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space-mermaid-writing · 2 years ago

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The Sorcerer Supreme and his very weird, magical diet [IronStrange]

This is for the IronStrange Winter Gift Exchange 2022 @ironstrangehaven

Prompt: Stephen having side effects from the magic he uses. Any direction is good for this, it can be funny, hurt/comfort, whump, sexy, just something where he and Tony are facing something weird the magic has done to Stephen.

Summary: 5 times Tony has to deal with the weird side effects of Stephen‘s new magical diet and 1 time he nope’d out.

Tags: established relationship, soft idiots in love, magic is weird, this is more on the funny side, don’t mess with the fridge!

Ko-fi | Read it on AO3 | Masterlist | Word count: 4k

Author’s note: This is for you, @thedevildinosaur. I loved that prompt and had way too many ideas, so it became a 5+1 fic with a good amount of banter. I hope you have fun reading it. Happy Holidays!

The Sorcerer Supreme and his very weird, magical diet

Tony typed on his Starkphone and waited for Peter to run an update on his spider suit. The boy was supposed to show up soon.

The door to the hallway was open and he heard footsteps and two voices approaching. One of them was clearly Cap.

„… thank you again for your time, Doctor. It was really appreciated.“

„No problem.“ Tony perked up as he realized the other person was Stephen. „I‘m glad I could help.“

„And I‘m glad that the item we found in the Hydra base was not cursed… I‘m sorry, are you sure, you‘re okay?“

„Yes, this is just a minor inconvenience. Don‘t worry.“

Tony frowned. Whenever Stephen said, 'Don't worry,' it was most likely something to worry about. In that respect, they were both very similar. The fact that Steve Rogers aka Captain America was additionally irritated about whatever was going on, only added to Tony's worry.

He stuck his head out the door and saw the two men standing at the end of the hallway. As far as he could tell, Stephen looked normal. There was nothing to indicate that he wasn't okay. The only unusual thing was that he didn't have his cloak with him. Maybe it was washing day. The cloak hated wash days.

His mind at ease that this was just his not harmed wizard boyfriend, he called out to him. „Hey, Strange.“

Stephen turned his head and that's when Tony saw what had Cap worried. First he thought there was something wrong with his eyes, because for a moment it looked as if the sorcerer's body was blurring. Tony rubbed his eyes, the image did not change. Stephen became transparent for a moment, flickering, as if he were fading in and out of existence. Tony could clearly see the wand behind him.

Huh. That was new.

Stephen, however, did not seem to mind. His eyes lit up when he saw Tony and he said goodbye to Captain Rogers with a few words – now as solid again as a human being should be – and then walked down the hall to him.

"Tony." He flickered again, his outline blurring, if only briefly. From close up, it looked even weirder. Almost like a flawed hologram. Tony reached out his hand. It landed on the sorcerer's front chest without reaching through him.

"Not a hologram," the mechanic stated.

Stephen gave him an amused look. "Sorry to disappoint?" He stepped further into the room and leaned casually against one of the lab tables. As usual, he had no business looking so handsome at such a mundane activity. But Tony let it slide, because there were obviously more pressing matters to address.

„Are you telling me what this is?“ he asked him, stepping right in the sorcerer‘s personal space. His curiosity was piqued and he was very tempted Friday to have some scans done.

Stephen ran his hand through his hair, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Wong had me set on a magical diet," he explained. „These are just some side effects.“

„I hope you‘re not going to disappear on me.“

„Is that worry I hear in your voice?“ Stephen‘s voice was teasing and dropped an octave. He licked his lips and Tony zoned in on his shiny pink mouth. The inventor knew he was being distracted – Stephen was a pro in deflecting – and he didn’t press the matter. Stephen would open up, if he was ready. Instead Tony kissed him, just softly but full of affection.

Stephen sighed and relaxed under his touch. He was always much more concerned about things than he wanted to let appear.

“I just wanted to know if I need another wizard as my plus one for that gala in two weeks.” Tony kept his voice light.

“As long as there’s free food, I’m sure Wong would love to go.” Stephen chuckled, then added, “The symptoms should disappear in a few days.” Stephen locked his eyes with him. He knew that every joke Tony made, also hid a serious concern.

Someone at the door cleared his throat. Peter stood there, his school backpack hanging over one shoulder. „Hey, Mister Stark. Doctor Strange.“

Turned his head, but didn‘t move an inch away from Stephen. „Hey Pete. You‘re early.“

„Actually I‘m half an hour late.“

„Same difference. Plug your suit in so Fri can run the update.“

The boy nodded and went to his table, while Tony looked back at the sorcerer. "Duty calls," he said apologetically.

Stephen did not blame him. He was himself expected in Kamar-Taj and disappeared through a portal.

A week later, Tony was visiting the Sanctum. Stephen was busy updating a few wards on some relics.

He was still fading out every now and then, although not as often anymore. Tony had found out that it was related to his emotions. Ever since it was his favorite thing to make Stephen flustered and see him going transparent.

Most of the time Stephen hardly noticed that he was fading out for a second and it did no harm to him. Even the cloak of levitation had come to terms with this by now and was back on his shoulders.

As far as Tony had found out, this magical diet was essential for the Sorcerer Supreme. It increased his powers without having Stephen absorb demonic creatures. Tony seconded that last bit very much.

Stephen‘s body needed to adjust to his new powers and until there was an overflow of magic, causing weird side effects like fading out of existence for a split second.

Other ‘minor inconveniences‘ – Stephen liked to call them that – that Tony had witnessed in the last few days included:

- the sudden appearance of butterflies (this happened quite often whenever Stephen used a spell)

- feathers growing in his hair. Plugging them out was kinda hurtful, since they were deeply rooted in his skin. But Stephen didn‘t want to walk around in public with them.

- breathing fire whenever he opened his mouth. It lasted for four hours and Wong put in on time-out in the mirror dimension after he almost burned the curtains in the library.

- once a cat followed Stephen and Tony when they were walking through Greenwich to get lunch. Tony was just 35% sure this was part of the side effects. It could be just a regular cat. There was also the slight possibility of a shape changer. Tony was sure the cat looked funny at him at one point.

Beside the butterflies, which dissolved after a few hours, fading in and out was the only lingering effect. Stephen was pretty sure that he just had to use his powers a lot to regulate the overflowing. And since Wong backed that thesis up, Tony wasn’t too alarmed about it.

While Stephen was still busy with the relics, Tony looked at the image of a floating globe. It was made out of golden light, a perfect replica of the Earth – the color a sign that it was currently not in any danger. Small glowing dots marked the locations of the super secret wizard headquarters and their even more secretive school.

Tony liked to joke about it, but had to admit that in these days and age of facial recognition and tracking devices, it was impressive for such a large organization to stay mostly under the radar.

“Hey, quick question.” Tony turned his head to Stephen and pointed at Asia. “Is this red glowing dot a concern?”

Stephen stopped weaving the spell he was working on and stepped next to him.

"The Hong Kong Sanctum will take care of it," he decided with a quick glance. Having such a globally networked organization to rely on was quite handy.

Suddenly, another, larger dot lit up in the Midwest.

„This one on the other hand…“

After a quick re-check on the location, Stephen opened a portal. He stepped through first and then turned to give Tony a hand. The inventor still had his difficulties with portals of any kind. It helped that he could see a small town on the other side instead of the dark expanses of space. It also helped that nanobots bled over his body, forming his Iron Man suit.

Surprisingly, everything was quiet on the other side. Tony had expected more chaos, maybe mayhem… at least something that caused the alarm. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

Stephen nodded. “Magic isn’t always obvious.”

They walked through a nice suburban neighborhood. It was a late summer day and people were standing in their front yard looking at them curiously. It wasn't often that Iron Man walked through their street. Tony waved at two kids in a garage driveway, who gaped at him with their jump rope in hand.

“How about dinner later?” he asked the sorcerer casually.

Stephen avoided looking at him, almost embarrassed. “Uhm, since I started that diet, I can’t have normal food for a while.” Maybe never again, but he wouldn’t open that topic yet. Not when they had to concentrate on a potential threat.

Tony shrugged. “How about a movie then? That means more popcorn for me. What are you eating anyway? Mystical vibes?”

“More like alien eyeballs and writhing tentacles. Cooking is not Wong’s strongest skill.”

“Yikes. I stay with pizza.” Tony made a face in disgust, but didn't ask to elaborate, because eyeballs and tentacles were clearly exaggerations, right?

Right?

He turned his head to Stephen, who was busy with a golden mandala he had created in front of him. A quick scan of the area told the sorcerer that there was magical activity all around them. But he could not find a source. That was strange. Time to get a different perspective on things.

He dissolved the mandala and opened his third eye with a simple move of his hands. It helped him to see auras and hidden forms.

But before he could look around, he felt the skin on the backs of his hands move. When he turned them, two more eyes looked back at him from them. Surprised, he blinked – and they blinked back. The feeling of skin changing repeated, traveled up his arms. It was weird, and definitely not what he had intended to do. It far exceeded his goal.

With these new eyes he got a new view. It was mostly darkness for now, because most of it was covered by the sleeves. The fabric itched him and he used a quick spell to remove his sleeves. This was way better.

He saw the world in different colors now. It was fascinating. With the eye on his forehead, he already had expanded senses, but now it had multiplied.

Stephen heard something and realized that Tony was apparently talking to him. He was so overwhelmed by the new impressions that he didn't even notice. The sorcerer turned his head toward him and – wow.

Stephen took a step towards him. Tony’s aura was familiar to him, but now there was so much more to see, even with the Iron Man suit on, that usually shielded it. It was blueish-white, but he could make out and distinguish different shades. The blue were actual fine lines, wrapping around the light, that shone like a small sun. His sun. Tony.

When he reached out and touched one of the lines, it pulsed, moved independently.

“I think I can see Friday.”

The words coming out of his mouth were purple with faint black tips.

“That’s great, I guess. But it doesn’t answer my question.” Tony planted himself right in front of him, probably looking at him.

Stephen’s eyes followed where his words went. They were orange and dissolved in the wind. He could see the wind! It was beautiful.

“Hey! Earth to Gandalf!” Tony’s next words were tinted with concern. “Are you alright? You seem kinda off.”

“I’m great. Did you know, you have gorgeous outlines?” He watched the words floating to Tony, wrapping around him like a warm blanket. He tried to catch the question mark, to try to change it, but he wasn’t fast enough. It stuck to Tony's cheek.

