#worm writes

[wormwrites]

villains like yours

jason todd x f!reader | 1.4k words | hurt/comfort

warnings: allusion to sa in reader's past, very self-indulgent fic, if i should include any other tags let me know!

a/n: this is my first fic in a very long time, so be gentle lol. excuse any awful grammar mistakes, enjoy!

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Most of the time, when Jason came home after patrol, you were ready to take care of him. Comfort him, help him rinse the blood from his knuckles, stitch his wounds, and hold him. He’d rest his head on your heart, and be reassured that despite the violence on the streets, you’re still here, heart beating steadily, each thump reminding him why he fights, adding to the overflowing cup of his love for you.

It took a long time to get to that point, for him to let you see him like that, his soul stripped raw from whatever had happened on patrol. He’d go to a safe house to wash up first, lock himself in the bathroom, or even go to the manor. He’d do whatever he could to keep that violent and dark side of his life away from you, but somewhere along the line, he saw your own darkness, and found parts of it had nestled its way into his ribs, beside his lungs, where it had wrapped itself up with his own. 

Today was different. Where he’d usually open the window to you laying in bed, scrolling on your phone, he saw an empty bed, sheets rumbled, empty of you or your two cats.

“Princess?”

If he hadn’t had the extra edge to his senses, both the one crafted by the bat and by the pit, he wouldn’t have heard the soft hiccup that came from the bathroom, or  the soft sobs that preceded it. 

Quickly his gear was dropped in a haphazard pile on the floor and he was knocking on the bathroom door.

“Sweetheart?” His voice was soft as he tried to calm his quickly rising heart.

“I-I’m alright Jay.” Your voice sounded heavy, your throat sore. He could still hear sniffles. 

“It’s just some bad cramps, I’ll be out soon.” 

He didn’t believe that for a second, and before he could think about it, he had roughly shoved the door open. The building's old lock stood no chance against him when you were hurting.

When Jason opened the door, he saw you, curled up on the ground next to the bathtub, face flushed and eyes stung red with tears. You were holding your knees so tightly he could see the strain on your knuckles and wrists. He quickly bent down and swept you into his arms, and despite your earlier words, you immediately crumpled into him. You buried your face in his neck, desperate for any comfort. One hand quickly went to hold your head, the other to your back, both stroking softly.

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay. I’ve got you,” he murmured alongside other soft words of comfort. 

After a minute or two, he carefully rearranged the two of you, setting you on his lap so that you didn’t bruise yourself on the hard bathroom tile. Carefully, Jason coaxed you out of his neck, hand gently cupping your face and wiping your tears away. 

“What’s wrong? What can I do?” You quickly just began shaking your head, mouth opening a few times, unable to form words.

“It- It’s nothing” You said quickly, but with a soft and meaningful look from Jason, you stuttered for a few moments before finally speaking. 

“I can’t- I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it, about…” you made another soft sob sound, and your eyes glazed over, unseeing of your lover in front of you, seeing something, -someone else.

“...him”

Immediately, Jason understood. Of course he understood. He wasn’t the only one with villains in his past; memories he’d rather avoid. Long before the Joker had picked up that crowbar in Ethiopia, Jason knew of villains like yours. 

Your villain didn’t need to paint his face or employ goons to commit his evils, he just needed to say the right words, smile at the right moments. He didn’t need a weapon to destroy and violate you, he just needed to say a few choice words at choice moments. He only needed to ignore a few choice words from you.

Jason wasn’t good with handling emotional situations like these, he was still learning, improving his emotional intelligence after being raised by the most emotionally constipated man in Gotham. He never knew what to do or say, but you always insisted he does the right things, so he holds your face in his hand, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead and tries his best to push all the love and care he feels for you into it.

“Everything is alright my love, you’re okay. I’ve got you,” he cooed, arms wrapped impossibly tighter around you. As he holds you, whispering soft reassurances, it takes all of his will power to not to hunt down the man who did this to you years ago, to not tear him limb from limb. The strongest restraint comes from him knowing that you deserve to be the one to do that, not him. 

Eventually he picks you up and carries you out to the kitchen, setting you down on a stool and quickly leaving to grab a blanket from the couch. On his way to wrap you up in it, he gives a look to your cat, Moose.

“Go comfort her, hairball,” he whispers, pointing at your slouched figure. The petulant cat, usually indifferent to Jason, agrees, jumping on the counter and licking your face in earnest, while Jason begins fixing some tea.

“I’m sorry…” you breathe out, finally having stopped shaking. Jason puts your favorite mug, filled with some comforting Earl Grey, in front of you.

“You have nothing to be sorry for sweetheart” He reaches his hand out, palm up.

“No, I know how hard some nights are for you. I don’t like adding to it.”

“Hey, nuh uh, what is it you always tell me when I’m in a bad place?” Your eyes meet and he sees you are back to yourself, although still clearly shaken.

“.. we take care of each other,” you eventually let out, meeting his outstretched hand with your own. Your other arm is wrapped around the cat now curled up in front of you, practically on your chest. “Still...” you let out a small sigh 

“How was patrol?”

“The usual. Stopped some muggings, beat up some of Black Mask’s guys." Then a grin appears on his face, “Saw Tim get his BatBurger stolen by a crow.” he adds with a laugh, his eyes gleaming with gentle light. 

“I think the most rewarding part, though, was when I comforted this sweet girl on 22nd street. I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I think I got through to her.” He waited with a baited breath to see if you’d follow the bit.

“...I bet you did, you’re better at comforting people than you think you are. I bet she feels a lot better now that she knows the big bad Red Hood is always going to protect her.” A small smile starts at the corner of your lips.

“I hope so. She was real pretty too, the kind of girl that makes me speechless, I think if I see her again I may just ask her out.”

