#though its better to stay dry in any case

[astralis-ortus]

care for you

✱ boyfriend!bc x gn!reader

— to keep you safe is my priority.

w.count → 1.1k genre → fluff warning → reader addressed as baby and love♡ a.n → based on this request! this was really sweet, even writing this made me feel safe and warmㅠ♡ ⋆ see masterlist

originally, your plan was to have a short date night with your boyfriend. just some dinner somewhere near his studio, maybe take short walk after, and he’ll wait with you until your usual bus—after skipping at least one or two—arrives and take you away from his grasp. that’s all, nothing much, just to recharge your love batteries until the next time you could see each other again.

that was your plan—but it seems like seoul’s early summer weather has its own plan against you.

dinner was great. you and chan decided to try out the new sushi place located somewhere in between his apartment and studio instead. his teammates have all gone, and you’re pretty sure the only reason why he hasn’t been there was to keep it as an option for your date nights. you appreciate the effort, of course; you could kind of imagine the teasing your boyfriend had to sit through when he decided to pass on their little team dinner—all the ‘ew you’re so lovesick’ and ‘wow so now we’re no longer your priority?’ kind of joke, so you made sure dinner was as fun as it could be.

it was during your walk, however, when things started to go south.

with your hand in his warm ones, you arrived at one of the smaller parks near chan’s apartment. the weather was nice, albeit admittedly rather chilly for a summer night. you didn’t pay much attention to it though—afterall, the weather forecast said that the day will end without any rain at sight, and more often than not, the weather forecast is rather accurate.

well, apparently that wasn’t the case today.

not even 5 minutes since you stepped within the park’s perimeters, the wind started to pick up its strength and blew everything within its vicinity. the drops of water then started shortly after, and what felt like nature’s warning soon developed into a full-blown thunderstorm. bringing you home was nothing short of chan’s instinct to keep you safe.

as soon as you arrived at chan’s shared apartment with 3 of his teammates—which fortunately was still out doing their own schedules and plans, chan immediately ushered you inside his bathroom for a warm shower while he put your (and his) drenched clothes in the washer, pulling out one of his hoodie and sweats for you to change into before taking his turn while you dry your now chan-scented hair.

you weren’t planning on staying the night—you’ve never stayed the night whenever you visited chan’s apartment, and neither did chan when he visited yours. it’s not that you didn’t want to—but for chan’s sake, you two decided it’s better not to. when the thunderstorms weren’t dying down as hours passed by, however, chan couldn’t in his right mind allow to you to even think about stepping out of his clothes.

so here you are, laying wide awake at 1 in the morning on chan’s bed, enveloped in chan’s scent, trying to think more about the fact that you’ll be spending your first ever night over at chan’s place rather than the roaring thunder outside the window.

chan, however, was nowhere near you.

after tucking you to bed around an hour ago, right around the time where his 3 teammates arrived home with his laptop on hand—all more surprised about the fact that chan left his laptop in his studio than how you’re all cozied up in their shared space, chan simply wished you a good night before he slipped outside, walking right into whatever hushed commotion between the 4 young men. you really wished he hadn’t, though.

a sudden loud thunder caught you off guard, allowing a rather loud yelp to slip past your lips before you could even stop yourself. it didn’t even take a second before you heard a crack from the direction of the door, soon followed by a dip on the mattress on your right as a hand gently patted your shoulder.

“i’m here, baby—are you okay?” chan’s voice were soft, trying his best not to sound too worried as you peeked from under his beige duvet, eyes glossy with a little pout. the weak shake of your head made him feel a little guilty—chan was just trying to make you feel comfortable since it’s your first time staying at his place, and he didn’t want to push you too far by sleeping right next to you.

maybe that wasn’t the right decision after all.

“i don’t like thunderstorms,” you quietly admitted, a little embarrassed about the fact. thunderstorms always scare you, but you never really found the need to tell anyone since you usually would just pop a melatonin gummy should these sorts of nights come around and sleep before the thunders rage. tonight, however, was something you never thought would ever happen to you—at least not any time soon.

“can you accompany me tonight?” your question came out more of a whisper—but for chan, it sounded a thousand times louder than any of the thunders he had heard tonight.

“of course, baby,” his lips formed into a smile as chan brought his lips on to your forehead, “give me 5 minutes, yeah? i’ll clean up my set up and join you in bed.”

as soon as you confirmed with a nod, chan was out the door, hurriedly packing up his emergency set up—much to han and changbin’s confusion, but he got no time to entertain the younger two’s questions. he was as speedy as he could be, and in less than 2 minutes, he’s already all cozied up under the duvet next to you, engulfing you in his warmth.

“all better, love?” he hummed, fingers tracing patterns on your back over your—his, hoodie. “i’m sorry, i thought you would be more comfortable if you slept alone. i had no idea you hated thunderstorms.”

“it’s okay, i didn’t think it would be this bad too,” you mumbled, burying your face into his clothed chest and contently sighed upon listening to his steady heartbeat—which unfortunately wasn’t much of a help when you flinched over another loud thunder.

chan, however, was quick to your rescue as he gently started humming to tenerife sea, drowning any remaining sounds outside while pulling you impossibly closer to him. as the song ends, he then swiftly started to another, slowly inviting sleep over your now heavy eyelids.

“thank you, channie. i love you,” you forced a mumble, allowing your legs to tangle with chan’s before you finally succumbed to sleep, all comfortable in your boyfriend’s embrace—and when chan was finally entirely sure your breathing had come into a steady exhale, only then his hums came to a halt, lips pressed onto your forehead as he drifted to sleep.

“sweet dreams, baby. i love you.”

©️ astralisortus, 2024. | likes and reblogs are highly appreciated♡

[babybrainedstarscream]

this time on starscream giving birth in inconvenient places:

Days of travel away from the nearest solar system, Starscream gets the slightest tickle of a weird feeling while flying alongside skyfire on their way back from an expedition. Nothing to worry about.

Besides, it's deep in empty space, not even an asteroid to land on in case of an emergency. He doesn't wanna worry his conjunx.

But its not long before he's curled up on the slab bed inside Skyfire, writhing in pain every few minutes as his frame contracts, curled up against the wall, trying to seek comfort from his conjunx. Skyfire doesn't have hands to soothe him with.

"Do you want me to hold you?"

Starscream whimpers a yes. As he lurches off the bed to exit so Skyfire can transform...

splash.

Several long seconds of pure, unadulterated shock, that turns to recognition that turns to terror.

"Are you in EMERGENCE?"

Once the obligatory panic dies down, the two of them realize they're a little bit fucked.

Skyfire is a cargo ship, not a passenger ship. He doesn't have any health equipment built in, and the med-scanner they brought with (that Star has to use on himself) can't do much to verify the sparkling's status. Sparklings-es? They have no idea how MANY are in there. And though they wanted sparklings, they hadn't anticipated having them RIGHT NOW, so their knowledge on emergence is... well, above average, as biologists, but still too slim for comfort.

And despite Skyfire feeling useless, he is the only place habitable for sparklings for a LONG while. They can't survive in the vacuum of space yet.

So they just. Have to make do.

Starscream suggests the idea of waiting until they can land, which Skyfire points out is stupid, because the fluid release is when emergence speeds up significantly, and it was already going fast.

As contractions are coming more regularly, Starscream ends up on the floor, gripping onto two handles meant to keep mechs from falling over riding in Skyfire. They're over his shoulders, and it's hard to squeeze back without literally pulling Starscream's hands inside the walls, but it's keeping him upright and close ENOUGH to holding his hands.

When his gestation seal spirals open enough to start pushing, he start slipping a little. Skyfire wraps cargo straps around his pedes to pull his legs apart and back.

It's better than stirrups!

"...have you always had those?" Starscream chokes out, his hip joints straining, "you should use them on me again... later."

He's making a huge mess of fluids, and they both resent the fact Starscream is going to have to be the one to clean it up, pretty much as soon as he's recovered from emergence.

A lot of encouraging words and a lot of pushing later, a teeeeeeny tiny sparkling slides out of Starscream. Skyfire can feel the tiniest splat when she reaches his floor, Star too focused on pushing to catch her in time. Skyfire drops a towel on him, that he uses to scoop her up and dry her off. Adorable....

"Sky?"

"Yeah?"

"I think more are coming."

"Frag."

He can't push very well and hold onto a sparkling at the same time, but he doesn't just want to put her on the floor, even if it is her sire. She might roll herself over....

...

From the wall next to him... Skyfire extends. Cupholders.

"Cupholders? I didn't know you were so luxurious!"

"Just let me hold her, Star."

They're big enough cupholders to cradle the sparkling in the towel, keeping her secure and safe.

The rest of the trine comes out much the same, though Star is a little better at actually catching them this time. Bitty #2 gets to sit in the other cup with his sister. Bitty #3 gets so stay with star until he figures out fueling the surprises.

Star has to spend the rest of the trip home inside of Skyfire, because he's again, a cargo ship not a passenger ship, he doesn't have airlocks.

The bitties are a week old when they see their sire's face for the first time, mere moments after landing on cybertron.

One billion kisses for every passenger.

[mournings-stars]

i loved the adam with a fat!reader 🥹 so cute, id love to see lucifer with a reader similar? like maybe shorter like him and a bit on the chubby side 🙏

AHHH THATS SO CUTE

imagine you’re like a chef or baker or something, maybe hellborn, maybe a sinner, and you meet him at an event that he’s just required to go to, so he’s staying by the catering tables and just busying himself with food so he doesn’t have to talk to anyone

“i know it’s a buffet, darlin’, but you’re milking my lil’ supply dry.” and imagine you have the cutest lil accent like maybe it’s southern if you’re hellborn or soft, 50’s movie-type transatlantic if you’re a sinner (i kinda wanna write this now actually so tell me what u prefer…)

first he’d look up, just expecting you to be taller than him, but then he’d look down and see you and immediately try to hand his plate back because how could he take your business for granted when you’re standing right in front of his and so sweet… and beautiful — like he’s not blind, he can see that you’re gorgeous. and if he’s honest the food isn’t good enough to get so many plates, but your restaurant would certainly be popular when you’re the precious little face of it

but he has to stop himself because his thoughts are certainly bordering on rude now, so he’s scrambling to apologize like, “i’m sorry — i see why your food’s so popular now, HAHA, you’re gorgeous — i mean, your food is amazing, but—“

“but?” and then he just shuts up. “no keep going, but what, your majesty?” and he is fumbling, because he can’t tell you he thinks the food is mediocre when he’s been shoving it down his throat all night, but then you say, “i know it’s not my best; they had me here last minute, frettin’ over twenty trays each of my best dishes, which can’t be the best if they’re repeated twenty times,” and even though you’re talking on and on, he’s listening and nodding on and on because because you’re just speaking to him so naturally

“am i talking to much?” “yes — i mean, no! i could listen to you talk all night!”

the rest is literally history, like you tell him to come to your restaurant to see what your cooking is really like, and when he finds out its just a small little restaurant with a couple tables and an old kitchen, he’s amazed because it tastes even better than it did at the event

once he decides to ask you out, and he decides quick, he knows he can’t ask you out to eat, or to an event, or to his house, or to the movies, or—

