#they get *spiderweb* cracks underneath their eyes

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

My submission to the second @spidersociety-rejects zine!

I’ve always struggled with making a Spider-sona since I’m a boring person and don’t particularly love how I look. Figuring out a Spidersona that actually represents me and that I like was an interesting challenge and confidence builder.

[urhoneycombwitch]

foreword: just a lil roommate!eddie x reader blurb loosely based on this anon. lead up to phone sex, +18 mdni as always

wc: 600

___

The plastic of your landline phone has warmed to the temperature of your cheek, and your limbs feel heavy under the weight of your quilt. On the other end of the line, Eddie sighs in similar repose, six states away.

“Gareth still snores, for the record. Not even the van’s engine can drown him out.” He’s lamenting over missing you as a roommate, telling you all the worst parts of sharing small vehicle spaces and shitty motel rooms with a bunch of boys.

Corroded Coffin still has four more stops on their tour, and Eddie’s finding the traveling life of an independent artist nigh unbearable.

You hum, mock sympathetic. “Poor you. Would hate to be drowning in a pool of groupies and drinking myself blind every night.”

“Shut up,” Eddie laughs, goodnaturedly. There’s a rustling on the other end, as if he’s lying down to get more comfortable. “You know you’re my only groupie. And besides, the boys went out in their cups tonight, not me. I’m by my lonesome in the room right now.”

You can picture him clearly in your mind’s eye, stretched face-up on the mattress, band tee riding up to reveal the dark happy trail you’ve caught glimpses of before. Saliva pools in your mouth; you have to swallow before responding. “Wow. Refused a wild night on the town just to call me?”

“Sweetheart, don’t act like you don’t know you’re my favorite person to spend time with.”

The sincerity in his voice makes you squirm. Feeling suddenly too hot and restless underneath the covers, you shove them down past your hips for some air flow. “I’m flattered. Bet you say that to all the fans, just to get in their pants.”

“Nah. Just you. And besides, it’s working, isn’t it?” Eddie’s voice gets gravelly. There’s the distinct sound of jeans getting unzipped, then faded rustling. A sharp, quick inhale, then- “What are you wearing?”

A laugh bubbles out of you, humorous even while you scold, “Perv.” Your fingers toy with the lace band of your underwear, giving it a snap you hope is audible. “You really need sex that bad, you’re calling it in?”

“S’different with you.”

Eddie’s fucking up the routine. It’s supposed to go like this, when he’s gone- he waits a few days to call, then when he does, you both keep up the pretense of regularity with the usual bickering. And then it devolves into phone sex.

He’s not supposed to bring up how much he misses you, and he’s certainly not supposed to say, out loud, that you’re different than the rest.

Your fingers are frozen on the soft plane of your stomach, heart thumping wildly in your throat.

Eddie must realize his mistake, the ice where he’s skated out past undefined boundaries spiderwebbing cracks. He retracts, lies flat again, a smooth recovery in the form of an appeasing sigh before saying, “Sorry. Just miss you. Gonna tell me what you’re wearing or am I gonna have to use my imagination?”

“God forbid.” Relief floods your system, fingers gliding easily underneath the line of your panties with the safety of familiarity. “You’ve probably got me in fishnets and heels. Hate to burst your skeevy bubble, but I haven’t done laundry in a week. I’m in an old t-shirt and plain Jane undies.”

Eddie makes a soft, seeking noise that makes the heartbeat between your legs pulse. “For the record, I was imagining you naked, but this works, too.”

“Y’gonna come back soon and do my laundry?” It’s getting harder to speak, breathy little whines intermixed, pad of your finger collecting the arousal seeping from your core to drag it upwards. “Always do it better’n me.”

“Oh, yeah.” In answer to your own noises, there’s the wet sound of Eddie’s fist around his cock, moving in steady rhythm. “Next week and I’m yours, babe. I’ll use the good stuff. Fabric softener. You name it-”

“Fuck.” It’s searingly domestic dirty talk. You’ll be coming undone in minutes and he goddamn knows it. Your finger swirls, breath catching again, and Eddie coos encouragement down the line.

“That’s right, sweetheart. You’re all I wanna hear.”

[frost-queen]

It goes down to the last second (Reader x Miguel O'Hara)

Requested by: Anon; Forever tag:@missmelodramatic, @merlin-dahlia, @alex--awesome--22, @elllie-does-the-posts, @floatlosers, @merlieve, @queen-of-books, @glimmering-darling-dolly@denkisclown, @wildieflower, @meyocoko, @bubblybrianna, @justanothercoco@subjecta13-thefangirl, @m-rae23, @harleyquinnswifeyfrfr, @swampthing07, @melsunshine, @panhoeofmanyfandoms, @venomsvl, @the-uncoordinated-house-cat, @rosecentury,  @imagines-by-her,  @evilcr0ne, @vviolynn

Summary: Miguel and Reader are dating, yet when he fails to keep your father (a cop) save, he is being made clear to stay away from you. At first Miguel tries to do so, but fails when his love for you is too grand. One unfortunate moment will decide if Miguel can save everyone?

Sirens were going off loud. Red and blue flashes dancing like a party against the surrounding buildings. A truck stuck in the air with spiderweb. Underneath it a cop sitting down. His hand touching his shoulder with a pained expression. Up in the air near the truck he hung on a web. Hand still out stretched as the shock underneath his mask was wide. A second he was too late. A second and he could’ve grabbed him. Now he was on the ground, groaning in pain.

Out of all the people he should’ve saved it was him. The cop. Your dad. A few other cops ran towards him, trying to help him up. Your dad slapped their hands away, shouting at them. He got up on his own strength, still holding his shoulder. His sunglasses had fallen to the ground. His hand went up to him. – “O’Hara!” – he called out as Miguel’s hand dropped lifeless down.

“I already told you the city doesn’t need you! Again you have proven it!” – your dad made clear. Miguel dropped down, cracking the street underneath his heavy drop. He slowly rose, enlarging the effect he had over people. Some cops ducked down, rather wanting to hide.

Your dad stood his ground when Miguel approached him. All ego and attitude in his stride. Miguel laughed loud. – “Look around! If it wasn’t for me you’d be dead.” – he replied in a hard tone. Your dad clenched his jaw. – “You are the very reason freaks like you roam the city!” – your dad insulted making Miguel clench his hand into a fist. – “You wouldn’t survive a day without me!” – he answered loudly. – “You are the problem O’Hara.” – your dad wasn’t afraid to poke Miguel in the chest. Miguel laughed again.

“Take a look around!” – your dad spoke finding that Miguel’s ego was getting to big. – “This is on you!” – Miguel was still chuckling, as he looked around. Slowly it started to sink in with him. Seeing the damage around town. Cops helping each other up. Frightened civilians looking at the damage. The truck caught in between buildings. A water hose spraying water up like a fountain as the firefighters were trying to shut it off. Here and there rubble from the fight. – “And in the end…” – your dad sighed out. – “You didn’t even catch them…” – he finished sounding disappointed.

Miguel swallowed deep at the catastrophe he had caused. It was true. In the end he hadn’t caught him. He was still roaming the city. Waiting to strike more fear wherever he went. – “People keep getting hurt around you O’Hara!” – your dad made clear making Miguel turn his head back to him. Miguel could sense it like a tingle. He knew what your father was going to say before he had even spoke it. It simultaneously made him clench his hand into a fist. Gaze lowered to the ground, awaiting the words. – “You stay away from my daughter!” – your dad made clear.

The look in his eyes deadly serious. Despite already anticipating the words, it still grabbed him by surprise. Miguel shot his head up. – “You can’t!” – Miguel answered in protest. – “If you come near her. I’ll shoot you!” – your dad threatened giving Miguel way out. Miguel’s fist trembled with rage wanting to punch something so bad. He held himself in not wanting to make things worse. So he turned around, walking off. On his way off he punched against a garbage container as it glided over the street, smacking into a wall.

Your dad shook his head, finally succumbing to the heavy pain in his shoulder. Two cops neared him, helping him stay on his feet. You shot up hearing the door finally open. – “Dad!” – you called out having waited for him up till 2 am. He slightly groaned dropping his bag on the ground. When you went to the door and saw his arm in a strap, you gasped loud. – “What happened!” – you asked as he went to sit down in his sofa with a deep sigh. You came sitting in the sofa beside him, leg pulled up with you. He took a deep breath, placing his good hand on your knee.

“Go to bed Y/n. You’ve got work tomorrow.” – he nudged you off not leaving much room for you to protest. Obeying you got up. Giving him a goodbye kiss and leaving for your room. After you had closed the door behind you, you went towards your window. Opening it to look outside. The cold breeze catching your hair. Sticking you head out, you looked curiously around. – “Miguel?” – you said softly. It remained silent. – “Miguel.” – you tried again, this time a bit louder. It was unusual for him not to show himself to you.

He would always come when you call for him. – “Miguel?” – you tried a third time already not expecting a response. Sighing loud you grabbed for your phone. You dialled his number, waiting for a response. Miguel who stuck to a building with his hand, looked down at his phone buzzing. Your name appearing on his screen. Lowering his gaze, he clicked his phone off. The screen turning black. His eyes went up, watching you from afar.

He had a good view of your room from up here. He watched as you put your phone down, staring at the screen before tugging it away. The window shut again and a few moments later the lights went out. Miguel took a deep breath. It took a lot of effort of him to tear himself away from you. His heart paining with what he was putting himself through. Tearing himself away from you. If only he had saved your dad, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He would still be able to love you the way he wanted.

You had been working for almost half a day as you decided to get a break. Get some fresh air. You were about ten steps out of the building as you heard some commotion. Some people running straight ahead, passing you by. – “Get back inside!” – one of them shouted waving their hand wildly at you. Some people around you started to bump against you, wanting to rush inside. Others just ran into the building where you worked hoping to find some shelter there.

You were unclear to what was happening. Then you heard loud laughter as a villain was flying through the streets on his hoverboard. It made you gasp loud as he dropped objects to the ground. The moment it hit the ground a smoke sizzled out of it. It made you cough loud, covering up your mouth with your arm. Not a moment later swung O’Hara in view. Miguel sensed you around, dropping to the ground.

“O’Hara.” – you said as he came in your direction. You expected a soft approach, but got greeted instead with a brusque one. Miguel knocked you out of the way with a rather harsh push. You nearly got smacked against the building you worked at. – “Are you stupid? Inside!” – he ordered brutally.

It caught you off guard at how rude he was. Miguel shot some webs at the villain up in the air. – “Don’t make me come and save you!” – he said over his shoulder. Although you couldn’t see his expression through the mask, the intentions were clear. He was angry. Feeling hurt, you ran inside trying not to cry about it. Miguel tore his head away not wanting to stand too still with his own feelings. It would only cloud his judgement now. He shot out a web, going after the villain.

By the toilets, you couldn’t hold it anymore, crying quietly. A co-worker came up to you, comforting you, telling you it was nothing to be scared off. How ignorant she was. You weren’t crying for the threat. Rather crying because the one you loved was treating you coldly. Having no idea what made him act this ruthless towards you all of the sudden.

When you were cried out, you returned to your desk. Simply continuing your work while everyone was busy gossiping about the latest attack. They were chattering about all the evil they had done and how O’Hara still hadn’t caught him. You had no ears for it, being the only to work further. Needing to set your mind off his rudeness.

Miguel sighed loud standing in front of your work building. Ever since yesterday, he had hated himself for being so rude and cold towards you. It wasn’t in his nature to be this cruel towards you. Your dad’s warning having overtaken him. He couldn’t remain this cruel to you. It would eat him alive. His love for you was just too much. This was the reason he found himself at your work place as himself. Miguel.

No suit or mask to hide himself behind. His true self where you could easily read his expressions. He made his way into the building, taking the elevator up to your floor. He received a few stares as he wasn’t easily to be overlooked. His presence always noticeable. He smiled sheepishly at some of your co-workers. How humble he stood. Fingers entangled as he looked around for you. There he saw you. Sitting behind your desk clustered with a few other desks on the office island.

Someone nudged you when Miguel came walking over. It made you look up, eyes widening at his presence. Before he could reach you, you got up. Talking a walk around the desk island. – “Y/n?” – Miguel spoke with furrowed brows. He went around the desk island going after you. You darted between other desks wanting to stay a good few feet away from him. – “Y/n!” – Miguel called out noticing you were increasing the distance between the two of you.

 “Y/n! stand still!” – he made clear trying not to yell at your office. The two of you were already the main attraction at the office, no need to add some extra drama. – “Y/n!” – he shout-whispered speeding up his pace. You yelped zigzagging around the office to say away from him. Miguel went another way trying to out-smart you. Looking over your shoulder, you couldn’t see him at first. Continuing to head on, you bumped against someone who immediately moved an arm around you. It was Miguel as it made you gasp soft.