“Thanks? You know, those eyes are kinda creeping me out.” Normally, Tony had no problem being stared at. But there were at least twelve eyes on him and none of them were part of an actual face. “Can they help us find the threat?”

But Stephen was no longer listening to him. Tony was still speaking when he wandered off, looking around curiously and in awe. Tony hurried to follow his – apparently – very high boyfriend.

Tony was not fully awake yet but his need for coffee was already strong. He moved quietly, not wanting to wake Stephen – the sorcerer needed sleep as much as he did on his good days – and went to the Sanctum's kitchen.

The Sanctum was a weird place, starting with self-opening doors and definitely not ending with wooden floorboards that tripped Tony up too often for it to be coincidence or his own clumsiness.

Stephen once explained to him that the building had been exposed to a lot of magic over the period of several centuries and thus had formed a kind of will of its own. Magic was unpredictable like that. The Sanctum still had its limits though – of course, it was just a house.

Tony was a favorite victim of its shenanigans, especially when he walked the halls alone – like he was doing now.

He arrived at the kitchen door and opened it – just to find Stephen’s bedroom behind it. The sorcerer was still fast asleep.

“First I need coffee,” Tony said. It wasn't the first time the Sanctum played roulette with the doors, changing the rooms behind them at will. Tony closed and opened the door again. He looked at what seemed to be an actual jungle. A monkey was yelling somewhere.

“I swear, if you’re not giving me the kitchen next, I will call my estate agent and put you up for sale.” He slammed the door shut with more force than necessary. He couldn’t believe he was talking to a building, even threatening it.

The door in front of him swung open again, the creaking of its hinges sounding more like laughter than they had any natural right to.

Finally he saw the object of his desire and headed straight for the coffee maker. It was a modern and very fancy model. Tony himself bought it one day and gifted it to Stephen and Wong – for totally unselfish reasons.

Money had many perks and enjoying heavenly good coffee was one of them.

While waiting for his drink, he let his eyes wander in search of food. He could go for a snack. Maybe a sandwich. The refrigerator was on the opposite wall, freestanding and not near any other kitchen appliances, which, huh, was a weird interior design choice, but he wasn't one to judge. He walked toward it and managed exactly two steps when suddenly all the kitchen cabinet doors began to rattle violently, like an ominous warning. Startled, Tony flinched. Thank you very much for this horror movie moment.

If Tony wouldn’t trust Stephen enough to believe him, when the sorcerer said that the Sanctum was not out to actually try and kill Tony, he would have run a long time ago.

“What?” he asked, but got no answer. The sanctum wasn’t Friday, it couldn’t talk. There was only silence.

“That’s what I thought.” Tony huffed. It was too early for this kind of weirdness. Of course he had to fall for a wizard with a maniac of a mansion. Couldn’t be just a cute suburban condo with a large garden in the back.

Tony tripped over a loose floorboard and kicked the table leg in return. Since he was barefoot, it probably hurt him more than the wood. He was five seconds away from going back to bed without breakfast and coffee, pulling the covers over his head and staying there – preferable forever. But he couldn’t let the house win. Determined, he went to the refrigerator, put his hand on the handle and was about to pull the door open, when another hand laid on him.

“I told you not to touch the fridge,” Stephen said. He was in his pj bottoms with no shirt, which was a sight for sore eyes. Especially with that tousled morning hair sticking in various directions.

“Why? Afraid I eat Wong’s precious leftovers?” Tony wasn't stupid enough to make that mistake twice. “What does a guy have to do to get breakfast?”

“The secret stash is in the top left kitchen cabinet.” He nodded in the direction and as if on command the door of the kitchen cupboard opened. There was cereal, toast and – oh, poptarts! Fine. Tony didn’t press about the sorcerer being overprotective of his fridge and made a beeline towards the sugar. He deserved it with what he had to put up with.

Still, he was a little bit curious about the fridge.

While most of the side effects lessened over time, the butterflies didn’t stop appearing. They were small bluish or greenish and most of them dissolved after a few hours. But some lingered in the Sanctum. They seemed to take a liking for Tony though, and always found their way to him, flattered around him.

Tony pulled his shirt over his head, feeling his arm hit something small as he did so. "Oh shit." He his head, only half-dressed, and saw a butterfly fluttering irritated. Carefully, he caught it. “You have to be more careful, buddy.”

It rested calmly in his hand.

Stephen emerged from the bathroom. “You know they’re not real, right? Just a byproduct of my magical energy.”

“He doesn’t mean that,” Tony stage-whispered to the butterfly. He gently set it down on a dresser. “Go look for your friends.”

He slipped his second arm through the other sleeve and glanced at his watch. “I’m running late. Can you portal me?”

“Sure. Where to?”

“Conference room 315.” Tony checked his hair one last time, then he stepped to the sorcerer, who slipped his slingring on his fingers. “See you tonight?” he asked against his lips, before kissing them.

Stephen closed his eyes for a moment. There never seemed to be enough time between all of their responsibilities. “I’m meeting with the elders, so it probably get pretty late.” He sighed. There were a dozen other things he would rather do.

“Ten bucks your elders are less boring than my board members.”

Stephen huffed amused. “Debatable.” He kissed him again, then took a step back and moved his arm in a circle motion, creating a portal.

Said board members sitting in conference room 315 were caught by surprise, when suddenly orange sparks appeared out of thin air and their boss stepped out of a magical circle.

“Good morning, gents.”

The portal disappeared, leaving behind a small butterfly that followed Tony immediately. There were two more in his hair he was totally unaware of. Ignoring the not so subtle glances of his staff, he sat down and gestured to the guy at the front to continue his presentation.

Tony already knew the headline of the day: dragon invading New York.

Stephen told them it was actually a wyvern, because it had two legs instead of four like a dragon would. Nobody knew how it got here. Maybe it got lost, took a wrong turn in another dimension. And now it was destroying part of the Bronx. The Avengers got called, acting as a backup for Doctor Strange, because, honestly, this was more like his kind of expertise.

He tried to banish it, sending it back where it came from, while the Avengers distracted the beast long enough for the sorcerer to perform his spells.

It wasn’t an easy task, although the creature was clearly outnumbered.

The wyvern lashed out with its spiked tail. Tony moved out of the way, blasted back with his repulsor.

“Can we speed this up?” Clint asked via comm. “I’m almost out of arrows.” As if on cue, one of them hit the wyvern, exploding by impact into goo that spread around the beast’s scales. It restricted the wyvern in its movements.

Strange added more and more symbols to the glowing mandala in the air, concentrating on his spell and seeming to have almost blanked out his surroundings.

Tony had Friday keeping an eye on his boyfriend while he was vulnerable. With another blast he prevented Peter from being hit by a sharp claw. They had to hurry up,

Finally Strange hurled the complicated banishing spell at the wyvern, sending it back to wherever. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Strange’s clothes were slightly singed. The wyvern was able to breathe fire – no wonder the news mistook it for a dragon. He landed next to Cap and Natasha, slightly stumbling as his legs gave in as soon as his feet touched the ground, but the cloak masked it and helped him by taking most of his weight. It had taken a lot of his energy to compete with the wyvern’s natural magic resistance.

Steve turned to him. “Is this thing gone for good? No friends of it are going to show up?”

“It won’t cause any further problems,” Stephen reassured him. He was slightly panting, feeling nauseous all the sudden. “I will look into how it was able to travel in-…” He stopped and managed to turn away just in time, before he vomited some kind of black goo.

The others looked at him concerned.

“Shit, doc, are you alright?”

Stephen nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes, I-… “ He vomited again. Tony was at his side instantly, rubbing his back. The inventor had noticed the sweaty hair and the dark circle under the sorcerer’s eyes.

“Too much magic?” he asked in a low voice. “Let’s get you back home.” He side-eyed the black… whatever this stuff was that came out of his boyfriend. Tony swore he saw it moving. And was that a tentacle sticking out of it?

Stephen managed to nod, exhaustion taking over him. He was tired and – surprisingly – hungry, although he had puked his guts out just seconds ago. “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “Don’t worry.”

“Sure.” Tony knew better than to argue with him. He did, in fact, worry, but moved it aside for the moment and looked at Steve instead, who was watching them, concern also written in his face. “You guys handle the clean up?” It was less of a question and Tony didn’t even waited for an answer before he led Stephen home.

Tony walked up the steps of the sanctum. He had visited Peter and May for their bi-monthly pizza and card game Sunday and decided to visit Stephen on his way back home. He even brought leftover pizza for Wong – Stephen was still strict on his diet, refusing to eat anything else.

The door opened automatically, being familiar with Tony and welcoming him. As soon as he stepped inside, he heard shouting from somewhere in the back.

“It’s getting away!” Wong yelled.

“I’m on it!”

It sounded urgent enough that Tony moved his hand instinctively to the house unit on his chest. But before he could activate it, something suddenly burst through a wall next to the big staircase.

Tony had seen some serious shit in his life: ugly aliens, rogue robots and that one time he was attacked by electric whips at a car race. But magic surpassed everything. Devils, demons and mystical beings? Yeah, tough shit.

And now there were tentacles – purple-green and slimy – a lot of them actually and quite back ones, moving like legs. Like an octopus trying to walk. But instead of a body – there was the fridge. The very one Stephen told him not to touch. It had the same ‘I ♡ NY’ sticker on the door that now hung partly unhinged.

Stephen followed through the monster shaped hole, throwing his red glowing ropes to catch this abomination.

Tony blinked, frozen in place. Then he turned around and nope’d out. This was ridiculous. He was not dealing with this kind of bullshit today. Absolutely not.

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fanficsfromyesteryear · 3 years ago

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LEVERAGE (PT 2)

A DEADLY CLASS ONE SHOT

— PAIRING: Marcus Lopez Arguello x Reader — WORD COUNT: 2,202 — WARNINGS: Cursing, violence, kidnapping — REQUESTED BY: N/A; literally one person commented that they wanted a part two and I already had it planned so- — A/N: So....... this got super long. Oops lol. I used some of the same dialogue from episode 10, but most of this deviates from the original source material which I did on purpose because it fit better for the sake of this story so please don’t come for me about not sticking to the “right” plot- Anyway, I had lots of fun writing this, and I hope you guys like it :)

Marcus could’ve sworn he felt his heart drop straight out of his chest when he got back to the van and saw you weren’t there. It was the strangest thing—he’d snuck off as the fight inside Shabnam’s house died down with a weird feeling that he should go check on you, needed to make sure you were still okay. You’re just being paranoid, he’d told himself, but he had to follow his instincts, just to be sure. Instead of finding you safe and sound where he’d left you, however, you were nowhere in sight.

