#vee's microfic

[lightvialamp]

january 26 - delivery || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 241

James was late. 

Regulus knew that James was late because it was 2:53, twenty-three minutes past when James usually showed up at the bookstore’s backdoor, red in the face from wheeling a dolly loaded with boxes of new releases and smiling cheerfully. Regulus often wondered if that smile was reserved specifically for him, and then immediately wanted to punch himself in the face for the pathetic wishful thinking. 

Regulus scowled at the book open in front of him from his stool behind the cash register when the bell over the front door chimed, ushering a customer in from the rain. 

“Delivery?” Regulus looked up in surprise at the voice as a takeaway coffee cup was placed gently on the counter in front of him, the sight of James—damp from head to toe with a slight blush peeking out of the collar of his FedEx rain jacket—enough to spin him back into the realm of maybe-not-so-pathetic wishes.  

“Sorry for the delay,” James added, standing there bashfully, his own coffee cup in hand and head tilted to the side a bit. “The boxes are still around back, but I thought you might enjoy something extra today.”

It wasn’t until an hour later that, in going to throw it away, Regulus noticed a phone number scrawled across the side of the empty cup. He walked home that night with a smile on his face and a new text conversation open on his phone.

[vergess]

Will/Lyra

No prompt just them

She doesn't actually remember what he smelled like. The flavour of berries pressed against his skin is mute and muddied in her memories. They were sweet, weren't they, like raspberries? Or acid bright, more like strawberries? Maybe a hint of bitterness?

Were they even red?

Pan rests draped across her shoulders, silent with his own blurred and bleary recollections. She isn't even sure if the ticklish whiskers she remembers behind her calves were his or Kirjava's.

There had been a time when she was so desperately, quietly certain that she could never forget those last, precious moments. And she does remember them, but so many of the edges are worn soft with time. She remembers laughing, pressing fruit into each others faces in a parody of childhood, onto eat other's bodies in a parody of adulthood, too. She remembers how little she cared about being clumsy, knowing that he wouldn't mind any more than she minded the way his good hand still managed to get trapped in the tangles of her hair.

But she doesn't remember what he sounded like, even as she recalls the words.

They've replaced her bench. Their bench. The old one had splintered under the relentless Oxford rains years ago.

The bench she and Will swore to share for always. Too young and stupid to understand that wood rots and irons rusts. Old enough to understand that it wasn't the bench that matters, but the ritual it represented.

She isn't crying.

But there are tears falling down her cheeks all the same.

[[It's real enrichment hours in the Vees Enclosure. Send a ship, get a microfic.]]

[lightvialamp]

january 12 - stretch || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 787 || pt 2, pt 3

James felt sunlight dance over his face and hands as he pushed his glasses, charmed to become sunglasses according to the level of light in the room (hours of work, but he was proud of the finished product), up into his hair. He sighed. He could feel eyes on him again, which was fine, he didn’t mind being watched really, but it was Regulus—he knew without even opening his eyes—and this had happened every day since it had gotten warm enough to leave the castle and hang out by the lake. 

James had half a mind to open his eyes and catch him in the act, but he knew Regulus would immediately retreat, and he didn’t feel like waiting until tomorrow to try and actually speak with him. He stretched leisurely, for show, before packing up his things and heading in the direction of the castle, pulling out the map surreptitiously on his way. Regulus was where James knew he would be, right on the edge of the forest and tucked behind a dip in the lake that most people walked right past. 

He looked around before he doubled back, grinning to himself at the prospect of sneaking up on Regulus, maybe watching him go red at being caught. Nothing serious, but he had a free hour, and a flustered Regulus was always fun to talk to. 

He walked around the back of the clearing and leaned against a tree, watching Regulus read one of the countless books that he always kept miniaturized in his pocket. He huffed a laugh to himself– Regulus wasn’t the only one who watched. 

James shifted his weight from one foot to the other, preparing to walk further into the clearing, but before he could, Regulus looked up, caught James’ eye, and froze completely. James would have laughed if he didn’t know how painfully shy Regulus was, and how much anxiety a single interaction could give him. Sirius felt the same way sometimes, though he hid it behind boisterous energy and charm that had been bred into him since he could talk. Regulus hadn’t been given the same attention. 

“Hi.” James decided to get the ball rolling the best way he knew how– going with the flow. 