“you wanna get somethin’ to eat sometime?” and you’re literally asking him before he can even think to ask. “maybe you could cook for me?” you suggest slyly and he’s too flustered to say anything so he just nods. “i’ll make sure i dress fancy for you then, majesty.” and this man is MELTING

and if there’s one thing he learns about you that night its that you are not insecure about anything — your first conversation of you doubting your cooking skills might’ve made him think otherwise, but now he knows it’s just not the case

and you have no reason to be insecure; about your cooking, about anything — hell, you look amazing all dolled up just to come to his home for his 8-minute spaghetti… at least he made homemade meatballs. and those were pretty good! you even complimented them, which gave him a very much needed ego boost to get through the night confidently

and when his confidence finally shows, you’re sure he’s what you want, so you don’t bother taking your time with leading up to kisses or anything past that. you take what you want, with permission, and give him what he wants

and he loves it about you, like, you’re so sure of yourself, confident, and carry yourself with so much charm that people just step out of your way, even with your short stature, which he also loves about you — it’s nice having someone shorter around for once, but he’d definitely shape-shift and let himself be shorter than you for a day or so if you wanted

along those lines, he would give you any and everything you wanted. even if you didn’t ask, he’d give it to you — he’ll get you a new restaurant, new equipment, appliances… hell, he’ll even get you a new apartment… that is, if you don’t move in with him

and he would ask, a million times he’d ask because he just loves being with you that much. whenever you come over, or he goes to your place, he’s stuck to you. he watches you cook, helps if you let him — he bakes! he can bake, but of course he finds out you can too, and he insists you’re much better, but you insist that you do it together since this was much less dangerous than letting him rummage through your spice cabinet

if he’s not helping you, he’s hugging you from behind and watching what you do, hands running all over you, feeling the soft plush of your thighs and hips, your stomach, anything you’ll let him touch which he kisses your cheeks and neck and shoulders — literally anything you’ll let him do because he just loves listening to your precious laughter as he loves on you, or your sighs when he marks your neck or shoulder

this man LOVES lying with his head on your lap or in between your thighs. literally anything to do with your thighs or resting his head on your stomach, like, he’s fully back in heaven

he also loves you on top of him, straddling him while you comb your fingers through his hair, legs across his lap as you read, cuddled up to him as you watch a movie or sleep, he can’t get enough of you

and don’t get me started on the nsfw like… head between your legs all fucking day, squeeze his head with your thighs — like actually do it because he will come undone

[forbiddensonoftheseagod]

◭ "And who cares to know anymore?" ◮ - Percy Jackson

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘∘₊✧──────✧₊∘∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Many can recognize that when Percy tends to have thoughts, he’ll look into the distance and it’d be obvious as to where they’d wander off to. How his thoughts would darken to the same type of darkness that he’s seen back in Tartarus, twisting shadows bundling up to a robe that’ll tighten which each struggle he’d make. His struggles would falter to a point where he’s accepted that nobody could free him , could save him, could fix him.

Who’s to say that everyone didn’t bother to know anymore? Nobody’s bothered to understand what’s happened above the surface of Percy’s thoughts, overflowing with the sink running that not even he can swim in it anymore, for once he can’t swim. For once, Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon…

Can drown.

For once, Perseus Jackson can drown and sink to the bottom where he’s belonged all his life, deserved to drown and to lose everything and everyone around him. The life in his sea green eyes leaves him, leaving his broken body behind with his broken soul crumbling when leaving its crumbling shell, bound to break at some point. Because Percy isn’t immortal,

He rejected that offer, remember?

But it’s better to have stayed mortal and grow older, rather than stay sixteen [16] and outlive those who have helped him from himself. Because had that been the case, he wouldn’t have witnessed the fall from his friends, watching their lives be taken so heartlessly by Gaea. Five [5] of them, at least…

From Frank, to Piper, to Leo, to Hazel… To Annabeth. And he felt himself drop to his knees as the water as salty as the ocean pooled his eyes as the rain poured down his scarred cheeks, breath coming out sharp and shallow with his throat drying up, choking. How could the hero, the hero, let this happen again?

“No-“ he’d whisper shakily, shaking his head with his body trembling as Riptide clattered on the floor beside his knee, a hiccup leaving his bloodied lips. No, he’d think, lowering his head and holding it between his palms before hiccuping once more, again and again.

His nails dug into his skull, sobbing as his chest heaved up and down. This couldn’t happen again, don’t let it be true, please. Don’t tell him that he’s lost his friends again, please, don’t hurt him this way…

Please, please, dear gods- if you truly have a nice bone in your body, please, he is begging for his life at this point… Please, tell him that it’ll be okay, that some of the gods would be a bit generous and bring them back to him. Bring back those that have helped him on the way, saved him on the way.

Fucking hell- “Fucking hell!!” Percy sobbed once more, calloused and scarred fingers tugging on his black locks, pupils shrinking bit by bit, eyes squeezed shut. It’s not like it’d do much, though, it’s not like it’ll bring any of them back. Crying won’t bring them back, nothing could honestly, and that’s all thanks to him again.

It’s the same shit all over again, it’s the same damn shit all over again, all fucking over again.

Over and over.

And over and over.

And over and over.

He just keeps ruining it all the time, now look what he’s done. Look at the mess he’s created this time.

But who cares, hm? Who cares about how he feels, rather than what actually matters, who cares to know what the kid feels at the moment?

Who cares to know that the kid lost his friends and is now dealing with this misery, like per usual.

Oh who cares…

His chest felt so tight and it reminded him of the time he’s choked that goddess once, now he’s choking, he’s choking and god- Is this how much misery Misery took? Is this how it felt? Surely he’s felt miserable before, why does this surprise him? He’s grown so accustomed to these things, he’s witnessed them, heard them-

Done them.

The scream he let out was from bottled anguish he just couldn’t be bothered to release, he’s never let himself be above anything else, he could wait. But everyone else couldn’t, and everyone else is gone. So he screams… Perseus Jackson screams in anguish.

In anger.

In pain.

In fear.

Everything he’s felt through all these years came out in one blood curdling scream, how surprising it was that the ground didn’t shake the same his father would make it do. No surprise here, to be honest, because he may be the son of Poseidon… But Poseidon isn’t loyal, his son is, though. And because of this loyalty, this excessive personal loyalty that got them dead.

Stupid boy, stupid, pathetic boy. Thinking he could save his friends, his family, at that. Look at him, look at this pathetic excuse of a hero. Screaming turning to cries before resolving to pathetic sobs, crumbling like the overused piece of paper he was, eventually tearing apart until this was all that was left.

This mistake.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘∘₊✧──────✧₊∘∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

@gh0st-king-nico @will-shoelaces

[elmaxlys]

New Place, New Life - Chapter 1: Part 2

part 1

Never had Tag been this happy to enter a pharmacy - nor to exit it actually. It usually was this kind of neutral zone to which he'd only pay attention when the matter was not to break its window when playing. But things had changed. This was now the scene of his liberation.

They followed the pharmacist to the back of the shop and came face to face with walls upon walls of splints and other chains and balls, which seemed to Tag as light as feathers, having dragged his own for three weeks now. They measured, they tried, they decided. The constriction was a poor inconvenience. He could walk! Run! As for juggling with his usual dexterity he'd have to come back later, given how stiff the thing was, but this all was such an improvement that he didn't mind all that much.

When they came home, Pablo soon had to leave his boy again - he could only put a leave on his morning. Still, he didn't worry anymore: Tag had his smile back on and the energy that went with it as well. They ate their meal in a flash and Pablo hurried to the station, not without dropping a kiss on his beloved son's forehead - son who let him do it, with an embarrassed chuckle.

That afternoon, there was no way Tag would stay at home moping. He grabbed a jacket just in case and knotted a bandana to keep his unruly hair out of his face. Just as he did, his heart hurt in his chest. This bandana had been a goodbye gift from his Argentinian team. A glance in the mirror told him a bunch of strands inevitably escaped his cloth trap. Oh well. So long as he could see...

The door locked, he set off.

Because of police interventions, it was out of the question to mention any precise place on the street football forum. If an unfortunate soul risked it, their message would immediately disappear thanks to Hammerhead's vigilance, who worked as moderation. The third time would result in immediate and definitive expulsion for suspicion of betrayal.

The only real way to guess where the street pirates gathered was to attentively watch the few videos shared by members. And even then, if there was no distinctive landmark and if you didn't know the city like the back of your hand, it was near impossible to say, given the poor quality of the uploads...

Tag had no such problem, even though he was unfamiliar with Mère-Sainte-Yvette: all the videos featured, in a way or another, a shopping center. Two minutes on the web and he found it. Abandoned construction after bankruptcy and the annulment of subsidies, the building had made the headlines of local newspapers.

So that was were Tag was heading, ball twirling in his feverish hands. It was on the other side of the city, but since said city wasn't all that big and, unlike the city who had seen him grow, Port-Marie, it was as flat as a pancake. It was a sunny afternoon, warm but not too hot, in the middle of July: he could only hope he'd find players at the end of the road.

In any case, alone or not, Tag was decided to play a little - and to make of this "little" the understatement of the month. He deserved it.

When he got there, the ex-future mall was deserted. The whole endeavor seemed to have gone rather well, for an abandoned construction. Tag rolled his eyes at adult decisions and kept walking, taking it all in. The scaffolding would have been anything but reassuring had he not spent years playing in a car graveyard, on the rotten planks of the dock or under the rusted beams of the factory. Up there, nothing moved under the sweet breeze.

The place was rather nice. The city must have had the eyes bigger than its stomach, which had lead to this premature retirement, because even abandoned midway, it looked great : unmaintained greeneries surrounded a kind of open space theater, a dry fountain sat, majestic, on front of the opening devoid of windows. Tall grass swayed, hypnotic.

Tag walked down the steps, sighing for his flexibility lost to the brace. Well, better that than the pain. Therefore he ignored it and kept walking. He let his finger drag along the fountain, gathering dust and dry soil. Dirty footprints, long dry, ornamented the white concrete, almost blinding under the sun.

He entered the building, his ball tucked under his arm. His steps resonated and he could only hear the echoes of some regular beating. The place was empty. Too bad, but that wouldn't stop him. He dropped his jacket on a guardrail protecting a drop to the subterranean floor. There were escalators but without alimentation. What a waste.

As he was getting warmed up - not a habit he always went through, but after so much inactivity it seemed wiser - a ball bounced lightly, rolling next to him. Tag frowned and grabbed it.

It was a pretty thing, the leather old and used but carefully cleaned. Tag made it bounce on his knees. It was just right, something quite rare in urban football. Clearly, its owner cared a lot about and for it. Tag smiled, thinking about his own, which he had put near his jacket.

"Hey, you!" cried a voice.

Tag raised his head: the voice came from upstairs. A silhouette stood right on top of the inactive escalators. It got closer and suddenly jumped on the railing. Despite the material and Tag's expectations, the gliding was elegant. At the end of it, the person exited the railing with perilous jump. Tag raised his eyebrows at the demonstration.

In front of him stood a young boy, a real cherubim: thin blonde hair crowned the pink face of a baby doll. The effect was ruined by his angry frown.

"That's my ball. Didn't ya see the tag on it?"

Tag did see it, indeed. He had however not paid much attention to it. While this brat already grated his nerves with his lordy airs when he barely reached half of Tag's size, he decided to play along.

The tag was "X12". Since he had spent unreasonable amounts of time on the forum, he recognized the name, having seen it a couple times there. They played like show-offs, but competent show-offs, especially for snot-nosed brats.

"That's our team's symbol. So you better give it back."

Really, the kid didn't lack confidence. A mocking grin stretched his lips. He may have only just come around, but he'd never let a squirt like that tell him what to do. Had he only said "please", oh, Tag would have handed it back nicely. But now he was running hot and Tag would make him regret it.

"You mean this ball?" he said, holding it loosely.

The kid ticked. Tag had judged the owner's attachment to his ball accurately, then. This would only makes things more fun.

He played with the ball for a few seconds, enjoying once more the perfect pressure. To finish it off, he balanced the ball on his nape, too high for the little bug to get it easily.

"Come and get it, brat!"

And with that, he sent a wink - wink which completed its mission of infuriating the little one further quite well. The kid was fuming. His little blond eyebrows were all scrunched up and almost touched above his button nose. He huffed angrily, making his bangs fly from the face it half ate. He squinted at Tag.

"Oh, so you wanna play..!"

His tone had changed, had turned mischievous. Playful, even. Tag's smile became truer. His eyes sparkled from anticipation. A shoulder move put the ball back in his hands.

