#wade voice OKAY THERE IS A LOT TO ADDRESS HERE

[roughentumble]

OH but Rogue goes to get that mani-pedi with Wade and she fills him in on the drama, admits that she was pining over their universe's original Logan, Jean found out and got all weirdly possessive over Logan even though Rogue never intended to even think about making a move, and even now that their Logan is gone Jean kinda lords it over her. Then she's swearing Wade to secrecy with a sacred ritual of the time honored pinky promise

and wade's promising he'll never ever ever breathe a word of this to anyone and would NEVER EVER break a pinky promise. but he's also vibrating with the need to tell her that while he and logan are definitely for sure getting married someday, they are also in a fully open relationship

[101flavoursofweird]

idk if that prompt post is 4 requests so disregard if so buuuut how bout a 12 for layton? i'll let u pick characters, u know what i like hehe 😎

Thank you for the prompt! I went with a Wren and Socket fic, with some details inspired by your long fic, because I love how the Ravens are portrayed in your fic.

Spoilers: For PL4, relating to the Black Raven

Set: Before the events of PL4

Warnings: Reference to a restraining order for Wren and Socket’s dad?

Summary: There’s a blackout. Wren and Socket deal with it

Wren was perched on the edge of her bed, pouring through some business plans Crow had given her, when the lightbulb above her suddenly flicked out. 

Everything went dark. Wren sighed. There was a yelp from the kitchen just opposite their bedroom:

“Wren?”

“In our room, Socket!”

She heard the door creak open and Socket wading through the sea of clutter that was their bedroom floor. 

“Ow!” Socket whined as he tripped over something. (Wren had told him to clean up in here!) “Wren, where are you?”

“On the moon?” Wren quipped, still sitting on her bed.

“Oh! There you are.” 

“Where else would I be?” Wren stood up— slowly so the wooden slats in her bed wouldn’t break even more. 

“I dunno….” She imagined Socket was shrugging. Then she heard a smirk in his voice. “Sitting in a tree with Crow—?”

“Shut your trap!” Wren snapped. Her gaze whipped to their tiny window— as if the rest of the Ravens might all be listening— but it was too dark out there to tell. 

In general, the market was a dingy place, with how tightly all the buildings were packed together, but there were still some streetlights. They were a necessity in Misthallery— especially from autumn onwards! 

…But would anyone bother repairing the streetlights while the spectre was rampaging around? Wren definitely wouldn’t want that job!

“The streetlights are all out,” Wren said. She scowled at Socket. “Did you short circuit something again?”

“I didn’t do nuttin’— not this time!” 

(Last time, he had overloaded the kitchen sockets with too many appliances…)

“Okay, I believe you…” Wren huffed. She rubbed her arms as the cold started to creep in. Of course, the heating must have gone off too…

“Let’s go check the fuse box,” Wren said, picking her way across the room.

“We can use my torch!”

A small, bright light shone in Wren’s face. Wren shielded her eyes. “Socket— have you had that this whole time?”

“Yeah!” Socket beamed. “Why?”

Rolling her eyes, Wren gestured for him to follow her.

Their fuse box was located right next to the front door. 

After checking the door was safely locked, Wren tried flicking some of the switches in the fuse box. Socket held the torch up for her to see.

They waited for a few minutes, shivering in the dark, but it didn’t make any difference.

Teeth chattering, Socket wondered, “What now?”

“I don’t know…” Wren turned to the door. Would any of their friends be out at this time? Crow might still be at the black market… but did Wren really want to walk over there right now? With Socket? 

What if they crossed paths with the spectre?

Socket moved the torchlight to the door. “Look…” 

At the base of the door, there was an unopened white letter— a bill, most likely. 

“Did we forget the pay something?” Socket gasped.

The envelope was ‘private and confidential’, addressed to their mum, but Wren gently tore it open. She squinted at the letter and shook her head.

“Nope… Nuttin’ to worry about!”

Nothing for Socket to worry about, anyway. He didn’t need to know that, once again, their mum had been denied a restraining order from their dad.

Some part of Wren wondered if their dad was to blame for the blackout— like a lot of problems in their lives— but she couldn’t pin this on him.

This was just one of the many joys of living in the ‘lower end’ of Misthallery. 

Wren puffed, expecting to see her breath turn white in the air. “I-is Mum back from work?”

“Maybe?” Socket mumbled.

The two of them crept into the living room, where they heard soft snoring from the sofa. Socket swung the torchlight towards the sofa, but before he could wake their mum, Wren swatted his arm and hissed, “Give me that for a sec…”

Stealing the torch and leaving Socket standing in the living room, Wren dashed off. She returned with the blue blanket from Mum’s bed and carefully tucked it around her sleeping from.

Wren kissed her mum’s wrinkled forehead. Wren froze as Mum shifted and yawned. “What time’s it…?”

“Sorry!” Wren gasped. “Didn’t mean to wake you— it’s fine if you want to go back to sleep—“

“There’s a blackout,” Socket blurted out. Wren pouted at him. So much for keeping quiet… 

Mum sat up on the sofa, the blanket still draped around the shoulders. 

She blearily looked around— from Wren, to Socket with the torch, to the rest of the dim room— before she sighed. “We’ll sort it out tomorrow…”

Smiling wearily at Wren and Socket, she opened the blanket on her shoulders like a pair of bat wings. 

Socket dove on to one side of her. Wren nestled in to her other side. Mum wrapped the blanket around all three of them.

Socket switched off the torch. Mum gave him a kiss and then she did the same for Wren, murmuring into her hair, “Thank you for looking after me.”

[amischiefofdeets]

DEADPOOL

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CHARACTER SUMMARY

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A wisecracking mercenary turned anti-hero, he tries to help people in his own way, even if that means leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. He's capable of breaking the 4th wall, commenting on things happening in the real world outside of the content he's in. He's capable of healing from pretty much anything, but unfortunately it means his cancer leaves him with tumours all over his body, making him a bit wary of letting anyone see him underneath the suit.

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WRITING NOTES

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My Wade is a mix of various sources with the movies as a baseline, sprinkle in some elements of the comics, some of my own headcanon nonsense. I utilise [little boxes] when writing him, based loosely on his comic iterations. [This one] is Wade's inner voice, while [This one] is the voice of the writer - Wade is aware of the writers voice and can respond to it both internally or verbally - in the latter case most characters tend to believe he's crazy unless they're versed in meta/4th wall breaking nonsense too. Unlike any of my other muses, I almost exclusively write Wade in present tense, IE. 'He grabs hold of the thing, it seems like it might be something important but he doesn't have time to think.' because that flows a lot better with his commentary about what's going on, just feels more natural and flows better. I am not bothered if rp partners use different tense, that doesn't matter to me at all, just do what's comfy. Wade is also prone to delusions, full blown daydream scenes of things that aren't really happening, and thus in certain situations he's likely to make absolutely NO SENSE. It's totally fine for characters to address this and react accordingly.

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MUSE DETAILS

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Name: Wade Wilson Nicknames/Alias: Deadpool, DP Race: Turned mutant, formerly Human. Age: Around 45 Height: 6'1 Gender: Male Sexuality: Pansexual Location: All over the place Occupation: Mercenary/Hero Abilities: Accelerated healing, nearly immortal, skilled with countless guns and swords, and talented at hand to hand contact. Reputation: Insane. Pretty much everyone assumes he's an unhinged wackjob who can occasionally do the right thing when he feels like it, some people know he has a heart but only those close to him. Mental state: Very unstable - he is capable of breaking the 4th wall, or at least the audience understands that, everyone else just thinks he's rambling nonsense to himself.

Scars: Whole body is covered in tumours/scarring. Tattoos: N/A Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Goals: Protect the people he cares about, maybe become a hero if he can (without giving in to their holier than thou practices), have fun. Hobbies: Collecting things, playing at arcades, drawing (in crayon) Likes: Golden girls, weapons, making references, unicorns, killing, Dislikes: Being bored, people seeing his face, following the rules Family: N/A

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VERSES

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#MIXING IT UP - MAIN VERSE - Set in (mostly) canon post Deadpool and Wolverine - with comic influences.

Okay, to avoid spoilers for the time being I'm just stating where my wade differs from film canon here. I'll edit this once the movie has been out a while but the basic changes are as follows: - Vanessa stayed dead after DP2, she's now playing the role that Mistress Death played in the comics, where the two of them are separated by mortality but consider themselves in an open relationship. He can only see her when he 'dies' for long enough. - He hates showing his face, he will actively freak out if his mask is taken off around people. At most he might bring it up just below his nose but that's as far as it's going. - He's spent his time doing the whole mercenary gig and avoiding any big responsibilities between DP2 and W&D.

#HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDE - Set during Deadpool 2 - Mostly canon.

Spending time taking out really bad guys, he ends up losing Vanessa - the love of his life - to a failed job that followed him home. Blaming himself, he tries to end his life, which only accomplishes allowing him to see her on the other side. He ends up teaming with the X-men, fails them and gets put in jail trying to protect a kid (by killing, but come ON they deserved it!) and ultimately comes face to face with Cable, a time traveller sent to stop the kid he was trying to protect. Blah blah blah, save the kid, didn't save his girl but saved Cable's family - so it balances out a little. At least he gets to see Vanessa whenever he's close to death.

#ORIGINS (NO-NOT THAT ONE) - Set during the first Deadpool movie - mostly canon

Just your typical romance story where a handsome mercenary meets a girl, they fall in love and live happily together.. Until he gets cancer. When offered a chance at survival if he becomes a human lab rat, he agrees, wanting to do by right by Vanessa even if it means vanishing in the middle of the night. Getting powers takes a lot of torture it turns out, so he's put through hell until he gets his regenerative abilities, which also fucks up his handsome face. He wants it to be fixed, chases down the guy who did it to him and failing to catch him means Vanessa gets taken. He kills the bad guy and gets the girl.

#PAID JOBS - Set pre-Deadpool movie

Just a mercenary making his money by fucking up bad guys, he doesn't need superpowers for that.

#DIE DIE DIE - Set post-'Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe' - Slightly divergent

After being sectioned by Xavier, Wade is accidentally left in the care of 'psycho man' who tries to manipulate Wade to use him as a weapon. This kills his 'little voices' and makes him aware of the fact that he is just a character - this isn't a matter of just breaking the fourth wall, it comes with the realization that every hardship both he and those he cares about has been orchestrated by the writers and comic artists.  No longer seeing those he cares about as 'people', he sets about killing them systematically, killing every hero and villain he can get his hands on in order to help them and find a way to get to the creators. This is where my Wade diverges, he never finds the writers. This Wade has been through countless universes, slowly but surely tiring of killing those he cares about but there's a coldness to him. An emptiness that will be jarring to anyone meeting him for the first time, especially if they know a Deadpool who is still so full of life. For interactions, consider: he might need a place to crash and rest, perhaps he's gone to your muse with hopes of figuring out how to get to the creators, maybe someone mistakes him for their Wade and tries to help him with whatever is wrong. Just to name a few ideas.

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TAGS

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Main tag - Headcanons - Ask tag  Likes - Aesthetics - Musings - Wardrobe

RELATIONSHIP TAGS

LOGAN - FICKLEFABLES

[evilwickedme]

Hello, I (sender of the original homophobia rant ask) would be incredibly interested in hearing your perspective on Wade’s mental illness too, please!

oof okay you sent this over a month ago I'm sorry for taking so long to get to it!! but I'm here now and I no longer am obligated to only think about Spider-Gwen and Murderdock (not that that was particularly painful) so here we go

note that all the usual deadpool content warnings apply: canonical sexual assault, ableism, extreme violence, etc

deadpool homophobia rant anon is referring to in case you missed it

when it comes to wade's mental illness we have to address something critical: specifically, that there is no consensus on what mental illnesses wade actually has, not in canon, and certainly not in fanon. I'm going to try and address as many aspects of his mental illness as possible, but this is a reminder that my screenshot folder only includes content from what I reread last spring, so I'm mostly covering 2008-2017 content here. still, that's a decade, so.

here are some things that are consistently true: dp is mentally ill, and he has, both on a literal and a metaphorical level, a death wish. This is significant to both the actual narrative - such as one of the last arcs of deadpool (2008) by daniel way, in which dp searches desperately for something that'll counteract his powers so he can kill himself - and on the thematic level, such as wade describing pure happiness as dying with his friends and family in issue #250 (aka the last issue of the 2012 run by posehn and duggan, my favorite run of deadpool by far). more details on wade's relationship with death (and with Death) in this post here.

so we know that dp is depressed and suicidal, and we know he's mentally ill in a vague sort of way. how does this express itself? well, it truly varies from writer to writer. I would say there's more or less four approaches to deadpool's mental illness (in addition to or instead of his consistent depression):

the illogical approach (no consistent characterization, violence for the sake of violence; the deadpool killogy is a good canon example for this)

the schizophrenic approach (more or less what daniel way was going for; very common in fanon as well)

the almost grounded in reality approach, in which deadpool has some combination of bipolar and bpd (most clearly presented in posehn and duggan's run, and continued more or less in the 2015 duggan run. this approach usually addresses his canonical trauma as well)

the combined approach (most common in fanon; usually adding mental illnesses not present in canon)

let's break these down.

the illogical approach is probably my least favorite, because it doesn't allow wade to have any real sense of character, let alone character development. it makes for flat storytelling in which wade just does whatever, and there's no need to justify it because he's ~~~crazy~~~. needless to say, this is wildly ableist. it's present in a lot of his earlier comics, but the worst offender is the killogy. I described in detail my dislike for the killogy here, but tl;dr: it made many "fans" believe that deadpool was just a guy who cracked jokes and used swords to meta-kill everything and everyone. it's a pointless book with basically no story and features no coherent idea of what's "wrong" with deadpool.

the schizophrenic approach is entirely daniel way's fault for introducing the ever popular Boxes. the boxes - also called "white" and "yellow" for their literal on page color - are presented in his run as voices that wade hears and often responds to, sometimes having full conversations with them. white is slightly meaner than yellow, but both of them are pretty verbally abusive towards him. however, daniel way clearly did no research regarding schizophrenia or any mental illness at all; even his depression is inconsistent, and once dp gets his magical cure for his powers he just... fucks off and doesn't try to kill himself.

daniel way also has wade hallucinate a lot with little to no explanation for it.

it's mostly played for comedic effect.

unfortunately, the fandom has latched onto both of these characteristics - especially the boxes - pretty damn tightly. I even wrote the boxes into one or two of my early fics, despite the fact that I've never enjoyed the way run. and as is to be expected from fandom, very few writers have done any research into schizophrenia to make up for the faulty and ableist canonical writing.

the third approach is generally my favorite, and you can find it in my more modern writing if you look for it (although I don't exactly focus on it; I'm more interested in the romance lmao). posehn and duggan scrapped a lot of previous canon when they took over; an entirely new supporting cast was introduced, for example, and the boxes were retconned to be wade's regular (if slightly self hating) internal narration (yellow) and madcap (white) (for more details about this, see my homophobia rant, linked above, or read deadpool annual #1 from 2013). posehn and duggan never outright state that deadpool has bipolar or bpd, nor did they seem to do any extensive research into it, but it's the most accurate description of the way they write him. his impulsivity in marrying shiklah, for example, or the deep depressions he occasionally falls into, or his desperate need for approval from the people around him but especially spiderman and cap all seem to characterize him in a very specific way. I generally approve of this.

this is also the approach that takes deadpool's vaguer mental illness into account, mostly attributing it to the trauma that he's endured, either at the hand of butler who brainwashed him to the point of killing his parents:

or the time he was raped by typhoid mary:

I still wouldn't call this a necessarily sensitive treatment of the character, his mental illness, or his trauma, but it's certainly the closest we get in canon.

the fourth approach is generally what we see from fanon. most fanon will take bits from here and bits from here, sometimes with great results ( @ask-spiderpool has been a long-term favorite) and sometimes with worse results (I'm not going to tag anyone because I'm not a fucking monster). something that baffles me is the fact that fanon is so specifically convinced that wade is self-conscious about his body, when that's not really the case in canon. wade is very confident about his body - it's other people who mistreat him for it.

that's not to say that deadpool never has issues with his body - he's canonically in constant pain from the wounds covering his body, and he's hurt when other people react badly to his appearance. he also doesn't exactly get mad on the occasion where he regains his pre-powered appearance. it's just not a recurring theme with his character, and I suspect it's most often writers projecting either their own body image issues onto him or expecting that if they were in his body they'd feel self conscious; or, sometimes, it's just a convenient way to explore that kind of theme because everybody else seems to think he has that problem. I don't like, get mad when it's in a story. it's not usually particularly ableist and is definitely handled more deftly by fans than the other stuff. but it's certainly at least mostly fanon.

wow, this was long. way longer than the homophobia rant. but it's a heavy subject, and I wanted to do it justice. I hope it satisfied, dear anon!

[queerprayers]

I've emerged from a depressive episode and some busy weeks to about 50 new asks so I just wanted to update y'all and share some thoughts! I'm so grateful that so many of you have reached out and I'm gonna work hard this week to answer as many as I can while I have free time and am more stable. Please don't let this discourage you from sending new asks, though—I'll add you to the list, just know it might be a bit. I also want you to know that if you sent a prayer request, I did read it and you've been in my prayers, I just haven't publicly acknowledged it. Here are some recent assorted thoughts that I'm just now putting into words:

I don't tend to post about current events on this blog, partially because it often takes me a while to put thoughts into words and I don't want to publish hasty opinions and unthought-out reactions, and partially because I don't want to be a news source. There are better (and faster) writers and more qualified people out there than me to do that work. I trust and hope that all of you are reading/learning, praying, and doing justice work without me posting about every issue that affects us. If you don't see me address a topic, it's not because I'm unaware of it, don't have an opinion on it, or am not praying and working.

That said, I am working on a resource/reading list regarding abortion, because it's something I've thought and learned about a lot recently, and it's a topic that I've changed my opinion on multiple times. Obviously, the Roe v. Wade decision in the US has brought this topic back into local discussion, and I think other people could also benefit from the research I've done. (Spoiler alert: I have a very complicated relationship with abortion itself but an uncomplicated opinion on the laws themselves/state regulation.)

As I work up the courage/energy to work on my lengthy Google Doc of unanswered asks, I know that I will not always understand the situation and cannot always be knowledgeable or politic or correct but by God I will be earnest and honest and put in work and pray that Love is present as I put my thoughts into the world. I've been having a lot of feelings about how people bare their souls in my inbox and the fact that I could affect them in so many ways, including causing real harm.

I had a pretty life-changing moment recently and I think being forgiven, truly forgiven, is one of the most holy experiences there is. Not the "they're not mad at you anymore and you're polite to each other" forgiveness—the "you messed up, and it won't affect our future because you are forgiven, and you get another chance because I love you, and I love you because you are human" kind of forgiveness. I haven't processed the gift I've been given yet.

Helping lead worship the morning after a relapse is like… I belong here, no matter what I've done or been through. Even if my voice breaks while chanting. That this body you have broken may rejoice.

Summer is nearing its midpoint (at least in this hemisphere) and the woods here are full of life. My petcare work means I'm often with dogs out there. I'm finding grace—I hope you have somewhere like that.

Okay, that's all for now.

<3 Johanna

[bestiesenpai]

youtuber Sukuna

I beg you to read the shitposts I made about this, they are delicious. You don’t have to of course but...if you loved me you would :) s/n = screen name, and I hope you chuckle at Sukunas screen name

Content warning: uhmhm lowkey incel shit(mean internet comments and whatnot)

part two --- part 3

Name: Sukuna. Age: 25. Height: 6 foot 5 inches. Occupation: toxic Youtuber, fitness trainer and hot guy.

Sukuna wasn’t exactly known for being kind. He wasn’t nice to others, rarely having anything good to say about anyone, and he’d made a successful Youtube career out of it. First starting as a fitness trainer at his gym, through encouragement from his clients and the notion of a quick cash grab, he started Youtube.

He didn’t care about it and that reflected in the quality of his videos and editing. He didn’t have consistent uploads, just filming and posting videos whenever he wanted, analytics be fucked. But somehow, that worked out for him, and he quickly found himself with over two million subscribers just frothing at the mouth for his next video.

And those subscribers were some of the worst people. Sukuna didn’t care about fostering a safe space online for others, not in the slightest. His comment sections were atrocious, both on his Youtube and his Instagram. It was full of toxic men one-upping each other constantly and dragging on each other for not being able to work out as much as Sukuna did.

Sukuna was a large part of why his fanbase were so toxic. He himself often made bad comments about others, whether fellow creators or people that happened to appear in the backgrounds of his videos, and on more than one occasion he’d been ‘cancelled’. None of that mattered though, all he cared about was shitting on other people and making money.

Sometimes he played video games and posted it, but not too often. Sukuna often stated he wasn’t so much of a fucking lonely loser that he’d play video games all the time, and so the gaming videos he did post were few and far between. He played angry shooter games and GTA, mindless button clicking he could get lost in for a few hours for a video.

Laying in bed one night after uploading his most recent video, one where he rages at 12 year olds on GTA online, Sukuna was just scrolling through his phone mindlessly. After he uploads video game content, like clockwork, he gets recommendations for gaming channels. He only watches a few of them, mostly leaving mean comments saying what losers they are, but one catches his eye.

He’s never been recommended this kind of video before. The thumbnail is light and bright with some pink aesthetic lights in the back. But the most enticing thing is the person in the middle, cute pink cat ear headphones on and a bright smile.

“Let’s see…” Sukuna mumbles to himself, mindlessly clicking the video. He hasn’t even read the title, he only clicked it because they were cute, and here he is nearly blinded by the bright setup they have.

“Hi everyone, it’s (Y/N) here and I’m really excited today! We’re going to be playing this new game I found!” Sukuna is immediately enraptured by the sound of your voice, watching how your face changes as you talk. His eyes drift off to the decor behind you, cute plushies and healthy plants, and some twinkling fairy lights. There’s books as well, and your chair is one of those ergonomic gamer chairs he has as well but in pink.

Sukuna watches the video dumbly, totally in the dark about whatever you’re doing, but loving it all the same. All he knows is that he likes the sound of your voice, and when you laugh and smile at a funny part in the game, it makes a light flush come to his cheeks.

It only takes one video for Sukuna to spiral into more of your content. He watches a video on your gaming setup, and he’s surprised that so much technology can come in pink. He watches a video on how you edit, a few of you cooking in your kitchen, and even a few vlog videos.

He quickly subscribes to your channel, and when you plug your social media, he immediately goes there. Pulling up your Instagram, he stares at your profile picture and almost audibly coos at you for being cute.

Your profile is just as cute as your videos are and Sukuna barely remembers to follow you before he’s going through your whole feed, liking every picture he sees. Sometimes he leaves comments, only one word though, ‘cute’. He’s never liked something so outright cute before, it wasn’t who he was and it definitely didn’t fit with his brand.

Falling asleep after following you on every platform, Sukuna wakes up thinking about you as well. And he also wakes up to hundreds of comments from all his accounts, bombarding him with questions and screenshots from last night.

‘SUKUNA WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS SHIT?!’

‘OMG Sukuna liked (Y/N)s posts!!’

‘Sukuna is so gross and toxic, you better stay away from (Y/N)!’

‘SUKUNA YOU GAY NOW’

‘EW why the fuck do you like this bitch?’

There were hundreds of comments that he waded through. Most were from his fans, expressing disgust at how many photos of yours he’d liked and wondering why he, Sukuna, most heterosexual alpha male on the planet, would like a pretty in pink Youtuber who had bubbly intros and whined when their animal crossing villagers wanted to move away.

Other comments were from your fans, some in awe that he would like you considering how much he said he hated overly cute things. Other fans expressed concern, worried what this might mean for their favorite Youtuber. Did Sukuna want to cause problems, potentially hurting you? He did have a reputation of bullying others, so this wasn’t far fetched.

Checking your Instagram, you didn’t make any comment about it. There wasn’t any update or anything, but on his end he was being tagged in endless Twitter threads with screenshots of him liking your posts and commenting under them.

“For fucks sake.” He grunted, clenching his phone in his hands. The amount of notifications he was getting were starting to upset him and he nearly threw his phone to get them to stop.

Ignoring his phone for the rest of the day, Sukuna went to the gym like he always did and trained with his clients. Some of them brought it up to him, asking him if he had a mind break last night and forgot what he was doing. Sending them harsh glares, Sukuna refused to talk about it.

“Oh my fucking god.” Sukuna nearly wailed when he got home, finally checking his phone. His name and yours had begun trending, and the hashtag #protect(Y/N) was also. Muttering angrily under his breath, Sukuna turned on Instagram live.

“Okay what the fuck!” He shouted, seeing the live become instantly flooded with people all screaming about you and him. “You’re all fucking annoying, you know that?” Glaring harshly at the camera, he read some of the comments that went by.

‘WHY’D YOU LIKE (Y/N)S POSTS FROM 2017’

‘Are you two secretly dating??’

‘COLLAB!’

“Who gives a shit why I liked their stuff, you’re a fucking weirdo for keeping track of me. And we aren’t secretly dating, dipshits.” Rolling his eyes, Sukuna scoffed as more comments came in begging for a collaboration. “And think about it you morons, why would we collab? Our shit is too fucking different, what would we even film about?”

Sukuna stayed on Instagram live for nearly an hour answering questions asking about you. Every time he had to answer that you weren’t secretly dating, he got a little more annoyed. Not at the comments themselves but at the fact that it was true; you didn’t even know he existed.

Ending the live in a huff, Sukuna didn’t feel any better than before, and it was made even worse by the fact that everything he said was being relayed to Twitter, and you were tagged in every tweet.

“These idiots!” Staring at his phone, Sukuna couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On your Instagram stories, you’d posted a q&a for your followers, and nearly all of the comments were about Sukuna.

“Hi everyone! No, me and Sukuna aren’t dating!” You said, laughing a little to ease how uncomfortable you were. “To be honest, I’ve never even heard of him before! As you know, my content is very...different from his, so our circles don’t exactly intersect. But I’m always happy to have new followers and potential friends!”

“Fuck me.” Sukuna groaned, cringing at how uncomfortable you looked having to address the sudden onslaught of questions. For once he wished he’d actually given a shit about his online presence, so that maybe one day your circles could intersect. He knew he scared you, he scared a lot of people, and this was just proof.

“Uh, Sukuna if you see this, hi it’s nice to meet you!” You said in the next slide, puffing out your cheeks and waving cutely at the camera. It made Sukuna blush, and he hated it. “Thank you for following me and liking my content! I was very surprised that you found me!”

“Of course I did, idiot, you’re fucking cute.” He muttered under his breath.

“I know a lot of people are asking for us to do a video together and I know our content is really different, so don’t feel pressured to respond or anything, but the offer is open! If you’d like, we can collab on something.”

“On what?” He asked like you were there.