He slightly pushed you out of sight around the corner to where the toilets would be. Away from prying eyes. You got cornered against the wall. – “What do you want?” – you shout-whispered to not cause a scene at work. – “Why were you avoiding me?” – he asked in a hushed tone. – “Oh I don’t know spiderboy take a guess.” – you answered keeping your voice low, arms crossed. Miguel moved his arm up against the wall over your head. – “So you are mad.” – he said leaning down. That intriguing stare of you making your knew weak.

It made you scoff at how unaware he was sounding. Miguel took a deep breath. – “Look about yesterday I was an ass.” – he said. – “You think?” – you answered with sarcasm. Miguel took you by the chin, wanting you to look at him. – “I am sorry.” – he breathed out. – “I…I…it was a mistake to act this cold to you. I wanted to distance myself from you, but I can’t.” – he confessed.

“Why would you distance yourself from me?” – you asked him. Miguel shook his head lightly. – “Just know I can’t do it. I love you Y/n and no one can take me away from you.” – he replied taking you by your arms. – “I can’t give us up. I love you too much for that. Please Y/n know I never intended to deliberately push you away.“ – he went on, his expression begging for forgiveness. You took a soft breath. – “I love you too Miguel. More than anything.” – you told him, moving your arms around his neck. Miguel leaned down kissing your lips tenderly.

*

Evil laughter filled the air. Screams followed as the villain zoomed past on his hoverboard. He dropped bombs down as they exploded on the streets. Causing chaos and panic. A bomb came close as it shook the ground. You screamed loud as the building you were on seemed to shift. A new set of bombs were released as it made the side of the building gave in. It started to shake and tremble, slowly shifting a bit forwards as it made everyone inside lose their balance.

You lost your balance and fell, rolling down to the balcony with a few others. The balcony cracked as it hung lower then it used to be. A man rolled hard against the railing hitting his chest. The stone cracked as it gave way behind him. The man’s dying scream being the last you heard of him. You rolled against the railing, grabbing a hold of one of the thick stone pillars.

The balcony shifted again, descending a few shocks closer to the ground it hovered upon. Another lady screamed loud as the villain came flying above her head. You held onto the pillar waiting for Miguel to step in. It wouldn’t take him long. You gasped loud when a piece of the balcony cracked and crumbled to the ground.

The girl who was with you on the balcony screamed her lungs out. She tried to get up, wanting to run inside the building again thinking it was saver there. Her balance was shaky and unsteady as she tried to hurry inside. The ground underneath her feet shook, sending her diving to her stomach with a loud scream. Not a moment later shot a web out to her. She got lifted up in the air, caught by Miguel moments later. With his arm around her, he swung around guiding her down safely to the ground. Meanwhile the balcony kept shaking and shifting as it wasn’t going to hold for much longer.

Hearing a web shot, it made you turn your head. Miguel landing onto the balcony. – “What are you doing here!” – he shouted upon seeing you. – “You aren’t supposed to be here!” – he was angry at you. You couldn’t answer, frozen with fear that the slightest action would make the balcony crumble to the ground with you on it. You were very up high. At least ten stories high. – “I…” – Miguel started being cut off by the villain giving him a kick. Miguel got pushed away, smacking against the building next to it. The villain turned his metallic mask to you. 

An eternal smirk plastered on it. It’s eyes dark and alluring. It laughed behind it’s mask to you. Miguel clenched his jaw, pushing himself off against the building. He flung himself at the villain, wrapping his arms around him. The villain’s hoverboard started to spin around. Miguel and the villain spinning around mindlessly. You called it out feeling the balcony shift. Lowering more till it would reach it’s breaking point. Miguel widened his eyes giving the villain a kick. He dropped onto the balcony wanting to approach you but felt the stone crack underneath his weight. – “Just… just stay there Y/n.” – he said with calm gestures. You nodded as if you had anywhere else you could go to.

The villain attacked Miguel again, wrestling with him on the balcony. The stone pillars behind you began to give in as you felt it. A sudden loss of vast structure made you fall backwards. Miguel gasped loud, shooting a web at you. It stuck to your chest, keeping you in place with a firm tug. Hanging over the railing by just his web. You held onto the web for security. Hearing the sirens and the commotion underneath you. You shouldn’t look, but still you looked. How small the people looked from up here. It made you shut your eyes closed. – “Miguel!” – you cried out as the breeze made your body swing gently.

Up on the balcony was Miguel grunting. Fighting off the villain with one hand as his other was stretched out, holding on to you. Giving out punches with one hand wasn’t nearly as effective as he wanted. The villain kept bugging him. Miguel fell forwards as you gasped loud, feeling yourself drop a few inches. – “Miguel!” – you called out again in a panic. The villain heard you call out his name, turning his head to where he saw the web go over the railing.

Knowing down below you were hanging onto it. The villain chuckled as he kicked Miguel. Miguel fell to the ground again trying his best to keep a hold of you. The villain kept taunting him as Miguel punched and kicked him off. The villain’s hoverboard was to no attention to him as it suddenly flew across on his command. Cutting the web as it was in a straight line. The web snapped as your breath caught in your throat.

“Nooooo!” – Miguel shouted running up to the edge and jumping off. You were falling. Gravity taking you down as you could do nothing. Not a scream leaving your lungs. Miguel stuck his hand out, shooting a web your way. The web made it’s way down trying to reach you as you kept falling. Eyes vastly upon him. In your eyes the sign of tears. Feeling the wind shift underneath you, you slowly closed your eyes. Miguel’s web sticking to your chest as he tried to pull it up.

The impact made your body bounce off the floor as your head had hit it hard. Miguel’s eyes widened when he saw you lay down on the ground. He dropped down beside you. – “Y/n?” – he said getting on his knees. There was no reaction. – “Y/n!” – he cried out putting his hand underneath your head. He pulled away feeling the wetness on his suit. Blood. Miguel let his head fall back, screaming out a cry of agony and pain.

The people around him whispering and pointing as the police tried to keep them at a distance. Miguel lowered his head, letting it rest against yours. – “I’m sorry…” – he said as his voice cracked. – “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” – the tears rolled down his cheek underneath his mask. If only he had reacted a few seconds sooner. He might have saved you. If only…

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Read more of my fics on my Masterlists!  

[tildeathiwillwrite]

Merry Whumpmas 2023 Day 10: Hypothermia

TW: bonds, hypothermia, punishment

Whumpee’s teeth shattered as Whumper marched them through the cold, snow-covered forest. Although the sun was hidden behind a blanket of clouds, the failing light told Whumpee it was growing late. Whumpee’s bare feet ached from walking on the snow, their wrists burned from the course ropes binding them together.

Whumper didn’t slow once, not even when Whumpee stumbled over a hidden tree root and pitched forward, unable to use their arms to catch themself. Whumper only glanced over their shoulder at the fallen Whumpee and ordered them to stand. Whumpee, now sporting bruises on their right elbow and shoulder, had no choice but to obey or be dragged in the snow by the rope in Whumper’s hand.

Finally, the dense thicket of trees opened up, revealing a vast lake, completely frozen. Whumper didn’t hesitate, leading Whumpee out onto the ice. Whumpee barely noticed the change in terrain; their feet were so numb they felt less like feet and more like blocks of ice attached to their ankles.

When they reached the center of the frozen lake, Whumper stopped and studied the ice below, nodding to themself. 

“Wh—what are—what are we—are we—do—ing—doing here?” Whumpee stuttered out, teeth chattering so much it made speaking nearly impossible.

Whumper fixed them with a flat, disapproving stare that made Whumpee want to curl up and wilt. “This,” they said, voice as cold and lifeless as the snow, “is your punishment for defying me. I do not allow tolerance for disobedience.”

Whumpee’s eyes flicked from Whumper to the frozen lake. “B—b—b—!”

“Shut up!” Whumper snapped, eyes flashing in anger. They drew the long, sharp dagger they always kept at their side and raised it high in the air. Whumpee cringed back, apology already forming on their quivering lips.

But instead of striking Whumpee, Whumper plunged the blade deep into the ice. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, creaking and splitting underneath Whumpee’s feet. They cried out as, with a large crack, the ice beneath them gave way, plunging them into the unforgiving waters below.

The shock of how cold it was overwhelmed Whumpee, forcing the air in their lungs out in a spray of bubbles. They sank like a stone in the freezing water until the rope binding them to Whumper jerked up, keeping them from going further down. Realizing their lack of air, Whumpee tried to kick their legs, but they only moved lethargically, unable to propel them against gravity.

Panic began to set in as the cold seemed to seep into Whumpee’s bones, their blood, their very soul began to freeze over. And they couldn’t get air. The dark waters seemed to grow even darker, and everything grew numb and faded.

Whumpee barely noticed when Whumper yanked them out of the freezing water onto dry, solid ice. They slowly blinked the water out of their eyes and stared at Whumper, shivering violently. Why did they look so angry?

“See this,” Whumper hissed, “as an example of what will happen if you invoke my wrath.”

“...I’m…I’m…s…sorry…” Whumpee mumbled through unfeeling lips with a tongue they weren’t entirely sure existed anymore.

Whumper glared down at them for a few long heartbeats before they turned and marched back to their stronghold, dragging Whumpee along behind them.

Part 2 >

[flowers-of-io]

If you're still taking prompts, Sav/Eris #20? :3c

20. on a scar // Read on Ao3

The light in Savathûn's throne world is strangely diffused, one of the four suns having already dipped below the horizon and other two inching their way downwards. The fourth is in zenith right above the palace, framing the tip of the Spire like a halo. It should sting her uncovered eyes, Eris thinks, but this place was tailor-made for a Hive and so she figures it is only fair it accommodated the sensitivities of Hive sight.

They are in the gardens, Savathûn and her, strolling among the lush flower patches and neatly-trimmed hedges. The Witch-Queen's form is... strange, light folding on light and edges blurry, so mach that Eris finds it difficult to tell its exact size. Wonders of the mind, she thinks dryly. Even resplendent in Light, the High Coven is still the kingdom of deceit.

"I'm glad you don't hide yourself from me anymore," Savathûn says conversationally. She has stopped to admire a particularly scenic brook snaking between grass and marble, its surface azure-clear and shimmering in the sunlight. "Or from yourself, for that matter. It's a nice change."

Eris looks at her with a unamused expression. The Witch kneels down and now they are almost level, their shivering reflections side by side in the water.

"Do you interpret everything in relation to yourself?"

"I like seeing my work," Savathûn croons. "You're beautiful."

Anger flares in Eris, mixed with disgust and something else. For a moment she manages to blink away the shimmering veil of Light, and what she sees underneath is so crudely tangible--crusted skin around the eyes and chitin weathered by age, minute twitches of facial muscles. Flesh and bone and strength no greater than her own. Not an elusive queen of mists; a woman, a Hive, a body that will squirm and bleed if she cuts it. There is still a scar on her throat where Eris slashed it open.

She says, angrily, "You did not make me."

The Witch-Queen smiles lazily.

"I know you find the idea abhorrent, but when you think about it, how different has our dance been from the simplest sword-logic invocation of one's opponent? You created me." Her head tips to the side, eyes narrowed in delight. "In your furious search for means to destroy me, you have kept me closer to your heart than anything else you hold dear. You have changed me forever, and as such, by equality of force, you too have been changed."

"Do you feel so lacking as to need to take credit for I've done by my own hand?"

Savathûn laughs, of course she does. "Ah, maybe you're right in diagnosing this as a matter of pride. One wishes all the beauty they see were fruit of their own craft."

Beauty, Eris wants to spit, if only because this was the cost I had to pay to destroy you--but Savathûn's edges blur once again and she is suddenly so close Eris can see the delicate spiderweb of cracks on her chitin.

There is a pressure on her forehead, just next to her middle eye, a lipless mouth brushing again the skin and then murmuring, "But I can still admire the handiwork."

All she can see now is Savathûn's throat, the expanse of calloused, ancient skin and the scar slicing it in half. It is a thick and convex line, like a bank running across a grassy field. It bobs along with every breath.

Physical, Eris thinks, real. Is this what their siblinghood was? Gods to all but each other, intangible concepts with edges defined only by what can be scratched and choked and cut, the only forces in the universe capable of rendering each other real? Invocations hold power, but not as much power as a blade to the gut. Love is war, over and over, the clashing of territories and saying, here I begin, and thus here is where you are not.

She reaches out and traces the scar--first with her fingers and then, madly enough, with her lips. A warning. A gesture that says, I could to this again, and I would do this again, and here is where I define your borders and you must first get through me if you wish to challenge that.

The sharp contortion of the throat against her mouth--whether it is a laugh or a gasp, she is not sure.

[ramblings-from-the-ether]

And on a related note, epithet markings like Zoras triangles and Meras irises?

Epithet marking concepts, go!

Molly: Lots of possibilities for her. The stars in her hair turn sickly-green when she uses a powerful move, her button-pupils brighten and glow, maybe even her freckles turn into sparkling green dots as she becomes more powerful. One recent concept I had is green epithet marks going down her face from her eyes, almost reminiscent of tear streaks. They seem to flicker and almost darken her face when she uses her more powerful moves.

