#or at least ASK to summon him since I guess he answered the call meaning perhaps he was not forcefully dragged there

[pttucker]

To get this far, they had lost many things. "Joonghyuk-ssi! We leave it in your hands!" "Master! Hurry!" However, it wasn't as if they had been losing things only. Yoo Joonghyuk extended his hand out. The distance of just one person. The distance that couldn't have been bridged without the presence of just one person was finally being closed in. Yoo Joonghyuk's hand reached out while breaking past the letters. The sentences protecting Kim Dokja fell away one by one. The hand that experienced thousands of regressions tightly grabbed hold onto Kim Dokja's collars – as if to yank out the oldest memories from within. "It's time to go back, Kim Dokja."

AHHHHHHHHH!

Oh man, I love that Sooyoung had her own "I'm not the protagonist" realization moment just like Dokja had all those chapters ago. Just realizing that she's the writer, Dokja is the reader, and the best way for the writer to speak to the reader is through the character.

And so she summons Yoo Joonghyuk.

[fluentmoviequoter]

Care Now and Forever

Requested Here!

Pairing: David 'Deacon' Kay x fem!reader

Summary: You struggle with iron deficiency on your period and learn during a rough day that Deacon will care for you no matter what.

Warnings: depictions of menstruation and iron deficiency/anemia, fluff and comfort

Word Count: 1.7k+ words

Picture from Pinterest (when I say puppy dog eyes this is what I mean)

Masterlist Directory | Deacon Kay Masterlist | Request Info/Fandom List

Deacon’s arm is across your waist when you wake up. Because of that and the lack of sunlight in the room, you realize something must be wrong. A dull ache spreads across your lower abdomen before sharp pain shoots across your back as summoned by your internal wondering. It’s easy to deduce even before you stand up and feel the unmistakable sensation of blood that your period has arrived, and based on the early morning call, it will undoubtedly be packing a punch this month.

You leave Deacon alone in bed to walk to the bathroom. The pain is manageable, and you’re grateful as you change and prepare yourself for the rest of the day. Being with Deacon, you’re used to him taking care of you, and he has a sort of sixth sense about all things related to you. Since he’s still asleep, however, you hope to get a few more hours yourself and save him some of the time he’d spend doting over you and making sure you have everything you need. Not because you don’t want his help but because he has enough going on without having to deal with the early arrival of your monthly visitor.

Eventually, you manage to fall back asleep before Deacon wakes. Before he leaves, he leans over you and kisses your forehead. Deacon hesitates as he stands, feeling as if he’s forgetting to do something. You stir in your sleep, and Deacon smiles before he brushes his thumb over your temple and whispers that he loves you.

When you wake the second time, part of you regrets not telling Deacon. He’s dealt with your periods before, and he’s as close to perfection as you think exists during your least favorite week of the month. More than that, he knows how to treat your iron deficiency. As you sit still and wait for the light bout of dizziness to pass, you remember that Deacon specifically asked you to tell him when you’re bleeding so he can keep an eye on you and help manage or supplement your iron. He’ll be home before dinner, so you encourage yourself to manage without him for a few hours.

You realize with a groan that you need to change from your overnight pad. As if the iron-related lightheadedness wasn’t enough, now you have to look at blood. Steeling your resolve, you push out of bed and rush to the bathroom to take care of everything as quickly as possible. Then, you’ll go to the kitchen to get food and restore your depleted iron.

One step at a time, you remind yourself.

“Nineteen,” Street blurts out.

“What?” Hondo inquires, looking up from the tablet in his hand.

Street shrugs and explains, “I figured someone was thinking it.”

“Why would we be thinking nineteen?” Tan asks.

“Because we’re bored,” Luca answers for Street.

Deacon checks his phone for the fifth time in the last thirty minutes, and the rest of his team turns to look at him.

“Have somewhere to be?” Hondo guesses.

“No, not that I know of,” Deacon replies. “Just feel like something’s off.”

“There is,” Hicks says as he enters the quiet situation room. “Los Angeles has taken a break from crime. I just sent 60 Squad home, wanted to offer the same to you.”

Street stands before anyone else says anything, and Hicks raises a hand to instruct him to wait.

“You’d be on call, but there’s no reason to have all three teams waiting around HQ,” Hicks adds.

“Thanks, Commander,” Hondo says. “I know Deac needs to get home, but I can stick around until end of shift.”

“Good. Street, you can go now.”

Street rushes out of the room, and Deacon shakes his head as he pulls his phone from his pocket. His screen is free of messages or missed calls from you, but he can’t deny that he needs to be with you for some unknown reason.

“Let me know that everything’s okay, Deac,” Hondo requests. “Call if you need anything.”

“Will do,” Deacon assures.

Deacon hesitates by the door until Hondo lovingly demands, “Get out of here!”

After you eat lunch, you make another trip to the bathroom. Standing at the sink, however, you suddenly feel as if you may pass out at any moment. Because of the intense sensation of growing lightheaded, you carefully sink to your knees before lying down against the cool tile of the bathroom floor. Taking deep breaths, you attempt to regain the clarity you had before standing to wash your hands. Your arms grow heavy and weak, and you realize that even if you wanted to, or worse, had to get up right now, you probably couldn’t do it before passing out. So, you focus your eyes on the unmoving baseboard and control your breaths. It won’t replenish your iron stores, but it’s better than succumbing to the woozy, dizzy feelings.

“Sweetheart?”

You narrow your eyes as you hear Deacon’s voice again. Unable or unwilling – you’re unsure which – to raise your voice in response, you simply wait to see if he’s really home or if you’re imagining his presence.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Deacon asks as he steps over your legs to enter the bathroom.

“Why are you home?” you ask.

“Shh,” Deacon encourages gently, brushing his palm along your hairline as he realizes precisely why you're on the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were sleeping.”

The corner of Deacon’s lips quirks up as he stands. He exits the bathroom before you hear glasses clinking in the kitchen. You sigh as he returns with a glass of water and a small tray with several snacks, an iron supplement, and a bottle of multivitamins.

“How bad is it?” Deacon inquires as he slips his arm under your head.

“I’m lightheaded and dizzy. Thought I was going to pass out when I stood up.”

“From seeing the blood or just standing?”

“Just standing, I think.”

Deacon nods and counts down before he helps you sit up, slow and gentle in his movements. Once your back is against the tub and you’re secure in your upright position, Deacon rips open the iron supplement package and passes you the water.

“Are you okay?”

You nod as you offer your cupped hand and accept the brown tablet. After you swallow it and take another sip of water, you answer, “I am. Sorry for worrying you.”

Deacon nods, relieved, and leans forward in his squatted position to kiss you. As he pulls away, he gestures to your water and watches you diligently as you finish it in small drinks, just like he always tells you to.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Deacon decides once you’re finished. “Are you done in here?”

You know that Deacon would do anything and everything you could possibly need. So, you take a moment to note how you feel or if you need to change, wash up, or anything else. “Yeah, I’m done,” you answer honestly.

Deacon smiles as he sets your glass on the vanity counter before slipping one arm around your back and hooking the other beneath your knees.

“Deacon,” you begin. “I can walk.”

“And I can carry.”

You smile and rest your head against his shoulder as he carries you out of the bathroom and sets you carefully on the bed. Deacon straightens the pillows behind you and returns to the bathroom to get the tray with the snacks and multivitamins.

“Why are you home early?” you ask as he sets the tray beside you.

“Quiet day,” he explains, turning away from you to change into more comfortable clothes. “50 Squad is covering HQ and we’re on call if they need assistance.”

You pick up your favorite iron-rich snack – which Deacon keeps stocked to avoid issues like this – as you wait for him to return to your side. When he sits beside you, dressed in sweatpants and a Wellesley Raiders shirt, you don’t hesitate to lean against his side. Deacon wraps his arm around your shoulders, and you lay your head against his chest. He takes the snack from your hand and is about to tear the package open when you slump, beginning to fall toward his lap.

Dropping the package instinctively, Deacon wraps his arms around you to keep your head from falling too quickly and hurting your neck. He holds you tightly against his chest as he carefully moves one hand to get his phone off the nightstand. After adjusting you into a more comfortable position against him, Deacon raises his phone to his ear.

“Hey, Hondo,” he greets. “Did you mean it when you said to call for anything?”

You blink your eyes open slowly, trying to remember what happened. Deacon’s arm tightens around your shoulder, and you notice two bags are sitting on the bed that weren’t there before you…

“I passed out,” you realize.

“You did. How are you feeling now?” Deacon responds.

“Um, a little better. Still not great.”

“That’s because you need more iron. There’s water, strawberries, and everything else I’ve ever seen you eat that has iron in the bags.”

“Where’d they come from?” you ask as you pull one closer.

“Hondo delivered them, just for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Deacon interrupts. “It’s not your fault. Yes, there are things we can do to keep it from happening again, but there’s nothing to apologize for. I’m just sorry it happened, sweetheart.”

“Thanks for catching me.”

“Any time,” Deacon answers with a smile. “Now please eat. And Hondo said that Nichelle can help if you want.”

“Why do I need someone else when I have you?”

Deacon smiles and kisses your cheek before he answers, “Maybe because she has some idea of what it’s like.”

You hum as you open a container of fresh strawberries and point out, “She’s not as handsome as you, though.”

“I’ll be here every month,” Deacon promises, “whether it’s like this or not. But when it is, please just wake me up and tell me.”

“I will. I love you, Deacon.”

“I love you.” You turn your face and kiss Deacon deeply out of gratitude and love but laugh against him when he begs, “Now will you please eat something?”

Part 2 >>

[year2000electronics]

I absolutely LOVELOVELOVE your Reverse Falls HCs from what I've seen :). I would love to ask more about so much aspects haha.

What is Reverse Ford's main goal in this universe?

What is Ford' and Stanley's backstory?

Mind sharing some info about Reverse! Dipper and Reverse! Mabel?

HOKAY. i will use this ask to talk a little about the reverse stans' backstories because i have Some Ideas. as always full answer under cut bc its got images and rambles galore

in my mind, the gleeful family association with magic & the supernatural starts with caryn's phone psychic business, and ford having "The Gift" while stan ABSOLUTELY doesnt. but in real terms that means just having a really strong intuition and being able to guess well. (at least thats what filbrick and caryn thing. ford genuinely thinks he has some semblance of psychic ability and so does his mom, but they just havent properly honed it yet) and so ford is the preferred child for that, instead of his smarts really. ford is also obsessed with the supernatural still, but it's more focused on the magical aspect.

ford and stan's relationship ends up being close because stan is the only one who believes ford about magic. i mean there are other reasons but thats very important to ford

ford, seeing how stan has always had his back by believing what he says about magic, offers to try and "tutor" stan into having The Gift. drilling him for hours by holding up cards and making him guess, stuff like that. but yknow, since both of them are kinda clamoring to inherit their mom's business, stan kinda ends up relying on ford for everything, and theyre taking on almost a mentor-student relationship when theyre Literally Brothers.

instead of west coast tech, the scholarship ford is being offered is for a famous performing arts school after his teachers saw him take the leads in school plays year after year. they tell him a scout will be at their school's talent show, and ford decides he's going to put on a stage magic show (with stan as his assistant). this time, not only is stan worried about ford leaving, but also, since they've both been working towards a really similar thing (performing for a crowd), he's really worried he'll never get a chance to show off that HE has skill, too! ford brushes him off about this saying that he'll put a good word in for stan when he's at performing arts school and stan is like "ok." and agrees to be his assistant.

in the middle of ford's show, he goes rogue, trying to show the scouts that he can be just as skilled as ford is, and completely screws up the trick he ends up performing. ford doesnt get that internship, ford is furious, so is filbrick, stan gets kicked out, you know the rest.

ford goes to backupsmore and double-majors in both theatre and whatever he majors in in the show. he plans to move to gravity falls because of its high ratings of weirdness. after stan got kicked out, instead of becoming a traveling salesman, he becomes a street magician who doubles as a pickpocket. stealing peoples' watches and stuff. he runs around all over the place

ford digs up four mystic amulets once he gets to gravity falls and stays there for a while, and is like "oh man i can USE these". so how i imagine the amulets to work is that they're kinda like, a conduit through which you can learn legit magic? like casting spells and stuff. but he probably only needs one so he keeps the other three in his house (and that's how the kids eventually find the others)

and of course thats how he starts up the tent of telepathy!

but he wants more. he wants to make the world pay for ever calling him a six fingered freak. and he wants to prove to the world that his magic IS real. he can't just lie sequestered in gravity falls forever. so he goes hunting for more answers about gravity falls' weirdness, and how he might be able to get more POWER to make a show so good the entire world will see... and that's how he summons will cipher! will tells him about the portal, and how itll open up a dimension of weirdness into his own, and ford accepts on those terms, looking out just for himself. then he asks fidds to come help with the portal, fidds walks out on him, he shackles will to him in a deal, but they both realize they don't have the manpower to run the portal. reluctantly, ford calls stan up, telling him to come and that it's important.

...but of course that doesnt go well. stan initiates a physical fight and ford ends up getting sucked into the portal. will is left alone with stan, who tells him he can buzz off because HE certainly doesnt want him around. stan works for the next 30 years to get ford back because he wants ford to finally be the one who has to suck up to HIM and owe HIM something.

at some point, mason and mabel's parents become unable to take care of them and give them to stan. he reluctantly takes them in, but soon after, not only do they find the amulets but also journal 2, and they end up reactivating ford's deal with will, getting passed down to the "next of kin" after stan rejected it. AND THATS SORTA WHERE THE SHOW STARTS. THUMBS UP.

[desultory-novice]

heya dess!

about ten million years ago i sent you an elaborate ramble about galacta knight's moral status. this isn't calling you out for not answering (i literally sent you a wall of text) and my opinions have since changed anyway, but i remembered this recently and got morbidly curious about your own take on gk's moral status. dw though... if you don't want to answer this one either, that's ok!

I pride myself on liking every Kirby character. That said, I never loved Galacta Knight. Curse of the over-hyped character? He was too cool. Too beloved. "When's Galacta going to become canon??"

