#the gutteral NO that left me when i saw this fucker

[thewardenisonthecase]

so i did this quiz and-

[parker-d-bloodrose]

Adventures in Bike Commuting 1/4/23

In Which I go to Taco Bell, have some difficulties eating due to an injury, and get annoyed about drivers. 

Kind of a short post but I figured I’d write one up anyway - this is the first time I’ve been able to take Ghoulie for spin this year and the decision was made to go bop down to my local Taco Bell for lunch because all of the food at home was Not Safe (meaning my brain was telling me that the food was off-limits even though this is nonsensical.) The ride there was pretty uneventful, but I think I’ll have to remember to bring my balaclava more often for the winter at least. My face was chilly from the wind. I ordered a new bell to replace the one that was broken, since I finally accepted that ordering a bell online was better than trying to go to a store in person and finding one. It’ll be here Friday. Until then, I just shouted “Ding ding, on your left” at people whenever I saw them.  Unsurprisingly, when I got to the taco bell there wasn’t anywhere good to park my bike i.e. no bike rack. So I ended up chaining Ghoulie to a fence post and grabbing lunch. I currently have my right arm in a brace because of an injury at work, so I had to take the brace off to eat, which was an unexpected difficulty tbh and not one I had factored in when I made the decision to go to Taco Bell. It was fine tho and I got my dose of Baja Blast. I headed home and on the way home, I stopped at a crosswalk to cross the street because in general I do not feel safe biking on a busy road without at the very least a painted bike gutter. As the light turned green and I was getting ready to pull into the crosswalk, a jeep turned and drove through the crosswalk fortunately I didn’t actually move into the crosswalk because I had a feeling this fucker was going to do that but it did kind of make me a little irritated. I am fairly certain that because the walk sign was on I had the right of way, but my experience in LA told me to wait a sec and see what the jeep was doing. But at the end of the day nobody was hurt and I’m just bitching to bitch because I dislike it when drivers aren’t paying attention to pedestrians & walk signals. I should like to add that not all drivers are this bad and that by and large, I have more neutral or positive interactions with drivers than I do negative ones. I just bitch about the negative ones because they stick out more. I got home and even took my favorite shortcut by the grocery store. It’s always fun to go down that hill REALLY FAST. On my way home, I remembered that Ghoulie had a tune up so I decided to test my abilities as well as hers and put her in a gear that would allow for speedier pedaling and I am pretty sure I peaked my speed for the first time. I don’t have a speedometer on Ghoulie but relative to the usual leisurely pace I go at, I was zooming along the suburban road I was on. My knee hurt a tiny bit afterward but fortunately it’s already recovered while I was typing this up.

[angryschnauzer]

He’s A Keeper

Summary: Working as an artist hired by Durrell Zoo, you spend your days sketching the day to day life of the animals and the keepers. One keeper in particular catches your eye.

Pairing: AU Zookeeper Henry Cavill x Female Reader (no race or size mentioned)

Fandom: Henry Cavill

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Friends to Lovers, Oral Sex (Female Receiving), Fingering, Safe Sex/Use of Condoms, Realistic Sex/Relationship discussion, Vaginal Sex.

Typo’s are allowed to run wild and free, only the finest organic free range fuck ups for me.

I do not operate a tag list, but if you follow @angryschnauzerwrites​ and hit ‘notifications’, you’ll get an alert every time i post something new. Back catalogue/masterlist can be found there and also on AO3

He’s A Keeper

Working the pencils over the sketchpad you quietly captured the beauty of the animals the zookeepers had nursed back to full health, the Ruffed Lemur currently hanging off the keepers arm as he spoke through the headset to the group of excited school children watching through the glass. 

You’d been hired by the zoo to capture day to day life at the zoo throughout the summer season, drawing the animals and the humans, however there was one particular human you had found yourself drawn to numerous times, and that was the rather tasty zookeeper by the name of Henry. He also had one of the sexiest voices you’d ever had the pleasure to listen to, so as he explained about the Lemur’s your mind wandered, as did your gaze;

“... originally from Madagascar, and have been part of Durrell zoo since 1982 where they have been essential to the breeding program…”

Your mind fell even further into the gutter at the word ‘breeding’, your eyes raking down Henry’s body, taking in how the branded t-shirt clung to his chest before tapering down to a narrow waist where it was neatly tucked into cargo pants that did little to hide how thick his thighs were and a pert arse you could bounce a satsuma off of. Biting the end of the pencil you had all but given up drawing, only realising that the talk was over when the group of school children were being herded onto the next exhibit by their tour guide and teachers.

When the kids had disappeared you finally got back to drawing, watching as Henry finished up feeding the Lemur’s before he met your gaze and smiled at you. Tapping your pencil on the glass he frowned and shook his head, before smiling and pointing to the sign in the corner of the window that said ‘do not tap the glass’, getting closer you tried to mouth your words to him, but was surprised when his eyes went wide in almost shock, before looking down and realising you had pressed your chest to the glass, your low cut cami top helping to accentuate your cleavage. When you looked up again he was gone and you let out a sigh of disappointment, before he appeared through a door to the side of the viewing area;

“Hi” he had a smile that could charm the panties off a nun; “Did you want me?”

“God yes…” Oh fuck, did you say that out loud?; “Sorry, i mean, you’ve dropped the foam bit off your headset...”

He glanced into the enclosure just at the moment one of the larger Lemur’s picked up the small round piece of foam and staring straight at Henry, proceeded to rip it into tiny pieces.

“Furry little fucker…” he cursed under his breath before turning back to you, but before he could say anything a group of other keepers came walking in and soon you were hanging onto the periphery of their conversation where they were discussing going for drinks after work. Moving to pack your stuff up as you presumed they weren’t including you, but a call of your nickname drew your attention;

“Hey Da Vinci, you up for a few beers after work?”

You hesitated to answer, glancing at Henry who had a smile across his face and a hopeful look in his eye;

“We’re all going…”

“Ok, yeah sure, that’d be great” you agreed. 

-

An hour later you were sitting on the wall outside the main entrance waiting for the rest of the keepers to finish their shifts, smiling as you saw them coming out of the doors, and the ensuing 10 minutes that followed as people sorted out who was driving and how many people could fit into just a couple of small cars. As spaces were allocated Henry laughed and shook his head;

“I am NOT riding five up in a Renault Clio, i’m too tall, i’ll have to fold myself in half! Where are we going anyway, i can take my bike and just walk home after”

Waiting as everyone discussed location and finished off seat allocation, they’d finally decided when Henry turned to you;

“Hey, i think the last seats are in the stoner wagon…”

“Oh…” you didn’t have anything against anyone smoking pot, but didn’t fancy being in a car you could barely see out of the windows of.

“But you can ride with me on my bike?”

Looking to where Henry was pointing, you saw a fairly large trails bike, the kind that could go 50mph over rough land and through forests;

“I… I don’t have a helmet…”

“Wait here, let me run into the locker room and grab the spare i keep here”

Everyone else pulled away as Henry ran into the zoo, and you glanced at the bike. You’d never been on a motorbike before, so this would be a first. Stowing everything loose in your backpack, you hooked it over both shoulders just as Henry reemerged from the building, swinging his keys from one finger as he came to stand in front of you;

“Hey, thanks for waiting”

“No worries! So, where are we going again?”

“The pub in Rozel does good food and pulls a great pint” he nodded to his left and you saw a row of motorbikes; “You ever ridden?”

Shaking your head you laughed; “No, never”

He carefully helped you put the helmet on, his nimble fingers helping to secure the strap beneath your chin before putting his own on and climbing onto the bike, pushing it off the kick stand and nodding for you to climb on. You tried to sit back, but he wrapped his arm behind his back and pulled you flush to his body;

“Gotta hold on tight, otherwise you’ll throw the balance off. Lean when i lean and just squeeze a bit harder if you’re scared, the ride won’t take long” he shouted over the thrum of the noisy engine idling.

The ride down to the small village of Rozel had been exhilarating, from the vibration of the motorbike between your legs to the way you were able to wrap your arms around Henry’s waist and cling to him as he hurtled around the country roads at what seemed like warp speed, when in fact it was little more than 30mph. By the time you arrived in the small fishing cove your heart was racing and you actually let out a reluctant moan at the thought of removing your arms from around Henry’s waist.

“C’mon” he grinned as he helped you off the bike; “I’ll buy you a vodka and coke to calm your nerves”

“It wasn’t nerves” you muttered to yourself, smirking as you know he heard you.

-

The group had managed to find a cluster of small tables chairs and benches in the corner of the pub beer garden, and as the sun had set behind the hills to the rear of the pub, the cold Atlantic sea had glowed in pale blues and pinks. You were squashed into a bench with Henry on one side and another enormous hulk of a keeper on the other, and as the temperature had dropped you’d found yourself thankful that Henry had casually rested his arm behind you so you could leech some of his warmth, but it didn’t stop a violent shiver involuntarily running up your spine.

“Cold?” Henry asked quietly, before gently wrapping his arm around your shoulder and pulling you close; “Any better?”

You nodded and let out a very quiet whine as you smiled at him, completely surrounded by his scent and warmth. It made your stomach do a flip and you clenched your thighs together, something that didn’t get past Henry as your leg twitched against his thigh. Before either of you could say anything an enormous bowl of cheesy fries was set down between you, your stomach growling at the aroma’s that wafted around you as it turned out someone had ordered sharing bowls for the whole table.

With the meal mostly devoured as you’d sat side by side on a small wooden bench in the pub garden, laughing as you fed each other and strings of cheese hung from your fingers. As the giggles of a joke faded away you glanced at Henry’s almost finished pint;

“Hey, you aren’t planning on riding that bike home are you?”

“Nah, i’d never drive after a pint, let alone three… my place is just behind The Navigator restaurant…” he paused; “Oh god, where are you staying, do i need to call you a taxi?”

“No no, i’m renting a studio up the hill, on the hairpin bend”

“Oh…” 

It wasn’t a bad ‘oh’ and there was definitely something loaded in the subtext, so when people had started to leave and arrange ride’s back to St Helier and St Johns it felt natural for Henry to stand with his arm around your shoulders as you both waved everyone off.

“Can i walk you home?” he asked, his voice low and full of promise, and you nodded as he slid his hand into yours, leading you along the low coast road that skirted the harbour.

-

You hadn’t gotten far before the evening turned even better, a brief suggestion of a walk along the beach as the tide was out soon had your feet in soft sand as you were pressed to the weathered stone of the sea wall, Henry’s lips on your neck as your fingers dug into his back, his teeth nipping and biting at whatever exposed flesh he could find. You hadn’t even realised he was going lower until he was on his knees in front of you, those sea blue irises staring up at you as he pressed kisses to your legs where your shorts ended. His fingers softly rested on the button and he finally spoke, his voice low and thick with lust;

“May i?”

Nodding fervently you bit your lip as you watched him slowly unbutton you, pulling the garment down your legs until you were able to step out. Never breaking eye contact he lifted your leg and gently rested it on his shoulder, pressing open mouthed kisses up your inner thigh until his face was pressed against your panties and his wide tongue worked against the soaked cotton and lace. His finger crooked beneath them and tugged the scrap of fabric to the side, seeking out your clit before tracing down to your cunt and tenderly teasing the entrance.

“Henry… please…” you whined, desperate for more

“Don’t you worry, i’m gonna make you see stars…”

Pushing his head forwards his lips caught your clit as he slowly slid two fingers into your soaked channel. You let out a long groan at the feel of his lips and fingers finding the right spot immediately, his other hand cupping the back of your thigh before he ran it around your hip and caught your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours as he quickly drove you closer and closer to the edge with that added touch of intimacy. Suddenly he hummed against your clit and the world exploded, making you cum so hard you truly did see stars as a white heat bloomed in your belly and you rode Henry’s fingers until you were spent.

As you rested against the wall behind you he carefully withdrew his fingers, licking them clean as he tugged your shorts up your legs. You couldn’t help but to notice the obscene bulge in the front of his cargo pants, your hand rubbing over the smooth curve of it;

“You keep doing that and i’ll cum in my boxers… “ he panted out, his lips inches from yours; “What’s your room like?”

“Its a little summer cabin studio right at the end of the garden, away from the other holiday rentals and the main house… what about you…”

“Shared flat with two other guys from the zoo. They’re probably drinking in the lounge right now… so, your place?”

-

Unlocking the door you stepped inside and turned on a small lamp, standing aside so Henry could come into your small summer living space.

“Mmm nice” he nodded and looked around; “Wanna give me the tour?”

You snorted out a laugh at the formality, and held your arm out;

“Well this is the kitchen area, right next door we have the smallest shower room in Jersey, and here’s the bed” you didn’t need to take a single step for the ‘tour’, the room seeming even smaller as Henry took a single stride and wrapped his arm around your back, pulling you flush with his chest. Never breaking eye contact he gently trailed a single finger over your cheek, his thumb brushing your plump bottom lip;

“Are you going to be good for me?”

Your legs almost buckled at the deep baritone of his voice, igniting something within you that you hadn’t even known existed, eagerly nodding;

“Yes Sir”

Lowering his lips to yours he kissed you, his tongue pushing past your lips as he took control, walking the pair of you back until your legs hit the bed and you fell back onto the soft unmade covers. Covering your body with his, he quickly stripped you of your clothing, his mouth trailing behind his hands so every inch of you was gifted with a kiss. 

Standing between your legs he pulled his t-shirt over his head and you couldn’t help but to moan at the sight of his body; toned and just the right amount of hair on his chest and a treasure trail on his abdomen that surely led to untold riches. Quickly sitting up your hands joined his on his button to his cargo pants;

“May i?”

Henry released his hands and nodded, watching as you carefully plucked the button before lowering the zipper painfully slowly, his boxers tented obscenely and you couldn’t help but to cup him in your palm, the searing heat of his engorged cock a welcome feel in your hands, the wide mushroom head clearly visible through the stretched fabric. Unceremoniously tugging the rest of his clothing down, you felt yourself getting wetter as his beautiful cock was finally revealed; big, thick and uncut, you had to taste him and quickly ducked your head forwards, swallowing his head between your lips as his hands flew to your hair to steady himself.

Now it was your turn to drive him crazy with your mouth, taking him as deep as you could even though it was barely half of his length, you wrapped both hands around what was left, the thick root of his shaft filling both palms. A few more pumps and he pulled his hips back with a gasp, a trail of spittle hanging from your lips to his bulbous tip;

“If you keep doing that i’m gonna cum far too soon…” he said, his voice shaking; “Lay back and let me treat you right…”

Scooting up the bed you settled against the pillows as you watched Henry shed himself of the rest of his clothing, his boots and socks hooked off, cargo pants and underwear all left in a messy pile at the side of the bed, before he crawled up the mattress like a Panther stalking its prey.

Capturing your lips for another searing kiss, you felt his hot shaft against your belly, burning against your skin and you so desperately wanted to feel him inside you. Pulling away just slightly you were already breathless;

“Just a second…” reaching for the small drawer at side of the bed you pulled out an unopened box of condoms, Henry sitting back on his knees as you ripped the box’s cellophane open with your teeth and pulled out a small foil packet, tearing it open before smoothing the latex over Henry’s shaft. Looking up to his face he wore a rather sheepish smile;

“Sorry, shoulda’ thought of that”

“S’ok, a girl’s gotta keep sharp these days…”

“Right…” he met your gaze; “But you know, if you had gotten pregnant, i would have stood by you”

“Umm thanks? But its for STD’s. I’m on the pill”

“Oh… good thinking…”

A tense pause hung over the pair of you, before you reached up and rested your hand on his chest;

“Shall we continue?”

At your words the tension in the room suddenly dissipated, Henry kissing you as he slid a hand between your bodies so he could position himself at your entrance, groaning as he pushed in slowly breaching your body. Your tight channel hugged him tight, unfamiliar with such a size splitting your walls so he paused, pressing light kisses to your face as your body grew accustomed with his size and the heavy weight of his dick in your pillowy soft embrace. Finally you moaned out his name;

“Henry… please…”

“What do you need?”

“Move… please move. Fuck me, please”

Pushing up on his forearms he started to fluidly move his hips, slow and steady, each thrust was gentle but firm, your body yielding to him as he started to increase the pace, the sound of hot bodies meeting filling the small wooden cabin as the gentle sounds of the sea not far away filled the rest of the night. Soft moans spilled from your lips at the feel of his body playing yours like a delicate instrument, waiting for the chorus and the inevitable crescendo. But he was going to play the entire symphony first, knowing how to get you to sing the high notes as the thrum of your bodies were in tune with each other completely.

With the stretch of his girth and the way the curve of it meant he was able to find your g-spot with every thrust you were fast approaching your orgasm, your body trembling as your lips found a life of their own;

“Henry… please, so good… keep doing that… oh god, i’m gonna cum…”

“That’s it, my good girl, cum on my cock, let me feel you squeezing me so tight… feel so amazing right now… that’s it, you can do it…”

With a cry you came, your legs wrapped around his waist as you pulled him deep whilst your body shook with a fierce orgasm, triggering his own as he pumped a heavy load into the condom.

Finally spent, Henry settled on top of you, his weight a heavy comfort as your sweaty bodies lay skin to skin, the gentle roughness of his chest hair against your naked breasts a tender reminder of his virility. When he started to soften he finally shifted, holding the condom at the base as he pulled out and staggered the few steps to your small bathroom;

“I’ll be back in a second, gotta sort this out…”

The door closed and you shifted on the bed, pulling the duvet back and sliding between the sheets, listening as you heard the tell tale sound of a man urinating and the high pitched, double barrelled squeak of a fart. The flush of the toilet and water running soon after meant you knew the second he would reappear, a flannel in his hand and he stopped dead, his cheeks suddenly bright crimson;

“You heard that didn’t you?”

“It's a small wooden cabin… yes i did”

“Sorry” he approached the bed and with a warm flannel he carefully cleaned between your thighs, pressing a kiss to your lips as he did. When finished he sat on the side of the bed; “Can i stay the night, or did you want me to go?”

“Have you got work tomorrow?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nope. Please, stay”

He quickly threw the flannel into the sink in the bathroom, before with a giggle climbed under the duvet and pulled you into his arms;

“So, how many more condom’s you got?”

-

The morning light broke softly through the trees that surrounded your cabin, your body sore but sated, knowing every bruise and ache came from soft lips, sharp teeth, or skilled fingers, apart from that one ache deep inside that you knew exactly what had caused that delicious soreness, and the owner and cause of all of it still softly slept in your bed. Climbing out you quickly used the bathroom, and as you came back into the room the artist in you couldn’t help but to admire how the dappled morning light cascaded over Henry’s body. Slipping his work t-shirt over your head you pulled your sketchbook from your backpack and settled onto the only chair in the room, quietly working carbon to paper.

Henry woke 45 minutes later, the gentle scratching of your art making him squint at the bright daylight, before laying back on the pillows with his arms spread;

“Still life class?”

Setting your sketchbook down you padded across the room and climbed onto the bed;

“Sorry, i couldn’t help myself… the way the sun was hitting the muscles of your back and shoulders, you were like an anatomy masterpiece”

With a laugh and moving much quicker than you thought he was possible of, he grabbed you by the waist and turned you, his body atop of yours;

“Well that’s enough of that, i would like to become better acquainted with your anatomy… and as we’ve both got the day off i suggest we make the most of it”

Laughing you fell into his embrace, sighing with happiness. Henry really was a keeper, as you were for sure not going to let him go. 

[your-average-weeb-dealer]

Prompt inspired be me because it's so fucking hot and it was last night. So Inumake, Gojo and Megumi walking in on you while you're only dressed in your underwear trying to cool down. The fuckers somehow weren't feeling nearly as hot as you were. Non sexual end but they can get flustered or so

JAJDJ I love this-

Warning(s): Implied nsfw, nudity, the boys being perverts

{Toge Inumaki}

Inumaki is a closet pervert- he’d do nothing as bold as Gojo, but tapping your ass a few times in public hurt no one, maybe feeling your thigh a little while you’re sitting down- nothing too extreme.

He normally knocked before he stepped into your room, but tonight he wasn’t thinking clearly. When he saw you in your adorable little underwear, your ass just slightly hanging out- his mind instantly went to the gutter.

He just stopped there for a good 2 minutes just staring at you, eyes wide and mind racing.

of all the days he didn’t knock-

{Satoru Gojo}

He did it on purpose, he wouldn’t even try to deny it. He heard you say how hot it was, then rushed off to your room and him, being the pervert he is, thought “hey! They’re my s/o! What if I just-“

Gojo did not expect you to be fully nude, however. He just thought you were in one of your cute little tank tops- preferably the one with the blue accents since it was so tight.

He got a good look at your ass before you threw a slipper at him.

{Megumi Fushiguro}

Megumi is a gentleman, he’s a good- wholesome boy. However, he very well may be a closet pervert, always staring at your ass and thighs, secretly stealing your panties.

Like Inumaki, he normally knocks before entering your room. I do not know what became of him, but he just didn’t feel like doing it. I mean the worst that could happen is that your naked- he’s seen you naked before so it’s not that ba-

holy shit.

yeah, you were almost ass naked, and it was pretty much as hot as when he saw you fully exposed.

He stared wide eyed for a few seconds, apologized, asked if you were alright, and left the room- like the gentlemen he is.

(the image of you fanning yourself in your underwear will never leave his brain. It will come to give him boners random situations- one of my favorites is when Gojo was talking about whether cereal is a soup-)

©your-average-weeb-dealer. All rights reserved.

[moonlightchildz]

wild; j.h

summary: jung hoseok had the tendency in driving you wild while fucking you senseless.

tags: M, established relationship, smut, creampie, fingering, domestic!hoseok, somewhat of spit play, slight degradation, drug usage (weed)

“So you do this,” Hoseok began showing you how to roll, his eyebrows furrowing in deep concentration. He was too busy trying to demonstrate to you how to properly do it as you watched him in fascination. He was just too cute to not pay attention to. From the way he slowly bit down on his lower heart shaped lip to the way his pretty hands looked underneath the dim lighting in his back porch.

In his thighs he had a basic raw tray, and you were peering up at him in admiration even though what he was doing wasn’t exactly the most legal thing he should be doing at the moment. His wavy hair was swept on the sides, heart shaped lips looking kissable right there and then. He was humming, concentration passing beyond 100 percent and right then your heart sighed. Followed by it fluttering once you saw the tip of his tongue begin to lick the tobacco leaf. His short, manicured nails were turning the half made blunt in his hands, tongue shutting it sealed. 

