#this ask reminded me I need to make my conspiracy wall so thank you for that

[tinyinvadr]

Next chapter is here!

Psychoborrower

Chapter 7

It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt like forever. The entire time, I was curled up in a fetal position, shuddering. I was certain death would claim me at any moment, but it never came.

I was so caught up in my own dread that I didn’t notice when the monster spat us back out.

Raz patted me on the head as he had me still clutched to his chest. He at least had the decency to attempt to provide me with some sense of comfort and security during the whole ordeal, but that didn’t distract me from the fact that he got us into it in the first place.

“Hehe… It’s okay, Flint. We’re out.”

When I opened my eyes, my first instinct was to PSI-Blast him in the face.

“Ow! Hey, I thought you weren’t gonna zap me anymore!”

“I won’t… as long as you NEVER make me do that again!”

Raz smiled at the lungfish apologetically as he put me back on his shoulder.

“Uh… Thanks for bringing us across.”

The fish nodded slowly, then coughed up the skeleton of a smaller fish. It took everything in me not to gag at the sight.

“If ever you need passage across the lake, simply blow the Lungfish Call, and I will come ashore.”

I winced as Raz picked up the bony fish call. So morbid… So unsanitary…

“We won’t need that.”

“We might need it.”

The lungfish started to back into the water.

“I must return to the lake now. I wish you both luck in rescuing your friends.”

“Thank you, uh… sorry, do you have a name?” Raz asked. “I feel kinda bad just calling you ‘lake monster.’”

“My true name is… Lindaaaaa…”

With that, she disappeared into the lake. You know, I thought she looked like a Linda.

We turned away from the shore to continue forward, and it was then that I saw it: the abandoned asylum.

I’d heard rumors of this place before from the other campers. It’s said that the high concentration of psitanium buried beneath the grounds drove everyone insane, including the staff. I also heard that supposedly, some of the patients never left, and still roamed the crumbling remains of the tower.

Regardless of if that was true or not, the ambience of the place was definitely creepy enough to function as an evil lair.

We climbed up to the front gate, where a security guard was pacing back and forth, rambling to himself and scribbling diagrams on the walls.

I was about to remind Raz to hide me, but that didn’t seem to be necessary. The guard was so preoccupied that he didn’t notice me at all. He barely noticed Raz.

The guard claimed that he had been hired to guard the asylum, but he wouldn’t let us in. Or, he couldn’t. He didn’t have the key. The Milkman did. But the Milkman was sleeping on the job.

“I… What is this guy on about? Why would a milkman have the key when he’s supposed to be guarding the place?”

At that, Raz pulled the psycho-portal out of his bag again.

“Only one way to find out.”

Under any other circumstances, I would have argued against poking around in this very paranoid man’s mind, but desperate times called for desperate measures. There was no telling what horrible things were happening to the campers and counselors.

I decided this time I would project as myself. If the situation became dangerous, I could switch to human form, but I wanted to preserve my energy so I wouldn’t have a repeat of Lungfishopolis.

And… I trusted that Raz would protect me. Of course, I couldn’t let him know that. His head was big enough already, he really didn’t need that extra ego boost.

With the portal locked on, we projected in, and found ourselves in a house. The guard was doing the exact same thing we first found him doing: laying out a makeshift conspiracy board. All over the walls were newspaper clippings, and there were even pages scattered on the floor. It looked more like a mess than anything else.

He told us to check the fridge, and to my surprise, we found a Clairvoyance merit badge.

“Wait, you can just… get new powers in random peoples’ minds?”

“Oh yeah. I learned how to use a shield back in Linda’s mind. Though, I think the badge was left there by Coach. Maybe something similar happened here…”

Of course. It would make sense to have reinforcements in place to keep us out of the asylum. The real question was what exactly he did to this man.

Using Clairvoyance, we could see through his eyes and understand his insane ramblings. All clues pointed towards the Milkman being dead. But the guard insisted that wasn’t the case. He told us to investigate the cemetery, then sent us on our way.

While I admittedly hadn’t seen very many mental worlds in the grand scheme of things, this was easily the strangest. It was like an ordinary suburban town, but it had been deconstructed into winding, gravity defying pieces of its former self. That, and all of the inhabitants were robots in trench coats.

Just down the street, a group of them had blocked off the road, reserving the space only for the road crew. They were all standing around, waving stop signs to direct nonexistent traffic.

“No pedestrian traffic allowed.”

“Hmm… I don’t think they’re gonna let us pass. Should we blast ‘em?” I asked.

Raz looked around, then spotted something and ran over to a nearby car. In the trunk was a stop sign that looked identical to the ones the road crew had.

“You really think they’re gonna fall for that?”

He picked up the sign and went back over the the closed off area. And sure enough…

“Hello, fellow road crew worker. Welcome to the road crew.”

We were able to navigate the rest of the neighborhood following this logic. It seemed like these guys were programmed to monitor different zones of the town, acting undercover in designated roles. As long as we also played along, they wouldn’t become hostile.

The cemetery was among these guarded zones, and only “grieving widows” were allowed entry. Which of course meant we had to have flowers for our dead husband.

While searching for flowers, something strange happened. We were approached by an ordinary-looking little girl on roller skates. Something about seeing a normal human in this freakish town was unnerving.

“Hello! Would you like to buy some Rainbow Squirts cookies?”

I… may or may not have a hard time controlling myself when cookies are involved.

“Yes, we’ll take them all.”

Raz glared at me for a second, but shrugged it off.

“But before we buy any cookies, we can’t really enjoy them without MILK, right? Do you know where I could buy some MILK?”

The Rainbow Squirt screamed and rolled away, but she didn’t go far. I saw her duck behind a bush and continue to watch us.

“That was weird.” Raz said.

“Yeah, ‘cause you made it too obvious. And now you owe me cookies.”

We eventually found some flowers in a hedge maze, and we returned to the cemetery, allowed entrance this time thanks to our fool-proof grieving widow disguise.

While we were there, we came across a memory that gave us a bit more insight on the mind we were working with.

The security guard’s name was Boyd Cooper, and he ended up in the asylum after burning down a store he was fired from using Molotov Cocktails. Clearly this guy was not someone you’d wanna mess with.

Moving along, we made our way to the back of the cemetery, where we found the mausoleum that the Milkman was supposedly buried in. The entrance was blocked by thorns, but Raz was able to burn them away with Pyrokinesis.

All we found in there was a book.

“Wait, that’s it? Where’s the Milkman?!”

Raz made two fatal mistakes in that moment. Loudly announcing that we’re looking for the Milkman, and putting down the flowers, completely blowing our cover.

“Are you a grieving widow?”

“Where are your flowers?”

“What did you find in the mausoleum?”

“What is the purpose of the goggles?”

One of these days this kid’s gonna get us both killed, I swear…

After an agonizing interrogation session, we were let go, and returned to Boyd’s house with the book.

He was ecstatic to see it, telling us about how the book was just what we needed to uncover the truth. Though, I was still confused by pretty much everything he said. Why was there a huge conspiracy surrounding a milkman of all people in the first place?

The next place he sent us to investigate was the book depository, which for some reason was heavily guarded by armed assassins. So to blend in, he gave Raz a rifle.

“Whoa, now we’re talkin’!”

“Why… Why would you give him that?”

“It’s fake. But it looks real enough to fool the assassins.” Boyd explained.

“Aw man…”

That boy scares me.

Without explaining further, Boyd threw us out of his house, and we were off to hopefully close this case for good.

I can tell you right now, we were far from the path to a straight answer.

[thesoloists]

Hi! Have you posted your story on here/AO3? I’d love to read it, I’ve been itching for some Grant Ward appreciation 😂

Thank you for your interest, it’s really encouraging!!!! Dumpster Fire is still mostly in my noggin, but fragments of it are scattered in places like my Tumblr drafts, Scrivener, gdocs, and about a half a dozen other places I can write and then forget exist. DF still has a ways to go. I promise I’m still working on it, and I hope to finish it before I die. (My friends do, too.)

I will continue to write and share bits of it here (I will try to do this more often). I also hint at things through the stuff I reblog.

I can, however, promise the story contains lots of Grant Ward appreciation and deprecation because he’s great and terrible and I love him as a character (although he’s not my favorite) and I love trashing him, but, like, affectionately. And also because there are some things about him that need serious addressing. I’ve also taken some creative liberties with his character that I feel add more depth while also staying true to who he is in the show. (He’s a big reader. Like Rory Gilmore big. Almost always has a book on him. And in my head he’s also Sapiosexual?)

ANYWHO. I can literally talk about Dumpster Fire for hours, so without further ado, here’s a flashback to Ward’s academy days (when he was around 21/22)  featuring his adversary/best friend/eventual enemy/eventual love interest!

Grant keeps his dorm room in the Academy of Operations immaculate. He lays against the pillows atop a plain gray comforter on a decade-old bed that creeks. He sits up, a book he’d read twice through dog-eared and closed with care.

Sitting on the floor against the side of the bed, bent over a coloring book that rests open on her lap, is Murphy. Her left hand presses the coloring book flat while she colors with the enraptured concentration.

They argued about something stupid earlier, something trivial. Something on which their opinions vastly differed, and because they’re both too stubborn to admit both sides presented valid points, they reached a stalemate. Though the argument fizzled out before it could be categorized as an actual fight, he has an inkling it isn’t over — just for now. They agreed to disagree, letting the emotional fires atop their hills of obstinance die out in the unfurling silence.

He doesn’t want to fight with her any more than he has to. It’s become more tempting as of late to see how far he can push her before she decides she’s had enough. She’s a danger to him, always has been, and her threat grows every day. The closer to him she becomes, the more force he’ll have to use to push her away.

But right now calls for a truce and an attempt at moving forward. The end will remain an unspecified date with a question mark, and he will continue to selfishly ignore it, despite knowing its inevitability.

Laying partly on his side, in the direction of the foot of the bed, he leans over Murphy’s shoulder. His thoughts are briefly sidetracked by the scent of her shampoo, distinctly peach. For a better view of her work, he brushes aside the obstructing wall of her unruly blonde curls with the back of his hand. His fingertips accidentally graze the back of her neck. Her face turns just enough for a blue eye to ensnare him with a sharp gaze that is, much to his relief, more inquisitive than hostile. Her hand holding the pink colored pencil stills.

“What’s that mean?” He nods his head at the Japanese script at the top of the coloring book in her lap, and when she turns back to the coloring page, he reaches over her shoulder and points to the script in question.

“What I’m coloring,” she says.

"Gee, Murph, that’s really helpful to someone who obviously doesn’t know Japanese.”

She scoffs. “You should at least recognize the flower. You’ve got two eyeballs.”

He stares at her in indicative silence. It takes a moment for her to notice. Her expression is surprised and intrigued and amused all at once when she looks at him. A raise of eyebrows and a narrowing of eyes and a hint of a smile at one corner of her mouth. It’s the incredulity he dislikes the most—the way it sits with judgement in her eyes.

“Really? You don’t know what they’re called?”

“Obviously not or I wouldn’t be asking.”

Setting the colored pencil beside her, Murphy presses her hands on the floor and uses the leverage to scoot her body around until she’s angled closer to the bed. With one hand gripping the coloring book she lifts it from her lap, shaking it violently in front of his face. “Look hard, Bambi.”

“I can’t with you—” He huffs and grabs both sides of the coloring book, all but forcing her to still it. Murphy doesn’t let go of the coloring book immediately. He glares at her until she does with a smile holding as much innocence as a cat caught with a mouse in its jaws.

Grant studies the page in question carefully. She hasn’t finished coloring the picture, but she must be close, assuming she’s colored it correctly.  The flowers appear to be on a tree, the branches a golden brown. That has to narrow it down some.

Flowers with white petals, hints of pink at the center. Found on a tree. Japanese.

It’s familiar. Irritatingly familiar. The spark of recognition fires, but the flames don’t take. He surrenders the coloring book back to Murphy. “Yeah, my brain wants to say daffodils, but I know that’s not right.”

Her smile is every bit condescending. “Maybe instead of spending an afternoon shooting through the same bullet hole, you could learn the art of one of the oldest romantic gestures in the book. Especially if you’re going to keep flirting with the appeal of that dinky little Christmas tree from Charlie Brown.” He scowls. “Probably not what a guy like you would want if that wasn’t your intention.” She tilts her chin down, leveling with him with an arched brow. “That’s isn’t your intention, right?”

“No,” he grumbles.

She props the coloring book on her thighs, and begins coloring again, though she’s traded her pink pencil for a slightly darker shade. “If you want to work undercover, or, God forbid, woo a woman playing hard to get, a flower bouquet almost never hurts your chances.” She speaks in that pretentious tone of hers that he can’t help but find grating. Although, he’s made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t know jack shit about flowers, other than the obvious thing about roses being traditionally romantic.

“Almost?”

“She could have a floral allergy.” She takes care to blend the two shades of pink. “And, I don’t know, some people just don’t like receiving flowers.”

Grant pushes himself up and scoots back against the pillows, stretching his legs out in front of him as he watches her color. “Right.”

“That’s not to say neither one of those cases couldn’t still work out. You flash your little Bambi eyes at her and she might just bang you out of pity. Although”—a dangerous tone of amusement colors her voice—“if it’s the former, you’d probably want to keep a box of tissues handy, unless you like the idea of having snot on your—”

Grant cuts her off with the force of bringing a chef’s knife down on a cutting board. “Okay. That’s—” He stops himself with a grimace. Murphy snorts while trying to stifle a laugh. “How about I rewind and rephrase: what kind of flower are you coloring, and can you tell me without the tangential lecture?”

The corner of her mouth pulls in a lopsided grin when she turns her head. “Sakura,” she says. “They’re cherry blossoms.”

[andypantsx3]

subtle | shouto todoroki/reader

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader

status: complete

length: 2,171 words

summary: Someone leaves chocolates on your desk. You're determined to track down the sender, certain it's a mistake, and Shouto Todoroki makes himself as unhelpful as possible.

tags: romance, reader-insert, fluff, valentine’s day

warnings: aged up characters (no smut though!!)

There was a box on your desk.

There was a box on your desk, and the sight of it was enough to instantly set you on edge.

The box looked normal enough, if a little fancy, maybe. Its lacquered top glinted brightly under the fluorescent office lighting, its smooth, polished sides waterfalling into the soft matte of your desktop underneath. You weren’t close enough to read the inscription, but you could just make out some elegant, curling script inlaid into the top of the box, possibly the name of whichever company had produced it.

The box looked very normal, in fact. Only, you knew it wasn’t. Boxes didn’t just show up in the middle of the Todoroki Hero Agency, a campus swimming with pros and armed with layers of security so deep it took even you--Shouto Todoroki’s manager--fifteen full minutes to get through screening every morning. It was something very much like being a prison guard at Tartarus.

So either this box meant the agency was dealing with a security breach the likes of which had scarcely been seen before, or someone had mistaken your desk for somebody else’s.

Which, considering it was Valentine’s Day, made a lot more sense.

Buoyed by the realization it wasn't a security risk, you crept closer, peering at the box, and the script resolved itself into the name of the extremely fancy chocolatier in Hiroo district that you made a point of drooling over every time you had to make a house call on Shouto. Their prices were literally insane, so you had never let yourself wander inside, unwilling to shell out an entire week’s pay for a tiny set of chocolates. Even if they did look absolutely fucking unbelievable from the window.

Your mouth watered.

That confirmed it--this was a Valentine's gift, and it was definitely a mistake. For the briefest of seconds, you’d wondered if maybe you had gotten obligatory office friendship chocolates, but this was too much. Some poor, love-sodden flop had gone out, spent their week’s pay on someone they were clearly very serious about, and then proceeded to fuck the entire thing up by plonking their gift straight onto your desk instead of their intended’s.

You frowned, quickly checking the box over for some kind of clue as to who had left it. There was no note included, nothing even mildly helpful that would give you the slightest hint of the person who'd left it here. Which left you with the question of how to return the box to the sender without knowing who they were, or how to pass it on to whoever they’d really meant it for.

You drew your bottom lip between your teeth, staring hard at the surface of the box like you could crack its code if only you glared hard enough. The box stared back at you, unhelpfully silent.

You were still skewering the box with your gaze some minutes later, determined to unravel its secrets, when a deep voice murmured from your doorway.

“You look puzzled."

You startled, whipping around to find Shouto propping up the wall, looking as unfairly handsome as usual. He was watching you intently, those heterochromatic eyes fastened to your face in that careful way he had, the one that always made you feel too warm and slightly unfocused. As usual, it was all you could do to remind yourself that you were a professional and he was something solidly between a friend and a coworker, and no matter how cute and attentive he was, you shouldn't get any ideas.

This morning, he was dressed in his hero uniform, tall and broad-shouldered, his distinctive hair only a little ruffled from his early patrol. It wasn’t often someone tried something in the districts he watched over anymore, probably too nervous to find themselves on the wrong end of the number four hero’s temper. You knew from the reports you received to your phone that the only trouble he’d encountered this morning was a pack of amorous school girls purposely misusing their quirks to draw his attention.

Thirty minutes ago, in fact, you’d almost spit out your coffee laughing at a photo of him looking wildly uncomfortable as he attempted to ice down some girl’s lava quirk with his right hand while fighting off her unfathomably enormous bouquet with his left. It was only right that he should suffer once a year, when every other day he got to stalk about as handsome as you please, oblivious to the effects his appearance had on every breathing person within a five mile radius.

You gave him an absent nod, gaze drawn back to the box on your desk.

“Somebody accidentally left something in here,” you told him, gesturing to it. “I’m trying to figure out how to track down who it was, or who it was meant for.”

Shouto made a small noise in the back of his throat, almost like a cough, and it was enough to startle you into looking up at him again.

“What?” you asked, peering at him. Was he coming down with something? It wasn't often he got sick, but when he did, he usually attempted to hide it and needed to be steamrolled into taking time off. You looked him over, trying to assess whether or not you needed to start badgering him now.

Shouto gazed back at you evenly, his expression deceptively bland. “...You think it’s not for you.”

You felt yourself blink at him, surprised by the comment and struggling to discern his meaning. What did he mean, you think it’s not for you? “Of course it’s not for me, Shouto, it’s from Grégoire Chardin.”

You knew he’d know the place, considering he lived in the same fancy rich people neighborhood as the chocolatier, but Shouto looked unimpressed.

“Why should that mean it’s not for you?” he asked, his tone dry.

The remark caught you off guard, as his comments sometimes did, and you bit down something like a smile. Bless his sweet, oblivious, rich boy heart. Either he overestimated your appeal to his agency staff, or he really did not understand the concepts of cost and return on investment.

“It’s expensive, it’s not something you would give someone as obligatory chocolates,” you explained, watching as a white eyebrow went up. His expression sharpened into something you couldn’t read well.

“It could be a secret admirer,” he said.

You stared blankly back at him, absolutely floored by the idea.

He thought you had a secret admirer? The idea sent an excited thrill all the way down to your toes, but you quickly squashed the feeling. So far, you'd never been on the receiving end of any furtive but romantic gestures, and you really didn't get any interested vibes from anyone in the office, no lingering glances or excuses to spend more time with you. The person who paid you the most amount of attention was Shouto, which was to be expected, considering how closely you worked together. And obviously he wasn't interested, he was just happy to stand in your doorway spouting wild conspiracies about his agency staffers like they were completely reasonable things to say.

“I don’t have a secret admirer,” you told him.

Shouto’s mouth pressed into a thin line and he took an intent step forward into your office. “Is the point of a secret admirer not to be exactly that--secret? How can you be sure?”

You couldn’t help it--you gaped at him, your face going weirdly warm. Okay, was he--was he serious? You obviously weren’t the most unfortunate creature on earth, and you even had your good days, but nobody in their right mind was going to attempt anything with you when there were girls like Nejire Hado and Ibara Shiozaki roaming the hallways of his agency. Even several of the analysts and most of the support crew had you beat out in terms of appeal--literally bless this man for his obvious indifference to your appearance.

“I, uh--thanks for your confidence in me,” you said, fighting down a laugh. “But I assure you, it definitely wasn’t meant for me. I just have to figure out who left it and who they meant it for.”

Shouto shifted impatiently, like he was waiting for something.

“You’re so certain,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“Of course I am,” you waved at him vaguely. It was actually super cute that he thought you could net yourself a dude who was willing to shell out Grégoire Chardin dollars, but you were just wasting time now, lingering over the least important part of this entire affair. “Listen, Shouto. I know sometimes men talk in the locker rooms. If you--if you hear anything, will you let me know? I just want to return it, it looks way too good sitting here.”

It was actually taking all your willpower not to open it and avail yourself of Japan’s finest chocolate, considering you would never have another opportunity like this again. Maybe you should just pretend it was for you....Really, no one could fault you for opening something left in your own office. But...no. No, you knew better.

Shouto appeared indifferent to your internal struggle. He watched you for a long moment, his features impassive. “Under one condition,” he finally allowed.

You cocked an ear to show you were listening, rifling around with the paperwork on your desk to distract yourself from the chocolate. You were strong, a good person. You had willpower like steel. You did not need to eat it, no no no.

“If no one comes looking for it by the end of the day, you will open it,” he said, moving closer.

You glanced up at him, shocked. “Shouto, this is someone else’s gift,” you hissed. “I can’t just open it.”

He placed a large palm down on your desk, leaning over you slightly. “That is my bargain.”

“You want me to steal somebody’s shit in your own agency,” you accused him. You tried not to pay attention to how close he had gotten, how straight his nose was up close, the way his eyes seemed brighter and his mouth pulled into a pout almost too pretty for a man.

The rest of his expression slipped into something like annoyance, matching his pout. “If no one comes for it, then it must be evident that it was meant for you.”

You suppressed a derisive laugh. Now was not the time to get shirty with your own boss, especially when his delusions were kind of sweet. It was honestly just short of a miracle that a man who looked like Shouto did could possibly think anyone on earth would have a thing for you, regardless of his own tastes.

“What if they’re just too shy to ask for it back?” you asked, watching those heterochromatic eyes flick over you curiously.

“If it’s as expensive as you say, someone will come looking,” he said. Which was actually kind of annoyingly reasonable.

A smirk flitted across his maddeningly perfect face when you failed to come up with another argument. He had a point, and he knew it.

You let out a gusty sigh. “Fine, but only because I’m certain someone will come looking for it. Please be subtle when you’re gathering info, okay? I'm sure this is embarrassing for whoever made this mistake.”

Shouto looked almost offended. “I am perfectly capable of being subtle,” he intoned in his deep voice.

This time, you did laugh. He was quiet, maybe, very perceptive, and unobtrusive when he wanted to be, but no one had ever accused the man of possessing tact. “Yeah, okay. Just, try to channel more subtlety than you think you need, okay? No one else but the sender needs to know about the mix up.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Shouto was leaning over you more fully, eyes glittering strangely as his clean, fresh scent met your nose. You froze in your chair, brain going horrifyingly vacant as he leaned impossibly nearer. What the fuck was he doing?

“It will be like I’m not even asking,” Shouto promised, his voice light. “Not asking anyone at all.”

You tried to scrape your thoughts back into something resembling order, but the effort was all but futile. You needed to get him out of your space stat before you embarrassed yourself.

”Okay, then it’s a deal,” you said quickly. “Now go...flambé a villain or something.”

Shouto lingered for a long moment, his mouth curling a little at the corner, like he was being let in on a secret you couldn’t hear. His eyes brushed over you, almost like a physical touch. And then he was gone, pulling open the door to your office, looking annoyingly pleased with himself.

“You will see,” he said by way of farewell. “You will find out how subtle I can be.”

You stared at him in confusion, but he didn’t explain himself. He just smirked, and closed the door behind himself.

[lampmanliveblogs]

Episode twelve! Now… I have been warned about this episode. I don’t know yet what it’s about, but I know it’s gonna be big. I’ve even been lucky and managed to avoid seeing the title so as of this writing I have practically no spoilers. A comment left by a certain theorist cat makes me think it might be about Hunter and/or Belos though.

Regardless of what it’s actually going to be, I know it will be big. So let’s not waste any more time and get into it.

We open with a shot of Luz own version of my conspiracy corner. Except hers is cooler because it’s cork board and not just a wall, she is better at drawing than me, she has a glove soaked in an ancient Titan’s life blood powerful enough to pierce dimensions, AND she has red string! I wish I had red string.

