#shoulda known he would win

[fictionalcharactersaremypassion]

"Yevy, dinner!" Ian called. The table was set for three since Lana was out and did not disclose what she was doing or where she was going.

He made a pot of steaming hot spaghetti, setting it down carefully in the middle of the table. Mickey grabbed a beer for both of them, his stomach rumbling. He was fuckin' starving.

There was the sound of heels digging into the floor, and there came their son, beaming. "I'm here, Een!" Yevy announced.

"Ay, no running in the house," Mickey scolded. "How many times we gotta tell you that?"

"But you said you didn't wanna see me run and you didn't," Yev argued with all the logic of a little kid.

Ian cracked a grin which he tried to hide. Mickey huffed through his nose. Fuckin' smartass.

"Sit down on the damn chair."

For a five year old, Yev looked very smug. "Een, did I win?" He did a poor whisper that Mickey heard clearly.

Ian stifled his laughter at the unimpressed look Mickey was giving them both. Shoulda known he'd get ganged up on by his boyfriend and son.

"Come here," Ian picked Yev up, holding him close. "You know, you're my favorite Milkovich but you can't tell your daddy or Aunt Mandy, okay?" He said in a stage whisper.

"Okay," Yev giggled. Mickey would deny it, and start throwing some punches around if somebody said otherwise, but it was kinda nice...or whatever to see the kid and Ian getting along like that.

Some part of him sorta wished he could bond with the kid that easily.

Ian kissed him on the head, setting him back down. Yev got up on the chair. "I'm hungry." 

"I'm glad, but you have to be careful. It's hot," Ian advised, scooping some out for Yev onto a plate.

"Okay," Yev chirped.

"Mandy still working?" Ian asked, one hand on Mickey's knee.

"Yeah. Said she'll be back later."

"I'll save her a plate," Ian said.

"Why? She can make herself a damn sandwich or something," Mickey shrugged.

"Mickey," Ian rolled his eyes. He was going to say more, Mickey knew it, but then a sudden shriek from Yev had their heads turning rapidly in his direction.

He must have touched the bottom part of the plate where it was the hottest. Yev burst into tears, holding his hurt finger close to him.

"Oh, Buddy," Ian was on it. He tried to get Yev to show him but he was crying too hard and didn't want anyone else touching it. "Can I have a look at it, Yevy?"

Yev shook his head. Mickey didn't feel like feeling so useless, so he tried to help.

"Ay, let Ian have a look."

But then something unexpected happened; Yev didn't turn to Ian for comfort like he usually did. Instead, he launched himself into Mickey's arms, his face burrowing in his shoulder.

It caught him off guard. Surprised Ian too, but he recovered faster.

"Daddy, it hurts!" Yev sobbed.

Mickey hesitantly rubbed his back. "Yeah," he said lamely, "it will for a bit."

He really wasn't sure what to fucking do. He didn't know how to handle the kid, and it wasn't helping that Ian was making those damn doe eyes.

"You're doing so good, Mick," Ian said softly.

Good? Mickey barely did anything.

"Just keep holding him. He'll be okay. We'll just have to run some water over it."

Ian was always doing that, trying to encourage him when it came to Yev. It was hard to believe. Mickey just wasn't father material. Not like he'd ever had anyone to show him what a good one looked like.

Maybe he could try.

"You're, uh, okay," Mickey muttered. "You're fine, kid. I gotcha."

It took a couple of minutes for Yev to stop crying. A couple minutes of Mickey murmuring shit he didn't even know was helping or not.

By that time, he was somewhat calmed down, besides his red-rimmed eyes and tear tracks on his cheeks. Mickey didn't know why the sight made him have this weird pang in his gut.

"You gotta watch next time, okay?" Mickey said, doing his best to keep his voice gentle like Ian would. "Ian told you it was hot."

Yev had his head leaning against his dad's chest. "I know," he sniffled. "I didn't mean to."

Those four little words brought Mickey back to when he was a little kid looking for attention and approval from Terry. He'd said those words, usually after an accident of some sort, but it never helped. If anything, it seemed to enrage Terry even more.

It wasn't the life he wanted for Yev. He wasn't sure how he felt about the little fucker yet, maybe there was some part of him that did love him, but the fucked up way he'd been conceived still haunted Mickey and made it really fucking hard to bond with him the way he was 'supposed' to.

"Yeah," Mickey said quietly. He smoothed down his son's unruly hair. "Yeah, I know. You, uh, wanna try eating again?"

Yev gripped his shirt. "I wanna stay here."

"You wanna sit on your dad's lap?" Ian said with the biggest smile on his face. Yev nodded, peeking up at Mickey as if he was worried he'd be forced off.

It made something warm come alive in Mickey.

"You really want to?"

Yev nodded again.

Mickey looked at Ian, a bit of a frantic gleam in his eyes because what the fuck should he say to that?

His boyfriend just smiled in return, letting this next move be Mickey's choice and not his own.

And well, fuck it.

Mickey felt weird about it, letting him stay there and eat like that, but that's what he did. He kept one arm around Yev so he wouldn't fall, that warm sensation returning when Yev leaned back against him in contentment.

[anzulvr]

Hello how are you today. I was wondering can I request karma x reader headcanon who are enemies. Like always competing for better grades and are always at each other throats

— ACADEMIC RIVALS HEADCANNONS

Karma Akabane x Reader (gn!) // the beginning of this takes place before Karma is dropped to E class, you’re A-CLASS classmates // this is so late I’m sorry… like a year late i think. pls forgive me. Cute request shoulda done sooner but I’m so behind!!

Unconsciously Karma is going to assume the worst of you, before even speaking to you he had a few assumptions of the type of person you were.

Though you can’t really blame him for it, A class students aren’t exactly known for being kind.

You had a few assumptions about him yourself.

Wasted potential, a genius who got into fights on a regular basis. He was so full of himself, always leaving class before the lesson ended. Not to mention the way he never followed instructions.

You didn’t appreciate the fact things worked out for him better than they did for you.

He constantly outperformed your scores with a point or even half a point. It was irritating. You spent hours perfecting your writing, memorizing equations, and taking notes. He didn’t even stay in class for longer than 30 minutes because he already knew the lessons?!

No matter how much you studied ahead, he already knew that. If you managed to score 100 on a test he’d somehow gotten extra credit points. It was driving you insane.

He could probably feel the hostility, which is why you avoided each other for the most part.

Until…

You got paired up for a project.

Your worst nightmare came true.

He’s cute from afar. Actually having to interact with him and having your A+ on the line was not cute in the slightest. He’s smart, you couldn’t deny that, oftentimes he slacks on bigger homework assignments like these because he doesn’t feel like it.

You were hoping he’d help regardless, you could do it all yourself but if he pitched in it would take a lot of stress off your shoulders.

You got into a disagreement about how the assignment should be done. He decided you could stray from the instructions a bit while you wanted to do everything by the book.

Eventually he caved when he saw it was genuinely bugging you when he didn’t even care about the assignment.

Now that you had to talk to each other almost every day, you both realized what you had in common. Things you misunderstood about one another and had grown pretty close.

Close enough for him to make fun of you and shove his test scores in your face.

You didn’t expect you could become friends with someone so different from you. When you realized how much you liked him it worried you.

You started looking his way when you should've been reading your textbook.

You stopped telling him to be quiet whenever he talked your ear off during a lesson.

You were putting more effort in the way you looked and dressed when you got ready in the morning.

You even turned in an assignment late because you chose to help him with a last minute project.

If someone had told you that you'd like him that much a few months ago; you would have laughed in their faces.

You realized how far gone you were:

(“He's distracting me from my studies... Wait- was his plan to begin with?!”)

Lucky for you, he started showing up on time and even stayed in class the whole day!

(he did show off to you how he could finish the worksheets in less than half the time you could, but hey, you can't win them all.)

He won't tell you why he's suddenly so punctual, and he's much better at hiding his motives than you are but you have a feeling you've also been taking up his thoughts.

[wsancho]

Rambling about Setzer’s “recovery” from depression

Thanks to @ci-ah and @halogenwarrior for the interesting Setzer convos. Now I have theories.

I had dipped my toes a little bit in Setzer territory because I wish he was given more screen time and development. I believe FFVI is masterfully written (not perfectly written, but what it does well is simply outstanding, with very little to pick apart), so I’m more tempted to find the meaning of what the game gives us, than to look down on it as “coulda-woulda-shoulda been better if blank”. There’s always room for improvement (in everything), but I just want to make sense of what is 😌 And my shtick at this point is to pull theories out of my ass, so...

We get very little information about Setzer, and the more I think about it, the more it feels that this is by design more than neglect. We meet him and he joins us (because why the hell not?), then the world goes to shit. Next thing we know is that he’s been drinking his life away, so we ask him to join us and he does (again, because why the hell not?). He is quite easy to sway, but recovering from his depression after one pep talk makes the whole situation feel unnecessary. If he is nothing but the means to an end, then why bother giving him that little character moment? So I'm gonna assume that he is more than just that. This is not the “miraculous” resolution of his inner conflict, it’s a clue to his character.

Another awfully convenient thing about Setzer in World of Ruin is that we find him at Kolingen, of all places. But he has no known connection to that place or its people. Is this pub convenient for some reason? Maybe he was nearby after the cataclysm, maybe they got cheap alcohol, maybe this is the only pub that still allows him in… But the game gives us nothing to come up with those types of speculations. This town happens to be the closest to the new airship Daryl’s tomb. This is another clue, but we don’t yet know that Daryl is dear to him. As it turns out, Setzer is the type of character that can only be fully understood in retrospective after having obtained all the bits of information. It takes obsession repetition.

He’s a particularly difficult one because we only know his deliberately crafted persona, not much about him is concrete. If I were to take his reaction as is, I gotta assume that he’s not recovered, he’s just being Setzer; and from the moment we first met him, he’s never been well. He still isn’t.

I believe he was there because he meant to pay Daryl a visit, but he never gathered the courage to do it (he tells us he couldn’t even stand looking at The Falcon after having it restored); and by the way he’s been going about life in the past year, he doesn’t have any kind of resolve to do anything, let alone face the ghost of his friend.

I do not believe he would want to talk at a grave as if he were talking to his lost friend; and I also don’t believe he had any plans to fly again. My take is that he spent that year courting death, thinking about making his final resting place right next to Daryl. The whole “crawl into a hole and die” thing is not as easy as it sounds: decay will drive you mad before actually killing you, to the point that it’ll make you want to live. Setzer wants out, but couldn't bring himself to actually do it (this takes determination and focus). He keeps on, but he's not at the point where life itself would kick him out of his mental state (this happens when survival is uncertain, at which point depression wouldn't even factor in).

When we find him wallowing in his misery he’s understandably reluctant to join the party, but out of nowhere he is reinvigorated and makes a proposal that involves going to that elusive place where he really wants to be. He has not recovered, he livens up because now he’s got the encouragement he needed to make his way out. His friends will get the wings they need, and he will get his own set of real ones. Everyone wins… But then one thing lead to another: he was talking about things he couldn’t even mention before, and he found himself on the deck of The Falcon showing his friends the way, and then the ship took off and his friends were on a mission feeling hopeful once again... And his ass didn’t stay behind like he had planned 😒 D’oh!

In my mind he simply got carried away by the enthusiasm his friends showed, and wanted to make sure they had what they needed. He’s a bigger mess than he was before, but he’s efficient in sweeping shit under the rug and keep going through the motions. I think his inner conflict remains there when visiting the tomb, but would have to be addressed at some point (offscreen) because he's a time bomb. From a character perspective his quick reaction gave me enough to ramble says something about him: it doubles down on his recklessness and on his ability to pull through for others. His anguish is real but his apathy is fake ❤️

[tusswrites]

I am here to torment you with a half-baked, unfinished idea :))

SO, arranged marriage with Wonwoo and Seokmin.

Not at the same time, don’t be so silly that would be scandalous.

No what I mean is your parents decide that you need to be married to start producing offspring because all of their friends have grandchildren so you need to step tf up and pop some suckers out. So they put their noses out and bring back two dashing, wonderful options for you. Jeon Wonwoo and Lee Seokmin. Both of whom seem like perfect husband material on paper.

But you know better.

Jeon Wonwoo is one of the most self-absorbed cold hearted people you’re had the displeasure of meeting. He always seems to have a snarky remark ready and a boast to one up everyone. It’s a wonder he has so many admirers, minus the fact he’s ridiculously handsome in a way that makes it hard to decide if you want to smother him with a pillow or have him push your face into a pillow.

On the other hand Lee Seokmin is one of the loudest, immature people you’ve crossed paths with. You can always tell if he’s at an event as soon as you step into the room by the sheer volume of his voice and laughter and the gaggle of people always surrounding him to watch his clownery. Like Wonwoo, Seokmin is also insanely attractive in a way that has you at odds with yourself.

Anyway, so your parents tell you your options and that if you don’t marry one of them they will disown you entirely and you’ll have no-one but yourself to face the world with. You know they’ll do it too to protect their social standing so you begrudgingly agree

You meet the men separately of course and are reminded all over again of why you can’t stand either of them.

Wonwoo has you meet him at his work, in his office in a spare half an hour in his schedule to discuss the potential marriage. He’s supposed to be wooing you and convincing you to marry him but he’s just listing benefits as if you’re buying a car; tells you his monthly earnings, about all the properties he owns, the assistant he’ll hire you to keep you company, the events he’ll take you to once married. Nothing more than a business deal and you know that is all he sees the marriage as, a way to unite your two important families. That’s a marriage you never want.

Whereas Seokmin is once again entirely opposite, he takes you to a fairground and insists on playing all the games, riding all the rides, eating all the treats. He wins you stuffed toys you don’t even have the space in your arms to carry easily and dances like a fool every time you pass by the speakers dotted around with a dopey self-satisfied look on his face. You don’t get the chance to discuss the marriage at all and at the end you leave feeling sick and overwhelmed from all the noise and people at the busy fairground. He kisses your cheek and asks to go on another date when you have time, you weren’t even aware this was a date. And if this is how all dates with Seokmin will be, you really don’t want another.

After both meetings, all you know for certain is that you truly cannot stand either man and don’t want to marry either. But you don’t have any option. You have to make a choice.

And that’s all you’re getting :))

Love you bby 😘

and this my dear friends is why they tell you - DON’T MEET YOUR IDOLS IRL..

i fangirled over chee for far too long .. unfortunately befriended her and it’s the beginning to my own downfall because why THE FUCK AM I GETTING PLAGUED BY THIS IDEA AT 3 in the morning??

idc if it’s scandalous.. i want em BOAF! you can’t make me choose

i shoulda known better when you asked me my favorite trope at ass o clock!!!

and wonwoo that brags about his real estate ? and seokmin on play dates ? girl atp make them both marry each other .. why put yn in the equation.. they fit the arranged marriage enemies to lovers trope the BEST

[beneathsilverstars]

MY ENTIRE ISAT LIVEBLOG

COPY PASTED FROM TWITTER LET'S GO!!!

oh my god i love isabeau

the correct reaction to an incredibly mediocre pun:

when i talked to odile i said i was gonna make isabeau sleep on the floor but that is NOT true

i was about to say i love all the sparkly stars aesthetic but... the game is literally named after them.... i shoulda known

omg isabeau what were you about to confess 😳👉👈

rock paper scissors is being explained to me in such painstaking depth... but the dialogue is cute, so it's ok

wtf i looped back to the town specifically in order to ask the cook about the openphrase for the one door but there's no option to ask!!

it was the shopkeeper ��🏼

so curious about siffrin's touch thing... it makes sense other people might be more conscious of a subconscious reaction to touch than he is, but he's so avoidant of the train of thought, i feel like it must be something a bit less.. subtle...?

damn... tryna give mirabelle the fan mail for the second time.... yikes :( so sorry mira........ is that what happened to the island to the north...? something about it got so retconned that it makes people sick to focus on the exact change?

oh.. siffrin's major memory problems.....

this game is sooo good

siffrin seems upset in the observatory.. at first i thought they were just getting tired/grouchy, but the game sure is named after stars... maybe stars had to do with their past trauma..??

i'm starting to wonder if this isn't their first set of loops and the bone-deep burden of all that (along with the practicalities of your memories constantly not matching reality) is why they forget words and shit....

went and looked at the castle again this loop bc i felt bad that sif never gets to sit down...

king asked if sif remembers REMEMBERS WHAT??? i just knowww after i terribly lose this fight im gonna have to go back through the whole game unlocking new rooms that like unlock my memories or smth

"not when i still can't say it" ofc the king is from the northern island... sif is obviously from there too, and that's why he can't remember most of his past... so that's the thing they both don't remember?

defeated him but like. there's still so many locked doors. i bet like sif is gonna go to sleep and they wake up from the nap like WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M STILL IN THE LOOP?? WE WON?? but they didn't win correctly yet, they didn't actually solve everything that needs solved...

head handmaiden ma'am 😳

is odile's research genealogy??

i thought the reference to "colors" being an esoteric/irrelevant topic was a one-off gag about the art style, but it's plot relevant?? fuck yeah

what if odile is trying to figure out the northern island..??

OHHHHHH

BWAHHH the bonnie quest 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

first time redoing the mira quest.... siffrin!!! be brave!!!!! not only is your new idea good, even if it was bad you could just say oops oh well and switch the script back next loop!!!!!

is siffrin gonna have to learn how to be brave and normal in order to break the loop jdhshdjf (normal here meaning "not a loop-brained convomaxxer")

i hope siffrin can just ask the baker's daughter directly for the book this time hdhdjfj i don't really think the whole goose chase is necessary for the emotional convo.....

oh thank god

ugh i can't wait till sif tells his friends about the loop. is that gonna be sif's quest

HANG OUT QUEST!! YES!!!

hm.. is loop the deity of the northern island..? if stars and astronomy are like their whole thing....

INTERRUPTED AGAIN!!!!!!! AGHHGH!!!!! i know isa can't actually confess till the very end bc it would suck having to go through more loops knowing he likes you but he hasn't actually told you / if you go through a loop post-confession surely that would change quite a bit of dialogue

but AHHHHHH!!!!

oh my god siffrin is going beast mode on the tutorial sadness?? i had to choose "attack" bc it seemed the most different and thus interesting but also omg... there goes the warm friendship glow 😭😭

but ofc that glow would die a horrible sudden death anyway the moment siffrin is confronted with the fact that he is back on that damn loop grind :(

poor thing 😭😭😭😭😭😭

INSTANT REPLAY??????????

the loop power is getting stronger.. u~u;;

I KNEW IT WOULD EVENTUALLY GET WEIRD THAT SIF'S SUCH A HIGH LEVEL... just a couple loops ago i was like damn when is everyone else gonna notice that sif has like multiple crafts that they didn't yesterday

also i noticed a loop or so ago that their battle portrait is frowning and.. i don't think it always was.....?

oh my god the memory of sadness is kinda fucked up but. so useful jdhshfj im tired of avoiding them in the hallway,,

ok but also how do my teammates not notice that they have new equipment, and sometimes a new craft..... in the case of like a hair bow that's easy to gloss over but how does isabeau not go "wtf i'm dealing paper damage?" ??

the problem w telling your friends you're in a time loop is it must be such a fucking relief. and then you loop again

aw, sif.. tell them about the universe...

lol how funny would it be if i died to the rock this time

oops... i'm doing a big check-everything run, but i absolutely didn't do all the village stuff bc i was too excited to help isa... oh well,

i did idly connect that the "weird sadnesses" smell like sugar same as the king's time magic which makes, but i finally just actually thought about it and realized they're also star shaped....

siffrin having this time loop power... is it anything at all like mirabelle's time-resistance power, blessed upon her by the high priestess? did siffrin escape from their fucked up time island, sent out with the power to eventually save it?

odile is sooo close to figuring it out... she just said "verRrRy interesting"

BWAHH new post-level-2 convos!! so cute!!!!! love bonnie's new siffrin-patting routine..... and odile has it SO figured out, when is she gonna say something!!!

siffrin was afraid that he smells like timecraft? bc of looping or bc of repressed reasons.... probably bc of looping,

time for siffy's daily bathroom stall breakdown!!

they even went in happy this time and still managed to psych themself all the way out hdgshsjf

GHOST SIF??? GHOST SIF ON THE WAY TO THE KEYKNIFE??????

BWAHHH ODILE RUFFLING SIF'S HAIR!!! I WAS WAITING AND WAITING FOR MORE PEOPLE TO PICK UP ON IT BEING OK TO TOUCH THEM!!!

"in this moment, you are loved" god it is going to be so hard waking up next loop 😭

HAIR BRUSHING!!! THIS IS SO PEAK

i'm worried that the king's "isn't this the best moment of your lives" rhetoric is going to slowly gain appeal as sif goes through more and more loops... like. they crafted the perfect loop with their found family. they *can't* change it any more, make it any better. ...

EHAT DO U MEAN "NVM" ISA!!!!!! oh my god i can't believe you won't confess until siffrin is like more emotionally centered and open and ready to handle that kind of thing... why r u sooo considerate -_- ur killin them isa

oh my god why is it even worse why is the end of the loop even worse this time oh my GOD sif is gonna be inconsolable I'M inconsolable not isabeau reaching out im sobbing on da couch

ngl i kinda hope this time siffrin is just defeated and doesn't banter about shit and everyone is worried as fuck. sorry sif i just think it would be interesting. that flash of him slaughtering the tutorial sadness was so sick. esp the unique auto-rewind. more of that shit

they did the first convo w mira fine.. nvm i guess.... if that never happens that's gonna be my first fanfiction

another ghost siffrin... after i looped to unlocked floor one to look for articles....... :o

not beau saying "normally i'd be worried about this, but sif doesn't seem worried at all!" when i'm about to touch the tear specifically in order to die...

did the king used to hang out in the observatory... did he write that word (the country's name?) on the papers, and wear out the spot on the globe....... he did find a new home here in vougarde such that he's decided that he can't lose this one too, at all, ever...

i got to loop 30 and i was surprised bc i figured i was at like 25 tops. and now im at 37? i don't think it's been 7 loops since then...???

i've started dreaming about the tick of a clock.. i'm kinda worried i've started wracking up too many loops... i did just zip back and forth across the house a half dozen times checking various items and dead ends....

