#there also might be something hidden behind oreo

[hedgehog-moss]

Look at the delicious sushi for llamas I made today:

It's courgette stuffed with deworming paste and thanks to Poldine my plan went swimmingly. Pampelune is sometimes distrustful on deworming day, but when they saw Poldine get a treat then try to steal the other treats which were obviously meant for them, the other animals hurried to claim their own medicinal courgette as well.

Except Pampe. (How many times have I written these words.) She looked at her sushi, looked at me, sniffed every side of the courgette, decided it smelled like deceit, and walked away.

I felt daft for not going the muesli route straight away. Like all great tricksters Pampérigouste is suspicious by nature but she can't resist muesli. So I un-stuffed the courgette and used the sticky deworming paste to fashion a little muesli ball.

It was gooey and not very appetising but it's muesli, right? I camouflaged the muesli ball in a dish of innocent muesli and offered it to Pampe, but unfortunately she was now very aware that I was up to something. Instead of mindlessly vacuuming the contents of the muesli dish as she usually does, she examined the strange slimy little ball, pushed it away with her nose with obvious contempt, then ate the normal muesli. I tried (with increasing insistence and frustration) to convince her to eat the damn muesli ball, but no.

New idea: I went to the kitchen to get some pumpkin rinds, and squished the muesli ball between two small pieces of pumpkin skin like a Choco BN (if you're from the US, picture an orange worm-killing Oreo). Pampe likes pumpkin skin! I tried to explain to her that she would be punishing only herself if she refused the (admittedly deceitful) offering out of principle.

Somehow she managed to eat the outside 'biscuits' and spit out the stuffing.

At this point I had to shame her. (I told her to look ashamed for this photo; not sure she understood the assignment)

I had exhausted my creativity and had nothing left but the mean method. I got Pampe in llama jail, aka the school room where I spent many hours trying to teach her to wear a halter and be a good docile llama when she was little, while she spent many hours trying to escape by any conceivable means—high jumps, bribery, tunnels, you name it.

(In the background behind Poldine you can see the bag of hay that I used to get the llamas to follow me into the corral. Pampe naively thought I had given up on trying to make her eat gross slimy things and was about to give her a normal meal)

She tried a strange kind of escape this time around, which honestly might have worked if she were a swift salmon returning to her natal river to spawn, slicing against the current in a series of graceful, forward-arching curves. But she's a llama. It's like she forgot she wasn't all neck and also had a body that needed to clear this obstacle.

I sang her a little song to soothe her, and scritched her face, and managed to get a llama kiss which is more affection than I've ever received from a currently-jailed Pampe—her daughter really is a good influence on her!

So of course I took advantage of this moment of calm and trust to stick my hidden secret syringe in the corner of her mouth and push 2cm of deworming paste onto her tongue.

She was VEXED and WROTH.

We were talking about learning poetry by heart the other day; well, if Pampérigouste did that, "I am rowing (a hex poem)" is the poem she would have invoked in that moment.

After I left, all the other animals hurried into the corral to eat the hay I had used to get Pampe in, while Pampe turned her back on the meal and walked away a strategic distance, far enough to show me that she felt betrayed and would never eat any food I bring her ever again, not so far that she couldn't go back in and fight the donkey for what was left of the hay as soon as I stopped looking.

[its-snicket-here]

Being sister of Ainz?? *Whisper from the dark corner*

*Whispers from the deep abyss of personal drafts* Hell fucking yeah

----------------------

Due to you being much more younger and more prone to gaming. I can see your character to have more of a monstrous form than a humanly look.

Ainz can now rest on having to spend money on your account, due to you doing multiple side jobs. Though, that doesn't let you escape of sharing your half of rent.

Your character is a demon; clad in a tattered yellow cloak with the hood always up, blocking any prying eyes from seeing your face. What it only peaks out is grey hair. Though the sleeve aren't long enough to cover your bandaged and shackled arms. In an ombre fashion, the arms are shown to go from black to blood red at the finger tips.

Though when unhooded, it's shown that your face is also pitch black. Your mouth is replaced with something more inhumane, having no teeth nor anything. Though it's capable of breaking and tearing through anything with such animalistic powers. Strange red substances dribble out, though nobody dares to try even touching it.

Your eyes is blindfolded, though when unraveled, it shows only a void where the sockets are. All oozing the same red substance that dribbles from the mouth. You have a long black tongue that oozes a stank smell when activated for fighting.

Your chest had an open hole, where your ribcage pops out in the flesh and where your spine could be shown. Where the heart is supposed to be lies a giant plasma ball. Though like Ainz's, it's indestructible.

Like the mom, you and Ainz have special perks when you have family members joining in the game. Unlike mother's rage, the two of you have now gained "Sibling's Rivalry."

When the two of you were transported into the new world, instead of spawning inside the Tomb with Ainz. You were spawned inside a cave, deep inside the forest where Hamsuke was at.

It took you a little while to get out of there, but you did it.

But it did took you long time getting your sense of perception because your sight has been replaced black and white outlines. You were tripping over multiple shit in the cave and the forest: trees, rocks, a lizard, a corpse, you name it. You were tripping everywhere.

Though despite your struggle of having a different sense of perception. You were able to detect life sources somewhere, but couldn't exactly pinpoint the direction it was coming from.

So, it caught you off guard when you "see" a giant hamster right in front of you doing a piss ass job of threatening you.

Thus the hilarity ensued when you activated your intimidation skill on Hamsuke.

So, you have now a hamster ride and a new roommate to sleep with. Though, you do enjoy the furry rat hamster's company. At least she'll be your guide around the forest.

Thus the two of you were dubbed the "The Wise King of the Forest" and "The Demonic Puppet," much to your annoyance. You're not a damn puppet that's for sure.

When Ainz heard about you and Hamsuke in the forest, he was highly interested in you. Rumors had it you were the supposed puppet/rider of "The Wise King of the Forest." So of course he wanted to either recruit you or to at least collect you like he was planning to do for Gazef

It was surprise when he finally noticed that it was his sister that was labeled as "The Demonic Puppet," but is relieved that he isn't lonely now

Breathes

That doesn't escape the fact you're now a gremlin

Might as well make you the prankster demon, because you do a shit ton of light hearted tricks

The classic plastic wrap on the doorways, replacing bombs with glitter dust, making swords break at the first contact before reconnecting all together again, toothpaste filling in Oreos/pastries, you get the drill.

Demiurge wants to experiment and study your red ooze that drips out and see its effect. You have now gained Demiurge's interest on studying you, especially your reasons to be shackled.

I would say that you're aren't specifically in the guide but is considered to be because of your connection and how frequently you've visit the guide.

Though, you can't gain a human look no matter how hard you can transform

As if you can actually transform lmaooooo

So, you are forced to wear a mask and lots of long sleeved shirts, bandages, long pants, your coat, and/or dresses when you go outside with Ainz and Nabe in E-Rantel. Though you can't seem to take off your shackles off you.

I can see you and Evileye being acquaintances in heroes term. Other than that, she sees you as a gateway on trying to hook up with Ainz/Momonga and an interesting person. A strong mage always hiding behind a mask like her.

Though unlike cosmic demon eldritch mama, you don't gain a following. The last thing you want is idiots trying to summon you, despite saying a very hard no on accepting their praises and begging.

There is times where you go onto a blood frenzy uncontrollably out of the blue that Ainz had to put Demiurge and Cocytus in charge in containing your blood frenzy. If it goes out of control, then Ainz would reluctantly WILL and HAVE to put you out for himself.

So when the war happened between the two kingdoms, when Ainz was making everyone thinking he was an actual fucking monster. They all should be fearing you. You. Go. Nuts. With. Full. Intent. of. Excitement. For. Blood. And. Fear.

Before the whole war even happened, you and Demiurge were setting up the battlefield with traps, hidden demons/beasts, hiding poison containers somewhere in the water supply that will open at a specific time, portals from hell, etc. You are on full intent of destroying the kingdom with all of your might.

Just hope they don't get inside [Death's Parade] ok? :)

-------

[Sibling's Rivalry] - Due to you having a connection with another player via email/phone number confirmation, you and your connector have now gained a new skill set [Sibling's Rivalry]. When in a 40 meter radius with your sibling, you have now gained an increase of 125% ATK speed, 45% AGILITY, and a 200+ MP boost.

[Blood Lust] - Every physical kill increases your ATK power by +15%. Maximum is +150% for 15 minuets. Though when passive, when not killing, the player will have a meter that will slowly goes up until 100%. If any kills hasn't occur,

[Death's Parade] - One time use, afterwards you must rest until [Death's Parade] can be used again. Upon use, within 75 meter radius of the caster shall turn into an arena. Those who inside the radius can not escape nor those outside the radius can join in. Multiple demonic summons and undead summons shall appear and will fight to the death to the players that are trapped inside. The arena will stay on until either the caster's MP reaches to 1 or the players inside the arena is dead. 145% ATK speed, 65% spell power, 145% casting speed.

[F. E. A. R] - Fear Energy Acid Radiation. Those who are not immune to the fear energy radiation or has consumed fear acid would now experience a multitude of nightmares and hallucinations until they have escaped the radiation or after 2 hours if digested. It is possible to die from [F. E. A. R].

[Tier 1/2/3 intimidation] - Tier 1 effects low leveled beings through 1 - 25. Tier 2 effects mid level beings through 25 - 75. Tier 3 effects higher level beings through 75 - 100. When under the intimidation, they will be frozen in fear for 10 minuets. Though if using a higher level fear on a lower level being it can have a lasting effect until turned off.

[Blood Cult Garbs] - 'Worship is meaningless when given prayers and offerings. What THEY need is blood to be spilled, screams to be heard, flesh being wounded!' 195% spell power, 145% casting speed

[Sacrificial blade] - 'This is a gift from the Gods...' A blade that has already taken the lives of many unbelievers and its willingly followers. Though it has been unwashed over the years of use. 175% life leech, status: bleeding, status: hemorrhage, status: infected

[Status: Holy Imprisoned] - Due the angelic shackles containing your sins, you have been now suppressed of demonic urges and have now gained morality and emotions. Though the older the shackles are, the harder it will stop the demonic urges and sins seizing through. Every time a demonic ability/spell has been mustered, the host will go through intense pain that will take 25% of their health, but will never go down to 0. -250% holy damage resistance, demonic damage nullified, status: imprisoned, -110% casting speed [Holy Imprisoned is inflicted by Angelic species that is the same level or higher than the host. Can be effected again.]

[Orb of Trickery] - Due to you now infused with the orb, you are now able to cast illusion spells, psychic spells, and hypnotic spells much faster with 3x of the effect.

[todoscript]

Love Capsule

anonymous requested: Can I request a Bakugou scenario where the reader and the Bakusquad drag him out on a shopping trip and they see a whole section of vending machines and decide to check them out to see what cute, tasty or weird things they can find and the reader and Bakugou either get lost/ditched or squeezed together in a tight row but they have a good time and maybe the reader got a rare all might mysery figure and Bakugou wants it, so they they he can have it in exchange for a date?

genre: fluff pairing: bakugou katsuki x fem!reader word count: 4.8k+ warnings: bakusquad shenanigans. bakugou cursing. pining.

author’s note: My Bakugou angst fic isn’t done yet but I wrote this request on the side. I wanted to have something to publish after not posting any written work for awhile so I did my best to get this out asap. sorry if it seems rushed! (also reposting this because the post stopped showing up in the tags).

There are only a fair bit of things Bakugou loathes more than wasting his valuable time. And that includes wasting that time by getting dragged into public places he has no desire to be, alongside the four most senseless nitwits the boy has ever had the displeasure of befriending.

It feels less like a friend group to him and more of a gathering of idiots as he watches four out of the six huddle around the aisle of vending machines across the mall. Where’s the other one, you might ask? You’re standing right next to him, sipping a bottle of sweet lemon tea dispensed to you from those vending machines.

“Ooh, look at this one!” The other girl in his squad, styling unruly pink hair, pokes a finger toward a blue machine in particular. What she finds interesting about it is that it’s absent of all buttons except a single one above the coin slot.

“Says here that you only have to pay a hundred yen for a mystery item,” Sero reads the instructions printed boldly across the surface, his grin showing his pearly whites. “Can range from food to even toys and cheap plastic jewelry.”

Popping up behind his taller friend, Kaminari squints incredulously at the sign before his eyes brighten like he’s concocted a conspiracy. “No, dude, I’ve heard of these kinds of vending machines before! They want you to think it’s some ordinary convenience vending machine, but these things actually have some super-secret big prize hidden inside!”

“Uh, no, that’s how you get your money robbed from you, Kaminari,” Kirishima tells the blonde, and yet his warnings end up floating from one ear and flying out the other. Kaminari fishes out a small stash of coins taut in between the lint balls of his pockets.

“Yeah yeah, just wait until you eat those words when I come home with a Playstation 5!”

“Why would there be a Playstation 5 of all things in there?” Ashido asks skeptically. She notes the small slot near the bottom, appearing sizable to dispense a large water bottle at most.

“Okay, maybe not an actual PS5, but probably the voucher you take to the game store to retrieve one, of course!” He waves the doubt away as he kneels and begins his succession of slotting coins in the machine until agitation eventually ebbs his features. About five hundred yen down the drain and all he’s amounted with in exchange are two Gudetama keychains, two packets of off-brand oreo cookies, and one can of that cheap instant black coffee he dislikes. Though if it’s one thing, he and the drink have in common it’s that they’re both positively bitter.

Kirishima, Sero, and Ashido all snicker wryly behind him while he deadpans at the snotty series of prizes with the skin between his eyebrows crinkled in defeat. Ashido takes this as the time to move along the row, dragging her sullen blond friend by the elbow. “Moving on! I want to get to the one with the Yakult drinks already!” She points onward and leads her compadres down the treasure trove of intriguing automated food vendors. Two of the boys press forward enthusiastically. Kaminari has to be lugged out of his brooding in order to play along.

“God, please just take me out already,” Bakugou mutters while leering his signature miffed face behind them. According to the giggle he registers chiming to his left, it seems you heard his complaints.

“Hm, not having a good time, I’m guessing?” you ask. The metallic edge of your lemon tea creases into the cushion that is your plush bottom lip. Bakugou finds himself staring there longer than he should and immediately tears his eyes away before he’s caught.

Your playful tone throws him off a beat later than he should’ve taken to reply. “Of course. I didn’t even want to be here to begin with,” he sneers with a brisk click of his tongue, crossing his arms. In a sense, he’s only telling half of the truth.

It’s true Bakugou did not desire to be here on his own accord. The squad dared to call him at the dead of midnight, when he was already tucked into bed by nine o’clock sharp and indulging in a needed rest, only to be ruefully awoken by his phone blaring across the expanse of his dorm room. The four should’ve suffered an earful from him as they tried to arrange a shopping trip of all things at that hour. However, his disinterest in the subject withered at the bait of your name casted into the conversation. Which to them was hook, line, and sinker. The cunning group of friends reeled him in at the idea that his crush would tag along. So, in the end, they got the rowdy blond to yield to the stupid shopping trip.

Though could it count as a shopping trip when four out of the six in their group were so transfixed by the weird vending machines in the place? The same four that organized said gathering to begin with? They’ve yet to cross into a single store here for crying out loud.

“If all you morons are gonna do is waste your damn money on these things, then this is a complete waste of time.” Bakugou doesn’t sugarcoat his irritation in the slightest. You still try to quell the bitterness in his tone with the saccharine that saturates your own.

“Aw c’mon, Bakugou, lighten up,” you tease playfully, pinching a small bit of the fabric on his arm to lightly urge him forward.

“You should at least try and join in on the fun with everyone—” At the turn of your head, your sentence cuts off, astonished to come across an empty space where your quartet of friends should be.

“And they’re already gone…” you say in disbelief. Your finger initially pointed in that direction falls limp. With their speedy curiosity plowing down the line of machines, the four have effectively ditched you two, leaving no trace of where they could’ve taken off for next.

The sigh from your lips lingers in amusement. “Well, guess it’s just you and me, Bakugou.”

When your eyes meet him again, you witness the scowl he glares at the abandoned space in front of the vending machine. The leer is menacing enough that if the contraption were an actual person, they might have rattled in fear, dropping down the snacks and drinks contained inside to sate his anger.

“Um, Bakugou?” you attempt to call out to him, but he’s too fixated by the peeved thoughts strewn in his head to hear you properly.

What the fuck are those dunces thinking? They planned this, didn’t they? God, I’m going to fucking kill them all! He babbles a seething torrent in his mind. Each one is more unrelenting and harsher than the last while a vein blisters prominently on his forehead.

What were the odds that going on a little shopping trip would end up with him left behind with his crush? Well, Bakugou thinks it’s absolutely none, and that this shit had to be preordained. If not, then it was just his bad fucking luck he supposes.

“—llo, earth to Bakugou Katsuki? Please send back a reply when you receive this message.”

At last, your voice surfaces, no longer drowned in Bakugou’s turbulent sea of thoughts as the hand you wave in front of him swims its way to his attention. “Huh?” He shakes his head twice to grip himself back to the matter at hand, observing in time the playful smile that curls mischievously on your lips.

“All back together I see. Good.” You start pulling on his arm and lead him in tandem with your steps. “Now let’s get going!”

Though he quirks up an eyebrow, Bakugou, weirdly enough, does not reject the way you drag him along without waiting for his response. In fact, with the other four gone, he finds it compelling that you’re taking the reins and asks mildly, “What? Are we gonna be doing some actual shopping now?”

His joke earns him your laughter resonating in melodic lilts to his ears before you leave his side to toss your empty bottle into the recycling bin. “Nope, we’re gonna be doing something even more fun, of course!” Then you resume dragging Bakugou down the walkways of the mall.