She is trying to figure out how to make a new portal door that will actually work and won’t collapse. We see her theorizing about whether there is more Titan’s Blood to be found and asking why Belos needs the portal. We can also see the photo of her, Eda & King from the Grom episode, as well as a helpful reminder from King to hydrate. She also made a note to buy a new glove for Amity, which, while sweet, is probably unnecessary. Amity’s rich, I think she can buy a new glove on her own. Heck, she probably owns more than one pair of gloves to begin with.

Lilith spotted! Gwendolyn spotted! And… is that… what’s his name, the potions guy… Morten? Morten spotted!

That bowl Hooty is holding with the eyes made me think of a joke. I was going to tell you it… but then I realized it only works in swedish. Whoops.

Anyways, this looks like a birthday. Is it Lilith’s birthday?

Judging by how uncomfortable Lilith looks as opposed to everyone else looking happy, I’m guessing it really is her birthday.

So in addition to Gwendolyn, Morten (whom she might’ve befriended now that she need elixirs from him), Eda and King, there is also Tiny Nose (who I guess is friends with Lilith?), and, uh… whoever that is on the left. I think I’ll call you call you… Blueish Purple. A very self-explanatory name, please don’t ask me why I went with that.

Lastly, there is the Emperor’s Coven scout. Not gonna lie, I saw him and started laughing, he looks so out of place. But hey, Lilith was in the Coven for what, thirty years? She’s bound to have (had) at least some friends. Most of them probably don’t wanna associate with her now that she’s a traitor, but I guess this guy stuck around.

I’m gonna go ahead and guess that’s Steve? He was with Lilith in one scene in an episode in season one. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have remembered that if it wasn’t for my sister. She’s a big fan of The Owl House (thanks to me, I’m the one who gets her into all the good shows) and she mentioned Steve once.

(oh, and Lilith is wearing glasses. I quickly went back and checked, and she wasn’t wearing them in episode four, but she was during her short appearance last episode and I didn’t notice)

If I had just waited a few more seconds, I would have not only seen Steve’s shirt that helpfully informs us of his name (I actually have a shirt like that; our grandparents gave me and my siblings shirts with our names on them for Christmas last year), but I would’ve also known that is, in fact, not Lilith’s birthday, Instead, she has become the assistant curator of the Supernatural Museum of History.

…wait, where did Tiny Nose go? And why is King’s glass knocked over? The shot-reverse-shot was literally less than ten seconds, what happened? Did we accidentally stumble into another timeline again?

The character I dubbed Blueish Purple turns out to actually be names Floar DeSplora.

A quick google search tells me her actual name is Flora D’splora. She is Lilith’s former mentor and a ”bad girl historian.” I don’t know what that is, but what I do know is that she is extra as can be. She used a whip to grab one of Hooty’s delectable appetizers, only to throw it to the side. She then used her whip to pull a griffin out of the sky to fly off on. Oh, and I guess she also said something about the Emperor wanting Lilith to stay out of trouble.

I say I don’t know what a bad girl historian, but between the historian, the whip and the adventurer part, I’m thinking this character might’ve taken a few cues from Indiana Jones.

(Edit: Future Lampman here. I realize Flora’s namesake later on)

So history is being brought up. There is a lot of interesting history that I would love to learn. The history of King’s family is one thing that comes to mind. Another is the history of Philip Wittebane, his brother, and Belos. We did see Luz working on the second portal door as well as the Echo Mouse Musse. Maybe this episode will be about Lilith going on an adventure (to show that she can be a bad girl historian too) and we end up learning something important.

[stardusttrashed]

Lovestruck (2)

Part 1

Part 3

Pairing: Professor Erwin x Fem! Reader

Word Count: 4K

“Are you up?” You scrunched your face up at the question. “Sorry, stupid question.” You weren’t sure why you were so nervous right now. You had spoken to Erwin plenty of times before. Hell, you spent nearly every day on the phone with him. If it wasn’t a ‘good morning’ call, it was a ‘good night’ call, or even him just calling in between classes. Yet here you were, jumbling over your words nervously. “I, uh, what I meant to say was, did I wake you?”

You looked down at the annoyingly blank document on your screen. The blinking cursor on the white screen seemed to be mocking you. It was a steady reminder of what you should be doing. All you could hope was that Erwin would be able to rid you of your writer's block in some way, even if it was just his voice.

You could hear a quiet amused sound from the other side of the phone. “N-no, you’re fine, I promise,” he reassured you. His voice was huskier than usual, laced with unmistakable tiredness. “Someone already beat you to the punch,” Erwin joked. His chuckle quickly died out as a quiet ‘oh’ fell from your lips. 

Erwin cleared his throat worriedly, “I’m glad you called, actually. I was going to ask for your help.”

You glanced at the clock on your laptop. “You want my help? At two in the morning,” you thought aloud, processing what was going on. Sure, you were calling to ask the same, but. Well, you had no ‘but’s right now. “Kinda sounds like a booty call to me.”

“Were you not doing the same,” Erwin asked teasingly. You could hear the smile in his honeyed tone. “It’s not a booty call,” Erwin reassured you when he got nothing but a laugh. “Unless you want it to be,” he trailed off in uncertainty, unsure if he was stepping over a line.

“You wish, Erwin. What happened to taking things slow?”

“What better way to give you that demonstration you wanted?”

You laughed and shook your head. It was easier just to assume he was teasing than face your feelings right now. “What do you need help with, Erwin,” you chuckled.

“It’d probably be easier if you just came over. And yes, I know this is sounding more and more like a booty call, but I swear it isn’t.”

“Whatever you say, Smith.” You shook your head as you fought back an amused smirk. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

Erwin smiled like a kid in a candy store, “I’ll send you the address.” You hung up with a playful ‘yeah, yeah, yeah.’ His eyes scanned the room, making sure everything was spick and span. He wanted to make sure everything was perfect. But more than anything else, he wanted to make sure you were comfortable. 

You stared at yourself in the bathroom mirror, your mind racing a mile a minute. You weren’t sure what to wear- because your t-shirt and panties weren’t an option. Well, they could be. You groaned and walked over to your dresser. You wanted to be comfortable, but all your shorts left little to the imagination. And you could wear sweatpants, but sweats weren’t always the sexiest thing. You let out a sound that was a mixture between a scoff and a laugh. It was ridiculous how much you were stressing over going to his house. He was your friend, for crying out loud. He probably didn’t even really care.

Erwin leaned against the bathroom counter, getting closer to the mirror. He ran the brush over his hair for probably the tenth time in the past couple of minutes. His thundering heart and shaking hands made it nearly impossible to get his part right. A frustrated sigh left his lips as he set the brush down. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he was making such a big deal about this. Sure, it was the first time you were coming over, and he wanted to impress you. But who has their shit together at two in the morning? 

“What do you think, princess? Should I brush my hair or go for a messy-casual look?”

You pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants before your nerves told you to change again. “It’s just Erwin,” you quietly reassured yourself. You walked through your room, gathering the numerous pieces of clothes strewn about the place, “just Erwin Mr. Perfect Smith. No need to fret,” you folded each item before putting them in their proper place. “Just two friends helping each other out, non sexually, at two in the morning,” you continued with an uncertain tone as you walked past your bathroom. You stopped in your tracks, backpedaling towards the room you just passed to grab a toothbrush and some deodorant. You tossed them into a bag along with your laptop.

Erwin: Here’s the address, call me if you get lost :)

Erwin: Can’t wait for you to meet Sina

You stared at your phone in disbelief, your hand falling slack against the doorknob. Your feet felt like bricks, holding you in place as you read the short sentence repeatedly. Who was Sina? More importantly, why did it bother you so much? He’s just a friend, nothing more. Who cared if he had a girl? You were only coming over to help. 

With a weary sigh, you pulled yourself out of your daze, walking out the door and into the cool early morning air. The faint smell of rain hung in the air as you drove further and further out of the city. Streetlights were replaced with dense trees, leaving nothing but the moonlight and your headlights to lead the way. Your mind drifted back to Erwin’s text in an attempt to busy itself. You tried picturing what she might look like, whether she had long or short hair, her height, how perfect she’d look on Erwin’s arm. What would you even say to her? 

You pushed down the thought, feeling yourself get more and more anxious with every new conspiracy theory-like idea of who Sina could be. “Just friends,” you breathed quietly as you parked your car. 

Quiet knocking sounded through the house, sending both Erwin and Sina on high alert. Erwin stood frozen in place while his mind raced with his heart as if they were trying to see which would drive him crazy faster. Heart thundering in his chest, he forces himself to walk towards the front door, Sina following behind on his heels. 

You raised your finger to ring the doorbell, stopping short as the door opened to reveal Erwin. You stared at him, jaw slack and mouth slightly agape as you admired the man in front of you. His hair was casually messy except for a few stubborn strands. It was as if his hair was gelled down, and someone tried to ruffle it to avail.  “I was beginning to think you fell asleep,” you teased as you crossed your arms over your chest. 

“And miss seeing you,” Erwin chuckled and shook his head. “Of course-,” he was interrupted by the door opening wider, Sina squeezing her way towards you. 

A gasp escaped your lips as you felt repeated nudging against your shin. Your eyes fell to the ground, landing an overly excited Shiba Inu puppy. “Hi there, cutie,” you cooed, scooping it up into your arms. Giggles spilled from your lips as the puppy squirmed in your arms, desperately trying to cover every bit of you in kisses. 

Erwin watched you with adoring eyes for a moment, a dopey smile spreading across his face. He could watch you for hours, intoxicated by everything about you. Your smile made his heart stop and sent it into overdrive all at the same time as if he was on a rollercoaster. “I’m glad you two are getting along. Y/n, meet my new little princess, Sina.”

“S-Sina,” You repeated after him, hoping you didn’t look as shocked as you actually were. “She’s… she’s Sina? So when you said someone had beat me to the…. gotcha.” Erwin raised an eyebrow at you, sending you a knowing smirk. “I just mean, well, I just- it’s a cute name.” You let out a quiet sigh of relief, “it fits her.” You turned your attention to Sina, who had snuggled herself into the crook of your arm. 

Erwin made an amused sound and muttered quietly to himself, “you’re something else.”

“Hmm. What was that?”

“I, well,” Erwin scratched the back of his neck embarrassedly. “I was trying to figure out if you came all this way just to stand outside.”

You pushed your tongue against the inside of your cheek with a playful scoff. “It’s a little hard to come inside when there’s a brick wall in the way?”

“A brick wall, eh?” Erwin leaned against the doorframe not so casually, lifting his arm above his head and his shirt along with it. “First a Greek god, then a brick wall, huh?”

Your eyes drifted down his form, slowly taking all of him in before landing on the glimpse of skin above his waistband. You wanted to run your fingers along his prominent v-line, tracing it lower and-. Erwin cleared his throat, pulling you out of your thoughts. You closed your eyes with a bashful smile tugging on your lips, “are you going to stop being a pain in the ass and invite me in sometime soon?” You opened your eyes to meet his unwavering gaze. “Or I can just leave with Sina.”

“Wouldn’t be the first thing you’ve taken from me,” Erwin muttered as he moved aside, allowing you to step inside. His pulse quickened as you walked past him, Sina still tucked away in your arms as if she belonged there. “D-do you want anything to drink or eat,” he questioned as he closed and locked the door behind you. 

“Water is fine, thank you.” You gently set Sina down on the mahogany floor, watching her return to a ball of energy as she was before- bounding happily over to Erwin. “It’s a nice murder house you have here,” you called after him as he walked towards what you presumed to be the kitchen. Erwin’s laughter echoed down the hall, filling you with a surge of giddy warmth. Your eyes wandered around, subconsciously scanning for pictures.

“It’s not a murder house,” Erwin laughed with a playful eye-roll. “It’s just peaceful, makes it easy to find inspiration.” 

“Yeah, sure, that’s what all the murderers say.” You strolled down the hall, taking in the cozy interior while continuing your search for pictures. 

“You’re not going to find anything,” Erwin spoke, his breath tickling your ear. 

“What? I wasn’t- what are you talking about?” You kept your eyes on the wall in front of you, refusing to turn around and face him. Heat rose to your cheeks as if you were standing in front of a fire. 

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

You whipped around before you could stop yourself, nearly knocking over the cup in his hand. “I wasn’t going to-.” Was it really that obvious what you were doing? Your breaths grew shorter and shorter as you grew anxious. 

“You didn’t have to. Your reaction to Sina was enough.” Erwin stared at you gently as he mulled over his own thoughts. Was it mere curiosity, or did you… do you feel the same way about him as he does for you? He opened his mouth to say something, but no words could come out. No words felt right. He wasn’t sure if he should just outright say how he felt, too afraid of scaring you off. “Y/n-,” Sina’s frustrated yips stopped his words in their tracks. “... what did you need help with?” Erwin watched the hopeful look in your eyes diminish.

“Ah,” you gasped, pulled out of your dream-like daze that his blue eyes put you under. “I needed some writing inspiration… what did you need help with?” You plucked the cup from his hand, taking a sip. 

I wanted an excuse to see you. His brain froze like a deer in headlights, leaving him staring at you like a complete idiot. Erwin’s eyes flitted down to your lips. I needed to be beside you. “I,” he trailed off as his cheeks were painted a pale shade of pink. “I wanted you to meet Sina.”

You raised an eyebrow challengingly, “at two in the morning?” You immediately bit the inside of your cheek in regret. 

Erwin’s eyes fell to Sina at his feet, watching as she pawed at his legs in desperation for attention. The warmth radiating from your body was becoming unbearable. You were so close, yet it felt almost illegal to touch you. 

“Well, I’m glad you did.” You lowered down into a squat, grabbing Sina’s attention. A soft smile graced your face as the puppy climbed into your lap like a jungle gym. 

He took the cup from your hand before setting it down on a table. Why was it so hard for him to talk right now?  He was thankful you were too busy playing with Sina to notice him struggling to come up with something to say. A few moments passed before he finally opened his mouth to say, “I wanna show you something,”  An awkward silence covered both of you as he slowly led you throughout the house. No amount of deep breaths seemed to calm Erwin enough to get him to be confident enough to form coherent sentences. He was too aware of your presence beside him. Too aware of the look of awe on your face as you took in each new room until you stopped at a room composed mostly of windows that gave a perfect view of the lake a few meters away. 

“This is where I get most of my writing done,” he admitted as he turned on the fairy lights hanging above them. “Or out there,” he nodded towards the hammock swaying the breeze right over a shallow part of the lake.

“So Mr. Smith’s murder house turns out to be a lake house as well. How convenient.” You turned to him with a playful smirk, basking in the way the corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. “In all seriousness though, it’s beautiful- all of it,” you gestured to the house around you.

“You’re free to come whenever you want,” Erwin blurted before he could catch himself. He opened his mouth to protest as your eyes widened, but you beat him to the punch. 

“I’d like that… a lot.” You could picture it already. You could see you and Erwin living a happy domestic life together, spending early mornings in the hammock with him and Sina, watching the sunrise. But you were getting ahead of yourself- he’s nothing but a friend after all. You quickly averted your gaze out of embarrassment. “Mind if I play music while I write,” you asked as you plopped down on a bench with your laptop in hand.

“Whatever makes you comfortable.” Erwin followed behind you, oblivious to your sudden embarrassment, sitting beside you. 

Sina wasted no time, slipping between the small space left between yours and Erwin’s thigh. It was a snug fit that left her in a cubby of warmth that quickly lulled her to sleep. 

You stifled your third yawn in the past minute, determined to get some of your thought on the god-forsaken document. The ideas were finally flowing, revived by the serene sight in front of you. Or maybe it was by the muscular blonde beside you that couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of you for more than a second. “It’s kinda hard to focus when you keep staring.” You glanced at him through the corner of your eye with a smug smile to let him know you were teasing. 

“Not my fault you look gorgeous,” Erwin breathed absentmindedly. He couldn’t get enough of you, his eyes drinking you in like a man in the desert. He wanted to memorize how you looked. He tried to ingrain into his mind the feeling of having, if nothing else, this one domestic moment with you. The love songs streaming from your phone only helped make the picture that much more vivid in his mind. You were perfect.

“Wha-?” You whipped your head to look at him, “what did you say?” 

“N-nothing!”

You sighed disappointedly and nodded, “sorry, I thought you said something.” You shifted uncomfortably as the awkward silence returned. Hesitantly you turned back to your laptop to finish working on the little bit of story you managed to snuff out of your inspiration. The words on the screen blurred together, jumbling together into nonsense. Too much of your brain was focused on missing the feeling of Erwin’s gaze to attempt to refocus. You looked down at the time with a sigh. 4 a.m. 

“I should get going,” you broke the silence as you rose to your feet. “It’s late-,” you stifled a yawn, “and I’m sure you’re probably tired by now.” 

“Stay?” Erwin followed your lead and rose to his feet as well, “like you said, it’s late. And your eyes are barely open.” He let out a heart-melting chuckle. “Stay and leave when you wake up.” He searched your eyes as he gave you time to think it over. “I’ll even sleep on the couch,” he continued when you opened your mouth with a frown pressed in over your expressions. “You and Sina can have my bed.”

“I’m not going to make you sleep on the couch in your own house.”

“You’re not making me do anything.” 

You chewed onto the inside of your cheek as you mulled it over. He was right. Your eyes felt like they weighed tons which meant driving probably wasn’t the safest option. The butterflies in your stomach, on the other hand, were wide awake and quickly spreading through your body. “Okay.” 

Erwin let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding, “okay?” His lips cracked into an uncertain smile. 

You rolled your eyes, a quiet giggle falling from your lips. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” You gave his shoulder a gentle nudge, leaving your hand there longer than necessary, “you aren’t changing your mind are you?” 

Erwin caught your hand with ease, gently holding it in place against his shoulder. “About you?” Erwin looked at you like it might’ve been the last time he got the chance. “Never.” He kept his hand clasped around your, noting to himself how perfectly your hand seemed to fit in his. 

You laughed nervously, “even if I ask to borrow some shorts for the night?” 

“Especially then.” Erwin smiled shyly, feeling his hand grow slightly clammy. He loosened his grip on your hand, “come on.” 

In a moment of panic, you quickly grasped onto his hand, holding onto it despite the increasing clamminess from both of your hands. A surge of regret washed over you as you felt his hand stiffen. “S-sorry,” you gasped, preparing to release his hand. Erwin’s eyes never left your own-- despite the worry and hesitance they held-- as he laced his fingers with yours. Your eyes flitted down to your interlocked hand, a small smile finding its way on your lips. “Ah, lead the way, Smith.”

Erwin scooped Sina into his free hand with ease before leading you to his bedroom. Every step towards the room felt like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, filling him with giddy excitement. He would’ve felt embarrassed or childish in any other situation, but he could’ve sworn he could feel the same excitement radiating off of you. 

Erwin reluctantly released your hand once the both of you walked into his room. “Shorts are in the dresser over there,” Erwin nodded to the opposite corner of the room as he laid Sina in her bed. “I’ll- uh, go ahead and go lay down on the couch. Make yourself comfortable.” 

You nodded as you dug through his drawer, grabbing the first pair of shorts you saw. Something felt wrong. Like something was missing. You changed in the bathroom, and by the time you came back out, he was already out of the room. A heavy sigh left your lips as your mind jumped from one thought to another like a child playing the floor is lava. Sure, Erwin was just a friend, but is that really all you wanted him to be? Either way, friends can sleep in the same bed without it being weird. Right? 

“Erwin,” you spoke softly as you walked out to the hall. Erwin stood at the end of it, his hand resting on the light switch. You waited until he turned to look at you, your breath hitching in your throat at the sight of his bright blue eyes. “Come lay with us? I feel bad making you sleep on the couch and, well, erm, Sina wants you.”

Erwin’s chuckle rumbled in his chest as he raised an eyebrow. “Sina wants me?” You nodded shyly, your eyes wavering as if there was more you wanted to say. It was an answer enough for him to turn off the light and walk towards you, the bedroom light guiding him. He stopped in front of you, towering over you, “Just Sina?” He didn’t know what had gotten ahold of him.

Your voice caught in your throat, leaving you gaping like a fish. You let out a heavy sigh, your shoulders raising and dropping, as you gathered yourself. “I… I want you.” Erwin quirks a grin at your words, and you could’ve sworn you saw his shoulders relax.

Erwin pulled you closer by the waist, mischief twinkling in his eyes as he lowered his voice to a soft murmur, “say it again.” 

“Erwin, I want you,” you coo as you press yourself closer, leaving barely enough room for a breath. 

“I want you too.” His grip around your waist tightens momentarily. The look in his eyes was one you’ve never seen before, one filled with an insatiable hunger. “God, I’ve wanted you longer than you know.” He leaned forward to rest his forehead against yours, your noses brushing against each other. His breath fanned over your lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to take the next step. This all felt like too much of a dream to do so. He was so close, yet fear gripped him and held him impossibly still. It took everything in his power not to claim you, to press his lips against yours like he’s wanted to for so long. “I want…” 

“No offense Erwin, but shut up,” you chuckled, “taking it slow sucks.” You softly pressed your lips against his. Erwin responds instantly, consuming you completely with sudden passion, his lips bruising against yours. Desire for each other takes every thought until you both are nothing more than a body, yearning to touch and be touched. 

Erwin smiled against your lips. You were sending him to cloud nine, and as much as he loved it, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. When he breaks the kiss, he looks almost dizzy, pausing a moment to catch a breath and look you over before speaking. “I’ll have to agree with you on that,” he breathed, his voice barely above a whisper. “But it made the moment all the more savorable.” Without warning, Erwin lifted you- one hand holding you steady while the other guided your legs to wrap around his waist. “And I’m not done savoring it yet.”

tags: @mandyvc @iaru​  @korianrdr 

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Xuexiao Goes to the DMV

Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen go to the DMV (aka Where Hope Goes To Die) and share a kiss.

That’s it. That’s the fic.

Xuexiao - T (just for some cursing) - Read on AO3!

*

“If you hear about someone going berserk in a DMV on the news, that’ll be me,” the mechanical text-to-speech voice reads aloud, and Xiao Xingchen turns to Xue Yang questioningly.

Xue Yang reaches over and turns the volume down on Xingchen’s phone. “Meant to send that to A-Qing.”

“Are we going to be escorted out? Again?”

Xue Yang grins and looks around the room. They’ve already been at the DMV for over an hour. Dozens of people are draped limply over the hard orange seats, eyes glazed, going down for the third time in a sea of government bureaucracy.

“Ticket 4352, now being served at window thirty-three,” announces the robotic voice over the loudspeaker.

“It would take an alien invasion to wake these people up,” Xue Yang says as a man in overalls shuffles past. “You should see these people. This must be what a lobotomy post-op recovery room looks like.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Like the world’s most incompetent deli, filled with zombie customers waiting to eat the brains of whatever the opposite of employee of the month is. Well, ‘brains.’ They work at the DMV, after all.”

Xiao Xingchen adjusts his sunglasses. “Let's not be mean.”

“And we can all hear you,” adds a woman on his left. “Not that it made much sense.”

Xue Yang makes a face at her and turns back to Xingchen. “If they make me come back a third time, I’m going to go postal. You know, going postal should be called ‘going DMV.’ It’s catchier, for one thing, and I’ve never so much as stepped foot in a post office—”

“I’m keeping you far away from post offices. Those poor people have suffered enough.”

“How so?”

“Well, there must be a reason they go postal, right?”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “If the post office has the same taste in music as the DMV, I don’t blame them. Who picked this station? If it’s not Justin Bieber it’s whoever inflicted ‘Kiss Me Through the Phone’ on the world. I’d like to do something to them through the phone, and it won’t be a kiss, I can tell you that much.”

Xiao Xingchen takes a Snickers bar out of the fanny pack Xue Yang has vainly begged him not to wear. “According to the television commercials, this will improve your mood.”

“My mood?” Xue Yang takes a bite. “If I have to hear ‘Baby’ one more time—”

“Ticket 9753, now being served at window fourteen.”

“ ‘Served.’ Ha. As if.”

Xiao Xingchen feels around for another Snickers bar but comes up empty. He should have planned this better. He’d sensed Xue Yang’s mood coming on last night as Xue Yang went through his documents. He’d been cheerful enough until he found his birth certificate in the bundle of papers he’d been given after leaving his last group home.