Giovanni: High-power Giovanni is always an incredibly fun concept to think about. I think if he were to gain an epithet marking, it would be a large glowing patch on his throat that looks almost like there's magma underneath as he uses his abilities. Alternatively, maybe the soup that Giovanni can make gradually becomes so hot that even he can't withstand it, accidentally burning himself with it, and the burn scars on his skin actually become his epithet marks! They seem to sizzle and smoke when he conjures anything hot enough.

Sylvie: A couple ideas. Sylvie's markings form as spiralling patterns on his arms and maybe around his eyes. Maybe glistening, golden spots start to dot his skin in various areas, looking almost like dust of some kind. After continuous use of Dream Big, maybe green-and-yellow markings form around his neck, arms and shoulders, somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Beefton's coat and clothing. His markings hum softly with ethereal power when he summons forth his dreams.

Indus: Well, the most obvious thing for Indus would be for his epithet marks to replace his tattoos. Or, maybe new markings emerge in the space surrounding his tattoos, piecing together to almost look like a suit of armour! When Indus makes a BARRIER, the markings closest to it creak and converge even closer together, like living armour reinforcing itself to protect him.

Mera: Her irises are a start, but if Mera gets even more powerful, a really cool idea for further epithet markings would be silvery-blue cracks lining her skin, kinda like kintsugi. Maybe she gets heavily injured at some point (either by her epithet or a powerful attack, maybe from Giovanni's critical 13) and the resulting scar forms a spiderweb-like crack that then becomes her epithet mark! The cracks glisten and creak dangerously when she exerts herself too much.

Percy: It's hard to imagine Percy's epithet markings resemble anything other than stone and brick carvings. Rows resembling brick lines, sigils and hieroglyphs, and patterns of masonry forming around her limbs and neck, and possibly even on her face and around her eyes, making her into a living parapet. They spark and crackle with golden lightning whenever she uses her Wizard Towers, and glow with soft radiance when she constructs a Healing Hut.

Ramsey: I found it hard to think of anything for this rat man, but maybe: The gold that forms Ramsey's gilded eye spreads outward from the socket, creating literal gold veins across his face! Perhaps streaks of gold could even form and snake across his body like kintsugi cracks. The gold patterns gleam and dazzle as he activates his golden touch, and maybe even change their colour to that of an alloy when he turns himself to gold.

Rick: We've all seen the void-black lightning that streaks from his eyes when Rick wants to ham it up. His epithet markings come in the form of pitch-black, flame-like patches on his face, streaming from the sides of his eyes. Alternatively, maybe his epithet mark forms as a black, heart-shaped crest or tattoo on his right breast! (the wrong side.) It glows and surges with eldritch power when he uses his magic.

Lorelai: I actually headcanon that Lorelai's little rainbow freckles are her epithet markings, but if she were to get others, I imagine the freckles could eventually grow into stars. They flash and glow in an array of colours when she summons her dream bubbles and mini-bosses.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Starlight in your eyes of blue

Warnings: unregulated obsessive compulsive disorder, derealization, panic attacks, accidental self-injury, intrusive thoughts, depression, mentions of character death (not real), ableism, and past child abuse.

————

One. Two. Steve’s squishy. Three.

Tap. Tap. Two fingers. Tap.

Billy’s stuck in a pattern, a compulsion. If he stops Steve won’t get home safe. He’ll lose sight of his phone, and Steve will try to call him and get worried when he doesn’t answer, so he’ll speed home and run off the road and-

One. Two. Steve’s squishy. Three.

Cell phone. Keys. Three and a half. Glasses case.

Billy’s arm is tired and he’s pretty sure he’s dehydrated from the way his head is pounding, but there’s only a few minutes until Steve gets home and then he’ll stop.

Stop. Stop sign. Yellow light. Green, go, too fast, gone. It’s time for Steve to be home but he’s still not home and Billy’s scared. He must’ve done something wrong. Forget the tapping. Are the candles lit? The doormat tilted just a little to the left? Did he remember to button Steve’s shirt from bottom top instead of top to bottom?

The worry overwhelms him like he’s never felt it before. Really he feels it every time Steve goes away, even if just for a few minutes. His heart couldn’t withstand anything happening to his best friend and lover. Real grief sets in his chest and it hasn’t even happened yet.

He bites his nails.

Until they’re raw.

Until his hands are bleeding, or were they already from the blisters on his fingertips?

Is he breathing?

God his chest hurts.

Billy’s brain doesn’t turn itself back on until he feels Steve’s arms around him, and hears his voice in his ear.

“.....I’m here.. Can you hear me?.. Baby please…”

Billy doesn’t respond yet, he only leans back into the safe embrace. Still, he doesn’t quite feel relief yet. If anything, his heart only grows heavier. A few shaky breaths brace him to speak.

“Stevie. I didn’t mean to kill you. I love you. I'm so sorry..” His voice cracks like he’s using all the force he has, because he needs Steve to know how he feels.

Because to him, this doesn’t feel real. Not the connection to Steve’s embrace, nor the floor underneath him. (When did he sit down? Did he fall? He can’t remember…)

Steve’s voice cuts through the haze like it’s projecting on a speaker, distant and warbled, “Billy, listen. You’re having a panic attack.”

It doesn’t help to comfort Billy this deep into his panic, “No. I- I- You gotta listen to me. Baby, I.. killed you. And I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you, I swear.”

“It’s okay. How about this, can you do something else for me?” Steve sounds worried. And sad.

Billy nods as a way to silently agree to do whatever Steve needs him to. His mind reasons, in this state, that if they can’t be together physically anymore, he’ll make sure Steve isn’t mad at him when he disappears.

His head hurts.

“Tell me five things you see right now.” Steve requests of him.

It takes a lot of concentration for Billy to be able to see anything at all. His eyes dart around looking for the right things, indecisive and overwhelmed by how much is in this room. It feels cluttered. Unsafe. Unfamiliar.

He brings his thoughts back to his Steve.

“The carpet. It’s brown. A-And the curtains. They’re letting too much sun in. The beams. Th-The house could catch on fire-” Billy’s breath catches in his throat just as Steve hugs him tighter, a quiet way of asking him to keep going that Billy is going to do his best to follow.

“Um, I think I see the cracks in the wall. The ones that look like spiderwebs. And the couch. I’m sorry I didn’t fold the blanket. I can do it now. Wait, sorry. Um.. I see our picture. The date one. It reminds me of when you’re here. I miss you a lot. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey. I’m here. I’m with you Billy.” Steve promises before Billy can get too upset, and once again tries to encourage him, “Can you keep going? Four things you hear?”

Billy’s throat feels dry from talking, but he refuses to give up.

“Right. Birds singing on the tree. In the tree. In the backyard. In the grass. I can probably hear the wind too. Maybe I left a window open somewhere, that’s not safe, is it? But I gotta- I have to finish this for Steve.” Billy takes a deep, if not shaky, breath, a few of them actually, before finishing quickly, a slow progression into security, “Phone buzzing and the clock ticking. Ticking.”

Until the clock triggers something worse. Billy has to count one through twelve for each hour at each tick of the clock until the next good number, which is the eight right now. The minute hand is their savior in ending this cycle several minutes later, since the hour is only five in the evening.

Despite the obvious setback, his Steve doesn’t give up on him. He just gently prompts more progress to make up for it. “Good. How about three things you feel?”

A good bit of time passes while Billy’s brain tries to distract him by listening to the clock ticks again, only he fights it. He powers through and tunes into his sense of touch instead, “Flannel. My shirt is made of soft flannel. It has snap buttons too. So they’re metal and cold. I feel cold. But also warm. I think I feel you. Your arms around me.”

“Exactly. That’s my love, okay? That’s my love with you.” Steve doesn’t sound scared anymore, so Billy must be doing a good job. He feels prepared already for Steve’s next question, and even predicts it in his own head first, “What else, do you smell two things?”

“Not burning. Nothings on fire, I promise. Just the candles. The white and black ones. To protect you. They smell like cologne. And I think the grass. Because the window is open.” Billy knows he’s explaining too much, but it makes him feel better. Now that he feels more safe, talking to Steve just feels nice in general.

One final thing to concentrate on to bring him back to himself from those spiraling depths of his disorder, “And just one thing you taste.”

That’s harder, because it’s been a while since he’s eaten anything. Shit today was really bad, all he’s had since the bagel he ate when he woke up was a stick of gum. He didn’t realize how bad this had gotten before it pushed over the boiling point.

“Mint. Just mint.”

With the concern for Billy’s safety addressed, and only after making sure he’s okay enough, Steve leaves him to get other things to take care of him. While he’s gone, so things don’t go bad again, Billy lays on his back and just breathes. In the nose, out through his mouth, sighing like it will let go of all the aching with his breath.

Maybe he dozed off, or just didn't think about anything at all for a moment, but it startled him when Steve came back, carrying a light blanket and a big reusable water bottle. That final, somewhat harsh pull back to reality sent him spinning through gravity, blinking the blur away as he processes Steve next to him, lifting his head to help him drink.

“Steve?” Billy rasps, hearing in his own voice that he’d been crying, though he hadn’t realized.

Steve responds gently, while laying Billy’s head back down on a balled up jacket that he also hadn’t noticed being placed there, and putting a wet rag on his forehead, “My love.”

“Did I mess up again?” Billy’s almost afraid to ask. His entire life Billy was called crazy. Punished for not being able to prevent these things from happening sometimes. At least they happen less now that he’s happy. Happy with Steve, who won’t get mad.

But the guilt he feels doesn’t discriminate between past and present, or depression, or anything else.

Steve has a big heart. He’s always got lots of love to give Billy, and reassurance. Maybe that’s part of the guilt, is that Steve helps him when he’s got his own worries and sensory issues to take care of.

He accepts Steve’s explanation regardless, the words, “No. You did your best. You just got upset. And actually, I think I have an idea how we can help it next time,” bringing him immense comfort.

~~~

He shouldn’t take the credit, it was Chrissy’s idea actually.

She has a guide dog that helps with her depleting vision, and more so with her PTSD. Something about the weight of her fuzzy friend laying on her chest, even as small as Chrissy seems compared to her big oaf of a poodle named Cuppy Cake, brings her back every time.

She suggested that Billy try getting a companion while she, Cuppy Cake, and Steve had gone running errands together just a few days before Billy’s big attack.

Now more than ever it’s clear something needs to be changed though, and they all figure a service dog might help.

If that doesn’t work out, adopting a furry friend might help cheer him up anyways.

The few days since the incident have been gloomy, with Billy’s hands in bandages and his eyes brimmed with tears everytime he looks at them. He barely smiles, or moves from his safe spot on the corner of the couch. It breaks Steve’s heart.

He throws out the idea on a random Saturday when Billy is zoned out over his cereal bowl, counting the pieces into clumps and only eating even numbers of them. A subtle obsession that Steve keeps a close eye on before it gets too dangerous again.

That’s why he interrupts, because Billy’s been trying to eat this bowl for hours, and it’s getting too soggy, and soggy cereal makes Billy’s palette feel gross, and that’s just going to cause a sensory overload.

“I wanna get a dog.”

Billy doesn’t look like he takes it seriously, even making a joke, “Miss Churro not good enough for you anymore?”

Steve’s ima’s elderly chihuahua. Yeah, he loves visiting her at his old house, but that stinky old pup isn’t exactly what Steve had in mind.

He clarifies, “I don’t think Churro would be a good service dog though.”

“Oh.” The answer is so simple, Steve almost thinks Billy didn’t hear what he said. But then Billy’s lip wobbles and there’s more tears in his eyes.

He curls up his hinds and rubs the tears away, over and over until his face is bright red, and Steve decides to step in and hold his hands in his own so he can keep them down on the table top instead, “What’s wrong, blue?”

A sob sneaks out of Billy’s throat. He’s probably overwhelmed and can’t speak, maybe even upset. Change isn’t good for Billy’s routines.

Instantly, Steve tries to fix it, feeling a hint of regret for bringing it up, “We don’t have to get one. It was just an idea, baby. I promise I won’t make you.”

But then Billy shakes his head, and Steve is confused. He doesn’t know what that means.

“No you don’t want a dog?” Steve gently squeezes Billy’s left hand to assign it that meaning that he spoke, to let Billy use his hands to communicate instead of his words. The right hand option means, “Or you do and you don’t want me to change my mind?”

Still crying, but a little softer, the tears are contextualized as happy ones, because Billy squeezes Steve’s right hand back. He likes the idea.

~~~~

His name is Scorp. The 60 pound pit bull is about knee tall on Billy, and can tackle him down in seconds.

Well, it’s more like affectionately pulling on his clothes until he sits down, and then Scorp pushes him over for deep pressure therapy. But still. He’s a big boy.

He’s Billy’s big boy.

His service dog.