“I cook sometimes, and I know you cook too! Maybe we can make a cooking video? You can teach me how to make healthy food or something!” Sukuna could tell a fake laugh when he heard one, and you definitely had one right now. “Anyways, thank you! Bye Sukuna!” But hearing you say his name cutely like that made him not care.

He nearly responded right away, accepting the collab offer now that you’d spoken about it, but he didn’t want to seem desperate. He watched through the rest of your Instagram stories, going back and replaying the parts where you talked about him over and over and his heart clenched every time when you said his name.

In the dead of night, Sukuna DM’s you after watching your latest video and leaving the simple comment ‘check your DM’s’.

“Fuck, what should I say?” He’s suddenly stumped as he looks at the keyboard. Typing and retyping a message, in the end all he can say is hi. He doesn’t expect a reply, ever, but when he gets a vibration on his phone two seconds later he jumps to read it.

(S/N): hi Sukuna! :)

(cursedgod): hey

Real fucking smart, repeating what he just said.

(S/N): is there something you wanted to talk to me about?

(S/N): I hope you haven’t been annoyed at all the notifications you’ve been getting!

(cursedgod): No it’s okay

(cursedgod): we can collab if you want

Good Sukuna, good. Play it cool, don’t let them know that your fingers are actually trembling because you’re nervous.

(S/N): do you want to?? I don’t want to pressure you! I know we’re pretty different haha

(cursedgod): yeah, let's do it. Cooking?

(S/N): sure!

Looking around his home, he was suddenly assaulted with the fact that he didn’t have any furniture. He barely had a proper bedroom, just a mattress on a bare frame and a dresser. His lounge room was the same with his computer setup in one corner and then nothing else. There was only a couch, a mounted TV and a fold out table and chairs for his dining room.

(cursedgod): I know a studio kitchen we can use, I’ll send you the address

Thank god he’d done promo work for a brand in a studio one day, otherwise he���d be fucked.

(S/N): awesome! I’m free next Saturday!

And just like that, it was a date. Well, a meeting. Sukuna knew it wasn’t a date, but his heart still thumped like it was one. Confirming the time, he ended the conversation with a curt goodbye and obsessed about it throughout the night.

When the day to meet you came, Sukuna nearly ran late trying to pick out his clothes. He’d never cared about looking good or presenting himself well in front of others, whatever version of him he turned up in was what they got. But for you, he wanted to try a little harder.

Waiting outside the studio space, Sukuna rubbed his hands together nervously. You’d messaged a day or two ago offering to put the video on your channel since it probably wouldn’t fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t have to bring his shitty camera equipment.

“S-sukuna?” Snapping his head up, Sukunas mouth fell open looking at your curious face a few feet away, an Uber driving off behind you. You were even cuter in person, just his fucking luck. How was he expected to act like a normal person when his recent obsession was here looking better than he could have imagined.

“Hi.” What comes out is a grunt, not the smooth word he’d hoped. He can see you eyeing him up, taking in all the thick and corded muscles of his body. It made his chest puff out a little, he worked hard for this physique and to have you so openly looking at him made him happy.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Sticking your hand out, you smiled politely at him.

“Same.” Shaking your hand with a firm grip, Sukuna could feel the difference in your palms. Yours was soft and nicely moisturized and he had callouses everywhere and a few cuts and scrapes.

Opening the door for you, Sukuna led you to the studio space he’d rented out. It was a clean and modern kitchen, not unlike his own, but it had appliances and looked actually lived in. Helping you set up a few camera angles, Sukuna felt a pang of nerves hit him in the stomach.

“Sukuna, can we take a picture together?” You asked before starting, and Sukunas brow furrowed deeply. Why would you want to take a picture with him? His expression must have scared you, because you quickly backtracked. “F-for promo for this video, on Instagram and stuff!”

“Sure.” God, did he feel bad or what. He shouldn’t have made that face at you, now you wouldn’t look him in the eye. Crouching down to get the right angle for you, Sukuna watched you pick a cute animal filter.

“Just do what I do.” Throwing up a peace sign, you cutely tilted your head from side to side and smiled. Sukuna tried to do the same but he looked awkward, and most of all he was blushing pretty bad.

You snapped a multitude of pictures, some at different angles and some with different filters, and in all of them Sukuna was blushing at least a little. He managed to smile more as it went on, even laughing at one of the filters.

“Thanks! I’m going to post these really quick and then we can get started!” Giving him a brief smile, you turned back to your phone and set about editing some of the pictures. Looking over your shoulder, Sukuna could see that he looked like a blushing high schooler meeting their idol for the first time and not a grown man.

Once the photos were posted and you tagged him in everything, it was time to start. Setting up your marks on the floor, you took a generous drink of water and cleared your throat.

“Are you ready for the intro? I’ll start it and introduce you, okay?” You’d actually prepared a script for yourself, and showed Sukuna as well.

“Okay.” Stepping in front of the camera, Sukuna bristled at feeling you so close to him. Your arm brushed his casually as you were fixing your shirt, and Sukuna was glad he’d worn his most expensive cologne for this.

“Hi everyone, welcome to today's video! As you know, I’m (Y/N), and today we have a special guest today!” Throwing your arms in the air, you motioned to Sukuna.

“Hi.” He nodded, barely cracking a smile. He could feel you looking at him like you wanted to say something, but he didn’t look.

“So, many people have been asking for us to do a collaboration and it’s finally here!” Clapping your hands lightly, you rocked on your heels and nudged his shoulder with yours. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?”

“Uh-” The playful nudge you’d given him was enough to make Sukuna short circuit. “I-I-” He suddenly couldn’t remember how to speak. “Rice?”

“Let’s try that again.” You laughed. “Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” This time, you didn’t nudge him with your shoulder.

“We’re gonna…” the words were on the tip of his tongue, they wanted to come out and be spoken but he couldn’t do it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Nodding reassuringly, you took a deep breath in and out, and Sukuna shakily copied. “One more try?” When he looked at you, Sukuna expected to see a hint of annoyance in your face, but there was none. You were just smiling softly at him, waiting for his answer.

“Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll get it next time.” Stepping away from the camera, Sukuna took a drink of water and cleared his throat. Cracking the bones in his neck, he took a deep breath and came back. “Let’s do it.” No more fucking embarrassments.

“Do you want to tell them what we’ll be doing today?” You asked for the third time, slightly swaying your body side to side this time.

“We’re gonna make katsudon today.” Finally, the words he wanted to say came out.

“That’s right! As you can see, Sukuna is really fit!” You immediately hopped in, giving his arm a brief squeeze. “And he knows how to make a ton of healthy meals!”

“Mhmm.”

“So I asked if he could help teach me, and all of you at home, how to make it!” Smiling at the camera, you waited a few seconds before relaxing and turning it off. “Did you like that? We can refilm it if you want.”

“No, it’s okay.” Running a hand through his hair, he pointed to the bag of rice he’d brought. “Let’s get started on this shit.”

Taking fifteen minutes to film the two of you filling up the rice cooker, when it was over, you set about getting aesthetic shots of the other ingredients. Sukuna tried to seem casual off to the side on his phone, but he was really watching you.

Getting started on chopping the ingredients, Sukuna somehow managed to say the things he was supposed to without stuttering too badly. He was amazed that you could make the things he was doing sound so interesting, your narration as you held the camera and tried to do things yourself was impressive to the man that barely knew anything about cameras.

“Sukuna, I need help cutting the meat.” You whined, tapping the meat on the cutting board with a knife. “I don’t remember how you showed me.”

“Here.” Without thinking, Sukuan grabbed your hand with the knife in it and moved it for you. “You just have to move your wrist more, it’s not that hard.” Doing it a few times, when Sukuna felt your chest expand with air against his, that’s when he realized how close the two of you were. “S-sorry.” Immediately jumping back, he stared at the floor.

“Thanks!” Giving him a smile, you kept at it.

“I’ll fry the meat.” Stepping in as soon as you were done, Sukuna already had the hot oil ready. He was eager to cook and do something with his hands instead of - what he felt like - was awkwardly watching you off to the side.

“Okay!” Grabbing the camera, you focused on the pan. “You’re really good at this, Sukuna!”

“T-thanks.” Staring directly at the pan, Sukuna didn’t look away. Even with the hot oil popping up from the pan a few times and burning his fingers, he didn’t flinch at all.

“Ow!” But you did. Your hand had gotten too close, and when Sukuna flipped the meat, some of the oil had gotten on your hand.

“Shit.” Abandoning the pan, Sukuna was ready to drag you over to the sink for some cool water.

“I-it’s okay, it was only a little.” Shaking your stinging hand, you point to the food. “But I think the meat might burn.”

“Shit!”

Narrowly avoiding disaster with the meat, when it came time to cook the eggs, you made a joke about how you liked your eggs in the morning and Sukuna burnt them almost immediately. While not an overtly sexual comment, the implications of the words still affected him.

Somehow, he managed to make the dish come together and while his plated dish didn’t come out the best, yours looked at least halfway decent with overcooked meat and burnt eggs. The only things not messed up were the rice and vegetables, and even then Sukuna was surprised.

“We did it everyone, we made katsudon!” Holding up the bowls, you smiled big and nudged Sukunas shoulder again. “You saw we had a few mishaps along the way, but that’s okay, that’s what made it fun.”

“Yeah, it was fun.” Sukuna chuckled. Despite him being more nervous than he’d ever thought possible, he had fun cooking alongside you.

“Sukuna, will you try mine? I made it super pretty and everything.” Holding your dish up to him, Sukuna wasn’t expecting you to do that. Now he felt bad that his looked so ugly and like a teenaged boy made it; he almost said no.

Eating yours though, somehow it tasted better than he was expecting. It must have been how you prepared it, and the fact that you cared so much about the presentation. Eating it in silence, he let you eat in peace as well for a few minutes and compliment the food to the camera.

“Alright, that’s the end of the video!” Putting your bowl down, you turned to Sukuna. “I had so much fun today, thanks for filming this with me.” Now was his chance to make everything better. Putting his bowl down and bolstering himself with confidence, Sukuna threw his arm over your shoulder and pulled you close to him.

“Thank you (Y/N), I really did enjoy today. I hope we can film again soon!” He squeezed your shoulder and smiled really big at not only you but the camera as well. He knew he was blushing, he knew that even the tip of his nose was a nice rosy shade, but he didn’t care. If people teased him for it, then so be it. But he wanted you to know how he truly felt.

“R-really? You want to?” You asked, looking up at Sukuna from your place smooshed against his body.

“Really.”

“Aww, well you heard it here first everyone! Sukuna wants to shoot another video with me!” Clapping your hands a few times, you waved at the camera. “Okay, bye everyone!”

“Bye.” Sukuna waved too, waiting a few seconds before letting you go and turning off the camera.

“Sukuna, did you really mean it? You want to film another video with me?” You were in utter disbelief. All this time, he’d just seemed very standoffish, if not a little awkward around you. You were happy to film this video with him, he had way more followers than you and it would help boost both your channels, and to hear him say that just made it even better.

“Yeah, I was serious.” Sukuna spoke around stuffing his mouth with the food he still had left. He was more hungry than he thought, the nerves doing a good job of twisting his stomach during the video. Now that it’s over, he can finally relax.

“That makes me really happy.” Eating the rest of your food as well, you leant against the counter. “This is gonna sound kind of mean, but I was really scared to film with you today. I thought you were going to be really mean.”

“Shit, you did?” He grimaced, letting out a sigh. “Sorry I had you worried.” He could already imagine the comments you would get from his fans.

“It’s okay! You’re actually way nicer in person, I was surprised!”

“That’s good.”

“And you’re really buff, you have muscles in places I didn’t even know were possible!” You laughed bashfully at that comment, and avoided looking at him when he stared at you in shock. “I couldn’t help but notice…”

Were you checking him out? Had you been checking him out this whole time and he didn’t even realize? He had seen you eyeing him up when you first met, but were you looking at him like that at other times as well? Now he’d really have to watch your video to see if it was true.

“Thanks, it’s my job.” Could he have said that any lamer? “My job outside of all this, I mean. I’m a trainer at this fancy gym downtown.”

“Oh, I’ve seen some of your videos at your gym! I know which one you’re talking about.”

“You do? You’ve seen my videos?” If he wasn’t surprised before, he was now.

“Yeah, you know I had to do a little research beforehand.” You nodded, beginning to clean up the dishes around you. “And I know you’ve already watched almost all of my videos, so it only seemed fair.”

Did you have to bring that up? Now Sukuna was embarrassed again.

“Y-yeah, I did.” Clearing his throat, Sukuna helped gather the dishes. He took up washing them, another task he could do to get his mind off you. As you took down the camera equipment, he nearly broke several dishes and utensils from scrubbing too hard.

“I’ll call you an Uber.” He said when all was said and done and you were back at the front of the building.

“You don’t have to, it’s okay.”

“No, I want to.” Quickly calling you a ride, Sukuna fiddled with his phone a little more. “Uh, could I- could I-” His voice kept leaving him, and he had to cough a few times. “Can I get your number? I really liked your camera shit and I want to improve mine.” Okay, it wasn’t a total lie. He did like your setup and wanted to make his just as good, but he really wanted your number to potentially talk to you more about things outside of Youtube.

“Sure! Go ahead and type it in.” You were quick to give him your phone, a cute pink phone case on the back of it. Typing it in, he can’t help but notice the little devil emoji you add by his name. He wants to ask, but your ride is already pulling up.

“Bye!” Setting all your camera gear inside the car, you turn and wave goodbye.

“See ya.” Just as you’re about to close the car door, Sukuna gets a burst of confidence. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

“Okay!” And off you go. Sukuna watches the car drive off until he can’t see it anymore. He takes his time getting to his own place, eagerly awaiting your message with every step. But even when you do message him, all he can do is send a thumbs up back and nothing else.

It’s about two and a half days after that that you text him again, letting him know you’re done editing and that you’re going to post the video soon. It wasn’t a very long video to begin with, so the editing was simple enough. Sukuna replied with what appeared to be a lackluster ‘can’t wait’, but on the inside he was shaking. He’d already screenshot all the pictures the two of you took together and added them to a folder.

“Here we go.” As soon as the video went live, Sukuna watched it. He was mortified as soon as it started at the blush so evident on his cheeks, and how it stayed throughout the whole thing. He groaned at the part where he helped you cut up the meat, he almost wishes you’d cut it out. Every little detail that made him embarrassed was there, every little nuance of his actions you’d managed to capture and make it cute.

(Y/N): How do you like it??

You texted him after twenty minutes, eager to hear his thoughts.

(Sukuna): it’s good, good editing and stuff

(Y/N): yay! I’m going to read comments in a few hours, you should too! I bet people will be really shocked!

(Sukuna): yeah no doubt

Oh, he was definitely going to read the comments. Whereas you were going to wait for a fair few to come in before commenting, Sukuna frequently refreshed the page and read the new ones as they came in. You were right, a lot of people were surprised, but he also saw a lot of his fans as well.

‘Ew Sukuna really cooked for that bitch? They can’t do it themselves?’

‘Yeah, why do they have to rely on him? Useless as fuck lol’

‘Sukuna only did this to get laid, (Y/N) looks like an easy fuck’

All of those comments, and many more, made his blood boil. Usually, he wouldn’t care at all about the comments, letting them fester in his comment section and spiral out of control. But for you, it was different.

‘Fuck off and die you pieces of shit. Leave (Y/N) alone or say it to my fucking face’

Sukuna sent that message, along with a variety of other threats, to all the people that insulted you. He didn’t care that this wasn’t his channel and that you would deal with it in whatever way you wanted to. He needed to defend you against the unwanted audience he’d brought you.

Luckily, after seeing Sukunas messages, all of his fans backed off. They knew how serious he was about his threats and there were many rumors that he actually did go and beat people up who said things he didn’t like. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of his torment.

With Sukunas name attached to the video and his heavy presence in the comment section, the video easily went viral. It was easily the most viewed video on your channel, getting on the trending pages of several different platforms.

(Sukuna): hey

It’s nearly a week after the first video that Sukuna messages you, and the hype is still going strong, and your follower count grows greatly from it.

(Y/N): hi! What’s up?

(Sukuna): do you want to film a video for my channel now? We can play a game, I have a few

(Y/N): sure that sounds fun!

Oh how wrong you were. The game Sukuna chose was a scary game, a shooter game with scary zombies and a lot of possible jumpscares. He doesn’t tell you either, so on the night of filming - he insisted on it being nighttime to get the full scary effect - you were caught off guard.

“I don’t know about this.” You whined once you saw the title. The two of you were video calling alongside playing the game together, and Sukuna’s eyes flicked to your figure on the screen.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll carry you, don’t worry.” He had started filming as soon as he’d set up the game, and you were filming yourself as well for him.

“You promise it won’t be too scary?”

“If it’s too scary just close your eyes and I’ll protect you.” Smiling softly at you, he started up the game. The beginning was fine, just a quick introduction to the game, but as soon as things started to get moving, you were scared.

“Sukuna a zombie is eating me!” You screamed, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to get it off.

“It’s okay!” He quickly got rid of it, and made sure to stay close to your character as the story progressed.

“(Y/N) stay by me, there’s about to be a whole lot of them.”

“Close your eyes there’s about to be a jump scare here.”

“Don’t worry about getting that item, I’ll grab it for you!”

Sukuna nearly forgot he was being filmed, saying sweet things to you to help encourage you and make sure you weren’t overwhelmed. There were many parts where you screamed in fright and Sukuna was there to coo at you and tell you it was okay. He made sure that your character never died, making sure to keep you close until the end of the game.

“Sukuna, that was so hard!” Squishing your cheeks in your hands, you looked at him through your phone.

“It was fun though, wasn’t it? I had fun with you.” Completely abandoning the game, he stared down at his phone with a soft smile on his face.

“Yeah, when there weren’t so many zombies.” You stuck your tongue out at him, and it made him laugh. Leaning his head into his hand, Sukuna grinned when you yawned.

“Aw, are you tired? Better go to sleep soon.” His voice dropped to a lower volume, like you were right next to him.

“I will.” You yawned again and it made Sukuna yawn as well.

“Get off the phone and go to bed, you’re making me tired too.”

“Fine.” Whining out the word, you waved sleepily. “Goodnight Sukuna, I’ll send you the video files in the morning, okay?”

“Night.” Waving back, Sukuna waited until you hung up to turn his stuff off as well.

In the morning, Sukuna was ready to edit. What usually took him a week to edit out of laziness, he took only a day to edit this video with you together. Rewatching the footage, he nearly gagged at seeing how soft his face got when he looked at you, and most of those parts were left in because he couldn’t stand to watch them and fix them.

(Sukuna): videos up

The next day, he messaged you. Once again Sukuna patrolled the comments, swiftly deleting any that said even a hint of a bad thing about you. There was less this time, what with Sukuna adding a warning at the beginning of the video threatening anyone that talked down at you.

This video, like the first, went viral. But for a much different reason. Since Sukuna was emotionally unable to deal with how sappy he was and edit those parts out, everyone got to see how soft he was for you. If the comments weren’t mean, they were screaming about how you and Sukuna must be dating now, because why else would he look at you and talk to you like that?

And much to Sukuna’s dismay, there were also fancam edits of you two together. Any clippable moment of him being sweet on you in the videos you’d made together along with the photos you’d posted on Instagram were edited together and posted on Twitter. You both were tagged in every single one, making sure Sukuna saw all the videos of you and him together. He saved all of them too, delighting in the way you looked with him with all those pretty filters.

By the end of the day, people were trying to put a ship name together for the two of you and he’s seen you repost a few fancams with cute messages of thanks as well. Seeing you receptive to the fans screaming about the two of you made him happy, even if he was still too nervous to text you about anything outside of Youtube.

As more comments came in, people on Twitter were begging him to do a vlog with you. You had quite a few on your channel, going to cafes or filming what your day or week was like. Sukuna had watched them all and was jealous of every single person that appeared alongside you.

(Y/N): hey I’m doing a live on Instagram if you want to join me! I know people really like us together lol it’ll be great for views

(Sukuna): sure

Did you want him to join now? He’d just gotten out of the shower and thrown on a pair of sweats, he wasn’t exactly decent. But he didn’t want to waste time getting ready only for you to end the live.

“Hi Sukuna!” You smiled and waved when he appeared on the screen.

“Hey.” He waved back, not caring about the angle he was holding the camera in. He saw hearts begin to fill up the screen and comments started to fly by, almost all in caps about the fact he was shirtless talking to you.

“Guys, don’t be weird! Who cares that Sukuna is shirtless?” You tried to stop them, but it was clear you were flustered as well. You weren’t looking at him, peeking at him through the screen a few times.

“God you’re all thirsty as fuck.” Sukuna finally looked at himself on the screen. He was shirtless and in bed, hair slightly damp and tousled on his pillow. Reading a few comments, he shot up. “Of course I’m wearing pants, you nasty fuck!” Storming out of bed, he stood in front of the only mirror in his house that wasn’t in the bathroom and turned the camera around. “See, look!”

“Oh.” Gasping softly, you were glad Sukuna didn’t notice you screenshot the live. Clad in only gray sweatpants, Sukuna’s freshly cleaned skin gleamed in the light of his bedroom and every single muscle and edge of his body was on display.

“There, told you I wasn’t fucking naked.” Rolling his eyes, he flopped back down on the bed. None of the comments had gotten any better, all of them talking about how hot he was and how you were so lucky to know him in real life.

“L-let's talk about something else.” You stammered, not showing your face on camera for a few minutes. Sukuna laughed at the comments teasing you for being embarrassed, agreeing with some of them under his breath.

“So, what the fuck are you all doing here?” Sukuna posed the question at the chat, but at you as well.

“Well before you came everyone was talking about you...and you know how everyone has been begging for us to vlog?” You started off slowly, peeking an eye at his face.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to call you to ask how you felt about that?” How he felt? Why did you want to know?

“You couldn’t have texted me that?” That wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to say, but it made you chuckle, so it was okay.

“No! I wanted to ask so everyone could know!”

“I don’t mind it.” If you wanted to vlog with him, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“So…” Worrying your lip, you looked off camera for a few seconds before looking directly at Sukuna. “Would you like to be in a vlog with me, at a cafe? It’s outside the city, kind of far, but we can rent a car or-”

“Yes.” Sukuna interrupted, nodding his head quickly. “I’ll come. We don’t have to rent a car, I’ll drive.”

“Really?” The comments were just as shocked as you were. Sukuna never filmed anywhere but his home and the gym, this would be a monumental occasion.

“Did you want me to say no?”

“No!” You screamed immediately, nearly dropping your phone. “I just- I wasn’t expecting you to say yes!”

“Well I did.” Sukuna bit his lip, running a hand through his hair and flexing his arm. “So I guess it’s a date, huh?” His normal asshole confidence was back now that you were appearing through a screen and not right next to him. A surprised sound came from the back of your throat, and you nearly dropped the phone again.

“Y-yeah! A date!” It felt good to have you flustered for once and not Sukuna. Laughing heartily at you, Sukuna smirked at the comments.

“Was that all you wanted to ask me or was there something more?”

“No, that was it!”

“Alright.” Licking his lip and letting his tongue hang out of his mouth a little, Sukuna watched you bite your lip as well. “Well I’m gonna go, I got stuff to do, but I’ll text you later (Y/N).” Dropping his voice as he said goodbye, Sukuna left the livestream.

“Holy fuck.” As soon as his phone was off, Sukuna let out a breath he’d been holding in. His heart was pounding hard despite how confident he was in his actions. Flirting was nothing new to him, but with you it felt different and like he’d never done it before in his life.

He watched the rest of your livestream while he finished getting ready for bed, laughing at the comments still teasing you about getting flustered with him. The notifications for Twitter were going off as well, and he knew for sure that there were new fancams for him to check out later.

(Y/N): Sukuna!! You’re so embarrassing!

Texting him after your stream, your cheeks were still burning at the memory.

(Sukuna): hey, you said it would be good for views and it was

(Y/N): I know…

(Y/N): did you really mean it, about coming with me?

(Sukuna): of course. If I didn’t want to I would have said no

(Y/N): that’s good lol!

There was a lull in conversation, and Sukuna nearly fell asleep waiting for you to either text him again or for him to figure out what to say next.

(Y/N): so, a date huh? Are you going to bring me flowers?

Now he was awake. He didn’t expect you to bring that up again, and his eyes flew open. Sukuna’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, mind going blank on what to say.

(Y/N): lol just kidding! I know you only said that for the stream! I’ll text you later about the details, I’m about to knock out

(Y/N): goodnight :)

Well shit. Now he definitely wanted it to be a date.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Day 4: Pining / Attention

“If you were to look my way, I think my heart would just about explode.”

Day 4 of JustJadelentines2021!

[Day 1] / [Day 2] / [Day 3] / [You’re at Day 4!] / [Day 5] / [Day 6] / [Day 7]

JadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatmeJadepleaselookatme--Ah-HEM! Um... I mean... Leech mob family is a fun theory~

***Warning: Wish Upon a Star (Floyd’s Wish) & Floyd and Jade Birthday Suit Up! personal story spoilers!***

Imagine this...

Several wheelbarrows’ full of packages addressed to the twins arrived at Octavinelle every holiday. At first, Octa A was startled by the strange influxes of mail--but his concerns were often dismissed by his upperclassmen. Most notably, Jade would reassure him that the packages thanks to the Leeches’ “extensive connections” and “family ties”, whatever that meant.

The mob student tried not to linger on the meaning of those words too often, for whenever he did, his mind would wander into dark theories. Whichever corner of the deep, murky sea the twins originated from, Octa A didn’t want to be dragged there for asking too many questions.

So he closed his eyes and went about his work like the diligent employee that he was. The school year passed, and in turn, so did the holidays--and, as expected, the packages arrived without fail on each special occasion.

Then came Valentine’s Day.

“Wh-Whoah...!!”

Octa A’s jaw dropped at the sheer amount of mail unceremoniously littered across the floor of the Mostro Lounge. Boxes large and small were stacked as tall as him, wrapping paper of various patterns, glittery bows, and packing peanuts were scattered everywhere. One big mess.

Floyd say amongst the packages, giddily ripping boxes open, while Jade stood at the edge of the sea of mail, carefully inspecting the various packages.

“G-Good morning,” Octa A called out as he slowly waded through the mail, cautious about not stepping on anything. “What’s... What’s all of this? Th-This is a lot of mail--even more than usual.”

“Oya. Good morning to you as well, Kon-san,” Jade replied with a polite wave. “Bright and early for your shift, I see.”

“Ahh? It’s Konbu-chan!” Floyd cried, wearing a toothy grin. The eel excitedly waved to him, hailing the mob student over. “C’mere!”

Oh, thank Neptune, Octa A thought. He had caught the brothers in good moods today. The last thing he needed was a grumpy Floyd or a passive aggressive Jade leering over his shoulder.

With a little less trepidation than usual, he tip-toed over. Octa A just narrowly missed dirtying a discarded bunch of blue tissue paper before he reached his upperclassman.

