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shootingstarpilot · 1 year ago

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Part 2 of 2- time for the happy ending <3

He wakes up.

For a moment, he lies very still. Trying to remember. Trying to recalibrate.

He’d-- he’d made it to the meeting, that time, hadn’t he?

The General’s face. He’d looked-- ill.

And someone had said--

It was dead, wasn’t it? Obi-Wan had killed it.

He doesn’t remember how he’d gone down, that time.

And yet--

He’s awake.

Again.

What else could it be?

What else could it possibly be?

He’d been so sure-- so sure that he’d figured it out--

He can’t do this again.

He can’t.

Sorry, Helix. Sorry, Stitch.

He’s condemned them both to an endless death spiral, and he isn’t even smart enough to figure it out.

He can’t hear footsteps. Like he had every other time. Must’ve woken up too early.

The sound of Helix, puttering around-- although he would have his head if he knew Needle had ever thought of him as puttering, but it’s true, because--

There’s a softness to him, in those rare early moments with no looming emergency, when it’s just the three of them in this little space they’ve carved out for themselves.

Stitch, bundled up in a dozen blankets just the way he likes, eyes crusted with sleep.

The sound of the kettle bubbling.

Water for caff and dried oatmeal, when they’re in the field.

(He’s so sick of oatmeal.)

The way Helix would settle next to him, pressing a mug into his hands, knees knocking together gently. The way he would clear his throat, faintly exasperated at this passing malfunction of his own body. The way the lines around his eyes would crinkle when he smiled. The way Stitch’s hands would be the first to emerge from his cocoon, grabbing for a mug of his own. The slow disentanglement, sometimes helped or hindered by Needle himself, depending on his mood. The way Helix would scold and roll his eyes but never actually take a step to stop them--

The way Needle loved him, loved them both, and knew he was loved in return--

Is this the only time he’ll ever get to see them, now? A fleeting moment in the morning, when he’s brave enough to face it?

...He doesn’t think he’s brave enough to face anything, anymore.

A gutted sound crawls up his throat.

He goes to press his hands against his eyes, and realizes two things in rapid succession--

1. Someone is lying next to him. Warm and alive, sitting up in the bed-- there’s an arm around his shoulders--

2. The same someone, he thinks, is holding his hand.

A snorting sound, and then-- hoarse and breaking--

“Needle?”

Gods. Helix. Helix.

“You’ve been asleep for nearly a day. We’re on the Negotiator.”

He can’t.

“Back home. We’re off-planet, back in hyperspace, we-- we got what we came for, we’re--”

Wait.

What?

“Needle.”

Helix’s voice cracks--

“I need you to open your eyes, Needle. Now.”

And because it’s Helix-- because it’s Helix, and he sounds more frightened than Needle has ever heard him--

He does.

They’re in the medbay.

Not the medtent on Abregado, not anymore.

Their medbay. Their home. On the Negotiator.

(But--)

And there’s--

Helix.

Helix, red-eyed and rumpled-- Helix who shifts, drops his hand only to cup his face-- Helix who leans forward, presses a hard kiss to his forehead and stays there for a long moment, pulling back only to tilt his chin up, looking at him-- Helix who makes a noise Needle never wants to hear again before tugging him forward, hugging him so tightly that for a moment he struggles to breath, folding over him, and Needle opens his mouth to ask him what-- what--

“I need you,” he says, sounding strangled, “to tell me what I missed.”

Needle says, intelligently--

“What?”

It’s a nice hug.

But Helix pulls back, shakes him hard, and his expression is full of jagged fury and fear--

“What did I miss?” he hisses. “Needle, you-- you tried to-- Obi-Wan stopped you, he-- I got a comm telling me that you-- you tried to shoot yourself in the fucking head, Needle, tell me what I missed.”

Wait.

That--

They’re off-planet.

And they’re alive.

“Did it work?” he asks.

His chest feels flayed open, his heart pried out and squeezed--

Helix jolts like he’s been electrocuted.

“No,” he snarls-- “No, it didn’t fucking work, and it won’t work, I won’t let it-- you-- you were fine last night, except you couldn’t have been and I didn’t fucking notice, Needle, what--”

Needle has stopped listening.

Because--

It did work.

It-- worked.

As it turns out, he is not too tired to cry after all.

Helix cuts himself off mid-sentence, swears, pulls him back in, and Needle wraps his arms around him and simply shakes to pieces.

At some point-- he doesn’t know when-- the door slides open.

The sound of a tray, clattering--

And Stitch shouts something incoherent before slamming into him.

“I hope,” Needle gasps out, “that you didn’t bring oatmeal.”

“You’re stupid,” Stitch informs him, clinging like a koala. “I brought eggs and toast. You’re really stupid.”

And Needle--

He doesn’t mean to start screaming.

But Stitch is dead and clinging to him, pressing his face into the crook of his neck, and Helix is dead and running a hand through his hair, shushing him, swaying slightly--

Needle thinks that there is not much left of him.

Needle thinks that everything he was got washed away with every drop of their blood on his hands.

But here and now--

Here and now, they’re alive.

(So maybe there’s a little bit of him left after all.)

Eventually, Stitch pushes the plate of cold eggs and toast into his hands and tells him to eat.

He starts crying again halfway through and tells them that he never, ever wants to eat oatmeal again.

Stitch says okay.

Helix still has not let go of him.

Needle does, eventually, tell them everything.

Later that afternoon, when Obi-Wan drops by, pale and exhausted but smiling like a sunflower when he sees Needle sitting up.

He tells the three of them what he suspects had happened.

The kyber had been broken beyond repair, he says. Broken and bled and desperate-- and it had seized onto an anchor, looping around it, twisting its pain and forcing it forward until the anchor had no chance but to act-- trying to get someone, something, to put it out of its misery.

Needle’s head is resting on Helix’s shoulder. Feeling him breathe.

Stitch is holding his hand.

“I don’t know why it decided to latch onto you,” Obi-Wan says finally. “You’re hardly-- hardly a chronological oddity, Needle.”

Needle shrugs, halfheartedly, because he thinks that he may in fact be exactly the sort of chronological oddity that Obi-Wan is speaking of, and all of that tight and bundled fear that had kept him silent seems, after everything, almost pathetically small.

“Dunno about that, sir,” he sighs. “I’ve got bits of a dead kid floating around in my head. Would that do it?”

Obi-Wan blinks at him. Helix’s hand spasms.

Needle is so very, very tired.

“You ever heard of reconditioning, sir?”

Later, Helix cups his face between his hands, presses their foreheads together, and tells him that he would not trade him for anything, ever, and he will say it again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, he will say it every day for the rest of his life because-- because--

I was so scared, Needle, you know that?

Needle thinks he does, yes.

He tells Helix that he needs them to both be here when he wakes up.

Helix nods, hugs him tight, and tells him they will be.

And when he wakes up--

They are.

Both of them.

Thank you all SO MUCH for the lovely prompts!

Lucky us, AO3 has returned (join me in raising a toast to that most excellent team of volunteers), so most of your prompts will be saved for a rainy day or to hammer away at writer's block the next time such a weapon is necessary--

But.

One of those prompts lodged itself in my brain. So you get this. Thanks very much, @153-centimeters-of-sass, you evil, evil bastard <3

The prompt in question:

Needle or Stitch gets stuck in a time loop, reliving a Bad Day over and over.

(PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS IN THE TAGS.)

Shockingly enough, the Sith temple itself had been surprisingly easy to navigate.

No traps. No ghosts. No vision-induced fainting spells.

Obi-Wan ducks into the (comparative) warmth of the command tent. None of the men have shucked their coats-- it's still Abregado, still well below freezing-- but at least the risk of frostbite is reduced.

Slightly.

They'd recovered the bled kyber crystal easily enough. No pedestal, no case, no honor for it-- they'd found it simply discarded in the corner of a hallway, cracked and bleeding and screaming so loudly that Obi-Wan had known immediately that this is what had called to the Jedi loudly enough that a whole battalion had been sent to investigate.

Gods. Even now, shields raised as high as he can manage, he can feel the tidal wave of its pain battering at him. He spares a thought to be grateful that none of the men are Force-sensitive. To be exposed to something like that-- with no shielding--

Its power is immense, and it is in agony.

That sort of pain doesn't tend to care if it spreads or not.

This is what they are here to discuss now-- how best to contain it, until it can be safely remanded to the Temple for an attempted healing. They may need to break it fully-- kill it, dull it, put it out of its misery, but that is a cruel death and one that no Jedi would wish on a kyber.

Obi-Wan peels off his goggles, nods at Cody, opens his mouth--

And pivots immediately when he senses the bloody smear approaching.

Like a trail of blood left behind after a dragged body, in the Force-- only an echo of life, a memory of it, but somehow still moving-- he lunges at the entrance, tears open the flap-- not knowing what he expects, who he expects--

But he knows he was not expecting Needle.

Needle, who's in his blacks and nothing else-- the blood trickling from his nose freezing to his face in the same instant, bare hands scraped raw from the wind, the skin on his face dry and cracked, and for a moment Obi-Wan can do nothing but stare, because-- he'd seen Needle, just yesterday, whole and firework-bright, what had happened--?

"Sir?" Needle says blearily. He blinks, and Obi-Wan realizes with a slow sort of horror that the tears have nearly frozen his eyes shut. "You need to kill it, sir."

"Kill it--?"

"It's hurting, sir. It's hurting, and it keeps dragging me with it."

The second morning, Needle thinks it's just a nightmare.

He's never had a nightmare before. Any dream at all, really. He guesses it was something during the reconditioning. Something broke. Crossed wires, maybe. He's never mourned it, though, not really, because-- the way Stitch and Helix react, sometimes, the silent tears, the not-so-silent whispered confessions, of warped memories that seem almost foolish in waking--

Needle does what he can. And what he can do is be awake when they wake up shaking, so he can sit with them and remind them of what's real.

He learns their patterns, and stays awake, and doesn't envy them much at all.

He'll take what respite he can get.