And, just to be petty/salty for a moment, that he had no concrete persona except "See something; kill it" but has been frequently (?) made into the softiest, gentlest woobie amongst the cast next to Kirby (also his existence influenced a lot about Kirby's portrayal in the fandom, ie: "When's he gonna get HIS wings???", and he and Meta together became the template for what everyone's Knight-sonas would look like, meaning that being a cool orb in armor became more commonplace than rare) just caused me to get bored with him real quick, I think? </SALT>

COUGH!

...But I did some looking back at Galacta for this ask and... I can see the charm! I still don't see the "wooby" part (Which I assume has something to do with the "wrongly framed" theory) but I'm growing to respect Galacta as a character of interest. With that out of the way, let's tackle some of the things you brought up in your old ask as well as my own feelings on where the Aeon Hero sits as "a hero!"

...

It's all very interesting, isn't it? One thing that stood out to me, doing some research on this matter for this ask is that Hyness's speech implies (at least, it implied to me) that one of Galacta's other great deeds alongside helping seal Void was defeating Nightmare.

("Nightmare of a Galactic Crisis" just seems too potently worded for me to believe otherwise. The Japanese even matches up.)

But if Galacta defeated Nightmare... what the HELL was Parallel Nightmare thinking by summoning him to fight on his behalf?! (Ignore the fact that Galacta immediately destroys him. The key is that Nightmare either thought he could control the Aeon Hero or that the Aeon hero would share his goals. Which is FASCINATING~!)

I can't help but think that Galacta's story has some serious twists...

There's another thing, that may be referring back to the "destroy a planet or two" thing and that's Galacta's sealing. He's sealed in crystal and of course some people have made the connection between Galacta's crystal cage and the fairies of Ripple Star. (Usually with the queen of the fairies having a MUCH bigger role than anticipated.)

But like, there's a thing I just realized was in his Planet Robobot flavor text that isn't in the English version. (I know it's a matter of the pause screen text not having enough room for the twice-as-long English but why's it always gotta be Planet Robobot XD )

"Records remain of his being sealed in many different eras."

One could argue that it's all the same sealing but why would multiple different eras need to record the same guy getting sealed if he were only sealed away ONCE. So, that's interesting. Galacta's seal was never permanent.(1) In fact, it seems to be frequently un-permanent. So they have room to cause villainous havoc between freeings.

(For a borb who looks like an angel, he's doing a really good job acting like your classic "Sealed for 100 years but never destroyed 'Demon King.'" I guess that's what makes him and Meta Knight such interesting compliments. The noble devil and the demonic angel? Well, we still haven't decided if Galacta's demonic yet.)

And speaking of the strength of Galacta's seal, I found a weird little detail looking up his fight in RtDL DX. (I had to watch a recording because I spent my whole fight with him screaming in terror and spamming guard because I had exactly one HP left and didn't want to die before reaching Magolor Soul. Thank you, Sand ability!)

In RtDL, the Crystal descends and Galacta slowly opens one eye and then the other. But this changed for DX! Galacta descends with both eyes open. Which shouts consciousness to me.

...I'm rambling away from the topic of whether Galacta is a hero or not. Don't mind me. I'll try to pivot back in good time.

Actually, let's pivot back a little now, because in USDX, he's not summoned from his crystal state, he's just summoned. Which makes sense because like... going entirely by the cutscene, it looks like Galactic Nova actually transports Galacta through time to fight Meta Knight. Like, Galacta in the middle of their villain phase!

We do see Galacta sealed in crystal immediately after this image is shown, but the Nova doesn't bring the sealed Galacta before Meta Knight. Star Dream does. I wonder if that's a difference in power between the two clockwork stars? But I think this "where Galacta was snatched from" is probably the real reason Gala utterly demolishes Star Dream but doesn't attack Galactic Nova. The Gala that Star Dream summons has already been sealed/betrayed/etc.

They don't trust anyone. The Gala that Nova summons is at the height of their "feared across the galaxy" phase but has not yet been captured or has reason to fear capture/re-capture.

...And then you have the Galacta that Morpho Knight absorbs. What's funny about that Gala, and kind of tragic, is that Gala seems to be the calmest of the three. I say this because they actually pause when Morpho comes near. They even look...cutely (!) confused.

So, did Hyness summon a Galacta that was even earlier in his timeline than the one Nova summoned? Which was earlier in his timeline than the one Star Dream summoned?

Although where in Gala's timeline is RtDL?? Galacta appears before us in crystal, is then released, and actually FLIES OFF after defeat without being resealed. Is this the Galacta that "destroys a planet or two?" The opening of the RtDL rift after the crystal prison reforms suggests that it was the Planet Robobot Galacta that would go on to appear in RtDL, who then flies off and... maybe it's that Galacta that appears in Star Allies, to meet his end at Morpho's hands...

By the way, I totally forgot that Morpho does the "friend heart"/"friend move" thing to Galacta before absorbing him! (Dess is beginning to think that maybe the reason I didn't have strong feelings for Galacta Knight is because I just never stopped to pay attention to all the little things that make them interesting!)

So Gala has an interesting timeline and we can see that their level of aggression really depends on where in the timeline you find them. I don't think they were a planet destroying monster when they were first sealed. At least, their most "murderous" incarnation (Robobot) is implied to have gone through some ~stuff~ even AFTER the sealing.

But the fact that (Parallel) Nightmare considers them a potential ally suggests that they were...hmm, "problematic" to certain people toward the tail end of their "Aeon Hero" phase. Those people probably being the Ancients.

La la la~ I smell a cover-up~ la la la~

And so, we're back to the "Galacta was framed?!" theory. To be honest, I don't know what was up with the image Galactic Nova shows us above of Gala in the smoking wreckage but it's important to note that we don't see WHAT it is that Galacta has destroyed.

And while the Magolor epilogue implies Halcandra was destroyed in a great meteoric firestorm of some kind, I would just like to note that Halcandra at that point would have also been potentially ruled (?) by a monarch who quite possibly wore The Master Crown. An object that has been as much as stated to have been poisoning/poisoned by the previous bearers so, yeah. I don't think Halcandra would have been in a good place, if a crown-bearer sat on the throne.

(And wouldn't killing a king and destroying their country/planet be considered something worthy of taking Galacta's title of "hero" away from them and labelling them a galactic level threat?)

So, yes. I think Galacta's "moral" status depends on where in the timeline you are. I don't think they were ever "evil" but I think they probably a dangerous sort of "good-hearted extremist" era in the past and in their later years, that devolved into an aggressive and paranoid "As far as I'm concerned EVERYONE is an enemy and you'd better believe I'm not letting them strike the first blow!"

There's some Gala thoughts to chew on!

Happy Birthday, Galacta Knight!

--

(1) Honestly, I wonder if the crystal thing is less of a "seal" and more of a curse? :Dess's mind hears "fairy curse" and starts vibrating: It could be something that affects them intermittently? We've seen Galacta be "destroyed" in USDX (amusingly, their wings "pop" off. Although that is the only time that happens so could be retconned) Anyway, it's not their destruction that causes the seal. Sometimes they just fly off after defeat too! (To destroy more planets??)

This implies there's another trigger for when they become crystal...

But speaking of the "crystal," RtDL DX in Japanese specifically mentions that their seal is actually made of "gem" - the same "gem" used in "Gem Apples." Which going by the Magolor Epilogue, gem apples appear to represent either a) magic power b) the soul or c) the Master Crown. I don't think it's made clear which exactly, because all three are kind of muddled together in Magolor's case. But the fact that there ARE those connections with "gems" + Galacta's "gem" seal activating intermittently is all just VERY interesting to me.

Now go and speculate away, my pretties~!

[cluelessteam]

Charmed: Chris' Identity is Discovered {~Chapter 7~}

Summary: The Phoenix Clan is after Chris, and the sisters are trying to help. But there are many questions that they need answering. How long can Chris keep his identity a secret? [Before Chris-Crossed]

Characters: Charmed Ones, Bianca, Chris, Leo

Pairing: No Pairing

Warnings: Angst, Heartbreak

Word Count: 648

Masterlist

Everyone starts coughing, the smoke filling eveybodyś lungs. No one can see anyone else.

“Paige?! Phoebe?!” Piper shouts. “Are you okay?!”

“Yeah!” Phoebe replies.

“Yep! We’re good!” Paige adds. Eventually the smoke clears, and the Elders are still in a circle, Leo still included. Almost as a group, they turn to see where Chris should be. Chris is nowhere to be seen.

“Where the hell is Chris?!” Piper says.

“I don’t know.” Paige replied.

“Magic has been used. I can feel it.” Says Odin, an Elder to the left of Leo.

“What kind of magic?”  

“Something we haven’t seen before.” He replies.

“Shall we summon him?” Phoebe asks her sister.

“No.” Piper says, sharply. “Give him 24 hours, then we summon him. Just this once, I am giving him a chance.”

{~At P3~} 

“Chris.” He could hear a woman’s voice calling his name. It was so familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Chris. Chris wake up.” The woman spoke louder, and started to shake his shoulders. Urging him to wake up. Slowly, his eyelids began to flutter open. And his eyesight began to focus on the person in front of him. He immediately took in his surroundings, he was in the back room in P3. He was used to this room, having ‘lived’ there for nearly 7 months. He was lying on the sofa. But then, he saw her. Really saw Bianca. He sat up immediately.

“Bianca.” He muttered.

“Hi.” She replied. She smiled at him. “I thought you needed a hand.” He smiled back at her.

“Yeah. I kinda did. Thank you.” He replied. He stood up so he was standing in front of her.

“You're welcome. Besides, there is something I need to do.”

“What?” He asked, perplexed. She smiled, and pulled him towards her. They were kissing like their lives depended on it. And before he knew it, they were lost to each other.

{~At the Manor~} 

“What if it was a Phoenix that took Chris, I mean.” Paige said.

“How though?” Phoebe questioned.

“I dunno, a tracking spell maybe? Phoebe, I am worried he is hurt. I mean, I understand that he lied to us, but that doesn’t mean I have stopped caring. Pheebs, what if he is dead?”

“Don’t think like that.” 

“I am just saying what everyone else is thinking.” Paige says in defense.

“So, what do you want to do?” 

“Summon him?” Paige suggests.

“There is no point though. We are summoning him later tonight with the Eldes.” Phoebe replies.

“I guess.” Suddenly orbs appear in the room, and Piper emerges.

“Since when can you orb? I thought that was my thing.” Paige says sarcastically.

“Very funny. Leo orbed me down, I just went to see Wyatt.”

“How is my little man?” Phoebe asks.

“He’s okay. Any signs of Chris?”

“Nope.”

“I expected that. Anyway, we are summoning him later today. So hopefully we can get some answers.” Piper says, voicing everyone’s thoughts.

“I just can’t help wondering where he is, and if he is hurt.” Paige admits.

“You're not the only one who is worried. I keep thinking it’s the Phoenix. But we will find out in a couple of hours.” Piper says, shocked at her own words.

“Okay, I have to ask. What questions are you gonna ask him? I mean, like, who do you think he is?” Paige asked, both of her sisters.

“I dunno really. I guess, I don’t really care, as long as we get the truth.” Phoebe says.

“I think we know him. Or at least his family.” Piper admits.

“What makes you say that?” 

“There are just too many things that don’t add up. He knows us so well and has so little time. He knows our little quirks, he knows things about the house that not even Leo knew. I am very interested to see if I am right.”

[motheatenscarf]

Okay, I've avoided it long enough and FF14 is apparently down for maintenance this morning, so, uh, time to bust out the conspiracy theory board again after some lore dumps from Emet Selch.

So first off, I was RIGHT, Hydalen and Zodiark are primals, round of fucking applause for me... doing... basic analysis based on the information given and conservation of detail.

Look, alright, credit where it's due, in a consistently good story, yes, proper details like this are easy to figure out. While the quality of the writing may wax and wane, there is at least relative consistency with establishing the lore. The pacing at the rate they reveal that information is... wanting, but the information itself is internally consistent. That's an impressive feat for something ten years in the making. I think they at least knew the broad strokes of the picture they wanted to paint, even if some of the details like "Interesting Characters" got left out in things like base ARR.

Anyway, that said, uh, yeah, the casual lore drop that the Ascians to a man are all tempered by Zodiark was uh... a lot.

It retroactively explains a lot and actually makes me feel... kinda bad for them. Desperate people summon Primals. Something terrible came for them and their world (what does that mean?) and they "through great sacrifice" (what does THAT mean?) summoned up Zodiark who then tempered them.

Apparently not all of them, though, since Hydalen then got summoned up by "dissidents," likely out of the desperation of those who weren't tempered. Then supposedly the worlds got split apart and Zodiark was sealed away.

Begs the question of what happened to those who summoned up Hydalen, but I think that's just... the echo.

Emet says he can "shape a vessel" at his will, but not all Ascians choose to do so, hence why Lahabrea left Thancred intact. (Some Ascians buy up real estate and quick flip it for a profit, others craft a loving home out of their new bodies. Truly, they're just like us.) But also, uh, hey, have you been paying attention to what's going on with Minfilia? She's being passed down through the generations as a reincarnation with her will and memories intact, but at the cost of erasing the girls she's possessing. We know through Ardbert that people with the Echo can survive as wandering souls without bodies for a LONG time and not lose their sense of self. And these girls are ALL called Minfilia, and boy do they have those same haunting void blue eyes and blonde hair like she did as The Word of the Mother when Eldritch Horror Hydalen took hold of her, and hey, wait a minute, that's exactly what Emet Selch does?

Sure, Minfilia and maybe Hydalen feel BAD about what they're doing, but like the Exarch, they are using BAD methods to try and avert catastrophes. Calamities, even. That's not a moral judgement, that's just... a fact, and it's interesting, and I'd love to hear their thoughts on it as characters.

We already knew the echo enabled bodyhopping, but yeah, to get visual confirmation that the echo is straight up just the Ascian technique, that feels big. I don't remember if it was Lahabrea or Gaius who called the echo an "abomination," but I do recall them saying they'd need to make use of it in their plans, hence the Ascians granting the Echo to random summoners and the Empire's experiments to create an artificial echo. It's maybe something you can just... awaken in people.

Talking to Emet Selch in between quests is also fascinating, if you click on him, he'll be annoyed but will answer any question you pose and you get to ask a new question each time you click on him, so uh, guess what I've been doing?

