. Do you actually have to pee? Or are we just staying here until Allura and Lotor have had their moment”

It was kind of hard to have a moment at the opera. Keith’s arse was numb and his leg stiff. A headache was building in his temple... ugh. Nope. Opera was not for him.

“I was trying to make Allura feel less self conscious about us being there. She was so nervous about tonight. I couldn’t say no to her”

Lance did that... Took care of everyone. Fine. He’d forgive him this time

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“She can handle herself... but at the moment, I’m more concerned about you. I’m sorry I decided for us both. I know you don’t like him”

“It’s fine. You’re being a good friend”

“It’s not really. This isn’t really us. I much prefer you, us, in our pyjamas, mocking horror films”

Lance said that, but he deserved more

“Babe, I don’t know how to do fancy... If I... If you want to do fancy... I mean, I can try”

Lance must have reassured him so many damn times over him not being rich and smart.

“I know, but... I also love the real you. Pidge hates the opera too. Colleen tells her she’s a disgrace to her Italian heritage. But Hunk’s pretty cool about coming with me. You... don’t mind, do you? I mean, I haven’t been in a long time....”

Now Lance was rambling. Rambling and playing with the tap sensor like he could trick it

“It’s fine. Are you okay? You were crying pretty hard when she snuffed it”

His boyfriend snorted, shaking off his wet hands and before wiping his face to rid himself of the tear tracks. Smiling at him in the mirror

“Yeah. You know me and tragic love stories”

“I don’t think I got it. I mean. She died and they kept singing”

“It’s alright. Nah, I’m okay. Just wanted to give Allura and Lotor a moment, and kind of wanted a moment to check in with you... this bathroom’s pretty nice”

It was a bathroom. All grey marble and matt gold. What did it matter as long as it did it’s purpose

“I suppose so?”

Lance snorted. His boyfriend letting his old man show

“I can take the hunter out of the practical, but I can’t take the practical out of the hunter”

“If you say so. How long are we supposed to wait for this moment to be over?”

“I don’t know. Like 5 minutes. Allura was super nervous. Lotor burned her in the past and she definitely hasn’t forgiven him”

“Couldn’t she just work him for the information?”

“She could, but she’s got to protect herself too. She’s fae, and there isn’t that many of them left these days”

“I feel like she could take Lotor”

“Yeah. But then there’s Honerva and Lotor’s generals to think about. I don’t like Narti. Acxa seems okay. I saw her talking to Krolia”

“Maybe she’s planning on jumping ship”

“I’d jump ship too. I swear I’ve never had to tell someone “No” as many times as I’ve told Lotor no over using ego”

“I can’t believe that I can’t believe he brought us to the opera”

“I can. At least I won’t have to see him for a bit after this”

Crossing his arms, Keith kicked the marble floor with the tip of his shoe

“He can fuck off”

Laughing softly, Lance came over to him, wrapping his arms around him. His boyfriend smelt like soap and spilt alcohol. Lotor had gotten them champagne delivered to the private box they were being tortured in, he’d offered Lance blood to add to his, yet his boyfriend wisely declined

“I know you’re not happy about it. But, I think I have a plan to turn back next time I’m a bat... I can’t say for sure though”

“You didn’t tell me you figured that out”

“I said “I think”, Babe. Anyway, you know I know you haven’t had a fun time lately... so I was thinking after this, we grab some pizza and go watch the stars”

“Why are you always trying to bribe me with pizza?”

“Because I’m a pizza kind of man, and your kind of man”

“I fail to see the logic... but that sounds so much better than heading back with them. I want to burn his stupid limo”

Lance kissed his hair

“You only get to burn it if I get to douse it first”

Keith shoved Lance off playfully, he couldn’t keep the laughter out his tone

“I’m shocked! What happened to my sweet law abiding boyfriend?”

Lance was so cute when he scrunched his face up with laugher

“He fell head over heels for a bad boy...”

“Are you saying I’m the bad influence?”

Wiping small tears from his eyes, Lance hugged himself tightly with his right arm as he nodded

“Oh, totally. Matt says I’m completely unbearable when you’re not around. All I do is mope and long for you”

“Matt met you after you met me”

“I know. He smacked me with a pillow last night and sent me to bed too, reminding me I’d be here today... like I could forget”

Keith reached out, grabbing Lance by the arse to pull him close, his boyfriend automatically looping his arms over his shoulders, laughter turned unexpectedly serious as Lance rubbed his forehead against Keith’s. He loved this man so damn much... the hunter hated that sometimes he couldn’t help but need him to tell him that

“You really miss me that much?”

“Babe, I miss all of you like all of the time. Literally the best thing about getting up early to come to Platt is seeing you”

“So you don’t come to Platt just for the opera?”

“Nope. You really don’t like the opera, do you?”

Keith shook his head. Sitting in the dark, with the only light coming from the lights on the steps and stage, he could easily picture vampires feeding in secret. Maybe they should have had a vampire kill the lead, it would have been exciting then

“Not at all... But I kind of feel it’s very vampirey”

Lance replied, overly heavy on the sarcasm

“Yeah, babe. Completely vampirey. Like, didn’t you, the opera is in our blood. Why do you think the theatre is dressed in red velvets? To hide the blood, obviously! We’re drawn to it, seeking out our next hit. I don’t really go back to Garrison... oof!”

Stepping on Lance’s foot, his boyfriend shut up. Lance didn’t to rub it in that he was way smarter than him

“I get it. I’m uncultured”

Lance nuzzled into him, sensing his teasing had dropped his mood further

“Other than stomping on innocent feet, you’re cultured enough. Seriously though. Allura never said opera. She said dinner. And I was like, we can do dinner... And now I’m like “Please God, let Coran call with some emergency””

“Hey, you’re the one who’s suddenly friends with Lotor”

“No I’m definitely not. Nope. He taught me some stuff, mostly about vampire culture and it’s whack. He keeps going on about ego and quintessence and I can do more things if I tried. I got a stitch last night thinking about having to train today. I seriously threw up last time”

He didn’t know about that. Lance shouldn’t be pushing himself that far. How had his boyfriend had time to come from practice to him, with a stop to throw his guts up and brush his teeth on the way?

“My poor baby... Did you miss your big bad boyfriend?”

Lance whined at him softly, nuzzling into him as he did

“Yes, give me sympathy. Seriously. I’m thinking of stealing his phone and finding a way to lure Sendak back to pick his brat arse up”

“Tell me about it. They’re off raiding a place tonight. I had to do the stupid paperwork. I don’t know why. Kolivan comes and takes it, then that’s that”

“I’m sorry you’re still benched”

“Nah. I’ve got something to do with my time...”

“Do you think if we’re good tonight, Lotor will finally help?”

“I think you’re more delusional than me... someone’s coming. We should head back”

“Nooooo...”

He was happy hiding here!

“Now who’s the baby. I’ll buy you an ice cream if the confection stand is still open”

“Lactose”

“Fuck. Fine. If the opera isn’t over, then I’ll call Coran and beg him for a pick up”

“We need an excuse to leave”

“Then I guess I’ve finally found a reason for you deciding you needed to be banged up”

“I think I can support that. Those seats aren’t comfortable”

They didn’t need an excuse. The opera had ended, people milling into the theatre’s entrance hall. Leading Allura along, Lotor made his was through the crowd and over to the pair of them

“We thought you’d left”

His tone was cold, like they’d disappointed him by not

“I’ve got a headache and Keith’s stiff from those chairs”

Allura immediately took the reason as her chance to let go of Lotor’s hand. Moving to Lance, she placed her hand on his forehead

“You do feel warmer than usual. Perhaps we should head back for the night?”

Lance played along

“I don’t want to ruin your evening”

“Nonsense. You’ve been pushing yourself again. I’m sorry, Lotor. We really should head back. Lance may be going into heat again”

Lotor scoffed

“I doubt it. Yet, in any case, we shall return if that is what you wish”

Wanker. Keith tugged Lance up against him. He was supposed to be their excuse to leave, being a weak and lowly human. Not Lance. Lance was good about it. Their prayers silently answered

“I think it’s for the best. I really am sorry to interrupt your night”

“Nonsense. Your health is more important than dinner. You’re both very important to me”

So was escaping Lotor apparently. Unpleased, and outvoted, Lotor swallowed down his snark, though made it very clear he was unhappy as he swept ahead of them. Allura not disappointed at all as she winked at them. Hopefully this wouldn’t bite them in the arse.

[moontail13]

@kiribak-uwu here’s the fic

Just to be clear I didn’t write this. I wish I had. This fic is a work of art. Two of my friends wrote this for me in exchange for an art piece/oneshot of their choice. I also didn’t make the cover art, one of my friends google searched a bunch of images and put them together. Also it had better grammar then it should. The same dude who did the cover art is a grammar god.

So without further ado, I present to y’all.

Count The Stars

You walked down the winding path that led out to the main road, practically shaking with excitement. Today was your first day at the prestigious UA high. You couldn’t believe that you would get a chance to sit in the very seats that those famous heroes once sat in. You heard that even the legendary All-Might would be a teacher there!

As you walked down the path, you heard something. It started as a small buzzing sound which was easily ignored as you just assumed it was a simple bee or fly going about its day. But as the buzzing became louder you began to worry. “Had someone left their phone here?” you thought. You decided it would be a fantastic idea to go towards the buzzing noise- a choice you would soon come to regret.

[more below the cut]

As you walked to the buzzing noise, the sound became so loud it was almost unbearable, however, none of this deterred you. Out of nowhere, you felt a strange tingling sensation flow throughout your body. Was it just you, or were the trees surrounding the path getting taller?

After about two minutes of watching the trees grow at a rapid pace, you finally realized your situation when comparing yourself to a blade of grass. You were about the same height as it, equal to the height of a pencil who had been slightly depleted of height from a multitude of sharpenings.

You tried to scream but then covered your mouth after hearing what your voice had sounded like. It was high pitched and squeaky. You sounded like you had just inhaled a giant tub of helium as a joke… But this was no joke. <It’s joke>

You found a nearby pebble and sat down on it to ponder your situation. “Ok <y/n>, what do we know? Right now I am about two inches tall and stuck in a forest. I could try to go back and get help and risk getting eaten by a stray wolf or even a slightly irritated spider. Or I could continue on the path down to the bus stop and see if anyone would take pity on me.” Despite the dangers of being stepped on, you chose the latter option.

You began running down the path. A walk that usually takes you five minutes ended up taking you thirty, but it was fine since the last bus had not left yet due to the fact that you like to be very early usually- and there it was. It was a lot bigger than you initially planned on, but you could make this work- until...

To your shock and horror, you saw the last two people you had ever wanted to see. One with light, almost white-blond hair, and the other with fiery red hair. Both were spiked beyond belief. You tried to hide, thinking that this should be easy considering your new height, but to no avail. Bakugou saw you and did a double-take. Kirishima looked in your direction to see what he was looking at before running over to you.

You tried running, but alas, being two inches tall made it difficult, if not impossible. Kirishima scooped you up in his hand and stared at you for an uncomfortable amount of time. “Y-You’re <y/n>, right?” He asked and Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Of course she is dumbass! I’d recognize that stupid hair from anywhere!” “Ok, but why is she two inches tall? Isn’t she usually, like, a giant?”

It’s true, your normal height reaches just above the 5’10” mark, about three inches taller than Bakugou, an achievement he had never forgiven you for.

“I’m not sure what happened but I heard a buzzing sound and when I approached it, I started shrinking!” you yelled as an attempt to be heard over the deafening traffic. Your attempt was a success as the two spiky-haired boys started laughing. Bakugou’s laugh was almost a cackle, while Kirishima’s was more normal.

“What is it?” You asked, hoping to locate the funny. “Y-Your voice!! I-It’s Hilarious!” Bakugou said, gasping for air through his laughter. “Ok, calm down,” You said trying to lower the pitch of your voice, to no avail. “Kirishima, please take me back to my house now?”

Kirishima looked concerned, “Is that really a smart idea? I mean yesterday you were complaining about how your parents wouldn’t be back home for another month.” You vividly remembered this. Your parents were both pro heroes so they often had to leave for months at a time for their work.

“It’s my house. I think I’ll be fine” You argued. “PFFT- You can’t even reach the doorknobs!!” Bakugou was practically dying on the ground from laughter.

“Bakugou’s right, I think we should tell Aiza-” “No! Don’t tell anyone!” You interrupted. You knew Kirishima had a point, but whether it was your pride or some fantasy you had buried deep down, you couldn’t allow him to reveal your secret.

Kirishima thought for a second while Bakugou’s bursts of laughter echoed through your brain. “Oh, I got it!” Kirishima said, his face lighting up like a light bulb. Before you could inquire about his plan, you had to dive to grab onto his thumb to keep from falling several inches to your death. Apparently, part of Kirishima’s plan was to run… somewhere with Bakugou following close behind.

When he finally stopped, the destination looked familiar. You had been here before on a study session with the bakusquad, or whatever the class had started called you and your friends. Either way, you knew for a fact that you were standing (or in this case holding onto Kirishima’s thumb for dear life) outside Kirishima’s house.

“Why are we here?” You asked. “Well, this is the first place I thought to go,” Kirishima replied, matter-a-factly. “I asked you to take me back to my house!” You yelled. “I had no way of getting in, it’s not like I have a key or anything!” Kirishima shot back. “Well, I have my key with me!” you said, triumphantly pulling out your house key which was now the size of a fat ant. “Yeah because that would work really well,” Bakugou chimed in.

You slumped your shoulders, tired of their constant rebutting. Bakugou walked into the house while Kirishima followed. The angry blond boy grabbed a bag of chips and sat down at a table as if nothing was wrong. Kirishima joined him at the table, gently setting you down.

“Ok, we need a plan!” Kirishima said. “A plan for what?” Bakugou asked and received a look from you and Kirishima as if to say; “Are you fucking serious right now?” “For the issue we have?” You started and then gestured to your small stature. “Does that look like my problem?”

You wanted to throw a punch at him. Maybe you could have beaten him yesterday, but now it would prove to be difficult.

“So, <y/n>, how did you even… you know,” Kirishima started. “I’m not totally sure,” You began to explain the buzzing noise you heard. “How could you be so stupid!?” Bakugou yelled. “What would compel you to go towards the strange noise?!” “I was curious, okay!? How was I supposed to know what would happen!? I thought it was a phone or something.” You tried to explain your side but Bakugou was having none of it.