When Marcus got back to the sprawling mansion, his friends were regrouping on the bottom floor in the kitchen. “Has anyone seen Y/N?” he asked as soon as he was within earshot, not even bothering to keep his voice down.

As the rest of the group exchanged questioning glances, Billy sighed. “I told you not to bring them,” he said, but he started to get to his feet regardless as if to help search the house, but Marcus was quick to shut him down.

“No, you’re right,” Marcus agreed. “It was my idea, and it’s my fault we’re even in this mess. I can’t risk losing any of you, too. Go back to the van. I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

The calm facade he’d put up for his friends’ sake was gone as soon as they were. Running through the house, bat poised and prepared to strike down any redneck friend of Chester’s that dared to get in his way, Marcus was absolutely frantic. Each time he called your name and no answer returned, gruesome images flashed in his head of all the reasons that could’ve been the case, of all the things he’d endured at the hands of Chester in Sunset Boys’ Home, and while he wouldn’t wish those things on anyone—especially not you, of all people—he couldn’t help that his mind naturally wandered to where his worst fears lied in wait, ready to overtake him at the first sign of danger.

You’re being paranoid, he told himself. This is like Vegas all over again. They’re fine. They probably just—

In Marcus’s haste and clouded state of mind, he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and the sound of a cage door rattling cut off his internal monologue. “What the hell?” he muttered, fumbling in his pocket for his lighter. The room was dark, too dark to make out any specifics save for the vague outline of a figure squatting inside the small, metal prison. The flickering orange glow of the flame coming from the lighter in Marcus’s hand revealed his company—an old, angry woman in a pig costume snarled at him from behind the bars, and he couldn’t say he blamed her—he would’ve been pretty pissed, too, if Chester had dressed him up like an animal and caged him like one. It had been bad enough having had to share a room with him.

“Love him, my bull god!” the woman shouted abruptly. “Love him with your murder stick!”

She probably would’ve said more if it weren’t for the sudden bullet she received to the head. Marcus stumbled away in surprise, dropping his bat in the process. “What the fuck?” he said, ducking as he glanced around warily for the source of the deadly shot.

“A bat?” said Chester, stepping out of the shadows, gun in hand. “You watched the Warriors too many times, bud.”

And before Marcus knew what was happening, Chester overtook him like he had done so many times before.

The first thing Marcus noticed when he came to was the warmth. He opened his eyes, blinking in the bright light of the many bulbs that had been drilled into the makeshift sign that leaned against the wall beside him—Fuck Face, it read, in big, red lettering.

The next thing he noticed was the tape on his mouth.

Shit. He didn’t have time for this.

Marcus was vaguely aware of the old man from Shabnam’s party—the one who’d tried to correct him about what classified as a gravity bong—giving some sort of talk show introduction, but his attention was focused on where Chester stood behind the camera, now wearing a tacky blazer over his t-shirt and a manic grin on his mangled face. He seemed defenseless at the moment, and one look at Marcus’s unbound wrists told him that he could make a run for it, but he didn’t. It was too easy. Marcus had already underestimated Chester enough as it was, and he doubted he could live through making that same mistake again.

Instead, Marcus remained planted to his seat on the couch, but his eyes followed Chester as he moved to sit in front of the camera. Marcus saw Chester’s mouth move, he heard the music playing softly in the background, but it felt distant, like it was nothing more than a scene he was watching on a TV screen. It was as if he was a member of the live audience Chester was supposedly talking to through the camera lens, being forced to take part in the horrific game Chester was playing, and he couldn’t find the remote to change the channel to something better, something more pleasant where you were still safe with him.

“You’re gonna admit that you’re not the Orphanage Killer.”

That sentence alone was enough to bring Marcus back to the present. His dark eyes narrowed at Chester, whose smile faltered ever so slightly.

“And if you don’t,” he continued, “I might just have to take somethin’ of yours in return.”

Marcus’s brow furrowed. He didn’t want that to mean what he thought it did, but Chester turned to the man on the other end of the couch and said, “Why don’t you bring in our special guest, Mr. Shandy?”

The older man disappeared into a back room, and when he came back, he had you by the arm, leading you onto the shoddy set that Chester had put together for his talk show. You caught Marcus’s gaze as you were prodded toward the vacant sofa cushion beside him, silently pleading for help.

And Marcus wanted to help you, but for the first time in his life, the only thing he could think of was the consequences. He was scared, scared of losing you, but even more so of being the one responsible. He’d never be able to forgive himself if you suffered because of something stupid and reckless he’d done as some poor attempt to be the hero yet again. He was already the reason you were in this mess at all, and he couldn’t risk dragging you down any further into the hole he’d dug for himself. So, Marcus sat, watching quietly as you were placed next to him, unable to meet your tear-stained face.

“I found this pretty, little thing out in the yard,” explained Chester, “and I was about to kill them for seeing too much when I realized something. After your fireworks display, I needed to get back the upper hand. I needed some leverage. You’re too much of a good guy, Marcus, always tryin’ to save everyone, so I knew you’d come runnin’ straight to me once you found out they were gone. It was only a matter of time.” He paused, letting his words sink in, his gruesome grin returning. “So, either you give me what I want, or I’ll hurt you the way you hurt me. An eye for an eye and all that.”

You glanced nervously at Marcus, but he stared straight ahead, his jaw set and gaze hardening.

Chester waved a hand at Shandy, who reached across you to rip the tape from Marcus’s mouth. Marcus winced, but he didn’t make a sound save for the quiet exhale of breath that escaped past his lips. He was eerily calm, and you hated it. While you were moments away from yet another breakdown, he was just as stoically unreadable as ever.

Swallowing, Marcus, at last, said, “Chester killed all those people.”

Chester leaned forward in his seat. “Because?”

Marcus’s eyes darted over to you, then back at Chester. Why was Chester dragging this out? It was supposed to be simple—give Chester the credit he thought he deserved, and maybe you’d have the chance to walk away unharmed—mostly, anyway, though being held hostage in a stranger’s basement is bound to have lasting psychological effects. Marcus wasn’t so sure about himself—knowing Chester, he’d want to exact some sick sort of revenge—but he didn’t care about himself anymore. Your safety was all that mattered, but Chester seemed no closer to letting you go now than he did when you were first brought in. Marcus needed to buy more time. No, said the voice at the back of his head. You need a plan, dumbass.

So, Marcus did what he did best: he improvised. He was no stranger to talking his way out of dangerous situations, so what was one more? “B-because,” he started, his gaze drifting through the room as if he was going to find the words he needed scratched into the walls or hanging off of the ceiling.

Chester again leaned forward, this time so far you were sure he’d fall out of his chair. He gave Marcus his undivided attention, eagerly waiting for the next sentence to fall out of your boyfriend’s mouth.

“He’s desperate for some semblance of significance in the world,” Marcus continued, “to make a mark even if it is just a smear shit stain.”

What the hell? you thought, your irritation growing by the minute. You weren’t sure how kidnapping worked—this was only your first time playing the victim—but you were almost certain you were supposed to appeal to your enemy’s better nature. Tell them what they wanted to hear, and maybe they’d have mercy.

Marcus knew better, though. Chester wasn’t capable of mercy. All he knew was anger, an anger that, if fueled enough, could become blinding. Marcus was well-acquainted with that fiery rage—the scar on his face was a testament to that—and if he could redirect it onto himself, he could act as a shield for you.

Chester’s face fell, an eye twitching.

“Because he can’t make anything, so he destroys,” Marcus said, pressing on. “Because he’s the kind of guy who’d screw a goat on national television if it got people to pay attention.”

You wanted to scream at Marcus to stop, to tell him that he was only making things worse, but the tape on your mouth and the sheer fear of what would happen if you took it off prevented you from doing so.

“He doesn’t need a camera to do that.”

The focus of the room’s inhabitants shifted onto Dwight Shandy. There was a pause, the only noise filling the sudden void being his misplaced laughter, before Chester bolted upright, grabbed the gun off the corner of his desk, and lunged at Shandy.

“You hypocrite!” yelled Chester.

Maybe Marcus should’ve been thanking Dwight Shandy for drawing the attention onto himself and being the ultimate recipient of Chester’s rage, causing enough of a distraction for the Nicaraguan to grab your hand and drag you off the couch, but there was no time. Marcus led you aimlessly through the bottom level of the house, unsure from which direction he’d come but absolutely certain that he had to get you as far away from Chester as possible.

“I ain’t finished with you, boy!” Chester yelled, his voice echoing down the hallway after you as you ran. Marcus squeezed your hand tighter, pulling you to the side abruptly and into an alcove just out of sight. The space was small, and despite Marcus’s somewhat composed performance on set, you could feel his heartbeat hammering against you now, his breathing ragged as he held you close, doing his best to block you.

Soon after, Chester ambled past, unaware of your hiding spot. Carefully, Marcus crept out after him, much to your dismay.

The room was too dimly lit for you to see anything more than the faint outline of the two boys as they fought just on the other side of a tall shelving unit. One of them got thrown to the ground—Marcus, you assumed, if Chester’s bragging was any indication—as the other hovered over him, landing punch after punch. Eventually, you had to turn away, snapping your eyes shut as you forced down the taste of bile in your throat.

There was a metal clang, followed by the screech of a latch as a cage door opened, and the angry dog within was set free. Claws scrabbled against concrete, teeth snapping, and a set of hands grabbed you by the shoulders. You nearly jumped out of your skin as you cautiously opened your eyes only to see Marcus, now covered in blood, staring down at you. He gently grabbed a corner of the tape covering your mouth, his expression apologetic as he peeled it off.

You sighed in relief, collapsing into Marcus’s arms. “Is this what they teach you at that school?” you choked out, another round of tears already beginning to soak your boyfriend’s t-shirt.

Marcus buried his face in your hair. “You have no idea.”

#marcus lopez arguello x reader #marcus lopez arguello one shot #marcus lopez arguello #marcus lopez x reader #marcus lopez one shot #marcus lopez #deadly class x reader #deadly class one shot #deadly class

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orionsangel86 · 4 years ago

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SPN Conspiracies - Applying Logic to Chaos

Its been over 2 months now since the Supernatural finale aired. I am still so angry, hurt, and confused by it and I don’t think I will ever get closure unless someone like Andrew Dabb, or Jensen Ackles, actually opens up and gives us an explanation that makes sense.