The way he talks about Ascians, I get the feeling there's more than just the fourteen seats of them that we saw in ARR. Gaius says that the red masks rule over the black masks, and that there are only 3 red masks, and I was like, okay, so what, only 11 lackeys, that's not very fun.

But no, Emet says they're straight up expendable and that the ones assigned to the First reflection, them being killed by the Warriors of Light from before this calamity was factored in and deemed an acceptable loss. The point of the lackeys is to be fodder.

Which brings me to the whole thing about Ascians being able to recall "fragments and fleeting memories" of the original world pre-sundering. He said the land AND people were each split into 14 pieces, not just the worlds themselves and Zodiark. But the Ascians somehow remember, which feels contradictory, but I don't think it is?

We already knew the Ascians wanted to rejoin the worlds and make them as they were before, that implies they knew what the world was "supposed" to be like. The new info confirms that Calamities do seem to rob the survivors of their memories of it, at least partially; no one in Eorzea remembers what happened after Dalamud fell out of the sky. I figured that was just a contrivance for them to put off explaining in the text what happened between 1.0 and ARR, but it's nice to see them incorporate that and give it a real lore reason.

Some people remember the world pre-sundering, though, somehow. Which makes me think of who might remember anything from the Calamity, which makes me remember how Cid's memories came back by spending time with the WoL. I thought that was a cheap contrivance on the power of friendship or whatever, but I'm wondering if those memories seem to get... clearer around the echo?

So, I think Ascians are just people who had the echo, but were maybe these first people tempered by Zodiark, who somehow found the right trigger to show them these visions of the past to help them remember these fragments. Others like Ardbert, Minfilia, and even the player, were ones who were associated with and probably tempered by Hydalen. Ardbert even asks, "Holy shit, are we just slaves to her will?" Which. HM. Isn't that a good question? I've played Dark Knight, I really hope they're gonna do more with that "Serve, Save, Slave, Slay" mantra now.

I don't THINK it's that simple, I think maybe Hydalen is just trying her best to make an omlet out of all these broken eggs that were supposed to be hatchlings. But uh. Not unlike Urianger NOT telling the player about how they might be getting their soul corrupted and devoured by all of the Light Wardens they're killing and absorbing, Hydalen is probably trying to withhold upsetting information that will only make her job and yours that much harder.

Anyway, I'm now, as of Shadowbringers, finally CONFIDENT that they actually, maybe, know what they're doing story-wise and that these things will be answered and I will actually be fucking rewarded for paying attention and not just have to throw darts at what information was or was not important.

[his-saiko]

The Summoning

— The Other Side

"Take me to the other side."

You weren't supposed to be anywhere near this man's path. But there was something about you that seems so compelling. Curiosity? Lust? Threat? He just has to know. Whatever it is, there's one thing he is definitely set on. He wants you and he's not so easily distracted from that goal.

— Hawks x f!oc/reader. Friends? Dabi x f!oc/reader. Friends.

C/Tw. themes of harm, themes of mental issues, intrusive thoughts [All possible triggering content will be enclosed in !'s

1.5k

You took time to recover from your shutdown and have used the time to think about what to do with what you know. The right thing to do would be to report the authorities but how would you explain how you got that information? You weren't exactly abducted and you got out alive. You sigh. It is just as heavy as your own thoughts.

"You could try to figure it out on your own." "Like a detective?" "Detective work feels like a hassle." You get ready to go out and see both the feather and the tracker phone on your desk. "Wouldn't hurt to leave those alone." You tell yourself. Is there really any reason to keep in touch with both? You can always pretend like nothing happened, that you've never met them. Just as you've always done.

You make the call. "Hello? I'd like to go if the offer is still available."

You wait at the corner of the street to be picked up. A car comes up to you and someone comes out. It wasn't anyone you recognise but your distrust must be within their expectations. They introduced themselves as your driver and gave you the information you need to trust them for the moment at least.

"So he'll know if I go missing?" You play it off as a joke but it was a genuine concern of it still.

They say yes.

You get in the car and let them drive you to the place. You fidget with your clothes as you anticipate your arrival. You consciously make an effort to make yourself look and feel calm.

The driver helps you out of the car and you were greeted by those who are supposed to be assisting you. Your eyes scan but you don't see him anywhere. You breathe out. "I guess it's for the best..."

"L/n Y/n?"

"Yes?" You turn but saw no one but a brooding man with an intense gaze. You lower your head to avoid his eyes then see a small white heteromorph.

"I'm Nezu. You must be the one Hawks contacted me about. Are you ready to register your quirk?"

"Uhm. Yes, but I don't have much control over it since it manifested so late." "What's the etiquette of talking to a person this small?"

"That's okay. You don't have to worry about losing control. We have someone who can take care of that."

You follow the peculiar person down the hall. "You mean Hawks?"

"No. Aizawa." He gestures towards the brooding man.

"Oh."

You did all sorts of tests. Some have been more difficult than others. Like, the needle not being to break your skin. But worse than all of them, was when you were put in a room with someone asking you questions about your life and childhood that you don't even remember anymore. You look in the mirror. This isn't like any other psych evaluation.

"Dr..."

"Just a few more minutes." He reassures. "How are you feeling?"

"Like you need to get out and bring the man who could stop me from losing control of my quirk." You answer but the tone of pleading escaped your throat. "Please!"

You rise from your seat and hold onto your chest. You can't breathe.

"It's okay. Why don't we try to calm down together."

You feel a presence coming towards you so you scream and swing your arm but your arm got caught in what looked like a bandage. You realise that you can't activate your quirk. You follow the cloth and see the brooding man from before.

He quickly let you go.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I was scared!"

"It's okay. We can stop here."

You have a weighted blanket over you as you wait by the lobby.

"Is she still here? Y/n!"

You turn to the voice and see the pro-hero coming towards you. "Sorry. I couldn't come sooner. I was held up in work. Did anything happen?"

You shake your head but you feel tears forming and threatening to make themselves known. "I think I messed up." You babble then bury your face in your hands.

Hawks chuckles a bit. "I think you're supposed to, Y/n. If you didn't the data might not be accurate."

"They didn't even do anything. I just panicked."

"You think you need some air?"

Hawks flies you to the top of the hospital. You sit down on the floor and breathe in and out deeply.

Both of you stay silent, but there was an agreement between you two as well. You both want to ask about being with the villains.

"Y/n—" "Hawks—"

"Oh—" "Oh—" You both chuckle and fall silent.

"About the villains—"

"I trust you." You immediately say. "Whatever your reason, I trust you. Even if we take different paths, I trust you." The words become heavier in your heart as you repeat them.

"I'll always get to you when you need me." Hawks smiles though very different from the ones he puts on for the masses. "Count on it."

"Oho~ She came back," Toga comments as she sees you.

"Dabi's little girlfriend?" Twice asks as he peeks from the door.

"Girlfriend?" You repeat in confusion. "Little??" You look at Twice but quickly back down when you notice the height difference between you two. "I— I thought I wanted to check this place out more?" You say your excuse, but actually, you're here to tail a friend. "What do you do here exactly?"

"What you trying to know our secrets to sell us out?" — "Are you gonna be our friend then?"

"I guess I shouldn't have asked that. Is Dabi here? I called him to get here but I haven't seen him."

"He's out," Toga answers. "You wouldn't mind hanging out with us for a bit, right?" She grins.

"Well, there's not much else to do but that, right?"

Toga drags you around to show you everything she likes while Twice follows along giving commentary. There you find a little about their hierarchy.

"League of Villians using the Liberation Army as a front." You note. "Ah. Where's Shigaraki?"

"He's with the doctor." Toga answers immediately but her eye are trained on you.

You pause for a moment. "Is he sick or something?" You feel pressure weighing down on you the more the topic continues.

"Something like that."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Hey, it's Hawks. Hawks!" Twice waves down at the hallway.

Hawks's eyes met with yours and you give him a gentle smile. You three joined up with him. Though it seems that the group was already divided with Toga staying close to you and Twice talking up a storm with Hawks. And between you and Hawks, you both built a wall in between you two for this.

"Wait, why did you come back? Are you joining?" — "You better not be a spy or anything."

"Honestly..." You start. "I'm on the fence about it. I was thinking about talking to Dabi or Shigaraki to help make things clear for me."

"Why them? We're here." Toga asks.

"Hmm. Well, why are you guys here?"

"Because the League makes me feel useful and they're fine with being me." Twice answers.

"Because I want things my way." Toga follows.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." You mutter you put your hands in your pockets. "Me? I'm just looking for something to aim for."

"Like what?" Toga looks at you with curiosity.

You shrug. "Hope. Freedom." Your voice lowers. "I'm honestly tired of being no one I guess." You briefly glance at Hawks. He himself was quiet but you can tell by his eyes he was thinking. "I don't want to put up a front though, I wanna be myself."

"See? That sounds like our cause." Toga holds your hand. "You should really join us. It would be nice to have someone I like around."

"Yeah..."

You sit down facing the horizon. You hug your knees and play the scene in your head over and over to try and get an emotion out of yourself.

"I see you have found the roof." You watch as Dabi joins you.

"Toga and Twice kept me company. They seemed nice."

"And they seem to like you too. Don't know how to feel about the crazies liking you."

"It takes one to know one." You both laugh.

"Twice says you plan on joining."

"Wouldn't say plan. It's complicated." You shift to a different position propping your head.

"What else is there to think about?"

"Someone doesn't want me being here." You lean back. "And I did say I don't want to get caught up in this war of yours."

"You mean Hawks?" Dabi scoffs and clicks his tongue, annoyance growing in his chest. "What does that hero have to do with your business?"

"Same that he doesn't have any like you." You answer then fall silent for a moment. "I've studied people as a pass time. Shigaraki has something people need to fear. And for someone like you, alongside him." You give Dabi a side glance. "I can already see what comes next."

Dabi raises his eyebrows. "What's that?"

"The pain you all feel." You shift again and fold your hands together. "And it's difficult to deny that that's my pain as well."

taglist:

© 2023 Alfi. Do not replicate.

[darknetneopets]

I wonder, if my oc, William, would meet Eden, how would that go? Especially since both are kinda inspired by Chernabog-

OOOOOHHH that would be interesting!! William is so cool btw!!

I mean- funny answer: Spider-Man pointing meme asshjgks but for real ooogh I feel like they could have some interesting interactions since they’re both kind of mysterious but in very different ways,,,

I find the relationship William has to Yuu super interesting and can totally imagine it with Eden (since he’s my version of Yuu) I’m excited to see what you do with your fanfic idea for William!

It might depend on how William chooses to behave towards Eden. He seems very cool and imposing- but unless he gets super aggressive or standoffish that won’t bother Eden ‘beast tamer’ Grey much. We are talking about a person (fresh from another dimension) who had no problem scruffing a fire breathing cat monster, sharing a dorm with ghosts, or befriending the ominous horned dragon man lurking around the Ramshackle grounds at night!

I like to imagine Eden as having a curious ‘charm’ affect on others, especially monsters and other supernatural beings as a nod to Chernabog’s ability to seemingly summon ghosts and demons etc. So there’s the possibility William might find him similarly soothing to be around (depending on if you think his charm would affect William or not of course!)

It seems like William is very good at getting people to trust him if he wants to and he certainly would have no trouble with Eden. Seven help William if he decides to be openly friendly or supportive towards Eden (congratulations, William, you are now an adoptive big brother figure! Have fun with your new magicless sidekick and their talking cat :3 )

Once you’ve befriended Eden there’s no shaking them, outside of actively choosing to hurt or betray him (even then maybe not, he forgives a bit too easily) and while he can’t do much to retaliate against being wronged, his distress might summon a very displeased dragon prince…

Obviously William is the much cooler and more powerful Chernabog figure and kinda makes Eden look like a disappointing descendant- like a tiger shaking his head while he watches a domesticated cat run around askgjks,,,

I totally think Eden would love William and find himself drawn to him the same way he is with Malleus and Lillia. Eden has a thing for anything old, spooky, and eccentric!

Also Eden would absolutely affectionately shorten his name to ‘Will’ unless William voiced a strong dislike for it. I can also picture William calling Eden ‘lil devil’ like Lillia dose for some reason, just vibes I guess <3

[as for my dorm leader au Eden,,, he would avoid William at all costs. He's only a house warden by technicality and is trying not to draw any attention to himself his first year on NRC’s infamous campus- especially when it comes to powerful seeming guys like William! But they would probably bond over both having a soft spot for Yuu and become cordial at the very least.

ACTUALLY with William in that au I could see him being the Chernabog dorm leader and maybe Eden as his new vice warden!! Maybe I should draw William in the Chernabog dorm uniform when I finish designing it! :3 ]

Anyway asdjghks this was a lot but this ask made my day!!! Also William is officially one of my blorbos and will be rotting my brain from now on,,, <3

[sugarcoatednightshade]

Truth or Dare With The Devil

D’lielaxiu groaned, obscuring its face behind a veil. “No way, no way am I gonna do it.”

“Oh, come on Li, don’t be such a bore!” Tex’s voice was barely audible over the chorus of laughter echoing around the room.

It protested without opening its mouth, still too embarrassed to show its face. D’lielaxiu didn’t even know why it’d let its mirror-kin drag him to this stupid party. It should have been at home! Studying for the upcoming exams. Speaking of which…

“I don’t even have my license! What if I get caught,” it shouted a little too loud, excited to have a valid excuse. “No way am I gonna wait another century to take the exam.”

That, at least, gave Tex pause. “They aren’t gonna catch you,” he said, though Li could taste the hesitation in his voice.

D’lielaxiu kept going, peeking out from its veil. “Besides, where would a mortal even get my summons? I don’t just give it out to anyone.” It glanced at Aingorah, who flushed. “It’s really a lame dare, if you think about it.”

It sat up straight, trying to project the air of confidence it had seen from its favorite professors. Li could smell desperate hope wafting off its shoulders, tried to ignore it. Maybe they won’t notice, and Tex’ll just choose a different dare.

Tex opened a mouth to speak but was cut off by a clap of thunder from Kha’ast. A small clap, compared to what Li had seen from their mirror-kin in class, but it loud enough to subdue Tex into silence.