AHH AUTO REWIND FROM KING ASKING WHERE SIF IS FROM???? followed by "you do not answer" which. implies that wasn't the case before the rewind.?? maybe more like "you do not think about it" l o l oh sif 😭😭😭

i was about to complain that it won't let me zone out of the dying-and-bonnie-running scene but um. different this time. thank you for not letting me zone out,

YEAH IT'S LOOP 40 NOW!! this is right after loop 37 (with a small auto-rewind between)

😭😭😭😭😭😭 isabeau pleeeeease:

hanging out with loop and - we saw the kings first attack?? but how would the rest of the party even get that far without sif?? they'd die to the first rock trap????

oh good sif noticed too. "who was the king attacking".... did a siffrin remnant help the party, has he looped so many times that he can be in multiple places at once???

was the king kmsing??? who tf would he be attackinggg

does the loop end when siffrin loses hope?? but no, then the very first time they defeat the boss they wouldn't have looped... but no, if the handmaiden is just talking shit unrelated to the looping then that coulda still made sif think the loop was fucked, which fucked the loop?

it's kinda heavy how many times you have to k your s in this game... esp when you don't actually have to but it's, like, more convenient than 5-30 extra minutes of running around

siffrin tripping so they don't seem so creepily overpowered is SO sad 😭

fsr it's sadder than going through the motions of a conversation, or tripping bc you tripped last time... it's a whole new lie to offset a whole new problem...

oh yeah my other loop theory was that it ends when siffrin gets too reminded of the northern island..? the memory of the future or whatever the fuck from the big attack idk

siffrin rewinded after his friends saw the ghost.... kinda matches my "when he loses hope" theory. when he feels alone? when he's utterly lost with no clue what to do next..? (lol sif restarting every loop just bc he doesn't have plans for what to do after winning)

NOOO I WAS SO EXCITED TO NOT HAVE TO GO GET THE KNIFEKEY EVERY TIME BUT I DO HAVE TO... BOOOOO...... where's the consistency, loop!!!

i can use a memory to equip it for the boss fight but idc as much about that.... i just wanted to be able to check out the dead end rooms more often instead of having to use the crest to get the knifekey every time....

memory of ghosts, no effect??

oh, the vision of the future happens on the first attack always.. not when the king kills you always...

having the knifekey for the fight kinda isn't worth it.. siffrin only has one measly paper attack anyway, so i usually have them on potions and items duty.... gotta keep mira brothed up so she can cast the super duper shield every single turn

"it's fine. she isn't real to you right now either" god siffrin is gonna be so fucked up when they get out. siffrin is gonna have "everyone else is an NPC" brain

finished doing all four quests together for the second time, and sif's commentary at the end is reeally hitting my "eventually sif will understand the king's pov of wanting to freeze one perfect moment forever instead of going forward to inevitably worse shit" theory :(

"you've noticed you're starting to forget whole loops" AHA...... i'm so curious tho what was sif doing in those skipped loops. ig presumably it'd be whatever they did in the next loop that they actually remember? sticking to the plan several times in a row till it sticks,

does loop remember the skipped loops??

hm. whenever the loop ends early Not due to death (the little auto-reverses) maybe sif just.. forgot everything after that moment? till the normal king attack moment ....? or whatever death they find?

i wonder if the headache of not being able to say/read/think about the northern island is caused by many tiny loops, sending you back to the moment before you said/read/thought it, happening however many times it takes for the rapid time travel to make you so sick you just don't

i teach kid's music classes, and sometimes i'll practice one or two dozen verse variations, then i get to actual class and when i actually do that song i can't remember which variations i've already done? and it gets worse with each class i teach from that lesson plan. so dw siffrin i get it,

ok but wtf is up with the head handmaiden. what's she got to do with this. she's obviously more involved than she seems, she knows Something about the end. and imo it's sus that she was able to bless mirabelle to be impervious to the curse, how's she able to do that.

assuming that the king used to live in the house (spending lots of time in the observatory), euphrasie would've gotten to know him... perhaps seen the beginnings of him getting fucked up powerful...? thought she could handle it on her own but she couldn't?

are the mini auto-loops a meta "reload from last save"? i think it's the same quick rewind sound as actually reloading... i don't do it super often bc why not just loop back and keep my silly little mistake in, but i've done it 2 or maybe 3 times....

this game does such a good job starting in medias res. level 45!! i'm past 70 now. i feel like there's a definite chance i'll hit 90 which means siffrin will have done as much fighting in these loops as they did with their friends through months of travel and adventure.

choosing all the emo answers to the loop convo about how using your dagger would be faster than finding a tear to kill you. sorry frin not my fault you are depressed as fuck

LOOP GOT POSSESSED IN ORDER TO ALLOW ME TO K MY S MANUALLY??????? ??????? damn i had something actually important to talk about this loop too

I HATE PICKING CONVERSATION CHOICES WITH LOOOOOP I WANT TO SEE THE OUTCOME OF BOTH OPTIONS IM SO SPOILED!!!!

AHHHH FRIN FIGURED OUT THAT IT's THEIR COJNTRY! THEY TALKED ABt JT! THEY TRIED TO SAY IT!! BWAHHHHHHHH that was so fucking sadddd oh my godddddddd sif's poor clueless friends trying to stop whatever the fuck was happenin 😭😭

is the king's 9999 attack just saying the country's name, lol

wish craft . . .

oh my god oh my god he's gonna torture my friends to death in front of me oh my god holy shit oh my god oh no oh no oh no oh no

say the name siffrin!!! think the name!!!!!!! it'll fuck you up bad enough that you loop!

oh... sif is repeating their wish over and over..... like when they carve

well. finally a loop where sif wakes up freaking out so bad that their script with mirabelle gets way way off track. lol. just like i wanted. haha. shit

I CAN READ THE ISLAND BOOKS NOW???????? damn worth it fr sorry bonbon

i forget if i mentioned that i was thinking about how siffrin doesn't rly have much to look forward to, like his friends are about to disband...?

i was chatting w ari about it lol when she helped me defeat the king earlier, she was very concerned about how sif didn't have a home to return to, all his friends were talking about going back to their homes but where would sif go, isn't that sad

speaking of ari. very four year old raised by lesbians quote: "i like isabeau's name but i don't like his gender..."

siffrin dont get emo about how they don't hug you that first evening you literally already know why, they think you don't like it

damn. forgot about the rock

i had been thinking that the way the island was erased must be similar to the way the loops work, but couldn't fathom how time manip could erase a whole island. the magic being more general makes more sense. did someone wish away color as well....

i love magic systems where belief in a thing makes it more real but jeez this is scary

i was pretty on track with guessing that non-death loops happen when siffrin loses hope. it's whenever he goes oh fuck oh god i wish that hadn't happened

gotta say. i'm getting soo sick of running around unlocking doors so that i can go down a tear dead end for the nth time. plssss let me loop to "some doors unlocked; tear crest not used" 😭

i'm also starting to get low on loop-forward sparkles...

oh wow. siffrin had a really bad dream this tear-touch loop-back. i really can't ever use the dagger he would get plagued by the horrors. not that he isn't already, but,

i love to draw characters with horrifiedly blank expressions and very very tired eyes i can't wait to draw siffrin. lol

this game was made in a lab for me

every time i accidentally get into a fight with a sadness i'm like "siffrin is so fucked up at this point he should be able to just glare at them and scare them the fuck off" and then i remember that i literally currently have that mode equipped, me and the sadness just dodged in the same direction

can i at least get a memory that lets me one-hit KO the sadness crests- wait holy shit i just opened my craft menu and i literally have a new scissor craft called (just attack) when tf did i get that

.... was siffron's island erased specifically because they got gud at wish craft, and that's a power that the world shouldn't be able to harness...?

OH FUCK THE "remembering the name" STAR WAS SO SYMBOLICALLY STRIKING THAT I DIDN'T RVEN REALIZE THAT IT WAS ACTUAL COLOR...

nooo.. no one even reacted to being poked in the gardening room squeeze? right when sif needs it the most? let's make this set of the loops the worst set ever 🤗

what the Fuck is up with croissants though

i can't believe loop got siffrin to admit to themself that beau was planning to confess and siffrin is just using it to beat themself up. "poor isabeau, he probably can't help having a crush on shitty ol me".

i wish i could give siff a good loop but doing the missions makes them sad now 😭

wow. earlier i was like "what if the king is actually siffrin, weird-magic-shenanigans style". bc sif does have some similar thought patterns. but i was like no that's silly. but now this sad diary is talking abt making another self to talk to????

i also wondered if loop is some kinda shade of siffy??

i am writing this tweet while i let siffrin look through the big window in the observatory for a while. as a treat :(

OH THANK GOD.. ISABEAU IS TELLING SIF A NEW JOKE...: that's a much better treat 😭😭😭😭

oh no nvm their second thought was "i'll need to remember to laugh next time"

why don't siff's friends react anymore when he pokes them in the gardening room. it doesn't make sense.....

finally.. my "sif is quiet and moody and everyone notices" loop.......

sif has been super hungry in the commentary lately... more than normal i think... all those wish loops taking a lot of fuel?

have ppl not been reacting to sif's pokes bc they don't want to bother him when he's already obviously having a rough day...

i liked when they sat on the floor after bumping into the table. so real

finally got that death talk with bonnie.... i wonder when i'll get talk #2 with the other characters... odile has been quite sus of me for ages when's she gonna come out with ittt

ISABEAU PUSHING SIFFRIN AWAY.... probably bc siffrin was being very... sudden and depressed and desperate about it...?

did the daydreaming one's sister move to the northern island or something...

THE LIST IN EUPHRASIE's OFFICE!! it's who wished to save vougarde, and who wished for something else!!

bwuh. thinking about the strength behind the wish "i wish i hadn't fucking done that" when you reach out to someone and they push you away

loop confirmed/unified my theories about why siffrin loops back without death sometimes heheh... the specific wording of "something that feels like the world is ending" or whatever also seems in line with my theory that siffrin is scared of leaving their friends tomorrow

they've got croissant trauma. they've got banana trauma. a cheap continental breakfast is siffrin's worst nightmare

poetic that euphrasie finally heard and replied to me on loop 99. waking up on the big double O more hopeless than ever! ☺️

gotta say it so funny that siffrin is forcing themself to try to get everyone's skills in order to beat the king faster when i beat him easily in probably less than half a dozen rounds last time. forgot to even equip the keyknife! these half-assed quests are taking longer than that...

fucked up house??????

i keep accidentally walking right back out of the door i walked into, lol. this is fun though!

also. ghost ✨???

oh.. the ghost ✨ figure i saw was siffrin, with a black hat..?

maybe.. this is the universe's way of granting both wishes...... vougarde is saved, but stuck in time forever. looping the same day of salvation.

i had wondered what would happen if (once?) siffrin totally lost hope, sure that there was no chance of ever, ever getting out. bc when they lose hope they restart. so they'd just. restart immediately. constant loop. with no chance to do anything to regain that hope.

ghost sif time :3c

mal du pays means homesickness...

SIFFRIN TRIPPED AND IZA CAUGHT HIM.. they're touching !

i've been playing at work but i have to stop and actually do some work now.... ty for taking good naps today baby :')

i can't believe mirabelle and siffrin are canonically moirails now

BUT... BUT WHY DOES SIFFRIN HATE CROISSANTS???

also i saw something on a map i was using about a starry hat?? i never got a new hat...

i also never managed to find the book with the tree on the cover again, now that i could read it...

i'm gonna have to find a full 100%ed playthrough to watch on youtube 🫡

---

reading through ISAT socmed... the first time i saw one of the in-world swears in the game i was like "lol stormlight archive vibes" so it's very funny that one of the first posts i see is "my world building advice is to learn from brandon sanderson" i was sooo right. so true

---

makes no sense to me that mirabelle asked siffrin to not spoil her on their convo topics... not spoil on where the convos *went* sure, but how does she not want to know the basic facts that siffrin now knows about her 😭 so wild

if one of my friends was in a time loop i would be like. please sit down and summarize everything we ever talked about so i can be caught up. but thats just me

---

found some youtube video compilations of missable dialogue/events we are so back

AGHH why does this person not show the full cutscenes 😭😭😭 pls i don't want to have to do a whole ass entire top to bottom loop w like 20 object interactions...... maybe i'll just do it at work tomorrow while the baby naps 😩

at least it was pretty easy getting the initial croissant scene ☺️ but i am NOT redoing the entire last two acts to get the related final loop scene or whatever it is -_-

yayy that one's big enough that i found a video of it ☺️ i do wish i'd been able to do it in game myself instead, but. not redoing half the blinding game rn

---

i Am doing a full loop to get the odile thing though... and in doing so i realized apparently i didn't go through the friend quests manually enough times, sif just had a bit of a mental breakdown abt odile's. which does lead up to the last-loop breakdown better!

NOOO I WAS 3/4 OF THE WAY THRU THIS LOOP TO GET A CERTAIN SCENE AND i was on autopilot and meant to use a crest on the tears but i didn't have the crest yet so selecting "yes" meant touching them and dying fuck meee

i hadn't saved at each floor bc i didn't want to touch my save files w this new offshoot canon...

i'm not actually quite sure what info gets carried over from the previous loop when you loop back to the same floor instead of the beginning or forwards? i'm just gonna try and do floor 3 again and see if it works....

either relooping level 3 messed it up or i wasn't able to get enough suspicion points bc the plantain chips didn't make me sick. gonna go slip on the banana five times and try again

---

... i just used the dagger for the second time and now i'm stuck on a plain black screen and i legitimately can't tell if the game is broken or if the game is making me sit and wait for sif to bleed out

ok it's definitely a bug. wow this is so poignant it really does feel like i fucked around and found out

this is so funny i can open my pockets but i can't use the dagger or call loop.

---

I DID IT I GOT THE SCENE!! it was good i'm glad i saw it. wish i hadn't fucked up and had to do it all twice but i DID IT

[berrypass-de-murdler]

75. Revenge in the Cave

EXTENDED EDITION OFC

What's a good intro?

Fuck intro let's get to it

DON'T READ THE EPISODES UNTIL YOU'VE FINISHED THE FIRST BOOK!!

There’s a lovely scream from the cave, and Logico finally catches up to Seashell near a body. But let’s not be too sure it’s him, because there’s also recent killers Honey and Blackstone. And, finally, of course, Shadow.

LOGICO: Where were you?? SHADOW: I heard a scream. LOGICO: You were gone before that!! SHADOW: I’m a shadow.

Murder time. Shadow stumbles into a crevice and swings an object round and round, letting sparks fly as it hits the walls. Logico rolls his eye. SO annoying. 

SEASHELL: Did you know that there’s a war on drugs?  LOGICO: Yes.  SEASHELL: Did you know that I am part of it? LOGICO: Guilty.

No, he’s not, Logico, be a better detective. When he goes back and stares pained at the ruins, he sees a tiny engraving on this one only - ‘SdW’. Probably stands for ‘Sid Wins’. Logi tenses. He shoulda known he’d been set up. Honey is digging bones out of the area.

HONEY: SHHH!

Why does that man exist. Anyway back in the cave where the actual murder took place, Shadow drops its magnet, which Logi can tell killed a guy. As in, Shadow did the murder. Logi shines a flashlight directly into its face.

LOGICO: I’m really sick of this. You follow me around, then trick me into following YOU around… how do I know you didn’t intend to lure ME into this cave to kill me? I trusted you, and I shouldn’t have. You were simply exploiting my grief. Now, please, for the love of god, can you take your dumb mask off? I know you don’t look like that.  SHADOW: How do you know? LOGICO: Does it matter when I’m right?

Shadow takes off its shades. Now, it has eyes.

LOGICO: For fuck’s sake, you know what I meant.

Shadow stands, shaking. It quickly removes its hat and mask, revealing a face of regret and concern. Logico stands petrified. He is in literal shock, and is probably about to vomit. After a moment of tense silence, he trembles in excitement and GLOMPS the man to the ground. 

LOGICO: [unintelligible high-pitched screaming] I WON’T LET YOU!!! <3 <3  IRRATINO: Haheh… what?? LOGICO: [gico sounds]

Despite his tiny smolness, Logi is pinning Irratino to the ground, spitting buckets of tears, and VERY aggressively snuggling. The ticklish goat cannot breathe. This is very awkward for the other three suspects watching.

Logico suddenly gets all dark and solemn. 

LOGICO: You lied to me. IRRATINO: …Y… would you believe it’s not what it looks like? LOGICO: It looks like you faked your death and have been building fake ruins and placing them everywhere as some kind of publicity stunt. Is THIS what you spent the million dollars on? IRRATINO: What?? No, no, Logico, please! I found these here! I would never fake the occult! LOGICO: But you would MURDER TWO PEOPLE?!? What is ACTUALLY, FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU?! My sweet, innocent, stupidly hopeless little Irratino FUCKING NEARLY KILLS HIMSELF PULLING SOME DUMB STUNT, AND THEN STALKS ME AROUND, KILLS TWO PEOPLE, AND PRETENDS LIKE HE’S SOMEONE HE’S NOT?! [deep low breath] Did you fake your murder on the island?

Tino twitches his little goat paws.

LOGICO: Answer me, now.

He tenses, then falls. 

IRRATINO: It was the only way…

Logico chuckles evilly, eye in shadow. It’s REALLY creepy. Tino kneels down next to him.

IRRATINO: Logico, listen…

In one swift move, Logico leaps up and socks his sweet goat in the face, knocking him out cold, then lays sobbing at his feet as three other men stare with utmost confusion, really never knowing how to feel.

The end (of season three)!

End credits theme suggested by kirvee I didn't forget :3

Goodbye, Mr. Shadow.

The power of Goat Lord compels you!

See you next time murdlers!

[themidnightguardian]

The Hinata Effect (5/5)

Haikyuu | Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu | Rating: T | Mini-Series: Five Times People Got Caught up in the Hinata Effect | each segment can be read as a standalone

warnings: non-graphic allusions to sex, Atsumu being a trainwreck of emotions

pt. 1 (TsukkiHina) | pt. 2 (KageHina) | pt. 3 (KenHina) | pt. 4 (OiHina)

---

If you ask Osamu, Atsumu’s been pining after Hinata Shouyou for years. Since that first volleyball match between Karasuno and Inarizaki, even. It’s been hilariously pathetic.

If you ask Atsumu, first of all, he doesn’t pine. Second of all, really, the whole “holy shit he’s hot” moment didn’t happen until Shouyou walked into the MSBY Black Jackals open tryouts looking like sin itself and proceeded to kick ass.

(The only person who knows that Atsumu spent the next 48 hours repeatedly cycling through, “But I’m straight,” and, “Apparently Not,” is Sakusa Kiyoomi, and only because he accidentally walked in on Atsumu panic making onigiri at 5 AM in the communal kitchen. Atsumu had looked up, said, “I think I might be a little gay.” Sakusa, deciding that this was the timeline that God had abandoned, walked right back out.)

Being on a team with Shou-chan is divine torture. He is, hands-down, the most fun spiker to set for. Shouyou defies gravity, bends the laws of nature whenever they don’t suit him, and there’s something mesmerizing in the way he moves. It’s not that the others aren’t as good—despite the ribbing and teasing, Atsumu does genuinely like Omi-kun, and Bokuto is always a good time both on and off the court—but he likes Shouyou best.

Maybe it’s that Shouyou never wants Atsumu to stop setting for him, and Atsumu never gets tired of having someone to set for. Maybe it’s that Shouyou’s eyes are burnt-toffee brown and they shine so bright after every point he wins. Maybe it’s the way Shouyou bounces up to him, tucks himself under Atsumu’s arm without even thinking about it, like personal space is irrelevant and unnecessary, and talks near-endlessly about the different plays they could pull off. Maybe it’s the intensity of his focus, or the firm grip of his hand when he claps Atsumu on the shoulder, or…

Or maybe it’s that, in the early mornings, Shou-chan will sometimes seem quieter, more centered, fresh off his meditation and yoga routine. He’s graceful on the court and graceful as he bends himself into a dozen different shapes—each of which Atsumu has distinct and vivid fantasies about—but when he stumbles into the kitchen, he sometimes catches his hip on the corner of the counter. He’ll offer to make Atsumu breakfast—usually eggs and fruit, or yogurt and fruit, or, if he’s breaking the diet they’re supposed to be on, cornmeal cakes and fruit and ham, all things he picked up from Brazil—because Atsumu is always awake to watch Hinata do yoga to get an early start on his day.

It's one thing to think Hinata is hot, which he is, and for Atsumu to imagine what it’d be like to bend Hinata into one of those downward dog positions on Atsumu’s bed instead of a yoga mat, or get off to an illicit fantasy or ten about what might happen if the two of them were the last ones in the locker room at the end of practice. It’s another thing entirely to dream about some domestic shit where they take turns making dinner in their own house instead of the team apartment complex, to dream about the simplicity of just taking Shouyou’s hand and holding it, to dream about Shou-chan taking him to Brazil to meet the people who’ve become so important to him there, like a second family.

Osamu figures out that it’s more than just physical attraction or admiration for Shouyou’s skill approximately 27 seconds into one of their phone-calls and proceeds to laugh his ass off about it for a solid five minutes straight before saying, “Shoulda known you’d be stupid ‘bout this too.” And then he’d hung up.

Atsumu would like to think he’s not so obvious, that ‘Samu only knows ‘cause of twin shit. He’s pretty sure most of the team doesn’t know. Outside of practice, he only really spends time with Hinata, Sakusa, and Bokuto. And Bokuto’s kind of obtuse about a lot of stuff, probably because it’s Akaashi-Simp-Hours 24/7 in his head. But Atsumu should have known Omi-kun would figure it out.

“Eugh,” he says in Atsumu’s general direction a minimum of twelve times a day, usually when he catches Atsumu distractedly ogling Shouyou. Omi-kun, who seems like he doesn’t like anybody, does actually like Shou-chan, so he probably doesn’t think Atsumu’s good enough for him, but he also has a very firm “if it’s not my business, it’s not my problem” policy. Which is good for Atsumu.

What’s not good for Atsumu—not good for his heart, which is about to beat out of his chest, or his lungs, which have decided to stop functioning altogether—is the way Shouyou is standing in the doorway to Atsumu’s room with a slightly-sheepish, slightly-sly smile.

It’s past midnight, and they’ve finally wrapped up the after-party from celebrating their first defeat of the Adlers for the season. Some members of the other team had come, surprisingly amicable despite losing; Atsumu knows Omi-kun spent most of the evening quietly conversing with Ushiwaka, knows that Shouyou and Kageyama and Bokuto had gotten into something of a drinking contest—Atsumu wasn’t jealous, he wasn’t, even if everyone and their mother knows Kageyama was Shou-chan’s first love.

(Well, first human love, considering Shouyou’s first love is and always will be volleyball.)

Atsumu also knows that Kageyama, who apparently cannot hold his liquor as well as Shouyou can, is passed out in Shouyou’s room right now, on Shouyou’s bed, probably in some of Shouyou’s clothes—if there are any that would fit him—or maybe even naked, since his own clothes smelled pretty strongly of alcohol. He’ll never say it out loud, but this is one of Atsumu’s worst nightmares: that despite all the time and distance and experience between them now, Shouyou and Kageyama will continue to circle back to each other through some force of nature or fate, and there’s nothing Atsumu can do—even if he was brave enough to tell Shou-chan his feelings, even if those feelings were reciprocated in some way—to keep it from happening.

And yet.

Shouyou is here, standing in Atsumu’s doorway.

“Watcha doin’ Shou-chan?” he asks, because he has to say something, because he doesn’t understand what’s happening.

“Bakageyama’s taking up the whole bed,” Shouyou says, pouting. Atsumu’s about 90% sure it’s an act of some sort, but he doesn’t know what the end game is.

“I’m sure ya could fit,” Atsumu says, and then immediately wants to punch himself.

Shouyou’s head tips to the side, those toffee eyes wide and not-quite-innocent. “Why would I do that, Atsumu?”