The reason he can finally leave the house for the first time in, well, twenty-two years without feeling like something bad will happen. And if he still has those intrusive thoughts, he knows he has his buddy to help in ways Steve can’t always provide.

He loves Steve, and he loves Scorp. Like a little family of their own.

And he is happy.

————

also on ao3

[fxnrirs]

Dreams Honored;

His dreams never came easy. Sleep was difficult, he often woke in a haze, bleary eyed thinking that a friend, a lover, a loved one, would be sitting at his feet. If there was one thing he was incapable of... it was letting go. The grip the past coiled around him was stifling. He had fallen into the dark of it underneath the starlight, knit in all of his grief; he rarely gave this memory any room to speak the truth it needed to. The stone hewn walls dimly lit by the green glow of mako; flickering, casting warm translucent shadows, only vaguely illuminated what this place once was. Still is. His birth place. Sephiroth's birth place. The origins of everything. Of loss, of grief, gilded with hope, love and strength. Buried as deep as the rest of ShinRa's secrets, the basement held so much horror, so much pain, so much suffering; and the damp smell of mold mixed with the almost sewage-like scent of processed mako, burned his eyes and nose. This place was burned into him like a brand, it had remade him, killed him, resurrected him and built him into what and who he was. It was this place that gave him all of his strength, his power, the battle prowess he had needed to both survive and stop the destruction that Sephiroth and his father wrought through their willful malevolence and machinations. A place he had tried to forget, tried so very hard- until it broke him, and he fragmented over and over, becoming a dangerous mixture of experience, a shattered mirror that reflected his childhood, the girl he wanted to notice him, the man who became his best friend, the monster that reconstructed him; and none of them at all. His mind had been too fragile. They were right to not choose him for the SOLDIER program. Instead, he became a labrat, with Zack, always facing him; while he drifted in and out of consciousness, his best friend promising him over and over with his expression that they'd get out of here some day. But the days turned to weeks turned to months- and they both lost count of how many passed. Between the screams, of Hojo stripping him down to his bones, of injecting, mixing, surgically enhancing; shushing him with his concoctions to force him into the darkness of unconscious mind and thought- he could not remember anything of the outside world. He would be taken from the room, same as Zack, only to be returned to his tank, after sedation or waking long enough to feel the ache of each part of him being refined through Hojo's hands. Only did it refill once a day for feeding and relieving them both. He couldn't recall much of it. Zack was keeping the time of it all, observing, waiting for the right moment; It all feels so vivid. So wildly real that when he has this nightmare... he is frantic. He nearly chokes when the mako invades his lungs as he comes to; he is wide awake, and in panic punches the glass over and over. One. The tank shakes. The pipes shift with a terrible metallic sound. Two. It begins to buckle. Three. Spiderweb cracks travel across the surface and connect in the center. Four. The mako begins to leak from the fissures and then he slams his feet into the weakest part of the glass, causing it to shatter; it all rushes out with him and he coughs, gasping, falling on his knees, his chest aching, his eyes bright with the infusion in the low light; White hot rage burns in his fingers, he rises after he catches his breath- and flips over an entire desk, all of its notes, glass beakers, lamps and burners and needles; tearing books from shelves, overturning the jars lining them, he picks up the end of the familiar oak desk that "the professor" would sit at- with great ease and slams it into Zack's tank. It connects with his prison, wood splinters, the legs break off one side, but he lifts it again and slams it hard in succession again and again until it gives way. He never wanted this. Not for him, not for Zack, not for Tifa- and having known he killed Sephiroth was not enough back then. He will never go through this again. Never.

He drops the broken desk and goes about destroying everything within reach. There's a commotion outside the door, he can hear the guards, but.... this is his nightmare, isn't it? So as the door opens, he waits behind it, lets him enter a little- and slams it into the first guard, knocking him back with a yell He can hear a gun being cocked. It's fired. He dodges their bullets effortlessly- He picks up a unbroken jar and slams it into their head with brute force when they attempt reloading with shaking hands. He can hear their neck snap as they crumple to the ground.

The second guard has no time to yell for help. Cloud grabs the end of his rifle and uses its weight to slam it into their chest. Ribs shatter and break under the force, he grabs the barrel, flips it around, and uses the heel of it to connect with his face under his helmet; the second falls flat on his back. Both begin to evaporate at his feet in swirls of green particles and light; they're dying and he doesn't care. They're complicit. One of them fed him. The other hauled him to and from the surgery suite. No matter how much he screamed or cried there was no escape. There would be no mercy here either. But it's... strange. He'd expected to wake by now... his knuckles are bleeding, and he can feel the sting, it must've been from the glass- and then it dawns on him. Maybe he's not dreaming at all. In the corner of his eye, a man with shock of black hair, pale skin and hollows of eyes where twin stars sit looks stoically on; he does not move, he does not smile- Cloud blinks and he is gone. Strange, that... he shakes his head. Zack. That's right... Zack! FUCK. He turns on his heels then to see his friend alive, he goes to him and kneels, offering his steady hand to his shoulder and tries to bring him to his feet; the ache returns to him, in a way he can never rid himself of; He had died so long ago, but Cloud lived on for the two of them... bearing his legacy at his back with the weight of all that came with it. Freedom did not come without cost. Neither did becoming a hero. He had come to embrace both and what they had meant; but if he can save anyone... right now... it's him. "Can you walk?" He asks with urgency; "There were only two... but there's more upstairs. We have to move."

[mable-stitchpunk]

Going Home in a Box: Chapter 73 - Teaser

Nobody expected a raceway to be quiet.

The sound of clattering go-karts barely made it over the rev of their engines, the laughter of the drivers, and the plethora of onlookers, both kids and adults. The ambience music playing overhead peppered with the atmospheric sounds of revving and skidding from the mounted speakers. Automated announcements luring patrons to stop by the line of snack bars or announcing birthday parties in the party garages. It was so much that one couldn’t hear themselves think, let alone hear anything else.

It was a busy day at the raceway. Being the Pizzaplex’s arguably most popular attraction it often was packed, but today those numbers had doubled. There were people everywhere, and the line to get on the racetrack was backed up nearly to the door.

Though strict guidelines meant only a limited number of racers could be on the track at once. While this should’ve been for the safety of the racers, it was more for the safety of the brand.

A couple of rowdy teens were leading the way around the track, taking any chance to try and push each other out of the way like it was a game of bumper cars. This was strictly not allowed, but with the cutbacks on human staff there wasn’t anyone to stop them. They whizzed by on the track, causing a scene and catching a lot of attention from onlookers.

Until one of the karts bumped and shuddered as it ran over something. The teen driving it acknowledged the occurrence for a second before returning his attention to his race with his friend.

Neither realized how fortunate they were. His tire had caught on a rough, cracking section of track and if he hadn’t been going as fast as he was, the concrete could’ve easily caved under his wheel. They had gotten away by the skin of their teeth.

The next kart was not nearly so lucky.

Driving slowly and staying on a steady track, there came a younger boy steering a kart with help from a Driver Assist Bot, a Staff Bot mounted in the kart to help children drive on their own. These karts were heavier, these bots were programmed to drive slower, and they could recognize and avoid other drivers, but they could not see nor recognize more insidious dangers. Such as the deceptively shallow cracks spiderwebbing out across the track.

The kart drove directly over those cracks when they suddenly failed.

All at once the track failed and the track collapsed in. The kart’s front-left wheel was sucked down into the hole, tipping the kart over so far that it nearly fell over but was still lodged upright. The boy cried out in surprise at the sudden motion and soon found himself staring at a tilted world and the crumbling concrete. He struggled against his seatbelt, but it was locked into place, and he couldn’t release it, and the Driver Assist Bot could do little more than request for him to return them to the track.

The kart was still revving, trying to free itself but only succeeded in wearing away more of the broken pavement.

“Mom!” the boy screamed. He tried to yank himself out and the kart lurched down further, now teetering at the point of no return. Burying itself deeper into the track, which was coming up to meet him. “MOM!”

All at once another small portion of the cracked track fell in. This was enough to drop the kart in further and send it falling over. The boy looked up at the road coming towards him with the weight of the bot and the kart trapping him underneath.

A clawed hand caught the edge of the kart, saving the boy mere seconds before being crushed.

The kart was hoisted back up and a familiar face peered underneath, her yellow eyes aglow and illuminating the underside of the vehicle. It was Roxanne Wolf.

“Help me!” the boy yelled in a panic.

“I’ve got you, kid,” Roxy promised. Her tone cool, her eyes determined, and she reached under to try and release the seatbelt. When it didn’t, she grabbed ahold and ripped it free from the kart. The boy fell out and across her arm and she pulled him out.

By now there was an audience watching. Both onlookers from beside the track and other go-karts that had stopped to watch the scene. She had already sent out a warning to stop all the Driver Assist Bots, so now all she had to worry about was this one and this kart, which had stopped peeling at her command but was now sitting in this hole. She switched out her hand for her foot and flipped the kart with her leg. It landed back onto its wheels with a crash, the motion pulling its front tire free of the hole.

Roxy didn’t spare it a second glance as she strode past the kart with the boy still in her arms. She looked around for any sign of his mother amongst the slew of onlookers and instead caught sight of an employee running up- too little too late, in her opinion.

“Roxy! Roxy! You’re not supposed to be on the track! We’ve been through this!” the man scolded.

Her head snapped to him in offense at his chastising- like someone was scolding their dog. To think that a kid almost got in a serious accident and this joker showed up to lecture her on stepping in. She was about to chew him out, wring him out and hang him to dry, but she didn’t have a chance to do so.

“There’s a hole!” one of the older kids in the stopped karts cried out. “That kid drove into a hole, and it flipped the kart over-!”

“It’s right there! Look! There’s a hole!” This girl pointed down the track towards the hole.

“It fell!” another called.

A chorus of more kids called for Roxy’s defense and finally the employee climbed up onto the edge of the track to see what they were talking about. It took him only moments to spot the roughed-up kart and the sizeable hole in the track and went pale.

Roxy took only the slightest bit of joy in his expression. She would’ve loved to smirk at him, but this was barely a victory.

“Mom!”

She looked down at the boy and followed his eyes and forward lean right to a woman sprinting up to the track, struggling to get past the crowd that had formed. Clearly the boy’s mother, likely having been waiting at the kart boarding and unloading zone.

Roxy ignored the worker and carried the boy to his frantic mother, who was so worked up by the whole thing that she hugged him tight and peppered out apologies like Roxy was a person and not animatronic. She gave a cool nod and headed off towards the register.

Unfortunately, there were a few humans running the register for the raceway, largely to help mediate the large flow of visitors. Staff Bots were effective but could get tripped up and slow down a line. These employees were more startled by Roxy coming in to grab merchandise out of the back than the fact that the raceway had just caved in- word spread fast, they had to know. Not that they were doing anything about it.

One especially feisty woman was trying to corral her, to no avail. Roxy walked right past her and collected a box of keychains and a child sized raceway-themed shirt. One she was sure would match the size of the boy. She then strode out without even offering a word.

It didn’t take her too long to locate the mother and son again. By now the medical crew had arrived, which consisted of two people who looked too young to have any form of medical degree- in Roxy’s opinion- the two security guards, and some of the on-call technicians. The group both checking on the boy and trying to get details.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Roxy announced as she strode up. She then promptly ignored them and turned all of her attention on the boy standing alongside his mother, crouching down to his level.

She made sure he knew how much of a ‘brave little man’ he was as she gave him his new shirt and a keychain for good measure. The boy still seemed shaken, but he ate up her attention, and she made sure to give him the VIP treatment.

Then she started passing out keychains to any children she could reach. In her opinion it was better to keep guests happy, even if a little trinket wasn’t even a band-aid solution. What was Fazbear Entertainment going to do, stop her? One of the technicians tried, all it took was a sharp look to get him to back off. They might’ve gotten away with pushing Freddy and Chica around, but she would be a dead-last loser before she let them tread on her toes.

There was at least one technician who was willing to hear her out about what happened without any antics, and that was Delilah. Of course it was Delilah. She was one of the only female technicians and the only one who Roxy ever let work on her, when given the choice.

Though once Chaz showed up everything defaulted to him but by then Roxy had already spoken her peace and went to placate the crowd as they called for guests to leave the raceway. A good decision in Roxy’s opinion. She would rather have the raceway shut down than have it open with the main attraction barred off. That would just be embarrassing. It was all or nothing in her eyes. At least her presence, mingling with the crowd, gave the kids that one-on-one experience.

But once they were gone, or mostly gone, Roxy headed downstairs and secluded herself into an empty party garage. She needed a minute alone to recollect herself and couldn’t risk getting attention crossing the Pizzaplex when she wasn’t at her best.

She combed back her hair as she walked into the small party room, walking around in a circle between the tables before stopping at one, resting her hands on it. It was crazy to think that a kid almost got hurt and that her own raceway had a collapse.

…

…

…A collapse from the same cracks she had reported DAYS AGO.