“Stupid nerd” He spat. “Both of you, calm down. I know we can get through this!” Kirishima said, trying to lift your spirits. You smiled at him and while it didn’t do much to cheer you up, you appreciated the effort.

“I say we go back to where you first heard the buzzing noise,” Kirishima suggested. You nodded, although you doubted that you would get much of a say in the matter. Bakugou groaned but reluctantly stood up. “Fine. Let’s make this quick, I have stuff to do.” “I’m stuff,” Kirishima said cheekily as he scooped you up and you made your way back to your house.

The ride back to your house felt like it had gone on for hours. Even though you were two inches tall, Kirishima’s pocket was cramped. Not to mention, he had a strange bounce to his step, causing you to be pushed around repeatedly.

“Okay, we’re here,” Kirishima said. He picked you up and held you in his hand so you could see. You directed them back to where you had first heard the buzzing sound.

“It was right here,” You told them. “I don’t hear shit,” Bakugou said. “Well, I’m not sure what to say… It was right here!” You yelled. “Maybe whatever it was went away?” Kirishima said. “Of course it did! All of this was a waste of time, let’s go back,” Bakugou said, turning around.

“Hang on!” Kirishima said, putting a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder. He gestured to something on the ground. It looked like a coin, but not one you had ever seen before. Kirishima picked it up to give you a closer look. The coin had small bits of dirt on it from being on the path, but under that, it had a dark purple hue. On one side of the coin, there was an engraving of a scorpion and the other side was blank.

“Could this be a clue?” Asked Kirishima. “Could be. Maybe this belonged to whoever shrunk me!” You exclaimed. “It’s a damn coin! I doubt it had anything to do with us,” Bakugou said, crossing his arms.

“Well, should we give it to the police?” Kirishima shrugged. “No! To turn it in you have to tell them what happened to me!” You said, hoping Kirishima would respect your wishes.

“<y/n>… Maybe we should. If there’s a villain involved-” “Hell no!” Bakugou yelled, interrupting Kirishima. “If there’s a villain, we can take ‘em!” This seemed to get Kirishima in the mood because it threw his fist in the air. “You’re right!”

You didn’t really care for this exchange, but if it meant that you wouldn’t be revealed to the police, then you were happy it took place.

“Okay, if we aren’t taking this coin to the police, then what do we do with it?” Kirishima inquired. “What about Momo’s place?” You asked. “She has a huge library, maybe there’ll be some information?” “Good idea!” Kirishima said, giving a thumbs up. Bakugou looked like he wanted to protest, but he realized it would be pointless.

With you sitting cramped in Kirishima’s pocket, the three of you made your way to Momo’s mansion.

When you were finally taken out of Kirishima’s pocket, you looked around until your eyes landed on the giant mansion in front of you.

“Why are we stopped?” You asked. “Idiot, it’s because we’re supposed to be in school right now!” Bakugou growled, clearly not a fan of skipping classes.

“Oh…” All the excitement made you forget it was supposed to be your first day as a second year. “Oh well, I guess now we wait!” Kirishima said, not realizing how creepy it would look to see two high school boys standing outside a girl’s house, however, all you cared about was reaching your usual height again.

You and the two spiky-haired boys waited outside Momo’s house for the entire day, mostly just talking. You really got to know those two! As the sun began to dip below the city skyline, you saw a car start to pull into the driveway. From out of the car comes a group of people you are not happy to see. Piling out of the doors comes the rest of the Bakusquad: Denki, Momo, Sero, and Mina. They are all chatting and laughing, but fall silent after they see the look on Kirishima’s face. You try to hide deeper in his hands, hoping to save yourself the embarrassment of your new classmates recognizing you. This was not to be, however, as Denki immediately recognizes you.

“<y/n>! Hey! Why are you so small!” the sparky boy shouts. “Well… you see… Uh,” Kirishima tried to stutter out an excuse. “She was a massive idiot,” Bakugou eloquently explained. You sighed because you could not believe the buffoonery that was taking place. “The truth is, we’re not sure, but we did find this,” you gestured for Kirishima to hold up the coin which he did. “We were hoping that maybe Momo had some information in her library.”

“So are you saying that you were planning on reading every book in that massive library!?” Denki protested.

Momo began to inspect the coin for herself. “I do recognize this from somewhere…” She started, “Follow me.” Momo led the group into her house. You felt like you were in some elaborate labyrinth because of all the twists and turns. Your two-inch tall height didn’t help.

“Here it is!” Momo said, standing outside two large wooden double doors. As you entered, your jaw was agape. Hundreds, if not thousands of books littered the room. There was a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The windows were thin, but stretched to the ceiling of the room, allowing sunlight to stream in.

The whole group just stood in the doorway, not moving. Everyone was dreading the number of hours they would have to spend hunched over the thousands of books.

Before anyone could talk, Momo rushed to a seemingly random spot in the library. She dug through a pile of books in the corner until she pulled one out. It was blue, but the colour seemed to have faded over time.

“How did you-” Mina started. “I’ve read each book here twice. I know I saw something like that coin in here somewhere- Aha!” Momo exclaimed. She showed the group a page in the book. There was a picture of a dark purple coin. Kirishima compared the coin they had found in the woods. The two were practically identical.

“Well? What does it say?” Sero asked. “Hmm. Not much. This page is about five specific mishaps going on in a similar area. At each scene, investigators found the coin. They assumed it was some sort of calling card, but they never found the one actually responsible.”

“Damn investigators. I bet they overlooked everything!” Bakugou yelled. “So it was a villain who did this!” You said thinking out loud. “Yes, but this is probably a copycat case since these events took place over one hundred years ago,” Momo explained. “How could the same person still be alive?”

Katsuki replied, “Of course it is, idiot! No one lives that long!”

“Well, whatever it is, we gotta find something out!” exclaimed Eijiro. “At the very least, we should help out <y/n>!”

Sero shouted from the corner, “Oh yeah? Got any ideas? ‘Cause I don’t know anything about creepy magic shrinking.”

Kirishima replied, “Well, I may not know about changing size, but I do have some friends who know a little about size differences. Maybe they know how to deal with being tiny?”

“What? Who?” cried the blonde firecracker. “I don’t know anyone! Are you making friends without me?!”

“Actually, yes. I have a pen pal who lives in a city a couple of hours away from here. I chat with him all the time, maybe we should go see him!”

"Sure, maybe tomorrow."

Momo interjected, "Hey, what about school? You can't miss another day!"

"It's fine," Katsuki replied. "This is more important!"

Tomorrow!? You had to wait another day before you could return to your normal size. “What is it, y/n?” Mina could somehow see the worry in your eyes. “It’s nothing… tomorrow it is,” you lied. You didn’t want to burden the people who had gotten you this far.

“Okay, then it’s settled! Y/n, we’ll have you back to normal height tomorrow!” Kirishima said, pumping his fist into the air.

That night you couldn’t sleep. You were just staring up at the ceiling of Kirishima’s house. Bakugou had stayed over so you could leave as soon as possible, but he was up in Kirishima’s room, which was odd because there was only one bed.

You knew you needed sleep, Kirishima’s friend was hours away, but no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t force your brain into submission.

Bad thoughts started circling around your mind like a vulture around its prey. “What if there’s nothing that can help you,” “What if you stay this way forever,” “What if everyone just thinks you’re a burden,” “you might as well get used to this height.”

You covered your ears as if that would help. You forced your eyes shut, but you knew that sleep would be an impossible task at this point.

“Hey y/n! Wake up!” Kirishima said. You were already awake. Kirishima walked over to the kitchen, practically bouncing with energy. Bakugou walked in behind him, in a mood that you could relate to a bit more. His shoulders were slouched and he looked angry, but to be fair this is what he always looked like.

“It’s about a three-hour ride to where my pen pal is,” Kirishima said, “So we should probably bring something to eat, although I doubt you’ll need much, y/n,” You nodded. You usually ate a lot during the day, but you had to agree with him.

You gathered a couple of snacks that Kirishima had in his house and put them in a bag, or to be more precise you sat there and watched Kirishima gather food. Bakugou’s eyes were attached to Kirishima, and he looked like he was smiling, or at least it was a smile for Bakugou’s standards.

“Ok! Let’s get a move on, we don’t want to miss any more days of school, right?” Kirishima said, as energetic as ever. Bakugou nodded and walked out the door. Kirishima picked you up and placed you in the cramped pocket once again before joining the blond outside to begin your journey.

8:00 am. It’s only been an hour. You were compulsively checking your watch, practically buzzing with anticipation. Couldn’t this bus go any faster!? Not to mention you couldn’t even look outside Kirishima’s pocket out of fear of being spotted.

You tried to sleep again, but if you couldn’t doze off in a nice bed, the chances of you getting a wink of sleep were slim. You decided to make yourself as comfortable as you could and just stared off into space.

After what felt like years, you heard a voice sound over the intercom announcing that you had reached your destination.

As if he had forgotten about you, Kirishima stood up quickly, causing you to jostle around. “Oops! Sorry, <y/n>!” You looked up at his face and he looked apologetic.

As you exited the bus, you looked around at your surroundings. It looked very similar to the city you lived in. Large buildings, roads packed with cars, people walking everywhere, although there was something weird about these people. They all had a mutation type quirk that made them look like animals. The lack of variety was surprising to you.

Kirishima seemed to notice too, saying, “Why does everyone here look like an animal?” Bakugou shrugged, or at least you think he did. It was difficult seeing over Kirishima’s pocket and staying hidden at the same time.

“How should I know, shitty hair?” The blond growled, “It’s probably just a coincidence.” “It seems impossible for everyone to have the same type of quirk though,” You argued, but Bakugou didn’t hear you.

Kirishima pulled out a map. “Okay, my penpal shouldn’t be too far from here,” He said, scanning the paper. “Let’s go.”

Kirishima and Bakugou started walking to where the pen pal was. You kept looking around, however, you weren’t the only one looking. Seemingly, the whole city was staring at you, or to be more precise, Kirishima and Bakugou. They were very out of place, being two people who appeared like humans in a sea of mutant type quirks.

Bakugou noticed this and sent glares to each person staring. This caused them to look away, but as soon as he turned his back to them, they would continue.

“Here we are!” Kirishima happily said after the five-minute walk. “Finally. This city is shit and I can’t wait to leave,” Bakugou complained.

Once again, you looked around at your surroundings. You were outside an apartment building. The door you were standing next to had the numbers “46209.”

Kirishima knocked on the door and it was quickly answered by what appeared 5rto be a large anthropomorphic wolf. “Hello?” The wolf asked. “Hello, Legoshi!” Kirishima exclaimed cheerfully. “It's me, Kirishima, and these are my friends, Bakugou, and uh…” He trailed off, remembering your situation.

“Okay. Why are you here?” Legoshi asked.

“It’s kind of a long story. Can we come in?”

“Oh… uh, sure,” Legoshi opened the door wider to let Kirishima and Bakugou enter. You all sat down on a couch, however you remained hidden in Kirishima’s pocket.

“So… Why did you come here?” The wolf asked again. “Well, you see here…” Kirishima started. Bakugou sensed that Kirishima was about to go on a needlessly long tangent so he interrupted, “<Y/n>’s a dumbass and we need you to fix her.” “Very helpful,” You rolled your eyes.

“Um… Sorry?” Legoshi asked, understandably confused. “Look, one of our friends managed to shrink herself somehow… and we need you to help with it.” Kirishima said, surprisingly blunt for him.

“Oh, that really sucks… but I don’t know how I can help…” Legoshi said, looking apologetic. “Didn’t you send a letter that one time, saying how you had a tiny girlfriend or something?” Kirishima asked.

“No. Well, yes, but she didn’t shrink… she’s a dwarf rabbit, and we... broke up.”

“Oh Legoshi, I’m sorry to hear that!”

“Um… thanks but it’s fine.”

“So all of this bullshit was pointless then? Great,” Bakugou said, glaring at Legoshi, although you didn’t know why. Had Legoshi done something wrong that you couldn’t see from your position?

“Actually, I don’t know anything about this- shrinking thing, but I might know some people who do.” The wolf stated. “There are these two people living on top of a mountain. Apparently, they’re like these crazy scientists who can do magic or something.” “Ha! Idiot, magic doesn’t exist!” Bakugou laughed. “Bakubro! Keep an open mind!” Kirishima nudged Bakugou in the stomach. “It’s our only lead right now, so we should at least give it a try.” With much reluctance, Bakugou, Kirishima, Legoshi, and you all start heading in the direction Legoshi pointed you in.

As you walked through the city again, you were followed by a large number of confused looks. "This whole city is crazy!" Kirishima mused as you walked. "What are the odds a whole city would have mutation quirks, and especially animal-like ones?" Bakugou didn't answer, merely walking more briskly. "Hey, bro. What's wrong?" the red-headed boy asked.

“Nothing,” He responded coldly. Even you knew he was lying. “Come on! I know that face!” Kirishima said. You were afraid that Kirishima was pushing it a bit. You’ve seen Bakugou go off on people for less.

“Leave me alone,” He said running ahead of the group. “What did I do?” Kirishima asked himself, but you decided to answer, “He’s Bakugou. I assume that’s what he does. I’m sure he’ll cool down soon.” “R-right.” Kirishima looked at the ground.

“Kirishima… You okay?” Legoshi asked, clearly noticing Kirishima’s expression. “No. Bakugou’s angry at me and I’m not sure what I did…” Kirishima sighed. “I just want him to be happy, but I don’t know how to do that.” “Well. Maybe give him some time? I’m sorry… I wish I could give you better advice-,”

“Thanks, Legoshi.”

Legoshi put a comforting hand on Kirishima’s shoulder. The angry blond turned around, he was too far away to hear their conversation, but he still looked apologetic. “H-Hey, Kirishima I’m…” He trailed off. His eyes were glued to the hand Legoshi had placed on the redhead’s shoulder and his face turned sour.

“Bakubro, what is it?” Kirishima asked, he too noticed Bakugou’s change in expression. “I don’t understand why he’s still here,” Bakugou asked. “Hm? He’s guiding us to his friends so we can help <y/n>?” Kirishima answered matter-a-factly. “Why are we even helping her? What has she ever done for us?” Bakugou asked, sending a glare in your direction. “We’re helping y/n because we’re good friends, and that’s what we do.” “Fine, but can’t he just give us directions or something?”

“Is there a problem?” You asked, doing your best to calm Bakugou down, but because of your height, this was difficult.