He was always detailed, precise, and quick when it came to rolling his shit. One of the things that fascinated you of him was how he was constantly putting his all in literally everything. His work, his dancing, his rolling, his goals, ambitions, and everything that made him into the person that was Jung Hoseok was magnified even more by his sheer beauty. So as your boyfriend occupied himself in finishing it, you let your thoughts wonder straight down to the gutter. Hoseok was always fucking phenomenal with his hands and mouth. That was something he was definitely cocky of and with every damn right he should be. The first night you two were intimate he had fingered fucked you into oblivion and ate you out until you felt like you were defying gravity.

“And that’s how you perfectly roll a blunt,” he cockily finished, holding the ending product out towards you. You tried to compose yourself, tried to make it look as if you were paying attention from the beginning, but it was too late. He had caught you.

He sighed once he glanced up through his long, thick lashes. “You weren’t even paying attention, y/n.”

You impishly smiled, eyes crinkling as you leaned forward. “I’m sorry,” you began, though not feeling sorry at all. “You’re just really...wow.” you lamely tried to express just why your attention span was shit.

He looked annoyed now and you simply giggled to yourself since your boyfriend always tended to take instructing so damn seriously. But hey, he was a pretty damn great instructor. A really, pretty and beautiful one. A hot one too.

He however was not the least amused. Judging by the way he was gazing at you with a pouty mouth, you knew you were bound to get an earful. “Just because we’re dating doesn’t give you the excuse to slac—” he began, and even when he was reprimanding you, you still viewed him as your beautiful, breathless, and irresistible lover.

“You’re not even paying attention right now!”

Sheepishly, you just leaned into him with apologetic hands already framing his squishy cheeks. His words slowed down and lowered to a mutter once upon seeing you so close to him, as if catching him off guard. And just like a charm, your spell had already rendered him speechless as usual. With a tiny, but cocky smirk you teasingly brushed your lips against his, fingertips slowly caressing his skin, admiring him up close.

A hot whisper left your lips, “I’m sorry baby, I really didn’t mean to.”

Hoseok just grinned against your mouth before he slowly leaned in, eyes set on you until they fluttered to a close as he softly kissed you. Your hands slowly abandoned his face, lips molding against each other’s. You let yourself clung onto your boyfriend, arms winding around his neck as his hands began to encircle you. His hands were already working their way underneath your dress, fingertips ghosting your sensitive thighs all while he slowly began to unravel you with just the magic of his lips. 

 He quickly eased into you once your hands began to tug at the hair strands at the nape of his neck. His body was turning towards you, mischievous fingers squeezing and bruising your bare thighs. It didn't take long before you were already crawling on top of his thighs, blunt forgotten now. You caressed his face, admiring his beauty before you turned and leaned backwards into his arms.

“Am I forgiven now?” you softly teased, a smile edging your lips. “I promise I’ll pay attention next time.”

“You were staring at literally anything but at the blunt,” he said, amused now. His hands were on your thighs once again, gently squeezing part of one. However your eyes were mainly fixated on his swollen pink lips. “It’s cute actually, even though you have the attention span of a squirrel though.”

“I’m sorry,” you brushed your lips against his, momentarily catching his bottom lip with your teeth. “It’s just, I have a really, and I mean, really, hot boyfriend you see, and uh I can’t help myself when he’s looking at me like that.”

His light brown hair covered his eyes so you ran your fingers through his wavy strands, wanting to see your man in all perfection in this dim lighting. There was a soft breeze, reminding you of the ocean that was just a couple feet away from the both of you. The both of you were in the comfort of his home, alone, enjoying the water nearby, and being wrapped up in each other for as long you both needed. Tonight was just barely the beginning for the two of you.

 He was already shaking his head, shyly uttering out, “Yaaa, stop it.”

You noticed how his cheeks were flushed, bashful smile luring your heart into his mercy.

“I am so serious right now, baby,” you purred out, lips tracing the underside of his jaw until you could feel his breathing fan your skin. You could feel his breathing pick up, fingers tightening around whatever part of your body he could grasp at the moment.

You felt him begin to grin, and as you glanced up, your wandering hands had managed to loosely wrap around his neck.

He quirked up an eyebrow, “Oh, really?”

“Mhm,” you nodded eagerly.

His hands were already framing your face, kissing you deeply before you could respond. His tongue was making love to you as your hips slowly began to move against his. Your fingers slowly made their way up his shirt, roughly fisting it. God, right now all you wanted was to run your fingers down his skin, kiss every part of his body, and leave love bites to adorn his melanin skin. Every fiber of your body wanted nothing but to feel your lover against your warm body. You wanted nothing more than having his plushed lips suck your sensitive skin into his mouth.

Hoseok’s fingers tangled in your hair, pressing your mouths together as you panted out against his lips. You felt your hips move on their own, rocking your whole body against Hoseok’s hardening cock. You could feel your underwear dampen as the tip of his cock brushed against your center each time you moved your hips. Soft, keening moans emitted from your lips and it was driving him wild. Your whole existence drove him to utter madness. He just couldn’t get enough of you. Your hands were already bunging up his shirt, urging him to take that damn thing off already. As Hoseok pulled it over his head with one hand, your hands nimbly unbuttoned his shorts.

He was already hard, and the anticipation to feel him inside of you was already brimming out of you. He wasted no time in letting his fingers find your covered clit, his thumb gently brushing it in guided circles. His fingers stroked your sex, rolling it between his fingers in such a teasing motion. He was a teasing little fucker and his batshit smile was a dead giveaway.

“I don’t need it,” you whined out, hands stopping his fingers. As much as you loved his hands, you wanted his dick inside of you at the moment.

“You’re not wet enough,” he contradicted, trying to shush you. This time he slid your lacy underwear to the side and with his thumb on your clit and finger, he slowly continued playing with your pussy. He watched as you impatiently ran your hands to your breast. Thumbs stroking on your nipples as he coated his fingers with your juices. He began stroking you and you were a hot mess, lolling your head to the side, and slowly beginning to rut yourself against his magic, slender fingers. 

“Seokie, please,” you whined out, trying to feel him even more as urgently and desperately as possible. He simply curled his digits inside of you, dark eyes watching his princess beginning to lose control of herself once again. Fingers were digging into his shoulder blades, soft moans emitting from your reddened lips.

“H-Hoseok,” you cried out, strands of your damp hair attaching to your face. Your eyes were clamped shut, mouth pressed directly against his cheek. Hoseok simply gave you a peck on the lips, grinning like the Cheshire cat. He knew if he licked the pussy, you both would simply forget about the finished blunt and take care of business for the rest of the pending night.

“Please,” you kissed the side of his mouth, stopping his movements with your hand. You continued to leave wet opened mouth kisses all over his jaw, your breath ghosting the nape of his neck. His darkened gaze studied you, slowly sucking his fingers into his mouth with such delight. 

Once he was done, his hands cupped your cheeks, puffing your lips out to him. “You’re the most impatient brat,” he mused out, his smile just making your chest swell with pride and happiness. Yeah you were a brat, but you were his brat to deal with. Heart, soul, and body belonged to him wholeheartedly and completely.

He swiftly moved your panties a side, slowly sliding down a finger. “mhm,” he began, getting cocky since his girl was already dripping wet and mewling to get fucked. “I guess you were right, baby.”

His hands were firmly placed on your hips, guiding you over his thick, and veiny cock. His hooded gaze fervently landed on your face, watching as he teasingly rubbed your pussy against the tip of his cock. With each movement, you coated his dick with slick and he softly groaned at the delicacy, the blood rushing straight down to his dick. Your mouth was slightly ajar at the sensation that you couldn’t help but spread your thighs wider, having yourself rut against his cock with such teasing and slow movements. 

“Oh my god,” you murmured out against the crook of his skin, your tongue tracing his hot skin as your fingers dug into his back. You felt his cock twitch underneath you, and you knew he loved it when you were being such a dirty whore just for him. So you tugged at his earlobe, whispering, “I can’t wait to have my pussy stuffed with your cum.” 

You felt how slick your pussy was incredibly getting from swiveling your hips against his hardened, thick, and veiny cock. He was teasing as he nudged the tip of his cock inside your folds, and then slid it back out. He was practically biting back his groans, enjoying just how much you were already mewling. 

“Please,” you whimpered out, lips trying to find his swollen mouth in need. Your dilated pupils met his, cheeks were flushed already, and your fingers were beginning to wander all over his toned abdomen. Your heavy breathing fanned his mouth, foreheads were pressed against each other’s, and your eyes were trained on his. Bodies were overwhelmed to the point where Hoseok found himself pushing inside of you. Your breath hitched as you felt him, slowly fill you up.

“Oh fuck,” you softly moaned out at the feeling of his cock pulsing inside of you. Your slick covered thighs rubbed against his, driving Hoseok absolutely insane. All he wanted in that moment was to lick your mess away with his tongue and shove his fingers inside your wet cunt until you were a sobbing mess just for him. You felt him smirk against your skin as his hands grabbed your ass, and thrusted into you. 

“You take my cock so well, princess,” he grunted out as you slammed down against hips, meeting his thrust halfway. 

“Only for you,” you incoherently whimpered out, moaning afterwards as you rolled over him. His hands engulfed your back, helping you bounce right back up and slamming you down against him. Pants began to leave his lips, your soft whimpers and pleads of ‘more, more’ edging him on.

“Such a pretty princess,” he agreed, dark gaze taking in the way you rocked your hips so sensually. Your hands were matted into your head, his cock making you stupid dizzy.

“I-ah-I,” you incoherently cried out, eyes screwed shut, and nails digging into his shoulder blades. You felt your body arch, arms instantly wrapping around his neck as you felt sweat coat your skin and his. The sound of skin slapping and your wet pussy sliding out and slamming back down was all that echoed in the back of his porch. Hoseok was keen on watching the way his cock slid out of your pussy, edging mewls out of those sinning lips.

His hand grabbed a hold of your neck, halting your movements. His hand was large enough to cup the side of your face and right underneath the base of your throat. He teasingly nudged his thumb inside your mouth, knowing damn well how much you loved his hands. He was grinning down at you, amused at how fucked out you seemed to be and he wasn’t even done with you yet. As you glanced up at him, your hands caressed his flushed face, mouth finding his in seconds. His lips sucked your bottom lip into his mouth, saliva dripping down your chin as he nipped and licked away until you were begging against his mouth in such moans. 

“You want on your knees, or back?” he nudged your nose with his, his voice a bit huskier and slurred. There wasn’t a second thought as you responded, “Blow my back out.”

His hand was grabbing a hold of the back your neck as he lowered you down on your back, legs hanging from the edge of his settee. He didn’t even need to spread your legs apart from him since you were his whore and you loved doing that already. 

“Fuck,” he groaned out in disbelief. The sight of you looking completely disheveled and ready for more had him rendered speechless. 

He pinned your wrists above your head, tongue running up the side of your neck. His plumped lips peppered kisses down your collarbone, tongue sliding and tracing them to his liking. He was absolutely infatuated with you and his love language was marking his significant other. 

he released your arms, spitting out, “stay still, whore.”

you kept your arms crossed, chest heaving as hoseok grabbed a hold of his aching cock. he ran the tip of it against your glistening pussy, moaning at the soft whimpers emitting from your lips. your thighs were quivering and you were so fucking messy, mouth slightly ajar as he watched your hole clench around nothing but air. he slowly pushed himself inside of you, grunting at how you were swallowing him completely, mewling so fucking loud. it’s all he wanted to hear from you now and on.

“mhm, fuuck,” you choked out, your fingers desperately grabbing a hold of his arms to tug him upwards. you needed his lips on your neck, your collarbones, and him whispering the dirty things he would do to mess you up even more.

“baby likes it, huh? my cock?” he rasped out, lips ghosting the underside of your chin. he was grinning from ear to ear, watching as you arched your back for him, spilling nothing but your dirty sins out into the void.

“mhm, mhm,” you cried out, eyes fluttering to a close as he slid out and pushed himself all the way back in to the hilt. you swore you could feel the pulse of his cock drag against your walls, and you relished at how hoseok nipped at your soft skin. he bit down on your collarbones, then ran his tongue over, splattering his spit all over your chest just how you loved it.

he bottomed down, fingers digging into your thighs.

“oh my fucking god,” you moaned out loudly, head thrown back in absolute bliss. He was thrusting into you, his hips snapping with such fervor that had your head bouncing against the settee. at some point your fingers were holding on to the back of the settee, hands barely managing to grip on to it.

“More, more, please--” you kept repeating over and over again as your legs to quivered. With each thrust, you could feel the pulse of his cock hit every inch and corner of your sweet cunt.   

Perspiration coated his body and yours and the summer breeze made it even more exhilarating. The both of you too wrapped up in each other’s arms, lost in sense as he kissed your worries away and welcomed your most sinful desires. 

He shifted suddenly, gathering your right leg and pushing it to the side. His forehead was pressed against yours, mouths missing each other’s in desperate attempts to reach your high. You felt it bubbling up on your lower region, toes curling and on your slick covered thighs.

“So close,” you cried out, body shaking in his arms. Your nails were dragging down his back, edging him on. Hoseok kisses you, swallowing your moans into his mouth as he gave one last thrust, sending you into a state of euphoria.

You felt his cum begin to drip down your thighs, and as you tried to close your legs, Hoseok simply spread them wider for him. He would never get tired of seeing his cum leak down your thighs.

“Brat.” He pulled back, leaving you panting. you could barely breathe, much less try to at least sit up. so he delicately wrapped an arm around your body, helping you sit up right on his lap. he was quick in grabbing the soft towel, the pad of his fingertips ghosting your sensitive skin. you watched how his fingers nimbly cleaned you, imagining how they would feel being sucked into your mouth.

even as he spread your legs open to clean you up, he definitely noted the way your skin arose with goosebumps. it made him smile.

“I love you,” you smiled in return, your hands cupping his face, turning him so he could glance down at you.

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffed out and even while you were motionless, you still managed to punch him on the arm. He chuckled, and purposely kept on ignoring you until he was done cleaning you up completely.

“Hoseok,” you pouted and he leaned back into your clingy arms, kissing you dizzy again. His fingers were tender as they caressed your cheek, smile endless and eyes closed.

“I love you more, silly.”

content with that, you judged your nose against his before he said, “So, how about that blunt?”

You were already lighting it as you slightly leaned away from him. “Can you pass me your shirt? I’m cold.”

Hoseok threw you his shirt, shaking his head as he watched you deeply inhale. Sure, you didn’t pay attention to the rolling, but you sure as hell didn’t need teaching in smoking all of his shit. He watched as you paused momentarily to slide on his shirt and crawl over to him once again. your throne was his lap - specially his thick thighs - and he knew that already. his thighs and mouth were all yours.

You sat with your legs entangled with his, eyes half lidded, and a pouty mouth. “What?” He chuckled, his index finger bopping your nose rather cutely.

“Miss you,” you nuzzled your nose against the crook of his neck.

He let you into his arms before embracing you and pulling you tight against his chest. “I’m right here baby.” He muttered out as you passed him the blunt.

You sighed in contentment, smoke wafting the both of you as you nuzzled yourself on to him. you pressed your lips on the base of his throat, mumbling out, “I love you.”

Smoke emitted from his lips as he slowly crooned out, “You drive me absolutely wild, you know?”

“I love you.” you smiled widely at him. You would never get tired of saying those three words to him. Expressing your love to him was one of your most endearing features and he absolutely loved you for it. vocalizing your love for him was his own reward after making you cum countless of times.

He slowly kissed you, humming against your lips as you cheesed from these simple words. “Impossible, princess. I love you more.”

[sadoeuphemist]

We were about twenty minutes in when we realized Brody’s fingers weren’t wrinkling. We’d only just come up with the idea for the competition, all of us splashing around in the pool and clowning on each other, and Kai was going, “You guys ready to have your whole bodies turn into prunes? All baggy and swole up with water? Because I’m sticking it out to the end. You guys don’t want to end up with your waterlogged skin peeling off, you better call it right now!” That got us comparing each other’s fingertips, trying to figure out who’d end up the most pruney, and Brody’s were perfectly smooth and taut, not a wrinkle in sight.

“You been keeping your hands out of the water?” Derek said, squinting at him.

“I’ve been in the pool just the same as you,” said Brody with a shrug. He splashed his hands. “Maybe you guys just don’t have what it takes.”

“What the hell,” said Derek. “Let’s see your feet.”

Now all of us, our toes were pretty wrinkly already, but Brody, again, had perfectly smooth skin, not a single wrinkle or crease. “What the hell?” said Derek.

“Is there something wrong with your skin?” said Tyler. We were all sort of gathered around him now, with Brody leaning against the edge of the pool and floating, bobbing one foot out of the water. “Is this, like, a medical condition?”

Brody shrugged again and looked real smug.

“Are you not affected by water?” said Kai.

“Hey,” said Brody, “you guys don’t think you can beat me, feel free to call it quits right now. Me, I’m real comfortable.” He spread his elbows out on the gutter like he was reclining on a throne. “I could spend the whole summer in this damn pool.”

“C’mon in the deep end, if you’re so comfortable then!” said Kai.

Brody laughed and pushed off from the wall, disappearing under the surface of the water, a dark shape propelling itself across the pool until he surfaced again at the far end. We all stared.

“What the hell?” said Derek. “How is your hair not wet?”

---

The contest was temporarily put aside, as everyone applied themselves to the issue of how Brody’s body was completely unaffected by the water. The rest of us splashed around, got chlorine in our eyes, snorted water out of our noses, watched the skin on our fingers etch themselves into little labyrinths of grooves, and through it all Brody might as well have been on dry land for all it showed on him. It was as if his skin had been sealed off, rubberized, like there was an invisible force field keeping the water from touching him. Brody himself seemed similarly insulated to the bizarreness of what the hell was going on with his body. “I’m feeling great,” was all he would say. “I could spend the whole summer right here.”

I was the first to call it quits after a few hours. “Brody’s going to win,” I said, climbing out of the pool dripping. “How’s this even a contest? He’s got some weird physiology that makes him immune to water!”

“Boooo,” said Tyler. “Don’t even want to try for second place!”

“I’ve swam enough!” I said. “I’m going inside!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Brody. “Acknowledge the champion. All of you ought to give up right now.”

We had a pizza by the poolside as well as a bunch of drinks, but as the hours went by I ordered another, got more drinks out of the refrigerator. Tyler gave up. I went diving a few more times, but then the sun started going down and it started getting cooler. Derek got out, shivering. Kai and Brody had set themselves at opposite ends of the pool, staring each other down.

Tyler broke out the DVDs. Derek went out to yell at them. “It’s been ten hours!” he said. “You fuckers have been emptying soda cans and haven’t left the pool once! That’s piss soup in there! You’re both stewing in piss soup!”

Kai looked absolutely miserable. His fingertips were white and wrinkled and had turned translucent. He was hunched around himself like a wadded-up rag. The moon was out, reflected in milky ripples across the pool. Brody meanwhile looked untouched, like a plastic bottle bobbing in the ocean, stoppered up and completely airtight. “You could quit at any time, Kai,” he said, grinning. “This is my element.”

“F-fuck you,” Kai said. “You gotta crack, sooner or later. I don’t care what sort of genetic mutant you are, you can’t keep sitting in a pool for hours and nothing happens to your body. You gotta reach your limit! You gotta - hit saturation or something, man, I don’t know! Fuck!”

“Suit yourself,” said Brody. He lazily kicked out his legs. “Man, this pool’s real nice. Figure I could just about live here.”

“It’s piss soup!” Derek said.

It took two hours more, but Kai finally gave up. He came out shivering from the black surface of the pool, and we had to wrap him up in towels and rub him down because he looked like he was at risk for hypothermia. Brody did a few more laps, floating unconcernedly, and we had to yell at him before he finally pulled himself out. He sat on the edge, one foot still dangling in the water, and rubbed at the sole of his foot.

“Hey, whaddya know,” Brody said, looking down. “Finally got a wrinkle. What are we on, hour twelve? Well, took long enough, I guess.”

We all looked, even Kai, who was still waterlogged as a drowned cat. There was in fact a wrinkle on Brody’s perfectly smooth skin - but just a single one, incongruous against his rubberized sole. Squinting at it, I thought it looked like a defect, a flaw in the material. It was like seeing a wrinkle on the taut skin of an inflated balloon.

“Never got one of these before,” Brody said casually, pinching the crease of skin between his fingers. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, seeing it, someone pinching the skin of a balloon. “Maybe you shouldn’t -” I started to say.

And then the piece of skin came off in Brody’s fingers, and all the water started gushing out.

We were all awestruck for a moment, just watching it. It was a perfect arc of water, crystal in the moonlight, so smooth that it seemed like a curve of glass stretching from his foot into the pool, like a sculpture, or a fountain, a perfect pressurized flow. We might have all just watched that for a good ten seconds, twenty seconds, half a minute, just staring in wonder at the sight of it, and then I looked up at the rest of Brody and saw his eyes rolling back in his head, his head and shoulders deflating, sagging, right about to collapse.

“Oh shit, put some pressure on it!” Tyler called out, and we all sort of grabbed at him at the same time and went unbalanced, and Brody toppled right back into the pool, Tyler and Derek diving in, fully clothed, after him.

Between the four of us we must’ve seen that event from every possible angle, and yet none of us could tell what had happened next. We all saw bubbles, the splash, the force of impact, and to my mind it was like watching a balloon popping, the pressure equalizing, Brody disappearing beneath the surface of the water and gone. Tyler and Derek came up gasping, and already there was this murky fog spreading through the water, all skin cells and hair and whatnot, I figured, Brody’s remains. Derek scrambled out of the water, spluttering, rubbing at his skin and pulling off his shirt and immediately ran to hose himself down. Tyler dived back down, looking for Brody, and then came back up again with the growing bewilderment of someone who’d set something down for just a moment and couldn’t tell where he’d left it. Kai was standing by the pool’s edge, probably in shock, and I'd fallen backwards on my ass and was just watching the whole thing like an idiot, while Tyler dived under again and again, feeling around the edges of the pool, possibly trying to find Brody by process of elimination.

Finally we managed to get him to come out, and we all just stood there poolside, staring down at the cloudy water. Brody was gone, not a trace left of him but his trunks.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Kai. “Fuck.“

“Oh god,” said Tyler. “Oh god oh god he just disappeared, he was there and then -”

The murky pool water burbled, bubbled, spoke with Brody’s voice, if he had been speaking to us from the bottom of a drain.

“Told you guys I could spend the whole summer right here,” it said.

---

So, swimming was out for the rest of the summer. Brody occupied the pool, and the rest of us would come by to skim out the leaves and whatnot, toss some pizza slices or nachos in there occasionally, or empty in a few cans of coke. The water level slowly sunk as the summer rolled along, the pool water growing cloudier and more congealed, until it started to look like Jell-O setting in a mold. The pool drained itself, its contents becoming more and more concentrated, until one day we came by and found Brody at the bottom of the pool, stark naked, his skin still wobbly and not quite fully set, waving up at us.