“She may just say yes.” You finally smile fully, a small and muted smile, but Jason sees it as a victory nevertheless. “Maybe you should just come kiss her right now?”

Jason needs no more invitation. He quickly rounds the kitchen island and meets his lips to yours as the butterflies that seem to have lived in his stomach ever since he met you flutter their wings once more. His fingers hold your face. It’s not a heated kiss, it's sweet and soft. A comfort for you both to feel your pieces meet each other in perfect harmony. The darkness and hurt behind each of your ribs blending into one, a burden carried equally between the two of you.

“Meooooow,” the cat between you two protests. You two separate with a small laugh, both your hearts a little lighter.

“Sorry baby” you coo at your cat, scratching his favorite spot under his chin, and Jason pouts.

“What about me? I’m the one losing kisses here!” He whines, and you playfully roll your eyes and give him a peck. 

“Thank you, Jay,” you say as Jason puts the now empty mugs of tea in the dishwasher. 

“I.. I would have had a hard time pulling myself out of that place alone.” 

“Always, princess. Now why don’t you pick out a movie while I shower real quick?” He wanders off to clean up, leaving you to sit with the cat. 

You smile, and later, after you’ve fallen asleep on his lap while watching a Ghibli film, Jason will carry you to bed. When he’s sure you are both settled for the night, with the apartment locked up, phones charging on your nightstands, he’ll press a kiss to your temple, and repeat his words.

“Always. I’ll love you always.”

[canarydarity]

(dead end; or, the first thing I've written and completed in nine months. 1587 words)

Wakefulness arrived sullen and unseen, draped over Jimmy’s shoulders like too wet and heavy a coat, leaving him staring at the ceiling for some unknown amount of time before he even became aware that he was awake enough to be doing it. His senses came online one by one, each distilling new information that was somehow all the same: the low thrum of redstone power running through the base and whatever contraptions surrounded it, the tingling numbness of his nerves coming alive after hours without use, the wood grain of the ceiling blending together into one monotonous and dizzying sight—endless static from every direction. 

The day began with the sort of feeling that doesn’t announce itself so much as arrives at the same time you do; it didn’t begin at one particular moment, not exist right up until it did, but rather simply was, imminent and indisputable—like a fact. Or like your shadow. 

Dread was the friend you were embarrassed to be seen with when you ran into someone whose company you really enjoyed, the friend you knew you’d get asked about later and have no good excuses to offer up for their presence. The friend you gave too many chances and always lied through your teeth promising you’d let go. They were crass, they were rude, and they got into your head too easily and spun you around without pointing you in the direction you were meant to be going after. They never paid back the money they borrowed and always lost the things they asked if they could use. Which was to say it was an emotion Jimmy knew didn’t serve him but always too readily gave in to anyway, comfortable sinking because he was too scared to learn how to swim. 

Dread festered like a rotten apple in Jimmy’s stomach, food poisoning churning his insides like spoiled cream into curdled butter, his guts preparing to toss everything vital overboard, empty their coffers, and abandon ship. It sat on his neck like too tight a collar, not quite choking him but providing just enough pressure that every swallow threatened return and every brush of fabric made him brace to expel. It hadn’t come on and it hadn’t given warning, Jimmy had woken up and it was there—and what was worse was he wasn’t surprised. He was barely upset. He just was and the dread was with him. 

Jimmy had the strangest urge to go to the woods. 

Something—someone—clung to him under the sole threadbare blanket their bed and their humble homestead could afford them. After Jimmy had been staring at the ceiling—coming to terms with the feeling of dread crowding him out of his own bed—for who knows how long, the person next to him sighed a sigh too wistful for the morning he was about to wake up into, and stretched like a cat—slowly, one extremity at a time—from sleep into consciousness. His face mashed into Jimmy’s bicep and his arm tugged softly at the squishy part of Jimmy’s side, and Jimmy, for all intents and purposes, kept on staring at the ceiling and settling into his discomfort—awake for longer but somehow still not in charge of his limbs and his being and his existence. 

With a wet sound that said he’d been dead asleep just before, mouth unmoving for hours, Tango said, “Mornin’ early bird,” his voice somehow both rough and smooth at the same time. He rubbed his face more purposefully into Jimmy’s arm. “I like it when I wake up and you’re still here.”

“Do you have anything to do in the woods today?” It didn’t function at all as a response to what had come before it, and Jimmy hadn’t known it was going to come out of his mouth until it had already happened, leaving his brow to furrow and his mouth to tighten into a frown—the first movement he’d been able to perform since becoming aware that he’d been awake. Why hadn’t he gotten up to feed the chickens, the goats, the cows? Gone to the well to pump water for the day? Collected the eggs and started on breakfast? 

Tango opened his mouth and closed it again—not in the way of being about to say something and changing his mind or finding his cue cards blank, but in the way of readjusting to wakefulness, or readjusting before falling under the spell of sleep once more. Anxiety pricked at Jimmy like a needle he kept missing the fabric with, stabbing into the meat of his own thumb more times than he could count, drops of blood staining the corners of the shirt he’d had to mend after one of their cows took a bite right out of it. Don’t fall back asleep. He said, “Tango,” too loud, too urgent, too fast. 

Jimmy counted the seconds until he replied. 

“Mmm, don’t think so.” Tango mumbled until it turned into a yawn. 

Jimmy’s eyes were almost unbearably dry, still staring at the ceiling like he’d forgotten he was allowed to look anywhere else. It took him a moment to remember that he could blink, and then it took him another to remember how, and a comically long third to force his eyelids to shut and open again after. 

“So you won’t be going in them, then?” 

Still not awake enough to really be thinking about what Jimmy was saying any further than providing an answer, Tango offered, “‘spose not,” without understanding the gravity of the situation. 