With a frustrated snarl, Roxy slammed her fists down on the flimsy table. She didn’t expect it to buckle and collapse at her feet. She looked down startled at it. Was everything around here so cheaply made? No wonder Monty kept breaking stuff.

Having let off a little steam, she gave a small sigh, groomed back her mane once more and shook it out, and then turned to head the party garage. It was fine. They came for her, not just the go-karts. She would just have to work harder to keep the customers happy. She could do that, and maybe then the technicians could get off their asphalt dragging backends and fix her raceway.

She pushed her way past a Staff Bot investigating the sound of the breaking table with a deflated, “Move,” and walked off to finish off an already exhausting day.

[my2phetaliaheadcanons]

Howling Fields - Day 2: The Door to the Meadow

Day 1 Day 3: TBC

You grunted and winced as your falling body was thrown around like a limp doll against the rock walls and debris. The sudden impact on the stone floor forced a choked gasp forced it's way from your lungs and coated you in grainy dust. Each cough to regain needed breath sent sharp particles into your throat. The process created a cycle of coughing and wheezing until hot bile was expelled from your esophagus. 

Panting, you felt stunned as the world around you felt unsteady and cold. It took a moment, but slowly you could rise to lean on, what you guessed was a cavern wall. Your hand, though sluggishly, moved to the light still around your tender throat. It caressed the button for a moment, almost like your body instinctively knew that what you saw could alter your chances of survival, before flicking the switch.

It was stacks of rubble in a large cavern. They had landed like towers of different-sized stones of all shapes that would never fit together correctly. Cracks that stretched around the room like spiderwebs. And a large void above you. 

Staring into the abyss, your mind ran away with unfortunate scenarios. Each ending was more vicious than the last, but they all had one thing in common, you died; alone and in the dark. 

No. You shook, tears welling up like damaged fountains. That can not be. 

You forced yourself to look around the cavern again. This time moving slower. Allowing the light of the headlamp to reveal anything that could show salvation. 

A glint. It was faint but golden. Maybe, your mind rationalized with damaged hope as your heart rose, it was a vein. One that could lead you to an exit.

With nothing else for you to lose, you stood on sore and tender legs, before limping to the wall. You placed your hand underneath the thin line. You turned to the left, and found more stone, but to the right was a tunnel. The vein went down into the darkness. Into a path unfamiliar to you, but the only one available.

You took a deep breath, before tracing the uneven stone as you walked forward. Ready to get out.

The first few minutes felt hopeful, that this would soon lead to the exit. Time, like a sadistic boa began to constrict your enthusiasm like it was prey as what felt like hours ticked by.

Fear and despair began to pull at your mind the further you went. They whispered doubts, claiming that those scenarios from early were prophesies soon to be fulfilled. That you would never escape, that your friends and family would always wonder what your final moments were.

As tears threatened to spill once more, you gasped in pain. A sudden gleam had struck your eye like a hidden dagger. 

Out of instinct, you rubbed away the pain. Your poor eyes felt raw as you glowered around for the source. Until it clicked in your brain.  

Light! And it wasn't from your lamp. Which means you can get out.

A hysterical mix of laughter and wails left your throat as you dashed forward. Holding on to the wall as your weak legs left you wobbling all over.

As you moved the light grew in its luminosity from a gleam to a beam. It was almost as bright as the start of dawn when you skidded to a stop.

You didn't understand why, but the sight before you caused your stomach to churn and neck hairs to rise. The primal part of you screamed to run away. To look upon something else or retreat into the darkness like the prey it always was.

Yet, all that stood before you was a door. One with a stone face with strange creatures carved on it. All had fearsome features; opened jaws with sharp teeth, large claws, and pure animal instinct chipped into their very being. But, at the same time, they had human features; almost like a warped satyr with too-wide smiles and beckoning hands. Promises of a good time that would only end in tragedy.

The beings were almost what you imagined the beast in Yao’s story would have looked like.

That thought alone caused your neck hair to rise as a shiver caused your muscles to twitch and your spine to shift. Instinctively your hand went to your neck, almost like you were trying to rub away the paranoia.

With no other path, you marched ahead. An inhale pursed your lips as you brought calmness and clarity to the drastic reality of your situation. The following exhale gave determination as you pushed forward.

The door was heavy. It caused you to grunt as you pushed your shoulder against it. The joint popped as it tried to prop the door wide enough. The rock opening ground itself into an ear-splitting cry as it was moved against the hard earth below. The light spread, and when you had the gap big enough, you hopped through. Ready to be in the ‘open’ air.

You should have been excited. Weren't you ready to sprint your way through the trees to the nearest road and make your way back to your friends? But you weren’t. A bitter bile caused your stomach to roll as you gazed around.

In front of you was a meadow of red, switch grass. Its tall blades swayed with the strange wind causing small flecks of blue to sparkle through. Behind the beautiful prairie of red and blue sat tall, imposing Borel trees. Their white roots and purple leaves overlapped like a system of mangrove trees. Even from this distance, you could tell they would be difficult to navigate.

What was strangest was above the trees you noticed more cave walls. Its uneven, grey surface perfectly allowed its ‘sun’ to shine like the moon on a starless night. The pseudo sun wasn’t bright enough to burn your eyes as you realized the sheer size of the ginormous, glowing, white crystal hanging above.

“Where am I?” You whispered, stepping forward.

 The grass seemed to welcome you as it parted in acceptance. Its fluffy tips tickled the exposed skin causing an uncomfortable sensation along your chin. Simply rubbing your chin against your shoulder helped it, but that itching wasn’t the only sensation that made your epidermis crawl.

Not sure from where, but multiple eyes raked your form. You could sense them picking you apart. Like the being was wondering which piece of flesh would taste the sweetest. A restless fear that made your breath shudder as it felt like something was getting closer. Stalking you.

A rustle to your left caught your attention. Your eyes squinted as you focused on the spot. Watching, waiting for any sign of movement.

Another rustle, this time on the opposite side. Turning to it, you saw movement. Something shuffled through the tall blades. A broken-up silhouette could be seen, but what it was, you couldn't tell. 

It stalked closer.

Your body stiffened like it was flash-frozen. More rustling, this time from the original side caused your eyes to bounce between the two sources. 

They were getting closer. Moving through the grass like shark fins at the water’s surface.

You stepped back. Your foot breaking a hidden stick.

The resounding sound against the silence was reciprocated by two low growls.

For a moment it was just the growls, and you could imagine whatever beasts in front of you had tensed their muscles. Determined to rip you apart.

Survival instincts were ramping up. Millions of possible deaths flashed before you. Your own body tensed, prepared to run.

The beings moved first. Dashing toward you with wolf-like speed.

In response, you turned and ran. Arms pushed the grass aside as panic set in. The uneven ground almost caused you to trip as the growling became low, hunting howls.

Bursting through the foliage like a bull after a red cape, you scrambled up the thick, white, tree roots. Nails turned white and then red as the roots broke your nails.

Your gait became uneven as you attempted to stay ahead. Slipping and sliding along the rat's nest of roots.

There was a loud howl that pulled your attention back. You took a glance, but you still couldn’t make out what was behind you.

That look back was fatal enough as you missed a step and fumbled on a large tree knot. Your tumble caused your butt to land firmly in a web of roots, the only thing holding you above a seemingly endless maze of plants.

The sound of wolves returned as you heard calls coming from above. Clearer than ever before, you looked up wanting to at least know what was about to kill you.  

Two men-like creatures snarled and drooled above you. They looked similar to the carvings on the stone door and yet so different. Both looked young, but the one on the left had shoulder-length blond hair, rough stubble, and wolf-like features that matched his hair with silted violet eyes. The other had red silted eyes, tanned skin, and copper hair, and looked more like a coyote or coywolf in terms of animal traits. Together the pair had muscular builds with long claws on their fingers. The animal traits included long tails, ears that went from where a typical ear lobe would sit to the top of their heads, and animal feet that replaced the human anatomy from the knee down.

You began to hyperventilate as they began to stalk closer. They slowly picked their way down, human hands and canine paws working together, and held them steady as they closed in on their prey,  you. The resulting weight from their movements made you bounce. In fear, your head turned like a broken sprinkler as you glanced between the two.

The blond got within an arm’s length first. His claws scrapped your skin as you scrambled.

The tangled mess cracked under your movement. The copperhead approached from the other side; his teeth bared showing off his missing canine as he prepared to pounce.

Another crack, this one came as the duo crashed into each other when you tuck and rolled. Their yelps came from their intertwined mess.

You seized the opportunity and stumbled upwards, a gap between the roots became your new route. Scrambling like a spider with three broken legs you crawled into the small space.

Quickly you wormed between the mess of plants. The predators above you were too broad and large to follow you through the hole. Instead, they attacked from above. Clawed hands ripped through the foliage trying to grab you and to tear your flesh to pieces.

Each time you dodged you were forced further downward. The light grew dimmer as the males above continued their assault.

Layer by layer the chase went until your fingers grazed the stone floor. The tundra chill combined with the adrenaline from the attack sent you into a panic. You were running out of options.

Your eyes scanned the patches of light as you scurried. There had to be a way to escape.

Another claw, this time followed by the red-eyed coy-man's head forced you backward. His teeth shined in their animalistic glory as he smiled at you. Coming closer as you moved backward. The other wasn’t far behind as you could hear the bigger one cutting his way through.

All of a sudden, something cold grabbed your leg. It pulled you down, your chin scraped against the stone as you were dragged into a dirt hole.

Two hands pushed your shoulders further down the hole. Another creature was now on top of your form.

His blue and pink eyes glowed as he stared into your eyes. A large, Cheshire smile glinted in the faint light as he spoke.

“Poor, little poppet.  You must be so scared."

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

I TYPED OUT A WHOLE THING AND IT GOT DELETED AND NOW I HAVE TO RETYPE IT FROM MEMORY. AUGH

Mark kins Will Byers from Stranger Things. Mark also really doesn't want to be here. Mark is not a vase.

Mark is an urn.

ok so Mark's PoV is actually really fun. that is, if tumblr hadn't deleted THE ENTIRE THING AND MADE ME TYPE IT OUT AGAIN. y'know what maybe I do relate to him that would explain why his characterization comes naturally to me and why I want to MURDER SOMEONE RIGHT NOW. BECAUSE MY ENTIRE DRAFT GOT DELETED FOR LITERALLY NO REASON.

tw for mentions of death and suicide, body horror, etc. etc.

sorry if there are any typos, haha

Mark opens his eyes, and finds himself lying on his back in the grass.

At first he thinks this might be a dream, but the soil beneath him feels too real, the overgrown, unkempt lawn littered with bald patches too real to be a figment of his imagination. So the boy pushes himself into a sitting position, looking around and trying to get a bearing on his new situation.

He's sitting on a lawn a few blocks down from his house, but the landscape feels hollow, like someone drained all the brightness out of it. He feels anxiety setting in, and takes a few breaths to try and calm himself, which is only partially successful.

Mark climbs to his feet and surveys his surroundings more thoroughly; there are weeds growing out of the sidewalk, half the streetlights are broken or flickering ominously, and every other house on the road is abandoned, ivy creeping up the walls that looks left unchecked for years.

He feels like the first character in a horror movie to get killed by the monster, the one who dies at the beginning to give the audience something to fear while the protagonist tries to escape it for the rest of the film. If he's really unlucky, it's a zombie movie, and Mark will end up as one of the monsters trying to kill the beloved main characters, blindly raging across a city helpless to stop him.

He needs to get back to his house. Maybe things will make more sense in the familiarity of home, even in this strange nightmare or horror movie or something far worse.

Hugging his elbows, the boy suppresses a shiver as a gust of wind cuts right through his hoodie, starting to walk in the direction of his house. As he puts one foot in front of the other, he sees things move unnaturally in the corners of his vision. But whenever he whips around, it's always just the dark, leafless trees casting shadows in the eerie twilight.

The shadows avoid him.

He doesn't question why, too thankful to still be intact by the time he reaches his house.

It looks like no one's been here for years, the paint chipping and plants entirely overgrown. If he squints, it almost seems like someone had been trying to keep the plant life at bay, but either they'd been doing a terrible job, eventually given up, or it's just another trick of the light; light that has been increasingly more scarce the closer he walked to this place, as if his old house is the epicenter of a horrible spiderweb of dark cracks that branches outward for fathoms in every direction.

Underneath the broken streetlights, panic takes hold again. This is wrong. Despite the appearance being familiar, everything else about this place screams dissimilarity and danger; things have changed, and not for the better. This place is not safe, not for him, not for anyone. He needs to leave, now, and run far far away and never come back and never let this happen ever again.

What?

Mark shakily reaches in his pocket for his keys, which still fit the lock on the door. It opens with a quiet click, and for a heartbeat he can almost close his eyes and pretend he's just coming home after school and everything is fine.