“Hold your hand out,” Floyd commanded, his smile stretching.

“O-Okay...?” Octa A obeyed, unsure of what to expect.

“Here you goooo!!”

Floyd dropped something brown, warm, and sticky into the mob student’s palms. Octa A jumped at the strange sensation, his thoughts racing to the conclusion that it was something unsanitary--but when a sweet smell hit his nose and Octa A immediately knew it was chocolate.

“I don’t want it, so you can have it!”

“E-Ehhh?! Y-You’re just going to hand me a bunch of melted chocolate?!”

“Yup! Oh--you can have those too,” Floyd added, jabbing a thumb at a box by Octa A’s feet. “And this, and that... pretty much all of it, ‘cept the one from mom.”

“W-Whaaat?! Th-There’s no way that I can eat all of that...!!”

Jade’s laughter cut in, interrupting the conversation. “My, my, Kon-san. There is no need to fret. You need not consume all these sweets. Feel free to dispose of them as you wish, if that is what you think is best.”

“Th-Throwing them out is just as bad as giving them away!!” Octa A cast a sympathetic look at all the packages. Some thrown open, their guts spilling out, and others left totally untouched by their intended recipients.

“Oh? Whatever do you mean. Please, do enlighten us.”

“Tch. You gonna lecture us, Konbu-chan? This oughta be good.”

“What about... What about the feelings of the people that sent them? If they’re all Valentine’s Day gifts... s-some of them must be confession or friendship chocolates, people pining for you. Y-You can’t just throw away their feelings like that...!!”

The twins exchanged glances with one another, then collectively stared at Octa A. Floyd started first, his slow and steady chortle becoming increasingly raspy and unhinged. Jade followed suit, his gentlemanly chuckle twisting into a composed, yet cruel laugh.

“Wh-What’s so funny?”

“I simply find your naivety fascinating, Kon-san,” Jade replied with a grin. It seemed grossly out of place, given how he had laughed mere moments ago at the notion of discarding emotions.

“We don’t need to accept everything that’s thrown our way, you know~” Floyd cackled, flicking a wrapped truffle across the room. It hit the wall and ricocheted under a table. “Especially when we know all this junk’s from kiss-ups that wanna make it big.”

“H-Huh?” Octa A’s eyebrows knitted together. “What do you mean...?”

“Floyd.” Jade’s voice took on a stricter tone than usual with his twin. “You’ve gone and said too much.”

“Ehhh? It’s fiiine,” Floyd insisted with a pout. “It’s not like any of ‘em will know! And they always do the same thing every year. It’s sooo boring!”

“I understand your sentiments--it does become rather troublesome for us to dispose of these chocolates every year. However, that is a time and place for everything, and this is not one of those times.” Jade’s eyes briefly cut to Octa A before returning to his brother.

Floyd rolled his eyes, shrugged, and returned to delving into boxes.

“Um... S-So what did Floyd-senpai mean by ‘kiss-ups��?” Octa A dared to ask--his curiosity getting the better of him.

Jade heaved a sigh. “... If you really must know, Floyd and I are quite ‘popular’ back home in the Coral Sea. This is due, in part, to our father’s rather successful business enterprise. There are a number of his partners and associates that wish for what the Leech family has.”

He gestured to Floyd, who was still wrestling around with the packages. “Thus, they often attempt to curry favor by sending gifts. The hope is to soften us up to them--but many of them, I suspect, are aiming for a far greater long term prize: our hands in marriage, and therefore near unlimited access to the resources and power that our father wields.”

Octa A paled. Already, he could feel his stomach sinking, and his body temperature turning chilly--as though he had just plunged into an icy sea. He was on the cusp of a dark secret--he felt it in his gut.

“O-Oh... I see... Ahahah... Y-Your family politics sound complicated, Jade-senpai, Floyd-senpai.”

“Indeed, they are.” Jade spoke quietly, his eyes digging into Octa A’s soul. Though the eel still sported a curve to his lips, his gaze lacked warmth. The light seemed to have drained from his irises, leaving them dull and frigid.

Sizing the mob student up--trying to ascertain whether or not Octa A needed to be blackmailed into submission--into silence.

“I trust that you would not dig deeper. It would be rather unfortunate if we lost one of our treasured employees.”

Octa A gulped, nodding vigorously to confirm an unspoken promise to Jade. Then the first year scrambled to make small talk, to change the topic, if only to avoid his vice-dorm leader’s dreadful stare.

“I-It does sound annoying to have people always trying to get your attention. I-I’d just want to live a quiet, peaceful life not getting noticed by too many folks... That way, I can just do what I want.”

“That sounds sooo nice!” Floyd chimed in from the floor. “It sucks when other people try to tell you what to do or how to be, or tryin’ to get you to act how they want! Like, if I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it cuz I wanna, not cuz someone else wanted me to.”

“I-I guess...?”

“Ehehe. Konbu-chan gets us! So you’ll take all the chocolate off our hands, right? Riiiight?”

“E-Eh?! I-I mean, I can if it really troubles you so much, senpai--”

“Great! I knew we could count on you~ Here, here, take it all!!” Floyd leapt to his feet and began piling box after box in Octa A’s arms, despite the melted chocolate pooling in the mob student’s palms. Chocolate smeared on the bottom-most box, and Octa A yelped.

“W-Wait...!! P-Please slow down...!!”

“Fufufu. Thank you for your assistance,” came Jade’s voice. Octa A couldn’t see him, since a bunch of boxes now obscured his line of sight, but he was sure that Jade was smirking.

He caught a flash of movement in his periphery. Jade emerged on his left, his olive and gold eyes narrowed--and his mouth, lined with sharp teeth, folded into a perfect smile.

“Did you know, Kon-san? Many people would kill to be in the position that you are in... being able to so casually engage with us on a daily basis,” Jade chuckled, granting the mob student a pat on the back. “Octavinelle is very fortunate to have our full attention, don’t you agree?”

“Y-Yessir...”

[fuckit-hero-of-trains]

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936943

Made for the LU Art and Writing exchange for susmarie! Hope you enjoy!

Summary: It was routine by now. They would split up into groups of two and scope out the village in search of this kingdom's hero. As per their earlier conversation, Warriors and Twilight would be taking the upper part of town while Legend and Sky were taking the lower sector. Time and Wind, meanwhile, would be searching through historical records in the library while Hyrule and Wild would be trying to get information out of the town guards. Like Hyrule said. It was a simple plan. A foolproof one, if he did say so himself. Afterall, they hadn't failed to find a hero yet. They would probably find the new hero within the hour! Or: A “Four is the last to join” fic

Hyrule would usually consider himself to be a pessimist.

Actually, pessimist isn’t quite the word he’s looking for… Realist! Hyrule would usually consider himself to be a realist.

In his world, one could not afford to be anything but a realist. Optimistic thoughts were usually reserved for kids who had not yet been exposed to the world. A single mistake, a single toe out of line, could spell doom. And getting too comfortable was practically a death sentence.

That wasn't to say his world was terrible! Hyrule loved his home and the hardy but kind people that lived in it. It just meant that, to Hyrule, the phrase ‘too good to be true’ was a statement that was proven to be correct more often than not. So he had learned to eye things that appeared simple and happy and pure with more than a little bit of skepticism.

And yet, despite all of that, even he had to admit that this version of his beloved kingdom was absolutely adorable.

This Hyrule was still obviously a very young kingdom. Not as young as Sky’s–which was little more than a handful of houses around a statue, an idea in the mind of a determined young woman– but still young.

The castle was beautiful but small, it's spires barely brushing the sky that would later be pierced by the sprawling towers of the castles in Time and Twilight’s eras. Castle Town, or Hyrule Town as the guard had said, was little more than a village enclosed by cobblestone walls. It was larger than most of the towns in Hyrule’s kingdom, but small compared to Legend ’s Kakariko or even the Windfall Island of Wind’s Great Sea.

Yet, while small, the traveling hero could see how Hyrule Town was truly alive. People bustled in and out of their small but warm looking cottages, carrying on conversations with loved ones or hurrying with empty baskets to the center of town where a pop-up market was in full swing. Children darted between the sea of legs, giggling and chasing one another or the cuccos that strutted over the cobblestone.

There was something just so… wholesome about the kingdom that simultaneously drew the traveling hero in and set him on edge.  He wanted to join the mass of citizens, wanted to follow the stream of people down into the market. And at the same time, the sheer amount of people, the sheer amount of noise, the enclosing cobblestone walls had his eyes flicking to and fro, searching for danger.

It was like anticipation whiplash.

But thankfully, Hyrule didn't have to dwell on it long.

“Okay, is everyone clear about the plan?” Time asks, turning to address the group, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the din of the nearby crowd.

The eldest hero is met with several nods and one particularly strong eye roll from Legend.

Which Hyrule kinda gets. It was, after all, a very simple plan. They had used it for pretty much every new Hyrule they had encountered.

It was routine by now. They would split up into groups of two and scope out the village in search of this kingdom's hero. As per their earlier conversation, Warriors and Twilight would be taking the upper part of town while Legend and Sky were taking the lower sector. Time and Wind, meanwhile, would be searching through historical records in the library while Hyrule and Wild would be trying to get information out of the town guards.

Like Hyrule said. It was a simple plan. A foolproof one, if he did say so himself. Afterall, they hadn't failed to find a hero yet. They would probably find the new hero within the hour!

“Good,” The Old Man says with a nod of his head, pointedly ignoring Legend’s exasperation.  “Remember to meet back here at noon with any information you can get. There is a bell in the center of town that should ring the hour.”

“Don’t be late,” Twilight adds, narrowed eye landing on Wild and then Hyrule in turn. They grin at him, the picture of innocence. He narrows his eyes even further.

Then, without anything more to discuss, the other heroes set off two by two; Twilight and Warriors heading up the stairs while Sky and Legend join the tide of people toward the market. Time practically has to drag Wind along with him, the sailor not so pleased that his pair was checking out the library.

Soon enough, only Wild and Hyrule are left standing by the quietly bubbling fountain.

“So,” Hyruel says, turning to grin at his friend, “I’m assuming we’re gonna be late.”

“Oh, you know it,” Wild replies with a smile.

The two high five and then dive headfirst into the river of people.

…

Twilight finds trying to gather information with Warriors to be an exercise in patience. A lot of patience.

The problem isn't that they don't get any information. No. Quite the opposite, actually. The problem lies in the fact that Warriors has a tendency to be chatty on the best of days and a goddess damned gossip on the worst. The captain could get the dirt on one lizalfos from another lizalfos if the monsters weren't trying to kill him the whole time. And in a town this small, where everyone knew everyone by name, there was a lot of gossip to wade through.

Some of it was useful: apparently the hero of this kingdom was a blacksmith named Link– typical– who, according to at least one very ardent house wife, was spending far more time at the castle than he had before.

However, besides his name, occupation, and apparent interest in the princess, no one could agree on anything about the kid. Everything else about him was apparently fair game for gossip.

The hero had gone on one, no, two, no, three adventures. He was approachable but cold but sweet but hot headed. He was kind but a little bit… off, driven crazy by his adventures, no, it was his blade, no, why would he still have it if it drove him crazy?

He was twelve and twenty two and part minish– whatever that was– but lived with his grandfather, no, just his father, no wait…And could be seemingly everywhere at once one moment and then nowhere at all the next.

Basically, no one could agree on who or what the kid was. It was giving Twilight a headache.

Thankfully, however, they come to learn that the hero spent most of his time running a forge outside of town, giving Twilight the excuse he needed to drag Warriors away from the group of busybodies he had accred in his search for knowledge.

“You know,” the captain says, grumbling through the winning smile he was throwing over his shoulder at his new best friends, “You could stand to be a little bit more personable.”

“I think you’re personable enough for the both of us,” Twilight grumbles back, giving his companion a hard yank forward on his scarf.

Warriors quickly adopts an affronted look; hand on heart, mouth open, eyes blinking in mock confusion, the whole nine yards.

“And what, may I ask, is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I– what the…?”

Something rough yet soft gently smacks against Twilight’s nose, cutting off whatever snarky remark he was about to throw Warriors’ way. With a small backstep, the farm hand gets a better look at his attacker.

It’s the frayed end of a thick rope hanging down from the roof of the house they had been walking next to. It sways lightly in the light breeze, swinging at the perfect height to hit Twilight directly in the face. With inquisitive eyes, the farm hand traces the cord from the roof,up past where it must be connected, wondering at how it got there.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” a young voice says before Twilight can investigate much further, dragging his attention down to a young man in a red tunic. The kid looks pretty distressed, brows drawn, mouth trembling, and big amber eyes full of unshed tears.

“See, I was flying my kite earlier when this big breeze came and pulled the rope out of my hand and got my kite caught on the roof of this house but I can't get it down by myself and it's not my kite– oh Farore, my brother is gonna kill me!– and–and–!”

“Whoa, kid,” Twilight says, cutting off the boy before he can work himself into a tizzy. He kneels down, bringing himself eye level with the now crying child, setting a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It's going to be okay. I’ll get your kite down.”

“R-really?” The boy sniffs, wiping at his eyes with the undershirt of his tunic.

“Really,” Twilight replies with a reassuring smile.

Without further ado, the farmhand straightens and takes hold of the rope, giving it a few experimental tugs. Nothing budges. He gives it a few harsher pulls. Still nothing.

Hmm, a bit more stuck than he thought.

“Maybe stand back a little bit,” Twilight says, shooing the kid back a bit. “It might be caught on some tiles and I don’t want you getting hit if a few shingles come loose.”

The kid nods with a watery smile, skipping a few steps away.

Getting himself into a better stance–feet firm and spread apart– Twilight takes ahold of the rope and yanks. Something above gives with a slight groan, the rope loosening, falling in the farm hand’s direction.. Twilight looks up, ready to catch the kite–

Only to catch approximately a million water balloons with his face.

One by one, the little water bombs smack into the farmhand’s absolutely shell shocked face, exploding with sharp little cracks and pops. In less than a second, the farmhand is soaked head to toe. And for a second he just stands there, looking like a stupid drowned rat, pelt heavy and water logged against his back, wet hair covering his eyes, and rope still gripped in his hand.

Two laughs ring out behind his back: one familiar, annoying, Warriors. The other, young and bright and quickly retreating in the other direction.

“Hey!” Twilight shouts, whirling around.

But the kid is already gone, lost in the crowd of people.

A snort of laughter has Twilight turning back around, now met with a Warriors who is hardly containing his laughter. The captain's whole face is red with the effort of keeping it together and yet, little giggles still slip from between his lips. The asshole.

“Did–” Warriors cuts himself off, taking in a massive breath to steady himself. “Did you just get pranked by an eight year old?”

Warriors dissolves into uproarious laughter at his own question and Twilight slaps a hand to his forehead, kneading at his brow bones there.

Yes. A lot of patience indeed.

…

Wind was so bored he could scream.

But he couldn't scream because he was in a library, where he was pretty sure it was frowned upon to scream. Not that that would usually stop him. He’s a pirate after all. Rules are little more than things for him to follow on a whim and break when he feels like.

But Time… the thought of Time’s glare or worse, his disappointed stare stayed Wind’s hand. Err, mouth.

But that didn't stop him from huffily slouching into the chair at the older’s side as Time poured over a book. Didn't stop him from bouncing his leg as fast as it would go. Or sighing very loudly every chance he got. Or sinking even lower in his seat until his chin was level with the table and bouncing both of his legs even faster or–

“Wind,” Time says, the older pinching at his eyebrows as he closes his eye.  “A little bit of quiet, please.” He pointedly turns a page, opening his good eye to begin reading once more. “We’re almost done here, I promise.”

Wind slumped in his chair, resigning himself to silence.

…

For all of about three seconds before the sailor let out the loudest, longest yawn of his life, the force of the inhale arching his back while the exhale causes him to go boneless in his chair, forcing the thing to move back a several inches. A horrible screechy sound emits from the movement as the wooden legs of the chair as they whined against the hardwood floor.

By the end of the whole production, Time is staring at Wind, single eye wide, face painfully neutral.

Wind sends the older a sheepish smile.

Time’s eye narrows.

Which is how Wind finds himself stalking through the stacks, arms piled high with the books that Time no longer needs, trying to sort out where exactly to put each title. The older had apparently forgotten why Wind wasn’t helping look through the books in the first place: he couldn't read this version of Hylian, it's letters too foreign, too distant from his own.

So basically, at this point, Wind’s just putting books back where-ever he's finding openings and calling it good.

He just needs to find a few more vacancies and… there! A couple of bookshelves down the line, on the bottom most level, several books sit spaced out, leaning against one another instead of packed rigidly together. Perfect! He can get rid of several of these damn things all at once.

With a slight pep in his step, the sailor moseys on over to that shelf, leans down, and shoves about seven books into the open space.

Arms now considerably lighter, the young hero stands, whistling a quiet tune as he glances around for somewhere to deposit the last of his load–

“Aw, c’mon!” A voice, high pitched and annoyed. “I just set that all up!”

The sailor whirls around, apology ready on his lips for whatever librarian he just pissed off, only to find himself alone amongst the books. Wind looks back the way he came. No one. Back the other way. Nada. A peak around the shelf. Zilch.

“Uhhh, hello?” the young hero tries, turning a circle, peeking through the spaces between the books to see if perhaps someone was speaking to him through the shelf. “I’m sorry I fuc-err- messed up your… uh whatever it is you set up?”

“It’s fine, ” the voice replies, resigned frustration bleeding into its tone. “I’ll just be back home a bit later than I…”

A beat.

“Wait... Kid, you can hear me?”

“Not a kid,” Wind corrects, his ears flicking up and down, trying to pinpoint where the voice is coming from. “But yeah, I can hear you. Why?” Wind turns another circle. “Where the hell are you?”

A little laugh.

“Look down.”

Without thinking, Wind does as the voice commands and… huh.

Down below, next to the shelf Wind had just gracelessly filled, stands a tiny person. Like a really really tiny person, probably hardly bigger than Wind’s thumb.

“Holy shit!” the young hero exclaims, almost immediately dropping to his knees to examine his new friend.

And upon closer inspection, Wind can see that his friend isn't exactly a person at all, per say. Well, not Hylian, at least.

The little guy has ears like a Hylian, long and pointed and pierced, which protrude from the side of his head. He has hair like a Hylian, shoulder length and blonde, with the front pulled back into a neat ponytail. He even wears clothes like a Hylian; a black shirt tucked into puffy green pants, the tiniest sword Wind has ever seen slung over his shoulder, and a little pair of goggles dangling out of use around his neck.

But that's where the similarities end. Because the little guy’s face is nothing like a Hylian’s, instead ending in a long pointed nose, like the muzzle of a mouse. Wind can see that the other even has whiskers, the little hairs twitching and flickering inquisitive as the little guy tilts his head up to look at the sailor.

Wind thinks he must be examining Wind as closely as the sailor is doing to him, but there's something about his small friend’s large eyes–big, black, and seemingly pupil-less– that makes Wind feel like the other is taking a mental pictograph of him, filing away Wind's face for later.

Oh yeah, and the tail. His small friend also has a little, white, feathery tail with forest green plumage on its tip. It twitches every so often. It's adorable.

With a small laugh, the little guy takes a small step forward–huh, four toed feet– moving closer to Wind, no doubt taking in the sailor's downright astonished expression with the amount of glee of someone who's been through this whole song and dance before and who absolutely loves it.

“What kid?” he says with a grin, exposing long, rat-like incisors. “Minish got your tongue?”

“Not a kid,” Wind corrects without even thinking. “The fuck’s a Minish?”

That seems to knock his new friend off balance a little, the little guy’s grin slipping the slightest of bits as his nose begins to twitch faster.

“You’ve never heard of the Minish? Or the Picori?”

Wind shakes his head. “Nope.”

The grin slips entirely off the mouse-like man’s face, black eyes losing some of their twinkle.

“Oh.”

“But uh,” Wind says, because oh, Ocean King, if he thought a sad looking Hyrule was bad, this little guy takes the kicked puppy–kicked mouse?– look and turns it up to eleven.“Thats probably just because I’m not from around here. I’m from really far away. An island actually.”

“An island? Really?” The little guy perks up considerably at that, eyes lighting back up and whiskers and tail twitching excitedly. “Huh. I’ve never even seen the ocean before,” he says a little wistfully.

There is a beat of silence between the two.

And then the little guy, the Minish, shakes his head as if coming out of a day dream, smiling sheepishly up at Wind.

“Heh, sorry about that.” he rubs the back of his neck, a nervous habit. “Just been stuck in this town for a while. Going a little stir crazy. Anyway,” and the minish’s face quickly shifts from sheepish to imploring, “now that I know you can hear me, how about you help me fix what you just messed up?”

Which is how Wind finds himself multitasking, helping the minish, who he comes to learn is named Green, set up all of the books back into their original configurations while the little guy rides on his shoulder, helping Wind to place his own books back in their correct locations.

They chat as they go about the task, Green telling Wind all about the Minish who live in the library and why the books were set up the way they were while Wind describes growing up on a small island in the middle of the ocean. Back and forth, the two trade stories in between placing books, Green bragging about killing an Octoroc on his own (which, for his size, is actually pretty impressive) while Wind goes on and on about being the second in command of a pirate ship.

Before long, Wind finds himself sliding his final book into place, feeling oddly sad as the cracked leather spine leaves his fingers.

The sailor brings an open palm up to his shoulder, which Green steps into to be placed on the shelf Wind is standing in front of, bringing the two eye level.

“Thanks for all the help, Wind” Green says, smiling, black eyes twinkling in the dim light of the library.

The sailor waves him off, sending the other a grin of his own. “Ehh it was nothing. I mean, I’m the one who messed all of that shit up in the first place. Might as well be the one to clean it up too. And besides,” a roll of his sea glass green eyes, “it kept me from actually fucking dying of boredom.”

“Yeah, about that,” Green says, strolling over to the book Wind had just placed on the shelf. He runs a small hand over the spine, tracing the golden embossed letters with his fingers. “Not many people are super interested in the old legends of the Light Force. What exactly are you and your friend looking for?”

The little sailor takes a glance around, making sure no one is within earshot. Finding not a soul, the sailor turns back to his new friend and leans in smiling, truly a kid with a secret to tell.

“I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be hush hush, if you know what I mean,” the sailor starts, voice a whisper but words alight with excitement as he flashes the minish a conspiratory grin, “But I think you’re cool, so I'll tell ya. Hold onto your tail, ‘cause this is gunna sound absolutely keeseshit insane.”

“See, my name isn’t actually Wind. That's just the hero title I got for saving the Great Sea.” He gives the wide eyed minish a little playful bow and a wink. “Link, Hero of the Winds at your service”

“Anyway,” the sailor continues, really getting into his story now, hands moving wildly as he explains, ”Me, the dude with the sick face tats–that's Time, by the way– and six other heroes from across time and space were all brought together for a really fucking important adventure where we’ll probably have to save all of our kingdoms. And today, we got spat out here and because it’s none of our versions of Hyrule, we know that we probably need to find the hero that lives here and get them to come along with us on our adventure.”

“So Time and I were here checking the library to see if there was any info on the hero. Makes sense, yeah?” The sailor finishes, eyes finally coming back to rest on the minish

The minish who is now blinking at Wind owlishly, large obsidian eyes somehow even bigger than before.

And then the little guy breaks out into chittering laughter, the mouse-like man almost knocked over by the force of his own giggles as his tail lashes and he clutches at his stomach as though in pain.

“Hey!” Wind exclaims, indignantly. “I’m not making this shit up! It’s true!”

Green shakes his head, still laughing as he wipes a hand down his face.

“Oh no, don’t worry. I believe you,” the minish says, words still bubbly with laughter even as he tries to compose himself.  “That’s why I’m laughing.”

Another chuckle, this one considerably less light. More bitter, and crumbling around the edges.  

“Never a dull moment when you're a hero, huh?” Greens says, looking down at his hands.  “Never a moment’s rest.”

Before Wind can respond, before he can unpack what his little friend just said, his head whips to the left following the quiet and distant sound of his name. It’s Time, the Old Man calling for him. It’s no doubt time to go.

With a tinge of sadness swelling in him like the tide, Wind turns back to his friend, farewell ready on his lips, only to find the minish smiling up at him, an aquamarine fragment of stone hefted in his tiny arms.

“For all your help,” Green says. And then when Wind doesn't take it immediately, he lifts it higher, more insistent. “And for good luck.”

With ginger fingers, Wind plucks the stone from his small friend’s hands. He turns it over between his palms, staring at the etching of a four leafed clover in the middle, tracing the way the stone seems to be broken in half, a jagged edge disrupting the intricate carving.

“What is it?”

“A Kinstone. If you find its other half, something good will happen.” A rat-toothed smile and glittering black eyes twinkling with an unreadable emotion. “Something tells me you’re going to need some luck in your future.”

“Wind!” Time’s voice again, closer.

“Coming!” Wind calls back.

And then to his little friend: “I uh, guess this is good bye.”

The Minish nods and holds out his hand, looking pointedly at Wind, encouraging the sailor to do the same. With a touch of confusion, Wind complies, holding out a finger to his small companion.

Green smiles, looking up into Wind's eyes as he presses a hand to the center of his chest, placing the other to the tip of Wind’s finger.

“Umoriut ichiri,” he chirps warmly.

And then, just before Time turns the corner, the little guy sends Wind one final grin, before turning and running, ducking behind several books and skittering out of sight.

“There you are,” Time says, finally coming to stand at Wind’s side. The Old Man glances around, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Were you talking to someone? I thought I heard voices.”

Wind’s eyes flick back to where his little friend was just standing, tracing the little alcoves they had made for the Minish who live in the library.

“Nah,” Wind says, turning back to Time with an easy grin, hands behind his head, “Just whistling to myself. “We good to go?”

As the two exit the library, headed back toward the fountain to meet up with the others, a blonde haired boy in a green tunic rushes past Wind, gently brushing the sailor’s side as he runs.

“See you later!” the kid calls, looking over his shoulder only long enough for Wind to catch sight of forest green eyes before the boy’s face is obscured by bodies, his small form disappearing into the sea of people near the market.

Huh.

The kid must have Wind confused for someone else.

And yet, the little sailor could not help but think the other’s voice was oddly familiar somehow.

…

Legend and Sky start canvassing the lower town.

Start being the operative word. They do not finish canvassing the lower town.

Because really, Legend muses, how were they supposed to work in these conditions? On an empty stomach and absolutely surrounded by the mouthwatering smells of the little market?

So they stop searching for the hero and start searching for someplace to get lunch because, really, with so many eyes open and ears out looking for the kid, one of the others were bound to find something they could work with.

Or, at least, that's what Legend tells Sky to get the chosen hero to stop looking like a guilty puppy over the fact that they’re ditching their job.  