And the gravity was this: Jimmy woke up and dread woke up with him. He wasn’t anxious, he wasn’t upset, and he wasn’t angry. He had simply come to with a great and mounting sense of apprehension—not a fear but a surety that it was going to provide them nothing but grief—and a strange but unavoidably persistent feeling that he should be in the woods. 

Jimmy swallowed before he spoke again. Threw a glance to the side and tightened the screw of his lips—unsure if he was trying not to cry or trying to convey that his next request was totally normal. “Promise?” 

It was said in the sort of voice you said something when you wanted it to seem lighter than it was, giving away instead every kind of emotional weight you’d placed upon it in one terribly anxious bouquet. Tango’s arm unlatched from Jimmy’s side and slowly pulled all the way across Jimmy’s stomach, until he could flop over onto his back, the two of them lying side by side, overlapping only the slightest from where their arms had been buried beneath Tango a minute before. He sighed. 

Jimmy closed his eyes, then opened them and blinked rapidly a few times. He took a deep breath and told himself he felt fine and it was all in his head until he was sure the contents of both his stomach and his tear ducts alike would stay where they belonged. 

“Sure,” Tango placated. “Whatever you want.” 

Dread was the mistake you pointed out that everyone ignored until it was too late. The place on the stair your foot landed that you knew was about to make you lose your balance and fall. The moment your health reached one heart and you dropped your shield just so that it would be over. It was thinking that something was wrong and only speaking up after the fact; knowing that something bad was going to happen and that you had to let it happen anyway. 

The bed creaked and Tango sat up. He threw his arms over his head until one of his elbows made a noise that popped, and then sighed one final time and looked down at Jimmy, in the same position he’d been in when he woke up some minutes-to-hours ago. “Up and attem—woke up late, better start on those chores.” 

He threw a leg over Jimmy with a small groan, and then did it again and ended with his second leg on the floor, but before he could stand and vacate Jimmy’s space, Jimmy made the very hard and very brave move of latching onto Tango’s arm with both of his hands. He didn’t tug, he just held on. Nearly every inch of Tango’s forearm was covered by Jimmy’s hand or Jimmy’s palm or Jimmy’s fingers. 

Tango turned back to look at him, and for a moment, Jimmy thought he got it. Tango’s eyes looked from Jimmy’s too frantic to be casual grasp to his too peaked to be affectionate stare, and for just a beat, his brow furrowed and his eyes formed a question. And then by the next, it was gone. Tango huffed, Tango smiled, and Tango leaned over Jimmy to ruffle his hair with his unrestrained hand. “Come on, loverboy, gotta go feed the cows.” 

He pulled out of Jimmy’s hands like they’d never been wrapped around him. Too casual, too unconcerned, and too easily. Jimmy watched Tango go, he counted to three, and he moved to get dressed only when he was sure he wouldn’t immediately puke upon the fresh clothes he was about to put on. 

He shoved dread aside until it took up post somewhere out of the way but in the rearview mirror—where he could try and ignore it but would ultimately still feel it backseat drive. Jimmy grabbed the bucket of feed and went to go greet the cows for what hopefully wasn't the last time, and tried not to pay any mind to the trees, watching him from the window beside the bed.

[urlocalwormtoday]

do you think they ever found Williams body? or did he just disappear and reappear one day, pale and followed by a trail of unseeable creatures?

how long do you think he was missing for? was it weeks or months? possibly even more time than that? did the wisps bring him back healed, or did he trudge from the bottom of the cliff with broken ribs and a cracked skull?

do you think his parents held out hope for the first however long he was gone? did they sit, night after night, praying for his return? do you think they regretted hoping he'd come back, 'no matter what' they'd said, when he was changed? when those around him started getting miraculously injured?

what do you think his parents thought when he would fall through the floor if someone snuck up on him too quietly, or when his body would topple like a puppet with its strings cut, lifeless?

and if he didn't get up on his own, if the Unwitness Program spent sleepless nights meandering blindly through the woods in search of him, do you think they believed what they saw? do you think when they peered over that cliff, expecting the worst, they could predict his body laid broken at the bottom?

do you think his mother clawed through the thicket to get to him? did she see his head split on the rocks? did she get to cradle his bloody body?

i wonder if they buried him. i wonder if he had to rip himself from the wooden boards of a coffin and muddied dirt in the dead of the night. did he show up to his parents house covered in grime, wondering, in a haze, why the door was locked? wondering what exactly they wanted to keep out.

i wonder if they ever found Williams body.

[echoing--stars]

Malayna Malon and Golden Wolf Time watching over Wild, perhaps with a side of Lord Satori Legend

I couldn't fit Lord Satori Legend in there, but Golden Wolf!Time and Malanya!Malon was fun to write! Also, Pumpkin is the name of one of Wild's horses.

(If you read this and would like to request a short snippet, see this post!)

Link had noticed something following him since he’d left the Great Plateau. For the longest time, he hadn’t know what it was. He’d only caught glimpses out of the corner of his eyes, flashes of gold in his periphery vision. The scream of a monster dying before it could ambush him and a sense of warmth at his back on the coldest of nights sleeping on the forest floor. But by the time he reached where the monsters should have been, the only thing left was whatever rusted weapon it had carried and the usual loot. When he turned to look at what was pressed against his back, nothing was there. It wasn’t until he’d followed the rumors of the Horse God into the canyon that he’d finally caught sight of his steadfast companion. A golden wolf, larger than any he’d seen since he’d started this mission. Slightly fuzzy around the edges and still keeping far ahead of him. But Link got the feeling it was leading him along. Link knew he could trust the wolf. It had helped him along on his journey, after all.  When Malanya rose from the fountain, Link nearly fell over backwards. Their presence was different than that of the Great Fairies. Just as powerful, but Wild in a different way than even those spirits. He didn’t sense any malice from them, however, in spite of the initial threatening words. “My child, I can sense that you show your loyal steeds the respect they deserve. It seems you’ve learned well. May we meet again in happier times.” Link didn’t understand what they meant, but he could sense the warmth behind the god’s words. When he turned to leave, the golden wolf stayed behind, Malanya leaning down until their noses touched. It was an intimate gesture, one that made Link feel as if he was intruding. He didn’t turn back as he left. The wolf would find him again, and perhaps he would come back to visit the horse god. He was sure that Malanya would adore Pumpkin.