Then he’d grown strangely quiet, and wandered aimlessly around their apartment for an hour, carrying his phone around with him and switching between a half-dozen different YouTube videos before deciding to bake brownies at 1am and burning them when he got distracted playing video games. He wasn’t paying much attention to the video game, either, going by his cursing as he got repeatedly blown up by what Xingchen suspects was a twelve-year old somewhere in Japan, and eventually gave that up to go take apart their toaster in the interest of “fixing” it.

Now he sits beside Xingchen, jiggling his leg. Xiao Xingchen wants to ask him about his birth certificate, but he hadn't dared to last night, and doesn’t dare now.

“Ticket 9755, now being served at Window 26.”

“Weren’t you 9754?” he asks Xue Yang.

“Oh, crap—” Xue Yang jumps to his feet and rushes to Window 26, brushing past a mohawked man holding a ticket marked 9755. “I’m 9754.”

The woman behind the glass may as well have been carved from wood. “You missed your number.”

“There was no announcement!”

“Or your number isn’t working. It’s not showing up on my computer.”

“What the hell does that mean? I’m on the screen! Look!” Xue Yang jabs a finger at the screen above the booth. At the bottom of the list it reads Ticket 9754 – Window 26. “9754! Window 26! All you need to do is take my picture—”

“Get back in line. Get a new ticket. Window 13.”

“Get back in line?” He looks over at the line for Window 13. It wraps around the entire room. “I already have a number! I’m on the screen!”

“Back. In. Line.”

“Just take the damn photo—”

Xingchen lays a hand on his arm. “Thank you, ma’am. We’ll get back in line.”

“Like hell we will! I’ve been here since 5 o’clock—I made an appointment! I even brought my own pen! You ever watch Monsters Inc.? You know Roz? Are you her evil older sister? Because you look exactly like—”

“Back of the line.”

“Younger sister, then. Happy?”

The woman doesn’t bother shrugging. “You’re blocking traffic.”

Xingchen begins to move, heading in the wrong direction. Xue Yang has no choice but to follow or else let him walk into a column plastered with posters emblazoned with, Make your visit easy - download the forms at dmv.gov! , Streamline your visit - make an appointment online today!, and We’re here to help!

“Let’s just go home,” says Xue Yang. “The gray, water stained walls are starting to close in. At any second I expect a giant ball to roll towards us. Well, wrong movie—whatever. I’m sick of this place. It’s cursed.”

“We’re just going to have to come back, and you’ll have wasted the hour we already spent here.”

Xue Yang groans and gets in line behind a woman with three small screaming children. “This whole thing is stupid. We can barely afford rent, let alone a car."

"We will, one day. Besides, it's good to have a license."

"We’ll just take trains and buses everywhere, or you can learn to drive. We'll fudge the vision test."

Xingchen laughs. Xue Yang relaxes slightly at the sound. After a moment, Xingchen slips his hand in his. He’s not one for public displays of affection, but there’s an edge in Xue Yang’s voice that has nothing to do with his return to Window 13.

Xue Yang’s hand tightens in his, and Xingchen rubs it reassuringly with his thumb.

“You again?” says the woman at Window 13 when they finally make it there, twenty minutes later.

“That power-mad dictator at Window 26 wouldn’t take my picture.”

The woman tilts her head at Xue Yang. “She wouldn’t?”

Xue Yang tilts his head back at her, as if to say, I know! Who wouldn’t want to photograph me ?

She smiles, a synthetic smile that reminds Xue Yang of his friend Lan Xichen’s dimpled little fiance. “Strange.”

“ ‘Strange’? I knew she could have just done it had she wanted to—”

The woman blinks at him, her smile growing faker by the minute. “I’m sure what she told you was accurate.”

“Sure, and there is no war in Ba-Sing-Se—”

Xiao Xingchen squeezes his hand, and Xue Yang stops talking and passes her his form. She stamps it a second time and hands him another ticket.

He and Xingchen return to the waiting area. Xue Yang puts his boots up on the seat next to him, resting his head on Xingchen’s shoulder.

“Describe the room to me again,” Xingchen says, trying to distract him from his brooding and, with any luck, keep him from taking out his Swiss army knife and carving his initials into the seat and get them kicked out again. Xue Yang has a talent for describing things, and Xingchen has been trying to encourage him to start writing.

Xue Yang begins to play with his long sleek ponytail. “Purgatory’s antechamber. Humanity’s lost-and-found. A void where time has no meaning. Pit of despair and industrial cleaner.”

Xingchen chuckles, making sure it’s loud enough for Xue Yang to hear.

“If their posters were honest, they’d all be in Comic Sans font, with things like, Where hope goes to die; This is your home now; Nothing escapes our pull, not even time; Human sacrifices while you wait—”

“Human sacrifices?”

"Yeah, I think so."

A crackle of static over the speaker as a new song comes on. “You know you love me, I know you care...Just shout whenever and I'll be there….”

Xue Yang starts up violently, but Xiao Xingchen gently pulls him back down beside him. “Some kind of cannibal conspiracy?” he asks, hoping Xue Yang’s knife has remained in his pocket and is not seconds away from being embedded in a blaring loudspeaker.

Xue Yang settles back against his shoulder. “I’m positive Overalls Guy never returned from Window 17. He’s probably in the office barbecue pit.”

“This must go all the way to the top. Shift supervisor too, I’d guess.”

“Baby, baby, baby oh….Like baby, baby, baby no….”

Xue Yang stops playing with his hair and starts picking at his black nail polish. He’s feeling a bit better, Xingchen’s shoulder warm and solid. “I swear that Roz lady put a curse on me. They all probably dance in a circle around a stack of burning Social Security cards every night, chanting.” He squirms, suddenly bored. “You got any more food? I’m starving.”

Xingchen rummages in his fanny pack. “Just a burned brownie.”

“I swear I set a timer!"

The timer had gone off while Xingchen was in the shower last night. Xue Yang had simply ignored it, too absorbed in trying to virtually blow up his twelve-year-old nemesis. He tends to ignore timers while cooking, usually followed by a mad rush to the kitchen to salvage dinner. “You know dinner is ready when the smoke detector goes off,” he likes to say.

Xue Yang sniffs the crumpled foil surrounding the charred black brownie chunk. “Is this the same foil I wrapped your tuna sandwich in yesterday?”

“We only have one earth!”

“Xingchen, I swear—” Xue Yang stops, rolling his eyes fondly. He’s never met anyone who can be so annoying and endearing at the same time.

Xingchen takes the brownie back. “I'll eat it. I like the burned bits.”

"It's all burned bits."

"Exactly. Perfect."

“She knows she's got me dazing, 'cause she was so amazin'....And now my heart is breakin', but I just keep on sayin'....”

“Who wrote this? I swear I won’t hurt them. I just want their address.”

Xingchen knows he shouldn’t laugh at that, but he can’t help it.

They sit there for another half hour, talking. Xue Yang has succeeded in denuding the nails of his left hand when his number is finally called. He gets his photo taken by a man with glazed eyes and no chin, and is shuffled off to the next waiting area.

“They refused to show me my photo,” he says as they settle back down. “I swear the camera stole my soul and is using it to power the fluorescent lights. I feel at peace now. Kind of floating.” He discovers a piece of gum in his jeans pocket and begins to loudly blow bubbles, making full eye contact with the annoyed Bluetooth Guy and irritated Woman With Facial Tattoo Of Bugs Bunny. “I am one with the DMV demigods, part of something larger than myself.”

“Like joining the army.”

“Or drowning in the ocean.” He lays down with his head in Xingchen’s lap, boots on the edge of Bluetooth Guy’s seat. “Why does your fanny pack smell like patchouli? Have you been burning weird hippie incense again? You promised you’d stop after you set fire to your curtains.”

Xingchen would rather Xue Yang didn’t semi-cuddle him in public, but Xue Yang’s energy is calmer when he’s touching Xingchen, and he lets him stay. “It’s that new candle you bought me, remember?”

“Right. Bought you.”

“What do you—”

“I thought it was peppermint.”

Xingchen bites his lip. Xue Yang is…well, he can read well enough to pass a driving test, but his education was…slipshod at best. Next on Xingchen’s list is encouraging Xue Yang to get his GED.

“You smell like a music festival,” says Xue Yang. “I must have grabbed the wrong one in the store. I sniffed all of them. My picture is probably hanging beside the register of every Bath & Body Works in town: ‘Beware the Candle Perv’—”

“At least someone was willing to take your picture.”

Xue Yang laughs. Xingchen rests a hand on his chest, heedless of the people around them. He likes how Xue Yang feels when he laughs, his whole body shaking, making no attempt to hide his feelings. Xue Yang makes him laugh so often, it’s a special joy for him to return the favor.

They’ve been there almost two and a half hours when Xue Yang’s number is finally called. As if the DMV curse is kicking in again, the loudspeakers creep up another few decibels.

“Like baby, baby, baby no, like baby, baby, baby oh, thought you'd always be mine, mine….”

“Xue Yang—” Xingchen starts before Xue Yang can say anything.

“I know, I know. This is penance for my putting that egg in Song Lan’s shoe last week. The DMV knows all. The DMV was here before us, and will be here after we are gone. The DMV—”

“—The DMV will make us wait in line again, if we don’t hurry.”

Together they go to Window 10, where a drab little man sifts through Xue Yang’s documents. “Fifties, balding, completely dead inside,” Xue Yang whispers to Xingchen.

“I’m thirty-nine,” says the man in a monotone, not looking up, “and you’re missing a birth certificate. And what’s this stain on your Social Security card?”

“Definitely not blood.”

The man stares at him with eyes that, had his life force not already been sucked out of Xue Yang by an afternoon at the DMV, would have done the job. “Current passport, or birth certificate.”

Xue Yang hesitates, then slips a folded piece of pink paper under the glass partition.

The man unfolds it with the sterling speed of a drugged snail and spreads it over the counter. He lines up Xue Yang’s Social Security card, bank statement, and birth certificate, and examines them line by line as if he’s a Bletchley Circle analyst and Xue Yang’s documents are intercepted enemy transmissions.

He looks up at Xue Yang. “Is this a valid birth certificate? There are no parent names listed, and the date of birth has an asterisk—”

“I know what it has!”

“What’s your date of birth?” The man slowly pushes his chair back. “I’m going to have to get a supervisor—”

Xue Yang slams the counter. Xingchen lays a hand on his arm. It’s a miracle Xue Yang’s knife isn’t out. “Don’t you fucking dare! This is what they do when—just Google it, okay? I don’t know what day I was born, they just put whatever date they thought was accurate—”

Xingchen swallows hard.

He had known Xue Yang had grown up in foster care, but had assumed he had been given up by his parents as a child when they could no longer take care of him.

Not—not abandoned as an infant—

“And change the fucking station!” Xue Yang adds. “If I have to hear that stupid fucking song one more time I will go fucking berserk —”

The man’s dead-eyed stare intensifies. “Sign here,” he says after a moment, pushing a slip of paper at Xue Yang.

“You want my love, you want my heart….And we will never, ever, ever be apart…”

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Xingchen asks as they step outside. The words sound hollow, and he wishes he had simply remained silent.

Xue Yang takes a deep breath. It’s almost cool out, a welcome change from the week’s heat. “Well, we escaped. Now we just have to get help for the others. Or do we abandon them to their fates? I vote we abandon them. You should have seen some of the looks I got. It’s like they never saw someone threaten a DMV employee before, something I’m willing to bet happens a dozen times an hour.”

Xingchen takes his arm as he begins to walk. It’s easier than using his stick in the crowded city. “Xue Yang…”

Xue Yang’s muscles tense beneath his arm. “What?”

“Nothing.” He bites his lip. He’ll have Xue Yang feeling better soon enough. “What street are we on? Turn in on 33rd.”

“What’s on 33rd?”

“Just let me know when we’re there. 33rd and 7th.”

“The train’s on 36th.”

“But the restaurant’s on 33rd.”

“The what?”

Xingchen wants to smile, but is afraid Xue Yang might take it the wrong way after what happened at the DMV. For someone who does his best to project an I-don’t-care attitude, Xue Yang is surprisingly sensitive.

“What’s today’s date?” He already knows the date, of course. It’s been on his mind for weeks now.

Xue Yang’s arm grows even stiffer. “Is this a ‘you-don’t-know-when-your-birthday-is-so-every-day-is-your-birthday’ thing? Because—”

“Not at all… Remember the day we met? You made fun of my shirt—”

Xue Yang frowns at this sudden change of subject, but goes along with it. Better than talking about that damn birth certificate. “It was white, and ruffled. You looked like an escapee from a high school production of Hamlet. What was I supposed to do?”

“You crashed a motorcycle not three feet from me. An unregistered motorcycle with stolen plates.”

"I bought you coffee to make up for it, didn’t I?”

“You had them put four sugars in my cappuccino. It was undrinkable.”

“One was a Splenda, and anyway I took you to dinner to make up for the coffee, didn’t I?”

“Pizza at one of those dollar-a-slice places you have to stand at a counter to eat. I paid for it.”

“And I paid for your kombucha, whatever the heck that is.”

“And I paid for the band-aids we had to go buy after you cut yourself after playing catch with your knife.”

“You were distracting me!”

“I was quietly eating my pizza.”

“The light reflecting off your shirt ruffles got in my eyes.”

“Four dollars for the band-aids. You insisted on Hello Kitty.”

“Spongebob was also on the table." He wrinkles his nose. "I've got about three-fifty in my pocket, if you want it. But what’s your point, exactly?'

Xingchen smiles. He enjoys winding up Xue Yang, and it’s by far the most effective way to distract him when he’s in a dark mood. “Just that you better not put extra sugar in the fondue.”

“The what?”

“A-Qing read me the dessert menu. Chocolate fondue with bananas, blueberries, pineapple, and cherries. Strawberries, too, I think, and marshmallows, maybe even non-charred brownies—”

Xue Yang stops walking. “Xingchen—”

Xingchen lets go of Xue Yang’s arm, takes his hand instead. Kisses him soundly, right there on Sixth Avenue.

“Forget your birthday," he says. "We have a new date to celebrate every year." He gives Xue Yang's hand a little squeeze and kisses him again. “Happy anniversary, Xue Yang.”

*

Liked it? AO3 👉👈

Ruffle shirt reference

Obviously, Xue Yang was simply distracted by how pretty Xingchen was.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Canary, Part 5

First

Previous

Tim tipped his head to the side as he considered the woman in front of him.

She had a slightly nervous smile as she pulled one of her earbuds out of her ears. “Hi.”

Her eyes flicked past him and, after quickly glancing back to make sure no one was about to attack him, he realized she was feeling cornered.

… probably because she was currently being cornered.

He hesitantly took a few steps to the side until he could lean against the wall. “I’m not here to hurt you or anything, I just want to talk,” he promised.

Her hand slipped out of her pocket. He was willing to bet that she had some kind of weapon in there.

Which was good, honestly. Gotham was a dangerous place for newcomers like her.

“... so, what’re you here for?” She asked when he didn’t say anything for a while.

He bit his lip as he considered her.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, 27.

The first time they’d spotted her following them around, they’d assumed she was just another alias of Canary… but the fourteen aliases they had found for Canary so far had always had one thing in common: despite how far back it may have gone or how many connections she may have had, there was never anyone alive to corroborate her story.

She would have definitely done that this time since there was a 100% chance that the bats would notice her. Canary would have made sure that, no matter what, they couldn’t pop on over to anyone’s house and ask about her.

But Marinette had two parents. They were back in Paris, of course, but they still existed. Babs had spotted them walking to the grocery store just yesterday. They had a consistent call history with them dating back years.

He had entertained the idea that they could be paid actors… but Canary worked alone. She had informants and sponsors, sure, but partners? No. It had been nine years, if she was going to start working with people she probably would have done that already.

Marinette checked out.

… or, at least, she checked out in all ways but two.

“How did you get here?” Asked Tim.

Marinette frowned a little. “... plane?”

He shook his head. “We have footage of you at Roissy Airport, but you never arrived in Gotham.”

Her skin paled. “Must be a glitch.”

Okay. That’s definitely not suspicious at all, no way.

He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Maybe you missed me.”

“With our facial recognition scanners? And three people checking it over?”

Her hand was back in her pocket and her eyes were flicking to the exit nervously.

“I’m not going to deport you or anything,” he added quickly. “Lots of people here aren’t documented and that’s totally fine, the immigration system is totally messed up… I’ll shut up about that now, that’s not helping... I just… want to know. Curious.”

“Paranoid,” she corrected with a hesitant grin.

“... cautious,” he said after a few seconds.

“Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“It’s much nicer than paranoid, that’s for sure,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

She rolled her eyes and he smiled as some of the tension in her shoulders disappeared.

“The horse miraculous,” she said after a few seconds. “That’s how I got here.”

He sighed internally. Metas in Gotham. Not good. There was a reason that rule was in place. If metas -- even good ones -- started coming then there was nothing stopping the huge, otherworldly threats from following them over. They’d stick with their overdramatic fucks that need therapy, thanks, their gadgets didn’t exactly hold up against literal gods.

And then Marinette giggled. “You don’t need to look so scared. The weird old guy who holds onto all the miraculous… he doesn’t really use them, he just keeps them locked in a weird box thing. I just…” She shrugged. “I had something on him and he was more than happy to get rid of me.”

… well, that’s a little concerning, thought Tim.

Not exactly unexpected, though. She’d very publicly gotten a restraining order by Chat Noir around ten years prior and, while none of the other miraculous holders had come out against her, many of the ones that had revealed themselves as holders had already denounced her. Tim wouldn’t have been surprised if she had stalked more of them -- hell, she was stalking him and his family, clearly she hadn’t limited herself to Chat Noir.

But this raised his second question: “Why now?”

She cringed. “Well, I’d thought about moving a long time ago. No place in France was going to hire me with the whole ‘stalking one of their beloved superheroes’ thing… but I decided to stay for a while. I didn’t want it to seem like I was running away, y’know?”

He nodded his understanding slowly. That made sense. It wasn’t a decision based on logic, but not all decisions are.

She smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. “Also, I kind of missed having superheroes, to be honest.”

Tim raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t going to correct her use of the word ‘superheroes’ instead of ‘vigilantes’, English was at least her second language and that would be rude, so he went down a different route: “I thought they still had their miraculous. It’d be stupid if they didn’t. Mayura is still out there and all.”

“As far as I know, everyone but Ladybug and Chat Noir gave up their miraculous. Everyone knows Mayura is just Adrien Agreste even if we can’t prove it. Nothing else makes sense,” she said with a shrug.

He bit his lip. “I thought that the secretary disappeared that day, though. Wasn’t it her?”

“Nathalie Sancoeur? I heard she moved to America,” Marinette said with a shrug. “But America hasn’t had any attacks, so no one in Paris thinks it was her. Adrien is probably just waiting until the miraculous holders drop their guards.”

He nodded slowly. He didn’t realize he was going to be gossiping and discussing conspiracy theories with a person who stalked heroes but, he had to admit, it was kind of fun. Reminded him of the good old days when he was just a kid who followed the bats around for fun.

… but that wasn’t how things were anymore. He had responsibilities now. Which he was currently not doing. Oops.

“I should get back to work.”

“I should get back to watching you work,” she half-joked.

He hesitated. “Is there any way I can convince you not to do that? Gotham isn’t Paris, it’s dangerous here.”

She grinned. “I stalked a guy who had a literal god at his beck and call. I can handle a few odd goons,” she said.

He bit his lip but nodded. “Call for help if you ever need it.”

“Fine. Fine.”

He got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t going to but he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt just for now.

He pulled his grapple gun from his belt and hooked it around the rooftop.

“See you later.”

“Well, you will see me later, I’ll --,” she began, only to cut herself off with a gasp: “NO!”

He quickly checked over his shoulder but he didn’t see anything. He turned back to her, questioning look on his face, only to see her devastated expression.

“Cedric died,” she said sadly, pointing at the ear with the earbud still in it.

…?

~

Marinette sat in a coffee shop, sipping at a drink as she worked on her computer.

Tim Drake had five coffee shops that he enjoyed. The tiny tweet she’d sent out a little over a week ago ensured that he wasn’t going to be allowed coffee at his place of work. So, he was likely to go and get coffee somewhere else. She was currently sitting at the one closest to WE.

… it was very expensive. She needed to drink her coffee slower.

She squinted at her resume with a frown.

She was pretty sure it was good enough to get in, but…

Marinette sighed lightly and let her head hit the table. Fuck. She hated this stupid job so much.

She heard the chair across from her scrape against the wooden floors and slowly lifted her head. She squinted at the guy in front of her for a minute.

“Hello,” she said carefully.

The brown-haired man smiled at her.

She glanced him up and down. He was clean in a slimy kind of way. He was too nice. His hair was coiffed perfectly, his suit neatly pressed, his face clean-shaven. People who had the guts to dress like that in Gotham were always the worst of the worst.

“Hi!” he said cheerfully.

She sighed. “You weren’t even going to ask if you could sit here?”

“You’ve been alone for a while. Figured it was safe to assume you didn’t have anyone.”

Cool. Cool cool cool. Her hand slipped to the dagger hidden in her hoodie pocket. She may not know what kind of bad he was, but he was definitely bad news.

“No, actually, I was just waiting for my friend to get off work so they could join me.”

“Oh! I’ll keep you company until they show up!”

Damn. She hated when people called her bluff.

She forced her most pleasant smile to her face. “No thanks. I have work to do, actually.”

“Applying for jobs, right?”

She paled.

“Sorry, but I was curious so I just peeked over your shoulder a little bit. I actually had a couple of openings at my job, and you seem like a good candidate, if you’d like --.”

“No!” She said quickly.

His smile didn’t waver, but his eyes narrowed just a little. “I was just offering you a job.”

“I don’t want to get a job this way. I prefer the formal interview process and everything,” she lied.

“Oh, well, my company is having interviews tomorrow and there should be an open spot around --.”

A hand came to rest on the man’s shoulder.

“Hey, bud, she said no.”

~~~

TheBetterCanary: @/BrucieWayne give me a hundred million dollars and ill stop doing crime

BrucieWayne: Done.

TheBetterCanary: i take it back five hundred million

BrucieWayne: Sure.

TheBetterCanary: a billion

BrucieWayne: Alright.

TheBetterCanary: what the fuck

~~~~~

Next

Perma taglist: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Canary taglist: @jayjayspixiepop @unoriginalmess @miraculousfanfic127 @probably-a-hologram

[lokifantasies]

The Trial PART 1

Summary: The long awaited trial against Evan Nichols has started, and the foundation of the case against him has been laid out.

WARNING: GRAPHIC TORTURE AND SEXUAL ABUSE EXPLAINED.

Character(s): Loki, Thor, Jade, & Evan

Read the Mischievous Life series here!

Follow Jade, Loki, and Reader!

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The trial is here. It's the day that your family has been waiting for since this whole nightmare started. Unfortunately, Loki and Jade are both adamant that you remain on bed rest for the sake of the growing baby, and you ultimately end up losing the argument when you try to force them to let you come. Loki assures you that he'll be by her side for the both of you – supporting her the entire time.

In the back of your mind, you know the stress of hearing and seeing the evidence would be too much for you, and no one wants to see anything happen to your baby. Thankfully, Thor also appears to support his niece and brother – sitting on Jade's right as Loki sits on her left.

"I don't wanna see him," Jade mutters – looking down to the floor when Evan walks into the courtroom with his parents.

The teenager looks like he's injured – his leg has a slight limp, and his eye is swollen and dark. However, the seventeen-year-old has a smug smile on his face – his ego being stroked when he sees the television cameras on him. He takes his seat in between his lawyers, and they group together to discuss something quietly. Loki, Thor, and Jade try their hardest to hear what they're saying, but they're speaking far too quietly.

"I don't understand how he could have a defense," Thor says to you and Loki. "How can anyone deny that he did what he did?"

You shrug. "I don't know, Uncle Thor. I just want this to be over with."