What annoys me most right now is people trying to gaslight fans into believing that we should accept the narrative we have been given at face value: That the finale was always planned to be that way, that Destiel was never on the cards, that there was no Network interference, that the only changes made were due to covid and were minor at best.

This harmful gaslighting is FALSE.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED.

Look, I don’t agree with some of the crazier conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that there was some huge campaign among the CW Network execs to remove anything remotely gay out of homophobia. I don’t believe that the finale was changed because of some desire to make it into a Walker promo. I don’t believe that the finale was really bad on purpose in protest by Dabb for not getting to do an ending he truly wanted. I don’t believe that Dabb left us smart fans a bunch of secret messages in the finale to hint that he was on our side all along and that everything was fake.

I do, however, believe that all of these conspiracy theories have some elements in them that are plausible. At least, more plausible than the bullshit narrative mentioned above that some people are pushing in some desperate attempt to defend the Network (which imo is really strange behaviour anyway - why would anyone care about a TV network with a history of terrible behaviour?!?)

We have facts, based on information provided before the covid lockdown, which for some reason, people like Misha have since backpeddled on. So let me try to outline some of the information that makes no sense.

Below the cut I go on a deep dive into the conspiracies and statements I have heard about the SPN finale and try to make some sense of this whole fucked up situation. It gets long.

1. “Cas was never gonna be in the finale”.

False: We have many fan accounts of Misha confirming that he was filming the finale. We have video evidence of Misha confirming he was going back to film the finale after the lockdown. We have confirmation from fans in Misha M&Gs from March that he had about 5 days of filming left.

We also had fan accounts of discussions with Alex Calvert (I think) where he confirmed the final shot of the final episode was all four of them though I would LOVE if someone can find a source for this.

2. Okay, Misha was gonna be in the finale, but only as Jimmy Novak

False: I heavily side eyed Misha when he said this. But I think I can come up with a plausible explanation for it. Per above, Misha was supposed to film for 5 days. This does not align with the half a day he described of filming as Jimmy Novak. My own belief is that after Cas was cut from the finale (for whatever reason we don’t know) someone (probably Jensen Ackles) put up a fight and complained that Misha should be there for the final episode. The writers probably tried to come up with a way to bring Misha back without having to deal with Cas, and pitched the idea of Jimmy Novak being in Heaven. Misha, obviously annoyed about this, turned this stupid pitch down.

3. Destiel was never a thing, never planned, never part of Dabb’s ending. Bobo and Misha pushing the confession was the part of the season that was Wrong.

False: We have a SPN writer on record saying that Castiel’s confession was the first thing written for Season 15 when the writers returned to the writers room. If it wasn’t planned, why was it the first thing written, why does it align so well with the rest of season 15? Look I know some people either a. hate destiel and refuse to see it even if it slaps them in the face, or b. have major heteronormative goggles on, or c. are just homophobes in denial, but 15x18 fits in perfectly with the narrative of season 15. Everything Cas says, everything that happened in that scene was so in character it just works. It fit. If you just rewatch the season whilst applying some critical thinking skills and pay attention to the narrative and character arcs, trust me, the confession fits in with pretty much every other plot point, and character story in the season.

Also: We have known for a while that the network did market research into Destiel, wanting to know if it would go down well or not. They were well aware of its popularity and considering it. Where would this have come from if not pitched by the showrunner? Dabb must have at least been considering it. If you take all of Dabb era into consideration, starting with mid season 11, all the way through the season 12 build up, season 13 grief arc, and then Bobo’s Destiel break up arc in late season 14, early season 15, it is clear that there was some toing and froing on the issue of Destiel, but ultimately, I still believe that Dabb was on board. He wrote 13x01 for christs sake. No way he wasn’t taking it seriously.

4. It’s always been about the brothers. The finale just stays true to what Supernatural is all about.

*rubs temples* Fundamentally FALSE: The show has time and again reasserted the message of “Family don’t end with blood”, as well as the messages of AKF and YANA. Sam and Dean may be at the heart of the show, but a heart can’t exist without a body to support it. Without bones, and lungs, and blood, and muscles, and a BRAIN. The finale abandons the shows core messages. It forces the characters back into their season 1 characterisations and the whole thing becomes hollow and souless. But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to lay down the facts. Dean’s heaven was supposed to be surrounded by loved ones right? We know OG Charlie Bradbury was gonna be in his Heaven, we also know CAS was gonna be in there. So this idea that the finale as it currently stands was how it was meant to be is wrong. Dean was supposed to die and reunite with his found family and loved ones. This alone would have been a far better ending than the one given. Do I think this was solely a covid issue? Fuck no.

The randoms that WERE in the finale are proof alone that they could have got people in and quarantined. We also have several actors on record saying that they WOULD have quarantined for the finale had they been asked to return but they WEREN’T.

Lies have been told. Samantha Ferris and Chad Limberg have confirmed that we have been lied to about the original plans for the finale.

This alone is proof enough that there is more plausibility in some of the conspiracy theories than any bullshit narrative some people are pushing in defence of the barbaric mess of a finale we were given.

So lets address some of the conspiracy theories now:

Conspiracy No.1: The CW Network reviewed Supernatural during the covid break, and due to homophobia, refused any Destiel arc that wasn’t already filmed, shut down any potential reciprocation from Dean, and forced Dabb to change his finale.

I don’t think this is entirely what happened. But I do think it is very strange how there is a such a huge disconnect particularly in Dean’s characterisations between what had come before the lockdown, and what came after. The one fact we have here, and please someone provide a source if you can find it because I know there is one, the finale script was still going through changes up to only 2 weeks before it was filmed. We know that there was some weird editing in 15x18 (which was still in post and uncompleted before lockdown) and we know from Jensen’s own mouth that there was more to the confession scene on Dean’s side that was cut. We also know that this isn’t the first time that Destiel heavy moments have been changed in post - the prayer scene is another big scene that went through a lot of changes and Bobo fought to have his script play out the way he wanted it.

There are certain things that in my own opinions, are basically true of SPN which I have put together from years of keeping one eye on the writers room, the network, and all the various comments made. My opinion is this:

The writers room has always been split on Destiel. Some writers heavily supported making it canon, others did not care, or were against it.

The Network considered it over the course of several years, did market research, green lit it, then changed their minds, possibly several times over the course of Dabb’s era. Destiel was pitched to the Network early in Dabb era.

The crew on set were also split. Some people heavily supported it, and worked to assist the reading, whereas others did not care/did not support it. The same can be said for the editing room.

Bob Singer supported the subtextual homoeroticism, but never supported bringing it into text (this is an opinion, but I think it aligns with everything we know about him.) IMO Bob Singer also supported subtextual homoeroticism between Sam and Dean - the guy is gross is what I’m saying. He isn’t exactly a progressive person.

Fun fact - a while back our old enemy Sera Gamble went on a Twitter rant about writers rooms and the ways a script goes through changes. I don’t think this was in relation to the SPN finale wank but she basically inadvertantly confirmed that the Network can step in and make sweeping changes to a script if they want to and if they decide they don’t like the direction of a story. Sera Gamble confirmed this as a fact.

Now. I’m not saying that this is what the CW did with Destiel. I just think its very strange how pre lockdown, the last thing filmed is a heartfelt homosexual declaration of love between Dean and Cas, and we have a finale script that Misha had not seen, but knew that he was meant to film as Castiel for 5 days (5 days on set is over half of an episode as far as I know). Then all of a sudden, Covid happens, and Cas is cut from the finale completely, a desperate attempt to bring Misha back only as Jimmy Novak takes place, which Misha rightly refuses, leading to a finale which makes zero sense narratively and appears in every way completely and utterly butchered.

The only explanation provided by anyone involved is that Covid meant changes had to happen - but that covid didn’t change the actual story at all.

But this makes no sense because we know that Cas was cut from the finale. This is FACT. Do not let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Misha was preparing to quaranting to return to set as Cas post Covid, so whatever happened to cut Cas from the finale, it wasn’t Covid.

I’m gonna have to Occum’s Razor this and say that the most logical explanation here is the one that is most likely true. Someone got cold feet with the Destiel story, and to prevent any possible interpretation that included Dean reciprocating, any hints of Destiel were removed from the finale script, including Castiel’s whole appearance.

Now, this isn’t me saying I think that Dabb’s original finale was full of Destiel love confessions and a homosexual kiss or whatever, but I am asking you all to really think about it and ask yourselves WHY Cas would have been totally cut from an episode he was supposed to be in at LEAST half of?

We will probably never know the real reason Cas was cut, but he WAS cut. I’m not saying it was all homophobia, but some fuckery went down.

Conspiracy No. 2: The CW Network changed the finale to make it into a Walker promo because they only cared about raising up Jared and not Jensen and Misha as they were losing them anyway.

I don’t agree with this in terms of the finale being butchered solely to make it into a Walker promo. There are however moments in the finale that are clearly supposed to be Walker Easter Eggs and added to excite fans of Jared/Sam in particular such as Sam’s gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene, as well as the call on the “case in Austin”.

I will take this moment to say something pretty damn controversial though.

*Deep breath*

The fact is, Dean Winchester has been the “lead” character of Supernatural’s narrative for years now, with Sam often being sidelined and not given great storylines himself. Even in Season 15, right up until the finale, I myself felt bad for Sam sometimes because so much of this show has become all about Dean. Jensen Ackles is clearly the better actor when it comes to emotional story arcs, so the emotional heart of the story has most often leant on him.

So you can understand my confusion, when this is turned on its head in the final episode, to make Sam carry all the emotional weight, and have the most lines/screentime, and story resolution (even if his story resolution was just as crappy as Dean’s).

If we pretend that Destiel is not a thing, and ignore Cas’s confession, the story change in the finale from Dean focus to Sam focus is still rather suspicious. Again, I’m not saying I completely approve of or agree to the conspiracy theory that Walker influenced the butchering of the script, but I can believe that perhaps a note went down from the CW to someone like Bob Singer, to emphasise Sam/Jared more than they perhaps would normally, because the CW wanted to shine the spotlight on Jared to raise excitement for Walker.

I can also believe this note might have said something like “we wanna cater to fans of Sam/Jared the most - don’t do anything to piss them off.” but now I am getting into my own conspiracy theories so by all means dismiss this as me being bitter.

Conspiracy No.3: Dabb purposely made it bad, as a secret message to Destiel fans that he had been silenced, by layering meta clues into the episode that he knew fans would notice.