“Lost my trunks!” he said. “How ‘bout you help a guy out!”

So that was how we spent our summer, and we all agreed that we had definitely not gotten the full benefit of the pool, although Brody maintained he could not reasonably be blamed. That didn’t stop him from lording his victory over the rest of us, proclaiming himself the undisputed Champion of the Pool, a record that would never be broken. Brody being Brody, it got to the point where he was seriously obnoxious about it, but once Derek started calling him Piss Soup that was finally enough to shut him up.

[sweepingtree]

Hey, I ship sessrin and I want to just say that not all of us are like that. I thought your art was nice and I liked it even though I don't like sesskagu. However, you are very talented and can definitely come up with your own OCs so I don't see why not :) liked the art though. No hate. Wish we could just ship in peace

Ok so here's the thing.

Sure, I could create OCs but I do not want to.

I watched Yashahime. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it. And unlike some others (who are perfectly valid for their opinion), I don't dislike the twins either. Setsuna is babie, and while Towa may be a tad dumb, I just see it as her inheriting it from her stupid dad, who is canonically a massive dumbass with more brawns and looks than brains. I happen to really love Rin too, she's so cute and sweet, and I never agreed with people who said she was boring and all that because she was meant to be a child in the series and was intentionally left to be a largely undeveloped character.

Why the fuck should I make OCs just so you shippers would find it more palatable? I love these characters just fine and you guys are NOT MY TARGET AUDIENCE in the first place anyway. If you don't like my art, my writing, etc, just move on with your own damn lives.

I got a ridiculous amount of quote retweets from sessrin shippers when I posted that first fan art of sesakagu with their kids just OUT OF THE BLUE. Mutuals who know me know that I largely keep out of fandom drama. Sure, I'd whine about it on discord with my other antis, and I block very liberally to keep sessrin out of my dash. I don't even watch anime anymore and this was like a nostalgia trip for me. I didn't care for this. I have a real life outside of fandom and fiction with real worries and stressors. I don't need more of it online. I don't interact with shippers, and shippers don't interact with me for this very reason. THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE CASE.

But y'all had to come into my Twitter mentions, my pixiv comments, my anon asks. I even had people doubting my own fucking ethnicity and I saw tweets of shippers bitching about my sesskagu fics just for including Towa and Setsuna as their babies. All this bullshit even though I've been minding my own damn business despite how disgusted I was with your filthy little ship.

You don't get to come and act all nice now by saying "we're not all like that" and "why can't we ship in peace" because y'all weird self-insert loli-complex fuckers came for me unprovoked first.

Besides, y'all know that making headcanons of characters being the children of other characters is literally what EVERY FANDOM does, right? What makes your Woody Allen ship so damn special that y'all had to come at me on multiple platforms just for drawing the twins as sesskagu babies?

So, sorry not sorry anon, I don't buy your sweet tone. I've had enough interaction with sessrinners for the past two (2) days to know that you're all disgusting gutter trash.

Might post a screenshot of the asks that I got later just for the lulz but this is the last I'll reply on this matter. Just block me, you weirdos.

[pterodactylterrace]

Teddy Bear

Title: Teddy Bear

Chapter: 1/1

Length: 1k+

Summary: Based off this shit post I made. I couldn’t help myself.

Sy. Syverson. Captain. Captain BDE. Boss. Asshole. Jackass. Jerk.

Syverson had many names while he was deployed. Most had something to do with his last name or his military rank. Others were from his attitude. None were what he was used to being called at home.

When he had gotten home from his deployment, his gran had been the one to greet him at the airport. She had always called him by his first name. No shortening it, no nicknames, just his first name.

"Theodore!" She drawled, throwing her tiny arms around his broad frame.

"Hey, Gran."

"It's so great to have you back, Theodore. I have a new neighbor that is moving in today and she could use some help." Naturally she would voluntell him to do it. Not that he wouldn't offer to help himself, he was raised right after all. He just wished he had actually gotten back to his homestead before being given a job to do.

Of course, Gran kept adding things to his to-do list as he drove home. Top of the list was to help the neighbor. Over the next few weeks though, the gutters needed cleaning, the shingles needed nailed back down, the pasture fence needed repaired, the cabinet doors were starting to squeak and the screen door needed replaced with the storm door before hurricane season.

When his gran had told him about the neighbor, she had failed to mention it was a young woman. A gorgeous young woman with a beautiful smile, sparkling brown eyes and wearing a sundress that didn't quite let him see as much of her mouthwatering cleavage as he wanted.

His gran's list did eventually get done before his next deployment, but he cut it pretty close. Most of his time ended up being spent at his lovely neighbor's house. June. Her name was June. There was now a very well worn path through the small strip of woods separating her property from his gran's. He had walked that same path every day for almost four months, twice a day at least. His gran would kill him if he spent the night over at Miss June's house.  That's not to say they didn't get a little frisky more than once while he was visiting, but as long as he was home for dinner, his gran didn't mind too much. Sometimes he wondered if she realized he was a grown ass man and not the same kid that stayed with her every summer.

~

"Theo!" His typical nickname. His military buddies from basic tended to use that name, along with his brothers and his parents. Also his childhood friends. Childhood neighbors too. The owner of the hardware shop also called him Theo. Basically everyone aside from his gran called him Theo when he was stateside.

"What's up, fucker?" He laughed, clapping his old friend on the back.

"You know, word's been getting around about you getting real cozy with your gran's new neighbor." His friend teased.

"Yeah. She's a peach." Syverson agreed, trying to tame the stupid smile that wanted to over take his face.

"How's she feel about her old man knocking back a few with some old buddies? She ain't gonna come storming in here yelling 'Theo, oh Theo!'  now is she?" His friend asked, raising his voice higher as he attempted to mimic June's voice.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that." Syverson chuckled, snatching up his friend's pitcher of beer and chugging it like his life depended on it.

~

"Teddy!" June's voice sang over the static of the satellite phone.

"Hey, darlin. How's Gran doing?"

"She's doing just fine. Though she seem to have forgotten that she doesn't have to feed my Teddy Bear anymore. She's constantly bringing over leftovers for me. I haven't had to cook for a month!"

"Aw, nah. That's just her way of saying she likes you." Syverson chuckled.

"I miss you." June sighed after a long pause, a slight hitch to her voice. No. No, no, no. Theo had a strict 'no crying' policy. Whenever a woman started crying he just panicked. Give him bombs and gunfire any day, he could handle that. A crying female, and he was completely clueless.  He had to cheer her up, and fast.

"I miss you too, pumpkin. Just a couple more months and I'll be home for good, I promise. Then, when I get home, I'm gonna make good on my other promise."

"Oh, this mysterious ring you keep telling me about?" June laughed. Crisis averted.

"Mmhmm. Already have the deposit down. Soon as I'm stateside, I'm gonna pick it up."

"You'll say anything for the chance to get in my pants again."

"That's true, but I also plan on marrying you when I get home. I hope you've been planning out the wedding, or I'm just gonna drag you down to the courthouse."

"So I'm supposed to plan an entire wedding before you even propose?"

"Alright, fine. I can probably wait like... four days after I get back."

"Nope. If you didn't want to wait for a wedding, you should have asked before you left. I'm not planning a wedding without a ring, and wedding planning takes time, Teddy."

"Ugh, you are killing me woman." Theo groaned, a smile still splitting his face.

~

"Teddy?" The private had sputtered around a laugh, staring at his big bad Captain in disbelief as he hugged the woman that had yelled out for him. It had been his fault, really, for standing that close. He was within arms reach, and he never even saw the fist flying. One second he was mocking his captain, the next he was staring at the ceiling and desperately trying not to swallow the tooth that had been knocked free.

"Only she calls me that." Theo spat, holding June close to his side.

"I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking." June whispered apologetically up to the bear of a man, paying no mind to the private he had laid out.

"Don't you dare change what you call me darling. I won't listen to it if you do. Now come on, we gotta get to that jewelry store before it closes. I'm not waiting a day longer than I have to, to marry you."

[tatooedlaura-blog]

Five Words

I’m back again ... this time with a requested ‘Leonard Betts’ follow-up ...

this tried to kill me a little bit ... not lying ...

@laurenclare88 @today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&&

No surprise to either Mulder or Scully, he was awake when she called, “hey, it’s me.”

“Hey, me, you okay?” Twisting his head back to see the clock behind him, “it’s almost midnight.”

“Feel like getting some hot chocolate? Coffee? Platter of waffles the size of your head?”

He heard something in her voice, and not sure if she’d been crying or sound asleep until five seconds before she called, he sat up, “well, Waffles and Stuff is open and in the middle so we can meet there, if you’d like, or if we hit Rolls and Holes, I’ll come pick you up.”

It was actually called Benny’s Café but they specialized in homemade cinnamon rolls and peanut butter donut holes, hence Mulder’s highly inappropriate, yet completely fitting, nickname.

She didn’t laugh like she normally did, juvenile as the nickname was, and he headed towards his shoes, wondering what could have happened since he left her yawning, at her front door, two hours ago, “Waffles and Stuff is fine. See you in ten.”

She must already be in the car because it took ten minutes to get there. Hurrying now, he tossed on a sweatshirt, then his jacket, heading out the door a minute later, turning left for the stairs instead of right to the elevator because hoofing it would be faster. The car ride there was quiet, traffic light, pavement dry.

Waffles and Stuff was empty this time of night, and as he parked, he spotted her already in their booth in the corner, having graduated from the counter a year or so back. Waving to both the cook and lone waitress, Max and Catherine as they had learned some time ago, he slid into the bench across from his partner, “fancy meeting you here.”

She didn’t feel like banter tonight, heavy burden weighing but not forming concrete thoughts able to be spoken out loud just yet. Instead, “you want to split the waffles or fly solo?”

“Scully.”

Hands on the table, she raised one in his direction, fingers waving absently, wrist bobbing in a ‘give me some time’ gesture, “I think I’d like to split a set of Belgian with extra butter and get bacon and sausage on the side. How’s that sound?”

Now she was just freaking him out. Stopping her flopping hand, “Scully? What happened? Is it your mom? Bill? Talk to me, please?”

She jerked her hand away from him, nearly taking out her water glass in the process, “just … they’re fine … I just …” frustration made her words stutter, nostrils flare, jaw tighten for a moment, “I haven’t …”

Not pushing in the moment, he leaned forward, holding his pointer finger up to stop Catherine’s approach, “do you want to eat here or get it to go? We can share in the car if you want.”

Eyes shutting, she took a deep breath, palms flat on Formica. Exhaling slowly, she found her center for a brief second, “just some hot chocolate for now.”

Mulder called the order to Catherine, adding a ‘thanks’ before returning to Scully, speaking slowly again, “are you okay?”

Her head shook a ‘no’, eyes glued to the table, fingers white. Mulder’s stomach tightened but venturing a guess that she’d had a nightmare about Betts and couldn’t form the words yet, he nodded, trying again to touch her, tracing his fingers over the cold knuckles on the back of her hand, “you’re fine here, okay? We can stay as long as you like.”

Caught between crying and screaming, she let him run his fingers over her for another moment before sliding back, hands dropping to lap as eyes bounced from his chin, then to his chest before landing on his still extended hand, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

She knew damn well she didn’t wake him up, but both realized she needed to steer them back to middle ground, neutral conversation, “you didn’t. I was watching ‘Golden Girls’.”

Not knowing this particular vice, she met his green eyes, almost smiling, “who’s your favorite?”

“Um, Sophia. What kind of asinine question is that?”

Hot chocolate arrived amidst the debate of Sophia vs. Rose and ordering their smorgasbord, things stayed light through another side of bacon and a second helping of hot chocolate. Stuffed by 1:15am, Mulder saw her drifting away again, heaviness settling where frivolity had been moments earlier. Tapping her ankle with his shoe lightly, she didn’t startle but refocused on him, “that better be you.”

Continuing, “it is.”

“Good. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to come here again.”

Catherine somehow managed to clean their table without disturbance, in, out, feeling the odd pall over them. Neither so much as glanced her way.

Subtly lifting his leg, he set his foot on the booth beside her, preventing any escape from his next questions, “what happened? Did you have a nightmare about Betts? Did you see something? Hear something?” He felt microscopic pressure against his ankle as her thigh muscles tensed to move but he held steady, not letting her leave. Voice dropping to a whisper, he leaned forward, “you’re starting to freak me out.”

Her face crumbled for a moment, then snapped back to normal 1 am, shifting gears a third time when her eyebrows crashed together, lip curling, chin wobbling in an instant, then back to normal. The gambit of emotions that crossed her face in under four seconds was heart-wrenching and Mulder followed along, panic about to overrun control.

Moving his foot, he shifted in beside her, arm around her shoulder, fear growing exponentially, his voice wobbling quietly in her ear, “what happened?”

“Betts told me I had something he needed.”

With the speed of a fucking bullet, realization froze his heart, and his other arm completed the circle around her, pulling her into his shoulder, burying his face in her hair, “Betts in a psychopathic fucker.” She couldn’t quite find words to tell him about the bloody nose that had sent her spiraling so she tried to move closer instead, wishing for a way to crawl into his lap without rebuke or reprisal. Ice still coursing through his veins, he choose denial mode as opposed to depths of despair, comfort instead of chaos, “he’s certifiable, Scully, why would you give him a second thought? A first thought, even?”

When she didn’t respond, he let go of her, standing, tossing money on the table and taking her hand, “come on.”

When he pulled away from her, she nearly sobbed, missing him in that second more than she’d missed him in … well … possibly ever. Seeing his extended hand started the roller coaster all over again and shifting, she followed in silence, little hand wrapped in big, not waving goodnight to their hosts, not seeing anything but his jacket inches from her nose.

Her nose.

And the slightest headache thrumming behind it.

She stumbled over the curb, running into his back, catching herself before hitting the ground. Her control was gone, her walls blown to hell, her mind focused on five words, four years, three drops of blood, two people, one soul and the suddenly ticking timebomb of a six-letter word.

She couldn’t say it.

Mulder had her face in his hands, trying to comprehend the unimaginable, eyes darting between hers, betraying any kind of cool exterior both knew he didn’t have, “you’re fine, Scully. You are going to be fine. Betts is … was … and ever shall be … nothing to us. He wanted to get under your skin and he knew how and he did it and he’s burning in hell right now and you can’t listen to anything he said. Do you hear me?”

Held still by large palms and calloused fingers, she let the tears escape, her voice reaching his ears in a wet, spitty, stilted stutter, “you … you didn’t hear … how he said it … Mulder. He … he had sympathy in his words, the look …” eyes closed for a moment, swallowing hard, “he looked genuinely sorry.” Choking inhale in, one sob shook both to their core, “he wasn’t saying it to be cruel. He was saying it … to be kind … and he’s dead and he can’t … he could have …”

Shaking his head, he finally pulled her into a hug, most of her upper body disappearing into his embrace, “he couldn’t have done anything, Scully. He removed tumors because he needed them. Doctors do the same thing. He didn’t cure, Scully,” he kept saying her name, needing to hear it out loud, prove she was still standing in front of him, his denial in place but his fear still winning, “he removed. Doctors cure, he mangled, he cut, he … he couldn’t have helped you but Leonard Betts doesn’t matter anymore because your fine and he’s gone and he was just fucking with your head because he could. He would have said the same thing to me had I been in the ambulance with you. I know enough about these people to know it would have ended with that phrase regardless of who was in the truck.”

Neither was sure who he was trying harder to convince and neither dwelled on it.

Instead, she stayed up on the curb while Mulder was one notch below in the gutter, hug evened out, height difference conquered with concrete and asphalt. A cone of silence enveloped them, traffic noise, barking dogs, airplanes overhead, all fading away, until, Scully, mess of emotions somewhat in check, spoke quietly into his chest, “will you take me home?”

“Of course.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&

Leaving his car behind, he drove hers to her apartment, both climbing stairs and locking doors behind. Her microwave clock now read 2:09am as she held out her hand to take his coat, walls still down, mind and heart exhausted, “would you mind sleeping in with me tonight? I wouldn’t normally ask but …” sentence running off to nowhere, she waited, eyes pleading in that Scully way.

“You got any sweats for me?”

Once in bed, not as awkwardly as either expected, they remained a civil distance apart but facing each other, eyes tired, eyes burning, eyes not breaking contact for fear the other would disappear in the time of a blink. Mulder, desperate to reach out to her, kept his hands to himself, “you’re fine. You will always be fine. You’ll go to the doctor if you need to tomorrow and he’ll tell you there’s nothing to worry about and then we’ll go ride roller coaster somewhere or run through the fountains of DC naked in celebration that I was right and you were wrong.”

She had already planned the following morning in her head but staying silent about that, she instead flashed him a small smile, trying her best to make it look genuine, to force her eyes to sparkle in amusement just enough to allow him to fall asleep in peace, “naked, huh?”

He saw through her bullshit like she was a plate glass window, “not on the roller coasters.”

“Oh, no. Definitely not on the roller coasters.”

Trying to keep his voice steady, “you’re going to be fine.”

Finally reaching towards him, his hand met hers halfway, “I know.”

&&&&&&&&&&

Sleep eluded him, preferring to listen to her stuffy inhale than to drift into slumber but even the great Fox Mulder eventually had to give in to sleep, drifting off around 4:15. Scully, faking until 3:30, woke at 5:45, slipping out of bed, five-minute shower, out the door by 6:30, leaving her partner behind.

Three favors later, she was trying to hold herself together in the MRI tube, magnets banging, head aching, muscles tensing with each new sound. How could that machine capture anything when her mind was racing so fast the images should just be a blur of thoughts, smudged terror captured in black and white, brought to you by the marvels of science?

She wished he was there so she could hold his hand.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Mulder could fake a few things as well. He woke when she left the bed, stayed still, eyes shut, while he listened to her shower. He heard her come back in, sort through her closet, open dresser drawers, felt the air in the room change as she did, donning armor for her day ahead. She was at the foot of the bed so not in his possible waking view but to know she was comfortable enough to do her routine with him asleep five feet away made him quake inside. He held it together, even as she returned to the room, keys lightly clinking in hand, to give him a lingering kiss on the cheek, to brush his hair back as her thumb ran over his forehead.

He waited five minutes after he heard the front door lock before rolling over, stretching, missing her beating heart and radiating heat. Staring at the ceiling when done, he refused to ponder, instead, two grunts and a back crack later, he was up, standing, heading to the shower.

Problem was, the warm water, the smell of her soap, the view of damp towel on rack and dry one beside, just for him, caught him off-guard. Halfway through soaping up, he broke down, standing under the water, sobbing tears covered by loud water pinging off the walls. He gave himself what felt like five minutes before straightening back up, finishing his shampoo and wash, ending with a steamy-mirrored pep talk during which he convinced himself Scully would be just fine.

Making the bed, he headed out, calling a cab to get him to the diner, then driving himself home, waiting impatiently for a phone call he knew was inevitable. He could have heading to the basement, he could have taken a nap, he could have stared at the wall and had a panic attack the size of Montana but instead, he read his email, his phone never far from his hand.

&&&&&&&&&&

Scully saw the mass, a bright white spot of dread in her sinus cavity, doctor explaining, in the background, diagnosis and treatment options, but most of her attention was filled with it.

It.

IT.

That thing settled comfortably next to her brain.

IT.

Mesmerized, she nodded when they asked if she’d like to be alone for a minute; if she would like to call someone.

And then it was quiet, the snick of the shutting door the only noise in the room.

Leaving just her and the bright white mass on the light board.

“Mulder. Could you come down to the hospital, please?”

She could hear it in his voice as he said, “which area?”

“Oncology.”

The sound of a fight building. The sound of defiance taking root.

Or denial.

“I’m on my way.”

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Drifters ch.10 (spicyhoney)

Summary:  Red's been going along with all this, but it turns out that he has a thing or three to say to his brother.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Violence, Rescued Child, Medical Experimentation, Babybones

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Edge had always had a plan for his life. Since he was a small child forced to spend his days watching Red beg, barter and steal for their meals and shelter, he’d been determined to help his brother provide for them as soon as he could. To bring them out of the dump and the back alleys to something better, from gutter trash to the Royal Guard.

It hadn’t been easy, but he’d done it, and between the two of them they’d managed to make a home for themselves, a decent one he’d always believed. Until his brother began tinkering with that old machine in the basement, the one that would never do anything until it did, and he discovered there was more outside their own little, dust-filled world. So much more, other Universes that didn’t abide by the rule of kill or be killed, where children might be trapped beneath the mountain but still played safely in the street.

There were times he’d thought about leaving their universe, in the darkest nights when fresh LV was settling heavily into his soul like lead while Edge fought his way back out from its shrouding numbness, struggling to keep his sense of self. He’d never let those longing ideas take hold; despite everything, Underfell was their home, there were people that needed him there, Monsters who depended on him.

He’d abandoned it all for the sake of this one child and if this was the new plan for his life, then he would handle it, as he had everything else, no matter what.

Whatever protests Red and Stretch were offering to that decision were drowned out by Blue’s dismissive, “Don’t be silly, of course you’re staying. Aren’t you?” Then with rising alarm, “You wouldn’t be going back to Underfell with her, would you?”

“No,” Edge said, “Not Underfell.” Again, he kept it to himself that that was no longer possible. In his arms, the baby was slowly settling, her drowsy sockets sinking closed again.

Blue was still nattering on in his relief, lowering his voice in deference to the baby’s whimpers easing back into sleep. “Then of course you’ll be staying with us! Oh, but we’ll need to make some changes around here. There’s only two bedrooms, that isn’t enough. Maybe the garage, yes, yes, the garage!” He clapped his hands together in quiet delight. “We can turn it into an apartment, I’ll put my Human cage somewhere else, yes, that’ll be perfect for you and Edge, Papy!”

Stretch only sat on the sofa, blinking a few times, as if the light was suddenly too bright. He was looking at Edge and the baby, but turned to his brother at that, “uh, say what?”

“An apartment for you and Edge, do keep up,” Blue said primly. He raised both brow bones in obvious implication, “Unless you’re about to tell me that the two of you weren’t going to share your room?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Edge repeated patiently before Stretch could answer him. “This is only a temporary arrangement. As soon as I find some employment, we’ll work on getting our own place, you don’t need to rearrange your entire home.”

Red sat up, sputtering, “okay, back it up there, bro, what, now?”

“Why would you do that?” Blue said, perplexed. He tilted his head to the side, reminiscent of the Dogs back in Underfell when Edge gave them an order they didn’t quite understand. “We can’t help take care of the baby if you move out.”

“You don’t need to help care for her,” Edge said, “she’s my responsibility.”

“Nonsense, it takes two to tango as they say and there are four of us!”

“Not if the child is created in a lab!” Edge snapped. The baby stirred and he lowered his voice, “This isn’t about birth control, this is about taking her away from someone who intended to use her as a lab experiment. I chose to take her, she’s my responsibility, and I will do my duty. The three of us won’t be staying here any longer than necessary.”