The prosecution begins their opening statement by laying out all the facts of the case and making it clear what Evan Nichols is being tried for. His charges are as follows:

- 1st degree aggravated kidnapping

- 1st degree sexual assault (with forcible penetration)

- 1st degree sodomy

- Conspiracy to commit a kidnapping

- Conspiracy to commit a felony

- Felony stalking

- Harassment

- Attempted murder

- False imprisonment

- Assault with a deadly weapon

The first few witnesses to testify are the first responders who saved Jade from the small space she was being held in.

"Could you please state your name for the court and how you became involved in this case?" the prosecutor, Mr. Jeff Bards, began to question the officer.

"Brian David Wilson. I'm an NYPD SWAT officer who responded to the 911 call to 4892 E Graves Road," the witness explains.

"What happened upon arriving at the address?"

The officer took a deep breath before speaking. "We, the SWAT team, forced our way inside the house, and we started searching. I began to hear some muffled pleas for help, and when I followed them, I came across the fake wall in the home's basement. After removing the fake wall, I discovered that there was a small crawl-space type room."

"Can you confirm what the photo on the screen is?" Mr. Bards asks – a photo of the tiny, dark space where Jade had been held showing up on the screen.

"Yes, that is the crawl-space," he confirms

"And where was Ms. Lokisdottir located?"

"She was located in the back corner of the crawl space. She came out from hiding when she saw me, and I pulled her out of the space," officer Wilson stops to take a deep breath and gather his thoughts – trying to push his feeling aside. "Afterward, I carried her out of the house and to the ambulance that was waiting outside."

There's silence as the officer exits the witness stand – looking towards Jade and Loki as he goes to take his seat in the rows. The other officers testify – stating similar things to what the first one did. Then, everyone hears the fateful words.

"The prosecution calls Jade Pandora Lokisdottir to the stand, please."

Loki and Thor wrap their arms around the shaking sixteen-year-old – remind her that they're right there, and if she needs to, just look at them and they'll help her.

"You can do this, my love," Loki says softly. "Just pretend you're having a conversation."

"Okay," Jade nervously breathes out.

Thor hugs his niece close before she stands up. "You are so strong, Jade...just like your parents. You got this."

Jade exhales and nods – trying to walk up to the witness stand without falling. On the way, she refuses to look at the defense's side of the courtroom – disgusted as to how anyone could defend Evan.

Oh well, everyone has a right to a defense.

For a moment, Jade looks towards Evan. A smirk appears on her face when she sees his injuries – wondering who she needs to thank for the revenge. Before Jade turns her attention away, Evan takes the chance to blow a kiss towards her – excited to watch the goddess relive the nightmare he put her through.

"Could you please state your name for the court?" the prosecutor asks – looking directly at Jade.

"Um," Jade's voice is soft against the microphone. "Jade...Pandora Lokis-Lokisdottir."

"And can you tell the court how you came to know the defendant?"

Jade takes a deep breath and exhales – looking towards Loki and Thor for support. "Ye-yes. Um, we met at the mall when my parents took me shopping before the school year started. That weekend, we went out on a date, and then we started dating."

"Were you and the defendant ever sexual?

"Not...really," Jade answers. "Um, we only ever had oral sex, but that's it. I wa-wasn't comfortable with ever going any further than that."

"So, there was never any consensual sexual intercourse?"

"No."

"How long were you and the defendant dating?"

"Four months."

"During that time, did the defendant act inappropriately towards you in any sort of way?"

Jade exhales. "Yes. The last night we hung out together, he tried to force himself on me, but he ran away and drove off when I yelled for my dad."

"Ms. Lokisdottir, can you walks us through the day of September 3rd?"

Jade shakes her head and exhales nervously – looking towards Loki and Thor for their support. This is the first time she's ever spoken about what happened to her, and hopefully, it'll be the last.

"I was...at school, and Evan told me he wanted to speak with me privately, so I followed him out into the parking lot to smoke marijuana and talk in his car. When we got to his car, though, he locked the doors, and he took off from the parking lot." Jade swallows hard before continuing. "Um...I begged for him to stop and turn around – just let me go back to school, and I wouldn't tell anyone. But he didn't. He kept driving – pulling a knife from under his driver's seat and holding it to my throat. I tried to do as he said – hoping that he'd let me go, but he never calmed down. When we arrived at his house, no one was home. H-he led me into the basement and pulled a dresser away from the wall. It was a secret room behind the wall, and he made me...uh...he made me take all of my clothes off, so I was completely nude. He put a collar around my neck, and he connected it to a bolt in the floor so that I couldn't move much. He left for, I guess a couple hours, and he left me in the dark room. I remember how cold it was. It was freezing...especially since I didn't have any clothes. When he came back, he started to...do things."

"Could you explain what things were done to you by the defendant?"

Jade's eyes begin to tear up – her breathing becoming staggered as she thinks about how to word the horrific abuse she had been put through. The looks of support from Loki and Thor, however, give her a strength that she didn't know she had.

"There was...a metal bar," Jade begins quietly – biting her bottom lip to keep her thoughts going. "He had a long lighter with him, and he started to heat the bar up. He was laughing when he pressed the hot metal to my thigh – smiling at me while I screamed in pain as my skin started to burn. There's still a burn scar on my left thigh. When the bar finally cooled down, he threw it to the side. He grabbed me by the chain leash and forced me down to my knees. With his other hand, he...took his penis out of his pants and pried by mouth open. He grabbed the back of my head and used my mouth to get himself off. No matter how much I cried, and begged, and pleaded, he didn't stop. He found it entertaining. It turned him on." Jade looks out to see Loki and Thor becoming angrier by the second, but they're trying their best to remain calm for Jade's sake – knowing that they need to be her support. "After he was...finished, he uh, forced me to lie on the dirty floor. I tried to keep my legs closed, but he punched me in the face, which caused me to jump. Before I could try to close my legs again, Evan had them spread, and he began to...force his mouth...on me. I felt his teeth bite me, and I knew I was bleeding, but it seemed to turn him on even more. H-h-he reached over and grabbed the metal rod again, and h...I'm sorry...can I just...a moment?"

"Take your time," the prosecutor assures Jade – maintaining a professional composure.

Jade exhales deeply – closing her eyes and trying to gather her courage to continue.

"H-he began to use the metal rod to...assault me. He shoved it inside me – giving me cuts and bruises. I was bleeding, but he continued to thrust it in and out of me until he was satisfied. I thought he would finally be done, and I thought he'd take me home, but then I felt him begin to...insert himself...his...penis...into me. I tried to kick him off, but he held my legs as tight as he could to stop me from moving. It...I'm pretty sure he was trying to cause me pain. Finally, I stopped fighting – wanting him to just hurry up and let me go. I tried to stop crying because I didn't want him to be anymore satisfied with himself, but when I felt his fingers start to go into...the other side, I started fighting again. He pulled me up by the chain, and he forced me to look into his eyes. I remember he said that I was now his slut, and he was going to break me until I learned to love it. After a couple of minutes...he...ejaculated into me, which later resulted in a pregnancy. Evan was still wanting more though, so he turned me over and held my face to the floor as he entered my backside. Again, ignoring my cries and screams for him to stop. I lost track of how many times he did this...I think I may have blacked out or something, or maybe my brain made me forget in order to protect me from the memory, but the next thing I remember was being alone, redressed, and I heard the police officers calling out for me."

"Thank you, Ms. Lokisdottir," the prosecutor says with a proud smile.

[stray-kids-react]

S/O likes enjoys writing/writing lyrics

Masterlist

...

Bang Chan

° You owned this special and locked diary for years, where you kept all your bottles up emotions and feelings in.

° One of those feelings evolving your long time crush on Chan, including the words 'Sexy, Cute, Inspirational, Hot, Prince, and A Literal Angel' all in quite a few pages. Luckily your now long time boyfriend has never seen these fangirl/boy paragraphs.

° Chan was all of those words, no doubt about it. But it is still hard to look at those paragraphs without cringing at how desperate you sounded in your mind.

° Chan however apparently loved your affectionate paragraphs, flipping through the pages as you walked through his studio door. Your heart sank as pure shock and terror rushed through your veins. No one wants their private thoughts to be read.

° The tips of Chan's ears were firetruck red, as a beaming grin flashed towards you. You noted that he read through the entire diary, knowing all the dreams and wishes you had that involved him. No skeletons were left in your closet anymore, it was bittersweet.

"So you really think I'm an angel who is also the sexiest person on earth?" he teased, cupping your face in his palms.

"Well duh, but you can't tell me you didn't think anything like that towards me-" You defended, cut off by his sweet kisses.

Lee Know

° Minho found out about your true feelings towards him while reading some song lyrics you wanted to show 3Racha.

° He needed to know who you loved and admired so dearly after reading this, constantly by your side questioning anything he could. After literal weeks of conspiracy, you couldn't take his suspicion anymore and admitted everything.

° You are now much more secretive with your songs that you've written, but that won't stop Minho from looking everywhere he possibly can. He is determined to find them.

° After so many large steps that were taken in your relationship, he wants to see how you truly felt throughout them. From the first date, first time, to the promise ring he fave you last week. Minho wants to say it's to tease, when it's truly because he loves you.

° He loved the way his stomach did kart wheels as his heart fluttered when he first read your words. He hasn't felt that amazing feeling in a while and needs to re live it, luckily for him he noticed a place he has never thought of checking.

"So kitten, you really want to marry me don't you?" he commented, a soft smirk across his glowing features.

"Why wouldn't I? You're you. And how'd you find those?!" you replied, tone changing as you saw how many he actually had.

Changbin

° Changbin was struggling to create a new song, he seemed to accidently make similar beats and lyrics to their past hits.

° You would sometime write up different songs when you were bored, but you never showed them to anyone thinking they weren't great. But Changbin looked in need of some type of inspiration, so you brought out your journal and placed it infront of him.

° His expression was unreadable, either about to thank you for the amazing inspiration or laugh at your cheesy words. You just wanted him to say something.

° Changbin began to smile shyly, showing you a page he just read over. That page happened to be the most recent and the one you completely forgot about. It was a draft about 10 different ways you could tell Changbin that you loved him.

° You really wanted it to be special when you would say it to him, but luck didn't seem to be on your side that day. You were at least glad that he was smiling, showing positive signs that he isn't feeling awkward or doesn't feel the same way about you.

"I love you too my adorable bean." He chuckled, pulling you into his lap as he held you close to his racing heart beat.

"I'm guessing he new comeback is going to be a love song now?" you teased, burrowing into his soft black hoodie.

Hyunjn

° Your relationship use to be a cat and mouse situation, one day you two were best friends and then the next you two were rivals.

° Your anger and frustration towards one another was simply a way to hide your true emotions. Both of you found each other attractive in and out, but were too stubborn to confess. That is until he walked into your room and pressed you up against the wall.

° Your rivalry left out the door once you started dating, the only ounce of it was left in the small playful bickering and teasing. Which happened every day of the week.

° You walked into the dressing rooms, noticing Han and Felix giggling as your presence became known. This wasn't a usual giggle of theirs, something was going on. You knew that for sure once you saw the way Hyunjin presented himself.

° A sly smirk across his lips as a couple crumpled peace of paper were in between his fingers. His steps were long and powerful, as he held his head up high while nearing you. This usually meant he found something to tease you with.

"I didn't know you liked me for five years, coming up with so many cute pet names if we ever dated." He teased, hiding his blush.

"First of all, you went through my desk without asking me. Second of all, I am whipped for you dumb dumb." You replied.

Han

° You weren't a very vocal person, having trouble expressing your thoughts and emotions through words everyday.

° That reason alone is also why people think you and Han are a perfect match. He helped you come out of your shell and be comfortable in your own skin. All of those actions sent your heart into a frenzy, finding there way into pages filled with emotion.

° Han knew about your habit of writing cute quotes on your palms and arms, or just randomly taking out your journal and starting a new page.

° He respected your privacy even if the temptation of knowing every little thought you have was very very strong, he held back and let you write in peace. However, when you dropped your journal without knowing. Han held it and the temptation took over.

° As you had a chat with Seungmin, he turned around from your eye sight and flipped through the pages. Many of them expressing how much you love him and how much he helped you without him even knowing. This effected Han immensely.

"Hannie are you crying?" you questioned, noticing the forming gloss over his sparkling chocolate orbs.

"Yeah, but it's happy tears. I just never knew how much you cared about me, and it makes me feel important." He explained.

Felix

° You cannot hide anything from this adorable koala, he knows you too well and can find anything you've hidden from him.

° You learned this the hard way when you asked him for help when forgetting where you left your journal, panicking since the last place you saw it was at Minho's. Felix knew you usually placed it near your bed and assumed it to be under the covers.

°His assumption was spot on, but you had no idea that he had found it yet. Felix took this advantage to skim through a few pages, smiling at the sight of his name in the book.

° His name was mentioned ever since the day you first met, January 7th 2017. He was written as this attractive aussie that had your knees weak, he laughed silently at the realization that you fancied him since the first day you met. He loved it.

° Felix walked out with the navy blue book tight in his grip, his ears a bright shade of red. You knew he must've read some sort of page about him, but you weren't nervous about it. It couldn't have been anything more cheesy than what you say on dates.

"I can't believe Han knew about your crush on me that entire time." Felix chuckled, shock filling his expression.

"And I can't believe you never knew how much I truly admired you." You teased back, kissing his freckle speckled cheeks.

Seungmin

° Seungmin met you at a library, you were working on a soft poem about not being able to find the right person.

° That whole meeting seemed like something right off of a romance movie or fanfiction novel. Writing about giving up on love as an amazing guy happens to cross paths with you. But both of you laugh at the whole cliché nature of your meeting.

° Seungmin loved how you wrote, taking him into the story each time. He felt so special whenever he found something referring to your relationship, feeling fuzzy inside.

° He liked to bring some of your poems on tour with him, reminding him to stay strong when being away from you. Letting him know that you'll always be there for him when he needs you, even if you are both countries away from each other.

° Felix once found his stash of poems that you wrote, he never teased him on it but would still smile excitedly at how sentimental Seungmin was becoming. Seungmin knew he was becoming cheesy and mushy, he hated yet loved it.

"Do you know how much you have effected me?" he questioned, tracing the curve of your jaw with his thumb.

"Or maybe you have an addiction to me, ever think of that?" you responded, smiling widely as he rolled his eyes at your words.

Jeongin

° You worked under JYP entertainment to help create songs for different groups, Jeongin noticed you during his break.

° You rarely got to work with Stray Kids since they made 99% of their own songs, but that didn't stop Jeongin from trying to get to know you. It worked in his favor, since you began to develop a living in him after two months of hang out together.

° Jeongin likes hearing certain songs you create or in the process of being created, cheering you on and telling all of his members when you created a song.

° He liked to give you the credit and appreciation you rarely get, most of the credit going towards the artist who performed the songs you created. Jeongin wanted to let you know how proud he was of you daily, even if you got shy from it.

° Whenever you showed him different samples of songs you were working on, he'd dance in his seat with a beaming smile. Even when you were tired and wanted the day to end, his admiration and addicting smile would make your mood change instantly.

"I am just worried because JYP has been pretty harsh on the past few songs." You sighed, tired and frustrated.

"He literally wrote a song about women's butts. I'm pretty sure you're more talented baby." He reassured, patting your head.

[pastelwitchling]

It started with a phone call.

Michael had come to the bunker in hopes of looking through some of the Project Shepherd archives to find more information on his mom. Or, at least, that was what he’d told Alex. In truth, he’d been sitting in his own bunker beneath his airstream, hitting dead end after dead end, and staring at the constellation and planet alignments had started to eat away at his brain.

In truth? He’d been restless after countless nights of a lack of sleep, and he wanted to see Alex. He didn’t know why, but it was like Alex was the only one who could see through the mess of his thoughts to the small, coherent part that was always seeking comfort. With one look, one smile, one word, one touch, Michael felt himself at a peace around Alex he’d never known anywhere else. He could finally breathe.

And for about the first five minutes after he’d arrived, he’d dared hope that he would have Alex all to himself. He’d found Alex at the bunker, pouring over decrypted files on a computer, and felt his heart jump at the sight of him. Even with his hair tousled, with the dark circles around his eyes, with his brows pinched like his mind was always busy, he was beautiful. And Michael had been the only one around for his attention.

Until he hadn’t been. Until Forrest – goddamn Forrest – called him and his eyes lit up and he smiled in a way he didn’t really smile around Michael. Until Long suggested he and Alex visit the caves where he was sure the Air Force had camped out back in 1947, and he’d leapt up at the chance to see his ex.

Yeah. That’s right. His ex. But God, you really wouldn’t be able to tell that they’d broken up at all. Michael doubted they had, but Isobel had assured him with a knowing smirk that Alex had told her things were over.

“It was a totally mutual, healthy breakup,” apparently.

It’s just that they were still so close, they still hung out whenever either of them got the chance, they still looked at each other with such a fondness that made Michael want to punch a wall. He’d learned his lesson the first time though, after leaving the Wild Pony in the middle of Alex’s song, secretly hoping not much would come of it, and then finding out Alex and Forrest were very cutely, very frustratingly, very much in like with each other. He’d learned not to leave Alex with any other guys he knew would want to date him again, mutual breakup be damned.

So when Alex had told him where he was going, Michael insisted on coming along.

“You sure?” Alex had asked. Not with any reluctance in his voice, but genuine curiosity. “We’d have to do a bit of hiking up those caves.”

“I love hiking,” Michael had lied. “Besides, you’re gonna want me there to fend off any coyotes and giant birds.”

He’d meant it as a joke, but Alex had merely smiled at him and said, “I’d want you there anyway.”

Leaving Michael to melt into a puddle, Alex walked out ahead of him.

It made the lie a little easier to bear. See, he not only hated hiking, he hated hiking alongside Forrest Long who, like the perfect little prick he was, had been all too gracious about bringing Michael along.

“Adventure with an alien,” he’d said with that wide, perfect smile of his, and a shake of his head. “Only in Roswell.”

Michael knew, somewhere deep, deep down, that Forrest was an awesome guy. He understood why Alex had been so taken with him. But here’s the thing; Alex had been taken with him. Knowing, as they climbed the rocky terrain under the sun, today mercifully halfway obscured by clouds, that Alex and Forrest had dated, had kissed, had slept together – it did things to his mind that frightened even him. It unnaturally bothered him, and no matter how kind or friendly Forrest was, Michael couldn’t let it go.

It was made worse when he and Forrest both reached the peak of a rocky hill, Alex following behind them, and they both offered him a hand to hold for the last few steps up. Without thinking, Alex took Forrest’s hand, and laughed as Forrest tugged him up with an exaggerated show of strength.

“Thanks,” he’d panted, still smiling. At Forrest.

As Michael swallowed and put his hand down, trying not to feel dejected, he saw Alex glance his way. He saw realization dawn, saw his eyes soften at Michael, as if in silent apology for not taking him up on his offer. Michael could only look away.

Let it go, he’d told himself as Forrest surveyed the area below. Let it go.

Of course he wasn’t going to let it go.

“Why do we need him again?” he grumbled under his breath so that only Alex could hear him.

Alex didn’t seem offended or frustrated by the question. Instead, he smiled, amused. Michael loved that smile.

“He’s a history buff,” Alex said. “He’s done extensive study on the grounds here. He knows it better than anybody.”

“Yeah, study to support his conspiracies,” Michael reminded him edgily. “He’s a conspiracy theorist, Alex.”

“I found out about you through conspiracies,” Alex noted.

Michael blushed. “That’s different.”

He laughed, and Michael thought he might melt all over again.

“Babe,” Forrest said, and amended, “Sorry, Alex, come look at this.”

Michael’s eye twitched. “I’m gonna kill him.”

Alex patted his shoulder. “Shh.”

He went to Forrest’s side as he pointed at something below; a crater, just beside one of the larger caves’ mouths. “When I was going through the layout in the library, I found faint records of those kinds of craters.”

Alex moved dangerously close to the edge, his eyes narrowed. “What’s the story there?”

“Well, most of the records said about what you would expect; explosion of rocks from a volcano.”

Michael just barely resisted rolling his eyes as he tipped his hat back. “And the unofficial record?”

Forrest smirked. “Meteors hit the ground here when something broke through the earth’s atmosphere and let them in.”

Michael looked to Alex, already doubtful, but Alex looked focused, like he was thinking through the logistics.

“It makes sense,” he concluded. “It would definitely explain the Air Force encampments out here. Anything to do with the skies is their territory.”

“You mean, your territory?” Forrest smiled, and Alex scoffed.

Michael pursed his lips. The wind up here was a little colder, quickly drying the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead and the nape of his neck.

“If you even buy the whole encampment thing in the first place.”

Forrest, infuriatingly, shrugged a shoulder. “Fair.”

Oh my God, Michael thought, clenching his jaw.

Alex seemed to be able to read his thoughts, and he shook his head, smiling. “Look, I’m not saying it’s definitely what happened, but it fits with everything else we know so far. The Air Force had troops around this area, and there’s no way your pods broke through without opening up the atmosphere to residual space matters.”

Forrest groaned. “I love it when you go all military genius on me.”

Alex winked at him, and they both burst out into laughter. Michael looked around for help from the birds, hoping they’d at least recognize with him how ridiculous and unfair all of this was. He felt left out, like there was a bubble around Alex and Forrest that he couldn’t penetrate. He knew it was childish to be upset by it, but damn it, he was upset by it.

“So what do we do now?” he said a little loudly, hoping to cut in. “Take pictures? Call Max and Isobel? Write a blog?”

Alex stood, and Michael couldn’t fail to notice him wince, as if his leg pained him. “We should get a closer look,” he said. “The abrasions might give us a better idea of what we’re dealing wi—ah!”

Alex was cut off as a bit of earth beneath him crumbled away, and, his leg too stiff after climbing to move, he slid down the steep rock.

“Alex!” Michael and Forrest leapt for him, but he was already falling towards a cluster of sharp rocks at the base of the caves.

“No!” Michael yelled, reaching out for Alex and using his powers to avert his direction at the last second, rolling him onto a patch of grass instead.

“Oh my God,” he heard Forrest say before they were both up and running back down the way they’d come.

Alex was just pushing himself up onto all fours when Michael and Forrest fell at his side.

“Hey,” Michael breathed, gently pushing Alex’s bangs back from his eyes. Blood leaked from his forehead, trailing down his cheek, and dripping off his jaw onto his shirt. “Hey, baby, you okay?”

“Uh . . .” Alex shut his eyes tight, his expression twisted in pain. “Yeah, I’m – I’m fine.” He exhaled slowly, forcing himself up into a sitting position.

Forrest put his hands on his shoulders. “Maybe we should go to the hospital,” he suggested, his brows furrowed with concern as his eyes lingered on the patch of blood on Alex’s shirt. “That was a pretty nasty fall, Alex.”

“He said he’s fine,” Michael said, and stood, pulling Alex up with him. For a second, Alex swayed, looking like he might be sick. His grip on Michael’s arms was relentless, but, too soon, he let go and roughly wiped away the rest of the blood that was now staining his cheek.

Forrest looked doubtful. “Alex –”

“It’s okay, Forrest,” he said. “I’m okay, really.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he offered Alex his arm, nonetheless. “At least hold onto me or something.”

Alex chuckled weakly, and leaned in, kissing Forrest’s cheek. “The second I start to feel sick, I’ll lean on you, okay?”

Forrest seemed a little more reassured and nodded, and Michael, his tongue in his cheek, walked off towards the crater. “We looking into this thing or what?”

Soon, they were each surrounding the crater, which was a lot larger up close than it had looked from the top of the cave. Alex knelt at one side, eyes narrowed.  He stepped into the crater and ran a finger across the surface.

“Smooth rock,” he muttered, and rubbed his eyes with his forearm. “Strong.”

“That’s not right,” Forrest frowned.

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

Michael nodded. Now he understood what Alex had been looking for. “The ground here is supposed to be rough, shattered.”

“Exactly,” Alex said. “It’s too clean to be caused by anything natural.”

Forrest looked to Michael. “Are you getting any, you know, feelings around this place?”

“What, like some Star Wars Jedi tracker?”

Alex raised a brow. “Since when do you watch Star Wars?”

Michael blushed. Since you looked at Kyle like he’d committed treason for not knowing what it was, and I wanted to impress you.

Before Michael could even attempt to make up some lie though, Alex fell down to one knee again, heaving.