Kha’ast leaned forward, “But that’s the point! The Authorities really only watch for license infractions in demons who actually, you know, have licenses. Right now, you’re basically untraceable.”

Aingorah leaned backwards in a casual pose. “Besides, I bet your record is squeaky clean. The Authorities don’t revoke permits for first time offenders.”

For the first time since the dare had been spoken, D’rheaxia spoke up. “You would know all about that, Gorah. How many strikes do you have now? Five?”

As Aingorah sputtered, D’lielaxiu studied its mirror-kin. Layers of feathers and sheer gauze, normally charmed to billow in an untraceable breeze, now lay flat. Yellow eyes, clearly visible from behind her own veil, narrowed. She looked undeniably smug, but mirror-sense let it see the hidden meaning within.

The way her feathers tilted meant question; this twisting of gauze, like a knife, meant attack; and her voice, too, allowed Li to guess at the target.

Li answered in the same mirror-code. Aloud, it continued to protest, only half caring as the argument devolved into accusations and insinuations.

Do you need me to step in, Rhea asked. It’s not a fair dare, they can’t ask you to break The Law.

He pitched his voice slightly lower, then sighed: If I decline, what then?

A hesitation in response, then a flex of talons beneath her cloak:  you don’t have to impress them.

It shuddered, then adjusted its hood: I want to impress them. To anyone else, this would have been a terribly embarrassing confession. But Rhea was mirror-kin, born of the same reflection, and nothing between them was hidden.

Rhea side eyed it, gave him a look that said without code: My friends are jerks.

It stared back in admittance: still, I want their respect. It gave her a small smile: maybe it won’t be that bad.

“Oh alright, fine, I’ll do it!” There, Li had said it. There was no coming back now. A chorus of cheers and jeers went up around the room, the demon sitting next to it knocked its cup against it’s in congratulations.

Rhea, sitting on its other side, knocked its shoulder, said “I told you guys he wasn’t a coward!” Setting off a new round of cheers and drinks.

Someone passed D’lielaxiu a sheet of parchment. Li dragged a claw across it, carefully drawing its summoning circle. Drifting swirls that represented its Name intersected with generic warding and calling and dismissive sigils. It was a symbol that echoed deep within Li’s being. It has only ever drawn it once, in the privacy of a classroom; then, the paper had been destroyed almost immediately. Drawing it here, in front of a crowd it barely knew, Li couldn’t help but feel ashamed. Was it taking too long to draw it? What if everyone thought his Summons was lame?

Several more rounds of truth or dare passed before Li finished the outline. Then, it brought a paw behind the veil and bit into it. Mixed blood and spit dripped onto the parchment, which began to glow in the fifth dimension.

Rhea glanced over, nodding politely. Somewhere within her veil, a beak clacked with appreciation.

Truth or dare finally ended. D’lielaxiu made eye contact with Tex and Aingorah, who both began making their way over to it. Only a firm claw on its back kept it from taking a step backward.

She wasn’t looking at it, but Li heard Rhea whisper in its ear, “Do not back out now.”

Then she was gliding forward, greeting Tex with a nod and embracing Aingorah with two back wings.

Aingora smiled at her before leaning around to D’lielaxiu, “Oh, this is going to be so much fun! You’ll love the mortal plane, there’s always so much going on, it’s absolutely enchanting!”

“Yeah, I’ve never actually been.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s actually way more fun than they make it sound in school. I mean, most of those professors haven’t even been there in like, decades.”

Tex chimed in, “and even then, they only ever talk about politicians and stuff.”

Aingorah nodded, “Right, it’s all about politics and rules for them. If I didn’t want a license so bad, I’d’ve dropped out ages ago, it’s so boring.”

Involuntarily, Li felt itself begin to smile. Aingorah and Tex, annoying as they were, had a kind of infectious joy about them. Li passed forward the Summoning paper.

Aingorah nodded. “Perfect. I’ll run and drop this off somewhere, you should feel a call in just a week. Make sure you take it, it’ll hurt more if you try to resist.”

“Any other advice?”

This time, Tex answered. “No, but you gotta swear you’ll let us know what’s happening before you leave.” His gelatinous form rippled, dark ooze dripping from his mouth. “I wanna be there when you get back, to help acquaint the little mortal with how things work around here.”

Li shrunk deeper into its veil as Aingorah swatted him, “Don’t be gross, Tezerix.”

Ignoring the implications, Li signaled a question to Rhea. How was it supposed to answer the summons quickly while also alerting these ones.

“I’ll give you a tug when I feel Li leave,” she said to the group.

The two shrugged.

“Works for me,” Tex said.

“Same here,” said Aingorah. For a minute, they all stood in comfortable silence, thinking. “I’m gonna go get this delivered, you have any final requests before I go.”

Li sighed, “not really, I guess. Just make sure I’m not summoned by some rich asshole who thinks he’s better than me.”

Rhea shot him a look that caused Li to wince, suddenly sure it had revealed more about itself than it was supposed to. Was I too weak? Are people gonna think I can’t even stand up to an overconfident mortal, now?

But all Aingorah did was smile before flitting away, and Tex just sent it a sharp grin, patting its shoulder before going off to talk up his buddies.

Li turned towards D’rheaxia. “Was that… wrong of me to say? Should I have not specified anything?”

Rhea looked around before pulling it in. “No, no, it’s good that you had some kind of request, it shows them that you’re taking this dare seriously. It’s more like, uhm, I guess it’s just that…” she trailed off, looking for the right words. Li looked at her and was shocked to see that she was embarrassed.

“Well now that she knows you’re really okay with this, she’ll definitely be trying to match you up with someone she thinks is your type.”