The silence hung in the air, nearly tangible.

After a moment, Stretch rolled to his feet, slouching across the living room to a side table where he started rummaging through the drawer. He came out with a pack of cigarettes, already stripping off the cellophane as he said, “you heard the man, she’s not ours, she’s his. he’s got a handle on it, let him take care of everything. i’m sure he’s got it all figured out.”

He didn’t look at Edge, walking straight past him in his disheveled shorts and mismatched sweatshirt to the rug where he shoved his feet into a pair of slippers before jerking open the front door, cold air pouring in. He went out, closed the door carefully behind him.

Red groaned loudly, “you really are a dumb fucker, aren’t you, bro.”

Arguing was familiar to Edge, but not while holding a sleeping infant. His kept his voice low and even, did not think of Stretch out in the cold lighting what would surely be the first of several cigarettes. “He doesn’t need to feel responsible. He didn’t choose this.”

The only person responsible was Edge, for coming here to begin with. There hadn’t been much in the way of choice on that, all he could do now was try not to compound the damages by leaving as soon as possible, before his debts grew past his ability to pay them.

Red only glared at him. simmering fury in his crimson eye lights, “yeah? me either, but i’m still fucking here, so i think i get a vote.”

“You’re different.”

“about three feet of different, yeah.”

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it!” Edge snapped, “You’re my brother.”

“that i am. but i ain’t the only other person with a stake.” Red sounded frustrated and they glared at each other, Blue standing to the side, hands clasped in front of him as he looked nervously between them.

Red did not look away from Edge as he said slowly, "blue. why'nt you go upstairs to your room with your gear, get unpacked, settle in."

Blue didn’t move. He stood uncertainly, his feet shuffling as if they wished to obey.

"blue," Red said, terribly soft and the undertone was pure Underfell, "i ain't askin'.

He nodded then, snatching up his bag and heading up the stairs. His bedroom door closed as softly as the front door had and they were alone.

"okay, just you and me, bro. first things first,” Red held out his arms, “hand me the kid.”

“She’s my responsibility,” Edge repeated doggedly. “I chose this, you didn’t.”

“yeah?” Red demanded, “you come up with that idea all by your bad self? why the fuck you think i brought you to the lab, sightseein’? she was never not gonna leave with us, you just grabbed her first. you so busy tryin' to call dibs, you're forgettin' i saw her first.” Red never looked away, met Edge’s eye lights unblinkingly as he told him, “i been letting it go on account of you bein' new to all this, but now i’m tellin ya. give her here.”

Edge hesitated a moment longer, then stepped over to the sofa.

It was somewhat disturbing to see how easily Red folded her into his arms, cradling her expertly. She settled in with a contended little sigh, snuggling into the fur lining of his jacket. “there we go, honey.” Red crooned with a gentleness that he had never seen in his brother before.

Red said nothing else, only sat with the baby and Edge stood, waiting impatiently, until his brittle endurance broke. “Well? I’m sure you’re waiting to explain to me how I can’t handle this, so let me stop you before you begin. I can and I will, I’m doing fine so far.”

“oh, yeah, you’re doin’ swell,” Red snorted. “wanna take a good look at yourself in the mirror right now?”

Edge resisted the urge to shrink from that pointed comment, tugging Stretch’s robe tighter around himself. “That’s hardly fair, it was my first night with her!”

“ain’t none of this fair,” Red said agreeably. “‘specially not to her. wasn’t fair to you when i slipped us out of the lab before you could get your own special tattoo and we ended up on the streets.”

“Red—“

“wasn’t fair to me that i had ta do it,” Red went on, relentlessly, “but life ain’t fair, that’s a lesson i never had to teach you. you learned it all on your own.” He sighed heavily and settled deeper into the sofa cushions, drawing up his knees into a sort of cage around the sleeping child. “you know all that shit. so, now you wanna tell me what the fuck is wrong with you?” He jerked his chin towards the stairs, then back towards the front door. “we got her outta there and now you got people throwin' themselves at you to help and you just gotta do it all on your own, dontcha. lemme clue you in to something, little brother, the reason i raised you up on my own is ‘cause there wasn't anyone else to help!"

“I don’t need anyone else to help,” Edge hissed. He crossed his empty arms over his chest, gripping his upper arms in both hands so tightly that his phalanges ached. “I can do this on my own!”

“so, what then? we move out of this place and i move in with ya, but i don't get to help with the little miss?” His crimson eye lights were coolly assessing. “gonna go out there and get a job, right? whose gonna watch her while you're raking in the g?”

"I…” Edge faltered, "I'll pay someone. A babysitter."

"someone. someone you can trust more'n us?"

“No!” His soul clenched in his chest, already rejecting his own idea. Who could he possibly trust with her, even in this world, who could look at the symbols on her ribs and not rouse curiosity, perhaps take their questions to another scientist at another lab who might well have read the old paperwork left behind and— "Of course not, that isn't what I meant. I’ll handle it!"

“oh, i getcha. you’re the only you're allowed to take care of her.” Red rubbed a thumb gently down her rounded cheek and her mouth moved briefly as if readying itself for a bottle within her dreams. So small, so fragile in the cradle of his brother’s arms. “lemme ask you somethin' bro, are any of the rest of us allowed to love her, or are you callin' all of that, too?"

He’d never heard his brother so much as mention the word love before and something already tight in his soul clenched harder, painfully. "I can't ask you all to help me with this!"

"bro.” Red looked up at him and his expression was deeply pained and conflicted, none of his emotions hidden behind his normal veneer of sneering indifference. “i know it's hard for you, but you gotta pay attention. you ain't asking for help, heh, really not, not even close. we're offerin'. so let us offer.”

It must be his exhaustion, Edge thought, that made his emotions rise so close to the surface. Lingering heavily in his chest, rising into his throat and refusing to be swallowed away no matter how hard he tried. He was tired, so tired, and not simply from being kept up throughout the night. There was so much he’d lost in only a day’s time, lost and gained, and what he felt most strongly in this moment was a complicated grief.

Red nodded as if he could read every unspoken sentiment on his face. He patted the sofa next to him, scooting to the side, and Edge lurched over to sit next to him on legs that felt detached and shaky, sinking into the cushions. The moment he was settled, Red leaned over to lay the sleeping baby in his arms and he swore she was already putting on tangible weight since he’d first carried her away. She was already growing and changing, all he could do was try to guide it, to make sure she was cared for properly. That she was loved.

Red shifted up to sit on the back of the sofa, his shoulders against the wall. It put him taller than Edge, for once. “i don’t wanna see you running yourself ragged trying to do everything. been there, done that, ya know?"

“I can’t,” Edge whispered, the words soft and broken. He looked at the baby in his arms, at her peacefully sleeping face. He was so tired. Everything was so clear yesterday and now the course of his life was clouded, the linear line of it veering drunkenly along an unknown road.

“sure you can. am i your brother or not?” Edge nearly flinched from the hand that settled on his skull, caught himself just in time and instead leaned into it. He closed his sockets as his brother gently stroked his coronal sutures, the same way he had so many years ago now, on cold nights when Edge couldn’t sleep, holding him close as he crooned vulgar lullabies. There were no songs this time, only words drenched in unspoken promise, “‘cause little brother, i’m still plannin’ on taking care of you, too.”

Edge couldn’t say anything to that, he only nodded.

“good.” That stroking turned into a gentle rap of knuckles against the top of his skull. “now get your head on straight. go out there and apologize to the honey bun for tryin' to take away his kid just when he was gettin' used to the idea of havin' one.

“Our relationship isn’t like that.” Fuckbuddies was the word Stretch used, and it was not one that implied any form of shared parenthood.

“no?” Red said doubtfully. His chuckle was familiar, his humor tickling along the side of unkind. “then you better make damn well sure he knows it. mebbe you should start by askin’ him how he feels before you go on makin’ up his mind for him.”

Edge didn’t reply, but his brother’s point was brutally accurate. He owed Stretch that much and a great deal more. Now all he needed was to shore up his faltering courage and start paying his debts.

tbc

[jaxl-road]

Scar Tissue chapter 1

Slash falls hard and fast for Guns N' Roses' new bassist. But Duff has some baggage in the way that they'll have to get past first...

Pairings: Slash/Duff, side Axl/Izzy

Warnings: Implied/discussed past abuse (non-explicit)

AN: Decided to post this properly here! You can also read on AO3   

~~~~~~

Slash knew he was fucked the moment Duff walked in for his audition.

It started when Steven set the audition up earlier in the week. The band had been looking for a bassist for awhile, various people filtering in and out of the spot but never fitting quite right. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the rest of the band, their drummer had been eyeing a particular bassist. Steven had seen the guy filling in for various bands on the strip, but he always ran off as soon as the show was over. One night, he finally managed to catch the bassist before he could disappear, quickly explaining the situation and convincing him to stop by and jam with Guns N Roses.

Axl had been twitchy ever since the drummer told them about the meeting, “We don’t even know this fucker. You should have talked to us first,” he ground out, arms crossed and pacing tensely.

Luckily, Izzy kept him from completely losing his shit. He wrapped his arms around the singer’s waist to still him, “Hey, worst-case scenario we don’t invite him back. We’re not committed to anything. And we do need a bassist. Steven saw an opportunity and took it.”

Slash and Steven looked at each other and exchanged fake gagging noises. Since they were both currently single, they often bonded over teasing Axl and Izzy about their relationship, the couple usually just rolling their eyes or flipping them off. Before Axl could start huffing at them, there was a knock at the door. They were meeting in a small studio they had snagged so they could practice somewhere other than the Hell House where the four musicians were currently living together.

“Sweet, he’s here!” Steven jogged over and opened the door, quickly standing aside to let the bassist walk in.

And yeah. Slash was fucked.

“Guys, this is Duff!”

Slash gave himself points for not being too blatantly obvious about it, but come on, no one should have legs that long and lean. The bassist was over six feet tall, seemingly towering over the rest of the band. He was skinny, too, his ripped up black clothing hanging off his frame, tattered jeans hanging low on his hips even with a studded belt holding them up. Shifting his hold on the bass case he carried, he flicked his long bleached hair out of his face, revealing a darker strand underneath the blonde waves.

“Hey, nice to meet you guys,” he raised a hand in greeting, bracelets and rings and black painted nails giving a quick wave while Slash struggled not to stare at the way dark eyeliner emphasized his bright hazel eyes.

Holy shit, he was fucking smitten.

Axl eyed Duff suspiciously as he placed his bass as well as a heavy looking backpack down to the side, “You play punk bands?” he asked, looking the bassist up and down, taking in his heavy punk aesthetic.

Duff shrugged, “I play anything, really. I started out doing mostly punk bands, but lately I’ve been hanging with more rock and metal dudes.”

The singer hummed noncommittally, “Well, let’s see what you can do then.” They spent some time talking Duff through a few of their songs before getting themselves set up to play. Slash had his fingers crossed that the music would help get his mind out of the gutter. But of course, he had no such luck.

Duff was good. It was more than just his playing, although the ease with which he picked up the songs was more than a little impressive, and he had no problem working with Steven to keep the beats. Duff’s presence just fit with the rest of them in a way no other bass player had managed. He matched their energy, and could move and dance to the songs without missing a beat, unlike Slash who managed to fumble twice after seeing Duff roll his hips against his bass. He had to duck his head to avoid Izzy’s knowing look.

By the time they made it through the selected songs, it was obvious Duff was different from the other bass players they’d worked with. Even Axl had loosened up enough to grin and compliment him on his playing.

“It shouldn’t take long to get you caught up on what we’ve got so far,” Izzy commented, lighting up a cigarette, “But I think it’s a good match. If you’re cool with it we can make it official,” he shrugged.

Grinning, Duff nodded, “Hell yeah, I’m down. Hopping between bands was getting kind of old.”

“Aw, I can’t believe we've convinced you to settle down! We’ve made an honest bassist out of you!” Steven laughed, throwing his arm around Duff’s shoulder, the bassist flinching just slightly, “Everyone here owes me a drink for bringing us all together,” the drummer declared.

The group chatted as they exited the building, Duff laughing and joking with them as if he’d always been there, while Slash very consciously didn’t stare at his ass.

As they loaded up Izzy’s piece-of-shit car, Steven turned to the bassist, "Where do you live, anyway? We can give you a ride if you want."

Slash both loved and hated the idea of having to press close to the other man in the cramped vehicle, but Duff shook his head, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one casually, "Nah, it’s fine. I'm couch surfing right now, and I’m not entirely sure what couch I’m on tonight,” he exhaled a stream of smoke with a wry grin.

There was a pause, as the rest of the band turned to look at him. Steven and Slash looked concerned, Izzy kept his face blank and neutral, and Axl had a look on his face that those close to him recognized to mean that his thoughts were being torn in two different directions.

Noticing the silence, Duff rolled his eyes, readjusting his backpack and bass on his shoulders as he took a few steps back, “Oh relax, it’s no big deal. Life’s just a bitch sometimes,” he chuckled, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, yeah?” Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and began making long strides down the street.

Spinning to look at the others, Steven held his hands out in dismay, “Guys!” he hissed as he gestured wildly to the retreating figure.

Axl narrowed his eyes, his body tensing, but before he could turn the conversation into a fight, Izzy sighed, placing a gentle hand on the red-head’s arm. “Just… give us a second,” he nodded at Slash and Steven before guiding Axl a few feet away so they could talk in private.

“I mean, to be fair, our place is already pretty packed,” Slash pointed out.

“Oh please, we’re so used to living in squalor we probably wouldn’t even notice another person added to the mix,” Steven glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, grinning slowly, “Well. You would notice him,” he said teasingly.

Slash gaped, “Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?” he hoped if he sounded offended enough he could end this before it started.

But of course. No luck. Figured.

Steven laughed, “Oh please, you were practically drooling over him! I’ve only heard you make mistakes like you did today when you were piss drunk.”

“Maybe I’m drunk now,” Slash argued.

“Yes, you’re obviously wasted,” the drummer rolled his eyes, “Actually, maybe this was a bad idea. Will you be able to keep your hands to yourself if he’s around? We can’t have you scaring off our bassist the second we get him just cause you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“Oh shut up,” Slash mumbled, blushing. There was no point trying to deny it at this point, “I can be a perfect gentleman, thank you very much.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

At that moment, Izzy and Axl walked back over. “Alright, let’s go,” Izzy stated casually as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“What about Duff?” Steven questioned, a look of betrayal on his face.

But Izzy only raised an eyebrow at him, “He’s coming too. We just have to catch him first.”

Snapping their heads up, Slash and Steven realized that Duff was, in fact, gone. They hadn’t even noticed him disappear. Scrambling, the two quickly hopped into the backseat of the car, slamming the doors just as Izzy managed to get the pile of junk to finally start. Axl sat in the front seat with his arms crossed, and while he didn’t look happy, he didn’t look angry either, so still a win.

It only took three blocks before Izzy suddenly took a sharp, last second left turn, the occupants of the car tumbling to the side dramatically. They barely had time to right themselves before Izzy was slamming on the breaks, screeching to a halt and throwing his passengers forward in their seats.

Meanwhile, Duff nearly jumped out of his skin when a familiar car skidded to a stop beside him. He skittered back a few steps, eyes wide as he clutched his chest as if he could physically still his rapidly beating heart.

Rolling down the window, Izzy leaned out, “Hey. Hop in, you can crash with us.”

For a moment, the bassist just stared, blinking slowly, “...What?”

Steven rolled down his own window, leaning practically his entire upper body out, “Yeah! It’s not the most glamorous place, but we can squeeze in one more.”

“N-no, guys, seriously, I appreciate it, but it’s fine, really,” Duff another step back, trying to wave them off.

Slash shoved Steven over, leaning out the window beside him, “Dude, it’s totally cool. Besides, this way we have the whole band in one place.”

Duff shifted nervously, glancing away from them and looking thoroughly unconvinced. Finally, Axl sighed. Opening his door, he stood to look at Duff over the top of the car, “Look, you said you needed a couch to crash on, and we’re offering you ours. You don’t have to stay forever if you don’t want. I mean, we are pretty big assholes,” the singer smirked.

Despite his hesitation, Duff couldn’t help but laugh, “Fine, fine,” he finally gave in. “One night,” he insisted.

“Uh huh, sure,” Steven grinned as he and Slash shifted to make room for Duff and his things. The bassist’s knees were practically touching his chest as he folded himself into the backseat, his side pressed up against Slash, so close he could smell the smoke on his breath and see the little red marks where his lips were bitten raw. He shook his head quickly, letting his hair fall in front of his face to hide the blush he was sure was growing. Steven snickered knowingly, and Slash elbowed him roughly in the side as the car started moving again.

Their house wasn’t in the best part of town, to put it lightly, but that was part of the reason it was so cheap. It was small and dilapidated, the insulation was terrible, the paint was peeling, and the whole thing was falling apart inside and out. But it was home for the four boys, and if they had their way, hopefully it could be a home for Duff as well.

Walking in, they stepped over empty bottles and strewn clothing. Izzy grunted as he gestured vaguely at the house, and Steven laughed as he turned to Duff, “I think Izzy hit his quota of words for the day, but I’m pretty sure he’s saying make yourself at home,” he grinned as Izzy flipped him off.

Snaking an arm around the guitarist’s waist, Axl spoke next, “We’ve got three bedrooms. Izzy and I share a room, so Steven and Slash can flip a coin or something to figure out where you’ll be bunking,” he gestured at the two musicians as he and Izzy made their way to their own room.

Duff’s eyes widened a bit, turning to face his two potential roommates and throwing his hands up nervously, “No, no, it’s just for a night, remember? You guys don’t have to- I mean, I can just crash on the couch or something. Or, or I could…” His eyes darted around the room, as if searching for some corner where he could curl up out of the way.

It was weirdly endearing, and Slash smiled as he cut him off, “Hey, it’s no problem dude. And actually, my room is bigger than Steven’s anyway, so you can just share with me.”

“Are you sure? I-”

“Dude, seriously, it’s fine,” Slash insisted. Steven raised an eyebrow at him, but Slash cut him off before he could say anything potentially incriminating, “Really.”

The bassist didn’t look fully convinced, but he didn’t argue anymore. Slash pointed him in the direction of his room so he could finally put his stuff down, and as he walked away, Steven pulled him aside to whisper at him, “Look, I know I was joking earlier, but seriously, please don’t scare Duff off. He’s a cool dude and a good bass player.”

Slash actually felt offended this time, shoving at Steven’s chest, “I am not going to scare him off!”

“I’m just saying!” the drummer raised his hands defensively, “I love you dude, but you’re one of the horniest guys on the planet.”

“Jesus fuck, I’m capable of being chill about it, asshole,” he growled, “I don’t climb on every person I think is fucking hot or whatever you think I’m gonna do.”

“Okay, okay, you’re right, I’m sorry,” Steven had the good grace to look sincere in his apology, “I shouldn’t have worried.” Slash huffed, and Steven grinned teasingly, “Besides, we all know you’re too shy to actually make a move.”

“Hey!” Slash shoved him again, but he couldn’t help but chuckle, “How many times are you gonna insult me today?”

“Probably a couple more times,” Steven laughed.

At that moment, Duff walked out holding two bottles of vodka, one full and one half empty, “I figure since you’re letting me crash here the least I could do is share.”

“Hell yes!” Steven smiled widely, “Oh, you’re gonna fit right in.”

Duff laughed, and when he held out one of the bottles his shirt slipped down one shoulder, emphasizing his smooth, pale collar bones. Slash swallowed thickly. He meant what he told Steven; he could handle this.

He just might have to take a few more cold showers than usual.

[go-gently-please]

milk and honey

~ pairing: cat!Jimin x OC x cat!Yoongi (later)

~ genre: shapeshifter/hybrid!au, smut, fluff so much fluff

~ summary: when Sylvie takes in a stray cat in the middle of a rainstorm, she had no intention of getting a horny shapeshifting roommate along with it. all it takes is close quarters, sexual tension, and a little feline competition to reveal his true animalistic instincts.

~ warnings for this chapter: profanity, mentions of animal abuse and neglect, horrible attempts at humor,

part 1 ~ part 2 (coming soon)

The rain pounded down hard on the cobblestones. It ran in surging rivers down the streets, along the deserted sidewalks, clogging the gutters with twigs and dead leaves and dirty runoff.

I pitied any unfortunate soul caught without an umbrella. Those poor fuckers were soaked through by now.

Even with my wool coat, water-resistant jacket, and three layers of socks, I was chilled to the bone. My blood felt like slush in my veins; my toes were so frozen it felt like they were about to snap off.

I had my collar turned up against the wind as I walked (more like paced, really), boots splashing with every step, when I heard it: a faint, sad whine. It was so quiet I almost missed it. Looking up, I searched for the source of the sound.

Nothing. Nothing but dark skies and swollen, low-hanging clouds, threatening to release even more of their fury. I was the only pedestrian out on the streets. Correction: I was the only person crazy enough to be out in this weather. But I was out of coffee.

Yes, I'm that piece of shit. The kind of person that walks to the convenience store downtown in the rain to buy more caffeinated garbage to pump into my failing corpse.

Seeing no source of noise, I bent my head low, about to start trekking through the wet cold, when I heard it again.

There was a speck of orange among the green, vivid against the dark background of sky. I took a step forward to inspect the clump of bushes lining the pavement.

Huddled in a tight crouch, completely soaked, was a cat.

It was an orange and white tabby. Even though its fur was heavily matted with dirt and blood, I could tell that it was the prettiest kitty I’d ever seen.

It was curled up so tight, trying to make itself as small as possible, but it still couldn’t find shelter under the bush, the rain continued to pelt down on its mud-caked coat. It’s little body was shivering violently.

I gravitated towards it like a college student to free food, abandoning the sidewalk completely and bending down to the animal’s level.

The cat looked up at me with big brown eyes, wide and pleading, as it let out a soft mewl.

“Aww, poor baby.” I held out my hand, and the cat immediately moved to rub it’s head against my palm. My cold, dead heart swelled in my chest.

Immediately, my face broke out in a huge smile as I scratched it’s ears. The cat shuffled closer, nuzzling against my legs to soak up as much warmth as possible.

I could see that it had several deep scratches on its face and around its neck, patches of dried blood clinging to the fur. I could feel the prominence of it’s bones sticking out when I ran my hand along it’s back. It was skinny enough to have it’s ribs visible.

That was it. I didn’t need any more convincing.

I would die for his cat. I would protect this cat until the day I stopped breathing. Yes, I may be a broke, depressed, anxiety-ridden piece of shit, but damnit I was going to help this cat if it was the last thing I did.

Shrugging off my two outer layers, I scooped the cat into my arms and wrapped it up, first in the wool coat for warmth, then in the jacket to keep the rain at bay.

I had to use both arms to carry it, so I couldn’t hold my umbrella, and it only took a few minutes for me to be completely drenched. But feeling that cat curl up in my arms, purring and pawing contentedly at my chest, made it all worth it.

Hugging the small animal closer, I tried to shield it from the wind and chill as best I could. The only thing that mattered to me right now was protecting this cat. Even if that meant sloshing through a rainstorm in nothing but a thin sweater, teeth chattering and fingers numb from the cold.

The first thing I did when I reached my small apartment was turn on the radiator. And the heating blanket. And the coffee machine, God bless. Then I started to run a warm bath.

The cat only tightened its grip on my shirt when I tried to lower it into the tub, but with some coaxing and a few head scratches, it let me set it down into the water.

Now I could see that the cat was a boy, since it had pretty big…umm…you know whats.

“Poor thing.” I cooed as I washed away the mud. “Left out in the rain like that, and so skinny too. You must be starving.”

There was no way he was feral, too friendly for that. No, this cat was domesticated. He used to have an owner.

“Where’d you come from, huh?” I said, working a handful of shampoo through his coat.

The cat’s eyes were closed in bliss, much more focused on the massaging motions of my hands.

I very carefully, very gently inspected the cuts and scrapes all over his body. Most of them were scabbed over, but some of them were fresh and raw. I rubbed some disinfectant cream on them after I’d dried him off.

Steam unfurled from the doorway in warm, fragrant clouds when I emerged from the bathroom, the cat still in my arms but this time bundled up in a towel.

The space was a bit warmer now, but the storm still raging outside plus the crappy heating system of the old apartment building left the room feeling chilly.

The cat was glued to my side as I made myself a cup of coffee. It paced back and forth in front of my feet, tail swishing in the air, as it rubbed itself against my legs.

He devoured the tuna I gave him like he was dying of starvation.

When I made my way over to the couch, cradling the cup in my frozen hands, the cat followed. I wrapped myself in a fuzzy blanket and hugged my legs close to my chest to conserve heat. Sipping contently from my mug, I let the coffee slide down my throat in trails of liquid warmth.

“Ah, fuuuuuck.” I moaned in pure delight, leaning my head back as delicious heat spread throughout my body.

The cat jumped up on the couch and parked himself next to me. He was looking at me with what could only be described as puppy dog eyes. It was like staring at two huge glossy marbles.

“What?” I said, confused as to what he was silently begging for.

“This is mine.” I said, nodding towards the cup in my hands.

The cat inched closer and pawed at me. He rubbed his head against my legs and curled his tail around the bend of my knees.

I opened my legs to free up some space, and the cat excitedly crawled into my lap. He curled up and snuggled into me, sending vibrations through my body from his loud purring.

Now that he was clean, I could feel how soft his fur was. He really was a beautiful cat, graceful and poised, and so affectionate, too.

I combed my fingers through his fur, scratching his ears and under his chin, as his eyes slowly drifted closed and his purring filled the room.

I could get used to this.