“Whoa, Alex!” he slid into the crater and crouched in front of him. He put a hand between his shoulder blades, and felt his breaths turn heavier and shakier.

Forrest hurried to their side and knelt beside him. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Alex, what are you feeling?”

“D-Dizzy,” Alex managed, and Michael was shocked to see sweat dampening the tips of his hair. “I don’t . . . I c-can’t . . .”

Michael knelt down, too. “Alex,” he tried softly. “Look at me, baby, tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m g-gonna be s-s-sick,” Alex managed through short breaths.

Michael clenched his jaw, cupping Alex’s cheek. Despite the sweat, his skin was cool to the touch, his teeth were chattering and he was shivering, his eyes heavily-lidded. He was turning pale way too quickly.

Michael’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening, and he swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“Alex,” he said calmly, trying very hard not to let the horror of the situation touch his voice. “I need you to get on my back, okay?” He turned his back to Alex, and gestured at Forrest. “Long, help him.”

Forrest looked between Michael and Alex worriedly, but nodded. “Right,” he said, and gently but firmly guided Alex onto Michael’s back. “What’s happening to him?” he murmured to Michael so that Alex couldn’t hear. “His forehead stopped bleeding, why does he look like he’s going to pass out?”

Michael glanced over his shoulder at Alex who had shut his eyes tight, his fists curled in Michael’s shirt, his knuckles white with his grip. As he turned and led the longer way back to his truck, he quietly said, “I think his fall was a lot worse than it looked. He must’ve ruptured an organ or something.”

Forrest glanced at Alex, terrified. “He’d bleeding internally?”

Michael nodded. “And he’s getting too tired too quickly. We have to hurry.”

Forrest was clearly terrified, but one glance at Alex and he must’ve known that he couldn’t show that fear on his face. Instead, he nodded once and kept a hand on Alex’s back as they moved as quickly as they could.

When they finally made it to Michael’s truck, Forrest insisted on staying in the backseat with Alex.

“He might need me,” he said, not caring at all about leaving his car behind. Michael could only set his truck in drive, silently grateful to have an extra set of caring hands with Alex. And he drove like hell, breaking every speed limit and getting more than a few angry honks along the way.

“Hold on, Alex,” Forrest said to Alex who had his head on his lap, trembling and gasping. When he started raking Alex’s hair back, Michael couldn’t find it in him to be jealous, only afraid. He hoped whatever Forrest was doing was making Alex just a little more comfortable, giving him a little more time.

“You’re gonna be fine, baby,” he promised, the words heavy on his tongue. It was when they were barely ten minutes away from the hospital that Forrest gasped.

“Guerin,” he sounded panicked, “he’s out.”

“What?” Michael looked over his shoulder. Alex’s eyes were closed, his body limp.

“Oh my God,” Forrest breathed. “Oh my God –”

“Don’t freak out on me now, Long,” Michael said. There wasn’t time to curl up into a ball and cry, there wasn’t time to be afraid. He had to save Alex.

The gas pedal was on the floor of the truck, Michael was glued to his seat as the wind howled past. When they finally arrived at the hospital, Michael didn’t bother going to the parking lot. Instead, the tires skidded as he curved to a stop in front of the automatic double doors. He barely parked the car before he was out. He opened the door and Forrest helped put Alex on his back.

Michael ran through the doors with Forrest behind him, keeping Alex securely in place.

“Help!” they both screamed. “He needs help!”

“Please,” Forrest said shakily to the nurses as they rushed forward to take Alex and put him on a gurney. “You have to save him!”

“What the hell?” Kyle appeared amidst the men and woman already starting to lead Alex away. His eyes were wide as they fell on his best friend, passed out and injured. “Alex?”

“He fell,” Michael tried, but Kyle was already in full doctor-mode, pulling out a small flashlight from his pocket. “We think he might be bleeding internally.”

“Damn it, Manes,” he muttered, and pressed two fingers to Alex’s neck. “Pulse is weak,” he said as they hurried down a hall. He opened one of Alex’s eyes with his fingers, shining a light across his pupil. “Unresponsive. Start an IV drip and prepare room 69 for a blood transfusion.”

“Yes, doctor,” a nurse said. They went through the set of double doors marked ER, and another nurse held up a hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she looked it, “but you have to stay out here.”

“But –” Forrest tried.

“The doctor will do all he can,” she said. “Please excuse me,” and she disappeared behind the doors as well, leaving Forrest and Michael in silence.

Forrest slid down against the wall and stared at the ceiling while Michael ran a hand across his jaw. Neither of them said anything for a long time, the muffled sounds of heart monitors and ringing telephones echoing through the walls and somehow making the hallway feel even emptier than it already was.

Finally, Forrest hoarsely said, “I’m sorry. I – I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. You were so calm, I . . . how did you do it?”

“I wasn’t calm,” Michael confessed before he could help it, and even he could hear the tremor in his voice. He took his hat off and used his other hand to run his fingers through his curls. “I’m – I’m not calm.”

It was all he said, but it seemed to be enough as Forrest’s eyes softened and he nodded in silent understanding. Once again, Michael found himself grateful not to have to say the words he was thinking.

They sat in silence for another few seconds before Michael couldn’t take it anymore. “I didn’t want him to listen to you,” he said. “You wanted him to go to the hospital, and I didn’t want him to choose you again, so I pushed.”

He sniffed angrily, his eyes burning. He looked away. “If we’re really assigning blame, then –”

“We’re not,” Forrest cut him off. He looked as miserable as Michael felt, not as though he held Michael responsible at all. He whispered, “We’re not.”

Michael’s lower lip trembled, but he quickly rubbed his face, hiding it.

“Do you know why we broke up?” Forrest said. “Me and Alex?” Michael shook his head. “We both agreed that there was one person Alex loved more than anybody else in the world. And it wasn’t me.”

He held Michael’s startled gaze, and shrugged a shoulder, a helpless smile tugging at his lips. “What I’m saying is, Guerin, you didn’t have to do much pushing. Alex would go to the ends of the earth for you. He likes me, but . . . he loves you.”

Michael could think of nothing to say to that. He sat down opposite Forrest, his arm rested on one knee. Two men Alex had been with, two men who loved him beyond words could say.

Michael finally settled on, “You’re not so bad, Long.”

Forrest chuckled weakly. “’Course not. I just gave you the best news you’ll ever get in your life.”

And despite it all, Michael huffed a weak laugh of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

Any semblance of a smile vanished in an instant as the silence and seriousness of the situation fell like a heavy blanket on Michael’s chest, as the wait turned from minutes to an hour, and the fear of news to come loomed over their heads.

When the doors opened and Kyle stepped out, the two were on their feet in an instant.

“Well?” Michael demanded.

“How is he?” Forrest asked.

Kyle glared from Forrest to Michael. He huffed, annoyed, and Michael felt such an intense relief that he almost sobbed right there and then. “He has rock debris imbedded in his skin and a gash in his forehead! Where’d he fall off, a mountain?”

“So he’s okay?” Forrest said, his hands still shaking.

Kyle sighed. “Yeah, he’ll be fine after a few days.” He pointed a threatening finger at Michael. “You are so lucky, Guerin, you got him here just in time. If he wasn’t so used to heavy military training already –”

“I want to see him,” Michael interrupted.

Kyle hesitated, but Forrest urged, “Let him. If anyone can help heal Alex faster, it’s him, you know it is.”

He shook his head at the ceiling, as if asking for patience. “Since when are you two BFFs? You know what? I don’t care, go see him, whatever, but if his vitals jump one nanosecond, I’m kicking you out. Got it?”

“I know you’ll try,” Michael said, patting Kyle’s shoulder as he rushed past him through the double doors.

There were two nurses on either side of Alex’s bed, one adjusting the IV drip attached to Alex’s arm, and the other securing the bandage on his forehead, just above his right eye. They finished up, and nodded once to Michael as they passed him on their way out.

Michael knew they’d transfer Alex to another room soon, and they wouldn’t have the privacy that they did now, so he wasted no time in taking his hand and kissing his fingers.

“You’re okay,” he breathed against Alex’s skin, pressing his fingers to the pulse at his wrist, if only to reassure himself. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

The heart monitor’s steady beep beep beep was the only response Michael got, but he told himself it was a reminder that Alex was alive. He could make out the faint outline of bandages just beneath Alex’s ribs under the thin white blanket, and he swallowed thickly, willing himself to look away.

He gently pushed back Alex’s bangs without disrupting the bandage, and leaned in, pressing a faint kiss to his forehead. When he pulled back, he found Alex’s eyes fluttering open. He smiled, relieved.

“Hey, beautiful,” he whispered.

Alex took a while to answer, breathing deeply and softly. “Where am I?”

“The ER,” Michael explained. “You had internal bleeding, they had to sew you back up.”

“What?” Alex frowned and tried to sit up, but he winced and his mouth fell open in pain.

“Easy, easy,” Michael said softly, wrapping his arms around him to lay him back down. “You don’t wanna open your stitching.” He sighed, keeping his arms around Alex, even as he was settled against his pillows. “I thought, you know, with the military thing, it’d be okay to tell you without beating around the bush.”

“And you?” Alex murmured, his brows pinched with pain, his hand gripping Michael’s forearm tightly. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, right?”

“Me?” he blinked, his face turning hot embarrassingly quickly. “No, I’m fine.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, his hand still holding Michael’s. “Good. That’s good.”

Michael huffed a chuckle, shaking his head. “You were cut open, and you’re thinking of me?”

“I’m always thinking of you,” Alex said without missing a beat, and Michael swallowed, all humor gone.

A few seconds passed in silence, then –

“You scared me, Alex,” he confessed. “I – I thought . . .” a lump formed in his throat and he cleared it. “I thought I’d . . .”

Alex opened his eyes to meet his gaze. Michael didn’t know what he was searching for, but he must’ve found it, because the next thing he knew, Alex was trying to move to one side of his bed.

“What’re you doing?” Michael said, covering Alex’s hand on his arm with his own. “I told you, you need to –”

“Get under the covers,” Alex said, throwing one side of the blanket back. Michael made out the edge of a bandage wrapped tightly around Alex’s waist. There was no sign of bleeding, so Michael took it as good news, but he was still hesitant to climb in.

“What if I hurt you?” he said. “If Valenti sees us –”

“Kyle, huh?” he smiled. “He knew what he was getting into, letting you in. Come on, Guerin, please.”

Michael bit his lower lip, and found he wanted nothing more than to obey. He kicked off his boots, set his hat on the ground, and slid into bed beside Alex. He was slow, careful, gentle. He ended up on his side while Alex stayed on his back, his forehead pressed to Alex’s temple. When they were as comfortable as they were going to get, he pushed his face into Alex’s hair and inhaled deeply.

His eyes burned, and a sob escaped his lips on the exhale. He reached an arm around Alex’s shoulders and hugged him as tightly as he could without moving him.

Alex didn’t seem surprised, and it occurred to Michael that inviting him into bed had been more for his sake.

“Shh,” Alex said softly, reaching a hand up to place in Michael’s curls, raking his hair. He whispered, “I’m okay. Breathe, Guerin. Breathe.”

Michael tried, his breath hitching as the tears kept falling, and he held Alex tighter. He placed wet, open-mouthed kisses on his temple, his ear, his cheek.

“You’re so warm,” Alex murmured as his eyes fluttered shut, but his vitals were still normal, so Michael knew he was just falling asleep again. “Don’t leave me here, Guerin. Promise me.”

“I’ll never leave you,” Michael promised. Alex drifted, but his fingers kept combing through Michael’s hair. “Never.”

***

It’s good to be back 🥰❤

[imonthinice]

The Criminal Psychology Majors, Jason Todd x Fem!Reader Part 18/?

Word Count: 2.5k

Author's Note: Y/N - your name, A/N - any name (your best friend's name)

Warnings: Mentions of court, mentions of Jason's injuries, swearing, No beta bitch we die like Jason Todd

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18) (Part 19) (Part 20)

Jason walked out in a few minutes, just in his boxers. She looked at him before letting out a slight laugh at the absurdity of it.

"Don't laugh, you're the one who tore my clothes."

She sighed, "And you're going to have to go home in torn boxers, Bruce is going to kill you."

"God, don't remind me," he said before sitting beside her.

She laughed, "You could just not go home?"

"I wish. But I have a life. You have a life."

"It's unfortunate, isn't it. Can't spend all day with you but you're all I want to do."

"Funny."

"Thank you, I really tried," she thought, "You remember how I seem to have a fascination with vigilantes?"

"Yes, why?"

"I remembered why. So, when I was in high school, graduating year, I had law class. I was bored, so I did law, don't question it," she laughed. "Anyway, in my law class, they split us into groups. Specifically, Pro-Justice-League-Association and Anti-Justice-League-Association."

"Pro and Anti?"

"Yeah, apparently it was relevant? I guess the JLA doesn't use conventional methods to get evidence? Don't care though. Anyway, I was on the side of Pro, obviously."

"Obviously."

"Wait I'm not done! By the end of the class, I had debated every member of the Anti team and converted them. It actually introduced me to the Robin-Forums, which is just smack dab full of conspiracies."

"Robin-Forums?"

"Oh my god? You don't know those? You're all over them. Some people are convinced you're Kid Flash, some are convinced you're Robin, it's crazy."

"That is crazy but seems funny. What about my family?"

"Someone in my class posted "Why Clark Kent is Batman: An Essay" which has like, 20k likes? It's very popular."

"Well, I swear he isn't Batman. He's just very fond of the night."

"That's what I said, but that man is convinced otherwise."

"You would know if any of us were vigilantes. We're not good at hiding secrets."

"I'm sure you have your secrets, I just find it funny people think you have time to be Kid Flash."

"People spend all their time worrying about me, when will it end?"

"Ha! That's fair. Tabloids running your name probably doesn't help the conspiracies."

"I remember one of my ex-friends from high school mentioned me being Kid Flash, I was so confused, I guess it makes sense now. I'm going to have to show everyone that. They'll get a kick out of it."

"I bet they would. I'm waiting for the day I'm on it as someone who's a hero. Hoping they say I'm Wonder Woman or something. I think it would be funny."

"You get Miss Martin because everyone thinks you're too beautiful to be human."

"Aw. That's so corny that I hate it! Well done."

"Thank you. I learned it from Dick."

"Of course you did."

"Where else would I learn it from?"

"If you're genuinely asking, the internet, probably."

"That's fair. That's completely fair. I think Dick learns a lot of his lines from the internet, honestly."

"Oh yeah, there's no way he comes up with everything on his own. No way."

"So, what other dumb stories do you have?"

"Well, I think my sister is either a vigilante or really, really, weird."

"You think your sister is a vigilante?"

"Okay so, she's a businesswoman. No big deal, right? Wrong. She's always out, more often than she has to be, she's always spending nights away from home."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Okay well Adrianna, Aria, whatever you want to call her, she's being suspicious."

"I'm sure you're looking too far into it."

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

The Night Jason Was Stabbed.

Aria clutched the scythe in her life hand. She had failed. She had worn her best dresses that she could hide beneath her capes, she had drugged him, she had stabbed him 6 bloody times, and he had still survived!

She was angry. She walked up to the Red Hood on his time off while he was catching a drink, looking stressed. She didn't care if he accepted her offer to go to her room, she just cared about that moment. The one where she could slip in the crushed-up pills and no one would stop her.

And she had done it. She waited until after he chugged the whole drink to strike. He was stumbling around, like an idiot. She hit his head with the back of her blade, knocking him to the ground where she proceeded to stab him 6 times in his right side.

She kissed his forehead before leaving, which required her to removed her mask a bit, saying "Goodnight, sweet Prince," before running into the darkness.

But the blue one, Nightwing. He got to the Red Hood before he could die. And she was pissed. All that hard work, just for him to not even die.

The scythe was still bloodied from the Red Hood. Her lips were still warm from his forehead. But now, he had possibly seen her face! Her plans were foiled every way when of her goblins came up to her.

"Ma'am, your weapon."

She passed it over without second thought. She wanted it rid of the blood of a living man, she wanted it soaked in the blood of a dead man.

Her plague doctor mask fell a bit as she began to tear up. She had failed. She had never failed at knocking "Heroes" down a peg.

Call it crazy, but she knew the fights between her and the Red Hood were far from over. She even felt as they'd grow closer.

As she looked at the walls covered in the photos of the vigilantes of the world, she knew this was only the first battle. The war was hers. They didn't know what was going to hit them.

But there was an issue. Her sister, Y/N had become close with one of the Waynes. She needed the Waynes to get to the "Heroes" which meant possibly hurting her sister.

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

"I hope I'm looking too far into it."

She wasn't.

One night when they were both 17, it was just Aria and Y/N in the house when Y/N was awoken by a loud crash from the downstairs window.

She went to investigate, bat in hand, to find her sister, stumbling over the coffee table. Bleeding out and clutching her side from the blood. Stabbed.

Y/N took no hesitation to take care of Aria. Stitching her up like they had as kids when Y/N would sitch up Aria after shut cut herself on skates, or if Y/N ran straight into a car.

Those images still dance in Y/N's mind to this day. Something was up with the way that her sister had a mask, a long bird-Esque plague doctor mask. A cloak. Knives. Guns. A scythe.

The best outcome would be her sister was attacked while LARPing in the park. The worst? She was a villain. Midway? A hero of the night, a vigilante. Anything was better than a villain.

If only she knew the pain Aria had caused her until this point. The fact that Aria was the one who drugged and tried to kill Jason. The pieces of the story were unravelling in front of everyone's eyes, they just needed to connect them properly.

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

Aria had a plan. Kidnap her sister and her lover's family. Get ransom. Get them hurting. Locate the "Heroes". The only issue was that Y/N would recognise the cloak, the mask. She knew the get-up.

Aria was not about to redesign her entire outfit for the sake of not alerting her sister. She figured it would be unlikely that Y/N would focus on the cloak when she's being used for ransom money.

Or at least she hoped. She wasn't certain her plan would even work. Breaking into the Wayne Manor, after one of the kids had been stabbed, in a mugging was going to be difficult.

They had employed security, something that was never common at the Wayne Manor before this moment. She was upset. If only her sister had met the Waynes before the stabbing.

Then she thought.

Red Hood is a Wayne?

It made sense, sure. They got stabbed at the same time. But was it reasonable? She didn't know. Why would an 18-20-year-old be a vigilante? He couldn't even legally drink?

She thought it didn't make sense. That the Red Hood was never, could never be the Wayne kid. But if he was, what could that mean?

She was certain he wasn't. But the thoughts swirled in her mind as if beckoning her to come to the conclusion.

She was crazy, she knew that. She was obviously crazy, she became the villain, the opposite of her twin in every way. She was insane. Arkham would like her. But there was something about the Red Hood being a Wayne that kept coming back to her. Haunting her like the night she was stabbed by Green Arrow back in Metropolis.

She was on their radar. They knew her. They would come to get the Waynes.

She knew the Justice League Association knew of her. But the people didn't. This stunt would make the people know of her.

The name Hour will ring through the streets of Gotham. The streets of Metropolis. Smallville. Anywhere she could get her hands on. She would begin her reign of terror.

No one could stop her now.

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

Jason had left after Bruce had called him. She assumed he needed to work or one of his siblings did a dumbass move. It was upsetting that they couldn't spend every moment together, but she knew that it was par for the course with Jason.

She was bored. She didn't have a job, her parents paid her bills if she focused on school. But she wasn't something to do, a reason to be having down days. She knew school gave her this, but it wasn't like it was every damn day.

A job would be every damn day. Hopefully. A reason to do so much in her life.

She figured she could work at Wayne Enterprises. But she didn't want to be that girl. The one who's fucking the CEO and is subsequently untouchable. You can't befriend her and talk sit, she'll tattle.

She wanted to be a normal working person. A colleague, not a boss.

Wayne Enterprises was a last resort for her. If she couldn't get hired anywhere else, she'd go apply thee. You don't fuck company property, she thought.

But she also thought fucking Wanye Enterprises "Property" was fun. and no one was really going to stop her, not even Bruce. Even though Bruce tried to lecture her and Jason, there was only so much he'd do. Barbara and Dick both worked at Wayne Enterprises and hadn't been reprimanded for that.

And obviously, they were having sex. They had been together for a while, Jason said.

Which, obviously they were having sex if they were together for that long.

She scrolled a little while for jobs, marking down a few she'd look further into. Not really anything exciting, she was still young, 1st year in college, a freshman. Not many prestigious places would hire someone her age. Especially while they're still in school.

There were only unpaid intern jobs in her field. And she wasn't about to fuck with not getting paid, even if it was her line of schooling. She didn't think it was worth it to put all of your efforts into a job that you weren't getting paid for.

A lot of kids thought her way, including her sister. Both of them grew up thinking that getting paid for work was necessary, her parents had always told them that. Even if her parents had strict religious views, they would still back her up if someone wasn't paying her, even if they fell out.

She thought if Bruce felt the same, that kids should be paid for what they do. He figured he did since he employed all of his kids once they were old enough to work at Wayne Enterprises.

She noticed Lexcorp, who had recently put up a building in Gotham, was hiring. She thought it would be funny if she went to work for her boyfriend's dad's competitor. She was tempted.

Worst comes to worst, she'd be a Lexcorp employee.

She, of course, would have to dress up for these interviews, and she had the clothes to do so, but she didn't, per se, want to wear them.

She also didn't want to go outside when trials were still raging. So, she figured she'd call Christopher's parents about getting him a lawyer and then scroll the pages for shopping. His parents finally had the time to deal with their son, because Christopher didn't want to interrupt his parents with him being an idiot.

She dialled.

"Hello?" his mom asked.

"Hey, Laura. It's Y/N."

"Y/N! Sweetheart, we've been wondering about you ever since, you know."

"Yeah, yeah. We can talk about it later I swear. So, I already told you about what Christopher did, right?"

"You did."

"He needs a lawyer, the man is pressing charges."

"Well, that's stupid. He has no right."

"Apparently he does."

"We'll get Christopher a lawyer. But how are you, darling?"

"I'm okay. Could be a hell of a lot better. I have faith in the court system."

"We're all worried about you, kiddo. You've wrapped yourself up in a lot of a mess recently."

"I know. It's weird. But I swear I'm strong enough to pull through, you've known me for what, 13 years? Give or take? I know how to handle myself."

"That doesn't mean we can't worry."

"I know, new city, new people. I swear behind the scandals I'm in that I actually have friends."

"I assume we'll meet this Jason eventually?"

"Eventually. We need to find the time between court dates, work. Adulting."

"You don't have a job?"

"Jason does. And I'm thinking about getting one to pass the time."

"Working to pass the time is a new thing, fascinating, you kids are."

"Nothing can make sense of all these things I've done, I know."

"Those sound like song lyrics."

"Sometimes songs are the best way to get all your thoughts compiled into one place, you know. I starred as Katherine Howard, Laura. I know how to convey emotion through art."

"I know. That's still one of the performances Metropolis holds on to, you know."

"I wish they didn't. But it is what it is."

"It's a good performance, kiddo."

She laughed, "Anyway. You get onto that lawyer. Christopher needs it right now."

"I will. Be safe. We love you."

"I love you lot."

Click. She thought about Christopher, and the bullshit he went through to save her.

She brushed the thoughts off and pulled out her journal. Scribbling down her sister's bird mask. She couldn't get that off of her mind. She could have sworn her sister made the thing out of actual bone.

It was like she threw a steampunk aesthetic into a plague doctor. She was certain there was more to it that she didn't know.

Literally Aria LMFAO

[cosmiclatte28]

The Undead collab

for @biaswreckingfics the undead collab! such an amazing collab and I am honored to write for Lay.

summary : The world had been destroyed. Zombies. Yes, you heard me right. Zombies took over humanities. They said it was conspiracy, others said it was planned, someone said it’s a bio weapon but you? You said this was fate and this was meant to be. In the middle of the chaos, your last proof as being a human started to disappear. And in times where you wished for safety, you did finally come to find the man who’s been embracing you in your dreams. Your online sugar daddy.

Semi smut (not explained just mentioned), romance, survival story

members : EXO-M

Pairing : lay x reader

WC : 3702

tw : zombies, daddy issues

The world had been destroyed. Zombies. Yes, you heard me right. Zombies took over humanities. They said it was a conspiracy, others said it was planned, someone said it’s a bio weapon but you? You said this was fate and this was meant to be. In the middle of the chaos, your last proof as being a human started to disappear. And in times where you wished for safety, you did finally come to find the man who’s been embracing you in your dreams. Your online sugar daddy.