It’s not long until he questions the consecutive twists and turns he’s forced to take, having only been answered by your pursed grin multiple times.

“Hey, no more questions! Just trust me!” you quip at his refusal to be quiet and just obediently follow. The blonde can’t help it, of course, given the circumstances he’s wound himself in. Not many boys his age can control themselves if the person they like is pulling them along with as much enthusiasm as you are right now. But Bakugou is different from those other simpletons, crafting a mask to cover the elation hidden beneath with usual displeasure. Nothing but his uncharacteristic lack of annoyance and the ample glances in your direction could truly give himself away to his affections for you.

So with that, he places a generous amount of hope that you guide him somewhere more entertaining than that borefest he witnessed from the squad earlier.

But the moment you two reach your destination, he wonders if he may have accidentally misplaced that same hope down a rabbit hole instead.

“What the…” Bakugou’s words drift in the air at the quizzical sight before him. Mouth hanging open, he’s unable to conjure any sensible thoughts in time before you step in front of him.

“Tada! The Capsule Toy Gacha Room!” You spread your hands outward to present him an unhindered view of the room. It’s teeming with small capsule toy machines that line the walls, stacked on top of each other not to waste a single space inside. His red eyes squint at the assortment of bright colors painted on each machine that assaults his vision.

“Why the hell are there so many of these things?” Bakugou asks, jabbing a finger at the machines. You reply as you walk inside, “It’s the Gacha Room, Bakugou. Of course this place is gonna be filled with them.” You impart him an answer he is not at all satisfied with.

“I used to come here all the time when I was a kid! Glad it hasn’t really changed,” you say, noting the only real difference between then and now were the new toys and characters updated with the current trends. He begrudgingly trails behind you into the narrow corridors sandwiched with the machines on each side. The modest little tune you hum between your lips is a stark contrast to his disgruntled huffs accompanying his dragging feet.

Bakugou thinks being here is not any different from what the other four are frolicking about outside. This might be the worse alternative, considering you give money to a machine that grants you an item at complete random. You have no way of knowing what or who you’re going to get until the colorful sphere pops out at the bottom. And then, in an instance, your anticipation fades away when you open it and receive the character no one particularly cares about—the little charm inevitably gathering dust, forgotten in the drawers of your desk. Overall, these toy capsule machines were just gluttons devouring the money of parents whose kids always whine about never getting what they wanted.

Still, because it’s you, he stays and watches you indulge in your little nostalgia trip.

As your eyes glide down the row of toy dispensers, trying your best to decipher the items contained behind the blurry glass, you chime in, “Say, Bakugou, don’t you have any memories of gacha machines?”

Bakugou’s brows furrow in contemplation. He racks through the nooks and crannies between the crevices of his mind and recalls some standout memories. “I guess. Few of ’em were stuck in front of the arcade place near my neighborhood,” he answers, but those memories immediately begin to sour the more he looks into the details.

You don’t see how his face slowly contorts with annoyance while he plays back a scene in his head.

At the time, Bakugou had only sprouted to the young age of five years old. He’s huddled around his posse in front of the arcade he mentioned, slotting a coin inside the capsule machine that was stocked full of charms of Pro Heroes, which housed a very special limited edition prize of All Might to honor their collaboration with the famous Number One of Japan.

The boy was positively giddy at what was to come out, remaining hopeful thanks to the giant poster of All Might gazing down upon him with his triumphant grin. Yet even when his squeaky little voice hollered out a “Plus Ultra!” to reinforce his luck, he was given dirt in response.

But you know who did get that mystery All Might prize?

Deku. Fucking Deku.

Right after he had his spin of the machine, the green-haired boy stepped up, gave it a go, and got All Might on his first fucking try. To say five-year-old Bakugou was bitter would only be putting it mildly. The unbridled emotions bundled in his tiny body were just waiting to burst in an explosion.

But in the end, did he fight Midoriya for it? No, he did not. For if he did, his mother would have scolded the hell out of him, and his young self reflected in the moment that avoiding parental wrath outweighed the limited edition Mystery All Might figure charm, as sad as that sounded. So since then, he’s tried to repress that memory in the far corners of his mind.

But it seems God just desires to spite him.

“Hey, look!” You pull lightly on his shirt to capture his attention, eyes trained forward at whatever piqued your interest. Bakugou peeks over your head, and what he’s met with does not please him.

“They have a gacha machine featuring Pro Heroes here!” you shout cheerfully, walking toward it with the hem of Bakugou’s shirt in hand, who begrudgingly follows along despite a groan nearly leaving his mouth.

“Isn’t this cool?” you ask. You squat down to peer into the peculiar machine located at the very bottom of the stack. Bakugou clicks his tongue as part of his reply, hands buried in the pockets of his trousers.

“No.”

“Hey, one day they’ll be making toys and charms of you as well, Mister ‘I’m Gonna Be The Number One Hero,’” you say with a giggle, and your comment sparks a bit of pink to dust his cheeks while he looks down at you from his standing position.

He attempts to join you and your fixation on the Pro Hero capsule machine. However, when he starts bending his knees, he finds this to be a bit difficult. The more he squats down, the more Bakugou realizes they truly made this place for children and not bulky teenagers like him training in hero school. His knees and bottoms almost brush up against the plastic sheen of the machines on each opposing side.

Though he has to fidget into a particular position to get somewhat comfortable, he eventually gets there and kneels next to you.

“Why don’t we give a go at this thing?” you suggest, and he tilts his head, eyes narrowed.

“No way, these are a fucking waste of money,” he rejects.

“Hey it only costs two hundred yen!” you counter, “And plus, you might get a certain hero you want, like say... All Might?” You attempt to lure him in using his idol’s very name, but Bakugou doesn’t take the bait so easily and remains rigid in his stance.

Even if he did want to try for All Might, he’s sure his capsule is long gone by now anyway.

“Aw c’mon, Bakugou, pleaseee?” you draw out your pleas in a cute little tone that takes the blond by complete surprise. Unaware of how much power you have over him, the doe eyes and pout that paint your features make it difficult for him to maintain his hardened facade. Feeling his walls begin to melt away at the endearing sight, he ultimately grits his teeth, eyes shut as his hands rummage down into his pockets.

“Fine,” he mutters in defeat, and that smile appears on your lips once again as you lift your arms in triumph.

Pulling out two separate hundred yen coins, he promptly slides them both into the coin silt. When he hears them clank against the other change inside, he goes for the handle and gives it a quick turn. One of the capsule balls begins its journey down the machine and quickly arrives at the hatch that Bakugou lifts to retrieve his prize.

Snapping the capsule open, he’s met with Endeavor’s ugly mug, seeming even more unsightly from the low-quality production of the charm. The paint job is beyond sloppy, with the colors on the costume not depicted accurately and the figure’s pupils drawn to make him appear cross-eyed.

“Hm, you got the number one hero,” you tease, lightheartedly nudging your elbow at his sides because you know full well it isn’t the number one hero he wanted. Bakugou ignores your taunts and shoves the flame hero’s plastic face down the depths of his pockets, making sure to give it to Todoroki later just to annoy him.

“Yeah yeah, your turn, princess.” He scooches a bit to his right to let you have your go. You gladly follow, taking out the two hundred yen from your money pouch.

Bakugou remains disinterested throughout the entire process but is still attentive enough to observe how you hum those casual tunes of yours despite doing something so mundane. He also starts absorbing the cute shape of your nose and the outline of your lips from this angle. It isn’t long until he realizes how close you are in this position, to the point where he could practically smell your fragrant scent, and soon that pink hue diffuses on his face again.

Fuck, I need to stop that, he urges.

By the time he turns away, the capsule machine has begun its machinations once again.

The sizable sphere descending the hatch this time has striped patterns of red, yellow, and blue, colors that remind him all too much of a certain Pro Hero— Wait. What the fuck—

“This one looks a bit bigger than the others, don’t you think? Wonder what... Oh, hey, it’s All Might!” You go through the emotions—curiosity, anticipation, and then finally, glee.

Bakugou feels like he’s reliving those horrible memories once again as he beholds the shiny, miniature figure nestling in your palms before you lift it to grant a better view of its glory. It twists around from how you pinch it by the attached string while it’s hovering in the air. When the Pro Hero’s face turns in the blond’s direction, it’s like the inanimate object is somehow taunting him.

Compared to Endeavor’s shitty charm, All Might’s is a proper representation of who he is. The better quality plastic molded accurately into the man’s figure, the crevices between his muscles delved into displaying his well-defined physique. The colors on his costume are all correctly painted in his signature red, white, yellow, and blue. They even got the broad grin and shadowy features on his face to the tee.

Whichever company created this toy indeed did All Might justice because it looks exactly like the one Midoriya unsealed right in front of his envious five-year-old eyes.

Bakugou’s body shakes with suppressed anger. His hands clench and then unclench themselves while in conflict with his thoughts. Then, he suddenly moves toward you, darting for the charm that you narrowly pull out from his grapples in time.

“L-Lemme see!” he demands, shifting his hand around to grab hold of it for some reason. The act has you befuddled while you continue to move the toy away to evade capture.

“Huh? Why?”

“I need... to fucking make sure— OOF—”

His sputters are the last things that escape his lips before he staggers off balance due to all those hasty movements. It sends his body toppling over yours onto the floor, where your head would’ve thumped against the hard ground had the boy’s well-trained instincts not maneuvered a hand beneath it in time to cushion your fall.

Your descent to the floor is not at all graceful, wincing slightly at the impact. It’s when the pain ebbs away that you and Bakugou finally realize the very awkward position you’re suddenly both in.

Bakugou is hovering over you, body between your legs as one of his hands is cradling your head. The other is situated next to your face against the ground to keep himself upright, letting his eyes stare down at your stricken expression.

Unknowingly, you had settled your hand on Bakugou’s shoulder out of impulse during fall. The other one is still grasping the All Might figure, which is unharmed despite the abrupt movements.

Bakugou can feel your even breaths caress his lips from how close in proximity both of your faces are in this position. If any of you so much as move the wrong way, your lips would undoubtedly collide into each other. Though Bakugou doesn’t mind the notion, he isn’t going to instigate it if you aren’t willing. But the way your eyes line toward his lips, giving him a similar enamored look to the one he has right now, it seems both of you are on the same page.

Taking your mutual fixations as the sign to continue, Bakugou draws himself forward to close the distance while you rise to meet him in the middle.

And finally, he gets to kiss those lips of yours. The lips that adorn your cute face he always snuck glances at. The lips so unhinged in their playful teasing toward him. The lips he’s been so mesmerized and bewitched by throughout this chaotic excuse of a shopping trip.

And when they meet, they’re as full and soft as he imagined them to be, melding perfectly against his.

The hand he’s nestled under your head allows him to press you further into the liplock. You’re nearly enveloped in his wistful machinations, wanting to drown in the sea of his affections as your arms find their way around him.

You would’ve allowed yourself to do so, if not for the unfortunate security camera you catch in the corner of your eye from where you laid.

Your eyes widen, staggering out of their half-liddedness. You pat your hand in rapid succession against his shoulder, getting the blond to stir and separate from the kiss—an act he detests as he doesn’t want the embrace to end.

“What?” he gruffs. You point up at the ceiling, and he turns in that direction. When he detects the security camera about to automatically shift toward this particular side of the Capsule Toy Gacha Room, his face grows full of panic. He lifts himself off your body immediately.

With the two of you remembering where you are, you rose from the ground and cleaned yourselves up. You try to appear pristine as possible, without letting any suspicion about what has happened get tossed in your direction. Still, the red faces plastering both of your features are already a dead giveaway.

“I… Uh…” Bakugou’s still lost in the haze of the heated moment, unsure of what words he should utter. Much to his relief, his burden lifts when two notifications from your phones ring in sync together, diverting your attention.

When you open your phone and slide across the notice, a text message from the Bakusquad ascends onto the screen.

Mina: heyyyy just finished going through all these vending machines! you wont believe how much money we spent!!

The message follows a selfie of the four holding a myriad of drinks and snacks together in the picture. You can’t suppress your giggle at the endearing sight. Another chime sounds when a new text pops up at the bottom.

Eijirou: let’s all meet up again at that blue mystery vending machine!

“Well, you heard them,” you say while clicking off your phone, “we better get a move on.”

Bakugou relays your words back in a slow nod, following through with a rough “yeah” that cleaves his throat. The two of you walk alongside each other once again while you leave the Capsule Toy Gacha Room. Only your steps padding against the mall’s confounds accompany the quiet atmosphere established between you two—awkward and a bit unnerving.

It’s when you’ve both made it to the meet-up spot in front of the blue vending machine that you alleviate yourselves of the strained tension.

“Soooo… was there any reason you wanted to get your hand on this thing so badly?” you question, drawing out the All Might charm that led those heated events to transpire. It dangles between your fingertips and glances at Bakugou along every rotation. The blonde bounces his eyes between you, All Might, and the ground, unsure if he should admit that he was acting out of childish jealousy and bitterness.

“I… Urgh… Fuck…”

You raise an eyebrow when he fumbles with his words. He mutters blatant obscenities between every possible resolve that crosses his mind.

“Look, forget it. It’s not important,” Bakugou concludes, but you think differently, not satisfied with his answer.

“No. Tell me.”

With that weight in your tone, Bakugou realizes he can’t avoid the subject any longer. He releases a long sigh as he leads you through the infamous tale, observing how your expression grows from concerned to downright amused.

“Really? You’ve held a grudge for that long?” The laughter you initially attempt to suppress ends up bubbling from your throat. Hearing it spurs Bakugou to clutch his hands together into shaky fists.

“Look. If you know me, then you should remember I never want to lose to fucking Deku. The fact he got the All Might charm right after I got garbage fucking pissed me off!” he exclaims loud enough for his harsh words to reach a couple walking by. They spare worried glances at the blonde when they stroll past him.

“Hmm…” you muse in thought. Bakugou can tell by the glint rising in your eyes and your tone that you’re up to something again. “I can give you mine if you want. But only for a very small price.”

He quirks an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what would that fucking price be?”

The smirk prominent on your pretty lips widens while you teeter your weight to your tippy-toes in front of him.

“A date. Just a single date will suffice,” you tell him, and Bakugou’s caught off guard by how simple the offer is. His delayed response has you leaning forward, appraising him for an answer.

“Well..?” You wave the charm before his eyes by the thin string as if to hypnotize him. But in all honesty, Bakugou knows that sweet smile of yours and luster in your eyes is all you need to have him wrapped around your finger.

His playful smirk surfaces his lips. He provides his answer by snatching the figure right from your dainty fingertips.

“You got yourself a deal, princess.”

You happily clap your hands together. “It’s settled then! We’ll have a date here at the mall next week!”

“Hah?! Why the fucking mall again?!”

“Because we didn’t do much here anyway, so I say we should give it another shot together next week!”

“What? And go shopping? I don’t wanna be your bellboy the entire time—”

“Mom! Mom! Look at that boy’s All Might toy!”

You and Bakugou are both surprised by the new, high-pitched voice that enters in the middle of your riffraff. Your eyes trail along to sound and come face-to-face with a young boy staring at the toy in Bakugou’s hand.

“I want one too!”

Unable to control his gloating, Bakugou dangles the charm next to his face.

“Yeah well, too bad, kid. It’s mine so f—”

“Bakugou,” you warn. You halt the obscene words from entering the boy’s ears and avoid giving his mom a hard time.

“Argh… I mean... scram!”

You almost smack yourself. You can’t believe Bakugou has the guile to argue with a child at this age.

Though he forgoes the curses, that doesn’t make Bakugou’s words sound any less harsh. As a result, the kid pouts. He pouts hard. His eyes start to become glassy, lining the edge of his lashes with droplets. Recognizing her child on the verge of breaking out into tears, the mom acts quickly. She’s by his side, patting his back.

“Sweetie, why don’t you go to that blue vending machine over there and see if you can get a toy too,” she cheers him up instantly, dropping a hundred yen coin down her son’s small palm.

“Okay, mom!” he responds, gleeful again.

He dawdles over to the machine with purpose in his steps, inserting the coin, and pressing the lone button on the mystery vending machine.

You and Bakugou don’t perceive any noise emitting from the machine, and yet the little boy is putting his hands into the slot to pull something out.

“Mom, why did the machine give me a paper that says PS5?”

Both of you go rigid. Kaminari is not going to be happy hearing about this.

[ethelphantom]

Where I Went Wrong

Nope, seriously, no angst in here even if that’s the title, I swear. Really. Just Marinette and Jason being siblings. (They’re biological siblings in this one.)

Ao3

This is Maribat, platonic Jasonette -- don’t like; don’t read

___________

So, in hindsight, that had probably been one of Jason’s worst ideas in a while.

It’s not like he realised Pixie was going to make him pay for what he did. That means it couldn’t be his fault, right?

(Yes, yes it was.)

Never let it be said that Marinette Todd-Wayne was forgiving.

It all started when Jason decided to put food colouring in Mari’s toothbrush, so when she brushed her teeth the next morning, she freaked out when everything turned red. Tim had asked him if he was sure that had been a good idea when afterwards he couldn’t find his credit card and later found out someone had used it to go to the coffee shop, Aroma Mocha, nearby. Tim had also actually been the one to question whether it had been a good idea when he was doing it, and that’s why he now cursed the Replacement for not stopping him back then.

A bit later he’d heard Pixie, Cass and Steph talking about the amazing new products in Aroma Mocha. When Mari had shot him a smug smile and Duke had come into his room with the credit card between his fingers (he said he’d found it in the cereal box in the kitchen. When Dick asked how he knew it because the only cereal box there right now was his, Duke bolted), it was clear who exactly had taken it.