And in the morning-- in the morning, when he blinks at the ceiling and promptly vomits over the side of the bed--

He thinks, at first, that his luck has run out at last.

Hands squeeze his shoulders, and he looks up, gasping for breath, ragged inhales, because Helix was--

Here.

In front of him.

Hale and whole.

Alive.

"Nightmare?"

Needle stares at him.

How--?

A gentle shake.

"Needle."

"I-- guess so."

It must have been. It must have been, then, because Helix is here, cupping the back of his neck, gentle and warm and grounding, and not on the ground with gray matter splattered out behind him--

Little fucking gods. Is this what they meet every night?

No wonder he has to keep cleaning the bucket.

"Can you eat?" Helix-- HelixHelixHelix-- asks. "We're heading out in half an hour."

He nods.

He can't stop staring.

A warm bowl of oatmeal is pushed into his hands..

"Eat," Helix orders. "You need it."

Needle picks up the spoon.

Something roils in the pit of his stomach.

"Helix?"

Helix pauses, looks back at him--

"Are you-- feeling okay?"

His expression softens.

"I'm fine, sweetheart," he says, and wow, Needle must look really bad--

He nods, wordless, and spoons some oatmeal into his mouth.

It tastes like ash.

He absentmindedly plucks a fly from the top of the bowl.

Funny. He remembers that, too-- from the dream.

Odd.

Later, he yanks Helix down, out of the way of the blaster bolt that had punched through his helmet in what Needle is coming to suspect might not have been entirely a nightmare--

Right before the ice cracks under him.

Helix doesn't even have a chance to scream.

Later.

In the medtent.

Stitch, tucked under his arm.

Dry throat. Burning eyes.

(Helix is--)

"It was only a nightmare," he says, to the empty room. As if the words themselves can do something-- can be something-- can be, in the end, only a nightmare indeed-- as if by saying it, he can go to sleep and wake up and Helix will be--

(Helix is--)

He presses his cheek to the top of Stitch's head.

All hollowed out.

(Helix is--)

"It was only a nightmare."

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

It was only a nightmare.

Helix vanishes under a rockfall.

(Needle is not a stupid man.)

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He signs up with a different squad.

A pale-faced Obi-Wan comes to deliver the news himself.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He sneaks laxatives into Helix's breakfast to keep him off the field.

The cliff gives way under Stitch's feet, and Needle is too slow to grab him.

He has time to scream.

He doesn't.

Needle watches him fall, small and silent, and thinks he can hear the impact.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

This time, he gets dragged under with Helix, and has to watch his brother bleed out.

Half-conscious. Smiling at him.

"N'dle."

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He walks into the 'fresher and shoots himself in the head.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

It's him and Stitch who get trapped, this time.

Stitch does not smile at him.

Stitch is deeply, deeply afraid.

Stitch is gurgling around the blood in his throat, around the branch that's lodged itself in his chest-- Stitch is reaching for him and Needle reaches back only to realize that Stitch wasn't reaching for him at all, he was reaching for his blaster--

Blood-stained lips move--

"Please--"

Needle cradles the back of his head.

"It won't stick," he promises. "It won't."

A choking noise--

"Please--"

Needle obliges.

In the second after, he realizes that was his last shot.

He slumps backwards, against the rock, and waits for the hypothermia to get him.

After a moment, he picks up the corpse's hand, cradling it.

It takes some time for his vision to go dark.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He blinks at it.

"You hurt Stitch," he says, very quietly. "You made him afraid."

He picks up the fly.

Very deliberately, he plucks its wings off before grinding it under his boot.

"Tell me who you are."

(He doesn't know how much more of himself he can afford to lose.)

(He doesn't know if there's anything left.)

The next four times, he doesn't bother to get out of bed before reaching for his blaster.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

There are so many ways to die in war.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He thinks he will witness every single one.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He is getting really fucking sick of oatmeal.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

This will not save them.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He sets his blaster to the side.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He goes hunting.

(Ghost had found something in the Temple.)

(They'd brought it back.)

(They'd had a meeting, in the morning, before Needle usually preferred to wake up.)

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

He finds the case they'd put it in.

It's bleeding.

And he's a medic.

He sinks to his knees. Picks it up--

The call goes out.

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

"How do I fix this?"

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

"How do I fix you?"

He wakes up.

There's a fly in his oatmeal.

"Oh. You don't want fixing, do you?"

He wakes up.

He starts laughing, one morning.

He can't change his damn alarm, because it won't stick.

And he keeps missing the meeting.

And then they have to go to war.

And then they die.

Again.

He waits until Helix leaves the room to reach for his blaster.

Even knowing they won't remember-- he won't remember--

He still doesn't want them to see.

It takes a whole week for his body to finally get the message.

He's in his blacks and bare feet, when he wakes up, and it's still dark outside.

It's still dark outside.

A faint flicker of something that's still Needle deep inside him--

RUN--

He does.

(He picks up his blaster, first. Just in case.)

He finds the General.

The General looks at him like he's dying.

The General looks at him like he's already dead.

The General--

Nods.

Turns.

Movement around the box.

Movement around him.

"Did he kill it?" he asks.

He doesn't think he's heard anything but his own breathing for days and days and days.

He's lost count.

Someone says yes.

"Okay," he says, and raises his blaster.

Part 2 will be coming out tomorrow!

#shoulder the sky #tw suicide implication #tw major character death #none of it sticks #bc time loop #happy ending time for the boys #why am i so mean to needle jfc #in which helix gets the wrong impression and it scares the ever living shit out of him

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the-kr8tor · 1 year ago

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Snow and Piercings

Pairing: Hobie Brown x GN Reader/ Spider-punk x GN reader.

Word count: 1.8k

Tags: established relationship, No use of Y/N, no specific physical description, fluff, tw needles, smut only implied. SFW

Synopsis: Snowed in, Hobie's bored out of his mind, he suggests to pierce your ears.

* I don't consent to having my work translated/ published on other platforms*

Getting snowed in when you were a kid was the best- no school, watching cartoons the whole day, and drinking hot cocoa. Now being an adult and getting snowed in isn't as fun as when you were younger. Work was canceled due to the extreme weather, so you and Hobie use the time to catch up on chores around the flat, again not that fun. Well at least you don't have to go to work, and best of all there's no crime happening in the city, therefore you have Hobie all to yourself.

The only downside to having Hobie at home all day is that he's an absolute menace. With no crime being reported, Hobie's bored out of his damn mind, without him spider-manning around the city, he has all this pent up energy that he currently has no outlet for. He tries to use up all his pent up energy by trying to make chores fun- he throws the laundry across the room towards the washing machine like a basketball, all the laundry goes in the machine without challenge, with his enhanced senses it quickly becomes boring.

You suggested that he crawl up the ceiling with a broom to clean the cobwebs. But it ended up making more of a mess, you underestimated how dirty the ceiling was with dust bunnies floating down on your head like snow. You both ended up vacuuming the entire place twice.

Finally, with the flat all clean and the laundry all folded, and a quick shower. The both of you can finally relax and enjoy your day off.

You were finishing up making hot cocoa for the both of you, when Hobie suggested that he pierce your ears, your left helix specifically.

Hobie Hugs your middle as you pour hot cocoa in both your cups. The air sickenly sweet from the chocolate drink. A smile spreads across your face when Hobie lovingly rubs his face on your back.

"C'mon lovey, I'll be gentle." He pleads, he's being incredibly sweet, he thinks if he butters you up and gives you enough hugs you'll eventually say yes. He's right, though you wouldn't admit it to him.

"Babe, you're just bored. Why don't you fiddle with your guitar for a bit" you say as you hand him his mug of hot chocolate. You turn your back at him to grab something from the cupboard.

"Fiddle?" He sounds offended "First of all I don't 'fiddle' with my guitar, and second of all-" his drink sloshes to the side while he animatedly makes finger quotes when he says fiddle.

He pauses as he notices his mug without marshmallows. "Love, you forgot my mallows" he stretches his mug to show you.

You plop the aforementioned marshmallows in his mug. "No I didn't, and again you're just bored, we'll find something to do eventually" You head to the living room, Hobie following right behind you.

You turned towards him "We could watch a movie, or something to get your heart pumping perhaps?" You wink at him, while sipping from your mug.

"I'll take you up on that offer" Hobie chuckles at your implication.

Hobie grabs your waist with his free hand pulling you towards him. Your heart immediately racing at his reaction, you're sure he could hear it with his enhanced hearing.

Hobie closes the distance between the two of you, his lips ghosting over yours. You hold your free hand to his neck leading him towards you but he doesn't budge. You close your eyes and wait for the kiss but it doesn't come, you open one eye to see what's the hold up. Hobie pulls away from you while chuckling into his mug.

"You're awful" you feign annoyance, but your smile gives it away. You throw a couch pillow at him, he dodges it smoothly. Right, spidey sense you forgot for a second.

Hobie smirks at you through his mug.

You fake an annoyed sigh "If I say yes, will you stop being a menace?" You make it sound like you finally got annoyed by his antics by letting him win. But you actually wanted to get your helix pierced for a while now, you're just terrified of the pain, and for the aftercare? You're definitely gonna forget to clean it. But now with Hobie offering to pierce it himself, you now have an excuse to get it. And with a little charm on the side, Hobie will definitely help you clean it.

Knowing that Hobie will be the one piercing, you know you'll be taken care of during and after the procedure.

"No promises" He puts his mug down on a nearby table. "Stay there" he points at you as he speed walks to your bedroom to grab his kit.

You bring the mug to your lips to drink, but get startled when Hobie appears back in the living room, clutching the kit in one hand, "you can't change your mind!" he excitedly raises his voice. You can't blame him for his excitement, since there's not much happening today, you're just glad he finally gets some of that pent up energy out.

You watch him move all over the flat while sipping your drink. He goes to the kitchen opening the top cupboard with his web, he sticks to the wall on the side and crawls up to grab a box of gloves. He then shoots his webs at another cupboard at the end and yanks it back to open the cabinet, Hobie then crawls all over the newly cleaned ceiling to get to it, he grabs a roll plastic sheet from within. You watch him in awe, you'll never get used to seeing him using his powers.