[randombrainworm]

Anyone up for some Priest thinking about his Fucked Up Boyfriend With Eldritch Brainmate short fic?

(yes this is oscar x arthur from malevolent)

[boob-stealing-worm]

hello it’s worm i’m here to say

i’m in the dirt and every day

i think about how great it’d be

to steal a boob oh wow yippee

[wormgremlin]

I've gotten three unnecessary, unwanted, and ultimately useless hateful comments on my fic in the first 24 hours since posting it. So a quick refresher for people out there:

First, foremost, and most concerning: If someone is in critical condition, unless you have medical training and supplies, HOSPITAL HOSPITAL HOSPITAL. That includes both urgent and emergent triage statuses (in this case, severe blood loss and abdominal wounds going into the abdominal cavity -- intestinal rupture is no joke! Nor is uroabdomen!).

Second of all, I'm sorry if you and your friends have never talked about or looked at each others boobs/chest. Genuinely. On the other hand, me and my friends make fun of each other constantly in good fun and are comfortable enough around each other to talk about our bodies. Your sexually repressed puritanical views have no place in my comments and no place in an irl queer space. Between the two of us, I am not the "weirdo."

Third of all (and whoo boy is this a long one), just because I represent a ship a certain way does not mean I condone their actions in a real life setting. Ffs, I like Hannigram. That means I definitely recommend committing malpractice, non-con drugging, and tubing your crush like a horse. Not To mention cannibalism and framing people for your own serial murders. I'm writing things based on my own experiences and perspective as a queer poc who grew up and got out of a conservative home and state. I'm writing as someone who lives paycheck to paycheck. I write as someone who still fights an internal monologue of shame and repression, of not being good enough, of bitterness and self-loathing making for a critical lens of others. I write as someone who affectionately calls my friends buffoons. As someone who has only ever used terms like "babe" as a derogatory. And I know that isn't for everyone. And I know my experiences aren't universal. But they do shape how I write. And I'm not asking you to like it. I am, however, asking you to consider how your actions affect others and click that back arrow before you say something unnecessary and rude.

Gonna be honest: the slew of asshole comments I've gotten have been more annoying in a "ooh comment oh that's disappointing, look an asshole" way than truly upsetting to me. But I thrive on spite. Not everyone does. For some people, the shit being said would be incredibly hurtful; for me, I thought worse while writing it.

And this bit didn't make the list, but deserves honorable mention: Just because you don't like the way I write something doesn't mean I hate the ship. Yeah. I spent hours of my life writing this and editing it and posting it because I hate it. Sorry, but I'm a full time grad student with a life, a job, and shit to do. I don't have time for ship phishing. I've written more than one fic for this ship, each portraying them a different way. Clearly because I hate the ship?

All of this of course to say:

If you don't like it, write your own, hon.

[vitalix]

I did it again!

Just a small stoner greg NSFW ficlet,, <3

[echoing--stars]

As someone who went years without commenting or leaving kudos, (largely because I didn't have an account and didn't understand how things worked) and recently started making an effort to do both, yes!

Comments don't always have to be in depth (though those are very beloved). I recently got one that was just "thank you for the chapter" and I still appreciated it very much.

I'm a big proponent of "write/create for yourself" and I do - some of my fics are very self-indulgent, things that I wrote because I want to read them. But I share for others. If people quit interacting - on ao3, discord, or tumblr the rare times I share here - I'd reach a point where I'd no longer be interested in sharing. I'd keep my stuff between me and Rock, or just between friends in a small Discord server.

I write pretty niche stuff, so I don't expect a ton of interaction. But a comment here and there is nice! It means I'm not shouting into the void!

Had to share this here because you're right and you should say it. It's incredible how many people came out of the woodwork as soon as AO3 was down and suddenly had no compunctions at all about screaming how much they love and need fanfic--on the AO3 twitter. Is it so much harder to do in the comment section?

At this point I don't care anymore if people call me entitled or think I'm out of line. If fanfic is so meaningful to you that you cannot go half an hour without, let alone 24h, then you can get over yourself long enough to write a fucking comment. No excuses.

"writing comments is hard and scary" yeah well GUESS WHAT so is writing fanfics. fandom as a community is dying, because it is instead treated as a COMMODITY, a CONSUMER PRODUCT. We're not asking for much. We're asking for a CONNECTION. We don't want to sell, we want to share.

You've shown your hand. You've admitted you cannot live without us. Now ACT LIKE IT. Go write a fucking comment.

[wormwrites]

I just can't get the idea of soulmate!jason where you share scars out of my head. Jason is a canvas of scars. We all find them beautiful and wouldn't judge him even if we were held at gun point. But imagine you were getting those scars at the same time he was... it would be hard. Of course you are worried about your soulmate, but when you wake up with a permanent, very purposeful J branded onto your face, can you really tell me you wouldn't be embarrassed to go outside? Afraid of meeting your soulmate who seems to be either a criminal or in a very dangerous victim situation? Would you not be even a little angry that now your face is ruined? (I know there is makeup, but we are ignoring that for a second) Yes, you share these scars with your soulmate and somewhere along the line you'd find peace with them. But in the moment when you look in the mirror and find an autopsy scar... I can only imagine what you would feel. Oh, and poor Jason. He would never be able to forgive himself. He probably wouldn't even realize he has a soulmate because if you get a scar he wouldn't notice it beside all of his. This isn't a request. I just wanted to share my thoughts and hear yours. I'm asking a few different creators so feel free to ask for another person's opinion as well!