“I don’t like him! He seems like the type to betray you at the last minute!” Bakugou yelled. By now, you could see a vein in his forehead and his eyebrows narrow. Glaring daggers at Legoshi. Legoshi didn’t seem to know how to handle the situation, fidgeting with his fingers and avoiding eye contact with the flaming ball of angst that was Bakugou.

“Bakugou, we can trust him I-,” “You what!? Wrote each other a few letters?! It’s easy for someone to lie about their entire background!” Bakugou interrupted his boyfriend. “No one wants you here creep! Leave now, or things will get ugly!” He aimed his fist at Legoshi, sparks started to form, but before Bakugou could shoot, Kirishima jumped in front, blocking the explosion from doing any real damage.

At that moment, you basically saw your life flash before your eyes. It wasn’t every day that you would be forced into the center of an explosion by proxy but here you were. Luckily Kirishima hadn’t forgotten about you this time and had blocked his shirt pocket with his arm.

You looked around. People all over the place were staring at you. Even Legoshi seemed surprised. It was as if none of them had seen a quirk in action before. The sets of eyes directed at your group didn’t stop the two spiky-haired boys from arguing as loud as possible.

“What the hell Kirishima?!” Bakugou practically screamed. “What do you mean!? You could have killed Legoshi!” Kirishima shot back. “He would have deserved it, the nerd.” “Look, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, and if you don’t want to talk about it that’s… fine! But you have no right to take it out on Legoshi, or <y/n>, or anyone else!”

“Um, guys… I should probably go…” Legoshi chimed in, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want to start a fight between you two.” “No! You can’t go!” The words came out of your mouth before you even had time to process. “I’m sorry. Legoshi, please stay. This could be the only way for me to return to normal. You might be the only thing that can save me so, please… don’t go.”

Bakugou and Kirishima looked at you. They were both so caught up in their own beef that they had forgotten why they were there in the first place. “<Y/n>’s right. Whatever’s going on with you Bakugou, can wait. Right now our top priority should be helping <y/n> and figuring out what’s going on,” Kirishima said, his hardened state leaving.

“Fine. But I’m only joining you if he leaves,” Bakugou said, shooting another nasty glare in Legoshi’s direction. Each glare got more and more terrifying every time.

“No. Either you swallow your pride and help us, or go back to UA and continue trying to be a “hero” or whatever you think should qualify as one,” Kirishima said. You had no idea he had this side to him. You always saw Kirishima as a chill, people pleaser. You admired the way he spoke to Bakugou. Most of the people you saw get into fights with Bakugou ended up on the losing side and with a couple of broken bones. But this was different. Bakugou had responded to this ultimatum with a blank stare. All the fire and passion from earlier wiped clean. Clearly, he had crossed a line.

“So? Are you willing to be a team player?” Kirishima asked, reaching his hand out to Bakugou. “Fuck you,” Bakugou said coldly. His blank stare went away but was replaced by a face you had never seen on Bakugou. He looked angry, but this was different. He looked like he didn’t want to be angry. That this was just a show he was putting on. It was subtle, but you could see it in his eyes.

Bakugou ran off, using his explosions to go faster until all you could see were the remnants of ash he had left behind.

You looked up at Kirishima. His eyebrows were furrowed, but he looked sad. Sadder than you had ever seen him. You wanted to tell him to go after Bakugou, to give him a pep-talk.

But you couldn’t. You desperately wanted to return to your height, so you kept your mouth shut. “Stop being so selfish, <y/n>!” You breaded yourself. It didn’t cause you to speak out.

This wasn’t you being selfish, right? No, your height and whatever was going on was far more pressing than this seemingly petty beef.

“Let’s go,” Kirishima said after a sigh. Legoshi followed him and the three of you continued the journey in silence, no one wanting to be the first to address your situation.

Soon, the mountain dominated the horizon, a much larger challenge than previously thought. You hiked for the better part of an hour, nearing dusk. Kirishima and Legoshi couldn’t walk anymore so you decided to set up a camp. Well, if you can call sitting on the ground with nothing but your clothes to shelter you from the elements a camp.

“We’re almost there, we should continue walking soon,” Legoshi said. “Yeah, I know. I just need time to recuperate.” Kirishima said, out of breath and hiding it poorly. “Nothing the manliest of heroes, Red Riot can’t handle!” He yelled the word “Red Riot” at the top of his lungs. It was odd though. You only remembered him saying this kind of stuff or even mentioning his hero name with civilians. Was he compensating for something?

“Hey! Who’s there?!” You heard a voice shout in the distance. Were they the people Legoshi knew? Was this finally the end?! Kirishima seemed to have the same thought in mind because he stood up. “We’re here! We need your help!” He yelled back and the voice came into view.

They looked nothing like what you expected. They all had the appearance of large tigers. You counted about ten of them. Had Legoshi mentioned that there would be ten? You couldn’t remember.

“Hey boss, they need our help,” The tiger in the front said, although his voice sounded like he was mocking Kirishima and his smile wasn’t kind, it appeared malicious.

A large tiger with a black jacket approached from behind the group. “I assumed you two are after the two insane people on top of the mountain? We ain’t them, sorry to disappoint.” The lead tiger explained, although he didn’t look sorry.

“Do you know them?” Kirishima asked. “Afraid not. We’ve never met. We were on our way to meet with them if you know what I mean,” He tapped the gun in his pocket.

That’s when you realized. These tigers weren’t interested in talking, they were interested in killing your only hope of being normal again. You couldn’t let that happen, but what were you supposed to do? You felt useless.

“Y-You’re trying to-,” Kirishima started, you could feel him shaking, but so were you.

“You are smart. You wouldn’t happen to be from that one human’s school… what was it, EA? No… it was more like UA, right? From what I’ve heard it’s a great school. I’m sure you would have had a bright future ahead of you. Of course, that would have been the case if you hadn’t decided to cut your classes and play hooky.”

What was he implying… “would have,” He wasn’t… no that would be crazy! This couldn’t be happening!

“W-We need to run…” You heard Legoshi say from behind you, just loud enough to let Kirishima hear. “We can’t. I want to be a hero, and the only way to do so is to protect others. I won’t back down from this!” This caused the lead tiger to start cheering and applauding.

“Bravo! Bravo! Just one sentence can be so inspiring!” The tiger said, still clapping. The cheering turned to laughter. He quickly reached for his gun and shot at Kirishima.

Luckily for him, Kirishima had been training rigorously. A gunshot did about as much damage as a slap to the arm by a plush toy.

The tiger was taken aback, clearly not expecting this. “Amazing! That must be what you call… a quirk! I’ve heard so much about them!” The tiger looked like a fan who had just met their idol.

“Please back off,” Kirishima started. “There’s no reason for us to resort to violence.” Kirishima was trying to deescalate the situation.

This caused the tiger to erupt with laughter. “But violence makes everything so much more exciting. He aimed his gun at Kirishima again but quickly switched over to shoot at Legoshi. Kirishima jumped to protect him, blocking you from any bullets as well.

“I’m warning you! Back off!” Kirishima yelled. This continued for about five more blasts from the gun. It was clear that the tiger was trying to wear Kirishima down and you couldn’t let that happen. There had to be something you could do. Why were you always so useless!? Maybe your quirk would work?

You poked your head out of Kirishima’s pocket. All you had to do was make eye contact with him. Then you might be able to control him. Hopefully, your size won’t mess with it. “Come on, look at me!” you thought. You were about to give up when- “What the hell?!” The leader yelled. He noticed you.

You two were making eye contact, but nothing was changing. “Shit! It didn’t work!” You dove back into Kirishima’s pocket, but it was too late. You had been spotted, your cover, blown.

“I think I understand now!” The tiger exclaimed. “You want to talk to the two insane people to help your small friend there! How noble!”

“That’s none of your business,” Legoshi commented, but the tiger ignored him. Before any of you could move, one of the tiger’s lackeys pounced on Kirishima, causing him to fall over. You came tumbling out of his pocket.

Thanks to Legoshi, they were able to fight off the tiger. You were picked up in someone’s hands, although they were gloved. “Shit,” This was the tiger’s hand. You tried to jump, but there was no way to survive the fall. You could feel beads of sweat form on your forehead. Your heart was pounding a mile a minute and your breath was shaky. Your eyes darted around, scanning the area for an escape route, but nothing presented itself. You were trapped.

“Change of plan,” The tiger said. “I kill your little friend here, and you two fine gentlemen can run away free of charge! Or I can kill hard boy here and the other two can run. But I prefer the former if I’m being honest” He announced. You had to process what he had just said. Kill!? Were you gonna die here?! Without ever becoming a hero?! Without ever seeing your friends again?! Without saying goodbye?!

You felt faint, you couldn’t move. This was it. This was the end of your life. As the tiger’s fist started to close around your tiny body, a familiar voice rang throughout the mountain. “DIE!!!” The voice screaming and yellow explosions illuminated the mountainside.

You couldn’t see much in the chaos until you felt the tiger drop you. You landed inside someone’s hands again. It was Kirishima. Were you alive!? Would everything be okay?

As the smoke cleared you saw a familiar face standing amidst the passed-out bodies of the tigers who almost took your life. Bakugou.

“Bakugou!” Kirishima yelled, his hardened state vanishing. “You saved us!” Bakugou nodded, avoiding eye contact with Kirishima.

The four of you sat down, trying to recuperate after the intensity that had just taken place. You were, once again, in Kirishima’s pocket. You had never been so happy in your life to be back in the cramped space.

“H-Hey, Kirishima? Can I talk to you… In private?” Bakugou asked. You had never heard him stutter before. Kirishima nodded and stood up. The two walked away from where Legoshi was. You were still in Kirishima’s pocket. “Did they forget about me?” You thought, not complaining. You really wanted to know what Bakugou had to say.

“Kirishima, I just wanted to talk about… earlier. I shouldn’t have done all those things. I understand that now, and I’ll try to work on my temper-,” “Why?” Kirishima interrupted. You wanted to know the answer too.

“Does it matter?” Bakugou asked, eyebrows raised. “Kinda. I want to fix this, and I need to know why you lashed out to do so.” “It’s not your responsibility to fix me. That’s something I need to work on.”

“Is it really too much for me to ask my boyfriend about what’s bothering him?”

“No, it’s just that…”

“Then tell me!”

“No!”

“Why?! Don’t you trust me!?”

“Of course I do! But I can’t!

“Why not?!”

“Because I’m scared! Okay?!”

Kirishima paused after that. You were just as shocked as he was. Bakugou? Scared? It sounded like blasphemy.

“Y-You’re scared?” Kirishima asked. “Yes. I don’t want to… lose you…” the blond admitted. “You’re the first real friend I’ve ever had. Everyone else acted more like a fanboy than my friend. I guess I’ve never really had a relationship like this before… and I didn’t want it to end…” Bakugou trailed off.

“Bakugou… what on Earth made you think it would end?”

“Legoshi! You were obsessed with each other. You were always talking… I just assumed you liked him more than me.”

“Look, Legoshi and I are close. We’ve been pen pals for years now, he’s one of my best friends,” Kirishima explained and Bakugou looked at the ground.

“I understand…”

“But you’re my boyfriend and nothing would ever change that!” Kirishima smiled and Bakugou looked up again. “But if this relationship is going to work, you can’t be jealous every time I talk to a different guy…”

You looked up at Bakugou. He was… smiling? He actually looked happy. You had never seen him like that before.

Kirishima opened his arms for a hug and Bakugou reluctantly complied, somewhat squishing you in the process.

“Oh… and thanks for saving us earlier. Without you… y/n would be-,”

“Don’t mention it. I always have to save your ass,” Bakugou said and the pair laughed.

“Come on. Let’s go back to the others…” Kirishima trailed off. “Y/n… you’re still in my pocket. You heard everything, didn’t you.” He looked nervous. “Um… well yes I did,” You didn’t know what else to say so you decided to settle on the truth.

“Well… that’s not embarrassing!” Kirishima said with a cheerful tone. “Let’s agree to not talk about this and just go back to Legoshi.” The three of you nodded in agreement.

When you went back to where Legoshi was, he stood up. “We should continue walking. There could be more of those tigers we don’t know about.” He said. “My question is, why would they want to kill the people on the mountain,” You pondered. “I’m not sure, but I found this while you three were talking,” Legoshi said, holding up a purple coin.

“That’s-” You started. “That looked exactly like the coin I found after I shrunk!” “Maybe the people who shrunk y/n are related to the tigers somehow!” Kirishima said. “Right now that doesn’t matter. Let’s just focus on reaching the top of the mountain,” Bakugou stated, getting everyone back on track. “We still have a ways to go.”

You hiked for the better part of an hour, nearing dusk. Just when you thought Legoshi and Kirishima couldn’t walk anymore, you turned the corner to see your destination. A large stone building loomed ahead of you.

You all went up and stood in front of it. Kirishima reached out and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, the door opened. Standing in front of you was a wolf, just like Legoshi, but this one was all white and had large glasses on. “Can I help you?” the wolf asked.

“Yeah, we have a problem, we thought you could help us?” Kirishima replied. The wolf exclaimed, “Yeah, sure, come in!” As you walked in, you peeked out of Kirishima’s pocket a little more to see the room you were in. It is a large room filled with sciency looking things. The walls were covered in bookshelves, there were piles of books lying around, and there were tables covered in jars and chemistry materials.

“So, what would happen to be your problem?” the wolf asked. Kirishima reached into his pocket and pulled you out. “Here, this is our friend <y/n>. Something happened, and now we don’t know how to fix it.” The wolf started at the sight of you, then turned around and started looking through the bookshelves.

“This is very interesting,” he said. “We’ve been seeing quite a lot of these anomalies in the past few days. We’ve been starting to call them the Wild Magic Surges. Ah! Here it is!” The white wolf pulled a book off the shelf. “Who even are you people anyway?” Bakugou asked.

"Oh! Sorry, allow me to introduce myself! My name is Karasu!”

“Yeah, those tigers said you were crazy.”

“Bakugo!” Kirishima exclaimed, hitting him on the shoulder.

“Oh, no,” Karasu replied, “but I can see why they would think that. We don’t really… leave? We’re just two researchers though. Perfectly sane!” As he talked, he started to pull out some alchemical supplies. Just as he was finishing, the door opened to the back room. A woman in a lab coat and goggles stepped out and started walking towards Karasu until she seemingly just realized you were there and stopped. “Oh, hi,” she said.

“This is Karen,” Karasu said to you all. Turning to her, he said, “We had another wild magic surge. This young lady got shrunk, and I’m trying to help her get back to size.”