~~~

By the time I took him to the vet the next day, I’d already decided to keep him, logic be fucked. Now, keep in mind, my brain functions not unlike a boxing ring, rational me and impulsive me are constantly having a fucking smackdown. I’ll let you guess which one wins most of the time.

He was overall healthy, no infections or diseases.

My suspicions about him having a previous owner were confirmed when I found out that he already had all his shots and vaccinations.

Except he wasn’t fixed, and when the vet brought it up, the cat whipped around to stare at him as if he understood what he was staying. The animal started to fidget on the examination table, swishing his tail back and forth.

I said that I’d hold off on getting him fixed, to which the cat seemed to relax at.

The vet stroked his smooth back as he smiled down at the feline.

“Have you decided on a name yet?” He asked me.

The cat looked up at me with those big coffee-colored eyes. I smiled as I patted his head. A real smile. The first one in a long time.

“Jimin. His name is Jimin.”

~~~

A few days passed, and I was very quickly getting used to my new pet.

Jimin followed me around like a Pokémon. If he had his way, he would never leave my side, but I drew the line at bathroom breaks since he had a weird habit of staring at me, which made me uncomfortable. He was a bit of a creep, but then again so am I. He would wait just outside the door for me, sometimes scratching at the wood if he got impatient.

He walked everywhere I walked, was always in my lap if I was sitting, and even slept in my bed every night, snuggled up against my side as his purrs soothed me to sleep. If a closed door was separating us, he’d cry until I opened it.

He was easily the sweetest creature I’d ever encountered. He was extremely affectionate and always desperate for physical touch. He showered me with kitten licks, playful bites, and soft nuzzles.

However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a strange cat.

Jimin was extremely intelligent, he did things that most cats couldn’t. He knew how to get into the cupboards, he knew how to get my clothes out of the dresser so he could smell and rub his scent all over them, he even knew how to move the furniture in order to make noise to get my attention.

Some of his mannerisms kind of weirded me out. I had a habit of talking to myself, which shouldn’t surprise you because I am an obvious nutball, and sometimes he would look or gesture at me like he could understand what I was saying.

He was strangely communicative. He could tell me what he wanted with just one look.

About a week after I got him, a friend came over to my apartment. The first thing she saw when she walked through the front door was me sitting on the couch with Jimin in my lap.

“Aren’t you the prettiest kitty in the whole world?” I cooed as I ran my fingers through his fur.

“Uh, aren’t you allergic to cats?” My friend asked.

I petted him slower.

“Maybe.” I said. She just chuckled and joined me in the living room.

“Now, Sylvia, you know what your mother would say about your allergies.” She playfully scolded me, and I rolled my eyes.  

“Eh, I’ll get some nasal spray. And don’t call me Sylvia. I may be named after my grandmother, but I never want to be associated with that bitter old woman again.”

She just chuckled. She knew how much I hated my grandmother on my father’s side. Unfortunately, I was her namesake, that’s why I insisted that everyone call me by my nickname in a small act of rebellion.

“Alright, Silvie, I got something for you.” She said, reaching into her bag.

I raised an eyebrow, pretending to be uninterested while simultaneously hiding my excitement.

“Reveal it. I will decide if it is a worthy offering.” I bellowed with an overly exaggerated deep voice.

She pulled out a simple black collar, and I gasped in delight. She just grinned at how fast my facade crumbled.

“A collar! Thank you so much, I’ve been meaning to get him one!” I took the accessory from her hand. The material was stretchy and flexible to fit all sizes, and the center of the band was decorated with a dangling silver ring.

I turned towards the animal in my lap.

“Come here, Jimin.”

He presented his head to me, and I slipped the collar onto his neck.

“Look how handsome you are.” I said sweetly.

My friend let out a soft laugh. She reached out to stroke his ears.

“Your mommy must really love you, huh?” She said to him.

Jimin’s eyes crinkled into two adorable crescents, the closest thing to a smile he could muster.

“You’re not gonna turn into one of those people who carry their pets around everywhere, are you?” She asked.

“He’s a cat, not a purse puppy.”

“I know, but people can get pretty obsessed with their fur babies.” She brought her face closer to Jimin’s and booped his little pink nose.

“Are you going to take up all of mommy’s attention now? Huh?” She said in a voice you would use to talk to a small child.

“Damn, this cat is prettier than me.” She said as she studied his angular eyes and long white whiskers.

“Tell me about it. If he was a person he’d probably be a fucking model.” I said.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this? Having a pet is a big responsibility.” She teased me.

“Oh please. He’s a cat. It’s not like I’m getting a new roommate or anything.”

~~~

When you found Jimin on that cold, wet day, he could’ve sworn you were an angel on earth. Who else would be kind enough to stop in the middle of a storm, shed their outer layers, and walk several blocks in a violent downpour just to take in a mangy stray cat?

You were a blessing from heaven in Jimin’s eyes. You, a stranger, had sheltered him, fed him, bathed him, enveloped him in warmth and security, without a second thought.

He’d been living on the streets for a while, after his owner abandoned him, and was beginning to think that he’d never find a home again, never have someone to love and care for him the way he desperately needed.

But then you emerged from the darkness of the storm (literally), and accepted him into your home with open arms.

Jimin remembered that day vividly. He remembered the way you walked with your head bent low, your hood shielding your face from the rain with only your long black hair visible, as your boots splashed through the puddles gathered on the pavement. He remembered calling out to you like he’d done to so many others that had walked by, but you were the only one out of all of them to stop and look up.

The next thing he noticed was your eyes. He thought they were beautiful, not because they were big or bright, but because they were a deep, intriguing black. He couldn’t tell where your iris stopped and your pupil began, they were just two deep pools of inky darkness. The striking color of your eyes made it that much easier to see the kindness that rested in your soul. They say the eyes are windows, after all.

Your body was so warm as you carried him to your apartment, your pleasant scent soothing him like a lullaby.

You'd been his ever since. It didn't matter that technically he was the pet and you were the owner, in his eyes you were his. He'd covered you in his scent to prove it.

Speaking of which, there was a lot of you that needed covering. You were tall and unusually broad-shouldered, athletically built, and awkwardly proportioned. Your legs were long and your feet were big, your body lacking curves or overly distinctive features.

But every time Jimin saw you, his heart did flips and his stomach erupted with butterflies. No one had ever shown him such kindness before, and it made you that much more attractive in his mind.

As much as Jimin wanted to show you his human form, he decided to wait; he didn't want to risk scaring you away.

All he wanted to do was touch you with hands rather than paws. He wanted to wrap you in his arms and have your body curl into his, like you'd done so many times to his cat form. He wanted you to run your fingers through his hair instead of his fur.

He’d wait, though. He couldn't take the risk of losing you.

It didn’t take long for that plan to be ruined.

One day, he'd gotten into the fridge and spilled the milk, making a huge mess of the kitchen and himself.

“No! Bad boy!” You shouted when you discovered him sitting in the middle of the large white puddle, licking his paws. He bent his head guiltily as droplets of milk rolled off his whiskers.

With a groan of frustration, you picked him up and carried him to the bathroom.

Great. Now I have to give him a bath, you thought. Jimin hated baths. You sighed irritably as you waited for the tub to fill up.

Jimin was avoiding your eyes, something he only did when he was in trouble. He was starting to panic.

What's she going to do? Is she going to punish me? Is she going to throw me out? Oh god, please no. I'll take any punishment in the world if it means she won't send me away.

Once the tub was full, you plopped him inside. You were completely silent as you rinsed his coat.

Jimin's mind was racing. He desperately wished he had the voice to apologize. He would get on his knees and beg if he had to.

He’d just started to settle in; you’d just started to get used to him! He couldn’t leave now!

When you'd finished washing him, you lifted him out of the bathtub and set him down on the tile.

You turned to grab a towel, only to find that the rack was empty.  

“Stay here.” You ordered, pointing a stern finger at him.

He moved his head in a nodding motion, which you were used to be no less weirded out by.

If only he could talk to you. Then he could apologize and promise to be good. He'd promise to do anything as long as you'd let him stay.

His body started to tingle.

Jimin's heart leapt into his throat.

No, no, no, please no. Not here! Not now!

His limbs lengthened, paws morphing into small hands and feet. His fur retracted, leaving behind smooth, honeyed skin. Fangs turned into flat, dull teeth, the sandpaper of his tongue softening.

He heard your footsteps approaching.

He had control over his transformations most of the time, but sometimes he involuntarily changed according to instincts or strong emotions. His panic must have spurred it on.

His nose grew and curved in a graceful dip. His lips swelled up like two pink, pillowy flower petals. A mop of golden blond hair, still wet, appeared on his head.

Jimin's pulse hammered as his breath quickened in his chest.

He could hear you coming. You were going to see him.

~~~

I froze when I re-entered the bathroom, fresh towels in my arms now falling to the floor.  

In the place of my cat was a full grown man, naked and soaking wet, cowering on the floor against the tub. His wet hair hung down in front of his terrified eyes as he clutched at his lower region to cover himself.

His body was lithe and slightly roped with muscle. Curving biceps, Herculean thighs, even a faint outline of abs. The features of his face, soft and feminine compared to the rest of him, were twisted with fear.

“Who...what the royal fuck are you doing here?! Who are you?!” I cried as I took a cautionary step back.

“P-Please…” He blurted out, sounding like this was the first time he’d used his voice in months.

“Don't be afraid! It's me, Jimin!”

My eyebrows knitted together.

“What?”

The man gulped as water droplets fell from the tips of his hair.

“It's me, the cat. I'm Jimin.” He said slowly.

I stared at him.

The cat? This man in front of me is the cat?

I remembered all those times he'd respond to me as if he understood what I was saying, how his intelligence often left me speechless, how his alarming self-awareness always freaked me out.

How could that be true? That's obviously impossible.

But what other explanation was there? I'd left for a few seconds to get a towell, and when I returned, a man was sitting in the exact same position the cat had been in.

I looked at him closer.

His big brown eyes were strangely familiar. Then I saw that he was wearing the collar. My eyes locked on it and didn't waver for a solid minute. That was the exact collar the cat had been wearing.

Returning my eyes to his face, I saw that he was visibly shaking.

I finally moved from my frozen position to grab a towel and toss it at him.

The man frantically used it to cover his lower half. He looked up at me from his spot on the floor with big puppy dog eyes.

It was then that all my doubts about it being true were wiped away. I had already seen that look a hundred times. This...man in front of me was undoubtedly, undeniably...my Jimin.

“Please, please let me stay. I'll be good, I promise. I won't make a mess ever again, I swear! Just...please don't throw me out.”

The desperation in his voice made my heart swell a bit, he sounded so scared, so helpless.

I sighed, rubbing my temples.

“I’m not going to throw you out.” I said.

Jimin’s eyes widened even more, something I didn’t think was possible, this time brimming with hope. Maybe it was the light, but they appeared to be shining with pooling moisture.

“Really?” He said, his voice trembling.

“No, no, do I really look like a cruel heartless bitch to you? Don’t answer that.”

He visibly relaxed. The rigidness of his shoulders dissolved, and his tight grip on the towel loosened slightly.

“W-What…” He gulped. “What are you going to do?”

After a pause, I let out a breath.

“I don’t know. This is all very weird.” I said, sounding exhausted. “What are you, exactly?”

Jimin looked at the floor.

“I don't know, really. I've always been like this.” He said.

I stared at him, thinking. Could this really be happening right now?

Jimin fidgeted under my gaze, holding the towel closer to his body. Everything above his waist was perfectly visible, and he felt his cheeks flush pink with embarrassment.

I had to admit, he had a great body.

Noticing his discomfort, I set out to find some clothes.

“Stay here.” I said, disappearing through the doorway. I returned a few minutes later with one of my sweatshirts and a pair of track pants.

Plopping the bundle in his lap, I left him alone to change, closing the bathroom door behind me.

When he came out, he had his head bent low, shyly averting his eyes down to the ground. His hair was still wet, dripping on the carpet.

I grabbed another towel from the bathroom and walked up to him, reaching up to put it over his head and ruffle it to dry his hair. His hair now hung down over his eyes, all messy and spiky like a hedgehog.

Jimin stood there fiddling with his hands, flexing his fingers to test his newfound dexterity.

“Are you...going to put me in another home?” He asked timidly.

“I don't know, I don't know what to do about any of this.” I said, sounding exhausted, rubbing my eyes.

“Please…” Jimin began in a quiet voice. “Please don't. Please let me stay. I like it here, you're the best owner I've ever had.”

Listening to him refer to me as his owner only freaked me out more. I started to pace around the room, hands on my hips.

This can't be happening. There is a shapeshifting cat in my living room.

Jimin must've noticed my distress.

“I'll be so good, I won't cause any trouble. I'll stay out of your way, I promise.” He said frantically.

“Calm down, Jimin.” I said, holding up a hand to silence him.

This was the first time I’d said his name when he was human, not in my usual baby talk voice, the one I used to talk to animals. Jimin purred slightly, closing his eyes at the sound of his name falling from my lips.

I looked at his messy blond hair, his squishy pink cheeks, the fullness of his lips. I thought back to the time when I said he would be as pretty as a model if he was human. I was definitely right.

I had no idea what to do. Here I was, standing alone in my living room with a man I'd never seen before.

But I had seen him before. He was still Jimin, still the same cat I'd been living with for weeks. I knew from his eyes. Those big, warm brown eyes that always looked at me like I was the only thing in the universe.

When he was naked in the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of all the faded scars covering his body. There was no doubt in my mind that he had been a victim of abuse.

I couldn't throw him out. I couldn't stand the thought of him roaming the streets, all alone, his body gaunt from hunger. That was the reason I'd taken him in in the first place!

When I looked at Jimin again, my eyes were soft and genuine.

“Jimin, I promise you,” I took a few steps forward to stand before him.

“I will never abandon you. Not when you make a mess, not when you break something, not even when you're old and blind and sick. You'll always have a home here.”

He stared back at me with wide eyes. I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“Promise?” He said.

I smiled wide and bright.

“Promise.” I held out my pinky finger.

Jimin stared down at it for a moment, then wrapped his own pinky finger around mine, flashing a smile so big his eyes turned to two thin crescents.

I knew then that I would do anything just to see that smile again.

~~~

That night, when it was late and I was finally ready to go to sleep, he tried to get into bed with me.

After I had changed into my pajamas and had my usual midnight snack, I pulled back my covers and started to climb in, when Jimin entered the room and started to mess with the sheets on the opposite side of the bed.

“Uh, what are you doing?” I asked, eyeing him.

He looked up at me, expression clouded with confusion.

“Aren’t we going to bed?” He said.

“Well, yeah, but...why are you in here?”

I could see the twinge of hurt that flashed across his features.

“I always sleep in here…” He said in a small, meek voice.

I realized that he was right. He’d spent every single night since I got him curled up at my side, the sound of his purring lulling me to sleep.

But that was when he was just a cat! It was one thing to have a pet sleep next to me, but a full-grown man who I’d only just met a few hours ago?

“Would you mind...sleeping on the couch for tonight?” I said hesitantly, trying not to hurt his feelings.

Jimin hung his head and backed away from the bed. Moving slowly, reluctantly, towards the door, he let out a quiet “okay,” and disappeared into the hallway.

His broken little voice almost made me cave and call him back, but I let him go, settling into bed once I heard the couch cushions rustle from the living room.

It took me awhile to fall asleep. The events of the day weighed heavy on my mind. I could hear Jimin fussing, tossing and turning into the early hours of the morning.

I slipped into unconsciousness just as the sun was beginning to rise. The early morning light pierced through the gaps in the curtains, and I buried my head under the covers with a groan.

It was unclear how long I stayed like that, curled up in a ball with the blankets tightly wrapped around me.

I was trying to block out all my problems. It wasn’t working.

At some point, I felt something prodding me. I ignored it at first, but when it persisted I peeked out from under the covers.

The familiar tabby cat was standing on my bed, leaning over my fetal form. Big round eyes stared down at me, curious and innocent.

Was it all a dream? Did I imagine everything?

The cat looked the same as the last time I saw him, this time free of the milk that wet his fur and clung to his whiskers in white teardrops.

There was no indication that the creature in front of me was anything but animal.

Deciding that it was all a sleep-deprived hallucination, I let my head fall back on the pillow and slept with a clear head.

It didn't last, though. Something quickly woke me again: a presence, a dip in the mattress.

With my heart hammering in my chest, I slowly turned my head to examine the other side of the bed.

There was Jimin, human Jimin, with his eyes closed and his hands cradling his head. His sweet face looked even softer, if that was possible, as he slept. His blond hair was messy, looking as fluffy and silky as his cat fur, lips even poutier in his relaxed state.

Judging by the fact that his shoulders were bare, I guessed that he was shirtless, only wearing the black collar. I could see the skin of his waist and upper thigh. And then it dawned on me. He was naked.

At the shock of suddenly waking up next to a man I barely knew (one not wearing any fucking clothes, at that), I scrambled away from him as a yelp of surprise left my throat.

Jimin's eyes shot open. His body jolted at the loud noise, like a cat that had been startled awake. He jumped so suddenly that he fell off the bed, taking the covers along with him on the way down. I caught a glimpse of his bare backside, the image of his taut haunches flashing before my eyes.

He landed on the floor with a thud.

Jimin frantically grabbed at the sheets to cover himself, but I had already seen everything. It was interesting to know that his...um, prominent display of testosterone translated to his human form. I had seen his…“beef whistle,” his “flesh flute,” his “heat-seeking moisture missile,” perfectly clearly.

I was staring down at his lower half with wide eyes when he caught me, his face instantly turning red. He gripped the sheets and draped them over his torso.

“The fuck are you doing in here?!” I shouted.

Panic immediately filled his eyes.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable so I changed to a cat again. I layed down to rest my eyes, just for second! But I must’ve fallen asleep and changed back. I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”

He was so scared he looked like he was about to cry.

Aw, the poor thing really thinks I might throw him out.

Softening my expression, I shuffled out of bed.

“You say sorry to much.”

Jimin appeared to calm down, averting his eyes to the ground at my comment.

“Sorry.” He said quietly.

I chuckled.

Jimin’s eyes followed me as I crossed over to my dresser, fishing out some clothes for him to wear. Most of my pants wouldn’t fit him, my legs were too long and my hips too big, so I dug around to find an old pair of sweats from years ago that would be better suited for his small frame. He was quite a petite man, with a tiny little waist and completely flat stomach. I picked out one of my smaller t-shirts, and then handed him the stack of clothes.

I smiled at him, a little awkwardly, but he drank it up nonetheless, smiling so wide in return that his eyes crinkled. He was clinging to my every move, every reaction, probably trying to judge my state of mind.

I shut the bedroom door behind me to let him get dressed.

By the time he came out, I was already making breakfast, standing in the kitchen as the stove sizzled. The next time I looked up, Jimin was standing behind the invisible line that separated the kitchen from the living room, almost as if there was a glass wall between us. If he was a cat, he’d be sauntering back and forth at my feet right now, tail swishing in the air.

Jimin fiddled with his hands, head hanging low, and I could sense the nervousness radiating off of him in thick waves.

“Why don’t you sit down at the table, Jimin. Breakfast will be ready in a bit.” I said in the most gentle, non-threatening voice I could muster, all without a drop of coffee in my system. I was very proud of myself, to say the least.

I set down a large bowl of oatmeal with sliced bananas, blueberries, and generous globs of peanut butter down in front of him, along with a thick slice of toast.

“I know it’s a lot of food, you don’t have to eat it all. Gotta put some meat on those-” I trailed off when I saw Jimin practically shoveling spoonfuls of food into his mouth. He was scarfing it down like a dying man.

“Can I have a glass of milk?” He said with his mouth full, cheeks puffed out.

“Uh, aren’t cats lactose intolerant?” I said.

“Aren’t you allergic to pet hair?”