Li blinked. “What?”

~~~

Woag i hope you enjoyed this absolute brainrot i spat out in like an hour. if youre curious its based off of this dpxdc post I saw earlier today by @undercookedcatgut. it/what i wrote felt a little too ooc for danny, in any au i can think of. like that boy is waaay too nice to kidnap and marry an innocent bystander for the bit idc who dared him to do it.

[doctormead]

Danny’s eyes widened as something occurred to him.  “Wait, wait, wait!  Like Sam says, Queen Dora’s been teaching us...isn’t magic just...magic.  Is there really a difference between human and ghost magic?”

John groaned, finally gave in to the nic fit and pulled out a package of cigarettes.

“Fuck off, Bats,” he snapped as the vigilante glared at him.  He quickly lit one and took a deep drag off it to steady his nerves.  “The answer is kinda yes and no.  In the Venn diagram of magic, you’ve got human, divine, infernal, fae and even non-terrestrial.  And that’s not even getting into shit like Life, Death, The Green and The Red and other pure manifestations of elemental forces of the universe.  Now, there IS a hell of a lot of overlap, but where they don’t?”  Another drag and long exhale.  “Those gaps...that’s where bad shit can happen if you don’t know them at least enough to take them into account.”  He gestured at Danny who was becoming visibly anxious again.  “Since you’re balanced between Life and Death, you’re gonna need a through grounding in both along with the human and divine versions of each.  Your mates probably need the same, but I can tell Barbarella probably needs to meet Swampie given the Green in her aura.  And that’s just for starters.  So, yeah, this Dora?  Probably not gonna be able to give you all you need.”

Tucker slumped in his chair.  “Man, we...had no idea.  Guess it’s a good thing we went the summoning route.  I mean, if we had known about Batman and just called him, we wouldn’t have needed to know what we needed to ask for!”

“That sonuva bitch!” Danny snarled.  Heads snapped in his direction as he surged to his feet, knocking his chair over.  He glared at the ceiling and shouted, “CLOCKWORK!!!”

A twist on the summoning prompt

Ok, we've had many variations on Danny being summoned by cultists, villains, JLD, JL and bored kids at a slumber party, but what if DANNY tried to do a summons?

The scenario: Danny finds out that, once he hits 21 (let's say he's 16 when this little bombshell gets dropped on him), he's gonna be landed with the Kingship of the Infinite Realms. No, he can't get out of it. No, he can't abdicate to someone he thinks will do a good job. AND, if he can't hack it once he hits that age, the consequences will be...unpleasant to say the least.

Queue panicked questioning of various friendly Ancients who say they can't be his mentor for this (conflict of interest/inadequate scope for what he needs to learn/obscure excuse). Clockwork finally tells the desperate teen that, if he looks hard enough, he will find an appropriate mentor.

Well, Danny doesn't think he has time to search for such a mentor and taking out an advertisement in the IR's local newspaper equivalent may as well be painting a target on his back. But, he HAS been summoned a few times and thinks that two can play at this game.

So, with the help of Sam, Tucker and Jazz, he tries to come up with a summoning ritual for a mentor. The requirements are extensive but specific: non-hostile to Phantom (they initially thought about using "friendly to Phantom" but figured that would be too limiting given their situation), able to instruct in multiple forms of combat, able to instruct in strategy (small scale as well as large scale), able to instruct in management and politics (also on various scales) and, most importantly WILLING to be a mentor in such subjects.

The circle is cast and, when the smoke clears, a very startled Batman is standing in the center. Team Phantom didn't think they'd need to specify that the new mentor also be a ghost.

[destiny-fics]

The Joker-Jung Wooyoung

[Demon!Jung Wooyoung x Fem!Reader]

Warnings: Smut, semi-public sex, Dom!Wooyoung, Sub!reader, Sex Demon!Wooyoung, Dirty talk, nightclubs, possesive Wooyoung, reader is referred to as 'my love,' by Wooyoung, unprotected sex, please wrap it before you tap it

Taglist: @treasure-hwa @vitrealislux @breezy-simp @bucky-thorin-winchester @scuzmunkie @sweetsojudreams

Let me know if you'd like to be added to this series' taglist

Smut under the cut. Minors do not read!

"You're going to summon Wooyoung to ask him to go to a club with you?"

You sighed at Hongjoong's words, nodding as you swiped some sparkly eyeshadow over your eyelids. The demon was sitting in Seonghwa's lap, the two of them on your bed. They'd come to visit you together, now that they could. You'd learned that the two of them liked doing a lot of things together, including you. "Yes, and I'm not appreciating this judgemental voice you've got going on Hongjoong. Seonghwa thinks it's a good idea, right?"

"I mean. I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a good idea sweetheart. But Wooyoung will definitely be a good time," Seonghwa was running his fingers through Hongjoong's hair gently, "besides Wooyoung is a fantastic dancer. He's got those dancer hips."

You laughed and hummed softly to yourself as you finished off your eye makeup, "And, all Eric's friends will be there with their sexy dates, I need a sexy date of my own. Who better than Wooyoung?"

"Um," Hongjoong gestured between him and Seonghwa, hoping you'd be able to see it through the vanity mirror, "us? We're sexy too."

"You're very sexy Joong I agree, but you were the one that told me I should be summoning you guys more often remember? And Hwa told me that Wooyoung doesn't like to wait, so I'm not keeping him waiting."

Hongjoong grumbled "I did say that I guess."

You laughed and shook your head, turning to face the men. "Next time Hongjoong, I promise."

You'd never tell Hongjoong or Seonghwa that there was another reason you were summoning Wooyoung that night. Since you'd first summoned Seonghwa you'd been doing a bit more research of your own as to what exactly your boys were, who this enchantress was and how exactly you were going to stop them from having to start a new contract all over again after you'd summoned San. Everything seemed to be a dead end. You couldn't find much about the enchantress, not even in advertisements for the carnival, nor could you find much information about demons that matched the descriptions of yours. It seemed impossible to get answers.

At least that was until you'd called Wooyoung.

He'd become almost your confidant in all of this. As much as he liked to talk he also was a great listener and he happily sat there listening through the phone as you complained over the fact that you couldn't help them out of this situation.

Until he'd offered a solution. He knew where the enchantress was. At least, he knew where she lived and assumed that she would at least be there once-ish a week. And he'd tell you when you summoned him, too scared one of the others would overhear him.

And that was what you would do tonight. The club was mostly a cover so Hongjoong didn't get suspicious but you really were going there with Eric and his friends. It was just the last thing on your mind.

You finished your hair and makeup and stood up, making you way over to Seonghwa and Hongjoong, gently plucking the card out of Seonghwa's fingers.

"I suppose you'll want us to head off then?"

You nodded, smiling softly and leaning down to peck both Seonghwa and Hongjoong's lips, "Thank you. I promise we'll be safe and behave."

"We know you'll behave princess," Hongjoong smiled, stroking your cheek gently, "it's Wooyoung who we're worried about."

"I'll make sure he behaves."

The men laughed softly and each kissed you once more before they disappeared and you were alone once again. You checked yourself in your mirror once more before flipping the card over three times, beaming when Wooyoung materialised in front of you.

"You called?"

You rolled eyes with a laugh and walked over to him, pulling him into a hug "You came!"

"You were expecting someone else?" He laughed, patting your hair, "Of course it was me."

"Shut up," you mumbled into his shoulder, "Thank you for doing all of this for me."

"Going to a nightclub? It's not exactly out of my comfort zone."

You pulled back and raised an eyebrow at him "You know that's not what I'm talking about."

"I know," he grinned and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, waving it in front of your face. "I'll give it to you after yeah? So we can have some fun when we're out."

You sighed but nodded. Wooyoung was right. You wouldn't be able to focus on anything but finding the enchantress if he gave you that paper now, and you deserved to have some fun, you both did. "Okay, you ready?"

He nodded and tucked the paper back in his pocket "Always."

~

Eric and his friends were already at the club when you and Wooyoung arrived and he bounded over to you both, throwing his arms around you, "Y/n! You're here," he raised an eyebrow at Wooyoung "with not Hongjoong."

You laughed and patted Eric's back, pulling out of the hug "No, this is Wooyoung. Wooyoung, this is Eric, my best friend."

Wooyoung nodded in recognition "Ah, Eric. Hongjoong's told me about you."

Realisation flashed through Eric's eyes and he mouthed a 'sexy demon?' At you before turning back to Wooyoung. "All good things I hope. Here, come with me so that you can meet everyone else," Eric led you both over to the small group sitting around a table. You slid into a chair next to one of Eric's friends Felix and waved at everyone else, having met them all before. "Guys, this is y/n, my best friend, you should all remember her. If you don't I'll have to cut you off. And this is Wooyoung, y/n's..."

"Boyfriend," Wooyoung finished Eric's sentence, flashing a wink your way "I'm her boyfriend."

Eric looked between the two of you for a bit before nodding, "Yes, her boyfriend. Wooyoung, this is Felix, Jisung, Sunwoo and Juyeon."

Wooyoung gave them all a wave before sitting down next to you "Nice to meet you guys."

Conversation seemed to flow between you all easily after that. Wooyoung was such a social butterfly and he seemed to get along with everyone well. He'd placed his hand on your thigh after he'd sat down and kept it there throughout the whole conversation, thumb rubbing across the skin gently. You didn't mind it, in fact you found it quite comforting, if a little distracting to your conversation with Felix.

Wooyoung tapped gently on your thigh and nodded his head to the dancefloor when you looked at him, "want to go dance?"

You nodded and stood up, letting Wooyoung lead you to the middle of the dancefloor and pull you close, beginning to sway you to the music, "I like them. Eric's friends, him too."

"Good," you had to raise your voice slightly to be heard over the music, "I think they like you to."

"Everyone likes me y/n."

You raised an eyebrow "Is that so?"

"I think you'll find it is yes. I have that natural charisma about me."

You laughed, wrapping your arms around Wooyoung's neck, "You sure that's not just because you're a sex demon?"

Wooyoung moved closer to you until he was pressed right up against you, his lips fanning over yours, "as your boyfriend, I am hurt by the lack of faith you have in my natural charms."

"Who said anything about you being my boyfriend Wooyoung."

"Hongjoong and Seonghwa are your boyfriends aren't they?"

You blushed so deeply at the question that you were sure Wooyoung could see it through the colourful lights of the club, "They aren't."

"Don't tell them that y/n, you'll break their hearts," Wooyoung was so close to you that you could feel every movement of his hips against yours as he danced.

"We've never spoken about it. I guess we should though..." of course you wanted Hongjoong and Seonghwa to be your boyfriends. You wanted them all to be your boyfriends. "Besides, I didn't think you had hearts."

"Oh we do have hearts... and mine?" He chuckled deeply and leaned to whisper in your ear, "mine burns for you."

You gasped at his words and Wooyoung pulled back with a grin to begin peppering kisses down your neck. It suddenly felt like the two of you were the only people on the dancefloor. Like all the other patrons had melted away. Like Eric and his friends weren't cheering for you. Like Felix wasn't cheering a little less than the others. Like there was no one in the world but you and Wooyoung.

"Wooyoung," you whispered, fingers curling into the front of his silky shirt.

"Just say the words my love," he spoke in between kisses, "just tell me that you desire me and I'm all yours."

You arched your body impossibly closer to his and nodded "I desire you Wooyoung."

Wooyoung grinned and pulled away from you, leading you off the dance floor and to and unoccupied area of the club, immediately pressing his lips to yours with a desperate hunger. His kisses were messy and hot and passionate and they made your head spin. It really felt like he couldn't get enough of you and he wanted you to feel the same. He wanted to fill your head with the thought of him so all you could think was Wooyoung, Wooyoung, Wooyoung.

And you kissed him back with just as much passion and want, fingers twisting through his hair and tugging to bring him impossibly closer to you. "Wooyoung please," you whispered in between desperate kisses, grinding your hips up to meet his.

"Please what my love?" He grinned wickedly, slipping his thigh between your legs and prompting you to grind down in it, "want me to touch you? Right here in this hallway where anyone could see us?"

You nodded quickly, dragging your clothed cunt against his thigh and whimpering quietly at how nice the pressure felt "Please Wooyoung...Please touch me."

He smiled again and nodded before pushing up your dress and sliding down your panties, his fingers sliding over your already wet lips and circling your clit "Gonna let me fuck you my love? Let me bury my cock in your sweet pussy and make you cum all over me right here? Would you like that?"

You nodded and Wooyung smiled as his slipped his fingers down to your entrance, only to find out that he could fit two in with absolutely no resistance, you moaning against his lips.

"Oh? Did someone already fuck you my love? Was it Hongjoong? Or Seonghwa? I know they were with you before you summoned me," there was a slight edge to his voice, but it was more playful than anything. He had no problem with sharing you with his lovers, it was sharing you with anyone outside of that which set Wooyoung's teeth on edge.

"Both," you moaned, clenching around Wooyoung's fingers, "they both fucked me."

"Yeah? Did they do a good job? Stretch you out nice and good for me?"

"Yeah, they did. They're so..." you were cut of by a moan as Wooyoung curled his fingers inside of you "big."

"I know, they're so fucking big my love. You know who else is so fucking big? Me."

You nodded, clenching around his fingers, "Please fuck me Woo, please."

"As you wish." Wooyoung removed his fingers from your pussy and unzipped his pants, pulling his cock out of it's confines, stroking it a few times. Your mouth dropped open as you watched him, he was certainly not lying about being big. "You ready y/n?"

"Please, please. I'm ready. Fuck we Wooyoung please."

He grinned and slid his hard cock along your wet lips before slipping inside of you with a groan. "So wet my love, gripping me so well...fuck! You feel so so good."

"Please move Woo, please."

And Wooyoung obliged, beginning to fuck into you with passion. His thrusts were precise and in that moment you realised Seonghwa was right, Wooyoung did have dancer's hips. He fucked into you hard and fast, drawing every moan, gasp and cry of his name from your lips. His fingers were relentless on your clit, drawing quick circles.

"That's it my love, keep moaning like that for me, let them all know who's fucking you so well." The edge to his voice was back, but it was much less playful then last time and his thrusts increased in speed, if that was even possible. "Like Felix, couldn't fucking keep his eyes off of you."

You didn't have time to process Wooyoung's words when he was fucking you so so well and you were so so close to tipping over the edge.

"You want to let him know who's fucking you so well my love? Come on, scream my name while you cum around me."

You came with a cry of Wooyoung's name, arching up into him as your pussy clenched sporadically around him. The feeling of it made Wooyoung reach his orgasm, groaning deeply as he spilled into you, forehead pressed against your own. "Fuck so good lovely, so so fucking good."

You sighed softly, patting Wooyoung's hair, "You too Wooyoung. Filled me up so well." You could feel Wooyoung grin into your neck and he kissed it gently.

"Thank you my love." Wooyoung slipped himself out of you, tucking his softening cock back into his jeans and then sliding your panties up your legs, kissing your thigh softly. "Want me to take you home now?"

You nodded, "Yes please Woo."

He smiled softly and kissed your lips "Alright. Let's get you home."

~

You woke up the next morning without Wooyoung in your bed despite the fact that you'd gone to sleep with him the night prior. You understood though, you hadn't woken up with Hongjoong or Seonghwa when you'd first summoned them so you expected it was something they just did.

It didn't make waking up alone hurt any less though.

You rolled into the space Wooyoung had been occupying the night before with a soft sigh, pressing your face into the pillow to try and breathe in some of Wooyoung's scent, only to come face to face with a piece of paper. You frowned and sat up, looking at the small note which was sitting on your pillow, the neat scrawl on the front reading: My Love

You smiled and opened it, a small piece of paper slipping out. You ignored for now it in favour of reading the letter.

My dearest y/n,

Please don't be sad that I'm not there when you wake up, I would give nothing more but Hongjoong says we can't stay the night until after we've had our first turn. It sucks and I don't know why that's the rule, but it is.

Anyway, just wanted to say that while I really appreciate what you're doing for us, please be careful. I am the last person to be lecturing you on safety, but the enchantress is dangerous even for us and we're literally demons. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.

Her address is on a separate piece of paper. According to some of my sources she leaves at nine every morning and gets back at about two pm.

Please be careful my love.

I adore you,

Your Wooyoung

You grinned as you picked up the separate piece of paper, squealing "Yes yes yes!! Thank you Wooyoung you gorgeous man you!"

You were going to find the enchantress. You were going to find out why the boys were under this contract with her. You were going to find out how to get them out of it.

You were going to make sure you didn't lose them.

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[thedelusionreaderbitch]

Kaz Brekker x alkemi Reader - Strange Truths

A/n: This was so fun to do and me being an Alkemi really was happy with this request! Thank you! I'm so sorry it took so long though!

Warnings: None? Needles?

Request: ok ok so i have an idea- a kaz brekker x alkemi reader where kaz accidentally drinks one of the reader's newest chemical (prolly cause jesper slipped it into his drink) and it makes him super flustered and vv talkative and the reader has to keep him in their lab until they can finish the antidote and kaz tells the reader he likes them right after he takes the antidote so the reader realizes he's actually serious-

I do not own six of crows or shadow and bone or you!

Most people underestimated alkemi's but once they did it once they would not do it again. Kaz Brekker knew that alkemi's could just be as dangerous as a squaller all the way to a shadow or sun summoner if they were powerful enough. To be fair, very few were that powerful but most could kill you slowly and far worse than a heartrender so...

But you were a very powerful alkmei- one of the most powerful to ever live and that was why you are part of the crows. You can fight just fine, but the dregs had seemed to be getting very creative with their ways of killing to getting information and this was all thanks to you.

Though not all appreciated your talents.

Nina has grown up thinking that the alkemi's were weak was a part of those few, Inej just didn't understand you, Jesper understood but was still trying to come to terms with his own Grisha powers, Wylan thought you were amazing and Matthias was just flat out scared.

But that all changed when one day you poisoned a whole army.

Oh, Kaz was just... Happy? No one really knew, but sometimes he just seemed a bit more satisfied about how things were going with you around. Unfortunately for you, that meant he had to spend a bit more time around you trying to come up with more ideas. And that would have been just fine if it weren't for the fact that you were falling helplessly in love with Dirtyhands.

Ya, fuck.

Lately, you had been conjuring up something new in that lab of yours in the basement of the Slat. It was almost like a truth potion but not quite, it was to make it easier to get information out of its victims but not enough to notice.

Officially it was finished and you were going to go tell Kaz but you realized today everyone was going to be at the Crow Club. Just your luck that you hated socializing.

You sigh but you quickly grab the elixir and start running to the Club. Being late to a meeting was never really your foreté.

Finding finally the Crows even with the sea of people around you spot them when you meet Kaz's eyes. Of course, you had to meet his eyes. You go and sit down beside him as everyone had already decided on their drinks.

"Y/n's getting them this time since she's late!" Jesper grins in triumph as you just roll your eyes. It doesn't matter you guessed he was almost always going to be the one late so you figured it wouldn't matter if you had done it this one time. Besides, it would give the sharpshooter (and his boyfriend) a break for once.

Getting up from your seat you walk towards the bar and ask for everyone's drinks. He hands you them and you talk to the bartender as you walk back towards the group.

"I'm your waiter for one time only, don't get used to it."

Kaz just clears his throat and starts talking about a plan that's really in reality just a decoy because of Inej's intel there would be Dime Lion spies in the Crow Club today.

And why not take that to your advantage?

Suddenly Kaz stops talking and you lift an eyebrow at him. He just shakes his head and the others just shrug their shoulders and start a different conversation.

For a bit, you do engage in conversation with the other Crows but Kaz just seemed different? Like he was trying not to burst out talking or something?

"Dirtyhands, you good?"

Instantly his face flushed a bright pink and he stutters out;

"Ya-ya fine. Totally fine, everything's good. Go back to whatever I guess. Just leave me alone and do your work you shouldn't have even asked, so can you please-" He cut himself off and flushed (what you didn't even know was possible) red even brighter.

What the- You always called Kaz Dirtyhands as more as a nickname than a mean term almost like a term of endearment. Although he didn't know that he never had even blinked when you used the little nickname more than necessary so why was he now?

Also to add to that fact, was that you really never called him Kaz. It was mostly to keep yourself in check so you didn't get used to him too much. It was more like reminding yourself that you both weren't on a first-name basis even if you already were.

Narrowing your eyes, you can see that his pupils are slightly dilated and that he's bitting down on his tongue really hard to stop himself from talking. This wasn't just Kaz Brekker flustered, there was something else going on here. And you had to figure at fast before the Dime Lion spies did, or if they already had.

"Brekker, I need to you answer me honestly okay?" You lower your voice and you soften your tone like you would with your targets to get information out of them. You didn't like doing it, but it was the price to pay for his safety.

He just bobs his head up and down trying not to say anything.

"What have you ingested today?"

"Just the drink. Not anything else, being that I forg-" He cuts himself off from his whisper-rant covering his hand over his mouth.

"You haven't eaten today!" Accidently you raise your voice and the anger and concern shine through your usual stone-cold tone.

Kaz widens his eyes and gives you a look to shut the fuck up. He was still the Bastard of The Barrel after all.

Wait, now that you think about it...

You reach into your pocket for your newly brewed elixir and when you take it out it almost confirms it for you.

The lid is open.

Oh, fuck maybe it's better not to cure Kaz because you might just die after this.

It all made sense now though; talkative, flustered, overused & exaggerated facial expressions, looseness of the tongue. Those were all symptoms and you hadn't even noticed.

Well... At least you knew it worked and it was effective. Very effective... Fucking hell Kaz really is going to kill you now.

Grabbing onto his coat sleeve (being extra careful not to touch his skin) you drag him out of the crow club away from the prying eyes of everyone and the shouts of 'what the hell!' From your friends.

Quickly you drag him to the basement of the Slat where all your potions, bombs, machines, elixirs, poisons and most importantly supplies are.

"You can sit there." You point at a chair in the back of the room that basically had a view of everything.

"You better make me an antidote or I swear to-"

You cut him off before he says something he'll regret later. "Go sit your ass down Dirtyhands and let the real Grisha do their magic."

He flushes again and walks over to the chair but not without muttering under his breath how Grisha cannot do magic. And how their abilities work and etc.

By the saints! Now you really didn't want to reverse that chemical elixir, he just sounded really cute. But who the fuck are you kidding? This is Kaz Brekker we're talking about and you just thought of him as cute.

Welp, this is getting interesting.

Quickly you mix some ingredients together trying really hard to go as swift as you can. No one could see Brekker like this it would kill his reputation.

You look down at the antidote and you curse under your breath. This was going to need a needle. Oh fuck, you might as well just die right there.

Hurrying over to your cabinet you quickly go through the vials wondering what size you would need till you found the perfect one. It wasn't very big, and because it was fabrikator made he wouldn't even feel a pinch. But at the same time, it would hold your elixir even if it was a very tiny vial.