oh my god, anon, ur brain!!! i’m sure this is messy but 1: i love requests and 2: i just started typing most of this late last night

((i also saw a few other respond to this but i purposely didnt read them so if anything is similar its witchcraft or smthing idk))

i think the smaller robin scars sort of annoy you, when you’re younger. you don’t see how the trade off of your small acne scars is fair to these constant random but mostly well healed ones scars are. you have a running joke with your closest friends about how you have a lecture for your soulmate whenever you meet them.

you’re a dumb kid, teenager at best, but when you wake up one morning, dozen of burn scars, scars of a deep beating, and a harsh ‘j’ plastered on your face, you have a breakdown for both of you. so scared for whatever your soulmates been through, when, a day or so later, autopsy scars appear, you go numb. you aren’t an idiot, you know what those scars are from.

you’ve never heard of scars from a soulmate post death, but you don’t know what else they could mean, and no more scars show up after that.

how do you deal with being so young knowing you had a soulmate who had a hard life cut short, and now you’re doomed to be alone forever? maybe you go numb, just float through life, dissociating. or maybe you devote yourself to your studies, maybe you work to help kids in tough situations like your almost love. maybe somewhere in between.

i think if you live in gotham, you have a small feeling why there was a j, i think maybe you learn some makeup skills, use things like cosmetic wax and a precise foundation routine to cover it, you can’t afford the fancy kind of plastic surgeons who specialize in soulmate scars.

you think you’re done, accept this is your life.

then years later, more scars start appearing? precise, dangerous scars? given only the bare minimum medical care? you think you must be broken. you start spending even more time with your therapist, maybe start researching even more.

one of these late nights at the library you’re walking home in gotham, you’d lost track of time but the sweet redheaded librarian named barbara reminded you to leave before it got too too late, still, you live in a rough part of town, and batman’s been busy lately with this new crime lord, you don’t care either way, too trapped in your own world of hurt and confusion, you don’t even realize what you’d walked into.

jason never gave much thought to his soulmate, he’d never even noticed any scars, thought maybe he didn’t even have one. definitely didn’t have one after his death.

he’d stalking after batman one night, both are aware the other one knows, but they arent confronting each other tonight, and when they turn onto a certain street he gets an odd feeling and he suddenly finds himself in front of of you,

and hes speechless, his world crashing down so quickly, because all he can see is the ‘j’ on your your face.

jason never gave much thought to his soulmate, and now he literally walked face first into them, and nothing is the same for either of you from there on out.

[canarydarity]

(Happy Team Rancher week!! :D this is for today, the last day, AU fest. this is an au that I've had on the back burner for a while, but its for a ya book series I read in middle school and absolutely adore, and so I'm really glad I was able to finish this scene up and get it out here for the event!! The very basic premise is that Tango, Impulse, Skizz, and Etho are students at a teenage spy school. On their first ever field training mission, Tango meets Jimmy. Exceedingly, exceptionally normal Jimmy. Enjoy :) <3)

Hermitville looked as if every store-front was painted neatly on wooden slats and propped up from behind by a 2-by-4, its display perfectly weathered and distressed to look as if you could turn the cardboard handle and walk through the door of a family-run business, 75 years strong. But the fact was that you actually could do that—these were real stores in a real town, no matter how striking their resemblance to the set of every small-town-America movie in the world, ready to be broken down and disposed of to make room for the next.

The phenomenon was always made worse by how little Tango actually entered the town despite living 12 miles down the road from it. Its existence was just close enough to feel, parsable from the air like the scent of rain off asphalt, and simultaneously far enough to be alien to him, made all that much weirder by its small town charm, suffocatingly mundane and unconditionally normal. No strings, no contingencies, no Christmas dinners interrupted by last minute covert missions to foreign embassies. 

There were string-lights hanging between the lamp-posts, it was cute. Tango felt unbelievably itchy. 

The comm in his ear crackled. “How ya doing up there, Legacy?” 

Skizz sounded like he was enjoying himself entirely too much. It made Tango grumble a little under his breath, not caring if it was loud enough for the comm to pick up or not. Maybe if he was lucky, the others would attribute it to static. 

Or maybe they’d attribute it to Etho, giving he whined back, “I hate that code name.”

“Okay, Prodigy.” Tango cut in, knowing Etho would hate that one equally as much if not more. What could he say, he gets bitchier when he’s grumpy, and wandering around in the cold stuck in the state of perpetually failing his first CoveOps mission was certainly doing it for him. 

“Tang—”

Maybe he went a little too hard, though, if he got Etho to break protocol and use his real name over what technically counted as a confidential communications outlet. Oops.

“Tango,” Impulse interrupted—not overly-peeved enough at his friend to use his real name, just equally as hopeless when it came to CoveOps to the point he likely forgot they were supposed to be using code names in the first place. “Where are you, I lost you again.” 

Tango didn’t have to turn around and face the direction he’d last seen Impulse to be able to picture the frown that he absolutely wore. Besides, that would give up his cover, and staying hidden—unmemorable, ignorable, unnoticeable, any of those were fine—was just about the only field trait Tango had. 

“Over by the bank, Impy.”

“Well, wave your arms or something.”

Tango nodded at an old lady who was walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of him, glaring like they were in a store and Tango was sweating carrying too large and heavy a bag as he suspiciously made his way toward the door. She glared harder at his attempt of being polite and turned her head away as they passed one another by. Tango just really couldn’t get enough of that small town charm. 

When she was behind him he dropped the grin and responded, “That kind of defeats the purpose, now doesn’t it?” 