My eyes widened, shocked at him. This was the first time he’d sounded like he wasn’t about the piss himself from fear.

Jimin seemed to realize what he’d just said, because his face flushed bright pink and he looked down at the wood of the table.

Amusement bubbled up in my chest, finally breaking the surface in the form of a full-blown belly laugh.

Jimin looked up at me, tilting his head slightly in confusion.

Wiping the corners of my eyes, I straightened up from where I’d been bent over clutching my stomach.

“Touché, touché.” I said, opening the fridge to get his milk.

“It’ll upset my stomach if I’m a cat, but it’s fine when I’m human.” Jimin explained.

“Alright, I believe you.” I set the tall glass down in front of him.

Jimin brought it to his lips, tilted his head back and gulp gulp gulped it down. He was very focused on eating his toast as I cleaned the kitchen, his elbows propped on the table, holding it at eye-level to scrutinize it as he chewed.

I shook my head to myself while stifling a chuckle.

“Alright, let's go.” I said once everything was clean and put away.

“W-Where are we going?” Jimin said, sounding worried.

I smiled at him as I fetched one of the sweatshirts from the coat rack.

“If you're going to be living here, the first thing you need is new clothes.” I said, holding it out to him.

“Put that on. It's cold.”

Jimin was glued to my side as we walked down the sidewalk, wet leaves still stuck to the concrete. He was walking fast to make sure he kept up with me.

It was still cold as shit. I'm a cold person, literally and figuratively, but today I was feeling particularly chilly.

To paint you a picture, I wear basically the same thing everyday: leggings from whatever name brand, sweatshirt, sneakers, beanie or baseball cap, usually sporting a white pair of earbuds.

After we’d been walking for a while, I noticed that Jimin was holding on to one of the dangling straps of my backpack, not unlike a child and those absurd baby leashes.

He really didn't want to take the chance of being separated from me.

I noticed that he was shivering. He must've been cold from the sudden lack of fur.

Taking off my beanie, I reached up to place it on his head, pulling it over his blond hair. I flashed him a smile, and his cheeks flushed pink. He did that a lot, apparently.

“You want something warm to drink? You look a little nervous.” I said, noticing the way his eyes darted back and forth and the way the tip of his nose was red from the cold.

Jimin nodded.

“Okay.” He said quietly.

We made it to the cafe a few blocks down and sat at a table by the window.

It probably wasn't a good idea to give him coffee, being part animal and all, so I decided on one of their speciality drinks that was mostly warm milk, and ordered a hot cup of caffeinated bliss for myself.

I plopped down in the chair opposite him and huddled around the warmth seeping off the mug.

This will fix everything wrong in my life, right?

I could feel Jimin staring at me as we both sipped our drinks.

“So...h-how are you doing today?” He asked.

Finally looking up from my cup, I saw Jimin’s anticipating face, waiting anxiously for my answer. It sounded like the words were new and foreign in his mouth, like he was testing them out for the first time. He was trying to start up a conversation.

“Fine.” I said, smiling at him over the brim of my cup.

“Really?” He stared at me harder, analyzed me, like he didn’t quite believe my answer.

I mean, he was right. I was never “fine,” but what else was I supposed to say? Oh, I’m thriving, thank you. Permanently mentally and emotionally damaged, but it’s chill, I’m chill.

“Yeah, why would you think otherwise?” I replied.

Jimin’s eyes flickered down under the table.

“Your leg is shaking.” He said.

He was right. It was one of my habits.

“Well, you see, my pal, my buddy, I am full of anxiety.” I said.

“So, you're not okay?” Jimin said, looking like he was trying very hard to read me.

I smiled.

“Jimin, calm down. I'm not going to get rid of you.” I reassured him.

He stared at me, then he moved to hold out his pinky finger.

“Promise?” He said.

I couldn't help the smile that crossed my face. I interlocked our two fingers and squeezed.