That resulted in Jason stealing her laptop the next time she went out with any of her friends or the family and Jason wasn’t expected to be there. He sneaked in her room, snatched her laptop from the desk and sprinted back to his own room. There he plopped down on his bed and opened the laptop, trying to figure out how exactly he should break into it. After all, he needed to make sure she wouldn’t be able to see something was wrong right away.

And so began his quest for vengeance. Once he managed to get past Mari’s security (to her credit, it took him quite the while, even with Replacement’s guide on how to do it the fastest with any of the family’s computers if it for any reason was absolutely necessary), he took up on searching through her files and documents. He finally decided on settling with messing with her commission files.

No, he wasn’t going to delete or change anything in said files, no. That would be unnecessary cruel and unfair to both her and her customers. Instead, Jason created a ton of new folders. He’s pretty sure he created at least a hundred new folders inside her commission folder, leaving 18 of them as his little message for his darling baby sister.

The actual files he knows she wants and needs are also renamed, but they’re called “yeah you found them baby bug” and “this here is your commission stuff” and “Try me I’ll do it again if someone finds my credit card in the cereal box.”

Mari could definitely be a little shit, but Jason was a huge asshole, and that made all the difference in the world right now.

(Later Jason realised (and learnt) that anyone that was a born Todd was an asshole by nature and Marinette definitely beat her big brother at that, but that was only later.)

In hindsight, he should have left Marinette’s folders and laptop alone.

As it is, he doesn’t have said hindsight before he faces the consequences so he’s doing it anyway. So, obviously, that means when Jason shuts down the computer, he’s still happy and gleeful and feels victorious.

That…

Well, that doesn’t last too long.

The first three days go well. Pixie doesn’t mention the incident so Jason supposes she simply hasn’t noticed. After a week, he starts getting suspicious, because how could it be she didn’t notice at all? And there’s no way she wouldn’t have said something about it if she had seen it. He gets paranoid for a few days, worried his little sister might attack him at any times, even during the time she was supposed to be at school.

Two weeks later, Jason’s mostly forgotten about the whole thing, which was probably a really, really bad idea. Not actively remembering meant no active defense mechanism on when around Marinette, especially not when around Marinette and the rest of the family and inside the Manor. It meant letting his guard down around his dearest little sometimes rather demonic and sinister sister with a golden heart, the smile and presence of an angel and a broken halo hidden behind her back.

Now that was a mistake he should have never made.

So, indeed, a fortnight later, he does not notice the door of his bedroom creaking when someone opens it at six in the goddamn morning after a long, exhausting night at patrol. He also doesn’t notice when a small frame sprints towards him, jumps up, only shooting up and ready to fight when 50 kilograms fall on him. At once.  

“Rise and shine, motherfucker!” the bundle of sunshine (and somehow the tone of her voice is smug and the expression she’s wearing on her face is so gleeful and cruel and sinister, but also rather tired — how early did she wake up for this and did she even go to sleep in the first place) on his lap yells into his her.

So yes. In hindsight, pranking Marinette had proven out to be the worst idea he had ever had and he should have known that, should’ve been expecting it and preparing for it but he didn’t, and now he regretted it. All of it.

Then, once Jason was properly awake and alert, Marinette yawned and fell on top of him, curling up against his bigger frame and started snoring. She just— she just fell asleep right then and there. Must’ve been quite the night for her too.

The next morning (or, well, a few hours later) Dick and Tim find them cuddling and sleep-murmuring sweet insults to each other. He forces himself not to laugh, records what's happening and gets Tim to do the same. Once they're done with filming, they finally let themselves laugh out loud and slowly distance themselves from the room and the two just in case.

It might have been a good idea, because one irritated, tired Jason was woken up for the second time too early in the morning and not even by his precious, assholish little sister.

And that meant said irritated, tired Jason growled and started chasing the “motherfucking nosy Dickiebird” and the “goddamn stalking replacement!” down the long hallways.

It didn’t end there — as the day proceeded, he found his shampoo no longer opened (he managed to open it eventually. By breaking the fucking bottle), his guns were replaced by water guns, and his oreos turned out to be a russian roulette of “is this one of the cookies filled with tooth-paste flavoured, matcha flavoured, angel foodcake flavoured, fucking tutti-frutti flavoured, vinegar, marshmallow or bubbergum flavoured, or is this a proper oreo which no one has touched and the filling is normal?”

Seriously, the vinegar was the worst because it wasn’t even sweet and it was so overpowering that there was no way Jason could even try to ignore it.

When Steph asked him couldn’t he just have checked them first or thrown them away after first ten, he nearly snarled. Not because of Steph, but because he had tried; they all looked the same, smelled the same (how, he had no idea), and less than half were modified so throwing all of them away would have been waste of perfectly good oreos.

His sister had also apparently replaced every single one of his leather jackets with a size or two too small ones because they were too small and there was no way he’d just outgrown them.

She also knew he’d never back down from a dare, and at the end of the day, when just about everyone had gone to sleep (or patrol, or just far from the vengeful Marinette Todd, because being this kind of an asshole kind of required being a Todd), she said he wouldn’t be able to balance two glasses of water on the backs of his hands. Obviously, he insisted he could and only realised what she was doing too late. When she’d placed the glasses there and he’d had a victorious smirk on his face, Marinette had simply kissed his cheek, winked and left, wishing him good night.

And then he was stuck there, hoping someone would rescue him because it wasn’t like he could ruin the carpet under the table. He couldn’t do that to Alfred. At around 4 am he was woken up by glass shattering when he’d accidentally moved his hands too much in his sleep.

Fucking Pixie Pop.

So well. If nothing else, he’d at least learnt to not mess with his little sister because she was one hundred per cent prepared to fight a war he started.

(A week later, Marinette found an award with the text “The biggest asshole of the Todd family, the goddess of prank wars” on her desk. She framed it.)

________________

@kris-pines04​ @thethirdwheelfriend​ @daminett4life​

[imagines-dreams]

A Night in the Stark Household

Rating: G

Warnings: nothing, just fluffy fluff fluff

Summary:  When Tony and Rhodey come home from a night out, the last thing they'd expect is for all the furniture to be upside down. Also, all the kids are upside down?

Word Count: 2042

~ - ~

Rhodey’s eyes widened. “Uh, Tony?”

Tony sighed. “I was just- Were you not listening? I was saying that-”

“Yeah, yeah, Pepper’s amazing and you’re worried, yeah, but you should probably-”

“I mean those weren’t my exact words, but-”

“Tony!” Rhodey grabbed his arm and pointed to the ceiling of Tony’s home. “What the hell is this?”

Tony blinked and stared at his home. Everything was upside down. His ceiling fan was on the floor. The counters were on the ceiling. Tony stared intensely at his rearranged home. Tony thought back. He didn’t drink at all. Maybe it was PTSD or hallucinations? He smacked his cheek. Nope, everything was still upside down.

Rhodey opened the door to stare at the forest outside, and just like he expected, everything was right side up outside. So, it was just Tony’s furniture was upside down.

“Hey, guys!” Peter walked into the kitchen, upside down, as in his feet were on the ceiling, and opened one of the cabinets. Everything inside wasn’t falling down, like gravity dictated. Tony also noted that Peter’s hair, for some reason, didn’t obey gravity either.

Peter grabbed a package of oreos and started snacking on them. “Why are you guys upside down?”

“We are not upside down,” Rhodey said. “You are!”

Tony smiled. “Kid, put everything back. You can’t web everything-”

“I’m not using my powers! I swear.”

The retired superhero laughed. “Kid, come on. You’re Spider-Man. I know-”

“Peter, what’s the hold-up?” Riri walked into the room, on the ceiling, as in her feet were on the ceiling and her hair was floating, so it wasn’t obeying gravity. She took an oreo from the package and stared at her mentors. “Why are you upside down?”

“We are not upside down,” Rhodey repeated. He opened the door and pointed outside. “The trees are on our side!”

Tony furrowed his eyebrow. “Wasn’t Nebula in charge? Where is she?” Tony walked on where the floor should be. He stepped over light fixtures and the ceiling fan and found Nebula with Morgan and Harley. The two kids had vests on and gloves that resembled the Iron Legion’s gauntlets. Near the tv, away from the laser fight, were Dum-E and U. Harley popped up from behind the couch. His toy repulsor lit up, and Morgan evaded it easily.

“Take the shot!” Nebula commanded, pointing at Harley’s obviously exposed chest.

Morgan raised her arm and tilted her head as she tried to aim properly. Her repulsor lit up. Harley’s vest beeped, and the young man faked his death, making weird noises and falling to the ground. Well, the ceiling?

Dum-E and U clicked and cheered for Morgan. When Harley didn’t get up, Dum-E reached over to help him up.

Harley giggled and jumped up from his spot.

Nebula smiled and nodded. “You did well, child.” She crouched down and held up her hand.

Morgan giggled and high-fived Nebula. “Thank you!” she said.

“Good game,” Nebula said.

The boy nodded. “Yeah.” He held out his hand for his tiny opponent. “Good game, Morgan.”

The little girl stomped to him and shook his hand with confidence. “Good game, Harley!”

Tony couldn’t help but smile. His insane family. That turned his life upside constantly. Who, apparently, also turned his house upside down. He smiled widely. “Nebula?”

Morgan beamed and waved. “Hi, Daddy!”

“Hi, sweetheart. Nebula, what’s going on?” Tony stretched his neck and looked around.

His daughter giggled and hid behind Harley’s leg. He, however, just tilted his head.“Uh, why are you upside down?”

Morgan started giggling. “Daddy looks tiny.”

“He was always tiny,” Nebula said.

“I am not tiny,” Tony said. He stared at all the kids. By Morgan’s giggles, something is being hidden. Harley was smart, but he couldn’t do all of this by himself. Peter might be able to, but his webshooters could only do so much, and it wouldn’t explain how everyone was walking on the ceiling and how everyone’ hair was defying gravity.

Tony groaned. “Riri?”

“Yes?” The girl smirked.

“Turn it off.”

“Turn what off?” she asked innocently. “We’re just wondering how you and Rhodes are upside down. Did you get into an interdimensional fight or something?”

Morgan giggled.

Tony stared at Riri, his newest protege and apparently the new prankster. He shook his head. “If it were any other kid, I take away all your toys.”

“But you can’t!” She laughed. “I’d just build more.” Riri pulled out a remote control and pressed a button. Everyone and everything floated back to its original place. Still, all members of the Stark family remained on the ceiling.

Morgan ran to her older sister. “I don’t know how it works,” she mumbled.

Riri smiled. “Don’t worry, I can teach you.” She took the little girl in her arms. “Lift up your wrist.”

Everyone did as she said.

“Now, turn the dial on your new watch.”

When the dials turned, everyone gently floated down back to the ground. Riri nodded to the two robots. “Can someone turn Dum-E’s and U’s dials please?”

“On it!” Harley turned a new dial on Dum-e, while Nebula turned U’s dial back. Both of them chirped in thanks.

Morgan gasped and marveled at everything as she went back to obeying gravity. She laughed and said, “Thank you, Riri!”

“You’re welcome, Morgan.” Riri let her down, and the child immediately ran to Tony. “Dad, did you see? I was on the ceiling!”

“Oh yeah?” Tony crouched down and asked, “And how did that happen?”

“Well,” she drawled. Morgan turned around and pointed at Harley. “Harley wanted to prank you and Uncle Brhodey, then, Peter” -she pointed Peter and laughed- “he wanted to web everything to the ceiling. But only he can walk on the ceiling, so Auntie Nebula said it was a bad idea, so Riri” -she pointed at her older sister, who was smirking ever so proudly- “invented something, and poof! Magic!” Morgan giggled. “And that’s how we ended up on the ceiling, like those creepy, crawling bugs.” Morgan wiggled her fingers near her face to resemble bugs.

“Hey!” Peter yelped.

“Not you, Peter,” Morgan whined. “Like the centipedes and flies and those brown bugs. Bleh!”

Tony laughed and scooped his daughter into his arms. “Just for the record, I hate every single one of you. Except Morgan. She gets a free pass because she admitted to her crime.”

Nebula tilted her head.

Dum-E and U clicked, reminding Nebula about Tony’s sense of humor.

Nebula tilted her head. “I hardly call threatening to donate you a sense of humor.”

“Hey, I’ve grown since then!” Tony claimed.

Rhodes inhaled through his teeth. “I mean, have you?”

“Watch it, Rhodey. You’re on thin ice.”

Rhodey shook his head. “See, this is why I don’t have kids.” He looked at all of Tony’s children. “Or at least, this many kids.”

Dum-E and U whirred.

Nebula pointed at her brothers. “You forgot them.”

“Right,” Rhodey said. “Kids and robots.”

The two chirped.

“They said thank you,” Nebula translated.

Tony laughed. “Look, they’re not all my children.”

In response, Peter, Riri, and Harley looked at each with knowing smirks and smiles. They all crossed their arms and set their plan that they just discussed through eye contact in motion. Harley went first. “You literally packed me lunch for my first training session at the Avengers Compound.”

“And you gave me glasses with a new AI of my own for my Europe trip,” Peter said.

Riri hummed. “And wasn’t it you who attended the PTA meeting on my parents’ behalf when they couldn’t make it?”

Harley threw his head back with a laugh. “And remember the time he actually called us his kids?”

“That was a great day,” Peter agreed.

“Ok, ok, I get it!” Tony shook his head. “You know, the gray hairs?” He pointed at everyone. “All because of you.”

U whirred again in annoyance, and Dum-E nodded in agreement.

Tony pointed at them. “I didn’t have gray hairs then because I dyed them when I only had you two. Not an excuse.”

“Ok,” Rhodey leaned back and forth. “Obviously, you all have a lot to talk about, so I’m gonna go.”

“Bye, Uncle Brhodey!” Morgan said.

He laughed and kissed her head. “Bye, little Stark.” He waved at everyone else. “Goodbye, other Starks!”

“Bye, Rhodey!”

“See ya, Rhodes!”

“They’re not my kids!” Tony went up the stairs with Morgan in tow, mumbling to himself. “Why does everyone think they’re my kids?”

The six left stared at each other. A beat passed, before Tony shouted, “So are we still doing bedtime stories or-”

"Get out of my way!” Riri screamed, shoving everyone off the stairs.

Peter shot a web and swung up the stairs so he was in front. “You did it last time! I’m gonna tell the story of how Spider-Man got the shield!”

Harley flicked both of his wrists, and his hand and foot thrusters encased his hands and feet. He flew past his brother and sister. “Sucks to be you!”

Nebula just stared at her robot siblings. She rolled her eyes and pressed a button by the stairs. The steps transformed into a ramp that both the robots could climb. “Come on.”

The two followed Nebula up. The guardian found the rest of her Earth family arguing over which story to tell Morgan, while Tony was too busy smiling and watching the four kids argue.

Nebula walked to Morgan’s side and glared at everyone else.

“Fine!” Riri gave up.

Harley shook his head. “This always happens.”

“You know, one day, you’ll have to take our side,” Peter pointed out.

Nebula shrugged. “What story do you want, Morgan?”

Morgan held up a very colorful book. “This one!” Nebula held it and looked up at Peter, Harley, and Riri. She looked through her memories and nodded. “It’s Harley’s turn.” She handed the book to him.

“Thank you, Nebula.” So, Harley cleared his throat and began to read to his mentor, his mentor’s biological daughter, the other kids his mentor took under his wing, an alien aunt, and two robots.

When Pepper arrived home from her business trip, she wasn’t surprised to find Dum-E, U, and Nebula watching over the sleeping humans. She smiled and whispered, “I got this.” She went to her husband and gently woke him up.

Tony groaned and stared at his wife. “Oh, hello there.” He blinked once before checking on everyone in the room. He went through his mental checklist. Nebula, Dum-E, U, Morgan, Peter, Riri, Harley, and Pepper. Rhodey left early. The retired man slumped back in his chair with a sigh.

Pepper smiled. “It’s late.”

“Mhm,” he agreed. He saluted to Nebula. “Thanks.”

Nebula nodded. She shook both Pepper’s and Tony’s hands before leading Dum-E and U down the stairs.

The mother smiled and woke up Harley first. “Hey, Harley.”

He smiled sleepily and rubbed his eyes. “Hi, Pepper.” He stretched and tapped Riri.

The girl woke up with a start and shook her head. “Oh, it’s late.” She stretched and shook Peter’s shoulder.

Peter groaned and closed his eyes tightly. So, Harley kicked his leg.

“Harley,” he whined. Peter smacked his lips together. When his eyes caught Pepper, he gasped. “Oh, Sorry, Mrs. Stark. It got late.”

She smiled. “It’s alright. You guys should at least sleep in your beds in you’re gonna stay.”

Harley shook his head. “Nah, gotta get home today.”

“Same here,” Riri said, stretching her arms over her hand and cracking her knuckles. “Plus, I gotta beat Parker here at the science fair tomorrow.”

Peter blinked. “Oh, yeah.” He groaned. “I should go home, too.”

Tony laughed a little. “Make me proud, you two.”

“Please, get a drink if you want,” the CEO offered. “Don’t want anyone falling asleep in their suit.”

They nodded. Before leaving the room, they said good night to Pepper, Tony, and Morgan, and Pepper kissed each one of them on the head before they left. Finally, it was just the three of them. Morgan, Pepper, and Tony.

Pepper smiled at her husband. “The house is quiet,” she stated.

“That’s rare.” Tony poured himself a glass of water and sighed. “I actually don't mind the noise. Not too much, anyway.”