So, after touring the stalls for a bit, sampling this and trying that with the pocket change that Legend always keeps on his person, they eventually settle on a more permanent looking place for lunch: a little bakery with a sign out front that says “Wheaton and Pita’s Bakery”.

The soft tinkling of a bell and the absolutely heavenly scent of baking bread, melting butter, and sugary frosting greets them as they push their way through the door, confirming that they made the right choice.  

“Welcome to Wheaton and Pita’s Bakery, home of the lucky brioche,” calls a dour voice from behind the counter. “What can I get you today?”

The owner of the voice is a blonde kid standing at a work bench a bit farther behind the counter, kneading dough with the viciousness that one would use to throttle their worst enemy. The kid is absolutely covered in flour and powdered sugar, leaving only his livid cobalt eyes unbleached by the ingredients. He’s wearing an apron with lots of little blue  hearts and stars embroidered into the front.

With an angry grimace, the blonde gives the dough another massive punch, blowing a few strands of hair that have managed to escape his tight bun out of his face.

The kid looks like he hates his life.

Which is fair, Legend thinks. The kid is working retail, after all.

Welp, too bad for him. If he's this easily annoyed, he's in the wrong business. And unfortunately for the young blonde, Legend most certainly isn’t above antagonizing strangers for his own amusement. Gotta make your own fun while going on a wild goose chase for the Goddess, you know?

So, with only a tiny dot of venom soiling his innocent mischief, Legend plasters a doughy, dumb look over his face

“Any recommendations?” the pink haired hero asks, voice so sugary it contends with the crystalline smell of frosting in the air, his smile wide and vacant. “We’re from out of town.”

The kid must know what he's doing, because the veteran swears he sees the boy’s right eye twitch. Bingo.

“We literally only sell four things,” the kid grits out with a grimace.

Legend raises an eyebrow at that, innocent smile going a bit more pointed as he gives the boy an appraising look. A ‘oh really? You’re talking to a customer like that?’

The kid’s grimace somehow becomes even more pronounced as he narrows icy blue eyes at the veteran hero. But then, as if hearing the words of someone lecturing him, the kid shakes his head and gets a hold of his temper.The young blonde takes a deep breath in, and sighs it out, visibly trying to soften his jaw, his shoulders. Another breath in and the kid holds it this time,  the boy somehow turning his grimace into an even more painful looking smile; all teeth, no lip.

“If you want sweet, get the pie or the cake.” He says, mouth hardly moving as he hisses the words out between his bared teeth. “If you want savory, get the brioche or the croissant.”

“Oh that sounds great, but what do you recommend?”

The kid's face turns a little red.

Legend takes it as a win, even as Sky elbows him in the side, clearly having caught on to what the pink haired hero was doing.

“Sorry for my friend,” Sky says, an easy, appeasing smile on his face. “I’ll take a brioche, please.”

“And a slice of cake for me, if you’d be so kind,” Legend adds, batting his eyelashes a little.

He gets another elbow to the stomach. Its totally worth it for the icy glare he gets from the blonde as he shoves himself away from the counter, going off to fill their order.

“Why are you like this?” Sky whispers, shaking his head.

Legend merely shrugs, pulling out the correct amount of rupees and placing them on the counter. And then, after a second, places a purple one inside the open tip jar. Because the kid was at least a good sport about the whole thing.

“Here’s the brioche,” the boy says, handing a personal sized loaf to Sky with a napkin. “And the cake,” he finishes, passing a ceramic plate and fork to Legend. Then with the fakest smile known to man: “Have a great day.”

The two heroes turn away from the counter, only making it a few steps before both give into the temptation of their food.

And Legend has to admit, the cake is amazing.The frosting on top has crystalized on the outside, leaving the inside buttery and sweet and tasting of vanilla.  The cake is spongy and light, complimenting the fresh, tart strawberry and raspberry jam sandwiched between the layers.

It's nothing short of heaven and Legend would have finished it in a few seconds flat if not for a sharp crack, followed by an excruciating pain in his mouth.

With an open mouthed shout of surprise and hurt, he spits his last mouthful onto his plate; chewed up bits of cake covered in blood followed by a fucking fragment of a blue stone.

Well that and part of a tooth. Part of his front tooth.

“Wuh huh ‘UCK!” Legend screams, blood on his lips, jolting both Sky and the boy behind the counter, who both look at him in surprise and then shock.

“Did you just fucking bite into the Kinstone?!” The boy shouts in a mix of surprise and anger, vaulting over the counter, a handful of napkins clutched in his palm. He quickly guides the pink haired hero back into a chair while shoving the paper into Legend’s hands. Once seated, the boy takes the plate away as Sky leans in, shooting Legend a concerned look as the veteran sets about shoving as many napkins in his mouth in order to curb the flow of iron.

“Why huh ‘UCK are ‘here shtones in a ‘UCKING cake?!” Legend spits as best he can around the napkins and the painful half stump of his front left tooth.

“It's a Kinstone, you moron! Almost every goddess damned thing in the store has one baked into it!”

“How wash I shuppos’s to knohw ‘hat?!”

“You would have known if you had bothered to look at the fucking menu instead of being a goddess damned  menace!”

Legend whips his head up to look at the sign hanging above the counter, not believing the little, snot nosed–!

… sure enough, in bright white letters, it says, “Chance to win a Kinstone in every treat!”

Son of a...

The door opens with its tell tale tinkling and a woman steps into the bakery, freezing the three boys in their tracks as they watch her enter. She totters in, arms full of groceries and a jovial expression on her face, having clearly not seen them yet.

“I’m back, Link!” she says, setting her basket down on the counter, before glancing around, obviously looking for her helper. “How was manning the shop– oh my goodness gracious!”

A hand comes up to her mouth as she rushes over to the group of teens, glancing between Legend’s bloody mouth and the kid’s angry expression.

“Oh, Link.” She says, voice sad. No. Disappointed.  “You punched another one?”

“Another one!?” Sky exclaims.

“...the one fucking day I switch jobs with Red, I get the morons…” Legend catches the boy mutter under his breath. And then to the woman, “No, Mrs. Pita. This one,” he throws a thumb at Legend, “bit into a Kinstone and broke a tooth.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” the woman exclaims, gently removing Sky and the blonde from infront of Legend, taking a hold of the pink haired hero’s chin to examine his mouth herself. She hisses at the sight of the broken tooth, the white bone broken clean in half. “I’m afraid you might need a fairy to fix this, my dear.”

Legend groans as best he can around the napkins and now the examining fingers of his woman he's never met before. The Old Man has all the fairies right now and Legend does NOT want to explain why he needs one.

“Uhhh,” the blonde boy says after a few moments of the woman’s examination, inching back away from the scene, apron already over his head and in his hand. “Looks like you've got this covered, Mrs.Pita, so I’ll just…”

The woman waves the boy away, not even looking up from where she’s now examining Legend’s gums. “Yes, yes, out with you. Thank you for the help, deary, and say hello to your grandfather for me.”

The boy nods emphatically, throwing his apron over the counter and dashing out the door.

It's a few minutes later, the woman bustling about looking for gauze, Legend pressing a lump of ice into his mouth that Sky suddenly says: “Wait. Did she say that kid’s name was Link?”

Legend would punch himself in the face if he wasn't afraid of losing any more teeth today.

…

Oh, Time really shouldn't have put Hyrule and Wild together if he wanted them to be on a schedule of any kind.

Because really, what did the Old Man expect? For them to stay within the walls of the village and talk to soldiers when there was an entirely new, never before seen kingdom just beyond the barrier of dull, grey stone?

Yeah right!

So it really shouldn’t have surprised anyone, least of all Time, that pretty much the first chance they got, Hyrule and Wild were out the gates and into the rest of the kingdom proper.

And Nayru, If Hyrule had thought this Hyrule was cute before, well now he thought it was both cute and beautiful.  

The two adventurous heroes spend hours just getting lost together.

They end up at the base of a volcano, the ground heat-baked and cracked, a gentle but continuous snowfall of embers blanketing the earth and smothering it.

Despite the... warm welcome, they journey higher, until each inhale becomes a breath of pure flame, searing their throats and layering the roofs of their mouths and their lungs with ash.

And yet, for as inhospitable as Mt. Crenel is, all around them, the two can hear the sounds of the volcano rumble and combine and thrive with a sort of life of its own; the muffled bubbling of hot geysers mixing with the whistle of superheated air shrieking through cracks in the ground, all of it adding to a percussion of falling boulders until the entire mountain is thrumming with a rhythm, a heart beat of why would you try and climb this?!

So, of course, Wild and Hyrule continue to climb it.

Then, slightly smoldering and definitely soaked in sweat but smiling as bright as the overhead sun, the two teens stroll their way through rolling fields. They trace the curvature of the hills with pounding feet, wade their way through a sea of knee high waves of grass caught in the tide of the wind.

At some point, they catch sight of a small house in the distance, sitting alone on a raised plot of ground, and consider stopping to ask for directions. They eventually decide against it, content to their wandering.

Past the house, which Hyrule thinks might actually be a blacksmith due to the sharp ting ting ting emanating from the building as they pass, the two enter a forest. Almost immediately, Hyrule feels something in him shift, his chest releasing a breath he hadn't even known it was holding, letting the traveler feel like he was finally breathing  for the first time in a long long while.  

Hyrule can’t put his finger on it, cannot reach out and touch it or even put a name to the feeling, but there's something about the place that just… feels like home. The trees, tall and older than Hyrule will ever be, create a dark canopy overhead, interrupting the sun and leaving the forest floor in cool, misty shade. There is a strange stillness to the woods, as though everything has been muted; the trees, the bushes, the fog, all of it taking the sounds of the forest and softening them, a gentle brush of noise rather than a deafening din of activity.

And the air... The air is cool and refreshing, thick with the scent of rain and moss and mud and growth. And something else. Something that prickles familiarly at Hyrule’s skin. Something that sits on the back of his tongue, sweet, but not cloying so.

It’s something magical.

Not the crystalline honeysuckle of faerie magic, Hyrule thinks, but something similar, adjacent. It is not as ephemeral, not as wily or mischievous. It feels… more grounded. More rooted, more ingrained into the very earth instead of free floating magical ozone. It feels nice. Homely.

Hyrule could probably stay in that forest, The Minish Woods, for hours, if not for the fact that they did, infact, need to head back at some point. So with a bit of reluctance, Hyrule lets Wild drag him from the woods and back out into the light of day.

Soon enough, the two of them find a dirt road and follow it until the grey cobblestone of Hyrule Town come into view. The home stretch, they’re almost there–

Hyrule feels the dirt of the road shift beneath his foot, something burying through the ground underneath his soles, creating a small wake of rock and displaced dirt that has the traveling hero tripping with a gasp.

He catches himself, but only just, eyes almost instinctively following the way the shape that had nearly caused his fall glides forward through the dirt before it comes to a screeching halt. Thin black claws erupt from the top soil, scrabbling scrabbling scrabbling until there is a hole large enough for a rounded, yellow head to emerge from underground.

As if looking for who just stepped on it, the head wheels around in the hole, revealing a molelike face wearing a blue domino mask of all things. However, the monster's tiny eyes seem to spot them easily enough, the creature's lips immediately peeling back from it’s thin snout to reveal a needle-like sneer that has Hyrule and Wild drawing their blades.

With a squeaky giggle, the head disappears back underground only to immediately reappear as the creature emerges more fully from the dirt.

Or, if Hyrule is going to be accurate, as the creatures emerge more fully from the dirt, because their little guy apparently has friends. Friends that stack ontop of eachother, one after the other, until there is a tower of the little guys tottering toward them, claws extended, mouths snapping, eyes glittering greedily behind their masks.

Hyrule raises his shield and sees Wild do the same next to him. The two heroes lock eyes briefly, nodding to each other, a vicious smile shared between two people with the same idea. Focusing his eyes back on the tower of enemies, Hyrule braces his legs, ready to break into a sprint.

Because while the spire of moles is tall, it isn't exactly what Hyrule would call stable. A single blow from their shields should do the trick.

“Go!” Wild shouts, jolting both heroes into action, the two springing forward as one, shields ready to dismantle their enemies–

When a massive clawed paw erupts from the ground directly in front of the tower, grabbing a hold of the bottom most enemy. The little thing only has long enough to widen its eyes and let out a little shriek of fear before it's being dragged back down under the ground, the entire tower coming down with it.

“What in the hell was that?!” Wild asks, having to shout over the muffled sound of rodent-like shrieks and hisses rising up from the depths of the hole

“No clue.” Hyrule responds, just as bemused, keeping his eyes firmly locked on where the claw had emerged. “A new type of Wallmaster?”

A final high pitched shriek pieces the air, followed by total silence.

And for a second, Wild and Hyrule just stare at the hole, swords up, shields prepped, ready for literally anything to jump out of its depths.

They don't have to wait long, as two massive clawed paws emerge from the hole, working in tandem to tear at the sides of the pit, widening it. Wider and wider and wider until it’s at least three times bigger than the one the little moles had popped out of.

A final pass of paws and then the claws grip at the edges of the pit, wicked looking nails rooting themselves into the earth, a stable basis for something to haul itself up and–

Another blonde head pops from the hole, but unlike last time, it is quickly followed by shoulders and a very small, hylian looking body and Oh, Nayru,  the traveler thinks his jaw might have just hit the dirt because what looks to be a freaking eight year old child is hauling himself up from underground.

In seconds, the boy is free from the earth, standing and pulling off the massive clawed gloves– gloves! They’re gloves!– and stowing them away in a leather satchel, as he mutters quietly to himself. The child then lets out a sharp tisk as he seems to realize how dirty he is, hands passing methodically through his straight blonde hair to rid it of any clods of dirt. A couple of harsh swipes across his clothes sends clouds of dust billowing from the child, and Hyrule watches as the kid’s tunic seemingly turns from a dusky heather to a vibrant violet.

Quickly stowing his sword and shield, Hyrule rushes to the child’s side just as the kid finishes cleaning himself up, the wandering hero’s eyes peeled for any injuries, any visible bruises, tears in the other’s tunic or pants.

“Are you alright?” Hyrule asks, voice a little breathless from shock.

“Oh,” the boy replies, taking a reflexive step away as the traveling hero skids to a stop next to him, sharp amethyst eyes giving Hyrule an evaluative once over before flicking over and doing the same to Wild as the champion approaches.

“My apologies,” The boy gives a slight incline of his head, his face betraying nothing as he speaks. “I was unaware anyone was out here. I am sorry if I surprised you.”

“Surprised us?” Wild asks with a little laugh, eyes wide with excitement. “I mean, yeah, but that was freaking awesome kid! What were those things anyway?”

“And what were you doing down there?” Hyrule asks, voice soft but eyes sending daggers Wild’s way because the champion just completely bypassed the fact that there was an eight year old underground fighting monsters.

The boy’s face cracks a little, his blank facade wrinkling as his eyebrows furrow an inch, his mouth turning down a tick. His eyes flicker back and forth between Wild and Hyrule, as though the two heroes are a puzzle he’s trying to work out.

“Those were Acrobandits,” the boy explains slowly. “Not particularly dangerous monsters, but pests nonetheless. There has been an unfortunate resurgence in their numbers as of late, so I was asked to “thin the herd,” so to speak.”

“Not saying you aren’t capable of handling them yourself, but aren’t there soldiers for that?” Wild asks, Hyrule nodding along with his friends' words. Because, sure, while he was handed a sword at the age of fourteen and tasked with saving the world from an all powerful pig demon,  that didn't mean all kids should be out killing monsters before the sun had set on their first decade.

The boy’s eyebrows furrow further, face now looking completely nonplussed.

And then suddenly, his face shifts again, a look of clarity easing the confused tension in his expression, amethyst eyes beginning to flash with interest.

“You’re not from here,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Uh, no. We’re not, but–”

“Then you’re travelers, I presume.” the boy cuts in, turning to more fully face the two heroes as his eyes light up even brighter, curiosity polishing the gems of his eyes into glinting facets. “How many kingdoms have you traveled to? Why have you come to Hyrule? Have you noticed any significant differences in georgraphica–”

“Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, one at a time,” Wild butts in, waving his hands slightly, as if he were dispelling the words from the very air. “Yes, we’re travelers, we’ve been to about eight kingdoms, and were in this Hyrule looking for a hero named Link.”

The boy blinks at that.

And it's like a door slamming shut, the younger blonde’s expression closing off as the interest that had illuminated his eyes dims. His face hardens into impassive stone, painfully neutral.

“Why are you looking for him?” the words cold, carefully measured.

“You know him then?” Hyrule asks, picking up on the boy’s defensive behavior. One would only act that way if they cared deeply about the person in question. Cared about a stranger’s intentions toward them. “We need his help with something and need to speak with him as soon as possible.”

“Need help with what, exactly?” the kid asks, narrowing his eyes.

Wild and Hyrule share a look.

Because, really, isn't that the million rupee question?

Because, at this point, even they aren't sure what they're doing. They know they’ve been brought together by some sort of force powerful enough to punch rifts through time and space itself but they weren't clear on what this force was, or if its intentions were benevolent or not.

There was no old man to tell them what they were supposed to be doing. No cryptic clues or helpful hints, no companion to give them some incentive.

They were just eight heroes from different eras suddenly shoved together by some weird twist of fate and expected to do... something.

But that isn't an answer.

But Hyrule has no other to give.

So he tells the truth.

“We… don't actually know.” the traveler begins, letting out a soft sigh as his eyes meet the boy’s, a field of earnest hazel versus a sea of skeptical violet. “We… aren't sure what we’re doing or even why.”

A raised eyebrow from the boy and Hyrule lets out a humorless laugh in response.

“Yeah, I know, right? Sounds pretty stupid. But,” and Hyrule tries, he tries to make his words as full of conviction as possible. Full of steel but also full of simple, all encompassing warmth. “All I know for sure is that whatever it is we’re doing, we’re doing it for the good of others. And that’s worth looking a little stupid for. Or, at least, I think so.”

A beat of silence passes between them.

And then, for the first time since they’d met him, the kid smiles.

It is small, barely an upturn of his lips, but it is soft and fond, the kid shaking his head slightly, as if dispelling a thought. Or perhaps a memory.

“You sound like my brothers,” the young blonde says, still smiling. “Idiots, the lot of them, but brave. Brave idiots.”

Hyrule watches as the kid’s smile turns sad. A breath in and a breath out and the expression is gone, the boy’s face once again a fond, half smile.

“It sounds like you could use all the help you can get. I’ll tell you where you can find him. The Hero.”

…

Honestly, for how much they had done exactly the opposite of what their job was supposed to be, Hyrule is a little proud to find that he and Wild manage to procure the best information thanks to the help of the kid– Vio.

And sure, they’re three hours late, but they’re not empty handed like Time and Wind, or soaked to the bone and with little more to show for it than rumors like Twilight and Warriors, or missing a tooth like Legend.

It is mostly only thanks to them that the heroes set off south of town, Twilight in a new set of clothes (but his still damp fur plastered stubbornly to his back) and Wind happily admiring a now completed Kinstone thanks to Legend’s… souvenir.

Before they know it, the group of heroes find themselves outside of the blacksmith’s forge that Hyrule and Wild had passed hours ago.

To think, if they had just stopped to ask for directions, they could have found the Hero with no muss, no fuss.

Oh well, Hyrule thinks, a touch of a smile pulling at his face. He always did prefer to do things the long way around.

Time, ever the leader, pushes open the door, the rest of them following close behind and–

“You!” Twilight hisses,taking a slight aggressive step forward as he jabs a finger in the direction of a very familiar looking young blond boy sitting on top of the weapon shop's counter. And then addressing the other heroes, accusing point never dropping for a second, “That's the kid who dumped water all over me!”

“Uhhh, no,” Legend cuts in, sending a look Twilight’s way that clearly implied that the veteran thought the farm hand was being a moron, “Thats the kid from the bakery. The one who sold me the cake with rocks in it.”

And Hyrule wants to break in that, no, this is Vio. The one who fought off a bunch of mole monsters like it was nothing and who told them where they could find the Hero in the first place. The reason they were even here.

Because its very clearly the same kid. Same diminutive height, same straight, shoulder length blonde hair, same headband holding the golden locks out of the kid’s face.

And yet, at the same time, Hyrule can also distinctly tell that it's not the same kid.

Because where Vio had been chilly politeness, bright curious eyes, and stone cold suspicion, this kid is all knowing grins, mischievous looks, barely contained anticipation. He’s also wearing a completely different outfit: a quadripartite tunic, four different colors sewed roughly together at their edges to make a very unique whole.

And apparently he’s been waiting for them, a bag already packed and sitting on the counter next to the kid.

“It sounds like you’ve met my brothers,” the boy says by way of greeting, smile never leaving his lips as he hops over the service counter, dragging his full bag with him.  “Sorry about them, they can be a bit of a handful. My name’s Link.”

A little laugh to himself, like there is some sort of inside joke here that no one seems to be in on except the boy himself.

“But something tells me I won’t be going by that for much longer,” the little hero continues.

A hearth warm smile. An air of confidence. A stone firm handshake. A tempest of energy.

“You guys can call me Four.”

[whentherewerebicycles]

Hi! I really hope this isn’t overstepping but I don’t know any grown up lesbians irl (I mean I’m 23 so I guess technically I’m a grown up but for the purposes of this question it doesn’t count). Anyway, you can delete this if you want, but here’s the sitch: I met this girl like 9 months ago at work and first we hated each other and then we became friends and then we started hooking up but just as friends. I’m leaving this job in a few weeks and moving across the country, and I’m having all sorts of complicated feelings about this. Like, I don’t really want to date her, but we haven’t hooked up lately and i think I’m experiencing that as a kind of rejection of me as a friend even tho we’re still friends and do friend stuff together, just minus the kissing. And those rejection-feelings are making me sad. And I guess my question is, since you seem like someone who is really good at processing emotions and sort of regulating your responses—how do I do that? Like how do I become okay with things, especially things that I didn’t think would happen? I’m sorry I know that’s really broad and not really an answerable thing but if you have any advice I would really appreciate it. Thank you

aww it's not overstepping! i am happy to be a Grownup IRL Lesbian in this situation, although yknow take everything with a grain of salt as i am just one person and this is just one perspective. it sounds like there are a couple things at play here... one has to do with communication between the two of you and one has to do with emotional self-regulation. the communication piece i have historically been less adept at handling than the emotional self-regulation piece, but i have a best friend who is very good at it, and i feel like i have learned a lot from watching her navigate these kinds of emotionally sticky situations. so i will tell you what i think she would do -- and i will also tell you that historically, while communicating clearly with people has not always gotten her the outcome that she wanted, she always seems to feel a LOT better for having done it, and it clears the way for her to do the emotional self-regulating part more easily without having to also wade through lots of emotional projecting / attempts at reading the other person's mind.

it sounds like the way this relationship started (because it IS a relationship, even if it's not a capital R relationship) may have laid the groundwork for what's happening now. you say you hated each other at first, so you probably didn't feel comfortable or at ease around each other, and you may have established a pattern of not treating each other with special consideration or thoughtfulness (even if you aren't outright antagonistic towards each other). i'm also assuming (though correct me if i'm wrong?) that the transition into being friends who hook up probably wasn't discussed much at the outset or was treated as a casual thing that didn't need a lot of communication or clear boundaries (since it wasn't a capital R relationship). that kind of thing happens! i think it especially happens in your early 20s (and maybe also in situations where the two women involved don't have a lot of experience dating women or navigating that tricky 'are we friends or...?' kinda thing). but, again, it seems like it might be laying the groundwork for what's happening right now, where one person has withdrawn without explaining why, and the other person is left feeling rejected or confused about what's happening. it also doesn't sound like you think of this as something that could be resolved between the two of you -- you're asking for advice on how to manage your own feelings about the situation, rather than advice on how to address it with her.

from ten years of observing my best friend, i have found that she tends to operate according to the following principles:

ask the person in advance if you can have a conversation with them about something that's bothering you (instead of springing it on them in a social situation when they're not expecting it). it doesn't have to be a big serious We Need to Talk thing. you can make it clear that you're coming into it from a casual, friendly, 'can we try to work this out together' place, not from an attacking place (so as to avoid making the other person defensive)

have the conversation in person instead of over text (it's awkward but trust me TRUST ME it's better)

don't assume that you know what the other person is thinking or why they're acting the way they are. use "I" statements and try to frame things in ways that defuse tension and don't put the other person on the defensive. in your situation, you could say something like, "hey, so, I've noticed that we aren't really hooking up anymore. i respect your choices, and i'm completely okay with that if it's what you want to do. but i've been feeling kind of mixed up and sad about it, i was wondering if we could talk about what the next few weeks of our friendship are going to be like." you can also ask open-ended, nonjudgmental questions: "would you feel more comfortable not hooking up anymore, since i'm about to move?" "would you still like to hang out even if we're not going to be hooking up?" and you can voice your own preferences too - "i'd really like to keep hanging out, but it would help me feel better/more secure to know what you're thinking re: hooking up again," or even "i think it's getting harder for me to separate my feelings about the friendship from the hooking up - i think it might be better for us to stop hanging out."

think about what you want the result of the conversation to be -- not necessarily your most desired outcome, but what your priorities are re: the relationship and your personal needs for closure. you can go into a conversation hoping for a certain outcome ("i hope she says it was just a mistake, apologies, and says she wants to keep hooking up until i leave") but you have no control over whether or not you get that outcome, and you may just be setting yourself up for disappointment. what you can do, though, is set priorities for yourself, so that in the conversation, you are making choices or discussing things in a way that aligns with those longer-term goals. an example of that kind of priority might be something like - "I don't really need to keep in touch with this person after I move, but I want to leave on a good note - so I want to prioritize keeping the conversation positive and friendly, without either of us resorting to the animosity we used to feel towards each other when we first met." or you might set a priority like, "I actually do want to maintain this friendship in some form, and to do that I need to feel like we can be comfortable enough with each other talking to each other openly. I don't know how she'll respond or if preserving the relationship will be important to her at all, but I want to prioritize clearly sharing my own needs and feelings, giving her the opportunity to respond in kind, and modeling what i hope our friendship could look like going forward." getting clear in your own mind about your priorities in advance is different from attempting to emotionally project onto the other person or to control/manipulate their actions in some way. it's something that prepares you to communicate well with another person, but at its core it's an emotional self-regulation strategy -- a way for you to check in with yourself and decide in advance what your 'values' for the conversation are going to be. in the middle of the conversation, you may start feeling defensive, angry, hurt, rejected, or some other Big Feeling that causes you to want to react instinctively and impulsively, or makes it more likely that you'll cave on something you don't really want to cave on. doing some of this thinking beforehand gives you something to refer back to when you're feeling emotionally overwhelmed in the middle of a difficult conversation.