Regulus didn’t say anything, choosing instead to flick his eyes from James’, down to his lap and then back up again, lip curling up derisively but a hint of nervousness still evident in his demeanor. 

“Whatcha doing over here?” James tried. 

“Reading, Potter. New fad, doubt you’ve heard of it. Please go away now,” Regulus replied all in one breath. 

“Okay yeah cool, not a problem,” James said, grinning. “I was just. You know. Curious if you wanted anything from me.”

Regulus flushed immediately, his pale skin not doing anything to hide his reaction. “I don’t want anything to do with you, actually. Thanks for asking.”

“So you’re just staring for fun?”

“What are you talking about?” James didn’t realize it was possible for Regulus to turn any redder, but his blush deepened, spreading across his neck and down under his collar at James’ question. 

“Oh it’s just. I see you, you know. You’re not exactly covered by anything. And generally, staring is considered rude. I don’t mind, being the benevolent soul that I am, but you might want to–” James tapped his head twice at this last bit. “--keep that in mind. For future…staring purposes.”

“Merlin,” Regulus huffed, seemingly over his bout of embarrassment at being caught out. “Thank you for the tip, oh Benevolent Master, but I won’t be needing it.”

“Oh?” 

“No.” Regulus cocked his head to the side, giving James a full once-over before speaking, his voice now soft, verging on sultry. “What makes you think I didn’t want you to notice?”

James’ mouth went dry, and instinctively, he took a step closer to Regulus, drawn in by some force— the same one that had derailed this conversation so entirely from what he’d been expecting. Regulus laughed once, a bright, sharp thing, as he gathered his things, stood up, and made for the castle. He turned around right before the edge of the clearing, backlit and a little bit breathtaking. How James had never noticed this before, he wasn’t sure. 

“See you tomorrow, Potter. Same time, I assume,” Regulus tossed at him before turning back around. He was halfway up the hill by the time James had gathered the wherewithal to say anything at all. 

“I guess so, Regulus,” he muttered under his breath, feeling like he had just lost a game he hadn’t even known he was playing. He started his own trek across the grass as he thought. Regulus had his attention now. And James loved a good game.

[lightvialamp]

january 8 - converse || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 579 || cw: mild panic attack

The morning after his mother told him that he would never be close to anyone because he didn’t know how to converse properly, Regulus called James. Heart in his throat, and maybe on the verge of passing out– he wasn’t quite sure, he listened as the dial tone gave way to the click of a phone being answered on the other end of the line. 

“Hello?” James sounded as though he had just woken up, and Regulus could picture him, sleep-mussed hair and sunlight dripping into the collarbones that he knew like the back of his hand. 

“Regulus?” Concern etched into James’ voice as Regulus tried to muster up the courage to say… anything at all. Panic laced through him as he realized that in trying to prove his mother wrong, maybe he was doing the opposite. 

“Hey. Breathe. In and out, c’mon, Reg, it’s just me,” James soothed as a shuffling noise from the other end of the phone indicated he was now sitting up.

Regulus breathed. Settled.  

“Okay. Uhm. Goodmorning. Okay, so. I know we’re going back to school in a few days, and I’ll see you there, obviously, but my mom said something about… uhm. Okay. No, hold on, let me start over,” Regulus rambled, trying—and failing—to remember what he had rehearsed in his head before deciding to just throw caution to the wind. “Right. Okay. I love you. And. You don’t have to say it back, and I know we’ve only been dating for eight months, but I do, I love you, and it’s really actually quite terrifying, and I’m not sur—” 

“I know.” James’ voice came through the receiver, just loud enough to interrupt Regulus’ mess of a confession. “I know you do, and I’m not sure what your mom said to you, but you don’t need to convince me of anything. I love you too, obviously.”

Maybe Regulus actually was going to pass out. “You do?”

“Yeah, Reg, I do,” a smile obvious in his voice. 

“Right. Yeah, okay.” Regulus felt a choked sob make its way up his throat, and he fought to push it down. Even so, his voice came out as a croak when he said, “I was going to tell you in person. I had a whole plan and everything, but. I don’t know.”

“We can do that too, if you want,” James offered. “I’ll pretend to be surprised and. The whole thing. You know. I would like that. If you would.”

Regulus couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face at that, already thinking of the checklist he had in one of his notebooks and the seventh year Ravenclaw he might have to blackmail in order to get use of the quidditch pitch during his and James’ only coinciding free period. 