I doubt this one is true. Though some of the theories are quite compelling. The old vampire silent movie theory for instance starts off quite well, but loses me the moment it brings up Urban Dictionary slang.

Sometimes I have just had to accept that Supernatural is a bad show that is sometimes accidentally a masterpiece. However, some writers really did go That Deep with their stories - anything by Ben Edlund or Steve Yockey for instance, their episodes are meta masterpieces with a hundred different layers of beautiful subtextual storytelling and are a joy to analyse. Bobo Berens has certainly done some A+++ work especially now we KNOW that he was working hard all this time to bring Destiel to canon text (so any analysis of Destiel in the subtext in his episodes is very accurate). There have been many other key elements analysed over the years which have been confirmed true. Cas’s death in Season 12, Dean’s time as a demon in season 10, Season 11 ending in unity of dark and light, these were all plot points predicted by meta writers just by analysing the narrative. Sometimes the writers really have been very smart and they do add things to the show to aid us in our meta.

Richard Speight Jr for instance, confirmed that SPN has a visual library that the production team use to give clues and hints in the narrative. Pizza, for example, always means a lie has been told. Whenever Pizza is being eaten or even just mentioned on screen, there is dishonesty in that particular moment.

The beers also have a very specific message and the one thing I can’t let go about the finale, was that Dean was drinking El Sol beer. The beer his dad gave him, that was terrible.

El Sol has been used in the show to indicate something being wrong, a fake reality, or another lie, for the longest time. It is the beer of deception.

The fact that in the final episode of this entire show, Dean is in Heaven, supposedly at peace, and then he gets handed an El Sol beer to drink? Thats a HUGE red flag for any meta writer watching who can read SPNs visual library.

If they had given him the Margiekugel beer of family then it would make sense. Dean is in Heaven, with Bobby, his family, at peace. Margiekugel should have been the beer of choice. But nope. El Sol. Something is wrong.

I don’t know if it was Dabb, or Singer, or some disgruntled ADs and crew members who added these elements into the finale, but their very presence confirms some message of Wrongness.

I could go into a huge rant about Vampire Mimes not making sense and the very glaringly obvious symbolism of cutting out peoples tongues too, but that is high school level film analysis. It’s obvious. It means to silence someone. There is validity in interpreting this as Dabb saying he was silenced. I don’t know how true it is, but i can’t 100% dismiss it, because as I said, this is high school analysis levels of obvious subtextual storytelling.

So in summary, whilst I don’t think that Dabb intentionally went out of his way to sabotage his own script, and leave a breadtrail of secret messages for savvy fans to put together to confirm that he was silenced by an evil network into not getting what he wanted... I do think that there is validity in questioning these odd choices for the finale. Cutting out tongues? Vampire Mimes? El Sol beer?

The evidence is somewhat compelling is all I’m saying. I don’t believe the full conspiracy theories, but as I have said many times before, some fuckery went down.

So What Do I Believe?

That some fuckery went down and whatever company line they are pushing is bullshit.

I believe that the original script included Cas (since thats fact). I believe that the original script probably always had Dean dying on a vampire hunt (due to Jensen’s issues with it and in particular, his sarcastic comments about vampires in the past year or so which in hindsight are hilarious and prove he never really came to terms with Dean’s idiotic death). I believe Dabb’s original script was some less crappy version of what we got, which potentially included showing Jack rescuing Cas from the Empty and resolving the outstanding Empty plot points (potentially this was actually a 15x19 plot since Mark P commented that his final scenes were supposed to be with Jack and Cas), had Cas reunite with Dean in Heaven and had them have a discussion about Cas’s confession. I believe that there was probably a lot of back and forth over how to handle that with some people wanting Dean to obviously reciprocate and others believing they should keep it ambiguous. I believe that Dean and Cas would have reunited with Charlie Bradbury, and Bobby Singer, and possibly others (though if this was the case it must have been very early on since no one ever looped in Sam Ferris, Chad Linberg or any other Roadhouse people).

I believe that Sam’s ending probably didn’t change much, but I do feel that initially they were planning on him ending up with Eileen, because it is the only thing that narratively makes sense. Cutting Eileen and giving him a blurry wife is something I won’t ever understand and Jared’s bullshit explanations are quite clearly pulled out of his ass to appease bronly types. I believe the reunion on the bridge would have included Cas and Jack, with a final shot of all four of them together, at peace (as this aligns with Alex’s comments from around a year or so ago that the final shot was all four of them). (I also am not sure it was always supposed to be on a bridge since the foreshadowing in an earlier episode showed Dean, Cas and Sam all in the Roadhouse together).

I believe that script went through countless changes and redrafts, and not even production people or the types that some fandom people claim as their “sources” would even have seen those early scripts, since even Misha never saw it. I believe that these rumours of Dabb never having Cas in his finale and ignoring all Destiel elements likely come from people who only saw later versions, weren’t party to network discussions and felt bitter about the final scripts they did see (being the crappy butchered one that was ultimately filmed). Those “sources” are now spreading rumours to discredit Dabb.

I obviously believe Dabb is a weak ass pushover who either didn’t care enough to fight back, or gave up since he’s been stuck with fucking Bob Singer on his back for years, but I will NEVER believe he didn’t care about the DeanCas love story, because he has been one of the few writers who has championed for it for years. You can’t look back at Dabb’s episodes in earlier seasons and claim he didn’t care. Dabb was a writer whose creative ideas were beaten out of him by an unforgiving Network only concerned about where their future money was coming from. Do I think he gave up too easily? Yes. But I also have one other huge reason for not believing the bullshit about Dabb being this anti-Destiel villain.

Bobo. Because if Bobo truly believed Dabb was gonna fuck that up at the end, I don’t think he would have given us Cas’s love confession to begin with. If he had known it was gonna end like that, I think he would have reconsidered, because had Cas not confessed his love, I don’t think he would have been cut from the finale. Bobo - a gay man, would not have wanted such a horrible message for queer fans being put across in the show he worked so hard on. He started writing that confession scene the day they returned to the writers room. Dabb would have been there, would have seen what he was writing, probably discussed it with him, after all, other episodes were written with the confession in mind. No way was Dabb planning to fuck up the ending knowing what Bobo was giving us. Nope.

Something went very wrong over lockdown. Someone, somewhere up the chain of power caught wind of the confession scene in 15x18, realised that it demanded a resolution which would make Dean Winchester, their protagonist, queer, and pulled the plug. I believe this did not come from a place of homophobia, but of bad business sense.

The CW is constantly trying to win the approval and attention of the one demo group that they seem to fail at getting the most: young straight men. Supernatural was one of their only remaining shows that appeals to young straight men, and Dean Winchester is more often than not the fave character of those young straight men who project onto him. Making Dean Winchester, established Han Solo of Supernatural, queer and in love with his best friend in the finale would have come across as a betrayal to those young straight men. The CW probably feared they would lose that demo group for good, and with a show like Walker starting soon with Jared at the helm, they couldn’t take the risk.

Hence there was probably a whole bunch of back and forth script redrafts with the Network, with Dabb and Singer fighting to make a finale that would appeal to everyone. There was most likely no way that they could bring Cas back without addressing what had already been filmed, because any resolution of that plot would either a. make Dean queer, or b. address it awkwardly by having Dean reject Cas (this storyline would probably have been slammed by critics worse than the finale because it meant addressing it. It might have got the attention of LGBTQ activist groups and caused a bigger shitstorm than what we got). The best option was therefore C. Bury it and Cas, pretend it never happened. Never address it again and distract Dean with other things. Hope that Destiel fans will accept no answer from Dean as ambiguous enough to imagine a future reunion rather than shutting it down with a rejection, and still keep hold of the blissfully ignorant heteronormative straight boys so they can carry over to Walker when it starts.

I also believe (controversially probably) that there was concern that any resolution of Dean and Cas would have overshadowed network darling Jared Padalecki. If Dean and Cas had come together in the finale, with a very clearly textual homosexual reunion, then that would have been all anyone talked about. The reviewers, the critics, the audience, everyone. It would have been nothing but Dean and Cas (and look, if they did think this, they were right, Destiel trending over the US ELECTION.)

So what is the network to do, when they are losing the two stars who would get the most attention from this storyline? The one star they were holding on to and getting his own show, relegated to third place in the finale of the show where he was first on the call sheet? Nope. That’s pretty unacceptable. Even without Walker I can imagine people at all levels side eyeing the Destiel thing over the years. This IS a show about two brothers, and their relationship should be the core relationship, we can’t have one brother pushed aside in the finale to make way for a queer relationship that will get all the attention instead. It was never gonna get approved for this reason ALONE.

At the end of the day, if I look at it from a business perspective, it makes far more sense that the CW shut down Destiel, rather than “oh Dabb never cared and ruined it because he’s an idiot.” The writers cared, and had built on that story over years. But their mistake was leaving any Destiel resolution to the finale. If they had instead gone and got Dean and Cas together in early season 15, then they could have ended it in a way that satisfied everyone. Destiel wouldn’t have threatened pulling focus away from Sam and Dean, and the show could have gone out on a high.

When I lay out all the conspiracy theories, and line them up next to the cold hard facts, the conspiracy theories in some way or another, make more sense. To believe the company line, the narrative we have been fed, is to ignore your own eyes, ears, and memories pre March 2020.

All I’m asking people to do is take a look at the show, the narrative presented in the show, and the information presented above. I’m not telling you to believe what I’ve written here, half of which is just my own opinion. I’m asking you to ask yourselves if it makes sense to you. Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.

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rotshop · 3 years ago

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help girl i just woke up and im already thinking abt mag s/o again. anyway please consider ;

[ tw body horror, some brief light gore and violence ]

[ note ; reader is SLIGHTLY described. the only thing mentioned is that they have a noticeable, identifying scar on their face

hank + mag s/o

-he knew you even before the boombox incident. he doesn't even really remember how you two first met, he just remembers that you started talking to him and then just kinda kept coming back. at first he wasn't the biggest fan of you since he was 'doing just fine on his own,' but...he admittedly was already really attached to you. they've never been much of a talker and that's especially noticeable to you at that point in time but ,,, they respond enough with signing, nodding / shaking their head, or the occasional speaking that you're able to carry some conversations pretty well.

-he doesn't really. have. a lot of people in his life. you're really his only real close friend, it's kinda hard for him to fully wrap his head around it so !! they chose not to, instead focusing more-so on whatever it was you were rambling to them about that day.