"Alright, lemme get things straight : the whole center's playing field, we avoid the east and west wings. There's a goal up there, on the roof. First one to score wins. You good - or you scared?"

"Nice and easy."

"Well then, if you take it that way, let me add a rule: the ball mustn't touch the ground."

"What is this, volleyball? But sure, why not. Show me what you've got."

He didn't have to say it twice. The kid lunged at him, gliding on what Tag now identified as heelys. Then, in a jumped tackle, he tore the ball from Tag's legs. This little dude really had a way with acrobatics. Tag ran after him, taking the ball back with ease, making it bounce here and there, always just a little bit further than his opponent could reach. Said opponent was cursing under his breath.

Still, Tag wasn't familiar with the setting while it was the kid's home field - he ended up intercepting the ball and kept going on his way to the upstairs floors. Busy as he was taunting Tag, watching behind him instead of up front, he nearly put his foot in an empty spot. Heart beating in his throat, Tag grabbed him to pull him back at the last moment. Fear could be read in blondie's eyes maybe for half a second, before he noticed that Tag, on top of avoiding him a broken leg, had also stolen the ball back.

"Hey! That's not fair!"

"Should've watched where you were going," Tag taunted.

Of course it was fair and they both knew it. The boy went after him, laughing. Forgotten, the bud of a fight. This was the power of street football.

They ended up reaching the top. Up there, there indeed was a goal, painted on some sort of brick thing - some kind of room to keep random stuff, probably. They'd even delimited the top corners. In the middle of it, someone had used spray paint to write GOAL! with an added skull to drive the point home. Beneath it, in read, someone had added "loser". There were much more things written and drawn but Tag couldn't focus on them right then.

"It's over for you!" his opponent boasted.

"Not yet," Tag all but growled as he stopped the ball with his chest.

Then everything went sideways, starting with his leg. It already didn't take the whole ascension well - between the stairs and the scaffolding, his knee had begun screaming. Tag, of course, had ignored it. This challenge was too good. He probably shouldn't have had, because there it was, refusing to bend to find the floor properly. Therefore, Tag slipped and bumped his lower back and his head against concrete and bricks, just as the ball flew over him, hit by a well-done headshot that Tag, occupied as he was moping the floor with his body, had missed. He only saw the result: the ball falling next to him, still shivering under the strength of the hit.

The brat was exulting despite his whistling breaths. He bent in half, hands on his knees, trying to find some more air. Tag had given him more trouble than he'd ever admit. And if Tag's own breathing also skipped some beats, it was because of the pain irradiating his skull and knee.

The kid came to him and held out his hand.

"You okay? Nothing broken?"

"It's all good," Tag answered with a wince that said the opposite.

He took the hand in front of him and the kid helped him get up. His head would be find. The knee, however... He took a sharp breath. Did he force too much for a first day? But the doc had said it was fine, now!

"You're good, for your age!"

The brat had taken the words out of Tag's own mouth. He shoved his bandana in his pocket, mistreated as it had been by this crazy run.

"What, you think that at 17 I'm on death's door?"

He only got a mischievous grin in answer.

"You're not too bad yourself," Tag complimented him back, ruffling the kid's hair.

He complained and rearranged his hair back in place. How did the hairdo hold during this whole thing, Tag could only guess, and a little needle of jealousy poked him for a brief second, his hand finding his deserter bandana again.

"Say," blondie said, "can you be our coach?"

"Dunno," Tag sniffled, "depends."

"Depends on what?" the kid got excited. "We're really strong when it comes to air play, you know. And I won, didn't I? Come o~n, pleaaase!"

Tag couldn't help but laugh at his enthusiasm as they walked together toward the the stairs, so they could get back down at a more decent pace than they went up.

"I don't even know your name!"

"Oh! I'm Samy, I'm the captain of our team, X12. The X is for "extreme" and the 12, well, it's hard to explain, but we didn't have any other idea. I mean, Joey - that's our goalie - said "why not 'The Team'", but well all agree - except him - that it was a stupid name, so we agreed on X12. What do you think? Rather cool, no? What about you? I don't think I ever saw you around here. You're new? In what team are you? And what's your name?"

This was a sure change from their first interaction just earlier! Samy was skipping all around him, to the rhythm of his questions. He has a smile on that lit up his face, giving the cherubim all his sweetness and charm.

"I'm Tag," he simply answered, paying no mind to the rest of the questions.

"Just like the first World Champion, four years ago!"

Tag smirked and gave him a wink as he answered:

"Exactly."

[lingonberry24]

Like stay safe y'all. My family holiday experience this year has been great getting to see people but:

1 elderly woman with a mucuousy cough insisting it was allergies who went through two airports on the way here

2 adults who got a "cough" after visiting family with "a really bad case of pneumonia" and those adults haven't gotten rid of the cough yet. One doesn't wash their hands after using the restroom

The 2 adults they got pneumonia from, one of whom still has a cough. The other said they weren't feeling good today. They both work in-person in busy places in a city.

Their toddler who has mild kid cough and a constant runny nose (2yo)

2 other adults who came with minor coughs and went through a collective 6 airports to get here. One has been getting worse, really didn't feel great today and has a moderate cough and laid in bed all day.

Their kid who doesn't wash his hands and is constantly chewing on something and wipes his nose and has a runny nose and stuff on his face always (1st grade). I suspect his dad also doesn't wash his hands bc he also never prompts him to wash them.

None of them consistently cover their coughs.

Things I'm doing to try to stay safe:

Air filter in my room all the time

Air filter in common space all the time on the highest setting everyone will tolerate, noise-wise

Wearing an n95 in common spaces

Regularly using Xlear nasal spray (was proven to reduce prevalence or Covid by 62%) (2-4x per day)($12 at CVS)

Just used sinus wash which has also shown promising results of reducing illness prevalence

Bringing my air filter into the bathroom and sitting in there with it running for 15+ minutes before taking my mask off to shower.

Eating alone in my room for every meal

Hand sanitizer always. Unfortunately discovered today that norovirus can't be killed by this though, just soap and warm water - so i may add to my tactics.

ensuring my mask has a tight fit with no seals. I have a from ask which means my "fit test" that i do before leaving my room consists of sucking a plastic bag against my face to find air leaks and readjusting accordingly

Getting food first as all meals are shared, and avoid communal food that is in reach of or made by kids

Additional things i could be doing but don't, for various reasons:

Straight up dont eat communal food. Could make my own food or drink nutrition shakes like slim fast or Kate farms (these taste good and feel nutritional in my body. Slimfast is filling, Kate arms needs to be supplemented or perhaps I'm not drinking enough at once)

Getting 8-9 hours of quality sleep

Drinking at least 2 liters of water daily (struggle bc water filter is in the common area)

Spending zero time with my family and living in my room. Or spending less time with them (may do this now that they are showing signs of worsening illness though)

Regularly sanitizing or wiping down my phone

Getting a uv sanitizing bag for my phone (they were $30 around black Friday and the size of a cat carrier)

Taking oralbiotic - for ear nose and throat health, tentatively shown to reduce symptoms of illness and may prevent it. Bottle must be kept in the fridge after opening

Vitamin C / electrolytes - I simply do not have these in a form I can consume right now

Getting daily sunshine

Getting any amount of extremely mild exercise (perhaps floor stretches laying down would be okay for me)

Cleaning my room (I'm sure the extra dust isn't helping and the mess certainly is not helping my mental health or making it easy to stay in my room)

Resting more (i have long Covid and have been pushing it to hang with family)

Keeping a regular sleep schedule.

Humidifier (its dry af here)

Everything that I could be doing has been shown to some degree to prevent Covid or severe illness or be related to something that does.

It is never too late to pick up Covid precautions again, even if it's only a little. Anything is better than nothing.

We have no known cures for long Covid and very few medications that can treat it - and fewer yet are approved. I was "healthy" and still i got Covid over a year ago and never recovered. There is no proof that I ever will. I'm constantly tired and could likely not work a physical or in person job if my life depended on it.

Ugh. Just. Idk. Please take care of yourselves. And appreciate your body's functionality while you have it.

[collidescopeeyes]

Random Relationship Headcanons: Viego

- Wants to be near you literally all the time. Loves physical contact and will find any excuse to get it.

- He physically can't blush, which is a tragedy because otherwise you could see how flustered you make him :( you still catch him just staring at you with open adoration so it's ok though

- Gives you privacy if you ask for it but his default state is wanting to be around you. Kind of guy who would be thrilled to watch paint dry with you cuz it means you get to spend time together. Will follow you around until you pay attention to him, 100% sulks if neglected for too long but can't stay mad at you for long.

- Gets jealous easily but is working on not being so possessive, so he just gets clingy(er) if he's feeling insecure. It's kinda cute.

- Low key gets freaked out if he doesn't know where you are. His last love died painfully in front of him ok he's got Trauma

- Can tell immediately if there's something up with you, pls talk to him about it, he worries and he just wants to help

- Likes to read, from romance novels to historical texts. Goes through surviving texts from Camavor frequently, trying to jog his memory. Keeps a journal now, in case the mist takes any more memories. A lot of it is prose about how pretty you were today, a fair hand at sketching too.

- Likes animals, especially dogs and horses–royal hunts were a big family event growing up. Animals do not like him anymore, the mist makes them uneasy. It makes him sad sometimes :(

- Has strong opinions on wine and ballroom music. Will talk about the composition of a symphony for hours if you let him. Would love to teach you to dance.

- Used to care a lot about how he dressed, but those memories are still pretty fuzzy and he doesn't really think about it anymore–dying kinda puts vanity into perspective. Likes dressing you up though, and will definitely dress to match if you're going somewhere. He likes the idea of coordinated outfits.

- Gets moody occasionally, it all gets a bit much for him sometimes and he starts thinking about all his fuck ups. Alternates between sad and self-blaming to frustrated and kinda bitchy, but does his best not to take it out on anyone. Instantly feels bad and apologizes if he says anything out of line. Give him time, cuddles and reassurance and he'll start feeling better.

- Can't sleep without you in his arms. Doesn't choose to sleep often anyway (he gets bad nightmares), but will happily lay there all night watching you sleep. Doesn't like to admit that though bc he knows it's kinda weird.

- Doesn't need to eat or sleep or drink, but likes doing it anyway. The other wraiths in the isles are shadowy mist creatures because they're souls the mists have taken, and the bodies are somewhere else. Viego’s situation is closer to him ACTUALLY being the crown and just possessing his own body constantly, sort of like he'd possess anyone else’s. He's still technically undead though so his only real bodily need is the magic that's keeping him walking around

- The crown can't be moved, his head just moves with it. It's sort of like horns, except they're not actually attached to his head. Yank him around by it ;). He can demanifest it if he tries but it makes him feel numb and weirdly claustrophobic

- Speaking of, is claustrophobic. Man was trapped in a sword for like a thousand years; he was only quasi aware that whole time, kind of like having a nightmare or sleep paralysis, but it still makes him uncomfortable. Doesn't come up much since he just kinda mist teleports out if he starts feeling cramped. If it's ever for some reason necessary he will be holding you like an emotional support stuffy and you won't get a choice about it.

- His tears are black and dissipate into mist after a bit. It's very goth. Can control the amount of mist pouring from his heart; at its thickest it's almost like a small waterfall.

- Lets you put your fingers in his chest hole exactly one time. It was so cold you couldn't actually feel anything. He described it as akin to someone squeezing his heart.

- He can float but it takes concentration and he honestly prefers just walking. Also, he's tall asf. You need something off a high shelf, he's your man.

- His sense of temperature is fucked. He can tell if something's hot, but if you hand him an ice cube and a piece of wood he can't tell which ones colder without looking. Worries his hands are too cold for you since you always feel warm to him (they're not)

- Looking at his reflection weirds him out, and sometimes you catch him staring at his hands. Man doesn't have an introspective bone in his body though so he couldn't tell you why, but really he only sort of remembers what he used to look like and sometimes the dissonance gets to him.