Now carrying the supplies, He backflips back down. "Show off" you tease, but he's too excited to notice, he's practically vibrating with excitement. You grin at his state. You're curious as to why he's so excited, since he's pierced people before. Maybe because this is the first time he's piercing you?

Hobie lays out the plastic sheet over the dining chair and table, he opens his kit which he then lays them out on the table. He heads to the kitchen to wash his hands thoroughly. Once finished, Hobie holds his hands up with his palms facing him, like he's a surgeon preparing for his next surgery. He heads back to the table and puts on a pair of latex gloves.

"You look so punk right now" You ogle at the rare sight.

Hobie is standing next to a plastic draped chair with his hands still in that weird surgeon position, the only thing to complete his look is if he's wearing a medical mask.

"Well, piercing safely is very punk, sit down, lovey" he gestures at the chair. Hobie looks so smug, thinking he's won you over.

"I don't remember all of this plastic when you were piercing Ned" you sit down, the plastic crinkle as you settle down.

"It's Ned, he can handle it"

"So youre saying I can't handle it?"

"No, it's because you're not Ned" I love you more, and because it's you, He meant to say, you look at him lovingly which means you know exactly what he truly meant. He stares down at you full of adoration in his eyes, he grabs the side of your head to move some hair out of your face.

"Are you sure about this?" He asks tentatively. His voice is soft and without any teasing behind it.

"It's you Hobie, I Trust you" you hook your finger into his belt loop to steady the tremors of your hands. But knowing it's Hobie, eases some anxiety.

Hobie gives you one of his signature smirks. He then grabs a cotton ball dipped in alcohol to clean the area where your new piercing will go. You shiver at the cold liquid hitting your ear.

"It's just the alcohol, sweets" he reassures you.

"I know, just the anticipation is killing me" you're still holding onto his belt loop.

"Keep talking to me, it'll be over before you know it" he grabs your chin and lifts it to give you a chaste kiss on the lips. "For courage" he says with a wink.

You get distracted by the kiss and miss it when he grabs the needle from the table.

"That's it, love. Keep looking at my face" he readies the needle in its position.

"Why are you wearing jeans at home?" You ask distracting yourself from the big ass needle near your ear.

"Gotta be ready to move whenever needed, and besides I see how you look at my ass while wearing it" you see him wink in your peripheral vision. You roll your eyes at the comment, if you weren't so nervous you would've quipped back.

"Now, inhale" Hobie instructs and you follow. He pushes the needle in carefully, you grimace from the pressure. You feel him quickly put on a new stud earring to replace the needle. "Exhale" he finally says.

You let out a puff of air, you finally feel the throbbing pain from your ear. He grabs some cotton balls and cleans you up. Your eyes water from the pain. A lone tear slides down your cheeks. He crouches down to level with you.

"You did good, definitely better than Ned" he rubs your arms to comfort you. You laugh at his comment.

"Here, look" Hobie brings a hand mirror in front of you. He bites his lip in anticipation of your reaction.

You turn to the side to see it properly, you gasp at the simple red stud earring, the same shade of red as his Spider-Man suit. The gem gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

"Hobie" you say softly, heart eyes staring at him.

"Bought it at a small piercing place, while doing my patrol 'round the city. For the record I didn't steal it, I would never do that to a small business" Hobie explains. "Saw it, reminded me of you, so I got it, could only afford one though" he rambles on.

You grab his face with a little force that makes your lips crash with each other, you cringe internally, but he smiles at your eagerness.

You kiss him properly this time. Hobie holds the back of your head, carefully avoiding your newly pierced ear, the kiss full of love and affection for each other. Hobie pulls away for a second to look at your kiss-bitten lips, he gives your lips a good peck before fully pulling away.

"I love it, and I love you" You cradle his face with both hands, Hobie lays his forehead on yours, his way of saying it back, as he holds your elbows, he moves his thumb in a circular pattern against your skin.

"Still hurts like a bitch though" You sniffle from the tears of pain mixed with joy.

Hobie laughs "I'll take care of it, and you" He cradles the side of your neck and kisses you softly.

The afternoon sun mixed with the pattern on your frosted windows bathes your figures in heavenly light. You both look at each other savoring the moment.

A/n: I have no idea how to pierce ears, I'm only basing this on my own experience lol. Hope you enjoyed it! Comments, likes and reblogs are appreciated!!

#hobie brown x reader #spider punk #spider punk x reader #atsv fanfiction #established relationship #hobie brown #hobie brown x gn!reader #spider man across the spider verse #spiderman across the spiderverse #x reader #spider punk x gn! reader #tw needles #tw piercings #fanfic

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silverflqmes · 24 days ago

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໒⦂ 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄.

synopsis. time and time again, fate seemed to forcibly tear cloud and sephiroth away from one another, and it’s come to do that again. can they resist destiny?

genre. angst

tw. references to death, implications of anxiety, major character death, descriptions of blood, mild gore.

event. sefikuramuse2024 ( week 4 bc i just found out. )

prompt. free choice / resistance + neutron star collision ( love is forever )

notes. bawling i wish i had found out sooner abt this event, i love muse sm ugh and their music fits sfkr so well</3 but uh, better late than never! little shorter than what i usually write, but i have a longer oneshot rotting in my drafts so i will upload that once it’s finished<3

sephiroth x cloud strife.

"cloud, we can only outrun destiny for so long.." sephiroth frowned, glancing down at the hand that squeezed his own so tightly, urging him to keep up. "in the end, they will once more pit us against one another until we are torn apart by drastic means." what would it be this time, turned to ash when the world burns? one remaining while the other joins the stars above? or watching the other die to some other cosmic force that is not by means of their respected blade?

the male in question shook his head. "i don't care." he bit back immediately, out of breath. "we're not.. gonna end up following the same fucking narrative again- i'm tired of it. i'm tired of outside factors deciding our lives for us." horrible upbringings for every lifetime and the pressure of either being passed on the torch of destroying the planet or protecting it. it was exhaustingly repetitive, and outright cruel.

why them? why, of all the people inhabiting gaia, did it have to be them? could it not have been someone else? or nobody at all?

cloud never asked for this. never asked to carry the weight of the world and everyone else's wants on his shoulders. never asked for losing those he loved, and certainly never asked to be pitted against his other half. all he had ever wanted was to make a better life for himself and someday fight alongside the great war hero that had brought a ray of hope to his life.

and all sephiroth had ever wanted was a normal life. one without needles and discipline, one of free choice and liberty to think for himself- to do what he wanted to do and simply live the life that many others surrounding him had lived and taken for granted, all without having to lose anybody he dared allowed into his fragile heart.

instead, the planet and calamity found it sickeningly amusing to cast him in the role of the antagonist that had scorched the hometown of the one person that could have truly been the pillar of stability he had searched for all his life, and made an enemy out of him.

how ironic, to finally meet the one person that could have mended everything and made all the torment worth enduring, only to end up ultimately destroying each other's lives.

the look on the former general's face was pensive, bittersweet. "this is something beyond us, cloud.. i fear that resistance will be but fleeting- simply postponing the inevitable." he tried again, pursing his lips together. "the outcome will always turn out the same, no matter how differently we go about the way in which our stories play out." he couldn't count how many worlds he had traveled to now, filled with diverse tellings of the same narrative, but an equally similar outcome at the end, no matter how long it took to reach it.

this was just one of many worlds doomed to eventually fall as well, yet cloud.. cloud held firmly.

with gritted teeth, the self-proclaimed SOLDIER paused in his tracks, nearly crashing into his once nemesis to glare up at him. "this is not going to end up the same- you told me before that we could change things, that our destiny.. could be altered." he retorted frantically, mako tinted sapphires glossing in the light of the moon. "what happened to that? we did things differently- we're not.. we're not enemies here, everything's fine between us, w-we haven't hurt each other, either." inhale, exhale. "so why.. why are things not working out for us? it was supposed to work this time — you said it would!” what felt like eons ago now of that conversation they’d held at the edge of creation — a plane comprised solely of them two, proved to be a sliver of hope. a reassurance that it was possible to change fate if they worked together.

but it just, wasn't working.

they had tried, and tried, and tried some more. but the key events always played out the same way; the deaths avoided simply took place earlier or later, the black materia would still summon meteor, cloud would still lose his hometown to the wrath of his beloved under the poisonous influence of jenova, and then he would die at his hand.

"cloud, i.." sephiroth whispered brokenly, squeezing the other's hand. what was there left to say, when even he had no answers to those questions? "i know. and i am doing everything within my capabilities to go against the odds for us to be together without us being ruined in the process, but.." no matter what, it will just continue to end with my life being claimed by your blade, or the demise of this wretched planet.

the blond parted his lips to bite back a retort, only to close them soon after, as though understanding what was left unsaid. the good and bad endings, except to them- they were both bad. "so then, am i just.. not meant to be with you?"

cracked, slitted emeralds hardened with intensity as the taller trudged forward, pulling the shorter into the type of hug capable of knocking the breath out of a person from how little proximity is left behind. "you are meant to be with me- we fit together so perfectly like this, cloud." he breathed into the nest of golden tufts, squeezing the middle of his back as though the other might fade from his fingertips if he didn't. "you were made to be mine. neither the planet, nor jenova can tear you away from me or have you with another. i will not allow it."

he had lost just about everyone he had cared for throughout the course of his existence, cloud was his lifeline. sephiroth would not allow him to be paired with anyone other than himself. not the girlfriend of zack, nor the childhood friend of his beloved, and above all, gaia.

with shaky hands, the spiky haired mercenary brought them to wrap around his once nemesis' slim waist, letting out a breath into the chest he was met with as he burrowed his face deeper to hear the heartbeat separated by flesh and bone. "but they keep on trying to tear us apart.." he muttered hopelessly, tightening his grasp on the leather jacket beneath his gloved palms. "i-i can't kill you again, sephiroth- i can't do that.. they can't make me do it again. you said i'm yours, but what good is being yours if you're not mine, too? i'll be all alone again, i.." i just can't.