He swallows harshly. Shouyou doesn’t call him Atsumu, not since Bokuto got everyone started on Tsum Tsum. And no one says his name like that, a little drawn out, quiet and serious, maybe a little teasing, and wow, yeah, Atsumu didn’t know hearing Shouyou say his name like that was going to put a serious fracture in his self-control. He’s pretty sure he’s blushing.

Something cautious flickers over Shouyou’s face, a tiny furrow in his brow, and he says, “Unless…if I’m wrong, I’m sorry, I—”

“No.” Atsumu’s speaking before he’s even aware of it. Something is happening here, something tremendous, and Atsumu is not going to let it slip by just because he’s a little terrified of his own feelings. There’s no doubting what Shouyou’s getting at, and the last thing in the world that Atsumu wants is for Shouyou to second-guess himself now. “Yer not…yer not wrong.”

“Oh.” And then Shouyou smiles, one of those slower, slyer curves of the mouth that hold a promise of something. “Good.”

(Atsumu wakes up to Shouyou’s body tucked firmly against his own, Shouyou’s mouth brushing the base of his throat, hot breath fanning across his collarbone. One of his own legs is tucked between Shouyou’s, and one of Shouyou’s is thrown over his hip. Atsumu is half-hard in his boxers and he doesn’t even care. Sex is the furthest thing from his mind at this moment, because all he can do is marvel at how perfectly Shouyou fits against him, how peaceful it is to wake up like this, how the sun is just peeking through the window, catching on the very tips of Shouyou’s hair, which means he’ll wake up soon and probably start his morning routine, and maybe they’ll have breakfast together, and Atsumu…

Atsumu is not sure yet, if he’s really in love or if he only thinks he is. But he hopes Shouyou will let him find out.)

[apparitionism]

Confection 3

Bering and Wells! Rival chefs! Competition! Past entanglement of some sort! That’s basically what’s going on here, as imperfectly begun in part 1 and part 2. I have to warn you that in this next part, Helena makes an enormously cheeseball move, for which I apologize, but everything in this story is pretty cheeseball (except maybe the actual cooking); some Helenas are less smooth than others. Some other Mykas might (would) laugh in her face and say “are you kidding me with this,” but this Myka is not one of those. Sometimes a given Myka is just too smitten—and at the same time too psyched out by power dynamics—to do any of what she really should.

Confection 3

“For the first round,” Steve says, “the judges would like to taste your takes on two iconic Christmas side dishes: cranberry sauce and candied yams. But—and no one will be surprised to hear this—the former should be made without cranberries, and the latter without yams. You’ll have ninety minutes for this round... and your time starts now.”

****

Claudia sharpened her eyes when Chefs Wells and Bering—Or should that be Chefs Bering and Wells, she wondered—were on set together for the first time. She was hoping for nature-documentary levels of savage, “Chefs in the Wild,” featuring Predator-Wells and Prey-Bering, with growling and yowling and maybe even some trap-setting and -springing.

Disappointingly, all Claudia could tell at first was they were very obviously not looking at each other, both paying very intent attention to the production personnel explaining marks, angles, retakes. Chef Wells knew it all, of course, so her attention had to have been for show. She was the type, Claudia figured, who never bothered watching airplane safety videos. Whereas Chef Bering obviously always watched the safety videos and located the nearest exit, even if it was behind her... so her attention was harder to read.

Not impossible, though: every now and then she’d waver, blinking and lowering her eyes, and Claudia would have bet money that was cover for a glance at Chef Wells, because when Chef Bering would raise her face again, she’d be a slightly brighter shade of pink.

Claudia was beginning to suspect that “hate each other” was going to be more difficult to sell than she’d thought... at least in one direction. But that was the story. And maybe, if she tried, she could make it more true...

****

You can be professional, Myka had reminded herself on the sidewalk in front of the studio. No: you will be professional.

About everything.

She hadn’t told Pete who her competition was going to be, even when he’d observed, “You’re freaky-nervous about tomorrow. What gives?”

Instead of just saying “Helena Wells”—fearing the embarrassment—she’d babbled about the stakes being high: the restaurant, her parents. Needing to win. Needing to prove.

“I never shoulda made you think about the restaurant thing,” he said with a wince. “Just go and cook like you do. If the money happens, it happens. And if not, we’ll be fine. As for the parents... I really never shoulda made you think about that. Just cook like you do. Seriously, no pressure.”

As always, his sweetness was... sweet.  But she had been sure, down to her very bones, that pressure was all there was.

And she was right.

First and worst—or best?—was the pressure in her chest as she stood in the presence of Helena for the first time in over a year. Next—also a war between worst and best—was the pressure of Helena’s hand in and against hers, a warm clasp to acknowledge their re-meeting, a professional greeting, away from which they both turned (Myka trying to hide her fluster, Helena probably feeling nothing but “oh yes I suppose I did know her”) to make the acquaintance of the other contestants.

Once they were on set, Myka had found it a bit easier to control that chest-pressure, for she had instruction to focus on.

But then she’d made the absentminded mistake of glancing at the decor around her: Christmas. She’d known that was the theme of their episode, the point of all their cooking, but she hadn’t realized how extremely Christmas the set itself would be. Wreaths and poinsettias, jingle bells and pine garlands, holly and snowflakes and shiny stars.

And mistletoe.

Was Helena taking it in too? And if she was, did Myka’s presence prompt her to remember? Myka tried, briefly, to find Helena’s eyes but then thought better of it.

Dangerous.

****

The annual Apples Christmas party was Quite A Gala Affair, Myka had heard, and her experience of it did not disappoint. Caturanga, despite not having a Christian bone in his body, adored Christmas. “On what basis could one possibly reject a rationale for such celebration?” he demanded of any employee who questioned him as he sailed through the closed-for-the-occasion restaurant. “Religious differences? Absurd!”

Party lights twinkled everywhere, their pops of bright not fully illuminating the expansive space, smoothing the edges from its everyday functionality, rendering it a mystery. Caterers plied the Apples staff with food they could simply enjoy. Caterers: not Myka, not Helena, but vested and tied all the same. It spoke to Myka of statuses and how they changed... she had a vision of herself offering a tray to Helena... and then the reverse. Let me serve you.

Myka had one drink, then a second. A cocktail invented for this party: an Apple Old-Fashioned, with not only an apple garnish but apple bitters as well.

Was the cocktail truly delicious, or was it merely delicious to drink while gazing upon Helena Wells? She and Caturanga were the party’s stars, of course, but while Caturanga was clearly also its jolly host, Helena was its Sphinx-like queen. Staff seemed to be waiting in an unspoken ambit of station and status to receive a word with, or even a nod from, her opaque majesty...

Myka was accepting a third glass from a vest-and-tie-wearer when Abigail Chow—a fellow line cook whose knife work Myka envied enormously—raised her own apparently several-in glass to Myka and said, “These are okay, but last year it was an apple Negroni, Calvados instead of Campari. A real heavy hitter, but it went down so easy... everybody was tipsy. Hookups galore that night. Tons of awkward fallout.” She drained the glass and said, “Not this year, I guess. Sad.”

Myka didn’t dare say what she was thinking: that she was suddenly sad too, because a tipsy Helena Wells might have been everything she wanted and then some. Hookups galore? She was staring without cease—which she had to stop; Abigail or someone else, someones else, would surely notice—and she knew she would have been content, if not happy, to accept the awkward fallout if she could have that hookup, because who knew anything about aftermaths anyway? Maybe the fallout would have been... happiness?

Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. Out loud, in her head, because she needed to remember it.

Still: alcohol was flowing free, if not hitting heavy, and Myka had noticed the decorations comprised fake mistletoe, among other clichés. Possibilities abounded.

Myka waited and watched Queen Wells, waiting for her turn, watching for her opening, and at last she’d sidled her way into the correctly collapsible orbit to achieve an audience.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” asked the chef—but Helena tonight, surely tonight Helena, for she asked it low, as if over Myka’s shoulder, but her now to her face, so near her face.

Third drink in hand, Myka was, if not tipsy, certainly emboldened. “Now,” she said.

“I’m delighted to hear that,” was the response, in a voice that, in Myka’s estimation, tilted toward “Helena” rather than “Chef Wells.” Her raise of her glass to Myka’s weighted the scale even further in that “Helena” direction, as did her next words: “And the décor pleases you?”

Was that a generic question? Or was it meant to be personal? Wary, Myka offered an anodyne “It’s beautiful.” But neutral had been the wrong choice; Helena gave her nothing in return. All right. Trying for more “Myka” in her own voice rather than “employee,” she said, with a slight lean in, “The lighting. The... mood.”

Helena said, as if simply musing, “Caturanga always insists that we import the mistletoe from Tenbury Wells.”

“I...” Myka stopped. Regrouped. “Why?”

“Authenticity. The town’s apple orchards are particularly attractive to mistletoe, that parasitic plant; the place styles itself the mistletoe capital of the UK.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as authentic mistletoe,” Myka said.

“Shall I show you?”

Could Myka have said anything but yes? In response to which, Helena (tonight clearly and obviously Helena) took her hand—a simple directional gesture to observers, perhaps, but to Myka ignition—and led her to stand beneath a garland in the surprisingly uninhabited lobby. She pointed up at the clump of green, which Myka did now register as real, not plastic.

“The berries determine the attractiveness of the plant. Its appeal. As I understand it, this year they’re... spectacular,” Helena said, and then she paused. As if it were now her turn to wait and watch.

“Are they.” Myka thought on awkward fallout.

But she knew that she and Helena been building to... something. Something. That quiet morning. Breath on Myka’s neck. Greetings delivered with what seemed to be secret smiles. Swift, warm answers, rather than brusque brushoffs, when Myka would express curiosity about recipes, platings, choices.

And yet even as she felt her body give in, leaning close and closer, her mind raced again to fallout, afters, nexts, consequences.

Prompted by panic, she blurted, “I’m supposed to go to another party.” She was. Secret Service, where Pete worked, was having its own holiday party—late, after close—and Pete had “invited” her by saying, “You’ll like this better than snooty Apples. We’ll just hang out and have fun.”

When in return Helena offered, “Are you,” Myka wanted to respond “But I would never” or, crazier, “Would you come with me”—but she couldn’t. Well. Shouldn’t.

Then Helena asked, “With?”

That changed the game. It might have been a casual inquiry. But as Helena had said it, she’d moved back, only an inch if that, but Myka saw it. Saw it and read it as jealousy, or possessiveness, or at least a hint of something like one of those, something like everything Myka would have wished—had been wishing—Helena would feel. And that her body might express it so legibly? A dream, in some sense, come true...

Myka opened her mouth to hurry out “no one, no one,” with the idea that such an assurance would bring Helena back, back that one inch and maybe more. But before she could speak, a striking woman emerged from the dim light and grabbed Helena’s arm.

“Ah,” Helena said, a startle. But she didn’t pull away from the grab; instead, she allowed herself to be pulled away, unresisting, leaving Myka stranded, in no orbit at all. A lost satellite.

Stunned, bereft, she looked up at the mistletoe. Parasitic plant, Helena had called it. More like useless plant, Myka thought, and sent that thought, limply, in its direction.

Abigail, Greek chorus personified, appeared again, supplying, “Awkward fallout: pretty sure that’s some.”

Myka didn’t ask, but her heart (it knew; it knew) began to thump triple-time as Abigail went on, “That’s Giselle. She’s an investor in this little restaurant concern. Everybody thinks she and the chef hooked up last year, so now the chef’s on the hook, if you know what I mean.”

“I guess I do.” The distance, suddenly such distance between her and Helena. No: between her and Chef Wells. Last year, she hadn’t been here. But Chef Wells had.

“Or maybe not,” Abigail said, quickly, and had Myka revealed more than she meant to? If she had, maybe Abigail would do her a drunk favor and not remember. “Whatever happened,” Abigail went on, “Giselle’s got money, and she definitely knows how to pull a string.” She looked around. “The caterers don’t come out here, do they? I need another drink.” And she left.

But Myka waited, there under the mistletoe. She waited, with nothing to watch but the useless—if imported—plant above her solitary head.

She lingered until “waiting” had turned into nothing but “standing.” Then she left and went to Pete’s party. She figured that at least there she wouldn’t do anything reminiscent of her teenage self—such as foolishly thinking she could translate signs into wants; she might as well have been writing in her diary, “Helena leaned toward me but does that mean what I hope it means?”—but in fact she did: she complained to Pete about Giselle’s removal of Helena from their... interaction.

She didn’t mention the involvement of mistletoe.

“That happens at parties,” Pete said. “Right? You’re talking to somebody, then you’re not.”

“I didn’t want it to happen,” Myka said, stuck and stubborn in her hurt.

Pete gave her his Sherlock-Holmes face. “My brilliant detective skills say that means something’s going on with you and the chef.” Myka held her breath; once again, she’d said too much. He gave a little “mmhmm” and followed that up with “You wanted more face time with the famous lady. Hero-worship, right?”

She was able to frown truthfully at that, correcting, “Admiration, not worship.”

“Hero-admiration?”

That sounded even more wrong. “I don’t think I have a hero. Or need one.”

He laughed. “Except me, right? Grease fire.” In culinary school, his quick move with a frying pan had saved, if not Myka’s life, at the very least her eyebrows, and he liked to remind her of it.

“Bánh mi,” she said back—laughing back—because, also in culinary school, her quick proffer of a mayonnaise jar had saved him from, if not flunking out, at the very least embarrassment at having left out an ingredient. One reminder deserved another.

“And that’s why we’re partners. Saving each other. From whatever, right?”

From whatever. He’d done it again, for she’d needed reminding: of what was real and what wasn’t. Of what she could rely on and what she couldn’t.

In her head, she rewatched Helena letting herself be pulled, without even a glance back at Myka. “Giselle’s got money,” she reheard Abigail say. And: “She definitely knows how to pull a string.”

Myka had no money. And she had no idea how to pull a string.

“Is your boss still interviewing?” she’d asked Pete then, and with a yelp, he’d thrown his arms around her.

He’d been nagging her for weeks to try for Secret Service’s soon-to-be-vacant sous-chef position; she’d intended, until tonight, to keep putting him off, saying that at Apples she had so much more to learn (meaning: about Helena). So much more to experience (meaning: with Helena).

But that wasn’t real. The learning and the experience were, but the Helena part wasn’t. Pete, her partner, was.

****

As the first round of competition began—or “began,” for the chefs stood idle as several crew members took their time ensuring that various setups were doing what they were intended to—Myka tried to convince herself that her feelings about the collapsed possibilities of the past didn’t matter in the slightest: she had to figure out how to make cranberry sauce without cranberries and candied yams without yams, and she had to do it fast.

Even under non-filmed circumstances, those cooking demands would have been difficult. But constantly seeing Helena Wells at the edge of her vision—constantly feeling the presence of Helena Wells, barely an arm’s length away—constantly having to navigate around Helena Wells when moving from her station to anywhere else in the kitchen—well.

All of that was certainly going to make things easier.

TBC

[rogueofsoup]

Homework on the Moon chapter 3! Or something. Idk. Let's say it's 3. Chapter 3!

— 

That Saturday afternoon was particularly lazy, with really not much going on. Danny was just about to call up his friends to hang out when he felt the pull of a summon. It was his first actual official summon since becoming Ghost King, and he had worked very hard on his cool Ghost King attire to use for that first official summon. A King has to make a good impression, after all.

The crown floated in green flames above King Danny's head, his galaxy-filled cloak billowing out around him and hiding most of his unimposing figure. Making his body invisible allowed him to float several feet higher than he really stood, giving a sort of eldritch look to him that made it look like his body was made of the space his cloak was filled with. He had a large gauntlet on so he could still gesture menacingly if needed, and on that gauntlet he wore the Ring of Confusion (once known as the Ring of Rage). And of course there was the mask, its design inspired in part by Poppop Clockwork's own face. Red eyes with the black streak over the left, but other than that it was mostly featureless, aside from the part that allowed him to open up the mask like a mouth so to not muffle his wail. Obviously that was fanged. It of course also had essentially a wig attached to it, making it look like Danny had much longer and wilder white hair.

It took Danny a moment to realize where exactly he had been summoned to. He knew it was outside Earth’s atmosphere, he could feel the cold presence of space surrounding the area he floated in. It was only when he saw a battered Superman on the ground, one hand over the sigil to summon him. Danny looked down at the super in dejection, thinking only one thing:

‘Shoulda just kept my big mouth shut.’

Superman shakily lifted his head, looking up at the imposing form of The Ghost King. He was most certainly… impressive. The very power coming off of him seemed to fill the entire space, almost as if he was telling the very room itself, "BEHOLD! THE GHOST KING OF THE INFINITE REALMS! WORSHIP ME!" He pushed himself up into a proper kneel before the King, being respectful.

"Your majesty, if I may ask for your assistance," he said, clearly in pain. "There is... someone with ghostly abilities here, who was trying to steal your summon for himself. Would it be possible to... maybe help...?" He looked up at the imposing King, awaiting an answer. The summon itself meant he had the right to just tell Danny what to do, and yet he was still asking if it was ok.

'Ok, so the JL have trouble with ghosts and the like,' Danny thought to himself, really hoping he won't have to have an intense battle with something extremely strong today. After a moment of contemplation, he nodded a slow and imposing nod. He had to keep up appearances and all.

"Um, I-I believe the villain identified himself as 'Plasmius'?" Superman added in, hoping the identification would help.

Danny immediately brightened up, responding in ghostspeak so to remain spooky.

#Oh, fruitloop? Yeah, I can kick his butt for you.#

Danny suddenly flew by, turning intangible so to pass through Superman before going off to beat up Vlad. Sure, the old man had been able to beat him on occasion in the past, but as of late Danny still held the win record.

Electric crackling and haunting whirring with the faintest hint of a scream in the background, shaped like clay to form words in a tongue he could not hope to understand. The sound wasn't only familiar, it was near identical to the frustrated nose that had come from the boy Clark had helped. He didn't know too much about ghosts, but he had a hunch.

Daniel Fenton, who are you really?

-

Danny reappeared in the main area Plasmius floated in, unconscious Justice Leaguers pushed off to the sides as the angry halfa tore through the rooms looking for something. Danny pushed his will into the room like he had done when being summoned, creating a silent but all-consuming "I am present." Vlad immediately looked over angrily, then his gaze turned to shock and fear, then pure ass-kissery.

"Ah, m-my king!" Vlad quickly said, dropping to his knee. "I was merely, erm, trying to find your summon so to… ah… protect it! Yes, wouldn't want it falling into the hands of a villain that would mind control these foolish mortals again to give it to them. But it appears you have been summoned by them, so your summon is now used and therefore useless. So that would no longer be a problem! I-I merely wished to do my duty and protect your power from falling into the wrong hands, my king!"

Holy Ancients. Vlad "Tried to Beat Pariah Dark" Masters some way somehow didn't know Danny was the new King. He had no idea. This was so funny. Here he was, practically groveling in front of him and thinking he was some ancient powerful being that recently decided to pop up and take control. Would it be funnier to speak up and show him he was the very same teenager the man had been trying to adopt/clone/kidnap/kill for the past few years, or would it be funnier to let him continue thinking the Ghost King was someone completely different and reveal much later when the fruitloop had already been kissing his ass for a while?

Danny decided on the latter, and opened his mouth (and mask), letting out his ghostly wail to begin the fight. Plasmius was immediately taken aback, seemingly even afraid for a moment. He didn't seem to recognize the wail as Danny's.

The fight was on, and Danny wasn't holding back. Vlad however seemed to be unwilling to fight at full force, almost as if he was afraid of invoking the King's wrath by actually attempting to harm him. He was lucky Danny wasn't Pariah, else he'd be even more pissed off. He easily dodged half-assed shots, swirling around them like wind as he closed in on the increasingly panicked halfa. Using the gauntlet, Danny grabbed Vlad by the throat and lifted him up.

Vlad struggled against the grip, seeming genuine with surprisingly little opposing strength. It was almost as if Danny was physically stronger, significantly so. He threw Vlad into the ground and watched as the other half-ghost slammed against the hard floor, leaving a painful indent. He swore he didn't throw him that hard, it was completely accidental. The sudden strength he most certainly possessed made him think it may have been one of the powerful artifacts he wore as King. Who knows, maybe it was his crown and/or ring noting how young of a ghost he was and making up for it? The idea sort of scared him, he'd have to ask Clockwork.

Vlad shakily sat up, looking on in terror at the horrifying eldritch being that was The New King. This being had apparently defeated Pariah Dark fairly when he had failed, and he now knew why and how. The unmistakable resemblance to the very visage of Clockwork showed this was at the very least a demigod. He couldn't hold back fighting him, but even if he went at full force he didn't think he was able to defeat him. It may have mostly just been the fear talking, but he felt like if he tried fighting The New King one on one, he wouldn't have a chance in hell. The horrifying being now floated above him, staring down intimidatingly. He… wasn't finishing the job? Was he sparing Vlad? Oh thank the Ancients, The New King possessed mercy. Well, he was never one to squander an opportunity.

Danny had been just kinda zoning out when he realized Vlad had phased through the floor. He quickly followed after him, soon finding him hightailing it towards Earth. Well… that situation solved itself. Terrifyingly so, but it did end without complete death.

Danny floated back into The Watchtower, apparently just in time to see the League members regaining consciousness. Several panicked at the sight of him, some of which even seeming to be about to attack. Thankfully, Danny would not have to dodge, block, or retaliate against them, as the Man of Steel himself had managed to stop them before they could attack.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said simply, gently pushing down Green Lantern's arm before looking over at the others. "That's the King. Trust me, we don't want an incident."

Superman walked over towards Danny, seeming to use his fight to reduce the weight on one of his legs. He was very good at hiding it, Danny (and likely the Bat) could only just barely tell. Still, Danny decided it would be considerate to meet the injured hero halfway.

"… The voices of ghosts I imagine are pretty unique, right?" Superman asked, "The sounds seem pretty specific." Realizing the jig was up, Danny nodded. Supes definitely recognized his voice.

"If you don't mind me asking, would it be possible for a ghost to have a child after death?" Superman pressed. This line of questioning was definitively not what Danny was expecting, but he nodded nonetheless.

"Is it in turn possible that you, The Ghost King of the Infinite Realms, could have a child that is half human half ghost?" Superman suggested.

Danny didn't move for several seconds. He couldn't be serious, right? He couldn't be suggesting that-… holy shit he was suggesting he was his own dad. It would certainly stop some questioning and potential unwanted babysitting, and it would give him such a badass backstory. He couldn't pass it up, but that also meant that he couldn't be anything but this big scary form when answering to them as Ghost King. It also meant he had to really play the part, and so he had to come up with a spooky way of responding that wouldn't reveal his teenage voice to a bunch of really serious adults.

Forming human words with ghostspeak was indeed possible, but difficult. But it would hide his human voice. He opened his mouth, carefully forming the noises of his death into words.

"Phan…tom…" he managed to gurgle. The exertion hurt his throat. "My… son…"

Superman wore the look of someone who's suspicions had been confirmed. It took so much to not just laugh at him. He knew he had to push it further, so he appeared to lean down and put the huge gauntlet on Superman's shoulder.