- In the far far future of TIARW some of the restored shades will choose to stay in the kingdom, since apparently Viego was beloved by the people before his wife died and he went fully off the deep end. Viego gets the opportunity to redeem himself to his people and kingdom, and another shot at being king but older and wiser now. With you as his queen, he swears not to make the mistakes of his past and to rule with the best interests of Camavor in mind. Maybe I'll write an epilogue along those lines at some point.

NSFW (under cut)

- Look he's perma stuck in honeymoon phase he's Thirsty

- High libido. A menace if you let him be but 100% respects if you aren't feeling like it, he knows he can be a bit much. Does need lot of physical intimacy but that doesn't need to be sex necessarily, he just likes making you both feel good

- Despite this, doesn't jerk off much. It's being with you that gets him going, not that he specifically wants to get off

- He doesn't get tired. Like ever. 0 refractory, will just go until either you tap out or he's so overstimulated he can't anymore. Watching his cum drip out of you just gets him so worked up though so it's a vicious cycle

- He's got a filthy mind and will have you every which way he can think of, in every room you'll let him. Fav position is probably you riding him cowgirl though; he likes the view

- Likes leaving lovebites, but he lowkey feels bad if he bruises you by accident. He gets carried away and forgets his strength sometimes, you'll have to convince him you're fine. He heals too fast for you to leave marks on though, it's tragic :(

- He's touch starved, we all know this, he was trapped in a sword for a thousand years. In particular though, his neck is very sensitive, as well as his thighs and lower back. Doesn't like the area around his chest cavity being touched. Loves having his hair pulled.

- He's got experience. He was a heartbreaker in his youth and he figures out exactly what you like uncannily quickly

- Love love loves going down on you, he loves watching you and he gets to make you feel good, doesn't even care if he cums as long as he gets to eat you out

- Boss him around, he loves it when you take charge. Loves being both praised and degraded, will try so so hard to be good for you. Edge him until he cries, make him cum over and over, yank him around by the crown and tell him what a pathetic cum drunk slut he is, he'll take it all and beg for more <3

- Not specifically dommy so if you aren't taking the reigns he's the perfect combination of loving and so horny he can't think straight. Tells you how pretty and perfect you are while he makes a fucking mess of you.

- He's so loud. If he's not telling you how good you feel or how perfect you are, he's moaning and whimpering and swearing. Ask him a question and watch him struggle to put a coherent sentence together in real time.

- If you want to give him a task you know he'll fail, tell him to keep quiet. Fucks it up immediately and he gets SO upset, full tears in eyes begging to make it up to you.

- Will happily do whatever makes you both feel good, willing to try most things you want to. Hard limits, wouldn't like saying mean things or hurting you even as part of a scene (receiving tho, yes pls). Also, very mixed feelings about doing it anywhere anyone could ostensibly see you–on one hand everyone should know you're his and he's yours, on the other he'd have to kill them. It would be the only way, they gotta die.

- Aftercare is a must, whole nine yards, hot scented bath and cuddles and affirmations all around.

[starvulture]

Tight Grip, Broken Dam (12)

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You don’t question it anymore, when Miguel appears in your bed at night. He’s not there for sex, no, you’ve never even kissed—though you would be lying if you said you weren’t open to the idea of kissing him. He’s there for comfort. For rest. If only it could stay so simple.

Pair: Miguel O'Hara & GN!Reader

Notes: for series: slow burn, ambiguous relationship, found family dynamics, reader is in their late 20s. for chapter: sexual tension, injuries and injury aftercare, references and nightmares about 90s comic run canon events

Word Count: 2.4k

Read this chapter on Ao3 here. If you like my work, please consider leaving kudos there as well! You do not need an account to do so.

a/n: deepest apologies for this series' absence! i hope this (only slightly) shorter chapter and the knowledge that i am already working on the next and hope to return to semi-regular updates will tide you over.

Your brief trip across town leaves you more winded than you hoped and less tired than you feared.

Your apartment is empty but for the presence of warm midday sun and green leaves when you return, kicking your shoes off and carefully setting yourself down on the couch, bones heavy with the weight of grief and exhaustion. There’s nothing to do now but rest, and so you don’t resist the warm embrace of sleep when it curls around you like hungry arms.

Brrring brrring!

The ring of your phone wakes you, the light now coming more brightly through your balcony doors.

A disoriented grumble escapes your throat as you shift, lifting yourself back up to lean against the back of the couch and immediately checking your side.

Sore. Sore, mostly dry, and unopened. Good.

Brrring brrring!

You find your phone in your coat pocket, having fallen asleep still fully dressed. Karen’s name lights up the screen. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes and clearing your throat, you answer the call and hold the phone to your ear.

“Karen, hey.”

“Hey!” She chirps through the line. “Matt and Foggy just won a case today, and–”

“Come drink with us!” Comes Foggy’s voice, shouted from somewhere in the room Karen has called from.

“I’m assuming you caught that.” You can hear the bemused expression on her face.

You try to chuckle, and fail, body too tired to force any levity. “I shouldn't tonight,” you say, wrinkling your nose and trying to roll out the stiffness in your neck. “I, uh—sick. Not feeling great.”

“Oh no!” Karen says, sympathetic. “Are you okay?”

You can hear the sudden silence from Foggy.

“Yeah, just uh. Out of it. Probably gonna just rest up for a few days, it’s a little rough.” You wince.

“Do you need anything?” She asks. “I don’t think it’s too far out of our way if you need some food. Some soup?”

You smile, heart warming at her thoughtfulness. “No, no, I’m all set. That’s really sweet though, thank you Karen.”

“Of course,” she says. “Rest up. We’ll see you when you’re feeling better.”

“Take an extra shot for me tonight.”

“Not like Foggy needs the excuse,” Karen laughs.

“What? What don’t I need an excuse for?”

“Wow, nosy,” you joke, smiling. “I’ll see you all next time.”

“Alright. Text if you need anything. I mean it.”

“You’re too nice. And I will, I promise,” you can’t help but smile. “Now go celebrate.”

Farewells are exchanged and the call ends. You drop the phone onto the couch, a heavy breath leaving your lungs. You linger for a moment before finally mustering the will to pull yourself off the couch and trudge into your room to change into your loosest pajamas.

Sleep pulls you back under its currents again.

Something pulls you from your slumber hours later, your cheek stuck to the pillow with dried spit, your vision blurry.

You haven't been this tired or slept so much since the spider bite that changed your life.

Your spider-sense pings and seconds later your bedroom door cracks open, Miguel in the open sliver between door and wall. His eyes meet your own, your head lifted slightly off the pillow from the surprise ping moments before.

“When’d you get here?” You ask, voice muffled and slurred.

“About an hour ago,” he replies, opening the door further. “You needed groceries, and I know you weren't going to be getting them anytime soon.”

You groan, letting your head fall back to the pillow. “You didn't need to do that for me.”

He crosses his arms, leans on the doorframe.

Now, with the door open, the smell of cooking finally reaches you and you rub your eyes. “ And you cooked?”

“I did.” There it is, his disproportionately endearing, pleased little half smile. Miguel crosses the distance from the door to your bed to help you up. “ Vamos, come on.”

“Thanks,” you mumble, when your feet finally find the floor. And again, after you’ve eaten and you sit side by side on the couch, sleep dragging down your eyelids once more: “Thank you, Miguel. For dinner, and… everything.”

“Of course,” he murmurs, and you slip into dreams once more.

The next morning, thankfully, finds you less fatigued. Miguel changes your bandages again, makes you breakfast, again, before leaving to fulfill his self appointed duties.

It continues like this as you heal. When Miguel isn’t at Spider Society HQ he’s in your home, cooking your food and cleaning your dishes and changing your bandages (You try not to go insane from the feeling of his hand on your bare skin). You don't ask, but you’re fairly certain the only sleep he gets is in your bed—a place you have to yourself less often than ever before.

Not that you’re complaining. Neither of you mentions it, of course, that he's visiting more while the skin over your ribs heals. You both seem to immediately accept this new normal and move forward as if it has always been the way things are. For Miguel’s part, he knows you don't have anyone here to take care of you properly—he knows you’ve lost family and more friends than most Spider-People usually had to start with—and so he takes the responsibility of you upon himself, and does so happily.

And mostly things are the same… mostly.

He learns about your favorite color, the watering schedule of your plants, how you miss having a pet but with the life you lead it doesn't feel like the responsible thing to do. He tries not to think about how it feels like learning more about someone you’ve been with for years, because he already knew which spoon was your favorite out of the somewhat mix-and-match selection, already knew about your aunt and your aunt's girlfriend on the force who still checked in on you up until her own death, your personal ASM-97 event.

He starts to feel disconcerted about how little he's shared in return, and tries his best to give something back. He mentions Gabriel in passing when talking about his childhood one day, during lunch.

“Gabriel?” You prompt.

“Ah,” he pauses, lowering his fork. To his plate. “My brother.”

The two of you are sitting on your couch, the balcony doors open wide to let in the fresh afternoon air that meanders through the open glass. Miguel holds his plate in one hand, you rest yours on your lap and your feet on your coffee table.

“I didn't know you had a brother,” you say. You want to rest your arm on the back of the couch, but despite your wound being at less risk of opening and bleeding, you’ve still been advised not to stretch the skin. So you pick at the couch cushion by your thigh with your nail instead, glancing at him.

Miguel nods. “Gabriella was named after him.”

Your heart squeezes. “Is he…?”

“He’s alive and well,” Miguel gives a reassuring, if rueful, smile. “It's just us two now.”

You nod. “Older or younger?”

“Younger,” he says, smiling at you. He rests his plate on his lap now, like you, and rests an arm on the back of the couch to angle towards you.

“Ah, oldest brother,” you raise your eyebrows and nod sagely. “That explains a lot.”

Miguel raises an eyebrow back at you.

You gesture at him vaguely. “I mean. Come on.”

Miguel scoffs, smiling, and then he tells you more about his family. About Tyler Stone and the secret his mother kept, how he’s not a true O’Hara but still carries the name. You sense he’s still keeping some things to himself, but you don’t press the issue, happy enough to even be let in this small amount. You hope that your adoration doesn’t show on your face too much as you watch him talk, lit with warm afternoon light.

Miguel feels lucky when he wakes up and can’t remember his dreams, because the nights that he does…

Flesh torn and shredded under his fingertips as gravity pulls the arm from his grasp, the man attached dangles infinite stories up from the streets and even farther to Downtown. The writhing gasp and scream of a man in pain and Miguel trying to save him and only making it worse. His father, angry and raging and taking it out on his mother. The smell of rotting flesh from his Vulture’s pantry, rotting cadavers stored haphazardly in a dark room in the underbelly of downtown waiting for—

No. Even in dreams it’s too sick to name.

Sometimes the horrors of his early days as Spider-Man blend with his life now. Gabriella’s rotting body in the pile in Vulture’s pantry. Gabriella, caught in an attack on his apartment, or in the crossfire between him and the Public Eye. You, hanging from his desperate grip after the lab explosion that changed him forever, your face twisted in fear and your arm shredded under his finger-pad talons as you slip from his grasp and fall to your death. You, in the pods for the long discontinued Corporate Raider program and killed in a fatal human-animal gene splicing test. You disappearing into the air, turning to less than ashes in his arms, or sometimes worse: You, holding Gabriella and reaching for him and the both of you disappearing when he reaches out, unable to so much as touch either of you one last time.

It’s not every night. Sometimes he dreams nonsense like everyone else, surreal landscapes with changing figures and storylines that mean nothing. Sometimes he dreams of happy memories or past almosts as if they had followed through on their potential. Schooldays with Xina or childhood games with Gabriel, or taking Gabriella to the Spider Society HQ like Peter does with May.