remember that you can only regulate the way you act and respond in a situation. so your priorities can be not just about your hopes for the tone of the conversation or the longer-term outcomes, but also about how you want to respond if things don't go well. poor communicators often tend to interpret attempts to openly, directly communicate or to set boundaries as an attack of some kind or an attempt to manipulate the situation. if she's not a very good communicator, it's possible that she might respond negatively to your attempts to have a calm, direct conversation -- whether it's by lashing out, dismissing or invalidating your feelings, changing the subject, stonewalling you, or trying to turn the situation around on you to make it somehow your fault. remember that if someone is violating your boundaries or making you feel shitty about yourself, you can always leave the conversation. it's not you failing as a communicator -- it's that the other person just isn't able to communicate with you in a healthy, productive way. i feel like when i was first dating women (and navigating breakups or complicated conversations like this one), i used to get sucked into these long, drawn-out processing conversations, which would sometimes last for hours and could be really painful. and i always used to think that to communicate well, or to be a respectful partner, i owed it to the other person to sit there and listen to everything they wanted to say to me, even if it was really cruel or was upsetting me. or if i was breaking up with someone, i owed it to them to answer every single angry or hurt question they asked me, because i was "hurting" them by breaking up with them, and so they were entitled to hurting me back or to dragging me through hours of processing. but that is NOT the case. not to traffic in stereotypes too much, but i think that women are socialized to feel like extensive emotional processing is always required / necessary, that we owe other people our undivided emotional energy and time, and that setting reasonable boundaries or calmly stating our needs is somehow "hurting" or inconveniencing other people in some way. this is simply not true. you have an ethical obligation to respect other people's autonomy and human dignity, and you have the right to expect that they communicate with and treat you with that same basic respect. watching my bff communicate has helped me realize that setting healthy boundaries (and then clearly demonstrating that you will honor those boundaries, by removing yourself from the situation if they are violated) is a way of showing respect to yourself and can also be important for the other person to see. like, way too often poor communicators are rewarded for poor or immature communication by getting what they want from the other person -- whether it's wanting the other person to fight back, or seeing the other person be visibly hurt/filled with self-doubt, or successfully manipulating the other person into doing what they want. every time you let people violate your boundaries, you positively reinforce the idea that emotionally manipulative or disrespectful behavior gets them what they want. by choosing to leave, or knowing where your own emotional boundaries are and having a plan for what you'll do if they're violated, you can protect yourself while also avoiding inadvertently providing that positive reinforcement. btw i don't necessarily anticipate that all of this stuff will be relevant in your situation! but i think it's good to keep in mind, especially if there's a history of antagonism there in the early stages of your friendship. also it's just good Lesbian Dating 101 knowledge to have in general, i think! again, not to generalize too much, but i think that women dating other women can be especially prone to really complicated, painful, emotionally manipulative dynamics, in part because our society teaches women that it is dangerous, unattractive, pushy, selfish, etc to clearly express our feelings/needs and enforce healthy boundaries. not to mention that lesbians and bisexual

women are also more likely to have issues with internalized homophobia, shame, etc, which may cause us to develop lots of maladaptive coping mechanisms, which in turn can further distort our ability to be honest with ourselves about our feelings/needs and to clearly communicate with others. so yknow! as you continue to date and sleep with women i think it's good to be working on your shit while also being attuned to signs that someone else is working through (or avoiding working through) their own shit.

also remember that, while it's good to be prepared for worst-case or most stressful outcomes, it's also very possible that having an open, nondefensive, nonjudgmental conversation with her will work! it's very possible that it will go well, that you will work things out in a way that makes you both feel better about each other and about the situation, and that she will take your good communicator cues and respond to you with the same openness and respect you are extending to her. so i wouldn't go into it expecting things to go badly!

anyway to sum all of that up: i do think that my advice would first be to try having a conversation with your friend/casual partner -- and i would especially recommend approaching this conversation not as a Huge Emotional Thing but as a good, low-stakes situation where you can practice your open communication skills! the fact that you are moving in a few weeks imposes natural parameters around this situation, so you don't have to worry about, like, seeing her at work for years to come, or moving in the same social circles as her. i think that can kinda free you up emotionally to take a communication 'risk' or to try something that's a little bit outside of your comfort zone. and whether that conversation goes well or not so well, the experience of reflecting on your priorities for the conversation, making choices in the conversation that align with those priorities, and reflecting back on how it went afterwards can be a really good, really important learning experience. if you can start practicing these things at 23, you will be SO far ahead of where i was at that age, lol, and you really will benefit from having these strategies in your relationship/friendship toolkit.

to get to the question of emotional processing and self-reflection, though, here's how i think i would handle this situation.

first and most importantly: make space for yourself to feel the bad feelings. don't try to downplay or compartmentalize or dismiss what you're experiencing. if you feel sad, rejected, and confused, make space for yourself to really feel those feelings and to acknowledge to yourself that they are real, and they hurt. i often do this in writing (private writing rather than tumblr writing) but i also do it out loud, and i find that saying it aloud can really help me feel that sense of relief/release. a couple months ago a thing happened that really bothered me & made me feel very ashamed and small and embarrassed. and i just spent that morning in my apartment writing through the feelings, and then saying aloud to myself: "I feel really bad right now. I feel really embarrassed, and I feel shame - ie I'm not just embarrassed about something I did; I feel embarrassed right now by who I am as a person. It feels really bad. It makes me feel really small. It stirs up a lot of painful past memories where I've felt like this before, and it's really hard for me right now to not link this situation to those past situations, and to tell myself a story about how I have always been the kind of person other people perceive as too much."

you will absolutely cry a lot, if you are anything like me! but it is a good, cathartic kind of crying. It doesn't exorcise or expel those feelings, but putting them out there in the open allows you to look at them clearly, and to put them outside of yourself instead of doing the shame thing where you repress them and internalize them. internalized shame, for me, always feels like it is literally internalized in my body. repressing or avoiding voicing feelings of shame doesn't make it go away; it just gets internalized as physical tension, like literally stored in my muscles (tight jaw, hunched shoulders, constricted chest, etc). voicing the feeling aloud and letting yourself cry through it (or however you let yourself process big painful feelings) releases that tension, and means that i don't literally "carry it" in my frame like i used to.

when i've let myself feel the big feelings, i start doing something that i think of as bathing myself in acceptance and compassion. this is kind of a metaphor, but i also try to use it as a visualization, kinda? i think of shame and feelings of rejection are emotional experiences that flood my body/mind/senses. so i try to visualize acceptance and self-compassion in a similar but slightly different way. flooding is so violent and is something you have no control over. bathing can similarly 'drench' you in a whole-body feeling, but for me it has connotations of consciously chosen tenderness and care. instead of opening the floodgates of negative feelings, you are choosing to gently care for yourself, to bathe yourself in acceptance and compassion. if i am really really upset about something, and am really having a hard time with shame-flooding, i will sometimes sit in a quiet place somewhere, close my eyes, and actually say those words aloud to myself -- I am bathing myself in accepting and compassion. I am bathing myself in acceptance and compassion -- as I try to visualize those feelings of compassion, permission to feel what i feel, and nonjudgmental acceptance just gently washing over me, again and again. i usually cry some more! i am a big advocate for crying all the time as part of healthy emotional processing! but it really does seem to work, to soothe my flooded brain/body back to a state of calm equilibrium.

at this point, i usually am feeling calm enough that i can look at the situation again and think about it in a less visceral emotional-response way. i've cleared time/space for myself to feel the bad feelings, and then i've consciously chosen to honor those feelings and to make it clear to myself that i'm not going to judge myself harshly or critically, either for feeling what i feel or for whatever i did/failed to do in the original situation that prompted the bad feelings. doing that emotional processing work seems to allow me to reengage the prefrontal cortex and look more carefully at the situation. i tend to do a lot more writing (and some talking-aloud) at this stage, and i try to ask myself lots of open-ended, exploratory questions. when i was very upset and ashamed of the thing that happened a couple months ago, here are some of the questions I asked myself and spent time writing through:

why do I think that situation triggered such a strong emotional response in me?

what was i imagining the other person was thinking about the situation or about me? what are some reasons that upset or distressed me?

i noticed that i started immediately linking this situation to past situations where i've felt the same way. is it possible that the intensity of my response might have less to do with this specific situation, and more to do with other situations it reminded me of?

when i was awash in those shame feelings & linking the situation to past situations, what kind of narrative was i constructing about myself? what story was i telling myself about the kind of person I "am" or have always been?

looking at the same set of facts, can i construct an alternative story about who i am/have been? my initial narrative was really focused on my negative traits and negative past experiences. what would it look like to tell myself a story that centered the ways in which i've grown and changed, or a story that incorporated both traits i like in myself and traits i am less proud of? what might those alternative stories offer that my original story left out?

what could i learn from this experience? without resorting to self-criticism or self-judgment, are there things i might want to do differently when i find myself in this situation again? what choices could i make that might better align with my values or my understanding of the kind of person i want to be in the world? without shifting blame onto the other person, is there anything i can learn from the way they responded -- about how i want to treat others (or avoid treating them) when we're in some kind of conflict with each other?

i really cannot stress how crucial it is for me to actually carve out the time/space to do this kind of deep, sustained emotional processing. in my own emotional history, the things that i have struggled most to get over/move past/grow beyond are the things that i initially brushed off, or told myself were too trivial to feel bad about, or actively repressed because at the time they felt too raw and painful for me to look at or handle directly.

i was just thinking earlier this week about that whole embarrassing / painful experience, and sort of marveling at how easy it is for me now to think about it without feeling it like a wound, or without my mind instinctively trying to deflect or evade thinking about it. looking back at it, i can still see exactly why it caused me pain, and i can still remember/access what that hurt felt like. but i created space for myself to deeply process it -- that is, space to actually acknowledge the feelings; to extend acceptance and compassion to myself for what was past/over; to openly explore what the situation made me feel and why; and to reflect on what i could learn from the experience or take with me moving forward (ie, consciously choosing what i wanted to carry with me from the situation, instead of involuntarily carrying the shame, tension, etc in my body). and that processing allowed me to integrate that painful experience into my sense of who i am and how i relate to other people, in a healthy way that doesn't deny the pain but also doesn't let it become all-consuming, or assume outsize importance in the stories I tell myself about myself.

I'm sorry this got so long! i just really do enjoy and value getting to think aloud about this kind of thing, so thank you for the chance to do so. I don't know how much of this advice will be directly relevant to your situation! I think everybody processes things differently, and while we can learn from closely attending to other people's methods, we all have to figure out how to create and consistently practice healthy coping mechanisms that fit our individual temperament & emotional histories. but i hope that this at least gives you some starting points for thinking about how you might work through your own complicated emotional situation, in a way that feels healthy for you. i wish you the very best of luck!!

[captainillogical]

Distant Lands Ch.9

Stranded on a planet with toxic conditions and nothing but the clothes on your back, your only means of survival lies within the gem that got you here in the first place.

Spinel/Reader

collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants​

You finish chewing your current bite of food, walking quickly over to Spinel.

“What? What’s in there?” You say as you get over to her side, leaning near her to peer at the screen properly. The screen is filled with rows of unreadable text. "What does the text say? I can't read it." 

"I'm still reading this one.. hold on." You watch her read the text for several moments before she rips her eyes from the screen, looking at you with a confused expression.

“What?” You ask her. “You’re making me anxious.”

“Er..” She lifts her hand up, and points at a line of text near the top of the window. “This is kinda weird here. They noticed several bismuth’s and a lapis went missing after only being here a few weeks. A lot of this is just daily logs so I’m having to wade through a lot of garbage info.”

“Did they say why they went missing? Did they ever find those gems?” 

“No, actually.” She scrunches her face, perplexed. “The logs continue with some geological and temperature readings. They did mention in here that they came to this planet to take it's resources because it's got limited time left. Something about the dying sun this planet revolves."

“Yeah, have you seen that giant red thing up there? It's kind of atrocious. What else have you got?” You lean a bit further near Spinel, practically hovering over her lap at this point, but you’re having a hard time seeing the screen. You think your eyesight has somehow gotten worse on this planet.

“It seems like they also observed that the animal life on the surface is mainly nocturnal, with quite a few notes on a couple particular subspecies of canine.” She replies, and pulls up a few pictures that are attached to this file. She flips through a couple, having never seen any of these creatures that you are looking at on the console right now. After a few, she gets to one you almost recognise immediately.

“Oh!” You exclaim and point at the image, and she looks at you almost startled. “I’ve seen this one. It was small, but it looked just like that picture.”

“You saw this?” She asks, eyebrows raising up her forehead almost comically. “When!? I haven’t seen anything aside from that thing by the lake!”

“Remember that night you found me on that hill?”

“You mean the night you tried running away?” She attempts to correct you.

“That wasn’t what I was doing. Anyway, I ran into one of those little guys that night. Scared the shit out of me. I managed to run away from it before any more showed up, though.”

“Well, it explains why we haven’t seen like, any of them at all.” She continues to click through the images, and you don’t recognise anything else. All the creatures that inhabit this planet look super weird compared to anything else you’ve seen.

She gets into another file and starts reading, and you patiently wait for her to let you know what it says. After a few seconds, she moves to a different file. She gets through three before you interrupt her.

“Are you gonna read any of this out loud, or am I going to have to guess?”

“Sorry, there’s not much in some of these. I’m skimming to get through all of the boring supply checklists and kindergarten charts.” She glances at you and how close you are to her, and quickly looks back to the screen.

“Okay.” You sigh, and lean back a little. 

“Hm,” She says, narrowing her eyes at the screen. “This entire file is still corrupted aside from the pictures. Think they’ll load?”

“Won’t know until you try.” You say, eyes glued to the console. She loads into the file, and the image is just black. She clicks to the next one, and that’s also just a black image.

“Well, that sucks.” She says a bit disappointedly. 

“Keep going.” You reply, and you see the next image also be blank, but the one after that is a very clear picture of a damaged injector. The glass and steel of the casing is completely mangled, and all of the fluid is drained due to there being a giant chunk taken out of the side.

“What the.” You hear Spinel say, and she clicks to the next image, showing similar injectors in similar conditions. There are just several images in this file of broken, unusable injectors in what looks to be like a kindergarten. You think it looks like the one that’s nearby, but you can’t be sure. “What happened to all this equipment? Did the gems stage a small rebellion and destroy all of this?”

“Did any of the other information allude to that?” You turn to ask her. “Otherwise that makes little sense. Er, well.. there were those gems that went missing, so it’s not a completely out-there theory.”

“I’m hoping the further we go, the more likely we’ll get answers.”

She continues to wade through files, and you lean forward against the console, tired. She seems to be focusing pretty hard on reading for the both of you, and occasionally she takes long glances at you when she thinks you’re not looking at her. Except you can see her do it out of the corner of your eye, and now you’re worried you have something on your face.

“Spinel.” You address her, and she doesn’t look up from the screen she’s reading.

“Hm.” She grunts out.

“You keep looking at my face. Is there food on it?” You ask her, swiping down your cheek to feel for particles of anything. She glances up at your face anxiously before her expression changes to one more neutral, and shakes her head.

“There isn’t. I’m just having a hard time focusing, so I keep spacing out.”

“By staring at my face?” You say half in jest, and raise an eyebrow at her.

“You’re kind of right in my personal space, so. Yeah.” She replies, deadpan. Her eyes manage to catch on something on the screen, and her expression turns a little more serious. 

“What did you find?”

“Look. More gems went missing here. They have a record of up to.. thirty-six. All different gems.” She turns her head to face you, meeting your eyes. “There aren’t any records of them reappearing.”

“Where would they even go?” 

“Do ya’ think they hated this planet as much as we did and actually succeeded in leaving?” She continues reading, and her eyes skim quite a few more lines at the bottom before getting comically large in shock. “Wait.. no. It got higher than that. Here they have an update with over a hundred and sixty-seven missing after just a few weeks.” “What the fuck? How are they even going missing! How do they not notice when a whole squad of quartzes just.. disappear!?” You hear your voice echo out throughout the room.

“Your guess is about as good as mine. Seems like a whole bunch of these logs are still corrupted though.” She huffs out a sigh, and stretches her arms above her head before concentrating back on the console. You’re starting to feel a migraine coming on soon. You should probably go out for fresh air just to give yourselves a break.

"Kinda makes sense though, why the Spire is only half finished." You bring up your hand to rub at your right temple, attempting to ease some of the throbbing. "Probably stopped production due to the rapidly disappearing gems."

"This also mentions frequent ground quakes, and the appearance of those holes, but nothing more than that." She looks at you tiredly, and sighs. "The last few files after this are completely unreadable from the corruption."

"So, let me get this straight." You clear your throat. "These gems get to this planet to start a kindergarten, they notice a few weird things going on. Injectors are being utterly wrecked, more and more gems keep going missing without a trace, and holes are popping up around everywhere."

"Yeah." She says, giving you an 'this is obvious' expression.

"Is this not really fucking weird to you?"

"Of course it's weird! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it! I've never even heard of this happening to a colony, and I was Pink's best friend!"

"Okay well," You stand up from your leaning position, cracking your back in the process. "I think I should get some fresh air or something, because if I stand still any longer while thinking about all of this, I'm going to go crazy."

She's staring at you for a moment, before lazily shrugging. "Have fun with that."

"Do you not want to come with?" You ask her, raising an eyebrow in question. "You seem like you could also use a break."

"You.. want to spend time with me?" She asks, perplexed, pointing a finger to her chest.

You give her an unamused look, and make a point to look to either side of her, before meeting her gaze again. 

"Is there anyone else here, Spinel?"

"I mean, no, but-"

"Then let's go." You say, leaving no room for questions. You swivel around on your foot, and head for the entrance to leave the Spire, hearing Spinel sigh behind you.

The doors open with a whoosh, and the heavy heat of the afternoon hits you immediately. You breathe in the thick, humid air of this planet, glancing at Spinel next to you. She looks visibly irritated at the hot temperature around you two. She must've gotten used to the inside of the Spire, as it was darker and much cooler in there.

"Ugh, feels awful out here." She says, voice dripping with disgust.

"I've had hotter summers." You shrug, and pick a direction to walk in, spotting an opening in the thick of the jungle treeline. "I've also accidentally set myself on fire one time, and that was a bit worse than this."

Spinel sputters behind you and you stop your pace to look at her. "How do you set yourself on fire!?" She cries out in confusion.

"You trip into the campfire you're making." You chuckle, and keep walking. You make the mistake of brushing your hand against one of the nearby trees, and your hand has sap all over it when you pull away.

"Not entirely sure how humans have survived as a species." She scoffs beside you, matching your walking pace.

"Sheer spite, honestly. It gets you places." You try to wipe your hand off on your pants, and you can see Spinel glancing at what you're trying and failing to do. She attempts to curb herself from laughing at you. Asshole.

"Does it really? I feel like that gets you killed more often than not." She says, and you can almost hear the withheld laughter in her voice. It infuriates you, but only a little.

"How would you know?" You reply, tone mocking. "How many humans have you met?"

"Only you, but I feel like you're an outlier if we're going by examples." 

"Wow, rude." You roll your eyes at her, and you can hear some water trickling off to the side, so you decide to follow it. "You're not what I'd call a prime example of a gem either."

"Yeah, well, how many gems have you met?" She nearly trips on a large tree root, and you almost laugh out loud at the way her arms comically flail about before she catches herself. She glares at you when she finds her balance, like it was your fault somehow.

"Quite a few actually! Enough to know that you're all a little bit bastard on the inside at least. Except for Steven, he's only half. And a total sweetheart." The two of you get closer to the sound, and you realize that it's a small waterfall attached to a pool of water, and that leads to a brook that keeps going beyond where you can see it.

"I resent that statement." She wipes her forehead, some of her hair sticking to the sides of her face. She looks at the water longingly, and you get an idea.

"Wanna relax here for a while?" You ask her, watching her face. She looks at you thoughtfully, like she's thinking you have some kind of sinister motive.

"..if ya' wanna, sure." She replies, and you shrug, heading over to the waterfall.

"Seems like a decent idea, with the heat and all." You bend down to slip off your shoes, almost losing your balance in the process. Setting your shoes off to the side, you dip your feet into the cool water. It feels nice on your skin. You look over to Spinel who is watching you, and you walk over to a large nearby rock to take a seat. "You gonna just stand there and stare, or what?" You say, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

"Right." She replies with a shake of her head, as if to clear her thoughts. She mimics you in taking off her boots, slipping them off and setting them down next to the side of a tree.

"Can't you just phase off your clothes?" You ask her, giving her a look.

"Sometimes I forget." She shrugs, moving over to lean against the same rock you're sitting on. She moves her foot in the water a little, making ripples across the surface. 

"How do you forget.. nevermind." You shake your head. "Wait a second, that first time I went to that lake, you swam in it fully clothed."

"Oh, that." She smirks a little. "I wouldn't do that normally, I was just making sure you weren't trying to escape."

"In a lake? You're an idiot. You freaked me out by touching my leg, though." 

"Yeah, that was on purpose actually. It seemed like it'd be fun to scare you a little."

"Remember what I said like five minutes ago? I'm doubling down. You're definitely a bastard." You glare at her, and at that, she chuckles. You find yourself almost smiling, and it irritates you immensely.

"Ya' kinda deserve it, considering the amount of times you've hit me in the face." She throws back at you.

"Don't even go there, you've smacked me around quite a bit and even sliced my forehead." You point at the healing wound on your face. "You know this is going to scar right? My poor face. Now I'll look like some kind of rugged adventurer." You sigh disdainfully. She gives you a pointed look.

"Technically, you're already one."

"Yeah, against my will." You say, and kick some water at her. She narrows her eyes slightly, and she looks like she wants to kick back.

"You look fine, anyway. Even with the scar." She says, rolling her eyes at you. "Dunno why'd you care."

"Because it's my face? Whatever. At least you didn't blind me I guess. Was kind of a close call."

"Yeah. Could've also just plain 'ol murdered ya', it would've been really easy." She says, staring at her hands. She slips one finger underneath the edge of her right glove, pulling it upwards to remove it. 

"To be fair, humans in general are just easy to kill. Like half the time we do it ourselves." You glance away. You have no idea why your heart is starting to beat a little faster? They're just hands, and she's an alien. 

“Kinda comes with the meatbag package, yeah?” You see her flop the gloves down next to you on the rocks surface.

“Don’t call us meatbags. We’re so much more than that.” You scoff at her, splashing her with another kick of water against her legs.

“Really? Doesn’t seem like it’d be all that fun.” She replies, watching her own feet in the shallow water.

“Guess it seemed fun enough for Pink, all things considered.” You say and smirk at her. “Cause you know she changed her form to-”

“Y-yeah, I know.” Spinel cuts you off, and you think you see the faintest blush on her cheeks. Which is fucking hilarious. “Pink was always the type to be overly excited about new things..” She trails off, and you watch her for a moment. She’s not looking at you - instead, she’s looking at the water below her. The afternoon rays of sunlight have breached through some of the jungle canopy, and light is reflecting off of Spinel’s gem. It sparkles a bit - blinding you with a flash of light for a second before passing. You wonder if the temperature of the gem matches with the rest of her. Actually..

“Spinel.”

“Hm?” She glances up at you.

“Why is your gem upside down? Isn’t it a heart?” You ask her. She looks at you thoughtfully.

“It used to be right side up before I reformed.” She replies with a shrug.

“You reformed?” You reiterate out loud. “Did you look any different from right now? When the crystal gems reformed, only slight things changed.”

“Not by much. My hair was different.”

“Yeah? What was it like?” You question her, actually interested.

“Er, like this,” She says, using both her hands to grab one of her pigtails and maneuvering the hair into a heart-like shape. It’s uh.. it’s actually really cute. A beat of silence passes between you two as she waits for a response from you.

You stare at her for a moment, before you have to stifle a laugh.

“Hey!” She cries out in offense, and drops her hair to reach down into the water, actually splashing you with her hands this time. It makes you actually laugh out loud.

“God, I’d pay to see you like that.” You say in between laughs, and for that, she splashes you again. “You’re such an ass!” She says, and looks away from you. Is she.. Is she pouting?

“I’m just saying, it sounds cute. And besides, I think you look better the way you are now.” You pull your soaked shirt away from your body, squeezing out the excess water. You don’t even care honestly, the evening heat will evaporate it quickly. “Suits you better, anyway.” You try squeezing out as much water from the rest of your shirt, but looking down at your pants, you realize they’re a bit of a lost cause. When you look back up, Spinel is staring at you with a strange expression, light blush upon her face. Your heart skips a beat.

“Regardless.” She shakes her head. “I think we should head back, and maybe discuss going over to investigate the kindergarten. It’s kind of been bothering me.”

“Yeah, same.” You sigh, kicking your feet in the water one last time.

Both of you put your shoes back on, as well as her gloves, and give each other a nod. The two of you walk side by side on the way back to the Spire, discussing several things related to your plan of possibly going over to the kindergarten in the next day or so. And maybe you also try and throw in as many jabs as you can at her, because, well. It’s fun.

[master-sass-blast]

Children of the Gods -Part One.

OOOOOOOOOOOOH BABY I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!! THIS HAS BEEN MY LITTLE PET PROJECT FOR OVER A YEAR!!!!

Summary: There's a new force to be reckoned with on the horizon, a force that goes by the name of Allison Ricci. Having lost her family, she's out for blood and vengeance --specifically, Frank Castle's. And, having taken Karen Page hostage, it seems like she's liable to get it. By teaming up with Frank to save Karen, can you and your friends and family stop Allison's quest for revenge? ...Only one way to find out.

Rating: T for moderate violence, gun violence, and mention of death.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson, and Frank Castle x Karen Page.

Set after Hunter and Hunted.

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @starman-canos-thorsus-jock

You eye the abandoned looking warehouse with grim determination. “You’re sure about this?”

“Dead sure,” Nathan says as he checks his gun over. “She’ll be here.”

Your Dad-in-every-way-but-biological and Wade had called in a request to have the X-Force help them with a mission earlier today: rescuing a kidnapped person, retrieving a potentially violent mutation for rehabilitation, nothing too out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until you, Piotr, Ellie, Yukio, and Russell (the newest X-Men trainee cleared for field work) had gotten on the jet –Neena was hitching a ride with Wade—that Nathan had sent you the rest of the details: that the kidnapped person was Karen Page, the potentially violent mutant was a “victim” of Frank’s punishing sprees, and that Frank was also present to rescue his girlfriend.

Because, you know, nothing’s ever easy.

“You’ve got five seconds to get moving, Summers, or I’m gonna blow this place open,” Frank growls, clad in black and his spray painted tack vest and looking angrier than you’ve ever seen him.

“Patience,” Nathan fires back. “We can’t rush this.”

“I’m gonna rush a few bullets up your ass if you don’t hurry the fuck up.”

“If it counts for anything,” Neena says, eyeing the warehouse uneasily, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

“Easy, Kenobi,” Wade says as he holsters his pistols. “Or would you be Han Solo?”

“I’ve always seen myself as a Leia.”

Wade nods. “Who wouldn’t want to be Carrie Fisher.”