“Have you tried Dragonsmoss? A mixture with Terenbirn oil should do it.”

“Wait, what kind of researchers are you?” Legoshi asked.

“Magic researchers! We use spells and potions, among other things.” After she said this, Bakugou turned and gave Kirishima the slightest look that you know to mean, Get a load of this bullshit. You are glad that he kept his mouth shut, though, because these ‘magic researchers’ were your best chance of returning to normal. You walked down the winding path that led out to the main road, practically shaking with excitement. Today was your first day at the prestigious UA high. You couldn’t believe that you would get a chance to sit in the very seats that those famous heroes once sat in. You heard that even the legendary All-Might would be a teacher there!

As you walked down the path, you heard something. It started as a small buzzing sound which was easily ignored as you just assumed it was a simple bee or fly going about its day. But as the buzzing became louder you began to worry. “Had someone left their phone here?” you thought. You decided it would be a fantastic idea to go towards the buzzing noise- a choice you would soon come to regret.

As you walked to the buzzing noise, the sound became so loud it was almost unbearable, however, none of this deterred you. Out of nowhere, you felt a strange tingling sensation flow throughout your body. Was it just you, or were the trees surrounding the path getting taller?

After about two minutes of watching the trees grow at a rapid pace, you finally realized your situation when comparing yourself to a blade of grass. You were about the same height as it, equal to the height of a pencil who had been slightly depleted of height from a multitude of sharpenings.

You tried to scream but then covered your mouth after hearing what your voice had sounded like. It was high pitched and squeaky. You sounded like you had just inhaled a giant tub of helium as a joke… But this was no joke. <It’s joke>

You found a nearby pebble and sat down on it to ponder your situation. “Ok <y/n>, what do we know? Right now I am about two inches tall and stuck in a forest. I could try to go back and get help and risk getting eaten by a stray wolf or even a slightly irritated spider. Or I could continue on the path down to the bus stop and see if anyone would take pity on me.” Despite the dangers of being stepped on, you chose the latter option.

You began running down the path. A walk that usually takes you five minutes ended up taking you thirty, but it was fine since the last bus had not left yet due to the fact that you like to be very early usually- and there it was. It was a lot bigger than you initially planned on, but you could make this work- until...

To your shock and horror, you saw the last two people you had ever wanted to see. One with light, almost white-blond hair, and the other with fiery red hair. Both were spiked beyond belief. You tried to hide, thinking that this should be easy considering your new height, but to no avail. Bakugou saw you and did a double-take. Kirishima looked in your direction to see what he was looking at before running over to you.

You tried running, but alas, being two inches tall made it difficult, if not impossible. Kirishima scooped you up in his hand and stared at you for an uncomfortable amount of time. “Y-You’re <y/n>, right?” He asked and Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Of course she is dumbass! I’d recognize that stupid hair from anywhere!” “Ok, but why is she two inches tall? Isn’t she usually, like, a giant?”

It’s true, your normal height reaches just above the 5’10” mark, about three inches taller than Bakugou, an achievement he had never forgiven you for.

“I’m not sure what happened but I heard a buzzing sound and when I approached it, I started shrinking!” you yelled as an attempt to be heard over the deafening traffic. Your attempt was a success as the two spiky-haired boys started laughing. Bakugou’s laugh was almost a cackle, while Kirishima’s was more normal.

“What is it?” You asked, hoping to locate the funny. “Y-Your voice!! I-It’s Hilarious!” Bakugou said, gasping for air through his laughter. “Ok, calm down,” You said trying to lower the pitch of your voice, to no avail. “Kirishima, please take me back to my house now?”

Kirishima looked concerned, “Is that really a smart idea? I mean yesterday you were complaining about how your parents wouldn’t be back home for another month.” You vividly remembered this. Your parents were both pro heroes so they often had to leave for months at a time for their work.

“It’s my house. I think I’ll be fine” You argued. “PFFT- You can’t even reach the doorknobs!!” Bakugou was practically dying on the ground from laughter.

“Bakugou’s right, I think we should tell Aiza-” “No! Don’t tell anyone!” You interrupted. You knew Kirishima had a point, but whether it was your pride or some fantasy you had buried deep down, you couldn’t allow him to reveal your secret.

Kirishima thought for a second while Bakugou’s bursts of laughter echoed through your brain. “Oh, I got it!” Kirishima said, his face lighting up like a light bulb. Before you could inquire about his plan, you had to dive to grab onto his thumb to keep from falling several inches to your death. Apparently, part of Kirishima’s plan was to run… somewhere with Bakugou following close behind.

When he finally stopped, the destination looked familiar. You had been here before on a study session with the bakusquad, or whatever the class had started called you and your friends. Either way, you knew for a fact that you were standing (or in this case holding onto Kirishima’s thumb for dear life) outside Kirishima’s house.

“Why are we here?” You asked. “Well, this is the first place I thought to go,” Kirishima replied, matter-a-factly. “I asked you to take me back to my house!” You yelled. “I had no way of getting in, it’s not like I have a key or anything!” Kirishima shot back. “Well, I have my key with me!” you said, triumphantly pulling out your house key which was now the size of a fat ant. “Yeah because that would work really well,” Bakugou chimed in.

You slumped your shoulders, tired of their constant rebutting. Bakugou walked into the house while Kirishima followed. The angry blond boy grabbed a bag of chips and sat down at a table as if nothing was wrong. Kirishima joined him at the table, gently setting you down.

“Ok, we need a plan!” Kirishima said. “A plan for what?” Bakugou asked and received a look from you and Kirishima as if to say; “Are you fucking serious right now?” “For the issue we have?” You started and then gestured to your small stature. “Does that look like my problem?”

You wanted to throw a punch at him. Maybe you could have beaten him yesterday, but now it would prove to be difficult.

“So, <y/n>, how did you even… you know,” Kirishima started. “I’m not totally sure,” You began to explain the buzzing noise you heard. “How could you be so stupid!?” Bakugou yelled. “What would compel you to go towards the strange noise?!” “I was curious, okay!? How was I supposed to know what would happen!? I thought it was a phone or something.” You tried to explain your side but Bakugou was having none of it.

“Stupid nerd” He spat. “Both of you, calm down. I know we can get through this!” Kirishima said, trying to lift your spirits. You smiled at him and while it didn’t do much to cheer you up, you appreciated the effort.

“I say we go back to where you first heard the buzzing noise,” Kirishima suggested. You nodded, although you doubted that you would get much of a say in the matter. Bakugou groaned but reluctantly stood up. “Fine. Let’s make this quick, I have stuff to do.” “I’m stuff,” Kirishima said cheekily as he scooped you up and you made your way back to your house.

The ride back to your house felt like it had gone on for hours. Even though you were two inches tall, Kirishima’s pocket was cramped. Not to mention, he had a strange bounce to his step, causing you to be pushed around repeatedly.

“Okay, we’re here,” Kirishima said. He picked you up and held you in his hand so you could see. You directed them back to where you had first heard the buzzing sound.

“It was right here,” You told them. “I don’t hear shit,” Bakugou said. “Well, I’m not sure what to say… It was right here!” You yelled. “Maybe whatever it was went away?” Kirishima said. “Of course it did! All of this was a waste of time, let’s go back,” Bakugou said, turning around.

“Hang on!” Kirishima said, putting a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder. He gestured to something on the ground. It looked like a coin, but not one you had ever seen before. Kirishima picked it up to give you a closer look. The coin had small bits of dirt on it from being on the path, but under that, it had a dark purple hue. On one side of the coin, there was an engraving of a scorpion and the other side was blank.

“Could this be a clue?” Asked Kirishima. “Could be. Maybe this belonged to whoever shrunk me!” You exclaimed. “It’s a damn coin! I doubt it had anything to do with us,” Bakugou said, crossing his arms.

“Well, should we give it to the police?” Kirishima shrugged. “No! To turn it in you have to tell them what happened to me!” You said, hoping Kirishima would respect your wishes.

“<y/n>… Maybe we should. If there’s a villain involved-” “Hell no!” Bakugou yelled, interrupting Kirishima. “If there’s a villain, we can take ‘em!” This seemed to get Kirishima in the mood because it threw his fist in the air. “You’re right!”

You didn’t really care for this exchange, but if it meant that you wouldn’t be revealed to the police, then you were happy it took place.

“Okay, if we aren’t taking this coin to the police, then what do we do with it?” Kirishima inquired. “What about Momo’s place?” You asked. “She has a huge library, maybe there’ll be some information?” “Good idea!” Kirishima said, giving a thumbs up. Bakugou looked like he wanted to protest, but he realized it would be pointless.

With you sitting cramped in Kirishima’s pocket, the three of you made your way to Momo’s mansion.

When you were finally taken out of Kirishima’s pocket, you looked around until your eyes landed on the giant mansion in front of you.

“Why are we stopped?” You asked. “Idiot, it’s because we’re supposed to be in school right now!” Bakugou growled, clearly not a fan of skipping classes.

“Oh…” All the excitement made you forget it was supposed to be your first day as a second year. “Oh well, I guess now we wait!” Kirishima said, not realizing how creepy it would look to see two high school boys standing outside a girl’s house, however, all you cared about was reaching your usual height again.

You and the two spiky-haired boys waited outside Momo’s house for the entire day, mostly just talking. You really got to know those two! As the sun began to dip below the city skyline, you saw a car start to pull into the driveway. From out of the car comes a group of people you are not happy to see. Piling out of the doors comes the rest of the Bakusquad: Denki, Momo, Sero, and Mina. They are all chatting and laughing, but fall silent after they see the look on Kirishima’s face. You try to hide deeper in his hands, hoping to save yourself the embarrassment of your new classmates recognizing you. This was not to be, however, as Denki immediately recognizes you.

“<y/n>! Hey! Why are you so small!” the sparky boy shouts. “Well… you see… Uh,” Kirishima tried to stutter out an excuse. “She was a massive idiot,” Bakugou eloquently explained. You sighed because you could not believe the buffoonery that was taking place. “The truth is, we’re not sure, but we did find this,” you gestured for Kirishima to hold up the coin which he did. “We were hoping that maybe Momo had some information in her library.”

“So are you saying that you were planning on reading every book in that massive library!?” Denki protested.

Momo began to inspect the coin for herself. “I do recognize this from somewhere…” She started, “Follow me.” Momo led the group into her house. You felt like you were in some elaborate labyrinth because of all the twists and turns. Your two-inch tall height didn’t help.

“Here it is!” Momo said, standing outside two large wooden double doors. As you entered, your jaw was agape. Hundreds, if not thousands of books littered the room. There was a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The windows were thin, but stretched to the ceiling of the room, allowing sunlight to stream in.

The whole group just stood in the doorway, not moving. Everyone was dreading the number of hours they would have to spend hunched over the thousands of books.

Before anyone could talk, Momo rushed to a seemingly random spot in the library. She dug through a pile of books in the corner until she pulled one out. It was blue, but the colour seemed to have faded over time.

“How did you-” Mina started. “I’ve read each book here twice. I know I saw something like that coin in here somewhere- Aha!” Momo exclaimed. She showed the group a page in the book. There was a picture of a dark purple coin. Kirishima compared the coin they had found in the woods. The two were practically identical.

“Well? What does it say?” Sero asked. “Hmm. Not much. This page is about five specific mishaps going on in a similar area. At each scene, investigators found the coin. They assumed it was some sort of calling card, but they never found the one actually responsible.”

After a few minutes of the scientists muttering, Karasu seemed to finish up and came back over to you. “Here, this should do it.” You took the potion out of his hand, though he had to put it into a beaker the size of a thimble for you to take it. After only a bit of hesitation, you drank the herby potion. Soon, you felt yourself start to grow. After another minute, you were back to full size again.

“So this has been happening a lot lately,” Karasu mused.

“Yeah, we found these coins at some places weird things kept happening,” Kirishima replied. “We tried to do some research, but all we found was some person who lived a long time ago.”

“We have also been finding these connections. It leads me to believe that Aeneas is returning.”

“But how? Didn’t he live over a hundred years ago?”

“Aeneas is a powerful wizard, time means not to him. If it really is him, then we should all be worried.” The wolf paused, then looked up again and smiled. “But hey, you shouldn’t worry about that! Just go home and rest, you’ve earned it.”

After that, you all said your goodbyes, and Bakugou, Kirishima, Legoshi, and a now full-sized you walked out of the laboratory. You said goodbye to Legoshi at the bottom of the mountain and promised to keep in touch, then you got on the train back home. As you rode with Kirishima and Bakugou, you all thought back on your experiences. You left them in a daze, promising offhandedly to see them at school the next day. You returned to your house tired and ready to collapse. Sleep did not come, though, as you sat and worried about what would happen to your world. As you sat there, still awake, you looked out your window. You thought about how much bigger your world was about to get, and you realized there was nothing you could do about it. There was nothing left to do but look up and count the stars.

[lamptracker]

FIC: Golden Dreams (Tom Holland/Reader; Olympic!AU)

So this came out of my failed attempt at an Olympics AU night, lol. A lovely anon suggested this. I kinda love it. I also kinda changed the original idea slightly, from figure skating to ice dancing (honestly I blame Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir for this)

FIC: Golden Dreams

Pairing: Tom Holland/Reader

Summary: You and your ice dancing partner, Tom Holland, are training for the Olympics. You’d never seen him as more than a teammate...until recently.

Ever since you could remember, you wanted to go to the Olympics.

Your favorite event was always the figure skating, especially ice dancing. You always thought they looked so pretty, gliding effortlessly across the ice in beautiful, sparkly costumes.

So when you were four, your mom signed you up for lessons.

When you were five, you entered your first competition. At that competition, you met a little boy named Tom Holland. He was the cutest thing you’d ever seen - big brown eyes, curly mop of auburn hair.

He was also super sweet and the most energetic boy you’d ever met. But he was crazy talented, as were you. You’d placed first in the girls’ junior division; he’d placed first in the boys. You didn’t really keep in touch with him after that, but you did see him at competitions.

Eight years later, your coach suggested ice dancing - you’d always been a little weak on your axels. He knew the perfect partner for you: Tom Holland.

And he was the perfect partner. He was always polite and sweet, always in tune with what you wanted or needed. He was always super careful not to touch you in any inappropriate way during your lifts. You had amazing chemistry on the ice, and it showed in your routines.

You had become really good friends off the ice, too. It wasn’t unusual for you to be at his house after practices; you were basically the fifth Holland child.