“Promise.”

~~~

It was safe to say that I'd spoiled him a bit. I bought him every piece of clothing he expressed even a slight interest in.

I perused around every store, Jimin following me around like a lost puppy, picking up hanger after hanger, holding it up against his body to see how it looked.

Jimin loved soft things, especially oversized sweaters and fuzzy socks.

We went to the grocery store after that where I let him pick out what he wanted to eat. This included: lucky charms, Capri sun, mango, frosted animal crackers, and dinosaur nuggets.

I smiled every time he added something to the cart.

When we got back to the apartment, I expected him to change into some of his new clothes, but he stayed in my oversized sweats. We’d spent most of the day shopping, so it was around dinner time now.

“Does take-out sound alright?” I asked.

Jimin was sitting rigidly on the couch, folded hands in his lap, and he nodded vigorously.

I fed him a lot of table food (sue me, every veterinarian ever), and since I ate a lot of Chinese take-out, Jimin was quite used to it.

I smiled at his enthusiasm and picked up the phone to order.

Not long after, we were both sitting at the table, mouths stuffed with noodles. Jimin was nursing another large glass of milk.

He always ate like he was starving, like the plate was about to snatched away from him any second now. He shoved so much food in his mouth that his cheeks were stuffed.

After Jimin had licked his plate clean, I cleaned up the table.

“What do you want to do now?” I asked gently, plopping down next to him on the couch.

“Umm…” He said, averting his eyes like he was thinking hard.

“Can we watch that movie with the walking house? We never finished it.” He said.

Walking house? I realized after a moment of befuddlement that he was talking about the Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle. We never finished? I didn’t recall ever starting it with him, but then I remembered that one time a few days ago when I had put it on in the background while I was painting. Jimin, still just a cat at the time, had been lounging on the couch, eyes glued to the screen. I remembered thinking it was adorable how he was watching with such intensity. That was back when I thought he couldn’t understand what was going on.

“Okay.” I said cheerfully, getting up to pop in the DVD.

I sat next to Jimin on the couch with a safe distance between us. I didn’t know why, but something about this whole situation still made me feel weird.

I could feel him watching me. He was sitting back with his head leaning against the wall, legs crossed, one arm slung across his stomach as his other hand was held up to his mouth. His eyes would flicker between me and the screen, blinking slowly like he was either deep in thought or drifting to sleep.

Whenever something funny happened in the movie, Jimin would giggle and use his tiny little hand to cover his mouth, his eyes squinting into two thin lines. He would bounce both his legs up and down when something exciting or suspenseful was happening.

I was so enraptured by watching the credits that I didn't notice that Jimin had fallen asleep.

His long lashes fluttered against his cheeks, eyes twitching behind his lids. I wondered what he was dreaming about, muscular arms hugged tightly around a pillow as his chest rose and fell steadily.

I smiled to myself, getting up to drape a blanket over his body. I reached down to run my hand through his soft yellow hair. I couldn’t help myself.

Jimin leaned into my hand as a loud purr rumbled in his throat. Still deep in sleep, he twisted his head and poked his tongue out to kitten lick at my palm.

My stomach dipped when a deep, pleasurable moan fell from his lips.    

I was about to brush it off as him just being sleepy, but then I saw him peel his eyes open.

“Mommy?” He mumbled groggily, looking up at me.

I froze.

Mommy?

I quickly racked my brain for any kind of reasonable explanation. Maybe his previous owner was a little kid? Maybe he overheard it from them? Maybe there was a mother in his previous home?

Then I remembered.

“Your mommy must really love you, huh?”

“You’re not gonna turn into one of those people who carry their pets around everywhere, are you?”

“Are you going to take up all of mommy’s attention now?”

My friend had referred to me as “mommy” when she came over to meet my new pet. He picked it up from her.

“Mmm, I’m tired…” He sounded drunk with sleep.

“I’ll turn off the light for you.” I said, quickly moving to reach for the lamp.

“No…” Jimin grabbed at my hand, preventing me from turning away.

“I wanna go to bed.” He slurred, barely able to keep his eyes open.

I finally realized what he was saying. He didn’t want to sleep on the couch, he wanted to sleep in my bed. That’s what he was used to, after all.

I hesitated, but by the vice-like grip he had on my wrist, I guessed that he was too far gone to try to reason with. Stretching my arms out, I helped him stand. Jimin threw one arm around my shoulders, leaning on me as I led him to the bedroom.

Once he was settled under the covers, I started to leave the room, but he stopped me.

“Where are you going?” Jimin called out, sitting up slightly in bed.

“You can have the bed for tonight, I’ll just crash on the couch.” I replied.

He gave me his signature puppy dog eyes.

“But I can’t sleep when I’m alone…” He whined.

I stared at him, contemplating. It was clear he wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, and how could I refuse him when he looked at me like that?

Giving in, I hurried over to the bed and climbed in, lying down with a reasonable distance between my body and Jimin’s. He scooted towards me an inch, but then stopped immediately when I tensed at the movement.

In less than a minute, Jimin’s content purring filled my ears, and I was asleep before I could think anything more.

a/n: thank you so much for reading!! :) if you want to make me the happiest person in the world, tell me what you think! shoot me an ask, leave a comment. i promise i’ll be ecstatic.

tag list: @yuudru

if you want to be tagged just let me know! :)

[whatmack]

I LOVE YOUR NEIL TWIN HC!!!!! It's my one reason to live now, I'm addicted and you write it really good! If you were considering writing more (but it's absolutely not an imposition, do whatever you want with this, you're amazing either way) maybe just him and Neil bonding? Or Andrew warming up to him? That'd be nice, I mean, what is Andrew even thinking here?

can you pls hmu w/ some of that good good neil & liam content? ((and maybe andrew bein a tad jealous bc neil’s spending so much time w/ his brother but also he’s not jealous andrew minyard does not get jealous and if you dare imply that then you must not fear death))

!!!! Andrew’s reaction is GREAT to think about, isn’t it? Let’s have some angst(YOU’RE BOTH SO NICE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MUCH LOVE)

This café has the worst coffee on campus, which is to say,it has coffee pretentious about the place it comes from, boasting citrus notesor whatever the fuck else is trending and meaningless. It just tastes bitter toAndrew; they never put in enough whipped cream. He buys two cups and dumps thetoppings from one into the other, tossing the leftover dregs into the trash canon his way to the table. Neil makes the pinched face that means he’s disapprovingof Andrew’s sugar intake. Or maybe his money wastage. Andrew slurps obnoxiouslyat his whipped cream until Neil sighs and looks away.Liam takes his coffee with milk, which makes him different from Neil, who takesit with nothing. Andrew keeps a running list of their similarities anddifferences, and gets a thrill of satisfaction every time he finds some new waythey diverge. He realizes it’s him trying to cope with the wholeness of a truthhe hadn’t known, that’s so close to his—that’s so close to Neil, and reflectiveof himself. Andrew can pick apart his own mechanisms now, break them down toengine grease, but that doesn’t mean he’s inclined to stop them. He shakes hishanging arm to feel the comforting weight of his knives. With a flick of hiswrist this problem could be resolved.

Except that it wouldn’t be, because the world is harsh and complicated. Andrew shovesNeil down into a chair instead—hates how Neil goes willingly—drops into theseat next to him and props his feet up on the metal table. His pile of whippedcream wobbles dangerously. Andrew licks up the dollop that fell onto his handand points at Liam across the table.“Talk.”“Bad cop and bad cop, is it?” Allison says, rolling her eyes. Andrew flips heroff. She knew when she invited him here that he wouldn’t be polite—he’s neverpolite—so he doesn’t bother telling her. Her own coffee (two pumps of caramel,non-fat milk, his brain supplies pointlessly) steams mightily before her. Fallis settling in. Andrew makes a mental note to get Neil a pair of gloves thenext time he’s in the vicinity of a department store. Neil’s hands were chappedto bleeding last winter.(It hadn’t been his business, then. It is now.)(God, he’s so annoying.)Andrew kicks the leg of Neil’s chair. Neil turns to him, squint-eyed in query.There’s a gutter-wet leaf on the table the same color as his eyelashes. Andrewslurps up more whipped cream and opens his mouth to show Neil the mess. Neil’snose wrinkles in disgust. His squint softens to fondness. Andrew looks at Liam instead.“I thought the point of this was to have no witnesses,” Liam says, speaking toAllison but staring at Andrew. His face is so like Neil’s, but not, even withoutthe scars; it’s like someone made Neil into a mask and put him on, and tried topass himself off as the real thing. Andrew wonders if that’s what Neil thinkswhen he looks at Aaron. Andrew kicks Neil’s chair again so he won’t keepwondering stupid, useless things. The metal clang sounds like the grate of hisheart. “Andrew’s not a witness,” Allison says. “He’s a lie detector.” You can tell when Neil is lying, she’dsaid to Andrew, so come along and tell mewhen Liam is. Andrew had neglected to point out all the times he’d failedto notice Neil’s lies, been blinded by his own desire for what Neil said to betrue, and told Allison she could go to hell and take Liam with her. Differences,differences everywhere, but never a drop to drink. Allison had said, Neil’s coming, and Andrew had followedher out the door.Neil has swayed towards Liam, heads bowed together, hair featheringover their foreheads in a repetition that never stops. It reflects back andback on itself, becoming the swoop of their nose, the hitching gesture of theirshoulder. Andrew wonders if they have any of the same scars. The Butcher hadseemed the sort to like that kind of symmetry.Fucker. Andrew shakes his arm again. Knives, check. “Well?” says Allison.“Give us a minute,” Neil says. Us, us,like being born together means anything. The blood of the covenant and the waterof the womb are both steeped in shit. Neil’s hand is in Liam’s hand, grippingtight against the table. Andrew hopes they cut off each other’s circulation. He finishes his whipped cream. The only thing left is the bitter citrus coffee.He flicks the side of the cup until it falls off the table, splattering acrossthe concrete patio. Allison tsks athim. Neil isn’t paying attention. Liam is a fuckhead.He’s mine, mine, mine, get off him. (I didn’t know you had a brother.)(I know. Andrew, I’m sorry.)(I don’t care.)“What do you want to know?” Liam asks finally, in that accent that cuts out allthe vowels. “I’m not giving you a whole…life story.” His hand slices throughthe air. It’s Neil’s gesture. Give itback. Mine, mine. Allison makes a noise of disgust. It’s either at Liam or thecoffee, which she’s just taken a sip of. “I don’t want that. What I want is youto tell the truth. And the truth I want is what the fuck you think you’re doinghere.”“Allison,” Neil chides, leaning even closer to his brother. Allison doesn’tlook guilty, but she does take another sip of her drink. Andrew clenches hishands into fists. He knows Neil sees. He didn’t try to hide it. “I’m here to reunite with my brother. Isn’t that enough?” Liam’s voice gains atinge of frustration, but it might be feigned. The best lies have some of thetruth. Neil makes a soothing noise and Andrew imagines slamming his fist into–No.Stop.Don’t hurt Neil don’t hurt himBreathe. There you are, Andrew. You’re back with me? I’m very proud of you.At some point Andrew has closed his eyes. He blinks them back open. Liam istalking. Neil is not. Andrew never thought he’d hate it so much, hearing Neilfinally shut up.“We thought it would be harder to find us if we separated,” Liam tells Allison.His hand is still clenched in Neil’s, the same shade of white-knuckled. “Wewere…almost right. Our father found one. I’m…” he tilts his head towards Neil,and Neil’s face goes tight-pain-sorrow-sympathy in the space of a moment.Andrew thinks it might be an apology, and the acceptance of it. Neil’s anidiot. Andrew would have made Liam beg. He still will, come to think of it.Allison makes a rude noise, like a fart mixed with a yappy dog. “So what’s withthe whole Tiny Tim act? You’re here. You saw Neil. Congratulations.” “Do you have siblings, Allison?”“No,” she says. Everyone at the table carefully doesn’t look at Andrew. (I heard a thing from Mom today, AJ, you know what it was?)Stop.Breathe.Knives.“Then I don’t expect you to understand.” Liam swallows. Neil does, too. Does heeven realize when he’s a mirror? “I need… he’s my twin. We can’t be taken away from each other again.”“And you need us to like you for that?”“Yes,” says Liam, and the frustrationthis time sounds real.  “Don’t yourealize how your team acts? You’re a closed group, and Neil’s inside. Being inthe same place isn’t the same as being together.”The worst part is, Andrew understands. His life has been defined by lines thatseem invisible unless you’re on the opposite side of them. Monsters and theupperclassmen. Foxes and the rest of the student body. Two-parent household and…none.Andrew needs to feel Neil’s skin under his own. The warmth of him. The weightof his reality. It is weakness, needing another. Andrew takes his feet downfrom the table, stomping them on the ground to cover his shuffle to press theside of his calf along Neil’s. Neil sucks in a breath and leaves his leg there.Always so eager for what Andrew gives him. Acting like it’s always Andrew giving,and never him taking away.Andrew needs more whipped cream. He also needs a drink.Allison says, “If you want us to let you in, you have to prove you’re one ofus.”“How?”“Not sure,” she says. Her coffee is almost gone. “That part’s not my problem.”“I’m supposed to figure it out myself?”Neil murmurs and squeezes Liam’s hand. Of course Neil will help him. Of courseNeil will get his happy little twin back and everything will be great for them.Andrew wants to curl his fingers in Neil’s collar and say, you need me, remember? But maybe that’s not the truth.Not anymore.

[sweetcircuits]

Chinmay Week Day 5: Mechanical

I actually didn’t write this specifically for today - I had it sitting in my wips document for longer than I’d like to admit (probably at least a year, yikes). I thought of it when I saw the prompt list and decided now was as good a time as ever to post it. It was originally a little longer but I edited it for clarity and stuff. 

*      *      *      *     *      *      *

Annie D. Roid

Chiro felt his vision tinge red. He suddenly knew how Sparx felt when Nova was the one in danger. “I’m going to ask nicely one more time. Let her go,” he growled, voice low and menacing. “She isn’t yours. She’s not a thing. She’s a person with people who care about her. Drop her, and get out of here.”

*      *      *      *      *      *      *

Jinmay was terrible with directions. Whenever her gps malfunctioned she always, always, always got lost. It figured that her gps malfunctioned within twenty minutes of their search of the unfamiliar city. Of course Otto could fix it in less than five minutes, but that didn’t help them now.

“Chiro?” Jinmay’s voice rattled out from Chiro’s comm.

“I copy. Jinmay, what’s the matter?” Chiro stopped short and landed on the nearest rooftop.

“My stupid map system broke again and I can’t see anybody’s locations. Where are you?”

Chiro groaned. This was the third time in two months. He wanted to just chalk it up to overuse, but it was just too inconvenient for it to keep breaking like this. When they got home, he was going to have to ask Otto to check Jinmay’s operating system and see if it was a bug in her programming.

“Chiro?”

“Ahh! Sorry!” Chiro searched around him for some landmark that would help her find him. “Fly as high above the rooftops as you can and look for a big glass building with a billboard on the side.”

There was a few moments of silence before she replied. “I see a glass building but no billboard?”

Chiro swooped around the sides of the building and confirmed that the billboard was only on one side of it. Whoops.

“Wait, I think I see something moving, flying, over there. Is that you?”

Chiro released a blast of Monkey Fu aura.

“It just turned green. That is you!”

Within moments she had tackled him from behind, grabbing him around the waist. He grabbed her and hugged her. “Okay, so I guess we’re gonna stick together from now on,” he chuckled.

This worked well for all of a half an hour until the trail they were following split into two. They looked at each other and their hands slowly slid apart.  They looked at the twin paths disappearing down identical streets.

“I guess we have to split up?” Jinmay said, more of a question than anything.

“Guess so,” Chiro replied unenthusiastically.

“I’ll follow this one,” Jinmay pointed to the left “and you follow that one,” she pointed to the right.

“What if you can’t find me?” Chiro mumbled, more to himself than to her, but she heard anyway.

“Um, if my path doesn’t lead to anything, I’ll follow it back to the ‘y’ right here, then I’ll follow your path to find you.”

“Okay.” He kissed her on the temple.

She broke apart from him, blushing, and ran down the street following her assigned trail. Chiro started down his own, searching carefully.

A few moments later, Jinmay’s voice rang from his comm again. “The trail stopped. The street keeps going but the trail’s ended. What do you think I should do?”

Chiro thought for a moment. “Does it go up like a ladder or a window or anything? Or up onto the roof?”

“I don’t see anything, even with my best ultraviolet vision.”

“Hmm. Well, go down to the end of the street and if you still don’t see anything, turn right around and go back the way you came and find me, okay? Do you want me to backtrack and meet you in the middle?”

“That’ll just waste time. We’ve gotta hurry and find the Chronometer.”

Chiro sighed and pressed his back to the alley wall. He pulled his comm off of his shirt and stared at it, as if by force of will alone he could keep her safe. “Please be careful,” he begged.

“Don’t worry. I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay. Chiro out.”

He stuck the comm back to his top button and turned down the alley again, looking for any clues, anything at all. Minutes and minutes passed and he wondered if he was even in the correct place. Gibson’s instructions had been surprisingly non-specific.

A scream rang out in the alley and Chiro jumped, the hair all over his body standing on end. It took him a moment to realize that it was coming from his comm.

He ripped it from his shirt and yelled into it. “Jinmay! Jinmay, do you read? Jinmay!”

“Chiro! I can’t…!”

Then there was a burst of static and for a long moment he couldn’t hear anything. This was followed by a loud buzz and an unfamiliar voice.

“Yo, grease, an android!”

“A pretty damn sexy one too. She’s gonna be worth a lotta money.”

“Hey!” Jinmay’s voice shouted.

“Ey, Annie, where’s your bolt?”

“My what?”

“Yer bolt, yer… eh, yer restrainin’ bolt. Ah, maybe you ain’t got one. That’s okay. It don’t matter. We were gonna take you anyway.”

“You can’t do that and my name’s not Annie!”

“Sure it is. Yer an anne-droid, ain’t ya?”

There were whoops and howls.

“When Chiro gets here, he’s gonna rip you guys apart!”

Damn right he is, Chiro thought, already dashing back down the alley the way he had come.

“Who’s Chiro? Is he your owner? Your master?”

More howling laughter.

“No! Hey! Stop it!”

“Careful, babe. Those nets are woven titanibur. Short-circuits all the weapons. Don’t wanna scratch the merchandise.”

“Get close to me again and I’ll claw your face off myself!”

That’s my girl.

“Grease, I don’t like this Annie’s mouth!”

“Lance her then. Only one dose though. Gotta keep her sorta coherent. Better yet, start pulling out wires and try to turn her off. That’ll keep her quiet.”

Chiro had his comm out, trying to follow the pink dot that indicated Jinmay’s position. How was she so far away?

There was another loud buzz and a screech and more static, which was followed by a piercing scream that rent him to his core. His heart thudded painfully in his chest.

“What’s this thing?”

“…no… not…”

Jinmay’s voice was the last thing he heard before the comm went silent and her pink dot disappeared. “No, no, no!”

It took nearly fifteen minutes and three panicked calls to the rest of the Monkey Team for them to triangulate her position. But they succeeded. Thank goodness for the Super Robot’s advanced radar systems.

Chiro peeked around the corner and saw Jinmay—thank gods—but she was curled up in a ball on the ground and that didn’t mean anything good. What was more, she was surrounded by a group of thugs, maybe seven or eight of them. Many of them had weapons, mostly knives. Chiro chewed on his bottom lip. He was pretty durable against blunt injuries—he’d been hurled against walls and fallen from not insignificant heights and not come out terribly worse for wear. But there was probably no way the Power Primate could protect him from a knife stuck between his ribs.

He did want to go back to Shugazoom sometime this week.

And preferably take Jinmay back with him.

He rolled his options over in his head. He could run in there and maybe knock a couple of them out before they could injure him. He could Monkey Fu them from here but then they could just run away. If he pulled out his Inner Primate aura they’d definitely turn tail and run and he was trying to avoid that. Maybe… maybe he could start with his lowest powered ability. Something he’d learned in tactics with Antauri was that he could always start small and escalate from there, but if he started with the big guns, there was not much going back from that. He took a deep breath and released his Hyper Form transformation, turning back into normal jacket and jeans.

Chiro turned the corner and dashed toward the end of the alley. He was stopped short by a thug and the knife that was pointed at his chest. “Jinmay!”

She was bound in a net of a brown rope-looking material. Titanibur, they’d called it. Her eyes were wide and filled with pixels instead of iris and sclera. She looked as terrified as one who probably wasn’t fully conscious could possibly be.

“Untie her! Let her go! She’s mine!” Chiro yelled.

“We found this little android in the gutter, and ya know what they say, finders is keepers here,” one of the thugs drawled.

“She’s not just an android,” Chiro said. “She’s my teammate, my friend… my… my girlfriend. She doesn’t belong to you. Give her to me.”

“Chiiiii…rrooo…Chiiii…ro…” Jinmay articulated unsteadily.

Chiro tried to run at her but was stopped again by the switchblade that was aimed at him. “If you touch her, if you break her, if you hurt her, I will turn you inside out so fast you won’t know which way you’re going!” He didn’t know where the words had come from; yelling at them probably wasn’t a great idea. But there was Jinmay, lying on the ground, probably broken somehow, and his blood ran hot and cold and hot.

“Touch and break her, huh? Guess you don’t want us to do that because you want to do it yourself, huh, kid?”

Anger and embarrassment pricked at his cheeks. He was seventeen. He could handle a couple of jerks making rude assumptions about him. He clenched his fists. The thug with the switchblade looked at him uneasily.

“You look like a clean-cut, respectable typ’a kid. Never woulda pegged you as a robot-fucker. Ha!”

“Chi…ro… Chi…ro… so…rry… got… lost… Chiro… got… lost…” Jinmay’s voice wavered out once more.

“Kid, she’s tellin’ you to get lost, so get out of here! Yain’t welcome here!” One of the thugs jabbed her in the side with a prong of metal. Electricity laced through her and she fell silent.

Chiro felt his vision tinge red. He suddenly knew how Sparx felt when Nova was the one in danger. “I’m going to ask nicely one more time. Let her go,” he growled, voice low and menacing. “She isn’t yours. She’s not a thing. She’s a person with people who care about her. Drop her, and get out of here.”

The biggest thug laughed. “Oh, look, this kid thinks he can boss me around in my own end of town! Forget it! And I think you’re the one who needs to get out of here. No telling what can befall a hapless child in these dangerous streets.” Two other thugs advanced on him, one with a laser pistol and a second one with a knife.

All right. Negotiating hadn’t worked. Time to pull out the party tricks.

“You may think that this is an ordinary street in an ordinary town, and that I am an ordinary person. And you’d be wrong.”

Starting with the soles of his feet and moving up, he worked his Hyper Form transformation. But instead of using light, as he always had, he used fire. The Power Primate often manifested itself as a flame, and as such, it was only an illusion. But the looks on the faces of the thugs as he slowly lit himself on fire was a treat he’d savor for a long time to come.

“This is an ordinary street in an ordinary town, but I am not an ordinary person.”

As the fire came to his face, he made his eyes to glow green as he filled himself with the power of the Power Primate. “My name is Chiro. I am the Chosen One. I brought balance to the universe. I defeated one of the greatest evils the universe has ever known at the age of fifteen. I control energy and lightning.” He summoned a Chiro-spear-o that was as tall as he was. It waved and sparked in his grasp. “Let her go… and maybe I won’t fry you until your skeletons are crispy and golden.”

That was good enough for all of the thugs. They dropped their weapons and Jinmay and promptly got the hell out of there.

Chiro dismissed the lightning bolt and changed back to his normal clothes and snorted. He kicked the knives out of the way distractedly as he made his way over to Jinmay. Then he picked one up and cut the knot holding the net closed. With his heart in his throat he noticed that one of the panels in her neck had been pried open and there were loose wires. Those creeps—!

Jinmay didn’t move until he’d untangled her from the net and put his hands gently on her shoulders to help her sit up. When she felt his warm hands on her cool skin, she blinked. The pixels in her eyes wavered. “Siro.”

“I’m here, Jinmay. It’s me, Chiro.”

“Siro.”

Chiro ignored the fact that she was getting his name wrong and attributed it to the fact that her system had suffered severe shock. “You were really brave, Jinmay. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. When your comm broke, I couldn’t locate you and I panicked but Sparx was able to find you and I’m glad I got here before anything really bad happened.”

He helped her to her feet and she wobbled a little. “Come on, Jinmay, let’s go. We need to get you fixed up.”

He looked around the alley and realized that one of the shock-lances was still lying on the concrete. He picked it up, clicked it off, and shoved it into his inside jacket pocket. Maybe Gibson could reverse-engineer how to fix Jinmay if he had one of the weapons they’d used on her.

His rocket pack was in the garbage can at the end of the alley where he’d left it, thank goodness. He put it on his back and clicked the buckle over his chest. The pack fired up and he zipped up almost to the rooftop when he realized that she wasn’t following him. “Jinmay?”

She tilted her head at him and tried to walk toward him but her foot dragged and she almost fell. She got up and stepped on the side of her foot, tripping again. Chiro raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter?”

She didn’t look up toward his voice, didn’t get up again, only blinked once very, very slowly. Chiro wasn’t even sure if she’d heard him. “You know what, if you can’t fly, I’m just gonna carry you.” He scooped her up princess-style and activated his rocket pack again, setting off back toward the Super Robot. She tucked her head against his chest and was quiet. He thanked any and all gods, spirits, lucky stars, and benevolent cosmic beings.

“Chiro to Hyperforce. Chiro to Hyperforce.”

“Reading you loud and clear, kid.”

“I’m on my way back with Jinmay. She’s malfunctioning and acting weird and she’s gonna need some repairs.”

“’Kay. I’ll get Otto. Are you okay, kid?”

“Tired. More relieved than anything. I feel bad though, I got distracted by Jinmay getting lost and I wasn’t very much help finding the Chronometer artifact.”

“Don’t worry about that, Nova found it.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, while Gibson and I were trying to track down Jinmay, she called us saying that she found it. Antauri’s meditating over it right now.”

“Phew. Good. Oh, I see the Robot. Hang on, I’ll be right in. Chiro out.”

Chiro flew into the chest hatch and landed in the main room. Sparx and Nova met them. “Chiro, I’m glad you’re back,” the yellow Monkey said, relief etched plainly on her face.

“Glad to be back.” He shifted Jinmay’s weight in his arms. “Hopefully Antauri can figure out the date with the Chronometer.”

“If he can’t we’ll figure something else out,” Nova said. “Come on, Otto and Gibson are waiting.”

Chiro laid Jinmay down on the examination table and Gibson plugged the back of her head, her chest, and her thigh into the main computer. “These readings are so strange,” the blue Monkey said. “It’ll take me a minute to pinpoint what exactly needs repairing.”

Otto moved Jinmay’s arm so that her hand rested on her stomach and took a look at her neck as Gibson tapped on the computer’s keyboard. A yellow lightning bolt icon flashed on the screen. He tsk’ed and turned back toward the robot girl. “Otto, don’t touch her wiring—”

“Ow!” The green Monkey shook his hand and stuck out his tongue.  

“—yet.”

“She’s live,” Otto complained as he wiggled his fingers gingerly. “Did she get infused with electricity or somethin’?”

“Oh yeah.” Chiro took the lance out of his jacket pocket and placed it down on the other table. “This thing. Those creeps who were gonna kidnap her, they had a bunch of these and they stuck her with them. I think they called it ‘lancing.’ I think it overloaded her system and maybe that’s why she’s acting weird?”

Gibson turned a bit pale. “How many times did they lance her?”

“Two times that I know of. Maybe more. I lost contact with her for maybe fifteen minutes before I found her.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I really hope she’s going to be okay.”

“Oh, dear.” Gibson shook his head. “No wonder she’s unconscious. Well, in any case, I cannot fully connect her with Diagnostics until the excess electricity is drained out. We don’t want the current to feed back into the computer as that would cause a significant amount of damage.”

Chiro sat down on the other table, a sick feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach. She was damaged because she’d gotten lost without him, because he was in too much of a hurry to stick with her, because her map system was broken…

“Otto, is there any chance you can check her system and fix her maps and gps? Permanently? I don’t want this to happen to her again.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Chiro,” Otto said, smiling at the boy. “Don’t worry about it, it’ll be okay.”

“Well, it’s easy enough to drain the excess electricity,” Gibson said. “Sparx! Sparx, get in here!” he yelled out the sick bay door. “I could use your help.”

Sparx stuck his head around the edge of the door. “You need my help?”

Gibson waved his hand. “I just need your magnets.”

“Oh, just my magnets.”

Gibson looked over his shoulder at the red Monkey. “Jinmay received a severe electric shock and her body is live with electricity. I need you to drain as much of it as you can in order for us to be able to commence the rest of the repairs.”

“Got it.” Sparx pulled out his magnets, aimed them at Jinmay, and concentrated. A slight hnnnnnn arose in the room as Sparx drained crests and crests of electricity from Jinmay’s still form. After a few moments he stopped and Otto touched Jinmay’s wiring again, this time without damage.

“Chiro!”

Chiro snapped his attention back over to the red Monkey. “What?”

Sparx’s magnets had taken all Jinmay’s excess electricity and had formed it into a rolling red ball of electricity. “I can’t just dissipate the energy. Give me something, anything, something small, doesn’t matter, I just need to… to…”

Chiro’s fingers closed around something narrow and threw it in Sparx’s direction. Sparx’s Magno-Ball hit it in midair and there was a resounding szash. Particles rained down on everyone in the room and Chiro covered his face. Gibson and Otto leaned over Jinmay, covering her.

“Aw, that was my favorite wrench,” Otto said mournfully.

  Gibson blinked. “Use a bit more care next time, Sparx. I don’t need you to set off the Robot’s alarm systems.”

  Sparx turned his magnets back into his hands and glared in the blue Monkey’s direction.

Gibson’s expression softened. “But thank you.”

Sparx crossed his arms. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Otto looked over at Chiro. “Chiro, you don’t have to sit here and watch us. You can go check on Antauri and we’ll tell you when we’re almost done, okay?”

“You sure?”

“Yes, please, go,” Gibson said, pulling down his zoom goggles. “This could take a bit of time.”

An hour or so later, Chiro entered sick bay again, the door hissing closed behind him. “How is she?”

Otto had his zoom goggles on and was tinkering with something tiny in the side of Jinmay’s neck. He looked over at Chiro. “She’s much better now. Those guys really messed her up.”

Chiro’s adrenaline rose and his hands clenched at his sides. “I’m gonna go back and snap their necks,” he grumbled to himself. I let them off way too easy by just scaring them off. I should have beat them up when I had the chance. How dare they hurt her!

When Mandarin had gotten a hold of her, he’d ripped her head and body apart and had searched through her memories, looking for something. He still remembered the way Mandarin had chortled about it afterwards. …oh, how I enjoyed examining the sweet circuits in her head, and THAT had pissed him off like nothing ever had before. She’d been reprogrammed by one of the Five and the biker guy was lucky that he hadn’t been there when he’d done it or he would have broken every bone in his body three times over. Jinmay screaming as her programs were overwritten and her circuitry was rearranged and her systems ran out of her control was his ever-present nightmare. No one, NO ONE was allowed to touch his girl’s circuits without her permission.

“Gracious, Chiro, you’ll do no such thing,” Gibson said. “She’s all right. We were able to mitigate the damage and repair her accordingly.”

Chiro knelt to the floor with a thmp and took Jinmay’s hand. Her eyes were closed now, and if the wires in the side of her neck weren’t still exposed, he would have sworn she was only sleeping. “What did they do to her?” he asked quietly.

“There were a number of things,” Gibson said. “You must have noticed that some of the wiring in her neck and shoulders was exposed when you brought her in.”

“Yeah.”

“A number of wires were pulled loose and one of her circuits was removed in order to make her more docile. Luckily Otto was able to replicate the missing piece.” Gibson turned to the other table. “That tool, the lance. Those are actually illegal on twenty-seven worlds because of the damage they can do to sensitive machinery. What they do is to emit a low frequency alongside a certain voltage of electricity. It is supposed to shock the robotic system and shut it down, not unlike a taser, but it also short-circuits certain centers in an inorganic brain.”

“That’s why she couldn’t say my name right,” Chiro replied, putting his chin on the table.

Otto pressed her neck panel shut with a tiny click. “I’m done. Just gotta reboot her and she’ll wake up fine.”

Chiro gripped her hand tighter as Gibson went on. “It’s not the worst damage we’ve had to repair,” the blue Monkey sighed. “It was easy enough.” He turned back to the boy. “But Chiro, I don’t want you to go out and cause trouble. Everything worked out accordingly, we found the Chronometer and Jinmay is all right.”

“I’m just really worried about her,” Chiro mumbled. “I hate when these things happen to her. This is like the third time. I hate when people think they can just dig around in her head whenever the heck they feel like it.”