"you'll never be alone, cloud." the silver haired male cut in, shifting one hand to cradle the back of the other's head to his sternum. "a part of me is always inside of you, and will always allow for me to return to you. i am yours, and shall always be yours, that much is true." he reaffirmed, perhaps as a reassurance to himself, too. "the lifestream will never truly allow me to die and become one with the fallen due to my cells. the same would apply to you, in theory." with the amount of jenova's blood coursing through his veins, the planet would always spit him right back out, as though poisoned by his presence. it would be similar for his other half, as they shared the same infectious cells from the great calamity.

cloud shifted against him, biting his bottom lip to prevent it from trembling. "but if i die, it would be over for the both of us.." he whispered, looking up at him with unshed tears. "wouldn't it?"

it was his persisting memory of sephiroth that kept him alive, wasn't it? aside from the lifestream rejecting him for no longer fully being of the planet, it was the blond's memories that kept him whole.

silence befell the older as he gazed into the other's eyes, weighing the words that were expressed to him before letting out a hum. "i am.. uncertain." he answered at length, glancing away for a moment before returning his jade-colored orbs to expectant sapphire ones. "so i would rather not find out. you will not die on my watch, cloud. i would have this planet scorched and wiped off the face of the galaxy before it takes you away from me. your life is mine, as my own is yours."

for once, cloud found himself unable to protest against the planetary destruction. he was just so over everything, all he wanted was just to live a normal life with the silver that lined him.

he allowed himself to lean into the leather clad hand that now moved to cup his cheek, catching a stray tear. sephiroth's eyes were prettier up close, all of him was.

wordlessly, cloud got on the tips of his toes to claim the rosewood lips of his greatest adversary- his everything, as he had proclaimed in one of their lifetimes.

it wasn't as their usual kisses would be, packed with undying fervor, teeth and tongue, or those brief, delicate ones they would exchange. rather, it was filled with desperation, the want to forever share breath as though the air surrounding them had been polluted- death.

a twitch could be felt in his veins, one that made the ex-SOLDIER's right hand tremble, reluctantly falling from the quilted leather to reach behind him for a hilt protruding from his harness of blades.

a sphere of swirling nebulas appeared without request within the left palm of the former general, turning up begrudgingly against the sweater-like material to face the soon to be rust filled welkin.

tears streamed freely down freckled cheeks, salt tainting the flavor of their unyielding lip-lock. the end was nigh, the warmth of the great comet could be felt even from where they stood, kissing the planet's surface as the brightness flickered against the shimmer of first tsurugi.

an unspoken apology hung in the air as rouge colored the leathers separating skin from meeting skin, the taste of iron melting with what could be mistaken as seawater, and sweet death.

even still, neither dared to break away from the other, not wanting to let go even as another world came tumbling down.

notes. perhaps i should have put a warning for there not being a happy ending.. um, my bad guys</3 i hope it was okay despite the short length! if i had more time i would have done something more but school said no and gave me speeches to write instead😔

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hana-no-seiiki · 1 year ago

Text

Happy Holidays Everyone!! As promised this was finished and published before Christmas so I can work on official portraits. Enjoy your gift from your one and only god, Yun ♡

I don’t know where this takes place in the timeline for the HNSverse and my webtoons but we’ll just go with whatever the fuck was given to me in my dream.

Likes & Reblogs are much appreciated!!

YANDERE POWER RANGERS-ESQUE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS x AMNESIAC! MALE! RANGER READER

OPERATION : PRETTY PINK LIAR ♡

tw/cw: dddne. yandere fic typical violence. mech/scifi fantasy violence. off-screen character deaths. in this version reader is male. check the masterlist for other versions of the fic. your name appears as [ REDACTED ]. one-sided semi-cestuous pining(by yan). brief mention/implication of cheating. necrophillia (implicit). descriptions of gore/violence.

fic type: long oneshot

status: unedited

[ MASTERLIST / CHARACTER APPEARANCES ]

When humanity needed them the most, the Elemental Squad Unit came to save the day. Composed of Earth’s mightiest, most righteous men, they drive those wretched aliens away. Protecting our daily lives, while risking their own.

That was the story often told to the people. Those who lived blissfully unaware of the turbulence in heaven. Everyone knew of the ESU, whether they liked it or not.

“[Y/N]. You really don’t have to do this y’know.” Blue Ranger: Kaguya, repeated. He had medium length navy hair tied into a ponytail. He was short, cute almost. Sparkle shaped freckles dotted the middle of his face. Throughout your stay in the hospital, he had been the second most frequent visitor. He always touched you in one way or another. His fingers always grazed a part of your body. His eyes in a glaze as he’d stare at your injured figure. You found out it was because you two were dating or had a mutual interest towards one another . . . you think. At least in the eyes of the other crew members.

To you he was just a rando that always seemed to ignore your boundaries. Even when you were adamant with keeping a certain distance.

You tried your best not to flinch every time he came close, meticulously concealed any involuntary reactions, and strived to maintain an unwavering composure. It was difficult being so intimate with a total stranger. What was more concerning was the way your heart wrenched at such occurrences. An unsettling sensation, leaving you with a peculiar awareness that the narrative he presented was a well crafted farce.

You rolled your eyes at his worried face. It felt so off on him. Instead of the average look of concern one might show towards an ill individual, Blue’s expressions and tone always came off as haughty, snobbish, pitying, condescending. Red assured you that it was just what Blue sounds like all the time due to his background but you still couldn’t help but grimace as you spat back, “The squad has almost been eliminated thrice since I’ve woken up and was able to watch the news. I think I do.”

Yellow Ranger: Malik, shook his head. Despite being the tallest and rather gruff looking in comparison to the other members, his nagging often made all the intimidation in your nerves melt away. He had been the worrier you observed. Except that his worry usually came in massive spiels and sermons that threatened to have your ears bleed if you so much as breathed the wrong way. He was the complete opposite of Blue. Fitting when you weighed in his hometown — the kingdom on the other side of the planet of Blue’s. Harsh and condescending on the outside, a complete softie on the inside. “You don’t even know how your suit works! And it hasn’t been responding properly to your commands—“

You sighed as the brunette continued, delicately slipping a hand into the control unit positioned before you. Your fingers glided within akin to a nimble set of needles, traversing through the viscous, gelatinous substance within the intricate contraption. Abruptly, the entirety of the suit burst into a vibrant display of illuminating hues.

【 SUIT ACQUISITION SUCCESS 】

You fought the wide grin from appearing on your visage as you completely enclosed yourself into the suit. The odd, metal like material encased your form. You closed your eyes for a couple of moments, embracing the darkness and the brief second of peace you had without the other team members on your 6, before opening it to see the outside world beyond your suit’s controls. Completely in your view despite your current location and condition. Holographic graphs and charts on the edge of your peripherals.

“Ranger Pink. Welcome back.” The leader of the ESU, Red Ranger: Jasper, smacked the rose colored sentinel. He was your half-brother as you’d learnt. With features similar to your own. Tall, muscular, he towered many of the members. You spotted a lot of scars throughout his body, a few could be found accompanying his facial features; lips, eyebrows, his nose.

In the advent of this world’s technology, those scars could have easily been removed. In fact you knew the procedure was popular with many of your other members. Yet Red refused to do so.

“I’ll accompany them.” Blue ran off to his sentinel. His steps leaving a layer of water across the launch pads in his excitement.

“Blue . . .” Yellow reached out to him, only for Blue to brush his hand aside and eagerly jumped inside his suit.

Green Ranger: Zelenka chimed as he chewed on a špekáček, “Way to be obvious about what his dick thinks.”

“Green!” Yellow smacked him at the back of his head.

Green only grumbled, not at all surprised, bothered or in pain. His face blank, and eyes drifting off in boredom, “It was a compliment. At least Blue is honest about getting hard when Pink’s around. Unlike some people.”

“S-shut your goddamn mouth.” Yellow gave one last ‘hmph’ before he stalked off of the platforms.

Green gave the seething man a brief glance before his eyes wandered to his own sentinel. After a long sigh, he got inside.

Finally, Red provided a go signal, and the three rangers took off. Their sentinels; gigantic, metalic humanoid stepping from within the Ranged HQ and into the deep dark ocean.

Red smiled to himself, rotating his body to walk to his own suit’s platform for his own set of missions, nonchalantly speaking into the air. “Black. Ensure nothing . . . unfortunate happens with Pink.”

A figure clad in black emerged from the shadows. Much larger than even the ESU leader’s form.

“Understood.”

【　MEMORY UNLOCKED 】

Accessing files . . .

“. . .”

As consciousness gently clawed its way back to the surface, a haze of confusion shrouded the mind. Blinking away the remnants of slumber, [ REDACTED ] ‘s eyes slowly adjusted to the harsh, artificial lighting of the hospital room. A flicker of anxiety danced across their thoughts.

“You’re . . . awake!” A muffled voice entered their ears. The sensation of cool, crisp sheets under fingertips became apparent, offering a peculiar contrast to the warm cocoon of blankets. And as their sense of touch returned so did their full hearing capacity.

A face, dark tan — excessively alluring really, your gaze was immediately glued — with golden eyes reminiscent of the blaring sun covered most of your vision.

“You goddamn idiot! I- I was so worried. Why’d you protect me?! I could’ve handled it y’know?!”

“Easy, Yellow.” Another voice. But you could not move your body to view them. But with such a beauty right in front of you, did you really want to?

“To hell with that.” The pretty boy continued, “You hear me, Pink? I’m one of the original three. I am above you. I don’t need your god damned pity. Or anyone else’s! Especially not a nepo baby like—“ His pointer landed on your chest, painfully despite the massive amounts of bandages the surrounded your nearly eviscerated body.

“Yellow, that’s enough.” The voice popped out again, this time more authoritative and firm. You see a gloved hand reach from behind and grab ‘Yellow’s’ shoulder.

“No, I need to hear it from him directly! Tell me you won’t do this again!”