"Brekker, your gonna have to put your arm up for me."

You don't turn around knowing that this probably could be your death right here in your lab. At least Kaz Brekker will kill you so at least that's memorable. You sigh, Kaz Brekkers Alkemi was killed by Dirtyhands himself.

"Why?" Most of the time Kaz would just raise his eyebrow at you but because of the fun chemicals that he had in his body that was not the case.

"You might want to roll up your sleeve as well." You say nervously turning around so the needle was visible.

"Because I'm going to have to use a syringe."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?!"

You slowly walk over and you shake your head.

"Sleeves up."

Kas just grumbles while putting his sleeves up you can tell he's uncomfortable. Now looking back at it you didn't really know how many barrel rats have had needles before, and if they did it probably wasn't good.

"What's your favourite colour?"

He snaps his eyes to meet yours and that's the moment you press the needle in his skin.

As you thought before he didn't flinch but he looked like he wanted to kill you with that stare but his eyes seem to soften with your worried stance.

"It didn't hurt did it?"

Kaz just shakes his head and you sigh in relief. "There shouldn't be any after-effects but I might just check in to see just in case."

He's almost out the door when he stops just at the entrance.

"Your eyes."

You whip your head around to meet his dark eyes.

"What?"

Slowly he comes away from the door frame advancing on you and he shakily takes off a glove and presses his hand against your cheek.

"You asked me what my favourite colour was."

You have convinced yourself that at this moment you have stopped breathing. Nothing else matters but you two of you in this room. The feeling of his hand on your cheek sends butterflies everywhere in you. And you can't stop to think about how beautiful and terrifying those brown nearly black eyes are.

"Boss!" There's a shout from upstairs and he quickly pulls away putting his glove back on.

"So I'll be seeing you around Brekker?"

He rolls his eyes. "You know you can call me Kaz right?"

You laugh as you herd him through the door knowing that he has business to attend to.

"But I think you much prefer when I call you Dirtyhands."

The blush spreads across his cheeks albeit not as strong this time but at least you know it's not from one of your elixirs.

"Only you Y/n only you."

Words 1799

-thedelusionreaderbitch

Shadow and bone taglist: @kaqua @rika90 @thefandomplace @musical-theatre-obsessed-dumbass @gallysonegoodlung @navs-bhat @sumsebien @dontjudgeabookbythecover

[airi-p4]

Delivered

Hi!  It’s been a while since I wrote something, huh? I guess I’ve been (and I still am) having a writers block, but I’ve been feeling more inspired this week (vacation sure helps yay!), so I wrote this silly idea I had.

It’s totally CRACK / random with Adrien / Chat Noir salt just because. I hope it ended up making sense? ^^;

Warning: Adrien/Chat Noir salt, Crack fic, canon-divergence (Plagg and Tikki don’t know the other heroes secret identities + Master Fu is the Guardian) Summary: Plagg decides he’s had enough of Adrien, so he finds his way to choose a new user for his Miraculous. Just not in standard ways…

AO3

________________________________________________

This wasn't how Luka had expected the night to go.

He had been first, tied up, and then, thrown and locked in a locker from a supply room down Paris' sewers. By Ladybug. She had thought he was an akuma. And Luka… well, he hadn't expected his first meeting with the famous superhero to go like that. He couldn't say he wasn't really surprised either, though.

Now, Ladybug was talking- arguing- with his newly acquitted kwami, clear and loud, outside the closet he was trapped in.

"What's the meaning of this, Plagg! Where's Chat Noir!?"

"I left him" the God answered, unbothered.

"What-!? Are you crazy!? Why!?" Ladybug demanded.

Luka knew exactly what was coming, since he just had this conversation one hour ago…

"He was hurting my reputation"

"What…?"

"The self-sacrifice, the flirting, the jokes… I'm the god of destruction not the gag of destruction! I should be feared, not pitied or made fun of!"

"But-"

"C’mon! You defeat almost all of the akumas by yourself, Bug girl! Some people even call my power useless. You hear? They call me useless!" He groaned. "How am I not supposed to take action!? My pride has been deeply hurt!"

Ladybug was silent, and Luka imagined she had been as speechless as he had been when he first heard the God’s reasons too. Plagg was being even more dramatic than he had been with him, but he couldn't deny it- the kwami was right. Chat Noir had made questionable choices during akuma fights, and kids liked him for his goofy side. Pure entertainment. A joke.

"But- what about him? Who is he…?" Ladybug asked, pointing at the closet, Luka imagined. "And what about the previous Chat?"

"He's my new wielder. He'll be your partner from now on" Plagg answered. "The other Chat will have to accept it and learn from his mistakes. You should be happy you won't have to reject him anymore!"

That last part was new for Luka. Reject? All Paris thought they were dating. All media sources claimed so, even the very same Chat Noir! Suddenly he was feeling better about him being powerless now.

"What?" She asked, and Luka could almost see her wide eyes in his imagination. "Why him?"

Oh- that was a funny one…

"Why me?" Luka asked, looking at the kwami, just one hour ago.

"Because you have the ring" Plagg answered, flat and short.

"Wait wait wait! It can't be so- simple!"

Luka paused to remember how he got in that situation.

It had all been Juleka's fault.

And his own too, probably.

Juleka had been crying over her crushed dream and never being able to become what she wanted to, and Luka, as the good supportive big brother he was, comforted her, assuring her that she could be whatever she wanted to be.

It turned out she wanted to become a witch. Cast spells, summon familiars, make potions… Luka partly regretted his words. Mostly because it led Juleka to secretly attempt black sorcery and cast a spell for him to find love and be happy, as gratitude for his support. For said spell, she used his favorite ring and... it somehow ended up deep down the waters of the Seine.

Luka had been heroically holding his grudge to jump to the gross river to rescue his precious possession, but he changed his mind and gave up on it when he saw Juleka happily kiss her longtime crush Rose. 'At least the spell worked for Juleka' he shrugged, resignated.

As time went by, he missed fidgeting with his ring, and that's when he decided to buy a cheap one online to cover for the old one. Was it Ebay? Wallapop? He couldn’t remember, but said ring turned out to be the black cat Miraculous…

"I just bought a second-hand ring online! Anyone could have bought it! Even Hawk Moth himself!" Luka protested.

Plagg crossed his tiny legs before calmly answering. "Anyone would have been better than the previous Chat Noir, to be honest. And if it had been Hawk Moth, I would have been able to cataclysm them on the spot, so that wouldn't have been bad, really" Plagg's eyes burned in excitement for a moment, but then he sighed and looked back at Luka again with a tiny smile. "But it was you. So it's your responsibility now. You're going to be Paris' new superhero, my partner and fight alongside Ladybug. You should be honored!"

"Honored!? You can't be serious!" Luka was losing his mind. "You can't just shove me with unwanted responsibilities and expect me to accept! I'm busy and I'm not a hero! I've never wanted to become one! Not even as a child!"

"Everyone has a hero they admire. You can get ideas or inspiration from them" Plagg affirmed. Luka couldn't deny he had a hero… just not the type the kwami had in his mind.

"Look- yes, there's someone I admire. But he's not the typical hero. He's eccentric, chaotic, charismatic and talented, but he's a rock star that plays the guitar and lives with a crocodile. What do you expect me to do based on that!?" His arms opened wide as he walked around his cabin. "I'm not even fit!"

"Just roll with it, boy! It will be thrilling. And fun. Plus you'll be admired and famous. And don't worry about your physical condition, my powers will cover that" Plagg affirmed. "I'll be respected and feared again, with a mysterious touch. Paris will be safer and we won't have to cry for any other Parisian loss"

"Loss...?" Plagg's last sentence gave Luka shivers. "You mean saving Paris and Parisians from… death? Me…?"

"You and Ladybug, yes. She's the one with the Miraculous cure. If she's out, the damages caused by akumas can't be restored. Even fatalities."

He sat down in a meditation pose. That was a lot to sink in.

Paris… and Ladybug. That was a very heavy weight to carry on anyone's shoulders. Considering how the previous Chat Noir was, he couldn't help but feel sorry and sympathize with Ladybug. A young girl carrying such responsibility… the weight of the world on her shoulders… all alone.

Luka's sense of justice was too strong to say no.

"Ok. I'll do it. For Paris."

"Good! Now let me teach you the basics and how to transform. Think well, because the suit you imagine is the one you'll wear every time you transform from now on." Luka nodded and Plagg continued. "C'mon, Ladybug is waiting for us in the sewers."

"The sewers…?"

……

"This is unbelievable! Why didn't you just tell me or Master Fu!? We would have looked for a replacement ourselves instead of leaving everything to chance? To luck?" Ladybug groaned. "I'm sure Master Fu would have known someone!"

"Well, that would have been difficult. I don't know you under the mask. Neither where you or Master Fu live. And I can't talk to you if Ad-" a couple of bubbles left his mouth. "If the previous Chat Noir was always  transformed around you. I had no choice" Plagg explained. "Besides, Master Fu already chose the previous Chat Noir, so…"

She couldn't disagree.

"And how can we be sure we can trust him?"

"Do you really prefer to have the previous Chat Noir around instead?" Plagg asked, and Ladybug gulped. "See? You don't! Of course not! Me neither! He’s cool!"

"But still-" Ladybug continued. "There's no reason to involve anyone else. I could have managed all alone!"

"You’re wrong" Luka finally spoke, from inside the locker. "If you fall, it's game over. There's no way you can carry all of this weight alone. Let me help you."

"Eh?" Ladybug sounded surprised. "I can't-"

A sudden tremble interrupted them.

"An akuma!" Ladybug gasped, and Plagg flew toward Luka. "Plagg!"

"You want to know if he's worthy to be your superhero partner, right? This is the perfect time to find out!" Plagg crossed the door and unlocked the lock, leaving a puzzled Ladybug behind. "Say the words, kid!"

"Plagg, claws out!"

There was a flash of green, and soon, the new Black Cat Miraculous user stepped out of the locker. He looked at Ladybug's unconvinced eyes and spoke again.

"Look. I'm just as shocked about all this as you are and I can't ask you to trust me yet. But there's an akuma right there and now is not the time for this. Paris needs help and we're the only ones who can stop the villain. So let's go and you can give the Miraculous to someone else if you prefer once the fight is over. I never asked for this, but I can't keep still knowing I can stop people from getting hurt!"

Ladybug seemed moved by his words. When was the last time anyone near her paid real attention to akuma attacks? It seemed like ages since someone aside from her had actually cared for Paris and it's citizens. It was… refreshing. And reassuring. And correct: they had no time to waste.

"O- ok! We'll talk later. Let's go!" Ladybug ran, gesturing for the new cat to follow her. He obeyed.

…….

The akuma had been, unsurprisingly, the previous Chat Noir, with his same appearance and powers. He was angry that he lost the Miraculous and, more than that, how he wouldn't be able to see Ladybug daily anymore. Luka couldn't help but feel even more relieved Plagg left him, seeing the destruction he was causing as he moved around the city.

It surprised Ladybug how the new Chat Noir didn't jump to the battle carelessly. He seemed tactical- a planner. A strategist, like she was. His fists clenched in anger, but he stayed collected, focused. And she appreciated it. The previous Chat Noir would have already been turned into ashes.

Ladybug called for her lucky charm and soon, she came out with an unbelievable plan and bravely and admirably took him out with the new cat's help. Luka was dazzled by the girl. No wonder Chat Noir and half of Paris fell for her… wow… Extraordinary.

Something sounded very wrong in Ladybug's heart when the previous Chat Noir was revealed to be Adrien Agreste. Disappointment. Betrayal. Distrust. There were more emotions that escaped Luka's knowledge, but when they were back alone again, in the sewers, and she started crying, he was more than glad to lend her his shoulder and support.

Paris' unbreakable superhero cried.

Weak, fragile.

Human.

Traits people seemed to pretend didn't exist or to avoid acknowledging her with the excuse of the girl being a superhero. A facade she had to keep to make Paris' ungrateful citizens feel safe.

She kept crying for a long while, and that was Luka's turning point. He decided he was never going to let her cry like that again. He would share her burden and keep her safe. Not only for Paris, but also for the young girl behind the mask. Because, after all, she was a person under the mask. Not a superhero. Just like him.

"Feel better?" Luka asked, when her shoulders stopped shaking. Ladybug nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Yes. Thank you…" Ladybug finally said. "Thank you for not judging me… partner" There was a sweet blush under her mask Luka couldn’t perceive, but he welcomed her honest smile.

"You’re welcome" Luka smiled, relieved. "Count on me anytime you need a shoulder to lean on, partner"

………………

Marinette couldn't believe herself. It wasn't like her to trust strangers, or to expose her weakness to them that easily. Sure, she had gone through a lot that day. Adrien being Chat Noir… It made her feel like she had been crushing on a lie.

What was real? Who could she trust?

She had no answers, but there was something about that new cat superhero that gave her hope… He was accessible. Supportive. Caring. Warm. Understanding. Reliable… she had been missing those more than she even realized.

‘Oh-’ she had never asked him for his superhero name, she realized. She would have to next time. That was really something to look forward to. Plus, she felt lighter.

She giggled as she covered herself with her blanket, Tikki smiling beside her.

………..

"Hey Plagg," Luka asked. "Is there anything else I should know about the Miraculous?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like- Is it true the Black Cat and the Ladybug Miraculous are meant to be, like Adrien said?" Luka strummed his guitar.

"Nah." Plagg said, swallowing a piece of camembert. "That's irrelevant. What really matters is the compatibility of the people under the mask. The Miraculous have nothing to do with that" Plagg's answer relieved Luka. “Adrien made that up in his head. Do not worry about it, kid”

Luka hadn’t planned to fall in love. Especially not with his superhero partner. But after weeks of becoming closer… best friends… he couldn't deny his feelings of love for the girl. Wouldn't Plagg get angry if he knew? Wouldn't Ladybug be bothered as well if he confessed? It was good enough to spend time with her. Maybe someday, if Hawkmoth finally gets defeated…

……….

And that time arrived: after a few months, HawkMoth was defeated. No more evil. No more akumas.

And maybe Juleka's witchcraft spell worked out in the end.

Because Luka found out his feelings for the superhero girl were mutual right after the final fight. He was in love and happy. Just like his sister had wished for.

And not only that: he was also grateful his favorite ring still laid down the Seine. He wished for it to always stay underwater. Maybe it was silly, because he was more than sure he would have found his way to Marinette anyway, and fall in love with her even if no masks were involved, but he wanted this peaceful happiness to last forever.

And it did.

Fin

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Into The Unknown, Part 1

... I have no self-control do not perceive me

Marinette stared at the pile of bright red, yellow, and green clothes on the ground. It was all she’d done in the five-ish minutes since she’d portaled onto the scene. Just… stared.

It wasn’t like there was much else to do, anyways. Red Robin was currently beating the absolute fuck out of the person that had the audacity to disintegrate his brother right in front of him. It wasn’t like she could even fix it because the witch had been out cold before she had been able to pull Red Robin off to get a hit in so she could use her lucky charm.

So, she stared.

It was weird. She could almost feel a person inside the clothes but… maybe that was the residue or the ashes or whatever gets left behind when you zap a person out of existence? She didn’t really want to check, to be honest. Gross.

Eventually, though, she hesitantly leaned down and brushed her hand over it, trying to find the energy and get rid of it because it was really uncomfortable --.

… oh hell no that pile of clothes did not just fucking giggle at her.

She narrowed her eyes and carefully lifted up the bottom of the shirt, only to yelp and fall back. She scrabbled on the gross Gotham alley ground until her back hit Red Robin’s arm and he was forced to pause or risk hitting a meta (which would not have been good for his health).

“What?” He hissed.

She swallowed thickly. “That’s a child.”

“... what?” Red asked, all the anger bleeding from his tone in his confusion.

“We let Batman’s kid turn into a baby,” she whispered… then, it sunk in more. “We let Batman’s kid turn into a baby.”

He straightened on top of the thing that was really more bloody pulp than person at this point. “What do you mean ‘we let Batman’s kid turn into a baby’?”

But she didn’t really get a chance to answer because the baby chose that exact moment to be sick of being suffocated under all the armor and pushed it off.

Red Robin gulped. Because, yep, that was Robin as a baby. Batman was going to kill them.

Except he wasn’t going to kill them. Because Batman doesn't kill. No, Batman would find something even worse and that would suck.

The baby -- Robin? Should she still call him that mentally? -- giggled at their pain. Like an asshole.

They were so fucked.

~

He’d let B’s favorite kid get turned into a baby. Was there a way to get unadopted? Because if there was it was totally going to happen. Or maybe his dad would just cut him off because he was 19 now and could just get kicked out.

No. Nope! Not going to happen. No. He could fix this.

“Okay. Okay okay okay. We need a plan,” he heard himself saying.

Ladybug scoffed. “We? I was barely even here, this is on you.”

“Leave me alone to deal with this and I swear to god I will tell B that you did it.”

She paled. “You wouldn’t. No way.”

“Yes way. So, help me think of something.”

The baby giggled and started crawling over and both of them averted their eyes because, unfortunately, the child did not get baby clothes to go with his random transformation. Baby Damian didn't seem to care as he reached them and started climbing on Ladybug since she was closest. At least it wasn’t him. He did not want to see his adoptive brother’s… ew.

Ladybug made a gagging sound and then quickly summoned a lucky charm. She kept her face turned away as much as her neck would physically allow as she fumbled her way through swaddling the child in a polka-dotted blanket.

And then her shoulders slumped a little. “Great. Great. This is… great,” she muttered, picking up the bundle o’ baby.

He let himself look down now that it was safe.

“Alright, we need to go to another dimension where time moves faster,” Ladybug said after a few seconds. “And then we wait for him to age… fifteen-ish years. Best way to not make Batman notice.”

“... what about us? We also age.”

“Huh…? Oh. Right. You’re human.” She pulled off the glasses she was wearing and blinked a few times before handing it over. “Congrats on your upgrade. The tiny horse god is named Kaalki. She likes cake.”

“The tiny --?” He let out the world’s manliest screech as his eyes landed on the floating bug horse hybrid thing holy shit no no no no no the sci fi movies didn’t prepare him for this shit.

Kaalki looked a little offended but then her eyes landed on the baby and she gasped. “Aw, baby humans are always so cute.”

“Great, Kaalki, you take it,” said Ladybug.

Kaalki did try, to her credit. It just so happened that the approximately one-year-old baby was a lot bigger than the… whatever she was. Tim was refusing to believe that this was a god. Too many implications. He already had something to have a breakdown over, he didn’t need another thing right now, thank you very much.

Tim rested his head in his hands but he had more things to worry about than the blood that he was accidentally streaking through his hair.

“Okay. Okay. We can go to another dimension and try and raise him. Maybe we can make it have a ratio of one month here for every year there so any differences could be blamed on that.”

“Ya!” Said baby Damian. He probably didn’t actually know what was going on but he sure seemed excited so that was cool.

Ladybug sighed and nodded. “Great. You get food and money and clothes and I’ll take this lady to the cops… and I guess I’ll watch the kid until you get back because your dad cannot know.”

They shook on it.

~

This may be the dumbest idea that she’d ever had, and that was saying something. She didn’t know if she could trust Red Robin on this one, they hardly ever worked together. What if he just left her alone with this kid and let her try and figure this out on her own?

No. He wouldn’t do that. He was the last person known to be with Robin. Robin going missing would be bad for him, too. And, besides, she was pretty sure that he was a duty-driven person based on what she’d heard, she just had to hope that he saw this as his duty, too.

She turned the baby in her arms to get more comfortable as she waited for him to (hopefully) come back.

Part of her wanted to try and find someone from this world to reverse this but she didn’t know any outside of her, Adrien, Alix, and (now) Red Robin. Not on a personal level. Not enough that she knew for sure that they wouldn’t blab to Batman about it.

So, no, this is what she was doing.

But she had things to do. So, she pulled out her yoyo-phone-hybrid-thingy and wedged it against her ear.

“Chaton,” she said the moment he picked up. “You’re alone, right?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“Great. I, Ladybug, relinquish the Miracle Box and name Chat Noir the new guardian.”

“WHAT --?!” He didn’t get to finish as a box dropped on his lap and knocked the wind out of him.

“Just for, like, a year and a half. Sorry. Bye!”

“DON’T JUST ‘BYE’ ME WHAT THE --?!”

She hung up and closed the yoyo, hooking it back to her belt and ignoring it when it started buzzing again.

She looked down at Robin, who was squinting up at her. She returned the squint. Why was this baby so quiet? She didn’t get it. Surely, he should have been crying at this point.

“Do you still… remember things?” She asked, hoping against all hope that maybe he had retained his memories at the very least.

Robin smiled at her, but it was the blank-eyed baby smile that meant he wasn’t really understanding her. She bit down a curse.

Great. So, she’d not only gotten a baby but she’d gotten a fucking weird one. Great.

~

Tim left a note for his family saying that he, Damian, and Ladybug were bored and were going dimension hopping. His family would probably be suspicious but, hey, at least it wouldn’t be his problem for a good fifteen years on his end.

And, yeah, he knew this was probably one of his dumber plans but… it wasn’t the dumbest. And he was always one to commit when it came down to it. One time he had faked being shot and dealt with crutches for an entire year just to convince Vicki Vale that he wasn’t Red Robin. He had no fears that he couldn’t see this through.

Ladybug, though? A total mystery. She did nearly everything on a whim as far as he knew. She hopped from city to city fighting crime for absolutely no reason outside of boredom and made up all of her plans on the fly. No, he was a bit concerned about her ability to keep doing it.

So, he went as quickly as he possibly could. There was no rhyme or reason to what he was grabbing. He was just… putting stuff in there. There was money and three watches to help them move between dimensions, yes, but there was also a fanta orange and a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and exactly seven pairs of socks.

… yeah, he had the necessities. Probably.

He nearly got out the door before he realized he was still in his crime-fighting gear and he quickly shucked it all off and tossed it into the tub so the blood wouldn’t track any more than it already had. He did not need to avoid Batman’s wrath only to end up on the receiving end of Alfred’s.

He pulled on the first hoodie and jeans he could grab and looked around to make sure he hadn’t left anything of importance.

Okay. Now he was ready to go.

~

Marinette was awkwardly bouncing the baby when Red Robin finally showed up.

… not that she would have recognized him if she hadn’t felt Kaalki hovering in his pocket. In her eyes, he was just a random white guy wearing shades in the middle of the night.

She glanced up at him and gave him an awkward smile.

“Ready?”

He smiled back and held out two watches. Neither fit baby Robin so she prepared herself to choke out a literal baby holy fuck what even was her life.

“Which dimension should we go to?”

“Preferably one without miraculi,” Marinette said. “I don’t want to know what happens if there’s two of the same god in a dimension.”

He nodded slowly. “Probably best if Batman doesn’t exist, either, he’d probably notice my existence.”

“... so… no heroes at all?”

“Looks like we’re going cold turkey,” Red Robin said in a tone that was probably supposed to be joking but just came out flat.

She pushed herself to her feet and waited as he scrolled through the millions of dimensions.

Finally, he came upon one and she added the coordinates to her and Robin’s watches.

She readied Robin’s watch against his neck and tried to ignore the kid’s sudden squirminess.

“3… 2… 1…”

They were gone in a whirl of blue light.