The smell of death and dust floods his senses, and Mark coughs in a few chocked gasps, terror squeezing the air out of his lungs. Guilt squirms in his gut alongside crippling fear as the smell brings back the flickering memory of when he'd accidentally dropped his grandfather's urn.

As the seventeen year-old looks around his house, even more proof solidifies in his mind that this place has changed. Despite the layer of dust over nearly everything, some things have been moved around. He's not the only one here. He's being watched.

Something catches his eye, and when Mark turns to pick up a picture of him and Cesar as kids, his heart sinks, dragging his stomach and all of his other internal organs with it into the sudden fathomless void that's opened up under his skin.

Cesar's face is violently scratched out, not only in this picture, but all of them; some are only black marker, whilst others have the entire half of the image ripped and tossed away somewhere. The words I HATE YOU are spelled out in jagged bold letters, and with more of that awful sinking feeling, Mark recognizes the handwriting as his own.

Every fiber of his being is screaming, now, for Mark to leave. Every bone, every muscle, every logical part of his brain. Get out of here while you still have the physical body necessary to do so. You are going to die. You are killing yourself all over again if you do this.

Mark slowly walks upstairs.

The floorboards creak underneath him, unused to the actual weight of a human being after so long. Dread builds up within him and he doesn't fully realize he's shaking until he reaches for the door handle to his bedroom and finds himself struggling to get a grip on it.

The door swings open as soon as he manages to turn the handle, though, and it doesn't even make a sound.

Mark nearly trips over himself and back into the hallway, letting out a startled gasp that doesn't begin to cover the horror immediately swallowing him.

His entire room is painted in blood.

"O-oh my fucking G-God," he stammers, clutching the cross-shaped necklace around his neck with a tight fist until he can feel is cutting into his palm. "W-what-"

"No."

Mark spins around at the sound of too many voices speaking in unison, alarms blaring in his head and making it impossible to think. That's- that's his voice. "Wh-who's there?"

He knows who's there. No reason to play this knock-knock joke through.

It still shocks him when he sees it; blood splattered clothes, grimy old hoodie, hovering just a little bit above the ground. Worst of all, an impossible emptiness where half of a face should be, nothing visible but a lower jaw on one side.

Mark loses the ability to speak. Not because of some horrific transformation, or anything, he just physically can't make his lungs and vocal chords and tongue work together to form coherent sounds. Not at the sight of this. Not after seeing what his future looks like, bullet wounds and all.

"How the fuck are you here?" Mark demands.

OHHHHH /pos

TFW you encounter your future, much more malevolent self that is responsible for the deaths of so many people in your home town. Hate it when that happens

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 63

"Ah, shit," Aiko cursed under her breath, pulling her hand back from the angrily sparking seal she had set on a pebble.

The good news was that the explosion worked. The bad news was that she was prone to tugging on the wrong thread of chakra and letting it fizzle instead of instantly come apart. She wanted to be able to end the trapped seal two ways: safely, and destructively. After all, it might end up on people she liked. If she could manage to dissolve it safely, it would be on Gaara.

The door was flung open so violently that it knocked into the wall. That usually heralded that the boys were back. She'd been working the in-going screening when her shift had ended. Since that line closed before the replacements for her team would come on the clock, she'd beaten them all back. Aiko rolled her eyes and subconsciously covered the little black rock she'd been rolling around in a pocket since her shift had started. Unlike paper or people, she could re-use rock as a practice substance as long as she was careful. Her practice pebble was getting decidedly scorched, but there were worse things.

'At least it's an even scorching.'

Tightly secured armor jostled her chest uncomfortably when she gave an involuntary snort at her own questionable humor. The rock she'd found was just barely big enough that she could wrap her Hiraishin around it, even when she condensed it as much as she could bear without smudging. That in itself was a strain—it was most natural to make it at the same size she would have painted it, about a square inch. She could so far get it to a quarter of that size and wrap it around her pebble like a spiderweb of chakra, but it was a major pain.

At the sound of a zipper, she involuntarily glanced up to see that Boar was removing his armor and Fish was pulling open his bag. Aiko grimaced and turned her face away, sitting back onto her bunk and tucked her experiment away. Awkwardly, she concentrated on not letting her innate curiosity compel her to keep an eye on the people moving around in the same room. It was counter-intuitive to actually avoid paying attention to her surroundings, but half-naked men with porcelain masks were more creepy and off-putting than enticing. It might have been better if she'd known what was actually under those masks, but since she genuinely had no idea who they were, there was something really demented about ogling faceless bodies.

Besides, none of them were even that attractive to her. Boar was loaded with so much muscle that she couldn't help but think he just looked like an enormous slab of meat. Donkey might have been good eye-candy if he didn't creep her out, but he was also sort of spidery-looking and loomed over her by a foot and a half. It was a bit intimidating.

Despite being the least physically intimidating of her teammates, Fish was also somewhat intimidating, but that was largely on the basis that he was just so hard to get a read on. His skills were impressive, but that wasn't exactly the problem. Aiko routinely worked with people who were talented and dangerous—but she understood what made them tick. She didn't like not being able to understand her coworkers. How could she hope to control his behavior if she didn't understand him? When she couldn't predict, her next impulse was to avoid, but she couldn't do that either.

To a lesser extent, that was how she felt about the other two as well.

She looked up when the bathroom door shut, just in time to see Boat tilt his head in the same direction and Donkey toss a book at the door. His mask swiveled to look at her before he nudged Boar and hand-signed something she didn't entirely understand. The gist of it seemed to be mocking Fish for being …something… like the rookie.

Judging by the fact that Fish had just disappeared into the closed room with his clothes, it was probably a crack about his comparatively prudish behavior.

Underneath her mask, she bared her teeth at Donkey. 'Asshole.' It was probably meant to be teasing and not actually offensive, but she didn't like being played with.

"The fuck?"

Aiko jumped up from her bed and reached to re-clip her hip pouch, barely managing to hear the bathroom door bang open when Fish came back out. It was the first time she'd heard Donkey speak, but the novelty was overshadowed by the fact that it was also the first time she had heard the siren going off overhead. It sounded like nothing so much as 'zeeeeeer' being crooned again and again by someone with entirely too much fondness for synthesizers and pitch adjustments.

It probably was nothing so entertaining, seeing as they were currently assigned to the fourth level of the underground prison.

All three of them looked to Fish for orders, but they already knew what they were supposed to do. The siren went off in any type of security breach, and the policy was the same no matter if they were dealing with a break-out, problem with staff, or mysterious intruder.

"Containment procedure C," Fish said briskly. Aiko suppressed a cringe, but didn't protest.

Regardless of what was going on, they were assigned to an entire prison block and could not hope to guard the entire ream while the reserve went off to chase whatever the disturbance was. Hence why their assigned role was to make certain that there was no opportunity for the source of the alarm to achieve their objective or free prisoners for a distraction. If the intruder (or escapee, or discovered imposter) actually managed to evade the team chasing them, it would be a pyrrhic victory at best.

There were sixteen cells in their block, all occupied. That left eight cells for each team. All but three of the inhabits were marked as possibly dangerous prisoners or flight risks. Those three would need to be incapacitated to ensure they didn't cause a fuss, either drugged or put into unconsciousness through a genjutsu or pressure point.

As the rookie, she took the western walls with her captain and the other two took the other direction. It was impossible to tell if anyone else was bothered by what they had to do, masked and stiff as they were.

The prisoners didn't share the ANBU team's emotional reserve, but that was understandable. With the open visibility and open halls, it only took a few moments for the alarmed shouting to start. It was distorted under that godawful siren, but it was enough to get those few who hadn't been waiting at the bars for a glimpse of what was happening up off their feet.

Aiko knew these people were criminals and enemies of her country. But going to cell after cell and methodically opening the door and securing the inhabitant around the torso while Fish took their head in his hands and twisted was entirely different. Dully, she supported each body's weight while Fish did a standard check for a lack of pulse, and lowered them to the ground while he literally checked their names off a list before re-locking the cell and opening the next.

Killing someone who would have killed her in a fight if she'd been slower was one thing. She could rationalize that and justify it as necessary for self-preservation, as well as let the adrenaline rush dull the flood of guilt and finger-twitching anxiety.

But this was harder, not made any easier by even her best attempts to ignore struggles, cursing, or hysterical protests.

It wasn't much easier to leave the two non-threats on their side of the wall untouched. That meant they were staring. Luckily, Donkey came along and put them out in a genjutsu, giving her the novel experience of actually being glad he was there for once.

The cell block could never be called silent, not with that horrible shrill siren. But it seemed strangely quiet without human noises. Aiko backed up against a wall to wait for further orders. The gate to their section clanked open and all of them jumped to attention. It only turned out to be the other team that had been missing from the block when the siren went off.

"The situation is resolved," the purple-haired woman heading the other team informed them dully. "Your team is no longer needed."

"Understood." Fish nodded civilly and gestured for his team to follow him back to retrieve their belongings. The siren turned off while they were gathering their minimal supplies, leaving an echoing ring in her ears and a faint headache.

She wasn't the only one, apparently.

"Damn, I could use a drink," Donkey muttered bitterly.

The whole team perked up at one. "Not a bad idea," Fish agreed wryly, resting a hand on his hip. "Anyone who doesn't mind letting me see their face is welcome to join me at the bar."

'Well, here's my chance to get a read on my coworkers,' Aiko thought dryly, unconsciously mimicking her captain's movement (though with sassier hip placement).

"Which one?" Boar rumbled, tapping at his mask thoughtfully.

Fish shrugged. "I don't care. Covert Schnapps?"

There was an awkward silence, until Donkey managed to get his thoughts into words. "Captain, your drinks all come with pink umbrellas, don't they?"

"If I collect enough, they'll keep me dry all spring," he shot back without appearing to think about it. "In any case, we could change into civilian gear here or meet up. Opinions?"

Boar gave a snort and wordlessly began to peel off his armor and gloves, leaving him only in non-descript black gear. His mask was the first to come off, revealing that he seemed to be in his thirties… and Aiko was glad for a moment that her mask was still on, because she otherwise might have offended him by staring at the massive acid scars painted across his cheek and into his hairline.

Before she took anything off, Aiko opened her bag and pushed the clothes within down as far as possible, pulling out her wallet and sticking it under her waistband. Her shin guards were slipped in along the sides, and her chest plate barely fit even when tilted carefully. She tugged up a black shirt to wrap her mask in and finally unpinned her wig and slipped it between a shin guard and her chest plate. The gloves weren't really that distinctive and she liked them, so they stayed on. She bit her lower lip in concentration, somehow managing to work the zipper closed. Then she looked up-

And blinked. "What's everyone staring for?"

"Holy shit, you're a chick?" The tan, lanky man with just a hint of wrinkles around his eyes who huffed that out could only be Donkey. 'Someone has a sick sense of humor', she noted while looking at large front teeth that made Aiko wince at how cruelly apt his codename was. It wasn't the first time she'd thought he'd seem more attractive if he kept his mouth shut, but usually she was thinking about the awful things that came out of his mouth.

Then she caught up with what he'd actually said. "Wait, you- you thought I was a man?" Her jaw dropped. Self-consciously, a hand wandered up to pull at the secured braid keeping her long hair flat against her skull and she extracted the pins, finger-combing the braid out.

"A boy, actually," Boar agreed docilely.

Aiko slumped slightly, shoulder curling inward. 'I wrap my chest because it's practical,' she reminded herself sternly. 'It's not worth bouncing around just to soothe my pride.'

There was a snort. "How clueless could you two be? It was obvious that Butterfly was a woman," Fish added calmly.

"Thank you," she started, turning to look at him for the first time. Aiko didn't allow herself to do more than blink in reaction to what she saw. 'Fuck, there's one in every bunch,' she realized darkly, trying not to let her expression waver. 'Pretty boys everywhere I fucking go.' Fish was young-looking and had dark brown hair that bordered on black like the other two men did, but that was where the similarities ended. He had no scarring, no unusual features (unless one counted cheekbones any supermodel might kill for) and rather sleepy-looking green eyes set into a long, lean face. Instead of continuing what she'd meant to say after what had been just a slight pause, Aiko turned and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Are we ditching these in the equipment room for now, or what?"

Donkey gave her a mildly piteous look, as if she'd asked something phenomenally obvious. She didn't know why, but she felt chagrinned and had to force down a blush.

"Nah, it's got chakra-secured lockers," Fish kindly explained. "Patrons aren't allowed to bring equipment in."

"Right."

There was an awkward pause. Boar managed to break it. "You're all socially retarded geniuses, aren't you?" he asked dryly, running a hand through his short hair. "Here, let me help. My native people deal with new people by pretending to care about them. My name is Shou. What are your names?"

"Er, Yukimasa," their team leader filled in with- was that a blush on his pale cheeks? What the hell did he have to be embarrassed about?

She shook his apparent weirdness out of mind and idly supplied, "Aiko, very nice to meet you."