-not super sure of where to put this lmao but ummm ehe . he's actually surprisingly touchy with you????? like. you've hung out at his house a few times and he just like. you'll start out sitting next to each other and you'll end up either laying with your head on their chest or vice versa . its . a little funny . you tease him about it a little and he just flicks your shoulder. also traces your scar a lot if you'll let them, they're not entirely sure why they do it, they just . like asking you about it occasionally.

-also you have scary dog privileges. they might look like any other grunt at that point but they're still tall as fuck and idk man !! something abt getting a blank stare from someone who towers over u would probably make u shut up and mind ur own damn business.

-again, he's not super good at fully recognizing / acknowledging certain thoughts and feelings of his but . yknow. he can definitely tell he at least worries about you a lot more than he would some other grunt he just met. he can definitely tell there's a reason he doesn't mind you touching him, whether by grabbing his hand to go show him something or just placing a hand on his shoulder or arm (most likely arm, again. hes tall. ). they can definitely tell there's a reason that they find themself genuinely enjoying your interactions.

-after the park thing you don't see them for a long time. everytime you try and call him the lines dead, everytime you try and ask others about him you just get choice words, all in all you're pretty much lost on the entire thing. sure, you know what happened but . it just never sits right with you. it doesn't help whenever people ask questions about them or give you wary looks because of your association, half steps back when you take one forward.

-anyway. yeah nevada goes to shit and you get magnified for the aahw. by now you just. don't really talk about hank. surprisingly, you have a little more of your old memories than the average mag !! congrats. problem is they're all foggy enough that you only really distantly decipher them. lmao. you aren't super high on the ladder but you're a pretty tough mag to beat. you're well known enough that other mags tend to hang around you when there's not much else going on. v2 mags especially think it's fun to mess around with you by jumping on your back or otherwise clinging onto you . idk man u've got like . a little family here .

-at one point or another there's an outing youre on that ends up going wrong. you get split up from the rest of your unit and are forced to hide out in some old abandoned building while you wait for backup. you're a little too injured to try and walk all the way back, a heavy gash on your side preventing you from doing too much in the moment. when you hear heavy steps on concrete you're able to give some sort of noise of relief, turning your head to look over your shoulder at whichever agent in your group had finally found you-

-you're instead met with red goggles and the end of a gun.

-any kind of relief is snatched away, you know damn well who it is by just the bit you can see in the dark alone. even standing in the shade between two windows (one of which you were sitting by, probably how they seen you in the first place- if that's the case though, it's a little weird they hadn't just shot at you through it.) you knew it was him. you're already stumblingly forcing yourself up to as much of your full height as you can manage, taking some kind of defensive position even as one of your hands ghosts over your gash. the throbbing pain of it and the feeling of blood sticking and running down your skin is enough that you can't seem to focus on the fact that he won't stop staring at your face.

-it doesn't take long before your legs seem to fail you, forcing you forward a bit as you kneel in some sort of attempt to keep upright. you're too busy hissing under your breath and screwing your eyes shut in pain as your hand covers your side to notice your company stepping forwards. you're snapped back to attention when there's a hand on your face, fingertips digging into your skin as they yank your head down a little further. you know you should be grabbing him, that you should be digging your claws into his torso and ripping him clean in half, throwing whatevers left aside and leaving. you know thats what you were told to do, what you were told they deserved anyway. yet, you aren't. instead, you're just giving some warning growl as you stare at them. you notice how the end of the gun is pointed away from you, how their touch seems to outline the mark on your face.

-"If you try and hurt me, I'll kill you." That's the only real heads up you get before he's crouching down and shoving your hand out of the way, grabbing something from his pocket to get to work on you. you don't fail to notice how little attention they're paying to you (aside from the focus on your wound, of course), that you could just rush forward and slam them into the ground if you really wanted.

-ok im skippin g ahead bc this is already way too goddamn long for hcs DEJWJCS

-anyway. it's a complicated relationship for a while. the others tend to avoid you a little but he just keeps showing up around you. they keep staring at you and just hanging around in your general area. it's not that much of an irritant if you ignore all the weird emotions and thoughts it keeps bringing to the forefront of your mind, forcing you to once again try and meddle with your memories.

-eventually he just starts walking over to you and sitting down next to you. sometimes he doesn't say anything at all, just sitting there and seeming to wait for one thing another- he never seems to find whatever that is, as he always gets up and leaves without a word at some point or another. then they start talking, its just little things at first, point-blank statements you can't say much on. sometimes they're just saying they and the other three will be gone for a bit othertimes it's some half-demand to let them look at the stitches they did on you (semi-related, he's not good at them. the stitches are pretty rough. at one point or another sanford has to redo them properly lmao)

-but then there's one particular night. they do the normal thing, come over, sit down next to you, not say a word. this time though you note how they're facing you. instead of some reminder or a demand for anything, he's pulling his ask down and asking a simple question. 'What do you remember?'

-it's a long conversation. he's talking more than he normally would by a long shot, occasionally stopping whenever his words seem to especially fail him and get stuck in his throat. you don't even really remember moving around, or even him pulling you in any way, you just know you somehow end up laying next to him with your head on his chest.

-whenever the memories do seem to click into place, it's hard. you have a lot of choice words for them yourself, months of being left alone without a word bubbling up with a vengeance, they listen to them. while some mags (such as yourself) do have the ability to speak, the san and dei don't think they've ever heard one with that much emotion in their voice. they've especially never seen a mag just break down like you do, they're both tensing up a little from their far away spot when hank's walking closer to you. instead of you lashing out or swiping at him though, you just sit there while he wraps his arms around you (as best as he can at least, it's a little difficult but he's able to get them around your neck and reach his other hand behind you well enough). you're eventually doing the same to him, though it's more so just your hands resting on their back.

-it takes a good while for proper trust to be rebuilt along with an honest, proper explanation from hank that only you're privy to. eventually though, there's enough trust that you're able to hang around him again without narrowly avoiding an argument or anything. they don't like being super affectionate or 'vulnerable' in front of the other two, so most times they prefer being in your or their room. also they're still touchy lmao, doesn't help that you're mag sized now and so they just want to hold you . its hard to explain, he's never been super affected by others heights and even when he is it's usually a negative thing for him but . for some reason . he just likes being shorter / smaller than you lol ,,,,,,,, hope you like holding them a lot bc that's what you're gonna be doing

-holy shit these are long so . i think .i am going to stop here.

#hank j wimbleton x reader #madcom x reader #madness combat x reader #madcom imagines #madness combat imagines #rot writes #hank 'jmy s/o is twice my size and could turn me into a fine wine if they really wanted to and i love them for it' wimbleton

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sleepysnk · 4 years ago

Note

okay but imagine kid eren wanting to beat y/n’s bullies and now cute little soft y/n is always following him like a puppy and eren thinks it’s so annoying but inside he finds it so cute and cute little soft gf will do anything for him even do his hw so eren just fucks her rough telling her how much he hates being follow or how weak she is but inside he doesn’t mean it all he loves her deeply and wants to protect her but later on she’s like “y-youre wrong so so wrong eren i’ve been in love with you ever since we were kids” yeah i’m dreaming abt it

(LMFAOOOO i copy and paste yeah hope it counts shawty babe)

i had a feeling this would be requested 😭 i hope i didn't butcher this smut too much, it's been a long time since i've written smut. thank you for requesting, i hope you enjoy! ♡

Like a Puppy

Pairings: Eren Jaeger x Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW

"Can you leave me alone?"

(Y/N) was trying to get to class, she had one in about five minutes and of course, Porco Galliard was back to mess with her.

"Why? You gonna cry (Y/N)?" he asked, chuckling a bit.

She was backed up against the wall, Porco was hovering over her, a smirk on his face when he saw her cowering like a puppy with its tail in between its legs. It was a satisfying feeling to have power over her, Porco enjoyed messing around with her ever since she came into college with him.

"Um.." she mumbled, her eyes avoiding his piercing gaze. Porco had always been intimidating, ever since (Y/N) bumped into him her freshman year; he had always seeked her out whenever he pleased.

He grabbed one of her books, specifically the one she got from the school. A grin plastered across his features, "A book huh? You've always been a nerd," he said.

She tried reaching for it, but Porco raised it up into the air. "Please give it back!" she cried, trying to jump up to grab the book.

He started to chuckle seeing her struggle. "Not a chance in hell.." he replied, rolling his eyes. Amusement all over his face.

"Hey."

He turned his head and was met with a brunette towering over him. Eren Jaeger, the soccer player.

Porco gulped, "H-Hey Eren," he said with a nervous smile.

Eren took the book from Porco's hands. "Leave her the fuck alone. This is the third time I've seen you fucking with her! Didn't you learn your lesson last time when I beat your fucking ass?" he asked, his voice raised and loud. It made a few people glance over.

Porco rubbed the back of his neck. "S-Sorry! It won't happen again! Sorry (Y/N).." he said and scurried away down the hall.

Eren's green eyes met hers, it was an usual occurrence; Eren protecting (Y/N) from people who picked on her. It had been that way since they were kids, he was always there to save the day and he's even gotten bloody knuckles from hurting those who tried to pick on (Y/N).

Eren would always say that it was annoying, but deep down, he loved protecting her. He had strong feelings for her ever since he protected her that one day on the playground.

She's follow him like a puppy, people would tell Eren that she was weak and he shouldn't be getting in trouble on her behalf, but Eren didn't listen and he kept defending her whenever he could.

"Thank you again, Eren.." she said, looking down at the floor.

He rolled his eyes, "Yeah whatever.. did you do my homework?" he asked.

She blinked for a moment, totally realizing that she forgot. "Shit! I'm sorry.. I forgot to.. you can come by later and pick it up if you'd like," she replied, chewing on her bottom lip.

Eren let out an annoyed sigh. "I guess.. do you need me to walk you to class?" he asked with a brow raised.

She nodded, "Yes please," she replied.

Eren hummed in response and began to walk her to class, a few students stared at them when they passed by. People always stared whenever Eren and (Y/N) were together, she was known for being weak and a coward, while Eren was her protector who could get rid of anyone who tried hurting her.

He was used to it, so was she.

Eren stopped in front of the lecture hall door, she was late. "I'm a bit late.. but thank you," she said, throwing a smile his way.

Eren smiled, "Yeah don't sweat it," he said.

She waved before entering her class. Eren shoved his hands into his pockets, chewing on the gum in his mouth. What was he going to do about her?