Pepper smiled and kissed his cheek. “Neither do I.”

[i-need-to-stop-stanning]

Stray Kids Reaction To Meeting You For The First Time (Maknae Line)

Each member has their own scenario, enjoy 💜

Hyunjin

Hyunjin was sat in his class, aimlessly playing a game on his phone, waiting for class to begin. The bell soon rang and he put his phone away. The teacher began her lecture, and about 10 minuets in, someone knocked on the door. Someone really tall entered the classroom and began converseing with the teacher. She gestured to the front of the class with a smile on her face. He made his way to the spot before clearing his throat. “Hello, everyone. My name is Y/B/N, and I hope we can all be friends, please take care of me.” He smiled and turned to the teacher. “Thank you, Y/B/N. You can take a seat in the back with Hyunjin. Hyunjin, please raise your hand.” He rose his hand high as the giant, lanky boy shuffled through the desks, toward him. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Y/B/N.” He smiled at the new boy. “I’m Hyunjin.” They began to take quietly among themselves during the lecture. Hyunjin found out that Y/B/N was from Y/C and moved to Seoul recently with his mother and sister, to get away from his father. Soon the class ended and Y/B/N asked if Hyunjin wanted to come over later after school, and Hyunjin accepted the offer. They went their separate ways, to go to class. As Hyunjin was walking he bumped into someone. He looked down to see a girl with hair covering her face and books scattered around her. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” He bent down to help her collect her belongings. She moved her hair and he was shocked. She was breathing. Her beautiful E/C shone brightly, her lips looked oh so soft, her beautiful H/L a bit messy, but still enough to leave him stunned. She smiled”yeah I’m fine, it’s okay, thank you for the help.” Her smile left her face when she looked at her wrist. Her eyes going wide and frantic and she scrambled for her words. “I’m so sorry, but I have to get going, thank you again” she sprinted past him and down the hall. Hyunjin was still watching after her figure dashing when the bell rang. He began to walk to his own class, that smile never leaving his mind. Little did he know that he would see you again that very evening, at his new friends house.

Han/Jisung

Han was currently walking down the dimly lit sidewalks of Seoul, in search for the closest convenience store. The 00 line and Jeongin we’re craving junk food in the middle of the night, and after and intense game of Rock Paper Scissors, Han was the one to grant their wishes. That’s where he was now. His headphones in both ears, face mask on and hood up. It was slightly drizzling and the slight echo it made to his music relaxed him. He came to the front of the store and took his hood off, and one headphone out. He needed to focus on the list he had. Ramen for Hyunjin, Cheetos for Seungmin, and ice cream for Felix and Jeongin. He needed something for himself aswell. He was bent over the ramen isle attempting to find the specific brand of ramen his hyung had requested. The bell on the top of the front door chimed and he heard a small greeting. He finally located the ramen and went to find Seungmins Cheetos. As he made his way to the other side of the store he froze. He saw a girl clad in a hoodie far too big for her, rummagingthrough the isle of chips in attempt to find something. As Han walked over, he caught sight of Seungmins precious Cheetos. As his hand came in to contact with the bag, her hand came in contact with the top of his. He turned and finally got a good look at her. She was gorgeous. Her hair bunched up in the hood of her sweatshirt hid a good bit of her face but not enough to hide her shining eyes. The thing that caught his attention the most was the pair of glasses perfectly perched on her nose bridge. As he continued staring at her, she grew crimson and began to speed walk away. “Hey! Comeback! You can have it!” She turned around, hope filled eyes. “ really?” He chucked at her adorableness. “Yeah, of course, my night would be ruined if I knew I stole a bag of Cheetos from a pretty girl.” He handed her the bag and she looked up into his eyes. “Thank you...” she wanted his name. “Oh, Han, or Jisung, whichever one you like better.” He gave her a genuine smile and she giggled. “Thank you Jisung, I’m Y/N.” She held her free hand out to him for a shake and he grabbed it securely. “So Hannie, how about I take you out on a date, since you so graciously sacrificed these Cheetos for me?” She asked hopeful once again. How could he turn down such a cute girl? He accepted her offer and got her number. He went to finish his shopping, and then left the store. Seungmin might be pretty mad about not having his Cheetos, but Jisung couldn’t care less. All he could think about were those beautiful E/C eyes from behind those glasses.

Felix

Felix was currently late for practice. He had slept in and Chan had warned him the next time he didn’t wake up the first time Chan called him, he would be left behind. Oh he wished he listened. It would have all been fun because Felix is pretty fast, but one thing he can’t live without in the morning is his coffee. His coffe from the Sippy Cup. A small little cafe with beautiful aesthetics and amazing beverages. It was tucked away in a small alley, making Felix always wonder if it really was magical. This cafe had the ability to turn any sour day sweet. As Felix came to the alley he spotted a cat, a lovely black cat with green glowing eyes. Him being himself waved at it, and I meowed. It took Felix by quite the surprise but he didn’t have time to dwell on it as he walked down the alley way for the bakery. As he opened the door he heard the familiar little chime of the door. “Good morning sir, how may I help you?” He turned around after shutting the door, to ensure the cold would stay out. He froze. The most adorable girl stood before him, well behind the counter. Her H/C in a high pony tail, stuck out the back of her hat that read ‘the Sippy Cup’. Her tan apron having the same logo, was a beautiful contrast to her white blouse. Her eyes were breathtaking, but what surprised him most was the freckles that adorned her cheeks, and across the bridge of her nose. Just like his. He escaped his trance and made his way to the counter. “Yes, can I get a Classic Sippy Cup and hmm... what do you reccomend pastry wise?” He asked her with a smile. “Oh I just made a fresh batch of banana muffins, their really good, if I do say so myself.” He smiled, asked for one, and paid”are you new here? I just noticed you and I come here everyday.” She showed him a smile that could rival his own. “Yeah I just started working here 2 days ago, the names Y/N. They haven’t got my tag yet.” She chuckled. “Well I’m Felix.” He told her. She went away for a minute and returned with his drink and a small brown bag. “Your muffin is in the bag Felix. I hope to see you back soon.” He slightly smirked. “Oh, don’t worry cutie, I’ll come back.” He exited the cafe with a little wave and was on his way. The fact he was late, left his mind. He just couldn’t get over the fact your muffin was so delicious, it just wasn’t as sweet as you.

Seungmin

Seungmin was on his way to the library. Finals were coming up and he needed to study because he was always tired in class and never really got to pay attention. The school library was packed and so Seungmin decided to skip going there. Instead he was going to The Book Nook, I small little library hidden in the streets of Seoul. It was never really visited because it was so small, when you passed most didn’t even know they passed it. He finally arrived and decided to take a seat in the back. He put down his book bag and got his study materials out as well, before going off to find a book. He wasn’t great in math, so that’s the first book he got. His chemistry grade wasn’t too great either so he went to find a book to fix that. As he went down the isle he spotted someone. I girl was struggling to get a book of of the top shelf and holy crap was she gorgeous. Her H/L had fallen in her face due to her spastic jumping, and her eyes showed determination. Her eyes were trained on that book and they weren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. She made another attempt this time jumping, and lost her balance when she landed. She hit her butt on the ground with a soft oof. Seungmin ran up to her to check if she was okay. “Yeah I’m fine, I just can’t get that damn book.” She huffed before standing up and brushing her knees off. “Would you like me to get it for you?” He offered with a smile. “Oh yes please! Thank you!” He reaches up with no fuss and grabbed the book, bringing it down, and extended it toward her. “You’re welcome...” he looked down and saw her name badge. She worked here. “Y/N.” She giggled and asked for his name “I’m Seungmin” he smiled at her. “Well Seungmin if you need anything, I will be at the front desk reading this book. Don’t hesitate to ask!” She wandered off and seungminfound his Chemistry book and headed back to his seat. He got to doing some work when she came to his mind again. Gosh, is it gonna be hard to focus.

I.N/ Jeongin

Jeongin was at the zoo with his members and he was having the time of his life. Jeongin loves animals and he loved going to the zoo. They were currently at the penguins and he couldn’t contain his excitement he was a smiling mess. Hyunjin decided to take the Maknae Line for ice cream to let the hyung cool off a bit. Hyunjin dragged them to the little shop called Frost Bite allowed them to get their treat. Felix got chocolate, Jisung got Oreo Seungmin got vanilla, and Jeongin got birthday cake, but he also got Hyunjin a strawberry cone since he was waiting outside. They all sat their and ate their cold treats before hyunjin decided they were behaving so they could go see the lions. Jeongin was so excited he ran ahead with Seungmin. They arrived about 2 minutes before the rest came. Jeongin loved lions and he was beyond excited to see them. He turned to the enclosure and watched as two lionesses played on the ground. The male of the enclosure looking down from a big rock, making sure their was piece. All of a sudden their was a loud whistle and the boys turned to see a girl about Jeongins age standing at the gate with a big bucket of raw meat. The lions began to walk toward her, slowly as if she were their pray and not the bucket. Jeongin panicked. “be careful!” He shouted down at her and she looked up and gave him a reassuring smile. Jeongin has never seen such a nice smile. Her H/L hair fell down her face as she waited for the lions to approach. Her zoo shirt a bit dirty due to the habitat she was in. Her eyes, although far away, were shining in the evening sun, Jeongin would say her eyes were the sun, bright and big and beautiful. The lions finally were close enough when she whistled again. A warning to stay back. She began to throw large chunks of meat at each lion, praising them for how good they were. “Good job Simba, what a good boy you are. Nala, you too.” She finished giving their meal and trudged the bucket back through the gate. Jeongins eyes never left the gate until he was tapped by Han, telling him it was time to go. He said okay, but the gate on the terrace overlooking the den opened and out came her. She was even more beautiful up close. She smiled at him and gave him a little wave before walking away to go feed the other big cats. Jeongin wasn’t gonna let you walk out of his life. Good thing they were going to the tiger enclosure next, cause that’s where she was going.

[urlocal-lgt-rep]

Be my Valentine? Pt 2

Pairing- Awkward! Calum and Y/N

Guess this is going to be 3 parts...

    Everyone wakes up early that morning besides you. You kept trying to fall back asleep every time you woke up because you wanted to continue your dream of an ice cream and a sunset boy, but you finally decided to get up and make a little magic in Ashton’s room.

   You grabbed a bag you had hidden in Ash’s room long ago for a previous prank but forgotten about. As you lay the contents out, you knew this was going to make him pissed-but you still decided to do it. You covered all of the posters in his room, which there were a lot, with new and improved posters. That's right, Viagra and Hello Kitty posters now covered the walls of Ashton’s room.

  As you walked out and acting as if nothing happened, you saw Mikey eating a pack of Oreos. Yes, that probably wasn't the best breakfast choice, but you knew you wanted them anyway.

 “What? You want an Oreo? Sorry, this just so happens to be my last one, Y/N,” Michael laughed, but not for long because you ran towards him and the Oreo he has in his hand. His arm was raised so you couldn't reach it. He tried to run away but realized there was a chair behind him, yet instead of stopping, he thought it was a brilliant idea to try and flip over the chair. You heard an “Holy fuck!” from Michael as you and Luke started to cry of laughter.

  As you ran over to Michael to take the Oreo- you mean, make sure he was okay- you saw him put it in his mouth before you could take it.

“Michael Clifford, you son of a-" just as you were about to curse him out, Calum’s deep, groggy voice interrupted you.

 “We have another pack, Y/N,” there was no emotion in his voice, and he didn't even bother looking at you as he grabbed the Oreos for you.

 “It's- it’s okay, I'll just have something else…” your voice trailed off as you wondered where this attitude was coming from. He had been awake for hours, so it couldn't have been that he wasn't a morning person.

  Calum wasn't exactly sure why he was acting this way either. He had enjoyed talking to you a lot yesterday, but he couldn't bring himself to show it. He couldn't be mean to you either, so he entire manner just came across and douchey. That didn't stop him from taking glances at Y/N every now and then-something he didn't know why he wanted to do so bad, but he couldn't resist.

 He saw her with an amused grin on her face as Ashton walked towards his room, and then Calum remembered that she was planning on getting him back.

  Ashton opened the door to his room and screamed, “What the literal fuck Y/N!”

 As the you and the rest of the boys gathered around his room, there was laughter all around. You even swore there was a slight smile from Calum as he peeked into Ash’s room, and the memory of his hearty laugh from the night before filled your mind. You knew you needed to hear it again today even if it was the last thing you did.

 “Hey, losers! Wanna go to the club tonight?” you pitched the idea of drinking partly because you knew the boys would love it, but mostly because you wanted to take your mind off of Calum for a damn minute. You didn't know why he was suddenly all you could think about, and you weren't sure how much you liked it . He was your friend, after all, and nothing more.

 Of course the boys agreed, but Calum decided that he wasn't going to drink. He told everyone it was because he was going to be their driver, but he knew that if he got drunk he might try to hook up with some girl, or even worse, Y/N. He did not want to explain to Ashton why he was being so handsy with Ash’s almost-sister.

 It wasn't like he hadn't gotten drunk around Y/N before, but he didn't trust himself this time. He wasn't sure why, but he knew something was different. He thought about her more than usual now-not that he thought about her on a regular basis or anything….

  You decided to try your best to let Calum be for the night. You weren't going to think about him or talk to him- this was your night to be free of any men hanging around your mind. The best way to start that, you decided, was to get dressed up. Feeling a bit more beautiful never hurt anyone, right? That meant that you had to go home, so you planned a time with the groaning boys who just wanted to leave now.

 When you finally arrived back at the boys’ house, you were greeted by a whistle from Luke and a glare from Ashton who pulled you aside.

“What's going on Y/N? Why are you so dressed up? Guys will be staring at you all night!” he interrogated.

 “And I'm trusting you to punch them when they get they do. I'm just looking for a little fun, Ash,” reassuring Ash was hard, but you knew it was important if you wanted him to leave you alone for the night.

  Calum couldn't bare to look at you. He had expected you to look nice, because -well- you always did. It's not like he had a crush on you or anything, but rather that he knew when to admit that someone was attractive, which you were. But tonight you had dressed up more than usual, and Calum hadn’t been prepared. Jesus, how was he going to be able to look away from you all night? He wanted to admire you, but in a friendly way because he appreciated your friendship and liked to see how confident his  friend was.

    Upon arrival, everyone who was drinking took a couple shots and then split up to do their thing. Michael was being social, Luke was dancing with a girl, and you were pretty sure Ashton had a group of girls and even a guy or two around him who he was flirti- you mean, entertaining with his charms. Calum looked to be scrolling through Twitter on his phone, and even though you had planned not to talk to him, you were drunk and sober-Y/N didn't matter right now.

  “Heeeey Cal! Whatcha doin’ babe?” Sober you was definitely going to regret this.

 “Uh-um are you- are you okay Y/N?” Calum wasn't expecting you to come up to him. He knew you could handle your alcohol pretty well, so he had never seen you drunk before. You must've had a lot more than a couple shots.

 “I'm feeling great, babe, but you need to loosen up. Stop being Mr. Grumpy-pants!” Your pouty face made Calum’s cheeks turn even redder. Why were you calling him babe? Why didn't it make him mad?

  “Um- Y/N. I think- I think that you're pretty drunk right now… do you want me to bring you home?” he couldn't stop the struggle he was having to get his words out. This wasn't normal; he was a songwriter, he was supposed to know what to say.

  “Home? Why would I want to go- ‘scuse me, Cal-" you broke off your sentence by running in the bathroom and throwing up in the first stall. You starting sniffling and a couple stray tears ran down your face. “Cal, cam you take me home?”

  “Oh, god. Of course! Here, take my hand,” He offered his hand to you so you could steady yourself, but you still toppled over and directly into Calum’s arms.

   “Guess I'll- I guess I'll just carry you then…” Calum was completely flustered by the drunk, emotional you that was in front of him, but he knew he had to suck it up for you. He picked you up bridal style as you giggled and walked you across the parking lot.

 “Ash!” you cried out in worry.

  “He'll be fine, Y/N. I told them to take an Uber. He's not that- he's not very drunk.” Calum couldn't help but feel something  at the thought of you being absolutely hammered and still worrying about your best friend.

   As Cal was driving you home, you couldn't help but ramble on and on about everything that came to mind. “Calummm! Why are you so grumpy-grumpy? You were so happy and cute yesterday!”

  Calum immediately felt a tingle in his chest and heat on his cheeks. Was I just called cute by Y/N? Sure, the fans called him that sometimes, but never Y/N. It made him feel…special. God, what was he thinking?! He sounded like a schoolgirl with a crush...not that he had a crush or anything of course! Why would he have a crush on Y/N? Sure, she's funny and beautiful and cares for others and likes songwriting… But she's also Ash’s little sister! That's just weird.

  “I- I don't know?” was all Calum could muster.

  “What? Are you not sure? Or is the sexy Calum Hood at a loss for words?” Definitely going to regret this.

  Calum was freaking out inside. Sexy? “I guess I am, Y/N. At a loss for words that is. Not sexy. I wasn't calling myself sexy or anything-that's just weird. Not that you're weird for thinking that! Many fans think that about me too. Wait, that sounds worse. I swear I'm not a narcissist!”

  You started to giggle uncontrollably at his flustered ramblings. “Cal! You're so fucking adorable. God, do I have such a crush on you!”

 That was it. Calum Hood was official broken. He was a mess of stuttering and blushing and thank God we just got to your house because any longer and I would've had to respond to that.     

 “Alright, time for you to go inside,” he said, leading you to your room. Calum got some pajamas for you, and after you got dressed he ran you a bath. While you were getting clean, Cal even put your throw-up clothes in the wash.