Despite what your performances on the ice showed, you were in no way interested in falling in love with him.

Until the Olympic qualifying competition.

About a week before the competition, you were hanging out at the Holland house (as you were wont to do). Tom was out getting food for everyone so you were embroiled in a fierce Mario Kart competition with Harry and Sam.

“I gotta ask you, (Y/n),” Harry said. “Have you and Tom ever thought about dating?”

You scoffed as you drove your character (Yoshi, you were always Yoshi) around the track. “Not even a little bit. We’re good friends, and we’re teammates. Nothing more.”

“Sounds like you’ve gotten that question before,” Sam teased.

“I only get it in every post-meet interview. He always gets the questions about training and all the work we put in and I always get, ‘Ooh, are you dating?!’ It gets a little old.”

“I can see that.” Harry cursed silently to himself as he slipped off the track. “It’s just, you guys have such amazing chemistry on the ice. And you have this really cool relationship off the ice.”

“Yeah,” Sam added, “and I’ve noticed that neither one of you has had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. Why’d your last boyfriend break up with you?”

“My last three dumped me because they were jealous of my relationship with Tom. The last one especially was like, ‘You two are too flirty on the ice.’ Well, yes. It’s part of my job, okay? We’re telling a story and we have to sell it.” You let out a little whoop. “First place, boys, that’s how it’s done.”

“Race isn’t over yet, stop gloating,” Harry said. “But have you ever thought about it?”

“I told you, Harry, I haven’t. Unless… wait, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Nope. Just curious is all.”

“Well, i’ve told you. Tom is my friend, and he’s my teammate, and that’s all there is to.. .oh, son of a bitch! Who threw that blue shell? I will cut you.”

“Told you not to gloat.” Harry grinned cheekily at you.

“You cocky bastard, I was winning, you know! I will not hesitate to end you.”

“Harry!” Tom exclaimed, walking in with bags of food. “She’s all riled up now. What’d you do, throw a blue shell?”

Harry just laughed as you threw a pillow at him.

“Help!” he cried. “I’m being attacked!”

“No, you’re being an ass,” you retorted, as Sam and Tom cracked up laughing.

The two of you skated flawlessly at the Olympic qualifying meet. Your short program was perfect - earning you the highest marks all season - but you bobbled a twizzle in the free skate. You were sure it was going to cost you your shot at the Olympics.

“Oh, darling. You were amazing out there,” Tom reassured you as you waited for your scores in the Kiss and Cry area.

“No, I wasn’t!” you argued. “Did you see my feet? I totally bobbled the footwork on that first twizzle pass! I looked like I was out there for the first time! We’re going to get docked so badly for this, I just know it.” You rested your head in your hands, sighing deeply. “And now we’re not going to make it to PyeongChang, and it’ll be all my fault, and…”

“Easy, now.” Tom wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “We’re going to make it, you know. Our short program was the best it’s been all year. You really shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, you’re a better skater than you give yourself credit for. And I...oh, they’re going to announce the scores now.”

You peeked at the scoreboard through your fingers. Despite the fact that you totally messed up the first pass, you were only deducted a tenth of a point. Your free skate put you at the top of the country’s leaderboard.

“We did...we did it!” you shouted. “We’re going to the Olympics!”

“I told you, darling!” Tom excitedly pulled you into an embrace as your coaches celebrated around you.

This hug was not like your normal hugs - quick, gentle squeezes. This was different.

Tom had a tight grip on you, as if he were afraid that you’d blow away if he let you go. His nose was buried in your hair. You could smell his cologne, and you could feel his rapidly beating heart.

Probably just excited, you thought to yourself. But then you thought back to the conversation you’d had with Harry a week prior.

Could...could Tom really be in love with you?

What’s more...could you really be in love with him?

Damn you, Harry, you thought to yourself.

But you didn’t really have time to ponder it; you were officially an Olympic athlete.

You were in Korea, and you were living your best life.

The Olympics were, so far, a lot of fun. You were having a great time getting to know the athletes from the other countries. (Adam Rippon was your favorite, but then again he was everyone’s favorite. But he was sweet, and funny, and immediately started following you on Instagram and leaving vaguely inappropriate comments on your pictures. And asked you if you had a brother.) It was fun trying local Korean cuisine. Going to see some of the other sports was interesting. (Tom pulled some strings to get you into the curling mixed doubles final; you had no clue what was going on but you were having a good time anyway.)

So far, the highlight was the Opening Ceremony. As you walked in behind the flag bearer, you started to feel a little nervous. Sure, you’d skated in front of big crowds before. But this crowd was nothing like you’d ever seen. What felt like a million people were in the stadium, and every single one of their eyes were on you.

Sensing your anxiety, Tom reached over and gently grasped your hand. “Feeling alright?” he asked.

“Just a little nervous. There are so many people here.”

“They’re not all here to see you, y’know.”

You scoffed loudly. “Gee, thanks for the pep talk there, Dr. Phil.”

“Hey, gotta bring you back down to Earth somehow.” Tom laughed as the two of you walked into the stadium with the rest of your teammates. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, you know. So just relax and enjoy it, eh?”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“Always am, darling.”

You just giggled as you smiled and waved to the crowd. Tom held your hand the entire ceremony.

Practices were going well, so far. This was the first year that music with words was allowed in Olympic competition, so for your free dance you had chosen “All of the Stars” by Ed Sheeran. You had to play the part of long-distance lovers.

And boy, was Tom ever good at it.

The way he stared after you longingly when you were apart on the ice, as though he truly wanted to be with you. The way his hand lingered on your hip a touch longer than it was supposed to, as if he didn’t want to let you go. How he held you close to him during lifts, how he gripped you protectively before he had to throw you. And how he beamed at you when you nailed the landing.

“Girl,” Adam Rippon (who’d crashed practice to heckle the Shibutani siblings) said to you. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s really in love with you.”

“Whatever, Adam.” You rolled your eyes. “And I know what your next question is, and no, you cannot meet my brother. Not that I wouldn’t love it, but you’re bugging me today so it’s not happening.”

“Ooh. You cold,” Adam pouted, as you laughed.

But, you thought as you skated off to the sidelines. Was he? Could that explain the lingering touches, the longing looks?

You shook your head. It’s all part of the act.

And what’s more, why did you care so much? Why were you noticing the way he looked at you? The way you didn’t want his hand to leave your hip? Why didn’t you want his hand to leave your hip?

You groaned as you slipped the blade covers over your skates.

“I have got to lay off the hotteok,” you mumbled to yourself.

Finally, it was the night of the free skate finals. You and Tom were in first place after the short program. You were in the last group of skaters; of the 24 total couples skating, you were 23rd.

“How’re you feeling, darling?” Tom asked. “Nervous?”

“A little,” you admitted. “Remember I fucked up the opening twizzle sequence at qualifying. I’m just scared I’ll do it again.”

Tom reached over and grasped your hand. “Nah. You’ll get it. You’ve been getting it in practice, so you’ll get it in competition for sure.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Practice makes perfect, I hope. I just have to nail this hot move is all.”

Tom snorted. “That’s what she said.”

You smacked his shoulder. “Shut up, you div. We’re about to go on.” You took a deep breath.

“Ready?”

“Pep talk first.”

“Okay.” Tom leaned his forehead against yours. “Go out there.”

“Skate until the ice melts.”

“Kick ass.”

“Then kick more ass, because we ain’t got time to take names.”

Tom smiled brightly at you. “That’s my girl. Now, let’s go do this.”

Whatever worries you had before the free skate, you needn’t have entertained. You performed your routine flawlessly. That twizzle sequence you were so worried about? Went perfectly.

As the routine ended, the crowd roared and burst into applause. You bowed for the judges, then Tom threw his arms around you.

“Darling, that was brilliant!” he exclaimed, picking you up and twirling you.

You giggled as he spun you. “We’re going to medal for sure now!” You both waved to the crowd as you skated to the rink exit, hand-in-hand. You made your way to the Kiss and Cry area, hugging your coaches. You both slipped on your blade covers and you slid on your team jacket as Tom sat down with the coaches to receive your scores.

“Here you go, darling,” he said. “Made a spot for you.”

You sat down next to him and nervously grasped his hand as you awaited your marks.

The crowd erupted again as the scores were revealed. You’d earned a career best for your free skate, and were currently in first place.

“Oh my God, Tom,” you said breathlessly. “We’re in first place!”

“Yeah!” Tom punched the air excitedly. “There’s still one more couple to go, though.”

“I hope they fall,” you muttered to yourself; Tom cracked up laughing.

“Darling, you don’t mean that!” he wheezed between giggles. “But I kinda do too.”

Well, they didn’t fall. They also skated well. Tom and your coach were pointing out all of their technical inconsistencies, but you were just too nervous to think of anything other than how you were going to end up placing.

You and Tom stood, frozen in place, as you waited for their marks.

“I can’t look, Tom,” you said nervously as you buried your head into his shoulder and a hush fell over the crowd. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be, darling. They didn’t skate nearly as well as we did. Now look up, they’re about to post.”

The scores flashed on the screen…

...and the last couple? Ended up in fourth place overall.

“WE DID IT!” You shouted excitedly. “We won! We won the gold medal! This is the greatest day of my life!” You threw your arms around Tom; he returned the embrace, gripping you tighter than you thought was humanly possible.

“I can’t believe it!” he said. “We’ve done it!”

Tears of joy rolled down your cheeks as you held onto Tom for dear life. “I just… all that hard work we put in, and it’s paid off.”

Tom pulled away to look at you, his own face wet with tears.

And then, before you could fully process what was happening, his lips were on yours.

You know how, when people have their first kiss, it usually starts out slow and tentative, while the two parties involved get to know each others’ mouths?

This was not that kind of kiss.

This was also not a kiss that said, “You just helped me win a gold medal and I’m so excited right now.”

This kiss said, “You just helped me win a gold medal and I’m so excited right now. Also, I’m madly in love with you and I’m desperately hoping you feel the same way.”

It was deep, passionate, like nothing you’d ever experienced before. His hands gripped the back of your head as yours made their way to his auburn curls, tangling in the strands. It had the potential to knock the wind completely out of you.

When the two of you finally parted, you looked at each other, mouths slightly agape, chests heaving as you struggled to catch your breath.

Tom broke the silence.

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, I…”

You reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Tom, are you in love with me? Please be honest.”

He nodded wordlessly, looking absolutely terrified.

You smiled softly at him. “I’m in love with you too,” you admitted. “Fairly recent development; I blame Harry, honestly. But… yeah. I am.”

His face softened into a wide smile. “Oh, thank God,” he muttered as he leaned in to kiss you once again. This one was more gentle than your first; this one said, “I love you so much. I’m so glad you love me too.”

“See? I knew it!” Adam Rippon shouted as he ran by you to congratulate the Shibutanis on their bronze medal. “Oh, and congratulations!”

You just laughed as Tom wrapped an arm around your waist. “They’re going to start the medals ceremony soon. We should get down there.”

“Yeah.”

And so, you received your gold medal, with the man you loved at your side. This truly was the greatest day of your life.

[vmfx]

FULL MOON SPECIAL.

(Summer.)

This year Spring came and went a little easier than usual. Aside from a stomach-churning break-up that neither my now ex-girlfriend or I wanted to take part of, the Spring revival brought a brand new charge that I haven’t experienced in a long time. Feelings of meeting someone rare and opening up to them for the first time. An opportunity with an art-school-type Korean girl who nicely put me down but ended in an amicable consolation. Taking snapshots with the who’s-who of the Press at the trendiest post-production parties. Extended drives out west with my friend Jewish Mary discussing thoughts, feelings, summer plans, and laughing out loud over getting to know each other as friends.

The mania continued when we all discovered two social-networking sites that year: Myspace and Facebook. Both had opened a wide portal for anyone who used it. Not only did they offer an opportunity for friends and classmates to keep in direct contact with each other, but it also doubled as a dating or hook-up site. When it first opened people would randomly contact each other through a very curious yet open world with plentiful results. This was before the term ‘stalking’ was taken seriously, and when people were more welcome and less discriminating.

One day I was curious and did a search for people who liked Deftones. The first thing that came up was this black-and-white photo of a girl eating a King of Diamonds playing  by CouponDropDown" target="_blank">card with both hands and a happy chipper smile. I liked cute girls and I liked playing cards…and then I liked cute girls who liked eating playing cards, so who was I to pass this up? I jokingly messaged her to stop eating the King and cease being disrespectful. A day later, she replies.

Her name was Catherine. We messaged each other sparsely for two months being silly and then it stopped. I don’t know why. I assumed it just ran its course and that was that. I thought nothing of it, moved on and forgot about her.

**********

(Autumn.)

One afternoon in the campus news office I open my account to find a message waiting for me, feeling interested as always. Then I see who sent me that message: it was Catherine. Out of nowhere she decided to pop up and say hello…fifteen months later. What the circumstances were of why there was a fifteen-month silence between us I’ll never know. It did not matter anymore.

At first I could not remember who she was until it hit me, but it felt real good hearing from her again and I was amazed that she remembered me after a long silence. Very rarely in this nature would people do such a gesture these days. She told me she liked talking to me when we did which was why she contacted me again. There was no reason to not seize the opportunity to continue so we picked up where we left off. The rate of communication accelerated and quantified. Our next constant starts by getting to know each other.

What I first learned about Catherine had me very concerned. At the time, she found herself at home feeling lonely with a bottle of vodka nearby accompanied by a supply of painkillers and a pack of blades, extreme for someone I just started talking to. She was slipping and I pushed and persisted for answers because I am a savior to my friends. As she reached out to me, I had to reach out to her. I wanted to put the pieces together because I genuinely felt sorry for her. I was not as successful as first since she heavily guarded herself so I decided to tread very carefully.

Alternately, Catherine and I discussed philosophies and logic; life struggles, situations at hand and other miscellany. I discover that we had a good number of things in common. She listened to the very same music I was into when I was in high-school a decade before. (I preceded her by eight years and her birthday was only ten days after mine. I am a Virgo, she is a Libra.) She was into Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and her number one Elliot Smith, certifying her as an alternative-rock sentry in my eyes. She wrote, did graphic design, and even attended the same university as I. She had creative qualities and I saw lots of potential in her, thus the race to rescue Catherine from her own personal black hole had become more essential, more so when I had week-long periods of not hearing from her.