“Wilson, shut your fucking trap or I will shut it for you—”

“Hey.” You step between Frank and Wade before Frank can slug your adoptive brother. “Give my dad two minutes. He’s probably just making sure we aren’t walking into any traps or massive amounts of back up. Karen’ll be fine. Hell, she’s probably already found a way to free herself.”

“Won’t be any back up,” Nathan says as he scans the warehouse. “The target’s name is Allison Ricci, daughter of Andrew Ricci. His recent death—”

“Courtesy of Captain S-and-M here,” Wade interjects, gesturing over at Frank.

“—means that she doesn’t have access to the money that hires extra muscle, considering Mr. Ricci’s accounts were frozen upon his death for criminal investigation.”

“Then what the fuck are we waiting for?” Frank hisses.

“Is there even point in my saying ‘language?’” Piotr asks in a resigned, albeit pointed, tone.

“Probably fucking not,” Ellie says while she taps at her phone.

You bite back a laugh while Piotr merely shoots his mentee a look.

“We’re waiting,” Nathan interjects, regaining control over the conversation, “for me to locate where Allison and Karen are. The less time we waste on this, the better.”

“We’re already wasting time, Summers,” Frank snarls, stomping away from the group. “Fuck it, I’m going in by myself—”

“They’re in a storage room on the West side,” Nathan pipes up. “There’s a bay door there used for unloads. We’ll use that one.”

You quickly follow after Frank as he books it over to the West side of the warehouse, flying low over the ground to keep up with him. “Try to not rush into this. Dad didn’t say anything about Allison’s mutation, which means we don’t know what we’re up against.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do.” Frank tries a regular door next to the massive bay door on the West side of the warehouse, then rears back to kick it open when it winds up being locked.

“Holy fuck!” You dive between Frank and the door before he can hurt himself. “Dude! Chill the fuck out for, like, two seconds.” You focus your powers on the doorknob, and within five seconds the lock clicks and the door swings open.

Frank brushes past you brusquely, gun sights aimed on the empty hallway. He scans the space, then advances down the hall when he deems it safe.

You cast a glance over your shoulder to make sure that everyone else is following along, then head in after Frank.

Two steps past the door and you can hear Karen talking to someone else –someone with a higher pitched, noticeably feminine voice.

“That’s gotta be Allison,” you whisper to Frank, who nods back before closing in on the loading bay.

You fly after him –so as not to make added noise—and brace yourself for any number of possible threats: guns, grenades, an arsenal of pointy objects…

But what you see in the loading bay is nothing like what you expected.

Karen is there, yes, sitting on a folding chair and looking pretty good, all things considered. However, the only other person in the dusty concrete and metal room is a young girl with a severe, thin face, dark eyes with darker undereye bags, and dark brown curly hair. The girl –presumably Allison, if Nate’s intel is anything to go by—has a pistol in her hand, aimed at Karen’s head. She looks like she hasn’t slept in a few days, possibly longer.

You blink, stunned. She can’t be older than thirteen.

Frank seems to be taken aback by the sight of the girl as well. He freezes in the shadows for a moment, then lowers his gun a tick before stepping into the light. “Karen.”

The girl’s eyes widen when she sees Frank, and her face contorts with rage as he walks towards them. “You! You fucking bastard—” She presses the muzzle of her gun against Karen’s temple, which makes Karen grimace. “Don’t come one step closer, or I’ll paint the floor with her brains.”

“Easy, kid,” Frank says, much calmer than he would normally address anyone threatening to hurt Karen, which you suspect has everything to do with the fact that he’s facing down an actual kid. “No one has to get hurt.”

“People are already hurt, shithead!” the girl fires back, teeth clenched. “One more won’t make any fucking difference.”

“Hey, hey.” You quickly step between Frank and the girl, hands outstretched. “Let’s just take a deep breath, okay? You must be Allison, right?”

“Who the fuck are you? Are you with him? Stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll—”

“I’m not with him,” you interject quickly, doing your best to be soothing. “My name is Y/N, and I’m with the X-Men. I’m here to help you. Are you Allison? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“No, you haven’t,” Allison fires back, face screwed up in a defiant sneer. “And the only way you can help me is by killing him.”

“No can do, babyface.” Wade skips into the room, borderline irreverent. “The Mutant Boyscouts are pretty big on the whole ‘no killing’ thing. Also, you’re so tiny! You’re practically a fetus! Nate, you didn’t mention we were picking up a literal infant, you inconsiderate dickhole. I would’ve brought the baby clothes from the last time I got my legs ripped off!”

“Sorry, sweetheart, I’ll make sure to mention it next time,” Nathan says, eyes focused on Allison. “Put the gun down, Allison. Enough people have been hurt already.”

“The only person hurt here has been me!” Allison shrieks, erratically aiming her gun at Karen’s head, Nate, Frank, you, then back to Karen. “Stay back! I’ll fucking do it!”

Russell steps forward, looking decidedly nervous but simultaneously determined. “Look, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re scared. I’ve been where you are; I’ve wanted the same kind of vengeance. So take it from someone who knows, it doesn’t help anything. Only innocent people wind up getting hurt instead.”

“You don’t know jack shit,” Allison hisses, eyes narrowed into slits.

“Put the gun down, Allison,” Russell persists, hands shaking but shoulders squared. “The X-Men are good people. They helped me, and they can help you. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Oh, this isn’t about ‘have to,’” Allison spits out, voice hoarse and gravelly. “This is about going to. And ‘this’ is going to end with her brains all over this fucking floor!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Frank shouts, drawing Allison’s attention to him. “I’m the one you’re mad at, okay. Me! Not her. You’re angry at me, and I understand that, but you don’t have to take it out on her.” He nods at Karen. “She didn’t have anything to do this.”

“Did my mom have anything to do with your murder spree? Huh? Did my brothers have anything to do with it? No, no. I wake up, and I find my mom’s and my dad’s and my brother’s brains and blood everywhere, and I find their faces and bodies obliterated by your fucking bullets, and I see your skull fucking spraypainted on the dining room wall, and… no. No! You have to understand, Castle! You have to understand what it’s like to lose everything you ever loved!”

“Isn’t his whole backstory technically about understanding just that?” Wade mutters.

“Shut up!” Allison screams. “All of you!” She cocks the gun, then presses the muzzle against Karen’s temple, holding the other side of the woman’s head to keep her from flinching away. “This conversation is done!”

Karen closes her eyes, lips pursed and brow furrowed but otherwise remarkably calm.

“Hey!” Frank shouts, holding his hand out. “Put that gun down!”

“Yeah, for fuck’s sake, you’re gonna shoot your own hand off if you do it like that!” Wade adds.

The look Frank shoots your brother is nothing short of murderous.

“What? I’m not wrong.”

Fortunately, before Allison can kill Karen or Frank can –temporarily—kill Wade, the loading bay door rolls open, heaved up by none other than your husband.

The ruckus distracts Allison, which gives Nathan the opportunity to yank the gun out of her hand and knock her away from Karen via telekinesis.

Karen practically dives away from Allison as soon as the gun’s away from her head, quickly darting away from her captor and towards Frank.

Frank quickly latches onto Karen and shoves her behind him, effectively acting as a standing shield between her and everyone else. “You okay?”

Karen nods, gaze still fixed on Allison—

Who looks like someone kicked her puppy and stole her ice cream. If the context were different, the expression of frustration on the teen’s face would be adorable.

“God, she’s like some type of… murder baby,” Wade stage whispers. “Cute, yet deadly. Like an ocelot.”

“That is enough of violence and aggression,” your husband says as Yukio and Ellie step out from behind him. “Please. Come with us quietly, and we can help you—”

“I don’t want your fucking help!” Allison snarls as she scrambles her feet, quickly backing away from everyone. “You’re helping him!” She points an accusatory finger at Frank. “He fucking murdered my family!”

Piotr grimaces before quickly regaining his composure. “I assure you, that is not case.” He takes a step towards Allison, hands held up reassuringly. “If you would just come with us—”

Allison bares her teeth in a vicious snarl –and then her eyes start glowing blue. “Stay the fuck away from me!”

“Uh, what do you do when the baby starts glowing?” Wade asks, head whipping between you and Allison.

Before you can answer –or react to Allison’s sudden light display—the thirteen year-old unleashes a blast of energy from her hands, whipping it like a softball straight at your husband’s chest.

Piotr rockets through the bay door with a guttural yell, ripping the sheet of metal off its tracks with a horrific, deafening screech. He bounces across the concrete parking lot, groaning and grunting as he goes.

“Holy shit!” Russell shrieks.

“Uh, Houston?” Wade babbles nervously, drawing his katanas while Allison’s eyes start letting off wisps of blue smoke. “I think we have an angry baby Kryptonian on our hands –shit!”

You duck as Allison shoots a bolt of energy from her eyes, taking a chunk out of the concrete wall behind all of you. “Fuck! Allison, calm down; let us—”

Allison shrieks, then whips another blast of energy at all of you before aiming a beam of energy from her eyes at Karen.

You wind up with Frank and Karen as you all try to stay away from the scorching stream of energy. Concrete chunks fall off walls and rain down from the ceiling, and you shove Frank and Karen out of the way from a truck-sized piece before sending a gust of wind at Allison –only hard enough to knock her off balance. “Allison! Stop! That’s enough.”

Allison responds by gritting her teeth –then screaming before slamming her fists against the ground.

Blue light shoots along the floor and up the walls –and then the building starts to crumble.

“Let’s go!” Frank shouts, partially hunched over Karen to protect her. “This shithole’s coming down!”

You direct Russell, Ellie, and Yukio out the broken bay door –with some help for your husband, who’d gotten up in time to hold part of the collapsing wall up—then turn back to Allison. “Allison! Come on! We need to go!”

By way of response, Allison merely sends more pulses of energy into the ground, speeding up the collapse of the warehouse by ten. “I’m taking you fuckers with me!”

“Kid, we need to go!” Nate yanks on your arm, forcing you to follow him, Wade, Neena, Frank, and Karen out through the steadily collapsing bay door. “Come on!”

Piotr ducks away from the warehouse as the rest of you dart out, then quickly hunches over you and the teens, shielding you all from any flying chunks of rock or rebar.

The warehouse shakes, groans, then collapses with a gut-clenching crunching noises, spewing dust and shards of glass into the air.

You peer over your husband’s steel shoulder when the worst of the cacophony finally settles. “Shit.”

“Did she…” Russell looks up at you, eyes wide. “Could she… is it even…”

You grimace.

The color drains from Russell’s face, and he gulps. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Try to find some grass to upchuck in!” Wade shouts as Russell darts away from everyone. “It’s less likely to splatter against your face if you don’t puke on asphalt!”

“Shut up, dipshit,” Ellie grumbles as she brushes dust and dirt off her uniform. She stands, eyes the wreckage of the warehouse, then shoots a concerned look at her mentor. “Did she… really take herself out?”

Piotr sighs heavily. “Loss can do strange things to people. She was already heavily agitated when we reached her. There likely was nothing we could do.”

You wrap an arm around Ellie’s and Yukio’s shoulders, then glance over in Frank and Karen’s direction.

Surprisingly enough, Karen seems to be the one holding Frank up right now, even though she was the one that was abducted and had a gun held to her head.

But, then, perhaps it isn’t surprising at all. Wade’s told you chapter and verse about how Frank does not like hurting innocents. If he’d thought he was facing off with an adult –someone fully brought into the Ricci crime family—and found himself staring at a teenager instead…

A teenager that appears to have just committed suicide after losing her family to a Punisher spree…

Yeah. This whole situation is fucked.

Neena grimaces, gaze still fixed on the warehouse as she hands newly returned Russell a water bottle. “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel done just yet.”

“Seems done to me,” Frank murmurs hoarsely, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

“We should probably leave,” Wade says, slowly sheathing his katanas. “Don’t wanna be caught near a collapsed building with a dead kid’s body in it.”

Everyone slowly makes to leave, heading towards respective vehicles—

Except Nathan, who is fixated on an electronic readout mounted to his techno-organic arm. He’s frowning, flipping through various future records and completely oblivious to everyone else.

“Nate-y-kins,” Wade says in a sing-songy voice. “We’re leaving. Vamoosing. Gettin’ a move on, pardner. Come on, Gramps, it’s toaster strudel time.”

You brow furrows when Nathan doesn’t respond; he always responds to Wade, and you also know for a fact that Wade just busted out two nicknames that Nate isn’t particularly fond of in front of everyone else. “Dad? You okay?”

“Yeah…” he mutters, still distracted as he keeps flipping through electronic files. “Just… checking…”

“What’s the earliest onset age of dementia for robotic geezers?” Wade stage whispers to you, which gets a few giggles out of Yukio and Russell.

“Neena’s right,” Nate pipes up, silencing Yukio’s and Russell’s laughter. “Something’s wrong. There’s no death date for Allison in her records.”

“Maybe the Matrix is taking its sweet time to update,” Wade suggests, rolling his eyes. “She dropped a building on herself, Cabes. Only person who can come back from that is me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Nathan mutters, redrawing his gun as he starts towards the warehouse. “We need to recover Allison’s body and confirm her death.”

Before he can so much as take another step, though, there’s a brief flash of light around Karen’s feet –and then Allison pops halfway out of the ground, grabs Karen’s legs, and starts yanking her under.

Karen lets out a startled shriek and flails desperately for the closest handhold. “Frank!”

Frank lets out a desperate howl of Karen’s name, diving for her and catching her. He hooks his arms under her armpits and hugs her close, holding her up so everything above her hips is still above ground.

Allison snarls. “Let go!”

Frank catches a bolt of energy to the chest and goes sailing backwards with a grunt, knocking into you and Wade and taking the two of you down to the asphalt with him.

“Oh, god,” Wade groans. “This is not how I wanted to get Frank Castle on top of me. Dude! What did you eat for breakfast? Despair and cement?”

Nathan’s the next closest, since he’s the only one that can fend off Allison’s blasts of energy with his telekinesis. He manages to grab Karen’s arm before her shoulders disappear underground. He clasps something around her wrist, says something in her ear—

And then he releases his grip, and both Karen and Allison disappear underground.

The scream that Frank lets out is heart wrenching, somewhere between a wounded animal and the sound of grief incarnate.

“Why did you let her go?” he seethes, advancing on Nathan in a storm of rage. “I’m gonna fucking rip your limbs off, Summers; I’m gonna—”

“We weren’t going to get her out of the transportation spell without ripping her limbs apart,” Nathan spits out, quickly backing away from Frank while raising a telekinetic shield. “I put a tracking device on her wrist so we can follow her wherever Allison takes her.”

Frank’s hand shakes as he points at Nathan. “If –if anything happens to her��� I swear to God, if anything happens to Karen—”

“They’re at Spring Heights Memorial Park,” Nate says once the display on his techno-organic arm pings. “And Karen’s still alive.”

“What direction?” you ask, extending a hand to Frank. “I’ll fly the two of us there. The rest of you can catch up.”

“Northeast, ten miles.”

You nod, then loop your arm around Frank’s waist. The two of you get a running start, then take off into the night sky.

You just hope you make it there in time.

***

 The Spring Heights Memorial Park is dark, completely abandoned, by the time you and Frank reach it –but you can hear Karen arguing with Allison as soon as you land at the cemetery’s entrance.

Frank bolts towards the sound of Karen’s voice, weaving through the rows of headstones and plaques with the ease of someone who makes running around in the dark a regular habit.

(You, a person who does not make running around in the dark a regular habit, opt to fly to avoid tripping and faceplanting onto one of the headstones.)

“I understand that you’re hurting, but that doesn’t give you the right to hurt others—”

“You’re dating the fucking Punisher! All he does is hurt people because he got hurt!”

You follow Frank around another tree, then practically run right over Karen and Allison.

(Well, Frank does. You don’t because… you’re flying… yeah.)

Karen has Allison’s gun –she must have wrestled it off of her at some point—and is aiming it at the ground, gaze locked on Allison. Allison looks like she fell and hadn’t thought to get back up yet, and looks somewhat startled by the entire situation.

“Easy, easy,” Frank says when Allison’s face screws up at the sight of him. “You stay right where I can see you.”

“Or what?” Allison challenges, sneering. “You’re gonna shoot me? You’re gonna fucking shoot a thirteen year-old girl?” She scoffs when Frank’s face twitches. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Fucking coward.”

“Here.” You pick up Karen and hover above the ground, well out of Allison’s reach. “That’s that handled.”

There’s the sound of the jet thrumming overhead, then a gentle thump as it lands at the entrance of the cemetery.

“Myshka?”

“Over here, honey,” you reply, projecting your voice so they can hear you.

“To the left!” Wade announces. “Bibbity-bobbity –ah fuck! My fucking shin! Owie! Fucking headstone, getting in my fucking way –ah shit! Branch to the eye! Oh, God, that smarts.”

“Here.” Neena’s voice echoes through the Memorial Park. “I brought a flashlight.”

“Oh, that was lucky of y… dammit! Fucking lazy writing!”

“Get a fucking move on, Wilson!” Frank shouts.

“Suck my cock!”

Allison’s lip curls derisively. “You work with that nutjob?”

“He’s sharper than he looks,” you bite out, somewhat offended on Wade’s behalf.

Nate reaches your little group first, gun already aimed and ready. He stops a few feet away from Allison, eyes locked on her. “Piotr’s outside. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t break the headstones.”

You can’t help but smile, just a little. That’s my baby.

“Enough’s enough, Allison,” he continues, slowly inching towards the young teen while Wade, Neena, and the trainees catch up. “You’re outnumbered and outgunned. Stand down.”

“Fuck you,” Allison growls before flinging her hands towards the ground.

And then the dead start crawling out of their graves.

“Jesus fucking yellow penguins!” Wade shrieks, whipping out a pistol and shooting at the rotting corpses. “Castle! You were a zombie killing cop in another life. Do something!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Frank shouts back, bludgeoning one of the skeletal bodies off him with the butt of his shotgun before shooting it in the head. “Don’t answer that! I don’t want to know.”

“Just shoot them, Shane! Nathan! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me we were dealing with a class five Necromancer?”

“I didn’t know!” Nate shouts back.

“Unlikely! You’re so sleeping on the couch tonight, buster!”

Your head whips back and forth as you try to keep up with all the action –but there’s not much you can do while you’re holding on to Karen. “I need to pass you off for the moment. Piotr!”

Fortunately, your husband’s already close by, having been drawn over by the sound of gunfire. “What is going on –bozhe moi.”

“It’s a bootleg version of the rapture. Here.” You float over the fence and hand Karen to him. “Keep her off the ground. I’m going to get the trainees out.” You quickly lift Ellie, Yukio, and Russell out of the cemetery, then turn around and quickly analyze the fray.

The sheer amount of reanimated corpses is overwhelming –and, worse still, shooting them doesn’t seem to do anything other than slow them down.

They stop working when they’re too broken apart, you realize when Frank shatters a particularly ancient looking skeleton with an onslaught of gunfire –and that gives you an idea.

You stretch your arms outward, creating a shockwave of air that sends the unsteady skeletons flying across the cemetery, bashing into headstones and breaking apart until they’re just rattling bones on the ground.

You grin, triumphant –then grimace when you realize that, while you’ve stopped the undead army, you’ve also spread countless remains across the park. “Oops. That’ll be a lawsuit.”

“Not if we don’t get caught,” Wade points out.

Off to the side, Allison collapses to the ground, panting and covered in sweat. Her eyes revert back to their normal color, and she looks like she’s two seconds away from passing out.

“You about done throwing your tantrum now?” Nate asks.

Allison glares up at him and bares her teeth in a vicious snarl. “Fuck. You.”

And then she tips her head towards the black sky, lets out a guttural scream, and unleashes a shockwave of blue energy.

You recoil, throwing your arms up to brace yourself –but it washes over you harmlessly, less of an attack and more of a smokescreen.

And, when your eyes adjust and you see part of the ground fusing back together, the way it did at the warehouse after Allison took Karen a second time, you realize that’s exactly what it was.

“She’s most likely done for tonight,” Nathan reassures Frank when the black clad vigilante starts scanning the immediate area for the next sign of danger. “She was tired at the end of it. Wouldn’t have had enough left in her for another attack.”

“She’s still out there,” Frank says.

“And that’s a problem for another day,” Nathan fires back, heading towards the Memorial Park’s entrance. “We need to get out of here before the cops show up.”

***

 “Her name is Allison Ricci, daughter of Andrew Ricci—”

“Yeah, we know that, skip to the part where she can literally raise the dead!” Wade snaps.

“For the last time: I found out about that when you did!” Nathan fires back.

The lot of you –meaning Wade, Nate, Neena, Frank, Karen, your husband, and you—are gathered at yours and Piotr’s house, post being examined and released by Hank and his team. You’re all sat around the dining room table, in various states of irritation, frustration, and exhaustion.

The last one chiefly goes to Karen –who, after being kidnapped twice and having a gun held to her head, has earned a good nap and a glass of wine (the latter of which you procured for her as soon as she stepped into your home).

As for the other two…

Wade and Frank are arguably the angriest, mostly at Nathan for seemingly having withheld information about Allison and the mission.

You, Neena and Piotr are also irritated, largely for the same reasons –though Piotr is especially pissed that Nate would bring trainees on a mission this dangerous.

All in all, it adds up to your dad having a lot of digging out to do.

“In my time, she’s an agent of Bishop, one of Apocalypse’s henchmen,” Nathan continues quickly, before Wade or Frank can start arguing with him. “I only recognized her name due to her father’s obituary. She preferred staying distant from all of it, staying unseen –which is why I didn’t know about her full set of powers to begin with, and also why I thought it would be okay to bring along Russell, Negasonic, and Yukio. The information just wasn’t there.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve come up short on a mission,” Frank points out, tone lethal. “You could’ve told us –fuck, you could’ve told us she’s just a kid, Summers. That would’ve been good to know.”

“You weren’t in the headspace to listen to anything I had to say, Castle,” Nathan fires back through gritted teeth. “You threatened to snap my neck if I didn’t step to at your fucking pace. I’m not going to waste the time talking if you’re so single minded—”

“The two of you can settle your issues later,” you interject. “Right now, we still need to know what we’re dealing with when it comes to Allison.”

Nathan sighs heavily, scrubs his face with one hand. “I was hoping we’d be able to pull with her what we did with Russell. Get her the help and support she needed, change the course of the future. But, since her official kill count hasn’t changed by much, I seriously doubt we didn’t pull that off tonight.”

“‘Hasn’t changed by much?’” Neena repeats, arms crossed over her chest and brows spiking towards her hairline. “What the hell does that mean?”

Nate’s mouth twists into a deep grimace. “Technically… Karen was supposed to die tonight.”

Frank’s face goes pale, and Karen takes another long sip of wine while she holds Frank’s hand.

“About a year later, she would’ve taken out Frank, too. Obviously we managed to save Karen tonight, and considering that Allison’s down two listed kills and there’s no… imminently listed death dates for Karen and Frank –no, I’m not telling you,” Nathan quickly says, shooting a stern look at Frank. “Last thing you need to know is either of your death dates. Anyway, since she’s down two kills and the dates aren’t anywhere in the near future, I’m willing to wager we’ve managed to take you two off her list. The rest of it though…”

“How many does she have left?” Piotr asks, hesitant.

“A little over fifteen thousand,” Nathan sighs heavily.

Shock ripples through the room, evident on everyone’s faces.

“Holy shit,” Frank breathes, face going slack with surprise and horror.

“How is that even possible?” Karen asks, brow furrowed.

Wade shrugs. “Give me enough explosives and I could probably do it.”

“Shut it, Wilson.”

“She asked!”

“You saw her in action tonight,” Nathan interjects, sitting back in his seat. “She’s only going to get stronger as she goes. And once she’s in Bishop’s keep, she’s going to have even more means and opportunities to kill. Not to mention that the number on file is comprised only of officially listed kills. In reality, it’s undoubtedly higher.”

“So, essentially, we’re trying to flip a teenager with comparative lethal abilities of a bomb, whose parents were just killed by him,” Neena says, pointing at Frank.

“We did it with Russell—”

“Russell was an orphan, looking for a family and someone to care about him, and had a strong connection to Wade,” Neena states, staring Nathan down from across the table. “Allison lost her whole family execution style, is trying to cope and grieve on her own, and is clearly more than a little unhinged if tonight’s anything to go by. These are two entirely different ball games.”

“We cannot let child become mass murderer,” Piotr speaks up, conviction strong in his voice and on his face. “She deserves better future.”

Silence hangs in the room as everyone arrives at the same conclusion at their own pace.

Neena sighs heavily. “This barely worked with Russell. And you—” she points at Wade “—had to get shot twice for it to work. He’s—” she jerks her thumb at Nate “—out of time jumping charges, and I seriously doubt that shooting him—” she nods at Frank “—is gonna have the same effect with Allison.”

“We’ll find something,” Karen says, properly joining the conversation for the first time that night.

Neena raises an eyebrow at her. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because we have to,” Karen says quietly. “It’s fifteen thousand plus people that need us to.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Neena sighs heavily. “Alright. Count me in. We’re gonna need all the luck we can get with this.”

“We’ll help as we can, too,” you say, pointing between yourself and Piotr. “But I’m not sure how much the X-Men will be able to assist since the Punisher’s tangled up in this.”

“I will contact my mother,” Piotr adds. “She may be able to help with this.”

Nathan nods, then looks over at Wade. “What about you?”

“I’m with you in all of this, Cabes. Always.” Wade leans over, gently kisses his partner’s cheek, then stands with a groan. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Wade-mobile needs to make a pit stop.”

“You could’ve just said ‘excuse me,’” Neena calls out as Wade heads towards the bathroom.

“Hey! It could’ve been worse! I could’ve said that I’m gonna take the mother of all piss breaks –which, as it so happens, I am!”

You all groan, a mix of annoyance and disgust.

“I’m also gonna take a shit!”

“I think we get the picture, handsome,” Nathan says with a roll of his eyes. “Just –please use the restroom and stop telling us about it.” He waits to make sure that Wade isn’t going to keep talking –or, worse still, narrate his “pit stop” experience—then sighs and looks at everyone else again. “Thank you. Everyone. Allison is a key component in Apocalypse’s upper ranks in the future. If we can flip her to our side, we’ll put a major dent in his abilities to take over the universe.”

“Fucking Christ,” Frank grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just –this kid. Is she gonna keep coming after Karen and me?”

“Possibly. I’ll keep my ear to the ground, and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know,” Nathan promises.

“You’ll let me know everything,” Frank amends, jabbing an accusatory finger in your dad’s direction. “No more of this vague bullshit –or it’s going to be my gun up your ass.”

“Ooh, kinky!” Wade shouts from the bathroom. “Can I get in on that?”

Nathan shakes his head at the same time Frank grimaces, and then he nods at Frank. “Everything I know. You have my word.”