"You… home…work… help…" he crackled out, stifling a cough. "Friend… of… Dan…ny…" Superman looked surprised, taking a few seconds to respond.

"Oh, uh… no problem sir- uh, I mean your majesty," he managed to say, apparently not expecting such gentleness. "A-and, if you don't mind, I heard from somewhere you, uh… are… backed by Clockwork…?" Danny couldn't help but let out a ghostly laugh. He then took the gauntlet off of the man's shoulder and used it to point at himself.

"Ward…" he managed. "My… fa…ther…"

This was the best prank he had ever pulled in his life, and it would likely have disastrous consequences. The JL were now under the impression that 1. Danny is the son of The Ghost King (Danny), 2. Clockwork is the adoptive father of The Ghost King, 3. The Ghost King is super chill with Superman because he helped The Ghost Prince (not a real thing) with his homework, and 4. Clockwork is Danny's actual grandfather. Oh, and 5. Danny is not actually related to Jack Fenton, and is in fact half-ghost due to being born that way, instead of dying due to his parents' negligence regarding their dangerous machinery. Ok, that last part wasn't really funny per se, but still.

The JL seemed somewhat horrified by this revelation, which possibly could also mean that they wouldn't dare let anything happen to Danny in fear of The Ghost King getting pissed at the living world. Regardless, Danny figured he wouldn't be able to answer any further questions without coughing his ghostly lungs out, so with a flourish he vanished into nothing, retreating back through the summon. He had finished what he was summoned to do after all: beat the crap out of Plasmius.

The members that had been able to witness it were shocked (and slightly terrified) by the revelations given by the King himself, each one left stumped and frozen in their places. The Flash managed to finally get up, and limped his way over to Superman before patting him on the shoulder.

"I guess you gotta help the Ghost Prince with his homework in the Watchtower next time, huh?" he joked, coughing a little from the pain of his lightly crushed ribs.

-

Been working on this bit by bit over the week, that seems to really help. If anyone wants to be tagged in the next chapters, hmu!

Short DPXDC Prompts #837

Danny was just relaxing doing his homework on the moon. (It was quiet and had minimal distractions. Perfect for studying). He didn’t expect to see anyone during his studying but after seeing movement out of the corner of his eye he went to check it out. To his surprise: Superman was just sitting on the moon looking down at earth. Chilling.

[gloriousmonsters]

book: this character is a HORRIBLE BASTARD COWARD and also VERY CREEPY AND EMOTIONALLY FLAT. maybe they’re SOULESS we don’t know

me: *drawing up adoption papers*

[jessource]

sentence starters: emails i can’t send.

rp sentence starters from sabrina carpenter’s, emails i can’t send.  ( part one )

emails i can’t send.

“it’s times like these, wish i had a time machine.”

“at 10:15, were you really asleep?”

“were you lying to me and the family?”

“there’s no ‘us’ in us when i’m lackin’ trust.”

“you disgust me.”

“don’t make me cuss you out.”

“why’d you let me down?”

“don’t say sorry now.”

“thanks to you i, i can’t love right.”

“they’re havin’ sex right now.”

“scared i’ll find out that it’s true.”

“i blame you for every worst that i assume.”

“when i’m fourty-five, someone calls me their wife.”

“and (he/she/they) fucks our lives in one selfish night.”

“don’t think i’ll find forgiveness as fast as mom did.”

“god, i love you, but you’re such a dipshit.”

“please fuckin’ fix this.”

“you were all i looked up to.”

“now i can’t even look at you.”

“i mean, as they say in chicago, ‘he had it comin’.”

vicious.

“one year, ten thousand bad moments.”

“i tried to look for the best in the worst. but like, fuck me, that caused a commotion.”

“you’re lucky i’m a private person.”

“i’ve quietly carried your burden.”

“everyone thinks you’re an angel, but shit i would probably use different wording.”

“you’re so vicious. love me, then pretend you didn’t.”

“why you gotta be so vicious?”

“crush my heart and wreck my image.”

“you like a certain type of woman.”

“you just run to whoever is winning.”

“it was me and you for life, now you’re kinda acting like i died.”

“love me, then pretend you didnt.”

“half of me just can’t resist it.”

“you don’t feel remorse, you don’t feel the effects.”

“you don’t think you hurt me if you wish me the best.”

“i shoulda known all along, i was only the next one.”

“i loved you but i wish i didn’t.”

read your mind.

“you gotta be lonely.”

“say it’s hard, but you make it look easy.”

“i’m trying to live in reality.”

“tryna ease the tension.”

“you got me stressing.”

“tell me that you miss me in your life.”

“i can’t read your mind.”

“you say that you need to be alone. but night and day want me at your beck and call.”

“you might be crossing a line.”

“wasting all our time to think that we could be casual.”

“you’re not my friend.”

“why the fuss if you say you just wanna be mine?”

“tell me what’s gonna happen when it’s you and me in a room but you know you can’t have it.”

“i’ll be laughing when you say you really have changed.”

“did i get the message in the way you intended?”

tornado warnings.

“we were never in the park.”

“ignoring tornado warnings.”

“he didn’t hold me in his arms.”

“we didn’t stumble over the pages of our relationship arc.”

“i want you there sometimes.”

“i guess maybe that’s why i’m lying to my therapist.”

“i keep saying things like, ‘i never saw him and we never kisssed.’”

“if he doesn’t see it, then maybe it doesn’t exist.”

“i think he’s onto me.”

“i deserve an hour in a week to focus on my thoughts not so obsessed with yours. i can’t hear myself speak.”

“sometimes i wish i kept some of my feelings in the basement so i’d still have some left.”

“you drive me crazy.”

“that’s not gonna stop me.”

“you call me ‘baby’”

because i liked a boy.

“i said i wanted thin mints.”

“you said you knew a guy.”

“stars in your eyes.”

“who knew cuddling on trampolines could be so reckless.”

“we bonded over black eyed peas and complicated exes.”

“fell so deeply into it. it was all so innocent.”

“now i’m a homewrecker.”

“i’m a slut.”

“i got death threats fillin’ up semi-trucks.”

“all because i liked—”

“i’m the hot topic on your tongue.”

“i’m a rebound.”

“tell me who i am.”

“guess i don’t have a choice.”

“all because i liked a boy.”

“i’m not catastrophizing.”

“everything’s derailing.”

“was only trynna hold you close while your heart was failing.”

“just two kids going through it.”

“you said i’m too late to be your first love.”

“but i’ll always be your favourite.”

“no, i wouldn’t recommend it.”

already over.

“we been talkin' for hours ‘bout how we shouldn’t talk for hours on end.”

“kissin’ after a conversation about how we’d probably be better off as friends.”

“same time here next weekend.”

“say we won’t do this again.”

“i say i’m done, but i’m still confused.”

“how am i supposed to close the door when i still need the closure?”

“i changed my mind.”

“but it’s still on you.”

“how am i supposed to leave you now that you’re already over?”

“selfishly, don’t wanna give you time to be on someone else’s lips.”

“i’ll take three short hours over three long weeks.”

“pretendin’ like we don’t exist.”

“i like my bed, but it likes you too.”

[kaunis-sielu]

Burning Rose: 5

“Who was that?” Bucky asks as he walks up to Steve and Fawn’s place, the older Alpha looked furious as he’d stomped past.

“My Dad.” Fawn says, Bucky knows that Fawn’s Dad wasn’t a particularly good man.

“What? Want me to kick his ass?” He offers and Fawn laughs softly while shaking her head.

“So the photographer can have to cover injuries on both of you? No thanks.” Bucky would never admit it but he’s actually a little disappointed that she won’t let him go hit someone. He’s been true to his word and has left you alone for the last five days even though he’s been dying to see you again.

“I’m insulted that you think he’d get a hit in.” He says following Steve and Fawn into their house. Steve drops down onto the couch but he follows Fawn into the kitchen. “I’m gonna grab a drink. You want anything Steve?” He asks, but he’s got a feeling he already knows the answer.

“Water. I don’t trust that Fawn’s Dad is just gonna let me Alpha Command him and be cool with it.” Bucky passes Fawn and she freezes.

“Oh my god.” She gasps looking up at Bucky with excited eyes, “You’re seeing an Omega!” How the hell can she still smell you on him? It’s been days, agonizing days.

“What? No I’m not.” He tries to lie but he knows that Fawn isn’t buying it.

“James Barnes I can smell her on you.” She says and Bucky suddenly feels like a scolded little boy.

“That’s just Becca.” He tries to lie again, but again, he knows that Fawn isn’t buying his lies.

“Becca is one of my best friends. Would you like to try that again?” She inhales deeply, “She smells lovely. Like Jasmine and Rose. I’ve smelled that before. Where have a smelled that?” Bucky knows that you’ve met Fawn, he doesn’t want her to cause you any problems, he already has one meddling Omega in his life.

“In a garden? Look, please don’t say anything to Steve. She’s not ready for this to be a big thing and I really, really like her Fawn.” Bucky watches as her face softens and she gives him this sweet little smile.

“If there’s anything I can do to ease her mind please let me know.”

“Thanks. I just, I know she’s my Omega but I’m worried about coming on too strong, she kinda reminds me of you at the beginning. I think something happened with an Alpha but she hasn’t told me.”

“She probably won’t. I still haven’t told Steve everything that Peter did.”

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t like it and it doesn’t matter anymore. I have Steve, my past brought me to him and that’s what matters.” Bucky hums lowly as you pull two frozen pizzas out of the freezer.

“Any advice?” He asks grabbing a cup from the cupboard to fill with water for Steve.

“Just be patient. I know it’s hard but being an Omega is exhausting and it’s really hard to trust Alphas. Show her that you respect her and her boundaries.” She says as he fills the cup.

“Thanks Fawn.” He says with a small smile, he heads into the living room with Steve’s water and his beer and when he sits down Steve looks over at him.

“What did you say to my Omega?”

“Nothing? She cornered me.” Bucky says and Steve looks suspiciously over at him.

“I’ll be right back.” He gets up to go and check on Fawn when Bucky’s phone buzzes, he’s surprised to see an unknown number.

Hi Becca, it’s Blossom do you have the address for where I’m bringing the flowers on Saturday?

That tricky little sister of his, he should be mad at her but it’s so nice to hear from you.

Hey Darlin it seems Becca gave you the wrong number. This is Bucky but I can get you that address.

Oh, sorry for bothering you.

Darlin, you are never a bother. He feels a little zip of happiness and he can’t help the little half smile that pulls at the corner of his mouth.

“What’s that look for?” Steve asks strutting back into the room, “You smell weird.”

“Shoulda known I couldn’t keep shit from you.” Bucky grumbles, “I’m attempting to win over an Omega.”

“What?” Steve grins over at him, “Why didn’t you tell me? Who is she?”

“She’s skittish and has this Alpha sister who hates me. I mean hates me. But Steve I know this woman is the Omega for me.”

“Is she into you?”

“When I took off the other day?” Steve nods and Bucky continues, “She needed help and I could feel it.”

“Interesting. So kinda like how I could feel Fawn before I mated her.”

“I told Becca it was like how I can kinda feel Becca’s emotions but, different, more insistent.”

“That’s a good way to put it. You’re not gonna gimme a name are you?”

“The only one who knows is Becca and that’s because she’s a meddling little pain in the ass.”

“Bet Fawn could get it out of you.” Steve teases as Bucky texts you the address of the venue.

“Yea, but she’s nice enough not to.” Bucky says and Steve laughs.

“You’re not wrong.”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell him.” Fawn teases as she comes into the living room.

“I was busted.” Bucky says with a shrug as his phone buzzes again.

“Well, you do smell like an Omega, one that isn’t in the pack. Like a certain Beta I can think of.” Bucky knows that she’s trying to make a point about Becca and Pietro and he and Steve share a look before Steve growls,

“Cheap shot Fawn.” She doesn’t even look bothered, but the hair on Bucky’s arms had raised with the growl. He turns back to his phone,

Thank you

Are you okay? Everything alright with Maria? He knows he should probably leave it be but he doesn’t want you hurt and he knows you have been

We’re not speaking at the moment. I’m going to be bringing my friend Clark up to the venue to help get the flowers set up. He’s a mated Alpha, is that okay?

Should be fine. I’ll warn Steve. Please know that you don’t need protection from anyone in our pack. I’d kill them myself if they did anything to you or made you feel uncomfortable in anyway.

I know. I trust you. Bucky’s heart soars, you trust him.

“Oh, something good just happened.” Fawn whispers and Bucky is snapped back to the moment. He looks up at Steve and Fawn and finds that they’re both staring at him

“What?”

“You’re talking to her aren’t you?” Steve says with a knowing smirk.

“Shut up punk.”

“We’re just really happy for you Bucky.” Fawn says softly, “You deserve to be happy too, everyone in our pack does. If you need anything please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Just, time I think.”

🔥🌹🔥🌹

You and Clark pack up the van with all of the flowers in their containers on Saturday morning. While you know that you don’t need protection, Bucky will be there, you’re glad that Clark is coming with you.

“Do we have everything?” Clark asks and you look down at the checklist on your phone.

“Flowers, blue ribbon, filler greens, pins, the doggie boutonnière, six vases, five small and one large for the tables, one big one to hold the bouquets before the ceremony. You have your suit?” You ask and he nods, “I have my dress, clippers, floral tape and wires, I think we’re good.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want Maria to come?”

“I’m sure.” You tell him and he levels you with a look, “I’m sure Clark, can we go?” He nods and you close the back of the van then climb into the passenger’s seat. You ride in silence for a half hour but then he sighs heavily.

“Alright, now that I have you trapped, what’s going on with you and Maria?”

“She’s being completely unfair. I’ve met an Alpha, a really nice one Clark, he kinda reminds me of you. Like he’s soft and kind but if someone were to even look at Punkie funny you’d rip them apart.”

“Why does Maria hate him?”

“What has she told you about why we ditched our pack?”

“The basics. I know why and I know who to look out for.” He admits and while you’re glad you don’t have to tell him you’re also surprised that Maria did.

“So she’s especially hard on unmated male Alphas.”

“But you like him? You trust him?” He asks and you nod.

“He’s already protected me once and when I decided to empty out all of the flower containers that I thought could’ve been messed with he stayed and helped, without complaint and without me even asking.”

“What’s his name?”

“Bucky Barnes.”

“Oh, James is a good dude.”

“James? Wait you know him?”

“His real name is James, Bucky is just what everyone calls him. I’ve worked with him a few times. Honestly there’s not an Alpha in that pack that I don’t like.”

“That’s good to know, will you tell my sister please?”

“I’m going to be watching, like a hawk and I will give her my unbiased opinion.”

“I guess that’s all I can ask for.” You relent and he chuckles.

When you arrive at the venue you can see why Fawn would like this place. Their whole pack is there, and when the hostess notices you and Clark she brings you to where you can set up. You both change quickly then get to work.

“Clark?” He looks up, “I’m going to go deliver the bouquets and boutonnières, can you start cutting the ends off of the long stems? I need about an inch off the bottoms.”

“You don’t want me to come with?”

“I’m okay, they feel safe.”

“If you change your mind just call me okay?”

“Thank you.” You tuck your phone into the pocket of your dress then make your way to where the women are getting ready. You knock on the door and when it swings open you see all of the women from your shop.

“Oh Fawn, you look stunning.” You tell her, and she does, she looks so soft and pretty.

“Thank you.” She takes a deep breath and pauses before she grins, “The flowers look beautiful.”

“This one is yours,” You point to the largest bouquet, then the rest are whoever wants them and the extra is for a bouquet toss if you do that. Otherwise it’s for whatever you want. I know a lot of women like to have one to dry to keep.”

“I didn’t pay for this.” She says giving you a soft disapproving look.

“Think of it as a congratulations. Um, I also have the boutonnières, do you know where the groom and groomsmen are?”

“She doesn’t. We didn’t want her sneaking off to see her Alpha.” Wanda teases and you see Fawn roll her eyes. “I can take you.” She offers and you nod, you follow Wanda to the room where the men are and you can’t help but hesitate. “You okay?”

“Most of them are Alphas huh?”

“Yea, why don’t I just get one of them?”

“Bucky.” You tell her and she gives you a pleased little smile before nodding. You take a few steps back before she knocks on the door, a large light brown haired alpha with blue eyes. The power that rolls off of him makes your heart race, he’s not a normal Alpha and honestly he’s intimidating.

“Hi, you must be the florist. Fawn told me about you, she loved your shop.” He says and you know that this must be Steve.

“Th-thank you.” Then you smell him, Bucky.

“Steve, go back inside. You’re freaking her out.” He says as he pushes past his best friend. Steve’s brows furrow as he watches his best friend but when he sees how Bucky reaches for you they raise and a grin lights up his face and he and Wanda share a look before she wanders away.

“Sorry, it’s nice to meet you.” Steve says, he seems safe and kind but there’s also power there.

“Steve.” Bucky growls not looking at his friend, “Sorry Darlin’, there’s no privacy in this pack.”

“Not from me.” Steve says with a laugh but Bucky glares over his shoulder at him then shuts the door.

“He’s, is he?”

“A True Alpha yea.”

“Shit. That was overwhelming as hell.” You mutter, “Can, I just need,”

“What do you need Darlin’?” You can’t bring yourself to ask so instead you reach for his sleeve, he doesn’t move. You use just your fingertips to play with the edge of his sleeve.

“You need me to calm you Darlin’?” He asks softly and you nod not looking at him. “Please.” You breathe and a soft, pleased little rumble comes from him.

Tag list:

@abschaffer2 @dsakita @dramadreamer14 @thesassmisstress @sophham @andahugaroundtheneck @loving-life-my-way @thefridgeismybestie @killcomet @dumblani @im-just-another-monster @mywinterwolf @biskwitmamaw @geeksareunique @paintballkid711 @lumar014 @also-fangirlinsweden @connie326 @inkedaztec @eralen @valsworldofcreativity @strangersstranger @dontbescaredtosingalong @blackwidownat2814 @learisa

[moldbreakcr]

this whole interaction has had reno flipping from annoyance to compassion and sympathy. he gets being hot-headed and acting before thinking. maybe had the situation been different, reno would tell kuja of the times he's been coached and lectured for his behavior. or the danger he's put himself in because he let his own emotions get the better of him. reno suspected kuja was too stubborn to see, but they were similar.

on the other hand, shouldn't kuja have expected this? or had he been consequence free for so long that he thought this would be okay? reno doesn't know. it's not his business.

however, when kuja starts speaking, the annoyance wins out. reno tries. he takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut because the last thing anyone needs is some pissed off people.

"i'm sorry, have you met rufus? he's not known for picking up on people's intentions. maybe you shoulda used some sense n' known these fuckin' assholes have been out to get you from day one. they have been testing you since you finally qualified to be rufus' bodyguard and work directly with him. they have wanted to prove you couldn't do this. they have been waiting for this exact goddamn moment and you fell right into it."

its less that he gets his anger and annoyance sorted, but he works it out in his brain and allows a logical thought. however, his tone still indicates a sense of irritation.

"i doubt this is an argument those guys will make, but from the standpoint of more observant folk, what you did shows that you are rash and impulsive. as a bodyguard, you are expected to be aware of those around you, especially when it comes to rufus. you need to be hypervigilant to a point of being able to guess possible intentions and someone's next move. you might've just disqualified yourself."

a sigh. a pause.

"but, like i said. rufus is arguing. has been. i can say he is one stubborn little bastard when he wants to be, so who knows what will happen next. i can only tell you based on past observations. how things have happened."

Back to the labs. Back to the labs.

The silver tail froze instantly, as Kuja's expression dropped. The words seemed to echo and increase with every breath taken. He wasn'r going to have a breakdown here- that wasn't going to happen, he told himself firmly.

Back to the labs.

Rufus had really been doing damage control the entire time trying to make sure that it didn't happen? Part of him was sure that he'd caused problems to the point Rufus wished he could do it, not that the blonde would fight for him to stay away from it.

Back to the labs.

"Why didn't he say anything?" He whispered into the silence that followed Reno's words. Kuja raised his voice as he looked at Reno. "Why didn't he tell me? Was that... That idiot just meant to rile me up? I fell for it didn't I? Fuck!" Kuja covered his face as he shouted at the end, the fur on his tail and hair slowly changing from silver to red even as he tried to get his emotions under control.

[toontails]

Toon Quest

Chapter 5: Deep Under the Streets of Wellington

A/N before reading I just wanted to let you know that this chapter does have music and that Quotev works best for it, though if you don’t use and or can’t access Quotev, the song is in the link when reaching the scene! If you’d like to read the chapter on Quotev, the link is right here!

-

Y/n couldn’t remember much that happened last night other than drifting off to sleep under a tree with a throw over blanket that Cuphead had bought. The two really only bought it because it was chilly outside and the fact that they continued wanting to speak, they got a small blanket and sat under a tree…now…Y/n didn’t exactly expect to wake up to the sun blaring into her eyes and the sound of birds chirping as an alarm. 

Her eyes slowly fluttered open, she felt her head resting on something that wasn’t the tree, she had been resting on Cuphead’s shoulder and he was leaned into the tree—not necessarily asleep, but busy picking at the grass blades—how did she manage to sleep so comfortably—she had no clue in the world—it wasn’t until then did she realize that she had slept..outside..and the sun was up. Y/n immediately shoots up and quickly examines her surroundings, they seemed to be in a park—a few bystanders walking around doing whatever, Y/n quickly pats her pants to see if she could find her phone but to no avail she remembers she left it back in the room. 

“Jesus, you let me sleep till sunrise?!” She exclaims a bad gut feeling stirring up—jeez she could already hear the earful she would get from the others, surely Alice would notice she was gone! But the minute that she had shot up onto her feet and placed her gaze on Cuphead she noticed Mugman standing beside him, Mugman flinched slightly at Y/n’a quick and abrupt movement and took a small step back. Y/n immediately went silent as she saw Cuphead stand up. 

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. You’ll be fine.” He says. Y/n furrowed her eyebrows at his ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude, clearly that was something Cuphead was known for as Mugman had slowly shook his head as well. Mugman gently rubbed his hands together before finally gathering the courage to look her in the eyes, when he did he gave her an ever so small wave with his gloved hand. 

“Hey uh..sorry about the whole chasin’ thing.” He says bashfully as he rubs the back of his neck. Y/n stared at Mugman for a moment, which seemed to make him shuffle on his feet, she slowly nodded before giving him a small smile. “Don’t worry about it.” She says. 

“Mugs, this is Y/n. Y/n this is my bro, Mugman.” Cuphead introduced with a boyish smile as if Y/n didn’t already know Mugman’s name by now, but it was still good to have an actual introduction. 

“Nice to meet you.” Y/n says and Mugman smiled ever so slightly before nodding. 

“Cuphead told me about the situation and the book.” Mugman says and Y/n nods. “Yeah. My friends are at this church to get the jewel—but in order to get it we have to win the town's music competition.” She tells him. Now saying it she felt much more confident considering yesterday the choir actually sang pretty good. 