“It’s an occupational hazard of being inorganic,” Gibson said, laying a hand on Chiro’s shoulder. “She is a little more vulnerable because of it, and we all need to be more careful because of it, but she’s all right now and that is truly all that matters.”

Sparx wandered back into the room. “How’s Jinmay?”

“Almost there,” Otto said, unplugging her from the computer.

“She needs a few moments for a system reboot, and she will be in perfect health,” Gibson said.

Sparx walked up to Chiro and put his elbow on his shoulder as they both waited for Jinmay to awaken. There was a low pnnnnn and then a louder ping and Jinmay’s eyes opened. They glowed red for a moment before settling back on mint-green irises. Chiro was so relieved he wanted to cry.

“Chiro?” she grunted. She swallowed and tried again. “Chiro?”

Chiro slid her fingers between his and squeezed tightly. “I’m here, Jinmay. You’re okay. You’re back in the Robot.”

Jinmay sat up very slowly. “Easy, Jinmay,” Otto said, helping her up gently with a hand between her shoulder blades.

She looked at the green and blue Monkeys. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry for causing so much trouble…” She looked down at her lap dejectedly.

Chiro leaned over her lap. “You’re okay, and I’m really, really glad for that.” He took her cheek in his hand. She leaned into it and smiled, and her smile was like soothing ointment for his aching heart.

“All your systems seem to be operating at full capacity,” Gibson said from the computer. “You’re good as new, Jinmay.”

“What happened?” Jinmay asked, rubbing her head. “I remember those thugs, I remember yelling at them, and then they shocked me the first time. Then everything is fuzzy, I remember being dragged along the ground. Then I saw you, and I tried to call out to you, and then they shocked me again… and I don’t remember anything after that until Otto rebooted me just now.”

“Well, I scared those creeps off, then I picked you up and took you back to the Robot so you could get fixed up. It wasn’t much.”

Jinmay nodded. “I’m okay now, Otto?”

“Yeah, you’re good to go, Jinmay. I think I fixed your positioning systems for good this time, it shouldn’t break anymore,” the green Monkey explained. “There was just one error that was messing it all up but I cleared it so you’re fine now.”

“Thanks, Otto. You don’t know how much I appreciate that.”

Otto beamed like sunshine.

She turned toward the blue Monkey. “Thank you, too, Gibson.”

“Of course, Jinmay. It wasn’t a problem at all.” Gibson crossed his arms and smiled.

He turned back to the computer and Jinmay hopped off the table. Together with Chiro, she waked out the door and out into the main room. Sparx had already wandered off somewhere. Chiro pointed upwards and Jinmay nodded. They took the tube upstairs to the top of the Robot’s head and sat down next to the antenna.

Jinmay leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Chiro.”

He laced his fingers between hers. “You apologized already, and you didn’t even need to apologize the first time. It’s okay. I’m here. We’re all here for you.”

“I feel like I’m always the one that’s getting kidnapped.”

“That’s not true, remember that one time it was Sparx? And that one time it was Otto? And you and Nova did get kidnapped together that one time so it wasn’t only you.”

“Yeah, okay. But it would still be nice if I had to be the one to rescue you, instead of the other way around.”

“Don’t say it. Now it’s gonna happen, and it’s gonna be your fault.”

She laughed, which made him laugh, and then they were just rolling in hysterics for a good few minutes. It felt so nice to laugh. They didn’t get to do it nearly enough.

After the laughter tapered off, they just sat together for a few minutes. Jinmay snuggled up to Chiro’s side and sighed. He was so warm. Warm and soft and safe.

Chiro exhaled as Jinmay slid her head under his chin. She was cool and solid and grounding. His heart beat a bit faster as she entwined her fingers with his. The sun began to set across the skyline, bathing them in its last golden rays. The Power Primate hummed contentedly in his chest and he smiled. And without even looking down at her face, he knew Jinmay was just as happy as he was.

[goffilolo]

Revival of Midoriya Izuku Part 1

Alright you fuckin gremlins yall have been waiting months for this and so was I, so without further ado, heres new isntallment of demise!au fic

NOTE: THIS FIC TAKES PLACE ABOUT 9 MONTHS AFTER THE EVENTS OF ORIGINAL DEMISE FIC

you can also find it on ao3 under the same title

The interrogation room at Musutafu’s police station has long become a familiar sight for Izuku. Whether or not it was a good thing was a completely different issue. Let’s just say that the past 9 months of Izuku’s hospital free life were just an extended shitshow of t-posing at the legal system.

And in the middle of it all sat the boy himself, handcuffed to the table for probably a 100th time (‘kinky’ he said to the officer who cuffed him, and the man fled the room looking more uncomfortable than Kacchan during the ‘Bakugou shitshow’). With his mom sitting on a chair next to him, looking far too bored for a woman whose son gets arrested on a weekly basis and Trash Bandit occupying the rest of the table Izuku looks to his left, eyes meeting his own reflection in the two way mirror.

He might be handcuffed, but that’s not going to stop him from flipping off whichever officer was currently standing behind that mirror. And if he happened to be checking himself out while at it then, well it’s not really anybody’s business. Izuku’s green hair has grown out quite a lot over the past months, now reaching his shoulders and being even more unkept than usual. The brown coat from the hospital’s lost-and-found box became his second skin, and definitely needed a wash. All in all the boy would describe his look as ‘straight-outta-trash’, which also happens to be the only type of straight he is.

Izuku’s musings got interrupted as the door to the interrogation room slammed open, the sound being followed by what can only be described as a middle aged sigh of resignation and disappointment.

“Well fuck me if it isn’t my favourite detective! What’s up Tsukauchi, did you miss me?” asked Izuku with a shit eating grin.

“Didn’t have the time to, since I literally saw you yesterday. Would it kill you to stay at home and not get yourself in trouble?” asked the detective in the same exasperated tone Izuku often hears Shin use on him. Huh, they would get along.

“Honestly detective, you and your unrealistic expectations. No wonder you’re still single” replied Izuku in only a half-joking manner.

Tsukauchi opened his mouth as if to retaliate, then looked down at the sheep standing on the table and back at Izuku. He closed his mouth promptly, his face morphing into a very accurate expression of ‘I don’t get paid enough for this’.

‘They would really get along’ thought Izuku.

The detective sat down on the chair on the opposite side of the table. He took out the evidence file and laid it down on the table, which wasn’t his smartest move given the sheep that occupied most of the surface. Izuku scoffed at the offending file. Upon noticing his owner’s reaction, Trash Bandit started to chew on the papers while looking Tsukauchi dead in the eye as the man tried to pry the evidence from the sheep’s mouth.

“Do we really have to go through this every single time?” asked Izuku, motioning to his handcuffs to make a point “It’s always the same old drill, I go and do my shit, you guys arrest me, the law doesn’t account for me being quirkless, you let me go. Honestly why do you even bother at this point?”

“Because-” stated Tsukauchi as he waved around a half eaten photograph from the evidence folder “-you really outdone yourself this time!”

“I did the right thing and YOU KNOW IT!” shouted Izuku as he stood up from his seat, the handcuffs being the only thing holding him back.

“Izuku that’s not up to you to decide-”

“Don’t! I get that you work in law enforcement, but if your sense of right and wrong is dictated by the legal system then you have a moral spine of a chocolate eclair!”

“Says the troublemaker who plays a hero-wannabe in his spare time” replied Tsukauchi.

Izuku scoffed at the man and sat down once again. He turned towards his mother who rather predictably had a worried look on her face at the mention of ‘heroes’. It was still a bit of a sore topic for Izuku, even after all these months and she knew it better than anyone else. The fact that it was Tsukauchi who rubbed at the wound only made it worse.

“A hero?! If you were any good of a detective you’d know that this statement couldn’t be further from the truth” sneered Izuku.

“Then HELP me get the truth. All I know is what they showed in the news and we both know that it’s not worth much, so why don’t you tell me what actually happened?”

Well, Izuku doesn’t really have much of a choice in that matter since this IS an interrogation and all of you noisy fuckers reading this are probably wondering how he got here in the first place.

The day started out rather peacefully. Now that Izuku was homeschooled he had a lot of free time, which was definitely not a good thing and led to a boredom driven shenanigans, but more on that later. Now all the teenager wanted was to get something to eat. Preferably at a place that won’t kick him out for going in with a sheep, but well, you can’t have everything.

Izuku was currently walking through the town centre with Shin, the doctor moving almost like a zombie after his night shift at the hospital. They agreed to meet up in the morning and have a breakfast together before the morning rush began. The two were heading to a cat cafe ‘ Nyanny ’, one of the very few establishments in the city that he’s yet to be kicked out of, mainly because the cats there got really attached to Trash Bandit. Afterwards Izuku plans on hanging around UA since a friend of his will be taking the entrance exam and Izuku, being a semi-decent friend that he was, wanted to be there for emotional support.

“Can you not?” asked Shin as he pulled a cigarette out of Izuku’s mouth, who in turn looked over dramatically “Don’t look at me like this! As your doctor I can’t let you ruin your health like this in my presence!”

“You’re my psychiatrist, you’re supposed to be fixing my mental problems, leave my physical problems out of this.”

“A single cigarette can take away a day off your life, is this what you want?”

The teenager looks at the doctor with a face expression that can only be described as ‘fuck yeah’ as he opens up his backpack, retreats a pack of cigarettes, takes all of them out of the box, puts them in his mouth and lights all of them while looking Shin dead in the eye to establish dominance.

The doctor sighed in resignation “I expected nothing and was still let down” he said.

“To be fair letting people down is like my main skill” is what Izuku would’ve said if it wasn’t for the 20 cigarettes in his mouth, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

The doctor eventually gave up on lecturing the teen and the two continued their walk. As they neared the intersection leading up to the train station the streets got much more crowded, although that is to be expected. What was unexpected however was the commotion that seemed to be taking place there. With the amount of people gathered at the street you’d think Beyonce is in town and she challenged All Might to a rap battle, and Izuku would pay good money to see that shit.

Unfortunately there was no Beyonce in sight, only a fuck ton of people blocking Izuku’s way and half a dozen of police cars.

“Hey Shin, wanna check it out?”

“I’m literally on a brink of exhaustion, but sure, why not”

As the two - or three if you count Trash Bandit - made their way through the crowd, Izuku realized that whatever was happening was far more serious than he originally thought. Heroes and police alike were scattered across the whole area, civilians were screaming and something was definitely on fire. He also noticed a camera crew trying to get good scope of the whole action. All in all it was Izuku’s dreams come true.

“I’m betting you all my money that it’s another villain attack”

“First of all, you have no money. Second of all, please don’t do anything rash” begs Shin.

“I would never” says Izuku as he pulls out an axe out of his backpack.

Events like these aren’t uncommon, Izuku has seen plenty of public hero displays as they detained villains on the streets and obnoxiously gained the favour of the public eye. He’d know, he used to be one of the morons staring at them in amazement. What was unusual however was that none of the heroes were closing in on the source of this whole chaos. From where he was standing the boy couldn’t even see the villain in question, but just form people’s reactions he could tell the damage was bad. The fire prevented most of them from getting close and Death Arms was trying to keep civilians away from the area. Mt. Lady couldn’t enter the area and she got stuck the narrow road due to her size and the rest of the heroes didn’t even attempt to get closer. Cowards, was what they were, running around like a bunch of mindless lemmings.

As Izuku pushed past the crowd, dragging his doctor along he finally saw what, or rather who was causing all the havoc.

It was a person captured by what Izuku thinks is a sludge villain. Boy does that give him some late night ideas-

“Get your mind out of the gutter, you weirdo!” exclaimed Shin.

- oh, he said it out loud, haven’t he?

“Kinda hard to do when this thing looks like it crawled straight out of the gutter itself” retorted Izuku.

He then separated from Shin to try and find a police officer and get a better idea of the whole situation. Although his relationship with the cops wa far from great, they were far too busy trying to contain the situation to argue with Izuku and so he managed to find out that the villain was originally captured by All Might last year and he escaped from jail seeking chaos and revenge. The entire situation was just as cliché as it sounded.

He went back to find Shin who was currently sheep sitting for him in this entire madness and using his height to get a better look than him “I know I haven’t been up to date with all the hero stuff, but I think even I would’ve heard of this sludge” he said to the doctor.

“I remember when they were reporting it on the news” he replied “It was the day you were admitted to the ward.”

“Oh”

“Izuku”

“What?”

“I think the sludge has Bakugou”

“WHAT?”

The bespectacled man pointed towards the sludge and as Izuku looked closer, sure enough, it was definitely Bakugou thrashing around and using his quirk to try and blow himself away from the villain with little success so far.

“Huh, so that’s where all the fire came from” mused Shin.

Izuku looked down at his axe and back up at Bakugou, whose eyes were screaming for help. He had a choice to make.

“Well this has just gotten personal” states Izuku.

As he moved forward through the remainder of the crowd, he realised once again that the choice has made itself without his brain’s input, but what else is new. His mind was blank as he ran past the police tape, evaded Death Arms and went straight into the fire.

He realised how ridiculous the situation was. Here he was; a quirkless loser running head first towards the danger with nothing but an axe like an IDIOT, because a bunch of pro heroes won’t do their fuckin job. This is absurd!

Keep running!

There’s so many people around who are much more qualified to save Bakugou-

Keep running!

And they’re doing NOTHING!-

KEEP RUNNING!

“KACCHAN!”

“DEKU, what the fuck are you doing? GET AWAY!”

“FUCK THAT!” screamed Izuku as he threw his backpack at the sludge, temporarily distracting the villain “Today’s the entrance exam! I’m getting your ass out of this, whether you like it or not!”

Bakugou fought against the sludge trying to suffocate him as he took shallow breaths in between his pleas for Izuku to get away. Izuku tried clawing at the sludge without much success and the villain laughed at his incompetence.

“Silly boy~ Your efforts are useless, you might as well say goodbye to your friend now!” sneered the sludge “Look around you, all these heroes at the scene and none of them willing to get close enough to save you. Face it boy-”

Oh, shut the fuck up!

“-you’re going to die soon”

Suddenly, Izuku stopped fighting altogether. The screams of the crowd, the fire, the heroes and the cops surrounding him; they became nothing but a background noise. He stood eerily still and for a second, both the villain and Bakugou thought that he sobered up and decided that the fight wasn’t worth it, until they saw his hand; the one holding the axe shaking uncontrollably.

“You think you’re the one who gets to kill me?” asked Izuku, in a strangely calm voice laced with a drop of sarcasm.

Without any warning the boy held his axe high in the air, ready to strike. Although he looked like an embodiment of madness, his mind couldn’t have been clearer. He knew that he couldn’t inflict any damage to the sludge itself, but everyone had a weakness and Izuku was staring it right in the eye.

“You think YOU are strong enough to kill ME? Don’t kid yourself you slimefucker!!!” screamed Izuku as he swung his axe down right into the villain’s eye. The villain let out an ear-splitting screech and completely let go of Bakugou, who fell to the ground like a ragdoll trying to catch his breath. The heroes were speechless and the police was already calling for an ambulance, while the civilians screamed in surprise. Amongst the crowd stood a tall figure, who has seen more than enough and decided to step in.

As Izuku pulled his weapon out, his movements were followed by a sickening sound of wet flesh, blending in with the noises made by the movement of the sludge. He took another swing at the villain.

“Listen up you you gooey pile of shit!-”

STAB

“-If a fall from a four story building couldn’t kill me-”

STAB

“-NOTHING WILL!”

Before Izuku could take another swing he was stopped by a gust of wind so strong that the villain went flying into the sky. Izuku lost his balance and promptly fell on his ass next to Bakugou. The attack was so powerful that the sludge started to fall down like rain, putting out any remaining fire in the area. It seemed like the whole atmosphere cooled down in an instant. Both teenagers were shocked beyond belief to say the least as they looked up to see the source of the powerful blast.

Lo and fuckin behold, it was All Might himself and the whole crowd clapped. Izuku was brought out of his shocked state as the Number 1 Hero leaned down and picked the boys up as if they weighted no more than a couple of grapes.

“My boy, what you did was certainly brave, but ought to be more careful in the-”

“Zip it He Man, I don’t have time for lectures” spat Izuku, with far more venom than he anticipated. Meeting a man who used to be his idol and a symbol of his long dead dreams was not as easy as Izuku would’ve thought. It’s been months since the hospital days, but it looks like time does not heal all the wounds, at least not the emotional ones.

As Izuku became fully aware of his surroundings he realised that how much of an uproar his arrival at the scene has caused. While most of the civilians were too busy admiring All Might, the police looked like they wanted nothing more than arrest him at the spot like usual. Bakugou was strangely quiet, though Izuku brushed it off as still being in the “I almost died” shock. Izuku knew something about that.

Since the fire was put out people could move more freely and soon enough Izuku was cornered by a reporter and her camera crew. As much as he hated being put on the spot like this and he was a bit short on time, Izuku couldn't help but think bitterly about how this whole situation wasn’t HIS fault at all. He wouldn’t have to intervene if these so called pros actually did their jobs. The fact that he couldn’t see Shin anywhere in the crowd only added to his irritation. In the corner of his eye he could see the police approaching, he needed to move fast. Although looking at the reporter, Izuku thinks he might have a little fun before their race to the UA began.

He grabbed the reporter’s microphone and faced the cameras, putting on his best shit eating grin.

“You people want some news? Well here it is! You see these fuckers over there?” he asks while waving his axe in the direction of the pro heroes “They’re full of shit. They call themselves heroes, yet they stood and did nothing when my friend needed to be saved. Is this what it means to be a hero? To stand around fighting small fries, but the moment something serious happens, unwilling to step in and help those who need it? Wake up people, because this is what your tax money pays for!”

Te reporter tried to pry the microphone from Izuku’s hands and the police was coming closer, he had to hurry it up.

“I’m Midoriya Izuku, a quirkless nobody and you are watching the NHK News!” he finished off before handing the microphone back to the distressed reporter.

He grabbed Bakugou’s hand, looking around in panic for any way to leave the area quickly enough. The villain attack was close to the train station, so he wouldn’t be surprised if the trains were temporarily down. There were people everywhere and the police officers looked like they were itching to arrest him. They were running out of time, he had to get Bakugou to the exam on time. Think, a way out. Quick, no time. No path, no way-

Suddenly, the crowd parted like the red fuckin sea itself, except instead of Moses a car drove through like it was speeding to get to the mall on a Black Friday. It made a sudden turn and stopped with a loud screech right in front of Izuku and Bakugou. Izuku should probably be surprised at this point, he really should, but life was already so goddamn weird, it might as well happen. The car’s windows rolled down and Bandit’s head poked out of the vehicle.

“Baaaa”

“Holy shit, Bandit did you steal a car?”

“Don’t be ridiculous” shouted Shin, who as Izuku just noticed sat in the driver’s seat “Hurry up and get in, you two caused quite a scene!”

Izuku and Bakugou looked at each other, then back at the car. Well, they literally had nothing to lose…

“Except our dignity” said Bakugou, because Izuku still hasn’t managed to get his shit together and fix his muttering problem.

“Bold of you to assume I have dignity” he answered instead.

The two teenagers entered the back of the car as quickly as possible, with Shin flooring the gas pedal before they even managed to get the door closed.

The car made a sharp turn as they drove away from the scene like a bunch of criminals on the run.

“I’m gonna be honest with you boys, I‘m not quite sure what just happened” exclaimed Shin as he drove past a red light like it was his second nature, although it was more likely due to his sleep deprivation.

“We’re in deep shit, that’s what happened” said Bakugou.

“What else is new?” said Izuku, before turning back to Shin “Anyway, less thinking, more driving, we have to be at UA in like 10 minutes if we want Kacchan to still have a chance at the entrance exam!”

“Deku are you crazy?!” shouted Bakugou “There’s no way we can get to UA on time! We barely escaped a villain attack just now, which by the way you should’ve stayed out of-”

“IF I STAYED OUT OF THIS YOU WOULD BE DEAD!” screamed Izuku.

“WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE?!”

“BECAUSE YOU MADE A FUCKIN PROMISE!!!”

The car fell silent as Shin tried to focus on not falling asleep behind the wheel, completely blocking out the teenage drama in the backseat. Bandit was having a time of their life sticking the head out of through the window, feeling the wind in the wool, completely oblivious to the tension. The two teenagers meanwhile were busy having a stare down.

“For fucks sake Deku, is this what it’s all about? Some fuckin promise I had my arm twisted into making because you dragged my ass in front of my parents?”

“The Kacchan I know is a rude, overambitious, self-centered bastard-”

“Are you looking for a fight!-”

“-a bastard that never breaks a promise!” exclaimed Izuku “That day at the hospital...you said you would get into UA and become ‘Number 1 Hero’ regardless of what I said.”

“And you said that I’m not a hero material...” pointed Bakugou “...but those heroes at the scene were pretty useless…”

“They sure were” mumbled Izuku.

“Maybe you were right” sneers Bakugou, humourlessly “maybe being hero isn’t worth shit if a quirkless ass like you can do a better job than them!”

“That’s like the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Thanks Kacchan!” relied Izuku in the most sarcastic tone he could utter.

Their little ‘moment’ was however quickly interrupted by the sudden turn that had them flying across their seats, which could’ve been avoided if they wore seatbelts has it not been for Izuku’s life philosophy of ‘No safety measures, we die like men’. The teenagers turned around to see what caused the sudden turn and noticed that they’re currently being chased by two police cars. And it’s not even noon yet! That’s a new accomplishment for Izuku.

At that point Shin just rolled down the window and started to flip off the police “I’M NOT GOING BACK TO JAIL!” he shouted while speeding past other cars on the road. There was something almost poetic about seeing your psychiatrist - the person whose job is to make you into a sane and functional human being- screaming at cops and accidentally admitting that he was in jail at some point in his life. The doctor then turns around and says “Don’t worry, I haven’t killed anyone” as if it was supposed to be reassuring to his patients in the middle of a police chase.

“Huh, at this point we might actually make it to UA on time” said Izuku in a rather nonchalant fashion, leaving Bakugou scandalised to say the least.

“THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT?! WE’RE BEING CHASED BY THE FUCKIN POLICE!”

“Well how’s that any different than my usual day?”

“HOW WOULD I KNOW? I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN MONTHS!”

“Can you two shut up? I’m trying to drive here!”

And with that, the car was overtaken by silence, the only thing interrupting it being the police sirens heard from the behind. For a situation as bizarre as this, Izuku felt strangely calm about the whole thing. It was almost nostalgic, getting to spend time with Kacchan in a civil manner, or as civil as they could get considering the circumstances and having Shin’s support in the strangest way possible. ‘I wouldn’t mind it if all my days were like this’ he thought while reluctantly putting on his seatbelt.

Soon enough they reached the gates of UA just as they were about to be closed. In a moment of panic, Izuku reached into the pocket of his jumper and pulled out a flask, unscrewing the cap and quickly handing it to Bakugou.

“Look we’re a bit short on time, so drink this and go kick some asses, you can process your near death experience trauma after the exam is over.”

“What is this?” asked Bakugou, rightfully suspicious of the mysterious flask that Izuku seems to casually carry around.

“The quil”

“What qui-” unfortunately Bakugou didn’t get to finish the sentence as Izuku forced the flask into his mouth and tilted his head back, making Bakugou drink all of the liquid.

“Ok, so this shit will make you see through time, but that’s normal, you can do it!” shouted Izuku as he clapped the blond on the back and pushed him out of the car.

Both Izuku and Shin watched him run up to the gate right before it closed and they simultaneously sighed in relief.

“You did the right thing” commented the doctor “Your method was questionable at best, but you did the right thing in the end. Not many people would have the strength to help someone like Bakugou.”

“I know”

“What you did was very heroic”

“Oh, fuck off!”

“...so after we parked the police cars caught up with us and they arrested us. Well, me for whatever the fuck that was and Shin for breaking some traffic laws” said Izuku as he recalled the events of this chaotic morning.

“What’s going to happen to him now detective?” asked Inko, because although she might not look like it, she was very much worried about her son, despite knowing that he wasn’t in the wrong for doing what he did.

The atmosphere in the interrogation room became tense as the Midoriyas stared at detective Tsukauchi expectedly. The man looked down at his notes, the evidence folder and sighed in defeat. They’ve been here for hours and it became clear that even the detective didn’t want to be a part of this.

“You’re a lucky kid Izuku” exclaimed Tsukauchi “The only thing we could technically charge you with would be a possession of a fixed blade longer than three inches, but even then it was used in defence of a civilian, and you better thank God that no one has bothered to fix the legal loopholes for the quirkless under the Citizen’s arrest law.”

“Does that mean I can just go?”

“Fortunately yes”

“Nice~” said Izuku “Alright then kinky bastards, uncuff me!”

Right after he said that the door to the interrogation room opened, followed by the entrance of Ignenium himself. Although the appearance of the hero was unexpected, it was definitely appreciated. You see, while Izuku does have a problem with heroes in general, Ignenium, both as a hero and the man behind the mask was one of the most kind and righteous people the boy has ever met and could never bring himself to dislike. And sure the way they met wasn’t the most favourable one, but that’s a story for another time.

“Tensei! What are you doing here?” asked Izuku excitedly.

“I came in here a while ago after making an arrest and an officer told me you got caught doing something stupid again. I couldn’t help my curiosity so I sat and listened to your story” explained the man as he pointed to the one-way mirror. He then closed in on the table and unlocked Izuku’s handcuffs from the surface “Alright let’s get you out of here.”

As Tensei took still handcuffed Izuku out of the room, Inko stayed behind to sign some paperwork that Tsukauchi tried and failed to stop the sheep from chewing on.

The hero and the teenager made their way into the main lobby where they had to wait for the keys to the handcuffs. As they stood around, Izuku with his hands behind his back they were approached by another teenager who looked vaguely familiar and very attractive, as in hot, beefy nerd with dark hair and square glasses that would help you with homework and carry you on his shoulders type of attractive. He stood tall with posture and confidence that the old Izuku could never dream of having, and one that the current Izuku had wet dreams about.

“Nii-san! Mother has informed me that you were at the station, so I came here to tell you about the entrance exam!” exclaimed the boy in the sheer volume of a person with ‘no inside voice’ while moving his hands in an almost robotic way.

“You sure look excited! Alright Tenya, tell me everything!” said Tensei and that’s when it dawned on Izuku…

“TENSEI WHAT THE HELL! Why didn’t you tell me you had a hot brother?!” he whined before quickly turning back to clearly confused Tenya.

“What’s up stud? You dropped something~” said Izuku in a clearly flirty tone as he checked the other one out.

Nevertheless Tenya still looked down in confusion at Izuku’s words, choosing to ignore the way he said it.

“What did I drop?” he asked.

“Your standards. Hi, I’m Izuku~” exclaimed the freckled boy with a shit eating grin as he brought his right hand forward that still had a pair of handcuffs hanging from it, awaiting a handshake.

The other was flustered beyond belief, while Tensei just groaned out in second hand embarrassment from watching awkward teenage flirting with his younger brother on the receiving side.

Wait a minute…

“HOW DID YOU GET OUT OF THE HANDCUFFS?”

[thetrueenemyofhumanity]

Omg so i can request vampire!McCree?!?! Of fuck man can i get uhh maybe something similar to the Reinhardt one but more like the femme s/o catching him feeding and is like um why havent you just asked me? Kinky fucker alert. Can you make the reader a bit chubby too?

I’ll do my best to do this request justice

To say Jesse McCree was irritable when hungry was a colossal understatement. Monsterous, was a more accurate term. He could only maintain that self-control for so long before he snapped and saw nothing but red. That human mask of the charismatic cowboy would crumble and that feral side of him would be uncontainable, willing to tear down anything in his path for a drop of blood. That beast inside hadn’t been unleashed upon the world since McCree had found you. For so long he had walked this earth surrounded by enemies until he discovered someone that forced him to be careful, forced him to keep that dark side of him locked away for fear it would take your light from his life and cast him into the dark once more. He was convinced that he didn’t need blood to survive, he just needed you.You and the odd snack here and there. And that worked for a while at least. But a predator cannot deny what nature designed it to be.

He was pulled out of that mist that corrupted his mind by your crackling voice dragging him back to reality, calling out in concern over the failing comm system that now lay in pieces beneath the fallen corpse that he had made his meal. Once rosy skin was now pale and cold, their final expression of terror was still painted on their face with mouth agape in a silent, eternal scream.

Those lifeless eyes staring back at him didn’t frighten McCree. No, what filled him with terror was those footsteps running towards him, bringing closer a scent that usually made his heart leap, now it just made it drop. You rounded the corner breathing heavily- part in exhaustion, part in fear- gun raised in a shaking grip. Your breath caught in your throat at the sight of your beloved cowboy coated in blood, a body at his feet and red in his once chocolatey eyes.

“McCree-” you began, before being cut off by an animalistic snarl that burst past his lips.

“Don’t!” he snapped, “You don’t have to say anything. Just scream and run away. That’s what you do when you see a monster, ain’t it?”

“Well I was going to ask were you alright, but as long as that blood isn’t yours I’m not afraid. Just…relieved. You didn’t answer your comms and I thought… I thought the worst,” you replied. Once the overwhelming relief of finding him alive had settled, a whole new range of emotions took its place. “You motherfucker, why didn’t you answer me?! I imagined you dying in a gutter, alone and afraid. I nearly broke my ankle at least three times sprinting across this shithole trying to hunt you down!”

You gritted your teeth and stormed over to him, whacking that silly hat off his head. Complete confusion gripped McCree and he could only look at you as he stumbled to find words. Why weren’t you terrified? Why weren’t you pumping him full of bullets? What the fundamental fuck?

“Oh, so the fact didn’t reply incites more rage than the fact I’m a damn vampire and just used this dude like a smoothie?” he exclaimed, staring at you with complete disbelief.

“I’m not gonna lie, this is a…surprise, to say the least, but I prefer you having fangs than you dying!”

“So the realisation that I could do this to you isn’t having any affect at all? If I don’t feed I can lose control. How are you so calm?” he asked, , emphasising his point by nudging the body with his boot, his disbelief growing as you simply rolled your eyes.

“Jesse, I trust you and I love you enough not to kill me. If you ever need a little snack I trust you to know when to stop and-”

“Hold the fuck up! Did you really just offer yourself up for me to feed off?!”

“Well yeah, call me vain but I’m sure I taste better than a drugged up gang member. And this way you can feed regularly and not lose control. You get fed and I get a stable vampire boyfriend, it’s only logical.”

Jesse simply shook his head as he tried to process just what the hell you were saying. He knew he couldn’t keep his demons hidden forever and selfishly tried to keep you ignorant so as to hold onto you for as long as he could. In his wildest dreams he couldn’t imagine this being the outcome. How was he the one left baffled in this situation? Thoughts fired across his mind and he couldn’t possibly make sense of them all. The only thought that did make sense- the one overwhelming thing he was certain on- is how much he adored you. Before you could get another word out he launched forward and wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you towards him, crashing his bloodstained lips against yours. His free hand gently combed through your hair and you couldn’t help but notice his nails were sharper than usual.

“Damn, I love you,” he mumbled against your lips, “How a monster like me got an angel like you is beyond me.”

“Oh I’m no angel. Let’s get home and I’ll show you that,” you purred.

“Ooohhh, naughty,” he growled, the deep rumble in his chest sending shivers through you. He lowered his head once more and nipped your bottom lip with his pointed canine. “Maybe I gotta teach you a lesson.”