“Your word doesn’t really mean shit right now, Summers,” Frank growls, shoving his chair back as he stands. “Come on,” he says to Karen, voice considerably softer and more caring. “Let’s get you home.”

“You’re coming home, too,” Karen insists.

“Yeah,” Frank agrees, putting his hand on the small of Karen’s back as he escorts her out of the dining room. “I’m going home, too.”

“I will get door,” Piotr murmurs, quickly following after them to escort them out the front door.

Neena stretches, rolls her neck, then sighs. “I’m beat. Think Xavier will mind if I crash in one of the empty rooms?”

You shake your head. “He won’t care. You’re welcome here for breakfast in the morning.”

She grins. “Sounds good.” She hugs you gently, presses a sisterly kiss against the top of your head, then heads out the front door.

You watch her go, then circle around the table and sit down next to your dad. “You can’t keep holding back essential information.”

“I’m not trying to,” Nathan says tiredly, rubbing his temples. “There just genuinely wasn’t much to go on tonight. Plus, telling people information about the future is dangerous. It can alter the course of things irreparably, change the outcome of millions of lives on a catastrophic level. I’m just… I’m trying to figure out the balance of it all. What I can and can’t share.”

“You’ll get it figured out,” you reassure him. “I know you will.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at Nathan’s lips, and he slings an arm around your shoulders. “Thanks, kid.”

***

 “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You blink at the darkness, then roll onto your side and wriggle across your and your husband’s massive bed until you’re nestled up against his side. “Are you alright?”

“Da.” Piotr wraps one of his massive, muscular arms around you, hugs you against his side, and kisses the top of your head. “Tonight was just… intense. I wish young ones did not have to go through.”

“We’ll know better for next time,” you reassure him. “And Dad legitimately didn’t know all of what was up with Allison. He didn’t mean to get the teens involved.”

Piotr huffs. “Ya znayu.”

“But?”

“I just… Cable is reckless.”

You purse your lips; you know he’s annoyed since he’s using Nathan’s code name. “He doesn’t mean to be.”

“Perhaps, but he forgets we are not all soldiers. That we do not all operate as he does. He is good person –good for you and Wade—and good trainer, but not always good leader. Not for… not for everyone.”

“Not for everyone,” you agree. “But he’s amazing for Wade, you have to admit.”

“I would not deny,” Piotr says, fingers playing absently with your hair. “Cable balances Wade, and verse vice-a. But he is too reckless for X-Men.”

“Which is why he’s not an X-Man—”

“Not my meaning. He may be too reckless to work with,” Piotr clarifies. “We have to meet certain standards to keep licensing to run school, work with children, act as enforcers against mutant criminals. If Cable jeopardizes that…”

“One step at a time,” you remind your husband when his voice trails off. “Nathan takes what we do here seriously. If he sees himself jeopardizing that, he’ll be the first to bring it up, and he’ll be the one to step away so we can keep doing what we do. You know that.”

Piotr sighs. “That much is true.” He tucks you closer to him, then kisses your forehead. “You should rest, myshka. Sleep is very important.”

“I was,” you tease him, smile evident in your voice. “But I had to soothe my husband’s woes first.”

Piotr chuckles, then presses a kiss against the top of your head. “Spokoynoy nochi i sladkikh snov, lyubov' moya.”

“Love you too, sweetheart. Rest well.”

[springlockedfoxy]

A more fitting end

I really didn’t like the ending to the third story in the FNaF novel series.

So... I fixed it.

Major spoilers for the third story from Into the Pit.

A More Fitting End

As Millie saw the Sword of Damocles above her, she had to reformulate her plan. The light from the small gap shone on the blade, and she recognized it as a bit of sheet metal that had been beside the bear when she’d crawled into the infernal thing.

The blade descended, peals of laughter echoing around her as the creature indulged in its private joy.

Millie braced herself, before shoving her entire body to the right of the slicing guillotine. The sheet metal lodged into the bottom of the beast, and she heard it sigh with contentment.

“Wish granted, Silly Millie,” it said, as if proud of its accomplishment.

Millie tried not to even breathe as she rested against the wall of the bear’s stomach. She did, however, shift her weight just a little, and using the new leverage found with the sheet of metal, began pushing on the door to the bear’s belly.

“Hmm?” The bear hummed, a sound that would have been in its throat... if it had had one.

Millie pushed with all of her might, bracing her shoulders against the metal, her feet planted solidly against the door, until it sprang open with a bang, and Millie wasted no time in escaping the brazen bear. She turned on it, looking at the thing she’d been trapped in, seeing its rolling eyes, and the almost startled expression.

“How...?” It asked, before the black eyebrows drew down over the angered blue eyes. “Get back here,” it growled. “I’m not through with you!”

The whole creature shuddered as it began clambering to its feet.

Millie looked around, before she huffed, and didn’t wait for it to finish its movement. She lunged for the giant electrical kill switch.

The robot gasped, reaching out to stop her, but she hauled it down with all of her might, and everything went dark.

She stood, panting in the new oppressive silence.

Until echoing laughter began ringing in her ears.

“Silly Millie,” the voice of the bear growled, the eyes suddenly appearing above her, glowing brightly, the lights overspill illuminating its mouth. “I run on batteries!”

Millie screamed, blindly running through the workshop. She banged into the door, but a heavy metal paw pressed against it, keeping it closed.

“Foolish girl, did you think you’d escape so easily?” The bear chided, before grabbing her by the arm, and began making attempts to stuff her back into its gaping belly. She screamed, again and again until she was hoarse, fingernails raking at the plastic exterior.

“What’s going on in here?” a voice Millie had never heard be so strong rang out.

A flashlight raked across Millie’s eyes and her grandfather's face swam into view. He lifted a foot and booted the bear in the face. It rocked back at the impact, sending Millie tumbling to the floor.

The old man picked up a baseball bat and pranged it across the head a few more times.

Millie watched as the bear stopped moving, and grandpa prodded it with the weapon.

“It’s dangerous in here, Millie. Back to the house.” There was nothing in his tone that brooked any kind of response except doing exactly what he said.

Millie moved back into the house, her eyes down, feeling the warmth of the home wash over her.

She had a second chance.

Her eyes stung with tears as she saw the concerned faces of her relatives swim into view in the soft candlelight.

Wait, candlelight?

After a moment, the lights flickered back on again, and there was collective elation in the home.

Grandpa came stomping back in again. “Millie threw the breaker to the house,” he said. “Something was malfunctioning in the workshop.” He nodded down to Millie, and then moved past her, leaving the remaining half of the baseball bat resting against the wall.

Slowly, Millie waded into the normalcy of the room, looking at her relatives. She smoothed her dress down, and sat on the edge of the couch, feeling very self-conscious.

“Sorry about that. It was dangerous in there,” she said quietly.

“We were just about to call your parents,” her aunt said, her tone full of that forced cheer that people have when they’re trying to recover a feeling from before. “And we’ve not yet opened presents.”

Millie nodded a little but noted a few of the gifts were wrapped in black, with delicate lace bows.

And the sticker read her name.

She tilted her head some but heard her aunt fussing with Skype.

“Hello!” came her mom's cheery voice, always as if she were excited that she woke up alive today.

Millie looked over to her mother's smiling face, with her father jockeying for position in front of the camera.

“There’s my Millie!” Her father said, smiling.

“Hi, Dad,” she said quietly. “Hi, Mom.”

“Oh, honey! You look like you’ve been crying! Are you okay?”

“She’s just been cold. She was outside earlier.” Her grandpa answered for her. “Her nose is red because of it.”

She looked up at him, a little surprised, but took the tissue he offered and delicately addressed her face.

“Now, I know you said you weren’t celebrating Christmas this year,” her mom said, putting on a faux guilty tone. “But we’d already shipped your gift.”

A rustling beneath the tree and two small hands shoved a box wrapped in black paper, with velvet spiderwebbing roped across it.

A moment or two later her youngest cousin smiled up at her. “I get to be Santa this year!” He chirped.

Millie reached down and picked up the box, looking at it in her lap. She carefully untied the grey lace ribbon, unstuck the tape and opened the box.

“It’s fake leather,” her mom said. “And hand made.”

Inside the box was a book, done in the style of the old leather-bound tomes she’d coveted at the library. There was embossing, and delicate gold leafed accents.

On the front, in flowing golden script, there was some Arabic writing.

It was absolutely gorgeous. She lifted it out of the box, surprised at how light it was.

She flipped it open, the pages were all blank and had those unfinished edges of hand made books. At the back of the book, she discovered something different, a small electronic device.

“Your father and I couldn’t figure out how to get you all of the books we wanted to. But, since most of them are available in the Gutenberg project... we figured we’d get you a kindle, and you could always have all of them close.”

“Tell her about the words!” Her father said excitedly.

“Oh! Right. The script on the front says “The story of a lifetime”.” Her mom blinked. “Right?”

“About right, it’s a good translation. We had it made because we know how much you like to journal. So, it’ll carry your kindle, and you can write in it! We found a bookbinder here and got to pick out all parts of it. Really interesting process. Really an art to handcrafted books.”

Millie closed the cover, her heart pounding in her chest.

She didn’t think her parents noticed her. Didn’t know what she read, or that she even journaled. She looked up at their faces, her family’s wide smiles of anticipation, and this time, there was no cold weather to blame the tears on.

“Thank you,” she managed after a few attempts.

“Oh, goodness. Honey! Of course. We love you, and we wish we could have come home this Christmas.”

She had a savage retort on her tongue, but the memory of that bear’s laugh, and the glinting of the gold leaf against her fingers, she killed it before she took a breath to voice it.

“It would be great to see you,” she said, smiling as much as she could at them. “I love you too.” She still resented their leaving, but the fire in her heart wasn’t as hot.

She clutched the book to her chest, holding it as it it were a lifeline. She sat quietly, on the periphery of the holiday cheer, thinking over the past few hours.

The family eventually said goodbye to Millie's parents and settled into eating some of the leftovers, giving Millie a chance to try the tofurkey roast her grandfather had prepared. It had a strange texture and was a little overdone. She didn’t like meat because of the texture, and the flavor, and would have been fine without the fake meat, but, she ... appreciated her grandfather going out of his way to try something new, so she would too.

The family packed up, rounding up everyone into their individual vans or cars. A round of good wishes, and near hugs, Millie wasn’t quite there yet, and the house was silent again.

Millie breathed a sigh of relief as the howling pack was gone.

“Millie?” Her grandfather called from the dining room.

He probably wanted help cleaning up.

She sighed, and walked into the room, still clutching her book.

Grandpa had already cleaned the table, and on it were two small boxes.

“I know you said -“

“I want to this year,” she said, cutting him off. “I... that thing in the garage...”

“Won’t be a problem.”

She pressed her lips into a line, then nodded.

“I... got these for you.”

Her grandpa gestured to the two boxes. “Happy Holidays, Millie.” His smile was soft and somewhat sad. Melancholy, Millie’s thoughts supplied.

She looked up at him and approached, reaching out for the bigger box first.

“I didn’t want you to open these with your nephews around. They’re very fragile.”

She looked up at him, and then back down again, and carefully opened the box.

Inside was a glass dome. She reached in and pulled it free by the base.

To say two hummingbirds sat on branches would be doing a disservice to the art of the piece. A taxidermy hummingbird floated beside a flower, suspended by a shining silver wire beside a lily it had been carefully designed to look as if it had just selected just that one. And it was caught in a moment in time. Its feathers shone like gems in the light of the dining room. Beside it, the delicate skeleton of another tilted its head, as if watching the one above it.

“I... wasn’t sure what you’d think. But don’t worry, both of them died of natural causes.” Her grandpa said. “I know... you read a lot about the beauty... uh, the beauty in death. So, I tried to find something that.. you know, captured that.”

Her breath was taken away. Sure, the bobcat in the front hall was a little creepy, but this was something different.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said quietly. Remembering the tales of Victorian homes with their small gem birds on display. Had her grandfather really taken the time to find out what she was interested in? Had he really listened to her beyond the angry words she’d flung at him, and sorted through to find out the perfect gift? “I’m... speechless.” She said with a breathy laugh.

The old man smiled, his smile still a little sad.

“And, this one.”

He gently slid the small box forward.

She carefully picked up the small box and opened it.

Inside was a small locket, with a basket weave pattern under glass.

Her heart began to pound in her ears as she looked up at her grandfather, and back down again. The basketweave pattern came in two colors. The vertical weave was one that was jet black on the left, fading to peppery silver and finally white on the right, while the horizontal was a warm chocolate brown.

She popped the locket open ever so carefully, peering at the picture inside.

She was greeted by her grandmother's smiling face, and a much younger version of her grandfather kissing her cheek.

Her grandfather sat beside her, quiet as she processed what she had just been given.

“It’s a memento mori,” she said, as soon as she recovered her breath.

Her grandfather nodded. “It’s not custom to add a living person’s hair, but, I ain’t gonna be around forever. And I wanted to be with her in your thoughts.”

She gently closed the locket again, and looked up at him.

She felt like the world as she’d seen it lay shattered before her. That whatever dark glasses she’d been wearing had been ripped away, and she was left staring into this brilliance that wasn’t criticizing her but was trying to learn who she was, and okay they made mistakes along the way, but these people cared for her. They didn’t try to talk her away from what she spent her creative pursuits on.

And they got to know her, got to know who she was, so they could offer her something that catered to her. Something she would enjoy.

And she had not made it easy on any of them.

The weight of the locket settled comfortably against the hollow of her throat, but as her grandfather finished clasping it and let it rest, she felt the weight of the past year resting there as well. She touched the locket, the memento mori, not some strangers memento, but that of her own family, and felt she was able to breathe again.

She was cared for. She was loved.

She recognized her nastiness and the hard closing of doors between herself and others had been a way to protect herself from those she felt wouldn’t understand. But that protective shell had become a tomb in which she hadn’t let anyone in, for fear of being hurt, she had hurt those around her, who had just wanted to know who she was, who had wanted to share her interests.

And then she’d been upset that no one had understood.

She looked at the gifts, every one of them thoughtful and perfect.

And she had nearly lost all of this. Had her body bisected by a freaky robot bear.

She got up and gently wrapped her arms around the old man's shoulders.

“New Years is coming up soon,” she said. “I can’t promise anything, but... I want to be more mindful. And... more thankful.” She said, as he patted her arm gently. “I’ve ... really been kind of a brat, haven’t I?”

The old man shrugged. “You’re 14. You’re smart as a whip and twice as quick. You’re sorting out a lot of emotions, and life isn’t easy for you. I expect a little difficulty.” He said, smiling.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He shrugged before he nodded again. “Let’s try starting with being more honest?” He asked.

Millie nodded her head. “I’ll try.”

“And maybe a little more grateful.”

Millie felt her cheeks flush, embarrassment at her prior behavior. “I think I can do that.”

The old man smiled. “And maybe doing your homework without a battle.”

“I’ve been doing that!” Millie said, smiling, sitting down again.

“I know. I just wanted to complain.”

“Speaking of complaints,” she said hesitantly. “I know I don’t have much room to ask. But, could we maybe make my room a little more... mine?”

Her grandfather tilted his head some.

“It doesn’t feel like I... fit in. I feel like I’ve just sort of been stuffed into grandmas old sewing room. Could we maybe move some of those things into storage, and let me reclaim the space?”

He looked at her, before he nodded. “I do understand that. And I think that’s something we can do.”

Millie smiled a little more. “Maybe put some new wallpaper up?”

“Don’t push your luck, girlie,” he chided gently.

Spring came in its usual way, and Millie was dressed in the most unlike her outfit she had ever worn. Overalls and a Tshirt.

“You hardly look like yourself,” Dillon said, draping some plastic over her bed.

“I feel so out of place!” Millie whined.

“Oh it’s not that bad,” Brooke said, helping Dillon spread the plastic out so it covered all parts of the bed they’d decided to just leave in the room. “You look cute. Not something I’d go to school in, but perfect for what we’re doing?”

She’d talked to Dillon, and a long conversation had melted the ice between them. The following weekend, they’d all gone to the tea house together, Dillon bringing Brooke along, and Millie had been pleasantly surprised to learn that Brooke’s mother was the taxidermist who had done the hummingbird display. Her mother worked with dead animals, which made Brooke want to learn how to keep them alive. She also had a wickedly dark sense of humor.

Brookes mother had also agreed to begin teaching Millie how to perform taxidermy so that she could bring death to life, and craft her own macabre creations.

A friendship had grown from the ice, and before long, the three of them were close friends.

Millie frowned. “As soon as we’re done here, I’m changing out of these.”

Brooke smiled and looked to the door as Grandpa hefted the bucket of wallpaper paste into the room. “You kids think this is going to be a one day deal?” He asked. “You’re in for a world of disappointment.”

He passed a scraper to each teen.

“Don’t dig into the plaster, were just scraping the paper off so we can put the new stuff up.”

The three teens looked at each other and nodded. “Goth princess room, here we come!” Brooke said, smiling brightly, thrusting her scraper into the air.

Millie smiled, watching as her new friends attacked the wallpaper.

It was symbolic, in a way, the thought, as she joined in. Peeling away layers to put something new, something where she fit. With the help of those who had helped her, by making room, so that she fit with them.

She reached up and touched the locket, smiling to the others, listening to Brooke excitedly exclaim how she’d found just the perfect starting point and grandpa fussing over the plaster.

Dillon smiled at her too, and she smiled back. She’d found her friends, and while her interests hadn’t changed, she still loved the concept of death and darkness, she had a whole new appreciation for life.

[fellowibders]

New England Crohn’s and Colitis Education Webinar

I was invited to be part of this webinar today as a patient panelist and I found it very helpful for me to be able to interact with other patients like me. I know Zoom has becoming this emerging platform due to the recent times of quarantine and Covid, which are two terms we are using interchangeably these days. I think that having more of these webinars would be a good idea because we should have more open forums where patients have the opportunity to share their voices with each other. I learned a lot and when prompted, I enjoyed giving my responses to the questions that were received. One of the answers that I gave is what I wanted to address here in this blog post as I was referencing Tumblr in my answer. The question was: “What advice would you give a newly diagnosed patient?” I answered: You are not alone and that you need to find the right support. The right support for me ended up being here on Tumblr. The Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis community on Tumblr has truly helped me a great deal. I am able to express myself regarding things surrounding my disease openly and honestly and it feels great. I think it is also important for a newly diagnosed patient to either find a creative outlet or stick with one they may have already had prior to diagnosis whether it was singing, dancing, poetry, acting, and the like. The webinar experience gave me a glimpse into what I have always wanted since the start of journey: face-to-face interaction with other patients and I think that Zoom could allow it to be more frequently. It was awesome to give my perspective on particular issues and to see others nod in agreement is always the best because at some point we all go through similar things one way or the other. I really and truly hope I get the chance to participate in future webinars as I learned a lot about mental health and my disease and this term, GI Psychology. I wish I had learned about that in the beginning when my emotions were completely all over the place and I felt like I couldn’t collect myself. I was most happy to hear from my fellow patients and see how similar we are within our own experiences. I hope everyone has been doing okay and this made me realize more than ever how much I have missed blogging.

I wish you all the best,

Wade D. Sutherland

[lost-in-time-marie]

Into the Shadows: Chapter Four

         After my birthday, September flew quickly away into October; I could hardly believe Halloween was just days away. I thought of the masked figure that saved me often and always wore the necklace he gave me for my birthday. I dared not utter a word of his existence to anyone. I told myself it was because everyone would think I’m crazy, I mean I still hadn’t ruled out egregious hallucinations from the realm of reality, but somehow, I imagined if I said it all out loud, it would be less real, like maybe it was just a dizzy daydream. If anyone asked about the necklace, I simply said it was birthday present from a friend, no one pressed it beyond that, they had no reason to. Except Natasha. Natasha made frequent curious glances at it, sensing the importance and, perhaps more so, that there was something I wasn’t telling her. An instinct that only encouraged her to unveil any secret I could possibly be hiding. It was getting increasingly difficult to throw her off my trail.

         James stuck with Natasha, Aleks, and I, or, on occasion, Katy and I. We continued to take to him, but I grew more suspicious too, constantly asking questions about him and his mysterious life, attempting to figure him out. His answers were all the same, and I knew them well, because none were real answers, they were half-answers with absolutely no details or personality to them. I was beginning to feel like Natasha, questioning motives and growing overly suspicious about the smallest details. Overnight James became the most popular kid in school, everybody loved him. It wasn’t hard to see why, with a face like that and an all-too-charming personality. I had not had hardly any run-ins with Ryder, thank god, and actively ignored him in class. I was still mystified by the one time I’d seen him act like a human being in the elementary school office, but otherwise did my best not to think of him.

         “Yes, it is a fitting last name for someone so grim,” James joked one morning in Acting, lounging easily at his desk. I had to wade through another sea of swooning girls this morning just to take my seat. Things had been like this when Ryder first arrived, but when his personality became evident, people mostly just teased him. For as much as I disliked the guy, I never participated.

         “Come on, James, leave him alone. He’s probably just shy,” I blurted, sitting down and unpacking my things. I hadn’t meant to interfere, although I was usually the first to stand up to a bully, Ryder could handle himself, the words just popped out of my mouth of their own accord.

         “All the sudden coming to the defense of your mortal enemy, how mighty,” James teased, sly smile creeping up his face.

         “He’s kind of rude, but it’s no reason to be mean, besides that joke is terrible,” I supplied weakly, rolling my eyes. Ryder skulked into class then and the crowd instantly dispersed. It was like his negative aura had a physical effect on people. It bothered me that James bullied Ryder, he seemed much more vindictive about it than the other students, like he had a personal grudge against him, I kept pushing that pesky thought away, but it popped up every now and again.

         James kept pushing, “You’ve never said anything before.”

         “I just don’t like seeing someone being bullied,” I shrugged, staring at the board, refusing to look at him. James nodded, thoughtful, but didn’t push the matter further; he had an uncanny sense of when he was overstepping his bounds.

“Guess what today is, class?” Mrs. Robertson enthused loudly, addressing her students after the bell rang, “Nomination for roles in the play!” She answered her own question cheerfully. I groaned silently and resisted the urge to slam my head into the desk repeatedly. Mrs. Robertson told us the other day that there would be two days of deciding roles for “Romeo and Juliet”. The first day, today, would be spent calling out each role, any person who wanted that role would raise their hand and their names would be written down, other people in the class could also nominate someone for a role as long as someone seconded it. What an inventive way to force participation, I had thought sarcastically. The second day, tomorrow, each volunteer or nominee would audition for their role; later the parts would be decided and announced, anyone left over would be on the stage crew. I hate plays. I hate participating in plays. I hate that we are performing this play, most of all.

Mrs. Robertson called out Romeo and one or two guys raised their hand. Elizabeth, the girl behind me, nominated James, and Kim, Elizabeth’s desk partner, seconded the motion.

“I nominate Ryder Grim,” Katy’s voice squeaked out shyly. Every jaw in the class hit the floor and every head turned towards Katy. Her round face was redder than a tomato and she squirmed slightly in her chair from the attention. Her brown eyes found me from across the room and pleaded for help.

“I second that motion,” Another, more confident, voice supported. My voice, I realized a second too late. The words had just tumbled out, and before I could take them back, Ryder’s name was added to the list. I don’t know why I did that, perhaps because he despised attention and I despised him. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ryder flash me a baleful look. His gaze was so intense, the daggers shooting out of his eyes froze me in place. My skin bean to crawl with the intensity of his scorn. I refused to turn his way and resisted the urge to flinch and slide away from the daggers he aimed at me. I would pay for this, of that one thing I was absolutely certain.

“Juliet,” Mrs. Robertson called, moving on to the next name on the list.

         “I nominate Kristin for Juliet,” James announced loudly. I choked and stared at him with wide eyes, feeling oddly betrayed. I forced my brain to operate to make a refusal, but another voice cut me off.

“I second that motion,” An all too familiar, harsh voice declared. I jerked around in my desk. Ryder sat, overly casual, with his hand in the air. My jaw dropped.

“What?” I hissed. A dark smile played at the corner of his lips, but otherwise the stone mask stayed in place. Payback’s a bitch.

“Okay, moving on,” Mrs. Robertson continued after more girls raised their hand and their names were added to the list. I sat, dazed and numb, in my desk the rest of the class period, trying desperately to compute the events of the period.

The rest of my classes passed easily, thankfully, and the end of the day was fast approaching. After the initial shock of being nominated, and additional height being added to my already heaping pile of hate for Ryder, I formed a quick plan to just bomb the audition, forcing my way to stage crew or some other small role with few lines. Unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold, and my day took another turn for the worst in Chemistry.

“Kristin Hart! Please come up here,” Mrs. Gold called halfway through class. I quickly stood from my desk and walked to the front of the room where she waited for me. Mrs. Gold had assigned book work for us today so she could prepare for what she called “a new teaching method” she wanted to try.

“Kristin, I am partnering you up with Ryder Grim. It has been shown that students can learn better through collaboration. A lot of the students in here really need the boost to their grade, yourself included,” Mrs. Gold lectured sternly, her sharp, beady eyes boring into me over the wiry rim of her glasses. For such a seemingly frail old woman, she was deceptively strong and stern, in fact she was known for making younger students cry. I think she secretly enjoyed it.

“Everyone will meet with their partners outside of school twice a week for extra study time to prepare for the AP exam, this exam is particularly tough and I want everyone to do their best,” She instructed in a brisk, no-room-for-complaints manner.

“Ryder Grim!” Mrs. Gold called. I attempted, very poorly, to hide my horror. This lady actually likes torturing people! Ryder abandoned his book work and walked in that brisk, graceful manner of his to join Mrs. Gold and me at the front of class.

“Mr. Grim, you and Mrs. Hart will meet twice a week outside of school to study Chemistry. You are my best student and highest grade, I trust you two will do excellently together,” Mrs. Gold declared, not bothering to get consent from either of us.

“But-” I finally managed to stutter. Ryder’s jaw tightened, I could almost hear the click of his teeth snapping sharply together, and his eyes held agitation. I was too busy processing my certain doom to appreciate the emotion actually showing on his face.

“Umm, we don’t get along very well,” Ryder said, finally managing a composed, calm voice.

“Right, we don’t get along,” I eagerly agreed, “Surely there’s someone else?” I groped desperately for a way out of this. Ryder nodded his head in support. Wow, what kind of parallel universe was I in where Ryder and I were actually on the same side?

“Work it out. Mr. Grim you will study with Mrs. Hart, both of your grades depend on it,” Mrs. Gold said sternly, staring us down with her dark, evil eyes. I imagined thunder and lightning crashing outside while scary music played. It seemed fitting for my own personal nightmare. Welcome to hell. That’s what I’d told James on his first day; Acting was nothing compared to this.

“You can’t do that!” I blurted, outraged, tossing my hands in the air.

“I believe I just did,” Mrs. Gold retorted with finality as the bell rang. Ryder spun quickly on his heel, collected his things, and stalked out the door. I stared after him, dazed. I walked robotically back to my desk, collected my books, and headed to Sinclair’s class, my mind spinning, searching for any way out of this predicament.