Cuphead grunted and scratched his neck. “Geez, you shoulda heard the amount of singing we heard while bein’ here,” Cuphead grumbled, understandable. 

“He doesn't like musicals.” Mugman tells Y/n. “I actually really liked the songs,” Mugman smiled—Now noticing how Mugman's tense form seemed much more relaxed once realizing that Y/n meant no harm, he seems much more relaxed and talkative than before. 

“I hate them, who wants to sit around and listen to someone sing about—whatever for the next 4 minutes? I don’t.” Cuphead crossed his arms and complained—Y/n would enjoy spending more time and speaking to the brothers but she really had to get back to the chapel, she genuinely didn’t want to worry the others—whatever they might be doing. 

“Alright, alright. We’ll walk you back.” Cuphead says he walks past her, Mugman follows after Cuphead and so does Y/n. 

“So, I take it you also don’t know what’s going on?” Mugman asks Y/n. The human slowly looked at him and made a small expression that meant she didn’t exactly know. 

“Uh…not necessarily. From what I know. It’s a book that tells us where to go and who to get.”  She says before motioning towards him. “And you and Cuphead are a part of the book, which is why we’re getting the jewel.” 

“Hopefully—“ she quickly adds. 

“Well..didn’t expect so much when coming to the mainlands.” Mugman expresses. Cuphead shrugs. “Eh. M’ sure there’s far worse to come.” He says and Mugman sputters at that before nudging his brother. “Don’t say that, you can’t jinx it you moron!” Mugman scolds and Cuphead only shrugs. “Can’t get worse from here, Devil got us under a contract, the book we need to take to give to them is somehow something we actually really can’t give to them because we’re apart of it—“ 

He then smiled. “And not to mention we’re far from home.” The list could go on and on for everyone surely, Y/n already got a thousand things she could go on about. Mugman only rubbed his face in frustration. 

“What are you guys going to do about the Devil anyway?” She asks. Mugman sighs and looks away. “It…it’s complicated. We don’t know ourselves.” Mugman mutters. 

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out, Mugs.” Cuphead says as he slowed down in walking so Mugman could catch up. 

“Sure, I mean. We’ve gotten away from him once.” Mugman tried to bring a voice of reason to swallow away his worries, and Cuphead nodded wrapped his arms around both Mugman’s and Y/n’s shoulders. “See? Positive thoughts, everything will sail just smoothly, we’ll take her back to the others, let her work the magic and boom, we’ll all get our happy ending.” Cuphead says. He seemed so…’so—so’ about certain situations as his brother seemed vigilant to certain things, two major differences in the brothers.

Mugman slowly sighs before shrugging, letting the worries seep away. “If you say so—“

“Hey! You surfers! Down here!” Shouts a voice. Mugman looks at Y/n who had also heard the voice as she slowly furrows her eyebrows at the sudden voice—looking around she doesn't spot anyone that might seem to be talking to them and Cuphead looks around as well. 

“The hell was that?” Cuphead asks before releasing the two. Mugman slowly shrugs. “I-I dunno. That’s weird.” He says. 

“Look down!” The voice shouts. The three heard the voice nice and clear that time, immediately moving their gaze in front of them and down to the ground, there was a small toon rat—standing on its hind legs, a leather strap wrapped around its torso with—what seemed to be an archery bow wrapped around him as well. The rat stood firm and stiff as if some sergeant. Y/n furrowed her eyebrows in confusion before glancing around her to see if the small guy was speaking to anyone else, which the rat noticed. 

“I’m talking to you three!” He shouts and Cuphead shoulders jolted and huff came from him—a short chuckle before he looks at Y/n. “Ya’ know this guy?” He asks and Y/n looks at Cuphead and Mugman. “Uh, no, do you two?” She asks and Mugman shakes his head—no—he can’t recall speaking to someone so small. 

“Nope.” Cuphead chuckled before looking back at the rat. 

“What’s up little guy, need a ride or somethin?” Cuphead squats down to see the rat up close. “Cups, don’t get too close.” Mugman quickly warned his brother. 

The rat had quickly taken a dagger from his pocket—which looked to be a sharp stone or rock -- and jabbed it onto the tip of Cuphead's nose. “Ow!” He shouts in pain before quickly standing up and standing right back between Mugman and Y/n. Y/n placed a hand on Cuphead’s arm as he held onto his bow sore nose, Cuphead ripped his nose with the sleeve of his arm and sniffed, he turned his gaze back onto the ray and glared at him. 

“What was that for?!” He hissed. 

“You three have a warrant out for your arrest from our leader, Argus! Surrender now, or we will have to take lethal action.” A warrant for their arrest? What? 

Y/n furrowed her eyebrows and placed her hands on her hips. “What? You can’t do that, we don’t even know you! Besides, we aren't even residents of this town.” She says the soldier rat looks at her and glares. 

“Are you all resisting arrest?” He said and Cuphead grumbled. “Clearly—“ He says before placing a hand in front of Y/n to back her away, he motions his fingers in a gun like position and pointed his index finger down at the rat, the familiar blue beam of light charging up but the rat didn’t even flinch nor run off, before Y/n could think, a toothpick sized arrow swishes past her and hit Cuphead in the back of his hand, Cuphead quickly moves his hand and hisses in pain, he looks at his hand and removes the arrow.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me…”

Y/n felt a sharp pain in her leg as Mugman had gotten shot in the arm, and almost immediately the three fell to the ground, everything blacked out.

-

All Y/n felt was the cold ground beneath her. The sound of echoing droplets of water and the ambience of still air, and occasionally squeaking echoing somewhere from in the mysterious place. 

Y/n’s leg muscle twitches—the leg that she had unfortunately gotten shot in. Her eyes fluttered open, a blur of dark colors and the pungent smell of mold and mildew hit her nose. Her eyebrows furrowed and she groaned, her hands planting on the ground before heaving herself up, the ground was cold and slick—almost as if it were a broken concrete, it wasn’t until she finally adjusted her eyes to her surroundings. Bars. A cell. She was in a cell. Infront of her was another cell with it empty. 

Y/n quickly stood up, stumbling on her feet, her small frantic breaths echoed and her foot hit something hard, a groan escaped from whatever she hit. 

“Oh…my head..” she looks down to see Mugman finally waking up, Cuphead laid next to him, who was also waking up as well. 

“Guys—“ she quickly bends down and takes Mugman's hand to sit him up, which he did. His hand then rubbed at his head as he looked away, Cuphead already sat up himself with an irritated expression. 

“Where are we? How did we get here? What are we doing in a jail cell, oh I’m too young to be in the slammer!” Mugman immediately starts to panic and Y/n starts to wave her hands in front of him. 

“No, no, don’t worry Mugman. We’re fine, At Least we’re alive—“

He immediately looked at her when she said that. “You mean we’re going to die?!” He cried out…maybe it would be best to not say that again…

Cuphead stood up and walked over to the cell and planted his hands on it. “Jeez—it’s one thing after another.” He groans and gently slams his head into the bars, a clink echoing in the area. Mugman stood up but he glued himself to Y/n’s side. 

The two walked over and grabbed the cell bars as well. 

“Did that rat bring us here? That’s one strong guy.” Y/n says and Cuphead grunts. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more.” He says which would make sense. 

Soon the sound of feet pattering on the ground echoed, the three turned their gaze to the direction the sound was coming from and watched as a few rat toons wandered down to their cell..so there were more.

One of the rats turned to the cell and gazed up at the three, and even though Y/n, Cuphead and Mugman were giants to them, that didn’t seem to bother them. 

“Let us outta here you little rodents! Whatever you’re looking for, we don’t have anything you need! You got the wrong people!” Cuphead shakes the cell bars, the iron clanking as he did so. The rat slowly shook his head at the notion. 

“I’m afraid you do.” The rat chuckles—it didn’t take until now to realize that that was the same exact guy that captured them..wow..great looking Y/n..props for paying attention. 

“Come on Jura, Argus will be coming soon and I don’t wanna hear her nag my ear off.” One of the other rat soldiers points out, Jura immediately stops laughing and rolls his eyes. 

“Poe, shut it, I need complete silence when executing my diabolical plan.” Jura grins mischievously. Cuphead had rested his elbow on the bar and had his head resting on his hand as he gazed down at the rats. 

“Evil plan huh? Well you sure are one evil genius.” Cuphead says nonchalantly and Mugman glares at his brother. “Don’t taunt him.” he immediately hissed. 

“You should listen to your brother, Cupboy.” Jura advised. 

“It’s Cuphead.” Cuphead growls under his breath. 

Jura shrugs and huffs. “Could care less.” He muttered. 

Y/n could care less about the back and forth—she needed to know what they were doing in a cell for—and after worrying about a warrant for their arrest—she would assume she would be in a police jail cell—which —not to mention, looks nothing like a Police precinct cell. 

“What are we doing here?” bossed Y/n. Her voice was stern as she glared daggers down at Jura who looked up at her with a glint in his eyes she couldn’t exactly recognize. 

“The book, where is it?” Jura asks. And the three immediately went silent..what? Why the hell did they want the book? Who were they? And dear god more people were after it?! 

Y/n felt her eyes slowly roll in frustration as she sighed through her nose. “And what exactly makes you think I’ll tell you anything about it? And even give it to you?” 

Jura fiddled with his nails as Y/n spoke as if what she said wasn’t interesting. “Oh, trust, it was already easy enough to get you all down here.” He says. 

“I don’t have it.” She answered. Jura’s ears perked up as he looked at her and squinted his eyes. 

Poe stomps his foot on the ground. “Dammit, I was positive it was these three, Argus will have our head if she finds out!” Poe panics and Jura hums.

“Then w-“

“Argus said bring out the prisoners!” Someone echoes down the hall, Jura and Poe look down that direction and Jura looks over to the other rat guards and motions his hand towards the cell. 

“Restrain them and bring them out.”  He says before Poe and Jura turns and leaves the area, Mugman, Cuphead and Y/n all shared looks as they moved away from the cell when it opened, immediately Y/n felt a tug at her arms, she looks down to see a thick nylon rope had been tied onto her wrist, binding it together. Her first thought was to tug her hand to escape but she saw one of the other two rats lift their bow and arrows up to her—aiming and ready to shoot just in case—she would have laughed at that considering the arrows didn’t hold much damage—until  she remembered that the arrow was clearly laced with something to make her pass out—and she didn’t want that to happen again. And clearly Mugman and Cuphead had the exact same thought. 

The three were tugged out of the cell and into the walkway, despite the rats small nature, they did have some strength to tug her with a bit of force. Now walking beside Cuphead and  Mugman the three looked at each other as they obliged to walk. 

“This is crazy, I’ve never been in a situation like this before.” Y/n whispered to the two and Mugman quickly nodded. “‘Me either..but for the most part, they know about the book too..” he brings up. 

“I’m just thinkin’ how far they’ll fly if I kick the hell outta them.” Cuphead muttered to the two and Y/n and Mugman only gave him a deadpan expression, he only shrugs his shoulders. “Just sayin.“ 

“We gotta get out of here.” Y/n said and Mugman agreed. “Well yes, but here’s the thing…how?” 

“I bet there’s a rat civilization—with little rat people and their little rat homes and little rat markets with little rat families.” Cuphead abruptly says as he looks down at one of the rays who still held the arrow up at him, daring for him to make a move. 

Mugman gives his brother a look. “Cuphead, there’s no such thing as a rat village.” Mugman hissed—but immediately when he said that, the wooden doors in front of them had been pushed up, and behold—was a large open sewer area—with buildings made of old boxes and metal and other tossed away trash that was recycled to make a town—the buildings reached above Y/n and the others, and there was…an actual civilization! Small wooden carts with scrapped bread  and markets and stores and schools and homes! The light was dim but it seemed that used flashlights were their source of light. The town was big enough for the three to walk through it; some rats  had spotted them and gasped softly, murmuring to each other a sea of hushed voices whispering. 

Y/n and Mugman had their mouths agape as they gazed upon the creation of a town! A literal town!

“Look—it’s a surfer..” whispered a child mice that hid behind his mother, the mother gasps and covered her child’s eyes away from the dangers of the three—known as ‘Surfers’ 

Whatever they meant. 

“They really do exist..” another voice whispered 

“Look at how big they are—“

“The stories are real…”

“Killers..”

“That one is a human surfer, they hate toons..”

“How many of them are there?” 

The voices circled around the three as they stood next to each other. Y/n could see how some of the civilians seemed afraid—but what for? She was more afraid of them than they were to her! 

“Where…are we..” Y/n asks and Cuphead slowly shakes his head. Hell, of course he called it but he..didn’t expect to be right. “I have no clue..” 

Jura raised his hands with a smile. “My people! I bring you, the surfers!” He announced and the civilians gasped and the sea of voices grew louder as they all gossiped. 

“Vile creatures from the surface, that grab you with their bare hands and rip you to shreds! And they have what is ours to bring our community back our queen!” He says. Cuphead slowly furrowed his eyebrows. 

“Hey! Uh—“ he shouts, getting the attention of everyone. The civilians stopped talking in fear once hearing Cuphead. Jura turned and looked at Cuphead. 

“Yeah, I dunno what you all are talkin’ about, but who ever you’re looking for, You got the wrong people. We’re just regular people like you a-ow!” He hops on one foot when one of the soldier rats poked him with the sharp weapon. Cuphead quickly stomps his foot down onto the ground in an attempt to stomp at the rat—but it quickly scurried away before his foot could land on it. That gesture frightened the civilians and they all gasped and shouted.

“They really are monsters!” 

“The horror!”

Y/n looked away from the crowd and grabbed Cuphead by his shirt and he quickly looked at her. “Stop it you moron, they’re already on edge about us.”  She harshly whispered to him. Cuphead quickly shrugs as much as he could, seeing Y/n had a tight grip on him and his wrist were tied. 

“Look—it’s not my fault they’re flighty.” He seethed. Y/n huffs before letting him go. Jura only motioned up at the three. 

“And this is why they are our enemies! Harsh, bloodthirsty creatures!” Whatever he was saying, it was all lies. 

“Hey! We-we’re not like that guys.” Mugman laughed through his teeth nervously as he looked at the civilians who only seemed to fear him. 

“And I’m going to assume there’s no bad news, Jura!” A voice shouts. Cuphead, Mugman, and Y/n look up to see a slim rat—wearing a long dark cape and a golden staff—that Y/n was sure was used as some sort of tool beforehand. She walked down the lane of the village up to the thre, the civilians moving from her path, she had sass and moxie. 

She gazed up at the three before eyeing Jura.

“Where is it?” She says slowly. That was Agrus. 

“Well..you see…” Jura starts and Y/n immediately knew they were referring to the book, what did they need it for? Y/n’s eyebrows furrowed as she gazed down at Jura and Argus.

“They don’t have it.” He took some time to say it almost as if he were afraid to do so. The civilians had fallen into a deep silent coma, it seemed disappointing Argus was something of a great fear. 

“I think I need to remind everyone around here who runs this place!” Argus's boisterous voice shouts out, minus the fact she was just a mere rat, her voice spoke volumes and shook fear into the civilians as they backed away. 

Cuphead clearly knew what was up next as he sighed and hung his head low with a groan. “God please no..” he says. And Y/n could feel the build up as well as Argus then points her staff towards some of the civilians who backed away in fear. 

“Noooow! When I wake up in the afternoon, which it pleases me to do! Don’t nobody bring me no bad news! ‘Cause I wake up already negative, and I’ve wired up my fuse, so don’t nobody bring me no bad news!” She sings before her gaze at Jura. 

“If we’re gonna be buddies, better bone up on the rules, ‘cause don’t nobody bring me no bad news—“ she quickly looks at another civilian who smiled nervously under her gaze. 

“You can be my best of friends! As opposed to payin’ dues! But don’t no body bring me! No. Bad. News!” The civilians scattered away to their prospective places and started to work—sawing, stocking and other things. 

“No bad news!” Argus sings 

“No bad news!” The civilians sang after her.

“No bad news!” Argus sings again as she pushed a civilian to the side as she walked close to the three. 

“No bad news!” The civilians sang. 

“And don’t you ever bring me no bad news! ‘Cause I’ll make you an offer, child that you cannot refuse, so don’t nobody bring me. No. Bad. News!” Argus gazes at the three before she motioned the guards down the town which they led the three down as Argus continued singing. 

“When you’re talking to me? Don’t be cryin’ blues! ‘Cause don’t nobody bring me no bad news! You can verbalize and vocalize, but just bring me the clues, but don’t nobody bring me. No. Bad. News!” Argus shouts as she prances around, Cuphead, Y/n’s and Mugman’s walking feet as the civilians sing along in the background, Y/n’s eyes couldn’t keep in one place as she stared between Argus and the civilians and wherever the guards were taking them. 

“Bring some message in your head, or in something you can’t lose! But don’t you ever, ever bring me no bad news! If you’re gonna bring me something, bring me something I can use, but don’t you bring me, no bad news!”

As she sang the guards stopped walking and Y/n watched as some civilians scampered around—grabbing ropes, needles, weapons and wrapping around their feet. She tried focusing on the signing; she was so focused on the fact that they were literally wrapping them up. She couldn't move as her hands were confined together and she heard Cuphead shouting at the rats as Mugman was tied to Y/n and the same for Cuphead. 

“Hey! Let go!” Cuphead shouts as he kicks at the rats but misses every time. The three fell to the ground and Y/n yelped slightly as the three were tied together. 

The three shuffled and moved but the ropes were way too tightly to even move properly, one thing for sure those rats were strong. Y/n watched as the rats hopped over their legs to tie the nylon rope around them, only further tightening it that Y/n was starting to think they were going to tie them to death. 

The civilians quickly scurried away as Argus had been signing; she scurried to the three with a grin.

“Don’t you ever bring me, bring me, bring me, noooo bad neeewwws!”

-

Alice stared at the empty bed, her eyebrows stitched together..where..was Y/n? She slowly blinked before walking over to the bed and lifting the covers. There was nothing under there, the bookbag was tilted over on the floor—which Alice immediately noticed. She walked over to the Y/n’s bookbag and picked it up, she remembered how the girl kept the book in the bag at all times and lo and behold. The book wasn’t present. 

No Y/n. No book. 

“Oh..this is bad..” Alice whispered to herself. 

“What’s bad?” Bendy’s voice asks from behind her. She turned around and her gaze landed on Bendy, who had slowly walked into the room, his eyes falling onto the bookbag before raising an eyebrow. “Where’s Y/n?” He asks.

Alice sighs before giving him a look. “She wasn’t with you?” She quickly asks and Bendy squints his eyes and shakes his head. “Not that I remembered, I was with Donald the entire morning.” 

Alice placed the bookbag on the bed and placed her hands on her hips. “Well, she wasn’t with me and I can’t find her, I've been looking for her for the past 10 minutes.”  She scoffs and Bendy only chuckles. “Don’t worry too much. She wanders off sometimes to get some alone time? You know how humans get, especially when they’re away from home for so long.”  He pushed the matter away as if brushing dust from his shoulders. 

“Besides, the gal’s been stressing with everythin’s that been going on, m’sure she’ll turn up later on today.” Bendy’s words did bring Alice down from her small stupor, she sighs softly and rubbed her forehead. “I mean, if you say so.” 

Right when Alice finished her sentence a small thud emits from under the bed. The two looked at eachother and Bendy soon smiled and chuckled before his head motioned towards the bed that made the noise. 

“That’s probably her.”  He muttered to Alice. Which..Alice could only hope it was Y/n under the bed. Bendy lifts a foot up slightly, lifting the draping sheet up near the bed. 

“C’mon kid. Jokes time over, we got work to do today.” Bendy chuckled. But he was met with silence. He was about to speak again until the book slid from under the bed as if someone pushed it. Alice and Bendy watched as the book slid between the two and opened. The pages flip and Bendy furrowed his eyebrows in seriousness, once the book stopped its flipping he could see the page were the names of the people who had already been found was imprinted on the book, his name, Panchito’s, Oswald, Donald and Y/n—but her name glowed ever so slightly in a yellow golden soft light.

“What does that mean?” Alice asks Bendy and Bendy slowly opens his mouth and moves to pick up the book. “I have no idea, but are you sure that isn’t around here?” Bendy looks at Alice and she nods. 

“I know she really won’t walk around this place and I hadn’t seen her when I woke up either, I just assumed she was off in the bathroom or something or with one of the boys.” Her voice edged slightly in worry. 

“Come on, let’s go to Felix.” Bendy quickly turns around and walks out of the room, Alice followed behind him, no one had really left their rooms yet, mostly because there wasn’t much to do around the chapel other than the rehearsal that Alice scheduled for later on in the day. And pretty much it was a very relaxing time to just sit back and let loose.

When Bendy entered the room with the book opened. He spotted Boris and Edgar making paper airplanes, Charley and Barley hadn’t been doing much but sitting on the couch talking? And Felix, Oswald, Donald and Panchito were sitting at the counter talking with each other, Bendy walks over to the four and looks at them. 

“Have you guys seen Y/n by any chance?” He asks.

“Uh..no? I thought she was with you.” Oswald says and Panchito agrees with Oswald—he hasn’t seen her as well. 

“No, sorry.” Donald answered and Felix could see Bendy’s change in demeanor. “What’s wrong?” He asks him and Bendy places the book onto the table. 

“Well, I mean, no one saw her and usually she would be around us, and the book did some weird thing and her name is glowing.” He explained as Oswald, Felix, Dondald and Panchito looked down to see the name glowing in the book, Alice had slowly walked over. 

“I think she may be in danger.” She went ahead and called out and Felix moved to touch the book, but before he could land a claw on it slammed shut in a way for a defense mechanism.  Felix had moved his hand away quickly and looked at Bendy, but the demon had his gaze on the floor, as well as Panchito, Oswald and Donald, the golden trail leading out of the door. 

“Oh god she is.” Bendy quickly states which caused Felix’s ears to perk up. 

“Well then what are we waiting for? Come on!” Donald removed himself from the seat as everyone hopped up as well. 

They had to find Y/n.

-

Y/n, Cuphead, Mugman we’re tied together and all they could do was silently and grumpily watch the civilians move to continue their work—as Jura and Argus left to go and discuss ‘more important matters’ as she claimed..

“Can’t believe we’ve been napped by a couple of rats…” Cuphead muttered. Y/n grumbled and shoved him with her shoulder, Cuphead grunted before turning his head to look at her. His straw gently hitting the top of her head with how close they were to each other. 

“Can you stop tryna hit them for one minute, Jesus Christ, Cuphead.” She hissed at him. Cuphead sighs before looking away from her. Everytime a civilian would wander pass, Cuphead would try to kick his foot to hit them and that only fed into the narrative that they were monsters to them. 

“Now you see what I have to deal with.” Mugman sighs and his head lowered. “We’re going to die in here!” He cried out dramatically. Which Y/n thought he was overreacting but he started to actually cry. Tears fell down his face as he threw his head back, and then landed his face on her shoulder, his large tears soaking her shirt. 

“Oooh, Mugman don’t cry, we’ll be fine.” Y/n quickly comforts Mugman as she gently rests her cheek on the rim of his head. Cuphead gazed at the two from the corner of his eyes and he rolled his eyes. 