"Charmed, I'm sure." The only man who had yet to introduce himself gave them all an unimpressed look. "I agreed to go out for drinks with you pussies, not talk about our feelings. If you must, you girls can call me Aoto."

'He's still an asshole,' Aiko noted with a twitch under her right eye. 'I'm always going to hate working with him, aren't I?'

"I love you guyssss," Aiko sniffled with mostly-affected-incoherence, rubbing her nose against something chilly and sour that Aoto had recommended called a 'Slicked Tit'. It was her fourth drink of the night in the smoky bar she'd been dragged to, and all of them had been new to her. Of course, they were all mixed drinks and nothing too hard, so far. She'd liked some of them a lot more than others, but it was really strangely fun to keep trying different combinations. She was definitely not drunk yet, but she was feeling pretty fucking good and unusually fond of her drinking companions as they took turns sharing implausible battle stories. If sober, she might not have shared the mildly embarrassing story about thoughtlessly using a family technique in front of hostiles, but it had gotten a pretty good giggle and a round of stories about rookie mistakes.

"Holy shiiit, the rookie has no alcohol tolerance," Aoto chuckled with just a little too much glee, leaning in with a smirk. "Hey kid, want to try 'sex on the beach' next?" He was practically purring, voice dropping down to a sexy bass. She shivered involuntarily, suddenly confused by her own reactions.

"Please stop plying her with alcohol," Yukimasa scolded mildly, still nursing his third drink. "It's unprofessional. Let her drink at her own pace."

"Pfft." Aoto made a rude sound, tilting his hip up and digging out his wallet. "You're fucking boring even off the clock, fish-face. I've gotta split." Aiko blearily looked up at the sound of paper rustling and became transfixed by the fast movement as her peer counted out his part of the check.

"Night," Yukimasa yawned, blinking doe eyes up as the other man moved to leave. The opened door sent an angry breeze that rustled their table cloth and carried in a lightning bug. It darted up to the ceiling as the door swung shut. "Actually, I'm going to go on a bathroom run. Be right back." He fixed Shou with a surprisingly stern look, communicating something Aiko completely missed before pushing his chair back to stand up.

"We'll be fine," Shou waved him off. The table was silent for a few moments while their team leader walked out of hearing distance. The bulky man only took his peripheral vision off the hall that led to the bathroom when Yukimasa was out of sight. "So, Aiko." Shou rested his elbows on the table and pinned her with an inscrutable look.

"Hmm?" She managed, suppressing the urge to fidget. Someone had started karaoke, and it sounded like a fantastic idea. She should totally go on the stage next.

"Bad night, huh?"

Aiko crinkled her brow, not really seeing the point in that question. "Yes," she agreed. "Not the best." It had been painfully dull, up until the depressing part.

"Doesn't it seem so stupid and inefficient?" Shou pried seriously. "I mean, if things had been done properly in the first place, the security breach wouldn't have even been an issue. That prison complex is bloated. If the Hokage's office had made the right call, we wouldn't be keeping hundreds of possible threats within the village."

Something about the conversation tugged at her awareness, but she couldn't help but nod in agreement. "I agree," she admitted, leaning over and supporting herself with an arm on the chair Yukimasa had recently vacated.

It did seem phenomenally idiotic to tie up elite resources keeping hostiles pinned up in close vicinity to their most vulnerable citizens and resources, as well as their center of command. Why not kill them once they'd been interrogated, or trade them back to their countries of origin for diplomatic concessions? Holding out because they might get a better deal in the future was optimistic and wasteful.

But Shou looked more pleased than that apparently simple statement warranted, and something clicked nervously in her brain. Aiko kept her expression locked in mimicry of alcoholic stupidity, with lips slightly parted, eyes lidded, and the rest of her face slack, but her mind was working as fast as it could in her slightly impaired state. It only took a minute to figure out what had been so outstanding about what she'd agreed to- Shou had disrespected the current military leader, and she hadn't blinked. Why would that have pleased him?

'Not that I give a rats' ass about respecting the hierarchy, but I probably would if I wasn't such an anomaly…'

That was practically intellectual treason, after all. Konoha actively nurtured a self-sacrificial, collectivist outlook that privileged one position above all others- the office of the Hokage. Very few people raised in that environment would feel comfortable disrespecting the person they had been raised to believe was a hero from the time they read their very first picture books.

Shou had been probing to try to ascertain her genuine attitudes about either Tsunade or Sarutobi. He'd gotten her alone, and he'd only asked her when her mental facilities appeared to be severely affected. That was pretty shifty.

"If they were taken care of in the first place, we wouldn't waste resources on them," Aiko tried, just to see if he was eager to continue the conversation or if it had just been a bizarre coincidence that she'd happened to get a teammate with subversive attitudes.

The gleam in his eyes indicated that was not the case. "I agree. ANBU could be put to much better use, under someone who knew how to allocate resources."

"That'd be nice," she agreed dreamily, intentionally letting her focus wander above his shoulder.

Bingo. There was her way into root. If Boar was trying to recruit her… Well, she'd just have to let him. It was an effort not to let a Cheshire cat-like grin across her features. Ninja cool. She had to keep her ninja cool.

A shadow fell over the table. "What'd I miss?" Yukimasa asked with a cheery tone and just a little too much attention on Shou, who had leaned across the table into Aiko's personal space during their conversation.

Brown eyes flickered away from her, avoiding their team leader entirely. "Not much. I'll see you two later, I'm beat." The hulking ANBU pushed his chair out and stood to his full height, dwarfing the other man who had not yet sat. He left to a chorus of 'goodnights' from the two remaining.

Scrape.

Aiko turned a little to keep Yukimasa in her peripheral while he sat to her right at the circular table, drumming his fingers against the blue cloth and giving her a contemplative look. "He wasn't bothering you, was he?" the man asked lightly.

She made an incredulous sound into her drink and gave him a wicked smile, a little high on a combination of being tipsy and discovering that she had found her root contact. "No. What if he was?" she challenged, before tossing down the rest of her drink.

"Well, I suppose I would provide moral support while you beat him up, because I wouldn't dare to presume you'd need assistance." He gave her a lazy smile with thin, pale lips.

'Damn, he's pretty smooth.'

"Good answer," she allowed. He made a noncommittal sound. "Hey, waiter! Can I have… have…" she turned to Yukimasa. "Suggestions?" Idly, she kept an eye on the light-haired teen approaching them with a slightly sullen expression and a hand in the pocket of his blue apron.

Her captain actually chuckled, apparently more affected by his hard liquor than she'd realized. "Try a hurricane."

"Can I have a hurricane," she finished smoothly. The waiter made a sound to indicate he'd heard and wove away through the crowd to the bar—less than ten feet away.

"Jeeze, how many are you planning on having?"

She gave that serious consideration. "I want to get shitfaced," Aiko eventually settled on. This was the first time she'd gone out to an actual bar. It wasn't like this was something she could do with Naruto, Ino, or (god forbid) Kakashi. She didn't have any friends who would like this sort of thing. She couldn't even imagine Kakashi going out and drinking in public.

Wait. Yes, she could. Aiko giggled, feeling her cheeks go a little numb with the force of her grin. He would be so grumpy.

Wordlessly, her captain just shook his head and ruefully smiled.

"Your wish is my command," the waiter said dryly as he handed over her new drink. "You want me to just keep them coming?"

"Ah, lemme try it first." Aiko eyed her new drink skeptically, experimentally licking at the top of the pinkish-orange drink and sucking on her cold tongue. Her eyes widened, and she ran her tongue over her lower lip to get the last bit of sweet taste.

At her affirmative nod to the waiter, Yukimasa heaved a sigh. "Me as well," he added, swirling his nearly empty glass. "Can't let a lady drink alone, can I?"

She gave an ugly snort and drained her entire drink in two pulls, smacking chilly lips and practically breathing a misty fog when she was done. Her companion's eyebrows had gone up almost a full inch on his brow.

"Wow, you were serious about getting drunk," he commented, blinking tiredly at her. Or maybe that was just how he always looked? Aiko leaned over, staring closely at his face in an attempt to figure it out.

"Stop moving so much," she ordered, whapping at his shoulder and using her left hand as a brace against the table. "S'your face always like that?"

He scrunched up his nose and retracted slightly from the short finger that then prodded at his cheek. When it followed him back and he couldn't lean further into his chair, her captain captured her wrist and gave her an indulgent look. "What is that supposed to mean? You're going to hurt my feelings."

"You look like you're about to fall asleep," Aiko explained, letting her arm go limp, only supported by the loose grip around her wrist.

"Ah. Yes, that's just my face." Yukimasa gently put her hand down on the table and reached out to take one of the drinks their waiter had brought out. He'd apparently chosen to cut out a trip and brought them two drinks each in one trip. "Thanks." He nodded at the departing teen, wrapping long fingers around his blue-tinted glass.

It turned out that just three hurricanes were enough to blur her vision and make sitting up straight significantly harder than it had been. Aiko wobbled on her chair, trying not to giggle.

"A-and when we found the targe…" Yukimasa trailed off, frowning slightly. "What you staring fo'?"

"Your face," she explained vaguely, waving her hand at him. "is pink. Pink."

"Shut up," he countered deliberately, crinkling up his forehead.

Aiko overreacted, making an offended face and lurching backwards. The theatrical movement lost its intended effect when the movement propelled her completely off her chair and onto the sticky floor. Her ankle caught around a table leg, clonking painfully.

"Ow," she said stupidly, blinking up at the underside of the table.

Her captain leaned over with a giggle and a sideways little grin, swaying slightly. "I think you're drunk," he pointed out unnecessarily. "You should go home. We should go home." He frowned slightly. "Not the same home," he clarified after a moment.

"No," she protested weakly. "We should do something else."

Yukimasa made a bizarre face, drawing his eyebrows down, scrunching his nose, and letting his mouth hang slightly open. "Like what?"

"Something…. Stupid," she decided.

"Oh, I feel like shit," Aiko moaned, curling up and covering her face. It was no use. The sunlight on her face just refused to fuck off, even when she nudged her nose into her pillow and put her arms over her head. The movement pulled painfully at her right shoulder blade, which brought her up short in surprise.

"What?"

She pushed herself up and twisted in an attempt to see the burning skin. 'I definitely do not remember getting injured last night.' Of course, that didn't mean much. She didn't really remember much about last night after Donkey and Boar left the bar. It was no good- she couldn't see a damn thing. Awkwardly, she wrestled her way out of her tangled covers (crankily shaking her heel to escape her green sheets) and stumbled across the bare wooden floor to her bathroom to use that mirror.

Her jaw dropped, neck craning to spot her right shoulder blade. The girl in the mirror was looking like a bit of a dope with her under-eye circles and parted mouth, but it was hard to care about that bit.

"When the fuck did I get another tattoo?"

[writeblrsummerfest]

Lemon Tree Lane

Part of the game of Hobgoblins is that you need to hide and you need to seek. Well, Lizzie starts off by hiding and because she doesn’t want to go very far away from Sam, she just… Ducks across the hall and into a library.

It’s a big library. The bookshelves stretch up all the way to the ceiling and there’s an ancient looking desk at the far side of the room, covered in yellow papers and old feather tipped quill pens. No windows, no carpets, nothing hanging on the walls. Just books for as far as the eye can see, old and leather bound, with cracked spines and spiderwebs clinging to them in dusty white stretches.

Lizzie doesn’t want to spend too much time on her own, so she picks the most obvious hiding place she can find and ducks underneath of the desk.

It’s a small, cramped space. She has to curl up into a tight ball, arms around her legs and chin to her knees, to stay there. Her tail is tucked up over her nose. Even her fur smells like dust at this point.

Lizzie counts to seventy five, and then perks her ears up to try and listen for her new friend. It only takes a few seconds. Then, she hears the footsteps.

-*-

Write your minky (or other character!) GOING INTO THE LIBRARY. This will be an ongoing challenge! Every day, we’re going to see a little bit more of Lizzy’s story and get a new Lemon Tree Lane prompt. Let’s explore the haunted house together!

-*-

Welcome to the eleventh day of the Writeblr Summerfest! We have so many amazing things planned for this month, but first, I want to introduce Lizzy! She’s the driving force behind the community selected Haunted House theme for the festival this year!

Now, before we get started, I want you to take a look at Lizzy! She’s the mascot this year! She’s called a minky, and her character sheet was made by the lovely @mothersart! Now, Mother has volunteered her services to do what we’re calling grab bag commissions for anyone that wants their own minky explorer to take part in the events! She currently has THREE OPEN SLOTS.

Here’s a LINK to her commission sheet, but I’ll summarize it for you, too! She has two options.

$10 gets you a total grab-bag surprise minky explorer, you don’t get to customize it but you get to own the character forever onward!

$15 lets you pick a ‘theme’ for the explorer; do you love pastel goth? Cottagecore? Skateboarding? Let her know, and it will be the inspiration for your minky (ps, you still own them)!