What could’ve been a break of static but was probably Impulse groaning cut through the comm and Tango winced. At least he was good at getting passed by, he imagined Impulse was failing to do even that at the moment. “Well, how am I supposed to follow you following Doc if—”

“He’s flipping,” Etho cut in, and Tango didn’t glance to the left at the park where Doc—their certifiably batshit insane countries of the world professor—was currently using every trick he’d ever been taught on how to lose a tail; not that he knew he was being tailed, he was just that vigilant. Constantly. Cause that was how every normal and well-adjusted person lived their life. 

Instead, Tango kept walking the way he’d been going, stopped to look both directions before crossing the street, approached the closest vendor and bought himself the first thing on the menu without stopping to look at what it was. 

Why on Earth Professor Beef thought the best way to ease them into the field of Covert Operations was to assign them to tail their most paranoid and least sane staff member was beyond him. He could imagine what Beef would say if Tango dared question this decision of his out loud: well you don’t have to get it, you just have to do it. Yipee, he was so glad to be taking this course. 

He couldn’t look for Doc, so he looked for Etho instead. He scanned the street, the sidewalk—hell, even the rooftops—but there was no sign of him. He was that good. 

Show-off, Tango thought as the vendor whistled to get his attention and he turned back with a smile and a thanks accepting a corndog. Nice. 

Tango headed off again, this time towards the park, the direction Doc had been going in, presumably, before he’d flipped. He saw Skizz amidst a sea of letterman jackets, smiling and laughing and miming throwing something with his hands; the crowd he’d accrued laughed with him, boys of all shapes and sizes slapping each other on the arm and guffawing over a guy they would all swear later that they’d had to have had a class with at some point. 

Their methods were different, but it was undeniable—mission one, and Skizz and Etho were good at this. They’d all known they would be. 

Tango wandered around for a while longer, ate his corndog and listened to the chatter of his fellow operatives over the comms, always keeping their updates on Doc’s position in mind and staying busy as he steered clear enough as to not get noticed but close enough he could keep his options open should an opportunity arise. 

In theory, the mission was simple: what soft drink did Professor Doc like to drink with his funnel cake at the Hermitville fall carnival? In practice, it was a lot harder than it looked. They’d all been students of Doc’s for almost 5 years, and while this meant they might know him well enough to predict his patterns in what was maybe a reasonable way, it also meant he knew them well enough to call out their first and last name if he spotted them—and to skip the questioning portion of the interrogation in favor of going directly into doling out detentions. 

This was their professor who used a trusted—and highly confidential—surgeon to give him a new face before the start of every school year for the sake of avoiding some long list of threats still interested in apprehending him that he constantly alludes to but never explains. And Beef wanted them to tail him. It’s not like they had any chance to succeed. And Tango was missing Below Deck for this.

The carnival was beginning to thin out, slowly, by the time anything interesting had begun to happen—at least to Tango. The square had one of those large metal things that looked like a lamp-post but actually had a giant clock in the center, and based on the last time he’d seen it and his impeccable internal clock, it could only be nine-fifteen p.m. It was like this place couldn’t get any more boring if it tried. Tango couldn’t stand it. Tango was jealous. 

He was cutting through the alley behind the town’s lonely diner, heading towards Skizz’s last known location, and was about to throw a line out over the almost eerily empty silence of his comm when Skizz spoke first. Something about the sound of his voice nagged at Tango, and it occurred to him before he opened his mouth to respond that he’d heard Skizz speak out loud, not directly in his ear. 

A second later, and it wasn’t just Skizz. At the first raise of Doc’s voice, Tango stopped walking and leaned as hard as he could into the brick. “I don’t even want to know how you got out and—actually, how did you get out?”

Tango only spent a moment questioning whether or not he was about to make a mistake before he leaned towards the edge of the alley until he could get enough of a picture of what was going on. Doc’s back was to him—thank god—but Skizz and Impulse were done for, the two of them sitting on a bench before their increasingly irate professor. Skizz was at his most diplomatic, sitting still and face severe with the kind of look that said I am listening to you and I understand. Impulse was cringing so hard at the having-been-caught that his left eye looked swollen shut.

Skizz raised one of his hands to halt Doc’s tirade—a risky move, but if anyone could pull it off it was Skizz. “Professor, if you’d just let me explain—”

“Explain what!” Tango winced with his friends in solidarity, even though he wasn’t the one getting reamed. “You’ve been following me for thirty minutes, which means you have to be—wait,” Doc said, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “Wait a minute—where’s Beef?”

Tango watched as Skizz and Impulse—spies in training, yes, but still teenage boys at heart—shared a look with each other that gave away exactly what Doc needed to know. Skizz said: “Why I don’t know what you could mean, Professor, we were just—”

“Oh you—” From behind, Tango watched Doc shake his head to cut Skizz off, and then he did something kind of miraculous: he turned and tossed something—something shining and made of brown glass, something suspiciously bottle shaped—into the closest trash can. “Go on, now. Back, back to where you came from.” 

Tango stared at the garbage that couldn’t be more than twenty feet from him, even as Doc herded two of his best friends off of the bench and on into the night, the vague direction of the mansion; in his peripheral Skizz turned to glance at Doc and open his mouth, one more attempt at reason, before Doc departed one more and I’ll be giving you an extra credit assignment to really complain about. 

Tango honestly wasn’t even sure they were out of sight by the time he left the wall and the relative safety of the alleyway, not even considering the risk as somewhere inside he reeled at the thought it couldn't possibly be this easy. As he crossed the street, half of him expected to get scruffed by the back of his shirt and dragged all the way to his dorm, the other half expected to look inside and find the bottle to already be gone, even though his eyes hadn’t left the can, and for Etho to wander out of some shadow with it already in his hand. But the street was blessedly, amazingly quiet the whole time Tango made his way over. 

The garbage can was mostly empty even though the town had just had a carnival—because of course it was, towns like this probably didn’t produce any trash at all, Tango should’ve goddamn known—meaning Tango had to brace one of his arms on the lip of the metal can and hop slightly with his other arm outstretched to grab the bottle and pull it safely out of the trash. 