You’ve lost count of the days. To be honest day and night don’t feel different as you have to stay alert all the time. There’s no time to rest, no time to slack, and no time to worry about what you left behind. It all started as a gas leak in a big biohazardous factory. The company keeps it secret, slowly affecting the workers there who are trying to fix the leak. It’s not a green smoke like what you would see in a Disney villain movie, it’s a nicely colored pink gas that smells sweet but is deadly enough to churn your organs and make you turn into what the society calls “zombie”

The outbreak spreads faster than the plague, with the infected “biting” the human and changin them into zombies. The conspiracy theories maker believe this was planned as how all zombie films look exactly like this. The scientists believed this were an unprepared bioweapon aimed to be released a century from the latest pandemic in 2020. You? You believe this is just fate and that there’s no meaning to hustle about what’s right. You just have three things in your head. Run, Adapt, Survive.

You’re glad you still have your phone, charger, knife, and a radio to contact any bases that have survivors in them. You’ve survived the days by running, hiding, and stealing big cars to help you run over the town. This morning, you got a signal from your radio saying that there’s some group of survivors on a certain latitude and longitude. You quickly take notes of it, and tell them over that you’re going to join them. As you pick your stuffs and put your compass on, you hear your radio static voice.

“How can we ensure you’re human?” one of them with a deep voice asks over the radio and you roll your eyes “Would a zombie be smart enough to find radio signals and communicate?”

You hear a loud laugh on the other end and you note that there’s more than one person there.

“How many of you are there?” you ask suddenly afraid if it’s a too big group and you have to make hard decisions with bigger parties.

There’s a shuffle and a voice comes in “There’s only 6 of us. I am the leader, Kris and you?”

You start your engine, “I’m (y/n). I’ll arrive before the sun sets hopefully.”

“Good luck and stay safe. We hope to see you in one complete piece. Over.”

--

“Who is it Kris?” The young man with a sweet dimple asks the leader after hearing the short conversation on the radio.

“Oh, from the voice I’m pretty sure she’s a survivor like us.” Kris peeks over the blinds of their hideout and notices how empty the road is.

“Can you reach Suho? I wonder if they survive too.” the same guy asks again.

Kris pats his shoulder “They’ll be okay Lay, don’t worry. I’m sure Suho can take care of the guys. Now, what about we try to find food for tonight?”

Lay sighs “I don’t know. With Luhan being weak today from using too much of his powers, I have to be here to help him heal faster.”

Kris sighs, with the 12 of them divided it was harder to fight the zombies. They are gifted with supernatural powers, but at the moment 6 of them are in another place and its their goal to reunite.

Kris left his radio and went to shower. They call themselves the EXO-M, with 6 members of their own powers.

---

You stop over an abandoned supermarket, after making sure there’s no one around, you quickly hoard all the canned foods and waters. Picked up fires and some warm blanket for you to sleep tonight.

Your journey to their basecamp was not smooth, with you having to walk over some hoard of zombies. With your eyes shut close you hit the gas and just move forward without thinking.

“Hey, hey can you hear me?” your radio suddenly turns on and your ears perk up when you hear the sound.

“Yes?”

There was a sudden pause.

Lay gulps and shakes his head when he hears your voice.

“Sorry, but can you bring us some food supplies?”

You sigh “I already did. You’re lucky but did you know how crazy it would be if I have to go back?”

He groans “You’re a handful aren’t you?”

You were too focused on the road, not filtering your word “I AM. You can say I am a sugar baby at all time, so yeah I am a handful.” you yell that as you strive through some muddy place and you notice there’s a small strong bunker in the middle of the field.

Lay stays silent as he controls his beating heart. Why does something rings a bell in his memory.

He grits his teeth and shake his head “Just come here quick. We have to help our brothers.”

You groan “I am in front of a bunker pretty sure this is where you guys are. How come you can find a place without any infected people?” you ask as you see a man opens the door for you to come in.

“Chen, Tao, Xiumin and Kris go take her foods and keep it safe.”

You yell as the dimpled man grabs your hand into the bunker. You shake it off “Hey, that’s my food supplies!”

“First off my name is Lay.”

“Okay Lay,” you cut him off “Stop robbing my supplies.”

Lay’s eyes turn dark “Hey, you’re the guest here. Don’t you think it’s also dangerous for us to just accept you here?! If it’s not because of Tao’s clumsy hand pressing the radio to give you a signal, Kris won’t bring anyone in.”

You feel offended, “If you don’t want me here you can say that directly. You’re not my master or husband or whatever, i can go if you want that so bad, but let me take all my stuffs with me.”

As Lay was about to spit back words to you, a strong grip separates both of you and you gasp surpsied.

“(y/n) right? Nice to see you come in one piece. I am Kris, sorry if Lay said anything that hurts you. He’s been alert for the last two days trying to heal our exhausted brother. I apologize on his behalf.” Kris, bows at you in a respectable angle and your anger fumes down. He sure is the leader and you’re glad his words didn’t sting.

“Thank you Kris, I like your welcome better. I came here with supplies, I want to share it with all of you but Lay here just robbed my car.” you sneer at the tall man and he just rolls his eyes.

“Lay, would you mind taking (y/n) to the bathroom? She can use some shower and you can check if she needs any medical healing.”

“We’ll take care of dinner. Don’t worry, you’ve had a long day. Good job in arriving here.” Kris sends you off and walks away. You sure like how this Kris manners are

You want to protest for being left with Lay but Lay’s firm grip dragging you into the bathroom left you with no option than to follow him.

--

“I’m sorry, your voice just reminds me of someone and I was distracted.” he suddenly speak up from the shower stall next to you.

You turn your neck to see him, the shower walls are not that tall for Lay. You can see his head from the side, but it covers your height nicely.

You gulp and continue washing your hair, facing the other way as you always did when you wash your hair. Your back facing the shower so that your eyes are free from the water.

“It’s okay, i am sorry I was just stressed and tired too. I swear I am not a handful.” you blush when you remember the first introduction between both of you.

Lay has a special memory working in his head and he chuckles “You’ll say I am wild but you reminded me of my sugar baby.”

You blushed, feeling a tingle on your naked body “Oh, in what way?”

He turns the shower off and looks at you “I never see my sugar baby, We both don’t know how each other look. We’re just talking and chatting and having fun remaining anonymous.”

Now it’s your turn to gulp and turn the shower off, you grab the towel Lay prepared earlier and wrap yourself in it “Now that’s interesting. Mind to tell me why you suddenly remember her?”

Lay chuckles and looks to the ceiling “We did voice calls sometimes, and when you said “I am a handful” you really sound like her.”

You bashfully stare at your feet. There's a bothersome fact in your head that also says Lay sounds like someone you know.

“Alright, I guess we need to go join the others?” you reappear in front of him with your fresh set of clothes you just took from the supermarket.

Lay nods “Before that, a quick check. We can’t have you bleeding or injured around here.” He twists and turns your body checking and pressing here and there to see if you have any wound or broken bones.

“You’re quiet strong for you to be alone for days. Just wounds but no big injuries! I can heal your internal injuries so the infected at least can’t smell you that strongly.” Lay explains and you just nod.

“How will you do that?” you squeak and he smiles “You’ll discover tonight.” he winks and your heart stops a beat when memories of a voice comes back to your head.

He couldn't be…

Dinner was better than what you have had for the past days. Somehow the EXO-M have their own food supplies here but they are also running out of foods.

"Before we eat, let's thank you our new sister here (y/n)," the man with doe eyes smile at you nicely and make all the rest of the men stare at you.

You shake your head "No problem, I should he the one to thank you for accepting me inside. That's a big trust you have."

The men chuckles and Kris hushes them down "We sure knows because only special people like us can survive this long." He begins to take the foods on the table and the rest of them also joins.

You were sitting next to Xiumin and he helps you to get your foods on your plate.

"We eat from the same pan, so don't worry. We don't plan to kill you or hurt you." He grins "I am the one cooking so please enjoy it."

You chuckle, if this was Lay's cooking maybe you will be careful remembering how your first impression wasn't good. Though something still bothers your mind when you see him take a glance or two at you.

You learn about their abilities, a supernatural power that helps them survive until today. Just like you, the 6 men here have their powers and they have a separated brothers who also own powers. Their goal is to reunite and survive together but as far as you understand their story, they still cannot reach EXO-K and no news know what happened to them.

Kris was able to fly, making him the one to do errands like finding foods and shelters. Xiumin is their frost guardian. Luhan is gifted with telekinesis that's why when there was an attack, he had to work hard blasting the zombies away. You learned that Chen has a beautiful and powerful voice and he is gifted with making thunder. Tao can mess with time but he hasn't master time travel yet and finally lay. Lay has a healing power.

"So the 6 of you are unstoppable." You conclude as you drop your chopstick when you're done with food.

They nod "We're quite powerful now but you see we're getting weaker. And we need to meet the rest of the brothers to become more powerful."

"So what's your power?" Tao, the youngest, blurts out the question and you laugh

"I don't have a power. what are you talking about?"

Tao whines about how you don't need to hide it from them but you really don't know what they're talking about

"I am just a regular human." You snap and that brings an awkward silence to the room. You see kris looking cross at Tao and you can't stand the stares so you excuse yourself to hide in the only place you've been. The bathroom.

You turn the sink on and wash your hands, trying to cool your head down but you cannot focus when you see the small tattoo on your wrist. A tattoo of your family surname. You run your fingers over it. Feeling your tears collect again when you remember how they all died on the first week of the apocalypse. You lost everyone and everything you love. You're forced to run and you're so young to survive because your father reminded you that whatever happen go run for your life and leave your loved ones behind.

You wash your face, trying to hide the tears that fall on your cheeks.

when you hear another footstep coming into the room, you turn the water off. You saw him coming and you expected he'll greet you with a "Stop wasting the water silly" but all you heard was a sweet deep voice you've always heard on your lonely nights. On nights where you feel so lonely and dark thoughts loom around.

"May I little one?" A voice you remember.

You turn your head to face him and shake your head "Are you really who I am thinking?"

Your heart screams "Yes daddy," but that doesn't leave your mouth.

He stops and stares at his feet "Are you someone I am thinking of?"

Both of you don't answer the questions. Instead, Lay sits down on one of the benches there and you lean on the washing table.

"You really remind me of my online sugar baby. I hope she's doing fine. I hope she survived. I cared a lot about her."

You let Lay continue talking.

"She said she likes to shower backway, her face away from the shower head. You did that earlier and I was surprised. But hey coincidence could happen right."

You blush laughing a little "You sound like you really care for her."

He nods "She's my favorite."

You play with your hair "Tell me more. I guess listening to stories like this is better than just getting asked about how my journey here looks like."

Yes you really don't need a reminder on how scary getting chased after a mob of zombies is.

"I don't think I'll ever hear from her again." He suddenly leans back and closes his eyes

"Oh how I wish i ever see her."

You fish your pocket and grab your phone out

"Do you want to borrow my phone and maybe look up her account?" You pass him your phone and he looks interested

"We didn't get the chance to take our phones when we had to evacuate. Silly us right." He brushes his hair back and you caught a glimpse of his abs.

"Will this ring a bell to you?" You clear your throat and calm your heartbeat.

"Sugar sweets here ready for you daddy" you close your eyes ready to feel embarrassed if things didn't go as planned. You can feel your ego crumbling but instead of a laugh or a wtf, you got a reply "Daddy's here sweetie, tell me what you want"

Both of you avoid each other's eyes for a minute. Ears flushing red and stomach filled with butterflies. Both of you suddenly laugh and chuckle

"So, you're my sugar daddy?" You finally ask after realizing how weird this should be but its not that weird.

"And you are my sugar baby!" He smiles "I am glad you are safe and here with me."

You walk to his side and sit next to him "i am sweetcheeks14"

He pinches your cheek "And i am the man behind sinfulwhispers"

The two of you laugh and you exhale a breath to relax

"So. What is it your super power?" You chuckle suddenly feeling stupid for asking that

Lay looks at you seriously "You think we were kidding? I really have a healing power."

Before you can scoff and reply with another power to joke around, he already pulls you to face him and as he concentrates you see his hand sticking out just few centimeters away from the stomach you actually hurt yesterday. Despite your attempt to laugh, you actually feel your stomach ache gone and a warm feeling runs in your body.

"There should be good as new. You're welcome." He clicks his tongue and you still freeze there unable to say anything.

"I- i don't know what to say." You touch your stomach again making sure it is really gone the pain.

He just sits down calmly beside you. Giving you time and space to think what the heck just happened.

“I know it’s confusing, but try to think about this.” he brushes your hair away to see your face. His warm big hand creeps up to reach your chin and holds it there “You’re a wonderful sweetheart and you’ve survived this long by yourself.” he searches your eyes to see if you’re scared of him or not, and when he sees your eyes twinkle, Lay erases the gap between you two.

“You have a super power sweetheart, you just have to embrace it.” he presses his lips on to yours and slowly bites yours.

You give in to his touch, finally tasting the kiss from your sugar daddy and finally just finally you’re not tensed from having to sleep in full alert, not stressed over where to take shelter.

Lay hugs you deep and that’s the time when you realize having someone by your side on hard times like this is the best.

Your tear falls from your eyes and when Lay wants to pull away and wipe it for you, you keep pressing his head to your lips and with one gentle move you flick your tears away only for both of you to jump back in surprise.

“What was that?” he asks suddenly holding your hand that just flick the small tears away and definitely leaves a hole on the toilet door.

You stare at your hands in horror, no way you have a super power.

Lay and you freeze in time, did you have that much power? Is that why you keep on slaying and killin the dead?

“Baby, I have a good feeling.” he picks you up before you can say anything and drags you out into a special room where you see a lot of training equipments.

“Would you mind?” he is already holding a boxing tape and you raise your palm to let him wrap your hands with the tape before he gives you an apple to your hand.

“Okay, now let’s see. We both will throw the apple and see whose will stick to the wall there.” he points to a side and you ask if it’s going to be okay.

Lay chuckles “It’s bulletproof, so let’s see.”

Both of you stand from the same line and throw the apples to the wall, sure enough yours leave a crack mark on the wall but not Lay’s

Suddenly the room echoes with claps and you turn your head to realize that the others are already here.

“We saw you running here with Lay, so we watched the camera.” Kris explained

You blushed, what if both of you were going to fuck, will they still be watching?

“Now, the final check to see if you’re still human is this.” Luhan points to a chair and you look at them confused.

“We’ll take your blood and do a quick lab test, our antibodies will be different if you’re immune to the “zombies” here.” Luhan explained as he already poked a needle into your vein and take a tube to test your blood.

“Go sleep and don’t think or worry about anything. We promise we won’t do anything to you. Take your well needed rest.” Xiumin explains and soon after the brothers discuss, Lay decided to take you into his room.

No one has to know what happens in that four walled space. You’re finally with your virtual sugar daddy and there’s a guarantee that the room is sound proof so both of you didn’t hold anything back.

“I’m glad you found me.” Lay whispers after both of you are done chasing your highs and cuddled nicely under the bed covers.

You yawn “I didn’t expect to finally be in your arms, but I will trade anything in this world to be here. I feel safe. Thank you Lay.”

Lay kisses the top of your head “Love you sweetheart, let’s see the result tomorrow and if you’re totally immune and like us, you’ll stay with us.”

You wonder what if you are not immune, will they throw you out? But before you can ask Lay already hugs you closer and hums a lullaby to your ear.

You settled on not trying to know what will happen if you’re not like them, and choose to sleep trying to think that everything is okay.

--

After all, you’re glad you find them and that they don’t disown you. Because having one more of the undead in their 12 immortal group is a good thing.

[avengerscompound]

Until the End of the World - 13

Until the End of the World: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count:  2085

Rating:  E

Warnings: pregnancy

Synopsis: Four years after Steve and Bucky got to the bottom of the HYDRA conspiracy that had led to you and your son being hunted for the first three years of his life, you, Bucky, and Steve have carved out a nice life together.  Things are calm and you feel like a family unit.  When Geo starts calling Bucky and Steve ‘dad’, a decision is made to try and add to your family.

Things aren’t as calm as they seem.  When your pregnancy hits the papers, HYDRA rears its head once again, and Steve and Bucky need to track you down to protect the family they had created.

Chapter 13

The paperwork was all put in to adopt Geo.  Steve had put his lawyers on it, petitioning to allow both he and Bucky to go onto the birth certificate as adoptive parents, while you also kept your legal rights as a parent too.  The lawyers had said for everyone not to get their hopes too high, it was hard to be the precedent, but they were on it.  Bucky hoped it worked.  He read that in Canada there had been not only a lesbian couple that had been allowed to have both mothers and the donor father listed on the birth certificate of a child, but also a polyamorous family with two fathers and a mother all listed as parents on their child’s birth certificate too.

Bucky hoped that maybe if both he and Steve could adopt Geo, it would lead to both being listed on their little girl’s birth certificate too.  He hadn’t brought up his idea to go to Canada to have the baby yet.  It might be a little much to convince Steve to have a Canadian baby considering who he was.  But he might if it meant they could both be listed as her parents.

For now, Bucky would keep his fingers crossed and hope that the world might just surprise him and accept him and his family for what they were, even if maybe that was more than he’d earned yet.  There were other things to worry about.

The apartment was finally finished and you, Steve, Bucky, and Geo were moving your things back in.  It wasn’t a huge job, as almost everyone’s belongings had stayed in the apartment and just been covered in drop sheets while the work was done.  But still, there were clothes and Geo’s toys and random miscellaneous items that had drifted to the guest apartment they’d been using while construction had been underway.  Not to mention, even though all their things were there, the new rooms were empty and things needed to be reorganized to fit the space.

Bucky and Steve were in charge of moving the larger things, while you and Geo did smaller runs back and forth with clothes and toys and went about putting up pictures in new places and spreading out nicknacks.

“The baby doesn’t have a bed yet,” Geo said as nosed around the rooms, trying to get a feel for the new space.

The nursery had been done.  It was painted a light purple and Steve had been spending some of his free time painting a forest mural on one wall, but aside from the furniture they’d had built-in, like the wardrobe and sets of drawers, the room was still completely empty.

“We wanted to wait until the place was ready before we bought any,” Steve answered, ruffling Geo’s hair as he passed him in the hall, one large bag hefted over his shoulder.  “Did you want to go out and help us pick when we do that?”

Geo shrugged.  “I don’t mind.  I wanna buy her some toys.”

“We can do that,” Steve agreed.

You came out of the bedroom and dragged the drop sheet off one of the couches, before flopping down on it.

“You okay, babe?”  Bucky asked, stopping near you with his arms full of clothes.

“Yeah.  Just my back is aching and the baby is kicking me so much,” you complained.

“Let me just put this down and I’ll come and rub your back,” Bucky said, carrying the things into the bedroom and dumping them on the bed.  He came back out and removed the drop sheets from all the furniture and took a seat beside you.   “Can you get in a comfortable position?”

You got on your knees and leaned over the arm of the couch, resting your head on your arms.  Bucky began to gently work out the tension in your lower back.  Steve came back through the room followed by Geo as Bucky began to feel your muscles relaxing.

“Maybe it’s a good time for a break anyway,” Steve said.  “Do you want a drink?”

“Lemonade, please,” you half-moaned.

Geo sat down on the recliner and popped it out.  He was still quite small and in the large chair, he looked tiny.  His legs barely went over the side even when it wasn’t in the recline position.  He grabbed his tablet and immediately began playing a game with FRIDAY.  His eyes flickered as he communicated with her using his technopathic abilities.

Steve bought over a tray with a jug of lemonade and five glasses.  “Do we want to order lunch in?”

“Yes, please,” you moaned.

“Maybe you should rest and Bucky and I will finish unpacking,” Steve suggested.

“Gee, thanks for volunteering me, pal,” Bucky teased, earning a soft laugh from Steve.

Steve grabbed his phone and started to flick through it.  “What are we feeling?  Subs?  Something from a deli?  Something a little more hearty?”

“I’m feeling sandwich and soup, and a pickle on the side,” you said.

“I’m fine with that,” Bucky said, his hands sliding up your back a little while he massaged you.

“Geo?”  Steve said.  “You want soup and a sandwich?”

“Mac and cheese, please,” he answered without looking up.

Steve chuckled.  “Always have to make things difficult.  I’ll see what I can find.”

He tapped around on his phone for a little while before he found somewhere and then handed his phone to you.  You added some things to the cart, while Bucky massaged you.  “What are you feeling, Bucky?”  You asked, holding the phone for him to see.

“The Italian and-” his eyes flicked over everything as you scrolled down.  “-the loaded baked potato.”

You added them and sent the order in.  Bucky kept massaging you back and for a while that the only sounds in the room were the hum of the aircon, the tap of Geo’s fingers on the screen of his tablet, and the groans you would make when Bucky hit a particularly sensitive spot.

Eventually, you seemed to tire of the position you were in and you sat back, and put your feet in Bucky’s lap.  He immediately began to rub your feet.

“The good news is, we’re nearly done with the big things,” Steve said.  “We still have to spread out into the extra space, but there’s no rush to do that.”

“That’s good.  Your daughter is kicking the hell out of me,” you said.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Steve said.  “And she’s a little super soldier.”

“Yeah, be careful she doesn’t break one of your ribs,” Bucky said and ran his hands up your leg and pressed it against your stomach.

“How am I supposed to be careful?”  You snarked, moving his hand so it was in a better position.  No one else had been able to feel the kicks yet but this was a normal routine for the family.  You’d tell them you could feel the baby.  Steve or Bucky would put their hand on your stomach.  You’d move it to the spot you could feel them, and then nothing would happen.  Bucky lived in hope though.  It had to happen sooner or later.  “She’s inside me.  What can I do to stop her?”

Bucky chuckled and leaned over and kissed your forehead.  “Nothing with that attitude.”

He sat back and pressed his metal hand down against the baby bump where you held it.

He wasn’t particularly fond of his metal arm.  Sure there was this objective part of him that appreciated the technology.  It was very advanced, even for today’s standards for prosthetics, and he had always been a big fan of technology.  He appreciated that it allowed him to function easily.  He could get by without it and had done for a while and despite the fact, his hair would get caught in it from time to time, it did make it easier to do things like washing his hair and fastening the buttons on his clothes.

However, there were a lot of issues too.  It was heavy for one.  He had to lean to the right to compensate, which made his back ache on the best of days and meant his gate was a little off, and if he had to do a lot of walking or running, his hips would be screaming at him by the end of the day.  The new one was lighter but it still wasn’t as light as his flesh and blood arm.  The way it connected to his body caused problems too.  He wasn’t exactly sure they were all physical problems, or just in his head, but the way the skin rubbed against metal was irritating, and he knew, at least originally, HYDRA hadn’t cared about him, just the arm, so the connections weren’t the best, and they hurt all the time, sometimes sending painful spikes right to his head.  He used to scratch at it a lot like he was trying to dig the metal out of his flesh.  The problem was, all that should have been fixed with the new one, but he still felt it from time-to-time and he’d still find himself stretching at it.

It was how it made him feel about himself that was the worst.  Even though this was a new arm, it served as a constant reminder of what had happened to him.  It was an ever serving trigger to his past torture and enslavement.  It meant that he was never going to be a person first.  It was always the weapon, and then the person.  If he ever got too comfortable in his place at home with you and Steve he just had to look at his arm and remember, he wasn’t a boyfriend and a father.  He was a weapon who was lucky enough to have something to come home to.

It was advanced though.  He could hold it against your stomach and feel the texture of the fabric of your clothes and the slight movement of your body shifting under him.  He didn’t exactly know how they’d made it so he had such fine control and was able to perceive touch with it, but it worked.  Not as well as his real hand, but enough that he would use either when testing fruit for ripeness, or the temperature of water.  He’d never really appreciated that before.  But when he felt that press from inside you as the baby kicked, he had never appreciated that prosthetic arm more.

“Was that her?”  He asked, sitting up quickly.  “I didn’t just glitch did I?”

Steve moved so fast that one second he was over on the recliner and the next he was on his knees beside you.  “You felt her?”