~~~~~

Next

@nathleigh @peachmuses

[wackybuddiemewbs]

WIP Wednesday Buddie Edition

What can I say? Buck is one of my fave wump characters and I kinda dig this idea of him having his "oh" moment on the verge of dying. More so since of what we saw in season 6 thus far. Still don't know what I'm doing. Won't ever. But I'm rocking it, for better of worse. Cheers!

Working title: Reenact My Pain of Losing You

Basic idea: When the 118 is summoned to a field with actual trenches and not at all real soldiers of a world war, everyone is in for a bad surprise when the play turns dead serious. And it’s not just time that’s ticking for Buck and Eddie.

Find out more here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

“… I still wonder what the odds are,” Buck blurts out, asking.

“Odds for what?” he can hear the frown on Eddie’s face even down in that trench, looking at the stars above.

“To nearly die in a bombing, only to end up on a bunch of grenades. Like, what are the odds?” Buck heaves a small sigh, reminding himself not to move too much. “I mean, not that you would know. You suck at math, after all. I guess we both won’t ever know. But yeah… what are the odds, right?”

Buck is aware that he’s been battling the odds long before the bombing, long before he ever tried out as a firefighter. As he learned some time back, his life started against a great many odds. And while he dares to think he came to terms with it for the most part, there is no denying that he battled the odds, tested their limits, and sometimes even went well beyond them.

Still, it remains his shit luck to seemingly lose against the odds unintentionally. Because some guys wanted to play at war. Well, at least that proves him right about not having gone through with the SEALs training. Buck is not cut out for war either. Or rather, he doesn’t have the nerve for any of this.

“Well, maybe that means the odds are on your side,” Eddie argues. “Because someone who survived a bombing might just as well survive a second. Like people winning at the lottery who’d won before.”

Buck snorts at that. “You know that whole thing’s a scam, right?”

“Tell my abuela that.”

“I might jinx it.” He smirks. “Like, if I go tonight, she won’t get to me.”

“Buck.” Eddie’s tone is a warning.

“I’m kidding,” Buck assures him quickly. He knows he should cut that out. Eddie is clearly not taking well to his gallows humor, and that is likely the appropriate reaction. But Buck can’t seem to stop himself.

What’s the point anyway, right? If I don’t laugh about it, I might just as well cry about it. And what’s gained from that?

“Alright…,” Eddie mutters, then pauses. “You’ll have to pick a new category for quizzes, though. We’re through with geography, biology, and astrology.”

“I don’t wanna quiz anymore,” Buck whispers, feeling his chest tighten.

No, he isn’t going to cry. Not yet, at least. But he doesn’t want to think about lakes or constellations or weird animal facts anymore, either. Because they tend to make him think about Chris. And then he is this close to choking up after all.

“Sure, whatever you want,” Eddie answers quickly. There is another pause on the other end of the line.

Buck screws his eyes shut. Truthfully, he is more than grateful that Eddie has been keeping him preoccupied this whole time. It takes his mind off of the obvious. And Buck always found something particularly deafening about silence. Lying in that trench all by himself when Eddie is not there to fill the silence nearly makes him lose it every time.

“So, ugh… What else do you wanna talk about, then?” Eddie asks, his voice soft, almost too soft for Buck. But that’s just Eddie.

Buck licks his lips.

What do you want to talk about before you die? Might die?

Loaded question, he supposes. One he maybe should have taken to Dr. Copeland before. After all, it’s the kind of question that may come up on any call. But it never came up for Buck until now, oddly enough. Because it’s not his first time dancing the dance of death. He had close calls before, very close calls.

Like the bombing, the ladder truck. But back then, he didn’t think about that. He was scared, downright terrified. And in pain. Lots of pain that even the adrenaline couldn’t wash away. It happened too fast for him to start crafting a speech or whatever else. He just dug his nails into the gravel and tried to stay awake, grappled on to life in a desperate attempt that somehow went in his favor at long last.

When he did that rescue by the construction after Eddie got shot, Buck didn’t think about any last words as well. Sure, he didn’t have much time either. But the climb was long enough to think of something, had he put his mind to it. But back then, he tried not to think at all. Because thinking lead to feeling. And he didn’t want to feel what he felt. Buck didn’t want to feel like he had when Eddie got shot. Then he rather would have died. Literally. If only to make that stupid life matter somehow. Anyhow. To keep his loved ones safe.

Not that he has a death wish, he really doesn’t. Contrary to what some people think, Buck isn’t chasing death. He isn’t chasing a glorious exit from this world. Some time back, Maddie said that they are opposites, the fugitive and the settler. Settling means wanting to stay. So Buck doesn’t have a death wish, he has an undying will to live, and perhaps a certain talent not to jump the knife despite the close calls he’s had.