“You two are big babies.” He says nonchalantly and that earned him another shove to the arm and he grunts. “Okay! Okay..jeez..you sure do pack an arm.” 

“Um..excuse me.” A voice calls out. 

The three turned their gaze down to meet another rat..great..what now? 

He wore a white dingy lab coat and had round glasses, he adjusted his glasses and smiled at the three. 

“Oh great, another one.” Cuphead grumbled. 

“My name is Puck—and uh. I think you guys would be better off with me.” He seemed to talk as if he were speaking from a script? His eyes quickly glanced over at the soldier who was standing a few feet away, clearly keeping an eye on the three as Jura and Argus were away. 

Y/n’s legs felt like pins and needles and her muscles were starting to stiff up—not entirely a good position to sit as she was practically squished between Cuphead and Mugman. The guard turned to Puck and Puck smiled. “I’ll take these three to run some test.” He says and the guard nods. “Of course sir.”  He says. 

Puck motioned towards another guard to the three. “Untie them.” He says. As the guards wandered over and pulled out the sharp metal of a sword and started to cut away at the ropes—some crawling the rope like a latter to to cut away, Y/n could not think—test? What test? 

And clearly Mugman thought the exact same thing as well as he nervously looked down at Puck. “Uh-uhaha—test? What test?” He asks leaning down slightly towards Puck once the ropes around him had been cut away and loosened, Y/n felt the blood slowly rush back to her arms that she hadn’t noticed was cutting circulation away.  But the restraints around their wrist were still there. 

Puck only winked silently at Mugman—quite..obviously actually but the guards didn’t seem to catch wind of that. 

“Follow me!” Puck shouts before turning the opposite direction and walking off. Y/n immediately stood up—Cuphead and Mugman following after her—it only took her a couple of strides to make it over to Puck. “And—what exactly are we here for? Where are we going?” She asks him—she felt awkward just..speaking to a rat..but that didn’t matter at the time—clearly her life was at stake and she really didn't want to go out by dying in a sewer line. 

“I'll tell you when we get to my base.” He tells the three, his small feet patting the ground as he quickly scurried on all fours towards a hallway to wherever he was taking them. The three following close behind. 

Mugman curiously looked around the town—some civilians only looked away in fear and continued on with their day—the place was so dull and gloomy—then again—it was a small town filled with rats, Y/n didn’t know what to expect. 

“I say we just book it.” Cuphead says and Mugman slowly looks away from the small town and to Cuphead. “I dunno Cuphead..something fishy is going on around here.” Mugman seemed to sense something was off and Y/n glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” She asks. 

“I mean this town just looks so—so—“ 

“Stupid.” Cuphead blatantly cuts in and Mugman quickly shakes  his head. “No! They look so miserable.” Mugman’s bottom lip quivered almost as if he were going to cry about the small town. 

“Well..yeah I noticed that too.” Y/n admits. She did see how off the civilians acted when Argus came around—it was clear Argus ran pretty much everything and maybe perhaps abused her power.. 

“That’s because you’re right.” The three looked down at Puck who was standing in a doorway—which was a bit too small that she was sure they would have to crouch slightly to get in. 

“Come in, hurry.” Puck says before scurrying into the room. The three look at each other before Y/n walks over to the small corridor—rags as curtains enter her vision as she ducked down slightly and entered the room. 

Which was tad but difficult considering her wrist were still bonded together. But once entering the room she slowly opened her mouth in awe. 

A blue lamp filled the room in a warm nice blue glow—there were small sized trinkets and lab beakers and other lab instruments. A desk filled with papers and other stuff—the room was small but it was enough to fit the three even if the ceiling brushed the top of their heads making them bend down slightly. There was a computer screen on the wall in front of them that was turned off and a small bed off in the corner of the room. Puck excitedly scurried over to the table and moved papers out of the way. 

“Whoa..” Cuphead says in awe—his binded hands lifting up to gently tap the plastic star near his head that was taped to the ceiling as decoration. 

“You’re a scientist?” Mugman asks and Puck looks up at the three and smiles. “Yeah! First in command.” He said proudly and Y/n had to admit it was adorable to see him beam up at them, Puck goes back to searching through the sea of papers before finding a razor blade, he walks over to the three and lifts it up. “Here—let me give you guys a hand.” He says. Mugman reached his arms down to Puck’s height, and Puck cut away at the rope and freed his hands. Mugman rubbed his wrist and smiled at Puck. 

“Thank you.” Mugman says and Puck hums happily In response before moving over to Cuphead and cutting his rope away—as he did so Y/n’s eyes landed on a piece of paper—it was a photo of the book in a display case—more than likely before it was snagged. 

“You know about the book?” Y/n looks down at Puck and watches as he cuts the rope away, once the rope slips from Y/n’s wrist and onto the ground Puck nods quickly. 

“Yes!” He says. Y/n gently rubbed at her wrist and immediately knew she needed answers.

“What? Really?” She frantically asks. 

“My great grandfather was your ancestors' researcher and all eyes.” Puck hops from one foot to the other with excitement and Cuphead tilts his head. 

“All Eyes?” He repeats and Puck nods. 

“Yeah, basically just keeping an eye out for stuff. Not much of a serious job, but it’s still something.” Puck seemed overjoyed about that but hey, Y/n didn’t want to raid on his excitement, she was more so focused on the thousand of questions that she was about to ask Puck. 

“Wait. So, you know about the book, which clearly means you know about us—how did you know we have it?” She asks. 

“Oh that’s easy, I saw how you all were running around yesterday, this town doesn't get too much action so seeing you run around crazy after the book was a major factor.” Well..she would give him that. She did run past many people yesterday trying to secure the book so there was no doubt some people saw her doing that—which did bring up the fact that they had to be extra careful next time—if Puck saw that—lord knows how many other people saw her with the book that was literally trending on the news. 

“Wait a second. Then if you’re apparently the good guy, how come those other rats want the book?” Mugman asks suspiciously, placing his hands on his hips and Puck sighs softly. “That’s the hard part. Argus wants to use the book and use it as some totem to bring back the queen for our town.”

“I don’t know much about the book, but I’m pretty sure resurrection isn’t a thing in it.”  Y/n deadpans. 

“It isn’t. She made it up to make herself look good in the eyes of the town, to put her as the new leader, she wants to use it for its power.” Now that speaks a lot. The three went silent as they stared down at Puck. Puck walks over to the cluttered table and picks up a photo, he walks back over to the three and turns it to them. 

The photo seemed old—the colors in black and white, a man with a pencil mustache—wearing a light button up and suspenders with slicked dark hair. He wore a paperboy hat and he seemed to be in his mid 30s. He had his elbow on a table and was leaning on it. A stack of books was stacked up to reach his shoulders and there stood a rat with a bushy mustache, wearing a lab coat as well. 

“This is your great grandfather.” Puck hands Y/n the photo and she gently took it in her hands. Staring down at the photo in awe. She had..never seen this man before…never..

Her thumb gently brushed over the photo and she felt Cuphead and Mugman hover over her shoulders as they both also looked down at the photo. She turned the photo around to see a small note. 

Hector my friend, as you venture off to contain the demons of the world and its mystery, I want you to take this photo—of the last time we will see each other. 

You are a great friend, and an amazing hero.

The note was vague—but Y/n could only assume the man's name was Hector. She turned the photo back around and felt like she was looking dead into the past. 

“Geez, he sorta looks like Cab Calloway.” Cuphead mentions. 

“His name was Hector Vendolez L/n.” Puck says. 

“Do you know him?” Mugman asks Y/n and she slowly shakes her head. “I have never seen this man before, nor heard of him.” She answers as she hands the photo back to him but Puck shakes his head. 

“You keep it. That is a part of you.”

Y/n looks back down at the photo, she just couldn’t seem to stop looking at the man. This was her grandfather—her great grandfather. A man who was in the same exact situation she’s in. An adventurer…he was an adventurer! 

“That book you all have—from my fathers past research, that book holds a great power, and only the hero’s can access it.” Puck starts as he walks back over to the stack of papers and looks through them once more. Y/n stared at the photo before looking at Puck. 

“So, your grandfather got some notes about the book, through my grandfather?” Y/n asks and Puck fixes his glasses and nods. “Yes!”

“That book originated on an island called Ruby Falls.” Puck turned to the three with a map—which was the only human sized object in the room, he pulled it from the table with a tug and it landed on the floor, pushing it slightly the map slowly uncurled—a coffee colored map was present showing the countries and what not—it seemed pretty much like a regular map a school teacher would have in their room. 

“I’m glad you all came, because I have everything you need.” Puck claps his hands excitedly. The map had a circle marked on it from what was a marker Y/n assumed with an arrow pointing at..nothing but the ocean..

‘Ruby Falls’ 

“Ruby Falls?” Mugman says and Puck nods, who had managed to scamper back over to the table to fiddle with a few things and a—he somehow managed to pull a decent sized box out besides the table. 

“Yes! Ruby Falls is an island—and on that island is this—area—a cave maybe? Who knows—from my grandfather's notes and journal it said that it’s an island down on the Atlantic Ocean—No population, that island will unlock the book and all of its—I guess you can say power—I dunno, his notes were hard to interpret. He made it seem like it was some second world thing—I wouldn’t ever know though so it’s really up to you guys.” Puck spoke quickly but Y/n made sure to hear every word he said. 

“Well it looks like we’re lookin’ at the ocean to me.” Cuphead points out. There was no island on the map, the circle was just in the middle of the ocean—that said nothing. 

“That’s because it won’t be on any maps. I can’t exactly tell you how they found it, it wasn’t mentioned in my grandfather's notes. But one thing is if they were able to find it, hey, you all can too!” Puck’s tail wagged and Y/n reached down slightly and picked up the map. Her eyes looking over the pictures of the countries, the rough paper rubbed against the palm of her fingers, clearly that paper was old, lord knows how old. 

“But, there’s this stone—called Ruby’s Heart. And..that’s pretty much when everything ended for them..” Puck lifts up another photo—yet again in lack and white, a small circular stone with an emblem on the front—which actually sorta made the stone look like a button, it was laying on a table when it was taken. 

“You need this in order to access wherever the book takes you when you get there. It acts as a key to a door—from what I read. With that key, there'll be an altar inside. But the thing is..” he slightly lowered the photo and sighed. 

“The key was taken years ago—when Hector and his team died, the key was broken into pieces and taken to different parts where I can’t say, because I don’t even know. But he had a speculation that with you all—you can still find it and put it together.”  Puck had smiled nervously as if the information would have made them upset—which it slightly did—but at this point Y/n was getting used to disappointment. 

“So Hector was the only human in his group like me?” Y/n asks and Puck’s smile comes back and he nods. “Yep!” He answered. 

“And boy will I tell ya, they were such a fierce group. My grandfather made it seem like they were the best in the world.” Puck sighs softly before his ears flattened and tail slowly lowered to the ground. 

“But..it’s uh..unfortunate that they didn’t get to see the hero’s they got now.” 

Mugman’s eye twitched at this slightly as he held a strained smile. “So..they…they died? Like..they were killed? That type of dead?” He edged—it was evident that didn’t put him at ease, if their ancestors couldn’t even make it—what makes them think they can do it?!

“Oh please Mugsy, we’ll be fine, they left this adventure in the right hands.” Cuphead boasted and placed his hands on his hips. Y/n’s head felt like it was spinning, there was so much to do! 

“So..we find Ruby Falls—and we’ll get some sort of answer as to what’s going on?” Y/n asks but Puck nods and then slightly points his finger at her. 

“Yes, but you all would have to do what first?” He asks as if testing her. “Find the pieces to Ruby’s Heart in order to access the island.” She answered and Puck nods. 

“Yes, and despite all the work you guys will have to do, there’s one thing that’ll help you all.” Puck walks over to the box and gently pulls at the front of it. 

“Hector was originally an engineer, he built all sorts of things! And he made this for you, human!” Pulling the box open and the front falling onto the floor with a soft thud—Puck didn’t get to speak before something quickly dashed out of the box, the sound of metal clinking together, Cuphead, Y/n and Mugman backs away quickly sharing a yelp as the thing finally stopped moving, and..it was a puppy! 

The puppy turned around and looked directly at Y/n. He was clearly made of colored white metal, with dark spots, and a dark spot on its left eye. It’s tail wagged excitedly before pouncing on Y/n’s leg. 

“Arf!” Y/n gasps and quickly shoves the map into Cuphead’s chest for him to hold. “Oof!” Cuphead fell to the ground at the unwanted shove and Y/n quickly bent down to let the pup.

“Aww you’re so cute!” She shouts. She felt the pup place it’s paws on her shoulders and lick at her face—-she was utterly surprised to feel a wet tongue lick at her face, the tail wagging in pure excitement, it’s head rubbed under Y/n’s chin and Y/n’s hand gently rubbed against a cold metal, she looked down to see a name tag on its collar, gently taking the name tag to get a better look, she saw the name embedded in the metal. 

‘Spunk’

“Spunk.” Y/n read and turned to tag around and immediately furrowed her eyebrows. “Therapy dog?” She grimaced before looking at Puck for an answer and he tilted his head slightly. “I..don’t know why that’s there.” He says quickly. 

Spunk lets out another robotic bark to catch Y/n’s attention, which it did, when she looked back down she saw him in his back for a rub, which she rubbed the pups belly and he gently stuck his tongue out and closed his eyes in joy. 

“How come I don’t get a dog?!” Cuphead quickly glares at Puck, Mugman only looks away from Spunk and his eyes look at the ceiling as if saying. ‘Dear god why’ before looking back at Puck. 

“Ignore him.” He says. 

“Hector is an odd guy, I dunno why he made it. But it said in the notes he wanted to give his future grandchild something to help them with their journey and ease them from being overwhelmed.” Puck answered and that was really all he had information on regarding the gift. 

Y/n huffs as she finally stopped rubbing the pup and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t get..overwhelmed..” she muttered under her breath. 

“Sure ya’ don’t doll.” Cuphead says and she looks at him to see him looking down at her with a hand on his hip with a sly smile. Y/n only rolled her eyes and stood back up while Spunk quickly stood up and sat close to her foot, proud and tall as if he were guarding her. 

“Personally I would think making an adult sized dog would have been better.” Puck points out the size of Spunk—he was just so small—either Hector only thought about Y/n being a kid at the time or just genuinely felt like a puppy would have been better—who knows, only he knew the true reason why. 

“But there is one thing that I feel might actually be useful for you all…one of the pieces of Ruby’s Heart, is here. And Argus has it. She uses it as some sort of deity to the town—saying it would tell them to bring the ‘Surfers’ to us so we can sacrifice them to make her queen.” He spoke about Argus in disdain and disgust, his ears flattening as he grimaced. The three fell in silence as they looked at eachother…sacrificed? 

“Uh..sacrifice?” Y/n asks and Puck nods. “Yeah..doesn't sound too good.”

“You kiddin?! That’s horrible!” Mugman cried out in fear. 

“But don’t worry! I’m going to get you guys out with that stone piece and you guys can be on your way.” Puck rushes over to the table and looks through his notes for the 100th time it seemed. 

“Great, so we can’t leave this stupid place without that piece.” Cuphead deadpans before turning his head to look at Y/n. “Yeah..” she replied before looking at Puck.

“I take it you’re the one that sent them out to get us?” It would make sense, he saw they had the book—knew who they were—hereditary wise—and knew that the only thing that would help them advance later on was located in the town he resided in—but really, Y/n didn’t feel betrayed nor upset for the matter. In fact, quite grateful, without any of that happening, who knows how long it would have taken for them to find out they needed a key to get to some mysterious island. 

Puck nods bashfully and rubbed the back of his neck slowly. “Yeah..sorry about that..had to use my label for granted for this one.” He apologized. 

Cuphead had folded up the map and placed it in his pocket and Y/n still had a grip on the photo which she then placed into her pocket as well. 

“Alright, well where is it? We can just kick our way through, snatch the piece and bust outta here.” Cuphead announced before nudging Y/n slightly as if she would agree with his plan—which not gonna lie, she actually was thinking about doing it. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Those arrows are laced with heavy chemicals that can shut the brain down in a matter of minutes, we don’t use them in ourselves—which is why they can take out someone as big as you guys so quickly.” Puck informed and Cuphead deflated, his straw went limp slightly. 

“Good to know…” he muttered through his teeth. 

“Why do they have the stone piece if Hector was close with your kind?” Mugman brings up. That would seem kinda backstabbing someone—in a sense.

“Oh he was very close to us, but the thing is, our last queen died..or..Argus killed her. For some reason she thinks we’re close—I..don’t know where that came from— but she told me her plan was to take out our old ruler and have her become the new ruler—where we’re from, you have to sacrifice something of great power to become the leader.” Puck’s ears slowly flattened and he deflated slightly in sadness.

“I shoulda told someone about her plans but I just stayed back and let it all happen..”

“Oh don’t worry!” Mugman frowned before getting on his knees and patting Puck’s back with his index finger, in the best attempt to comfort him, Spunk had spotted Mugman squat on the floor and the pup laid on his tummy—squatting as well as if they were sneaking and Mugman being the one to initiate it. 

“So sacrificing someone gets you a big role around here?” Cuphead raises an eyebrow.

“It doesn't have to be a person, it has to be something big—not size matter—but something that the civilians and feel in their heart—something passionate—our last ruler burned flowers as essence, to show love—but—with her passing, the story on how she died was..well..” Puck looks up at the three once Mugman stood back up. 

“The ‘sufers’— you guy—Had killed her, and Argus promised to bring the surfers down here to restore justice—and if she kills the thing that killed our ruler—“

“The civilians would look at her as a hero and deem her the new ruler to keep them safe.” Y/n finished and Puck nods. 

“But that doesn't explain why she wants to book. Sure she can try ta’ kill us, but she knows about the book and has one of the pieces to that key.” Cuphead didn’t finish his sentence but only raised an eyebrow and looked at Puck. 

“She wants to get power from it. I’m a way that even if it's—technically broken. The piece can still react to the book..the confusing part is while no one can access the book that’s not a part of it, anyone can still land their hand on that piece and—sorta in a way gain power from it.” Puck fixes his glasses slightly and Mugman things for a moment. 

“That’s probably why it was broken.” Mugman comments. It would only make sense, a stone that could give you some sort of power or strength with anyone—entirely different from the book—but the catch was; 

“You can only use it when the book is either near opened.” Y/n says quietly but they heard her. It had to be that—why else would Argus need the book—unless she wanted for the same reason the others were after it for.  Well—Y/n didn’t know why they were after it—but still. 

“Jeez Puck, thank you for this information—I never knew any of this stuff. Is there anything else we need to know?” She asks, Puck could only think for a moment before shaking his head. “That’s all he wrote—other than a few dated pages in his journal about Hector—not anything informative to help you all though.”

“So. What’s the plan to get that key and get outta here?” Cuphead asks and Puck’s tail wags. 

“Well…they’ll tie you up again that’s for sure..Argus will bring out the piece—I don't know where she’ll have it. Best chance is to escape and take it.” He replied and Mugman slowly squinted his eyes and his shoulders raised slightly. 

“And..how are we going to..do all that?” 

Puck slowly deflated. “I’m only good at researching..not planning..I thought that was a ‘you guys’ thing!” He quickly said and Cuphead jolted his head. “Us?! That’s a her thing!” He points at Y/n who furrowed her eyebrows.

“What makes you guys think I can make a plan to take a stone from a rat while being sacrificed and not die??” She could barely even think straight when people were chasing her! There’s no way she can make a full fledged escape plan! 

Cuphead lifts a hand. “I’ll make one.” He smiled. 

“We first grab a chains—“

“Cuphead, shut up.” Y/n rolled her eyes. 

“It’s a good plan!”

“There you guys are..” 

Cuphead, Mugman, Y/n and Puck looked over in the corridor to see Argus and Jura. Mugman started to sweat as he flashed a nervously smile.

“Puck, great. You got them ready for the offer?” Argus walked in, her hands clasped together, the dark cape moving ever so slightly—following her moment. Puck quickly fixed his glasses and nodded quickly. “Yes.” 

“Wonderful.” Argus says ever so softly before turning to the three with her hands behind her back—when Y/n moved her gaze down to her, she noticed Spunk was missing, but her focus was mainly now on Argus. 

“3 surfers should be more than enough, hm Jura?” Argus asks as her eyes wandered over the three, Cuphead only rolled his eyes at her statement. 

“Yeah.” Jura muttered—clearly not caring about the conversation at hand. 

“What’s up with surfers? What’s that supposed to mean?” Y/n had asked and Argus only looked her up and down and huffs. “It talks..” she sneered. 

“I mean, you’re not so bright looking yourself.” Y/n shot back and Cuphead snorted before letting out an obnoxious laugh and nudging Y/n. 

“Good one!” He laughs and Y/n lets out a snicker. Mugman gently rocked back and forth on the balls of his heels silently not saying anything in fear Argus might do something. 

“Restrain them. And get them up to the dock—and gather the people. We start early..” Argus grins…well…that was..bad. 

-

“If only you two…” Mugman muttered—the sound the creaking rope echoed, hanging upside down wrapped together with the nylon rope. How the contents in Mugman and Cuphead’s head didn’t spill and fall into the 60 foot abyss and into the large mass of murky green water below..was beyond Y/n. 

“KEPT YOUR MOUTHS SHUT!” Mugman shouts, his voice echoing and bouncing off of the moldy, slimy walls of the sewers. 

Y/n’s heart was beating quickly and she felt the blood rush to her head, now she was scared, she was afraid—80 feet away from them was a 12 foot deep body of water with lord knows what was in it. Holding them up was the thick nylon rope holding onto a cranked crane that could lower them into the water. Y/n’s mind was worried about multiple things at once. Would that rusty metal crane break and they’ll plummet to their death, or would the rope snap instead from the three bodies that were weighing it down. 

Or would they fall into the water and immediately die on impact—or whatever in the water gets them?! 

Or would they just hang until the blood rushes to their head?! She’s never been in a situation like this before! 

“Hey! Y/n—doll—calm down—breathe!” Y/n’s clogged ears heard the voice of Cuphead and her vision finally came back to her, she felt Cuphead’s head gently nudge her own. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would rip itself from her chest and flee. She hardly noticed she was breathing so fast.

“It’s okay, we’ll be fine guys.” Cuphead told the two—Mugman was clearly pissed..

“Cuphead, we’re dangling feet away from water that I’m positive has radiation, nothing is okay!” Mugman shook his legs angrily. 

“We’re going to die.” Y/n sighs and closes her eyes. Damn it—right when she found out who Hector was and everything that Puck told them..even a little robot puppy too! 

The loud laughs echoes—chattering and murmurs echoed in the area, looking over, they could see the town of rats slowly walking up the spiral stairs they circled around the body of water. 

Argus’s laughs echoed as she wandered over to the ledge that had the rod that was holding onto the rope that held onto Cuphead, Mugman and Y/n. Jura and Poe and a few other guards stood behind her. 