“Your Majesty, I don’t think—“ This time another voice advised the young man in front of you. They sounded a lot more frail, older.

“Answer me, bastard!”

“. . . Who . . .” You breathed, struggling to form words as every second you remained conscious was agonizing as it much less when you produced any sort of moved. “. . . Who are you?”

The more delicate voice spoke up once more. Your vision was starting to turn blurry and dark. “As I was saying, I’m afraid Ranger Pink has sustained too much damage in the battlefield.”

On a more solemn tone they added, “We did the best we could do.”

“Who . . . are these . . . people . . ?”

You fought with everything to stay awake. You truly did. But as the moments passed and the world around you started spinning and blending into itself, you could not resist the temptation to close your eyes. Your once anxious mind now slowly faded into serene clarity.

【　MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 】

The world was lot more vibrant than you expected it to be. Everything looked apocalyptic whenever you watched the ESU in battle. The only thing that signaled an invasion was happening was the occasional alien and buildings that were being repaired post-fight.

You marveled at the view around you, almost in a daze.

The sound of a lazer being shot snapped you out of your stupor.

“The hell—?! Green! That’s friendly fire you mani—“ Blue hollered.

You’re sure that if this man were any more petulant his suit itself would be stomping the ground in anger.

“I just saved you, your highness.” Green’s suit does a curtsy. He then pointed to the dead blob on the ground.

“Thank you, Green.” You bowed back.

“Hahaha! I like the new Pink. Maybe he should never recover his memories—“

“Had an Alien on your shoulder.” Blue deadpanned after shooting a jet of high pressure water towards Green.

“Bullshit.”

You grinned at their antics. You almost couldn’t believe that these were the saviors of humanity. One of if not the only line of defense against its extinction. But then grimaced at an indicator flashing within the corner of your vision. “Enemy at 7 o’clock.”

“On it.” Blue’s sentinel hurried to the scene, moving around as if it were swimming in the air.

Green cursed. It wasn’t just a normal enemy. “Shit. It’s a full on ship.”

“We have to re-unite with —“

Green is promptly taken down. A group of fliers came at him like vultures to corpse.

“Pink!” Blue screamed, swiftly flying to close to you once more. His suit takes yours’ hand and held it tight.

“. . .” You looked at him, almost angered that he tore your attention away from Green’s potential demise.

“We have to fuse. You’ve seen the squad do it on the news right?”

“Ain’t no way I’m fusing with—“ Green screeched as he fought off the bird like creatures. Vines reaching to grapple the them, but are promptly sliced by support from above: the main ship.

“Well I didn’t ask you did I?” Blue practically hissed at him. When you saw the ESU fight before they seemed so in sync, now you were starting to understand why these men kept on almost dying recently.

“Will Green be alright?”

“You heard him. He doesn’t want to fuse.”

It takes you moments to reply and hesitantly you finally responded with, “Okay.” You nodded, closing your eyes as Blue’s sentinel moved towards you, melding into your suit.

Your eyes flutter open. You’re surrounded with water, but somehow you were able to breathe. You see Blue’s figure beside you.

“. . . Your interface.” He looked over to your system, most of which has been covered in the ooze aliens were typically made of.

You must have been infected while Green was first attacked, hence the reluctance to fuse.

“Enemies” You reminded.

“Right.” Blue shook his head. Every ESU member was taught to put the mission before their own well-being. He had a natural resistance to infection due to his cockpit’s watery environment. It should help stave off the infection for enough time until back-up arrives.

“Let’s switch forms this time.” He suggested. If he took more control he’d be able to help fight the infection off better. “Flight mode ON!”

A chase begun. You and Blue flew at a breakneck speed, leading the ship and birds away from any nearby cities and Green. While fused, you could feel what Blue felt. Anxiety, fear. Perhaps this was how the team worked together properly. It was hard not to empathize when these emotions were shoved in your face.

You release one of your hands from your interface and place it on his shoulders.

You feel a sudden wave of warmth. Calm.

“You forgot the boosters.” You advised, hoping to jog his memory a little in this moment of extreme pressure and stakes.

He fumbled, causing your fused sentinels to dip for a moment, but was able to activate the booster in time. Creating a workable distance

“Shit, we’re heading straight into a city.”

Panic returns to your senses once more. You release your hold over his shoulder. With a smile, an idea popped into your head and you take over.

“Perfect, I got this.”

You shove the hand you used to comfort him back into the sludge and take control. The whole cockpit turned pink with swirling black tendrils.

The enemy followed you as you passed a bridge leading into a city.

“What are you doing?! You’re going to get people killed!” Blue attempted to override your command but found himself unable to.

You try to keep the sentinel above most of the building as to avoid making the alien ship collide and cause unnecessary casualties.

You soon reach the center where a monstrous skyscraper stood. You figured out from watching other members use flight mode that it was based off of the distance from underneath the suit to its main hull. As such, if you went up close to scale the wall of such a tall building . . .

【　TARGET LOCKED 】

The system prompted you and Blue as your soared through the skies and above the aliens.

You waste no time and shoot. A beam of electricity, water, and . . . shadow? releases — piercing straight through the tar like material. You made sure to destroy the wings of the birds and the flight mechanisms of the ship.

And as an extra assurance you fly back down, switch modes once more, and use the suit to stomp on their soon-to-be corpses.

As you float back down to check, you spot an aura of shadowy wisps clinging unto the wreckage. It seemed to be minimizing the damage surrounding the area via changing the material’s weight.

“Black. Thank you for the assist.”

Black Ranger: Noir. Close friends with the White Ranger. They looked nothing alike, acted nothing alike, and you never saw them even speak to one another. But they worked in terrifying efficiency together — scout missions — and as such were assigned into a sub-unit that rarely ever crossed paths with the main ESU.

Red was watching over you.

Your body tensed in the suit.

“No problem.” Black muttered. He was a man of few words. Rarely ever seen. You don’t think he even wants to be.

“We should go check on Green”

【　MEMORY UNLOCKED 】

Accessing files . . .

“My name is [ REDACTED ]. It’s a pleasure to join your team!”

Your introduction was fine you think. Jasper told you not to make it too long as the team was usually chasing time enough as it is. You even added a bow at the end, in both the Lunar and Solar Kingdom’s variation as to show your respect and admiration for the team.

“I can’t believe this. Another one? Green is already a pain in the ass.” Yellow reacted first. You flinched at his reaction, which made his demeanor soften for a brief moment before it returned to its domineering self.

“Yellow.” Red glared at him, this time semi-permanently making Yellow sink into himself. “Welcome to the team, brother.”

Blue does not respond nor look at your direction. A grim expression painted his pretty features.

“Guess I’m not the only newbie anymore! What should I call ya?” Green vibrantly beamed. Poking your cheeks as he munched on a bag of cheese puffs. No doubt making the dust stick to your face with his saliva.

“P-Pink would be fine.”

“Pinkie it is!” Green laughed letting go of his snack and hugging you tightly.

Your hands slowly, inch by inch, raised hug him back.

“Your vital signs are all fine.” You mused as you put down sphygmomanometer.

“Thanks for your concern, Pinkie.”

You shook your head. There was no concern here. “No problem. We simply can’t lose our healer. That would be a dire situation.”

“Pffft— I’ll be up and about after a day no problem.” He waved his hands. Well, a hand. His other one was broken and almost completely detached from his body when you busted him out of his sentinel. He was able to heal it enough to somewhat move it safely, but otherwise it was unusable.

“ . . . Red is considering taking you off the team.”

“. . . What . . ?”

“He says you’re too much of a liability. Your conduct and lack of cooperation that is.”

“Lack of cooperation my ass.” Green sat up and straightened his back with a grunt. “What do you get by telling me this? I’m guessing you aren’t supposed to?”

“If he’s kicking you out I’m coming down with.”

“Pinkie . . . “

“You’re a valuable member to the team.”

“Hey, do you . . . do you have a name I can call you by? Your actual one I mean.” Green leaned his forehead against yours.

He peered into your eyes. The once pink color had now slowly faded into black with swirls of purple.

What was he asking? He knew your name.

And then you realized.

“. . . I don’t have one.”

“Then I guess I’m stuck with calling you Pinkie?” He smiled holding your cheek. Sluggishly his face tilted moved closer to yours —

“Get your hands off of him!” A whiny voice resounded throughout the medbay’s room.

“Augh, your highness. Can’t you see I’m having a moment with your ex?”

Dazed you pushed the Ranger away from you and left the room, bumping shoulders with Blue.

You were able to get quite a distance away and were about to take a long sigh in relief. You were too exhausted for the other member’s antics and drama.

“[Y/N]—!” Blue panted. It seemed that he ran after you. In any case, he yanked you by the wrist to face him. “I- I’m . . . I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“That we used to be—“

“In a relationship? I knew. White told me.”

“That bastard—“

“May you let go of me? I have another check up.” You raised your wrist and his hand, shaking it a little.

“No!” He shouted. You gave him a shocked look which led to him lowering his voice and talking in a nervous, timid manner. “L-look, we can make this work. Alright? I don’t want us to just — end up like this.”

You do not sugarcoat your words and simply spoke “Blue. To me you’re a stranger.”

You continue even after he flinched at your words. “I don’t know you. Coupled with the fact that you purposely hid something as big as that makes your reliability questionable at best.”

You watched as his face morphed into sadness, then grief,

“I’ll make the judgment when my memories come back. Until then . . . It’s a no.”

and lastly, anger.

“No? No! Do you think you can say no to me?” He squeezed your wrist and you hear bones crack.“I’m the goddamn crown prince of the Lunar Empire! I get what I want and—“

“And you need to get off your high horses.” You halted him from his spiel. “We’re all equal here. As rangers. As defenders of humanity. Only Red has the right to be ordering the rest. You’re the prince aren’t you? Go find another potential mistress. I’m not doing this to Yellow.”

“But I . . .” Blue’s tone finally went back to it’s more quiet and tolerable version. “I need you.”

You feel Blue’s hold slacken and immediately took the moment to pull your hand away.