“She did kick there, so … yes?”  You answered.

Bucky switched hands, pressing down on your stomach.  It was like the baby pushed back against him, trying to repel the thing intruding on her limited space.  “I felt her.  It’s soft, but I can feel her.”

Steve pushed Bucky’s hand out of the way and pressed his hand where Bucky’s had just been.  It took a moment but Bucky saw exactly when their daughter kicked because Steve’s face lit up from within.  So much happiness and love and excitement were written on his features.  He leaned down and pressed his forehead on your stomach.  “Hey in there,” he whispered.  “Are you giving your mommy trouble?”

Bucky looked over at Geo.  “G, you want to feel the baby kicking?”

Geo looked up.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah, bud,” you said, waving him over.  “Come feel your sister.”

 He slid off the recliner and came over, Steve made room for him and guided the little boy’s hand to the stop on your stomach where the baby was kicking.  He looked down furrowing his brow.  “Does it feel like a little bump?”  Geo asked.

“Yeah, like a twitch.  She’s still very very small,” you explained.

“I feel it,” he said grinning.  “That’s my sister?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” you said.

“You think she’s giving you a high five, bud?”  Bucky asked.

Geo giggled and nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

Bucky chuckled and rubbed Geo’s arm.  It was strange, he hated his metal arm, and yet, it was what drew Geo’s attention that day he met you, and now it was the one that felt the baby kick first.  It was a sign of so many things that were taking from him, and now it was bringing him new, amazing things.  Maybe he could start seeing it for the positives too.

// NEXT

[burnedbyshoto]

that final phone call

— Miruko is one tough rabbit, but eventually even the toughest of people need a helping hand. — 

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pairing: usagiyama rumi (miruko) x fem!reader

warnings: angst, cursing, blood

word count: 5,836

a/n: this is for the bnharem angst april collaboration!!! here for the best girl miruko. I would die for her and yuh, im so tired its 5:40 am and I just finished this LMAOOO and its scheduled for 9am posting. lets hope for the best, enjoy bbs. angst masterlist here.

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Riiing.

“Pick up…”

Riiing.

“Don’t ignore this…”

Riiingggg.

“P-Please pick up,” Rumi mumbled into the phone, her head spinning, her breathing weak and faint. “Pick up the phone, y/n…”

Riiing.

“Please…”

Riiing.

Rii—

“H-Hello?” your tired voice answered, and just like that, warmth flooded Rumi’s chest. She had to resist the urge from cringing; there was no reason to cringe, she berated herself, accept your feelings Rumi. “If this a prank call, I swear—”

“Y/n,” Rumi finally whispered, the energy that always existed within her fading quickly.

She didn’t need to be in the same room with you; she already knew what you were doing. How your back stiffened at the sound of her voice and how your stomach clenched, remembering what had happened two months ago.

“Why are you calling?” you said so emotionlessly that it was a sucker punch to Rumi’s stomach. A sharp reminder of what she did to you, of what had happened because she was weak. 

A ragged breath escaped Rumi’s lips while she closed her eyes, her head laying against the cold concrete, listening to the lull of the line.

“I needed to hear your voice…”

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One and a half years ago.

Usagiyama Rumi, better known as the Number Five Pro Hero Miruko was — to put it lightly — a powerhouse.

Known for her almost brash entrances, sturdy legs, and quick temper, it made sense as to why she wasn’t known as the Bunny Hero. She wasn’t soft enough to be a bunny, nor was she meek or gentle. No, Rumi was a hurricane of energy. She was fast, vibrant, and deadly. She was unmatched in her field of expertise, and she had no problem demanding people know that about her. She dived into her work, no matter how big or how small she handled everything with her fullest capability.

She was obsessed with her job because she always had something to prove.

But even a workaholic such as herself needed a break — or at least time outside of her uniform.

It was nearing midnight, and Rumi was strolling the dark streets of Hiroshima, her hands shoved into her jacket pockets. At the same time, she observed the neighborhoods she protected. It was a Saturday night, meaning that street life was quite busy. After working for two months straight without a single day off, her office staff had forced a two-day vacation on her. Still, it didn’t stop her from scouting these blocks for any sign of criminal activity. 

But she stilled when she heard loud arguing many alleys ahead, and with an excited smirk, Rumi took off.

It took her approximately thirty seconds to travel an entire block and into an alleyway where a large and burly man was arguing with a small woman. Rumi stilled, her eyebrow quirking in her confusion, what was going on?

“You have to let me in!” you insist again, your nose scrunching in your annoyance, your chest puffing out, and your eyes blazing. “I have reason to believe that there is a drug-pushing gang in this very club!”

Rumi shifted closer to you, and this now apparent bouncer who was looking less than impressed with you. A drug-pushing gang? She had been trying to find intel on that gang but had been coming up dry, she wanted to know more, to find out more. It seemed that it was her lucky day that she wasn’t relaxing at home because it seemed that you had information she could use. It was ballsy of you to show up at a hideout with such demands… she liked that. Rumi’s eyes looked over at you, and her smirk turned into a grin.

You wore a charcoal grey pantsuit, a white shirt underneath the opened blazer with the first two buttons undone. Her eyes noticed the scruffed up short heels you wore, and the way that your hair was in a chaotic bun. How amusing.

“Oh yeah, little miss nosey? And who the hell do you think you are exactly?” he sneered, taking an intimidating step forward.

The bouncer was easily twice your height, and Rumi watched you, expecting you to take a submissive step back, but was surprised to see you hold your ground.

“The investigative journalist for The Daily Hiro!” you inform back, your eyes daring him without a single bit of nervousness in their blaze. 

The bouncer opened his mouth, obviously ready to kick your poor journalist ass when another voice from the alleyway spoke up.

“She is not an investigative journalist,” the voice clipped, evidently very annoyed with your words. “She’s an intern. She makes coffee runs and edits my works, ignore her.”

Rumi’s eyes shifted on an angry reporter she knew by name. Hirano Naoko. A ruthless reporter that she often found herself at odds with because he didn’t agree with her... enthusiastic approach to being a hero.

A pained yelp escaped your lips when he grabbed your bicep and pulled you to him.

To an average person, there would be no way to hear the conversation between the reporter and the intern. Still, Rumi was not an ordinary person, after all.

“I thought I told you to take witness’s statements,” he hissed pulling you away into the darkness. “Not stir up fucking trouble! Drop the fucking gang shit before you get wrapped up in things you don’t want to get caught in.”

“But you don’t understand Hirano-sama, I saw—”

“I could give two shits about what you saw! That doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want! This isn’t some fucking cop show, grow the fuck up. You’re an intern, not a reporter!”

Rumi figured she had enough.

“Hold on!” she yelled, her voice bouncing off the walls of the alleyway, and all three heads snapped her way. Her arms folded across her chest while she tilted her head. There was nothing like the way all three eyes widening when they recognized the famed Rabbit Hero standing before them with a feral grin and civilian clothes. “I want to see if this intern is right, open the door, bouncer.”

The bouncer was like a mountain to the Rabbit.

Tall, muscular, and frightening in this dim and yellow light.

“M-Miruko!” he stammered, his fingers searching for something, and Rumi lowered her stance. Was he trying to inform them that she was here? “What a pleasure seeing you here!”

Then she heard it, the familiar noise of shuffling plastic. He was trying to alert someone.

In an instant, she was before him, her heel slamming onto his chin and sending him flying, knocked out cold.

“This is why we wear heels,” she snickered, watching the mountain of a man crumble to his face. How weak, pathetic. Her attention turned to you, the intern who looked both ready to pass out from this scare and vibrating with excitement. “Intern, you promise those villains are in there?!”

Your eyes flutter, and Rumi takes you all in. Strands of hair fall over your eyes, your painted lips pulled into a large ‘o’ from your shock, but there was that confidence in your eyes that made her lick her lips in anticipation.

“On my life.”

Rumi snickered, now that was an answer she wanted to hear.

And as a one-woman show goes, she flung open the door and, in under twenty minutes, single-handedly brought down the most extensive drug unit within Hiroshima. She had defeated them all, leaving her with significant cuts on her cheeks and arms, a fat lip, a broken heel, and bruises on her toes. But damn did she feel alive.

Rumi watched with a broad grin when the twenty-three men were put into police cars, their injuries far worse than her own. How amazing was that! Months of worrying disappearing on a leisurely night stroll! She couldn’t have done it without… her mouth frowned.

She did it with help?

Her eyes flew over to you, an intern, talking to the cops with a whole file that seemed to come from nowhere with incriminating evidence against this group. Rumi shoved off the medics that were applying more useless bandages on her and walked over to you.

“Oi, intern!” she called, and both you and the police officer turned around. Thankfully, the police officer was either done interviewing you or smart enough to leave once Rumi approached with her trademark grin. “You did good work out there.”

“Miruko-san, oh, um, thank you!” you smiled in return, bowing in greeting when she stopped in front of you. “Congratulations on closing that case!”

“How did you crack them? I’ve been working on finding them slip up for months now, but you figured it out?” Rumi asked, her arms folding and head tilting. “What did you see that I missed?”

Rumi could hear your heart stop and watched the way your eyes widened significantly. “O-Oh, well, I don’t know… I guess I have a knack of being at the right place at the right time?” you laughed, rubbing the back of your head. “To be honest, it was probably more important to me than it was to you… so I able to crack it before you?”

“What makes you say that?” Rumi asks, unsure if she should be offended or not. “Are you trying to say that I’m not working hard enough?!”

“Oh my god, no!” you panic, your hands out in a motion of retreat, your head shaking quickly. Rumi wanted to open her mouth and grill you for answers, but there was something about you that made her hesitate, that made her still. You shrug your shoulders, your hands clasping together. “My future career was riding on this case. The company thinks I’m a nutjob, so if I could prove my ‘conspiracy theories’ were right, I could finally be appointed a job as a journalist!”

Rumi hummed, taking a step closer to you, enjoying the way that your heart sped up when she did so, her head tilting in her amusement, “Well, you did what you had to do, congrats.”

“T-Thank you!” you brighten at the praise, and Rumi does everything she can to not throw an arm around you.

“Usagiyama Rumi,” she introduced herself to you, her hand extended.

You stared at her hand as if she was some goddess instead of a person. But that fire that had interested her well before that erupted back in your eyes. You extended your hand, grasping hers firmly.

“Y/l/n y/n,” you grin, and it’s at this very moment that Rumi solidifies that she indeed likes you.

You were a quiet fire, unlike her own raging one, but she was no idiot. You were something that would burn the entire world down because no one would see you coming, and she liked it.

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Six months later.

“RUMI!” your voice shrieks from the kitchen. “HAVE YOU SEEN MY LAPTOP?!”

Rumi was soaking in a bath right now, her eyes closed while absorbing the warm water. Two weeks of straight and intense battles had left her body a bit beat up, but hey, she was currently in her girlfriend’s apartment presently being taught how to relax. 

Yes, shocking, her girlfriend’s apartment.

It took a solid week for Rumi to realize that she had feelings for her, something that took a while for her to sort out because she thought she was mentally ill for a second. Nevertheless, her good friend Hawks laughed in her face about how she was not dying but instead just having romantic feelings for you. After that, it took two seconds for her to confess and three minutes for you to say yes. 

It was very new for both of you, but Rumi was very pleased with where everything was going at the moment. Dating certainly wasn’t something on her radar for years now, but for some reason, that fire that burned through your soul was enough to pique her interest.

“Check under the bed!” she called back, listening to your feet shuffling against the wooden floor to get to the bedroom.

“Aha, I found it!”

Rumi cracked open a single eye to watch you waddle into the bathroom with the laptop in your hands and a wide grin on your face.

“So, I’m a junior journalist now, nothing too big or fancy, but… I think I have something outstanding in the making!” you excitedly inform her, throwing open the laptop while sinking to the floor next to the tub. 

“I thought you said bath time was a no-work zone,” Rumi teases her lips perking and her red eyes drilling into your own. 

An embarrassed look flashed across your face, but as you always did, you stood your ground and challenged her.

“I can give my information to a hero who wants it then!” you huff, moving to close the electronic device. “Like you care about my rule, anyways!”

“What a brat!” Rumi barks with laughter, her shoulders rolling in the warm and murky water. Her eyes watched the way her long white hair gently flowed in the water, something you had pointed out looked like moonbeams one night. It had been stupidly stupid, and she would forever remember the way you curled in a ball at your embarrassment. “Tell me!”

Snickering, you nodded, your fingers moving quickly against your keyboard while you searched for the document.

“I have information on the soon to be most dangerous crime group out there,” you inform her, your voice taking on a serious note when you look up at her. “Name it, they’ve done it, and worse yet, they’re a cultish family.”

Rumi felt a chill run down her spine at that information. That wasn’t a title you gave out quickly, nor with such confidence. Together the two of you had taken down four villain groups, and some of them had been nasty fuckers. 

“What’s their name?”

“They go by the name Shinseina,” you inform her, your knees pulling up to your chest, the laptop balanced on your knees to show Rumi your document. “I got one tip about two months ago, and that’s all I’ve managed to find on them.”

Rumi stared at the document.

‘Organization Name: Shinseina

Symbol: A Black Sun

Number of Members: ???

Warnings: ???

Leaders: ???

Location of Base: HQ thought to be in Hiroshima, the possibility of there being more is very high

Crimes: Quirk canceling drugs, quirk enhancing drugs, murder, gang affiliation, rape, robbery, theft, illegal quirk usage, money laundering, and 12 more.

Number of Heroes Killed: 16+.’

Two months of hard work, and that was all you had managed.

Rumi didn’t even need to use her quirk to hear your hammering heart, this was obviously upsetting you.

Sighing, she pulled her wrinkled hand out of the tub to motion for you to place the laptop away, her eyes holding yours when you do as commanded. “Come here, loser.”

“That’s rude,” you grumble, but still, you slide to the edge of the tub and watch Rumi.

Rumi sits up in the tub, her lips pressing against yours in a sweet embrace.

Your eyes flutter close at the feeling of her soft and smooth lips against yours. The slight coldness of her skin from just sitting in this water, sending a pleasurable shiver down your spine. Rumi chuckled, and the next thing you knew, she was dragging you in.

Rumi relished in the way your pitched screams echoed off the walls, your denial of being brought into the water was useless. Eventually, she pulled your fully clothed body into the lukewarm water with her, and your cries of disapproval faded into beautiful laughter.

Your cheeks burned while Rumi’s fur stood up in triumphant victory.

“I told ya, squirt, I don’t lose.”

You slammed your head against her collarbone, moaning loudly in your defeat, “I hate you!!!”

“Sure, you do!”

Rumi could only dodge out of your way when you went in for a weak attack. It was okay though, she thought, teasing you again for your weak punch. She would always protect you.

Her eyes rapidly blinked when those thoughts fully sank into her mind.

Excuse me?

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Six months later.

“An obstacle course?” you repeated, your eyes looking at the bouncy house that was apparently a place for a date. While you pursed your lips, Rumi looked back at her friends who seemed excited. “I’m sorry, but in what world do you expect me — a journalist — to be able to keep up with you Heroes?

Rumi once again turned back to look at Hawks and his intern, who both seem ready to compete. So she turned back around to face you and nodded in egotistical confidence. Your mouth dropped when she finished nodding.

“The only time I exercise is when I chase after people who run away from me!” You cry, obviously not at all prepared to compete against people who practically worked out for living!

“Don’t worry, they won’t use their quirks, and this is a team obstacle course!” Rumi laughs, her arms flexing to show you that there was nothing to worry about. She would make sure you both won even if that meant she would have to carry you to the finish line. “I won’t let you get hurt,”

She knew you wouldn’t like the idea of it; after all, you hated losing. But you were not one to back away from a challenge, and Rumi loved that about you.

“Fine,” you huff, turning towards the obstacle course.

With a loud hoot, Rumi bounced after you, an arm wrapping tightly around your shoulders.

“This’ll be fun.”

The objective of the course was to get across some pretty insane things together. There was a maze, obstacles to climb over, crawl over, powerfully slam through, all leading up to a freakishly tall wall to go down a slide, which was the finish line. Rumi was brimming with excitement, if she had to launch you across the course, she would. No way in hell was she going to let Hawks of all people beat her.

Shoes came off, and Rumi bounced on her toes at the entrance. She was shoulder to shoulder with both you and Hawks, and her eyes were on the finish line. She was going to win with you, that was the truth.

The employee working the festival stand sighed, staring at the four of you and getting an okay from his coworker.

“You both need to be at the final obstacle at the very end, but only one person needs to cross the finish line to be the winner,” he explained, and his hand raised for a countdown. “Ready?”

Rumi turned toward you, her hand reaching out and grabbing yours and placing a reassuring kiss on the back of your hand.

“Set.”

“Stop being so gay, Rumi, how embarrassing,” Hawks teased to her right.

“Suck my lesbian ass, pigeon.”

“Go.”

Rumi took off instantly, tugging you along with her, and before she knew it, the two of you were on the course. It was actually going better than she was expecting, you weren’t as incapable as you thought. You were able to keep up with a bit of struggle, but Hawks had smacked into a wall earlier, so she wasn’t concerned.

Obstacle after obstacle, the two of you conquered until you reached the wall.

Rumi looked back and noticed that Hawks and his intern were still stuck on the second to last course. That maze had been pretty bullshit.

“I’ll climb first!” Rumi explained, and you agreed with a pant.

Rumi turned back to the wall and began climbing the poorly reinforced steps that were there. It was obviously constructed to be able to withstand a child’s footing and not anyone over the age of seven. So as it was already stupidly tall, it was a struggle to climb.

Rumi was almost to the top when she looked down at you. You were a few steps down, your face twisted in your attempt to concentrate, your arms wobbling under the strain of trying to support yourself. Her attention snapped over to Hawks, who seemed to be scaling the wall, and her eyes widened. 

She needed to win.

She scampered up a few more steps before a cry came out.

“R-Rumi!”

Her focus slammed back to you and the way that your fingers slipped from the grasp, and in slow motion, you tumbled. It was without a doubt that this fall wouldn’t have hurt you, not a chance in hell would you have been injured, but Rumi’s instincts took over, and before she knew it, her arms were wrapped around you.

The trampoline bottom crashed onto her back, and you slammed onto her stomach.

Rumi had caught you.

She groaned at the discomfort caused by this action but lay still her hands stroking your cheek. Your eyes were wide, staring up at your girlfriend in complete shock. 

“Are you okay?” Rumi asks in a rare moment of softness. “You weren’t hurt, right?”

“Why did you jump after me?!” you yell that amusement she loved so much burning brightly in your gaze. “I wouldn’t have been hurt, you dork!”

“I promised I wouldn’t let you get hurt,” Rumi insists, rubbing her nose against yours. 

Once again, she can hear your hammering heart, and it relaxes her.

“But you let Hawks win!”

Rumi blinks at the realization, and suddenly the wheels in her head are turning rapidly.

“Would you ladies mind moving? The champions are ready to visit other stands unless you don’t wanna hang with us anymore!” Hawks calls out to both Rumi and you.

Rumi watches silently when you push off her, pressing a grateful kiss to her lips before responding back to the Pro Hero. 

“Oh, Hawks! Has Rumi told you about the new detail about the Shinseina case I’m working on?” you called off, skipping to catch up with her friend that she had allowed to win.

Rumi gave up a victory for you… she threw it away to save you from nothing… she thought that there were things about you that she loved. It didn’t sit well in her chest, and she watched with a twitching nose when you exited the course with that captivating bright smile. 

She couldn’t be in love… no, there was no way!

Love made you weak! Love made you insignificant! Love was a demonstration that you weren’t strong enough on your own, and to Rumi — no, to Miruko — that wasn’t okay.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Four months later.

Rumi at the edge of your bed, her head down, ears wilted, nose twitching, and face clouded.

What the fuck was wrong with her?

“Bunny?” your tired voice called out in the silence of the night.

The noise surprised Rumi. It had so quiet until then, and it had completely caught her off guard. Her! The Pro Hero with some of the best ears around! Who could hear the quietest things meters away!

“Are you okay?”

Rumi wasn’t okay.

“I pulled a kick today,” she whispered to you, her hands shifting into fists on her lap. She shook with rage, her body trembling like a leaf.

“Is that a… a bad thing?” you yawn, shifting on the bed and finding her body, relaxing at the heat she gives off.

“Yes.” Rumi snaps, her body stiffening against your touch. “Yes, it’s obviously a bad thing.”

“Why?”

Why?

Rumi’s eyes concentrate on her bruised thighs, her frown increasing. How could she tell you the truth? How could she say that you were her weakness?

For years she had been a headstrong hero, someone who didn’t think but reacted. She lived her life to the fullest every day, and she gave it her all every chance she got. It applied to her social life and her work life, especially her work life. She wasn’t one to laze about; she would die on the job if she had to, and her opponents always knew that, but lately, things had changed. 

She found herself praying to some god about making sure she lived through these battles so she could go home to you. She prayed that someone else would find the Shinseina and bring them down so she wouldn’t be taken down. Being weak wasn’t a problem; after all, she was motherfucking Miruko, so she was used to building on her weaknesses, but this was different. No matter what she did, she couldn’t love you any less. Fuck, did she love you.

She loved the way your eyes narrowed whenever you interviewed people. She loved how you were quickly gaining traction in the media for being the best investigative journalist ever. She was so in love with you, and that’s where the problem was. Her love for you was so pure, so genuine, she wanted to give you the fairy tale ending. She tried to think before she acted, and villains were starting to notice.

Villains were threatening to hurt you, and Rumi was trapped.

“We need to break up.”

You weren’t expecting that, not in the slightest.

“W-What?”

“I don’t want to be with you anymore,” Rumi lies, and she feels you move away from her body, and it takes everything in her to not cry.

“Why not?” you ask, your voice steely smooth.

“You were access to the information I wanted. My office team is ass, and you were always getting your hands dirty with cases I needed to solve. But it seems that you’re nowhere near close to figuring out the last group I care about,” Rumi wills herself to say, her ears moving back up to show that she wasn’t lying. “I pretended for a year to be in love with you, but I can’t anymore.”

“Y-You’re not a great liar,” you state, challenging her false words.

Rumi loved it when you challenged her, but there was no time for that. So with a tight chest and flaring red eyes, she snapped around towards you, lips pulled into a snarl.

“Do you think I’m lying, y/l/n? I stuck around because you made me stronger, but now? You’re no better than the dirt on my shoes. Pathetic, useless, and a disgrace. I don’t need you anymore, so I’m cutting this off because I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

Standing up, Rumi storms over to the door, ready to leave.

She wishes she could say that it ended there, but it didn’t. Not even close to being done.

You spat acid at her, and she returned it at the same toxicity. Over and over again, the two of you verbally battled. False emotions taking the better of you both until you were in her face, tears streaming down your face, fingers shaking in her face.

“You are a fucking coward, Usagiyama,” you sneer, the effect only dramatized by your red eyes and deep eye bags. “Get over your stupid fucking commitment issues, being apart of a team i-is not weak! I’m here to make you stronger, not for you to want to be a one-man squad again! You’ll die alone that way!”

“I know being apart of a team isn’t weak,” Rumi states, her heart long frozen over. “I just don’t want to be apart of yours anymore.”

A humorless laugh escapes your mouth, and you shake your head, “Don’t show your face here again, if I see you, I’ll call the cops.”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“— and Miruko, you’ll enter first. You’ll be alone for about five minutes if that’s okay.”

Rumi looked up, her mind freed from her daydream about what was happening.

It was two months since she had broken up with you, and things had only taken a turn for the worse. She threw herself into work. Overusing her quirk in ways that over-injured villains who were petty thieves, or underusing it in ways that she kept landing herself in the hospital. To put it simply, the rabbit hero was a mess. 

“Yeah, got it,” she nodded.

Things with the Shinseina ended up being brought to the light finally by you. You had noticed a slight clue in your office that had been undetected and ended up having you thrown into the Witness Protection Program due to the severity of the secret. But still, you provided an updated and completed information:

‘Organization Name: Shinseina

Symbol: A Black Sun

Number of Members: 237 thugs and lower cult members, 57 leaders and mid cult members, 12 senior members of the cult, 1 leader.

Warnings: All have dangerous quirks that can be used for assassination.