Catherine should not have to drown herself every weekend in alcohol and loneliness nor let alone consume vicodin and oxycontin, so I felt. She also did not have to punish herself by cutting, either. All this as a result of social neglect and mostly being un-accepted in her high-school years, with her using and drinking as a means of coping now ignited due to meeting some guy at a party who introduced her to a sip of beer. I now gave her an opportunity to come out and be at a safer place, to bring her out and have dinner with me to discuss her situation.

During this time, I was going through a very heavy period of discovering music. Tower Records was going under and were closing its doors for good by the end of the year. One night after work I paid my final visit there and I picked up Public Image Limited, The Buzzcocks, Stereolab, and Jesu. Roy Ayers, Ladytron, Leonard Cohen, Boards Of Canada, and much more. Artists I either meant to try or even discovered out of nowhere. And back at the Press office, someone somehow uploaded a lot of music into one of our office computers ripe for the taking. Direct Control, Regulations, Stereo Total, NON, and MF Doom were playing endlessly while I furiously typed away articles for the next issues of the semester; after which I occasionally took a break for spicy fried rice at the campus’ Asian food quarter. A scent of lime was present, in tandem reminding me of the cold air and starry night skies complimenting that Autumn.

The turn of the New Year arrived when I was at the campus radio station doing a countdown set with several on-air staff. I contacted Catherine when the show was over. We decided the time was right to finally meet up after her Thursday secret meeting. We weighed our options including any given Greek diner for midnight breakfast, but we opt for American instead.

**********

(Full Moon, January.)

Daily errands were done. In the afternoon I went clothes shopping and bought a watch, a black t-shirt with a cassette printed on the front and a grey pocket t-shirt with some gold lettering. The scent of lime now replaced by a strong hue of blue and white static powder. Later that night, I spearheaded a radio station meeting as program director with several other talents about what extra equipment, wires, boards, and knobs to buy for our studios. After two hours of sitting through the meeting taking suggestions and going over schematics I finally conclude the meeting. All I had eaten so far was a Snickers bar but I wasn’t feeling hunger pangs. I was still standing.

I walk out of the building and it was extremely cold. A bright full moon and stars were out with absolutely no clouds or snow in sight. I called Catherine on my white cell-phone to let her know my meeting was over. Her secret meeting concluded as well. Both of us were on the way. We would trade several more phone calls to make sure we would stick to our guns.

I arrive at the American restaurant. It was a crowded Thursday night, the day of the week most students from campus migrate here to unwind and eat. Noisy as usual, lots of people talking, cups and glasses clinking, excitement and loud music fill the air. I sit at the lobby waiting to finally meet Catherine for the first time, wondering what she could really be. I had no idea what to expect or what she really looked like in person.

I was about to find out, and here she is.

I see Catherine walk into the restaurant. When I looked up at her for a moment to verify if it was her or not; everything registered to line up with themselves and I call her out. “Catherine!” I get her attention and she turns to me. We were thrilled to see each other and trade smiles and pleasantries. She was this young thin self, her neck-length Trixie hair, slim purple long-sleeve sweater and black jeans torn at the knees. She sits to my left in the lobby and our conversation starts off with three topics in a matter of five minutes: her secret meeting in Port Jefferson which she refused to divulge, how she drove out to and missed the record store in Ronkonkoma, and what was possibly wrong with her cable box. Five minutes later our maitre d’ escorts us to a window-side booth seated adjacent from eight loud and noisy frat boys who thankfully did not start in with us. After a year and a half, here was the first time we would get to talk to each other, face-to-face.

I order chicken stir-fry. Catherine orders only a diet Coke. “Are you sure?” I ask her, and politely she said she wasn’t hungry. I upped the ante and told her that dinner was on me and she could have anything she wanted, no worries. But she stopped at a diet Coke and said it was OK. I gave in and nicely obliged.

We went forward and re-iterated every conversation we had over the last three months. Catherine was very soft-spoken. So soft spoken that I had to lean toward her to focus on every word she said, and on one occasion I kindly told her to speak just a little louder. My undivided attention was on her when she said every word since she had the loveliest eyes I had ever seen. Big eyes. Lovely eyes. Obvious eyes. Memorable eyes. Cat eyes. Eyes that made her very cute. Eyes that ‘made’ Catherine.

We went more in-depth about the parallels we had. I was still very flattered Catherine was into the very music I was years prior. Had she went to high-school with me she would have been accepted to my circle of friends with no problem. She also mentioned that once she was a Cinema/Cultural Studies major on our campus. However, we had no classes together and the two years that she attended our university we did not once cross paths, but very well could have.

We talked and listened to each other more and more, progressing without one single hitch. No missteps, no awkward looks, no slip-ups, no back-pedaling. It was only Catherine and I sitting across from each other with all the time in the world having a complex yet honest, concerning, intelligent conversation; a type of conversation extremely rare in our disposable, attention-deficit, lowest-common-denominator world. She was that someone different than the rest who was exactly on my level. I was that someone who would give her the concern, understanding, and the attention she was looking for.

Our night, however, was drawing to a close and I wanted to end it on a high note. I asked Catherine if she had gotten a hold of Elliott Smith’s Figure 8, one which she was missing. She was in the midst of explaining herself when I take the CD out of my jacket pocket placed next to me and tossed it on the table right in front of her, a late Christmas present for a friend to bring herself and her spirits up. She was in total amazement. So much it spilt all over the table. She could not believe I would do such a thing for her.

Catherine then offered me anything I wanted. She even waved her money in my face for the CD which I absolutely dead-refused to take. What I wanted in return was to see her again, and soon.

**********

To this day, no one I have ever met in my life gave me a surreal thrill just by being with someone for three hours. I felt amazed that I even met her.

Catherine was without a doubt one of the most original and unique people I’ve met, ever. Hands down. No contest. She had a lot of things about her that no one could copy, because everything about her was hers. From the music she listened to, her philosophy, her good parts, her bad parts, even her looks…it was all hers, as if there was an art to her.

She was real interesting and because of her conversations I tried to reach out and look out for her. She made me want to look forward to meeting her again and in the process got my mind off a lot of things because she was really that special. I bought her that gift just to prove to her that I can help her out and bring her up in any way.

It was that feeling of meeting someone who was more to my liking, whose complexion was young, her personality, looks, and features unique and rarely seen, the feeling of assurance because you finally had the answers to those swirling questions. In front of me was someone I believed was truly special despite her severe misgivings and flaws. Despite her errors, I only thought about the good things, colors, and feelings about her.

Every now and then I go back and listen to everything from that era. All those sounds are a watermark of that time when I first met Catherine and conjure up everything else that occurred at the time. That clear cold weather and the memory of lime, infinity, and powdery static. That white cell-phone, the spicy rice. Nights of heavy snow on campus and long night drives home. The series of Wednesday night radio shows and our resident DJ’s coming over to visit at the turn of midnight. Those loud nights of campus techno events and meeting different shades of Jewish women with different colors of hair, skin quality, fashion sense, glasses, make-up, and sweat. Those feelings, thoughts, shades, hues, and patterns of purple, blue, grey, black, and white. But none of anything could come close to that one defining moment of meeting Catherine, where from that point on it would watermark and define an era in a time where everything added up to equal an apex.

**********

We met again in Spring a couple of times thereafter. We sat down over ice cream and even traded more music to each other. I still truly believed that Catherine was someone special and stood out from everyone I have ever met, and I seriously wanted to remain in touch with her. She happily obliged as she gave me a sympathetic goodbye hug in the end.

Later on that season I had an art report to do and she had an affinity for museums. I offered Catherine an afternoon in New York City and we went to the MOMA as I prepared my critique about Joan Miro’s Women, Birds And A Star. At the end of that mostly sunny day we said goodbye to the city and took the train ride home together; our discussion of each others’ individual lives, future plans, and possible outcomes comprised the final hour of the last time we would ever see each other…for a long, long time.

Permission granted by the very same subject presented here.

[copyrightedsnakes]

Don’t Sleep / Part 2 -- The Cowboy

Title: Don’t Sleep

Length: ~18k (~2.6k for this part)

Summary: No one knew what caused Mark Fischbach to kill those six people. Curious, journalist Sean McLoughlin decided to arrange an interview, hoping to hear his story. He was not prepared for the tale Mark had to tell.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, gore, death wow this sounds fun doesn’t it

A/N: Omg. I’m sorry this is so late, but life totally got away from me. but I’m posting a new part for halloween! I hope everyone has a spooky day!

[ Mark is sitting on the floor today, his dog’s entire upper body in his lap. He doesn't make to get up when I enter so I don't ask him to, setting up my notepad and turning my recorder on. ]

Could you tell me about your dog?

Her? [ He points at the Golden Retriever, and she wags her tail as though she knows she's being talked about. ] I've barely had her a year, but I'm glad I do. I couldn't​ do any of this without her.

She's a therapy dog?

[ Mark nods. ] She's the only damn thing keeping me alive. Or sane. She's all I have left. [ The dog rolls in his lap, her tail wagging, pawing at him like she's trying to hold his hand. It's the first time he smiles. ]

What about friends? Family?

I'm not allowed to talk to them now, being a danger to myself and others, and all of that. But before all of this, I owed each one of my friends at least a little money. Or a lot. My parents were disappointed of me for dropping out of college. [ He laughs. ] I could have been an engineer.

What happened?

I don't want to talk about that. [ His tone is clipped, and he finally looks up at me. ] That isn't what this interview is about. Where did I leave off last time?

The Author--

Right, right right. The Author. [ He's speaking quickly, as though trying to distract himself. ] The Author's death. The Author was killed by him.

Him? You said the monster was a she last time.

Sure, he was stabbed by that creature. But the real killer, the real monster is whoever that voice belongs to. The man that told us we were going to die in the beginning. The man I heard laughing as I was waking up. I don't know who he is, but... He's the puppet master behind all of this. I know it. [ He's stopped petting his dog, his fists clenching. He shakes his head a little, getting up from the floor and sitting in his chair across the table, his dog sitting patiently next to him. ] But right now, I need to tell you about the next dream. It started off the same. It always does.

Walking through a forest?

Walking through a forest in the rain. [ Mark purses his lips. ] I still had my flashlight, the rain was still freezing. Nighttime. This time though, I heard two sets of footsteps behind me instead of one. There were four hands grabbing at my back. I ran for the edge of the woods, and it didn’t take as long this time to get out of the trees this time. But I didn’t find the school that was in my first dream. This time it was a restaurant.

A restaurant?

A fancy, five star restaurant, at the edge of a forest, surrounded by nothing but trees. It was very chic, very glamourous, with a crisp sign in front that looked like it was written in French, double doors, and high windows with visible chandeliers inside. It looked looked ridiculous, it was so out of place. But whatever was behind me was going to kill me, so I didn't question it and just ran in. Two thumps against the door. They didn't try to break the door down.

The place seemed expensive, the type of place that you can tell is overpriced just by looking at it. The chandeliers were glass and looked bigger from the inside, hung all over the ceiling, but the lighting was still that dim yellow color, and if I wasn’t scared out of my wits I would have felt underdressed. String music was playing from somewhere, almost soft enough to barely register as background noise. The only way I even heard it was because instead of any talking, or eating, it was silent.

Everyone wa sitting around at the front area as though waiting to be seated; the Doctor, the Cowboy, the Entertainer, the Newscaster, and the Technician. Even the Author was there, but I didn't question it--in a dream, everything makes sense. I didn't realize yet that any of this was familiar; I didn't know I was dreaming. They greeted me, and when they saw me there was a collective decision to start walking through the restaurant. I stepped on the main floor, and stopped in my tracks.

Why?

[ Mark shivers, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment. It's evident that whatever was in the restaurant scared him, maybe even moreso than witnessing death the night before. ]

The restaurant was so full of tables that it was difficult to find room to walk, and every single seat was filled.

Other people?

No. Mannequins. [ He shivers again, like a bug had just crawled up his neck. ] And I know how stupid it sounds, but those fuckers creep me out. They must have been robotic in some way too, because each set of eyes was trained on us, their heads following us around the room as we moved. There was something wrong about the eyes; they looked human. Families, couples, all of them in dresses and suits and jewelry. If I hadn't been moving with a group, I don't know if I would have been able to keep moving at all. I even remember thinking how much this felt like a nightmare. But I hadn't really realized it yet.

When did you?

When did I realize I was dreaming? Well, we'd made it about halfway through the dining hall when one of those damn things--it was a woman, her dress white and long, and she had on all these diamonds, and pearls--stood up. Her arm extended and shot in the middle of the group, her hand closing around the Author’s throat. She dragged him towards her, and crushed his spinal cord and trachea in her hand. We all could hear it. [ Mark lets out a long breath, putting his head in his hands for a moment. ] He gasped on the floor for way too long, but there was nothing we could do. He was dead.

I wasn't as surprised as I should have been. I wasn't as shocked. It's not like I wasn't freaked out--I'd seen a man die at my feet--but it wasn't as strong of a reaction as I knew I should have to something like that. I realized I'd seen this man die before.

That's when you knew you were in a dream.

[ Mark nodded grimly. ] And you know how, once you figure out that you're dreaming, you can control how the dream plays out? Or at least wake yourself up? [ He gave a dry laugh. ] I thought maybe I could do that. I didn't know yet that this fucking hellscape wasn't of my own making.

All I wanted was for us to get out of there, so I willed us to find a door. We did, the Newscaster spotting one at the end of the dining hall and beginning to run. The Cowboy was the last one through, closing it behind him.

It wasn't a door to the outside like I'd wanted, but a door to the kitchens. It was a relatively small space, considering the size of the dining hall behind us. Everything still looked expensive though, polished and stainless steel, with an entire wall of wine glasses to our right. The lighting gave off the same yellow glow as the chandeliers in the dining hall had.

Now we didn't know what to do. The six of us just stared around at each other in disbelief for a moment, the Doctor opening his mouth as though to speak when that voice was back, telling us that we were going to die.

It was the same voice?

[ Mark nods. ] Same voice. So deep the building shook like it was about to come down. I remembered it from the past dream, but it didn't scare me any less. Everyone else reacted more or less the same as they had before, and I got the feeling that this was new again for them. The Newscaster began whimpering. If anyone else remembered seeing the Author die, they didn't say so.

The Technician, the Entertainer, the Doctor, and the Cowboy began arguing about what to do while I stood there, trying to pinch myself, trying to get myself to wake up. The Cowboy had just finished saying we should get the fuck out of here when this mechanical whirring sound came from behind me. The kitchen wasn't empty, like we'd thought it was; a figure was standing in the corner.