The condensation had made the paper labeling start to peel away in places, but the brand was still, for the most part, entirely legible—their mission was complete, and by Tango no less. He couldn’t wait to get back and rub it in Etho’s face. 

Tango tossed the bottle in the air and caught it, mood turning around for the first time all night—not even the 12 mile walk home in the dark could daunt him now. 

He turned around to begin his trek and found himself instead frozen immediately to the spot. 

There was a boy. 

Across the street, paused in the middle of the sidewalk and staring right at him, was a boy. And he’d seen Tango. 

Tango, whose only natural talent in CoveOps was going unnoticed. Tango, whose codename was cipher, after a joke Impulse made about his tendency for hiding in plain sight. Tango, who’d just rooted around in the garbage for someone else’s trash. 

The boy stopped to look both ways before crossing the street, even though it was now almost 9:30 pm and seemingly passed town curfew by how empty it’d gotten. There were no cars by sight nor by sound on this road or any of the surrounding blocks, but the boy looked to his right, then his left, then his right again before stepping off the concrete and onto the asphalt. There was even a moment of pause when his foot touched down on the road, and a slight furrow to his brow that had Tango imagining him thinking but there’s no crosswalk here! 

A better spy might’ve done something else—found the closest out, used the perfect excuse or expertly timed joke—but Tango just stood there, and watched the boy approach. 

“Hi there,” he said, a slight Virginia twang to his words that really drove home the all-American look about him, the swoopy blonde hair and lithe but athletic build—perfect for winning throws at football games or moral-gathering posters of government propaganda. 

“Do you….dig through trash cans often?” The prom king illusion shattered immediately as the boy cringed and shook his head, descriptive adjectives like polished becoming more awkward, perfect turning into endearing. “No—that sounded rude, I’m so sorry, I meant it as more of a joke, really…an unfunny one, I guess.” The rounder part of his cheeks pooled, filled deeply with blush. 

Tango opened his mouth, unsure what he planned to say, but then the boy went, “Oh my gosh, not that I judge that—or, well, maybe a little. But I—I’m sorry, and I shouldn’t, that’s wrong and, and—“ he paused abruptly, his head clearly moving faster than his mouth, the level of disaster that was this conversation running away from him and seeming far worse than it was when it’d started. 

“There are nicer trash cans, even,” He said when he opened his mouth again, and Tango nearly lost his mind, turned his laugh into a cough and wondered if all exceedingly normal people were so…cute. “Closer to the center of town. I can…show you where those are instead, if you prefer?” 

Tango couldn’t help his smirk. “You offering to take me on a tour of the nicer trash cans in town?” 

“I—“ Tango watched the boy's face buffer as all the things he just said caught up to him, and he looked down, bashful. After a moment, he smoothed out the embarrassment like wrinkles on fresh sheets and looked back up at Tango confidence renewed. “That or a milkshake, maybe?” 

The boat had stopped rocking, they’d made it to solid land, and the conversation righted itself and worked its way towards something normal—or at least, what Tango thought normal was supposed to look like. He’d never been asked something so simple as would he like to get a milkshake with a cute and utterly mundane boy. 

Things that Tango most definitely was not. His cover, on the other hand…

Right, his cover. In a logical and completely sane move, Tango blurted out, “I have a cat.” 

The boy blinked a blink that pushed his whole head back an inch from its force. “Ex…cuse me?” 

“I have a cat,” Tango repeated, begging his brain to fill him in on the rest of the reasoning behind why he said this particular thing at this particular moment. Were cats deathly allergic to milkshakes, or something? Well, screw his imaginary cat, Tango wasn’t! 

He said: “She…likes to play with bottles. I kinda grab them whenever I can.”

“Etho!” He added, and then mentally slapped himself upside the head. This was precisely why he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near field work. “That’s my cat’s name, yup! Mhm, so, I’d take you up on that, but—“

“But you have to get back to your cat?” The boy said, his cheek bunched under one of his eyes like he wanted to believe that but had heard one-too-many a ridiculous excuse before and wasn’t quite sure. 

“Exactly.” Tango let out a breath. Jesus Christmas this was hard—where the hell was Skizz when Tango needed him? Oh, right. This was not at all how the night was supposed to go.

Conversation lapsed, but Tango failed to notice his opportunity for an out. The spy in him knew deep down that this was his chance to leave, to apologize for the lack of a milkshake and laugh off the fumble that was their interaction and begin his long walk back to school, knowing by the time the boy god home he’d forget all about having met Tango at all; the teenager in him stared at the freckle at the inner corner of the boys left eye. 

“Sorry, you’re new around here, aren’t you?” 

Tango continued staring. This was the third time the boy had apologized. 

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve lived here…all my life?” His voice lilted higher at the end, almost like he was posing a question rather than making his case. “Everyone here has lived here all their life and I’ve…never seen you before.”

Tango has too, in a way. Home was a complicated concept for a spy; he may not be one yet, but his parents were—he knew enough to understand. It wasn’t like his childhood went untouched from the transient nature of spy work, a suitcase and go-bag always ready by the door. Even if he was the one being left and not the one doing the leaving, Tango knew flexible, he knew inconsistent. 

For years his most stable constant had been school, his mom in the headmasters office, Skizz Impulse and Etho. Where was home but here? 

He couldn’t say that, that wasn’t the cover. After years of being told I’ll be back soon with no indication of when soon was and little clarification of back from where and absolutely zero certainty that was something that could be promised, Tango resented lying. He wasn’t meant to be forming covers—he was meant to be locked in a lab somewhere, but one term of CoveOps at the start of sophomore year was a requirement. A requirement Tango would have to get through. 

Tango had never seen the boy before either. He didn’t know how to respond. 

“But, hey, I guess I’ll be seeing you around? At school?”