The three had moved their gaze over to see Argus—which the led was above their left—and immediately Y/n’s eyes landed on the white cracked stone—that looked like a porcelain plate being held up by a string wrapped around Argus’s neck, acting as a necklace of some sort. That was the key.

“She has the key.” Y/n muttered to Cuphead and Mugman, the two moving their gazes back to Argus. 

“Nuts. How are we supposed to get it now?” Cuphead cursed.

“My people—what I bring to you—are the creatures from above! That has rightfully so taken our queen away from us!” Argus’s voiced shouts, her voice echoing and bouncing from the walls for everyone to hear. The people cheered at the announcement she made—acting as if a rightful judgment of justice was taking place. 

“With this sacrifice, I bring to you a new generation of wealth and prosperity, I shall be your new leader!” Argus raised her hands in the sky as the cheering from the town grew louder. 

“Behead them!”

“They deserve death from all they’ve done!” 

“Never trust surfers!” 

The voices of different cries reached the ears of the three and Mugman made an uneasy sound. “Oh god..I’m gonna be sick..” he shuddered. 

“Deep below..for our sacrifice..we shall feed them to the great green beast!” 

Immediately when she said that everyone cheered even louder. Big green beast? Hold on what?! 

“WAIT!” Y/n shrieks—which the town simmered down their noises and some gasps at the sudden outburst. She felt Cuphead move his head to look at her. 

“Are you guys blind or something?! There is no such thing as a surfer! We didn’t do anything, we’re regular, ordinary people like you all!” 

Meanwhile a few meters away—a group of toons pushed a set of wooden doors open, Alice gazed around the empty town and her eyebrows furrowed. “Wow.” He said. Felix's ears immediately perked up at the sight. “Rat People.” He says. 

Bendy held the book as he looked around the area as well and raised an eyebrow. “Rat People?” He repeats and Felix nods as he slowly walks into town—the streets were empty and very vacant almost like a ghost town. 

“The actual name is Atika—transferred from the long lost language of Alu. Not important though.” Felix then turns around to look at everyone. “The important thing is, they’re a very smart tribe of Rats.” 

“So they won’t be a problem then, right?” Oswald asks. Charley chuckled before kicking over a basket of apples which caused Edgar to punch his back and immediately stop him from destroying things any further. 

“Well—I hadn’t ran into them and had a problem before, but, every part of the world is different, you gotta always keep that in mind, one moment you’ll run into a tribe of talking rats who would let you stay for a few days and give you food—and the next you’ll be scuffling into a fight to get away.” It seemed Felix had met with that last statement a lot more than he was willing to admit. 

Panchito frowned and his tail feather gently lowered to the ground. “Aw..but where is Y/n?” He asks, the trail led them there and vanished the minute they opened the door—when they all saw the door they assumed that she would be behind there but behold there was an abandoned town—but no Y/n. 

Alice sighed and rubbed her forehead. “This is my fault, I should have kept a close eye on her.” She says softly—her halo dimmed ever so lightly, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked over to see Charley giving her a comforting pat in the back—she smiled softly at him and he then chuckled. 

“Yeah you’re right it’s your fault.” He quickly says, cutting the sappy interaction off quickly. Alice deflated and rolled her eyes before shoving him away from her with one hand. 

“Guys, focus.” Donald scolded the two and Boris looked over when he spotted Felix unzipping Y/n’s bookbag and taking out her jacket, he then held the jacket up to Boris’s nose. 

“If it led us here—that means she has to be around here somewhere.” He tells everyone. Boris took in the scent of Y/n’s jacket before sniffing the humid air—after taking a few more sniffs his nose finally started to lead him to the area Y/n was—a trail of her and..

“Someone else was with her.” Boris informed as he walked the opposite direction towards a dark hallway.

“Who?” Donald asks and Boris slowly shrugs as he was more focused on tracking down where Y/n was—it seemed she was walking in one straight line. 

“Can you smell over there?” Felix stops Boris from walking and points over to the other side of the hallway—completely off track where he was smelling, Boris only looked at Felix before walking over to the area and sniffing around—but there was no identical smell to Y/n. 

“No.” He tells him and Felix points over to another area which Boris repeats and does the same thing and shakes his head. 

“What are ya doin?” Barley asks—watching Felix point in different directions for Boris to sniff. Barley started to get the idea that the cat was playing a joke on Boris. 

Felix looks at Barley and then to everyone else. “If Y/n wasn’t in any other parts in the town or this hallway—and only in one continuous direction, that means someone does have her.” He says and Alice gasps softly. 

“Well—is she alive?!” She quickly asks—she was much more worried now that Felix mentioned the poor girl was basically kidnapped. 

“I sure would hope so because I can’t even begin to imagine what to tell M/n—in fact I might not even go back home knowing her, she’ll kill me.” Bendy shivered at the thought of that. M/n never was bothered with much—but she sure as hell cared about her family and if that woman even remotely finds out about Y/n going missing? Oh boy..

“Come on! I can still smell her!” Boris said impatiently as he continued on down the hall.

“Whatever happens, just keep an eye out, and keep a good hold on that book, we don’t know who we’ll run into.” Felix says and everyone agrees as they follow Boris down the hall. 

Back where Y/n, Cuphead and Mugman were, when Y/n finished her first statement, then town had gone silent and Y/n breathed slowly.

“Your leader Argus killed her!” She confessed. A few gasps and murmurs filled her ears—yeah..they heard that alright. Argus looks down at Y/n and her eyebrows furrowed together. 

Argus lifts up her head to look at her people. “She’s telling lies, fibs!”

“She’s using you all!”

“You can’t listen to a creature with flesh!”

“She doesn't care about you! All she wants is power!”

“Pay attention to me!” Argus lifts her hands up in order. 

“What a woman…” Y/n heard Cuphead purr and she looks over to him to see him looking at her with a boyish smile and glazed eyes. Y/n rolled her eyes softly at his statement—but the three yells once feeling them drop for a split second, her stomach dropped as if she were on a roller coaster and the fear set in, Y/n looked back up to see Argus holding the crank.

“I am your salvation!” Argus tells everyone—but instead they didn’t cheer as they only either watched the three or was busy overthinking Y/n’s words. 

“You’ll kill us for no reason.” Y/n tells Argus—she tried to find a way to reason with her—she really did—but only so much could go through Argus’s brain, and she looked to have had her mind already made up. 

Argus only stooped down low to the three. “I have a reason..” she bellowed to Y/n specifically, Y/n stared at Argus—but not with a glint of hate—but one with confusion..what? Y/n felt her eyebrows slowly furrow together. 

“What…?” She whispered. 

“Don’t listen to her, she’s only trying to get in your head.” Mugman tells Y/n. 

Argus stands back up—this time with a newfound passion of anger and resentment.

“Because when you’re gone—that book will belong to me, your bloodline will be no more!” Argus shouts at Y/n, removing a sharp knife from behind her and holding it to the nylon rope that felt like a strand of hair ready to be snapped. 

“You were just like your stupid grandfather, curious and hopeful. Well that ends here.” 

Everything went silent for Y/n as Argus’s words met her ears. 

“L/n.” 

She cuts the rope and Y/n felt like everything went slow, she closed her eyes and clenched it closed, the rope that was wrapped around the three slowly fell off as they fell—inching closer and and closer to the murky water, Argus’s laugh echoed in Y/n’s ears the sound of cheering from the people and the shouts of herself and the cup brothers. 

To be honest Y/n didn’t think she would die this way. Not by rats..well..then again who would think they would die by rats not unless you lived near a plague—but that was quickly erased when she felt her felt give out a rough pull, she gasps and opened her eyes—a few feet away from the water and she saw Cuphead and Mugman hanging upside down as well. Looking up all the way at the top of the staircase near an open door was Edgar! 

“Eddie!” Y/n shouts as she extended her arms towards the spider who squeaked happiness and hops up and down—he held onto the spiderweb—with surprisingly good strength, she felt giddy and smiled up at him. Oh man was she glad to see him! 

“Good—god! I thought I was a goner.” Cuphead gasps for air and Mugman lets  out a sigh. Of relief his hands dropped to his side in exhaustion. 

Edgar squeaks once more as if telling them if was going to pull them up. Which he did and they started to slowly yet safely be tugged up. 

“Wasn’t there suppo—“

“Don’t!” Mugman shouts at Cuphead—quickly cutting him off from his question and Cuphead sucked his lips in as he glanced back at the water. 

“Oh—the green monster?” Y/n asks and she felt Mugman glare daggers at the side of her head. She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Wha-“

Just as she said that. The sound of water bubbling emitted from below, she and the cup bros glanced down to see the water bubbling as if it were boiling. Y/n clenched her teeth and furrowed her eyebrows, and suddenly a large green alligator jumped from the water, the three screamed in fear and held onto each other. Mugman and Cuphead hugged tightly onto Y/n, squishing her between them, the alligator hopped up so high they could peer deep into his maw, the heat of its breath radiating onto them before snapping closed—almost catching by a hair strand before falling back into the water. 

One last tug and the three quickly latched themselves onto the ledge and crawled up—finally onto land, and Y/n smiled at Edgar and immediately wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight hugging—considering how short he was she had to hug him on her knees—mostly because she finished crawling back up.

“I’m so glad to see you!” She shouts. Her eyes looked up to see the others were there as well. Dropping the web from their hands as they were the ones to also help Edgar drag the three to the top, which explained how Y/n thought the small spider could manage to handle all that weight. 

“Guys!” She stood up and immediately was pulled into a hug by Panchito. Hugged her tightly and shook her body. “Oh there you are! my friend, you had us worried! ¿Dónde has estado? ¿estás herido? alguna lesión?” Panchito frantically questions and checked her face for any scars or bruises as well as her arms. Y/n smiled and Alice walked over and placed a hand on her head. 

“Are you okay?” She asks. 

“She looks fine to me, takes a lot to knock down a L/n. Ask M/n. That woman never stops.” Charley pipes up. Y/n laughs softly and nods. “I’m good.” She said, and Bendy finally caught her eye—and he was too busy eyeing Cuphead and Mugman. Who was looking at him. 

Cuphead smiled before walking over to Bendy, holding his hand out for a shake. “You must be Bendy? My name is Cuphead.” Cuphead smiled at Bendy and Bendy had a disgusted look in his eyes before he let out a small chuckle and smiled slowly giving his hand to Cuphead. 

“Pleasure to meet you.” He said before his hand quickly grips onto Cuphead—a loud crack emits from Cuphead’s hand and Cuphead shouts in pain and buckles his knees, Y/n quickly pushes Bendy’s hand away. “Stop!” She scolds him. 

“Cuphead isn’t bad, he and Mugman didn’t do anything.” She quickly tells Bendy who looks at Y/n for a moment. “So you were with them the entire time?” He asks. 

“Yes. Don’t hurt them.” She looked at everyone and wanted to make sure that the cupbros were okay and didn’t need to be manhandled. 

Cuphead swats his hand and hisses in pain. 

“Felix!” Mugman noticed Felix and smiled and Felix smiled at Mugman. “Good to see you boys are okay.” Felix tells the brother and Mugman quickly nods. 

“So—what’s with the rat sacrifice?” Oswald abruptly says and Donald nods. “Yeah..” Donald said slowly in utter confusion.

“It’s crazy, I..” Y/n slowly stopped talking as she glanced back at Bendy who was already looking at her. Jeez..she didn’t really wanna go over the fact she snuck out of the church last night. “I can explain the story when we get out of here.” She muttered. 

“But the important part is—this rat named Argus wants to kill us for a sacrifice to her people to make her the official queen but the thing is, she killed the original queen—to make her the new leader which can turn her into the queen if she finds a sacrifice which was is-and we met this guy named Puck who told us about the book—because his grandfather used to work as a researcher for the last book holders and this guy named Hector—who is my great grandfather—had the book at the time—and basically there’s this island called Ruby’s Island that we have to go to because it can unlock the secrets to the book to help us stop what’s going on—BUT we have to find this key called Ruby’s Heart and it unlocks some sort of temple in the island, so we need that key but the thing is the key broke years go—and it broke into pieces and we have to find those broken pieces first and put them together in order to find the island and Argus has one of the pieces that we need to get to the island but the thing is she wants to book because I can only assume the book reacts to the key piece—whatever it is. It’s not good.” Y/n takes a deep breath after explaining it all in one full sentence and the faces they all made were hilarious. 

Oswald, Donald, Panchito and Bendy had their mouths opened slightly in shock as Alice, Charley, Barley and Edgar stared at Y/n and basked in all the information that she managed to spit out in one go and Boris smiled goofily. 

“Ruby Falls, I heard of that, never been there myself.“ Felix says. Cuphead sighs dreamily as he looks at Y/n his hands behind his back as he rocked back and forth on his feet. 

“Man..ain’t she somethin..” he purred and Mugman nudged Cuphead and coughed in an attempt to stop him from his awkward staring. 

“Well—I mean it’s a good thing you guys didn’t bring the book.” Mugman says and Bendy raises an eyebrow. “No, I have it right h-“ he looked down at his and went silent—Y/n looked down at Bendy’s hands as well to see nothing. Bendy’s tail dropped to the ground and he huffs heavily. “You gotta be kidding me!” He shouts. 

Hearing the familiar laugh, Y/n and everyone else looked over to see Argus, holding the book above her head, Y/n was still astonished with how strong these rats were but that wasn’t even something to be thinking about right now. 

“With this power! I can finally be powerful!” She lets out a laugh loud and powerful. 

“Aw..she’s so small.” Panchito cooed with a soft laugh and Oswald let out a strained laugh through his teeth. “Not the time Panchito..” he wheezed. 

“Good luck trying to get in it. You can’t open it.” Donald tells her with a simple shrug—at the point he knew if anyone got their hands on that book, it would be for a short time because they simply couldn’t get in it—but instead of meeting an embarrassed and angry expression, he was met with one of smugness and courage. 

Bendy chuckled. “And what are you gonna do little guy?”  He teased. 

“I don’t need to open the book..” she says before tossing the book in the air, a bright light zapped from the front of the closed book and down onto Argus’s chest, hitting the stone that was on her neck, the bright yellow light growing fierce as everyone immediately stared in awe and astonishingly surprised expressions. 

The wind circled around them—Y/n’s hair moving as she felt the ground beneath her shake.

Before her Argus lets out an echoing deep laugh, the sound of the ground cracking and debri falling echoes. And the sound of cracking of bones or muscles as Argus started to grow before her. The rat surpasses everyone’s height—standing at least 10 feet tall now. 

The book falls limply onto the ground—near the edge of the ledge near the water. “Who’s the little guy now?!” Argus shouts down at everyone with a laugh. 

Y/n sighs before looking straight forward…great. 

Argus looks down at Y/n before swinging her tail—knocking her off of her feet and off of the ledge, Y/n quickly grabs Argus’s tail and lets out a shout—glancing down at the water below. 

“Don’t! Don’t do it!” Alice shouts Argus, the rat only looks at Alice and smiles before moving her tail up and back down—Y/n’s arms slipped from the tail and she felt herself falling a few of her friends calling after her as Argus let out a loud menacing laugh. 

“I’ll get her!” Bendy shouts before he without a second thought hops in after Y/n—not waiting to hear what the others had to say or what would happen next. 

-

Y/n fell into the water—making sure to inhale a deep ball of air in her lungs—the water taking her in as she. The water slaps her body harshly and she quickly opens her eyes—the water is murky and barely transparent. She kicked her feet to swim back to the surface—but caught glimpse of a moving creature—quickly looking over she was met with a maw snapping in front of her—she quickly smiled plunged deeper into the water—she could only move so fast with swimming in the water,  her body gently barrel rolled as she looked between her legs to see the alligator quickly lunging for her yet again, when it got close she quickly with all her power kicked the alligator in the head—her shoe collided with the hard scaly skin—which sent her back when she kicked it. 

The alligator clearly felt the kick and growled—shaking its head before quickly snapping at Y/n—but she moved back yet again—this time her back bet something and a hang grabbed the back of her shirt and dragged her down. Y/n would have gasped if she wasn’t holding onto the last bit of air she had. She looked over to see Bendy was the one that latched onto her to move her away from the gator. 

He spotted a small tunnel and looked at her, before releasing her. He points down at it and points down to his wrist as if telling the time. ‘Give me time.’ 

He must have wanted her to hold her breath for just a tad bit longer. She nods before Bendy grabbed her wrist and swam towards the tunnel—as he did so Y/n felt a movement of water hit her her feet—looking back she spotted the gator yet again snapping at her, she hugged Bendy’s arm and he looks back as well before quickly looking at Y/n and furrowing his eyebrows—he must have not noticed it was behind them. 

But before the gator could get any closer, the two entered the tunnel and quickly swam through, Y/n felt her chest tightened and her neck become hot and in need of air—she needed to breath—unlike Y/n who was a human, she couldn’t hold her breath for too long compared to toons. 

But once they exited the dark tunnel they entered another small sewer room—a light from above them and they quickly swam up—that must have been the surface—Y/n felt like jumping out of the water when she finally was able to break free and get air flowing into her lungs. Inhaling loudly she coughed as the water left her nose and ears—eyes closed as she grasped onto the ledge of concrete, she coughed and hacked up water as she pulled herself onto the ground weakly, Bendy following after her as he coughed up water as well. The two were drenched in water, Y/n felt the water exit her mouth—her nose burned and the cool air started to attack her, Bendy crawled into the ground—but he had still been coughing. 

Y/n looked over quickly when she noticed his coughs sounded more like he was choking, the water spilt from his mouth and a long string of black saliva from what it seemed dripped from his mouth, but it seemed to be ink of some sort. 

“Bendy—“ Y/n shivered before she placed a hand on his back. Bendy sits up and wipes his mouth. “I’m fine.” He grumbled. He..didn’t sound happy at all. Y/n removed her hand from his back before looking around, there wasn’t a way out—not a door nor a ladder—it was just an area where the water would transfer. She shivered softly and held her arms and slowly sat down. She heard a few muffled coughs from Bendy which his throat should have been cleared from water by now but she didn’t think too much of it. 

Bendy looked around as well and slowly stood up. “There’s no way out.” Y/n tells him. 

“I can see that.” He quips. Y/n felt that Bendy must have been upset with her leaving last night which—was understandable..

“Sorry..” Y/n says quietly. Bendy looked down at her and furrowed his eyebrows, his chest jolted as he muffled down another cough. 

“We wouldn’t be in this mess if I had just stayed at the church, sorry.” She apologized and Bendy sighed. 

“Do you know what could have happened to you? Anything. Y/n we can’t play games like that, especially with people that tried to kill us not even 40 hours ago.” Bendy scolds harshly and Y/n didn’t exactly like the feeling of her grunts and felt her cold hair attached to her face. 

“I can watch over myself, Bendy. I’m not a kid.” For years Y/n always felt that she had an eye on her. Mostly from her parents—they were so afraid of—the world they didn’t want her in harm's way—and as nice as that may sound it made her seem like a kid—felt like a kid, but she wasn’t . She could take care of herself! 

“So taking care of yourself is being tied up in a sewer by rats going to feed you to a gator?!” Bendy tilts his head and Y/n falls silent. 

“You almost died if it weren’t for us looking for you!” Bendy immediately lowered his voice before closing his eyes and sighing. “I didn’t mean to yell—“ He immediately says. Y/n looks away from him and to the water silently. The sound of the water dripping from their clothing echoing and she felt Bendy stare at her and a few muffled coughs exited his mouth. 

“I’m sorry..” Bendy apologized again. 

No..he was right..blindly just leaving and winding up in a mess they now had to get out of…she scratched the back of her neck and sighs through her nose. Bendy slowly wandered over to her, gently wiping his mouth yet again and slowly sitting down beside her, his tail gently resting behind her. 

He looks away from her and into the murky water—reflecting from the dull yellow lights above on the ceiling that looked like it was ready to go out. 

She did have to admit..she did almost die. The silence between the two wasn’t tense—but something was there, it was evident that Bendy wanted to say something. And after a few more moments, he spoke; 

“You just had me worried, that was all...” he tells her. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder to pull her into a side hug. Y/n rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. “It’s not your fault. I was just bein’ an idiot and sayin’ stupid things, sorry about that..” he rested his head ontop of hers—cascading her in his warmth, it took Y/n a moment to notice how apologetic Bendy was for his sudden burst of anger and shouting—something that he really didn’t need to apologize for—it wasn’t like Y/n would break down crying because of it. But when he had stopped—it looked as if he had remembered something—or thought of something in the least. 

Y/n wrapped her arms around Bendy to properly hug him and he wrapped his arms around her as well. “Thanks for coming back for me.” She tells him and Bendy gently pulls back and smiles at her. 

“Oh please sweets, I’ll always come back for you.” He stands up and Y/n stands up with him the two letting go of eachother. 

“Okay le-“ Bendy let out another cough and He clenched his eyes closed at the coughing fit. Y/n gently placed her hands on his shoulders. “Dude are you okay?” 

“It’s —probably somethin—“ he let out another cough and shook his head gently. “It’s probably somethin’ in that water.” He finished and Y/n placed a hand on his head to feel his temperature—his head was warm and wasn’t burning hot or anything. 

“I’m fine toots, really.” Bendy chuckled and Y/n’s arms fell to her side.”okay..just checking—how are we getting out of here? I don’t think swimming back to the other side is a smart idea.” She says before moving away from Bendy and looking around the area, Bendy walks over to a wall and places his hands on it. 

“This way.” He held out his hand to her and Y/n looked behind her to see a black puddle formed on the wall, similar to what she saw back at the bar a few days ago when Bendy popped out of it. She curiously looks at it and then to Bendy. 

“C’mon, it’s just like walking through a door.” He chuckles before leaning over and grabbing her hand himself and immediately walked through the ink like portal, Y/n walked through as well—felling Bendy’s hand in hers—she couldn’t seem much but just like he said—it was like walking through a door, when she made it to the other side she felt herself stumble slightly as if her brain said ‘whoa!’ Being in an entirely different area than where they were. 

She heard shouting and other scuffling noises from afar. And Bendy looks down the hall. 

“We need to get that stone from Argus.” Y/n tells Bendy and he looks at her and nods. 

“Alright, well—if you ask me, I’ll send you on rat duty and me and the others can try to snag the stone.” He smiled at her and Y/n huff before placing a hand on her chest. 

“I’m not doing that!”

-

Y/n stood behind the towering body of Argus. Felix had sent Alice, Charley, Barley, Edgar and Boris to go tend to the civilians with Mugman—in the time Bendy and Y/n were gone, Puck found Cuphead and Mugman with the others which he quickly explained the situation that Y/n had already explained prior to falling off the ledge. Puck had gathered the people in town with Alice and the 5–telling the truth about Argus and how the ‘surfers’ aren’t the people they were looking for. 

Which—the town could only cry in disbelief. How dare she lie to everyone! The human girl was right—they changed for the human—they wanted to see her but Puck couldn’t find Y/n prior to them being saved by Edgar.

Alice held some of the children's mice to be distracted as Argus was busy, hopefully not killing her friends somewhere along the sewer lines. 

Puck stood on top of Edgar’s hand as he looked down at his people.