“You disgust me.” And you walked off.

You heard him falling to his knees as he cried. Yet you do not look back.

The control room wasn’t a place many team members went to. It was implicitly known that it was Red and his most trusted entourage’s domain.

You weren’t a part of that group. Not even from the memories you’ve slowly started to gain.

But this matter was of utmost importance.

“I’d like to be taken off the team.” You said as the doors slid open. A robotic greeting could be heard in the background, signaling your entrance.

From your rare visits, it was mostly where Red and White would plan out patrols and store their information about the invading forces. The place remained unchanged. Most likely due to Green’s lack of interference in the decor, and overall organization.

“If this is about Green, then don’t worry. I’ve changed my—”

“It’s about Blue.”

Red looked more alert. His head flicked from the various screens inside the room to your direction. Finally looking at you directly. “I told you two that a relationship would be detrimental to the future of the squad. But none of you ever listen. See what happens?”

Beside him, Ranger White: Blanc, mumbled yet it was audible enough to be heard by you from across the room. “Let’s be frank here, Red. You said that because you were jealous.”

“White—?“

You didn’t know Red could even be flustered. He always seemed so level-headed, so dangerously focused on the task of eliminating the invaders that anything aside from a stoic look on his face looked . . . well . . . out of place.

“Red. It’s easy to see your favoritism.” Unlike him, White’s eyes do not leave the screens. The man’s void like eyes were trained unto the replay of the fight you just had.

“Aren’t we . . . siblings ?” You questioned. You weren’t unaware of his feelings. But you always viewed it as a over-protective if not suspicious brotherly act. Thinking of it otherwise . . . vile.

“Oh honey, you two aren’t completely blood related remember?” White swiped to another angle of the battle. “At least that’s what Red keeps reminding himself in order to lessen the guilt he feels lusting over you.”

“But — “

And then he suddenly looked at you.

Void meeting tar.

“Much less now that you’re hosting an alien parasite.

Fear. It was such a human concept. The way your heart thrashes within the confines of its boney cage. The way your mind goes blank. The way your instincts take over and all you could do is either fight, run or freeze.

You chose silence. Cursing this human shell for glueing your mouth shut and feet to the floor.

“What are you talking about?” Red gripped White’s clothes. A jacket you’ve often seen him wear that completely engulfed his body.

Completely unbothered by Red’s actions, White continued, “I was wondering why you weren’t able to get your suit activated at first. But suddenly you’re able to control it with ease. Better than you were able to from before actually.”

He then brings up a tablet of your previously brutalized state. Ooze of black, violet and magenta coming from every orifice and wound. Your bones mangled in a way that seemed almost uncanny. Viscera from all sorts of organs on display. If you were anything but an ESU member you’d been twice dead. You feel your . . . this body’s stomach reel at the way it was treated.

“Green wasn’t able to heal you either, you had to ‘recover’ the old fashion way. I bet he knows too.”

You know of that memory. Green was all over you that day. He was a sobbing mess. He was always trying to help you recover, until you gained consciousness he spent countless nights without sleep or much sustenance just trying to figure out why he couldn’t help.

Zelenka. He was one human you’ll spare to move unto to the next phase of your plan. Such selflessness and kindness deserve recognition after all.

But back to the matter at hand.

“That the original pink ranger is dead and only a gooey parasite in the brain remains.”

Red released his hold on White, turning to you in a flash, and in a gentle manner he laid his hands atop your shoulder.

“[Y/N], tell me this isn’t true.” His red eyes were overflowing with grief, held back by a single, cracking dam. You shivered internally at its uncanny look. His face devoid of emotion suited him far better. “You know I’ll only believe in you. Whatever you say, I will follow.”

You looked down, mustering all the tears you could squeeze out of your vessel’s eyes.

“He’s lying, brother — no — Jasper. I’m alive. I’m right here in front of you.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right.” Jasper placed his head right atop your chest, “I can hear your heart beating. You’re still alive.”

“Red? Are you listening to yourself? Of course your brother looks and sounds alive. A parasite is puppeting his body, forcing his heart to beat, his eyes to blink, his limbs to move. But he’s dead.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Noir?

Black approached from the shadows. Without his suit you can finally see his handsome face. Dark skin and hair like the night sky, and white eyes that lacked pupils.

“You can’t be serious. . .”

“Dead or alive. At least [Y/N]’s body is here with us. Don’t you see it, Blanc? God has given us the opportunity to be with him again.” Black’s face was smeared with an expression akin to religious ecstasy. A fervor so unlike him that it gave you a whiplash harder than Red’s sudden change.

“Are you going to take that opportunity away from me Blanc?” Black’s hand reached to carress White’s pale features.

And with those words White visibly turned docile. “No. No, of course not.”

“Good.” Black planted a kiss atop White’s hair and forehead. “Now what was this about you leaving the team, [Y/N]?”

[ PRESENT TIME ]

Humanity was far from salvation. As such, your kind, the so-called ‘Alien Race’ were sent to end their suffering.

In a world where billions of their currency went into glorified missile measuring contests, you were there to reset them back to zero. To their naive, infantile, god fearing state.

“Your Majesty. The carriage to the Lunar Kingdom has arrived. The mission in the Northern Front was successful. Reinforcements will arrive in due time.”

Planting yourself into the world was an easy feat. Although you missed your designated target and occupied a much weaker vessel than you intended to, it ended up being a boon. It barely took a decade before you wiped out humanity’s biggest defenders from their main planet. Only a few more left standing.

You stared up into the heavens. The moon and sun’s destined reunion shall signal a start of a new age and you were its herald. Smoke billowed and obscured part of the sky, but the celestial bodies’ light still remained visible in the sky.

“Good.”

You arose from your throne of corpses. You felt no guilt, not an ounce of remorse for the genocide of billions. You knew this was for their own good. Besides, you have done this several times before. In the end, humanity would thank you, even see you as the deity you served. Not that you would want that. You were to loyal to Them after all.

“Let us break down Humanity back to its roots.”

You took your seat upon the helm of your army’s main commanding vessel. A large rose-like entity that covered at least a few cities below.

“Praise be to the Divine.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I feel like this was just a glimpse into what this part of the HNSverse was like so I’ll be glad to make this into a holiday tradition instead of a one-parter if this post is successful.

And yes the romance/elements between the members is a Genshin reference.

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waitmyturtles · 2 years ago

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: TharnType and Gray Areas Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover the very controversial TharnType, Asian stereotypes towards queerness, and the very difficult gray areas on how this show has been interpreted by various populations over the last few years.]

TW: homophobic and derogatory ideas and language against the queer community. Critical commentary on TharnType and MAME. This review is NOT for you if you are a TharnType or MAME Big Fan.

(I want to give very special thanks to @so-much-yet-to-learn and @lurkingshan for reviewing previous versions of this post and offering the most insightful feedback I could ask for. Thank you both so much.)

Alright. Deep breaths.

TharnType was a necessary addition to the Old GMMTV watchlist. It was. I had to watch it, for:

- the tremendous IMPACT this show has had on BL culture, along with MAME’s continued influence on the genre; - how this show affected shipper culture, and the rippling effects it’s had since then vis à vis MewGulf; - how this show continued to define “high heat” and “chemistry” in BL, and -- at least for me, possibly the most interesting point to needle on -- - what fans, ESPECIALLY the majority cishet fandom, are willing to compromise and/or equivocate on in regards to our values towards the queer community regarding what we consume in media, and how safe or unsafe it is for our queer family that this content exists in the first place.

I gotta say some stuff first before I get into this review. This is the worst show I’ve ever watched, in my own opinion. I offer this flag for MAME and TharnType fans in advance, as I get quite critical down below.

I am angry at this show, at MAME, at the BL industry for allowing this show to exist, and I unfortunately hold anger against Tee Bundit, who I know has since made shows, like Lovely Writer, that deeply criticized the BL industry (and I am enjoying his work now in Step By Step, even while I don’t hesitate to criticize it). ANYONE INVOLVED in the making of TharnType needs to hold personal and professional accountability for this show even existing. And I also think that fans need to hold THEMSELVES accountable if they defend it WITHOUT thinking about the long-term social implications of the existence of this show.

I want to also say that I need to check myself, OFTEN, as I write this, because I don’t want to be some fucking loudmouth, self-righteous ally-savior. I don’t. [My AMAZING drama friends, @lurkingshan and @bengiyo, have held me down during this watch. (Friends. Thank you. Good LORD.)]

I want this review to be as fair as possible to the nostalgia of the moment that this show aired; to note that this show gave high heat, which fans clearly demanded, and IS a worthy component of some dramas if it works with the rest of what the show has to offer by way of writing; and to note that many fans saw a chemistry in MewGulf that they hadn’t seen previously. I especially note that there may be survivors of sexual assault who related to certain pieces of this show, particularly through Type’s lens and his own anger.

With that very long introduction, I will note that I’m not going to talk too much about the show details itself. I don’t need to unwind on plot. For me -- FOR ME -- the show’s plot was problematic.

2019: earlier that year, before TT aired, you had He’s Coming To Me, which was BURIED by GMMTV, and was a TOUR DE FORCE of intricate storytelling and queer revelation. According to this amazing reblog by @so-much-yet-to-learn (another longtime BL observer who UTTERLY held me down during my TT watch, friend, I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THE HOURS you spent me with talking about TT and other issues), shipper fans angry at Ohm and Singto went so far as to SHOW UP TO THE GMMTV BUILDING IN BANGKOK and PROTEST against the split of the KristSingto ship. This is why, in this TT review, I talk about fans needing to take responsibility and accountability for the media we consume. I believe TT exists in part because fans have allowed it to continue to exist in the universe of BL, and many even celebrate TT’s existence -- all while, in my own opinion -- much more compelling art existed before TT (Make It Right, He’s Coming To Me) and certainly after its airing.

In discussion with @absolutebl (yet another drama expert who held me down during my TT watch, THANK YOU, SENSEI), ABL Sensei brings up that, besides a natural tendency to criticize and blame MAME for our needing to have conversations about safety towards queer family, that TT does deserve to be criticized as a standalone piece of content.