Sometimes he dreams about your skin, and your sheets, and your breath. Those ones always leave him distracted, off kilter and embarrassed through the rest of his day. He wishes he could bury them properly, leave them in his subconscious where they belong. Wishes he could keep himself from wanting to cross that line.

But tonight brings no dreams of pleasant pasts, no surreal landscapes, no ecstatic gasps and tangled sheets. Tonight he dreams of loss and pain.

A sudden jolt uproots you from sleep, dreams turn to evaporated particles in the air. At first you think there might be a threat, that perhaps your spider senses were what woke you, but the shallow and forcefully measured breaths in the bed next to you quickly inform you otherwise.

“Miguel?” Your voice is but a whisper as you prop yourself up, mindful of your ribs, your hand searching for him through the blankets. “Hey, hey, it's okay–”

He starts to say something, his voice dying in his throat before the first letter can even form on his tongue. His hand finds yours, wrapping tightly around palm and fingers alike. You scoot closer, doing your best with one hand now out of commission, and then you're partially hovering over him, your held hand supporting your weight.

“It's okay,” you whisper, and you begin to pet his hair back from his face. “You're okay.”

Even in the dark your eyes find each other. Before you can blink his arm is around you and you're pressed into his chest, his face hidden in your neck. You can feel each thundering beat of his heart through your chest as it slows, still beating too hard to fall into rhythm with your own.

“I’m here,” you whisper.

His arm tightens around your middle at that, a brief squeeze pulling you closer to him. His shuddered breath gusts across your skin where he’s buried his face.

“Bad dream?” you whisper into the hair above his ear, shifting above him to rest on his chest properly and rest one arm on the pillow by his head, the other sliding around his side to hold him in return.

“Sorry,” he whispers, ignoring your question, loosening his grip. “Your ribs-?”

“They’re fine, Miguel,” you say, your arm on the pillow by his head shifting.

As his heart slows, as his breath steadies and you wake fully, you become conscious of your body pressed into his. His face is still buried in your neck, and you feel his ribs expand under your body, raising you into the air.

His head falls back from your neck, resting on the pillow, and you lift your head to look at him in the dark.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

He pauses, eyes flitting between each of yours before he looks away. He pulls his arm back from around you, hand sliding to rest on your waist under your ribs.

“No.”

“Okay.” You prop yourself up further. “I’m here, though.”

He sighs, nods, closes his eyes.

Silence returns to the room, pressing in on your chest, squeezing your ribs like the bandages around your calf. You are too aware of your position nearly atop him, body pressed into the side of his chest with his hand still resting on your side, yours on his and your other bracing you above him on the pillow beside his head. You've been this close before, of course, and held one another much tighter in the dark. But something about this is different. Perhaps it's the way his fingers begin to unconsciously stroke your side and the way you've never gotten to look at him like this, above him, his eyes closed under you—

Your breath catches in your throat, and you lift your hand from his side to touch his face. His brow twitches, his hand tightens and relaxes on your side, and he sighs again as tension slowly drains from his body. You let your hand rest on his cheek more solidly, and his eyes flicker open to meet yours in the dark.

You hope he can’t feel the way your heart skips and then beats just that much harder. You swallow, hold your breath, and let your hand slide into his hair.

His eyes flutter shut, and everything freezes.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and the pressure of the air eases.

“Of course,” you finally say, your mouth dry, stroking your thumb back over his temple into his hair. You shift, settling down into his side.

His arms wrap around you once more. Neither of you speak, and you don't fall back asleep for a long while.

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[littlewalken]

~I think I posted this before, it might have got lost in the fog, so here it is again~

Citrus free Husbands, Aziraphale/Brother Frances comes to the rescue when Crowley/Nanny Ashteroth’s duties to Warlock cause some distress, woe be them if they are caught in a compromising position!

GOOD OMENS (Cold Nanny)

“Master Warlock I have told you to stay away from that pond! The ice is much too thin!” 

Aziraphale, in his guise of the gardener Brother Francis, hated scolding the boy, even if he was the Antichrist, but safety was safety, and he had heard the terrible sound of the ice breaking followed by a frantic splashing. 

I shall have to have a word with Nanny Ashtoreth about this, any excuse to see Crowley-eh? he chuckled to himself. “How about you make a snow fort? I’ll show you how…”

As Aziraphel neared the duck pond he saw Warlock and his friends running away from it. All for the better if you don’t want a scolding from your nanny! Where was she? Something was wrong.

At first the ice of the duck pond looked undisturbed. Then he saw the remote controlled vehicle Warlock had got for Christmas. Then he saw the umbrella.

“Oh help! Do help!” Aziraphale called as he made his way out on to the ice. “Someone help! The nanny’s fallen through the ice!”

Now, you should know there are a great many snakes who can swim. There are a great many demons who can swim. None of them however swim in icy water because none of them are the least bit built for the cold. For if you had taken any sort of notice in wildlife documentaries you would have noticed all the creatures of the arctic or antarctic are rather plump with a great covering of blubber. And if you were any sort of noticer of Crowley’s forms the words “plump” and “blubber” would not in the least bit apply to him.

It was by any and all means that Aziraphael managed to pull Crowley out of the icy water. “Oh! Poor nanny!” Aziraphael sighed, just in case anyone was watching. “You’ll catch your death a cold if you’re not warmed up!” 

The house was too far to take a human in wet quickly turning to ice clothes. The gardening supply shed was closer. Yes, get Crowley in there, put on the electric kettle, get him out of these wet things! So may wet things!

Aziraphale set Crowley on a pile of seed sacks in the gardening shed and plugged in the electric kettle. 

“Smudge pot,” he told himself. “I’ll light up a smidge pot!” Yes, even though that would be outside the door it would still put out a good amount of heat. “And then we’ll have to do something with getting you out of those wet clothes!” 

Always the angel was looking to see if someone else was coming, if anyone had heard his cries for help. How awful, just down right awful would it be to have the gardener be caught undressing the nanny!

Now you should assume two things about all of Crowley’s clothes, even in his guise of Nanny Ashtoreth. First they are all black, unless noted otherwise, and they are all made of artificial fabrics. That is, if they were made of natural fabrics such as wool, silk, cotton, or linen, their natural wicking motion might not have left the situation so cold and damp. 

To peel off the layers of the onion that made up Nanny Ashtoreth it was best to start with the outermost first. I hope we don’t have far to go, Aziraphale readied himself for the task ahead. First in removing all of Crowley’s wet things was the furry black muff with its red satin lining. This was hung up to dry. Finding a place to hang things up would soon become a problem of its own. 

Next came a felt cap, which didn’t look like a butter bowl, and a knitted scarf with just the slightest hint of red. The scarf was so wet it could be wrung out. Now it was time for the cloak with its little slits for one’s hands to poke through. The buttons for this were quite large and it seemed like each took a dreadfully long time. On being hung up upon a rake to dry the cloak began to drip as if it were going to worm a pond of its own.

“Here, now, miss Ashtoreth, have a nice warm cuppa.” Aziraphale said as he made a cup of instant tea for Crowley. He looked out the door at the flaming smudge pot. Oh please someone come and help me get her to the warmth of her bed. He put the cup in Crowley’s hand but the demon failed to grab it and the tea spilled to the floor.

The shoes had to come off. Leave it to Crowley to chose boots with countless eyes! The laces were quite frozen over and the boots were so tight the laces had to be pulled completely out to get them free and expose Crowley’s tosey-woseys clad in their stockings. 

One by one the fingers of the gloves were tugged on, loosening them up just enough so they could be removed. The removal of gloves could be a very sensual thing if done right. Done in a hurry they were bunched and pulled and dropped to the floor with a distinct splosh sound.

They were down to the winter version of the suit Nanny Ashtoreth always wore. Aziraphile liked the cut of the jacket, the slightly puffed sleeves, the wide cuffs, the little peplum in the back. It too was sopping wet. Fussing with the buttons the angel wondered if it was time to perform a miracle yet. 

Now it was time for the skirt. The cut of this Aziraphale didn’t like. It was too tight here, too full there, and the drape didn’t do any favors. Like the fasteners, who ever thought that a skirt needed a buckle? 

This would be the perfect time for someone to come upon us! Here is the gardener with the nanny bent over him as he fiddled with the zipper of her skirt! It would be nice if you could come to and help, dear Crowley. 

We must be nearing the end, the angel thought, how could you possibly be wearing much more? But Crowley was still wearing more. For being a demon and used to the fires of Hell he liked being warm and had been told the best way to keep a human body warm was to wear many layers. 

Aziraphale’s fingers went to the red silken bow of the scarf at Crowley’s neck. This was allowed to flutter to the floor because the blouse its self, wet, thin, see-through, and clinging to every inch of what lay underneath it, gave the impression of being real silk. 

“This I must be careful with,” the angel told himself as he cast a glance outside but no one except the smudge pot was watching. But by the third button he could tell the blouse wasn’t real silk and he allowed himself to rush along. 

By this time Nanny Ashtoreth was quite undressed but not completely. She sat on the pile of sacks, eyes presumably closed, looking half dead in a shimmering full length slip and stockings. If circumstances were different one might have found themselves distracted by the sight, admiring the human form that God had created in her own image. But a nearly naked and wet demon was turning a shade of blue that was not becoming to him. 

What few clothes that remained on Crowley’s body were somehow still soaking wet. The slip had to come off over his head, one of the satin ribbon straps was starting to fray, it would need to be replaced, that could be done tonight, nice and new by the morning. 

And still Crowley was wearing more! Under the slip there was a full and sensible brassiere and then some sort of girdle looking garment with suspenders that kept the stockings up. 

Knickers, were there knickers? Did Crowley even wear knickers? 

Yes, all these things seemed to be wet too but not as wet as the outer layers. These would have to remain on. As tempting as it would be to fuss with all the brassiere hooks and all the little clips holding up the stockings this layer of dainty underthings would have to remain.

Aziraphale quickly found a piece of burlap to wrap around Crowley. He thought he heard someone coming. If they were they’d find him outside at the smudge pot trying to dry his smock.

“How are you doing in there, miss Ashtoreth, feeling warmer yet?”

Warlock’s mother had come looking cold and quite worried, “Warlock said nanny Ashtoreth fell through the ice.”

“Oh, it’s not quite as bad as that but I’m afraid she’s quite cold,” Aziraphale said. “She should get promptly to bed though. I’ve been trying to warm her up, but slowly mind you, too fast might cause shock.”

***

Nanny Ashtoreth lay in her bed wearing a flannel nightgown under many layers of blankets. 

Brother Francis came in with a bouquet of winter flowers. “Feeling better are we, Miss Ashtoreth?”

“Yes, much warmer.” 

“I saw your clothes to the laundry for you.”

“Thank you, brother Francis.” 

Aziraphael looked around to see that they were indeed alone and leaned close to Crowley to whisper, “You could have lent us a hand with a few things there.”

“And deny you of all that fun?”

[ns-imagines]

Hurricane/Typhoon Prep

Platonic 141 x gn!reader

SFW | Word Count: About 500 |Headcannons/ Drabble

A/N: Its the Afternoon before the Typhoon (hurricane). There is currently a typhoon where i live in Japan. We rushed to get off work. Fingers crossed the power doesnt go off. This post is just for fun lol. Lemme know if I use too much military lingo. I’ll translate!

-Let's say everyone lived in the barracks. Even though Price, as Captain, would get base housing and Ghost would be in the officer barracks...anyways, you and the boys heard about the hurricane from Price. Apparently, this is going to be the worst storm the island has seen in a few years. They say that about every typhoon though.

-Ghost immediately went to the commissary (on-base grocery store), but he didn't get any good snacks. He just got stuff to meal prep in case the power went off. His idea of snacks is high protein snacks. The man loves to bulk up and maintain that muscle. Lots of protein bars... will 100% mention how he has to make up tonight at the gym.