  Then came the hard part- getting you to lay down. For someone who couldn't walk at the moment, you were surprisingly energetic. Eventually, Cal had to pick you, put you in bed, and tuck you in.

 “Okay, Y/N, time for you to go to bed and for me to go home. If you need anything, just-"

 “But I want you to stay!” you whined. “Please? Can you sing me that song you were singing last night? With the gold and stuff?”

 “I uh- you heard that?” -you nodded- “Sure, I guess.”

 "I can take you out, oh oh

We can kill some time, stay home

Throw balloons, teddy bears, and the chocolate eclairs away

Got nothing but love for you, fall more in love everyday

Valentine"

[northelypark]

Oh, it's time to break it dOWN. For the writer's ask, black, blue, pink, purple, grey, green (only because I'm hoping for some sass when you answer this one ;)), gold and clear. Very curious biscuit today, I am.

Yeah. You were just asking for it.

Black - Would you want to live in one of the fictional worlds you’ve created?

Well, I didn’t actually create it, but I’d love to take a vacation in the Laytonverse, especially to London (preferably not during Clive’s ten minutes of madness) or Misthallery. The Layton world is so warm and cozy and old-fashioned in the best way. I also love how at the same time it feels hand-me-down and lived in—overgrown ivy, flickering lights, sagging buildings, faded signs, dim alleyways and arcades, and tons of other quirky details that reflect the characters who live there. You really get a sense of history in each location, like there’s a story behind every door. I’d just love to get lost there for a day and do some exploring 

Blue - What’s more important to you: characters or plot? 

I think the two go hand in hand.  In creating a story, you can’t really have the one without the other. That said, I’d say they’re of equal importance. Most often than not characters invest my heart in a story and plot invests my mind. If too much emphasis is put on plot at the expense of characters, the story feels cold and distant, while too much emphasis on wonderful characters with nothing to do is like eating a whole package of oreos—fun at first, but you get sick of it real fast. 

Pink - Which of your characters would become your best friend?

Out of the main four, I actually think Gemma would be the likeliest candidate. Mostly because she’s an extrovert and would be happy to do all the talking for me. We both like collecting things, too, so we could bond over our shared love of cute junk.

I think it’d be harder to befriend Clive and Amelia. They’re both very private, of course, but I’d also try to adopt them, which I don’t think they’d appreciate very much. Amelia and I could bond over chess, but she’d beat me the first minute of every game because as much as I’ve grown to love it I s t i n k.

Bernard would also be difficult to befriend, but I think we’d get along well if we ever got to know each other (of course, I already have a friend who’s a bit like him ;))

Purple - Which of your characters would become your sworn enemy?

They’re all special to me and important to the story and I hope by the end they all come out revealing hidden depth and nuance. But I’ll say Alexandre because he’s such a creep. Not only that but a creep with almost unlimited money and power and no scruples who needs to be taken down ASAP before he bends the entire chess world to his will. But maybe that’s a story for another time ;)

Grey: What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

Don’t let the rough draft break you. Accept that it will be horrible and move on. Make an outline and then write that thing as fast as you can. Once you lay that very painful, very exhausting foundation you can begin building an actual good chapter. I always have to keep this in mind because there’s times I just want to stop in the middle of writing the rough draft and cry at what garbage I’ve produced or else write so slowly, trying to get every sentence perfect the first go around. But that is how writers die. So I try to write fast, use placeholder names and even dialogue when need be, and just get it done.

Green - Pencil, typewriter, or computer?

Quill pen. Anything else is just lazy, new-fangled muggle garbage. Would never, ever use a laptop computer for all of my writing.

Gold - Do your stories usually contain lessons or morals?

Not explicitly, like in an Aesop fable or Saturday morning cartoon sort of way. I’m not always consciously thinking about the exact moral lessons I want to get across. Instead, they are, I hope, woven into the characters and the struggles they have to go through, emerging organically as the story progresses and the characters change and bleed and break and generally make terrible decisions. At the heart of every good story is a truth, something that gives us clarity and allows us to live more intentionally, more aware then we otherwise might. Neil Gaiman said stories are mirrors and I would agree. But I also try to make this truth-telling subtle, implicit maybe you’d call it, and deeply embedded in the story and in the actions, words, and thoughts of the characters.

Clear - Do your characters control where the story goes or do you maintain control?

It begins with me, of course. I think of the plot for a chapter and then create an outline. But once I start the rough draft, that’s when the characters can finally have their say and I begin seeing things less from the omnipotent author’s perspective and more from the character’s perspective. Then I realize: “Oh, they’d probably do this instead of that” or a line of dialogue might pop out that I would never have thought of if I wasn’t trying to picture myself in that character’s shoes while typing as fast as I can. I definitely think an element of spontaneity is needed as you write, so that characters are allowed to surprise you and take on a life of their own.

So when all is said and done I try to let my characters have control within the context I’ve established. Sort of like a director setting the stage, writing the script, and casting the parts, but it’s the actors who bring the play to life as they add their own little quirks and flourishes. 

[fessel-vox]

more word vomit and idea yeeting

A red herring cabbage seller for a mafia.

 Like, there’s a mafia, and there’s this farmer dude posted all the way in another country, and a ton of the mafia’s associations end up on that farmer’s giant plot of land. The cabbage farmer doesn’t mind the company of the FBI and police and usually ends up inviting them into her house, but the FBI and police are so bloody suspicious because like, wh???? There’s so many pecking things all leading to this one cabbage farmer, there MUST be some sort of relation to this terrible and amazingly hidden mafia and this humble cabbage farmer. The cabbage farmer, herself, admits every time that she doesn’t know of having any relations with anyone from any mafia, and she’s telling the truth! Sometimes she’d get customers from the next country, and a couple of her friends come by and visit, but that’s it. And that’s the thing. Every single customer is from the mafia, very much in disguise, because her produce is just so pecking good, and the leader of the mafia loves it so much that they keep telling all of these people to visit this place, specifically. Of course, false hints leading to this area of farm land being the base of the mafia’s operations are dropped, but nobody is able to state with confidence that this farmer woman has any relations with the mafia.

The boss of this mafia absolutely loves their salad, that’s been established, but they also have a love of basically anything to do with plants. That’s right, The Boss of this mafia is vegan and she’s proud of it. Just about all of the red herrings she leaves behind are plant and lettuce related. She has over seventy alternate and business email accounts and all of them are related to lettuce or general produce. She has tons of plants within where ever she works, and none of them are plastic. Actually, she despises plastic plants so much, that anyone that owns them instantly get written onto her list of people on her bad side, if she finds out they’re those types of people. You can’t just purchase beauty. You have to cultivate it, care for it, nurture it as it grows. The Boss very much integrates this mindset into her work. You can’t just purchase a family, nor power. She has accumulated lots and lots of wealth, and distributes it to her workers somewhat generously, but she still tries to make her ‘family’ understand that you can’t just purchase something and you’ll become improved. You need to be able to put your heart into something and care a bit about it. That way, you’ll end up that much richer than you were before you took the risk of caring. Of course, plants may die despite your best efforts, and it’d be so much safer to buy a plastic plant, but where’s the fun in that?

The Boss understands that to have things come easy is to have things be shallow. When she walks into the homes of new clients, she makes sure to assess everything; how they choose to present themselves, the things within their home, the state of their home, etc. I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block

Oh yes, and I presume The Boss would actually very much enjoy dancing. Formally dancing, of course. I wonder if I could use the fact that she’s a cat as a metaphor somehow… Not someone who’s on the bottom for sure, but she understands that there’s bigger things out there, therefore, it’s best to stay low and enjoy what she has while watching her back.

Her ‘family’ mainly comprises of people who were formerly down on their luck, and most of her clients are only temporary, since she understands they may need something yet don’t want to be affiliated with her business or practices. She’s okay with that ant understands, but at times, if she feels like someone might be very fit for working for her, she’d extend an offer to them for a job.

I definitely feel like, yes, she’s had troubles with the law and has done some not-particularly-cash-money stuff, and haha the ‘business’ she runs is called the Meowfia, but she does try to be clean with the people she works with, allowing them the opportunity to not get caught up in the Meowfia. She’s powerful and intimidating, but has gained the trust and respect of many people. I wonder what her past may have been like…

Maybe not that good, poor? Heck, maybe she started out having a dream of being a police officer, but as some stuff happened, she ended up falling into the world of crime, therefore getting a bit deeper down on her luck. Despite the trouble, after many years, maybe over ten, she managed to amass a community of people she could trust. She became a leader to them, and more people who ended up one way or another being at odds with the law turned to her and her family, and she’d help them out. Sometimes she’s been turn on by people, and that has made her a bit more cold and ready to take a step back from the feelings of excitement of having a new client or member of the Meowfia. Her family eventually became an empire, one that she intended to maintain. There were days were it was difficult, where multiple people would slip up and/or break her trust, possibly putting the Meowfia at risk, and there were days where she’d be absolutely, terribly stressed. Maybe she’d have a right-hand-person, and on days where she’d take a break that person would take the wheel.

On some days where she gets terribly stressed, she’d dress up as someone more humble, compared to her usual choice of a suit and other formal attire, and go to another country. She’d take a while to breathe, and catch up with someone who had a much slower lifestyle, enjoying some of the finest vegetables and salad she’d ever taste. It was nice to spend a few days with her farmer friend, and the friend, Peony, felt the same whenever she came to visit. Sometimes Peony would mention having to deal with the police again last month, and The Boss would chuckle a bit and apologize.

“Oh, but it’s really no big deal, Beda! I invited them in for some tea, and they were really impressed with it. -Speaking of which, want me to give you some more?”

“Sure… and thanks,” Peony went to get the tea kettle and came back.

“Oh, it’s really no trouble,” “No, it’s not that-- but, thankyou for the tea, as well-”

Beda watched as she refilled the tea cup and smiled a bit.

“It’s…”

For helping keep my business hidden and not asking me about it at all, understanding that it’s for the best you don’t know? Allowing me to stay here even though I have a terrible track record? Treating me so kindly and /genuinely/, something that has been getting harder and harder to come by?

“It’s.. for everything, thankyou,”

“Oh, no problem!”

Peony put the tea kettle back and returned to the lounge chair next to the one Beda was sitting in on the front porch.

The Boss wasn’t entirely sure why she does all this for her, though. Sure, The Boss does work very diligently behind the scenes, too, to make sure that her.. Her business partner, this farmer, was safe, but Peony-- she didn’t /have/ to smile so sweetly almost every time they were together, or accept the Boss’ gifts with so much appreciation, or even just allow The Boss to stay more than a few hours.

Heck, she didn’t even know why she trusted this farmer so much… Putting so much trust in people was risky, lately.

But anyways, they were both sitting on the porch, and it felt just so relaxing. It was truly what both of them needed. Of course, neither of them were entirely aware that what they both needed was to be with each other, but either way, The Boss finally felt at peace, and Peony was reminded that the world has so, so many mysteries and excitement, and that it wasn’t all simply this plot of land.

Of course, she /did/ love her job of farming and tending for crops, and looking after her chickens, goats, and other animals, but sometimes it’d feel like.. She wasn’t doing enough. She’d spend an entire day working and yet somehow still feel like she wasn’t doing enough with her life. She didn’t /want/ to feel this way, that was for sure, and yet, some days, this feeling of no accomplishment clung to her horribly… There were days where the loneliness, instead of being comforting, wasn’t exactly so, and it felt like the whole world was this farm.

Don’t get her wrong though, there were days where she felt at peace with what she was doing, and enjoyed it very much! Caring for her animals and tending to crops was meditative, and she enjoys all the time to think quite a bit. She’s really thought about a lot, too.. Maybe she took a class or two in philosophy, but one thing for sure was that she had a lot of books in her house, many of which have been read multiple times over, with an uncountable amount of annotations, notes, and little illustrations within that she drew, and sometimes painted, herself.

Sometimes she’d give a painting or drawing to The Boss as a gift, and The Boss would be a bit confused. Was she-- was she selling this to her? Of course, she didn’t have a single problem with buying anything from Peony. Heck, she even paid almost double for anything she bought from her in a silent way of saying thanks.

“No, silly, I’m giving it to you!” Peony giggled in that lovely, appreciative, light-hearted way, and continued on, “I thought you might like it, since I noticed you were taking a shine to Oreo.”

“Really-?” The Boss asked. 

She couldn’t believe it, and couldn’t help but smile as she admired the warm painting of a black and white chicken. She was going to hang it in her home, no doubt.

“Wow, I,” She chuckled a bit, giving the painting another look and smoothing out her whiskers before admitting, “I didn’t know it was that obvious..”

“Of course it was! You think I wouldn’t know by the look on your face when that little rascal jumped onto your lap?” 

“Okay, you got a point there. Still, I can’t just take this for /free/-”

“Of course you can! Go on, it’s about time you get something without anybody expecting anything in return.”

[vesperlionheart]

The Barn 6

[part1][part2][part3][part4][Part5][Here]

Madara took the couch and Sakura woke before all of them, when it was dark and there was still fog from the sea spreading far and thin over the world for as far as she could see.

Sakura stood outside in her nightgown, unable to feel the cold or the damp touch of the morning air. She felt like she didn’t fit inside her body. Her body was one shape, her mind another, and her soul a third completely unique shape. Nothing fit. She was out of alignment and she needed to figure out a way to hide it or ignore it well enough to get on with her life before the fog burned away.

The sun wouldn’t wait for her. The world wouldn’t wait for her either. The demons stirring would have to be put on hold for another daybreak.

So, Sakura built that wall up high in her mind and layered it thick then thicker. She closed her eyes and stepped into the fog barefoot. When she came back her toes were nearly blue but the ghosts were a little further.

‘That’ll do,’ she thought to herself before letting herself back into the barn where the rest of her new friends continued to sleep.

Konan rolled over in bed and cracked open an eye as Sakura prepared a simple breakfast, but didn’t wake enough to roll out of bed. Not a sound could be heard from the loft, and Madara was an unmoving lump.

Sakura waved to Konan, even though the blue haired woman had buried her face back in the pillows and didn’t see the motion. Sakura typed in her code for the day and closed the door behind her.

Hours later Sakura clipped together another stack of graded scantrons and closed out of the grade book program on her computer. It glitches, started to stall, and then proceeded to flash the ‘program not responding’ sign. Sakura held her breath and prayed it didn’t do the dick thing and lose all her grades just as she went to save and close out of the program.

The program loaded, circling and circling until it flashed a new pop up and closed out peacefully. Sakura sighed in relief. She had over two hundred students, and while those grades were only for maybe 40 or so, it would have been a bitch to re-enter them.

“At least this is a problem I can solve,” she muttered out loud, rubbing the skin under her eyes. “Thank God for the mundane things in life.”

“Is that really something worth wasting your breath on?”

Sakura paused in her recline and turned slowly, eyes narrowed cautiously at the figure darkening her cubicle doorway.

“Sorry,” Sakura drawled. “No consultations without prior appointments. You should have called ahead.”

Kakuzu held up a white paper bag with a pink logo plenty cute with cartoon ghosts drawn as quotation marks around the name.

“What did you get me from Spooky Sweets?” Sakura asked, feeling her irritation abate once the smell reached her. It was fresh, whatever it was.

Kakuzu offered the paper bag up to her and Sakura unrolled the top to peer inside and grin at the assortment of Crepes. There was a variety there that clued Sakura into the fact that Kakuzu hadn’t known which she preferred and bought them all just to be sure. That was pretty big for someone as penny tight as him.

Sakura reached for one called The Monster Mash, a peanut butter, banana, chocolate, and whipped cream filled crepe that was still warm in her hands. She bit into the soft texture of it and melted a bit inside.

“Okay,” she said around the bite in her mouth. “You’ve earned my good graces. Pull up a chair. What do you want?”

“To see how you were doing,” he gruffly explained.

Kakuzu glanced around before pulling up his scarf and descending into the chair used by plenty of nervous students seeking advice on career paths and class help. He made the chair seem tiny.

Sakura licked the whipped cream that spilled out the sides off her lips, using the back of her thumb to wipe away whatever missed her mouth. “I’m dandy. You?”

“What of the others?”

Sakura shrugged, pushing the rest of the treat into her mouth to hum in contentment. She didn’t rush to clear her mouth and answer him, but waited with a water bottle in hand until she was ready to wash her treat down.

Kakuzu glanced away, into the hallway with a posture ready to wrestle. His shoulders were wide, perfect to brace against In a fight. He wasn’t as beautiful as Madara, but there was a broken sort of attractiveness to his hidden self. But maybe that was just Sakura’s strange fascination with creepy things clouding her judgment.

Whatever.

“The others are fine. Thanks for asking. Anything else you want to know before moving on?”

He faced her and even though most of his face was hidden, the glower was blindingly obvious. “Don’t belittle the situation. I am still the legal authority in charge of the property you’re residing on.”

“Are you, or is that a lie to cover for how auntie has her hands in your puppet strings? Let me be clear with you, Kakuzu. I don’t believe that it was your intention to trick me and that is why we’re having this conversation and I’m not burning your ass across the campus limits. Still, don’t think I’ll be stupid enough to blindly trust you like that again.”

Sakura leaned back in her seat, crossing one leg over the other, bouncing her ankle and making the sheen on her nude colored heels stand out all the more. They were pointed at the tips and promised to hurt if she decided to drive them into his leg.

Casually, she dragged the side of her thumb over her teeth, licking up the stray grains of rough sugar that still stuck to her skin.

Kakuzu hesitated before answering and he might have swallowed too, Sakura wasn’t sure under all those layers.

“I won’t lie and say that the matriarch Kushina doesn’t have some hold over me. I am still employed in her family’s service. But, I want to believe that may change soon.”