I honestly don’t know, Sensei, if I’m mature enough to make that separation, but I will try. MAME herself doesn’t exist in a vacuum: she has an industry, from producers, to showrunners, to actors, to editors, to networks -- that join her in the making of her work. I’ll do my best to separate everything, but.

I noted in my review of Love By Chance that MAME traffics in common Asian stereotypes against the queer community. At the same time, I know that often, we talk about the yaoi origins of BL in Thailand. I think, over time, the explanation of the yaoi origination has been used as a means of explaining WHY certain tropes exist, such as abuse of a partner, bullying, etc. I want to note that while I acknowledge those origins, I also strongly note (as I did in the comments of my LBC review) that yaoi origins are themselves problematic, as created by a majority cishet female artist base, and thus I question the accurate representation of queer themes both in yaoi and in early and/or questionable Thai BL that lean into common stereotypes held by Asian nations. (That being said, I do DEEPLY ACKNOWLEDGE @so-much-yet-to-learn‘s point to me that many in the queer community still consumed this media, as the West was producing next-to-nothing by way of queer love and/or queer perspectives.)

Much of what I saw in LBC and TT -- gang rape, cheating, revenge, derogatory language, hurtful stereotypes of top/bottom and husband/wife -- are repeat, word-for-word stereotypes that I heard from my Asian family growing up. Examples of what I saw by way of problematic stereotypes in TharnType include:

- Tharn repeatedly and casually calling Type “his bitch,” - The use of the F word, repeatedly, by Type, - Type attacking his out classmates, and indirectly attacking his friend, Tum, - The assumption that because Tharn and Tar are gay, that they are promiscuous (even Techno assumes this while leaving Type alone with Tharn early in the series), - Techno himself not calling out Type for his homophobia throughout the series, - The use of gang rape as a means of revenge by Lhong to Tar,

and many more. I will also note that I was incredibly uncomfortable by Lhong’s redemption at the end, as if the story demanded that Lhong’s own actions that drove him to order grievous sexual violence against another man needed to be forgiven. That was a paradigm that seemed apologetic to his actions and did not sit well with me.

As I noted to @bengiyo: us international fans may be lulled to think that Thailand is majority progressive and accepting of the queer community based off of the BLs that we watch. It IS a much more progressive culture in SE Asia in supporting the queer community, and I would assume that gay culture is able to flourish in city centers, as opposed to rural areas.

But Thailand has NOT legalized same-sex marriage. And I posit that we in the West don’t actually realize that harmful stereotypes against the queer community absolutely still exist and flourish in Thailand, Taiwan, and elsewhere in Asia -- countries that certainly leverage BL as soft power, but nations in which familial or cultural expectations may STILL make ACTUAL coming out and public existence a dangerous or risky proposition. THIS SHIT IS GRAY. BL is fiction -- it is not reality. It is still dangerous -- YES, INCLUDING HERE IN THE STATES -- to be out in very many towns, cities, and communities around the world.

Now. When I went into TT, I understood, AS ASSUMED FACT, that MAME was a sexual assault survivor, who used this style of writing about queerness and queer love to process her own SA experiences. That equivocation gave me the serious jibbles, which I’ll talk about in a second, but I understood it to be the line that most BL observers have made about her work, and/or justification or explanation for her work existing.

I’ve since learned that this is not necessarily fact: that it is not known if MAME is an SA survivor, and that she is notoriously private and has not revealed much, if anything, about her own past.

So, from there, how do I process this? How do I process that it’s FANON -- NOT FACT -- that MAME may or may not write from a survivor’s perspective?

I also note here, thanks to the wonderful @so-much-yet-to-learn, that many fans who are SA survivors have written in the past about how they related to Type’s anger and/or homophobia after his own assault experience. I also understand that SA survivors have, in the past, had difficulty with strong rejections of TharnType, like the one I have composed here, in reaction to the fear that they cannot tell their own stories of internal anger against their perpetrators and the communities from which their attackers come from.

Thus, I want to note a VERY DIFFICULT PROPOSITION TO WORK THROUGH. What we’re facing here is that there may be people, SA survivors in particular, who related to Type’s homophobia. This is Type’s fictional homophobia -- as written by a very real, assumed-to-be female author. At the same time, I myself very much acknowledge that I still see stereotypes against the queer community, in a very Asian voice that I am familiar with, in MAME’s shows.

Let me tell you why this gives me, personally, the jibbles. Let’s assume that MAME is an SA survivor. As someone trained in the social services, I am not sure that I would advise a potential client to create very public content that is potentially harmful towards a minority community, as a means of their own personal processing. MAME is FAMOUS. Her work is POPULAR. Can we justify the dangers that her work poses -- the stereotypes and assumptions she traffics in against our queer family -- for her own psychological processing?

If I am her therapist, I am guiding her to instead journey map, to meditate, to advise her of HUNDREDS of other therapeutic psychological modalities to process her pain -- all modalities that do not set up a minority community to be stereotyped through very publicly consumed content.

I posit here -- MY OPINION, FAM -- that MAME has leveraged her own personal bigotry against the queer community in her shows for clout with Asian and international audiences that would not quibble about the harmfulness of the stereotypes that the show portrayed. And she’s gotten away with it for the utter control she has over her own content. AND SHE KNOWS THERE’S AN AUDIENCE FOR IT, so she keeps making what I call bigoted content.

I thought TT was a DANGEROUS show for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about queer family. And I am distraught at the BL industry for seeing dollar signs against that clout and investing in it.

The equivocating in support of TharnType certainly exists. There are people who view this show with nostalgia, as there still wasn’t the volume of BL content, with heat, in 2019 as we have today. There are people out there who may very well openly relate to Type’s homophobia as a character, and MAME’s homophobia as an author and as a human. Hell, Foei Patara, who we see in everything these days, shared a very anti-LGBTQ+ video on his Instagram just recently.

I DO have to give a nod to nostalgia. I have to try to be fair here. This is the ENTIRE POINT of the OGMMTVC. BL fans in 2019 wanted a thing. High heat, high chemistry. I know that there are fans that are AWARE of these high-level issues of MAME’s work. And yet, there are many that still look back on TharnType with fondness, because it brought something new to the field.

What I’m suffering from here is the equivocation of MAME’s work by way of analysis against a presumed opinion -- NOT fact -- that MAME is an SA survivor. That seems to open some sort of door to allow us to watch her work, despite the dangers of the stereotypes contained within her work.

The ethics of this. I’m not a strong enough person to go near that equivocation. Because I am not a survivor. I’m an Asian. In MAME’s voice, I hear the stereotypes against the queer community that I grew up with. And that’s where I’m writing this review. I’m hurt and appalled by her proliferating what I term to be dangerous viewpoints against my queer sisters and brothers -- assumptions that I heard growing up in my Indian community.

Fuck. Am I ever glad that I DIDN’T watch this show in 2019. I’m protected by a fortress of past and present works that I can rely on that proves that there are other arenas in which BL is being leveraged for good, for progressive art, for the introduction of ideas that support our queer family, AND that might also offer critical commentary on issues that affect other minority or vulnerable corners of society, à la Moonlight Chicken.

I haven’t even gotten to the MewArt scandal and the problematic nature of the MewGulf ship. All of those are also very important issues, but I can’t bring myself to get deep about them, because just talking about the show itself is a lot. But Mew Suppasit’s past alleged behavior is certainly problematic, and is worth considering if folks were to think about watching this show.

In any case: I’m never watching another MAME show again, ever. And as a side note, MewGulf didn’t do it for me. At this point in 2019, I feel like we’d seen ships with much better chemistry and even heat, like PerthSaint (a MAME ship, actually), OhmToey, MaxTul, and even OhmSingto and their utterly brilliant acting. @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle noted in the comments of one of my TT late-night posts that they didn’t see the MewGulf chemistry, and frankly, I didn’t either -- I didn’t see that these guys, as the acted characters of Tharn and Type, bodily and ferally WANTED AND VISCERALLY LOVED each other in fiction, the way that actor pairs like EarthMix, OhmNanon, FirstKhao, and others have since perfected in their work as their respective characters.

This post is about the responsibility that so-called “artists” bear when taking up the mantle of created content about a minority community, as well as the responsibility that we bear, as fans, as the majority cishet female fanbase, to consume this content. MAME and the slices of the BL industry that support her MUST understand that perpetuating stereotypes about a minority community WILL HAVE VISCERAL SOCIAL IMPACTS in REINFORCING THOSE STEREOTYPES, among a majority cishet fanbase and across society, to the danger of the existence of our queer family.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED MORE QUEER CONTENT BY QUEER FILMMAKERS.

That is the way in which this paradigm will be broken over time. And us in the cishet fanbase MUST STAND READY to support art -- in the words of dear friend @wen-kexing-apologist -- by queer family, for queer family, about queer family. We in the cishet majority bear a responsibility to break the paradigm of dangerous stereotypes, perpetrated by who create content through their own bigotry, either consciously or unconsciously -- or both.

[I finished TharnType in record time. I needed to get it out of my system. And now I’m fully invested in OffGun and having a DELIGHTFUL time with Theory of Love: I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS SUBVERSIVE, MINDBENDING SHOW. Ooooooooooooooooooh. Right up my alley! Hopefully I can muster my usual Monday review for ToL -- let’s see. I still feel somewhat broken by TT, but ToL and OffGun have been SUCH a salve.

Here’s the list as it stands currently. We have two changes! First, thanks to a suggestion by @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan, I’m adding a non-BL (!!!!) to the list in 3 Will Be Free. I have a number of separate Jojo Tichakorn priorities to achieve before Only Friends airs, and this is a big one; as this is a show from 2019, I want to see where GMMTV was willing to go in pushing queer content in non-BLs, and this is the perfect time to watch it. I’ll still include a review in this space!