Leaders: Hirano Naoko

Location of Base: HQ - Hiroshima. Other sites detailed in the secondary report.

Crimes: Quirk canceling drugs, quirk enhancing drugs, murder, gang affiliation, rape, robbery, theft, illegal quirk usage, money laundering, and 12 more.

Number of Heroes Killed: 84’

“Hey, you get one call on this, we don’t want them finding anything on us in case we fail,” the leader spoke to her. Miruko breathed in deeply, accepting the cellphone that was given to her.

“Got it, thank you,” she muttered, and with that, they headed out.

Five minutes, that’s all it was.

Five minutes for Miruko, the Rabbit Hero, was nothing. Especially when she was zipping through room to room, taking out cult member after cult member. Everything was a blur, and she could only see her streaming hair following her like moonbeams in her wake.

Moonbeams…

Rumi thought of you, your face when you were happy when you were sad, and that night you broke up. Her lip trembled when her foot connected with someone’s chin sending them flying. Panting harshly, she stood in a room full of unconscious cult members. She had three minutes before backup would storm through the door, but which door to—

“SHIT!”

She just felt the impact. An intense tingle, similar to a severe electric shock coursing through her body. Rumi realized then that thousands upon thousands of circuits have just been broken, and it was burning her up. The heat was nothing she could have ever imagined, festering strongly in her bleeding wound. But there was still no pain when her foot connected with the man’s throat, instantly knocking him out. 

He had snuck up on her, his quirk concealing him even from her rabbit ears.

Rumi whimpered when she fell to the ground, blood pouring from her wound despite her best efforts. He had managed to land seven blows on her, and the world was darkening quickly.

Three more minutes until they came, but she could call them now…

When Rumi collapsed on the floor, her vision swam when she pulled out the phone, a warm and sticky puddle forming underneath her, staining everything that was white about her. Rumi’s fingers punching in the number she wanted to call.

Riiing.

“Pick up…”

Riiing.

“Don’t ignore this…”

Riiingggg.

“P-Please pick up,” Rumi mumbled into the phone, her head spinning, her breathing weak and faint. “Pick up the phone, y/n…”

Riiing.

“Please…”

Riiing.

Rii—

“H-Hello?” your tired voice answered, and just like that, warmth flooded Rumi’s chest. She had to resist the urge from cringing; there was no reason to cringe, she berated herself, accept your feelings Rumi. “If this a prank call, I swear—”

“Y/n,” Rumi finally whispered, the energy that always existed within her fading quickly.

She didn’t need to be in the same room with you; she already knew what you were doing. How your back stiffened at the sound of her voice and how your stomach clenched, remembering what had happened two months ago.

“Why are you calling?” you said so emotionlessly that it was a sucker punch to Rumi’s stomach. A sharp reminder of what she did to you, of what had happened because she was weak. 

A ragged breath escaped Rumi’s lips while she closed her eyes, her head laying against the cold concrete, listening to the lull of the line.

“I needed to hear your voice…” 

“Do you even know what time it is?” you almost growl, and that fighting spirit sends a warm feeling in Rumi’s chest. “What in the fuck do you need?”

“It’s two a.m., I know that, but I need you right now,” Rumi staggers into the mic, your spirit bleeding through the call. 

The line goes silent for a bit, and Rumi’s eyes feel heavier with every passing second. She wants to tell you she loves you, please give her the chance to say it.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t go back to you anymore,” you curtly respond. “You made sure of that.”

How ironic, Rumi thought, because now she would never go back to you anymore… never…

“I know,” she hoarsely responds back, her mouth trembling and tears slowly pouring from her eyes. It hurt so much, how horrible it was to go out because of stab wounds. Of all ways to go out, she never expected it to be like this, nor did she expect it to be done with regret in her actions. Because fuck, she regretted how she ended it with you. She regretted letting you go. She thought of your face and how you looked the first time she admitted she loved you, of how dorky you were for your first anniversary. How your eyes glowed whenever you corned the people you were investigating with something that seemed straight from a story. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry, y/n…”

“Are… are you okay, Usagiyama?”

“I love you…” she whispered before the phone fell from her fingers, crashing onto the bloodied floor.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

You stared at the phone, confused. 

Frowning you placed it down, the call had ended, but why was she calling you?

How this stupid bunny pissed you off sometimes. Turning your phone back on, you went to recent calls and recalled the number she had reached you on.

Riiing.

Riiing.

Riiing.

“Sorry, but the number you’ve tried to call is no longer available, please try again. Thank you!”

Beep.

You frowned a pit forming in your stomach, but you put your phone away, and for some reason, you couldn’t fall back asleep that night. 

It was eight in the morning when your phone blew up, and with a heavy hand, you grabbed your phone and looked at the billowing messages. And at the headliner, your stomach dropped to your toes, and bile climbed to your mouth.

‘RABBIT HERO: MIRUKO KILLED IN ACTION DURING Shinseina RAID!: It’s being reported that she was stabbed several times while alone, and while she was given a phone for backup, she used it on a call they cant trace.’

You couldn’t read it anymore, your heart hammering erratically while a blood-curdling scream escaped your mouth.

She was gone, she had called you last night to say goodbye, and you didn’t give her the time of day. She was gone, and you would never get the chance to convince her that having a life partner wasn’t weak.

Usagiyama Rumi was gone, and no amount of hoping, praying, or crying was going to bring her back to you or to redo that final phone call.

[spiderling-space]

Could I please request MC as that conspiracy guy with the hidden mickey’s? I saw it on your prompts list and I am still laughing at the possibilities!

Thank you Rell for asking this when the inbox was open and finally igniting green light for me <33<33

I decided that this idea is too crack to only apply to numbered characters so this is going to be a mini-series and crossposted on AO3. This mini-series is based on this prompt I have.

There will be 9 chapters in total including prologue and epilogue. I can’t promise any update schedule, I go with the flow. A meme to summarize the fic.

Special thanks to @serenitystarrie for allowing me to utilize their perfectly organized Hidden Mickey Mouse locations.

The Prologue's Locations #1 and #2. Spoiler yourselves on your own risk.

Italics indicate thoughts

Everywhere I Go, I See His Sign

Prologue

No one could blame (Y/N) for occupying themselves with something else to stay awake during Trein’s class. It wasn’t their fault at all, there was just something in Trein’s voice that made people want to sleep. So they just tried to focus on everything but Trein and to be the only one who managed to stay awake in their friend group. At first, (Y/N) just stared outside through the window get got bored and started to count the bricks on the wall but there weren’t much to begin with and their endeavor ended quickly. Their eyes flicked to the bookshelf, it was impossible to read the titles from where they were sitting, hence that didn’t hold their attention for long.

Maybe I should start listening to what Trein is saying, I might learn something.

Not a minute later, (Y/N) was yawning. So much for trying… They decided listening to the professor wasn’t going to work out, in order to stay awake, they continued where they left off. On the top of the bookshelf, there was a purple globe and golden signs on the surface, curved lines and a couple of dots. I bet there are more than 10 dots on it. 1…2…3…4… (Y/N) stopped counting when they noticed an abnormality on the globe. There was a shape that didn’t follow the pattern, two small circles were connected to a bigger one. That’s strange… Everything is in perfect condition in the NRC… Maybe they didn’t notice something as small as that. Either way, there was no point of thinking about something as trivial as that. Though, it was way more entertaining than the history class.

(Y/N) poked Ace, “Shhhht, how many minutes left until the class is over?”

Ace opened his one eye and glared at them for waking him up. He took a peek at his phone told them that 13 minutes left then he went back to sleep.

13 more minutes… It seemed like they started the class hours ago and it still had 13 more minutes. As (Y/N) waited the time to pass, they kept glancing at the globe above the shelf as if the abnormal mark on it was calling for them.

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

Finally, the class was over and it was lunchtime. The gang went to the cafeteria and was waiting in the line, chatting about the assignments Trein gave after he saw people sleeping. (Y/N) was having fun at their expense because they didn’t get an assignment for being awake during the class. Ace, Deuce and Grimm were complaining about the amount of pages they were going to write, which was making (Y/N) crack. They turned their head to the side to conceal their chuckle. While they were turning back, a shape on the wall caught their eyes. There on the wall between the torch and the column stood the 2 small circles being connected to the bigger circle, just like the one they saw during the class. This one was bigger since it could have been seen from distance.

Before (Y/N) could dwell on the shape anymore, the line moved and it was their turn to grab the food. They dismissed the thoughts about the shape, thinking that they saw wrong. It was food time and there was no need to think about anything else.

After getting their lunch, the gang went over to sit at their usual table. “I think you should have gotten an assignment too, (Y/N).” Ace talked before taking a bite out of his meal. “You weren’t sleeping but you weren’t paying attention either. Right, Deuce?”

Deuce was in the middle of chewing his meal when Ace tried to include him in the discussion. He answered after gulping, “They managed to stay awake. I think that deserves an award.”

Ace’s face cringed, “Traitor.” He then turned to Grimm tp get his support. “C’mon~ You must agree with me.” Unfortunately for him, Grimm was too busy chunking the food down his throat, completely ignoring Ace who finally shut up after getting no support.

“I’ll help you pick up the books since I’m a supportive friend.” (Y/N) said cheekily, chuckling afterward. They really needed to go the library too. Grimm needed the books to finish the assignment and he wasn’t capable of carrying them with his tiny paw-paws.

Their stomach grumbled, reminding them to eat sustenance. After (Y/N) finished eating, they pushed their tray further onto the table so they could have space to put their hands on while they waited others to be done with their food as well. There, on the table, was another symbol, the 3 circles one looking almost identical to the others they saw. They openly stared at the symbol, tracing the outline with their fingers. Am I imaging things? The one on the globe could be a stain and the one on the wall could be the deformation of the brick. And this one… Maybe a mistake of the carpenter. Though, it is strange to see mistakes such as this in the NRC.

They must have zoned out too much because Deuce was tapping them on the shoulder. “Our next class is about the start.”

“If you want, we can leave you alone with the table. Seems like you are falling in love with it.” Ace quipped as he took his tray from the table and started walking to the trash.

“Jerk…” (Y/N) mumbled under their breath.

“Hey, henchperson!” Grimm was pulling their sleeve. “Carry me!” It was annoying that Grimm was giving them comment but he was small and cute so they didn’t mind carrying him occasionally. They allowed Grimm to climb on their shoulder and took both his and their trays to throw away the trash and put them to where the dirty trays are collected.

After putting the trays, they exited the cafeteria, then changed into the sports uniform in the locker room. The moment the bell rang, Vargas told everyone to start doing warm-ups, followed by 10 laps around the field and 30 pushups. (Y/N) held themselves back from groaning, not wanting to increase the number of laps or pushups.

(Y/N) was only human and not the most athletic person in the world and they doubted even the most athletic person could run 10 laps without stopping for a moment to take a breath. They sat on the grass, trying to adjust their breathing as they were looking around. They had to admit the sports field had a perfectly splendid sight with all the shades of green.

They were about to get up and continue on the track when they spotted a sign on one of the bushes. 3 circles again? It was dark green colored, standing out on the bushes. Was it always there or is my brain playing tricks on me and making me see things? They decided to check the sign from a closer distance to make sure it is real.

“(Y/N)! 2 more laps for trying to sneak away!” (Y/N) startled as Vargas’ voice boomed on the field. Damn it! They just got punished because the sign distracted them. “You will have two more if you keep standing there!”

(Y/N) knew there was no point in arguing against Vargas unless they wanted to add more laps as punishment so they ignored the sign and went back on the track. I will take a closer look after the class.

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

Unfortunately for (Y/N), they were too exhausted to move a finger, let alone have the energy to examine the weird symbol after the class ended. They just wanted to get back to Ramshackle, take shower, eat junk food and never get up from the bed but they still had one more stop to make, the library. Because of Grimm’s actions, they needed to walk more. God damn it… I can’t feel my legs.

Finally, they reached the library and began browsing for the book. Grimm started looking at the book on the computer and find which aisle it was located, meanwhile (Y/N) sat on one of the seats as they waited for him. Yeet, I hope we don’t need to get one of those floating books. What is even their purpose? Students would spend extra effort to see the title of the book and waste time. Or are they here for aesthetics? They sighed, lowering their head. What an unnecessary way of using magic… They had to admit the library was impressive, having all those books while looking at the endless corridor of the library. As Grimm was still looking for the book, they turned their attention to the other objects of the library. None of the lamps were in the same shape and the columns had different designs. One of them had frequent dots while the other more scattered dots. Their attention turned to the other column between Aisle I and II which had larger dots than the others.

Wait for a second… Is that? (Y/N) got up from their seat and stepped towards that column, crouching to see the sign better. Are you kidding me? Here too? Nope! This is just some random symbol, there is no way, it is the same one I saw in other places. Besides, all other columns have dots. Coincidentally, this one had two circles connected to a bigger one. (Y/N) was determined to just forget about it since they knew it would be a ridiculous idea for these signs to have a pattern.

“Hey Henchperson, I found the name of the book now bring me it.” Grimm ordered them as usual. Normally, (Y/N) would teach him some manner but they were too tired to care so they asked which aisle the book was in so they can grab it and go back to Ramshackle.

As soon as Grimm told them the number of the aisle and the book and the color of the book as well, (Y/N) didn’t wait for Grimm and just went to grab it. They were looking at the shelf numbers in that disorganized aisle. Libraries are supposed to be tidy and organized. Why is everything in this school so chaotic? And who even color codes the books?! This should be a crime!

“Alright green color and number 4…” They whispered faintly, looking at all the shades of green and number 4 then checking the title. After checking a couple of books, their attention turned to 3rd shelf. “Ah there you are, The Developments in the Last 100 years. Finally, I can go to my bed.” Whilst they were reaching for the book, the red book with golden marks caught their attention. The book wasn’t titled, having only shapes on it, that 3 circles shape was one of them. Maybe the book is about the meaning of this symbol. I’ll check it out after resting. They grabbed both Grimm’s book and the red colored one and walked towards Grimm. Together, they checked out the books from the librarian and head over to Ramshackle.

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

(Y/N) couldn’t wait to get read the strange book so that they would know they aren’t seeing unordinary things. As soon as they entered their dorm, Grimm dashed to the kitchen saying that sports class and the library made him hungry. They were also hungry and would never say no to some snacks. They put the books on the coffee table in the lounge before joining Grimm.

Grimm and (Y/N) brought their snacks to the lounge and sat on the couch, chatting while eating their respective food though Grimm tried to take what’s on their plate 5 times at least. After finishing their food, (Y/N) leaned back on the couch and stretched themselves out. Then they just looked around the lounge. It looked way more different than the first night they stayed there. Now everything was tidy and organized. Dare they said, it was cozy and the fireplace just increased the coziness of Ramshackle.

Hold up… The clock on the fireplace caught their eye and they got up to see it better. This age-old clock has that symbol too. I can understand the others since they are fairly new but this dorm hasn’t been occupied for decades. They wondered if there are more signs in the lounge so they turned around, their eyes scanning the room quickly. There was another mark in the lounge, on the painting hanging above the door. Hmmm, that could be the painter’s signature or something.

“Why are you acting weird?” Grimm asked after burping. Ew!

“Nothing nothing… I’ll just go take shower then nap. You do Trein’s assignment. I’m not going to lower my score because of you.” (Y/N) wasn’t going to tell Grimm about the symbols before they were certain that there was a pattern with it. Now they were going to search upstairs if there were more signs while Grimm was busy downstairs then took shower because the smell of sweat was killing their nostrils. “And don’t even think about slacking off or you won’t sleep on the bed tonight.”

With that, (Y/N) took the red book and headed towards their bedroom, putting the book on the small table near the armchair. Then they took off their shoes to not make noise as they searched the rooms for that damned sign.

Here I go…

[portals-to-a-new-world]

Ignorance is Bliss (Parts 1&2)

(gif credit to @urban-trek-thru-middle-earth)

Who?: Billy Butcher x Reader

What?: Y/n discovers that Butcher sleeps in the nude

Word Count: 1820

Warnings: SMUTTY SMUT 18+!!!, Language (as I mentioned in the original, if you watch the boys you know the man has a mouth fouler than the pits of hell itself), ONCE AGAIN SMUT

A/N: Hey yall! Sorry it’s been taking me so long to get stuff out but work has been kicking my ass. Anyway, if you didn’t see the original post, this was inspired by a post I saw reminding the world that Butcher sleeps a la naked. Thank you very much to @bakerstreethound for everything she does 💜💜💜

You were tired. 8 hours on the road, chasing down a lead that turned out to be yet another dead end, and you just wanted a hot shower and sleep. Preferably in that order. You sighed in relief as you pulled into the cheap Motel the boys had been staying at. At least it didn’t look as seedy as the last place you’d stayed in. Ever since Vought caught onto the plan to bring them down, you’d been staying at a different location each week to keep them off of your scent. You grabbed the bag you kept packed from the backseat and headed towards your room. It took you a few moments of fumbling around in the bag before you pulled out the key card and swiped it through the reader. Your brow furrowed as nothing happened. You tried it one more time before you remembered that Butcher gave you the spare card to his room, just in case. You groaned and felt around your bag until you found the right card, breathing out a sigh as it worked. You didn’t bother turning the lights on until you reached the bathroom, wanting to shower and fall into bed as quickly as possible. Another groan escaped you as you began to strip down, muscles stiff from driving all day. As you reached out to turn on the shower, a voice sounded out behind you.

“Don’t let me stop you, luv, coz this is a great fucking view,” You screamed and dove for a towel as the deep voice that could only belong to Butcher continued. “But what the fuck are you doing?”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry I-” The words fell dead at the sight that greeted you when you looked up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, smirk out in full force as you were confronted with the knowledge that Billy Butcher, hunter of superheroes and badass vigilante, apparently sleeps in the nude. Your eyes trailed down his chest, following the lines of muscles, man those shirts he wore hid just how cut he was, to the sheet draped across his lap. You swallowed hard, wrapping the towel tighter around yourself before you continued. “I guess I mixed up the room numbers. It’s really been one of those days.” You said, pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration. Of course, this would happen. Almost get your cover blown by an ex who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Check. Waste an entire day on some bullshit conspiracy theorist pretending to have evidence about Compound V? Check. Walk in on the man who’d been invading your dreams ever since you first met? Bonus, he’s naked!

“I take it the lead was a crock o’ shite, then?” You couldn’t help but laugh.

“That is the understatement of the fucking century,” You said, moving to sit down before you remembered you were clad in only a towel. The thought of having to change back into clothes and go all the way back to your actual room almost had you in tears. “Do you uh- do you mind if I borrow your shower? I’d use mine, but I don’t think I’ll make it that far without my back seizing up.”

“Sure, one condition tho,” He said, cocking his head to one side before standing to his feet. Your breath caught in your throat as you fought to keep your eyes locked on his. You stepped back with each step he took closer until he had you backed against the counter.

“What’s that?” You managed to choke out.

“You let me join ya, and make up for sendin’ ya on that wild goose chase,” His words sent heat flaring straight through your core, and you nearly moaned when his hand began to toy with the skin just beneath the edge of your towel. “Can’t promise you’ll be any less sore after tho.”

“Butcher-” Your words were once again cut off with a gasp, this time by him grinding his hips against you. Your towel did nothing to conceal just how thick and hard he was, and you could only hope it hid just how embarrassingly wet you were. You shook your head to try and clear your thoughts. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Oh, c’mon now luv. We’ve been dancing ‘round each other for fuckin ages now,” He leaned in closer as he spoke. You shook your head slowly as his lips drew nearer.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t-”

“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I can’t see you. Fuckin diabolical,” His hand came up to grip your jaw, not quite low enough to choke you but enough to make you inhale sharply. “Like you wanna fuckin eat me alive.” By then, his lips were ghosting yours, sending shivers down your spine. Fuck it

“You gonna let me? Eat you alive?” You asked. His resulting smirk gave you the only answer you needed before your lips slammed together hungrily. Butcher wasted no time in yanking the towel from your form. His hands immediately found your breasts, palming and kneading the soft flesh as you gasped against his lips. He took full advantage of the opening to dominate your tongue with his own, not that you didn’t put up a fight in the process. Like everything with Butcher, the kiss was rough and intense. He nearly had you in a puddle at his feet, and he’d barely gotten started. The thought sparked a new wave of defiance in you, and you thrust your hands into his surprisingly soft hair and tugged sharply as you bit at his lip. He growled in response, and his hand came down harshly on your ass. “Ow! You bastard-” Your scolding was cut off, though, as his fingers dipped between your legs. He hummed in satisfaction at the slickness he found, his trademark smirk once again gracing his lips.

“Call me a bastard all you want; you’re still soaking wet for me.” He didn’t give you a chance to snark back, thrusting two fingers deep inside you as he began to nip and suck down your neck. Your arm wrapped around his shoulder for support as your legs threatened to give out. He caught on and wrapped an arm around your waist as his other hand began to pick up its pace. His thumb moved to stroke your clit right as he curled his fingers perfectly, and you moaned his name loudly. “See now that’s what I want to hear.” You groaned and threw your head back.

“Oh, fuck off,” You said. Suddenly his hands were gone, and you whined at the loss of contact as he backed away. “Butcher?”

“You told me to fuck off.” He said with a shrug before lifting his hand and popping his fingers in his mouth. He grinned and turned to walk into the bathroom as you stammered.

“Damn it, Butcher, you know that’s not what I meant!” You stomped into the bathroom after him, but he continued to ignore you as he stepped into the shower.

“Fuckin’ hell, why’s the water so fuckin hot?” You rolled your eyes and stepped in after him, faltering slightly at the sight of him dripping wet before you. He might be psychotic, but damn if the man wasn’t good looking. “There you go again with that look,” He said, drawing your eyes back to his. This time his smirk was paired with almost predatory eyes, dark and hungering as he stalked towards you in the small space. You licked your lips and shrugged. You started to reply, but you never got the chance before he was lifting you up and pinning you against the wall. You squealed and latched onto him, ignoring his amused chuckles. “’ Fraid I’m gonna drop you?” He murmured against the skin beneath your ear. You shuddered slightly at the sensation before you responded.

“Nah, just making sure you can’t walk away from me again.” He laughed, a genuine laugh that made your heart skip a beat, before moving to bury himself to the hilt within you. You both moaned at the feeling, and he paused for a moment, both to savor it and give you time to adjust to his size. He pulled back from your neck to look you in the eyes as he started to move in slow, deep, thrusts that had you biting your lip in an effort to keep quiet. His gaze was powerful and intoxicating, drawing you in like an invisible magnet. Every wave of pleasure that crossed his face added to your own, and you finally had to break away and bury your face in his neck as he pounded straight through you. You were dancing along the brink of your climax, but you still needed more. “Butcher I-” He seemed to know exactly what you were asking before you could ask.

“I’ve gotcha, luv.” He slipped out of you and set you on your feet before spinning you around. “Fuck me, what an ass, this is.” He said offhandedly as he bent you forward slightly before sliding back in. You groaned and fell forward to brace yourself against the wall as this new angle brushed against all new spots inside of you. His hands moved back up to your throat, putting enough pressure to force you to arch your back, and down to rub harshly at your clit as he knocked you up the wall. “You gonna fucking come for me?” He growled in your ear as your moans echoed around the small bathroom. “Hmm? Gonna come all over this fuckin cock like a good girl?” His words were the final shove you needed before you were falling over the edge with a shout of his name. “Fuckin hell, (Y/N/N)” He groaned as he pulled out and came all over your back. You both stood there for a while, just catching your breath before he reached around and grabbed a washcloth to wipe you clean. At your raised eyebrow, he paused and shrugged in question. “Wot? I’m not a complete asshole.” You huffed out a laugh and gave him a pat on the chest.

“Never said you were.” He gave you a skeptical look before pulling you back underneath the spray.

“C’mon. Let’s get clean before the hot water runs out. Then we can discuss your sleeping arrangements.” He said. Once again, you raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“My sleeping arrangements? What about them?” He reached around you to grab the soap before replying.

“Well, figured you since you didn’t want to go back to your room, you could sleep here, but it’s gonna cost you.” Mischief danced in his eyes, and you couldn’t stop the smirk on your lips.

“I’m sure I’ll think of some way to repay you.” You said as he grinned.

“Atta fucking girl.”

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