-You and Gaz got stuck at work. "The typhoon doesn't dismiss you, I do." It's already starting to rain, and the wind is picking up. So much for staying dry. Gaz completely forgot to charge his portable batteries, even though you had a few days' warning before the storm. You’re pretty sure you have an extra!

-Price took his work home. He has a few mission reports to type up that can't wait. The commanding officer is waiting for them to review. #Officerthings So he took his laptop back to work until the power goes off. If it goes off.

-Soap managed to get off work before you and Gaz. He went straight to the gas station exchange (names of the stores on base) to stock up on snacks. There wasn't much left, but he grabbed everything that looked good. Some chips, ramen,and the last case of beer left!! Better than eating the MREs they hand out for typhoons. You’ll be constipated for days if you eat those…

-Finally, you and Gaz were let out of work and sped back to the barracks. You both took it upon yourselves to park really close to both sides of Soaps car. Don’t want the storm to blow it away! Changing into civilian attire, you both met in the hallway. Ghost and Soap were already together, hanging out in the room. They were quick to open the door as soon as they heard the knock.

-Soap definitely has the hangout room, along with Gaz. Gaz's room is more for drinking and playing cards all night, while Soap's is geared towards movie nights or typhoon campouts. The snacks lay displayed on his desk, and the fridge is full of beer and drinks. Not allowed to drink during a typhoon though. So soda and juice it is. Maybe one beer

-Price is the last to show up. He's been in the barracks for a while, but he wanted to finish that paper. All of you pick a spot on the couch or sit on Soap's bed to watch the movie. The wind howls outside, and the wind slaps the window. We'll definitely have tomorrow off.

-

This thing is literally edging us i want it to hit already so I can go outside!!!!!! Hopefully my motorcycle doesnt blow away or tip over….

Update: my motorcycle fell really hard and now im hiding it in my barracks room. Fml

[nawabariism]

Wander Around the Cracks

[Author's Notes: This was a pretty long boi, so I'm splitting it into two parts! Also I need to start re-learning how to art to make better covers man....

This chapter was written with Rion's POV in mind!

Again, apologies for any errors in my English! Enjoy!]

CONTENT WARNING: Strong language, mentions of violence.

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

“Should be back by nighttime... I don't know if it will be enough time for the gig though? God dammit, Noa. If you wanted a city tour so bad, you could have just asked.” – I grumbled as I rushed through the streets. I wasn’t very happy so to say.

The city’s just riddled with these weird shatter holes and I am not risking losing a friend, well, another friend to these, sure, that’s my thought process. But also, isn’t Noa like an adult? What business do they have wandering around, fiddling with the city? They’re not even a registered bounty hunter yet!

That doesn’t matter, at least not now. At least I could get a decent hunt while I find them, I guess? It’s not like it’s dry on bounties here, from turning in burglars, to hunting creatures from the shatters, to dealing with…

As I look forward, I see puddle after puddle of black substance, as well as some paint-like streaks. Whatever it is, I know who has been here and I need to bail their ass out of trouble. I steady myself and run as fast as I possibly can, not even minding the puddles.

Not very long after, guess who I see sitting at the corner of some demolished, probably after battle, building?

“Y-You dipshit.” – I say, as I try and catch my breath after running.

Noa also looked pretty damn exhausted, dealing with creatures from the shatter alongside Mai, one of our collaborators, who stands parallel to us, leaning on a wall of a building.

“I-In my defense… I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to… Mess with them… But this area has gotten more… and more… Hoo…” – Said Noa, breathlessly.

“She meant to say that this area has gotten more infested with the shatters. Whatever came out of it this time, wasn’t friendly.” – Completed Mai, steady and serious.

“Well, whatever happened, we need to report to the bartender. We should also tell Ash and Canna, just in case.” – As we were walking away from the scene, Noa just stops us.

“Wait, there’s something more here.”

I just groan in frustration. – “Noa, come on! I have to go and you know it! I have like, three gigs still…”

“You can leave. I’ll stay and help her.” – Said Mai. – “Them, Mai. THEM.” – I corrected. Mai calling Noa “her” is getting under my nerves.

As we’re arguing, Noa draws a stroke of their paintbrush into the air. – “Whatever it is, we’re still ready for you!” – They shouted with a conviction, as if their exhausted self had just vanished.

I can assure you; I wasn’t expecting to see a huge shatter open right above us. Its interior looked like a galaxy, and from there, rose a creature that we can only assume is a wyvern, but stranger. Its body was made of an oil-like material that looked like the night sky. Deformed through and through, deformed, splash-like wings, weirdly shaped claws, melting body and face, apparently no eyes.

“What. The fuck. Is this?” – I sound shocked and worst of all, scared. I don’t have my weapon with me to fight. I step back slowly. Mai follows suit, summoning her halberd.

The oil drips over Noa’s face, they’re too close. But they seem unfazed, doesn’t even leave. They're determined to stay where they are, with an angry, almost tired look in their face.

[imtrashraccoon]

I was looking forward to this prompt for so long but I couldn't pick between them so I had to do both!

@scrambledmeggys

First Day, Previous Day, & Next Day.

Day 12: Pillow Fort & Pillow Talk

You were helping clean up the kitchen when Frisk tugged on your sleeve to get your attention. "What's up, kiddo?" you asked and glanced down at them.

They smiled and signed, "Can we have a sleepover? With everyone?"

You chuckled and ruffled their hair. "What, am I not enough? We have a sleepover together every night, don't we?" you asked teasingly.

"It's not the same..." they pouted and crossed their arms.

"Ask Papyrus and Sans. If they agree, then it's alright by me."

Frisk grinned and you watched them scamper over to the sink where Papyrus had just finished washing the dinner dishes. Frisk practically threw themselves at him and hugged his legs tightly.

Papyrus smiled and after drying his hands, gave Frisk an affectionate pat on the head. "What Do You Want, Sunshine?" he asked gently.

You couldn't help but smile at the cute nickname. It kind of made you wish you'd come up with a better one for Frisk rather than just 'kiddo'. Still, they'd never complained and so it had just become your thing.

After Frisk had explained their idea, Papyrus nodded. "I Suppose We Could Have A 'Sleepover' If You Want One So Badly. You Can Ask Sans If You Want But I Doubt He Would Turn Down Any Excuse To Sleep."

Frisk beamed and darted off, undoubtedly to go find Sans. Papyrus chuckled and shook his skull slightly. There was a brief moment of silence before he asked you a question. "I Have Never Had A Sleepover Before, Could You Explain It To Me?"

You nodded, "Of course, Frisk and I used to have them a lot. We usually made a pillow fort and watched a movie, sometimes we even played games and had snacks."

He hummed thoughtfully, "I Suppose That Sounds Fun."

"It is, just give it a chance and I think you'll enjoy it," you said with a smile.

Unsurprisingly, Sans had agreed to participate as Papyrus had predicted he would. So under Frisk's supervision, the living room was transformed into by far the largest pillow fort you'd ever seen. The brothers had quite a few extra pillows and blankets, which when combined with having extra help, made the actual construction of the fort much easier than it ever had been on your own.

Sans plopped down in the nest of blankets and cushions that had been arranged on the floor. To your surprise, Frisk chose to settle down next to him which you found rather sweet. This left the couch to you and Papyrus, which was just fine with you.

You watched some sort crappy action movie together and while Sans seemed to fall asleep fairly quickly, Frisk persisted and managed to stay awake for half of the movie's run time. While the movie itself wasn't anything special to write home about, Papyrus held you close and once the others were asleep, you'd snuggled up closer to him as well.

When the movie was over, you reached for the remote and flicked off the tv. Rather than get up to put the disk back in its case though, you elected to do that later as you were pretty comfortable right now.

Papyrus seemed to silently agree and wrapped his arms around you in a gentle embrace. "You Were Right," he murmured as he gently nuzzled against your head. "This Was Fun."

"Right? I never did this sort of thing much as a kid but I started doing it with Frisk to give them something to look forward to," you said thoughtfully. "It's just nice to spend time with people I think."

Papyrus hummed quietly. "You Know What Would Make This Moment Even Better, Precious?"

"What?"

Instead of responding, Papyrus shifted his body to the side and tugged you with him. You went along with it since you were admittedly curious where this was going. He maneuvered your body in such a way so you were both laying down and facing each other on the couch.

For a moment, you both just laid there, gazing into each other's eyes. You found yourself admiring what a pretty shade of red his eyelights were and how they especially stood out in the now darkened living room. Part of you wondered if he could see any better than you could or if his eyelights just glowed for looks. That was something you should ask at some point.

"I Am Happy To Have Met You, Rihanna," Papyrus finally whispered. "Even Though We Are So Different, I Would Do Anything To Keep You And Frisk Safe."

You nearly let out an audible "aw" but restrained yourself for now. His words had touched you and you couldn't help but make a confession of your own.

"You want to know something? Of all the people I've met in life, you're the only one I've connected with this closely with before."

He smiled warmly and moved a few locks of hair out of your face. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to say something but then he didn't. You weren't sure why but the longer you two stayed there just gazing into each other's eyes, you had a realization.

You might actually love him.

Maybe he felt the same but you wouldn't know unless you asked. Yet, you couldn't bring yourself to admit it, not right now at least.

It wasn't meant to be. The King had ordered all humans to be killed and you were pretty sure he intended to wage war on humanity once the barrier was destroyed. Ever since you'd fallen down here, your death was inevitable, it was only a matter of time but you were going to die one day. Still, you could live in denial for a little bit longer.

"I guess I never told you much about myself, did I?" you asked quietly.

"No, But I Never Asked Either."

"I didn't think things would turn out like this, but there's some things I want you to know about me..."

You told Papyrus a little about what your life had been like on the surface. You told him about your parents and how growing up with an older brother had been. How you'd moved away from your small coastal town for college and met your best friend, Terence. You told him how you'd gotten a pretty good internship at a big corporate office but had been nearly working yourself to death. How Terence had passed away after a tragic climbing accident a few weeks before falling down into the Underground which nearly broke you. Then, you told him about your relationship with Frisk, how they had quickly become your world and you thought of them sort of like a younger sibling.

Papyrus listened rather intently as you spoke, absentmindedly tracing patterns across your back with his claws. He only asked a few questions to clarify some things but he was a bit surprised by what you'd said about Frisk. Apparently, he'd been under the impression that they were your biological kid, which while you could understand with how you'd been treating them, was a little embarrassing.

In return, Papyrus told you a little bit about himself, although you could tell he was a little hesitant at first. He told you how he'd grown up with only his brother and neither of them remembered who their parents were. How they'd had to be mean and scary in order to survive because of the "Kill or Be Killed" rule. He told you how it'd always been his dream to join the Royal Guard and one day become the Captain. Finally, he told you how he'd always wanted to have true friends, rather than having to make people afraid of him all the time, and how he'd always dreamed of seeing the surface one day.

It seemed like hours had passed while you'd both talked and when you'd finally laid everything out, you had the feeling that Papyrus was seeing you in a new light. In fact, you could see that he had more depth to him than you'd thought. Sure, he was still a powerful monster who had killed countless other people, but you felt empathy for how he'd struggled just to survive this long.

You didn't remember falling asleep but the last thing you did remember, was Papyrus pulling you slightly closer and pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. You wouldn't know how much more he admired you now either nor how his opinion of you had changed a bit. Where before he'd assumed you'd had an easy life on the surface, he now could see that you were also a strong person; maybe not physically but emotionally.

He so desperately wanted to say that he loved you...