Sakura scoffed. “You thought you would get that from whoever showed any talent for the curse on that place, eh? I remember what Karin told me. You handed over Madara and the others because you thought you might get something out of it.”

‘He’d get to be your familiar in exchange for the others…’

“I did. It’s what I wanted.”

“You’re a crazy asshole if you think you’d use me for it.” Sakura grabbed the edge of her chair and leaned forward. “I’m not Mito.”

“I know that.” He was watching her oddly. “She couldn’t do what you did. She said she would, but there were always excuses for years without ceasing. It was only at the end that she admitted the truth about her limits.”

“Boo hoo.” Sakura clearly wasn’t amused by the tone of her voice. “Look how much I don’t care. I heard the stories too. She was a Matriarch, one of the best coven heads in years which means a total tool of a person. That’s not going to be me.”

“It could be.”

Sakura felt the temperature drop a fraction as her skin tingled with goosebumps. Her breath went stale in her throat.

“Not a chance.”

“Even if she hadn’t been at a disadvantage, you would have outlasted Karin with that stamina, and with training you would be able to best even the twins. You have the capacity for greatness.”

“Hell yeah I do. Doesn’t mean you have to have anything to do with it.”

“I’ve had decades under a master, and years training her offspring. I would be the one you’d benefit from best if you want to defend your new path in life.”

“There is no new path in life.” Sakura scowled at the thought. “I’m not changing anything.”

“Things are changing, like it or not. You will have to change.”

“Not the way you want me to. I’m not going to be one of them. I have a life, a real life, a life I sweat and bleed for. I’ll be in debt for this life for years to come. I refuse to let that all be for nothing. I worked too hard to get where I am right now.”

“If you wanted it badly enough, that debt could be erased.” He leaned forward. “You’d just have to want it badly enough.”

Sakura felt an angry roll in her gut. She knew the family had ties all over and enough money to drip in it, but it would always make Sakura uncomfortable to know that lifestyle was a few choices away. She could have tried to do what Tayuya did, and maybe Sakura would be where Karin is now. Maybe closer.

But at what cost?

“I’m not going to entertain such fantasies,” Sakura said, closing her eyes and turning her face away. “And I’m not going to take you as a familiar. I told the others I didn’t plan on taking them on either. I’m not changing my mind on that.”

“I’m sure they’d like that, but I’m the only one that could benefit you so perfectly. I have the skill set suited for you. The house would be yours.”

Sakura went still.

“What?”

“The Barn, it would be yours. I have that power. The will is mine to execute how I see fit. A case could be made that you’ve earned it via the spirit of the law in Mito’s will. It and all the lands around it would be yours without having to last the six months.”

With the debt hanging over her head it would be decades before she might be able to afford a place and call it her own. Hard work would get her far, but not far enough.

“You’re playing dirty.”

“I’m playing smart. I wouldn’t claim to be anything but the most useful familiar. I’d be better than any of the others. I wouldn’t even need another sacrifice. That price has already been paid.” Kakuzu scoot his chair closer to her. “I’d also be the least intrusive into your life. I already have a life here, a job, an apartment, and an identity independent from you. Little else would change.”

Sakura tilted her chin up and reached for the white paper bag left on her desk. She reached inside and pulled out a Yummy Mummy crepe, filled with white chocolate, whipped cream, strawberry, banana, and topped with Oreo bits. She bit into the treat and some of the tension eased out of her shoulders.

“You like that one?” Kakuzu asked after another minute of near silence, filled only with the sounds of her muffled chewing.

“I like all of them.” Sakura licked her lips and swallowed the last of it. “Everything on their menu is perfect.”

He nodded, filing that information away for later. “I had hoped you would like them. It seemed like the sort of place you would eat at, but I wasn’t sure what you would order off the menu.”

Sakura paused, mentally taking inventory of her physical appearance. Yes, she had bubblegum pink hair, but the rest of her was professional and scholarly. She had always been intentional in presenting herself as a serious figure, all dressed up and looking ready to blend in with the other ‘normal adults’ on campus. She was in a gray pencil skirt and a white scoop collar blouse. Not even her heels made her stand out.

“I think you might have misjudged me just because of my hair, but that’s fine. I got treats out of it.”

Kakuzu waved his hand at her desk. “Not here, but when you moved in, you brought your personality with you. That side of you seemed to appreciate the cute things in life.” He eyed the bag in her hands.

“Don’t act like you know me so well. You had no idea I even had any magic in me until two days ago,” Sakura said with an animated arch of her eyebrow that could make lesser students tremble. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“I’ve made it a point to learn,” he amended.

Sakura’s look was baleful. “I don’t believe you. Before last week I was invisible.”

She had made sure of it. She had never tried to be a part of the inner circles in the coven, but after the accident she had taken great pains to erase magic from her life the way her mother had wanted her to since the beginning. No one else in the household had magic, and some days it was too easy to forget there was magic in the world, but Sakura never truly forgot.

To the rest of the watching world, it probably looked like a reaction to trauma. No one was supposed to question it when she stopped trying to teach herself magic, and no one did.

His voice broke into her thoughts. “You were not as invisible as you may think you were.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Sakura snapped, suddenly feeling the sting of pins in her heart. Was it emotional pain or literal metals packing her hurt? Some days it was hard to tell. In that moment, Sakura didn’t know.

“Even if it’s a single drop, there is still Uzumaki blood in your veins, Ms. Haruno, and that makes you a matter of casual interest. True, we don’t spend every waking minute of the day tracking your movements or filing reports on your credit card activities, but should your behavior deviate from an accepted norm, the family was always there, poised and ready to react,” he said.

“And have they?” Sakura asked, holding onto the arms of her office chair like she depended on them.

Kakuzu glanced at the bag. “How do you think I knew one of the places where you liked to eat?”

If Sakura didn’t like the treats so much she would have thrown the bag and what was left inside at his face. She didn’t care if his expression was muted instead of smug, she felt like he was making fun of her.

“You can leave now,” she bit out. “We’re done here.”

Kakuzu looked panicked for a moment, but he stood. “I can help you.”

“You can leave.”

“Wait.”

He reached inside his coat and pulled something out of the inside breast pocket. It was a small white envelope with writings on the outside. He offered it to her but Sakura only glared. Neither hand moved to accept it.

Kakuzu ducked his head and set the envelope down on her desk. It clinked like there was metal inside it. By the shape through the paper, Sakura could tell there was a key in it. The writing looked like an address.

“It’s to my apartment, the one they don’t know about. You can come to see me if you change your mind...or if you don’t. You’d be safe there, I promise.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Kakuzu didn’t move, but watched her steadily without his gaze wavering. “It’s safe. I’ll swear to it.”

“I want to believe I’m dangerous enough now to not care, but I know better. Safe or not safe, I’m not going to trust my aunt’s little guard dog. Go.”

She looked away and listened for his leaving. When she didn’t hear him exit Sakura closed her eyes and turned even further away and waited. She waited without noticing how much time passed, but when she turned, he was gone. She should have known better than to expect a sound.

Sakura finished up what work she could, taught her last class of the day, and prepared the materials for the next week of classes. The sun was low when she packed up and left.  

And the end of the hallway outside her offices she stopped and grinned.

“Hey, redhead, you’re in the wrong wing.”

Gaara turned and the relief was instantaneous across his face. He jogged over to her and reached for her hand, sighing onto her shoulder. Usually he was taller than her, but in heels, they were equal in height. He fit on her shoulder.

“You’re impossible to find. I couldn’t feel your chakra at all.”

“How long have you been on campus looking for me?” Sakura asked through a chuckle. Her fingers found his hair and scratched his scalp softly enough to not hurt. He melted further.

“Kakuzu came to the house. I left not long after that.”

Sakura’s fingers stilled. “How did you get here, honey?”

Gaara didn’t pull his head off her shoulder, but moved to look up at her. “I walked. The university is big, you can see it from far away and I got directions from your books.”

“Honey, that must have taken you hours,” Sakura said, reaching for his face to feel it. His cheeks were warm. “When did you last eat and drink?”

She moved him off her shoulder and he huffed in agitation while she turned back to jog to her desk. She had an empty tumblr under her desk and there was a water filter at the end of the hallway. She took her cup and filled it up, pushing it into Gaara’s hands and making him drink it.

When he was done with all of it he tried to give it back to her but she only filled it again and made him drink again.

“But I don’t want to.”

“Hush, it’s good for you.”

Gaara grumbled, but did as he was told, wiping the excess water off his lips once he was finally done.

“You know we can use chakra to help sustain bodily functions. A few hours without water or food won’t impact a shinobi so terribly.”

“I’ve heard of people doing that with their magic, but it’s not a good long term idea and no true substitute for water and food. I’m sorry you had to walk all the way here. Kakuzu was here over three hours ago.”

Sakura took the tumblr back and took it to the sink at the back of the workroom. She would clean it out when she came back in the morning.

“You’re very kind.”

Sakura staggered and balked. “Th-this is just basic knowledge. I’m not...it’s nothing special.”

Gaara hummed, shaking his head. “No, you’re kind. You’re caring like it’s so natural you don’t even know you’re doing it. It’s a nice change.”

“As opposed to what? I’m sure plenty of people would have given you water if you needed it. Konan said you were like a president or a leader of some sorts back home.”

“I’m not your leader though, and I never asked you for anything. You cared just because that’s who you are.” He reached for her arm again. “Will you buy me the sweet drinks with whipped cream again?”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Ah, there it is, you were buttering me up, weren't you?”

Gaara made a face, recoiling at the comment. “You’re not a lamb chop. Why would you need butter?”

“Oh, Gaara, you’re too teasable. What am I going to do with you?” Sakura laughed, throwing her arm around his shoulders and leading him out of the building.

“You can buy me yummy star drinks.”

“You’re going to bankrupt me at this rate. Just, don’t tell the others. They’ll get jealous they didn’t get anything.”

“They didn’t walk all the way over here to find you or spend that much time lost on campus. They don’t have any right to complain.”

“How did you get out anyway?” Sakura asked. “I thought one of them might have stopped you.”

“Well, it’s not like I announced what I was doing. If I had, Madara would have tried to tag along and Konan would have stopped both of us.” Gaara chuckled to himself. “He was super pissed when he woke up and saw you were gone. He thought your life would revolve around him more, the selfish bastard.”

Sakura reached for her keys once she saw the edge of the parking lot. The weight of the metal was familiar in her fingers and for a split second she thought about the key Kakuzu had left on her desk, the one she had swiped into her draw to forget about, the one she ended up going back for, the one she eventually tucked away inside her wallet with the folded up envelope.

She looked up and scanned the surrounding area casually, noticing a few familiar faces and a few she had never seen before. That wasn’t unusual.

Everything looked normal but there was a new itch under her skin, one she couldn’t scratch, one she felt in the texture of her bones. Was someone watching her now and reporting her movements back to the coven?

Gaara’s hand on her arm made her blink and recognize where she way. She had stopped moving and Gaara was looking at her oddly now.

“Sorry, I spaced out there for a second.”

Was the kid in the red jacket watching them, or just looking off in their general direction?

“Is it something I said?” Gaara asked.

“No.” Sakura took his arm and led him to the passenger’s side of her car. “I just need to make an extra stop before heading home.”

His eyes seemed to light up. “Is it for my drink?”

The man in the red jacket was gone, but Sakura’s feeling of paranoia wasn’t.

“Don’t worry, we’ll stop for that too.”

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Read Chapters One through Twelve here.

Our Story

December 2028

Claire was 36 when she saw New York City for the first time. A weekend trip—the city’s dreamers dumped into the dependable wombs of their parents’ basements; the Wall Street scions into the greens of gated Connecticut. Two days that are only distinguishable by the fact that her decisions—to walk in the rain without an umbrella, to buy a Chinatown souvenir—were not shadowed by Frank’s judgment.

For the first time since Frank’s death, Claire was on a trip, alone. She had one suitcase, and a hotel bed to herself. For the first time, she could adjust the thermostat without complaint—set herself to freezing or to boiling, and damn what anyone else had to say about it. She could use every closet hanger, order room service without Frank’s worried appraisal of the menu prices. The dissatisfied cluck over a third, offensive digit. 

“I’d like the fettuccine please. With a side of fries. Oh, and a bottle of Chianti. Yes. Yes, the whole bottle.”

It was a freedom that felt fresh when she took a shower (the complimentary shampoo and conditioner, all hers), and which rotted—just slightly—at the sight of the two unused towels. She unfolded them, set one under the faucet, swept a streak of foundation across the other. Better.

Her second and last night there, and it was dark. She drew the curtains, heard the chains clinking as the vertical blinds swayed to reveal the—

No. Not the city she was expecting, but a sudden fog. Thick and impenetrable, even the gleam of the Empire’s spire was hidden behind its cloud. Windows were blurred, merely shapes of half-hearted light inside an apocalyptic limbo. All this blank space where there’d once been buildings, standing cheek by jowl like J-train passengers.  

It was, in that moment, an unsettling sight. How could the world vanish without a trace, and she none the wiser? She’d been slurping a bowl of fettuccine just an hour before—when had New York left her behind? When had it disappeared?

Twenty-five years later—Jamie’s diagnosis no longer new, but still a sting—she thinks of this night: the missing city, taken by a thief under a cloak of darkness. It is how she pictures her husband’s brain, the only way she can understand its fickle progressions and regressions: The life erased by a fog she cannot see through, but which dissipates and then reconvenes without any discernible pattern.

And in this scenario, Claire is there, back in New York City—not noticing her diminishment within it (in the only mind that matters). 

She is too blind, too oblivious as the world fades, building by building. Too busy eating a bowl of fettuccine to realize everything she knows is going, going—gone.

They refer to the incident as “the big house fire.” It is an event chronicled between whispering neighbors, fellow parishioners, in the butcher shop on Healy Lane. The story has become a rusted scythe, worn down by every tongue that has remolded it—still slightly sharp, though, under the right circumstances. (Even an old saw will do its job if its victim is vulnerable enough.)

And while “the big house fire” does, in just four words, describe what happened—Claire and Jamie’s woodland castle reduced to rubble—it is not the most accurate version of the story.

If they were to tell it, in full and with absolute transparency, they would mention Claire’s flight home. How she’d been tucking into a packet of Oreos when the phone rang: There’s been an accident, and had run out of the hotel without her luggage and her shoes. (She will remember her scraped big toe, bleeding into the taxi carpet, until the day she dies.) 

The Frasers would also recall how she’d shut the plane’s window shade—how she’d refused to look at the school of shrinking cars. Their ongoing movement, she’d thought then, had suggested a galling lack of compassion.

They would also talk about Bree, just sitting down to a dinner with Roger. Scallops, bought fresh from the market, and Italian wine to celebrate the semester. Their plates, once piled high, had disappeared in their absence, Bree’s roommates picking at the food abandoned for a North Carolina hospital. There’s been an accident.

And if the Frasers were truly brave enough, they would mention the diagnosis: Jamie, aged 60 and patient #123. The candle, which he cannot remember lighting, and Adso, whom he often does not remember owning, knocking over Red Apple Wreath in the night. (A sheet of ice had slid off the roof, startling the dog. Funny, how such innocence can beget such tragedy.)

It was her friend, Denzell Hunter, who had been there first, tending to the burns that had branded Jamie’s back. And it was Denny who broke the news to Claire, the pair of them sipping spiked coffee in his office. The chair, with its one rickety leg, had barely held her when he’d said, We think this is a sign. (The heavy, leaden core of her had grown heavier still.)

“How long before it all goes?” she’d asked some time later, and even though Denny had made to answer, she’d gone on. As if, in the face of something so incomprehensible, clarification could stop the monster infecting Jamie’s brain. “How long before he won’t remember anything?”

“I don’t know, Claire,” Denny had said. A hand on her shoulder, on her knee. More weight to carry, dragging her to the floor. “It’s impossible to say. A couple years, maybe?”

The sound she’d made, then. If someone were to describe it, they might use such words as:

Devastated.

Destroyed.

Unhinged.

(It was all of these things, at once, and more.)

“Can I see him?”

Claire had paused before entering Jamie’s room, half-expecting the expression of confusion, Who are you?, she’d feared all afternoon. She watched him from the doorway, searching for the evidence she had not seen and which had become its own sort of beast in her mind: Guilt.

But what she saw, instead, was this: Jamie’s same eyes, Jamie’s same mouth. His same voice, saying her name. The same, the same, all still the same.

She whispered, face crumpling, “You’re here.”

And the image of them, then: her forehead pressed into his same chest; his same hand on her shaking shoulders as he says, in his same voice, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

If someone were to paint it, they would use the starkest, most sterile white. The brightest blue for Jamie’s eyes, somehow made brighter by his tears. A tiny spec of red—blood on Claire’s sleeve, from washing the cuts on her feet.

If someone were to name it, they would have difficulty calling it anything but what it clearly, inevitably, dishearteningly was:

Beginning of the End.

Jamie is sent home a week later. His thighs, patched like a quilt of skin—raw, untouched, raw, untouched—from the grafts taken for his back. All of him, raw as a newborn, and so at odds with the eroding mind inside his head.     

Claire’s eyes swim as they drive away from the hospital, and do not spill until she turns onto a certain gravel road. Pure instinct taking them through the trees, past the fallen oak where, on an autumn night, she had finally told him what she’d always meant to. (“I was born for you.”)

Realization dawns in a flood of ghostly sound: footsteps in the study, the languid pour of milk. Flesh slapping flesh, as Jamie takes her over the kitchen island. All of it, a story given to the past tense, now existing in the dust motes floating between the trees. (There was nothing waiting for them at the end of that gravel road. A breath of snow and ashes—only a piece of blue porcelain left unscathed.)