But now he is lying here, he can’t move, there is not enough adrenaline left in him to keep all thoughts and feelings out of his head, away from his heart. They are spinning freely, round and round, taunting him, just to spin another time. Which means he may have to answer some of the questions he’s managed to dodge for quite a few years by now.

He had been thinking about some of it, following Lev’s death. He tried to find the answer to his own happiness. And Lev only found it the second before he left this world. And no again, Buck didn’t chase death after that either. Despite a certain stunt he pulled involving a bike. But Lev’s death got him thinking about the things Buck tends to push away.

If you had just one more day to live, what would you do? What would you say? And to whom?

“Buck?” he can hear Eddie’s voice call out.

Buck blinks. “Oh, ugh, sorry. I… drifted off.”

“That’s okay, just making sure. I bet you’re exhausted, but we can’t have you doze off. So you gotta hold on tight, remember,” Eddie tells him.

“Right. Yeah, of course. Holding on.”

He’s accustomed to that. Has done that for the better and worse part of his life. He held on tight. He clutched, clawed, clung. Because he was desperate to be left behind. Because he was desperate to stay, so others may stay with him.

And has anything truly changed about it since then?

“So what do you want to talk about, if not random trivia?” Eddie questions.

“You.” The word comes to Buck with unexpected ease, even less expected resolution.

Maybe the universe is answering at the worst of times yet again, huh? Which might be just about the shittiest sense of humor anyone could possibly have.

“Me?” Eddie asks, confused.

“Mhm,” Buck hums, settling into the feeling spreading throughout him. Because it’s comforting. It’s not cold and damp. It doesn’t taste of dust. It doesn’t make his ribs ache from having to remain in that awkward position. It’s warm and bright and makes his stomach flutter in a most pleasant way.

Maybe it really works like that. Maybe that’s how Lev found his answers. When you find yourself in an everything-or-nothing kind of situation, it creates a certain clarity that you lack in normal life. Normal life is muddied by a lot of things. There is just so much noise.

So much is going on, so much life happening, all at once and very loudly. And Buck loves that about life. How full it is, how much it is, how loud it is, never once being sorry for it being there. But sometimes, it makes it hard to see that one single thing you want to look at, hear one voice you want to hear above all else. Because life keeps happening around you, pulling you all kinds of directions, so you lose focus.

Like spinning in a circle too many times and then trying to walk in a straight line.

But in situations that are either or, nor or neither, you don’t have that. It’s this way or the other, left or right, back or forth. There is no staggering, no escape. It’s very still, very timid, and in that way, absolutely clear.

If you had just one more day to live, what would you do? What would you say? And to whom? Whose voice would you want to hear? Whose stories would you want to listen to till last?

“What do you want me to say about myself, then?” Eddie asks.

And Buck can’t help but smile. “I don’t know. Like, plans for the weekend or how breakfast was today. I didn’t ask.”

There are so many things he didn’t say, didn’t do. There are things Buck could have added to his memories. Like how Eddie’s day was before he got to the station. But they had a call early on, so he didn’t have the chance to ask. It’s mundane, he knows, but Buck loves the mundane. Because even the quiet life is loud in his head, in his heart, small treasures he’d want to preserve. So maybe he can add some more, as many as he can.

“You know you’re being odd right now,” Eddie comments.

“So?”

He gets to be, right? Buck can leave being sensible to the rest for now. He just lies here and he feels. Lets the feelings bleed out of him, ready or not. And Buck is done shutting those emotions out, no matter how many questions and troubles they may add to a life that lies on the knife’s edge right now. The sky is clear above him, and so seem some things that normal life tends to leave in the fog and constant noise of its recurrence.

Maybe, had he stopped and stared some time ago, it would have come to him sooner. But the matter of fact is that it’s coming to Buck now, slowly creeping up his spine. And against the odds of the situation, it’s not that scary.

“Fine. Breakfast talk… Ugh, lemme think. I wanted to have cereal, but I forgot to buy a new package, so I had a PB&J sandwich instead. Plus coffee, of course,” Eddie tells him. “There, happy?”

Buck smiles. “Very.”

If you had just one more day to live, what would you do? Who would you want to be with? What would you say? And why?

“So I’ll have to get a new package of cereal on the weekend. I… we should go together, you know? Coz I was thinking about having a picnic in the park. Chris is aching to skateboard again, because he’s apparently not too old for that yet. So we could pack some things and head straight there. He’d sure have a blast.”

Buck smiles, feeling his eyes water. “That… that sounds great.”

He knows what Eddie is doing. Because Buck has done it plenty of times, talking to people on calls in an effort to calm them down. You don’t promise that you get them out, but you leave them hoping, so long there is as much as a slight chance they might make it. You help them visualize the future after the event. Sometimes, they get to it, and it serves as motivation to reach it. Other times, Buck supposes, it’s a small comfort. Not a lie, really, but a way of escape from an otherwise frightening and horrid situation. To a future that may never be, but at the same time just might.

“Then we’re gonna do that,” Eddie says, nearly choking on the words.

“We should, yeah.”

If you had just one more day to live, what would you do? What would you say? And to whom? And why? Why?

Buck has a feeling he knows at long last, glancing at the stars above him. If they are mocking him, he has no care in the world for it. Because he has the answer right in front of him, despite the universe’s bad sense of humor to only have him hear it.

A day in the park with Eddie and Christopher. Smiling and laughing with them. Be with the people who are most important to him in his life. Live with them, happy and loud and unashamed.

A day in the park with Eddie and Christopher. One more day to say what’s been bubbling underneath the surface of a fast-paced life that didn’t leave Buck the room to fully comprehend until now that this was a truth he’s known well before. His way to happiness all along.

A day in the park with Eddie and Christopher. One more day to chance it, throw the dice, steal a kiss, and see where it leads him. He’s kissed guys before. Some time back, even dated some. So that’s not what would have him scared. Just Eddie saying no thanks. Eddie withdrawing. But he’d try anyway.

After all, it’d be his last day. If tomorrow isn’t promised to him, then, doesn’t that set him free to follow his heart no matter what? Because he’d only have one more day promised to him. So why wouldn’t he use it? To steal a few more seconds than were granted to Lev before he found his answer?

If Buck had just one more day to live, he’d want to spend it with the people he loves, that’s what Buck knows without a shadow of a doubt. Because it is those people who are his happiness.

If Buck had just one more day to live, he’d say how he truly feels. To Eddie. For Eddie.

But that’s the treacherous thing about it.

Buck may not live another day to do it.

Still, he should.

Maybe.

Probably.

“We definitely should.”

I have to.

[anonymousfiction211]

Handcuffed together chapter 6: First training

‘Morning, darling’ Loki replied when he saw you entering the training room. ‘Morning’ you grumbled back. You were still mad at him, especially since he didn’t even try to apologize like Thor said he would. ‘I must admit that I never inquired about your abilities. Could you please explain to me what you are able to do?’ he asked.

‘I can heal certain wounds and cuts, given they’re not to deep and there is not too much damage to any important veins or organs. And I can conjure up certain shields, heatshields, frost shields and physical shields. But that you knew already.’ you explained to him.

‘If you can conjure up shields, why are you never in the middle of the battle?’ he asked.

‘The team prefers to keep the healing abilities away from the battle’ you said.

‘Not after I’m done with you’ he smiled. You ignored it. ‘I thought we start simple and heal bones first’ he went on. He explained that healing bones was the easiest thing to do, because you just have to rearrange fragments or mend bones back together. He made you repeat the spell over and over again, before he finally summoned broken animal bones for you to practice. To say it gone extremely slow and frustrating would be an understatement. ‘Darling, you’re thinking too much. Trust your instincts’ Loki tried to encourage you. It took you the whole morning, but eventually you were able to mend three of the ten bones. Sweat was trickling down your forehead and you felt exhausted. ‘I think that’s quite enough for today’ Loki said when he saw how tired you were.

‘No, I can keep going’ you argued. Loki made all the bones disappear with one hand gesture. ‘No. You cannot’ he said sternly. You sighed heavily and got up. There were tiny black spots when you moved, but you tried to ignore them and keep your balance. Loki rushed to your side but you pushed him away. ‘Everyone learns in his own space. You know what to do, and it will get easier with practice. And practice takes time’ he said.

‘That’s not what you said yesterday’ you snapped.

‘About that.. (Y/N), I wanted..’ he started, but you cut him off.

‘I don’t want the here it. I’m going for lunch and then visit Steve. I don’t want to see YOU for the rest of the day’ you said while walking away. You walked to the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge. Eventually deciding to make an egg-salad sandwich. When you walked towards the table you were rather annoyed to see Loki there. ‘What are you doing here?’ you said while glaring at him. He was nonchalant reading a book with his feet on one of the other chairs. ‘I’m not leaving you before we talk’ he said.

‘I don’t want to hear it’ you replied.

‘I think you do. But I’m patient. I won’t leave until you do want to hear it’ he answered with a smirk on his face. Annoying bastard you thought. ‘I heard that’ he replied without looking up at you. You groaned in annoyance. You ate your sandwich in silence. After that you cleared your plate and walked towards the medbay to check up on Steve. Loki was following you, but you did your best to ignore his presence. When you entered you saw Steve still laying unconscious, hooked up to several machines. You stopped in your tracks. This was harder than you thought. Loki put a hand on your shoulder but you shrugged it off. ‘Don’t follow me’ you said while entering Steve’s room. To your surprise Loki actually stayed outside. You could still see him through the glass wall, but at least he gave you some space.

You sat down next to Steve and grabbed his hand. It was hard to see him in this state. ‘You should have walked it off’ you whispered to him. You knew Steve was going to be fine, but it would take a while. They didn’t know how long it was going to be before he wakes. You played the event back in your head and couldn’t help thinking what you did wrong. Tears were starting to form in your eyes. You closed your eyes and leaned against Steve’s arm, silently sobbing. You hadn’t noticed that Loki had entered the room until a pair of strong hand grabbed you and he pulled you in his lap in the chair next to you. ‘Shh, I got you’ he shushed while stroking your hair. It felt actually nice in his arms and you sobbed in his chest. ‘You can’t think like that. There was nothing you could have done differently’ he reassured you. He kept stroking your hair and telling you that you did nothing wrong. When you finally stopped sobbing he put his hand under your chin and made you face him. ‘I’m really sorry for snapping at you. I didn’t mean it, love’ he told you. You noticed how you felt a little giddy when he called you love, but for now decided to ignore it.

Loki carried you back to his room. He laid you down on his bed on top of the blankets. There were a lot of pillows, but it felt comfortable. He laid down beside you and you instinctively nuzzled against his chest. His arms were wrapped around you ‘Take a nap, you are really tired’ he said.

‘Are you here when I wake up?’ you asked him.

‘I promise, kitten’ he said while giving a kiss on your head. You saw a green shimmer and wanted to ask what he did. But before you could your eyelids felt heavy and you fell asleep immediately.

When you woke you looked up and saw Loki reading a book, while he was stroking your hair. ‘Feeling better?’ he asked when he noticed you were awake. You nodded and pulled yourself from his grasp. ‘What time is it?’ you asked him.

‘It’s 3.30 pm’ he said while snapping his book shut. ‘And you are not done for today’ he added. You cocked an eyebrow. But Loki got off his bed and motioned for you to follow him. He led you to the library and handed you a book. ‘Now, to be a healer you need to know things like autonomy. So, I want you to start studying with this book’ he said. You eyed the book and it was about the human body. You flipped through the book, the text was rather long and dry, but the information was important. Loki leaned closer ‘I’m going to quiz you next week, and if you don’t want to end up naked with my cock deep inside of you, I suggest you start studying every afternoon after physical practice’ he purred. You couldn’t help but blush at his words, causing Loki to lean in and starting to kiss your neck softly.

‘Loki, not here’ you mumbled. The truth was that you started to like him. You started to like his snarky comments, how good he could make you feel and loved it when he showed you his softer side. But he still was moody, possessive, egotistic and incredibly insensitive sometimes. So, you were torn. ‘Can’t have you studying too much. Because I really want to end up with my cock deep inside of you next week’ he whispered in your ear. A shiver ran down your spine. When Loki kissed you, all resistance left you. You kissed him back eagerly and slid your tongue inside his mouth. Loki moaned approvingly while his hand was under your shirt, unclipping your bra, and started to play with your breasts. One of his hand travelled downwards and he undid the button of your pants. He slid down beneath your waistband and felt that you were already wet. He pulled your pants and underpants down and moved you, so you could step outside of them. You were roaming his chest underneath his shirts, feeling his muscles flex underneath your touch.

Loki broke the kiss, undid the buttons of his own pants, and pulled his pants and underwear right down below his ass. In one smooth motion he lifted you up and your legs wrapped around his waist. He trapped your body between his and the bookcase behind him. You felt yourself stretched as his cock entered you, he had you impaled on his cock and you moaned loudly. One of his hands covered your mouth to muffle the sounds you were making. He started to thrust into you, in a very fast pace. It felt like he needed you. Like he hadn’t seen you in forever. It was different from the dominating way he had taken you before. Not that you minded, his cock was hitting just the right spot at this angle. Loki was grunting and you were moaning helplessly against his hand. You felt your pleasure wash over you and you clenched down on his cock. Loki snapped his hips a few more thrusts before spilling inside of you. After that, he slowly lowered you down and caught his breath while staring into your eyes. He pulled you in for a loving kiss. The library doors opened and the two of you quickly pulled up your pants and tried to make yourself as decent as you could. ‘Ah there you are, brother’ Thor’s voice boom throughout the library. He stopped when he saw the two of you, and you felt him look you up and down. Loki took a step before you, blocking his view. ‘What do you need?’ he asked in a rather bored voice.

‘We were going to spar together, unless you are occupied with other things’ Thor smirked.

‘I’ll be there in five minutes’ Loki replied, ignoring Thor’s suggestion.

With that Thor left. Loki turned around ‘I guess I should get going. Don’t study too hard’ he mused. He took a step closer and kissed you again. His hands went underneath your shirt and you felt him hook your bra back together. You blushed, realizing why Thor had made his suggestion. He winked at you before teleporting away.

Tags: @delightfulheartdream @l0nelyasian​ @the-best-phineas