[royaltrios]

this tornado loves you fic notes

ok i held off on the dad kink for like 4 full fics alright. give a guy a break

this idea started as just kyouji making satomi ride him but completely refusing to actually fuck him + not let satomi move until he admits what kyouji wants to hear...... and it stayed that so yay (innocently chinhands) i mostly outlined how i wanted important dialogue beats to go seeing as the plot is pretty cut and dry, however i did doodle these at work to better picture the scene w them on the couch lmfao

this did start as fully dubcon before i honed more in on what i wanted to do with it. id say it ended up more so as just being like under-negotiated kink + kyouji's phd in pushing boundaries. but you can trust him he knows what satomi really wants (probably!)

i do not remember the last time i opened a fic with a sex scene. im always kind of nervous to do it?? but i think it works here with two smut scenes sandwiching the fic overall

i wanted to make sure that satomi calling him dad while being fucked didnt cause kyouji to pause (physically) at all. i 100% believe he would just immediately internalize that and go with it. kyst worst communicators of the year 4 years running

the yakuza interlude was fun to write... it turns out a year+ of reading rgg fics and working my way thru the games lends itself to me rly enjoying writing about that stuff lol. and i needed to have kyouji think on his feelings before they got back together for the last scene, so what better way to do that than juxtaposing it against his gritty job stuff. something about it is so extremely gap moe right

the movie's la la land im sorry to spoil it if u didnt know or wanted to guess v_v ive never seen it but 1. the parody poster of it they did for the karaiko movie and 2. like every other person with eyes im unreasonably attached to the twice what is love mv

the title's from the neko case song! and the makihara song was kind of a random pull on my end but i think it fits. in my defense the songs that satomi gives him in canon are like half super cutesy lyrics-wise… so i dont think its that far off to imagine he secretly likes kyouji saying that sweet stuff to him... i listened to mostly the aforementioned songs + 80s/90s jpop while writing (southern all stars, yutaka ozaki)

was thinking about what kyouji could have satomi say as the kinda linchpin moment (lol) and then 'i love you' hit me like a fucking truck. i was like holy shit. he absolutely would, hes horrible! kyouji 'id rather get this kid to call me dad than admit i want to spend the rest of my life with him normally' narita

i started writing 1/27 worked on it pretty consistently except when i went away last weekend and forced myself not to reread it or make any edits while i was traveling... i finished the draft and then passed it to art who was kind enough to beta (i was worried this was genuinely incomprehensible to anyone but me so i needed to be sure) putting distance between urself and ur draft is good who'd have thought.... not i

overall though i had so much fun with this one!!!!! i kept being excited to return to it and there were many days where all i wanted was to go home and sit and work on it. its the first really indulgent fic ive written in a bit haha. i hope other people like it as much as i do :'] i feel like ive hit my stride with this ship and im looking forward to whatever i write next.... yaahoooo

[gaintsnowflake]

❆ 𝐆𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌

PAIRING - George Karim x Ex!gn!Reader

ONESHOT - in which george has a breakdown in the bathroom

SONG - michael in the bathroom by george salazar

TRIGGERS - drinking, mental breakdown, being left

A/N - please mind any typos or grammar mistakes, it is proof-read only by me so I won’t be able to catch everything

WORD COUNT - 1k

masterlist

THE WORLD is spinning. 

I knew it was a bad idea to come here, a even worse one to drink when I had seen them, hoping to just make the pain go away. I should have never listened to Lockwood. I should have stayed home. I could be home, curled up reading a book. I could be doing research about another case. I could be fighting a fucking ghost, that sounds better than being here right now.

I am crying in the bathroom at the biggest party of the fall. I could just sit right here and disappear, nobody'd even notice at all. Not Lockwood, not Lucy. Hell if I didn't know any better I would say they are snogging in a random corridor. I am a nobody to anybody here. 

Outside the door, people of high status fill the large rooms. Those who are not high status are the drunken agents who are partying like there is no tomorrow, probably because they may not have a tomorrow. But here is I am. I'm the creeper in the bathroom, because my buddies left me alone.

But I would rather fake pee than stand awkwardly staring at them from across the way. But it can't help but bring back the memories of the last party I had gone too. When everything felt fine, cause I was half of a pair. Though no fault of mine, there is no other half there. Because they left us. They left me. Not the other way around.

They left me, so now I am just, George in the bathroom. I am George in the bathroom at a party. God I forget how long it's been. And no one can come in. 

I will just sit here and cry, waiting for Lucy and Lockwood to come in get me or I'll wait it out 'til it's time to leave. This would leave me with hours of time to do nothing but sit, pout, and possibly pick at grout as I softly grieve. 

All because I'm just George, who you don't know. George whose flying solo. I am just George in the bathroom by himself. All by myself. I am hiding because their out their. I'm ignoring all our history. Trying to forget all the pain they brought me. I hope my memories get erased, maybe get replaced, with a newer cooler version of me. Because they deserve that. They deserve their second half, even if it isn't me. 

But now I hear a drunk girl, singing along to Whitney through  the door. "I wanna dance with somebody!" Her words are slurred, but it only bring backs memories of the good old days. But my feelings sink, cause it making me think, now there is no one to make fun of drunk girls with anymore. 

I am left alone, nobody to call my home. No one to bring me tea, when I am up late at night. No one to watch over me. I am just me.

Now it's just George in the bathroom, George in the bathroom at a party. Could I get any less pathetic, as I sit and choke on the sobs. The alcohol in my system only making my emotions worse. I half regret the beers, cause its making the tears flow harder and faster. All because I am just George in the bathroom, George in the bathroom at a party.

I can try and hide, choke back the tears, wait as long as I need, 'till my face is dry. My eyes are red from, how do I even try to cover that?I could wait until they become less flush, or maybe I'll just blame it on weed. Or something in my eye.

How would anyone know? I'm just George who no who they don't know. George flying solo. George in the bathroom by himself. The last person they think of when they think of cool. I am just an oddball who no one likes. 

As I continue to clean off my face, trying to hide the fact I am crying, hiding in the bathroom by myself. Just waiting it out, till I hear a knock. Maybe I'll be free. Then I hear a few more, knock, knock, knock. It is getting more aggressive as I prepare to leave. They are gonna start to shout soon, hell yeah, I'll be out soon. I won't be on my own, it sucks they left me here, all alone, here in this battle zone. 

The noises get louder as they pound harder. I can feel their anger, the pressure blowing up. I knew it was a mistake showing up. If I just splash, some water on my face, everything will be just okay. 

So I throw some water on my face, and now I am in a better place. But as I go to open up the door, I can't hear knocking anymore.

I missed my chance, I missed my escape. I can't help but yearn, for a different time. One where I can get out of here, make my presents clear, have the courage to stand for what's right. But then I look in the mirror, and it becomes much clearer. There is no denying, I'm just George in the bathroom at a party, is there a sadder sight than... George in the bathroom at a party. 

This is a heinous night, I wish I just stayed home instead. Maybe just lay in bed. Or I wished I offed myself in bed, wish I was never born. Then I wouldn't have to do this all again. No one would care, no one would notice. 

I am just George who's a loner, so he must be a stoner. I ride a PT cruiser, god I am such a loser. 

But what's worse is when I hear the creek of the door. The lock is gone. I look over my shoulder, to see their face. The memories coming back to me. This isn't worth the pain, as they look at me, heartbreak in their eyes. I am now who they think that they know. 

I am not the same old boy, so much has changed. They don't know me anymore, and that is their fault.

"Georgie?" Their voice is still the same, sending my heart fluttering at the name. 

But all they know about me is my name.

"AWESOME PARTY, I'M SO GLAD I CAME."

[starrabbitmedia]

Question about Gartha: Was Sunny born similar to a human baby, or do fables lay eggs like moths? If the latter, then did Sunny start as a larvae-like baby. Did sunny have to go into a cocoon to gain his wings?

So Fables do lay eggs, but considerably less than a normal moth. Only about 3-4 at most. Not all of them survive. Usually only 1-2 makes it, so it's a better omen if they lay 4 eggs. It means they'll for sure wind up with at least 1 healthy child. But the eggs are very fragile and are usually placed in special woven baskets with soft, comfortable material inside.

The eggs hatch within 4-10 days of being laid, and the babies are incredibly small at first. They aren't larvae-like, but they are very squishy and chubby looking. The laying basket can also be used to transport the babies in public, if need be, but one of the parents usually stays home with them to keep them protected until they are at least a couple of months old and the parents feel safer taking them out.

At that point, they are placed inside of special baby-wraps on the parent's chest. Though the wraps are tied in a way that keeps the parent's wings free and they can fly, they prefer not to fly with their little grubs until they're at least 6-8 months old.

ALSO, they have "baby colors." Fables start out the same color as whatever the caterpillar of the moth they're based on looks like. So they may start out with stripes and lose those stripes over time. Usually they have their adult colors by the age of 11. Kind of like a child losing its baby teeth and getting its adult teeth.

Sunny's case is... a little special. But yes, they do go into a cocoon to gain their wings. They grow incredibly tired to the point of not being able to function, their bodies grow sticky, and the stickiness turns into a hard shell around them. Essentially, they take a 1-3 day nap depending on the type of Moth the Fable is, and then when they wake up and break out of the shell, they have their wings.

The wings are delicate just for the first couple of hours while they dry, but after that are shockingly strong. They don't rip, they don't freeze (though it is considerably harder to fly in cold/freezing weather), and it doesn't hurt to lay back on them or if someone accidentally sits on one. It really only hurts when they're pulled on.

The Fables usually get their wings any age between 13-15, and it's essentially their version of puberty.

Being based off of bugs, their life expectancy is shorter than other beings in Gartha. They usually only last till about 50-60 years old. The oldest Fable in the world is 68, and he literally looks like he's going to keel over any second. Mans looks like he's made out of dust.

[navycat305]

hello this is only slightly terrifying but I wrote something for the first time and posted it publicly so here it is

Will also put it under the cut :)

It’s not until a week or so after the case that it catches him, like a thorn snagged in the material of a jumper, one that you only notice when it pulls you back, sudden and sharp as you hurry along. He’s flicking through his contacts, checking he’s got all the important ones he needs for mundane things - insurance, and his landlord, and the landlord for the office. The reset was inconvenient, sure, but it wasn’t horrible, not like the two small marks on his upper arm that Maya likes to bump against her own a little too gleefully whenever someone mentions the name Manfred von Karma. He’d have to track down Larry again, which could take months given the guy’s talent for doing multiple things on a whim without telling people between the somewhat brief times they met in person. There are still no names under the tab marked ‘E’. That hasn’t changed.

It’s only when he gets to ‘M’ that he stops. Thinks, briefly, until it sinks in. There is only one name under it that he has re-entered, and that is Maya Fey. He’d known it without asking her, a remnant of every single time he’d stared at the number between December and April, finger hovering over the call button until he’d inevitably sigh and turn away to other things, clients, business, who knows what else. Sometimes he’d talk to Charley about it, then panic when he remembered that he couldn’t recall how long it had been since he’d last watered him.

He supposes that it’s hard to remember everything when you’re building back up from nothing. Hell, he just went through amnesia, of course he should understand that. Still, it doesn’t hit less hard when he realises that he hasn’t put any other names under ‘M’. 

*

He remembers when she gave him her number, still hacking up nothing every so often and wheezing a little in odd moments that made conversation awkward. “To ensure that you stay out of trouble,” he recalls her saying, with that wry smile he’d come to know whenever she teased him. He didn’t really consider it at first, rushing around in a daze and picking up as many projects as possible, opening commissions, auditioning for the university’s summer play, heck even reading the paper for one of the first times in his life, enough that it meant he wouldn’t have time to slow down and start thinking again. His grades had never been better, and his professor had just invited him to exhibit one of his paintings in Ivy’s annual art show at the end of the semester.

That’s why he’d been busy in the art room, the afternoon sun lazily stretching through the skylights on the top floor of the building and gently warming his face each time he looked up from the canvas. He hadn’t read the article until a couple of days after it released, when it had found its way onto the floor in ripped sheets slightly stuck together with paint. That’s when he’d started thinking again, pacing up and down the halls until someone stuck their head out of their room and told him to be quieter, even though he hadn’t said a word. He’d looked at his own room with fresh eyes, seen the mess piling up in the middle instead of pushed to the corners as usual. His phone was on the desk amongst pencils, paints, a disembowelled sketchbook and a half-eaten chocolate bar that somehow hadn’t yet melted in the heat. He’d picked it up, taking a moment to recall her name, finding it there in all its clinical length: Mia Fey (lawyer).