It was around nine o'clock. (Y/N) had just finished the last of Eren's math homework, she silently hoped she got all of the work right or he'd be pissed.

She grabbed her phone, opening the message app and sending Eren a message that his homework was finished. He had to hurry up since the hall monitors might be around, and if they were they'd both get in trouble.

A sudden knock came from behind the door, was he here already? It barely took him any time to get there, which was odd.. was he in another girls dorm?

She stood up, fixing her skirt and heading towards the door. Opening it she was faced with Eren in sweats and a white t-shirt, he looked comfy to (Y/N).

"Hey.. I was out walking around when I saw your text, could I get my homework?" he asked, his voice raspy and deep. Almost like he had been asleep before.

"Y-Yeah! Come in.." she said, moving out of the way so he could step in.

Eren walked into her dorm, the faint smell of her perfume filled his nose. Lavender, his favorite.

"I finished it pretty quick so.. here you go," she said, holding the paper towards him.

Eren took it from her hands, his eyes scanning over the paper with different equations and work written all over it. When in doubt, go to (Y/N) for math homework answers.

"Thanks, I appreciate it." he said.

She smiled, "Of course!" she replied.

Eren sat down on her bed, his eyes taking in the sight of her form. She wore a skirt the barely stopped mid-thigh, a white blouse, and her white socks that went up to her ankles. It made his dick twitch.

"Eren? Is everything okay?" she asked, her voice filled with worry.

He blinked for a moment. "Yeah! Don't worry about me.. but could you come look at this for me?" he asked, nodding his head.

She walked in front of him. "What is it? Did I make a mistake?" she asked, taking the paper from his hands and scanning over the problems.

"You can sit.. you know," he said, eyeing his lap.

Her face suddenly grew hot, why sit on his lap? She had done it when she was younger with him, but it was a bit weird now. Eren was her close friend, not her significant other.

"U-Um.. okay," she replied, fixing her skirt and sitting down on his thigh.

Eren caught a glimpse of her white panties, he swore he saw her lips outlined in them. The blood rushing to his dick was making him go crazy, it'd be a little embarrassing if she noticed it too.. (Y/N) was kind of innocent when it came to that kind of stuff.

"I don't think I made any mistakes.. you'll know when the teacher checks it," she said, looking at him.

Eren hummed, "Oh.. I see," he replied.

She swallowed thickly, her heart was hammering in her chest. "Is everything okay Eren? You seem a little.. weird.." she said, biting her lip.

She felt so fragile in his lap, she was like porceline to him; porceline and precious. Eren always thought of her as angelic and important, he protected her and God forbid anyone tried to break her.

"You know.. I protect you all the time.. I beat up Porco.. hell, I even beat up Jean that one time. I'd hate to see you hurt," Eren said, brushing his fingers along the plush of her thigh.

Goosebumps flared onto her skin, the room started to feel hot and feverish. "That's sweet Eren," she replied, avoiding his gaze.

"But it makes you weak.. you're so weak and it annoys the hell out of me," he said, leaning his head to her neck. His breath fanned over her skin, making her shiver. "You're so weak and fragile.. I'd hate to see you get hurt," he added.

Her mind felt dizzy, an unfamiliar feeling was starting to take over. She could feel her body heating up and her breath starting to become heavy, heat pooling between her legs.

"B-But.. you're always there to s-save me.." she replied in between breaths.

Eren smirked against her skin. "That's right.." he replied, kissing at her neck. "Can I touch you?" he asked, rubbing circles on the flesh of her thigh.

"Please.. please touch me Eren," she whimpered.

Eren pushed the fabric of her skirt up, exposing her white panties. His cock twitched, he could almost feel the wet spot forming in his boxers; it made him groan as his eyes drank in the sight of her bare lower half.

He used his hand to spread open her legs, a damp spot visible from her slick. It made Eren smirk, "All of this.. for me?" he asked.

Her face was hot, "Y-Yes.." she replied.

He chuckled and slid his hands underneath her panties, her pussy was soaked and dripping with arousal; it made Eren want to cum in his pants already. He wanted to feel her in him, sucking him in and taking his dick, nobody else's.

Eren started circling and pinching at her clit, her wetness coating his fingers.

"Mmm.. Eren.." she whimpered, squeezing at the fabric of his shirt.

Her hips bucked when his finger circled around her bead, it made Eren chuckle. He never knew she could be so sensitive.

"I barely touched you and you're already twitching.. I turn you on that much huh (Y/N)?" he asked, pressing his lips against her neck, his teeth grazing against the skin.

She moaned in response, her body acting on its own and moving upwards towards his fingers.

Eren used his hand to tilt her face towards his. "Say it." he said, looking into her eyes which were blown with lust.

"Y-Yes! E-Eren, please!" she cried, throwing her head back as his pace quickened against her clit.

Eren stopped and removed his fingers from her cunt, a whine coming from (Y/N).

"Lay down.." he said, pecking her lips and tapping her ass.

She stood up on wobbly legs and plopped down on her bed. She could see his print that formed in his sweatpants, a visible wet spot darkened the material; it made her rub her legs together in anticipation.

Eren threw off his shirt, exposing his worked out body. It never failed to make (Y/N) surprised, his physique always attracted her to him.

He tossed his sweatpants off and climbed onto her bed, he was leaning on his knees, he seemed to be thinking about something. It confused (Y/N) for a moment.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, her voice a bit worried.

He looked at her, "Take off your clothes.." he said.

She felt bashful but nonetheless did she remove her top and the rest of her outfit, her whole body was now exposed to him. Eren's eyes explored her breasts, down to her waist, then finally her pretty wet pussy. He was like an animal hunting its prey, and he was hungry for her.

"Can I?" Eren asked, his hands brushing over her clit.

She nodded, "Yes.. please," she replied, pressing her thighs together a bit.

Eren leaned back on his knees, savoring the view. He got down in between her legs, his tongue dragging over her pussy; the taste made him go crazy. He knew she'd taste good, he had been fantasizing about this moment for so long.. and it was finally happening.

Eren's tongue explored her folds, her wetness collecting onto his chin and the tip of his nose. Soft whimpers and moans came from (Y/N)'s mouth as Eren licked around her pussy, her hands slightly tugged at the strands of his hair which was tied back in a bun.

He slid on of his digits into her hole, a loud moan escaping her mouth. "Eren! Yes! Please! Please.." she cried, moving her hips upwards near his face.

Eren pinned her hips down, his pupils were blown and darkened. "Keep your fucking hips down.." he replied before attacking her clit again.

She leaned her head back against the pillow beneath her, her eyes squeezed shut, the pleasure becoming almost unbearable. Eren's finger kept curling around her g-spot every so often, making her eyes see white.

A knot in her stomach threatened to break, tingles danced along her skin, her orgasm was coming.

"E-Eren! I-I'm gonna c-cum!" she whimpered, digging her nails into his scalp.

Eren's jade like eyes looked up towards her, a smirk formed onto his face; he pulled his face away and removed his finger from her pussy.

Bastard.

Eren's chin was coated with her arousal, his lips were puffy and slightly parted. "You wanna taste yourself princess?" he asked, leaning down towards her face.

She looked into his eyes before nodding her head. Eren's lips connected with hers, she could taste the slightly tangy flavor of her slick on his lips. Her arms went around his neck, bringing him down closer.

Eren pulled away, "I wanna fuck you so bad.. can I?" he asked in between deep breaths.

She nodded her head, "Yes.. please.." she replied.

Eren sat up for a moment and tossed his boxers off, his cock sprang free and slapped against his stomach. The tip was red and oozing precum.

He wiped away the precum with his thumb, he slightly stroked his shaft, groaning a bit. "Are you ready?" he asked, his voice deep.

"Yes.." she said, looking down at his cock.

Eren rubbed the tip against her slick folds, groans escaped his mouth, it felt so good. He could feel her pussy pulsating against his tip, it turned him on so much.

He leaned down and kissed her as he entered her wet hole, a loud moan coming from her mouth from Eren stretching her hole. Eren's hands gripped at the sheets beside her head, her walls were gripping his cock so tightly he could almost cum on the spot.

"O-Oh God Eren!" she cried, putting her arms around his neck.

Eren bottomed out and began to thrust his hips against hers, her moans were like music to his ears. He felt a sense of pride and power.. Eren was making her feel this way, all him, nobody else. She felt so good around him, it was like her pussy was made for Eren to fuck; she was so tight and wet, it drove him crazy.

She cried out in pleasure when his cock hit that spot which made her see stars. "Right there.." she whimpered, clawing at his back.

Eren smirked against her skin. "Look at you.. all sensitive and needy for your protector.." he said, nibbling at the shell of her ear. "You follow me around like a fucking puppy and act like it's nothing.."

He felt her walls tighten a bit from his words, Eren found it to be amusing. "Eren! It's too much! Shit.." she yelled, throwing her head back.

His balls slapped against her clit, the only sound that could be heard was her mattress and her sweet moans. Eren wanted to savor her, she was so pretty underneath him.

"Take my cock pretty girl.. I know you can," he said before dragging his hand down to play with her clit. "You're even weak for my fucking cock.."

She locked her ankles around his waist, her stomach formed that knot again; she was close and Eren could feel it.

"E-Eren! I-I.." she trailed off as her vision was going blurry, that knot broke and her body shook; her walls squeezing Eren's cock tightly.

He let out a laugh. "Fuuckk.. that's a good fucking girl.. cum around my dick," he groaned, pumping into her quicker.

Her moans poured out of her mouth, her cunt felt tired, but Eren wasn't finished just yet. He was close and he was determined to finish the job inside of her.

"Part of me thinks you like when I come save you.. do you like it baby?" he asked, putting his hand near her throat.

She looked at him with half-lidded eyes. "Mmhm.." she replied, nodding her head.

He chuckled, "I know you do.. you only use me to get away from Porco.." he said.

Her head snapped back when those words came out of Eren's mouth. "E-Eren.. you're w-wrong! I've l-loved you s-since we were k-kids!" she said in between moans.

Eren's eyes grew wide, his pace started to slow as his brain processed what she just told him. "H-Huh..? You.. you love me?" he asked, leaning up.

She nodded, "Yes I do.." she replied.

Without warning, Eren smashed his lips onto hers and continued thrusting into her. "I love you so fucking much (Y/N).." he said, intertwining his fingers with hers. "Let me fill you up.."

She lifted her hips upwards. "Please! Please fill me up Eren, I love you too!" she cried.