“The human! She’s a miracle for telling us the truth! How could we be so blind!” One of the civilians cried out. 

Charley chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Idiots.” He laughed softly but Alice glared at him. 

“We are so sorry? We’ve been blinded by our own selfishness for someone to help us mourn from our last queen that we didn’t look to see the surfers aren’t the real problem.” One civilian apologized. Barley tilts his head. 

“How long as Argus’s been ya’lls leader?” He asks. Puck looks at Barley. “A year.” 

“We stand with the human!” Shouts a civilian and right after they shout after him. 

“We stand with the human!”

-

“Hey!” Y/n shouts—throwing a fairly large rock at Argus’s back. Bendy and scampered over to Felix, Oswald, Donald, Panchito and Cuphead who had been distracting Argus ever since waiting for Bendy and Y/n that they had been hoping for their return the entire time. 

“We need to get that stone off of her neck.” Bendy points out Argus’s neck and the boys looks over to see the tied necklace around her neck. Y/n stood in the background taunting Argus.

“Oh great—how are we supposed to get up there?” Donald asks Bendy and Felix looks at Panchito to see he had the lassos behind his tail feathers. 

“Panchito, I’ll need that lasso.” Felix said—Panchito looks away from Argus and to Felix and takes the lasso away and hands it to Felix, Felix holds the rope in his hands before looking at the others. 

“I’ll help Y/n with tying Argus, you guys find a way to trip her and when we get this rope around her, Cuphead you shoot at that wall over there—“ Felix points his fingers over to the weak crumbling cobblestone near a leaking vent. 

“And Oswald you’ll hold the book with Donald—I’m certain there’s a way to redo whatever she did.” Felix says and Cuphead hands the book to Oswald who nods and takes it in his grasp. 

“Bendy and Panchito—while you’re helping cause a distraction—I want either of you two to take either side of me and Y/n’s rope and help tug her down.” He looks between the two and they nod silently. 

“Alright, then let’s go!” 

Y/n hardly noticed Felix run over to her and drag her out of the way when she moved to dodge Argus’s tail when Cuphead threw a rock at her to distract her. 

“Hey!” Felix smiled at Y/n and he handed her one side of the rope, she grabs it and Felix placed on foot in front of the either and motioned his head down as if signaling her to follow his movement which she did. 

“We’re gonna tie her up okay!” He tells her and Y/n nods quickly. 

“Toss, pull—“ he then motioned his hand in front of him as if going in a circle. “Clockwise!” 

Toss, Pull, Clockwise. 

“You ready?” Felix asks her gently, nudging her shoulder, Y/n looks over at Argus to see Cuphead was pretty good at taunting her, he hopped around each time she tried to swing at him with either his tail or hands. 

“Uh..” she took a step back and she felt Felix’s hand gently place itself on her back to stop her from backing away. “You’re an adventurer now Y/n, rise to the challenge.” 

When Felix told her that—she slowly eased up, just like her grandfather..she could do it. She gripped the rope in her hand and placed her foot ahead and leaned forward slightly. 

Toss, pull, clockwise.

Felix's ears perked up and he smiled at her change in demeanor, in sync the three took 4 steps back, and tossed the rope, when it caught around Argus’s waist they both pulled and leaned back so their weight could pull! The rope tightened but Y/n didn’t ever think about letting go.  Argus stumbled and Cuphead shot at her feet to get her to move—which did get Argus to stumble back more towards the area he needed her, Y/n kept a strong hold onto the rope and started to run the direction she was supposed to as Felix ran the other direction, Argus bellowed and lets out a roar of anger. Y/n smiled as she felt joy spark in her! 

The rope tightened around Argus as the two wrapped her tightly into the rope—Felix’s boots dug into the ground as he skidded to a stop the same as Y/n across from Argus’s other side, she felt someone run up behind her and take ahold of the behind her and tugging as well—looking over she saw Panchito who smiled at her and the two tugged together. Cuphead points his hands towards the wall and a blue beam of light shot from his finger and hits the crumbling wall, but it didn’t do much as only a few debri of rocks fell down and onto Argus’s head. 

“Hurry! We can’t hold her for long!” Bendy shouts over to Cuphead. Who had shot at the wall over and over again—but to no avail it wasn’t enough. Cuphead cursed under his breath before taking a deep breath his shoulders heaving up a ball of light forming in his hands his straw sticking up and soon releasing the energy and it shot at the wall—the wall crumbles down onto Argus, dropping her to the floor, the debri of dust and rocks flew in the air and Oswald opens the book up and almost immediately the same string of golden light shoots out the book and aims at Argus’s neck, Oswald seemed like he was pushing the book with bow strong the force of it was that Donald came up behind Oswald and pressed his back against his to keep it steady? Argus shrinks under the rubble and the light goes away, the book closing and landing itself in Oswald’s arms. 

Y/n immediately drops the rope and rushes over to the rubble to see Argus laid on the ground she coughed and Y/n quickly snagged the necklace away from her. Argus growls but was far too wear to say or so much of anything. 

Y/n smiled down at Argus and dangled the necklace down at her. “Who’s the lil guy now?” 

“I!” Y/n turns her head to see Felix smiling at them all. “Am so proud of you all!” He finished before he wrapped his arms around Bendy, Donald and Panchito, grabbing Cuphead by his straw to pull him into the hug and then grabbing Y/n by her shirt to also drag her into the group and lastly grabbing Oswald to pull him into the hug, his arms engulfing everyone as the cat purrs and releases them. 

Cuphead stumbled slightly at the amount of energy he just had to use. “We wouldn’t have done that without your plan.” Donald tells Felix, the 7 looked like they just finished running through a dusty house as the dirt and dust from the air and fallen cobble stone decorated their bodies. Felix ruffled Y/n’s hair and smiled at her. “You did good going back when you wanted to leave, that’s very brave of you Y/n.” He tells her and Y/n bashfully swatted her hand and looked away dramatically.

“Jeez, this thing is strong.” Oswald tiredly handed the book to Donald—who held it—clearly pushing against the book could wear someone out. 

Y/n held up the stone to everyone and smiled. “But we got it.” She tells them and Felix smiles and nods at her with pride. 

“Got me thinking if I should start getting you guys some more outdoor clothes.” He says and looks at everyone—considering how scuffled they always get dealing with their adventure it would be smart to get some more comfortable lightweight and durable clothing. 

“What makes you think you’ll walk out of here alive?” The voice of Argus croaks. The group looks over to see Argus still laying on her stomach—weakened by the tumble and rocks piling onto her. 

“Your people will soon find out what you truly did, it’s not like you can hide it from them.” Y/n grumbled. 

Argus only chuckles. “They don’t know anything..I killed that woman because she was in no power to continue running this place..only me.” She muttered. 

“And I will get to see that happen, stone, book or not..all I have to do is tell them to rip you all apart and they’ll do it.” Argus was silent for a moment before laughing under her breath. 

“Well, you heard that ladies and gentlemen?” The forum looks over to see Charley, standing in front of ofnthr town of civilians who was on the other side of the wall that had been blown away—via Cuphead. 

Alice, Barley, Mugman, Edgar and Boris stood behind the civilian and Puck was standing in Alice’s hand, Y/n looked down at Argus to see she had weakly gotten up. 

“Wh-you can believe these people! They are surfers! They harm our people!” She shouts and Puck looks at Y/n from Alice and nods his head before smiling. She smiled back at him and nodded her head as well. 

“Oh no—she’s gettin’ rowdy—cease this menace.” Charley laughs as the guards walk past him and grab Argus by her arms, she grunts and kicks her feet. “You can’t do this to me! I’m your queen!” She shouts they are dragged back into town.

“You are no longer our queen!” Shouts a civilian.

“Guards, you’re forgetting two others as well that were in on it.“ Mugman clears his throat before pointing a finger over to Jura and Poe. Poe shivered slightly and waved nervously.

And just like that, the guards dragged them away as well, with Jura clearly upset about the entire plan being foiled. 

Puck looks at Y/n. “Our new leader—is someone who we thought we should fear, but with knowledge we shall move on as a society—to accept others.” Puck says. Y/n perked up slightly at the mention of the leader, the civilians all looked at Y/n with a glint of glee and hope in their eyes. 

“Uh—“ she didn’t know what to say…

“I—flattered, really.” She felt the paper in her pocket when she nervously placed her hands in her pockets, pulling her hands from her pockets she saw the photo of Hector..a sense of calming came from the photo—a fiery fierce rage of determination.

She placed the photo back into her pocket and looked at everyone. 

“As your leader, I promise to deliver prosperity amongst you all, no fear will walk the streets—not while I’m here…” 

“Not while I’m here…” 

-

“Alright, bye Puck! Keep an eye on the town while I’m away! I’ll make sure to visit!” Y/n waves goodbye to Puck who happily nods and waves goodbye to the large group.

“Bye guys!” He waves to them, Cuphead and Mugman standing beside Y/n waving with a smile—standing right in a ditch of a creek where they had been blindly dragged through..god she didn’t even wanna think about it. 

“You guys stay safe! And I wish you good thoughts on your adventure!” Puck says as her friends waved him goodbye as well. 

“Feel like I’m missing something..” Y/n suddenly says and Bendy looks at her. “What is it?” He asks. 

“Bark!” 

Y/n smiled at him before looking over to see Spunk scurried over to Y/n, Puck smiled softly. “You forgot Spunk.” He said and Y/n laughs before looking at Puck. 

“Thanks, see you soon!” 

Puck nods before scurrying back into the sewer, Spunk ran in circles as his eyes landed on all of her friends! 

“What is that?” Alice asks.

“Whoa!” Donald exclaims.

Oswald tilts his head at the dog when Spunk sniffed his foot and looked up at him before going over to Bendy to sniff him, Bendy chuckled before Spunk scurried over to Felix who had bent down to examine Spunk.

“He’s a creation Hector made for Y/n.” Mugman informed. Spunk rolled on his back when Felix reached down to grab at his tag. 

“Geez, you tellin’ me this dog is his old?” Barley points out. Panchito cooed and rubbed the dog's belly. “He is just a puppy.” Panchito cooes. 

“I don’t know how long ago it was made nor do know what year Hector and the other holders had this book.” Y/n shrugs and Oswald nods. 

“Well..If he’s still in working order, then maybe it couldn’t have been that long. The book itself might be old, but not the people who had it before us.” He says—which yeah—makes sense considering it was said the book was eons old. 

“Jeez..I’m starving..” Cuphead muttered. 

Boris looked up at the sky to see the sun was starting to set. “Well, it is gettin’ late.” He mentions. 

“Best head back to the church and get cleaned up for tomorrow.” Alice brings up and Felix nods, with them having the new information they had now regarding the booo, the stone called; Ruby’s Heart and the location it was supposed to go to—but before they could do that he had to finish finding the pieces to the stone and before they could do that they had to get the jewel.

“Yeah, we got a lot to do—we’ll start planning about finding those stones after we get this jewel for Cuphead and Mugman.” Felix brings up and Y/n nods—thank goodness—taking one thing at a time..

-

Once making it back to the church which took an hour—and having some of the nuns baby her the minute she walked through the door looking like a disaster—they immediately fed her and gave her clothes for a bath and now Y/n sat in the window sill listening to the birds, Cuphead sat next to her, the two watching the sunset as she heard the boys arguing in the background who was best at playing cards. 

Mugman was in there with him—finally relaxing and having fun after the dreadful events they went through. 

But unfortunately the cup brothers wouldn’t be able to stay, they would have to head back to their lair until they could get the jewel. 

Cuphead fiddled with a piece of paper he was folding up—creating an origami with it, listening to him ruffle with the paper in his hands and hearing the birds caused Y/n’s eyes to drift close—she was so exhausted..she heard the rustling of the paper go quiet and she opened her eyes to see the paper horse near her face, she smiled and looked at Cuphead and he made a nose with his mouth similar to the noise a horse makes when sputtering their lips. She lets out a soft laugh. 

Cuphead chuckled before placing the origami horse beside him. “So..it’ll probably be awhile till I get to see you again.” He said and Y/n smiled.

“Cuphead, you’ll probably see me in the next..I dunno 20 hours?” She chuckled and Cuphead laughed shortly after. 

“Yeah? Well, 20 hours too long. Just sayin.” He then looks at her and smiles; “A good luck kiss would do me right.” He smiled boyishly at her and Y/n felt a smile form on her face as well. She laughed yet again and gently pushed him. 

“Okay, stop joking around.” She says and Cuphead gently took the hand that pushed him. “Don’t be gettin’ all flustered on me now.” He teased and Y/n laughs again.

“C’mere you..” Cuphead grabbed Y/n’s face and leaned forward but was met with a hand that shoved him away and shockingly it wasn’t Y/n’s, it was Bendy’s. Bendy crawled and sat between the two and look Cuphead who had shook his head upon the shove. 

“Sorry, was I interrupting something?” Bendy smiled. Mugman walked over with a giddy smile—winning 6 times in goldfish! What a night! 

“Alright, alright. We’ll leave..” Cuphead says before jumping from the window sill and landing on his feet on the ground. Mugman waves at Y/n and smiles. 

“Bye! See you soon.” He says before following Cuphead’s lead. “Bye boys! We’ll make sure to get that jewel for you.” Y/n waves as Cuphead and Mugman smiled and waved back as they walked off and Y/n hopped they would come back to the group in one piece considering they had been gone the entire day from their group.

“Well, it’s time to hit the hay.” Bendy says before standing up from the window sill and stretching, Y/n followed after. 

“See you tomorrow, Bendy.” She bids a goodnight to him as Bendy leaves the room. “Night sweets.” He tells her before leaving. Y/n quickly hurried into bed in desperate need of sleep. And the last thing she saw before laying down—was Alice fixing her blanket before she left her vision to go to sleep as well. 

[sinisterexaggerator]

Reader is dressed in one of those skimpy slave outfits, complete with a collar and a leash, and Bane takes her to a meeting with a client or something idk (reader is 100% consenting and into this btw).

Warnings: You get one rubbed out by Cad Bane during a meeting with a client!

Explicit!

NSFW / 18 +

1.6k+

Inspired by:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Unbroken_Clan_sanctuary

It was your fault. You had been the one to make the bet. To think you could beat the Duros at Sabacc was a miscalculation on your part.

You had been lounging on Nar Shadda, hanging out in one of the seedy bars that proliferated there, along with other bounty hunters of your kind, your motley crew. You were between jobs, but thought you knew a way to earn some easy money. You were a damn good Sabacc player, and Cad Bane had credits to his name galore.

He was infamous, damn good at his profession, and it was hear tell he was rolling in too much dough to handle. You’d never be stupid enough to try and steal it, or to try and cheat - you had nothing much to wager, so you offered up yourself.

“If I win, you hand over those 5,000 credits you just won off that Rodian. If you win, I’m your … slave for a day.”

The bet was sealed with snark, a sneer on the Duros’ part. He thought you daft but wouldn’t turn down something as interesting as your proposal. “I hope y‘know what you’re gettin’ yerself into. I won’ go easy on you …”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“How many rounds, lil’ lady?”

“Best 2 out of 3.”

“Deal.”

He handed you the cards, you shuffled and laid two out for each of you in turn. This wasn’t “high-stakes” per say, just a friendly game in some backwoods bar off the Hutt’s moon; there wasn’t any randomizer. You were stuck with what you got. To draw, or not?

You sighed, somewhat nervous, calling out your hand. “Twelve.”

“Six-teen.” the Duros replied.

You both drew from the deck.

Bane placed one card off to the side, and you did as well. He had a good Sabacc face, you couldn’t read it, it was hard to tell just what he was thinking - you really should have known better.

“Nineteen.” You thought that was pretty good.

“Twenty-one”

“Kriff.”

“I can un’da’stan’ if you wanna wolk away, lil’ lady. I’ll forget all a’bout dis, we don’ hafta play dat second hand.”

You couldn’t lose face; the whole bar was watching – and more than that – perhaps you’d lose Cad Bane’s respect. You wouldn’t stand for it – it was bad for business. Even if you lost, it was worth it to see the game through to the end. You didn’t want your reputation to be tarnished because of it; you were no coward. You would never allow yourself to be labeled such as that.

“No, I’m in.” you responded.

The Duros let you deal again, even though it was his turn to cut the cards. It seemed he trusted you enough not to cheat, and he was attempting to be more than fair. Besides – if you did, he’d just gut you like a gest, no skin off his back.

“Seven.” you called out with disappointment, hoping the next card you drew would be better than the first two.

“Fifteen.” Cad Bane taunted, a sinister simper twitching at the corner of his mouth where he kept his toothpick; he had been chewing on it, perhaps a nervous tick.

You both drew and discarded cards again.

“Twenty!” You called out gleefully, but your happiness quickly dissipated into a forlorn sense of dread. He lay his cards upon the table and your heart sank in your chest.

“Straight Ssabacc. You’re mine now, girl. And as luck would hav’it, I’m off’ta meet a client. Gonna teach you’a lesson, pa’rade you ah’round a lil’ bit. You shoulda listen’d to me; I intend to collect m’winnings.”

---

He had carted you off to Corellia, but not before making you trade clothes with a sexy Twi’lek; her master thought it humorous, as he had been at the bar watching your embarrassing loss unfold. You were allowed you keep your blaster, the tools of your profession, but otherwise you were scantily clad; a top that might as well have been a bra and a skirt that left little to the imagination. It was cut up the thigh so high anyone could practically see your naughty bits.

“Really, Cad?” He tugged the chain attached ‘round your neck – he had made you wear a collar. He was walking you loosely, like a dog down the streets of Coronet City; he had no shame, but neither did you. You held your head high, despite nearly every man in town having a wandering eye.

“What’s de matta? Don’t like bein’ m’sslave? Maybe nexxt time you’ll fin’ someone else to play cardss wit.”

He made his way, you trailing behind like some prize on display until he had reached his destination; another seedy bar, only this time, he led you further inward, to some creep’s back office, some client of his that wished to talk business, and you were all ears – you’d never been this close for this long to Cad Bane before.

You quickly learned they were apart of a group called the “Mourner’s Wail” – they had it out for another syndicate, referred to as the “Unbroken Clan.” They wanted to pay the Duros to assemble a team of hunters to attack a sacred sanctuary, their main hideout. You were surprised, as it seemed Cad had no qualms; willing to do anything to earn credits, including vandalize a place of worship – a place generation after generation had lived in harmony amongst themselves. He was being paid to break a truce - you didn’t quite know how you felt.

You wriggled against your collar, you thought it was too tight against your throat. The simple motion: the sensation of the pull attracted Bane and he yanked you forward; you were his until the end of one full rotation. He pointed to his knee and hissed: “Ssit.”

You gawked at him, so he snapped his fingers. You quietly complied, eyes wide. His knee was boney, but his leg was sturdy. You nearly gasped when he wrapped one arm around you.

The hands of his species were quite large, impressive even, and somewhat abrasive; one finger’s length was twice the size of yours, and you blushed when you had an abject thought or two.

They continued to talk business as you felt the need to readjust. You resituated yourself the best you could, but it caused something within Cad Bane to stir. You sensed something firm press against your bottom, the Duros was getting hard, and your eyes darted; unsure of what to do.

You didn’t have too long to contemplate as he had whispered in your ear. “You betta ssit sstill, lil’ lady.”

He tightened his grip around you, but that one hand had roved, moving higher, groping, tweaking, and you chirped as he had pinched your nipple through your skimpy top - you nearly batted him away. Though, you suddenly remembered what brought you here, and you wondered if this was part of the game you were supposed to play.

If he was going to treat you with so little dignity, you thought you might as well torture him to top it off.

Your plump backside grinded into him on purpose, his manhood hardening further; you could feel it, it was thick and dangerously long, the outline poking against your nearly naked buttocks. He growled, a sound reverberating from deep inside his larynx, his cybernetic breathing apparatus giving his voice an extra quality of sexy, though sobering lust, as he spoke against the nape of your neck, sharp teeth grazing lazily before he drawled out a few more words. “Gonna hafta teach you anotha’ lesson, girl.”

He snaked a finger underneath your skirt while sitting there, conversating, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary. The syndicate leader hadn’t seemed to notice, as this whole time Bane only whispered while the other man moved his mouth to tell his tale. He pushed your panties to the side – a single digit caressed your clit. You shuddered, caught unawares. You couldn’t believe he was doing this – but you liked it. What in Kriff was wrong with you?

You were wet; it was easy for Cad to tell, he sank that one finger into you only along your entrance, though not full flush - for that he would have asked permission - he collected what he needed; where that sweet nectar seeped from, gathering enough to lubricate the fleshy pad of his lithe appendage, using it to tease and fondle you.

He worked small circles, delicate, deliberate; you gripped the underside of the table you both sat behind, trying to keep your face straight, though you bit your lip, and you couldn’t help yourself – you had been sitting with your legs sealed; close together, but your knees parted, and you gave him better access to what he was after. You hadn’t seen it, but he smirked; devilish.

He didn’t bother to pick up the pace; he was slow, methodical, answering the man’s questions, talking payment, fine details, yet all the while he rubbed you with expert precision, your heartbeat increasing with every stroke. At some point you moaned out loud as the leader of the clan turned his head in your direction. You couldn’t hide it, Bane using his other hand to grab your ass; the squeeze he gave you sent you reeling, and you came right in your panties.

He pulled his arm away from you and wiped your cum on the front of your own clothes; across your skirt for all to see, another kind of punishment. - revenge was sweet.

“Told ya to ssit sti’ll.”

—-

Note: it’s hard for me to do 100% consensual stuff with Bane because he’s such a bastard man. Hope this was close enough. :x

PS: I was going off the version of Sabacc where each player calls out their beginning hands! It wasn’t meant to have a bet/bluff round because she only had one thing to wager: herself.  It was more meant to be quick than a full-fledged game and yes, a lack of a randomizer.

[weirddeans]

If supernatural was 2022 Sam would have a they/them arc and Dean would be like (visibly holding back from calling him a faggot) "well whatever floats ur boat buddy, if you wanna be a chick or whatever I won't stop ya, I mean hell I shoulda known with all that uh.. vegan crap and chick flicks you like, but you'll always be my little brother and I'll always have your back! Haha" and then they have a 5 ep separation arc and Dean meets a hot blonde skinwalker girl and finds out she was """""originally"""" born a guy and starts respecting trans people bcus he found one sexy and by the time he finds sam again hes like "actually you know, I did some soul searching and uh, well some of the things you said actually made me realize I wanna go by he/they, heh" and and they have a bro hug moment a hot sexy skin walker knocks on the motel room door and says some sexy I guess and dean's like "not now sweetheart! Me and- and- they" (looks and Sam and smiles and nods his head while Sam gives him a 'he a little confused but he got the spirit look) "are having a moment here how about you come back later and the two of you can talk about uh, real housewives, or whatever" and then credits roll and no one in the series ever calls Sam they ever again for the rest of the series but the writers still get Inclusivity Win points bcus technically it's not wrong to call him "he" guys he literally goes by he/they

This is my pitch for the spn reboot it's important to not actually resolve the issue and handle it as poorly as possible while you can argue on technicalities that it's not Problematic