[ Mark paused again, and it took me leading with a question to pull him from his thoughts and continue his story. ]

Another mannequin?

Not exactly. I… Damn, you almost made me say I wish it had been. No, it was a chef. The cook in the kitchen, you know. He wasn't human though, he was doubtlessly a robot and everything was glossy plastic, from his face to his gaudy white chef's outfit. He was short too, the height of maybe a nine or ten year old kid. Our voices must have alerted him to our presence, so to speak, because he had been standing at the counter on the opposite wall. When I turned to look, his head had swiveled completely around so that it was on his shoulders backwards. Everything was plastic or metal except for his eyes and his teeth. His eyes were blue and extremely bloodshot and his teeth were yellowing bone, but they were both human.

This thing… It was the first--it was the only thing-- that spoke to us. And it spoke to us in English. His voice was all high and nasally and honestly it sounded like a cartoon villain, but it was still unnerving to hear. He told us he wanted our flesh. That he could get some good money for it, because some of us were premium grade. Then his upper body turned to face us too, one butcher knife in each hand, and he lunged.

The Entertainer… That goddamn idiot, he ran straight at the chef. I guess I'm an idiot too, because I followed. I was trying to stop him, but I wasn't fast enough; I just didn't want anyone else to die. To his credit though, the Entertainer did manage to grab a steak knife from a nearby counter on his way and landed a hit on the chef's chest, but the blade just bounced off whatever the plastic shell was made of. The blow didn't do anything. Then the chef struck the Entertainer in the chest, and hit him really hard because he flew off his feet and hit me, both of us crashing into the wall of wine glasses behind us. Broken glass went everywhere.

[ He extends his arms to me, showing off the tiny white scars that littered his arms and hands. ]

The Newscaster and the Doctor ran over to us, and the Technician and the Cowboy were… Distracted. I didn't see it happen, but chef jumped on the Cowboy’s back and knocked him to the floor.

The Cowboy hit hard, face first. I think it was his nose that broke; there was so much blood that it was hard to see where it was coming from. He managed to pull himself up to his knees but the chef just knocked him onto his back and climbed up to sit on his chest. The Technician didn't move to help him but he looked frozen, and to be fair I can't say with full confidence that I would have had the courage to help either. Not with the way the chef's arms were swinging, like they were on circular hinges, the knives moving like saw blades.

Then the chef yelled something--it had to do with a price for meat, I don't remember, it wasn't what I was focused on--and then one of the knives came down on the Cowboy's neck. It was moving so fast that it went straight through; I heard it crack the tile floor below. [Like it had the last time he'd recounted a death, Mark's voice had gone quiet and coarse. ]

Then the dream ended? You woke up?

Yeah. I had to run to my bathroom and I dry heaved for a solid twenty minutes. I felt like shit, sweating and shaking all over. I knew it would be best for me to take a shower, that it would probably make me feel better, but I didn't want to be left with my thoughts for that long. I just washed my face instead and changed my clothes. I'd barely pulled my pants on when there was a knock on my door.

Who was it?

The police. And they had a warrant for my arrest. I asked what this was about but they just told me not to play dumb, read me my rights, and shoved me into the back of a car. They brought a ton of officers to take me in, and everyone seemed on edge. It didn't seem strange at the time, but looking back on it, it was as though they'd expected me to try and make a run for it, or… Or attack them, or something. And for what they were changing me with, I understand their apprehension.

What was it?

It wasn't until I was sat down in a room for questioning that I found out the Cowboy had died.

The second victim. They charged you for his murder?

They showed me a picture, and asked me if I knew him. I didn’t; he was an ordinary looking white man about my age. He did reenactments for a living, westerns and things like that, which was how I put the pieces together. Then they told me he’d been found dead, and showed me a picture of his body. I nearly threw up again.

He’d been eaten, almost completely, even the flesh on his palms and the muscles in his cheeks gone. And I was a suspect, because they’d found traces of my saliva on his bones, and… And one of my teeth was stuck in his thigh.  [ Mark’s face twisted. ]

One of your teeth?

One from back up here somewhere. [ He points to his left upper jaw. ] I just laughed, because it was impossible. I wasn’t missing any teeth. And I told them so, but they still did a dental impression on me and made me wait. I gave them my alibi--I’d been playing a game online with some friends at their estimated time of death. They were so frustrated when they let me go.

They let you go?

They had to. Regardless of what the DNA said, the tooth wasn’t missing from my head, and it wasn't a fake. Neither of them were. And besides that, time I was vouched for wasn’t enough for me to have killed and eaten anyone, especially since they didn’t find any leftovers in my fridge.

[ The words were said like a joke, but it was evident that even Mark himself didn’t find them very funny. Nurses enter the room as they had yesterday, signaling the end of the interview. It's a male nurse this time with the tray of food and cup of pills, but in front of him is the same female nurse, her voice soft but her hand firm. Mark's dog pads over and sniffs me as he wordlessly gets to his feet, following after her master, tail swishing, as they leave the room. ]

[majorxbennyxboy]

TURN S4 according to someone who Has Not Seen It

(pieced together by random bits and pieces of things that have slipped the filters)

Arnold sends Ben this creepy letter like ",,,,,hey,,,,u wanna,,,,,,,,,betray everyone you love and come join me in bastardly traitor fun times,,,,I know you want to because when you tried to shoot me you missed, and that's always a sign of Fondness."

Which Ben is Not For so he's like :/

Richard decides he's going to Love His Son and also switch sides, which is Great !! because now the whole fam are Rebels together and Abe's got this Puzzlement Sandwich going on but he's also happy to finally have a dad. He's skeptical, but he Ready.

Caleb shows up and Abe just. Screams it to the heavens, "MY BUDDY MY PAL MY HOMIE CALEB BREWSTER GET A LOAD OF THAT ARNOLD BASTARD HUH WE SURE DID A GOOD JOB WITH OUR SPY RING DIDN'T WE WOW HAHA WE'RE GOOD"

Abe takes him home and gives him some tea. The cup is as big as Caleb's head and he is Very Cute holding the saucer in his two hands. Declines sugar. He's sweet enough without it. Accepts some whiskey.

He's like "hey you wanna pack up now let's go?"

But Abe Nopes that like "nah see I'm gonna be the Spyingest Spy. Me and the fam are Staying and we are gonna Wreck some Redcoat shite and it's gonna be awesome."

Richard chimes in, "do you and those soldier boys want to burn some stuff bc I can hook you up with a SICK bonfire if youre game"

Caleb is Game.

Washington's like "tallmadge why the *BEEP* didn't you tell me about this letter boi" and it's very Stressful but he's also kind of softly like "tallmadge occasionally does a good job wow"

GWash and Martha get. snuggly.

Ben and Caleb pop off to go destroy people and burn some hay and Ben's like "TAKE THE BULLETS OUT YO GUN GUYS WE GOTTA STEALTH THIS SH"

This redcoat guy alerts the entire fort but Caleb takes him the hell out and the boys blaze in and within about five and a half seconds they take over and set to burning hay. Caleb snatches some stuff like "man yeah I am making some cash today this is worth a fortune on ebay"

Ben is in Richard's house at some point in a heckin' coat.

Caleb goes to pawn his contraband but gets snatched by a weasle.

Arnold's like "you only say you don't like betraying your friends because you've never tried it. come on dude it's fun it's fun I swear you should do it"

And Caleb's like "um dude no hell in way. I'm not about that."

So Arnold conjures Simcoe from hell and that's that.

Simcoe goes "do you know why I like serrated blades?"

"bc u nasty fool"

Simcoe proceeds to behave very badly and tells an extended version of a story that was cut from S1E2 about how his father died when he was like ten and how his RageClown Tendencies are perfectly legit. Also he's just like "Ah yes do you remember S1E2? Those events make all of this okay. It isn't about revenge tho even though it lowkey totally is."

Cookie comes down like "YO MAN WTH ARE YOU DOING U BETTER STOP"

Meanwhile I think Peggy is going "marriage sucks." and Arnold is being a complete ass to her but she doesn't let it diminish her vibes that woman is a queen. And possibly pregnant I think.

She and Philomena run into each other and there's some sassing but Peggy's like "haha ? I will :) destroy you :D"

Boys work out a plan to get Caleb back and it entails swapping Abe and Richard over to the Redcoats and getting something like five-hundred pounds as well.  They got these two all tied up and some guys  come up like "Uh?"

Ben's a spymaster and has it Under Control and tries the ol' Smile 'n Wave routine. It does not work.

They get to the Prisoner Exchange and Ben's like "UM? Excuse you what did you do to my guy over there what'd you do to Caleb"

Simcoe plays pool while predicting the current events

and Richard gets frickin' sniped he's wasted it's over that's done the people SCATTER and everybody runs into a barn.

Mulligan slides into Rivington's inn like "yo Quaker boy. if you happen to be a spy, or something...u should def check out some new threads. *wink* we should talk"

Rob's having none of that. "you're creepy. get away from me."

And then Arnold comes in to straight up slaughter Mulligan and fling him everywhere. He's also like "WHAT IS UP MY PEEPS WHO DON'T EVEN WANT ME. NOT ONLY AM I A DIRTY NO-GOOD WHO BETRAYED MY FORMER PEEPS, I AM NOW PERSONALLY HUNTING DOWN THEIR LITTLE SPIES. TELL THE WORLD. *Flings glitter and drama as well as some shade*"

v uncomfortable cart ride back to camp and a Turtledove Cameo later Abe's like "ben i'm going back to sadtauket and burying my father, possibly myself, also contemplating revenge but not in a culper way."

Ben's like "...uh." and has no less than fifty tabs open but Anna Handles It.

Anna helps this little girl with a doll and everyone in camp ships Benanna. Ben starts thinking about what they can possibly do about this but Anna tells him not to do anything because it's a really good cover and also another box on the People Anna's Dated Bingo Cart the writers have been forcing her to carry around.

Abe buries his father while Thomas mills about chanting "dead dead dead dead dead" in the background and ten tells Mary he's going to kill Simcoe. She tells him not to miss, while bitterly regretting only taking off dude's ear.

????????????????

Selah turns up in Camp and, after miraculously not murdering Ben for the whole "allegedly dating my wife" thing, he's  like "wife. hello. so I've been Facing Reality and steadily accepting the fact that you probably don't love me and most likely never have but, we should still probably Discuss and see if we can work something out."

"Kay"

He goes to Ben like "she works for you' "uh" "she worked for you in Setauket" "uh" "does she still work for you" "uh" "boy" "I mean if you can convince her to go with you and manage to survive the discussion then by all means" "...kay."

Hewlett's Head of Intelligence and v Jaded but also working through his stuff. He's maybe looking at stars and at one point is like "hello soft quaker boy yes I am in love with stars. and myself. and that is Good. I have reached Zen but am also a somewhat Tortured Soul at this stage of the game"

"okay. you're weird. but okay. you do you lizard man. you do you."

A plan is hatched for Abe, who is Culper once again, to beat Arnold at his own game by pretending to turncoat, but not really turning. For some reason Ben's good with this??? idk but he's like "see youohmygod don't get killed please"

Caleb pops off to fetch Mary and is very cute with Thomas. And with Mary. They're all precious. Ben and Anna ride to meet them. They are riding double. With Anna as the big spoon. Hmmmm yesssss

sorry *coughs*

Ben meets Sprout and it's real hella cute for about five seconds.

Back in Camp Ben tells Mary "I gotchu, you're with Abe, you're family, I will take care of you. hmu any time"

And then he gets real serious into talking tactics or smthn to Caleb and Mary shows up in his tent like "hey can you"

and he loses it

"NOBODY SAW YOU DID THEY MARY I CAN't HAVE CAMP THINKING I'M DATING EVERYONE WHAT THE HELL MARY THERE IS PROTOCOL"

Caleb chills, uncomfortably, in the background.

Mary gives it back to Ben. "YOU HAVE TO TELL ME THINGS ABRAHAM IS MY HUSBAND"

"WHY DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE SPY RING"

"HOW DO YOU THINK HE'S STILL ALIVE DUMBASS"

"OH MY GOD IT'S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT"

this continues for a few heart-lurching moments before Mary leaves. Nobody is happy. Not a single individual feels any joy, at all, in their life.

That Randall sicko is still alive and he's like "hey Anna."

she be Knowin "you're that guy Ben tried to take out last season"

"Yeah but that ruling went in my favor"

(WE'RE LEFT HANGING. OKAY, SO THEY DECIDED BEN WAS IN THE WRONG. SO? WHAT HAPPENED? DID THEY MAKE HIM APOLOGIZE? DOCK HIS PAY? DETAILS PEOPLE. HOW DID HE NOT GET DEMOTED???)

and Randall proceeds to tell Anna there's some kind of mutiny being planned.

At some point there is an actual mutiny but the people involved are stopped and arrested and brutally executed and it's a harrowing experience for everybody.

Abe Enlists with the Redcoats and gets this new bunkmate, Joe, who seems interesting. He also visits Townsend who's like "what the hell what the hell what the H E L L  PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHAT IS HAPPENING"

Townsend takes it upon himself to Snoop and keeps following Abe around and shows up at this party and Abe's just like "can you please not be weird Robert I'm undercover"

Cicero completely Outs Abe to Peggy and she's like "...ight."

Simcoe gets nasty and, as with everything involving Simcoe, there are sharp things involved.

Some fool tries to take out Hewlett and Hewlett's like "man I'm so done with everyone's bs this isn't happening today"

He and Abe somehow meet up and instead of killing each other they wind up plotting against Simcoe, something they both believe in.

Those Rebel Boys hatch a plan to expand the spy ring once again with this Champe fellow. He and Caleb pretend to fight, (DAMMIT CHAMPE BE GENTLE WITH HIM) and Ben pretends to be really mad about this and hauls them both to his tent for a Pretend Stern Talking-To in which they discuss Plans and Ben pretends to banish them both forever.

So Champe hops off to go meet Abe.

He's a pretty creepy-like dude and seems to basically be Rebel Simcoe.

Another plan is hatched, this time to get Arnold, but things go awry. Caleb's Struggling and Ben's Upset and once again nobody is at all happy, and it's horrible. absolutely horrible.

More sh goes wrong bc the British are like "right so you're all trained up, time for you go kill some rebel soldier bois" which Abe is less than enthused about.

So Ben's Thinking about this. "who the hell is going to fetch abe. Can't ask Caleb to do it. Anna can't go. Hm guess I'll have to" Anna is quick to point out "lmao ben do you want to be labeled a traitor bc that's what's going to happen you should just ask Caleb." Ben considers this. "...nah it's cool I'll just Resign and go Handle it."