“Yeah, we can do that.” Regulus took a breath. “Thank you. For. Everything. Being you. Etcetera.”

A huffed laugh from James and a quick, “Nobody says ‘etcetera’ out loud, Reg.” A pause and then a more serious, “No need to thank me. I’m so happy to be here. And you do the same for me.”

Ten minutes later, Regulus’ phone on speaker beside his head as he stared out the window, James’ voice was washing over him, something about a prank and Sirius and the blackboards in all the classrooms.

He breathed in. His mother didn’t know him. Not like his friends. Not like James. He breathed out as the new day’s sunlight washed over him.

[lightvialamp]

january 14 - massage || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 570 || pt 3 of mastermind reg: pt 1, pt 2

“Potter.”

James jumped in surprise at the familiar voice, even though he had been looking at the map as Regulus’ name had gotten closer and closer to his in the hallway leading to the astronomy tower. It was evening, but James knew that Regulus had prefect rounds here, being as the head boy set the rounds, and a certain James Potter happened to be head boy. It all worked out, really. This did not stop him from turning around to face Regulus, mouth o-shaped and slightly startled. 

Regulus rolled his eyes. “Shut your mouth. You look like a fish.”

James’ mouth snapped shut, almost of its own accord. 

“I’m assuming that you’re here for a reason? To speak with me? Seeing as you’re holding a map of the– wait.” James snatched the map away from view as Regulus’ expression shifted from practiced boredom to one of curiosity. 

“Was it moving? Can you see people on that map? Potter. What did you do to it?” Regulus’ questions came rapid fire, and James realized he had yet to say one word in this conversation. 

In a rush, he blurted out, “I was late for my massage,” making Regulus visibly pause his thought process in order to refocus on the situation at hand.

“Sorry. What?”

“Fuck,” muttered under his breath, realizing there was no way out of this one. “Yeah. My massage. Every two weeks in…” James pointed upstairs, nodding to himself as he spoke, “the astronomy tower.”

“Right. At 9:45 in the evening.”

James nodded resolutely, seeing no way out but through. “Yes.”

Regulus sighed. “James. You realize that sounds like a sex thing, right?”

James cringed. It had been a week since the lake incident, as he fondly called it in his head, and though their staring contest continued on, James was tired of it. Really, when he had challenged himself to this game in his head, he had overestimated the patience he would have for a competition that involved… not doing anything at all. Now, all he wanted to do was talk. “I don’t have a massage.”

“Yeah, no shit. What do you want?” Regulus was back to the practiced boredom, though James could tell there was some sort of interest in his eyes, whether in the map or in this conversation, he wasn’t sure. 

James breathed in through his nose before exhaling his next sentence, having to repeat it twice before Regulus understood what he was saying. “Willyougooutwithme?”

They stood in silence for a moment, sharing space in the hallway. Regulus was looking at him with his head tilted, and James was aware that if he were any less arrogant than he already was (and if he wasn’t sure that Regulus would say yes, no matter how nervous he was to actually ask the question), he’d probably be shitting his pants right now awaiting a response. 

“Well. I guess I win, don’t I?”

“I suppose you do.”

“You made that too easy.”

“I got impatient.”

“Cop out.”

“Is that a yes, though?”

When no answer came, “...Regulus?”

“Yes. I’m finishing my rounds, Potter. Goodnight.”

Regulus left James standing there as he swept down the hall, fingers twisting into his robes at his sides. James watched him turn a corner before he set off in the opposite direction, back to his dorm, a smile on his face and a fist pump or two hanging in the air behind him.

[lightvialamp]

january 24 - dinner || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 557 || cw blood? but more the idea of it

Cooking dinner, and this was the part at which Regulus had always been horrible, the small talk, the place settings, the flickering of a candle in his peripheral vision. A misplaced relationship with his brother because their childhood house had been one of shadows with teeth, and he always had to be on the lookout. He heard a whisper, a rustle of clothing, from down the hallway and looked up to see Sirius halfway out the window, begging Regulus to come with him, to run away, we’ll die in this house, Reg, please. 

Regulus sighed, hands on the counter to ground himself to the here and now, Sirius laughing in the other room. He was trying. They were trying. He picked up the drink refills he had been sent into the kitchen to grab and made his way to the dining room, dripping the gooiest parts of himself across his brother’s floor as he did so. Eyes met him at the door, gray on gray, a few more smile lines than his own.