It is then that Claire begins to weep.

“Don’t you bloody do that to me ever again, do you hear me?” she hiccups, the car rolling to a stop. “Don’t scare me like that ever again.”

(He does not say he won’t.)

“I thought I’d lost you, Jamie,” she whispers quietly. “And if I’d lost you, I—”

“You didn’t,” he replies, looking at her. And when she shudders, he feels like saying it again. “You didn’t lose me, mo chridhe. Promise.”

Claire’s hand reaches for his, and so he brings it to his lips, kisses the knuckles, then the ring he’s wrapped there not once, but twice (a thousand times). I’m here. And Jamie does not wince as he leans over to kiss her tears, just as he had not said that she wouldn’t, eventually, lose him. That she couldn’t, eventually, live without him.

(She would. She could. Eventually.)

[distant-rose-archive-blog]

Do you know when you’re going to post an other story? I know you have some things to do and I don’t want to seem mean or obliging you in anyway I just want to know. Also, my friend and i would like to know how Bobbi and Wes started to like each other or when they started being a couple. Thanks!

Hi! I’m hoping to post something tomorrow for Little Pirates, however something story-wise will definitely be posted on Wednesday. I intend to start my CSSS stuff Wednesday so it might not be LP related, but it will be something CS related and I hope you will enjoy it. But yeah, I’m outlining something Wes-centric because that seems to be something people want. Oreos may be involved.

How did Bobbi and Wes start liking each other? It was kinda always there lingering behind the surface when they were kids. Granted, it was hidden by a lot of competition and teasing on both ends since they’re both highly competitive. Until they were teenagers, Bobbi was taller than Wes and would often antagonize him about it and Wes would often gloat that he was “better” than her because he caught on to their lessons quicker. I think the first time they acknowledged their attraction to each was when she was 14 and he was 12 and they kissed for the first time. This was promptly followed by Bobbi pushing him into a frog pond. And led to further antagonization between them. When they got a little older, he started teasingly flirting with her but was also having a lot of casual flings and Bobbi kinda saw those as being very problematic and didn’t want to be a notch on his belt. On her 18th birthday, they both got drunk and slept together for the first time and she basically had a freak out and told him it was a mistake and never to talk about it. 

When Beth disappears is kinda when they officially kinda start their actual relationship. Wes, Gideon and Bobbi kinda become obsessed with trying to find her (they don’t know Beth got her ass booted to the EF) and Bobbi becomes Wes’s emotional pillar and kinda helps him from going crazy. So they’re have some romantic/sexual encounters prior but their official relationship starts when Wes is 20 and Bobbi is 22. Their relationship is kinda always complicated. They’re very on-and-off again and while their relationship does get a bit better when they’re older, they’re never get really close to marriage. Their daughter Georgina is conceived during their off-periods and Wes is actually seeing someone else. Eh gasp! The Gina episode is very rocky and very dramatic to say the least.

However, what I can confirm is that Bobbi, Gideon and Wes kinda have a three-parent system that works when it comes to raising Gina and Stella (who is adopted by Wes and Gideon when she’s six. She has very powerful magic and her parents were killed because of it.) Anyway to the two girls, Wes is Dad, Bobbi is Mom and Gideon is Papa.

[themanwiththemetalarm]

Someone to Love (part five)

Pairing: Bucky x pregnant!reader

Words: 1300+

Warnings: swearing, reader being a lil of a bitch?

A/N: Sorry for taking forever, as always. I don’t even know anymore. Also, let’s see if you can find the reference in this chapterrrr. As always, tags are open , ask in the box, though, not in the comments. Please.

Tags at the end.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Time seemed to slow down as Bucky moved his lips against yours and fireworks were felt instead of the usual beat of your heart.

You were a bit shocked at first – stunned, really – but as soon as you understood what was happening, your body gained control over the situation: hands circled his neck, only to find your fingers tangled in his chocolate-y hair, lips moving like both of your lives depended on it, your body getting clooser to him. You were breaking free of the pain Tyler caused you, you were soaring, you were flying.

And Bucky, oh Bucky. He felt so amazing; he was being so passionate, holding you so tightly, as if he feared that you could disappear…

As soon as it started, it was over. James had barely pulled back, every exhale of his becoming oxygen for you, and his forehead was leaning on yours, blue eyes hidden behind his lids, as if he were still processing what had just happened. And you would be a liar if you didn’t admit that you were trying to do the same.

Then, you raised your right hand to rest it on his left cheek, only to start talking, barely in a whisper: “Bucky, why did you do that?”.

He had opened his eyes by then and he felt like the dumbest man on the whole planet. And, maybe, he said something that might make you think the same: “Listen, (Y/N), I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I was trying to make you stop rambling and that seemed like the only good option at the moment, so, forget this. I’m sorry”.

He might as well have punched you on the nose, like he did with Tyler a few hours earlier, it would have been less painful. In fact, for that lapse of time during which you found yourself kissing the man you were irredeemably falling in love with – yes, beacuse you were falling in love and it was undeniable – you had hoped that Bucky had felt the same emotions you did and this, what James had just said to you, basically shattered your heart in a million pieces.

But you couldn’t say anything other than: “That was stupid of you, really,” You were honestly seething with anger, as if the day hadn’t been already too hard on you, “You can’t just go around kissing people. Couldn’t you have just called my name like any other normal person woud have done?” Your chest was heaving and your face was red, not only because of rage, but also because you felt humiliated, embarassed and, mostly, rejected.

The man standing in front of you seemed taken aback from your outburst and his mouth hung wide open in shock. Of course, he didn’t mean whatever he had just said to that beautiful, enraged being, but he didn’t know what to say and when you presented yourself looking so small and pretty, your hands unconsciously rubbing over you swollen belly, he couldn’t hep himself from kissing you.

And, once again, he felt at loss for words – and it looked like you weren’t going to grace him anymore with your presence on that day, as you stormed away, headed to your home – walking. Crazy.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N), come back, where are you even going?!” Bucky catched up to her, trying to stop her. What was even the problem with you? Were you hurt because of what he said? Were you actually angry because he told you that he hadn’t kissed you because he felt something for you? He selfishly hoped so.

“Hey, doll, what was that?” He said, his hand on your forearm.

You didn’t lose a moment to answer him - “I was just trying to go home? Why, can’t I even do that anymore? Do you need to fucking babysit me for the rest of my fucking pregnancy?”. You were so red by now, that Bucky thought that you were going to combust and he found that a little worrying. Your words were also hurting him, just a little bit.

And then, he tried to quell his stormy thoughts and asked you the question that was tormenting him: “(Y/N), are you mad because I only kissed you to shut you up and not for...something...else?” He talked slowly at the end, as if he were afraid to make explode a ticking bomb. He hoped it wasn’t showing, but he was about to lose his shit and that easily transformed into him becoming a sweaty mess; a drip of sweat could be seen on the side of his forehead, as proof to what he felt.

You just squinted your (Y/E/C) eyes and pointed your index finger at him, before talking, having come up with an, hopefully convincent, excuse by now, an excuse that just had to finish this “argument”. Because it looked like Mr. Barnes was just too perceptive for his own – and your – well being.

“Listen, you know what, Mr. Know-it-all, perhaps I just hoped, for once, that a man might have wanted to kiss me bacause I’m attractive, but that seems to be something stupid, because since I got pregnant no one spared even a single glance at me! What, am I that hideous?” You finished your rant, almost screaming, and you hoped that he was going to believe you.

That was convincing enough, right?

Well, I mean, it’s not like you had completely lied. No, scratch that, you weren’t lying at all, it had been months since someone had looked at you with flirty eyes and Bucky telling you that he was kissing you just to shut you up wasn’t a big ego booster, quite the contrary, that is.

Hearing that, he felt like the most stupid person on earth and he just wanted to hug you and kiss you and cuddle you ‘til you felt loved and beautiful.

But since he didn’t think that that would have been acceptable, he went on using his words.

“Doll...” You looked at him with sad, doe-like, eyes, “Doll,” he repeated, “That is not what I meant, truly,” He got closer to you, in order to look at the woman straight in the eyes as his hands were placed on your cheeks – at that your lids shut - “You’re beautiful and should never think less than that of yourself. You’re the most beautiful, witty and intelligent woman I’ve ever known”.

His speech had been short, but he tried to be efficient, in order to convince you of what his eyes and heart saw you as.

You sighed then and laid your head, along with your hands, on his firm chest (ohh la la, you found your new pillow and you were honestly thiking about having someone make a real pillow for you with the same shape and hardness), only to take your head up and nod, not too convinced, but happy that he had believed you, your love not coming up and now you were just hoping that you could go back home and forget this whole, disastrous day.

“Buck?” You said with a small voice, “Can you accompany me home, please?” You looked up at him, still so near to you.

He smiled then and stroked your cheek, thinking that he had quelled your self-esteem issues and he nodded.

“Of course, darling. Get in the car.” You obeyed, and as you put on your seatbelt, while your friend entered in the car, you turned to him, with hoping eyes, “Can we please get some Oreo ice-cream?” You batted your lashes at him, lower lip out, all anger gone as you had fooled him with your “lie”, but still sad at the prospect of not having him for you.

Bucky looked at you and smiled, while shaking his head, “Of course, babe, anything for you.”

They drove off after that, first buying you ice-cream (and pizza, because you were also craving that) and then towards your own home.

TAGS: @teainaukgarden @kaiyaisbae @iamwarrenspeace @saradiamayaf @adry1501  @yellowtheremarvelfan

[multiversemuses]

Rhartessa for the brotop meme

who steals french fries off the other’s plate:

Marty and Rhett mooch off each other pretty freely in all snacking matters (except perhaps Oreos, which have a very clear “each of us gets a row” rule). Vanessa progressed from simply sharing snacks with Marty back when they were friends to occasionally feeding said munchies directly to Marty while they watch things on Netflix now that they are a couple. This frequently earns Nessa a mustachioed pout from Rhett before she good-naturedly tosses some for him to attempt to catch with his mouth. Some hilarious miscalculations have resulted from this, but Rhett enjoys the challenge and insists his reflexes are improving. 

As for fries specifically, a large communal plate has been agreed upon as the best option. However, in cases of meal deals that come with fries, the most guilty of swiping would be Rhett from Vanessa. He doesn’t actually eat them (well, okay, not all of them at least), but instead puts them where his fries used to be. Then he waits to see how long it will take for Nessa to notice that her untouched fry supply is getting smaller while his fries are mysteriously multiplying. It amuses him because she’s generally so caught up in Marty that he can get away with filching almost the entire lot before his thievery is finally detected. 

who jokingly moves in for the kiss when someone asks if they’re a couple:  

On the rare occasion that this happens, they’re never quite sure which combination the stranger meant unless they indicated by pointing. Regardless, Marty generally responds with some variation of “You’re damn right” before looping one arm around the back of Vanessa’s neck and coaxing her in for a kiss. This is all well and good except for the times when they aren’t sitting next to each other, in which case Rhett is left to scoot/lean back out of the way. While the smooching commences, he usually gives the stranger a shrug as if to say, “They’re kind of always like this.“ 

who has to bust or bail the other out of jail

Full-on incarceration has thankfully not happened, but getting picked up and having to wait on a bench certainly has. Vanessa is 100% always the one to come pick the other two up and thank Dominic for keeping them safe. One time, Marty and Rhett tried to give Nessa big "I’m sorry” eyes so they’d seem duly contrite. It worked immediately; Vanessa couldn’t suppress a quiet laugh before she forced a more serious expression back into place so the cops wouldn’t see. “C'mon, Pound Puppies,” Vanessa joked under her breath before she led them outside. Marty licked Vanessa’s cheek and Rhett pretended to scratch a flea behind his ear. 

who gives the other advice/comfort about dating issues

Rhett actually had to play matchmaker a bit on both sides of this ship before they finally got together. Open, heartfelt conversations were not something that came easily between Rhett and Vanessa before that point, but they did help to bond them closer together along the way. Marty had always spoken her thoughts freely to Rhett, but they seldom took such a serious turn before it looked like she might lose her connection to Nessa forever. Thankfully, the angsty drama blew over in time and they are now the happiest they’ve ever been. As for who gives Rhett advice, well, Marty’s ready with a quip or some mild teasing but Vanessa is his go-to for genuine romancing suggestions. He alternates between Nessa and Nola, depending on which he finds alone first. 

who shamelessly cheats at games by reaching over to cover the other’s eyes

Marty and Rhett both cover each other’s eyes all the time. Then there are instances when Marty’s hands are full (such as games in an arcade that simulate some sort of bike or car race and must be guided by the player). In these cases, she will call on whichever of the two is free to cover the eyes of the person she’s competing against. So, if she’s racing Rhett, she’ll ask Vanessa to block his view. If Marty and Vanessa are on opposing sides, she’ll tell Rhett to obscure Nessa’s vision. This form of double-attack can also work if it’s Vanessa asking Marty to cover Rhett’s eyes, but Nessa won’t interfere with Marty’s progress on Rhett’s behalf (which leads to Rhett half-heartedly grumbling about girlfriend loyalty). 

who immediately calls dibs on the top bunk

Due to (theoretically) strict rules against co-ed sleeping arrangements, this isn’t something they run into much at the academy. However, in the event that they were to find themselves anywhere else that had bunk beds, it has been agreed that Rhett gets top bunk and Marty and Vanessa get bottom. This was not always the case. The first time they were in this situation and the three of them entered the room, Marty immediately bellowed, “Nessa, grab it!” Since Marty was very chivalrously carrying their bags, it fell to Vanessa to race across the room and scale the ladder to the top before Rhett had even fully registered what was happening. Rhett clumsily dropped his duffel, backpack, and lunch bag, somehow managing to trip over all three, before he dejectedly muttered, “Ah, crap.” The girls cheered and Marty popped up to give her champion a kiss over the railing. However, that night, they came to regret their decision. Of course, the two of them would never get up to too much mischief with Rhett right below them, but a tiny bit of casual “messing around” resulted in Marty losing her balance and flipping over the side. She landed with a rather alarming thud and an even more audible string of swear words. Rhett was so groggy that he simply rolled over to peer at her, shook his head, and mumbled, “Filthy animal…” before returning to his snuggly cocoon. Since then, the couple have agreed on a permanent call of bottom bunk, just in case, and Rhett is happy to take the top bunk he’s become accustomed to after years in the academy dorms. 

who starts and who wins the pillow fights

Marty starts them the most out of the three. It’s just too funny to watch Rhett’s indignant expression as his hair gets jostled out of place. The fights can go on for quite some time, even escaping the bedroom where it started on more than one occasion, but there was a surprising victor at the end of it all. Rhett had seen how easy Vanessa took it on Marty, careful not to give it a full swing, so nothing really prepared him for that final wallop so perfectly timed and aimed that it made him see stars. All it was missing were some tiny animated birds to circle his head and tweet. Rhett willingly admitted defeat that time, but he knew to watch out for Nessa’s hidden strength in the future. 

who says “your pants would look better on their floor” to the other’s potential crush

Marty, most definitely. Rhett was all for nudging his two friends along back in the day, but never far enough that he was cooking up innuendos for them. Marty, on the other hand, has decided this is exactly the kind of assistance Rhett needs to finally “seal the deal with Syd O'Neill." 

"You know that’s not actually her last name, right?”

“Don’t dissect my poetry, Rhettrograde.”

[impalaanddemons]

Good Girl - Part 8

Summary: Werewolf!Reader Story. Readers a young doctor and uses her skills to keep her condition hidden, until she transfers to the Enterprise and tries to deceive a certain grumpy Doctor

Bones x Reader

Wordcount: 1400

A/N: Nothing to say here. Sorry for the medical bullshit again.

This could be AOS and TOS

Warnings:  Angst, Fear

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7

The buzzing of your communicators woke the both of you - both of you jumped up, grabbed a pair of trousers and a blue shirt, getting ready in record time. You knew the emergency alert of sickbay by heart and by the time Bones had answered the call and forwarded you the details, you already had the door open and the both of you were hasting to your patient. Ensign Bancrofts blood pressure had dropped, his temperature risen. When you finally got there he was shaking violently. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. „Phenobarbital, Nurse“, you ordered, completely forgetting Bones presence in the medbay. If this was what you thought it was, you were the only one who knew what would eventually happen anyway. Would it? You felt the gaze of his dark eyes on your back - worried, seizing you up, evaluating. You were not only his partner anymore, but also his patient and he was not happy with what he saw. The Doctor stepped over to you and his heavy hand rested on your un-hurt shoulder for a long moment, warmth sinking into your body as if to remind you of something. Then he got to work, next to you - ordering the nurses, analyzing the readings of the biobed faster then you had ever seen anyone do. Watching him work under pressure for the first time you started to realized why he was the CMO of the Enterprise, star fleets jewel. The best of the best. He ordered medication to keep the ensigns blood pressure in check, as well as to keep his seizures under control. When the biobeds alarm went off because oxygen levels dropped, he ordered you to assist. Working next to him you felt like being in med school again and you could not help but admire his efficiency, although it came coupled with a certain grumpiness you now understood as concern and the heavy weight of responsibility on his shoulder. You felt nothing but admiration in this moment.