While it’s not a requirement, I highly recommend you considering it if you’ve got the spare change laying around! Mother has been a huge help getting things together with the event this year, and her minkies are just absolutely amazing!

[burning-fcols]

「 ☆ 」 Lucifer hadn't caught the entirety of Fredrick's disrespect— if he had been there at the start, it never would have gotten as far as it did —but he'd caught MORE than enough. The tail-end of the tirade, frozen in shock at overhearing such venom openly spewed at his husband. Let alone by someone who should have KNOWN better. It's no secret ( to those who are aware of how the upperclass work ) that Fredrick isn't nearly as charming as he portrays. Beneath that polite exterior is a soul as twisted and sadistic as they come, what little capacity for care resides within it reserved for his joy of causing misery to those deemed fair game.

He hadn't been surprised at his ❛ friend ❜ causing... mischief at his own dinner party. But he thought Fred a smarter man than to dare attempt it with someone under Lucifer's protection. Nonetheless, Lucifer had managed to shake off his shock and thrust himself between the two. A literal barrier comprised of an ironic mix of righteous fury and Hellfire. Guilt gnawing at his guts to further fuel the rage at having delayed even a SECOND in the rescue, Adam paying the price with each horrible word. Now is his chance to make up for that... and he's beyond grateful that Adam is allowing him to.

With a drawn-out exhale of relief, Lucifer softly smiles at the affectionate name. Such a far cry from how it felt the first time Adam decided to throw it at him, fueled by misplaced bitterness and responded in kind with indignant shock. It's dizzying at times, to consider how far their relationship has come since they were forced together by the meddling hands of Heaven. In a strange way, Lucifer owes them everything... But also, just as true, they had TAKEN everything first.

Perhaps it is less that they gifted him this happiness... and more like they'd returned the relationship torn asunder by their self-righteous suffocating in the first place. A bond that Lucifer and Adam had rebuilt, shard by agonizingly-sharp shard. Fitting pieces together spiderwebbed with cracks, an unforgiving and meticulous endeavor that truthfully, Lucifer can't recall agreeing to. Both men creatures of ample pride, somehow against their natures— or perhaps, drawn to the better parts of it ( having an uncanny habit of bringing the best as well as the worst from one another ) —they had found their way back. Changed, but once again together.

Wasting no time, he takes Adam's hand and settles onto the bed beside his husband. Draping an arm around the other man, a leg follows suit so the small King is clinging to the Prince Consort. Pushing his face against Adam's cheek, he affectionately nuzzles, hair getting mussed from the fervor in which he rubs. Chittering purrs rumble lovingly from his chest, feathered tail— his appendage a soft duck-like mass of golden and white feathers when not twisted into his more demonic-form —wagging from where it flashes underneath his coattail.

❝ Hey baby... ❞ He murmurs, eyes fluttering open halfway to comfortingly gaze at his husband. Squirming stops, Lucifer more calmly nestled beside the larger man. Tail slows to a still, purrs gingerly fading to background noise. Something to fill the silence while he waits. Letting Adam guide the conversation, however long he may need to speak and whatever he may wish to say... Lucifer can be patient. 「 ☆ 」

Adam's room was completely his own. Filled to the brim with posters of his favorite bands and models, memorabilia of those said bands such as records in framed cases, signed and personalized for the Prince Consort. He even had a giant framed photo of himself and his band in Hell, with his husband on his shoulder, posing for the cameraman to capture in all of their glory. Speaking of glory...his pride and joy, Gloria, which Adam named, the electric guitar that was crafted and gifted lovingly by Lucifer was now being played by the Prince. He hardly went anywhere without it, with the exception of nights like this. When Adam joined Lucifer to these kinds of parties and/or meetings, he was mostly there to support him over everything else. Even if it was at the cost of the fallen angel's discomfort. A small price to pay for being married to the literal King of Hell. It was just too bad that even now, Adam always felt out of place. And it was fuckers like Fred that made it all the more obvious as to why.

Adam doesn't know how much of the verbal assault Lucifer heard, but it had to be enough to get such a visceral reaction going in full on demon form in his defense. If the former exorcist had been present, he would have been in awe by such power in such a deceptively diminutive form. As such, he barely remembered what else happened next. His form shook, mind raced, chest rose up and down in fast motions as he was physically removed from the mansion to his room. Hushed, gentle voices, forms fuzzy, save from Lucifer's ever present face were nothing but blurs. Relying only on his husband and servants, the first man eventually calmed down to nothing more than soft whimpers and evened out breathing.

"Hey daddy." Adam murmured with a ghost of a smile. Lying on his bed with Gloria by his side, he held out a hand for Lucifer to take and join his side.

[spinchip]

Theres a crack along the edge of his jaw. Jay notices it over breakfast because it connects his chin to the corner of his lip, and everytime he takes a sip of tea a drop slips down the water spout. Zane wipes at his face over and over until his plate is a buffet of crinkled napkins.

It's hairline. On a human, it'd be impossible to ignore. Nindroids don't have to worry about such small imperfections. It's annoying, but not alarming- so Jay goes back to his own plate of pancakes. He could ask about it, but then Zane might want him to fix it, and Prime Empire just released new DLC...

Zane will come to Jay when it's bothersome enough. It can wait.

A handful of days later, Zane seeks out Jay bright and early down in the garage. Biting the bullet in this case meant instead of fixing one teeny weenie fracture under Zanes mouth, Jay was stuck with a fully recognized break not only on his chin but spiderwebbing up his right cheek too.

It's like Ma always says, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. He should have taken care of this mountain while it was still a molehill.

Jay is working on the replacement face plate when he asks, "So what did you do? Try and beat my DDR high score and trip?"

"You wouldn't believe me," Zane ducks his heads just barely, "I... bit down on a popcorn kernel by mistake."

Jay laughs, but the energy in the room feels fraught with a strange tension. In a human, that might crack a tooth. Hes not really sure if that translates to what hes seeing now. It could, maybe. If he bit down hard enough, if the metal along his face was a little impure, a little thin, maybe previously damaged. He realizes he really doesnt believe Zane.

Sitting on the work bench, Zanes responding to Jay, but he's not really looking at him. He's staring through him.

He catches him picking at it- The break. Zanes running the pads if his fingers up and down, pressing down to feel the jagged edge poke into artificial nerves.

"You okay?" Jay asks quietly, the familiar silence becoming suffocating and thick all of a sudden.

"...Sometimes," he begins slowly, scratching along the damage with a brutal scrape, nails catching along the seam as if it'll open up, "I wonder if there's something else inside me. I shed my skin to reveal machinery, but what's underneath my wiring?"

Floundering for too long, Jay scrambles to put together an appropriate response, "There's nothing else, Zane. We have the full body scans to prove it."

Zane frowns and some emotion Jay can't identify snuffs out, the lights in his eyes changing. He gets the impression that was a test and he'd given the wrong answer. The look Zane pins him with reminds him of 9th grade English when the teacher would tell him theres more to the question you just aren't seeing.

"You're right," Zane says, insincere, "I'm just being silly."

He brushes raw wiring between the broken pieces of his face plate and doesn't say another word.

[lovelybarnes]

warmth- b. barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x reader warnings: hydra, another headcanon that makes me so unbelievably sad i cannot hug bucky barnes about: request! it's really cold one night and Bucky tries to Soldier through it but reader finds him and wraps him up in blankets and holds him to sleep and he just feels so safe and warm and it's just very soft and good. a/n: thank you for everyone who gave me warm synonyms!! true heroes

your apartment hits you like sunlight when you open the door, dissolving the horripilation risen on your arms with the power of the heater, thawing verglas frosted over your nose.

you’d demanded it after the highs of your cheeks met the chill outside your door, already wet with sticky snowflakes and numb with the ice of the wind. you told bucky as such when snow crunched underneath your boots in your haste to get to the car, grasping his hand when you nearly slipped. he had huffed a stifled laugh, pulled you to your feet, and shoved your hand alongside his in his pocket, warm fingers beginning to draw heat on the dips of your knuckles.

you return with a dramatic sigh and a promise to bake the cookie dough in the fridge, closing the door after bucky enters with bags of takeout swinging from vibranium fingers. he’s quieter than usual, extending his fingers like a starfish after he sets down the food, joints aching as he rolls his ankle. he doesn’t take off his coat when he comes in.

you spare him a concerned glance from the kitchen as you push down on the frigid dough, skin pale from the cloud of flour that sheens your face and leopard-patterns your eyelashes. “bucky?”

his attention snaps to you a beat late, something distant in his eyes that washes away with a blink and a clear of his throat. “yeah? do you need help?”

“no,” you reply, about to press when he’s striding over to you after he washes his hands, slipping off his jacket and draping it over the couch. “honey—”

he pushes the tip of his ring finger into the ball of dough beneath your hands, raising an eyebrow at you when resistance forms spiderweb-cracks around it. “let me help.”

you purse your lips before you give in, watching his face carefully as refrigerator-cold dough meets snow-cold goosebumps. there’s a twist that makes you frown, but it’s gone in a moment, replaced with an easy smile as he pinches off a piece and pops it in his mouth. 

“bucky!” you chastise, swatting his hand when he reaches for another.

“it tastes better like this!” he insists.

“the whole point of the cookies is to warm up the house and have something hot to eat!”

“fine, fine,” he gives in. “but just one more little piece.” you glare at him but let him tear more off before you press heart molds into sticky, extended dough.

it smells sweet and nearly summery by the time you settle in to go to sleep, feet clad in fluffy socks and bed stocked with more blankets than usual. you murmur a goodnight into bucky’s shoulder and let your eyes flutter shut, expecting his breathing to ease and steady like usual, but it never does.

you’re half-asleep when you feel the bed dip from next to you, low growls from the depths of bucky’s throat echoing in the silence of the room. a floorboard creaks beneath his weight and a door opens.

you frown when you notice it’s the one to the living room, rubbing the base of your palm against your eyes before you squint against the yellow light peeking through the bottom of the door, interrupting the darkness.

with a yawn and a sleepy stumble, you push open the door to see bucky staring down at a cabinet, his face contorted in something you don’t see often in the comforts of your home, medicine rattling in bottles and boxes as he searches for something.

“bucky?” you call.

he freezes, turning around with an apologetic smile, looking much more alert than you are. he hadn’t slept at all. “did i wake you? i’m sorry.”

“‘s okay. what’re you doing?”

something crosses his face like hesitation before he answers. “looking for pain relievers.”

your eyebrows knit in worry. “you’re in pain?”

“fuckin’ serum… healed bones wrong. ‘feels like they’re… rubbing against each other when i move.” something like a growl escapes him as he bridges a thumb over his index and stretches it. his leg shifts and he grimaces. you stride over to him to take his hand into yours, but gasp when his skin is ice to the pads of your fingers.

“you’re freezing, bucky.”

the lines of his face set. “it’s nothing. i’ve been colder.”

you frown. sandwiching his hands between yours, you tuck your fingers in between the crevices of his and blow warm air on the fingers you couldn’t cover. vibranium remains unchanged at your lips, but you persist.

“why didn’t you tell me you were cold?”

“it’s not a type of cold that goes away easily,” he replies. the resolute expression on his face makes your heart drop.

you think for a second before nodding, squeezing flesh fingers with one hand as you lead him back to the bedroom. he calls your name in confusion when you sit him down, scrounging around in your drawer. you offer him medicine for pain before padding off to the closet. he watches dazedly, tablet still sitting in his vibranium palm.

“that’s the best we have. steve said it helped when it ached,” you say, pulling out blankets upon blankets from the closet.

he raises an eyebrow as you begin to unfold them and spread them over the bed, a few in your arms when you turn toward him. he pops the pill into his mouth and swallows it down with the water from the bottle at his bedside table when you glance pointedly at him.

“here,” you mumble, glancing at his face to catch his expression as you wrap a blanket around his shoulders. you rub your hands up and down his arms with quick motions and press a kiss to his head before grabbing another.

“sweetheart—”

“are you warmer?”

he pauses as he realizes he is. you smile gently, teeth digging into the flesh of your bottom lip as you swaddle him in another blanket. you turn off the lights and settle into bed as well, hugging him close. you pull the covers over the both of you and he begins to laugh. the sound is heat in itself, like ice is thawing from his chest, allowing something genuine and sunny to mold his face. “i’m gonna overheat here, doll.”

“you’ll be fine,” you murmur, brushing your lips over his forehead. “hands,” you order, extending yours in an invitation. obediently, he gives them to you, a little restrained from the blankets around him. you lead them underneath your shirt, where you press them against your abdomen. you shiver as their rime meets soft skin, but hold steady. he can’t help but marvel as his fingers crawl around your waist to hold you closer.

“d’you feel better?” you ask after a moment, when he’s flushed and a little fuzzy from the love you treat him with.

“yeah,” he responds honestly. “thank you.”

he feels the curve of your lips against his hair. “‘f course.”

he thinks winter won’t be so bad with you swaddling him in blankets.