Sirius began to lift a hand to his chest but aborted the movement halfway through. Regulus felt it anyway, a claw mark in his sternum and it was ripping him open inch by inch, a scene from a horror movie, and maybe he was going to be sick because he could feel the wetness through his shirt and if he looked down, surely it would be blood. 

“Reg?” Two hands gripped his shoulders, and when he tore his eyes away from Sirius, he was looking at James, his brother’s incredibly stupid best friend. This dinner thing had been for them actually, because Sirius couldn’t be separated from James, soulmates of a peculiar sort, and he had informed Regulus that they had to meet. 

A ringing noise then, because Regulus felt like he had met James before, when Sirius was spitting at him in the middle of a grass field, or that’s what it felt like since everything else had fallen away the moment he had heard something something something more of a brother than you’ll ever be. James had been there then, in Sirius’ shadow, sans teeth, and in the smile lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there when he’d left.

Sound came back to him, all of a sudden, as did sensation, and he looked down at the water he had spilled across his shirt and his hands and the floor, heat rising in his cheeks, shards of glass at his feet. Sirius stared at him, shocked, unmoving, per usual. James’ hands were gentle on his shoulders as he moved Regulus backwards, out of the way, sitting him down in a chair and grabbing a napkin from his place setting. 

There was silence as James moved around Sirius’ house like it was his own, dust pan for the glass, paper towels for the water, new cups, new napkins, new shirt for Regulus. One of Sirius’ from several years ago, and he remembered this one, which was the only reason he pulled himself out of the chair he’d been guided to and into the bathroom to change. 

Forehead to the mirror and a deep, uncontrollable sense of why am I here and so close to calling Barty to come pick him up and James fucking Potter knocking softly at the door. 

“Dinner’s ready.”

[lightvialamp]

january 11 - fever || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 305 || cw: smoking

The night stretched out sticky and calm before them as they lay with their backs on the cracked concrete of the sidewalk and legs stretched out into the street. Fireflies were few and far between, the air instead decorated with smoke as they passed a joint back and forth every so often. 

“Do you remember last summer?” James asked from Regulus’ left, the last of the day’s light fading out behind his head and turning everything an interesting shade of blue. 

Regulus huffed a laugh. “Like. At all? Yeah, I do.”

When no response came, he added a muttered, “Thank you for your confidence in my memory though. I’m not that high,” under his breath. He looked over at James who was already looking back at him, pulled up on his elbows with a tilt to his head. 

Regulus sighed, reorienting himself for the conversation they were about to have. An image of his old house bathed in flickering headlights flashed through his mind, and then smoke so thick he couldn’t see through it, and after that…well. A T-shirt thrown from the top of a parking garage, a “Fuck Balenciaga” shouting contest, alligator tears as the summer reached a fever pitch, Heartattack and Vine playing in the background the whole time. James there, in the foreground, for the entirety. 

Regulus was pulled back into the present when a hand landed on his cheek, nimble fingers tucking an errant curl behind his ear, graceful in the haze of his high. He breathed in through his nose. “It was horrible.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” James responded. “It was also wonderful.”

Regulus shook his head as he reached for the hand that was now rubbing small circles into the skin right beneath his jaw. “We were wonderful.”

He leaned up into James’ space, joint forgotten between them on the sidewalk.

[lightvialamp]

january 10 - lake || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 456

“We’re not going.”

“Why not, Reg? We’ve had this planned for ages, and I’m fine! I promise.”

Regulus took a deep breath in to avoid snapping in frustration. “James. Fucking Potter. You are currently running a 104 degree fever and can barely stand up straight. Turn the damn shower off, get back in bed, and stay there. For fuck’s sake.”

“C’mon, love, please? I know you were excited—”

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t get into a lake like this. You know that.” Regulus shook his head. He was excited about this trip; they’d started planning it several months ago after a series of interrupted dates and late nights at work. He also knew, though, that James had no self control when it came to lakes, or any body of water, really, and Regulus would have a hell of a time trying to get him to stay on dry land when he was sick if all he wanted to do was swim. 

He looked at James, now in bed reclining against a couple of pillows with a sad look on his face. Regulus felt his heart do a funny little flip at the sight of him, nose running and fever induced sweat collecting at his temples. “James. I love you. I will make you soup in a minute. Neither of us have to work this week, and we’re behind on our movie list anyway. We can go to the lake another time, it’s okay.”