Also Mary has discovered some form of traitor ladies and I think tries to barter the information but Ben's just like "ASHFAKJFHAK PLEES"

Ben hits Hamilton up and asks him to be the new Spyboss ("good luck my guy it's like herding ducks.") and Hamilton isn't so sure about this but Ben's Convinced it is Necessary, makes all the arrangements.

Caleb tho he pops in like "actually I'll take this one" in the biggest frickin miracle of a thousand years

the two have a Moment. a blessed Moment of Purity.

And then Ben flounces over to GWash to resign anyway and they both throw a MASSIVE HISSY FIT AT EACH OTHER AND IT'S HONESTLY EVEN MORE BRUTAL THAN THE "not my son" CONVO IT'S SO TERRIBLE and Washington decides, "well you can't resign. You are Fired."

because he is Ben Tallmadge there seem to be no concrete consequences for talking to the General the way Ben does in this particular scene, even though GWash could quite possibly have him fed to an angry sheep.

Caleb has a very Emotionally Moving convo with Mary and it comes back to help him out later.

Abe and Simcoe make eye contact and Simcoe's like "MURDER TIME YAY" and chases him. Abe tries to shoot him, misses. Chase resumes until Abe is cornered. AND CALEB JUST TAKES SIMCOE THE FRICK OUT HE JUST. NAILS HIM, KABOOM. +1000 FOR THE BLESSED BEARDY WHALER FLOWER MAN.

For good measure, Abe then flings Simcoe off a thing and the man slithers away in the time it takes Abe to get down there. Abe pulls a pistol on him in front of several other guys, none of whom notice, but then leaves without actually shooting the scarecrow.

Caleb shows up to talk to some Soldier Bois like "have you seen my spy" and they have but it's Champe. But !! they tell him some Stuff about where to find Abe and he's like "well that's good" and jogs on his merry way to find that Boy.

also Hewlett doesn't play he's all about "you killed my horse, and we're about to have a discussion."

Yorktown, meanwhile, Looms, and the Biggest Question is whether they'll be able to wrap this up without E10 being movie-length.

[comic-movieheroesranked]

Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2004) Final Part

After two consecutive years of multiple Comic movies, 2004 took it a bit slow with only five movie releases. Blade returns one last time in Blade: Trinity as well as Spider-Man in Spider-Man 2! We also get a spin on two cult classics with AVP: Alien vs Predator. Finally we also get the debut of two comic characters in Hellboy and Catwoman. Here is our TOP 20!

*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL HIGHLIGHTED MOVIES ABOVE*

20. Drake (Blade: Trinity)

"Kill one man, you're a murderer, kill a million, you're a king. Kill them all, a God."

You know Blade's a badass when Dracula changes his name to Drake just to try to keep up with Blade's coolness. He's the ultimate vampire, yet I thought he was very lackluster (like most villains, honestly). I'm sorry but you're not intimidating if you have to use a baby as leverage on what should be a one on one fight. When the showdown between the two does actually happen, Blade ends up winning to no one's surprise. Not even Drake's, who respects him so much he even helps him out after his death.

19. Kroenen (Hellboy)

*creepy laugh*

So was this guy a zombie made of sand? Because without the armor he looked like a zombie. And he was a zombie who knows how to work a blade. It was guaranteed in the movie that whoever was around when this dude showed up was going to die. He even took on six security guards, killing two of them with their own bullets. Of course I had to hate him when he killed Professor Broom and of course I cheered when Hellboy finally finished him off (I'd also like to point out that Hellboy believes in double tap). I thought this guy was emotionless but right before he dies he starts this evil laugh that's almost chilling. He was easily my favorite to watch die via Mortal Kombat dungeon spikes.

18. Liz Sherman (Hellboy)

"Red, white, whatever. Guys are all the same."

Since she was a young girl Liz has been cursed with the ability to create and control-I use that term lightly-fire. She doesn't quite have a handle on it and seems she can only let it loose after experiencing traumatic memories or being physically hurt. Her destructive fires have wiped out a bunch of kids who totally deserved it and an entire psychiatric ward that totally didn't deserve it. She spent most of her life with the government and wants desperately to be in the real world living a normal life. It's one of the reasons why I think she can't return Hellboy's feelings for her, because she connects him with the facility she wants to run away from. In the end, after she destroys all the hellhounds and Hellboy saves her life, the two finally confess their feelings and share a passionate kiss that literally erupts them into flames.

17. Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man 2)

"Isn't it about time someone saved your life?"

I just felt so bad for Mary Jane in this movie. Granted, she's doing better career-wise but she's just so in love with Peter and just doesn't understand why he won't be with her when he loves her too. She tries to move on with John, who's like the definition of a good guy, but he's not Peter so  we all know how that story ends. I just didn't expect her to be so savage and leave him at the alter SMILING the entire time! I'm just glad that her and Peter are officially starting something because honestly she was already getting caught in Spider-Man's battles so might as well fill her in as to why that is.

16. Whistler (Blade: Trinity)

"Get out, Blade!"

There's a reason why Whistler is the only other character besides Blade to be in every single movie in the trilogy. He's the perfect partner. He knows that it's all about the mission and is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure Blade is successful. His only problem? Dude's getting old and slow. Man it was hard watching him go down when police came in locked and loaded, but I respect that he was still able to destroy all the evidence with every last breath he took. Even after death he made sure Blade was taken care of, because Blade WAS his son I don't care what anyone says.

15. Sebastian de Rosa (Alien vs Predator)

"Only the chosen ones may enter."

The Italian that just kept sending romantic vibes to Alexa through the whole movie. He's also the only one who seems to figure out everything that's going on thanks to his background in ancient civilizations. This doesn't save him from being alien cattle, though, and Alexa is forced to kill him when it's discovered an alien has already grown inside him.

14. Alien Queen (Alien vs Predator)

*Alien screech*

If the Alien Queen wasn't designed to literally kill everything that lives, I might've felt sorry for her. The ancient civilization that worshiped the Predators basically had her chained up so she could do one job: lay alien eggs. She gets tired of this, however, and has her children attack her so her acid blood can break her free. She then fights Alexa and the last Predator to escape to the surface but ends up being dragged into the sea where she instantly freezes in the Antarctic weather.

13. Tom Lone (Catwoman)

"Sorry, lady. I'm taken."

What's cute about Tom is he's already swerving other women when he's only been on like, one date with Patience. Granted, the other woman turned out to be Patience but it's still a sweet gesture. Tom's job as a cop makes things really complicated when he finds out Patience is really Catwoman because now he's struggling on whether or not to bring her to justice (this lowkey makes him Batman). He decides to trust his heart and ends up helping her clear her name and bring the right person to justice. Too bad at the end he just gets a note for a goodbye.

12. John Myers (Hellboy)

"My uncle used to say that we like people for their qualities but love them for their defects."

The new guy! Professor Broom hires John straight out of college to look after Hellboy, even if the other male doesn't think he needs watching. Most of his duties consist of cooking Hellboy huge amounts of pasta and pancakes as well as look after his army of kittens, but when the occasional demon comes around he also helps out with that. Its revealed that Professor Broom hired him because he's dying and needs someone to look after Hellboy when he's gone. How does he do this? BY GOING AFTER HELLBOY'S GIRL! Ok so she's not really his girl, which is why I don't blame her at all for going on the date with him because she's her own person and is allowed to do what she wants but John was foul! He knew Hellboy was crazy about her and tried to get with her anyways! At least he didn't get upset when Liz decides to be Hellboy instead.

11. Hannibal King (Blade: Trinity)

"It's in the meat of my butt, just below my Hello Kitty tattoo."

Who knew Ryan Reynolds would star as Deadpool five years before he was officially cast as the merc with a mouth in the first Wolverine solo film. But really Hannibal King is exactly what I fear Deadpool would be if he was in movie with any other super-hero character. He was extremely annoying, half the time I wanted Blade to just slap the shit out of him every time he opened his mouth. It was like he had a serious case of word vomit. Him being the comedic relief was a tad bit overdone and no, him being shirtless didn't lessen the blow at all. At least we saw him go up against three vampire dogs.

10. Patience Phillips/Catwoman (Catwoman)

"Cats come when they feel like it. Not when they're told."

Let's start this off by saying that Patience Phillips is literally one of the most annoying characters ever. Where's Selina Kyle? Like why'd that change? Was it because Halle Berry's black? Because that's such a cop out. Despite the horrible movie, I actually really liked Halle Berry once she was in the cat suit. She had her strut, she delivered those lines, and looked so visually stunning it's like she came out the comic book. Too bad the movie wastes her potential with useless scenes at a basketball court, dealing with loud neighbors, and doing a random ass BDSM dance at a night club.

9. Abigail Whistler (Blade: Trinity)

"Scream if this hurts, chica!"

Whistler's daughter out of wedlock ended up not falling far from the tree and caught the vampire hunting bug at a young age. She didn't let her father's rejection stop her and joined a team of hunters that helped Blade take down the main vamp, Drake (aka Dracula). She's got killer aim with a bow and is bound to get even more bad ass with Blade basically taking her under his wing like her father did with him.

8. Predators (Alien vs Predator)

*Predator clicking*

Three young Predators show up to Earth to slay a bunch of aliens as of rite of passage into manhood (Womanhood? You can't really tell if there's different genders with them). To do this they trick a bunch of humans to show up so that the aliens can breed the Predator's perfect prey. Two of them go down pretty fast, to the very first alien they come across. One was killed instantly while the other put up a really bad ass fight before falling victim to the same alien. The lone survivor proved to be the more superior out of the three because it's taking down humans and aliens left and right. It teams up with Alexa to take on the big Alien Queen. They're successful, but the Predator dies in the process. It's clan, who was just watching the entire time, appears to take it's body away, not knowing there's an alien-predator hybrid growing inside it ready to come out wreck havoc on their ship.

7. Professor Broom (Hellboy)

"I already know what to call him. I call him 'son.'"

Professor Broom is my dad too, I don't care what anyone says. The fact that he was the only one who saw Hellboy as a baby when they first discovered him and not some red ape they needed to kill really shows what a caring man he is. He raises Hellboy as a son and nothing more. He grounds him, lectures him, and Hellboy knows better than to be caught smoking around him. I thought we were going to lose him because of his sickness, but he ends up getting murdered by Kroenen, although he goes out with the highest class.

6. Dr. Otto Octavius/Doc Ock (Spider-Man 2)

"I will not die a monster!"

One thing the first two movies of Spider-Man did that were really successful were their villains. Once again we have a man with a brilliant mind but this time wants to use it for the greater good of mankind. Dr. Octavius turns into a villain after loses everything he worked and cared for and ends up being controlled by his technical tentacles. His fight scene with Spider-Man on the train was one of the best fight scenes I've seen in a movie, too. I'm glad he went back to his core values, even if he had to sacrifice himself to do it.

5. Abe Sapien (Hellboy)

"If there's trouble, all us freaks have is each other."

Abe was probably my favorite out of the trio of 'freaks'. He was an aquatic humanoid with the ability to know everything about a person or object just by touching them. Looking passed his obsession of rotten eggs, Abe proved to be a very important member of the team. While Hellboy did all the ass kicking, Abe made sure Hellboy knew everything about the thing getting the ass kicking. He's not a fighter, which is proven when he's severely injured by one of the hell hounds. Healing his wound takes him out of the main fight but it doesn't stop him from giving advice to his friends when they need it.

4. Alexa Woods (Alien vs Predator)

"To restore order, the guards need their guns."

Wow it was so obvious that Alexa was going to be the only human to survive this temple full of aliens and predators alike. Probably because she was the only one who didn't actually want to go because of how dangerous it was. She knew how to handle every situation and learned quickly that in order to stop the aliens from reaching the surface, she would need help from the Predators. After she kills her first alien, the last remaining Predator deems her worthy and the two team up to take down the Alien Queen. When the Predator's clan shows up, they let keep her badass sword and alien-head shield. I, personally, would have wanted a ride since the nearest town is a thousand miles away though I'm sure Alexa would figure it out just fine.

3. Blade (Blade: Trinity)

"I was born ready motherfucker!"

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Blade is the ultimate badass! Literally everyone in every single movie of the trilogy got hella worried once they realized they were going up against him. He is the ultimate nightmare of all vampires. In his last mission we see him turn into the mentor as he takes up Whistler's daughter and her team to take on Drake. Of course he's successful because he's a badass and that's what baddasses do. But seriously I could just hear him say motherfucker the entire movie if I could, but I get that the script had to be a little more complex than that. Even though the movie wasn't my favorite, Weslet Snipes definitely ended his time with this iconic character on a very high note.

2. Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Spider-Man 2)

"Sometimes to do what's right we must be steady and give up the things we desire the most."

Our favorite neighborhood Spider-Man is back! Peter is going through a life bump two years after he first becomes Spider-Man. He's broke, struggling in class, and damaging his already fragile relationships. The main reason for all this is because he's putting his responsibilities as Spider-Man before anything else and it starts to take a toll on him. I can't blame him for wanting to quit, it's not easy for someone to give up everything they care about for a cause they didn't really ask to be responsible for. Except, he kinda did. No one forced him to become Spider-Man either so I'm glad he got out of the no-power funk he was in and went back to making the streets of New York safer. And because he went through all of this, he was able to help Dr. Octavius get his morality back, which is something you don't see a lot in the grand dynamics of hero vs villain.

1. Hellboy (Hellboy)

"Second date, no tongue!"

He's big, he's sassy, and he's one of the pettiest people that's ever graced a comic book. Hellboy is exactly what his name is: a boy that came from hell. Granted he's a man now but Hellman doesn't exactly have the same ring to it. What's not to love about Hellboy? He has the best one liners, goes through all the teenage insecurities of liking someone that we all went through, and has a deep passion for kittens. Anyone who is willing to risk their life for a kitten is a hero in my eyes. The main struggle Hellboy has during the movie is fighting the demon he is 'destined' to be. He files down his horns and tries desperately to fit in with society, even if his main reason is so he could finally by with Liz. In the end, after losing his father, Hellboy leads the team to stop Rasputin from ending the world. And he's able to accomplish that by making the choice to not be what's expected of him. To not be a hell demon that will bring about the end of the world. After ending Rasputin and his plans Hellboy goes back to the indestructible badass we all know and love and finally gets to kiss Liz.