“Today, we start our class project for the beginning of the year,” Sinclair called, walking quickly into the classroom, before the bell rang for a change, and handing out papers with a list of objectives and requirements for the project. I greedily accepted the paper, excited for the interesting project Sinclair undoubtedly had planned. According to his handout, we would pair off, pick one of the subjects he provided, and create a poster board about our research on the subject. I was pondering what subject Natasha and I would choose when a cold hand tapped my shoulder. I jumped and spun around.

“May I speak with you for a second?” Ryder asked, dead faced and monotonous.

“Sure,” I said, confused, following him to the back of class, “What’s up?”

“What two days would you like to meet at the library?” Ryder asked.

“Why didn’t you ask me that at my desk?” I asked sort of dazed, staring at him directly was seriously distracting; maybe that’s why he didn’t look at people when they spoke to him. His angular jaw and pale face were utterly flawless, coupled with intense, bright green eyes and tousled black hair to complete the image. I found myself getting lost in studying him; the sharp angle of his nose, the way his nostrils flared slightly in annoyance, the broadness of his shoulders and the narrowness of his hips, the confusing way his simple blue jeans and dark grey shirt accented his form in all the right areas. A sharp impulse to reach out and spread my hands over the expanse of his chest crashed over me without warning.  It was like a strange spell always around him, making it impossible to think.

“I wasn’t sure if you would be embarrassed,” He replied smoothly with a shrug. I shook my head firmly to clear these troubling thoughts before my imagination had more time to run off.

“Oh,” I said, stunned that he was actually being considerate, and still slightly captivated by his strange aura, “uh, thanks. Tuesdays and Thursdays right after school work for me,” I answered, wondering how I was going to volunteer at the elementary school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while being tutored Tuesdays and Thursdays and still have a life.

He gave a brisk nod and turned to leave but stopped short. “Do you have a ride?” He asked, turning back.

“I can probably catch a ride with Natasha or just walk,” I answered nonchalantly with a shrug. For the smallest second, I swore indecision flitted across his face, as he stood half ready to turn away, half facing me clearly wanting to say something. All at once, that carefully articulated blank mask slammed into place, as if Ryder suddenly became aware of the emotion leaking out of him. Suddenly, it was easier to think and look at him, I despised that expression, it was much easier not be captivated by him when filled with annoyance.

“Just when I thought you were finally playing nice the stone statue reappears,” I muttered my thoughts aloud, rolling my eyes.

“Stone statue?” Ryder asked, raising a brow.

“Never mind,” I waved him off.

“Oh, good, you guys have paired off, now everyone has a partner,” Sinclair said walking by; counting all the other students I now noticed had paired off. I hadn’t even heard the bell ring.

“What?!” Ryder and I exclaimed simultaneously, but Sinclair continued on, paying us no mind. We glared at each other before turning and stalking off to our desks. Worst. Day. Ever.

I rushed to the elementary campus after Sinclair’s class, eager to be rid of this cursed day, and knowing I had a regularly scheduled meeting on these Monday Wednesdays, and Fridays I volunteered. My feet carried me, as they often did, already knowing the way without any input from me. When I arrived to the classroom I frequented for my volunteer duties, I found my weekly appointment already waiting for me in our usual spot.

“And that’s how my day went,” I finished my tale, attempting to find a position where I remotely fit in this elementary size school desk. I was coloring and recanting my tales with my one of favorite little boys in the aftercare program, Robbie, in a desk two sizes too small, as we did every day I volunteered since I started this year.

“Sounds like a rough day,” Robbie commented, pushing his wavy, black hair out of his face before resuming coloring an elephant purple. Robbie was a sweet little boy, very mature for his age, every day I volunteered he’d ask me to sit with him and tell him about my day. Even though he was only in second grade, he understood almost everything I talked about.

“That’s an understatement,” I muttered. Robbie never talked too much about himself or his day, even though I asked often, I think something about just listening made him feel better. He always had this sad, lost look in his deep blue eyes, it threw off his childishness and innocence. I worried for him; he didn’t play as much with the other kids; he was too often by himself.

“Alright Robbie, your brother is here, time for you to go,” a teacher called through the doorway. Robbie was the last to leave today, his small footsteps echoed across the room as he walked to the door carrying a too-large yellow backpack.

“Come on, Robbie, I’ll walk you,” I said taking his hand and casting a warm smile down at him. He looked up and gave me one of his rare bright smiles. We didn’t talk; he just happily held my hand. I allowed myself a small, pleased smile, glad that I could make him happy in some little way. It had been too heartbreaking, watching his small form retreat, burdened by his large backpack, and, I had a feeling, other concerns that I could not see.

“Be careful getting home, Robbie,” I said, holding open the door to the parent pick up area open for him.

“Big brother!” Robbie shouted happily, running toward a tall, wiry guy standing in the main office. Robbie’s brother turned, scooped up Robbie, and spun him in the air with a musical laugh. He looked over to thank me and froze. I froze too. I stood, still holding open the door, staring into the bright green eyes of Ryder Grim. Who…laughed? Ryder actually just laughed and smiled and played with his brother. For a second, I thought I might be having a bizarre dream. Or my hallucinations were becoming grossly overactive again.

“This is Kristin, Ryder,” Robbie introduced in a bright voice, immune to the awkwardness of the moment, “She’s my favorite volunteer,” he beamed. My mind finally started working again

“Thank you, Robbie,” I smiled politely, “I actually know your brother, he’s the guy I’ve been telling you about,” I cast a teasing glance toward Ryder.

Robbie looked up at his brother, crossed his arms, and furrowed his brow, “Ryder! How come you’re being so mean to her?” he demanded in earnest anger. Ryder laughed and smiled warmly at him. The hard, stone statue Ryder was nothing compared to warm, fluid, easy-going Ryder. His pale skin glowed with happiness and his love for Robbie was evident in his liquid, bright, green eyes. His angular face and broadness seemed less intimidating now; more relaxed and friendly. If the girls in our class thought he was handsome before, they would faint seeing this sort of flawless.

“She’s much more difficult than she seems, don’t be fooled,” Ryder teased, easily hoisting Robbie on his back, before casting a warm smile my way. I looked away to hide my blush, bracing myself against the door as my knees suddenly turned to jelly. My heart started an erratic dance and I tried to ignore its sudden loudness.

“Thanks so much,” I rolled my eyes, unable to stop from grinning. I stepped aside so he could walk out the door I still held open. Ryder grinned, winked, and walked out the door. I heard it close with a click, but I couldn’t recall releasing it. I stood in the main office for a good five minutes dazed, pondering the events of today and the many faces of Ryder Grim.

[buckys-little-hoe]

Drunk and homeless | Platonic!Sam Wilson x Reader

Pairing: (Platonic) Sam x Reader

Summary: The Wilsons and you get drunk, so you decide to save the day.

Warnings: It’s mostly humor. Cursing, mentions of suicide, human trafficking, prostitution and mafia.

A/N: Hello! I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

You grumble in the kitchen while everyone else is already sitting at the table waiting. You carefully put the meat in the hot pan and the oil splashes towards you. Cursing, you take a step back. Not your beautiful face!

"Will you be finished any time soon?" Clint asks sarcastically and you show him your favorite finger.

You’re cooking an old family recipe for your teammates. A few days ago you discovered it in a box with a lot of other stuff. Since you are really miserable in cooking, you never really wanted to cook again, but not much can go wrong with this recipe. After a few hours, you persuaded your friends to give it a try.

"I'll be done in a few minutes," you reply annoyed and get a board from the closet. Slowly you start chopping the vegetables. This guy pretty much gets on your balls.

"Hey, be patient. Y/N tries to give us something good. ", Steve defends you and you nod with an eyebrow raised. Captain America is always right.

"Exactly." Sam agrees and you clap your hands once. The king himself has spoken!

Then you turn back to the vegetables. Your guests start a conversation that you are not interested in. During the cutting you look at your little chaotic family. Even Peter came today because today is an important event for you. They don't know, but today is actually your birthday. You don't like celebrating, which is why you almost never mention it. It’s just important to you to spend this day with your favorite people

"Shit," you murmur when you notice a burning pain on your finger. "I think I’ll just kill myself," you say a little louder now and hold your finger under water.

"There is bleach under the sink," Steve says, stretching. Of course, he knows you are not serious.

"There's a rope in the gun cabinet too, if you want to have different options." Natasha takes a sip of water and leans back.

"Don't be an idiot! Do it with style and just jump out of the window.”, Peter recommends without looking up from his smartphone.

"Do a flip in the meantime.", Vision adds and you have to smile.

You love them all so much.

You are finally serving the food. Everyone gets a full plate, so that nobody will be hungry. You just hope it tastes good.

"It smells delicious." Peter smiles and takes his plate from you. Ass-kisser.

"Thank you." You smile back and sit down. The pressure in your legs eases and you sigh. The constant standing slowly kills you. You watch intently as everyone tries.

"Mmm .. you have to give me the recipe Y/N," says Wanda after swallowing. She looks honest and you decide to believe her.

"Is that rosemary?" Rhodes asks and you nod.

"There is paprika in there too, isn't it?" Vision wants to know, because although he can't eat, he still smells the dish.

"Yes.", You answer and also enjoy the homemade food. Now you understand why your family cooked it that often.

"Hey guys!" Calls a voice that is too familiar to you and you roll your eyes. Well, that was still missing. The man in the red suit enters the kitchen and waves to Peter first. "Spiderboy," he greets him and turns to Rhodes.

"How does he manage to get in here again and again?", Natasha whispers to Steve, but he just shrugs his shoulders helplessly. You should exchange a serious word with Friday.

"I get in here because the author wants it that way.", Wade answers her question and turns his head to the side to wink at the wall. You’ll get used to it.

"Just ignore it." Peter whispers to the group and you giggle softly.

"Oh hey, I'm Wade Wilson," he introduces himself and Rhodes just nods in confusion. Then Deadpool looks at you. "I intercepted a package for you, from a certain Thor or something."

You take the package from him and read the note.

As a thank you for your last prank on Loki. Ps. You will definitely get drunk with it.

Grinning, you look at Sam. He closes his eyes theatrically. As a goddess, it's not that easy. The normal alcohol just doesn't work for you, but it looks like Thor has found a solution for you. "It's going to be funny tonight," you say honestly, and Wade gasps.

"Sam Wilson. My brother from another mother. We share the same last name. Is that coincidence or fate?” The huge red condom drops onto an empty chair and they both glare at each other.

"Coincidence," Sam replies firmly and Wade calls at the same time: "Destiny!"

"You can come along Deadpool.", You smile and nod at him. Then it’ll get even more funny.

"If he has to." Sam moans, and you just shrug your shoulders. The others look at the incident with great curiosity.

"Oh! I have the perfect idea what we could do.” Wade claps his hands and you look at him admonishingly. "No, not a threesome, which is high on my list. " He just waves it off. Sam and you sigh in relief.

"We're going to finish eating now and then we'll get ready, okay?" You go through the process and the Wilson's nod agree. Well, that'll be all.

"What did Thor send you?" Clint asks eagerly and wants to grab the package. Amused you flick his hands away.

"That's not for you Katniss." You sit down again and you slowly finish eating.

As Wade talks about his top orgies, you notice Sam's annoyed look on you. Sam and you didn’t like each other at first. You couldn't even be left in the same room. Only after a fun game of cops vs robbers you got along with him. You were a cop and you caught him. You landed on his shoulders and Natasha took a photo. Meanwhile, she had given you advice on how to make him pass out from this position.

"Please go and take the dumbass with you. We take care of the dishes. ", Natasha interrupts the red condom and Vision takes relieved his hands from Peter's ears. He sits with red cheeks in front of the empty plate.

"No problem.", You answer and reach for one arm per Wilson. You clamp the package between your forearm and upper body. This will be the best night ever!

——

With a charming smile, you wave to the cheering people and wink at the cameras. You hear the Czech word for angels from everywhere. You don't know why they call you that. The President puts a medal around your neck and you bow as best you can. Your head is booming and you are still feeling a bit sick. It comes from alcohol. Wade had left before the ceremony and you don't know where Sam is. You don't even know how you got to the Czech Republic. You were in the club with the Wilson's last night and the next morning you are awarded with the medal for bravery for stopping human trafficking in the Czech Republic.

As you understand it, you knocked out the mafia boss with Wade. You freed women and, among other things, girls. You did most of it. Wade just stood on the side and cheered you, though he is the immortal of both of you. You don't know where you lost Sam. What you do know is that you stopped trafficking and prostitution of minors in a European country and people are comparing you to an angel for some unknown reason. Even though you have the hangover of your life, you still look fabulous.

The President of the Czech Republic thanks you with brittle English and you just wave it off. Everyone would have done that, you think. Your cell phone rings and you apologize briefly. With quick steps you run into the parliament and answer the call. "Hello?" You say and raise your free ear with one hand. This dampens the calls of your fans.

"Where are you?" Sam whines and you sigh in relief. He is still alive! You already thought he was rotting somewhere alone. You would never have forgiven yourself for that.

“Wade is home and I am currently being awarded a medal in the Czech Republic. Where are you?” You ask and look around. Outside, the people are still cheering and grinning. They love you.

"I'm in Amsterdam, it looks like we tried to visit Anne Frank's house in the middle of the night and caused trouble. Now I'm sitting in the cell and you left me alone, " he explains his current situation and you take a deep breath. Holy shit. When did that happen?

"Don't worry, I'll get you out of there immediately. Did the press notice anything? "

"No, they thought we were some drunk and homeless people."

Without further ado, you write down the exact address and say goodbye to Sam with the promise to get him out of there. Then you go out again to smile at the people and say goodbye to them. It was a wild night.

——

With every step Sam whines self-pityingly and you roll your eyes. You had just landed on the roof of the headquarters, when you were already overlaid by your friends. They are worse than the media and that means something, because the journalists are like hungry lions.

"What the hell are you doing in the Czech Republic?" Clint wants to know straight away and you shrug your shoulders. If you could answer that, you would surely do it. Asgard's alcohol has it all. It even made you drunk.

"I do not know. Maybe save some life’s?” You ask as a counter question and ignore all the other questions. Clint looks at you with an eyebrow raised. He probably does not accept that. "In my defense, I was drunk."

"That's not a good excuse," Steve says and you roll your eyes again. It was clear that he would have to play worried daddy again, you are doing well and the press knows nothing of the bad things.

"It's okay, my god. Calm down everyone. Nothing bad happened. I wasn't planning to stop the Mafia in the Czech Republic. ", You reply annoyed and Sam next to you starts to laugh. You look at him in confusion.

"You don't remember anything at all, do you?" He asks, laughing at his stomach. You shake your head and peck him in the arm.

"No, I do not. Tell me. ", You demand of him and he pulls you by the arm towards his room. The others look after you more or less surprised.

After a good while you will have all the memories of yesterday evening back. First you three had danced to a club. There you started talking about Hitler, which is why you talked about Anne Frank without further ado. You all then cried on the plane towards Amsterdam to see her house in the museum. You had shouted at the security that they should let you in so that you could finally take revenge on those responsible. Since you were not welcomed there and Sam was arrested, Wade and you blamed Hitler for it. The mafia boss who was up to mischief in the Czech Republic doesn't really have much in common with Adolf, but for you the mustache was enough evidence to fly over there.

On the way you both danced on the integrated pole together with the flight attendant, who was hired especially for Stark's private plane. Wade was of course better than you, although you had proven to be very flexible. It was pitifully easy to find him and you just gave him a few fists. Strangely enough, it was terrifyingly easy to get to him, he wasn't particularly well protected. You handed him over to the police and dissolved the hidden brothels. You're a heroine in the Czech Republic, boom. That’s it. It wasn't really heroic or exciting, but it was funny. Y’all should repeat that sometime.

[chalantness]

fic: And It Still Comes Back to Us

Rating: PG-13 Word Count: ~2400 Characters: Steve/Natasha Summary: She lets him wade in his thoughts. Lets him come back to her on his own. He always does, and part of her knows that he always will. She doesn’t quite believe in fate or destiny, but she believes in Steve and that’s all she needs.

A/N: THIS FANFIC CONTAINS MAJOR MOVIE SPOILERS.

This is basically one big closure fanfic addressing the problems I had regarding Nat's arc in the movie and a little of Steve's, too.

Read On: [ ao3 ]

The first thing she sees when she wakes up is Steve: his chin tipped forward, blonde hair falling over his forehead, his eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly as he stares down at the sketchbook in his lap, dragging his pencil across the page in short, quick strokes. Shading. She doesn’t know how many times she’s listened to this sound – sitting across the table from him, or beside him in the briefing room, or on his tiny couch in his shitty apartment in D.C. – and she certainly doesn’t remember the last time she’d ever heard it.

It had to have been years ago. Steve sketched on any scrap of paper or corner of napkin he could get his hands when they’d gone on the run after The Accords, but The Snap was different. His hands barely stopped shaking long, his body every bit as restless as hers, though he’d gone out into their broken world, channeled his energy on support groups and volunteering while she went at punching bags until her knuckles went raw, went through hundreds and thousands of bullets as she shot at targets, day after day.

She used to think it was ridiculous that she found this small, simple sound comforting.

But now? She kind of loves it.

“If that’s a sketch of me sleeping,” she starts, smiling at the way his gaze snaps onto hers, his entire expression easing as he sits up a little straighter in his chair, “I’m going to take your pencil and throw it at your head.”

He exhales a chuckle, sets his sketchbook on the nightstand as he leans forward, elbows resting on the bed, brushing lightly against hers. Sometime while she’d been passed out in Tony and Pepper’s guest bedroom, he’d slipped inside and dragged the armchair from the corner closer to her, barely a foot away.

Not that she expected any different. When they’d come back from space, back from time—since she’d come back into existence, sealing the Soul Stone back into that desolate planet—she barely went two steps without being pulled into someone’s arms, squeezed into a hug. There had been tears, from them and from her, and when they’d started to talk over each other in a rush of sentiment and questions, Wanda had pried her away and latched herself onto Natasha’s side, silencing everyone with a stare. Natasha had only hugged the girl tighter, smiling as she brushed the stray strands of her hair behind her ear, and Wanda had poured everyone tea as they crammed into Tony and Pepper’s room and sat around Tony in bed, Morgan cuddled at his side. Using the Stones had left his right side nearly charred off, close to killing him, but somehow, he’d managed to survive.

(There seems to be a lot of that going around these days.)

Sam had asked if she’d felt her body hit the bottom, if she remembered it at all, and she thinks she must not because she doesn’t remember it hurting. She doesn’t remember anything.

She remembers closing her eyes, remembers the sensation of falling, and then—

Then she’d woken up in water, nearly gasping for breath, and Steve had been calling for her, pulling her up and into his arms, murmuring her name in a near panic. He’d held her so tight that it almost hurt, but she didn’t dare ask him to let go. She wanted to feel his body against hers. She wanted to know without a doubt that he was real.

“You’re awfully violent for someone that slept for five hours,” he quips, his voice low, his face close to hers.

She raises her eyebrows. Five hours. She had just wanted to lay down for a little, after Tony had fallen asleep and they’d cleared out of his room, but it seems that she was more exhausted that she’d realized.

His lips quirk into a grin at her expression. “You were out as soon as your head hit the pillow. Seems like you had a lot of excitement for one day.”

“Well, if you want to be technical,” she says, holding his gaze as she rolls onto her side, tucking an arm under her head, “I was gone for quite a few days.”

Steve chuckles again, though she watches as his expression fades at the edges, his forehead creasing as his gaze shifts across her face. He swallows lightly and reaches for her hand, his fingers wrapping around hers as he smooths his thumbs over the knuckles—back and forth, quiet and distracted, and she lets him wade in his thoughts. Lets him come back to her on his own. He always does, and part of her knows that he always will. She doesn’t quite believe in fate or destiny, but she believes in Steve and that’s all she needs.

“We were going to have your funeral today,” he tells her through the tightness in his throat.

Her breathing falters, but only for a moment. “Yeah?” she asks.

He swallows again, nodding. “I—I was going back for you. Clint couldn’t bring himself to take your body back, but the second he came home, he’d regretted it. So much, Nat.” The nickname tugs at her chest, makes the air rush out of her almost all at once. “He wanted to be the one to put the Soul Stone back and bring you home, so we could have this beautiful ceremony Wanda prepared, but I didn’t want him to have to see you like that again.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t even sure if I was going to keep it together.”

“Did you?” she asks, blinking slowly, afraid to look away, to move even just a little. His grip tightens on her hand like a lifeline and she manages a smile.

His lips twitch at the corners, pulling into a small smile in return. “I lost it as soon as my feet hit the ground.” His voice is barely above a whisper, but his words settle over her thoughts, warmth unfurling in her stomach and shooting through her veins, even as her chest tightens from the pure grief in his eyes as he recalls that moment.

“Steve.” It feels a little like she can’t breathe.

“I nearly chucked the thing and left,” he admits, letting out a quick, manic sort of laugh, no doubt wondering what would have happened if he’d done so. He wouldn’t have realized the chance he’d tossed away. Then he shakes his head, as if trying to rid of the thought altogether, meeting her gaze again. “I never got the chance to realize that you were really gone. We’d mourned you. We all did, but there was still so much left to do—so much else to focus on. Even after, when Tony barely made it through, there were a few last pieces to recover. Loose ends to tie.” His lips tug at the corner. “Then Wanda talked about your funeral, and Clint wanted to bring your body back home to us, and I—”

She shushes him gently, pulling her hand from his to brush her thumb over his lips. Her heart hurts, watching him relive these memories, hearing him relive his sorrow.

“You don’t have to,” she reassures, cupping his cheek, stroking her fingers over the slight stubble along his jaw. “It’s okay, Steve.”

But he shakes his head, taking her hand in both of his again. “I wanted to be the one to take the Stones back, and I—” He licks his lips, hesitating, squeezing her a little tighter. “I didn’t want to stay here, Nat,” he admits in this small, low voice, like he’s almost disappointed with himself. “I was going to bring your body home, and then I was going to go back in time again. Try to live the life I’d lost before I went in the ice.” His eyebrows furrow, forehead creasing, and she can tell from his expression that this genuinely bothers him. If anyone deserved to make a move like this, it would be Steve. He’s done more enough, sacrificed more than enough, and he deserves to have whatever ending he wants.

But that doesn’t quite stop her breaths from becoming shallow at the thought. Doesn’t quite stop her chest from feeling too tight to feel anything else.

“And I realized I was just trying not to move on. I’d lost you, Nat,” he says, his voice cracking ever so slightly on her name, “and it felt like waking up in a whole new decade again. It felt like having the world pulled out from under my feet, and I wasn’t sure if I’d find my ground a second time.”

She blinks once, twice, then quickly, her vision going blurry at the edges. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if she can even get her voice out, but continues on.

“But even before I’d put that first stone back, I knew I couldn’t go back into the past. I’d get back the life I was supposed to have, the dream I was supposed to make happen. Except I didn’t want that anymore.” He breathes out a chuckle, laughing at himself as he shakes his head. “I wanted this life, with this family, even if you weren’t in it. And it was going to be so hard to be without you, Nat. It was never going to be half as good as the life I wanted for us, but leaving our family would have been like losing you twice.”

Her breath catches in her throat, a tear rolling out from the corner of her eye and into her hair.

The life I wanted for us.

For us.

“I’d never cried so hard in my life, on that damn planet all by myself. Everything hurt. Everything. And you know what pissed me off the most?”

She’s almost afraid to ask. She doesn’t know if she’s prepared for the answer. “What?”

He manages a wry sort of smile. “I know you. I know your every thought, always—and I know you fell for that Stone with the belief that this was going to be the thing to make up for your past. That this was the sacrifice to needed to make to wipe the blood off of your hands.” She presses her lips together and he tightens his hold on her hand, her chest feeling tight, her stomach flipping in unease—in guilt. Because this was the truth. “You never, ever believe me when I tell you you’ve more than made up for your demons, Nat. I made bad choices, too. We all have, and you’re the first one to forgive us, convince us of our worth. But you never let us convince you? You died believing so little of yourself?”

She makes a noise from the back of her throat. “Steve—”

“I was devastated to have lost you, but I was also pissed at you. I know you wouldn’t have let Clint sacrifice himself. I know it was needed. I know.”

She starts to sit up, feeling the emotion burst through her, and she feels helpless against it. Against everything she’s tried to talk herself out of feeling, out of thinking. “Steve—”

He grasps her arms, his hands trembling ever so slightly, his face only inches from hers as his eyes. “But you’re so ready to leave us? You think you deserved it?”

“It couldn’t have been him,” she says, her voice shaking. “He needed to be there for his family when they came back. It shouldn’t have been him.”

“It shouldn’t have been either of you,” he shoots back, one hand coming up to cup her cheek, brushing another tear away as it starts to fall. “But I think you’re the only one that doesn’t believe that.” He tucks his fingers into her hair, cradles the back of her head. “What did you feel while you were falling?”

She swallows through the tightness in her throat. “Steve.”

“Please,” he whispers, drawing her forehead against his. He’s never, ever touched her like this, held her like this, but it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“I felt devastated.” Her eyes are almost completely blurred with tears, but she stares right back into his bright, bright blue eyes, letting them anchor her. Letting them calm her. “I had a real chance to get our family back, and I knew we were going to make it work, but I wasn’t going to be there to see it. I felt pissed that I had to make the choice to begin with, and then I felt guilty for even thinking that, because what was the alternative? Clint dying? Laura and the kids going without him? Was that truly any better? But I—” Her heart stutters in her chest, but the words still pour out from her lips. “I think I finally wanted to slow down. I wanted more for myself, and for the first time, it felt possible.”

“It is,” he whispers, his breath arm against her face with how close they are. She twists her fingers into his shirt, needing him to anchor her. “You spent years trying to get me to live my life. To get me to move on from what I’d lost, so it’s only fair that I do the same for the woman I love, even if it takes the rest of our lives.”

She exhales a laugh, her voice shaky and trembling. “Love?” she echoes.

He smiles, crooked and boyish, eyes wet with tears, and she’s never seen anything so perfect. “Yeah, Nat.” He swallows, gently cupping her face in his hands. “I love you.”

But before she can take a breath to respond, before she can even blink, he slants his lips against hers and it sends tingles shooting through her veins. His kiss is gentle, but not at all tentative, not at all hesitant. He kisses her because he wants to. He kisses her like he’s meant to.

And she kisses him back, harder, because she wants to. Because every ounce of her body is drawn to his, because every part of her fits perfectly against every part of him.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs against his lips, smiling, heart fluttering at the way he groans ever so softly, like he’d waited his entire life to hear those words. She kisses him harder, twisting her fingers tighter into his shirt, and he says the words again, muffled against their kiss, but she still hears them.

She looks forward to hearing them for the rest of their lives.