Eren picked up the pace, his cock twitched inside of her and within seconds he hit his orgasm; his cum coating her walls with white thick ropes. He groaned and threw his head back from the waves of pleasure that washed over him.

The two laid there, catching their breath. Eren collapsed next to her on the bed, sweat coated their bodies and Eren's face was slightly pink.

"Did you mean that? When you said you loved me?" (Y/N) asked, turning her body towards his.

Eren looked at her, "I did mean it, you're so important to me and I want to keep you safe." he replied.

She smiled, "I'd love that from you.." she whispered.

Eren leaned in and pressed his lips against hers, it was real and passionate. Just like his feelings for her.

"I promise to keep you safe," Eren said, cupping her cheek.

She leaned into his chest. "Thank you Eren.." she said, laying her head down.

"Of course (Y/N).." he replied, stroking her hair.

#anime #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot x y/n #aot x reader #aot imagines #snk x y/n #snk x reader #snk fanfiction #aot fanfiction #snk imagines #shingeki no kyoujin fanfiction #eren jaeger #eren jaeger x reader #eren x reader #attack on titan fanfiction #anime fanfic #aot smut

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legolasghosty · 3 years ago

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Hello, I would like one "your shirt was laying there and i couldn’t help but steal it" for Willex please 👀

- @michelangelindraws

Hey babe! Aight, I did end up changing the wording on the line a bit to make it fit better, but... here ya go! <3

Look, a sleepover hadn’t been the plan. Willie had come over to Alex’s apartment for dinner and to watch a movie, not to spend the night. Alex probably would have prepared better if he’d known this would happen. But he didn’t because it was an accident. Sort of.

Okay, Alex refused to be truly embarrassed by this situation, because honestly, who in their right mind would want to wake their partner when said partner was asleep on their chest? Especially when said partner was Willie, who just looked so soft when he was asleep. So when Willie had dozed off halfway through their rewatch of High School Musical, Alex just… let them sleep.

But now, he was awake, and Willie was still curled up against his side and starting to stir, and Alex had no idea what to do. Or if he should do anything. It wasn’t like he regretted letting Willie stay the night, it was the best he’d slept in a while and the little bits of sunlight filtering in through his blinds made Willie’s hair look golden, all splayed out over the light blue of Alex’s pillows. He was so beautiful. But…

“Hmmm?” Willie muttered, shifting and opening his eyes a crack.

Well, that answered that question, Alex thought. “Good morning,” he offered a little sheepishly.

Willie seemed to wake up at the sound of Alex’s voice, their eyes flying open in surprise. “Did I…” they started before trailing off, apparently not sure how to finish the sentence.

“You fell asleep during the movie,” Alex explained. “I didn’t want to wake you, since I know you haven’t been sleeping that well lately, and you were kinda on top of me so… Yeah.”

“Oh,” Willie responded, still sounding sleepy but pushing himself up into a sitting position. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” Alex assured them quickly, sitting up as well. “Really, I don’t mind, it was just sort of unexpected.”

“Well in that case,” Willie murmured, voice still low from sleep, “can I kiss you good morning?”

Alex nodded, shifting closer and cupping Willie’s cheek as they leaned in and pressed their lips against his.

“Good morning,” Willie whispered as he pulled back.

Alex smirked and quickly stole one more peck, then forced himself out of bed. “I guess I’ll go sort out breakfast, do you need to take a shower or anything?” he asked, holding out a hand to help Willie up.

“Actually, a shower sounds great,” Willie admitted, stumbling a bit as they found their footing. “Wasn’t up to taking one yesterday morning, and then I was here last night…”

Alex nodded in understanding and led Willie to his bathroom. He quickly ducked inside to brush his teeth, then outlined the basics of how his shower worked to Willie. It was pretty simple, but showers were one of those weird things where every single one was a bit different and could be overwhelming. His bathroom was a bit of a mess, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about that now, and Willie had just been in his bedroom, which was even more of a disaster, so he wasn’t too worried about it.

Leaving Willie with one more kiss, Alex headed to the kitchen to figure out food and process. He usually just had cereal for breakfast when he had time and a protein bar if he was on his way out the door, but he’d rather have something nicer for Willie. Even though neither of them had planned it, it was still the first time they’d actually spent the night together, and that seemed like something to be celebrated.

After taking a quick stock of his kitchen, Alex pulled out the milk and eggs to make french toast. Not terribly fancy, but he already had everything and it would be better than protein bars. As he heated the pan and started making the food, he considered the situation.

Okay. So Willie had slept over last night. It had been unplanned, but Alex hadn’t woken him up to make him leave so… did it count as ‘unintentional’? He pushed that question aside to consider later. He certainly wasn’t upset it had happened, just a bit surprised and confused. And Willie seemed pretty okay with this turn of events as well once they knew Alex was fine. So the odds of Willie breaking up with him seemed pretty low. But would this change things in their relationship? Would this become a thing they did? Alex thought about Willie’s hair spread over his pillows, imagined opening his eyes to the light green walls of Willie’s room instead of the off-white of his own.

Yeah, Alex thought he would like it if this became a thing they did. He lifted the first piece of french toast out of the pan and set it on a plate as he dipped the next in the batter. He continued making breakfast, humming under his breath as he worked.

“Something smells good.”

Alex jumped, not expecting Willie’s comment. He turned to see them standing in the hallway, hair damp and loose, black sweatpants they’d been wearing since yesterday, and…

“Is that my shirt?” Alex asked, confused by the light grey Disneyland cutoff Willie was wearing.

“Oh, um, yeah,” Willie stuttered, blushing. “I mean, it was just sitting there, and I accidentally got mine all wet with the spray from the shower so… I stole it?”

Alex couldn’t function. Not only did the shirt show off Willie’s very nice arms and shoulders, but… it was his. His partner was wearing a shirt Alex had owned for years, had a ton of memories tied to, and… now Willie was wearing it and Alex was pretty sure his face was turning pink but he really didn’t care.

“Sorry, I should have asked first or something…” Willie rambled.

Alex realized he’d taken his silence as rejection and quickly cut him off. “I’m not upset, just…” Alex glanced down at the piece of french toast that was about done frying. “Hold for like… ten seconds.”

Willie nodded nervously and Alex quickly slid the finished piece of bread onto the plate with the others, then turned off the stove and set the pan on another burner. Once he was sure nothing was going to catch on fire, he left the stove and crossed the room to Willie. He carefully placed his hands on their waist and pushed them back against the wall.

“Is this okay?” he asked softly. Willie nodded, so Alex leaned in. “You look really good in my clothes,” he whispered just before pressing his lips against Willie’s.

Willie responded immediately, kissing Alex back and wrapping his arms around his neck to pull him closer. Alex pushed them back more firmly against the wall and brushed the tip of his tongue against Willie’s lower lip. Willie laughed as he let him in, meeting him in a dance that was both familiar and just as exciting and new as the first time they’d done it.

“I’m glad you like it,” Willie whispered when they broke apart to catch their breath.

“I really do,” Alex responded, darting forward to leave one last, quick kiss against his lips before forcing himself to step back. “Okay, before it gets cold because you’re too distracting, I made breakfast.”

Willie grinned and followed him to the table. “Oh sure, blame it all on me,” he teased as Alex brought the food over.

“Your fault for stealing my shirt,” Alex shot back with a grin. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” Willie chuckled. “I didn’t really think about it, my shirt was just wet and yours was right there so…”

“I love you,” Alex laughed, kissing him one more time as he dropped into a chair beside him.

“Love you too,” Willie giggled.

Yeah, even if it wasn’t on purpose, Alex was definitely okay with this.

#there we have it #not my best #but tis done #accidental sleepovers my beloved #did i do it justice?#absolutely not #but hopefully it's at least sort of cute #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfic #willex #alex mercer #willie jatp #jatp #legolas tag #legolas ask

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cdroloisms · 3 years ago

Text

take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi)

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete.

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now.

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news.

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright.

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now.

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots.

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine.

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?)

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all.

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen.

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it.

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs.

“Michael!”

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air.

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!”

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves.

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands.

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly.

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?”

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.”

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice.

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices.

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return.

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest.

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all?

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands.

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team.

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs.

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!”

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation.

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return.

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak.

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?”

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time.

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?”

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?”

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in.

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?”

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud.

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.”

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.”

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter.

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.”

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream.

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for.

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena.

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops.

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again.

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!”

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up.

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge.

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway.

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.”

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.”

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out.

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best.

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail.

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly.

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.”

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions-

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?”

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut.

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps.

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well.

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to.

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before.

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes.

“Like you did that much.”

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye.

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs.

“Fair.”

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow.

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future.

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever.

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team.

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits.

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?”

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they?

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body.

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well?

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further.

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him.

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own.

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?”

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words.

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?”

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.”

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?”

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red.

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?”

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome.

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break.

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain.

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.”

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own.

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake.

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point.

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.”

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.”

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time.

Keep your head down.

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.”

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race.

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!”

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.”

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again.

“Thanks, guys.”

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings.

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?”

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.”

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs.

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?”

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back.

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?”

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!”

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition.

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down.

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it.

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap.

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter.

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder.

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own.

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it.

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off.

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off.

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak.

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod.

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams, watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team -

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena.

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?”

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners.

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route.

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out.

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused.

“Gottem.”

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting.

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them.

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby.

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?”

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective.

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second -

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!”

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own.

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue.

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay.

The smile slips off his face.

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on.

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what?

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply.

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all.

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it.

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity.

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all.

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow.

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down.

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red.

---

“What the hell was that?”

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence.

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?”

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes.

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-”

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?”

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter.

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-”

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?”

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?”

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features.

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.”

“...liar.”

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down.

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward.

“Quackity!”

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-”

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops.

“LET’S GO!”

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows.

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time.

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself-

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.”

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?”

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze.

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.”

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder.

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp.

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention.

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.”

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..”

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.”

“Thanks for everything, Scott.”

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.”

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing.

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?”

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.”

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him.

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.”

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached.

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.”

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure.

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?”

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head.

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.”

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly.

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.”

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.”

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life.

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.”

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow.

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?”

#-> my writing #my writing :D #c!Quackity critical #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw torture #tw panic attack #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting #tw needles #tw hospitals #tw emotional distress #pandora's vault #prison arc #god this was so fun #hope you all enjoy !!#long post

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