“No!”

The word was short and sweet, one syllable, something if the rampant apologizing was any indication the boy had not insignificant experience hearing. But his head tilted on the axis of his chin, lilting higher into the air and away from the middle of his chest—the dog that thought it’d heard a word it knew and was trying to determine if it was of the good or bad variety. “…No?”

Tango cringed. Probably visibly. “I’m…homeschooled,” was the lie, this time. 

“Oh, alright,” Tango hoped the drop in his tone was disappointment and not disbelief. He hoped the boy blessedly naive of the ways Tango was being false and not incorrectly assuming him indifferent to their chance encounter. 

Unwilling to bet on the chance and deeply reluctant to do what he knew a good spy should—remembering too many holidays gone remiss, and birthdays of the ill-get-you-next-year variety—Tango said, “I’ll be around, though.” 

The boy brightened, one of those artificial lamps that mimics sunlight where sunlight doesn’t reach, from darkness to light in mere seconds—like it was simple, easy. Ill so readily forgotten. 

“Good,” the word was delivered with an amicable nod. “Better get home to Etho, then.”

There was a moment of pause as Tango prepared to exclaim Etho?!? Suddenly in fear that he’d somehow found the one normal boy who wasn’t normal at all and was actually some sort of enemy spy, Tango accidentally blubbering his way through giving up national secrets he didn’t even know he knew—and then he remembered what he named his fake cat. 

“Right! Etho, yes…right, gotta get back to,” —had he given his fake cat pronouns?!— “yup! Okay, bye then.” 

Tango turned with great effort, his eyes shut and the rational part of his brain begging him to get a grip, his hands clasped tightly around the slightly icky with condensation bottle of soda that he’d come here to claim and by some miracle had. He hadn’t gotten more than a step or two away before the boy called, “Hey, what’s your name?” 

And Tango made possibly the stupidest decision of the night—despite all the competition, that’s pretty impressive, he knows—and called back, “Tango.”

“It was nice to meet you Tango!”

Tango smiled over his shoulder at the boy, walking backwards down the road he’d been so cautious to cross before, wanton joy on his face and something Tango didn’t dare to name, hands in his pockets. “You too,” Tango laughed. 

“My name’s Jimmy, by the way!”

The comm in his ear crackled to life after too long staying suspiciously silent before Tango could do anything about that, and he heard what he knew to be Etho saying, “Cipher, meet me at the corner of Pine and Cherry.” 

The sobering bucket of ice water dumped on your head after a particularly rough all-nighter, Tango felt his nerves wake up one by one; his spine was suddenly straighter and everything a little more on edge than it’d been a few minutes ago. He resisted the urge to scan the roofs and the streets and the shadows. He ignored the shame that said he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been; he kind of already knew that, but something in him also wished this had just been for him. Bye Jimmy, Tango thought in reply before saying, “Yeah man, on my way.”

Forget milkshakes and normal boys, Tango had some bragging to do. Other than to resent lying, if there was anything being the child of spies taught him, it was how to mask disappointment. 

He turned the corner toward Etho without looking back. 

[urlocalwormtoday]

In every orchard

There is a tree

Bares rotten fruit

Drops dying leaves

And legend says

If one dies young

Bury them close

And they'll come back wrong

[echoing--stars]

Prompt: Wars finds out Four can become a Minish, and makes him Minish-sized clothes as a surprise.

This is a quick one, but I hope you enjoy!

(If you read this and would like to request a short snippet, see this post!)

Ever since Warriors had found out about Four being able to shrink down to a Minish, he’d been working on something in secret. It was only ever when he was on watch, and only when he was sure everyone else was asleep. Somehow, none of the other heroes had been able to figure it out yet. Any time they asked Warriors about it, he brushed them off. “Just something to keep busy.” And that was that. Until almost two weeks later, at least. Four had pointed out one of the portals, this one in an old tree stump surrounded by wildflowers and mushrooms. He offered to visit the minish of this world and see what information they might have, and so the rest of the heroes set up camp in the clearing with the stump. Dinner came and went and Four had still not returned, but they weren’t worried. He would come back soon enough. Warriors took the first watch, offering to stay up until Four returned.  Warriors took out the project he’d been working on. The cloak was even smaller than he was used to making for the fairies, but at least he hadn’t needed to worry about wings for this project. The scarf was easy — he’d made many of those in every color imaginable. But the hat was the hardest part. It was getting cold out now and while the Four’s hood shrunk with him, it was nowhere near warm enough, especially not for such a small creature. It was lucky that when Four returned, it was from the side Warriors was facing. He waved to Four, trying to catch his attention before he could get to the tree trunk and return to his normal size. When Four got close enough, Warriors held out the items. “Here, I made these for you. So you wouldn’t be so cold.” Four said nothing for a moment, and Warriors felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Had he offended Four? But then the tiny hero reached out and took first the cloak, throwing it over his shoulders. Then he wrapped the scarf around his neck and pulled the hat down over his ears. His grin was visible even at that size.

[randombrainworm]

some more oscar x arthur, this time E-rated

[echoing--stars]

Many people (including myself!) have put a ton of work into this zine! It turned out beautifully, and the art and fics are amazing!

I hope you'll check it out!

Denouement of War: Hyrule Warriors Zine RELEASED

Happy Hyrule Warriors 10th Anniversary!

We are pleased to announce that Denouement of War: Hyrule Warriors Zine is available for free download!

The zine features 200+ pages of over 50 artists and writers contributions which includes artworks, stories, merchandises & more from our passionate and talented creators!

Download the zine here!

We thank you for everyone involved, from our mods to our contributors. We are very happy to present this zine and we hope you enjoy looking through what this zine has to share!

[vitalix]

Does anyone want to beta read / help edit an NSFW succession fic ? It's short and focused on TomGreg, I just would love some feedback. :)