Bancroft finally stabilized, at least for the moment, as Alpha drew near. Another sleepless night on the Enterprise, you thought, exhausted. Two days with barely any sleep and one disaster following another. „That’s that“, Bones mumbled, typing on his PADD and then glancing over to you. „Now, Doctor Y/L/N, if you would lie down here please.“ he patted on an empty biobed. For a second the urge to run, to fly, was nearly irresistible. It welled up in your chest, a wave of jaw clenching fear, but ebbed away the moment it came. What could you do? Where should you run? It was a starship in deep space. In all likelyhood there were light years between you and the next Class M planet. „Do I need too?“ you asked, words falling unwillingly from your lips. „Yes, princess“ he scoffed and strode over to you. Grabbing your arm he pulled you along. „You’re irresponsible“ he continued and by the strain on his face, how his teeth ground, you knew he was angry. It radiated off him like heat from a sun. Now was the time to shut up and let fate decide. You lay down on the biobed, taking a deep breath. You could feel the current running through the machine before it displayed anything, hear the soft hum of capacitors. „Let’s see.“ The sensors of the biobed sprang to life with a cacophony of alarms. The available nurses stopped dead in their tracks, two ran over to were you where. Bones stared at the readings of the biobed. „I thought my tricorder might be defect“, his finger ran across the display, lowering the volume of the alarms and at the same time a glaring red prompt appeared.

„SPECIES: ________“

Silence engulfed medbay, bar the sound of the machineries low hum. „Y/N“, his brow furrowed deeper then it had ever before. His features went through an expression of fear, confusion and anger. A wild mixture. „These readings are completely off…“ he grabbed his tricorder, as if to confirm the biobeds readings. „You should be …“ - „Dead?“ you offered, but he shook his head. „No. But certainly not happily talking to me.“ Happily definitely wouldn’t have been your choice of words. „I …“ you drew a deep breath and just stared at him. Just now crept a deep fear into your heart and nested between your veins and arteries. It had hidden in the beasts fur, on his bared teeth, unbeknown to you but ever present as a constant nagging in the back of your head. „I am sorry“ you whispered and heard your voice almost fail. „I will… I will tell you everything I know.“ you were not sure if he could even understand what you said, instead you saw his fingers whirr across the biobed again. „Is this your normal blood pressure?“ he asked, cool and distant and each word was a shard of ice pricking your skin. „Yes. Len, please …“ „What about those hormonal readings?“ he cut you off again. „Normal. Well. No. They are off, actually, but I don’t know …“ „Do you know you’re normal parameters?“ „I got them somewhere in my quarters. Len, listen, I …“ „What Species?“ you looked into his dark eyes as he asked you and it felt as if the heat would peel the skin off your bones. „I don’t know.“ He shook his head and stared at the readings again. „As far as I am concerned, Leonard …“ your voice was soft, trying to appease to him. „I’m human. I’m registered human. I will tell you everything.“ Stretching your hand you reached for his, warily touching his skin. It felt cool against yours. His fingers bent around yours, gently, and you eased against the motion - your heart rate dropping - then he led your hand back to you, putting it carefully on your chest. „We will have to talk about this with the Captain“, he answered and his voice sounded weary and tired. „Of course…“

„BONES!“ Kirks voice boomed through medbay, just as you got up from the biobed. There was no instant danger of you dying, so it was useless to keep you there and waste the resources. „Lab results are back.“ Spock trailed behind him, his usual calm self. You drew in a deep breath. It felt like apocalypse dawning. Bones eyes fixated on the Captain and his Vulcan officer, his face unmoved. Spock lifted his PADD and opened the results. „I supervised sequencing of the data from Ensign Bancrofts wounds myself“, he began, stoic and methodically. „The DNA we gathered is of no known canid earth species. The results were also negative for …“ and off he went with a list of more or less likely species to deal such a wound. Yeah, you’ll not find that in your database - you thought and the thought sounded sardonic even in your head. „So we don’t know?“ asked Bones. „It get’s better“ said Kirk and crossed his arms in front of him. „Tell him, Mr. Spock.“ „As Captain Kirk indicated it ‚get‘s better‘“, you could actually hear the quotation marks in his voice. „The DNA does match with a human at approximately 98%“ McCoys eyebrows went up at this. Your eyes caught Leonards. You hoped they told him everything you were afraid to tell: That you were sorry. That you never had wanted to lie to him. That you missed his skin on yours already. That you’d wait for that grumpy man that had caught your heart by surprise. And of your love for him that had you throw away your career and all caution. „Sir“, your mouth felt dry, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. Three pairs of eyes fell on you. „It was me. Sir.“ you said and felt a lump in your throat. Unable to muster the courage to look at Doctor McCoy, you stared at Captain Kirks chest. Leonard. „Would you care to elaborate, Doctor Y/L/N“ Kirk began and you were surprised by how calm he was about the whole affair. „I am looking at you right now and I don’t see a … well.. something with more teeth.“ „Not at the moment, no“, again, you drew a deep breath. „I think Y/N has a lot to tell us.“ that was Leonards voice and still, you did not dare to look at him. „Protocol states that we have to confine here for the time being. You will also have to charge her with the attack on a member of starfleet.“ Spock voice, again, an anchor in the current of events. Kirk raised his hands to wave at his remark, but you shook your head. „He’s right Captain. I …“ you swallowed dryly. „I cannot trust myself. I’ll answer all your questions.“ You felt the heat of McCoys stare in your neck.

READ ON

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[firingmaincannon]

all that I want is to wake up fine

(okay here’s an actual fic post with a description now that the episode is out for everyone)

Title: all that I want is to wake up fine

Rating: T

Characters: Grif

Relationships: none

Tags/warnings: depression, red team angst, trauma, suicidal ideation (kind of), drug use (also kind of)

Summary: Grif keeps himself occupied during his retirement. (spoilers for rvb15x6, “Reacts”)

(View on AO3 here!)

FYI @flame-cat made an amazing podfic of this as well! You can check it out here, please do, it’s so good, I can’t believe it

Day Zero.

Grif watches the transports take off, keeps staring until they’re blips in the distance. Sits down near the water, stares at the sun until it disappears behind the mountains across the lake. Has bright spots on his vision afterward. Doesn’t really care.

Not gonna be much to look at here anymore, anyway. No reason to keep his guard up.

He closes his eyes and lays his hands flat on the rock, feels its heat burn him. He doesn’t move, though. It’s not a big deal.

Day One.

He can’t sleep, which is bullshit. There’s nothing to do here but sleep now. He loves sleeping. Why the fuck can’t he sleep? He buries his face in the pillow and reflects. Come to think of it, it’s been years since he’s tried to sleep somewhere this quiet. There’s nobody shouting, no gunfire, no windows rattling from mortar shell testing. They fucking took his ability to sleep in regular human conditions, on top of everything else, the bastards.

He gives up on sleep, checks the fridge. Only thing left is Simmons’ meth-meth couscous. Son of a bitch didn’t even throw it away. What, was he planning to finish it?

He tosses the couscous out the nearest hole in the base wall and doesn’t think any more about Simmons. Eats ketchup out of the squeeze bottle, because there’s no one to stop him now. He’s all-powerful.

He eats too much ketchup and pukes. Decides not to eat ketchup by itself anymore, but not because other people would care.

Throwing up tires him out and he goes back to bed. He turns a fan on as loud as it goes and crawls under the sheets. Hopefully the droning will be enough for him to pass out.

Day Two.

He wakes up--late? Looks like the sun’s been up a while, but he doesn’t care to check his alarm clock. Thinks twice. Unplugs it. Goes back to sleep. When he wakes up again, it’s dark. Goes back to sleep. Still dark next time he wakes up. Goes back to sleep. Wakes up. The faintest pink light is starting to come through the window. Gets up and pulls the blinds shut. Goes back to sleep.

Day Four.

Turns out sleeping for more than a day makes you really fucking hungry. He’s almost excited about it. Been a long time since he’s slept this long. There’s not much to choose from, mostly ration bars and MREs. Same old pre-Chorus shit. Donut just had to fuck up all the fresh food that Kimball sent them, didn’t he? Motherfucker.

He finally finds instant pancake mix, and on a whim decides to mix in some coffee grounds. Maybe he’ll wake up a little. The coffee makes the pancakes a hideous color and the smell like death, but he eats them anyway, with his hands because like hell is he doing any dishes today. They’re bad. He considers if adding ketchup would make them worse or better. Decides against ketchup when his stomach reminds him with a sickly gurgle what happened a few days ago. So he just deals.

Sometimes they had eggs back at Blood Gulch. On lucky days he’d get to fry them up, supposedly for the entire base. But Lopez can’t eat and Donut is always watching his waist and Sarge says he only eats meat and Yoo-Hoos and Simmons hates runny eggs and fuck you, Simmons, he’s making his imaginary eggs so runny right now, you couldn’t eat them even if you were here.

He misses….

He misses eggs, is what he misses.

Day Eight.

Donut was right. The park’s gone, but the water’s still there. He doesn’t have a bathing suit, but there’s no one around to say shit, so he goes in naked. Sits at the bottom of the pool and closes his eyes. He’s a good swimmer. Had to be, growing up on the oceanside with a little sister who liked to get caught in undertows. He can hold his breath a long time.

He holds his breath. Keeps holding it. Keeps holding it. Keeps holding...

Day Thirteen.

He’s never had a problem rewatching Battlestar before, but all he can think about now is how much Simmons hated Starbuck. What kind of shithead hates Starbuck? The kind that’s scared of women, that’s who. Every time she’s on screen he can hear Simmons’ bitching. And she’s on screen a lot. Once he hears the whining so clearly that he snarks back out loud without thinking.

After that he snaps the DVD in half. He’ll watch Donut’s romances or Lopez’s novelas instead.

Day Eighteen.

He wakes up on the floor covered in developing bruises, yelling his fucking head off. Another dream about the old base, before Blood Gulch. His old squadron. It’s like he can still smell the blood. These have been happening a lot lately, more than they used to. For a second he wishes he wasn’t alone here, that he could tell someone about it. Simmons, maybe. But no, never mind. He woke up screaming a few times when he first got to Blood Gulch and all he got for it was shot by Sarge. Nobody ever asked why.

He picks himself up off the ground and goes to sit in the kitchen like he’s always done. No one teases him for midnight snacking. No one comes out to comfort him, either, but that’s not new.

Day Twenty-eight.

He plugs in all the stupid Christmas lights they used to communicate with Caboose when he plane-shifted (and seriously, fuck Blue Team and everything they do). Watches them flicker. Tries very hard not to read what they might be spelling out. Fails. Gives in and starts keeping track. He gets to AGNDIIVW before he decides it’s complete gibberish. There definitely aren’t any ghosts trying to communicate with him. He thinks if there was one, it’d probably be Church asking for more fucking favors. He rips the plug out of the wall and the lights go dark.

Day Forty-one, maybe.

Today he realizes that Blue Team had their own stash of Oreos hidden in Caboose’s room. And Grif’s supposed to be the selfish one? Fuck you, Tucker, he’ll show you selfish. He takes the pillows from every single bed in both bases and throws them on the floor, drops onto them as hard as he can. They’re all his now. He is the pillow dictator.

Actually the pillows smell kind of terrible by themselves and worse together. It’s awful but he can tell which one belonged to which idiot just by smelling. Donut’s is floral and overpowering. Throws that one out of the pile. The one that must be Tucker’s is fucking unspeakable. He wraps his hand in several layers of paper towel to pick it up and toss it too. Motor oil, aftershave, whatever weird organic shampoo Carolina uses, fucking bubblegum scent from Caboose (complete with the actual bubblegum stuck on the corners, the guy is a goddamn animal)…. They all fail inspection and get chucked. Eventually he’s left with just two. His own, and….

The smell isn’t unpleasant but he still wants to puke. He throws Simmons’ pillow across the room. Fuck it, he’ll stick with his own.

Day Fifty(? Fifty-one? Fifty-two?)

He settles down on top of the base (the wreckage of the base, Donut can fuck himself, he’s so glad Donut’s gone) with his guitar and an amp. Plays a little. He can’t quite get the tuning right. Might be the humidity out here.

Finally gets all the strings in tune. It sounds weird anyway. Maybe he’d just gotten used to Carolina’s caterwauling. “You can’t sing for shit,” he says out loud, because he never could say it out loud to her before. Doesn’t feel scared saying it, or thinking it, for once. He feels a little mean, though. She wasn’t that bad. Not compared to everyone else in the group. He wonders if she ever sings now, on her Freelancer adventure bullshit with Wash, or if it was something she only did when she was around the Reds and Blues. He hopes she does sing, a lot. Wash deserves it.

Day ???

It’s beautiful today, and that pisses him off. Makes it hard for him to stay inside and do nothing, which is all he wants to do most days. But on a whim he hops in the Puma—because he can call it that now, god dammit, and not get shot in the face for it—and takes off.

In his head, he goes a long way, takes a trip past the dinosaur-robot warzone, up the mountains to the east of their bases, into the plains. It’s a nice mental trip he has laid out. But the Puma shits itself an hour away from the base and he can’t get it started again for the life of him. Et tu, Puma? he thinks, and kicks the treads. So. Great. He’s stranded out here now, and it’s not like there’s anyone to come pick his ass up. Not that they probably would anyway, unless they needed the vehicle. But whatever. This is where he dies, apparently.

…Or not, because when he wanders into the shade of a nearby thicket to die in comfort, he stumbles upon more meth-meth mushrooms. With these he can probably run all the way back to the base. Or his heart might stop. Either way, at least he won’t starve to death.

They taste like shit but he feels fucking incredible. His heart might be exploding right now but who cares he is running so fast he is the fastest person on the planet and that would be true even if he wasn’t the only person on the planet can he run on water right now? he can probably run on water right now oh hey look it’s the base woops he passed it but might as well keep running anyway and maybe he’ll set a new record for how far one person can run he’s probably already set a record because he’s so, so fast and Sarge will be so mad that Grif’s the best at something and oh huh maybe he’s not going so fast anymore maybe it’s starting to wear off and oh, god dammit, he’s coming down, he hurts everywhere and now he’s an hour away from the base in the other direction. Fuck.

It takes him hours to recover, and the better half of a day to walk all the way back. He feels fuzzy for a couple days afterward but he’s pretty sure he’s not dying. Probably. But it doesn’t worry him too much.

Day ???

He’d figured they’d call, eventually. They must have found the source of the stupid message by now, right? It’s been weeks. Months maybe. He’s pretty sure all the analogue calendars burned with the bases and his HUD’s been fucked since before they left. But it can’t take them that long. The fucking reporter seemed pretty singleminded about her investigation, and she’s smarter than the rest of them put together, so she at least must have found Church by now. And he’d thought that once the others found Church they’d come back, or send a message, or something. Apologizing for everything—no, no way. Yelling at him more for not wanting to deal with Blue Team problems, more likely. Something.

Just…

He’d figured they’d call.

Day ???

He wakes up from another nightmare. It’s been so long that he doesn’t remember the faces of his old squadron, but it doesn’t matter, because tonight they’ve been replaced by newer people. Faces he doesn’t want to see here on this planet right now, yelling at him or smirking or thinking things they know nothing about. But not faces he wants to see dead either. Not that.

Day ???

He breaks his E string while playing and suddenly wants to smash the guitar so bad he can hear the wood of the neck creaking under his fingers. He doesn’t do it. Smashes Tucker’s bass instead. Smashes it to tiny pieces against the wall of their practice space. He wishes he felt like Pete Townshend while doing it, but he just feels tired. He sits down amongst the shattered chunks of wood and plastic and breathes hard for a long time.

Day ???

They’re not going to call.

Day ???

He sits by the lake, the same spot where he watched their ships leave orbit, and thinks of Kai. Wonders what she’s doing right now. If she’s in as much of a mess as he is. If she thinks about him, most days, the way he thinks about her. If he’s even a blip on her radar. If not, he doesn’t blame her. She’s always had her own life, which is exactly how he wanted it. It scares the shit out of him, every time she disappears, but he fought like hell to give her a chance to do whatever dumb shit she wants to do. And honestly, if that means she forgets about him sometimes, whatever. She knows he loves her, and she loves him back, in her own freakish way. That’s how their family has always worked.

“You gave up a lot for her,” Simmons told him once, when they were back in Blood Gulch and shitfaced and Kai had just showed up and he’d had to explain their whole deal. Grif had shrugged, because it’s just how life worked for them. It wasn’t a big deal, was it? He was never going to be a great success anyway, it wasn’t like working a shitty job or dropping out of school really hurt him any. He wasn’t giving up much.

Now he’s years older and a millennium more tired and he’s so, so angry. Not at Kai, because she doesn’t know what he did for her, and never will, because if she did she’d feel bad and he doesn’t want that. No, he’s angry at Simmons, and Sarge, and every single person he ever even thought of as something resembling a friend. They all chose the military, they all chose this, and he didn’t get a choice. None of this was ever his choice. That’s nothing new. That’s been his life since the day he got drafted. And okay, maybe he could deal with that, because that’s how his life has always been.

But he never wanted any of this, those fuckers never noticed. They never asked. They never cared.

None of them cared at all, god dammit, they just called him lazy or stupid or fat and maybe all those things are true but why would he be anything else if he hasn’t had something worth choosing or living for since he stopped being Dexter and started being Private Grif of the fucking Red Army? Why would he bother being a complex person when nobody around gave a shit about him either way? Why trust people with his private shit when nobody wants to hear it? Why care about them, after all this time he spent fighting with them and watching their backs and taking bullets for them, when the first time he tells them he can’t do this anymore, they leave him behind? Why invest a fucking second of his time in them when they’ve never asked anything about him, never wondered why he might not want to fight anymore, never questioned why he sleeps all the time and eats all the time and does his best not to care about anything?

Because that’s the problem. He’s tried so hard not to care, and he’s spent years failing, and they don’t know because what he feels doesn’t mean anything to them.

“Grif cares about his friends,” the reporter said. Yeah, no shit. They just don’t care about him.