James sniffed noisily and burrowed deeper under the covers, leaving only the top of his head visible. “Okay.”

Regulus nodded, satisfied. “I’m going to cancel our reservation. What kind of soup do you want? I’ll grab extra blankets while I’m out there too.”

James reached a hand out from his cocoon and held it straight up in the air above him, palm turned inwards and fingers wiggling, beckoning Regulus to him. 

“I’ll be right back, love, I promise.”

James’ hand turned more insistent. 

Regulus sighed and made his way over to the side of the bed, grasping the hand waving in his face. James’ face peeked out from under the quilt. “Will you just. Stay with me? Please?” he whispered. Regulus softened. It wasn’t often that James asked him explicitly for something. 

“Yeah,” he answered just as softly. “I’ll stay.” 

He climbed in bed and reached for the TV remote, turning on The Proposal, which they had fallen asleep to the night before, with the volume down low. James turned over on his side and pressed a whispered, “I’m sorry, Reg,” between Regulus’ shoulder and chest. 

Regulus repositioned his arm around James, squeezing a silent reassurance into his opposite shoulder. The reservation could wait. This was alright. “Not a problem at all, James.”

[lightvialamp]

january 13 - wet || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 729 || pt 2. of yesterday's microfic, pt. 3

Regulus sighed. It had been three days since James had come up to him by the lake, and really, he had no idea what had come over him. He felt like he did during class presentations, where he went up to the front of the room with his notecards and then sat down ten minutes later with no recollection of what he had said and a vague uneasiness churning in his gut.

Well. It was out there now, and obviously James knew something. That something being predicated on the fact that Regulus had pretty much told him that he had a voyeurism kink—both watching and being watched, apparently—although this wasn’t something that he himself had explored. Or, really even known. 

Regardless, James was staring again. It was constant now, a cursory glance around the great hall or in the corridor between Charms and Transfiguration a surefire way to catch hazel eyes already upon him. He didn’t know what to do about it. If he should do anything about it. 

He sighed again when he glanced across the room at the Gryffindor table and found James clearly trying to pretend that he hadn’t just been staring holes into the side of Regulus’ head by putting a large bite of some sort of pie (that had obviously not yet cooled) in his mouth. Immediately, his eyes went large and round, mouth open and breaths coming quickly in the universal hmpha hmpha hmpha noise one makes when food is too hot. He choked it down, and, water glass in hand, proceeded to make a giant, wet mess of himself, the table in front of him, and the two unfortunate souls sitting to his left and right (Regulus noted with glee that one of them was Sirius). 

Regulus watched as they pushed each other around trying to get out of the worst of the spill, smiles bright amid the chaos. 

“What the hell are you looking at and why is it making you smile to yourself like a lovesick idiot?” came Barty’s voice from his right, accompanied by an elbow to the ribs. Barty followed his gaze and laughed derisively, sitting back in his chair. “You know you’re just as bad as he is, right?”

“Fuck off, Barty.”

“No, I’m serious. You’re over here making a fool of yourself as you watch him make a fool of himself, and I have to say. It’s hilarious.”

Regulus added a kick to Barty’s shin under the table for that. “Fuck off, Barty. Merlin.”

They sat there in silence for a moment before Regulus reared to the side, finger in Barty’s face—the traitor was already laughing at him again— to say, “And I am NOT as bad as he is.”

“Okay,” snorted under his breath was the only response Regulus got until a swift flick to the ball of his cheek had him bringing a hand to his face along with a muttered “Merlin, Regulus, calm the fuck down. All I mean is that you’re playing cat and mouse with the guy and it’s still unclear who’s who. And like. You can be whoever you want in this situation, but I’m guessing you’d rather be the cat.”

“Okay…?”

“Okay. So work your shit out and go fucking get him?” Barty sighed. “Why am I doing all the work around here?”

“Well your metaphors are a little convoluted for someone who hasn’t turned in a single piece of coursework this term,” Regulus retorted, feeling a little bit like a light bulb had gone off over his head at the same time as he had been slapped in the face. Though, he shouldn’t be surprised since that’s what most of his conversations with Barty felt like. 

Barty just raised his eyebrows. Regulus sighed, and looked over at the Gryffindor table again. James’ eyes danced away quickly, as he knew they would, but there was an edge there that he hadn’t seen before. 