Before he knew it, he’d hit the call button, mouth dry. Heard her voice after two rings, surprisingly quick at hiding slight confusion and just as friendly as it had been months ago. Asked her what he should do if he wanted to take the bar.

*

“Do you ever feel weird about still being able to talk to Mia?” It’s a stupid question, one he must’ve asked her so many times before. It has been a year, although they both know that doesn’t matter. He’s still staring up at the ceiling when he asks, so he doesn’t have to look at her and feel bad about bringing it up.

It doesn’t work, and he watches her out of the corner of his eye, fiddling with the limited edition Steel Samurai strap around her pink cell phone. “I mean, I guess. It’s weird that it’s Mia.” Her voice is level, but she also avoids his gaze. “I don’t know. It’s always been a thing.” 

He can’t remember the last time he texted Mia, or called. He supposes that Maya had to do it more often, being two hours away by train, while he was only a bike-ride from her for several years. Digital communication for them was smaller things, preludes to the uncountable meetings at restaurants, the courthouse or simply the old, battered couch in the office, where they’d pour over papers or chat over shitty coffee. Did she ever think, he wonders, of faraway Maya when she sat opposite him all those times? He reminds himself, after a while, that he can ask. He doesn’t know if he wants to. “Still can’t get my head around it.”

Maya laughs softly, tired. “Most people can’t.” The sound of the air conditioning whirrs as they ponder it. “To be fair, you didn’t question it too much. I was surprised sis didn’t tell you earlier. But it kinda makes sense given that it has literally nothing to do with the law.” They both know that isn’t true, which makes it easier to leave unsaid. Makes him wonder what else Mia never bothered with. 

“Sorta like she’s a phone call away, if you want to look at it like that,” he grunts. Maya hums, a strange sound that shifts. She starts to speak, then stops again. 

“Like a phone call from the mountains….incredibly unreliable and hard to reach, but not impossible.” He snorts. “I always hated calling her from that phone booth. Usually Morgan was outside, glaring at me for about thirty minutes ‘cuz I’d spent too long in there. It was harder to find cell service though, so I kinda had to deal with it.”

He doesn’t have an answer to that, which is fine. He suspects that she’s happy for him to listen without comment. That is, until she offers it to him candidly for the first time. “I can channel her properly next time we’re in Kurain, if you want. Can’t get any worse than last time.” He thinks of the phone number he can’t remember, of the weight that still hangs over him, the feeling that the office is still hers after so long. 

“It’s alright. You don’t have to do that.”

*

The prison is nicer than he thought it would be, especially after the several visits to the detention centre he’s now had. They let him in surprisingly quickly, and there’s not much waiting before she’s led out to see him, or at the very least stare at him from the other side of the glass.

“Mr Wright,” Lana greets him, much more warmly than he is used to. She seems a little confused at first that he should come to see her after all has been said and done, but she is still kind. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

They chat a little, about his recent cases and how she’s adjusted, the most recent time she called Ema two days ago, all the way in Europe, beaming with pride at her progress in school and forensics. Once again, the similarities don’t help. She can tell that he’s tiptoeing around it. “You want to ask about Mia, don’t you? We do have all the time we need now, after all.” But first, she asks how Maya is doing, and laments the fact that she's never met her properly. This surprises him. She laughs. 

“She wanted to keep us separate, I think,” she muses airily. “Like two cats being slowly introduced to each other between a door, or something similar. It seems odd now I suppose, but it was very different for her in Kurain.” He still can’t reconcile her, so strong and full of cheek in the smart black suit, with a spirit medium in something Maya would wear. He can’t ever imagine her being pious - that’s a stretch too far. Lana smiles as she sees him try. “She used to tell me sometimes, about the village. Very rarely, you understand. Mostly she tried to make me forget that she was anything other than an LA native. It was frustrating for her a lot of the time.”

He wonders just how much Lana knows of Mia; what that ‘intellectual attraction’ had wrought from her. He can parrot her inflections, cheerful and serious, repeated every single trial: the only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s over. He’d never seen her cry at all. How long had she waited?

He asks her for Mia’s phone number. Lana repeats it automatically, and they stare at each other in silence. He lets it dissipate into the air, and watches the tiredness ebb into her eyes for the first time since he’d seen her in the defendant lobby before the last trial. There is nothing more to be said.

He still offers to get Maya to channel her. She looks more like the Lana he is familiar with when he does, with her February face that masks the pain. Her refusal is polite, and she thanks him for his consideration. He tells her he’ll come again soon, and hopes he means it.

*

Life goes on. He muddles through beside Maya and Pearls, taking a few small things on here and there for the money to fund an insatiable appetite for burgers. There’s been no progress on his contacts since August, nothing new to blindside him as it usually does. He watches the girls leave, once a month, each time the ghost of an offer to accompany them flailing before it gets very far. He sees Pearly’s shoulders slump when they return, and the way Maya bites her lip when she thinks nobody is looking. The days are getting longer.

“You should really get a new phone, Nick,” Maya says suddenly on one of those unremarkable evenings. Pearls is asleep on the couch, still with her coat on, and his heavy eyes envy her this small moment of peace, telling him he should’ve been asleep an hour ago. He turns around for a blanket instead of answering. “You’ve had that thing for, like, forever.”

It’s not that he’s putting it off. There’s not an issue with it really. Sure it’s still the first one he ever got, but there’s nothing wrong with that. 

She sees him when he turns back to lay the blanket over her cousin and shrugs. “Just a suggestion. Fresh start, y’know? Didn’t you say that Wellington smashed it up a bit when he tried to get it back from you?” He shushes her and points to the sleeping Pearly. She makes a face back, but slips into a frown not long afterwards. “You said you were considering getting a new one last December, that’s all.” She gives a little gasp when it catches up to her, just as he stiffens. Doesn’t stop him when he walks out of the room to bed, wordless. 

He doesn’t get up for several hours, and she burns next morning’s pancakes to show she is sorry.

*

“G’morning Nick,” Maya greets him groggily as he enters, breaking from her tussle with some wrapping paper and scrunching up her face in a yawn. “Do you know how to wrap presents?” He nods, kneeling down to take her place above the large set of coloured pencils, slowly reaching for the tape. “Is it too much? Or not enough? Aunt Morgan never did anything, so-”

“Maya,” he says, monotone with exhaustion, “it’s fine. It’s good, really. She deserves a nice Christmas and you’re giving her one. There’s nothing much more you can do. I’m proud of you.”

“Really?” He stops folding the corners of the paper. Her shoulders shake slightly against him, warm, until she springs up again, hastily swiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “Hey, I got those circus tickets too! I can’t believe we’re going to see Maximillion Galactica!” 

He turns the wrapped present to her and she gives him a thumbs up. It is nestled under the little fake tree Maya had insisted they get while at the mall a week or so ago. He’d just been planning to drape some lights over Charley, but now the miniature conifer sits on a spare table with a few small decorations picked out the same day while the old Cordyline stricta twinkles half-heartedly in the corner. Maya babbles about a Christmas display downtown as he blurs the lights and leaves with his stare.

Larry had called sometime around 2am, that stupid ringtone that Maya had picked out for him blaring into his ears and startling him awake. The man had barely even regarded his grudging answers, all in a tone begging him to take a hint. He’d heard the muffled sound of club music interrupted by faraway feminine laughter, and hung up before Larry managed to slur that he loved him one more time. He squints through the dark at the numbers of the digital clock and feels a creeping sense of defeat at knowing he’ll have to take a nap later. 

He grins a little guiltily when he only catches the tail-end of Maya’s reminiscences. “I asked to go every year after that, but…,” she sighs, and he puts it together far too quickly. 

This is not the first Christmas without her, nor will it be the last, for either of them. But when was there time to stop and think on that grey day a year ago, something within him asks. After all, they were so busy that he, at least, had nothing left to give. The only thing he needed was answers, a real adult to sort the puzzle pieces and put the edges together. She had only ever been an echo of a message left while he was on another line. He makes a mental note for them to find their way downtown later, after the main rush of the day is over.

“Oh, I got something for you too, Nick!” Maya is handing him a small, rectangular box that she has managed to badly attach some paper to. “If it helps, I see it as another way to stick it to Morgan.” It’s heavier than he thought it would be, and he automatically cups it in his palms before registering it. He peeks back the wrappings and lets them fall from his fingers almost as soon as he does. 

“Maya, I can’t take this.” 

She huffs a laugh. “Of course you can, stupid!” His face does not change. Hers does, rapidly, flickering through several different things and eventually settling on lightheartedness. “If you weren’t going to let me pay rent, I had to do something!” She reaches for it and lifts the lid off, rifling through the assorted ephemera until she finds it, shiny and new, and waves it at him. She drops her arms, and her smile, when he continues to stare.

“Nick. Take it from me, old guy. You need a new phone. That thing can’t still be working properly.” He has no answer to give. The corners of her eyes crinkle with frustration, and she stands up at full height, all of her 5’1 to his 6’0. She’s almost glaring at him, mouth set in a thin line. “You can't wallow like this forever. Not for Pearly,” she swallows, “and not for me either. They’re gone.” It’s as soft as she can make it but he still flinches, tightening his grip over his pocket. 

“I’ve broken so many rules for us, you know that? Calling Mia whenever we need her, outside of the candles, and altars and shit. We do that stuff for a reason. Because it’s just once, or twice, in order to help people find peace. Closure. And I can’t do that here. So I’m doing what I can.” She squints at him, fingers tangled tightly and voice trembling. “It has to happen, Nick.”

She raises her arms, holding out the phone, the glowing orange 4:59 of the digital clock morphing into 5:00am. He grasps it, fragile. He can hear her breathing, determinedly steady. Then, a sigh of relief as she tackles him by the waist. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. He holds her tightly and swears again, for good measure, to never let her go.

*

He shuts the box in his desk drawer amidst the nest of paper and happiness scattered around the living room hours after. Maya and Pearls lie sleeping on their mattress, curled into one another after a day of delight and exhaustion in equal measure. He tiptoes around them to make it to the couch and pinches his brow with two fingers, staring at the drawer like he can see through it. He runs his fingers over the scratched buttons on his old reliable and tries to hopscotch Mia’s number aimlessly, without success but also, to his surprise, without staggering remorse. Hopes Maya can be content with his acquiescence, that he will be able to set it up sooner or later.

Yeah, he thinks, watching the girls - his girls, his and Mia’s - breathe in tandem with one another, a soft smile falling onto his face. He can do that later.

(Later, he will get a call from Maya that Maximillion Galactica has been arrested from murder, and find himself knee-deep in another incredulous case that doesn’t feel entirely real.) 

(Later, he will be phoned by a smooth-voiced killer that leaves them fighting for their small existence and digs into his very core with each successive ring until there is nothing he can fight with anymore.)

(Later, he will limp from the courtroom while Pearl clings to him, hand her to a concerned bailiff and throw his phone on the ground so fiercely that it breaks into uncountable fragments, in both anger and relief.)

(Later, he will pass the new phone to Maya and she will gasp in delight and pick out the same old Steel Samurai ringtone that has bothered him for the last couple of years, and he will not change it.)

(Later, he will find a contact under ‘E’ and call it over and over again. As time goes on, it will move to ‘M’.)

(Later, Mia will stop answering Maya and Pearl, and he will be okay.)

But for now, there is peace. He closes his eyes, perhaps imagining that faint outline of the Chief in front of him just before he does. His phone slides from his hand and onto the cushion beside him. There is one contact under ‘M’. It is enough.