And, per @absolutebl Sensei’s suggestion, I’ve added YYY (2020) to this, to enjoy Cheewin unhinged in what seems to be a disaster of a show -- but an important one for real queer representation (THANK YOU, SENSEI!). I’m excited for chaos. I’m watching it out of chronology with ITSAY and planning it as a mental break. As always, I’ll take any feedback on the list as it stands!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (watching) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn including queer content in non-BLs) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (not an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but I want to watch this in chronological order with everything else) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronology) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 29) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 30) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 31) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 32) GAP the Series (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 33) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 34) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 35) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

#turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai BLs #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #tharntype #tharn x type #type x tharn #mew suppasit #gulf kanawut #mewgulf #bigotry in asian media #discrimination in asian media #discrimination in BLs #allyship

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zero-to-zero-to-zero-again · 1 year ago

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Pocket-Sized Sidekick (3)

Part One Part Two

Word Count: 1,829

TW's: Fear, Accidental Fearplay, Violence, Injury, Implications Of Past Abuse, Threats Of Violence, Mentions of Cults, Medical Stuff, Panic

Characters: C!Ranboo, C!Technoblade, C!Dream, C!Philza, C!Wilbur

Summary: Ranboo's officially been de-masked in front of a group of villains. At least that means things can't get any worse...right?

Ranboo drew in a hissing breath between his teeth.

"Would you please sit still? I'm not used to doing stitches on people this small."

That was one of the first things Ranboo learned about Wilbur. He never held anything back. Frankly, it was becoming a challenge for Ranboo to hold back everything he wanted to say in retaliation. He'd been laying there getting stabbed by a needle nearly as tall as him for at least half an hour. Even with the attempt at numbing the area, it felt like an eternity.

"You did stitches on a cat once," the Blood God pointed out. He'd been idly clicking through something on the laptop sitting on the kitchen counter. Ranboo was surprised he'd been paying attention at all given how engrossed he'd seemed it whatever he was reading on that screen.

"You are aware that cats are larger than six inches tall, right?" Wilbur snapped.

"Small is small."

The brunette let out a frustrated huff.

"Phil told you not to bother me."

"He did but he was givin' me those 'don't let Wilbur out of your sight' eyes."

"He was not."

"You just don't notice because he's always got that look."

"Done!" Wilbur announced with a final snip. Ranboo could only assume that meant that was the last bit of thread being cut. Should he be thanking this guy for what he'd done? Sure, he'd tended to his injuries but he was still a villain. Thanking a villain was probably listed on the unspoken rules of being a hero right between being kidnapped by a villain and showing your face to a villain.

He slowly pushed himself to sit upright. His bruises still stung like crazy but at least the majority of his fractures had been dealt with and cuts bandaged. Wilbur never really shared his assessment of Ranboo's injuries but from the repetitive "Yeesh" 's from the villain, he could only imagine there was a lot of work to be done.

Wilbur scooped his jacket up off the back of the couch.

"Where are you going?" the Blood God demanded.

The brunette threw a guitar case over his shoulder.

"Out," he announced vaguely.

"Aren't you supposed to be looking after the kid?"

Wilbur rummaged through the cubbies next to the door until he uncovered a pair of keys from the clutter.

"Phil told me to clean him up. He's about as good as he's going to get so I'm out of here." Wilbur paused on the way out to shoot the Blood God a look over his shoulder. A coy smile tugged on his lips. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine until Phil comes back. You're great with kids."

Wilbur managed to yank the door shut behind him just as a dagger lodged itself in the wood where his head was only seconds ago. The brunette's laughter retreated into the night, making way for a tense silence to fall over the house. Ranboo's teeth ground together.

He dared to sneak a peek at the villain sitting only a single room over. It was odd. Ranboo knew that Corvus was a supervillain but he walked around out of costume in his own house. That made sense. Wilbur was a villain by association at the very least but if he worked in the field, he probably had a costume too. Not once had he donned in it while Ranboo was there.

The Blood God, on the other hand, had yet to change out of that signature uniform of his. The cape, the skull, the gaudy boots. The whole package was admittedly a bit too extra to be typical loungewear. If it was all for the sake of ensuring Ranboo was kept on edge then, damn, it was working.

The boar's skull snapped in Ranboo's direction. The abrupt motion caused an instinctual reaction in the sidekick, sending him scrambling to focus on literally anything else in the room. The villain sighed.

"So why's Hero Corps exploiting child labor? Indoctrinating adults into their little cape cult get too pricey?" he asked.

Nothing about that question was accurate but it wasn't like Ranboo was in any position to correct him. He wasn't sure he was in a position to say anything, honestly. So he didn't.

"What, did that one hypno-hero hit you with a tongue tying spell or somethin'? What's he like? Fun at parties?"

The beats of silence passed at an agonizingly slow pace for both parties trapped within the tense atmosphere. The Blood God groaned.

"Come on, kid, give me somethin' here," he practically begged.

Ranboo shifted uncomfortably. There was nothing he could say that he wouldn't be reprimanded for when he got back to HQ. If he got back to HQ. As scary a prospect as that was, the fact that he was more likely to never get home was even scarier.

"W-why the skull mask?" Ranboo tried. Maybe if he couldn't answer questions, asking them would help pass the time a bit quicker for the both of them.

"What, this?" The Blood God asked, drumming his fingernails against hollow bone. Ranboo nodded meekly. The villain's insouciant demeanor went dismal all at once. "It's not a mask. It's just my face."

The sidekick's blood ran ice cold. He couldn't even hide his mortified expression when he turned back to the man in the kitchen. What? How was that even possible? Sure, people got bizarre mutations when super powers started popping up but this had to be one of the strangest ones that Ranboo had ever seen. Not even the attributes of a bore, just its skull where your head should have been? It made his stomach churn thinking about how that worked.

The Blood God snorted.

"I'm messing with you," he chuckled.

He was...oh. The sidekick's shoulders sagged. As indignant as Ranboo was to be toyed with, he had to admit that it was a relief knowing it was all a farce. He hadn't even realized his jaw had dropped open until he shut it with a click. He couldn't help but laugh, though his was more incredulous than a product of the Blood God's sense of humor-if you could even call it that.

"Just thought it was a cool gimmick, I guess. Didn't wanna look like every other loser in a mask and a cape. What about you? They force you to wear that fashion faux-pax of a suit or are you just really into gray?"

"It's a uniform," Ranboo said. He couldn't think of a single sinister thing that the guy could do with that sort of information beyond mocking him a little further.

"Of course it is. Is that where you get your shrinking power from, too?"

Ranboo stiffened. Momentary distraction over. The villain really was just trying to pry info out of him. Of course he was. That was literally his job. He wasn't really as mad at the guy for nearly getting him to give up some top secret Hero Corps info as much as he was at himself for almost doing it.

The way the color drained from Ranboo's face must have given away the answer to that intrusive question all the same.

"Don't mean to sound like a jackass but you don't really handle yourself like a hero who's used to being small. I mean, I did see you get punted across an alleyway so..."

Ranboo fought to keep his expression flat. Maybe that was the reason all those heroes wore masks; to hide just how scared the poor bastards behind them were. Ranboo wished more than anything that his helmet wasn't cracked to pieces so he could shove it back on and leave it there.

"If it's broken, we can try to fix it," the Blood God pointed out.

"No! You can't touch it!" Ranboo blurted, grabbing the suit from beside him and holding it in a white-knuckled grip. The last thing he needed was to hand over some of Hero Corps' most advanced tech to their most dangerous competition.

It took far too long for Ranboo to actually realize what he'd done. When it dawned on him, it hit him like a brick to the teeth. His heart stuttered in his chest. Maybe yelling at his villainous captor wasn't really the smartest idea. He knew what happened when he raised his voice. One of the first lessons he'd learned under Dream's guidance. And that was when he was a fairly normal height.

Standing only a few inches tall in front of someone with far worse intentions than his mentor's, he didn't stand a chance of making it out alive.

"Geez, alright. I was just offerin'," the villain muttered. "Figured this whole thing might be a little easier if you weren't six inches tall."

Sure, like Ranboo was going to believe that this guy had nothing but good intentions towards the hero's sidekick he had in his possession. Then again, he wasn't wrong about his height putting him at a stark disadvantage. At six inches tall, the Blood God could probably just pry the suit out of his hands. As a matter of fact, Ranboo couldn't wrap his head around why he had yet to try.

"Hey, are you-"

Vvv Vvv

Saved by the buzz. Whatever question the Blood God was about to ask was swiftly interrupted by the vibration against the counter. He grabbed his phone. He went tense when he saw the screen. Without a word, he rose to his feet and slid the window behind him open.

He double checked the laces on his boots and the sword sheathed on his hip. Ranboo flinched at the squawk from just beyond the house. Wings beat at the air, a crow dipping in straight through the open window to land on the counter.

"Lead the way," the Blood God instructed.

The black bird tilted its head, turning over its shoulder to stare straight at Ranboo. A chill crawled up his spine at the extra attention.

"Oh, right. You-uh-you stay here," the villain commanded with all the conviction of a man who'd never held a leadership position. "I gotta go help Phil but I'll be back real soon."

Ranboo could only nod in reply. The villain dawdled. He stared at Ranboo a while longer, the sidekick doing his best not to meet the supervillain's sweeping gaze.

"'kay. Let's go," he tried again. The bird let out an ear-shattering squawk before claiming its perch atop the Blood God's shoulder. He slid out the door, ensuring that he clicked the lock into place on his way out.

The hero-in-training swallowed thickly. The silence was even more deafening than before. This certainly wasn't on his bucket list. He was all alone in a supervillain's hideout.

His eyes darted about the vacant space, snagging on the window over the sink. Wait. He was all alone in a supervillain's hideout. The curtains waved in the breeze, beckoning him forward. He'd be a fool not to answer that call.

College is kicking my butt so upload schedule is insanely chaotic but thank you to everyone who waited for this next part! :)

#mcyt g/t #g/t #g/t writing #giant/tiny #mcyt #unintentional fearplay #g/t angst #angst with a happy ending #accidental fearplay #giant!techno #giant!wilbur #tiny!ranboo #superhero au

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