“Fuck.”

“Mhm? See something new?” Barty already sounded smug, though Regulus was no longer paying attention to him and was, instead, cataloging all of his interactions with James from the past three days.  

“Fuck.”

James was playing a game. Or, at least continuing the game that Regulus had started—and thought he’d ended—in the clearing by the lake. And now that Regulus knew that they were playing a game, well, he wasn’t about to lose, was he?

[lightvialamp]

january 16 - bone || @jegulus-microfic || wc: 462 || cw: pain? violence of the poetic sort?

There’s a dream, and there’s water, and there’s bone, and it’s cracking, and nobody knows what to do, obviously, because none of them are doctors, and none of this happens in real life, and Regulus feels like he’s drowning because he literally, quite literally, is. A lonely thing.  

To lose everything three different times– a brother leaving, a hazel-eyed boy with his back turned, a lake filled with something, and here he is again, not quite sure how to handle his past or his present– an ever spinning collusion of time against him, specifically. He forgot about this, and oh how horrible it is. 

Pain, like he’s never known before. A physical thing, because it always is, but more so, and it’s reliving every. Single. Mistake. He’s ever made. A lifetime of lies, condensed to screaming matches, but he’s screaming at himself, with himself, a cacophony of screams and they’re all coming from his body, and it hurts. 

He’s thinking of a half eaten apple left on his desk, the corner of a never-answered letter from his brother, a spare pair of glasses that don’t match his own prescription and oh. The apple is gone, in his mind’s eye– a core left in its place, rotting, and Regulus remembers that he doesn’t like apples. He didn’t eat it, he couldn’t have. A glance, a thought, red skin sharp on an upper lip, and ah. Yes. Rotten apple cores falling from his desk to the floor, piling up and knees pulled up to his chest in order to avoid touching them because he doesn’t know what happens then, and he has never liked thinking about the future.

Who is he if he’s not looking at a yearbook picture a year in advance? Arms moving out of sync with his legs and something that tastes suspiciously like a shot of cherry liqueur, the fancy kind that James got him in Portugal when he went for a school trip, and how long ago was that? A certainty that something happened, yes, but something is happening now. Again. He’s done this before, hasn’t he?

Again, again, again, again. Again.    A    g  a      i         n. 

He’s losing track, and he knows it, a new apple core sitting in the palm of his hand, and when did he pick it up? No doctors around, no one at all, at any point. Remembering something about not touching because he can feel it— the rot. It spills out, and up, and around, and there’s something in his arms, bone deep, crawling and crawling and excruciating, and how will he get out when the tears on his face—he can feel them now—are pulled into it, a writhing mass of rot and water and bone and a shadow of a life and Regulus. 

He takes a deep breath in. Silence falls.

[vergess]

ships,,,,, uhhhhh homestuck, something involving Terezi and the ashen quadrant maybe? Maybe Rose in there somewhere?

If you want something with more substance, perhaps *throws dart at board* John/Eridan and the prompt 'silly gift'?

"Absolutely not." Rose says. She stinks of outrage, and not fun sexy outrage either. John smells rightfully ashamed, and Eridan. Well, Terezi doesn't even need to take a breath to know he reeks of the same ego as ever.

"Ah, c'mon Lalond, you--"

"There are seven letters in Lalonde and you know it," Rose spits back, and Terezi has to grin at that. Lalonde isn't any of her quads, but it's good to know Vriska's kismesis has been paying enough attention to pick up on Eridan's gag-worthy attempts to 'just' get her to mediate and definitely not anything darker in pitch being absolute bullshit.

"Give it a rest, Ampora," she hollers in. Not out of some ill-fated desire to meddle or anything. Obviously. The lighty broad squad has plenty of meddling without her, and she's got her hands full keeping Vriska from doing anything too self destructive.

John makes a toothy little noise, air slipping past his flat, flat incisors. It's all the heads up she needs. Humans are so noisy, and thank fuck, because Ampora's getting all those fucked up fast-twitch muscles now that he's past his final pupation and he's almost silent when he wants to be.

Her cane slams into the delicate muscles between his ribs, knocking the smug wind right out of him. "I said can it, fishstick. You don't wanna start a fight you can't win, do you?"

[[It's real enrichment hours in the Vees Enclosure. Send a ship, get a microfic.]]